Kavita A. Jindal
Kabariwala
Kabariwala
Upper Ridge Road, Delhi, 1975
At the door of our second-floor flat he sits on his haunches,
takes out his scales, weighs the bundles of newspapers,
talks more than usual as he places the kilo and half-kilo weights;
he makes my mother suspicious at his chirpiness.
She insists he weighs the papers again; they haggle
over the price he'll pay for seven kilos, how many paise
for each brown glass bottle, how much for each tin can;
and it’s only when he hands over some rupees that he says
Next month my cousin or my uncle will come to collect
instead of me; I'm going away.
Going where, we ask; Going foreign, he says.
I’m going where there is free love
Where you can be with whomever you want whenever
you want; probably England, that's where I'm going.
Will you be a kabariwala there, I ask.
Don't think so, he replies, packing away his scales.
Onto his young shoulders he hefts the sacks of papers, bottles
and cast-off pans, informing me that in foreign
they don't re-process old things.
He goes down the stairs whistling.
* Kabariwala: Hindi word for scrapdealer
