THIRTEEN
On Sunday, Mr. Ali started working again. He was finally able to put thoughts of his son behind him. Mrs. Ali was still in bed, unable to face the world.
Mr. Ali started preparing advertisements. Normally, this was a task that he relished, but today, his creative juices weren’t flowing well and he found himself staring at a blank piece of paper for a long time. Aruna went through the enrollment forms to type out details of newly joined members into a list. This task had been neglected all week. Ten quiet minutes later, she waved an enrollment form at Mr. Ali and said, “This lady, Sridevi. She joined on Monday when I was not here.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Ali, looking up.
“Did you show her the details of Venu, the computer service engineer?” asked Aruna.
“Who?” asked Mr. Ali, puzzled.
“Do you remember the computer service engineer—the divorcé from the small town? He had an unmarried sister, too,” answered Aruna.
Mr. Ali thought for a moment before he remembered. “No, I didn’t show that match to Sridevi. She only wanted to see matches from her own community, and his name wasn’t on that list.”
“But they are from the same caste, sir,” said Aruna, going to the cupboard and taking out the list.
“How do you remember that? You have an extraordinary memory,” said Mr. Ali, impressed.
Aruna blushed and admitted, “Not really, sir. I came across his details the other day when we were going through the lists to identify nonmembers.”
Aruna found the list and gave it to Mr. Ali. He read through the details and said, “No wonder I missed it. These details are in the ‘Caste no bar’ list. But you are right, they are from the same caste. Give me Sridevi’s form.” He stretched out his hand and took the form from Aruna.
He picked up the phone and dialed the number on the form.
“Hello! Sridevi, here. How can I help you?” answered a feminine voice.
“This is Mr. Ali from the marriage bureau here.”
“Hello, sir. I thought I saw you on TV the other day.Was it really you and your wife?” asked Sridevi.
Mr. Ali sighed. By now the news of his son’s public defiance must be known all over town. “Yes, that was me and my wife.”
“Your son is a very brave man, sir,” she said. “I really felt for your wife, too.”
Mr. Ali grunted, not sure whether he was pleased or not at her praise. “Are you still looking for a match?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I am still looking,” she said.
“His name is Venu—just twenty-six, so quite close to your age. He is a computer service engineer in the city itself. He doesn’t mind matches from any caste, but he is also a Kamma—your community,” said Mr. Ali.
“That sounds good, sir. I cannot come today, but I’ll pop in tomorrow around ten,” she said.
“You don’t need to come in. I can post the details to you. I have your address, and within the city, you’ll get the letter within a couple of days,” said Mr. Ali.
“Would you do that? Thanks very much, sir. My babayi, younger uncle, is coming to visit me tomorrow and it would have been a bit inconvenient for me to come in, so it will help if you just post me the details,” Sridevi said.
“Your paternal uncle? That’s good news, isn’t it? You told me that your family was boycotting you,” Mr. Ali said.
“The rest of my family is still boycotting me. My babayi has just come back from the Gulf and he called me up yesterday and said he wants to meet me. I am making dinner for him.”
“That’s great. Hopefully, he can bring the other members of the family around,” said Mr. Ali.
“I hope so, sir. He doesn’t have any daughters of his own and I’ve always been his favorite niece. Let’s see what happens,” Sridevi said.
“Good luck—both with your uncle and this match. We’ll put it in the post tomorrow morning, so you should get it by Tuesday or Wednesday.”
Mr. Ali put the phone down and said to Aruna, “Let us send her the list. Circle Venu’s details with a red pen.”
Aruna nodded and took out an envelope to write Sridevi’s address. “What about Venu? Shall we send him Sridevi’s details, too?”
Mr. Ali thought for a moment and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I know we normally do that, but let us leave it to Sridevi. I don’t want to impose on her. Let her make the first move, if she wants. She can always contact us if she doesn’t want to talk to him directly. But write that at the bottom of the list. Say that we aren’t sending her details to Venu and it is up to her to initiate contact if she wants.”
On Monday morning, Aruna and her mother got up early as usual and made pulihora—yellow tamarind rice spiced with ginger and red chilies.
Vani came into the kitchen just as Aruna was mixing the spicy paste into the rice. She watched Aruna working for a moment and then asked, “Why do we always make pulihora for picnics?”
“The sour tamarind helps keep the rice from getting spoiled in the heat,” said their mother, looking back from the stove where she was frying some boorulu—round lentil sweets with a sweet jaggery center. “Vani,” she added, “pack a bunch of bananas and bottles of water. Remember, not all the bananas are for you to eat. Some of them are a gift to the deity at the temple.”
“Okay, amma,” said Vani.
They were ready by eight-thirty, but did not leave until after nine because they wanted the morning rush hour to reduce. They took a local bus to the main bus stand, where they changed to the bus going to Simhachalam. The conductor came up to them and Aruna bought a ticket. Vani showed her student pass.
The bus made its way out of the terminus and into the busy traffic outside. It took several minutes to negotiate the first junction, but after that the journey was relatively smooth. It made its way around Diamond Park, then past Sankara Matham—a temple devoted to Shiva—and finally reached the highway that ran along the foot of the mountain range. By this time, the bus was quite full, and so many people were standing that Aruna couldn’t see across the aisle to the other side.
“We are lucky that we boarded the bus at its starting point. Otherwise, we would have to stand up,” said Aruna.
Vani nodded.
The bus turned south on the highway and sped toward the temple town, keeping the mountain range on the right-hand side and the city on the left. Half an hour later, the stops became much less frequent as they left the city. Aruna was wearing her new sari and sitting by the window. She held up the dark green border of the sari across her face to shade herself from the sun, which was already very fierce. The open windows kept the bus cool, if dusty, when it was moving; the interior became stifling hot when it stopped. Aruna and Vani chatted about some of Mr. Ali’s customers and their demands, and about some of Vani’s classmates.
Vani said, “You know, we never finished stitching the zigzag pattern on the blue sari that I was going to wear for your wedding. It’s still lying on the top shelf of the wardrobe.”
Aruna grimaced and Vani apologized.
Aruna said, “No, don’t be sorry.Those flowers are faded and on the rubbish heap now. There’s no point in remembering their fragrance.”
Vani looked at her with big eyes and hugged her hand tightly for a moment. The girls exchanged sad smiles and felt really close to each other as only two sisters can.
The bus stopped. Initially, Aruna did not pay any attention and continued talking to Vani. After a while, they stopped talking and realized that all conversation had slowly died out. People started craning their necks, trying to figure out what had happened.
After a few minutes, those who were standing started getting down. Once the bus was clear of standing passengers, a man came walking down the aisle asking everybody for their tickets.Through the windows, Aruna saw two more inspectors checking the tickets of all the standing passengers who were now milling about the roadside by the bus.
When the inspector came to their seats, Aruna showed her ticket and Vani her student pass.The man returned Aruna’s ticket, but instead of returning Vani’s pass, he called out to somebody. Another inspector came over and the first inspector showed him the pass. Aruna and Vani looked at each other quizzically. Vani shrugged her shoulders.
“Any problem?” Vani asked the men.
The first inspector turned back to her and said, “Yes, you are traveling without a ticket.”
“What do you mean? I have my pass.”
“The student pass is not valid for travel outside the city limits,” said the inspector.
“Oh! I didn’t know that. How much is the ticket? I’ll buy one,” Vani said.
“Too late now,” said the man curtly. “You have to pay a fine.”
“Fine? I told you I didn’t know that the pass was not valid outside the city limits,” said Vani.
“That doesn’t matter.You have to pay the fine.”
Vani looked as if she was going to protest. Aruna put a hand over her sister’s hand and silenced her. “How much is the fine?” she asked.
“I don’t know. That will have to be decided by the magistrate,” said the man. He seemed to be enjoying discomfiting the girls.
“What?” said Vani, her eyes widening. “Magistrate?”
“We have a traveling magistrate with us. Come on, girls, get down.”
“But—”
“Nothing doing. Will you get down by yourself, or should I call the police? We have some lady police as well.”
Aruna and Vani looked at each other and got up slowly.Vani held the bag of food in one hand and clutched her purse in the other. Aruna held her handbag across her chest.They were marched down and held separately from the others.The hot sun beat down on them. Aruna covered her head with the edge of her sari. Vani was wearing her churidar—a long top in soft chiffon down to her knees and matching tight trousers with a dupatta, a long, thin piece of cloth over her chest, with the ends trailing over her shoulders. Aruna pointed at it and Vani used one end to cover her head. Aruna was conscious of the men and women from the bus staring at them.
Suddenly, a young man broke into a run.The inspectors shouted and the two constables with the inspectors raised their lathis, but the man dodged them and escaped. Soon, everybody’s tickets were checked and the people on the ground got back into the bus.
We’ve lost our seats, thought Aruna.
The bus’s engine growled to life and it suddenly moved forward.
“Hey!” shouted Vani, raising her hand as if to physically stop the bus, but it was too late. The bus picked up speed and went off in a cloud of diesel smoke and dust. The girls turned to the inspectors—they were the only passengers left. There was another bus waiting a hundred yards away and they were asked to walk to it. When they entered the bus, Aruna gasped in surprise. Most of the seats at the back had been taken away and the interior converted into a mobile courtroom. There was a comfortable seat where a man in black robes—the magistrate, presumably—was sitting, and in front of him was a prisoner’s dock. There were some police constables sitting in the bus, including a couple of women constables.
Aruna and Vani walked toward the magistrate and Vani was asked to stand in the defendant’s dock. She had been quite strong until then, but her lower lip trembled as she moved to the dock. Aruna’s heart went out to her little sister.
The inspector who had checked their tickets came forward and said, “This girl was traveling without a ticket, sir.”
The magistrate looked bored. “What’s your name, girl?” he asked.
“Vani, sir.”
“Your father’s name?”
“Mr. Somayajulu, sir. Retired schoolteacher.”
The magistrate wrote the details down in front of him. “Is the ticket inspector correct? Did you not have a ticket?” he asked her.
“No, sir. I have a pass—,” Vani began.
The ticket inspector interrupted. “Sir, her pass is not valid outside the city limits. She was traveling without a valid ticket.”
The magistrate raised his eyebrows at Vani. “Is that true?”
“I didn’t—,” began Vani.
The magistrate banged his gavel and Vani fell silent. “Guilty,” he said. “The fine is one hundred and fifty rupees.”
“But sir—,” protested Vani.
The magistrate raised his hand. “The fine can go up to three hundred. You are a young girl who made a mistake and your father was a schoolteacher, and that’s why I have given you such a low fine. Please pay the cashier on the way out.”
He turned to the police officer next to him and said, “This place is no good. Let’s try Gajuwaka—we’ll catch more people there.”
Aruna looked through her purse for the money. She discovered to her horror that she didn’t have much cash. She remembered that she had paid for the rice earlier in the week and had not topped her purse up. She took out all the money and counted it. She had one hundred and thirty rupees. She looked through the purse again and found a five-rupee coin.
She asked Vani in a low voice, “Do you have any cash?”
Vani opened her eyes wide and went through her purse. “Twenty-five rupees,” she said, giving the money to her sister.
“Good. At least we can pay off the fine.”
Vani and Aruna went to the cashier. He was sitting near the door with a cashbox in front of him. Aruna paid the money, and the cashier put it away. Aruna continued standing there.
“Yes?” snapped the cashier, irritated.
“I am waiting for a receipt,” said Aruna.
“Receipt?” he asked blankly.
“Yes,” Aruna said calmly. Her father had told her to always ask for a receipt when she paid any money to a government official.
The man sighed and took out the receipt book, put a carbon paper underneath the first slip and filled it out. He tore the original out of the book and gave it to Aruna with ill grace.
Vani turned to the inspector next to the door and said, “This place is in the middle of nowhere. Can you give us a lift to the nearest bus stop?”
“No. We don’t carry passengers,” the man said curtly, and shooed them out of the bus. As they were getting down, Aruna heard him muttering, “Wants a receipt and a lift.”
The sisters stood in the hot sun and watched forlornly as the mobile court revved its engine and vanished.
“What shall we do now?” asked Vani.
Aruna had been wondering the same thing. The checkpoint had been established halfway between two stops. They were miles from both the city and the temple.
In the city, Mr. Ali finally convinced his wife to leave the bedroom. They both sat at the dining table and Mr. Ali said, “Let’s go to Azhar’s house.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” said Mrs. Ali.
“You can’t just stay cooped up here.You have hardly come out of the bedroom for three days. It will do you good to get out,” said Mr. Ali.
“No, just leave me alone. I don’t want to meet anybody,” said Mrs. Ali.
“You have to let go of these things,” said Mr. Ali.
“I thought today was Monday,” said Mrs. Ali.
“Yes, today is Monday. So?” asked Mr. Ali.
“So it means that Aruna is not in today. Don’t you have to mind the office?” said Mrs. Ali.
“That’s okay. It’ll do us both good to get out of the house. Let’s go,” said Mr. Ali.
Mrs. Ali sighed. “I know where our son gets his bloody-mindedness from. Once either of you gets a thought in your head, there’s no talking you out of it.”
“Don’t talk to me about Rehman. He’s a foolish boy who won’t listen to his parents and that’s just a burden that we have to bear,” said Mr. Ali.
Mrs. Ali got up and said, “All right, let me get ready.”
In the fertile coastal plains of South India, nowhere is really far from some habitation or other. Aruna pointed to a hamlet a little way away. The sisters walked toward the palm-leaf-thatched huts. They picked their way along the side of the road, through the dust mixed with dried-up stalks of rice plants and crushed sugar cane. The sun was a white ball of heat in the cloudless sky. The trees on the edge of the road all had white circular bands painted on them, showing that they belonged to the roads department. Aruna and Vani walked in the shadows of these trees toward the little collection of huts. Vani pointed out a palm tree—its thin straight trunk was notched at intervals to make it easy to climb, and a clay pot was tied at the top of the tree.
Aruna looked at the pot and said, “Toddy.”
Vani nodded.
Tappers cut the flower of the palm tree and tie a pot to the stump. Sweet, cooling sap called “neeru” oozes from the cut and collects in the pot. Aruna knew that while fresh neeru was delicious and nutritious, it was almost always fermented and turned into a strong country liquor called “arrack” that many villagers and poor people drank.
They reached the hamlet. One of the huts was a café selling tea and snacks. It had a long wooden bench along its side and the girls made their way to it. It was a relief to get out of the sun—the palm-leaf thatch and the cow-dung-polished floor kept the heat out and a cool breeze blew in through the open sides of the hut. An old woman could be seen in the darkest part of the hut. Aruna called out to her, “Baamma, can we sit here for a while?”
The old woman waved her hand, giving them permission. The girls sat down on the bench and the old woman came out of the interior. Her skin was wrinkled and dark and she wore a faded cotton sari of indeterminate color; a tattoo that had faded green looked like an armband on her right arm. She wore the sari in the fashion of poor, lower-caste women in villages—without a blouse. The leading edge of the sari draped over her sagging breasts. Aruna could see that she was a widow—she wore no jewelry and there was no sindoor on her forehead.
“Hello, ladies.Would you like some tea?” she asked, taking a homemade cigar out of her mouth to speak. One of her eyes was cloudy and she cocked her head at an angle to keep them in view of the other eye.
“No, baamma. The inspectors claimed we were traveling without tickets and took most of our money as a fine. We only have ten rupees and we will need the money to get back home,” said Aruna.
“These gourment people, they put on a uniform and the power goes to their heads. How can they leave two young ladies like you stranded? Don’t they have sisters or mothers?” said the old woman. “Don’t worry about the money. A couple of glasses of tea won’t beggar me.”
She went to the stove and poured them two glasses of tea from the constantly boiling pot.
Vani looked very doubtful about drinking from the none-too-clean glasses, but Aruna flashed her eyes at her sister and took a sip. Vani reluctantly lifted her glass.
“If you want to call anybody, Seenu over there runs a phone,” the old lady said, pointing with her hand.
“That’s a good idea, baamma,” said Aruna. She turned to Vani and asked, “Whom shall we call? Do you know any numbers?”
“One of my classmates would definitely come if we called him. He also carries a cell phone with him all the time, but I don’t know the number,” said Vani.
“Let me try Mr. Ali. Sir will definitely find a way to rescue us,” said Aruna.
She put the glass of tea down on the bench next to her and got up. Two huts away in the direction pointed by the old woman, there was a large yellow Public Telegraph and Telephone sign. Aruna walked up to it and told the young man sitting on a plastic chair, “I want to make a call.”
The young man twisted in his chair, picked up the handset, and gave it to her. “Go ahead, madam. Local or long distance?”
“Vizag,” she said, noticing that the young man was crippled, one of his legs shriveled by polio.
“That is local, madam.”
Aruna dialed Mr. Ali’s number, which she knew by heart.The phone rang and rang but nobody picked it up. She put the handset down and tried again. There was still no answer. Aruna put the phone back in its cradle and stood pensively, biting her lower lip. She didn’t know what to do. After a few seconds, she sighed and opened her bag to take out her purse. “How much is it?” she asked.
“Nothing, madam. Nobody answered, so you don’t have to pay,” said Seenu.
As she was closing her bag, Aruna noticed a white card and took it out. Aruna’s heart beat rapidly as she looked at Ramanujam’s business card. It had his cell phone number. Did she dare call him? She looked furtively to where Vani was sitting—but her sister was out of her direct line of sight. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened her eyes and Ramanujam’s name seemed to be in a larger font, standing out from the card. She turned to Seenu and said in a low voice, “Let me try one more number.”
She dialed Ramanujam’s cell phone. As the phone rang, she wasn’t sure what she wanted—did she want him to pick up the phone or not? After the fourth ring, she cut the connection. She knew that cell phones automatically went to voice mail if the owner did not answer. She did not want to waste money on a call if she couldn’t speak to Ramanujam directly.
She shrugged at Seenu and said, “I will try again in a little while.”
Seenu grinned at her, showing his white teeth. “No problem, madam. I am not going anywhere.”
Aruna turned away, her disappointment temporarily forgotten. She wondered how a young man who could not walk, stuck in this small place, remained cheerful. She ducked out of the sun into the old woman’s hut and went back to sit next to Vani. Her sister looked at her expectantly and Aruna shook her head. Vani’s face fell.
Aruna said, “Sir and madam must have gone out somewhere.”
Vani said, “I wonder how long we will be stranded here.”