Breathless in Bombay

by Murzban Shroff

  The tree climber could scarcely be seen now. Through the rustling palms, Vicki caught a flurry of hands and feet clutching at a branch. She heard a hacking sound and the two men yelling to each other. She inferred it was some South Indian language she did not know. Hack, hack, went the man on top, and the man below would shout and tighten the rope. Then the sound stopped. A yell from above, a yell from below, and slowly a bunch of coconuts came into sight—a big bunch of around thirty coconuts, with the rope functioning as a pulley. As the bunch descended, the man below loosened the rope and the man above lowered it cautiously.

  The coconuts landed. Soon after, the climber followed. Landing, he slapped hands in mid-air with his partner, and kneeling, he tore a coconut from the bunch. He held it to his ear and shook it thrice.

  Smiling a lazy, indulgent smile—the smile of achievement—the climber began hacking at the coconut. Vicki watched his arm—a lean brown axe of muscle—get to work on the coconut. She watched the blade slash, the shavings fly, and the crown of wood appear.

  The climber saw her looking at him. For a moment their eyes met. They locked in a chemistry of curiosity, of fascination, whatever it was that locks two people from different backgrounds, and then the man got back to what he was doing. Khat, the last bit came off, and the coconut trembled with clear sparkling water all the way to the top. Vicki saw the delicacy with which the man held the fruit. He could have been holding a child or an offering to his God.

  Holding the coconut, the man came toward the sea. His lungi was tucked into his crotch. His legs were dark and hairy. He placed a leg on the ledge and was about to raise the coconut to his mouth when he saw Vicki looking. He struggled for a moment and then offered, “Coconut water, madam? Very fresh. Very sweet. You will enjoy. Please try.”

  Vicki looked at his wizened face, his lazy, smiling eyes, and said, “How much for one?”

  “The first one is always free, madam. We have many more, which we can sell for profit.”

  “But something?” she said. “Some money? Akhir, boni ka waqt hain,” referring to the auspicious time of first sale, which she knew was important to them.

  Meanwhile, the second man had gotten busy hacking at another coconut. From the corner of his eye, he watched his friend. His face had a sly look to suggest that he knew what his friend was up to: he was trying to lure this woman. Suspecting this herself, Vicki hesitated. “No,” she said to the man before her. “You take something, anything—but not for free.”

  The coconut man looked at her and said solemnly, “Madam, why are you so stubborn? I am giving it to you in good faith, no? See what a great fruit this coconut is: it grows near the sea, near the ocean; it grows on salt water, which you and I can’t bear to taste; and yet, when it comes to us, the water inside is always sweet, always delicious. And now, if our minds were like this, we took the bitter and we made it sweet, we would never need to worry; we can learn to live and trust each other.” Saying this, he walked off and he joined his friend the rope man.

  “Oh, wait, please,” Vicki said. She was beginning to register what he’d said. “Please don’t go. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.” She saw that the group of old men at the side had fallen silent. They were looking at her strangely, as if she were mad to apologize to this fellow. But to her he was a saint, a messenger of light, he was the one who had brought deliverance to her door, and she’d sent him away with her dark, stormy, and embittered mind. But to her relief she saw that he was coming back and there was a red and white straw sticking out of the coconut.

  With both hands she reached for the fruit. She took it shyly, gratefully. She brought her lips over the straw, and clutching it, she sipped slowly, steadily, non-stop, all the way to the bottom. She sucked on it like it was the only coconut left in the world and her life depended on it.

  THE MAALISHWALLA

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  CHOWPATTY BEACH, BOMBAY, 10:30 P.M. The swaying palms cast sinister shadows on the sand, while in the background cars zipped uproariously along the sea road. Some of the motorists felt grateful to the Queen’s Necklace: that shining, twinkling stretch of road along the coastline, which allowed them the freedom to race their cars, feel the wind in their hair, and in that dispel the frustrations of living in India’s busiest, most hectic city.

  Bheem Singh Bahadur himself pondered this reality as he spread out his thin red towel—shrunk by use and abuse—on the moist sand of Chowpatty Beach. He glanced at his customer, a stunted middle-aged man with sly lips, a straining belly, and an angular face that seemed to have gotten that way from having a conversation with itself.

  Bheem Singh snapped his fingers, one by one, readying himself for the maalish. He looked at his customer and felt a strange sense of distancing. It happened usually when the men he maalished brought with them limp, slovenly bodies, distorted by excess food, excess liquor, and excess money. Bheem Singh knew the type only too well, but then, they were the kind who could afford the maalish—a slow, rhythmic massage, which gave Bheem Singh his living, night after night.

  The man turned, faced the sea, and started pulling off his shirt; his fat quivered into sight. Bheem Singh’s eyes wandered to the man’s back pocket. It told the usual story: a vulgar bulge, the assertion of one too many credit cards and a bundle of notes, big denominations, too.

  Lingering on the bulge, Bheem Singh felt resentment. Even if he worked twenty months at a stretch, he could never hope to have so much money. Not while he had so many responsibilities to meet on behalf of his family.

  His mind drifted. To his village. His beloved Isthaanpur. Where life was lived in full earnest. Where the pace never changed, nor the balance of equations. Where the ribbing was earthy and affectionate. Where everybody knew what the other did and despite the usual stream of gossip in the quadrangle and the squabbles at the well, no one did anything unexpected, which got others on their guard. But Bombay: it was different. Demanding? Yes! Life sapping? Yes! You had to have alliances and a ready salute for those in power. There was always someone to bow to—like the lungiwalla dada in the slum where he lived, who claimed free massages from Bheem Singh, in addition to the eight hundred rupees he took as rent. Like the head maalishwalla who had allowed him into the coterie, after an initial deposit of twelve hundred rupees and an agreement that he would do no more than three massages per night. And that arrogant policewalla, who came to the beach every night, to rob Bheem Singh of his earnings. The face of the policewalla was different each night, the attitude always the same. The click of the stick demanded that money change hands. “Haraami police, haraami city! City of bastards,” Bheem Singh brooded.

  The customer had taken off his trousers and lay on the towel, flat on his stomach. He looked like a deformed eel, an amorphous mass of lethargy, and Bheem Singh—who enjoyed excellent physical health and was a strapping six foot three vertically and well expanded in the chest—could not help but feel a wave of contempt. Like all rustic men, Bheem Singh counted strength over riches: a good body was the first thing a man should have. But the customer had money and Bheem Singh had talent—so it seemed an acceptable transaction. Bheem Singh knew it was a rare talent that he carried between his fingers. He could massage his customers for hours, removing tension blocks, easing their nerves, and pouring the life back into their tired bones.

  He knew his customers enjoyed his massages, though at first they’d haggle over the rates. He’d start by demanding thirty rupees, which would fetch the customer half an hour of maalish, not counting a scalp massage. They would try eagerly to bring him down to twenty, argue for a while, and eventually agree to twenty-five. But ten minutes into the maalish they’d ask him to take them up for an hour. That’s when Bheem Singh would get difficult; he would ask for sixty, and he’d enjoy seeing the customer lose the negotiation. It was clearly a triumph of talent over will, of a pampered body shedding defenses of the mind. At the end of the massage, soothed into a charitable mood, his customers would even part with some extra baksheesh. So it wo
rked well for Bheem Singh: this give-and-take, in this city of cold transactions.

  It was Rathod Singh, Bheem Singh’s father, who had first drawn attention to Bheem Singh’s fingers. The boy was four years old then, and as they negotiated the small grassy pathway on their way to the paddy field his father had observed, “You have strong fingers, Bheem Singh. Like a wrestler. You mark my words. One day, you will hold the world between your fingers.”

  Promptly Bheem Singh had made it a point to clutch his father’s hand tightly. He increased pressure every day, hoping his father would notice that his strength was growing. But Rathod Singh was careful not to comment. He did not wish to give the boy the wrong idea, fill him with undue pride. Rathod Singh knew Bheem would be strong, the strongest in the village perhaps. Wasn’t that the reason he had named him after the famous Pandava warrior? Rathod Singh had wished that his elder son, Dalpat Singh, could have been as strong, too. But the boy was a disappointment. At eight, he seemed to prefer the company of girls. Behind the temple, he played hopscotch with them and joined in long, monotonous skipping competitions. Rathod Singh would have thrashed him for that—had the temple priest not intervened.

  His lungi folded into his crotch, Bheem Singh dropped to his knees, to straddle the customer’s prostrate form. With his brawny palms, he clutched at the customer’s shoulders; his fingers negotiated the small bullish neck for tension blocks tucked away beneath the dollops of flesh.

  Gently Bheem Singh navigated the neck region. He would find the tension spots sooner or later; the customer’s sigh would tell him so. Looking around, he saw other maalishwallas absorbed in their work. In the distance, the waves rose and fell, exhaling a faint December wind. The palm trees rustled and bowed deferentially, as though nature endorsed the diligence of man.

  Bheem Singh thought of Dalpat as he began the massage. His brother was four years older, but since the time they were children he had relied on Bheem Singh for protection. Dalpat could never gain acceptance among the village boys. He could never take to their rugged activities and win their admiration and friendship. More than once, he had tripped and fallen flat on his face, especially when called upon to prove himself in masculine pursuits that so reliably bonded boys into gangs.

  Bheem Singh remembered the time when eight of them had conspired to steal a goat from the old village butcher, Hamid Ali, with the intention of carrying it across the hill, killing it, roasting it, and feasting on it. All had gone as per plan, except that Dalpat had started retching as soon as the knife descended on the bleating neck. While the goat bled, Dalpat turned his insides out, making sounds like he himself was dying. The boys howled with laughter, and later Dalpat had sulked and refused to eat. This ungamely behavior had marred the mood of the occasion, and Dalpat was branded as a weakling, unworthy to be summoned for the next bold rush of adventure. But Bheem was popular. He was liked. And admired. And because the boys wanted his company, they had to include Dalpat, too.

  The big test came when Dalpat was fifteen. The boys had planned to tie a rope across the river, linking both sides of the embankment, so that they could shimmy across and spy on girls from the neighboring village, who came there to wash their clothes, their vessels, and themselves. It was young Bheem, fearless as ever, who swam across the swirling waters and tied the rope to a tree on the opposite side. This he did to the cheers of his friends and to anxious protestations from Dalpat, who found it much too risky and not quite right. The boys ignored Dalpat. One by one, they climbed across with the help of the rope. When it was Dalpat’s turn, Bheem noticed his brother was trembling. Halfway through, Dalpat lost his grip. He was swept away by the current, and in an instant the boys could see his face bobbing out of sight—so great was the swell at that point.

  Undeterred, Bheem dived in, followed by two other boys. By not fighting the river, as they were taught, but by accepting its natural superiority, the boys had gone after Dalpat, who, after struggling in panic and swallowing huge amounts of water, had given up the fight. Bheem caught up with his brother and, holding on with all the fervency of blood, had dragged him to the shore. There, with one crushing hug, Bheem squeezed the river out of Dalpat’s lifeless form.

  That night Dalpat broke into a terrible fever. The village vaid was called, and he covered the boy with leaves lathered with herbal paste. The family crowded around, while neighbors hung respectfully near the doorway. In other homes, the other participants in the adventure were chastised and even whipped by their fathers. All the boys cursed Dalpat and his weakness. Later they would brand him as a jinx and exile him permanently from their excursions.

  After seventeen hours, the fever went down. The village vaid checked Dalpat’s pulse for what seemed like an infinite amount of time; then he declared the boy was not to work or be exerted in any way. “He has the constitution of a girl in the body of a man,” said the vaid. The family was to remember that and not coerce Dalpat into any strenuous activity. Carrying weight or working in the fields was out of the question. The boy had a weak heart. It would not stand up to pressure. The vaid could tell just by listening to Dalpat’s heartbeat. As they heard this, the mother, Lajwanti Singh, raised her hands and thanked the Lord that they had been warned in time. Rathod Singh snorted and walked out of the house. Dalpat, lying in bed, saw his father’s disgust. Bheem silently promised himself that he would take his brother’s load in the fields. Such was his love for his brother.

  After that day, Rathod Singh made no demands on his elder son. Though inwardly he scoffed at the idea of Dalpat not doing his share in the fields, he took care to see that he didn’t force him. He gave all his attention to his younger son, who he claimed had been blessed with the strength of ten tigers. Once he told the boys’ mother, lying next to him at night, that he knew why God had made Dalpat weak—so that all the strength could go into Bheem. Dalpat heard this and tensed in his bed. He did not sleep all night, wondering if that were true.

  That year the Singhs enjoyed a bounteous harvest; they could sell their produce for twice the price expected. Rathod Singh smiled for two months continuously and bragged that even the heavens favored the strong. “It is Bheem’s doing,” he declared to the farmers who would congregate outside his hut after work. “He is so strong, he virtually forced the gold from inside the earth.” Inside the hut, Dalpat heard this. He was proud of his brother but wished he had some of his strength, so he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing now: stirring the rice in the pot.

  The customer sighed and adjusted himself, and Bheem had to emerge from his reverie. He knew the massage was beginning to work; the muscles were loosening slowly.

  Bheem Singh transferred the strength of the massage to four fingers. With the second and third finger of each hand and using his thumbs for a grip, he worked the sides of the neck, just below the earlobes. Then, with his thumbs, he massaged in between the shoulder blades. The customer allowed his body to go limp; in Bheem Singh’s hands he sank into a cloud of trust. The palm trees swayed noisily, restlessly, then settled—night watchers once again. Bheem Singh established a rhythm in the massage, then returned to his thoughts.

  The father was openly partial to Bheem, but this did not come in between the brothers. They remained as close as ever and shared secrets, all the dreams and heartbreaks of youth. Knowing that his brother lacked status in the family and in the village, Bheem continued to give Dalpat importance, asking him for advice through his growing years. When he decided to take up smoking, Bheem consulted Dalpat on which brand of beedi he should try. When, on holi, he downed his first jug of bhang, he asked Dalpat to keep an eye on him, and when Dalpat told him that he had spent too much time with Kaveri, the weaver’s daughter, who had the fairest legs in the village, Bheem confessed to an overwhelming movement in his heart. Dalpat brushed it aside, saying it was the bhang making a fool of him. Bheem scratched his head and felt sheepish about it. Dalpat laughed. Lajwanti Singh, who toiled inside the hut, felt buoyant. It was a nice relationship her sons had, despite their father�
�s stubborn ways.

  By the time Bheem was in his teens, his strength had become legendary. His accomplishments were many, and the boys in his village looked up to him with undisguised admiration. He took part in all the village games and won unfailingly. He represented the village in intervillage competitions and brought back honor in sports like kushti and kabaddi. His strength was spoken of far and wide, and once, when a man-eating panther had terrorized the area, it was Bheem who was deputized by the government to lead the team of trackers. How they got to know about him and his strength was anybody’s guess.

  When the government team killed the panther and brought it back to the village, a special photograph was arranged. Bheem Singh was allowed to sit in with the officials who posed with the beast at their feet. That evening Dalpat Singh arranged a small celebration in the village square: a song and dance and joke-trading session between the younger boys and girls, after which he served steaming hot khichda, which he had made himself.

  Intoxicated by his younger son’s bravery, Rathod Singh drank more freely than he usually did. Then he joked publicly that at least his elder son, Dalpat, would make a good wife for someone. His friends—as drunk as him—roared with laughter; they bellowed with manly contempt. Dalpat, within earshot, felt an uncanny chill in his heart; his hand trembled while he served the khichda.

  “Back! Now move to the back,” directed the customer, pleased at the attention Bheem had given his neck and shoulders but worried that the other body parts would not get their dues. Obediently Bheem Singh shifted his attention. Placing his hands symmetrically across the spine, he pushed down, so that the entangled muscles went crack. The customer groaned, but almost at once a sinuous feeling of relaxation spread through his back. This maalishwalla knows what he is doing, thought the customer. What a gift he has. His thumbs pressed together, Bheem Singh started manipulating the customer’s spine. The customer shut his eyes and slept.