Bombay Blues

by Tanuja Desai Hidier

  I found myself in front of a massive mall.

  I burst out laughing. If my father, who’d been so worried about my sojourning to this part of town, could see me now! Seemed the main peril around these parts would be maxing out your credit card.

  My path eventually cross-streeted, veered by a sign with a gargantuan question mark on it, then dead-ended at the Heptanesia compound. I must have appeared authentic with my camera gear, or the bouncer was inauthentic, because after the initial metal detector test, I passed into Hepto, no problemo.

  The room was ampitheater-like, space-age seats slanting down towards a stage upheaving this very cool space alien shaved-head pair — a skinny guy with specs and a slouchy, slivery shard of a girl. The guy was spaghetti-westerning a guitar, and the girl was leaning indolently into the mic mumbling fuck fuck fuck.

  Sweet sound check.

  It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the blue-tinged dim, and when they did, they landed on Karsh.

  He was seated with Ravi and a superhot, evidently Euro woman (undue diligence paid to belt; cardigan tied round shoulders via cuffing sleeve bottoms together; thin lips; bobbed hair). I acknowledged my inner sexist as my first wager was she was just a damn fine girl at the bar — then realized she was perhaps the booking agent.

  Why were all these music industry people so good-looking?

  Body lingo (no lean-ins) signaled some tension at that good-looking table, though. Karsh spotted me and nodded; the other two were intensively tête-à-têting. I figured I’d best leave them to it. I tapped my camera at Karsh; he gave a subtle go on signal back. As I passed, I got a couple side shots of his dim-lit broody face, cutting out everyone else.

  I circled, shot, and exited. Karsh texted me to meet him at Rock & A Hard Place. It was around the corner from LoZo’s — a vogueing new spot in the same compound. I followed the building around onto yet another dirt path, past an ogle of Indian men who didn’t look like they were headed to any of these venues (and who my NR eyes deemed dead ringers for those exodused millworkers), and beyond the bend, past a brilliant wall painting of a multihanded creature spinning vinyl, till I fell upon the entry to LoZo’s.

  I peeked in. From Bombay mill to Brooklyn swills: airy cool brasserie interior, exposed pipework, brick walls, bulbs strung off wires. I was just about to shoot a wide angle when I caught a familiar face on one of the shabby chic sofas, sitting a little stiffly and clutching a drink that looked pretty stiff as well.

  —Mallika? I said, tentatively approaching. She started, glanced up, and looked around a little nervously.

  —Dimple …

  No one was with her, though a couple half-drained, foam-fled cappuccino cups dotted the table, as if she’d just had company.

  —What brings you here? I asked. Her face looked different. Bared.

  —Oh … I’m meeting someone later, she said dully.

  —So … wow — this space is really cool. Very Billyburg.

  She shrugged. —It’s all the same bartenders from the Bombay Gym. You just can’t fucking get away from South Bombay.

  Weren’t we in South Bombay? Was this Lower Parel where all worlds (well, all upper middle class to wealthy ones) met? One of these purported Bombay Gymkhana bartenders was looking my way. I nodded hello. He signaled he’d be right over.

  —Did you want something, Dimple? Mallika asked now, unenthused.

  —No … I have to meet someone, too, I said, not sure why I was being secretive about Karsh and Ravi. Mallika was shaking her head at the bartender to keep doing his thing.

  —I’ll let you go, then, she said, the clear call to clear out. And then I realized why her face looked different. No kajal around the shadow-ringed eyes; lipstick bitten off, but perhaps not by a kiss …

  Had she been crying?

  She was watching me almost pleadingly. And then she said it again, quietly.

  —I’ll let you go….

  And so, heart a little heavy for whatever her plight might be, I went — off in search of my own.

  I circled the compound and finally found Rock & A Hard Place, an international chain that was considered cheesy at best out West but here in India was propped as an epitome of cool.

  He wasn’t here yet. Ravenous, I went ahead and ordered our usual slightly bloody burgers and fries from the not-quite-upscale diner menu — which, excepting the presence of a few more veg versions than usual and an optional addition of paneer, was pretty much identical to the tourist-trapping NYC branch. Save for the bands plastering the walls — Indus Creed, Men Who Pause, Pentagram, Dualist Inquiry, Sky Rabbit, Wild Mercury — the decor was, too. I hoped there was a female drummer in at least one of them.

  Or just a female.

  Karsh entered.

  —Hey! I waved overenthusiastically, a cheerleader on speed. —I ordered for you.

  He didn’t seem to hear me. As usual.

  I rah-rah’d on. —Um … Heptanesia! Wow! Excellent spot for a comeback.

  —It’s over, Dimple, he announced flatly. For a second, I thought he meant us.

  He sat with a sigh and laid out his tale. His meeting had been a total downer. The club wasn’t so keen on replacing the French dubsteppers with a brown guy spinning the kind of tuneage they’d seen in spyphone clips from that botched evening at L’Heure Bleu. Ravi’s take was they were a little wary about that breach-of-contract business; how could they trust him? And in the end, the Francofunkists’ visa extensions were looking likely to come through in time anyway.

  Our milk shakes arrived. High-SPF vanillas.

  —Do you think they boil the milk first? Karsh whispered.

  —Karsh, I think it comes out boiled in this heat, I hush-hushed back. He appeared skeptical but took a tiny sip and went on while I slurped away.

  Since that night at LHB, Ravi had been ruminating on a lot of things in his own life. The mess they’d made of it felt like a metaphor, a signal. They both needed a break to reassess, see in a new light: Ravi maybe had to consider reviving his legal practice, or a return to Daddy, and Karsh had to conjure another way to come to terms with the loss of his own father … which Ravi had diagnosed as being at the root of his erratic Bombay behavior.

  In short, they both required a kind of closure if they were going to move forward at all — an impressively perspicacious conclusion to a meeting to book a gig. Karsh looked low, and I tried to as well, though I felt a geysering hope: Perhaps he’d embark on a new Bombay adventure that might pave the path to return him to himself? Us to us? I couldn’t believe my powers of sankalp when what emerged from his mouth was:

  —It’s a sign. On the day of our new beginning, for me to lose my second chance at a first chance? I think someone’s telling me to try another path.

  I nodded passionately.

  —You were so right, Dimple. I’ve been fucking up.

  It wasn’t the most lyrical of apologies, but he was no lit major and I’d take it.

  —I need a … musical detox. I’m full of noise. Inside and out. I need … silence.

  I kept mum; did he mean right now? Our waiter slid up with our Mexicana burgers guac’d to the top.

  Karsh pushed his plate away. I gave him a questioning look.

  —Sorry, I just lost my appetite, he said. He was definitely bumming. I took a bite of my own.

  —Should you be eating that? he asked now.

  —Um … should you be asking me that? I said through a full mouth. —What else am I supposed to do with it? Wear it?

  —It just seems … I don’t know. The cow. In India.

  —I think everything’s a lot cleaner and safer here now, I soothed him.

  —But the cow is sacred in India.

  For some reason, I’d pictured my burger as hailing from a Western vaca.

  —Is that why you’re not eating? You want to switch to chicken? Is the chicken sacred in India, too?

  —All living creatures are sacred.

  —I’m pretty sure these ones are dead, I assured him.


  —I’ve given up meat.

  —Since when?

  —I’ve been gravitating in that direction since my father passed on. You haven’t noticed?

  That didn’t really make sense, since his dad had been a mega carnivore. I shook my head; had I stopped seeing him, much as he’d stopped hearing me? He did often opt for fish when we went out … but that didn’t make someone vegetarian, did it?

  My burger was looking and tasting increasingly unappealing, but I forced it down my throat. Karsh had that look in his eyes — windows to that so-open-minded-it’s-narrow-minded mind-set so many hippies, for one, seemed to have once you got to know them.

  I pushed the menu towards him so he could choose something else.

  He shook his head, pushed it back. —You know, my father became vegetarian in his last days. He lived like a monk, apparently, in some rental in Mazagaon. I was going to go see the house. But I can’t bring myself to do it.

  I nodded, masticating.

  —I’ve been thinking a lot about dharma, those four principles they talked about at ISKCON. No eating of meat, fish, eggs. No gambling. No intoxication.

  As if on cue, our (ordered by me) Kingfishers landed before us now.

  They were to receive the same fate as the sacred cow: The waiter was about to crack open the second one when Karsh held up a hand.

  —Could I have a fresh carrot juice instead?

  We both — me and the waiter — looked at him like he was crazy. I mean, not even a guava, mosambi juice? The waiter shrugged and was about to take back both beers (sexist!) when I iron-gripped them and nodded.

  —It’s okay. I’ll sin for the both of us.

  Now the waiter looked at me like I was loca, but a little less off my rocker than Karsh. A small victory.

  He popped off the caps and headed off.

  —Karsh. Carrot juice? What’s wrong?

  —Actually, he replied, —it’s what’s right, Dimple. I need to purge my system. Ravi was almost more upset about the drugs than the show fiasco! And I have to admit: The party lifestyle takes its toll….

  I took a swig from each bottle.

  He opened his wallet and Exhibit A’d the drinking permit …

  —I was carrying this around, declaring, as it does, that I’m an addict, even implicating my father in this.

  … then swept it up and ripped it to shreds.

  —Seems there was some truth to that, he concluded. —So I’m cleaning up. New beginnings. And actually, maybe I better begin by leaving this space.

  —Rock and A Hard Place is hardly a space, I sighed.

  —Gokulanandini says it’s very important I live and breathe in a pure environment.

  Bitch.

  —Oh. So that’s why she was hanging out at L’Heure Bleu?

  —She wasn’t hanging out. She came to save me — can you imagine? Devotees sometimes make that sacrifice when they see people losing their way. They come back down the mountain to help us up.

  Mountain? He was tidying up his mess now; I wondered if he was going to tape the whole jumble together later.

  —We went to the ashram that same night, actually, he went on. —To be honest, I’ve gone back since. She talked to me, really talked to me. Told me I need to harness my energy, that I shouldn’t be so influenced from the outside.

  I took another swig. My swallow was all I could hear; I found it ironic they weren’t playing any music in this … space. Now that Karsh wasn’t so interested in sound anymore, I found myself craving a jukebox to thunk on.

  —Sounds like Gopi girl was influencing you from the outside, I said finally.

  —She influenced me from the inside. She reminded me of the inside. That I am not only a DJ. I am a whole person. And a person is also a soul.

  Excuse me, but hadn’t I said pretty much the same thing to him (had I)?

  —And it’s Gokulanandini, he added. —Gokulanandini’s her Hare Krishna name. You should respect that.

  —Amy’s probably her actual name, Karsh. You should respect her parents.

  —I do, he said passionately. —It’s amazing: She speaks perfect Hindi, reads Sanskrit, studied Bharat Natyam. She really must have been Indian in a past life.

  —Or you must have been white.

  —Look, I don’t want to pick a fight about this, Karsh said with a sigh. —And I’m sorry, but I can’t stay with you for now, Dimple. I think I need a change of scenery.

  I was scenery?

  —I’ll be there tonight, he went on. —But I’ll head out tomorrow. I need to keep some distance till I sort myself out, purify my environment. You can have the room to yourself — it’s paid for, in any case.

  All this had happened in a music industry meeting?

  —How is our environment not pure? I asked him now.

  —All the alcohol …

  —That’s called a minibar, Karsh. You don’t have to sleep in it.

  —The condoms … those S&M devices …

  —Excuse me, are you referring to Le Lapin? It’s only S&M if you whack yourself over the head with it.

  —It’s illegal, you know. Having those kinds of … tools … in India.

  —Think of it as a personal massager. And need I remind you? It was a gift from you.

  —From a previous me.

  —And you were the one snorting your way through the suburbs, I added. —Not me.

  —Again, a previous me. Maybe I needed to veer far and fall hard in order to open my eyes.

  I was beginning to painfully regret ordering those burgers. Maybe we wouldn’t be veering so hard with a side of paneer? I tried to steady my voice.

  —So … where will you stay … that’s so pure? I finally asked.

  With whom was the real question.

  —All I know is I’ve got to get out of this city. Deep-clean my soul.

  —For how long?

  —However long it takes. These things can’t be marked off on an agenda, Dimple.

  —Well … I stalled, grasping for a thread, even though I wasn’t even sure what I was fighting for. —What about Sangita’s wedding? It’s kind of short notice if we have to find her a new DJ. Or are you doing this because of what Ravi said about wedding music?

  —I’m making up my own mind, Karsh said defensively. —It’s not about what Ravi said.

  —Riiight … did Ravi say that, too?

  —Anyway, I already texted Sangita I was having second thoughts. On the way over. I’ll get a sub sorted for her — although she didn’t seem too disappointed. Maybe she was turned off by L’Heure Bleu, too.

  It certainly hadn’t looked it, the way she and Deepak had been throwing it down that evening. But perhaps the off-the-floor ridicule she’d been subjected to had stung too deep?

  I tried again to imagine how that entire experience must have stung Karsh. Sitting there, eating, drinking nothing at a laden table, he looked so small and irretrievable, like at the four thirty darshan, though a kind of truce had infused his lostness there. My little boy blue. I felt a pang.

  He was the hole in the record, I thought. I was the hole in the camera.

  —It’s funny, said Karsh. —I came here, to India, to find myself, my roots. Our roots. But I guess I feel kind of lost, like I just can’t quite find what I’m looking for.

  —What do you think that is, Karsh? Because maybe that’s part of the problem.

  —I don’t know. I guess … I want to belong. I want a musical family, a community that makes me feel like I did in the beginning.

  —But you had that in New York. You still have that in New York.

  —Yet in New York, I’m always trying to get to India through the music, he observed. —And it’s not the same anymore. That moment — the start. Watching a party grow up from a basement, a few kids dancing to my parents’ UK albums, Bally Sagoo, from when it all began over there — to become one of New York’s most happening club nights, through the love, word of mouth, sound of roots being thrown down … being at the beginnin
g. That’s over. Today’s kids, they probably think, I don’t know … Slumdog Millionaire invented it all.

  I used to get hung up about that kind of thing, like how back in the day, Madonna and Gwen Stefani were the reason white girls wanted to wear bindis. Hell — they were the reason brown girls wanted to wear bindis! But then I realized: If a door opens, walk through it. Plus, Slumdog was a case of brown folk opening a brown door. Well, and Danny Boyle.

  —Karsh. So what if some people discover a sound through a movie soundtrack? They still love the music; it sparked something for them. Doesn’t that count?

  —Then maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s something I need to do as an artist, to find that spark again. I just don’t feel it anymore. Any spark.

  He looked so earnestly at me. Did he mean us, too? I tried to remember to be his friend, not just his spurned lover. Not easy. So I let him talk, just kept chewing my sacred cow.

  —You know, I can feel the beginning of something here, in Bombay, he said thoughtfully. —Something I might be able to connect to, call home. I just don’t quite know how to get in….

  I nodded, I hoped sagely. That was how I’d felt when I’d discovered the New York desi scene a few years back.

  —And I don’t think I can get in … till I get out, he concluded. —It’s tough connecting with your inner space in a city like this. Even Ravi goes to Alibaug just to get away from it all.

  —I think Alibaug’s like the Hamptons, Karsh. I’m not sure you get away from Bombay there. And spirituality shouldn’t be determined by your surroundings, no? I insisted. —You can’t just keep running….

  I was beginning to feel a sick little feeling. Karsh, however, looked rejuvenated.

  —It’s a sixteen-hour train to Mathura, he said now, and this moment felt it had always been written in our fate. —Or a flight to Delhi and then a three-hour drive. That’s where Krishna was born. And Vrindavan’s close by as well. Gokulanandini and Gopal have organized everything; I’m welcome to stay there however long I need to find my center again.