Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami Page B

himself up as an immigration consultant and marriage broker, and dabbled in real estate in addition to carrying on other businesses that bordered on the illegal. Despite Pa-ji’s objections, he had cut his long hair and traded his turban for a hat, his pyjamas for a suit and his worn sneakers for a pair of well-shined boots. He was in with the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese and more than one politician. He knew people in construction and renovation, and within a few months he had these friends turn a bare space into this restaurant.
    That was six years ago. Now look at it, never a quiet moment. The Delhi Junction had become a ritual, a necessity, a habit for many of the city’s growing population of desis who stopped by for a quick meal or afternoon tea.
    Pa-ji had wanted to call the place Apna, a Punjabi word meaning Ours. However, Bibi-ji felt that they needed to have a broader appeal, so they settled on The Delhi Junction Café, hoping the little restaurant would live up to its name and one day host, if not exactly the multitude, then at least a semblance of the crowds that streamed through New Delhi’s railway station daily.
    Bibi-ji had the walls painted her favourite shade of strawberry pink and asked two of the men who had then been house guests to make wooden tables for the café. Anassortment of chairs was acquired from second-hand shops and cheap furniture stores. Another long-term visitor was set to work making table cloths from a roll of blue and pink fabric that Bibi-ji had bought cheap at the fabric store across the road. Over the fabric she put sheets of plastic to minimize laundry costs. A single brass vase bearing a plastic rose adorned each table. Every morning when Bibi-ji came into the restaurant, the first thing she did was sprinkle water on the plastic roses. On one wall she hung lithographic prints of the ten Sikh gurus, a highly coloured painting of the Golden Temple with a garland of flashing bulbs around it, maps of India and Canada, pictures of Nehru, Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Marilyn Monroe, Meena Kumari, Clark Gable and Dev Anand. On another wall were clocks displaying the time in India, Pakistan (East and West), Vancouver, England, New York, Melbourne and Singapore. The clocks were Pa-ji’s favourite items of decoration—at any given moment, he could see the time in the many countries that carried the offspring of Punjab in their bosoms. It pleased him to be reminded that Sikhs were scattered all over the world, like seeds that had exploded from a seed pod.
    The clocks were also appreciated by the customers, who imagined a grandmother bending over her work in her yard in Patiala, a mother performing her evening prayers in Lahore or a brother heading for school in Chittagong. It gave them the illusion that they could reach out and touch their distant loved ones.
    Bibi-ji had chosen the menu items carefully, making sure that neither beef nor pork were included so as not to offendany religious group. She hired a cook and paid him an excellent salary, aware that the restaurant’s success depended on him. She saved on the wages of the waiters by taking advantage of the ready-made, unpaid and therefore floating staff drawn from the people who continued to move through her new home—in even larger numbers now that the Canadian government had opened its doors to immigrants from India. On weekdays, while Pa-ji manned the cash register, Bibi-ji helped with the service. She had a good memory and remembered the names of her customers, their villages, their wives, children, mothers, sisters and brothers. She remembered who liked fresh chillies served on the side with the chholey, and she knew whether they preferred the roti with ghee or well roasted on the fire. Sometimes, to please a regular, she would offer to make puris instead of rotis for a change. To the new arrivals in Canada she handed out advice on visas and immigration procedures, work permits and rents, the best places to buy vegetables and