No God in Sight

by Altaf Tyrewala

  Please, friend, money, food, hungry, God—these are the only words you need as a beggar; to charm the tourists, you learn to render these words in every tongue spoken under the sun.

  Please, friend, money, food, hungry, God—soon, these are the only concepts you know, the only objects you recognize.

  You start to believe that the solicitous is the only tone in which to address your fellow humans; that if you call people ‘friend’ they will be kind to you. You cannot think beyond the loose change in people’s pockets. You cannot imagine being satiated by anything finer than food and sex.

  And God?

  Ha! That’s just something you say to vex the indifferent fuckers.

  Every twenty-nine days, a full moon quietly rises in the east. It is a silver that would take your breath away. When you are a beggar, you no longer have the words left to account for such extraordinary things.

  Rahul Adhikari, Siddhartha in Denial

  My Bombay is a cold, dry city.

  I sleep under a blanket in my Bombay. (Preferably with someone who will go away before I get up, leaving strands of her hair on my pillow and traces of stale perfume on my sheets.)

  On waking I turn on my cell phone. And then, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the bed, I try to meditate as demonstrated at last week’s executive conference.

  Walking through my penthouse after a scalding shower, I feel shivers in my lower ribs. It is freezing this morning. (But I will not lessen the air-conditioning.)

  I microwave a cup of coffee. I sit at the kitchen counter with the newspaper—Times of India. There, there’s your Mumbai again, swamping my mind, bringing the whole of India with it. Before the clamor can mar my dignified morning, I chuck aside the chaos making news in your world.

  I get ready. Here is what one wears to work in my Bombay: khakis, a woolen blazer, and a cotton shirt.

  The elevator is warm.

  It takes me down.

  The parking lot is sweltering!

  Before my body can feel the shock, I dash through a wall of sunlit heat and leap into the back seat of my car, kept chilled and ready by Chinu, my driver, who has standing orders to arrive every morning by quarter to ten, fifteen minutes before I am to leave.

  Everything happens on time in my Bombay.

  Ten a.m. by my watch, but it seems like dusk outside. My car windows are practically black. If I moved my head a little to the right, I would see the blaze of the steaming, shitting, spitting city you live in. But I am not a romantic or a masochist, and even the windscreen is partially glazed to keep your Mumbai out.

  I stare down at my laptop while Chinu manipulates the Lancer through your streets. The car moves for some minutes, and halts for twice as much time.

  Another fucking halt.

  ‘Now what?’ I ask Chinu.

  ‘J.P. Road signal, sir.’ He glances nervously in the rear-view mirror.

  A shadow blocks the window on my left—the window I am seated at. The shadow begins tapping lightly from outside. I never look up or out. In my Bombay of incalculable bliss, one runs the risk of throwing it all away like an idiot at the first sight of suffering.

  The tapping on the window increases—it becomes forceful; it sounds like a paw thumping against the glass.

  Your Mumbai wants a spare piece of my Bombay.

  ‘Give some change,’ I order Chinu.

  He depresses the button to lower the power window in the front left. He stretches across and offers a five-rupee note through the narrow opening. The shadow outside rushes to the front. The note disappears. And, as the window goes up with a rubbery groan, Chinu shudders.

  ‘Are you cold?’ I ask. The air-conditioning is on high. But Chinu is wearing a sweater.

  ‘No, sir. That beggar—looked like a corpse.’ Chinu shudders again.

  Ha. My driver lives in your Mumbai. For him to be sickened must be an all-time low.

  At eleven a.m., an hour later, we drive into the office complex.

  The car stops outside the main entrance.

  I run into the glass-encased building—its cool lobby bathed in golden light, hawk-eyed security guards manning the reception desk.

  My office is chilled and muted; it smells of ammonia and mothballs. Ducking past a volley of ‘Hi Rahul’, ‘Morning Rahul’, I sprint to my cabin.

  At my desk, I slam my head down on the table anda exhale with cheerless relief.

  For one more day, for another twelve hours, I can, I must, I will have to forget that your Mumbai exists.

  Bleep-bleep-bleep… bleep-bleep-bleep… the direct line rings.

  I raise my head. The caller ID shows an unknown number. I pick up the handset. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Let’s just go this afternoon and get it done with,’ a woman says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s no way out, okay!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you mean what? Are you drunk?’ the woman asks.

  I slap my cheek to check if I am dreaming.

  ‘Hello?’ the woman says. ‘Kasim, are you there?’

  I fling the handset on the carpeted floor.‘IT’S THE WRONG NUMBER!’ I YELL AT THE RECEIVER. ‘HANG UP THE FREAKING PHONE! YOU HAVE THE WRONG FREAKING NUMBER!’

  Kasim, the Right Number

  It’s inevitable. It has to be done. Our discussions, that have lasted through days and nights and right up to this morning, are over. The accusations, after being flung back and forth like parcels at a party, have finally ended up in both our hands: Minaz’s and mine.

  Attachment, fondness, respect, sexual attraction (yes, even that tyranny of the hormones) have all flown out the window.

  ‘Kasim, let’s just go this afternoon and get it done,’ Minaz says.

  After she hangs up the phone, my limbs turn to jelly. I remain on the bed; I find it impossible to move even a finger or swallow the saliva that starts to overflow from the side of my half-open mouth.

  What Minaz and I are going to do this afternoon will wound us forever—actually, her more than me, because for a man, parenthood, or the rejection of it, remains an abstraction no matter how intense his emotions. Tonight, while she and I sleep in our respective bedrooms twelve kilometers apart, only one of our private parts will ache from the penetration of a surgical instrument, and it won’t be my penis.

  My penis!

  That

  bloody

  bane

  of an appendage

  I pull down my shorts. I spot it amid the fuzz. It seems smaller than its usual flaccid length, like a crook cowering in court.

  I grab my penis by its base, and with the other hand I begin slapping its soft, purple head. My organ jerks about. I shake it back and forth. I choke it till its brown skin reddens. And then I begin tugging at it and yanking it and squashing its head and plucking the hair at its base.

  My eyes turn watery. A gasp escapes my lips as I twist my limp penis around my finger.

  But I want more. More pain; more suffering. I want to ache the way I imagine Minaz will ache after the procedure is over and when the anaesthesia starts to wear off.

  She will ache alone for something we did together.

  So I torment my member in the hope that the agony will lessen my guilt.

  But even that is not possible.

  I am hopeless.

  Despite the pain and the agony—and stimulated by the pinching, tweaking, twisting, and slapping—my penis starts to turn hard.

  ‘No!’ I cry. ‘No!’

  I begin slapping both sides of my organ. I twist its swelling head. But the thing grows a life of its own; and no matter what I do to torture it, my organ continues to harden…

  When the telephone rings again, fifteen minutes after Minaz had hung up, I am masturbating. Stroking my erect member, I am lost in an intricate fantasy comprising a composite of the women I’ve encountered over the past few days. Stupefied by lust, it takes me a few moments to even heed the ringing telephone.

  I wipe my hand on my shorts and pick
up the receiver.

  It’s Minaz again. Her voice sounds heavy, tremulous. ‘You come to my place, we’ll take my car,’ she says. ‘And hurry up, okay? The nursing home closes at three. Are you ready to leave?’

  I have no answer.

  In one hand is my erect penis. And in the other hand, pressed to my left ear, is a receiver transmitting the pained voice of a young girl who, willing as she was to sleep with me that afternoon several weeks ago, had no idea, as I did not, of the heavy price we’d have to pay for those few moments of pleasure.

  ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you speaking?’ Minaz cries.

  ‘I’ll…I was about to leave…I’ll be there soon.’ I put down the receiver.

  How?

  As I stare at my penis—which has begun to wilt in the absence of friction—my eyes widen, my jaw drops, and a spit bubble pops in my mouth.

  Hours before my lover and I are to abort our unborn embryo, I am keeping her waiting in order to enjoy one more sad, solitary orgasm?

  I am sick.

  I can’t be trusted anymore.

  I should be exiled to the forest.

  What do I know!

  Nothing.

  I’m a monkey!

  I know nothing!

  I rise from the bed and pull up my shorts. The skin of my semi-hard member burns on contact with cloth.

  I stand in the middle of the room.

  My eyes are smarting. I am shaking my head in disbelief. How? How did I progress from torturing my penis to pleasuring it? And that too on a morning like this?

  Ten more minutes pass.

  The landline starts to ring.

  I remain motionless.

  After seven rings, it goes silent.

  My cell phone rings: a tinny, digitally simplified version of the national anthem. I lower myself to the floor—very slowly, like the world is resting on my shoulders. I extricate the gadget from under the bed sheet.

  It’s Minaz again. ‘Have you left home already?’ she asks.

  I lie. ‘Yes.’

  There’s a quizzical silence at the other end. ‘Why do you sound so down?’ she says. ‘I should be sounding sad, not you. This doesn’t even affect you.’

  Such bitterness already.

  ‘Minaz… I’m… I’m really sorry…’

  It is my first apology since learning of her pregnancy three weeks ago. It is unforgivably late. But at least it is genuine.

  She turns incoherent:‘HOW…FUCK YOU…HOW DARE YOU, YOU FUCKING…DON’T FUCK AROUND WITH MY HEAD, KASIM… I… KEEP YOUR SORRYS TO YOURSELF…JUST COME WITH ME TODAY… I DON’T WANT…I JUST WANT TO GET RID…’

  Her shouts turn into shrieks.

  She disconnects the phone.

  It starts from the liver. A quiver that ripples through my torso.

  Soon my whole body is trembling.

  I am a hazard.

  I am a bloody fool. Minaz is probably right. This is all my fault. Even though we used a condom, even though we were careful to the point of lunacy, somehow something went wrong, and it was most certainly I who caused it.

  I get dressed without bathing.

  I leave home unseen by my family and come down to the crowded street. The air is boiling in the mid-morning sun.

  I start walking toward the closest bus stop.

  Terrified of causing any more harm, of making any more mistakes, I move v-e-r-y carefully through the mob of pedestrians. I walk like a soldier in enemy territory. I keep my eyes open, ears tuned, and breath steady.

  My cell phone rings again. The caller ID shows Zubin, a college mate. I reject the call. No more friends, no more distractions, no more GMAT scores, vital stats, passwords, lyrics, or dialogues crowding my brain like snot.

  From now on I must try to have as little to do with the world as possible. It’s the only way I can protect others from myself. From now on, I must keep close track of every single breath.

  There is a huge crowd at the bus stop.

  The 95 arrives. Men, women, and children rush forward. I am shoved to the side. I find myself at the back of the crowd. I board the bus at the very last, when the conductor rings the bell and as the bus starts to move.

  With a foot on the boarding platform and a hand clutching the metal railing, I’m on the 95, but only just.

  It’s the way I intend to live my life from now—on the periphery.

  Tethered, but only just.

  I stand through the forty-five-minute journey.

  I get off at Agripada and walk to the gate of Ismat Towers. I send a text message to Minaz telling her I’m here. I wait for five minutes. No reply. I dial her cell phone. She doesn’t answer.

  The watchman knows me and allows me in.

  I enter the elevator and press 16, the top floor. The metal doors rumble close. My ears pop as the elevator ascends.

  The air feels thinner on the sixteenth floor. There is a hushed silence in the sunlit lobby.

  I ring the bell of flat 1602. The wooden door has geometric designs carved into it, and at its center is a rust iron nameplate that says:

  KHWAJAS

  Twenty minutes later, Minaz is driving us to Colaba. She insists she is perfectly capable, even on a day like this, of maneuvering her Wagon-R through the city’s treacherous traffic. We’re strapped down in our seats, our faces chilled by the conditioned air blasting from the vents on the dashboard. Her parents assumed I had come to collect their daughter for yet another harmless day out. Minaz is honking too much; she is beeping at anything that moves on the road. I glance at her repeatedly. She once claimed her left profile was more flattering. Right now I doubt she cares what angle I see her from. We are not talking. There is nothing left to say. We are driving past VT toward Fountain. Colaba is ten minutes away. We are not sentimental fools. Neither of us wants to become a parent like this—under duress, with regret. Besides, after this morning, I know how unprepared I am for fatherhood. ‘You brought your license?’ Minaz asks, with an eye on the rearview mirror. ‘Yes,’ I say. I will be driving us back to Agripada from the nursing home. There is an inferno in my underwear; I have only now begun to realize to what extent I had injured my penis. And there is gratitude—a shameful and hopeless gratitude toward Minaz for consenting to the desecration of her body in order to salvage our shining futures.

  We reach Colaba and park the car near the post office. Minaz and I start walking toward Pasta Lane. Someone seems to be holding a magnifying glass over the city this afternoon. The sun’s heat has never been this intense, this punishing.

  Love is known to strengthen after a single shared event of intolerable grief—a partner’s infidelity, the demise of a child. I suppose it’s the price people have to pay to remain together. Minaz and I have been together for eight fun-filled, giddy-headed months. After this afternoon, after we have paid our price, I suppose she and I will become inseparable.

  ‘We’re here,’ she says and starts to enter Shamma Nursing Home. I don’t follow her in. I want to hug her. But I don’t want to offend her.

  Minaz comes out to the footpath and gives me her trademark tough stare—the look that has no one fooled.

  ‘Okay?’ I ask. She snorts.

  We step into the dimly lit waiting room. Minaz’s heartbeats are hitting me like sonic booms.

  A man is standing with his back to us. He is gazing at the frosted pane of a closed window. There is no one else in here. Distracted by our entry, he turns to look at us.

  Is he?

  Could this be?

  No.

  No. Clearly not.

  This can’t be the doctor. This man is wearing a striped shirt and black pants. There is nothing remarkable about him—no tortured eyes, no dark circles or blotchy skin, nothing to indicate that he is the doer of the deed that Minaz and I have been agonizing over day and night for the past three weeks. This man looks like a shopkeeper.

  I ask, ‘You… you are the doctor?’

  I am half-expecting a shorter, fatter, darker, and older individual
to sneak out from the adjoining room and announce in a coarse, phlegmatic voice, ‘No, I am the doctor.’

  I lose my bearings when the man in the striped shirt nods to indicate that he is, in fact, the doctor. That he is, in fact, the nadir of our lives. That he is, in fact, the abortionist.

  Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

  —Robert Louis Stevenson

  GLOSSARY

  Aana a unit of currency formerly used in India, equal to one-sixteenth of a rupee

  ammi mother

  appu the name of the baby elephant that was the mascot of the 1982 Asian Games

  arrey hey!

  ayah maid

  azaan Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin

  bandobast roadside security

  batata-vada deep fried potato dumplings

  beta son

  bhaiya elder brother

  bhengcho a variant of the curse word ‘bhenchod’ or sister-fucker

  bhediya wolf

  bindi a dot, traditionally worn on the forehead by Hindu women

  burkha the veil worn by Muslim women

  chappal slipper

  chapatti an Indian bread made of dough and puffed up with steam

  charpoy string cot

  choot an abbreviation of ‘chutiya’ or idiot

  dharma generally refers to religious or social duty and correct conduct

  dhobi washerman

  dhoti a garment worn around the waist and legs by men

  dua a Muslim prayer

  Eid or Eid-ul-Fitr, is an Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramazan, the month of fasting

  Gurkha an ethnic group from Nepal famous for their history of service as foreign soldiers in the Indian Army

  haanh yes

  haathi elephant

  hai-hai an expression of shock or shame

  halaal an Islamic-Arabic term meaning “permissible,” but most commonly used to refer to food that is permissible according to Islamic law

  halwa a confection having the consistency of very thick pudding