When I moved into the house, it was the children that I noticed first. They were playing cricket in the maidan facing the backyard. Quite good cricket, with makeshift wickets and a tennis ball. I shouted at them because the ball kept coming into my garden, messing up the newlydug flower beds. I was careful of my hedge. Distance is important to me. I like neighbours to remain that way.The youngest boy was sent in to retrieve the ball. He said, 'Sorry Aunty', in a nasal voice. His manner was pleasant so I was appeased, though I hate this 'aunty'business, a term or address the serving classes have picked up. I guess they want to be like us without really understanding what it takes. The layers of conditioning that would peel off like cabbage if we were to be stripped!
Off and on, I lectured to some, like this chokra at the bania´s or the paper boy. Why not didi, or bahen. I´d ask. Why this ´unkel´ and ´antee´? Why this disfigurement, this hotchpotch, this mismatch of terms? You see, I am an English-language teacher. But it´s more than that. I´m from UP, people these uncouth Delhi Punjabis and Haryanvis call ´bhaiyajis´ because they have no understanding of anything beyond the grab and push which makes this city tick. Unfortunately, they have set the tone for Delhi, so we don´t hear the sweet language that gave us Rahim, Abul Fazl and others, but just this crude jargon of these Westernised rustics who race metallic-coloured Marutis with stickers screaming ´Pappu di gaddi´ and ´Munna de pappa di gaddi´, sporting hip-hugging Levis and Raybans, a la Miami Vice. And think they´re the cat´s whiskers. Horrible! But my efforts to make them see culture always end as a lecture to myself. This is the authentic urban wild frontier and those boys playing cricket living in servants´ quarters—well they want to be upcoming Delhi cowboys as well.
To get back to the boys. There must have been half-a-dozen in all, wearing loose baggy trousers and with slicked-back hair sporting little tails. Smarmy! It is amazing how particular they are about clothes nowadays. Not much different from us except for a certain something which doesn´t quite go. Not that I´m trying to be superior. I´m all for the upliftment of the masses. And cast is one thing I hate. I myself have been to a missionary school and we gave generously to the Poor Fund and always make it a point to mix with the poor Christian children whose fathers were bearers or cooks in embassies or something.
But the boys, I was telling you about them. When 1 first noticed the father of those kids from the privacy of the veranda-window blinds it was his gleaming white vest that caught my eye. I remember thinking how sparkling white it was and wondering how his wife did it. I have two servants but the laundry never comes out looking like this. The vest looked fine against his olive skin. It had a luminescent oily shine, the skin I mean. Slender and graceful of body, he didn´t immediately come across as the father of the brood. I noticed him often after that. You see, I am a part-time artist andcolours catch my eye. Rich brown skin, black hair and white gleaming teeth. Thought it was his clothes that had attracted my attention, I began to notice the way he walked. With a swagger as if he was in a constant slow-motion dance, a jingle playing in his head, moving it rhythmically this way and that, quite aware of its own perfection. I sometimes forgot it was the servants quarters he lived in, and stopped whatever 1 was doing to admire him. Naturally 1 don´t like the idea of admiring these sorts. Something not quite proper in it. It did irritate me that the man tried to look so much like a a sahib, when, let´s face it, he simply wasn´t. Why did he try so hard?