Haunting Bombay

by Shilpa Agarwal

  But Parvati did not move.

  “I see it,” she said firmly, still peering up at the ceiling fan.

  Cook Kanj dropped the tea tray. A half-dozen steel cups flew into the air, splashing sweetened froth onto hanging laundry. Nimish dropped Pinky’s arm and began to rip damp clothes from the jute cords. Maji’s breathing became thick. The ghost now gathered herself into a dark cloud which thundered over the ceiling fan. The propeller began to whir with increasing speed, spraying frigid water everywhere and causing the yellow light in the center to short out.

  “Get out now!” Maji ordered.

  Whether she was shouting at the ghost or at the rest of them, Nimish did not stop to think as he grabbed Pinky and ran down the hallway. Cook Kanj and Parvati followed behind, half-dragging Maji. Unafraid, Nimish went back for Dheer who was still in a Kumbhakarna-like slumber on his bed. Not even the sudden downpour had roused him. They’re gathered in the parlor, the only space in the bungalow, except for the puja room, free from impromptu clotheslines. In the sudden silence they waited, wondered, and wished for an explanation.

  “Parvati, bring a blanket for Pinky,” Maji said after shuffling into the room wearing a dry sari. “And Kanj, some chai.”

  Cook Kanj looked fearfully down the hallway where the kitchen light glowed weakly, casting a pale rectangle against a darkened wall. “Hahnji,” he said tentatively. And then, watching his wife disappear down the hallway in search of a blanket, hips flaring as if to daring someone to accost her, Kanj hitched up his lungi, puffed out his concave chest as best he could, and marched off towards the kitchen.

  “Maji?” Nimish began, his arm around Pinky. She felt its comforting weight and wanted nothing more than for this moment to last forever.

  “Nimish,” Maji said quietly, “there is some logical explanation. We must take care not to upset your mother.”

  Nimish nodded his head, recalling his mother’s soaking blouse. She was in such a delicate state. And why? He struggled with this question, feeling a surge of anger at his father. Where was he anyway, the drunkard? Nimish was old enough to remember when things had been good between his parents, when his father inspired respect and awe, when his mother had been happy, just like she had been in the last few days. What an idiot he was to think that, somehow, things had miraculously changed. Something was different. But now, he realized with growing fear, it was not what he had hoped. There was a darkness spreading within the bungalow, something he could not even begin to grasp. “What’s happening?”

  Maji’s face sagged, folds of flesh hung limply from her arms. After a long pause, eyes resting on Pinky, she confessed, “I don’t know, beta, I don’t know.”

  Parvati returned with the blanket and helped Maji get cleaned up.

  “It’s her ghost,” Pinky said to Nimish, grateful that it was finally all in the open.

  Nimish gave Pinky’s shoulder a squeeze and fell into thought, attempting to make rational sense of the evening, to figure out the best course of action. Aside from Pinky’s cough and the muffled clattering of Cook Kanj in the kitchen, the bungalow fell into an uneasy quiet.

  Thankfully, Savita had missed the final drama in the boys’ room. Earlier, Kuntal had tied a cotton dupatta around her chest until the pressure was strong enough to stop the swell of milk. Now Savita lay tearfully half-asleep on her belly, Kuntal on her side next to her, tenderly rubbing her head and neck.

  “I have to get out of here,” Savita wept, “before it’s too late!”

  “Don’t say such things,” Kuntal comforted.

  “My boys,” Savita reached for her arm as a fresh supply of tears rained across her face. “I have to save them!”

  Her face grew fierce. “That brat, that Pinky, this is all her fault! She was the one to unbolt the bathroom door, wasn’t that what Parvati said? It’s in there, I know!”

  “What’s in there?”

  “The evil spirit that killed my baby!”

  Kuntal gasped.

  “We must get out of here tonight!” Savita cried out.

  “Let’s wait for Jaginder Sahib to come back,” Kuntal suggested. “He’ll know what to do.”

  At the mention of her husband’s name, Savita grew angry. “He cares only for his Johnnie Walker!”

  “But Savita-di, all men are drunkards,” Kuntal said, recalling one of Parvati’s dire warnings about men, never mind that Cook Kanj was a teetotaler.

  “Bas! ” Savita cried, flinging the exquisite gold and diamond band from her finger, “I’m finished with him!”

  The ghost gracefully unfurled herself along a line of jute in the boys’ room and hung upside-down, hair swaying beneath her, as she assessed her work. The room was a mess. Wet clothes torn from the clothesline now plastered the edges of the room, the floor and furniture glistened from the recent ceiling downpour, Tufan’s bed filled the room with a sickly aroma. The ghost had not meant to take things so far that night, to reveal herself so soon. She would not have done so but for Pinky.

  Pinky had pointed to her in accusation, revealed her presence to the rest of the family, before she was ready. The ghost shifted on the empty clothesline, drawing herself to the top of the armoire where a puddle of dusty water had collected, and reflected upon their fragile alliance. Everything had changed the moment Pinky ran out of the bathroom, refusing to see what the ghost had waited an eternity to reveal: the end of the reel, the last moments of the baby’s life, the truth of her death. Abandoned in the bathroom, the ghost had made an abrupt decision: to forge ahead on her own. And then when Pinky had returned from Mahabaleshwar changed as if she had reestablished herself firmly on the side of the living, when she had said I can’t believe you, the ghost was certain that she had made the right decision.

  Just outside the bungalow and wondering at all the commotion inside, Gulu stood at attention at the green gates and sucked on a bidi as if the inhaled smoke could somehow keep him warm as he waited for the Ambassador’s return. Earlier than expected, his ears picked up the purr of the car’s engine over the drone of the rain. Quickly, he swung open the gates. The headlights bore down on him for a freakish instant before the car came to a sliding stop in a spray of water. Soaking wet, Gulu opened the door, taking care to keep Jaginder under the umbrella as he walked him to the verandah.

  “Oi, Gulu,” Jaginder said jovially, “what to do? Responsibilities brought me home early tonight.” It had not been obligations that had caused Jaginder to turn back on his way to Rosie’s adda in the late hours of the night, satiating himself instead with a bottle tucked into the Ambassador’s trunk, but a lingering sense of dread. He had abandoned his wife that night just as he did after their daughter died.

  “Yes, Sahib,” Gulu replied, steering the wobbling Jaginder by his elbow.

  “I’m telling you, it’s not easy having such responsibilities.”

  “I must take care of the car, Sahib,” Gulu said, wiping his face with a damp cloth, before heading back into the downpour.

  Jaginder grunted, remembering with sudden arousal how Savita had seduced him just the day before. Perhaps, he hoped, she would be better and willing again tonight. And so what, he thought generously, if a little milk comes out, too. Feeling oddly parched, Jaginder sauntered through the door and froze. “What’s going on?”

  Maji, Nimish, Parvati, Kanj, and Pinky sat in silence.

  Is she dead? He pictured Savita prone in a spreading puddle of milk, panic beginning to work its way into his curly chest hair. He popped open the top two buttons on his kurta and began to rub vigorously.

  “Where have you been, Papa?” Nimish confronted him, abandoning his usual caution.

  “How dare you talk to me in that tone,” Jaginder roared back, assessing his newest adversary. My own bloody son, well, well. Finally, becoming a bloody man. If he were not so drunk, he might have even patted Nimish on the back.

  “Parvati, Kanj—” Maji began, moving her hand with a slight side-to-side motion. Kanj, getting the message, hastily stood up to l
eave. Parvati, however, took her own sweet time, watching the family drama as if it she had paid good money to see it.

  “Where’s Savita?” Jaginder asked, his face red with the effort of containing his emotions.

  “Asleep. Exhausted.”

  He let out an audible sigh.

  “What do you care about her?” Nimish shouted. “You’re never here when we need you!”

  “How dare—” Jaginder thundered. Damn. He had let his guard down too soon; he had no suitable retort ready. He was not going to let himself be shown up, however, not by his too-smart-for-his-own-good son. Leaping forward, he pounced upon Nimish.

  But Nimish was too quick and Jaginder’s momentum landed him on the sofa. Damn. Damn. Damn.

  “Stop, both of you!” Maji ordered. Nimish abruptly sat, jaws feverishly clenching and unclenching in his slender face.

  The ceiling suddenly sprung a new leak; a spattering of rainwater fell to the floor. Pinky sat on the sofa, watching Nimish with awe. Tufan sat nearby, jealous of his brother’s daring.

  “Jaginder, you’re my oldest child, my only son. Your father and I have given you everything,” Maji said, briefly engulfed by a torrent of longing for her dead husband. “And this is how you behave?”

  “Ma!”

  “You’ve been utterly irresponsible to your family and have shamed your father’s name.”

  Jaginder’s mouth worked furiously to form words that tauntingly eluded his grasp. If only he had not decided to finish off the bottle of Johnnie Walker. If only he had stopped when his head was pleasantly buzzing. Maji raised her hand to prevent him from embarrassing himself further. She glanced at Nimish, realizing that he, more than any other Mittal heir, embodied Omanandlal’s unshakable sense of duty towards his family.

  “Nimish,” she said in her low, gravely voice. “It’s time for you to step up.”

  “What!” Both Jaginder and Nimish were equally distressed by the news.

  “Quiet!” Maji ordered. She reached back to her uncoiled hair and tied it into a hard knot. “I realized tonight that some changes have to be made. Changes that should have been made a long time ago.” She sighed. “I have been too indulgent. I let things go too far.”

  “But—but,” Nimish stammered, seeing his very life fading away into the brainless hell of managing his family’s shipbreaking enterprise.

  “I won’t take this!” Jaginder bellowed. So they bloody planned this, he thought, feeling as if he had been dropped into a game of chess. Nimish is a crafty son of a bitch after all. Cracking his neck, a vague and badly thought-out plan took shape in his head.

  “Don’t you think that cunning Laloo finds your absences an unexpected windfall, eh?” Maji reasoned. “You’ve spread out the business too much and like a rat, he will find the holes.”

  “And you think Nimish will know what to do?” Jaginder bared his teeth and laughed.

  Nimish felt the hot acid of rage rise up in him. He wanted nothing to do with his father’s business. Yet the words seared him. “Me? What about you! Stealing away to drink as if we all don’t know the sickening truth.”There, it had been said, the thing that was killing them all. He was done pretending. Checkmate.

  Pinky gasped. Tufan cheered. If his father was going down, he reasoned, better to cozy up to his brother.

  “Get out of my house!” Jaginder ordered, spit foaming in the corners of his mouth as he landed a hard slap on Nimish’s face.

  Nimish reeled, his spectacles flew across the room. Dark bursts of red instantly bloomed on his pale cheek.

  “It’s true! It’s true! I’ve seen you leave in the middle of the night!” Pinky yelled, facing off with her uncle. “I’ve seen you!”

  “You!” Jaginder’s fingers curled into a fist as he registered Pinky’s outburst. “You ungrateful little —”

  “You leave right now,” Maji boomed, glaring at Jaginder.

  Fighting the violent urge to leap at his mother and—bloody hell— wring Nimish and Pinky’s necks, too, Jaginder slammed the door on his way out. “Gulu!” he barked into the rain, “Get me the Ambassador fut-a-fut!”

  Gulu was in the garage, tenderly nursing the waterlogged Ambassador to health: drying off the seats with soft rags, picking out bits of leaves and grit that had lodged under the windshield and in the crevices of the dickey, checking the oil levels, and muttering words of comfort.

  “Gulu!” Jaginder strode into the garage. “Are you bloody deaf?”

  “Sahib?” Gulu took a step in front of the car as if to protect it from Jaginder’s wrath.

  “I’m taking the car out,” Jaginder bellowed impatiently. “Go open the gates.”

  “But Sahib, I haven’t dried the engine yet.”

  Jaginder plopped himself into the driver’s seat and revved the motor threateningly. Gulu raced outside, just ahead of the car to open the gates.

  The Ambassador roared away.

  In the other converted garage in the back of the bungalow, Cook Kanj held Parvati tightly. “Was there really a ghost?”

  “There’s always been something, something in the bathroom.”

  “Why didn’t you say?”

  “We weren’t allowed to speak of such things. Savita grew afraid after the baby died and had the door bolted at night. Maji initially disallowed it but Savita refused to sleep at home and took the boys to the Taj Hotel until Maji agreed. And we learned to live with the strange noises in the pipes. Nothing ever happened before.”

  “Until now,” Kanj said.

  “Until now,” Parvati said, “thirteen years later. A boundary was violated.”

  “We should leave before it’s too late.”

  “Are you a man or boy?”

  “But other strange things are happening. Haven’t you noticed that my cooking is watery?”

  “Of course I’ve noticed.”

  “You have?” Kanj’s eyes grew wide. “Maji will sack me. Better to leave first.”

  Parvati clicked her tongue. “Ghost or no ghost, I’m not leaving.”

  “We can’t live like this!”

  “I’m not leaving,” Parvati furled her eyebrows. “I told you, nah, my parents came to me as ghosts. Caused trouble. Flung me off my mat at night. I wasn’t afraid then. I’m not afraid now.”

  “But my cooking.”

  “There’s too much going on for anyone to notice.”

  Kanj looked downcast.

  “Hey, hey,” Parvati teasingly grabbed him by his chin. “Have you noticed that my cycle is late?”

  “Late?” Kanj struggled to make sense of this. “It’s never late, is it?”

  “Never before.”

  And with that, Parvati pulled her husband under the cotton rajai and turned off the light.

  In the sitting area, Maji’s chest continued to heave after Jaginder’s departure. Oh Omanandlal, she silently beseeched her dead husband, how I wish you were here to rein in your son. “Chalo, Pinky, come sleep in my bed,” she finally said out loud. “Tufan, come from behind the door and help your brother get the extra rojai from my room. You can tuck yourselves up in the sofa for the night.”

  “I can’t sleep!” Nimish declared. His cheeks were flushed, his newly bent spectacles smudged with too many emotions.

  “You must try.”

  “But Papa?” Tufan squeaked from the doorway. Had Maji thrown out his father for good?

  “Don’t say your father’s name in front of me,” Maji ordered, growing angry. “Nimish will take care of the business. I will make the necessary arrangements tomorrow.”

  Nimish was overcome by a torrent of despair. I can’t let this happen. I won’t let this happen.

  Tufan ran back and forth, ferreting out pillows and comforters, glad for the distraction.

  Pinky helped Maji to her bed and sat down next to her. “Do you believe me now?”

  Maji rested a warm palm against Pinky’s face. But there were so many things crowding inside her head that she couldn’t bring herself to answer.

&nbs
p; It was after midnight when Jaginder made his way back to Bandra. Traffic was light, but as he passed the Mahalakshmi Temple near Breach Candy, he found his car struggling through a flooded corridor, where water levels rose dangerously above the car wheels. The Ambassador abruptly stalled. Cursing, Jaginder jumped out, one hand on the steering wheel, the other hand and shoulder against the doorframe, pushing the car off the road as best he could as he waded through the water. Three soaking-wet street urchins, ranging in age from six to ten, appeared from behind a shanty to push from the rear.

  “Jao—go away!” Jaginder roared at them.

  But feigning deafness, they pushed even harder.

  “Hey, did your in-laws give you that car?” jeered a passing driver, tossing out a hackneyed insult, after rolling down his window and sticking his head full into the rain for effect. The street urchins hooted gleefully. A whole chorus of passing drivers joined in, alternately dispensing advice and making similar comments to pass the time. Some even ventured out of their cars, engines still running, to huddle around a moist pack of Wills Navy Cut cigarettes, pulling hard to get smoke into their lungs.

  An enterprising vendor holding a wide, black umbrella and a basket of channa around his neck, appeared seemingly from thin air. A small, earthen pot beneath the basket burned wood, emitting white smoke that cloaked the vendor’s face in a soft glow while giving the rain a distinctly woody smell that brought out even the most latent appetites. “Channa jor garam! ” he called out, offering the spicy chickpeas in long, narrow cones of old newspaper. Only twenty-five paisa for a cone. The men bought a round, some disappearing to their cars momentarily to inch them forward in the street. The street urchins, sensing that they might not get paid for their work, became restless; the ten-year old grew threatening. Jaginder purchased cones for them and sent them on their way.

  “Hey vechi nakh! Sell it off!” yelled a driver whose car crawled past the scene as he pointed at the stalled Ambassador.

  “Sala tu tari mai ne vechi nakh! You bloody well sell off your mother!” retorted Jaginder. A chorus of boos and cheers resounded from passing motorists, lifting spirits all around. “What to do?” he asked the crowd, gesturing at his car.