Helium Read Online Free

jahan se achha , echoed the astronaut’s voice. Best in the world.
    Just as I was walking around imbibing the sheer energy of the city my cellphone rang. ‘Sorry, sir, I don’t want to give the impression I am hounding you.’ The IIT grad student’s voice, not very clear, superimposed by sounds of howling children. Who gave you my number ? ‘The Chairman, sir,’ he explained. ‘Please come. You are invited to a gathering at my place. Eightish.’
    ‘Not possible, not tonight, I am occupied.’
    Despite my better judgement I succumbed to his persistence, and decided to surprise him. Cancelling the dinner appointment with Father was easy; I then took a taxi to Jor Bagh. Because it was dark the elite neighbourhood resembled a Western city, no trace of slums, although even here the posh brick walls smelled of male piss. The houses in Jor Bagh were big, however, and majestic, and competed with the ones designed originally by Lutyens during the times of the British.
    The student’s house had real cops posted outside, alert and jumpy, loaded with carbines. Ten or fifteen Mercedes and BMWs and Bentleys chaotically parked by the gate. I asked the driver to wait and presented myself to the guards, who frisked me and then ejected me in through a metal detector.
    Inside I was unable to locate the student or my colleagues. The veranda was densely packed with intermingling people. Not a single familiar face. I made it to the large high-ceilinged room on the ground floor, a dining table in the middle, no chairs, hundreds of bottles of Sula wine, the wine which had made me throw up only a day ago. A woman in a red jacket was looking at the miniatures on the wall. Nude Radha and Krishna. Like most women at the party she was in a skirt and black leather boots. She had the most voluptuous calves.
    Liveried men served kebabs and drinks, and the kitchen was occupied by a maid in a sari. She told me to check upstairs. Chote sahib sometimes goes to the kotha, she said in Hindi. The stairs were steep and up there I found a terraced garden with a pergola, and the suffocating smell of raat ki raani. Something started blinking and shuffling not far from me – an orphan cellphone. I picked it up and placed it on an empty chair, and walked slowly towards the small room at the other end of the terrace; the room, a slab of concrete and glass as if done by Corbusier himself. Dim light, the door ajar. Bookshelves. Russian writers. Music CDs. I walked in. The student I was looking for was there. He was not alone. He was in a position normally described as missionary, the woman’s legs and feet wrapped around him. His skin, darker than hers. His neck turned and our eyes locked for a brief second; after that my gaze drifted to the Russian authors, then I stepped out.
    ‘Thayroh,’ he said in Hindi, then switched to English. ‘Please don’t leave, wait for me, sir.’
    There I surveyed the city at night and its awkward, uncomfortable sounds and smells. Those two minutes have stayed with me, the man’s butt and the woman’s thigh. The way the woman’s mouth had widened, the way the boy-man didn’t seem to care about my intrusion. Slowly I moved down the stairs to the Sula room; the voluptuous woman was no longer there, but there were loud waves of chattering. Floating around, I entered a small dimly lit room with a solitary yellow armchair. Without a third thought that is where I took refuge.
    Often old memories flicker within me on encountering the deeds of the young or the very young. Nothing shocks me any more. Why would someone with his background go for a grad degree at IIT? Mere idealism? His father had enough money and power to send him abroad to Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard. I felt as if I were staring at my younger self in a mirror. I, too, didn’t want to go abroad. However, my decision was not as bold as his. I did move to Cornell. Whereas he sits the Joint Entrance Exam, All India Rank: 48. Finishes his undergrad degree, and