The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran Read Free Book Online

softer broom on the floor; dipping and squeezing her mop cloth in the water before squatting on her haunches like a crab and wiping the floor clean.
    She went briskly to the kitchen; it was already half past eleven; she had no time to waste. Her tea had been made earlier and stood waiting in a steel tumbler upon the table, cold to the touch and wearing an ugly skin of cream on top. The bread balanced on top of the tumbler had turned a little dry. Shantapointedly ignored her; Kamala rinsed out her tea tumbler without drinking from it and slipped out of the back door to put on her slippers.
    “And where might you be going?” Shanta demanded, rendered suspicious by this untimely activity.
    “Vidya-ma has given me permission,” said Kamala, a certain smugness in her voice. “I will return in an hour.”
    “Some of us,” said the cook, “do All The Work in this house, while others seem to expect All The Service.”
    “True,” said Kamala. “And she who expects the service, sister, is not Me.”
    And on this triumphant note, she went to the servants’ bathroom to wash her hands, splash water on her face, smooth her hair, and adjust the folds of her saree.
    AT THE MAIN INTERSECTION , the air was loud with horns, the traffic barely controlled by the lights, straining at the leash as though even a moment’s delay would bring the commerce of the entire great city to a halt. One ineffectual policeman reigned over the tumult. Kamala squatted at a corner with a clear view of the flow and halt of the traffic through the four junctions.
    The magazine boys were a mixed jumble, barely distinguishable through the fumes and noise. At last she was able to spot him—sporting a jaunty red cap like the others, holding a stack of magazines in his hand, and moving briskly from car to scooter to jeep to minivan. He was managing to sell a few, she could see that right away.
    The light turned green, the traffic began to move and along with it her heart, not settling down to an even pace until she saw him emerge on the far side of the road, unscathed. He didnot pause but ran swiftly to the next intersection where the traffic was halted. Not all the other boys did so; some of them stuck to one light, resting at the times when the traffic moved. They would surely sell less than her son.
    His sales technique went beyond his tirelessness. Where had he learned it? Where had he learned to approach irritable drivers with a confident, cheerful smile and engage them in a nonverbal interaction conducted with difficulty through the tinted windows of their cars, until, sooner or later, the car window slid open, a hand emerged with money and vanished with a magazine?
    This astonishing being, so different, from another world surely, her son.
    At the end of an hour, she stood up and walked away. Narayan had not spotted her and he hadn’t stopped to rest in all the time she had watched him. She walked back to her job, a small, proud smile playing on her lips, her mind already planning his night meal.
    And, she determined, she would very soon plan a visit to the bright pink apartment building where lived the engineer’s parents, happy in their new prosperity. She would take some apples. They would be expensive, but a worthy exchange for invaluable advice on how to secure a child’s future. She thought of her meager savings. Or would bananas possibly suffice?

five
    IT SEEMED INTRINSIC TO HIS RESTLESS nature to never be able to sleep comfortably through the night. For more aggressive cases of insomnia Anand liked to pace the study listening to a motley collection of seventies rock, a musical habit that dated from college. He had recently come across an old Doobie Brothers CD while browsing at a music store on Brigade Road, and pacing to it usually relaxed him to the point where he could pick up
The Economist
. This was a magazine he subscribed to because it seemed appropriate; he dutifully labored his way through the editorial pages and an occasional