The Red Carpet by Lavanya Sankaran Page A

life as he held her tiny body in his hands. She would be educated. She would be healthy and well nourished. She would be proud. Well dressed. Beautiful. She would work in an office, in a job that would one day earn her a car of her own. She would be a may-dum in her own right.
    His mother wanted to call the baby Kanthamma, after her own mother, but Raju said no. He’d already decided to call her Hema Malini, after the film actress, his first sight of whom (as a young boy) he had never forgotten: the most beautiful woman in the universe, a dream girl with liquid eyes and glowing skin and hair that tumbled down her back. His father told him it didn’t matter what he named the baby. He commiserated: “Your firstborn is a girl. That’s a shame. My firstborn was a boy. A man should have three sons and a daughter, just like I did. That is glory. But don’t worry. Next time you will have a boy. You are my son, after all.”
    Raju wasn’t worried. He had thought the whole thing through quite a while back and, independent of his father, had made a few decisions. That night, after dinner, while lying next to his wife and listening to the heavy breathing of his parents sleeping in another corner of the same room, he told her his ideas: not having a son didn’t matter; they would bring up their daughter to be strong and self-reliant. In fact, with the cost of living so high, perhaps they shouldn’t try for another child, boy or girl, no matter what his father said. Better to have one child and look after her well than to have more and leave them half-starved. If money improved, then later, perhaps, they could reconsider. In the meantime, they had been visited by a little goddess and they were to be grateful. His wife was herself one of nine children, born into a family where daughters were considered the usual burden. If she was uncomfortable with Raju’s odd ideas, she didn’t comment.
    After Raju got his current job, he was doubly convinced of the truth of his belief. Little Hema, with her tears and laughter and mischief, was none other than a manifestation of the Goddess Lakshmi herself, giver of wealth and prosperity.
    “Where is she studying? She’s three years old, isn’t she?”
    He nodded again, and mentioned the name of the little one-room school that his daughter attended. He expected May-dum to nod and send him on his way, but she didn’t. Instead, she proceeded to ask him a great many questions about his life, and especially about his daughter.
    Before he knew it, he was telling her everything. All his hopes, his dreams, his fondest wishes for his beloved Hema, and the despair that had dogged his footsteps these past few months. For how was he to continue to educate her with so many mouths to feed? His higher salary seemed to be eaten up just as quickly as his old one, in medical bills, and food, and most recently, the need to collect an amount large enough to marry off his younger sister. How could he possibly take care of Hema in the manner of his dreams?
    Later, he’d emerged from May-dum’s study in a curious state of horrified delirium. Horrified that he had divulged everything so freely, he who always kept his own counsel. Delirious, because May-dum had said that she would take care of little Hema’s education herself. He was not to worry.
    Furthermore, she said, she would like to see where the little girl studied, and could he please arrange a visit?
    When his excitement had settled down, it had taken a full month for him and his family to organize things. His father had assumed generalship of the affair, and Raju let him. He himself was at work the whole day, and this was not a matter he could leave to his wife; she lacked the experience. She was not a man of the world.
    Raju and his father would stay up late every evening, immersed in progress reviews: What should they do to the house? Could they afford to repaint it? Didn’t so-and-so’s brother-in-law work in a paint shop? Perhaps he could get