The Temple-goers Read Online Free Page A

as a present,’ she said. ‘You know, that way people see them around as well. He’s just getting started, but he’s good, I think.’
    ‘Have I ever met him?’
    ‘I think so. Short, squishy, like a pincushion? Adorable.’
    ‘Maybe. And Delhi? What’s been going on here? Any new things?’
    ‘Delhi? Everything’s new. New roads, new buses, new metro, new restaurants, new neighbourhoods, new money, everything except new people.’
    Then I saw that she felt bad. This was not the arrival she had planned. Our stilted conversation seemed to trouble her. She began flipping through the pages of the Times of India . Her hair fell around her. I thought of the study, and then I felt bad; I saw that she might have wanted to make love.
    I got up from where I lay at the head of the bed and crouched behind her. For a few minutes we sat like that, like two pods about to hatch; I read the paper over her shoulder. There was a picture of the new green buses. Their orange electronic displays transformed their destinations. Saket, Rajouri Gardens, Sectorpur and Phasenagar, running across a black screen in English letters, seeming suddenly like international places, places people ought to know of. The passengers, once just a crowd, became distinct in the bright modern buses, with their sunny yellow grab handles. In the background was a weary colossus from the old days containing distressed passengers. It was grey and yellow with deep scratches along its flank and an exhaust pumping out brown smoke.
    Some bureaucrats had decided that the new buses should have bus lanes. They imported whole a model from Bogotá. It advised that bus lanes be driven through the middle of crowded arteries. And so blue lanes, with little brushed-steel bus stops appearing at even intervals down their length, had been threaded through long stretches of roaring traffic. But what had worked in Bogotá was not working in Delhi. The crowds that mob the bus when it approaches in Delhi blocked traffic. The cars, already squeezed for space, were further deprived of a lane. They refused to adhere to the new rules. Young boys with orange vests and flashing batons were hired to enforce the new system. There were delays into the night. The picture showed a late-evening scene in which a car owner was abusing a policeman. The car’s headlights shone in his face. It was dark, haggard, on the verge of breakdown.
    I was still looking at this scene of frustration when Sanyogita ran her fingertips along the edge of my face. I felt her body easily through her faded clothes. It was broad and soft, slightly damp. Her fig perfume mixed with Delhi smells of food and grime. I kissed her shoulder and came near something stronger.
    ‘Baby’s hard,’ she said with laughter and surprise.
    I hated it when she laughed in these moments.
    ‘Why don’t we go to the big room?’ I said.
    ‘You want to!’
    ‘Yes.’
    We walked to it through the corridors, reaching for each other in the afternoon gloom.
    We made love simply and quickly in that outside room, overlooking the mango tree. She felt big and roomy. I longed to have her close around me, for there to be more friction on the edges. She was also dissatisfied. When I was finished, she climbed on top of my thigh. We did this often. I held her as she rocked up and down my thigh, moaning and muttering, ‘Baby, it’s so good,’ as though I was somehow responsible for what was little more than masturbation. Finished myself and oversensitive, they were minutes of disgust for me. When it was over again, we lay there with our legs spread out, the sun coming in. I felt fat. I squeezed my stomach into a mound with both hands.
    ‘I’m going to lose all this.’
    ‘Why, baby? You’re not fat.’
    ‘Perhaps, but now that I’m here, I’m going to join a gym and get a trainer.’
    ‘Really? What else are you going to do now that you’re here?’
    ‘Get an Urdu teacher and learn to read my grandfather’s poetry.’
    ‘Baby! I