Bombay Blues

by Tanuja Desai Hidier

  By this entry: Akasha’s box, which she now gathered into her arms, disappearing off to the temple side …

  Revealing, on the pavilion: two pairs of checkered Vans.

  No one seemed to see but me. We stepped in, which, save for the few degrees drop, was sort of still out, given all the open arches here. Even a sprightly tree grew up through the roof, rooted in a tiny temple within the temple.

  Still, not a soul, save the sleeping priest. Where were they? A bell hung from high ceiling; a couple of speakers lodged in the rafters. Durga’s digs were a small step down into a chandeliered alcove: This Gaondevi reminded me of the Koliwada Durga, of Mumba, in her sheer volume of color. The deity’s body was just insinuated by a blare of coruscating cloth draped around the main feature at hand: her bijou-bindied, crimson-lipped, crowned goddesshead.

  Her implied chest burgeoned with flowers, perhaps from the same downhill phoolwallah. Before her, a table laden with coconuts, sacred threads, dishes of kumkum powder, a smatter of rice grains — and those Styrofoamy sweets (thermocol; pang).

  We de-chappaled, wiped our feet on a red mat at the threshold, then entered. My mother and aunt quietly added their baskets to the table, bent their heads in prayer.

  I bent mine to Chica Tikka.

  I wish you were here, Dadaji, I thought to myself. I know you are here. Before me. Beside me. I will find you.

  As usual, I had trouble keeping my eyes closed. As always, it was joint family living in this Hindu shrine: Behind this central goddess, a Panthera-piggybacking Durga giddyupped to the right, a Ganesha to the left, both on raised platforms.

  To the side, a cupboard with elaborate latch bulged with bolts of mirrored fabric, wires, more speakers. As if on cue, now: music. And here, just risen, the DJ: the familiar-looking priest, tending to the goddess now. He set our coconut before her, refreshed her garland with our own. Finally, bridally ringing bells through the temple, our prayers relayed, he offered us prasad.

  As he bequeathed me the blessed sugar cubes, I saw that he looked just like Dadaji. It was startlingly … the most natural thing in the world. A white fuzz of hair haloed his otherwise bald head. Saffron pants; rudraksha’d neck. From his plain white short-sleeved shirt, his dark arms flowed, wrists riddled with threads. A stroke of scarlet ash between his brows, which were now rising over his intent amber eyes in what I deemed recognition.

  Sankalp again: Wish you were here.

  You Are Here.

  The priest nodded to my camera, stood very still. I gathered him into my lens and clicked — an incredibly whole front-and-side circular sensation of Dadaji conjured up beside and before me, on both sides of the lens this time.

  As we exited the Durgamata temple within the temple, we passed that other shrine within the shrine: the mini monkey-god mandir from whose roof rose that sprawling tree — jutting into the space that must have led to one of the temple turrets.

  Upon a ledge by a low-slung branch: a vial of rosewater. And before the mini mandir, bordered on either side by orange and pink donation boxes, two offerings had been made: baskets just like our own, petals alert, fragrance ticklish.

  I had more than an inkling of who they came from … yet still, no sight of the pair. Inside the alcove, Hanuman perched, by his feet a lick of ghee, scat of blooms, little lamp burning. Also before him, lest his appetite kick in, a bit of roti, steel cup of water.

  —Normally, only men do the Hanuman pooja, my aunt informed me now as I squatted to photograph the shrine.

  —Why is that?

  —Because Hanuman is celibate: brahmachari, she explained. Then, lowering her voice, —Temptation.

  —How did he resist Sita, then? I asked, not lowering mine. Hanuman had offered to liberate her, Ram’s wife — fly her out of the Garden of Ashoka in the Ramayana (rather more benevolent than Oz’s Dorothy-abducting flying monkeys).

  —Dimple! Do not speak of Hanuman that way! my aunt chastised.

  —Do not speak of Sita that way! my mother added.

  It occurred to me the offerings to this Hanuman had surely been the seditious idea of a certain bespectacled NYU Gender Studies post-colonialist (g)angster.

  By the tree: a woklike wish-making wick-dish, agarbathi ashing down its blessings.

  —We should wish for something, too, I proposed. And this time, I had a simple and pertinent one to make. Sangita produced a lighter from her bag.

  —Why are you having a lighter in your bag? my aunt asked, eyes narrowing.

  —Power cuts? Sangita suggested. She lit the tallest stick of incense, a swirl of mogra smoke circling upwards.

  As we made our way towards that arched slice of blue sky at the temple’s back, I intentioned my wish: that what we were about to witness would be accepted — blessed — by all in good faith.

  Once my sankalp had been sent, I stepped out from behind the pillar. Outside, I saw a little stone house, possibly that of the priest. A caretaker’s cottage.

  I also saw two figures, luminous in the midday sun. The bearers of the Vans deposited at temple entry … but here, uncheckered, feet bare.

  By the edge of the world when the world was flat, just at the rim of the stark drop down Gilbert Hill’s jigjagging face: Kavita and Sabz shimmered through a slow dreamlike dance. They were circling a patch of grass, eyes fixed on each other, Sabz moving backwards with surprising precision. With each step, they held still a moment, hands clasped together, unheard words exchanged through lips curving up in matching smiles. An unhurried waltz with slight pauses, ringing around a wowza of wildflowers … and when that circle had been completed, it was repeated — in the other direction. No follower; no leader. Or both. Both.

  A slow exhalation upon my shoulder, someone drawing up: Sangita, then my mother. In the relative silence, Akasha’s voice rose, engaged in prattling chatter somewhere beyond the perimeter. But we three stood silently, watching the two engage in their sacred-secular-sexular spindling revolution.

  I knew they’d been looking for some way to avow their love, if only for each other. And here, freestanding, now landing on this national monument and heritage site, sixty-five million years in the making, one hundred sixty-five steps in the sky (as counted by Akasha) — they’d found the place to promise their love would grow old, renew as well.

  A sharp inhale. I turned to find Meera Maasi behind me, breathless, brows stunned … but eyes recognizing something.

  —It’s the one hundred sixty-five steps, I whispered gently, referring to her huff-puffing. But my aunt shook her head, eyes never leaving her daughter and Sabz.

  —Seven, she whispered back. —It’s the seven steps.

  Seven steps. Heptasteps. Seven islands connected through zero after zero, summoning infinities through this threading dance. And then, at last, a stillstand, though their eyes tangoed on, tripped the light fantastic.

  —What happened to those little girls? my aunt sighed now. My mother touched her shoulder.

  —Nothing happened. They just got a little bigger. And we have to hold our arms wider to fit them now. That’s all.

  To encircle, if not contain. Sabz and Kavita, hands still linked, fingers so entwined as to unite the split celestite into unbroken sky, glanced over, discovered their audience.

  I expected my aunt to lunge forth, break this union — or at least interrupt it. But now my maasi took the eighth step — perhaps the bravest of all: She stepped towards them. Kavita and Sabz stood very still, as if to not wake from this dream, pierce the veil. When my aunt reached the two, an arm fell around Kavita’s shoulder. Tentatively, the other hovered, poised to handshake Sabz.

  And Sabz grabbed this hand, wrapped it around her own waist, and drew Maasi close between the two of them.

  I watched the three, backs now to us, gazing over the drop of Gilbert Hill.

  Sangita and my mother and I were standing in mirror formation, my mom between us.

  —It always felt strange, the idea of having a wedding without Dadaji’s presence, Sangita said no
w. —Which is why we’d chosen this day. And how perfect to be here …

  —His favorite place in Bombay, my mother concurred, stirred. Sangita squeezed her hand, and smiled.

  —Though it never occurred to me to suggest this venue to Deepak’s family!

  —Some unions you can’t pay off an astrologer, or count on an algorithm, to bless, I added, realizing now that Sangita probably hadn’t done either, had most likely chosen this perhaps-at-first-truth-turned-to-fiction date herself.

  For some unions, you had to read your own stars. Or write them.

  Akasha appeared and unswathed the cage she’d so painstakingly brought up here, then unlatched the little grilled door. The sparrow perched very still for a moment, eyes darting into ours, as if verifying we were for real. Then Zep briskly yet assiduously examined the opening, and took a tiny clawed step onto Akasha’s fingers. Akasha rose, gently cupping this chidiya, this chaklee, in her hands.

  —Time to let go! she asserted, just barely restraining great emotion. The only other audible sound was an overhead jet, astonishingly visible — windows even — from this vantage point. Coming or going, I wasn’t sure. I felt a fleeting tightness in my chest; I’d soon be on one as well. I followed the jet’s now ever ascending path until it was swallowed up by an improbably cloudless sky.

  Despite the drone, I was certain I could just make out Zep’s sweet song warbling his own assent, a flutter of a harmony from so many miles below.

  And then I realized what it was — that element of difference I couldn’t quite put a finger on, what I was seeing for the very first time during this monumental and microscopic trip to Bombay.

  Headstandup there: the sea above the clouds, the smog, the crowds. Above me, all around we. A first-time searing, soaring, however illusory, hue.

  A true blue sky.

  Into which, leaping off the edge of the world, now flew a little winged thing, in fine feather enough for his freedom at last. I’d feared the chaklee would fall when Akasha uncupped her hands and with a whispered kiss released him. But of course, for the free ones — the winged ones (often, the ones who winged it): The only way was up.

  My aunt, with Sabz and Kavita, walked towards us now, a twist on a father giving away a bride. Instead, here was a mother embracing two daughters — an old and a new.

  —Well, she said now, trying a smile, —I suppose, why waste an auspicious day for a union?

  —I now pronounce us … us, I declared.

  And then we were all there, together watching this little bird’s flight. Zepploo dipped and swooped, became a dancing brown speck in the distance, then followed a color all the way through, consumed by pure blue — or perhaps, ethereeling, drank the very sky into his being.

  —We love you, Zeppelin! Akasha cried, waving out into the world.

  I turned to her, breaking out of my reverie.

  —Zeppelin? As in —?

  She grinned. —Of course. “Stairway to Heaven.” Finest rock band in history.

  We were an unlikely un-unwedding party on our way down. Which, it turned out, was far more challenging than the going up, as gravity tugged us beyond our desired speed towards its heart, not to mention vertigo, to every hinge and pivot.

  Akasha, as usual immune to the laws of physics, led the way, skipping downhill with her cage (bird-free now but stacked with the empty phoolwallah baskets), and circling back up to us every time she hit bottom, to check on our wary progress. My mother and aunt followed, aiding each other on the steeper steps, hand in hand — as in times past they must have been as they zipped up and down. But Sabz, better off in Vans (fitter pilgrimage footwear) wasn’t convinced, eased her way in between them to lend both arms, and shoulders, too.

  Next down the aisle, another set of sisters: Kavita and Sangita, chattering excitedly between themselves.

  I’d gestured for them all to go ahead, took my time photographing the backs of this precious posse.

  At the little landing where the stairs angled, twisted abruptly, then dropped, I glanced down at the paint-smattered rocks I’d noted on the way up. But now, pulling them into my lens, I saw that these — as on Chapel, Waroda, in Chuim — were no random smatterings. Specks and splashes of color twirled on rock face, spelling out the spilled ardor of Gilbert Hill romantics in names and hearts, a precipitous calculus of love. Forgoing all fear, some amorous souls had even brushstroked their soft spots onto the most dizzying unfootholdable juts and slabs: Teeny + Sunil, Sam + Shona. Half stories: Mere Jaan. Dinky Hearts Naveen. And now, unwritten perhaps but still a story in the making: Kavita + Sabz. A total in and of itself.

  I recalled my doubled heart in the Juhu sand, single letter left within. Perhaps inhabiting it had been just as daring, life-at-staking as these scrawled sums before me.

  I photographed these moments, lives etched onto Gilbert Hill, so many love stories surrounding, abounding on this glorious mount marry day. Then looked up: passing me now, a wonderfully wizened woman with silvery braid swum to saried sacrum. She was as crooked as the stairs themselves, but smiling most peaceably as she hunchbacked over fallen flowers, rock, rubble, her bare feet jingling with thick silver anklets.

  A Linking Road hallucination? Flashback? She looked like a female version of the temple priest. She looked like my grandmother. And now she looked at me — another pair of omniscient amber eyes — letting a petal fall from fingers onto a paint-splashed stone bordering the landing by my feet.

  I glanced down to watch my footing as I continued my descent, and saw, splotched on that stone, something I swear hadn’t been there a moment before. I put camera to eye, zooming in for verification. Froze.

  Was I dreaming? No. Down to the right, the recycling area. Ahead, the low building with the dual-language sign where we’d parked.

  And here, one tiny word etched across brown stone in chalky blue, just dusting my fingertip.

  Rani.

  And so we found ourselves. Not falling. Nor flying. But between the two: on this last full day in Bombay, landing card complete.

  When we got to the bottom, we were greeted by two eager faces. Dilip Kaka and my father pulled Kavita and Sabz into a tight squeeze. A taxi idled behind in the near distance.

  —Abhinandan, my uncle said to the newly wed pair.

  —Congratulations, my father said, this time, translation surely the same.

  —Enough altoo faltoo, Meera Maasi broke in now, that old sternness in her tone. —I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked up quite an appetite. Anyone?

  And she presented that plastic box, opened it now: the lovingly prepared and padlocked pieces of kanavla. The rows of painstakingly rolled ear-shaped sweets cradled each other, seemed to be intently listening. She distributed them ceremoniously now, offering lobe-first the fattest centerpiece last: into her own sister’s mouth.

  —Nothing bitter on such a day, na, Tai? she said, smiling at my mother.

  We got out at Ramzarukha.

  A blue supine door leading nowhere led everywhere.

  A curving half staircase by the Juhu sea, too.

  A half bridge could carry you over the threshold.

  And my limp was gone.

  The more fallen off the map, the better, Shy told me when we later spoke of the evening ahead.

  Gods know I’d fallen off it long ago.

  For all I knew, he was mere minutes from me now. For all I knew, these were counted in light-years.

  Like this trip — an eternal blink. A moment of forever. And so the day of Sangita’s unwedding derobed to the evening of what would have been her reception … and my last night in Bombay.

  It was a good thing Gilbert Hill had cured my weak-in-the-knees-ness, for it was also the night of the most overground underground party in Bombay: Shy’s Crosstreet fiesta — tonight to be held at The Fifth Room in Worli, a venue so off the beaten track, she insisted I ride over with a local.

  That local was Sangita, with whom I now swapped tuk-tuk for taxi at Bandstand, so we could cross the Link
together.

  The Fifth Room was, in fact, a family home, Sangita explained to me now: an evacuee property, part of a post-Partition land swap between Muslim families and Hindu ones.

  Also, since it was a home, that meant less overhead.

  Which, more important, meant cheaper beer.

  Jitters of ricks sloped up left towards S.V. Road as we hit the Link. Despite my imminent departure, Shy’d made me promise to come down — and I wouldn’t have missed it. I was pretty clued in as to who tonight’s mystery DJ was: my favorite in the world, whether he was spinning or still. And tonight’s mystery artist — well, she was sitting just beside me, ear-to-earing like a kid.

  For this day of her unlocked wedlock would be the night of her artistic unveiling. Via my photographs.

  I also figured it was my last opportunity to say so long to the Bandra bunch before I headed back to the States — a sprawling piece of map that seemed quasi-mythical to me now, as India had gotten under my skin. Despite my oft fumbling foothold here, I felt a resonant pang at the idea of leaving — a pang I had a hunch I was just going to have to live with, no matter where or with whom I was — though the edges of it shimmered with the light of my old longed-for skyline.

  I hoped to make a quick detour to Worli Fort while I was on that side, affording the one proper view of the Link I hadn’t yet had (having ridden it, viewed it aerially from a seventeenth-floor window, and subterraneanly from the Bandra Koliwada). A last shot.

  The party had shifted up to six, free entry till eight, as there was to be a scheduled patrol that night which meant shutdown at roughly the pumpkin hour. At five, Sangita and I were already en route.

  —You hang on to the purchy just in case, she instructed me, passing over the toll receipt. —Round trip. Deepak’s coming later and can give me a lift. I don’t know how late we’re staying — and I know you might want to party till the patrol. Just don’t miss that flight!

  Then she squeezed my shoulder.

  —Or … do!