"Don’t take that. It’s Kumari’s cup.”
I set down the small clay tea cup I was fingering and for a moment brood the loss of such a fine little thing. Though inexpensive, I find its earthiness charming. I am disappointed I would have to put off my next use to some indefinite time in the future. Or, depending on how severely my mother thinks Kumari is tainted, I may never drink from its delicately shaped rim ever again. But then I am smarted by shame.
“Mom, that’s ridiculous. Should I be avoiding her shadow, then?”
“It’s not like that!” Her sudden response suggests that she did not intend to sound like a stuck-up Brahmin who unrelentingly follows the groupthink of the caste system. But she becomes quiet and reflective.
Kumari enters the kitchen and wordlessly signals for us to leave. Her mop traces half circles, again and again, across the short distance to the washing room. When she gets to her sink, she rinses the mop and ties up the small garbage bag—her garbage bag—that has been accumulating vegetable peels since yesterday morning. We re-enter. My mother goes to Kumari’s sink and makes a few discriminating sniffs in the air.
“You have to understand, they have different standards of hygiene. See here. She clearly has an incontinence problem. We’ll get sick from being stupidly idealistic! Don’t just stand there—smell it!”
But all I can acknowledge is the lingering smell of the trash.
My mother continues her lecture, casually gesturing to sixty percent (according to my History teacher) of the world’s second most populous country as she talks about “their” water, “their” bathing habits, and “their” eating utensils. By the time the country gained independence, “they” actually had a multitude of names: dalits, shudras, untouchables. The most patronizing one of all was coined by Gandhi—harijan, meaning “child of God.” But in our house, none of these names are used. After all, “that” isn’t what we’re talking about.
I was very sick only last week, but exhausted our supply of mugs in pampering my throat. Kumari washed them as she gabbed on about her family and attempted to draw gossip out of my mother about the other building residents. Kumari knows how to slip in a request for an advance or a hint that she will not come in to work the following day. My mother says her sly little monologues have to be heard out, however tedious.
When I was studying world history in sixth grade, my grandmother told me that you could always tell the difference between a Brahmin and a non-Brahmin.
“We have a certain neat look,” she said in her usual cluelessly vain way, to which my mother always rolls her eyes.
“You mean, we dress rich and they don’t, right?” I asked.
“No, no. Even without finery, you can just tell. It’s perhaps in the face—certain features. You can tell if you have been in India for a long time. You are young, so you don’t understand right now. But when you grow up, you’ll see that there is a difference.”
Indeed, there is.
