TWELVE
The following week, Zee and I visit Fatema at her company, the Bombay Press. I’m starting to get the hang of this homeschooling thing. The walk over, which requires keeping our eyes peeled for the sidewalk’s disintegrating cement and sleeping dogs, is a half hour of health education. I’ve asked her to create a drawing from today’s “school trip” to satisfy one visual arts unit.
“What do they make here?” Zee asks me. “Is it a factory?”
“Ask Maasi,” I prod her. Earlier, I told Zee that Fatema and Zainab are like my sisters, and suggested she address them this way.
“Zee, I’m a publisher. This is a publishing house. We make books.” She points to a glass shelf with dozens of recent releases in the lobby. “Do you like to read?”
“Yes,” Zee says, almost inaudibly, clasping my hand.
“She’s a little shy with you for some reason,” I whisper to Fatema.
“Let me give you the grand tour, Zee. You will be our VIP today.” She winks at Zee, who stares at her blankly.
“That means very important person,” I inform Zee, whose eyes widen at the idea.
Fatema leads us down another hallway. She’s expanded since we were here five years ago, taking over an additional floor and hiring more staff. As we pass employees’ cubicles, there are choruses of “Good morning, Ma’am.”
“I don’t think I like being ma’amed,” I say, and Fatema looks at me quizzically. She sends a young man away with an order for two chais and a Limca. A floor above, she introduces us to a group of editors who have small, windowed offices and call her by her first name.
The walls and furniture are white, kept spotless by the half-dozen people whose job it is to do so. The only smudges of colour are her authors’ books, displayed in glass cases.
She leads us into her corner office, which is more modest than I had imagined. Inside, the furniture is not the standard-issue metal and glass that fills the rest of the building. I press my palm against her heavy wooden desk and she says, “It was my father’s.”
“It wasn’t here the last time I visited.”
“No, it was in storage. Got it out last year. Guess I’m feeling more sentimental these days. But let’s not bore Zee with that talk.”
I set Zee up with her sketch pad and pencil crayons.
“She’s great,” Fatema whispers. “Sometimes I regret not having a kid.”
“Really?”
“It wouldn’t have been practical. Work takes up nearly all my time. I mean, I wake up thinking about work and I go to sleep thinking about it.”
“Like anxiety?”
“No, not like that, it’s a creative pull. Work is my partner, my child. I’m excited to meet it each day, to get all the messes and challenges sorted. I don’t like to be away too long.”
“I’m lazier than you. I like my vacations,” I joke.
“Sure, I like vacations, too. But work is my family. If my parents were alive today, I suppose I’d be obligated to be more involved with actual family.”
I lift my eyebrows and she raises her palms in defence.
“Don’t get me wrong, dear cousin-sister, I like spending time with you, always will. But I can do without the rest. Look, I even moved to Worli to create some distance between me and them. But then they had to build the bloody Bandra-Worli Sea Link,” she says with a wry smile.
“It cut our travel time down to twenty-five minutes,” I laugh.
“A modern miracle! But seriously, you know, even at my advanced age the family still ask me on a weekly basis when I’m going to get married?”
“A weekly basis. What a drag. Since we’ve been here, everyone has been asking when we’re going to have a second child.”
“Welcome to India. Each and every uncle and aunty wants to know why I am such an unnatural woman. Even my employees do, but of course they wouldn’t dare ask the question. That’s the best thing about being the boss. No one questions you.”
After our drinks, she loads us down with a bag of books: an illustrated Premchand and a colouring book full of giraffes and camels for Zee, new fiction by an emerging Indian novelist for Murtuza, and for me a history of Bombay and a coffee table book about Gujarat. On the way home in the taxi, I wonder, What would Abdoolally think? It has been a daily pondering since I began learning about the man. The few interviews and online searches have revealed very little about his mindset.
I’m fairly certain he’d approve of Fatema, at least her output, profits, number of people employed. Would he care that she was unmarried and childless?
Had anyone ever asked him when he was going to have children? Were men, and especially rich men, exempt from such intrusions?
And when great-great-grandfather retired to bed each evening, was it work that was on his mind?
THIRTEEN
Bombay, 1883
Abdoolally sat on the floor, reading Native Opinion, the newsprint pages spread wide across his lap. The two older children, Raushan and Husein, were already in bed, while three-year-old Batool lounged in Sharifa’s lap, suckling at her breast. Amta entered the room, making clicking noises with her tongue.
“Chaa. The child is too old for that now,” she said sharply. Sharifa buttoned her blouse.
“It’s for bedtime only. She can be hard to settle.” She carried a dazed-looking Batool to the bedroom, flashing a weary look Abdoolally’s way.
“Mummy, please don’t be so critical. It hurts Sharifa’s feelings. And she’s good with the children,” Abdoolally said in a low voice.
“She is only doing that to control pregnancy, son. She should be trying for another by now,” Amta opined loudly, loud enough to be heard in the next room.
“That’s not true. Didn’t she get pregnant with Batool while nursing Husein? And Husein while nursing Raushan? And then she had that … problem last year.” He returned to his newspaper, not wanting to think about the child they lost through miscarriage. Just past the edges of the newsprint, he heard his mother’s sigh.
He turned his attention back to a report about three lawyers who were starting a local political advocacy association. One of them, Badruddin Tyebji, had approached him after he took over the press last year. He’d felt flattered to be seen as an important businessman at age twenty-eight, and by such prominent men. He’d almost joined them, but wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved with their petitions to the local government; to take a position against the British, who were his most significant customers, would be imprudent. In the end, he’d said it wasn’t the best time for him with his business still growing. Perhaps he’d see how things went for them and consider membership later.
He folded the paper and said good night to his mother. In their bedroom, Sharifa was changing out of her gaghra into her nightgown. He bathed and joined her in bed. She looked at him, sullenness slackening her face.
“What’s happened?” He asked, stroking her cheek.
“What she said is not true. I don’t mind having another child … but …”
“But what?” He studied her face, fuller now than when they married six years earlier, but still girlish, pretty.
“It’s only been recently that Batool got out of diapers, and all three sleep through the night … and well, it’s been nice to have more energy lately … and you are so busy with work and …”
“You don’t want more children?”
“Three is nice, no? Two girls and a boy. In my family, there were six girls, two boys, and it was a struggle for my parents. We’re so much more comfortable. We have three bedrooms, ample space for all of us.” She smiled, and he touched one of her dimples with his index finger. He loved how they transformed the topography of her face. All three children had inherited them.
“Yes, three is nice. I suppose times are changing. We can try to be careful, but there’s no guarantee …”
“I know, I know. We can try. And if we have more children, it will be a blessing, of course. The way I saw the last pregnancy until …”
FOURTEEN
“What are you reading?” Murtuza looks over his text to mine. We’re not used to this king-sized bed and the two-foot expanse between us. I lean over and hold out the cover of Mullahs on the Mainframe. It’s an anthropological text, a book based on an American’s PhD dissertation.
“Abbas Kaaka lent it to me.”
“Hmm. Is it good?” He looks at the cover skeptically.
“It’s decoded some of the religion for me. It’s only been two days and I’m already on the last chapter.” I’ve mostly understood the Bohra hierarchy of “Royals,” with our apex leader whom we call the Syedna. However, even the most orthodox aunts and uncles haven’t been able to offer explanations for our traditions besides a vague “that’s just the way we do things” or “because Syedna says so.”
“Like what?”
“Did you know that our imam, who descended from the Prophet, is believed to be in hiding, that it’s a tradition that began way back when Bohras were being persecuted?”
“In hiding?”
“Yeah, to avoid being killed, he governs from afar through Syedna, his representative. It says here Bohras believe that the imam could be anyone amongst us, a shopkeeper or a wealthy land developer! Any of us might have bumped into him on the street, or had a conversation with him and not known his secret identity. He’s undercover,” I say dramatically.
“No way, that’s what we believe?” He narrows his eyes.
“Yes.” I’m amused that Murtuza has used the first-person plural. Perhaps Mumbai, the lap of our community, has rubbed off on him. But within moments, his expression shifts from disbelief to devilishness.
“Maybe I’m him,” Murtuza jokes. I laugh along with him but uneasily, an irrational wave of sacrilegious fear rippling through me.
“It’s funny, we all have photos of the Syedna, but he’s not even our imam, but his rep, in reality.” I shake my head.
Like most immigrant Bohra families, we had a framed photo of the Syedna on our Edison living room wall. As a teenager, I’d often felt his assessing gaze upon me when I sat on the couch, watching Knot’s Landing or The Bold and the Beautiful. His picture was modestly sized, an eleven-by-seven, only slightly larger than our Sears family portrait and my annual school photos. When I brought home friends, they assumed he was an older relative. “Wow, your grandfather has a long beard!” my neighbour Sarah once exclaimed, and Mom and I only nodded. Perhaps we continue our imam’s tradition of staying undercover, too.
“I noticed your mom didn’t hang one when she moved into the condo.”
“Huh, that’s true. I wonder what she did with it.”
“Goodwill?” He snorts at his own joke, and I giggle. We return to our reading. Within minutes, I finish the book. Then I scan the dozens of pages of glossary, notes, bibliography, and index, and study the handsome author’s photo on the back flap. As I often like to do, a game since childhood, I close my eyes and flip the pages to random spot. It opens to pages fifty-six and fifty-seven. I read the heading “Circumcision,” which describes the commonplace practice of male babies’ foreskin removal shortly after birth, and a celebratory ceremony that takes place at age seven, the boys wearing a garland of flowers around their heads. I read further to the section about female circumcision.
Female circumcision among the Bohras, as among some other Muslim denominations, is a matter of great controversy.… Sources within the community have given me wildly conflicting testimony: I have at various times been told the custom is absolutely forbidden, that it is occasionally carried out in secret, and that most Bohra girls are subjected to it.
I consider taking a photo of the confusing paragraph, and sending it to Fatema, but then change my mind. I’m not sure I want to discuss the topic with her.
I fan the book open to a section of black-and-white photos depicting typical dress in the 1960s, women in orna-gaghra, men in Western-looking suits. These resemble the snapshots from my parents’ wedding album.
“Murti, look at these old photos.” I hold the book up to him.
“I feel like I’ve seen identical ones of my family,” he says.
“Just what I was thinking!”
“It’s like they all used the same photographer, got the exact same angles. Even wore the same outfits! Look at those ties!”
“Interesting that until the eighties most men wore Western clothing. And the women didn’t wear ridas. That’s changed now.”
“Syedna must have sent a memo,” Murtuza deadpans.
“Sadly, I think that’s sorta true. A correction against Westernization of the community.”
I turn the page to a 1990s photo of a religious gathering, a sea of white topis and kurtas.
“There are no women,” he says.
“No, look, here they are, right?” I point at the tiny figures in an upper gallery.
“Must keep them way up there, separate. Too much of a temptation to us boys, after all!” He kisses my cheek and opens his novel.
As I continue to study the photos, I think about how most people I meet have never heard of Bohras. It’s odd because we are travellers; as a historically entrepreneurial clan, we ventured out of Gujarat, reaching across India and the oceans, seeking opportunity and larger markets. It’s what Murtuza’s and my parents did.
Abdoolally was one of the first of his generation to leave Dholka, their village. Abbas Kaaka believes it was his mother who felt that it was too small a place for him. Perhaps she saw something in his childhood that told her to pack him up and go to the city. Maybe he was one of those children, like Fatema, who boasted of becoming rich one day.
A few days later, we return to Abbas Kaaka’s to give back Mullahs on the Mainframe and borrow The Bohras. Zee stands in front of Kaaka’s yellowing photo of the Syedna.
“Who’s that? I keep seeing this guy.” She points to the portrait.
“This is His Holiness, our spiritual leader,” he informs her, and then, to me, he adds the correction, “actually, that is Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, who died last year. I haven’t yet updated the photo to his son. Frankly, I don’t like all the succession conflicts going on.” He’s referring to the fight between the deceased leader’s son and half brother for leadership.
He looks pleased when he comes up with an apt metaphor for Zee. “He’s sort of like your school’s principal, but for our whole community. Actually, he’s bigger than that. More like a school principal with rock-star status!” He chuckles.
Kaaka’s description isn’t an exaggeration. Mom and I visited the masjid many years ago when the previous Syedna was on tour through North America. I’d gawked as the elder men of the community rushed him as he entered the hall, each hoping for a touch, a few words, a blessing. Despite Syedna’s bodyguards, younger men armed with whistles, a few groupies made it within inches of the leader and later emerged from the throng, elated. Others were not as successful and fell back, disappointed. These were usually dignified men — all of them married with kids, most of them doctors, engineers, accountants. I was glad that Dad wasn’t part of the melee.
“Like Justin Bieber?” Zee asks.
“Not quite like Justin Bieber, Zee.” I ponder how to make this make sense to her. “People like to have his portrait up to show respect, to keep him in their minds and hearts every day. Remember how we talked about the Pope? Your friend Katrina’s family has a picture of him in their house?”
She nods. “But why don’t we have a picture at our house? Aren’t we Borda?”
I blush Bad Mother shame. “Bohra. Not Borda. Things are different in the U.S. This is done less over there, at least nowadays,” I explain, mostly to Kaaka, my voice apologetic. Perhaps he knows I’m not telling the truth; most of Mom’s old friends from the East Brunswick masjid display these devotional portraits in their homes.
“Here, you can take this one, Zeenat.” Kaaka passes her a laminated,
business-card-sized version of the new Syedna’s image, which Zee takes eagerly. She studies it silently, holding it close to her face. I glance Kaaka’s way in time to see him flinch as she stuffs it into the back pocket of her jean shorts.
“Wait, Zee, I’ll keep that safe for you.” I place it carefully within my notebook and slide both into my purse. As I often do, I wonder what Murtuza will say about this; his assessing voice has become an internal reference that sometimes makes me question my own, which I suppose is what happens when you’ve been married so long. Just yesterday, we’d argued about Zee’s mithaq initiation ceremony. Neither of us had had any choice about our own mithaqs; to refuse was out of the question. I’d like to encourage Zee to consider it when she is older and able to make an informed decision. Murtuza scowled and shot down my middle-ground opinion with “I’ll never encourage her to pledge her allegiance to a corrupt leader.”
“Perhaps I’ll get her a pen when I’m next at the masjid. Syedna will bless it and then she’ll do well on her school tests.” He looks at me tentatively, waiting for my approval.
“How does he bless it?” I ask.
“He blows on it.” His lips purse into a slight smile.
“Why not?” I reply, while Zee watches us, her face bright with curiosity.
In the taxi back to our apartment, she asks how blowing on a pen will help her with math.
“I don’t know, Zee. It’s hard to explain. It’s just what people believe. It’s not logical.”
“Do you believe it?”
“To be honest, Zee, I don’t know. Do you believe it?”
She looks at me earnestly. “I’ll have to meet Mr. Syedna first and have a conversation with him to know if he can do magic.”
“That makes sense.” But I know there will never be such a meeting. Religious leaders don’t tolerate the wisdom or questions of seven-year-olds. I hug her close as we sway in the back seat of the taxi, weaving through Mumbai traffic.
FIFTEEN
Seven Page 7
