Cracking India Read Online Free PDF Page B

plants the cages on the ground and rages: “I break your neck, you naughty birds! You do too much chi chi! What will the good memsahibs think? They’ll think I no teach you. You like jungly lions in zoo. I cut your throat!”
    He flourishes a barber’s razor. It is an infallible bait. Clutches of tenderhearted Englishwomen, sporting skirts and tennis shoes, abandon their garden chairs and dainty cucumber and chicken tea sandwiches to rush up and scold: “You horrid man. Don’t you dare cut their throats!”
    â€œThem fresh parrots, memsahib. They not learn dirty words yet. I catches them today,” coaxes Birdman, plunging his crafty hands into the cages. “They only one rupee for two birds.”
    His boneless fingers set up such a squawking and twittering among the parrots and the sparrows that the ladies become frantic. They buy the birds by the dozen, and, cooing, “You poor little itty-bitty things,” snuggle them to their bosoms.
    After the kissing and the cuddling, holding the stupefied birds aloft, they release them, one by one. Their valiant expressions and triumphant cries enthrall the rapt crowd of native gawkers as they exclaim: “There! Fly away, little birdie. Go, you poor little things!”
    Squatting on his heels Birdman surveys the tearful and spirited mems with open-mawed and marveling admiration. Conjuring
rueful little nods and a catch to his voice, he remarks: “It go straight to mama-papa.” Or, sighing heavily, “It fly to hungry little babies in nest.”
    And today, foreshadowing the poetic impulse of his future, wiping tears and pointing at a giddily spinning and chirping sparrow, Ice-candy-man says: “Look! Little sparrow singing, ‘See? See? I free!’ to mad-with-grief wife!”
    Ayah, Adi and I watch the performance with concealed glee. Every now and then we heighten the histrionics and encourage sales by shouting, “Cut their throats! Cut their throats!” We cheer and clap from the sidelines when the birds are released.
    Ice-candy-man resorts to his change in occupation only two or three times a year, so his ingenuity works. He usually clears a packet. And if the sale has been quick and lucrative, as on this Saturday afternoon just before Christmas, he treats us to a meal at Ayah’s favorite wayside restaurant in Mozang Chungi.
    We are regulars. The shorn proprietor acknowledges us with a solemn nod. He is a pahailwan: a wrestler. Covering his massive torso with a singlet in deference to Ayah’s presence, he approaches. Despite the cold, his shoulders gleam with sweat and a striped lungi clings to his buttocks and legs.
    We are directed to sit on a narrow backless bench. Opposite us Ice-candy-man drapes his lank and flexible length on another bench, and leaning across the table ogles Ayah. He straightens somewhat when an urchin-apprentice plonks down three tin plates heaped with rice and a bowl of vegetable curry. The rice is steaming and fragrant. We fall to it silently. Ayah’s chocolate fingers mold the rice into small golf balls which she pops into her mouth. She eats with her right hand while her left hand reposes in her lap.
    Halfway through the meal I sense a familiar tension and a small flurry of movement. Ice-candy-man’s toes are invisibly busy. I glance up just as a supplicating smile on his face dissolves into a painful grimace: and I know Ayah’s hand is engaged in an equally heroic struggle.
    Meanwhile the mounds of rice steadily diminish. Outwardly calm, systematically popping golf balls, Ayah signals the proprietor for another helping.

    After the meal, as we descend the rickety wooden steps into the crowded gully, Ayah tries, tactfully, to get rid of Ice-candy-man. But he hoists Adi onto the seat of his bicycle and persists in walking with us to Warris Road.
    At the gate of our house, less tactfully, Ayah says: “You’d better go. I have chores.”
    â€œWhat