Saku dusted the carved idols of Krishna and Radha holding each other in a tight embrace, and placed it on the mantel over the television. She paused to give the room a long, lingering look. The bed sheets were neatly laid. The thick draperies, the soft pastel colours on the wall, and the intricately crocheted cloth over the ornamental table gave the room a cozy, intimate feel. She could never watch the telly in this room, she thought, with a sigh. The screen was flat and big; in fact, she had never seen anything like this in any of the houses she worked for as a maid servant. It was Lalita’s room and only she would watch it in the evenings when she returned from work and relaxed under the soft bed sheets with the tea that Saku would hand over.

Not a thing out of place, Saku pressed her lips in a satisfied smile. No servant ever cleaned the room like she did. Why, Lalita once admitted even she couldn’t clean the room so perfectly.

There was always frantic activity in the household in the morning. Lalita was working in the kitchen. She fried the onions with a paste of ginger and garlic and then tossed in pieces of tomato and the capsicum. Saku’s empty stomach churned and growled in synch with the wafting odours. Her eyes darted towards the sizzling vegetables in the kadai and her mouth dropped.

“Saku!! What are you dreaming about? Just an hour, and the school van will be here. And Shashank hasn’t even got up! Go put the breakfast on the table” Lalita’s voice zipped Saku’s gaping mouth instantly.

With renewed vigour, Saku quickly scrubbed the utensils in the kitchen sink and arranged the plates and dishes on the table. As she did so, she noticed the previous night’s left-over sambar- the lentils and vegetable gravy - kept aside for Saku to take home. Fresh food had been prepared for lunch and these were to be packed for Lalita and the kids. Stuffed chapattis, pickles, vegetable curry and special raita for Shashank, as he did not like any vegetable other than potato. He hated especially the capsicum.

Lalita worked as an accountant in a private company. She had to leave soon after the kids Sowmya and Shashank left for school. So she would get up early, prepare both breakfast and lunch and then rush to get to the bus stop on time. In the rush hours of the morning, she had come to depend heavily on Saku’s help.

Saku noticed that Narasimhan, Lalita’s husband, hadn’t still stirred out of the sofa he lay sprawled across, trying to hit at the right word that he could scrawl on the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. He tapped his creased forehead in anguish, but just as he saw Saku enter the hall, his face showed signs of relief.

“It’s 8 o’clock already. See if Shashank is up and give him his bath,” he rasped out the command. Ah, somebody to take over his duty.

Saku kept the lunch boxes on the table. Packing lunch was an elaborate ceremony. Saku had to keep ready lunch plates, spoons, containers of different sizes to carry the chappatis, the vegetables and the pickles, and a water bottle with purified water from the Aquaguard. Then Lalita would wrap the chappatis in a silver foil and then put them into the tiffin box; keep the pickles and the vegetables in plastic containers, then keep the boxes, the water bottle and the napkins in a plastic basket. The whole operation would take about ten to fifteen minutes, considering one had to keep in mind the kids’ preferences and provide substitutes. Then remind them to carry the baskets. Otherwise when the school van honked, the kids would simply run, not remembering to carry their lunch bags.

Sowmya was a responsible girl. No need to for anyone to be constantly at her back. She had already taken her bath and was having her breakfast, yet there was no sign of Shashank’s getting up. The books were strewn around on the bed and the bag wasn’t yet packed.

Saku couldn’t help smiling fondly at the sleeping brat. He always reminded her of her own sister she so unfortunately lost as a baby. She quickly put all the books into the bag and wondered if Shashank had finished his homework. Just studying in the first standard and already the teachers gave him so much homework. All the teachers were just demons, she thought.

Shashank would not ever describe his teacher Aruna as a demon. No wonder. His teacher would not hit him on the knuckles with a wooden ruler, nor would she make him stand outside the class the entire day, like Saku’s teacher used to. But then she studied in the local government school and Shashank, in a private school.

“You idiot, don’t touch me,” wailed Shashank when Saku tried to wake him up. Saku yanked the bed sheets and ran away, a shrieking Shashank following her. She knew this ploy worked. She thrust a toothpaste-loaded brush in Sashank’s hands. As he dreamily walked out of the bathroom after fifteen minutes of leisurely wash, Saku got him into an ironed uniform and fitted the shoes onto his feet, just as the rickshaw honked in front of the gate.

As Shashank waved from the speeding auto, Saku wiped her forehead and looked at the clock. It was eight thirty. She had come at 6 am; scrubbed the vessels and swabbed the floors. She had just enough time to rush home, pack her bags and go to school. It was bad enough she hadn’t done the homework and she dreaded to think what her teacher would do if she went to school late.

She wringed the last drops of water from the mop and hung it on the clothesline to dry. She prayed that Lalita should not find her an odd job to do in the last minute.

 “Saku…!,” called Lalita, “don’t leave the outsides of the bathroom water-logged. I’ve told you umpteen times….sweep the place dry after cleaning the vessels!!”

“I have done that amma, …” Saku made a move to pick up the vessel containing the night’s left-over sambar. “Keep the vegetables inside the fridge and then go!!riya dateTime=2005-03-03T18:06>” she heard Lalitariya dateTime=2005-03-03T18:06> shout, “ ..and remember to buy green chillies, on your way to work here tomorrow. I had told you yesterday, and you forgot!”

“Amma, I’m already late to school. I’ll do it tomorrow…I’ll come early.”

Saku bent to lift the vessel containing sambar, she heard Lalita mumble, “tell them to do an extra job, and they’ll have hundred excuses. No thankfulness, these people..” Saku put back the vessel. Otherwise she may have to hear snide remarks about not forgetting to take home the left-over bounties, but forgetting to do a trivial job like buying chillies from a shop on her way to work.

As Saku neared home, she saw her mother Gangamma standing in a queue to wait her turn to pump water at the roadside borewell pump. At a time, she could only fill two buckets of water. If she wanted more, she’d have to stand in the queue for the second time. She felt sorry for her, remembering how her drunken father had kicked her mother last night when she asked him for money. For a second, she wondered if she could lend her a helping hand. Then she shook her head and headed home.

She peered into the utensils stacked in the “kitchen” that was just a small corner in the six by six feet room that served the family’s bed room, living area and the kitchen. All she could find was just some rice, left over from the night. If she had been less sensitive and brought home the sambar, she might have eaten some rice with it. She would not have needed to starve.  It would be quite some time in the afternoon before her mother could cook, as she too worked as a domestic help in a couple of houses.

Suddenly Saku decided she would not go to school. To listen on an empty stomach to that demon of a teacher screech at her wasn’t exactly a comforting thought.           

S

aku was a ninth standard student at the government school. Two of her elder sisters – Meena and Parvati - barely studied beyond the fourth standard. Both hated their teachers for scolding them for petty reasons. They could not dress as smartly as some of the other students from better-off families and the teachers would be quite nice to them. One fine day their teacher made them stand outside the classroom for the entire day for not bringing the textbooks. How could they explain to the teacher that their father had torn the books in a fit of anger when their mother had refused to give him money for buying liquor?

The next day Meena and Parvati had refused to go to school. Their mother alternately beat them and pleaded with them in between the beatings, but they would not listen. Secretly the mother felt relieved – how does it matter if the girls did not study? They could perhaps help her in managing the home and take care of her darling three-year son, Nagappa, who was born after a year of devout prayers to the snake god at the Mariamman temple. Her husband and other relatives used to taunt her constantly for getting only daughters. After her third daughter was born, she was so tired of having daughters that she named her “Sakamma” —  “Saku” meant “enough” in her native language Kannada. But as luck would have it, the fourth offspring turned out to be a daughter too. Gangamma beat her chest and cried and refused to touch any food the entire day. She did not feed or comfort the wailing child. “Go, die,” she shrieked. Sakamma could not tolerate this. She begged her mother to breast feed her just for a couple of months and promised that she would herself take care of the child after that.

When Arti was barely three months old, she developed a high fever. Gangamma said she did not have money to treat her. Saku ran to Lalita and borrowed some money. For hours, she waited at the clinic, carrying the burning child on her shoulders. For all the trouble Saku took, Arti survived just for two days. Saku felt miserable, but her mother did not seem to care. As usual she went to work. No mourning for the dead one.  

Saku was inconsolable. She had watched every movement of Arti with a maternal pride. And sat up nights, lulling the baby to sleep on her lap.

It took only three months for Saku to clear her debts – Lalita used to cut Rupees 25 every month from her salary – but several months to put the stabbing memories of Arti behind her.

Then all of a sudden, like someone possessed, Gangamma had started fasting. On Tuesdays. On Thursdays. On full-moon days and on no-moon days. And then Nagappa was born and everyone was thrilled. But Saku ignored him totally. For some reason she felt he had usurped Arti’s place.

When Gangamma returned from work, she found Saku lying on a mat. She shook her, “Why have you not gone to school, you imbecile?” Saku did not stir. 

I

t was late evening. Street lights were on. Saku combed her hair and got ready to go to once again to Lalita’s house. She waited for Parvati to join her after her return from the garment factory where she was working. Else how could Saku walk back home alone on deserted roads at 9 p.m.?

Neither Parvati nor Saku grudged doing the extra evening work. In fact they looked forward to it.

And why not!  They would get to watch their favourite serials on a 24” television screen, and that too in colour, unlike the neighbouring children, who had to be content with a miniature, black-and-white TV in their homes.

For Saku, the characters in the show were real; in fact, larger-than-life. Right through the evening she would agonize over the heroine Kavya, who had been pushed out of her home by the conniving in-laws. How much trouble did Kavya have to face in bringing up her child single-handedly?

Watching the TV was on Saku’s mind when she asked Lalita if she wanted her to help in the evenings as well. Lalita pretended to be reluctant, though secretly she rejoiced, thinking she would be able to employ her at bargain wages. She said, OK, if you so wish….

The arrangement to work extra hours in the evening pleased her mother as well. Gangamma was happy, as she received extra money to run her family. She had been unhappy with Meena for refusing to roll the agarbattis or incense sticks – a job that would have given her six hundred rupees. She constantly hollered at Meena for being lazy and sleepy through the day.  After all, she thought, the lazy girl simply cribbed and complained about body pain, when all that she did was to roll out just a few bundles of agarbattis in the afternoons. She did not care to see that Meena’s palms had turned rough and dark; and even if she did, she would have commented, ‘ ..so what? One has to struggle to earn money.’

The arrangement suited Lalita immensely. Back home from work, she would plop into the sofa, and mindlessly surf all the channels, sipping the tea prepared by Saku. Saku would sit on the ground and cut the vegetables for the night’s dinner and the next day’s lunch.

Saku had once suggested to her mother Lakshmi that they buy a small sized black-and-white TV and pay the amount in instalments. But Lakshmi had been furious. How could Saku be so callous and selfish, when she knew her alcoholic father contributed nothing to the family and her mother found it difficult to stretch even the aggregate salaries of all the members to last the entire month?

Saku’s body shook with laughter. Her hands had briefly stopped cutting the beans. Her favourite comedian on the screen. She nudged Parvati and the two giggled.

Lalita hoped that Saku and Parvati would get up, finish the work soon and go away. “Foolish, crazy creatures,” thought Lalita in anger. “They take an entire hour to do what they could do in twenty minutes. And when do we get to eat and sleep?”

Shashank burst into the room excitedly. “Mom, I have finished the home work,” he announced and quickly snatched the remote from Lalita’s hands. Lalita glanced through the exercise books and Saku peeped into the books standing behind her back.

“Wow,” Saku was amazed, “Shashank can do complicated multiplications, though he is just in the third standard.” Here she was studying in the sixth standard, yet did not know the multiplication tables by heart.

In her mind Saku unconsciously compared herself to him; she wanted to try out everything he did, and she felt ashamed when she couldn’t do what he did. She used to feel proud when she learnt how to write the English alphabets, and read a couple of words. But that was until she saw Shashank read Amar Chitra Katha comics effortlessly.

 “You go away,” Shashank had pushed her when she peeped into the book. “You fool, you won’t understand – it’s English!”

Saku sat there patiently till he finished reading the Ramayana book and laid it down. She then picked up the book and browsed through it. Her heart ached – she could not understand a single word. Shamefacedly she tried to piece together the story by trying to make sense out of the illustrations.

“Ok, I’ll tell you,” Shashank began, “Dasharatha was the king of Ayodhya. He had no children …”

Saku listened intently to the narration. “You understand everything so well, don’t you,” she said wistfully. “In our school they don’t teach these things.”

As Shashank flipped through the channels, Parvati was getting impatient. She hated any interruption while she watched the television program. But Saku was cool. She wanted to watch whatever Shashank would watch.

On the screen, Donald duck was prancing about. Shashank roared with laughter, and Saku laughed too. Lalita had moved into her bed room. She had given explicit orders to everyone that once she went into her room, she was not to be disturbed. She would stretch herself on the bed and watch the programs undisturbed.

Parvati was getting irritated. She felt hungry too. If she had come straight from the garment factory to work here, even without having tea at home, it was because she was crazier about watching the Kannada channels than Saku was. When their program was changed by the whimsical Shashank, she wanted to go home.

The commanding voice of Lalita arrested her thoughts.

”Wash Shashank’s socks and napkins. You can watch your programs later!”

‘Why should I wash, when I’m not even paid for it,’ Parvati thought to herself and muttered something under her breath. Saku made a move to the bathroom to attend to the work.

Sowmya barged in and plopped on the sofa. It was time for her to watch her favourite song and dance sequence on the Star TV channel. As Shashank wouldn’t let her have the remote control, there was a brief scuffle.

“Amma!!!” screamed Shashank. Lalita rushed in.

She gave one whack to Shashank and shrieked. “Go study, you fool.” As Shashank went sobbing to his room, her ire turned towards Sowmya. “Must I tell you separately? If you study like this, you will end up like Saku … a bloody servant doing everybody’s bidding!!”

Once Lalita started yelling in a feverish pitch, the temper wouldn’t subside easily. All her pent-up anger tumbled out. “Saku has no other business or ambition in life. She watches movies all the time. She will fail in her class and she will still not bother. But you cannot be like her!”

Saku froze. Shashank giggled and made faces at her. One reprimanding look from Sowmya, and Shashank ran into his room. Tears rolled down Saku’s eyes. All these years she had doted on Lalita and Shashank, who was just three when she took up the job. It was just a year before Arti’s death, and Shashank’s constant playful pranks and chatter had helped to ease the pain. As Shashank grew up, he had become her role model. To be shamed in front of him, oh God!

Saku dried her eyes. As she walked back home in pensive silence along with Parvati that night, she paid no attention to her sister’s angry outbursts against Lalita. The sky might have been dark, but she felt that she suddenly saw bright light pouring at her from behind the clouds. She resolved in her mind that she would be more tolerant of her tyrant teachers and attend classes regularly. Even if they punished her. That humiliation was nothing compared to what she just experienced. At least, she wouldn’t end up like her sisters.

The stars seemed to be winking at her as she began to smile.