Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  Fertilisers farted from the west, adding a tinge of ammonia to the methane and sweet-smelling benzene everyone around here considered normal.

  ‘She smells it out.’

  Salim Ali eyed Ernst with an animosity that had remained up a notch since the Cold Pilger incident. Kerala Malayalees prefer their angst fermented. Seeing him glower, Ernst wanted to be anywhere else.

  Salim Ali was inconsolable learning what had happened to the Cold Pilger in his absence, and decided vocally there and then, on the shop floor, in front of the whole shift, to never forgive Ernst for as long as he lived. Ernst found it galling. As if Salim Ali alone was left mourning the loss—staring at the Cold Pilger’s forlorn concrete plinth, its twisted cast iron brackets lying naked after the bania’s men tore off the machine and hauled it away. Whereas and unbeknownst to others, the Cold Pilger sale also kicked in a new normal for Ernst. Until then, his nightmares had him stand and watch his father commit suicide; slashing both wrists using a straight razor, the bathtub going from pink to red, while Emmy Destinn sang Rusalka’s “Song to the Moon”. Ernst’s ensuing screams as he made a grab for the straight razor would wake the dead along with the servants at his Colaba flat. A three-hundred-pound Parvatibai would bolt out of her bed in the servants’ quarters to rush to his bedroom with a glass of milk and a wet cloth for his forehead.

  In a whole new terror that opened after the sale, he would now grab at the Cold Pilger being carted away, the chill from its metal surface creeping up his arm and into his heart. Not so much because they were taking it away, but because he caught his future leave with it. With the dream refusing to put an end to itself, he too tries to leave, but they won’t let him past Immigration and there’s puzzlement over his passport at Santa Cruz Airport. The passport may be German, but he isn’t.

  ‘The passport’s a mistake, Mr. Ernestji,’ the babu at the Immigration counter says, chewing paan while fingering the good luck swastika around his neck. ‘You’re one of us. How can you leave like that? You’ve been deemed Hindu, you know.’ And he cites a gazette reference number. Ernst tries explaining to the Immigration Man how fucked is that, because he’s already deemed Jew; go check with the Germans if you don’t believe. The Immigration Man keeps chewing paan with that babu-look of his. A German SS type, all in black and with the regulation swastika armband, steps up to save Ernst from the Indian Immigration Man. Now all of a sudden Ernst doesn’t want to be saved, hell with Germany, and Bharat Mata ki Jai. The SS type is insistent however and reaches out for him, so Ernst starts to scream—Parvatibai’s cue to do the baby elephant run down the corridor and come calm him with a cold compress.

  Once done, she too would give him the look—like that Immigration guy from his dream—but only after he had quietened. Come next morning, Ernst would read a verse from Jayadev’s Gita Govinda in English while sipping chai. Later, reciting the Bija Mantra , he would remind himself that here wasn’t all that bad. He would then lift open the bedroom credenza and double-check the expiry date on his German passport.

  5

  The Second Floor Balcony

  Sindhis had no where to go. So we went everywhere.

  —Hari Harilela

  You could say Salim Ali’s second floor balcony overlooked the Sindhi Refugee Camp from across Vashigaon Road. Or you could say it overlooked the crumbling Krishna Temple under the banyan tree. Or, that it looked straight down into a garbage pile, the size of a Fiat car. Otherwise simply enjoy your chai, watch the children shit in neat rows alongside open nullahs, and wait for the Krishna Temple’s blind woman to sing and kick-start your day. There was nothing else on offer this early.

  Speaking of Fiat cars, there was one with a missing headlight parked opposite the temple, the driver slumped in his seat and staring ahead. Seeing his one-eyed Fiat parked on Vashigaon Road with Mohan Driver asleep inside with eyes wide open, Ernst felt it was time for a change. Both car and driver. Affording it was another matter.

  A rising sun tackled what could be rain clouds, or not—the monsoons not sure whether to continue fucking with Bombay, or have some shame. Someone began to yell loudly and looking down at the Krishna Temple past the garbage heap, Ernst realised there would be no melody to be heard today, because the blind woman was in a rant instead. She was the other blind person in Salim Ali’s life. In so many ways, Salim Ali’s frame of mind depended on the blind people around him. Ernst once witnessed Salim Ali’s blind, Muslim mother stare down the blind Hindu woman parked since forever outside the Krishna Temple. Salim Ali and Ernst had watched the two blind women eyeball each other.

  ‘Is that even possible?’ Ernst asked.

  Salim Ali had looked bitter.

  Anyway, around this time and once again in the evening, the blind woman would take to the air from the crumbling temple looking up into Salim Ali’s balcony. A single roomed, whitewashed hovel for Lord Krishna built into the hollow of a majestic banyan, where even the priest refused to live full-time. Salim Ali claimed if by some miracle there really were a Lord Krishna, he wouldn’t be seen dead in that rat-hole.

  Permanently parked on the rat-hole’s pockmarked patio, the blind woman would sing her heart out when not stoned on ganja, and also when she was. Breaking abruptly into song, she had a tendency to scare the shit out of passers-by before allowing them a glimpse of heaven. She sang to remind people like Salim Ali that it didn’t matter the place was a rat-hole, because God resided in her throat. Over the years, every now and then, Ernst let her tie his stomach in knots. What’s the greater sorrow she would sing, love unattained or love lost? Who could say, Ernst felt, remembering how his wife and he parted forever in an instant, whereas the teacher and his dachshund had remained hanging together side by side for as long as it mattered. Their howling aside, the two had at least looked into each other’s eyes until the very end.

  This morning, no song ascended to tie him up before tearing him apart. Instead, the blind woman was yelling at the skies. ‘Do you see that light?’ she shouted. ‘It’s coming from out there! Look, you bhenchods, look! It’s so damn bright! How can’t you see it?’ Ernst heard the scold and saw the blind woman point in the air at some bright light only she could see. Next thing you know, every kid squatting over an open nullah had pulled up his shorts and was running over to her. They converged in a wolf pack.

  ‘Maaji!’ the little boys called out, and she let them. At other times, she would bite people’s heads off. ‘I’m not your bhenchod mother,’ she would say .

  ‘What’s the matter, Maaji? Something bothering you?’ the children asked, concerned looks on wee faces.

  ‘Maybe it’s her lice,’ one little bastard offered. She couldn’t care less and was on her own trip. ‘Someone, do something!’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong with you people? Are you blind? Can’t you see that light?’ She went on and on, refusing to stop embarrassing herself, the ganja-induced harangue loud enough to wake the dead. Looking like row upon row of confused caterpillars, Sindhi Camp’s Nissen huts appeared dazed as her unwashed finger continued pointing blindly past them towards Trombay Hill in the background. ‘That place over there,’ she said. ‘It’s giving out light. Do something!’

  ‘What are you pointing at, Maaji?’ another little genius asked, before pointing out, ‘You’re bhenchod blind, you know.’ His friend went, ‘It’s top secret out there, Maaji. Don’t point like that unless you want an atom bomb up your arse. Do you?’

  The little buggers meant the nation’s nuclear machinery ticking away behind Trombay Hill, where she was pointing. The location personally selected by India’s Oppenheimer, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha—Mastermind & Sexiest Man Alive. Loved by one and all. So much so, they let him conduct nuclear experiments within pissing distance from the country’s most densely populated city. A convenient, air-conditioned commute from his home at Malabar Hill. Anything you want, they assured him, because Indians yearned for The Bomb in a way others could never understand. Screw us, starve us, irradiate us, but build us one.

 
All this shouting going on, and there’s this girl crouched outside one of Sindhi Camp’s WWII vintage, army Nissen huts. Wearing a maroon sari and busy drawing a rangoli on her porch with chalk powder. When she looked up, Ernst recognised the teeth. Like piano keys. Her jaw sagged while squinting to see the hell was happening at the temple. It was Beatrice Taylor’s skinny assistant from that evening with the headless Sardar. She looked more put together this morning without her boss around. I’m on my own turf, her glance said.

  ‘Stop it,’ Salim Ali said. ‘She’s known to me since school days. I have to live here, you know. ’

  Sugared up and chai in hand, Ernst stopped staring and leaned over the balcony, pressing his stomach against the ledge to trigger something inside. Anything. He eased back, and bore down again to try breaking the blockade up his colon.

  ‘Careful,’ Salim Ali cautioned, seeing him lean over. ‘Parvatibai says you have a history of suicide in your family.’

  ‘Not suicide. Escape. We have a history of escape.’

  ‘Probably why you are at the Golf Club so much. How do you afford it?’

  Credit chits, he wanted to tell Salim Ali, who was way ahead of him and said, ‘Everyone should be white.’

  ~

  To their left, was the police chowki where you turn from Vashigaon Road towards Trombay. A little further down the road, stood the Bombay Presidency Golf Club surrounded by Sindhi Refugee Camp—in turn corralled by the jhopadpatti.

  The jhopadpatti was one big, open shithole where you could go wherever you please—meaning, anywhere. In Sindhi Refugee Camp however, decorum demanded you shat in nullahs running alongside the Nissen huts, whereas in the Golf Club, the toilets were unbelievably fine. The Golf Club’s white picket fence kept Sindhi Refugee Camp from creeping in. Some months ago, typhoid stole into the club kitchen regardless; proving once again that do what you may, shit will happen.

  It was still early morning and small stick figures teed off on the greens as the refugee camp slowly came alive. People carrying cans of water hurried past cows and goats to go defecate. Hidden from view a few feet away, No.1 wood connected with golf balls. The sharp cracks sounded like rifle shots this side of the border, making Salim Ali flinch.

  ‘Join me there over a drink sometime,’ Ernst said to him. ‘I’ll sign you in.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Salim Ali replied. ‘You know very well I don’t drink. Besides, once we have a Soviet-type system, there’ll be no need to sign anyone in.’ Salim Ali pointed to a beggar sans legs careening across Vashigaon Road on a wooden pallet with wheels. Any given day, the legless man was all over Sindhi Refugee Camp, scooting at foolishly high speeds. Under Marxism, he could scoot into any club he wanted. ‘They have holiday dachas for the proletariat in Russia.’ Salim Ali cleared his throat. ‘Let me educate you some more about a classless society.’

  Ernst looked out to see if the girl in the maroon sari was still there. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘See that boy going up to the blind woman? What’s he got in his hand?’

  Ernst heard the fermented batter frying inside the kitchen as Salim Ali’s mother ladled it on a pan over the gas flame. It was a toss-up who was in greater danger—that blind woman down by the temple, or this crazy, blind bat over at the stove asking for third-degree burns. When Ernst headed for the door, Salim Ali wanted to know where he was going, didn’t get an answer, and said something about white people.

  Ernst took the stairs two at a time with an alacrity absent when climbing up. The little wolf pack around the blind woman was still at it. She in turn was deep in her rant, pointing a finger toward Trombay Hill and there was this snake slithering down the patio towards her. Ernst had seen it wriggle in the boy’s hand earlier. The empty basket near the mound of temple garbage would do and he picked it up to throw over the snake in one sweep. Then he grabbed the boy by his collar; who yelled in outrage, waking up Mohan Driver cocooned inside the one-eyed Fiat. The blind woman stopped mid-rant.

  ‘Let him go,’ she said, ‘That’s a rat snake. It’s not poisonous.’

  Ernst wanted to ask: I’m not blind so how would I know? He also felt like asking about the invisible light in the sky. And, why not just sing for your supper instead of freaking people out like this?

  Down the mud path running parallel to Trombay Road with Nissen huts lined up on either side, Beatrice’s girl was now standing erect outside her half of a hut. Looking his way, she flashed her buck teeth. He dropped the squirming boy and froze, unsure. Skin like polished teak and rubbing the pendant around her neck, she smiled again, the teeth lending her a bunny rabbit innocence. This time, he smiled back. It was only when she waved, he realised it was too good to be true.

  Thinking it must be Salim Ali getting those smiles and waves, Ernst turned to look but the balcony was empty, although, the big, black Chhote Bhai was now on the balcony next door, sipping tea from a saucer. Then again, maybe her smiles and all that waving were for Chhote, made as he was out of granite. On the other hand, Ernst could be mistaken. He recalled her engine revving up when Chhote had assaulted the porcelain doll. She smiled past him again to confirm there was no mistake. She then returned to her rangoli and Ernst tried to return to normal. He couldn’t keep from looking at her though, while she dabbed final touches to the design drawn on the porch. Elaborate in red, white, and saffron, this wasn’t your traditional, good luck rangoli. It was a powder mandala. He recognised the Tantric symbols from where he stood, and found it strange someone this young would practise something so arcane.

  Bhairavi. Beatrice had called the girl, Bhairavi.

  There’s this legend about Goddess Bhairavi. You will find her black as coal and ugly as sin on gaudy kitchen calendars across India. As long as she remains that way—black and ugly—all’s well, you’re fine; get on with life. Then one day you casually glance at the calendar on your fridge or are genuflecting at her temple, and find she’s gone all radiant on you, and smiling instead of coal black with that tongue sticking out. That’s when you should shit bricks. Because her smile means your time has come. It’s ta-ta, bye-bye, so put your affairs in order. Smart thing to know when it comes to Goddess Bhairavi, ugly is good and beautiful is bad. Frown is good. Her smile, most definitely bad. Luckily, Sindhi Refugee Camp’s Bhairavi preferred smiling at a slumlord carved in granite, and not at Ernst. All for the best because Ernst was anyway chained to the Ingrids any given time. He had tried breaking free last night with a little help from Daisy Lansdowne. It didn’t work.

  Meanwhile the blind woman resumed her rant, pointing away in the air towards Trombay Hill while the sun peeked out at her, unsure whether to show itself. Not bothered with either, Sindhi Refugee Camp went about its business. The girl was on her knees and bent over once again, reaching for the outer edge of her Tantric artwork. Doing so, her bottom blossomed into a perfect, tulip bulb. It filled his vision—frontal, peripheral, everything. I really don’t know what I want, Ernst said to the Ingrids still riding him after all these years, while he remained caught up with the tulip out there, tightly bound in a maroon sari. But if you let me free, he appealed, I could try find out.

  People were heading to work, lining up at the BEST bus stop opposite the police chowki for the 6 Limited to Colaba. Two-wheelers flew this way and that around the one-eyed Fiat. Lata Mangeshkar was on Sindhi Camp Radio, bemoaning the nation’s Himalayan Tragedy through that one song that spoke on behalf of all India; the one every Indian knew by heart and played again and again and it still wasn’t enough. An inspired moped rider went full-throat in unison, his voice rising patriotically above the metallic swell of his engine. When Ernst looked her way again, a woman was cleaning the porch where Beatrice’s girl had chalked her Tantric powder mandala. The girl stood watch. Unlike her, the older woman was Sindhi-white with perfect teeth, so no idea why he took her to be the mother. A vacant smile to her face, and with bucket in both hands, she poured water on the powder mandala in a strong sw
eeping motion. Squatting with a wet cloth, the woman didn’t stop until the porch was swept clean of all Tantric goings-on.

  The girl stood there, looking satisfied at her hours of work being erased. She then did a quick namaste to acknowledge—as Tantrics do after intentionally destroying their work—that all material things are but maya, a temporary illusion. Then she hurried off to office.

  6

  Cowboy and Indians

  Just because it isn’t free, doesn’t mean it isn’t aid.

  —Dean Rusk, explaining America’s PL 480 food assistance program

  Ernst stood under the full glare of a sullen Salim Ali. Humidity in Bombay builds like nowhere else. Even so, Ernst hadn’t seen a wash-and-wear shirt go this bad, so fast. The man’s body odour girded him for the day ahead. In the meantime, a Marxist protest at the factory gates ate away anything left of his brain. They were screaming something about American food aid and it didn’t matter what, because Ernst didn’t care.

  ‘So this is why you didn’t want me around today,’ he said to Salim Ali, looking at the intentional chaos building up.

  A comrade yelled, ‘Europe’s first, next America’s dead, China leads, the East is Red!’ Fighting back, India’s world-famous Lata Mangeshkar trilled over factory loudspeakers reminding the nation, as always, to shed a tear for those martyred in China’s wake during the War of ’62.

  The China lovers countered with, ‘Long Live Mao, Chou En-lai; Johnson, Rusk, Hai, Hai!’

  You had to hand it to Salim Ali’s comrades hollering at the gates. No let up and no embarrassment at China’s perfidy; as if the invasion never happened. Their yells tore through Ernst’s head, ricocheting inside like so many red bullets. He thought of the Sindhi Refugee Camp girl’s arse and calmed himself as Hindus do at times like these, acknowledging life is maya, an illusion to work past as we struggle towards the Place of the Hidden Moon. Salim Ali looked as if he could read Ernst’s mind and curled his upper lip.