City of Dreams: Stories by Pranaya SJB Rana

Author:Pranaya SJB Rana [Rana, Pranaya SJB]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rupa Publications India
Published: 2015-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

It had been almost a year now. She missed her family with an ache that was pervasive and terminal. She cried alone at night, stifling sobs into her dirty pillow. At first she kept telling herself that the Rato Bhaley was temporary, until she raised enough money to go back home, to send Manju to school, to take care of her parents. Now, almost a year later, Maya had little money saved up. She made a modest amount, even after Basanta dai’s cut, but most of it went towards food and rent. She lived in a cramped apartment in Chettrapati, just a fifteen-minute walk from Thamel. Chettrapati was seedy, especially the area she lived in. Junkies, thieves and murderers waited at every corner. She’d already been robbed twice. Her apartment had a single bedroom where three other girls slept. Maya slept in the living room, on a simple cot with a bone-thin mattress. They shared a single toilet, which was almost always flooded. The other girls often shared Maya’s clothes. Maya made more money than them, so she would end up buying more clothes. She didn’t mind sharing as long as they gave it back. Some did, most didn’t.

It wasn’t just her clothes, her money often went missing as well. She tried her hardest not to lend money and hid whatever she had in a sock and under her mattress. Thrice, a few hundred rupees had disappeared from the sock. As much as she hated to leave her money there, she was loath to carry it with her, always afraid of having it stolen.

Seven o’clock and the one letter still remained. Maya didn’t know what to do with it. Usually the people who delivered the letters said who they were for, but this one man, he’d just handed it over and slunk away, like a rat into the darkness. The letter was an old-fashioned white envelope with red borders, two faded stamps peeling in one corner.

‘Oi Maya! We’re going home. Aira ho?’ shouted Radha, busy changing clothes.

‘There’s still one left.’ Maya turned the letter over in her hands, feeling the coarse paper with her fingertips, imagining what secrets lay in its lettered depths.

‘Let me see,’ said Sarita, whom Maya secretly hated, and snatched the letter from her hands. Sarita was short, a plump woman with breasts like sacks of rice and a girth wider than a peepal tree. Plus Sarita could read.

‘Oho!’ Sarita exclaimed in surprise. ‘This letter is for you!’

‘What?’ Maya didn’t believe her for a second. In another second, all of the girls had gathered around the letter. Maya believed her then.

‘It says so right here. Written in such nice handwriting.’

‘What does it say? Read it quick!’ said Rama, more excited than Maya was.

As Sarita tore the letter open, Maya flinched. Inside was a single sheet of paper, lined notebook paper torn from a school copybook. ‘Mero pyari Maya…’ Sarita began. And suddenly Maya didn’t want to hear anymore. She knew what the letter contained. Only her mother, who thought she was a waitress, knew where she worked in Kathmandu.

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