by Farahad Zama
Rehman asked a man walking past, “Do you know where Naidu from Kantakaapalli lives? He works in the steel plant.”
The man scratched his head and said, “I don’t know about him but some people from that village live in the second street down there.”
Rehman followed his directions and turned into another narrow street. The houses here seemed to be better built. They all had more than one light and some were even two storeys high. He stood there, looking a bit lost.
A plump middle-aged woman was walking down the street towards him, carrying two round aluminium pots with narrow necks, one on her head and another on her waist. She stopped and asked him, “What do you want in our street, babu?”
Rehman smiled at her and said, “I am looking for Naidu from Kantakaapalli. He works in the steel plant.”
“Is he the one who got married recently?” she asked, the water spilling slightly from the pot on her head and soaking her sari.
“I don’t know if he got married recently,” said Rehman. “But he’s just come back from the village and brought a young boy with him.”
“Yes, that’s the one. He got married about six months ago. They live in that house,” she said, pointing.
“Thank you,” said Rehman.
“Mention not,” the woman said in English.
Rehman looked at her in surprise as she giggled and went on her way. He walked over to the house she had pointed out. “Hello, anybody home?” he shouted through the locked grille at the front.
A boy, Vasu, came running out of the house and started jumping up and down on the other side of the grille. “Rehman Uncle, you are here!” he shouted again and again.
Rehman reached through the grille and tousled Vasu’s hair. “And you are here in the city,” he said laughing.
A young woman came out, tightening the edge of her sari around herself protectively when she saw him. The bottom of her sari was wet – she had probably been carrying water from the communal tap. Around her neck was a double-pendant mangalsootram and, on her forehead, red sindoor – symbols of her status as a married woman. She had a sharp chin and kindly eyes, which she had blackened with mascara. He noticed that she had six fingers on each hand.
She opened the door of the grille and said, “Please come in, babu.”
“I’ve just come to take Vasu,” said Rehman standing outside. “You must be busy. I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“This is the first time you’ve come to our house, babu-gaaru. How can you just walk away like that? You must come in.”
Rehman went on to the verandah. The young woman brought out a metal chair and unfolded it for him. Rehman sat down and pulled Vasu on to his lap. He turned to the woman and said, “If you have any household work, please go ahead. Don’t delay anything for my sake.”
The woman said, “I’ve already collected the water, so there’s no hurry for anything else.”
Vasu said, “Her name is Sitakka. She is very good.”
Sitakka blushed. “He’s a cute boy,” she said and went inside.
Vasu said, “Do you know she has twelve fingers?”
“Really?” said Rehman.
“Yes,” said Vasu. “She also has twelve toes.”
“Very interesting,” said Rehman. “But tell me about yourself. What do you think of the city so far?”
“I travelled in an auto-rickshaw,” said Vasu.
“Wow,” said Rehman. “When?”
“From the bus stop to here. It went so fast. Thaatha tells me that I lived in the city with my parents but I don’t remember very much about it.”
Sita came out again, carrying a small plate with two chakram – deep-fried snacks in a spiral shape. There was also a small yellow laddoo.
“I am sorry,” she said. “My husband had to go off to work as soon as we came back from the village and we don’t have anything else to offer.”
“This is great. I don’t need anything else,” said Rehman, taking the plate from her.
She went back inside and Rehman gave one chakram to Vasu and started eating the other. Sita returned with water – one precious glass from the limited quantity she had carried on her head from the end of the street.
Rehman smiled at her. “When will your husband return?” he asked.
“He’s normally back by this time, but today he is going to the ration shop for sugar. There’s always a queue there so I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
Rehman nodded and went back to eating the snacks. Later, after he had finished eating and drunk the water, he found out that Sita’s father-in-law was Mr Naidu’s cousin. The cousins’ lands shared a border and their houses in the village were next to each other as well.
Vasu said, “It’s the house with the monkey in it.”
Rehman nodded. “I’ve met your father-in-law and brother-in-law when I was in the village,” he said. They talked for a while about the village and then Rehman looked at his watch. “I have to go,” he said.
When Vasu went into the house, Sitakka quickly whispered to Rehman, “Please look after the boy. He has been very dull for several days now. That’s why his grandfather thought it would be a good idea to send him to the city. He only perked up when he saw you.”
Rehman nodded but before he could say anything, Vasu came back with his things. He was carrying an old cotton school bag with books and a bundle of what looked like clothes wrapped in a faded bedsheet. “Is that it?” asked Rehman, picking up the bundle, which was quite light.
Vasu nodded and put the school bag on his back like a rucksack.
Sita said, “My father-in-law is coming here for a day on Sunday. If you drop Vasu off any time before then, he can go back with him to the village. You don’t have to wait until Sunday – I don’t mind looking after him for a few days.”
Rehman said, “I’m sure he’ll be all right. My mother hasn’t had any small boys to pamper for a long time.”
Sita hugged Vasu and bent down to kiss him on his forehead. “Don’t be too naughty,” she said. “And eat whatever they give you. Don’t make a fuss.”
“I never do,” said Vasu.
“Of course you don’t. You are a good boy,” she said, hugging him again. She turned to Rehman and said, “You must eat a meal with us when you come to drop Vasu.”
They left the house and reached the main road.
“Wow!” said Vasu. “Are we really going on a motorbike?”
Rehman unlocked the bike and took it off its stand. He sat down and wedged the bundle of clothes on the petrol tank in front of him. Vasu scrambled up behind.
“Hold my waist,” Rehman said to the boy and started the motorbike.
The traffic was a bit heavy by this time but Rehman weaved in and out, making good time. They stopped at a traffic light and Rehman asked, “Are you OK there?”
“Oh yes. This is great,” said Vasu.
Rehman looked back and saw Vasu’s eyes glittering in the light from the shop fronts by the side of the road. The boy’s head did not stay still. He was looking from one side to the other as if he wanted to devour the sights around him.
Vasu pointed out a woman who was driving a scooter and laughed. Pedestrians hurried to their homes. Behind them, pedlars stood by carts or sat on mats by the side of the road selling vegetables. Little shops with bright lights sold clothes, steel vessels and general hardware.
They turned left on to the highway and went past the naval laboratories whose stepped walls kept a constant height above the undulating ground. They passed yellow three-wheeled auto-rickshaws. A white Ambassador car with a little Indian tricolour flag flying on its bonnet overtook them, on some important government business, possibly. They went past a long flat-bed lorry carrying thick, straight tree trunks from some forest.
The lights were coming on now in the houses beyond the road – hundreds of thousands of twinkling lights along their route and halfway up the hills. A thirty-feet tall statue of the monkey-god Hanuman stood on their right, on the roof of an o
rdinary-looking square house that served as a temple. Rehman felt Vasu touching his right hand to his forehead in prayer.
An elephant was lumbering slowly by the side of the road, a mahout on its neck, occasionally reaching out to a branch with its trunk and stuffing a bunch of leaves into its mouth. Rehman pointed it out and Vasu laughed with delight. To be a boy again, thought Rehman, and see a city for the first time.
Four
The next morning the doorbell rang at five minutes to nine and Mr Ali went to answer it. Mr Reddy, long hair combed over from the side to cover the bald centre of his head, was standing there. He had become a client just a few days before and Mr Ali was surprised to see him.
He opened the door and let the man in. “What can I do for you, sir?” he asked. “We don’t have any more matches other than what we have already given you.”
Mr Reddy sat down and took out the envelope that Aruna had given him when he had joined. He slid the lists out from the cover and turned to Mr Ali.
“I have seen a match that I am very interested in,” he said.
“Oh, good,” said Mr Ali. “Have you contacted them?”
“No. I was hoping that you could call and talk to them.”
Mr Ali nodded. He wasn’t too happy about it because there was nothing really that he could add by being in the middle, but some clients preferred it that way and it was part of the service. He took the list from Mr Reddy and looked at the entry halfway down the paper, circled in red ink. According to the details, the people were Kapus too and well off. The groom was an electrical engineer who worked for a power generation company just outside Chennai.
Mr Ali picked up the phone and dialled. After the introductions, Mr Ali said into the handset, “I have a match for your son. The girl’s father is here with me. He works in the Port Trust as an accountant.”
The man was interested. “What has the girl studied?” he asked.
“She is a BA,” replied Mr Ali. “Passed in first class.”
“That’s very good. But my son is living far away from all of us and we want a girl who is not just educated but can also run his house. We don’t want a career-minded girl.”
“Sudha is very good that way, sir,” said Mr Ali. “Her mother passed away three years ago and she has been looking after her father’s household while also studying.”
“Really? Sounds like a good match, indeed.”
Mr Ali passed the phone to Mr Reddy. Aruna walked in just then and greeted them. Mr Ali smiled at her. She put her handbag under the table and sat down.
Mr Ali showed Aruna the marked-up entry on the list and she nodded. She turned to the wooden wardrobe and looked through the files until she found the photograph and handed it to Mr Ali. The young man was standing in front of the high, wrought-iron gates of the power plant where he worked. There were ganneru trees in bloom by the side of the gates, with gnarled branches and white flowers. He was smiling in the photo and looked smart in jeans and T-shirt. He was tall and a bit dark. His hair had a stylish wave on one side.
Mr Reddy got off the phone and Mr Ali handed him the photograph. He seemed impressed.
“That went very well, sir. They seem like a good family, very similar to ours. And he looks quite handsome in this photo.”
“Fantastic,” said Mr Ali. “How have you left it?”
“The boy is coming home next month and they will visit us then.”
“That was a quick result,” said Mr Ali.
“Indeed,” said Mr Reddy. “Thanks very much, sir. We’ve been looking for almost six months and we didn’t find any matches. You were able to help us find somebody in days. Very good service.”
He left shortly, promising to keep them updated on the progress of the match. Gopal, the postman, came in soon after and delivered the morning post. Aruna started going through the letters and divided them into piles – people asking for information about advertisements they had seen in the papers, letters asking for new lists, two complaints and even one letter containing a completed application form and a cheque. She showed the cheque to Mr Ali who had been creating new advertisements for sending off to the newspapers.
“Good!” he said. “Please put it in the drawer next to the stationery box.”
This was an old shoebox that Mr Ali had divided into multiple compartments with stiff card, and it contained staples, erasers, ribbons for the typewriter and packets of black and red refills for the ballpoint pens. Aruna put the cheque away and said, “Sir, the typewriter is getting stiff again.”
“Does it need servicing? I’d better call the maintenance man,” Mr Ali said.
“I’ve been thinking…” she said and paused.
Mr Ali looked up at her and raised his eyebrows quizzically.
“I think it’s time to get rid of the typewriter and get ourselves a computer.”
“I don’t know anything about those things,” he said, doubtfully. “And they are expensive, aren’t they?”
“They’ve fallen in price a lot in the last few years and they are not as expensive as you might think. I attended a course for three months in college and they are not difficult to operate.”
Mr Ali was not convinced. “Maybe…”
Aruna added, “Our lists will be much neater. And we’ll probably save money because we can fit more addresses on to each sheet.”
“Do you think so?” said Mr Ali.
Aruna left it at that. She had planted the seed and was happy to let it germinate slowly.
Rehman and a boy came out of the house. Rehman lifted the boy and showed him the wall that Aruna had filled with a collage of letters from clients appreciating their services. There was a photograph in the middle of all the letters and wedding invitations. It showed Rehman with a young couple; the lady was holding a baby in her arms.
“That’s amma and naanna,” shouted the boy in his clear voice. “But who is the baby that my mother is holding?” he continued more softly.
“That’s you, Vasu,” said Rehman, laughing.
Aruna looked up with interest. She knew that the couple were dead. Mr Ali had told her the story when she had first started making the collage of letters and wedding cards on the wall. The couple were classmates who had fallen in love with each other. The girl was a rich merchant’s daughter and he had been extremely angry when she married Vasu’s father. The merchant had disowned her and had not allowed her back in his house even though she had tried to make amends many times. Even the birth of his grandson had not mollified the rich man. After Vasu’s father died in a construction accident and his mother committed suicide, Vasu’s paternal grandfather had taken him to the village and brought him up there. His maternal grandparents had never asked after him.
The boy touched the photograph and turned to Rehman. “How did you know amma and naanna?”
“They were classmates of mine in college,” he said. “They were always smiling and happy people.”
Vasu said, “I can sometimes smell the fragrance of jasmine flowers in amma’s hair, but I don’t really remember the way she or naanna looked. Because they look so serious in the photo we have in our house, I think of them like that.”
“I have some more photos of them from before you were born – like when we went on the educational tour in our third year of college. We’ll get them out and you can see that your parents were such smiley people.”
Vasu nodded. He suddenly seemed down.
Rehman put him down on the floor and turned to walk back into the house. He said, “Don’t you want to see the photos?”
“It’s all my fault, you know.”
Rehman sat down suddenly on the sofa, next to his father. He held Vasu by his shoulders and asked him, “What’s your fault?”
“Everything. Amma and naanna dying. It’s all my fault.” Vasu mumbled these last words, looking down at his feet.
Aruna and Mr Ali stopped their work and looked aghast at the little boy.
“How is it your fault, Vasu?” asked Rehman gently. “Your
father’s death was an accident. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I asked naanna for a ball.”
“So?”
“I asked him to get a stripy ball. When the police returned naanna’s bag, there was a ball in it.”
“I don’t understand,” said Rehman.
“If naanna hadn’t gone to buy the ball, he wouldn’t have been in the building when it collapsed. God was punishing me for being greedy.”
Vasu was looking down at the floor and Rehman lifted his chin with a finger until their eyes met. “Vasu, it was not your fault. The building collapsed because the contractor who built it did not mix enough cement in the concrete. Your father was not delayed because he bought the ball for you. He had an appointment to inspect the building at that time. Three other workers died when the roof collapsed. It was just bad luck.”
The boy looked confused. “Are you sure, Rehman Uncle?” he asked.
“Of course, Vasu. I swear on you. It’s not your fault. You should have talked to someone, your thaatha or one of the people in the village, a lot earlier.”
“My grandfather said it was all my fault, too.”
“What?” said Rehman loudly, his hands dropping from the boy’s shoulders. “Did Mr Naidu say it was your fault? I don’t believe that. You must have misunderstood.”
“No, not thaatha – the other one. My mother’s father. He said it was my fault.”
“When did he say that? I thought you never met him.”
“After my father died, amma took me there. That’s when he said it.”
“How do you remember that?” said Rehman. “You were very young when that happened?”
“Do you think I am lying?” said Vasu, trying to pull out of Rehman’s hands.
Rehman held on to the wriggling boy and said, “Of course not. I am just surprised that you remember it, that’s all.”
“I didn’t remember for a long time. Then after the harvest, Sitakka and her husband came to the village. One evening, she came to our house with some food. I was already in bed and everybody thought I was sleeping. Sitakka sat on the edge of my cot, put a hand on my head and told thaatha that she could not understand how any mother could leave a young son and go away. I wanted to shout that my mother was in heaven and still looking after me, but I kept my eyes closed.”
