Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Sita Bhaskar
the truck. At first she waited for the dust raised by the truck’s entrance
to settle, but she realized that this was the road where the Chief Minister
lived. In the midst of a city rife with exhaust fumes from buses, dust
from dug-up roads, and debris from ongoing construction, the Chief
Minister lived on a heavily-barricaded, perfectly-paved road where
there was no dust. Even the blare of bus horns and drilling of heavy-duty
construction equipment seemed muffled on this road. Soon the truck
backed out of the street and sped off, leaving in its wake a display fit for a
wedding reception. But unlike a wedding reception where the backdrop
was woven with seasonal flowers, a picture of the Chief Minister formed
the entire backdrop of this stage. And unlike a wedding reception, only
one chair was placed at the center of the stage, a chair that seemed too
large even for the ample bulk of the Chief Minister. Two tables stood at
either end of the stage, piled high with boxes from Co-optex, the Tamil
Nadu Handloom Emporium.
Gaja lost interest in the stage when he saw the boxes from
Co-optex. He knew about clothes. He ironed them for a living, didn’t
he? Saris and dhotis for special occasions were bought at Nalli Silks or
Kumaran Silks, not Co-optex. He remembered when saris from Cooptex
had run color on the bedsheet that he used in his cart while
ironing. Whoever had decided to cut corners and buy the Chief
Minister not one but forty-five saris from Co-optex for her forty-fifth
birthday would probably be in jail by sundown.
The arrival of another truck at the back of the line broke his reverie.
It was clearly time for something to happen. Band instruments were
unloaded and band players scrambled out of the truck and took up their
positions amidst much confusion. They wore ornate suits in red, black
and white—the colors of the Chief Minister’s political party. Tasseled
hats were tethered on their heads with cheap elastic bands secured
under their chins. Walkie-talkies stuttered with indecipherable jargon
as policemen donned their white gloves and took their place in line.
Gaja and his friends—for they were friends by now, they had shared
perspiration and aspirations—peered over the heads of the policemen
to get a glimpse of the action. They nudged each other and pointed
to the positions of the Black Cat commandos—the Chief Minister’s
security detail. At least that’s what they thought they were pointing
to, it could just be the crows that dared to sit on trees in the Chief
Minister’s compound.
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