The Five Dollar Smile: And Other Stories by Shashi Tharoor
“Yeah,” I agreed monosyllabically, but a strange emotion was seething within me. I wanted to speak more about her and yet couldn’t—for words, I knew, would not be able to bring out the inexplicable feeling of poignant depression that filled me with every thought of her and made each step heavy. She was gone now, and I didn’t know when I’d meet her again; yet, after this casual first encounter, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why I missed her so much. It was crazy, I told myself: but I wanted to discuss it with Vicky, to talk it over with him and see how he felt about Rekha and the entire situation. But he was soon roped into an impromptu game of cricket on the front lawn, and by the time he returned, was in a different mood, so my questions remained unasked.
The next day there was a quiz on in college. Vicky and I were strolling along to cheer the college team when Rekha appeared around a corner with a bevy of stunning L. W. beauties. They’d all come along for the quiz too, apparently, and we promptly roped them in—two to Vicky’s left, two to my right, Rekha in the middle. Somehow the seating just resolved itself, no questions asked, and before I knew it I was leaning over towards her and asking, “How are you?”
“Fine,” she whispered back, and it was surprising how a bond seemed to have sprung up between us over the exchange of such inconsequential irrelevancies. I felt a greater intimacy in the friendly smiles that followed than if we had been tossing ardent protestations of love at each other.
“Look at our quiz team,” said Vicky, eyeing our representatives with disgust. “It certainly looks very questionable.”
Rekha laughed, smiling at him, and I felt a sudden surge of jealousy coursing through me at Vicky thus having impressed her. But I couldn’t think of a suitable comeback, and so kept quiet in wordless impotence.
“If ignorance is bliss,” Vicky added caustically, “those guys must be very happy indeed.”
Rekha laughed again, and this time she was looking into Vicky’s eyes. She seemed to find him a wonderful humorist, as did the other girls, who were smilingly awaiting his next bon mot.
“Don’t tell me this is our ‘A’ team,” said Vicky as our fellows missed out on an answer. “Or is this ‘A’ team at all?”
Rekha and the girls broke out into peals of laughter so I retorted. “No, that’s our ‘B’ team. Now will you ‘B’ quiet?”
“‘V’ will see about that,” he replied promptly. “If ‘u’ don’t mind?”
“‘G’, no,” I responded rather heavily, “as long as you mind your ps and qs.”
“OK,” said Vicky with an air of finality, and we turned our attention to the quiz again. Nothing would convince the girls that the whole thing had not been planned well in advance!
And I wish it had. Then I might not have let Vicky have the last word.
I really don’t know why I’m recounting all this. It is all rather trivial, but then most profound memories are made up of trivia. Anyway you get the picture—a growing triangular closeness, unsurprising because it seemed so natural; a friendship devolving primarily out of silly jokes and chance meetings, as the three of us instinctively reached out for each other’s company. And when the quiz, or the debate, or the play, or whatever it was each time, was over, and the meal in the café followed, and Rekha had her customary Coke, and we saw her together to the bus stop or to an auto-rickshaw, even the question “when will we see you again?” was never asked; somehow it was taken for granted that we would meet, that we would joke, that we would spend a few pleasant minutes or hours in each other’s company and go our separate ways, soon to meet again. . . .
But of course that wasn’t the full story. There were other things, little things. The smile of admiration that Vicky’s jokes elicited from Rekha. The special look in her eye when he bounded up to join us, sweatshirt soaking, from a game of tennis. The way in which she seemed to relish his every casual utterance, while mine were regarded as simply normal. Little things, as I’ve said, and I did not really resent them: they were barely ripples on the even surface of our tripartite relationship. For I knew they were no threat to me, that Vicky hadn’t spent a moment with Rekha in my absence, that all there was to the relationship was what I had participated in. And what could I reproach Vicky for? Rekha meant nothing more to him than an attentive audience for his jokes; she was more intelligent, lively, charming than most, but her attraction, in Vicky’s eyes, was not sexual. One day he whisked her hand into his and did a hilarious impression of a lecherous palmist. I could see the flush of embarrassed pleasure mounting on Rekha’s cheek, but Vicky was to-tally unmoved. In his impresario mood, he was the magician, and her hand was his white rabbit, no more, no less. Whereas I would have given anything to have been able to hold the same delicate, long fingers in mine.
Inevitably, things began to change with time. Vicky’s interest palled. It was barely noticeable at first, but I was well attuned to the signals—a little tetchiness, a tendency to remember other appointments, a disinclination to shave for the occasion. The ultimate manifestation was when his jokes started declining both in number and in quality. The sure sign that you’ve lost Vicky is when he no longer wants to try as hard to be funny.
It all came to a head one evening in the café. We were talking, the three of us, desultorily, Rekha sipping tentatively at a Coke while I tried to look into her eyes, and Vicky’s attention wandering around the room. Then the far door swung open and the queen of that year’s freshman batch walked in. She was bright and statuesque, all flashing eyebrows and pectoral bounce, and she was alone. As she began to look a little uncertainly into the crowd for a friend, Vicky leaped up from his chair and made an unashamed beeline for her. Within minutes he had her enveloped in giggly laughter and had swept her to a corner table for two.
“Looks like Vicky’s found another diversion,” I said lightly, trying to ignore the look in Rekha’s eyes. “Lucky for you I have a one-track mind.” She smiled at the weak joke, and suddenly, without any premeditation, I reached forward for her hand where it lay on the tabletop and smothered it in mine. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
We looked at each other for what appeared then to me a long moment, but which couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Then, with a sad, almost imperceptible shake of the head, she slowly disengaged her hand from mine.
I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. It was awkward, and I recall the sense of relief with which I greeted Vicky, now deprived of his companion, on his return to our table. Yet, when it was time for goodbye, I was left with a bittersweet ache in my mind. I could only think of her, want to be with her, even though she was directly antithetical to all that I had previously looked for in a girl. That evening I was determined to share my feelings with Vicky.
“I rather like Rekha,” I said exploratorily, as we strolled to our room after seeing her off in a cab.
“Yes, but if only she wasn’t so damned physically unattractive,” Vicky replied.
I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” I admitted, “but . . .”
“I mean,” Vicky added, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone less sexy than dear Rekha. Hell, man—she’s got shoulders like a clothes hanger, and there’s less on her bosom than in my pockets on a Monday morning.”
“Shut up,” I said, suddenly venomous. He didn’t seem to sense the change in my tone.
“If I took her to our room and the Warden came in, he’d really find a skeleton in our cupboard,” added Vicky.
Suddenly, I hit him.
I’ve never hit anyone before like that, the way I hit him. I’m pretty big, just over six feet, with a cricketer’s arms to match, and when I really swing around and hit someone, he stays hit. Vicky reeled back in surprise, his hand to his face, and when he removed his palm there was blood on it.
“Now what did you go and do that for,” he said, anguished. For a fleeting second I felt sorry for him; then that emotion was gone, replaced by the same feeling of uncontrollable rage that had made me lash out at
“PM, I know I’m a puny little fellow, but . . .”
“Shut up, Vicky. Shut up, you misbegotten s.o.b., or I swear I’ll kill you.”
I think I really meant it then—at least I must have sounded like it.
“You bastard . . . ,” Vicky whined, but he was scared, and in that apocalyptic moment of realization, I knew he was a coward.
“Shut up, punk,” I said, advancing threateningly towards him.
A few guys collected. “Come on, PM, forget it. . . .” they were pushing me away from him.
“You bastard, why don’t you pick on someone your own size . . .” He was crying now, and in immeasurable contempt, I turned on my heel and strode off.
Thinking about the whole sordid episode now, I really feel sorry about my impetuosity. I shouldn’t have hit him; it wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth all the publicity on campus, the pain of separation. I didn’t see Rekha again for three months, when we met again at another debate. We said “hello” to each other warmly, exchanged pleasantries, but that was all; there never was anything more to it than that, anyway. I had lost Vicky, and gained nothing. Or maybe I had gained something, a different perspective: that a friend was someone more than just a guy to enjoy jokes with, to go to movies with, to chase girls with—that it was justifiable to demand understanding, empathy . . . or was it? I don’t know. Maybe a casual closeness is more important in a college friend than an understanding and a sensitivity that don’t in the end change anything. . . .
That evening, I walked to my room, our room, opened the lock that Vicky had a spare key to, and let myself in as I had done so often over the past two years. Yet this time it was different. I lay on the bed for a long time, brooding. Darkness fell; I did not switch on the light. A gathering gloom encircled and closed in on me.
Footsteps sounded outside the door. Vicky knocked, formally. “Come in,” I said. Vicky came in, walked straight to his suitcase propped up in one corner, and spoke stiffly without looking at me. “I’m moving to the next block. There’s a guy there who’s willing to share, so I’m pushing in with him.” He took off the shirt he was wearing and threw it across to the bed. “Yours,” he said briefly. “You’ve got my shorts on,” he added. I remembered I’d run out of undies—they’d accumulated in a corner and I was too lazy to wash them—so I’d borrowed his shorts that morning to use as underwear. I got up, solemnly turned my back to him and took off my trousers. I tossed the shorts to him. They landed in his open suitcase. He shoved them in and shut his suitcase. He looked around to see if there was anything else he’d left behind. His alarm clock—our alarm clock—was lying on the bedside table. He picked it up and shoved it inside his bag. The nudie calendar was his; he took it off the wall.
Finally his bag was shut and zipped. He turned to leave: for a second I thought he might say something, some word, some expression, something to remember our two years together by. For a second—but then I realized he was too scared of what I might say or do to speak. I wanted to say something too, but the words stuck in my throat. Wordlessly, he turned, walked through the door, suitcase first, and was gone.
I sat down heavily on the bed, and for the first time in many years, I wept.
1974
The Pyre
He died in my arms that night, died slowly with his head on my lap under the tree into which our scooter had crashed. He moaned once or twice, but his moans were soft, crushed, insensible. I cried then; cried for a friend I knew and loved, who was now slipping away from my life, and from his. His eyes were open as he died, but I don’t think he recognized me.
In the morning, when they came with daybreak to the scene of the accident, they found a dead man and a spent one, both silent and unseeing. They had to carry both away, and from a distance it must have been impossible to tell which was the corpse and which the lucky survivor. We shared the single ambulance, he and I, and when I saw him lying there, so near and yet so far away, the memories came flooding back and I wished I could weep. But sorrow required a strength I didn’t possess any more. I looked away dry-eyed as the ambulance jolted across Delhi on its futile errand.
All I had was a fracture. The plaster didn’t prevent me from either speaking or signing, so the police asked me to do both. He’s tired, said the doctor, he’s in shock. No, it’s all right, I said. Sign here, the inspector said. I signed.
I, Raminder Singh, son of Joginder Singh, residing at E-17, St. Francis’ College Hostel, Delhi University, hereby state that on November 3rd inst. at 3:30 a.m., I was riding on a motor scooter driven by Shri Sujeet Kumar, student, who did not possess a license for the same. While on the Ridge, Shri Kumar, who was in a state of partial intoxication, lost control of the scooter, left the roadway, and struck a tree. He was not wearing a crash helmet. . . .
I didn’t recall putting it quite that way. “Lost control of the scooter?” Or had I said that Sujeet, to avoid what he thought was a black cat crossing his path, had swerved to one side and crashed head first into a branch? The cat didn’t exist, not outside of Sujeet’s imagination, but the branch did, and it shouldn’t have been there, practically overhanging the road. Somebody who was supposed to trim it had screwed up, inspector. Had screwed us up. I fell off the pillion onto my arse but Sujeet flew over the handlebars onto his head. Sure he was a little stoned, but it was that branch that did us in. No, he didn’t have a license, but there was nothing wrong with his driving, inspector. No, the scooter didn’t belong to him. No, its owner was unaware that we were using it. But what are you saying, inspector? Sujeet’s dead! He’s dead, inspector, and you’re asking about Bobby’s scooter?
“Poor Bobby’s going to blow up” had been my first thought when we hit the tree. It wasn’t the first time we had borrowed Bobby’s scooter, and he’d never noticed. We knew he was so possessive about the damned thing, and it was just a question of whacking the keys from his desk while he was sleeping and wheeling the scooter out of the shed past the chowkidar, who’d been given a packet of Charminar to look the other way. As I said, we’d done it before; it was nothing new. But with each successive trip we’d been less careful.
But Sujeet drove bloody well for a guy who did all his driving on the sly. And on a high.
“State of partial intoxication.” That was a laugh. He’d had enough grass for three cows. Which is why he started seeing black cats on the road when you could barely see the road itself. “Hey,” he’d called out in that half-crazy way of his, “hey—I don’t want that black cat crossing our path, that’s bad luck. I’m going to go right round him and beat that son-of-a-bitch to it—watch.” My yell of protest was drowned by the extra revving of the motor. And cut short as we crashed into that tree.
I began swearing as soon as I got my breath back and could feel the soreness of my arse and the pain in my leg. “I can’t stand up, you stupid bugger,” I screamed. “You’ve broken my frigging leg, you bastard!”
But the expected reply in kind didn’t come. After a minute or two I stopped swearing and looked in his direction. He was lying horribly still. I started calling out to him then, softly at first, then more insistently, but there was no response. I crawled towards him, dragging myself along on my good leg. He didn’t answer me. My elbows were hurting and there was a gash on my right arm, and the pain in my behind sent shock waves through me with each forward thrust of my body, but finally I reached him. He was still breathing—I remember that, and the brief sense of relief I felt. I put out a hand to touch him and felt the terrible warm stickiness of his blood. It was then that he moaned, for the first time. And I knew my nightmare had begun.
I moved my hands and felt blood everywhere I touched. I called out to him, shouting loudly, and tried to shake him back to life. Nothing, not even a moan this time. I tried to recollect anything I’d ever read or heard about first aid. My mind remained blank. God, I wished I wasn’t draxed, I couldn’t even think properly and I. . . . I had to help him. That was all I could think of. I had to help him. I collapsed ont
And Sujeet lay dying on my lap.
The postmortem called it a brain hemorrhage. The concussion had been so severe, the fat, balding and antiseptic doctor told me at the hospital with his paw on my shoulder, that he would never have been normal again even if he had recovered. So perhaps, the doctor blinked behind owlish glasses, perhaps it was better this way. I nodded and wormed away from his patronizing hand.
His parents came by the first train. Poor people. They had struggled so much to give Sujeet an education at the best places, to fight for every seat, every quota that their untouchability entitled them to. He had always made the grade, and they must have been so proud of his English, his jeans, his upper-caste friends, his Zapata moustache, quite unlike any Harijan boy they had ever known. And now. . . . He was their only son, their only hope in an unjust world, the eldest in a family of daughters, the blessed future provider. He was dead.
He had always made the grade, but he had never conformed: he had realized early that his devilry was what made him acceptable to his peers. There were other Scheduled Caste boys at college, small, dark, mousy scholars who spoke when they were spoken to and sat by themselves at mealtimes. Sujeet was not like them. He cut classes, interjected at campus debates, chased girls. And took drugs.
I guess it was I who first got him into it, though it could have been any of us. I remember, though, his hesitation at the out-stretched joint in my hand. I’ll never know now whether it was at the act of drug-taking or at the prospect of putting his mouth to something being smoked by a Jat and about to be passed on to a Brahmin. He hesitated, and then through the swirling mists in my mind I remember someone’s curled lip and the words, “what’s the matter—scared?” He took the joint from me immediately, and it was as if he was laying everything he’d ever feared on the line.