God Listens: A Sketch
We were on a sleeper train heading south to Bombay. Firoz and I sat across from each other on the aisle seats and said “nahin, shukriya” as a man selling snacks walked to us and asked whether we wanted to buy any. He had an open sack full of puffed rice, lime wedges, and some toppings I didn’t recognize. “No, thanks.” My stomach would make war against me if I ate that local of food, handled and prepared by bare unwashed hands. For Firoz this was no problem, but he wasn’t hungry. The man walked on in search of customers.
Not more than ten seconds passed when two hijras came jingling up the aisle behind the snack man clapping their hands and offering prayers for money. One of them was more insistent than the other. For her the money was a demand not a request; the prayer just a formality to civilize the exchange. It looked like a practice as trained as time, requiring no threat, only tradition. No one in the car objected. The second woman solicited the other passengers more coyly in the wake of her confident partner. When they saw Firoz and, more importantly, Firoz sitting with me, they skipped over to us immediately.
The insistent one spoke playfully with Firoz while looking back and forth between him and me. He said something encouraging to her in Urdu and she turned to me, put a hand on my forehead, smiled, and said a prayer. She was beaming at me and I at her when she finished. But then Firoz stole her attention by holding out some rupees. She took them and we said thank you and good bye as they both waved coquettishly before disappearing down the aisle and into the next train car.
“I always pay hijras when they come around, and then they will bless you.” Said Firoz. “It’s good fortune. People say that when hijras pray, God listens.”
I looked back at him and asked, “What if they pray for a life that’s not confined to the margins of society?”
Firoz thought a moment and then leaned back into the seat with a shrug. “Well, sometimes he’s hard of hearing.”
