One String Attached

by Pankaj Dubey

  ‘Bhaiya, I want you here before I go,’ he tells him.

  ‘Am I your girlfriend that you’ll kiss goodbye?’ Shivam asks, teasing.

  ‘You know I’ll be more confident if you are there,’ insists Babloo. This is his first flight too.

  ‘I also want to Babloo . . . ’

  ‘Arrey, I’m joking Bhaiya.’ Babloo changes tack. He doesn’t want his friend to feel guilty about not making it back on time. ‘So busy I’ll be practising, I won’t have time to meet you. Chaddhaji is dancing on my head all the time.’

  Shivam returns to the Mall of the Emirates the next day. But his heart is heavy and mind, restless. Is he chasing a mirage in the desert? He has a few more days . . . and very few dirhams left to find out.

  He walks the millions of square feet of the mall, treading places she trod yesterday. He strolls past Louis Vuitton and Burberry. DKNY and Bvlgari. Not forgetting the Apple store. The place is teeming with people, same as yesterday. Shopping seems to be the national pastime here. He feels he has become a camel, for how much he has been walking in this desert nation. His feet are killing him. His head throbs and his throat is parched.

  So he splurges this one time. He buys himself a small cup of grossly overcharged coffee. As he stands sipping it and watching the world flit by, he picks a fight with God. Even you are playing games with me now! First, you dump the wrong woman in my lap. Then my girl comes and goes in a blink. Go on . . . test me . . . have your fun. But if I lose . . . remember, you lose too . . .

  A Bangladeshi grabbing coffee alongside has been watching him pick bones silently.

  ‘Dubai has this effect on people,’ he says sagely. ‘You start talking to yourself.’

  Shivam just nods.

  The man is in a talkative mood. He says he is a sales guy at this mall.

  ‘Do you like it here?’ asks Shivam, thinking about the Filipina nanny who landed on his lap while trying to escape her mistress.

  ‘It was okay at first,’ replies the man, cautiously, lowering his voice. ‘But after a time . . . you start feeling trapped.’

  ‘Trapped,’ echoes Shivam. That’s exactly what the escaped nanny said. He shares her escapade with this newfound Bangla friend.

  ‘That is nothing new. It happens all the time here in parks and malls and parties. With passports confiscated, these girls have no choice, they have to either run away or stay slaves,’ he tells him. ‘But you shouldn’t get involved . . . It’s dicey here, with the law.’

  ‘Yes, but I couldn’t have just let her be.’

  ‘You have to here,’ maintains the Bangla salesman. ‘You learn not to see what you see.’

  Shivam’s face wrinkles up as he does not follow what the man is trying to say.

  ‘Okay, ten more minutes I’ve got . . . come, I’ll show you something.’ He takes him into the basement parking. The fourth basement . . . is the lowest level, where car owners are reluctant to park. It is a massive, empty space, all lit-up, but abandoned. No visitor cars here. There is just one uniformed man near the electronic barrier. Shivam panics for a second. He should’ve thought twice before coming down here with this stranger.

  ‘See that car,’ the Bangla salesman points to a Range Rover standing in the far corner.

  ‘Yes,’ mutters Shivam, looking at the super-luxury vehicle parked in the distance.

  ‘Look inside,’ orders his guide. ‘There’s a boy in there . . . in the rear.’

  He is right. Shivam can make out the faint outline of someone half-sitting, half-lying on the backseat.

  ‘So claustrophobic it must be to wait in here,’ observes Shivam.

  ‘He lives here.’

  ‘What!’

  Shivam can’t believe this. How can one anyone live here . . . in the underground? And why should they . . . in a car . . . alone?

  ‘That’s Dubai for you.’

  The expat’s words take his mind back to the Filipino nanny.

  ‘Are they like this with all their staff here?’ he asks.

  ‘He’s not staff. He owns it,’ says the Bangladeshi. ‘Crazy partying lifestyle landed his parents in debt . . . then jail. So the fifteen-year-old now lives here . . . in their car . . . till parents finish their sentence and manage to buy tickets to fly them out.’

  Stunned, Shivam simply stands, staring. Only when they’re in the lift going up again does he regain his voice to ask, ‘The security . . . do they say nothing?’

  ‘They understand . . . and look the other way.’

  After the salesman returns to his duty, Shivam does not have the stamina to wander the mall any more. What he’s seen in the parking lot has drained him. He goes back to the apartment, feeling hopeless and low. This is not a country where he will get what he wants. It has only illusions to offer. He has reached home early and fishes for the keys in his pocket.

  No one will be back yet. Good. He’ll get some time to himself. To think. Plan the next move. Next move . . . is there one?

  He is surprised to see Ravi inside, lying on the couch. Why is the cook not in the restaurant? Just as he opens his mouth to ask, he remembers the Bangladeshi’s advice . . . to not see . . . and let be. He stays quiet and sits in the balcony, gazing out.

  Ravi follows him there half an hour later. Slowly, in bits, it all comes stuttering out.

  ‘Job is gone . . . pay too they cut and gave.’ He is almost paralysed with embarrassment as he unburdens himself. ‘Shankar Bhaiya . . . what will I tell him now? I can’t stay here like this. And I can’t go back also. He’s buying a plot in Punjab. There will be huge loans. And his pride . . . Bhaiya has told everyone his brother is now a big shot in Dubai.’

  Shivam does not interrupt him. He lets it all flow out. It needs to. Too much is simmering in the cook’s chest. Feeling lighter, Ravi falls quiet. And the two sit there for some time, simply gazing at the skyline.

  ‘Go back home,’ Shivam finally bursts out. ‘Before Shankar Bhaiya buys that plot . . . before you get trapped here forever . . . go.’

  He narrates the story of the Filipino nanny trying to escape . . . and the plight of the fifteen-year-old surviving in his dad’s Range Rover.

  ‘Nothing here is real.’ That is Nawab. Back home, he has walked into their conversation.

  ‘The life they promise to the wages they give . . . the swaying palms in malls to the smiles you see on posters . . . all is plastic.’

  ‘Why do you stay then?’ asks Ravi.

  ‘Till it suits me, I will,’ confesses Nawab. ‘The day the dice turns . . . I’ll run back.’

  ‘And I was going to hang myself. I can’t show Bhaiya my face now, I thought.’

  Shivam’s taken aback by this statement. Ravi is always strutting around with such swag . . . He could never have dreamed that this guy, when troubled, would give up. So little, one knows of the world. You think you know people . . . but you don’t.

  He scolds Ravi. ‘It’s your life. Not Shankar Bhaiya’s. What that Shankar and his clan think of you is not important. You are a brother, not a cash dispenser . . . stop acting like one.’

  ‘Tomorrow, if you can’t take a 46-inch colour TV home, will they not accept you?’ Nawab asks. ‘And if they don’t . . . hang them, not yourself. Get it?’

  Nawab has given him clarity. Ravi gets up and hugs him. Shivam’s impressed too and joins them for a group hug.

  However, he can’t sleep that night. His state is worse than Ravi’s. The cook could look for another job. But for him, there is just that one girl in this world. And no matter where he goes or how much he tries . . . he is losing. He has just enough for the return ticket home and needs to book it . . . before he runs out of cash. But he can’t, knowing she is here . . . he has seen her. He can’t leave her and go. He can’t. Ever.

  After the dust storm of the night, the day dawns bright and sunny. Shivam’s mind is in a haze. He does not know where to go next or how.

  ‘Come with me to the mosque,’ Nawab invites Ravi. ‘Today is an off day for me.
’

  ‘You too, designer sahib,’ Nawab ambles over to Shivam.Designer sahib! Who used to call him that? Kitty! Yes, Kitty, in India. A whole world away all of that seems.

  Nawab has made the decision for him. To God’s house, go all three. The Jumeirah Mosque is probably the most photographed mosque in the Emirates. Those who come to sightsee it outmatch those who come to pray.

  ‘It’s built in the Fatimid style,’ the guide is explaining.

  Shivam is not interested in the architecture of the place or the ambience of the grounds. All he wants is some peace of mind. And her. Both elude him. Nawab is joking with Ravi and him as they move in tandem with a tourist group that’s on a guided tour.

  All of a sudden, a stream of schoolchildren floods the place. The place rings with their cries and chatter. The tiny monsters—in sky blue uniform with matching ties—come marching in. Nawab goofs around with a turbaned Indian boy, showing him a trick with his fingers. The boy gives him a toffee in return. He offers one to Ravi too.

  ‘My toffee?’ Shivam puts out his hand and asks.

  The boy pulls his pockets inside out to show they’re empty now. A handkerchief drops out. He offers Shivam that instead. Shivam picks it up to return it to him but the boy runs off. As they enter the mosque to pray, Shivam ties the hanky around his forehead.

  It’s surreal in there, so many heads bowed together in prayer. To the Almighty, who alone has the power to grant everyone’s wishes. Shivam feels empty. Does he need to pray when God already knows what is in his heart? Eyes closed, head bowed, he simply surrenders to the power and awaits his destiny.

  Flashes of orange suddenly distract him. His eyes snap open. There’s a sense of déjà vu. He looks around, frantic. For what . . . he knows not. This cat-and-mouse game is getting too much. All his nerves are frayed. Flustered, he runs out and runs into Nawab, who is putting on his shoes.

  ‘Are you, okay?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s a mirage I’m chasing,’ he cries out, his voice not sounding his own.

  ‘Do you want water?’

  Nawab has never seen him in such bad shape.

  Shivam sits on a ledge, breathing hard.

  ‘I’ve been a liar, Nawab,’ he says.

  Ravi puts a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You think I’m looking for a job . . . I’m not.’

  ‘Don’t panic . . . it’s okay,’ Nawab reassures him. ‘You’ll find one.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Shivam’s voice gets louder. ‘It’s her . . . I came for her . . . but it’s no use . . . before she appears . . . she disappears. Yes. Just vanishes!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m running after a mirage.’ He keeps repeating himself.

  Not really getting what he says, Nawab and Ravi ask him to calm down. He is sweating.

  ‘Take that hanky off your head,’ Nawab tells him.

  Unknotting it, Shivam uses it to wipe his face. He needs some space. His mind is in a whirl. He gets up and walks out, away from the mosque, its tourists and devotees, wanting to forget everything. And everyone. Even the children prancing before him. Children! It’s the same group he has seen earlier. Yes, same sky-blue uniform. He looks around for the boy whose handkerchief he has. He sees him getting into a school bus and runs to catch up.

  And then he freezes. Metres before the bus, he freezes. There she stands, right in front of him, in the bus, helping the last boy board.

  It is her. The way she turns, the way she bends and moves and even the way she scratches her nose . . . all of it unchanged. It turns his insides jelly again, just like it did years ago. It is her. And her arm, he sees her reach out to pull the boy in, and on it dangles a bracelet, the same charm bracelet, his first and last gift to her.

  He calls out, forcing his jammed feet to move. The bus door closes even as he screams out her name.

  ‘Aaina! Wait!’

  Sprinting up to the bus, he throws himself against its door, pleading the driver to open up. He bangs on it hard but the bus has started moving. Desperate, he clambers up to the hand safety rail running by the windows of the school bus.

  ‘Aaina . . . Aaina!’ He cries out, hanging there.

  The bus turns, throwing him off balance. It takes all his strength to hold on. He is crawling up the rail, to the faces crowding the bus window. Kids and more kids . . . screaming, pointing at him . . . in fear . . . and in glee. And then she comes . . . to his window . . . and tries to wrest it open.

  The bus brakes. This knocks one of his hands off the rail. He hangs in the air . . . his mind less on the rail and more on the girl reaching out to him at the window. ‘Got you . . . ’

  Then someone knocks him down. He hits the ground hard, on his back. He tries getting up . . . he had to get to her before she disappears again. But there’s someone holding him down. Someone in uniform. Two men . . . no, three. And there are more running in. Cops and people are suddenly . . . all over him. It is a high-security religious and tourist site. Even a squirrel bouncing out of line would raise an alarm here. And he was hijacking a bus . . . that’s what he overhears someone in the crowd say. Shivam’s body sags.

  Done. He is done. No way can he get to her now.

  ‘Shivam!’ Aaina calls out to him. Stepping off the bus, she runs towards him.

  ‘Shivam!’

  He is alive again. Smiling. Smiling in the sun with the tears streaming down his eyes.

  Yes, he’s found her!

  34

  A week later, on the bus to Ayodhya

  Trees and fields flit by, faster as the bus gathers speed. He has crossed Agra. Kannauj. Next is Lucknow. Once Barabanki passes, Ayodhya’s just round the corner. Ten hours, they have said when he started.

  Even if it’s fifteen, what’s the hurry? A whole lifetime he’s got. Alone. And empty.

  Shivam shuts his eyes. But he can’t blot out the world. All of it comes back . . .

  Just as she broke free and came dancing back into his life, they handcuffed him. Clasped metal on his wrists. Before he could take her in his arms, they took him into custody. They marched him off, head bent and hands at the back, not even allowing his eyes to have their fill of her, see if she was exactly as he remembered her. They hauled him off in the opposite direction.

  He saw Nawab and Ravi on the way, watching him from a safe vantage point in the crowd. Their eyes were large with astonishment and fear. They were too scared to come forward. It doesn’t matter. His eyes told theirs. Nothing matters now. All he had was lost. Again

  She sat on the pavement and cried after they took him away. Thankfully, he had not seen that. Otherwise, he would have been unable to carry the weight of her grief on top of his own.

  The Dubai drama ended. First, detention. Then, deportation.

  They refused his explanation that he came after her.

  ‘On tourist visa, you’re only supposed to sightsee. And shop.’

  ‘After years, I have found her,’ he said. ‘Was just trying to make contact . . . before the bus left.’

  ‘A public nuisance . . . that’s what you were making of yourself,’ the officer bombarded him. ‘And that’s a big crime here . . . big penalty.’

  His pockets were not big enough to pay up. He had seven days visa left and just enough for the return ticket.

  So they let him go, after a beating and a warning. He was to leave immediately.

  Through the entire flight, he tried to figure his next step but couldn’t. One thing was certain. After landing in Delhi, he could not restart life as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Bhaiya, we can . . . we’ll do it together,’ Babloo would insist. He knew that.

  His friend had a flight to catch two days later—his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, courtesy of Chaddhaji.

  ‘Hundred more Chaddhajis will come and go, I can’t leave you Bhaiya . . . not now.’ That was the song the insane fellow would go on singing. And he would ultimately miss his flight. This too Shivam knew. He can’t let him do that. No. Some batt
les are his alone. That’s why he headed straight for the Anandpur Bus Terminus from the airport, ensuring his phone stayed switched off. And onward to Ayodhya, the place where it had all begun. It made sense to end it there.

  The lanes in his hometown were more crammed than before. Newer shops and . . . zanier products had come up. Only the cows, monkeys and monks looked the same. But he didn’t dwell on any of it. He went straight to the bathing ghat—the riverbank glittering with temples, tourists, vendors and devotees. Evening aarti was about to begin in some time. People were beginning to gather for it. Soon, it would be a mad rush of humanity, all come to connect with God at the holy hour.

  Shivam heads past them all, to the Sarayu. He takes a boat and sails out. The familiar waters . . . the air . . . the smell of all things around fill him with a nostalgia that entering the town after ten years has not dampened. He begins to cry. He puts down the oars, holds his head in his hands, and cries. He had not cried in this way when he lost his father. And mother. And Aaina. All in one evening. But this evening, he lets go. The tears from his eyes become one with the waters of Sarayu. Still weeping, he picks up his bag and unzips it. From within it, he takes out something that travelled to Dubai and back with him. He holds it against his chest one last time, before setting it afloat in the Sarayu.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Someone scolds him, the voice ringing in the stillness of the waters.

  Shivam looks up. His eyes can’t believe what they see.

  ‘That’s my kurti,’ she says.

  Shivam is in a daze. ‘And I?’ he asks her. ‘Am I yours too?’

  ‘First, get me to your boat. I’ll think and tell.’

  Shivam smiles. As bossy as always. Some things never change.

  Aaina is on a boat too, with a boatman. They were sailing behind him silently, unknown to him. He draws near them and helps her climb into his boat.

  He savours his dream, not questioning it, scared it might end.

  She gets on the boat. It is real! She is there with him!

  No further thought . . . or words come to him. She has given him a new lease of life.

  He hugs her, tightly.

  The boat wobbles. They almost lose balance. He lets go of her and holds the oars instead.