River Town Chronicles Read Free Page A

side was a small shelter with a cabinet built into the wall. This would be our kitchen. On the other side of the courtyard was a small brick enclosure. Ram Swarup said this was the bathroom. I opened the door. It was a bathroom without a bathtub, without a sink, without running water or electricity. And, it was a bathroom without a toilet! There was just a shallow drain running along the cement floor and out into an alleyway. I could only imagine what was going through Pat’s mind at this time.
    On the other side of the courtyard was a small passage way that led to the area occupied by Ram Swarup and his family. I followed Ram Sarup through the doorway into three small rooms. In one room were charpois for sleeping. Another room was used for storage and the third room was a small kitchen area with a chula (a small earthen cook stove) on the floor where bhabhi prepared the family’s meals. Ram Swarup said we would share the courtyard. “Oh, and watch out for the monkeys. They are very clever.” “Monkeys?” I asked. “Yes. They like to terrorize the children.” I looked around, wondering if there were still more inhabitants I didn’t know about. “Up there. On the rooftop. You’ll meet them soon.”
    I left Ram Swarup and returned to our room, where Pat had begun to unpack our bags. She was hanging clothes on the pegs that stuck out from the wall and rearranging the remaining items in the suitcases. She decided to use the suitcases as chests of drawers. I unwound the twine from the top of the gunny sack and began to remove the items. First the blankets, then the sheets and pillows and the small kerosene stove and a few pots and pans. Finally, I pulled out two thin cotton mattresses and threw the empty sack in a corner of the room. “That’s all? That’s all we have to live with in this place for a year?” Pat asked incredulously. Her hands were on her hips again, surveying the meager items I had pulled out of the sack. “A homeless person living under a bridge would have more possessions than this.” I put the cotton mattresses, sheets and blankets on the two charpois in the middle of the room. Maybe Ram Swarup would be able to find three more charpois in the morning. Pat and I sat down on the two chairs with the crushed bottoms and Tim, Brian and Lori sat on the charpois. Pat pulled out some sandwiches and fruit she brought from Fonseca’s and we ate our first meal in River Town. It was clear that the next few days would be difficult. What would we eat and drink, and where would we get it? And the bathroom? How did that work? There was no toilet, no sink, no water, no light. Only a brick shed with a drain running along the cement floor and out into the alleyway. “You know,” Pat said, “I think that taxi driver in Delhi was right. We won’t like this place.”
    It started to rain again. At first it was just a light drizzle and then suddenly it poured down in torrents. A small stream of water trickled down one corner of the room and splashed onto the floor. A bare wire with a light bulb attached at the end and hanging from the ceiling began to sputter and spark. We were too tired to care. We finished our meager meal, put the three kids on one of the charpois and Pat and I got on the other charpoi and pulled the sheet and blanket over our heads.

B ANANAS AND M ILK

    W HEN WE AWOKE the next morning, there was a gaggle of small children peering through the iron bars of our windows. The word was out that there were strangers in town. Bhabhi shooed them away and Mohan brought us cups of hot tea. We still needed food to eat, so as soon as the rain let up a little, I walked out the door of our new home in the bazaar and made my way up the lane to the chowk (center of the bazaar). I bought a kilo of oranges and a half kilo of bananas. I bought some vegetables and some flour, rice and sugar. I even found a small shop that had a few loaves of