Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  There was something going on over there, with people gathered around the Texan cowboy. Then loud shouts, and Venky Iyer placing a protective arm around Beatrice. She leaned against him to complete the picture. Together, they surveyed the commotion. From where Ernst stood, it looked as if Lilliputians were clambering all over the Texan looming beneath the naphtha cracking towers. He swatted them off like flies. Ernst walked around the burner for a closer look at what appeared to be Salim Ali’s long awaited attack on imperialist pigs of the American kind.

  But it was nothing of that sort because Salim Ali went, ‘What the fuck?’

  7

  The Porcelain Doll

  They all looked alike.

  —Indian soldiers fleeing the Chinese

  Turns out, the Indians weren’t attacking Chemerica’s Jack Hanson. He was simply in the way as they reached for each other’s throat. The Texan was surrounded, two semi-circles coming up to his midriff. The Maratha semi-circle was in blue overalls, while the opposing Mallus wore a red aura.

  ‘Chinese bhenchod!’ the Marathas went. Salim Ali’s red clones roared right back in outraged Malayalam and no idea what the fuck they were saying. The air was palpable with an indigenous hostility, as Indians hollered abuse past each other in different languages.

  Hanson waved at the only other white man around. ‘Frisky Injuns!’ he said out loud. ‘Where’s the Chief?’

  The Chief was by the sulphur burner, arm around plump Anglo-Indian shoulders while a security guard held up an umbrella against the sun. Venky Iyer must have heard Hanson because he barked at the umbrella bearer, who scurried off towards the gate. What with white men yelling and the general managers finally taking heed, things kind of simmered down. Only then, Ernst noticed another group of blue overalls at work in the shadows. Near a pile of rusting, reinforced iron rods behind the sulphur burner, they appeared to be peering down at a white first-aid box. The lid was open and the Red Cross staring at Ernst. Like the Marathas crowding Jack Hanson below the naphtha towers, they wore standard moustaches.

  Beyond the shadows over on the burner’s bright and sunny side, Venky Iyer’s Chief Engineer was also at work near the viewing platform, busy collecting bribes so India may rotate on its axis. It takes more than a minor riot for civil servants to stop working. The viewing platform looked swept clean and repainted, when just the other day it had a charred Sikh lying there next to his severed head. The cleaning had been surprisingly thorough and with a diligence one doesn’t associate with the public sector. It was just that area though—spotless with fresh red-oxide paint. The little Lambadi shitter from that day stood at the bottom of the metal stairs with a paintbrush in one hand, can of red oxide in the other. Ernst recognised his fellow daydreamer, the one with the dog nuzzling his bottom.

  The kid had this knowing look. ‘They pay me too,’ he made it clear, catching Ernst look at the Chief Engineer collecting cash in envelopes. ‘Nothing’s free. I can do another coat, if you want. Two rupees.’

  ‘We don’t want,’ Salim Ali said. ‘Go away.’

  The lad pointed a finger with his thumb cocked, took a step back and shot at him three times. ‘Dhishoom! Dhishoom! Dhishoom!’ For the third shot, he aimed at Salim Ali’s head.

  ‘What was that?’ Ernst asked the little shitter.

  ‘That’s how you shoot a Sardarji.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘How do you think? I saw the police sahibs do it.’ The kid took a step back and aimed at Salim Ali again. ‘This one’s Madrasi though.’ He sounded disappointed.

  ‘Bugger off,’ Salim Ali said.

  ‘No wonder people want to shoot at you,’ Ernst noted. ‘Why not try being nice?’

  The Marathas working behind the burner watched the kid shoot Salim Ali. They looked inspired and one of them stood up, something in hand, the others still hunched over that first-aid box. The one standing up was a gorilla and so different from the rest that Ernst wondered why he hadn’t noticed him earlier. If the Texan was tall, this man was broad, reducing those around him to matchstick figures. Tender, loving care had gone into his biceps and shoulders. That something he held, it resembled a short, curved poniard, except he kept opening and closing it like a pair of scissors or something; Ernst couldn’t tell, other than it looked medical.

  ‘Shiv Sena buggers,’ Salim Ali said. They stared back at him like hungry carnivores. While any and all outsiders were natural prey, the Shiv Sena was partial to dark South Indians like Salim Ali.

  The gorilla took a batsman’s stance and holding the pointy scissors with both hands, he swung for a six, his red, little eyes riveted on the little engineer. Commenting on those close-set eyes, Ernst couldn’t help but remark the gorilla would look a lot safer caged. Salim Ali curled his upper lip in contempt at such bourgeois, casteist, upper-class attitude towards the working classes. That man may be Shiv Sena and dangerous, still. Workers like him laboured for their money; didn’t fritter it away at the Golf Club like some people. Salim Ali’s words typically bounced off, but Ernst was particularly sensitive today. So when the gorilla pointed at them and his gang of three stood up, Ernst was torn between real concern, and the simple pleasure of seeing Salim Ali shit his pants.

  Shuffling up to them now carrying an iron rod in hand, the gorilla was a sight to behold. Luckily for Ernst, Venky Iyer must have called for more security because guards were seen flooding the gates and a section tore off to come up from behind him. Unluckily for Ernst, the security proceeded to form a circle—more like a cage for people to battle it out. The gorilla had this pleasant expression approaching Salim Ali in the cage. He stopped, turned to the security guards.

  ‘Are you sure these communist bhenchods have it?’ he asked them. Then to Salim Ali, ‘Do you?’

  ‘Do I what? Here, we are fighting on behalf of the working class, and just look at you. Who’s paying you to behave this way? The Americans? Why don’t you come join us instead?’

  ‘Why don’t I just fuck you?’ the gorilla suggested. He would break just the one leg, he promised, enough for Salim Ali to get his sense back and return what was stolen. Now if only the gora sahib would kindly step aside. The gorilla grinned, before grabbing out for the little engineer. Although those shoulders were massive and rounded, he himself was squat from too many dead lifts. Still, Ernst felt dwarfed. What made him then, slam the rigid edge of his right hand into the gorilla’s throat, when surely there were other options, he didn’t know. He regretted it the instant his arm jack-knifed like that towards the gorilla’s Adam’s apple.

  Best to apologise now before something else ensued, so Ernst dropped his arm and stepped forward to try clear the air. The gorilla had dropped the iron rod and was clawing at the throat, gurgling, and couldn’t be bothered. Tearing away at his neck as if choked by an invisible strangler, he coughed, gurgled some more, and struggled to breathe. Looking confused, then surprising Ernst more than anyone else, he fell like a log and the playbook went out the window. The gorilla’s gang of three backed off, leaving their co-worker flailing in the dust. The security cordon fell into disarray, unravelling to demonstrate how the British could rule this country for two hundred and fifty years. The security guards had turned Buddhist, stepping aside the way they did. They threw friendly smiles at the European—no hard feelings.

  Having escaped unscathed, Lenin was now back at the wheel.

  ‘Any doubts the Americans are behind this?’

  ‘Take me through your logic, step by step,’ Ernst requested. ‘I have time.’

  Also, no show of gratitude or anything of that sort. Salim Ali simply asked, ‘Where did you learn that karate thing?’

  ‘In jail. What’s this now?’

  Police in dark blue shorts had appeared out of nowhere, scrambling to assist the gorilla. There was deference all around and considering the gorilla’s heft, it wasn’t surprising. Seeing his beady eyes search as he struggled to his feet—mouth opening and closing like a guppy fish—Ernst felt he could’ve easil
y shown the same respect and saved himself this tightening in the chest. He also felt short of breath and there was a cork lodged up his arse; not altogether a bad thing as the gorilla locked eyes.

  ‘Mister!’

  It was a police sub-inspector, materialising out of nowhere along with his men hoisting the gorilla. In fact, the same sub-inspector from that other day—the one interrogating Lambadi women about the headless Sardar. Only this time, he had his sidearm. Come to think of it, Ernst felt he looked a lot like Johnny Walker in uniform. Not the walking Johnny on the scotch bottle, but the famous Bombay film comedian who went by that name. The comedy however was missing.

  ‘Clearly an unprovoked assault,’ Johnny Walker said.

  ‘Clearly,’ Ernst agreed. ‘Are you going to arrest that maniac?’

  ‘I meant you,’ Johnny Walker said. ‘You assaulted a poor worker without provocation. Also, unlawful entry by undesirable character into prohibited area.’

  ‘I’m here lawfully to meet Mr. Venkatesh Iyer. We’re bidding in a public tender.’

  ‘I meant him,’ Johnny Walker said, pointing at Salim Ali. ‘We have reasons to believe these communists sent someone into a restricted area to remove something.’ He nodded towards the American enclave. ‘You can’t go in there just like that. These people need to respect the law. Return what they took. Also, what’s with the communists anyway? Be patriotic! China may think it won, but we have to remain steadfast.’

  ‘I have to get going, Officer,’ Ernst said, doing the European thing. ‘I’m sure we can clear up everything later.’

  Who did you say you have to meet for the tender?’

  ‘The General Manager, Mr. Venkatesh Iyer. He’s standing right over there. Look.’

  ‘I know him. Good man.’

  ‘The best. We’d better go now. He’s waiting.’

  ‘He is? Looks like he’s ignoring you. But you go ahead, Sirji, and don’t mind me,’ Johnny Walker said. Then, looking at Salim Ali, ‘I’ll hold this fellow though, for questioning.’

  ‘He comes with me,’ Ernst said, but now the sub-inspector wasn’t listening. Instead, he yelled out complicated Marathi at the gorilla. The sub-inspector along with the recovering gorilla, the respectful police supporting him up, a confused security, the busy Chief Engineer, smiling banias, their salesmen, and Venky Iyer with hands full of Beatrice Taylor—they were all craning towards the naphtha cracking towers where Jack Hanson was still holding out. It appeared he was also holding up someone, away from people snatching away at him. Amidst all the tamasha, Ernst impressed himself by catching Johnny Walker and the gorilla exchange looks.

  ‘That’s him,’ Johnny Walker said. ‘The Chinee with the gunny bag.’

  Salim Ali too was staring at the person Hanson had physically lifted up. ‘Arjun?’ he went, looking at what was happening and then, looking confused.

  ~

  ‘What does he think he’s doing?’ Salim Ali asked. ‘Lynching Negroes? What’s with these Americans? If not one thing, then something else. Fuckers.’

  To keep it even keeled, someone shouted, ‘Bhenchod Chinee!’

  Ernst nudged Salim Ali and pointed to Tsering Tufan standing behind the Marathas amidst all the sister-fucking abuse and name-calling. Couldn’t be too much fun these days for anyone looking Chinese, let alone a Chinese-looking Marxist. Apparently aware of his situation, Tufan began pussy footing past the Marathas towards the opposing Red semi-circle and to safety. The Marathas saw him try to sneak past and licked their chops.

  ‘Has he gone mad? We need to get him out from there.’

  ‘Arjun too,’ Salim Ali said, pointing. ‘That’s him the Yank’s holding up like that.’

  Arjun. Comrade Tufan’s nephew. The boy looked familiar and Ernst felt guilty for thinking they all looked alike.

  ‘They keep calling him Chinese. He’s my friend and he’s not Chinese. They are from our North-East Frontier Province. Nothing wrong being Chinese, mind you, just saying. That whole Indo-Chinese conflict, by the way, was India’s fault. A Himalayan blunder.’

  Ernst looked around. Indians were not enthused about the Chinese waltzing down the Himalayas and up their arse. To complete the humiliation, China then calmly turned around and went back home after showing India who was boss. The Indians never recovered.

  Salim Ali pointed at the person Hanson was holding to his chest. ‘Arjun works here, at Fertilisers. Never any problem before and now the ghatis go start this Chinese nonsense about a fellow Indian. ’

  ‘He may have stolen something, remember? Or did you forget already that gorilla almost killed you? He feels you know something about it. The sub-inspector thinks so too.’

  ‘They’re ghatis. They can’t think.’

  Ernst looked around again to see if anyone heard the racist slur. If the Marathas decided to have a go at Salim Ali, he wouldn’t want to come in the way.

  ‘The American,’ Tsering Tufan said as Ernst hurried him away from the Marathas eyeing him for a meal. ‘He saved Arjun.’

  They could hear the one-man, Texan riot police and his loud, bellowing laugh as he put the man down. Taking the nephew’s head in the crook of his arm, Hanson tousled the kid’s hair. The nephew was an exquisite, younger version of his uncle, right down to the eyeglasses, but with hair. There was an ugly bluish-black discolouration around his left temple. It’s Porcelain Doll, Ernst realised with a start. From that evening with the headless Sardar. This was the kid Chhote Bhai smashed to the ground with his hockey ball.

  Jack Hanson reached into his pocket and took out a packet of glucose biscuits. The not-Chinese nephew and he chatted while munching, but Ernst couldn’t hear a bloody thing. The more Hanson ignored the Marathas, the more abusive they became. The expressions on their faces; they reminded Ernst of those righteous burghers watching the school teacher dangling from the lamp post alongside his dachshund. Another detachment of security arrived from the gates to form a protective huddle around Venky Iyer and Beatrice. If the police were still around, you wouldn’t know.

  ‘Oye!’ Salim Ali called out to security. ‘You’re needed here, not there!’

  Iyer stared a bit, Beatrice looked duly offended, and the security guards ignored the fool. All this time the two opposing semi-circles remained resolutely apart and defined around their American nucleus. Looking disoriented—what with people baying for his blood—the nephew quivered in the magnetic field between the concave Blue and Red formations. Hanson’s cheerful disposition remained at full wattage, but a hint of confusion crept on to his face.

  Then, the Marathas surged forward .

  A squat worker in blue at the rear of the pack caught Ernst’s eye as he cut through towards the centre, his dumbbell-shaped shoulders gliding forward at high speed. A smile softened the hard focus on the gorilla’s face and John noticed he was holding those curved, pointy scissors from that first-aid box.

  Flowing around Hanson, the local Marathas in blue surged to mingle with the opposing Red Mallus on the other side. No one so much as touched the giant American. He stood stunned as the melee passed him by. The Marathas kept hollering abuse, moving past Hanson and past the Mallus to walk away and dispersed into the jungle of pipeline manifolds. The shouting stopped, and all you could hear were steel vessels hissing steam from the urea complex around the naphtha towers. The Marathas had gone off script, instead of at opposing Mallu throats. The Mallus looked sucker-punched by the silence.

  Salim Ali pointed at Arjun. Tired of quivering, the not-Chinese nephew had collapsed—legs spread and head slumped forward like a porcelain doll in overalls. It was embarrassing, because it appeared he had urinated and was staring down at the dark puddle between his legs. Hanson had his hands under the armpits and was about to heave him up, when the boy raised his arms in abject surrender and fell back against Hanson to one side, his eyewear slipping off and on to his lap. The Texan put the boy down and Salim Ali rushed past the band of comrades tightening around Hanson.

  The band loosened for Erns
t, who squeezed in to see Hanson with Arjun’s bruised head on his lap, his big Texan hand feeling around the wet crotch. It surprised Ernst that Hanson’s hand was cherry red. Salim Ali was by Hanson’s side, trying to understand why his friend’s thigh was spurting blood like there was no tomorrow. Salim Ali then stood and yelled out at Venky Iyer in a way one should never address a Brahmin from the Civil Service. ‘Why are you just standing there holding that woman? Call an ambulance! What the bleddy hell do they pay you for?’

  It stunned the crowd into silence. Venky Iyer let go of Beatrice and held on to his stiff upper lip instead, staring into the distance where Ernst saw his purchase order floating away in triplicate. Beatrice patted Venky Iyer as if he was the victim. All this while Hanson cradled his porcelain doll, using a beefy hand to try stem the blood erupting like lava from its left thigh. The Texan rocked Arjun as one would a child, tears welling from his furrowed, white face to fall on the kid’s brow and then mingling with the blood everywhere, soaking his clothes, as the big man fell to pieces. Ernst thought Hanson was crooning a lullaby but when he bent down, what he heard through sobs racking the solid Texan frame was, ‘He’s only a boy…for fuck’s sake, he’s only a boy…look at him for fuck’s sake, he’s only a boy.’

  ‘He’s Indian, you know,’ Tufan said, panic creeping up to dim those bright eyes even as the pupils dilated from fear. ‘Not Chinese. He needs medical attention.’

  There had to be more blood matting the ground and all over Hanson and Salim Ali than left in Arjun’s delicate, not-Chinese body. So Ernst did what Beatrice was doing over there with Venky Iyer, and patted Tufan on the back. Meanwhile, Salim Ali screamed away, hurling abuses in Mallu Hindi at Iyer for allowing this, at Bombay for allowing the ghatis, at India for allowing someone like Iyer, at the universe for allowing India, and all the while waving his red palms.

  Over the air, Iyer was long done with his pre-recorded exhortations against Marxist agitators and agent provocateurs. Lata Mangeshkar was now warbling across the speakers non-stop, asking fellow Indians to shed a tear for their dead, scattered across the Himalayas.