Read Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories Online
Authors: Meghna Pant
I expect a slow start from The Agnis since they're unaccustomed to playing on polished maple backboards. But Fatima, The Agnis' fastest shooting guard, scores in less than a minute.
âFuck,' one of The Hoopsters shouts. The Agnis look at each other and start giggling. I've never heard them swear or curse, even when they're losing.
The Hoopsters catch up, playing hard and running up a 12â20 score, but The Agnis team comes back with some fast dribbling and agile slam-dunks, none of which they've done earlier. It's a close game, fought to the end. With three seconds left, Mary hits two free throws and Agni wins 40â34. The girls swamp each other with backslaps and silent cheers, probably afraid to behave like winners around rich people. We concede with a few claps. There are no awards or medals to distribute; all The Agnis have gained is an entry into the semi-finals.
After the game the two teams hang around the court. I introduce The Hoopsters to Sara, my âcousin' from America. They've seen many cousins from America and show no interest in someone whose town they've never heard ofâNew York, San Francisco, even Boston, yes, but not howdoyousaythatagain? The Agnis feel differently; they stand near Sara, smiling at her, staring diffidently, till she goes up to them, compelled by her curiosity and flattered by their interest. They gather around her, touching her blonde hair, holding her white hands, asking her what fairness cream she uses.
Fatimaâwho's won the game for her team without breaking into a sweatâtells Sara breathlessly, âYou are beautiful, yellow like the sun.'
To stand out among your own is beauty, I decide, and Sara is no beauty. Amidst Americans, Sara would blend in, be called unusual-looking at best, but not beautiful. Her limbs are long but spindly and she has no breasts, she slouches at the shoulders, and her wide-set eyes are sunk in a tight face. Her cheeks, still red from the mountain air of Vermont where she said she went skiing last weekend, will lose the girls' admiration once they recede into their pale and rubbery countenance. It's her earnestness they admire, I realize, for her face reflects a simplicity that they identify as their own.
On the way back home Sara says, âI'm sorry your team lost.'
I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly, meaning it. âNo big deal. I still won my wager.'
Before she can saddle me with another why or what, I go on, âAfter every game we Hoopsters check each other's nails to see whose French manicure is still intact. I usually win because I go to the best nail salon. Seeâ' I hold up my fingers ââas good as new.'
I look down at her fingernails, which I've seen her biting. They're chipped and short, raw and slightly red at the edges. She's looking at me when our eyes meet again and I know she can't miss my triumphant look, establishing that my father still splurges on his real daughter.
~
I wake up late the next morning and enter the kitchen to see Sara sitting on the floor with Mary, sipping tea.
Mary looks in my direction, wide-eyed, and stands up.
Sara turns to me, smiling from ear to ear. âI asked Mary if we could come to her house and she said yes. We're going at six today.'
I tell Mary in Hindi to leave. She unties her dupatta from the waist and I notice how frail she looks in a salwar-kameez; her agility and strength from last night seem implausible. Sara looks surprised that Mary is leaving but I want her to know that I'm used to waving people away, that I'm the sort of person for whom things are done.
After Mary shuts the front door, I turn to Sara and say, âLook, you cannot sit with servants on the floor and visit their houses.'
Sara looks genuinely surprised. âI don't understand, Payal. Mary is such a nice person. She is funny, honest and smart. Do you know she's the first girl in her family to graduate?'
âSara, who cares?'
âShe comes to your house every day and you play sports with her, but you know nothing about her. I think you keep her at a distance because she has less money than you. And that is ⦠just ⦠so ⦠snobbish,' she says with a clear-eyed superiority, as if she's lived a life of wellmaintained morals.
âSara, everything is not yours to understand.'
âThen make me understand, Payal,' she says. I glare at her. âPlease,' she adds.
âSara, there is a protocol for dealing with servants. Do you know that at any given time I know exactly how much money is in my pockets, my purse and my cupboard, so in case a single paisa is missing I can catch Mary? Lalit has to fill a mileage sheet before and after every drive, and I check this sheet weekly to know how much he's actually spending on gas. We have a weighing scale in the kitchen so when the sabziwallah comes with kilos of vegetables I know he hasn't hidden a tomato or two for himself. These are rules which the servants know as well as we do. You've grown up in a relatively classless society in the US, but here in India we live within boundaries that you must respect.'
My last sentence comes out with more venom than I intended, and judging by Sara's hurt expression I can see she thinks that the boundaries I spoke of allude to our family situation.
I sigh and say with resignation, âWhy do you even care?'
âI care because I can help these girls. For my cultural anthropology thesis I've decided to write about The Agnis and their life. If the right people read my paper, then these girls' lives could change. Even otherwise, I love their spirit, their dreams and I want to let them into my life, as should you.'
âCome here,' I tell her, and she follows me to my bedroom. I throw aside the duvet and lift my pillow.
âYou have a knife under your pillow?' she asks incredulously.
âDo you know that servants are basically beggars? Beggars who can feed their families because of the money I give them? You see, Sara, on any given day there are four to five servants who enter and leave my house. They come from filthy shanties and enter my home. They see my flat screen TV, my iPod, my BlackBerry; they don't have money to buy a radio. They want to be me and they know that the only thing stopping them from living my life, if only for a moment, is me. On any given day, one of them might give in to their desire. They may act on it. Then they'll enter this house and murder a girl who sits here alone. For when the beggar comes home, he isn't always looking for alms. Do you understand me?'
âNot completely.'
âBehind the mask of servitude these people, these beggars parading as my servants, absolutely hate me. I have to show them that I'm used to a life of comforts and my confidence will keep them at bay, in place. Showing them that I'm sympathetic to their situation is an acknowledgement that I'm better than them without deserving to be. If I waver in my belief in what's mine, it'll give them a chance to break the rules and do horrible things, things that you and me cannot imagine.'
She allows a moment for this to sink in. And then says, âI think you are wrong,' talking to me as if she knows the game better than I do, when she hasn't even played it, doesn't even know she's in it.
âAnd you're on your own,' I reply quickly, edging her out of my room, shutting the door. âI have never stepped foot in a slum and there's no way I'm visiting one now.'
~
That evening, after my candle-making class, I sit in the car with Sara as Lalit waits at a traffic light.
Papa called this afternoon from Brisbane, where he's gone for the Integrated Steel Companies Conference, and when I told him laughingly about Sara's intentions, he said, âDo you remember that after your mother passed away two years back, Sara missed an entire semester to be with us? Helping her with a college project is the least you can do.'
My father spends six months with me and six months in Memphis, as if by evenly dividing his time he can love and be loved equally. But I have to repay this favour that he thinks Sara has done for me, so we're both on par in his eyes, so he continues to come back to me. I'm accompanying Sara to Mary's slum.
A beggar knocks on my window. I ignore him. He knocks again, and then some more. I raise my palms upright and snarl in my meanest voice, âHutt!' He starts to move away, then scratches his nails on my car window. I roll down the window, ready to abuse him, when Sara places her hand on my shoulder: it's okay; let it be.
But I'm not in the mood to be assuaged. âYou know, Sara, I respect a prostitute more than a beggar. At least she works for a living. Why can't beggars work? Why can't this man become a cleaner at one of the million factories mushrooming in India? Why can't that woman with eight babies wash utensils somewhere? Lazy is what they are, and lazy people don't deserve my sympathy or money.'
She says, as I anticipate, nothing.
We enter a narrow muddy path with jhopadpattis on both sides. Lalit apologetically turns his head towards me; the car can move no further. Seven or eight dusty children in ragged clothes surround our car, their noses pressed flat against the windows, their teeth white through the tinted glass. If we leave the car here they'll scratch the silver-grey paint, sit on the hood or steal the rear-view mirrors, so I tell Lalit, âI don't trust these slum people. I think you better stay in the car.'
âMemsahib, I can take you to Mary's house,' he says gently.
âHow would you know the way around this kachra place?' I ask.
âI live here,' he says, and our eyes meet in the mirror.
I look away and croak a reply, âWait for us here.'
He nods his head slowly as Sara and I squeeze through the small space between the car and the corrugated iron wall of a jhopadpatti. The children scatter.
âNow what?' I ask Sara, for Mary has given Sara her address in three simple words: Ask For Me. I see Sara looking around the slum in a daze, as if nothing has prepared her for this reality. I realize that I'll have to find Mary's house by myself. I spot a group of women scrubbing pots in a giant cement drum filled with blackish water, their feet coated in mud. A lone woman is squatting next to a water pump, holding her bare-bottomed baby under the empty tap. I walk up to her, carefully tiptoeing around the piles of dirt, and ask her in Hindi (though, I do speak Marathi, the language she'll be more comfortable with) for directions to Mary's house.
She looks at me disapprovingly, as though I'm the reason there's no water in the tap, before saying, âThe Mary who's mute or the Mary who wears shorts?'
âShorts.'
The woman's expression changes immediately and she points straight ahead to rows of pink chawls sprouting up like weeds.
âWhich one of them?' I press, and suddenly she's standing up with the baby in her arms.
âI will take you,' she tells me, and starts walking. We follow her down a path strewn with polythene bags, crushed plastic bottles, packets of chips, bits of slippers and bicycle parts. The woman doesn't stop talking. No slum dweller has spoken to me at such length: in Sara's presenceâa white womanâI must seem less intimidating.
âWhat is she saying?' Sara asks, when the woman takes a break to breathe.
âShe's telling me about the time The Agnis won a cash prize, must be the only time, for a match against Cathedral School. With the money they purchased sports clothes, so they didn't have to compete in salwar kameezes, and bought a first-aid kit with Band-Aids, Dettol and muscle sprays. Most generously, she says, they bought a television set, which everyone watches together every day. She wants her daughter to grow up and be like them.'
The woman's smile widens, excited that her words are valuable enough to be translated into English. She stares at Sara, and her eyes are round and unblinking, as if unable to believe that they're brave enough to look at a white woman.
Sara licks her lips self-consciously and says, âHello. How are you today?'
The woman shudders and for a moment I'm afraid she'll drop her baby. She turns to me for help.
âI think she's fine,' I tell Sara.
âAsk her how old her baby is?' Sara persists.
âMust be a newborn,' I reply dismissively, but when Sara keeps looking at me expectantly, I ask the woman.
âTen months,' she replies, and I realize how malnourished the baby is to look so much younger than her age. The woman says she must get back to the tap, her baby hasn't been bathed in three days and the water comes once every few hours. I thank her, and Sara and me continue on alone.
We slip down a squelchy slope filled with overflowing sewage, and the sickly-sweet smell of garbage and human excreta intensifies. There are dogs everywhere; some are rabid with frothing mouths. I turn around and see a group of men walking behind us, silently. None of them look away when I glare at them.
I grab Sara's arm more tightly and say, âThis is not a good idea.'
Looking shamefaced and sick, Sara doesn't reply.
Before we take another step we hear a shout ahead of us: âWelcome to our home.' The entire Agnis team is standing in front of us, giggling and jostling each other, as though unable to contain their joy at seeing us. They are a short team, but over here, in their own surroundings of squalor, they tower over everything, looking as out of place as we do.
I look back and see that the men following us have vanished.
Mary steps out and takes Sara's hand. She tells her, âI am too happy to see you. I thought maybe you will not come. Let me show you my house.'
We follow her into a tunnel of corrugated iron and emerge onto a narrow dilapidated walkway of bamboo poles, lashed together on stilts. There are holes in parts where the feet of passers-by must have previously fallen through. The whole structure moves as I walk. Fatima holds my arm, anxious that I don't slip into the black sludge below.
She points to a soft muddy field in the distance and says, âMemsahib, this is where we practise every day. We have to fight with those boys who play cricket there. Sometimes we hide their ball so they can't play.' She grins and looks at me, waiting for me to say something.