Read Cracking India for Free Online

chores?” asks Ice-candy-man, reluctant to let Ayah go.
    â€œA ton of washing... And I haven’t even dusted Baijee’s room!”
    â€œLet me help you,” says Ice-candy-man.
    â€œYou gone crazy?” Ayah asks.
    Imagine Ice-candy-man working alongside Ayah in our house. Mother’d throw a fit! He’s not the kind of fellow who’s permitted inside. With his thuggish way of inhaling from the stinking cigarettes clenched in his fist, his flashy scarves and reek of jasmine attar, he represents a shady, almost disreputable type.
    â€œOkay, I’ll go,” Ice-candy-man temporizes reluctantly, “but only if you’ll come to the cinema later.”
    â€œI told you I’ve work to do,” says Ayah, close to losing patience. “And I dare not ask Baijee for another evening off.”
    â€œTalk to me for a while ... Just a little while,” pleads Ice-candy-man so piteously that Ayah, whose heart is as easily inclined to melt as Ice-candy-man’s popsicles, bunches her fingers and says, “Only ten minutes.”
    Aware of the impropriety of entertaining her guest on the front lawn Ayah leads us to settle on a bald patch of grass at the back near the servants’ quarters. The winter sun is diffused by the dust and a crimson bank of clouds streaks the horizon. It is getting uncomfortably chilly and my hair already feels damp. Ayah notices it and, drawing me to her, covers my head with her sari palloo.
    â€œNow talk,” she says to Ice-candy-man. “Since you’re so anxious to talk, talk!”
    Ice-candy-man talks. News and gossip flow off his glib tongue like a torrent. He reads Urdu newspapers and the Urdu Digest . He can, when he applies himself, read the headlines in the Civil and Military Gazette , the English daily.
    Characteristically, Ice-candy-man starts by giving us news of
the world. The Germans, he informs us, have developed a deadly weapon called the V-bomb that will turn the British into powdered ash. A little later, drifting close to home, he tells us of Subas Chandra Bose, a Hindu patriot who has defected to the Japanese side in Burma. “Bose says the Japanese will help us liberate India from the Angrez ,” Ice-candy-man says. “If we want India back we must take pride in our customs, our clothes, our languages ... And not go mouthing the got-pit sot-pit of the English!”
    Obviously he’s quoting this Bose. (Sometimes he quotes Gandhi, or Nehru or Jinnah, but I’m fed up with hearing about them. Mother, Father and their friends are always saying: Gandhi said this, Nehru said that. Gandhi did this, Jinnah did that. What’s the point of talking so much about people we don’t know?)
    Finally, narrowing his focus to our immediate surroundings, he says to Ayah, “Shanta bibi, you’re Punjabi, aren’t you?”
    â€œFor the most part,” Ayah agrees warily.
    â€œThen why don’t you wear Punjabi clothes? I’ve never seen you in shalwar-kamize.”
    Though it has never struck me as strange before—I’m so accustomed to Ayah only in a sari—I see the logic of his question and wonder about it.
    â€œArrey baba,” says Ayah spreading her hands in a fetching gesture, “do you know what salary ayahs who wear Punjabi clothes get? Half the salary of the Goan ayahs who wear saris! I’m not so simple!”
    â€œI’ve no quarrel with your saris,” says Ice-candy-man disarmingly demure, “I was only asking out of curiosity.”
    And, catching us unawares, his ingenuous toe darts beneath Ayah’s sari. Ayah gives a start. Angrily smacking his leg and smoothing her sari, she stands up. “Duffa ho! Go!” she says. “Or I’ll get Baijee to V-bomb you into ash!” Applying all his strength, Adi restrains Ice-candy-man’s irrepressibly twitching toe.
    â€œArrrrey!” says Ice-candy-man holding his hands up as if to stave off