Free Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru Page B

The television was muted. Meals were brought up on a tray. His mother and sisters moved around like ground technicians on an immigrant moon shot. He was too self-absorbed to wonder why similar weight had never been put on the ambitions of his sisters. What had Seetal dreamed of before the hospital laundry? Or Uma, who packed chocolate bars alongside their mom? Both girls had been married by the age of twenty-one. No scholarships for them, just Uncles Amardeep and Baldev.
    He worked obsessively. On the physical level, energy and matter were tractable; unlike higher-order phenomena such as girls, their difficulties could be tamed by formulae. His SAT scores were exceptional, and one day he found himself walking across the MIT campus wearing a widebatik tie and one of Uncle Malkit’s old suits, expertly altered by Seetal so it had looked, to the tastemakers on the family couch, quite stylish. Whether it was his manic determination or his impeccable minority credentials, the admissions board was impressed, and amid family rejoicing, he was offered a full scholarship, on condition he maintained his academic performance. The eagle had landed.
    One September morning, with his waist-length hair wrapped in a bright pink turban, a garland round his neck and a tikka mark on his forehead, he was taken to the station in his uncle Inderpal’s cab and put on the train to his new life. His mother was already putting the word out for a bride.
    In Cambridge, the first thing he did—before looking for his dorm, before registering for classes—was find a barber. He was determined that his student ID would have a new person on it, the one who lay in bed that first night running his fingers over his buzz-cut bristles, feeling the unfamiliar shape of his skull and trying not to cry. The next day he falteringly began to invent a different character, more suitable than Jaswinder Singh Matharu to inhabit the domes and towers of a university campus. As Jaz—no family name—he avoided the desi scene, stayed away from the speed-dating, the cultural societies—anything that might remind him of the shame he was trying to outrun. His roommate Marty took it upon himself to introduce him to activities he’d previously seen only in the teen comedies he’d rented back home in Baltimore. Together they shotgunned beer, smoked pot and went to rowdy parties where people dressed up in bedsheets or bathing suits and groped one another in upstairs bedrooms. At one of these parties Jaz lost his virginity to a girl called Amber, who was just like the goris he’d always dreamed about, except paralytically drunk on Red Bull and vodka. Afterward he thought he was in love and followed her around for a couple of weeks, until she told him to stop, explaining that what they’d done was a “onetime thing.” He asked Marty what this meant. Nothing good, bro, was the answer. Jaz told himself she was nothing but a gandi rundi, a filthy whore like all white girls.
    In this way, most of his first semester passed before he had to face hisparents and show the Punjabi world what he’d done. His cousin Jatinder was getting married in Philadelphia. He had to attend. No excuses. At least, he told himself, it would get the whole thing over with in one shot. His arrival at the reception, held in a banquet room at a hotel, was dramatic. Uncle Malkit, taking a call outside, didn’t recognize him at first. When Jaz said hello, Uncle Malkit’s eyes widened. His parents were literally speechless. Instead of hugging him, his mom held him at arm’s length, a stricken expression on her face. His father wouldn’t even shake his hand. Later, he followed Jaz into a restroom and grabbed his collar, his face contorted with anguish. For a long time he struggled for words. Jaz wondered when he was going to hit him. “You look like a thug,” he whimpered, then let him go.
    His sister’s husband, Baldev, was deputized to give him the lecture. He hoped Jaz was happy. He hoped it felt good