Free The Guru of Love by Samrat Upadhyay Page A

headache,” Ramchandra said.
    Goma went to the kitchen to prepare the morning meal.
    Ashok arrived soon afterward and sat down with Ramchandra. “So, are you still tutoring Malati?” he asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHas she improved any?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDo you think she’ll pass the S.L.C.?”
    â€œHow do I know, Ashok? I don’t guarantee passing or failing.”
    â€œBut you have such a good reputation. It’d be a shame if she failed.”
    â€œWhy don’t you focus on your own exam? You think it’s guaranteed that you’ll pass?”
    Ashok grinned. “Sir, what do you think? Don’t you think I will?”
    â€œMere passing is not enough. You need to get good grades.”
    â€œI need to pass only because my father says so. He wants me to go to college before I take over the business.”
    â€œNot everyone has that luxury.”
    â€œSir, why don’t you start a business? I could help you. This teaching will get you nowhere. But you could be rich in a short time.”
    â€œBecoming rich is not my ambition,” Ramchandra said.
    After Ashok left, Goma and Ramchandra ate in the kitchen. Ramchandra could eat only half of his serving. He pushed the plate aside and said, “Save this for me. I’ll have it for dinner.”
    â€œBut you’ll have no energy during the day.”
    â€œI just don’t feel like eating.” He washed his hands and mouth, got dressed, and headed for school.
    Â 
    He thought of Malati all day—while he taught, while he took his tea break, while he rushed a student, who’d cut his finger when playing, to Bandana Miss, while he watched her take out a first-aid kit and apply iodine and a bandage to the boy’s hand. He thought of Malati as he walked home, the late afternoon traffic humming around him. He thought of her when, in Ratnapark, he saw girls her age from Padma Kanya College, wearing their saffron saris, walking along, laughter etched around their lips. He thought of her when he saw a beggar woman holding a baby in her lap, her hand stretched out for the coins people might throw in her direction.
    And he thought of Goma, and the moment his mother had first shown him Goma’s picture. He remembered feeling a faint tremor of excitement. She was a bit on the chubby side, but, with her large eyes, she seemed to be someone he could cuddle up to under a blanket on cold nights, someone whose belly he could caress, someone he could hold hands with and eat fritters from roadside stalls. In old age, after their children had quarreled with them and produced their own families, they’d help each other with their canes, up the stairs, on the streets. If she became ill, he’d go mad, and rush to fetch the best doctors in town. All these fantasies had converged upon him right in that instant when he saw her picture.
    He’d said yes to his mother, and within a few months, he and Goma were married. The wedding was the first time Ramchandra got the sense that the Pandeys were not happy with the union. Ramchandra had expected a grand welcome at Pandey Palace when members of the wedding entourage arrived on that rainy afternoon, but the reception consisted of half-smiles, even stares. The wedding pyre was small, with only one priest, and the buffet table the guests flocked to after the ceremony had few dishes. Ramchandra did receive a large gold wedding ring from his in-laws, but when the bride’s parents had to wash the feet of their son-in-law, a ritual symbolizing the godlike stature of a son-in-law, Mr. Pandey announced that it was an old ritual, one he did not want to perform. Mrs. Pandey was silent, but the distaste both of them felt for him was all over their faces. Some of Ramchandra’s relatives complained, saying that not washing one’s son-in-law’s feet amounted to gross disrespect. A small argument broke out, and Ramchandra, worried about the way the