Chapter 77: Young, Bold, and Unrestrained
New Delhi, IndiaThe Koothrappali Estate
"Rajesh, be nice to Preethi while we're out. Understood?"
"Yes, Mother."
Rajesh Koothrappali smiled pleasantly until his mother and her entourage of socialite friends had made it out the front door and into their cars. Then he turned, looked at the chubby girl standing in the drawing room — his mother's latest attempt at an arranged introduction — with the particular expression of someone calculating the fastest polite exit, and delivered his verdict in three words.
"Entertain yourself."
He disappeared down the hallway before she could respond.
Preethi stood alone in the enormous drawing room, surrounded by decorative furniture and a view of the estate gardens, watching the space where he'd been.
If only I could lose weight, she thought, not for the first time.
Rajesh, for his part, had already forgotten she existed.
He settled into his private reading room — which was less a room and more a small palace wing dedicated to his comfort — and the servants lined up in the practiced formation they maintained for his afternoon reading sessions.
"Young Master Rajesh, this week's Wonder Woman."
Rajesh accepted the issue with the satisfaction of a man receiving something he had been looking forward to. He turned the cover to examine it properly, approved of what he saw, and opened to page one.
The servants stood at quiet attention, each holding additional comics in the correct order. The household staff his mother had allocated to the salon upstairs represented perhaps forty percent of the estate's total servant population. The Koothrappali family had not experienced a shortage of help since before Rajesh's grandfather was born.
His father's Bentley was actually one of four. His older brothers each had separate servant staffs. Rajesh's own allocation — the group currently standing around him holding reading material — numbered in the dozens.
He worked through the stack methodically. Wonder Woman, Hulk, a Thor he found acceptable, an Aquaman he found deeply unsatisfying.
"Aquaman is the worst hero ever created," he said, to no one in particular. He finished it anyway, out of thoroughness. "Is there anything else?"
"Young Master Rajesh, this one is new. It's called Lord of the Hidden."
Rajesh took the comic with moderate interest. New series, unfamiliar title, Dark Horse label — different from his usual reading.
He opened it.
The art style caught him immediately. It wasn't the clean primary-color aesthetics of superhero comics — it was atmospheric, detailed, layered. The world it presented was strange and internally consistent in a way that felt earned rather than asserted.
He finished the issue in fifteen minutes.
He turned the last page.
He looked at the back cover.
"Where's the next issue?"
"That's all that's been released, Young Master."
"That cannot be correct."
"The series is very new, Young Master Rajesh. If you'd like to read ahead, there's the original novel—"
"Get me the novel."
"It hasn't been distributed to New Delhi yet."
Rajesh looked at the servant who had just delivered this information. "Then contact whoever has it and have it flown here."
"Of course, Young Master."
The comic store owner, who had been summoned to the estate for exactly these kinds of situations, bowed and left.
Twelve hours later, a copy of Lord of the Hidden arrived at the Koothrappali estate via international courier, the fees for which Rajesh did not inquire about because he had no particular relationship with the concept of shipping costs.
He read through the night.
He reached the last page of the first volume at dawn.
"That's it?" he said.
The comic store owner, who had been waiting in an anteroom, was brought back in.
"The author only published one volume so far," the man said carefully. "The second is in progress."
"That's unacceptable. The first volume ends on multiple unresolved storylines. There has to be more."
"There isn't, Young Master. Not yet."
One of the quicker-thinking junior servants leaned in. "Young Master, we could invite the author to the estate. Have him come here and write the continuation. He could name his terms."
Rajesh brightened. This was the kind of solution he appreciated — direct, decisive, not unnecessarily complicated by geography.
"Excellent. Send for him. He can stay as long as it takes."
"Young Master," he added, "we could make it very comfortable for him. His own suite, whatever he needs—"
"And if he doesn't want to come," the junior servant continued, emboldened by approval, "we could always arrange to bring him regardless—"
An older, senior member of the household staff cleared his throat. "Young Master Rajesh. The author is an American citizen. There are significant practical and diplomatic considerations that would make any arrangement of that nature—"
"Our family knows everyone," Rajesh said.
"We know a great many people," the senior servant agreed carefully. "But Adam Duncan is published by Random House, distributed internationally, and has an established legal and professional structure around him. The correct approach is an invitation. A generous, sincere invitation. Nothing else."
Rajesh looked at him with the expression of someone who understood the word "no" but rarely heard it applied to his own requests.
Before he could respond, the door opened.
His father walked in.
The senior servant had sent for him. Quietly. Some time ago.
Dr. Koothrappali looked at his youngest son, then at the novel, then at the junior servant who had suggested the inadvisable thing, then back at his son.
"Rajesh."
The voice carried a quality Rajesh didn't often hear directed at himself. He'd been the favorite since birth — everyone's favorite, the one they pointed to when they wanted to describe what the family's best looked like. His father had never looked at him quite like this before.
"I didn't do anything," Rajesh said. "I just wanted to read a book."
"Sit down," his father said.
The servants were dismissed. Father and son sat alone.
His father talked for a long time. About America. About certain things that a family with their kind of visibility needed to be careful about. About the difference between what was possible in principle and what was wise in practice.
Rajesh listened.
By the end of it, he was nodding with the conviction of someone who had received important information and updated his worldview accordingly.
"I understand," he said. "I'll write him a letter. A very polite one."
His father looked at him for a moment longer than necessary.
"Good," he said.
Rajesh looked at the novel on the table beside him.
He still needed to know what happened in the second volume.
End of Chapter 77
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