Mumbai Noir

by Altaf Tyrewala

  They had spent nine months joined to one another like two nostrils. That was Rahim’s favorite analogy because if one nostril got blocked, the other knew. They needed to breathe in tandem, but could breathe for each other too. Which is what they grew up to do. Having worked many odd jobs across South Mumbai, and unable to save anything they earned, Rahim hatched a plan. Which took them to the northern tip of the island city, where the land disappeared into the sea.

  And took one of them with it.

  Rahman

  Rahman lay on the single mattress, staring at the outlines of unknown countries being traced on the walls by white ants. He knew he should sleep, but he worried for Rahim each night. He’s got Abba’s genes, muttered Rahman to the floor. Thank god he’s goonga or he’d be cussing with every third breath. Where does all that impatience come from? Rahman had told Rahim he’d go with the pandus when they came knocking last month, but Rahim had insisted on being the martyr this time. The last time the cops had picked up Rahman; the welts they’d left on his legs had still not healed.

  The cops had been getting increasingly frantic over the last few years. Bomb blasts had begun to hit the city with the frequency of public holidays. Before the police could wrap their heads around a bomb that blew out of a tiffin carrier near the Gateway of India, another splattered limbs from a scooter near Dadar. Casualties were far too many and suspects far too few. It seemed that Versova, the land’s end, was inoculated from this virus. But then six months back a taxi blew up in Vile Parle. The wheel that sprang free from the blasted cab rolled past many police thaanas and teetered to a halt near Versova Koliwada, the fishing village, where the RDX landings were suspected to have occurred. It was only logical, the media had insisted, because after the ’80s when Versova used to be a smuggler’s favorite place to weigh anchor, it had fallen off the radar, and the state’s watchful eyes had since turned to places as far off as Panvel and Mumbra, red spots on the map of the 1993 terror attack trail.

  Why would these fishermen fill their catch with bombmasala? thought Rahman, upset at the state’s insinuations. And even if they had, what did a poor migrant auto-rickshaw-walla have to do with it?

  Last night Rahman had been quiet. Rahim had poked him in the ribs to squeeze a sound out of him. The jab was futile. Rahman had finally been convinced that being picked up by the pandus five times now in less than a year was God’s way of telling them that He did not approve of their deceit. On the contrary, gestured Rahim, amused, look at it this way—if I got locked up, you would be free forever, because you would not officially exist. Rahim had gurgled with the exertion of his gesticulated explanation. But Rahman had felt his heart sink even further.

  * * *

  Rahman had never been too keen on Rahim’s “plan.” Rahim had applied for a single auto-rickshaw license. They’d found themselves a little kholi out here in Khoja Gully, in the heel of the fishing village, so far from even the skeletons of the decayed boats that on most months their landlady forgot she owned this little shack that she had to come collect the rent for. No one here knew there were two of them. They emerged one at a time. Rahim drove the rickshaw by night. And Rahman—as Rahim—drove it by day. The owner who rented his auto to Rahim had never in his thirty-year rickshaw career seen one man drive an auto both shifts, seven days a week. He was initially skeptical, worried Rahim might belly-up his three-wheeler if he fell asleep at the handlebar. But over time Rahim had convinced him of his “inasmonia,” explaining to him in a badly spelled brief essay scribbled on the behind of a restuarant menu that he never got sleep, so he’d rather make a living all the time.

  This wild lie had one downside. Rahman too had to be mute to the world outside. Which meant he could only talk to Rahim. Who could only talk back in gestures.

  Rahman was starting to forget what a real conversation felt like.

  Rahim slept soundly by day. Rahman tried to sleep at night, but the weight of this falsehood pressed down so hard on his heart that it kept his eyes sprung open, till the threat of dawn would inject some urgent fatigue into them and they would grudgingly close for a couple of hours each morning. This made Rahman tired. Of this life. Of being alone in what he felt. Of this strangely imposed burden of muteness. Of this unforgiving city. And the auto.

  He didn’t trust the people who climbed into the rear passenger seat every day. Most never even noticed him. He could be a mere machine. They could slide money into a slot in the back of his head and he would drive them to wherever they wanted to go. The few who acknowledged him did so only to haggle about the meter being tampered with and pay him less. To these people he was Rahim, hence mute. All he could do was glower at them, hoping his stern silence would make them cough up what was his due. But silence in this city is an alien commodity. Not only is it painful in its near-total absence, but exhibiting it seems to connote to people a capitulation so complete that they step on you like you are a foot-pedal brake.

  Afraid that if he ever blew a fuse a verbal projectile might launch itself out of his mouth without warning, Rahman decided to keep his passenger interactions to a bare minimum. To aid which he had recently bought a small slate and some chalk. Since the old meters never showed the actual fare, which had to be read off a small chart kept tucked above the windscreen, he had started writing the fare on the slate and holding it up for the passenger in the back. This small but determined action seemed to deter some of them from an impulsive haggle. The habitual hagglers needed to be fed the chalk, thought Rahman, copious amounts of it! But he banished any violent thoughts as soon as they entered his head. He might be pretending to be Rahim, but he didn’t want to become him. Not yet.

  Also, Rahman could never figure why Rahim would need a box full of chalk every second night when Rahman could manage a whole week on a solitary stick.

  The first time Rahman had been picked up by the pandus for interrogation was when bombs had ripped through the local trains. He remembered spending all evening ferrying the injured from Khar Station to Lilavati Hospital. He remembered not charging anyone a single paisa. He remembered telling the cops all of that, answering their long violent verbal questionnaire with countless humble nods and shakes of the head. And he remembered the subinspector—Doglekar was his name—saying in Marathi that all you Muslims are loose-tongued liars. And anyway, how could the police take his word for it when he didn’t even have a tongue to give his word with? Rahman was let off with a warning that time. The cops kept his license with them, the one that referred to him as Rahim. He remembered returning at two a.m. to see a panicked Rahim waiting for him beside two cold plates of food. Rahman had walked in silently, sat down, and they had eaten. One rice plate. By two. Like they always did. No fuss. No regret. No anger. Just fear. And a prayer. That tomorrow might bring a little more rehmat than today.

  In exchange for a week’s earnings Rahim collected their license the next evening.

  Sometimes, when Rahman feared for them, his nostrils would fill with the stench of dead flesh. The same smell from his father’s meat shop. The smell that Rahim reveled in, but Rahman couldn’t stand. It made all the fluids in his gut rise up together to his throat. Every last drop. Sweet. Salty. Bitter. Cold. Hot. Sharp. Bubbling. And his head would swim. It was the stench of death. And in those precise moments what he’d regret most of all was this plan of Rahim’s.

  To help himself through such times he’d gotten into the habit of keeping a small swab of cotton soaked in ittar behind his left ear. He’d scoop it out and slam it to his nose. And he’d be able to breathe again. But the ittar lingered on his whiskers, and Rahim, sharp fellow that he is, would catch a whiff the minute Rahman walked in at night. And then he’d rib him about having a woman stashed away in Juhu and keeping it secret from his dumb twin. Rahman was never amused by such talk, and earnestly defended himself, saying firstly he’d never do such things outside of marriage, and more importantly he’d never ever hide it from his brother. The smallest secret between the two of them could get them caught. And then h
e’d proceed to tell Rahim every last detail of the day. It was a habit they’d cultivated from when they’d gotten that rickshaw license. Since they were to be one person by day and night, they needed to know all there was to know about each other, so they’d never get caught off guard.

  But there was one small embarrassing detail Rahman never shared with Rahim. On those days when even the ittar was of no use and he felt himself shivering in a fever of fear, Rahman would end his day early, park the auto behind the abandoned boats outside Khoja Gully, lift the backseat, empty the little chamber there of their tools, climb in, and slide the seat back into place above him. Scrunched up in a fetal position in there, he’d think of Ammi and the nine months he had spent inside of her, and of which he had no memory. For those few dark, breathless, unending minutes that womb would be his alone, not shared with one exactly like him. His ammi would then be alive, and he’d be unborn, waiting to live. Sometimes he’d lie there till he gagged. Sometimes he’d lie there till his legs cramped. Most times he’d just lie there till he could weep no more. And then he’d climb out, his fear washed off, his mother’s death accepted, replace the tools, the seat, and drive back home.

  As Rahman lay watching the first few fingers of dawn slowly taking hold of his eyelids and pulling them down, he had a sinking feeling. I hope the cops don’t take Rahim this time, he muttered into his shapeless pillow. Ever since they interrogated Rahim the last time he’s been so short-tempered and distant. If they come knocking I’ll find a way to reason with them. And we’ll leave this place. This gully of the lost. This city of the unfortunate. We’ll run again. I’ll lead this time. And where we go we can live fearlessly as two. Not one, by two, like we do here.

  And just as his eyes slid shut, a key rattled nervously in the lock on the door outside. Rahim, shaking, tumbled in, and with his hands doing a manic dance in midair he signed out: Bhai, there’s been a blast in Borivali.

  Ramdulari

  The first time Rahim had gone missing from the streets he’d taken his hands off the handlebar in response to Ramdulari’s query, and joined his fingertips to gesture home. And where’s that? she had asked, snapping her powder-case shut, not convinced. Far away, Rahim had indicated dramatically in the rearview, a small railway junction where no one ever stops.

  The complete opposite of Mumbai, she had added, everyone’s last stop. Rahim had smiled triumphantly. He had taught her the sign language over the many months he’d known her. And she had learned well.

  The second time he had gone missing he’d signaled to her that he had been sick. What with? she had asked with concern. He paused. It was a cold night. He fogged up the rearview with his breath and with his finger scrawled loveria. Ramdulari had taken over a dozen customers that night to spite his blatant lie, and watched his drawn face in the smudgy rearview with one eye as she got fingered and squeezed.

  Both times Langdi had been off the roads for a few nights.

  “Rahim” never missed work if he could help it. In the hallowed circles of the rickshaw-wallas he was nicknamed Duronto, after the new nonstop long-distance train to Kolkota. Now this Rahman didn’t mind. All said and done, it felt powerful to be the possessor of a secret that no one else in the whole world would ever be privy to.

  Or so he thought.

  The last time Langdi disappeared, Ramdulari had heard that Rahim had been picked up for pooch-taach in connection with the bomb blasts that very day. Fist-fucking the right havaldar revealed to her that Rahim had been a usual suspect, picked up by the cops every time there was a round of interrogations. She went cold down to her tailbone. The five times she had been compelled to hire another auto as her mobile “full-tension-release” shag-pad had each coincided with bomb blasts in the city. Not only were customers hard to come by on those nights, she even had to pay by the meter, something Rahim never made her do. She had a lot to be pissed with Rahim for.

  When Rahim had returned last month, he sidled Langdi up to Ramdulari at the corner of Panch Marg and tried to apologize for disappearing. My house got washed away in the high tide, read his slate as he held it up in front of her face, his smile a precarious mix of cocky and earnest. She had looked past him at the mobile police patrol motorbike cruising by across the road; she turned and hurried away. She didn’t want to be seen with Rahim. The hafta she already owed the cops far exceeded what she’d made in the last week. If she got caught in a terror suspect’s auto they might harass her. And she’d heard of how they tortured female suspects. The havaldar had told her, as she gave him a hand job inside a broken-down car behind the chowki, getting off on the memory of the last time he fucked an upside-down woman with his lathi. Though he did add he’d hate to do something like that to Ramdulari, there was no remorse or mercy in his voice when he spoke of the suspect, emphatically adding that the minority needed to be hung upside down and straightened out. At that he had ejaculated, spitting venom all over the dusty dashboard.

  Rahim followed Ramdulari down the street, braking to a halt every few seconds to clean his slate and scribble a new request on it with chalk, before revving up again, gliding alongside her, and holding the slate up in front of her face, begging her to get inside, saying he’d drive her around for free tonight. She ignored him completely, a knot forming in her chest, her face flushed. But Rahim kept at it. He kept at it till he ran out of chalk. And then he hit the brakes, wiped his slate clean, and sat still, watching her disappear down the street, his hands starting to ache as the flat rectangular piece of night they held grew heavy with the weight of its own wordlessness.

  After that night, every night, for nearly a month, Ramdulari kept her distance. Rahim would catch glimpses of her in other rickshaws, as he ferried drunk young boys, watchful dupatta-covered women, and zombielike call center employees back and forth. When his shift ended, tired and irritable, he’d make do with the fast-fading memory of that meager morning. The one in which Ramdulari had stepped out of the circular margin of the rearview and invited him into the backseat.

  It had been the night after his first reappearance, and customers—scared by the terror unleashed on Mumbai’s streets—were nowhere to be found. Strapped for cash and feeling unwanted, Ramdulari had suggested she pay Rahim in kind. Rahim had never dared to insinuate that to her. He had been both thrilled and terrified at the invitation. He hadn’t touched a woman before, and he shyly indicated that to her. She had simply nodded. He’d parked Langdi right in the center of an abandoned field amidst a far-off cluster of cottages in Aaraamnagar. The risqué move had made Ramdulari hot. As the moon slipped out of the sky, he had slipped into her. But he’d finished even before the cock crowed. She had sighed “premachoor,” and patted him on the head. He didn’t know what it meant, but knew it didn’t bode well for his future with her.

  And he was right.

  He often hoped she’d make that offer again, give him another chance to prove he could gratify her. But she never did, pretending instead like that morning had never existed. Ever since though she had started talking more, telling Rahim about her life, and why she thought “tension-releasers” like herself were so important in Mumbai’s scheme of things. He didn’t care much to listen, but listened well, in the hope that one night she might feel some love and send it his way.

  “If it wasn’t for us,” she would say, “there’d be many more old women with knives in their bellies and young girls lying raped in alleys. We Ramdularis help release the beasts you men keep locked up inside you.” With that she’d light her only cigarette of the night, lean out of the auto, and leave a trail of smoke like a sad, small cirrus cloud.

  Over the course of the month Rahim started to simmer. It wasn’t a feeling he was familiar with. But it wasn’t a feeling he could help either. Rahman noticed it. But the few times he attempted to talk about it with Rahim, an invisible door was slammed shut in his face. Rahman felt scared for Rahim. They had never been this far apart before. “The next time the cops come for us, if, God forbid, they do,” he had told Rahim, “pr
omise me you’ll allow me to go.” Surprisingly for Rahman, Rahim readily nodded. He even looked relieved. Rahim had not forgotten how he had smarted when that subinspector, Doglekar, had abused his community. Rahman had it in his heart to forgive and move on. Rahim possessed no such reservoir inside himself that he could dip into. He signed a thank you to his brother and got up quickly so Rahman wouldn’t see the film that had spread over his eyes.

  The brothers decided to carry on with their normal life despite the Borivali blast. Disappearing now would make the cops unnecessarily suspicious. Not like they needed a reason anyways. Rahman stopped by the Yari Road masjid thrice to pray that day. He felt confident God was having a change of heart.

  But the next morning Rahim didn’t return.

  Rahman, though restless, his heart beating like the drums of Moharram, stayed put at home. The smell of death returned stronger than ever to his nostrils. He tried to shrug it off, talking to himself, telling himself that the stench must be from all the dead fish being dried in the fishing gaon. But his voice couldn’t convince his ears.

  On the second day there was a sharp rap on the door. Rahman’s breath froze; he didn’t respond. The knocking continued. A voice, scathing with authority, called out, “Rahim?” Rahman clenched his eyes shut. A part of him wanted to know where Rahim was, and perhaps this voice could tell him. But the other part of him told him to not expose himself. What if this was a trick, aimed at blowing their cover? “Damn the plan, damn me, why did I ever listen to Rahim?” Rahman muttered into his cold sweating fist.

  On the third flurry of knocks, Rahman, shaking, opened the window. To see Doglekar outside. Rahman’s throat went dry when the subinspector, his eyes hidden behind cheap plastic shades, pointed at the lock on the door outside and asked, “Trying to avoid the landlord, haan?” Rahman mustered a weak smile and nodded. Doglekar handed him the license and said, “You left it at the thaana that night.” As Rahman gently took it from Doglekar, the policeman seemed to peer at him as if searching for a piece that didn’t fit.