by Tahir Shah
It was in this darkness that I found V.V. Gupta: the master tailor. He was to become a contact and friend in my hardest hours. His shop was sandwiched precariously between another — which sold explosives mainly to small boys with evil, glinting eyes, and a stall vending fighting-kites of all shapes and colors to their sisters. I commissioned a shirt to be crafted in an indestructible beige sackcloth. Somehow the tailor had convinced me that this crude fabric was ideally suited, in color and quality, to my sunburnt skin. The shirt would be ready the next afternoon.
One day seemed to melt into the next, a symptom that perhaps I, too, was falling victim to Mumbai’s general lethargy. Time passed, and I was aware of neglecting my treasure-seeking goals. Instead, I felt compelled to people-watch for hours on end — and was particularly enthraled by foreigners on their travels. The hours I invested lurking at the Leopold Café set me on a course to study fellow travelers on my own adventures.
As I sat there, on the hard-backed chairs, I peered out onto Colaba’s bustle. Leopold’s was like an island cocooned in what seemed to be the last bastion of internationalism. Yet its clientele were there for their own enjoyment. They had come to India with highly selective vision to solve their own insecurities.
The summer rain fell continuously, washing away the past year’s filth until the streets sparkled. A herd of sacred cows had found their way to the Strand, bringing traffic to a standstill. Weaving through the centre of the drove, I made my way to the tailor’s shop. There I found V.V. Gupta sewing a scarlet polyester petticoat.
He held out a sackcloth shirt with double cuffs and a large label announcing “Fancy Tailors”, stitched prominently to the outside. I was so impressed that I placed an order for numerous pairs of boxer shorts which he assured me he would complete immediately. He and his wife then burst into laughter and said the “panties” would take a week. What I had not realized was that this order would expand into an ongoing obligation to keep this man supplied with work. I had become, in proper Indian fashion, his patron.
In order to make the relevant grassroot-level contacts, I realized the necessity of hiring an assistant, secretary and legman. I consulted V. V. Gupta who told me to return at midnight, for he knew just the man.
That night, shortly before the stroke of twelve, I waded down the waterlogged Strand. Its photocopiers flashed with robotic precision, like lighthouse beacons to guide the lost. Continuing into the darkness towards my nocturnal meeting — I fantasized about the paragon of a secretary who, like a bloodhound in pursuit, would lead me straight to treasure.
V. V. Gupta ushered me into his shop, on tiptoes, as if to a Masonic ritual of the thirty-third degree. He poked his head around the street making sure that the explosives man and the kite vendor had retired. They had, and I entered the cluttered shop.
It was amongst piles of uncut sackcloth that I first saw Prideep. He sat, thin and swarthy, in a bundle in one corner, shadows from a hurricane-lamp playing about his imp-like face. This, then, was the man who was to take me to great riches. We were formally introduced. Prideep held out a wrinkled hand with inch-long fingernails painted red. Then he smirked and giggled for no reason, and looked deeply into the pupils of my eyes.
An eager, gap-filled mouth, with broken teeth, opened. I examined the remarkable dentistry of bridges, braces and crowns, which reflected the lamplight.
I hired Prideep on the spot, agreeing to pay the enormous wage of 100 rupees, about £2, a day for his expertise — which Gupta guaranteed was worth every paisa. Suddenly I had a co-worker. To cement the alliance I presented my new assistant with a small notepad and a yellow and green Bic ballpen. He clawed them to his chest and grinned. I never saw the pad again.
It was perhaps put away, perhaps sold. But the pen was always present in his top shirt pocket: a symbol of his elevated state.
It was explained in subdued whispers that Prideep could not write, but had every intention of learning. So he would like to keep the writing equipment for the time being, if that was all right. I said that it was. Then I was politely advised that, although Prideep spoke no English, he had the capacity to learn, and would, of course, acquire this language during his service. I looked at V. V. Gupta in some alarm, while a pair of twinkling eyes shone, and Prideep waved and laughed, and cackled some more. I wondered whether his enthusiasm was from the knowledge that he was to be financially successful from now on, or through true eagerness for the job.
V. V. Gupta explained to Prideep exactly what he would need to do. Prideep nodded eagerly. We would begin the next morning.
The eggs benedict was runny at Gaylord’s. And incessant cups of coffee were poured with scientific precision from a conical flask into a china cup. After breakfast I strolled south to the promontory of Colaba to begin great things with Prideep.
Every early morning walk through the crowded streets revealed more of the hidden realities behind the clichés of Indian life. As I scattered coins at the lines of strategically-placed beggars, a white Indian-made Ambassador car pulled up. Three living torsos were unloaded: not an arm or a leg between them. They were dropped off each morning, and collected in the evening, by a pimp whose sideline they were; he fed them and took their earnings. They would roll back and forth under the sun and monsoon rain, singing in perfect harmony.
I would pass Churchgate Station, the main commuter artery to the city. It discharges millions of people whose broken shoes grind down the paan-splattered garbage into dust. Newspapers and pineapples are sold, and old men sit on the gutters performing their morning ablutions. Some people spit and clear their throats, others choke in the dust, combing back greasy black hair with long, waxed nails. Rows of dabba boxes are weaved through the chaos. Within their round tin walls were packed heavy lunches of curry and rice, mutton and chapaties. For, in India, a midday meal is more than a couple of crusty sandwiches wrapped in brown paper. Performing one of Mumbai’s miracles, the dabba-wallahs deliver hundreds of thousands of cooked lunches every day. Transported on bicycles, barrows, carts and on heads, the boxed lunches are collected from each office-worker’s own home every weekday. Like a secret society, with cryptic signals, words and secret routes, the dabba-wallahs manage, for a small fee, to convey each meal to its rightful owner without error in time for lunch.
I was becoming addicted to Mumbai. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realize my good fortune and would never again forget it. To be healthy and well-clothed and to have even a few tattered rupee notes in one’s pocket, was a source of enormous satisfaction.
I passed tree-lined streets, a cricket ground and the curly, determinedly artistic facades which run down to the Arabian Sea. Wavy lettering announced names such as “Belvedere Court” and “Oval View”. All this had been once so very British.
Prideep was chewing on a stick when we met at the prearranged rendezvous. He politely offered the unchewed end to me. In such ways he was always courteous, though rather quiet, which was sometimes disconcerting. We began to communicate through signs. Soon, though, I was to find out that Indian sign language was different from that to which I was accustomed. I pretended to pull a dagger from my belt: thus suggesting that I wanted to see old Mughal daggers. V.V. Gupta had explained that this was one of my interests. Prideep nodded.
Things seemed to be going well. We set off at a brisk enough pace. Then a second problem manifested itself. Prideep insisted on walking behind me as a sign of his humility. This made matters very complicated, especially when he was supposed to be leading me somewhere. I tried to suggest that he might walk alongside me and not even in front. He would have none of it.
Twice I stepped on people’s toes and once tripped over a sleeping sacred cow, whilst turning to see which corner my assistant had taken. Prideep firmly refused to allow me to take taxis and, when I finally leapt into the back of one, he jumped on a bus and I had to follow it in the cab. All the time he assured me in sign language that we were getting closer to the treasure.
When the afternoon he
at was at its worst and lines of dabba boxes were being pushed through the traffic on huge barrows, Prideep pointed to the ground. We had, it seemed, arrived. My heart began to pound at the idea of jewel-encrusted sword-hilts. I was ushered into a large white shop.
My loyal and wise assistant motioned for me to wait. Like a bloodhound he tracked down the manager who handed him a small parcel wrapped copiously in newspapers. Adrenalin coursed through my veins. I watched the papers being pulled apart. That was as far as the excitement went. Inside was a very large and very fat silvery trout. The scales were coming off. My lower jaw dropped at the complete misunderstanding. Prideep screwed up his eyes and smiled widely, expecting enormous praise. Turning on my heel, I decided that a translator was necessary.
V. V. Gupta was a worried man. As I sat in his shop with Prideep, long-faced characters with devilish looks would enter, go through a back door, and return, stuffing bundles — wrapped in coarse jute cloth — down their shirt-fronts. I pretended not to notice. V. V. Gupta rubbed his caloused palms across his face and moaned:
“How will I ever do it?”
“What are you so worried about?” I asked.
“I promised my two children that I would send them to Harvard to study; it’s very expensive you know.”
I did a double-take and looked around the shop. Did I hear right? The tailor brought out some prospectuses. I suspected that some devious deals were taking place on the premises. Surely a small-time Mumbai tailor was not earning the hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary for one Harvard education, let alone two?
However, we were here on different business. I had confided to him the difficulty of communicating with Prideep, and had been summoned to Gupta’s emporium.
V.V. Gupta lifted his face and whispered, “Are you ready to meet him?”
Osman was a Muslim and was six foot three. His features were unmistakably those of a Pashtun: deep penetrating eyes, a hawk-like nose and a solid square chin. A man of severe proportions, he was acutely refined — his manners were impeccable, his clothing neat and orderly and his fingernails carefully manicured. And he spoke fine English.
V.V. Gupta apologized profusely that Osman had been the best translator he could come up with at short notice. It was explained over tea that Osman had once worked at the United States Embassy in New Delhi. His position had been assistant janitor. Osman, whose voice was deep and warm, was to get equal wages to those of my illiterate secretary. My team was now a fully-fledged band.
I decided to take him and Prideep on a tour of the Prince of Wales Museum to see fine Mughal exhibits.
Built by the British in 1911 in an Indo-Saracenic style, with domes and galleries in white mosaic, the museum was, curiously, the only place in Mumbai I ever saw gardeners who were happy.
I stood entranced in front of cases containing Mughal armor, and ruby-encrusted swords with jade hilts. Osman reported that Prideep understood now what I was looking for. But this comprehension seemed to cause him to slouch and fall into a decline. He was very quiet. I pointed to the hand-written calligraphic Korans and miniature paintings of the emperors Shah Jahan and Akbar, Babur and Arungzeb. A lump came to my throat from seeing such beauty after the barbarisms of Mumbai.
When we emerged from the museum, Prideep looked nervous. I told him and Osman to go and find hungry people who could secure such treasures discreetly from private vendors. Great discretion, I had been told, was necessary. This was because, while masses of valuables were still in the hands of now-impoverished aristocratic families, everyone knew everything in India, and to sell things openly meant irredeemable loss of face. It was the hungry people, motivated by need, who would be our key, acting as go-betweens. My assistants cackled in unison. Prideep mouthed the word hungree and they ran off into the evening sunlight.
At the Chateau Windsor, the elevator operator saluted and I was moved into a smaller, cheaper, room which overlooked the kitchen on one side and the main lavatory on the other. Having become the sponsor of so many citizens of Mumbai, and hence burdened by heavy expenses, I felt that more modest accommodation was in order. I inspected a neat sign pinned firmly to the north wall of my new room. It read:
Please inform management when your room is on fire.
Making a mental note, I flopped down on my bed, exhausted by the day’s events.
Later on, I pressed a handkerchief tightly over my nose and mouth on the way back from watching a thriller at the Regal Cinema. Charles Bronson was a big star in Mumbai: posters bore his name and image high above the defiled walls. I walked down Mereweather Road where the sewers were always being unblocked. Dead dog carcasses and all kinds of garbage were fished up and placed neatly in the gutters. There they continued to decompose — waiting for the right person with a need for a bundle of rotting rags or a dog’s carcase to come along, scoop it up, and carry it off with childish glee. In India everything has a use and a value. Torn brown cloth sacks are hauled around from morning till dusk by small boys and old men alike. Some collectors are specialists in maize cobs perhaps, or old tin cans. It sometimes takes a while for the searcher to run down his quarry.
Osman sat in the front passenger seat of the Indian-made Pal taxi. As we wound up Marine Drive, the neon signs of V.I.P. Luggage and Air India flashed on and off. Mumbai has a pinkish light which is reflected off the sea as the black polluted waves lap on the shore.
A gang of children were washing amongst broken glass and coconut husks, amid the hoots of rush-hour traffic. Prideep was cross that I was taking a taxi. He asked Osman to explain that he would have preferred me to give him the money and take a bus. Osman was cautious as to what he translated, always eager to ensure that I was happy.
The car turned inwards after Chowpatty Beach as if we were driving to Kemp’s Corner. But our destination that morning was the infamous Chor Bazaar: the place where the European antiques change hands. Now with an assistant and interpreter, I felt confident enough to make a direct onslaught on the source of the treasure.
The taxi driver handed me the meter conversion card as usual. The meters in Mumbai’s taxis are so out-dated that the passenger is obliged to work out the fare that is due, by using a number-filled conversion sheet. As I calculated, the meter ticked and the fare increased. To sit in a stationary taxi was more expensive than if it were moving. The driver said he had no change — a ploy hoping that I would leave the extra money. He sucked harder on his lump of paan, and looked towards the smoldering shrine, dedicated to Ganesh, which sat on the dashboard. I handed over a ten-rupee note and slammed the heavy steel door behind me.
The early activity of Mutton Street is overwhelming. Ten million people live in Mumbai and many of them live around Crawford Market and the Chor Bazaar. Some sleep in gutters, some under the stars.
Ragged tents bulged as the sleeping awoke and started another day foraging for food. Stray dogs chewed on bits of stringy flesh and licked newspapers which had once held food. Mothers breast-fed babies and carefully de-loused their children, who sat obediently still. This fastidiousness always surprised me, for the women practised the ritual even in the most sordid surroundings.
The sounds of ablutions and throat-clearing rivalled those of the traffic. A taxi driver climbed into his machine, propped the horn full on with a piece of stick, and careered into the chaotic bumper race ahead. Ox-carts moved with enormous determination, hauling loads of sugar-cane into the mayhem.
We took tea at the Friendly Guest Tea House, where the owner rubbed his greasy hands together and poured glasses of chai slow-boiled all night with milk. The tea was delicious and sweet. Prideep had a toothache and could not drink. Suspecting he had more than one cavity, I wondered how one mouth could be afflicted with such troubled dentistry. He turned a profile to me and looked through the corners of his almond eyes. He knew I was thinking about him. I still hoped that he would prove himself to be a silent paragon like Jeeves.
Flies were swept out with the dust as Osman translated from the daily paper. He loved to
talk and took great advantage of the fact that Prideep spoke no English. The two jockeyed for my praise and attention. They hated each other.
Each street corner was loaded heavily with characters who loitered intently. Some were wrapped in blankets, others in lungis, all with thick beards, awaiting the morning’s business. These were characters of the underworld. Covered in hideous scars and armed with rusty knives: they were ruthless men who stole to order. But there was a code of honour among them.
Prideep, who was supposed to be the expert middleman between them and me, was terrified. But Osman was more roused than ever. He lumbered up to a man standing close to seven foot, a Pashtun with a long hennaed beard, and hugged him. The bear hug turned into a spar and the two men wrestled for a moment. Then Osman, who was incredibly strong, dropped his crushed opponent and walked back to me.
“What ever did you do that for?” I stuttered in surprise.
“Have to show your domination over these people or they’ll rob you of every paisa you”ve got.”
We pressed deeper into the bazaar. It stretched for miles and each line of shops was more diverse than the last. My eyes grew wider and wider as I saw things which might normally be displayed in country homes in Dorset or the Cotswolds.
Giant Regency fireplaces, terracotta vases, gramophones with fluted brass trumpets, were all around. Belgian crystal chandeliers in blue and pink, five foot across, were stacked up beside oak roll-top writing bureaux, Louis XIV dining chairs, and card tables with faded green baize.
One stall specialised in silver trophies — some for cricket, others for croquet and lawn tennis — all inscribed with the names of generations of English public schoolboys. Cameras complete with bellows, and sixteen millimetre projectors were hidden far inside dark, treasure trove rooms.
Osman clutched an armful of Victorian teddy bears and laughed as he squeezed their necks. Prideep held up an oil painting on a canvas wider than he, depicting a nymph-like nude.
We hurried from stall to stall with the ferment of gold-prospectors at the Klondike. These were all relics of the old days when the British Raj held the Indian sub-continent in its grip, a time when expatriates were allowed to bring their belongings to the far-flung reaches of the Empire, all expenses paid by the omnipotent Raj.