Ode to Broken Things

by Dipika Mukherjee

  Was this the time to tell her the truth? Agni’s voice brought Jay back to the open air hawker stalls functioning as a huge food court under balmy skies, fragrant with mingling cuisines. He heard the shouts of the clients with the languages all mixed up; names of foods learnt from the languages of the hawkers, never translated, and even he had once known how to order exactly what he wanted in Cantonese, Hokkien, or Hakka. The words hadn’t fazed him at all, all these cultures comingling in a history that was older than anyone alive. He looked at Agni and thought, not just yet.

  “My father,” he cleared his throat and kept his voice even, “well, he tried to talk to Zainal. But Zainal frowned when he emerged from the shadows of the jacaranda tree, and sneered about my father lecturing about illicit liaisons. He, Zainal, had not pursued a married woman and, since his religion allowed more than one wife, he was willing to marry Shanti. Something like that.”

  “And then?”

  “Zainal, I remember, called him a Pendatang. Pendatang as in the newly arrived. The immigrant. The one who had no –”

  “I know what it means,” said Agni, irritated. “Tarpor?”

  “Your grandmother said Siti put up a hate charm, murmuring, ‘Umamman Chan Ta-man Chan’ seven times in a single breath and blowing on slaked lime, then marking their fence so that the hatred would take firm hold.”

  Agni moved her plate to the side brusquely. “And that was that? A magic charm, your father insulted, and everyone gave up?”

  “They had to. Siti and Zainal disappeared that night, never to return again. Just as everyone knew they would.” They both remained silent for some time. “Maybe Shanti thought the child would force their hand, but this one tore everyone apart.”

  “It’s me, Professor,” Agni snapped. “That child is me.”

  “Yes. Well, she did want you. She wouldn’t consider any other solution, and they tried… well, you can imagine. She really wanted a daughter – only a daughter – Agnibina. Do you know what it means?” From the recesses of his memory, Jay dredged up a long-forgotten tune and softly sang the lines of a Bengali song:

  What melodies play in your lute of Fire?

  The heavens tremble with the stars aflame,

  Inebriated by your song.

  Agni smiled ruefully, “Music that ignites the soul, that’s me.” “She wanted you to change the world.” “Not just change, but fire it up, Professor,” Agni said archly, “although fires can be quite traumatic, eh?”

  He looked away. “Why do you say that?”

  Agni picked up a napkin, delicately dabbing at her lips. “Well… anyway, let it go. I am grateful to you for being in the fire, and for Zainal rescuing you so that he would eventually meet my mother and I would be born. Despite everything that happened, I think you did me a favour by getting lost in that fire.”

  “Hang on!” Jay was laughing, pleasantly surprised to realise that his hands weren’t betraying his nervous memories right now, “I’m not sure I want to take any credit. I ended up as a pawn in that story when all I really wanted was the Queen!”

  Agni cocked her head at him, and Jay realised what he had just said. He picked up his teh tarik to sip the last of the milky tea.

  That was when the Malay stall keeper appeared. Without a word, he picked up the fork and spoon on Jay’s plate and flung them into a nearby drain.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jay got up so quickly that the red plastic chair he had been sitting on crashed to the ground.

  The Malay man started to shout.

  “What is he saying?” Jay turned to Agni.

  “Something about the forks and spoons from the Malay and Chinese stalls getting mixed up and contaminated.” Agni whispered hurriedly.

  “Contaminated? By what?”

  By this time, a crowd had collected, and other hawkers started discussing the problem in loud Malay. Jay could hear the word haram being repeated. He looked at the Chinese hawkers for help, but two of them just stood by the sidelines, one softly scratching an arm and the other watching intently.

  “But we didn’t order any pork, Uncle!” Agni tried reasoning in English and switched to Malay even as the stall keeper grew livid beyond reason. Jay opened his wallet and took out a couple of notes, waving them uncertainly in the air.

  The Malay hawker didn’t want money, he shouted; who did they think they were? Jay began to feel the eyes of the mob grow hostile, and the heat pouring down through the serrated tin roof felt like molten metal on his skin. Just the fact that Jay’s cutlery may have been near pork, the most haram of all, was enough. There was nothing left to argue about.

  Jay remembered the cnn footage on the street riots in Kuala Lumpur just a couple of days ago, and felt slightly dizzy. What could he do if this group got really ugly?

  “Let’s go,” said Agni angrily. She gathered her jacket and pulled on Jay’s arm, hurriedly throwing some notes on the table. She didn’t look back. Jay, both confused and furious in that hostile crowd of people whom he barely understood, hurried to follow her lead, stumbling on the fallen chair.

  They didn’t stop until they had reached Old Coliseum Café. Then Agni squeezed Jay’s arm in sympathy. “Look, I’m sorry.

  This is not normal. I think the unrest in the streets is making everyone edgy a bit –”

  He pulled away. “Edgy? Why? Is it because I’m American? Did that fellow just pick a fight because of my accent?”

  “Why would you think that?” asked Agni. “Sometimes Indian men pick fights if they see an Indian woman with a foreigner, but I don’t think that the ‘uncle’ back there had any such motive.”

  Jay realised that she was trying to lighten the atmosphere, but he was still fuming inside. “Well, something set him off, and I don’t think it was the fork or the effing spoon!”

  He had stopped abruptly in the middle of the road. Agni grasped his gesticulating hand firmly and said, “They are not all jihadis, Prof.”

  Jay took a deep breath. She was right. “Okay. But that bastard was really frothing at the mouth… Geez!”

  “Yes. I’m sorry,” Agni’s voice sounded timid.

  Jay raised an awkward arm towards her shoulder and withdrew quickly as Agni stepped back, startled. “Oops, I wouldn’t want one of your Malaysian-Indian brothers to come raging down the warpath now!”

  At Leboh Ampang, where the air was heavy with the smell of sambar and sandalwood incense, they ducked into a narrow alleyway that led to the parking garage. In between the tailors and the newspaper vendors, a Chinese fortune-teller called out loudly, “Sir! Try your fortune – five ringgit only! Guaranteed hundred per cent accurate.”

  “One minute, Agni.” Jay drew her into the stall by splaying his fingers on the small of her back, and lightly pushing her in. “I remember this!” He tossed the coins up like a child, flicking the large golden balls that twirled in the air, then sank to reveal lines drawn in heads and tails. Agni laughed at his excitement as the sixth line formed and the entire image was revealed.

  “Very auspicious,” said the fortune-teller. “The upper trigram, here, it is Chên – takes the situation out of danger. The danger is in the lower trigram, which is the Abysmal, Water. This is the beginning of the end of trouble.”

  Jay looked at Agni, and they burst into laughter. Jay handed over the fee, with a generous tip.

  “Thank you!” the fortune-teller beamed, “and here is a souvenir for you.” He handed Jay a small scroll, rolled up like parchment.

  Inside was a poem.

  The thunder rolls Deliverance

  If there is no call for action

  Return brings good fortune

  If action is called for

  Hastening brings good fortune

  Jay looked delighted. “I like it!” he said.

  Agni mocked him gently. “And just when I thought you might be more Charles Bukowski than Khalil Gibran, Professor.”

  Jay folded the poem, and put it carefully in his pocket. “I think it’s time you stopped calling m
e, Professor, don’t you?”

  Agni looked at her watch. “I was supposed to be at the airport fifteen minutes ago. Shall we go?”

  Twenty

  Colonel S looked out of the windows of the reclaimed factory in Nilai. The immense stretch of concrete lay desolate except for his lone car and the guard’s small motorcycle.

  Again, he regretted his lack of attention to a small detail – the fact that Jay’s cellphone did not roam in Malaysia. And Jay was refusing a local siM. Which left Jay unreachable for long hours, to roam like an unyoked cow, instead of doing the job he had been brought here to do. But Colonel S could not push Jay too far, too soon; he needed to save his energy for bigger battles.

  Colonel S punched the keys on the computer, getting into Jay’s personal files, and searching for something he could use.

  He briefly wondered what this girl now looked like, that granddaughter of Shapna’s. Colonel S had severed all connections with that family the night Zainal and Siti disappeared. Shapna had been a whore, had brought up Shanti to be a whore, and Colonel S had no doubt that the granddaughter would also be an easy lay for Jay. Unfortunately, he couldn’t wait for Jay to tire of this girl.

  Sluts were so common in this country. Women who were never taught to cover their bodies and pray five times a day, washing themselves and their minds with a habitual holy ritual… there were too many migrant breeds. More kept coming in, like that Tibetan girl. Promiscuity spilled over to politics, and then it became a national problem, when the cure was basic modesty as explained in the Holy Book. Why was that so hard to implement?

  Not that all Malays would agree with him on this. When Siti’s daughters were growing up, Colonel S remembered the new way of Islamic dressing, the fesyen dakwah, as an extremist joke, something that Muslim parents like Zainal and Siti would smile about. Aiyah, don’t know which is worse, lah, having my daughter return in a miniskirt, or a tudung!

  Colonel S had never married. Zainal’s family had filled his own life. Despite everyone’s urging, he had never found a woman pious enough to marry for life. Women, he decided early on, were an unnecessary complication, leading men to indiscretions beyond their control.

  If left to the mini-dressed Chinese and belly-baring Indian women, the men in this country would all be as castrated as that Jay Ghosh and his whoring father. This country was still full of pious Muslims because the women of the ummah were the backbone of this country, and Colonel S would always be thankful for that. Which was why killing a Malay woman was something he had trouble doing. Killing any woman was hard, and he still thought of that Tibetan woman, especially her incandescent beauty on that moonlit night. But killing his first Malay woman had been harder, breaking her neck and throwing her into the swampy marshes… and he had been so young.

  He scrolled through the data detailing Jay’s work in designing and modifying polymers for biomedical applications. Jay’s work was closely associated with local hospitals, and included the prestigious National Heart Centre as well as a well-known cancer centre.

  His prodigy had done well for himself; Colonel S allowed himself a measure of self-congratulation. Jay had been a miserable child, abandoned at that fire in an amusement park and left to die, then abandoned through his teenage years with a distraught mother for company while his father fucked Shapna. Jay’s mother, Ila, was a strong woman, no doubt about that. There were no tantrums, no embarrassing signs of trauma, and she was always there for her two sons. When her children went on stage at school plays, she was always in the audience, and stood behind the rosogolla stall at the Deepavali fundraiser, smiling, with only her children by her side.

  Jay had learnt well from her. To hold his anger close to his heart, and to never let that howl escape. But Colonel S had seen the trauma, and mentored Jay into a position of prominence in Seattle. Colonel S had done all this, even after Jay’s father, like so many foreigners, had chosen to abandon Malaysia and emigrate elsewhere.

  He didn’t fully understand the responsibility he felt for Jay, and Jay did not treat Colonel S with the godlike respect that Colonel S had for Zainal. If you saved a child, over and over again, did he become so much your own that you forgave his shortcomings?

  All this was a small matter in the greater scheme of things. Jay was brilliant in his science, so what if he was emotionally crippled? He probably could not love anyone in any way after what had happened with Shanti. Colonel S just needed Jay’s unflinching loyalty.

  He flipped through the sections describing new work with the biodegradable polymers, the injectable implants and nanoparticles, all leading to more effective gene and drug delivery. His own work was nowhere near as reconstructive. It was as if he and Jay now stood at opposite sides of the same spectrum, using the same technology for very different ends.

  Jay’s work in developing and testing fully biodegradable stent technology would be the most applicable for the cause. The mechanical integrity would last for as long as three or four weeks – giving them the gift of enough time. The properties of cellular-friendly polymer had reduced scarring too. Warriors around the world suffered due to the limits of thermoplasticity in their present method, but Jay’s expertise would solve a lot of the problems.but he would do it. The two bodyguards were in jail for the death of the Tibetan model, but the online bloggers were sniffing at his heels. Colonel S would need to intelligently manoeuvre the balance of blame and patriotism that the present plan required.

  The muezzin’s call from a nearby mosque reminded him it was time to go.

  It was a pity that Jay was turning out to be just like his whore-worshipping father… It was a good thing that he, Colonel S, knew how to control such men. He already had a lifetime of practice from holding the balls of all the adulterous Malaysian politicians he dealt with on a daily basis.

  Twenty-one

  Abhik glanced at the clock on the dashboard as the sudden rain started raking fingers of water down his windscreen. His meeting with the Sisters in Islam had taken longer than he had anticipated, and he would be late unless he drove faster.

  The radio blared Theocracy or Democracy? The burning issues today… Welcome to our discussion for the evening and in the studio today we have…

  The Hindsight 2020 campaign was such a fuck-up. The leaders were determined to march on the streets again, campaigning for minority rights but, as police permission for such a gathering would not ever be granted, Abhik would have to bail out people again. The Prime Minister had personally signed the order for the five ringleaders to be indefinitely detained. The Hindsight 2020 leader who had fled to London to petition the British Government was not making any headway.

  It was too chaotic. He only hoped that there would be no bloodshed but, with the accusations of discrimination and marginalisation flying back and forth in the media, he could hear the increasing stridency on both sides.

  Happy Deepavali!He brutally cut off the chirpy advertisement on the radio. No one else seemed to care about anything important in this country.

  There was so much going on in Malaysia that Agni should be a part of, but if she chose to spend all her time escorting older American men around town, there was not a damn thing that he could do about it.

  Yet he and Agni had been taught the same brand of patriotism in the same school. All the Malaysians at the international school were headed for an overseas education; having choices in this country was only for the rich. Yet, how encompassing the words of the Malaysian national anthem sounded:

  Negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku

  Rakyat hidup bersatu dan maju

  My country, the land where my blood flows

  Citizens live united and progressive

  When the fifth grade teacher, Mrs Narayanan, had taught them the words in school, she got misty-eyed and talked about the womb-blood of the newborn falling onto the ground and becoming one with the country, tying the infant forever to the land of its birth.

  “Cock,” Abhik had sniffed in an undertone, already a rebel at eleven. “So
meone should tell her to stop watching the stupid Tamil movies that fill her head with such rubbish.”

  He had put up his hand and challenged Mrs Narayanan. “How about the immigrants then? Whose womb-blood fell in another country?”

  Mrs Narayanan heaved her ample bosom and replied, “When a man leaves his home to toil in another, his sweat and tears fall and mingle into the new earth, which then adopts him to give him a new motherland.”

  “She’s completely gila,” Abhik had loudly whispered, one finger corkscrewing his right temple for added effect.

  He had always been so certain that his future lay outside Malaysia. But Agni bought into the image of blood emerging from the umbilical cord to mingle with the land, creating a bond stronger than any other. When he and Agni both left, urged by their relatives to seek a more level playing field on foreign shores, they both came reeling back.

  Abhik knew he wanted this imperfect existence on a congenial soil, where the sarong kebaya and the sari, the gaudy and the plain, were perfectly interchangeable. He loved the Rojaksalad of the land, the crisp green cucumber as distinct as the rubbery squid, the whiteness of the egg a contrast to the crush of the peanut, all sweet and sour and hot and pungent, all mixed up together in a clash of the senses.

  This land was like no other. There could be no substitute for this cacophonous warp and weft of dissimilarity that sparkled in the brilliant sunshine. There was so much interbreeding in the country’s history that Malaysia now sold its Truly Asia charms in glossy brochures; this orgiastic spawning of the Indian, Chinese, and Malay races had occurred because sex knew no boundaries – Agni was proof of that. In Malaysia, how could one begin to distinguish the pure Malay ‘sons of the soil’ from the mongrel breed?

  His phone buzzed, and over the speaker he could hear the familiar voice:

  “Confirm already, client in the office in two hours. Where the fuck are you?”

  The client didn’t come in the next two hours; he made them wait for six. Abhik waited with the elderly Punjabi lawyer and one of the clerical staff, the three of them sitting in the meeting room, each one silently counting the many ways things could have gone wrong.