"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". I like to think that this was paraphrased by Dickens, bearing in mind the many great Indian paradoxes one witnesses everyday in this new super poor super power. If you personify Bombay, you'd be describing a cruel, delightful, cantankerous, yet feisty old woman. Like every old woman you know, she secretly harbors some vile secrets, some age old gossip and some precious jewels. Hence the "Queen's Necklace" is the most appropriate name given to the heart of this city. The locale of my story is the Apollo Bunder neighborhood, which happens to be part of a small cluster of glistening arteries that ceremoniously joins the heart of Bombay. Like six million fellow robotic dreamers, I too had wished that my precarious suburban existence would transpose into the new world of Apollo Bunder with its grand tea rooms, boutiques, embassies, hotels and baroque apartments.
One ordinary day, after a visa application, I had to wait a couple of hours for the embassy's response. To escape the brawling and scampering of the city, I naturally wandered into Apollo Bunder. Decades after the Empire crumbled, 4 pm still breathes life into Bombay's opulent tearooms, strategically elevated with pristine glass windows. I observed yearningly how the Empire's best asset was served, transformed and doctored into newer, more vigorous and exclusive concoctions. I was so lost in my daydreams, of the day when a distinguished me would sit on the right side of the glass, sit down for high tea with an equally distinguished entourage, that I didn't feel the slight tugs on my t-shirt. By instinct I knew this unwanted intrusion would be another beggar or hawker. But in this chic district? Curious to see who this infiltrator was, whom the police haven't caught yet, I turned my eyes away from the tea room. Sure enough I found a frail beggar of 9 or 10, wearing rags, her skin and hair burnt brown after much exposure to the sun. "Madamji", she said, mechanically adding the respectful hindi suffix ji to Madam. "Please give me a few rupees for food." I immediately employed the acquired modern Indian rhetoric to curb what our government insisted were lying professional beggars and unauthorized hawkers. "No", I said in a firm polite manner. "Begging is a crime. The government takes enough taxes from us to build homes and schools for you. So for God's sake why don't you enroll yourself in one of the hundred free schools in the city?" I expected that would be the end of our meeting and I would go back to daydreaming and waiting for my visa. Strangely, she continued to wait with me and seemed to mull over my question. "Curious", I thought, "did she actually understand the meaning of crime, government, tax, home, school or God?" Well, she didn't. The only thing she registered from my question was school. Then she looked up at me and simply said "Madamji, wahan mere liye koyi jagaah nahi hain" and walked away. Her reply stunned me because she said there was no space for her in the free schools.
Confused, I rushed after her asking "How is this possible? The government promised free and compulsory education for every girl-child?" Once again, a blank expression on her sunburnt face. I asked to meet her parents. She took my hand and we walked a few minutes from the entrance of the tea room. A small plastic tarp on the pavement had escaped the police patrol, and now served as housing for a mother nursing an infant and this girl still holding my hand. "My name is Paro", she said on her way to the makeshift home, devoid of a bed, a toilet, utensils, clothes and particularly a father. Paro's mother sluggishly greeted me namastey and mustered a little energy to tell me why they just migrated from their native industrial Nagpur. After Paro's father died, a fortnight ago in a coal mining accident, the government allotted a 3000 euro equivalent compensation for the wife and children of the deceased. Somehow she never received a single rupee, adding to the frustration of the paternal household who was faced with the encumbrance of three additional mouths to feed. A widow with no sons serves no purpose in a traditional Indian household. In fact, the threats to leave the house were so severe, that the widow was told they'll spare her life only because the government banned the ritual of widows to accompany their dead husband into the funeral pyre. Disillusioned, uneducated and penniless, she came to Bombay in search of work. But of course unskilled human capital is of no use in Bombay. Pointing to her two girls, she asked heartlessly, "What purpose do these two serve if not for begging and prostitution?". At that precise moment, I received a programmed SMS from the French Embassy stating my visa had been issued. I hastily called a local NGO working for distressed women and children informing them about this helpless girl I found. They said they had place for one new member. The least I could do was save Paro, who I gathered would be the first victim of the city's dark realms of debauchery. I didn't have to say much to convince the mother to let go of Paro. It made no difference taking away a rag or a daughter. In fact I think she felt, the rag served a better purpose.
A few days later, I was all set to leave for France. I made one last call to the NGO to inquire about Paro. They convinced me that the girl was fine, recovering from severe dehydration and malnourishment. I was so relieved that I had done something for one Indian girl. In retrospect, I think I was trying to cover up the guilt of going away, to live in a foreign, developed, safe, egalitarian country and teach there. When in reality, teachers were needed most, in the place I left behind. After a rapid ingress into democratic French society, I slowly forgot all about Paro. I was forced to keep her story to myself because her existence here would be considered obsolete or something from a fictitious world. My life now revolved around classrooms with tactile boards, ipads, iphones, "les baskets", jeans, t-shirts, fancy stationery and of course the students who used these things. None of them gave a shit about me or what I was trying to teach them. All they needed was a mark or a certificate to progress in their safe and calculated lives. I quielty adopted and adapted to this new lifestyle.
Years later, I returned to Bombay for a short holiday. The city was now more than ever a gleaming testament of the new India. New India meant higher skycrapers, bigger sedans, glossier hotels and more glass. It seemed like the government suceeded in curbing the lying professional beggars and illegal hawkers. There were hardly any around. Quiet frankly I was pleased, I didn't have to feel guilty that I was welcomed in Apollo Bunder, finally sitting on the right side of the glass in a dignified manner with a dignified entourage, enjoying the freshly brewed teas of this opulent tea room. I remembered my days on the clamourous side of the glass and my encounter with Paro. My entourage listened enthralled to her story and congratulated me for my heroic stance, comforted that she lived a better life because of me. We continued our high tea drinking while secretly observing the robotic dreamers on the street below. Then I saw her. Exactly where we had met years ago, wild hair burnt brown and begging a man for a few rupees. Confused about why she was begging again, I pulled away from the table, dodged the waiter heading to our table with the scones and ran into the street. I grabbed her by the shoulders and violently turned her around. It wasn't Paro.
Of course not how could I have been so foolish, Paro was safe with the NGO I had recommended her to. I returned to our high tea and excused my manners. Just to be completely sure, I called the NGO and asked them for an update on Paro. The clerk took ages to find her file. Then she said,
"Madamji I wish to inform you that Paro doesn't live with the NGO anymore."
"What? Why not?"
"Well, Madamji a few weeks after she came here, her father came by and took her and her sisters"
"But her father died in a coal mine!" I stuttered.
"Yes and he came by and took her away." Said the Indian clerk convincingly. "Would you care to make a donation Madamji?"
Then was a long dumbfound pause at my end.
"Hello? Madamji are you there?"
Click.
My entourage couldn't grasp why I turned so cold and then frantically asked them to call the police. "Why what is it?", my friends asked. I couldn't explain, and in a fit of rage and frustration I took the platter with the tea pot and scones and threw it at the high glass window hoping it would shatter into a million pieces. It didn't. It was there, mockingly proving a point, suddenly metamorphosing into a prison. Shocked I heard my friend explaining to the policeman that we're trying to locate a girl who disappeared from an NGO. "What is her name again?", my friend asked me, cupping the mouthpiece of her phone. Tears rolling down my cheeks, I replied. " Her name is Paro. Her name WAS Paro".
Of course not how could I have been so foolish, Paro was safe with the NGO I had recommended her to. I returned to our high tea and excused my manners. Just to be completely sure, I called the NGO and asked them for an update on Paro. The clerk took ages to find her file. Then she said,
"Madamji I wish to inform you that Paro doesn't live with the NGO anymore."
"What? Why not?"
"Well, Madamji a few weeks after she came here, her father came by and took her and her sisters"
"But her father died in a coal mine!" I stuttered.
"Yes and he came by and took her away." Said the Indian clerk convincingly. "Would you care to make a donation Madamji?"
Then was a long dumbfound pause at my end.
"Hello? Madamji are you there?"
Click.
My entourage couldn't grasp why I turned so cold and then frantically asked them to call the police. "Why what is it?", my friends asked. I couldn't explain, and in a fit of rage and frustration I took the platter with the tea pot and scones and threw it at the high glass window hoping it would shatter into a million pieces. It didn't. It was there, mockingly proving a point, suddenly metamorphosing into a prison. Shocked I heard my friend explaining to the policeman that we're trying to locate a girl who disappeared from an NGO. "What is her name again?", my friend asked me, cupping the mouthpiece of her phone. Tears rolling down my cheeks, I replied. " Her name is Paro. Her name WAS Paro".
