No God in Sight

by Altaf Tyrewala

  Balbir Pasha pointed to an open trunk strewn with stick-like sten guns. ‘AK-somethings,’ he said. ‘Our experts are still trying to figure out the make.’

  And then Balbir Pasha went and stood by the head of the first corpse. ‘We have their names,’ he announced, referring to a clipboard. ‘This first one is Sohail Tambawala.’

  And then he walked past each corpse and read out its name: ‘Farid Khan, Rizwan Mohammad, Altaf Hussein Sheikh, Salim Itmadi, Irfan Shah, Rizwan Khambati, Munna Ismail…’

  Punita’s cell phone rang, interrupting Pasha’s morbid name-calling.

  ‘Really? Shut up! No way! This is great!’

  Punita clicked her cell phone shut.

  ‘We have to go.’ She tapped Girish on his shoulder. ‘Come on, we have to get to Santacruz.’

  ‘What? But…’ Balbir Pasha stuttered.

  ‘What but, but! Prime minister slapped chief minister! We have to be there!’

  The Breaking News trio returned to the van, slammed the doors shut and begged the driver to get them to Santacruz as fast as possible.

  What Happened Next

  The sight of the Breaking News van escaping at top speed stunned the Assistant Commissioner of Police.

  Balbir Pasha imagined what it would be like if all nineteen news channels refused to report this police–terrorist encounter. There would be no media clamor for exclusive interviews, no public approval or disapproval, and no commission reports or judicial inquiries to divert himself with.

  Like the director of a failed stage show, he would be left alone in this stinking park with his cast of twenty brain-dead officers and their gruesome props of fifteen rotting corpses.

  The vision so terrified Balbir Pasha that he crumpled and fell to the ground, weeping like a motherfucking newborn.

  What Really Happened Next

  The sight of the Breaking News van escaping at top speed stunned the Assistant Commissioner of Police.

  With expletives ricocheting inside his skull, Balbir Pasha dialed the first news channel that came to mind.

  Studio staff at MCBC News were rather amused by the Assistant Commissioner of Police’s desperate call for coverage. All field personnel had converged at Santacruz; would a rookie news team do?

  ‘Send them! Send them!’

  The MCBC News van arrived at the park.

  In a matter of minutes the country’s TV-owning population—the only one that really mattered—was regaled with a badly scripted, eighty-second report on Balbir Pasha’s heroics as well as his unit’s stealth and precision. The names of the fifteen dead jehadis were ticker-taped.

  As planned, the slap-happy prime minister incorporated the police–terrorist encounter into his rally speech.

  Troublesome activists raised uncomfortable questions in comfortable living rooms.

  Poll analysts predicted a second run for the ruling party.

  Balbir Pasha was upgraded, like a desktop computer, to Joint Commissioner.

  And in the same city, for the first time in their lives, several ordinary men grew conscious of their name, for they shared it with a dead terrorist—Sohail Tambawala.

  Sohail Tambawala, 57

  The death of a namesake is startling, like fate urging one to take note of a life, and death, that could have been one’s own. And while one is incapable of empathy for anybody, leave alone anti-nationals, one finds oneself, in spite of oneself, reciting Surah Fatiyah for what could have been the soul of oneself.

  Sohail Tambawala, 13

  Tamby is what they call me at Light of Asia restaurant. I am a waiter there. There, the TV is on loud all day, placed on a stand facing the counter for the boss’s exclusive viewing.

  ‘Fifteen terrorists killed in an encounter…’ the lady on TV announced one evening. When my name was broadcast, I was carrying a glass of tea to a man at table 3. ‘… Salim Itmadi, Sohail Tambawala, Altaf…’ My gait staggered, my hand lurched and some tea spilled on the customer’s little finger.

  That night, with a face sore from being slapped, I stole Dainik Saptah from a newsstand. After the eleven other Tambys I share a room with had gone to sleep, I crept out to the stairs, spread the newspaper on the grimy floor, and searched. I found my name on page 2. Sohail Tambawala. He was dead as I am barely alive. A half-living terrorist waiter runaway small-town boy with stars in his eyes and bullets in his stomach. He, I, me, we—we were in the papers. You’re famous, I whispered, striking a karate-chop pose on the rat-infested landing.

  Sohail Tambawala, 42

  Cosmopolitan hell demands that I reserve my cool, dress in my best, and attend the club party with my wife Zabia, where, as I am networking with three other businessmen as wealthy and disaffected as I am, Mrs. D. will swish by, offer her cheeks to our eager lips and coo, ‘Sohail-bhai, did you read, that terrorist…?’ ‘Yes,’ I will say. And she will say, ‘Must be so embarrassing, to share a name with a terrorist!’ And the air-conditioning will turn warm and my linen shirt will feel like wool and I will want, most of all, to stuff my goblet down Mrs. D.’s gullet. ‘Hey, hey, no bombs in here, okay!’ Mr. N. will say, and he will exploit the bonhomie to touch Mrs. D.’s desirable waist. ‘I am not embarrassed,’ I will say, pulling Mrs. D. against my body. ‘I am happy. I think all those low-class butchers and bhais and stinking bearded bastards must be shot dead for giving the community a bad name.’ Mrs. D. will stroke, unseen, the back of my neck. ‘Waawaaaah!’ Mr. T. will lampoon the azaan and we will all laugh, a tad too loudly, till we choke on our whiskeys.

  Sohail Tambawala, 29

  Lying on this hospital bed, with my smoker’s lungs festering with cancer and a wife and family and reunited in-laws holding me back with their love—you’re too young to go, Avantika says; but one is never old enough to suffer like this, I say—I read the papers and watch the news and wonder, will I be next? In the grand sweepstakes of death, will all Sohail Tambawalas be unlucky?

  Sohail Tambawala, 20

  Today it is a terrorist. Tomorrow it will be some enemy country’s dictator. In the future, when a ‘Sohail-dada’ makes headlines, where will I hide my barrister face?

  I want to become a lawyer, you see. I intend to apply to the Government Law College when the forms are distributed two months from now. My Business Communication professor says I am very good at presenting arguments. I said, ‘Sir, aren’t we all presenting arguments? Isn’t every man a side of a debate?’ Mr. Solanki said not many people see things that way. You will do good, he said.

  Not with a name like ‘Sohail Tambawala.’ With a name like mine I can only hope to do good. Who would have imagined a man’s name to be his biggest enemy? Fed up, that’s what I am. I want to do more in life than stand up for ‘Sohail Tambawala’ and the cultural maelstrom it implies.

  ‘Sohail Tambawala’ must go.

  Tomorrow morning, on my way to the library, I will stop by at the Government Press office on Marine Drive. I will submit my Change of Name form, pay the necessary fees, and initiate the process of undoing history.

  But change it to what? What will my new name be? I don’t know yet. I am afraid of involving my parents or brothers in the decision. Your roots aren’t good enough for you, they will say. Go ahead, piss all over your ancestry! Get drunk, eat pork!

  For fuck’s sake, it’s just a name.

  Isn’t it?

  I am in the bedroom, at my desk, practicing future signatures in my notebook.

  Rahul Vora.

  Palash Roy.

  Brij Desai.

  I realize such things are rarely done—and rightly so—for they alter something fundamental, something untouchable. Already I can feel the shifting, like the preamble to an earthquake. I will not be Sohail Tambawala. Someday soon I will not be called Sohail Tambawala. How much more will I have to change? My laughter, too? And my taste in books and food, and pet fantasies of women with insanely large breasts? The pen slips; my palms have grown sweaty. This will be too much! Too disruptive! And apt, too, for the ethos I belong
to, where there is no limit to the violence one may wreak upon oneself or on others—the chest beating at Moharram, the rigid observation of prayer time, the slicing of goatnecks by five-year-olds, the slicing of day-old penises.

  You can’t hear it; I can—the five o’clock azaan blaring from the mosque two buildings away; the grating of a tile-cutter from the shop across the street; and, till last Monday, deepening this daily cacophony were goats, eighteen of them, tethered to trees on the street, now dead and eaten and shat out by the collective arses of a people who have made life so much more difficult than it need be.

  Jiten Mehra.

  Yes, I think my new name will be Jiten Mehra. Advocate Jiten Mehra. Jiten Mehra (LLB). I bring out the Change of Name form from my backpack. I have even acquired the form. I couldn’t believe a thin porous sheet is all it takes to switch sides, to alter one’s destiny. For the better? I would hope so. I am so excited I want to go to the Government Press right now and sentence ‘Sohail Tambawala’ to death. How many people know such delight! Or such anguish! To obliterate oneself. To birth a new self. Jiten Mehra will travel around the country freely; he will check into obscure hotels and not lie that he is Jayesh or Nimesh. One day, when he has become rich, he will move out of Yasin Baag to a cosmopolitan area. He will not see eyebrows rising (at police stations) or lips pursing (at railway counters) at the mention of his name. And when the electricity fails, Jiten Mehra will not wonder whether it’s because of who he is or where he lives.

  I practice my new signature. Ji merging into ten rising up to Meh breaking free with ra, a line back, a line forward. Astounding!

  I’m ignoring much, I know. My address will still remain 32 Isaq Chambers. My father’s name will still remain Barkatali. ‘Sohail Tambawala’ will always find ways to resurrect himself. How unfair to have to reduce one’s existence to a political statement! Could I do it any other way? Probably. A wrong name here isn’t as lethal as a wrong skin tone elsewhere. Or isn’t it?

  I place my head on the desk. What am I doing? At least some things in life must remain inviolate. I am a coward. I am being wise. I must stand by my roots. Must I sacrifice myself for my roots? And if ‘Jiten Mehra’ becomes a liability, will I obliterate him too?

  I just want to be successful. I am too young to be ashamed of my ambitions. In the court, I want only my talent to matter—not my name, not the hair on my face—just my ability to wrench justice from a system grown lethargic and rusty. There are two joys I foresee for myself: the winning of cases and the acquisition of comforts. And if ‘Ngyn Mbuthe’ would get me what I want, that’s who I would become, that’s how bad I want what I want.

  My elder brother’s wife enters the bedroom. I hide the Change of Name form. She can read English. ‘What?’ I ask.

  She wants to know if I will do her a favor. Will I please go to the butcher’s and get a two-kilo broiler? It’s for dinner, my sister-in-law says. She’s making Chicken Baghdadi for the family.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. Why not? A visit to the butcher! Crucial decisions must yield to inanity. I’ll go.

  Medina Chicken Mart is a street away from Yasin Baag—where I live—a ghetto of seven buildings and a mosque on the outskirts of a larger unruly Muslim inner city.

  When I step out of Isaq Chambers, it is unbelievable how guilty I already feel. The three surrounding buildings are shaking their heads at me. The birds are fleeing from my aura. The mosque loudspeaker goes mute and, after I have passed, it returns louder, angrier, as if to cleanse the air of my name-changing toxicity.

  I pass by my family’s Maruti van parked on the street. My father and two brothers drive the Santro to our filter-paper factory. I walk past Shabir-bhai’s shop; he is seated on a chair, contemplating air, oblivious to the worker beside him running a tile-cutting machine over a ceramic slab. In the flat above the din, through the clothes hanging at the window, I can see a woman bleaching her face. I pass by Inshallah-Mashallah Watch Repairers and nod at the grey-haired owner half-asleep in the evening swelter. Huddled around the tobacconist are my childhood friends, some of whose names I no longer remember, and all of whom I know have nothing to do.

  I cross the street (the footpath I was on is blocked by a grey heap of garbage which the municipality seems in no hurry to clear out). I cut across a gully. I am now on the parallel street. Squatting on either side of the road are hawkers, their wares spread before them like guts. Most are smoking. Everyone is spitting. And hovering over us all are the absurdly amplified screeches of the muezzin beckoning the faithful to prayers. In a hell like this, I guess God too must yell to be noticed.

  A Honda City glides by. I am reflected in its windows. The revulsion on my face stuns me. And I am doubly stunned by the disgust on the face of the man inside the car, in the back seat, staring out at what must seem just another filthy Muslim ghetto.

  ‘Catch it!’ a man shouts.

  A chicken sprints past me like a Bangladeshi jumping the border.

  I am outside Medina Chicken Mart.

  ‘Catch it!’ a man shouts again.

  I watch the chicken flee, but don’t move an inch. No way am I going to obey some idiot and run after a bloody bird.

  ‘Mooove!’ Coming straight at me is a man in a vest and lungi with a cleaver in his hand.

  I sneer and step aside.

  Tomorrow morning I will go to the Government Press office and apply for my name change. Let someone else clean up this mess, which is disgusting no matter where one is—inside a luxury sedan, or outside on the stinking, noisy street. I just want to be a successful lawyer. Mahatma-dom can wait another fucking life.

  ‘Moo…

  Amjad, the Slayer

  of Lesser Life-Forms

  …oove!

  Out of my way! If that chicken reaches the street, it will be crushed under some car or scooter. I’ll have to pay forty rupees from my pocket while crows and cats enjoy a risky mid-road feast.

  Where did he go? I check behind a hedge and inside cartons lying in front of APJ Paint Shop. I look under the cars parked nearby. Ah! Pukpukaak! Clinging to the axle of a Fiat, haanh? I drag the bird out by his wings. He yields to my grip. I hold him against my chest. A woman customer has selected this bird. As we approach the shop, the chicken starts to tremble. Crammed in the cage for three weeks, he has watched me carry his brothers and sisters to the back where I slash, de-feather, skin, and chop them into pieces as per customers’ orders. No wonder this chap wants to flee—he has observed and learned to fear me.

  ‘You sure you want this one only?’ I ask the woman waiting outside the shop. The way I am hugging the bird, she says, ‘Of course not, I’m not a monster! Give me another one.’ Just as I am about to put the freedom fighter back into the cage, a youth standing next to the woman says, ‘I’ll take it, I’ll take that bird!’ I say, ‘Are you sure? This one?’ My boss Jamal Seth says, ‘Of course he’s sure! Just give the customer what he wants!’ I shrug. Just a butcher.

  I take the chicken to the back of the shop and press its quivering neck on the chopping board. It croaks, like a person choking on life. Man and beast become identical when death looms—no one wants to die.

  I know. I have killed men.

  Medina Chicken Mart is a halaal shop, not some sinful jhatka-house like those Sikhs have up north. Here, I slice chicken necks while reciting Quranic verses till the blood drains away and the bird has stilled. Why? So realization dawns on the bird as it meditates on its death. Mostly, though, the chickens meditate on me. As the blood escapes their gullets, they stare with such disappointment in their beady eyes that I feel like quitting and becoming a fakir. But I don’t have a choice; who will feed my parents, my wife, and our son? He is two years and nine months old. Doesn’t speak yet. Only gurgles and grins at everything like a simpleton. ‘Genetic damage due to excessive inbreeding,’ the doctor had said while shaking his head in horror, because my wife is my aunt’s daughter, my father is my mother’s uncle, and my wife’s mother and father are first cousins. Whatever.
My son will improve as he grows. Allah is great.

  A chicken’s heart beats even outside its body. I never knew that till I came to work here. In the beginning, just for fun, I had thrown a chicken’s heart on the floor and watched the purple kernel-shaped chunk pulsate and wriggle about, leaving a red trail like a snail. After some minutes it stopped suddenly, accusatively. I was overcome with such grief—as if the chicken’s soul, in passing, had cursed me. Since then, I pack the heart with the body or fling it in the bin behind me.

  Every two months, coinciding with the breeding habits of chickens, the price of their meat goes above rupees fifty per kilo. Customers prefer mutton or beef. No one enters the shop. I sit and stare at the livestock. What else to do? The cage has five levels. The chickens in the top row are fresh arrivals. They come from the farm in a round wicker basket, twice a week, ten at a time, clean and calm and unsuspecting. They gape like awestruck villagers, not understanding why the old-timers in the racks below are so noisy and difficult. As they begin their row-wise descent to death, these new chickens, worn out by heat, fear, and lack of space, gradually become restless and cranky, till at last they turn so unlovable as to deserve to die. I get attached to a bird at times; if it is especially comical or very weak like my Ziad, I keep it aside till Jamal Seth spots it in the cage and wonders why it isn’t being offered to customers. He is sly; keeps an eye on everything, with a handkerchief perpetually pressed over his nose. Customers wink at me. ‘Where’s your Murgh-e-Aazam?’ they ask when Jamal Seth isn’t around. He is hardly ever there.