Free The Folded Earth: A Novel by Anuradha Roy Page A

it.”
    But today Mr. Chauhan seemed not to remember who I was. He spoke only to the manager and the Magistrate, pursing his lips and saying, “A little guidance at the right time is very valuable.” He had a small, officious-looking mustache, and though he was otherwise skinny, a paunch the size of a watermelon pushed out his navy-blue pullover. The bazaar gossip, which Mr. Qureshi reported to Diwan Sahib daily, was that Chauhan had made enough from kickbacks in his six months here to build himself a three-story house in Lucknow.
    “It is also good that you are going to replace the parapets. These old stone ones are so untidy, grass and wild plants growing out of them,” the manager was saying.
    “I am putting benches also,” Mr. Chauhan said in the Magistrate’s direction. “You will see. Ranikhet has to become the Switzerland of India. Or at least it must be another Shimla. I am making a View Point. With telescope. For one rupee anyone can worship Nanda Devi-ji through zoom lens. And furthermore I am getting many roads relaid.” After each of Mr. Chauhan’s statements, which came with stately pauses in between, the manager murmured, “Point taken, sir. Point well taken.”
    “The roads, that’s urgent,” said the Subdivisional Magistrate. “Has to be done on a war footing.” He looked well-informed and important. A uniformed bearer hovered by his elbow holding a tray laden with little samosas. The Magistrate paid him no attention at all.
    “Will the metaling of Mall Road go so far as our properties?” the hotel manager inquired in a hesitant voice. “You know, tourism is ruined by bad roads. This road was last repaired ten years back, I hear, but now—”
    “Not this time, not this time,” Mr. Chauhan said. “I would like all of Ranikhet to have smooth roads, but this time our budget allows repair of only one part of Mall Road, for administrative purposes.”
    I cleared my throat and said, “If only you could repair the road going to St. Hilda’s! Our children have a hard time.”
    The Magistrate and my host noticed me at last. Together they said, “Madam, you must be—”
    “Maya Mam,” Mr. Chauhan said, beaming at me in an unlooked-for burst of bonhomie. “A teacher at the convent. A valuable citizen! She teaches her children to make jams and jellies.”
    “They do schoolwork,” I said. “But they need practical skills too.”
    I opened my mouth to expand on the topic, but the men had moved on already to another: who would be the candidates for the elections coming up? The two main contenders for the Nainital seat had already begun campaigning. Surely the BJP would win—the time was ripe for Hindus to govern their own country, show the world, they agreed. “Will the minister change?” the manager said to the Subdivisional Magistrate, who replied, “I am a mere servant of the people and have to humor whichever minister I get.” They laughed together and raised their glasses in a mock toast. The hotel proprietor, unsure of lunchtime protocol in a new town, had served no alcohol. They had to say their “cheers” with plain Coke and Kissan orange squash. His wife was in Delhi still, he said to me, apologetic. “That’s why things are a bit disorganized.” She would come in a month, when it was a little warmer.
    I looked around for Diwan Sahib, whom I spotted sitting at a plastic table under a plum tree snowy with blossoms, tipping his hip flask into his glass, making no attempt to be discreet. He had come in a dark-blue shirt against which his white shock of hair and beard looked whiter and more disheveled than usual, giving him a raffish air. He threw a twisted half smile in my direction and nodded to me to come across. The wives of the other guests, who sat in a separate group further away, sipped their squash and darted exasperated looks at him. One said as I was passing, “We must have more lunch parties, but only for select people.”
    They looked around the relaid garden and