Dahanu Road: A novel (19 page)

“Shapur,” said Banu, “where have you gone?”

“Nowhere,” he said, the bittersweet tang in his voice betraying him. “Some of the old man’s beard is stuck on your nose.”

She put the pink beard to his face, rubbed it on his chin.

“Now you also have a pink face.”

“Not fair, Banu,” he said with a lilt. “I’m holding Sohrab. I can’t fight back.”

Shapur Irani’s smile suddenly vanished. Banu followed his gaze to a man and woman approaching them. The manner in which the man was dressed suggested that he was a landowner, a rich one. He was short and bald, and had pimple scars on his face.

“Shapur,” said the man. “How are you?”

Her husband stiffened up.

“I had no idea you had become a nurse,” taunted the man. “A big strong man like you holding a baby, while your wife … She is your wife, I hope?” Then he winked at Shapur Irani.

Banu threw the candy floss to the ground and took Sohrab from his father’s arms. Khodi was by her side, clinging to her.

“My name is Gustad Mirza,” said the man to Banu. “And this is my wife, Coomi.”

Coomi smiled at Shapur Irani and Banu. She had too much powder on her face and her eyes were too big, as if she were perpetually in a state of shock. Even her hair was too curly. Her curls had a life of their own, a madness almost.

“So you have come to the fair for some enjoyment?” asked Gustad.

He wiped his bald head with a white handkerchief, and Banu wondered why he was sweating when it was not hot.

When Shapur Irani did not respond to Gustad’s question, Coomi stepped in.

“Would you like to see that stall over there?” she asked Banu. “They are selling shawls from Kashmir. We should leave the men alone and buy some shawls.”

Banu looked at her husband, and when he nodded his head she took Khodi and Sohrab and went to have a look at the shawls from Kashmir.

Glad that his wife was out of the way, Shapur Irani finally spoke.

“Gustad, I have nothing to say to you. You are a snake. The worst type of snake … what you and the other landlords did …”

“Did what?” asked Gustad. “We protected our own interests. Anyway, it was your idea to get them together.”

“To negotiate,” said Shapur Irani.

He was going hot, then cold, then hot again. The fire would not lie low.

“Did you really think we would make a
speech?”
said Gustad. “We are landlords. We do not negotiate.”

Shapur Irani suddenly doubted himself. Had he, at some level, known that a betrayal would take place?

No, he did not. That was Ahriman talking again, getting under his skin, making him believe there was something wrong from the inside.

“People died that day,” he said.

“Only five died, Shapur. Only
five.
It happens when there is a revolt. Anyway, it’s in the past. Why don’t we talk about pleasant things? Your wife seems nice. She is quite pretty.”

“I don’t want to talk about my wife. And I don’t want you anywhere near my wife.”

Standing in front of Gustad was proving to be too much for Shapur Irani.

Something was rising within him, and he could not make out if it was Ahura Mazda’s strength or Ahriman’s poison. Either way, it could not be contained. He needed to walk away.

“Where are you going?” asked Gustad. “You think you’re too good for us? Is your wife special? Is she made of gold?”

Keep walking. Keep walking.

“I understand,” said Gustad. “I’ll stay away from your wife. But will she?”

Shapur Irani’s hand was shaking now, and once his hand shook, he knew what it meant. It was time for the earth to shake.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“There are rumours about your wife … that while she was in Bombay her mother used to rent her out to the British.”

Shapur Irani elbowed Gustad in the nose and Gustad was on the ground. That was for his wife.

“This is from the Warlis,” he said.

Then he kicked Gustad hard in the stomach. Gustad doubled over, wheezing.

One more kick. It did not matter that Shapur Irani had worn kolhapuri chappals. His foot was a hot, furious brick.

Gustad was trying to get up, crawling on all fours. Shapur Irani kicked him on his back with his heel. He unbuckled Gustad’s leather belt from his trousers. A crowd was watching. Some of the men worked for Gustad, but when they came to his rescue, Ejaz the Pathan stood there with his wooden club and said, “It is between two men. No one will interfere.”

Shapur Irani started belting Gustad with his own expensive leather belt. It was not as thick as Shapur Irani wanted it to be.

“This is what it feels like to be whipped, you bastard,” he said.

But Gustad was not making a sound. That scared Shapur Irani. This short, bald man was tough. He did not have the physical strength to fight Shapur Irani, but he could take a beating, and this angered Shapur Irani even more, and he resumed the whipping with renewed vigour.

Still, not a sound from Gustad.

Banu had Sohrab in her arms, Khodi by her side, and Gustad’s wife next to her, shrieking. She saw Ejaz standing, a mountain, so that no one could reach her husband. She finally walked towards Shapur Irani, and Ejaz moved to block her way, but her eyes must have shot poison because he let her pass, and only when she screamed “Stop!” right in his ear did he stop beating Gustad. Shapur Irani was breathing extra hard.

Gustad raised his head and, through a mouthful of blood, gave him a red smile.

“You will pay for this, my friend,” said Gustad. “One day, you will pay for this.”

Shapur Irani dropped Gustad’s belt to the ground and made his way back to the horse carriage. Khodi started to cry, and Shapur Irani told his son to shut up and be a man. By the time they got to the carriage, Khodi was bawling beyond measure, and Shapur Irani asked Ejaz, “Your son is the same age as mine. Does your son cry too? Does your son cry like this?”

“No,” said Ejaz. “My son does not cry.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“My son does not cry because my son is dead,” said Ejaz. “He died in Bombay a few days ago.”

A FEW DAYS AFTER
Gustad Mirza’s death, Zairos saw a group of Irani men, all dressed in white, pass Anna’s on their motorcycles. They were on their way to the fire temple to attend prayers that were being offered for Gustad. Gustad’s body had already been taken to the Tower of Silence in Bombay, where, according to the Zoroastrian practice of Dokhmenashini, his body would have been eaten by vultures.

“It is sad that the good deeds of the past are seldom remembered,” Shapur Irani had told Zairos. “And history is created by a few rotten apples.”

Zairos thought of the many Irani landlords who had refused to take part in the butchery on Dahanu beach. They stayed at home, tended to their gardens, and held on to their prayer beads, hoping that the waves of violence would subside.

But Zairos did not wish that his grandfather had been one of those men.

The man had tried to save the Warlis. He had intervened in
the name of goodness, and even though he failed, his music was more powerful than that of those who did not try. Unfortunately, his grandfather did not view things that way. Failure had created a mesh of wires that had clung to his neck and left him choking.

Seated on Anna’s green bench, Zairos experienced a similar smothering.

He was hoping that Anna’s would revive him, and thanks to the men on their way to Gustad’s prayers, Aspi Irani started talking about the way the Zoroastrians disposed of their dead and the problems the community faced.

Lately, there had been a drastic decrease in the vulture population in Bombay. However, there was no dearth of dead bodies in the Tower of Silence. So the vultures, spoiled by the veritable feast before them, were not doing their job. After eating their fill, they were dropping off bits of flesh on the windowsills of nearby posh high-rise apartments.

“Just imagine,” said Aspi Irani, chewing on an unlit Marlboro. “On Monday, a man dies. On Tuesday, he shows up at your house again.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” said Keki the Italian. “Bombay vultures belong to a species known as
Gyps.
They can’t hold flesh in their beaks for too long. So it would be hard to fly to any buildings.”

“And who told you that—Camus?” asked Aspi Irani.

“No,” said Keki. “The pallbearer at the Tower of Silence. I got to know him when my father died.”

“You flirted with a pallbearer at your father’s funeral?” asked Aspi Irani.

“I think each of us should adopt a vulture,” said Merwan Mota, munching on glucose biscuits with Pinky the orphan
by his side. “I’m sick of those rich fools in Bombay walking around with their stupid little Pomeranians.”

“That’s a great idea,” said Aspi Irani. “I’d rather be eaten by a vulture who
knows
me. Not by some ungrateful stranger. In fact, I’d like to import mine from France. I’ll tie an embroidered napkin round his neck, and he can sip red wine and dip fancy cutlery into my flesh.”

“Yes,” said Merwan Mota, boosted by the support. “We could keep him in a cage, like a cockatoo. We’ll call him Pierre.”

“And my wife speaks French. The two could converse.”

“On second thought,” said Merwan,
“we
should eat the bastards for a change.”

“Barbarians,” said Keki the Italian.

“At least I didn’t sleep with a pallbearer at my father’s funeral.”

Hosi did not seem interested in the “Adopt a Vulture” program. He sat in a corner holding the sides of his paunch in utter disgust, blaming Anna’s oily potatoes for his weight gain. He looked at the picture of Bruce Lee that he had pasted onto the wall. He longed to have a body like that.

But instead of muscles, only his beard was growing. It was thicker than ever, there were now
seventeen
strands of white hair on his chest, and, of late, he had been leaving his fly open wherever he went, which he was convinced was the first sign of Alzheimer’s. He had read about it in
Reader’s Digest.

“I’m off to prison,” he said, looking at his watch.

That was how he passed his time in Dahanu. He would find out from the prison authorities when an inmate was being released, and he would stand outside the prison to see the look of freedom on the man’s face.

“I will never know what that’s like,” he once said.

Bumble, on the other hand, spent his afternoons fast asleep in a bedroom rendered igloo-cold by air conditioning. But today, even though it was time for his siesta, Bumble was smoking, looking glum. His curly hair was more dishevelled than usual and he had dark circles under his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” asked Zairos.

“Nothing,” said Bumble, sucking the cigarette to the bitter end. “My dad’s upset because I haven’t been to the farm for three days.”

“Why’s that?”

Bumble grimaced, took his Ray-Bans off, cleaned them with the bottom of his red T-shirt, and put them back on again. “It’s nothing,” he said. He put his forefinger on the rim of his aviators and pushed them back. “I caught one of the workers stealing cement poles from the farm. I was about to scream at him, but I had barely said a word and … I saw a stream of urine trickle down his leg. I just walked away. I don’t feel like going to the farm now. It’s just …”

Zairos understood what Bumble meant. It was shameful that one man wielded so much power over another. A few cement poles made no difference to Bumble, but if he did nothing, he would be considered weak.

At the end of it all, perhaps there was not much they could do besides let Anna’s chai soothe them. It was pompous of Zairos to think that landlords needed soothing, but he felt it was true. Just because they had money did not mean nothing affected them. And as his grandfather pointed out, they were paying for the mistakes made by only a few men.

But that was history.

No matter how beautiful the roses on the path, men only noticed the dead cubs along the way, lying on their backs, their small paws now limp, a reminder that the ones who had survived could not be trusted.

Like a piece of meat stuck between his teeth, uneasiness was stuck in Zairos’ rib cage.

On most occasions, Anna’s chai stall was a sanctuary where that uneasiness dissolved. At Anna’s, a congregation of men assembled for an hour or two, shared their stories, and tried to find togetherness without losing their machismo. Anna’s was a source of relief, but at the moment it seemed false, a yellow bulb trying to pass as sunlight.

It was because Zairos had done nothing about Kusum’s husband.

After their last meeting, he had exchanged glances with her at the farm and paid her daily wage. But he had ignored her plea for help. It was time to do something.

He went to the counter, where peppermints were kept in glass jars, where small plastic bottles of Hunny drinking water were lined up, and Anna’s small book of accounts, with a sketch of Lord Krishna playing the flute, was lying next to the black telephone.

Zairos made a call.

It was ringing, and once the voice on the other line answered, there was no turning back.

The next afternoon, Zairos sat in the blue swivel chair outside the Big Boss Hair Salon, awaiting the arrival of an important
guest. The guest was not a member of Parliament or a religious man. The man Zairos was waiting for was a bona fide bandit from Bihar, the most lawless state in the country.