Near the chowk, the marketplace, the cart came to a halt and Kamal climbed out unseen. He jumped to the ground and, following his senses, drawn by the noise and smells and whirls of colour, made his way to the bazaar. What a world! A world teeming with fruit and vegetables, some of which Kamal had never seen, much less tasted. His nostrils absorbed a thousand different aromas at once, some so sweet he stopped simply to look, and because he was hungry and had had no breakfast his mouth began to water as he stared at a man cutting open a big round fruit and pulling it apart into soft, slippery, translucent sections, bright yellow and luscious.
‘What’s that?’ he asked the vendor, who laughed out loud.
‘You don’t know what a jackfruit is? Where are you living, little boy?’
‘In the palace,’ said Kamal truthfully and immediately clapped his hand to his mouth and gazed at the man with petrified eyes; then he ran down the row of fruit stalls till he came to the flower vendors. Here the fragrance was intoxicating. Kamal looked right and left and all he saw were flowers, piles of garlands and baskets of roses; a girl his age sitting on the ground before a basket of tuberose blossoms threading them expertly with quick, nimble fingers; vendors coming with full baskets and going with empty ones, for it was still early, the stalls were still being replenished, and Kamal alone had nothing to do but stare.
Having seen all there was to see in the bazaar, he wandered up and down the surrounding lanes, the hunger in his stomach gnawing more and more insistently. He found himself in a narrow alley where the road’s tarmac crumbled and the shops on either side all seemed to sell nothing but rusty nails. Another lane was unbearable because here every building was a tea-shop and outside every shop pans of oil sizzled on open fires and golden puris swelled up into crisp balloons, emitting the aroma of breakfast that invaded his nostrils and sank into his belly and screamed there for succour.
Kamal’s pockets were empty. He had not thought to bring money; even had he thought of it, he would not have known where to get it. He had never handled money; he’d had no need to. And now, though his clothes were of silk and the chain around his neck and the ring on his finger were of pure gold, he was as poor as the poorest beggar – those he had seen everywhere – because he could not eat silk or gold. At this thought something clicked in his mind and boldly he approached the boy – not much older than himself – frying puris outside the next shop. He eased the ring from his finger and held it out.
‘Would you accept this ring as payment for breakfast?’ he asked hesitantly.
The boy stared at the ring and then at Kamal and called to someone in the black interior of the shop. A man came out, wiping his hands on a grubby cloth, and, looking Kamal up and down, said, ‘Where did you get that ring, boy? Did you steal it?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Kamal angrily, and then remembered that no one knew who he was and so added in a milder tone, ‘My grandmother gave it to me. It is mine. I would like to eat but I have no money. Would you accept this ring as payment?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said the man then and showed Kamal a bench at a long table where three other men were sitting eating. Kamal slid in and waited to be served.
One of the men, dressed in white pyjamas and a white cap, looked keenly at him and said, ‘Are you a fool, or what?’
‘Why should I be a fool?’
‘To pay for your breakfast with that valuable ring. Look, don’t do it. Come with me afterwards and I will show you where you can sell it for a good price. I will pay for your breakfast. You can pay me back when you have sold the ring.’
‘Very well,’ said Kamal gratefully and ate with more appetite than he had ever done in the palace, for the simple food tasted more delicious than the most sumptuous feast Rani Abishta had had prepared for him alone.
The shopkeeper was not happy with this new arrangement. When Kamal and the man got up to go he spoke some sharp words, but the man simply left the money on the table and strode off, Kamal running behind him, thanking him profusely.
‘It was only my duty,’ said the man, brushing off Kamal’s gratitude. ‘A boy like you must be careful in this town: there are wicked people just waiting to rob you. Look at your fine clothes, your jewellery! Why do you walk around looking like a prince in his palace? Where do you come from? What are you doing on the streets at this time; shouldn’t you be at school?’
Kamal felt he could trust this man and told him his name and his story. The man laughed and wished him luck. ‘I hope you enjoy your day,’ he said. ‘Goodbye. It was interesting meeting you.’
‘But aren’t you going to show me the jeweller’s shop? I have to sell my ring and give you back the money!’
‘Don’t worry about the money,’ said the man. ‘It was my pleasure to buy you breakfast. Just be careful!’
Kamal found the jeweller’s shop anyway. It was on a street with several such shops. He sold his ring for thirty rupees and felt delirious with joy at possessing so much money of his own. When it was time for lunch he paid for his own meal in a dark restaurant where boys younger than himself ran around with pails of water, collecting the dirty plates and wiping the tables after the customers left. He ate with joy and he paid with pride.
After lunch he wandered up and down more streets at random. He found himself in a part of town where the colours were reduced to black and grey, the streets teeming with human and animal life. There were beggars sitting at the roadside, their clothes black and caked with grime. There were children, infants, with limbs bent backwards and eyes oozing pus and swarming with flies. There was a dog with half its head missing, walking around with its brain hanging out. Pigs in the gutters, eating human waste. A stench of offal pervaded these lanes; Kamal felt on the verge of vomiting yet still he walked on, observing, wondering, asking himself questions that could not be answered.
He had never in his life seen sights such as these; he had not imagined such misery could exist in the same world as the palace of Moti Khodayal where he had grown up.
It was mid-afternoon when he found himself in a potholed street, wider than the others, lined by ramshackle buildings. The strange thing about this street was that there were so many women on it. The women sat or stood outside the open doorways; they sat in the dust or on mats or on charpais, or they leaned against the doorframes, laughing, chatting with each other. They combed and plaited each other’s hair; they gathered around an open tap and walked home carrying full buckets in their hands or on their heads. Some of them held plates of food in their hands and ate; others nursed babies; a few crouched on the ground cooking over an open fire, or washed pots and infants over stinking gutters. They glanced at him as he walked past but quickly went back to whatever they were doing. There were one or two girls among them, some not much older than he himself. There were several small children. But there were no men.
He was mistaken: there was one man. He stormed out of one of the doorways, chasing a screaming girl with long dishevelled hair, a girl about the size and age of Nirmala, Punraj’s other daughter, Bibi’s big sister, who had married last year when she was fourteen.
Just before she reached the street the man caught hold of the girl’s arm and pulled her towards him, shouting words Kamal did not understand. A few of the women nearby looked up for a moment but quickly returned to their tasks. The man turned back to the house and shouted one sharp word; an older woman emerged with what looked like a piece of broomstick, which she handed to him. To Kamal’s utmost horror the man began to rain blows on the girl’s back. The girl screamed pitifully, begging for mercy, but still he beat on, shouting all the time, his face almost black with rage.
For two seconds Kamal stood petrified with outrage; then he ran up to the man and began pulling at the beating hand. ‘Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting her! Leave her alone!’
For one frozen moment the man stopped, his hand raised. Kamal grabbed the girl and tried to pull her away. The girl looked up at Kamal.
Those eyes! He would never forget them, not in all his life. The look in them! Such terror, such agony, such abject despair! The wretchedness in those eyes wrenched at Kamal’s heart, for he had never seen such inner pain nor even a shadow of it; he had not known such anguish could exist on earth, for earth for him was a happy place where people smiled, and even if they felt pain, they hid it behind that smile, unless they were babies and could not yet tuck away their hurt. This girl’s pain lay naked in her eyes, in the mouth pulled down at the corners. Her wretchedness was in the wet smudged cheeks, the lacklustre hair; it was in the body twitching away from Kamal’s grasp, the shrill scream she now let out as the moment unfroze and the man’s hand whisked down. The stick met her arching, writhing back with a dull thud.
Fury grabbed Kamal. He pummelled the man’s forearm, sank his teeth into it, but the man was tall and strong and Kamal slight, and with only a flick of annoyance the man flung him away. Kamal landed on hands and knees in the middle of the street, like a cat, and scrambled to his feet again. He was about to hurl himself once more at the man but he felt strong hands on his arms pulling him back. He looked up; a woman, obviously a neighbour, was holding him back and speaking.
‘Don’t interfere, boy, that’s her uncle and she’s been a bad girl. She has to be punished.’
‘But he’s hurting her!’
‘He’s only hurting her so she’ll obey him next time. We all have to learn to obey; that’s life. You have to obey your mother too, don’t you? And your father? So she has to obey her uncle.’ She cackled with foul laughter.
Another woman approached them. ‘What are you doing here? You’re only a child; go away. You have no business on this street.’
‘I only want to—’
‘Go away. Don’t come back here. You must be mad, to mix yourself up in what does not concern you.’
‘But that girl…’ Kamal turned back to the man and the girl but they were gone.
‘She’ll be fine, don’t worry about her. Her uncle will take care of her. Now you go away and don’t come back here.’
‘Not till you’re grown up,’ added the first woman, and laughed again. Kamal stared at her; she was not like any of the palace servants. Her face was small and pockmarked. There were loose black-ringed holes in the sides of her nose and in the lobes of her ears but she wore no jewellery save a cluster of plastic bangles rattling on a bony wrist. Her teeth, those that remained, were yellow. She wore a threadbare faded sari of an indistinguishable colour. She smelt of rancid coconut oil and stale sweat and perfume gone sour.
‘Yes; then you can come back,’ said the other woman. ‘With all your silks and your fine jewellery!’
Both the women roared with laughter at a joke Kamal could not understand. What he did understand was that they were right: he had to go. He did not like this street; he did not like these women; he could not help the girl. Instinct told him he was out of his depth. It was time to go home. The women were still chatting about him.
‘Where do you live, boy?’
‘In Moti Khodayal.’
At that, they all burst out in raucous laughter.
‘In that big palace? With the fake queen? Are you a prince, then? Is that why you are dressed in fine silks?’
‘Ah, little prince! You grace us with your presence! Should we bow before you? How can we serve you?’
‘Ay, little prince, do you have a job for me in the palace?’
‘Will you make me a patola-silk sari, boy?’
‘Only royals wear patola silk, girl – you think you are a royal?’
‘Ay, maybe I will marry a royal and then I too will get to wear patola silk!’
‘Go home to your fine palace, boy, and your patola silk. This is not the place for you.’
‘Yes, go home. Shoo! You need to be saved from the likes of us. We will only lead you astray. We are bad women.’
They all laughed again, and in the space where they stopped talking Kamal found his voice.
‘I don’t know the way home.’
‘Ah. The little prince is lost. No worries, boy. We will make sure you reach home safely. Hey, you! Baldev, come!’
Baldev was a boy of about twelve, sweeping a doorway across the street. He came immediately.
‘Take this boy back to the palace. He is a fine prince; got lost and stepped into a cowpat. He doesn’t know the way home.’
‘But don’t steal from him on the way back, hey! He will give you some baksheesh when you get him home. He is so rich.’
And indeed, the boy called Baldev led him home through the labyrinth of streets, and Kamal gave him the rest of his money. And so, in the early evening, Kamal found himself outside the gates and the sentries called out in relieved astonishment, and, it seemed to him, the entire palace household came running out into the courtyard, calling out to him how much he had been missed and where had he been, and what a naughty boy he was, and how angry Daadi would be.
‘She’s angry with me, too, Kamal,’ his friend Hanoman, Teacher’s son, whispered. ‘She thinks I helped you out. Look!’
He opened his hands and showed Kamal the thick red welts across his palms. ‘She beat me to tell her the truth. But I didn’t know! I didn’t know anything!’
Kamal’s filthy clothes were peeled from him by clucking servants. He was bathed and perfumed and bedded for the night.
‘Rani Abishta says she will see you tomorrow,’ came the message just before he fell asleep.