Karma Gone Bad

by Jenny Feldon

  The customs agent ignored me. He stamped our passports so hard he tore the paper. “Step through x-ray over there and then claim your belongings.”

  “But what about the dog?” I asked. People at home told me horror stories about pets being quarantined. I’d chain myself to the customs desk before I’d let them take Tucker away. I planted my feet, ready to fight. No one was taking my dog anywhere. He was American. He had rights.

  The agent looked right through me to a woman in a sari holding a twenty-four-pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups.

  “Next in queue.”

  “I can’t put the dog through the x-ray,” I whispered to Jay, hurrying to keep up with him.

  “Just take him out of the bag; it’ll be fine.” He reached in and patted Tucker on the head. “We could have brought a dragon here, and as long as it wasn’t holding a Hershey bar or a rib-eye steak, we’d have been all set.”

  The baggage claim area was packed. Children ran everywhere, pushing metal luggage carts around, climbing onto the ancient, creaking luggage carousel and riding it like a surfboard until their hassled parents grabbed them away. We waited.

  An hour later, an ear-splitting siren announced the arrival of the luggage. One bag at a time made its way around the dilapidated circle, each one more dust-covered and exhausted-looking than the last, like they’d made the passage from Germany on the back of a camel. Some of the bags were marked with giant chalk Xs.

  “What do you think those mean?” I asked. Jay was prowling the edges of the carousel, looking for the black set of Samsonites we’d bought for our new world-traveler lifestyle. Another chalk-marked bag, an old-school plaid suitcase with a metal frame, moved toward us. Just before its owner could reach it, a security guard snatched it away, barking orders over his shoulder as he hauled it toward a metal door near the exit.

  “I’m guessing something bad,” Jay said as the appalled-looking owner chased after the guard, his distressed pleadings swallowed in the noise of the crowd.

  Bags collected, more papers stamped, and we were finally ready to leave the airport. It was four o’clock in the morning in Hyderabad; I expected it to be quiet and tranquil outside. The solemn dawn of a new day, a new life. Wheeling our suitcases behind us, we stepped out of the airport and into absolute chaos.

  A thousand eyes stared back at us from behind a chain-link fence. The drone of chatter came to a halt as we appeared—two pale, stunned Westerners before an endless sea of brown skin and bright fabric. Their sudden silence felt accusatory. Entire families were camped outside the airport, waiting to welcome their loved ones home. Jay and I weren’t the brothers or nephews they’d been hoping to see, but pale-skinned interlopers wearing the wrong clothes and unable to keep the shock from showing on our faces.

  My skin crawled as those eyes raked over me. I felt like an exotic zoo animal on display, but with no cage to protect me from the tidal wave of aggressive curiosity. A dark-haired child ran forward to touch my arm, giggling as her mother pulled her back into the crowd. Her siblings huddled around her, whispering.

  Staring back into the ocean of bodies, I made eye contact with a woman, her wrinkled face the only skin visible inside the orange and gold fabric swathed around her like a cocoon. She hissed and pointed at me. I glanced down at my bare shoulders, my naked collar bone, the swathe of skin visible between my tank top and the waistband of my low-rise jeans. I should have read the Lonely Planet. I’d been in Hyderabad less than two hours—hadn’t even made it out of the airport—and already I had the distinct impression I was getting it all wrong.

  Auto rickshaws were idling in disorganized rows. These rickshaws, called “autos” in Hyderabad and “tuk-tuks” or “tempos” in other parts of India, were essentially tricycles with motorcycle engines and horns that sounded like shrieking ducks. They were made of tin, without doors or windows. Painted yellow with black checkered plastic awnings, the rickshaws looked like puttering, miniaturized New York taxi cabs. Looking at them made me homesick.

  Jay scanned the crowd, looking for a sign with our name on it. I huddled behind him, shielding myself from the onslaught of stares. My New York bravado had inexplicably gone missing. Tucker trembled in his bag. I set my purse down so I could reach my hand in and soothe him. Instantly, a man wearing only a white dhoti—the Indian menswear equivalent of a giant cloth diaper—appeared out of nowhere, grabbed my bag, and ran.

  I opened my mouth to scream.

  “Is OK, Madam! I having!” someone yelled. A teenager—black T-shirt, black knit beanie, wide-leg acid-washed hip-hop jeans—hurtled past me. He dodged stray dogs and sleeping humans, leaping over suitcases in pursuit of the would-be thief.

  “Apandi! Donga Ni!” he cried in Telugu. He caught up with the dhoti man just as he tossed my YSL bag into the back of a brightly painted auto rickshaw, its tiny lawn-mower-like engine still running. A scuffle ensued. The beanie-wearing teenager won, hurling one last rude gesture over his shoulder before he came bounding back to my side with the sly, graceful energy of a fox. He placed the bag at my feet.

  “I am Venkat Reddy,” he said, holding out his hand and removing the beanie to reveal a rumpled pompadour of glossy black hair. “I am your driver. Welcome Hyderabad. You are being here.”

  Jay and I stared at him. He waited, hand extended, the other tucked deep into a pocket decorated with a thick metal chain. Finally Jay shook hands with him. Venkat pumped his arm up and down enthusiastically.

  “Thanks for saving my bag,” I said, my heart still racing.

  “You are having more of suitcase? The car I am parking over there. I bringing.”

  “You’re our driver? I thought we were just taking a taxi. My company sent a form.” Jay fumbled through the manila file of documents he’d been clutching since JFK.

  “You are Jay Sir, yes? BKC is sending me. Being part of Team Assist for American workers. I am working BKC six months now. Much good record. Now my leaving, be personal driver for you and Madam.” Venkat looked down after his speech, suddenly shy. He stirred up a cloud of dust with the toe of a newly polished shoe.

  “Well, OK. Thanks,” Jay said, looking at me, his eyebrows raised in confused submission. We followed Venkat through the crowd. He stopped in front of a battered tan Hyundai.

  “Foreign car, Sir and Madam. Much good,” Venkat said with pride. “Company car. For borrow until you are having your own.” He opened the doors and waited for us to climb inside.

  Jay and I were among BKC’s first expats on long-term assignment in India. Most of the other U.S. employees were in Hyderabad on temporary, three-month rotations, which meant BKC handled all the details for them. They were given per diem food allowances, assigned to corporate housing (often with roommates), and shared drivers from a pool that served the entire company. Being long-term residents, plus my status as an accompanying spouse, meant Jay and I would need to make different arrangements for our stay than the short-term expats. We had to take care of things such as opening a bank account, leasing our own house, and purchasing a car. Team Assist would help us get started, but for the majority of our stay in Hyderabad, we’d be on our own. Looking around at the airport madness, I shuddered a little at the thought.

  “Jay! Jenny! Wait!” I whipped around, convinced I was hearing things. We didn’t know a soul in Hyderabad. No one was expecting us. Yet there they were—a tall guy with glasses, a petite brunette—jumping up and down and waving from twenty yards away. Their white faces peering out over the crowd of Indian people looked like a scene from Where’s Waldo.

  Jay and I looked at each other, perplexed, as the couple came rushing over. He was wearing a navy blue polka-dotted bow tie and held a jar of peanut butter and a giant bottle of water. Her arm was in a sling.

  “We heard you two were coming in tonight,” the guy said, extending his hand to Jay. “I’m Peter. This is my girlfriend, Alexis. You’re gonna need this.” He handed me th
e water, a squashed plastic liter labeled “Himalaya” with a pink drawing of mountains on the side. “We’re expats with BKC too. I’m in tax. Welcome to ’Bad. Don’t drink the water.”

  Alexis smiled. “I’m not in tax, just the plus one on his work visa. I’d shake your hand, but…” She gestured to the sling, which was actually a batik-print scarf tied over one shoulder. “I’m a little out of sorts at the moment.”

  “What happened?”

  “Bug bite. We’re not sure what kind. It swelled up like crazy overnight, and we had to call the doctor. He gave me this ointment and a couple of pills and told me to wear a sling. The scarf was the best I could do.”

  “Whole thing cost two hundred rupees,” Peter said proudly.

  “Is that a lot?” I asked.

  “Like four dollars,” Jay replied. “What are you guys doing here? Isn’t it like four o’clock in the morning?”

  “Meeting you,” Peter said with a grin. “We figured you’d need some help finding your way around.”

  It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for us. My eyes stung, a combination of the dust in the air and the kindness of these strangers who’d waited for us in a crowded airport in the dead of night.

  “We should get out of here before the traffic gets worse,” Alexis said. She spoke to a uniformed man behind her. “Younus, they’ll follow us.” She jumped into a tiny white car with the engine idling. “Meet you at Matwala Shayar!” Peter winked at us and climbed in next to her, his legs folding comically in the cramped backseat.

  Venkat and Younus conferred in Telugu, then did a complicated hand sign/backslap combination before taking their respective places behind the wheel. The steering wheels were on the right-hand side. It made the car seem cartoonish, like I was on a ride at Disneyland.

  “My friend,” Venkat said by way of explanation. “Younus. Driving Peter Sir and Sir Madam. Also living Matwala Shayar.”

  “Sir Ma’am?” I whispered to Jay.

  “I think he means Alexis,” he answered. Tucker sneezed. Venkat startled at the noise. “Madam?” Venkat asked, gesturing to the carrier bag. “Bag making…sounds?”

  I unzipped the top and Tucker’s head sprang free like a furry, white jack-in-the-box. Venkat yelped and folded himself flat against the dashboard. Tucker yawned, stretched, and sniffed the air around him furiously, trying to get a read on his new surroundings.

  “Madam, is ANIMAL,” Venkat said, braving another look. “Is your animal? Is coming on plane?”

  “This is Tucker. He’s our dog,” I said. “He came with us on the plane, yes.”

  “Is pet?” Venkat asked.

  “Yes, pet.” I picked up Lonely Planet: India and flipped to the phrase section in the back. “Kuta?” I tried. “Dog?”

  Venkat shrugged and swerved onto the main road, peeling out into traffic faster than seemed advisable, even at this time of night. “Would you like mine giving Sir and Madam tour on way Matwala Shayar?”

  “Sure,” we said at the same time.

  He grinned and hit the gas.

  Venkat Reddy, we’d soon learn, was much more than just a name. “Reddy” was also Venkat’s caste, setting him apart from legions of other drivers with less illustrious backgrounds. The Reddys in Hyderabad started out as rulers and warriors in ancient days. Later they became respected farmers and landowners, recognized throughout the state of Andhra Pradesh as village aristocrats. Being a Reddy accounted for the swagger in Venkat’s walk—and, I suspected, the mischievous twinkle in his eye and cocky angle of his carefully coiffed head. In the months that followed, any question of his knowledge or authority on a subject was snuffed out by a single sentence: “I am Reddy, Madam and Sir. I knowing best.”

  Venkat’s tour was definitely not approved by the Hyderabadi Board of Tourism, if there even was such a thing. I’d expected temples and monuments and landmarks. But Venkat was only interested in showing us things that made us gasp. Exposed power lines dangling over pools of stagnant water. Dhoti-clad men clinging to giant plungers while they washed the windows of four-story buildings in total darkness, no helmets or safety ropes in sight. A family of stray dogs huddled together inches from the road—panting in the heat, clearly starving. “Hyderabad, many things much danger,” Venkat informed us.

  The darkness was fading into a hazy orange dawn. There were fields of burnt grass and tent cities. Buildings alongside the road were half-demolished, their fronts literally sliced away, revealing dioramas of abandoned life: broken toilets, clotheslines with brightly colored squares of fabric still stirring in the breeze. A sign hanging askew from a rotting wooden post read “Welcome MADHAPUR.” I used to be a New Yorker. Now, what was I? A Hyderabadi? A Madhapurite? Exhausted, I closed my eyes for a minute, trying to wrap my mind around it all.

  When I opened them, we were surrounded by cows. Enormous cows with long white horns sticking out from their black, menacing heads. I leapt into Jay’s lap. “Cows! Are cows much danger, Venkat?”

  Venkat laughed. “No cows, Madam. Buffalo. Many buffalo. They looking food during nighttimes when no so much cars.” He honked, but the buffalo ambled on, oblivious. One turned its massive head and stared into my window. We made eye contact. I looked away first. Yikes.

  “Is better see buffalo at nighttimes,” Venkat said sagely. “In daytimes buffalo much tired, sometimes sleeping at check posts. Traffic making for very bad.” He slowed the car to a crawl. Ahead of us there was nothing—no lights, no buildings, no tents. Just as I convinced myself this strange Indian teenager was driving us straight off the ends of the earth, a giant white arch loomed out of the darkness: HITEC CITY.

  “We are being here,” Venkat said, pulling off the road into a cluster of buildings separated from the road by a circular driveway. The entrance was blocked with a rusted metal gate. A mustached security guard, stooped and gaunt in his worn tan uniform, asked Venkat a bunch of questions. Finally, shining his flashlight in our weary faces, he waved us through.

  “This is it,” Jay said. “Matwala Shayar. This is home. Until we find our own place, anyway.”

  Alexis and Peter pulled up behind us. A pounding techno bass streamed from an apartment on the second floor, reverberating across the concrete. Shouts of laughter, followed by the sound of clinking bottles, floated into the night.

  “Isn’t it pretty late for people to be up?” I asked, staring at the lit-up windows above us.

  Alexis made a face. “There’s a lot of late-night partying at Matwala Shayar,” she said. “You get used to it. Or you can sleep with earplugs, like Peter does. Most of the expats work American hours, two in the afternoon to midnight or later. Once they’re done with their shifts, a lot of them party all night and sleep until noon. It’s kind of like a frat house. Only instead of keg stands, they light absinthe shots on fire.”

  “Really?” Jay looked impressed. I nudged him with an elbow. That was so not the kind of party scene I’d had in mind.

  Out of the shadows, a small, thin Indian man appeared, shivering in a beige knit sweater. I was still sweating in my tank top.

  “Jay Sir?” the man asked, looking us up and down.

  “That’s me,” Jay said, stepping forward. Venkat began to empty the trunk. “This is my wife, Jenny.”

  “I am Subu,” he said. “I am being the manager of Matwala Shayar luxury apartments. I am here for your comfort and convenience. When there is something needing, you will be finding me.” He held a key ring in one hand and a loaf of sliced white bread in the other. “Are you ready to see your flat, Jay Sir?” He noticed the small crowd behind us—Venkat, Younus, Peter, and Alexis—and did an anxious double take.

  “Peter Sir? Sir Ma’am?” Subu asked. “Is there being a problem in your flat?”

  “No, we’re just helping these guys get settled,” Peter said, giving him a reassuring pat on the back. Subu staggered from the unexpected force. Peter,
at six foot three, towered above him.

  Subu managed a smile. “Very well, Sir, if you all will be following me. Jay Sir and Madam will be staying in Alpha block.” He jingled the keys. We followed in a solemn, single-file procession through a dim parking garage into a narrow, stifling elevator that groaned under our weight, up one floor and then down a trash-filled hallway to a black metal door marked 112. Subu produced the key and opened the door with a flourish. “Your new home, Sir and Madam. I am hoping for your continued happiness here. May I be giving you the tour?”

  I nodded, praying that this tour had fewer dangerous things.

  “May I be presenting your elephant swing, Sir and Madam,” Subu said, bowing his head and caressing the thick gold chains of a wooden swing suspended from the living room ceiling. I squinted at it with blurry eyes. It was, indeed, carved into the shape of an elephant. “It is being the perfect place for relaxing after your very long journey,” Subu added.

  After twenty-four straight hours of travel and the strange, livestock-filled ride home from the airport, all I wanted was to collapse in bed somewhere and sleep for a week. But Subu was intent on showing us each individual detail of our new Indian home. He was especially proud of the bathroom, where the toilet was inexplicably mounted smack in the middle of a green-tiled shower stall. (“All the modern conveniences, Sir and Madam!”) The kitchen window offered a view of a building site that bustled with activity despite the unusual hour. Women wearing cotton saris and construction hats balanced cement blocks on their heads in the predawn light.

  “And this, Sir and Madam, will be your puja room,” Subu said grandly, gesturing to the left.

  “What’s a puja room?” Jay asked. Subu beamed with joy and opened the latticed double doors to reveal the most perfect dog bedroom I’d ever seen.

  “It’s a room just for Tucker!” I exclaimed, overjoyed.

  Inside the room were dozens of statues. The smallest, an elephant sitting cross-legged on top of some sort of rodent, was no bigger than my thumb. The largest, a blue man in a giant headdress playing the flute, was almost as tall as I was. The room had a low ceiling and a row of tiny windows with glossy wood-paneled walls. It was perfect for Tucker. I imagined where his bed and toys would go, once we got rid of all the clutter.