Sugar Mama

---

I can’t believe Sudha is ripping me off! I am so naïve. Almost without exception I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I think if I’m nice enough and accommodating enough they’ll like me. I’ll trust you until you give me reason to not.

After my long day of shopping with Kumar I unloaded all my bags in my room then had a date to meet Sudha again at 5. By this point I’d been out all day in the heat and on my feet and was pretty pooped. But I didn’t want to miss a chance to spend the evening with my new Indian friend Sudha. She doesn’t get a whole lot of time off work and she wanted to spend her evening taking me shopping for spices. So we meet outside the hotel and she hails a rickshaw and she takes me to this giant department store-type place. Same old story: crowded, hot, colorful and cheap. So we’re in this multi level store and there’s no air conditioning and I’m flushed and weak. I shouldn’t of gone out again. Sudha grabs a basket and we go through every aisle looking at all the spices and I let her explain it all to me and how to cook with it and so on. I guess you could say this is kind of like a super Wal-Mart. I am surprised to see how cheap everything else. Boxes of cereal for a dollar, bags of rice for ten cents, bottles of shampoo for fifty cents. Sudha starts picking up a few household things she needs….detergent, shampoo, oil, coffee. I’m looking at all the things she’s getting herself and realize its only going to cost her about $4 for everything. I don’t know how much she makes but I do know $4 is probably a significant portion of her paycheck. I can see her eyeing up the lipstick counter and the skin lightening cream. I don’t say anything but help her choose the right shade of cosmetic. I’m thinking to myself, “I should just buy all this stuff for her. She’d appreciate it and she did use her free evening to take me out…” But I’m also thinking, “I don’t want her to start using me. How will I know if she genuinely likes me or I’m just her sugar mama.”

Up to this point I had bought a lot for her and of course would buy our lunch and pay rickshaw fares. I kept waiting for the, “Please get me a job in the U.S.” speech or “my mother’s really sick and…” but it never happened. Anyway, its basically just a big mess trying to check out at a store here. There’s a line where you drop your purchase off, a line to get your bill, a line to pay, a line to pick up, etc. Oh, did I use the word “line?” Excuse me. That does not exist here. Matter of fact, I’d bet money there’s not even a word in Tamil for “line.” Its just a mash of people pushing their things over the counter and waving money in the air like we’re at the Kentucky Derby. I’ve about had it at this point. I’m so exhausted and the heat is really getting to me. I want to just leave all the stuff we picked out on the counter and run outside and stand in the rain to cool off. I feel so weak and the sweat is just running in beads down my back. Why couldn’t I just leave well enough alone? Why did I make myself come out into this madness again? For spices and soap? That’s when I realize Sudha had put all her stuff under my stuff in the “purchases” counter and I’d paid for everything. Ok, now I’m hot, weak and really ticked off. She has the nerve to assume I’d buy everything without even offering?!

Take it as a lesson learned Andrea. Its just survival here and she’s getting what she can while she can. Don’t take it personal.

But I do take it personal. I thought we were friends. Andrea when are you going to learn to stop trusting everybody? When are you going to learn to stop liking everybody? When are you going to stop being so darn nice? My mind is racing with thoughts like this and I feel so faint at the same time. All I can do is stay quiet and lean against the counter and hope I don’t pass out.

After paying Sudha asks what else I want to shop for. I said I was done and needed to go to bed. We go outside and its raining and I realize this is the first time I’ve been out at night. It seems even more noisy and congested than during the day.

We get in a rickshaw with our bags and now I feel the fumes getting to me. The magic of the rickshaw has faded and I feel like I could just lean over the side and throw up but then I would probably get my head knocked off by six people on a motorbike so its probably safer to puke on the floor…

Then Sudha says to me, “I thought this would be easier since the store was so crowded,” and presses several hundred rupees into my hand. I feel so guilty. She’s paying me back for all her things I bought. I take the money like I hadn’t even thought twice about the situation. She says, “You should really be careful you know. Some girls in my place would really take advantage of you. I like you as my sister. I respect you. You won’t forget me when you get back to the U.S. will you?” I hug her and tell her I won’t and that I’d always be grateful for her kindness here. And that’s it. She doesn’t ask me to find her a job or help her get a visa or give money for her sick mother.

I tell myself: Andrea, you need to lighten up.

---

Comments

[Keep Smiling]

You should be a thriller writer...
A great tale with a twist at the end! It proves that, even in India, one should never judge a book by its cover.