south in Bangalore, drawing closer every hour, a luxurious neighborhood called Kew Gardens and an old lady named Minnie Bagehot waited with a room for her, she prayed, and an Usha Desai to give her a job bigger than her father's.
On a hand-painted signboard, she saw the arrows: west for Mumbai and south for Hyderabad, which she knew to be in the direction of Bangalore. It was a crossroads for her as well, two possible fates, different buses. She went to the ladies' toilet, the very center of hell, the foulest few square inches in the universe, and changed into her last clean T-shirt, her favorite, Panzer Delight. She was nearer to Mumbai than Bangalore, just a day and a half away to the west, just the Ghats and a desert and a second range of mountains to cross, but no one could tell her when the Mumbai bus would arrive, and she couldn't bear the thought of another minute of the lingering stench. The Hyderabad bus was ready to leave. She couldn't wait; she couldn't stand to watch the women and children and the truck drivers with their insolent faces, and the knowledge that she was just a little luckier, but fundamentally no different.
The numb certitudes of her life:
I have no family. The only money in my pocket comes from a man whose world is alien to mine and whom I'll never see again. I have no job, no skills. School teaches little.
IT WAS NOON in Hyderabad, a legendary city she never thought she'd visit. At least she had been dropped at its bus depot early in the morning and been able to sit on a bench for two hours and sip hot tea before heading to the line for the last bus, the final leg. "Bangaluru? Bangaluru?" she kept asking, having learned Bangalore's southern name, though she could not read the southern script. By following vague hand gestures and leaving her perch two hours before the scheduled departure, she'd managed to stand near the head of the line. At boarding time, however, passengers lugging heavy burlap sacks and taped-together cardboard boxes had rushed from behind and shoved her aside. But nonetheless she was now on the bus to Bangalore. Five hundred and sixty more kilometers to go. Two thousand kilometers behind her. Assuming no breakdowns, there'd be another hot day and a cold all-nighter on the bus. Bangalore by morning.
Part Two
1
A dozen times in the night, the bus from Hyderabad passed through cities many times the size of Gauripur, and Angie thought,
This must be Bangalore.
Six million, seven million, Peter had said, sixty, seventy lakhs, how could she imagine such numbers? But the bus would merely stop under a streetlamp to let off or take on a passenger or two, then ease back into the black of the night. She couldn't read the strange scripts of southern languages, and they seemed impossible to speak, all thudding consonants linked with breathless spurts. She, so proud of her Hindi and English and even, if pushed, her Bangla, had been struck deaf and dumb.
Gradually the stops grew more frequent, the towns more closely connected, and the streets busier, even in the dark. Then, a few minutes after sunrise, they joined a long line of buses and pulled into Majestic, the open-air, bowl-shaped Bangalore bus depot.
She hadn't expected to start her new life half-frozen, exhausted, and starving. On the crowded intercity buses, she'd fought sleep all night, every night, guarding her precious cookie tin, which she held with both hands on her numbed lap. All she'd eaten during the week since leaving Patna were greasy samosas and scalding tea, which hawkers passed through the bus windows. Most passengers had either brought home-cooked food in tiffin carriers or gotten off the bus for hearty meals at roadside stalls. The spicy smells had tormented Angie, but she hadn't dared leave her suitcase unprotected in the luggage rack. The hard-sided Samsonite was too heavy to carry on and off the bus for food breaks. Now, as passengers elbowed her aside to lift their baggage out of overhead racks and stepped
On a hand-painted signboard, she saw the arrows: west for Mumbai and south for Hyderabad, which she knew to be in the direction of Bangalore. It was a crossroads for her as well, two possible fates, different buses. She went to the ladies' toilet, the very center of hell, the foulest few square inches in the universe, and changed into her last clean T-shirt, her favorite, Panzer Delight. She was nearer to Mumbai than Bangalore, just a day and a half away to the west, just the Ghats and a desert and a second range of mountains to cross, but no one could tell her when the Mumbai bus would arrive, and she couldn't bear the thought of another minute of the lingering stench. The Hyderabad bus was ready to leave. She couldn't wait; she couldn't stand to watch the women and children and the truck drivers with their insolent faces, and the knowledge that she was just a little luckier, but fundamentally no different.
The numb certitudes of her life:
I have no family. The only money in my pocket comes from a man whose world is alien to mine and whom I'll never see again. I have no job, no skills. School teaches little.
IT WAS NOON in Hyderabad, a legendary city she never thought she'd visit. At least she had been dropped at its bus depot early in the morning and been able to sit on a bench for two hours and sip hot tea before heading to the line for the last bus, the final leg. "Bangaluru? Bangaluru?" she kept asking, having learned Bangalore's southern name, though she could not read the southern script. By following vague hand gestures and leaving her perch two hours before the scheduled departure, she'd managed to stand near the head of the line. At boarding time, however, passengers lugging heavy burlap sacks and taped-together cardboard boxes had rushed from behind and shoved her aside. But nonetheless she was now on the bus to Bangalore. Five hundred and sixty more kilometers to go. Two thousand kilometers behind her. Assuming no breakdowns, there'd be another hot day and a cold all-nighter on the bus. Bangalore by morning.
Part Two
1
A dozen times in the night, the bus from Hyderabad passed through cities many times the size of Gauripur, and Angie thought,
This must be Bangalore.
Six million, seven million, Peter had said, sixty, seventy lakhs, how could she imagine such numbers? But the bus would merely stop under a streetlamp to let off or take on a passenger or two, then ease back into the black of the night. She couldn't read the strange scripts of southern languages, and they seemed impossible to speak, all thudding consonants linked with breathless spurts. She, so proud of her Hindi and English and even, if pushed, her Bangla, had been struck deaf and dumb.
Gradually the stops grew more frequent, the towns more closely connected, and the streets busier, even in the dark. Then, a few minutes after sunrise, they joined a long line of buses and pulled into Majestic, the open-air, bowl-shaped Bangalore bus depot.
She hadn't expected to start her new life half-frozen, exhausted, and starving. On the crowded intercity buses, she'd fought sleep all night, every night, guarding her precious cookie tin, which she held with both hands on her numbed lap. All she'd eaten during the week since leaving Patna were greasy samosas and scalding tea, which hawkers passed through the bus windows. Most passengers had either brought home-cooked food in tiffin carriers or gotten off the bus for hearty meals at roadside stalls. The spicy smells had tormented Angie, but she hadn't dared leave her suitcase unprotected in the luggage rack. The hard-sided Samsonite was too heavy to carry on and off the bus for food breaks. Now, as passengers elbowed her aside to lift their baggage out of overhead racks and stepped
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