Arzee the Dwarf

by Chandrahas Choudhury

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, Suite 300, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Copyright © 2009 Chandrahas Choudhury

  First published in India in 2009 by HarperCollins Publishers India.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher.

  Cover photograph: © Fernando Gregory/123RF.com

  Cover design: Ian Durovic Stewart

  eISBN: 978-1-59017-753-2

  The NYRB Lit e-book Arzee the Dwarf published in the United States in 2013.

  For a complete list of books in the NYRB Lit series, visit www.nyrb.com

  v3.1

  Arzee the Dwarf

  CHANDRAHAS CHOUDHURY

  NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

  New York

  Contents

  1. Arzee

  2. Looking Forward

  3. Caught by Deepak

  4. At the Noor

  5. Phirozbhai and the Great Beam

  6. Mother and Other Elders

  7. The Old Wadia Chawl

  8. Deepak, Work, Love, and God

  9. Being a Bottle

  10. Hours with Monique

  11. It’s Only Me

  12. The Body’s Secret Grief

  13. A Wedding

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Mette Moestrup

  ONE

  Arzee

  Ever since he’d taken up this way, things had changed. It was difficult to say precisely how, or what this had brought him, but he knew they had, so then? He’d cast away some worthless notions and become newly open to others; he uttered words he did not mean, and was secretly pleased he’d said them. He offered less, took more; he was not flat-footed any longer, but threw himself into the dance. Of course, he was still small – that he could never do anything about. But…he wanted people to always find themselves up against that ‘but’ when they thought of him.

  In sum and record, he’d spread himself wider, wider, wider. He’d been too predictable earlier, too submissive, a soft touch. Each day in the world was a battle against the might and will of myriad forces, so then why shouldn’t he change track and direction as it suited him? A man couldn’t just be as he was, as he felt he should be – this world wasn’t a place for feelings! Instead he had to figure out what his situation was, and then set himself up to deal with that, to hold his own – just as plants couldn’t grow unless they turned their heads towards the sun. He saw how, being ignorant of these primary truths, and being so straight and simple, and not keeping anything in reserve, he’d been a fool in the past, and naturally he’d received a fool’s return. If he so much as lent out a cigarette now…he’d make a mental note of that! The world was on credit when dealing with him – there was plenty it had to pay back.

  Had it struck anyone how much he’d changed? Arzee wasn’t sure. People were so caught up with themselves that they knew, they kept telling, their own histories in the minutest detail, but at the same time were oblivious to major movements in others! Or if they did notice a change, they hankered after the old person who had now vanished, not respecting the laws of age, time, and motion. But that wasn’t possible – earlier he might have admitted their claims, but not any more. They weren’t in charge of who he was – he was!

  For a long time he’d nursed his wounds in his small heart that simmered with rage and bitterness, but now he was back to moving forward, to looking forward. In the wake and aftermath of that matter he tried not to think about any more, he’d emerged not weaker but stronger. Stronger!

  Why, in some ways he’d only been a boy before.

  TWO

  Looking Forward

  At noon on a significant day in August, Arzee was playing cards with his friends in the small room of Shinde the driver.

  They were four: Arzee, chewing gum, perched jauntily upon a sack of rice that raised him higher than the others; round-bellied Shinde the driver, as breathless as a bus wheezing on a choked street even in rest; and Hari of the brass band, bare-chested, wearing only the gold-lined red trousers of his uniform. Lastly, there was a fellow whom Hari had picked up somewhere that morning to make a hand of four, and whose name Arzee hadn’t bothered to store. What did he care? This was a city of fifteen million. He might never see this X again. And if the man wanted to be friends…let him speak first! Arzee couldn’t keep going out of his way to make others feel comfortable.

  Although it was day outside, it was like night inside – Arzee seemed to float through night-worlds day and night. The dirty curtains at the windows were drawn, and a naked bulb hanging from a wire cast a sticky light over the scene, which resembled the sanctum of a temple at the moment when the most pious devotees gather around the deity after everyone else has gone, and speak in hushed voices. Tinny music was being forced out of a transistor lying on its side, supplying the beat that improved the taste of the cheap spirits glowing in glasses. A leaky water pipe was whispering under the sink, as if it was privy to a secret it could never forget, and behind the bed in the corner could be heard the persistent scraping of a mouse that had invited itself into Shinde’s home. It was – for some time it had been – Arzee’s turn to play.

  ‘Your chance,’ said the stranger.

  There was a distracted expression on Arzee’s face as he held up his cards in the stubby fingers of his left hand. His gaze was roving, as if pulled by invisible threads – he was thinking of something else. At the outsider’s prompting he looked again at his hopeless hand. Although his life was surging forward, his planets moving rapidly into new positions, in the matter of cards his luck was still the same as ever! Arzee was superstitious: on a day like this, it would be inauspicious to lose. He spoke up suddenly:

  ‘Listen! I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘Play first!’ commanded Shinde. ‘I know you well.’

  Arzee muttered something, folded his wad of gum into a bus ticket and put it away, and looked at his cards again. As he leaned back to reach into his trouser pocket, his head, which was large in comparison to his body, retreated from the light, and for a moment he was only a nose jutting out above a pair of pursed lips and a craggy chin. Hari made a sardonic remark just out of reach of Arzee’s ears, and everyone snickered. Arzee’s chin tightened and the lips drew in a sharp breath, and then his face reappeared whole again, fierce now with its bushy eyebrows and bright beady eyes. Usually Arzee was quick to take offence. Often he took offence when none was meant. But today he only grinned and stuck a cigarette between his crooked front teeth. Suddenly he drew his small leg back, as if a puppet moved by a string, and then with a whoosh of motion he sent all the cards on the floor flying into the faces of his sputtering friends.

  Delighted by the consternation he had caused, he raised his arms above him and screeched, ‘Aiee…look at what I’ve done! And I was going to win in another two plays!’

  ‘You little…!’ cried Hari, throwing down his hand in disgust.

  ‘It’s a draw! The court is adjourned!’ cried Arzee. ‘It was time for me to go anyway.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been time if these two jacks here had been with you!’

  ‘Could be, could be,’ cackled Arzee, rubbing his hands together. ‘Remember, all’s fair and fine, friends, when life’s not fair.’

  And now, though he was keen not to be interrupted, he
paused for a moment before he said what he’d been wanting to say for the last ten minutes – what he’d been wanting to say, and yet was unable to say, for fear of getting ahead of himself. But he’d gone over the possibilities so carefully! There couldn’t be any conclusion other than this. He couldn’t be fearful any more – he’d told himself that a hundred times. Yet old fears weren’t so easily shaken off – they seeped into you, and became a part of you. Then again, to not enjoy what was yours – that was almost as bad as not having it at all.

  He stood up, hitched his trousers up, and cleared his throat. The tip of his belt, short of its loop, stuck out in front of him as if making its own point.

  ‘Are you going?’ said Hari. ‘What are you shaking like that for?’

  ‘Listen! I’ve got news,’ said Arzee. ‘It’s about the cinema. Phiroz is…I’m getting a promotion.’

  Phiroz K. Pir – was – retiring. After more than thirty years as head projectionist of the Noor cinema, old Phiroz was going to call it a day and pass on the custody of the projection room and the Babur to his deputy. Yes! The end credits were soon going to be rolling on Phirozbhai’s career, with the names of his mother and father, his employers, his friends and assistants, his late wife, the cinema dog Tyson. The strange thing was: there was no special reason for Phiroz to retire now. As he was already past seventy, and not significantly better or worse off than five years ago, he might as well have carried on, till the call came for him from above to quit not just the Noor but this world altogether, and his soul was projected into the heavens on a beam like the one that arrowed across the Noor. But Arzee saw how there must come a point in a man’s life when he realizes he has run his course: he need go on no longer, and now his life will actually run in reverse, as he puts his feet up and thinks about the old times, about all the departed ones who’d once held taut his days.

  And so Phirozbhai, who’d been in show business from the time his hair was thick and dark, and the movies only blacks and whites and greys, and the heroines so demure and chaste, had decided, voluntarily, to take his leave of the crumbling but still-grand empire. It was hard to believe that very soon Phiroz’s thick-set, forward-bent figure, a jute bag on one shoulder, the lips mumbling what only the ears could hear, would no longer be seen entering and leaving the cinema at exactly the same hour each day – hard to imagine that his balding and professorial head, the oblong cranium nearly bare except for two strips of hair above each ear the size of combs, would no longer be seen sticking out of the window on the top floor as he studied the colour of the sky between reels, or tossed grain to the pigeons doing skips and turns on the window sill. But that was how it was, how it was going to be. It was now the age of Arzee. Of course Phiroz could still come and visit whenever he liked. Whenever – he – liked.

  Shinde clapped Arzee repeatedly on the back, shaking up his bones and the cigarette out of his mouth, and bellowed, ‘You’re on the top floor, Arzoo! You’re at the climax! Tell me – tell me how it feels! Does it feel good? Does it feel really good?’ He jiggled lewdly.

  Arzee hated being called Arzoo, which was the name his mother used for him, but he was so excited that this time he did not protest.

  ‘But how?’ said Hari, who, like Shinde, knew all about Phiroz without ever having met him. ‘How did the old Parsi finally make way?’

  ‘I might have had something to do with it,’ said Arzee, with a laugh. ‘I’ve been playing around with old Phiroz. I say I can’t find things where they should be – that the reels in the cabinet aren’t in the right order. Actually, Phiroz is so far gone there isn’t any way of dealing with him without also playing with him. If I look at him steadily for a minute or two, I have to wave my hands in front of my eyes, to jerk them out of slow motion. And it takes him the length of a reel to walk up the last flight of stairs to the projection room. Any day now he’s going to stop completely, and become a statue. Speed – that’s what we need at the Noor!’ he crowed. ‘Not slowness, not sleepiness. The trouble is that Phiroz has a daughter who’s yet to be married. That’s why he’s kept going for all these years. But yesterday I learnt that he’d gone to the manager and given notice.’

  ‘Why don’t you marry his daughter, Arzee? Let everything that he owns be passed over to you.’

  ‘Me? Never! She’s sure to be ugly as a dog, that’s why her father’s still stuck with her,’ said Arzee. But the jest had struck its target, and even as this remark left his lips his face darkened, and he spoke up once again:

  ‘Actually, I might also be getting married in a few months. Mother is looking at a proposal. The girl is from Nasik.’

  As soon as Arzee had uttered these words, which were greeted with more whoops and whistles, he wished he had reined in his tongue. But it was too late now. He’d just gone with the good feeling and said it! Now that he was twenty-eight, marriage was a particularly touchy issue with him, and so when the matter was touched he always spoke up right away, like one of those press-button dolls. But he did so want to get married, and show he was just like anybody else. He wanted to accumulate all the things that would make him a bigger, a more secure person. He didn’t want people to joke and titter about him – not to his face, and not even in private. Now the joke was to be on them. They should suffer intensely for all that he had gone through. He’d see to it himself, as his power swelled. Then he’d laugh.

  ‘So there’s going to be a wedding soon!’ said Hari. ‘The story comes to an end with a wedding. I’m going to compose a tune for this special occasion, Arzee. A great tune. Everybody be quiet… I can hear it coming already.’

  ‘I’ve heard your new tunes – you just stick to the old ones,’ said Arzee, and cackled. ‘And now, my friends, I’ll be making a move. If you want to play tomorrow, give me a call. Remember, the best warnings are always the earliest ones.’

  ‘Arzee…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m totally broke. Could you lend me a fifty? Anyway, you’re going to be swimming in riches shortly.’

  ‘Who said so?’ said Arzee, and hesitated. ‘A fifty? I’ll have to see. Did I bring my wallet with me? Um…I did. But I think I only have a five hundred, and one or two tens…why don’t you take it from Hari or our friend here?’ But Shinde kept looking at him. ‘Actually, there is a fifty in here, but I need it myself, because nobody’s going to give me change for five hundred.’ But Shinde kept looking at him. ‘That’s why…all right, here it is. But remember to pay me back tomorrow. Money doesn’t grow on trees.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back right away,’ said Shinde. ‘Here’s your fifty.’

  ‘What’s the meaning of this madness?’ said Arzee, but he could already see what the meaning was. Shinde was rolling on the floor, clutching his stomach.

  ‘I was just checking if good fortune has done anything to change our miser friend – ho ho ho!’ he laughed. ‘But once a tightfist, always a tightfist. Did I ever tell you: in school he once bought me a samosa in sixth standard because I’d forgotten my lunch money. And he kept pestering me about it till I bought him one back in eighth standard – ho ho ho!’

  ‘You’re a bastard and the son of a whore, that’s what,’ said Arzee. ‘Lend me a fifty yourself if you’re so generous. I know you won’t get a wink of sleep till I return it.’ He put his wallet back into his pocket, and tried to look haughty. ‘So…if you people are done with your jokes, I’ll go now.’

  ‘I saw Ranade’s ghost in the corridor this morning,’ said Hari. ‘Don’t take fright if you see him.’

  ‘I won’t. Why should I? He won’t mess with me, as I never knew him,’ said Arzee.

  He tied up a truant shoelace, put his collar up, and left with a breezy wave, thinking of Ranade.

  If ever there was an instance of someone so in love with this world that even death could not tear him away from the established routine and unfinished business of living, then it was Ranade the stockbroker, who used to live – still lived – on the floor just below Shinde. Two years ago Ranade, a bach
elor, had been hit by a stroke and passed away. But not for long, for it seemed he’d passed right back in. Within a week of what was thought to be his final, irreversible departure he was seen back on his first-floor corridor – and not even furtively in the black of night, but nonchalantly, in the clear light of day. His hand was at his lips and he kept drawing and exhaling as if smoking a cigarette, as he often would when taking a break from work when he was alive. One person, not knowing who he was talking to, had even held a conversation with him for ten minutes, and had come away with advice to hold on to Larsen & Toubro and sell India Cements. Ranade’s belongings had all been disposed of, but at night Shinde heard the familiar sounds of a tapping at a keyboard from down below, and the scraping of a spoon as Ranade ate his lonely dinner. As the room was clearly haunted, no one was willing to rent it any more. And so Ranade stayed right where he was, and it was as if he’d never gone. Out of curiosity, Shinde had left a pack of cigarettes at Ranade’s door one night, and the next morning it was gone! Ghosts weren’t as airy and insubstantial as was commonly thought, but clearly had a need for the goods of this world. Perhaps there were many others like Ranade in the city. Once it was established there was one like him, there was no reason why there couldn’t be more, all playing the part of life even as they answered the roll-call of the world after. What a curious thing was life – and death too.

  As Arzee went skipping down the staircase, he stopped on the first floor to peep into the corridor, but there was only a cat there, prowling with its tail raised. Perhaps Ranade was working inside his room. Arzee grinned and went on his way.

  All the way down he could hear the clamour, and when he arrived on the narrow street, he found himself swamped by shrieking schoolchildren in their whites and navy-blues, hurtling past after being ejected from the gates of the school at the other end of the street, just by where he lived. The sight of children always dismayed Arzee, and not just because they made him feel old. Although they were no more than ten or eleven, they were all taller than him. Their smooth cheeks seemed to be laughing at his stubbled blue, their growing limbs flexing and showing off in front of his stopped ones. Their curious looks disconcerted him – they couldn’t be allowed to roam like this! He stopped till the head of the storm had passed, leaving trails of stragglers licking ice-creams, trading marbles, or flying paper rockets. He walked past these last ones, meeting their stares with stares till they looked away. He leapt at the low branch of a tree, and brought down a handful of leaves. In the grey sky, clouds seemed to be idly grazing like sheep, and the rumbling from behind them was curiously soothing.