Five Past Midnight in Bhopal (28 page)

D
on’t cry, my friend. I’ll take you to the Bihari’s place. He already has a herd of about a hundred. He might like to take
on one more.”

After Belram Mukkadam, Satish Lal, a thin, bent, good-natured little man with bulging muscles, was one of the bustee’s longest-standing
occupants. He lived in the hut opposite Padmini’s family. He had left his village in Orissa to find work in the city in order
to pay back the debts he had incurred for his father’s cremation. A childhood friend, who had come back to the village for
the festival of Durga, had enticed him to Bhopal where he was a porter at the main train station. “Come with me,” he had said,
“I’ll get you a coolie badge and you’ll buy yourself a uniform. You’ll make fifteen to twenty rupees a day.” So Satish Lal
had worked at Bhopal station for thirty years. His seniority gave him a certain prestige in the porters’ union, which was
led by a man from the state of Bihar who was known simply as “the Bihari.” Now Satish Lal hoped that his standing in the union
would enable him to help his neighbor, Ratna Nadar, find work. Padmini’s father, along with three hundred other unskilled
workers, had been laid off by Carbide.

“You never actually see the Bihari,” Satish Lal explained. “No one even knows where he crashes. He’s a gang leader. He couldn’t
give a damn whether it’s you or Indira Gandhi carrying the luggage along the platforms, just so long as every evening you
pay him his whack—in other words a share of your tips. One of his employees takes care of that. He’s the only one who can
get you the badge authorizing you to work as a coolie. But don’t think he’s any easier to approach than his boss. You have
to be introduced to him by someone he trusts. Someone who’ll tell him who you are, where you come from, what caste, what line
of descendants, what clan you belong to. And it’s in your interests to greet him with your sweetest namaste and throw in plenty
of
sadarjis
,
^*
as many as ever you like. And invoke upon his person the blessing of Jagannath and all the deities.”

“Shouldn’t I also give him something?” asked the former Carbide worker anxiously. He had always had to grease the tharagars’
palms to get himself taken on.

“You’re right, my friend! You’d better have fifty rupees ready, some pan and a good dozen packs of bidis. Once he’s accepted
you, the police will look into whether you’ve been in any trouble in the past. There again you’d better have some baksheesh
on to hand.” Ratna Nadar’s eyes widened as the amount he would have to lay out grew. “And then there’s the stationmaster’s
P.A. He passes on the green light from the police to his boss, who is the guy who gives you your badge. Your badge is a talisman.
When your bones ache too much for you to carry bags and suitcases, you can pass it on to your son. But be careful, if you
refuse to take a minister’s or some other big shot’s baggage because they never tip, the stationmaster can take it away from
you.”

In the time he had been working at the station, Satish Lal had done it all. He even claimed to have carried on his head the
enormous trunks of Hamdullah Khan, the last nawab. They were very heavy; the locks on them were solid silver.

With his lunghi bulging at the waist with rupees for the various intermediaries, Nadar set out for the station in the company
of his neighbor. Before entering the small office next to the cloakroom occupied by the coolies’ union, the two men stopped
before an altar, which harbored, beside a tulsi, an orange statue of the god Ganesh. Ratna Nadar rang the small bell in front
of the divinity to ask for his protection and placed a banana and a few jasmine petals in the offering bowl.

Ganesh fulfilled Padmini’s father’s wishes. A few days later, Satish burst into Ratna’s hut.

“You did it, my friend!” he announced triumphantly. “You’re Bhopal station’s one hundredth and first coolie. Go quickly and
buy yourself a red tunic and turban. And a supply of tidbits and sweets. The stationmaster’s waiting to give you your badge.”

It was a ritual. At each full moon, the elders of the Kali Grounds took their places on sisal mats laid end to end, men on
one side, women on the other, to discuss the affairs of their community. The men would exchange pan and bidis, the women sweets.
One of the purposes of these meetings was to review the young people of the neighborhood who had reached marriageable age.
Their names were listed and a debate ensued at once. Soon certain boys’ and certain girls’ names would be linked together.
Comment on the merits and disadvantages of these hypothetical marriages would redouble. So seriously did the inhabitants of
the bustees take their family lineage that the process was sometimes carried over to the next meeting.

One day old Prema Bai spoke up. “We have to find a good husband for Padmini,” she said emphatically.

“Prema Bai’s right,” said the lovely Dalima.

There followed some discussion. Several boys were mentioned, among them Dilip, Dalima’s adopted son. For that reason Dalima
followed the conversation with rapt attention. As usual, Belram Mukkadam tried to calm things down.

“There’s no rush,” he declared. “As I understand it, Padmini Nadar is still too young.”

“You’ve been misinformed, brother,” the girl’s mother immediately replied, “she’s reached marriageable age. And we want to
find the best possible husband for her.”

“You couldn’t find a better husband for your daughter than my son Dilip,” Dalima said proudly. “He’s an exceptional boy and
I want a wife for him who is no less so.”

The real meaning of this statement was lost to no one. Its purpose was less to extol the boy’s virtues than it was to make
certain that Sheela’s expectations regarding a dowry were realistic.

“My daughter is just as exceptional as your son,” Sheela countered. “And if your son is such a treasure, you will of course
have anticipated giving him a generous dowry.”

“I have anticipated doing my duty,” Dalima responded, anxious to avoid confrontation at this stage in negotiations.

The discussion continued within the framework of a very precise ritual, which neither of the two parties could breach. It
would take two more assemblies under the full moon and a lot of debate to reach agreement over the union of Dilip and Padmini.
The transaction could then proceed to the
manguni
, the official request for the girl in marriage. Out of respect for tradition, the boy’s parents invited several of the neighborhood’s
elders to represent them in this traditional formality. But, as always in India, no ceremony could take place without first
consulting a
jyotiji
, an astrologer who was to examine the stars to see whether the proposed couple were compatible and determine the most propitious
date for the manguni. In the neighboring Chola Bustee lived an old man with a white beard named Joga, who, for forty years,
had been a fortune-teller on the streets of the old city of Bhopal. His was not always an easy task, especially when, as was
the case with Dalima and the Nadars, the parents of the prospective marriage partners did not know the exact date on which
their children had been born. Old Joga confined himself to suggesting that the marriage request should take place during a
month under the benign influence of the planet Venus, and on a day of the week that was not Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the
three inauspicious days of the Indian lunar-solar calendar.

A procession as elaborate as that of the three magi kings came to a halt outside the Nadars’ hut. In the recollection of Orya
Bustee, there had never before been such a manguni. Ganga Ram had arranged for a young goat to be cooked, and the elders accompanying
him arrived with their arms full of delicacies, sweets, bottles of beer and country liquor.

It was a real
barakanna
, a great banquet such as the occupants of the bustees had never previously known. Ganga Ram, who had conquered leprosy, put
his crippled wife back on her feet and given the community a television set had also shown himself to be the most generous
of stepfathers. On behalf of her daughter, Padmini’s mother accepted the
pindhuni
, the silk outfit decorated with gold thread that he brought as an official and tangible expression of the promise of matrimony.
The engaged couple did not take part in this ceremony. All the preparations for their marriage occurred without them. It was
customary that they not meet until the wedding night, when, as a symbol of their marriage, Dilip would lift the veil from
his fiancée’s face to place red
sindur
powder on the parting of her hair. However, Dilip and Padmini had clearly known each other for a long time.

Once the banquet was over, it was time to move on to the most serious issue: the dowry. It was to old Prema Bai that Padmini’s
mother had entrusted the role of negotiating this important ritual payment. With the help of some of the other women, she
had drawn up a list of the items Dilip’s family would be expected to give his future wife. The list included two cotton saris,
two blouses, a shawl and various household utensils. It also included jewels: some imitation, others real, in this instance
two rings, a nose stud and a
matthika
, an ornament worn on the forehead. As for gifts for the bride’s family, they were to include two dhotis for her father, two
vests and two
punjabis
, the long tunic buttoned from the neck to the knees. Her mother was to receive two silk saris and a pair of sandals encrusted
with small ornamental stones. They were poor people’s requirements, certainly, but they were worth some three thousand rupees,
a fabulous sum even for the proprietor of a small painting firm.

Belram Mukkadam, Iqbal and Rahul, who represented Dilip’s family, had listened unflinchingly, as the croaky voice of the elderly
midwife laid out her demands. As marriage negotiations were traditionally long-winded affairs, custom had it that the groom’s
clan consulted together before giving its consent. Dalima was so keen for her son to marry Padmini, however, that the three
envoys wagged their heads at the same time, indicating that they accepted all the girl’s family’s conditions.

It was then that old Joga, the white-bearded astrologer who had silently witnessed all these exchanges, cut in. “Before you
conclude your haggling, I would appreciate it if you would agree on the remuneration for my services,” he declared vehemently.

“We thought of two dhotis for you and a sari for your wife,” replied Mukkadam.

“Two dhotis and a sari!” exclaimed the jyotiji, beside himself. “You’ve got to be joking!”

From the recesses of their huts, the entire alleyway followed this unexpected turn of events with avid interest.

“If you’re not satisfied, we’ll find another jyotiji,” Rahul threatened.

The astrologer burst out laughing. “I’m the one who drew up the horoscopes! No one else will agree to choose the marriage
date instead of me!”

This reply was greeted with much chortling from the onlookers. Some of the women heckled him. “He’s a real son of a bitch,
that jyotiji!” sneered one of them. “More than that, he’s devious,” said another.

Suddenly, Dalima’s voice erupted like thunder. Her beautiful green eyes were bloodshot. She was fuming. “You piece of shit!”
she shouted. “If you spoil my boy’s marriage, I’ll skin you alive!”

The astrologer made as if to get up and go. The shoemaker Iqbal held him by the arm. “Stay,” he begged.

“Only if you pay me a hundred-rupee deposit immediately.”

The participants looked at each other helplessly. All of a sudden, however, there was the stocky figure of Ganga Ram. He was
holding a bundle of notes between the stumps of his right hand.

“There you are,” he said dryly, dropping the notes into the little man’s lap. “Now tell us on what day we should celebrate
our children’s marriage.”

The astrologer went through the motions of thinking. He had already done his calculations. He had eliminated all the days
when the sun entered the ninth and twelfth signs of the zodiac, and chosen one when the sun was favorable for the groom while
the planet Jupiter was most beneficent for the bride-tobe.