The Hope Factory A Novel

fifteen





THE LANDLORD’S MOTHER WAS UNRELENTING. She waved a gleaming sewing needle threateningly in the noonday sun. “Well, boy,” she said to Narayan, “are you going to tell me, or do I have to beat it out of you? You little rascal, keeping me twitching with impatience, like a mustard seed dancing in hot oil!”

“Amma should be here shortly,” said Narayan, grinning and sidling out of the courtyard. “She will tell you everything.”

But it was a good hour more before Kamala entered the courtyard; she barely had time to remove her slippers and splash cold water over her feet and face before she was seized by the landlord’s mother.

“Come and sit,” the old lady said. “You must be very tired. Your son is a monkey and wants a beating. His speech is like this year’s rain—ceaseless when you least require it and a drought of silence when you do. No, he has said nothing, nothing! But what little he saw fit to drop before me, thrown like crumbs to a passing crow, almost made me faint. So we have been waiting for you! Sit, sit. You must be tired, have some coffee.”

But grimy fatigue chased Kamala first to the bathroom for a cold bath, and it was a good half hour more before she settled down in the courtyard with a sigh of relief, a clean saree draped about her and her washed hair loosed from its customary knot at the base of her neck and spread open and wet across her back. She felt pleasantly light-headed and loose-bodied—like a wet rag squeezed dry and left to hang in the sun. She could relax into speech, knowing that the afternoon held nothing more than the indulgence of a delicious sleep.

The landlord’s mother and wife fluttered about until they settled down beside her (having pressed a glass of hot coffee into her hand), with their hands full of work, mending, dinner preparations, baby.

“So,” said Kamala.

“So, sister, what was he like?” said the landlord’s wife eagerly, her knee gently rocking the baby on her lap to sleep.

“Oh, oh,” said her mother-in-law, her hands busy peeling potatoes. “Slow down, Daughter! Let her tell the story as she pleases…. But Kamala-child, before this impatient one explodes … what was he like?”

Kamala could not help laughing. “Very handsome,” she said. “Even more so than he is on the screen. And also very polite.”

The landlord’s mother and wife sighed in appreciation.

Vidya-ma’s father had inspected the Diwali party preparations and had duly chastised the household servants and Vidya-ma—but he had also, unwittingly, given them an unexpected reward. His special guest of the evening was some politician full of trumpeting newspaper pride and noise. But, traveling in the politician’s uninspiring wake—like the glowing evening star to his dull new moon—was the truly famous film star.

“Yes,” said Kamala. “When I served him a snack, he did not just take it, as the other guests might. He made it a point to smile and say thank you.”

“He spoke to you!” said the landlord’s wife, in an agony of happiness. Her eyes lapsed into the middle distance, savoring the vision in her mind.

“You are very lucky,” said her mother-in-law. “What was he wearing? And did he speak to you again?”

“He was wearing a dark blue silk kurta, with gold embroidery around the collar, a gold chain, and gold rings—very smart, very handsome,” said Kamala. “And no—I did not speak to him again. But Narayan did.”

“Narayan? Our Narayan! What did he do? He did not shame us all by misbehaving, did he?”

“No, no,” said Kamala, her pride evident. “Quite the contrary.”

And as she spoke, her mind still echoed with her amazement of the night before—the sights and sounds of the party pasted bright and clear, and in the midst of that, wonder at her son’s daring.


ANAND-SAAR’S HOUSE LOOKED LIKE a white, glowing pearl floating on the dark earth. Light was everywhere, fighting the night: small bulbs in wired lines limning the outlines of the building and the garden walls; clay-mud lamp holders patterned with peepholes; kuthivellaku lamps—tall brass ones, with strong, firm stems that held the five petals aloft, each with a burning wick at its tip. The lights were interspersed with the flowers that Kamala and Thangam had spent the morning arranging: saffron-white-and-green garlands of marigold, jasmine, and mango leaves. And of course, like thunderous rainfall over it all, the brilliance and dazzle of fireworks, rending the night sky with noise, smoke, and color.

The thronging guests may have enjoyed the extravagance of it all, but the lights and flowers and beauty of the house held no mysteries for Kamala; she had worked at them all day. She, instead, found herself fascinated by the guests themselves—creatures of rare glamour, the lights of the house captured and glistening about their gilded persons. She had once, in a fit of profligacy, spent money on a pair of tickets for the Capricorn Circus when it came to the city. She had chastened herself for this indulgence, knowing that the images on the posters that appeared on the backs of buses all over the city were nothing but false drama, invention, to act as deceptive lures for the circus—the actual show was bound to be a disappointment and waste of money. No such thing; she and Narayan had sat mesmerized through the show, at the clowns, the animals, and those remarkable flying ladies, who shocked Kamala first by appearing in sequined clothes of extreme indecency—little more than a bra and panty set—and then, when she was wondering indignantly if she should cover Narayan’s young and innocent eyes, they proceeded to swarm up those ladders and fly through the air in a fashion that made her forget her son, their clothes, and everything else.

That same sense of unreality pervaded Kamala as the party unfolded. She gawked, amazed, as she once had at the ladies in golden chuddies who had tumbled from ring to ring and who had danced playfully around their pet tigers and bears like goddesses immune to the laws of the natural world.

Every now and then, Kamala and Thangam were required to carry a tray of hot snacks into the crowd. Kamala held the heavy silver tray gingerly, like an alien thing, nervous lest she bump into one of the silk-encrusted guests, gorgeous and gregarious, laughing and chattering, and splatter them with chutney. She (as per her instructions) was to invade each cluster of guests, smile, and proffer the tray, but she could not bring herself to do that. Instead, she carried the tray stiffly and walked steadily around the drawing room and the garden, avoiding all the large clusters and definitely going nowhere near the men clinging boisterously to the bar. Her goal was to return to the safety of the kitchen as quickly as possible, all the snacks on her tray preserved intact if need be.

She kept a wary eye out for Vidya-ma but did not spot her in the crowds. In the distance, she could see Thangam in a colorful dress, holding out her tray of snacks quite nonchalantly and smiling at the visitors, in an act of daring that left Kamala awed and wondering.

If she was content to stand at the kitchen door with Shanta, who seemed to have lost her acrid bite and gazed, subdued, into the crowd, Thangam, next to them, compensated with a stream of excited commentary. “Look at that one!” she would say. “Does she not look like a queen?” That hair. That dress. “And see that one dance?” she said, gesturing toward a woman moving enthusiastically on the verandah. “She is doing the dance steps from that disco-dancing movie.” And Thangam’s own feet would move in rhythmic imitation, in steps she apparently knew quite well.

“Do you know,” she asked Kamala, “how much money they are gambling for on that table?”

The card tables had been placed in a relatively quiet corner of the drawing room, away from the bar and the dancing and the noise of the fireworks, to enable the players to concentrate on their game and to hear one another’s bids. The tables were draped in white cloth, each with a large silver bowl placed in the center. All the action took place around this bowl: money flung in, cards dealt and displayed; the women, their gold-littered robes of silk and gauze sweeping to the floor, reaching for their cards with eager bejeweled hands; the men, balancing glasses of whiskey and cigarettes and cards; the rising tides of excitement that swept through them all as the silver bowls rapidly filled and then overflowed with money.

“At that table,” said Thangam, “each game is for hundreds of rupees.” Really? said Kamala. That much? “And there, that table,” said Thangam, “they play for thousands.” Ignoring Kamala’s ignorant gasp, she pointed her to the table in the far corner, where the film star sat with his politician friend, Vidya-ma’s father standing by in close attendance, his daughter at his side, laughing and talking. “And in that table,” said Thangam, “they play each hand for a lakh.”

And thus it was that Kamala overcame her shyness and nervousness and made her way to that table with the next tray of snacks, to serve the film star and politician and others. She wanted to see what one lakh of rupees—two years’ salary—would look like all at one time.


BEFORE THE PARTY STARTED, Kamala had given her son some words of instruction:

“Keep yourself to the shadows. Do not show your face where it is not required. Stay in the kitchen with Shanta or, if you so wish, engage in conversation with the tandoori-oven man. Do not think to thrust yourself into the glare of Anand-saar’s party. Be not tempted by the snacks they will serve; I am sure our turn will come later—or so it is to be hoped. Step not on passing toes; speak respectfully to the catering company people; and, in general, keep yourself to the shadows.”

He had meekly agreed, and she was pleased.

But, at some point shortly thereafter, he slipped away from the kitchen. She saw him befriending the barman, assisting him by pulling out soft drink bottles from the ice basin where they lay submerged. Eventually the lure of the fireworks was too strong and he darted away, and when Anand-saar summoned her out to the fireworks, Kamala instantly suspected trouble. She rehearsed worried answers and scolds in her mind—she should have locked that mischievous boy in the storeroom. But instead, she was sent to fetch a shirt, a brand-new shirt, worth hundreds of rupees, for her son to wear.

He reappeared a whole hour later, his face bearing a satisfied grin and his hands the blackened evidence of much lighting of rockets and crackers. Vidya-ma’s father had instructed that they were to be burnt without cessation.

Kamala met him in the kitchen on her way out with a tray of snacks and paused long enough to say, “Where have you been? Have you filled yourself to the brim with fireworks? Your very body bears the trace. Go drink some water, but wash your hands well before you do.” He dutifully washed his hands but vanished before she could say more.

She was amused at his eagerness to return to the fireworks and thought no more of it, happy that he was getting such a fine reward for all his obedient work of the day—for Narayan had toiled fully as hard as a grown woman and earned a warm, fine reputation in the process. “He must have inherited his nature from his father,” said Shanta. No one begrudged him his joy at setting off the fireworks. Just as no one would begrudge him later when it came time for all of them to eat.

Her next sighting of him, therefore, almost caused her to drop the tray of snacks. She froze into position, hardly noticing the guests’ fingers that hovered greedily above the tray, like bees nursing at a nectar-filled flower.

She had a clear view of the card tables; she stared at the film star—memorizing his various aspects, the manner of his sitting and the angle at which he held his head (so familiar, and yet so startling to see it in the flesh). Her eyes (having drunk their temporary fill) wandered indifferently past the others at the table—the women, the men, the politician dividing his scattered attention between the cards and the conversation, Vidya-ma’s father standing by in benign hospitality—when she saw him.

Mr. Little Boy in Big Shirt.

He stood not three feet away from the film star, so close, staring at that great man with such a fixed intensity of purpose that Kamala became truly frightened. What ailed the boy? Had he lost all his senses? Had he sent his brains up into the sky on one of those rockets?

The landlord’s mother leaned forward. “Rama-rama!” she said. “He must have wanted to get close to him…. That is understandable, I myself would be tempted, but he should have concealed himself behind something. Foolish child! You must have been very angry.”

No, not then, said Kamala. I was simply scared.

No one paid him any attention—but Kamala knew that was a short-lived state of affairs. At any moment, Vidya-ma, or her father, or Anand-saar would spot Narayan, and there would be the reckoning. Shoutings. Shame. Perhaps an instant firing of his mother. Sure enough, Vidya-ma’s father said something to the politician—and started to turn around. Run, thought Kamala. Move. Go hide yourself. A great anger began in her, that Narayan should ruin all that day’s effort over a piece of foolishness.

But she was once again surprised. Vidya-ma’s father glanced at Narayan, who, as though waiting for a signal, stepped forward alertly. Vidya-ma’s father gave him some instruction, and Narayan hurried to the bar and returned bearing a drink on a tray. Vidya-ma’s father handed the drink to the politician. Narayan returned to his watchful post, three feet away.

“Ah, so Vidya-ma must have placed him there,” said the landlord’s mother approvingly. “That is good. Very good. He surely would not have been given such a magnificent responsibility if he had not behaved with the utmost credit to us all.”

“Yes,” said Kamala. “Vidya-ma asked him to be there.”

And in so saying, she knew she was not articulating the entire truth of the story. This business of waiting on the film star; of being positioned exclusively where none but he would have the pleasure of serving him; of having the film star wink at him and smile and call him by name, Narayan, as though they were childhood friends; of being treated to jocular exclamations of “good boy!”—was, in fact, a situation that Narayan had brought about himself, with a temerity that none of the older employees—no, not even Thangam—would have dared to muster.

Narayan had hung around his friend the barman until he saw the film star raise his head, as though seeking a waiter. Vidya-ma and her father had stepped away to look after some other guests, and Narayan, sensing opportunity, had wasted no time. He had simply precipitated himself in front of the film star.

“Sir,” he said, a little shyly, “what is your pleasure? How may I serve you?”

The film star, if a little amused by his underaged servitor, had not hesitated in asking for a glass of beer. After Narayan (ignoring the amused jibes of the barman) carried it to him, he did not return to his former place next to the soft drink bottles. He simply waited, three feet away from the film star, who, in no time at all it seemed, needed other things—a napkin, an ashtray, matches—and Narayan quickly provided all of these to him and to the politician and to the other players at that table.

And so, Vidya-ma returned from her hostessing rounds to find her most important guests being well looked after by the temporary-and-most-junior member of her staff. If she was startled by this, she did not show it. It had not occurred to her to provide a personal attendant to these guests, but the idea had merit. The film star was pleased. The politician was pleased. Her father was pleased. That was all that mattered.

“He is a good lad,” said the landlord’s mother. “So smart! Our Narayan.”

Her praise made it easier for Kamala to speak her burning desire. “He is smart, mother, and I would so much like him to go and study in a paid school … he would do so well … but the money they charge is so high!”

“Child,” said the landlord’s mother, after a moment of silence. “You fully well know what the answer is to your problem.”

“What is it?” asked Kamala, surprised.

“Speak to Narayan’s father’s family. Speak to your brother,” said the landlord’s mother. “They will help you.”

Mother, said Kamala, and fell silent.

The landlord’s mother shook her head. “There is such a thing as too much pride, Kamala-daughter. There is such a thing as being too obstinate. And you should not let your son suffer for it.”

Kamala kept silent, not knowing what further to say.

She slept deeply in the afternoon and so found herself awake late at night, the memories of the party returning, reconfigured as worries, blowing through her mind, rising and falling to the rhythm of Narayan’s sleeping breath. So bright, her child. So determined. How was she to provide him with a suitable education? With proper guidance for his life?

The landlord’s mother’s advice intruded, abrasive, grating like rough concrete against skin. If one had a duty to one’s family to be loyal, then surely family too had a reverse duty to make the task an easy one.

Let her brother help, indeed. As though he were full of the caring, charitable impulses he pretended to. There was no prosperity waiting for her in the village. There never had been. Her brother knew that as well as she did.

She picked up an onion from a basket. It was a little past its prime, with skin lying pale and dry and brittle on the pink flesh beneath, slipping and tearing easily under the pressure of her fingers. The taste of it, strong and pungent, would be quieted only by fire, which soothed its acrid bite and allowed the mellow inner sweetness to emerge. An onion had a special magic; unbidden, it could take her back to her village and childhood, where her mother supplemented their variable income with a few onions and chiles grown in the dirt behind their hut.


TWELVE YEARS EARLIER, WHEN the course of her young life had left her widowed and alone, expelled from her husband’s modest family hut by his parents, the starving mother of a baby boy, she had turned to her brother for help.

He was living with his wife in what had been their late mother’s hut, where her sister-in-law now tended to the onions and looked after her own children. Far from being the proud owner of many acres, he too struggled to make ends meet, and his response to his sister’s predicament was unhappy; the far greater misfortune, he seemed to feel, was his; the tragic tide of events that had made her his responsibility.

His frustration and anger were nightly expressed in shouts—as though Kamala herself had been responsible for the accident that had relieved her husband of his life—and finally, when he returned home one day to find her lining her eyes with kajal, in a cruel, intemperate beating for behaving in a manner unsuited to a young widow. Especially one who was such a monstrous burden on her family.

With no resources apart from the sinewed strength of her body, Kamala knew quite clearly what she was going to do—get away from her brother and the village, travel to the big city and get a job that would flood her body with nourishment, and, through her, enter the eager sucking mouth of her son, who, unlike his predecessors, had not perished in the womb and miscarried but had fought his way out of that hostile tomb and now lay drinking greedily at her breasts, which, as if to compensate for those previously lost chances of succor, swelled gratefully with milk every time they were sucked dry, draining her body and filling her with pride at the same time.

“Please stay with us, Thange,” her sister-in-law said again, when Kamala whispered these plans to her. “Your brother does not mean all he says. He often acts in a temper. You know that. He is very proud.”

He is a fool, said Kamala. You are too good for him, Akka.

“How will you live? Thange, how will you survive?”

“I’ll manage, Sister. You’ll see.” She did not tell her sister-in-law about her secret resource, given to her by a friend’s mother—the name and telephone number of a job broker in the city.

The phone call to Bangalore was short and expensive, but very productive.

“Can you speak Hindi?” the job broker asked her in a businesslike fashion.

No, said Kamala.

“Can you speak English?”

No.

“Do you know how to clean houses?”

Kamala paused in surprise before replying, wondering if this was one of those trick questions whose answers were cunningly other than the obvious. For who did not know how to keep a house clean?

Yes? she answered cautiously.

“Good. Are you honest, and a good, hard worker? … Are you of decent morals? … My good ladies are very particular, and I have never disappointed them…. And, most important: Do you know how to keep a respectful tongue in your head?”

Certainly, said Kamala, for there was no one standing by to click their tongues and contradict her.

“And can you look after babies?”

Oh yes, said Kamala, hugging the tiny sleeping bundle held in a sling around her neck fiercely to herself. “That is what I am best at.”


IT HAD BEEN A FOOLISH PLAN from the start, but it had taken hindsight for her to realize why. It was a foolish plan for one very obvious reason, which was made immediately clear to her.

The job broker lived in a government compound, in a dirty two-story building painted blue that housed several families, for her husband worked in some capacity for the city corporation. Kamala had spent half an hour staring at the building from the opposite side of the road, wondering how she was ever to reach it.

She had traveled from the village overnight on the bus, covering the four miles that remained within the city on foot, asking directions as she went, sticking nervously to the broken footpaths to avoid the rush of the traffic that skimmed past her on wings of steel. She stopped once to buy a banana, almost shrieking at the price she was asked and waiting suspiciously to see if the banana seller charged others differently before handing over her money. For all its extravagant city price, it tasted overripe and soggy, but its sweet flesh insensibly lifted her spirits.

And so she had arrived at her destination. Or almost arrived, separated from the government compound by a road of a nature she had never before encountered, even in her walk through the city—as wide as the broadest river, with screaming lines of traffic: buses, lorries, cars, vans, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, scooters, all rushing back and forth without break and without pause, pouring onto a bridge that soared high. Kamala, clutching her baby against her with one hand and a jute bag with all her worldly possessions with the other, finally decided to ask for help. “Anne, brother,” she asked, of a man walking by. “How is one to get to the other side.”

“By crossing the road, sister,” he replied without breaking stride, “like everybody else.” Kamala sat down and weighed the truth of his words. She discovered it was indeed true: people were walking across the road all the time, each time, it seemed, placing their lives in peril, leaping and dancing as they moved, jerking this way and that to avoid the oncoming traffic. They would start on their perilous journey, and she would hold her breath and almost close her eyes, opening them to see the people safely crossed to the other side.

It took her half an hour to decide to try it herself. Her strategy was to cross along with someone who looked sensible: not like the young boys who seemed to take pleasure in the daring crossing; and not someone so old that they might decide, halfway through, that they had seen enough of life after all and simply stop to meet their fate. She finally threw in her lot with two respectable looking women; they did not seem to mind the addition to their party; perhaps there was a greater strength in numbers. Kamala held her baby tight against her chest and kept close to the two women, moving in concert; dancing forward when they did, stepping back, freezing, running a quick yard or two, freezing again, moving forward, moving back, feeling the gusts of air from passing vehicles, in front of her, behind her, so close that she had almost felt the touch of their metal upon her skin, until they finally reached the other side. A deep gasp released the breath in her chest. Kamala turned to thank the other women and perhaps to share a laugh at the narrowness of their escape, but they had already moved on.

The job broker’s husband’s government job was possibly a post of some prestige, for their building had electricity and running water. The job broker herself worked part-time as a cook and made her money, really, from the people she placed—collecting from them a full two months’ salary, payable (if she knew them to be reliable) in installments of up to six months.

All this had been explained to Kamala over the telephone, and Kamala was entirely agreeable. For a good job, even a payment of three months’ salary seemed a small price. But now, as she waited for the job broker to appear, she steeled herself for the discussion about to come. What if the job broker, having coaxed her this far, now demanded four months’ salary as her pay? Should Kamala demur or pay up without argument? Or perhaps argue a bit to save face, and then concede? Wasn’t, in fact, even five months’ salary, an indenture of almost half a year, worth it ultimately? To have good food in her belly and the promise of more?

The woman appeared on her landing, and Kamala looked down at the ground in relief. The job broker had the generous girth of someone who stretched her employers’ budget to feed both them and her own family on ample scale. She had the calm demeanor of a woman who did not break her promises lightly. Kamala felt her fears quieten.

“Namaste, aunty,” she said respectfully to the massive and competent figure who stood a few steps above her. Her laden arms prevented her from joining her palms in greeting, but the job broker did not seem to take offense. She nodded back, looking over Kamala in a considering manner. Her eyes rested first on Kamala’s face, and something in it brought a hint of a softening smile to her own; then they swept downward, dismissively, over Kamala’s body and dress, before coming to a sudden, freezing halt halfway down.

“What is the meaning of that?” she said, pointing to the sleeping bundle tucked under Kamala’s arm. “That’s not a baby, is it?”

“Yes,” said Kamala, smiling proudly. “That’s my baby. My little one, my son.”

“You are to be congratulated,” the job broker said. “And do you have somewhere to leave it while you work? Someone who can look after it for you, this baby?”

No, said Kamala. I am alone.

The job broker stared at her before turning away to spit on the ground, the bubbles of her saliva resting on the earth before sinking and converting a small circle of dry sand into mud. “You stupid, stupid girl,” she said. “Have you no sense at all? Should you not have told me about this earlier? Who will hire you with a babe in arms?”

I can do the work with him, Kamala said. Really. Please believe me, aunty.

He is a good baby. No, he will not cry and disturb the masters, she said.

No, aunty, how can you say such a thing, yes, of course I was married and widowed—I did not lie about that.

No, he is not a mistake.

I can do the work with him. I promise.

But the job broker, as job brokers will, kept her eye on her own internal quality standards and could not be swayed. “Come back when he is older, or when you have made other arrangements for him,” was all she would say, before turning away with a censuring shake of her head and disbelief at the naïveté of village girls.

And, as with all foolish, ill-considered plans, it had come to naught, as simply as that.