“What a strange Indian and what? Shahrukh Khan? Well, his name is much stranger than him.” Cindy places the card in her handbag without bothering to read Khan’s titles. “Taxi!” she waves to a cab waiting on the rodside.
“Excuse me, do you know Archana, or Archuna … whatever?” Cindy puts her body and her leg into the cab and asks.
The driver is a typical Indian with big eyes and also a big tummy. “Archana, yes, yes!” Obviously, the driver cannot understand English. But at least, he can say “yes”. Probably every living people know this word.
Cindy spents the following silent 35 minutes’ car time watching the vast stretches of brick, dwarf houses out of the window. Then the car stops in front of a dilapidated house instead of a normal hospital.
Wearing worries on her face, Cindy goes into the house—it can be called a house before it collapses one day. A little girl is sitting on the threshold playing with a leaf and a middle-aged woman, wearing her withered long hair loose is sleeping on a folding chair. And, there is not even a candle light in the black room.
“Excuse, me. Is there anyone named Archana?” Cindy asks tentatively.
The woman opens her eyes and begins to exam Cindy. Then she sits up and says “Come here and let me see your leg.”
Cindy moves closer to her and sits on a bench on which you can feel the rump prints. She lifts her leg in front of Archana and asks her” Is the wound bad? It really hurts.”
When she is waiting for the answer, two small hands puts on her shoulder and a young but mature voice comes from her back” Don’t worry, mama can help you.” Right, it’s the little girl’s sound.
“That’s great. Hey, I’m Cindy, what’s yours?”
“Call me Tutti. I like my name.” The voice turns naïve again.
“Nice to meet you, Tutti. What’s your mom doing? Is she making the herbal medicine?”
“Yes.” She smiles a little girl’s smile showing her two tiger teeth.
“It’s Jamu. Drink it. Better than antibiotic.” The long hair finally opens her mouth.
Cindy takes the glass and frowns “ Is this green thing really drinkable? You are not killing me, right?”
“ I can finish you with a knife.” The woman keeps her voice low.
“ Okey, I trust you.” Cindy drinks it for the sake of her leg in spite of the killing taste.
Archana puts a gauze onto the wound and asks “ Why are you in India, Chinese?”
Cindy is so surprised that she should tell where she comes from. “ How do you know that I’m a Chinese?”
“ Every Chinese looks like the way you are. It’s not hard to guess. And I also know that you are unhappy, but not because of the wound.” The woman says just like a witch.
“ Am I so obvious? Yes, you’re right. I’ve just came through a bad marriage though I don’t wanna mention it. I thought India might be the right place to heal my broken heart.” Cindy looks so down when talking about her marriage.
“ I divorced, too. Divorce makes you sad and makes you an outcast. I prayed every day but my husband is bad to me. I had to get away from him. And then my daughter, she begged me to leave him. She was only 4, Cindy. He took my daughter. But I cannot live without her and so doed she. So I sold almost everything to win her custody. Although I have no money, no house and no husband, but I have my daughter and I’m happy with that. That’s my life. You don’t need to trap yourself into the marriage cage.” Archana’s sudden opening up of her heart surprised Cindy since she never expects that Archana would pour herself out befor her.
She once thought that she was the most miserable woman in this world but it is not exactly true. This woman in India and probably thousands of woman on the earth are suffering from a painful life far from she could imagine.
“Mom, don’t be so sad. When I grow up, I can buy a very big house and I will be with you forever.” Tutti comes to her mother and begins to fondle her black hair.
When she leaves Archana and Tutti, the naïve sound “ I can buy a big house … " is always hovering over my head. She strongly senses that she should do something to help the mother and the daughter no matter what it is.
She opens her laptop , types the sad story and then mails it to all the people she can get contact with.
Four days later, she comes back to the house with a check holding in her hand.
“ Here, 98,000 RMB. It should be enough for you to build your own house, Archana?” Cindy is sligtly proud of herself.
“ We can have a house? Is it true?” Tutti is just too excited to believe that. She jumps up from a chair and bagins to circle around her mother……
When Cindy is getting on the plane heading for China a week later, she puts her hand into the pocket. Suddenly, her hand feels something. It’s the card of the man -- Shahrukh Khan -- who had knocked her down the first day when she came to India.
Though she hasn’t called him once since then, she really should thank him. But not for his knock, she couldn’t have gotten hurt, and she had no chance to meet Archana and Tutti, nor could Archana heal her leg wound and also the wound in her heart.
Yes, Shahrukh Khan was right. Archana has the magic to cure any disease.
Karen 20081310415