Yes, Jeff Bezos, You Can Share Your Profits With Us
He was named Navin — new. His tattered purple shirt worn over a dark blue shirt. His cream-colored pants that he wore every single day, which had turned brown from all the dust at the construction site. The surprisingly white teeth that he diligently maintained by chewing neem sticks every morning. His dark skin turned flaky from lack of nourishment. I remember all these details vividly, but I cannot seem to remember his face. Navin was the son of a labourer at a construction site where my parents worked as site managers. Since there would be no one at home after school, this was where I spent most evenings. I did my homework sitting in my father’s makeshift office made of metal sheets. If I finished in time, I was allowed to go play with Navin and the other labourer kids. Construction sites are deeply happening places.
The dynamite blasting for the foundation had once launched a stone so far it hit one of the cows on a nearby farm. Someone had spotted a ghorpad — an Indian monitor lizard — near the pond and we spent two evenings trying to find its nest. Navin had dared Lalit, his older brother, to jump from the second floor onto a mound of sand and, thankfully, he survived. Then came the important question: what do we do with the precious time between now and when the adults decide childhood has gone on long enough for the day?
Some days we played hide and seek in nearby sugarcane fields. On others, we helped Navin’s mother make concrete spacers where some of us mixed concrete, others poured it into little rubber molds, and others inserted the wires. We had a whole production line going. Probably our greatest industrial achievement after trying to use discarded plywood sheets from slab work as surfboards on gravel piles. We never managed a good slide out of any of them. I loved the construction site. I hated leaving with my parents every evening because it meant leaving my friends behind.
Though occasionally the journey home offered consolation.
There was a bakery on the way back that made pastries and flaky puffs. On days of academic success or parental good moods, I was guaranteed at least one item. Such days were not exactly scarce but the intervals between them always felt unreasonable to me. I was a complete sucker for sweets and bakery products.
I remember once at a birthday party for my father’s boss’s son there was cake. The cake was supposedly only for children so the moment they called us I sprinted toward the table with the urgency of a man trying to evacuate a country before war breaks out. Then I sensed it.
The glare.
Every Asian child knows this glare. The glare that says: Boy you get enough food at home. Do not embarrass me right now by behaving like famine has specifically chosen you.
Disappointed, I slowed down and let the other children move ahead. I would not bring shame upon my ancestors for a dark forest chocolate cake.
By the time I reached the table it was over.
The woman serving it smiled apologetically. “Sorry honey, we don’t have any more.”
I could feel my father mentally nodding in approval somewhere behind me.
“No worries ma’am,” I lied. “I actually hate this flavour.”
The loss of perfectly good cake stayed with me far longer than any reasonable person would admit. I even thought about it during fractions class the next day. Perhaps the cake lady simply had not learned fractions properly. Naturally I arrived at the site in mourning.
Navin noticed almost immediately.
Around this time Navin had started a part-time job at the site. His official duty was collecting nails and hazardous scraps using a magnet tied to a rope — a role I proudly called Magnet Man. He would roam around dragging the magnet behind him while it fished out stray nails and metal scraps from the dirt. At the end of the day the useful material would be separated and returned to the office. For this my father paid him ten rupees.
Now just for perspective — Navin’s family earned roughly two thousand rupees a month. If he worked diligently he could meaningfully contribute to the household. Most days when he received the money he ran straight to his mother and handed it over. On some days though he disappeared for twenty or thirty minutes. That day I was not interested in playing so I walked around with him while he worked. Sometimes he let me hold the magnet. We walked around the building once. Then through the unfinished rooms smelling of cement and iron dust. In the central courtyard stood a giant mound of sand piled so high it almost reached the second floor, so naturally we climbed it because no civilization in history has successfully stopped boys from climbing things. When we finished, we returned to the office, separated the material, and collected the money.
I expected Navin to run off toward his mother as usual.
Instead he started running, stopped midway, came back to me, and silently gestured for me to follow him.
We crossed the road to a tiny chai stall crowded with labourers ending their shifts. The air smelled of dust, frying oil, cigarettes, and boiling tea leaves. Navin handed over the ten-rupee note and sat down on a wooden bench. The shopkeeper arrived carrying a cutting chai and a cream roll on a steel plate — flaky pastry stuffed with vanilla cream.
In moments of greed and gluttony we only remember what we do not have.
I was staring at the cream roll the entire time. Then suddenly realizing I had been staring, I quickly looked away and pretended to inspect my surroundings like a sophisticated man with emotional restraint.
But I could feel Navin looking at me.
“Eat fast,” I finally muttered. “We have to go.”
He looked at the roll and then back at me.
“You seem sad,” he said. “When I am sad I come to eat here. You should eat.”
“No, no. You worked for it.”
“Yes. But today you also walked with me.”
“Yes but this is your money.”
“How about we split it?”
I immediately took the initiative of breaking off the smaller piece for myself. Navin quietly took the smaller piece from my hand and handed me the larger one instead.
I remember feeling something painful lodge itself in my throat.
We dipped the cream roll into the chai and ate slowly.
To this day I do not think I have ever tasted something better in my life.
Not because it was extraordinary. It was probably stale by evening and made with the cheapest cream legally available to mankind.
My parents bought me pastries when life had already been handled.
Navin bought me a cream roll with money that was supposed to help handle life itself.
On the drive home that evening my father offered to stop at the bakery and buy me a pastry.
I refused.
Nothing in that glass display case could compete anymore.
The construction ended about a year later. Navin and his family moved away searching for work elsewhere. I never saw him again.
But even today, I still eat my chai with cream rolls.