FSF, August-September 2009

by Spilogale, Inc

  "'Maggie Jones.'” Singh grunted in amusement. The women's eyes met, and both fell simultaneously into a fit of giggles.

  "'Maggie Jones!'” cried Amrit helplessly.

  "'Bobbi Grant!'” chortled the undersupervisor, similarly irrigated.

  "'Jane West!'” Amrit put her left hand over her heart and fanned her right hand weakly. “I mean to say, it isn't as though they can't tell by our voices that we're Not From Around These Parts.” She spoke this last in an exaggerated American accent, which set them both off afresh.

  "Amrit Chaudhury! To the supervisor's office at once!"

  The women sobered quickly, and followed each other down the main work-aisle toward management offices. “Madame sounds angry,” said Amrit. “Do you know what this is about?"

  "Your daughter, I think,” said Mrs. Singh, puffing to keep up with the younger woman's quick strides. Amrit stopped dead and threw her a terrified look. “No, no! She's fine, she's fine! It's just the school. I overheard Madame talking. A fight with one of the other girls, which I gather your Meera won rather spectacularly. They have ‘concerns’ which they wish to express to you, that's all."

  "Not again!” groaned Amrit, and doubled her pace, adjusting her sari as she ran. When she reached the door of the supervisor's office, she knocked timidly, then opened the door a crack and stuck in her head.

  "It's Amrit, Madame. You called for me?"

  "It's about time. Come in, come in! Don't hang about in the hall.” Amrit entered quickly, shutting the door behind her, and stood with her back to it. Whenever she was called into Madame's office she felt as though she were nine years old and back in school, facing the headmistress. Madame Kattungal had steel-gray hair, a prominent caste mark, and deceptively grandmotherly features. Today she was wearing a Western business suit, and when Amrit entered, she was just slamming down the phone. “You took long enough, girl. This is Mister Mehta, whom I believe"—this last heavily weighted with sarcasm—"you know."

  "Well, Mrs. Chaudhury! We meet again!” Vice-Principal Mehta's lean figure rose from its chair near Madame's desk and, smiling broadly, extended a hand. Amrit shook it gingerly. “I am so terribly sorry to trouble you at your place of work, but I thought it expeditious to come here directly rather than summon you to the school. Is there a spot where we might chat in private?” This last he addressed to the supervisor.

  Amrit said hurriedly, “How is my daughter, Vice-Principal?” Aside from the lavatory, they were standing in the only private room available in the large, barnlike structure that made up the main headquarters of Mumbai-Astra, Limited. And Amrit had no desire to be alone with Mehta. She had several times been forced to endure his caresses in return for his leniency with her daughter Meera, and she had vowed to immolate herself rather than endure them again.

  Madame gazed upon the thin man expectantly. He shrugged. “Very well. Meera quarreled with one of the upper form girls this morning. The other girl started it, I believe—some altercation over a cell phone of which your daughter was in possession. The quarrel escalated into fisticuffs. Your daughter possesses an admirable right hook, Mrs. Chaudhury. Perhaps the school ought to consider instituting a girls’ boxing team so as to make better use of her talents."

  "I'm so sorry, Vice-Principal Mehta,” said Amrit. “I've told and told Meera that fighting is not acceptable behavior. I can't think what's come over her.” She added, “Will the other girl be all right?"

  "Oh, right as rain,” said Mehta cheerfully, “save for a loose tooth.” Amrit groaned. “The cell phone, however, is unsalvageable.” He drew it from the pocket of his suit jacket and handed it over to her. Amrit groaned again. It was her Mumbai-Astra phone. All the employees were issued one so that they could be on call at a moment's notice to fill in gaps in the phone banks as they arose, and it had been missing for three days.

  "Is it your habit to permit your daughter the use of your company phone, Amrit?” Madame asked with asperity.

  "No, Madame."

  "A replacement will be issued immediately. Its cost will of course be deducted from your wages."

  "Naturally, Madame. And I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise."

  "That's as may be.” As if they were linked telepathically, at that moment Undersupervisor Singh knocked on the door, opened it, and looked at Madame inquiringly. “Ah, there you are, Singh. Issue Mrs. Chaudhury a new phone, charged against her weekly.” With a sympathetic glance at Amrit, the fat woman nodded and withdrew. “Will there be anything else, Mister Mehta? Amrit must return to her post."

  "I'm afraid so, Madame Kattungal. You see,” said the Vice-Principal, “at the Gupta Academy we have a policy, borrowed from the Americans, of ‘Three strikes and you are out.’ This is the fourth occasion upon which your daughter Meera has demonstrated an inability to coexist on cordial terms with her fellow students. Our normal course of action—and one which we are for many reasons loath to pursue except in times of dire necessity—would be to expel Meera forthwith, for mastering one's temper is a skill crucial to the workings of a civilized society (as I am sure you will agree)."

  "Expel her?” gasped Amrit. “Oh, no, Vice-Principal!” She had worked so hard to get her into the school, despite opposition from Meera's paternal grandmother, who felt that too much education was bad for a girl, leading to late night parties, pierced eyelids, heroin addiction, and prostitution. “Is there nothing that can be done?” She opened her eyes as wide as she could and gave him a look so beseeching it might have melted the heart of a stone Buddha.

  "Well, perhaps,” said Mehta, eyeing her back, stroking his bearded chin. “Perhaps we can discuss, ah, terms. But until such time as we come to some further understanding, the Academy will consider keeping Meera on only if you consent to have her outfitted with a nannychip."

  "A nannychip?” Madame Kattungal had been sitting silent during this interchange, impatient to have them out of her office so she might return to her appallingly busy schedule. But this last had startled her to fresh attention. “Is Meera Chaudhury such a menace to your scholastic society, then, Vice-Principal? I was under the impression that nannychips were most commonly used among potentially violent prison populations."

  "You surprise me, Madame Kattungal,” Mehta replied jovially. “I had assumed, considering your place of employ, that you would be more conversant in what the Americans are so fond of describing as the ‘cutting edge’ technologies. There are many types of nannychip nowadays. We are speaking here not of electronic lobotomization, but of the temporary outfitting of the girl with an aggression-inhibiting nannychip to ensure her cooperativeness over a predetermined and limited period, as a method of bringing home to her the importance of learning proper skills of social interaction. We've done it before with problem students, and the experiment has been met with much success, particularly in Germany.” He winked at the appalled women, then. “A much more humane method, you will agree, than caning, to which we were forced to resort in former days. And I assure you that Mrs. Chaudhury's willingness to cooperate will go far in assisting the Board in envisioning a long-term future for Meera at the Academy."

  "Never,” said Amrit. She walked up to the Vice-Principal and stood so close to him that he was forced to take a step backward. “I will never consent to such a procedure. It is monstrous. It is inhumane. Why, you admitted yourself it was the other girl's fault!"

  "Four times now it has been the fault of the other girl,” said Mehta placidly. “Four times, Mrs. Chaudhury. If your Meera does not learn to master her temper, her prospects for success in this altercation-ridden world look bleak indeed."

  "What of the other girl? What of her prospects for success? Will she, too, be outfitted with a nannychip to curb her excesses of aggression?” Amrit heard her voice rise. She knew her face was red and her fists were balled, and that everyone in the outer office could hear her, but she did not care.

  "That is a matter for the Board to decide,” said Vice-Principal Mehta. “I see that you are upset. Take ti
me to think over the matter before you make a final decision we might all regret. Now if you will excuse me; I have another appointment. I came here only as a courtesy.” He attempted to step around Amrit, but she blocked his way.

  "Where is she? Where is my daughter now?"

  "Mrs. Chaudhury, calm yourself.” The supervisor had risen. Her quiet voice cut through Amrit's mind-whirl. Tossing her head, she stepped aside to let the Vice-Principal pass. Mehta bowed to Mrs. Singh and paused, his hand on the office doorknob.

  "I apologize again for having interrupted you ladies’ workday. Mrs. Chaudhury's daughter should by now have arrived at their place of residence. I instructed the Assistant Vice-Principal to shepherd her safely home. And I am afraid that is where she must stay until such time as other arrangements can be agreed upon.” He smiled again at Amrit. “If you change your mind about the chip, do ring me up, Mrs. Chaudhury. That ought not to be difficult for you to do, now that you have your cell phone back.” And with that he closed the door behind him.

  * * * *

  When Amrit got home that night to the apartment she shared with the elder Mrs. Chaudhury (her late husband's mother), Amrit's paternal uncle Saavit, his far-too-young-of-a-wife Gloria, their six-year-old son Dakota, Dakota's pregnant and gender-inappropriately named rat-shrew Ganesa, and Amrit's criminal progeny Meera, Amrit was in no mood for compromise. She marched right past her mother-in-law's squawking complaints; through Uncle Saavit's cloud of in-the-process-of-being-hurriedly-extinguished cigar-smoke (Gloria was still crosstown, at the Internet café where she worked long hours); pushed open without knocking the door to Meera's little room (not much more than a converted closet, really); tore the earphones off the head of the closed-eyed, finger-tapping, unread-schoolbook-open-before-her fourteen-year-old, and said, “Meera. Put on your coat. We're going out."

  "Ma!"

  "Now."

  And then reversed the process, this time with Meera in tow (earphoneless, eyes now fully open, shrugging into her Adidas knock-off, still wearing her school uniform underneath), past Ganesa (who waffled her nose at them as they went by), past Dakota (who was plugged into his M-box and wouldn't have noticed an atomic bomb if it had exploded under his nose), past Uncle Saavit (who had once been a professional boxer but now was huffing, “What is the fire alarm now, Amrit?"), past the elder Mrs. Chaudhury, whose complaint-squawking had not slowed one monosyllable either in Hindi or English, and out the apartment door again, nearly slamming it shut on Meera's braid.

  "Ma! Where are we going?"

  "You'll see."

  And then down the six flights to the busy Mumbai street, where Amrit stopped to get her bearings. Around them, cars honked, bicyclists careered, motorized rickshaws put-putted, chapati sellers waved fragrant pancakes and called out to passersby, signs advertising Microsoft computers, Toshiba implants, and permanent waves ("Be mistaken for a film star!") blinked on and off, and skinny pickpockets trailed camera-festooned Brazilian tourists. In the far distance, she could hear the rumble from the Mahim Railway Station. “This way,” she said.

  "Ma, I won't do it again! I promise!"

  The fear in her daughter's voice brought Amrit up short. The child was looking at her the way a mongoose observes a cobra that is beginning to rear. Amrit felt a pang. She did not wish her own daughter to fear her—not beautiful, bright, long-fingered Meera, remnant of her brief happy marriage, her only concrete contribution to the world's future. But if fear was what it took to stop the child from throwing her life away, Amrit would harden her heart and use that fear for the child's own good until she could find something better with which to motivate her. So all she replied was, “I want to show you something, Meera."

  They walked to the bus stop past beggars, businessmen, newspaper vendors, police. On the bus, which was nearly filled with after-work shoppers and evening-shift workers headed for cleaning jobs in the offices and apartment buildings round about, they sat side by side, Amrit still holding tight to Meera's hand, as though she feared losing her, as though any moment she might declare her independence, run off to a party, get drunk, get her face pierced, take drugs, enter upon a life of prostitution. At the Mahim Railway Station, they got off the bus. As they mounted the steps into the station, still hand-in-hand, Meera asked, “Are you sending me away?"

  "Don't be foolish. Of course not. I said I wanted to show you something."

  "She started it!” The girl planted her feet, stared up at her mother (up? no, truth be told, only very slightly up, they were nearly of a height now; how could Amrit have not noticed that before?). “She called me a thief, Ma! She said I stole the cellphone, that it was her phone, that it could not possibly be my phone because we could not possibly afford anything so toff, and that I must give it back at once or she would tell the Vice-Principal. I told her it was not her cellphone, that it was our cell-phone, that I was not a thief, and that Mother Kali could pluck out her lying tongue and feed it to her for breakfast, for all that she was of the Kshatriyas and very nearly a Brahman.” Her daughter gulped, caught her breath. “And then she slapped me. So I struck her the way Uncle Saavit showed me."

  "Are you finished?"

  Meera nodded. There were tears in the corners of her big eyes, and her cheeks were flushed with passion, but there was no remorse at the corners of her mouth at all. “Then come,” said Amrit. “It's only a little farther, this thing that I wish to show you."

  There were high brick walls between the back of the railway station and the thing Amrit wished to show her daughter, but Amrit knew every square inch of this area from childhood hours spent staring up at it from the other side. They threaded their way unnoticed through the knots of waiting commuters, sellers, and alms-seekers, past a group of saffron-clad Buddhist monks wearing sunglasses (at seven o'clock at night?), past a magazine rack sporting lurid film-star magazines, and finally to the spot she had remembered: a narrow doorway with a chain across it saying ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY in seven languages. “We are going up there?” inquired her daughter querulously, peering up into the dimness.

  "We are,” said her mother firmly, and lifted the chain. “For what I have to show you may only be viewed conveniently from the top of this stair."

  "But,” said Meera, and that is all she said, for Amrit was half-pulling, half-pushing her onto the staircase with her.

  The stairs were made of wood and smelled of old urine, chapati grease, stale cigarettes, and ancient durian. A faint light filtered down the stairwell from someplace high above, but it was very dark, and the stairs were littered with trash left by squatters down through the years. Twice Meera stumbled. The first time her mother was able to arrest her fall, but the second, Meera ended up on one knee on the stair, narrowly escaping being stuck with a discarded hypodermic needle. In later years she would recall this upward passage as the most horrific experience of her young life, yet in the end they attained the top of the stair and emerged onto an open causeway under a Mumbai night sky that had somehow become overcast during their million years in the dark.

  The women paused to catch their breaths. Meera was surprised to realize how far they had climbed. Behind and below them through pollution haze stretched the Mumbai they had just left: the railway station, apartment buildings, office blocks, tooting thoroughfares. Meera could see the tracks for the Western Railway stretching away into the distance, where they crossed the Mahim Sion Link Road; beyond that, she could see the filthy black waters of Mahim Bay. “Turn around,” said her mother. Her voice sounded distant, like a goddess's. Meera turned, and found herself looking down onto a vast, confusing jungle of silent, swampy slum. “Do you know what this is?” her mother asked, sweeping her arm outward to encompass the world before them.

  "Of course, Ma. Dharavi.” She could not keep the contempt from her voice.

  "And what is it, this Dharavi? What do you know of it?"

  "It is where the poor people dwell.” The wind picked up, bringing with it from Dharavi the scent of sewage.

  "What so
rts of poor people? Specify."

  "Well, potters,” she said. “Furniture makers. People from the provinces who can't afford to live anywhere else. Tailors, people like that.” Meera found the contrast between the hooting hum of the Mumbai behind them and the deep quiet of the slum before them deeply unsettling, and she looked uncomfortably around her. They were alone on the causeway. “They all look dead from up here,” she said.

  "They are not dead, child. They are resting, those who are not sewing garments all night for less income than the beggar outside our sweetshop makes in three hours. One and a half million persons living in a reclaimed mangrove swamp. No sewage treatment facilities. Uncertain electricity. Water of such poor quality that one considers oneself fortunate merely to contract dysentery from it.” Amrit looked thoughtfully out over the maze of little lanes and thoroughfares. “But see the temple, there? And the mosque? And those buildings, that school, there? Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jains. Recycling everything, because one cannot afford to buy anything new. Your father was born there"—she stabbed the dark with her chin—"off Ninety Feet Road, not far from Kumbharwada."

  "My father? Born in Dharavi?” She could not believe what she was hearing. Meera did not remember her father; she knew him only from the holos on her mother's old e-album, a small man, small like her mother, with ropy-muscled arms, large knuckles, and intense dark features. “You said he was from Rajasthan!” Meera's tone was accusatory.

  "I never did. I said his people were from Rajasthan. They were weavers and textile-painters. His parents came to Mumbai after the great famines, and settled in the Potters’ District. When I met your father, he was living with ten other young men in a garage, refitting automobiles for resale.” She had literally run into him, having ducked into the garage in an attempt to evade an irate fruit vendor from whom she had swiped three small green mangoes and a bar of chocolate. She had been eleven, a little girl; he, fifteen, nearly a man; out of pity he and the boys had hidden her, and afterward he had walked her home. When next she had encountered him, at a Kumbharwada street festival, nearly three years had passed, and neither he nor she had thought of her as a little girl any longer. He had known her at once. “Why, it's the little thief!” he had cried upon seeing her again.