by Mahesh Rao
The hotel had always been popular with British and French tourists, and these days select Russian and Chinese guests too. Security had recently been tightened and cars were inspected with particular care when the occupants were young men displaying an unnatural intensity. On most Saturday evenings during auspicious months a white marquee would be hoisted up over the lawn, strings of milky lights looped between its poles. A happy couple would accept the assembled company’s best wishes, drifting around the tables covered in stiff alabaster damask and strewn with miniature candles and champagne roses. At a given moment, the band would start up in a riot of congratulatory blasts, and a few moments later the hotel switchboard would be jammed with calls from furious hotel guests.
A few discreetly placed paving stones skirted around the edges of the front lawn to the staff entrance, located at the back of the hotel and screened off by an imposing bamboo. Here the ravages of the summer were more apparent. Ashen tufts on the ground in front of the laundry had been abandoned to their fate. The hydrangeas lining the unloading bay were globes of mauve dust waiting for a rare gust to blow them apart.
Mala looked at her watch as she approached the staff entrance. She was slightly early so she stood in the shade of the bamboo for a few seconds, wiping the back of her neck with a handkerchief.
Inside the hotel, in a small office behind the front desk, the other two employees of the accounts department were already at work. Mr Tanveer was the ‘in-charge’, a responsibility he bore with all due solemnity. Given to bouts of pronounced anxiety, his predisposition was given away by the habitual expression on his face, that of a man who had just fallen down a well. He tried, at least at the outset, to take a generous view of his friends and colleagues but found that his confidence was seldom rewarded, a fact that often instigated a theological enquiry: why had God created man, if not to disappoint Mr Tanveer? Apart from his unyielding commitment to his duties, he was also known for the startling array of items he carried in the pockets of his trousers. A hole punch, a self-help book, an unripe mango and a spanner had all been produced, at one time or another, from those seemingly bottomless repositories.
Opposite Mr Tanveer sat Shipra, originally from Mumbai, noted at work for her large hands, which she liked to adorn with numerous turquoise rings.
‘Shipraji, did you check those figures from yesterday? What had that girl done?’ asked Mr Tanveer, his head suddenly shooting up.
‘No idea, sir. Here, I have redone part of the report but should I finish the whole thing?’
‘No, can you speak to her when she comes in and kindly do the needful? Try and make her understand again what has to be done and ask her to finish it by business close.’
‘Okay sir, surely I’ll do that.’
Mr Tanveer sighed, his expression tightening into even greater distress.
‘You know, this is what happens when people get jobs through influence. After that they can just make merry but it all falls on someone else’s head,’ he said.
‘Is she from some big-shot family?’
‘No no, she is from some small, godforsaken place, but her brother-in-law is that Anand.’
‘Which Anand?’
‘G S Anand.’
‘Which Anand?’
‘What which-Anand which-Anand, I’m telling you, no? That fellow who owns Exospace.’
‘Oh I see.’ Shipra still looked blank.
‘Yes. So he asked our big man to give this girl a position and now they have put her here. Our misfortune.’
‘There are so many capable people, sir, with no hope of getting a job and look here.’
‘I know. What can you do?’
Shipra adjusted one of her rings.
‘But sir, maybe she’ll learn. You never know.’
Mr Tanveer’s head shot up again: ‘Shipraji, she will not learn. That much I know.’
Mala’s parents had always agreed that the important thing was for her to graduate. The field of study was not of great importance as, it had to be admitted, she had never shown a strong aptitude in any particular area. The point was that a degree was essential for any kind of economic independence, and of course, even married women needed to be economically independent these days. A modest donation had enabled her to secure a place at the private RMV College. Rather surprisingly, a marriage proposal had arrived while she was still in the second year of her commerce degree. The young man in question was, however, a translator at a small publishing house and probably did not earn enough to support himself, let alone a family.
Rukmini had refused to even consider the offer. As far as possible, she was determined not to condemn her daughters to a life of the constant mental arithmetic that came with paring and pruning the budget. Babu had reached the same conclusion too, although perhaps swayed by a different consideration: the output of the publishing house in question seemed limited mainly to a tawdry range of detective novels set in the red-light districts of Chennai. In any case, Mala needed to complete her degree; then the quest for a husband could begin in earnest.
Mala’s days at RMV College seemed to sound a knell towards an indeterminate future. She would wake each morning at half past five, bathe, light the two small ghee lamps in front of the picture of Ganesh and pray solidly for half an hour. Before leaving for college she would engage in a couple of hours of consolidation, going over the previous day’s lectures and diligently asterisking key points with an encircled ‘NB’. Later she would arrive at the wrought-iron gates of the college, her rucksack crammed with texts on corporate accounting and marketing principles, her notebooks colour-coded and covered with the incontinent loops of her handwriting. In the last month before examinations she would sit on the back steps of the house in the tawny haze of early morning, her lips mouthing the knowledge that had to be jammed into her brain, a bowl of almonds soaked in milk cradled in her lap.
At the end of her final year the results were as expected: undistinguished but not mortifying.
‘Anyway, she is not going to head off to be a collector. It will do,’ her elder sister Ambika had said.
A few years earlier Ambika had graduated with a first class degree in engineering and was now married to a surgeon who called her ‘white white face’. There had never been any doubt that Ambika would attract a creditable alliance. Even as a fifteen-year-old, her face had frequently been compared to the carved idol of the deity at the Mahagauri temple in Konnapur. Added to her milky skin and expressive eyes, these features meant that Ambika was married by the time she was twenty-three. True that by then she had begun to put on the extra weight, but what did it matter? Once she was married, she was married. Now that her husband had set up his own nursing home she was actively involved in its administration and was hardly ever seen in Konnapur. Her brisk efficiency kept the forty-bed facility running smoothly and the couple had plans to open a new wing for gynaecological services.
As Ambika’s husband liked to point out: ‘There is no boom and bust in life and death.’
A couple of months after the graduation ceremony, Mala began to dedicate herself to the process of finding a husband, putting in the same kind of studious preparation that had structured her college days. She kept a watchful eye on her weight, stayed out of the sun and continued praying. Every morning she applied a gram flour and rose-water face pack and twice a week massaged her scalp with a paste made from six tablespoons of yoghurt, half a banana, two teaspoons of honey and a tablespoon of lemon juice. On the day that her photos were to be taken, she had a special hibiscus facial at Soundharya Beauty Parlour and her hair was carefully blow-dried for the first time, notwithstanding Rukmini’s firmly held belief that hairdryers only led to baldness. The photographer was encouraging: he was confident that she would find a wonderful life partner within weeks. He assured Rukmini that he had developed a sixth sense in such matters, having been in the business for over thirty years.
The marriage broker that Rukmini visited was less conciliatory.
‘Look madam, I don�
��t cheat my clients, I don’t make false promises, I don’t say that the sun rises in the west. I have to give you an honest assessment. She doesn’t have height, only a B.Com, colour okay, features passable and – I am sorry, but I am only repeating what you have said – there is no question of much property or money. In our community, the question of dowry does not arise, thank God, but still, people look at these things. And you want what everyone wants: a good-looking boy from the right caste, with a good education, good family background, good job, good prospects and a good horoscope match. At the moment, I don’t know; you will just have to leave it with me. Let’s see what happens,’ she had said, scrutinising Mala’s photos with a practised severity.
Rukmini had left the marriage broker’s house in a state of deep agitation. In her world people tended to speak in practised allusions, cloaking barbed truths in a mantle of assurances. Her throat contracted sharply as she realised that her second daughter faced an unforgiving few months.
The reality was that it took nearly two years. By the time a distant relative had suggested Girish’s name, Mala’s photos had been circulated as far as Pune and Coimbatore.
‘A little puny.’
‘Not bad looking but her nose is pretty bulbous, no?’
‘The boy is too tall, see her height. It won’t look good.’
‘She’s fine, she’s nice; it’s just that he has seen someone that he really liked.’
‘Nothing doing.’
After a while, Rukmini simply stopped making the follow-up calls. She maintained a garrulous optimism for the benefit of her husband and daughters and was careful not to relay any adverse comments to them. The message she passed on was always that ‘something did not suit, you know what people are like, they are never straightforward.’
Babu had suggested that it would be good for Mala to find a different focus while they waited for marital matters to arrange themselves. A few weeks later she found a part-time job as an accounts assistant at a PUC college. On her second day there Mala discovered that any fiscal propriety enforced by the school board was a matter purely of historical interest. The college accountant to whom she had to report was rarely to be seen and a similar level of absenteeism flourished among the other members of staff and the students. Her mornings were spent in a dusty room at a desk supporting numerous ancient ledgers and what appeared to be a computer of similar vintage.
Mala dutifully turned up on time every day and left the office just before lunch. In the intervening hours there was not much to disturb her nervous ruminations. At that point the future seemed like a place of fantasy to Mala, peopled by spectres adrift in a nebulous realm of responsibilities. Occasionally a student would pop into the room with a query and then drift away. Some mornings Mala would copy type a few pages of a newspaper article or an old report and then, upon completion, erase all the words. Much of the time she looked out at groups of girls and boys in the compound who would congregate in the shade of a neem tree, framed by the jagged edges of the glass in the office’s broken window.
Months later, by the time talks had begun with Girish’s aunt, Mala had given up the job. She was more than willing to be guided in life by those better informed than her, but even she could see that there was absolutely no benefit to be gained from spending any more time in that sepulchral space. At that point Ambika had offered to step in and provide her with an administrative position at the nursing home. It would keep her from sitting at home and she might learn some new skills. But Rukmini had felt that Mala was better off at home in Konnapur where prospective husbands could meet her and her parents. It had become a habit not to ask Mala for her views. She had been denied the vernacular of agency for so long that her reticence merely glanced off the bulwark of parental concern.
The interest from Girish’s aunt came at an opportune time but it was not without its complications. The twelve-year age gap was hardly ideal and, crucially, Rukmini and Babu had wanted to know why Girish was not yet married. In theory, someone like him should not have had many problems finding a girl, and yet there he was, a man single at the age of thirty-five. Was there some health condition in the family, a long-term girlfriend who had finally spurned him or, God forbid, a foreign wife in America? The family intermediary had not been able to ascertain the precise reason for Girish’s single status. She could only surmise that there might have been some sort of romantic disappointment but the crucial factors were all in place: he was tall and slim, had excellent antecedents, an exemplary academic record and a good job at a state electricity distribution company. Tragically, his mother had drowned while on a pilgrimage and his father had since moved to an ashram in Kerala. There was one brother, a wealthy businessman, also in Mysore, and a scattering of decent relatives elsewhere. Apart from his age there was nothing to indicate that he was not a good match. Besides, Mala had been sitting at home for nearly two years now. The family intermediary was certainly not the kind of person who would presume to tell them what to do. She had simply presented the facts.
Four months later Girish and Mala were married and on their honeymoon in Ooty.
The papaya seller meandered down 7th Main in Mahalakshmi Gardens most mornings between ten and half past ten. His cry usually began as a bellicose challenge; by the time he had negotiated his way to the final syllable, it emerged as a squall of triumph.
‘Uma, look in the basket. Is there a papaya for tomorrow?’ asked Susheela, from the armchair in the sitting room.
‘Yes, amma, there is.’
Uma’s voice was always only just audible, as if greater volume would instigate a sudden vocal collapse.
A few moments later she moved into the sitting room, sweeping the floor with a brisk circular motion. Susheela took off her reading glasses, folded up the newspaper and stood up to move to a different part of the room.
‘No sign of any rain,’ she announced, looking sternly through the patio doors.
The brittle whisper of the broom continued against the floor.
Susheela sighed and walked towards the bookshelves. She had no idea what it would take to get any conversation out of this girl. She did not expect Uma to discuss politics or philosophy but even coaxing out a bland observation seemed impossible.
Uma had come to her on the recommendation of a friend in Yadavagiri. She had only been working with them for an hour each day but the friend could confirm that her work was neat and she arrived mostly on time. Susheela had sent word that she wanted to see Uma. Her previous maid had moved away and she needed to employ someone else in a hurry. She had already asked two girls to come to the house for a preliminary assessment. The first had arrived on the back of a pink scooter, tittering into a mobile phone. Susheela had stared at her long silver fingernails and the jangly accessories that hung off her handbag. Would this girl scrub pans or just use the house as a convenient base to conduct sundry love affairs? The second said her name was Jolly. As if that weren’t bad enough, she had turned up three hours late, taken a good look at every room in the house and decided that the job was not for her.
‘Perhaps she did not care for my choice of curtains,’ Susheela had remarked to Priyanka, with a voice that could slash through sisal.
Uma seemed the type who would be grateful to work in a decent house. She had arrived slightly early, dressed in a plain yellow sari, the pallu pulled over her slender shoulders. Susheela noticed that her neck was bare. A single gold bangle glinted against her dark wrist. She was engaged on trial for a month, her breakfast and lunch would be taken care of and she would get Sundays off.
Susheela could not find any fault with Uma’s work but this wraithlike behaviour was beginning to irritate her. She was not accustomed to people in her pay rejecting an invitation to conversation.
Susheela tried again: ‘The corporation men were outside earlier. Did they say when they would finish all the digging?’
‘No, amma, I didn’t see them.’
Uma left the room without making eye contact, her anklets tinkling faint
ly with each step.
Susheela climbed the stairs, her tread heavy. She went into the study, opened a drawer and began to look through a freezer bag full of old cheque book stubs.
As soon as Mala arrived home she reached into the plastic bag and picked out a mango. She held it under the harsh spray from the tap and then dried it, swaddling it in the kitchen towel. She placed the fruit on a board and pushed a knife through the skin into its immodestly ripe flesh. The heady smell intensified at once and redoubled its attack on her senses. Expertly she judged the presence of the stone’s edges and extracted it without letting any of the honeyed pulp go to waste. She sliced the fruit into five rectangles. Picking up the largest piece, she pushed her hair back, leant over the kitchen sink and sucked hard on the skin. Her tongue burrowed into the belly of the mango and her lips closed around its juices. Mala’s eyes were shut; suspended in the darkness of her absorption, she negotiated every fibre in the fruit’s marrow.
She gulped noisily and, putting aside the mangled skin, reached for another slice and sank her teeth into it. Unaware that her pleasure was now audible, she drew more of the flesh into her mouth, her grunts escaping into the air. She lifted her hand and plugged her lips around her knuckles to catch the juice that was beginning to trickle towards her wrist. Her tongue skimmed across the trails in the fruit left by her teeth. She wrung out the last of the slice.
