The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay

by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

  ‘I guess that must spook you out.’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘You won’t tell me who the person is?’

  ‘He’s…someone.’

  He decided not to probe any further. ‘The resemblance must’ve been uncanny.’

  ‘In our own ways, we’re all gluttons for coincidence. What’s your name?’

  ‘Karan Seth.’ He stood up.

  ‘Well then, Rhea Dalal will watch for your pictures on the pages of the India Chronicle.’

  Wiggling her pinky at him, she turned and walked away into the thick, noisy rush of lanes. On her way to her car, she passed a tandoor and halted to look at its coals, orange smouldering in black, ash at the peripheries. She touched her hair self-consciously.

  An hour later, Rhea paused in the hallway of her apartment and gazed into the antique silver-framed mirror, wondering if she knew the person reflected in it. Was she just another south Bombay housewife? Could she think of herself as a potter? Or was she only a dilettante? And what of that odd, affected, trite title she had made up to impress Karan: ‘Chor Bazaar old hand’?

  Although a miscellany of identities was available at her disposal, none of them could define the person she secretly believed she was. Entering the living room, she stretched out on the sofa and gazed at the staghorn ferns suspended from the ceiling. Below the dramatic display of dangling staghorns was her husband Adi’s wine cabinet; desire for him filled her with a dull, sweet ache. She thought of calling him but he would probably be busy in some business meeting.

  Rhea had known Adi since her teenage years; they had married sixteen years ago. Adi spent a fortnight each month in Singapore, managing a hedge fund. In the duration of his absence, on days like this, she longed ardently for him; if he were here, he would relieve her disquiet. She would lie with her head on his lap and tell him what she had seen in Chor Bazaar: the black kittens in the elephant howdah, the pewter vermilion holder for new brides, the brass monkey with its long tail curling in the air like a question mark. A recollection of her day would make it real to her, help her comprehend how lovers bore witness to the narrative of each other’s fates. Sixteen years with Adi had taught her that marriage was a strange and marvellous organism; her own had kept her heart alert to the animating mysteries of life in addition to giving her the strength she needed to keep her solitude whole. But, much to her consternation, she had discovered that no matter how beautiful a marriage was, no matter how exhilarating and avid, it could still make room for despair, for the poignant acceptance that two people would let each other down without ever meaning to, their gravest errors passing unknown, and always unforgiven.

  Adi’s face floated in her head, and then it was replaced by Karan’s as he had reclined on the chair in the bazaar, his legs parted, his fit, young lion’s body radiating sensuality. Strangely enough, Karan’s uncanny likeness to the man Rhea loved to distraction extended to certain mannerisms as well: the way Karan stood, ramrod straight; his habit of scratching his jaw when he was anxious. If the rush of coincidental similarity had drawn her attention, then another aspect, murky but identifiable, had motivated her to help him in his hunt for the Bombay Fornicator: for Karan had reminded her of herself as a young woman, an artist preparing for her conversation with the world, ambivalent about the quality of her work but no less dedicated to its practice, serious and single-minded, ambitious and insecure, awkward and fierce. Not only was it astonishing how much Karan reminded Rhea of her youth, but she had also seen in his eyes the desire and drive that had once burnt bright in her own.

  She rose from the sofa and went to the kitchen. After boiling water for a pot of peppermint tea she went up to the terrace, to her studio, with a tray bearing sugar, a white tea cup, a plate of Quality ginger biscuits. For a while she tried to work on her pottery, but she soon realized how severely her excursion to Chor Bazaar had unhinged her composure. She left the studio and stood on the terrace, gazing at the city Karan Seth had chosen to make his subject. Neat, vibrant squares of red chillies laid out to dry on her neighbour’s terrace had not yet been collected and in the fading light they looked like patterns on a mythical carpet, so dark it was as if they had been dyed in blood. Bats shot in and out of the overgrown branches of a giant banyan, its thick, gangly aerial roots descending to the earth like tentacles. Lamps flickered tentatively over the sea, distant dhows bearing lean, drunk fishermen. These images coalesced, becoming a blur of the familiar, consoling details that had parented her childhood; now, for the first time, she was wondering what these sights meant to someone who was not from Bombay. Just as poison could be drawn out of the veins of someone bitten by a lethal snake, she thought Karan too would draw out these images from the innumerable capillaries of the city, relieving it of its magnificent agony and iridescent delusion.

  However, was he really any good?

  She had not even seen a single photo he had clicked, yet here she was readily ascribing virtue to his work!

  Afraid of relying too much on her instinct she went into Adi’s library adjoining her studio, where she sat cross-legged on the floor and leafed through a few dog-eared copies of the India Chronicle. As she turned the pages, her eyes searched the picture credits. Each time she saw a photo credited to Karan she recognized what she had suspected on meeting him: his incendiary talent, so huge and rambunctious it bled out of him like monsoon from an August sky.

  One picture, in particular, left her breathless.

  Iqbal Syed had commissioned Karan to shoot pictures to accompany a reasonably long feature on the city’s destitute lunatics. Karan had found his subject on Dadar Bridge. Fat and wildly regal, clothed in a torn bruise-purple satin gown, thick black curls corralling a dirt-encrusted face. With her elbows resting on the wall of the bridge, the woman was taking in the amazing chaos of the market below: marigold vendors and onion wholesalers, teenage prostitutes with career crotches, shining heaps of green chillies and big baskets of burnished lemons. The madwoman had an enchanted smile; the irises of her large, lashless eyes spilled over into the whites, and this furthered the impression that something was, in fact, looking through her. Pressing the picture of the madwoman against her chest, Rhea bent her head, closed her eyes and rocked to and fro, fearing her life was about to change forever.

  ‘Don’t take this personally,’ Rhea said into the phone, a week later, ‘but I think you’re ridiculously gifted. Your pictures are revolutionary; they’re tender and funny and powerful. They’re like folks songs, and old trees.’

  ‘How did you get my number?’ A goofy grin had captured Karan’s face.

  ‘I called the India Chronicle switchboard; the operator put me through. I have a proposition in mind.’ The awkwardness she felt at speaking to him went undisclosed, her voice remaining impassive, controlled, regal.

  ‘There’s nothing more I like on a Monday afternoon,’ he said roguishly, ‘than being propositioned.’

  ‘Would you care to photograph the flamingoes at Sewri?’

  His eyes widened. ‘I’ve heard a lot about them.’

  ‘Been around a while now. The flock’s got messier and massive and I thought they might add to the corpus of your images of the city.’

  ‘I’d be glad to tag along.’ He was thrilled by her use of corpus; it made what he did sound wonderfully important.

  ‘If you give me your address I’ll pick you up on Sunday, early morning. Very early.’

  ‘Certainly…But why are you doing this for me?’

  ‘Because I believe in your work.’

  ‘Others reckless enough to say that before have never offered to drive me all the way to Sewri.’

  ‘And also, so you understand once and for all, no one in Bombay can be trusted.’

  At dawn the following Sunday, the sullen silence in Rhea’s car was fractured by Billie Holiday crooning ‘Solitude’ in a sad-bad-girl voice that summoned to mind low-lit bars and shots of single malt Scotch.

  ‘Who told you about Chor Bazaar?’ she asked him.
<
br />   ‘Zaira.’

  ‘You don’t mean the actor?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Karan was impressed with Rhea’s driving; keen and swift, like a sting ray, he thought.

  ‘How do you know her?’

  ‘I had photographed her best friend, Samar…’

  ‘The pianist.’

  ‘Yes. I met Zaira at his place. We became friends.’ He blushed, uncomfortable with what she might misread as name-dropping. ‘She’s real, with a terrific heart; he’s over-the-top and hilarious.’

  ‘My husband admires Leo McCormick’s work. You’ve met him too, right?’ Rhea refrained from adding that she considered Leo’s writing sterile, soulless crap. ‘His approach to India is, well, unique.’

  Karan paused, registering for the first time that she was a married woman. ‘You don’t sound like you’re a big fan of Leo.’

  ‘My husband is the one who’s really into McCormick’s writing,’ she deflected. She noticed the mention of her husband had caused his tone to stiffen.

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘On a good day, I’m a potter; I recall telling you as much in Chor Bazaar.’

  ‘And on a bad one?’

  ‘An artist.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘The degree of pretence.’

  ‘So you think I’m all up there because I call myself a photographer.’

  ‘I don’t apply my standards to others; it protects me from being judged by theirs.’

  ‘Well, thanks a lot.’

  ‘Don’t get so worked up.’ When she slapped the back of her hand playfully against Karan’s shoulder, a sharp, aching bolt of pleasure shot up his spine. He looked at her, but her face was relaxed and vague, neither confirming nor denying the voltage running between them. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He felt his ear lobes throb with white heat.

  She brought the car to a halt beside an industrial unit; in the distance were the remains of abandoned ships, hulks and anchors; an overpowering scent of salt and grease hung heavy in the air. ‘Well,’ she said, her eyes feasting on his face again, ‘here we are, Mr Seth.’

  The Sewri mudflats were like nothing Karan had seen before: the land was cratered and huge puddles of water had collected in the undulations, reminding Karan of the first pictures of the moon. In the soft light of a new day, flamingoes spread out as far as his eye could see. The birds had shallow-keeled mandibles, elongated, spindled legs, wide wings with serrated, feverishly pink feathers at the edges. Their curved, pirate-hook beaks reached industriously through the silt, pulling up crustacean algae. From time to time they rent the air with flat, unimpressive goose-like cries.

  Almost as if he were under a spell, Karan left Rhea’s side and marched off into the shallow, stinking water.

  From a distance, Rhea admired his purposeful, agile stride, his correctly held shoulders, his narrow waist. She was drawn not so much to the high summer of Karan’s body—his dark hair with its dapper shine or the tight brown ropes of his long, determined arms—as to his virility, the reckless, organic abundance of youth; she imagined him on his knees, gently bending a woman in the exquisite distress of ecstasy, his hands gripping her by her waist, pulling himself deeper within her in smooth, energetic motions.

  He returned to her side about twenty minutes later, his eyes sparkling. ‘Incredible! Where do they come from?’

  ‘Who knows?’ She shrugged. ‘They were just wandering before they stopped here. But it couldn’t have been for the view!’

  ‘I could never imagine there would be a place for lost flamingoes in Bombay.’

  ‘Who’d have thought, huh?’

  ‘That lost things end up here?’

  ‘Beautiful things, too.’

  ‘They ought to be taken care of.’

  ‘If they can care for their own, that’s plenty.’

  ‘Where do you reckon they’ll go from here?’

  ‘Where does anyone go from Bombay?’

  ‘Surely Sewri was never meant to be their final destination!’

  ‘Maybe they had no destination in mind.’

  ‘How can they live in a swamp…In a city of one too many millions?’

  ‘They’ve learnt to hustle, settled for Sewri when they could have had more. I guess if you don’t snatch what someone else needs, you’re okay.’ She folded her hands about herself. ‘Which means they’re an endangered species in more ways than one.’

  ‘Don’t they have to leave? Go some place, like their home?’

  ‘Home?’ She looked at him, then blinked slowly. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You know…’ he said, ‘the place where they belong.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t know it just yet, but here’s where they’ve always belonged.’

  A loud noise in the distance—perhaps a gunshot or a burst tyre—interrupted their conversation and set off the flock: one or two of them flapped their wings anxiously, giving off a strange, piercing shriek.

  ‘Maybe we’re all lost,’ Karan resumed thoughtfully.

  ‘Maybe so,’ Rhea said. ‘But how terrible to be found out.’

  ‘Look!’ Karan pointed excitedly, scrambling for his camera. ‘They’re taking off.’

  The flock hurled itself against the warm, burnished sky with a thunderous flutter.

  ‘I’m so glad I came,’ he said as the birds passed overhead. ‘I saw them a few months ago, when I was on my way to photograph Samar. They must be an omen.’

  ‘An omen of what?’ she asked, knowing there was no answer to her query.

  He didn’t answer; he was working. His silence reminded her how completely given he was to his task. She raised her head and stared at the birds with him, caught in a web of awe and loneliness. As she watched the flock rise higher into the sky, something in her lovely, frightened soul took flight, freeing her, unexpectedly and briefly, from the earth’s heinous gravity.

  5

  Three weeks after the trip to Sewri Karan rang the doorbell outside Rhea’s apartment.

  She answered the door herself and looked confounded at finding Karan there.

  ‘You forgot about our appointment?’

  ‘Would I ever?’ she lied. Flour streaked her wrists; the tails of a blue oversized man’s shirt were loosely knotted at her waist, over a pair of beige cigarette pants. ‘I was baking a cake for my husband. He’s coming home tonight from Singapore; I’m always a little distracted when I’m cooking.’

  ‘Are you sure we should hang out today?’ Karan resembled an earnest schoolboy, clutching four folders of photos to his chest. ‘If it’s a bad day…’

  ‘Now that you’re here,’ Rhea said warmly as she led him inside, ‘my day is bound to be excellent.’

  ‘I got something for you.’ He handed her a manila envelope.

  She slipped the envelope under her arm. ‘You shouldn’t have, but I’m glad you did.’

  ‘You don’t even know what it is!’

  ‘That’s besides the point; knowing is always besides the point.’

  On the way to the kitchen they passed her living room. Amazed by its elegance—the staghorn ferns suspended from the ceiling, the masterly paintings tastefully framed, an antique dowry chest and a tiger skin dramatically mounted on a wall—Karan stood with his mouth open wide enough to trap a few flies. His admiration made her uneasy; she loathed being reminded of the privilege she had married into. She hurried him to the kitchen, a basic, humble space, cleverly laid out, warm and snug. Saucepans were strung along an iron galley rail and a fine dust of cocoa covered the marble-top island.

  ‘Was my place easy to locate?’

  ‘Not difficult at all. Your apartment is at the top of a hill…I bet you have a terrific view.’

  ‘Well, when I say I look down on Bombay, I actually mean it.’ She picked up a copper whisk and started to fluff up egg whites.

  Lila-bai, fat and short, entered the kitchen. She glared at Karan.

  ‘Lila-bai,’ Rhea said, ‘why don’t you finish the vegeta
ble shopping and then go on home? I’m completely out; I’d like some brinjals for lunch tomorrow.’

  Lila-bai grunted in reply.

  Rhea handed her a list and a small wad of cash, and packed her off. On her way out Lila-bai eyed Karan suspiciously.

  As Rhea resumed work on the cake batter, adding flour and cocoa, Karan found his place by the window ledge from where he gazed out at the ugly and delicious city, the master of his curiosity. In spite of the great view, his mind was unable to shake off the disturbing privilege he had walked into: the magnificent house, the hard-working husband, the duty-bound wife. But he also knew that when everything is in place, something has to give. When he stole glances at her, he was irritated to see her profoundly absorbed in the process of baking a cake, a pedestrian task that seemed to diminish the sublime opacity of her existence. Why couldn’t she just go out and buy a cake? She certainly had all the money in the world, and the Oberoi deli did a roll-call of fabulous pastries. He felt a sudden, jagged stab of contempt for her husband for shackling her to the house, to the kitchen; then he reluctantly considered that maybe she had chosen this life over others, and he felt inadequate and unwanted. It was unlikely he would ever own such a grand house or win the glittering, single-minded ardour of a woman like Rhea. In the places self-loathing could reach, lust trembled, and so he turned to face her after she shut the oven door and found himself craven at her elegant neglect.

  ‘You seem a little lost,’ she remarked.

  He walked towards her, entered again the delicate havoc of her gaze. ‘How could I be lost in a kitchen?’

  ‘Very easily. Happens to me all the time. I’m sorry you had to wait while I was so busy being boring, but I promise to make up for it now that I’m done.’

  ‘Do I get to see your pottery studio?’

  ‘Yes. But after the house tour, we’ll discuss your pictures; you came here for work, and I don’t want to distract you from that.’ Her voice was officious, solemn.