She Will Build Him a City (16 page)

Other cars honk, two drivers get out, shout at the policeman, who shrugs, who couldn’t care less.

‘Special case,’ he shouts, ‘emergency,’ and walks away because he knows how this works. The man in that car must be a VIP: politician, judge, newspaper owner, TV anchor or maybe he knows someone who knows one of these VIPs. That someone makes a call to someone else who then calls the local police to say, a friend of mine is stuck in the protest rally on the highway, he needs to get out, it’s very important, he needs to be somewhere and he’s already late and please will you help him get out of this terrible jam and then a call goes out on wireless to the police van parked closest to the highway which then sends a policeman to the Highway Customer Service office, passes on the message to the manager or whoever is in charge who, in turn, gets someone to go, identify the car, move the barricades, break the lane for the car to get out of the gridlock. The calls are then made, in the reverse order, until the VIP gets a call and says, thank you very much, you didn’t need to go through all that trouble only for me but thank you very much, see you soon.

That’s how it’s done in this city.

Strings are pulled, puppets are moved, there’s some shouting, there’s some cursing followed by the silence of resignation.

~

He watches this little drama and it fills him with rage, he wants to stop this, turn all the wheels back in time and space but all he can do is push his seat back, tilt it to flat and lie down, close his eyes. As long as the engine runs, so does the air conditioner; the windows are rolled up, he is fine. Last week, a three-year-old died in a car closed, engine running, but that was in a parking lot in The Mall, asphyxiation by carbon monoxide in a closed space. But he is safe, he is no child.

As extra precaution, he tells Driver to lower the window once in a while for fresh air to come in.

~

To help himself fall asleep, he can ask Driver about his home and his family. Because once Driver starts talking, it is almost always a sad story, son failed his exam, daughter is sick, wife has a blood test, all this lulls him to sleep. But he is a good driver, efficient, he picks things up fast. Like the time he told him, please use a deodorant and wear fresh socks each day because I cannot have you driving my car if you smell like this and from that day on, he never has to complain, not even once, not on the most humid, sweltering day of the year. For, Driver is always fresh, lime fresh.

Like Balloon Girl, after bath.

Fresh, washed, clean, flying with him in the sky.

It’s not even been twenty-four hours since he dropped her and her mother off and he wishes to see Balloon Girl again. He can wish her into appearing, he only has to close his eyes and she will be there, he has to choose the setting. Does he want her standing on the pavement, outside his car? Or sitting at his dining table at home, her small fingers around a cool white porcelain bowl of milk and cornflakes? Does he want her back in the sky with swirling clouds and flying aircraft? Balloon Girl will be there, wherever he wants her to be. Right now, he wants her in the car with him and the moment he closes his eyes and imagines her, there she is, Balloon Girl, sitting in the back seat, her clothes as clean as they were when he handed them to her this morning, and she is smiling at the way Driver sleeps, how his head leans back, his mouth open.

He begins to show her what the knobs and buttons on his car’s dashboard do. Turn this, the car gets colder.

Flick this, TV switches on. Press this, red light blinks.

This one is for automatic lock, this one plays music, arrow up is louder, arrow down is softer, this one is the wiper, press this, he says, and she presses it hard, leaning across Driver whose head has come to rest against the window.

Water hits the windscreen.

With an impact so shuddering Driver wakes up with a start.

Balloon Girl is gone, water streams down the windscreen hard, the glass has turned opaque.

‘Water cannons, sir,’ says Driver.

That’s what the police are using.

Tata trucks, each fitted with a water tank and motors, enter the highway from the other side, the one that’s relatively free, into which the VIP car was allowed to turn. Police have set up fresh barricades, Driver rolls the window down, hears the police on the megaphone telling the crowd to retreat, go home, the local MP has arrived.

~

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I hear you,’ says the MP, standing on the divider, water cannons behind him.

‘I listen to you, I understand what you are going through. From here, I am going directly to the Chief Minister’s office and I promise you I will not leave that office until I have come up with a solution, until you have power and water back.

‘The problem is there are people with unauthorised connections and they are drawing more power than they should and we have to speak to them. My request to all of you, with folded hands, is please call off this protest here, the highway is blocked, it has inconvenienced thousands of people.’

The crowd is angry, these words hardly have any effect, the MP hurriedly climbs down and is escorted off the highway into his car.

No one has heard him and even if they have, they haven’t listened.

Police switch the cannons on, jets of water arc across eight lanes of traffic to slam into the protesters. Someone in the truck, in a yellow helmet, is navigating the jet, spraying the stranded cars as well.

One protester, a boy, barely in his teens, takes off his shirt. Twirling it around his head, he runs towards the cannons when a jet catches him full in the face and neck, throws him off his feet into a giant puddle that’s spreading across the lanes on the highway. He hears the crunch of the boy hitting the road. Someone lends him a hand, helps him to get up, the boy is hurt, pain twists his face. Clear water from the cannons turns black and green with dirt on the highway, trash thrown from cars. Drops of water slide down his window, too, he catches them in his fingers, cool to the touch.

Like Balloon Girl’s face in the clouds.

CHILD

Traffic Signal

‘Let’s go,’ says Bhow, ‘there’s no time to waste.’

Bhow is a dog of few words.

She is the only eyewitness to Orphan’s arrival at Little House and it’s only appropriate that she is the only one who watches Orphan crawl out through the hole in the wall created by the storm.

This is their first meeting so she can tell him about how exciting the world is outside, how the days and nights stretch from the wretched doorstep of Little House to that glorious place where sky meets the city. She can tell him about that scorching night when she sees a woman leave him. She can tell him about the blood-red towel in which he was wrapped, how Mrs Chopra picked him up in the morning, but Bhow is a practical dog, more prose than verse, so she skips all this drama and the first thing she does is lick Orphan clean.

Starting from the toes of his bare feet, moving up his ankles, his small knees, up his chest, his neck and his face, down his arms, hands, in between his fingers, his little nails.

Her tongue tickles; Orphan laughs, sort of.

‘Not too loud,’ says Bhow, ‘careful, we don’t want anyone to hear us. We have to remove every Little House smell from you because they will get sniffer dogs, give them your pillow, your clothes, ask them to smell their way to you. And then they will bring you back here.’

Orphan listens.

‘Done,’ says Bhow. ‘Get on top of me, no one’s looking, it’s still dark, let’s get out of here before the sun comes out.’

And they set off, dog and child, into the city.

~

The storm has cooled the night.

Orphan, drenched with Bhow’s licking, shivers in a slight chill. Bhow has neither leash nor collar and Orphan is too small to be able to control her movements. He cannot hold onto her tight, curl his legs around her, so Bhow walks slowly, the infant’s hands on the thick, matted fur around her neck. There’s little traffic at so early an hour except for call-centre Toyotas that dart from light to light, discoloured and broken trucks carrying stone chips and iron rods, gleaming ones carrying Maersk shipping containers geometrically arranged, bound for shores across the ocean – each passing vehicle sets off a wind that threatens to knock Orphan off Bhow’s back.

So she keeps her ears open to catch the faintest rumble of an oncoming vehicle long before the child can hear or see, pulls over to the left, waits for it to pass and then begins walking again.

Clearly, Bhow has taken charge with a plan that seems meticulously crafted well in advance, step by careful step. Every half-hour, Bhow stops at a secluded spot, maybe a patch of pavement against the shuttered door of a shop, or in the corner of a blind alley off the road at the end of a lane, where she sits down, curls herself up around Orphan to help him sleep.

As day breaks, they are off Ring Road, walking the leafy streets of neighbourhoods in the southern part of the city, quiet before the morning rush-hour. The occasional schoolbus passes them by, they watch guards waiting for the shift to change at the iron gates of houses hidden behind walls. They pass drivers washing cars, maids headed to work. Some strays bark at Bhow, one even comes running right up to her but she doesn’t react.

‘Let’s keep walking,’ she says, ‘keep looking straight. Just a few hours more and then we will be home.’

~

Home for Bhow is off the national highway next to a traffic signal beyond the toll gate where the thirty-two lanes veer off into a network of streets that twist and loop like petals of a giant flower and make up New City. One goes towards The Mall, another to The Leela Hotel, barely one mile from Apartment Complex.

MEANWHILE

An Evening in the Life of Kalyani’s Sister

It is past 11 p.m., Ma is cooking dinner, Baba’s bath is over, he is drying himself, the crowd at the community tap cleared only at 10 p.m. Pinki has finished dusting the floor, Bhai’s lying down. Kalyani has quit her job at Little House, she is washing the dishes, getting the house ready for dinner.

‘What happened to all of you today?’ asks Baba, water dripping down his back.

Each one gets to tell a story from the day that’s just ended.

Tonight, it’s Pinki’s turn.

She will tell, they will listen, sitting on the floor in a circle of sorts.

~

‘Around 5.30 p.m., Dada Babu comes back from work, Didi says it’s very hot today so we won’t have dinner at home, let’s all go eat out at The Mall. Wash your hands and face with soap, she tells me, scrub hard, we are going to a restaurant. She sprays some of her perfume on me. Also on Krish, the baby. I clean up Krish, he is in no mood to go, he keeps crying, rubbing his eyes. Dada Babu says he must be tired, let’s stay at home, we can order in some food, but Didi says, no, I am tired of staying at home. And if Krish is tired, he can always sleep in the stroller.

‘When we step out, it is already six, we have to return home by eight, Didi tells me. On our way to The Mall, we walk under the Metro tracks, Krish points to watch the big yellow digger that they are using to lay the road. He has got a small one at home exactly like that. I stop so that Krish can watch but Didi says, let’s keep walking, we want to finish early when the restaurant is empty, let’s be the first ones in and out.

‘She is right, there’s no one in the restaurant except us, it’s cold and very dark inside although there are lights along the wall, lights on the ceiling, some even on the floor. A man comes up to us, he is wearing a black coat, he takes us to a big sofa and a table. We all sit there. Krish has fallen quiet.

‘The man brings two books, gives one to Didi, one to Dada Babu. That’s the menu, Didi says, it has everything the restaurant can serve this evening. What do you want to eat, she asks me, and I don’t know what to say so I tell her, Didi, I will eat whatever you order.

‘Across from our table is a big glass tank along the entire wall. It is full of water and it has fishes. Red, yellow, blue, black, white. With small trees, rocks and coloured stones, like marbles.

‘Didi tells me she needs to talk to Dada Babu for a while so can I please take Krish right up to the tank so that he can watch the fishes? There is a toy frog sitting at the bottom of the tank blowing bubbles. There is a little turtle, too. In fifteen minutes, Krish falls asleep, Didi tells me to take off his shoes.

‘Food has come to the table, I can see that Didi and Dada Babu are talking but I can’t hear what they are saying. I stand there, watching the fishes.

‘Pinki, you leave the stroller here, we will take an hour, Didi says, Krish has fallen asleep. Why don’t you wait outside? If he wakes up I will call you, we will get your food packed.

‘The man who had taken us inside shows me the way out, tells me where to sit a few steps away from the restaurant’s entrance, on a bench. You sit here, he says, if they need you, I will come and get you, don’t go anywhere.

‘OK, I say.

‘This bench is next to the playpen where Krish and I go every weekend. They have slides, cars, bridges. There is a tree house as well, with a toy kitchen. Made of green plastic. They charge Rs 150 for one hour, they give a ticket we need to stick on Krish’s back. His favourite is the red car which you move with your feet. I like the blue slide but I haven’t tried it, these things are only for the children, not for us.