The Death of Vishnu

by Manil Suri

  One of the women on the board was Mrs. Bhagwati, who had taken over her husband’s seat after he had suddenly died of a stroke. When the weather got cooler, Mrs. Bhagwati started accompanying Vinod to Dharavi once a week. Vinod was pleased to have someone help with the contractors. Of late, they had grown very resentful of his presence, and they were staging regular slowdowns to embarrass him. Mrs. Bhagwati, with the vast soap-making fortune her husband had left behind, was quickly able to lubricate the gears and move things along.

  A few months after her deepened interest in the slum-dwellers’ welfare, Mrs. Bhagwati invited Vinod, along with the other board members, to a party at her house. By now, everyone knew Vinod as the person who was going to turn the Dharavi project around, and Mr. Kailash even proposed a toast to “bank manager sahib.” Vinod was polite to the other guests, and to their conversation about factories and unions, but it was the buffet table which dominated his interest. It had been years since he had eaten so well, and when the servants carried in the main course of stuffed pomfret, he was quick to excuse himself and make his way to the table.

  “Basmati with cashews,” Mrs. Bhagwati said from behind him as Vinod helped himself to the stuffing spilling out delicately from the pomfret’s belly. “I had a hunch you might like it.”

  Towards the end of the party, Mrs. Bhagwati asked Vinod if he would mind staying until after all the guests had left, since she wanted to go over some questions about next week’s site visit. So as Mrs. Bhagwati bade her guests goodbye, Vinod sat by himself in the TV room, and a servant put on the video of a new movie, Romeo in Bombay.

  Vinod had not seen a movie for many years, not since Jeevan. He found this one quite interesting, since it had Reshma and Amitabh Bachchan in it, two actors he had heard about, but never seen.

  A half hour into the movie, Mrs. Bhagwati came into the TV room. Vinod noticed she had changed into a salwar kameez, which was a lot less formal than the saris she always wore. He was surprised at how tightly the kameez clung to her body, how it pulled at the contours of her figure and thrust her bosom forward. He tried not to look at Mrs. Bhagwati’s breasts.

  “Would you like a Scotch?” Mrs. Bhagwati offered “Black Label—I picked it up myself at the Singapore duty-free.” Vinod politely declined.

  “Shall we discuss the visit now?” Mrs. Bhagwati asked, and Vinod had to make an effort to give up the movie, which had suddenly become very riveting. Reshma had been kidnapped by Shatrughan Sinha, who was a villain Vinod had also never seen before, and the hero was about to burst into the den where she was being held.

  “Let’s go into the other room,” Mrs. Bhagwati said, and reluctantly, Vinod followed.

  The other room turned out to be a bedroom, and suddenly it struck Vinod that the questions Mrs. Bhagwati was interested in discussing might not involve slum-dwellers. He started feeling very uncomfortable, and Mrs. Bhagwati, being an industrialist’s wife, picked up on this discomfort at once.

  “I’ll get to the point, Vinod—it’s one thing my husband taught me to do. It’s hard to look at twenty-five, thirty, or however many years we have left, hard to look at them and see only solitude. Fate may have decided we sleep in an empty bed night after night, but we don’t have to listen to fate.”

  Vinod wished he had eaten less of Mrs. Bhagwati’s pomfret. Somehow, in spite of all the site visits on which Mrs. Bhagwati had accompanied him, he had not seen this coming. In retrospect, he supposed it had been quite naive of him to think she enjoyed going to slums, when she had such a nice bedroom and all the new actors to watch with a click of her TV.

  “Here’s my proposal, Vinod. I’ve seen you on the board. I’ve worked with you, side by side, in the dirt and disease of Dharavi. I know you’re an honest person. I know you want to improve the lives of the slum people.”

  Vinod tried, but could not recall having worked in dirt or disease with Mrs. Bhagwati. As for the rest, he supposed it was true, though of late he had wondered whether his motives were purely unselfish.

  “Marry me, Vinod. We will make each other happy. All my wealth will be at your disposal, to spend on whatever little slums you want to improve. It’s not a small amount, Vinod—together, we can clean up the filth with our own four hands, clean up the whole city of Bombay.”

  Vinod had a vision of Mrs. Bhagwati, dirt-streaked and sweating, digging canals and ditches all over the city. To bring water to the teeming residents and clear away the sewage from their homes. He looked at her, standing in the tight kameez, her hair unraveled from its customary bun, the silence broken only by the sound of Reshma singing faintly in the adjoining room. Mrs. Bhagwati was not an unattractive woman. He had not been with anyone for more than sixteen years.

  Vinod went up and kissed Mrs. Bhagwati on the cheek. Mrs. Bhagwati made a small sound in her throat, and closed her eyes. He looked at her mouth and noticed that her lipstick made her lips look quite moist. They were slightly parted, and past them, Vinod could just make out the gleam of her front incisors.

  He was about to kiss her on the mouth when behind her he noticed Mrs. Bhagwati’s dressing table. It was covered with jars and vials, and had a large mirror attached, just like Sheetal’s used to. He remembered the slots for lipstick, the compartments for makeup and jewelry, and at the bottom, the drawer where he had hidden the brown bottle with the pills. How long ago had he carried the bottle to Breach Candy? It had bobbed in the water for a while, and almost smashed against a rock, but then a receding wave had borne it out to sea. He wondered if it had ever washed ashore again, perhaps at Chowpatty or Juhu, where an urchin might have found it and added it to his bag of salvaged glass to sell to the recycler.

  Vinod wondered if that day he had done the right thing. Had his life been worth living since then? He thought about this question as he walked home all the way from Colaba, where Mrs. Bhagwati lived. He had abruptly said his goodbye to her, leaving her standing in her bedroom with the TV room attached, where the Amitabh Bachchan–Reshma movie was still playing. He walked past the Gateway, and looked at the boats in the distance, their lights like oil lamps floating in the still, dark water.

  He took the long way home, past Regal Cinema, past Nariman Point, down Marine Drive, past Chowpatty, staying next to the sea as far as possible. Looking for the occasional seagull that still flew by, wondering if the fish were still swimming about in the water. At Kemp’s Corner, he paused, and stared at the Air India billboard. The Air India maharaja was advertising flights to New York City. “Uncle Shyam wants you!” the sign said, with the maharaja wearing a hat with stars and stripes on it and pointing a finger at passersby. For a moment, he wondered if he should keep walking until he reached the airport at Santa Cruz, get on a plane there, and go to the United States. Leave Mrs. Bhagwati and the board behind, leave the slums where they stood, leave his life and just go away. Then he remembered he didn’t have a passport, or visa, or, for that matter, money with him to buy a ticket. He looked once more at the glint in the maharaja’s eyes, the expression that said it wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then, thinking about the sea behind his building, the water that stretched past the horizon, the lands, the countries, the continents, that lay beyond, and above them all, the sky, with its unexplored worlds, its planets, its moons, its sun, and its endless constellations of stars, Vinod continued his homeward journey.

  VISHNU STANDS IN front of Vinod Taneja’s door. He has checked the entire landing, looked into every nook and cranny, searching for ants. He is glad he hasn’t found any, glad they have not made it to this level, glad he has risen above them.

  He wonders who has been running Mr. Taneja’s errands while he has been ill. Who has been buying the toothpaste Mr. Taneja likes, the biscuits he eats with his tea?

  Vishnu remembers the first time he went shopping for Mr. Taneja. It was for soap and a packet of blades, and Vishnu inflated the price by a good half rupee. He expected to be challenged, but Mr. Taneja just gave him what he asked for. Soon he was overcharging Mr. Taneja two or th
ree rupees each time, and still, Mr. Taneja did not say anything.

  Then the unexpected happened. Vishnu started feeling guilty. He tried telling himself that Mr. Taneja had enough money and would hardly miss a few rupees. Or that Mr. Taneja had certainly caught on by now, and must knowingly be paying the inflated prices. But the feeling persisted, and Vishnu was forced to roll back his add-on, first to a rupee, and then to half of that. Which did not eliminate his guilt, but made it recede to a tolerable level.

  Now he feels ashamed of what he has done. Especially for a god, to act like that. Even if that was in his more forgivable human state. Perhaps he will come back down the stairs to apologize to Mr. Taneja. Surely this is someone that Kalki will save.

  Only the last flight of stairs, the one to the terrace, remains. Vishnu takes the first step.

  THE CROWD WAS silent. Mr. Jalal stood at the door. Behind him was Mrs. Jalal, poised to pull him in if there was trouble. She wondered if she could risk leaving him alone for a few minutes to call the police. The phone, unfortunately, was in the front room, in full view of the door, and she was afraid that if she attempted to make the call, someone would try to stop her.

  Mrs. Jalal stared at the faces of the people assembled. They were the same faces she had seen for years, yet they seemed so different now. The eyes, especially—all those years she had looked into them and seen only good-naturedness. Where had this brazenness come from, when had they filled with such contempt? Had it always been there, hiding behind all those greetings of “Namaste, memsahib,” watching, growing, until an excuse like this presented itself? How would she ever look at these people again, how would she ever walk past their shops, without a shudder running through her body?

  For a while, nobody said anything. The cigarettewalla and paanwalla had not expected to actually confront Mr. Jalal and were unprepared to interrogate him. They stared at each other, and at the floor, shuffling their feet, and secretly wishing they were in the back of the crowd. Finally, the electrician asked, “Where is the Asranis’ daughter?”

  “I have no idea,” Mr. Jalal replied, his brow unfurrowed, his voice calm. “I haven’t seen her in ages.”

  “What did your son do with her?” the paanwalla asked, getting his voice back.

  “What did you do with her?” the cigarettewalla demanded in a louder voice, spurred out of silence by the paanwalla.

  “My son is visiting a friend. When he gets back, I’ll ask him. And I’ve already said I haven’t seen Miss Asrani for a long time.”

  “Liar,” someone shouted from behind the cigarettewalla. “What were you doing with her dupatta around your face, then?”

  “Yes, how did her dupatta leave her shoulders and find its way to your head?” the cigarettewalla added, determined not to let anyone hijack his leadership.

  “That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about,” Mr. Jalal said, and murmurs of surprise rippled through the crowd. “I spent last night sleeping on the landing. With Vishnu.” There were more murmurs, and Mrs. Jalal put her sari worriedly to her face. “The dupatta was already on him when I came. I have no idea how it got there.”

  Mr. Jalal paused to scan the crowd. The cigarettewalla, the paanwalla, the electrician—everyone was looking at him intently. How quickly fate had operated to bring him his audience. Surely this was another sign urging him to assume the role for which he had been chosen. He would make the most of it—he would try to win over the entire assembly, with this, his first sermon.

  “This has been a long and difficult journey for me,” he began, “and last night my quest brought me to Vishnu.”

  Mr. Jalal related his story. “A walnut, a walnut this big,” he exclaimed, holding up his fingers in front of the cigarettewalla and paanwalla’s faces, “right into my forehead.” He made his hand into a fist and slammed it into his head, noting with satisfaction the way their eyes widened. “That’s what allowed me to see.”

  He recounted the vision. “Imagine a body with so many arms that it could pluck every one of you from where you stand. Imagine a being with so many mouths that it could crush you all between its jaws.” The cigarettewalla took a step back as Mr. Jalal grimaced and flung his arms into the air. “With smoke in its nostrils and flame in every breath.”

  He was keeping their attention—they were hanging on his every word. A few of them had even set down their lathis and were squatting on their haunches, rapt in what he was saying. Why had he never recognized before this talent he had? This power to convince, this ability to hold an audience? As Mr. Jalal spoke, the crowd before his eyes began to multiply, until it was thronging down the steps and through the streets, all the way to Haji Ali.

  “And I am convinced, absolutely convinced, that there is only one course of action that can save us all—to follow the directive that Vishnu has asked me to convey to you. Wake up and recognize him, before it’s too late.”

  Mr. Jalal ended his account with a flourish. He beamed roundly at the assembly, like a politician finishing the speech that will get him reelected.

  Silence hung over the crowd. The cigarettewalla rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  Then the electrician hissed, “You bastard.”

  People turned to look at him. The triumph on Mr. Jalal’s face gave way to confusion.

  “You damn bastard,” the electrician hissed again. “How dare you.”

  “Yes, how dare you,” the cigarettewalla hissed as well.

  “That was no dream. That was the Gita. The eleventh chapter. Did you think no one would recognize it? You made it all up about your dream, didn’t you? To save your own skin.”

  Mr. Jalal gaped at the electrician. He had no idea what the man was talking about.

  “How dare you make fun of poor Vishnu. How dare you throw our own Gita in our faces like that. What have you come here to do, you Muslim bastard, reveal Krishna to us?”

  A seed of recollection blew into Mr. Jalal’s brain. Yes, there was something in the Bhagavad Gita—something about Krishna revealing himself—to Arjun, was it? It had been so long since he had read it—but yes, there was a familiar aspect to the dream, now that he thought about it. “But I did dream it,” he said, “even if it is in the Gita. This just proves my point—it had to be Vishnu speaking, not me.”

  “Liar.” “Blasphemer.” “Cheat.”

  The voices from the back were getting louder, so the cigarettewalla decided he had better assert himself. “How dare you even think of quoting our holy book to us, you unbeliever,” he said, even though he had little personal knowledge of the Gita, having never had it read out to him. “What kind of fools do you make of us? We’ll take you to the police.”

  “Take him to the police?” the paanwalla said. “What rubbish—we’ll deal with him ourselves, right here, right now. What are you, too scared to punish this scoundrel yourself? If you can’t use that lathi, give it to someone who’s less of a coward.” With this, the paanwalla snatched the cigarettewalla’s lathi from his hands and gave it to a lathi-less person standing behind.

  The cigarettewalla, angered by this abrupt usurpation of his authority, lunged for the paanwalla’s lathi, managing to catch one end of it. As the two were fighting over the bamboo, Mrs. Jalal, taking advantage of the diversion, pulled Mr. Jalal inside, and whispered to him to call the police.

  Mr. Jalal was still trying to sort out the hostile reaction to his account. It was a reaction that had been completely unexpected. He had imagined his words would inspire the crowd to lay down their lathis, inspire them to rush downstairs and prostrate themselves at Vishnu’s feet. The preparations of the crowd to assault him were bewildering. Now, as his wife whisked him into the flat and pushed him towards the phone, he tried to recover his equilibrium and make sense of what was happening.

  Obviously, the crowd had rejected his message. But why? He couldn’t see what the objection was, why having a dream about the Bhagavad Gita should disqualify the directive he was conveying. If anything, this should prove that his vision was grounded
in ancient revelation, that it was authentic, and more than just a dream. What more evidence could they require?

  It was then that Mr. Jalal looked through the living-room window, at the church across the street. A big white cement cross formed the front of the building. That was the answer, Mr. Jalal realized. He had not suffered. Prophets had to pay to be believed. They had to be tortured, they had to be flayed, they had to be crucified, and only then would people accept their message. Blood was the only watermark of revelation, suffering its only currency.

  Mr. Jalal stood by the phone. He was close enough to pick it up, to dial a one, a zero, a zero. It would take five seconds, ten at the most. He saw his wife gesticulating to him, her eyes widening as she urged him to hurry up. He saw the paanwalla and the cigarettewalla stop their fighting and look up, the paanwalla’s nose flaring as he caught sight of the telephone within Mr. Jalal’s reach.

  Surdas picked up the knife.

  Mr. Jalal saw words form in his wife’s mouth, and did not hear anything.

  It was a small ornamental knife, with a sharp, curved blade.

  The paanwalla had come in through the door, and Arifa was screaming at him.

  It had a wooden handle, with three diagonal marks on it.

  The paanwalla was revolving his lathi above his head. As Mr. Jalal looked, the lathi seemed to move slower and slower, until it hardly seemed to be moving at all.