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people:
Inbreeding or Divorce.
Rahel wasn‟t sure what she suffered from, but occasionally
she practiced sad faces, and sighing in the mirror.
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,
” she would say to herself sadly. That was Rahel being Sydney
Carton being Charles Darnay, as he stood on the steps, waiting to
be guillotined, in the Classics Illustrated comic‟s version of A Tale
of Two Cities .
She wondered what had caused the bald pilgrims to vomit so
uniformly, and whether they had vomited together in a single, well
orchestrated heave (to music perhaps, to the rhythm of a bus
bhajan), or separately, one at a time.
Initially, when the level crossing had just closed, the air was
full of the impatient sound of idling engines. But when the man
that manned the crossing came out of his booth, on his
backwards-bending legs and signaled with his limp, flapping walk
to the tea stall that they were in for a long wait, drivers switched
off their engines and milled about, stretching their legs.
With a desultory nod of his bored and sleepy head, the Level
Crossing Divinity conjured up beggars with bandages, men with
trays selling pieces of fresh coconut, parippu vadas on banana
leaves. And cold drinks. Coca-Cola, Fanta, Rosemilk.
A leper with soiled bandages begged at the car window.
“That looks like Mercurochrome to me,” Ammu said, of his
inordinately bright blood.
“Congratulations,” Chacko said. “Spoken like a true
bourgeoise.” Ammu smiled and they shook hands, as though she
really was being awarded a Certificate of Merit for being an
honest-to-goodness Genuine Bourgeoise. Moments like these the
twins treasured, and threaded like precious beads, on a (somewhat
scanty) necklace.
Rahel and Estha squashed their noses against the Plymouth‟s
quarter-windows. Yearning marshmallows with cloudy children
behind them. Ammu said “No” firmly, and with conviction.