Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  Tantaji intoned from deep background, confident he was still being heard. The room was told the aim of the practice was not sexual, but to be able to see the divine in all beings. He chanted simple autosuggestions so each unit of the writhing circle looked at the rite from a spiritually elevated perspective. Dissolution of temporal relationships, he said, assist people in redefining their own in a spiritual way, and blah, blah, blah.

  Ernst couldn’t be bothered. He sensed Andhi Ma trying to engage him, but with all due respect, not today because there she was, Sindhi Camp’s Bhairavi. In the chakra, caught red-handed in repose with some lout of a man—full-paunched, moustached and gasping under her ministrations. The man’s Krishna-style, peacock feather headgear was askew. Ernst’s heart sank like a stone. Just when the pain had become physical and he clutched at his stomach, he realised it wasn’t her after all. The woman though had the same dark skin that was the bane of his life, and huge Tamil eyes plumbing pelagic depths.

  It wasn’t Bhairavi, but the girl’s Tamil eyes almost made up for that. The most beautiful face in a circle of beautiful faces. Skin like ebony, she too had those broad forehead and cheekbones to make fashion photographers squeal with delight. He watched Tamil Eyes whisper into the lout’s ear, readying to pull the trigger. Given how tiny it was, one almost didn’t see her Adam’s apple bob.

  ~

  The most sexually repressed nation on earth, and one just walks into a room full of compliant Perfect Women? The Sahajiya wife swapping was supposed to make a theoretical point. Like most Indian thought though, impossible to put in practice. Having said that, India is as much the land of make-do, as of make-believe. So if women aren’t playing along, dress up the men.

  Acknowledging the room for what it was—transvestite Radhas with their Krishna clients—he was impressed no end. It was like the nation’s import substitution programme. Caught up with the faux Krishna splatter himself all over Tamil Eyes’ hand, he almost didn’t see the other Tamilian in the room. Luckily, Chhote Bhai was hard to miss: all black and all in white, with his back to the proceedings, he was staring into an open door.

  The Sahajiyas believed caste is not a matter of birth but of attitude. He, of any caste or religion, becomes a Brahmin on worshipping Krishna. That included Muslims, though clearly not this one with his back to the ceremony. You would think the man would have at least some interest in the goings-on behind him. Even the dead would die again just to watch Tamil Eyes giving a hand-job. If the five-times-a-day-namaaz-type Muslim wasn’t here to get off in the Bhairavi Chakra, then why? That Chhote Bhai was here for Sindhi Camp Bhairavi, was unacceptable.

  Seeing Ernst storm up to do the white man thing, Chhote Bhai registered no surprise at what should have been a big one. From behind all his bluster, Ernst couldn’t help but feel somewhat offended at the way the big, black man ignored him to return his attention to whatever was inside that open door. Ernst didn’t seem to matter and were he to die tomorrow—a real possibility—Chhote Bhai would not miss him.

  Doors lined the corridor feeding into the creaking bungalow from the mujra-dance hall; their symmetry marred by one that remained wide open. Looking in past Chhote Bhai, there was no mistaking her backside. She had changed into a heavy, red, brocade sari in keeping with the evening’s faux-bride theme, and she wore the same white ankles from his dream. Seeing her alabaster-white neck, he panicked. He had to run away from here and do it right away, because there was nothing left of his erection to afford him that earlier courage.

  She sat at an elaborate dressing table, probably not unusual in a whorehouse for transvestites. Being spoilt silly, it appeared, by two men, both of whom Ernst recognised from the flock that flew in from Japan to play golf .

  A Flying Japanese brushed her hair in long strokes, making it cascade down to the floor in a black waterfall. The other man massaged a porcelain-white foot resting on his lap. That is, until she pushed him away with a languid stretch of her leg, pressing her foot into his crotch to make him moan. And they said the Japanese flew here from Tokyo to save on green fees.

  After the cross-dressed Bhairavi Chakra, Ernst wasn’t up for more surprises, but Lord Krishna—or Govinda if you prefer—didn’t care, because it wasn’t Johnson’s Baby Powder on that foot, or caking that neck and covering those bare arms. She had magically gone creamy-white and when she swivelled to face him, her bunny rabbit teeth were missing.

  The woman in the red sari ignored Chhote Bhai and stared at Ernst instead, startled at first, just like that evening, emerging from the Golf Club greens with Chhote Bhai. Just like then, she turned away, but there was no trace of panic, nor was there a need to hide the face this time. Granted, Kirti the caddie-boy was a good-looking kid, but as a woman he was stunning.

  ~

  ‘I would get bullied,’ Kirti said, leaning back to talk to no one in particular, his sari pallu falling to the floor. ‘So I learnt to deal with male-dogs. I learnt how to calm their fury, tame them with a look. Now instead of me, they kneel with their mouths open. I think I’ll stick to wearing saris from now on.’

  Kirti then deigned Chhote Bhai a glance and turned away, bored. Ernst could see what the boy meant. The sari was empowering. Chhote Bhai had ruined Kirti’s father; taken four pouches full of diamonds over Matka. Going by Chhote Bhai’s face, the son was doing a pretty good job getting even. All this while Flying Nippon#1 hadn’t missed a stroke—counting to a million—and continued to work at unknotting Kirti’s hair. Flying Nippon#2 was kissing the caddie-boy’s foot. An irritated Kirti would shrug his shoulders every time #1 caressed an ear. Ernst couldn’t decide what was more disconcerting: the cross-dressing or the arrogance that came with it .

  ‘Sorry Princess,’ said #1, not looking sorry at all. Down at the caddie-boy’s foot, #2 was in a world of his own. No idea how long Ernst stood there with the humiliated Chhote Bhai, watching the Japanese worship their caddie-boy princess. When Chhote Bhai decided enough was enough, he didn’t just leave; he slunk away. No goodbye, no protest, no threats, and no hurry to get back to anything resembling a slumlord. Ernst almost stopped him.

  I understand, he wanted to say, because the man was clearly hurting. I now know it was the brother with you that day on the greens, not the sister. Wearing a sari, like right now. You like boys in saris. It’s your thing. Fine. Whatever gets you off. But, why kill Arjun? And don’t tell me it’s because he stole something from the Americans. You wouldn’t care if he stole America itself, as long as he wore a sari for you like Kirti here.

  Salim Ali almost had it right when he said Chhote Bhai hated Arjun. It looked like hate because there’s such a fine line. The two were lovers. Then something happened and Arjun stopped wearing saris for his slumlord. Safe to say, he was in love with someone else. There was after all that look to Arjun’s face when they carried away the Headless Sardar. The way he reached out with his arm. Arjun’s grief seeing his new lover’s headless torso was enough for Chhote Bhai to smash the boy’s head in with a hockey ball. Arjun may very well have stolen something, but doesn’t matter whether he did, or what he stole. That’s not why he was killed. Because by then, love had become hate and any excuse would do. Homicidal slumlords don’t make for forgiving ex-lovers.

  What was it with boys wearing saris? First, the dead Arjun, now this kid here; her brother, now sister.

  Ernst remembered her saying the two boys would play with her, make rangolis. Like boys playing with dolls. Beautiful boys, who then began wearing saris to drive grown men insane. Insane enough to kill one of them.

  He wanted to ask this one here, how close were you to Arjun? As close as your sister? Can you help cut through this damn thicket? I mean, look at you, so empowered and all.

  A stench of condensed semen flowered from the Bhairavi Chakra; a double dose if you will, given there were no women in the room other than Andhi Ma .

  ‘Still here?’ Princess Kirti asked, looking at Ernst as she would at any male-dog. ‘Something you need?’

  If
nothing else, it was the perfect cue for him to follow Chhote Bhai’s example and slink off.

  ~

  A wide nullah ran down the incline and emptied into the canal near the rope bridge. It was clogged—the sludge alive and bubbling with oil skeins floating on top. At least here, shit didn’t necessarily flow downhill. Lengths of black coaxial cable tracked the nullah, running illegally up the incline to the Haunted Whorehouse. Some of the huts had wires drawn to them from the thick, winding cables. It explained why electrocution cases piling up at Sion Hospital’s morgue were second only to bodies falling off trains.

  When Andhi Ma ambushed him from behind as he stumbled down the incline, something happened to the jhopadpatti. It appeared to calm down further, if that was possible. Cow dung smoke rose to join Andhi Ma’s rising octaves, as she sang about what the Tantric Sahajiyas claim, is the Place of the Hidden Moon.

  ‘Morey Mann ke Kanhaiya,’ she sang to the Krishna inside her head, and also inside each one of us. She sang to Him like a petulant child demanding attention, asking to be allowed into the Place of the Hidden Moon. That Perfect Place barricaded from us, even though it’s in our heads; where He resides, fucking a married woman—Radha—every day, every hour, every second, creating the Perfect Union through Perfect Sex with a Perfect Woman. All the goings-on in all our heads collectively powers up the universe and keeps it from dissipating back into nothing.

  ‘Bhairavi’s tongue sticks out,’ Andhi Ma complained in her song to Krishna, ‘she’s still ugly as sin.’

  ‘Make her beautiful for me,’ she pleaded to Govinda, ‘have her carry me in.’

  Ernst felt something crucial being said and it was important that he listened. Maya helped out by whispering in his ear. ‘If you were following Kirti all that while, where’s his sister?’

  35

  When Wishes Become Horses

  Women typically defy math by giving two hundred per cent.

  —Sir Victor Sassoon

  Karim Court’s cage of a lift wasn’t working and he dragged himself up four floors. The building wasn’t designed for cancer patients. Ernst’s nostrils flared even before he stepped on the landing. She was there with Parvatibai, both squatting over a rangoli at the doorstep, huddled together like schoolgirls preparing the ground for hop, skip and jump. Schoolgirls in silk saris, giggling like hookers from the penthouse upstairs. The rangoli had their undivided attention.

  Her bottom hovered above the floor as she worked with the coloured powder. Staring at her behind, he tracked their story from when he first saw it stare back at him through a maroon sari. Then her brother’s—the one he saw that night at the Golf Club, taunting him from alongside Chhote Bhai. Chhote Bhai was fucking that one, not this. The brother, not the sister. Except of course, in Ernst’s head. His head, by the way, turned out more prescient than he; painting her Sindhi-white in his dreams. Although if one wanted to sit back and get uncomfortable, one could say the cross-dressing brother was the one in his dreams. Schwester Ingrid would smile at that. She remembered things he preferred to forget, because of what they had done to his schoolteacher left hanging in the school courtyard alongside his dog. Or, because of what the schoolteacher had done to him behind closed doors. Pick one. Or both. It didn’t matter all that much anymore. Whatever happened between him and the homo teacher wasn’t why Bombay Ingrid left, or why Schwester Ingrid never returned. It wasn’t why he got fired, or why he got cancer.

  He stayed in the corridor behind the girl’s glow and she ignored him for a bit, working side-by-side her new best friend. Then, she turned around to smile and the world lit up, like the first time she had smiled at him past her teeth, from her porch. It was he all along, not Chhote Bhai. Wishes were horses, after all.

  Silly man, her smile said, and he felt good things happen to those who wait.

  Then there are those who wait, Schwester Ingrid whispered, until it’s too late.

  ~

  Afterwards, they sat on the balcony while Parvatibai fussed around the living room.

  ‘So, it was me all along?’

  She didn’t reply and instead offered her hand openly in what, for an Indian woman, could only be total surrender. He could check her pulse for the truth but there was no need because her pupils flared. She was on fire.

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘You do have a confidence problem,’ she said.

  ‘If it’s because Salim Ali’s been jabbering on about my fighting for workers, let me assure you he’s far better at it than I am.’

  ‘That’s true. You’re only good at saving friends from under trucks. He is right about one thing though. You may be a hero to some of us but you’re zero to yourself. Is that a curse or blessing? To not see what others see in you?’

  ‘Salim Ali says he doesn’t know what I see in you.’

  That made her giggle.

  ‘I know. He likes women soft and white, like rasgullas. I don’t mind.’

  He kept his grip on her feminine hand with its raw, masculine strength, hoping he could draw on it like Sassoon’s cheque. All of Colaba now smelled of her jasmine blend—laced with sweat and loaded with youth. Parvatibai brought them tea in Bombay Ingrid’s Wedgwood set with two cups. She served her before Ernst and then lingered on, reluctant to leave, as if he couldn’t be trusted with that hand. He agreed. Parvatibai should remain so he may try explain what a cancer patient his age was doing with someone young enough to be his daughter. Not easy because he couldn’t even explain it to himself.

  Sindhi Camp Bhairavi had smiled at him, not at Chhote Bhai. Why would she smile at Chhote Bhai? Chhote Bhai ached for creamy-skinned boys—the Kirtis and Arjuns—not her. Even when the creamy-skinned boys stopped reciprocating, the slumlord continued to ache. He ached for Arjun who refused to wear a sari for him. Whether the Not-Chinese boy stole something or didn’t steal anything, or stole everything, nothing mattered to the spurned Chhote Bhai, except that he’d been spurned. Salim Ali had said only Chhote Bhai knew why he got involved in the boy’s murder. Now Ernst knew too.

  Sitting next to him on the balcony she was done acting the coquette. Forget all that, her eyes said, I ache for you. That’s all you need to know. She looked at him and laughed, teasing him with all the marriage proposals being imposed on her these days. Tauba! From all sides! Who would think, she said. Someone as dark as me!

  But you want nothing to do with those marriage proposals, right? You want to be with me. I know. I’ll talk to your father. It should be easy. He and I are the same age.

  There was this one family. Sindhi, of course. Amil, her caste. They were being very persistent. Dada couldn’t be happier. Wants it over with quickly. Have her out of his hair. He forced her to stop with those embarrassing powder mandalas she did every morning; the ones Arjun had taught her.

  No worries. Forget the Amil family. It’s you and me now. I’ll keep you on a pedestal. At least, when you’re not changing bedpans.

  This time she did not demand what he was going to do about Arjun. What are we going to do about us, her eyes asked instead; in an adult conspiracy. They were partners in crime. Frankly, she couldn’t have made it any easier for him .

  ‘Is there anything you want to ask me?’ she prodded.

  Yes. Do you know what a catheter is?

  ‘Is there anything you want from me?’ she asked.

  He thought of the age difference. He considered the gora thing and Salim Ali’s heads-up. There have been riots for less. He visualised sex with a catheter sticking out. How would that work? Oh, yes of course. It wouldn’t.

  As a woman she must have known how men get tongue-tied when propositioned, because she gave him time, lots of it, while she sat and smiled. A happy smile, relaxed, now that it was all out in the open and above the table.

  Then as time passed and he still didn’t say a thing, she must have felt more and more naked because when she understood what was happening here, she pulled her sari over the head to cover herself somewhat better. When he finally tried saying
something, she stood up and moved away, pulling the sari even tighter to protect what remained of her modesty.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said, shiny streaks tracing down her face. ‘You think I am that type of a girl? That was a proper proposal. I wasn’t being challu. You understand? Good-for-nothing fellow.’

  He tried telling her he understood. Her tears however, declaimed faster than he could. When she walked off, it was with such dignity, that Krishna in his avatar as Jagannath, Master of the Universe, rumbled awake to insist Ernst erase all record of past, under-the-table dealings. To show he meant business, Jagannath opened the city gates and the monsoons—laying siege for over a month now—arrived in one big, hissy fit, sending Parvatibai scrambling for the windows.

  Between a bout of severe stomach cramps, Ernst watched the household batten the hatches. He hoped Andhi Ma was getting soaked nice and bloody proper out there, for giving him more Technicolour than he would ever want. He would tell her what she could do with the Place of the Hidden Moon. With his stomach cramping up like that, it was small comfort that he too may have grown along with the cancer.

  After all, he had let Bombay Ingrid go because he couldn’t take a decision. He let Bhairavi go today, because now he could. Not that it made him feel any better. He was relieved when Willie Lansdowne called to cancel the morning’s golf game.

  ~

  The boss wanted Willie in early tomorrow for something, was why. ‘Head office apparently called about that Golf Club wog of yours.’

  ‘Who?’ Ernst asked with innocence piled high, so he could deny owning any and all wogs, while praying it not be that one wog he knew it was.