The Parcel by Anosh Irani

named after, she stood still, a forlorn silhouette, her previous night’s mascara smudged with tears and the morning’s deposit of mucus. She gave gurumai a couple of crumpled notes that she had crushed in her nervousness. Gurumai did not say a word, which was perhaps even more humiliating for Roomali than if she had been mocked. She had not lived up to her potential, the way gurumai thought she would, and that sentiment cut through the silence loud and clear.
    Madhu quickly moved in to take Roomali’s place. Madhu, once the jewel of the brothel, was now a mere beggar. The day her gurumai relegated her to the streets, five years ago, to compete with legless men, widows, and pickpockets, she knew she had reached a low point. Hijra gurus also made pojeetives do begging work. It was an unsaid rule: when hijras were too sick and ugly to fuck, too weak to sing and dance, begging was their only recourse. By demoting her to the streets, gurumai had made Madhu feel like a pojeetive even though she wasn’t one.
    Gurumai wasn’t surprised when Madhu handed her the initial payment from Padma. It was far, far more than what the others had collected.
    “Where’s
that
from?” asked Bulbul.
    “Kutti, tera kaam kar,” said gurumai. “Stick to your task.”
    From each bundle of cash, gurumai kept half. The rest she handed over to the respective earners. That was how the tradition worked. Fifty per cent of the disciples’ earnings went to the guru. It seemed steep to some chelas when they first entered the clan, but the payment included food and rent, and spiritual guidance from gurumai. More than anything, it was the semblance of a family they were paying for, and the comfort thatwhen they fell ill and were old and infirm, they would never be alone. “And don’t forget the police,” gurumai always reminded her hijras when they—especially Tarana and Anjali—bitched about giving up half their money. “Who will protect you from them? Only I can oil them, line their pockets with hash and cash, so that they will leave you to your work.”
    Madhu went to the dressing table that she shared with Bulbul and put her money in there. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Roomali stuffing a meagre amount into her English textbook. Madhu took a couple hundred rupees from her share and slid them into Roomali’s hand while no one was looking. She winked at Roomali, whose tiny eyes widened in eternal thanks. Roomali did not know what to say, but even if she did, Madhu would not have heard her. She had already sped out the door to feed the parcel.
    —
    Downstairs, the morning’s rhythms gave Madhu a sense of calm. The laundryman was hanging white shirts to dry, the scavengers were on a smoke break after scrounging through the night’s garbage, and temple bells were sounding, their shrill rings jolting Madhu into walking faster. She had told the priest she would come meet him, so the bells were like the ring of a mobile phone, a where-are-you call. She entered the temple and collected a cloth bag from one of the devotees. The knot was secured tight, and the form of the thing inside the bag was long and coiled and it thrashed about from time to time to show its displeasure.
    Her next stop was a toddy shop. She paid the man, removed the marigold that adorned the mouth of the bottle, and gulped the white ferment down. Breakfast done, she hurried past theKhubsurat Beauty Parlour, remembering that she needed to get her eyebrows done. The parlour had a new sign up: “Beauty Class (only for ladies).” Outside Padma’s brothel, a new DVD store had opened. Inside, boys were watching an action movie on the computer screen. Distracted by a car explosion, she stepped on a discarded blue shirt with blood stains on it before she rushed up the stairs.
    This time when Madhu went through the trap door, the parcel was awake. Good. Madhu doubted whether the parcel had slept even a wink since she’d last seen her. That was the purpose of the statement