Miss New India

Championism: used-car-salesman friendly. She felt better.

Angie or Suzie or whatever, leaning across the table with her breasts all but pouring out, and one of them, she saw, with a butterfly tattoo fluttering up from the dark interior, would have caused a riot in Gauripur. And the tall girl with highlighted hair, calling herself Angie on Tuesday and Saturday and Millie on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, who had to smoke on breaks and at the coffee shop, said she was looking for a new roomie at two thousand a month with kitchen privileges. Angie said she hoped she had a room through a relative in Kew Gardens, a statement that caused no dropped silverware, no raised eyes. Two more boys from a neighboring table, a Steve and a Charlie, offered her a ride on their bikes, which, too late, she realized meant motorcycles. They were with girls, a ponytailed one named Gloria and a green-haired one named Roxie, 'from Chicago,' she said. 'Where else?'

Ah, but did they teach you a Chicago accent? she wondered, remembering Peter. That'll be five dallers.

'Mukesh Sharma called again last night,' Cindy said, 'poor fucking loser, I almost feel sorry for him. He calls himself Mickey now, but it's the same old Mukky.'

'You can block him,' said Mike. 'A guy calls support three, four times a week-they'll deal with him. You can say whatever you want to him, even the Old Bitch'll back you.'

'Mukesh Sharma is a real Hannibal Lecter. He creeps me out from twelve thousand miles away,' said Suzie. 'I don't know why they let those guys into the States. University of Illinois used to have some class. I keep hoping I get him-he won't have the balls to call back again.'

Mike started singing, 'I get no kick from Champagne.' He had a surprising voice: deep, American. 'Mukky Sharma lives in Champaign.'

'Well, no wonder he's crazy,' Angie said, 'living in Champagne!' Everyone laughed, and she didn't know why what she said was so funny. The sun was so bright, pouring directly into her eyes and boring into her skull. How does a person even manage to live in Champagne? They drink it like crazy in Bollywood movies. What's the word- flutes? An actual Indian name like Mukesh Sharma sounded strangely comforting in this ersatz America, with all its Mikes and Steves and Charlies.

'Indian guys in the States,' Millie explained. 'They're the sickest perverts. They spend all day in the lab, then they spend all night on the Indian marriage sites. They're so fucking horny, they invent computer problems just so they can be patched through to Bangalore and talk to an Indian girl. They don't know we have their name and credit history and previous calls on our screens as soon as they call in.'

Cindy was playing to an attentive circle. 'He goes, 'Hi, my name is Mickey. What is your good name please?'' She did a good imitation of a certain kind of Indian accent-Angie's father's, for example. 'I say, 'Angie.' He goes, 'Am-I-detecting-an-Anjali-under-that-Angie-disguise, Miss Angie?' I nearly said, 'No, but am I detecting some kind of sick shit under Mickey?' What he really wants to know is, what's the weather like in Bangalore today? What's playing at the Galaxy? Do we still hang out at Forum? What about Styx or Pub World? What's your real name and where do you come from and are you married and how old are you and 'Please, Miss Angie, your height in centimeters…' Gawd, I hate this job!'

Darren raised his arms. 'Silence, please. Kolkata Cutie needs to hear our tribute to Mukky Sharma.' Everyone looked at Angie, raising their coffee cups in her direction, and began singing in what seemed to her nonsense syllables:

I get no kick from Champagne,

Urbana too is a kind of a zoo,

But I know now what has to be true-

There's something sick coming off of you.

'Lyrics by Girish Gujral,' said Bombay Girl. 'He'll come over soon enough.'

Angie knew the meaning of the words fuck, shit, asshole, though she'd never used them. Where do young Indians learn to use such language? What frightened her was the simple truth that if a boy from an American college, even a psychopath, had sent in his marital resume, her father would have lunged at it. Any Indian going to any American school was, by definition, a catch.

'There's always the phone-sex line,' Mike said. 'You'd be way cool. They actually favor exotic names and Indian accents.'

'A girl in our dorm went over to phone sex,' said Suzie. 'The money's good, but you have to find weird ways of keeping those guys talking.'

'Not that you couldn't,' said Mike.

'Oh, just shut up,' said Suzie. She waited for silence. 'You have something more you want to say… Mahendra? Oh, sorry, Mike.'

My God, how a simple name change changes everything!

'Three hundred bucks a night weird, I hear,' said Darren. Who was he in his pre-Bangalore life, Angie wondered. Dinesh? Dharmendra? 'Pretty cool.'

'One step up from the streets,' snorted Roxie. And you, Roxie: Rupa? Rukhsana?

The women didn't seem jealous or possessive. Most of them were plump and the men already getting stout, like her father. Their friendships didn't seem like lead-ins to marriage. The young people in Bangalore had no parents, no nearby families to appease. No gossip or scandal could compromise them. They had come from all over India to get away from gossip.

It was exciting just to be part of such a flow, even for one morning, and to be carried along like a twig in a flood. She'd been accepted, no questions asked, even if she didn't understand most of what she'd been hearing. It was English, but… From her perch on the Barista's plaza, she could see the tops of skyscrapers flashing their international names in blue and red neon. She knew those companies: IBM, Canon, Siemens, Daihatsu. None of them existed in Gauripur. A Pizza Hut in Gauripur would automatically become the luxury hangout, the Place to Be Seen, and would draw longer lines than a cinema hall. In Gauripur there was only Alps Palace, a Welcome Group hotel with a vegetarian restaurant and innumerable tea stalls, where men sat or stood, sipping and spitting. For Gauripur's alcoholics there were two back-street liquor stores where bottles were wrapped in straw and newspaper and smuggled out in used plastic sacks with sari shop logos.

High on the side of one building she could read hand-painted placards: ENGLISH LESSENS. CALL-CENTRE PLACEMENT. FRESHERS TAKE NOTE. FOREGIN LANGUAGES TAUGHT; FRANCIAS, ESPAGNOL, ITALINO. She found it reassuring, as though they'd known she was coming and might need a brush-up course, even if Bangalore spelled words differently.

She would like to stay. Barista was comfortable, with a touch of conspicuous luxury and a hint of intrigue. The young people were just like her, open and friendly, and probably held the kind of job she was hoping to get. She'd heard that ten thousand agents a month were hired, and six or seven thousand quit or were let go. What could a girl buy, with fifteen thousand rupees coming in? For one thing, she could stop in a Barista and order cold coffee with ice cream and not think twice. For Angie, a lakh-100,000 rupees-represented a lifetime of scrimping and saving. In Bangalore, she could be earning a lakh, or even two lakhs, every month.

She was swept up in visions of stuffed clothing closets, a scooter, and an apartment of her own. Big-city ambitions; small-town desires. Her poor sister worked her fingers to the bone-fingers and more-for two thousand a month, if that. From a few tables away, a pleasant male voice spoke up. 'Kew Gardens is on my way,' but Angie was still lost in her future. In a few months, after promotions, before she turned twenty, she'd be earning more than her father, far more than her father.

Those pleasant words from a distant table had been meant for her. Suddenly there he was, in blue jeans, white shirt, and blue blazer, belt buckle at her eye level, dangling his car keys. He seemed slightly older than the others but still young, plump, and round-faced, with glasses: a harmless, even friendly face. 'My name is Girish Gujral,' he said. 'They call me GG. I hear you need a ride to Kew Gardens. My Daewoo is at your service. Don't worry, it's on my way.'

He kept on talking, but she couldn't make out the words. His lips were moving, but nothing got through to her. She thought she should stand, get closer, and shake his hand, but as she tried to rise, her legs went numb, then her head filled with light, her knees buckled, and she was falling against him. He threw his arms around her, keeping her half-standing, then let her down to the ground, easily. She saw faces, all the girls and some of the boys she'd been watching, arranged in a semicircle around her. Mr. GG cradled her head in his hand and shouted to the others, 'Get toast and juice.' Then, to her, he almost whispered, 'When did you last eat?'