Spirits Of The Broken

The pond had dried up again. This made the garbage pile on the side even more visible. People were clamouring for a bucket of water from the sole public tap at the base of the rocky hills beside the moss-covered pond, some were even washing their bicycles and autorickshaws there. Radha smiled triumphantly. Old fools, coming for water at this hour when the sun is out. She had already filled four pitchers when it was still dark with no one around except green croaking frogs and carried them up the residual hill to her hut balancing two on her head and one each in both hands, careful not to wake her husband and kids. She now walked past the crowd, grinning condescendingly at a few. Wrapping her scarf around her head to keep out the summer sun, she walked through her Basti towards the residential areas.

“Why Radha! You are late today,” Pia said. “Did Seema ask you to massage her head again?”

“She did,” Radha replied, taking a deep breath pulling her sari upto knee and squatting down to wash the utensils.“I did leave early in the morning, but there was a huge pile of dirty utensils to wash at Tiwari’s, extra clothes at Seema’s plus the head massage–”

“Don’t they consider you people!” Pia exclaimed, while frantically grinding spices on a stone grinder kept on the kitchen top with all her might.

Radha snorted, peered inside the kitchen door and asked tentatively, “Why don't you use the mixer, didi?”

“Well, he doesn't eat if I do it in the mixer, it reduces the flavour,” Pia said, wiping the sweat off her head while slowly exercising her arthritic wrists.

“You need to take care of yourself,didi. It will hurt even more.”

Pia left the grinder and came to the door. Both looked at each other. It has been twenty years since Radha started working at Pia’s. Pia remembered that day when a young girl came to her house and asked for work, any work. These twenty years have transformed that frail girl into a woman with stone hands and muscles with iron sinews that were almost addicted to work. She walked tens of kilometres every day cooking, cleaning and washing in houses with eyes that had not lost their sparkle yet. Pia watched her as she scrubbed the utensils clean, her long, slender body crouched and brown skin gleaming in the sun.

“I will,” Pia beamed. “And take these clothes with you, these are too old to wear for us.”

Radha briefly looked at the pile of faded clothes in Pia’s hands and nodded with a smile.

This rickety umbrella could be used this year as well. Pia didi had given this year back with a crooked frame and one small hole on the side. Radha shielded herself from the monsoon rains with the umbrella but a passing scooter splashed mud water from a puddle onto her flower-embossed sari. Radha did not curse him. After all, it's the first rainfall of the season.

“Here Radha, have some pakoras,” Pia said as Radha entered. She sat on the sofa in her living room beside the window, with a bowl of pakoras kept on a small wooden table beside her. “It’s a crime not to have some during the first monsoon rains.”

“Sure, didi.”

“Run, fetch a plate from the kitchen.”

Radha sat down on the floor below the empty sofa opposite Pia and ate the pakoras.

“They are very good, didi.”

It was raining heavily this year and so, the roof was leaking heavily this year. The plastic sheet frantically arranged and put over it was not very useful. It was pitch dark outside but thankfully, everyone was home.

“Be quick, Pooja. You will burn the roti this way,” Radha rebuked her ten-year-old daughter, still learning the craft. The two sat on the floor with a small stove in a corner of their one-room hut, called the kitchen. Her five-year-old son had already gone off to sleep.

“Will I get the food tomorrow?” Pooja’s father asked coarsely.

“Coming,” Radha hastily placed the food in front of him.

“Bear reproves, break your back at work all day and you don't even get food on time.”

“Did something happen at the shop, ji?”

“No, just nothing. They worship me there. What do you think people do with a shop assistant?”

Radha gave up and came back to the kitchen and continued rolling more rotis while Pooja toasted them.

The next morning, the police took him away.

The shop only had a few customers since it was still noon. The long space with endless shelves displaying bright sarees flanked by white mattresses dazzled Radha's eyes. A few salesmen sat on these and showed sarees to potential buyers, even draping these on themselves to woo them.

"Yes?" the man on the counter asked after a brief look at Radha.

"I… I am the wife of Sonu Das," Radha said, her throat already constraining.

The man immediately looked up from his phone.

"How dare you come here? What do you want now?"

"The police have taken him, sahib."

"So what? What do you expect out of theft?"

"He is not a thief, sahib. He cannot be a thief. Please get him free, sahib. I have small kids, what—"

"Don't create a scene now," the man whispered harshly, realising that a few customers were looking with raised eyebrows towards them. "Go away before I throw you out. You lowly rats! You actually do not deserve to be standing here. I bet you have not even seen five lakhs before. That is why your man stole."

"You know that he is not a thief, you know it very well. Just because we are poor, you do this to us," Radha said, surprised to hear her own calm voice.

"Get lost before I throw you out," the man now shouted, banging on the counter.

Radha walked out of the shop and sat on the front stairs and by now, her tears had dried out on her cheeks.

It was quite noisy. The police station had a huge front yard with dusty, confiscated bikes stashed in a corner. Inside the old building, men in khaki uniforms were all over the place. Radha also saw a memsahib in uniform. She remembered being scared of the police. But not now. She went straight to one of them, sitting on a desk.

"I am the wife of Sonu Das, you have brought him here."

"Oh that thief," he said without looking up.

"He is not a thief. He can be anything but a thief."

"You will not decide that. Go stand in the corner. Let the big sahib come. He will deal with you."

Radha went and squatted in a corner. She heard someone scream in pain. She was sure it was him and half rose up, before sitting down again.

"Please verify her passport this time sir, it's the fifth time we are coming. She has to go abroad for college," a man pleaded with the man on the desk. Beside him stood a teenage girl, looking down at the floor.

"What should I do sir, your documents are incomplete and—"

The policeman stopped short as Radha saw the man sliding a 500 rupee note below the desk.

"Your job is done, sir. Here take this," he said, handing a paper to the girl. "Don't forget us when you go abroad, beti," flashing his paan-stained teeth at her.

Winters in central India were not freezing cold but were not snug either. The rocky vindhyas were wrapped in haze and mornings were quieter than usual. Children wrapped head to toe in warm caps and sweaters boarded their school buses quietly. People huddled near bonfires ate their jalebis quietly. Leaves on ashok, amaltas, neem and semul rustled quietly. Everyone eagerly waited for the warm morning sun to show up and snatch a chair to sit under it, stretching their toes.

"Didi, I'll pay you back. You can cut from my salary each month," Radha said as she sat near the door on Pia's kitchen floor, wearing a tattered sweater.

"What will you and your kids eat then? I had already given you money last year when Pooja got malaria. You still have not repaid that," Pia said as she leaned on her kitchen counter with crossed hands but a soft expression.

"I need it badly this time."

"What if he really did steal?"

"He has not. I know it. He is lazy, abusive, and uncaring but not a thief."

"I trust you," Pia said after a pause. Radha managed a crooked smile, but her eyes showed that she was tired.

At the police station, it was the usual sight. Sitting in a corner Radha wondered if this happened every day; if a woman sat on the floor in a dusty corner every day waiting for her turn to come, leaving behind half-hungry children and dal-stained utensils waiting to be washed.

"Sahib, I have brought money," Radha said, stacking bundles of notes onto his desk.

"Are you crazy? Do you want to put me in trouble?" the inspector said, frantically looking left and right. "Put your thumb on this bail bond first."

As Sonu was brought in front of her, she felt relief more than happiness and walking home, she finally let herself feel the acute pain in her back.

"Why did you get me free?” Sonu asked as he sat wrapped in a rug, nursing a wound on his leg.

"Of course, I should have let you rot in jail," Radha said as she flipped the roti on the tawa. A smile went through both their lips.

"What if I did steal?"

"Did you?"

"We would have been rich then."

Radha remained silent.

"It was his son, his own son," Sonu murmured as if talking to himself. "I saw the lad going into the room where Malik keeps all the money."

"Why didn't you tell them?"

"That day when he accused me and the day after when the police arrested me, I shouted out the truth till my throat hurt. Who listens to the poor? We exist to serve them, take their sins on us and die for them." Just then a cold breeze swept through the window, making them shiver and the flame on the stove tremble.

The sun did come up north. People celebrated the occasion by flying kites and distributing sweets and bars made of jaggery and sesame. The sun now feels harsh, everyone pulls back their chairs more into the shade and gradually inside. The mornings become livelier, children merrier and birds chirpier.

“The advocate asks for fifty thousand,” Radha mumbled as she washed clothes aggressively.

“Why can’t Sonu do something,” Pia asked as she ground masala on the stone grinder.

“He is not getting a new job and his wound has not healed yet. Our meagre savings drained into bribes and the debt is piling up.”

“I cannot help this time. You see—”

“I have no option now but to sell myself at the traffic signal.”

“What are you saying? Do you even…”

Radha was no longer listening.

The hospital reeked of antiseptic. The sitting area was jam-packed, with a few people sitting on the broken rusty chairs and others forced to sit on the floor. They were usually people like her, daily wage earners and domestic workers with hardened bodies and hollow eyes. The doctor’s room stood in a corner.

“Sonu Das, you are next,” the nurse standing outside the doctor’s room called out.

“Please sister, here,” a man with gold-rimmed spectacles and shiny pointed shoes walked towards the nurse and handed her a slip. After a brief look at it, the nurse quietly whisked him in, while Sonu was left standing in the corner, limping.

A few people stood up to protest and the nurse tried to maintain order. Radha kept sitting at her place leaning against the wall and looking at the ceiling. A tear escaped her eye and fell on her wrist.

“Ma, are you crying?” Pooja asked, sitting beside her. She wiped the tear with her small hand. Radha looked down to see a girl who had anger on her face and zeal in her eyes, something which she knew she had now lost.

“No child,” she replied softly and gently patted her cheek.