We stop talking, he lets me go, and we take each other’s hands to form our own little circle, and look at each other. He flicks his head as if to restart his motor and asks, “What is that you are doing with that book and pencil … are you keeping records on me?” “No,” I say with a hint of artifice flooding my cheeks, “I am writing.” “I did not know you could write, you sly little fox. What are you writing?” he asks. “I am writing about how I came to Mumbai and fell head over heels in love with you, oh Prince Puneet of my dreams.”
Puneet half skips in the air as he laughs out loud in a bright, singing laugh and answers, “Batuk, you are my brain, my heart, my hands. You know that you are my only love. That little notebook can never contain even an ounce of my love for you.” I parry, “Soon, my beloved, you will be able to love me as a king, rather than as a prince,” and with that I drop my eyes down his chest to his groin. He is not flushed for a second and answers with a loud laugh. “This,” he says, pointing to his bhunnas, “is only for you, my beloved.”
Puneet snatches my book and runs (wincing) to the entrance to his nest, where he sits down. He opens my notebook and turns the pages one by one, knitting his brow and nodding his head. He looks up at me. “I am marvelous and beautiful, you say.” “Oh, that’s not all,” I respond. “Turn over and see on the next page … can you see? I write that you composed Shiva’s songs and that he fell in love with you.” He turns the page, stares at it, and nods. I laugh. “I know you can’t read, you stupid pretty boy.” He slaps the book shut, frowns, jumps up, and tries to smack my bottom with the book. “Stupid—you call me … you will pay for that!” He grabs me and my eyes dance with his.
This is how we talk: two prostitutes on the Common Street in Mumbai.
I was falling asleep on the maroon blanket when Father returned with a bowl of rice, dripping, and bread. “What a wonderful city,” he cried out with a huge smile on his face, “all of this and a beer for five rupees.” He was not carrying beer. After we shared the food, Father and I lay on the blanket. He held me curled into him, his tummy to my back. I slept well, adrift on a sea of scavengers.
I woke up amid the gentle crashing waves of a world starting to dart frenetically around me. As I wiped the crinkles from my eyes, I could see that Father was anxious to leave. We had a business appointment to attend and it was clear that being late was not an option; “Important business,” Father had said. As Father ventured out into the city streets I noticed that he seemed overwhelmed. I, on the other hand, was mesmerized. I had never seen cars sitting in line with people inside them. How they loved to sound their hooters. Why were children in uniform; were they in prison? Each time we got lost, there was more to see. For a while, I became fascinated by the patterns the paving stones made; I would see shapes hidden there and try to decode their secrets. Color was everywhere—in people’s clothes as they crammed on tiny buses, in the fields of washing hung to dry in the open-air laundry in the stores, and even in the heaps of rubbish. The city’s air was not only infused with smells, fumes, and dust but also a soup of color.
Father kept a blistering pace as we walked across the city, mostly lost. Oftentimes it was not his speed or irritability that bothered me but rather my need to stop frequently and examine all that pulsated around me. On one occasion, I was riveted to the spot watching a train packed with passengers speed through the city on rails suspended high in the air. It was as though the train flew through the sky. I was desperately hoping to see someone fall off but no one did. Father broke this moment of suspended time with a wrenching pull on my arm and off we set to become lost—yet again.
After getting lost almost a dozen times and Father becoming ever more frustrated, we arrived at our destination. I had forgotten to be tired and climbed up the light brown brick steps behind Father. The steps were each so high that I had to almost jump up onto the next. Father was clutching an address written on a small, crumpled piece of paper like a bird holds on to a captured grasshopper.
At the top of the stairwell was a tall dark brown door with a metal ring handle as large as my head, held in the mouth of a dark metal lion. Father pounded the ring onto the door. It clearly required all the strength of the young woman opening the door to move it. Once we had entered, I turned back to see her throwing her shoulder onto the door to close it. We stood in a long, dark hallway, which was lit by a single glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The stone floor was covered by a faded yellow-and-red carpet. On the left side of the hallway, against the wall, were two chairs, and between them stood a long, narrow table. On the table was a wooden box inlayed with what appeared to be gold.
The other end of the hallway was shielded by a hanging curtain. We stood waiting in the hallway, a closed door behind us, and the curtain ahead of us hiding the path forward.
A booming voice called from far beyond the curtain deep inside the building. “You are late, Mr. Ramasdeen. We were expecting you before lunch.” My father shouted an apology to a man who was not yet visible but who was obviously moving toward us with haste. I could hear his puffing and his pounding steps as he moved closer.
Master Gahil, as I would learn was his name, burst through the hanging red curtain at the end of the hallway. The curtain had small silvered mirrors and bells sewn into it and so his entrance was echoed by a montage of darting light and tinkling. “There she is,” he called out. Looking down at me, his large face erupted with pleasure. I felt he was about to eat me.
Master Gahil turned his head and screamed toward the curtain, “Kumud, come immediately. My baby niece from the fields has arrived and she is filthy.” My hitherto unknown uncle was portly and exuded the sheen of self-importance. He was wearing clothes I had only heard about in stories, several layers of garments, all of which were trimmed in gold. His undercoat was white; another layer was red velvet. He wore a handwoven short vest jacket and a lightweight white topcoat with intricate patterns sewn in gold thread. Overall, he was a carefully crafted ball of glittering color and billowing material.
An old, stooped woman shuffled into the room, her feet sliding against the carpet with a whoosh—whoosh—whoosh. Her head was cast downward and even when she turned toward Master Gahil, she moved with the glue of aging. Her plain blue sari was worn as a simple garment by a woman who understood the simplicity of her position in the world.
The woman’s expression was that of an imploring old dog asking her master for scraps of meat. Master Gahil spoke to her as if she were a dog. “Kumud, take little Batuk here and clean her up. Also, tell Dr. Dasdaheer to be here tomorrow morning.” He looked me up and down and again smiled. He shouted, “Go now!” and bade the old woman away with a wave of his arm. She slowly turned and began to walk in her stooped way toward the curtain. In a smooth practiced action that caught me unawares, she grasped me by the scruff of my tunic and dragged me with her. For an old woman, her strength was astounding. Father called out, “Batuk, it’s my fault; I lost everything … darling, wait,” and moved toward me. Master Gahil bellowed, “You should have thought of this silliness, Mr. Ramasdeen, when you decided to be so late. We have business to complete and I have to go out this evening.” Turning to the shuffling servant woman, he shouted, “Old woman, take her immediately. I do not have time for this nonsense.”
As Master Gahil thrust a pregnant envelope into Father’s tensed hand, I saw a familiar expression dart across Father’s face. I recognized it instantly from our trips to the doctor he invented to hide his lavender-perfumed “cousin” from Mother: self-loathing veiled in lust. As I observed the depth of my father’s weakness, our gazes touched and from him I felt the kiss of inner death. I was transfixed as I felt him draw me within him in terror.
But our circle snapped. In shock seasoned with panic, I was propelled by the surprising force of the old woman and was thrust through to the other side of the silver curtain. The last words I would ever hear from my father were, “Batuk … darling … my silver-eyed leopard.” The last words Father ever heard from me were,
“Daddy, take your Batuk—I beg of you.”
With Puneet unwell, I had anticipated that I would receive more of Mamaki’s attention than usual. My prediction was right, but I had failed to fully calculate its impact. “My darling, I have more time to love you now” was her way of expressing this state of affairs. I had overheard several of Mamaki’s conversations with Master Gahil and I realized that Mamaki was expected to generate the same income from the six of us, regardless of Puneet’s indisposition. One afternoon I heard Gahil say to Hippopotamus, “I know, dearest Mother Briila, how difficult it is with the boy out of commission, and I appreciate very greatly how you dedicate your life to your little ones. But you have to understand that I run a business and I have many responsibilities and obligations. Even I have had to cut back on my essentials with the boy out of action … and so, dear Mother Briila, you may have to also.” Within ten minutes of Master Gahil’s departure, Mamaki was on the street cajoling men with promises of unheralded pleasures. She doubled her money gifts to the taxi drivers to bring us business, often sweetened with a free excursion or two on our beds. We have been busy. Thank goodness Puneet is returning to work.
Initially, making sweet-cake was not something I tried to excel at. I viewed my baking as a means of survival. Man came upon my throne; I defrocked him and boom, all was done. Next please. However, as I matured I realized the fault in this approach.
Look at it this way. Say your mother makes you clean the clothes for yourself and your brothers and sisters. You want to get the job done as quickly as possible so that you can go and play. So you grab the clothes in your arms and run down to the river with a soap bar. You throw them in the water and clean them as quickly as possible. You wring out the clothes, throw them over the hot afternoon rocks to dry, and an hour or two later, you gather them up in a bundle and bring them back to the house. You then throw them in a bundle on the floor in the middle of the room. The clothes have been cleaned! Job done! But then how Mother scolds you. “You are not playing tonight, they are still filthy,” she screams. The slap on your face lingers long after the hunger fades from another missed supper.
Now look at it differently. The objective is the same. “Batuk, go wash the clothes.” But this time I decide to do this with excellence. (Why? you may ask. Wait and see). Off I go. I walk down to the riverbank and sort first through the clothes. I identify those with particularly nasty stains and put them in one pile, and identify those that are particularly fine and put them in another pile. I then wash all the clothes and make an extra effort with the stained ones; I am more careful with the delicate ones so that they do not tear. After an extra rinse and wringing the clothes out, I lay them on the rocks and nap for a couple of hours. I then carefully fold all the clothes, organize the trousers in one pile, shirts in another, and bring them up to the house. “Mother,” I say, “look! I really tried to get that dirt stain out of this blouse …” Mother looks at the neat pile and cannot help but smile, squeeze my cheek (in love), and kiss my head. Furthermore, I notice an extra dollop of dahl at supper-time and harmony in the air. She says, “Darling, why don’t you go and play tomorrow. Your sister can wash clothes.”
Now you understand. In both cases I completed the task. In the first case, I had to wash the clothes twice. I was slapped and went to bed hungry. In the second case, I washed the clothes so slowly that I napped on the rocks all afternoon and went to bed with a full tummy and a kiss. I got to play all the next evening. I hate cleaning clothes (hate it) but in the second case it was less hateful than it might have been.
So too with man. On one hand, you can view my objective as being purely functional, the sole charge being to make sweet-cake without any care for its appearance or taste. Here you are! Sweet-cake—one hundred rupees.
On the other hand, say you carefully prepare the ingredients, make them enticing, colorful, and varied, and then let the student only taste the sugar one crystal at a time until he is salivating and desperate with hunger. Say you then show him how to knead the dough, and guide him to slowly roll in a little egg white, sugar, and color. He then is taught that the longer the kneading, the tastier the sweet-cake. Soon, he is relaxed and kneading away, buying more and more different types of ingredients and taking longer and longer doing it. There is a harmonious feeling from the cooking, which smells good. With all this time in preparation, he is happy to patiently watch the dough rise and wait out a longer baking time. Sometimes the baking process itself becomes so beguiling that man does not even wait until the sweet-cake leaves the oven, as he is satisfied enough. For those who wait it out, when the sweet-cake comes from the oven, how happy they are and how grateful. The sweet-cake melts in their mouth and swamps their emotions with its warmth. They leave with smiles. Later, they return for more enchanting sweet-cake and they are prepared to pay greatly for it so that they may cook the finest sweet-cake of their lives. By enhancing the sweet-cake experience as I do, I make Mamaki so happy with me that she smiles and kisses me, gives me finer clothes, fresher makeup, and richer food. Most important of all, I end up having to make less sweet-cake overall—for I hate making sweet-cake for man, hate it.
In fact, that is how I came to write today’s note in ink. One of my favorite students comes on the same day each week, as regular as clockwork. Like many of my students, he regards me as if I were a favorite niece or even one of his daughters. Knowing Mamaki’s current predicament regarding our income, we cook the longest, most delicious (most expensive) sweet-cake you can imagine. Afterward, I brush his hair, the little that there is, and he slides on his jacket, ready to leave.
I see it in his pocket, the blue pen. I gasp. He inquires, “What is it?” I explain. He is shocked. “A simple Biro, really? You want it?” “Yes … yes, please.” “Of course, take it.” A kiss. He leaves. Hide pen in mattress. It is mine. Mamaki pours in. A pause. A gigantic smile. “Batuk—darling—you are the greatest of my loves—I do so love you.” A kiss. A sniff of her rancid body. My pen—safe.
I can hardly claim that I am exhausted as a result of Puneet’s indisposition. However, of course, I have been pretending that I am. Puneet is back at work and we are all reaping the benefits. What is more, he seems happy again, having reaffirmed his position as number one. As the only boy of the six of us and, in fact, the only long-term boy on the street, Puneet is worth two or three of us. Bakers will sometimes stand in line to wait for him; he is a magnet. He is also stupid.
Puneet has less history than I do. He came from the fields with his whole family when he was tiny; he was the youngest of the children (I am the second oldest in our family but the eldest of the girls). He told me that he was always beautiful, even as a baby, which I can well believe. He lost his family when his father was caught stealing from a building site. His father had pilfered some lumber (forty-seven planks by hand!) and resold it to another builder, and when he was caught he was sent to prison. Puneet’s mother only had her looks to support her three children with; she did not have enough money for the bus fare back to her village and so became a friend to lonely men to feed her family. One night she went out with a wealthy regular friend of hers and never returned. Puneet remembers that her friend wore a white suit and had a shining silver belt buckle and gave the children sweets whenever he came. Thereafter, Puneet was an orphan.
Perhaps it is because his parents were stupid that Puneet is so stupid. For at least a year Puneet has begged or even stolen extra favors from his clients. He told me that sometimes he just asks them, “A little something extra, master.” On other occasions, he will take the wallet from a sleeping baker, lift a hundred rupees, and then return the wallet. Of course he always tells me; he says that when he has saved a thousand rupees he will run away to England or America. I laugh. “Probably in an airplane you buy in the Street of Thieves,” I tease him. “Ooooh, princess,” he will say, “boys with my talent make a lot of money in America. You just watch me.” He has told me this dream so many times, I know it better than he does.
Pah! Th
e ending is always the same: Mamaki finds his hidden stash every time. Mind you, where are you going to hide bundles of money in a cell the size of a single ox? Where in your body can you hide a coil of bank notes? Does he not realize that it only takes one client to tell Mamaki and she will raid him? He is so predictable that I bet she just waits a few weeks and raids him anyway. Either way, he is always left with nothing.
What I find difficult to understand is that Puneet stays—for he does not have to. He is a fourteen-year-old boy with muscle and a beautiful way about him. He can outrun Hippopotamus, the other matrons, and Ranjit, the sadist guard. Once loose, he will never be spotted among the thousands of boys in the city. Were he to leave Mumbai, he would disappear.
In general, the only time Puneet is sad is after he has been raided and has had his cash stripped from him. That is when I say to him, “Why don’t you run—you could do it.” He always answers the same. “But, princess, how can I breathe a breath without you beside me?” He is stupid and a coward. Just as he is afraid to face freedom, he is also afraid to end the cycle he and Mamaki are caught up in. He knows that she will find his hidden money, just as she knows he will hide it. He knows that she needs him and I guess at least that is something.
The Blue Notebook Page 3