by HM Naqvi
Preparing for a long, bumpy ride, I rearrange my rump but before I find an angle of repose, the Suzuki swings into the parking lot of a familiar block of flats off the thoroughfare to the airport—a curious turn of events. Taking in the Art Deco façade of Rimpa Skyline, defined in part by the stacked, magenta, rectangular balconies, I am reminded of my affair with Khaver decades ago. For all I know, the spectre of my lover haunts the paan-spattered stairwells; for all I know, she has conspired with the Cosmos to keep me captive for the remainder of my wretched life.
Pushed out like cargo and shoved up the stairs, I find myself standing in a vacant flat with freshly painted parrot-green walls, surveying the surroundings like a prospective tenant. There is a broom cupboard on my left, a fusty kitchenette to my right & a creased tin of “Luxury” emulsion paint lies next to a sunken ottoman: the only item of furniture in plain view. The windowpane at the opposite end is opaque with grime, and dust salts the cold floor under my feet. I expect Langra to appear any moment, snorting like a boar, pointing the barrel of a shotgun at my chest and demanding the dyeing business. But after quick, hushed discussion, I am thrown into the sarcophagus-sized broom cupboard by the kidnappers. I ought to bellow, bang on the door, but feel nauseous, faint. I see pink snowflakes float before me, then the paint fumes render me unconscious.
I cannot be certain how long I remain trapped—minutes, hours, days—but when I come to, I find myself propped up on the ottoman, and as my head spins, the driver wheels in a wizened character with the mien of a marionette. When he glowers at me, head angled to the side, hands folded between the thighs, I realize that I have not been kidnapped at all—I have not been bound, blindfolded, held at gunpoint. No, I am hostage to a different but no less troubling situation. “You are who?” he asks.
“Sir, sir-sir-sir-sir,” I stutter, standing up.
“Who is this?” he asks no one in particular.
“Abdullah, sir,” I reply, “your brother, sir.”
The last time I met my brother must have been during the Chernenko Era, and like Comrade Bakaullah is now, Chernenko was famously frail, friable towards the end, wheeled to Politburo meetings, the lavatory. Like a dissident, I have eluded Comrade Bakaullah as long as I can but now there is nowhere to go. “You are a big mess,” he observes.
Scrutinizing my mud-caked toes, overgrown toenails, my paan-wallah attire, I ask, “You are well, sir?”
“Do I look well to you?”
“No, sir.”
“Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full …”
“Sir?”
“Sit down,” Comrade Bakaullah orders.
“I would rather stand, sir.”
“What?”
“I prefer to stand.”
“Speak up, man!”
“I will stand!“
“You will sit!” he commands. There is a dastardly conspiracy to seat me on low furniture—the Major, presumably absent on account of his spondylosis, must have something to do with it—but what to do? “Your birth was difficult,” Comrade Bakaullah starts, “you were born upside down. You do not know but you should now: your mother nearly died in delivery.”
The news hits me like an anvil: I’ve always believed that I emerged into the world like everybody else, feted with bouquets, fawned over by family; I imagine Mummy, ruddy, cradling me in her arms, gazing at me with wonder; but perhaps I am mistaken on all accounts; perhaps, I am fundamentally misconceived. I feel giddy, teary. And Comrade Bakaullah continues relentlessly: “We hurt most those we love. You have hurt me but I will not bear a grudge. I am an old man. I am dying. I want to settle my affairs.”
“I understand—”
“Seek not to understand what you believe, but believe that you may understand.”
“Sorry?”
“I am fair and forgive you: I am willing to drop all cases because I want the best for you, the best for us all.”
“Yes, sir—”
“We have collective obligations.”
“No doubt, sir.”
“Then you will leave the Lodge.”
“How can I, sir?”
“Speak up, man!”
“Where will I go?“
When Comrade Bakaullah gesticulates with matchstick fingers, the driver opens the door of the adjacent room. “Your books are here,” Comrade says. “They took care—they are professionals.” The kidnappers, I surmise, must be local employees of my brother’s Transportation & Logistics business. “They will bring the remainder of your possessions here, gratis,” he continues, “and the place will be spic-span.”
“Spic-span,” I repeat.
“You will remember that I read widely once. I read until my vision blurred. I have read everything that is worth reading, but after the tragedy I found there was nothing in books but words. Words alone cannot sustain us. We have a higher calling. You will come to realize. You will do what is right.”
I would like to argue that notions of right and wrong are contingent but feel weak and winded. It’s not just the fumes or the inevitability of displacement but also the disclosure that I almost killed my mother. As Bakaullah prattles about Light & Darkness, the Universe & its Vastness, the room begins to spin again. “In the end,” I hear the old man say, “we must account for ourselves.” A document is handed to me titled Letter of Relinquishment. “Everything must be written down. Give him a pen.”
As I sign my life away, however, I am blinded by coruscating Christmas lights—red, yellow, green—then darkness sweeps over me like the sea. Carried by molasses waves, further and further from the shore, a tree felled by a sudden squall, I flail, wail, call for help, but who can hear you on the open sea except the gulls? Gradually panic gives way to anxiety, anxiety to resignation, a certain equanimity. I find myself yearning to drift into the horizon. Before I know it, however, I am seized by invisible currents, an eddy, and in the end, yield to the inevitable: the frigid seabed, the open mouths of writhing hagfish—the fate of fodder.
When I come to for the second time that evening, I am sprawled on the floor. “Sit him up!” Comrade Bakaullah yells. “Give him the Frooto! The straw, where’s the straw?” I spit out the first gulp with my dentures and dignity—the cloying mango drink tastes like brine. “Are you okay?” my brother asks. Dribbling juice from the side of my mouth, I nod, cognizant that my brother just saved my life—if not for the Frooto I would have undoubtedly lapsed into hypoglycemia
Just as I gather my wits, a brigand sporting a red knit-scarf bandage across the face barges in with a shotgun, shouting, hands up-hands up. It’s the damndest development. Is he, I wonder, one of Langra’s goons? Corralling the movers against the wall, he surveys the room with piercing kohl-rimmed eyes and I swear he winks at me.
“What is this?” Comrade Bakaullah thunders.
“Chup kar, buddhay!” gnarrs the gunman, or Shut up, old man!
Clutching the handles of his wheelchair, Comrade Bakaullah screeches, “You dare talk to me like that! I will have you hung upside down!”
The brigand takes a menacing step towards my brother but before any bloodshed can occur, Tony appears, swish-swish-swish, followed by Bosco, trilby fixed on head, and Jugnu in flamingo pink. Darting to my side, she cries, “What have they done to you?”
The mise-en-scène certainly suggests drama, violence: I lay slumped, shoeless, insensible, surrounded by brutes, my dentures in a puddle of spit on the floor. “Why did you bring the boy?” I mumble.
“He followed the Suzuki in a rickshaw and I phoned Tony—”
“Who are you?” Comrade Bakaullah yells.
“His brother!” Tony proclaims.
“As am I!”
“Bakaullah Bhai?”
“Tony?” Raising an arm like a beggarman, he cries, “My boy!”
Tony rushes to Comrade Bakaullah and kisses him on the head. “It’s been so long—”
“You have never thought to ask how I am all this time?”
“Sorry, sir—”
<
br /> “What?
“I said, I’m very sorry, sir.”
“Speak up, man!”
“How are you, sir?“
“I cannot walk, I cannot wash myself. My body is useless.”
“That’s very tragic—”
“Life has not been kind to me, but I had great plans for you. What are you doing with yourself?”
“I’ve become a farmer, sir.”
“Too bad,” Comrade Bakaullah says, shaking his head so vigourously that it seems it might roll right off.
“Oh, it ain’t that bad—”
“Tell me: Do all farmers have gunmen these days?”
“Sorry, sir,” Tony exclaims, ordering the gunman to leave the room. “Forgive me, sir—Maggu meant no harm. But with all due respect, sir, this is an unusual situation.”
“What situation? There’s no situation! Tell him Abdullah!” I try to reply but only manage a wheeze.
“He’s lying,” Jugnu snaps. “Abdullah was kidnapped. Bosco saw it. Tell them.”
The boy takes a step forward, solemnly, stoutly, doffing his trilby and pointing to the movers. “I saw them take him away.”
Waving his arms, Comrade Bakaullah squawks, “Who is this chokra?”
“I am Abdullah’s lover,” Jugnu declares.
“Lover?” Bakaullah asks nobody in particular. “How dare you come between family?”
“I know gangsters,” Jugnu retorts, “and gangsters behave better than you.”
“I saved his life!” Comrade Bakaullah yells. “Get him out of here!”
Grabbing Jugnu’s wrist, I mutter, “No.”
“Woe is me!” cries Comrade Bakaullah. “You choose outsiders over family!” Turning to Tony, he pleads, “Please do something. I am a dying man. I just want to talk, spend time with family, settle my affairs. Tell me, is it wrong? Is it a crime?”
As Tony considers the request, his portable telephone rings.158 “No, sir,” Tony replies, “Excuse me, sir. I gotta take this call.”
“So let’s talk over tea and patties, chicken patties—those flaky ones from Café Grand.159 It will be a reunion,” he chirps, as Tony ambles to the stairhead, “a proper homecoming, my treat!”
Swooning like a fakir on the floor—I hear Tony say, “Yes, honey … no, honey … everything’s all right, honey”—I notice the contract lying by the foot of the driver. “Quick,” I whisper to Jugnu, “grab it,” but she makes for my dentures instead. “No,” I cry, “the papers!” But it’s too late: the movers seize her by the arms and pin her against the wall. “It’s over,” I mutter, “we’re done,” but then from the corner of my eye, I watch Bosco knuckle the driver in the sweetmeats, swipe the document with a single, sweeping gesture, and bound out the door like a stag. It’s a command performance.
“Stop him,” cries Bakaullah.
As Ateed and Raqeeb scramble after Bosco, Jugnu pounces again, knocking them down like bowling pins. Turning to me, Comrade Bakaullah hisses, “I forgave you but what do you do? You forsake me! You forsook me when your sister-in-law died—”
Blood coursing, rectum trumpeting war, I cry: “Where the hell were you when Papa couldn’t feed or wash himself?
Who was there with him in the end? Where were you when we needed you?”
“You blackleg,” he mutters, balls his veiny fists. “You bastard.”
“I looked up to you once upon a time, Bakaullah Bhai—we all did—but you’ve changed: you might have become a good Musalman, but you have become a bad human being …”
At that instant, the contingent from the Interior troops back in, led fearlessly by Bosco. “How did I do?” he whispers. “A-1,” I whisper in return, patting him on the back. The young man grins, rolls his shoulders: he knows he has saved the day.
Standing in the doorway, Tony quietly scrutinizes the stipulations of the document, shaking his head. “It’s a misunderstanding,” Comrade Bakaullah coos. “To err is human, to forgive, divine.”
“No patties tonight,” I mumble.
“Tony, please. Please don’t be like this. Don’t leave me here alone.”
And turning our backs, we walk out—“This is not over,” yells Comrade Bakaullah—shoulder to shoulder.
156. Some compare him to the comic book character, Batman, and as with Batman, some allege vigilantism.
157. Few acknowledge that polio was eradicated in the city, in the entire country, until the brilliant Yankee plan to disguise spies as vaccinators. Meanwhile, Yankees claim vaccinations spread autism. Brilliant!
158. I believe his ringer sounded the theme music of the Mission Impossible serial—it’s astonishing, modern technology. But then I understand that portable phones broadcast films and play songs these days.
159. Unbeknownst to him, Grand has long closed. One fetches patties from the bakery at the Parsee Institute or Misquita Bakery. I don’t have the stamina anymore or else every Easter I would queue outside for their famous Hot Cross Buns.
VOLUME V
ON THE JOYS OF FAMILY LIFE
(or LANDMARK DAY)
There is a sense of occasion at the Lodge (even though the enemy has merely been thwarted) and the library has been restored (but much of my work is missing) for Devyani has accompanied her husband here for the first time. It’s not quite the aura of a birth or birthday but everybody from the staff up is agog: Devyani is a bona fide beauty. Beholding her at the door, I kiss her on the forehead, proclaiming, “Welcome, welcome!” like a ringmaster.
When Barbarossa returns with cake and patties, we sit in the parlour over tea in the finest crockery to discuss plans. Whilst our guests cannot be convinced to stay for a dinner party in their honour—Tony tells me that he must return to attend to matters of real estate—they agree to a family outing: I suggest a picnic and a proprietary tour of the city. “Done, and done,” Tony announces.
We all crowd into the Impala—Jugnu at the wheel, me beside, Bosco, Tony & Devyani in the back whilst Babu, Nargis, Maggu & the Childoos follow in Tony’s Hilux—and head to Uncle Jinnah’s Mausoleum. It’s like old times: windows open, wind in the hair, hair in the wind, the smell of warm leather permeating our beings. The procession negotiates Britto Road to the sprawling hilly expanse of the mausoleum. Tiered, manicured lawns extend up the incline of the hillock to the white marble esplanade that supports the domed shrine.160 One is always reminded that in the epic clutter of the city, the compound offers rare vistas.
“There was nothing there but rocks when we were children,” I tell Devyani. Not long after Independence, we would stop to deliver food and blankets to the refugees with Papa and later, Tony and I would cycle past—you could cycle anywhere in the city then—on our way to the Greenfields, our Jewish “girlfriends,” observing the construction of the mausoleum. Upon its completion, I remember Papa remarking, “A family gravitates around the father.” I didn’t understand what he meant then.
I assume the mantle of Head of the Household at the picnic—a delicate act: I notice whenever Devyani or Jugnu beckons to the Childoos, winking, smiling, arms extended, Nargis, sitting angled from the spread, insists that they have more patties. As a result, they have enough patties to sustain them till winter. Although she circumscribes a circle with her finger—“We can play in this area only,” I hear her say—Toto manages to sneak over, negotiating tiffins and cutlery with great dexterity. “You are whale,” he declaims, straddling my belly.
“Better be careful, child,” I say.
“Why careful?”
“The whale is a gentle creature—it only eats tiny planktons—but once in a while, the whale breaches.”
“What is breaches?”
“It leaps out of the water,” I say, “like this!”
Whilst I attempt acrobatics on my back, Tony rhapsodizes about the joys of farming to Babu. I hope Babu develops an appreciation for nature—the vegetable patch at least—though his variety is fundamentally incapable.161 How do you put into words the sensation of grass tickling the sole?
/> Master Bosco, God bless him, knows all about it: stretching beside me, trilby tilted over forehead, hands clasped over chest, bare, tan paws crossed, he takes in the afternoon like a gentleman. It occurs to me that I have never seen him sans socks, joggers; it occurs to me that I might not see his feet again. I want to tell him that I will miss him, sorely, but instead say, “You’re a brave young man.”
“The Lord helped me.”
“Providence has nothing to do with it—you believed in yourself, which is often more than I can say for—”
“What are you on about?” Jugnu interrupts.
Grabbing her hand, I sing that pop number that begins, “Kinna sonna tainu Rab ne banaya”—How beautiful has God made you.
“You are very romantic, Abdullah Bhai,” Devyani laughs.
“We are but empty vessels without romance.”
“Hai, hai!” Devyani chirps. Turning to Tony, she asks, “Now I know where you get it from.”
“I told you I learnt everything I know from him,” Tony says.
“It’s getting late,” Babu interrupts, uncomfortable with the banter. “The children—”
“The children,” I insist, “must pay their respects to the founder of our nation.”
Climbing up the steps, I cross the esplanade barefoot to the mausoleum, hand in hand with the Childoos. Our footsteps echo inside as if we are giants. When I raise my hands to recite a prayer under the enormous cut-glass chandelier,162 my miniature cohort mimics the gesture. They insist on sitting in “big blue car” with me after. There is no doubt about it: they are their uncle’s nephews.
With the pretext of passing by the sea, I lead the charge across town to the temple off Kothari Bandstand before Nargis can catch up—she is a staunch monotheist—but I am accosted by a stringy old man at the carved stone arch who declaims, “Only Hindoos allowed.”
“Jeay Shankar,” Tony intervenes.
“Jeay Shankar.”
“Forgive him—he is not from these parts—but we are not visitors.” Wrapping an amicable arm around the old man, Tony discloses that his wife is Hindoo. “Obviously, then, so am I,” he says. Pointing at his gunman, he says, “And he is Hindoo as well.”
