Read Online The City Son by Samrat Upadhyay - Free Book Online

his swollen lips. Sanmaya thinks he got into a fight, so she fusses over him. He brushes her hand away. In his room he stares at his lips in the mirror, whispers, “Puti.” After making sure the door is locked, he takes off all his clothes. He imagines Didi’s hands over his body, and his lando stiffens. He watches it rise. It’s pencil thin, but it has a throb of its own. He twists his body this way and that, as though looking for an elusive scar. Beautiful boy, he mouths to his reflection. He wonders what Didi finds beautiful about him, what others do. His body is scrawny, and lately he thinks his face is like a girl’s. He is certain that his lips, even when they aren’t swollen, look like puti . He doesn’t know what a puti looks like. One time a boy at school brought a tattered book with photos of naked women, but the photos were black and white and grainy, and one photo was a close-up of a puti with the caption VULVA in English underneath. But all it resembled was a cave with some hair hanging from it. Still, it was ugly, and he thinks his face looks like the vulva.
    Every time he returns home after spending private time with Didi, he becomes despondent for a day or two. Heloses his appetite, and when Mahesh Uncle and Sanmaya talk to him, he barely responds. “Why so glum today?” Sanmaya remarks. Mahesh Uncle asks whether Amit bullied him again today. Tarun shakes his head no. Mahesh Uncle has heard about Amit’s aggression, not from Tarun but from Sanmaya after Tarun told her about Amit locking him in the outside shed in Bangemudha for nearly an hour one afternoon. “Tell me if he does anything like that again,” Mahesh Uncle had said then. “Maybe you need to stop going to Bangemudha.” But if Tarun stopped going to Bangemudha, Didi would be distressed, so he’s been keeping mum about Amit’s bullying.
    Amit confronts him on the side of the house, the narrow strip enclosed by a wall that separates the neighbor’s house. Sumit is somewhere else. “Eh, randi ko chhora ,” he says, grabbing Tarun by the collar. “ Muji , you come here on Saturdays when we’re not here, don’t you?”
    Tarun nods.
    “Why?”
    He has no answer for Amit, who briefly lets go of Tarun’s collar, slaps him, then grabs the collar again with the same hand. The smoothness of the gesture indicates it’s copied from a movie and practiced. “Tell me,” Amit says. “What do you come here for?” He’s speaking in a loud, urgent whisper. They are underneath the window of the living room, and the Masterji is inside, sitting cross-legged on the bed poring over a book. Didi is most likely inside, too.Didi and the Masterji rarely speak to each other; rather, it’s Didi who rarely speaks to the Masterji, who generally avoids Didi’s eyes. But the Masterji, even if he knew Amit was strong-arming Tarun, would not have gotten up from his seat to stop it; he’d have looked on helplessly or offered a mild rebuke to Amit, who’d have merely sneered at his father.
    “ Ta machikney , you think you can come here and do whatever you want?” Amit grabs Tarun’s collar tighter, knuckles pressing against Tarun’s throat. He smells of khaini ; his right cheek has the small bulge of the tobacco ensconced there. Sumit has informed Tarun that his brother is already smoking ganja with the neighborhood boys.
    Amit’s voice is now a soft whisper. “She’s sucking your lando , isn’t she, my mother?”
    Fear grips Tarun, and reflexively he drives his knee into Amit’s groin, feeling something crunch against his knee bone. Holding his crotch, Amit collapses to the ground, his face contorted in pain. Just then Didi and Sumit emerge from the front of the house. She observes Amit with distaste, then crouches in front of Tarun and checks his face for damages. She brushes her thumb against his lips, then takes him inside. Sumit attends to his brother.
    Tarun worries about Amit telling everyone about him and Didi, or seeking revenge, but