Bombay Time (4 page)

When they finally got to Cama Baug at 8:30
P.M.,
after having dodged the bony outstretched arms of the beggars in the alley, they were both already sweating from the Bombay heat. Rusi felt nauseous. To divert his mind, he thought of Binny, happily married in London. Rusi had visited her once and had fallen in love with the city—its broad, clean roads, its green parks, even the damp and chilly weather that everyone else detested. I may have been a flop as a husband and an unsuccessful businessman, but one thing I did successfully, he now thought. I got Binny out of this city that’s going to hell. At the thought of his daughter, he felt a familiar ache in his heart. He knew that in her own way, Coomi missed Binny as much as he did. Now, he wondered whether she, too, was haunted by those dreams in which Binny was back at home and he was hugging and kissing her—sweet dreams that were invariably encroached upon by the thudding footsteps of reality. He wondered if Coomi, too, experienced the loneliness of waking up from those dreams and staring at the long black night that lay like a lonely, deserted alley before him. His heart wobbled from its usual hardened stance when he thought of Coomi missing Binny as ferociously as he did. In some ways, Binny was now his only way home to Coomi, not the stern-faced woman at his side, but the warm, impulsive dark-haired woman he had married. He longed to say something to his wife but was reluctant to break the silence that had engulfed them since they had left home.

Besides, he knew that Coomi blamed him for Binny’s leaving. On the way home from the airport years ago, Coomi had turned to Rusi and said fiercely, “You chased my daughter away from me. Filling her head with all these big dreams. As if this city wasn’t good enough for her. You stole my only child away from me, don’t forget.” For once, he was not hurt by her words, because he heard the loneliness behind them. Coomi’s heart was breaking, he knew, just as his was. This was simply her way of dealing with her pain.

There was nobody at the front gate to welcome them. Rusi was both relieved and embarrassed. Obviously, the Kangas were not expecting any more visitors. A woman with waist-length black hair was crooning some song. “How deep is your love?” the singer asked. Rusi vaguely recognized the song as something Binny used to play when she lived at home. Behind the singer stood three overweight middle-aged musicians in tight dark suits, men who had abandoned all stabs at youth-fulness. The husky-voiced woman singer was their sole concession to ornamentation.

Still no sign of Jimmy and Zarin Kanga. Rusi glanced at Coomi to see if she looked as embarrassed as he felt. But Coomi’s face was impassive as she looked straight ahead, her eyes searching for a familiar face in the brightly clad crowd the Bilimorias were walking toward. As they approached the group of men and women sitting on the wooden chairs in the open air, there was a rustle of silk and chiffon saris, a glint of gold and diamonds as the crowd turned its collective head toward the newcomers.

“Rusi. Coomi. At last. Come, come. We were wondering whether to call or what. Bomi was getting worried.” Sheroo Mistry’s smiling face and welcoming arms drew the Bilimorias into the fold.

People moved their chairs to expand the circle to include the new-comers. After a few moments, Rusi noticed Jimmy and Zarin Kanga heading their way. Jimmy kissed Coomi on the cheek and then took Rusi’s hand in both of his. “Hello,
bossie.
We were worried you were not going to make it. Mehernosh just asked a few minutes back whether you and Coomi were here.”

Rusi could tell that Jimmy was in a good mood. “Zarin and I were just remembering how your Binny used to tease Mehernosh with that silly nursery rhyme,” Jimmy continued. “Seems like yesterday, doesn’t it? Can you believe that little boy is now a married man? Or that my beautiful wife is old enough to be a grandma?”

The Kangas exchanged a quick, intimate smile. Watching them, Rusi felt a momentary stab of envy. It was well known that the Kangas had a good marriage. They made a handsome couple. Jimmy Kanga, tall, well built, was one of the city’s top lawyers, and everything about him, from his gleaming, healthy face, to his clean, well-manicured fingernails, was proof of the fact that he had transcended his humble beginnings. Zarin, too, had a quiet grace and authority, which made her the perfect companion for her wildly successful husband. In all these years, Rusi had never heard Zarin raise her voice. She’s the kind of woman I should’ve married, he thought. My life would’ve been different then.

Now Zarin was smiling at him. “Rusi,” she said. “Why don’t you go indoors to the bar with Jimmy? I hate seeing any of my guests without a glass in their hands. Coomi and I will go get some soft drinks.”

“Of course, of course,” Jimmy said. “Rusi, my apologies. I’m forgetting my manners.”

At the bar, a man with a handlebar mustache was pouring drinks. “Fali, a scotch for my dear friend here,” Jimmy said. “Make sure it’s the
asli maal,
the good stuff,” he added with a wink. “None of that Indian brew for Rusi.”

The man gave Rusi a quick look of approval as he fixed him a drink behind the table. Rusi understood that the Kangas had a two-tier system—cheaper Indian alcohol for most of the guests and the imported stuff for the important ones. Even as he appreciated being in the latter category, he felt a sense of distaste at this caste system of favorites. If Binny had gotten married in India, he thought, I would’ve served imported drinks to all my guests.

When they went back outdoors, Rusi noticed that Coomi had been cornered by Shirin, a spinster who lived in the vicinity of Wadia Baug. Despite himself, he felt a twinge of pity for Coomi. Shirin was invited to social functions so rarely that she reentered human society with all the subtlety of Hitler invading Poland. How that woman can talk, Rusi thought. Too bad they cannot power motorcars with Shirin’s words. India would surely rule the world then.

“My God, remember in the old days when we would get hard rolls and real cream for five paisa, only?” Shirin was saying. “Today, the bread alone is costing as much as a whole chicken used to cost in the old times. Am I saying the truth or not?”

Bomi Mistry nodded. “This inflation is like a runaway horse. Nobody can keep pace with it. Why, I remember a time when—”

“Come on, come on, you two,” Sheroo said. “You are sounding like old farts. What’s the use of this remembering? The
banya
still charges me today’s prices when I go to his shop, so what’s the use of crying over spilt milk? Next thing, you two will be starting a petition to bring the British back to India.”

“Arre,
the British are not so crazy as to be returning to this wretched country,” Bomi replied. “You could beg them and shower them with rose petals, and still they would refuse to come back.”

Sheroo frowned.
“Besharam.
Shameless, you are. Have some patriotic sense. You think things cost much only in India? Inflation is a fact of life worldwide.”

Bomi Mistry’s eyes were already bloodshot, his face bearing the sentimental, puppy-dog expression that his friends knew so well. Bomi had already consumed four or five pegs, Rusi concluded. Four or five stiff ones, same amount of whiskey as water. “No country going to hell like this one,” Bomi replied. “I tell you, until Rusi arrived a few minutes back, my heart was going thump-thump. I was wondering whether some
mawali
had cut his throat and stolen all of Coomi’s jewelry or what.”

Rusi laughed.
“Saala,
your imagination is as active as ever. No trouble with
mawalis.
After all, this is not New York or L.A. We were just—”

“Imagination-fimagination, nothing,” said Bomi, interrupting angrily. “My dear fellow, where do you think you’re living, in Switzerland? You know Kashmira,
na,
my Sheroo’s brother’s wife’s niece? No? Anyway, she’s a nice sweet
chokri,
twenty-three or twenty-five years old. Fair-skinned, but not stuck-up like many of these modern girls today. Anyway, two, three weeks ago, she was at an office party at Cuffe Parade. Nice, posh area. Her boss, Mr. Gandhi, was giving a party for all employees.

“Anyway, Kashmira and a coworker leave at about nine o’clock and get a taxi. Her friend is getting in first, then Kashmira. And while she’s giving the
taxiwalla
directions, you know what happens? A man leans into the window and puts a knife at Kashmira’s throat and demands her watch and gold earrings. The poor girl’s hands are shaking so badly, she can hardly get the watch out, staring at this knife at her throat. The
taxiwalla
is also shaking; if he tries to drive off, the knife will be inside Kashmira.
“Memsahib,”
the poor
taxiwalla
says. “Please to give him anything he asks for.”

Bomi paused for dramatic effect. Slowly, he finished the rest of his whiskey. He knew he had a captive audience now. Many of those around him had stopped talking and were listening to the story. They were all of an age and a class where stories of attacks on middle-class people fascinated and chilled them. Such stories put into high relief their love-hate relationship with the city of their birth.

Eyeing his audience, Bomi picked up the story. “So anyway, she gives him her watch—a gift from her dearly departed father, by the way—and then she’s fidgeting with her earrings. Kashmira’s friend helps her get the right one off. But while she is trying to get the left one, the
goonda
becomes nervous. She had on these dangling earrings, twenty-four-karat gold. He grabs at the earring, almost tearing the poor girl’s ear out, and runs away with all the loot. He’s gone, just like that. Disappears into the crowd before you could say one, two, three. And to top it off, he calls her a ‘fat bitch’ before running away— ladies, please to excuse my French. Now, if you knew Kashmira, you would know that whatever she is, she is not fat. Why, such a slim, good-looking girl you—”

“Bomi,” someone hissed. “What happened to the girl?”

“What happened?
Arre,
her poor ear was spurting blood like Flora Fountain used to spurt water in the days of the British. Now, of course, the good old Bombay Municipality cannot even afford to keep the fountain running. Bombay Loonycipality, I call it.” Bomi grinned at his own joke.

“Did she—did she lose her ear?” a woman asked in a low voice.

“No, luckily, the bastard had only ripped it badly. Took six to seven stitches, though. They took poor Kashmira back to the party, all bleeding and crying. Gandhi’s wife called their family doctor. And the next day, Kashmira was more worried about spoiling the party than about her own condition. That’s the kind of noble girl she is.”

The group was silent. A few feet away from them, the longhaired girl was still singing. “C’mon, everybody,” she cajoled. “Join in.” But they scarcely heard her, lost as they were in their own thoughts. “How things have changed,” Rusi said finally, and a dozen heads nodded in agreement. They were all old enough to remember a different Bombay, the Bombay of their youth, when marine bands played at night at Victoria Gardens and the city streets had belonged to them and not the shadowy, vicious creatures who now prowled them.

This sweet nostalgia was followed on its heels by another feeling, a feeling they couldn’t name. Just a dull, flush-faced recognition that in a city of hunger and rampant poverty, their world of silk and gold was a glass house that others could not resist throwing stones at. That their very lives were an open invitation to violence. In the long moment that they were silent, they knew all this. But then the moment passed and their angry words rose and swarmed like bees.

“Why don’t they get a job, instead of preying on women and young girls. … ”

“Lazy, just lazy and dirty …”

“Once I stopped my car at Marine Drive and asked a ten-year-old beggar boy to get in. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we need a servant at home. Pay is good, three meals provided, better life than this.’ He ran away without another word. Just shows,
yaar,
they don’t want to work. …”

“Arre,
why should they work when they can beg? Some of them earn hundreds of rupees this way, I’ve heard. …”

“Some of these beggar women have more gold than I do. … ”

“Now, the ones who are blind or crippled, I can understand. … ”

“Arre,
don’t you know, they cripple their children at birth so that we’ll feel sorry for them. That’s how they earn so much. …”

“Right near our building, there’s a case like that. Crippled his own flesh and blood. … ”

“Any mother who would mutilate her own child …”

“Oh, they are not like us. Producing children like rabbits, how can they have the same love for their children that we do? …”

And then, like a Greek chorus: “Ah, Bombay.”

Ah, Bombay, Rusi thought. What a place. City of dreams and city of awakening from dreams. Home of Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum and home of the genteel, pristine Cricket Club of India. Birthplace of Zubin Mehta, world-famous music conductor, and of Ragu, the beggar boy blinded at birth by his father, who hoped this act of love would increase the flow of coins of pity into his son’s begging bowl. City of savage love and savage hate. City where the golden skyscrapers kissed God in heaven and the black slums found hell on earth.

Somebody handed Rusi another glass of scotch, on the rocks. He thought of asking for some club soda but then thought the better of it. The whiskey tasted like golden threads of fire in his throat. For the first time all day, he felt himself relax. He thought about the poor girl with the six or seven stitches on her ear. He wondered idly about her attacker and where he had disposed of the watch and earrings. He tried to imagine someone attacking Coomi in such a violent way and was amazed at the hot rush of anger that accompanied that image. He had a passing urge to tell Coomi this, but he wasn’t sure whether to share with her his reaction to that thought or his reaction to his reaction. So he said nothing.

Rusi Bilimoria sat back in his chair. The whiskey was making him feel melancholy and terribly alone. A cool breeze had started up from the bosom of the Arabian Sea. He looked at the people around him, many of whom he had known all his life. So many of them had lost their sons and daughters to America or England. They had worked hard all their lives, saved their pennies, complained about the rising prices of milk and chicken and sugar, postponed their own dreams— and still they couldn’t hold on to their children or give them the lives they would have in the West. And so they performed the ultimate act of love—they unclasped their children from their bosoms and let their children go. Even the few among them who were genuinely rich, men like Jimmy Kanga, who could afford to keep their children with them—how could they enjoy their wealth, watched as they were by the accusing eyes of naked and hungry children?