by Jyothi Vinod
Tilted at a dangerous angle and packed to the hilt, the bus overtook Indu’s car and screeched to a halt at the bus-stop ahead. Unable to change lines, there wasn’t much Indu could do but wait. Over 20 people, including school children with huge bags on their backs, jostled to board the bus. The fact that the only free space available was on the roof didn’t deter them. Egged on by the conductor’s, “Get inside, get inside,” nearly everybody boarded the bus. Many schoolboys balanced themselves precariously on the bus footboards, held in place by their fate.
One of the schoolboys resembled their maid’s son.“Isn’t that Vishnu?” Indu asked.
Shashank looked up from the game he was playing on her cellphone. “Yes.”
The bus lurched on. Indu made a mental note to have a word with her maid, Malathy when she came to wash clothes in the afternoon. Was she aware of the huge risk her son was taking every day?
“Vishnu could fall off and be run over. It pains me to see children struggle to go to school. Shashank, with all the comfort you have, you should work harder. Lal Bahadur Shastri—”
“—carried books on his head and swam a river to school. You’ve told me this before.” Shashank shook his head. “Now, if Papa were poor, I would have delivered newspapers, washed cars, and read under street lights. Which I think is a lot more fun than getting stuck in traffic jams.”
Indu smiled. “Maybe we could drop Vishnu to school,” she said, more to herself as she drove behind the bus.
They reached school thirty minutes later. She waited till Shashank walked through the gates before she drove back. She worried how overweight he was for his twelve years and still dragged his left foot—a small memento of an old accident. His physical education teacher complained that Shashank thought up excuses to read in the library to avoid games. She had to get him resume his swimming lessons.
After she returned home, Indu caught up with her chores. In the afternoon the sound of clothes being beaten on the washing stone reminded her to speak to Malathy.
“Which school does your son go to?”
“Sarkari shaale. Near the market.”
“I saw him on the bus footboard today. It’s dangerous to travel like that. I can drop him to school from tomorrow.”
Malathy’s expression remained inscrutable. The same as when she received food, clothes or gifts—never a show of effusive or obvious happiness. She had been with Indu for eight years and rarely discussed her family. Indu knew vaguely that there were older daughters who were married and a husband who sold tender coconuts by day and drank his earnings by night. Vishnu often came by after school to collect the house key, which was how they recognized him.
Indu’s husband, Harsha was enthusiastic. “Ask her, we can help pay for his education, if necessary.”
The first morning, Vishnu’s sullen expression hinted at a possible coercion from his mother into accepting Indu’s offer. He was extremely thin and serious looking for a sixteen-year-old. He had repeated a few grades and was now in grade seven. He answered in monosyllables and clutched his torn satchel bursting with books. It took about a month of Shashank’s friendly overtures for Vishnu to open up and seek help with homework. But that too stopped after a few days. He was probably embarrassed that a younger boy answered his doubts with such ease.
Vishnu had insisted he be dropped a little distance before his school. He preferred to walk the rest of the way. Indu understood his discomfort.
Shashank eventually lost interest trying to befriend Vishnu. He went back to playing games on Indu’s cellphone while Vishnu stared out of the window. The morning routine went on without a hitch for three months.
One night they returned late from a wedding dinner and Shashank didn’t sleep well due to a tummy upset. He also ran a slight temperature. When Malathy arrived as usual at 6.30 am the next morning, Indu informed her that Shashank had a tummy upset and wouldn’t be going to school. Vishnu would have to take the bus.
Late that afternoon Malathy came to wash clothes. Indu read a book while Shashank napped. She saw Vishnu walk to the backyard to collect the key from his mother.
Indu decided she’d give Vishnu a sandwich and tell him he may have to take the bus the next day too. She stopped near the backdoor when she heard him laugh aloud.
“So that fatso missed school because he overate?” Vishnu asked.
Malathy chuckled and her reply was inaudible. Indu felt blood rush to her face. She listened with disbelief.
“Hope that lame fellow goes to school tomorrow.”
“Shh…talk softly. Now take the key and go home,” Malathy urged.
Indu’s hands trembled as she threw the sandwich in the dustbin. She strode back into the bedroom.
“Amma, I’m leaving. Shut the door. Will babu go to school tomorrow?” Malathy called out.
In reply, Indu banged the door shut and shoved the latch noisily into place. Her loyal maid had turned traitor in an instant. And that ungrateful Vishnu deserved no kindness either. Fatso and lame, did he say? Maybe it was time to find a new maid. All the clothes, food and tips had gone waste. A maid was after all a maid. In the past, punctuality and a lack of avariciousness had always tilted the balance in Malathy’s favor. Was that why Indu had expected her to be different? But if this was how she spoke behind their backs or thought of them, she was no different from the loud-mouthed sisterhood of maids who thronged their neighborhood.
After dinner that night Indu discussed the incident with her husband. Harsha’s face grew solemn.
“Did Shashank hear Vishnu?”
“No, he was in the bedroom. Malathy and her son were talking in the backyard.”
“That’s why it’s necessary to keep servants in their place. Treat them well and they sit on your head.”
“Now what should I do?”
“Do what?”
“I mean dropping Vishnu…”
“Let him hang for his life in the bus. If he breaks his neck, he deserves it.”
“Now, now, Harsha. Cool down. I’ll just tell Malathy I’m taking another route.”
“Okay, do what you want. Dropping him wasn’t my idea in the first place.” Harsha yawned aloud.
“Shashank had better take another day’s rest tomorrow.”
“But Mamma, there’s the quiz final tomorrow. I can’t miss school.”
Indu and Harsha turned.
“You’re awake?”
“My stomach is better. I was hungry.”
Shashank took an apple. “Mamma will you—” he took a large bite “—I mean, won’t you drop Vishnu tomorrow?”
“I’ll have to take another route. Some road block—”
“I heard you.”
“What did you hear?” Harsha put an arm around Shashank.
“What you were both talking about.”
“Forget Vishnu. He’s stupid. He’s repeated grades so many times already.” Indu bristled with the memory, agonized that Shashank had overheard them.
“Is there a word like kindophobia?” Shashank asked.
“Eh…what?”Indu asked.
“Mamma, I think you have it—the fear to be kind.”
“What nonsense. Why should your mother be afraid? That servant’s son had no business calling you names. That too after all we’ve done for them these years,” Harsha said.
“Many kids in school call me those names and more. It doesn’t bother me at all. I am fat, and I limp.”
Harsha stared at Shashank and then at Indu.
“Mamma is always afraid to be kind. Don’t give the cat too much milk—it’ll come inside and steal; don’t encourage the maid—she’ll take leave; don’t talk to the rag picker—he’ll rob us; don’t give alms to the beggar—he’ll come by every day; don’t—”
“But sonny, you’re too young to understand the ways of the world. It’s not a good-bad, black-white world like in your comics. One has to be careful.” Harsha’s face reddened as he explained.
“Mamma saw Vishnu on the footboard. She said he could fall and come under another vehicle. She said children shouldn’t struggle so much to go to school. He never asked to be dropped to school. She offered. Now she’s afraid.”
“Shashank, why do you think it’d brave of me to continue to drop him?” Indu asked. She oddly felt like a child and a grown-up at the same time.
Shashank yawned. “What’s for snacks and lunch tomorrow?”
“You didn’t answer me,” Indu said.
“I don’t know…I just feel you should be brave to do…to do the right thing.” Shashank scratched his head. “I mean, if you believe in something so strongly, why should you be scared of what he thinks?” He nibbled at the apple core, lost in thought. “What if he just thought of me as a fatso and a lame boy but… but never said it aloud? Then you’d never have known. You’d have dropped him to school every day.”
They watched Shashank shuffle up the stairs to his bedroom in his baggy pajamas.
“I never even knew there was a word like that—kindophobia,” Harsha whispered.
“I don’t think there is. But he sort of summed it all up nicely. Didn’t he?” Indu said, bursting with pride.
Pic from http://ibreakmysilence.org/sarath-ramadurgam/
