Miss New India

by Bharati Mukherjee

  "And U.S. politics." Parvati broke in. "State capitals, interstate highway numbers, pop stars, rock stars. We had the students study Star magazine. Pathetic, except that it's pretty funny."

  "India was déclassé, and Indian-accented English laughed at," Usha continued. "So what does that do to a well-prepared, intelligent, motivated young agent who's mocked as soon as she opens her mouth? That's what we told our corporate clients. Do you want a human answering tape, or do you want a proactive, efficient employee?"

  "Some of them came around," Parvati said. "They said just make sure our customers can understand the English that the agents speak." Her own accent was eerily perfect American. She spoke of having trained young women from mofussil towns and villages to handle complicated questions on insurance claims. Women who might have remained illiterate and dependent were now earning decent paychecks. "The point Usha and I have made is that the Indian accent is a sign of competence."

  They were the experts, with their professional degrees and their years of experience with comparative business models and communications systems, but they just didn't get it: to a Gauripur runaway like her, Bangalore wasn't about global economics. It was an emotional and moral tsunami; it washed away old beliefs and traditions, the comforting ones together with the crippling, and if you survived, you knew you had the spunk and the grit to rebuild. "Excuse me, madam," Anjali interjected, and she suddenly found herself standing, the focus of everyone's attention. "It's more."

  If Usha Desai was irritated at being interrupted, she didn't show it. "Please, Miss Bose, continue," she said, smiling; then she sat down.

  Anjali had meant just to listen, just to absorb ideas, but now she was on her feet. And there was Mr. GG, also on his feet, raising his goblet of water in a toast.

  Everyone at the table turned to Mr. GG, though none of them lifted their glasses. "Let's hear from the young women themselves," he urged, but his eyes were fastened on unemployed Anjali.

  "Go on," Tookie urged Anjali. "You start."

  The debaters stared at Anjali. She had their full attention. There was no backing away now.

  "Hear, hear!" Mr. GG beamed at her. "Speech, please. We're all ears.

  Let words tumble off my tongue, she prayed. "I have been in Bangalore only three weeks. I have no job, no paycheck, and no family here. But I have seen more and learned more in Bangalore than I have from twenty years in Gauripur. Here I feel I can do anything. I feel I can change my life if that's what I want!"

  "Brava!" Tookie applauded.

  Even shy Sunita dared to speak. "And I do change lives. It's not glamorous work, my life hasn't changed, but every day I save lives of people I'll never see. I work for a company that reports break-ins and medical emergencies of older people living alone, people who can't get up when they fall down. If I wasn't in my cubicle answering calls, American houses would be vandalized and senior citizens would starve to death on the bedroom floor."

  Peter looked amused, and Minnie pained. But Anjali was inspired. "The word is... revolution," Anjali said. "That's it. We're soldiers in a social revolution."

  "A bloodless revolution, we hope," Usha said.

  Mr. GG chortled. "Oh, there will be blood." No one laughed. "That's the title of an American movie," he explained.

  Husseina ignored Girish Gujral's attempt to lighten the conversation. "My friend, my sister Anjali is quite correct. You don't have to be a villager to recognize there's a revolution going on."

  Minnie rang her bell to disrupt the talk of revolution. But Husseina was not to be stopped. "History tells us you cannot have a revolution without winners and victims. Most of you here are winners."

  Most of you? Not most of us? To Anjali, Husseina sounded as removed from the Bangalore scene as Mad Minnie was. What had she unearthed, with her intuitive correction of the intelligent, worldly CCI women? There was a long, awkward silence.

  Finally Peter responded to Husseina. "This same conversation is being repeated millions of times tonight, all over India. We know we are in the middle of a revolution, but is that a good thing? Where will it end? Are we riding a tiger, have we started something we can't control?"

  "Anything is better than what we had," Tookie snapped at him.

  Minnie rapped her fan against the armrest of Opal's wheelchair. Opal had fallen asleep. "Talk of revolution is poppycock! In a country like India, any mention of revolution is dangerous. Pure poppycock!" She gave Opal's wheelchair another vicious rap, but Opal stayed asleep. "Those of us who have lived through a real revolution know how bloody it is. How dare you turn it into a joking matter? We will not sit around my table and laud the virtue of revolution. What you Indians need to do is clean up your refuse and keep your mouths shut."

  And with that she broke up the dinner party before Asoke had a chance to serve the dessert course, trifle.

  3

  Peter was already at the plastic cloth—covered table in the eating alcove, sipping tea and reading Voice of the South, the local paper, when Anjali came down on Sunday morning, a little before seven. She was glad to see him back in his familiar uniform of kurta and blue jeans. Asoke hovered about him, offering him coddled eggs and fresh batches of toast. Peter had asked her to join him over a very early breakfast both because he had a morning flight to catch and because he wanted to talk to her without the other boarders listening in. She took the facing seat, prepared to be lectured on the many ways she had disappointed him. Okay, she had ... what was the damning word Peter had used? She had procrastinated. She was the Ultimate Procrastinator. If only one of the other Bagehot Girls would come down earlier than usual for chota hazari, which was what Minnie still called the day's first meal, and oblige Peter to dull the full force of his vocabulary! Okay, okay, her benefactor should not have had to incur the expense of traveling personally to Bangalore to introduce her to his local contacts. She was sorry; immensely sorry, really.

  Peter looked at her over the top of his paper and wished her a subdued good morning, but he didn't put the paper down. It was a brief glance, but Anjali didn't miss its reflection of private despair. How could her failure to follow through pain him so deeply? If she had had Tookie's genius for flippant small talk, she could have eased the tension. She did her modest best. "Your friend, Usha Desai, is so different from the way I'd pictured her." There, she'd brought up the subject of CCI, her reason for running to Bangalore; get Peter's harangue over with. He would keep it short; he had a plane to catch. "I thought she would sound more American."

  He folded the newspaper and pushed it toward her. "I don't think she's ever been out of India. Do you read Voice of the South?"

  "Only when I find a discarded copy," she said. She didn't add that she had done so only once, and that was at the bus depot.

  "Except for Dynamo's column, it's a rag. But you should get it just to read Dynamo. Very up to the minute."

  "I try not to waste money on buying anything I don't absolutely need." She lied.

  "Well, splurge on Voice. Dynamo has his finger on the pulse." He asked Asoke to remove his plate of uneaten toast. When Asoke was out of the room, he said, "Last night he couldn't take his eyes off you. I had no idea he was a friend of Minnie. She doesn't leave the house, but she stays wired."

  He? Who couldn't take his eyes off me? Asoke? And then it all fell in place, click-click-click: he was Dynamo, and Dynamo was Mr. GG, and Mr. GG was madly in love with her. Before she could say a word, Peter continued. "I always said you have a kind of magic, Angie. Somehow or other, you manage to be in the middle of things. Who can explain it?" But she didn't let on to Peter that it was she, not Minnie, who'd invited Mr. GG. Dynamo couldn't take his eyes off of you. She squirreled that away to savor later.

  "Well, shame on Dynamo! I thought well-mannered people didn't stare. Good thing I didn't notice; I'd have told him to stick his eyes back in his head." She glowed with pleasure at having ravished smooth Mr. GG into callow worshipfulness.

  "He had his driver leave off today's Voice so I wouldn't
miss his column." Peter drained his cup of tea and poured himself another. "He's gung-ho on this outsourcing revolution. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky." And then a shadow passed over his face, as though the sun itself had been eclipsed. Here it comes, she thought. Prepare yourself.

  "Angie, have you been in touch with anyone in Gauripur?"

  She wondered which way to go. Maybe with the truth. "No," she admitted. "I've been so busy here." She was about to ask if Mr. GG had been in the back seat of the car when the driver dropped off the paper. He must have been hoping for a glimpse of her. She bet he was the kind who planned "accidental" sightings. Maybe he had gotten a thrill just from being driven down her street. She felt sexy thinking of him.

  "Angie, I can't put this off any longer..." Peter's voice sounded anxious and gravelly, but he stopped short because Asoke was back from the kitchen, this time balancing a platter of browning banana slices and golden papaya wedges on one palm and a tray of clean cups and water glasses on the other. Anjali eyed the papaya. Minnie had never served fresh fruit since Anjali had moved in. She had Peter to thank for better breakfast fare as well as romance and free career training.

  Asoke removed the folded Voice from the table to make room for the fruit platter; then he took out small fruit plates and fruit knives from a credenza. There was pride in his movements. "Finger bowl coming," he assured them.

  Peter thanked Asoke and plucked a wedge of papaya off the platter. "Don't tell Asoke I am used to licking my fingers clean," he stage-whispered to Anjali. "And make sure he doesn't throw out the paper before you've read it." He separated the papaya flesh from its green skin with his fork instead of dirtying the fruit knife, with its mother-of-pearl handle. "Whether you like it or not, you'll find out if Dynamo's faith in the Bangalore experiment is justified. You're the guinea pig."

  "Guinea pig? Is your American friend calling us guinea pigs?" Husseina entered suddenly. She was wearing her black silk dressing gown over black silk pajamas as she usually did for breakfast, but this morning she had hidden her long, lustrous hair with a black scarf. Some pre-shampoo hot-oil treatment, Anjali assumed. Muslim women from rich families inherited effective beauty secrets. Husseina slid into the chair next to Peter. He acknowledged Husseina's presence with a nod instead of a good morning.

  Anjali sensed tension and tried immediately to defuse it. Guinea pigs were not pigs, but maybe Peter had offended the Muslim Husseina by likening call-center agents to them. "Oh, Peter was just chitchatting. How do you Americans say it, Peter? Shooting the breeze, no?"

  "No." Peter objected sharply. "I wasn't joking. Bangalore is a lab where a clutch of scientists run bold experiments. You're the specimen. You are not the scientist."

  Anjali intervened. "Husseina, pour you a cup?"

  "Nor are you the owner of the laboratory." Peter finished his statement.

  "Is it ignorance? Or with you guys, is it genetic arrogance?" Husseina stabbed two curls of butter in the butter dish with Peter's unused fruit knife. It was a vicious gesture, and Anjali saw Asoke, who was still hovering solicitously behind Peter's chair, cringe. Some days Asoke served butter shaped as hearts, diamonds, cloves, and aces. Curls, pats, and balls of butter meant either Asoke had been in a hurry or that he was ill. "What makes you think I am not the scientist? What makes you so sure that I am the sacrificial specimen instead?" She smeared butter on a triangle of cold toast, added a dab of marmalade, and handed it to Anjali. Asoke's homemade marmalade was too bitter, but Anjali didn't dare refuse Husseina's demand for solidarity. A sisterhood of guinea pigs. She wished that this morning Husseina had asked Asoke to leave her breakfast outside her room, as she often did, instead of coming down and ending Anjali's attempts to extract from Peter additional flattering information about the lovesick Mr. GG.

  Fortunately Peter backed off. "I am happy to be corrected." He glanced at his watch, which prompted Asoke to ask, "Taxi, sahib?" On the rare occasion that a Bagehot House boarder required a taxi, Asoke had a squatter flag one down from an intersection three blocks away. It meant a tip for the squatter, and probably a cut of that tip for Asoke.

  "Auto-rickshaw. I'll tell you when." Peter rose from the table. "Asoke, two teas in my room. Do you mind, Angie?"

  Asoke was aghast. "This papaya not tasty, sahib?"

  "Sahib?" Elegant Husseina let out a scornful snort. "Did this pathetic old man really use that word?"

  "Lost my appetite, that's all." Peter helped Anjali out of her chair.

  Eager to hear more about Mr. GG, Anjali scrambled out of the dining room ahead of Peter.

  "Do you WRITE regularly to your sister?"

  It was the first thing Peter said after Asoke had served them tea and left them alone in the cavernous, underfurnished guest bedroom, pulling the heavy door closed behind him. Just banal chatter to put himself at ease, Anjali decided. They sat, Anjali in the only armchair and Peter on the bed, with a low, wide table between them. Peter had stripped the mattress of sheets as though cleaning up was his job and not Asoke's. No need to bristle at him for asking after Sonali-di and accidentally reviving the raw pain of her final night in Patna. She would guide Peter back to the subject of Mr. GG. She needed to make efficient use of the fifteen or twenty minutes Peter had reserved to say goodbye to her in private. "I used to," she said. "I visited her the day I left," she said, turning on her practiced smile. "We are back-ing and forth-ing quite a bit by letter."

  "Angie, Angie, don't lie to me."

  What was the point of exchanging letters if the sisters couldn't get beyond polite, perfunctory formalities? "All right. If you want to know the truth, she thinks I'm selfish. She doesn't approve of my having left home."

  Peter's packed duffel bag and bulging book tote lay on the floor just inside the door, ready for him to carry out to the auto-rickshaw. His multipocketed, handloom cotton vest, convenient for stowing airline tickets and wallet, was laid out at the foot of the bare mattress. She wouldn't allow flashbacks of her quarrel with Sonali-di to beat back fantasies of her future with Mr. GG. She wanted to gush to Peter about love, not family. "How is Ali?" He would want to talk about Ali just as much as she wanted to speak of Mr. GG. She checked his face for an automatic softening. But he stared at her as though she had punched him. She lowered her gaze to his lips, which pursed and parted a couple of times. He seemed on the verge of a profound confession or a disturbing confidence.

  "I have very sad, very important news for you," he said. He reached for his vest, extracted a newspaper clipping from the breastpocket sewn into the lining to safeguard cash, and held it out to her. "This is the reason I came.

  She recognized a smudged face in the tiny photo in the clipping from The Gauripur Standard: Baba's studio matrimonial portrait. A beadyeyed, mustached young man doing his best to project confidence and purpose. She had seen the original in the family album, which was stored, swaddled in a woolen shawl, in Ma's dowry trunk. Ma was proud of that photo. Anjali and Sonali had caught her taking the album out of the trunk and surreptitiously flipping it open to Baba's studio portrait on several Sunday afternoons while Baba slept off the heavy Sunday lunch of mutton curry. Ma, Anjali realized, was in love with the man she had conjured from that photo, but not with the obsequious Indian Railways bureaucrat her parents had forced her to marry. Ma had nagged Baba constantly. In Gauripur, Anjali had dismissed that nagging as white noise and paid no attention to Ma's words. The Ma who had brought her up must have been a bitter woman. Anjali tried to visualize Ma as a dreamy teenage bride-to-be, swooning over the youthful face in Baba's posed studio portrait. That girl must have prayed hard that she would be selected over rival candidates. Shaky Sengupta was an illusionist, and Anjali now better understood how the art of all the Shaky Senguptas was supposed to work: incite fantasies of permanent prosperity and protection. When disillusionment strikes, get out of range of the victim's vengeful feelings.

  And then, click-click. That picture, in that paper. It could mean only one thing. Sonali-di must have selected that p
hoto to send to the Standard. Baba was dead. He must have been cremated within twenty-four hours of his passing. Peter had hurried her away from acid-tongued Husseina so he could deliver his shocking message in private. She turned away from the clipping, which Peter was still holding out to her. She pushed his hand away. As long as she didn't read the obituary, she could pretend he was alive. Baba and Ma could live on, squabbling continuously, which was their version of conjugal togetherness. Peter held out his handkerchief to dry the tears she didn't know she'd shed.

  "I can understand your wanting to be with your family at a time like this." Peter sneaked a look at his watch. "I'll take care of your travel arrangements as soon as I get back. If you want to come back here, I can arrange it with Minnie. The Patna-Bangalore return ticket can be left open."

  "Patna?"

  "Your mother has moved in with your sister. Would you rather I read this," he tapped the clipping, "out loud?"

  "No. Just give it to me."

  The whole time I've been here, Baba's been dead. I had these dreams, I had moments of forgiveness and moments I wanted to be forgiven. He'd been in my dreams, and now he was a ghost.

  She heard a voice, in Bangla: "You killed him." Was it her mother?

  "You were too good for that boy. You had to make more money than your father. You had to be your own boss. You never thought what Baba went through at the office. All of Gauripur laughed behind his back, 'There goes Bose-babu, two daughters, one divorced, the other a ... a runaway. Went to Mumbai, became a prostitute.' He couldn't take it any longer. He ended his life."

  BOSE, PRAFULLA KUMAR. 48, suddenly at his residence in Gauripur. Asst. sub-inspector (Goods), Indian Railways (north Bihar). Third-Generation Gauripur native. Like his father (Dipendu Kumar) and his grandfather (Neelkontho Kumar), Prafulla Kumar joined railway service straightway after obtaining B. Comm. Man of unyielding faith and steadfast integrity, elected Vice-President of the Gauripur Durga Puja Committee for seven consecutive years and was holding that office at his untimely demise. His patrilineal survivors include six brothers, who migrated permanently to Kolkata. He is mourned by his widow Archana Debi, his married daughter Sonali (Das) and granddaughter residing in Patna. He was predeceased by his second daughter. His ashes join cosmic unity. His loss to the Bengali community of Gauripur is immeasurable. We, members of the Durga Puja Committee, mourn his absence with inconsolable hearts and crestfallen minds. Nagendra Nath Bhattacharya, President, Durga Puja Committee.