She Will Build Him a City

by Raj Kamal Jha

  ~

  The face looks him straight in the eye. A man’s face, forty years, forty-five years old, sweat, stubble, hair cut cheap, skin pocked, shirt smudged, one button undone showing hair on chest, trousers grey, the colour of perpetual dirt. The face says something, his mouth opens and closes, the tongue darts in and out, licks the upper lip between words he cannot hear. He is standing four cars and a bus ahead. Next to him is a boy, little more than a child, ten years eleven years old, echoing the man in shout and scream but more restless, fidgety, running from one car to another. Behind them are others, men, women and children, he can count at least a dozen. All angry faces, there are no placards so he cannot make out what they are protesting for or against. Beyond them, there are more, and beyond them, even more. One face for each car on the highway, it seems, oblivious to the heat that flows down from the white sky above. One of them carries a stick he begins to beat the cars with. Gentle tap at first with the clear threat of something stronger.

  Tap tap against this trunk, tap against that door, tap on this tyre, tap on that window, tap tap on that bonnet. A light brush against his windshield.

  They have now found a clearing ahead, a space between the vehicles large enough for six or seven of them to gather, for one of them to hold an effigy of someone who looks like the Chief Minister, a woman with grey hair, a fawn-coloured sari, hideous, teeth drawn like those on a skeleton. The sari is dipped in kerosene, set ablaze, its smell wafts into his car despite the closed window, along with the smoke, the shouting gets louder, the air around the burning effigy shimmers like in a mirage.

  He tells Driver to find out who these people are, what they are up to, what they want, why the police haven’t come yet. But leave the engine running, he says, I want the air conditioner on. He switches on the TV in his car, flips through the news channels, reads one full cycle of the crawl at the bottom of the screen, there’s nothing as yet on what’s happening on the highway.

  The crowd gets bigger, more sticks dance in the heat, there are women, too, in brightly coloured saris that remind him of Balloon Girl’s mother, a cluster of them standing, another sitting between the rows of cars, straddling the broken white line that marks the lanes, where just hours ago, under the reflected haze of neon lights, he had seen mynahs, in the dark.

  ~

  Driver is back with a report:

  ‘Sir, there is no water, there is no power in their old city for three days, they say they don’t have water to drink, they are protesting, they are waiting for the local MLA or MP to come, give them an assurance that power and water will be back by this evening. And until that happens, they are not going to allow us to move.’

  ~

  A woman steps out of her car in the adjoining lane, squeezes herself between his car and hers, the folds of fat on her arms press against his window so hard he can see the pores of her skin, feel her through the doors and the metal. Where does she think she’s going?

  He wants to get out of the car, stop her from going anywhere and, in full view of everyone, commuters, motorists, protesters, highway staff, even the police who will be here any time, he wants to hold her, bite and chew on some of that fat, swallow some, along with the fuzz on it, later clean it from between his teeth. He knows he will retch, he will throw up the fat into the fire that the protesters have lit, wait for white smoke to rise so that he and Balloon Girl can ride the plume, holding on to Red Balloon, above this stationary traffic, over the cars and the angry men, women and children.

  Into the sky above the city.

  Driver is speaking: ‘Sir, I don’t think this will clear soon. I have a suggestion.’

  He doesn’t say anything.

  ‘You see that woman, sir, she’s walking to the exit, you could do that, too. In ten minutes, in the direction we came, you can get off the highway, take The Mall exit. You will find taxis there.’ A little stone hits his windshield.

  There’s no damage except a smudge, like bird-dropping, which Driver reaching out with his rag wipes away. ‘There may be violence, sir,’ he says. ‘The police may come, I think you should leave.’

  It’s been almost an hour but none of the news channels has anything on the highway jam, there is a rerun of some discussion from the previous night involving five men and a woman who looks nowhere like his favourite reporter, the one he wants to listen to at night, to the sounds her body makes. He flips channels: markets are down again.

  ‘Sir, you want to stay in the car until the road clears?’ Driver asks.

  CHILD

  Orphan Escapes

  ‘I am standing right outside Little House’ – Ms Priscilla Thomas is reporting live –‘where I got Sunil, my baby boy.This is the place where the wall broke in the thunderstorm last night, and, as you can see, behind me, there is a hole in the wall through which, it is suspected, a little boy called Orphan crawled out.

  ‘He was the only boy left in Little House. Officials and staff here have no clue where this child is. Some say he may be trapped under debris, others that he may still be on the premises, hiding somewhere. But why should a child, little more than a baby, to be precise, hide? And for so long? In the other wall-collapse across the city, where five workers were killed, we know how the building contractor violated the construction plan and used substandard raw material. Here, it’s too early to find out what exactly happened but you know I was here recently, along with the Chief Minister herself, and because of this place, I am a mother now and a child has a home. A safe home, where walls don’t collapse because there is a thunderstorm.’

  ~

  Cut to video of Sunil smiling in Ms Thomas’s living room, sitting on the floor, the morning sun streaming over his left shoulder, the cool shadow of a gulmohar tree playing on his face.

  ~

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make,’ continues Ms Thomas. ‘When I was here the first time, I did see Orphan. Officials at Little House told me, and I will not name them to protect their identities, because they were breaking the law by pushing one specific child, they told me I should adopt Orphan because he was the youngest one, his transition would be easiest. I watched him play, I was struck by his intelligence, how delicate he was, how strong at the same time.’

  ~

  Cut to video of Orphan lying on his bed, playing with a yellow car, one wheel broken, Kalyani by his side.

  ~

  ‘I said, no, I am not going to take Orphan because he is normal quote unquote, there is nothing wrong with him and he is going to find a home. Sunil is ill, Sunil’s days may be numbered, he is the one who needs a home more and now look at the irony, the paradox, call it what you will. It’s Orphan who has gone missing, he is the one who is homeless. Imagine how things would have panned out had I adopted them both, Sunil and Orphan, they would have been brothers, safe in my house. The fact is we have left too many of our children to the force of chance, to the luxury of luck. And, when we do that, as a nation, we, the people, undermine our future, we destroy our demographic dividend.’

  ~

  Cut to Sunil, Ms Thomas feeding him with a bright yellow spoon.

  ~

  ‘Let’s listen to the person who was the first one to find Orphan, abandoned at the doorstep.’

  ‘I cannot believe this,’ says Mrs Chopra. ‘He can hardly stand on his own, let alone walk, he hasn’t even learned how to talk. The night nurse was asleep when the storm came, the resident doctor had the day off. The strange thing is there is no other damage, not one branch has fallen off the trees in the yard. Just this wall that opens next to the street.’

  ~

  Cut to broken wall, heap of stones, street outside, the garbage heap.

  ~

  Mr Sharma orders a thorough search of the entire premises of Little House, top to bottom, room to room, floor to ceiling. Each nook, every corner, the turn of every passageway, storage shelves and cupboards are investigated, undersides of beds and tables, sinks in all the rest rooms, sinks in kitchen, bathrooms, water tan
ks, even the cobwebbed store room where all broken furniture is kept, pending government auction and disposal. Teams of staff scour the neighbourhood, all along the wall, intact and broken. Asma Khatoon, the janitor, is told to look in the garbage heap as well. Who knows, says Mr Sharma, an infant can stumble and fall, hit his head against something hard and lie there, calling for help. She looks amid plastic and paper, glass and bottles dry and wet, but there is nothing, no sign of Orphan, and when it is established beyond doubt that Orphan has, indeed, gone missing, the local police are called in.

  Mr Sharma wants to record an FIR, a First Information Report, against unknown people, include charges of trafficking and kidnap, but the policemen say that that would drag him and Little House into big trouble. There is no cognisable offence established yet, they say, so why not settle for a general station diary. Mr Sharma relents. This is the first missing child under his watch and it suits him that the police avoid taking any step that could, sometime in the future, lead to legal proceedings and, in the process, taint what he thinks is his impeccable CV.

  ~

  Leaving for home that evening, Mrs Chopra goes to Orphan’s bed to check for any sign, any clue that could help find him, but there is nothing.

  His sheet is spread taut, the small pillow neatly fluffed up, not even a wrinkle to show that a little head had rested here once. It’s as if Orphan had never been here, the boy she saved that morning with her own breath and the beating of her heart.

  On her way out, she stops to say goodbye to Mr Sharma who is standing by the window.

  ‘I know it’s difficult to accept but we have to look ahead,’ he says without looking at her. ‘I liked that boy very much. I am sure he will find a nice home.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Chopra says. ‘I don’t know where he is, sir, all I know after working here so many years is that an orphan remains an orphan. Once abandoned, always abandoned.’

  WOMAN

  Father’s Students

  On weekends and on some weekdays, too, especially during exam time, our home becomes an open house for your father’s students. At least six or seven, sometimes even ten, walk in for a study session – over days, weeks, months and years, an endless stream. That expands our little house to accommodate a classroom where they sit in a circle. With Sir, that’s what they call your father, in the centre: he is their sun, they are his planets, each one shines off him, bright and dazzling. The first time I am tempted to go and sit in that circle, I tell your father this and he says, of course, why not, but then quickly adds, I think you will get bored in ten minutes, it’s too technical.

  Over the next few days, therefore, I steal glances at the books they use. He is right, it is too technical, the book they use the most is about Magadhi language and its formation. This is the language in which the Buddha preached two thousand years ago, in which his edicts were written on iron pillars in the kingdom of Ashoka. The book is about its rules of grammar and syntax, how its verbs and nouns draw from Sanskrit.

  ~

  His students are respectful to me although I don’t think I am that many years older than them. They stand up when I enter with tea for all of them – the men in the room are awkward, the women rush to take the tray from my hands and begin passing around the teacups. One of the women is named Krishna and she says, Ma’am, you don’t have to do this, I could have made the tea. Another woman asks me about my school and my teaching and she says she wants to be a teacher, too, once she is done with college. This is small talk, polite talk, their way of trying to include me in their circle and my response is to smile and say, now you people go back to your studies, I have some work to do, and I withdraw from the room.

  The rest of the afternoon or evening I am on my own.

  If I have brought work from school, like grading papers or looking at worksheets, I get busy with that. Otherwise, I lie down, listen to the radio or just sit and look out of the window.

  When you come into our lives, you keep me busy. Some days, after I have cleaned you up and fed you, Krishna takes you away, says, leave her to us, you can forget about her for a few hours. You are then part of this study circle, carried from one pair of hands to another, a joyous bundle of novelty and distraction.

  These sessions make your father so happy that it seems it’s only through teaching that he can draw strength and sustenance. He says, the more I teach, the more I learn. You should hear how the students talk about him. Sir is the best, they tell me when they help me rinse the teacups, he’s the only one in the faculty who has so much time for us. Sir is the only one who listens to us, the only one who gets us to ask questions even when we do not know what to ask.

  Sir, Sir, Sir, they keep going on.

  ~

  All of them, the men and the women. Including the man in glasses, with hair almost to his shoulders. He is one of your father’s students, his name is.

  I cannot bring myself to say his name.

  Well, not yet, maybe later, not until I have told you things that need to be told.

  Like how he’s been with me the last thirty years, forty years.

  Like how I have never told you about him until tonight.

  Like what he did when your father died.

  Like, we are in love.

  There, I have said it. It’s not so hard to speak the unspeakable when there are so few left to listen.

  MAN

  Water Cannons

  No, he decides, he won’t leave the car because how long can this traffic jam on the highway last? One hour, three hours, four? He shall wait, Driver has no reason to complain, he will get paid for overtime, quite generous, beyond 6 p.m. at the rate of Rs 100 per hour.

  ~

  Protesters block the lanes heading towards Delhi, leaving the other side – the lanes that lead to Jaipur and Mumbai – free where traffic is moving, even if it is slow. Suddenly, the car in front of him, with a man in the back seat, takes a sudden swerve to the right and heads for the divider cutting across a line of stationary cars. A policeman and an employee of the Highway Customer Service office, both in uniform, appear from nowhere, move the traffic cones, push the barricades to make a clearing for this car, letting it take a U-turn, cross the divider to the other side and then drive away.

  Other cars honk, two drivers get out, shout at the policeman, who shrugs, who couldn’t care less.

  ‘Special case,’ he shouts, ‘emergency,’ and walks away because he knows how this works. The man in that car must be a VIP: politician, judge, newspaper owner, TV anchor or maybe he knows someone who knows one of these VIPs. That someone makes a call to someone else who then calls the local police to say, a friend of mine is stuck in the protest rally on the highway, he needs to get out, it’s very important, he needs to be somewhere and he’s already late and please will you help him get out of this terrible jam and then a call goes out on wireless to the police van parked closest to the highway which then sends a policeman to the Highway Customer Service office, passes on the message to the manager or whoever is in charge who, in turn, gets someone to go, identify the car, move the barricades, break the lane for the car to get out of the gridlock. The calls are then made, in the reverse order, until the VIP gets a call and says, thank you very much, you didn’t need to go through all that trouble only for me but thank you very much, see you soon.

  That’s how it’s done in this city.

  Strings are pulled, puppets are moved, there’s some shouting, there’s some cursing followed by the silence of resignation.

  ~

  He watches this little drama and it fills him with rage, he wants to stop this, turn all the wheels back in time and space but all he can do is push his seat back, tilt it to flat and lie down, close his eyes. As long as the engine runs, so does the air conditioner; the windows are rolled up, he is fine. Last week, a three-year-old died in a car closed, engine running, but that was in a parking lot in The Mall, asphyxiation by carbon monoxide in a closed space. But he is safe, he is no child.

  As ext
ra precaution, he tells Driver to lower the window once in a while for fresh air to come in.

  ~

  To help himself fall asleep, he can ask Driver about his home and his family. Because once Driver starts talking, it is almost always a sad story, son failed his exam, daughter is sick, wife has a blood test, all this lulls him to sleep. But he is a good driver, efficient, he picks things up fast. Like the time he told him, please use a deodorant and wear fresh socks each day because I cannot have you driving my car if you smell like this and from that day on, he never has to complain, not even once, not on the most humid, sweltering day of the year. For, Driver is always fresh, lime fresh.

  Like Balloon Girl, after bath.

  Fresh, washed, clean, flying with him in the sky.

  It’s not even been twenty-four hours since he dropped her and her mother off and he wishes to see Balloon Girl again. He can wish her into appearing, he only has to close his eyes and she will be there, he has to choose the setting. Does he want her standing on the pavement, outside his car? Or sitting at his dining table at home, her small fingers around a cool white porcelain bowl of milk and cornflakes? Does he want her back in the sky with swirling clouds and flying aircraft? Balloon Girl will be there, wherever he wants her to be. Right now, he wants her in the car with him and the moment he closes his eyes and imagines her, there she is, Balloon Girl, sitting in the back seat, her clothes as clean as they were when he handed them to her this morning, and she is smiling at the way Driver sleeps, how his head leans back, his mouth open.

  He begins to show her what the knobs and buttons on his car’s dashboard do. Turn this, the car gets colder.

  Flick this, TV switches on. Press this, red light blinks.

  This one is for automatic lock, this one plays music, arrow up is louder, arrow down is softer, this one is the wiper, press this, he says, and she presses it hard, leaning across Driver whose head has come to rest against the window.