Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things

And whistles on the stair…

People in the audience were turning around.

“Shhh!” they said.

Shh! Shh! Shh! And underneath her wimple She has curlers in her hair There was a voice from outside the picture. It was clear and true, cutting through the fan-whirring, peanut-crunching darkness.

There was a nun in the audience. Heads twisted around like bottle caps. Black-haired backs of heads became faces with mouths and mustaches. Hissing mouths with teeth like sharks. Many of them. Like stickers on a card.

“Shhhh!” they said together. It was Estha who was singing. A nun with a puff. An Elvis Pelvis Nun. He couldn’t help it.

“Get him out of here!” The Audience said, when they found him.

Shutup or Getout. Getout or Shutup.

The Audience was a Big Man. Estha was a Little Man, with the tickets.

“Estha for heaven’s sake, shut UP!!” Ammu’s fierce whisper said. So Estha shut UP. The mouths and mustaches turned away. But then, without warning, the song came back, and Estha couldn’t stop it.

“Ammu, can I go and sing it outside?” Estha said (before Ammu smacked him). “I’ll come back after the song.”

“But don’t ever expect me to bring you out again,” Ammu said. “You’re embarrassing all of us.”

But Estha couldn’t help it. He got up to go. Past angry Ammu.

Past Rahel concentrating through her knees. Past Baby Kochamma.

Past the Audience that had to move its legs again. Thiswayandthat.

The red sign over the door said EXIT in a red light. Estha EXITed. In the lobby, the orangedrinks were waiting. The lemondrinks were waiting. The melty chocolates were waiting. The electric blue foamleather car-sofas were waiting. The Coming Soon! posters were waiting.

Estha Alone sat on the electric blue foamleather car-sofa, in the Abhilash Talkies Princess Circle lobby, and sang. In a nun’s voice, as clear as clean water.

But how do you make her stay And listen to all you say?

The man behind the Refreshments Counter, who’d been asleep on a row of stools, waiting for the interval, woke up. He saw, with gummy eyes, Estha Alone in his beige and pointy shoes. And his spoiled puff. The Man wiped his marble counter with a dirtcolored rag. And he waited. And waiting he wiped. And wiping he waited. And watched Estha sing.

How do you keep a wave upon the sand?

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?

“Ay! Eda cherukka!” The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said, in a gravelly voice thick with sleep. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

Estha sang.

“Ay!” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said. “Look, this is my Resting Time. Soon I’ll have to wake up and work. So I can’t have you singing English songs here. Stop it.” His gold wristwatch was almost hidden by his curly forearm hair. His gold chain was almost hidden by his chest hair.

His white Terylene shirt was unbuttoned to where the swell of his belly began. He looked like an unfriendly jeweled bear. Behind him there were mirrors for people to look at themselves in while