“I will. I am an old woman. My grandchildren visit me after years and will leave as soon as they come. One grandson, and unmarried.”
“Shut up, Aamaa,” Manasa said. “You have two grandsons.”
“Just one,” Chitralekha said, starting to get up.
“Stay there, Aamaa.” Manasa was aware that she was raising her voice. “Just sit down. Not everything has to revolve around you. I am sure Agastaya has reasons for not staying too long. It may have something to do with how overbearing you are.”
She saw Bhagwati and Agastaya exchange anxious glances.
“Look at that.” Aamaa jumped at the opportunity. “Look at that. That’s how she treats me. That’s how she’s been talking to me since she got here. I feel no better than a servant.”
Manasa was about to speak, when Agastaya kicked her under the table.
“She doesn’t mean it,” Bhagwati said in a quiet, trembling voice. “Let’s all be happy. We are together after so long. This is a proper reunion.”
“How can I be happy when my granddaughter is a Damaai?” Aamaa replied. “I need to go. All this wealth I’ve earned, but for what? A grandson who’s unmarried, God only knows why, a granddaughter who’s married to a Damaai, and another granddaughter who treats me worse than she treats Prasanti. Why did I even work hard after your parents died?”
Aamaa picked on Bhagwati because she was the weakest; she could never strike back. “It was a fight between you and me, Aamaa!” Manasa shouted. “Why bring Bhagwati in? Stop finding fault with her for what she did so many years ago. Are you jealous that she has a live husband, whereas you don’t?”
Prasanti, never one to miss any commotion, made an appearance. She stood protectively by Aamaa.
“Take me away, Prasanti.” Aamaa held the servant’s hand. “Take me away to my room so I can sleep and wonder where I went wrong in rearing my children.”
“Prasanti, you’ve become prettier,” said Agastaya, in what Manasa understood was a sad attempt to make light of a situation that wasn’t going to get any better.
Prasanti glowered at him. “And you have less hair on your head than I have on my chin.”
“Where does she get her mouth from?” Agastaya said, and then added in English so the servant wouldn’t understand, “Somebody needs to wash it out with soap and water. I’d gladly volunteer.”
“Yes, talk in English,” Prasanti said. “Come, Aamaa, let’s go.”
“Prasanti, you can clear all the dishes from the table,” Manasa said. “Just make sure the daal stains are properly wiped out so I don’t have to spend hours scratching them out from the bowls.”
“Will you make me work until midnight?” Prasanti thundered out of the room. “I’ve been working all day because of you.”
“Look what you all have done,” Aamaa said. “Look at how difficult you make my life. If you treat her that way, she will leave, and no one will take care of me. As it is, all you people have left and can’t even spend a month here. At least let the servants be.”
Aamaa was now blaming them all—she was seeking refuge in the plural. Manasa knew she did that because her grandmother was afraid of singling her out. “Stop channeling on Prasanti all the affection that should have been given to us,” Manasa said, getting up from her chair and roughly pushing the table. “Stop fighting for her.”
She walked out, too, with Aamaa close at her heels. They both retreated to their rooms.
“Where are we sleeping?” Manasa heard Bhagwati ask. “Prasanti, Prasanti, are we sleeping in our old rooms?”
“Why do you need to sleep at seven in the evening?” Prasanti snapped.
“Because I am tired,” Bhagwati said. “Where do I sleep?”
“Go sleep with Manasa, but she has just locked her door, so I guess you will be sleeping with the driver.”
The reply needled Manasa more than anything else that had happened the entire day. She dashed out of her room and. grabbing a broom, went looking for Prasanti, who, perhaps sensing more trouble in store for her, had vanished into the streets, returning only when the garrulous gossip of coolies around an improvised fire, a tad premature for October, outside the Neupaney Oasis had started.
•
Slouched on her king-size bed with pachyderm patterns that dwarfed her tiny frame, Chitralekha turned to the wall when Prasanti timidly walked in later that night.
“You didn’t defend me when all of them butchered me,” Chitralekha complained.
Prasanti stayed quiet.
“They’ve begun treating me like I am a toddler. What did I do wrong? All I think about is their well-being. Is it wrong if I ask my grandson to get married? Is it wrong if I ask my granddaughter to pay attention to her marriage?”
Prasanti nodded.
“Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me, you stupid girl? Or have you become like the rest of them? Will you go off elsewhere?”
“Talking about people going elsewhere, did you hear about Mr. Bhattarai getting Bride Number Two for himself? Apparently, he couldn’t look after his retarded wife on his own.”
Chitralekha clucked exaggeratedly, encouraging Prasanti to continue with the gory details.
“Yes, all these years of marriage gone down the drain. Just like that—like the sun in the evening. He has taken up with a woman thirty-five years younger.”
“How do you know?” Chitralekha nudged, ignoring yet another of her servant’s similes that made no sense. “Last month you were talking about his affair with Rakesh’s mother.”
“Oh, I know everything,” Prasanti said. “What will she do now? His maid told me that he painted pictures of Rakesh’s mother. But now she’s back with her husband, while he runs around trees with his child bride.”
“Yes, men these days—they have no respect for anyone,” Chitralekha said and then loudly added, “But it’s not just men. No matter men or women, sons or daughters, grandsons or granddaughters—they are all the same. No one pays attention to their parents’ needs. When the grandmother is a poor widow, people care even less.”
Prasanti squatted on the tiled floor with a sigh. “And then, Bhola says the child bride might even be pregnant. The poor girl is barely developed. How can she be pregnant? What will she feed her child? The mad wife’s milk?”
Chitralekha, in splits now, asked Prasanti to shut up.
“And, yes, I am more developed than the child bride.” Prasanti looked down at her chest. “Maybe I could feed her poor child. Would a child fed with a hijra’s breast milk be a hijra?”
Then, with a twirl of her chunni, the scarf she used to cover her insufficient cleavage, Prasanti leapt up. She oscillated from one foot to the other. Rhythmically, she shook her entire body and gyrated. She jumped up and down, pulled her pants up so it looked as if she was wearing nothing under her kurta, spun around the room, fluttered her eyelashes, cocked her eyebrow suggestively, clapped, let go of the rubber band that held her hair together, threw it at a hysterical Chitralekha, smiled coquettishly, wriggled her entire body, and pranced around the room with enough intensity to bring a bewildered Agastaya into it.
“What’s the celebration about?” Agastaya peeped in. “I thought it was an earthquake.”
“No, it was a volcano,” Prasanti replied. Chitralekha was still laughing.
“We have a lot to do,” Agastaya said. “The Chaurasi is only a few days away. Don’t you have work to do, Prasanti?”
“I don’t want a Chaurasi,” Chitralekha said as she swaddled herself in a quilt and reclined again. “I don’t want a puja when no one cares. The only person who’d cry at my funeral would be this hijra. No one else brings me happiness.”
“Prasanti, can you see if Manasa wants anything?” Agastaya said. “You need to get things ready for the Kukkur Puja tomorrow.”
“I am not going to look around for dogs to worship when there are so many dogs in this house,” Prasanti said. “I am staying here because you’ll make Aamaa cry again. I know all you people.”
> Chitralekha had made an effort. She had tried behaving herself. She couldn’t be faulted for not trying, but it had all gone wrong. She had rehearsed so many times the meeting that would take place with Bhagwati. In front of the bathroom mirror, in front of her Godrej mirror in the bedroom, even before the windowpane of her office, she had acted and re-acted the scene that would play out once her granddaughter showed up. Sometimes, Chitralekha was unforgiving. At other times, she was cold. Yet, on a few occasions, she announced that the past should remain in the past. She was always the most at peace after the last performance.
Her cowardly granddaughter had finally come. Eighteen years after doing what she did to the family, Bhagwati, the girl who ran away, who threw away everything for the Damaai, had the courage to face her grandmother. Sadly—and it was always the parents who were at a disadvantage—it was the grandmother who couldn’t face her granddaughter. Chitralekha could barely look at Bhagwati, and there she was—her granddaughter—stuffing her face with mouthfuls of murai as if nothing had happened. In another era—perhaps in some other place in the same era—Bhagwati’s mere presence at the table would have driven everyone else away.
At dinner, Chitralekha developed a renewed sense of alertness with regard to Bhagwati and hadn’t been able to eat. She heard her granddaughter chomping. She could hear Bhagwati’s spoon scraping the plate. She heard the thud with which Bhagwati placed the glass on the table. She could feel her naatini shaking her legs. Chitralekha saw Bhagwati’s head turn. Yet, grandmother couldn’t look granddaughter in the face. After all these years, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Bhagwati and she had a few days under the same roof—she’d have to face her granddaughter sooner or later. What would she do then? Cry with her? Wail for her granddaughter? Weep for herself? Sob for the unborn offspring of her granddaughter’s children?
Chitralekha was born during the First World War, well before India attained independence, well before the Indo-China war, well before Sikkim was swallowed by India in what historians referred to as a smash-and-grab annexation, before the Sikkim kings were rendered impotent, well before the American queen of Sikkim left the king, well before Basnett’s downfall. She was a relic. How could someone as ancient as she be expected to understand love—that convoluted love Bhagwati immersed herself in? Chitralekha, too, had loved her husband. She had loved her son. She had even loved her daughter-in-law. Yes, she couldn’t be accused of not having loved. It was just that she loved within limits, loved where it was wise. How could this woman, who embraced, propagated, and preached pragmatism, have brought up a child who had chosen to disregard all rules of life for love? Chitralekha had been a failure. She may have built an empire, but she was a failure. Her granddaughter was a fool in love.
Chitralekha asked her servant to massage her head, and, punctuating her acridity with giggles and squawking, carried on about half-caste grandchildren, a grandson-in-law she couldn’t even allow inside the house, and two unmarried grandsons, one of whom she would never see again. After running her fingers through Chitralekha’s white hair, Prasanti quietly sewed marigolds into a garland while she listened. Chitralekha could sense that even her servant didn’t agree with her.
“So, are the neighbors in good health?” It was their code for Give me a report on the rest of the world.
“Gurung Aamaa says all her children are equal to her. I said she was lying.”
“No, she’s lying,” Chitralekha said. “You cannot love all your children, or your grandchildren, equally.”
“That’s what I said to her fat, ugly face. She called me names.”
“Everyone calls you names. What’s new there?”
“She called out to Keepu, who supported her. Even Keepu said she loves all her children equally.”
“You believe everything these stupid women say. They are both housewives and haven’t stepped out of the comfort of their homes in decades. What do they know about the world?”
“But shouldn’t they know what they are talking about when it comes to loving their children?” Prasanti asked. “Wouldn’t they know better about loving their children because they stay at home rather than work?”
“If it suits you to think like a moron, think that way. Parents do not love their children equally.”
“That means you don’t like them all equally?”
“Yes, it depends on who the weakest is. You have the most affection for the weakest, for the one you’re afraid will be destroyed by life.”
“Among your children, that would be Bhagwati, right?”
Chitralekha stared hard. “But she’s different.”
“Why don’t you like her? She is the weakest. You just contradicted yourself.”
“You know nothing about castes, Prasanti,” Chitralekha said. “It’s time for you to shut up.”
“She’s the only one who has said nothing to you. The others treat you so badly. She doesn’t say a word. I know I am only a servant, but I think you should make amends with her. She’s a good person, and I think she’s really hurting.”
“Yes, you are only a servant,” Chitralekha said. “And it would serve you well to behave like one. Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I saw her crying in the kitchen this morning.”
“She’s crying for the trouble she has brought on herself and the family. She deserves to cry.”
“I felt really bad.”
“Go away, Prasanti.” Chitralekha sighed. “Get lost before I kick you out, you badarnee.”
No one could fault her for lack of effort. She had in her almost eighty-four years of rigidity, eighty-four years of life. She was a product of her time. Those phone conversations with her granddaughter had been so much easier than seeing her, but Chitralekha would continue trying. It’d take her longer than she thought, yes, but she’d give it her all.
Where was sleep when she needed it? She would turn eighty-four in a few days. She felt eighty-four today—more ancient than she usually did. Was that the bell that just rang, or was it her imagination?
“Aamaa.” Prasanti was panting.
“What happened? I asked you not to be here.”
“Guess who I just saw?”
“Who? The Sharmas’ new son? The monkey-faced idiot?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“Don’t get angry.”
“Why would I?”
“You’ve shouted at me a few times already.”
“Because you deserve it. Stop wasting my time and tell me who you saw.”
“It’s Ruthwa—he’s here.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“No, he is here, I promise—should I let him in?”
Her not being able to face Bhagwati wasn’t such a big problem anymore.
TWO
So, why did I go home? Why would I go to a place where I was unwelcome?
I don’t know.
No, that’s a lie. I went because of one reason.
I went to see Prasanti.
Whom do I first see? Prasanti, the hijra, after all these years. Thirteen years. Thirteen damn years.
Ah, Prasanti. We go way, way back.
Ah, Prasanti, the eunuch, the half-sex, the hijra. Eunuchs and I have something of a history.
Before my downfall as a writer came, I received good money, especially from Western papers, to write frivolous claptrap on shit-knows-what masquerading as cultural commentary. All I had to do, really, was sell these unsuspecting publications Facebook notes of my travels around India. This is from one of those edgy men’s magazines whose readers love reading about the exotic. Every bit of what’s mentioned in the piece happened to me.
Yes, I, too, wouldn’t believe me if I were you.
Robbed by Eunuchs
Nothing quite prepares you for the show that ensues when a gaggle of eunuchs descends on you.
On my recent visit to Delhi, I got into an auto-rickshaw, a CNG-run three-wheeler that quivers—and I do mean quivers thunderously as it moves—rendering conv
ersation an impossible shouting match.
The peculiar construction of the auto-rickshaw—it has no doors or windows, and you get in from an open side, while the “closed” side has two horizontal bars—makes its passengers easy targets for beggars and lepers because hastily rolling up windows as panhandlers approach is not an option. Beggars can touch you, run away with your belongings, and incessantly pester you about the money you’re giving them not being enough, and stories of their snatching some Good Samaritan’s wallet as he or she tries withdrawing change are plentiful.
As such, Indian eunuchs love the auto-rickshaw as much as they love a red light. The combination of the two, complemented with a clueless passenger, makes for a big payday.
Now, why would I be afraid of eunuchs? Would I really have to give them money if I didn’t want to? I mean, c’mon, aren’t there panhandling laws in India, you may ask?
Well, if you aren’t familiar with the subculture of eunuchs in South Asia, here’s a synopsis: They are the most powerful people here. It’s believed that snubbing one means getting cursed, so this enterprising group plays off this widely held superstition and pushes itself to a superior bargaining position almost everywhere in India.
The eunuchs have no shame—one has, on one occasion, flashed my friends and me her mysterious private parts on a bus—and they use that to their ultimate advantage while demanding money from you.
A birth in your family? A group of eunuchs will be there to bless it—it’s auspicious. A wedding? Sure, they’re there—they supposedly bring luck. What if you don’t want to give them money? You risk bad luck and potential embarrassment in many ways, a perpetually pinched penis (notice the failed attempt at clever alliteration to distract you, the reader, from the horror of what actually goes down) being one of them.
Hardly had I traveled a mile and was stuck in the worst traffic I had ever seen when a eunuch came running to my car, got in next to me, and asked for money. A nervous wreck always makes for easy bait, and I overwhelmingly fit into that category.
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