“So, tell me,” Smita said as they walked. “How is Shannon doing?”
“She’s in a lot of pain. As you may be knowing, the hip’s definitely broken. Because of the weekend, they couldn’t do the operation. And now they’ve decided to wait a couple more days until Dr. Shahani gets back into town. He’s the best surgeon in the city. And hers will be a complicated case.”
She looked at him curiously. “And you’re—you’re close to Shannon?”
“We’re not boyfriend-girlfriend if that’s what you mean. But she’s my dear friend.”
“I see.” She envied Shannon this—as the South Asia correspondent for the paper, Shannon could put down roots, form friendships with the local people. Smita, whose beat was gender issues, was hardly ever in the same place for more than a week or two. No chance to stay in any place long enough to plant the seeds of friendship. She glanced at the suitcase that Mohan was carrying for her. Would he be surprised to know that she kept two other identical bags packed in her New York apartment, ready to go?
Mohan was saying something about Shannon, and Smita forced herself to listen. He mentioned how frightened Shannon had sounded when she’d called him from the hospital, how he had rushed to be by her side. Smita nodded. She remembered the time she’d been laid up with the flu in a hospital in Rio, and how isolating it had felt to be ill in a foreign country. And that hospital was probably paradise compared with this one. Although Shannon had been covering India for—How long had it been? Three years, maybe?—Smita couldn’t imagine her having to undergo surgery alone in a strange country.
“And the conditions in the hospital?” she asked Mohan. “They’re good? She’ll be okay?”
He stopped walking and turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised. “Yes, of course. She’s at Breach Candy. One of the best hospitals. And India has some of the finest doctors in the world. It’s now a medical destination, you know?”
She was amused by his wounded pride, his quickness to take insult, a quality she’d noticed in several of Papa’s Indian friends, even the ones—especially the ones—who had lived in the States for a long time. “I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said.
“No, it’s okay. Many people still believe India is a backward country.”
She bit down on her lip, lest the thought that leapt into her mind escaped her lips—It sure was, when I lived here. “The new airport is gorgeous,” she said as a peace offering. “Light-years better than most American airports.”
“Yah. It’s like a five-star hotel.”
They walked up to a small red car, and Mohan unlocked it. He heaved her suitcase into the trunk and then asked, “Would you like to sit in the back or front?”
She glanced at him, startled. “I’ll ride in the front if that’s okay.”
“Of course.” Even though his face was deadpan, Smita heard the quiver of laughter in his voice. “I just thought . . . Since you thought I’m Shannon’s driver, maybe you wish to ride in the back.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, vaguely.
He pulled out of the parking lot, eased the car into the lane, then swore quietly at the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading out of the airport.
“Lots of cars, even at this time,” Smita said.
He made a clucking, exasperated sound. “Don’t ask, yaar. The traffic in this city has gone from bad to worse.” He glanced at her. “But don’t worry. Once we get on the main road, it will get better. I’ll have you at your hotel in no time.”
“Do you live near the Taj?”
“Me? No. I live in Dadar. Closer to the airport than to your hotel.”
“Oh,” she cried. “That’s ridiculous. I . . . I could’ve just taken a cab.”
“No, no. It’s not safe, for a woman to get in a cab at this hour. Besides, this is India. We would never allow a guest to take a taxi from the airport.”
She remembered her parents driving to Columbus Airport through the sleet and storms of Ohio winters, to pick up visitors. Indian hospitality. It was real. “Thank you,” she said.
“No mention.” He fiddled with the dial for the air-conditioning. “Are you comfortable? Hot? Cold?”
“Maybe turn up the air a notch? I can’t believe how hot it is here, even in January.”
Mohan gave her a quick glance. “The joys of global warming. Imported to poor countries like India from rich countries like yours.”
Was he one of those nationalist types, like Papa’s friend Rakesh, a man who railed against the West and had plotted his imminent return to India for the past forty years? And yet, Mohan wasn’t wrong, was he? She had often argued the same point herself. “Yup,” she said, too tired to start a political conversation, her eyelids beginning to get heavy with sleep.
Mohan must have sensed her fatigue. “Take a nap if you like,” he said. “We have at least another thirty minutes.”
“I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head, distracting herself by looking at the long line of shanties built on the sidewalk. Even at this late hour, a few men in shirtsleeves and lungis lounged near the open mouths of the huts, kerosene lamps burning inside some of them. Smita chewed on her lower lip. She was no stranger to third world poverty, but the tableau they were driving past was so unchanged from what she remembered from her childhood. It was if she had passed these very same slums and the same men the last time she and her family had driven to the airport twenty years before, in 1998. So much for the new, globalized India that she kept reading about.
“The government paid these people to vacate and go into government housing,” Mohan was saying. “But they refused.”
“Is that so?”
“So I’ve heard. But in a democratic country, how can you force people to relocate?”
There was a short silence, and Smita had the feeling that simply by staring so openly at the slums they were passing, she had made Mohan feel defensive about his city. She had seen this phenomenon often in her job, how middle-class people in poor countries bristled against the judgment of people in the West. Once, while she was in Haiti, a local official had almost spat in her face and cursed American imperialism when she’d tried questioning him about the corruption in his district. “I suppose you can’t blame them,” she said. “This is their home.”
“Exactly. This is what I try to tell my friends and coworkers. But they don’t understand what took you less than ten minutes to understand.”
Smita felt unexpectedly warmed by Mohan’s words, as if he’d presented her with a small trophy. “Thanks. But I used to live here, you know. So I get it.”
“You lived here? When?”
“When I was young. We left India when I was fourteen.”
“Wah. I had no idea. Even though Shannon told me you were Indian, I just assumed you were born abroad. You sound like a pucca American.”
She shrugged. “Thanks. I guess.”
“And you have family here?”
“Not really.” And before he could ask another question, she said, “And you? What do you do? Are you a journalist, also?”
“Ha. That’s a joke. I could never do what you and Shannon do. I’m not a good writer. No, I’m an IT guy. I work with computers. For Tata Consultancy. Have you heard of the Tatas?”
“Yes, of course. Didn’t they buy Jaguar and Land Rover several years ago?”