When I reached Chowpatty Beach, the sun had lowered itself over the horizon. The last straggling threads of daylight were making their exit as the evening star appeared low in the western sky. Cool air wafted in from the Arabian Sea as vendors lit their kerosene lamps. I made my way down to the beach that stretched fifty meters to where small waves idly lapped the shore. It was such a contrast to the blazing white, sandy beaches I’d grown up with. This sand was a graying beige and as full of litter as people. No one swam in the water and no one displayed their near-naked bodies while sunbathing on the beach. People drifted up and down, coagulating into small groups around jugglers, acrobats or fire-eaters, but paid no attention to the water that barricaded them into their overgrown metropolis. It was as though this city had turned its back upon the sea and defiantly faced inland.
By this time of day, the throngs at Chowpatty were winding their way home. The circus of entertainers was thinning out as families with children dwindled and the evening crowd began to take over. Within a short time, mangy monkeys and scrawny bears were replaced by another species. Their repetitive cry of ‘maalish, maalish’ pierced the silence like the first crows early in the morning. They were men, some old, some young, most a dark chocolate brown and rather emaciated. I later learned that many of them came from northern India, from cities like Kanpur, Patna and Allahabad.
I sat on the sand and observed them for a while as they walked up and down with thin cotton towels draped over their shoulders and small bags clutched under their arms. It soon dawned on me that I had just met another of India’s service professions—public masseurs. One or two looked quite attractive but I was not about to let them know, since it was sure to influence any economic arrangement we might enter into. I ignored the first few who approached me, feigning disinterest, but intently observing their routine. They would sidle up to a potential customer, start talking with him, then take off together to another part of the beach. This made me even more curious. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. When a trim young man with a butter-melting smile approached me, I wasn’t able to resist.
‘Maalish, sahib? Maalish first-class sahib. Full maalish. Only 50 rupees.’
I wasn’t about to spend half my month’s stipend there and then, so I bargained with him until I’d whittled him down to 25 rupees. He scowled, then tried his guilt tactic.
‘You foreigner. Why you not pay 50 rupees? I give pukka maalish.’
I knew it was useless to argue. Of course all foreigners could easily spare 50 rupees for a cheap body rub. If he had the slightest inkling about my financial condition, he probably wouldn’t have even bothered with me. We haggled a bit longer until I pulled out 30 rupees from my pocket and waved them in front of him. He relented and indicated for me to follow him to the darker end of the beach, away from the crowd and intrusive streetlights.
I tramped along nervously, wondering what was in store. Once he found a quiet spot, he laid out his towel and indicated for me to lie down. As he did so, he glanced up and down along the beach to see if anyone was approaching.
‘Any problem?’ I asked.
‘Plice.’
‘What about police?’ I asked.
‘No good. Don’t like maalish-wallah. Take money, beat up maalish-wallah.’
I had no doubt that he was telling the truth and no desire to deal with local law enforcement. Apart from the troubling stories I’d heard about the irregular methods of the Bombay police, I was worried that my status as a volunteer with an international organization, if not the organization itself, might be jeopardized should I fall foul of them. What’s more, unlike most foreigners, I didn’t have the means to bribe my way out of awkward situations.
But this night I wasn’t about to let such considerations deter me, as I watched my masseur lay out his tools of trade on the sand. He asked me to take off my trousers so he could massage my legs. I could feel myself trembling. I’d never taken such a risk before. Should I go through with this? Why didn’t I quit while I had the chance? Voices of caution were clamoring for my attention, but I resolutely ignored them. I undid the hook on the flap around my waist, unzipped, and pulled off my trousers.
The masseur must have been no more than 18 but he acted with the aplomb of a man much older, as he selected a couple of bottles from his kit, shook them several times, and rubbed their aromatic contents on his hands. For the first time, I noticed his fingers, long and sinewy but as delicate as those of a concert pianist. I wondered how many bodies these fingers had touched. I came from a family firmly entrenched in a tradition where touch between two people, particularly two males, rarely happened. Generations of solid British working-class stock on both sides had made sure of that. But right now, I yearned for his fingers to touch me, as the mesmerizing scent of sandalwood and jasmine worked its magic.
The moment he laid his hand upon my thigh I knew that history was being rewritten. It was as though the heavens opened and blessings showered down upon me. Ripples of pleasure shot up like an electric current through my abdomen to my chest and arms and back down again. Thoughts came and went so fast I couldn’t disentangle one from the other. They soon disappeared altogether in a confused haze, subsiding into the most satisfying sensation I had ever experienced. As he gently worked his hands up and down my leg, I could feel my stomach muscles gradually relax. I glanced up and saw a mass of stars, something I had never noticed all the time I had been in Bombay. Had they come out this night just for me?
He worked for several minutes, first on one leg then the other, all the time casting glances to his left and right. The anxiety that had earlier infected me was soon replaced by a sublime sense of well-being that suffused every cell in my body. Don’t stop, I said in my head, please don’t stop. I didn’t want to talk, but just lie back and let him use his supple hands however he would.
I happened to look up and caught his eye. He looked back at me and glanced down at my underwear, which by now had begun to assume an enlarged shape. He winked. I glanced at his crotch and winked back. He looked furtively up and down the beach one more time. Then, without further ado, he moved closer to me, pulled back his kurta, and undid the string of his pajama pants. Clearly, this was intended to be a mutually pleasurable experience.
I was terrified, yet surging with desire. Never had I been in such a compromising situation with another young man. I had waited more than 30 years for this moment and I was not going to let it pass. All those missed opportunities throughout high school and university where timidity and good manners had held me back were about to be redeemed. All those horny scribbles on toilet walls that belonged to another world began to taunt me mercilessly. All those fleeting glances through bus windows, in railway station queues, even in staff meetings, took on a whole different meaning. I looked him in the eyes once more, and he stared straight back at me as if to say, ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’
I reached out and touched him. He closed his eyes and smiled, and something deep inside me pulverized into a thousand little pieces.
* * *
My encounter with the maalish-wallah left me dangling over an abyss of fear and fascination. It revealed a part of me I didn’t know had existed. It was as though I had just never pressed the right button, asked the right question, worn the correct glasses. I felt alive and confident, exhilarated and energized. And now I wanted more, lots more. It was like my first ride on a roller coaster. The decision to get on was agonizingly difficult and the journey petrifying, but as soon as the ride came to a halt and I stepped out onto the platform, all I wanted was to get back on and do it over and over again. It was as though a voice were calling to me, ‘You’ve done it. You’ve finally done it! Don’t turn back now. Keep going. You won’t regret it.’
The last thing I wanted at that moment was to return home. The thought of facing colleagues, making polite conversation, and lying about where I’d been and what I’d been doing appalled me. I decided to linger a while and try to make sense of what had just happened to me. My
rational mind was scrambling to comprehend an experience that had been pure, unmitigated emotion. It wasn’t used to dealing with such anomalies; no box existed to which it could consign such outrageous behavior. I moseyed along the beach and plopped down on the sand. As I cast around my eyes, I noticed even more maalish-wallahs than I had earlier. They were doing their endless rounds looking for likely customers, a few more rupees to make tomorrow a little more livable. Around 11 pm, when the crowds had thinned to a trickle, I reluctantly stood and made my way to the nearest bus stop. When a bus eventually arrived, I leaped aboard. The few passengers paid scant attention to me, and I to them. I was so lost in thought, I almost missed my stop.
As I entered the gate, I looked up and found the residence in total darkness. The back gate would be padlocked, so I had no choice but to trudge up the three flights of stairs and ring the door bell. Several minutes passed and nothing happened. I pressed again. Then, after another minute or two, footsteps came shuffling down the hallway. I took a deep breath. The door opened slowly to reveal Sushila in a disheveled sari.
‘Sorry I’m so late,’ I blurted, knowing she’d probably opened the door several times already this night. Opening the front door late at night was no one’s particular responsibility. Whoever couldn’t stand the bell ringing any longer usually ended up doing it. It was a thankless and unceasing task, one of those things everyone came to accept as part of living in this building, along with power outages, bedbugs, and cockroaches.
Sushila said nothing, but looked furtively in my direction before scuttling back to her room. I wondered what that glance had told her. I felt like I was carrying a huge placard announcing to the world the incredible experience I had just had. I slunk down the hallway and into the back room. As I entered, the sound of heavy breathing filled the room. I undressed and pulled myself up to my top bunk, trying hard to mask the noise of straining wire beneath the mattress. One of my roommates turned over and a mosquito buzzed in my left ear. I lay perfectly still, staring at the white paint curling off the moonlit ceiling. My mind was racing a mile a minute, leapfrogging from thought to thought, regurgitating everything that had happened to me in the last six hours. The first hint of daylight seeped through the curtained windows before I finally managed to fall asleep.
A TASTE FOR MORE
Part of what made our organization unique was its internal life. Our staff lived as a community, in both villages and cities, sharing meals, housework, living space, and most of our time. We’d spend endless hours together, to study a book, wrestle with our finances, or plan for the coming week. We would rise early, greet the day with a ritual that included readings from the likes of Gandhi and Tagore, and meet for an hour before breakfast. The meetings would begin with songs from our community songbook, an eclectic mix of Indian and Western tunes, many of whose original words we had modified to reflect the mission and values of the organization. I’m sure our neighbors didn’t cherish being woken at six in the morning to a rousing rendition of ‘All Life is Open’ to ‘Guantanamera,’ or ‘Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram.’ But our strange ways seemed to blend in with the plethora of other activities that took place in and around our building, be it a wedding in the church below or a morcha picketing the city offices opposite. Toleration of competing intrusions in their lives was a quality most Indians seemed to develop early on. In our case, the fact that we possessed the only telephone in the building no doubt contributed to our neighbors’ forbearance.
The telephone was a blessing and a curse. It could take years to obtain one, not to mention hefty bribes to telephone company managers and technicians. Once you managed to have one installed, the chances of it working were slim. Crossed lines, inordinate delays for long-distance calls, and frequent breakdowns, especially during the monsoon, made it a vexatious instrument. For our fundraising team in particular, it was a critical tool of trade. We needed it to make appointments, keep in touch with our associates around the world, and coordinate travel across the country. When it was out of order, it stymied our whole operation and emotions sometimes boiled over, especially among our foreign staff. Our Indian colleagues were much more inured to such irritations.
Pam was a case in point. She had only arrived from the US a few months earlier and was having a harder time than most adjusting to India. Although she had a reputation as a successful fundraiser, her tolerance quotient was lower than that of most other team members, especially when things weren’t going as planned. One Friday morning, at the end of a particularly frustrating week that she had mostly spent trying to arrange appointments for an upcoming trip, her patience gave out.
‘No, not three, two!’ she bellowed into the handset. ‘Two one seven six five five.’
‘Three one seven six five five,’ the operator repeated.
‘No, no, no! Two, you know, two four six eight. That two. The number after one.’
‘Three four six eight. Sorry madam, but that is not a proper number.’
The enunciation of the word ‘two’ in Indian English demanded a tightening of the lips in order to be understood. Those of us who had been in India for some time usually mastered it but Pam had not yet met the challenge. I was in the kitchen drinking water when I heard the sound of the telephone hitting the wall. The force with which Pam wrenched the phone from its wall socket and sent it hurtling across the room—narrowly missing Manoj in transit—was enough to shame a baseball pitcher. As I returned with a glass of water in my hand, I nearly collided with her as she stormed out of the office and through the front door. ‘Goddamn India!’ were her parting words.
The telephone also connected us to several of our neighbors in the building, who would sometimes receive calls at our number; only one person also used it to make calls. Raju, the church sexton, lived with his family in a tiny ground floor flat, which he treated like a sentry post to eye comings and goings at the rear of the building. His perpetual grin and obsequious manners turned me off. His constant invitations to tea and sweets smacked of favors yet unasked. He’d appear unannounced in our office, sidle up to the phone, and speak as if no one else was in the room. ‘Hallooo. Hallooo,’ was his signature opening, in half-singing tone. He would punctuate his speech with repeated accha’s and achchcha’s and occasional haanji’s. His calls were mostly brief but he never offered to pay for them. He acted as though it was his inalienable right to use the phone.
Another resident of the building with whom we regularly interacted was the mali. No more than 150 centimeters tall with thinning hair, he was a mali in name only; I doubt if he knew the difference between a neem tree and a nimbu tree. His main role seemed to be taking care of the building’s water system. Like milk and other basic commodities in the city, water was strictly rationed. Supply was restricted to half an hour each morning, during which time we would fill several 55-gallon drums and as many buckets as we could. Most days this occurred between 6 and 6.30 am, also the time for our morning gathering. To ensure the drums were filling, the mali would visit both our bathrooms, which were at opposite ends of our meeting room. He would amble across the room, seemingly oblivious to the 30-odd souls seated around the table, and poke his head into the bathrooms. Barefoot and covered only by a thin T-shirt hanging outside his boxer shorts, he was an amusing sight. We became used to his morning apparitions and paid little attention to them, but guests would stare blankly in disbelief.
Our common lifestyle, with its daily and weekly rhythms lent stability to our existence and acted as a buffer to the chaos of the world outside. For those of us traveling constantly throughout India for fundraising, staff training, financial management or other tasks, our Bombay residential office was a safe and secure haven to return to. It was light years removed from the luxury apartments that many expatriates came home to each evening in their chauffeur-driven cars. It did not even resemble the comfortable abode that the clergyman and his four-person family occupied in the very same floor space below us. But it was ours and I treasured it. For the most part. On some days, this
very regimented lifestyle made it feel more like a prison than a home. There were times when I couldn’t wait to get out.
This was one of those times. I found myself counting the days until the next Sunday afternoon that I would have to myself, when I could head to Chowpatty Beach once again; if for nothing else, then just to confirm if what I thought had happened wasn’t a gigantic illusion.
Unfortunately, this would have to wait three weeks as I was sent to Calcutta on a fundraising trip and didn’t return until the end of the month. When the day finally arrived, I could scarcely contain my rising anticipation. As soon as we dispersed for the day, I changed clothes and headed for the front door. On my way out, one of my American colleagues hailed me.
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ he asked.
I resented these interrogations, but living and working in close quarters, they came with the turf. I decided to give him one of my standard replies, slightly enhanced to make it sound more authentic.
‘I’m going to visit a friend. His family’s invited me to lunch.’
‘Shooting the breeze, eh?’
‘Yeah, you could call it that,’ I replied. ‘See you later!’
It dawned on me that I should be more discreet in leaving the house if I wished to protect what minuscule privacy I had. I could have exited via the back stairs instead of the front door, but then I’d have risked running into Raju. I made straight for the bus stop and soon found myself at Chowpatty Beach. It was still early afternoon, so I had time to kill before the maalish-wallahs made their appearance. I decided to follow the same route as before and walked along Marine Drive to the other end of the bay. Night photographs of this part of the city carry the glamorous caption of ‘the Queen’s necklace,’ cleverly disguising the squalor and seediness hidden in the gutters and back streets within spitting distance of the promenade.
The Boatman Page 4
