Bombay Blues

by Tanuja Desai Hidier

  It seemed there were so many more old people — at least in view — in India. A bolstering sensation, and I felt a small satisfied ache for Dadaji. But there were also so many more conspicuous very young: A small child in man’s striped shirt hanging well past his knees stood by, solemnly watching on. I clicked Karsh buying a cone of peanuts … and promptly handing it to this man-child who visibly brightened, then continued on his way.

  Onto the beach we marched, to find it was indeed more like the Juhu of memory, those strolls with my dear grandfather — though we no longer had to dodge snake charmers, loping camels, dancing monkeys.

  Dredged with debris: tiny scraps in rainbow hues partout, as if in the aftermath of a great celebration. Karsh stumbled along beside me, sipping a hotel Bisleri water and rubbing his head.

  —Are you sure you can do this? I asked him, concerned.

  —Might as well sweat it all out, he said, and nodded valiantly. —I want your photos ready in time for the show.

  Camera casing: a wigwag of palms. A long beach-length wall, lolling with beat-up bikes, all meshed in a rusty hue, Sai Baba and Ganesha images propped against it, as if holding it up. I turned and nearly walked into a man with a towel-draped shoulder, flogging a woven basket dizzy with pinwheels. Snap, clack: close-up of Karsh’s face, haloed by the spinning pink, green, vermilion.

  —Just keep wandering around, I instructed him. —I’ll get you in some shots, and some of just the beach as well.

  Wider angle: Arabian Sea to my left, more stands closer to the low-tide border. Stretches of stroller-, sitter-, vendor-mobbed beach interrupted by peeks of sand. Neon-shriek signs offered ragda patties, dahi puris, masala papadum. A pani puri stall, the one-crackling-gulp puffed breads exploding with chickpeas and mung. Translucent buckets of rainbow chutneys.

  Swastikas — which originated in India, denoting auspiciousness (though given their later evil co-option, my mother didn’t usually mention that one on her long list of credentials to the motherland) — decorated several of the stands. Images of the ubiquitous Sai Baba as well, like a spiritual Colonel Sanders, were splashed up beside butter chana masala & sandwich, cheese chana masala cheese sandwich.

  Were these the snacks my parents had fed each other back in the day — much like the wedding cake that bride and groom had offered each other the other night? (And how could I possibly be hungry again?)

  —Check that out, I mouthwatered to Karsh, nodding to the next vendor over. Roasted hobs of corn stuck into the crevices of a Coca-Cola carrier crate, the effulgence of the double hues — searing yellow, blazing red — dazzlingly setting off the unshucked cobs, the rusty pail beside them.

  Even rust looked beautiful here.

  No matter how wide my lens, I could feel Chica Tikka bursting at the binds, the blinks with all there was to take in.

  Coffeetea guys, mustaches, no beards, wrists threaded with temple-blessed bracelets. One man marching with a bamboo stick, a bandanna tied around it for standout power, wooden lutes and flutes for sale.

  Men leaning on Pepsi machines.

  Saried women parked upon blankets in the sand.

  Uneven-toothed kids with entrepreneurially bright and stunningly underfed faces, begging me to photograph them … then pitching me kajal, mehendi, the bindis stippling baskets balanced on their still nascent hips.

  Children carrying children.

  Another boy in Spider-Man tee manning a stall solo, table laden with pyramided paints, a big water bottle brimming with red liquid, wires: soap bubbles for sale, wands exhaling unhurried twists of iridescence to pop languorously over the Juhu sand.

  Just beyond, the rides these tiny workers were too busy to partake in: a colorful Ferris wheel a fraction of the height and diameter of the Jersey ones I was used to — perhaps a dozen feet, tops — its Popsicle-hued seats perfectly still in the sun. Then, a roofless carousel, its menagerie raised about a foot off an oxidized wheeled mount. The creatures looked made of unmelting soap, a waxy unevenness to their tone. A turquoise-trickled sheep, unridden. Unbidden. White swans with lipsticked beaks, one donning a top hat (wise in this heat).

  Shadows of gulls swept across the expanses of swan flesh. I figured I wouldn’t shoot Karsh by the rides; they somehow made him appear smaller, despite being so diminutive themselves. We were passing a sand-stuck lemon-lime cart, when I laid eyes upon the most beautiful vision of all: a candy floss vendor and his scratched blue stand, sewing-table size, occupied primarily by a woklike silver bowl and decked out in bagged caught-cumulus cotton candy on wooden sticks, stuck along the length of a pole nailed directly to it. I moved in closer. Bundles of bared stalks that looked like they’d been snapped straight off a tree stood at the ready to be witched into cloudy glory. Upon the table: a silver rod, matchbook, those omnipresent rags like burp cloths (but here more likely sweat absorbers). A yellow screwdriver.

  The man working the whole shebang was too cool for school: foot on pedal, cranking the contraption, one ear plugged with a headphone, wire disappearing into his pocket, other ear bare.

  Quietly immersed, immaculately shirted, a burlap bag on the ground by his feet. Lost in his task but attentive to his audience, he looked …

  Like a DJ!

  I gazed into the cauldron where he was working his visual and olfactory mix. A hazy planet: dark fuschia rimming the bowl where the floss had stuck. In its center, a genie-gold orb, spinning solid to air, grit and dust skewed to dream brume, an ephemeral auroreole pink mist.

  An ethereal turntable.

  I moved in for the catch, filling my frame with the foggy beauty of the cauldron. Though he appeared not to notice me, I knew the vendor was aware of my movements by the way he held still for the click. A pro.

  When I bent to pick up my camera bag, I caught my shadow pooling into his, and wondered at how different our lives were, here in a city we could both call home, in a sense. It was through photography that I could light our way, meld us together for a moment. I turned to share this with Karsh.

  But Karsh looked like his own inner-world peace was eluding him big-time, as he frantically wiped sweat from his forehead.

  —Thirsty? I asked him, worried. He was eyeing boxes of Bisleri mineral water at a nearby vendor, his own bottle empty.

  Violently, he shook his head.

  —They probably refill the bottles. We can’t be sure it’s safe.

  —How about tea or coffee, then? I attempted. —Or barring that, a spot of coffeetea?

  —How can people have so many hot drinks in this heat? Karsh moaned, pressing his head.

  —I don’t know. It didn’t seem to concern you back at the hotel.

  —It’s probably because you have to boil water before drinking it here. See? Even the locals know it’s not safe.

  —Should we head back?

  —No, I’m good. Just jet-lagged, I guess. Keep shooting, rani.

  —Okay. Last one.

  I squatted again, dropped Chica Tikka right between my knees, aimed at a nearby coffeetea stand and clicked.

  When I rose, my eyes met another camera, a spanking digital. Before me, its carrier stood in striped shirt, pageanting for me, for us, a photo album of Indian couples frolicking in the shoals of the nearby Arabian Sea. Lovers, or would-be lovers, always in the same pose: arms wrapped around waists, knee-deep in breaking waves, whitewashed jeans on the boys, salwar kameezes on the girls.

  —Picture, madame? the man queried, thumbing through the laminated pages. He halted on a photo where both boy and girl donned sunglasses, matching white belts, and jeans. This boy wore short sleeves, unlike most of the others pictured — an NRI?

  It was getting harder to tell them apart. Us apart.

  For a moment, I thought he was trying to sell us this shot — then caught his drift. I tapped my camera(s). He tapped his. I shook my head.

  But then I realized, my head shake going side to side, that he had a point: We with the cameras were hardly ever in the pictures. In fact, we were his target demogra
phic.

  I glanced to the waters of Juhu Beach, in which no couples cuddled, though there seemed to be a few walking with wedded hands. I wondered if the album duos were Photoshopped into the waves.

  Did Deepak and Sangita come here for evening promenades? My parents had; I tried to picture them now. Perhaps this could be part of their anniversary present? A saried city girl and the shy village boy courting her … incarnating a generation later into a Patti Smith–tee donning American desi and her via-UK DJ boyfriend.

  I turned to Karsh, my cheesy grin already unironically in place.

  —Come on, Duggibug! For the hell of it …

  He tracked my seaview.

  —I don’t know, Dimple. I doubt the water’s very clean — can’t you get gangrene or something from that? Can we just finish my shoot? I may need to head back and lie down after.

  I nodded, and shrugged apologetically to my co-shutterbug.

  We headed hotelward, passing a row of stands selling squared strips of supari. Hypnotic in their foiled light, they draped the stall openings like glitzy prophylactic curtains.

  —Condoms! I laughed, pointing them out to Karsh. But he just shook his head.

  —Is that all you ever think about? he sighed.

  We worked our way up the beach.

  —No seashells, I commented to Karsh, traipsing along behind me.

  —My father gave me one when I was little, he said, suddenly reviving a touch. —A huge pink conch, a shankha shell. I think we found it together. It’d always been by the record player when I was growing up, and yet somehow I’d stopped noticing it. But then, years later — the first time my mom and I left him — he handed it to me, said to keep it by my side. He told me to put my ear to it, and the ocean inside would carry me back to him, and I’d be able to hear him as well in that sea sound….

  He caught up to me.

  —Mom and I left him many times. His gambling, drinking … We were enabling him, she said. And each time we left, he gave me that shell … and each time we returned, I brought it back to him. But that last time I saw him — we were going to the US for good. I didn’t take it, because I promised I’d be back, and he seemed glad. He said he’d hold it to his ear when he missed me so he could listen to what I was listening to … until that shared song would lead us to the same space again.

  —Wow. Like a gramophone shell, I said, moved. —You know, one of those old Victrolas? Who knows? Maybe that’s why you’re a DJ.

  —Who knows. It wasn’t the ocean in that shell, I guess, because I never saw him again. It’s just pink noise.

  Pink noise. Karsh had explained that to me once: flicker noise, where every octave has the same noise power, turning up as pink light in the power spectrum.

  —Well, that’s not nothing. I’m sure he kept an ear on you.

  I lowered my camera; he looked too lost in a private moment for me to invade with a click. I immediately forgave his hypochondria, those slights at the top of the beach. It couldn’t be easy returning to India with no father for the first time.

  —My Dadaji always told me to look to the moon when I missed him, and realize, truly realize, we were seeing the same one.

  —I remember. I wish I’d gotten to meet him.

  —It’s funny, Karsh. You never told me about the shell.

  —Incredibly, I forgot. Or blocked it. Until now, walking here. Or maybe it was the color of that cotton candy?

  He squinted out to sea.

  —It’s strange being back here without them, isn’t it? he said finally. I nodded, said nothing. Karsh looked a little woozy and I took his hand. Our footprints blundered into each other.

  I wondered how long Manali stayed in the system as I was having a very high-altitude Himalayan experience of this Bombay beach. I could feel Dadaji’s and even Karsh’s father’s phantom steps beside us. I could feel each grain of sand slipping between my toes, even the flecks that slunk undernail, the slather of sun sinking right to bone — the way the light was quavering, liquelancing the landscape. I felt I could go for miles, and was trying to beam some of that energy towards Karsh, when he said:

  —Dimple, I’m not feeling so good….

  I glanced over just as he stumbled in the sand. Beads of sweat glistened at his hairline, and his eyes had a vague fuzzy look.

  —Dugbug. What is it?

  —I think it’s the heat. And I’m starving. Do you mind if we get off the beach to walk back?

  —Or the hangover. Sure.

  A slew of pint-size gods painted on rock face. We turned right, onto a sidestreet. Palms fronded overhead, creating a shadowy path out to what was surely the blare and buzz of Juhu Tara Road. From the corner of my eye, a lion seemed to be levitating midair: a sculpted heavy-breath heave off a residential building.

  The road nearly ended in a brick wall with a massive edifice behind it, a few kinetic, chaotic feet of street to adventure across to get there. It rang a bell. Literally.

  —Ah! This must be the Hare Krishna place, I said to Karsh, that toll tale espousally high in volume as we neared. —I came here with my dad a few years ago. They have really yum cheap food. And fans, most likely. Sound good?

  Karsh nodded with effort. We crossed with effort as well, but by now I was too weary to emit my usual scream.

  On the brick wall, like spiritual graffiti, the words to the mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

  As we passed through the entryway, the sound of clapping, percussions, grew louder as if announcing our arrival — then a gust of space, and the temple pavilion spilled out before us. Something in me relaxed.

  To our left a metal detector guy nodded us over. Then we were gestured right, to a stall of footwear-filled cubbyholes. We left our shoes behind, passed the pavilion’s footwash pool.

  Up the curved steps of the multiply arched turrety-topped temple, the music swelled. Being barefoot on the marble felt fantastic — like dipping your feet in the shallows. We glanced at each other; Karsh appeared slightly enlivened. Despite the fact nothing so wild was happening, I giggled conspiratorially as we slipped inside.

  Karsh nodded upwards. Where I’d expected roofing, a false ceiling: unhindered air above us, stunningly and oddly sienna with grey-blue undertones. A breezy petal-strewn courtyard.

  Further inside, and up a few steps to the right: the inner sanctum, where a whole load of sonic and dancerly funk was going on.

  —Holy shit, Karsh breathed. I nodded, my eyes filling to the lash tips with people: loosely in lines crossing the entire space, swaying arms raised, some clapping, facing forward, as if at a James Taylor gig during “You’ve Got a Friend,” when everyone bonds for four minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

  A small blue-curtained mandir-within-the-mandir here in the back. In it, hands folded on lap, a cross-legged, white-bindied, brown-skinned man, rooted in the most focused of meditations. He wasn’t real, but the garlands of marigolds around his neck were. Karsh edged in to smell them, sighing contentedly.

  Everyone had their backs to this mini mandir. I dragged Karsh farther in. Some of this everyone cast glances at us, but not looking like they minded so much. Above now, a chandeliered ceiling; a balcony ran the periphery of the next floor up, quotes scrolled along its top. Here below, arches bordered nooks to sculpted three-dimensioned paintings of scenes from Krishna’s life, like the glass-plated one we’d just passed, depicting throngs dancing beneath a leafy tree.

  We could see now, latticed off at the room’s front, threefold alcoves, like separate stage sets upon the diamond-pattern floor.

  We could also see what everyone was staring at: To the side of each alcove was a saffron-robed smooth-headed monk, neck holy-threaded, arms dolloped with white paste, perhaps ash. These temple triplets were moving in no-sneak-peek sync. And like twins, just as my gaze fell upon the curving crescenting object in each priest’s grip, Karsh and I whispered the words, eyes widening:

  —Conch shells.
>
  It was a sign! Of what, I had no idea, but it seemed a positive portent. The trio tilted big-band heads back and blew with brio through their shankhas, their over-one-shoulder robes bunching up like angels’ wings. The honk of the shells was startlingly resonant, primordial, as if an utterance from the belly of a great, famished beast.

  —Come on, Karsh! I said. —Let’s hit the front row!

  —I’m good here. You go on, Dimple, Karsh replied. He looked weirdly entranced. Or very hungover. I figured I’d nab him some great shankha shots and left him there, weaving my way to the front.

  The priests were tipping water from tiny pitchers through the shells, shaking them clean. They then took hold of the deep-blue curtains over the alcoves, the crowd’s anticipation palpable as they pealed them away to reveal a shock of tripled light … and the vision they’d all been waiting for:

  Up the alcove steps, three gold-topped mandirs containing … statues.

  No fire-eating gymnasts, snake charmers, stilt walkers. Not that I was expecting them. But the crowd’s rapture at the sight of these immobile god and guru figures was astonishing. And contagious.

  I couldn’t wipe grin — or camera — off my face. The monks now faced the statues, swirling incense sticks around as if casting a spell.

  Back glance: The crowd amped its arms-up sway. I zoomed into the mandirs. No Lotto tickets to be found here, but a plethora of other items: flute-fiddling Krishnas before turquoise backdrops, Krishna and Radha pairs, encircled by gopis — those milkmaid cowgirl devotees of the makhan-pilfering god. Double Krishnas raising arms in a frozen mirror image of the dancing crowds before them.

  The statues smiled sweetly, childlike. But where was the famed blue skin of this flautist god? These Krishnas were porcelain white, almost Kabuki with their heavily outlined features and sanguine grins.

  Before them, like treasure washed ashore: an aaray of seashells, golden vessels. On smaller pedestals, miniature versions of the same gods and, in the case of the human guru statues I now noted (one even bespectacled; the idea of perfection here generous enough to include astigmatism) garlanded photos, it appeared, of the same men. My father had explained this to me last trip: The larger statues were too big to bathe daily for darshan, so these miniature ones were used to represent them for this cleansing.