by Pankaj Dubey
‘Durgesh’s son, you are . . . true copy,’ she tells him, her voice going emotional. ‘He used to tease me so.’
Shivam keeps his mouth shut. He allows her to hug and pet him. He sits by her for half an hour and listens to her tales of Agra, where she used to stay with her mother who died fifteen years ago. Durgesh was their neighbour and her soul mate. A decade and a half later, she is overjoyed by this surprise visit from Shivam, who she takes to be her neighbour’s son. Shivam lets her think that.
Trudging back to the bedspace at night, he does not feel as empty as he should. At least he has made one Aaina happy.
31
Even before the sun, he is up. There is this time bomb ticking in his head, reminding him that the days in his one-month visa are fast running out. So are the dirhams. Just fifteen days more, he will have to find her quickly. But where? He stands by the window and looks out. Where to go next? Schools, hospitals, agencies . . . none has gotten him any nearer to his goal. Where then? And the answer literally stares back at him.
See You at the Dubai Shopping Festival!
Unbeatable Deals! Big Entertainment! Even Bigger Prizes!
Come, Shop, Eat, Enjoy. Win Millions of AED!
*City Centre Deira *Mall of the Emirates *Ibn Battuta Mall
The huge hoarding is promising the moon. Should he? Dubai is all about malls and he hasn’t looked for her in any of them. How could he not have!
One of the construction supervisors joins him at the window. He can’t believe it when Shivam asks him which mall to go to first.
‘You have not been to any?’ he asks incredulously like he has committed a crime by not visiting the city’s shopping heavens. Perhaps, he has. For Dubai is about malls and the great deals and brands you get in them. Every highway here seems to end in a mall. All the top hotels have come up in them. So have the cinemas and restaurants.
‘But you’ve been here for fifteen days!’ Ketan says.
‘He’s not come here to shop.’ Ravi rises to Shivam’s defence.
‘Accha, you go to malls to shop?’ Ketan asks Ravi. ‘All those Saturdays you while away there . . . you are shopping, right?’
Ravi is caught. ‘I . . . I do timepass.’
Shivam is confused now. Should he try the malls or will it be just timepass?
Ketan clears the air. ‘We all go to pass time . . . but we go. Mall is the park here,’ he explains to Shivam. ‘Everyone does.’
‘Your workers can’t,’ points out Ravi. ‘Mall security won’t let them in, you know.’
‘Forget them . . . that’s labour class . . . their life is different. We can’t compare.’
‘So, expats . . . they all come there?’ Shivam checks with him again.
‘That’s the only outlet we’ve got,’ replies Ketan. ‘Low income-high income, old-young, all flock to this air-conditioned space in their off-time.’
‘Most times, we are only leching,’ Ravi confesses.
‘Not at girls,’ Ketan is quick to clarify.
‘At people, mostly. How they walk, dress and show-off. Making an ass of themselves . . . all that.’
‘And girls . . . they come there . . . in free time?’
Ketan jumps in to warn him. ‘Don’t go after girls here. Not in malls . . . not anywhere.’
Ravi adds, ‘Which jail they chuck you . . . you won’t know . . . not till your coffin comes.’
‘I was just asking . . . ’
Ketan has to go for his bath. Ravi continues dispensing his gyan on expat girls.
‘Malls are full of them,’ he says. ‘Salesgirls in stores. At information counters. Food courts. You find them everywhere. Most are Bangladeshis and Filipinas. Indians, also. But . . . but you don’t make the first move.’ He pauses. ‘No move, you make.’
Shivam pats Ravi’s shoulder to reassure him. Then, seeing Ketan come out, he moves to get ready.
‘Start with Deira City Centre,’ Ketan says.
‘Then Ibn Battuta,’ adds Navin. ‘And Mall of the Emirates, last.’
He hops in the cab with Ketan and Navin. They’ll drop him at the Deira City Centre on their way. He’ll save some dirhams this way.
Brimming with hope, he enters the vast, glitzy mall and is greeted by one global brand after another. Marble flooring, tinted glass walls and chilled air-conditioning make the sweltering sun outside non-existent. Escalators run up and down across the mall space. And he sees hundreds . . . no, thousands . . . of shoppers, visitors and timepass characters riding them. Shivam has not seen half as many people in the whole of Dubai since he arrived. Not a soul does he see on the streets, just cars and more cars flitting by. It is only in schools, hospitals and agencies that he comes across people walking. As for Emirati, he has not seen one outside the airport. It’s expats and more expats, flooding all places.
‘The one stamping your passport could be the only one you get to see,’ Nawab had said. ‘Emiratis keep to themselves, mingling a little and, that too, mostly with the Whites or expats they do business with.’
Here, in the mall, he sees a couple of cool white robes floating about on the second floor. Then another, inside a luxury watch brand store, making up his mind about a Tag Heuer watch, the store manager holds up for him.
Their women folk strut around in high heels, clutching shopping bags in their bejewelled hands, some in hijab, some with face uncovered. But his Aaina is nowhere. In all the black burqas gliding about, or the scarfed beauties passing him by, not one is Aaina.
He scouts all three floors of the Deira City Centre . . . five to six times . . . From the salesgirls in the stores to those manning the cafes and info booths on every floor, he searches every face and scans every woman who comes to shop as well as those accompanying their mistress.
Shivam would know her, hijab or no hijab. All those hours of watching from that tank in her school playground . . . he is a pro where she is concerned. Twenty feet away, he can tell if it’s her, just by her shape, the way she moves, how she carries herself. Up close, her voice, her smell, yes, he knows that too. And her eyes, of course, they are a dead giveaway. He can never mistake her with another. Never.
So he looks for her. Up and down the mall. Again. And again. Peering into every shop, restaurant and aisle. He sees Indians crowding the electronic stores . . . and the Carrefour supermarket. He checks these points every hour, hoping the next black-haired girl who walks in there has blue eyes too. But dreams are dreams. At midnight, when the festive mall downs its shutters and says goodbye to everyone, he returns to his bedspace.
Next day, it’s the turn of the Ibn Battuta Mall.
‘It will whack you hollow,’ warns Ravi. ‘I’m sure you’ve never seen anything like it.’
So Shivam goes prepared to be inundated with Dubai excesses . . . it seems to be the culture here. Three domes poke out of a grey, a cemented roof that stretches on and on . . . as far as he can see. The Deira City Centre was huge. This looks ten times its size. Shivam sighs. How will he find her in this gargantuan monster of a place!
He calls Rustom.
‘You’re at the right place,’ Rustom tells him. ‘They’ve got live shows there, check out the timings. Look out for her at the show. Some floor you might find her . . . by the railing . . . enjoying the event below.’
Before he disconnects, Rustom adds, ‘Security is very strict . . . keep your distance. One guard you annoy, you’ll rot in jail forever. No one will hear your version.’
Warned, Shivam steps in gingerly and goes past the army of security. He is alert and checks the huge flow of people and their bags.
Ravi is right! It is like a different world inside here! Ibn Battuta’s world! It celebrates all the places the medieval explorer has been to—India, China, Andalusia . . . All these places have come alive once more in this mall, in its themed courts and their distinct architecture and décor. Like a tourist, Shivam stands marvelling at this wonderland.
His cell phone rings. ‘Bhaiya, where you lost?’ Babloo knows j
ust when to catch him, almost like they have been wired together.
‘Babloo, this mall I’m at, it’s like I’ve gone back hundreds of years . . . ’
‘Arrey, Bhaiya . . . you are after Aaina’s grandma now . . . huh!’ Happily they go on and on, connecting with each other over thousands of miles across the world. Shivam needs this, a voice he knows. A person of his own. Everything else is unfamiliar in this Arab land.
‘Focus . . . Bhaiya, focus on your girl,’ teases Babloo.
‘And you on your Chaddhaji,’ he retorts.
His friend has been ribbing him but suddenly goes serious. ‘Next week, I’ll have to leave for London.’
‘What! Why you didn’t tell me before!’ Shivam curses, chiding himself for not remembering. The departure was imminent, he should’ve realized. He is so caught up in his own life he has not even asked Babloo how things are going at his end.
‘I would’ve called before the flight,’ Babloo reassures him.
‘You would. For tips, saale.’
‘Yes, for that too,’ Babloo agrees, laughing. ‘What’s eating me Bhaiya is . . . I won’t be here when you come back.’
Shivam blanks out as he realizes what this means. And what Babloo means to him—he is Shivam’s solitary pillar.
‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘Those White girls won’t let you stick around for long. Two return tickets they’ll book for you and your lousy voice even before Chaddhaji ka show ends.’
Three women in burqas walk by him just then. One of them reminds Shivam of someone and he disconnects the phone abruptly. He chases her to the next court where he accidentally bumps into a large Chinese junk boat displayed in the middle. His foot gets stuck in the yawning hole on one side of its wooden body. There’s a loud thud as he falls, the boat toppling along with him to the marble floor.
Everyone around him stops. As do the burqa-clad women. Security rushes in to check what has happened. The woman who feels familiar also steps closer for a better look. Instead of tending to his foot, his back, and the side of him that hurt from hitting the floor, Shivam is more concerned about the colour of her . . . eyes. They are brown. Also, she’s shorter. Yes, about three inches less. Even with her heels she doesn’t reach up to Aaina’s height.
‘F . . .’ he curses, but stops himself just in time. There’s security and people all around him. And cussing is banned in Dubai.
‘Definitely not in public,’ Ravi has drilled that into him time and again.
Two rounds of questioning follow—he apologizes for being a selfie-crazy tourist and a hazard to Dubai’s priceless art pieces—before he is let off by the security. Every muscle on his left side aches as he roams the mall again. Aaina, you’re taking a toll on my skeletal system!
Complaining to his lady-love as usual fetches no answers or solutions. Again, he goes marching in and out of all the high-fashion footwear, clothing and accessory brand stores, his eyes on the female retail executives working there—straightening clothes, handling receipts, attending to customers. He hopes to find a familiar face in them.
Half the day goes by, yet he has not managed to cover even half the mall. Every bit of him aches like it will fall off if he does not sit down right away. So he lumbers up to the life-size elephant clock occupying one corner of the India-themed courtyard and flops on the tiny marble ledge he spies behind it. Eyes shut, he breathes in deep, resting his back against the board there, happy to have found this hidden corner in the crowded mall.
God, like you found me this ledge . . . get me my girl too . . . before I break. He sits praying.
Next instant, she falls, plop, on his lap. His eyes snap open, body jerking to attention at this sudden weight.
‘What the . . . ’
She puts a hand on his lips and as their eyes lock, he falls silent.
32
Her eyes, large, scared and beseeching. Her slim body quashing against his. He almost falls . . . and regains his balance just in time to hold her and stop her from slipping to the floor.
‘Hide me,’ she pleads with him as someone shouts in the distance.
The two of them sit on the tiny ledge. She is squeezing close to him so not an inch of her is visible to the world that exists on the other side of the elephant.
Two . . . three . . . five . . . ten minutes pass in this way.With both of them hidden from the world by the huge Indian showpiece.
‘Turquoise blue . . . do you see my mistress in turquoise blue?’ she asks him, trembling as she points to the world she is hiding from. ‘She is fat, has big hoop earrings and two kids,’ she adds.
Shivam cranes his neck to look but doesn’t find her in the milling crowd. As he makes an effort to get up and move, she pulls him down again.
‘Don’t go,’ she begs. ‘Please. Save me from them. I’ve been a prisoner for more than two years.’ And her big, brown eyes fill up with tears. ‘They don’t let me call home, not even once. They just make me work and work till I drop dead on the bed at night. My body, it hurts . . . still she abuses me . . . calls me slow.’
Shivam is appalled. ‘Why you didn’t just quit and go?’
‘They’ve taken my passport.’
‘Oh! How will you manage then . . . you still don’t have it?’
‘I don’t know . . . I’ll die on the road but I won’t go back to her.’
He helps her sneak out of the mall. When she’s safe from her mistress in turquoise, he hands over half of the last few dirhams he has. She needs them more than him. The brown-eyed girl dispatched, Shivam returns to resume his hunt for his blue-eyed girl. From Debenhams to H&M, Yas Perfumes to Arabian Oud, he roams every outlet and inch of the huge Ibn Battuta Mall that day, the next day, and the day after that too. He comes across scores of people but not her.
Back at the apartment, he is chopping vegetables with Ramendu while Nawab is on his computer.
‘Oye, Nawab!’ shouts Ramendu. ‘Leave your Facebook. Come and cook. Your turn today.’
‘Yaar, give ten minutes just . . . One old friend of mine, I came to know she’s here . . . in Dubai. Looking for her only.’
Shivam’s antennae go up. He chucks the vegetables he is chopping and scampers up to Nawab. ‘You can find people on computer too?’
‘Everything’s on Google, Facebook now. You should only know how to look.’
‘Will you find one girl for me?’ Shivam asks tentatively.
‘At your service, Romeo,’ replies Nawab with a mock bow and a naughty smile. ‘Just shoot her name. Fast.’
‘Aaina.’
Nawab types Aaina and a list of Aainas come up on the screen. They look for the ones in Dubai. Shivam checks each profile carefully.
Meanwhile, Ramendu is going mad. First, Nawab and now Shivam have this Facebook bug.
‘I’m only cooking for myself,’ he says.
‘Just two more minutes,’ begs Nawab. ‘Think of my tummy.’
In all those Aainas, Shivam can’t find that one Aaina who is his . . .
‘Maybe, she’s not on the net yet,’ says Nawab, shutting the computer.
Online. Offline. She seems to be nowhere. Only in his dreams, she comes. Beckoning. Teasing him to find her. Catch her. Like he tried to do at kho kho, years ago. And lost. No . . . he couldn’t afford to lose this time.
So he travels to Shaykh Zayed Road the next morning. He enters the Mall of the Emirates. This mall is said to have everything a human may desire. Even a ski slope with snow and pine trees has been erected in a mammoth freezer, defying the sweltering Gulf heat. It is considered the grandest of all malls. But by now, all malls look the same to Shivam. Sprawling marble spaces with shiny floors and bright lighting, amidst which twinkle the same global brands . . . day after day.
Come evening, the crowd of visitors surges; they come in droves for the live shows. Shivam grows restless. This place has everything . . . everything except what he really wants. Up and down the floors he goes, scanning every person walking by. Another day will end with nothing in hi
s hand. Shivam drums his fingers impatiently on the escalator handrail as he climbs up to the third floor.
And then . . . up the same moving railing, his gaze falls on a charm bracelet encircling a tiny wrist that rests on the handrail.
It’s the same bracelet he gave her . . . tied it around her wrist as she left him with tears . . . going with Babloo . . . her last moment with him . . .
‘Aaina!’ He screams as she reaches the third floor and steps off. He tries to rush up but can’t. So many women are before him on the escalator. They block his way. In a few seconds, she becomes invisible again. He goes crazy. He runs around, looking for that figure in pink, sporting his bracelet. Yes, it is his bracelet. He is sure. As sure as he has been of anything, ever. It is not just the bracelet, he also senses it is her. Yes, he can.
But the floor seems to have eaten her up. Nowhere can he spot her. There are too many shops and more and more people keep coming. Even the food courts are on this floor. He goes round and round, his mind also spinning, as he keeps racing to the escalators and back to see if she took them again.
An hour later, when he has checked the food court for the thirteenth time, a guard walks up to him.
‘My girl’s picture fell from my wallet . . . it was the only one I had.’
The guard buys his excuse but tells him to be careful. ‘In fact, forget about it,’ he says. ‘While looking,’ he warns Shivam, ‘if you bump into anyone, you’ll be in deep, deep trouble.’
Sick of going in circles, Shivam leaves the third floor. She is gone. Even if she was there, he knows he won’t find her now. It is as if the floor has swallowed her up.
He goes down to the ground floor, away from the performances being staged. They don’t interest him. The music has gone from his life. He lingers by the mall entrance, hoping to catch her on her way out.
Till midnight, he stays put. Thousands of women walk past the gates. Not one wrist sports his bracelet though.
33
He has ten more days. Seven, if he plans considering Babloo’s departure for London,