A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

He is pinching my cheek, and I am laughing even though it is hurting. I am feeling peaceful, like this thin mattress on the floor is our own luxury five-star hotel bed. In this room I am having everything I am needing. A jar of drinking water, some dishes, a small kerosene stove, and a shelf for my clothes and jewelry. On the wall, giving me their blessings every day, are Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan. When I am looking around, I am seeing their beautiful faces, and some of their good fortune is sprinkling down on me.

IT IS NOT NEW, this insult. But it is not old.

“Well, teacher sir,” says Bimala Pal, “it is our good fortune that you came.” Later PT Sir’s wife will say, “That was a scolding for coming to the stage! Don’t you know that politicians always say the opposite of what they mean? It is called diplomacy.”

What a mistake! I was thinking I would be feeling noble, but no, I am only feeling sad.

It is a place where donkey villagers are coming, especially on cool, cloudy days like these. Their mouths are always open when they are touring the city. They are looking at everything like it was made personally by god. Malls, zebra crossings, women who are wearing pants.

In the room behind the door, three daughters, too young to be of any use. We cut them like their father cut our holy mother cow. Our people, the true people of this nation, are a flood of cleansing water, our arms and legs full of muscles which grab and swing, our grip never more certain than when it closes around the resistant throat of the man’s wife. Never more certain than when it stretches open her legs.

My mind screams and quiets itself, screams and quiets itself.

The vitality of the moment dazes him. Never has he been in a place that felt so much like the center of the world.