The Parcel (12 page)

Madhu said, “Fathers too.”

“Come by anytime,” the hijra told Madhu. “Next time we will powder your face and try eyeliner, okay?” Madhu's spirit soared at the thought. As he got up from the stool, he asked her one last thing.

“What's your name?”

“Bulbul,” she said.

Nine bangles on Madhu's wrist had made him feel more loved than nine months in his mother's womb. That evening at home, his father demanded to know where the hell he had been, and Madhu said, “For a walk.” He had walked straight into his future.

Hijra Gulli became his haunt. He tried on makeup, learned how to shuffle cards like a shark, chewed paan, smoked beedis until his tongue burned then gargled like one possessed so that
no smell lingered when he got home, made lewd jokes, learned about two types of cocks, cut and uncut, understood the differences between a hermaphrodite, a transvestite, and a transgender, and heard gurumai's famous line, “The Third World is not a place, it is a gender.” Madhu visited Hijra Gulli in short bursts—a quick afternoon here, a short morning there—but never at night. He was given entry into the hearts and lives of its inhabitants with total generosity, and there was only one room he was never to step into: not the randikhana with its bunk beds, not the sickroom, but the room through which he would later be transported into the Third World—the operating chamber. It was there that he would become a “chakka.”

In cricket, a chakka is a six; the ball clearing the boundary is the ultimate hit for a batsman. Hijras are also called chakkas. It was something Madhu never understood, because a chakka, unlike a hijra, is a
desired
result. So why assign an undesirable such as her that tag? But now from her place on the bridge, as Madhu watched her brother go back inside his flat, the term suddenly made sense. She imagined Vijju, who must be thirty-one years old, returning to a wife and child. Each morning, the five of them would wake up as a family and not even think of its sixth member. She was the sixer, the chakka, the one they had forgotten.

I
n Kamathipura, a parcel died twice.

The first death was the breaking in. The second, more painful, death happened when the parcel realized that she had been discarded by her own family. That was when survival lost all meaning, and compliance became a sensible option. Anything that happened to the parcel from that point on was perfunctory, as boring as the words in an instruction manual. Of course, when physical death finally came, in the form of disease, old age, or suicide, it wasn't death anymore. It was what the parcel had secretly been working toward.

But no matter how hard the truth hit the parcel, hope had a strange way of creeping back in, and there was a fine line between hope and denial, a line that Madhu herself had walked skilfully. In a parcel's mind, there was always the pathetic notion that her parents would come looking for her. Madhu too still believed that if she stood on that bridge and spoke to her brother, told him her story, he would remember
her. She was disgusted that some part of her still longed for her family.

“Do you want me to open the bag again?” she asked the parcel.

She turned the flashlight off. The conversation she was about to have worked better in the dark. The blackness put all the weight on the words, made them land in the correct places—bombs inflicting maximum damage. Bombs worked because no one could see them coming, and the resulting explosion of light was a celebration, the fireworks of success.

“How did you get here?” asked Madhu. She knew the parcel would not answer; the girl was breathing too heavily. The air must feel as if it was closing in on her. The tight space was unfit for anything that breathed, let alone a human being. The smell of piss, acidic and thorny, reached Madhu's nostrils. The cage was an oven, and so far it had baked the parcel to perfection. It was time to call the parcel by her name.

“Kinjal,” said Madhu, “answer me.”

The mention of her name made the parcel flinch. “You know me?” she asked, with utter, stupid innocence.

“Do you want to get out…for some air? If you answer my questions, I will take you out,” said Madhu. “Now tell me: How did you come here? Who brought you here?”

“I'm here by mistake. Please, my aunty, she was—”

Madhu cut her short. The sequence of events had to be played out perfectly, even if they came out of the parcel's own mouth. Right now, the parcel was processing events by memory, but her memory was influenced by her belief in the basic decency of human beings. That belief needed to be stripped away.

“Did your aunty bring you here?”

“A man brought me…he…”

“Think about your village. Think about Panauti bazaar.”

How well the system worked, this one that Madhu herself had devised. It was up to the procuring agent to drill the parcel's family member for information, for details that could make the parcel understand that she had
not
been kidnapped. In this parcel's case, her aunt, her father's sister, was the one who had cracked the deal. When Madhu had first come into contact with these minors, long before she started working with them, it surprised her how often it was the women in the family who sold the parcels, and not just the fathers, brothers, and uncles. Women were equally responsible for the whimpering and rotting of their own fledglings.

“My aunty took me to Panauti,” said the parcel. “She made me meet a man. He was a nice man…He told me I would get a job in Bombay.”

This nice man had been chosen because he looked like a trustworthy soul. He was small and non-threatening, spoke politely, and was instructed to never touch the parcel. He told her to stay close and get ready for the journey. Was there anything she needed? At Panauti bazaar, the parcel was bought something, a small gift to lift her up and calm her nerves. For a girl from a tiny village outside Kathmandu, the thought of working as domestic help in a city like Bombay was daunting.

“What did your aunty say when she handed you over to the nice man?”

“She was crying…She hugged me…She told me to be strong.”

Had she looked into her niece's eyes, Madhu wondered. Perhaps she had stared straight into those light brown eyes and asked for forgiveness there and then. It was probably the last
time they would face each other. Sure, they might meet again in each other's dreams, but, Madhu thought wryly, those meetings could always be washed away. Perhaps the aunty had wished her niece luck. Then the nice man took the parcel to the border by bus. It was his job to know each and every crevasse on the road that lay ahead, which official to bribe, and which border crossing to take and at what time. All along the journey, the nice man had not touched the parcel. His instructions were clear: even if she fell asleep on his shoulder on the bus, he was to look ahead into the cool distance.

Then, with sleep in the parcel's eyes, they crossed over into another country. How useless borders were, Madhu thought. Wars had been fought over them and yet the parcel's entry into her new country was as easy as a game of langdi. For a change, India did not resist; it offered no red tape. As a hijra, it was more difficult for Madhu to get an ID card than for most, but when it came to the parcel, things were as smooth as lubricant. She slid in and was made to wait in a small room in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

“Tell me about the room,” said Madhu. “Where the nice man left you.”

This, Madhu knew well, was the stockroom where parcels from Nepal—and from the neighbouring regions of India herself—were collected. They were given a decent meal and allowed a good wash. They could mingle with each other freely, because all the parcels had been fed the same story: they were en route to Mumbai to work in factories or as domestic help. Some of them even had sisters or cousins waiting for them in the city, so they would have no problem adjusting to a new place. After they had rested, they were made to stand in a line according to
their age. All virgin maal, from nine to twelve years old, they were now examined by new men, given a health check of sorts. During this time, a parcel's instinct might kick in, but ever so gently. She might feel uneasy with the manner in which these new men look at her, the way their eyes scan her body. These were the dalals, the agents whose job it was to choose a particular piece and decide where it would go and for how much. An auction took place in an adjoining room. Whoever paid the best price got the fattest chicken.

“Did you feel…the man who took you by train was a nice man?” asked Madhu.

“No…”

“Did he touch you?”

“No,” said the parcel. “But I was scared of him.”

“Why were you scared? Did he hit you?”

“He told me that if I asked for my aunty once more, he would throw me off the train.”

“Did you ask for her after that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He would push me…”

“No,” said Madhu. “That's not why.”

“He put my head out of the door.”

“But why would he do that? Why didn't your aunty make sure he was nice to you?”

“I don't know…”

The parcel let out a heaving sob that was less sound, more chest.

“Where did you sit on the train? Was it with other people?” asked Madhu.

She gave the parcel time to settle down, for the spasms to calm. After a minute or so, she asked the question again.

“I was sleeping on a bag…behind wooden crates…”

“Could anyone else see you?”

“No.”

“Were you hiding from other people?”

“Yes…”

“Why were you hiding? Had you done something wrong?”

“No, no…”

“Who was this man?”

“I don't know…He sang a song to me…but I did not like it.”

“But songs are good,” said Madhu. “Everyone likes songs.”

“He played with my hair…”

After two days, the train came to its final stop at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai. Madhu scoffed when the parcel told her about the “big station.” It reminded her of the same stupid awe with which Madhu's father called it a “World Heritage Site.” Her father had been so impressed with the British that he was still buckling under the weight of the architecture they had left behind. Built in the late 1800s to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, it had carried her name for over a century and contained a number of gargoyles frozen in cement, perched ominously high near the clock tower, ready to pounce upon the unsuspecting public at night. A few years ago, the gargoyles had watched as Pakistani terrorists created mayhem, wielding AK-47s like children playing with water guns at a school picnic. Madhu was sure that her father, the sad purist that he was, would have rued the desecration of a World Heritage Site more than the loss of lives. What would he say to
the fact that his beloved train station was now the final point of disembarkation for thousands of trafficked girls? How would he respond to that?

At the terminus the agent would have kept an eye out for four women who scanned the platform, looking for men like him. These women worked in conjunction with the railway police to intercept the agents and the maal they were transporting. This recent development was a minor hindrance, but the agents had figured out a way to use the hordes of people who alighted from the train as camouflage. Considering that the station was the final stop for local trains as well as the ones that machined in from the farthest corners of the country, it wasn't hard for the agents to become part of someone else's dream, to attach themselves to a family for a few precious minutes. Once they were out of the station, Kamathipura was just twenty minutes away by taxi.

“Who is Sharu?” asked Madhu.

“My aunty,” said the parcel. “You know her?”

“The nice man knew her name, and he gave her name to the man who brought you here by train…Do you see what I'm saying?”

It was hard to see in the dark. The dark was for realizations that occurred involuntarily, the way heart valves opened and closed.

“You were told you would work in someone's house as a servant,” said Madhu. “Who told you that?”

“My aunty.”

“Does this look like someone's house?”

“No…”

“Do you think you have come here by mistake?”

It was the final question Madhu asked each and every parcel. There were no mistakes in Kamathipura. Things were topsy-turvy, yes. NGOs did the work of the police, the police did the work of the underworld, the underworld governed the place, children looked after their drugged mothers, and trap doors slid open in roofs. But nothing was a mistake.

The cage itself was a carefully constructed thing. It was a perfect piece of architecture, for it did not cater only to the body. The body was confined within it, but its purpose was to allow the parcel to encounter her own mind, up close. The more the parcel's mind tried to fathom the body's current predicament, the less successful it was, and eventually the brain, tired of holding on, would let go of its own past, like a hand letting go of another from the edge of a cliff, no longer having the strength to retain anything, letting the other body dive into the abyss and disappear.

An hour later, Madhu opened the trap door and helped the parcel down the ladder. So far, the parcel had been co-operative, which meant she had to be aptly rewarded. The reward was a tour of the brothel and a trip to the toilet. Being cooped up in a hot box had made the parcel lose all equilibrium. Coming down a ladder was too much for her, especially when it was the very first movement she was permitted outside of the cage. Madhu had to hold her, steady her walk. The parcel had not been fed since she had arrived, and she was dizzy. But it was still too early for food. Things had to be given to her step by step.

The third floor did not have a toilet. For that, they would have to go down to the second floor. It was about 10:00 p.m., and business was at its happiest. The guard was attaching a fresh garland to the iron grille. He was the pundit of the floor, trying
to keep things festive. Two prostitutes walked toward Madhu and the parcel without giving them a second glance. They seemed to be chagrined about something. The parcel could not get out of the way in time—the corridor was too narrow—and one of the women bumped into her and muttered something. Madhu figured their mood had to do with none of the rooms being free. The women must have had clients, but if all the rooms were occupied, they would have to wait.

The door to one of the rooms was slightly ajar. Madhu stopped outside it on purpose. She did not ask the parcel to look; she knew that the parcel's own fear and curiosity would make her take a peek. Inside the tiny room was a tinier bed where two bodies could barely fit. The deed done, the man was buckling his belt while the prostitute adjusted her blouse. She shouted out for the attendant, a teenaged boy, and asked for a box of tissues. The prostitute had done her best to make the place feel homey. Above the bed, in a small alcove, stood a single rose in a plastic vase as narrow as the stem of the rose itself. The rose bent over the mouth of the vase like an old man, so tired it wanted to fall onto the bed.

Most of the other doors they passed were closed. All that could be heard was the occasional thud of bodies hurriedly navigating cramped spaces, and spasmodic male voices. At least those were the sounds Madhu caught. The parcel was probably tuning into sounds from the outside, trying to make sense of a grinding mix of car horns, drunken laughs, women's shouts, and shrill bicycle rings. These sounds lulled most of the residents here to sleep. It was when things were too silent that one had to worry. It might mean that a client was covering a prostitute's mouth with one hand, muffling her agony, while holding
a burning cigarette to her inner thigh with the other, slowly moving upward and inward. Noise was good.

The parcel tried to close the door to the toilet but Madhu stopped her. When she squatted to urinate, her thighs were trembling out of sheer weakness. Madhu had to support her once again. She was allowed to wash her hands and face. She drank some of the water in quick gulps, then washed her feet. She was taking her time. Madhu let her. The parcel was doing anything to delay going back to the cage. That was good. It had all been done swiftly and with minimum physical damage.