Travails with Chachi

by Louise Fernandes Khurshid

  ‘The journey will be long,’ Pinto said. He could say that again! But by the time we were 50 kilometres out of Delhi, on MN.H. 8 heading towards Jaipur, it was too late to turn back. On and on we went − past Udaipur, through Baroda and Surat towards Bombay. After a troubled night halt we set off again on N.H. 17, past Pune and then along the beautiful coastal stretch towards our final destination.

  We were to stay at the Vasco home of one P. K. Dixit, the son of Dadu’s school friend, who worked in a sort of PR capacity for the Salgaocar empire. (Dixit told us that between the Salgaocars, the Chowgules and the Dempos they owned 75 per cent of Goa! But then, that might have been a PR man talking!!) When he wasn’t praising his boss, to whom he seemed most devoted, the man spent more time inquiring after the election prospects of Mulayam Singh Yadav than concentrating on the problem at hand. But, when he was forced to face the possibility of a hippie nephew-in-law for Pinto he quickly exclaimed something unmentionable and turned us in the right direction.

  But where to begin! Indeed around every corner there was a bar or a church. And everywhere in between hotels and motels had mushroomed something terrible. Dixit said, ‘Today we rest. Tomorrow we work. That’s the Goan way.’ I thought to myself: Jawai Babu would love this place.

  The first day we devoted to Mobor beach on the Margoan side of Goa. The sands were white and sea was calm. Some fancy five-star hotels had taken over and prettified some parts where the sand was cleaner, the beach umbrellas brighter and the tourists quite fancily dressed − or should I say undressed. They had fancy names too − the ‘Leela Beach’, the ‘Old Anchor’, ‘Dona Sylvia’ and ‘Ramada Renaissance’. Charming! But, obviously, our own target was more down market − more likely the numerous beach shacks that doted the shoreline, with interesting names like ‘Fat Willy’s’ and ‘Ocean Princess’. ‘If you’re looking for the loafer types then this is the wrong beach,’ Dixit said. He advised we first try Calangute beach − where old hippies used to ‘hang out’ − and then Baga, Anjuna and Vagator − where the new hippies have started to ‘trip out’.

  Trip out? What was that? I was soon to find out. We seemed to drive forever − across the bridge over the river Zuari, past the outskirts of Goa’s capital, Panaji, over the river Mandovi, past good eating places like Cajuaero and O Coqueiro, till we turned off for Calangute beach.

  After the bitter cold of Delhi this sweltering heat was getting to me. So I insisted we stop at the first shop to buy some straw hats. Imagine my surprise when prices were quoted in Hindustani. Who should be serving us but Mian Basheer and his family − come to Goa a generation ago from − of all places − Azamgarh in UP!

  We stopped for some food at a bustling restaurant on the beach called ‘Souza Lobo’ where Dixit kindly ordered some tandoori prawns for me while true blue Goans with different accents − British, American and Canadian − heartily tucked into ‘kudli’ (crab) curry, ‘lingis’ (Goan sausages) and ‘kubes’ (clams). Pinto seemed to have, temporarily, forgotten his troubles. So I presume the Goan food, which I was reluctant to taste, must have been excellent.

  We scoured Calangute for signs of Mariam and her fellow. To no avail. Dixit suggested we move to Baga beach where he knew a waiter at the ‘St. Antony’s Bar’. (For a man who kept insisting that he never touched a drop the fellow certainly knew all the right spots to get the good stuff! I looked at him with some more respect.) The bar in question turned out to be quite a classy joint where the trendies of Bombay ‘hung out’ each afternoon. The place itself was quite basic − in a studied sort of way.

  Still no sign of the two. What to do? ‘What to do?’ I asked Dixit. “Now we rest again. Tomorrow we work. That is the Goan way.” I tried to protest, but with all that rice he had tucked in, Dixit’s eyes were already glazing over with sleep. So we went home to rest. And lived to hunt another day.

  We struck pay dirt on the third day. Over lunch at the Calangute beach place I overheard a pimply Goan youth telling this pretty foreign tourist that he would meet her that night at somewhere called ‘Titos’ on Baga road. They obviously thought they were unobserved, but I saw her indicating she wanted something to smoke and I saw the youth signaling that he could get hold of ‘plenty’. And plenty it was. First at this lively bar − with its under-25 years crowd − and then at Paradiso, this place overlooking Anjuna beach owned by the ladla beta of a Bombay business tycoon. To our astonishment and disgust, scores of unwashed youth − girls and boys − ‘tripped out’ on something called ‘acid’ (nothing like our desi tezab, I’m told) and swayed aimlessly in the breeze to the meaningless strains of ‘techno’ music.

  ‘I’ll kill her,’ Joseph. ‘I’ll kill him.’ And, as the music pounded and the strobe lights flashed and the feni flowed, he repeated, ‘I’ll kill her. I’ll kill him.’ Then, suddenly, as if possessed, he jumped up from our table by the corner and rushed into the dancing crowd. And equally fast he returned, holding by the scruff of his neck − who do you think? The prospective bridegroom, spaced out of his mind, continued to sway long after Joseph stopped shaking him. ‘What a fright!’ I couldn’t help exclaiming, ‘By Krishna! What a fright!’ The man looked even worse in real life ….

  ‘Where is she? Where is she?’ Joseph kept screaming, all the time shaking the ragged man till his teeth rattled. ‘Swinehund,’ the man kept screaming back. ‘Swinehund.’ But the shaking worked. By the time we set him free the man was ready to talk. And what an anti-climax it was!!

  Turns out it was all a joke. A sad, cruel joke. Joseph’s niece and the hippie − desperate to buy his next ‘fix − had come in ‘contact’ only for as long as it took to pick a pocket! The letter and the postcard followed two acid ‘trips’. It seemed like a good joke at the time. As for Joseph’s niece, she was actually back in Bombay − minus her address book and visiting cards − back to her job as a steno-typist for that multinational company that’s having so many problems cutting across power lines in Maharashtra. None the wiser about our concern and about our mad dash to Goa ….

  What a relief! I never thought I would live to see the day when I would actually be happy to sit on my pride and eat humble pie. There we were, standing amidst these swaying lunatics, with our dignity in our pockets. And feeling good about it! What a climax! What a let down! And what a way to be introduced to glorious Goa!

  39

  AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

  WE WERE IN A BIT OF A QUANDARY DOWN AT THE TAXI STAND. So far, over the past ten years that we’ve been together, our location at the Safdarjung Tomb end of Jor Bagh has been both lucky and lucrative. But somewhere along the way our old customers have either died or bought Mercedes Benzs. Their sons, having sold their portion of the inheritance to big builders, now live in New Friends Colony and Vasant Vihar and drive Pajeros and Land Cruisers. And, with no offices in the near vicinity, even the walk-in customer is becoming rare. So, when Gurcharan asked for a vote on whether we should shift our base, we were all willing to listen. He obviously had it all planned. With an air of excitement he said, ‘I think we should move opposite the Supreme Court of India.’

  ‘Arre bhai,’ I said. ‘One would think you’d want to go as far as possible from that dreaded place!’ Everyone nodded and looked at the sardar saheb for comment. Don’t we all remember how agonized and impatient he used to be in the days after that lady lawyer had accused him of ‘acting fresh’ with her. ‘Sexual harassment’ she had called it. Gurcharan’s lawyers told him he got off lightly with that fine − especially after he had interrupted his lawyer and burst out, in open court, that there was nothing about the horsy female to arouse any sexual feeling in him!

  So why the Supreme Court?

  ‘Arre yaar,’ Gurcharan said, ‘that is the place to be these days. Remember that Madhya Pradesh businessman you used to ferry around every time he came into town?’ When I still looked puzzled he went further. ‘The case of the multiple briefcases .…’ That jogged the memory. ‘Well, where do you think the man is now? And whom do you think he
’s dealing with the most these days? Yes, you guessed it − the Supreme Court. And do you remember how you fellows saved me from that mob during those dark days of 1984 after the tragic assassination of Mrs. Gandhi? Well, where do you think that mob is now hanging around − this time with the pressure on them? You guessed it again − the Supreme Court.’

  While we were speaking Akbar Pasha’s face became more and more overcast. ‘Kya hua, bhai?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you agree that the Supreme Court is the last recourse for justice seekers? Didn’t you yourself distribute mithai when this court finally granted Sanjay Dutt bail?’

  ‘That I did,’ Pasha said. ‘But wasn’t it that same court which gave the celebrated “Hindutva” judgment that saved Manohar Joshi’s chief ministership? I know your lawyer-savari said the judgment had some deeper meaning and that had they censored Bal Thackeray the court ran the risk of completely opening the doors for a saffron wave. But try telling that to the ruffians and fundamentalists who attacked my family and my community in Bombay in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. If this judgment hadn’t come out, do you think the Shiv Sena/ BJP government in Maharashtra would have had the guts to suggest scrapping the Srikrishna Commission enquiring into the Bombay riots? No, no. It’s only poor Muslims who continue to fight injustice meted out under TADA. It’s the big guns who do the deals with Dawood bhai and us poor suckers at the bottom who pay in blood .…’

  This was getting all too serious. Arre bhai, we were only looking for a more convenient place to do business, not some lecture on the state of the nation. I thought to myself: this chap Pasha should lighten up. We all sympathized with him but even Gurcharan who, like Pasha, lost numerous family members during the 1984 riots, had started to live again. So, to lighten the atmosphere, I suggested we all drive across to the Supreme Court to check out the prospects first hand.

  When we got there the place was quite lively. A huge crowd had gathered in front of the building, as close as the guards would allow people to assemble. We hurriedly parked side by side and crossed the road to see what the tamasha was about. On an improvised soapbox in the centre of the crowd a man stood waving his hands and shouting with tremendous authority. The scene at his feet was interesting. In between sentences I noticed that he crossed two fingers and, almost on cue, a group assembled on his right burst forth with slogans in praise of him and the Supreme Court − in that order. As he spoke I also noticed on his left another group of serious looking people frantically scribble down each word in their notebooks. The gist of his speech was that he − someone called Vineet Narain, I think − had finally ‘brought the guilty to book’.

  ‘What book?’ my colleague Murli enquired in my ear. I didn’t know myself so I pretended not to hear. What we both heard very clearly, however, was his parting shot: his intention to fight the next election.

  ‘What a let down,’ Murli said. ‘I thought the man had attempted that exposure of the hawala kaand in public not personal interest. Now it seems to have been a pre-election publicity stunt. What a let down.’

  ‘Not all public interest litigants are alike,’ a soft spoken, bearded gentleman whispered in my other ear. ‘There are others, like I, who have done some valuable service to society.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked. The man looked shocked.

  And I thought a bit angry. “You don’t know who I am? What kind of illiterate are you? Don’t you read the newspapers and magazines? I have repeatedly been featured in them over the past few years since PIL has come in vogue. The name of M. C. Mehta is a dreaded name among the polluting industries. Next, you’ll tell me you don’t recognize my fellow public interest litigant, H.D. Shourie, also!’

  I must have hesitated that brief minute too long. He left me in disgust, muttering, ‘What ignorance. We give out time and energy to do good for society. And what does society do: say they don’t recognize us. It is we who have got the courts to legislate on environment consciousness. It is we who have woken the country to its rising levels of corruption. What ignorance! What ingratitude! You people are so base you won’t recognize a modern day messiah even if you bumped into him.’

  ‘You sir,’ he turned back abruptly and pointed to me, ‘pray what be you?’ I muttered under my breath, ‘A DLY taxi driver.’ At which he laughed out loud and dismissed me promptly with, ‘What would you know of our cause? You taxi fellows are the worst polluters of them all.’ I must say I was crushed. My DPS-educated son is constantly urging me to read the newspapers. And, anyway, we UP wallahs pride ourselves on being well read. But this righteously indignant fellow really left me crushed.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ a tired looking man said to me when I thought my spirits would never lift. Your sympathy should be with us.’ The man, I noticed, stood at the end of a long winding queue, which encircled the august first court of our land five times. ‘This is only this month’s instalment,’ the man said. ‘The number of people begging for justice from this court would fill the Doomsday Book.’ The man looked like an old-timer babu. And spoke like one. So I asked him what he was there for. It seems over 15 years ago he had been passed up for promotion by a boss who had been playing politics. He sued for justice at the lowest level of the courts. His case had been pending in the Supreme Court for the past five years. But the courts had been too busy. And, meanwhile, the babu bhai had just three months to retire ….

  Up ahead of him was a grey-haired old lady, clutching a sheaf of papers. What was she looking for? And for how long? It seems ten years ago her young unmarried daughter, Premwati, had been kidnapped by the biggest landlord in her village, raped and then murdered. The lady had cancer. One breast had been removed. But she refused to die before the memory of Premwati got justice. The rest in the line looked pityingly at her. Another lady, slightly younger, smiled cynically. ‘She has such optimism,’ she muttered. What was her story? At the age of 25 − young, pretty and upwardly mobile − she had filed for divorce from her drunkard husband whose idea of fun was beating her up before breakfast. In the last appearance in court the learned judge had asked her if she still wanted the divorce. Now 50 years old and well past her prime she herself wondered why she kept coming back .…

  They stand there in the heat of the Delhi summer and the chill of the northern winter. Thawing out periodically when their cases are called. Going back into cold storage when the umpteenth adjournment is granted. Or a more celebrated case takes precedence. They stand there in solitary splendour, taking comfort from each other’s hard luck stories. No journalists have the time for them. No cameras roll to capture their frustration. For theirs are ordinary lives and ordinary problems. They fight for do bigha zameen or do nivala roti or do din ka kaam.

  True, they are selfish and fight for their own causes. Perhaps they don’t have the crusading zeal of the public litigationist. But does that mean they have any less claim to justice? Or the time and attention of the court? Would not punishment of the murderers of Premwati from Bulandshahr mean just as much as justice for the rape victims of Uttarakhand?

  My thoughts were interrupted suddenly. It was Murli whispering in my ear again. ‘Madath bhai, I think we’re onto a good thing. The more delays and the longer the queues the more we are assured of business. Don’t get sentimental on us because Premwati’s mother is an older version of Bablu ki Ma. Remember Chachi needs new tyres and a complete engine overhaul.’

  Even as he spoke, almost on cue, the doors of the courts opened and a stream of people poured out. Before we could open our mouths we were surrounded. And, as we triumphantly drove off, each with a taxi full, Gurcharan gave us the ‘thumbs up’ signal. I thought to myself: who says ‘Bad news is good news’ only for journalists and lawyers? We taxi drivers haven’t fared too badly ourselves. The Supreme Court was, indeed, a great place for business!

  40

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF MATHS

  CHACHI’S DISGRACEFULLY BALD TYRES BURNT RUBBER AND her worn out brakes screeched blue murder as we turned the corner that led into the home mohal
la. ‘What the h …!’ I started to yell. But, what with Bablu’s Dadu and Dadi and in the back seat, both clutching the region of their heart, I swallowed the abuse and willed myself to calm down. What was going on?

  Barely a few feet from where Chachi ground to a halt Bablu and Tiplu, and the assorted bunch of kids who form my ladla beta’s street gang, were kicking each other and uttering most bloodcurdling screams. ‘Arre kya hua?’ I asked, frantically indicating to Bablu that his Dadu’s good impression of him was rapidly biting the dust. ‘Who started the fight? And what is it all about? And, incidentally, who’s winning?’

  Imagine, then, my surprise when all the kids started laughing and clapping at the same time. What was even more intriguing was that the two main fighters immediately disentangled, bowed to each other and then started laughing too. ‘Ye kya mazak hai? What rubbish is this?’ I burst out. ‘Pagal kuttey ne kata kya? Have you been bitten by a rabid dog?’ Imagine my further surprise when the wave of unruly youngsters parted and Bablu ki Ma and Tiplu ki Masi (Gurcharan’s wife) smilingly approached me with garlands and a lighted aarti.

  What had I missed here? I desperately searched the memory bank. And why was the little lady looking so coy? Was this why she was eating so much achar of late? Wah re, Madath, I said to myself. Tu ne tho phir se kamaal kar diya; you scored yet another ace!

  I was immediately disabused of the speculation. The karate kids formed a smart line and their sardar − my very own Bablu − stepped up, shouted an impressive ‘Hai!’ and said, ‘Sarkar, aapki Balak Sena tayyar hain.’ And as the crowd of rowdy boys burst out into shouts of ‘Madath Singh Yadav Zindabad’ and ‘Chacha Madath Singh aap sangarsh karo. Hum sab aapke saath hain’ I realized we were dealing with a different kind of test of my manhood.