Short Story: The Laughing Buddha’s Bait

Sara Batool’s short story explores the constantly shifting, unstable nature of opportunities aimed towards uplifting the lower- middle class.

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This piece is available for free reading this week

Though he had not previously tried to contact her in any way, the cyber cafe owner’s text to Sadia reminded her of the way traffic crept upon you in a big city, wave after wave of cars, trucks and bikes erupting into horns as people made their way through them. You could not escape the noise. But the cyber cafe was cramped, dimly lit and tucked away from the chaos of the main road, and Sadia had found its smallness and invisibility comforting amidst the consequential printing shops with large signs in neon colours emblazoned across them. She was too practical to trade familiarity for expense, however, and made sure that the owner charged less for photocopies than the average printer.

“Madam this is good opportunity. If u can find ur birth certificate and other documents.”

Good Opportunity. A laughing Buddha looking at her with mischievous twinkling eyes, daring her to reach towards him. Theirs was a long-established game of hide-and-seek. She’d lost her small town, the name that her parents had given her at birth and the skin whose dark intensity left her to the mercilessness of the world in his name – and he had smiled at her a little, in his silent, funny way. Her attention to the all-important world of human supremacy, which kept growing as she made each minuscule data entry in the Excel sheets that became wider and wider in expanse, left him unmoved. He laughed with his hand over his mouth when he saw the cyber cafe owner looking at Sadia’s cool, detached form with abiding interest, and her limpid black eyes barely glancing at him over the sheets of paper that she was getting photocopied. Good Opportunity was unmistakably a man — unreliable, prurient in his interests, prone to laughing at things that weren’t really funny.

And this time he was tantalizing her with a government scheme offering scholarships to people born of a certain class, who were acknowledged to have been left behind on the way to the country’s progress. The cyber cafe owner was right (even if he was right for his own reasons). It was really Good Opportunity appearing before her. But Sadia, determined to forget her name with all its past associations, histories, mysteries, was reluctant to concede to him in this regard.

Very early in Sadia’s life, it was too late. The noise of the city had eaten her up; a goldfish swallowed by a whale, swimming around meaninglessly in its dark belly. An unenlightened Yunus, punished for losing faith in people and condemning them to hell. For faith kept vanishing with the mystery of subliming ice, with everything else that had disappeared. Her new name meant the successful, and she had learnt how to become Sadia the successful over time.

[Coolly and calmly sort yourself into categories that mattered. Into all the totkas that worked for people of your class. Small-town girl working in Delhi at a data-entry job. Specializing in Excel sheets and dry lunches. Remember: lipstick, kohl and earrings can make skin with the raw smoothness of earth seem appealing. If you look like the other people in the office, it is easier to get them to accept you as one of their own.]

Her lips often gave her away, so she had learnt to press a cigarette between them to give them no freedom or time to act on their own. Regular old Marlboro, smell of burnt char settling deep around her. Her thin fingers, which often moved with the sudden wild impulse of an epileptic, had to be controlled to restrict their movement to white sheets of paper. But that was only when she Felt something, and Feeling, in the world of Excel and reams and reams of data, was a distraction to be conquered at all times.

In recent days, such a distraction had occurred when she overheard an argument between Chotu the chaiwala and the security guard. Chai was important for their office. The security guard was furious that Chotu the chaiwala had gone off for four days without any notice, and he had been forced to go and get chai for everyone in the office. Angry and mutinous, Chotu had spat in his face and demanded, “What is getting chai for everybody going to get me anyway?” “Kya baat hai, he’s only a kid, let him be, Vishal bhaiya,” Sadia said in passing. “Madam ji you don’t know, this son of a shrew ran off to join a mob beating up a man in the name of a god who promises justice,” the security guard’s eyes, large, staring red were directed straight at Chotu, who stared back at him with hatred and contempt. “So, what if I am?” he sneered, “do they not promise more in return for the service of the god who promises justice than for licking the boots of computer engineers?” Sadia’s fingers, a branch twisting upon its own growth, scrambled to the edge of a desk. The security guard leaped forward and gripped Chotu’s collar, and Chotu’s fist moved towards the security guard’s face, and suddenly the whole office was stretching and squeezing between them, trying to separate the two.

Black and white printout. Yes, both sides of the paper. The cyber cafe owner looked carefully at Sadia’s pallid face, then silently placed a glass of cold water in front of her. Kaam mein mushkil? Problems at work? Her chin nodded of its own accord. He clicked his tongue. Terrible situation – but we must do everything to survive. Search for a more suitable position mam. She sat quietly for a minute, then repeated the one word she had heard repeatedly today. More. Promise More. Suitable More. He stared at her, the colour of his face rising. Did I say something wrong? Aap theek toh hain? She brushed off his concern, her dark eyes looking up with a hard, defiant glitter in them. Why wouldn’t I be?

And the question sprang up at her from each one of the cold-grey marble of the thirty-six steps she climbed every day to get to her apartment of six walls and five feet that made up a balcony. Why wouldn’t I be? More! screamed the traffic on the roads, melting a thousand glaciers somewhere far away. More! yelled the savage mob, hands and feet bloody from hitting the man who was now still and cold upon the ground. More, the cyber cafe owner quietly said, searching Sadia’s eyes with his own constantly. The click of the lock whispered the same word, the gas stove hissed it when she set tea to boil, and the television advertisements vomited it and then swallowed it right back, choking upon it again and again.

Only the plants were silent. Only the String of Hearts succulents were companions who demanded nothing, were content to stay living and not wanting beside her, sitting in a small white pot peacefully. Only the philodendron didn’t look her up and down and mutter to itself about the size of her breasts and the outwardness of her buttocks. They were good friends, you see. That was why Sadia still sat beside them, a mug of lemon tea in her freezing hands, and told them everything that happened during the day. You’re alone here among us too, she would say, maybe you will understand. You, String of Hearts, don’t you see how you keep all our hearts safe? We crush them every morning underfoot and look for their revival in you. And you, philodendron, you who live in darkness, don’t you see how you are to give strength to us, we who never learned how to love the dark? How Sita had longed for light, when Ramchandra disappeared! How we go on yearning for the Beloved to turn to us, hopeless aashiqs! Will you not teach us the ways of the Beloved- the ones that make you grow wherever you are?

The Marlboro cigarettes became one with the pungent air, chasing it and turning upon it playfully, you are mine and I am yours, what is the difference between us? The identification papers fluttered out of Sadia’s hands in the past, and landed on the cyber cafe owner, who looked at them carefully before slipping them into the photocopier. Good Opportunity, that modern-day Zeus, whispered malevolently to Sadia, you evil trickster, wait and see what your lies will bring upon you! Sadia pretended that he didn’t exist, and when the cyber cafe owner asked her, so you’re from a town in Uttar Pradesh? her yes had the cool distance of a world that couldn’t care less about the life you had lived, hidden from all audiences, in it. Mummy papa? He died. She lives. What did your father do? A branch snaps under the weight of falling snow. What does it matter to you?! The cyber cafe owner falls silent. The photocopies are unclear this time, spotted with black ink in random places. No – don’t do it all over again. I’ll take them as they are. She gathers them in her arms, hands almost shaking as they clutch at the black and white sheets. Papers: Accountants of Existence. Evidence of Matter. If they fell into the wrong hands, it meant the end of you. If they were to get lost, you would no longer belong anywhere.

But when you belonged nowhere anyway, this felt like simply another reality that was to be forced down your throat. Sadia the successful, distant from the days that were already disappearing like the countryside outside a speeding train, lived in her own apartment in a city where singers had turned into hawkers because nobody knew the value of a song anymore. Sadia the successful looked at the photographs of a family that she had left behind for the sake of Good Opportunity and wondered which had to be thrown into a fire and destroyed – the remnants of a life incompatible with the blessings of Good Opportunity, or her own heart? Sadia the successful laughed with all her teeth at work, lips so perfectly tinged with colour, eyes so beautifully lined with kohl, and wondered why her laughter seemed to curl up in thin air and sneered at her from there.

When she walked through the streets during winter, different memories would come leaping and bounding towards her and swing about her neck and her throat. Very, very cold mornings in her hometown came back to her from a time irredeemably gone: fog so heavy that no matter how much you strained your eyes, the reality that your veins longed for wouldn’t appear before you. The boisterous friends with whom she used to race past the cornfields until their breathlessness made them fall to the ground, a mass of entangled arms and legs. Freedom from thinking yourself lesser than those around you. (But had it been that way only for her? What about Baba?) And Baba took you home, insisting that your mother would raise a storm if you stayed outside any longer. Baba the julaha autowallah. How poetic it sounded! Lowest among the Hindus and the Muslims. Outcast, belonging nowhere. Perhaps one of his ancestors had been a convert. Perhaps that was why he could not get a job in town and drove his auto to and from the railway station only. Perhaps that was why he got into a drunken fight, saw his auto being set on fire for vengeance and smashed his own head afterwards. Baba the julaha autowallah. . . the smoke rising from the ashes of the fire, lost and aloof. . . already moving towards an unknown destination of his own.

Did Baba ever say More the way everyone else did? Sadia the successful failed to remember this. Her amma said it frequently and recurrently, this she could not possibly forget. Amma whom she called three times every week, her fleshy heartstrings tightening at every word she uttered about her life. Yes, it is everything we thought it would be. Every morning when I wake up, my heart does not sink to the floor. Distance from you whom I love is not a loss that corrodes every part of my being. The Excel sheets are very good to me. They don’t care if I am the julaha autowallah’s daughter. The wish to disappear from my own life is not a cellophane sheet sticking to my dusky skin, refusing to let go of me. I am not distant from those that I work with. We laugh together and feel very happy. I cannot imagine living in any other way – all our difficult choices have paid off finally.

Good Opportunity frowns. Ungrateful mortal! Here is love knocking at her door, and all she can think of is her distance from everything she lost in a past life! The cyber cafe owner’s cyber cafe is threatened by the big printing shops. Business is in recession. Black ink spots are staining the sheets of his clients persistently. But he has hope. Above the photocopier, in big green letters are the words, “IF YOUR NOT FAILING ENOUGH, YOUR NOT TRYING ENOUGH – ELON MUST.” This is his philosophy in life, and it has gotten him through multiple economic crises without once rebelling against the takeover of small businesses by large corporations. His interest in Sadia is not unmixed with the knowledge that she has a stable job. But his concern for her is genuine. When he sees her crossing the road to get to his cyber cafe, his breath quickens, and his eyes keep returning to her form. He has learned to read her face. The slight twitching of one corner of her lips signifies anger. The dulling of her eyes is painful. The swift rising and falling of her hands from her lap to her forehead and then back to her lap is the terrible confusion of someone who feels they have nowhere to escape to.

The cyber cafe owner would like to create a new life for her. With her, where his cheerful and amicable nature can dispel her despair. But he doesn’t know enough about her yet. He has to know about – some things. So, he brings up the government scheme, a carefully circled subsidy that he chanced upon in the newspaper.

“Madam this is good opportunity. If u can find ur birth certificate and other documents.”

Though she pretends not to notice it, Sadia knows how frequently his eyes are upon her. It would have made her angry, but his kindness is disarming. She is not in love with him in the least; she is only – only. . . struggling to bear the heavy weight of the life she has chosen and not chosen for herself alone, with no one to witness her efforts except cruel old Good Opportunity, who seems to be holding a grudge against her for a while now. And so, she ignores the persistent thought that her birth certificate, which had her old name written on it, might tell the cyber cafe owner what she refused to disclose. Baba the julaha autowallah did not appear in times of loneliness but is resurrected as a test for every good thing that comes her way. She will not think of this as she looks for the birth certificate and other documents which she is trying to find in the depths of her almirah now.

The String of Hearts succulents and the philodendron are staring at her in astonishment. They have seen the Excel sheets, the cigarettes, the attempts to fit in and the fading laughter – but what is this new pursuit? Or is it an old one, just disguised in a different illusion? Sadia had not talked to them for days, and they pine to know her secrets. She is rummaging through the drawers and peering into old files, trying to find those documentary evidence of the ceremony of her coming into existence in the world. Finally, she digs out two worn-out and tattered sheets of paper which agree that she was indeed born on a hot summer evening in June. Then she picks up her phone and looks at the cyber cafe owner’s message once again, her eyes suddenly burning. Good opportunity. For him or for her? Which of them stood to gain more by this disclosure, and what could they lose in the process?

No, no, she would not think any of this. With trembling fingers, she calls him up. I’ve found the documents, can you come and take them from me and do what needs to be done? He acquiesces, knowing where she lives. It is evening now. One half of the earth lies in darkness, the other half in light. Between the two is this little patch left out, because of the tilt of the earth towards the sun. The hopeful and the despairing have no means of reaching each other without this little patch, which is called twilight by geographers who are secretly romantics. Sadia waits here. The cyber cafe owner arrives at her doorstep and rings the bell, and she opens the door, documents pressed against her chest. Here they are. She looks at him as he looks at them. The eyebrows draw close together, the mouth tightens, the eyes lose some of their candour. Sadia is still as a figure of ice. The cyber cafe owner nods slightly, as though embarrassed, and she is suddenly reminded of her friends when they grew up and learnt that her father was a julaha autowallah. Her friends, who could no longer meet her eyes. Their parents had been doing her a kindness in letting her play with them. I’ll get it done, he is saying, but she has already begun to shut the door to block out the sight of his face, his falling face that is a boulder rolling downhill, crushing her even as she tries to outrun it. He is gone now, and Sadia the successful once again stands bare.

“It is so much safer not to feel, not to let the world touch one,” Sylvia Plath wrote to herself. For when you are touched and burnt, the day collapses like a pricked balloon. You recede into the middle of your apartment, walls your only shelter, door a distant memory. You are awaiting Nothing to come and pull you out of yourself. But Nothing doesn’t come to your door. Much like the cyber cafe owner. Not the next day, or the day after that. The String of Hearts succulents creep up to Sadia and curl around the strands of her hair. The philodendron holds her hands tightly. The gas stove stops hissing at her. She hasn’t looked at an Excel sheet in days. She visited the cyber cafe once but saw nobody there. She is trying to tell herself that mornings are not meant to be a puddle from which you cannot lift your feet, that she is Sadia the successful, that names, after all, do carry a meaning of their own. It has been a week and she has only just learned how to stand in front of a mirror without seeing a ghost in the reflection.

Sadia does not see Good Opportunity behind her shoulder, the laughing Buddha with his hands over his mouth. He is whispering, you see, you see, you must always remember what you are, never forget what you carry with you. The doorbell is ringing but Sadia is sinking into the darkness of her own eyes, twin plums that taste more bitter than sweet. It takes her a few minutes to realize that someone is at the door. She walks quickly towards it barefoot, then hesitates in opening it. Who is it? she calls out, voice different from what it used to be. It’s me, the cyber cafe owner says, and her breath draws, and he asks urgently, is Sadia madam at home? I have to talk to her. She finds herself tongue-tied. He hasn’t recognized her voice–! Finding herself suddenly grasping Good Opportunity by the few strands of hair that remain on his head, she adopts the quavering tone of an old woman. Sadia madam moved away from this neighbourhood. She doesn’t live here anymore. What?! But only last week – The cyber cafe owner had trouble believing her. She has already blocked him in her contacts. Sadia doesn’t live here anymore. And she moves away from the door, an acrid satisfaction enveloping her in having foiled Good Opportunity’s baits, Good Opportunity who has vanished now, cursing her and leaving her alone. The corners of her mouth turn up in an acerbic smile, but what has been the cost of this smile! Sadia the successful has successfully sidestepped a snare of the world whose promises are as hollow as a corn-shell thrown to a stray animal.

All is silence now. The walls look at her. The door looks at her, and so do the plants. And the road peeps from the window, from that beyond which is always craning its neck to look at the bare human being, stripped of care, caution and hope. But Sadia has grown indifferent to the gaze. Sadia has become more than what is seen, what is apparent. She puts the kettle on the stove to make chai for herself, and her voice, turned hoarse from its twisted use and disuse, still manages to hum a strange tune.

What is even stranger is that as the water boils, as the tea leaves draw colour like a deep summer sunset, and the masala stored on the kitchen shelf imagines the elasticity of the heart, (now stretched taut with hope, now released from the constraining spell of an unrealized possibility) the kettle grows darker and darker on the stove, even while it quietly sings.

Glossary

Totkas: superstitious remedies and magical cures; in colloquial terms, tricks.
Kya baat hai: what’s the problem?
Aap theek toh hain?: are you alright?
Julaha: Weaver caste found in the Hindi- speaking regions of North India. The Julaha caste is found both in the Hindu and Muslim communities of India, and is considered among the lowest caste blocks in the region.