“That must produce a huge hill of hair.”
“Hill? It’s a Himalayan mountain of hair. But middlemen like me have no chance to collect it. After the hair is dedicated, the very holy Brahmin priests put it in their very holy warehouse. And every three months they hold an auction, where the export companies buy it directly.”
“You don’t have to tell us about Brahmins and priests,” said Ishvar. “The greed of the upper castes is well known in our village.”
“It’s the same everywhere,” agreed Rajaram. “I’m still waiting to meet one who will treat me as his equal. As a fellow human being — that’s all I want, nothing more.”
“From now on you can have our hair,” said Om generously.
“Thank you. I can cut it for you free, if you like, as long as you’re not fussy.” He tucked away the sacks of hair and brought out his comb and scissors, offering a crop on the spot.
“Wait,” said Om. “I should first let it grow long like yours. Then you can get more money for it.”
“Nothing doing,” said Ishvar. “No long hair. Dina Dalai won’t like a tailor with long hair.”
“One thing is certain,” said Rajaram. “Supply and demand for hair is endless, it will always be big business.” As they returned outside into the evening air, he added, “Sometimes, it also turns into big trouble.”
“Why trouble?”
“I was thinking about the hair of the beard of the Prophet. When it disappeared from the Hazrat-Bal mosque in Kashmir some years ago. You remember?”
“I do,” said Ishvar. “But Om was just a baby then, he doesn’t know.”
“Tell me, tell me. What happened?”
“Just that,” said Ishvar. “The sacred hair disappeared one day, and there were big riots. Everyone was saying the government should resign, that the politicians must have something to do with it. To cause trouble, you know, because Kashmiris were asking for independence.”
“What happened was,” added Rajaram, “after two weeks of riots and curfews, the government investigators announced they had found the sacred hair. But the people were not happy — what if the government is fooling us? they asked. What if they are passing off some ordinary hair for the sacred one? So the government got a group of very learned mullahs and put them in complete charge of inspecting the hair. When they said it was the correct one, only then did calm return to the streets of Srinagar.”
Outside, the smoke of cooking fires had taken control of the air. A voice yelled in the darkness, “Shanti! Hurry with the wood!” and a girl responded. Om looked: it was her, the one with the big brass pot. Shanti, he repeated silently, losing interest in the hair-collector’s story.
Rajaram propped a rock against the door of his shack so the wind wouldn’t blow it open, then escorted the tailors on a tour of the neighbourhood. He showed them a shortcut to the train station through a break in the railroad fence. “Keep walking through that gully, till you see the big advertisements for Amul Butter and Modern Bread. It will save you at least ten minutes when you go to work.”
He also warned them about the slum abutting their field. “Most of the people in that bustee are decent, but some lanes are very dangerous. Murder and robbery is definitely possible if you walk through there.” In the safe part of the slum, he introduced them to a tea stall whose owner he knew, where they could have tea and snacks on credit, paying at the end of the month.
Late that night, as they sat outside their shack, smoking, they heard the harmonium player. He had returned from work, and was playing for pleasure. The reedy notes of his instrument, in the bleak surroundings, were rich as a golden flute. “Meri dosti mera pyar,” he sang, and the song about love and friendship took the sting out of the acrid smoke of smouldering fires.
The Rations Officer was not at his desk. A peon said the boss was on his meditation break. “You should come back on Monday.”
“But we have to start our new jobs on Monday,” said Ishvar. “How long is the meditation break?”
The peon shrugged. “One hour, two hours, three — depends on how much weight is on his mind. Sahab says without the break he would turn into a madman by the end of the week.” The tailors decided to wait in line.
It must have been a relatively easy week for the Rations Officer, for he returned thirty minutes later, looking suitably revitalized, and gave the tailors a ration-card application form. He said there were experts on the pavement outside who, for a small fee, would fill it out for them.
“That’s okay, we know how to write.”
“Really?” he said, feeling snubbed. He prided his ability to appraise at a glance the applicants flowing past his desk every day — their place of origin, financial status, education, caste. His face muscles twitched, tightening in defiance of his just-completed meditation. The tailors’ literacy was an affront to his omniscience. “Complete it and bring it back,” he dismissed them with a petulant flutter of fingers.
They took the form into the corridor to fill in the blanks, using a window ledge to write on. It was a rough surface, and the ballpoint went through the paper several times. They tried to nurse the pockmarked sheet back to health by flattening the bumps with their fingernails, then rejoined the line to face their interlocutor.
The Rations Officer scanned the form and smiled. It was a superior smile: they may have learned how to write, but they knew nothing about neatness. He read their answers and stopped in triumph at the address portion. “What’s this rubbish?” he tapped with a nicotine-stained finger.
“It’s the place where we live,” said Ishvar. He had entered the name of the road that led to their row of shacks on the north side. The space for building name, flat number, and street number had been left blank.
“And where exactly is your house?”
They offered additional information: the closest intersection, the streets east and west of the slum, the train station, names of neighbourhood cinemas, the big hospital, the popular sweetmeat shop, a fish market.
“Stop, enough,” said the Rations Officer, covering his ears. “I don’t need to hear all this nonsense.” He pulled out a city directory, flipped a few pages, and studied a map. “Just as I thought. Your house is in a jhopadpatti, right?”
“It’s a roof — for the time being.”
“A jhopadpatti is not an address. The law says ration cards can only be issued to people with real addresses.”
“Our house is real,” pleaded Ishvar. “You can come and see it.”
“My seeing it is irrelevant. The law is what matters. And in the eyes of the law, your jhopdi doesn’t count.” He picked up a stack of forms and shuffled them to align the edges. Tossed back to their corner, they landed in disarray, raising dust. “But there is another way to get the ration card, if you are interested.”
“Yes, please — whatever is necessary.”
“If you let me arrange for your vasectomy, your application can be approved instantly.”
“Vasectomy?”
“You know, for Family Planning. The nussbandhi procedure.”
“Oh, but I already did that,” lied Ishvar.
“Show me your F.P.C.”
“F.P.C.?”
“Family Planning Certificate.”
“Oh, but I don’t have that.” Thinking quickly, he said, “In our native place there was a fire in the hut. Everything was destroyed.”
“That’s not a problem. The doctor I send you to will do it again as a special favour, and give you a new certificate.”
“Same operation, two times? Isn’t that bad?”
“Lots of people do it twice. Brings more benefits. Two transistor radios.”
“Why would I need two radios?” smiled Ishvar. “Do I listen to two different stations, one with each ear?”
“Look, if the harmless little operation frightens you, send this young fellow. All I need is one sterilization certificate.”
“But he is only seventeen! He has to marry, have some children, before his nuss is disconnected!”
“It’s up to you.”
Ishvar left in a rage, Om hurrying after him to calm him down as he fumed at the shocking, almost
