A Fine Balance (63 page)

“A few weeks later, my supervisor called me into his office. He said I wasn’t pursuing the right customers. He said it was a waste of time trying to sell a wedding suit to a naked fakir. I asked him exactly what he meant.”

Rajaram repeated for the tailors the supervisor’s reply – that people in the city were too cynical, they doubted everything, it was difficult to motivate them. Suburban slums were the places to tackle. After all, there lived the ignorant people most in need of the government’s help. The programme, with its free gifts and incentives, was specifically designed for them.

“So I took his advice and went outside the city. And would you believe it? On the very first day my cycle got a puncture.”

“A bad beginning,” said Ishvar, shaking his head.

“Puncture was only a small problem. The real trouble came later.” While the tyre was being fixed at a cycle shop, said Rajaram, he got to talking with an elderly man waiting in a bus shelter, not far from a fire hydrant. The elderly man needed a wash, and was hoping that street urchins would come along and turn on the hydrant.

For the sake of practice, and to see how long he could hold the fellow’s attention, Rajaram began telling him he was a Motivator involved in the good works of the Family Planning Centre. He described the birth-control devices, named the sterilization operations, and the cash inducement for each: a tubectomy was awarded more free gifts than a vasectomy, he explained, because the government preferred intervention that was final and irreversible.

That’s the one I want, interrupted the old man, the expensive one, the tube-whatever one. Rajaram almost fell off his perch on the bus-shelter railing. No no, grandfather, it’s not for you, I was just talking about it for the sake of talking, he said. I insist, said the old man, it’s my right. But tubectomy can only be performed on a woman’s parts, explained Rajaram, for a man’s parts there is vasectomy, and at your age even that is unnecessary. I don’t care about age, I’ll take it, whichever is meant for my parts, persisted the old man.

“Maybe he badly wanted a transistor radio,” said Om.

“That’s exactly what I assumed,” said Rajaram. “I thought to myself, if this grandfather desires it so much, who am I to argue? If music makes him happy, why deny him?”

So he got out the proper form, took a thumbprint, paid the tyre-repairer, and escorted his patient to the clinic. That evening, he received the money for his commission, his very first.

Now he regarded the puncture as the harbinger of good fortune: the pointed finger of fate, flattening his tyre and his bad fortune. The badge of Motivator clung with more honesty to his shirt. Brimming with confidence, he returned to the suburban area, certain that he could round up vasectomies and tubectomies by the score.

A week passed, and his peregrinations took him to his first customer’s neighbourhood. He cycled among the shacks, seeking to motivate the masses, his head overflowing with various ways of saying the same thing, formulating phrases to make sterility acceptable, even desirable, when someone from the old man’s family recognized him and began shouting for help: Motorwaiter is here! Aray, the rascal Motorwaiter has come again!

Rajaram was soon surrounded by an angry crowd threatening to break every bone in his body. In response to his pleas for mercy and his terror-stricken cries of why? why? he learned that something had gone wrong with the operation. The old maris groin had filled up with pus. When the rot began to spread, the clinic was no help, and the old man died.

Ishvar nodded in sympathy as he peeled his banana. He had always felt that the hair-collector’s new job was fraught with danger. “Did they beat you badly?”

Rajaram unbuttoned his shirt and showed them the purple bruises on his back. Across the chest was a gouge, starting to heal, made by some sharp tool. He lowered his head to point out the torn patch of scalp where an attacker had pulled out a clump of hair. “But I was lucky to escape with my life. They told me I should have known better, the only reason their grandfather went for the operation was because of the cash bonus and gifts. The old man had wanted to help with his granddaughter’s dowry.

“I returned straight to my supervisor and made a complaint. How could I produce results, I said, if the doctors killed the patients? But he said the man died because he was old, and the family was simply at all blaming the Family Planning Centre.”

“Goat-fucking bastard,” said Om.

“Exactly. But guess what else the supervisor told me. From now on my job would be easier, he said, because of a policy change.” The new scheme had been explained to Rajaram – it was no longer necessary to sign up individuals for the operation. Instead, they were to be offered a free medical checkup. And it wasn’t to be viewed as lying, just a step towards helping people improve their lives. Once inside the clinic, isolated from the primitive influence of families and friends, they would quickly see the benefits of sterilization.

Rajaram picked the crumbs from his pao-bhaji wrapper, then tossed it in the rubble. “Even though I didn’t like the new system, I agreed to try it. By now, everyone realized that Motivators were giving bogus talk to people. Wherever I went, city or suburb, they insulted me, called me a threat to manhood, a dispenser of napusakta, a castrator, a procurer of eunuchs. And here I was, just doing a government job, trying to make a living. How can you function like this day after day? No, I said, this is not for me.”

He told his employers he was willing to work in the old way, distribute leaflets and explain procedures, but no more deception. They said the old way was no longer an option – quotas had fallen behind badly. Concrete results were needed to justify each Motivator’s food, shelter, and bicycle.

“So last week I lost all three when they threw me out. Now I am desperate. There is nothing to do but go back to my old profession.”

“Hair-collecting?”

“Yes, I’m going to sell these plaits right away,” he indicated the package the tailors had brought from their trunk. “And I am also starting my original trade. Barbering. I’ll have to do both because without storage space, hair-collecting will be limited. But I need eighty-five rupees. For combs, scissors, clippers, razor. Can you lend me the money?”

“Let me think it over,” said Ishvar. “Meet us tomorrow.”

“We would really like to do something for him, Dinabai,” said Ishvar. “He was our neighbour in the hutment colony, and very good to us.”

“I don’t have enough to advance you the amount.” But she offered an alternate solution. From the back of her cupboard she dug out the haircutting tools Zenobia had set her up with, years ago.

“Aray wah,” said Om, impressed. “You are also a barber?”

“Used to be – children’s hairdresser.”

Maneck fitted his hand around the clippers and pretended to tackle Om’s puff. “That’s a nice shrub to practise on.”

“Are you exchanging air-conditioning for barbering?” said Dina. She placed the kit before Ishvar. “It’s old, but still works. Your friend can have it if he likes.”

“Are you sure? What if you need it again?”

“Not likely. My haircutting days are over.” She said that with her eyes and forgotten skills, children’s ears would be in danger.

“There is one more problem,” said Rajaram, gratefully receiving the instruments when they met the next day.

“Now what?”

“My hair agent visits the city only once a month. And sleeping on the street, I have nowhere to store what I collect. Will you keep it in your trunk? For me? Your good friend?”

“A month’s supply won’t fit in the trunk,” objected Ishvar, not anxious to accumulate the unappetizing parcels.

“But it will. I’m going to specialize in long hair – in a month there will be ten plaits at the most, if I’m lucky. Won’t take up more than a corner of your trunk. And at month’s end I’ll sell them to the agent.”

“Your coming to the flat so often – it will annoy our employer.” He wished Rajaram would give up; he felt awkward making excuses to block him. “It isn’t our home, you know, we cannot keep receiving visitors.”

“That’s only a small obstacle. I can meet you outside. Here, at Vishram, if you like.”

“We rarely come here,” said Ishvar, then caved in. “Okay, what you can do is, leave the packet with Shankar, the beggar outside, the one on wheels. He knows us. We’ll introduce you.”

“That beggar is your friend? Strange friends you make.”

“Yes, very strange,” said Ishvar, but the hair-collector, absorbed in smoothing the knots and tangles of his life, missed the irony.

If with Ishvar it was the bile-seeking fingers that bothered Dina, with Om it was the itchy scalp. She had tolerated the scratching in the old days, knowing it would end at six o’clock. Now, apart from the annoying sight and the constant, irritating rasp, she feared that the itch would migrate to her own hair.

She spoke privately to Ishvar: lice was as bad as any other kind of sickness, and his nephew’s health would improve if the parasite was eradicated.

“But problem is money,” said Ishvar. “I cannot afford to take him to doctor.”

“You don’t need a doctor for lice. There’s a perfectly good home remedy.” And when she explained the procedure, he remembered his mother using it too.

While topping up the stove, she filled an empty hair-oil bottle with kerosene. “Do it after tea,” she said. “Massage it properly and leave for twenty-four hours. It can be washed off tomorrow.”

“Only twenty-four? I thought the remedy said forty-eight. That’s how long my mother used to leave it on.”

“Then your mother was a brave woman. Anything can happen in forty-eight hours. We don’t want your nephew turning into a human torch.”

“What are you talking about?” puzzled Om. He took the bottle and unscrewed the cap. “Chhee! It’s kerosene!”

“You expected rose water? You want to pamper the lice or kill them?”

“That’s right,” said Ishvar. “Don’t fuss, your Roopa Daadi used to do it for your father and me when we were children.”

Grumbling and cringing, Om bent over the basin, complaining that people didn’t have enough kerosene to cook their food and here they were, wasting it on hair. Ishvar took a few drops at a time in his palm and worked it in. Under the lightbulb, the oil-streaked black hair turned iridescent. “Beautiful as a peacock,” he said.

“Dig your fingers in,” instructed Dina. “Spread it well.” His energetic hands heeded her, rocking the protesting Om back and forth.

“Stop it, yaar! You’ll poison me if it enters my blood!”

When he was done she gave him a broken spoon to scratch with. “Don’t use your fingers, or you’ll get it on the dresses.”

He sat at the machine, miserable, wrinkling his nose, exhaling forcefully to blow out the smell. Relieving the itch with the spoon was not as satisfying as using fingernails. Now and again, he shook his head like a wet dog while they teased him.

“Would you like to smoke a beedi? Take your mind off?” asked Ishvar. “I’m sure Dinabai will make an exception today.”

“Of course I will. Shall I bring the matches?”

“Go ahead, laugh,” said Om darkly, “while I choke to death on these fumes.”

At lunchtime he told his uncle he was not going to the Vishram, he couldn’t possibly eat with the stink in his nose. So Ishvar stayed back as well.

Later in the afternoon, Maneck came home and started sniffing around. “Smells like a kitchen in here.” Keeping his nose low like a bloodhound, he followed the scent to Om. “Are you starting a new career as a stove?”

“Yes, he is,” said Dina. “Tonight we’ll cook our meal on top of his head. He has always been a hot-headed fellow.”

It was her own joke that first made Dina consider giving the tailors dinner in the flat that night. Other factors reinforced the idea. It would throw off that rascal Ibrahim completely; the tailors hadn’t gone for lunch, and they wouldn’t emerge for dinner. And besides, Om sitting patiently all day wearing kerosene deserved a reward.

So she chopped another onion and boiled three more potatoes to include them. The breadman arrived at dusk. Instead of two small loaves she bought four. “Maneck, come here,” she called from the kitchen, and took him into her confidence.

“Really? That’s great, Aunty! They’ll be thrilled to eat with us!”

“Who said anything about eating with us? I’m going to put their plates on the verandah.”

“Are you trying to be nice or offensive?”

“What’s offensive about it? It’s a good, clean verandah.”

“Fine. In that case, I’ll also eat on the verandah. I cannot take part in such an insult. My father feeds only stray dogs on the porch.”

She grimaced, and he knew he had won.

Dina remembered the last time all sides of the table had been occupied: on her third wedding anniversary, the night Rustom had been killed, eighteen years ago. She set out four plates and called in the tailors. Their faces plainly showed what an immense honour they considered it.

“You have taken your cure like a good boy,” she said to Om, “and now you get your dinner.” She brought the pot to the table, and a scraped carrot for herself. The tailors regarded her curiously as she bit into it. “You are not the only one taking a home remedy. This is medicine for my eyes. Right, Dr. Mac?”