IF YOU LOOK FOR ME, I AM NOT HERE

  ‘Did it hurt?’ Arun asked.

  ‘Not at all,’ Sweetie-Cutie said.

  ‘Was it difficult being a woman?’ Arun asked.

  Sweetie-Cutie smiled; her eyes did not.

  She explained that it wasn’t easy being a woman: she kept stroking her crotch, searching for the missing lump of flesh as the tongue would seek a fallen tooth. And she couldn’t pee properly squatting, at first. She tried to walk like a woman but it was difficult. When she was a man people teased her because she sauntered like a woman, so delicately, but as a woman her walk was ungainly. Her feet fell heavily on the ground. Her face was round and soft like a woman’s before but when she had turned into one, her face was angular and hard; her eyes popped out of their sockets and her beard was coarse. Then she met a tailor. He made her a sexy red blouse. She never forgot her first night with him, having sex as a woman. She remembered the touch of his hands, warm between her legs, and knew she’d have been excited, if there had been something to excite...

  She sat still, and then she patted her stomach. ‘I am hungry.’ She looked in her purse and held out a twenty-rupee note to me. ‘Here, go buy some fruit and come back soon.’

  I walked down the lane. The stalls on either side were festooned with tinsel. A profusion of glass bangles, cheap jewellery, cosmetics, brooches and hairpins, sarees, a variety of panties and bras with stiff pointed tips, and blouses and petticoats flowed from them. Film music blared through speakers perched on stands and brightly attired hijras with counterfeit breasts and hairy thighs danced to the throbbing music. And beyond were food, fruit and juice stalls. I returned to the hut with a large papaya. I had the remaining change in my pocket but I didn’t give it to Sweetie-Cutie. She didn’t ask for it.

  Sweetie-Cutie cut the fruit into halves, discarded the globs of slippery white and black seeds, then cut one half into two. ‘The youngest gets the biggest piece,’ she said as she gave me the other half.

  I walked to the window and sat on the ledge. I scooped the flesh with my fingers and stuffed it into my mouth, making sure the juice didn’t drip on my skirt. I liked papaya more than any other fruit. I licked my fingers clean. Across the lane I saw an old man sitting on the ground holding a cord. The other end of the cord was tied to a monkey’s neck. Dance, monkey, dance, the keeper shouted and as he sang, the monkey danced around him. Suddenly the animal stopped, threw its hands up in the air and looked at me. I remembered the evening on the beach when we were eating corncobs and a monkey had chased Rebecca. I had thrown the cob at the monkey and run after her. She had clung to me, crying, and I had held her close; so close that I could feel her heart throb against mine. I inhaled the scent of Cuticura Talcum Powder on her skin. I had remembered this. I remembered this. Would she call me to LA?

  I took a moment to reflect on this. With eyes shut tight I was now inside my head, in every nook and corner of it. Numerous doubts ricocheted past, and sifting through them I tried to find the reason for who I was, and why I was here. Deep inside my inside world I had more perspective. At first I couldn’t see anything other than the darkness of my thoughts. But then, deep deep down, where my feelings were stored, where Rebecca was stored, I recognised a pair of eyes – her eyes, looking back at me. Then I saw myself. Not Tara. Not us. But me. I saw Rebecca and me. I looked at the papaya in my hand, juice oozing out of the wound that I had made in it. I stabbed the papaya repeatedly with my thumb until it leaked out its orangeyellow blood.

  ‘Tara! What are you doing?’ Sweetie-Cutie screamed.

  ‘I am not Tara,’ I said.

  ‘You are Tara, kanna,’ she said blowing a kiss at me, ‘and you are my beautiful princess. Now let’s go.’

  We walked out into the lane and joined the queue of hijras outside the guru’s house. Inside, the air was thick with fumes of burning camphor, and the smells of jasmine and banana. Laxmi-amma was seated on the mattress. She wore a glittering gold saree, flowers in her hair, and fake jewellery. Two hijras beat the drums, and Sarojamma smashed a coconut open and offered it, like twin breasts, to Laxmi-amma. Then all the hijras walked to her one by one for her blessings.

  Sweetie-Cutie pushed me forward. Laxmi-amma looked up at me and said, ‘You are going to be a beautiful woman, Tara.’

  25

  I woke up startled, as if from a bad dream. I looked for Sweetie-Cutie. She wasn’t there. I shook Arun awake; he didn’t know where she was. In fact, nobody knew where she had gone, bag and all.

  Later that afternoon Sarojamma locked Arun in the solitary hut. Several times through the day she fed Arun opium and milk to keep him intoxicated. Late in the evening, Sarojamma dragged Arun out of the hut and forced him down on a stone table under the huge banyan tree. Laxmi-amma and the other hijras were gathered around. I hid behind a bush and watched.

  Laxmi-amma tied a cord tightly around Arun’s balls. Two hijras held Arun down and he started to scream like a child: loud piercing shrieks, mingled with incoherent cries and sobs. Laxmi-amma raised the sharp knife in her hand and then in one swift movement she severed Arun’s penis and balls. She bled the cut to drain every drop of Arun’s manhood. She inserted a wooden plug into the wound, leaving an aperture. Then she poured hot oil over the gash and pressed a pad of herb paste on it to heal it. Violent drumbeats and shrieks of country flutes drowned out the cries of Arun until he passed out. I watched, my hands pressed to my crotch. My dry tongue stuck to the top of my mouth.

  The torture was not over. Next morning all the hijras dressed up in their finery. Sarojamma combed my hair, fixed a string of jasmine in it and painted my face. We gathered once more under the banyan tree. Then, as the mob of hijras clapped and made ululating sounds, Laxmi-amma forced Arun down on the large pestle of the grinding stone until he bled from the anus. The drops of blood were taken to signify the first periods. The initiation was complete and Arun was now fully a woman. He was renamed Aruna.

  I was terrified. Aruna’s tortured screams rang in my ears as I stumbled back to the hut. From under my mat I picked up the change I had left from what Sweetie-Cutie had given me and ran down the lane. I boarded the bus to Madras Railway Station. When it reached the stop I got off and strolled down the street. I looked at shop windows, at the mannequins dressed in fancy clothes. I stopped at a restaurant with a large glass window through which I could see people eating. I was hungry. I walked further and stopped by a roadside vendor. He was making dosas on a hot iron griddle. I sat down on the pavement under the tree. A crowd of people streamed out of the railway station and gathered around the vendor as he fried dosas for them. I watched them as they ate; hunger rumbled deep inside me. A truck drove up. The driver got out and stumbled towards the cart. He was short and bulky with small piercing eyes. He slapped the vendor on the back and then he saw me. ‘Venkat, who’s that young girl? A relative of yours?’

  ‘Nah. I don’t know who she is.’

  The man walked up to me. ‘What’s your name girl?’

  I looked at my skirt; I looked down at my toes. Sweetie-Cutie had painted them red. ‘Tara.’

  ‘How old are you, Tara?’

  ‘Thirteen. No, fourteen.’

  ‘You look much younger. Where do you live?’

  ‘Machilipatnam.’

  ‘What are you doing here alone?’

  ‘I have no money to go home.’

  The driver looked at his watch. ‘I am going to Machilipatnam in ten minutes. You had better come with me.’ Then with a smile he added, ‘My name is Selvam.’ He turned to Venkat and ordered two plates of dosas.

  Selvam’s was a badly bashedup Tata truck and its broken door was secured to the frame with a rope. I got into it through the driver’s door and slid down to the other side. Selvam took off the red cloth tied around his head. He scratched his hair, inspected the grime in his fingernails, chewed at one, and spat it out. Then he got into the driver’s seat. Soon we were speeding down the highway. Each tim
e Selvam engaged the gears, the jolt rocked the entire framework of the truck. Now and again Selvam adjusted the plastic photoframe of Lord Krishna fixed above the dashboard. A string of cocktail lights were coiled around the frame. They blinked and winked at me. Then the truck screeched to a halt as a cow ran across the road and the plastic photoframe tumbled to the floor. Selvam picked it up, wiped it on his shirt then touched it to his forehead and eyes and put it back on its holder. With a loud rattling we drove on. I sat close to Selvam. When the truck lurched I fell against him. ‘You must be tired,’ he said, ‘go to sleep, girl. We have a long way to go.’ He bent down and kissed me on my head. I slept all through the long way.

  Selvam shook me awake. A grey blanket of dusk had fallen over us. All around in the fields the crops grew tall. Sugarcane. The blades of the tall grass sissed in the breeze. Then he swerved the truck into a dirt road and stopped alongside rows of trucks not far from a shack with a newly painted signboard, red and yellow: Paradise India Hotel. The stink of raw rum hung in the hot air. Several drivers were sitting around a table outside. We got out of the truck and Selvam clasped my hand as we walked toward the shack. A rotund man with a ferocious moustache, red eyes and purpled cheeks stared at the blackboard in front of the door with the menu scribbled in chalk.

  Mutton cury

  meat pattis

  seek kababs

  brein masala

  tava roti

  rice plait

  The man swayed and the stench of cheap rum hulahooped around his body. He drew all the saliva from deep inside his throat and spat at the board. The spittle ran down the menu, disfiguring it.

  The drunk raised the bottle of brandy to his mouth and took a swig. Then he saw us, and let out a roaring laugh. ‘You pluck them young, don’t you Selva?’ He raised his hand and stroked my cheek. ‘With skin smooth as velvet.’

  A woman passed by; she had hitched her saree up and her ankles were visible. She wore silver anklets that jingled as she walked. She carried a tray of food. The drunk put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  Selvam held my arm and walked into the shack. We sat down at the counter. I looked at the blue-light fly killer fixed on the green wall in front of me. The flies were lured to it like a drunk to another drunk, and then with a spark and a ping they were incinerated. On the pink wall behind me were photographs of the chief Gods and their respective wives: Shiva-Parvathi, Vishnu-Laxmi, and Brahma-Saraswati. Each of the wives was equally buxom, their full breasts covered by see-through silks. Their faces were candy-pink and their lips blood red. Garlands hung around them: white and pink flowers, plastic. Next to them were pictures of the leaders of the nation, similarly garlanded: a young ebullient Pandit Nehru; a sweetly-smiling Mahatma Gandhi; and Indira Gandhi, who looked tired. Bleached lizards moved from the leaders to the Gods and back; they clicked their tongues and smacked their lips awaiting stray insects that had escaped the blue-light fly killer.

  Several boys in vests and khaki shorts ran between the tables. One of them splashed water on a table, wiped it with a dirty rag, and then beckoned a man to sit down. The place was crowded with truck drivers gorging the last meal of the day before setting off into the night with full bellies. I wished that I had on my shorts and shirt. Amidst the burly men in the shack I felt an urgent need to be like them. The smells of boiled rice, fermented curd, spicy curries and chutney spun around my nose and mouth. Selvam ordered two rice plates, mutton curry, potato curry and onion pakoras, an orange drink for me and a quarter bottle of brandy for himself. The food and drinks came almost at once and I ate heartily, as did Selvam. Then he drank brandy, and now and then tossed a pakora into his mouth.

  The drunk came in and sat down beside me. ‘Mutton curry and rice plate,’ he muttered to the man behind the counter. He scratched his face. ‘No. Make it chikan curry and rice plate,’ he said.

  ‘No chikan. Only muttoncurry-meatpakora-meatroast-fishcurry-potatocurry-puri-roti-and-riceplate,’ the man behind the counter replied. He was short and extremely lean. He seemed nervous and his hands began to shake.

  ‘Chikan,’ the drunk insisted, thumping the counter with a fist.

  The woman returned. She stood behind the counter in front of the drunk. The palav of her saree had slipped off her shoulder; her blouse was cut low. ‘Did you not hear what my brother said?’ she screeched. ‘No chikan, only mutton.’

  ‘Chikan, I want chikan.’ The drunk banged the counter again.

  The woman said something to her brother. He ran off and minutes later returned with a bowl of chicken curry and a plate of rice. The curry was a bowlful of fatty broth, piled high with bones. The woman pushed the bowl towards the man. ‘Eat.’

  He didn’t. He watched the woman’s breasts through an empty glass, breathing hard and drooling. He mumbled: ‘Left tit, right tit, in-between tits, tit-tits,’ and laughed. Suddenly, the drunk leaned across the bar and pushed his hand into the woman’s blouse. She pushed him violently and he lost his balance and fell against me. I fell to the floor.

  Selvam pulled me up and led me out of the door. He walked me towards the crop of sugarcane in the field. He sat down on a boulder in a clearing and pulled me towards him, crushed me against his chest. I resisted, but his hand moved to my thighs. Selvam gasped. He pinned me against a tree, and pulled my skirt down and slipped down my underwear. ‘You mother-fucking hijra!’ Selvam slapped me across my face, hard. He boxed my eye and then my ear. I tumbled down. Selvam kicked my ribs, screaming obscenities. Then with the heel of his shoe he kicked me in the face. Pain rose in my nose like the aroma of an onion: tart, pungent. I passed out.

  When I came to it was morning. I felt a smarting in my belly and, doubling up, I vomited. Slowly I got to my feet. Under a bush I found my clothes and put them on, my hands shaking. I stumbled towards the main road and collapsed in a heap. A truck driver who had stopped for a leak found me some hours later. He carried me to the truck and put me in the front. ‘Where’s your home, girl?’

  ***

  The driver dropped me near the market. I stumbled up Gibbs Road; I could hardly walk. I had to stop several times to catch my breath, to contain the pain in my ribs, before I reached Victoria Villa. When Munniamma saw me standing outside the gate, badly bruised and dressed in a tattered skirt and blouse, she let out a long howl. Then she ran to me; her mouth was open wide and her breath escaped between her teeth: sis-sis.

  The curtains sighed in the wind. I was in bed. Munniamma had cleaned the cuts and bruises, and rubbed ointment on them. She had helped me into fresh clothes and fed me dosas that Mani made. I could hardly eat. I felt the cold crawling up my skin and reaching up to my eyes, filling them with moisture. Tears streamed down my face. Then I heard footsteps up the stairs and Appa stood at the door. He looked at me for a long moment and then rushed to me, gathered me in his arms.

  26

  The rains come tentatively to Machilipatnam. By the middle of June the sky grows wishy-washy. Clouds dangle from it, almost bruised purple, the colour squeezed out of them. Then at night the rains come sputtering as if from a tap that has remained unopened for a long time. Through the next three months the monsoon winds rage over the coast. Leafy fingers of palm trees serrate these winds, which whine and blow over oilseed knolls, proceed over paddy fields, and part the wet green grass thisway-thatway before they swish away to the dry plains beyond. Then for days on end the rains lash down. Tree-branches flap, vines reel out their tendrils. The wet spindles of cobwebs snap. Flowers fluff out their scent and bees suck the wetness out of them. Rainmoths fly up into the air, fluttering their wings with such ecstasy that they come apart and fall to the ground like parachutes made of eiderdown.

  It is only April, not June, and yet it has rained all month. It is a sign, this early rain, of things to come. I open the windows to admit a heavy-eyed dawn. I inhale the moist air deep into my lungs and feel the pulse pounding in my head. My hands are cold; my h
ead sweats and I cannot swallow my spit: my throat is sore from all the crying. We are leaving for London tomorrow, Appa and me. We are leaving Machilipatnam for good.

  A week ago, when I went to Vishnu-thatha’s house I asked him about Amma: What if she returned? What If? We were out on the veranda. The stars had come out but the sky was inkdark; there was no moon that night. Vishnu-thatha looked up at the sky as though he was looking for the moon. He seemed broken. I saw the fear in his eyes – a silent fear, a disease that devoured cells and nerves, and then everything that was left of what was left. I knew this sort of fear – the fear of the unknown. I had felt it.

  And a week before this I had met Sweetie-Cutie by the lake. The wind moved the water and slapped gently at its shores. We sat down under the chakka tree. Sweetie-Cutie hitched up her saree and crossed her hairy legs in front of her. She undid her hair and let it loose, then ran her fingers through it, plucked a fat louse and crushed it between two fingernails. ‘I had a bad dream that night,’ she said. Her face was tight. ‘I dreamt my father was very ill. I had to see him. Sorry I went away.’

  Her father was half his size, she said. Raw rum had cratered his cheeks and his eyes bulged out of their sockets. When he held her hand, his fingers felt cold and moist. She looked after him for a week and fed him mutton biryani every day. As he slept she sang songs to him and watched the tears roll down and collect in the well of his cheeks. Then she bought special mutton biryani with black kismis. She set the plate on her father’s chest so that the smell would drift to his nostrils and remind him of those days they spent together. Then, pinching his nose, deliberately and slowly she fed him until his mouth was stuffed and he could eat no more. He died. He had wet his bed.

  ‘I made a terrible mistake.’ Sweetie-Cutie wiped her face with the end of her saree. ‘I am a fake.’ There was something definite and purposeful in the way she spoke: In her heart where her feelings were stored, she was a woman. In her head where her thoughts were shaped, she was a woman. But in her body she was a man. And deep in her conscience she was utterly indefinable. Because she never looked there, she betrayed herself: she held on to a fate not entirely her own. All the years, the effort she had made to be a woman meant she was being cruel to the man in her. But she had made a choice and she had to live the lie. ‘It’s good you ran away, Siva,’ she said. ‘You have to be who you are meant to be.’ She stood up, ruffled my hair and went away.