The Way of the World by Ayan Mondal

In Mumbai, a child bakes cakes to help earn money while her father protests against the authorities who destroyed his shop.

Image generated with OpenAI

"Ameena, get the cakes. It's seven already!"

"Ji, Ammi."

All yawny, Ameena dragged herself towards the basket in the corner. She opened the lid and stared at the contents curiously. Cakes, arranged in neat stacks, that had blossomed overnight under her watchful eye. Small, uniform cracks of golden brown in the middle. She poked one lightly, felt the soft spring of butter and flour, and smiled. With practiced care, she stacked them within a large container.

Ameena's butter and vanilla flavoured cakes were very popular among the children of St. Judy's school, selling out by noon. Ameena revelled in watching little kids lick their butter-smeared fingers clean.

She had begun this enterprise to bring joy to people. Joy, which she felt in baking the cakes. Joy, which she had felt the first time Jumada gave her a cake to taste. She had been nine years old, exploring the city with her friend Shabrati, when they came across the hijra neighbourhood in Kamathipura. Jumada, the leader of the community, took to the wandering pair, quipping, "Ae beti, come here. What are you two spies up to?"

Caught off guard, Ameena timidly responded, "We only wanted to find where the khushboo comes from."

"What khushboo?"

"Butter biscuits."

Jumada threw back her head and laughed. "Then follow."

As they walked through the narrow lanes, the smell became more profuse, until they reached a courtyard alive with ovens. For Shabrati and Ameena, it was like stepping foot in a Willy Wonka cake factory. A community of hijras worked in unison, kneading doughs and shining trays of golden cakes with butter and whipped cream. Like the printing press, they stamped each cake with a sharp, tin machine, giving them different shapes and sizes. Shabrati and Ameena's eyes glittered and their mouth watered at the prospect of tasting the fluffy delicacies. As they devoured the sample cake given by Jumada, Ameena kept a small portion of the cake stuffed in the corner of her mouth. She wanted its taste to linger for days to come. And it did. For she came to Kamathipura every day for the next two months. She would sit on Jumada or Shantabai's lap and stare intently at the hands at work. The kneading and the folding of batter into form. The oven's ding at the thirty-five mark. The drizzle of molten butter on top. Dressed in whipped cream. Cherry on top.

In these two months, Ameena had learnt and memorised every motion of their hands. Tasted and savoured all degrees of butter infusions. But April had passed. She could no longer continue to come here every day. Something had happened back home. So, when the day came, the group, who were more like parent figures to Ameena by now, got together and pressed an oven and a customised recipe book into her hands. "We will come to check on you every week, and we better get that khushboo from a mile away when we arrive."

Meanwhile, matters grew worse in Ameena's household. Junaid, Ameena's father, ran a leather shop in the local market area on the outskirts of the neighbourhood. The market consisted of forty-odd shops, each of a semi-temporary nature. The shops ran at the mercy of police officers, who came at the end of every month to collect their chanda from the shopkeepers. One Sunday morning, Junaid arrived at the market to see a fleet of bulldozers wrecking all the shops. For a minute, Junaid went numb. He stared in a trance at the bags and shoes inside his shop, torn to pieces. Jolted back to reality by his co-worker, he rushed to the nearby police officer, demanding an explanation.

"Court's orders", replied the officer, shoving a piece of paper in his face. "New water plant to be built here. Who knows maybe in two years you lot will get jobs here."

"But Sir, how shall we survive two years without our shops."

"Go beg, for all I care."

All throughout the day, Junaid cut an inconsolable figure. He wouldn't eat all day, and shut himself up in a corner of the room. He had been saving up pennies to send Ameena to school. Every time he looked at her now, a swell of grief engulfed him. It wasn't until late at night that he let Ameena come close to him. Tucking inside her father's cocoon, Ameena took a piece of cake she had prepared and brought it close to his mouth. "Aaaa karo." It was the first bite he had taken all day, and tears started rolling down his cheeks after the first bite.

"Where did you learn to make such good cake, Amu?"

"Do you like it?"

"Best cake I ever had."

Ameena lay curled up in her father's lap for a while, and finally, after gathering some courage, stood up and declared, "I'm going to bake cakes from tomorrow and sell them in the market. You stop being sad. I help make money."

And just like that, Ameena started baking cakes for a living. All her cakes sold out every day, except on Fridays. On Fridays, she kept a few cakes aside for Jumada and her gang. She skipped along after school to Jumada's neighbourhood. Stuffing a cake straight inside Jumada's mouth, Ameena's shimmering eyes awaited a verdict. And every day Jumada came up with a new shayri that made Ameena's chest swell with pride. Today, she recited:

Subah ka noor hai, sham ka dastoor hai

Shukravaar ko Ameena ke cake na mile

Toh Shukravaar me hi kasoor hai

Meanwhile, the shopkeepers, led by Junaid, decided to organise a protest rally against the administration. They gathered on Brutton Street crossing, knowing fully well that it would be an inconvenient itch for the office commuters as well as the traffic police on an early Monday morning. Their demands: "Give us our shops back, or provide alternate means of sustenance with immediate effect." Large swarms of police drove in in their Gypsies and Vajras. They pressed against the protestors with their vehicles and barricades trying to suppress the rally.

That morning, Ameena made extra cakes for her father and the shopkeepers who gathered for the protest. Before going to the school, she decided to stop by her father and drop off the cakes to him. By the time Ameena reached Brutton Street, the air was already taut with shouts and sirens. She darted through the chaos and handed over the stack of cakes to her father. As she turned, her eyes fell upon Jumada and two of her acquaintances standing afar, looking in despairing annoyance at the protesters. Ameena trotted over to the trio.

"Sabah bakhair, Jumada bai. Cake?"

Shaking her head, Jumada replied "Your baap is the cause for all this commotion. This road feeds us, and the protest has driven us away from the crossing."

The words stung. Ameena turned back toward her father, determined to plead with him. But even before she reached him, the air cracked open. Canisters burst, and the sting of tear gas poured into the lungs of protesters. The crowd convulsed. Men coughed, women cried, bodies surged back and forth. Ameena stumbled through the smoke, found her father's arms, felt him push her away - "Run, beti!" - before policemen seized him, wrists yanked behind, shoved into the waiting Vajra.

Jumada rushed into the scene, screaming her name - "Ameenaaaa!" Her shouts were obscured by the coughs and lathi sounds all around. As the protestors retaliated and started pelting stones on the police and their cars, one of the police entered the Vajra and drew backwards hastily to create some space for it. Almost immediately, a loud shriek echoed through the air. Recognizing the voice immediately, Jumada rushed to the spot and looked at the sight in unspeakable horror. Ameena lay below one of the wheels, her small body folded, with the vehicle perched on top of her, blood seeping out ceaselessly into the tar.

Everything slowed down around Jumada for a moment. She could hear every voice in her head. Canisters crackling, lathis striking, stones pelting, protestors shrieking, oven burning, Ameena's mother crying, some god in some corner of the universe laughing maniacally. Choking, gasping for breath, Jumada threw herself forward, clawing at the tyre. No amount of Herculean strength yielded any result. At that moment, the driver stepped out to see what had stopped the vehicle. Seeing him, Jumada lost her cool. Leaping upon the officer, her hands tightened around his throat. The officer struggled in vain, as Jumada's strength outgrew any mortal. His eyes bulged one last time before his body went slack. The other officers came running. Gunfire cracked. Jumada's chest erupted. She collapsed beside Ameena, two streams of blood mingling into a single pool of crimson.

The faint smell of butter was finally overcome by the smell of tear gas. The brawl continued long after, as brawls tend to do, and someone sitting by the window at St. Judy's school wondered why Ameena hadn't come to sell her butter cakes that day.