Time Racers

Gayathri Ponvannan Gayathri Ponvannan

Description

A lush, richly layered novel and an enduring testament to the power of storytellingIn the near future, after a storm strikes New York City, the strangeness begins. A down-to-earth gardener finds that his feet no longer touch the ground. Abandoned at the mayor’s office, a baby identifies corruption with her mere presence, marking the guilty with blemishes and boils. A seductive gold digger is soon tapped to combat forces beyond imagining. It is the onset of an epic war between light and dark, spanning a thousand and one nights, in which beliefs are challenged, words act like poison, silence is a disease, and a noise may contain a hidden curse. Inspired by the traditional ‘wonder tales’ of the East, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is satirical and bawdy, full of cunning and folly, rivalries and betrayals, kismet and karma, rapture and redemption.

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789352141944
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

GAYATHRI PONVANNAN

TIME RACERS
PUFFIN BOOKS

PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PUFFIN BOOKS
TIME RACERS
Gayathri was encouraged to be an author by her third grade teacher. She characteristically mulled over the advice for over two decades before deciding it was worth a thought, after all! Her writing has since appeared in leading newspapers, websites and magazines. Gayathri lives in Dubai with her family.
To Pranav and Ishaan; Raj and Kala . . . wish you lot could have met
There was a young lady of Wight
Who travelled much faster than light
She departed one day
In a relative way
And arrived on the previous night.
-Prof. Stephen Hawking
Chapter 1
We arrive at Dubai airport with barely minutes to spare, and literally sprint across the terminal to get through to our plane. And that s no easy job, I can tell you, what with Dad barking on ahead and Mom puffing up behind me. I m dead tired, dead hungry and dead bored. This trip is going to be a disaster . . . I know it.
The airline official checking our boarding passes makes a valiant stab at pronouncing our names, before waving us on with an exasperated sigh. We re used to it, however-folks rarely get our surnames right. I mean, with a name like PALLAVANATHAN , it usually takes a few seconds just to untangle the vowels from the consonants.
I m Pratik Pallavanathan, by the way, aka PP, thirteen years old, from Dubai. Yeah, I know PP sounds like something you do in a toilet. But it can t be helped. Apparently, I d found my original name too hard to pronounce as a baby, so my mom came up with this gem to ease me into saying it.
I ve been known as PP ever since, even at school (one of the dreariest institutes in Dubai, in my opinion). But don t worry, I m not going to discuss my spectacularly boring school life just now-because it s the summer holidays. And I m en route to Chennai (my home town in India), with my mom, dad and DP.
DP is my younger brother. His name is Dhruv-which is quite easy to pronounce, really. But Mom had this genius idea of making our names rhyme, and calls him DP instead. At six, DP is the undisputed prince of the house, who can get away with practically anything. All thanks to his eye condition . It s just a squint-DP s right eye turns ever so slowly, while the left is already glaring at you. And he has to wear super-thick glasses to correct it. Not that I tease him or anything, since I wear glasses myself. But my parents, especially Mom, treat DP as if he were Homer on the verge of darkness, and basically let him do his own sweet thing.
Mom is a Creative Writer . I know there s nothing creative about her writing. Her stories are simply reruns of our lives, and usually feature me as the villain/problem child. But apart from that, Mom is pretty decent. Of course, she nags all day and periodically blows up when I ve been staring at screens for too long. But she can be depended on in a crunch. Life is easier around Mom, because she is a bit scatty herself and doesn t insist too much on discipline .
And the word discipline brings us to . . . my own, personal disciplinarian-DAD. Mr Pallavanathan-known to the corporate world as Mr Pal Nathan. Don t even ask me how he pronounced his name when he was little. According to my grandmother, my dad s a genius who could have pronounced his name perfectly even if it had been Rumpelstiltskin.
As far as I can make out, Dad has two regrets in life. One is his hair . . . or, well, the lack of it. Dad s head would make a better skating rink than the one at Dubai Mall. According to him, his receding hairline has been caused by his other great regret in life. Me.
Once upon a happier time, Dad and I were the best of friends, back when I was about as old as DP. But as I grew, my discipline-bearing abilities reduced, and so did Dad s patience. To be honest, I think the only things that increased during this time frame were my weight and Dad s bald patch.
(Did I mention I m a bit overweight? Well, I am. I m not really pudgy, but I ve got this rather large tummy that sticks out a bit. In fact, a security chap at the airport actually prodded my belly to check if I had anything hidden in there. While we re at it, I might as well tell you that my teeth are rather big, and my glasses keep slipping off my nose all the time. Just so you know, okay? These are facts that I d rather not mention again.)
Anyway, getting back, Dad and I soon turned from friends to enemies. We ve had stupendous rows in the past, on topics ranging from my eating habits to my dressing sense. Now we re officially in a state of permanent cold war.
Then there s our dispute over my singing and humming. That s one strange thing about me, I ll admit. I m always humming. Sometimes (well, about half the time), the humming is more like yodelling and loud singing.
Dad loathes the noise , as he calls it. Mom, however, calls it my God-given musical talent . She thinks it s her bounden duty to encourage me, which she carries out by bullying me into the twin banes of my life.
Singing and piano lessons.
Now don t get me wrong-I do enjoy singing and making up my own tunes. But rigid practice is sorely against my principles. My principle being-enjoy yourself as much as you can; work as little as you can.
Dad, of course, is in a perpetual state of irritation because I don t practise at all, which means (a) I m wasting my time and talent, and more importantly, (b) I m wasting money, which is against his principles.
Save money is one of dad s cardinal principles. The other one is work ethic , which I think means work as hard as you can; enjoy as little as you can .
So, at any given point of time, it would be safe to assume that Dad and I would be on the opposing sides of any issue. However, that doesn t stop him from poking into my concerns, often with educational tips and, worse, behavioural suggestions .
These suggestions have intensified in the past few weeks leading to this trip. In fact, it s been a non-stop deluge, since Dad is very particular about having me at my best behaviour during the vacation.
Why? Because we ll be meeting my cousins, Param and Pratiba, in India. They live in the UK, and the last time we d had a common holiday was about three years ago. Dad wants me to make a good impression this time around, as opposed to the abysmally juvenile behaviour of the last trip (don t ask me the exact details-I ve mercifully forgotten them. Suffice to say the aftermath of Dad s anger lasted for months, though).
So Pratiba is seventeen now. She s my least favourite cousin and a bossy Ms Know-it-all. Prati s firmly convinced she knows everything. The problem is, she does-and she never lets you forget it.
Param, on the other hand, is a speechless kid. I don t mean that in a nasty way. Param, in fact, is also a Mr Know-it-all. But, while Prati throws her knowledge around like bricks, Param keeps it stoically to himself, except for the times he bursts out with a one-liner punch in a rather Rajinikanth-like manner. He was twelve when we met last, and, now that he s in his teens, he ll probably be even more moody and silent, if that s at all possible. He s a good kid, Param, and something of a mad genius-and if he s rather mute, I guess it s the effect of having a loudspeaker for a sister.
So there we are, stuck for what Mom calls our last summer as kids together. And she s kind of right.
At seventeen, Prati s practically an adult, and perhaps even has a boyfriend. And while I m not too sure if Param has a girlfriend, I definitely have one. Her name is Becky, and she s the prettiest girl in our year. To be honest, I haven t got round to confessing my feelings to her yet. In fact, erm, I m not quite certain she even knows of my existence (though she s spoken to me twice- Excuse me and Move on, please ).
Right now, as I watch the clouds fly past our flight, I feel kind of nostalgic, thinking about the years catching up with all of us. Perhaps Mom s idea of giving it all to have the best time ever is worth thinking about.
Chapter 2
God, the crowd! We re at the baggage claim area in Chennai airport, and all around us people are pressing forward for their luggage, though the carousel is yet to start.
DP adds to the confusion by shouting out wee wee in a voice that resounds across the hall. And of course, with Mom and Dad each manning a trolley, I m the one who has to take him to the toilet. We smell the place long before we see it- washroom seems pretty apt, since the room smells like it needs a good wash. The only cubicle that doesn t need flushing down is the squat-down style. DP promptly refuses to go on it, and I negotiate by convincing him to stand over and do his stuff while holding on to my hand. I can safely rate it as one of the worst experiences in my life, ever.
True to form, our suitcases are among the last to arrive, in spite of Dad having wielded his air miles card to get priority tags stuck on to them. It s over an hour before we finally make our way out, and find Poppy just outside the doors, poking her arms between people s shoulders to wave at us. (Poppy is rather small, vertically, though she makes up for that by being big enough horizontally.)
Poppy is my grandmother. She is Dad s mother- paatti in Tamil. But her first grandchild, Prati, came up with a British-accented Pattie , which soon morphed into Poppy, somehow. I think Poppy was thrilled with her modern-sounding name, for she s taught all of us other grandchildren to call her just so.
Thaatha is there, too. He s Dad s father, Mr Prakasanathan, and no, he doesn t have a nickname. I think he was called Prakasanathan right fro