Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  ‘Your bloody Seth, who else?’

  Ernst felt a cold wind blow. He forgot his own travails and he put aside Sindhi Camp Bhairavi. His heart went out to the Englishman and he wished Willie could remain his innocent, harmlessly racist self forever; not face what was coming his way. But Willie had gone insulted the Seth and so he too needed to batten the hatches. Maybe not today, but definitely tomorrow.

  ‘Wants a favour, I bet,’ Willie said. ‘That’s what wogs are all about. Favours. Well, we’ll see.’

  However hard Ernst tried, it was impossible to dislike the fool. ‘I’ll give you the Seth’s number,’ he offered. ‘Just call him and apologise for that other day. Do that, and I’ll talk him down.’

  Willie though, wasn’t listening to anyone but Willie. ‘How does he get the nerve, I ask you,’ he demanded.

  Hearing that tone, Ernst knew he wouldn’t be able to get a word in edge-ways, or get the Englishman to apologise to an Indian. To a wog. At least, not in time to save himself. The white man’s ego helped him rule this country for two-and-a-half centuries. The same ego would now destroy him. The Hindu in Ernst accepted it as par for the course. The rest of him wanted to shake Willie like a rag doll.

  36

  The Golog

  One, two! One, two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

  He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.

  —Through the Looking-Glass

  Ernst peered around Jhama Sweetmeats and up the side gully leading to her Nissen hut, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl without making a fool of himself. A short while ago, he had asked Mohan Driver to drop him outside the club gates instead of going in like any normal, white human being; so he was a fool already. And not just to Mohan Driver. Salim Ali stood by his side with a sword in hand. Ernst had yet to ask why. Together, they looked even more ridiculous. People gawked at the gora being harangued by a little black man flourishing a weapon.

  ‘Know where Comrade Tufan is right now, this very, bleddy minute?’

  Ernst declined the bait.

  ‘He can barely stand, but he’s in there,’ Salim Ali answered. He brandished the straight blade, nodding towards the police chowki with his bandaged head—courtesy Gomes’ goons from the other day. Gomes stood at the chowki gates with his own bandaged head—courtesy Chhote Bhai from the same day. He was eating a banana, his Enfield recklessly blocking the police chowki entrance to make a point. He stared with beady eyes at Arjun’s mother, waiting across the road for Tufan to come out from the police chowki. Tobi Basar had her back to Gomes. It didn’t matter because when it came to those breasts, Gomes had x-ray vision.

  ‘Just look at that murdering ape. Staring at Aunty like that.’

  Gomes turned to Salim Ali as if he heard that. So? he seemed to ask. What do you plan to do about it? And by the way, yes, I killed her son.

  ‘Comrade Tufan’s showing Dr. Waller’s autopsy report to the bleddy bastards in there for the nth time,’ Salim Ali said. ‘Thanks to that ape, they still won’t act. Good-for-nothing buggers. I tell you, I’ve just about had enough.’

  Now Gomes was waving. He shouted out, ‘All well, Mr. Ernestji?’

  Ernst felt he should demonstrate some outrage. Show more interest in Tufan’s plight as the man and his sister pursued justice for her son. It was getting difficult to be interested in anything, including himself.

  ‘Stop twirling the damn thing,’ Ernst said to Salim Ali.

  ‘It’s a Golog I practise with. Belonged to Arjun’s father. I’ve to return it to Aunty. It calms me, their sword dance.’

  He walked off towards Arjun’s mother. In rubber chappals and armed with a dangerous weapon, it was impossible to take him seriously.

  A banner fluttered astride two bamboo poles driven on either side of the Golf Club entrance. ‘WE WELCOME THE HONOURABLE DR. HOMI J. BHABHA, CHAIRMAN, AEET.’ A crudely painted Indian tricolour remained frozen above the lettering, mid-flutter.

  Turning around as he made past the banner, Ernst saw Salim Ali in a huddle with Tobi Basar, and Henry Gomes’ beady, gorilla eyes still not ceding an inch. There was this look to Tobi Basar’s face as she put her mouth to Salim Ali’s ear and started to whisper. Ernst could see Salim Ali stiffen with each whisper, her forehead touching the side of his bandaged head. Somehow, he didn’t look comical anymore. Over by the police chowki gate, Henry Gomes touched the bandage on his skull where Chhote Bhai’s hockey ball had struck. Whatever Tobi Basar kept whispering in his ear, it was doing wonders to Salim Ali’s posture. Ramrod erect, he stood there eyeballing Gomes. He could be demanding a re-match with Gomes’ Marathas, the way he stared.

  ~

  Ernst picked up the evening’s programme from the reception; the engraved, white marble card also placed on every table across the verandah. The club typewriter’s Courier font announced Brigadier Chatterjee had pulled out all the stops. The evening’s guest of honour, India’s Oppenheimer, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, Chairman of Atomic Energy, father of Atomic India and sexiest man alive, was giving a violin recital.

  It was too much. ‘Is there anything he cannot do?’ Jack Hanson asked. He looked up from the programme, his wife squeeze-fitted into the sofa by his side.

  Folding chairs radiated out in semi-circles from the repaired club piano standing on its little podium and looking a lot less resigned. Like waves, the chairs went past the red carpet at the entrance on one side and crunched-up against the Seth’s divan on the other. This left Seth Jamunadas Kejriwal’s leg just enough room for minimal oscillation. The permit-room appeared blockaded for the first time in living memory. The white gentry looked confused. They checked the programme card on their tables and appeared more perplexed. A wog playing Schubert?

  There was a buzz and people turned towards the entrance. The doorway framed Sassoon, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, and Cathy Sassoon. Together, they looked like tomorrow’s Times of India front page. As bulbs popped, Bhabha stood still with black hair slicked back, as if ensuring they capture his good side. Adam Sassoon appeared somewhat diminished next to India’s shining star, while Cathy’s smile conveyed if this was the new normal, she wanted out. Men in bush shirts shuffled behind the three VIPs as the line-up advanced. They were the crème de la crème of India’s Brahmins, and Bhabha’s immediate cohorts. Ernst recognised Dr. Raja Ramanna, Dr. Bhabha’s right hand, the left hand busy with the PM at all times. And apparently, Dr Ramanna recognised Jack Hanson .

  ‘I know you!’ he called out.

  Hanson waved. ‘It’s going to be their India,’ he said, ‘or that fella’s,’ and nodded toward the Seth, resplendent today on his velveteen, divan sofa. The smiling bania waved, looking every inch the safer bet. Ernst checked the crowd trickling in. One expected Tufan to be here to cheer for his deity. Maybe, once he was done getting fucked over at the police chowki.

  Earlier outside, Salim Ali had told Ernst, ‘They screw with Comrade Tufan daily, making him wait so they may stare and snigger at the smiling Chinaman. They crack Chinaman jokes to his face. Yet he’s there every day after work, smiling patiently and waiting forever to petition on behalf of Arjun.’

  A dying man petitioning on behalf of the dead—a strange circumstance. Ernst would be glad to see Tufan again. There was something about the Smiling Buddha.

  ~

  The Brigadier had been at it for a good five minutes and was beginning to ramble.

  Brigadier Chatterjee declared his debt to Western classical music and how it helped him survive Changi Jail in wartime Singapore. Locked in a cell, he’d played arias inside his head while the Japanese tattooed a beat on top of it. When the Brigadier finally came around to introducing Bhabha, he left nothing to chance. He laid it out, reading aloud from a typewritten list on white foolscap. Not only an accomplished violinist, but also world-class painter. Not only world-class painter, but also the Father of India’s nuclear program. Not only the Father of Atomic India, but also the builder of India
’s first ever radio telescope. Not only all that, but who do you think gave the meson particle its name?

  Finally, ‘Quite the Renaissance man, what?’ So without further ado, the Brigadier invited Dr. Bhabha to commence with the recital, accompanied by, ‘His very own Dr. Raja Ramanna on the piano.’

  Dr. Homi J. Bhabha leaped on the stage, violin in one hand, bow in the other. Pointing into the audience with the bow, he said, ‘I see my Aunty Coover. The nation owes her a debt of gratitude. Dr. Ramanna and I refined India’s first gram of uranium in her kitchen on Peddar Road.’

  The beaming Aunty shone like the sun from a wheelchair in the first row; could be all that radiation absorbed from her kitchen. The VIP rows grinned, India roared in applause, Sethji clapped in childish glee, and the gora sahibs came to grips with the meaning of Dr. Homi J. Bhabha.

  Someone yelled, ‘Homi! That a Stradivarius?’ It was a lanky, well-dressed twenty-something, sprawled on his chair and showing early signs of another Jehangir Merchant.

  Dr. Homi J. Bhabha laughed. Ernst could see his eyes sparkle from where he stood. ‘You forget I’m a Government servant,’ Bhabha replied, and Louis Vuitton luggage notwithstanding, well fielded, Ernst thought.

  ‘It’s a 1923, Canadian Auguste Delivet,’ the Government servant offered. ‘A gift from W.B. Lewis, father of Canada’s nuclear program.’ He ran the bow across it with a flourish. ‘Just so you know,’ Bhabha continued while rubbing the curlicued end of the instrument against his shirt, ‘it’s the property of the nation and on display at AEET.’ Then with a big, fat, innocent grin, ‘Just borrowed it for the evening.’ Party to his conspiracy, the crowd grinned back.

  Young Jehangir yelled out again. ‘What else you got on display behind that hill, Homi? Tell us!’

  Bhabha flung back his killer smile. ‘Read the third Five Year Plan, Dikkra. Remember, no secrets in our country. We’re just making salad oil, that’s all.’

  ‘Is that what they call reprocessing spent fuel these days?’

  Jack Hanson. Asking he be accepted as one of them, be party to all these inside jokes. The crowd parted to take him in—impossible to refuse a white man. Young Jehangir invited him over, pointing to a vacant chair and together with the other Parsi bawas, the rest of the Indians, and alongside Jack Hanson, began badgering an indulgent Bhabha.

  ‘Tell us! Tell us!’ the verandah demanded. Ernst hadn’t seen Indians so unanimous on a subject since Gandhi asked they go fuck with the British .

  Bhabha caved, moving on to provide an exegesis on India’s state religion. The verandah went still. As with a reading of the Holy Ramayana, such nuclear talk left Indians raptured.

  ‘Like I said, it’s simple as Italian salad dressing,’ Bhabha explained to the Atomic India Fan Club, his violin resting in one hand, the bow waiting in the other to make a point. ‘The plutonium and uranium we dissolve in nitric acid at the reprocessing facility, is like the vinegar-water mixture at the bottom of your bottle of salad dressing. The tri-butyl-phosphate and kerosene mixture we use is like the salad oil you see on the top. Now just shake the bottle, and the plutonium and uranium are extracted into the kerosene. Next, pour off the plutonium and uranium rich kerosene, then mix it with concentrated nitric acid. Voilà, the plutonium is extracted into the nitric acid, leaving the uranium in the kerosene.’

  Young Jehangir was relentless. ‘What will you do with the plutonium, Homi?’

  ‘Tell us! Tell us!’ the Indians asked as one. That the salad-oil analogy would register en masse was astounding. An Indian will absorb concepts like a sponge. It’s only when he puts it to practice that the fuck-ups begin. In theory, Indians are the most intelligent people in the world.

  ‘Tell us!’ they roared with a patriotic fervour that had doubled after the bruising from China.

  ‘To produce electricity of course,’ Bhabha said, and the big, wide, innocent grin across his handsome face left the Indians squirming with pleasure at the duplicity of it all.

  ‘Hell with that, Homi,’ Young Jehangir yelled out, and Ernst was impressed at how closely he resembled the original. ‘Just give us the bomb!’

  ‘I know how you must feel.’ Bhabha started playing his crowd instead of his fiddle. ‘After all, why should America decide who goes nuclear?’ Somewhat like the Deputy Commissioner’s complaint—why are only Americans allowed to be cowboys?

  The demagoguery got the crowd roaring. They were savouring their moment, when Jack Hanson boomed across the packed verandah. ‘You’re shaking the salad bottle in a radiation field two miles from here. Hopefully, you’re not doing it in anything like your Aunty’s kitchen!’ He laughed to establish it was a joke. Portions of the fan club laughed with him while others digested the comment; those who had seen Hanson amongst slum dwellers, maybe, glimpsed where he was coming from. Others weren’t that charitable.

  ‘Pulling a Nichols on my boss, Mr. Hanson?’ Raja Ramanna asked, deadpan, fingers poised over the piano keys. Dealing with white men, clearly not a problem.

  Dr. Homi J. Bhabha smiled. Leaning over, he whispered to Ramanna—steadfast by the piano, owning it. Ramanna nodded back to his boss who tucked the violin under his chin and hit it, leaving Ramanna to come casually from behind on the keyboard. All across the room, Parsi bawas scrambled for Brigadier Chatterjee’s programmes on white cards, as Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ floated out from the Delivet. A wog playing Schubert, accompanied by another on the piano.

  The 555VMOT microphone on the stand in front of Bhabha came with a poor, high frequency response. It didn’t matter though, when Bhabha took off low and deep on the violin. Two minutes later, when he stopped to make way for a bit of keyboard play by Ramanna, and then returned sweeter and quite a few octaves higher, the microphone’s thin metal diaphragm struggled. That didn’t seem to matter either. Ernst saw D’Souza at the permit-room door, listening to ‘Ave Maria’ with tears in his eyes.

  Five minutes later, Bhabha lowered the violin and the Indians rose as one around the scattering of grim-faced goras, who remained seated. Not Jack Hanson, he cheered alongside the people he loved. His big-boy grin notwithstanding, Ernst couldn’t help but notice the troubled look to his eyes. It reminded him of the confusion that had crawled up the Texan’s face that day at Fertilisers, holding onto a dying Arjun in a pool of Indians while trying not to drown. And yet, Salim Ali blamed him for Arjun’s death. The man didn’t seem to catch a break. Now it was Ramanna pointing a finger. Pulling a Nichols on my boss, Mr. Hanson?

  Kenneth Nichols had thrown his boss Oppenheimer under the truck, after Oppenheimer refused to participate any further in the American nuclear program. Fingered him. Declared him a communist. In America that would be the kiss of death. It was still vivid though, how Hanson had broken down, cried, with Arjun in his arms. He wasn’t capable of throwing anyone under a truck. So what made Ramanna think he would do that to Bhabha? And anyway, who could do anything to Bhabha? He looked invincible standing there with the Delivet in his hand, taking a bow.

  ‘Show ’em, Bhabhaji!’ the Indians yelled, and while you could say they were rooting for his music, one knew they were asking for a bomb.

  ~

  Bhabha was charging his batteries with a glass of orange juice when Ernst stepped out for some air. He looked around. Thankfully, no Salim Ali in sight. Surprisingly, no Willie either—otherwise a permanent verandah fixture this time of the day.

  In lieu of both, Henry Gomes sat astride his Bullet Enfield in the golf club compound. A brooding Chhote Bhai stood next to him. Today for some reason, Gomes looked the man in charge despite his bandaged cranium. He dismounted, leaving the new, subdued Chhote to go fuck himself. Ernst noted the role reversal and whispered Krishna’s name, acknowledging maya and the transient nature of things. At the far end of the compound, a group of men was busy with Marathi chitchat. Their thickset potbellies and standard moustaches said they were plainclothesmen and part of Bhabha’s security detail.

  Seeing Ernst, Chhote Bhai looked like he wanted
to step up and say something. Then his helium started to leak and it left him just standing there, a vacant expression on the face. Ernst was deliberating over what Chhote Bhai had gone done to himself, when Salim Ali and Tsering Tufan went appeared at the gates. The bond between the South Indian Malayalee and the dying tribal from India’s Northeast was palpable even from a distance. Tufan was in a white, hand spun, khadi kurta, white trousers, leather chappals, and the gentlest of smiles. In his left hand was that worn, yellow file—a permanent appendage he now slept with; every little detail on his nephew’s death next to him at all times and ready to present at a moment’s notice.

  ‘The autopsy report says it was a stab wound to the femoral artery. Please take down an FIR complaint, Mr. Policeman. I can also identify the culprit who killed my nephew. He is standing outside. ’

  ‘Oye, Chinaman! Look at you. Don’t get too close. What bleddy autopsy report? Who issued it? Only the Coroner’s Office is authorised. Not some medical college. Who is this Dr. Waller fellow? We don’t recognise him. Kindly get the autopsy report from proper authority first. Until then, the only culprit is you, for wasting our time.’

  Standing at the club gates, the Smiling Buddha looked a lot like a man back to square one. When Ernst returned to Gomes, the gorilla appeared petulant at the lack of respect. One minute they were eyeballing each other—the proper thing to do—and then without any warning, Ernst was waving at Chinamen. Tufan had waved back, of course. Not Salim Ali, who also held a yellow file in his left hand like Tufan. Whatever Tobi Basar whispered in his ear had worked like a tonic. When Salim Ali strolled into the club, it was like he owned the place; behaving as if he were Adam Sassoon.

  Walking up behind the glowering Gomes and a muted Chhote Bhai, Ernst could have sworn his engineer’s right hand was empty. That’s because the short, straight, tribal sword, the Golog, was in Salim Ali’s palm and flat against the back of his wrist, pressed along the forearm.

  Meaning, he had to first walk past the two men, drop the file, and only then slash backwards. Bhabha was at it with his violin again, and this time it was Beethoven. His ‘Seventh in A Major’. Salim Ali’s skinny right arm floated back and toward the more muscular men with such grace, Ernst thought for a moment he had decided to dance to Bhabha’s music. Gomes was nothing if not a sharp fuck, and saw it coming. He sidestepped the sword like a ballet dancer, but it didn’t matter. Salim Ali ignored Arjun’s killer and homed in on Chhote Bhai instead. One could argue Chhote Bhai too may have reacted like Gomes if he was fully there, or for that matter, if he cared. Could have parried Salim Ali’s arc, if not so caught up in the web a relentless Arjun kept spinning from the dead.