one, other one,” she pipes. “All right,” I say, “what do you call an elephant leaning against a tree?” Meera furrows her brow; she is adorable. I answer, “Bruised.” Meera looks puzzled. “I do not get it.” Puneet then speaks in a most gloomy drone. “It’s because the tree fell over and the elephant hurt itself.” (It is a terrible joke but I am awful at jokes.) Meera then responsively bursts into hoots of laughter and I laugh with her; she really is a child (this is her key selling point). Mamaki takes extra for her by telling her cooks that she is ten years old when in fact she is twelve. “Other one, other one,” Meera calls. I think for a while and say in an undertone, “What do you call a woman with three titties?” Meera shakes her head and shrugs. “Mamaki Hippopotamus,” I answer, “two on her chest and one on her chin.” Meera breaks into hysterics. Then Puneet perks up: “What do you call a woman with a beard?” He sits up straight. Meera answers, “Mamaki Hippopotamus.” “Yes,” Puneet says a bit too loudly, and laughs for the first time in ages. I continue, “Puneet, what happened to the sixth girl of our group?” Puneet answers, “She is in between Mamaki’s buttocks.” Meera is laughing so hard I think she will wet herself. Meera says, “My go, my go,” barely able to get out the words. She says, “Where is Mamaki’s husband?” I answer, “Between her titties.” No response. Meera and Puneet are silent and both are looking over my left shoulder. “He’s dead,” Mamaki says from behind me, and waddles off down the street. The three of us are silent for as long as we can possibly be, but then Puneetstarts to smirk. His smirk becomes my giggle and soon the three of us break out in floods of laughter. Gripping his stomach, Puneet, who is almost crying with laughter, says, “He suffocated … they were having sex and he slipped inside her … That’s why she walks like that.”
That was the last tummy-aching laugh we would ever share together.
I first met Puneet in what is referred to as the Orphanage. It covers a space about half the size of the meat market and is a series of bamboo poles that support a patchwork of threadbare cloths of many vintages. As one cloth piece becomes decrepit and falls apart, it is replaced with another piece that is slightly less worn.
The Orphanage is policed by Yazaks, men and women who have divested themselves of humanity. Yazaks view their orphans solely in terms of the income they provide. The Yazaks reside in a brick house at the easternmost end of the Orphanage, from which sounds of music and television continuously blare. Interestingly, except where money is concerned, the policing is lax because there are so many children who are indistinguishable from each other. The Orphanage is made up of a herd of street urchins who reside there until called upon to perform some service or other, for which they are directly rewarded with food, clothing, or sometimes (rarely) money. No work, no food. No one steals from the Yazaks or cheats thembecause just as a child’s presence is anonymous, so is his or her absence. Many rumors abound; for example, I heard about a child from the Orphanage who stole a bicycle on his own and pocketed twenty rupees from a fence without telling his Yazak. The fence told the Orphanage, as the child’s wrist tattoo was a signature that identified him as coming from this particular Orphanage. Justice was immediate and occurred in the open. Using his right hand, the Yazak lifted the child, age eleven or twelve, by his hair off the ground and with his left hand cut his throat with a Damascus blade. Before the second spurt of blood had shot from his neck, the Yazak had thrown the boy to the ground just as you might throw away a sweets wrapper. Before the boy’s soul was released at the moment of death a minute later, he had been stripped of his meager clothes and shoes by the other urchins. That evening
That was the last tummy-aching laugh we would ever share together.
I first met Puneet in what is referred to as the Orphanage. It covers a space about half the size of the meat market and is a series of bamboo poles that support a patchwork of threadbare cloths of many vintages. As one cloth piece becomes decrepit and falls apart, it is replaced with another piece that is slightly less worn.
The Orphanage is policed by Yazaks, men and women who have divested themselves of humanity. Yazaks view their orphans solely in terms of the income they provide. The Yazaks reside in a brick house at the easternmost end of the Orphanage, from which sounds of music and television continuously blare. Interestingly, except where money is concerned, the policing is lax because there are so many children who are indistinguishable from each other. The Orphanage is made up of a herd of street urchins who reside there until called upon to perform some service or other, for which they are directly rewarded with food, clothing, or sometimes (rarely) money. No work, no food. No one steals from the Yazaks or cheats thembecause just as a child’s presence is anonymous, so is his or her absence. Many rumors abound; for example, I heard about a child from the Orphanage who stole a bicycle on his own and pocketed twenty rupees from a fence without telling his Yazak. The fence told the Orphanage, as the child’s wrist tattoo was a signature that identified him as coming from this particular Orphanage. Justice was immediate and occurred in the open. Using his right hand, the Yazak lifted the child, age eleven or twelve, by his hair off the ground and with his left hand cut his throat with a Damascus blade. Before the second spurt of blood had shot from his neck, the Yazak had thrown the boy to the ground just as you might throw away a sweets wrapper. Before the boy’s soul was released at the moment of death a minute later, he had been stripped of his meager clothes and shoes by the other urchins. That evening
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