Breathless in Bombay Page 12

  Yours sincerely,

  The residents of Chand Terraces, Mumbai

  I offered to type out the letter on my computer the next day. Olaf offered to take it around for signatures; he’d do so over the weekend, so that we could send it off first thing on Monday morning. Olga began to say something, then changed her mind. It was a while since she had seen her husband volunteer to do something productive.

  7:00 P.M., SUNDAY, I had just returned from my walk when the doorbell rang. It was Olaf.

  “The letter,” he said to me simply when I opened the door.

  “Why, that’s quick work,” I said.

  “Cha, I don’t waste time, man—never. When there is work, I do it on the spot. They used to call me Speedy Castellino in the office. The bosses all knew: once Speedy Castellino was on the job, the job was as good as done. Not like these ghatti buggers, men. Can’t trust them with one important thing, huh. Now just see this letter. How to send it?”

  He held it out. The front page had the signatures of the three residential tenants, one tenant from each floor, and that of Professor Kodial. I turned to the back page and saw it was mostly full of thumb impressions: some smudged, only half-clear; some showing a finely etched pattern that seemed to grow lighter as it circled inward.

  “Just see, no. How to send this? These ghatti buggers don’t even know how to sign.”

  He looked around, dropped his voice, and said, “I tell you what, just forget the back page. Tear it off and send only the front page. No one will know, man. It will be our secret.” He crossed his heart the way a child would, the way we did in school to enforce our credibility.

  I looked at him, looked at the letter in my hand, and said, “I can’t do that, Olaf. For if I do that I will be no different from the housing board. I will have denied our building its foundation. I will have snipped at its roots. Tell you what my plan is. I am going to get photocopies of this, laminate it, frame it, and put it up at the entrance as an example of our unity. This, dear Olaf, is not a letter anymore. It is a piece of Bombay, as strong and as real as the ground we stand on.”

  “Eh. You bloody had a few drinks or what?” Olaf said, with a giggle.

  I sighed and placed an arm around him. How to explain to this convivial neighbor of mine that I knew suddenly, after forty years, why we had all been thrown together? Why Professor Kodial’s math class and the fingertip economics of the shopkeepers existed side by side; why Sohrab, the pothead, could pursue his narcotic dreams without fear of getting reported; why Angelina, for all her theatrical ways, could still find an audience that believed in her; why Nazarana, after a tormented childhood, had decided to live the adulthood of her choice, of her dreams, knowing full well the opposition she’d face from her family and the support she would get from her less judgmental neighbors. How to explain to Olaf why he, drunk and unsteady at most times, could once again be the young man of his youth, wielding his nunchaku and chasing imaginary villains out of the way, and why I, heartbroken at the loss of my beloved books, had chosen to diffuse my grief by writing a letter to the housing board. It was because we were all meant to experience and to understand the level of coexistence we were capable of. We were meant to understand that, in some strange way or the other, we were all driven by the same motivations, the same hopes, the same dreams and regrets. It was not just a matter of saving our property or our pride, but that of saving the validity of our entire lives: our past, our present, our future.

  I knew it would take an infinite amount of ingenuity to explain this to Olaf. And since I didn’t quite know where to start, I simply said, “No, Olaf, I haven’t had a drink yet. But I was wondering if you would join me. I have a delightful brand of Jamaican rum I have been dying to inaugurate.”

  I opened my showcase, pulled out two copious rum glasses, and passed one to Olaf. I knew, at some point, my wife would breeze in, home from her mother’s, bursting with recipes, ingredients, news on the best deals in the supermarket. I could see her glaring at me, frowning at the sight of Olaf, Olaf, with his feet up on the sofa, holding his glass out to me and saying, “Go on, man. One for the road that takes us home.” I wondered if I could enjoy a similar experience with each of my neighbors. Something that each of us would savor and cherish. Something we could freeze into our hearts and minds, just in case the bulldozers come once again. They come without warning.

  THE QUEEN GUARDS HER OWN

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  NARIMAN POINT, 7:00 P.M. The sun had set, leaving behind a crepuscular glow, a murky brilliance reluctant to fade. The glistening waters of the Arabian Sea, lapping against the gray stone wall, had turned dark and sullen and carried the portentous sound of the tide coming in.

  Chacha Sawari, broad, short, and looking benignly refreshed in a kurta-lehenga as white and flowing as his beard, had to stop himself from smiling when he saw the Arab family cross the road. Behind the Arabs loomed their hotel—the Hilton, tall and remotely luxurious.

  Chacha Sawari had just finished his prayers. Facing the ocean, he had prayed first to the God of his religion, who he believed was unforgiving when neglected, and then, somewhat fervently, he prayed to Rani Ma, the Queen Mother who gave him his earnings since he had been retired by the Bombay Syce Association, his license revoked for having cuffed a jockey who had whipped Badshah. Badshah, his beloved horse, whom he had groomed with his own hands, who he knew was his brother in past lives, who had gotten the crowd at the racecourse to its feet, unfailingly every Sunday, who had won against all odds and brought home trophies of all shapes, all sizes, and who now pulled the victoria at a leisurely trot along Marine Drive, giving Chacha a reliable source of income.

  All through the prayers, the Queen Mother had remained silent. Her presence had been swamping and mysterious. She had heard him as usual and carried his request for a prosperous evening over the high seas. With the occasional gurgle of a wave she had assured him that his devotion had been noted: it would be reciprocated; all he had to do was wait.

  It was a young British diplomat who had told him about the Queen Mother. The Queen’s Necklace, it was called, for the fact that it arched along the sea, from Nariman Point to Walkeshwar, all along Marine Drive, and that every evening it sparkled, its buildings ablaze in a glow of neons. Every evening, the ample bosom of the Queen would coruscate—with the headlights of cars racing to and fro, with electronic billboards that flashed their messages, with streetlights that stood tall and proud, shedding their light like blessings. As if stirred by this luminous beauty, the ocean would growl, swell, and thunder at the retaining wall, the waters would turn dark and unfathomable like the night, and along the drive hawkers would arrive selling their wares, joggers would pause and breathe in the air, walkers would step up their pace, their last chance, before dinner, to shed calories, and lovers would squeeze palms and pledge with their eyes—eyes, not mouths—to remain united, and into the fold of Her Majesty’s bosom Chacha would appear with his victoria, the sound of hooves drumming out an invitation to lovers, tourists, and passersby.

  “Come, friends, hop aboard. The calash is down. Badshah’s darbar is open. Don’t be in a rush; don’t be fooled. Don’t be choked by the rigors of the day. Step aboard and feel like a Rajah. Feel the rhythm of Badshah’s hooves. Your heartbeat was like that a long time ago. Feel the strength of Rani Ma. Feel her freshness and her breath. Throw back your head and feel like a prince. And go back home proud that you have an ocean left, a stretch of nature, in this squeezing juggernaut of a city. And mind you, no forebodings allowed. The Queen won’t hear of it. Yours is not to question why. A tilt of head and an open sky. Yes, be her subject, loyal like me, and let the lady set you free.”

  As the Arab family approached, other victoriawallas narrowed their eyes and straightened in their seats. They tugged at the reins and tried to get their horses to lurch. But the two Arab boys had noticed Badshah. They pointed to him excitedly—at the red crest on his head, his eyes, large, brown, soft and inviting.

  The Arab fam
ily veered that way. Seeing them divert, other victoriawallas lapsed into gloom; the pallor of the evening weighed in on them. The dull gray exterior of the Hilton stared down, birdlike, upon their crisis. It saw this kind of defeat every day. Nothing could be done about that. Badshah was a fine-looking animal, capable of tugging at anyone’s heart.

  The Arab father came up and asked, “Kitna? How much?”

  “Do sau! Two hundred rupees,” Chacha said, turning his back to him.

  The Arab father frowned. His face darkened and he said, “Cha!” as if to say, “Too much.” He said this out of habit, the way tourists do, as a safeguard against being cheated.

  “Look at the animal, sahib,” Chacha said, stroking Badshah affectionately, along the mane. “He is like your sheikh’s horse—the finest pedigree on Bombay roads. He was a champion, not so long ago. He will make your boys enjoy the ride—that much I promise!”

  Chacha spoke as much with craft as with conviction, for he knew that Arabs, like Indians, were partial to their sons; they spoilt their sons and were strict with their daughters.

  The Arab made a face like he was about to retort something, like he was about to contest the comparison to the sheikh’s horse but at the last minute he’d changed his mind.

  Without looking at Chacha, the Arab gnawed at a corncob, which he held in his hand. The corncob was half-shorn, the uneaten part laced with masala. The Arab kept going pooh-pooh, spitting out the bits that were hard and underroasted.

  The Arab gestured to his family to board the victoria. They flocked around the carriage, jostling and pushing one another. A strong incense-like fragrance rose off them; it drowned the aroma of peanuts roasting at the side of the road and the smell of the ocean, which was part fishy, part salty. Badshah snorted, not out of aversion to the fragrance but because he couldn’t wait to get started. The first sawari always snapped the stillness out of his bones. Chacha patted his head, which was alert, gray, and intelligent. He did this to acknowledge that his old partner had brought him luck. The head bobbed with understanding. Chacha’s hand went soft with emotion.

  Chacha looked at the Arabs with fascination as they boarded the victoria.

  The father—with his hooked nose, sallow complexion, wiry hair, and sharply crafted beard—had a rugged, impatient look about him. He was clearly the one in charge.

  The mother was obese. She had thick, bloodless lips, jowls hanging, and small, hard, piercing eyes. She took her time getting in and occupied almost the full backseat. She wore on her neck a chain with a pendant the size of a shell. The pendant was studded with diamonds, a constellation of stars pulsating against the black night of her burka.

  There were three daughters. Two of them were stout like the mother. They wore burkas that covered their heads but not their faces. They, too, had small eyes. Their fingernails were blunt and painted in fluorescent red, and on each finger shone a gold ring with diamonds. Their age, Chacha guessed, would be around twenty-one.

  The third daughter was a beauty. She was a painting, a carving, a Noorjehan in the making. She had the softest eyes Chacha had seen. And features that spoke of unbearable purity. She was slimmer than her sisters and younger. Eighteen, at the most, Chacha thought. She squeezed next to her mother, who was chewing tobacco, putting her mouth through frenzied distortions. Her mother made no effort to accommodate her daughter.

  The elder boy was around ten. He had a bony, bespectacled face. Seeing his elder sisters ensconced in the seat behind Chacha’s, he looked unsure how to seat himself. His father ordered his daughters to move up. The sisters protested. The father let loose a barrage of Arabic, swinging his arms angrily. The corncob dangled from his hand, half-bitten and half-forgotten.

  Grumbling, the sisters moved and made room for their brother. Their voices—harsh and indignant—made them sound old beyond their years. The elder boy blinked through his glasses and took to staring ahead calmly. It was obvious to Chacha he was used to them.

  Chacha hoisted himself into the driver’s seat. There he found another boy, no more than six. The boy had long eyelashes, curly brown hair, and a mouth open and wary of the world. Chacha smiled at him a lush, broad smile. His beard lit up with the smile. The boy stared back sullenly.

  The father was the last to get in. He pushed his way up and stood like a charioteer, one foot on the seat. Chacha thought of asking him to sit down but decided against it. The sight of the ocean always did this to Arabs; it made them unduly excited. It brought them a world larger than the dusty-brown landscape of the desert. It made them feel like conquerors.

  A crack of the whip and they were off, Badshah’s fine red feathers bobbing rhythmically, his hooves drumming against the concrete shell of the city. Chacha returned the whip to its holder. It was only for effect anyway, an aesthetic touch to complete the picture of old-world languor. Other victoriawallas looked relieved; with Badshah gone some business could happen.

  The victoria clattered along. With Badshah setting his own pace, it went past the familiar sights of the drive: the elegant palms along the promenade, the romantics with their backs to the city, the middle-aged joggers desperate to leave their flab behind, the old men who came out for their exercise and ended up discussing the stock market and failing systems of social justice, the housewives who worried about getting back to dinner and about the fate of characters in their favorite soaps, and fathers who bribed their children into silence with ice cream and cotton candy while they dwelled on regrets about work. Silently it went past the bhelpuriwallas, the chana-singwallas, the chaiwallas, the makaibuthawallas, all who pushed hard to sell, and two coconutwallas, in lungis, who went around with their baskets strapped to their chests, calling, “Fresh, freshly cut coconuts for sale.”

  The evening traffic flew past: big, dusty BEST buses spitting fumes, opportunistic taxis cutting into lanes, large crouching cars with stiff-backed chauffeurs and impassive owners who read a lot behind tinted windows. Occasionally a bike roared past: a hint of showmanship from its rider, a squeal of delight from the pillion. Ah, noted Chacha, how these girls of today cling to their men, like long-missing pieces in a jigsaw.

  In the backseat, the Arabs made conversation. They all spoke at the same time, and this baffled Chacha. Who was questioning? Who was replying? He was unable to tell. The only one quiet was the younger sister. She was veiled in beauty and silence, and Chacha imagined that when she spoke it would be in tones of measured softness. He adjusted the mirror and began to admire her lowered eyes, her delicate jaw, her soft, pink nose, and her mouth, so firm and fresh like a lily.

  There was something about the girl that reminded Chacha of Zulfi. Zulfi, his six-year-old beti who wasn’t his daughter in the real sense but more his in the way that people who aren’t yours become yours, by virtue of a past-life association or by force of chemistry and circumstance. The image of the girl, the sanctity of her inner life reflected on her face, made Chacha think of Zulfi, the circumstances surrounding her birth.

  ZULFI HAD BEEN SIRED by a man she didn’t know. And in all probability she never would. It had taken only forty rupees to create her. And a whole lot of sweat and a whole lot of anger.

  Zulfi’s mother, Simran, was barely eighteen when she had been tricked by a foster uncle into coming to Bombay. The uncle had spoken about a job that would fetch five thousand rupees a month. “Imagine what you can do with the money,” he’d told Simran. “You can use it to help your sisters marry, your brothers get pretty wives, and your father—his legs swollen with arthritis and gout—can get proper attention in town.” Softly he had added, “Also you can spend money on yourself: on dresses, makeup, movies, jewelry, and ha, when you are smart enough, I can take you to see Aishwarya Rai at Film City. I know her makeup man; he is a good friend.”

  “Nothing like that happened,” Simran told Chacha sadly, sitting, legs folded, on a large biscuit tin with a torn cushion on top, in the midst of a golden suffusion of hay in Badshah’s stable, in Chacha’s home, where they spoke so often, befor
e her customers started coming in and before Chacha harnessed Badshah for his evening trot.

  Sucking on a piece of sugarcane from Badshah’s stock, Simran had told Chacha how she’d been brought to Bombay, how they had traveled for fourteen hours, hitching rides with truck drivers who eyed Simran slyly, who gibed her uncle about his “young-young” preferences. A few kilometers from Bombay, the truck had stopped; they had disembarked. The uncle led her to a dhaba, where he ordered idli, dosa, and lassi for her and a glass of beer for himself. While she was enjoying her meal, her uncle told her that a girl her age must keep her health up; she must eat well and look well fed always; her work would demand that. In between swigs of beer, her uncle kept glancing at his watch. “Once in a while he’d look at me in a funny sort of a way, as if he wanted to say something,” Simran said. “Then all of a sudden he got up and began walking away. He joined some men who emerged from a tempo. The tempo looked like an ambulance. There was something final about it. My uncle spoke to the men and engaged them in a heated discussion. Then he came and told me I must hurry; they were leaving right away.”

  Her uncle had ordered her into the tempo while he waited outside, pensive and avoiding her gaze. She’d wondered what Bombay would hold for her. Would it make her rich? Would it fulfill at least some of her dreams? She never got to find out. After two hours of driving on the highway, the tempo turned into a lane, a bumpy stretch full of stones and shrubs, and it stopped outside a warehouse that could not be seen from the main road. The men led her in, and there they did things to her too shameful to mention. One by one, they tore at her heart, mind, body, youth, tore through every little part of her that was girl. After some time, it did not matter what they did, how long they hurt, and where. She stopped seeing their faces, that’s all. “One thought I had in my mind,” she told Chacha. “Why my uncle did this to me? What had I done to deserve this?”