Fiction: Salil wants to collect art, Nupur wants to be a curator. But this world isn’t so welcoming

The first day of school was hurried. Nupur stuffed her bag with what she could find and ran down the stairs, where the house help was in a flurry and her anxious mother was shouting instructions. The yellow bus arrived with a hydraulic hiss. “Bacha party, where are you?”

Nupur fled, her sandwich in her mouth, her bag slapping one side, her lunchbox the other. She muttered a hi, a good morning, a kaise ho, and got to a window seat. The bus was air-conditioned; she took a deep breath and looked outside. Some sky was visible, some sun. It was a spring day in Delhi. A hot summer waited in the wings.

They drove through traffic onto a six-lane highway. They passed wheat fields and livestock and hoardings that offered villas with amenities. Her new school had a sprawling campus in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.

She sat, nose pressed on a windowpane, her breath forming continents.

“Shy one, what’s your name?”

“Nupur,” she said.

“Where are you from?”

“Lajpat Nagar,” she said without thinking.

Three generations of Guptas stayed in Lajpat Nagar. Granduncles, grandaunts, their children, their grandchildren. Some dogs without collars wagged their tails outside, some cats roamed like they owned the place, and two cows from the neighbourhood bellowed till they were fed.

“I am a Gupta,” said Nupur.

This was a declaration of belonging, not exclusion. Guptas were common in Delhi, as were Goels, Agarwals, and Mittals.

The caste grouping was baniya and they were middle class to the bone. In an earlier time, almost by common law, baniyas were shopkeepers. Some were halwais who sat in community centres in Delhi behind a board that said “Agarwal Sweets”.

“Nupur Gupta. Business family?”

“Yes. We have a factory.” She thought for a while, then made a clean breast of it. “We make mixies in Naraina.”

There were a few giggles. Naraina was a grimy place with sheds where small units made parts that were often sold in the grey market.

A girl came and sat next to her. She smiled warmly. “Anaiya Goel,” she said. “My family has shops in Sadar Bazaar.”

More giggles followed. Naraina and Sadar Bazaar were parts of Delhi that tourists did not visit.

“What is the mixie called?”

“Toofan,’ said Nupur.

It was a noisy processor that went after Indian ingredients with the required tenacity.

“Does your family pay tax?”

Nupur laughed; the whole bus laughed. The question was a good one and it came from what baniya children overheard. The bus was full of new money; some were richer than others depending on which business the family had stumbled upon or which corner they had cut.

“Where do you stay, really?”

“Noida,” said Nupur. “Just like you.”

The house was a kothi with a large garden and a roundabout. The windows were French, the mirrors Belgian, the floor Italian marble. In the garage were two Bavarian SUVs.

“I love Noida,” said Anaiya. “I like what they call it – Jamuna paar.”

“My father wants to move to South Delhi, to Vasant Vihar,” said Nupur. “He is busy making enough money.”

“So who stays in Lajpat Nagar?”

“The joint family, the extended family. My father broke away.”

“I like him already.”

Nupur smoothed her skirt. “He is a tech entrepreneur.” It was a badge he wore with pride.

They passed a traffic island that had a life-size public sculpture. It looked like most public sculptures did – trauma with a blunt instrument.

“And mummy dearest?”

“She is Christian.”

“You are full of surprises. What about you? Are you Hindu?”

“Am I Hindu?”

Nupur had asked this question of her mother. “Beta,” Ma said, “when you grow up, you decide.”

“Where are you from, Ma?” was Nupur’s favourite question.

“Bombay,” was Sarla Gupta’s favourite answer. Every time Sarla uttered the name, she paused, and she remembered. “Where in Bombay?”

For as long as Sarla knew, her family had stayed in Bandra. Some relatives stayed in Santa Cruz. She belonged to the island dil se, a strip of land that she travelled south by train, alighting at Churchgate. She walked to Colaba, roamed the pavements, and bought trinkets. She walked to Kala Ghoda and listened to poetry. She sat on the parapet in Marine Drive, where the sun – a lazy orange ball – sank into the sea.

Most people in Sarla’s city were playing a role in a film. There was one that unspooled in her head.

“Don’t ask me where I am from,” said Sarla, a sad heroine in her film. “Ask me what I left behind.”

Excerpted with permission from This Garden of Weeds, V Sanjay Kumar, Bloomsbury India.