Crucial Omission
This is the beginning of a story that I started in 2014 and have not revisited since. Maybe I’ll finish it as originally intended someday. Maybe I’ll cop out and turn it into a scene within something larger.
Every summer, Tarun is sent to his grandparents’ village for four weeks with many expectations — roots must be found, nature must be immersed in, traditions imbibed, the simple rural agrarian life appreciated, the hollowness of his westernised city existence realised, video games renounced for life. He returns with ready reports of how his time has enriched him. That trees were climbed, that streams were swum in, that tractors were ridden, that cows were milked, that elders were respected, that water was drawn from a well with enormous bullfrogs visible at the bottom, that freshly laid eggs were eaten, that friends were made over the hour-long pursuit of a dragonfly.
In the summer of 92, the report will read much the same, but for one crucial omission.
Every afternoon, his grandfather lets out a prolonged belch after lunch to signal he is ready to have the ageing television turned on. Tarun sits at the foot of his armchair, pressing his calves, translating the English news on the fly (greatly exaggerating the threat of war with Pakistan). His grandmother, meanwhile, schemes to keep the servants busy through the afternoon with the groundwork for some or other future food preparation — the drying of red chillies, the cleaning of the pickle jars, the fattening of the chickens. By one-thirty, his grandparents retreat to their room, and ten minutes later, Tarun hears the alternating high and low, mouse- and horse-like snores that tell him the coast is clear. He rushes to his room and shuts the door, standing on a teak chair heaved ten feet across to reach the upper bolts.
He had discovered them by accident, in a closet full of all the grandchildren’s stuff — the little concessions he and his various cousins have been made by their parents. The harmless, familiar, comforting urban distractions they need to cope with (the beauty of birdsong notwithstanding) the mind-numbing boredom of spending their staggered stretches of summer vacation in a village. There, on the bottom shelf, under the Asterix and Archie and Superman comics, behind the board games and their spilled and scattered contents — scrabble tiles, six different pairs of dice, two hourglasses, beside two and a half packs of playing cards, inside a Nike tennis shoe box, wrapped in newspaper, was a stack of Playboys.
Tarun is ten years old. He regards breasts mostly with curiosity, perhaps even a little envy, mostly because of the all fuss girls make about covering them up and making sure no boy sees them absolutely ever. He leafs through the magazines casually, cocking his head at the centerfolds, unsure what he is meant to be impressed by, wondering why the girls are pouting as they lean against cars and haystacks. His thumb and index finger are a little sweaty as he turns the pages. He is even bored a bit at times, yet unable to stop turning. Now and again he feels an electric current radiate from deep within his gut and surge out of his body through his toes. He checks his toes, puzzled, and keeps turning.
Every evening, at four o’ clock, Tarun carefully repacks the shoebox, reconstructs the surrounding chaos of the closet and unbolts his door. His throat is dry and his voice feeble and quivering, so he walks outside by himself before his grandparents can wake up and talk to him. He stops at the well, where the bullfrogs look stupidly up at their narrow piece of sky. He throws a pebble near them, watches them momentarily disappear into its ripples, and walks on.
