No Presents Please

by Jayant Kaikini

  Gulam, the boy who had brought the horse, had disappeared in the commotion. No sooner had the horse neighed and bolted than the youth ran to the station and jumped into a train bound for VT. The horse wasn’t his. It belonged to Bhanumathi’s father, Bhanumathi who he loved in secret and lusted after in his fantasies. Gulam worked in a kirana shop in Kalva, and while wrapping a package one day had set eyes on Bhanumathi who lived in the stable-like house opposite. Her arms had attracted him. Watching her hang clothes out on the washing line with those arms turned the youth into her slave. Her father was supposed to have once been a tongawala. Now he owned five tongas, and sent them to Juhu Beach in the holiday season to offer rides for the children.

  In this house that seemed like a stable crammed with tongas, horse dung, horses’ tails, horse feed, young Bhanumathi moved around like a swan, laughing and then vanishing immediately. She too began to notice the youth she had enslaved, and began to play with him just through her glances. One day, the youth went boldly up to her father and asked for her hand in marriage. In return, her father slapped him hard. Gulam nearly died of humiliation. But he firmly believed in the triumph of love as shown in Hindi films, and didn’t give up staring at Bhanumathi’s white arms even as he weighed and measured out grain. With a stubborn rage, he began to cast his looks of love at her. He befriended the tongawalas. If young girls came to his shop, he detained them with sweet talk and tried thus to attract Bhanumathi’s attention. When his efforts increased, she stopped looking at him. Not knowing whether he felt angry or sad, he began to spend time in the Thana tonga stand, gossiping with the drivers. During one of these sessions, Balchandra Parab had come there to bargain for his brother’s wedding horse. Gulam was filled with a strange gallantry. ‘Give me whatever you can afford. I’ll bring the horse before dawn. But I won’t be able to decorate him or anything,’ he promised.

  The next day before the sun rose, he unfastened a tonga horse from Bhanumathi’s father’s stable and walked with him all the way to Mulund to Parab’s kholi. Those in the chawl who came up enthusiastically to decorate the horse were scared off by the animal’s behaviour. Without being able to do anything with the horse, they finally used a step stool to get the decorated bridegroom onto the animal.

  In his fear of this creature, which seemed to have leaped out of the movies, Dagadu had almost forgotten his bridegroom status. Whenever the horse shook its head a little, he thought that he was finished. By the time the procession had started moving, Dagadu kept thinking that he shouldn’t have been born as his elder brother’s sibling. When the band began to play, the horse made a small jump, and Dagadu’s bottom received a sound blow. He moved his buttocks to ease the pain, and received another blow in the same area, making him curse himself for having been born a man. The youth who was the horse’s custodian walked along, indifferent to Dagadu’s plight.

  Gulam wanted to get away from the horse he had brought. But the pretty young girls in their oversized blouses kept coming up to apply perfume, and he couldn’t tear himself away from the procession. Balchandra Parab had bought a Gold Spot for him as they were walking along. Just as he finished drinking it, the Shivaji statue incident took place and the horse bolted. Without looking at either side, the youth ran to the station, intending to take a train to VT and catch a movie. As he ran, he cursed Bhanumathi and her father and wished destruction upon them.

  There in Kalva, Bhanumathi’s father had woken at eight o’clock, and had danced with rage when he heard the news of the missing horse. He ordered his tongas to look through the neighbourhood and see if they could find the creature. He filed a complaint at the police station. When they asked him what colour the horse was, he couldn’t remember and said ‘horse colour’. Meanwhile, Bhanumathi went in to bathe. As she scrubbed her limbs, she sang ‘Laalaalaaa’ to herself. She was full of good spirit today.

  Here in Mulund, Balchandra was hailed by someone as he walked tiredly in the heat.

  ‘Arre, what are you doing here? I thought it was your brother’s wedding today?’

  Balchandra felt like beating the man up. For one second, he felt that the wedding mandap, the chawl, were all far, far away. If Dagadu and the horse were here, the wedding ceremony would have been over by now. Suddenly, he wondered whether Dagadu had indeed reached the mandap and they were all waiting for him. When he thought of going to the police station, he remembered the nets in which they could trap him for the licences he had not applied for – setting up the mandap, the loudspeakers, etc., etc. Dragging his feet, he slowly approached the mandap by two p.m. The women were drowsing in the heat. The band people and the loudspeaker men were going into the kitchen and coming out grinning. At three p.m., Balchandra stood up and addressed whoever was there: ‘It’s all God’s will. Whatever will happen, will happen,’ and ordered that lunch be served. The guests enjoyed the meal, hoping that the horse would not turn up to spoil their enjoyment. At his wife’s insistence, he ate a jalebi. When he had to pay the band the entire day’s hire fee for just the two tunes they had played, his heart came into his mouth. But he counted out the notes, making sure people were watching him do so. When the loudspeaker men asked if they should stay till evening, he shouted at them and asked them to leave. Then he sat down on a chair and dozed off.

  Why had the horse behaved as it had near the Shivaji statue? The horse had been in the circus for a while. Then it had been part of a film set. The sound of the motorcycle gunning must have ignited old memories – who knows which ones – in the creature. It was at that sound that the horse had run. It was already angry with the early-morning fuss, and this sound was the last straw. The horse galloped through the Rajaji vegetable market and within seconds, it was on Zhaver Road, turning from there onto Goshala Road. Sitting on the horse, Dagadu shook as though he was made of thermocol. With what strength he had, he clutched the horse’s neck and closed his eyes to become one with the horse’s movement – Dagadu actually neighed in astonishment that he hadn’t yet fallen off. On Goshala Road, a bunch of school children shouted as he went past. Dagadu’s turban, however, fell off at this point. The school children picked it up and ran after the horse for a while. From Goshala Road, the horse went into the vast St Pais playing field, galloped through a herd of cows, crossed two or three cricket pitches and a small wall, slipped past a petrol station and thus emerged onto the Agra highway, running between enormous vehicles, trucks and double-decker buses. From the buses, passengers looked out at Dagadu. Now the horse began to gallop. Dagadu gave up all connection to the world, and flew along with the horse, feeling at one with the beast. His job at the textile mill, his brother’s dadagiri, his buck-toothed bride-to-be, his tedious daily routine – Dagadu felt he had kicked everything away, and clutched the horse harder. At one moment he felt as though he was Shivaji himself climbing up to Raigad Fort. The horse was running energetically on the highway, it galloped through the octroi post and through several traffic signals, towards a goal only known to itself.

  After a long time, the horse turned off into the bylanes of a suburb, and snorting and breathing hard, came to a stop in what looked like a stable. Servants came out of the house and helped the drooping Dagadu climb down. They unbuttoned his gold thread buttons and put him on a rope bed to rest. He saw, with unfocussed eyes, a girl bringing him a tumbler of water. As he drank the water noisily, she went off, singing ‘Laalaalaaa’ softly. Without a word, in two minutes flat, Bhanumathi’s father accepted this readymade bridegroom as his son-in-law, this braveheart who had brought his horse back.

  Many months later, someone told Balchandra Parab that Dagadu was giving children rides on Juhu Beach in a large and beautiful tonga. That same day, Balchandra took his wife and children, changed one train and two buses, and reached Juhu Beach. On the beach, there were scores of people, scores of children getting rides in tongas and on camels, and balloons everywhere. Dagadu was not be seen. Balchandra walked around till his feet ached. He bought his children a packet of peanuts and made them sit down, and the
n walked around for some more time before he came back. Seeing his disappointment, his wife grumbled, ‘So you didn’t find him? If we had, at least we could have asked him to pay for the wedding costs.’

  ‘No, no. That was the least I could do for him, being his brother,’ said Balchandra, looking helplessly at the sea.

  ‘Dagadu Parabana Ashwamedha’, 1987

  GATEWAY

  Since it was a Sunday morning, the Flora Fountain area was deserted. On working days, the parking lots were full of vehicles and crowded with street vendors, but today the same space looked wide and bright and new. It was as though the bustling city had put on a banian and was sitting quietly by itself in a private domestic moment.

  As she sent the children off to school, Sudhanshu’s wife Paali had handed him a clean ironed shirt: ‘How can you sit at home at your age saying that you’ve lost your job? Go out and look for one. Find your old friends, and ask them if there’s anything you can do.’ Her tired voice seemed to linger in the air. The two children, afraid to say anything to him as he sat dully, waved goodbye to their mother.

  ‘Yes, sir, tell us about yourself.’

  ‘That’s all very well. But what can you do for us?’

  ‘Very well, but what’s the guarantee that you’ll work for us with the same ability as before?’

  ‘These certificates are a quarter of a century old. Typed on typewriters that we can’t see even in museums nowadays. Since your factory closed down, you’ve worked at nine different kinds of jobs in these ten years. Do you know what this shows? You don’t stay on anywhere. You keep changing jobs desperately.’

  ‘Perhaps something’s not right with you? How can we believe that you will stay with us?’

  ‘Multi-faceted talents. But what we need is…’

  ‘This is all we can offer you at present.’

  ‘After we see what you’re capable of, we can think of … Arre, you’re leaving already? This is your problem. You haven’t figured out what you want.’

  In these old Victorian buildings, in different offices, over and over again Sudhanshu had faced interviewers: one with glasses perched on his nose, another stirring a spoonful of sugar into his teacup, yet another ignoring the interviewee and speaking endlessly into his mobile phone about the fifth gear on his new car. Sometimes, seeing the tense postures of youngsters half his age waiting to be interviewed, Sudhanshu would sit there as though he were their guardian, and then simply walk away. When he gave his name at the reception, the woman would always ask, ‘Where are you coming from?’ When he replied ‘Mira Road’, she would laugh and say ‘I mean which company?’ In that laugh of hers, and the look of young interviewers who lost interest in him after taking in his ordinary full-sleeved shirt, his trousers frayed at the edges, he saw an invisible despair. Where was the new world? When would it begin?

  The men selling shirts, those selling balloons, and the calendar and diary men, had all been there on the footpath for the last twenty years.

  But the fellow slowly opening his box and pulling out the keychains, I’m seeing him for the first time. He too looks like he’s over forty. This nameless man with his greying eyebrows, who is past the time when he was a child in the cradle, when he used to be rubbed with oil and then bathed, who competed in school sports, lived different roles – now he finally stands here in Kala Ghoda, in two feet of space. How did he take the decision to sell keychains out of a small box? When he first called out – ‘Keychain, aapke naam ka keychain’ – where was I?

  Sudhanshu lifted his head slowly and looked at the Communication Tower in the distance. On this holiday, this thirty-storied tower stood in silence like an enormous tomb. The two big antenna dishes on top of the tower appeared like begging bowls held out. Suddenly Sudhanshu felt as though his time was acquiring a new shape.

  Sitting on his knees by the keychain seller, he began to observe the man. ‘Kyon saab, want a new key chain? Want your name on the old one?’

  Sudhanshu said to him: ‘I want a key that will open the doors of good luck.’

  ‘And which movie is that dialogue from? Go become a dialogue writer, the doors will open for you,’ said the keychain man. ‘Arre bhaiyya, you speak like an educated man. I’ll ask you a question that you must answer.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sudhanshu.

  ‘See there, that’s the Gateway of India – we don’t know where that India is, maaro goli. But we can see that gateway up ahead. Now, tell me whether it’s the gateway to Mumbai or the gateway to the sea?’ Seeing that Sudhanshu had fallen deep in thought, the keychain man said, ‘No hurry. Doesn’t matter if you don’t have an answer either. Don’t worry. Here, have some cutting chai.’ Continuing, he said, ‘Where will you find a job at this age? Once our hair begins to grey, we become invisible. Come to this footpath. Sit here and sell something. Anything.’ He waved an arm along the length of the road.

  By that time, a number of stalls had begun to open. Women with tired, sleepless faces adorned with make-up had begun to linger behind the pillars, waiting to catch the sailors from the ships anchored in the dockyard. One of the women came running to the keychain man, bought a key ring for her small bunch of keys, and got him to put her name on it. ‘Asli naam, beta! Asli naam, beta,’ the man kept on teasing her.

  She turned towards Sudhanshu, tried gauging whether he was interested, and turned back to the keychain man, saying laughingly as she disappeared, ‘He looks like he’s on his last legs – kangaal party!’

  ‘The cage she’s in doesn’t have a lock, but look at her bunch of keys!’ laughed the keychain man.

  The pillars behind which the woman had vanished had old Victorian lion sculptures on them, many with their snouts gaping. Hangers with nighties were hung on the sculptures, creating another stall.

  Dear Time, tell me, when one could buy just about anything in this unfussy city, what could I sell to you? Look at my photograph of the school play. I was the postman. My classmate Chandrahas, who was the hero, is supposed to be somewhere here in Mumbai. The heroine Maya married into a faraway town, and died in childbirth. She used to have this photo, and so did Chandrahas. The photo studio in our town is long shut. Now a railway bridge runs over it. The train that goes to my town once a week from Victoria Terminus goes over that bridge. That town, thousands of miles away, seems to be connected to VT Station in Mumbai. Even though trains disappear, and faces in the windows disappear, these tracks keep their grip on all the towns they pass through. So yes, will you buy this photograph? And I have all my certificates in this plastic bag. Whatever I could do with them in these forty-five years, I’ve already done. They’re frighteningly old, these pieces of paper. Once, I used to be proud of them, and they gave me inspiration, but now they’re mocking me. They’ve held me back so that I can’t see or do anything new. I feel as though clippings of my hair and nails are in this bag. I need to get free of them. Once I do that, I can do anything in this town, like the keychain man. Without worrying about respect or humiliation, without arrogance, I can become light and new.

  In a film, after the intermission, all kinds of things can happen. Lost children are found again. Villains beg for forgiveness. Brothers unite. The heroine’s illness goes away. Or those who were found are lost again. Good men become badmaash. The hero dies atop a cliff. No, I don’t want any of this. No shocks, no magic. Just an intermission will do. After that I can watch my own film. My Paali, who fell in love with me blindly, trusted me, who left all the conveniences of her life to be with me, now sits in our Mira Road kholi mending her old salwar kameezes from ten years ago and our old bedsheets. I want to learn some new skill that can make her world happy. Push me. My city, my nakedness, the morning that’s given me my own shadow, lighten me so I can fly. So I can do what the keychain man told me, and sell something on this street with dignity, without feeling any hesitation.

  The unpeopled steps of Jehangir Art Gallery looked as though they were grinning at him. Paali’s eyes kept on asking: ‘Why did you draw me into this? I d
on’t know in what ill-omened hour I fell for your jokes. Now I’ve made a joke out of my entire life, haven’t I?

  ‘Aayi and Baba were watching TV when I crept away, wearing just my nightdress. For months, I hid my face, like a thief, from all the local trains going towards my suburb. You know all those movie ticket stubs I had saved from our outings together? They reminded me forcefully of something sweet. As long as you had your factory job, they did prompt me to think of sweet moments. The day the factory closed down, you came home drunk, with your hair awry. In that moment, the ticket stubs lost all their meaning. Under the bed, near the Lord’s picture, in that steel box my tarnished mangalsutra, which would occasionally give me a fright when I saw it, still gave me a strange invisible strength.