by Tahir Shah
Barefoot bearers who knew no other life weaved through the meshed traffic carrying dabba boxes on their heads. There was a smell of chapati flour and mutton curry, of sesame seeds and pumpkin chutney. Feet moved in all directions. Four hundred people lined up at a bus stop: in Mumbai it can take nearly a whole day to get to work.
Weaving my way back to the Chateau Windsor, around sets of mutated toes, I thought for a moment about how no one moved in a mainstream way. Millions of people walked about bumping into all around them. Everyone behaved independently from the rest. There was no unison or continuity of movement, just random bombardment, like billiard balls colliding in a box.
At the Chateau, a telegram had arrived. It was from Blake. It read:
HEY MAN CANT GET THROUGH BY PHONE MY
GURUJI PLAYS TONITE MEET YOU GAYLORDS 7PM BLAKE.
Midday chimed as usual twenty-three minutes early. The Chateau Windsor was on its own time, five hours and seven minutes east of Greenwich. I lay on my bed and felt the resonance of bells. The Chateau, as it was locally known, had a certain quality which made one feel impregnable and warm.
The yellow-flowered wallpaper watched me dress. I was sure it moved around when I turned my back, swanning about like a gigantic triffid. Switching off the light, I went down to Gaylord’s. The foliage could play in the darkness until my return.
Sunday night was always packed at Gaylord’s. Large, bulging mothers sidled about in tight shoes. Their colored glass bangles tinkled in the evening air as they struggled to place one enormous limb in front of the first. Only by such burdened mathematical precision were they able to move. In India the rich die of heart-failure from obesity, the poor from starvation.
A blind man passed. He also moved one foot in front of the other with the same delicate mathematics. A stick with a bicycle bell attached to the handle was his guide. He sauntered forward cautiously, ringing the bell. Sarees were pulled tighter to conceal the fleshy reams of fat surrounding Mumbai’s wealthy.
Blake came an hour late. I poured him a cup of tea with lemon. He added milk and the liquid curdled, but he insisted on drinking it.
The restaurant’s manager circulated, ensuring that we and the other clients were content. And, when my guest went to wash his hands, he offered to buy my watch. I refused for the hundredth time — in a bargaining routine which was enacted twice daily — regretting as usual that it had been a gift. The old manager smiled with a mouth which bore the scars of immeasurable quantities of paan, and drifted away.
Blake was eager to know the details of my date. He had acquired a general report from the vegetable bazaar that morning. Apparently everyone was talking about the events of the night before. It was something which I did not doubt for a moment, for Mumbai is a city where gossip is treated as a commodity. Praising Blake, I assured him that his tutelage had already brought results.
“Well, now you must meet the teacher of the teacher: my guruji,” he said.
* * *
A chord was struck and the guru began to hum. His eyes were closed, palms upturned and open. Two giant tanpura — instruments like sitars made from gourds — produced a droning sound, almost a stage on which the guru performed.
We all sat cross-legged and obedient on the floor of St. Xavier’s college. Long faces with deep black beards stared down from their mahogany frames. F. Dreckman, former headmaster, watched in amazement from the confines of his frame, listening to the wailing sounds which were now being emitted from the guru’s mouth.
The teacher was a refined, white-haired man of perhaps seventy. His skin had no wrinkles, his hair was wetted down and combed. A bow ran across a serengi’s strings and the vibrations echoed about the Gothic hall.
A little girl stood up and dragged her rag doll across the floor. She passed a row of ancient pupils, with white sticks and swollen eyes; her ponytail swung from side to side as she ran off into the courtyard.
The teacher controlled one sound, taming it with his lips and balancing upon it like a tightrope-walker. A man with headphones began to weep; a lady’s body quivered ecstatically, as she tugged fitfully at her hair. Blake and I watched, hypnotized by the sounds enclosing us.
Three hours elapsed and I was numb from the waist down.
The guru suddenly stood up and left. The audience sat transfixed and motionless. Blake turned to me and whispered with deep pride:
“That was my teacher.”
FIVE
The Alchemist’s Assistant
Purest water may be stained;
Stainless all and pure was Lingo.
Diamond sparkled on his navel;
On his forehead beamed the Tika.
Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take them to lunch. It was the high point of their calendar. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realized later that, in the East, a commitment to produce does not automatically accompany employment.
To stimulate the ambitions of my team, I offered large bonuses and rewards upon our success in finding bounty. They seemed unimpressed.
One Friday they turned up as usual, expecting to be fed. The shadows of the two — who were lurking in the hallway — were visible through the gap under my door. Prideep was practising his English loudly, with Osman instructing. They hoped that I would hear their voices and come out.
“Come on Prideep, you must try counting again.” Osman spoke with self-consciously amplified words. Then Prideep began, “Wone, toe, flee, fooer, seeks, nine...”
“Well done, that was much better, Prideep.” Osman paused, waiting for me to open the door. He was teaching his colleague to count wrongly, I realized, so that he would himself never be replaced.
“Maybe Tahir Sahib wants to be left alone today,” said Osman sadly. I heard a slap, Prideep had evidently forgotten his cue. He yelped pitifully.
“I don’t know what we should do with this letter that has come from... who is it from, Prideep?” There were whispers in Hindi and Prideep stammered, “Day-wi-ss-hah!” Running the sounds through my brain, I decoded them to make Dervish. Then, pulling open the door, I grabbed the letter from Prideep’s fingers.
The brown manila envelope was too thin to be a bomb, so I sliced the top off with a scalpel. Inside was a hand-written note. Thumb prints obscured many of the words, but I made out:
To the Presence of: Tahir El Hashimi,
Insha Allah you are well and your men are healthy also. I fear that soon I shall have to return to our own land, for these infidels make my blood too warm. I have been unable to find your old things in Mumbai, but have contacted a Muslim who lives west from here. You must go to meet him in the Great Thar Desert. He awaits you and keeps the treasure hidden. Go first to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and use the instructions on the back of this paper. His name is Abdul Rachid Mohommedi. His friends call him Abdul the Warrior.
DERVISH.”
It all seemed too wonderful to be true. I read the letter several times, almost choking with anticipation. Prideep and Osman gazed at me: they felt left out. Besides, they had not been fed yet, as tradition decreed. I waved the letter in the air and shouted:
“We are going to Rajasthan!”
* * *
Arrangements were made to leave Mumbai in two days. V.V. Gupta handed me another stack of silk boxer shorts — large enough to fit a hippo — and wished me well. He was a kind-hearted man, although enormously slow in his craft.
At Chateau Windsor, sixty servants knew that I had paid the bill, and they all loitered outside my door waiting for my departure. Some pretended to be polishing, others mopping the walls or straightening pictures. An air of expectancy filled the corridors. I went to the bathroom to shave. When I tried to get out into the hallway I was knocked back by a wave of small men in khaki shorts, all of whom wanted to be the first to be tipped.
In a moment of exultation I had decided to take Osman and Prideep al
ong. After all, this was to be a great expedition and an entourage was most definitely in order. The team turned up three hours early. Prideep had never left Mumbai before. He had heard, though, of the palaces and castles of Rajasthan. Osman was for the most part the perpetrator of these glorious tales. When he was working at the American Embassy in New Delhi he had once been sent to Gwalior to fetch some cleaning fluids. I often wondered what the cleaning fluids were doing in Gwalior in the first place. I had not asked, however: in India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.
Osman led Prideep past the rows of servants — who lurked like vultures in wait for their prey to die. Sixty heads were drooped in respect and anticipation when they saw me, in much the same way that vultures cower.
Osman had packed a battered leather case which was covered with labels of many destinations. He attempted to convince me that he had escorted the case to the places advertised on its exterior: on secret diplomatic business. A couple of shirts and a tie with spots moved about inside. I handed him a compass to wear around his neck at all times. He demanded a short lecture on its use. After that there was no holding him. His eyes lit up and he read off bearings, pointing the instrument like a water diviner around the room.
Prideep had become jealous that Osman should be so favoured. I passed him a portable stove and said that he was in charge of making soup. Osman translated my words, punctuating them with bearings generated by his new toy. Everyone was happy.
The elevator was summoned. Sixty mouths smiled. We walked to the contraption. Toes trod on toes in our wake and I heard my garbage bin being torn apart. I had left a couple of old paperbacks and a half-used bottle of shampoo. Two pairs of feet rushed past me and ran down the stairs. The elevator came and I handed a hundred-rupee note to the manager. He promised to divide it up amongst all the employees. Osman hailed a taxi to take us to Mumbai Central Station. As the bags were loaded into the cab I noticed my paperbacks staring up at me: for sale on a street stall at ten rupees each.
Mumbai Central is like a cavernous aircraft hangar. Its immensity sends shivers down one’s spine. We stepped into the building though a side entrance. Everyone seemed to have a well-defined role, a purpose for their presence. Sacks of flour were being dumped into the middle of the place. Guards in worn-out quasi-military uniforms, and decorated with twisted moustachios, brandished shotguns and looked as menacing as they possibly could. Osman fought off the army of red-shirted porters, who had brass number bands on their arms.
Prideep had put on his best shirt, which had electric blue diagonal lines running across it. I had never seen him look so neat. The other shirt he possessed, the one he usually wore, was folded up and stuffed into his trouser pocket. He had no bag.
Osman began to read out bearings, assuring me that the practice might be welcome in case there were trying times ahead.
Extended families lived in isolated groups in the middle of the floor, amidst the paan spit and sacks of flour. A machine, with flashing beacons and grinding cogs, would tell one’s weight and fortune for 50 paisa. Fishing out a coin, I inserted the money in the slot and stood on the platform provided. Whistles sounded, sirens roared, cymbals crashed and, as a brace of revolving lights spewed color through the bleak surroundings, a rectangular chip of cardboard was thrust from an aperture towards my face. Having caught the card with my teeth, by some remarkable reflex action, I inspected it closely. On the front was written my weight. And, on the back, was a sinister warning. It said: Spit into the spittoons only. Travel may be imminent. Be Prepared!
Lists of names, pinned to a board, indicated where we would sleep. The journey to meet the Warrior was complicated to say the least, and entailed changing trains several times. Firstly, we would have to take a train to Vadodara, an important city in Gujarat. Osman assumed control, which only seemed natural as he had the compass.
We climbed aboard. Every door and window was left wide open, to cool us in the night. The fans were paralyzed and looked as if they had not revolved in many years. A c licking of iron on iron filled the carriage as it pulled out from Mumbai Central.
As we passed Dadar and the suburbs, I imagined Blake watching from his rooftop. The tracks cut through the city dirt and took us far out into the countryside. Buffaloes bathed in flooded pools and young women worked in the paddy fields. The horizon grew black and fireflies jostled in patterns as the night approached.
Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. He was happier than I had ever seen him. He lit the portable stove and made some soup. I was to discover that making tasty soup with one carrot, ten peas and a little dishwater, was his greatest skill. One wondered what the man would be capable of creating with a blender and a non-stick frying-pan.
The train tended to screech to a halt every few minutes. While it was stationary for a moment, I opened my mouth and it filled with mosquitos. There was a sudden infestation of gnat-like insects. The light above my bunk was obscured with fleas which formed one solid layer. The air buzzed with life as arms waved around troubled heads. It was at this moment that a fortune-teller arrived.
He had nowhere to sit and so Osman invited him to stay with us a while and share some dishwater soup. The strangest thing happened: all the bugs and grubs and moving specks disappeared. We could all breathe easily again. The man who came and sat wore a blue coat which was visibly infested with parasites. Prideep tore a few chapaties and passed around a pot of thin pea soup. Our guest began to speak in perfect, if individualistic, English.
“My business is to tell the future,” he said. “There are many things which I can see and feelings which enwrap my bones.” He brushed back his long white hair with the palm of his hand and paused for a moment or two. “I should like to be of help to you, Sir, and your party.”
I li-had no crystal ball or magic cap, just a wrinkled face with long, prominent ears, and a pair of slippers with curly toes. His words were those of an actor, spoken with theatrical flair.
Osman pointed at Prideep who was probing around his mouth with the end of a spoon. With a smile he said:
“Why doesn’t he tell Prideep’s future?”
Prideep heard his name spoken and looked up, hoping that it meant good things.
The seer nodded and closed his black eyes. Taking Prideep’s left hand in his bony fingers, he swaggered about, moaning wildly. The other passengers turned and watched. Mothers paused from feeding infants and a group of city men dropped their playing-cards. At first, Osman and I suspected it was all a big joke. Prideep did not know what was happening and looked terrified. He tried to pull his hand away, but it was gripped too firmly.
The seer dropped Prideep’s fingers and jumped up so suddenly — as if he had received an electric shock — that Osman and I shouted: “What is it? What did you see?”
Prideep had understood nothing of the episode and went back to drinking his soup. The fortune-teller clasped his hands together and mouthed a short prayer.
“This boy is cursed!” he said simply. Osman and I stared at each other and then at the old man.
“What”re you talking about? That’s Prideep, he’d all right,” Osman said.
“He has a deadly curse cloaking his existence. You must keep away from him. It was placed upon him as a child.”
“Can it ever be removed?” I asked.
“Removed? See how he waves his head about and his tongue beats in his mouth! He is mad and dangerous!”
Prideep had burnt his tongue and gums on the boiling pea soup and had begun to choke. As he yelped, Osman thumped him on the back, thinking that it might clear the blockage. I turned to the great mystic and explained, “My friend, he is not cursed, he just burnt his mouth. The soup is very hot you know.”
The wrinkled lips parted, “I have seen his future. I have witnessed many things.”
“What have you seen? Tell us!”
The prospect of knowing Prideep’s future was somehow fa
scinating. We were prepared to listen, if only for cynical entertainment. Prideep could not understand the conversation, if there was anything he should know, Osman could translate. The soothsayer began, “What I have witnessed is unpleasant, I will reveal in the hope that the future’s events may be changed, and that one particular incident may be avoided.”
“What are you trying to say?” The conversation suddenly took on a rather more serious tone. Osman and I listened, as Prideep began to clean the stove, absorbed in the operation.
“Your friend will some time from now — in some place from here be working in an office — his mind deep in his work as it is now. He hears screams from the building opposite, the cries of a little girl. He runs out of the door and sees flames consuming the house. The child is trapped inside. He puts his arms around his head and rushes to help her. The roof collapses. No one leaves the building.”
Osman had tears in his eyes. Prideep sensed that something was bothering us. He looked up and we all tried to smile.
“Your friend is cursed,” the sage repeated.
Osman addressed him, his words shaky and carefully phrased:
“Wise man, what can we do to defend our dear friend?”
“Such a strong curse is hard to deal with,” said the fortune-teller.
“But you must know of some solution,” persisted Osman.
“Well,” began the sage, almost reluctantly, “there is one thing that may protect him. In Vadodara my cousin lives. He is the alchemist’s assistant... he can make a talisman which, if your friend wears it, will protect him always. Go and ask for Bhindu.”
Osman inscribed the details on my white note-tablet. I handed the seer a few coins. Wishing us a comfortable night, he left to ply his trade in another carriage. As his blue coat moved away, the light was obscured again with fleas, flies and crawling things. Then, jumping up onto my bunk, using my camera as a pillow, I tried to sleep.
Prideep shook my arm as I slept late and handed me a cup of sweet tea. The train had been delayed for three hours during the night. We went to the lavatory in turns. The floor was slippery and covered in mud. Paan juice had been spat across the walls from many misjudging mouths.