“See? She is not as bad as you think.”
“She did it because she wants money from my sweat.”
“Don’t forget, she applied the balm for you.”
“Let her pay us properly, then we can buy our own balm.”
“It’s not the buying, Omprakash — it’s the applying I want you to remember.”
Rajaram came to the chemist’s on a bicycle, which impressed Om. “It’s not exactly mine,” said the hair-collector. “The employers have provided it for the job.”
“What is this job?”
“I must thank my stars for it. That night, after the colony was destroyed, I met a man from my village. He works for the Controller of Slums, driving one of the machines for breaking down houses. He told me about the new job, and took me next morning to the government office. They hired me straight away.”
“And your work is also to destroy homes?”
“No, never. My title is Motivator, for Family Planning. The office gives me leaflets to distribute.”
“That’s all? And the pay is good?”
“It depends. They give me one meal, a place to sleep, and the cycle. As Motivator, I have to go around explaining the birth-control procedures. For each man or woman I can persuade to get the operation, I am paid a commission.”
He said he was happy with the arrangement. Gathering just two vasectomies or one tubectomy each day would equal his takings as a hair-collector. His responsibility ended once the candidates signed the forms and were shepherded to the clinic. There were no restrictions, anyone qualified for the operation, young or old, married or unmarried. The doctors were not fussy.
“In the end, everybody is satisfied,” said Rajaram. “Patients get gifts, I get paid, doctors fill their quotas. And it’s also a service to the nation — small families are happy families, population control is most important.”
“How many operations have you collected so far?” asked Ishvar.
“So far, none. But it’s only been four days. My talking style is still developing force and conviction. I’m not worried, I’m sure I’ll succeed.”
“You know,” said Om, “with this new job, you could continue the old one side by side.”
“How? There isn’t enough time for hair-collecting.”
“When you take patients to the clinic, does the doctor shave the beards between their legs?”
“I don’t know.”
“He must,” said Om. “They always shave before the operation. So you can collect all that hair and sell it.”
“But there is no demand for such short, curly hair.”
Om sniggered at the answer, and Rajaram caught on. “Rascal, making fun of me,” he laughed. “But listen, the office is hiring more Motivators. You should apply right away.”
“We are happy with tailoring,” said Ishvar.
“But you told me the woman was difficult, and cheating you.”
“Still, it’s the profession we trained for with Ashraf Chacha. Motivator — now that’s something we know nothing about.”
“That’s just a small obstacle. They will teach you the job at the Family Planning Centre. Don’t be afraid to change, it’s a great opportunity. Millions of eligible customers. Birth control is a growth industry, I’m telling you.”
But Rajaram’s efforts to persuade the tailors and the nightwatchman were unsuccessful. He picked up his bicycle and got ready to leave. “Any one of you interested in vasectomy? I can use my influence and give you special treatment, double gifts.”
They declined the offer.
“By the way, what about your hair in our trunk?” asked Ishvar.
“Can you keep it a little longer? Once I finish my probation period as Motivator, I can get rid of those plaits.”
He waved and disappeared down the road, ringing his bicycle bell in farewell. Om said the job did sound interesting, in a way. “And the cycle would be wonderful to have.”
Ishvar’s opinion was that only someone like Rajaram, speaking with his long, dangerous tongue, could succeed as a Motivator. “Telling us we are afraid to change. What does he know? Would we have left our native place and come all the way here if we were afraid of change?”
The nightwatchman agreed. “In any case, no human being has a choice in that matter. Everything changes, whether we like it or not.”
During the evening, Dina went repeatedly to look at the tailors’ dented trunk. Maneck watched her with amusement, wondering how long she would keep it up. “I hope you are happy,” she said after dinner. “Now pray that my kindness does not come back to hurt me.”
“Stop worrying so much, Aunty. How can it hurt you?”
“Do I have to explain everything again? I only did this because that poor skinny tailor is starting to look like his battered trunk. You think I am unkind to them, that I don’t care about their problems. You will think it strange if I tell you this, but after they leave in the evening I miss them — their talking and sewing and joking.”
Maneck did not think it strange at all. “I hope Om’s arm is better tomorrow,” he said.
“One thing is certain, he wasn’t pretending. The way his muscles felt while applying the balm, I knew he was in pain. I have experience in massaging. My husband had chronic backaches.”
She used Sloane’s Liniment in those days, she said, more efficacious than Amrutanjan Balm, making his knotted muscles ease under her very fingers. “Rustom would say there was magic in my hands that worked better than the doctor’s antispasmodic intramuscular injection.”
She examined her hand wistfully, holding it before her. “They have a long memory, these fingers. They still remember that feeling, of Rustom’s muscles relaxing.” She lowered her hand. “And in spite of his aching back he loved to cycle. Every chance he got, he jumped on it and pedalled off.”
Till bedtime came, Dina kept talking about Rustom: how they had met, and how her jackass of a brother had reacted, and then the wedding. Her eyes shone, and Maneck was touched by the stories. But he couldn’t understand why listening to her was making him bend once again under the familiar weight of despair, while she was delighting in her memories.
VIII. Beautification
IN ABOUT A WEEK, THE ALCHEMY of time had translated the noisy nocturnal street outside the chemist’s shop into a lulling background for the tailors. Now their sleep was no longer poisoned by nightmares. The shadows and disturbances — bookies yelling out the midnight Matka numbers, winners hooting with delight, dogs howling, drunks locked in mortal combat with their demons, the crash of milk-bottle racks, doors slamming on bakery vans — all these became, for Ishvar and Om, the bonging of hours by a faithful clock.
“I told you the street was nothing to be frightened of,” said the nightwatchman.
“True,” said Ishvar. “Noises are like people. Once you get to know them, they become friendly.”
The rings around their eyes began to fade, their work improved, and their sleep grew pleasant. Ishvar dreamt a wedding celebration in the village; Om’s bride was beautiful. And Om dreamt about the deserted slum. Shanti and he, holding hands, fetched water from the tap, then romped through the wasted field, now transformed into a garden teeming with flowers and butterflies. They sang, danced around trees, made love while flying aboard a magic carpet of clouds, machine-gunned Sergeant Kesar and his evil policemen as well as the Controller of Slums, and restored the hutment dwellers to their rightful place.
The chemist’s shop was the centre of the tailors’ new routine. They picked out a change of clothing from the trunk when leaving Dina’s flat at the end of the day. Soap and toothbrushes went back and forth with them. After dinner at the Vishram, they washed their clothes in the railway station bathroom and dried them in the chemist’s entrance. Electrical wiring that had lost its moorings hung like a clothesline for the laundry. Pants and shirts floated like truncated sentries while they slept. On windy nights the garments danced on the wire, friendly funambulating ghosts.