The Illicit Happiness of Other People Read Online Free

Chacko, if he says anything about Unni, don’t mind him. Something is wrong with him.’
    Soon, the cartoonists forget Ousep, which is a good development. They are still talking about Unni but they are talking among themselves and not putting on a show any more. They have even stopped throwing glances at him, except Beta, who stares like a child. Ousep listens with full attention to what the cartoonists are saying, though he has heard versions of all this before, many times – Unni’s theory that the unfortunate are not as miserable as the world imagines. That urchins, the handicapped, orphans, prisoners and others are much happier than people think. And that language is a trap, that a dark evolutionary force has created language to limit human thought. That writers are overrated fools. That all religions came from ancient comic writers. And that the ultimate goal of comics is the same as the purpose of humanity – to break free from language.
    There is now a sudden silence as if everybody has finished talking at once. And it appears that nobody has anything more to say. But then a feeble voice from somewhere in the last row says, ‘He read my mind, he actually read my mind.’ It is a boy with expensive rimless spectacles. He tries to laugh to convey that he does not really believe in the paranormal.
    Ousep has heard this, too. Unni’s classmates have told him about his son’s rumoured ability but Ousep has met only three before this day who have experienced it first-hand. The cartoonist here is the fourth. The boy says, ‘He asked me to think of a number. I thought of a number and he guessed it. Simple.’
    ‘Do you remember what the number was?’ Ousep asks, though he is certain that the answer is ‘thirty-three’.
    ‘Interesting question,’ the boy says.
    ‘Do you remember the number?’
    ‘I will never forget the number,’ the boy says. ‘It was thirty-three.’
    As the evening grows, the silences stretch longer, and the cartoonists clearly have very little left to say. Ousep asks, ‘Does any of you know who Somen Pillai is?’ The cartoonists shake their heads. Nobody knows Somen Pillai here.
    The silence that follows is long and decisive. The society looks restless now, the cartoonists want to leave. Some boys are wearing their bags around their shoulders, ready to stand. How long can people talk about a seventeen-year-old boy, really? The president grabs the chance to raise his oversized black pen and says, ‘Unni Chacko.’ The cartoonists raise their pens and repeat, ‘Unni Chacko.’ The president makes a squiggle on a sheet of paper and gives it to Ousep. It is a caricature of Unni, a very good one considering that it was made in just seconds. Others stand in line to hand their quick squiggles to Ousep. In most of these comic portraits, his boy has acquired angelic wings and a halo. One has him sitting in the clouds, looking bored. That breaks Ousep’s heart. To imagine the eternal boredom of his child. He wishes there to be no eternity, he wishes that even for his foes.
    Beta is not part of the queue of cartoonists who are handingin their tributes. But he stands leaning on a fat, ancient pillar and looks on. When everybody is done with their tributes, Ousep holds the thick bunch of papers in his hand and walks to Beta.
    ‘What is your name?’ Ousep asks.
    ‘Beta.’
    ‘What’s your real name?’
    ‘What’s real about a name?’
    ‘Why are you not Alpha?’
    ‘Because I am Beta.’
    Some of the cartoonists who are leaving look with passing curiosity at Beta, who does not meet their eyes. He appears clever and formidable, the type of bearded young man who would call himself Alpha. But he has restive eyes and they throw suspicious glances at distant objects. He is now staring at the five monks who are walking away down the lawns in a swarm of college girls.
    ‘I feel you want to say something to me,’ Ousep says.
    ‘Yes,’ Beta says, returning his steady gaze to Ousep. ‘I’ve