A Place to Stay

A Place to Stay

The great cities of India are crowded with people. Many of them are poor; they work long hours and earn just enough to buy some food to eat, and to rent a room to sleep in. Life is hard for them.

And life is even harder if, like Lakshmi and her husband Ramu, you live in a shanty town, where any day your house can be pulled down and you are suddenly homeless…

‘Is Sharada in? We’ve come for the room,’ Lakshmi said, bright and businesslike, to the young girl at the door.

‘Sit. I’ll call mother.’ The girl walked towards a door off the courtyard, bending backwards to support her swollen belly.

As Lakshmi squatted on the dirty stone floor of the courtyard, she looked around with distaste. In a corner there was a rusty tap, with a pile of unwashed bowls under it; uneaten rice and vegetables, swollen and going bad, floating on a pool of dark, oily water.

Her husband Ramu dropped down on to the floor near her, holding a red hand-towel against his hot, wet forehead.

The lines of tiredness on his face made Lakshmi feel guilty. He had been pulling heavy women around town on his rickshaw all day. Instead of greeting him with tea at their home in the shanty town, she had gone to meet him after work and made him come here.

‘Have they decided? Will it be pulled down?’ he asked.

‘In a fortnight,’ she whispered. ‘Someone from the apartments went to the lawyers. Called our shanty town a danger to people’s health. The lady I work for at number 206 told me.’

‘Why?’ he whispered back angrily. ‘The people who live in the apartments - most of their servants are from our shanties. And the vegetable sellers. And car cleaning boys.’

Lakshmi had been trying to answer this question since this morning, while washing dirty plates and bowls in the six apartments where she worked.

‘Enough poor people nearby, in Trilokpuri, who can work for them instead,’ she said.

‘You know Sharada well?’

‘A bit. Met her while I was buying food. Someone mentioned today that her room is available.’

‘With a room here, we can continue the work we’ve got. Your apartments. My rickshaw. But if we have to move miles away…’ he whispered.

‘Rents will go up around here when everyone hears the news about the shanty town,’ Lakshmi added.

They were silent.

‘Sharada’s daughter is like our Paro,’ Ramu said after a while. ‘When is Paro coming to stay, to have her baby?’

‘January.’

Sharada came out into the courtyard. ‘Want to see the room?’

It was three metres by three and a half metres, with a small window. The walls were rough and needed repairing. There was a corner blackened by smoke from cooking fires - the ‘kitchen’.

‘Toilet’s shared - that way,’ Sharada pointed.

I’ll need a clothesline outside the window, Lakshmi thought. When Paro’s had her baby, there’ll be many things to wash…

‘You have to be clean,’ said Sharada. ‘This is not a shanty.’

Lakshmi felt angry. In her home, bowls shone, clothes were kept in tidy piles. No dust at all. The sacred basil plant outside was green and sweet-smelling - but she’d have to leave that behind. No space here.

‘Rent?’ asked Ramu.

‘One thousand monthly. One month’s money now.’

Higher than expected, but we’ll manage, thought Lakshmi. Cut out the weekly fish meal. Eat less. Take more jobs to afford oil for lighting the daily lamp in front of the shining figures of the gods.

‘Can’t you make it cheaper?’ Ramu asked.

Sharada looked bored. ‘You discuss - it’s up to you. Another couple is willing, but they need time to find the first month’s money.’

After Sharada went inside, Lakshmi whispered, ‘We’ll manage. To pay the first month, I’ll borrow from the lady at 206 - the other ladies won’t lend. And we’ll see how much we can get for my jewellery. Maybe we can buy it back later.’

He nodded, but his eyes were like those of dead fish.

When Sharada came out, Lakshmi took out some dirty notes and handed them to her. ‘You’ll get the rest on Tuesday while we’re moving.’

Sharada’s fingers closed tightly around the money. Her eyes shone greedily. She nodded.

Lakshmi and Ramu had reached their home in the shanty town when they remembered his hand-towel. Lakshmi went back for it.

She could hear Sharada’s voice through the closed door. ‘See! A thousand! You could smell their desperation. They must be from the shanty town - people say it’s going to be pulled down in a couple of weeks.’

A man spoke. ‘But we need another thousand to pay what the family of Munni’s husband are asking. And if our Munni has a daughter instead of a son, they’ll want twice as much.’

‘We’ll find more work and get the money. But they’re such greedy people - maybe our daughter would be happier staying here with us. Let’s see.’

Work, hope, wait - that’s life, Lakshmi told herself, standing outside, wondering whether to knock.