Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories (3 page)

When I got to the sixth standard, Baba told me to start taking the school bus. Even then I'd stay back in school on some pretext or the other, playing with Venkat and Sita, telling Kaka about a teacher's remark or a fight with a classmate. When I was running a fever or had a cold, Kaka would wrap me up in his jute bag, which he used at night as his bed, massage my hands and feet, put my head on his lap, tell his children to man the gola stand. His love was stronger than any medicine.

And his smell—sweaty with a hint of mercury and dirt, a hard day's work—was like coming home.

Kaka is still there, at the same corner as his gola stand. He's wearing tattered clothes and—despite the heat—is wrapped up in a jute bag. He looks weak and ill, resting his head against a wall with peeling paint.

I stop. Should I disturb him in this state? Will he want to meet me after all these years? It doesn't matter, I realize; for even if he doesn't immediately recognize me, he will remember me, and at least a part of my childhood will remain alive.

I walk up to him and bend down to touch him.

‘Kaku Kaka?' I say.

He starts. Kaka's face, dark and shadowy against the setting sun, looks at me blankly. He points to the cardboard box in front of him. It contains some coins, a gum wrapper and a plastic sheet. He's asking me for alms.

‘Kaku Kaka, do you remember me? I'm Ashok from St. Joseph's school next door. Ashok Vora. Blue house. I used to come to your gola stand after school. Venkat, Sita and me used to play together.'

Kaka looks at me and removes the shawl from around his head. The face that emerges from the cocoon is full of pox marks, unshaven with red tired eyes.

I pretend not to notice.

‘Do you remember? I used to visit you even after school got over, till I left for America. I know it's been long since you've seen me, almost thirty years, but life got busy, I had a son …'

Kaka finally smiles at me in recognition. Most of his teeth are chipped or missing. He extends his gnarled hands, which are brown, dirty with spots, as if he's not bathed in weeks. I almost recoil in disgust, but catch myself in time, feeling ashamed.

After all, he is the only remnant of my childhood, the rest misplaced in this ravenous city.

I extend my hand and our fingers meet. Kaka's eyes fill up with tears and my own too become moist.

‘Ashok beta, I think of you so often,' he says to me slowly in Marathi.

He looks around, blinking his eyes in confusion. Most of his eyelashes are missing, and the rest are clumped together, dry and dark, as if they've been burnt.

‘This school is not the same any more. The children don't come to me; they don't even look at me after I closed the gola stand.'

‘I was wondering where it had gone. Why did you have to close it?' I ask.

Kaka points to the street across, the one with the restaurants. ‘It's those big places. They use mineral water to make gola ganda, and prepare it using gloves. Can you believe it? We are considered dirty now. People pay hundred rupees for a gola there. One hundred for one gola! I used to make that much in a week if I was lucky.'

He smiles a sad smile. ‘No one comes to the gola master any more.'

‘It is their loss,' I say, thinking how empty my childhood would have been without Kaka and his gola stand.

‘What about Sita and Venkat? How are they?'

Kaka looks down at the filthy ground he's sitting on. ‘Sita got married and moved to a village near Udaipur.'

‘And Venkat?'

Kaka starts crying. ‘I lost my son, I lost my Venkat.'

I'm horrified. ‘What? When did this happen? How did he die?'

‘He didn't die, though it would have been better if he had. He left me after I lost my gola stand, my money. He said he would find a job and only then show me his face. I haven't seen him in six years. He left his father to die on the streets of Mumbai.'

Kaka dabs his eyes with the torn, smelly vest he's wearing.

‘Sons change, don't they?'

‘They do,' I say wistfully. I look over at the construction site where Sanjay is standing with his new family. The three of them are talking animatedly about something—probably the apartment—not even noticing that I'm gone.

At least, I think, I have Kaka. I'll help him in some way. Maybe give him money to start a small gola stand again.

Kaka looks up at me and says, ‘I think of you every day. Those were happy times. And you were so different from the other boys, wanting to be with us when you could have been with your school friends.'

‘Was I different?' I smile, remembering the time I wanted to be poor so I could live next to the gola stand with Kaka, Venkat and Sita, and not in that Mahim flat alone with my father.

I feel someone's gaze and turn to see Mirchandani's eyes fixed on me. His mouth is chewing the gutka slowly.

‘The rich, they're so … fake, inhuman almost,' I continue. ‘They make it so easy to hate them. While you, look at you, you don't have much, but still you're kind and gentle.'

Kaka sees me staring at the trio. ‘Are those people you know?' he asks.

‘Yes, they are. That's my son Sanjay. He is getting married at the end of this month and next to him are his soon-to-be wife and her father.'

‘I am so happy to see your son. He looks like you.'

Sanjay looks exactly like Pam, the same long nose, high cheekbones, stubborn head, but I don't say anything.

‘You know, I've never met my grandchildren. Mumbai is too far for Sita to travel and, if they come here, where will they stay? I feel like I might die without seeing the faces of my grandchildren. But Sanjay is also my grandson, no? Will you introduce me to him?' Kaka asks.

‘Of course I will,' I say. I pat Kaka's hand reassuringly.

I get up to call Sanjay, when Kaka says, ‘I hope I will be invited to my grandson's wedding. I haven't danced in years.'

He laughs and I see his grimy rotting teeth.

Kaka at my son's wedding? With Mirchandani, his bleached wife in rubies, and his daughter who has never seen a world outside wealth and never will? How will I introduce him to them? What will it do to my reputation as the groom's father, as the assumedly rich NRI banker? And what will it do to Sanjay, who has handed over his life to the whims of these people?

‘Yes, yes. Of course you must come to the wedding,' I say quickly. ‘I will go and call Sanjay.'

What should I do now?

I walk in a daze towards Sanjay, Devna and Mirchandani. They are all staring at me.

When I reach them, Mirchandani says, ‘Vora, you NRIs are too soft. See a beggar and go hugging him like he's your father. Chee!' He spits. ‘You should be careful. Do you know what kind of diseases these buggers have, Vora? They carry syringes filled with AIDS and leprosy viruses. And if you get too close—baam! They inject you with them.'

I look over at Kaka. He is staring at us with his mouth open in a wide smile.

‘Who is that man, Dad?' Sanjay asks me, his soft brown eyes crossed.

What can I say: that Kaka is my childhood hero, my friend?

‘Let's go,' I say instead, walking towards the car.

‘I think he's waiting for you, Dad,' my son says. ‘And he seems to be waving at me to come over.'

‘Don't look at him. We have to leave,' I shout.

‘Who is he, Dad?'

‘Did you not hear me? Let's go. Come on. Fast.'

Mirchandani says, ‘But Bhaskar is bringing us some brochures.'

‘There's no time. We'll take them tomorrow,' I say firmly.

I step into the car. ‘Get in. Hurry. Hurry.'

The three of them pile in.

‘Chalo. Jaldi,' I snap at the driver.

I try not to look outside but when our car passes him, Kaka's smile, which contains the last fragment of my childhood, fades.

I turn the other way.

HOOPSTERS

It's not that I hate The Agnis; I just find it uncomfortable that one of their team members is in my kitchen scrubbing the dishes. I want to ask Mary why she isn't practising for tonight's quarter-final match, which will determine whether The Agnis or my team, The Hoopsters, enter the semi-finals of the Maharashtra Basketball Association Cup.

Instead—since I treat her as a maid at home and an opponent on the courts—I ask her, ‘Where's your mother?'

With her head tilted, Mary smiles shyly at me, and says, ‘She has got viral infection, Payal memsahib. I will work here till she gets better.'

I unwrap the new Gucci dress I'd gone shopping for and do a quick calculation. Mary has been at my home since eight in the morning and will clean, wash, iron, dust and cook till five in the evening. After a nine-hour workday how will she have the energy to play a gruelling forty-minute match?

I shrug aside the concern, for I've seen the poor face worse dilemmas. I instruct her: ‘My shoes need to be cleaned. And keep my protein shake ready.'

My coach, Lee Wales, an ex-Cornell player who married an Indian woman and moved to Mumbai to teach the elite Malabar Hill Basketball Club, has instructed me to increase my fluid intake, saying it will help my sluggishness during the match.

I go to my room and am gelling my hair—so that it doesn't get in my face during the game—when the doorbell rings. Sara is at the door. I haven't seen her in two years and she's paler than I remember, thinner too. I leave aside the squeals and tight hugs that I usually give my visitors and shake her hand.

‘Sorry I couldn't come to the airport,' I say. ‘I have an important match this evening.'

She reciprocates by giving me a long hug and I pull away, realizing that she hasn't changed.

‘Dad told me—' she starts, and I glare at her. I don't understand why she's come to Mumbai for two weeks when Papa is not even here. She takes a visible gulp before finishing her sentence: ‘Your father told me you were meeting his friend for a job interview today.'

She's making polite conversation—how typical.

‘I'm obviously not, right?' I reply, and plunk down on the leather couch in the living room. I know Sara sees me as loud-mouthed, slightly wild, and irresponsible, a child who'll transition into old age without experiencing adulthood. From her middle-class American perspective, it's appalling that I refuse to work for a living, have never lit a stove in my life, and haven't seen the inside of a bus or train.

‘Mary, get Sara memsahib some Tang. What flavour do you want?'

‘I'd prefer coconut water, please,' Sara says. She really hasn't changed.

I holler to Mary to bring a glass of chilled coconut water.

‘So which team are you playing against, Payal?' Sara asks as my driver Lalit comes through the front door and goes into the guest room to set down Sara's suitcase.

‘This ridiculous team, from the slums,' I say, lowering my voice.

‘Why are you whispering?' Sara asks me, leaning over, also whispering.

‘Well, one of them is here and she knows English.'

‘Who?' Sara asks, surveying the room suspiciously.

‘The maid.'

‘The maid?'

‘Yes.'

‘You have a maid who speaks English and enters sports competitions with you?' Sara asks incredulously. There is a wilful stupidity in the things Sara says and does, like calling my father ‘Dad' and visiting me without an invitation. This never fails to annoy me. I'm about to tell her so when I hear the jingle of Mary's glass bangles. I look up to see her walking towards us. The bangles will be gone in another three hours when I meet her on court.

She sets down two glasses in front of us—one filled with coconut water and the other with a protein shake—and leaves.

Sara turns to me and says, ‘She's wearing a chain with a cross on it. Is she Christian?'

‘I guess so,' I say. I've never understood Sara's obsession with Indian religions, which I'm more indifferent to in the metropolis of Mumbai than she is in her hometown of Memphis. ‘Why? Do you feel for her because she's Christian?'

‘That's not what I … never mind. I guess I don't understand these things.'

I want to tell Sara that there are a lot of things she doesn't understand. Like my anger towards Papa who married Sara's mother, while my mother was still alive, and got away with it because he was a man, a very rich man. How my anger turned to resentment when he moved to Memphis five months before my mother passed away. That I don't work so I can return the disappointment that he slapped on my face. More than anything else, Sara doesn't understand my anger at myself, when—in those dark confusing days after my mother's death—I had needed her support, held on to her, a half-sister I'd never met, as if she was a life jacket in a tumultuous sea.

Sara is still looking at me. There's a sense of purpose in her eyes that I can't ignore as she says, ‘Can I come and watch the game?'

‘Come, don't come,' I reply, not caring. ‘But don't expect the NBA.'

~

Lalit drives Sara and me to The Bombay Club where the match is to start at seven. We walk to the court where there are already two dozen players, two coaches, a referee, three of my team members' boyfriends, and a handful of casual onlookers, mainly middle-aged men checking out the girls.

Sara looks dismayed. ‘How do I tell one team from the other? No one's wearing uniforms.'

‘Seriously? You can't tell the difference between the slum kids and us?' I say to her, before running on to the court. When the game begins with a jumpball I wonder if the distinctions I take for granted are obvious to others. The Agnis wear unbranded mono-colour tees and shorts with single-sole sneakers (though their best three-point shooter plays barefoot). Their skin is patchy, blemished. They have calloused hands and oily hair tied tightly into ponytails. In contrast to them, we wear sneakers and clothes branded with Nike's confident swoosh, headgear to maintain our expensively cut bangs, and skin with the plastic sheen of melamine, thanks to the Clinique and Shiseido products we're partial to. Everyone in my team has a French manicure (despite Lee's frustration), unlike The Agnis with their nails crusted with dirt or henna half-moons. My girls move their limbs, long, poised and precise, like those whose life is a blur of comforts, while The Agnis flail their shorter arms and legs, both of which are used to being physically active. There's something about our eyes too, soft but smug, as if the world belongs to us, as does this game and its victory, unlike the alert, bright eyes of our rivals. There's definitely no need for uniforms to tell the difference.