Haunting Bombay

by Shilpa Agarwal

  Savita reached past crystal vials of attars, touching each one as if a ritual. She rearranged a collection of colored glass jars from Uttar Pradesh, the candlelight reflecting off them with a glow. She unclicked her silver-plated compact and held the powder puff to her nose.

  For the briefest of moments, Pinky missed her mother.

  Savita lifted a small, polished silver box that contained her forehead bindis and set it down in front of her. She caressed the box, one hand upon the lid as if to keep herself from unhinging it. Lingeringly, she opened it and rummaged through its contents. She pulled out a small square-shaped paper, staring at it for a long time without moving. Touching it gently, she began to weep.

  A shaming heat crept into Pinky’s face and she backed out of the room, accidentally knocking into a string of tiny silver-belled birds that hung in the doorway.

  Savita looked up, her gaze eerily distorted by the shrouded mirror.

  Blindly, Pinky raced out of the hall and down the corridor. The kitchen absorbed her into its shadows where she flattened herself onto the ground.

  Moments later, she saw the drape of a robe dragging across the floor, strangely illuminated. Delicate feet adorned with diamond toe rings slowly walked down the west hallway, past the boys’ bedroom, and then stopped.

  Pinky lifted her face.

  It was Savita.

  She carried a candle in one hand, held aloft, and was gazing intently at the bolt on the bathroom door.

  There was no time to think. Pinky ran down the corridor to Savita’s bedroom and threw open the silver box of bindis on the vanity. Dheer, she knew, had once sorted through it, rapturously organizing the forehead adornments by color, shape, and occasion. To wear to temple, he had narrated, To wear to lunch, To wear to shopping, To wear when angry at Papa. Savita had unexpectedly returned early from a luncheon and gave him a slap that nearly sent him flying across the room. Don’t ever touch that again, she had hissed before storming away. Dheer had curled up like a slug on the floor and laid in a puddle of slimy snot and tears for the better part of the afternoon, unresponsive even to Pinky’s offering of Perk wafers.

  Just inside the bindi box lay the square-shaped paper that had caused Savita to weep. It was a black-and-white photograph. An outof-focus arm hung across the top, thin bangles huddled together at the wrist. A rattle lay nearby. And just below, wrapped tightly in a cloth that rested in sharp juxtaposition against a mirrored Jaipuri blanket—a baby. On the back was scribbled one word, Chakori, along with a date, 1947.

  A baby.

  Pinky felt a stinging in her chest, a humming in her ears.

  She dropped the photo and turned to go.

  There, standing in the doorway, was Savita, her face white with rage.

  She quietly closed her door then strode up to Pinky and slapped her.

  Pinky reeled backwards.

  “How dare you,” Savita hissed. “How dare you come into my room like a thief!”

  Pinky stammered, holding her cheek. The humming in her head steadily grew into a cacophony of voices. She stuck her fingers into her ears but the urgent, overlapping voices did not go away.

  Savita wrenched Pinky’s hands from her ears. “You want to know why I hate you so,” she said, grabbing the photo from the table and pushing it into Pinky’s face. “You’re here because she’s dead!”

  Pinky saw the baby’s swelling cheeks and shiny hair that carried the slickness of one just born. She saw its eyes, closed to the world, its thick eyelashes dewy with moisture. Those chaotic, ethereal voices filled her ears with lamentations.

  “You should have been the one to die, you were so sickly when Maji brought you, so malnourished, your skin oozing pus.” Savita’s mouth curled with disgust. “Yet, you lived and my child died.” She began to weep, tears slid down her cheeks, down her neck, and pooled into the crevice between her breasts.

  “I’m sorry,” Pinky managed to say, the voices crashing upon each other, deafening.

  Savita flicked back her hair. “This will never be your home,” she said. “I will send you away. I swear to you, I will.”

  THE DROWNING

  Pinky stood absolutely still inside the bathroom the next morning, her back against the door. The floor was wet from the boys’ baths and the bucket half-filled with water. A baby girl died, Pinky reflected miserably, and I’m her replacement. Yet, it had not worked out exactly like that. Savita had not wanted her, and neither had Jaginder. All this had been kept from her even though goings-on behind closed doors were strictly forbidden in the Mittal household.

  Indeed, a closed door in the daytime, however temporary, invited reprimands and a thorough questioning of activities, motives, and general morality. The only legitimate excuse for locking doors involved one of the three tiers of daily purification: discharging internal toxins, cleansing external toxins, and purifying invisible toxins. Thus, anything personal in nature had to be done in the toilet, bathing area, or puja room. Or, at night.

  Pinky apprehensively remembered her terror from the day before. Her three cousins had all already taken their baths without incident, however, appearing fresh-faced with towels wrapped around their waists. Sustained by this fact, she quickly clipped her braids to the top of her head.

  Right away she noticed that the square of hard brown soap which usually rested on the stool was missing. Resisting the urge to panic, she sighed loudly as if to appear irritated, reasoning that Tufan had forgotten to replace the soap after he had finished. Nonetheless, she grew anxious as she made her way down the hall to the kitchen pantry. What if he hadn’t forgotten?

  The pantry was perpetually dark, having not been deemed worthy of a light when the bungalow was outfitted for electrical lines. The daylight filtering in through the small passageway leading to the kitchen was just enough for Pinky to make out the sacks of basmati rice quietly aging on one side and canisters of snacks—turmeric-stained puffed rice and salty chevda—temptingly lined up on a shelf. There was a small second fridge in here, a castaway from one of the ships in Jaginder’s shipbreaking yard. It rattled sporadically as if suffering from a bout of the flu. The room smelled old, like paper and dust and dry biscuits. It was usually a comforting smell, but today it made Pinky feel on edge. Almost frantically, she felt around the corner of the top shelf, where she knew that the soap was stacked, and pulled away a dented bar of Lux—the film stars’ choice—which only Savita used. After more fumbling, Pinky located a brown bar and ran to the bathroom, the stillness chasing her all the way there.

  “Still haven’t taken your bath yet, Pinky-di?” Kuntal asked as she swept the hallway.

  “No soap!”

  “Oh? I just fetched a new one yesterday,” Kuntal ducked her head into the bathroom. “Why, there it is, right on the stool!”

  Pinky halted in a moment of terror but remembered Tufan’s laughter from the day before. “I didn’t see it.”

  “Brown soap on brown stool, sometimes even I have trouble locating it,” Kuntal said kindly.

  Pinky relinquished the new bar and stepped inside the bathroom.

  She opened and closed the door three times, ensuring that it did not stick to the frame, and then latched it. Undressing, she sat upon the wooden stool and poured a lota of water over her shoulder. She splashed her face, washed with soap, and splashed again.

  The room grew chilled.

  She did not have to open her eyes to see the sudden light.

  An immaculate luminosity emanated from the brass bucket.

  It was so blinding, so intense, that Pinky covered her eyes with her hands.

  Hand over mouth as if to stifle a scream, she stumbled to the door, pushing herself against it.

  “Help!” she yelled, eyes shut against the brilliance. They began to water, stinging from the brightness. Pinky groped for the door handle, her fingers trembling. Unexpectedly, she recalled something Maji told her in the puja room yesterday: Beti, Lord Vishnu never sleeps so he can always look out for you. And then she had popped
a handful of golden raisins into Pinky’s mouth. It was still inside her, the prasad of raisins and almonds blessed by the gods. She felt strength returning to her. Lord Vishnu, embodiment of mercy and goodness, was with her and, due to this morning’s rare bout with constipation, still half-digested within her intestines.

  “I’m not your substitute!” Pinky yelled into the light as her fingers found the handle and unlatched it. “Maji loves me!”

  All at once, there was blackness.

  Pinky opened her eyes, taking a moment for them to adjust.

  The room looked the same, ordinary, dull, empty.

  She grabbed her towel and dashed out of the room.

  She was safe once more.

  In the quiet protection of the puja sanctuary, Pinky tearfully confessed to Maji.

  “There’s something in the bathroom!”

  “What is it, beti?”

  “There was a light, a bright light. My eyes were closed but I saw it.”

  “You must be coming down with a fever,” Maji said, feeling Pinky’s forehead. “Sometimes this terrible heat gets stuck in your head and makes you see white spots.”

  Pinky shook her head. All her life she had heard stories about lurking ghosts and evil spirits casting spells upon their unsuspecting victims. Even her favorite teacher at the Catholic convent school, Sister Pramila, who kept a small figurine of baby Lord Krishna in the pocket of her habit, once told them about a classmate who suffered from terrible stomach cramps after picking flowers from the fragrant field behind the school. Naughty girl that she was, hahn, Sister Pramila spoke with a tight gloom-and-doom voice, the bad-bad spirits went right into her belly and now her poor parents have to take her to Mehndipur all the way in Rajasthan to have her cured. May Christ have mercy on her!

  “But it was not heat,” Pinky insisted, “I felt cold and it was terrifying like a . . . a . . . a ghost—”

  “Sit,” Maji cut her off with a wave of her hand and a puckered brow. She paused, searching for an appropriate story and then pulled her granddaughter toward her. “Do you know the story of the Rani of Jhansi?”

  Pinky hung her head.

  “She was a queen who fought the British during India’s first battle for independence. When her province came under attack,” Maji continued, “she cast away her veil and became their leader. She had no fear.”

  Pinky lifted her eyes.

  “She went dressed like a soldier, but like a true queen never forgot to wear her gold anklets into battle.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She was mortally wounded. Her compatriots took her to die under a mango tree.”

  “She died?”

  “She died but her name is revered all over India.” Maji began to recite a line from a song sung by village women: Her name is so sacred we sing it only in the early hours of dawn.

  There was a long silence.

  “When people are frightened, they turn to dark, unnatural things. If there’s something that frightens you, you must instead confront it.” Maji said. “Remember the Rani. You have that very strength inside you.”

  “But—”

  “You’re no longer a child,” Maji concluded. “It’s time you came out of your dreamworld. I don’t want to hear you talk about ghosts. You are not one of those uneducateds living in the streets.”

  “But Savita Auntie believes in them.”

  Maji frowned. “She told me that you went into her room last night. Why?”

  “I saw her crying. She was holding a photo . . . . I wanted to see it.

  It was a baby. A baby girl!”

  Maji’s face went blank as if unaware that such a photo existed. She held her forehead in her hands and pressed her eyes. “Kyu? Kyu? Why bring all this back?”

  “I just want to know what happened,” Pinky said softly.

  Maji leaned her upper body heavily against the wall. Memories came rushing at her.

  “Go!” she suddenly shouted, waving Pinky away with her hand. “Just go!”

  Pinky startled. “Maji?”

  But Maji did not hear her. She was already drowning in a merciless darkness.

  She was sinking, sinking back to that long ago morning when she had been taking her early morning rounds around the bungalow. As the sun, who is the eye of the world, cannot be tainted by the defects in our eyes, Maji had been reciting to herself from the four-thousand-year-old Upanishads, so the one Self, dwelling in all, cannot be tainted by the evils of the world.

  She had just passed the library when she heard Jaginder call out for the milk-production cereal, a steaming sweet concoction that promised to swell Savita’s barren breasts. The young ayah, the end of her flaming red sari tied around her waist to keep from getting wet, rushed out of the children’s bathroom and toward the kitchen. Almost immediately, she reappeared with a lacquered tray and entered the corridor, going toward Savita’s room.

  Maji had come full circle and was traveling down that hallway once more when she heard a gasping. There was a trail of damp footprints leading away from bathroom. Stepping across the threshold, she watched as the ayah shook the baby as if to force life back into her tiny lungs. Her eyes on the child, she had only one thought.

  The bluish hue that clung to her at birth has not yet left her at death.

  When it was clear that nothing more could be done, when Maji herself held the lifeless body weighing less than a half-dozen hapus mangos, she ushered the ayah to the front verandah in silence.

  “Oi, Gulu,” she called for the family driver in her low, gravelly voice.

  He appeared within seconds, though he had been in his personal quarters in the back garage combing his hair. One section had been carefully oiled back into a careful wave, but the other half still stood up on end, as if it had already heard the shocking news of the ayah’s dismissal. Whispering a command into his ear, Maji took a fold of damp rupees from within her blouse, where the uppermost flesh of her breast strained against fabric, and handed it to him. Gulu wavered, reluctant to execute her orders, but the ayah wordlessly slipped into the backseat of the black Ambassador, her red sari damp from the baby’s bath, eyes hooded.

  Maji did not wait for him to pull away, to refasten the rusted green gates verdurous with jasmine creepers, to enclose her in a fortress of grief. Hastily returning to the bathroom, she cradled the beloved child one last time, naked but for a gold-and-black-beaded amulet upon her neck, and rinsed her of any impurities she might have gathered during her brief stay on earth. Tearing the end of the cotton khadi sari she wore upon her body, she wrapped the baby in the colorless hue of mourning and nestled her to her bosom.

  Somehow she found the strength to knock upon her son’s door. Inside, Savita lay, eyes closed, reclining against the thick embroidered pillows, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders like lush vines of bougainvillea. Jaginder sat on the bed next to her, tenderly spooning cereal into her mouth.

  Maji stood in the doorway and watched this display of affection. Fleetingly, she thought about her own daughter Yamuna on the other side of the country somewhere, then still alive, a refugee.

  “Ma?” Jaginder said resting the spoon in the cereal bowl with a clack. “Is something wrong?”

  The air grew sharp, bright, flecked with a thousand colors as if Jaginder and Savita already sensed the gravity of that moment, that ephemeral second when their lives hung in precarious balance.

  Maji squeezed the stiffening baby, her head shaking, just once, just a few centimeters.

  And that was enough.

  Savita screamed.

  Maji met her son’s wide-open eyes. In that split second, she understood that the baby’s death was a gathering juggernaut. The worst devastation was yet to come.

  Jaginder tried to stand, then faltered. He clenched his jaw and stood up. “The ayah,” he said. It was not a question, not a question at all, but a knowing.

  “An accident,” Maji whispered.

  Jaginder was already racing out of the room, his feet poundi
ng the fl oor, head thrust forward, fists tightened in attack.

  Somewhere in the far end of the bungalow, the twin boys started wailing.

  “Give her to me!” Savita shrieked, grabbing the baby to her bosom, her cries filling the room.

  Maji stood nearby, fighting the infinite blackness inside her.

  She was the head of the household.

  She would not cry.

  She would not allow herself to be lost.

  SINKING SUNBIRDS

  Pinky locked herself in the toilet, stunned by Maji’s harsh tones. Go! Just go! Maji had never before pushed her away. If Maji stops loving me, she thought, I’ll have no one. Whatever lurked in the bathroom— and Pinky was certain it was something—was already pulling her away from her grandmother. She wanted nothing more than to close that gap, to crawl back to Maji’s side, to make everything between them the same as before. Yet Maji made it clear that Pinky was never to bring up such matters again.

  “Oi, Pinky?” a voice said through the door.

  Pinky held her breath. Of course, not only were closed doors regulated in the bungalow but timings too: twenty minutes for morning bowel activity, twelve for bath, ten for other toiletry needs. A grand total of forty-two minutes per day of privacy. And Pinky’s had just expired.

  “What are you doing in there for so long?” Maji called out. Her voice was gentle now. Tired.

  “Just an upset stomach,” Pinky said, already feeling better now that her grandmother had come for her.

  “I knew you weren’t well,” Maji called out loudly, mentally adding an additional thirty minutes to Pinky’s allotted behind-closed-door time. Forty-five if her diarrhea was especially virulent. “You must stay away from puris. And no fried food today. Achha?”