Bombay Swastika

by Braham Singh

  They left her behind, going all Mussolini on them from the balcony.

  Up ahead, the police chowki reminded Ernst of a body with cancer and beyond complaint. A low nesting building in municipal yellow, it had sagged further after the rains, the exhausted, red stucco roof tiles now almost at eye level. The tiles had surrendered and had holes that were football-size jagged circles. The next sheet of water would come down on the Deputy Commissioner’s head.

  The slums lining Sindhi Camp were the only ones left smiling. There’s an advantage to being rock bottom. If this last deluge was the monsoon’s best shot, they had little to worry. The slum kids ran past taxis, screamed, sang out loud, and jumped puddles without a care in the world.

  Johnny Walker must have felt the same, or at least until Ernst showed up with Tufan. Moments ago, he had been smiling to himself and at peace with the world, having his chai, seated on one of the benches lining the police compound. Seeing them, he was now triggered, and stood up to further increase the threat level.

  ‘You look not so good, Sirji,’ he said to get things going. Acknowledging the standoff, Sindhi Camp Radio came alive with the theme from Come September . The soaked air quivered and Ernst thought it best to bring things down a notch.

  ‘We’re just here to collect his possessions.’

  Johnny Walker came out past the wide-open, police chowki gates to energise the situation. ‘What’s in that pot? Go to Sion Hospital for his possessions, no need to come here unless you want to hand the Chinaman over.’

  Ernst felt his insides light up and his hands shook, struggling with the earthen pot as if there was a pit bull inside.

  ‘Bhenchod,’ the plainclothesman said, and Ernst was once again struck by the contrast between the man and his comic screen version. ‘Had it not been for you and that Chinaman, Sirji, your mian would have still been alive. Next time, kindly be mindful.’

  From Tufan’s face, it was clear Johnny Walker had landed a direct kick. Ernst gently nudged Tufan down the road, past Murli and into the Golf Club compound.

  In time to see Adam Sassoon standing ramrod straight, holding the rear door open to his shiny, white Mercedes parked right next to the Seth’s shiny, black Impala—each with their opaque-tinted glasses impossible to see through. Perfect for owners who didn’t acknowledge each other or the general riff-raff outside. Sassoon’s uniformed driver looked confused at his owner standing to attention and holding the door open as if he was the chauffeur. However, playing the chauffeur or not, Sassoon had eyes on the back of his head and he stiffened a notch, before turning around. An uneven playing field is how Ernst felt about any face-off about to happen.

  ‘You look like hell,’ Sassoon said, eyes fixed on Salim Ali in the earthen pot. Ernst realised the great man didn’t know about the cancer.

  Sassoon continued looking at the pot. ‘Hell you still holding onto that for?’ he asked.

  ‘Just doing what his mother wants. That’s why I brought him over to the synagogue yesterday. But then you went and wore that swastika pendant and it threw me. Meant a lot, by the way, you doing that.’

  ‘One values friendship too, old chap. A two-way thing, what?’

  ‘Then, I realised where you got that swastika pendant. Not wearing it today?’

  Ernst placed the earthen pot on the Mercedes bonnet and when the uniformed driver jumped in outrage, Tufan stepped in and blocked him with the gentlest of smiles. When Ernst pulled at the red cloth covering the pot, the rubber band holding it in place broke. When he trailed Salim Ali’s ashes on the Mercedes, some flew to also spread on the Seth’s jet black Impala. When he flung the rest of Salim Ali at the great man, the remains flew everywhere and back at Ernst, and into his mouth and nostrils. The ash stuck at the back of his throat, and he gagged. Hacking away, he knew there was blood in his spittle and not due to the bony bits from the ash in his mouth. Adam Sassoon was coughing too, his hair and face ash-white from Salim Ali—the little man spread all over him, his T-shirt, and around and inside the collar.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘His mother kept saying, make him happy. There, he is happy.’

  Sassoon spat out bits of bone. ‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘You know what you’ve gone and done now, don’t you, old chap?’

  ‘I know, Adam. Problem is, you don’t know what you have done, because you keep doing it. A great man would know when to stop. You never did. ’

  ‘I just asked one thing of you,’ Adam Sassoon said.

  ‘I know. But Salim Ali’s all over you, now. So ask him yourself for the damn gunny bag with whatever was stolen.’

  If Sassoon didn’t find that funny, neither did Tufan. Salim Ali’s gentle comrade had let the driver brush past and just stood there mouth agape, staring towards the club portico.

  It was quite the backdrop, Ernst had to admit. Sindhi Camp Bhairavi descending the Golf Club steps as if she was Queen of Sheba.

  ‘Goddess Bhairavi,’ Ernst said. ‘Have you seen anything like it?’

  Of course he hadn’t. But then who had? When was the last time anyone saw Goddess Bhairavi go from coal-black demon to a stunningly radiant, to-die-for harbinger of death? If that’s just a fairy tale, no one told Ernst who sensibly concluded he was done for. And if this was an augury for real, no one had informed Sassoon who began dusting himself, eyes riveted on her with the eagerness of a schoolboy.

  Covered though he was in ash and bones, with chalk white face, hair a mess and T-shirt ruined, Adam Sassoon pushed his chauffer aside and went back to holding the rear door open, his eyes still locked on Goddess Bhairavi. And when she came up, it was crystal clear Ernst was back to being invisible. Nor did her beloved Uncle Tufan exist. When she stopped by the Mercedes as if she owned it, Sassoon could’ve been covered in shit or gold dust, for the difference it seemed to make. However, when she lowered herself onto the rear seat, one leg was left resting on the ground, deigning the riff-raff a prolonged stare at a Goddess’ sandalled foot and up her calf. Only for me, Ernst was convinced. She’s doing that only for me. However, the way Sassoon was staring, reminded him of the gentleman from Nippon caressing her brother’s foot at the Haunted Whorehouse.

  ‘Fools,’ he said to Sassoon. ‘We men are fools, each and every one of us. You and I though, may soon be dead ones.’

  ‘The hell you blabbering?’ Sassoon asked. He brushed Salim Ali off his shoulders the best he could, got into the Mercedes, and leaned back against the rear seat headrest, Goddess Bhairavi smiling by his side. Seeing Ernst look their way, Sassoon shut his eyes. Only then, the uniformed driver went scrambled behind the wheel. As he reversed, Ernst saw the Goddess lean over to the great man. Holding a cloth, she cleaned his brow, carefully collecting ash and bone, then dusting the cloth with great care into a square plastic box she held in her other hand, as if it was the most precious thing in the world.

  When the Mercedes went past, Murli Chowkidar held the gates wide open and turned his face to avoid looking inside. When gods and goddesses go by, his mother told him some centuries ago, we look away lest we go blind.

  42

  The Mule

  She has many forms. Some, you don’t want to see.

  —On Goddess Bhairavi

  Willie was officially missing since he raided the police chowki to rescue his transvestite. What makes it more of a scandal—that one’s fucking a male cross-dresser, or that it’s a darkie? The Golf Club wasn’t sure. Where’s Willie hiding out, they wanted to know. Ask someone who cares, Ernst wanted to say, and went locked himself in his bedroom.

  He coughed before reaching for the handkerchief and now his blue pyjama top was speckled red. It did not bother him and neither did the fever that came and went. It also didn’t bother him anymore that like the cork plugging and unplugging his arse at will, the cancer felt more at home every day. The past weeks he hadn’t left the flat, barely moving from the bedroom—his inglenook.

  Adam Sassoon had turned out superior to cancer, or a straight razor. Schwester Ingrid
would approve how he had torpedoed Ernst amidships. The Ingrids and the Sassoons had always held each other in high regard, each side wondering what the other saw in him. How does one ever overcome the ignominy from having someone’s ashes flung at your face? You do it, Ernst would have to agree, by being Adam Sassoon and driving away with the girl. He had aimed and fired Salim Ali at the great man. Turns out he fired a blank .

  There was a knock on the bedroom door but he shut it out. His bathtub’s claw-foot was visible inside the bathroom from where he lay. If he stretched forward a bit, the straight razor was tempting him from the low stool next to it. If he craned any further, his father would be in the soapy water with wrists slashed and the sneer on his face Schwester Ingrid wrote about. The one the Nazis never got to see, so focused were they on his erection.

  Parvatibai started banging at the bedroom door because she could read minds. He kept his eyes shut as if that would work. Finally, it became too much and he stumbled for the door. He was at a loss what to say, but Parvatibai was a monument to calm itself, with just a cursory glance towards the swastik pendant he still wore, or maybe at the red specks on his pyjama top.

  ‘Someone’s here to see you.’

  She didn’t ask he change his pyjama top, but stared some more at the rusty, red specks of blood.

  Fine, but he wasn’t changing for anyone.

  ~

  A newly-wed stands out like a red beacon. With blood-red sindoor parting her hair, dried red henna on hands and feet, blinding red sari, and a ruby studded mangalsutra to make it very clear. Since last ignoring him while reclining in Sassoon’s Mercedes as if it belonged to her, she had found time to get married.

  ‘I came to see Parvatibai.’

  Her eyes sparkled as they danced around the room—the happy newlywed visiting her best friend; saying a quick hello to the best friend’s employer; doing a quick tease. She sat at the edge of the bed, and now he wished he had changed the pyjama top. Looking at her, he was struck by the resemblance with Princess Kirti—like black and white twins. Almost, but not quite, because her teeth came in the way. Although, frankly, not that much anymore. Married, she was less gaunt. Her face had filled-out and the teeth less emphatic. He found himself missing the bunny rabbit look.

  He took off the swastik pendant.

  ‘I keep forgetting to return it. ’

  She touched the mangalsutra around her neck.

  ‘I have this now. You hold on to that for me.’

  ‘And this too,’ she said. It was the square box. The one in which she had carefully collected Salim Ali from all over Sassoon.

  Sitting on his bed, when she broached his illness, she did it like Dr. Ramanna’s keyboard from the other day at the Golf Club, in no hurry to catch up with Dr. Homi J. Bhabha’s violin. Also, there was the question of how she knew. Maybe, the bedsprings vibrated an SOS on his state of affairs. Maybe it was his heart, visible only to her, warning her to look past all that love in there and focus instead on the corroded insides. Maybe Parvatibai had already whispered pointed Marathi in her ear. Maybe it was the speckled front of the pyjama top that she pretended to not notice. No matter.

  What did matter was how, and without any warning, she lay back in her red sari to stretch like a panther on the bed and once again become Goddess Bhairavi.

  ~

  She sits on the chakra at the base of one’s spine. Her role there, is as destroyer of the nine mental impediments to reunion with the Supreme Consciousness in the Place of the Hidden Moon.

  Bhairavi: who multiplies herself into any number of beings and forms, depending on where you’re at.

  Bhairavi: evokes images powerful and graceful, as well as discordantly seductive when associated with aggression and violence. Like for example, taking on a Deputy Commissioner of Police.

  Bhairavi: causes the Universe to come into being.

  Bhairavi: praised and blamed for everything.

  Bhairavi: here to remind you of your shelf life, dangerously dependent on how beautiful she comes across. It grips him that she hasn’t ever looked more beautiful. Fact is however, she’s been beautiful since he first saw her—buck teeth and all. He settles back to ponder the simple implication of being a dead man.

  She peers into the bathroom and asks, ‘Why’s there an open razor by the tub? ’

  She looked at the bright red specks all over the front of his striped, blue pyjama top, three sizes too big these days, and says, ‘It’s okay. Don’t make a big deal about this. We all have to die of something.’

  ‘Look at me,’ she asks. He can barely hear her past a heartbeat making him vibrate like Waller.

  ‘Look at me.’ She’s on one elbow now and bears down with those lake-size Indian eyes. He obeys, breathing hard. He would like to think dipping in those lakes will cure him and remains torn—jump right in, or run like hell?

  ‘You declined me,’ she says, ‘because of your illness. I know that now.’

  Saying that, she sticks her tongue into his ear and feels around tickling his brain. He waits it out, only daring to move after she vacates his skull.

  Glowing in the darkened room, she begins burning him up. He knows he is done for.

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’

  Ride you like a mule, Goddess Bhairavi informs him.

  ~

  Crouching from above, she raises her sari to straddle his seventh chakra. Those corded thighs could only belong to a Goddess. And so what if he is hard as rock? He feels like the mule he is and all that hardness belongs to her. She raises herself and comes down, her thighs like well-oiled pistons. He is enveloped by a rainforest before being pulled away, and then thrown back again into a warm, damp, malarial swamp. He wants her to call out his name, but knows she won’t. Indian women don’t do that. Not even goddesses.

  Her eyes are ablaze. She’s on fire, and either greatly forgiving or mercifully easy to please. His confidence returns even though he hasn’t been with a real woman since his last Christmas in July with Bombay Ingrid. Daisy Lansdowne doesn’t qualify. Still, the other side of him—the one that ensures failure—wishes she would keep her eyes shut and those controlling hands to herself. No need to look down on his stained teeth or feel the bald spot when holding his head. The way she warms him with her gaze though, suggests he might be more than the sum of his shabby parts. After all, she did fall in love with him once.

  Expelling a divine grunt, she informs him they didn’t have much time and thrusts down. It leaves him gasping for breath. He wants to ask, what’s the rush, and can barely keep pace with her supernatural thrusts, although, it’s probably just youth. He is glad he didn’t ask because it would be insensitive. She has a husband waiting at home. A boy of a husband wrapped around her little finger, but husband is husband.

  Turns out she meant something else—asking him to hurry up—and was referring to what needed to be taught, what he needed to know before exhausting his three Technicolour minutes. Never easy, his baggage doesn’t make it any easier. He wants to apologise but she thrusts down and once again impales herself, or him, not sure.

  When he makes an effort to sit up while she is still atop, she allows him to suck on a nipple. They stare back at him, dark, thick, rubbery, one still wet from his saliva and he never wants to ever taste the pink variety again. That appears to please the Goddess. She holds the back of his head to bring his open mouth forward, and caresses his bald spot. He sucks like there’s no tomorrow while she croons wisdom in his ear.

  ‘Destruction begins from the moment of birth,’ she tells him. ‘Cancer is always within you. Death, or Bhairavi if you will, is present in everything. Don’t think of me as a married woman; think of me as your constant companion.’

  He disengages, but only to beg her not to stop. Please continue removing the clutter from my mind.

  He reaches forward again, and she allows him a quick lick before pulling back. All this time she remains fixed, impaled on concrete—far removed from the dismal performance with Willie’s wi
fe. The only clutter, she assures him, comes from maya.

  ‘We need to get you past her fog.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Siksha.’ She plans to teach the maya out of him.

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘What better time?’ She comes down hard and he gasps .

  ‘See? Carrot.’

  Then raising herself, she hovers effortlessly, caressing his tip with her lower lips while denying entry.

  ‘Stick.’

  He thrusts upward, and she levitates still higher. ‘What you just did,’ she says from way up there, ‘is because maya compelled you to. Maya nourishes your ego, makes you feel entitled. That in turn prevents you breaking free from your ways. Just as a man cannot see his own back, so also he cannot see his own mistakes. For that, he needs a guide. Let’s get to work.’

  She descends to give him a carrot. They both thrust at each other for a bit. Seeing how her pupils rolls back, Ernst suspects this may be a two-way thing going on, but what does he know?

  ‘Tell me what happened to your wife.’

  ‘What?’ He waits for the concrete to leach away. It does not. ‘She went into Berlin’s Jewish Hospital during her pregnancy, and remained there until the war ended.’

  ‘They left a Yehudi alone in their backyard for all that time?’

  Instead of raising herself, she remains seated and rotating her hips, grinding against him in encouragement.

  ‘They wanted everything looking normal to the Jews being shipped out to die. So they left the Hospital Jewish staff alone.’

  ‘Still. All those years? How many others lasted that long?’

  ‘Why are you bringing this up?’

  ‘Because you are a little man, and you’ll remain one if I don’t.’ She easily lifts herself into a half-squat, leaving a gaping hole in him. He stares at her thighs. All she needs now are two more arms to be the hottest Hindu Goddess in business.

  She explains the ego-destroying principle of Prapatti. How true humility comes after a full admission of guilt.

  ‘Okay, I admit. She was the SS Commandant’s mistress. She did that to survive. What more do you want?’