Arzee the Dwarf

by Chandrahas Choudhury

  The Noor Cinema occupied only one half of the Noor building. The other half was a warren of mazy corridors and tiny suffocated offices, many of them shut and barred, as if concealing unspeakable secrets. In the entrance to that side of the building strange characters were always hanging around: gaunt grey-haired men in safari suits with gold-plated pens clipped onto their pockets, or portly fellows with talcum powder on their necks and their oily hair combed flat upon their skulls. Precisely what they were doing, or whom they were waiting for, it was hard to say. Perhaps they were ghosts just like Ranade, men who had been working here all their lives and who preferred to stay on in a familiar place than be part of the rabble of the afterworld. Arzee had always meant to spend an afternoon exploring that side of the building, but somehow once you got into a routine in Bombay, you never managed to break it and make time for new things. But he’d go someday – maybe next Monday. Now that Phiroz was leaving, it was ever more his duty to know the building whole.

  If the men on the far side of the Noor were spectres, those standing now in the courtyard of the cinema oozed life. Their eyes were hungry and their manner restless; some were scratching their armpits and others their crotches. They were making small talk, masticating cheap snacks, running plastic combs through their hair, and turning every few moments to gaze at the beautiful skin, limbs, and curves of the figures in the posters in the front window. As he pushed through the throng Arzee could feel the heat of their lust, their eagerness to be let in and be taken.

  It was still half an hour to the afternoon show. The gateman, Tawde, was slouching at the door, and the cinema dog, Tyson, was lying at Tawde’s feet, his head between his paws and his eyes half-shut. As soon as he spotted Arzee he came rushing out and threw himself against Arzee’s chest, growling and snapping, for his was a rough love. Arzee grabbed the dog by the neck and growled back. Grappling and tussling, they edged through the half-open doors of the Noor, and vanished almost at once into the darkness.

  ‘Ei, Arzee!’ said Tawde as Arzee went past. ‘Mr Abjani said he wanted to speak to you.’

  ‘Abjani wants to speak to me? I wonder what for,’ said Arzee, and chortled. ‘Ug-rrr! Is he in his room?’

  ‘He is. But he’s eating lunch.’

  ‘O-ho. All the more reason to disturb him then,’ said Arzee.

  ‘Ug-rrr! Get off me, dumb dog, before I kick you where it hurts!’

  Even after all these years it took Arzee a few moments to adjust to the the Noor’s immense Noorian gloom, its peculiar Noorian smell. The Noor was one murky cavern enclosing another: unlike other cinemas, you left the world behind not when you stepped into the auditorium, but from the very moment you set foot inside the cinema. The air inside was heavy and stale, as if let in on some primordial evening and never let out again, and the dimness and mustiness of the lobby and the corridors prepared patrons for the darkness and airlessness of the great hall, from which the thick, distorted sounds of the climactic scenes of Saathi were now leaking. Embedded in the ceiling, so far above Arzee’s head as almost to be a second sky, were three big jhumars, or disco lights. But these were never switched on any longer because it was too expensive – it was not any more a time for grandeur here. Instead a pair of morose tube lights in the lobby illuminated two marble statues of buxom nymphs on pedestals with their arms upraised, and showed the way forward to a corridor on the left leading to the stalls, and a wide staircase on the right leading up to the balcony. A cleaner boy in shirt and long shorts was swabbing the floor with water from a pail, so the smell of cheap disinfectant was strong. In one corner of the lobby was a counter advertising the sale of popcorn, wafers and cold drinks. Just before the interval, Kaputkar the ticket clerk, presently seated in his little cabin with the barred window stamping tickets and insisting he had no change for a hundred, would come in and take charge of this counter. Arzee knocked on the door of Kaputkar’s cabin. ‘Got change for a hundred?’ he asked, and cackled and moved on.

  The owner of the Noor was the mysterious Rajneesh Sharma, son of the legendary film financier Sahil Sharma. Nobody had seen Rajneesh Sharma for ten years. He lived the life of a recluse in his walled fortress in Malad, and only his name did the rounds of the world. Indeed, when they spoke his name in the Noor, they liked to draw out its second syllable for the longest time, as if all the mystery of his existence was wrapped inside that neeeeeeeeshhhhhhhhh. Some said he was suffering from a mysterious disease and that he spent all his time watching Formula 1 on TV; others insisted that he’d had a higher vision which made a nonsense of the world, and after that he had nowhere else to go but deep into himself. Whatever the truth, the Noor’s actual custodian was the long-time manager Mr Abjani, who’d begun as a ticket clerk back in the seventies and risen through the ranks. Taking inspiration from this story, Kaputkar was dreaming of becoming the manager a decade from now. Kaputkar as manager – what a laugh. Kaputkar’s own children ran rings around him!

  Abjani’s office was on the ground floor. But when Arzee pushed open the swing doors and peeped inside Abjani was nowhere to be seen, though a newspaper and a chequebook were open on his desk. A half-eaten plate of food lay on a side table. It appeared that Abjani had had trouble digesting his lunch, and retired to his private washroom. Arzee grinned, and left the office. There was a laugh to be had out of every person who worked at the Noor: Tawde’s fatness and sloth, Phiroz’s vast array of eccentricities, Abjani’s digestion, Kaputkar’s steepling ambition. On this one count, it was a pity that Phiroz was leaving. It would be as if one animal in the zoo that was the Noor had died.

  Back in the lobby, Tawde was trying to prevent two strident eunuchs from entering, and the temporary projectionist Sule, who was employed on half-pay to cover for Arzee and Phiroz, was watching their exchanges with the greatest fascination. Sule had such a pathetic, forlorn air that Arzee despised him, and, as Sule could never hurt him, he did not bother to disguise his feelings. Sule was the sort of person who looked for permission even to blow his nose; even Tyson had more self-respect than he. Tyson himself was following a cockroach with his nose as it ground and bumped its way over the floor like a desert vehicle. Just as he was about to pounce, the cockroach put on a burst of speed and shot into a crevice. Arzee chuckled, and Tyson looked up at him with mournful milky eyes. Phiroz was of the opinion that the dog was getting cataracts, that he was actually using his nose as his eyes. Now Tyson shook himself vigorously and went loping up the staircase, his balls shaking from side to side between his legs as if keeping time. Arzee glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll have a word with the ladies till the time Abjani returns,’ he said to himself, and followed Tyson up.

  The balcony was a part of the Noor to which almost no one ever came, since the stalls were cheaper, and the men who came to the Noor were cheap. A corridor ran all around it, and pinned on the walls of this corridor, like a parade of angels, were the ladies he had come to see. Each one of the framed photographs was almost as big as Arzee, and all the great divas and sirens of Bollywood through the decades were here, fixed in time, eternally radiant: bright-eyed porcelain-cheeked Madhubala, Nadia Hunterwali airily smoking a cigarette in a holder, sweet childlike Geeta Bali, pensive long-faced Nargis with her gaze averted, light-footed Vyjayanthimala decked from head to foot in jewels, tender doe-eyed Nutan, fiery Waheeda Rehman with eyes flashing at a slight, delicate Sharmila Tagore with her hair in a bouffant, coquettish Mumtaz batting her eyelids, spectacular Helen with eyes like bright pools of light, Dimple Kapadia looking ravishing in a swimsuit, Hema Malini of the alabaster skin, voluptuous Zeenat Aman, smouldering Rekha, sylphlike Shabana Azmi, Sridevi dewy as a morning flower, and Madhuri Dixit of the iridescent hundred-watt smile. There were no actresses from the present – the Noor granted its approval cautiously. But Arzee had made up his mind to ask Abjani if, to commemorate his crowning, they could put in two of his favourites from the current lot, one of whom was still only a starlet. He walked silently from one woman to the other as he loved to do, admiring thei
r hairstyles, eyes, cheekbones, throats, collarbones, the swell of their breasts, but also something ineffable within them, some secret emanation from their souls which reached out to his own. He knew that they felt for him, understood him, as he did them – so many of them had been in bad relationships! They seemed to whisper to him, to touch his eyelids with their fingertips, to tell him that he was all right just as he was. The voices in his ears were delicious, and in turn he could not but speak his heart.

  ‘You know, my beautiful ones, just like me,’ he addressed them all, ‘what it is to want, and to live in longing, for life wasn’t always milk and cream for you either. You know what it’s like, and where I stand today. Why, some of you were ugly ducklings in your early years, and all your life was in your dreams. Then one day your luck turned, and you became the most beautiful swans in all of India…you left the earth behind, and rose up to where no one could touch you. What did it feel like? Didn’t you feel then like the world went round just for you? I know! And soon when you come upstairs one by one to live with me in my reel cabinet, and go fluttering and laughing out into the world through the Babur, we’ll talk more in that place halfway between the sky and the earth, and by that time I’ll be able to show you a photograph of my bride. Yes…I’d like to be the glow in someone’s heart, just as you were – you are – in the hearts of thousands! It’s all right if she’s not pretty – else her gaze will stray! Just long as she’s not too tall – but not too short either – and has long hair – and if I can make one more request, a nice nose! And I’ll be a better person from this day on: I’ll stop drinking, and look after the old and the sick and the unfortunate, and not fritter away my money, and not swear and curse, and quieten my temper. I’ll receive only with one hand, and keep the other just for giving. The way I am now isn’t the real me – this is just how I’ve become! Nutanji, you’re not looking so well today. I’ll leave you now and go have a peep upstairs, and then I’ll go down. Oh, and don’t be upset, but two more girls will soon be joining you.’

  So saying, he padded forward and reached the end of the corridor, turned the handle of a door, and entered the shaft of the Noor’s third and most beautiful level. Darkness was instantly vanquished here, and he was bathed by the lovely bright light let in by a series of windows going all the way up a long, narrow staircase. Spider webs glistened above his head. And the realm at the top of the staircase throbbed with a golden glow and a chugging, pounding sound, like a locomotive’s surge. It was film, hurtling through the Babur. The actual name of the great German projector was the Bauer, but the sound of this word had proved too strange to the Indian tongue, and over the decades the name had melted into that of the legendary Mughal emperor.

  Phiroz was having his lunch: the aroma of mashed brinjal came all the way down. Arzee didn’t feel like going up just yet – right now, his up lay down below, and he’d ascend only after he was crowned. From the heap of rubbish – strips of plywood, files wrapped in string, ribbons of celluloid – that had been lying at the bottom of the staircase for years, he fished out a knob of yellow chalk, and drew a sweetly smiling sun on the door. He signed his name with a flourish and retreated, almost invisible in the yawning shadows. He loved to creep around the Noor like this, burrowing and poking.

  Peering down into the lobby he noted, like a character in a detective film, that Tawde was looking in the direction of Abjani’s office. His ears picked up the sound of the swing doors creaking, which meant that someone had just gone through. Abjani was back! Arzee did up the top button of his shirt, ran his fingers through his hair, and went down. The swing doors creaked once again as he opened them.

  ‘Hello, Mr Abjani, sir! Did you want me?’

  ‘Ah…Arzee.’

  Abjani was standing by a cupboard, which he shut instantly, as if there was a corpse stowed away inside. Abjani was a very strange-looking man – even after all these years it was not possible to get over how strange he looked. Abjani had been at the Noor almost as long as Phiroz. But while Phiroz looked like any other old man, the years of sitting in artificial light in a cubbyhole of an office had given Abjani a sallow, consumptive air that only accentuated his peculiar figure and bearing. His dyed black hair, white at the roots, was receding from the front, but he still wore it long at the back like a youth. His eyes were watery and lugubrious behind thick spectacles that perched upon a long nose that was always twitching. His body was spindly, as if loosely tied together from limb to limb, and his waist impossibly narrow and belted to a bone-cracking tightness. But his voice was not full of quavers and hesitations as his body seemed to intimate; instead it was surprisingly deep and firm. Abjani had his oddities – Arzee knew that his cupboard had a stack of magazines with pictures of people doing strange things to each other – but on the whole he was a good fellow.

  ‘Um…all’s well?’ Abjani always liked to make some small talk, like warm-up exercises, before approaching his subject.

  ‘The Babur needs to be serviced,’ said Arzee. ‘It’s eating up carbon rods like anything. I had to open a new box yesterday, and it’s only been two months since the last one.’

  ‘I see,’ said Abjani, rubbing his chin. ‘Carbon rods.’

  ‘The Babur’s getting old, sir, just like the rest of us,’ said Arzee, with a laugh. ‘Look at Phiroz. He stops as he’s going about his work, and mutters to himself, and then forgets what he’s doing, and talks to himself some more. He shuffles the reels like a pack of cards, and remakes the story. He’s losing it, I think, is Phiroz!’

  ‘In fact, Arzee, that is what I wanted to talk to you about. Phiroz…Phiroz is going to be leaving us soon. He must have told you.’

  ‘Phiroz is retiring? He never told me! This is bad news, sir – very bad news! We can’t do without Phiroz.’

  ‘He’s become really old. As…um…have we. This is an old, old place.’

  ‘That’s why it’s hard to imagine this place without him, sir. The Noor won’t be the Noor without old Phiroz.’

  And here Arzee paused and waited to hear the warming words to follow, as surely as the interval follows the twelfth reel. He didn’t want to sound the conclusion himself – why should he? Let Abjani say it. Later he’d repeat it many times anyway. Let Abjani speak the sweet words the first time around!

  FIVE

  Phirozbhai and

  the Great Beam

  Night had come – night had come – night had come! The blackest night had fallen, like the sky tumbling down, flooding, darkening, consuming the Noor’s native gloom, blighting health, humbling strength, making nought of future time. A maddening night without hope or horizon, wracked by groans and sighs, rushing at and ruthlessly ravaging reason. Day, light, vision, were as dreams in such a night; all directions were the same, and no word or deed was of any meaning; mind and body were riven, and limbs and senses estranged. Like a swift, startling drop into the sea from an unforeseen precipice, it was nowhere one moment, everywhere the next. Night night night – night on the site where the very day was night to begin with!

  The door of Abjani’s chamber opened, and Arzee stood dumb at the threshold. The door came swinging back and clattered him in the face. Arzee pushed it open again and walked out, clutching his forehead.

  Swelling strains of screechy music, mangled by the ancient sound system, were reverberating around the cinema, and men with glazed eyes were leaving the stalls after their three-hour break from, or into, life. The small figure in their midst was breaking from life too; within himself he was tumbling. Arzee stopped for a few moments in the lobby; he seemed to freeze, like the nymphs on pedestals above him. Then he turned mechanically and went up the stairs, clinging to the banister as if blind. He disappeared from sight.

  After some time – he did not know how much – Arzee suddenly came to. He was startled to find himself sitting in darkness on the edge of a yawning pit, as if he had floated out to the rim of the universe.

  ‘Where am I?’ he thought, leaning forward. ‘On the balcony! How did I get
here? Am I awake, or do I dream?…It’s…it’s a joke, that’s what it is!’ He got up to go back down. ‘They’re – they’re joking with me! Nobody ever gives me my due without holding it from me first. They like working me up first – seeing me go blue – and then they laugh, and hand me what’s mine. They’re laughing downstairs now, all of them, even Phiroz, thinking about how they’ve alarmed me, made me lose my mind. What’s that noise? Are they sitting behind me right here? Let’s see. No! They’re not. I’m all alone. What sort of jest is this?’

  He sat down again, and his heart sank when he reminded himself that Abjani never played any practical jokes, and that in any case Abjani would never sport with him like this. Others might, but not Abjani. Was it true then? He heard Abjani’s words, low, ashamed, in his ears again: the Noor was to be closed down! It seemed like the ground was giving way beneath him, and he gripped the arms of his chair tightly, trying to reason in the darkness.

  ‘Can it be?’ he wondered. ‘Can it really be so? The building emptied out? The halls shut up – my room put under lock and key? Can they deny me my kingdom, and buy my consent with their sympathies, one Monday morning out of the blue, after all these years of service and devotion? And Mother? What am I to tell my mother?’ Anger flooded him. ‘It’s a conspiracy against me – I feel it in my bones! They didn’t want to let me see the day, didn’t want me to rise and be happy, so they’ve sold out and debased me, destroyed me! I hear a voice now, saying I’m twisting things around, making myself the centre of the story without cause. But am I wrong? Do I speak without basis? Do I shoot wildly in the dark? Then how’s this to be explained? Old Phiroz decides to leave the Noor, and the next week – the next week – the cinema goes under. Speak! Answer! Is Phiroz the only projectionist in Bombay? Is Phiroz the manager? Is he the Babur? He’s just a spoke in the wheel – an old broken spoke! Whether he stays or falls shouldn’t matter a jot to anybody except me. Then why? How can he go, and the Noor follow?’ He rose. ‘Explain, you rascals! I’m going to go right back down with my questions. I –’ He stopped.