Free The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa Page A

the embroidered peacocks on the blue sari that Mrs Gupta had bought for her daughter-in-law.
    Ramchand stared at the tray.
    The boy stood there uncertainly, shifting from one foot to the other. Ramchand suddenly asked him, ‘Are you new here?’
    The boy stared at him dumbly. Ramchand switched from Punjabi to Hindi and asked again, ‘Are you new here?’
    This time the boy nodded. ‘From Himachal?’ Ramchand asked.
    ‘Yes,’ the boy said, his eyes lighting up. ‘From Lachkandi village, near Simla. Are you from the hills too?’ he asked excitedly, in a voice that was surprisingly clear and beautiful.
    Ramchand shook his head.
    The boy’s face fell. He looked at Ramchand uncertainly for a moment, then he suddenly turned and walked out of the room. Ramchand waited another fifteen minutes. Finally, a middle-aged woman dressed in a blue silk salwaar kameez and an expensive-looking shawl walked in. Gold and diamonds glittered on her ears and her wrists.
    Ramchand stood up politely. ‘Ji namaste,’ he said with folded hands.
    ‘Rinaaaa!’ she shouted, startling him. ‘The sari-wala is here.’
    When she shouted, you could see the red inside of her mouth and her large, even teeth. Then she said, ‘Namaste,’ and sat down opposite him.
    A young woman with permed hair walked in, the high heels of her shoes sinking into the soft carpet. She wore blue jeans, a slinky blouse with a purple and blue floral pattern and a black woollen cardigan. Silver bangles jangled at her wrists.
    ‘Yes, mama.’
    ‘Sit, let’s take a look at these saris.’
    Ramchand looked at both of them. So these two women were Ravinder Kapoor’s wife and daughter. He had heard that the wife had once, at one go, bought pashmeena shawls worth ten lakhs. He looked at her curiously.
    ‘What are you waiting for? Show us the saris,’ she suddenly said to him, her voice imperious and harsh.
    ‘Mama, let’s have one of the servants here,’ said Rina. She had a husky, languid voice.
    ‘Okay,’ replied her mother. ‘Raghuuuuu!’ she yelled, the red, cavernous opening of her mouth yawning wide again.
    The door opened once more and Raghu, a tall young man, came in. He stood deferentially by the sofa watching the proceedings.
    Ramchand, still sitting on the sofa, bent down and opened the knot that tied the bundle. But he was feeling uncomfortable, and his fingers fumbled awkwardly at the knot. Finally he excused himself, walked to the edge of the carpet, stepped off it, took off his shoes and came back. Then he hitched up his new black trousers and sat down on the carpet cross-legged, feeling back in his element. Rina caught her mother’s eye and sniggered, but he ignored it.
    Now, he swiftly undid the bundle and confidently began to take the saris out one by one, but what followed was completely outside of all his previous experience.
    Ramchand had been working at Sevak Sari House for eleven years now. He had watched innumerable women choose saris. Though women were otherwise strange, alien creatures to him, there was one part of them that he knew intimately – the way they chose saris.
    He had learnt to read their expressions and their moods very accurately. He could guess when they were definitely going to buy a particular sari. He could tell when they were in two minds and had to be pushed into buying one.He could immediately sense when they had made up their minds not to buy anything and were just pretending to be interested.
    He well knew the look on a young girl’s face when she came to the shop with mothers and aunts and sisters to buy saris for her wedding trousseau. There was the glow on her face, the light in her eyes, the quiet nervous excitement. She would drape a pallu of a sari over her shoulder and look into the mirror intently. While the women accompanying her critically assessed how the sari suited her, she looked at herself with the eyes of her would-be-husband-and lover. Her moist lips would quiver and part in a virginal