by Tova Reich
“It’s okay, Maya,” I sought to comfort you. “I understand. It’s not your fault, whatever happens to those girls.”
At the same time, though, I privately resolved to go on the slum tour as soon as possible. If Geeta your cold-hearted absentee parent could gaze upon you on planet slum where you passed your days, I certainly had earned the right to see you there too, I who had stuck it out.
I decided not to let you know when I would be coming. I wanted to spare you the state of living dread, or the obligation in such a traditional society to drop whatever you were doing and come forward to greet me, your honored mother. In any event, there were over a million people living in Dharavi. Chances were very small that we would run into each other. I could come and go, and you would never even know I had passed through, but anything I might learn would give me some insight into where your head was at now, and I could help you—helping you was my reason for staying alive. I was doing it for you, Maya, but it would not be an invasion of your privacy, like opening your mail or reading your journal. I had been invited, publicly and in your presence, fair and square, and now I was accepting the invitation as discreetly as I could to spare you. I would leave no footprint.
But who leaves a footprint on this earth anyway, and especially in a slum where life is so cheap, and most especially in a slum during the monsoons when every sign is washed away and erased? Trailing through the thickets of narrow congested lanes behind the backpackers, tuning in and out to the upbeat patter of our guide Sunil/Sunny, the first thought that hit me as we waded up to our knees in brown sludgy fluid floating with dead vermin and turds with personality, decomposing flesh and rotting garbage, was, did the Hindu princess Geeta really trek through this? The second thought was, maybe you had made up the story of Geeta’s visit in order to finally get me up off my tukhes to go on this damn tour—a sweet thought only in that, contrary to every indication, its implication was that you might actually have wanted me to come, you were not ashamed of me after all as I had so foolishly imagined—but it was also a thought that I quickly scratched as fantasy since I knew that the memory of losing Geeta was still too fresh and painful for you to evoke, even for my sake.
Still, I simply could not picture Geeta wading through this sea of offal like other mortals. She must have been forearmed, she was probably wearing a pair of offensively expensive thigh-high custom-made designer boots cobbled by hand out of some high-tech water-repellent material, I decided, a monsoon fashion statement on the slum runway, or maybe she was borne aloft in a palanquin like the Maharini of Mumbai, and her feet never touched the ground, she never left dry land. Then I thought of you, Maya, I pictured your tall rubber boots caked with stinking brown gunk that you took off every night in the hallway outside the door, I pictured you sloshing through this filthy soup day after day, with more liquid pouring down from the low black clouds overhead, and again I thought, thank God your falling sickness days have passed—what if you slipped and fell into this swamp, infested with parasites and feces and disease, what then? The kids trudging ahead of me were soaked, but still they kept badgering Sunny, Where’s the shit lake? Are we there yet? The open lake of raw sewage, it seemed, according to the yelps, was the highlight of the slum tour. They kept on nagging him until finally, even with the positive, gung-ho demeanor all Slum Power employees were required to maintain, he lost it. “The shit lake overflows in monsoon,” he snapped. “You’re walking in it right now.”
It was still midafternoon, but the low cloud canopy brought on an early end-of-day darkness. The blue tarpaulins that were stretched across almost every rooftop in a pathetic effort to keep out the steadily falling rain gave off a dusky, twilight disorientation. In the cramped passageways, people moved about as if in an underworld, picking their way through the large objects bobbing in the water by the light of their cell phones. Water had risen into almost every shack, we could track it flowing in inexorably. Through the doors, open to catch the fading rays of daylight, the whites of eyes glowed out as if from the portholes of a doomed ship, the lower half of bodies were sunk in still, stagnant water like emerging life forms in evolutionary distress.
To demonstrate how ingeniously some citizens improvised and coped, Sunny led us into a comparatively larger hutment, constructed on a slight elevation of compacted trash and recycled junk. Even so, inside the water was at least ankle deep. We were clumped at the entrance, not wanting to invade as uninvited guests by venturing boldly into the interior, pointing the flashlights we had been instructed in advance to bring along as part of our slum tour gear, listening to the master of the house muttering, Welcome, welcome, observing him smiling genially and nodding his head as if in total agreement with every word spoken in a language he likely did not understand, while Sunny directed our attention to the shelves and ledges jutting out high up along the walls. Human figures were reclining on them, or engaging in some domestic task, a mother nursing a baby, an ancient grandma curled up snoring, flicking away in her sleep the drops of rain falling on her hollow cheek, children eating street food, samosas and bhel puri off torn sheets of newspaper since the contamination permeating everything made cooking at home a mortal threat, Sunny explained. In the most protected position, the place of honor, Sunny pointed, we could see the family’s most treasured possessions wrapped in plastic, the television set above all else, though unfortunately it was impossible to switch on the electricity in the basti during the monsoon, not only because the power was on the blink almost full time as usual, but also because of the danger of shock due to the moisture saturating everything.
When Sunny concluded his spiel, an awkward silence descended, the meaning of which as a travel professional I instantly grasped. I seized the initiative, opened my purse and handed a nice pile of rupees to our host, which he accepted with a practiced gesture, placing the cash over his heart with both hands flat on top of it and bowing his head in gratitude. All the backpackers followed my lead and did the same, except for the kid outfitted head to toe in top-of-the-line travel wear, who inquired if they took credit cards. The master of the house reached up to one of the shelves and pulled down a plastic bag containing a portable credit card gizmo, and the transaction was completed.
The gratuity for the owner of the monsoon showhouse was on top of the price we had paid for the tour itself, amounting at the very least to what an upwardly mobile slum dweller might earn in a month. Now Sunny was warming us up for the biggest payout of all—I recognized this as a tourism insider—the contribution we would be asked to make at the end of our tour to his worthy nonprofit with an additional tip to him for his superior services. In anticipation, for the grand finale, he announced that we would now be taken around to view just a small sampling of some of Slum Power’s cutting-edge, life-altering projects. All of it was contained in a very small space, he reassured us, so there would not be that much more walking on water to do; in any case, the basti itself with its one million inhabitants right in the heart of the frenetic metropolis of Mumbai hardly took up more than a square mile of land, he reminded us.
He failed to mention the climbing, however, up narrow, steep staircases, sometimes even ladders in near darkness to the factories where men and boys sat shoulder to shoulder, melting recycled plastic water bottles, firing clay pots, stitching garments, a rapturous smile lighting up every face, they looked as if any minute they might all burst out in song as in a socialist realism propaganda film. Most heartwarming of all was the happy leather workshop reeking of animal carcasses employing Dalit untouchables and Muslim outcasts. “Equal opportunity employment, nondiscrimination, that’s our motto, the rejects of Indian society empowered by Slum Power,” Sunny intoned. The previous week alone this factory had shipped out five thousand designer belts, he proudly announced, special order from a very famous chain of stores that we may have heard of, Sex Filth Avenue in the United States of America.
“But what about the other 50 percent?” a pretty blond feminist called out, right on cue. “Good question, Pipi.” S
unny replied. Was I the only one not given a name tag? He flashed an irresistible smile, and promptly led the way to the women’s workplaces set up by Slum Power—embroidery shops, children’s nurseries, bakeries, and the like, as well as self-improvement programs ranging from basic literacy to computer literacy, women’s healthcare and hygiene, and yes, even family planning, or more to the point, sex education. Slum Power had fought a mighty battle against the prevailing conservative mindset to get that sex-ed class up and running, Sunny told us, but the need was undeniable. The last stop on our tour would be a rare glimpse of the fruits of Slum Power’s progressive victory in one of the most reactionary communities of all, though in deference to the sensitivity of the subject and the modesty of the young ladies, it would be only a very brief stop, yet even so, highly informative. Yes! One of the kids leading the way pumped his fist. Even better than the shit lake.
It was on the fringe of the basti, in what you had called the Muslim ghetto. We clustered in the doorway of the classroom, not quite entering, the women of our group in front and the men and boys screened behind us, craning their necks for a view over our heads. It was a traditional schoolroom setup—rows of student desks, blackboard, the teacher’s desk in front facing the class and us. The students ranged in age from approximately nine to somewhere in their midteens, according to Sunny, the prime age for marriage, every head covered in a hijab. You sat at the teacher’s desk, your face veiled in a niqab, only your eyes were visible. Spread out on the surface in front of you were packets of Nirodhs and a bunch of bananas. One of the Nirodhs had already been unrolled in a demonstration on a banana. In a Skype audio conversation we had had over the past year, one in which you had been a bit less guarded, you mentioned that the sex-ed instructor in your fancy girls school in Washington, DC, had also used bananas to demonstrate protection with a selection of pleasure-enhancement condoms—flavored, fluorescent, ribbed, and so on—to enlighten you at the same time on the joy of sex. Recalling this you had laughed so girlishly, it had been so sweet to hear your laugh. But the condoms you were demonstrating for your students were just ordinary, no-frills Nirodhs. “Condoms are permissible in special situations after marriage,” you said, “such as during jihad, to prevent the birth of orphans. For even then, the excess energy of the faithful must find release in order to carry on the work of the shahid.”
What? What? The people behind me couldn’t hear what you were saying; you were speaking so softly in a mix of Hindi and Marathi, but mostly Urdu. They would not in any event have been able to understand you even if you had shouted in English; your words were incomprehensible, they made no sense. Your eyes were cast modestly down, no doubt because you were aware of the presence of one of your colleagues and his group, including male members. You did not raise your eyes for a second, even out of curiosity. You did not know I was there, I felt sure of that. You did not feel my presence, you did not see me turn and push my way through the group past Sunny’s hand extended for a tip, out of the collapsing building into the dark lanes of the slum, churning up the brown water and sloshing it all over me as I ran, searching for my lost reality.
No taxi would stop for me after I had finally found my way out of the basti. I looked like an alien being emerging from the primordial soup, molded out of mud and clay like the first attempt at golem-making by a novice in a kabbalah workshop run by Madonna, still missing the divine spark that would give me a life. The autorickshaw driver who pulled up alongside me at last out of desperation for a fare first handed me a soggy Mumbai Mirror left by a previous passenger, and would not let me board until I had spread it to his satisfaction over the seat as well as every surface with which my befouled physical person might come into contact.
Skidding and bumping along on the slick, potholed and rutted streets in that tuk-tuk, my entire being wanted nothing more at that moment than to be cleansed of the slum filth, like a prisoner in a sealed cattle car dying for a shower. But the first priority was to save your life, Maya. Above all it was imperative to get you out of Mumbai, out of India, back to the rational side of the globe, far from the Hindustani soul trap. I needed to be in touch with Charlotte, she was responsible. She was the one who had engineered it all, who had snatched you away from me, who had sent you to a school that encouraged such a lethal internship, with such catastrophic consequences. It was her fault. Now it was her duty to repair the harm she had wrought—to pluck you out of the slums at once, call out the big guns if necessary, Amma herself and even loftier personages, not excluding the Obamas up the street, especially her best friend, Michelle, to fall down on her knees and supplicate Michelle during one of their naked hot-yoga sessions in her private home studio, to insist that Michelle get the Man to order the Green Berets or some other superhero special commando unit to evacuate you. Michelle needed to be made to understand that she must do for you exactly what she would have done for her own daughters had they too come home from Sidwell Friends School one day with their heads wrapped in hijabs, slated as brides for shahids, stepping out of one of the fleet of presidential limousines with the cameras flashing, had her girls too been seduced by the masochistic self-annihilating romance of Islamic fundamentalism, their souls taken into captivity, as I now understood yours to have been taken; it could happen to them too, they were not immune. This was an emergency situation, no possible remedy should be overlooked. You were in terrible danger, there was not a minute to waste.
Charlotte picked up right away. It was her private line, the access code available to only the chosen few. “What a coincidence, Meena darling!” There was a condescending edge to her tone, it pierced me instantly. “I just got off the phone with Maya. She said you’d be calling any minute. Ha ha. She mentioned you had dropped into her sex-ed class for Muslim brides-to-be today at Dharavi with one of those tour groups, but then suddenly you ran off without even saying hi or bye—maybe some business emergency you had to attend to, she thought. I hope everything is okay. I hope it wasn’t the Mumbai version of Delhi belly—that would be a real bummer, everything is always a million times more intense in Bombay, maxed out to the limit. Frankly, I have no problem whatsoever with Maya teaching sexed, if that’s your concern. It’s very therapeutic, such a cathartic form of emotional self-healing, such a healthy channeling of all that bad stuff—you know what I mean? Anyway, she’s feeling great—she was calling to tell me that. Her three doshas are all in correct balance. Her seven chakra centers are completely open and unblocked. Her self-esteem has come back like gangbusters. She’s feeling so healed, she’s decided not to return to DC after the summer but to stay on in Mumbai, go back to her old school, and continue doing volunteer work in the slum, which will look absolutely brilliant when she applies to university—don’t you think? I’m totally in support of this plan. It’s just so rewarding when one of my girls graduates from my program completely detoxed and ready to press the restart button. It’s like an extreme makeover, it makes me feel like jumping on top of my seat and giving her a standing ovation.”
Charlotte was flying high, nothing I said in response was registering. She simply brushed me off when I insisted that it was essential for you to go back to DC right away, that you had fallen in with a very negative crowd, there was a danger you might run off to some terminally misogynistic Middle Eastern country, not Israel, and marry a terrorist suicide-bomber wannabe and maybe blow yourself up too in the bargain, or turn into a sex slave, or get yourself honor killed, or stoned, or blinded with acid, or some other stock variation on the theme. You were being brainwashed, I informed Charlotte. I begged her to get Amma to force you to leave India and ship you to DC immediately, as she had done the previous year. “We didn’t force her,” Charlotte said coldly. “She wanted to go, it was her idea.”
Could that really be true? But now was not the time to fact-check the past, you were in immediate existential crisis. I reminded her of how impressionable you were, how sensitive. I was practically weeping. I told her that you were under the influence of a Muslim fanatic; gra
nted he was cute, terrorists can be super cute and super sexy, you were in love and therefore irrational. Had she been with me today and seen you in that classroom, she would have gotten the picture. You were talking about shahids, jihad, surrender, your face was covered with some kind of schmatte, all you needed was a pair of dark sunglasses, and not one inch of skin would have been visible, like wearing a burqa. I felt I was suffocating when I saw you in that classroom, I told Charlotte. I had to get out of there, I simply could not breathe.
“Ah, burqas,” Charlotte mused. “I consider them the ultimate feminist fashion statement. It’s like walking around in a room of your own.” She had just hired a team to design and market variations on the burqa for the contemporary woman. Perfect for when you’re feeling a little fat, or your face breaks out in zits, the burqa could become the mumu of the new millennium.
“Meena darling, relax. I do believe you are overreacting.” Charlotte was focusing; she was making an effort. “Maybe Maya’s going through a minor adolescent romantic Muslim stage, but it will pass. If it makes you feel any better, the variety of Islamic religious experience she’s involved with happens to be really quite liberal and gender-friendly from what I can tell. She’s planning to go tonight with a group of friends to Haji Ali, she told me—you know, the Sufi saint, his tomb? Sufis are the good Muslims, everybody loves the Sufis—right? They’re the Muslim hippies, the mystics, the poets, the cuddly Muslims. I mean, didn’t you ever go through a Rumi phase? Anyway, she was telling me how it’s really so fun to walk to Haji Ali at night during the monsoon singing a malhar raga with the waves crashing against the long concrete causeway leading to the mosque on its little island. But there’s always the possibility of flooding, or high tide and the causeway getting submerged. So she wanted me to tell you when you called that there’s a very good chance she might not be able to get back right away, she might have to stay there overnight or even longer, she doesn’t want you to worry or call the Mumbai lost and found or the cops or the missing persons squad or something. But the real reason they’re going to Haji Ali, you’ll be so proud to hear, is not just for the scenic walk, or for the view of that lovely little white mosque in the middle of the Arabian Sea as if floating detached in mist. No, she and her friends are going for the express purpose of occupying Haji Ali, to protest the recent ban against women entering the inner sanctum of the saint’s tomb. The Dargah trust likes to boast that they’re open to all races, religions and creeds—so hey, what about gender? I am so proud of Maya! She and her pals are not just taking it—no. They’re planning an action, speaking truth to power. They’re going to walk right through the barricade blocking the women and stage a sit-in at the tomb, she told me, which is just so cool—Girls at the Grave. Now doesn’t that make you feel better, Meena?”