In India

In India, we've always been vulnerable to Europeans ... Evie had only been with us a matter of weeks, and already I was being sucked into a grotesque mimicry of European literature. (We had done Cyrano, in a simplified version, at school; I had also read the Classics Illustrated comic book.) Perhaps it would be fair to say that Europe repeats itself, in India, as farce ... Evie was American. Same thing.
'But hey, man, that's no-fair man, why don't you do it yourself?'
'Listen, Sonny,' I pleaded, 'you're my friend, right?'
'Yeah, but you didn't even help ...'
'That was my sister, Sonny, so how could I?'
'No, so you have to do your own dirty ...'
'Hey, Sonny, man, think. Think only. These girls need careful handling, man.
Look how the Monkey flies off the handle! You've got the experience, yaar, you've been through it. You'll know how to go gently this time. What do I know, man? Maybe she doesn't like me even. You want me to have my clothes torn off, too? That would make you feel better?'
And innocent, good-natured Sonny, '... Well, no ...'
'Okay, then. You go. Sing my praises a little. Say never mind about my nose.
Character is what counts. You can do that?'
'... Weeeelll ... I ... okay, but you talk to your sis also, yah?'
Til talk, Sonny. What can I promise? You know what she's like. But I'll talk to her for sure.'
You can lay your strategies as carefully as you like, but women will undo them at a stroke. For every victorious election campaign, there are twice as many that fail ... from the verandah of Buckingham Villa, through the slats of the chick-blind, I spied on Sonny Ibrahim as he canvassed my chosen constituency ...
and heard the voice of the electorate, the rising nasality of Evie Burns, splitting the air with scorn: 'Who? Him? Whynt'cha tell him to jus' go blow his nose? That sniffer? He can't even ride a bike!'
Which was true.
And there was worse to come; because now (although a chick-blind divided the scene into narrow slits) did I not see the expression on Evie's face begin to soften and change? - did Evie's hand (sliced lengthways by the chick) not reach out towards my electoral agent? -and weren't those Evie's fingers (the nails bitten down to the quick) touching Sonny's temple-hollows, the fingertips getting covered in dribbled Vaseline? - and did Evie say or did she not: 'Now you, Pr instance: you're cute'? Let me sadly affirm that I did; it did; they were; she did.
Saleem Sinai loves Evie Burns; Evie loves Sonny Ibrahim; Sonny is potty about the Brass Monkey; but what does the Monkey say?
'Don't make me sick, Allah,' my sister said when I tried - rather nobly, considering how he'd failed me - to argue Sonny's case. The voters had given the thumijs-down to us both.
I wasn't giving in just yet. The siren temptations of Evie Burns - who never cared about me, I'm bound to admit - led me inexorably towards my fall. (But I hold nothing against her; because my fall led to a rise.)
Privately, in my clocktower, I took time off my trans-subcontinental rambles to consider the wooing of my freckled Eve. 'Forget middlemen,' I advised myself, 'You'll have to do this personally.' Finally, I formed my scheme: I would have to share her interests, to make her passions mine ... guns have never appealed to me. I resolved to learn how to ride a bike.