by Anosh Irani
There was one person she could unburden her heart to. Would he meet her in the canteen of the Alexandra Cinema?
Madhu was soon at their meeting place. The chaiwala had barely woken up, but his hot brew was steaming in a large vat in the corner.
“They could have put poison on the hookah,” said Gajja. “That’s the only way.”
“How could I have been so stupid?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“They gave gurumai her own special hookah that night. Bindu nayak kept wiping it with a handkerchief. And gurumai was proud of that. Proud to suck on her death.”
Padma must have been in on it too. She had called Madhu to the brothel to tend to the parcel at the precise time when gurumai was smoking opium. It was hard to tell who had led this, Padma or Bindu nayak.
“Don’t you see?” said Gajja. “Nothing can stop this place from being destroyed. One day it will all go. With or without us.”
Madhu knew he was right. Opposite them, Maharashtra College, the place where her father had taught for years, still stood tall. It would remain untouched, but beside it, the towers kept rising. The college was allowed to stay because it made the area more respectable. It gave a sheen of dignity to the obese buildings surrounding it and made their price per square foot rise. For all this prosperity to happen, feet had to be cut off—the human feet of those who could barely walk to begin with. But a greater purpose had arrived: to provide housing for people who didn’t need it.
Madhu had no choice. She had to stop fighting.
“I will come with you,” she said. “I will come with you, Gajja, if you will still have me.”
Gajja’s smile said it all. It was a small one, hardly creating a dent on his rough face, but it made Madhu feel safe.
“But will I be accepted in your village?” she asked. “They are not used to my kind.”
“Once they know you, they will.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we can both stay at home and close our doors to the world. Madhu, all I want is a friend. Someone’s hand to hold, someone to drink with, to cry with, someone who will scold me when I’m doing wrong. You scold me a lot.”
“I’ll scold you more as I get older.”
“Then I will only care for you more.”
“I have one request,” she said.
“Anything.”
“Two,” she said.
“Okay.” Gajja smiled.
“We don’t take anything with us. No extra clothes, nothing. I want nothing to remind me of this place.”
“Done,” said Gajja. “And the second?”
“I want us to leave on your motorcycle.”
“But you hate that thing.”
“I need to wrap my arms around you so tight that I will never have second thoughts about leaving.”
“We go tomorrow morning.”
“No,” said Madhu. “We leave tonight. Meet me here at eight.”
—
By eight, Madhu’s work would be done. With the last parcel of her life opened, she would walk away from this place once and for all. If she ever came back, it would be as an old person, a tired hijra staring at the fourteen lanes from a distance, just to see what had become of them.
She had two hours to go. So did the parcel.
The parcel would have to be calmed down with opium. That was the most important part. There could not be any resistance from her. After all, it was to be a ritual, a ceremonial offering made in the presence of a pundit, a poor joke that made temple bells ring on their own and the statue of Jesus burn bright with fever and look the other way.
Madhu needed some time on her own, to ease her nerves.
On Lane Fourteen, there were more lights than usual, or maybe street lamps that had not been working had suddenly come on, giving a golden glow to everything. The brothels were drying out their laundry. Purple nightgowns and yellow sheets hung on nylon strings, giving the old wooden railings a happy lift. The giant wheel was almost full. The operator scratched his belly as he waited for the last seat to be taken.
Madhu slumped into that seat. She needed to be off the ground. If her feet were planted on the earth, she would continue to feel its shocks and vibrations. In the air, her brain would find the peace it needed to execute her final act. The wheel turned slowly, its achy, wobbly machinery grinding away, barely able to support the collection of people it carried: old men, former pimps now hardly able to see, their glassy eyes nearing blindness; and retired prostitutes who cleaned brothels, their hurting backs resting against the seats. These were heavy souls, dense with memories. They reminded Madhu that she was sharing space with a boatful of losers going round and round in circles. Just like her and the parcel.
From her place in the sky, she saw how the environment around Padma’s brothel had changed. So many small factories and workshops had sprung up, units that manufactured umbrellas and mobile phones and garments. Even Padma’s building was a factory of little hands and feet. It was an underground city in the sky, where children were kept in lofts, fed and drained, then fed again, while somewhere outside the walls of Kamathipura, clean hands were counting money.
Bindu nayak’s and Padma’s hands were dirty. Madhu had caught their handshake. That she could do nothing about it made her feel a wrath so real that she was totally serene. She now saw the true purpose behind the transformation occurring on the streets. Perhaps the disappearance of Kamathipura was a good thing. With very few brothels remaining in operation, the prostitutes were turning into freelancers. They were being forced to use their mobile phones to take appointments to service men on railway tracks, in cars, and in alleys outside Kamathipura. It was not an act of defeat. It was fantastic. Especially for those women who were pojeetives.
For the pojeetives, it was the ultimate revenge. Shunned by society, relegated to a minuscule plot of land for a lifetime, the pojeetives, before dying, were now reaching out to the rest of the city, spreading their tentacles in a last cry. But it was not help they were asking for; they were offering a parting gift to the rest of the city, while the city was too busy building buildings to notice. The pojeetives would have the last laugh.
And what about Madhu? What was her contribution to Kamathipura’s future? The pojeetives were succeeding, but she had failed at everything.
She saw so clearly now that her work with the parcels had not brought them any relief. The plan to go back to her parents had backfired, and she had been unable to protect gurumai. Everything she did, everyone she touched, ended in dust. She was a master at one thing: failure.
If everything was in a state of disintegration—the pojeetive in Hijra House, the parcel’s faith in human beings, Madhu’s own dream of returning to her family—then why fight it? Why not accept it, celebrate it even? Perhaps her solution lay in failure. Kamathipura’s destruction was inevitable, but Madhu could speed things up. Yes, that was the only way forward.
All her life she had run. From herself, her school, her parents, and her own body. But no matter how much she ran, nothing she did had an effect on anyone outside these fourteen lanes. She had led an insignificant life, just like Bulbul, just like all her sisters. They were breaths in the middle of a storm; no one could feel them. When they tremored with loneliness, no one cared.
She could not make anyone care, but she could make people take notice. Through the din of the evening traffic, she could hear her father’s words: “For someone with a pointless life, you have a great desire to live.”
She had wanted to live because she knew she had something to offer. She realized now that that something had not been her body. Her body had been her failing all along. Her parents had rejected her body. They had not bothered to find out who she truly was. If she had been born a girl, they might not have loved her as much as they loved her brother, but at least they would have accepted her.
When she was accepted—by gurumai, by Gajja, by the men who paid for her—it was for her body. All her life she had lived in that bo
dy; she had worshipped it, served it, used it to serve others, and so was trapped by it. But now, just like Kamathipura and its tenants, she too was dissolving, like the hot vapour of chai, except that she did not taste like chai. She was not delectable; she had been born and brewed to mortify. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if she didn’t have a body? Her soul was kind, it was just, and it longed for love—isn’t that what we all want in the end? All she had ever wanted was a hand to hold and to feel someone’s breath on her shoulder when she was pretending to be asleep. When Gajja lay next to her after their lovemaking, Madhu never slept. She fought sleep no matter how much she needed it, no matter how restful it promised to be, because staying awake with Gajja and feeling his breath on her skin was even more restful, more delicious. At least Madhu had experienced that long ago. It was only fair that the parcel feel it too. That is what she would offer the parcel. And in doing so, she could still make her life count.
As she made her way to the loft, she saw Salma and Padma cooking together. The aroma was inviting; she wanted to bite into the oily potatoes they were making. A feast was being prepared, perhaps for the parcel’s client. The hot fires of the stove gave Madhu the idea she was looking for.
“It’s time,” said Madhu, slowly bringing the parcel out of her hole.
The parcel had the same look on her face that every single parcel had. Whether they knew what was going to happen or not, an unmistakable shadow loomed over them, causing a quiver in their organs that Madhu could feel. The parcels were no different from the goats of Kamathipura. As the day of their sacrifice approached, the goats became more and more silent, and even the little boys who talked to them, fed them, and played with them started retreating. But that was not what gave it away.
The goats knew. They just knew.
It was time for Madhu to make her mark with one last stroke. She wanted to pray for strength but did not know whom to pray to. So she touched the handle of the knife that lay hidden in her sari. She gripped that handle with probably the same commitment gurumai had had when she freed Madhu from her male form all those years ago.
If gurumai’s knife gave her strength, Padma gave her inspiration. When Padma, in full view of everyone, had tortured the man who had sold her, she had made herself a household name. Similarly, with one single act, Madhu too would make herself a household name. She would spread her name like butter on these battered streets.
But hers would not be an act of vengeance. It would be an act of love.
She took the five-rupee coin that had been placed in her palm by her mother—all her mother had thought she was worth when she had mistaken her own child for a beggar—and flicked the coin away. She did not care where it landed. Madhu’s parting gift to the parcel would be nothing like it. It would be something a real mother would do for her child.
“Do you remember the water tank?” she asked the parcel.
“Yes,” said the parcel.
“I want you to hide there. No matter what you hear, no matter what you think is going on outside, you stay in that tank. Stay there until the screaming stops.”
“What screaming?” asked the parcel.
Madhu bent down and placed her hands on the parcel’s shoulders. Then she went closer to her and whispered something in her ear.
“Remember that name,” she said.
The parcel nodded. When Madhu looked at her face, she could tell that the girl was joyous. There was such a surge of emotion inside her, as though a new colour was being born. She knew that anything was better than the fate that awaited her, no risk too large.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked.
“I’m not helping you. No one can help you.” But even as she said these words, Madhu wanted to believe they weren’t true. She wanted to believe that luck would favour her this one time because she was asking for something that was not for herself. For the first time, Madhu allowed herself to hold a child—not as a parcel, but as a true child. Madhu embraced her with all the love she had failed to receive. She showered the girl with it, and it came in torrents, a gale so strong that if Madhu hadn’t held the girl tight, she would have been swept away. Madhu let the girl sink into her breast, her dripping nose pressing hard against Madhu’s white sari. Madhu wanted the girl to take in centuries of affection. And it was too much for the parcel; she was trying to tell Madhu that it was overwhelming, that she must let go, but Madhu kept pressing harder and harder, and she sobbed as she did, and apologized, and begged for mercy, until finally a strange elation came over her. She circled her arms around the parcel in one final gush of love. When there was nothing left to give, she released her and watched her run to the water tank.
Epilogue
Hello, my name is Kinjal. I am preparing to tell the story of my life. I will start by saying my name. Then I will show people my arm, on which I have another name: Jhanvi.
It is unusual for a person my age to tell my story, because I am only sixteen years old. Mine is a hard story to tell, and I do not know if people want to hear it. But I have been invited to speak about it on a TV show. I am not comfortable appearing on television. I would prefer to hide somewhere, but I know that would be wrong. People need to know what happened to me.
Even though it is my story, it is not just about me. It is joined with someone else’s, someone I knew for a few days, when I was ten years old. It was only after her death that I knew her name: Madhu. Maybe I will start with her.
The producers of the show are telling me not to think about things too much. They don’t want me to sound as though I have been trained. They say they will ask me questions and all I have to do is answer. But I am still nervous. The truth might be easy to remember, but it is the hardest thing to say.
I am told that there will be people in the room while the camera is recording me. I am not sure how I feel about that: so many strangers in the same room, staring at me.
Perhaps I will begin by explaining why the name Jhanvi was pierced into my skin.
No. That is not the correct place to start. It’s not the beginning, even though names are important in my story. Apart from Kinjal and Jhanvi, I was called by another name: the parcel. I did not know about that name then, but I do now. That name is what the show is about. There have been many parcels like me, but I am here because I was saved. I am told I can give people hope. I don’t know if I can do that. I have a hard time accepting my current situation. The crowd will see that. They will notice how I look down when I talk, how I shift in my chair and cannot stay still for too long. After a few seconds, my body wants to move, from here to there, but it does not know where to go. That is the story of all parcels.
All parcels have the same beginning. All of us were betrayed by the ones we loved. But I am not here because of where I began. I am here because of where I ended up: in a water tank. The tank was supposed to hide me from the police, but it saved me from a huge fire. When I entered the tank, I submerged myself in the water, I kept only my head out, and I told myself over and over not to forget the name that Madhu had whispered in my ear: Gajja.
She had told me to go to the canteen of the old cinema and ask for a man with that name. That was all she said before she let me go.
After entering the tank, I shut the lid and stayed there. After some time, I heard a blast. It shook the water in the tank. It shook me up too, so badly that I urinated in the water. I don’t want people to know that. I will just tell them I was really scared. I was up on the roof, hiding in a tank, hearing the screams below. Maybe some of them were my own.
I cannot tell you how long I was in there. There were moments when I could actually feel my mind leaving me. I thought I was in that water tank for about three hours. I was wrong. When I climbed out, the sun was up.
There was smoke all around me, but I told myself that all I needed to do was get to the old cinema, just around the corner. Luckily, my dress was wet, so I held it against my nose and ran down. The first floor had a few bodies. I gave them no importance. I could not.
All I wanted was to get out of that building.
When I came out, there was a crowd, and a fire engine also, but it was just parked there. It had done its work. Some women were crying, some were just sitting there, staring at the ground. There was blood and glass, and everything was dark grey, and between the tears and tiredness, I just slid out and stood near the old cinema. I was wet and shivering. I thought about asking the chaiwala if he knew a man called Gajja. What if he took me back to the building? It was a chance I had to take. If I had stood there any longer, someone would have taken me.
My gamble paid off.
When I came face to face with Gajja, I saw that he was frantic. At first he did not recognize me. But when I said that Madhu had told me to ask for him, his face broke. I did not understand what was going on, but I knew we had to get out of there. He put me on his motorcycle and we rode non-stop for two hours. I held him tight as we went in the wind because I was so cold. I was also terrified of falling off.
I did not feel safe with Gajja. I did not feel I was in danger either. I could see in his eyes that he did not have a bad hunger. His eyes were clean. He told me he would make sure that I got back home. When I told him that my home was in Nepal, he said that was far away but he would get it done because it was Madhu’s last wish.
“For someone whose every wish was denied by life, this I have to do,” he said.
Strangely, getting back to my country was not as hard as I thought it would be. But Gajja still had to pay a bribe at a border crossing that seemed like a jungle. As we approached my village, so many thoughts were running in my mind. I wanted to see the look on my aunt’s face. Her eyes would melt out of shame. But more than anything, I wanted to feel my mother again. I wanted my mother.
I will not get into the reunion with my family because that feeling is not something I can express right now. Maybe on the day of the show I will be able to do so. But I doubt it. At first, what I felt was beyond happiness, a relief so large…but my happiness was short-lived. It lasted the duration of a single meal. I had not expected my aunt to bring the entire village to gather outside my house. She had told them where I had been. They objected to my coming back.
