The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack

by HM Naqvi

  Devyani is dusky and limber and what is known as Classically Beautiful in Our Swath of the World: big black eyes, small, straight, neat nose, pouty lips—a miniature come to life. Sporting one of those ankle-length Beloochi frocks, a lily in her oiled hair, and a winning smile, she says, “Tony speaks about you all the time.”

  “Well,” I begin, “he might not speak about you as much as I would like but that’s probably because he doesn’t need to.” Quoting from Presley’s canon, I elucidate, “You’re always on his mind.”

  “That’s very kind of you but I know he doesn’t talk much about us. The arrangement’s not very popular—”

  “What arrangement?”

  “The marriage, of course.”

  “Of course, of course,” I repeat. I cast a glance at Tony fidgeting with the agate ring on his finger. Although I am hurt that my brother has not taken me into confidence, I declaim, “I was delighted when I heard. You must come to the Lodge. We must celebrate properly.”

  “We’ll come whenever you’ll have us, Abdullah Bhai.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “Dinner’s served,” Tony announces.

  The cook has prepared a feast: steamed king fish, biryani, sautéed lotus stem or, as the locals call it, bhey, and the bhey is exquisite. I had requested an authentic Scindee dinner, and Tony has delivered. Sitting cross-legged on a long mat inside, we silently devour supper, mopping our plates with greased chapattis. Jugnu belches in praise. Devyani belches in camaraderie.

  “Where have you been for the last so many days?” I ask her.

  “With my sister—she’s had a baby.”

  “Are you from here?”

  “We are Bhaiband—we have always lived here.”143

  “Where are your parents?”

  “Her father,” Tony interjects, “happens to be one of the biggest commodity traders in the province—we had a business relationship.”

  “Then you must be close to him.”

  As Tony runs his fingers through his mane, Devyani reveals, “We eloped.”

  I would have liked to pursue that trajectory but Jugnu asks, “Where’s Bosco?” The lad has slipped out of the room. I have to follow—the dogs could be out. I find him at the entrance, staring at the sky, hands stuffed into his pockets. “What are we doing here, Uncle Cossack?”

  I begin to hold forth on the Self as a Proxy for the Cosmos but Bosco stops me with an impatient gesture: “What are we doing here?” he repeats, pointing to the ground.

  “Oh. We had to get Jugnu out because of the trouble in the neighbourhood, and I needed to discuss some pressing matters with my brother—”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Aren’t you having fun?”

  “You nearly died, twice, and there are dacoits everywhere, monster dogs, monster lizards—”

  “We haven’t come across a single dacoit—”

  “I want to play Scrabble with my mother.”

  It’s my fault: we ought to have played Scrabble. But the situation is presumably beyond Scrabble. “We leave tomorrow if the coast is clear,” I promise, “and I will call your grandfather as soon as we’re back.”

  The newlyweds are nowhere to be seen when we return. Whilst I would like to secure a commitment from Tony, I am distracted; I am plotting to get into Jugnu’s shalwar. I tell myself that I will catch Tony in the morning. If not, the sojourn will have been for naught.

  140. Tony would repeat the adage ad nauseam when he returned from the US of A. At the time one wondered, Is it a mantra of Pragmatism? Transcendentalism? but it just had to do with that Lazy Lester track.

  141. For the record, she employed the word “rivaaj,” adding, “Phir mainay iska peecha kiya aur isnay mera.”

  142. Muddy aqueducts border the dirt road. “No government in history paved these things,” Tony comments. “Water wastage was 40 percent. The dictator fixed it all in three years but we hounded him out of the country.”

  143. The Bhaiband community mostly populated the Interior whilst Amils mostly resided in the cities—recall the beautiful bungalows of Amil Colony in the heart of town. We knew Jethmal & Guli Jagtiani who ran the Laboratory Apparatus Supply Co. But I need not get into the various Hindoo traditions of the region here: Lohana, Sodha, Bheel, Kohli. That’s work for a diligent doctoral student.

  ON IN VINO VERITAS

  (or HOMEWARD BOUND)

  Brume sweeps the countryside on the last morning; one cannot see beyond the perimeter of the orchard. It is as if one is teetering at the edge of the world, the universe—a pleasing, bemusing sensation. I traipse through the cloud in my borrowed sarong, the grass wet under my soles, like a poet searching for inspiration, but then I descry ominous panting, the patter of paws in the background, and suddenly I am Red Riding Hood in the woods. But before Hero & Daku can make breakfast out of me—the Full English, no doubt: sausages, blood pudding & beans—the gunman materializes, wielding a rake. “Hoosh,” he charges. “Hoosh,” I mutter, gathering the folds of my sarong and scampering into the anteroom. The universe always reminds you how small, how silly, how vulnerable you are.

  When the gunman ties up the dogs, I order him to “call Sayien, call Sayien now!” It’s time to get my head out of the clouds and get things done.

  Tony saunters out in his own time, a joint wedged between his lips, clad in nothing but faded jeans sliding off his waist. He’s an incarnation of his greyhound teenage self in the mist. “What’s up,” he says.

  “I was nearly eaten alive by your dogs!”

  “You know they’re let loose at night—”

  “I’ve been dodging death since I’ve been here!”

  “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Daddy-O!”

  “That’s exactly what I need to talk about.”

  “Step into my office.”

  I follow him to the outhouse, a long, windowless, unremarkable concrete bunker on the other side of the orchard which houses an extraordinary operation: thick plastic curtains give way to a spic, span, fluorescent-lit, temperature-controlled, state-of-the-art laboratory. Pails, beakers, funnels, and basins rest on parallel steel tables, and aluminium sinks run along the far end. Two large metal vats and several stacked wooden barrels rest next to a Frigidaire that could fit a bear. “Would you care to sample some fresh wine, sir?” Tony asks, grabbing a bottle from the refrigerator.

  “It’s seven in the dashed morning!”

  Tony flips the stopper, pours half a glass of white, and sips slowly, tantalizingly. “Ah!”

  “Give me that!” I say, swiping it from his hand.

  “Santé!”

  “That’s the only French you know?”

  “You know I was absent that day.”144

  We sit side by side on a wooden bench, backs against the cool wall, savouring the concoction. “Tell me,” I ask, considering the viscous streaks across the circumference of my glasses, “how many grapes go into a bottle?”

  “Something like six hundred.”145

  “Remember those Gandhi Garden grapes, kid?”

  “I dream about ’em!”

  “You don’t share your dreams with me anymore.”

  “Oh c’mon, Daddy-O—it ain’t like you told me about Jugnu!”

  “What’s there to tell?”

  “You playing My Fair Lady with her?”

  “She’s self-styled, self-made, and not turning into a butterfly, but at this age, in this state, I’m just happy I have somebody who cares.”

  “You’ve practically got a family, Abdu—Jugnu, Bosco, and all.”

  “Well—”

  “It’s about time you settled down, you incorrigible bachelor.”

  “You seem to have figured it all out.”

  “I’m sorry about the whole marriage thing, Abdu, but it was a fraught time, as you would say. You see, Devyani was married into some, like, aristocratic family, but her husband ditched her because she didn’t produce any kids. Her father went apeshit when he found out about us. I’m sure he�
�s behind those jackholes next door. You know, they keep stopping the water to my lands? I’m a small farmer. I can’t take that sort of shit, and there’s no—what do you call it—recourse here.”

  “So what do you do?”

  “It’s a long story but I got some friends—Hawkeye for one—but he’s retiring any day. I’m managing for now, but you never know when they’ll strike again.”

  “But you have gunmen.”

  “Gunmen ain’t good enough.” Turning his back towards me, he displays the gilded hilt of a pistol wedged in the waist of his jeans. “This here is a .38 Snubnose Special. I’m locked and loaded!”

  There is no doubt everyone is beset with their own particular, peculiar tribulations: some are born hobbled, some suddenly ail, and some happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The threats to Tony are existential—it’s every man for himself out here, anywhere. What can I do for him? What can he do for me? Whilst I would like to ask him if he has made a decision about the Lodge, to reiterate the odds—three to one without him—sitting thigh to thigh with my boon companion, I deign not to discuss the matter further; I have said what I have to say. Now it’s up to him. Taking a final swig, I stand and proclaim, “We’re done here.”

  As I march towards the house, Tony says, “Keep the sarong, Abdu.”

  “Gee thanks, kid.”

  “It’s time you retire Mummy’s robe.”

  We breakfast together—“breakfast of champions,” Tony proclaims: paratha, malai, and lassi for me; paratha, omelet, and sautéed potatoes for everybody else. I do not believe I suffer from cholesterol—what is it called now HDL? LDL?—but I suspect the spread is not particularly salutary for diabetics either. I do not know how the locals survive but this much is certain: Devyani thrives.

  Sitting like a schoolgirl, legs folded behind her slender rump, she tucks in without remorse. And Jugnu, God bless her, has never been shy about seconds. The two seem to have developed a rapport but one never knows with women.

  “What beautiful bangles,” Jugnu purrs.

  “Such strong wrists,” Devyani avers.

  If they really are getting on, we might spend more time together—the four of us could visit each other over the weekends, in the city, the Interior—and who knows, we might even sojourn abroad en famille. That’s what families do.

  “I took Devyani to Colombo,” Tony is saying. “I proposed to her there. You must go, Abdu—”

  “We all should go together.”

  “It’s like the South Asian Caribbean. It’s funny: they got the most brutal civil war in the region but you wouldn’t know it—”

  “Speaking of which,” I interrupt, “have you heard anything about the situation in the city? There were dark clouds above Lyari when we left.”

  “Out here, I don’t know nothin’ about Hyderabad, Daddy-O, and that’s, like, down the road. Your city’s a different world altogether. But lemme check in with Hawkeye. He’ll know what’s what.”

  Pulling out his portable phone, he calls his old friend. “Hur says trouble’s passed for now. A dozen dead, and some Langra guy’s on his way out.”

  It’s welcome news: the changing dispensation suggests that the threat to us is diminished. Bosco, however, seems nonplussed. The lad has been sitting alone, despondently spooning lassi as if it were melted ice cream. “So the war is over?” he asks.

  “For now.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “We’re going, we’re going.”

  Before departing, before embraces and exchanges of promises, I call the Caliph of Cool. When I tell him I need to have a word, he says, “I need a word with you too, man. Meet me at the Intercon at eight. I’m playing tonight.”

  We leave for the city soon after. The trip back is mercifully eventless.

  144. Tony took French at St. Pat’s but his teacher, a Russian, rather, White Russian, named Andre Rachkovsky, who only wore shorts, would spend the class telling stories about escaping the revolution to Curachee via Ukraine and China.

  145. I am no oenologist but that seems excessive. I imagine ten, certainly not more than twenty go into a glass, and there are about five glasses in a bottle. If you double the number, or better yet, triple it, you still have three hundred unaccounted for grapes. I would wager Chambu would know—he knows everything.

  VOLUME IV

  ON THE PROVERBIAL HEARTBREAK HOTEL

  (or VIA CON ME)

  When the Caliph of Cool plays the piano, he sprawls on the keys. From a distance then, from the sliding glass doors that open into the air-conditioned, checkerboard-floor lobby of the Intercon, it seems that the instrument is playing itself.146 In another era, there might have been an audience, oohs, aahs, sibilant applause, but presently the only taker is a mop-haired fellow in a pine green suit installed at the back of the coffee shop, portable phone glued to an ear. “Hor ki al eh,” I hear him say, “razi-bazi?”

  As I arrange myself in a tiny wrought-iron chair before a tiny glass-top table, Felix prattles, “Chopin, man! That cat was something else!”

  Whenever he addresses Themes in Western Classical Music—the Caliph cannot help himself after a couple of bottles of feni—I find myself taken by the variety of heavy-liddedness that besets the best of us during the longueur of chemistry lessons. After all, there are more pressing matters in the world than hydrocarbons. There is, for instance, the matter of Bosco. When I deposited him outside the Lodge less than an hour ago, he waved limply. The lad is losing his cool.

  “What do you think?” Felix asks after completing the set.

  “Bosco wants to go back home—”

  “About Chopin’s Number Two, man!”

  “Oh. Right. It’s better than Number One.”

  “You big goof,” he laughs. “You never learnt nothing. You just like those dish-dish numbers.” Thrusting a small plastic bottle of mineral water at me, Felix says, “You want?” I take a swig, and spit—I ought to have known better: it’s feni, and feni is less than salutary without lime, without soda. “You’ll go blind drinking that hooch!”

  “Then why’re you the one with the cataract, my friend!”

  “Why are you so spirited tonight?”

  “I’m leaving, man, getting out.”

  “What? Where?”

  “The Australian asylum application came through. I’m taking Bosco and my daughter with me.”

  “What asylum? What application? Why didn’t you tell me, goddamn it?”

  “It was all on a need-to-know basis, and you didn’t need to know.”

  All of a sudden, I realize the bastard has been playing me like a banjo from the beginning. “They’ll have a chance to start a new life,” Felix is saying, “no interference from the mafia, bloody nobody. You should be happy, man.”

  “About what?”

  “Your friend—”

  “Abandoning me?”

  “This is not about you.”

  The image of Bosco skipping across the tarmac flits across my field of vision, polka-dot backpack slung over the shoulder, waving farewell. I feel suddenly bereft, broken. I feel like sobbing in the stalls of the men’s room but before I can excuse myself, a turbaned bearer wearing an infelicitous smirk appears, tray in hand. “Order?” he demands as if attending to a pair of fops.

  “Sala, tameez nahin?” Felix growls, viz., Don’t you have manners, idiot? I order a plate of marmalade shortbread biscuits, and cold coffee.

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “I’m fine with feni.”

  “About immigrating, Pinto?”

  “It’s time, old friend.”

  “You said Australia was a dashed penal colony, that nobody knows you there, that—”

  “I’ve finally realized there’s not much left here for my kind.”

  We gaze sombrely at the traffic in the lobby. Several amateur art enthusiasts gawk at an exhibition on the opposite wall featuring arcadian scenes rendered in watercolour: A Solitary Ox in a Field, A Smattering of Mud Huts, The
Suggestion of a Storm in the Indigo Sky. The character in the green suit drifts by, portable phone still glued to ear, pursuing, it would seem, a pair of pale lasses wrapped in colourful scarves. A pack of children in matching ill-fitting jackets stomp into the hall that had housed the Nasreen Room. In the old days, air hostesses in stilettos & skirts & perfume would be milling in the lobby, sipping sundowners before a night out in town. The only excitement tonight is the promise of lukewarm kebabs and a bottle of pop. Sucking on the dregs of the cold coffee with a chewed-up straw, I ask, “When are you going to take Bosco away from me?”

  “A week or two—”

  Pulling the last trumpeter by his bowtie towards me, I enjoin, “Listen to me. I will make this right.”

  “What the hell can you do? Take on the land mafia? You lost your mind, banjo?”

  “I managed before, I can manage again.”

  “You just manage yourself,” he says, “that’s more than enough.”

  When the bearer reappears with the chit, Felix insists on paying. “I called you,” I assert, “so you’re my guest,” but I realize I do not have currency on my person. Waving the bearer away—“Where are my biscuits?” I say—I ask Felix, “Remember that night at the Excelsior?”

  “My homecoming?”

  “When you walked in, that bartender hollered, ‘You don’t think I remember but I remember you: I remember that jaw, the trumpet. You have an obligation to this bar of six hundred and fifty-five rupees! And it’s been outstanding for more than ten years!’”

  “Ha!”

  “Then I asked: ‘Do you know who this is? You know who you’re talking to? This is the Caliph of Cool! You know that this man composed the National Anthem? You know he knocked the Prime Minister to the ground? And now he’s back from Down Under to preside over the City of Lights once again. You should give him another drink tonight and another drink after that. You should be grateful that this living legend is gracing this establishment with his presence!’”