by Anosh Irani
He sat on a tricycle and rode it around the ring. Five red balloons were tied to the seat of the tricycle, and as he pedalled Raju made a mental note to tell the band that their tempo was too slow. Or was he speeding out of sheer excitement? He was in a hurry to get to the centre of the ring, but not before he made sure that Sheila was watching. He had told her earlier that he was trying out a new routine and wanted her opinion on it. As he got off the tricycle, he faced the audience. Behind him, the tricycle was rising in the air, the balloons helped by an invisible cable. This always got a laugh. In response to the laughter, Raju looked at his fly to see if it was undone, then smelled his underarms to check for bad odours. Finally, he gave a shrug and turned around, then smacked his own head with his hand when he saw that the tricycle was missing, hitting himself so hard he knocked himself out. As he went through his routine, Raju felt great. He was timing his falls beautifully tonight.
Next, he took a piece of paper from his pocket. He checked his shirt for his reading glasses, but found a pair of dark glasses instead. He put these on, tried to read the note, then shouted: “Who turned the lights off?” Another round of laughter. Upon realizing his folly, he found his reading glasses. Throughout his routine Raju could feel the ring in his pocket, the pulse of a future life. At one point, as he roped in a little boy from the audience and included him in his routine, he noticed Sheila looking on, approvingly. There was no doubt he would be a good father. Boy or girl, he would welcome the child. As he tumbled through the air and fell expertly on his buttocks, he tried out names. He would call the girl Julie. The boy he would call Johnny, after Johnny Lever. Johnny and Julie. Why not have two? As his act ended, he signalled to the band, and they began to play Raju’s favourite Hindi song: “Mere Sapno Ki Rani.” It was an instrumental version, but Raju thought of how he had sung this song to Sheila a hundred times, calling her the ultimate Queen of his Dreams.
Now he looked over at Sheila and waved for her to walk out and join him. For a second, she seemed confused, but Raju pointed to the band, as if to say, “Can’t you hear my love for you?” The spotlight hit her and she became a silver thing in silver light. Raju felt as if he was in a trance. He had never before seen a being such as Sheila. It was time to go down on one knee. But first, he put his hand in his pocket and removed the velvet pouch. It was Ghulam Ali who nudged Sheila forward. The audience was hushed, not sure if this was part of the act. But now the ringmaster took over, calling into the microphone that this was real, and that Raju the Clown was hooked, booked, and cooked, and the crowd went wild. They only fell silent again when they saw Raju, the tiny man, drop to one knee, opening himself up to love.
Sheila was only a few steps away from him now, and when he looked up at her, he saw she was smiling. Was there a tear in her eye as well? If only his mother was alive to witness this: five hundred people watching Raju propose to his wife. The same Raju who had wept in her lap every night because he could not make a single friend. His mother would love Sheila; yes, perhaps she might not approve of Sheila’s short dress, but that was okay.
Still on one knee, he placed the ring on Sheila’s finger and looked up at her face again, and as he did, he caught a glimpse of the trapeze hanging high above. It was still and empty.
* * *
—
THAT NIGHT, AFTER A HUNDRED congratulatory thumps on Raju’s back from his fellow circus performers and audience members, Raju and Sheila lay next to each other in Raju’s tent. On most nights, Raju felt uncomfortable lying alongside Sheila, but tonight, with both their heads on the pillow, the fact that his feet reached her knees did not dampen him.
“How many do you want?” he asked her.
“How many…?”
“Children,” he said softly, kissing her ear.
“Oh God,” she said. “We’re not even married.”
“I’m serious,” he told her.
“But Raju, if I get pregnant, how will we live? If I stop working…”
“Let me take care of that.”
“But how? All the money you spent on this,” she said, raising her finger, admiring the ring. “How much did this cost?”
“In the shop it cost too much,” said Raju. “But on you, it costs nothing.”
“I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you,” she said softly, facing away from Raju.
“Just answer my question.”
“Let’s get married first,” she replied. “Then we’ll talk.”
“I’ve booked the church for Sunday,” he said.
He longed to have a church wedding. He did not care much for religious ceremonies or vows, but he liked the way the light fell through stained glass windows. That was all. The circus would come to an end on Saturday night and the next morning he and Sheila would get married. On Sunday evening the circus would move from the school grounds of Clare Road to the suburbs, where he would perform for another three months. This would give them both a decent amount of cash—nothing great, but enough to allow them movies and clothes from time to time, and late night auto rickshaw rides along Bandstand.
“This ring is loose,” said Sheila. “See?”
She moved it back and forth on her finger, and the diamond turned as she did so, like a small planet showing its shiny face then moving away to grace another part of the universe. Raju clasped his hand around hers and held it to his chest. Nothing needed to be said. After a long time, luck was with him, or perhaps kindness. To have a kind person next to you, and just one hand to hold. He fell asleep, sinking into the blessed future of his own life.
* * *
—
SOMETHING WOKE HIM. It was the smell of elephant dung, unusually strong. He opened his eyes. Sheila wasn’t next to him in bed. Through the fabric of the tent, he could see shapes, two human shapes. He recognized one of them: a tall, lanky male with long hair; maybe what he had smelled wasn’t elephant dung at all but this male, whose rottenness was hidden by his beautiful physique. He heard Sheila’s voice whisper hoarsely, “No.”
Raju jumped out of bed and went outside. Only Sheila was there, scanning the ground for something.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Sheila didn’t answer, and wouldn’t look at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked again.
“It fell,” she said.
“What fell?”
“I can’t find it. I went for a walk. It was on my finger…but now it’s not there.”
“Who was that here with you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Just now, there was a man…”
“There was no one,” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw…”
But Raju was no longer sure what he had seen. His thoughts were confused. Why had Sheila gone for a walk in the middle of the night? What had happened to the ring? He fell to his knees and started scanning the grass inch by inch.
“It’s not there,” Sheila cried.
“Why did you go for a walk?” He kept his head down, searching frantically, casting pebbles aside.
“I was so happy, I couldn’t sleep. I thought of home…of my sister and mother…how happy they would be,” she said.
“There was someone with you just now,” Raju said. “I saw—”
“Will you stop?” she said. “Please stop.”
Her voice cracked, and so did Raju’s life. He was sure of what he had seen. He had seen shapes. And shapes could not be trusted. Weren’t shapes illusions? Weren’t shadows meant to scare people, to make things seem larger than they were? He could feel Sheila beside him, crying. Even though she hadn’t made a sound, he could sense her going under, the way a beautiful cat hides under a chair when there is too much noise. He could not bear to look at her, so he stayed on his knees. He was walking on them now, quickly covering ground. Luckily for him, the outside lights were still on. He would scan every inch around the circus tent even if it made the skin on his knees raw, even if all he had found so far were bott
le corks and chewing gum wrappers and a five-rupee coin, which he threw aside along with more pebbles and some worms. Was everyone in on it? Everyone on his list from yesterday morning, all the ones who wanted him gone? Had Tariq managed to seduce them all? Had Ghulam Ali joined them as well? No, no, that was unthinkable.
He remained on his knees, head down, kneeling before the earth, where he and the ring surely belonged—anything to prevent him from looking at the face of his beloved, where he knew exactly what he would find: more shapes, more shadows.
* * *
As a child, Sujoy had constantly heard that New York was just as crowded and dirty as Bombay. “More people,” was what his father would say. “Who wants to see more people?” Then he would lower his head like a crow and, with bent beak, continue marking the papers of his geography students.
Now, decades later, here was Sujoy in New York: forty-five years old, seated in a chair opposite a talk show host, staring into the dark—or rather, into the bright lights and the darkness beyond—where the audience waited for him to speak. They were mostly women, he’d been told, and some had travelled a fair distance to attend—from Texas, from New Orleans, from Kansas, from places he remembered seeing on his father’s maps. Those maps had been in the atlas, that precious atlas, which he was allowed to peruse only in his father’s presence. He’d been fascinated by all the blue and green, marvellous as a magic trick, waiting for him to dive into. He was always extra careful when he turned the pages, following his father’s strict instructions: with the tip of his forefinger Sujoy was made to unpeel the top right-hand corner of the page, bring it towards him like a giant wave, turn it, then let it fall gently. Sujoy wanted only to get to the next page so he could eat the blue and green all over again, but his father would hover above him, ensuring that some of the magic was lost. That was the true purpose of fatherhood—to kill magic. When Sujoy would look to his mother for support, she would only smile her gentle smile, weak as a muscle that had atrophied.
More people. That’s what his father had seen in that atlas. No matter the country, state, or city Sujoy pointed to, what his father saw was a disappointing race of humans, sweaty and pointless, sweating pointlessly. Where Sujoy saw crystal-blue water, his father saw sweat, pools of it, rivers of it, oceans of it. As a child, Sujoy had tried not to inhabit his father’s mind, but often he couldn’t help himself.
Even now, in New York, he heard his father’s voice: More people.
But today they were here for him—for his food, and to learn the art of making an “authentic” Indian meal. He was constantly told his food was “so authentic.” At first he had not really understood what this meant. He cooked the only way he knew how, the way his mother had taught him. But after he had eaten at some Indian restaurants in New York, the meaning became clear. Some of the meals had been great—but that was like saying the music in an opera was superb, except for when the soprano hit the wrong notes.
The audience laughed when he said this, and the host gave him a warm smile. Sujoy liked her warmth. He had seen a few episodes of her show, and appreciated that she didn’t cut her way into the lives of her guests with a scalpel. In any case, there was nothing sensational for him to tell about his past.
“No, no,” he gushed, when she asked. “Nothing here…”
His story was nothing like that of the other people she had interviewed over the years—politicians, movie stars, artists, trailblazers. That was the word James had used: trailblazers. James, his business partner. James, who’d shared a flat with the host in university. They were great friends, and she was doing James a favour by interviewing Sujoy. When Sujoy had expressed his discomfort at being on the show through the back door, James was very clear: “If she didn’t think you had something, she’d never take you on.” Sujoy had done well during his mock interview over the phone. But now, this was for real. And reality, even when it came to the most mundane acts such as dusting furniture or filling out a form, always arrived with a degree of difficulty for Sujoy.
“Nothing here,” he said again. The host stared at him for three seconds, maybe four, but it felt like hours.
“Butter chicken,” she said at last to the audience. “We’re here to learn how to cook Gupta’s Butter Chicken.”
At Sujoy’s restaurant, this dish was named after him; he’d used his last name instead of his first because it had a better ring—or so he was told. But for some reason, when the host said it out loud today, the words startled him. There was nothing to be afraid of, he admonished himself. He could make this dish with his eyes closed. In fact, he felt it was imperative to close one’s eyes at some point during the cooking, to get the aroma right. Just calm down, he told himself; that was for later. Nothing to worry about, Sujoy. This is the most common of Indian dishes, one that the goras love, especially the Brits. The whole country of England lived on butter chicken, didn’t it? Sure, these were Americans—but they had embraced it too. It was the signature dish in his New York restaurant. That was James’s doing. Sujoy knew nothing about selling, but James could sell skis to a Bedouin.
“Just go out there and be yourself,” James had told Sujoy on their way to the studio.
This was code for “don’t screw up.” If the gig went well, it could lead to more restaurants. Sujoy had three of his own in Mumbai, and was now partner in the one in New York. Two of the greatest cities in the world, Sujoy thought, even though his father would strongly disagree. More algae, more bacteria.
As Sujoy moved from his chair opposite the host to a table piled with ingredients, he felt a shiver up his spine. A cold tingle of excitement about future prospects, about those women from Kansas and Texas going back home and making his butter chicken for their Johns and Jacks. “You’ll be the next Colonel Sanders,” James had said to him, half in jest. But Sujoy didn’t want to be the Colonel; he just wanted to be major. He had rehearsed this bad joke in his head, to use should the opportunity arise. He walked towards the table, which was so clean and sanitary he felt as though he was in a lab. He had a sudden, intense desire to mess things up. So he did.
“There,” he said, when he was done. “Now it looks like my mother’s kitchen.”
* * *
—
OUTSIDE THE HOUSE IN BOMBAY, IT was especially hot—oven hot, fire hot, call-it-what-you-like hot. For the past couple of weeks Sujoy had begged his father to take him swimming, but the fees at the YMCA were steep, and the cheaper Sunday swims inconvenient for his father. Sunday was a day for rest, endless cups of tea, reading the morning papers, and talking about the Congress Party, about Indira Gandhi. Sunday, every Sunday, was when his father told him, “There is a difference of only one letter between India and Indira. That r stands for respect. She commands respect.” Sunday was the day Sujoy’s father assessed the state of the nation; for Sujoy, Sunday was the one day he got to leave his nation behind, at least in his imagination.
“Meena, you may fetch him the atlas,” his father would say.
And Sujoy’s mother would dutifully go to her husband’s study, which was nothing more than a small nook in the wall, with a rickety desk and a bunch of ink refills. But on that desk, placed like a monument, was the atlas. Sujoy’s mother would “fetch” it, as though her husband were unleashing a playful dog onto the grass. A cloth was placed on the floor, and the atlas on the cloth.
The Times Atlas of the World. A cover so generously blue, it was perfect for a hot summer’s day. Its price, fifty-five pounds, a small fortune. Sometimes Sujoy tried to convert that into rupees, but the sum was so vast, he could never complete the calculation. Most important of all, at least to his father, was the symbol of a huge crown on the first page, with an inscription:
E R
To Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II
The Times Atlas of the World
Is with her most gracious permission
Respectfully dedicated by
Her Majesty’s Cartographers
John Bartholomew & Son Limited
Sujoy’s father was a huge admirer of the monarchy. While he gave his nod to Indira personally, he felt the Brits had bolstered India, given it respectability and class, and proof of that lay in the debris that remained once they’d left. Garbage everywhere, flies, trains that smelled like sweat balloons, open-air pissing and shitting, corruption that could break your spirit in two and then slice it in half all over again. “What did we do with India?” His father didn’t sing—at least Sujoy had never heard him do so—but when he lamented about India, he became a songbird, and this was his chorus. And when he touched his atlas, he traced his fingers along its pages as a blind person would, as if searching for something.
Sujoy’s father had won the atlas. Sujoy vividly remembered the day this had happened, two years ago. It had been Sujoy’s eighth birthday, a Sunday. He and his parents were listening intently to the radio because his father had entered a quiz show and the results were about to be declared. When the name of the winner was called out, his father’s face had changed, registering a shock—but not the happy kind. At first, Sujoy had seen a light, feathery caress, as if made by an artist’s brush, a stroke of joy that added a lucky hue to his father’s face; but then, almost instantly, the face had changed, and happiness was replaced by a dawning realization: What if this is the best thing that will ever happen to me? What if this is it?
That’s what his father’s expression had said. And that became his father’s Sunday face.
Now, every Sunday, Sujoy stared at that face. It had bothered him initially, but after a while he chose to accept the good that had come with the arrival of the atlas. Who needs the YMCA? Sujoy thought, when I can simply dive into these pages of oceans. He chose to focus his interest on the South Pacific Ocean, the Bellingshausen Sea specifically, near the northern part of Antarctica, the part that looked like the continent was giving a thumbs-up sign to the rest of the world. Cold, shivery waters. Perfect for the Bombay heat, perfect for bringing his heart to a sudden freeze, the way love does.