by Aman Sethi
‘So Ashraf, where do you want to go?’
‘Nowhere. Patna ka toh no chance. All my friends have become collectors and policemen and lawyers and judges. What face shall I show them? I can’t be a mazdoor in my own town, Aman bhai.’
‘So who builds the houses in Patna?’
‘Runaways from Kanpur.’
•
The todh-phodh dragged on all through the summer; mazdoors at Bara Tooti grew more desperate. On one of those oppressive afternoons, Kaka confided that he had saved enough money to buy his son an aerated drinks stall in East Delhi and so was thinking of shutting shop once and for all. ‘But don’t tell anyone at the chowk just yet, Aman bhai,’ he pleaded. ‘If they find out I’m finished.’
‘I’ll be sad to see you go, Kaka, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about,’ I replied. ‘Everyone will miss you, but I’m sure we can find chai elsewhere.’
The next day I was to find out exactly how much everyone would miss Kaka if he left.
‘Kaka owes me two thousand rupees, the bastard. He better not go anywhere,’ said Lalloo in alarm, when I said that Kaka was looking unwell and casually suggested that the overworked chaiwallah go on holiday.
‘Kaka owes you money?’
‘Of course, Kaka owes us all money—except Ashraf of course. Ashraf has no money.’
‘I always thought that you owed Kaka money.’
‘That’s only in the short term. In the long term, Kaka owes us.’
‘How does Kaka have your money?’
‘Well, I gave it to him! He’d better have it.’
I realized I had seriously misjudged Kaka’s importance all these years. It’s true that Kaka’s tea was fractionally better than some of his competitors’, but that was obviously not why everyone patronized him. Kaka wasn’t just everyone’s chaiwallah, he was everyone’s banker!
Lalloo, Rehaan, everyone except for Ashraf, routinely dropped off a few hundred rupees with Kaka for safekeeping on the condition that he return the money on two or three days’ notice. The system worked well as long as there were enough depositors and withdrawals were few: the mazdoors managed to save some money and Kaka received a substantial number of small, but useful, zero-interest loans that he invested in things like his son’s soft drinks stand.
Lalloo’s morning cup of tea was more than just a morning ritual; it was reassurance that his banker was hale, hearty, and solvent.
With the todh-phodh, work suddenly dried up and more and more mazdoors began asking for their money. Thus far, Kaka had managed to keep pace with the withdrawal, but the strain was beginning to tell. If word got out that Kaka was thinking of leaving, it would prompt a run on his bank—Kaka would never be able to pay off his loans fast enough and the mazdoors would lose all their savings.
I don’t know why Kaka ever let on that he was thinking of leaving; it would have been so simple to pack up one night and never return. But where would he go? What would he do? And as Ashraf always said, you can’t run all your life.
It takes years to build a clientele, and still more time to win their trust. Perhaps he was simply sending out a signal that he was in trouble too; that he needed some breathing space. The chaos of the todh-phodh continued till the end of the year, but the danger at Sadar Bazaar passed. Kaka stayed and honoured most of his debts.
four
AJNABI,
or Stranger
1
One morning, five years ago, Mohammed Ashraf forgot the phone number of the house where his mother lived.
For a long time, it was the only number he remembered. He would call her; she would ask him to come home. He would cry, she would cry. Then one day he forgot the number.
‘I woke up one morning—drunk—and the number had slipped from my mind while I was asleep. It dribbled out of my open mouth; it escaped while I lay snoring. I asked Kaka if he remembered it; he was the one who punched it out for me. But his fingers forget the number the moment they press the buttons. They dial hundreds of numbers a day—how many numbers can they remember? Kaka says he only remembers his father’s number.’
Ashraf thought of writing to her; but he had forgotten how to write. He tried a few words, but he kept getting confused with the matras, his hand started to hurt, and then he realized he had forgotten her address. The only address he remembered was 207 Patliputra Colony, Patna. But that was not her house—that was Dr Hussain’s house. But even he didn’t live there any more.
‘I can remember roads; I’m brilliant at remembering roads. Once I walk along a read, I can always find my way back home. If I travel along a path more than once, I am almost certain to remember most major landmarks; and when there aren’t any, I make my own. I remember the way to Grace Ma’am’s house, I remember the way to school; but I don’t know where my mother lives any more. She shifted after I left Patna.’
But he remembers the way to Raja’s house. ‘Remember Raja? Double BA Raja?’ Even if you are a stranger to Calcutta, even today, after all these years, Ashraf can still tell you the way to Raja’s; and if you make it there, he can tell you the way back home—if you still remember where you live, that is.
‘When you get out of the Kalka Mail, it will be around seven o’clock in the morning, or maybe even eight. Sometimes protesters squat on the tracks, so count yourself lucky if you make it to Howrah by evening. Once out of the station, turn left. The Hooghly is on your right now, and you are walking up a road towards a gigantic steel cage of a bridge. You might recognize it from your childhood if you ever watched Doordarshan; they call it the Howrah Bridge—the new one.
‘From the roundabout under the bridge catch the bus from Howrah to Sealdah—it’s another railway station—and ride the bus from terminus to terminus all the way through Bara Bazaar. At the terminus keep the station on your right hand and walk on steadily past the bus depot towards the main chowk of Raja Bazaar.
‘At the chowk you will see many labourers—just like us all here in Bara Tooti—but do not be distracted, turn right on to the bridge that goes to Narkul Danga. If anyone asks you, tell them you are looking for Raja’s house: a small green house in the basti down this road.
‘I never told you why Raja married twice. Before the second marriage Raja was a lafunter like me. It’s impossible to find a house in Calcutta—at least a cheap house in a good location—and Raja could never save any money anyway. Whenever I put away a few notes, he would laugh—he was always laughing—and say, “Why? Ashraf bhai, why? We didn’t come to Calcutta to build the fucking Taj Mahal.”’
But Raja found his Mumtaz Begum and the Taj Mahal came for free. ‘Now if only she would die like Mumtaz,’ he would joke. ‘Then I can bury her and grieve happily ever after.’
‘But I think he likes her. These kinds of men like those kinds of women.’
‘But why am I telling you about Raja again? How did we start this conversation? I remember now—I was telling you the way home from Raja’s house. But for that I had to first tell you where his house was and then of course how he got the house. Funny how every short story is actually just the beginning of a really long one.
‘Before he got the house we used to sleep together under the awning of the Momein Girls’ High School. We had to wake up early before the schoolgirls came or the watchman would get angry and threaten to tell the police.’
For a week after Ashraf forgot his mother’s address he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what it meant to be a complete lawaris without any fixed address, family, or home.
Kaka told him it was a good thing. ‘There are lots of government schemes for lawaris people, Ashraf bhai. Free food, free medicines, free everything.’ He said it was people like him—who had a house and a family—who were the worst off. ‘Everyone thinks we are rich. But we are prisoners of our house—we can’t sell it and we don’t make enough money to live in it. Homeless lawaris people like you are completely free.’
But, one day he woke up and heard that the plumber in Bara Tooti, R
am Avatar, had died in his sleep and he understood. Lawaris meant he would die on a footpath in Delhi, and no one would even know.
‘So what should we do, Ashraf bhai?’
‘Let’s go, Aman bhai, I think I’m ready.’
2
The loudspeaker crackles; the start-up jingle from an outdated version of Microsoft Windows echoes across the platforms of Old Delhi Railway Station. The woman with the metallic voice sings out the names and times of incoming trains.
Ashraf, Lalloo, and I stand outside the station, savouring one last chai together. I wanted to have tea at Kaka’s stall—to bring things full circle in a way—but Ashraf wanted to get to the station on time. In a few minutes, Ashraf and I will hoist our bags onto our shoulders and make our way to the general compartment of the Howrah-bound Kalka Mail, and Lalloo will make the lonely walk back to Bara Tooti.
Ashraf’s plan is to go back to Calcutta and rejoin Raja’s floor polishing business. He is convinced that Raja will welcome him as a brother. He is ready to start over.
Without Ashraf, Lalloo isn’t sure he wants to continue in the safedi business. He’s never been to Calcutta, and says he would rather restart his paratha business in Delhi. Over the last few weeks, the three of us have worked out a budget for Ashraf and Lalloo. Ashraf reckons he needs about two thousand rupees: a thousand for the house—one month’s deposit, one month’s rent. Five hundred for tools, utensils, and other essentials, and another five hundred to keep him going for the first month.
Lalloo needs about the same: a thousand for the handcart, another five hundred for utensils, and the rest for vegetables, atta, salt, pickle. The money is a loan—Ashraf and Lalloo would never accept a favour of this scale—but it’s a loan with a flexible repayment policy. ‘I’m thinking of it as an investment,’ I tell them. ‘If you both do well, I shall have a stake in a paratha shop in Delhi and a thekedari in Calcutta.’
Ashraf and I will head to Calcutta. I’ll stay a week, and when I return, Lalloo will be waiting with piping hot parathas from his stand. ‘The first time you come, you can eat for free,’ he offers, ‘and as the business grows I’ll pay you back.’
‘We will always remember you, Aman bhai,’ says Lalloo, as if he doubts I will ever come back. ‘We won’t forget you—especially how your sister went and helped poor Satish.’
In my five years at Bara Tooti, it is my sister’s underwear purchase that has had the most resonance. Not that I admitted Satish into the hospital, or the hundreds of hours we spent together. No, all of that pales in comparison to the fact that my sister—a girl!—went into a TB ward to bring underwear for a man she had never met before. ‘People like that are hard to find, Aman bhai.’
The woman with the metallic voice says something again. I think it’s time. I stand up and walk off to smoke a cigarette and give the two of them some time by themselves.
‘Chalo, Lalloo bhai, come to Calcutta sometime,’ says Ashraf.
‘Chalo, Ashraf bhai, make lots of money in Calcutta and return.’
I look back to see them embrace—Ashraf shaking with sobs, Lalloo consoling him.
•
The first hour passes in silence. Ashraf sits by the window, watching Delhi rush past. Once past Faridabad, the train picks up speed and Ashraf loosens up. ‘I can’t believe I’m leaving,’ he says with a wry smile. ‘For the last few months I was ekdum 100 per cent sure I would die in Delhi.’
We talk for a bit—random snippets of conversation as the train speeds through station after station. I smile my reassuring smile as often as I can; after breakfast I climb up onto the top berth and fall asleep.
I awake to sounds of raucous laughter. Ashraf and the Bengali bangle seller sitting across us are teasing the fifteen-year-old who is travelling home from Delhi for the first time.
‘How do you know, how do you know?’ says the youth defensively.
‘Arre, don’t you watch the movies? Ask anyone,’ says Ashraf.
‘He’s going back to his village for the first time,’ the bangle seller explains. ‘He wants to prove to everyone he’s become a big man.’
The boy looks crestfallen; he’s still a child—maybe fifteen—who works at someone’s house in Delhi. He’s clearly proud of going back home with money in his pockets; it’s the first vacation he’s taken in two years. He has his cellphone charging next to him, he has a digital watch on his wrist.
‘I got presents for everyone, but forgot about my sister-in-law. It’s not such a big deal. But my brother just got married, so…’
‘So he bought her something from the platform. Show us what you got? Show, show, show.’
The boy reaches into his bag and pulls out a slender necklace: it is a mangalsutra.
‘Why didn’t you buy your sister-in-law a wedding ring as well, you chootiya?’ The bangle seller screeches with laughter. ‘And some kumkum too.’
‘What’s her name? Draupadi?’ asks Ashraf to more laughter.
‘Now you tell me what to do.’ The boy is distraught; he looks like he might cry.
Ashraf and his accomplice look penitent.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ says the bangle seller. ‘I’ll give you a set of plain bangles—nothing too fancy—simple, colourful bangles that you can give your sister-in-law without upsetting your brother.’
‘You are lucky you met such a good man,’ says Ashraf sternly. ‘Anyone else might have just let you go home and get slapped by your brother.’
The boy looks suitably grateful.
The train rolls on.
At night, Ashraf has slumped back into a surly silence. ‘What if I can’t find Raja?’
I reassure him as best as I can, but I am rather worried myself. The implications of our journey are slowly beginning to sink in. We have set off from Bara Tooti in search of a man that Ashraf last spoke to about fifteen years ago. That he has a house is reassuring, but what if Ashraf can’t find him? I have booked return tickets, but the loss of face will probably kill Ashraf.
‘There is no way I am returning to Bara Tooti,’ he confirms. ‘What will everyone say?’
The curse of the runaway is that he must return in materially superior circumstances. If you leave a mazdoor and return a mazdoor, then what have you achieved?
•
I’m chatting with the man on the side berth. We are discussing beards: his and mine.
‘Are you Kashmiri?’ he asks.
‘No, are you?’
‘No, no,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I’m from Calcutta, I saw your beard so I asked.’
‘Same here,’ I respond. It is hard not to see beards—affixed as they are to one’s face. Mohammed Ijaz is one of those people who can look out of the window at any given point in a train journey and offer a precise speed–distance–time analysis of the journey.
‘The train is running late,’ he says glumly. ‘My cows are waiting.’
He comes from a family of dairy farmers; they have about ten cows, each of which gives ‘only best quality milk’. These days unscrupulous farmers mix chemicals with milk to make it appear creamier, but Ijaz’s family has refrained from the practice.
‘You must visit my uncle,’ he says when I tell him we are going to Raja Bazaar. ‘He makes the best tea in Calcutta, if not the entire country. It is the best tea shop in Raja Bazaar at least.’ The secret is the tiny pinch of salt he puts into each cup. ‘It brings the flavour out.’
3
It is a tiny room with plywood walls and a queen-sized bed. My feet stick out at the end. The bathroom and toilet are down the hall and shared between the six rooms on the second floor of Hotel Medina in Calcutta’s Bara Bazaar. But it has a television and is only two hundred and fifty rupees for the night, so we take it.
We need to buy Ashraf a change of clothes—the canvas bag he has carried all the way from Delhi contains only a heavy shawl and a set of paint-splattered work clothes. He has gifted his brushes to Lalloo as he doesn’t see himself working as a painter ever again. ‘Raja mustn’t
think I have come begging for money. We will tell him that I am thinking of setting up a floor-polishing business in Calcutta and want his advice.’
So we drop our stuff off at the hotel and step out into Calcutta’s Bara Bazaar.
‘I want only solid colours,’ says Ashraf. ‘I don’t like checks or stripes.’ He also dislikes red, yellow, purple, black, electric lilac, ochre, and grey. He finally settles for two full-sleeved shirts: deep blue and dark green. Ashraf is a size 38.
Pants?
‘No, Aman bhai, these are fine.’ He dusts off his dark pants. ‘There is only so much I can take from you.’
We get lunch at a dhaba—beef kababs and roti—and head back to the hotel. I fall asleep, Ashraf switches on the television.
I wake up to Mithun Chakraborty landing a crushing blow on a mortal enemy. I don’t think Ashraf has blinked since he switched on the television. The man is obsessed. ‘It’s been ten years since I watched TV,’ he confesses, ‘and even then someone else had the remote.’ We had left our door open and a small crowd comprising the cook, two errand boys, and the security guard has assembled to watch the movie. The guard has taken our chair and is sitting on it just outside our doorway.
‘So what’s the movie about?’
‘Shush!’ says the crowd, so I go back to sleep.
At six we head off to Raja Bazaar. Ashraf does indeed have an amazing head for roads. Guided solely by memory, he cuts through alleyways to arrive at the precise cut in the road where Bara Bazaar merges into Raja Bazaar.
The Raja Bazaar chowk is deserted when we arrive, except for a solitary paanwallah who is shutting down for the day.
‘I’m looking for Raja mota—Raja, the fat one.’
‘He’s probably at his house—you know it?’
‘The one near the Momein Girls’ High School?’