Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,61
was. He outlined his proposition for her as if it were no more remarkable than deciding the length of fabric required to stitch a lehenga. She considered it; how could she not? She had heard of the fast money that college girls who worked as escorts made. That money would have got her out of the basti, away from a father who was always angry with her, and a mother who was perpetually puzzled by a daughter who was nothing like the rest of the family.
Perhaps this man was back because the pause between his question and her no had been too long.
Hello, madam, I’m talking to you, he said now.
Near her, schoolgirls haggled with bangle sellers. A hawker shook garlic heads in a bamboo basket, and their loose skins swirled up into the air like white butterflies. A young man balanced three empty metal bowls on an older man’s head for a laugh. Everything around her was ordinary. Except for this man.
She hissed at him to leave her alone, or else she would call the police. The man moved closer. She waved at someone indistinct in the distance, forcing a cheerful smile onto her face before hurrying toward a huddle of construction workers around a dosa vendor. His stall stood in front of a building that changed its form each day, behind porous green sheets and scaffolding.
She approached the stall, a flush of shame spreading across her chest as if someone had spilled a hot cup of tea on her. In the basti, people said men chased her because of how she dressed or how she acted. She made it worse for herself by refusing to hold her books close to her dupatta-sheathed chest or by slouching in the manner of bashful girls who pretended they could avoid censure by shrinking closer to the ground.
She knew she had no reason to be embarrassed. But in moments like these, it seemed to her that perhaps those in the basti were right. Why did she think she was special? The chorus in her head was sometimes the same as the chorus in the alleys of the basti.
Sorry, excuse me, she said to the workers around the dosa stall. They parted at once, as if deferential to her clothes that were ironed and neat and still carried the scent of the perfume she had sprayed on herself that morning, and to her face, moisturized twice a day with Lakmé Absolute Skin Gloss Gel Crème. The men wore stringy clothes specked with paint and dirt and cement.
The dosa vendor and a child who was helping him spread the batter on a hot tava looked at her questioningly. Raising an index finger, she pointed to a construction worker’s dosa plate and indicated she would like one too. The child spread the batter on the pan, expertly smoothing out lumps with the back of a ladle and crisping the dosa with dollops of oil. In spite of everything, the delicious smell of it made her mouth water. The construction workers watched her, but they did so with no sense of authority and mostly with an expression of surprise.
Her phone rang, and she was relieved when she saw Suraj’s name flashing. She answered his call. It turned out that he had come to pick her up at Let’s Talk, though they were supposed to meet at a mall only an hour later. She told him she was just ahead. He said he would find her. She fished out forty rupees from her handbag and gave it to the child, who was folding her dosa onto a plate. She asked him to give it to someone else; she had to go, she mimed with her hands and eyes. The child looked horrified at the idea of someone turning down food they had paid for.
When she came out of the crowd, she saw the man was still there. Then Suraj’s old bike stopped next to her and the man retreated.
Below Suraj’s helmet visor, she could see that his eyes were red. He worked all night and must have had only three or four hours’ sleep. She sat behind him with her arms encircling his waist and her chin resting on his right shoulder. She didn’t feel cold even when Suraj started the bike and the wind whisked her hair.
He took her to a mall and drove into its underground parking lot with its hi-fi parking charges. First they had to pass a boom-gate attendant who lived