Small silver figurines of Lord Krishna, flute at his lips, and his consort Radha stood stiffly on a carved silver swing. Maji lifted them, removing their silk outfits—golden lungi for Krishna, golden sari for Radha, and placed the deities in a silver urn of water with three fragrant tulsi leaves floating atop. She slowly bathed and redressed them, mind completely focused on this sacred act, and returned them to the swing’s silk cushion. She dipped her ring finger in a small cup of red paste and pressed it to Krishna and Radha’s foreheads, leaving a mark on each. She repeated this step, placing tilaks on the framed color images of the other gods: Ganesh, Ram, Sita, Lakshman, Hanuman, Shiva, and tiger-riding Durga, the warrior goddess known to be especially attentive to her devotees.
In the corner of the altar, resting atop the red embroidered cloth, sat two glass jars. The first held cotton balls and the second contained ghee. A spoon was submerged in the yellow waxy-looking butter. Maji pulled at a cotton ball, twisting a thread between her forefinger and thumb until she had fashioned a wick. She set the wick within the concave center of a silver diya and pressed it against the indentation at the lip. After spooning in the ghee, she took a match and lit the wick. In the light’s flickering halo, the gods began to dance. Several incense sticks stood in a holder, fanned out like a peacock’s tail, releasing their sandalwood scent from minuscule swirls of smoke. Maji rang a small silver bell to engage the gods’ attentions. Then grasping the long handle of the diya with her right hand, and placing her left hand underneath, she began to move it in a circular path, carving the Sanskrit letter Om in the air while chanting prayers. “Om Jaye Jagdish Hare . . .” With Your Grace the evils of the worshipper vanish. It was a prayer that never failed to bring her peace and comfort.
Afterward, she cracked a coconut as an offering. She spooned Krishna and Radha’s bath water into her palm and drank it, shaking excess drops onto the top of her head to bring divine blessings. Again, she stretched out her palm and put a handful of prasad in it: golden raisins, almonds, and halwa. After she finished chewing, and pressed the heat from the diya to her eyes, there was nothing more to be done. Yet Maji continued to sit silently in front of the altar. “O most-compassionate Lord,” she finally spoke. “I know that the past cannot be undone. Yet why now, why has Pinky been taken? If my actions are somehow responsible for this, please be merciful with this old woman sitting before you.”
Tears began to drip from her weathered face and onto her white cotton sari. She placed her open palms on either side of the silver swing, and gazed at Radha and Krishna. Their expressions remained steely, the scarlet tilaks had bled from their foreheads across their silver faces, looking like open wounds.
“Take whatever you want, take my life even,” Maji begged, “but please—please bring my Pinky back safe.”
Panditji arrived in the temple’s private car, a luxurious Chevy Impala with wide wings and tinted a saffron color by a devotee who painted movie posters for a living. The devotee had also painted the likeness of Lord Ganesh on the rear, thinking that the deity would force other, mostly Hindu, drivers to keep a respectful distance. His talents, however, far exceeded his vision and the portrait of Ganesh had been so realistic—a huge belly spreading across the swept-back rear fenders and an elephantine trunk that curled around the chrome-rimmed, rear-mounted spare—that at least a half dozen drivers banged into the car each day to make impromptu offerings.
Panditji’s assistant, a young, attractive boy with a thick mop of hair, lugged the priest’s apparatus to the parlor: an iron kund for the sacred fire, flat sticks of wood, a stainless steel urn of ghee, camphor dots, and puja samagri, a fragrant potpourri that consisted of lotus seed, honey, sugar, turmeric, bright-red sindoor powder, and other dried flowers and spices. The young boy placed a thick cherry-colored cushion on the ground. Panditji plopped down on it and then, crossing his legs lotus-style, vigorously rocked back and forth until his buttocks had spread out across the breadth of the cushion. As his assistant set up the kund with the wood and camphor, the priest closed his eyes and pondered on several matters that had been troubling him on the ride over:
Why was he required to do this hawan in the middle of the night?
And, how much could he expect to be paid for such a house call?
He quickly finished off a glass of boiled buffalo milk sweetened with a chunk of musky-flavored raw sugar.
“Oi,” he called to the boy with a milky belch, “is everything ready?”
“Yes, Panditji.”
The priest reluctantly opened his eyes, acknowledging Maji and her family seated around the iron kund on white sheets. With more enthusiasm, he noted the thali of coconuts, bananas, and honey that had been placed by his side. A small fire lashed out of the iron vessel, smoke rising to the heavens. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked in his high-pitched voice, eyes gazing upward as if he already knew the answer.
“Pinky’s been abducted,” Maji answered, her voice stumbling.
“And Lovely, too,” Nimish added.
“By the children’s ayah from many years ago,” Savita added. “She’s a witch!”
“Oh-ho,” the priest said, not looking at all concerned. “Bombay’s going to the dogs only. All these uneducateds thinking they can blackmail their way into the upper castes.”
“Blackmail?” Nimish asked, feeling strangely relieved. Yes, it must be blackmail, he silently reasoned, the ayah could not be capable of anything worse.
“There’s something more,” Maji said reluctantly.
“Yes?”
“A ghost.”
“Ghost?” the priest’s voice cracked. He shifted uncomfortably, fingering the sacred thread across his chest as if it alone would protect him.
“My daughter’s come back to me!” Savita wailed, keeping her arms crossed tightly around her chest where milk continued to drip.
“Make her go away!” Tufan squeaked, holding desperately to his jute-rope gun.
“Make her stay!” Savita shouted, slapping Tufan across his head.
“I will make the necessary requests; the rest is God’s will,” Panditji said, wondering if the Mittal family had all suddenly gone mad, stark raving mad. These things certainly happen. He had seen carefully veneered families simply crack open after years and generations of dysfunction, running to him for a magic balm. He kept these family secrets tucked inside his Buddha-like belly, each a delectable sweet duly consumed, regurgitated, and enjoyed once more. Every secret, after all, came with a side of forever-indebtedness, a chutney of money and gifts that silenced his tongue. Now, adjusting the sacred thread around his fleshy belly, he began chanting while ladling ghee into the fire and brutally ripping off flower petals, indiscriminately tossing them in.
“Swaha,” he incanted at the end of a phrase, grandly lifting his flattened palm from the fire to the sky.
On cue, the family threw in a handful of dried flower petals and camphor samagri, causing the flame to crackle and brighten. Panditji droned mantras for more than an hour, occasionally yawning and scratching his armpits. His mind flitted back to his childhood, when he was known simply as Chotu Motu, little fat one, and when he used to watch his own father perform the very same rituals, three strands of white thread tied over his left shoulder and lines of white ash smeared on his forehead, arms, and chest, markings that denoted him as twice-born. Panditji’s thoughts then moved into a pleasant comparison of Maji and Savita’s breasts, giving Maji’s points for sheer enormousness but choosing Savita’s tautly plump ones in the end. He imagined slipping his hand down into her cleavage, rubbing some red, powdery sindoor onto her nipples, and then giving each breast an obliging little toot on his way out.
“Swaha,” he incanted again.
Dheer and Tufan had fallen asleep, heads lolling against one of the sofas. Maji began to worry that the tantrik would arrive before Panditji left, and signaled Kuntal to retrieve the breakfast that Cook Kanj had prepared. Noticing Maji’s restlessness, Panditji cut short his prayers and waved
his hand over the thali of vermicelli noodles cooked with almonds and milk as a way of blessing. Kuntal served the food. Forsaking utensils, the priest stuffed fingerfuls into his mouth, swaying with pleasure. Maji discreetly motioned to Panditji’s assistant to begin packing up the puja apparatus.
“What’s the rush?” Panditji asked. He preferred to remain seated in front of the kund, the accruements of the hawan surrounding him like faithful servants. After the meal was completed, Maji pressed a thick red envelope into Panditji’s hand. The priest pushed it away from him as if it were polluted, but not before testing its thickness. Maji had been generous. Satisfied, he let out a low burp. “The gods have always been pleased with your devotion.”
“And Pinky?” Maji asked, hoping that her piety alone would guarantee her granddaughter’s safe return.
“In God’s hands.”
“And the ghost?” Savita inquired.
“Bhoot-fhoot,” he replied, waving her away as if he couldn’t be bothered. “I tell you, Bombay’s going to the dogs.”
With that, Panditji plopped himself into the saffron Impala and sped away.
SLUMS & SEWERS
Parvati and Kanj drove down the dreaded Mahim-Sion Road that roughly served as the border of the top of the triangular area known as Dharavi, Bombay’s largest slum. This stretch of garbage-encrusted road was usually traversed by people on over crowded, single-decker buses, people who were willing to wait a full hour for a space, some even bypassing the dangerous road altogether on a train, rather than having to traverse the road on foot, bike, scooter or even by car.
Before crossing over the Western Railway Line which bordered the seaside edge of Dharavi, Kanj stopped and parked the Ambassador near Mahim Station. “I’m turning around,” he said, clinging to the steering wheel as if wanting to make a quick getaway. “We’ll be killed.”
“Lakhs of people live here without being killed.”
“We’re outsiders, Parvati. This is not our home.”
“We must find the tantrik.”
“Why? Why should we put ourselves at risk for them?”
“Because Maji took me in when no one else would.”
“So what?” Kanj hissed. “You’re still just a servant. One mistake and she’ll get rid of you just as she did Avni.”
Mahim Crossing was just ahead, which led past the railroad tracks and onto Dharavi Main Road, a rough pathway that had been constructed by the slum’s residents by placing rocks on the marshy ground. Now the road consisted of sluggish mud that stank of urine and feces. Yet this smell was nothing like that of the tanneries, nestled beyond Mahim Station, which permeated the air with acrid sulfur and rotting meat. Ghostly balls of wool fluff littered the path, visible only by the light of Parvati’s lantern.
The slum sprawled out before them, a densely packed collection of corrugated-tin hovels with bamboo-strip chatai mats as walls, each covered with plastic tarps to ward off the monsoons. The settlement in front of them had no electricity, bathing Parvati and Kanj in total darkness but for the dim light glowing inside the dwellings. Shanties had sprung up at random, with empty jute lines out front. An overstuffed gunny sack reading 53 Grade lay just outside one hovel, near an overturned bucket and a faded advertisement for British Petroleum motor oil. A ladder, uneven crossbars straining across its width, leaned up against a second story, precariously perched on steel rods, one side supported by a haphazard brick wall with curling wires hanging down. One of the wires had been fashioned into a clothesline from which a tiny pair of yellow shorts hung, forgotten. A rubber tire had been scavenged and placed on top of the second story, on a torn blue tarp, waiting to become useful.
“We have a good life, plentiful food, shelter, our own toilet in the best neighborhood in the city,” Parvati said. “Do you want to risk that by refusing Maji?”
“Do you want to be skewered like seekh-kabobs by these goondas?”
“There,” Parvati said, pointing to a low fence that surrounded an ancient-looking cross. “Let’s go there.”
“Hatao! ”
A group of men, cloaked in woolen shawls and plastic bags, approached smoking Shivaji bidis. They wore loose knickers and shirts. One was visibly afflicted with elephantiasis; his acutely swollen leg was thick and leathery, the skin pebbly in appearance, the foot unrecognizable altogether. “Looking for something?”
“Hari Bhai,” Parvati said sharply as Kanj considered the dagger the leader was flashing. Entirely inappropriate for slicing, he decided, growing faint, but perfect for gutting.
The leader, short and stocky, with cruel eyes and the white patches of advanced vitiligo upon his face, took a step back. Hari Bhai’s name sent chills down his back. “And what business do you have with him?”
“Tell him Gulu from VT sent us.”
The vitiligo-afflicted man fished a piece of fried onion from his teeth then spat on the ground as if to frighten the visitors with his horrible hygiene. “We’ll be back.”
They left Parvati and Kanj shivering near a broken charpoy, supervised at a distance by the elephantiasis sufferer, who rested the swollen folds of flesh that composed his foot upon a brick.
“This is your grand plan?” Kanj hissed, squatting to make himself more comfortable. “All the time in the car you tell me ‘trust me trust me,’ and now we’re surrounded by criminals. This is all you have to say?”
“Hari Bhai and Gulu are childhood friends,” Parvati whispered while surreptitiously wiping her brow with the end of her sari palloo. “They shined shoes at Victoria Terminus together. He helped Gulu find the tantrik years ago. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t remember anything but the foul liquid he cooked up and made you drink, chee!”
It was true, Hari Bhai and Gulu went a long way back but Hari Bhai went even further. He was a descendant of the original Koli inhabitants of Dharavi, when it was not a sprawling slum but a fishing community along the Mithi River and its offspring, the Mahim Creek, both flowing into the Arabian Sea. As the youngest child of seven, he was not needed to work at the dam built across the creek where fish, mainly crab and shellfish, were trapped during high tide and caught in the fishermen’s nets at low tide. Over time, the river and creek had become intensely polluted by the tanneries and other industries that flourished within Dharavi’s boundaries, and the fish began to reek of kerosene. The continual governmental land reclamations, transforming the muddy swamp lands along the Mahim–Bandra stretch into inhabitable space, had finally forced the sea to recede, leaving an entire community deprived of its ancient means of sustenance.
Hari Bhai, known back then simply as Hari, had drifted along the railroad tracks, unsupervised for most of the day, finally finding suitable work at VT train station. He had banded together with other outcast boys, Gulu included, and began to shine shoes under the mentorship of Big Uncle. When Big Uncle was killed by his rival Red Tooth, Gulu ran away, devastated, but Hari had shifted his loyalties easily, even rising to the role of Red Tooth’s right-hand man. In time, Hari murdered Red Tooth over a money dispute and had become a fugitive, not from the law but from Red Tooth’s men who were intent on a revenge killing. Dharavi, with its dense labyrinth of shanties and over fifteen thousand people per square acre, beckoned as the ideal hiding place. And so Hari returned to his zopadpatti, back to the Koliwada district of Dharavi with its Ganesh Mandir temple and the two-hundred-year-old Khamba Deo shrine, to reclaim his destiny.
“Come.”
Hari Bhai’s men were back, their attitude more hospitable.
“Where are you taking us?” Parvati demanded.
“No questions,” the leader warned, touching a patch of discolored skin upon his chin as if it would bring good luck, “Bhaiya doesn’t like questions.”
They were led through the shanties, the road awash in sewage and rainwater. A disheveled woman with a large nose ring squatted on the road, muttering to herself as she rubbed ash onto a cooking vessel in the middle of the night. A rubbery breast fell out of her dark,
blouse-less sari when she leaned over. As Parvati and Kanj continued to walk, the path widened a bit, the homes grew progressively better, and the smell of the communal toilets became less pervasive. Now they passed a section with low-rise, narrow structures each consisting of eleven rooms, all facing toward the road. The buildings had proper tile roofs, cement front porches, and small open drains. One of them boasted a hand-painted sign reading Lijjat Papad with a drawing of a fair-complexioned, feminine hand, wrist adorned with two green bangles, holding a lotus flower aloft.
“Lijjat papads! ” Kanj exclaimed with surprise, despite his trepidation. “Here in Dharavi?”
The men laughed. “You won’t live here but you’ll eat from our homes.”
Kanj became indignant.
“Hahn, hahn,” one of the men, sporting a wide moustache, nodded proudly, “My wife’s a sanchalika, head of the local branch at our home, over there—where the sign is. Still small-small business it is—making papads for you people to eat—only started last year, but already very profitable.”
“She makes more money than him!” teased one of the men wearing a sleeveless banain undershirt which accentuated his thick arm muscles.
“That’s why we were finally able to rent a proper home yaar.” The mustached man waved him away.
“But you can no longer beat her now, hahn bhai?” the undershirt-man jeered, holding his open palm threateningly in the air.
“My wife’s under my control only,” the mustached man replied in a slow, smoldering tone, lest his manhood be doubted by the two strangers they were escorting.
“Yes, yes,” the vitiligo-afflicted leader said placatingly in order to ward off any potential fighting. “Hari Bhai says that rolling papads is good work for our wives and sisters.”
“My wife,” continued the mustached man, now proudly puffed up at the mention of Hari Bhai’s approval, “rolls out three kilograms of papads every morning. She goes to Bandra before dawn to collect the wet dough.”
Haunting Bombay Page 23
