by Sharon Maas
‘Whew,’ she said, ‘I feel almost naked without those rings.’
Janiki and Kamal exchanged a glance. Kamal’s lips seemed to twitch slightly; but perhaps she had imagined it, as well as the slight roll of the eyes. Caroline was still dressed far too smartly for Janiki’s liking, but the removal of the rings would have to do for now. Gita nodded.
‘Much better,’ she said, ‘now come. Let’s find an autorickshaw.’
As they drove towards Kamathipura, Gita said, ‘It’s a pity that you’re going to see the worst of Mumbai. It’s not all bad, you know. Mumbai is actually a wonderful city, but you have to know it. It’s not a place; it’s a feeling.’
Janiki nodded. ‘I noticed you call it Mumbai – I’m still calling it Bombay. Is that bad?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Gita, flapping her hand in dismissal. ‘The city has always been called Mumbai in Marathi, and Bombay in English, Bambai in Hindi. A powerful regional political party called Shiv Sena argued that Bombay was a corrupted English version of Mumbai and an unwanted legacy of British colonial rule and pushed for the name change. In 1995 official agencies and governments were ordered to adopt the change. It’s happening gradually. In a few years it will all be Mumbai. But if you still call it Bombay nobody’s going to shoot you.’
She peered out of the rickshaw. ‘And,’ she announced, ‘here we are. Kamathipura. The sin-centre of Mumbai.’
Chapter 33
Asha
This time we went to a house. The house was empty except for me and this lady who had brought me here, who spoke English and chattered all the time. The lady was small and round with soft flaps of flesh that wobbled between her sari blouse and skirt, wobbled as she walked and as she laughed. Her sari was green and sparkling. Her lips were painted bright red, and there was a speck of red on her tooth, which I longed to wipe away, as if that was a big problem for me, which is stupid in that situation. But I longed to nevertheless. Her eyes were outlined in thick black kajal. She had long fingernails like claws and they were bright red. On her feet she wore chappals, the kind where a strap goes between the biggest toes. Her feet were wide and flat with hard cracked skin, like a lizard. She laughed a lot. She seemed to think everything was hilarious, but I didn’t and I did not laugh. I did not even smile. But I liked being with her because I was no longer alone with my monsters.
‘I know your name is Asha but I will give you a new name, a more appropriate name,’ she said to me, and I thought, why? Appropriate for what? My name Asha means hope and I could not think of anything more appropriate because hope was the only thing that could keep me breathing right now. But no.
‘Asha is not a good name for you. From now on you will be called Kamini. Kamini is a beautiful name. It means you are a beautiful, sensuous woman. What a lovely name! Do you not think it is a wonderful name? It suits you so much!’
Well I did not reply to her because I was not talking at all – I could not talk – but I wished I had a dictionary so that I could look up the meaning of the word sensuous. Or that Janiki was with me so I could ask her and she would explain to me, as she explained all new words. But how futile to wish for Janiki, or even for a dictionary! But it is certainly good to know what one’s own name means.
So she gave me a new name just as if she were my mother, but she wasn’t. She told me to call her Devaki Aunty. But I didn’t. I did not call her anything.
She gave me food in that new house. She took me into the kitchen and cooked rice for me and a little masala. She told me to sit on the floor and she handed me a bowl with the rice and masala in it. I was very hungry and I gobbled it all up at once. I was also thirsty because I had only had a single glass of water all day and it was so hot. She let me drink as much water as I wanted and so I was grateful to her and liked her better than the other woman.
After I’d had my food she took me into another room and said, ‘Now Kamini, I am going to explain to you why I said that you are a very lucky girl. So that you will know what to do and what your new duties are. First of all I want you to stop looking so sulky. Sulky look is a not beautiful look. I want you to smile. Smile, dear!’
But I could not smile and so I didn’t. She did not like that.
‘Smile, I said! Smile!’ This time her voice was sharp and she was not laughing any more.
‘If you do not smile I will slap you,’ she said. ‘I will paddle you with a cooking spoon. You wouldn’t like that. So just smile.’
And so I smiled. I stretched my lips. And she nodded and smiled herself.
‘That’s better. You are a good girl. I knew it! Not just beautiful but good. You see, you must be obedient and all will be well. Just do what I tell you and the most important thing is to smile. OK, you may stop smiling now.’
So I stopped smiling. I let my lips unstretch.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘I need to explain some things to you. Mr Rajgopal is the boss. He is like an uncle. In fact he might even let you call him Krishnan Uncle in future. Mr Rajgopal is sending you to a gentleman from Calcutta, a very rich gentleman. His name is Mr Chaudhuri. Calcutta is in Bengal, so he is a Bengali, a very important Bengali. He is famous in Bombay. He wishes to make your acquaintance. He has seen your photo and likes you very much. He wants to know you better. I know you have little experience of men so I will have to teach you some things. I am sure your mother never taught you these things as you are not yet of marriageable age and it might shock you, but don’t worry. It is all normal. You will see how easy it is after the first time.’
And she told me how this man wished to be entertained. And indeed I was shocked to my core and could not believe what she said. But she said it was normal to be shocked at first but once I had done it I would not mind.
‘Mr Chaudhuri is a fine gentleman,’ she said. ‘That is why I said you are a lucky girl. He would not take just any girl. But look at your sweet fair skin! So pure! So lovely! But you cannot go to him in a sulky way. That is not good. It will make him angry. You must stop this sulking and look at him with loving eyes and smile and chat with him. That is how he wants you to be so that is how you must be. Do you understand what I am saying?’
I stared at her and said nothing.
‘Do you understand?’ she shouted. ‘Answer me girl and stop this stupid sulking! I told you how lucky you are and still you sulk! Do you want to end up in a cage? Do you? Do you? Mr Rajgopal is a very important man. He has arranged everything with Mr Chaudhuri and will be very angry if you disappoint. He will be furious! You do not want to anger him. Mr Rajgopal will put you in a cage if you don’t behave!. Do you want to end up in a cage?’
I did not know what she was talking about. End up in a cage? What did that mean? And then she explained.
‘That is the alternative if you are not good. The cages – that is where the bad girls go. I will show you a picture.’
And she showed me some photographs. Indeed, they were of girls in a window of a house, upstairs, and they were truly behind bars, sitting there and looking out.
‘These are the cages of Kamathipura,’ she said. ‘It is where the bad girls go. Believe me, you do not want to end up there. But that is where you will end up if you do not do as I say. You are so lucky, so don’t throw this opportunity away. So first you must practise the smiling. He likes a smiling affectionate girl. It is easy to smile. Not so easy to be affectionate. But I will teach you.’
And she tried to teach me but I would not learn. And indeed she hit me with a wooden spoon, and shouted at me, but I would not learn.
She showed me some films on the TV. I almost died with disgust. ‘This is what a woman does when she is married,’ she told me, but I could not believe it. And the films she showed me got worse and worse so that I had to hide my eyes but she grabbed my wrist and pulled away my hands and screamed at me: ‘Open your eyes, girl! You must watch!’
She told me this is what she wants me to do and I must learn. I can hardly talk about the things she forced me to watch, yes, forced, be
cause if I did not watch she hit me.
And then I heard her talking on the phone to someone, but in rapid Hindi so I could not understand most of what she said, but sometimes she spoke English words and I understood.
‘She is not compliant, Mr Rajgopal,’ I heard her say, and, ‘So stubborn.’
When she finished she slammed down the receiver and then she said to me, ‘I am taking you to Mr Chaudhuri now. He is from Calcutta and very rich. You will like him. He insists on meeting you first. But you must be a good girl and do as I say. Do you understand?’
I did not understand. How could I? I did not want to meet this Mr Chaudhuri. I did not want to know the Bengali man. I did not want to do those disgusting things with the Bengali man. I am not married to him and I cannot even believe that is truly what married ladies do. Surely Amma would have told me! Or Janiki, who is to be married soon!
I only wanted to be with Janiki, but that was an impossible hope. But my name is Asha and so I still hoped. That is my name. I decided then and there that I would cling to my name. I would cling to Janiki, even though I could not see her and she was far away. I knew she was thinking of me and so I thought of her with all my might and main. And I believed too that somewhere in the invisible world where hearts and minds and souls can meet, Janiki was with me.
But I still had to meet this Bengali.
Chapter 34
Caroline
Kamathipura.
A day ago, she had never even heard the word. And now it was a synonym for everything that was wrong with the world, and with India. All the ugliness, all the horror, all the filth, compressed into one word. Before leaving Madras she had bought a book on Bombay – an older book, so it did not refer to the city as Mumbai – and the chapter on the notorious red light district had, she thought, prepared her for the worst.
Real life, though, was worse than the worst.
I can’t do this! I can’t go there! screamed a high-pitched, hysterical voice within her. But then another voice, louder, sombre in tone, serious, collected, calm, replied: Asha is there. Asha is there. You must find Asha.
And so she walked on. Instinctively, she reached out for Kamal’s hand, and his fingers closed around hers; but then Gita came in from behind them, placed her hand around both their wrists and drew them gently apart.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You two shouldn’t hold hands in Kamathipura. It’ll give the wrong impression. Remember where you are.’
Janiki, noticing the little incident and understanding, stepped forward on the other side of Caroline and took her hand; Caroline clasped hers as if her life depended on it. She had held Kamal’s hand not for affection but for strength; and Janiki’s hand was just as good. From it came both strength and comfort.
Kamal and Janiki, Caroline realised, were both Indians; somehow that explained that centred calm that she, now, was desperate for; but there it was in Janiki’s hand, clasped firmly around hers. As if a current ran from Janiki to her, an anchor holding her upright when she would faint, keeping her grounded when she would run away, back to the cool luxury of the Taj Mahal hotel.
She and Kamal had arrived in the wee hours of the morning and gone straight to the Taj. She had persuaded Kamal to spend at least that one night there, instead of going out to look for a more modest hotel.
‘It’s past midnight,’ she said. ‘Come on, Kamal. It’ll be an hour before you find another place. Just stay here this one night; we need to be rested tomorrow. Let me pay if it’s outside your budget.’
And so he’d stayed, in a room of his own, of course, and he had insisted on paying his own way. Kamal was proud like that. But then, he had probably earned well in Dubai and since he lived so modestly… well, she could only guess at his means but no doubt he had savings enough. And so they had both slept at the Taj – though ‘sleep’, at least in her case, was a euphemism for tossing and turning and obsessing about Asha, and having a thousand million thoughts and fears rushing through her brain all at once. She had needed all the little calming tricks of her own trade to find some modicum of rest: breathing and meditation exercises, and some yoga.
And now here they were, walking into the den of iniquity that was Kamathipura, the place where women were nothing more than chattels, a cheap commodity, their lives bits of detritus in a drain of lost humanity. Here, you could almost smell the despair. Caroline took a deep breath; but the air was thick with misery and it did not help at all.
Janiki, walking beside her with a firm hold on her hand, did help. How Janiki had grown! In more ways than one; she was a woman now, and a lovely one at that, emitting that serene charm and calm and self-possession that came naturally to so many Indian women. Janiki seemed unperturbed by the horror of Kamathipura; she seemed physically cool and collected, in a simple but somehow stylish blue cotton shalwar kameez, her hair tied back in a ponytail, make-up free and smiling. So relaxed, cool.
Ahead of them walked Gita, somehow incongruous in jeans and T-shirt (though why incongruous, Caroline asked herself; why shouldn’t an Indian woman wear Western clothes in India? It just went to show how ingrained the cultural clichés were), leading them confidently into a narrow lane lined with ramshackle houses. Kamal walked with Gita. Why? she thought. Why not with her? Was he avoiding her? He was so stern still, so aloof, even, at least towards her. Was it because of Asha, or did it have to do with her, Caroline, and his unresolved feelings towards her?
Front doors opened directly onto the small forecourts where people gathered. Women, leaning against the doorjambs, looked up as they walked past. One or two of them waved at Gita. Others sat on worn-out charpais. Many looked as if they had just rolled out of bed, though it was already almost midday.
Some, though, were heavily made-up, their perfume pungent in the congested air, adding its essence to that melange of smells that formed an olfactory assault on the senses – the tangible smells of cooking, spices, flowers, perfume, hair oil, face powder, incense, rotting fruit, drains, sewage, urine, vomit, sweat and semen, with the intangible ones of fear, loneliness, anguish, hate, hunger, malevolence, abuse, dread and horror. Mingled, coagulated, metamorphosed into that unique and pungent odour Caroline now named Bombay sweet-and-sour. It seeped out like a crawling mist through the lanes and alleys, creeping up the walls and through the windows and lying like a shroud over Kamathipura.
All of Caroline’s senses were operating now on crisis frequency. She could hardly think, for the impressions they gathered pelted themselves at her and screamed for attention, a jumble of sound, sight and smell colliding with her own unsorted feelings of disgust, dread, embarrassment and sheer horror. Once again, she wanted to turn and run, but always that cool calm voice – Asha is here! – called her back. That, and Janiki’s hand around her own.
Gita talked as she walked, sometimes waving at a woman and smiling, sometimes stopping to explain some detail. She stopped to introduce them to a friendly brothel manager, called, she said, a gharwali. ‘But we call her Bai, like a mother, or an aunt. These women are just doing their jobs. They are not evil.’
But Caroline hardly heard, merely nodded as if she had. Gita turned a corner; they walked down another lane. And another. They were lost in a labyrinth of hell. And yet it seemed at the same time so harmless, so everyday. Just women, standing and sitting around, a few men – where was all the horror? Wasn’t she being unnecessarily squeamish? She glanced up; and yes, there were the notorious cages, barred windows in the upper storeys, some shuttered, some like dark holes into the warrens of vice behind them. These homes were veritable prisons, Caroline told herself; at night, the female prisoners would sit behind those bars, all dolled up, tawdry lures for the hungry on the streets. But how desperate must a man be to come here for relief! And yet, here on the street, there was no sense of desperation. It was all so very – normal. Except for one thing: they themselves. They were the deviation.
Caroline felt like an involuntary tourist being led around some noteworthy cultural attraction, except that th
is attraction was decidedly unattractive. In fact, she felt that she herself was the great attraction. Caroline might have removed her ostentatious rings, but it turned out that they were the least of her problems. It was the white skin and light-coloured hair that drew eyes to her; that, and the tailored clothes and obviously expensive shoes. Wherever they walked, people stepped back and stared; not just the unobtrusive glances polite Westerners might throw at a conspicuous stranger, but blatant, in-your-face ogling.
Caroline, already flustered by the knowledge that they were walking through the streets of one of the most notorious red light districts in the world, grew more nervous by the minute at the attention she was attracting.
The very next thing I’ll do, she said to herself, is buy a shalwar kameez. I should dye my hair black as well, and colour my skin brown. An internal finger wagged at her: you can’t do that! That would be blackface! But Caroline struck it down immediately. This was India, and all internalised concepts brought as baggage from America collapsed in the face of the immediate reality.
Asha is here. Somewhere in these labyrinthine lanes is my daughter. Somewhere behind those crumbling facades is the most precious person in my life. I have to find her. But how? And when?
Time, that ephemeral concept that in America forced people to race against themselves, that precious commodity constantly in deficit, seemed eternal here in India, and she herself had fallen into a rhythm in which time did not exist; there was no rush, no hurry, for time stretched before them as an endless river and all one had to do was flow along with it. She took a deep breath – acrid with Bombay sweet-and-sour – and told herself: Caroline, relax. You will find her. Just have faith. Have hope. Asha is here and you will find her. Sooner or later. Take your time. This is India, and all things are possible.