Kiran Desai - Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

Praying she would not be seen by any of her acquaintances or the other girls from the polytechnic, Pinky dragged Ammaji through a dark maze of filthy side streets, insisting on taking the back road into the main bazaar area so she would be seen by as few people as possible, her nerves taut, her eyes on the look-out for potential incidents where she might be shamed before some fancy fashion plate of an acquaintance who didn’t deserve the pleasure of witnessing Pinky’s humiliation.

The denture lady had a whole array of dentures spread out before her on a mat in the corner of the bazaar, between the fish lady and the woman with the plastic buckets. Undeterred by the smell of fish, Ammaji squatted down on the mat and tried them all on. One too big, others too small … Finally there was one that seemed somewhat to fit.

‘Yes, yes,’ said the denture woman, ‘it will be fine. It is better that they are a little loose than a little tight.’

Ammaji donned the new gadget, moving and distorting her lips over the unfamiliar expanse of plastic, smacking her two new rows of teeth against each other appreciatively.

It was only later that they ran into a bit of misfortune.

They had emerged from the cinema with Pinky feeling somewhat mollified by the thrilling scenes she had just witnessed between hero and heroine amidst mounting obstacles of dread and terror. This Love Story was a film beyond compare! When it first came out, the line of people waiting to get in had snaked all the way from the ticket booth to the university gates, travelling around corners and, blocking traffic, stretching across streets. The crowds nicknamed the heroine Thunder Thighs and went again and again to see her cavort in the famous waterfall scene. There, in defiance of parental wishes and differences in income, religion and caste specifications, she sang in the spray with her beloved, matching him only in the supreme attributes of true love and good looks. There was nothing better than to watch a satisfying drama, one that caused your blood to run strong and red again. Ammaji and Pinky emerged strengthened into the late afternoon and stopped at the Hungry Hop Kwality Ice Cream van for ice cream.

It was at this moment that Pinky spotted the Cinema Monkey! The Cinema Monkey who had so long been harassing the ladies of the town for peanut cones. There it was, loping its way towards them! Hai Rama, how on earth could they have possibly forgotten? Coming to the movie without strong and able chaperons! This would have to happen to them. The monkey came closer. He was so bold, he showed not the slightest trepidation. Any human thief would be feeling a little awkward, robbing like this in broad daylight. The monkey’s brown eyes were cold and cruel, red-rimmed and fixed firmly upon them. In a rush of terror, her heart falling into a black nothingness, Pinky shouted: ‘Run, run, run. Run, Ammaji. Drop the ice cream and run!’

But Ammaji, who had just been handed a nice chocolate cone by the Hungry Hop boy, ran with the cone — not that this mattered, for the monkey ignored her and ran after Pinky instead, even though she was without any food products whatsoever. He grabbed hold of her dupatta and held tight as she screamed like a train and pounded down the bazaar street, followed by the gallant Hungry Hop boy, who had been aroused from his usual placid state by their cries of alarm. After all, it was not as if he did not know how to behave in such situations. He too was a regular at the cinema.

Now, inexplicably, for reasons best known to herself, Ammaji decided in the midst of all this confusion, this raised dust and running, to take a bite of her ice-cream cone. As she did so, the dentures, which had been unsettled by so much activity, were dislodged from her gums. Stuck in the ice cream, they leered at her horribly like a ghastly cartoon: skeleton teeth mocking, beckoning from the chocolate mound, an affront to her old age.

Horrified, Ammaji dropped the cone and, mistaking it for his favourite peanuts in a roll of paper, the monkey turned his attention towards her, caught hold of the denture-laden cone and rushed towards a tree.

‘Oi, you crooked thief,’ shouted Ammaji in rage, now turning around and shouting and chasing after the ape. ‘Give them back. They’re of no use to you, you stupid donkey.’

‘Stupid monkey, maji,’ said Hungry Hop, stopping in mid-track, stunned at her mistaking such vastly different animals for each other. ‘He’s a monkey, not a donkey.’

‘Munkey-dunkey,’ shouted Ammaji. ‘Don’t just stand there. Go after him.’

And remembering his duties, the Hungry Hop boy went at the creature, screaming and yelling, waving two sticks in such an alarming manner that even this dreadful monkey, disgusted at finding no peanuts, and a little intimidated, dropped the cone, raced over the roofs of the shops and disappeared. The Hungry Hop boy retrieved the dentures from a melting pool of chocolate and delivered them, carefully balanced on the end of a stick, to Ammaji.

Pinky could not remember being so mortified in all her life. There she was, looking like a sweeper woman, with her grandmother’s dentures being displayed in public, first atop an ice-cream cone being borne away by a monkey, and then dangling humiliatingly on the end of a stick. What a spectacle they had made of themselves. A cheering crowd had gathered to watch the fun. But the Hungry Hop boy treated the whole occasion with a nonchalance that made Pinky weak with thankfulness.

‘Here you are,’ he said cheerfully and gave the stick a shake. ‘We have had enough exercise for a week, hm?’ He smiled such a nice white smile and then turned to bow to the crowd, who shouted their congratulations. ‘Of course, after seeing you,’ he said, turning back to Pinky, ‘this monkey had to follow. He must have thought you were a longlost relative.’ He laughed appreciatively at his own joke, winking at Pinky to show he did not mean his remark to be taken seriously. And — who can explain such things? Pinky, who had seen the Hungry Hop boy every week of her life, had stopped on almost every trip to the market to buy ice cream and thought nothing of it, felt her heart fall for the second time in the day, as if from a cliff: Boom! into wide empty space.

This Hungry Hop boy was kind. He was not embarrassed in the least. Nor was he ugly, after all. His hair was curly and his nose was endearingly crooked, as was his mouth. To think she had seen him so often, beautifully dressed, and hardly noticed him at all … and today, here she was, staring at him with new-found interest, wearing an old white salwar kameez, badly cut and faded, with no nose ring, no toe ring, slippers without a trim or a puff, her eyes without the kohl that made them smoulder … So conscious of her drabness was she, she could not even manage to return his smile; in fact, it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears.

And as soon as she was home, she did burst into tears. She cried tears of rage because she had looked so plain, because it was all her family’s fault; she cried loud and long … Oh, she thought, her awful, awful father, who sent her out like a servant when other fathers went to all sorts of efforts to make sure their daughters looked well cared for and were properly dressed. Her horrible grandmother, who had added to her humiliation. Her terrible, terrible family, who would no doubt ruin all her chances of love for ever.

Oh, and she thought again of the Hungry Hop boy, who might, had she looked her usual self, have played a role in her life well beyond the mere parameters of ice cream.

She howled and howled, the noise so piercing and mournful it rose up into the leaves to Sampath and made his hair stand on end. Down below, Ammaji’s mouth fell open at a particularly loud yowl, only to have her dentures fall out again — this time into the cooking pot.