Krishna

Her name was Krishna. She depended on the temperamental, thieving, fornicating monkeys of the University for her livelihood. She was the monkey chaser. For a crown, she wore her hair in a bun, for a peacock feather she wore a long stroke of vermilion in her hair's parting and for a flute she held an inordinately long wooden pole, the music of which was anathema to the monkeys. 

"What is your mother tongue?" 

"Bengali" she says. 

"Did you have food?" she asks.

"Yes. Did you?" 

"No. my shift lasts till ten at night. After that I cannot go home and make food." she says.

"Oh..."

"Can you take some food for me from the student mess?" she asks.

The next day, she waited outside on the corridor for me to show up and at four in the afternoon, roused me out of my room.

"Can you bring some tea? It's for the housekeeping staff..." she says.

"Okay"

"See, I have brought her from her room to bring tea for you" she says to the housekeeping staff squatting on the ground.

"Fill the flask to the brim, okay?" she whispers as I head out.

That evening, Krishna was on the onset of a fever and had a scalding hunger. She followed the strains of Eklo Cholo to my room. She complained that last night she had waited in the corridor for me and that I left exactly when she had gone to the restroom. 

"Don't tell anything to the lady guard", she says, "If she asks something tell that it is for you. Don't say my name."

 I brought her skeptical food in a dabba of my own because she did not have any on her. She returned a thankless dabba with sambar sticking to the sides. The next day I told her that the mess superintendent did not allow parcels to be taken out of the mess. "You can go there and eat, if you like" said I. 

The next day, Sahana sat in the corridor oiling her hair. Krishna approaches her and smiles. Sahana smiles back and says 'Hi'. 

"Did you have food?" asks Krishna.

"Yes. And you?" asks Sahana.

"No. My shift ends only at ten in the night. After that I cannot go home and make food...Can you bring some food for me from the student mess? You need not say anything to the lady guard..."

Her name was Krishna. She roped in her mates, stood on their shoulders and scooped butter out of the low hanging pots in Vrindavan's kitchens.