‘Shh, baba,’ he soothed. ‘Not long and you will see.’
Raman Fielding in the gulmohr-tree-shaded garden of his Lalgaum villa wore a straw hat, sunglasses and cricket whites. He perspired heavily and carried a heavy bat. ‘First class,’ he said in that guttural croak of his. ‘Borkar, good work.’ Who was this Borkar? I wondered, and then saw Lambajan saluting and realised that I had long forgotten that injured sailor’s real name. So Lamba was a covert MA cadre. He had told me he was religious, and I half-remembered that he came from a village somewhere in Maharashtra, but it was being made shamefully plain that I had known nothing of importance about him, nor made it my business to know. Mainduck came across to us and patted Lambajan on the shoulder. ‘A true Mahratta warrior,’ he said, breathing betel-fumes into my face. ‘Beautiful Mumbai, Marathi Mumbai, isn’t it, Borkar?’ he grinned, and Lambajan, standing as close to attention as he could with a crutch, assented. ‘Sir skipper sir.’ Fielding was amused by the incredulity on my face. ‘Whose town do you think this is?’ he asked. ‘On Malabar Hill you drink whisky-soda and talk democracy. But our people guard your gates. You think you know them but they have also their own lives and tell you nothing. Who cares about you godless Hill types? Sukha lakad ola zelata. You don’t speak Marathi. “When the dry stick burns, everything goes up in flame.” One day the city – my beautiful goddess-named Mumbai, not this dirty Anglo-style Bombay – will be on fire with our notions. Then Malabar Hill will burn and Ram Rajya will come.’
He turned to Lambajan. ‘On your recommendation I have done much. Murder charge is quashed and suicide verdict has been agreed. As to narcotics question, authorities have been directed towards the big badmashes and not this small potato. Now you justify to me why I have done it.’
‘Sir skipper sir.’ And with that the old chowkidar turned to me. ‘Hit me, baba,’ he encouraged.
I was taken by surprise. ‘Beg pardon?’ Fielding clapped his hands, impatiently. ‘Deaf or what?’
Lambajan’s expression was almost beseeching. I understood then that he had put himself out, made himself vulnerable, to save me from prison; that he had gambled everything to persuade Mainduck to move a mountain on my behalf. Now, it seemed, I must return the compliment and rescue him, by living up to his praises. ‘Baba, just like in the old days,’ he coaxed. ‘Hit me there, there.’ That is, on the point of the chin. I took a breath, and nodded. ‘OK.’
‘Sir permission to set aside parrot sir.’ Fielding waved an impatient hand and settled down like dough in an outsized – but still groaning – orange cane chair, set by the lily pond. Mumbadevi statues crowded around him to watch the demonstration. ‘Mind your tongue, Lamba,’ I said, and let fly. He fell hard, and lay unconscious at my feet.
‘Pretty good,’ croaked Mainduck, impressed. ‘He said that crooked fist of yours was a hammer worth having. What do you know? Seems like it’s true.’ Lambajan came round, slowly, nursing his jaw. ‘Not to worry, baba,’ were his first words. Suddenly Mainduck went into one of his famous rants. ‘You know why it’s OK that you hit him?’ he screamed. ‘It is because I said so. And why is that OK? Because I own his body and also his soul. And how did I purchase? Because I have looked after his people. You-tho don’t even know how many family members does he have in his village. But I have been getting kiddies educated and solving health and hygiene problems since many years. Abraham Zogoiby, old man Tata, C. P. Bhabha, Crocodile Nandy, Kéké Kolatkar, Birlas, Sassoons, even Mother Indira herself – they think they are the incharges but they care nothing for Common Man. Soon that little fellow will show them they are wrong.’ I was rapidly losing interest in this harangue when he switched to a more intimate note. ‘And you, my friend Hammer,’ he said. ‘I have raised you from the dead. You are my zombie now.’
‘What do you want from me?’ I asked, but even as I spoke the words I knew not only the question but my answer. Something that had been captive all my life had been released when I k.o.’d Lambajan, something whose captivity had meant that my entire existence up to this point all at once seemed unfulfilled, reactive, characterised by various kinds of drift; and whose release burst upon me like my own freedom. I knew in that instant that I need no longer live a provisional life, a life-in-waiting; I need no longer be what ancestry, breeding and misfortune had decreed, but could enter, at long last, into myself – my true self, whose secret was contained in that deformed limb which I had thrust for too long into the depths of my clothing. No more! Now I would brandish it with pride. Henceforth I would be my fist; would be a Hammer, not a Moor.
Fielding was talking, the words coming quick and hard. Do you know who your Daddyji is, high in his Siodi Tower? This man who has cast his only male child from his bosom, can you imagine the depth of his evil-doing, the breadth of his heartlessness? How much do you know about the Musulman gang boss who goes under the name of Scar?
I confessed my ignorance. Mainduck waved a dismissive hand. ‘You will come to know. Drugs, terrorism, Musulmans-Mughals, weapons-systems-delivery computers, scandals of Khazana Bank, nuclear bombs. Hai Ram how you minorities stick together. How you gang together against Hindus, how good-natured we are that we do not see how dangerous is your threat. But now your father has sent you to me and you will know it all. About the robots even I will tell you, the manufacture of high-technology minority-rights cybermen to attack and murder Hindus. And about babies, the march of minority babies who will push our blessed infants from their cots and grab their sacred food. Such are their plans. But they shall not prevail. Hindu-stan: the country of Hindus! We shall defeat the Scar-Zogoiby axis, whatsoever the cost. We shall bow their mighty knees. My zombie, my hammer: are you for us or against us, will you be righteous or will you be lefteous? Say: are you with us or without?’
Unhesitating, I embraced my fate. Without pausing to ask what connection there might be between Fielding’s anti-Abrahamic tirade and his alleged intimacy with Mrs Zogoiby; without let or hindrance; willingly, even joyfully, I leapt. Where you have sent me, mother – into the darkness, out of your sight – there I elect to go. The names you have given me–outcast, outlaw, untouchable, disgusting, vile – I clasp to my bosom and make my own. The curse you have laid upon me will be my blessing and the hatred you have splashed across my face I will drink down like a potion of love. Disgraced, I will wear my shame and name it pride – will wear it, great Aurora, like a scarlet letter blazoned on my breast. Now I am plunging downwards from your hill, but I’m no angel, me. My tumble is not Lucifer’s but Adam’s. I fall into my manhood. I am happy so to fall.
‘Sir righteous skipper sir.’
Mainduck unleashed a mighty noise of joy and struggled to rise from his chair. Lambajan – Borkar – came forward and assisted. ‘So, so,’ said Fielding. ‘Well, there is much use for that hammer of yours. By the way, any other gifts?’
‘Sir cooking sir,’ I said, remembering happy times in the kitchen with Ezekiel and his copybooks. ‘Anglo-Indian mulligatawny, South Indian meat with coconut milk, Mughlai kormas, Kashmiri shirmal, reshmi kababs; Goan fish, Hyderabadi brinjal, dum rice, Bombay club-style, all. Even if it is to your taste then pink, salty numkeen chai.’ Fielding’s delight knew no bounds. It was plain he was a man who liked his food. ‘Then you are a true all-rounder,’ he said, thumping my back. ‘Let’s see if you are Test class, if you can take that all-important number six position and make it your own. R. J. Hadlee, K. D. Walters, Ravi Shastri, Kapil Dev.’ (India’s cricketers were on a tour of Australia and New Zealand at the time.) ‘Always room for a fellow like that on my team.’
My time in Raman Fielding’s service began with what he called a ‘getting-to-know-you guest spot’ in his domestic kitchen, much to the displeasure of his regular cook, Chhaggan Five-in-a-Bite, a snaggletoothed giant who looked as if he were carrying an overcrowded cemetery inside his enormous mouth. ‘Chhaggababa is a wild man,’ said Fielding admiringly, explaining the cook’s cognomen as he made the introductions. ‘One time in a wrestle he bit off h
is adversary’s toes, all in one go.’ Chhaggan glowered at me – cutting an incongruously dishevelled and canteen-medalled scarecrow figure in that otherwise spotless kitchen – and began sharpening large knives and muttering direly. ‘Now, but, he is just honey,’ bellowed Fielding. ‘Isn’t it, Chhaggo? Stop sulking now. Guest chef should be greeted like a brother. Or maybe not,’ he added, turning to me heavy-lidded. ‘It was his brother who lost the wrestling match. Those toes, I swear! Looked like little kofta balls, except for the dirty nails.’ I remembered Lambajan’s old saga about having his leg bitten off by a fabulous elephant and wondered how many of these loss-of-limb tall tales were wandering around the city, attaching themselves to amputor or amputee. I congratulated Chhaggan on his kitchen’s sparkle, and told the staff that I would expect no drop in standards. A love of neatness was one thing I had in common with old snagglepuss, I averred, making no reference to Five-in-a-Bite’s somewhat haphazard personal style; also, I added quietly to myself, an instrument of war. His fangs and my hammer; even-steven, or so I reckoned. I gave him my sweetest smile. ‘Sir no problem sir,’ I said smartly to my new boss. ‘We two are going to get along just fine.’
In those days of cooking for Mainduck I learned some of the intricacies of the man. Yes, I know there is a fashion nowadays for these Hitler’s-valet type memoirs, and many people are against, they say we should not humanise the inhuman. But the point is they are not inhuman, these Mainduck-style little Hitlers, and it is in their humanity that we must locate our collective guilt, humanity’s guilt for human beings’ misdeeds; for if they are just monsters – if it is just a question of King Kong and Godzilla wreaking havoc until the aeroplanes bring them down – then the rest of us are excused.
I personally do not wish to be excused. I made my choice and lived my life. No more! Finish! I want to get on with the story.
Among his many non-Hindu tastes, Fielding loved meat. Lamb (which was mutton), mutton (which was goat), keema, chicken, kababs: couldn’t get enough of it. Bombay’s meat-eating Parsis, Christians and Muslims – for whom, in so many other ways, he had nothing but contempt – were often applauded by him for their non-veg cuisine. Nor was this the only contradiction in the make-up of that fierce, illogical man. He kept up, and carefully cultivated, a façade of philistinism, but all around his house were the antique Ganeshas, the Shiva Natarajas, the Chandela bronzes, the Rajput and Kashmiri miniatures that revealed a genuine interest in Indian high culture. The ex-cartoonist had been to art school once, and while he would never have said so in public an influence remained. (I never asked Mainduck about my mother, but if indeed she was drawn to him, the evidence of his walls gave me a new reason why. Although it was also evidence of another kind, a disproof of the alleged improving power of art. Mainduck had the statues and the pictures, but his moral fibre remained of low quality, a fact which, had it been drawn to his attention, would I suspect have given him cause for pride.)
As to the toffs on Malabar Hill, he cared about them, too; more deeply than he liked to admit. My own family background flattered him: to turn Moraes Zogoiby, great Abraham’s only son, into his personal Hammer-man was quite a titillation, disinheritance or no disinheritance. I was allotted quarters in the Bandra house, and treated, always, with just a hint of a cosseting tenderness he extended to no other employee; letting slip, on occasion, the formal Hindi ‘you’, the aap of respect, rather than the tu of command. It is to the credit of my colleagues that they gave no sign of resenting this special treatment, and to my discredit, I suppose, that I took whatever was going – regular use of a hot-and-cold-running-water bathroom, gifts of lungis and kurta-pajamas, offers of beer. A soft upbringing leaves a residue of softness in the blood.
What was interesting was how much the city’s blue-bloods cared for Fielding. There was a steady stream of visitors from Everest Vilas and Kanchenjunga Bhavan, from Dhaulagiri Nivas, Nanga Parbat House and Manaslu Mansion and all the other super-desirable super-high-rise Himalayas of the Hill. The youngest, sleekest, hippest young cats in the urban jungle came to prowl in his Lalgaum grounds, and all of them were hungry, but not for my banquets; they hung on Mainduck’s words and lapped up every syllable. He was against unions, in favour of breaking strikes, against working women, in favour of sati, against poverty and in favour of wealth. He was against ‘immigrants’ to the city, by which he meant all non-Marathi speakers, including those who had been born there, and in favour of its ‘natural residents’, which included Marathi-medium types who had just stepped off the bus. He was against the corruption of the Congress (I) and for ‘direct action’, by which he meant paramilitary activity in support of his political aims, and the institution of a bribery-system of his own. He derided the Marxist analysis of society as class struggle and lauded the Hindu preference for the eternal stability of caste. In the national flag he was in favour of the colour saffron and against the colour green. He spoke of a golden age ‘before the invasions’ when good Hindu men and women could roam free. ‘Now our freedom, our beloved nation, is buried beneath the things the invaders have built. This true nation is what we must reclaim from beneath the layers of alien empires.’
It was while serving up my own cooking at Mainduck’s table that I first heard of the existence of a list of sacred sites at which the country’s Muslim conquerors had deliberately built mosques on the birthplaces of various Hindu deities – and not only their birthplaces, but their country residences and love-nests, too, to say nothing of their favourite shops and preferred eateries. Where was a deity to go for a decent evening out? All the prime sites had been hogged by minarets and onion domes. It would not do! The gods had rights, too, and must be given back their ancient way of life. The invaders would have to be repulsed.
The eager young things from Malabar Hill agreed enthusiastically. Yes, indeed, a campaign for divine rights! What could be smarter, more cutting edge? – But when they began, in their guffawing way, to belittle the culture of Indian Islam that lay palimpsest-fashion over the face of Mother India, Mainduck rose to his feet and thundered at them until they shrank back in their seats. Then he would sing ghazals and recite Urdu poetry – Faiz, Josh, Iqbal – from memory and speak of the glories of Fatehpur Sikri and the moonlit splendour of the Taj. An intricate fellow, indeed.
There were women, but they were peripheral. They were imported at night and he would slobber over them, but he never seemed very interested. He had a power-drive rather than a sex-drive, and women bored him, no matter how assiduously they tried to hold his interest. I must record that I never saw any sign of my mother, and what I did see suggested to me that any liaison between her and my new employer would have been a very shortlived affair.
He preferred male company. There would be evenings when in the company of a group of saffron-headbanded MA Youth Wingers he would institute a sort of macho, impromptu mini-Olympiad. There would be arm-wrestling and mat-wrestling, push-up contests and living-room boxing bouts. Lubricated by beer and rum, the assembled company would arrive at a point of sweaty, brawling, raucous, and finally exhausted nakedness. At these moments Fielding seemed truly happy. Shedding his flower-patterned lungi he would loll among his cadres, itching, scratching, belching, farting, slapping buttocks and patting thighs. ‘Now nobody can stand against us!’ he would bellow as he passed out in a state of Dionysiac bliss. ‘Bloody hell! Now we are one.’
I joined in when requested, and in those nocturnal boxing bouts the reputation of the Hammer grew and grew. The oiled perspiring bodies of naked Youth Wingers lay down and took the count. (The gathered Olympians, crowding around us in a rough square, chanted the numbers in unison: ‘Nine! … Ten! … Kayo!!’) And Five-in-a-Bite, likewise, was the champion wrestler of us all.
Listen: I do not deny that there was much about Mainduck that elicited in me profound reactions of nausea and disgust, but I schooled myself to overcome these. I had hitched my fortunes to his star. I had rejected the old, for it had rejected me, and there was no point bringing its attitudes int
o my new life. I too would be like this, I resolved; I would become this man. I studied Fielding closely. I must say as he said, do as he did. He was the new way, the future. I would learn him, like a road.
Weeks passed, then months. At length my probationary period came to an end; I had come through some invisible test. Mainduck summoned me into his office, the one with the green frog-phone. When I entered it I saw standing before me a figure so terrifying, so bizarre, that in a rush of dreadful enlightenment I understood that I had never really left the phantasmal city, that other Bombay-Central or Central-Bombay into which I had been plunged after my arrest on Cuffe Parade and from which, in my naivety, I believed that Lambajan had rescued me in the hypothecated taxi of my blessed freedom-ride.
It was the figure of a man, but a man with metal parts. A sizeable steel plate had somehow been bolted into the left side of his face, and one of his hands, too, was shiny and smooth. The iron breastplate, it gradually dawned on me, was not a part of his body, but an affectation, a defiant embellishment of the eerie cyborg-image created by the metal cheek and hand. It was fashion. ‘Say namaskar to Sammy Hazaré, our famous Tin-man,’ said Mainduck from his seat behind the desk. ‘He is the Captain of your appointed XI. It is time for you to take off your cook’s hat, put on your whites, and go out into the field.’
The Moor's Last Sigh Page 33
