Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [145]
"Watch out for Moni," said Rabi. "He'll Photoshop a pair of nesting pterodactyls."
It's a Photoshop world, she thought.
"We've all been Photoshopped," said Moni. "I know I've been."
She had no memories. Her memories were only starting now. Her life was starting now.
The boys drank beer; she had a soda. Three small crocs were exploring the tripods; like kittens or puppies they were trying to climb them and bite the cameras. Rabi kept clicking away.
"Um, Rabi, old man," Moni whispered. "Turn around very, very slowly."
Not five feet off the bow, two eyes and a pair of nostrils floated, unattached, it seemed, to anything underwater. Except that far away downstream the water eddied at the base of an armored tail. And to think, just seconds before, Anjali had been swirling her hands in the water to clean them of fish slime.
Click!.
The rest of the day was devoted to birds and bats. Overripe fruit, halved watermelons, spotted mangoes, and guavas were spread at the base of a rookery tree, the tripods set, cameras loaded and guano hoods attached, remotes set. A few flying fox bats dropped down from the trees despite the daylight hour. It was never too bright in the forest. They moved over the moldering fruits like stooped old men in heavy capes. They reminded Anjali of the priests at Vasco da Gama, with their long coats and bent posture. "The weight of the world," Father Thomas used to say. But in the zoom lens their true nature appeared, and their name held true: foxes. Sharp-faced, intelligent dogs, with wings.
Then the three paddled upriver and drifted back down, Anjali consulting the bird guide, pointing "There, there," and Moni and Rabi taking turns paddling and taking pictures till the light began to fail and the foxes lifted off from their trees for a night of pillaging.
THEY SAT IN three slack, ground-grazing sling chairs, just a small step up from hammocks, swirling dal and chapatis with their fingers, sipping beer, looking out over the water. In their sun hats and full sleeves against the mosquitoes, they could have been nineteenth-century British planters surveying God's handiwork, with full satisfaction. My boys, Anjali thought. My brave, funny boys.
In the last minutes of sunlight, the smooth river was pocked by leaping fish, swooping birds, and drifting logs—floating eyes and nostrils—that weren't logs at all. The clear, peach-colored sky was sooty with funnels of bats lifting off from the trees.
She had a sudden thought: Nothing bad can come of this.
I'm down to one iron in the fire. Debt-recovery agent. If anything is to come of this night, or the future, she thought before turning in, I owe it to bats and crocodiles. How to explain the wonders of this world?
Epilogue
It was a winter's day when the air was cool and the sunlight was wan and the mosquitoes were out in their post-monsoon exuberance. We were told to expect a visit by a da Gama alumna who had left Gauripur, found a job, and succeeded in ways our teachers always told us we could too. Her name was Anjali Bose, and many of us remembered her as a tall, outgoing girl, one of the Bengalis in the Hindi-speaking heartland of Bihar. She'd gone to fabled Bangalore and worked hard and found a modest position, then risen within it. Our teacher knew her well. He said she had "the spark," and thanks to her and millions like her, India was on fire. Even Gauripur was on fire. He was our fomenter of hope. She didn't bring the fire all by herself, but she was a "collateral beneficiary."
He said she was just one in a billion, but each of us had it in us to be another one in a billion. He said she, and a friend, would come to his corporate management class and give a little talk. If we were ready to listen, and to act, she had lessons to teach us.
What to say about Gauripur since she left? Maybe she'll notice a crane on the horizon, more women and children carrying bowls of cement on their heads, some painters' scaffolding around old buildings, and new apartment blocks being erected. Pinky Mahal's shored-up walls have been repainted