by Dipika Rai
The only one awake is the conductor, the man who sold her the ticket. He lounges on the bus stairs, perfectly comfortable to be standing, bouncing violently, holding on to the rail loosely with two fingers of his right hand.
He looks into the night, taking in each flashy new milestone along the road. He knows they aren’t actually milestones, but kilometre stones, as the whole country has moved into the metric system. But he’ll stick to miles, as it isn’t easy to explain to his passengers that the distance in miles or kilometres between any two places is the same.
‘No vomiting, you hear,’ he shouts over the engine, ‘want to vomit, stick your head out of the window.’
Vomiting. Window. Why would she vomit? And there isn’t a window next to her. The lack of a window sends her into a new kind of panic. Her breath comes in short bursts and suddenly she has a pain in her chest.
‘Forget it, he says that to everyone. I haven’t seen anyone vomit in years.’ The fat woman rolls over and goes to sleep after discharging this important and untrue piece of information. For the rest of the night, she burps and lets off noxious fumes in Mamta’s direction – the remnants of her lunch.
In the morning Mamta will see the yellow streaks all along the outer side of the bus, proof of the perilous nature of the journey. But for now she is content just to be. Enough time has passed for the real threat of rape and shit-smearing to give way to sadness.
Unexpectedly, the tears start running down her face. She has no control over them. Embarrassed, she hides herself in her pallav. The conductor has seen many tears. He can almost time them. Half an hour into the journey, and the girls start crying. He never asks why or looks into their faces when they do. None of his business, he thinks; why get wrapped up in other people’s affairs? Conducting is what he does. He is one of those rare few who enjoys his travelling job, and passes the time by acknowledging each landmark along the way, a friend revisited.
The driver Babu, on the other hand, is distressed by the tears. In the rear-view mirror he can see Mamta’s face bent into her arms, shoulders shaking. There are some types of sadness that become real only when shared. There are others that are elusively niggling, like a hair in the mouth. And then there are still others that feed on themselves and engorge. The woman’s sadness puzzles him. What kind of sadness is it? He would like to know Mamta’s story, but he keeps his eyes on the road, attentive, adjusting the mirror so he doesn’t have to look on her grief.
Lokend’s kindness may have fortified Mamta’s will, but it has left her tender and completely at destiny’s mercy. Her sadness isn’t so much for herself, but for the choice she made. The imprint of the memory box with its faded goddess raids her every thought. She deserves karmic retribution. She should have tried harder for her stepdaughter. She should have chosen another night. How could she leave her behind? Now hers is the only body that can be offered up for butchery. When everything else failed, Lokend was there for her, a wall behind her back. Why couldn’t she have been a wall behind her stepdaughter’s back? The one person who loved and depended on her, how could she have left her behind?
It would have been better if I’d died of starvation, because star-v ation is what I deserve. Now she might die of starvation or something worse. My daughter, doomed, because I left her behind. Left her behind to die. A groan escapes her lips.
Her neighbour, drifting in and out of the uneasy sleep of fat people, misreads her whimper.
‘Water? This is a good bus, ask the conductor if you want water.’ ‘Cold drink, cold drink . . .’ the sharp tinging of a bottle-opener run up and down glass bottles closes the door on her past.
She is realising something new: she can eat or sleep without asking someone else’s permission. She is the one who will decide how much of the money that is scratching between her breasts should be spent on what. She pokes the wad with her finger, jamming it further down her cleavage.
‘Chai, chai . . .’
‘How much?’ The fat lady is awake and ravenous. ‘These people are highway robbers. That’s why they work along the highways.’ She giggles at her own joke. ‘I never buy anything from them, but I ask the price anyway. Who knows, one day, the price will be fair and I might decide to buy from them.’ The fat lady is travelling alone. She is a Sikhanni, as fierce as any man from her clan. Sikh women have an equal place in society as their men, so much so that boys and girls are given identical first names. This particular woman’s name is Paramjit Kaur – Paramjit, supreme conqueror – a grandiosely militant title, typical of a Sikh name.
Paramjit Kaur has finagled a holiday for herself at her sister’s. Her two children are grown and running the house for their father, a surprisingly effete man. Her success at home has made her magnanimous. She will do whatever she can for her fellow passengers. Even such a sorry one as Mamta.
‘How long do we stop at these places?’ Mamta is scared of stopping. Motion is her safety. Stopping means she has to make herself disappear again, like one of the sleeping people, under her sari. The only reason she has chosen to reveal herself this time is because of Paramjit Kaur’s conversation.
‘Can be minutes, can be hours. It’s all up to the driver. I have been on this bus three times before. Once it took me one night to get to Begumpet, once two days. Who can tell? Don’t worry, they sell food too. Get the puri bhaji. It sells fast, so it’s unlikely to be rotten, and they also give you water to drink.’
The bus comes suddenly awake for the puri bhaji. ‘Two . . .’ ‘Three in the back . . .’ ‘What about me? I’ve asked you three times for one . . .’
Orders fly. She looks from face to face, from voice to voice, from order to order and then softly says, ‘One here.’ No one hears her or listens.
‘One here,’ she says, lifting a shy arm above her head. No one notices.
Packets of puri bhaji dash past her up and down, from hand to hand, but not one for her. The smell is making her faint with hunger. The back of her mouth is already swimming in the spit of anticipation.
‘Arey-oh, puri bhajiwala. Got cotton in your ears, have you? Send one to the back right now for this woman,’ Paramjit Kaur’s voice booms like cannon shot over the heads of the other passengers. Mamta’s shoulders hunch up to her ears, cringing at the attention the fat woman might attract. But she need not worry. Paramjit Kaur, the supreme conqueror, has won again. Her words find their mark. Miraculously, a packet of food appears in Mamta’s hand.
‘What are you saving it for? Eat while it’s hot!’ Her saviour prods her with a finger.
‘Eat? But . . . but the others . . . they might . . . they might . . . What about the others?’ she whispers, meaning the men on the bus.
‘What about the others? You just eat up. He’s going to want his money soon. It’s unbelievable how he keeps track of all his customers. Never misses a payment. The water comes with your change. Arey, eat, I said. You village girls, such scaredy types,’ she says. ‘Let my man try and say something to me, just let him try. Why I can fire a gun better than my husband even. We are kshatriyas, all fighting types, men, women, all. You must not be a scaredy type, otherwise you will be chomped up like a rabbit.’
There is always one on every bus, the free-advice-giver.
Mamta opens the dried leaves. The smell of fried potatoes nesting in a flower of more than six perfectly round golden brown puris is almost overwhelming. Surely it can’t be all for me? She breaks off a piece of the flat bread, wraps it around the potatoes, and stuffs it, bite after bite into her mouth. Almost at the end of her meal, she stops. ‘Thank you, Devi,’ she whispers, ‘forgive me.’ Forgive me. The pickle is hiding in the last morsel. The acid of raw mango sends fresh juices flowing into her mouth. She sees no one else lick the leaves and against her better judgement she doesn’t lick the wrapping either, but makes sure there is nothing sticking to it, cleaning it with her thumb before tossing it out of the window like the others. ‘We are not like you,’ she says with regret to the free-advice-giver.
‘I ca
n see that from your clothes.’ Paramjit Kaur is wearing a salwarkurta splattered with pretty yellow flowers and a matching scarf looped round her neck. Mamta squirms in her sari, the indistinct colour of filth; she can’t even remember what colour it once was.
The puri bhaji seller enters the bus to collect his money. No one asks the price, they all seem to know how much to pay. As he comes closer to Mamta she squints to see how much the others are paying. She can’t tell, some pay in coins while others in notes.
‘Don’t you have small money?’ he asks her neighbour who hands him a blue note.
Bewildered, Mamta holds her cupped hands above her head. Paramjit Kaur tugs at her pallav, pinching the tiniest piece of dirty cloth between her fingers, pulling her arms down. ‘Never beg, you hear me, never beg. The worst thing you can do is beg. If you are hungry, go to the Gurdwara. They give out free food from twelve to three. I have eaten there so many times myself. My husband is so embarrassed,’ she giggles. ‘He says Gurdwara lunches are for the poor, but you should just taste that food, my . . . what food . . . So where are you going?’
‘Money?’ The puri bhaji seller saves her from giving herself away.
Mamta decides to take a chance and places the note she received in change from the conductor in the food seller’s palm.
He returns a coin to her. She looks at it. A small 50 shines up at her. The coins she knows well. That’s all her husband spent on her since her marriage: 25 paisa for this, 50 paisa for that, one rupee for the other. Her husband. Her stomach starts to boil again. He must be mad. He must be thrashing her. Forgive me. The tears start up in her throat again. She swallows them.
‘So, you will never find a Sikh begging. Oho, what’s wrong with you? Be brave, my girl. Be brave. All change is opportunity, all journeys discoveries . . .’ Paramjit Kaur passes out unsolicited philosophical tips in exactly the same tone she might use to discharge advice on the best way to remove stains from white clothes.
Water splashes into Mamta’s palm that still bears the coin. She cups her hands and drinks. As the first wayward drop finds its way to her mouth she realises it is fresh. She isn’t crying any more.
She gets off even before she is fully awake. ‘Side, move!’ A hand pushes her into the grime of the Begumpet Bus Terminal. It has taken her twenty-six hours to escape to this small city, almost exactly in the centre of India.
Mamta stands, it doesn’t occur to her to dust her clothes.
For the first time Mamta looks at the fat lady, alighting behind her. Paramjit Kaur’s skin is milky, with apple pink spots on her cheeks where broken veins have released their sweetness. Two comely black moles of the non-raised kind have been placed on her chin by nature, as a standard of comparison only, to accentuate the creaminess of her skin. The fat lady was once that stereotypical beauty described in all the matrimonial advertisements in the Times of India: 5 feet 2 inches tall, large eyes, wheatish complexion, medium build, long hair.
‘You have to be quick in the city,’ Paramjit Kaur gives her one last piece of invaluable advice, ‘your village ways won’t work here.’ And to prove her point she pushes past her into the breaking light, sending Mamta flying to the floor.
Mamta is left alone, as alone as anyone can be in a city.
Her feet do the thinking for her. Primeval automation sends her out of the terminal and into the street safely. It is lucky for Mamta that the city is still in that state between sleep and wakefulness. Soon traffic will flood the streets, but for now, it is the occasional rickshaw that lurches past in slow motion, that’s the only reason Mamta isn’t run over. She doesn’t know yet that she must look both ways before crossing the street, but that will be an easy lesson for her. Her keen mind will see, record and follow.
Across the road, a municipal tap gushes water into a waiting line of pails. Taps. Mamta has only heard of them. She looks at the large group of women, rubbing sleep out of their eyes. The tap bleeds water into the street, gushing at the mouth like a fountain. In Gopalpur what wouldn’t you give for so much water surging out right at your feet, enough to create a mudslide? The thick ooze puckers its grubby lip to kiss the edges of the saris of the waiting women. While she watches, the tap runs dry. Women are left holding their empty pails. They shake their fists at the tap and at others with full pails, but then wander away resigned, swallowed whole by the city. Some days the tap is generous, on others it is not.
‘Kalu, if you want to sleep here you have to sweep. Get up, you lazy bastard! Do you think this is a free five-star hotel?’ A man dressed in khaki shouts into the underbelly of a building in a row of three-storey flats hovering along the edge of the road.
‘Chacha, I fixed your cycle chain.’ A man emerges from the darkness under the stairwell dragging a cycle behind him.
‘Get to work, lazy bastard.’ The night watchman pushes the man called Kalu away with his stick, taking care not to soil his hands on Kalu’s lower-caste body. Mamta watches through the iron grille gate that bisects the perimeter wall crowned in broken glass to shred the feet of any who might dare to climb over it. Hindi movie posters inches thick cling to the whitewashed wall, stuck on with glue so strong it is impossible to peel them off. Pasted one over the other, the hits stay on the longest, the flops get brushed over with glue before the coat beneath has had a chance to dry.
Kalu waves off the staring Mamta with the back of his hand. When she doesn’t move, he sticks out his tongue at her. For the first time in days, she feels shy laughter flutter in her throat.
‘Thief! Bandit! Ungrateful wretch! Give them a home and what do they do? Rob you blind, that’s what! Get out! Go, I said! Don’t come here ever again, I will make sure you don’t get work in the whole of Begumpet. Thief! It’s a wonder we all haven’t been murdered in our beds.’ A woman beats her slipper against the head of a skinny boy who shields himself from her blows with open palms that stand out flour-white against his almost naked black body.
The boy runs doubled over, tripping, straightening and tripping again. The skinny black body summons the memory of her younger brother Prem. She is disoriented. She may have left her stepdaughter behind, but she won’t allow her brother to be beaten with a slipper. Mamta takes a few fumbling steps into the building to help him up. But the boy rushes past, leaving Mamta in his wake.
‘You, come for the job, have you? Where do these people come from? Made of air they are, appearing like spirits! Hardly one thief out, when another appears. Don’t think I don’t know all about you.’
Instantly afraid, Mamta squirms in her sari and covers her scar with her hand. How could this woman a whole night’s journey away from Gopalpur know about her husband’s money, her husband’s slippers, her running away? The city must have eyes everywhere. She could send her back to Barigaon for her deserved punishment, or back to her family in Gopalpur for the village’s crude justice. Shit-smeared and raped, the image pops up, real again.
‘She’s a good woman, memsahib. I know her well. She comes from the next village. They call her . . .’ Kalu looks to Mamta, questioning.
‘Mamta,’ she says, ‘Mamta.’
‘Honest Mamta, that’s what they call her.’
‘All right, Honest Mamta. Do you know anything about cleaning bathrooms?’
Mamta’s eyebrows arch into her hairline.
‘Don’t look at me like I’m speaking English. Can you clean bathrooms?’ The woman comes closer. ‘Arey, is this woman dumb? Are you a Sudra?’ Each word brings a spray of saliva with it, no doubt because of the gap in the woman’s front teeth.
Kalu nudges her in the ribs. ‘She’s also very shy, memsahib. Honest and Shy Mamta, that’s what they call her. Are you a Sudra, Honest and Shy Mamta?’ He nudges her again. ‘Say yes to the memsahib, she’s asking you a question.’
‘Yes, yes, I am,’ Mamta lies, admitting to a bogus lower-caste status.
In truth, she is a Vyasia, a worker bee, miles above a lowly Sudra. But Sudra is what the lady wants and Sudra is what she’ll get. Things
work differently in the city, in the city a lower caste can be an asset.
‘Start this evening. Don’t forget, I know you, I will find you. Rob me and even Jesus won’t be able to save you.’ The fat woman waddles up the stairs, complaining loudly, ‘Hai when will the committee put in a lift?’
It’s then that Mamta is distracted enough to notice that her mistress-to-be is wearing a man’s grey shirt and black pants with stirrups round the arches to keep them stretched through the length of her leg. She shivers with disbelief and blinks several times. ‘Mrs D’Souza. From Goa.’ The man called Kalu explains of the retreating figure. ‘She barks a lot, but she’s not bad. She might beat her servants, but she gives them leftover food. That’s the best part. And she helps poor people. Her god demands it. Charity.’
How poor do you have to be to be helped?
‘You’re not afraid of dogs, no?’
‘Dogs?’
‘She has a noisy one. Baby. A snapper, that Baby, but she’s small, so don’t worry.’
‘She has a dog?’
‘Kalu, are you going to keep chatting all day or do some work?’ the man in khaki shouts from the gate.
‘I have to get back to work. You better get going yourself,’ hisses Kalu. When he sees that Mamta isn’t about to take his advice, he hisses at her again, ‘What’s wrong with you? Stop acting like an idiot.’
‘Yes,’ says Mamta, still acting like an idiot.
‘You can sleep under the stairwell with me. Get your things. Don’t worry, no one will touch your Sudra belongings here, too unclean for them.’ Mamta doesn’t move. ‘Go on. Get your things.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she says, turning to go. Then she stops and asks, ‘Who’s Jesus?’
‘Mrs D’Souza’s god.’
‘The one who demands the help for the poor? Jesus,’ she repeats. ‘We didn’t have him in Gopalpur,’ she says, walking out of the gate.
‘Be on time this evening,’ says the khaki-dressed man. ‘Too many of you new ones land up late for work on your first day. Five o’clock.’