by Pratap Reddy
In her mind’s eye, unbidden, she sees an image of the sadhvi she encountered years ago. She has a serene smile and a youthful look though she is much older than Ramya is now.
Dismissing the recollection, Ramya absently rubs the purple lipstick against her lower lip. The top of the stick crumbles and a few dry bits cling to her mouth like cookie sprinkles. She wipes her lips clean with the Kleenex she keeps handy on the console table.
How untidy her console table is! It has become a safe haven for old receipts, small change, hairpins, loose keys and a comb. How unhappy and uncomfortable must the six-inch-high clay image of Lord Ganesa feel? The elephant-headed god is the remover of obstacles. She placed the idol, gaudily painted with red, blue and yellow, on the console table opposite the front door to usher in good fortune. It is indeed inauspicious to surround him with so much untidiness. She should do something to clear the table so that the god, in turn, can clear the impediments in her life.
Ramya’s unwritten “to do” list grows by the day. One of the items is to write the list itself on a sheet of paper and stick it on the fridge, under the magnetic picture of the CN Tower.
When Ramya was in high school, she had — perversely — chosen Maunika to be her best friend. Maunika was a lanky girl with a dusky complexion who seemed all elbows and knees. She was the youngest of four children, and wore clothes which were obviously hand-me-downs, just a tad faded and fraying at the edges. But they’d been so expertly altered, possibly by Maunika’s mother, that they didn’t look out of date. In fact, Maunika looked quite chic in them. You’d have to rub the fabric between your thumb and forefinger to discover that it was almost threadbare.
Though Ramya and Maunika lived in the same neighbourhood, they went to different elementary schools. They knew each other by sight, and would run into each other in the nearby park or at a common friend’s birthday party. She was the stand-in mistress to the frisky pom at Barghest’s birthday party. Ramya hadn’t invited her at all; she’d sent an invitation to the dog and his master, a high school boy named Raghu. He and his family were Daddy’s patients. But Raghu preferred to take part in a friendly cricket match at the Parade Ground, and sent his pet dog to the party with Maunika, his neighbour, as its chaperone.
Their high school was in the heart of the city, a good distance away. It was big and renowned, with sprawling playgrounds, and drew students from all over the city.
Later, whenever Ramya thought about it, she couldn’t fathom what she’d seen in Maunika to make her her very best friend, her thickest pal. That Maunika lived nearby, took the same navy blue school bus, and was in the same class may have influenced her … And Maunika always knew by instinct on which side her bread was buttered.
Telephones were a luxury in those days, so having a classmate nearby was useful. If Ramya was absent for any reason, she could always find out what had transpired at school by simply walking over to Maunika’s house. But there was a flip side: Maunika could do the same. Besides, she had the vexatious habit of not returning in time the textbooks or notebooks she had borrowed. On some occasions, she didn’t return them at all. This meant Ramya had to write her exams without sufficient preparation. If asked, Daddy would’ve bought her a new textbook without giving it another thought. But how could one replace an exercise book in which she’d taken down copious notes?
The same was true of her storybooks. Maunika would borrow her shiny paperback copies of novels by Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart and later return them in a dog-eared condition, if she bothered to return them at all. Novels were meant to be read, but what Maunika did with them challenged one’s imagination. Did she give the books to her infant nephews and nieces to cut their teeth on?
Maunika seemed to think her obligation ended by saying: “I’m sorry.” If Ramya persisted, Maunika would give a peculiar look and sigh. “I said, I’m sorry, didn’t I?” She managed to suggest that Ramya was making too much of a fuss, and her tone implied, come on, it’s only a book, for pity’s sake!
The cost of maintaining Maunika as a best friend was high indeed. Was it a surprise then that Amma didn’t like Maunika one bit? Amma wasn’t the kind to hide her dislike. “Be careful with her,” she’d warn Ramya. “She’s not a dependable girl.”
“Amma, I’ll be careful. But Maunika isn’t a bad sort at all,” Ramya would say, making an unconvincing, halfhearted defense. Once she had proclaimed Maunika her best friend, Ramya wanted to be loyal and steadfast.
Her father, ingenuous as he was, didn’t share Amma’s misgivings — the fact that Ramya considered Maunika her dearest friend was enough for him. He made a lot of fuss over Maunika when he saw her, much to Amma’s fury.
“Did you give Maunika a slice of the plum cake?” he’d ask. Or: “Why don’t you let Maunika ride on your new bicycle?”
It was a miracle Amma didn’t explode when Daddy made such naïve utterances. Everyone could hear her grumbling in the kitchen while serving a portion of a sweet for Maunika, taking extra care to cut a thinner slice. But Maunika was too thick-skinned to mind anything; she knew what she wanted, and got it any which way. This quality evoked grudging admiration from Ramya.
When Ramya was in Grade 10, Daddy bought her a proper dressing table, a kind of rites-of-passage event. It sported a bevelled Belgian mirror, and came with a cushioned stool. Ramya populated its Formica faux-wood surface with a modest collection of scents and cosmetics. Deployed like toy soldiers were jars, tins and bottles: Afghan Snow, Charmis cold cream, Tata’s hair oil and eau de cologne, Pond’s Dreamflower talcum powder, Shringar scented bindi, and a flat round tin of locally made kohl whose brand name she couldn’t recall — was it Eyetex?
Ramya wasn’t the sort of girl who’d sit brooding in front of a dressing table mirror in throes of pubescent angst, counting her zits. She used cosmetics just enough to look presentable, and smell good.
Ramya had varied interests but reading came first, and her favourite author was Daphne du Maurier. She also liked sports and played shuttle badminton in her front yard with the maids who were utterly hopeless at the game and were apt to giggle uncontrollably whenever they missed hitting the bird. Ramya also learned the traditional dance-art of Kuchipudi, but performed it in lackadaisical fashion.
When Maunika came over, she wasn’t interested in playing scrabble or listening to music on the Philips hi-fi Daddy had bought for Ramya, but would make a beeline to the new dressing table. She would settle down on the sumptuously cushioned stool and converse with Ramya’s reflection in the mirror. Ramya, reclining on the pillows propped against the headboard of the bed, would address her replies to Maunika’s slim back. The drill was the same every time. First, the preliminary small talk, then Maunika would open container after container and sniff at their contents. How often would one want to smell Tata’s eau de cologne? The next step was to dig deep into a jar of snow or cold cream (or both), scoop out generous dollops, and pat them on to her face. Then Maunika would apply a large bindi on her forehead, painstakingly filling in the colour with the tiny tip of the applicator stick.
Ramya could only gaze helplessly at her friend’s antics. With liberal daubs of cream on her cheeks, and a large red bindi decorating her forehead, Maunika reminded one of a professional clown. But it was no laughing matter. At least not for Amma. If she chanced upon Maunika with her face slobbered with cream, Ramya got an earful right there in the presence of her friend.
“Have you any idea how much they cost?” Amma would scream. Ramya felt like a whipping boy, and her helplessness only increased. Maunika for her part didn’t show a whit of penitence.
Truth to tell, Amma didn’t have a clue as to the cost of the cosmetics because she never used them, except for talcum powder. Cosmetics were a luxury beyond the reach of her husband’s salary of a lowly government clerk.
In the first year of Junior College, the equivalent to Grade 11, Maunika’s father was transferred out of Hyderabad, and her family prepared to leave.
“It’s the best news I
’ve heard in a long, long time,” Amma said. “This calls for a celebration!”
When Ramya planned a farewell treat for Maunika, Amma said tartly that that wasn’t the celebration she had in mind.
Ramya invited another friend by the name of Sujatha to the small get-together she organized. She asked Sujatha to accompany her because young girls from good families didn’t sally forth alone, even in broad daylight. Daddy was visiting a very sick patient and couldn’t drive them to the restaurant, so they took an auto-rickshaw, the door-less three-wheeled taxi. Known simply as ‘auto’, it was more expensive than a bus but far cheaper than the yellow-roofed taxi.
Even in those days, Maunika could be described as a bold thing. (She was too young to be called fast.) She came on her own, taking a road transport bus, which had cost her just a quarter of a rupee.
The day was bright and shining like polished brass, and it presaged a scorching summer. Inside the restaurant it was cool and dark, the air laced with redolence of the oil they used for cooking. Ramya was very sensitive to smells; others didn’t seem to mind so much. The three of them entered a section marked Family, pushing open a pair of springy glass-paned half-doors. The ceiling fans overhead whirred frenziedly as if on steroids. There were other customers in the room, including a legitimate family, a small noisy group of women unaccompanied by men, and a young dating couple who whispered timorously to each other, heads bent.
The trio seated themselves in a corner, on bench-like seats with high backs. Sujatha was an eager, talkative girl — a charming but intriguing mixture of unworldly naiveté and sharp native intelligence. When Maunika saw that Ramya had brought Sujatha along, she grimaced. Sujatha took it in her stride, not making an issue. Ramya had often heard her remark that it took all kinds to make the world go round.
The chole-bhathura they ordered came soon, on a stainless-steel tray perched on the waiter’s shoulder. The chole was in porcelain tubs, and the deliciously puffy moonlike bhathuras stacked on plates. The chole was excellent and had a taste unique to the restaurant.
“Could it be because they add anardana?” Ramya hazarded, meaning crushed pomegranate seeds.
Maunika shrugged, busily tucking into the food; she couldn’t be bothered with finer culinary points. She took another helping of the peculiar cocktail onions doctored a purple-pink and kept in a cruet on the table.
Sujatha, biting into the luscious long green paprika which came as a side, said: “I wonder if it’s that — or is it because of the kala namak, black salt? I don’t know much about north Indian cooking, but the chole tastes divine. Even the bhathuras for that matter!”
Sujatha enjoyed the food, making ecstatic comments between morsels. Maunika had a bored expression, as if blasé of the food and the company. Ramya and Sujatha finished every particle of their portions, but Maunika left half a bhathura and a good helping of the chole uneaten.
“Sorry, but I must take care of my figure.”
“Really,” Sujatha said. “You look like a matchstick as it is.”
“Let’s order some dessert,” Ramya butted in quickly, and looked around for a waiter.
Sujatha chose a modest slice of strawberry ice cream, while Ramya opted for a fruit salad — a handful of anaemiclooking pieces of tinned fruit with a tiny finial of vanilla ice cream. Sujatha rolled her eyes when Maunika went in for the Honeymoon Special — a triple sundae which came in a tall frosted glass with three scoops of ice cream, and a variety of diced fruit, interspersed with jam, jelly, and nuts. The top looked like a Viking’s helmet with two triangular wafers stuck on the uppermost scoop. The ice cream cost the earth. It was a good thing Ramya’s father always insisted that she take more than enough money with her when she went out.
Sujatha gazed at Maunika with wonderment as the latter ate the ice cream with a detached expression, a sort of urban sophistication. But she managed to polish off every bite — totally unmindful of her figure.
“How was your sundae?” Ramya asked.
“So-so,” Maunika replied, with a studied lack of enthusiasm.
Just before the waiter brought the bill, Ramya presented Maunika with a dress — a cream shalwar kameez with an elaborately embroidered yoke, and a tie-dye dupatta to match. In return, Maunika whipped something out of her pocket, and gave it to Ramya. It was brown and gold tube of lipstick. When Ramya unscrewed the top to look inside, the first thing she noticed was that the purple lipstick had been used — the gleaming bullet-shaped stick was scuffed at the top, as if someone’s lips had left tread marks on it.
Ramya screwed the top back on hastily, and put the lipstick into her handbag.
Standing in front of the mirror, Ramya runs a comb through her wavy hair; it’s still manageable, but will become more recalcitrant unless she washes it on the weekend.
Weekend! That word again. What meaning does the word have now? For an out-of-work employee the entire week is one long weekend. It could be one long party, if she started receiving her EI payments. But then she’ll have to complete and submit her forms. When will she ever get to doing it?
Still peering into the mirror, she tells herself: “I think it’s time I paid a visit to Tressa.” Tressa is her hairdresser. Ramya has been her customer for many years now.
“On the other hand, I don’t think I should. It will cost me nearly eighty bucks, and I have nowhere to go …”
Ramya suddenly remembers that she promised her colleague Wilma, when she called her a few days ago, that she’d drop by today. Wilma was laid off at the same time; otherwise who’d be at home on a Thursday morning to receive visitors? They’re sisters-in-arms, Wilma and she. But Wilma was a little ahead of Ramya in planning the next stage of the campaign. It would be good to talk things over with her.
Half an hour later, on the way to Wilma’s house, Ramya calls her and says she’ll be late by a few minutes. It’s almost noon. She stops at a Tim Hortons drive-through and buys two double-doubles.
Wilma lives in a nice, quiet neighbourhood with apple trees and manicured lawns. But today, on a grey winter morning, the trees look bare and scorched, and the lawns lie doggo under an eiderdown of snow.
Ramya and Wilma sit at the small dining table in the kitchen, sipping their coffee. It’s cold in the kitchen. The furnace is probably set on low to save money. The french windows look on to a backyard covered with snow that looks like a sea of congealed spittle. Ramya nibbles at the Danish which Wilma has picked up cheap at Costco. At 5’8”, Wilma is tall for a Filipina. She’d worked on the assembly line before being laid off.
Wilma’s husband Jason works a courier-van driver, and still has his job. But courier companies too are feeling the heat as the economy slowly but surely slips into a recession. They have three children of school-going age, and a mortgage for a large house. Coping on one salary isn’t easy, even if their mortgage principal is not huge. They bought the house when the real estate prices were low, before all this business of mysterious buyers from China flooding the market and driving up the prices.
Wilma is trying to cut costs by buying things in bulk or shopping at discount stores. A few weeks ago, she even visited Value Village, a shop re-selling the jetsam from the use-and-throw society. While shopping she’d felt a wave of shame suddenly wash over her, so she abandoned her half-full buggy in an aisle, and strode out of the shop empty-handed.
“It’s nearly three weeks since I submitted all the papers,” Wilma says. “I don’t know why it’s taking them so much time.”
Wiping the strawberry filling stuck to her mouth with a tissue called Truly, an inexpensive substitute for Kleenex, Ramya says: “Did you speak to Lisa about it?”
Lisa works in the HR department, and, not surprisingly, has managed to hang on to her job. She’s a young, bright, energetic and precise Chinese woman who, when caught off guard, is prone to call Ramya Lameea. To be fair, she’s friendly and helpful, and continues to be so even after they were laid off.
“I did. She’s says these things take time as it’s a
government office. They too have laid off their employees, apparently.”
“Downsizing,” Ramya says, nodding knowingly. “It’s the in thing with management all over the world. A new corporate fashion statement, like Kaizen or Quality Circles were once upon a time.”
Wilma looks blankly at her. Ramya, who has a management degree from back home, hastily presses on. “I spoke to Jamila the other day. She’s heard that our company might hire us back soon. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, I suppose.”
“Annie also told me the same thing. The management is planning to reopen one or two lines because demand is picking up in the U.S.A. She thinks there’s a good chance that some of us will be re-hired.”
“I don’t want to get my hopes all up only to be dashed again.” Life has taught Ramya that the glass is always half-empty, if not completely so. “I don’t mind this break from work, really. But it would have been good if I started getting the EI checks regularly.”
“When did you send in the forms?”
Ramya sighs, and shakes her head. “I haven’t done it yet.”
“Ramya! You should never neglect to do such an important thing. Go home and do it right away. How can you hope to win the lottery if you don’t even buy the ticket? In my horoscope today, I read that something good is coming my way.”
“It may be the postman with your EI cheque, who knows. When I get back home I’ll see what my horoscope in the Toronto Star says. There may be something about getting our jobs back.”
“We were getting the Toronto Sun, but we’ve put a stop to it. I read my horoscope online now.”
“Way to go! Let me know what you discover around the corner,” Ramya says, as she rises from her chair, and picks up her car keys and cellphone.
While returning from Wilma’s house, Ramya stops at the Indian grocery shop. It has an unwelcoming aspect: The front door is narrow, and handwritten flyers are stuck on the glass. There are stacks of free south Asian newspapers lying about. At the door, she selects a shopping basket with castors and drags it behind her. Besides groceries and produce, the shop sells everything remotely connected with India: telephone cards, Indian-style brooms, carom boards, mehndi paste, talcum powder, pain balms, and even Eno fruit salts, the white powder that hisses and bubbles in a glass of water, which her grandmother used to take if she thought she was suffering from a bout of acidity.