PAPA

The door-bell switch makes a dead click, and nothing happens – power failure! Do I knock at the door? I know it is siesta time, and no one will like to be disturbed. But I am desperate.
I am a smalltime sales-girl, selling encyclopedias, atlases, dictionaries and the like. I go from door to door, usually in afternoons, and try to sale my ware to people - mostly housewives.
Sales-persons are rarely welcome. More often than not, they are shooed away like stray dogs; or else, scanned as if they were beggars or burglars. Being rude to the unknowns, particularly to the needy, seems to be the mark of prudence.
Encyclopedias et al are weighty items: burden to carry around, and some task to sell- because of their special genre, and of course, the cost. One runs around for hours before a copy is sold, and that can drain you to death.
I have had nothing since morning, except a few biscuits and a cup of tea. It’s already evening, but the March sun is still scorching. The one- liter drinking water bottle that Mom forced in my bag, hardly lasts for an hour. My mouth is dry, and lips chaffed; worse, i need to visit the loo very badly: that makes me more desperate.
I summon up my courage, and knock at the door: first tentatively, then a bit firmly, then repeatedly, and then impatiently. Then i suddenly realize that the door is locked; these tricky latch locks are never as obvious as the padlocks. I fret over the lost time.
I must rush before time runs out. Mother worries herself to death if i am not back home before dark.

We were a normal happy family before Papa left his job for business. What was the business, i never knew. But home was never the same after that. Papa had shady visitors, whom he called partners, always coming to him late in the evenings. He talked to them for hours behind closed doors. Neither Mother, nor we kids were allowed in his room.
A sinister change crept over the family. Mother looked terribly stressed with her mask-like face and vacant stare. She became weak, cranky, and quarrelsome. She developed diabetes, lost weight, and shrunk to a mere skeleton, and now almost mute. Dark circles under her eyes looked all the more weird on her pale face.
Papa remained away from home all day. At times he locked us inside, and left the house till late night.
Strangers came and asked for him at odd hours, when he was more likely to be at home, and then there were loud brawls. Doors and windows remained shut, and all lights put off whenever Papa was at home.
Papa disappeared for days, and then for weeks. Whenever he did come home, he sneaked in like a thief, and usually drunk. Sometimes he was rowdy; at other times, dumb with guilt. We frequently moved house, always chased and hounded by strangers: angry and threatening; desperate and sad. They came with the police; again they came with musclemen.
Papa ran away. Poor Mother was left alone with two kids, and faced all the abuses, insults, and curses flung at us. We shook with fear, clung close to her, and she was too stunned even to console us.
Now it has been months that Papa has disappeared. Initially he did made calls, until we no longer afforded the phone connection. We have lost all contact with us. Life goes on. We are used to his absence; we miss him no longer - in fact we feel relived. People too have stopped bothering us; perhaps they have lost whatever little hope they had; more likely, they take him for dead and gone.
Mother works as house-help. I left school after my matriculation, and work as a helper with a kindergarten sort of; this sales job is only to tide over the vacations.
Little bro studies in the sixth, and continues somehow.
Little bro..! He is the light of the home. He is the only whiff of fresh air in this damp and dingy life.
How he longs to touch, to smell, to browse through the glossy, crisp, colorful pages of the illustrated dictionaries! How it pains me to rob him of that innocent pleasure, lest the books are soiled.

Not much time is left before nightfall.
Here is a small house, may be, only a one-room-kitchen. The simple and homely ambience speaks of a decent and dignified household, though not of much means.
I hasten to the doorbell. “Yea coming, wait a minute please..,’ responds a lady. After several anxious minutes, an elderly, rather plump lady opens the door.
She has a kind face, mellowed by having seen and suffered a lot in life. Her eyesight seems to be rather weak, for she cranes her neck and screws up her eyes. “Yes, my child..?” enquires she tenderly, as she wipes glasses with the palloo of her sari.
She puts on the glasses and comes closer,
“I think, I know you. Aren’t you..why not..yes, for sure. . .”
I am standing in the door, against light. She holds me by my arm, and takes me outdoors to have a better look at me.
The soft face stiffens. The kind eyes freeze in glassy stare. In horror, she pushes me away and i fall down to the ground. She slaps me, kicks me, pulls my hair, scratches my face till it bleeds, rips my dress apart, and gets at my throat with all her beastly strength. I choke, struggle, plead, beg for mercy, and all is in vain.
Even as she thrashes me, she shouts and wakes up all neighborhood. “Yes now i know you..you are the daughter of that rascal, that cheat, that son of the bitch, who duped me..God-knows-how-many like me, and ran away! You wretched girl, you be his daughter, don’t you?” she screams wildly.
“You know, your father, that bastard, duped me for eighty thousand rupees! Hear you, Eighty thousand rupees! Do you know what eighty thousand rupees means for a poor family like us? That gave my husband, a flour-mill worker, heart attack. And now the doctor advises a bypass, do you know? Who is going to pay, that scoundrel of your father?
“My son left his engineering college in the second year, and now helps at a garage, do you know? It was for his education that we starved and saved. That blasted father of yours, that sweet-tongued devil, he promises me 20 per cent interest, and one fine morning, runs away with all lifetime savings. Runs away like a coward! God, take him away! Feed him to dogs! Curse on him! Curse on his family! Curse on all you vipers!”

Scores of onlooker watched as she thrashed me black and blue. Nobody interfered. Perhaps, i stood for all the cheating, exploitation, and all the wrongs life had done to them. They were not bad people (this i say today, as i recollect events after years), they were not heartless; for them poetic justice was being meted out by Nemesis. It didn’t matter if i was innocent; the real culprit was beyond their reach, and, after all, I was the villain’s blood.
She snatches my bag, throws out the water bottle, pulls out all the books, tears them apart, throws them in dust, tramples them.
“No auntie, please don’t do it..they cost more than five thousand. . .”
“Five thousand, that’s what you say, eh? And what do you say about my eighty thousands, about my husband’s bypass, about my son’s engineering, about my cataract, about our daily bread, about..?” Breathless, at last, she is speechless, still fuming and sweating.
At a loss to know what to do with me, she bends down, collects a handful of dust, and throws at me.
Beaten and humiliated, aching and paining all over, i stare blankly at the glossy, crisp, colorful books- dusty, crumpled, and pages torn to pieces.
I wail aloud, and cry out, “Where are you Papa? You know, i hate you..how i miss you, O Papa..!"