Water: A Novel (Bapsi Sidwha) by Bapsi Sidhwa

Author:Bapsi Sidhwa [Sidhwa, Bapsi]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781571319166
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2013-07-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Madhumati lay on her stomach like a sedated whale, and her arms lay against her body like limp flippers. Chuyia, holding onto a bar stretched above the bed for balance, stood on the cushion of Madhumati’s wide buttocks, shifting her weight from one foot to the other to pummel and massage the obese bottom. Madhumati moaned with pleasure. Heralded by the buzz and hum of her song, Gulabi arrived at the barred window opening on the alley, prepared to share the morning’s gossip and while away the time. Mitthu the parrot swung in his cage, repeating with infuriating insistence, “Pretty Madhu! Pretty Madhu!”

Madhumati praised Chuyia’s efforts, “Well done, my little mouse! Now do my legs.”

Chuyia obliged: hopping down she knelt by Madhumati’s bed and began kneading and massaging her flaccid calves with her strong little hands.

“Gently!” cautioned Madhumati, slightly raising her head to look at Chuyia. “My skin is sensitive.” Then, to the world at large, which at that point consisted only of Chuyia and Gulabi, she declared, “Even if a mosquito sits on me, it creates a crater.” She sighed exaggeratedly and gave Chuyia a fey look. Getting into the spirit of the sport, Gulabi flipped a dainty wrist and cooed, “Hai, you poor thing.”

Chuyia grinned and continued to work silently. After a while, Madhumati, pummelled to a state of comatose bliss, mumbled, “Ask Gulabi. I always keep my promises. If I say I will do something, I always do it.”

“That she does,” Gulabi unctuously confirmed, and advanced the conversation to the next level.

“If she says she’ll send you home, then she will.”

Hope welled in Chuyia’s heart, and her eyes lit up. No matter how often Madhumati mumbled these words in her sedated state or how often Gulabi attested to them, Chuyia knew they were barren assertions; yet she could no more tamp the hope that flared in her heart each time she heard them than she could stop breathing. She kneaded Madhumati’s thighs with renewed vigour and her little body rocked with the effort. Madhumati shut her eyes in pleasure, and Gulabi took this as a signal to start gossiping.

“Do you know . . .” she began.

“Know what?” said Madhumati.

“This Gandhi is going to sink India.”

“What’s he done now?”

“Gandhi says, ‘The untouchables are the children of God!’” Gulabi said in a shocked, pious voice.

This news had the desired effect. Madhumati reared up like a scandalized cobra, and shook her head in disbelief. “Disgusting! Before he came, everything ran like an English clock. Tick tock!”

Gulabi chimed in with Madhumati’s ticking clock, “Tick tock!” and clapped her hands in a manner typical of eunuchs.

Madhumati appeared to become thoughtful, and a sly look crept into her eyes. “Next he’ll be saying, ‘Hijras are the children of God!’”

Gulabi stopped laughing. Then she said, “If untouchables are ‘children of God,’ then eunuchs are His step-children! Even our earthly mother–father have no claim on us.”

Chuyia looked at her round-eyed. “You have mother–father?”

“Everybody has mother–father,” Gulabi said. “But when a eunuch is born, whether it is in a palace or hovel, the hijras claim it and carry the baby off.

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