Dahanu Road: A novel (15 page)

Nothing could heal Shapur Irani either.

He would have been better off if he had not cared.

From now on, he would make sure that he distanced himself from the Warlis completely. He would think of them as phantoms just passing through, letting out sounds of pain, as perhaps nature itself had intended, just as the nightingales above him let out sounds of love.

He could do nothing for them. Maybe he was never meant to.

The Warlis had found their champion in the Lady of the Red Flag. He could feel her walking through the villages again, listening to stories of loss.

SLEEP CAME AND WENT
in great swoops as Zairos saw red flags swaying in the wind—on the roofs of Warli huts, in the shrivelled hands of old men, tied around the horns of bullocks, draped across the faces of children, or caught in trees like kites that had been cut loose.

He was relieved to finally wake up.

Downstairs, Aspi Irani was reading
The Times of India.
He was grouchy because the barn next door had been recently converted into a Pentecostal church. It did not resemble a church at all, for it had no steeple, stained glass, or prayer books, but there emerged from it the sound of wailing, and this irritated Aspi Irani to no end.

To distract himself from the passionate cries of the churchgoers, he glanced through the obituaries to see whether anyone he knew had died. This was a pastime of his, and when he did discover a dead acquaintance, he let out a tsk-tsk to show his regret and said something pleasant or derogatory
about the deceased depending on his view of them.

“There’s no one today,” he said. “Looks like people are taking their vitamins.”

Mithoo was at the stove cooking mutton pulav and fish. She had a cream scarf around her head to prevent the smell of cooking from entering her hair. The gold bangle on her wrist hit the rim of the large steel container as she stirred the brown rice with wide eyes and an even wider smile.

“I’m glad you’ve had a bath,” she told Zairos. “It’s Nouruz today.”

“In exactly five minutes,” said Aspi Irani, who had worn new blue jeans and sudreh, and had a red prayer cap on his head. He rose from his chair and loosened his kusti around his waist. He had tied the sacred thread too tight.

Zairos had forgotten that it was Nouruz. The Zoroastrian New Year was celebrated on the twenty-first of March at the exact moment the sun crossed the equator, making day and night of equal duration. That was when Zoroastrian families from India to Azerbaijan ushered in the light of spring together, then called their loved ones around the world and yelled into the phone, “Nouruz Mubarak!”

Aspi Irani always made it a point to call people at the wrong time. Last year, he woke his friend Nari in Melbourne at three in the morning and screamed, “Happy Nouruz!” Nari, a neurosurgeon who truly relished his sleep, stumbled for words because Aspi Irani chided him for miscalculating the vernal equinox. “Those brain operations have made you lose touch with your roots,” he said with a chuckle.

Mithoo had prepared the traditional Nouruz table in a corner of the living room. On a green cloth that had been embroidered
by her mother lay a copy of the sacred Avesta, along with the Haft-Sin, seven items beginning with the Farsi letter
S.
Amongst these, Zairos knew the significance of only four— the seb, or apple, was for health and beauty; sabzeh, or wheat sprouts, represented rebirth; serke, or vinegar, warded off any bitterness that life might bring; and sekke, or coins, symbolized prosperity.

Mithoo lit three candles to signify the goodness of thought, word, and deed.

She kept looking at the wall clock every minute or so. She did not want to miss the exact moment. “The sun is approaching the equator,” Aspi Irani started, gaining momentum like the commentator of a horse race, “it’s coming round the bend and passing Kazakhstan, and now it’s zooming ahead of Kyrgyzstan, then Afghanistan, it’s taking a left turn towards Pakistan, and now it’s crossed Kashmir, and oh, it’s only a furlong short of the equator, dear Mithoo, only a furlong short.”

Zairos stood with his parents at the table and watched a goldfish in a bowl—the goldfish was part of the ceremonial setting as well. There were sweets, dried fruit, naan, a slice of watermelon, a glass of wine, and a large mirror with its face up, a hard-boiled egg placed in the middle of it.

Mithoo held the mirror in her hand and made Zairos look into it.

“Smile, my son,” she said, “so you’ll be smiling all year round.”

Zairos did as he was told, but apparently it was not enough.

“What kind of smile is that?” she asked. “Show me some teeth.”

Then Mithoo took a thin silver bottle the shape of a minaret and sprinkled rosewater over her son’s head and face. After kissing him on both cheeks, she said, “Now get married to a sweet Zoroastrian girl.”

“No thanks,” said Zairos. “I’m suffering enough.”

“Look at this idiot. Not at all concerned about his future,” she said to her husband. “Won’t he need someone to look after him in his old age?”

“True,” said Aspi Irani. “But what if his wife gets a stroke? Then Zairos will have to wipe
her
bum for the rest of his life.”

“Aspi, please,” said Mithoo. “It’s Nouruz. Say something auspicious. You bring the whole ceremony to a depressing halt.”

“My dear, if Alexander the Great and the Taliban could not prevent Zoroastrians from celebrating Nouruz, what chance do I have?”

“Give me one more kiss,” Mithoo said to Zairos. “Now please get me some grandchildren. I’m preparing for my Montessori exam. I need someone to practise on.”

The three of them stood around the table again, as Mithoo lit an oil lamp and closed her eyes in prayer, and Aspi Irani walked through the house with an afarganyu, spreading smoky incense that had the most delectable smell. When they were done, Zairos hugged his parents.

“Now eat something sweet,” said Mithoo. “And may you carry that sweetness with you for the rest of the year.”

When Zairos reached out to eat a raisin from the table, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror again. His reflection was a reminder that he was fortunate to have a life like this. But there had to be a reason for good fortune. Good fortune, if it was not shared, would soon turn to dust. Like a daily wage,
it had to be earned. If blessings were showered upon a man, it was to inspire him to take a risk.

There was a reason his grandfather had told him about the War of the Warlis the night before Nouruz. The word
no-ruz
meant “new day.” It was a sign that Zairos needed to take up the gauntlet. The sumac on the table before him, he now remembered, symbolized a new dawn.

He was careful not to step on the designs of red and blue chalk that his mother had made on the threshold, along with the words “Nouruz Mubarak” written in white. He walked through the front door, caressing the garland of fresh jasmine and red roses that hung above him.

He needed to meet Kusum.

Spring had come. It was a time for change.

The smell of cow dung greeted Zairos at his grandfather’s bungalow. Manure had been emptied from the back of a large transport truck until it formed a huge mound.

Reminders were truly everywhere.

Pestonji and Noshir Irani had hidden the body of the Warli man who stole their coconuts in cow dung. It had made the anger of the tribals reach its zenith. Zairos wondered what would happen to him if he saw someone he loved, someone like Bumble, lying there with his Ray-Bans shattered, or Hosi with his Colt’s racing form, his hand sticking out in a dying grasp for help.

It made him shudder.

He distracted himself by watching Damu, who was standing on top of the mound, his feet pressed into the dung as
though he were crushing grapes in a tub. The dung was to be distributed among the trees as fertilizer. Damu wore an “I
NY” T-shirt. As soon as Aspi Irani had returned from his most recent holiday, rats had crocheted their way into the fabric and rendered the T-shirt fit for Warli use. Damu, of course, had no clue what NY was, but it surprised Zairos that Damu did not know what the
represented either.

Zairos walked over to the bathtubs.

But instead of Kusum, he spotted a dead bat hanging upside down. In daylight, the bat looked unreal, a soft toy, something that would make a sound when squeezed. It was the farm workers’ catch, lunch that would be claimed soon. The workers tied nylon strings horizontally between two trees, and at night bats would fly right through them, cut a wing and fall, and get caught on a hook that was suspended just below.

Kusum soon appeared, a long bamboo stick strung across her shoulders. Two steel buckets filled to the brim with chickoos hung at each end of the bamboo stick. The load was heavy, but she did not falter.

She had a white flower in her hair. Zairos could not remember its name.

“I want to talk to you,” said Zairos.

“Yes, seth …”

She put the buckets down, let the bamboo stick fall to the ground.

“I want you to come with me,” he said. She looked down at her ankles. They were wet and her feet were covered with mud.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” he said. “Walk with me.”

She followed him, making sure she was never in the same line as him. When they got to his red Maruti, he opened the door for her and said, “Sit.”

“Where are we going?” she asked as she got in the car. “The workers will ask for me.”

“Do you feel uncomfortable with me?” he asked. “Are you scared?”

“No,” she replied.

When Zairos drove past Aspi Villa, he waved out to his mother, who was swaying on the swing with the abandon of a schoolgirl. She would assume he was taking a worker to the doctor. He did that from time to time.

Near the station, matkas were on sale, the owner of the earthen pots asleep on a chair, his body limp like spinning clay that had suddenly been abandoned. A woman who owned a sugar-cane stall was sweeping the floor, clearing wafer packets, newspapers, and plastic bags.

Along the beach, young girls in colourful cholis collected water from old wells.

Barbed-wire fence bordered the sandy beach. When Zairos was little, there were no fences, the sea just lay there, open and welcoming, and its froth gave them hope. During low tide, jellyfish sparkled in the sun, mini spaceships that had landed flat on their faces.

The fishing village sent its odour to everyone while leather-faced fishermen slept under straw roofs. Where the village ended, the shoreline expanded, the boulders with smooth wet surfaces, licked by waves, salt burning under the sun. Once they passed the animal hospital and the white windmill, the wired fences stopped, leaving only trees and bullock carts. The land
was free, and only the occasional coconut grove broke the monotony of the blue.

Zairos stopped the car at the edge of a small stream, a spot he had found years ago by accident, where the land sloped upwards at first, then dropped suddenly. He turned the car off and everything was quiet. An eagle soared high above them, circled the car.

The way light fell on her face and arms, through the windshield, it made Zairos feel that her beauty was an accident, and she carried it in the manner one carried an extra growth, like a horn or claw. It weighed her down, made her existence more painful. Kusum’s beauty elevated her far beyond the ordinary. It was the gods laughing at her.