“Now that’s something I can’t help you with,” said Dina.
“Who said I wanted to marry?” scowled Om, while she and Ishvar exchanged parental smiles.
A tip about a possible half-room in the northern suburbs led them to the neighbourhood where they had searched for work on first arriving in the city. By the time they reached the location, the place had already been rented. They happened to be passing Advanced Tailoring Company, and decided to say hello to Jeevan.
“Ah, my old friends are back,” Jeevan greeted them. “With a new friend. Is he also a tailor?”
Maneck smiled and shook his head.
“Ah, never mind, we’ll soon turn you into one.” Then Jeevan waxed nostalgic about the time the three tailors had worked round the clock to meet the by-election deadline. “Remember, we made a hundred shirts and hundred dhotis, for that fellow’s bribes?”
“Felt like a thousand,” said Om.
“I found later that he had parcelled out work to more than two dozen tailors. He gave away five thousand shirts and dhotis.”
“Where do these rascal politicians get the money?”
“Black money, what else — from businessmen needing favours. That’s how the whole licence-permit-quota raj works.”
It turned out, however, that the candidate was defeated, despite distributing the garments among his most important constituents, because the opposition kept making clever speeches: that there was no crime in using empty hands to accept fine gifts, as long as wise heads prevailed at voting time.
“He tried to blame me for losing. That the voters rejected him because the clothes were badly stitched. I said, bring it and show me. I never saw him again.” Jeevan cleared his work from the counter and brushed fluff off his shirt front. “Come, sit, drink a little tea with me.”
The invitation to sit was only a figure of speech. The clutter in the tiny shop made it difficult to take literally. Renovations had been performed since the tailors were last here, and the rear had been partitioned to include a curtained booth for trial fittings. Ishvar accepted a saucer of tea at the counter; Jeevan sipped from the cup. The boys took theirs to the outside steps, to share.
It turned out to be a busy evening for Advanced Tailoring. “You have brought me good luck,” said Jeevan. A family came to order outfits for their three little daughters, the mother proudly carrying the bundle of fabric under her arm, the father frowning fiercely. They wanted a blouse and long skirt for each child, in time for Divali.
Strumming his lips with one finger, Jeevan pretended to study his order book. “That’s only a month away,” he complained. “Everybody is in a hurry.” He hummed and hawed, produced dentilingual clicks, then said it was possible, but only just.
The little girls hopped on their toes with relief and excitement. The fierce father snapped at them to stand still or he would break their heads. His family paid no attention to the excessive threat. They were used to this paternal aberration of speech.
Jeevan measured the cloth, a polyester design of peacocks. He frowned grimly, measured again, and pronounced, strumming his lips, that it was insufficient for three blouses and three long skirts. The children were ready to cry.
“The bowlegged bastard is lying,” whispered Om to Maneck. “Watch now.”
He measured a third time and said, with the air of a philanthropist, that there was another option. “It will be very difficult, but I can make knee-length frocks.”
The parents desperately seized the alternative, requesting Jeevan to go ahead. He flapped his tape in the air and invited the children forward for measurements. They stood stiffly, like a puppeteer’s dolls, turning, raising their heads, lifting their arms with frozen joints.
“The crook will swipe at least three yards from it, maybe four,” murmured Om, vacating the steps to let the family depart. The three little girls complained softly that they wanted long skirts so, so much. Their father hugged them affectionately, threatening to knock their teeth out if they didn’t behave themselves, and the happy family disappeared down the footpath.
Jeevan folded the cloth and tucked the page with the children’s measurements inside it. “We tailors have to make a living, no?” He sought approval for his performance.
Ishvar nodded in a non-committal manner.
“These customers — always expecting too much from us,” Jeevan tried again, hiding poorly behind banalities.
He was plucked out of his awkward moment by the appearance of another client. The woman, scheduled for a trial fitting, was handed the preliminary framework of her silk choli. She disappeared into the booth, drawing the curtain shut.
Maneck nudged Om, and they turned to watch. The swaying curtain settled a few inches from the floor, where the woman’s sari could be seen caressing her sandalled feet. Jeevan wagged a finger at them, then leered at the booth himself.
“A thinner curtain would put spice in my life,” said Om. They could hear the gentle tinkling of her bangles.
“Shoosh!” warned Jeevan, snickering. “You will cost me a regular customer.”
The woman’s reappearance made them stumble into a guilty silence. They examined her surreptitiously, glancing sideways with heads lowered. Her sari had been left off the shoulders to permit Jeevan to review the blouse-in-progress. “Arms raised a little, please,” he said, slipping his tape measure under them. Now his tone was clinical, like a doctor asking to see the patient’s tongue.
Between the choli and the waistline her midriff was bare. She was wearing a hipster sari, in the modern fashion, showing her navel. Maneck and Om stared as Jeevan recommended two tucks at the back and a slightly deeper plunge for the neckline. She returned behind the curtain.
Om whispered to Maneck that this was the part he missed the most in working for Dinabai from paper patterns. “It gives me no chance to measure women.”
“As if you could do anything while measuring.”
“You don’t know how much is possible, yaar.” Doing a blouse, especially a tight choli like this one, he said, was heaven, because the tape went over the cups. Passing it around and reaching with the other hand to bring it to the front, you had to stand very close to her. This alone was exciting. Then your fingers held the tape in the hollow between the two breasts — so you didn’t touch her — but it was always possible to graze a little. You had to be careful, and know when to press on. If she shrank as soon as the tape touched, it was dangerous to try anything. But some of them did not mind, and you could tell from their eyes and their nipples whether it was safe to move your fingers about.
“Have you ever done it?”
“Many times. At Muzaffar Tailoring, with Ashraf Chacha.”
“Maybe I really should give up college and become a tailor.”
“You should. It’s more fun.”
Maneck smiled. “Actually, I’m thinking of continuing college after my year is up.”
“Why? I thought you hated it.”
Maneck was silent for a moment, piano-playing on his knuckles. “I got a letter from my parents. Saying how much they are waiting for this year to finish, how lonely they are without me — same old rubbish. When I was there, they said go, go, go. So I’ve decided to write that I want to stay for three more years, do the degree course instead of the one-year diploma.”
“You’re stupid, yaar. In your place, I would return to my parents as early as possible.”
“What’s the point? To argue and fight again with my father? Besides, I’m having fun here now.”
Om inspected his nails and ran a hand through his puff. “If you’re planning to stay, you should change your subject to tailoring, for sure. Because you cannot measure women for refrigerators.” He chuckled. “What are you going to say? ‘Madam, how deep are your shelves?’“