Born Behind Bars

by Padma Venkatraman

  “Amma said my father never told my grandparents about me.” I turn to Patti and Thatha. “How could you have been searching for me?”

  “The cook who works at the house where your father once worked contacted us some time ago,” Thatha explains. “She said she’d seen you. She thought you looked familiar when she first saw you, then realized you reminded her of your father.

  “She questioned that man, also named Khan, who claimed you were his nephew. She felt sure he was up to no good, and your disappearance strengthened her suspicions. She didn’t trust the police, so she decided to try tracking down your father, and she found us.”

  Patti gets all choked up. “We are so grateful to her! It was so much to take in, after all these years, discovering we had a grandson, only to be told he was missing.”

  What a strange world. The chatty cook I met for a few minutes was kind enough to go out of her way to help me, but the policemen who’d worked in the jail where I’d lived all my life hadn’t bothered to check if they were sending me to the right person.

  And I’m so glad that this nice policeman did all he could to find my grandparents. “Thank you, sir,” I say, and because it just doesn’t sound like enough, I say it again a few times, as if I’m a parrot. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  “It was nothing,” he says, but he looks pleased as Thatha and Patti echo my gratitude.

  “See this?” My Thatha holds out an old black-and-white photograph of a boy who could be me. His eyebrows are arrow-straight, same as mine. “That’s your father when he was your age. We alerted the police in Chennai city. They’re too busy to search for every poor child who goes missing, but it helped that we filed a report.”

  “I can’t believe how much happened while I was sleeping,” I say.

  Our policeman smiles. “You’ve been sleeping soundly for quite a few hours, little brother.”

  My grandfather wipes his eyes. “We can go home, whenever you’re ready,” he says.

  “Not yet,” I say. “I’d like to wait till Rani’s back, please.”

  My grandparents go indoors with our policeman while I wait in the courtyard for Rani. In a few minutes, she returns from her walk, with Jay on her shoulder.

  I rush over to her and blurt out, “I can’t go to live with my grandparents unless you come too.”

  “What’s this?” Rani puts her hands on her hips. “Now that we’ve found your grandparents, you don’t want to live with them?”

  “I want to be with you.”

  “Do you remember why you came to Bengaluru, Prince of Forgetfulness? You came to find your family.”

  “But I found you first. You’re my best friend.”

  “I’m your only friend.” Rani thumps me between my shoulders. “Seriously, Kabir, you’re my best friend too, and I’ll miss you—but I won’t be that far away, you know?”

  I blink really fast so that I won’t cry. Finding Appa’s family shouldn’t mean I have to lose her.

  “Kabir, listen. It’s going to be okay. Remember how I told you my mother wanted me to go to school? Well, after I came to the city, I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting in a room all day. Plus, I needed to figure out how to live on my own. But I’ve always felt guilty for not doing what my mother wanted. So I want to give Viji Aunty’s school a try.” Rani looks so hopeful, it makes me feel better.

  “You promise we’ll stay in touch?”

  “Hmm . . .” Rani uses her fortune-teller voice. “Let me look into the future. Yes. Whether you like it or not, you are in my future. Isn’t that right, Jay?”

  “Right, right, rrrright!” Jay squawks.

  I kiss the top of Jay’s soft head. And I give Rani the longest hug.

  When I let go, she gives me a little shove. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll both be fine.”

  I take a step and then another and then another.

  I walk without looking back, all the way to where my grandparents are waiting.

  56

  Finding My Father

  Outside the police station, Thatha hails a rickshaw. We get in, and my grandparents squish me between them.

  As the rickshaw putters along the road, darting through traffic, I drag to my lips the question that’s been stuck in my heart for so long.

  “Can you tell me what happened to my appa? Amma hasn’t heard from him for years and years.”

  Tears wobble down my grandfather’s cheeks. Patti swoops down and folds me in her arms. She smells like jasmine flowers—but I don’t see any in her hair. Her arms feel softer than Amma’s, but if I close my eyes, I can almost imagine Amma’s holding me.

  “Your father,” Thatha says. “Sadly, your father died some years ago, Kabir. And all these years, we never knew he had a wife. Or a son. Not until the cook called us looking for your father.”

  Thatha’s words sink in slowly.

  Appa’s dead. I’ll never get to hold his hand or hear his voice. And we’ll never be together, the three of us—Appa, Amma, and me—except for in my dreams.

  Maybe Amma wondered if he’d died, and that’s why she’d cry softly sometimes in our cell when she thought I wasn’t awake. Maybe somewhere deep down, even I was afraid of it.

  Thatha says something about how all this is so new while Patti dabs at the tears in her eyes. “We prayed for a miracle. We can’t believe this is happening, but we’re thankful it is.”

  “How did my appa die?”

  “He died in a plane crash, Kabir,” Patti says, looking at the ground. “He said he was coming home because he had something important to tell us. We used to wonder what it was. Now we know he wanted to tell us about the two of you.”

  “I’m afraid it’s my fault my son was too scared to tell us the truth,” Thatha says. “He was right to worry, because I had a fearful temper when I was younger. But sadness drove all the anger out of me after your father died.” His eyes get shiny as if he’s going to cry some more. “I never knew I had a grandson, but now all I know is I never want my grandson to be scared of me.”

  My father is dead. But maybe that’s better than finding out he stopped caring about us. I wish I could talk to Amma right now and tell her she was correct—that he did always love us.

  Thatha lays his large, warm hand on my knee. Patti squeezes me tighter, but my heart keeps sliding around in my chest as if it’s a loose stone.

  Because I miss Rani already. Because I’ll never get to see Appa. And because if he isn’t around to help me rescue Amma now, it’s all up to me.

  57

  Home

  Welcome home.” Thatha leads us to an apartment on the second floor of a tall yellow building.

  We take off our slippers outside the door, wipe our feet on a thick mat, and step inside. My bare feet have never felt anything as smooth as the cool red-tiled floor.

  The main room has a bookshelf with pictures of the boy who was my father and the man he became.

  “This is your father when he won a singing competition at his school.” Patti takes a picture down so I can see it up close. My father holds up a funny-looking cup with two handles. He wears a nice shirt and a pair of trousers and a big smile.

  “Here is more of your family.” Patti starts pointing out faces and naming my father’s cousins and their sisters and sisters-in-law and brothers and brothers-in-law. I see a lot of women who are really and truly my grand-aunties. And photographs of Patti and Thatha before their hair got gray.

  “Want to see the rest of the house?” Patti says. “It’s small, but I hope you like it.”

  Small? I wait for her to laugh, because it must be a joke.

  She doesn’t, although they—we—have not only this front room, but also two rooms big enough to fit two beds in them and a cupboard, plus a kitchen and a whole bathroom we don’t need to share with anyone outside the family.

  The bathroom
hasn’t got any grime anywhere. It smells funny in a way that tickles my nose, but not in a bad way.

  “That’s how clean smells,” Patti says when she sees me take a deep breath.

  The bathroom window is high up, but the bedrooms have large, low windows. I run my hands along the curly metal grille that’s set inside the window frame.

  “That grille helps help keep bad people out,” Patti says. “Not that we ever had anyone break in. We look after each other in this neighborhood.”

  Patti’s words remind me of what Rani said about Jay’s cage. Gazing out the window at the narrow strip of sky above the neighboring apartment building, I wonder if Viji Aunty’s school is as comfortable as Patti and Thatha’s house.

  “Want anything to drink? Or eat?” Patti says.

  “No, Patti.” I try out the word, and her smile grows as big as her face can fit.

  “He can hardly keep his eyes open, poor boy,” Thatha says. “Let him rest.”

  Patti gives me a bright white towel that smells lemony. And a tiny box with a soap inside that smells even nicer.

  “For me? This whole new bar of soap?”

  Thatha’s lips wobble again, but Patti says yes, and she gives me a shiny new plastic comb and a toothbrush with a bright green handle. “That’s for you too.”

  The toothbrush’s bristles feel firm but not hard. The comb grins at me with all its teeth in place.

  “Have you ever used a toothbrush and toothpaste before?” she asks.

  “No, but I’ve seen it on TV. When I was with Rani, she showed me how to use neem twigs to keep our mouths clean, and in jail we rubbed a powder on our teeth.”

  Patti drops a tiny blob of paste onto my brush. The toothpaste fills my mouth with soft, sweet foam. I try swallowing some, and it doesn’t taste as bad as seawater, but it definitely isn’t good to eat.

  The soap is orange and looks delicious. I’m tempted to nibble it, but Patti must be able to read my mind, because she says, “That’s not tasty either, Kabir.”

  It’s amazing how quickly the soap turns the water into a froth. Patti lets me play with the shiny soap bubbles in the sink for a while, but then she says I must stop because if I don’t, my fingers will get as wrinkly as her skin.

  58

  Turning On a Light

  In the room that Patti calls my bedroom, there’s a calendar and a picture of something written in a long, beautiful script.

  “That’s Arabic,” Patti says when she sees me staring at it. “It’s the first verse from the holy Koran. You do know that it is our holy book?”

  “Yes . . .” I remember Amma and Bedi Ma’am saying something about holy books. “But I—I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Something tells me you’ll learn fast.” She smiles.

  “Patti?” A worry that’s been in my head finds its way out of my mouth. “Amma said Appa kept his marriage secret because Amma is Hindu. Are you upset I’m half Hindu?”

  “Kabir, when I see you, all I think of is how great God is. You are a miracle we never dreamed about, never prayed for, never could imagine.”

  “But Appa should have told you about us!” I’m shocked by my own angry voice. It’s like I bottled up my anger so long and so well I didn’t even admit I felt it, but now it bubbles out like soda. “All these years we were in jail, we thought we had no one because of Appa being too scared to tell you the truth.”

  “Don’t be angry with your father, Kabir. As your grandfather said, we were different back then.” She pauses. “Losing your father changed us. No one can imagine the pain we felt. Our only child, gone.”

  “I understand pain,” I whisper. My fists clench. “I bet I understand what pain means even more than you.”

  Patti takes my fists in her soft hands as sobs burst out of me.

  “Go ahead, Kabir,” she says. “Let it all out.”

  I grit my teeth, trying to hold back the anger and missing-Amma feeling and whatever-else feelings that slosh about inside my stomach like Rani’s stew. But they gush up, and two rivers of tears start flowing down my cheeks.

  They’re pretty long rivers. They go on and on for a while. Patti slides her arm around my shoulders and waits until my tears stop. Then she gets me a cool glass of water. I take a sip and swirl the glass and listen to the ice cubes clinking together.

  “We expected your father would marry a Muslim girl we chose for him,” Patti tells me. “He kept putting it off, giving excuses, saying he wasn’t ready for marriage, even though he was earning enough to help us move into this nice apartment. It was a shock to be told he already had a wife. A Hindu. And in jail. But then to hear he had a son! It was another shock for sure. But we agreed it was also a miracle.”

  Our fingers interlock. “So you don’t mind I’m only half Muslim?”

  She looks straight at me. “If your father had told us all those years ago he was marrying your mother, I’m sure we would have been angry. We probably would have acted badly toward him and your mother.”

  I’m glad she’s telling me the truth. It would be so easy for her to lie. I’m glad she’s not pretending.

  “The fact that your mother chose a name for you that both Hindus and Muslims use means a lot to us. It’s as if she sort of accepted us, even though we’d never met.”

  I look at the framed words hanging on the wall. I’m sure I’ll enjoy learning new ways to pray to the God in the sky. After all, I’m good at learning songs by heart. “Patti, do you like Kabir’s songs?”

  “I don’t know any because I hardly ever sing, which is probably a good thing, with my voice.” She laughs. “But I like that Saint Kabir tried to bring Muslims and Hindus together. They say, after he died, his followers fought over whether to bury him or cremate him—”

  “And then his body turned into flowers,” I finish, happy there’s at least one story that Patti and Amma share. “Then his Hindu followers burned half the flowers, and the Muslims buried the rest.”

  “Which shows they never did truly learn to come together,” Patti adds softly.

  “But I can, can’t I? I want to learn both ways to pray. I want to bring both religions together inside me.”

  “Saint Kabir would be proud.” Patti’s cheeks crinkle into a smile. “So many gray hairs on my head, but I have a lot left to learn. I’ll try my best.”

  “Patti, you’ll help me get Amma out soon, won’t you?”

  “Let’s talk about that tomorrow. Today was a lot for us, and I feel almost like I’m walking around in my sleep, scared this is just a dream.” She gets up. “I can’t imagine how tired you must feel. Shall I turn out the light?”

  For the first time, someone is asking if I want the light on or off. No guards here to control my every move. If I want, I can get up anytime in the middle of the night for a drink of water or to go to the bathroom.

  “Can I turn it off myself?” I ask.

  “Of course,” she says. “This is your home.”

  I press the switch and flick the light off, and then turn it on again. And off again. And on again.

  My light. My home. I try on those words as if they’re a new pair of slippers that don’t quite fit.

  But though I’m not yet used to this room, it already feels safe and so comfortable. I guess that’s what Amma tried to tell me—home is a feeling, not a place. Except I won’t ever feel truly at home until she’s safe and comfortable with me.

  “Thank you, Patti.” I turn off the light.

  “No need to thank us,” she says.

  The bed is just the right kind of soft. My pillow smells lemony, the same as my towel did. I lie back. It’s nice the way my pillow holds my head up just a bit. I look out the window, my window, into the night sky.

  Amma was right. Appa was a good man. He took care of his parents and he always loved us, even though he lived so far away.

 
I wonder if Appa is out there somewhere in the sky, near God, whether God’s name is Allah or Krishna or something else I don’t know, still loving us, still working to help Amma get out of jail in ways I can’t see.

  59

  A Little More Than We Need

  Waking up in a real bed with a real pillow is so nice, I don’t want to get out of it.

  I lie in, watching a ray of sunshine turn bits of dust into gold, until I hear Patti enter the room, her sari swishing.

  She puts a pair of shorts and a shirt on my bed that are warm to the touch. “Freshly ironed,” she says.

  She gives me a bottle of shampoo and tells me how to wash my hair with it. It’s unbelievable how many things there are to help me stay clean. I like this shampoo, which makes my hair all foamy. I make a foam beard and try to look at myself in the bathroom mirror, but it’s all misted up, and then the shampoo runs into my eyes and makes them sting.

  By the time I’m ready to put on my new outfit, I feel not just clean but new. New Kabir, smartly dressed with shiny hair, ready to not just look at the outside world, but to try and belong in it.

  Thatha says before breakfast, we should pray together, and he shows me how. Patti and Thatha pray very differently from anything Amma taught me. They also tell me they pray at least five times each day, which is a whole lot more praying than all the women in jail put together.

  Patti sets a steaming cup of milk in front of me.

  “I don’t like milk,” I start to say, but then I taste it, and it’s nothing like the whitish water we got in jail. This milk is thick and creamy, and its taste sweetens my tongue.