Anjali

Aditya and Anjali walked toward the boarding gate, one behind the other.

The queue at the gate was long. Several ground staff wove through the crowd. A woman cut in line, was cursed at by a man behind her, and shrank back into place.

Standing in front of Aditya, Anjali turned and whispered, "Every time I fly in India, it feels like going to war."

"That's because you haven't taken a train in India yet," Aditya said in an unfriendly tone.

"I have. My grandfather took me to Kolkata. The train really was a little scarier. Someone even herded sheep aboard," Anjali said with a laugh.

"Then you should visit Lucknow or Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh sometime. Our trains will definitely give you an experience you'll never forget and make you fall in love with Indian flights from then on," Aditya said sarcastically.

Anjali giggled, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

Aditya watched her, his gaze utterly captivated as he stared at Anjali's ample arguments bouncing.

They were simply too tempting. Aditya truly couldn't help himself. He believed anyone present would have done the same-even you, dear readers, would probably have found it hard to avoid.

Look not upon what is improper. Look not upon what is improper, Aditya silently repeated.

"Hmph!" Anjali snorted, glared at Aditya, and turned back around.

Aditya smiled. He, too, thought this girl was really interesting, with some very ample arguments.

Anjali and Dipti were two different kinds of people. Dipti was like a deep well, while Anjali was like a sun. One was too deep for him to fathom; the other was bright and warm, making him want to bury himself in her.

Once aboard, Aditya found his window seat and sat down.

He had just stowed his leather bag and fastened his seat belt, and was about to close his eyes to rest, when a familiar voice rang out in the aisle.

"Aiyyo! Oh my God!"

Anjali stood beside him, boarding pass in hand, her mouth open and her eyes sparkling.

Aditya glanced at her seat number and muttered, "Holy shit! Nani! Could God Shiva actually exist?!"

"What are you saying?" Anjali asked, laughing herself before she had even finished speaking.

Then, the moment she sat down, Aditya caught a cloyingly sweet fragrance.

"You really are sitting next to me! You people from the holy city really are different. The moment you said it, God Shiva actually heard you. I told you that you smelled of incense ash!" Anjali said eagerly.

"That means we're quite fated," Aditya said. "Even Air India arranged things for us."

The plane began taxiing. Anjali fastened her seat belt and tugged it twice, as though afraid it might suddenly come loose.

Aditya glanced at her and said, before lowering his eyes, "You did spend time in California, after all. You're still afraid of flying?"

"I'm not afraid of planes. I'm afraid of Indian planes," Anjali said in all seriousness. "Last year, I flew from Bangalore to New Delhi, and the plane bounced seven times when it landed. I counted."

"Don't scare me," Aditya said, hurriedly tugging his own seat belt too.

Aditya had nearly forgotten that he was in India. As the saying went: mild, moderate, severe, India. This was a strict hierarchy everyone knew.

"Haha, you're such a coward." Anjali patted her chest, as though reassuring herself.

Aditya's eyes twitched again and again.

The plane lifted off, and Mumbai's grayish yellow outside the cabin gradually gave way to white clouds.

Once the flight had leveled out, Anjali loosened her seat belt a little and turned toward him.

"Tell me about your textile mill," she said.

"What do you want to hear?"

"Why open a textile mill? Textile mills don't make money, do they? What were you thinking?" Anjali fired off three questions in a row.

Aditya thought for a moment and said, "My family had debts before, and I had to repay them. After paying them off, I wanted to start a business. I'm in Uttar Pradesh. You know how it is there: plenty of people, plenty of cotton, plenty of sugarcane, but not many choices left for me."

"I had only two choices: either build a sugar mill or open a textile mill. My textile mill is in Kanpur. It's called Diya, and right now its daily gross profit is only a thousand rupees. It's not much, but I support over a hundred workers."

"A thousand rupees a day? How can you even keep it going?" Anjali asked, very surprised.

"Survive first, then find a way," Aditya said, looking down at her.

"Have you come up with anything?"

"Ideally, I'd replace the machines with more advanced ones, then find better sales channels and sell the cloth farther afield in the future," Aditya said.

"Where? The Middle East? Europe? Or the United States?" Anjali asked.

"Anywhere, as long as the price is right," Aditya said.

Anjali clicked her tongue and said, "Who still opens textile mills these days? You speak Chinese and English, and you're not stupid. Why not go into a more profitable industry?"

"You know, the internet is already booming in the United States."

"Our professor says the next decade will belong to the internet. India has so many English speakers. Working in the internet industry and doing cross-border business in the future will definitely be better than making cloth."

"I know that too," Aditya said with a smile. "Even if I didn't go into the internet industry, I could go into finance. Those would definitely make more money than a textile mill."

"I admit computers will become mainstream and sweep across India. But you can't eat them. India has a billion people, and more than half still live in the countryside, without electricity or water, unable even to afford cloth. Talk to them about the internet now, and they'll only ask what a net is."

"Let me ask you: can India develop by relying on the internet alone? Are people like us supposed to think only of ourselves and ignore whether everyone else at the bottom lives or dies?"

Anjali grew serious. "Of course I'm not saying we should ignore them. I mean the future will change. You can't keep clinging to a few old looms."

"I never said I'd stick with textile machines my whole life," Aditya said. "I'll replace them with more advanced machines, expand the mill, and hire more workers."

"I opened a textile mill and went into manufacturing because only the real economy can give the people at the bottom a livelihood. A hundred workers means a hundred families. Tell them to work in IT, and they don't even know the whole English alphabet. Making cloth, though-that's something they can pick up."

Anjali fell silent. She looked at him as though getting to know him anew.

"Did you really open the textile mill for those workers?" she asked.

"Of course I'm also doing it to make money, and secondarily for those people at the bottom," Aditya said. "In this world, you can't do anything without money. Only by making money can I help more people live better."

"Then what do you want to do in the future?" Anjali asked.

"First, turn Diya into the biggest textile mill in Uttar Pradesh. Let those workers all afford to build houses and send their children to school. Then, once smart people like you come back, we'll work on the internet together," Aditya said with a smile.

Anjali's eyes lit up as she listened. "Is that really what you think?"

"It really is," Aditya answered seriously.

"But you're a Brahmin! Why would you care whether those Dalits live or die? Something's off about you!" Anjali said, staring straight at Aditya.

"I am a Brahmin, yes, but I've had an education, and I don't accept this caste system. I want to build India. I love my country more than my caste," Aditya said with deep feeling.

"You're a Brahmin too. Do you actually approve of this relic of the old era?" Aditya asked in return.

"Of course, haha! You're such a strange guy. I'm even more curious about you now." Anjali nodded.