Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  ‘Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon,’ she sang, and India’s favourite song it was, being warbled day in and day out across the land since the Himalayan debacle. Ernst looked down at the dying kid who would never, ever have to listen to it again.

  8

  Lenin

  We wanted the maximum amount of chaos. So we sent them a virus.

  —Arthur Zimmermann, German Foreign Minister, on allowing Vladimir Lenin through to Russia

  It was afternoon, no clouds, the sun bearing down like a bhenchod, and the dust in the air with a life of its own. If dust got to you, then very likely India would too, but Ernst learnt way back when that one could get used to almost anything.

  A gaggle of women passed by. They had looked Lambadi from afar, but turns out they were hijras—India’s very own breed of eunuchs. Yes, Ernst agreed, nothing would surprise him anymore. Not even eunuchs wearing saris, cutting across a Government factory. Seeing the gora, they laughed, clapping their hands in that sideways manner but didn’t approach for money, probably thinking he wouldn’t understand. They did stare though, eyeing him until a curt command put an end to all that.

  It was an older hijra in a sari; the creased, weathered face shorn of its female camouflage and with facial hair too sparse for a beard—white strands drooping from his chin. The face looked familiar. There was this picture of men staring out from inside an idyllic Kerala setting and then fleetingly, a close-up of an old man with strands of hair spouting from his chin.

  An FCC station wagon had ferried Venky Iyer and Beatrice Taylor off to safety past somewhat green lawns and semi-trimmed hedges to the Administrative Building. Hanson’s station wagon in turn, took Arjun’s drained body to Sion Hospital, followed by a disinterested dark blue police jeep with a torn canvas top that showed up instead of an ambulance. Johnny Walker had jumped out and about to take charge of the body when Jack Hanson jumped in to cut his balls off.

  ‘I’ll bring the kid,’ Hanson had said, and that, was that. Then to Salim Ali with Johnny Walker right there, ‘Fuck knows how this asshole treats the body otherwise.’

  ‘Not at all, Sirji,’ Johnny Walker said.

  Heaving his blood-soaked bulk into his station wagon, Jack Hanson had signalled to Salim Ali. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he called out. A disoriented Tufan sat in the rear, beside his dead nephew. Salim Ali must have felt foolish waving back at the American, but wave he did. Ernst noticed his eyes too were red like the hand.

  He also noticed the white Mercedes parked just outside the gate. He knew that car and he knew the great man relaxed against the rear headrest. One-time boss, erstwhile friend, and overall Master of the Universe, Adam Sassoon. David and Solomon to Bombay’s Baghdadi Jews, or whatever was left of them after Israel opened for business. Those had been his men back there at the sulphur burner, all suited and booted, clinging to Iyer in an inner circle.

  Seeing the great man in real life was always unreal, and for a second time Ernst felt he was inside a news documentary. Why was the great man here? Ernst smiled and they locked eyes, but Adam Sassoon managed to look right through him. Sassoon’s liveried driver leaned forward making the Mercedes purr. Ernst rubbed at the texture building up around the mole on his face. There was this feeling of being left behind and it wasn’t just because the Mercedes had pulled away. Bhenchod. We were friends once. At least look at me.

  ‘You were friends, I’m told,’ Salim Ali observed. ‘You and that man who fired you.’

  ‘Yes. And I thought you said white people stuck together.’

  ‘When push comes to shove,’ Salim Ali said. ‘When push comes to shove.’

  ~

  The Marxist mob turned their eyes towards Salim Ali, and he swelled like Lenin must have on stepping out of his sealed train to greet the Bolsheviks at Petrograd’s Finland Station. When he gesticulated, Lenin’s hands were appropriately red.

  ‘They killed Comrade Arjun!’ he yelled, and not to be outdone, the mob yelled back, making Ernst jump like a kicked dachshund.

  Definitely not the right time, but Ernst went ahead anyway, and leaned forward. ‘Iyer’s pissed off. The way you behaved. You were upset, of course. Who wouldn’t be?’ Ernst should have stopped right there and instead went on to suggest, ‘I’d rather we calm things down though. What do you say?’

  ‘Calm things down? Really? Okay, why not?’

  Lata Mangeshkar was winding up to martial drumbeats over the loudspeakers and the union mob came to attention at some unspoken command. So did Salim Ali, staring straight back at the unionised guard of honour. The loudspeakers roared back to life, this time with the Soviet National Anthem.

  The music was admittedly, awe-inspiring. Especially where it goes: “Long lives our Soviet Motherland, built by the people’s mighty hand.” Any other day and it would’ve been a welcome change; there being only so much of Lata Mangeshkar one can take. Mouthing the translated Soviet call-to-arms, the Red Mallu faction lined up, chests out, facing Salim Ali who thrust his pigeon chest back at them. If owning the microphone was a prerequisite for an Indian power grab, Salim Ali now ruled the skies. But how the fuck? That’s what Ernst wanted to know. The public address system was on Beatrice Taylor’s desk and for a Salim Ali to play his theme song from there, would be next to impossible.

  ‘Not when we have comrades everywhere.’ With that, Lenin dismissed Ernst, Venky Iyer, Beatrice Taylor, and any hopes of getting that purchase order today, tomorrow, or any time in the future. Mouthing the National Anthem of one foreign country in another foreign language, the Mallu Bolsheviks looked ready to go to war.

  ‘Who killed Comrade Arjun?’ Salim Ali demanded to know. The Soviet Anthem had them all fired up and the answer dancing on Mallu lips. The trade union-wallahs responded by roaring back larger than life. ‘Americans! America killed our comrade!’ Chants of ‘America Hai, Hai!’ and ‘Down with American lackeys!’ followed. And lest anyone forgot, ‘Shiv Sena Ghatis Murdabad!’ Then, some more ghati this, and ghati that.

  Salim Ali rebuked them with a straight face. ‘Comrades! No need for ethnic slurs! We’re all workers!’

  It was interesting though, how he didn’t feel the need to chastise them for bad-mouthing America. Especially seeing how Hanson and he waved at each other a while ago. On the other hand, there was probably only so much one could ask of a Marxist.

  ~

  Adam Sassoon’s Mercedes out of the way, the security guardhouse materialised. The guard on duty was haranguing a hirsute, turbaned, Sikh truck driver. They appeared to be arguing over a young Nepali boy. Sikh drivers kept these boys—cleaners—to help around their truck, do repairs and maintenance, keep the vehicle clean, cook and make chai. But also because it was difficult driving a Tata truck day after day and sleeping alone night after night, without someone to spoon.

  The argument with the security guard was getting personal. No idea how this could go down, so the Nepali boy had this neutral expression pasted on his face. Ernst felt he did look a bit like Arjun, although, not quite. There had been a quality to Arjun. Just as there was a quality to his uncle.

  Salim Ali came over to watch Sassoon’s Mercedes float towards the Administrative Building in the distance. The little fellow’s face glistened and Ernst thought it was sweat but no, Lenin had taken leave and Salim Ali was crying. Ernst wanted to pull him close, regardless of the risk.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Salim Ali said. ‘I instigated Arjun instead of turning a blind eye like bleddy Iyer does. And now he’s dead.’

  Of course, no one could turn a blind eye like Venky Iyer. His abilities were the stuff of legend .

  ‘You instigated him to do what? They keep bringing up that gunny bag he stole. You think that’s why this happened?’

  ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

  ‘I’m just asking. You said you instigated him. And you keep blaming the Americans. Is it just you being Marxist, or is there something I don’t know?’

  ‘What’s my being a Marxist got to do with American perfidy?’<
br />
  ‘Nothing. Let’s go find Beatrice. She’ll help get our paperwork in.’

  ‘Who gives a fuck?’ came the revolutionary response. Lenin was back and riding roughshod. Ernst looked at the little Marxist—in tears over his dead friend. It dawned the man really didn’t give a fuck.

  ‘It’s wrong,’ Salim Ali said, finally putting the dead Arjun aside, to go embrace his other great sorrow. ‘We shouldn’t have to grovel to get our due. Why beg bleddy Iyer or Beatrice Taylor or anyone else for that matter? And why should she help you, anyway? Are you two having sexual intercourse?’

  He pulled out a sample piece of brass tubing from his pocket and stared at it. One he had drawn himself on a wobbly, Ludhiana-made drawing bench, especially for today. Considering the quality of Ernst’s Ludhiana-made equipment, the brass pipe was a work of art.

  ‘Why won’t Iyer buy my pipes?’ Salim Ali asked. ‘When they last forever?’

  Yes, why wouldn’t Iyer buy those pipes? After all, Salim Ali’s pipes did last forever and so what if he had insulted Venky Iyer in public? Then gone fucked things further by, God-knows-how, sequestering Iyer’s public address system to play Marxist music in honour of a dead comrade. And so what if Iyer went blacklisted Ernst, who would probably have to cut back, retrench workers, and kiss bania arse to try take out more loans? It didn’t matter, and Ernst looked at the little shit with the respect he deserved.

  A security guard had come up to them and after preparing himself to talk to a white man, he goes, ‘They want you, Sirji, in Iyer Sahib’s office.’

  9

  Brothers-in-arms

  If twice born, O Brahmin, as you said,

  Why weren’t you born with your sacred thread?

  —Marxist ditty

  ‘Be a sport, Venky, and give the chap what he wants.’

  No suit, tie, jacket, or anything of that sort and instead, a yellow T-shirt clinging to a fine body in gentle decline. Adam Sassoon’s grey, patrician countenance and the British, upper-class gangle were in angular contrast to the rest of India. A stainless steel Rolex sealed the understatement around the King of the Jews. Next to him, his major domo, Major Punjabi—erect and miserable at what was happening. The Major threw a malignant look at Ernst to assign blame in a clear and straightforward manner.

  ‘We’re being taken for a ride.’ General Manager Venky Iyer looked up from his executive-style chair first at Sassoon, who after all, was the Jew paying to educate Iyer’s son in California. Next, he glanced at the other Jew, the one living off his crumbs. Venky Iyer was Brahmin, a twice-born Siva worshipper. It took a lot of money for Sassoon to bludgeon him into submission.

  A large framed photograph stood on the Government-issue Godrej cabinet in green to his left, under the mandatory black & white Gandhi on the wall. Oxford, ICS class of 1941—the probationers grouped around a seated white-haired Englishman with hat in lap, and his wench of a memsahib wife. Ernst recognised Venky Iyer—standing on a bleacher along with others in the raised last row. Both hands rested on the skinny shoulders of the colleague in front. Not much change over the years, except for heavy greying at the temples. The chiselled features in the photograph, Brahmin brow, the deep eyes establishing an immediate divide, were all there across the table. Ernst wondered whether Venky Iyer secretly scrubbed up every time after shaking hands outside his caste.

  ‘Mind you, this has nothing to do with his Muslim fellow abusing me in public, in my factory, in front of my workers,’ Iyer clarified. Then, after a pregnant pause, ‘These things don’t matter to me. However, registration’s all done, Adam. Tender’s closed and they weren’t even shortlisted. There’ll be a next time.’

  Spoken like a bureaucrat, but with such class. On occasion, Ernst had witnessed Venky Iyer cruise between Sanskrit, spoken Hindi, and Oxford English in the same sentence. This one was that much more impressive because of the accompanying subtext: These things do matter. In fact, nothing else matters. So, fuck you, this is my factory, and you’re sitting in my office. You’ll have to cut my dick off before I cede on this.

  When it came to blame, the high caste Brahmin was in Major Punjabi’s corner the way he looked at Ernst and the way he smiled. It was all very impressive. Equally impressive was how the morning events weren’t allowed to intrude. A worker was dead and remained persona non grata in this room. No mention of what happened out there. The mandatory black & white Gandhi offered a toothless grin, just in case you missed the irony.

  Above all, was the re-emergence of the old Adam Sassoon, holding forth in someone else’s office. The great man winked past Venky Iyer at Ernst like a blood brother. Thirty minutes ago, he had looked right through him from his Mercedes, out there by the security guardhouse. Ernst didn’t know what was going on, why this change of heart, but it was about time. Bad luck shouldn’t be allowed a run of anything more than twenty-six years.

  ‘We’d better reopen that tender then, old chap,’ Sassoon said. ‘Man needs a purchase order. Let’s surprise ourselves and give him one.’

  ‘Adam, you realise we’re being played. You heard the bloody Soviet Anthem over the intercom. That damned fool Muslim of his is an anarchist and a troublemaker. Don’t know how he did it, but he isn’t getting away.’

  Troublemaker? Salim Ali? Ernst pondered the impossible. ‘He was just upset, that’s all. The dead boy was his friend.’

  ‘Just upset?’ Iyer looked incredulous. ‘They would have lynched Hanson.’

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s fashionable to blame the Yanks for everything. Who takes it seriously?’

  ‘We do. I know about that Muslim’s Marxism.’ Major Punjabi was emphatic. A Punjabi has to be seen to know all. ‘Dangerous, bloody anti-national.’

  With Sassoon nearby, Punjabi’s Punjabi accent had dragged itself to attention. It was now more clipped, with no loose bits and pieces. The “bloody” no longer, “bluddy”.

  ‘Not at all,’ Ernst insisted. ‘You can trust Salim Ali.’

  Major Punjabi nodded towards Ernst and lobbed a rhetorical.

  ‘But, can we trust you?’

  ‘He and I have history,’ Sassoon said to the files on Iyer’s desk.

  ‘Still, Sirji.’

  Having stretched uncomfortable silence all it could go, Adam Sassoon responded with what could only be a heavy heart.

  ‘They locked him up during the war. A bloody spy they said our Ernst was. An enemy alien. Didn’t take to it too well. Never forgave me. Thinks I left him to rot in Purandhar.’

  Ernst smiled back at the great man.

  A Jew jailed during the war for being German was nothing short of hilarious. Ernst was a big fan of the Law of Unintended Consequences. People would however make clucking sounds, then wonder why he laughed. It was more than over just how hysterical it was—being interned in British India because he was German, while his father took it in Germany for being a Jew. Truth be told, he only had fond memories from being interned at Purandhar Fort. He said to Beatrice once, ‘Don’t you ever dream of being cast on a desert island, where no one can reach you?’

  Having said that, this desert island was more a school than retreat. The gardener’s wife at Purandhar Fort was a Sahajiya sworn to secrecy, yet taught him their Tantric ways. The Japanese nationals locked up in there were arseholes, but taught him Jiu Jitsu. Ground fighting! They would yell at him. Ground fighting! And from the British he learnt on a daily basis that just because they were fighting Germany, didn’t mean they liked Jews. Then there was this other thing. At some point, the Tommies went flipped a switch in his head and he began thinking in English.

  Be that as it may, the real fun began only after his release. Turns out, the great man was waiting to wipe the floor with him when he was let out. Ernst never blamed Sassoon for not getting him out earlier. He couldn’t have. Ernst knew that.

  It’s what you did after that, you fucker.

  His old job ostensibly waiting, Ernst had slipped back into his routine. In the past, working for Adam Sassoon and reg
ardless of the bonhomie bubbling over, one always worried he would screw you—he seemed that kind of a Jew. Then just when one relaxed and thought he wouldn’t (after Purandhar, who would?), he did.

  It’s not working out, old chap, the great man had said the day he pulled the trigger. Not your fault. We to blame. It’s not you, it’s me.

  He had kept his arm around Ernst’s shoulders while walking him out, so the full import failed to sink in, and Ernst had left in a daze, but smiling. Eventually, with days becoming months becoming years and he starting to go invisible, Ernst couldn’t think of the Sassoon building at Ballard Pier anymore, without his stomach cramping up. Stepping inside became out of the question.

  The day after the sack however, he had marched back into Sassoon’s office. Instead of a brilliant denouement, he asked—okay, begged—for something. Anything. Crumbs would do just fine, thank you. Also, let’s do make sure I keep my Golf Club membership, old chap.

  All this time had passed, and he still cringed.

  Probably embarrassed at what he wrought, the great man made one of his grand gestures—granting Ernst minor supplier status, a good word here and a phone call there, Golf Club membership not cancelled, what not. Decades passed, times changed, and Adam Sassoon began to ignore him; as if more embarrassed by Ernst than by what he pulled. Major Punjabi became the interface with a Punjabi accent and there was no more direct access to the great man .

  Until ten minutes ago, when they hauled him into Iyer’s office.

  ~

  There were wrinkles all over Venky Iyer’s jacket as he struggled with why he just had his dick handed to him on a platter. Something Ernst too would have loved to know.

  Venky Iyer put his pen away, straightened up, brushed around the shoulders, and kowtowed without too much heartfelt sincerity. He had to go, to deal with the aftermath from what he had just gone signed. Very irregular, what he did. Need to now go and iron out the wrinkles. No matter. What were managers for?