Haunting Bombay

by Shilpa Agarwal

  “No chili, onions, garlic or garam masala either,” Savita chimed in from the dining hall, ticking off her list of food items that enticed malevolent spirits. As it was, she made Cook Kanj prepare food in two different batches, one for herself and her sons, and the other, spicy version, for the rest of the family. After marriage, she had tried to curb Jaginder’s eating habits as well but, though taken by his new bride, he had flatly refused.

  Eating garlic causes bad-bad thoughts in your mind, she had insisted.

  It’s not the garlic, he had responded with a wink.

  So Savita inflicted her dietary zeal upon her children instead, except during social engagements when she was too busy to keep such a close eye on them. Nimish was too engrossed in his books to care about such things. Tufan simply bribed Cook Kanj to give him onions on the sly, threatening to tell Maji of his wife’s lapses in housework otherwise. He ate these onions raw, mouth burning, tears pouring down his face, whenever Savita was napping. Poor Dheer suffered the most from the restricted menu though no amount of whining lightened his mother’s injunction. Impatient with the desperate look in his eyes, however, she had imported chocolates delivered to the house each week.

  Whenever possible, Pinky slipped Dheer a part of her flavorful meals under the table. But now that her stomach ailment had been broadcast throughout the bungalow, vegetables, mangoes, chutneys, and pickles were all eliminated from her plate to be replaced by bland rice-and-lentil khichidis and watered-down yogurt lassis. Worst still, Dr. M. M. Iyer, their family physician, was called in and prescribed a regimen of pink fizzy tablets, salted lime water, and asafetida-laced lentils.

  Afterwards, Pinky was duly sent off to bed. She lay on her mattress restlessly. There was still so much she did not know. Who was this baby, this infant girl, whose untimely death led to Pinky’s salvation?

  Later that morning, Lovely’s mother, Vimla, came over for lunch, using the narrow passageway carved into the far end of the connecting wall during a brief time when the adjoining bungalows had belonged to the same owner. For at least half a century thereafter, the opening had been sealed by overgrown shoe flower shrubs, thickets of pale purple phlox, and tender blue vinca blooms. But after both Vimla and Maji had become widows, their days freed from attending to husbands, the foliage was cut back to allow visiting without the hassle of having to unlock and lock their bungalows’ front gates. Maji was too large to squeeze through the passageway. So by unspoken agreement, Vimla always did the visiting.

  Vimla was a fragile-looking woman with slender arms and large, doelike eyes. She always wore white saris as custom dictated, though allowed herself small indulgences of color such as a magenta hibiscus bloom tucked neatly into her glossy black hair. Before her husband died, Vimla had taken much joy in her kaleidoscopic collection of saris, which included brilliant purple Bengali Balucharis, square-patterned Gujarati Gharcholas, Moghul-influenced Benaras Brocades, and gold-bordered Nayayanpets from Kerela. In fact, in the privacy of her bedroom, she often fantasized about managing Sweetie Fashions or one of the other exquisite sari shops along Colaba Causeway.

  Bring out the Mysore crepes, she imagined herself commanding one of her workers who would scuttle across the brightly lit show room, opening the tissue-like saris with a snap of his hand while the heavily ornamented ladies oohed and aahed, cash-filled purses tucked under their armpits, fizzy Coca-Colas in hand.

  When her husband had died in his early forties of a heart attack, Vimla had mourned not for him but for the loss of her sparkling saris. Confined as she was to achromatic clothing, she coped by refusing to part with her collection, tenderly tucking the most expensive ones into a locked almarie in her bedroom. Only when her children were out of the bungalow and the servants safely napping did she dare to open the cabinet and spread the rainbow of cloth before her, pressing her face into the silky fabrics, draping the golden rangs against her bosom, and losing herself to the days when she, too, was gazed upon with breathlessness.

  Vimla’s husband had been a wealthy industrialist, friendly with the British, and feared by Indians. He was a brutal man, caring nothing for the lives he ruined on his way to prosperity, nor for the happiness of his own family whom he sought to trample into submission. Once, when they had been at a dinner party overlooking Bombay Harbor at the Taj Hotel, the conversation amongst the Maharastrian crowd steered toward their decades-long battle with their Gujarati neighbors to annex Bombay city as the influential capital of their own state.

  “We control Bombay’s municipal council,” Vimla’s husband stated heatedly, “so it’s only a matter of time before the city will belong to us as well.”

  The group of men cheerfully clinked their iced glasses of Royal Salut.

  “Best is to buy a gun from one of those Parsi Bandookwallahs,” concluded one man.

  As if on cue, a small explosion sounded in the distance. Even though gunfire was typically unheard of within the city limits, the shot was far enough away that it almost did not register above the blaring filmi music or their drunken conversation. From their vantage point in the majestic Taj Hotel, they were safely shielded from the street violence below, from the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti foot soldiers living in the city’s slums who provided the muscle behind their demands.

  But Vimla, too shy to chitchat with the more sophisticated wives, had heard the shot and unthinkingly ran towards her husband.

  “Bullets!” she blurted out fearfully, spilling her tangerine-colored Gold Spot onto her husband’s tailored white suit. “Someone’s shooting a gun down there!”

  The jaunty mood at the party was ruined and the guests hastily made their way back to their gated estates in their imported cars with doors securely locked. Vimla had felt her husband’s fury on the ride home, taking temporary refuge in the fact that he would not lose control in front of their driver. In the privacy of their bedroom, however, he had punched her in her face, the metal of his diamond ring cutting into her cheek.

  After his death, Vimla retreated into the safety of his fortune and focused all her attention on her children. Her son, Harshal, unfortunately chose to emulate his father by developing cruel little habits. His personal favorite was to drown the purple sunbirds who nested in the greenery of their garden, snickering at their terrified fluttering until he felt their final, delightful shiver of surrender. After he had single-handedly devastated the bird population in their garden, he casually began prowling the street for newer, bigger victims.

  One morning, while Lovely was playing out by the driveway, Harshal crept out of the gated compound with his net. Just minutes later, he ran back inside with a stray puppy, locking himself inside the bungalow to evade the pup’s ferocious mother. Vimla had watched in shock from a window, unable to move, as Lovely fled from the mother dog until two of the servants chased it away with a broom. Neither Vimla nor Lovely ever said a word to Harshal about his cruelty, but disgust had shone dully in their eyes. Thenceforth, Lovely refused to call Harshal bhaiya, the affectionate term for an elder brother, and boycotted the Rakshabandan ceremonies which celebrated the devotion between brothers and sisters.

  Vimla chose not interfere in her children’s silent feud, instead retreating into the cocoon of her bedroom or spending time next door with Maji. Over the years, the two women had forged a deep friendship, one further cemented after Maji’s own husband, Omanandlal, had died. Though they shared similar fates as widows, Maji undeniably prevailed as the matriarch of her family while Vimla wilted into the background of hers, bullied by her son and daughter-in-law. Her remaining concerns in life were to find a suitable groom for Lovely and to encourage Himani to produce a grandchild.

  “It’s been two years now since they were married and still no sign of a baby,” she lamented again.

  “You’ve taken her to the Mahalaxmi temple, nah?”Maji inquired, certain that sincere prayers to the divine would be rewarded.

  “Whattodo? She refuses to go.”

  “What about a lady doctor?”

&nbs
p; “She refuses even that!” Vimla cried out, rapidly twisting her wrists back and forth to show her helplessness. “She even suggests that it’s my son who needs to be checked out!”

  “Besharam! Who does she think she is?”

  “Whattodo? It’s as if she doesn’t want children. Everyone has started to talk now. Some even say it’s because of that tamarind tree in the backyard, souring Himani’s womb and all that. I want to get the tree removed but my son refuses to spend money on such a thing.”

  “Vimla dear,” Maji said, leaning forward, “only God has the power to give and take, the rest—evil spirits inhabiting trees and such—is utter nonsense.”

  Savita strolled in, clicking her tongue in disagreement. “Auntieji,” she said, speaking to Vimla. “Didn’t you hear the story of the seven-months-pregnant woman who bought a lassi from a shop near the Matunga Cemetery?”

  “Yes, it was in the newspaper yesterday,” Vimla said, fear rising to her face. “She had a miscarriage immediately afterwards, didn’t she?”

  “She was a stupid woman,” Savita clucked, as she strode away, “drinking milk products so near a place of death, opening her body to capricious spirits.”

  “Vimla,” Maji said gravely, “Don’t bow down to fear. Trust in God to unfold our destinies as they should be.”

  Pinky listened in to their conversation from behind the hallway doorframe, awed by Maji’s conviction. Maji did not take nonsense from anyone, least of all irritating spirits from the otherworld. Ghosts, demons, rakshas, and the entire ill-bred lot—if they managed to scale the bungalow’s iron gates—were immediately met with her imposing figure in the parlor.

  The gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, on the other hand, were another class of visitors altogether. Welcomed by Maji as VIPs, they had settled in the bungalow like demanding houseguests. Their statues—Krishna playing his flute along the riverbank, the elephant-headed Ganesh swinging his ample trunk, Saraswati dispensing wisdom from atop a lotus flower—spilled out of the puja room onto corner tables and behind glass cabinets where they surveyed the Mittal family’s activities with rapt attention.

  Maji took no unnecessary liberties with the gods and goddesses as they had a very unforgiving temperament when ignored. She carried sandalwood rosary beads wherever she went, squeezing in a twelve-bead lament as she made her slow, painful way to the bathroom, or a quick one-beader when the lanky darjee showed up at the door ready to encircle Savita’s plump breasts with his measuring tape. Sometimes her supplications were quite lengthy, a full three times around the rosary beads, in fact, whenever she had her feet pressed by Kuntal.Don’t stop, she would say, sighing with pleasure as Kuntal rubbed sesame oil in between her engorged toes. I’m in the middle of my prayers.

  After her husband Omanandlal died, the gods and goddesses were the only authority Maji respected. Her reverence, however, did not stop her from bantering and bargaining with them on a daily basis.O Lord Krishna, my son is such an idiot, going into business with that cheating Chatwani chap. Give him some sense, nah? I’ll bring the Pan- ditji to do a full-day hawan for you with the best sweets from Ghasitaram’s shop. Just like the Goddess Durga who maintained the harmony of the entire cosmos, Maji viewed herself as the power who kept her own little universe in balance.

  Pinky spotted the twins gathering inside their parents’ bedroom and went to investigate. Dheer was sitting on the white bedspread blindfolded, reciting The Lone Ranger Creed. ‘“I believe,’” he said, ‘“that all things change but the truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.’”

  “You’re just in time for the show Kemosabe,” Tufan said to Pinky as he uncorked a bottle of cologne his father had purchased from a small shop-cum-pharmacy near K. E. M. Hospital and waved it under his brother’s nose.

  Dheer possessed an uncanny olfactory ability, able to detect the most reticent odors and nuanced scents. With a mere sniff of the nose, he could recognize the components of each and every beauty aid that littered his mother’s vanity, from the vast array of Indian attars in their tiny crystal bottles to Pears’ “Pure as the Lotus” soaps and Max Factor perfumes.

  “Old Spice!” he yelled now. Pinky clapped in appreciation.

  “Genuine import or a local counterfeit?” Tufan asked, eyeing the bottle suspiciously.

  Dheer crinkled his nose.

  “A fake,” he announced apologetically. “Probably bottled in Kalyan or Ulhasnagar.”

  “The Sindhi shopkeeper assured Papa that this is a genuine, smuggled item,” Tufan frowned, recalling how he had even proffered a cotton-tipped toothpick saturated with the cologne for Jaginder’s approval.

  “If Papa couldn’t tell,” Dheer said, trying to be helpful, “then surely no one else will know.”

  “Papa’s not going to wear some concoction of who-knows-what made by some bloody refugee!” Tufan said, defending his father’s honor.

  He discreetly tucked the white opaque phial under his kurta with plans to barter it to the neighborhood raddiwallah, an enterprising go-between who would transport the Old Spice bottle to where it could be resold. And then with a “Hi-Yo,” he trotted away, blasting away an invisible posse of murderous outlaws.

  Dheer guiltily shrugged his shoulders and turned to Pinky. “Let’s find Gulu. He just came back from dropping Papa at work.” He was hoping to convince him to drive them to Badshah Cold Drink House by Crawford Market for a refreshing potion of lime and orange juice mixed with salt, sugar, and pepper.

  “Maji won’t let me go,” Pinky said, “not with my stomach today.”

  Dheer shrugged again and waddled out of the room.

  Maji and Vimla were still in the parlor, discussing the annual influx of tourists from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf during the impending monsoon season.

  “Live in the desert all year round and come here to indulge in our rains,” Maji was saying resentfully. “Bathing only on Fridays and trying to cover their odors with their Arabian perfumery.”

  “The monsoons do renew India’s colors,” Vimla said wistfully, “the brown earth to emerald greens, the white sky to soft blues.”

  “And indulge in our girls, too,” Maji continued, menacingly waving her cane in the air. “Now even some Parsi girls from Cusrow Baug are going to these Arabs to quietly compile money for their dowries.”

  “Hai Ram! ” Vimla exclaimed, abruptly abandoning her reverie. “I don’t believe it. Their community is such that they’ll never let another Parsi starve. Still, nah, they all lost their jobs after the British left, whattodo?”

  Is that why she keeps such a close eye on Lovely didi? Pinky wondered. Vimla often fretted about the changes she saw happening in Bombay since Independence, especially how modern girls insisted on being educated, some delaying marriage, a few entirely selfish ones even going on to have careers of their own. Sequestering Lovely was the only way Vimla knew of ensuring that her daughter remained uncorrupted by such wayward influences.

  Maji, too, kept a close eye on Pinky, but in a protective, comforting way.

  The difference, Pinky thought, lay in Maji’s strength and Vimla Auntie’s fear.

  DEVILRY

  Nimish was in an unusually chatty mood that afternoon, having just finagled Gulu to take him to the Parsi-owned Taraporevala’s bookshop off Hornby Road. He was buying texts for a new class in English Literature at St. Xavier’s College, one of the city’s oldest and most revered institutions.

  “I’m off,” he called from the front door. He could barely contain the thrill of having a new set of books to cover upon his return home, crisply creasing each fold with the edge of his ruler until the paper’s resistance deliciously gave way to defeat.

  Gulu began to pull the Ambassador out of the driveway after flicking water to freshen up a string of jasmine flowers he had placed around a miniature statue of Lord Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles, upon the dashboard. He obtained these flowers from a vendor who passed by the gate at first light, purchasing jasmine strings for the housemaids, too, and dep
ositing them on the front verandah where, later, Parvati and Kuntal would leave a few coins in payment. He used to buy a solitary marigold blossom each day, too. But that was long ago.

  “Can I come?” Pinky asked, opening the car door and jumping in. “Maji’s napping and I need a notebook for a project when school opens next week.”

  “Me, too!” yelled Dheer, waddling after them as fast as his legs could carry him.

  “Me! Me!” Tufan shouted, not wanting to be left out.

  The three of them climbed into the back seat.

  “What’s your project?” Nimish asked as Gulu pulled the car out of the driveway.

  Pinky hesitated. “Ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Ram! Ram! ” Gulu exclaimed as he slid the car onto the street and muttered a self-protective mantra. “What terrible things they make you learn in school.”

  “No fair!” Tufan yelled. “I never learned about them.”

  “But we got to see Ben-Hur,” Dheer said, as if the two were equivalent.

  “Ghost stories, folktales—those things,” Pinky said with an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders.

  “Ah, I see.” Nimish pursed his lips, one finger on the bridge of his spectacles as he shifted them back up his nose. “I wouldn’t really bother with folktales,” he began, “unless they are written down. Factual.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this,” Nimish said, holding up the Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah and tapping the name on its cover, one Sir Richard F. Burton. “He came to India with the East India Company over a hundred years ago.”

  “Boring,” said Tufan.

  “What does this have to do with ghosts,” Gulu asked, “aside from the fact that the jackass is no better off than one himself?” He wanted to nip this bookish conversation in the bud. Nimish had a tendency to go off on complex tangents, keeping his audience jailed in tight cells of incomprehension until the end of his diatribes. Gulu, on the other hand, preferred more exciting, local topics: the latest film Mughal-e-Azam, with its voluptuous, dancing courtesans or the new neighbor with a sexual proclivity for big-bottomed men clad in tight polyester, for example.