Mumbai Noir

by Altaf Tyrewala

  This is how Steve and I came to own the Panchgani cottage, employing a battalion of lawyers to overcome obstacles that prevent foreigners from purchasing real estate in India. One key to the house is with Steve, the other is with me, and we drive down whenever he is in town. At other times, the house is kept locked.

  After a series of hits and misses with Indian boyfriends from Orissa, from Goa, from Rajasthan, all migrants to the City of Dreams, Steve finally hooked up with Robert in America. For a while, Robert was merely Steve’s tenant who inhabited the upstairs rooms of his two-floor house in New York. Then they fell in love.

  Robert began accompanying Steve on academic jaunts, though he wasn’t college-educated himself. At such gigs, it wasn’t uncommon for old-fashioned dons to inquire if they were father and son! Eventually, Steve married Robert in Massachusetts, not because they saw eye to eye with the pro–gay marriage lobby, which was active, but because it enabled Robert to get a fee waiver to complete his graduation.

  “Are Robert’s folks okay with this?” I asked Steve. I knew for certain that his own sister had a problem with Robert.

  “Robert doesn’t have parents,” Steve explained. “He only has an old granddad who lives somewhere on the West Coast.”

  Steve made Robert the heir to his estate, which included his bank balance and his house. I thought this was going a bit far, but I never said so to Steve. Yaars though we were, we never got in each other’s way. Besides, Steve could always turn around and allege it was a case of sour grapes: I couldn’t see him in a committed relationship because I had never managed to be in one myself. None of my sexual encounters had blossomed into anything permanent, where I had someone to care for me when I was sick, or perform my last rites when I kicked the bucket.

  Steve bemoaned the fact that Robert wouldn’t travel with him to Mumbai for the honeymoon of their lives, because India was halfway across the world and the only way to get there was by plane. Once Robert was supposed to follow Steve to Mumbai on an Air India flight from New York. Steve and I went to Sahar Airport on the night of Robert’s scheduled arrival, but he was nowhere in sight. Robert telephoned later to say that he had boarded the aircraft all right, but developed cold feet just before takeoff, and insisted that he be off-loaded. The airline thought he was a terrorist and handed him to the police, who released him with a warning.

  “Daft!” I said to Steve, whose reply was that Robert was his honey and honeys had a right to be daft.

  When Steve returned to the States, Robert promised that he would go with him to India some day, but it would be on a ship. There were no passenger liners to India anymore, though apparently there were merchant navy vessels that allowed civilians to sail with them, provided they paid for their passage and helped with chores on board. All one had to do was go online and check out their schedules.

  Robert kept his word. But he’s in Mumbai alone now, not with Steve, teaching in the school. Last month, he was at my house for tea. And today policemen stand below and point up at my place. Who can say if the two things are related?

  Late in the evening, the policemen ring my doorbell. Accompanying two of the constables who watched my flat is a highranking officer who introduces himself as Inspector D’Souza. He is such a maverick, graying at the temples, not enslaved by bureaucracy and red tape, that at one stroke he alters my impression of policemen forever. He also knows English.

  “Excuse me,” he says in a clipped accent, “are you Mr. Lal?”

  “Y-yes,” I stammer.

  “Be at ease,” he says. “We’re here to ask you a few questions about Mr. Robert Miller.”

  I was right: their trailing me does in fact have to do with Robert.

  I invite the policemen inside, serve them water, and tell them whatever I know about Robert, which does not amount to much.

  “Did you write a testimonial in his favor, addressed to Mrs. Bhattacharya of Holy Cross School?” asks the inspector.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us. We will release you soon.”

  The word release sends a shiver down my backbone. Does it mean they’re going to arrest me?

  Sensing my reluctance, Inspector D’Souza tries to calm my nerves: “No harm will come to you. You can take my word for it.”

  “Okay.” I shrug my shoulders, afraid that if I resist the policemen may use force. I lock the flat and follow them down in the elevator. It makes funny noises and I wonder if we’re going to get stuck.

  We get into a waiting Qualis with a blue beacon light on its roof. The neighbors are at their windows watching us. I expect to be taken to the police station, but soon discover that we are headed to the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, out of the city. I panic. It is dark by now.

  “Where are we going?” I ask Inspector D’Souza.

  “You’ll know soon,” he answers.

  It isn’t long before I realize that we are on the road to Panchgani. We stop once for tea and snacks—the policemen offer me whatever they eat, but I politely decline.

  After a six-hour drive, during which Inspector D’Souza works on his laptop, we’re at Panchgani before dawn.

  “We’re going to the house that you and Mr. Steve Anderson jointly own,” he informs me.

  “I figured that out long ago,” I reply. I wonder how he’s already managed to discover so much about me.

  The Qualis negotiates the serpentine roads with ease. The sun is about to rise and the views of the valley below are breathtaking. Mist hangs in the nippy air and the flowers are in full bloom. Inspector D’Souza hums a film song.

  Dil dhoondta hai

  Phir wohi

  Fursat ke raat din

  The driver asks the inspector for directions to the house. The inspector in turn looks at me; I show them the way.

  When we reach the house and get out of the car, I’m shocked. The lock on the front door is open, but the door is bolted from inside. Steve never comes to Panchgani, or to Mumbai for that matter, without letting me know in advance.

  At this stage, I notice something uncanny. A figure has been drawn on the door. I scratch my head trying to recall where I’ve seen it. Then I get it: it’s the tattoo I’d seen on Robert’s upper arm. This meant Robert was inside. Steve must have given him his key. But why didn’t they keep me in the loop?

  Inspector D’Souza knocks on the door but no one answers. He knocks again, then again, and finally thumps on the door with his fists.

  Still no answer. As the inspector contemplates breaking down the door, we hear the latch click from within and the door opens. Robert steps out groggily, and closes the door behind him. He’s dressed only in Bermudas, the kind sold on Goa’s beaches, with bright red flowers on a yellow background.

  “Yes?” he says to Inspector D’Souza, pursing his lips.

  The inspector does not think it necessary to give Robert explanations. He pushes him aside and enters the house with his men. I stupidly follow. After all, I’m a joint owner of the property. Robert is dumbstruck.

  We head to the room upstairs and find foam mattresses laid out on the floor. Six boys, aged around twelve, are asleep on the mattresses. Inspector D’Souza yanks the blankets off their faces. They open their eyes and frown. Like Robert, they are all bare-chested and in Bermudas. They appear to be the same boys whose pictures I saw on Robert’s mobile. Some of them sit up in bed, and I see something that makes me queasy: they have the same tattoo as Robert on their upper left arms.

  Robert has joined us upstairs. Inspector D’Souza turns around to face him.

  “My students,” Robert explains. “We often come here from Mumbai for the weekend.”

  Everyone is asked to pack up and get ready to leave. One of the boys starts crying at the sight of the policemen. Robert protests, but Inspector D’Souza silences him: “Shut up! Tell us whatever you want in Mumbai. And give me your passport …”

  One of the two havaldars is made to wait with Robert and the boys for the van that will arrive to take them b
ack to Mumbai, because the Qualis cannot accommodate all of us. The other havaldar, Inspector D’Souza, and I sit in the Qualis. Inspector D’Souza collects the keys to the house from Robert and puts them in his pocket. We drive off, the inspector and I seated in the back.

  “You’re educated,” he says to me after a while, as we descend the ghats. I am distracted by Panchgani’s famed paragliders floating in the air without a care, like mammoth birds. “I don’t have to tell you the word for Robert’s crime.”

  He then confirms my worst fears, giving me gooseflesh.

  “Since the house is partly in your name, and its coowner is Robert’s partner, you become a sort of accomplice. So we will have to arrest you. I’ll make sure, though, it’s a bailable warrant.”

  I feel betrayed. How could Steve do this to me? It’s possible that he was in the dark as well. But then how did Robert manage to lay his hands on Steve’s door key? In order not to worry myself sick, I doze off for most part of the ride home. Still, I’m a nervous wreck. The world will see me as an abettor of Robert’s doings. My shady sexual life will be exposed. I too might be regarded as a pedophile, and lynched.

  Back in Mumbai, I spend three days in the Colaba police station lockup, sharing cell space with the city’s taporees: dons, bootleggers, thugs. They know I’m a novice in the world of crime and treat me like a bachha. But Inspector D’Souza keeps his word and I’m released on bail.

  I desperately try to call Steve in America, but only reach his answering machine.

  A week later Inspector D’Souza drops in to return our Panchgani keys. He’s dressed casually in jeans and a paunch-revealing T-shirt. Though I’m depressed and on tranquilizers, I open a bottle of Royal Challenge and we talk. He’s actually here to give me dope.

  “It was one of your neighbors in Panchgani,” he begins, “who blew Robert’s cover.”

  Apparently, this short-haired Parsi lady whom I’ve never met saw Robert visiting the house with the kids every Saturday and roaming about scantily clad. She grew suspicious— she’s a teacher in one of Panchgani’s residential schools.

  “We contacted Mrs. Bhattacharya,” Inspector D’Souza continues, “and she informed us that though they had wanted Robert to teach junior college, he had insisted on teaching seventh-grade kids. He grew very popular with them, and took them out on overnight jaunts without the school’s knowledge.”

  “But did he actually have sex with them?” I ask.

  “I can’t say,” Inspector D’Souza replies. “Sex, of course, isn’t just intercourse. When it comes to minors, a bad touch is enough to render a person guilty. And going by what your Panchgani neighbor said, Robert seems to be quite an exhibitionist. The kids were totally noncommittal when we asked them what went on.”

  The police officer then proceeds to tell me something very odd. The boys, it seems, nicknamed Robert “Michael Jackson.” And he, in turn, began to call our Panchgani place “Neverland.” He gave them electronic toys and chocolates.

  “Why do you think Robert came to Mumbai in the first place?” Inspector D’Souza asks me, as I pour our second drink.

  “To teach English.”

  “No. Robert came to Mumbai to preempt arrest in America.

  It was a well-planned move because he was sure the American authorities would someday get him.”

  He tells me a story, the long and short of which is that Robert belongs to a banned organization called MANLAB that advocates intergenerational sex and child pornography, which are looked upon with great disfavor in the States. By contrast, he thought of India as a country that turned a blind eye to such crimes.

  “Why, otherwise, would a man go through the ordeal of spending more than a month on a cargo ship before ending up in a strange city where he hates the people, the food, the weather, and is mauled by stray dogs?”

  Inspector D’Souza’s reasoning, I must confess, makes sense to me. But there’s more to come.

  “That sign that you saw on your front door, also tattooed on the arms of Robert and his boys—what do you think it is?”

  “No idea,” I say. “I was intrigued by it and thought of it as some kind of emblem. At first I mistook it for a Nazi swastika.”

  “Well, it’s none of these things,” Inspector D’Souza laughs. “It is the letters TZP. And Robert got it tattooed on his arm, and on the arms of the boys he took to Panchgani, at a famous tattoo shop in Bandra. His aim was to brand as many boys as possible. He wanted to beat the record of a notorious Indonesian pedophile, a toy salesman the same age as he, whose tally is ninety-six boys. When we searched Robert’s apartment in Byculla, we found a brand-new Handycam there. I suspect he wanted to use it to film the boys for a child porn ring.”

  “What do the letters refer to?” I ask.

  “Taare Zameen Par. I guess you’ve seen the film, in which Aamir Khan plays a schoolteacher who’s different. In the notes we found in his desk, Robert describes the film as a pederast’s delight.”

  This is disgusting. Proof of the fact that firangs are sick. They see sex even where it does not exist. The pitiable dyslexic kid in the film isn’t spared either.

  “Where is Robert now?” I ask Inspector D’Souza.

  “He will soon be deported,” he says, lighting a cigarette. “In any case, his visa expires shortly, and will not be renewed. He may attempt to sneak into countries like Sri Lanka or Thailand.”

  “And me? Do you think I’ll be in trouble?”

  “Just pray that the Panchgani lady doesn’t take the matter to court, holding both the school and the owners of the house guilty. I believe she has clout.”

  “The bitch!”

  Inspector D’Souza pauses. He gets up and heads to the bathroom. Over two hours have passed since he arrived.

  “A bit of friendly advice,” he says when he returns, fiddling with his fly. There’s a dark spot of urine on his jeans. “Sell the Panchgani house and break off with Steve.”

  I move to the window. Pasta Lane bustles at night. There are roadside stalls selling pav bhaji, egg burji, and masala dosas. An open trash can lies near the stalls, where a fight has broken out among dogs for the leftovers. On closer scrutiny, I find that the dogs aren’t quarreling over food, but over the lone bitch whom all the males want to fuck. The lucky one, who’s entwined with her, gets it from the others who try their best to disengage them.

  I walk back to the sofa, where Inspector D’Souza is on his sixth peg. When he pats the sofa and asks me to sit next to him, I oblige. He hovers his hand over my crotch.

  “Even I can be gay,” he says, and bursts out laughing. It’s a laughter that does not cease until late in the night, when he passes out on the sofa.

  PAKEEZAH

  BY AVTAR SINGH

  Apollo Bunder

  Imagine if you will, said the drunk across the table: two men at the seawall. The one down there, he gestured.

  They sat by the edge of the terrace, the drunk and his interlocutor, under the last bit of tent that wept and billowed under the weight of the evening wind and the rain up on the roof of the old hotel. They could both see the road four stories below and the pavement across it bounded by the wall, the crashing sea beyond that. Boats in their monsoon rigs wallowed miserably in the harbor. Mumbai’s last horse-driven carriages rolled by on the street, ferrying tourists ignorant of the terminal condition of their rides.

  The clouded gunmetal sky loomed closer and closer to them and then it was night. Cars swept past the building, their lights picking halos out of the rain, ephemeral angels surprised mid-errand in the city by the sea.

  Can you see them? said the drunk.

  The other man raised his eyebrows. Those two? he said, pointing to a table over in the corner, where two men such as themselves huddled against the wind and the spray over their glasses, hard by the wall of the terrace.

  Well, allowed the drunk, men like them. Down there. By the wall. Next to the Radio Club.

  The listener looked through the rain at the slick patch of pavement
the drunk had indicated, where the road from the Taj ran into the perpendicular length of Arthur Bunder. Tourists and touts carried out their ragged commerce as the last horses of that strand discharged their bowels and bladders around them, and no, he didn’t see any two men in particular, but he saw men aplenty and so he nodded his head.

  You see them? asked the drunk again.

  Sure, said the tourist.

  Then you’re a fucking liar, because the story I’m telling you is fifteen years old. You still want to hear it?

  Sure, repeated the other man equably, as one will when a stranger buying your drinks starts to get obstreperous.

  Okay. Then listen, said the drunk.

  This young man. Call him Ravi. He came to town to work at one of the many things that people came to Mumbai to do, back then and now. Was he a banker, a consultant, a shipping agent, a realtor? One doesn’t know. Back then, this was what distinguished Mumbai from India, that other country across the bay. Nobody asked you what you did. It was enough that you were young and fun and a good guy to have a drink with and perhaps play a game or two of squash against. There was enough room at the bar of the Bombay Gymkhana for all sorts of itinerants and wanderers and young fools and some of them are still there, hair gray or gone and squash a distant memory, but they’re still good value when the booze is flowing.

  Nobody cares who you are, said the drunk, boozily reflective. That was this city’s myth. It still is.

  You don’t believe it? said the tourist.

  The drunk continued, as drunks will, as if he hadn’t heard.

  Ravi was clearly a child of privilege and evidently hadn’t seen twenty-five. He spoke with the right accent, lived in South Mumbai in a flat with a view of the sea, and owned the only key to the door. He was athletic and clean-cut and had a nice smile and a car and inevitably found his way to the right parties. It was a world before the ubiquity of the Internet and there were hardly any cell phones and cable TV was still new enough to be remarkable. People called each other at home or the office and told each other what was happening around the bar. He liked his little set, which was in reality rather a big set, and he enjoyed the smiles and the easy laughter and the small joys and subterfuges of lives lived in cozy incestuous bubbles.