by Farhana Zia
“You’d mind it if your mistress screamed at you and called you by a very bad name, though, wouldn’t you?” I asked.
“What did she say exactly? Did she use a swear word?”
“She may as well have. She thinks I stole her ring and she practically called me a thief!”
“Oo Maa!” Lali clamped a hand to her mouth. “She called you that? How dare she?”
“I didn’t take it. I wouldn’t!”
“I know! I know!” Lali traced an arc in the dust with her left foot—the bad one that made her limp when she walked. For the longest time she didn’t say anything.
“What are you thinking?” I prodded.
“I am thinking … that if you had found it, you would have returned it. Because if you hadn’t your Little Bibi would surely pack you off to the police thaana, nai?”
“Daiyya re daiyya!” I exclaimed. “Prisons are for thieves which I surely am not. I told you I didn’t know anything about it!”
“I am also thinking,” Lali continued, “that maybe the ring will be found and Little Bibi will be so very happy. Oo Maa! Thinking about this is making me think of other happy things.”
“What other happy things?”
“That we should arrange another wedding between Dear Boy and Tikki sooner rather than later.”
I clapped my hands. I was glad to change the subject. A wedding celebration would be just the thing to take my mind off Little Bibi. We’d invite Lali’s siblings, Nandi, Pummi, Dev, and Hari. Lali would want Ganga the Milk Boy there too. Why, we could even invite Bala!
“I’ll put it in Amma’s ear,” I said. “She’ll be difficult at first but she’ll give in by and by.”
Lali nodded. “Don’t worry. Your mother will be as sweet as a sugar crystal and let us have some sticky lentil balls for the wedding feast. Just you wait and see!”
We sat down side by side, leaned against the mud wall, and stretched out our legs. A breeze carried the scent of flowers to my nose yet again.
“My father says that the roses are preparing to bloom in the Public Gardens,” I said. He sometimes brought home a handful of yellow and white flowers for Amma’s prayer altar.
Lali’s hand went to her ear and I noticed the little yellow flower tucked behind it.
“Hello? What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s nothing.” She dropped her hand quickly into her lap, her face turning a deeper color.
“It’s not nothing,” I retorted. “Where did you get it? Tell me!”
Lali suddenly got all squirmy. “From a bush that grows by the riverbank.”
“You went to the riverbank without me?”
“Kites are going to fly soon, I bet!” She pointed skyward, trying to distract me.
The wily thing had changed the subject deftly, but she was right about the kites. Flowers meant spring, and spring was the time for paper kites to skitter and soar like rainbow-colored insects.
Spring was also a proper time for a birthday party, but such celebrations skipped my hut year after year. Birthdays were for Big Houses. I only got a kiss on the brow.
I gazed skyward. Thinking about the kites reminded me of the luscious colors in Little Bibi’s birthday cakes. But when I thought of the kites dipping, rising, and twirling through the sky, it moved my mind to other things.
“I’m placing my bets on Bala again. He had better not let me down this time,” I said. I had lost a pile of tamarind seeds when Paki had won the championship last year, beating Bala by a very narrow margin.
“Oo Maa!” Lali poked me in the shoulder in a teasing way.
“Don’t be an idiot!” I said. “He’s just a crazy boy of the street, who happens to be a master kite flyer. He got a tiny bit unlucky because Paki cheated.”
“And who just also happens to think you’re a spitfire Divali firecracker!”
“That’s not true!” I snapped.
“And who runs about saying your teeth are as shiny as pearls!”
I shoved Lali roughly away, but she swayed right back. “I swear it on my mother!” she said with a big grin.
“Bala is a pest!” I retorted. “And if you’re going to be an idiot, I have no time for you either!” I got up and started to walk away.
“The boy is absolutely gaga for you!” Lali bubbled. “God promise!”
I turned around and stuck my tongue out at her, then flicked a thumb against my chin for good measure.
Chapter 3
I raised the jute flap on our door and let my eyes readjust to the dimness of the close quarters. How small my hut was! Ten strides, and I could travel from this end to the far one. Why, Little Bibi’s eating table seemed bigger than our home!
Smoke rose from the hearth. It mingled with the first rays of sunlight that streamed through a small opening high up in the wall. Smoke in the daytime, smoke at night—Arrey daiyya! But without the smoking hearth, there would be no fire, and without a fire there would be no milky tea in the morning nor steaming rice at night. Without a smoky fire to cook them, the lentils would stay in the bag to be nibbled up by mice, and the spices and tamarind would be of no use at all.
I had a suspicion the cockroach was secretly stirring his antennae behind the kindling pile. Closer to the hearth, brass pots were stacked on shelves, the coconut shell ladle lay in the water pot, and the palm frond mat was smooth underfoot. The Big Box was well hidden under my father’s cot. “Talk to no one about it,” Amma had warned me time and again. Inside it were all of our nice things, safely tucked away.
Amma had promised that she would prepare a respectable trousseau for me, one pretty piece at a time, and it would all go into the Big Box to wait until I had my own wedding. “What will it be?” I’d asked her, fingering a small piece of wood in one corner of the box. If you pulled hard enough on the chip, it lifted to reveal a hollow, the size of a quail egg, in the wooden base.
“Something nice to put around your dainty ankles,” Amma told me.
My father’s chai tea smelled of cinnamon and cloves. I walked over for my usual sip. “I want to stay home today, Bapu,” I whispered in his ear. “May I?”
“Na, little one.” Bapu shook his head, then tipped tea from his cup into his saucer for me.
In the little mirror that hung on the wall, I could see Amma’s reflection. She stared at me while she placed the customary bindi, a big vermilion dot, in the middle of her forehead with her middle finger. My mother was ready now. Her hair was coiled in a tight bun, the red dot glistened on her forehead like a third eye, and her sari was hitched up around her ankles. “Let’s go!” she commanded, swooping Durga up in her arms. “Hurry! Hurry!”
I scrambled out after her.
A large field sprawled between the huts and the long road that led to the Big House. In the summertime, the ground was as dry as a chicken bone and as dusty as ground spice, but during the rainy season, it became lush green and spongy underfoot.
Amma’s toe rings rang sharply against the pebbles, and dust rose around her feet. “Juldi! Juldi!” she urged. “Walk faster!”
In a few minutes we reached the far end of the field, where it met the road and the jamun tree rained down fat berries that splattered the ground with purple. More often than not, Paki and Raju, the washerwoman’s sons, perched in it overhead, spitting seeds at passersby. I peered up into the tree, but today it was empty.
Amma noticed this too. “I wonder what mischief those naughty fellows are wreaking.”
Everyone had learned to look out for Paki and Raju. They always had our busti in an uproar: breaking a pot here, untying the goat’s tether there, pouring mud in the cobbler’s shoes, chucking mango seeds at chickens.
“Why can’t they be more like Ganga?” Amma grumbled. “Now there’s a lad who makes his father proud!”
Ganga the Milk Boy might well be good and friendly, but Paki and Raju were far more interesting. “Ganga is a wet rag,” I said. “He’s nothing more than a stuttering simpleton.”
My mother looked at
me so hard that I had to lower my eyes. I didn’t look up until we reached the end of the beaten path through the field.
It was still too early in the day for the road to roar like a lion, but it had begun to purr like a house cat. Bicycles, rickshaws, and bullock carts weaved in and out of each other’s paths. Pushcarts filled with colorful fruits and vegetables rattled along. The peanut man passed us, a basket balanced atop his head and a cane stand tucked in his armpit. The knife grinder was out and about with his stone, ready for business.
The asphalt surface felt different underfoot, harder and grainier than packed earth and more scalding in the summer. Just ahead, a mica wafer glinted in the road, too large to ignore.
I snatched it and held it up to the sunlight. “Look how this one shines!” It was a beautiful specimen, the best and biggest one I had found so far, the color of weakest tea, and without an imperfection anywhere. It was so translucent that I could see the lines in my hand through it. “I am putting it in my treasure box as soon as we get home.”
But Amma only shifted Durga’s weight from one hip to the other and hurried me on. “Walk faster! We have no time for trinkets in the road.”
“What’s the hurry?” I muttered. “Lalla-ji’s grain store hasn’t even opened for business yet. I seriously doubt that we are going to be late.” I put the mica away in my pocket.
We continued walking at a good clip, passing dilapidated shacks and ramshackle storefronts. Metal doors rolled up with loud rattles and shopkeepers shouted morning greetings. And then I spied Bala shooting marbles on the other side of the road.
“Tcha! Rolling marbles again!” Amma grumbled. “I’ve told that boy one hundred times to find an honorable job for a decent wage.”
“I don’t know why you worry about him so much,” I said. “You’re not even his mother!”
My mother had a special liking for Bala. “What brilliant eyes the boy has in his head!” she had remarked. “And look at the shape and size of his forehead!” According to her, these things were signs of great intelligence. She had even pleaded his case to Memsaab, hoping she could find him a position, but the mistress already had her cook and gardener and chauffeur, and her other memsaab friends weren’t hiring either. Still, Amma didn’t let up.
Bala saw us coming. He whistled so loud, I practically jumped out of my skin.
“What?” I asked.
“Watch this!” he yelled.
I stopped to look. I couldn’t help it. Bala was clever!
He squinted and aimed and, true to form, the marble struck its target. Then it ricocheted sharply, missing a drain hole by a hair. If the marble had curved even the slightest bit more to the right, Bala’s marble would have slid down, down, down with all the rainwater, all the way to Inglistan. Little Bibi said Inglistan was on the other side of the world, where the queen lived with the Kohinoor diamond fixed in the middle of her crown.
“Arrey wah!” Bala’s victory yell rang out on the morning air.
“Just a fluke! Just a fluke!” I shouted back.
Bala scooped up his marbles and deftly dodged motorcars and bullock carts to get to our side of the road. “Hold up!” he panted. He sounded like Kalu the mangy dog that hangs around looking for food. “Tell me, oh do—did you miss me between yesterday and today?”
“Go! Go!” I waved him back.
What a stupid owl he was! How dare he think such a ridiculous thing? Was I even the tiniest bit like Rukmani, batting my eyes at boys? Na! I had better things to do with my time than waste it thinking about him.
“No need to get all riled up,” Amma said. “The boy is only playing with you.”
“Lali said your precious boy got a thrashing for stealing peanuts yesterday,” I told her. “Did you know that, hanh?”
“Lali’s a liar!” Bala shouted.
Amma ruffled his hair. “Tell me what happened then.”
Bala shrugged. “There was no beating, Yella Mausi. How could there be? I ran away like the wind.”
“Aiyyo. Why did you dip your hand in the man’s basket?”
Bala hung his head. “I…I was hungry,” he mumbled.
Amma’s voice softened and the furrows in her forehead flattened out. “There are better ways, dear boy.”
“I urgently wanted something to eat,” Bala said. “I toss and turn on my mat when I am hungry.” He rattled the marbles in his fist and turned away from her.
“Tch-tch. Aiyyo!”
I stiffened. How could my mother be one way with me and another with Bala? She was all “Tch-tch” and “Aiyyo” for Bala, but for me it was “Hurry up!” or “Stop daydreaming!” She understood the stolen peanuts but she didn’t understand Little Bibi’s accusing voice. It was not fair!
Amma placed a hand on Bala’s shoulder. “This won’t happen again, hmm?”
“It’s not a whole lot of fun when hungry mice race around in a person’s empty stomach!” Bala said.
Amma clucked her tongue again. “The Festival of Lights is just around the corner, dear boy,” she said. “You will come to our place for the special Divali sweets, nai?”
Bala’s eyes lit up. “Will there be laddu?”
“I can promise that we will save the tastiest piece for you, and Basanta will let you have a Divali sparkler too.”
Let him have one of my sparklers? I didn’t want to share my laddu and I didn’t want to give him a sparkler either!
But before I could protest, Amma untied the knot in her pullo and unpeeled two paper notes from a tightly folded wad. “Take this, dear boy,” she said. “Buy yourself a meal.”
She pulled me roughly by the arm. “Come!” she commanded.
Behind me, marbles rattled noisily, forcing me to look over my shoulder. Again Bala aimed his striker and crack! a shiny marble flew like a bullet. “Arrey wah!” he boasted.
I wanted to say something not particularly nice to him, but Amma told me to keep my eyes on the road.
I took a few steps, then glanced back. Bala was now trailing after a man, his voice suddenly whiny, one hand outstretched and the other rubbing his belly. “Sahib, one penny, if you please,” he cried. “I have not eaten in two days!”
But the man in the suit yelled “Hutt!” at him and shooed him away like a fly from milk.
We left Bala where the road curved past the cobbler’s shop and the bakery.
“Amma, why did you make promises about my sparklers before asking me first?” I demanded.
“Because everyone deserves a bit of happiness on Divali,” she replied. “And what’s wrong with a little kindness to a motherless boy, hmm?”
“Kindness for him?”
My mother tugged on her pullo and adjusted its drape over her head, ignoring my remark. “Take Gopal the Milk Man, for instance!” she went on. “He is kind and is rewarded for his generosity, don’t you know! And his dear boy, Ganga, is just as honorable too! You give one and you get back sevenfold, that’s what I say.”
It was true. Gopal was a good and kind man. And his buffalo had multiplied sevenfold as news of his charity spread in the busti.
“Ganga’s firecrackers were the loudest of all last Divali,” I admitted. “They were so loud, Kalu hid behind the huts!”
“The point is,” my mother inserted, “it’s nice to be nice. Bas! That is enough. This conversation is not about fireworks.”
But the conversation was about fireworks. Amma had told Bala that I would share my sparklers with him. Be nice to Bala? Why should I?
“It’s not fair!” I stormed, but my mother’s toe rings on the asphalt drowned my voice completely.
Chapter 4
We had just passed the general goods store when Kalu loped around the corner. I bent down to stroke his head. “Aiyyo! Look, how his poor ribs poke out, Amma. I’ll need an extra bone from the Big Kitchen to fatten him up.”
Hollow of stomach and crooked of tail, Kalu roamed the streets by day but he usually settled down near my hut at sundown for the leftovers I brought from the Big H
ouse. Poor Kalu! Everyone chased him away with a “Hoosh!” and a “Hutt!” Who would be his friend, if not I? And where would he get his food, if not from me?
Kalu trailed along beside me with his nose to the ground, sniffing at blackened banana peels and crusty orange rinds. I gave his rump a friendly whack. “Stop following me, Silly Willy! I’ll see you at the hut tonight, okay?”
Kalu stared up at me with adoring eyes.
“Go! Shoo!” I ordered, but he wagged his tail and stayed with me all the way to the Big Gate.
Amma and I got busy the minute we arrived at the Big House. She went straightaway to light the hearth fire with a matchstick. Her cheeks swelled like a wedding pipe player as she blew on the small flame, and before long, the kindling crackled, flames licked the soot-blackened earthen stoves, and smoke burst into the dusky room and stung our eyes.
I ducked into the henhouse to gather Little Bibi’s breakfast eggs.
Buk-buk-buk squawked the hens as I groped around them in the dark. I found four eggs, smooth and warm, in the straw and nestled them in the fold of my lengha. I tried to be careful, but when I got ready to leave, one egg rolled out and fell to the ground with a splat.
I sucked in my breath. I was really in for it now! If Amma knew she’d mutter, “Aiyyo, Basanta! Why can’t you be careful?” And if Little Bibi found out, she’d most certainly scream at me, “What? You not only steal, but you break eggs too?”
Quickly, I threw a fistful of straw over the broken egg and waddled out of the low henhouse.
“Missus Hen was lazy today,” my mother said when I handed over the eggs.
“Throw in another onion and no one will know the difference,” I suggested.
“Mmm-hmm.” Amma sounded distracted. She moved about like lightning in the kitchen, now chopping, now stoking, now stirring. The bangles on her wrists tinkled as she worked, and the hissing fire made her forehead glisten.
“I’ll sweep the rooms,” I said, going for the willow broom, but my mother stopped me.
“Little Bibi’s breakfast is ready. Take it to her now.” She handed me the fully laden tray. “Don’t dawdle.”
