by Anuradha C
Mohan looked around the restaurant, and heaved a sigh of relief. “Just two more tables to clear up, and I can get out of here,” he mused to himself, with a wicked smile. He looked out of the window to see if she was still there on the footpath; she was. It was 10:45 in the night already; she wouldn’t be there for long, so he would have to hurry up.
The restaurant that Mohan worked in was new. It had opened just the previous weekend. It had an attached bar, and saw brisk business every night. Tonight being a Friday night, the place was particularly buzzing with activity. This part of Bangalore was inhabited by the neo-rich, the IT community. Young bachelors with plenty of disposable income found the locality perfect for their indulgences – glitzy malls, multiplexes, lavish restaurants and pubs. Mohan had quit his previous job as a waiter in a traditional vegetarian hotel; he found the ambience too mundane, too lifeless. He loved it here in Sunshine Pub, on Outer Ring Road. On one side outside the restaurant was a huge mall, with blinding lights and jarring music being played by a live band in the mall corridors. Just a few metres away from the restaurant was a huge construction site, currently in limbo due to some litigation issues of yet another mall. Oh yes, young people don’t need schools, hospitals, libraries – they would rather have food and drink and merry making all around them. Mohan loved this locality precisely for this reason, though he was seldom left with enough money to make the most of the bounty around him.
It was a chilly winter night, in the middle of December. But Mona was dressed in as little clothes as she could possibly manage, the V-neck line of her blouse plunging, her short skirt with a deep cut in the centre. She sat on the pavement with her legs slightly apart, and her body drooping a little in front, to make sure that her cleavage was just about visible. She had neatly shaved her face, her chest and legs, but the hair always grew back within a day, causing a severe itch and burning her skin. She sat there wondering how much longer she would have to wait in the biting cold before some customer would walk up to her.
Mohan was attending to his last customer; he placed the bill and some saunf in a bowl on the customer’s table and walked away in a hurry to get changed. He wanted to get to Mona before she got picked up by somebody else. Mohan did not have enough money to approach a woman that night; he would have to make do with Mona. Trans-genders charged one half of what women charged per night, and that was all he could afford. He was not new to Mona, nor was he unfamiliar with the routine. He would walk up to the pavement, start the bargain at 200 rupees and finally settle at 250 rupees. She would lead him to the basement of the site under construction. They would be out of the place in an hour, and he could get back to his room by 2 in the night. He glanced outside the window once again in the hope of signalling to Mona that she should wait for him. But she was facing the other way, towards the road.
Mona had a shawl wrapped around her wrist. She was desperate to cover herself up, as the nip in the air was making her shiver. She looked at the shawl, let out a sigh of despair and continued to gaze at the highway ahead of her. She was on the pavement on the service road of the highway. The mall was slowly calming down, the crowd was waning, fewer cars were exiting, lights in some floors were dimming out. Her hopes began to build, it was her last chance. The last group of workers and waiters from the mall would be walking past her any minute now.
She glanced at every passing motorbike, and even yelled out at a couple of familiar faces. But nobody seemed to be interested that day. She bit her lip and cursed her luck. It would be her second consecutive night out in the cold, with no business at all. After what seemed like eternity, a security guard from the mall walked past her. His ill-fitted uniform sat like a cloak on his lanky frame. His hands were in his pockets, and he was murmuring something to himself, as if chanting some magical words to beat the cold. Exasperated at not being noticed, Mona called out to him. “Eh, naam kya hai re tera?” (“Eh, what’s your name?”) The security guard turned around to see who was calling out to him. He was new in town, his job in the mall was just two days old, and he was plainly surprised to find Mona on the pavement waving to him.
He went towards her and asked politely “Mera naam Shambhu hai, kya chahiye aapko?” (“My name is Shambhu, what did you want from me?”) Mona smirked at his seemingly polite words, and retorted “Itni raat ko yahaan baitke mein kya taare gin rahi hoon? 300 mein chalta hai to bol.” (“What you think I am sitting here for at this hour, to count stars? I can come along if you are ok with 300 rupees”) Shambhu scanned her from top to bottom, looking at her hair, her glittering white bindi, her deep neck line, her posture, and the tired look on her face. Her teeth chattered as she spoke, and her fingers were fidgeting with the shawl.
She prodded him for a quick response to her offer, and told him she was ready to accept 250 rupees, but no lesser than that. Shambhu took his right hand out of his pant pocket, and with it came out a few half-folded hundred and ten rupee notes. He pulled one hundred rupee note out, and handed it over to Mona. She gave him a perplexed look and gathered all the expletives she could think of. Before she rose to yell at him, he bent down to touch her palm that was huddled under the shawl. In a calm low voice, he said “Ab ghar jaake so jao, goodnight.” (“Just go home and sleep now, goodnight”), and walked away, putting his hand back into his pocket. Her eyes welled up as she held the hundred rupee note tightly, rose from the pavement, and started walking towards her home, in the nearby slum. She was weary, cold and slightly overwhelmed. Business could wait another day, she reasoned.
Mohan stood at the gate of his restaurant witnessing this whole episode, and gasped in disbelief. What a jerk, he thought, swearing at the security guard. He tried calling out to Mona but she was beyond earshot. ”I should get out of work on time at least tomorrow”, he said to himself and walked towards his room, gnashing his teeth, seething with anger, unable to control his aroused desire.
Anuradha C is an IT industry drop-out after 10 years of slogging and money-making. She is hoping to channelize her passion for writing into a satisfying experience for herself and a joyous experience for her readers. She is a community member of the Bangalore Writers Workshop.
