Luck

Arjun is a lucky boy, his father's chauffeur tells him every morning as they drive through Bangalore in a shiny new honda accord. Arjun looks out the window, as the chauffeur speaks, at the slums and the houses made of corrugated metal sheets that line the streets to his school.

He wishes the chauffeur would talk of something else.

At a red light, the car comes to a halt. A young boy, in a tattered shirt and a grimy pair of shorts, rests his grubby palms against the car window as he tries to peer in. The chauffeur rolls down his window and shouts at the urchin. The boy, smiling cheekily, disappears..

Arjun sighs, a little wistfully, as he stares at the handprint, smeared across the tinted glass.

At school, Arjun is slow getting to class. His backpack, filled with heavy textbooks, weighs him down as he climbs three flights of stairs. Arjun heaves a heavy sigh as he reaches his classroom. He doesn't like school much.

Arjun is diligent, his teachers inform his parents at the PTA meeting the next day, but not brilliant. No, not at all.

After the meeting, Arjun can't bear to look at the grim expression on his father's face. No one talks in the car, as they return home. In the spacious, four bedroom penthouse they live in, Arjun's father quickly hustles his mother into the master bedroom. The door is firmly shut. Soon, Arjun hears voices rising in argument. He presses a ear to the door.
"It's not his fault," he hears his mother saying. "You heard the teachers. He tries hard. He's diligent."
"It's not good enough," his father retorts. "I've given him the best education money can buy. The best of everything. If he needs tutors, we'll get him some."
"Ashok," Arjun's mother says gently. "I think..."
"He doesn't get it from my side of the family." Arjun's father speaks scathingly. "We're all brilliant. In fact, he probably gets it from your side of the family. That good-for-nothing brother of yours..."

Arjun knows that this is the time to step back from the door, to quickly rush into the living room. He opens a textbook just in time. A second later, the bedroom door bangs - his mothers strides out, tears streaming down her face.
Arjun can't help feeling guilty. He wishes he was smarter, like Orijit or Ashish or Prerna, who always top the class. Perhaps then his mother and father wouldn't fight so much.

"Eat up," his mother says later, at dinner. It's just the two of them tonight - it often is, as his father comes home late. Arjun looks at her face. The tears have disappeared, but the skin around her eyes is still puffy and swollen. She notices him looking and flinches. "Eat," she repeats, her tone rising.
"I'm not hungry," Arjun says, pushing the food around the plate - a roti roll filled with spinach sabji, some dal on the side. But Arjun has lost his appetite, after the PTA meeting and the argument. He is tired. He doesn't want to eat.
"Eat now," his mother says, a third time. When he looks glumly at her, her expression changes. "You better eat. Think of all the children who starve while you have all this on your plate. All those children in Africa- you've seen them, skinny, starving, just skin and bones. You're lucky to have food to eat!"
Arjun forces himself to finish eating, thinking of the starving Africans. He wants to tell his mother that he has seen children like that here in India, at the traffic lights - little girls and boys, with swollen bellies and thin faces. Hasn't she seen them? - he wants to ask. But he doesn't.

At night, he dreams of the Africans, children with enormous eyes, and stick-like limbs, women with long, drooping breasts that touch their navels. The women and children surround him in a circle. The sun is hot, relentless. Arjun feels frightened. There is menace in their eyes.
"Eat," they say, voices melding in a rhythmic chant, "Eat. Eat. Eat."
He wakes up screaming. His mother soon rushes into the bedroom, in a clinging nightgown, followed by his father. His mother clucks and fusses over him. His father procures a glass of hot milk.

Arjun falls back asleep soon, and dreams pleasant dreams.

The next day, Arjun wakes up early in the morning. It's saturday, and the chauffeur drives him first to math tuitions, and then to a science class. It's lunchtime when Arjun returns home. After lunch, his father promises him a treat.
"What would you like to do? Would you like to go for a movie?" His father bends down to ask. " Or for a swim?"
"The circus, please," Arjun replies, his face lighting up. He has seen the posters plastered all across town. Russian Circus, only for a month. Four shows daily. Acrobats, Disappearing Girls, Tightrope walkers, Bearded Women, and Lions! Entry Free for Children below Five. The posters are colourful, featuring an acrobat in mid-air, a large bear and a dwarf dressed in a sequined red suit.
"The circus!" His father repeats, astounded.
"Wouldn't you rather go to the movies?" His mother asks. "There are some good movies. Ice Age, Madagascar...lots of others as well." She looks for the movies page in the newspaper. "Wouldn't that be more fun?"
His father nods, looking relieved.
Arjun, suppressing his disappointment, agrees to go see the new Ice age film. As relief spreads his father's face, Arjun wonders why the circus is such a bad thing.
On the way to the cinema, they drive past the circus. Arjun notices the long line in front of ticket booth. He stares, in rapture, at the ferris wheel in the background, cotton candy machines, parents and children strolling across the circus grounds.
"Aren't you happy we didn't go?" His father turns, in the front seat, to look at Arjun in the back. "Absolutely garish! It's a real low-class kind of circus," he whispers to his wife, when Arjun fails to respond. "Not appropriate at all." His wife nods in agreement.
But Arjun isn't listening, he's transfixed by the sight of a man, in a faded blue suit and tophat, on a pair of stilts.

In the evening, his parents leave early for a dinner party. His mother breezes into the dining room, as he eats dinner, to say goodbye. She looks stunning in a silk saree, a diamond bracelet fastened on her wrist. She kisses him, carefully, so that she doesn't smear her lipstick. Arjun clings to her, breathing in the smell of her perfume.
When they leave, he stares outside, at the children playing in the park opposite. He wants to play, but doesn't ask. He knows what the cook, who has stayed back tonight to mind him, will say. "Chi!," she will scream. "You can't play with dirty children."
He continues to watch, even as the sun sets and the street lights flicker on. In the distance, he makes out the shimmering surface of a large puddle, a tiny lake, formed by the rains in a vacant site further down the street. His excitement quickens as he notices a tiny figure splash in the water. He grabs his expensive, new binoculars and notices that the figure is a little boy, his age, completely naked.
A minute later, something else attracts his attention. A fat woman, in a nylon sari, stands at the edge of the small lake. She wades in, splashing water and grabs the boy, who tries to wriggle out of her grasp. She thrashes him soundly, as she herds him home. Arjun winces, but he can't help notice the expression of glee on the little boy's face, despite the beating.
For a moment, Arjun wishes he was the little boy. Then, he remembers that he is lucky, as his father, mother, the chauffeur and the cook constantly remind him, luckier than that little, dirty boy. He should be thankful, he tells himself, to be so lucky.

But his luck is a heavy weight that bears down on his shoulders; a noose that coils tightly around his neck.