‘Uncle, the car burshh,’ sobbed Shrey who despite being in bed still had his straw hat on. Tears hung from the wet elastic around his chin.
Chander Uncle screamed, ‘What the ffff!’
There was so much he wanted to say. With his hands!
Forever the intuitive one, Sri leapt out of bed and into the toilet.
In a twinkling, four other quick thinkers followed. Sanjay found himself on the wrong side of the toilet door.
A furious uncle then set about a hapless nephew who no longer had the intellectual aid of plucking at the elastic band under Shrey’s chin.
From behind the closed door, the boys heard Chander Uncle’s fury. Sanjay would be pulled out of the Merciful Saviour School for Boys. He would be sent to a boarding school.
He would lose all his old friends. He would... About here, Chander uncle’s voice descended into murderous hissing.
Again, it was Sri who was first to realise the significance of what they were witnessing, albeit in the presence of a massive de-potted and re-potted plant blooming with the finest Europe had to offer: man, woman and horse.
You can’t become a sword unless you’ve bathed in fire.
He indicated to the four others cowering in the toilet. The boys threw down the mags they’d been skimming through.
Parting the leaves of the porn plant, Sri revealed the window behind it. The boys lifted each other up onto the thick upper sections of the plant. Then, balancing delicately on the ledge outside, they lowered each other out. Leaving one of their tribe behind, blinking in the face of a marauding uncle.
Sri was last in line. But before he could take in the sweet smell of freedom, a flowering from the plant brushed his face. A blonde woman with suggestively open mouth lay stretched out across a four-poster bed. Pink scarves tied her to the four uprights. Of her panties, there were no signs at all.
3. all of us wear panties
From school, we tread warily into the kingdom of the goddess of trifling matters.
Ayyappan was originally from Kollam in Kerala. Like most captains of industry, he’d arrived in Bombay seventeen years ago with just the shirt on his back. Since then, he’d put together two pairs of shorts and a striped sweatband.
A string of medical prescriptions were instrumental in his march to success. He would swoop down on them just after relieved patients flung them on footpaths outside hospitals and chemists. And put them to good use at traffic lights.
The light turned red at the Mahalaxmi signal. Three cars stood abreast on the pedestrian crossing. He chose unerringly: young woman, alone, backseat, Mercedes 180E.
Reaching her window, he hesitantly pulled out the prescription. This time it was for a six-year-old girl with some sort of lung disease. At least, that’s what a chemist had told him. The loaded bird looked up. Tearfully, he requested her to roll down the glass and shoved the prescription into her hand. From within his blubbering, choice words highlighted how his daughter’s lungs were collapsing, right this minute.
The opening chords of a fantasy sequence built around a bottle of narangi[17] began. The woman’s eyes flickered as she read. Ayyappan’s turned dreamy. He was already calling for peanuts to go with his drink. Just when the deal was all but in the sack, a groomed fingernail underlined the date on the paper. As the traffic light tycoon gaped, the woman pointed out the prescription was four years old.
The light turned green. Bottle and peanuts receded into the exhaust of the 180E.
Industry experts might have recommended the traditional baby or small child. Ayyappan knew otherwise. Construction site workers, pavement dwellers too, had raised their daily hire rates. In any case, his experience at the lights told him the public was no longer buying into outstretched clammy hands, runny noses and the inevitable dark smudges on car glass.
Then it struck him. There was that place where he’d found a pair of old sneakers. That had been enough to buy two bottles of narangi. Mutton kabab[18] plus roti[19] too.
Ayyappan lurched into the open area cordoned on all four sides by buildings like Sri Sai Apartments, Ganga Sagar, Ganesh Nivas and Manek.
It was Thursday, a day of religious significance, but there was nothing in the nature of godsends. The whole space was swept clean. Ayyappan glared at an open drum of water with hostility. Cradling his head in his hands, he knelt down.
A woman’s voice cut through his prayers.
‘You want to drink? Here! Why don’t you drink this!’
For a second, he thought the woman was talking to him. He shook the thought off. A world-wise captain he was. A ladies’ man? Not so much.
A bottle hit him between the shoulder blades.
Wiping dried moss off his nose—the impact had sent him into a wall—Ayyappan turned in panic.
‘You want more? Drink some more! Here! Have this!’
Around him, bottles exploded as they hit the ground. Lady Luck stopped giggling. And smiled. One of these hit him, rebounded into the drum of water and floated on the surface.
Reaching into the warm water, he pulled out a half of Old Monk rum and thanked the god after whom he was named.
The woman, not satisfied as yet with her handiwork, continued at the top of her voice. ‘Every day. Every day. You drink and drink. Don’t you do any work in your office?’
Ayyappan marveled at the flying bottles. This was like the battlefield of the Mahabharata[20]. You never knew whom the gods were backing.
A man shouted back. ‘Why do you make such a tamasha[21]? Starting so early in the morning… ruin the whole day. Even the neighbours are looking.’
This was true of Pascal D’Cunha in a white banian[22] and shorts standing on the opposite balcony in Manek. He picked at a morsel stuck to the back of his mouth and contemplated cutting himself another tongue, salad leaf and tomato sandwich.
The prospect of entertainment loomed large. From between his legs, a white Pomeranian barked incessantly, adding even more ambient tone and texture. The battle and the bottles raged on.
‘I don’t care. You’re a drunkard and the whole world should know that. For your information, it isn’t early in the morning. It’s 11 o’clock.’
A half of whisky whistled through the air.
‘I’m not a drunkard. Who says I’m a drunkard?’
‘I say so. Your wife says you’re a drunkard. An alcoholic. Don’t you have any shame at all?’
When all else failed, this man had a fondness for—It’s my life. I can do what I want with it.
‘Your life? Ha. You call this a life? This isn’t living. This is recuperating.’
A bottle of vodka crashed against the wall behind the drum of water.
‘Recoo? Recoopa what?’
‘Recuperate meaning to recover, you drunkard.’
‘Recover? Recover from what?’
‘From the night before, you nincompoop.’
‘Nampoonnay? Who’re you calling a nampoonnay? What’s a nampoonnay? Stop using all those big words.’
Pmmph... Nngg... a whispered fuck... shhh.
In the adjoining bedroom, this was a two bedroom apartment in Ganga Sagar, Sri bit on his sleeve to keep from laughing out. His brother Anirudh dived under a blanket.
Flat no. 101, Ganga Sagar had always been an eventful household but today promised entertainment for the entire family.
‘Fuck! That means the radar is going to pick us up soon,’ Sri warned. ‘Keep the sound down, you dick. She’s going to come for us.’
He eyed the pair of slippers by the door. They hadn’t been arranged parallel to each other. Or could it be that he was sitting on top of a pillow? These were just two from the entire iceberg of options available to her. No wonder this particular penguin was in a flap.
‘If you tell her you’ve failed in Audit now, she’ll tear you apart. Limb by limb, like those crabs waiting in the kitchen sink.’
Anirudh’s flunking in Audit was sure to finish off the penguin pair. If not complete annihilation then at the very least a rain
of Accounts textbooks on the rectangular space—currently tenanted by Ayyappan—the residents of the four bordering buildings, for reasons known only to them, called the gutter.
That was the thing about her. Any and everything that bothered her found itself in the gutter by way of the closest window.
Anirudh’s fingers shook. ‘I can’t tell her, Sri. She’ll kill me.’
More than three years had passed since the party for boys to meet girls for the first time. Sri had grown a few inches taller. At seventeen, he was almost six feet. But in his mind, the growth had been nothing short of remarkable.
Sri passed his judgment without blinking an eye. ‘Suicide. With no further ado.’
‘Suicide? What the fuck! Are you out of your fucking head? I’m nineteen. I’ve got my whole life left.’
The hope of good times ahead was one that propelled Anirudh as he leapt from one fuck-up to the next.
‘An actor’s best tool is belief,’ continued Sri. A Russian guy he’d read had said something like that, so it rolled out rather easily.
Stunned, Anirudh asked, ‘Ehn?’
‘Only if you believe you’re going to commit suicide will people around believe you.’
‘But why the fuck will I believe I’m going to kill myself?’
‘Because you’ve cracked the paper and anything less than 80% will drop you like, and give you all the chances of, a hobbling rat in front of the 6 o’clock Virar Fast.’
‘Aren’t you listening? You idiot, I didn’t crack the paper. I'm going to flunk.’
‘Does your audience know that?’
Put that way, the empty utensils in Anirudh’s head stopped making a racket.
‘Let me ask you another question, Ani. How did you find out you’d failed?’
‘That dick of a prof showed everyone their answer sheets. The college is going through this transparency thing and every prof is showing the corrected sheets so that... that...’ Anirudh gulped in intense emotion.
Sri suggested, ‘So that there’s no gochi[23] in the marking?’
Anirudh nodded gravely.
‘When do you get the mark sheet?’
‘In three weeks, I guess.’
‘This returns us to the urgent carriage of requisite action. Set the stage today.’
‘Whose carriage? What stage? What the fuck is all this?’
‘The stage from where you manipulate the emotions of the—’
‘Doesn’t anyone in this damn house listen?’
The radar had spotted the enemy aircraft.
‘If you aren’t going to watch the hot water when it’s filling in the bucket, you don’t deserve to bathe with it. Whose water is it?’
Sri was hit. And badly. Like that Goose guy in Top Gun, he’d ejected himself directly into the aircraft canopy. This movie was over for him.
Who’d have thought the bucket would fill so fast?
He could see the hot water overflowing, trickling across the kitchen floor, collecting around the legs of his bed then rising and seeping through the mattress into his pants. This was the power she held.
Years of being victimised for the pettiest of offenses had led to a profound grasp of life. They were lowly dance girls; she ran the cabaret.
In this house it was the men who wore panties. The newest generation in protective gear!
‘It’s mine, Mom. You’re so right, Ma. I really should have been keeping an eye on it instead of yapping away with Ani. I’m so, so sorry.’
‘You... You... have no sense. Get off that pillow. You can’t sit on pillows. We’re in enough debt as it is.’ Mrs. Ramachandran’s face contorted as if straining under immense weight.
Hers was a bitter struggle because, along with her husband, her sons were out to out-manoeuvre her at every stage and would even stoop to unfair means like sitting on pillows.
From time to time, however, the men made efforts to loosen the elastic a bit. The dimmer of the two brothers—notwithstanding his figurative leaning towards female hosiery—spoke his mind.
‘What do pillows have to do with debt? You borrow. You’re in debt. If you don’t want debt, don’t borrow. Simple.’
‘Anirudh! Talking back? Here I’m working from morning to night to put food on the table and you boys are sitting on pillows. Pillows are for your head. Not your bottom. My aunt always said if you sit on pillows you’ll fall in debt. And these slippers…’
Before anyone could say pillows again, the slippers were sent cartwheeling through the air. Into the gutter.
‘Since you know so much about debt, let’s see how many marks you get in Accounts.’ The curl of her lips indicated her faith in his abilities.
When the moment arrived, wrapped in more gold than a Chettiar[24] bride, one would have thought Anirudh would grab it with both hands but there again, he wasn’t totally sure of what the fuck to do on stage or, even more confusingly, with it.
Sri dived right in. ‘Mom, Anirudh’s cracked the Auditing paper. He was just telling me there’s no way he’s going to get less than 80%.’
A one-watt bulb glimmered. ‘I’ve cracked it, Mom! For the first time in my life I’m happy after an exam. There’s no way I’m going to get less than 80%.’
‘Is that so? Don’t count your chickens too early now.’
Sri was in. In for a paisa. In for the whole house. ‘Let’s celebrate. I’ll go and buy some Mava cake[25] from the Irani’s.’
‘I just said don’t count your chickens, didn’t I? How many crabs will you have?’
‘I told you, Mom. I’ve given up meat. I don’t want any.’
‘No one gives up meat. Not in my house, Sri. You’ll have crabs like the rest of us.’
In that instant, Sri wanted to be the hero he saw in his mind’s mirror: a man who puts his foot down and fights for his principles. Panty elastic took over from there.
We’re already a pair of slippers down in our freedom struggle. That aside, Ani and Audit always beat foot and fight.
‘I’ll have one. Just the claws.’
‘I’ll kill myself if I don’t get 80%.’
Sri jerked up. Exactly like a coach when a debutant pulls off a blinding catch. Even the crabs in the kitchen sink stopped fretting and gurgled excitedly at this transfer of the death sentence.
‘Kill yourself? No one in my house is allowed to do that. Why should you? You just said you’ve answered well, haven’t you?’
‘Of course, I have. Never given a better paper in Audit. Still...’
‘What? Why all these dark thoughts? Can’t you see I have enough on my hands? Your father is drinking himself to death. And you’re thinking of beating him there?’
Point made. A lighter hand was required now. Sri steered out of the metaphorical hot water.
‘I think I’ll go for a bath.’
‘When you finish, make sure you put the soap back in the dish. I’m sick and tired of putting it back after you. If you leave it outside again, I promise, you won’t get a paisa for the library.’
How can she stop library money? That’s the only place left in our world where the panties loosen a little.
To those who recoil in terror that a library (books not video) can be a place of refuge, suffice it to say, braver men have hidden behind words. Not to be ignored was the no small delight of smoking a cigarette en route.
After bathing, the soap was centered gingerly in the box. Then, as a safety precaution, the lid was fitted tightly over it.
You never know with movements in the earth’s crust, no matter how far down.
101, Ganga Sagar was home to a wide array of chores, renowned for their complexity, looping the inmates in meaningless cycles of labour. On a daily basis.
The drying of wet bath towels was one such task. This operation had to be carried out within close proximity of the kitchen ceiling, twelve feet above. Stretched across the ceiling were nylon cords attached at either end to hooks. Domestic protocol was unshakeable in that wet towels had to be draped over any of those
four nylon cords. Towels couldn’t and shouldn’t be found anywhere closer to earth.
How then did towels ascend to those dizzying heights? To this end, the management had provided a pointy bamboo stick. The wet towel was to be balanced on the tip of this spear, raised overhead and then delicately draped over a nylon cord. Considering there were only six inches between the nylon cords and ceiling, the towel, almost always, plummeted down, covering the head of the soldier with spear.
Sri relied on the cook. She had a soft corner for the boys. She also appeared to like gazing skyward, expectantly.
Returning to the present, it was obvious the cook’s reflexes had slowed down. Sri’s towel, therefore, lay audaciously draped over the back of a chair.
This most despicable act invoked the goddess of trifling matters. She descended in all her magnificence, each of her four hands brandishing a weapon of grim aspect.
‘This towel... This!’
She’d re-entered the room because she knew. Everything.
Fling.
The towel found itself airborne only to land over the shoulders of Ayyappan. Another addition to his wardrobe!
‘That should teach you.’ With that, Mrs. Ramachandran flounced out the door.
When the angry flap of her slippers receded, Sri turned to his protégé, Anirudh. There was unfinished business.
‘So, as I was saying, you’ve got to set the stage properly. Take every opportunity to talk about how well you’ve done in Audit, ending with the most important bit— suicide, if you fail.’
‘I still don’t understand what all this is about.’
‘Anirudh, my biological associate, there are a few things about this family you need to understand. First, and contrary to existing rumours, we aren’t one. We’re a pack. She’s the Alpha, the strongest and you’re the Omega, the weakest. You’re needed to diffuse the tension. She can’t have you committing suicide. Who’ll absorb all the shit?’
‘I’m a sponge to wipe all the shit?’ Anirudh’s eyes became moist.
‘So am I. So am I,’ Sri added hastily. ‘Fuck that example. We’re like four characters in a play. The two main actors keep tripping over each other, so we’re needed to step in and distract the audience. We’re the dudes. We save the main actors and the rest of this bloody show from tomatoes.’
A Ladder of Panties Page 4