Homeless Bird Read online

  He looked at me. “Don’t blubber. I’ll show you a place to go. You have to wait until I have finished work. Sit over there, and I’ll come back for you.” He called to a family who had just left an incoming train. After bartering with him, they climbed onto his rickshaw, and he pedaled away.

  As it grew dark, people began to look for places to lie down for the night. I saw a man in blue jeans and a red shirt staring at me. I huddled into a corner of the station, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. After a bit he came over to me. Bristly hair stuck out of his cheeks and chin. When he smiled at me, I saw that most of his teeth were missing. When he spoke to me, his voice was pleasant enough, but he had about him the smell of a hungry dog. “A refined girl like you,” he said, “should not have to sleep in the streets. If you come with me, I will find a proper place for you where there is plenty of food.” I thought of what the rickshaw boy had said about bad people. I drew myself further into my corner, trying to escape the man.

  Still he hovered over me like a bat. “It is a waste for such a pretty girl to dress in a widow’s sari. I have a sari with real gold threads. It would make me very happy to see you wear it.” He reached down and took my arm and jerked me to my feet. Terrified, I pulled away, but he was too strong for me. I looked about, hoping to find someone to help me, but the crowds were so great, no one was paying attention. I thought of the dog’s grip on the gosling’s neck and knew I must not let him take me. I sank my teeth into the man’s arm, making him howl in surprise and pain. He slapped me and ran off.

  For safety I settled near a family of a maa and baap and their three children. They were waiting for a seat on the early-morning train, they said, and would be there all night. It hurt to see the way they laughed and played with their little ones. It was so long ago when I was small and a part of a happy family.

  I did not have much faith that the rickshaw boy would return. Like Sass, he was probably trying to get rid of me with his promise. It was growing late, and by now someone else would have claimed my doorstep. In the morning, I decided, I would go to the temple. I would chant all day to show how holy I was, and the monks would keep me from starving. At least in the temple I would be safe from evil men. I would become one of the thousands of widows of Vrindavan. That would be my life for as long as I lived.

  When at last the boy returned, he said “You can get into the rickshaw now.”

  “I have no money left to pay you.”

  “That’s all right. The man I work for won’t know. I pedaled fast all evening so I could report enough rides to cover this time, but hurry. In a few minutes I have to turn the rickshaw in.”

  “You don’t own it?”

  “How could I own such a thing? A man hires me and pays me a percentage of my earnings. It buys me food and the corner of a room I share with some other boys.”

  “Why don’t you ask for more money?”

  “The owner of the rickshaw would fire me and give my job to another boy. There are boys coming in from the countryside every day in search of work. Still, as little as the money is, I spend only half of it.”

  “You spend only half? What do you do with the other half?”

  “I own land,” he said. A smile grew on his face. “It was left to me by my father. My uncle cares for it. When I have enough money for seeds and irrigation, I’m going back to my village. I hate this city.” Perhaps it was because it was the end of the day, but he seemed not to have much strength left for the pedaling. In the dark I could just make out white shapes like ghosts huddled in doorways and curled against buildings. “There are so many widows,” I whispered.

  “Yes,” the boy said, a little out of breath. “Families bring them here from all over India. They are left just as your sass left you. Only if you ask me, you’re lucky to be rid of her.”

  It was true that Sass had often scolded me. She had left me alone in this city as if she were dropping a kitten down a well. Still, I would have given anything to be back in the village, safe behind the walls of a house, even if it meant spending the rest of my life being scolded by Sass.

  We rounded a corner and turned into a small courtyard where several women were gathered, some as young as I was. An older woman came toward us. She was very plump, as though she had been put together with pillows. Even the many meters of her sari barely stretched around her. “Raji,” she called to the boy, “have you brought me another? There is no room! Never mind, we will manage. What is your name, girl?”

  “Koly,” I whispered. I put my hands together and bowed.

  “I am Kamala, but here everyone calls me Maa Kamala. Go away now, Raji—you have no business in the courtyard with the girls. But wait, first take some of this curd and cucumber to fill your stomach. You are looking thinner than ever. It will do you no good to save money by going without food. You will be too weak to pedal your rickshaw.”

  She turned to me. “Come along, Koly,” she said in a brisk voice. “I’ll introduce you to the others. Then we must put aside that widow’s sari. Here you are not a widow but a young woman with a life ahead of you.”

  The others looked at me with curiosity. “Where do you come from?” one of them asked. I named our village. “I never heard of it,” she said. “You must be a country girl. You’ll have much to learn if you stay in this city.”

  “Tanu,” Maa Kamala scolded, “what kind of welcome is that? Were you so rudely greeted when you came? I think not. Show a little kindness. Take Koly inside and find her something to wear from the clothes in the chest.”

  Tanu led me into a small room off the courtyard. She was eighteen, a year older than. I was, and much more sophisticated. She wore dark lipstick, and her eyelashes were heavy with mascara. She was tall, with long, narrow feet and hands. Her hands had a strange orange color and she had a distinct smell, not unpleasant but very strong. She threw open a chest and pulled out some clothes, flinging a pair of trousers and a tunic at me. “These look your size. Put them on.”

  I slipped the trousers on under my sari, and then, as my sari came off, I hastily pulled on the tunic. Taking off my widow’s sari was a great relief. I once saw a small green snake rub itself against a stone until its old skin peeled away, transparent and thin as paper. I felt now as I imagined the snake felt after it rid itself of its old, confining skin.

  “Much better,” Tanu said. She smiled in approval.

  “What kind of place is this?” I asked, lowering my voice.

  “A widows’ house,” Tanu said. “Maa Kamala takes in widows off the street and finds us jobs. She helps us get our widow’s pension and lets us stay here until we can support ourselves. Someday I hope to be earning enough to share a room with some other girls and live on my own. Maa Kamala is nice, but she is very strict.”

  “Where does Maa Kamala get the money to take in so many girls? There must be twenty out there in the courtyard.”

  “A rich lady from the town supports the house, and we pay a little for our room and board from our wages.”

  “How did you come here?” I asked.

  “I ran away when I heard my sass and sassur plotting to get rid of me so my husband could marry again and get another dowry.”

  “How could people be so cruel!” I was horrified.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “My husband died. I was brought here by my sass after she became a widow and was going to her brother’s house, where I was not wanted.”

  That night in the courtyard I heard many stories like mine and many stories like Tanu’s. Hearing so many frightening stories made me feel less sorry for myself.

  At last Maa Kamala threw up her arms and ordered us to stop. “Enough of your miserable tales,” she said. “You wallow like pigs in mud. That is all in the past. Now, Koly, we must find you a job. Nearby in the bazaar is a man who furnishes all that is needed for ceremonies. Tanu works there stringing marigold garlands. The man is looking for another girl. I warn you, the hours are long and you have to be fast. What do you say?�
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  I could not stop myself. For an answer I put my arms around as much of Maa Kamala as I could reach and hugged her.

  nine

  That night, for the first time since coming to Vrindavan, I felt safe. Lying nearby were other widows, their soft sighs and turnings like so many doves fluttering around me. I tried not to think what would have happened to me if I had not found Raji. No one was more fortunate than I.

  Early in the morning Maa Kamala stirred us up like a pot of rice. “Hurry, hurry,” she called. “You must not be late for your work.” We quickly washed beside the courtyard faucet and swallowed some dal. Chapatis were given out, and we were shooed like chickens from the courtyard out into the city.

  “You will work with Tanu, in the same stall,” Maa Kamala said. “She will show you the way. And here is money for your lunch.”

  Together Tanu and I hurried down the streets. We had to pick our way over sleeping bodies. Whole households of baaps, maas, and children lay on their charpoys or on the sidewalk. On the way to the bazaar we passed the doorway where I had spent my nights. Another widow was curled up there, still asleep. I shivered at the sight and gave thanks for a roof over my head. As I hurried by, I looked for the half-starved child who had stood there watching me eat. I still held my breakfast chapati and would gladly have given it to her. There were children there, but she was not among them. I could not put her hungry stare out of my head, and my happiness dwindled a little.

  The early-morning streets were crowded with cars and bicycles and rickshaws and oxcarts. Here and there a cow wandered in and out of the road, bringing the traffic to a halt. In the bazaar the booths were already open. We passed leather workers and pillow shops and booths where brass vases and pots were for sale. There was a booth that sold bangles and another with bolts of brightly colored cloth for saris. There were stalls with rugs and stalls with heaps of spices: gold turmeric and precious orange saffron.

  Tanu pulled me after her. “If we are late, Mr. Govind will be cross all day and will give us no time for our lunch.”

  As we entered the booth, Mr. Govind, a small man with flowing mustaches, was shouting at two women seated on the floor surrounded by a pile of marigold blossoms. “No gossiping,” he ordered. “We have three funerals and two marriages.” He gave me a quick look. “You are the new girl? Tanu will show you what to do. I hope you will learn fast. I can’t pay someone who is slow and clumsy. Quick now, girls.”

  We were surrounded with heaps of orange flowers. The smell of the marigolds was so strong, I could hardly breathe. Now I knew what Tanu smelled like. It was the spicy, sharp odor of the marigolds. “You’ll get used to it,” Tanu said when she saw me sniffing. “Here is how it is done.” The flower heads had already been snapped from the stems. She showed me how long fibers from banana stems were soaked in water to soften them. “The flower is threaded onto the fiber and caught in a knot like this. Then the next flower is slipped on. You are not to put the flowers too close together. That uses too many of them.”

  I watched for a minute or two and then began to thread the flowers. Tanu and the other two women worked twice as fast as I did. If I tried to hurry, the flowers dropped off the fiber, but the work was simple, and I soon caught on. By lunchtime I was knotting the garlands into neat circles and tossing them onto the heap of garlands as quickly as Tanu and the others. Once or twice Mr. Govind came by to see how I was doing. He must have been satisfied; he allowed us twenty minutes to eat our lunch.

  Tanu and I wandered through the marketplace admiring the cinema posters with pictures of glamorous women and handsome men. In the mirror booth we stopped to look at ourselves. Keeping an eye on the clock, we bought a little pot of vegetables and rice. We ate quickly and then wandered by a perfume stall that smelled deliciously of sandalwood. We stopped at the bangle booth. We tried on so many of the brightly colored glass bangles that the owner complained, “You are keeping my customers away. Come back when you have some money.” He smiled at us. “You make the marigold garlands?” He was looking at our orange hands. “Could you string beads?”

  Eagerly we said we could.

  “Stop by tomorrow. I’ll talk with Govind. If he tells me you are good girls, maybe I will give you some beads to take home to make into bangles. If you make them well, I’ll give you one. Now off with you.”

  Giggling, we hurried back to the stall, planning all the while what colored beads we wanted for our own bangles. We found Mr. Govind beating his fists against the wall and moaning, “They have sent jasmine blossoms instead of marigolds! We will be short for the wedding!”

  Tanu whispered, “It is always a crisis with him. Pay no attention.”

  But I felt sorry for him. “Couldn’t we make some garlands from the jasmine?” I asked Mr. Govind.

  “Not traditional. We must have marigolds.”

  “What if we mixed the flowers? It would stretch them out, and there would still be marigolds on each one.”

  He looked worried. Finally he said, “It is all we can do.”

  When the family came for the garlands, they complimented Mr. Govind. “Something new, something different,” they said. “Our guests will be impressed.”

  After that Mr. Govind must have spoken well of us to the bangle maker. The next day, at lunchtime, the bangle man gave us a bag of beads and a spool of wire. He showed us how to fasten the bangle after it was finished and warned us, “I have counted every bead. There had better be the right amount on the bracelets, or you will pay for each one that is missing.”

  The girls at Maa Kamala’s were envious of our work. To pacify them, we let them try on the finished bangles. Each evening we sat cross-legged in the courtyard threading beads in the last light of the day. When it was dark, we went inside and kept threading, stopping only to hunt for any beads that slipped away. By the end of the week Tanu and I each had our own bangle. Tanu would have gone on until she had an armful of bangles, but I soon grew bored with the work. Unlike my embroidery, which came from my head and heart, the threading of tiny glass beads grew tiresome.

  Tanu and I became good friends. We shared a room with three other widows, two of them much older than we were. They said bangles on the arm of a widow were unseemly and grew impatient with our staying up late and giggling, which kept them awake. Our room was very plain, so I hung my dowry quilt on one of the walls to make the room more cheerful. There was my maa in her green sari and my baap on his bicycle. There were my brothers playing at soccer and our courtyard with its tamarind tree and me at the well. After a while I stopped looking at the quilt, for it made me very homesick.

  Half of our wages went to pay our expenses at the widows’ house, and the rest was put aside for us. Each week Maa Kamala made a note in a little book of what was saved from the wages. My savings were not much, but each week they grew. Early one morning I went to apply for my pension. This time I proudly filled in the form myself, giving an address and signing my name. Soon the envelope with my pension came, and the pension was added to my savings. I saw that though it would be a while, the day might come when I could move from the widows’ house to make room for another widow. Tanu and I even talked of a time when we might share a room.

  Now that we were no longer stringing beads, I entertained Tanu after supper by reading Tagore’s poems aloud, although the older widows said I would have done better to read the sacred verses. Tanu loved to hear the poems, and after a bit even the widows who had disapproved of them began to listen. Everyone had her favorite; the older widows asked for the poems about the sadness of life and the younger ones for the poems about love.

  One evening Raji came to the courtyard while I was reading the poem about the homeless bird. He sat in the far corner of the courtyard munching some leftovers Maa had given him and listening to the poem, a dreamy expression on his face. He seemed to get such pleasure from it that I handed Raji the book and asked him if he would like to read some of the poems.

  He shook his head. From the embarrassed look on his face
I guessed why and blurted out, “Can’t you read?”

  Angrily he snapped at me, “How could I read when I was working on the land from the time I was five years old? Besides, there is no one in my family who reads. Who would teach me?”

  I took a deep breath and asked, “Would you like me to teach you?” I was grateful to Raji for all he had done for me and was anxious for a chance to do something for him in exchange.

  Raji kicked at the dust and glowered at me. At last he shrugged and agreed.

  Each evening I would return to Maa Kamala’s house exhausted, the scent of marigolds hanging over me like a cloud. I would join the other widows for a dinner of curried lentils or rice, sometimes with a bit of fish or some morsels of chicken. At dusk Raji would appear, tired and cross and half starved, for he was counting every rupee until he had enough to return to his farm. Maa Kamala would give him something to eat, and after a bit, as his stomach filled, he would stop snapping at me. At first he was impatient, but as the letters became words, and the words thoughts, he became both eager and suspicious, as though I were holding something back from him. Soon he took the book in his own hands and, moving his finger slowly, read the words by himself.

  He did not like to have the other widows see him struggling with his reading, so we sat in a corner of the courtyard with only Maa Kamala to keep an eye on us. I began to look forward to Raji’s visits. I would steal a glance at him as he read out the words of the poems. His tousled hair fell over his forehead, and sometimes, when the lesson was too long and Raji was too tired, his long lashes would flutter as he tried to keep from falling asleep. His hands on the book were the strong hands of a man who has worked all his life, but his hold on the book was a gentle one.

  When his day had been successful and he had received generous tips, he would bring me some little thing, a paper of sugared almonds spiced with pepper and cumin, and once a handful of lilies, which he wound in my hair while I put one behind his ear. I would tell Raji about the girls I worked with, and he would tell me about the people he had carried that day. Raji was the only one to whom I could complain, confiding in him that I was afraid I would have to spend the rest of my life in a sea of orange marigolds. After a day when he had few customers and no tips, Raji would have no heart for books, but most of the time he was eager to learn.