‘Zaira, it’s time you circulated. There are people I want you to meet…’
‘Hey! Don’t ever grab me by the arm.’
‘I’m sorry, but it’s really important that you meet—’
‘I asked you what happened to the photographer!’
‘These things happen, Zaira; don’t get carried away. He probably got off with a few bruises. It’s a part of their job.’
‘Listen, Ravi, do you want me to attend this film premiere?’
‘Yes—I mean, that’s why you’re here.’
‘Well, how would it seem if I turned around and walked away?’
‘I’d say that would be mad.’
‘You’re right—and it would also result in the end of your career.’
‘I—’
‘So save the two of us a ton of trouble, please. I want you to take your tortured tush out of this gas pit and get me news of the boy and his camera. If he has as much as bruised his finger, take him to the doctor. If not, come back here. I’ll call Mr Seth from the India Chronicle—that’s who he is—tomorrow morning and confirm that I sent a rep to check on him, so don’t pull a fast one on me, all right?’
Karan was a little taken aback when Zaira’s publicist insisted on personally accompanying him to the doctor in the massive BMW and then, with his sprained ankle firmly bandaged and the cuts on his left elbow disinfected, deposited him in his room in Ban Ganga. On the way from the clinic Ravi let on that he had been acting on personal instructions from Zaira.
Karan called Zaira a week later to thank her; she brushed off the gesture, claiming she had been responsible for the mêlée.
‘So, did you go to Chor Bazaar, find something interesting to photograph?’ she asked after enquiring how his injuries were healing.
He blushed. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Then I’ll have to take you there personally.’
‘And cause another stampede?’
‘Perhaps. That would be a good lesson for you. You should come for a dinner party I’m hosting with Samar at my house,’ she said. ‘You’ll enjoy it. There’ll just be a dozen people.’
‘When is it?’ Karan gulped, dreading the thought of having to make clever small talk with the top-brass invitees at Zaira’s exclusive party.
‘Next Friday. But it’ll start late—around eleven. Think you can make it?’
‘I guess so.’ What was he supposed to say? That he would take a look in his diary and get back to her?
‘Great.’
‘But thank you, again. For watching out for me.’
‘Watching is what you do; I was just keeping an eye out.’
For the rest of the day Zaira wondered why she had so impulsively invited Karan to her party. She did not really know him that well and the inclusion of a new, unknown male guest at the dinner table was bound to provoke a few raised eyebrows. She feared being misread; she had no romantic interest in Karan. Of course she had been swept away by the visual poetry of his work—hard, ambiguous, luscious, possessed with an incantatory power—but was this the guiding motive of her interest? She suspected she had invited him because he was so entirely unlike someone from her own milieu, untainted by either fame or wealth. The moment this thought crossed her mind, guilt subsumed her. What if she had invited Karan simply because he was not ‘one of them’? She would hate herself if the basis of her invitation was his being the token ‘struggling artist’ at her dinner table, always a welcome distraction. No, she assured herself, that was not it. Rather, she believed her interest in him owed to the fact that he had engaged her solidarity by his discretion: after her breakdown at Samar’s house she had feared reading about the incident in the papers but Karan had evidently not breathed a word to anyone. The only other reason for the invitation could be simpatico: they were both foreigners in Bombay—she had been raised in Hyderabad and Karan in Shimla—people who had come to the city in search of a dream, and both of them had found that Bombay gave them conscription with life or, at least, a temporary refuge from its hostile challenges.
Later that week, when Karan was at her house for dinner, she cornered him about the proposed reconnaissance to Chor Bazaar. In the dim light of her apartment in Juhu, when he gingerly confessed that he was yet to ankle it to the bazaar, it invoked strident disapproval; he promised to make amends. Sitting barefoot on the floor of the balcony, sipping at a glass of red wine too many, they nursed something awkward between them, sadness and kinship; unsayable things lurked under the blustery sheath of fashionable music.
She threatened to banish him from her life if he failed to find and photograph the Bombay Fornicator.
He looked stricken.
She ruffled his hair playfully.
Only when Karan was back home did it occur to him that she must already consider him a part of her existence to talk of expelling him from it.
4
On the day Karan finally visited Chor Bazaar, he was alone, his anxiety about his future as documentarian, journal keeper and photo maker of Bombay at a crescendo.
Rambling through the sweltering chaos of the bazaar, ungrazed by any inspiration, he recognized with some measure of dismay how many months of uninspiring, tiresome work had made it difficult for him to emerge out of the deep well of his torpor. Although Iqbal’s various commissions gave him practice, he desperately needed time to work on his collection, to articulate his private and wounded sense of adulthood, its disquiet, innocence, amity and discord, all of which was being slowly played out against the stark, taut canvas of Bombay. He was desperate to photograph the caves in the forests of the national park, the noisy dawn at Sassoon Dock and a smouldering evening at Scandal Point, the slum urchins spinning wooden tops on the pavement and the made-up memsahibs on Altamont Road, their eyes flashing envy and disdain like the diamonds on their nasty fingers.
There was all this. And more.
But time. Where was the time?
Not only was Karan hungry for time, he was also ravenous for talk. Now and again he did discuss his photographs with Iqbal, but his boss was generally too busy to talk at length. And Zaira knew precious little about the subject, even if her interest in his life was greatly encouraging. Conversation about his pictures would give him clarity and impetus, direction and current; he wanted to rub his mind against another, talk freely about the failed photograph, the lost moment, the catastrophic composition, the perfect picture plucked out of the wreckage of an imperfect day. But talk, the real, deep, purposeful thing, illuminating and difficult, with room for pause and uncertainty, eluded him. He had expected a big city to provide him the shelter of able, poignant companionship but Bombay had only introduced him to varying species of loneliness. There was the loneliness of the late night, when red moths beat harried wings against hot street lights and sleep was a faint, faraway music. There was the loneliness of having no family to count on, no letters to write, no phone calls to make. And, most wretched of all, there was the loneliness of being around people for whom he felt neither a sympathy of mind nor an appeal of the heart. He wondered if a girlfriend might alleviate the situation, but feared that the onus of the relationship would come in the way of his real love—his camera and its unpredictable, incredible harvest. Could he find a woman who would return touch for touch, silence for silence, word for word? Someone with whom he could share, at eventide, the day’s pointless particulars, and who would find in him the custodian of her most private aesthetic, as he would in her?
In the last two months some of his loneliness had no doubt been relieved by Zaira. After the dinner at her apartment, they had spoken on the phone on numerous occasions and met up again, only the previous week, at Samar’s house. Zaira had badgered him into visiting parts of Bombay he had never even considered worth exploring and he had surfaced from his dark room with pictures that would make lasting additions to his work. In fact, his visit to Chor Bazaar had resulted from Zaira’s ultimatum.
Unfortunately, his endeavour to locate a Bombay Fornicator had not met
with any success. Two stall owners in the bazaar had barrelled him with all manner of lewd questions when he had asked them to show him a Bombay Fornicator; one fellow, with tombstone teeth, had promptly pointed north, in the direction of the city’s red-light district. He left their side, a cloud of loud guffaws hovering over him.
As evening evaporated into a thick indigo dusk, Karan realized his chances of finding the Bombay Fornicator were shot, and dejection trampled his heart. He had stopped, as a final attempt, to ask another shopkeeper about the Bombay Fornicator when he noticed a woman studying him from a distance; the intensity of her gaze was mesmeric, puzzling.
‘Excuse me,’ she said as soon as he was within earshot, ‘I just overheard you ask about the Bombay Fornicator…’
‘Er…yes…do you know anything about it?’ He walked toward her, entering the private cosmology of her unabashed curiosity.
She was sitting on a carved Chinese bench, legs crossed to her side, shoulder-length night-black hair splayed over the ridge of her shoulders; she was playing with a small figure in her hands, and her thin, delicate fingers suggested hidden purpose and solid efficiency.
‘There are all kinds of fornicators in this city; which kind are you looking for?’
His cheeks reddened. ‘I wish I knew.’
‘Perhaps I might.’ Her skin had the luxuriant polish of leaves in a tropical jungle; her heavy-lidded eyes moved over his face. There was an unsettling calm about her, like a lake at midnight.
‘You might?’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Can you help? I mean, asking a stranger in a bazaar to help look for a Bombay Fornicator sounds absurd even to my own ears but…’ he stuttered.
‘It’s not absurd.’
‘My query did not surprise you?’
She put down the talisman in her hands on the bench, and Karan noticed it was a tiny brass monkey.
She stood up. ‘I come to Chor Bazaar too often to be surprised.’
‘I’ve spent close to an hour speaking to the shopkeepers here; all they’ve given me is the slip or a sneer, and I don’t know which is worse.’
She folded her slender arms across her chest; her cream dress, a whisper of sultry elegance, came floating all the way down to her immaculate, girlish ankles. ‘Why’re you looking for a Bombay Fornicator?’
‘I work as a photographer with the India Chronicle. And my friend, Zaira, has been on my case to find and photograph the Bombay Fornicator. Trouble is,’ he said, scratching his chin, ‘I don’t even know what the damn thing is!’
‘They’re rare to find these days.’ Moving away from his face, her eyes travelled the length of his long brown arms, the curve of muscles reminding her of a river at a bend. ‘Not many dealers stock Bombay Fornicators.’
‘At the very least could you tell me what it is?’
‘Wouldn’t you much rather see it?’
‘I guess so, but won’t you give me a clue?’
Her brows puckered. ‘I thought I saw one a few minutes ago…although finding it in the mess of this bazaar will be tricky.’
‘Please! Just tell me what it is.’
She started to walk, her eyes scanning the shops; he followed her. ‘Did you want to photograph the Bombay Fornicator for your magazine?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not for India Chronicle.’
‘Then it must be for your friend who put you on the job.’
‘Actually, it’s for my private record. You see, I moved to Bombay and decided I would make this big, bold record of the city. The littlest things. The foams in the gullies of Dhobi Talao. The tail whip of a horse cantering at Mahalaxmi at dawn. Dusty balustrades in the wrecked mansions of Kala Ghoda. Everything would enter the lens and come through to a permanent place, and for that to happen if I’d have to tear down the walls and break sheets of glass I’d do it, to see everything raw and awful and perfect…I’m hoping to create an epic record of Bombay.’
‘An epic record of Bombay?’ she repeated, amused.
‘I meant…’ He blushed, conscious he was guilty of blabbering.
‘That sounds like a lot of work. Why don’t you have a drink instead?’ She gave a laugh.
He smiled, the edifice of his confidence suddenly reduced to rubble. ‘I guess I must sound like an idiot. This talk of immortalizing Bombay with my foolish camera.’
‘Not entirely an idiot.’ She smiled warmly; she found his ambition sincere, surprising, defensible. ‘Not yet, in any event.’
‘From the day I came to Bombay,’ he said quietly, ‘I felt like I was staring destiny in the eye.’
‘Well, maybe you were meant to photograph the city, then.’
‘Yes.’ His eyes shone, luminous with excitement. ‘I have no doubt about that. Bombay, this city, this moment in time, and,’ pointing to his camera, he said, ‘this camera.’
‘You have terrible taste,’ she said with a clap of her hands. ‘I approve thoroughly.’
Her voice wrapped itself around him; it was easy to imagine that at the end of the corridor of her voice there was a little room in which a blues singer was hiding from the world, serenading emptiness.
‘Now, for your friend’s sake, I hope we find the Bombay Fornicator. You’ll have to trust this Chor Bazaar old hand, though.’
‘At this point, I’ll trust anyone.’
‘That would be wrong. Not ethically, but practically. That’s something I’ve learned in my thirty-six years in Bombay.’
He stopped in his tracks. ‘You’re thirty-six!’
‘I’m not sure if I ought to be flattered by your tone.’
‘Well, you don’t look your age at all.’
‘How old are you?’ Her eyes slitted, reminding Karan of a snake.
‘Twenty-five.’
‘You don’t act your age at all.’
He tried not to look entirely deflated.
‘Come along now.’ Her fingers touched his arm ever so softly. ‘While we look around tell me what you’ve seen in Chor Bazaar so far that could end up in your pictures.’
‘There was a stone mermaid with an oriental face…’
‘Ah, probably nicked from a Mahabaleshwar mansion.’
‘And there was a palanquin on the back of an elephant, home to…’
‘…three black kittens,’ she completed.
‘You saw that too?’
‘How could anyone miss the kittens? They were so lovely, so abandoned…Did you see the store selling antique glass bottles?’
‘Yes, I did.’ Light breaking through the clutter of countless bottles had splashed all over the vendor, an old man with a beard as white as a ghost. ‘He looked like a disco ball with all that light raining down on him!’
‘I never thought of that coot as a disco ball,’ she said, amused by Karan’s description, ‘but you got the nail on its head.’ The dignified Muslim vendor on a wooden stool, doused in echoes of ruby and jade, had been oblivious of the interest he had aroused in them.
The path ahead turned off into a bend. ‘Let’s go down this one last curve of Mutton Lane; if we don’t find it here, I’m on my way home. I have a pottery studio,’ she explained. ‘And I’ve left three pitchers in the kiln. I’ve got to be home to save them from being overbaked.’
As they went down the narrow lane, their arms brushed against each other’s; Karan felt strangely, powerfully aroused. The urge to touch her again, to seek the warmth and thrill of her skin, was overwhelming.
She looked as if she was trying to retrace her steps, to return to the place she believed she had seen the Bombay Fornicator earlier. Halting before a furniture stall she rubbed her hands gleefully. ‘You’re in luck, Mr Shutterbug!’
‘I am?’
She pointed ahead. ‘Look past the carpenter.’
‘Yes.’ He craned his neck.
‘At the end of the row of shelves.’
His eyes travelled the line of her extended arm.
‘That chair with long arms and hexagonal netting?’
Karan’s eyes moved to
the gaunt carpenter sandpapering the claw foot of a chaise. ‘Yeah.’
‘That’s it.’ She patted his back, urging him forward. ‘Go, have a look.’
He went into the shop.
‘Comfortable!’ he said, settling into the long-armed chair. ‘Neat lines. Great wood, unusual shape.’ Disappointment filled his face; what a lot of fuss for a chair. ‘Why does it have this funny name?’
‘Put your feet on the arms of the chair.’
The carpenter looked up, intrigued by her soft, commanding voice.
Karan swung his left leg on to the armrest. ‘Like this?’
‘Yes, and now the other leg too.’
Karan followed her instructions. Lying back, he dropped his hands to his sides.
‘Spread your legs.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said: Spread your legs.’
His mouth fell open.
‘Good.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Spread them some more.’
The carpenter paused his sandpapering and turned to look at her. ‘Now throw your head back…Excellent! Let your hands stay at your side. Perfect!’
With his crotch aloft, his legs drawn out, Karan felt completely exposed.
The carpenter gaped; he half expected her to march right over and sit on him, her pelvis over his, drawing him into the wilderness of her lust. Instead, she stood her ground, watching from afar, exuding a feral dignity.
‘If you still don’t get why this chair is called the Bombay Fornicator,’ she said, ‘then you should hop on to the next train bound for a monastery.’
He sat up, smiling like a baby who was being tickled on its soles. ‘Nice! You told me never to trust anyone in Bombay; then why did you help a stranger?’
‘You bear an uncanny resemblance to someone I know.’
‘Really?’ he asked, intrigued. ‘Who?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘someone I know well.’
‘And what do we have in common?’
Her eyes roamed his face again, studying the thick, inky eyebrows, the indented chin, the thin, flat ears. ‘Many things…’
The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay Page 5