New World

He had come back in April, the aftermath of the lawsuit and court proceedings in two countries still fresh, the voices echoing behind him. But he felt robust. 'Here,' he said to the taxi driver that day in April - it was a Tuesday - when he arrived. His son was staring out of the window, as if a taxi were the most natural place to be in, apparently unaffected by its rusting window-edges and its noise. It was eleven o'clock in the morning; it should be ten o'clock now the previous night in America. 'Stop here,' said Jayojit to the taxi driver. 'Kitna hua?' he asked. Vikram - that was his son's name, his maternal grandfather's choice - said, 'Are we here, baba?' Though they spoke to each other in English, both Jayojit and his wife (ex-wife now? but she had still not married the man she was living with) had decided to retain, as far as their son was concerned, the Bengali appellations for mother and father: 'ma' and 'baba'. Ironical, thought Jayojit - he thought about these questions more and more these days; indeed, he could often hear himself thinking - that we did not think to teach him, at least in practice, the other things that surround those words in our culture. He himself had learnt those meanings from the lives of his parents. It was curious how often he returned to his childhood and growing up these days, involuntarily, to their apparently random and natural sequence. 'Seventy-five rupees,' said the driver, turning his head and smiling; the man hadn't shaved for a few days. It was as if the taxi were his home and he had long not stepped out of it. 'Seventy-five rupees,' repeated Jayojit with a chuckle, while the driver smiled with a strange but recognizable demureness; the coyness of a struggler taking something extra from a person he considers well-to-do. Jayojit knew, from glancing at the numbers that had appeared on the meter, that he was paying more than he was supposed to, but he silently rummaged the new rupee notes in his wallet; he had changed fifty dollars at the airport. 'Yes, Bonny, we're here,' he proclaimed cheerfully to his son; Bonny was his pet name, given him by Jayojit's mother, a strange Western affectation from the old days, to call children names like these - though his mother was not westernized. The boy, his pale face red with the heat, with one or two darker streaks - evidence of the journey, of plane seats, uncomfortable positions, attempts to sleep - on his cheeks, was looking quietly at the gates. A sound, oddly lazy but determined, of a plank of wood being hit again and again, could be heard. The watchman at the gates of the multi-storeyed building and the indolent, shabby chauffeurs of the private cars, lounging in the shade, their backs leaning against their cars' bonnets, seemed to be intent on watching the occupants of the taxi and listening to that sound. 'E lo,' said Jayojit, handing the driver the money, who took it and began to count the notes. Experimentally pulling the lever that opened the door, he said to his son, 'Bonny, that's the way to do it.' They had come with one heavy suitcase and a large shoulder bag slung around Jayojit's neck; in one hand he was carrying an Apple laptop and a one-litre bottle of Chivas Regal in a duty-free bag. The boy was wearing a bright-blue t-shirt and shorts, anChaudhuri, Amit is the author of 'New World' with ISBN 9780375410932 and ISBN 0375410937.