The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack

by HM Naqvi

  “What’s his name?” the chap asks.

  “Mohan. We call him Muggu.”

  Gesturing towards me, he asks, “And him?”

  “Farangi,” Tony replies.

  As he considers me, Guddu asks, “What is frangy?”

  “Franks,” I whisper.

  “What is Franks?” he persists.

  “Foreigner,” I whisper.163

  We are waved in after a brief recitation of the rules—“No shoes, no photo, no guns”—but just as we cross the threshold, Nargis catches up, calling the Childoos.

  “My blood runs through them as well,” I say.

  Turning to her husband, she exhorts, “Do something,” but it’s too late.

  “Ta-ta,” Toto and Guddu wave like synchronized swimmers.

  The steps lead down to a pristine checkered marble courtyard wafting incense. There is a giant green collection box in the middle & a poster of the god of the Indus perched cross-legged on a giant yellow fish to the side. The children tug me towards the passage leading further into the cavern. “Like the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi a few hundred paces over,” I tell Devyani, “Rateneshwar Mahadev is carved into a limestone cave said to open into the sea. Uncannily, the same infrastructure, the same mythology, informs the two sites.”

  Except, of course, for the displays on either side—the fearsome Kali in her many-armed splendor, the depiction of Radha and Krishna’s torrid tryst, not to mention the brass lingam inside the cavern, the statue of a certain Murti Baba lodged at far end. The Childoos, fascinated, keep asking questions: “Why doesn’t the sea come in, ChachaJan?”

  “Magic, kid. It’s magic.”

  Tony sidles up to me as Devyani kneels in ritual prayer, flanked by Jugnu and a pair of squatting Childoos. “You know, Abdu, this ain’t over: Bakaullah will get the Major and the lawyers involved. You know the law’s on his side, right?”

  “I’m not worried—I have you now.”

  “I got you out of that mess, Daddy-O, but this ain’t a game you can win.”

  “Why shouldn’t your children play hide-and-seek in the garage like we did, climb the same trees, dig for worms in the same dirt?”

  “Funny you say that: it so happens Devyani’s pregnant.”

  “What?“

  “Shush,” he whispers, gesturing towards his prayerful wife.

  Bowing my head, I pray as well—for Devyani, my niece-or nephew-to-be, for the Childoos, those crazy little Childoos, for our family: picnics every Sunday please, or every other Sunday—reckoning that if I pray with enthusiasm, somebody, somewhere, might just listen: Durga, Murti Baba, Abdullah Shah Ghazi (RA), or just my mortal relations.

  The sun is large and red when we emerge, the sea glowing on the horizon like lava. Picnickers stretch across the rolling lawns of the park undulating below; children bob in a striped Jumping Castle at the end. I attempt ambling down with my nephews but Nargis leaps to their rescue, checking their extremities for cuts, bruises, signs of metaphysical trauma.

  “Mama, mama,” Toto squeals, “there are gods inside, and magic fish!”

  Shooting a murderous glance my way, Nargis titters, “Tauba-tauba,” as if the numina are Harbingers of Armageddon. “Everything’s a harbinger of Armageddon with her,” I whisper.

  “Well,” Tony chuckles, taking me aside, “I have taken up with a Hindoo, and you, a transvestite.”

  “What?” I exclaim, “What did you say?”

  Just then Tony’s portable telephone rings the Mission Impossible theme music. “Bakaullah,” he announces, “is dead.”

  160. The story goes that our founder’s sister, Aunty Fatima, leaned on the government to nominate the Bombayite architect Yahya Merchant over a Brit. She always knew what she was doing. It’s unfortunate if not tragic that the establishment marginalized her—our city, country might have been different had she been elected head-of-state. Imagine, just imagine.

  161. Although the picnicking families, the merry gentry, appreciate the verdant lawns, they leave peels & crumpled Frooto boxes in their wake. There’s no doubt that civic sense has to be inculcated, but who will do it & how? The Socratic Method? When I point out an errant plastic bag to a family of pink northerners, they stare as if I am mad, a farangi. Little do they know: I’m an original settler!

  162. It was, if memory serves me correctly, accorded by the Chinese. One hears, however, the Chinese are pushing another on us—one that is new and shiny, a necklace for a mistress.

  163. Technically, “farangi” is Persian for the Franks, a dashed scourge, like Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit—the Crusader Mendicant who slaughtered tens of thousands of Jews up and down the Rhine for the hell of it.

  ON HOW TO CONDUCT A FUNERAL

  (or TIME TO SAY GOODBYE)

  We all have experience with Death—mothers, fathers, wives, aunts, brothers-in-law, friends—but the death of a sibling is something like attending your own funeral. What is a brother if not a proxy for the self—a hamzaad? We wash the corpse for burial, a grim exercise made grimmer by discussion about the temperature of the water, speculation about the contents of the cadaver’s stomach, this, that, the other. It has been an age since I have participated in the corporeal ritual, a procedure akin to preparing turkey for the roast, except the late Comrade’s body is more quail than poulet: brittle bones bound in skin stretched and burnished by age. I sponge my brother’s vacant, angular visage, quietly sob when he is dried and dispatched to the morgue, shrouded in a starched white sheet tied in large knots at either end.164 I console myself like everyone consoles themselves—he had a full life, he died peacefully, died in his sleep—but cannot sleep well afterward. The roof continues to leak, that cat lurks in the darkness, and questions prick the conscience: Did I deliver the coup de grâce? Did I kill my brother?

  The burial takes place the following afternoon for it was too late for us dinosaurs to negotiate our ancestral graveyard the night before. There is further debate graveside concerning appropriate prayers, the positioning of the corpse, the contents of the pockets of those who place the body inside: when a contentious bespectacled uncle twice removed and twelve years my junior—we called him Uncle Sargum—raises the matter, I growl, “It doesn’t matter to me, it doesn’t matter to him, so why the hell does it matter to you?”165 Uncle Sargum happens to be in town from the United States of America, and these America Return Types believe they are evolved because they floss in the morning and use hand sanitizer before and after meals.

  “Who are all these people?” Tony asks.

  “Druids,” I reply, “decoys.”

  There are twenty, twenty-five souls—twenty, twenty-five more than will be present at my burial—including the movers. Bosco eyes my captors warily but the bald driver who kidnapped me the other day falls on my chest, bawling. Who knows if he’s swept by guilt or grief, but I reassure him with a pat on the back before handing him a bouquet of incense sticks to plant in the sodden earth that is shoveled atop the stone slabs. There is solace in ritual, the kabuki of last rites: you always know what to do. We wordlessly converge on Mummy’s grave, scattering rose petals. We pray again, weep again, inhaling the balm of death.

  When we totter back, the Major insists on hosting the soyem but I put my foot down: “He was born at the Lodge,” I proclaim, “and will be commemorated at the Lodge!”

  “You denied him his right to the Lodge and now—”

  “And now it’s time to do him right.”

  As soon as I return home, I phone my friend Zed, the editor of the biggest business daily, to place the announcement, then dial a reputable caterer, the son of one of the managers from the Olympus Days—“no problem, no problem,” he says as I delineate the inspired menu—and because I need to talk to somebody else, I phone the Caliph of Cool. After expressing his sincerest condolences, he asks, “Aren’t you relieved, man?”

  “He had a tragic life, a tragic end.”

  “You just worry about your end, banjo, but I tell you, I’m ch
ecking out next.”

  “Australia?”

  “Gonna rock and roll with the angels soon, play for my Maker!”

  “You’re not going anywhere without me!”

  “You don’t play nothing!”

  “I clap—”

  “Like a transvestite?”

  “I think Tony told me that Jugnu’s a transvestite.”

  “Hoo-ha!” Pinto hoots. “That’s something else, man! You played patty cake with her?”

  “She has cakes—”

  “Cupcakes?”

  “Small but—”

  “Pastries, tarts?”

  “Stop it!”

  “There’s only one way to find out!”

  What to do? Discreetly explore the topography of her nether lands with my divining rod whilst she is asleep? What if I discover a bitter gourd in the brush? In any event, I have more immediate matters to attend to: the tent has to be pitched in the lawn, the chairs dusted, arranged in rows, the audio system set up for the presiding maulvi, and people keep dropping in on condolence calls. Cousin Gulbadan parks herself on the settee in the parlour, weeping as if she has lost her only son in battle. Badbakht’s presence, on the other hand, reassures: whilst I sit sipping cup after cup of soapy tea, listening to my brother’s praises by X, Y, and Z, she directs the tent-wallah quietly, efficiently—yeh-nahin-woh, idhar-nahin-udhar, viz., this not that, here not there—like the Lady of the Manor.

  Clad in black, hair pulled back, Jugnu also plays her indeterminate part with certain élan. I watch her attend to an ancient matron who only speaks Gujarati and is blind in one eye. “We come into the world without certainty,” Jugnu says, crossing her limber legs, “and pass on without certainty.” I am particularly intrigued when I catch the Major’s eldest son, that lothario, corner Jugnu in the kitchen. She cannot be a transvestite, I reckon—the boy has a glad eye. It doesn’t really matter: no explanations are required for nobody has asked about her and there is an unexpected crush.

  Since Bakaullah had been an icon in Soorkha circles, a contingent of Communists show up in force in flat hats and dark pants rolled up at the hem, reeking of warm smoke and exhaustion from protests against the state for a good half century.166 Whilst I am of the belief that inequity has more to do with the Temperament of Man than the Momentum of History, it’s not the time or place for forgotten contentions and I have to see to the larger contingent, the last of the Garden aristocracy: the retired justice, leaning on a cane, a mouse-voiced retired State Bank governor, the self-exiled hotelier. As the President and board of the Theosophical Society huddle in a corner, discussing the nature of reality with the Last Known Jew of Currachee,167 an agile, bushy-browed octogenarian in a three-piece suit—“Life is all,” I hear somebody say, “and all is life”168—Zed arrives with his subeditors, followed by the Brothers Ud-Din (Taqi, Fasi, Burhan), classmates, nemeses. They used to look up to us, literally and figuratively, and now as hard-nosed contractors, pioneers of nondescript residential blocks, look down at the entire city. I would wager that the carpet tycoon intent on the Lodge is their front man. I would wager Hawkeye would know. I also want to ask him about the threat regarding public spaces, but the food is running out—No problem, boss, no problem, the caterer insists, shuttling the last of the canapés to the Sunshine Sweets people—and everybody keeps telling me that somebody called Rambo is looking for me. Who in God’s name is Rambo, and why in God’s name would he ask for me?

  Nargis & her ilk, aghast that the sexes have not been separated, lobby for zenana ad interim, and grouse about the presiding maulvi, a turbaned, teddy-bear-looking scholar with a doctorate in Comparative Religion from the University of North Carolina—a nonpareil, arguably as rare as hen’s teeth. “There are some fundamentals that are unchangeable,” he is saying, “We all know what they are. But everything else should change and keep changing. Think of it as a spoke and wheel. Let us take the schools of law. How are the fifteen-hundred-year-old civil regulations of Baghdad, adapted to Islam by minds no different from yours or mine, pertinent here or now? We need laws for today, laws that govern technological research, emancipate women, but we fuss about the correctness of plucked eyebrows and the proximity of the commode to the sink! The great minds wrote treatises such as the Fusus al Hikam, but what do we read now? Bahesthi Zaver! Do you think the Prophet’s (PBUH) wife, Hazrat Khadija (RA), would have stood for such nonsense? We need an intellectual revolution, and we need it now.”

  Just as I am about to sit—If the Communists are listening, I reckon, everyone ought to—a rough hand collars me from behind. It belongs to neither Communist nor Khoja, Gardener nor suburbanite, but a creature with streaked porcupine hair, face like a grenade, who growls, “I am here for the dead.”

  In a fit of panic—is he, I wonder, an incarnation of the Grim Reaper?—I offer him a passing tray of hors d’oeuvres. “You must try the … the bihari chicken satay.”

  Popping one in his maw, he repeats, “Dead do.”

  “I don’t understand,” I wince.

  “Langra sends his condolences in return for the dead.”

  “You mean the registry? The garment-dyeing business? But what of the the municipal authority—”

  “We’ve taken care of everything.”

  Old Kapadia once told me that the principle of private land ownership is the Foundation of Capitalism, but Rambo does not seem to be interested in such vagaries—he is a man of concrete sensibilities. And I am a man who needs a garment-dyeing operation like I need a yo-yo. Scuttling up the stairs, heart pumping like a piston, I retrieve the file from my armoire, then scuttle back. “What about the money?” I pant.

  Snatching the papers, he snarls, “What about it?”

  Just then Tony materializes, minus Muggu.

  “Where’s a gunman when you need one?” I mutter.

  “Aren’t you the boxer?” Tony asks.

  “Asia Cup, Gold Finalist—1997,” Rambo declaims.

  “I knew it!”

  “I was going to fight in the Olympics but they broke my foot.”

  “You were very good.”

  “The best!”

  “Langra,” I interject, “promised to pay and Langra’s an honourable man, a man of his word.”

  Raising his jersey before the biddies, the repo man bares his leathery belly to reveal a belt stuffed with tawny notes, reaches behind his waist, and hands it to me. “One million.”

  “But it’s worth at least thirty—”

  Pressing a dog-eared calling card in Tony’s hand as if he has not heard me, he turns and leaves. “Who the hell was that?” Tony asks.

  “Thought you knew him.”

  “Never came across him before in my life,” Tony smiles, “but he’s got a boxer’s posture.”

  “I’ll wager that was Rambo.”

  “You need to keep better company, Daddy-O—”

  Just then a chap sporting a beret interrupts: “Old men are like old cars: they need servicing.”

  “You’re a regular philosopher.”

  “I am sorry about your loss,” says the mechanic—presumably, he has been watching, waiting—“but can you pay me?”

  “Who else do you owe money to?” Tony asks.

  “The toyshop, the bhutta-wallah, that swine—”

  And on cue, Chambu materializes with his portmanteau. “What a tragedy this,” he sniffles, “what a giant he was!”

  “You have a long life, Chambu—”169

  “Verily, this has been a sign from the Almighty,” he continues as if he has not heard me. “It is time we make decisions, Abdullah Seth, life and death decisions—”

  “I have made my decision, friend. You will be very pleased to hear that you have a new boss, a businessman of great stature. You might have heard of him: Langra of Lyari.” The disclosure renders Chambu speechless again.

  “Good day, sir,” I mutter, “and good riddance.” I am, as Tony would say, on a roll.

  As the canapés dwindle, the crowd starts to thin. Th
e Soorkhas, however, do not seem to be in a hurry. They continue debating the Right Way170 and the legacy of Comrade Bakaullah, claiming, for instance, that had my brother not left the Left, he would have led them to “victory after victory”—a tenuous assertion at best: the Left was long co-opted by that demagogue so there was nothing left of the Left by the time it had to contend with the dictator. Nevertheless I nod quietly, adhering to that age-old adage De mortuis nil nisi bonum, until a voice interrupts, inquiring, “You going to drink tea all night?”

  Turning, I find Felix Pinto standing, grinning. The Goans have arrived. Titus Gomes solemnly shakes my hand followed by Bosco’s mother in a teal blue blouse and skirt. “I’m very sorry, Mister Cossack,” she says, kissing me on the cheek.

  I too am sorry: I know she has come to take her son. “God gives,” I mumble, “God takes away.”

  “I’m so grateful for what you have done for us, for Bosco. I don’t know how we can ever repay you—”

  “You can start by telling me your name.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, extending her hand. “I’m Aline, Aline Braganza.”

  “Then, Aline, you must invite me for dinner once a week, every week.”

  “You must drop by!” Pot luck at the Braganzas! How marvelous! It would be like acquiring a new family! “But you must know we’ve received our immigration papers.”

  “Of course, of course,” I mutter. “How can I be so forgetful?”

  “I’m carrying my trumpet,” Felix interrupts.

  I want to pin the old bastard against the wall, shake him like a rag doll, knock those dark glasses off his flat nose for the second time in his life but instead proclaim, “Then you must play.”

  Repairing upstairs, Bosco, Jugnu, Tony, Devyani, Aline, Titus, the Soorkhas, and I arrange ourselves on the verandah around the Caliph of Cool, who does not waste any time: whooping “Hoo ha!” he snaps his fingers to kindle the beat for “The Saints Go Marching In.” Oh, when the fire begins to blaze, I want to be in that number …

  I try to cede to the Flow, as Tony would say, but the riptide of anxiety keeps pulling me down: a few fenis into the night, I wrap an arm around Bosco’s shoulders and whisper, “You want to be a man of action? Become a doctor, son. You have excellent instincts in an emergency, a comforting bedside manner. Just don’t become a writer—we’re good for nothing!”