Mumbai Diaries - 1

Indira is Nepalese. She has a round, white face like the moon and caramel eyes that twinkle when she smiles her Cheshire-cat smile. She wears long, ample cotton housecoats in floral prints, and shuffles when she walks. Indira has straight hair that goes right down to her knees, which she always has tied up in a bun. She wears the same red round bindi on her forehead and small golden hoops in her ears every day. Her upturned nose crinkles when she smiles, which she does a lot.

Indira came to our building almost 20 years ago, with her husband Bahadur. Bahadur means courage, but the puny man’s cowardice is beyond compare. Bahadur was hired to guard the building, but spends most his time drinking. Many nights when we come home, he’s lying sprawled in the front hall, the smell of liquor on his breath.

When Indira came I was 7, and she a newly-married teenager. She set up their “house” in the 4 square metre space under the wooden stairs, unpacking their clothes from two loosely-tied cloth bags. She bought a small stove that runs on charcoal and hung a rope against one wall for the clothes. Behind the stairwell and next to their little house, sewage from all our apartments flows down rickety pipes. Sometimes Indira complains about the smell.

Indira helps with the cooking, cleaning, washing up and laundry, which she does by hand. When my brother is at home trying to work and the sounds of Indira’s bat beating dirt out of our clothes resonates through the house, he slides the door shut forcefully, cursing through his lips.

Indira comes more often now that her sons have grown up and are almost my age. Her husband beats her and her sons are rebellious teenagers, enrolling in a street dance group instead of finding a job with their education. So she comes even when there is nothing to do around the house. When my grandmother was on her deathbed, she’d stay at home and keep her company, making up for our absence.

Now she comes and chats with my mother, two women from different worlds that find common ground in talking about the inflating rupee and the ever-increasing price of vegetables. We can no longer afford ‘dudhi’ she complains to my mother, making a clicking sound. But at least the smell is getting better now that they have fixed the pipes, she says.

Indira never had a daughter, maybe that’s why she dotes on me. When I come home from “foreign” for the holidays, she never fails to exclaim at how thin I’ve grown, even though she’s known me my whole life. She insists on making my favourite foods and serving me hot chapattis. One more, she says, I know you don’t get these where you live, even though I’ve never been to school – she asks me if vegetables are expensive there.

Indira says my mom was complaining this morning about how the pest-control team didn’t show up to place natural cockroach repellents around the house. She says she understands my mother’s anger, after all, how can one live in such conditions. Cockroaches carry germs, they make the house dirty.

I like a clean house, Indira says, smiling wide. That’s how it should be.