Free The Cripple and His Talismans by Anosh Irani Page B

Almighty God.
    “You should become a yoga master,” I tell Viren. “You breathe so well.”
    The girls in the class laugh and the boys gather closer to Viren’s desk. Viren tries to gather courage.
    “Can I be your disciple?” I ask. “Please, yogiji, I want to be your humble pupil.”
    Viren tries to put one hand through the strap of his blue bag. I snatch the bag away from him. He must be very tired, for he does not even resist. This is no fun.
    “You accept me as your yoga student or not?” I ask.
    He does not answer. The girls have stopped laughing. The boys are bored.
    “Okay,” I say. “I will prove to you that I am worthy, that I can breathe as superbly as you do.”
    I wheeze. I am a good wheezer. It is a great feeling to discover gifts you never knew you had.
    “Please …” he says. “Stop making fun of my asthma.”
    He breathes rapidly four or five times.
    So do I.
    “Are you having an asthma attack?” I ask.
    He nods. He looks at me and puts his hand out for his bag. I throw it hard at him. The bag lands on his chest. There is a gasp from one of the girls.
    “Don’t worry,” I turn around and say. “It will make his chest strong. He needs a strong chest.”
    I think of the girls in the class. What strong chests they have.
    Viren is a thin boy, but his chest expands like a wrestler’s. I push the bag harder against him.
    “Please,” he says. “I want to go home.”
    I open his bag and take out a notebook. It is labelled
Moral Science
. Maybe I should keep it for myself. Viren is physically weak, but morally strong.
    “Please. My mummy is coming.” His voice cracks.
    I wait for the class to laugh, and they do. A tear gathers in the corner of Viren’s right eye. Now there are two. He tries hard to breathe and control his tears. They stream.
    “Who is your mummy coming with?” I ask.
    “No one,” he cries.
    “You liar,” I say. “She’s coming with Shakespeare!”
    I am surprised that no one laughs. Miss Bardet does not find it funny, either. She just stands in the doorway and looks at a thin boy, pretty blue bag stuck to his chest, crying for air.

    The taxi halts outside Lucky Moon. Each morning before school, while my friends had tea and buttered bread, I drank sugarcane juice at Lucky Moon. After I got typhoid, I switched to tea. I used the tea as a dip for bun-maska. The owner always sat at the counter, head a little bent, dispensing change at the pace of a bank teller. He would shout out the order from his counter to the waiter in the back.
    I take my little brown package and climb the three white steps that lead to the tables. The sugarcane juice machine is still there, battered and dirty, with the required quota of flies and mosquitoes circling its periphery. The tables are the same: three wooden legs and a round top of white marble. The chairs are wooden with elegant backs, reminiscent of the English. The owner, Irani Uncle as we used to call him, is not at the counter. I sit at the table with my back to the man who has taken his place. I face the kitchen. It has the same grime-covered walls from years ago.
    I do not like the waiter’s walk. He has been watching too many Hindi movies. His rag is too clean. This means he does not wipe the bread crumbs and spilt tea off the table.
    “Chai-paani?” he asks.
    “Cutting la,” I tell him.
    I love the word “cutting.” We all did in school. It means nothing more than a cup of tea, three-fourths full, but it is all in the name. Students who did not use it were considered unversed in the ways of men. It is like saying, “I would like a cup of tea, please,” as opposed to, “Get me some tea, you bastard.” When you are young, there is nothing more horrible than being cultured. Low class was in, and we had plenty of it.
    The waiter comes with one cutting. He puts it on my table, spilling a little. “Anything else?” he asks, irritated.
    He is obviously an amateur. Deliberation by the customer is a necessity at Lucky