All at once, the tea-boy screamed, his unearthly howls exploding within the cargo hold.
“Avni!” Gulu cried out.
A deathly silence followed.
Suddenly, a sweaty hand grabbed his. “Come,” the tea-boy urged.
“Where were you all this time?” Gulu asked, shaking him. “Where did she go?”
“You must do as she asks,” the tea-boy said, jumping onto the tracks, lifting a cup of cardamom tea from his carrier and taking a sip.
“Say it!” Pinky said shaking Gulu’s shoulder while he madly drove as if to elude Avni’s spirit, to escape the searing pain in his hand, his arm, his chest. “You went to the cemetery, didn’t you!”
“You know?” he gasped as the Ambassador shot ahead.
“You dug up the baby!”
“No, no, no!”
“You did! I know you did!”
“I can’t!” Gulu shouted, his face contorted, corroding into defeat.
The Ambassador swerved from lane to lane, horns blaring and brakes screeching in its wake.
“Don’t you see?” Pinky beseeched. “You’ll never be free until you do! Say it or she’ll kill you! She’ll kill me, all of us!”
The secret that had been lodged inside Gulu for thirteen years all at once came to his lips.
“Your final story!” Pinky shouted as Avni’s blinding aura descended upon them like cyclone, like a spinning, spiraling harbinger of death. “Say it! Say it now!”
And then Pinky closed her eyes and let the devastation crash upon her.
It began with a song, not an ancient one but one that told an ancient story. One that ended in Lahore, a full circle back to Punjab, Pinky’s birthplace, at a tomb bearing the inscription: Could I behold the face of my beloved once more, I would thank God until the day of resurrection. The tomb had been built by a lovesick prince, destined to become Jahangir, Conqueror of the World. His beloved was a dancing girl, her beauty such that she was named after the exquisite pomegranate flower, Anarkali. Their love was doomed: she was buried alive. But their story endured on the big screen as Mughal-e-Azam. Gulu sang one verse from the hit single “Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya”—Now That I Love, Why Should I Fear? and then plunged the Ambassador and its passengers headlong into the truth.
Two black crows sat in the crook of an ancient peepul tree, cawing to each other as if feuding, the sheen of their wings visible in a faint shaft of moonlight. The tree, devoid of its red flowers and fleshy fruit, stood behind a tall wall, its thin branches hanging over the top, beckoning. Gulu stood before the entrance to the Hindu burial ground and recalled the grim story of King Vikramaditya who was said to have carried a vampire corpse for four miles to the shamshan, burning grounds by the riverbank, in order to rid himself of an ancient family curse. Upon entering the shamshan on that moonless, stormy night, the king was greeted by the ghastly sight of wolves, fur alight in a bluish blaze, and monstrous bears, pawing at the newly-buried. Malignant spirits crawled upon the ground in reddish mists, massive black snakes hissed as they swung from naked branches, and goblins danced upon the burning pyres. Shanta-Shil, the fearsome yogi, sat in the middle of the debauchery, blood-stained and ash-smeared, invoking Kali, the Goddess of Death.
The chilling story of King Vikramaditya froze Gulu at the cemetery’s gated entrance. He took another sip of the country daru he had procured. He had rarely imbibed alcohol since starting his work with Maji and the concoction went to his head, strengthening his resolve. A chilling fear ran along his spine as he slipped through the opened gate, recalling Avni’s words: See the baby. Only then will you understand.
Possessed by love or madness and wanting nothing more than to bring Avni back to him, Gulu took another step, staring fearfully at the impure ground in front of him. The two-acre, walled compound was paved in black macadam, broken stones jutting from the numerous cracks. The fluorescent tube lights that normally lighted the area had shorted out in the rain, drenching it in darkness. In the center of the lot two doms, untouchables, walked around the crematorium sheds, where dead bodies were placed, each surrounded by four-hundred kilograms of firewood. The smell of the bodies brought in by grieving sons and brothers, and cremated that day, now thickened the air with a forbidding gloom.
Just beyond the small crematoriums on the far end of the grounds, Gulu spotted the small patch of soft earth where babies and young children were buried, wrapped in woven bamboo matting. The area was surrounded, almost enclosed in a thicket of trees whose verdant branches obscured the moonlight peeking through the clouds. Trying to talk himself out of what he was about to do, he murmured a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: “‘As often as the heart breaks wild and wavering from control, so oft let him recurb it, let him rein it back to the soul’s governance.”’
But even as he spoke the words, he knew that he had not the strength. He was entranced by a more potent verse, one as old as time: Now that I love, why should I fear? He crept around the periphery, his back against the wall, eyes on the two muscular doms who squatted by the crematoriums, stirring the red-hot embers to ensure that the remains burned to completion. The blazing pyres of the afternoon had since crumbled into flaring ashes and bits of bones, which cast flickering patterns of light upon the men’s blackened faces. Gulu could hear the low tones of their conversation, every once in a while punctuated by a fit of coughing.
He glided past the concrete benches where mourners sat before sunset to watch the pyres burn, and past the row of taps where they washed their hands and faces afterwards. Gulu waited, hidden by the trees until the untouchables turned their backs to him and then quickly made his way to the far end of the compound, heart pounding in his chest. There were no gravestones, no markers of any kind to indicate where dead babies lay. The earth itself was saturated, making it nearly impossible to discern a freshly dug grave. He fell to his knees, clawing the mud. And then, as he almost gave up hope, his hands sticky with foul-smelling earth, his fingers grasped a tiny, gold-and-black-beaded amulet.
As his hoe hit the ground, the peepul tree directly above him shivered. Gulu froze, thinking that a ghost was hanging in the branches observing him. The mighty peepul also known as the bodhi, under which Prince Siddharatha found enlightenment as Buddha, was also considered home to ghosts, ghouls, and evil spirits, its quivering leaves a telltale sign of their presence. Gulu remembered Big Uncle’s warning about the dwarflike virikas, with their blazing red skin and pointed teeth, who hovered above those who were just about to die, all the while jabbering feverishly. I hear them all night long, Big Uncle had told his frightened gaggle of shoe-shine boys just before his own death. They ferry wicked souls across the Vaitarani River and into utter darkness. Were the virikas now waiting in the tree above for Gulu? The skin on the back of his neck prickled in fright, a salty breeze from the Arabian Sea reached into the walled compound to lick the sweat from his back as if it were the blood-stained tongue of Goddess Kali herself.
Gulu once again fell to his knees as a cacophony of wails and howls sounded. Thunder rumbled above and stray dogs began snarling and snapping on the other side of the wall. He was certain that Kali, who dwelt in cremation grounds surrounded by a horde of mythical female jackals, was eyeing him, waiting to kill him and gorge herself on his blood. The untouchables broke from their conversation to glance in his direction. Gulu halted, terror-stricken. And then the thought of Avni filled his chest with a pulsing heat, and his hoe struck the ground once more.
He thought of his father, a cart puller who was attacked one winter night by a mumiai ghost, an invisible being who grabbed at him from behind with long, skeletal fingers and curling nails that dug into his ribcage. He was found dead the next morning at the crossing of Churchgate Street and Esplanade Road, his head submerged in Flora Fountain, torso torn apart as if by an unearthly predator.
Gulu’s hand grasped at something rough. Though it was dark, he could make out the woven texture of the bamboo mat that enclosed the baby’s body. The smell knocked him back as he p
ulled the mat away and held the tiny bundle in his arms. And then, tears streaming down his face, his trembling fingers undid the cotton khadi cloth, letting it fall to the ground.
The baby was still beautiful, a thick mound of hair covering her head, long, black eyelashes sweeping across her cheeks. Her fists were curled tightly, the decaying stump of the umbilical cord jutting from her belly. What have I done! Oh Lord, what have I done! And then, remembering Avni’s command, he clenched his jaws and pulled the stiffened legs apart.
Oh God no!
Gulu dropped the baby, falling backward in shock.
All at once, he understood why Avni had to go.
And why he must stay.
For, despite the elusive promise of her love, Gulu would not be able to clear Avni’s name. Even at his death, he knew that he could never reveal that the beloved baby, the family’s little moon-bird, was a hijra. Not completely female, nor completely male, but somewhere in between, she had no rightful place, no rightful future in the Mittal bungalow.
He wept then, hidden in the shivering thicket of peepul trees as tears rained down his cheeks, splashing upon the baby’s exposed body, violated in life, violated in death. He would carry this burden always, this shrouded story, this one film-worthy drama he starred in—not in glory as he had dreamed, but in disgrace.
Avni had told the truth. The baby’s death was not an accident.
Sitting in the careening Ambassador, eyes still closed, Pinky witnessed the final piece of the truth unfold. Possessing a resolve befitting mighty Lord Shiva and a love like that of his divine consort, Maji had pressed her hand to the baby’s face and drowned her. And then, the cosmos shamefully reordered, she continued on with her rounds, heading for the parlor, the bungalow’s shattered heart.
A SCALDING SACRIFICE
Opening her eyes, Pinky realized that she was sitting in a train, her satchel clutched in her arms. She had known all along. I tasted this truth, took it inside me. And fought to keep it there.
Somewhere within the impenetrable haze of shock at her grandmother for what she had done, she felt compassion. She stood up. “I won’t. I won’t leave.”
“But . . . but . . . but they don’t want you,” Gulu said nervously through the window.
The wheels on the train began to creak forward.
“I belong here!” Pinky cried out. She had always relied on Maji to grant her a place in the bungalow. She knew she must claim it herself now.
The train began to move. Pinky ducked out of the window and ran to the open doorway, throwing her suitcases down to the platform.
“They’ll be angry with me!” Gulu cried out, dodging the flying luggage. “You have to go!”
“I have to stay!”
And then, as rusted wheels ground against the iron tracks, she jumped.
The train dissolved into a feverish blur of careening metal.
As silence ensued, Pinky became aware of her pounding heart. Oh Lord, what have I done? How can I walk back up those verandah steps?What will Nimish and Dheer say when they see me? And Maji? Maji!
Gulu retrieved the scattered suitcases, staring at Pinky with wide, startled eyes.
Pinky tried to take a step but remained rooted, her ears awash with the ghost’s final whisper—Hear me.
Her eyes welled and she wept for the baby, born a hijra. She had seen hijras all her life, the same shadowy figures that had descended upon the Empress café, offences to the natural order. Born high-caste or casteless, they shared a destiny as outcasts, denied their humanity.
A deep, shuddering sigh filled her chest as she bore her part in the drowning’s ill-fated chronicle.
For she, she too, had turned away from truth, from possibility. She had succumbed to the seductive lure of belonging.
Gently, Pinky grasped the magazine photo of her mother tied to the end of her dupatta.
And then, wiping the tears from her face, she lifted up her chin.
“Home, Gulu, take me home.”
EPILOGUE
Each morning Pinky woke early and helped her grandmother walk around the bungalow, managing five, maybe ten, rounds before Maji insisted on retiring to the puja room for her prayers. Over time, Maji grew stronger and was even able to speak again, but she never tried to regain her place as the head of the family. Instead, she chose to spend the majority of her days in her darkened bedroom or the puja room, away from the bungalow’s throbbing center. Savita had Maji’s ornamented dais disassembled and carted away from the parlor, choosing instead to receive the bungalow’s visitors from a thickly-upholstered, golden divan imported from Europe.
Occasionally, Vimla Lawate from next door came visiting, using the front gate like a proper guest instead of their private backyard passageway which, due to neglect, had rapidly been choked by thick brush and curling vines, rendering it impassable. The two women, each broken by tragedy, did not talk as they once had done. The effort proved too much for Maji. And Vimla simply had nothing more to say. Instead, they offered the other the silent comfort of their presence before draining their tea, leaving only a bit of sugary sludge in the bottoms of their porcelain cups.
Pinky continued to tend to her grandmother in much the same way as she had done for most of her life: writing letters, looking after the puja room, relaying messages to the servants. In other unspoken ways, though, she became so much more. When she had returned to the bungalow that fateful day, determined to carve out her own destiny, she had claimed her rightful place in the Mittal household at last. Through the many days and nights that followed, she never ceased to wonder how Maji’s life-giving hands, hands that had brought her so much comfort and love, could have also inflicted so much suffering.
Inspector Pascal never solved the case of Lovely Lawate’s disappearance and was forever haunted by this, his single glaring failure. He once thought he spotted her walking along Colaba Causeway in the middle of the night, pausing in front of the Sweetie Fashions as if remembering something. “Miss Lawate!” he had called out, racing towards her, “Miss Lovely Lawate!” Before he could cross the street to reach her, however, she vanished. In the weeks that followed, he received several reports from colleagues in Madras and Pondicherry that they had seen her along that coast, too.
And perhaps they had. For Lovely had been given an unexpected gift by Avni that terrifying night on the Arabian Sea, the instant she had plunged into the chilly, depthless water. The power to grasp her destiny—her truth. To be free.
Because Lovely was never found, the newspapers had written only that she had mysteriously disappeared, her story inked into the pages of the city’s history. The insinuation was that she had run away with Inesh, the owner of a ruby red Triumph 500cc, reported missing the very same night of Lovely’s flight. Inesh was bullied, reprimanded, and eventually discharged in return for an exorbitant bribe paid by his frantic parents, never to be reunited with his beloved motorbike again.
Harshal Lawate believed that his sister had run away to spite him, to crush his obsession. He unsuccessfully squandered a vast amount of the family’s fortune on a private detective who spent his retainer on the pricey European whores in Kamathipura where, just down the lane a bit, an aging prostitute took her own life after murdering her adolescent son and his uncle with a nine-inch Rampuri knife.
Finally, after months of research and an abrupt cut-off of his generous allowance, the detective submitted a portfolio of his findings to Harshal. In the detailed report, he quoted the Manu Sutras, the first Laws of Man, blaming the fifth mode of marriage, called the isacha-vivaha, for Lovely’s disappearance. “In this mode,” he wrote, “the lover lures a girl with the use of talismans and black magic and marries her without her parent’s consent. It is of my opinion that whoever lured her away that terrible night was none other than the devil himself.”
The report was burnt, more out of fear than rage. Harshal, after all, still suffered from an invisible bruise deep inside his bowels, inflicted by Lovely herself the night he raped her. Just once
he had penetrated her, just once. And then she had inexplicably risen up before him, thrown him onto his belly, and pierced him from behind. With what, he never knew, but he felt it, the inward thrust, the tearing of skin, the unimaginable violation. He began to bleed from his rectum, never again having a bowel movement without intense suffering. Yes, he thought fearfully, something had possessed her. Something utterly evil.
Vimla spent long afternoons meticulously reorganizing the cherry-colored satchel of Lovely’s marriage proposals, keeping track of which suitors had become hitched and which were still available. Month by month, the number of eligible bachelors dwindled and with them the hope that her daughter would ever return. Somewhere in her heart, she believed Lovely was alive; she believed because she was the one to discover that the golden dowry pieces she had been saving for Lovely’s marriage were missing. Only Lovely had known where they had been hidden. And this knowledge, that somehow her disappearance had been purposeful, was the most painful part of it all.
The tamarind tree was uprooted, chopped into pieces and hauled away, paid for with two of Vimla’s resplendent saris. A mango tree was planted in its place but it never grew, nor did the neem or guava trees. Finally, the patch of land was abandoned, a startling circle of decay embedded within the succulent green paradise of Malabar Hill.
Lovely’s golden dupatta, which Jaginder had retrieved from Inspector Pascal, was locked away and forgotten in one of Maji’s steel cabinets where it remained until Nimish was moved into Maji’s room after his wedding to Juhi Khandelwal. One cool waning winter morning, while Juhi opened Maji’s chinoiserie cabinets, replacing the motheaten widow-white saris with her own vibrant, new-bride ones, she found the dupatta—delicately embroidered with emerald petals, strangely smelling of the sea. The dupatta felt old, weighty, as if it had held something vital within the weft of its fabric.
Haunting Bombay Page 37