A, a shy 16 year old girl who was one of my interviewees during my Mumbai water-and-sanitation fieldwork, called my parents in Ahmedabad some months ago because she wanted to talk to "Renu-didi." Since my India SIM card wasn't going to work while I was in the UK, I'd given her my parents' phone number just in case (just in case what? I don't know... anyway...). When my parents told me she had called, I'd tried to call her elder sister's mobile number, but the number seemed to have changed. Today she called my parents just as I was skyping with my mom. Told my mom to ask A for her sister’s new mobile number.
When I call the number half an hour later, her sister picks up the phone and tells me she has stepped out to the bazaar with their mother and to call after an hour. Unlike A, her sister is not shy and she tells me: You've forgotten us, A remembers you so much. It wasn't really an accusation, but maybe it felt like one because I quickly defended myself: I did try to call you, but your phone number had changed, I haven't forgotten you all. She tells me she had lost her mobile phone, and then invites me to her own wedding - she is getting married to a boy in Ahmedabad in May (she knows Ahmedabad is my home-town). I tell her I won't be able to make it for the wedding but I'll visit her when I return to India in July/August. She tells me she will make sure I visit her! I tell her I'll call again after an hour to talk to A.
It is true, I haven't forgotten them. But our worlds are so different that the import of our interaction has probably stayed with each of us in very different ways. I’m not sure why A's become so fond of me. Maybe its because she is shy and doesn't say much, unlike all her other sisters who talk nineteen to the dozen. And here I was, coming to their house specifically to talk to her - mainly about her water and sanitation experiences, but also I'd asked her about her friends, what she liked to do in her spare time, etc - questions that were usually met with giggles or brief shy responses - she really didn't seem to have any friends, she said she liked to see TV, and explained to me that she didn't like going out of the house. Maybe she also became fond of me because I would often visit her house in the middle of my fieldwork day to just say hello, drawn there because of her lively younger sisters. I'd sit with A for awhile, watching her younger sisters creating a ruckus in their one-room house. She'd been sad to see me leave when I finished my fieldwork and I'd promised that I would visit them when I returned to Mumbai after a year.
So when I call her sister’s number after an hour, A picks up the phone and almost squeals in delight. Tumhari bahut yaad aati hai, Renu-didi, tum kab aaoge, she asks me. After some conversation, her two younger sisters (13-14 years old) who seemed to have just returned home take the phone from her and one of them screams into the phone, asking me when are you coming back, come in May to attend our sister’s wedding, etc, etc. The phone is passed on to the other younger sister, who thinking that I must have forgotten her, tries to remind me who she is – “I am the one who goes to fetch water.” Some conversation in the background. Giggles. And the phone seems to be passed back and forth between them. I lose track of which of the younger sisters I'm talking to. One of them asks me when I am coming to visit them, and when I explain that I’d said one year and it has only been 6-7 months, she tells me: Tumne ek saal bola tha aur che mahine hi hue hai, par aisa lagta hai ki aapko saalo se nahin dekha hai. (I am touched....)
Finally the phone goes back to A. I ask her about the water situation, whether it has improved, and she says it has worsened – they used to pay Rs.15 for a drum of water, now they have to pay Rs.50 for that. Rs.50 – for 200 litres of water. I wonder for a split second how they're managing - during my fieldwork, members in her family couldn't bathe more than once in 3-4 days because of the dire water situation. Every few days they had to alternate between their various sources of water to get some minimal adequate amount. Then I guess I unconsciously decide not to pursue this on the phone. Instead I ask her what else she’s been up to. She giggles in response, probably not knowing what to say. When I ask her whether she goes out of the house more, she tells me she does, adding tumne bola tha na (before I left Mumbai, I'd told her she should step out of her house more). Some more conversation, then as we say our byes, she tells me to take care of myself, and goes on: Tum theek to ho, tum duble (thin) ho na, to tum theek khaana, aur mote ho ke aana. Here was a 16-year-old girl from one of Mumbai’s most impoverished neighbourhoods telling me to eat properly and take care of myself (it wouldn’t have made much sense to explain to her that I eat more than properly and I am thin only because I have a high metabolism). Instead I try and pull her leg and tell her that she too is thin. She reminds me of the time I’d had khichdi at their house and says that I should come again and have khichdi. When I tell her that just today I had made and eaten khichdi for lunch, she laughs in surprise. Again we say our byes and take cares, and she says: Phone rakh du kya? Phone rakhne ko dil nahi karta. I promise her I’ll call her again next month. And then she says: Theek hai, 7 baje ke baad karna. Khuda Hafeez, and puts down the phone.
I put the phone down, moved...
I am wondering at this relationship, of A's immense affection towards me - I am very fond of her and her sisters, though I doubt I feel as strong an affection for them as she does for me. I wish I could do something about their dire water situation. I'm wondering what gifts I might take for them when I visit them. A's elder sister is getting married in May into a family in Ahmedabad. I wonder where the family lives in Ahmedabad; they are Muslim. I wonder whether the next time I go to Ahmedabad, I should call her elder sister to my home and not just visit her. How would that feel? What would her elder sister think of me on entering my parents' house - so obviously upper-middle class. Will it change our interaction? Of course they know I come from a well-off family, I currently live in England, but knowing is different from experiencing. Maybe I have traversed the spaces of their house and neighbourhood in a way that has allowed this particular relationship to emerge. But maybe I have done so because my upper-middle class background made it possible for me to reject certain practices in their house that I felt would reinforce our class differences. In what ways can A and her sisters traverse the spaces of my house and neighbourhood, I wonder.
