Dogs of India

by Polly McGee

  He bundled the grateful Pushpant into the back seat and drove him to Hastinapuri Estate, managing to get him into his apartment without anyone seeing his towel outfit. It was that night that Baj entered the seedy life of Pushpant Godboley for the first time. Pushpant, once recovered from the shock of a near miss that could have been very tricky to explain to his wife, knew he had found his perfect driver/wingman.

  Using his mobile phone, Baj had taken a couple of surreptitious photos of the incident as it was happening, just prior to rescue. This was an insurance measure in case the arrangement Pushpant had proposed that night did not deliver the employee benefits he promised.

  Two years later, Krystal and the badly installed railing had meant that the employee benefits had exceeded Baj’s wildest dreams. In his mind he had, however, earned every cent for the unsavoury overtime that his former boss had continued to demand from him. Baj had been dabba-wallah, drug-wallah, bribe-wallah, whore-wallah, laundry-wallah, wife-placating-gift-wallah and just about every wallah in between. Baj’s patient nature prevailed in his stamina for the work – and the unshakeable belief that the ladder of opportunity had Pushpant Godboley one rung further up from the bottom where he had started.

  ***

  Lola was entertained and slightly disturbed by Baj’s tales in very creative English of the seedy world of cheaters and opportunists he appeared to negotiate so well. The Baj of her narrative creation had been a shy dog lover and budding businessman rather than a mildly seasoned chancer. Baj dragged another pile of wraps from out of the bedroom over to the folding area.

  ‘More? How many of these have you got?’ Lola stared at the new pile with sudden fatigue. ‘Baj, you are pashmina mafia.’

  ‘Yes, I am thick wool, fragranced goonda, Lola-ji.’ Baj brimmed with confidence.

  Lola stretched and walked over to the balcony that was so recently the scene of Pushpant’s demise. She listened for raised voices, leaning on the railing with light trepidation. Baj joined her, looking over the neatly potted bougainvillea that ringed the large palm. The trees below were shrouded with newly strung twinkling fairy lights in preparation for Diwali. The distraction of where she would sleep tonight and her whole future hanging in the balance diverted Lola from the growing feelings she had for Baj. Despite the strong words she had said to herself about getting into another messy situation, Lola suspected she had a serial attraction to handsome boys with Bollywood attributes. In the cool still of the night she could feel the warmth of Baj’s shoulder, which was so close to hers. She imagined a small bolt of electricity shooting between them, a godly combustion as their fate was ignited. The thought was ludicrous. She shook herself like Rama playing with the hose, breaking the spell and the still to focus on the reality of her life.

  ‘Do you think Malina has calmed down yet?’

  Baj shook his head mutely.

  ‘Anytime tonight?’ Lola and her bed were acutely estranged.

  ‘No. Not unless Geet has stopped being gaandhu-walla only.’

  Lola turned to Baj. He obviously knew far more about the situation than he had divulged.

  ‘Geet stopped being gaandhu whatta?’ Lola asked.

  Baj’s face coloured. He squirmed under her gaze like he had just been transported miles from his comfort zone. He turned and walked back inside.

  ‘What is gaandhu, Baj? Like Gandhi? Is that why Geet isn’t coming home?’ Lola persisted, following after Baj. ‘He’s gone on some spiritual quest?’

  ‘Not Gandhi, Lola-ji, gaandhu.’ Baj’s ears attained a new shade of red. He sat down behind the monumental pile of pashminas, obscuring himself with them.

  Lola waited, arching her eyebrow expectantly for an answer. ‘Baj, tell me what you know.’ Lola put her hands on her hips with implied feminine menace.

  Baj cleared his throat. His head popped up just above the top of the pashminas. ‘According to a text message Gajrup received earlier, Geet is having the sex with men in Bombay actually and liking it so very much, he is staying forever.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Seeking Solidol

  Malina lit a lamp in the kitchen and sat alone in the flickering light. Gaandhu. Choosing a life of perversion over family. Never coming home. Never graduating. Never marrying. Never taking her away from all this. Malina’s heart felt jagged, she could feel its shards cutting at her chest. Why were the gods punishing her? What wickedness had she committed? She stared at the shadows of the Ganesh statue above the stove and using the handle of a broom she reached up and knocked him to the floor, smashing the deity into colourful joyous pieces. Let him feel what it was like in my chest.

  What else could she and Gajrup have given their son? He had everything she had missed out on, yet still chose to shame them. Her bonded labour had given him an education. Her hustling had devised the offer of a new life in a foreign country. It was her scrimping and sacrifice that had funded his arranged marriage to that gora so he could get work despite his lazy stupidity. Geet was supposed to be their pride, an engineer, to look after her and Gajrup with regular money wires and then eventually take them to his new country. And now, with just one text message, everything was gone.

  Geet was Malina’s only child. Her body was not built to reproduce. She had crouched on the floor for hours, grunting like a heifer to push him out into the world. Her body had torn and she had screamed with the pain, the village women watching over her agony with concern born of experience. Barely surviving the birth, doctors had told her she was ruined inside and would have no more children. Now she had no children and was truly ruined inside. What life was this? Shamed in front of everyone. No child to support her. It would have been preferable for Geet to be dead. At least it would have been easier to explain.

  How could she tell the Sheenas? They would be expecting him to be there when they returned. He was their co-investment, too, through the school fees they paid and the extras they slipped into her pay. Malina had boasted to the street sellers and the market vendors and the other staff of Hastinapuri Estate about the homecoming of her son, having graduated from university. Her son, a graduate. She had alluded smugly to his new life and future stellar career in Australia. Lauded it up among her peers, relishing her moment of superiority, of her family entering the newly evolved India of opportunity in a land of plenty Down Under. She thought of the looks she would get at the temple and from the door-to-door wallahs she’d acted so superior to. Malina imagined the veiled comments: the gossip, sympathy, silence or more likely outright joy at her comeuppance. She would pay for her pride. Malina fought for breath, moving from shame to anger. Gajrup was to blame. He should have been stronger and more disciplined with the boy. He could have afforded to dispense a few more beatings like her father had with her. He was too soft, too compliant, too absent. When he was around, she had scornfully watched him being gentle and encouraging with his son. Geet had him wrapped round his little finger. Gajrup would just let him roam the streets with his friends rather than working on his learning. No discipline, just like his own life.

  Malina remembered Gajrup’s daaru binges, his addiction to the crude black-market alcohol of the street. Geet was just a toddler then. Gajrup swung from effusive and extroverted to violent and vengeful depending on how much he drank. Sometimes he vanished for days at a time, returning broke and silent without explanation or apology. Only when the Sheenas threatened to dismiss him did he finally stop his disappearing act. These days he claimed to be cured of his love of alcohol – only beer; not even a proper drink, he said. Malina wasn’t so sure. The memory of Gajrup’s weakness for liquor felt fresh in her mind, still so weak in every way.

  Malina told herself she had raised the boy single-handed. She had worked so hard to get him a better situation. Long days over years spent in service to the perpetual leisure of Hastinapuri Estate visitors. How Malina hated those guests. Everyone wanted something from her, but never gave anything back. Geet, Gajrup, the Sheenas, the guests, Lola, everyone: they were collectively to blame for her
misery.

  She looked around the kitchen. It was her home and her prison. She cradled herself in her arms, rocking back and forth, eyes remaining painfully dry.

  Outside the window, the staccato crack of firecrackers made Malina jump, points of light flaring through the glass. Diwali. The festivities were already tearing small holes in the quiet of the night. It would build and build as Choti Diwali – the eve of Diwali – drew closer, with nightly impromptu celebrations breaking out across the city until the revelries came to a head. The last sounds spluttered out. A howling dog calmed itself.

  Silence again.

  Malina found the Solidol 50 near the back of the shelf, its label ironically chewed by the very cockroaches it claimed to dispatch. She would show them all how she felt about their selfish demands. Her pain would illuminate Diwali this year. She would punish the world for its injustice and lies. Punish God for denying her the prayers she had so faithfully offered up. Malina opened the lid of the Solidol 50 bottle after a struggle. Childproof, unlike her life. She half filled a tumbler with milk, and poured the rest of the poison in, then opened her mouth and drained the contents, holding the empty glass up in a toast. ‘Jaan hai to jahan hai.’

  The glass fell from her hand and shattered on the floor with the pieces of Ganesh.

  Jaan hai to jahan hai. Where there’s life, there is the world. How many times had she said that to Geet when he complained about one thing or another? But now there was going to be no life. No more servitude and slavery to ungrateful others, including her child. Malina felt euphoric, imagining the misery for all those who had wronged her when they discovered her body. The boiling and bubbling in her stomach burned like childbirth. She felt her intestines being torn apart by the claws of a tiger. Delirious from the pain, she thought she was back in labour, giving birth to her baby boy, but this time he would turn out just like she wanted.

  Malina lumbered her last lap of the kitchen, bare feet crunching on the broken pottery and glass. She ricocheted from bench to bench, knocking down pans and plates, her movements clumsy, her breathing laboured. The elaborate meal for Geet’s homecoming was untouched – and now splattered across the floor. She could feel the contractions coming closer together. The baby would be here soon.

  He would be smart and industrious, respectful to his mother. He would give her a new life. She would have servants to cook and clean for her, and bring her tea, and a whole house of her own. She would be draped in saris of the finest silk. She staggered into the lean-to, tangling herself in the flimsy nylon curtain divider as she fell, collapsing onto Lola’s bed, her body half on the narrow stretcher, half on the floor. This is where she would have the baby. Just one more push and Agni would flood out of her, cleansing and creating new life and luck. Pinpoints of lights danced around her eyes. Diwali was coming, such an auspicious time to be giving birth. She could see the light from hundreds of burning candles, lit to signal the path to Lord Rama. She would meet Him and show Him the baby, which He would bless with abundance and wealth.

  Malina’s breathing was laboured. Her mouth was slick with foam and blood. Just one more push. She could hear the village women chanting to her, willing her to go on. The glow of the lights became blurry, leaving incandescent trails as her head thrashed from side to side. The agony intensified as her stomach and organs dissolved inside her. The air was harder and harder to draw into her lungs. She tore at the ground. She would give this child everything; she just had to push him out. It would be the will of the goddess alone that would bring the child out of her narrow pelvis. Lakshmi and Rama were with her now, their arms outstretched to receive the child, ribbons of light emanating around their serene faces. Malina took a deep breath and gave a final push.

  ***

  Gajrup sat in the traffic, blowing his horn more out of habit than attention to the ebbs and flows. He was desperate for a drink, but ignored the familiar tempting voices. He thought about Geet. Who was he? How could he become a stranger after twenty-three years in just one text message? Gajrup looked at his phone again, so matter of fact in the orange backlight of his Nokia. I’m not coming and I won’t marry her. I’m gay. I’m living in Mumbai with my boyfriend. Just tell people I’ve gone to Australia like you wanted. Sorry.

  The airport sign loomed in the diesel haze. Gajrup peered into the windows of the slow-moving cars, searching for Geet in the faces of the passengers and drivers. Why go to Bombay? Why couldn’t he have told them in person? They would love him no matter who he was. It was a shock he was gaandhu, yes, but it would be okay. Gajrup decided to ask Poona for some time off; she and Chatura would understand – they were worldly people. He could go to Bombay and find the boy; let him know they loved him. Yes. That’s what they would do. Malina would come round; she would be forgiving. They had got through much worse in their long marriage.

  Gajrup inhaled deeply, sucking in life before transforming the air into a sigh. A quiet life was all he wanted – for everyone in his family. Geet could marry Lola and move to Australia and his life would still be better there amongst the sun and open minds of that country. Gajrup read the text again then put the phone away. He would respond later tonight when he arrived back, telling Geet of their plans to visit. He reassured himself that everything would work out fine.

  A scooter expertly threaded through the traffic in front of the car. A family of three balanced on its narrow seat. The father was driving with the mother mounted side-saddle behind him. On the woman’s back was a baby, bound to her in a scrap of sari fabric shot with gold thread. The baby peeked inquisitively from kohl-rimmed eyes at the sparkling, honking world swirling around and smiled toothlessly at Gajrup before they disappeared into the traffic. Everything would work out fine.

  ***

  Baj shone the torch between himself and Lola as he walked her back to the house, its pale light almost redundant in the glow of the nearly full moon.

  ‘Baj, I’m fine; go back to Rama – he’s probably eating the pashminas.’

  Her words caused Baj to be torn between his chivalrous actions and the reality of puppy teeth on the merchandise.

  ‘No, Lola-ji, I will walk you until we see the light from the door.’

  ‘There’s the door, now go – and thank you for letting me hang out tonight.’

  Lola gave Baj a hug. The physical contact took Baj by surprise, and he stood rigid, torch shining to the sky. Firecrackers exploded in the distance. He imagined for a moment the imminent song-and-dance routine as his life became a scene from a movie. At the sound of the explosion, Lola jumped in fright, releasing Baj and ending the sequence that in another film could have led to a smouldering look and the promise of a future. As Lola walked to the house, Baj strode back towards the apartment, smiling broadly in the moonlight.

  The iron gates of the estate were noisily dragged open, and car lights flashed into the drive. Poona and Chatura were back. Baj waved and sighed happily – all was well. The pashminas were folded and ready for Vipin’s next delivery. Finally, it was time for his puja rituals and then a couple of hours’ sleep. He replayed some highlights of the evening as he walked: the feel of Lola’s hug, how she had sat quietly in the apartment drinking his milk. How she had helped him with the pashminas, not talking loud like the girls he saw in the markets, preening and squawking for attention. She was a beautiful and exotic ornament in the memory of his house. Lola.

  ‘Lola!’ Baj said out loud, feeling it in his mouth.

  Her name sounded nice; the letters flowed like Rama rolling over in play. She was so pretty, too, like an Aussie Kareena Kapoor.

  Lola’s scream pierced his romantic musings, and Baj heard his name cried out in her terror. He turned and bolted towards the house as she screamed again, and for the second time that night he was in Lola’s arms, colliding with her as she fled the house. Her face was white with shock. She was shaking, pointing inside and incoherently mouthing ‘Malina’ as she tried to get the words to come out of her throat.

  Baj entered the room with
more trepidation than when the sound of Malina’s fury had resounded through the garden. He looked around the usually ordered space. Rakshasas could have swept through the kitchen in a violent storm, such was the disarray. Food, steel cups and bowls were strewn across the floor, along with broken glass everywhere. The empty bottle of Solidol 50 sat on the side of the sink.

  Baj followed the trail of destruction to Lola’s lean-to and was met by Malina’s skinny brown ankles and feet sticking out from the tangled curtain. Baj knelt by her, listening for a breath, hoping to hear something, anything. He felt her wrist for a pulse. Malina’s skin was cold. She had spilled onto the floor in a mess of fluids. Baj untangled her legs and respectfully covered her ankles.

  ***

  Poona and Chatura tried to take it all in. First there was Godboley, then the murder of the dogs and now Malina. This was very inauspicious, especially this close to Diwali. Malina was part of the Hastinapuri family. What could have happened to drive her to this? And how would Poona replace her? She and Chatura had only been away for a night; nothing in the timing made sense. Everything seemed okay when they left – Malina was so excited about Geet coming home. And where was Geet? Gajrup had said there was a family issue, he would discuss it with them tomorrow, then he had been silent in the car for most of the journey. What kind of issue would lead to suicide?