The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad

by Kunal

  Punjab all that we are meant to do is eat and drink. My parents thought books were meant only to

  be thrown into the bonfire at Lohri.’

  She told him a funny story about her uncle Jippy, who once leaped over the Lohri bonfire tipsily,

  with the minor inconvenience of having set his kurta on fire. His brother-in-law then tried to douse

  the fire by upending the glass of whisky in his hand over the burning kurta sleeve.

  But she said nothing about an absent husband or how she ended up in Indore and he didn’t ask. He

  in return, ignoring her protests that he should only speak in English in order to practice, reminded

  her that class was now over, and switched to his impeccable Hindi.

  He told her about his trip to Uttarakhand, meeting Prat Bhai on the train, about Asha Rani and her

  goats. ‘You know, Sarita ji, the more I travel around the country, the bigger my dreams get,’ he

  said. ‘I want to install vending machines in schools all over the country. There are lakhs of young

  girls who start missing school once they begin menstruating. So many of them drop out altogether. I

  want to see them all finish their studies and enter the workforce, let them start making something of

  their lives, rather than just making dal and curry for the rest of their days.’

  Sarita nimbly skipped over a large pile of cow dung on the pavement and replied, ‘You reminded

  me of something, Prabhash. Many years ago, at my cousin Jasminder’s wedding, eunuchs had come

  outside her house to give their blessings and of course extract a hefty sum for the same. I will

  never forget the words the elderly hijra sang, “Once he puts a garland over her head, the good wife

  has to stay in the kitchen and cut onions till she is dead.” And the younger eunuchs danced to this,

  making graceful turns in their bright saris.

  ‘Of course, after three more songs when Jasminder’s father refused to pay them, all that grace

  disappeared and one of the eunuchs lifted up her sari waist high and flashed him right in the face.’

  Bablu laughed. ‘It has happened to me too, at a traffic signal. I had no place to hide my face nor

  could I roll up a window!’

  ‘Why?’ asked Sarita.

  Bablu laughed. ‘Because I was on my cycle, Sarita ji.’

  They walked to a small tea stall and sat down on the stained wooden benches. Sarita, holding her

  glass of milky tea in one hand and waving flies away with the other, kept glancing at Bablu. His

  face was only half visible under the shadow of the tin roof. He had such calm brown eyes and an

  uncomplicated gaze that he seemed to be largely focusing on the dented aluminium table between

  them.

  He was one of the few men she had met who looked at women not as objects to be slotted in their

  place, or as beings that only existed to do their bidding.

  Women have been looking for a cape and have been handed an apron for centuries. But here was a

  man who wanted to help women swing their apron around, let it flutter down their backs and watch

  them soar through the clear blue skies.

  22

  Prashant Batra submitted his story to the Guardian titled ‘The first man to wear a sanitary napkin’.

  It was a four-page article chronicling Bablu Kewat’s journey from Mohana to Indore. And with

  that, troops of ruddy-faced journalists wielding straw hats and bottled water along with their

  dictaphones began descending on Bablu Kewat’s workshop from all over the world.

  The Times of India was the first Indian newspaper to feature Bablu Kewat and his unique

  invention. A half-page story on page six, sandwiched between an advertisement for Sintex water

  storage tanks and an announcement that wished Sardar Ranga Singh a ‘Very Jolly Birthday Sir ji’.

  Bablu Kewat had started getting famous.

  There were television interviews where poker-faced anchors not quite focusing on the work he

  was doing with non-profit and women’s groups kept trying to draw out salacious details of him

  wearing a pad and leaking blood all over himself.

  He was invited to speak at universities and companies and conferences across the country. Bablu

  found himself enjoying these talks.

  There was one rather memorable experience in Bhopal. It was a packed hall, with a panel of

  dignitaries from around the world and attended by the Minister of Commerce, Industry and

  Employment.

  Bablu began his talk by pulling out a sanitary napkin from his pocket and waving it in front of the

  startled guests asking, ‘How many men here have touched a sanitary pad in their life?’

  When no one responded, he walked up to the minister and said, ‘Well sir, here is your chance,

  come hold this, I promise it won’t bite.’ The startled minister looked helplessly around, waiting for

  someone to rescue him and, with no escape in sight, gingerly took the sanitary pad in his hand.

  Bablu continued, ‘You’re feeling embarrassed holding that pad, aren’t you, sir? This shame in

  discussing menstruation, in holding a sanitary pad, is one of the biggest hurdles we face. It is as if

  menstruation is not a natural function, but a sin that women unwillingly commit through their uterus

  and have to hide away from prying eyes, lest they be declared guilty of the crime of bleeding.

  ‘This shame is the reason why women take their stained pieces of cloth, wash them secretively and

  hang them to dry in places where even the rays of the sun cannot spot them. Then they end up using

  those mouldy, bacteria-laden pieces of fabric, and get diseases. Let us all refuse to be part of this

  game of shame because it is nothing but a losing game for all humanity.’

  The audience was spellbound and couldn’t stop clapping. Taking his sanitary pad back from the

  hapless minister’s hands, Bablu added with a twinkle in his eye, ‘And I would like to end my

  speech by thanking women and their menstrual cycles. Without them, this talk, along with our very

  existence, would not be possible.’

  Later, laughing about the event, he confessed to Sarita, ‘Sarita ji, I told them only ten per cent of

  women in India used a sanitary pad. Actually I fudged the number. It is only five per cent. I just

  added five per cent more on stage because I did not want to embarrass Bharat Mata so much in

  front of all foreigners.’

  23

  One evening, over cups of tea, Bablu was entertaining Professor Sharma with his most recent

  adventures as a sanitary napkin salesman. Wherever he went, he encountered so many interesting

  characters, and he hoarded up the stories to tell the professor and Sarita.

  He recounted a tale about a woman in Chhattisgarh who refused to switch from her dirty rags to the

  pads because she explained, ‘If a dog gets hold of the menstrual pad and runs on the street, that’s a

  sign that my mother-in-law will die.’

  ‘She refused to listen to me,’ Bablu said, ‘even though I tried explaining that if that were true, then

  millions of women all over India would deliberately throw their sanitary pads on the streets,

  hoping for dogs to carry them off.’ Professor Sharma laughed while Bablu, biting into one of the

  bhajiyas Mrs Sharma had prepared, said, ‘These moong dal bhajiyas are almost as good as the

  ones Ma used to make.’

  He hadn’t thought about his mother in a while and this sudden memory of her robbed him briefly of

  words. Professor Sharma, sensing his mood shift, gently broached the topic of Bablu reuniting with


  his family.

  Bablu turned away and looking at Choti playing on the lawn he said, ‘Whenever I think of them, my

  heart feels heavy. They all abandoned me. Since the time I was fourteen I had sacrificed everything

  for my mother and my sisters and when the time came to stand by me, they all fled.’

  Professor Sharma asked, ‘And what about Gowri?’

  Bablu replied, ‘My mother thought Gowri was the right woman for me and once she was in my life

  I tried to be the right man for her but marriage is about understanding, Professor saab, and where

  did she ever understand me?

  ‘You know, soon after she left, her brother came to see me. We were standing on the porch and he

  called me all sorts of names. The neighbours gathered and then he pushed me down the stairs and

  left. What had I ever done to deserve all this humiliation? I do not want to turn around and choke

  on the dust of my footsteps, Professor saab. Now the only path for me lies ahead.’

  24

  On a rain-filled evening, sitting across Sarita’s dining table, his head bent over grammar textbooks

  meant for sixth graders, in his idiosyncratic English, Bablu said, ‘I got mail, Sarita ji, from

  Unilever. They are calling me to London and saying to give a talk in front of their top managers

  about how I am making sanitary pads in such cheap way.

  ‘I don’t know how I will talk in English and all properly, little worry in my heart.’ And then he

  laughed, adding, ‘Sarita ji, when I told to Sanjay, my neighbour on second floor, that I may be

  going to London next month so can he giving Choti food and take her walking, he said, “No, no,

  Kewat don’t go, even Bruce Lee was poisoned by these British people!”’

  Sarita leaned across the table and, putting her hand over his, said, ‘Prabhash, I don’t know if the

  British poisoned Bruce Lee, but I am pretty sure that you will not be poisoned at the Unilever

  event, unless you decide to chew on their Lifebuoy soap.

  ‘Go and don’t worry about speaking on stage. It doesn’t matter if your English is incorrect. If you

  feel more comfortable, just speak in Hindi. Remember all these people, these MBAs, are calling

  you on stage because they know that despite all their education, you are more brilliant than them.

  After all, it is you who have set up more than two hundred sanitary napkin manufacturing units in

  seven states, as you never tire of telling me – not them. It is they who need to learn something from

  you.’

  Not long after, Bablu Kewat, with freshly oiled hair, a new pair of grey trousers, a mustard

  sleeveless Nehru jacket and his new Bata shoes, stood in line at the airport waiting for his

  boarding pass. The woman with immaculate red lipstick across the counter asked, ‘Sir, what

  would you prefer, window or aisle?’

  Not quite understanding the question, he nonchalantly replied, ‘I already have Windows on my

  laptop so I will take the aisle.’

  Bablu Kewat had a comfortable journey in his aisle seat to Heathrow. And at the Unilever

  convention the next day, remembering Sarita’s words, he delivered a simple speech about both his

  journey and his beliefs.

  He ended his talk by saying, ‘Big business is like a mosquito, a parasite. It can make society ill.

  My method of business is like a bee. You take nectar from the flower while benefiting the system.’

  And then looking directly at his audience of executives with degrees from Harvard and Yale he

  ended his speech, gently challenging them, ‘I classify people into three categories, uneducated, a

  little educated and surplus educated. A little educated man like me has done this. Surplus educated

  people, what are you going to do for society?’

  The applause didn’t stop. Bablu stood on the stage, his heart bursting with pride, as the solitary

  spotlight focused on him. He wished he could share this moment with someone. He thought about

  his parents. They should have been here. His poor father, who had not gone further than the

  perimeter of Mohana, and his mother, who had travelled just a bit further, to Dewas, cooking in

  different homes, trying to raise three children.

  The hurt he had nursed against his mother faded. He suddenly realized, as he stood alone on the

  stage, that he was not here despite his mother, but because of her. Growing up, seeing her

  struggling for her family’s survival and her indomitable strength that seemed to deal with every

  obstacle had made him see women in a role different from the customary one.

  His journey had begun as a young boy when he decided to drop out of school to help his mother.

  The lessons he had learned during that time, the understanding he gained, all had their role in

  bringing him here, to this very auditorium. The yearning for his family, deeply buried in his heart,

  returned to him with all the sharpness of a fresh wound.

  After the conference, Bablu spent the rest of his trip riding the open red bus, seeing all the tourist

  spots of London, the Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, standing at the gates of Buckingham Palace and

  walking at length around Hyde Park till he got a dreadful shoe bite.

  Then he headed back home but not before he bought a purse emblazoned with the Union Jack and a

  matching keychain for Sarita, and an ‘I love London’ T-shirt for Maina.

  25

  Ropes of marigold flowers were hung in sweeping loops across the entrance of Bablu Kewat’s

  office. A pandit in a white dhoti was sitting on the floor, arranging numerous idols of gods and

  goddesses on a silk-covered platform, decorating it with fruits and rice grains in intricate patterns,

  waiting to add the book of accounts which would also be duly anointed with a sacred red dot and

  placed at the altar.

  Bablu had a lot to thank God for this year. In January he had been the recipient of one of the highest

  awards given to civilians by the Government of India, the Padma Shri, and he had also been

  commissioned by the chief minister of Bihar to help set up over a hundred sanitary pad making

  units in the state.

  Distributing Diwali bonuses along with packets of sweets to his workers, Bablu was waiting to

  finish the ceremony and head to Sarita’s house. He had purchased fireworks for Maina – sparklers,

  Lakshmi bombs and rockets that would go high into the sky before bursting into an array of

  dazzling stars.

  The telephone on his desk rang and Bablu picked up the cordless phone, clamping it between his

  ear and shoulder as he lifted yet another gift-wrapped box of sweets. At the other end, a hesitant

  voice said, ‘Hello? It’s me.’ And with a nervous laugh she added, ‘Do you still remember me?’

  Bablu felt a nerve twitch from his shoulder to his forearm, his throat went dry and he set the box of

  sweets on the table, walking towards a quieter corner of the office.

  There was only one appropriate reply that he could give. With a heart filled with an ache that was

  both sweet and sour, like a half-ripened mango, still green on the other side, he said, ‘It is not so

  easy for a man to forget his wife.’

  ***

  The night sky was filled with fireworks as the city celebrated Diwali. Sounds of excited voices

  and laughter rang all around him but Bablu Kewat felt hollow as he stood next to Sarita.

  He watched Maina make small circles with the sparklers in the dark and saw the warmth in

  Sarita’s eyes when he helped Maina put
a rocket inside a glass bottle and lit the wick for her as

  she gleefully watched it zigzag into the sky.

  Later that evening, with the exhausted child asleep on the couch, he sat at the same chipped

  wooden table where it had all begun and told Sarita about the conversation with his wife. Gowri

  had told him that she had been looking for him unsuccessfully till someone sent her a magazine that

  featured an article on him along with a phone number for Kewat Industries.

  Bablu had felt numb through the conversation. As his wife spoke, Sarita’s face had loomed in his

  mind. He didn’t know what to feel. And then there was a pause, a few muffled sounds of the phone

  being handed over and, as he heard his mother’s voice, Bablu had finally broken down.

  26

  The jeep hurtled down the dusty road from Dewas to Mohana, with Bablu holding the steering

  wheel with one hand and now and then patting Choti with the other. The dog was sitting in the front

  seat, barking occasionally, her tail wagging and her head hanging out of the window, perhaps

  catching traces of long-forgotten trails.

  Bablu was returning home but it had not been an easy decision. Since Gowri’s phone call, Bablu

  felt there was a flickering tube light in his head, going on and off, on and off.

  He oscillated between dread and wistful yearning. He had deep misgivings, a fear of being

  contained in a coop he had possibly outgrown, as he relived the past again and again.

  Then the tube light flickered on and he could see himself sitting on the stairs with his mother as she

  rubbed coconut oil into his hair on Sunday mornings, and images of sticky faces and mouths filled

  with pink candy floss, gleaming in the sunlight as he walked back with his sisters from the local

  fair.

  And Gowri, lying down next to him in the dark, her long hair sprawled over the pillow, her red

  bindi, as smudged as the kohl around her eyes, turning towards him and giggling at a now long-

  forgotten jest. But then the tube light would flicker off and he would return to those dark days of

  being alone, ostracized, abandoned.

  Finally he had gone to meet Professor Sharma. Walking around the lawn, throwing a half-chewed

  yellow ball for Choti, Professor Sharma said, ‘Bablu, relationships may tear but they are not