Miss New India

by Bharati Mukherjee

  No lights were on, but moonlight was pouring through the windows. The burglars had lifted two paintings off their brackets and leaned them against the wall, and with their backs to her, they were working on the next. They were laughing and talking loud enough to be understood, had she spoken Kannada, as though they'd been assured the house was empty. She knew the location of every chair and table in the living room; she could negotiate the passage to the far wall with her eyes closed.

  The men half-turned, facing each other, in order to lift the painting off its hooks. And that's when one of the men must have seen her from the corner of his eye; he gave a shout and dropped his end of the painting, and their eyes met and she remembered his face, and that's when Anjali aimed for his head and let the hockey stick fly. It caught him between the eyes, across the bridge of the nose, and he screamed as a plume of blood shot straight out; then he staggered and fell. The second goondah dropped his end of the painting, and it flopped toward her, separating her from him as he frantically turned his head in every direction. He was cursing loudly, and she screamed back at him, in Hindi, threatening to kill him as she had his partner. But he kept the painting between them and she couldn't squeeze her way around it and the sofa it had glanced off. Please, Auro, she prayed, wake up, call the police, but the bedroom door remained partially closed. And so she screamed again, "Thieves! Thieves!" in English, Bangla, and Hindi, and out of nowhere, from the darkened hallway behind him, Malhar leaped upon the man's shoulders, the low growl no longer a warning but a prelude to full attack. The thief fell, hands across the face, and the dog fastened on one wrist and shook it till the man's arm broke.

  It was over in seconds. Both men lay in blood, moaning, and the bedroom door opened and Parvati, still tying the sash of her nightdress, cried, "Anjali! What have you done?" Malhar was dragging his trophy by the wrist down to his hiding place at the end of the hall. And then Parvati saw for herself the damage, the paintings, the man at Anjali's feet, and heard the screams of the second goondah as Malhar pulled him into the shadows like a lamb bone to be gnawed over in the dark.

  Parvati screamed. Auro shouted, "Wha?" And upstairs Anjali heard a door close.

  THEY HAD THEIR breakfast, or at least their tea and granola with yogurt, at four A.M. The medical vans had taken away the burglars. Swati and her sister had swabbed the floors.

  Inspector Raja Venkatesh, known socially to Auro and Parvati, was on the scene. By Anjali's standards he was the perfect Bollywood police inspector: an aging heartthrob, efficient, trim, mustached, with epaulettes, graying temples, and perfect English. Even at four in the morning his starched trouser creases were knife-sharp, and his polished shoes reflected the kitchen spotlights.

  "These guys are known miscreants," he said. The second thief had been carried away, sobbing and trembling, as Malhar shadowed him to the door. The first goondah was in a coma from a fractured skull and had been carried out on a litter. "No legal jeopardy attaches to your action, sir," he said to Auro. "Warranted self-defense."

  With her recent police history, better that Anjali not be a part of it.

  "I trust the same immunity extends to my brave watchdog," Auro laughed. He patted Malhar's broad bottom.

  "Of course, sir. And my condolences for the other dog. Poisoned, no doubt." He sipped his tea. "I had no idea of your proficiency with a hockey stick, Mr. Banerji. Maybe we should be looking for you on the club tennis court?"

  "Hardly." He chuckled. "Schoolboy skills."

  "So brave," said Parvati. "But I do hope the poor boy pulls through."

  Rabi was slurping his granola and yogurt. "Those poor boys knew what they were looking for, didn't they?" he said.

  Inspector Venkatesh nodded. "They apparently were sent here on a mission—who sent them is still to be determined. Have you heard of All-Karnataka Auction House?"

  "Nothing at all," said Auro.

  "Nor have I," said Parvati.

  Fortunately, Inspector Venkatesh didn't look at Anjali. She remembered the van, and Rajoo peeling off his hundred-rupee notes.

  "Who's behind this auction house?" asked Rabi.

  "We have traced the abandoned van to that company. Those boys could have been employees." He seemed to be mulling over a mountain of additional commentary. "I need not mention to collectors like you that Indian antiquities—and what we might think of as yesterday's rubbish—have become international attractions. The big houses, the London and New York and Tokyo markets, they are involved with local providers who are not always, as we can see, on the up and up."

  And then, almost as if compelled to confess under duress, Anjali interjected, "I think I remember that company removing objects during the Bagehot House riot." It was the least, and the most, she could say. She should have shut up.

  He wrote it down. "You were a witness to such removals?"

  "I saw a van with that name on it."

  "Anjali was a tenant there," Parvati explained. The inspector took the news quietly. "Yes, Miss Anjali Bose. I am already knowing," he said.

  She didn't say everything she knew: His name is Lalu. He is the brother of my fellow Bagehot House tenant Sunita Sampath. He looked like a frightened mouse, just like her. He worked at Glitzworld for a man named Rajoo. Everyone knows Rajoo. He sent food and booze to Minnie Bagehot. I ate the mutton stew that Rajoo sent. Read Dynamo's columns. It's all connected.

  "Miss Bose, let me be the first to inform you that yesterday a passport in your name was found in an abandoned purse in Amsterdam. And yesterday, the body of a young Indian lady was discovered in an Amsterdam hotel. We believe it was your Bagehot House co-tenant, Miss Shiraz. She hanged herself by a T-shirt from the shower stall."

  He stood, shook hands with Auro, bowed to Parvati, patted Malhar's head, and nodded in Anjali's direction.

  WHEN SHE WENT up to her bedroom, she remembered the letter from Peter. Maybe it wasn't a continuation of the argument they'd had at Minnie's.

  Peter's handwriting was feathery light.

  My dear Angie, I am ashamed of how I behaved in Bangalore. You have endured aspects of this beloved country that expats and refugees have been spared. I was too categorical and overbearing. Smugly superior, whatever you might call it—I apologize. Your father's passing is very much on my mind. Life is too short, death too sudden to behave with anything but affection and gratitude.

  Your father's passing tells a mighty, and a humbling tale. The persistence of colonial castes like "sub-inspectors," the deputies and the assistants that the Indian system inherited and then respawned, and the stubborn dignity of the so-called "little man" makes me weep. (I've been weeping quite copiously these past several days.) There is such a tone of bent-back dignity to his "steadfast" and "unyielding" life (in the words of the obituary notice), of never quite rising to a position of leadership, and the unending dedication to duty, duty, duty. No mention of joy, fulfillment, or happiness—it's heroic.

  I think of the millions of men in India like your father who still bicycle to work or ride the buses and commuter trains each morning, rooted to the town and the vocation of their fathers and grandfathers. They shuffle papers, drink endless cups of tea, stamp documents, then make their same way back home at the same time each working day of their lives. Places have been found for them, in the millions, and should any one of them pass on, the system would not grind to a halt. And yet, as the playwright said, "Attention must be paid." To understand what's noble in India is to understand that their lives coexist with yours and millions like it in a dozen other new-age Bangalores. I hope you read this as I intend it, not as questioning of your father's achievement in life but as the fulfillment of all that his life and his vision offered him.

  I have talked on the phone to your sister and have faith that in time your mother will acknowledge, at least to herself, why you had to run away from home. That time has not yet come. Your sister will keep me informed of her physical and emotional health with the understanding that I will relay the information to you.

&n
bsp; On a different subject (forgive me if I'm being presumptuous): You were wronged by the man your father selected. Believe me, dear Angie, I had not meant it literally when I said that your formal marriage portrait would only fetch up monsters. Last week I read of a man (his picture accompanied the story) who had been arrested as a criminal imposter. He has been able to swindle dowry gifts from anxious fathers and much else from their daughters. One of the fathers (unnamed) swore out a warrant. It was mentioned that Gauripur was one place he visited. If this is so, your father must have understood the full story behind your leaving. That man is now in jail. He is an embodiment of another aspect of the New and Old India in one criminal soul.

  I too have gone through a lifetime's change in the past few days. You remember Ali (how could you not?). Well, he is gone, along with a sizable portion of my savings. It was his dream that he undergo a certain dangerous and expensive surgery. But from street gossip I hear it went badly for him. Now I fear for his very life. The mutilation of so beautiful a creation is a nightmare from which I'll never awake.

  So, to honor him, or at least to honor the changes he brought about, I'm trying not to slip back into my old solitary habits. The flowerpots still light up the steps, bright calendars still hang from the walls, and books are neatly lined in cases. Almost in a daze I seem to find flowers to put on the table at night, and somewhere I found a bright bedspread to cover the mattress. If you ever come back to Gauripur for a short visit or resettlement I hope you'll make your first call a visit to your old friend and teacher, Peter.

  P.S. You and Ali are the only two people in decades to have pierced my shell. I wanted to be an instrument in your salvation (to put a high gloss on my interventions); with Ali, my interference might prove self-defeating, if not fatal. I pray that your activities in Bangalore will redeem my clumsy but well-intentioned encouragement, as well as Ali's impulsive embrace of his life's dream.

  Peter

  Suddenly she was back in Gauripur. It was again the day she'd visited Peter Champion to show him her marriage portrait, and Peter had said she was dead to him if she married. "Weak and weary," she kept repeating. "Ray-venn." He called the portrait somehow obscene. Still holding it, she'd started walking back home, fighting tears, but had found herself walking past the da Gama campus. And she was sobbing again. Let Swati eavesdrop on the howls and growls of a woman breaking down. The tears were for Peter, who still cared for his protégée, and for her father, who, in his clumsy way, had cared too much for the rebel daughter.

  In the garden next door, Citibank Srinivasan of the booming voice exhorted elephant-headed God Ganesha, son of Goddess Parvati, to liberate all mortals from the tormenting cycle of reincarnation. In the kitchen Swati and her sister cooked lunch and prepped dinner for the Banerjis, drop-in guests, and household staff. And in a Gauripur sparkly with Anjali's tears, "Railways Bose" lounged, whiskey in hand, feet propped on a low morah, enrapturing Mrs. Bose with his harangue on statewide graft and greed, and Angie dreamed up a perfect groom.

  And then he picks up the newspaper, left over from the morning. There is a picture of a boy he remembers, and an article. What? Is he getting married? What? Is he so famous, his exploits merit the front page? But it is a police report, and the accusations against him are enough to rip a father's heart to pieces.

  "Oh, Anjali," he cries, "I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? I would not have been compelled to do what I now must do."

  9

  Mr. GG delivered on all his promises. Mr. GG's MBA classmate, Mr. K. K. Jagtiani, director of the HR division at RecoverySys, had his personal assistant, Mrs. Melwani, call Anjali on the Banerjis' land line. Would Miss Bose care to have Mrs. Melwani initiate the setting up of "a chat" with Mr.D. K.Jagtiani, the deputy in charge of human resources (a younger brother of Mr. K. K., she assumed, in a Sindhi-owned business, if family names are any indication), to take place after his return from his business trip to California and Michigan? If so, Mrs. Melwani would request Mr.D. K. Jagtiani's personal assistant, Miss Lalwani, to get in touch directly with Miss Bose to squeeze her into his calendar.

  In the Bose family hierarchy of Indian groups to avoid all dealings with, Sindhis usually ranked near the top.

  Anjali summoned all of her "phone poise." "Certainly, if I am still available then," she said. "And I'd prefer Miss Lalwani to call me on my cell phone. Let me give you that number."

  Mrs. Melwani stopped her. "Not to worry; we have it on file. Telephone numbers, current address, résumé."

  Résumé? She had no job experience. Mr. GG must have taken liberties with truth when he'd pitched her to his friend. If Miss Lalwani called to set up the meeting with her boss, she would instruct her to spell her first name as Anjolie. A day could start with guilt and grief but end in hope. Let Citibank Srinivasan aim for nirvana; she was happy to be mired in maya.

  PARVATI OFFERED TO coach Anjali for the upcoming interview. If the delinquent debtors were like Thelma Whitehead, her fictitious caller from Arkansas, they would probably resent being dunned by an agent with a detectable Indian accent. She sounded excited. "Thanks for alerting CCI to this brand-new outlet. Debt recovery, how exciting." Anjali would be her guinea pig for a training manual for pay-up-or-else phone specialists. For RecoverySys, Anjali's voice would have to project authority. Start with compassionate authority, shift to credit-score damage, then to legal intimidation. Parvati had met K. K. Jagtiani at a couple of fund-raisers, she added, but not his son or cousin or brother, D. K. Jagtiani. At the time of their meeting, Mr. K. K. Jagtiani had been exploring an intercontinental cremation-and-ash-scattering service for overseas Indians.

  "I guess that Hindu NRI corpse-disposal scheme didn't get off the ground," Auro laughed. He too volunteered to help Anjali get interview-ready. "If you're going to be dealing with Sindhis, how about we watch some episodes of The Sopranos ?"

  After dinner the next night, he sat Anjali and Parvati down on either side of him on the widest sofa in the living room and started playing the first of three seasons of The Sopranos. Dozens whacked, or were whacked. Young whacked old, brothers whacked brothers, cousins whacked cousins, bag guys whacked debtors, enforcers whacked snitches.

  "Who needs the mafia," Auro joked, "when you've got an Indian extended family?"

  "Is that a dig at the Bhattacharjees?" Parvati demanded. "Let me tell you, Anjali, Tony's mother reminds me of Auro's mother."

  "That's totally out of bounds!" Auro fumed.

  "Okay, okay, mother-in-law jokes are funny only on TV."

  Anjali went to bed at dawn and dreamed of ducks bobbing in the swimming pool. It didn't matter that Anjali didn't know how to swim because in her dream she was Meadow Soprano.

  RABI CUT SHORT his scouting trip for his next photo assignment by three days. "Orders from Baba, Parvati Auntie," he announced. "Ma, Baba, and Kallie will be here in two weeks, and I'm supposed to line up properties for Baba to view."

  Auro faked exasperation. "Oh, oh, you know what that means, Anjali, don't you? Less time for us. Much less time for Carmela and Tony. Once the two sisters start their adda, there's no stopping. I'll need a vacation from them!"

  Adda. Bangla talk-talk over endless tea. Or, in Dollar Colony, over white wine.

  The comfort zone of make-believe family in the Banerjis' home collapsed suddenly. She wasn't Parvati's and Auro's daughter; she wasn't even their houseguest; she was their rescue project, like a street dog. Parvati's excitement swirled around her. "Rabi, do you think I should put your mother and the baby in Bhupesh's suite?" "Auro, remember to lay in a lot of beer. Bish likes his Kingfisher, but not warm the way we drink it." "I'll get the mali's wife to come in once a day and take care of the extra laundry." "Oh, I can't wait to have a baby in the house. It's a first for your graying auntie!"

  Anjali didn't want to share Parvati and Auro. She begrudged Tara and her baby girl the sweet simplicity of Parvati's love for them. Parvati's sister-love had not been dipped in bile. Parvati hadn't killed her father nor predeceased
him. Bitterness soured into dread. The brief, impossible friendship she had forged with Rabi in Gauripur was at stake. Monet, moray, light and angle. Restore mountain, please. But there were only a half-dozen pull-down props, and the Banerjis' living room was not among them. She would have to move on, again.

  PARVATI SETTLED INTO a deck chair under a jasmine-covered pergola and waved to Anjali to join her. "Come, sit by me," she insisted when Anjali hesitated. "I need a break from this stuff." She pointed to the screen of her laptop. "Not quite Napa, but Doddaballapur will get there. Farmland to vineyard, thanks to Bish, who loves wine and wine lovers like his wife and sister-in-law." She put her glass of chardonnay on a stack of real estate brochures by her feet.

  Anjali squatted on the grass, envying Parvati, envying most of all her trust in strangers. Even when a well-meaning stranger could open the gates to monsters. Money made for that kind of self-confidence. Money was the safety net of women like Parvati and Rabi's mother. Money made possible ayurvedic spa-pampered skin and radiant hair. They had never been homeless, never starved, they'd never stolen, never had to seduce a potential benefactor.

  She had left Gauripur believing in the world of Peter Champion. Poverty was virtuous. Knowledge was protection enough. Love, at long last, would come her way. Nothing would change, year after year, except the names of students. And look at what Bangalore had done to her in just a few months. She had dared to reach above her station, she'd reached for happiness, and all she'd done was bring a shelf of bricks down on her head.