PARALLELS

SOURCE: BARIO

A gentle grinding noise issued from the kitchen as Razia lumbered in, yawning, tripping on the hem of her nightgown, steadying herself by grabbing hold of the graphite counter, and turning on the coffee machine. Rojina went on scraping the coconut, even as she looked up to grin a toothless smile at her madam. She squatted on a layer of day-old newspaper, spread under her like her own personal carpet, ready to begin her daily duties of scraping, cutting, skinning, peeling and more. Razia yawned again, stirring in generous measures of sugar to her coffee in between gulps. She looked at the broken coconut husks, waiting to be thrown away, and mildly wondered how Rojina managed to break them so quietly.
She drained the last of her coffee, and put it in the sink -- the beginning of a mountainous pile of dirty dishes that would find their way to the kitchen through the course of the day. Rojina kept grinding away, not being the usual chatterbox she was. It was a nice change, to not have to hear details of what went down in the slums last night first thing in the morning on a mind devoid of caffeine, but Razia knew better. She knew what that silence meant.
She retreated to her bedroom, where her husband was snoring away. Careful not to wake him, she picked out a clean ironed saree, and softly made her way to the bathroom to get ready for work. It didn't take her long to drape the saree around her and twist her hair in a nice elegant bun and line some kohl around her eyes. It was the bindi that she dreaded -- getting it in the centre, in the exact right place on her forehead was a challenge she somehow hadn't mastered in all these years. After ten long minutes, it finally sat at its respected spot, nestled between her eyebrows. She took one last look of herself and satisfied, headed back into the kitchen.
Rojina had breakfast ready; Razia could never figure out how she always managed it so fast. The coconut that moments ago were whole and untouched were now warm and crispy flakes on her plate, and Razia ate eagerly, while Rojina started on the chickens for lunch, still absurdly silent. The money lay in Razia's purse, in a neat bundle inside an envelope, with Rojina's name on it, and the month she was being paid for. Razia wrote it out of habit, it was not like Rojina could read her own name any more than she could read the news lying all around her as she skinned and deboned chicken. She worked hard, she worked far harder that Razia ever had to, or would ever have to work in her whole life. Razia looked at Rojina and admired her for the strength she had, for being able to smile when she had every reason to cry, for being silent when she could just ask and take the money and feign a headache and get home early. She looked at Rojina with respect, and felt a little ashamed of herself.
After all, the hardest thing she had to do in the morning was get her bindi to sit in the centre.