by Rahul Mehta
Late that night—after having left Chota Kaka’s place, Hero Honda tilting through the dark streets, and returning to his room at Bharat’s house, the word Chota Kaka had called him still burning his ear—Kiran curled up in bed with the journal. His intention had been to keep notes about his experiences in India, though so far the only entry he’d written was on the eighteen-hour airplane ride over. He had noted the row upon row of old men and women in their Nehru hats and plain cotton saris, seasoned travelers, aging parents of American immigrants, shuttling back and forth between continents every couple of years. He had noted the way passengers, after dinner, impatient for the flight attendants—and perhaps thinking of them as mere servants—stacked empty food trays in the aisles, reclined their seats, belched. He had not noted the shame he felt at having to be fetched three weeks earlier, his father on his hands and knees in his sixth-floor walk-up, scrubbing. He had also not noted the apprehension he felt at having to see Bharat again, or worse, having to see Prabhu Kaka.
Kiran liked the interior marginal drawings inside the journal. In one, Superman is leaping over an art deco building. In another, Clark Kent is ripping off his shirt. In a third, Superman’s back is turned and his cape is swirling behind him.
As a child Kiran had loved Superman, loved Batman and Spider-Man, too. Though he couldn’t have named it, he instinctively understood the need to have dual identities, to keep secrets. But now he wondered, which was the true self, Clark Kent or Superman? Peter Parker or Spider-Man? Bruce Wayne or Batman? Which was the costume? Which was the disguise?
What Kiran loved most about his Superman journal was the hologram cover. Tilt it one way, he was Superman. Tilt it the other, he was Clark Kent. But from a certain angle, if Kiran held it just the right way, he was both at the same time.
Kiran closed the journal and set it down without having written anything about that evening. He went to the window to check on Pooja, relieved to find her beneath the peepal tree, a raggedy dog lying nearby.
How had Pooja known who she was? Kiran wondered. Later she would tell him the story of how she had been only ten when she left home and found Guru Ma. How had she understood so young? How had she been able to distinguish which was the disguise and which was the true self? Or was this very premise flawed? He wondered if the binary itself was false, duality an illusion. Perhaps the true self was always in flux, always in between. Perhaps the true self was like the hologram, simultaneously both and neither.
Kiran was not surprised to see the photograph of Neela Kaki, the same one in the alcove at the top of the stairs in his parents’ house, here in India. He had already spotted it in two places: in the entryway, where everyone would see it immediately, and in the kitchen, where Neela Kaki had spent so much of her time while alive, and where Kamala Kaki now toiled (especially while Ameera was occupied with her pregnancy), her predecessor keeping watch over her. This echo of his childhood home was one he fully expected. But what he found that afternoon—wandering the rambling house, creaking open closed doors, poking in disused rooms, peeking in shut cupboards—shocked Kiran. He discovered the stash resting on shelves in a metal cabinet in a third-floor room. Although he recognized the objects instantly, he couldn’t immediately process how or why they would be—of all places—here.
Yet here they were: The red Tonka truck he had thrown at his cousin-brother, the one who grew up to be an investment banker, causing a gash perilously close to his right eye (a quarter inch closer and he could have been blinded, the doctor had said), the scar still visible into adulthood, an indelible reminder of the World of Cousins long after they all drifted. The Etch A Sketch on which Kiran had learned to draw the basic outlines of his life: house, parents, sister, tree. Preeti’s doll, the one with the dial on her back that shortened and lengthened her hair, and whose lacy nightgown Preeti had accidentally set on fire when she left it lying too long on a lightbulb (“I wanted it to get nice and toasty so she would feel warm in bed”). The A-frame dollhouse Preeti kept on a high shelf behind her bed and that reminded Kiran of the house of Chris and Amy Bell. And, perhaps most surprising of all: the tiger. That enormous tiger, not in the metal cabinet, but on it; perched, ready to pounce.
Later Kiran would learn that his mother, just as she had packed a bag of things for Kiran to bring to India, had done so for Bharat seven years earlier. For Kiran, it had been mostly old saris and salwars Shanti never wore. (“If relatives don’t want them, drop them off at a temple. There are so many needy people in India.”) And then of course there were the gifts—bottles of cologne and perfume; Timex watches; pistachios carefully measured out and sealed in Ziploc bags; L’Oreal and CoverGirl compacts and lipsticks in colors appropriate for subcontinental skin tones—accompanied by detailed instructions of which relatives were to receive which gifts. Shanti had hustled the three weeks Kiran was home, taking breaks from trying to soothe her suffering child in order to dash out and purchase what she could.
For Bharat, Shanti had packed many of the same items to give as gifts, but instead of her cast-off clothing, she had sent Kiran’s and Preeti’s childhood toys. “I’m sure you can find people who’ll want them. Maybe you can keep some for your own baby,” Shanti had said, winking. “Surely it won’t be long.” Bharat had not wanted the burden of carrying the extra luggage—particularly the enormous tiger!—cross-country during his two-week tour, but he wouldn’t say no to his aunt. Shanti purchased an extra-large canvas bag that she packed herself, starting with the tiger, and then squeezing in additional toys wherever possible, wrapping them in Bharat’s clothes for added padding. She had given Bharat money for any additional luggage charges he might incur.
Shut away in the metal cabinet, the toys looked to Kiran both imprisoned and displaced. Kiran had spent very little time in his Western New York home since going off to college; still, he wondered how he had not noticed these toys missing. Especially the tiger, which had once meant so much to him. It had been like a living thing to Kiran; all the toys had been. Here, now, they were dead. Or maybe they were just waiting for Bharat’s baby to be born so they could come alive once more.
Chapter 20
The previous year, 1997, had been the Year of the Two Dianas. It was the year Diana Hayden, Miss India—Indian despite what Guru Ma would say was a very un-Indian name—won Miss World. It was also the year Princess Diana died. Princess Diana’s death happened first, though it would be some time before Pooja would feel its full effects, and when she did, it would surprise her that such a global event, owned and experienced by the entire world, would have such a singular and personal effect on her life, and especially on Guru Ma’s.
As for the Miss World pageant, Pooja had not seen it when it first aired, but it played again and again on television; there was a period where it seemed like no matter the time of day, it was always on. She had seen it the first time at Guru Ma’s house, Guru Ma spread out queen-like on her regal chintz armchair (a gift from an admirer; she did still have those), Pooja and her hijra sisters clumped on the floor at her feet. The second time, she had been alone one afternoon when Guru Ma went out and asked Pooja to stay, in case the grocer came by with lady fingers, Guru Ma’s favorite. After that, Pooja caught bits and pieces of the program now and then; in Guru Ma’s house there was infinite appetite for it. Over and over, Pooja watched Ricky Martin sing “Maria” and was mesmerized by the contestants in their satin sashes swaying like palms behind him. The pageant that year was in Seychelles, a place Pooja had never heard of but which sounded to her magical. In between competition rounds, the show cut to previously recorded footage of the contestants frolicking on beaches, posing in front of waterfalls, riding on yachts, smiling and waving. Smiling and waving. How much of their lives were spent smiling and waving? Pooja wondered. Pooja had never seen the ocean, wasn’t even sure how far or in what direction the nearest shore would be. Her world was not much larger than what she could walk in any given direction in three days along dusty roads.
Of all the images of the p
ageant, it was the final one Pooja loved most. She wasn’t alone in that assessment. Whenever the show was on, when it was time for Diana to be crowned, whoever was watching would call into the street so that whichever of her hijra sisters happened to be nearby could gather around and watch: Diana in her white gown and white elbow-length gloves holding the crown atop her upswept hair while the previous year’s title holder, now in shadows, placed it. When Pooja was watching and when the final moment came, she did not call into the street as the others did; she wanted to savor the moment alone. Diana, after being crowned, took one final walk back and forth across the stage, smiling and waving, before settling into her seat—a white wicker throne threaded with white roses. Pooja knew that the path to that seat had not been easy for Diana, and yet it was where she belonged. The Diana wearing the crown was the Diana she was always meant to be.
Almost immediately after Pooja arrived, taking her spot beneath the peepal tree, the men started coming, sometimes three or four in a day. Young, thin-waisted men from the market, long leather belts looped one and a half times around, with extra holes crudely punched with kitchen knives. Married men with yellow-gold jewelry and gray in their chest hair, and polyester dress shirts that didn’t breathe, that were redolent with sweat heavy with garlic and turmeric and ground coriander from the curries their wives cooked. Nice men and mean men. Ugly men and not-so-ugly men. Shy men who barely said a word to anyone: mice who, with her, became tigers. Rich men, not that anyone in this town was so rich, but men who sat in the back-seat of air-conditioned Marutis with tinted windows and drivers and dashboard altars to Ganesh.
Kiran sometimes saw the men from his window. He watched them arrive, watched Pooja lead them somewhere they could not be seen. They’d vanish around corners, duck into doorways, disappear down shadowy hallways and lanes. Sometimes he caught only the glint of some gold in the threads of Pooja’s salwar, or heard the jangle of her bangles, but even with only these tiny clues, without even seeing her face, he somehow knew it was Pooja.
During the day Kiran would see them at the shop, the one that sold sundries, household necessities, on the main thoroughfare around the corner from the house. He would see them loitering, looking at soap too long, waiting for Pooja to walk by. There was one man Kiran saw with particular frequency. He had yellow teeth and glasses with thick black rims, and lenses so thick that they distorted his eyes, made his pupils seem trapped, fish in an aquarium.
Kiran, too—those last, terrible weeks in New York—had had his own parade of men. Men in too-tight designer jeans. Fat men in heavy wool cable-knit sweaters the hems of which itched Kiran’s forehead when he knelt before them. Men with wedding bands and hairy wrists and heavy watches they didn’t remove. Young men fresh off buses from Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, still with their midwestern haircuts and vowels. Young men—Kiran knew better than to ask their ages. Broad-shouldered men like Chris Bell, like Matt and Rick from the water tower. Thin-chested boys like Jeffrey, boys like himself, boys like Shawn.
Then there was the man Kiran barely remembered, only that he had been very rough, had slapped Kiran’s ass, had slapped his face, had pulled his hair, kept saying, Is this how you like it, is this what you want? and Kiran didn’t know how to answer, didn’t know what he wanted—he wanted all of it, he wanted none of it—so he stayed silent.
Tonight there were thick clouds, no moon, no stars, so Kiran couldn’t be sure what he saw. But he knew what he heard: Pooja crying, not loud—even now she was careful not to draw attention—but crying nonetheless. The dog whimpering, barking. He heard a struggle, he heard, or thought he heard (could he really hear this from his window?), glass bangles jangling as her arm was grabbed and pulled. He heard (or thought he heard) slapping.
When he went down to the tree early the next morning before anyone was awake, Kiran confirmed what he could have seen from his window: Pooja wasn’t there. He looked for clues—a broken bangle, a ripped piece of cloth, a lost sandal—but found instead, near the spot where she slept, a brown baseball-size rock, speckled like a bird’s egg. It was nothing special, there were any number of rocks nearby; still, he picked it up as if it meant something, held its cool weight in his palm, closed his fingers tight around it. Back in his room he placed it on his bedside table and fell asleep. When he woke again an hour later he rushed to the window and was relieved to see Pooja asleep beneath the tree. He looked at the rock resting on the worn wood table: his only proof he had not dreamed it. He had gone down and she was not there and now she was.
The previous year, the day Princess Diana died, Pooja had not expected to find Guru Ma already awake. That’s not the way it worked. Usually, one of the girls—they took turns doing this—would knock on the door; sometimes they’d have to knock hard, sometimes several times (Guru Ma was a sound sleeper), until Guru Ma answered. There were several locks to negotiate. Sometimes Guru Ma would accidentally close a lock she had already unlocked. Sometimes the girl, whichever girl it was, would stand on the other side of the door for a long time listening to the keys on Guru Ma’s ring jangling, scraping against keyholes, bolts and bars and chains clicking this way and that. When Guru Ma finally swung open the door, her eyelids would be heavy, her sleeping sari disheveled, the room itself dark, the air in her one-room flat thick and stale. She would climb back onto her mattress while the girl made her way into the small kitchen at the back of the room and started preparing Guru Ma’s breakfast: chai and dahi and hot rotli cooked fresh on the tava.
But today was different. When Pooja arrived, the door was unlocked, the curtains pulled open, and Guru Ma was sitting in front of the television, not on her chintz armchair but on the floor, very close to the screen, as if she had been magnetically pulled toward it. On the small television, a split screen. On one side: flashing lights bright against the faint gray-blue of early morning, police cars blocking off a narrow tunnel. On the other side: an official at a podium speaking in French, a voiceover translating in Hindi. When Guru Ma recalled it later, she said something, someone, had woken her early, had compelled her to switch on the television right away. She hadn’t known then what it was, but she knew now: it was Princess Diana herself.
Of all her daughters, Pooja was the one Guru Ma had selected for the errand. Guru Ma would have liked to have gone herself; in fact, she knew she should go. Wasn’t this errand more than an errand? Wasn’t the errand itself an integral part of the devotion? But the thought of braving the bazaar on market day made Guru Ma shrink. She had never liked crowds, even when she was younger and it was easier to navigate them, before the weight gain and weak knees and before beedis had transformed her lungs into dark clouds. Now she saved her energy for performances, though those too were becoming increasingly rare. These days, her daughters did most of the heavy lifting. But occasionally she would turn out herself. On those days they were sure to collect at least double, sometimes triple the offerings. Guru Ma’s powers were legendary.
Pooja kept the magazine clipping in her shoulder bag exactly the way Guru Ma had given it to her, sandwiched between stiff cardboard pieces and then wrapped in thin white cloth decorated with line drawings of Radha Krishna and red swastikas. (So small was Pooja’s world, she was ignorant of how the ancient sacred symbol had been co-opted, corrupted by the Nazis, though of course that knowledge wouldn’t have made her any less likely to use it or to wear it, just as it had not deterred anyone else around her.) Guru Ma had given her strict instructions not to remove the clipping until she was at the bazaar, in front of the merchant, picking out the frame. And then she was only to remove it to get the proper size and to select the perfect frame. Pooja was to ask Aravind Bhai to place the image in the frame, cutting a mat if necessary, but not cropping the image, not one single millimeter. Guru Ma had given Pooja not a small amount of money; she was to spare no expense.
Aravind Bhai had quite an array of silver frames that day, laid out on a red blanket on the ground. He had more in boxes behind him. “If you don’t see what you want,” he said, “
ask.” Pooja’s hand had been instinctively resting on the bag, protecting its contents, and now she slid it inside and removed the parcel. She unwound the cloth and then lifted a cardboard piece. The image was reverse-side up, so at first she saw text from a magazine article in English she couldn’t read. She flipped it over, and there she was, in all her beauty. Of the hundreds, no thousands, of images that had appeared in magazines over the past weeks, Pooja wondered why Guru Ma had chosen this one. It wasn’t Princess Diana at her most glamorous, not in an evening gown or a crown, not standing straight, her head slightly turned, her neck long and regal. Instead, it was a close-up of a young Diana, premarriage but probably postengagement, judging from the pose, the quality of the photography, the lighting. And perhaps this was the reason Guru Ma had chosen it; it was the period in Diana’s life when she knew she was to become a princess but before she’d actually become one. Unlike her smile in later pictures—her radiant smile, always radiant—this smile was real, or relatively real (were smiles in posed photographs ever really real?). Once the details of her unhappy marriage came spilling out, it was hard to see those later smiles as anything other than masks. But this smile was the smile of arriving, not of having already arrived and having realized that the ball was not at all what one had hoped.
Guru Ma had made it clear to Pooja: while she didn’t want any expense spared, she also didn’t want anything fussy. She wanted a frame like Diana herself: classic and modern. So Pooja selected a clean frame with neither engraving nor filigree, just an immaculate, burnished band of gleaming silver all around. She handed it to Aravind Bhai along with the clipping and the sum of money he requested. (Guru Ma had warned her not to haggle.) While Aravind Bhai readied the purchase—cutting the mat, centering the clipping, wiping down the glass—Pooja found a perch on an upturned crate outside a shop and sat quietly, watching the bustle of market day swirl around her. When Aravind Bhai finished, he handed her the package wrapped in newspaper and tied with string, and for added security Pooja wound it in the cloth Guru Ma had given her and put it back in her shoulder bag.
