Book Excerpts

Visit The House Next to the Factory | EXCERPT

Set largely in Delhi between 1980 and 2010, the nine interlinked stories in The House Next to the Factory follow Kavya and her post-Partition immigrant family, their servants, tutors, cousins and lovers, their loneliness, aspirations and small-scale ambitions. Read an excerpt:

 

The house had two gates. There was a large rust-coloured one, past which Mr Lamba could see nothing. It seemed like the entrance to the factory. A few metres ahead was a small white gate with a square grille at the top. Mr Lamba walked his scooter to the smaller gate and parked it. He peeked in through the grille. There was an oval, grassless lawn and an empty veranda. He tried the doorbell, but the switch was stuck. Mr Lamba lifted the latch and went inside.

He knocked at the glass door. In the kitchen, to his left, a yellow fridge hummed loudly. There were two Campa Cola bottle magnets on the fridge.

A boy of eight or nine came to the door.

‘Is your father at home?’ Mr Lamba said.

‘He’s at the factory. You should use the other gate.’ The boy was barefoot.

‘Is your mother at home?’

‘Yes, wait.’ He ran inside, leaving Mr Lamba standing there holding his helmet.

The grassless lawn was lined with rose shrubs on one side. Two children’s cycles leaned against the veranda wall.

‘Yes?’ The mother appeared at the door. She had a round face, just like her son. She wore a blue sari with big, pink flowers on it.

‘I’m Naresh Lamba.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m a schoolteacher, and I provide private tuitions as well. Your husband, I think, left his card for me at Satnam Stationers.’

‘Ah, yes. He spoke about it. Come in, please.’

The living area was long and narrow, like a passage, with a dining table on the near side and black Rexine sofas on the far one. He and the mother settled down on the sofas. There was a money plant in the corner with large, waxy leaves.

‘My sister-in-law and I are looking for a tutor for our sons,’ the mother said. ‘They are the same age.’

‘Would you like me to tutor them together or separately?’

‘You can teach them together and charge for one-and-a-half pupils. That’s how their last tutor worked.’

‘Which class are they in?’

‘They just started third grade. How long have you been teaching, sir?’

‘It’s been twenty-five years. My subjects are maths and English, but I can help with others as well.’

‘Okay. But they are a bit naughty, so you’ll have to be strict.’

‘Don’t worry about that.’ Mr Lamba laughed and adjusted his glasses.

She called out to the boys.

Three doors on the long wall opposite led into the bedrooms. Mr Lamba folded his arms over his stomach and waited for the boys to emerge. On the showcase a glass heron bent and rose periodically as it sipped from a trough. It was a lulling movement.

An old woman came out of the middle room and sat down on the sofa.

‘Namaste,’ Mr Lamba said.

The woman nodded but said nothing. There was a slit in the side of her nose where she must have once worn a heavy nose ring.

‘Raghu and Anuj’s new tutor,’ the young woman said to the older one.

The boys came and stood by the mother. ‘This is Raghu,’ she said, pointing to the boy with full cheeks. He was still barefoot. ‘And this is my sister-in-law’s son, Anuj.’ Anuj had a thin, dusky face and a staple-sized scar on his chin. The cousins smiled at Mr Lamba. Both were missing some teeth.

‘So we start next Monday, boys?’ Mr Lamba said.

The boys nodded.

***

Mr Lamba got out of bed and stretched his arms. At home, it was his habit to wear just a vest and pajama, and when winter came he wrapped a shawl over the vest. He arched his back, straightened, and twisted to the right then to the left. His son was still sleeping on the other divan. Mr Lamba folded the top sheet and patted the pillow.

He made two cups of tea and took one to his mother. He helped her sit up.

‘Everything okay, Roop Kumar?’ She addressed Mr Lamba as her brother who was lost during Partition, the only person she seemed to remember these days.

‘Yes, everything okay.’

He took his cup outside and sat in a chair and drank the tea. He contemplated the two sparrows that pecked at each other on the boundary wall. It was warm for April. The sun shone brightly. For the last week, he had been reminding himself to water the tulsi that sat next to the gate. The leaves were turning brown at the edges.

The morning paper, rolled and secured with an elastic band, landed with a thud in the little veranda.

Mr Lamba read the headlines as he finished his tea. Sikh militants had attacked a bus of Hindu pilgrims in Punjab, shooting the conductor and two male passengers. Mr Lamba skimmed through the details.

He put the cups in the sink and helped his mother to the bathroom. Her skin had become loose and hung from her bones in thin pleats. A maid came twice a week to give her a bath.

He dusted the dining table and chairs, the switchboard, and the centre table between the two divans. With gentle strokes, he brushed the crochet wall hanging his wife had made one winter. He wiped the cupboards in his mother’s room and the side tables crammed against the walls. There were only two bedrooms in the house. After his wife passed away two years ago, he had given his room to his daughter. He finished cleaning the windowpanes and joined her in the kitchen. He kneaded the dough and rolled the chapatis, while she prepared a sabzi of potatoes and beans. His son was in the bathroom, splashing himself with mugs full of water. He was an accountant in a small firm. Mr Lamba shared his shirts with him. They were snug for Mr Lamba but loose for his son, who at twenty-three was still lanky. The only household errand the son did was to sew buttons on the shirts whenever they went missing.

Mr Lamba packed his lunch, got ready, and left for work.

 

To read more from The House Next to the Factory by Sonali Kohli, order now!

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