And Azad wouldn’t come back. What about me? Am I any safer than them? I’ve certainly fallen to a new low, with no work, squeezed on all sides, and now I spend all day long sitting at Sanjay’s paan stall, stressed out, useless, numb.
It seems we’ve gotten off track. I was talking about Sanjay’s, the neighborhood paan shop (right near my flat), and then got carried away to sixteenth-century ruins near the bypass. But Ramnivas? I first met him at this little corner paan shop. He’d moved to Delhi twenty years ago from Shahipur, a small village near Allahabad, along with his father, Babulla Pasiya. In the beginning, Babulla washed pots and pans in a roadside dhaba, and was later promoted after learning how to cook with the tandoori oven. Five years ago, he built a makeshift house in Samaypur Badli village, itself a settlement of tin shacks and huts — and just like that, his family became Delhites. Even though the settlement was illegal — city bulldozers could come and demolish everything at any time — he’d procured an official ration card and increasingly had hope they wouldn’t get displaced.
Ramnivas Pasiya was twenty-seven — twenty-eight, tops — and lacked any ambition save for a vague desire to see his life circumstances changed. Ramlal Sharma, the local councilman, put in a good word and got him part-time work as a city sanitation worker. His area, Saket, was located in south Delhi. At 8:00 a.m. he’d put his plastic lunch tiffin into his bag, catch a DTC bus toward Daula Kuan, and then transfer to another one that would take him to Saket. Ramnivas would punch in, grab his broom, and head toward the neighborhood he was responsible for. When he got hungry, he’d eat a couple rupee’s worth of chole along with the roti he brought from home. His wife Babiya made his food; they’d been married when she was seventeen. Now he was the father of two — a boy and a girl — though he would have had two sons if one hadn’t died.
As I’ve mentioned, I first met Ramnivas by Sanjay’s. He had a good reason for frequenting Rohini: He was chasing after a girl named Sushma. She was a part-time servant who did chores for a few neighborhood households, commuting every day from Samaypur Badli, where Ramnivas also lived. He had accompanied her several times, smoking cigarettes or bidis at Sanjay’s or drinking chai at Ratanlal’s while she worked.
Sushma was seventeen or eighteen, a full ten years younger than Ramnivas. He was dark-skinned and lean. Sushma had a thing for him too; you could tell just by watching them walk side by side.
I saw Sushma yesterday, and even today she came to clean a few houses in the neighborhood. Every day, she still comes, just like always.
But Ramnivas?
No one’s seen him around for a few months, and no one’s likely to see him anywhere for the foreseeable future. Even Sushma doesn’t have a clue where he is. If you went looking for him, all you’d find — at most — would be a little damp spot on a square of earth where Ramnivas had once existed; and the only thing this would prove is that on that spot some man once did exist, but no more, and never again.
I’d like to tell you, briefly, about Ramnivas — a simple account of his inexistence.
Two years ago, on Tuesday, May 25, at 7:30 a.m., Ramnivas, as usual, was getting ready to go to work in Saket, forty-two kilometers from where he lives. Sushma was already waiting for him by the time Ramnivas got to the bus stop. She was wearing her red polka-dotted salwar, had applied some special face cream, and was looking lovely.
The previous Saturday, she had accompanied Ramnivas for the first time to a movie at the Alpana. During intermission, they’d gone outside and snacked on some chaat-papri. In the theater and afterwards on the bus going home, Ramnivas inched closer and closer to Sushma, while Sushma repeatedly deflected his advances. After they’d gotten off the bus and were walking home, Ramnivas announced this before parting: If she wasn’t at the bus stop waiting for him next Tuesday, it meant she wasn’t interested, and they were through.
Now it was Tuesday. His heart sank as he left the house, thinking as he often did that Sushma was having serious doubts. When he saw her at the bus stop waiting for him, Ramnivas was so overjoyed that he declared they should ride in an autorickshaw instead of taking the bus. He insisted and insisted, but Sushma wasn’t persuaded. “Why throw away money? Let’s just take the bus like we always do.” Ramnivas had fixed on the idea of sitting very close to her in the little backseat of the rickshaw and maybe even copping a feel — and was therefore dismayed at her refusal. But Sushma’s coming to the bus stop was a yes signal to Ramnivas, and the man was now beside himself. He sensed that his life was about to turn a corner, and soon he would be free from the shackles of home.
He was always picking fights with his wife Babiya. Even though Ramnivas’s paycheck wasn’t enough for Babiya to cover household expenses, he’d let loose. “It’s like your hands have holes in them! Look at Gopal! Four kids, parents, grandparents, and God knows who else to support, makes less than I do, and still gets by! And you? Night and day, bitch and moan.” She’d remain silent but glare at him with flames that licked at the inside of his head all day long.
That Tuesday, as they parted ways — Ramnivas to Saket, Sushma getting off the bus in Rohini — he told her he’d leave work early for Rohini and be at Sanjay’s by 2:00, where she should be waiting; then they’d return to Samaypur Badli together. Sushma said that she didn’t like waiting for him at Sanjay’s (Santosh, the scooter mechanic, was always trying to flirt with her; and Sanjay, too, was always cracking dirty jokes), but in the end, she agreed. And then, for the very first time, Sushma, very slowly and very deliberately, instructed Ramnivas to absolutely bring her some of those chili pakoras, the ones he’d been going on and on about that they sell by the Anupam Cinema. When Sushma made her request, Ramnivas could swear he heard a note of intimacy in her voice, even a hint of possessiveness, and it made him feel very good indeed. He said casually, “I’ll see what I can do,” but had a very hard time concealing the fact that he was jumping for joy.
Ramnivas went on his way, happy, singing that song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. After punching in, he told his boss, Chopri sahib, that he needed to leave work early to go home because his wife had to be taken to the hospital. Even though Chopri sahib usually gave employees a hard time about leaving early, for some reason he readily agreed.
That day, Ramnivas was sweeping the floor of a fitness club in a building that housed various businesses. Cleaning the gym wasn’t technically his responsibility since it wasn’t a government building, but Chopri sahib had instructed him to work on it, explaining to Ramnivas that rich people and their kids went there every day to lose weight.
The gym had every exercise machine imaginable. The prosperous residents of Saket and their families spent hours on them. A beauty salon and massage parlor occupied the first floor. Middle-aged men of means would go for a massage and, occasionally, take some of the massage girls back to their cars and drive away. Ramnivas had seen policemen and politicians frequent the place.
Govind’s chai stall was right outside, and he told Ramnivas that a girl named Sunila earned five thousand for accompanying gentlemen outside the massage parlor. “Who knows what these fucking big shots do with themselves in there,” Govind said. “I’ve seen them throw these wild after-hours parties, boys and girls right from this neighborhood.” Indeed, while cleaning the bathrooms, Ramnivas sometimes stumbled on the kind of nasty stuff that suggested that someone had had a good time, and it wasn’t so fun to clean up.
What a life these high-rollers have, Ramnivas thought to himself. They eat so much they can’t lose weight. And look at me! One kid dies from eating fish caught from the sewer, and the other is just hanging on thanks to the medicine. Then he remembered Sushma. His envy faded away and he set his mind to his work.