A Burning(38)

“Yes, of course, sir,” I am saying. “I did not mean— Oh I’m just learning how the business works! Forgive me for not knowing.”

    “No, there is nothing to forgive in not knowing,” he is saying, feeling a bit friendly again. “Let me look at this CD, and then I will call you, fine? Please pay the hundred rupees fee on your way out.”

“Fee!” I am saying in a feeble voice. “There is a fee?”

“Am I looking like a nonprofit agency to you, Lovely?” Mr. Jhunjhunwala is saying, smiling. “Yes, the fee is for keeping you in my roster, looking for roles for you.”

When I am climbing down the stairs, belly full of Pepsi sloshing inside, I am feeling scammed. One, he was taking my hundred rupees, and two, I will never be getting a good role from him. Are all these men playing a joke on me?

Outside, the sun is too bright. I am holding a hand above my eyes. I was hearing once that Reshma Goyal, who is now such a big star, was plucked by a casting director at a Café Coffee Day. One cup of coffee there costs one hundred rupees. This thought is making me sigh. If I was rich, I could be chasing my dreams in that way also.

For a few minutes I am feeling so disheartened, all I am doing is walking down the street and scrolling through WhatsApp.

My sisters are forwarding me helpful advices.

Warning from All India Dieticians Professional Group: Do not eat orange and chocolate in the same day, otherwise—

Don’t answer phone calls coming from number +123456; it is a way of using your SIM to call internationally—

    One sister is sending me a joke.

Why is Santa Singh keeping a full glass and an empty glass beside his bed at night? Because he may or may not drink water!

I am looking up and seeing a boy at a corner shop. He is refilling someone’s cell phone credit, scratching a card with his fingernail to get the code, but his eyes are straight on my breasts.

“Want to come drink my milk?” I am shouting.

Now I am close to the train station, but instead of taking the train, I am walking, walking, walking. My feet are turning left, right, left on their own, until I am standing in front of a house I am knowing very well. It is a two-story house, painted yellow. Azad’s house. So what if he is married? He was the one telling me that our bond cannot be broken by man-made rules. But now it has been many days, he has not come to me only. I am wishing for his embrace now. I am wishing that he is coming to me again, and we are sitting on the floor eating chocolate ice cream. I can be telling him all about Mr. Jhunjhunwala. I know he will even be making me laugh about it.

He has been irritated by our marriage talk, that much I know. But he will come. I am looking at the balcony, eager to see a shirt or pant which is holding the shape of him. But the clothes strings are empty. There are only Azad’s shoes drying against the balcony railing. Azad wore those shoes so much, I can recognize them from this distance also. It is this Nike brand, but it is better because, instead of one tick, it has two. Azad was always knowing the latest style. My heart is thinking of all those times he was opening those shoes inside my house, my room, and embracing me—

    Suddenly a man is saying, “O ma, please to let the customers come.” I am turning around. There is a vehicle repair garage behind me, smelling of diesel. The man who is talking to me is a Sikh uncle. He must be owning the repair garage. He is wearing a gray uniform and a red turban.

“Why?” I am demanding. “Am I an elephant that I am blocking the whole path? Your customers can’t walk here if they want?”

But immediately I am having one frightening thought: I am not wanting Azad to accidentally see me like this. So I am sashaying away.

“Okay, uncle,” I am saying. “You asked nicely, so I am gone.”





JIVAN


UMA MADAM TAPS HER steel-tipped stick against the bars of our cells. Down the corridor she goes, clang clang clang.

“Up, up,” she calls. “Time to get up!”

I hear the sound coming closer. In front of my cell it stops. I look up from the mattress, where I have been, not asleep, but unwilling to begin the day. It is six in the morning, and the sun’s heat has already warmed the walls and cooked the air. My skin sticks. When I raise my head, Uma madam points her stick through the bars. “Especially you!” she says. “Because of you we are having to take all this trouble. Why are you still sleeping?”

My case has brought scrutiny upon the women’s prison. TV channels and filmmakers want to show how we live, what we do. I imagine them crawling inside, observing us like we are monkeys in a zoo: “Now the inmates have one hour to watch TV. Then they will cook the food.” The more requests the administration denies, the more suspicious they look. The men and women of the administration protest that it is a matter of security and safety. But what does our prison have to hide? How bad are the conditions? The public wants to know. It is looking likely, we hear, that some TV requests will be granted. Before the camera crews appear, the prison must be “beautified.”

    “Beautification!” Uma madam scoffs as she walks away.

This morning, I receive the task of scrubbing decades of grease and black soot from the kitchen walls. Others mop and wipe the floors, replace lightbulbs, and plant saplings in the garden. A favored few do the gentle work of painting murals on the walls. Americandi, leader of all, sticks a melting square of Cadbury in her mouth and supervises.