Mumbai Noir

by Altaf Tyrewala

  We both walked toward the car. I opened the trunk and got the spare tire out. While he changed it for me, I stood there, all the doors open, leaning against the backseat. He kept glancing at me. At one point he said, “So, you’re headed back to Mira Road now? Or to your father’s?”

  Mini’s tongue found my hand and I let her lick it. She was just a black shadow in the car. Except for her pink tongue, you couldn’t see her at all. I patted her head, then stroked the side of her mouth. It was our signal for silence.

  I asked, “How do you know?”

  The man grinned. “We’ve met before. I own a house in Mira Road. Don’t you remember? At Ruff Ruff, the shop near Sheetal? We even shared an auto once. Don’t you remember me?”

  I stared.

  He was talking in short bursts, asking questions, “So what’s your business like? Mira Road is growing so fast, isn’t it? We never had people like you moving until a few years ago, but it is so advanced now …” And he kept saying, “Don’t you remember where we met? But don’t worry, it happens.”

  He asked for tissue to wipe his hands. I handed him the box from the dashboard.

  He wiped his hands and said, “I’m going back tonight. I would have taken the bus but since you don’t have any company, I can come with you. Anyway, it is not so good for a girl to be out alone at this time.”

  I drew my breath in sharply. He laughed in my face, then said he’d make himself useful.

  It was odd, the way he stressed that he “owned” a house, then saying he was from Petrol Pump. For a moment, I wondered if he was telling the truth. Is it possible we’d met? Mira Road was a blank in my head. There’s the house, the train station, the bank, Ruff Ruff. I must have met vegetable sellers, salesmen, pet owners, watchmen, newspapermen, dairymen, plumbers. It is possible I met him and then completely forgot.

  As I was putting it away in the trunk, I looked at the flat tire carefully. There was a three-inch gash, clearly made with a knife or a big piece of glass.

  I got into the driver’s seat. I could say no and drive away. But he was going to follow me anyway. He’d take a bus and go to Mira Road. He’d be in the area and, who knows, share an auto with me another day.

  He was leaning into the car now, returning the box of tissues to the dashboard, smiling at me.

  But why did we share an auto? If he lives in Petrol Pump and I live in Sheetalnagar, why did we share the auto?

  I turned the key in the ignition. Mini’s supplies of food, the rag-basket, a blanket, my training whistle, a doggie windbreaker, all were piled on the front passenger seat.

  He was still leaning in at the car window. So I said, “Come, but you will have to sit in the back because I have so many things here.”

  He got into the back at once. I took off at a roar before he had even shut the door. In the rearview mirror, I could see his face. He was grinning and his eyes were red like a demon’s, thanks to the reflection of the headlights on the highway. He hadn’t noticed Mini.

  I knew her quiet, aggrieved breathing because I was listening for it. She’s a good, patient dog. The traffic thinned and we rode in silence until the creek approached. It was past midnight when he leaned forward, put an arm around my seat. His hand was nearly touching my cheek when he said, “I have been waiting to talk to you. All my life, I waited for someone to arrive …”

  I recognized his face then. It was the man hanging around outside Daddy’s flat in a watchman’s uniform, the same as the one he wore at Ruff Ruff. I let out a low whistle.

  She is a hard-working girl. Educated too. But I have a lot to teach her. She must see that it is only a question of changing. Night and day follow each other. This is fixed. As time moves through the sky, it moves through everything else as well. Prosperity follows struggle. Cities grow like wildflowers, they flourish like weeds and finally they are ruined. Calm follows storm. Love follows hate.

  Her life will change soon. Mira Road, my house, her face, our worth in the world—all of it can change. But she must learn patience. She must hold her life, and mine, tightly like a rag doll. Grasp it around the middle, so she does not choke its mouth, nor leave its hands too free. In her hands, she will see life change and then she will lose the fear that it is slipping away from her.

  TZP

  BY R. RAJ RAO

  Pasta Lane

  For over a week now, two policemen have posted themselves on the street below my building, and keep looking up at my third-floor flat. I have stopped going to the balcony as a result. I hide behind the curtains of my living room and watch them. They patronize a cigarette stall, buying fags and guthkha, as well as a chai tapri a few feet away. As they finish drinking their tea, and roll tobacco on their palms with their thumbs and index fingers, the policemen look up again. Sometimes they talk to the others who hang out at the cigarette stall and the chai tapri. They glance up as they talk. I get the feeling they are asking these men if they know anything about me.

  The policemen arrive in the morning, when the workday begins, and leave in the evening, shortly before dark. They are not there at night. I thus go down to buy provisions and such only after sunset. The college where I teach is closed for the holidays, so I don’t have to leave the flat during the day. Even so, I move around stealthily, stopping every now and then to make sure the cops aren’t hiding behind the row of parked cars that line the street. The presence of the policemen has made me so paranoid that I have started having nightmares. I woke up screaming one night as I dreamed they were strangling me with fingers that were really talons. They laughed demonically as they throttled me, their claws buried in my flesh, my blood streaming down my neck to soil my white shirt. I rose from bed, switched on the table lamp, and glanced at my watch. It was four a.m. I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. So I went to the kitchen to fish out a cookie and make myself a cup of coffee. I then exercised for a bit. This is how I killed time till the newsboy rang my doorbell.

  My flat is situated in Mangaldas Mansion, a five-floor building off Colaba Causeway. The street, Pasta Lane, is notorious for the pimps and rouge-smeared call girls in miniskirts who frequent it after-hours. It is said that call girls own half the flats in Pasta Lane.

  If that’s the case, shouldn’t the policemen be keeping a watch on them rather than me?

  I inherited my Mangaldas Mansion flat from my parents who are both dead now. I certainly cannot afford a flat in Colaba at today’s prices, considering I’m only a lecturer by profession. I have often thought of selling my flat and going to live in distant Borivli or Virar, where the prices are cheap. That way I would be able to stash away cash for my old age. Though I’m in my forties, I’m single and live all alone. This is what terrifies me about the policemen downstairs. What if they come up in the middle of the night to put handcuffs on my wrists? Who will come to my rescue?

  Living alone does not mean that I don’t have casual visitors popping into my flat. They are usually disheveled strangers whom I meet in washrooms and bring home for sex. My neighbors and the watchmen of the building see these men come and go. They disapprove. But no one, in Pasta Lane of all places, has the guts to say anything to my face.

  The question that nags me, however, is what is it those cops want? Is being a homo a crime even if one’s in the rough trade? Or could it be that one of the men I brought home is a criminal? I never bother to check their backgrounds. How can I? Are people going to tell me that they are rapists or murderers? Several of the men display criminal tendencies by demanding money from me after we finish. I immediately open my wallet and pay them whatever they ask for (it has never exceeded a thousand rupees), because I’m scared shitless that if I don’t pay them they might simply refuse to leave my flat. The profile of the fellows I pick up makes this very likely. They are far beneath me in station, and in age, and earn much less than I do—if they have jobs, that is. By occupation, these men could be taxi drivers or car mechanics or carpenters, or just plain unemployed. The majority of them live in Mumbai’s slums and cha
wls, and haven’t made it to flats. In bed they are all penetrators who dislike the use of condoms. The mere suggestion that I would like to fuck them for a change instead of being sodomized, or that they should use a condom, can make them violent, as with a nhavi who once attacked me with his shaving razor. Ironically, this was the very razor with which he had shaved me in my bedroom just a few minutes earlier.

  “Gaand maro!” he’d yelled, as he took his money and slammed the door, locking me in. It was only after an hour or so had passed that I was able to call out to the watchman and ask him to unbolt my door.

  The policemen stare up at my flat again. They have now gone a step further, and point with their fingers and batons. A small crowd of spectators gathers around them, and they look up too.

  Who lives there? the policemen are probably asking the hangers-on, who know me because I have been living in Mangaldas Mansion since the day I was born. And the answer would be: Saab, wo bahut bada gaandu hai. Aapko chahiye kya?

  A thought crosses my mind. Should I take the elevator down and go confront those cops? Why are you keeping a watch on my flat? I’ll ask them. It’s me who lives there, and I am a respectable gentleman who teaches in a college. But then I dismiss the thought; it seems foolhardy to me, like walking into a lion’s den. The cops might whisk me away in their jeep to question me about my immoral lifestyle, as if Pasta Lane is the holiest place on earth.

  The phone rings. It’s one of my pickups, Sunil by name, who wants to know if I’m free tonight. “No,” I answer, though Sunil, who’s a waiter, really turns me on with his lewd ways. Like the others, he hates wearing a condom (which he generically calls “nirodh”), but his explanation is bizarre!

  “I want to show the world that I’m so virile that I can even make a man pregnant,” he says in Hindi while fucking me. “How can I do this if I wear a nirodh?”

  Sunil hangs up, disappointed. I’m unhappy too, but I don’t wish to take in lovers as long as those creepy cops continue to shadow me.

  This thing has been going on ever since Robert came to my flat last month. Robert is Steve’s long-haired, blue-eyed partner, and he is in Mumbai to teach English to destitute kids. Three months ago, Robert landed at the Mumbai harbor in a cargo ship, because he’s afraid of flying. The voyage, on an American vessel, lasted over a month, and when Robert finally set foot on Indian soil he was full of complaint. For one thing, his luggage had been pilfered. For another, he was mobbed by riffraff as soon as he stepped out of customs, and they pestered him for foreign liquor, cigarettes, and even jeans.

  I met Robert at Ballard Pier and drove him in my Santro to his rented digs at Byculla, where his school is located. It was his first trip to India, and he could do precious little to hide his discomfort. Mumbai, according to him, had everything in excess—people, heat, automobiles, stray dogs. Then why are you here? I wanted to ask him. This was never clear to me. All Steve had said in an e-mail was that Robert, who is thirty-three, had finished a certificate course in Englishlanguage teaching somewhere in New York, and wanted to put it to meaningful use by working in a third world country. But at what price? A week after he began classes, Robert was attacked by snarling street dogs and had to take a regimen of antirabies injections. Then, he hated Indian food, which he said was too spicy and gooey, and was perpetually on the lookout for McDonald’s and Subway-type restaurants where he could feast on french fries, burgers, and sandwiches to satisfy his cravings.

  “You are too much of an American to be happy in Mumbai,” I told Robert.

  Yet I was impressed by his commitment. All the more so when he told me how much the school paid him as a salary.

  “How do you manage on such a measly amount?” I asked.

  “Well, Steve and I have a joint account,” he replied. “I take some whenever I need more.”

  Robert may not even have got the job had it not been for a recommendation letter I wrote on Steve’s request to the Holy Cross School for Orphans.

  “They are not convinced by testimonials from foreigners,” Steve had said in a phone call from America. “They want an Indian to vouch for Robert’s abilities.”

  I wrote a glowing letter, although I knew next to nothing about Robert, and addressed it to the headmistress of the school, a matronly lady named Mrs. Bhattacharya. She got back to me right away to inquire what sort of visa Robert possessed.

  “A tourist visa,” I replied.

  “That suits us,” Mrs. Bhattacharya said.

  When Robert came over for tea to my Mangaldas Mansion flat wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, he had already been in Mumbai for three months and was beginning to get used to the tempo of the city.

  “The taxi driver tried to cheat me,” he grumbled, after settling down on the sofa and wiping beads of perspiration off his forehead. “Can you believe he tried to charge me five hundred bucks from Byculla to here?”

  “How’s school?” I asked, attempting to break the ice.

  “Great,” said Robert, his eyes brightening at the very mention of the word school. “The kids are sweet. They are quick to learn. It’s a pity they don’t have a single good teacher.” Robert paused before adding, “Indian children are just so, I don’t know … gracious. It’s a pleasure watching them.”

  Robert showed me photos of some of the kids on his mobile phone. They were malnourished adolescents who looked cheerful in his company.

  I went to the kitchen to make tea and serve the pastries and cookies I had bought from a trendy Colaba boulangerie. Steve had informed me about Robert’s sweet tooth.

  Robert took one pastry and one cookie, and asked me to wrap the rest in tissue paper for his students. I telephoned the bakery and ordered a whole cake for them. It was delivered within half an hour, my goodwill gesture pleasing Robert to no end.

  Then he surprised me by declaring he had plans to stay in Mumbai forever. “I’m in touch with an immigration lawyer Steve knows,” he explained.

  I wondered how Robert would cope with the myriad problems that characterize Mumbai life.

  As we chatted, I noticed that he had a tattoo on his upper left arm. At first I mistook for a swastika. However, on observing it closely I realized it was a set of horizontal and vertical lines that made for a stylish geometric design.

  “Does the tattoo signify anything special?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he answered. “It was one of the designs in the tattoo-maker’s book that I liked.” He added that he had chanced upon the tattoo shop in Bandra while exploring Mumbai in a BEST bus.

  Tattooing monopolized the conversation for the rest of the evening, till Robert got up to go. He pointed out that tattoos were expensive in America, so he was glad to have found a good shop here. Americans, he explained, are crazy about tattoos and sometimes cover their whole bodies.

  “I know,” I said. “I watch LA Ink, it’s one of my favorites.”

  “You’ve got to be white, though, for the tattoo to suit you,” Robert blabbered.

  I let that pass.

  Steve and I have known each other for ages. Steve loves Indians because he hates extremities of complexion, and Indians, according to him, are just right, neither too pale-skinned like the Europeans, nor too dark like the Africans.

  Steve was the first man I ever came out to, and it was because he’s white. Indians like myself are comfortable discussing our sexuality with the white man because he lives far away and is unlikely to out us. He is also without morals.

  Steve lives in upstate New York. We met when he was on a six-month fellowship in Mumbai to study Bollywood films. A common gay friend brought him to my college one afternoon. Although I was publicly closeted, what fascinated Steve, on the face of it, was that both of us were lecturers, though his subject was film studies and mine social anthropology.

  “I don’t know too many gay academics outside the West,” Steve told me when we met. “We are going to get on famously.”

  That night we went to Testosterone, a swanky gay bar behind the Taj, and got drunk. Steve told
me all about the gay subculture of America, and I told him a little about Mumbai gay life.

  “India is so much more exciting than America,” Steve said. “America is so sterile.”

  Then he asked me a question some would consider obscene: “Are you a size queen? Because I’m one.”

  “You bet!” I replied.

  We became buddies after that. Not lovers, because we simply weren’t each other’s sexual type. We trusted each other completely, and soon discovered we had other passions in common, such as our preference for working men. In queer politics parlance, we became “sisters.”

  Steve is over six feet tall, slightly bald, and ten years my senior. But he learned the art of pataoing from me, and claims he owes all his escapades with Mumbai’s masseurs, taxi drivers, and bellboys during his frequent sojourns here for conferences and film festivals, to my tutoring. I would tell him how to go about it and he would blindly obey. He became promiscuous, though fortunately he did not test positive when he took an HIV exam recently.

  Steve has been to Mumbai so many times that he regards it as his second home. He even speaks Hindi with flair.

  “You spend a bomb on hotels every time you come here,” I said to him one day. “How about we pool our resources and buy a house together?”

  My parents had just died in a blizzard at the Vaishnodevi shrine in the Himalayas, and I had inherited some of their savings. The rest of it, as per their will, was to be given away in charity. My inheritance was insufficient for me to be able to buy a house on my own.

  I expected Steve to be skeptical about the idea. Instead, he was jubilant. We thought of various possibilities, and zeroed in on a house in Panchgani, where we could retreat for the weekend.

  Mumbai was ruled out for three reasons: One, the ridiculous real estate prices. Two, Steve preferred the salubrious air of the hills over Mumbai’s humidity. And three, Steve could always park with me in my Mangaldas Mansion flat when he was in Mumbai. “My house is your house,” I had told him.