by Adib Khan
Hands grabbed me. I barely glimpsed the early morning sun. Darkness. Limp walls. I struggled inside a sack.
‘No harm will come to you.’ The girl’s voice. The sack was lifted. A long journey. I imagined what I could not see. Crowded streets and lanes. Noises assaulted me from every side. A hard bump terminated the journey.
‘Farida Baji! Look what I have brought you! What an attraction it will be!’
The string was untied. I stepped out of the sack. The glare made me close my eyes. A gasp. Exclamations of astonishment. Even in my dazed state I sensed that I was the centre of attention.
‘Yah kismet! Barey, what kind of mazakh is this?’
I peeped through the shutters. The light stopped hurting.
‘No joke, Baji! This is no joke.’ Barey Bhai held up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. ‘I thought the lad could be useful to you. To all of us.’
We were in a small courtyard with a jamun tree growing from its centre. Vines of jasmine and bougainvillea wrapped themselves around pillars supporting the floor of a high verandah. Worn-out carpets and bolstered divans invited weary limbs to rest in the shade. Near the tree two huge copper pots rested on clay chulas.
I had never seen a eunuch before. Baji’s face was strongly angular. Despite the slather of rouge on her cheeks and thick layers of kajal on her eyelids, she looked threateningly masculine. Her shapely fingernails were bright red, a startling contrast to the silky drape of black hair that cascaded down to her waist. But the stubble on her chin was no illusion. She wore a yellow blouse and a dark green sari. She lay on her side on a divan, her right elbow resting on a bolster. A young eunuch massaged the back of her legs.
We stared at each other in silent disbelief.
‘Barey!’ she sighed. ‘I have told you often enough that I wish to be surrounded by beauty.’ Baji paused to squirt a misty liquid into her mouth before breathing into the palm of her hand and sniffing it. The divan squeaked. She sat upright and unscrewed the top of a slim bottle of attar. She dabbed herself with the thick and stickily sweet perfume. ‘I wish to nourish myself in elegance and gentleness. I want to forget all that I am. But this cruel reminder! This…’ She pointed towards me with a graceful movement of her right hand. ‘This is an affront to my dignity. A bad omen to begin the day.’
I grinned and thought of Mrs Prasad.
‘Baji, he is a bright laundah, full of clever words. He will entertain you well.’
She looked at me again, her eyes finally resting below my waist.
‘He is full-grown in some ways. I can promise that!’ Barey Bhai grinned.
She turned her head away as if she couldn’t bear to look at me any more. ‘Nahey…nahey! He is too ugly! A sight for a condemned person.’
‘He could be useful…’ Barey Bhai trailed off slyly, making a cutting motion with the index and middle fingers of his right hand. ‘His size is a prized gift.’
She directed her attention to me with a renewed interest. ‘Barey, do you ever think of anything but worldly concerns?’
‘We have to survive with whatever resources we have.’
‘All these years…’ She shook her head. ‘You haven’t changed. Even when I first found you beaten up and bleeding in the gutter, the first thing you wanted to know was whether your money had been stolen. Greed, Barey. Greed! It is the defining quality of barbarians. I have been unable to civilise you. But, if he can be of service…’ Her voice became menacing. ‘He must not live here!’
‘Baji, I wouldn’t think of it!’
‘You manage to think of everything to make my life miserable. Ay larka, what is your name?’
‘Vamana.’
‘Vamana?’ Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Barey, what is his religion?’
‘Baji, just remember why we have him,’ Barey Bhai said hastily.
‘Ay larka, do you know what I am?’
‘Not exactly.’
She burst into a fiendish cackle. ‘Not exactly! That is funny. What do you call someone with a cock and no balls? Does that make sense?’
‘No.’
‘Barey!’ she snapped. ‘I thought you said the chokra was clever!’ Without waiting for a response, she motioned me to go close to her. ‘Give me your hand.’ She held my wrist and guided my hand gently over her face. ‘Can you feel my beard?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what does that say about me?’
‘That you are a man?’ I offered tentatively.
Suddenly she yanked me by the arm. Before I could resist, my hand was under her sari, brushing over coarse tendrils of pubic hair. I felt a thick stump of flesh. Under it, a small lump of shrivelled skin. I was tempted to lift her sari for a visual confirmation of the abnormality that fascinated me. I edged closer.
‘And what have you learned now?’
‘That…that you are not entirely a person?’
Roughly Baji pushed me away. ‘He says that I am not human!’ she wailed, massaging her chest with both hands. ‘Even though I am one!’ she sniffled into a towel. ‘I have the heart and soul of a woman. There are feelings and desires locked inside this wretched body!’
The ensuing silence was awkward. But I was not uncomfortable under the scrutiny of her stare. They reminded me of Maji’s eyes…
‘Barey, let him meet the others,’ she commanded. ‘He is one of us in a way you will never be.’ She turned to me. ‘Ay larka, do you want to be with us?’
‘Yes!’
Perhaps it was the hasty reply and the eagerness in my voice that made her wary. ‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t feel like an outcast here. Walking the streets at night, I have known freedom. I grow wings…I fly.’
Baji stared at me, but there was a softness in her eyes as if she understood that I could perceive worlds beyond what the eyes could see. She turned to Barey Bhai and nodded.
4
A galaxy of illusions
My work has been unsatisfactory, I was told this morning. My efforts have to be more rigorous. By the end of the day there must be a sizable mound of stones and bricks that have been pounded into smaller pieces.
‘What do you do with your time?’ The superintendent was curious.
‘I go away.’ I didn’t mean to be cheeky. It was quite simple to withdraw from the intolerable boredom of a menial task and forget the wasted hours.
‘Go away?’ He was genuinely alarmed. ‘Where?’ He called the guards and demanded an explanation. Raised voices. Threats of dismissal. Confusion.
I remained calm. In the light of the burning hours, there were such wondrous pleasures to be stolen. All I could think of was the garden and the company of a thousand Eves with identical faces, tossing in the tide of my passion. The bed of flowers deep in the grove. Meena…Meena…Ah, the imperfection of my imagination. An unreliable walkway between dreams and desires.
‘Don’t waste our time with foolish games!’ The superintendent turned to me. ‘What do you mean you go away?’
A guard tapped an index finger on his right temple. Got them! As soon as insanity became the explanation for what they did not understand, I was safe.
‘I spend time with my wife on a bed of crushed jasmine. Can’t you smell the flowers?’ I took a deep breath. A sigh of pleasure. ‘I can travel backwards. Forwards, if I wish.’
Silence. Amused looks and sly grins. A quick change in strategy. I looked contrite and promised to make a greater effort. A special guard is appointed to look after me.
The dome ignites. There is a white flare of light. Parched earth. Wilting trees and tufts of scorched grass. I have long hours in the company of daylight ghosts. Mindlessly the guard fingers the trigger of his rifle. There’s the doleful sound of a bell. He is staring at me. A barked command. The thud of a hammer. It descends again. And again.
Somewhere a flame flickers into life. It’s time…What is more precious? The things we see and do or what we imagine? Which is more lasting? How should I measure the worth of remembrance? Memory is on
e of the mind’s storytellers. It gurgles and splutters, forever awake…
‘Barey, you should have had more sense!’
‘Baji?’
‘You should have chosen with more care! When I asked for a helper, I didn’t mean this…this…What have you sent me? Ay larka! How long does it take you to fetch me a tumbler of water? Hai kismet! When I ask him to do something, he blinks and grins! How coarse and gnarled are his hands! Like the roots of a dead plant. He refuses to wash. His breath is sour and his stories…ugly! Ugly! He is meant to entertain me, but he destroys all that I imagine to be beautiful. I have no need for him here.’
‘If you wish I can…’
‘No!’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Repulsive as he is, Vamana has a place among us. He is a freak. An accident. A hellish creature transported to this life by mistake. His body is the Devil’s work. His mind is an inferno. He spends his hours burning in his own fire. See how he grins! He shelters demons inside him. Use him in some way.’
Harsh words that had no effect on me. Baji was utterly frustrated by my incompetence in domestic chores. I broke plates and could not fold clothes. Even after I had swept the verandah floor, the dirt was visible. I forgot instructions and could not count money. I teased the other hijras and ate their food. How was I to explain that I was handcuffed to my imagination? Had someone even whispered that dreaming was a self-destructive vocation, I might have considered disengaging myself from the shadows of a weeping moon and emerged as a responsible being.
The mind is an uncharted land, a habitat for the improbable and the fantastic. The sordid and the perverse. It hums with sounds and teems with images. Light and shade. Anything is possible. I can copulate with princesses on the back of a serpent. Be strong, tall, good-looking. There are monsters and bhoots lurking in the recesses. Creatures that resemble humans. I am entirely normal by comparison. It is my mission to describe, to create forms and breathe life into them with the magical aid of words. And what are words but sharp knives that create entrances into dimly perceived worlds inside us? Noises and scribbles that give shape and colour to the terrifying flux of chaos. Here, there are no norms or conventions. Nothing surprises. An abode without walls or laws. A selfrenewing life without shame and not blighted by time. There is no need for pretensions of sanity or false modesty. I drift through the streets crowded with naked people who do not know how to hide their thoughts. Among them I am a hero. A judge. A vigilant god wary of hypocritical Adams. It is a haven never to be surrendered to the insidious forces of cause and effect.
I am a creator of life. Meanings. Of seeds that germinate and flame into the trees of possibilities. I do not seek to shape perfection. I am comfortable with flaws. I embrace what is grotesque. My mind is like Ali Baba’s cave. Open Sesame! Behold! A galaxy of illusions that create fear. My words give birth to terror. Universes collapse. Even as I create, lives end. I crack open the earth and lacerate it with crevices. My worlds are smeared with shadows. Ships sink and mountains dissolve. The aged fuck to celebrate the shedding of beauty. The young are chaste and cold. Women cry and children shiver. The howl of wolves and the laughter of demons are stored in the darkness of my imagination. It is all inside, lurking in caves and murky chambers. But I must play the buffoon to survive.
After my meeting with the eunuchs, I was taken to the bustee at night, blindfolded and carried inside a sack. In the godown I was told that the shackles and chain were necessary to prevent me from wandering outside the vicinity of the slum. A cautionary measure. The police might be out looking for me. Barey Bhai was not entirely convinced by my explanation about the life of an orphan who lived in the streets.
‘Someone who lives in the streets would know the city better than you do,’ he grunted, tugging the lock on the chain, one end of which was wound around a wooden pillar. He then bent down to check the connecting link to the shackles on my ankles.
They took turns to guard me during the day, but at night I was free to move inside. One evening I was allowed to sit outside the buckled doors of the godown with Chaman. That was when I met Kaka wandering about aimlessly, pausing to play doleful tunes on his bamboo flute. He was an old, blind man who cheerfully predicted the date and time of his death every day.
‘So you live in the corner of the godown?’ he asked, jabbing the space in front of him with a stick. ‘Have you seen any of the ghosts?’ His face cracked into a toothless grin.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’ he cried excitedly.
‘Vamana!’
I ignored Chaman. ‘Yes, but only one.’
‘Did it speak to you? How did it look?’
‘It was small. Very small. Dressed in clothes I have never seen. It ran away when it saw me.’
‘No wonder!’ Chaman chimed loudly.
Kaka sighed. ‘It is the ghost of Hamilton Saheb. He owned the godown, you know. The father of one of his young Indian mistresses killed him many years ago. He haunts the place. But until you arrived, only Barey had seen him. Wait till I tell the others!’ he cackled and left in considerable haste.
‘There isn’t a ghost!’ Chaman turned on me angrily. ‘Barey Bhai created the story to prevent others from seeking a place to stay inside the godown.’
‘It exists.’
She pushed me back inside.
Progressively, I was given the freedom to wander outside during the day. The godown was on the western edge of the slum. Behind it was a crumbling brick wall smothered with lichen. On the other side there was a bare, dusty field with a solitary mango tree leaning against the bricks. Even though the inhabitants of the bustee did nothing to nurture the tree, it produced an abundance of juicy fruits each year. A coir rope was tied to one of its sturdy branches. It dangled like a dead snake. On tiptoes I was barely able to grasp it in both hands and pull myself up.
‘The tree is under the care of Hamilton Saheb’s ghost,’ I ventured to explain one day. There were no expressions of disbelief, but by then I was regarded as someone with a mysterious connection with the supernatural.
The railway line, built on an extended mound of earth and topped with crushed gravel, ran through the middle of the field. The bustee itself was spread over a vast area, expanding in every direction each day with the addition of ramshackle structures to shelter the destitute. A pall of dust and smoke hung over it, adding a perpetual gloominess to the squalor that dominated our lives. The hovels, shacks and temporary shelters were built in uneven rows with little space between the dwellings. Like the lines on the palm of a hand, a network of dirt paths branched out in different directions, most of them ending in front of rubbish dumps.
I was quickly accepted as another oddity in the community. A dwarf did not stand out prominently among blind, limbless, mutilated, sick and starving people. There were the families of beggars, cobblers, tricksters, peddlers, barbers, pimps, prostitutes, thieves and drug dealers who jostled to survive in the overcrowded conditions.
The time arrived when Barey Bhai declared that I was to serve Farida Baji in whatever capacity she wished. That was the first time I was taken out of the bustee to begin my disastrous stint as Baji’s personal servant and storyteller. Besides the domestic chores, I was supposed to settle her troubled spirits and soothe away the pain with bland tales of justice, generosity and happiness.
The day I was dismissed from her employment, Barey Bhai summoned us and declared that I was now to be engaged in a manner that was profitable for everyone.
‘Like a good family member, Vamana must contribute to our expenses. Free food and accommodation are unaffordable luxuries in this city.’ Abruptly he turned to Lightning Fingers and said, ‘Teach him.’
He understood what Barey Bhai meant. I was to learn how to pick pockets and extract money and valuables from handbags. Relaxed, deft fingers. Like delicate tongs.
‘In and out. Like this. Always with the index and middle fingers.’
‘Never probe.’
‘Get whatever you can the first time. Don’t be curious. Nev
er be greedy!’
‘Faster! Quicker! Are you daydreaming again?’
Once again my world was crowded with instructions. I sulked and fretted. They sensed my resentment and harped on the necessity of cooperation and rigorous training.
‘We must work together in a disciplined way,’ Lightning Fingers insisted. ‘Let me tell you what we learned long ago. Like you, we were orphans brought up by beggars and thieves. As children, the three of us met accidentally in a street, scrounging for food. On a summer’s afternoon we pounced on a half-eaten roti thrown from a passing car. While we abused, shoved and punched each other, a pye-dog crept up behind us and stole the bread. It was an unforgettable lesson. The commonality of hunger became a binding force. Much later, when Barey Bhai’s thugs bought me from the beggars, I threatened to run away unless Nimble Feet and Farishta came with me.’
‘Loyalty to one another is our greatest asset,’ Nimble Feet added. ‘We see life with common eyes. We know where dangers lurk.’
‘Ultimately that ensures survival.’ Farishta dropped his voice and spoke slowly, emphasising every word.
Noiseless. Inconspicuous. Glide rather than run. Retreat like a shadow. I flexed my fingers constantly and walked around with weights tied to them. The consequences of failure were impressed upon me. Slithering. Crawling. Wriggling like worms. I acquired a dexterity that made me proud and confident. My mind began to react instinctively to commands. The fingers of the right hand followed like professional fighters, responding without hesitation.
As Chaman watched, I practised with Farishta and Nimble Feet. Lightning Fingers coached me with meticulous care—diversionary tactics, ways of creating confusion, means of escape. Reservoirs of excuses. Words of humility and repentance. Hard-luck stories. Ways to bribe policemen. Cringe and fawn. Pretend to be mad. I was not shrewd enough to recognise the urgency in their voices or the vague shadows of concern in Chaman’s eyes.
Once more the godown became a prison. I was not allowed to wander beyond its wasteland of rusting machinery, broken bricks, rotting timber, chains and ropes. The deprivation of my freedom was enough of an incentive to strive for proficiency beyond any natural talent for thievery. I even resorted to training at night among the monstrous shadows the candle flames projected on the ceiling and the walls.
