Read Online Banquet on the Dead by Sharath Komarraju - Free Book Online Page A

change a made will.’
    ‘That is what you think,’ said Kamala. ‘These people are charlatans. These people—’
    ‘These people,’ said Venkataramana, ‘are my family’.
    ‘They’re not the only family you have! What about Lakshman and Praveen? What about Narmada? She’s— she’s pregnant now. What about the unborn baby? Are we all not your family as well? Do you not have a responsibility to us as well?’
    ‘Lakshman and Praveen ought to look after themselves.’
    ‘Ought to, ought to, ought to! You and your “ought to”. Some things—many things—are not as they ought to be. Lakshman doesn’t have a job.’
    ‘Is that my fault now, Kamala?’
    ‘I don’t want to argue about whose fault it is. It is your duty as a father to provide your sons with a livelihood.’
    Venkataramana pointed at the bundle of papers on the table. ‘Here is my livelihood. This is what I have earned. They’re welcome to take a share in this.’
    She leered at it. ‘Agricultural land! Peanuts!’
    ‘That is where that rice you’re eating comes from, Kamala. Don’t forget that.’
    ‘Yes, yes, when other people’s lands are yielding money, you spend your whole life growing rice in your land. And you proclaim that as an achievement!’
    ‘Agriculture is no easy business, Kamala. You know how tough it has been these last few months. Even now we’re not out of the rut—’
    ‘That’s why!’ Kamala sat forward eagerly. ‘Lakshman needs money, very badly. He has been asking me for my gold. God knows what he has done now. Praveen needs money to set up his practice. You need money too; you admitted it just now yourself. The old woman has died at just the right time—’
    Venkataramana silenced her with a glance. Then he said, ‘You could not respect her in life. At least do so in death.’
    She lowered her head in silent shame for a while. But then she raised it again, saying in a low voice, ‘I did not mean it like that—I am not glad that she’s dead. But you have to admit that the death did happen at the right time for us...’
    The lines on Venkataramana’s face softened. He nodded slowly.
    ‘And now these two men have come—’
    ‘What two men?’ he asked, frowning.
    ‘One of them is the policeman—the man who came on the day after we found the body. Now he has an old, lame Muslim man with him; must be his assistant or something. I saw them walk toward the well just before, and they were talking to Ellayya...’
    Venkataramana said, ‘Let them. They won’t find anything.’
    She hesitated for a moment. ‘You know,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I am scared’.
    ‘Scared for what?’
    ‘You know, Lakshman...’
    Venkataramana sighed and rubbed his eyes.
    ‘You know what he is like—you know what horrible things he says when he’s angry. You remember what he said that day...’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ said Venkataramana hastily.
    ‘You—you don’t think—’
    Venkataramana shook his head to stop her from speaking further. Then he shook it again, with more force and more passion. But when he looked up at her his gaze was still uncertain, still vague. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’
    She looked at the television, her eyes vacant, as though the sounds no longer reached her. ‘I am scared,’ she murmured. ‘Scared for all of us.’
    Seated in the wicker chair of his first-floor office, Praveen blew the dust off the top of an old ledger and opened it. He turned to face away from the dust particles, and in so doing, his eyes caught the marble bust of Raj Kapoor that sat behind the glass panes on the shelf. He stopped to look upon it for a minute, and sighed. Soon he might have to sell this too, this most prized of all his possessions. If his practice continued to be so dull, he might even have to agree to what his father had suggested, and look after the land in Puthoor. But that would mean he had accepted defeat. He pulled his gaze away from the shelf and to the book in front of