Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  The agitators buffeted a green, jeep station wagon cutting through the wave of protesters and trying to get past the gates. The jeep threatened to plough through them and the proletariat went hysterical.

  ‘PL 480 will not do!’

  It dawned on Ernst what this was about. They were protesting the same PL 480 food aid from the morning’s Times of India lying on Salim Ali’s living room floor. The mob would go, ‘Long Live Mao and Chou En-lai; Johnson, Rusk, Hai, Hai!’ and then circle back to whatever it was about Lyndon Johnson’s food aid causing so much pain and anguish to people facing impending famine. America’s Public Law 480, Salim Ali would explain any chance he got, authorised wheat shipments to a rice-eating nation, against payment. Starving Indian villagers were spewing out the American staple from both ends, unable to hold down gluten. On the plus side, the Americans accepted payment in rupees.

  The mob at the gates looked incensed, but why rage against American food outside a factory helping India grow its own? Ernst didn’t get it.

  Salim Ali did. ‘This so-called food aid’s to get America’s foot in the door,’ he explained. ‘Then before you realise, it’s up your arse. Got it?’

  Someone yelled, ‘American bhenchod!’

  That, he got.

  The jeep lurched through the protest, then lurching past the gates it stopped for breath. When a full-blown Texan stepped out wearing a twelve-gallon hat and real cowboy boots, Ernst knew this was God fucking with Salim Ali. The gargantuan American shimmered in the heat. The little Mallu engineer stared at the Texan mirage with such focus Ernst thought he would hurt himself. Salim Ali then swore some terrible oath in Malayalam. Ernst patted his shoulder, the sodden Terylene shirt wet to the touch. ‘If you say anything to that man,’ Ernst told him, ‘I’ll personally strangle you. ’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ Salim Ali asked. ‘When push comes to shove, Westerners will gang up.’

  ‘You’re stereotyping.’

  ‘Am I? Do you know who ran like frightened pigs when the Japanese invaded French Vietnam?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The French. It was their colony. The colonialist gone, the Vietnamese rallied under Ho Chi Minh to fight the Japanese imperialists. Know who helped them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Americans. America and Vietnam fought side by side against Japan. Know who then helped ferry the French back to Vietnam after the Japanese left?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The very same Americans. Like I said. When push comes to shove, Westerners come together.’

  ‘Clearly, you know us better than we know ourselves.’

  ‘I do. Why not make a difference, instead? Come join the fight.’

  They made quite the pair. Ernst looking the white man he was, yet somewhat incomplete. In contrast, the pint-sized Salim Ali appeared larger-than-life. That could be because there were two of him. There was the IIT engineer here for the purchase order—to get a job done. Then there was the trade union leader, also here and lit up like the Charminars he smoked. The roasted tobacco ensured his body odour was off the charts.

  Ernst had hired Salim Ali two years ago after not much of an interview. The little man answered every question in a withering barrage of Mallu English, resonating with idiom picked up on campus. He had curled his lip in contempt at the level of Ernst’s technical inquiry. He appeared openly doubtful about Ernst’s abilities as a businessman. It ended with him letting it being known, in the interest of full disclosure, that he was a card-holding member of The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). Salim Ali had looked surprised, almost disappointed, when Ernst employed him on the spot. Since then, he had done his best to get fired.

  The Marxists at the gates yelled, ‘Salim Ali, Zindabad! ’

  Head down, an astute Salim Ali raised his right fist to continue playing Lenin during working hours.

  ~

  The workers milling around the gates were a motley crew. The ones yelling the loudest were of course Mallu, each a Salim Ali prototype. All Mallus are not Marxists—that’s offensive—though most are. Therefore, and more so after China, if you saw a Mallu and a snake, the advisory said to kill the Mallu.

  Also noteworthy: silent, smouldering non-Mallu-types could be seen loitering in one corner near the gates observing the proceedings. These were local Marathas, the original inhabitants of the islands that made up Bombay and the mountain ghats behind it. These days they were famously banded around Shiv Sena, a sectarian, Hindu supremacist party.

  ‘Look at them,’ Salim Ali said. ‘Itching for trouble. Bleddy, communal rowdies. Fascist, American lackeys, all of them. If you see a Shiv Sena rowdy and a snake…’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  There was another silent bystander—not Mallu, nor Maratha. A gaunt, bald man in civvies, his white bush shirt still crisp despite Bombay. He was about as out of place as, say, a Chinese professor in an Indian factory. Ernst thought the man didn’t look ill, nor did he look well. He could be describing himself.

  He appeared familiar, this Chinese-looking man, and resembled Porcelain Doll—the young man Salim Ali’s landlord had smashed to the ground when they were taking away the headless Sikh last week. The two did look alike. Indians were convinced they all looked alike. After the Himalayan debacle, spooked Indian POWs swore the same Chinese infantryman guarding their barracks would go change uniforms, and come back to interrogate them as a colonel. Most of all, the bald gentleman looked tired. Very. He drooped, as if the starched shirt was all that kept him upright. Salim Ali walked over to him and put his arm around the man’s shoulders.

  Maybe because he stood out the way he did against Salim Ali, or could be those eyes giving out light instead of reflecting it, maybe the smile that refused to leave his tired face; whatever it was, the man’s presence calmed Ernst. Seeing them approach with Salim Ali treating the bald man as if he was Mahatma Gandhi, Ernst felt an immediate affinity towards him—the bald man, not Salim Ali. They came up, the man all smiles and waiting to be introduced. Ernst had an urge to get closer, drown in all that compassion.

  ‘Comrade, allow me to introduce Ernst Steiger,’ Salim Ali said, surprising an Ernst unfamiliar with this flowery version. ‘Our proprietor at Steiger Engineering, where I work.’

  The professorial, Chinese-looking man reached out to shake hands with surprising vigour. It was then that Ernst noticed the red blotches on his face; the skin peeling off from too much open sun. The man’s bald head was decorated with blisters looking wet to the touch.

  ‘Comrade Tsering Tufan,’ Salim Ali said. The name was a dead give-away. A North-East Frontier tribal. Salim Ali went on to say Tsering Tufan was his comrade and mentor. Also, Head Machinist at AEET, the popular acronym for Dr. Homi Bhabha’s Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay—his nuclear playground nesting behind Trombay Hill where every atom was peaceful.

  ‘You should be resting. Why are you here?’ Salim Ali asked, looking thrilled Comrade Tufan was there. It showed on his face and by the marked increase in body odour. You’ll energise the protest though, Salim Ali ceded, looking fondly at his Comrade, who said not really, and he was here because of Arjun. What’s with Arjun, Salim Ali wanted to know, all okay? And while Ernst didn’t know who Arjun was, he didn’t ask. Salim Ali and he were here for the tender opening and for the purchase order—to bribe people and to kiss arses—and he wanted to get on with it.

  ‘Got nicely beaten up the other day, your friend Arjun,’ Tsering Tufan said to Salim Ali. ‘Head injury. I’m here to check on him. His mother and I don’t need a repeat performance. He refuses to file a formal complaint. They say he stole something from the American compound. Probably why he won’t file a complaint.’

  ‘He won’t file because he is Arjun. When was the last time he stole anything?’ That settled, Salim Ali proceeded to channel Lenin. ‘Besides, even if he did, he did for the working man. For the nation.’

  ‘What exactly did he do? ’

  ‘How would I know?’

&nb
sp; ‘He looks up to you. The more radical you are, the more radical he gets. In that frame of mind, people can behave stupidly. Maybe he did steal something from the Americans. Why not cool it down a notch? Temper things, yes?’

  ‘Temper what, Comrade Tufan? Workers’ welfare? Our fight against Imperialist aggression? Or maybe temper everything you taught us?’

  Ernst made a note not to feel too singled-out in future. Tsering Tufan just smiled that smile of his. He didn’t appear fazed by Salim Ali. He didn’t appear fazed by anything. He’d go look for Arjun, he said, touching Salim Ali’s forearm. ‘Come, find me later.’ He started to leave, shuffling slowly. The way he moved, it was seeing a dead man walk.

  Ernst waited for a bit before edging up. ‘Come on,’ he said to Salim Ali. ‘Let’s go over the paperwork and close that PO. Hell with all this.’

  ‘Hell with this?’ Salim Ali went. ‘No, hell with that. Besides, you don’t have to worry about the bleddy PO. I have it covered.’ Salim Ali looked ready to go to battle. ‘Paperwork’s done. Everything perfect, like my pipes. They will last forever, even though I have to do repeat draws on third-class, Ludhiana draw benches. You went sold the Cold Pilger, remember?’

  True, there was never any sunburst cracking in his pipes even without the Cold Pilger and yes, they lasted forever. Thing was, who cared? What mattered was hard cash upfront for the Fertilisers management. That is, if Ernst wanted the order.

  ‘Here. Take this.’

  ‘The bleddy envelope again?’ Salim Ali asked. ‘All I want is to win without bribing babus and pimps. Is that asking too much?’

  Yes. India without babus and pimps wouldn’t be India at all.

  ‘Fuck them,’ Salim Ali said. ‘We have a superior product. No need to bribe anyone. Let’s show these buggers.’

  Ernst didn’t feel like showing anyone. He could understand why the Chief Engineer had said that he held Salim Ali in very high disregard. Ernst would cringe whenever Salim Ali wanted to “show” them. To, not compromise. His lack of confidence in Salim Ali was all the more evident today, probably because he didn’t feel well. He was sure he didn’t look well. His no-confidence vote fed Salim Ali’s resentment. That in turn buggered Ernst’s outlook further, making Salim Ali glower all the more.

  ‘What is it with you? I thought you Germans had balls. Why not show some and refuse to propagate this sort of thing? We are a socialist country. Bribes are not necessary.’

  ‘If they weren’t necessary, I won’t ask you to do it. Do I look like I have money to waste?’

  ‘But you have money to waste at the Golf Club.’ Salim Ali peered at him. ‘You sell off the Cold Pilger because there’s no money, then you invite me over to your club for an alcoholic drink?’

  ‘How could you sell it,’ he yelled at Ernst. ‘How could you?’

  ~

  Standing by the one-eyed Fiat, Mohan Driver watched Salim Ali as if nothing new, then went back to eyeing Lambadi titties as the gypsies hauled gravel. Pendulous breasts jiggled inside short black cholis resplendent in mirror-work. The women’s dark pigmentation wasn’t much help against the May sun. Blotches of skin peeled off their blistered faces. It reminded Ernst of the skin peeling off Tsering Tufan’s bald head. Why would a Head Machinist at Atomic Energy go get blisters in the sun?

  ‘Why can’t we win on merit?’ Salim Ali asked. ‘Why? When we have a superior product?’

  Ernst let it go. Not just because it was too hot to argue. The country was too nuanced for Salim Ali. The man had graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and four years on campus leached all the Indian out of him. It left him with black and white logic to deal with a country that only recognised shades of grey. In contrast, Ernst found himself calmer during times like these—that much closer to the Place of the Hidden Moon.

  ‘You’ve mastered Hindu fatalism, I see,’ Salim Ali acknowledged. ‘So much easier when you have a German passport.’

  The cowboy who had stepped out from the jeep was walking by and he was so tall, he blotted the sun. If he reached up, he could touch it. Ernst remembered seeing him around at the Golf Club with his wife. The couple didn’t seem to need anyone else. The cowboy looked their way and it was clear he wanted to come up, say hello, but there was this force field around Salim Ali, and it wasn’t just the body odour.

  ‘Jack Hanson of Chemerica,’ Salim Ali said. ‘We know what he does.’ He made it sound a war crime. ‘And we know about Chemerica.’

  Chemerica being the New York consultants providing plant and equipment to Fertilisers, as well as perks for its management. In return, they had run of the place; also a whole area cordoned off for them within the plant. Inside Chemerica’s high chain-linked fence was an air-conditioned, concrete shed, and through its window one could see the top of a red Coca Cola machine. People said there was also a billiards table in there and pictures of naked, blonde women in unimaginable action poses. That the music you heard playing sometimes at nights, when all sorts of American things went on inside, was from a real, honest-to-God jukebox. It was the American dream, sectioned off with a warning in red, white & blue: ONLY CHEMERICA EMPLOYEES ALLOWED.

  Salim Ali felt strongly about that sign. Why not just say what you mean? Like the British, who had no problems putting up warning signs like: DOGS AND INDIANS NOT ALLOWED. At least they had been upfront. Salim Ali liked upfront. Be upfront, he would preach in his nasal, Mallu English. ‘Even when bad, upfront is good.’

  Salim Ali was going at it, when the loudspeakers came alive. Not India’s world-class Lata Mangeshkar this time, but instead, Beatrice Taylor’s top-class boss. Fertilisers’ General Manager, Venky Iyer. He was all over the air, taking on the Marxist protest at his gates in precise, clipped English. ‘Is this what we want? Emulate China? Surely we are better than that. We socialists are not communists. We are Indians first.’ People stopped to listen. In India, owning the microphone is a prerequisite to owning power. Salim Ali pointed towards a circle near the sulphur burner. General Manager Venky Iyer was there too, this time in flesh and blood—owning suppliers vying for his attention before tender formalities kicked in. Hearing his recorded message indict communism wholesale over the loudspeaker while seeing him standing there in person, Ernst felt he was in a news documentary .

  With the clamour around Venky Iyer, it took a trained eye to capture the method to the madness. A bania-caste businessman or his convent-educated salesman would step up, give Venky Iyer a limp bania handshake or a firm convent one, depending, then step aside to slip a cash envelope to his Chief Engineer leaning against the sulphur burner—gone all cold since they shut it to scrape the Sikh out from inside.

  ‘That’s how it’s done,’ Ernst said to Salim Ali, who curled his upper lip. Over there, loud laughter arose from a polished group clinging to Iyer.

  The starched A-Team of Punjabis surrounding Venky Iyer in an immediate circle was from Sassoon Industries. Beatrice Taylor hung from Venky Iyer in their midst like a big, fat ornament. Sales teams belonging to other bidders formed an outer circle. The military-erect Sassoon boys made the rest look like Indians. General Manager Venky Iyer leaned forward to say something and there was another bout of laughter from the Sassoon cohort. Venky Iyer was not one to bother with a show of impartiality when it came to the Sassoons. It wasn’t just Iyer. The monsoons would fail and the city rendered bereft without them. Besides everything else it had done for Bombay, Sassoon Industries also paid for Venky Iyer’s eldest son to go to CalTech.

  Is probably why, year on year, Venky Iyer delivered Adam Sassoon a big, fat chunk of business commensurate to the great man’s stature. Every year, as long as paperwork was in order and as long as accompanied by the cash envelope, Ernst got the crumbs commensurate to his. Ernst caught the General Manager glance his way as one would at someone living off crumbs. Venky Iyer nodded to allow for Ernst being a white man before calling out, ‘German made! Not the same as Made in Germany, what?’

  Ernst smiled, hoping people aroun
d didn’t get that.

  ‘Bleddy bastard,’ Salim Ali said. ‘Thinks we don’t know what he means?’

  ‘We have his attention, so go,’ Ernst said to Salim Ali, nudging him towards Venky Iyer’s Chief Engineer. ‘Remember, firm handshake, then hand over the envelope and make sure Iyer sees you give it.’

  ‘Why don’t you do it? ’

  ‘You need the practice.’

  Salim Ali went on to go die a thousand deaths—shake hands, hand over the bribe, curl his lip, then flee.

  Ernst gave him an A-Okay sign. Stuffed envelopes after all, carried a piece of equipment across the winning post. Deliver to A, what should go to B. Make a millionaire out of Venky Iyer and fly his firstborn to be schooled overseas. Iyer knew it. His Chief Engineer knew it. The banias hovering in the distance knew it. Beatrice Taylor, leaning towards Venky Iyer and bursting out of a tight, grey, knee-length skirt, knew it. Ernst suspected she also knew that besides fretting over paperwork, the men were tearing off her top and skirt right now, to slobber all over those hefty breasts and thighs, leaving a trail of wet saliva. She looked towards Ernst standing in the burner’s shadow and smiled that special smile she reserved for Europeans. Ernst felt the musky warmth from all the male eyes following Beatrice’s gaze, and backed away behind the sulphur burner.

  Triangular heaps of sulphur piled high, some two hundred feet away, couldn’t turn the air any more toxic but did, biting into his skin and eyes. The sulphur left permanent sores on the Lambadi human-chain feeding the melting pits. Like the weaponry America recently shipped to the Indians to fight China and lose, Chemerica provided Fertilisers its best, pre-World War II technology. Ernst saw the Texan cowboy standing near Chemerica’s second-hand urea plant that ate naphtha, shat urea and spat out sulphur. Where would socialism be without the United States?