Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [84]
Usha handed the sheet to her. It was a photocopy of the poem "The Raven." "Do you know what the title refers to, Angie?"
What a relief! "A ray-venn?" she asked. "A large black bird with a big white beak? Like a kite, or a crow?" She was back in Peter's apartment, the pencil in Peter's hand punctuating each word. Again, again, no, again. Without being asked, she began to read the sheet. The "weak and weary," the "quoth the raven," the "never-more" all presented themselves fully formed, natural, without a pause.
"Peter prepared you very well."
Did that mean she was too advanced for the CCI program? "I still need training, madam."
"Well, thank you for coming in this afternoon." Parvati signaled that the interview was at an end.
"We'll call you. And please convey our good wishes to Mrs. Bagehot."
On cue Kamini came out of the kitchen to show Anjali out. In the hallway, Anjali thought she overheard a soft laugh and something like the words "Well, definitely not your cookie-cutter..."
5
On the auto-rickshaw ride back from Indira Nagar to Kew Gardens, Anjali went over and over the questions the CCI partners had put to her, how stupidly she had answered them, and how she should have responded. Husseina's prepping hadn't seen her through the actual interview. She was anxious to describe her experience to Tookie and get her feedback before Tookie left for her pre-work-shift bar-hopping ritual.
When she got back to Bagehot House, she changed into her own clothes before knocking on the barely open door to Tookie's room. All three of her fellow boarders were there, giggling and whooping about a column in Voice of the South, which was spread out on Tookie's bed. Sunita had found the paper on the top of the credenza in the breakfast alcove.
"Hey, girlfriend!" Tookie high-fived her. "Take an eyeful of this! That Dynamo dude's got it right! Totally nailed us!"
Even Sunita managed an air-high-five and made room for Anjali on the bed so she could read Dynamo's column.
THE NEW MISS INDIA
By Dynamo
Dynamo this week is smitten. Congratulations to the New Miss India, Aziza Habib, selected last week in Goa by a panel of Bollywood heavyweights and at least one befuddled Hollywood B-lister, as the next Aishwarya Rai, self-evidently the most beautiful woman in the world. (By national consensus, any Miss India automatically doubles as the world Number One). Once again, the time-tested standard of Indian beauty has been upheld: simpering, doe-eyed, classically trained dancers in traditional attire (until they strip down to Western evening gowns and spike heels) in front of dozens of slobbering producers with checkbooks and film scripts at the ready.
My question: Which of these lovely ladies is more in touch with the soul of modern India?
Every week, Bang-a-lot (or maybe I should call it Bang-amour) receives (not "welcomes") several thousand young women from every part of this great country. They arrive by plane, by train, even by intercity bus. They come from the great cities and the mofussil towns. From Lucknow and Varodara; from Gauripur and Dhanbad. They represent all religions, all languages. They come bearing school-leaving certificates, letters of reference from old teachers, but most important, bearing hope and energy that is infectious. They don't simper, they don't dance (don't ask them!), and they don't wear saris or evening gowns. They stride in comfortable salwars or in blue jeans, and Bang-amour had better get used to it and be grateful for them. Our torpid institutions—like Bollywood standards of compliance—will try to beat them down, but that train has already left the station.
While the moguls of Mumbai thrust their retro beauties in our faces, these call-center hopefuls manage to attract a smaller but more discriminating cadre of admirers. Bollywood has no use for India's women, apart from ornamentation. Far from Bollywood being India's international calling card, it cynically holds its "heroines" and their vast male