Beautiful Thing

by Sonia Faleiro

  ‘The other girls laugh when one of their own gets beaten,’ said Priya. ‘“Give her a few more!” they call out. “She’s stealing our livelihood!”’

  Although Priya bristled at having to dispense hafta, she never dwelt on it. It was preferable to the alternative.

  A sex worker who couldn’t afford hafta would be asked to pay the twelve hundred rupee fine for solicitation, even if she hadn’t been soliciting at the time. If she argued that she hadn’t fifty rupees, how could she possibly have twelve hundred, she would be told, ‘Then suck it.’ If she refused, she would be arrested. In jail, if she asked for a drink of water, she would be told, ‘drink your urine.’ If she started her menstrual cycle, she would have to tear a piece of her dupatta and place it in her underwear. The next day she would replace it with another piece of her dupatta.

  Some of Priya’s experiences were common enough in the line; she could trace them to the time she had moved to Bombay, half a dozen years earlier. But that summer, a new swagger and toughness was visible in the demeanour of even the ordinary constable on the street. That year, the excesses of the city police would include illegal detentions, extortion and torture, and the number of complaints registered against them, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, would be a staggering 26.6 for every 100 policemen. I assumed this number represented a fraction of complaints, since many victims would have been too afraid to file complaints against the police to the police, while others would have attempted to and met with resistance.

  In their own way, though, even the police were victims of the new law. They were overworked—in the latter half of August alone they conducted raids in hundreds of dance bars and arrested two hundred people. This ratcheted up the work stress they already suffered which, according to documents obtained under the Right to Information Act, caused the death of one policeperson every forty-eight hours. And in their new role as aggressors, the police lost plenty of goodwill, and therefore informers, which affected the quality and speed of their work.

  But all of this was fine print, of course, of use only to people like me. For Leela and Priya this information, even if they had access to it, meant nothing.

  With these thoughts in mind, I got up to leave. And although I knew well I would be rebuffed, I couldn’t help myself. If there’s anything I can do, I said to Priya. Priya nodded briskly. ‘Move out of the way,’ she said, gesturing at the unfinished card game.

  { 3 }

  ‘If anything happens, run like Sita should have run from Ravan!’

  Apsara wanted to seek the advice of a tantric.‘When will Goddess Lakshmi visit?’ she moaned. ‘

  When you start earning your own money,’ snapped Leela. ‘Go to a tantric, go to many, many tantrics. But fuck fortune; ask the tantric when you’ll return to Meerut.’

  ‘You don’t want me to be happy.’

  ‘Manohar didn’t want you to be happy. I just want you to shut up.’

  ‘Shettyji was such a good man. What were you drinking you let him go?’

  ‘He let me go mummy, you know that. There’s no one behind me now; no fighter. I’m alone. So let it be.’

  ‘You’re playing double games with me.’

  ‘Please keep quiet.’

  ‘Quiet! If I stay quiet a minute longer my head will burst into flames!’

  ‘Then go for a walk.’

  ‘Go for a walk, hahn Leela? No atta, no oil, fridge empty, stomach empty, tijori so empty a bird could lay eggs in it for sure—what for will I go for a walk? To walk under a car?’

  This was a new era. Only a month earlier, before the loss of their livelihood, Apsara’s only response to Leela’s jibes would have been tears and an invocation to God to rescue her from this life.

  But Apsara was no longer beholden to Leela—Leela barely paid her own way.

  Their unresolved anger and distrust of each other peaked into paranoia. Each was convinced the other was hiding money from her.

  ‘I came here for you,’ Apsara screamed at Leela one morning.

  ‘Why?’ responded Leela calmly. ‘All you do is eat.’

  ‘Why? You’re asking why! My daughter-in-law bought for me a car, a cooler, a washing machine,’ ranted Apsara. ‘You hear that, Leela madam? And she doesn’t step out of the house without my permission, not even to take water from the well, even then she covers her face so well brought-up she is and so careful we are to protect our good name. But you, you have failed us! You are nothing but a tablawali! A mujrawali! A Bombay girl! You are a daring Bombay girl!’

  Priya needed money too. The auto-rickshaw bijniss with Tinkoo was not working out for her. Dhanda is for other people, she explained to Leela, not for me, not for you. ‘Right or wrong?’

  Leela wanted to help, of course she did, but all the money she thought she had, ‘gayab ho gaya’, vanished. Leela checked everywhere. The Hanuman Chalisa and all her handbags; over and over again, as though they contained hidden spaces that would with patience and in time reveal themselves to her. Then under the mattress, inside every shoe, between the pages of a Femina magazine she had ‘borrowed’ from Welcome, Good Looks. But luck had parted ways with Leela and her persistence was in vain. She had to refuse Priya and Priya sulked. ‘Kya yaar!’ she grumbled, monopolizing the bed, drinking rum straight from the bottle. Apsara drank endless cups of tea. Rum, tea, rum, tea, tea, rum. Characteristically brushing aside Leela’s feelings like her distress was less than theirs, Apsara and Priya bonded over their misfortune.

  Tinkoo hadn’t grown up in Bombay to let an opportunity, even one imagined, slip by. ‘Accha, if you find your thousands,’ he said to Leela with a confidential smile, ‘why not throw a few notes my way? Priya and I want to start a bijniss in Surat. You know Surat, my hometown. There’s huge demand for chhoti-chhotisis among those dhokla-theplawalas.’ He paused for effect. ‘And don’t we want Priya to retire from bijniss full-time?’

  Leela walked away. ‘Three hundred,’ Tinkoo called out after her. ‘That’s our dream. Three hundred of the best little girls.’

  He grinned, ‘Three is my lucky number. I put the two zeroes in for my hero, James Bond.’

  Leela’s economic deterioration was immediate and clear. The cooler had been switched off; the television was now a foot stool. Apsara roasted chapattis for every meal, she was careful rolling the dough, maintaining uniformity of size—anything could set Leela off, she cursed. She dispensed each meal grimly.

  Oh, those days of hotil-style khana and chilled beer, of endless boxes of cigarettes and bottomless cups of chai. Some days Leela had only to think of the food she had once ordered, of the frivolities she had enjoyed, to savour them once more, ‘free mein’.

  Despite her reduced circumstances, circumstances she had done nothing to bring upon herself, Leela reacted to my offerings of food the way she reacted to my offers of help.

  I wanted to lend her money to tide her over until she found a job; she refused. I slipped some into her wallet when she wasn’t looking; she clucked a reprimand and slipped it right back in my bag. I said I would introduce her to an NGO that might employ her as a peer educator. The money wouldn’t be much, I warned, around three thousand rupees a month, but it was something.

  ‘Three thousand!’ cried Leela. ‘What will I do with three thousand? Better I save my energy.’ She recalled the bar girls’ union—its founder would soon be charged with misappropriation of funds—‘These NGOs are all the same I tell you. They fire over the shoulders of girls like us!’

  When I asked Leela what she thought her alternatives were she answered, ‘Don’t worry na, things will work out.’

  Leela was weeks away from returning to the start position on the game board of her life in Bombay. How could she stay so calm?

  And yet, why was I surprised? Leela was unflappable. She behaved no differently when she learnt the results of her HIV test. Despite her promise to me, a promise I hadn’t prompted, she refused to reveal what the doctor had said to her.

  What did he say? A
re you okay? I asked.

  The first time Leela smiled as though to say, ‘Of course, why wouldn’t I be?’

  Another time she said, ‘Life is no game, just you remember that.’

  Leela said no more, not to me, not even to Priya.

  So I stopped asking and instead sought answers in how she coped.

  Leela slept a great deal.

  She listened to a borrowed radio.

  She dreamt of gaon. ‘I returned to my village last night,’ she said. ‘Everyone was there. My family, the friends I wished I had. Even the police, those ghoda maderchods, were standing around. But they didn’t welcome me, they didn’t celebrate my success. They did nothing, because they didn’t see me. I walked through my house, they walked past me, I walked through the cantonment, they walked through me. I sat under a neem tree and cried and cried, and with my tears fell the leaves of all the trees around me. But no one consoled me. When I woke up I was crying, but then I stopped. What to cry for? I am invisible.’

  She told jokes. ‘Have you heard the one about Amitabh Bachchan and his answering machine?’ No, I replied. ‘What about the one in which the husband says to his wife, “You’ve become very fat”, and she replies, “But I’m pregnant!”?’ I shook my head. Leela sighed. Pity. It was zabardast, the funniest joke she had ever heard. If only I knew it, how much I would laugh, how we would laugh together.

  ‘Jokes,’ sneered Apsara. ‘Is this the time for jokes?’

  Priya mused, ‘A kustomer was crazy for my attention. Finally he said, “Do you want to hear a good joke?” “No,” I replied. “Why so?” he said. “Don’t you like to laugh?”’

  ‘I do like to laugh,’ she told Apsara firmly. ‘How I wish I had listened when kustomer had wanted to make me laugh.’

  Priya gave up attempting to run a separate household. She moved in with Leela and Apsara, bringing with her complaints, clothes and a chatai. I assumed she had skipped out on her rent because she warned me to say ‘Priya gayi gaon’ to anyone who came asking.

  A few weeks later, I had a missed call. When I called back it was Paanwala Shyam who answered, for he also manned a PCO booth beside his paan stall below Leela’s flat. When I asked who it was, he replied, ‘Leela ki mummy.’

  ‘Such a selfish girl,’ Apsara started off. ‘Just like my mother-in-law, no concern for others. Here I am; I’ve come all the way from Meerut having left behind my husband and sons, only because she begged, “Please give me company, mummy, I’ll take care of you, God promise. I’ll give you whatever you want to eat.” And now without any notice she has left! Did she once ask herself—what people will say? How will mummy cope?’

  What do you mean? I asked. Is Leela missing?

  ‘I have varicose veins so big-big purple like baingan. I can’t even walk. Where am I supposed to go looking for this girl, the burden, the burden that she is! Oh, it’s true what they say! Boys love mummy most. They worship their mummy like a devi. But girls like Leela! No husband, no children, no shame. She has made me fall in the eyes of God!’

  Does Priya know where she went?

  ‘And all day, all time, stories; “Manohar did this, Manohar did that.” Badnami! Manohar was so pious man, every weekend he would wash dishes at our gurdwara. And she says the police did ganda kaam with her. What ganda kaam? They were my mister’s closest friends! Why, come Diwali time, inspector sahib would send such a big box of burfi! I haven’t eaten mithai in God knows how many months! I’ve forgotten what meetha tastes like!

  Oh, even small-small joys have been snatched from me! Why? Why, God, what sins did I commit in my past life? Why stuff my mouth with this most bitter taste of misfortune?’

  Apsara, what about Priya? And Tinkoo?

  ‘You’re a very smart girl! Yes, you’re right. That little slut has run off with Tinkoo.’ She started to wail, ‘My girl has run off with a pimp! Have you heard? Everyone, listen, listen: my girl has run off with a dalal! Hey bhagwan, bhagwan bachao, a dalal has kidnapped my angel.’

  I phoned Priya. Tinkoo answered for her because Priya was ‘too much busy’.

  Doing what? I wondered, exasperated. She was no longer in rickshaw bijniss.

  ‘Leela is all right,’ Tinkoo said to me. ‘Not to worry.’

  So where is she?

  ‘In lodge bijniss,’ he said casually. I imagined him flicking.

  What’s lodge bijniss?

  ‘Lodge-bijniss-means-lodge-bijniss,’ Tinkoo replied, sounding taken aback. ‘Why to worry?’

  Because she’s missing, I said.

  ‘Missing? No, not missing at all. She’s in lodge bijniss I just told, na?’

  I raised my voice. Tinkoo, what do you mean by lodge bijniss?

  ‘Be calm, Soniaji,’ he sighed. ‘No need for party-like excitement. See if you want, you come to Mira Road. I’ll show you what is lodge bijniss, I’ll show you to Leela, I’ll show you nothing to worry. Happy? Tension free?’

  I wondered if Tinkoo knew what he was talking about. Leela had never liked him and he seemed to me an unlikely confidant. But he was the only one of her small circle who had offered to help me find her and for this kindness I was grateful. So I took him up on his offer and we agreed to meet.

  The following evening, I stood outside Mira Road station, my cellphone in hand, to make sure I wouldn’t miss Tinkoo. I needn’t have worried. He liked to make an entrance.

  Tinkoo zoomed up on a black motorcycle with an adrenaline-pumped roar and an explosion of exhaust fumes. His leather pants, half-open white shirt, tail flapping in the wind, and black hairband mirrored the current trend among young Bollywood actors, completing the picture he wished to present. Before he could put forward the suggestion I knew was on his lips, I quickly cut in. I’ll follow you in an auto, I said, hoping he would take my rebuff as my attempt not to inconvenience him. But of course he knew it for what it was and offering me a mocking smile Tinkoo revved up and zipped off, zigzagging between taxis and trucks, almost running down a cyclist transporting baby parrots in individual cages.

  Bombay is crammed with lodges and driving by in an auto-rickshaw I passed more than half a dozen. A lodge is most often a decrepit building, licked clean of paint and riddled with scars, scribbles and paan stains; stinking of urine. Sometimes known as a ‘chadar badal’, change the sheet, for only the top sheet was ever changed before a room was rented out again, a lodge was always named after a desirable quality: Happy Lodge, Lucky Lodge, Sweet Sleep Lodge. It charged scarcely a fee, because it offered no services and insisted on no rules. A sex worker I knew was drugged by a customer and when she regained consciousness found that she had been robbed of her wallet and cellphone. Another girl, I was told by her sister, had her tongue and nipples sliced off. Her customer removed the drawstring from her salwar and tied it around her neck, strangling her to death.

  So the news that Leela had started working from a lodge signalled to me that she was desperate—willing to put her life in danger to make ends meet. As we passed one seedy lodge after another, my worry found traction and grew.

  At our destination, I followed Tinkoo up long flights of stairs; the walls on either side so narrow, they appeared to want to close in on us. On the third floor, in a low-ceilinged room sat an elderly man on a plastic garden chair before a plastic garden table, his face all but hidden by a baseball cap. He did not look up from his newspaper when he asked, ‘How much time?’

  He did not look up, Tinkoo later said, because he was God-fearing and doing this because he had to, but he was so ashamed, he told his family he worked as a peon in a shoe factory, and he was so ashamed, he had sworn never to look customers in the eye.

  ‘We’ve come for someone; Leela is her name,’ Tinkoo said. ‘She has a booking in Room 7.’

  ‘Three hundred and fifty,’ replied the man, his eyes still averted. ‘Booking, no booking.’

  I handed over the money.

  Tinkoo laughed, ‘Don’t spend it on girls, uncle. Save some for your daughter’s school fees!’

&
nbsp; Tinkoo led the way up another flight of stairs and then through a poky, ill-lit corridor. In a corner was a vending machine manned by a boy humming along to music on his cellphone.

  Walking up to a door marked ‘7’ in white paint, Tinkoo rapped twice.

  ‘Leela,’ he called out, ‘Tinkoo bhai here.’

  ‘Leela?’ he raised his voice, ‘Tinkoo bhai. And Soniaji is with me.’

  Confronted with silence Tinkoo tried the handle of the door. It opened easily, revealing a semi-dark room that cloyed with rum. Tinkoo’s shoes crunched down on shards of glass. The bed was undone.

  ‘She’s not here,’ he shrugged. ‘And some bevda,’ he sniffed, ‘will not find his way home.’

  What made you think she would be here? I asked.

  ‘She’s been renting this room for some time. You didn’t know?’ He bared his teeth. ‘I thought you were sisters.’

  For how long? I asked.

  ‘A few weeks. I don’t know exact. Life had become difficult for her, you know that. She wanted to earn enough to leave, to go someplace she could make money in peace; that also you know. Dubai probably she had in mind—all these girls have the same dream, it’s no secret! It used to be “Bombay meri jaan”. Now it’s “Dubai meri jaan”! She would bring kustomers back here.’

  A pair of jeans I recognized as Leela’s hung from the back of a chair. Had she moved in?

  Tinkoo nodded. ‘Cigrit?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You know that Apsaraji,’ he continued, lighting himself a collapsed bit of Gold Flake. ‘She could drive anyone crazy. Leela thinks Apsara stole from her. Otherwise, she said, where it went so quickly? How they fought! Like WWF wrestlers! If only I could have thrown some kachhas on them and pushed them into an akhada, what riches I would have made!’

  I peeped into the bathroom. It was filthy. It stank of urine. A part of the floor had peeled back to reveal a layer of cement, chipped and cracked.

  Tinkoo called out, ‘Take a look at this.’