The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,83
to cook.”
“If it is so terrible,” said Kamala, “do it yourself then.”
“I most certainly cannot,” said Shanta. “Vidya-ma has forbidden me. Poor old man!”
Kamala managed with quiet grumbles—until Vidya-ma summoned her irritably one day. “Kamala, what is this nonsense? Shanta says that all our food is getting delayed because of the time you take over some simple dishes. Why is this?” Vidya-ma was seated at the computer, her fingers clicking on the keys in time to her speech. “And you must clean the utensils as soon as you are done. She has to reuse them, doesn’t she? You cannot behave as though the kitchen is only for your use. You must learn to adjust with others….”
Yes, Vidya-ma, said Kamala and went in search of Thangam. This was intolerable.
But Thangam was full of her own woes and was not of a mind to listen patiently to Kamala’s bitter grumbles. “At least you don’t have to clean the full upstairs, as I have to,” she said. “I tell you, sister, by the time I get through my day, I am so exhausted, my very bones hurt. By the way,” she said, her face full of a recent worry, “what has happened to your neighbor?”
“Neighbor?” said Kamala. “Which one? That drunken Chikkagangamma? Such a sad story! Her children are still working and sleeping in that canteen.”
Thangam interrupted. “No, no. That young girl! Married to the machine tool operator. Your direct neighbor!”
“Oh, that one. So disrespectful! Yes, she was saying something,” said Kamala, trying to recall. “Aanh. Yes. Her husband has lost his job. Perhaps now she will learn some humility. Why do you ask?”
Thangam was looking horrified. “Lost his job? And you could not tell me this? You keep silent!”
Kamala eyed her in genuine confusion. “Thange? Why does it matter to you?”
Thangam flung her duster down. “Because she has missed her last two payments for the chit fund, that’s why! If she cannot pay, I have to pay! How can you ask this! I tell you, Kamala-sister, not all of us are propertied as you are. No, do not deny it. That girl told me—she heard it directly from your brother himself. You have all the luck—so do not come here and complain. How on earth am I to find the money she owes for the chit fund? And what about the months that remain? Tell me that!”
“Do you not have savings, Thange?” Kamala asked tentatively. She knew that Thangam liked to spend and also supported her family every month, but still …
“Whatever I have will be wiped out in a couple of months if she doesn’t pay, akka,” said Thangam, wretchedly. “All of it will go…. This chit fund is so large…. Cursed thing!”
Kamala put her arm around the crying Thangam. “I am sure she will pay, sister,” she said. “Do not worry. Do not cry. Come now! And,” she said, when Thangam eventually wiped her eyes on the edge of her khameez, “I do not know what you have heard, but I am not propertied. That is not true. I have to work for every paisa just like every other human on this earth.”
Thangam sighed and involuntarily ran her hand over the glittering silk dupatta lying tossed on the bed. “Except Vidya-ma,” she said. “She does not have to work for her paisa.”
APART FROM THE SKIRMISHES with Shanta, Kamala very quickly settled into her new duties. Anand-saar’s father was very different from his son. Old-school in his manner and behavior, his needs simple, disciplined, and meticulous, reminding Kamala of the schoolteacher in the village, who had combined an interest in furthering the education of the village children with a strict brahminical aversion to letting them within two feet of him. When he asked something of Kamala, his voice was peremptory: “Girl!” he would call, and Kamala would go running, to fetch the flowers for his pooja that she procured each morning on her way to work; to ready his bath, placing the stool in front of a steaming bucket of water and the mug in readiness; to fetch his food, freshly cooked and piping hot. After this flurry of morning activity, she cleaned his room and washed his clothes, and only when that was done could she turn her attention to all her other chores: the cleaning of the downstairs, which Thangam, on principle, now refused to help her with, and the myriad other duties that Vidya-ma—who seemed unaware of Anand-saar’s strictures to the contrary—kept adding, daily, to her list.