Secret Daughter

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

  “Papa,” Nimish says, “enough questions. Give her a break. She just got here, she’s tired.”

  Asha smiles at her cousin’s defense. She yawns and leans her head against the car window. Outside, she sees the billboards that line the highway, advertising everything from fashion boutiques and Bollywood films, to mutual funds and mobile phone service. At some point, the scene outside the Ambassador shifts from high-rises to housing slums: dilapidated shacks, clothes hung on lines overhead, trash littered everywhere, stray animals wandering about. Asha has seen photos in her preparatory research, but those shots didn’t give her an indication of how enormous the slums were. Mile after mile of the same depressing scenery, even shielded by darkness, begins to give Asha a heavy feeling in her stomach. She recalls her mother’s anxious warnings about visiting such places and considers, for the first time, if she was right.

  34

  BROTHER AND SISTER

  Mumbai, India—2004

  ASHA

  ON HER FIRST MORNING IN MUMBAI, ASHA WAKES EARLIER than she would prefer to the sounds of the household coming to life. She pulls on her yoga pants from the plane and shuffles out to the main room she passed through briefly the night before. An old woman dressed in a crisp green sari sits at the dining table, drinking from a teacup.

  “Good morning,” Asha says.

  “Ah, Asha beti! Good morning.” The old woman stands up to greet her. “Look at you,” she says, taking both of Asha’s hands in hers. “I hardly recognize you, you’ve grown so much. Do you know me, beti? Your father’s mother. Your grandmother. Dadima.”

  Dadima is taller than she expected, with impeccable posture. Her face is soft and lined, and her gray hair is pulled into a large bun at the nape of her neck. She wears several thin gold bangles on each wrist, which jangle whenever she moves. Asha is a little unsure how to greet her, but before she can think about it, Dadima pulls her into her arms. Her embrace is warm and comforting and lasts for several moments.

  “Come, sit, have some tea. What will you take for breakfast?” Dadima leads Asha by the arm over to the table.

  Asha appreciates the bowl of fresh cut mango in front of her. It feels as if she hasn’t eaten anything but airplane food in days. As she sips her hot sweet tea, they talk. She’s surprised at how good Dadima’s English is, though she does occasionally lapse into Gujarati.

  “Dadaji, your grandfather, is at the hospital just now, but he will be back for lunch. Oh beti, the whole family is so excited to see you. I’ve called them all for lunch this Saturday. I wanted to give you a few days to get settled and adjusted to the time change and whatnot.”

  “That sounds good. They’re not expecting me at the Times office until next Monday morning,” Asha says. Just speaking these words gives her a thrill, the idea of working at a major international newspaper. After breakfast, Asha retrieves the envelope of photos given to her by her father, and asks Dadima to help name everyone again. Dadima looks through the pictures, laughing periodically at how outdated they are. “Oh, your cousin Jeevan has not been that thin in a long time, though she thinks she still looks just like this!”

  Dadima shows Asha how to use the primitive shower in the bathroom, first turning on the hot water tank for ten minutes. Bathing takes more effort than Asha is accustomed to, with the weak water pressure and the ever-shifting temperature. By the time she’s dressed, she is exhausted again and falls asleep on her bed, sleeping right through Dadaji’s visit home for lunch. When she does finally meet her grandfather at dinner, she is taken aback to find him so serene. She expected someone more like her own father, ambitious and assertive. It is her grandmother who appears to have the bigger personality, telling stories, laughing and ordering the servants around with a snap of her fingers. Dadaji sits at the head of the table, eating quietly. When he smiles at one of his wife’s stories, his eyes crinkle up at the corners and he nods his silver-crowned head.

  Asha spends her first several days in Mumbai getting acclimated. The jet lag makes her feel as if she’s walking around in a fog. Drowsiness overwhelms her in the middle of the day. The weather is stifling—hot and muggy, compelling her to stay indoors most of the time. When she does go outside to accompany Dadima somewhere, she is always shocked by the filth and poverty she sees on the streets, right outside the gates of their building. She holds her breath when they pass the putrid spots and averts her eyes from the beggar children who follow them.

  Each time they return to the flat, she immediately heads for the air-conditioning unit in her room and stands in front of it until her body temperature returns to normal. Then there is the Indian food served thrice daily, which is spicier than she’s accustomed to and forces her stomach through its own adjustments. She does not feel like herself, and every aspect of her surroundings—the bread that comes wrapped in small squares, the newspaper the color of pale pink nail polish—reminds her of how far she is from home. She considers calling home for some comfort, but pride holds her back.

  FINALLY, SATURDAY COMES, THE DAY OF THE BIG FAMILY LUNCH. Asha wears a blue linen sundress and puts on a little blush and mascara. It’s the first time she’s worn makeup since leaving California. In the heat here, it feels like it may melt right off her face, but she does want to look nice. Dadima has been buzzing about the flat all morning, overseeing the servants as they prepare an enormous feast.

  Once people start arriving, the stream never ceases. Relatives of all ages rush over to Asha wearing big smiles and pretty saris. They call her by name, embrace her, hold her face in their hands. They remark on how tall she is, her beautiful eyes. Some of them look vaguely familiar, but most do not. They introduce themselves to her in rapid, yet lengthy ways, such as: “Your father’s uncle and my uncle were brothers. We used to play cricket out behind the old house.” Asha tries to remember their names and match them up with the photos but soon realizes this is both improbable and unnecessary. There are at least thirty people here, and despite the fact she is meeting them for the first time, everyone treats her as if they’ve known her for years.

  When the initial rush of meeting everyone is past, people make their way through the buffet table. After getting her plate, Asha sees a group of younger women sitting together who introduced themselves to her earlier as her cousins of one sort or another. Priya, a twenty-something with auburn-highlighted hair and large gold hoop earrings, waves Asha over to join them. “Come, Asha, sit here with us,” she says with a big smile, moving over to make space. “Leave the aunties and uncles to their gossip.”

  Asha sits down. “Thanks.”

  “You’ve met everybody, no?” Priya says. “That’s Bindu, Meetu, Pushpa, and this is Jeevan. She is our eldest cousin sister, so we must treat her with respect.” Priya winks at the group. Asha remembers Dadima’s comment about Jeevan’s waistline expansion and smiles.

  “Don’t worry, you don’t have to remember everyone’s names. That’s the beauty of the Indian clan. You can just call everyone Auntie-Uncle, Bhai-Ben.” Priya gives a hearty laugh.

  “Okay, I understand Auntie and Uncle, but what do the others mean?” Asha says.

  “Bhai-Ben?” Priya says. “Brother and sister. That’s what we all are.” Priya winks again.

  Asha looks around at the dozens of people laughing, talking, eating, all gathered together for her. This family of her father’s, who have known one another their whole lives, grown up together in this city, this very building. This warm, bubbling pool of people that promises to draw her in with its centripetal force, not seeming to care that she shares neither their history nor their blood. She smiles and takes her first bite of the food that has been prepared in her honor. It is delicious.

  35

  TIMES OF INDIA

  Mumbai, India—2004

  ASHA

  ASHA PULLS THE DOOR OPEN BY ITS BRASS HANDLE AND FEELS A rush of cool air greet her. Inside, her heels click against marble as she walks toward the elevator. Ensconced in the middle of the wall is a large plaque with the inscri
ption: THE TIMES OF INDIA, ESTABLISHED 1839.

  “Lift, madam?” The elevator operator wears a two-piece gray polyester suit.

  “Yes, sixth floor, please.” Asha is no longer surprised when someone addresses her in English. Her cousins have explained that Indians can peg her immediately as a foreigner, with her Western-style clothing and shoulder-length hair. Even the fact that she makes eye contact with people is a giveaway. Despite this, she enjoys the novelty of walking down the streets among a crowd of people who look like her. Asha shares the elevator with two other passengers and the operator. They stand with only a few inches between them, and this space is permeated by the stale odor of sweat. This elevator, like most she’s found here, isn’t air-conditioned, with only a weakly circulating fan overhead to stir up the pungent air.

  At the reception desk on the sixth floor, Asha asks for Mr. Neil Kothari, her main contact at the newspaper. She sits down in the reception area and picks up this morning’s Times when Mr. Kothari appears. He is a tall gangly man about her father’s age, with his necktie loosened and hair disheveled. She declines his offer of a cup of tea and follows him to his office. They walk through the Times’s office, a large open room with rows of desks lined with computers. The place is noisy with ringing phones, clattering printers, and myriad voices. She can feel the energy pulsing here, the biggest newsroom she’s ever seen, all filled with brown faces.

  “I think I’m the last one with a typewriter still in my office,” says Mr. Kothari. “Of course, I don’t actually write much anymore, but I still like to have it.” Around the perimeter of the open room are several offices enclosed by glass walls. Mr. Kothari leads her into one, with a nameplate that says ASSOCIATE EDITOR on the wooden door. “Please have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the chairs. “Are you sure you won’t take some chai…tea?”

  “No, thank you.” Asha crosses her legs and takes out her notebook.

  “Nai,” he says, to someone over her shoulder. Asha turns to see that a short, dark-skinned man has appeared silently in the doorway. His toenails, thick and yellow, are splayed grotesquely across his thin worn sandals. He nods imperceptibly at Mr. Kothari and leaves as quietly as he came, never once glancing in Asha’s direction. “Very well, so you are here, all the way from America. Welcome to Mumbai! How are you finding it?” Mr. Kothari asks her.

  “Good, thank you. I’m very excited to be here, to be collaborating with such a great newspaper on my project,” says Asha.

  “And we too are excited to have such an accomplished young woman here. I’ll introduce you to Meena Devi, one of our best field reporters. Fearless, she is, sometimes to a fault. She will be an excellent mentor for you.” Mr. Kothari hits a button on his phone, and a young woman appears promptly at his door. “Please get Meena here right away.” A few minutes later, another person appears in the doorway, but instead of waiting outside like the others, this woman breezes in and sits down.

  “Achha, what is so important, Neil, that I had to come just this very minute? I’m working under deadline, you know?” She is a small woman, not much taller than five feet, but her presence electrifies the mild atmosphere of Mr. Kothari’s office.

  “Meena, this is Asha Thakkar, the young lady from America who’s here—”

  “Yes, of course!” Meena lurches out of her chair to pump Asha’s hand.

  “You remember,” Mr. Kothari continues, “she’s doing a project on children growing up in the slums. We have set up a desk for her near your office. Your job is to take good care of her. Show her the real Mumbai. But make sure she’s safe,” he adds quickly.

  “Come on, Asha.” Meena stands. “I have to finish this story and then we’ll go for lunch. To see the real Mumbai,” she says, glancing over her shoulder at Mr. Kothari as they leave.

  Asha spends the next couple of hours reading through a stack of clipping files that have been gathered on her desk, along with a few basic office supplies and an outdated computer. As she flips through a folder containing the previous in-depth feature reports the Times has run, Meena intermittently taps away at the keyboard in her office nearby. Asha reads a story on the rise of the information services industry, and another on the operational efficiencies of the city-wide tiffin-carrier system. She is just beginning to believe Mumbai is the next great modern industrial capital of the world when she comes across a feature story on bride-burning.

  She reads in disbelief about young brides who are doused with gasoline and burned alive when their dowries are deemed insufficient. She turns to another story, about a member of the Untouchable caste who intentionally crippled his own children to foster sympathy and increase their begging earnings. The next feature is on the fantastic success of Lakshmi Mittal, the global steel-industry titan. The one after that is on the latest political scandal, detailing corruption and bribery charges against several government ministers. The last story in this folder is on the 2002 Gujarat riots between Hindus and Muslims, in which thousands of people were killed. After reading about neighbors who torched each other’s houses and stabbed each other in the streets, Asha closes the folder, and then her eyes. She wonders whether a sample of stories from the New York Times would inspire the same intensity of both shame and pride in her.

  “Almost done over here. Hungry?” Meena calls out from her office.

  “THIS PLACE HAS THE BEST PAU-BHAJI IN ALL OF MUMBAI,” MEENA says over the roar of the train. “If I’m anywhere within ten minutes of this spot, I have to go there, whether it’s mealtime or not.” Asha doesn’t know what pau-bhaji is, or whether she will like it, but Meena doesn’t seem concerned about this. Once they leave the noisy train, they can carry on a regular conversation again. “So, what did you think of the clippings you read?” Meena says.

  “Good. I mean, the quality of writing and reporting is excellent, of course,” Asha says.

  Meena laughs. “I meant the subject matter. What do you think of our fine country? It’s a five-star pile of contradictions, isn’t it? I selected those clippings for you because they show the extremes of India, the good and the bad. Some people like to demonize India for her weaknesses, others only glorify her strengths. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.”

  Asha finds it hard to keep up with Meena as she maneuvers the sidewalk, darting through its assorted population: men who spit carelessly on the ground, scrawny dogs without owners, children begging for change. And as hazardous as it is on the sidewalk, the roads seem infinitely worse: cars weave in and out of lanes and pay little attention to traffic signals, double-decker buses careen dangerously close to oblivious cows and goats. “There are one billion people living in India,” Meena says, “and nearly ninety percent of them live outside major cities, that means small towns and rural villages. Mumbai—even the real Mumbai, as Neil calls it—is only a tiny fraction of the country. But it is a powerful fraction. This place draws people like a magnet. It has the best and worst of everything India has to offer. Ah, here we are.” Meena walks up to a street stall. “Doh pau-bhaji, sahib. Ek extra mild.” She turns and smiles at Asha.

  “This? This is where we’re having lunch?” Asha looks at the street vendor and then at Meena in disbelief. “I…I don’t think I should do this. I’m not supposed to eat street food…”

  “Relax, Asha, you’ll be fine. Anything the heat doesn’t kill, the spices will. Come on, you’re in India now—you have to experience the real thing. Wait until you taste it!” Meena hands Asha a rectangular paper tray filled with a reddish brown stew topped with chopped raw onions and a lemon wedge and two glossy white buns on the side. They stand at the edge of the walkway as a line forms in front of the stall. Asha follows Meena’s method of tearing off a piece of the bun and dipping it in the stew. She takes her tentative first bite. It is tasty. And very, very spicy. She looks around frantically for something to drink and recalls her mother’s warnings about the dangers of unsanitized water.

  “How is it? I told him to make yours mild.” Meena smiles. “Tourist version.”


  “It’s…a little spicy. What’s in it?”

  “Leftover vegetables mashed together with vegetables. It was devised as a quick meal for millworkers. Now it’s one of the most common street foods in Mumbai, and no two places make it the same. And no place in Mumbai”—Meena licks her fingers—“makes it like this place.” After they eat, Meena says, “Come on, let’s walk a little. I want to show you something.” Asha follows, unsure after their lunch if she should really trust Meena. After only a block or two, they find themselves at the edge of an enormous settlement.

  “Well, here we are. This is Dharavi,” Meena says, dramatically extending her arm. “The largest slum in Mumbai, the largest in India and perhaps all of Asia. A dubious distinction, but there you have it.”

  Asha looks around, slowly. Homes—if you can call them that—half the size of her bedroom, crammed up against one another. People spilling forth from each of the doorways—an old toothless man, a weary-looking woman with stringy hair, small children barely clothed. And in all the spaces in between, filth—rotting food, human waste, piles of trash taller than her. The stench is overwhelming. She covers her nose, trying to be discreet. And then Asha sees something she can scarcely believe: right there on the sidewalk is a makeshift Hindu temple. A statue of a goddess in a pink sari draped with a small floral garland leans against a scrawny tree trunk. The goddess has a peaceful smile on her painted face, and there are flower petals and rice grains strewn at her feet. It looks so out of place, this little alcove of divinity amid all the squalor, yet no one else seems to think so. A five-star pile of contradictions, indeed.

  “Over a million people live here,” Meena says, “in just two square kilometers. Men, women, children, livestock. Factories producing everything from textiles to pencils to jewelry. A lot of what’s ‘Made in India,’ according to those tags you see, is made right here in Dharavi.”