Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

she thinks that the boundaries I spoke of allude to our family situation.
    I sigh and say with resignation, ‘Why do you even care?’
    â€˜I care because I can help these girls. For my cultural anthropology thesis I’ve decided to write about The Agnis and their life. If the right people read my paper, then these girls’ lives could change. Even otherwise, I love their spirit, their dreams and I want to let them into my life, as should you.’
    â€˜Come here,’ I tell her, and she follows me to my bedroom. I throw aside the duvet and lift my pillow.
    â€˜You have a knife under your pillow?’ she asks incredulously.
    â€˜Do you know that servants are basically beggars? Beggars who can feed their families because of the money I give them? You see, Sara, on any given day there are four to five servants who enter and leave my house. They come from filthy shanties and enter my home. They see my flat screen TV, my iPod, my BlackBerry; they don’t have money to buy a radio. They want to be me and they know that the only thing stopping them from living my life, if only for a moment, is me. On any given day, one of them might give in to their desire. They may act on it. Then they’ll enter this house and murder a girl who sits here alone. For when the beggar comes home, he isn’t always looking for alms. Do you understand me?’
    â€˜Not completely.’
    â€˜Behind the mask of servitude these people, these beggars parading as my servants, absolutely hate me. I have to show them that I’m used to a life of comforts and my confidence will keep them at bay, in place. Showing them that I’m sympathetic to their situation is an acknowledgement that I’m better than them without deserving to be. If I waver in my belief in what’s mine, it’ll give them a chance to break the rules and do horrible things, things that you and me cannot imagine.’
    She allows a moment for this to sink in. And then says, ‘I think you are wrong,’ talking to me as if she knows the game better than I do, when she hasn’t even played it, doesn’t even know she’s in it.
    â€˜And you’re on your own,’ I reply quickly, edging her out of my room, shutting the door. ‘I have never stepped foot in a slum and there’s no way I’m visiting one now.’
    ~
    That evening, after my candle-making class, I sit in the car with Sara as Lalit waits at a traffic light.
    Papa called this afternoon from Brisbane, where he’s gone for the Integrated Steel Companies Conference, and when I told him laughingly about Sara’s intentions, he said, ‘Do you remember that after your mother passed away two years back, Sara missed an entire semester to be with us? Helping her with a college project is the least you can do.’
    My father spends six months with me and six months in Memphis, as if by evenly dividing his time he can love and be loved equally. But I have to repay this favour that he thinks Sara has done for me, so we’re both on par in his eyes, so he continues to come back to me. I’m accompanying Sara to Mary’s slum.
    A beggar knocks on my window. I ignore him. He knocks again, and then some more. I raise my palms upright and snarl in my meanest voice, ‘Hutt!’ He starts to move away, then scratches his nails on my car window. I roll down the window, ready to abuse him, when Sara places her hand on my shoulder: it’s okay; let it be.
    But I’m not in the mood to be assuaged. ‘You know, Sara, I respect a prostitute more than a beggar. At least she works for a living. Why can’t beggars work? Why can’t this man become a cleaner at one of the million factories mushrooming in India? Why can’t that woman with eight babies wash utensils somewhere? Lazy is what they are, and lazy people don’t deserve my sympathy or money.’
    She says, as I anticipate, nothing.
    We enter a narrow muddy path