Haunting Bombay

by Shilpa Agarwal

  A heap of green okra lay in a stainless-steel thali, their tips already having been snapped off during their inspection at Crawford Market. A plate of cucumbers, the top slice having been rubbed against the rest to defroth them of their bitterness, lay sliced and waiting to be peppered with rock salt. Onions, garlic, and ginger stood in separate piquant piles, freshly chopped and grated. A pan of oil simmered on the stove, black mustard seeds popping over the edge in sharp staccatos. Turmeric and chili powder stained the countertop in velvety blankets of yellow, orange, and red. Cook Kanj himself was squatting on the floor with a thali of pink lentils which he sifted through with brisk fingerwork, pulling out tiny rocks and sticks and other contaminants that he carefully inspected at close view before discarding into a pile on the kitchen floor.

  Pinky watched intently, dreading the day she would be expected to know the rudiments of cooking.

  Cooking skill is most essential in marriage, Maji had always stressed to her though she herself hadn’t set foot inside the kitchen for two decades. As if to prove her point, she hauled Pinky there for a demonstration in deep frying which had quickly turned into a disaster.

  Never mind, Maji had said afterwards, changing out of her oil-spattered sari. Go watch Cook Kanj, I’ll teach you how to make samosas later.

  Learning from Cook Kanj was a challenge, not only because he did not follow rules or recipes but also because he refused to teach. Instead, with hands flying and an occasional grunt, he transformed the heap of vegetables and spices on the counter into a mouth-watering feast, all without the least bit of instruction for Pinky’s benefit. Nonetheless, he appreciated having her as his audience, imagining himself in a big kitchen, wielding his knife with quick strokes and throwing in spices with drama and flair while underlings watched in awe.

  In his younger days, he had dreamt of one day working at the one of the ritzier restaurants like Bombelli’s on the road from Churchgate Station to Marine Drive or Napoli’s with its state-of-the-art jukebox. But life in Maji’s bungalow had been good to him, enough so that he always repressed his unhatched plans for the future. Then, after Parvati arrived back in 1943, Cook Kanj gave up any thoughts of leaving and allowed himself to bake in the tandoor of married life. Even so, and though the Mittal family duly stuffed their stomachs at mealtimes, adding appreciative noises afterward, Cook Kanj felt that his talents went unnoticed. His resentment had turned him bitter, like the hard bumpy gourd that he sometimes stuffed with chilies and zealously shrank in the frying pan.

  “Cook Kanj?”

  Kanj grunted as he stood and poured the pink lentils into a bowl which he vigorously swirled under cold water.

  “When do you mix milk, almonds, sugar cane, and fenugreek together?” Pinky asked, listing the ingredients Dheer had smelled in the bathroom.

  Cook Kanj disliked questions about his cooking and showed his displeasure by ruthlessly throwing onions into the hot bubbling oil where they sputtered in protest. He then turned the gas on high before adding garlic and ginger, and stirred the contents with zeal.

  “Please,” Pinky pleaded.

  Cook Kanj was not interested in anything that could not be fried, pickled, or masala-ed. Nevertheless, he sighed and, lowering the gas, allowed his mind to entertain Pinky’s question. He had not mixed those ingredients together for over thirteen years. And then only for a few, short days. He sighed again. “Cereal.”

  “Cereal?”

  “Milk-production cereal. I made it for your Savita Auntie after the birth of her babies.”

  After the drowning, he had shut down his kitchen as tradition dictated, having only made the cereal and the puja halwa. He had stashed away pots and pans and emptied out the fridge and pantry. He had shuttled urns of milk, baskets of majestic purple brinjal, trays of raw almonds nestled in their succulent green flesh, and even his entire set of Devidayal stainless steel cooking utensils to the neighbors, the Lawates. For the requisite three days, nothing could be cooked in this place of mourning. Their neighbor immediately hurried over with Ovaltine-thickened milk and fresh puris infused with sugar and crushed almonds. Parvati had gladly taken on the task of ridding the household of the ayah’s belongings. Kuntal lit clay diyas in each room to lighten the baby’s soul as it journeyed back to God, but more so to keep evil spirits from possessing her lifeless body. And Dr. M. M. Iyer had arrived that evening to administer a Coromine tranquilizer to Savita.

  Cook Kanj returned his attention to the thali of okra, slicing the green fingerlike vegetables into small circles, their juicy interiors covering his knife in brownish slime. Pinky had more questions but judging from Cook Kanj’s posture, his back squarely to her, she knew that he considered their conversation over.

  Pinky paced the gloomy library, digging her toes into the balding carpet, fingering the intricately carved reliefs upon the teak furniture. She touched the wide, iron base of the multiple-piped hookah which had corroded to a sickly greenish color, and sat upon a sofa that now sank dangerously in the middle, its heavy upholstery faded and torn. A white marble bust of Queen Victoria stood forlornly in one corner of the room, the tarnished brass plate proclaiming, Empress of India. Cobwebs looped and twisted within the chandelier. Stale curtains reeked of smoke and a bygone era.

  Pinky marveled at the contrast between this forgotten room and the rest of the majestic bungalow which was meticulously kept up, down to the smallest silver inkwell displayed in the parlor. Her gaze fell upon a fourteenth-edition set of Encyclopedia Britannica that Maji had procured for Nimish from a book sale held at the US Information Center’s library some years ago. Nimish had dived into it with zeal, scanning the texts for small, important details which he memorized with great care. Each new bit of information was like a rung on a ladder and, by god, he planned to keep on climbing, all the way to England if he could.

  There were so many books in here, filling the shelves from floor to ceiling and looming over her as if she were insignificant, nothing. It was all here, stacks of the Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal and the blue-bound Rulers of India series with volumes such as Earl of Mayo, 1891 and Lord Clive, 1900. How did these men, Pinky wondered, compare to the great King Ashoka whose Wheel of Dharma graced the Indian flag, or Emperor Akbar who encouraged arts, literature, and religious tolerance?

  Closing her eyes, she reached out and plucked a random book. All she needed was a story, one story that would make the ghost understand that she had not taken its place on purpose, that she was willing to share, that she should not be the one blamed.

  She opened her eyes and read the title, My Indian Mutiny Diary, 1860, by war correspondent William Howard Russell. Printed inside was a letter addressed to him: India is at present a blank, a blank I fear will remain unless you will fill it.

  A blank.

  She understood at once that her story was not here, with these musty books but already inside her.

  It was one of Maji’s parables that had shaped her with its tale of strength, purpose, and enduring love. Pinky stood outside the bathroom, her stomach clenching.

  She knew she had to go in because no one believed her.

  She heard Nimish reading out loud at the breakfast table from A Passage to India, his voice carrying down the hall. “Oh superstition is terrible, terrible! Oh, it is the greatest defect in our Indian character!”

  She sighed and stepped inside.

  “There was a princess,” she said, hesitating before latching the door.

  There’s still time, to run away, to be safe.

  She took a breath to calm her beating heart. The ancient Sanskrit play came to her lips.

  “Her name was Ratnavali.”

  She stepped toward the bucket.

  “Everyone thought she drowned.”

  Pinky slowly crouched upon the stool and cautiously peered into the bucket. There was a thin layer of clear water inside. She went on to describe how the princess had taken a ship to marry her future husband, a king of a distant land but en route, a violent storm sank the s
hip. Ratnavali was rescued and taken to the king’s palace in rags where she was made a servant. Though no one recognized her, she knew the king was her betrothed, and quickly fell in love. The king happened upon her one day in the royal garden and was taken by her beauty. He arranged for them to meet clandestinely but his first wife, the queen, discovered them.

  “Ashamed, the princess decided to end her life,” Pinky continued. “She made a noose from a madhavi creeper and slipped it over her neck.”

  There was a sudden breeze in the room, a long rattling inhalation.

  Pinky froze, the story vanishing from her head. She grasped for words, characters, any small detail that would bring it back.

  The temperature dropped.

  Run! Run! her head screamed.

  But she held tight to the wooden stool, one hand clutching either side.

  She could not run away again.

  If there’s something that frightens you, you must instead confront it, Maji had said. You have that very strength inside you.

  Pinky took another deep breath, her exhalation visible in the frosted air, and held onto that image of the desolate princess—her head downcast, sari palloo covering her hair, the noose pulling upon soft flesh —thinking that this was her very last breath in this world.

  “The king saved her,” she said, remembering how he had gently put his arm around her and begged her never to leave him. The jealous queen, however, imprisoned Ratnavali in a cell that suddenly burst into flames. Thrice now, Ratavali thought her life had ended, first by water, second by earth, third by fire. Then as if by magic, the inferno spluttered out and she was recognized as the princess, the drowned princess.

  The water began to flicker as if it were a dying flame.

  A line of thick silvery smoke curled upwards.

  Pinky gritted her teeth to stop them from chattering. “The king held Ratnavali to him at last. His queen. His queen!” she whispered. “Her rightful place at last.”

  She fell silent.

  Shaking, she reached for the lota, dipped it into the water, and splashed her face.

  She wiped away the moisture and blinked.

  Two stormy eyes stared directly at her.

  Pinky fell back off the stool, a thousand thoughts reeling through her head. The flashes of light. Space to wind, wind to fire, fire to water. . . . The ghost was coming back to life.

  As if it were being sketched by an invisible hand, it began to take on the appearance of a girl with a slender nose, long eyelashes, and a sweet, silken mouth. It was tiny and naked except for a silvery mane that swirled around its lucent limbs like the celestial wings of a seraph.

  Pinky put her hand out and, fingers trembling, tried to touch the ghost, the black pipes on the far wall faintly visible through its torso. It simply slipped right through her hands and bobbed in the bucket with tiny splashes, spraying water into the air.

  It gestured to her now, Come, come.

  Pinky shook her head, unable to speak. The ghost was beautiful, silvery, angelic.

  Come.

  The dim, hanging handi lamp swung wildly as the ghost placed its translucent miniature hands against Pinky’s face, its eyes misting like rain clouds. Pinky’s eyelids drooped, as she felt a pulsing coolness. She allowed herself to be pulled closer to the ghost, feeling at once a timeless bond with her. She’s my sister-cousin, my sister. A strange love filled her chest, chasing away fear.

  Without realizing it, her head now hung over the bucket, her body entirely enveloped in a vaporous fog as she was pulled more and more into the ghost’s watery world. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they crossed the boundary of the living and the dead, slipping into each other’s realm of existence.

  You were the one to call me back.

  On the backs of her eyelids, Pinky saw flashes of images from the baby’s brief days of life thirteen years ago. Faster and faster they flickered like a reel spinning off of its axis.

  Mucus worked its way down baby Tufan’s upper lip in two sluggish rivers.

  Bangles shimmered as Savita unhooked her blouse, coaxing her barren breasts.

  Bougainvillea blazed in the window, caught in a burning shaft of sunlight.

  Pinky held her breath, afraid of missing anything. And then, as if the reel was coming to an end, the images slowed down and became distorted, like a waterlogged spool of recording tape. The black-and-white pictures struggled across Pinky’s eyelids where they wobbled and bled together, no longer random but the mere vestiges of a story.

  Piping encircled a flatly tiled room.

  Colorless water fl owed from a faucet into a dull metallic bucket.

  A young face appeared, a tiny mole upon her cheek, the shiny embroidery on her bright sari palloo sparkling like a firecracker.

  Her mouth moved in song.

  Water fell from the lota, a glistening stream.

  The face suddenly turned back towards the bathroom door as if a voice had called to her, momentarily disappearing from view.

  And then—

  Pinky jerked open her eyes, realizing that her entire head was submerged in the bucket. She thrashed, swallowing water in great gulps, her lungs bursting, a rattling deafening all around her. And then, just as she was about to black out, the pressure lifted and Pinky fell back, vomiting first, then gasping for air.

  Once safely inside her bedroom, she curled up into a ball and wept, the ghost’s final image searing her vision.

  A disembodied hand appeared out of nowhere, pushing her down, down, down into the thick, glassy water.

  A BLINDING VISION

  Maji could no longer dismiss Pinky’s recent behavior. Just as Cook Kanj meticulously culled fresh purple brinjal from jute sacks at Crawford Market before currying them with onions, tomatoes, and spices, Maji called the household to her in order to collect, cut, and curry the disturbing information about her granddaughter’s affliction.

  “She is up all night snooping instead of sleeping,” Savita jumped in.

  “She’ll be beginning her cycles soon,” Parvati reported.

  “She has no interest in cooking,” Cook Kanj said testily.

  “She’s not learning proper things in convent school,” Gulu commented.

  “She’s overwhelmed with schoolwork for next year,” Nimish suggested.

  “She needs specs,” Kuntal offered.

  “She’s so sickly,” Savita remarked and then discreetly motioned for Cook Kanj to add a sprinkling of crushed pistachios to her own drink.

  Dheer simply shrugged, an embarrassed flush in his cheeks.

  Tufan stood quietly, enjoying this game of finding fault with his cousin.

  With all eyes upon her, Maji reclined upon her cushioned seat and fanned herself with a considerably outdated copy of Filmindia.

  Perhaps I’ve not done enough, she thought. Perhaps I’ve not been able to be both a mother and father to Pinky.

  Maji leaned back upon the dais and inspected a handful of supari from the silver tin on the table next to her. Yellowed coconut flakes swam in a sea of roasted fennel seeds, pink and white candies, and tiny little red balls of sugar. She carefully picked out the dark triangular pieces of betel nut and, between her molars, methodically chewed on their bitterness as she reflected upon her decision to take Pinky away from her father that fateful day. It had been the right thing to do, hadn’t it?

  She had stepped past Pinky’s other grandmother without even a namaste and into the small, decaying flat in that desolate settlement of Hindu refugees. The walls were bare except for curling black wires that emerged from circular electrical outlets. An imprisoned wall fan peeked out from behind metal slats. An oval container of Yardley’s talcum was displayed next to a tin wind-up car on a shelf near the puja table.

  Yardley. Was it the very same talcum that Maji had slipped into Yamuna’s overnight bag the day she departed Bombay as a new bride? She stared at that inanimate object that her daughter had once touched with her fingers, had once taken pleasure in sprinkling upon her skin. It w
as so unjust, Maji thought, that it remained here on the shelf when her daughter, her beloved daughter, was gone.

  Pinky’s father walked into the room, his eyes red and ringed with dark circles, and fell to Maji’s feet weeping for forgiveness.

  Is this the very same boy I fed sweets to with my own hand on their wedding day? Maji had asked herself, scarcely recognizing him.

  And then Pinky whimpered in the next room.

  That little cry stopped her heart. For a fleeting moment, she felt her daughter’s presence. She knew then that Pinky belonged to her, that she would fight for her, and that she would win.

  Taking her had not been an entirely unselfish act. It had been the only way for Maji to lift herself from the darkness: two deaths in two months, a daughter and a granddaughter. Pinky herself uncannily resembled Yamuna and this, this in itself gave Maji great comfort. She had been a gift from God, a way to right the wrongs of the past.

  Maji sighed and tossed the magazine onto the floor, causing the household to snap to attention. The sluggish gathering of monsoon clouds on the shorelines had made her joints swell and ache more than usual. The ghost, Dr. Iyer had reasoned, could only be Pinky’s imaginary playmate in a houseful of boys. Children are inclined to such fanciful play, he had added.

  Yet Pinky needed to be away from the bungalow, this Maji knew.

  “I’m taking Pinky to Mahabaleshwar,” she said out loud.

  Mahabaleshwar had been the summer capital of the British Raj in Bombay since 1828 when it was established by Governor John Malcolm as a European resort and sanatorium. As with most hill stations, Mahabaleshwar’s air was noted for its restorative properties, natural beauty, and refreshing coolness. In the late summer just before the monsoons, the plateau was surrounded by a dense oxygen-rich fog. Even Mahabaleshwar’s water was reputed to increase hemoglobin levels in the blood.

  “Mahabaleshwar!” Savita said, eyes shining. “I went boating there once on Venna Lake!”