by Vikas Swarup
‘What’s the matter?’ Mustafa asks.
‘Nothing. I just wanted to see the place where the smugglers offload their consignment in the film Mafia!’
As we approach Bandra, Juhu and Andheri, dotted with the sparkling residences of film stars, with their high boundary walls and platoons of uniformed guards, Salim becomes maudlin. Through the taxi’s tinted windows, we gape at the sprawling bungalows and high-rise apartment blocks like villagers on a first trip to the city. It is as if we are seeing Mumbai through a chromatic lens. The sun seems brighter, the air feels cooler, the people appear more prosperous, the city throbs with the happiness of sharing space with the megastars of Bollywood.
We reach our destination in Goregaon. Maman’s house is not the palatial bungalow we had come to expect. It is a large decrepit building set in a courtyard with a small garden and two palm trees. It is ringed by a high boundary wall topped with barbed wire. Two dark, well-built men sit in the porch smoking beedis and wearing thin, coloured lungis. They are holding thick bamboo sticks in their hands. They cross their legs and we catch a glimpse of their striped underwear. A strong smell of arrack radiates from them. Punnoose speaks to them in quick-fire Malayalam. The only word I can catch is ‘Maman’. They are obviously guards employed by Mr Babu Pillai.
As we enter the house, Mustafa points out a set of corrugated-iron structures beyond the courtyard, like huge sheds. ‘That is the school Maman runs for crippled children. The children live there as well.’
‘How come I don’t see any children?’ I ask.
‘They have all gone out for vocational training. Don’t worry, you will meet them in the evening. Come, let me show you to your room.’
Our room is small and compact, with two bunk beds and a long mirror built into the wall. Salim takes the top bed. There is a bathroom in the basement which we can use. It has a tub and a shower curtain. It is not as luxurious as the houses of film stars, but it will do. It looks as though we are the only children living in the house.
Maman comes to meet us in the evening. Salim tells him how excited he is to be in Mumbai and how he wants to become a famous film star. Maman smiles when he hears this. ‘The first and foremost requirement for becoming a film star is the ability to sing and dance. Can you sing?’ he asks Salim.
‘No,’ says Salim.
‘Well, don’t worry. I will arrange for a top music teacher to give you lessons. In no time at all you will be like Kishore Kumar.’
Salim looks as if he might hug Maman, but restrains himself.
At night we go to the school for dinner. It has a mess hall similar to the one in our Juvenile Home, with cheap linoleum flooring, long wooden tables, and a head cook who is a carbon copy of ours back at the Home. Salim and I are told to sit at a small round table with Mustafa. We are served before the other kids come in. The food is hot and tasty, a definite improvement on the insipid fare we got in Delhi.
One by one the children start trickling in, and instantly challenge our definition of hell. I see boys with no eyes, feeling their way forward with the help of sticks; boys with bent and misshapen limbs, dragging themselves to the table; boys with two gnarled stumps for legs, walking on crutches; boys with grotesque mouths and twisted fingers, eating bread held between their elbows. Some of them are like clowns. Except they make us cry instead of laugh. It is good Salim and I have almost finished our meal.
We see three boys standing in one corner, watching the others eat, but not being served themselves. One of them licks his lips. ‘Who are these boys?’ I ask Mustafa. ‘And why aren’t they eating?’
‘They are being punished,’ Mustafa says. ‘For not doing enough work. Don’t worry, they’ll eat later.’
The music teacher comes the next day. He is a youngish man, with an oval, clean-shaven face, large ears and thin, bony fingers. He carries a harmonium with him. ‘Call me Masterji,’ he instructs us. ‘Now listen to what I sing.’ We sit on the floor in rapt attention as he sings, ‘Sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa.’ Then he explains, ‘These are the seven basic notes which are present in each and every composition. Now open your mouth and sing these notes loudly. Let the sound come not from your lips, not from your nose, but from the base of your throat.’
Salim clears his throat and begins. ‘Sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa.’ He sings full-throated, with abandon. The room resonates with the sound of his clear notes. His voice floats over the room, the notes ringing pure and unsullied.
‘Very good.’ The teacher claps. ‘You have a natural, God-given voice. I have no doubt that with constant practice, you will very soon be able to negotiate the entire range of three and a half octaves.’ Then he looks at me. ‘OK. Now why don’t you sing the same notes.’
‘Sa re ga ma pa dha . . .’ I try to sing, but my voice cracks and the notes shatter and fragment like a fistful of marbles dropped on the floor.
The teacher inserts a finger in his ear. ‘Hare Ram . . . Hare Ram . . . You sing like a buffalo. I will have to work really hard on you.’
Salim comes to my rescue. ‘No, Masterji, Mohammad has a good voice too. He screams really well.’
Over the next two weeks, Masterji teaches us several devotional songs by famous saints and how to play the harmonium. We learn the dohas of Kabir and the bhajans of Tulsidas and Mirabai. Masterji is a good teacher. Not only does he teach us the songs, he also explains the complex spiritual truths portrayed through these songs in the simple language of common people. I particularly like Kabir, who says in one of his verses:
Maala pherat jug bhaya,
mita na man ka pher,
kar ka manka chhod de,
man ka manka pher.
You have been counting rosary beads for an era,
But the wandering of your mind does not halt,
Forsake the beads in your hand,
And start moving the beads of your heart.
The fact that Salim is Muslim is of little consequence to Masterji as he teaches him Hindu bhajans. Salim himself is hardly bothered. If Amitabh Bachchan can play the role of a Muslim coolie and if Salman Khan can act as a Hindu emperor, Salim Ilyasi can sing Thumaki Chalat Ram Chandra Baajat Painjaniya with as much gusto as a temple priest.
During this period, Salim and I come to know some of the other boys in the cripple school, despite subtle attempts by Mustafa and Punnoose to prevent us from mixing too much with those they mispronounce as ‘handclapped’ kids. We learn the sad histories of these boys and discover that when it comes to cruel relatives and policemen, Mumbai is no different from Delhi. But as we learn more and more about these kids, the truth about Maman also starts to unravel.
We befriend Ashok, a thirteen-year-old with a deformed arm, and receive our first shock.
‘We are not schoolchildren,’ he tells us. ‘We are beggars. We beg in local trains. Some of us are pick-pockets as well.’
‘And what happens to the money you earn?’
‘We are required to give it to Maman’s men, in return for food and shelter.’
‘You mean Maman is a gangster?’
‘What did you think? He is no angel, but at least he gives us two square meals a day.’
My belief in Maman is shattered, but Salim continues to lay faith in the innate goodness of man.
We have an encounter with Raju, a blind ten-year-old.
‘How come you were punished today?’
‘I didn’t earn enough.’
‘How much are you required to give each day?’
‘All that we earn. But if you give less than one hundred rupees, you are punished.’
‘And what happens then?’
‘You don’t get food. You sleep hungry. Rats eat your belly.’
‘Here, take this chapatti. We saved it for you.’
We speak to Radhey, an eleven-year-old with a leg missing.
‘How come you never get punished? You always make enough money.’
‘Shhh . . . It’s a secret.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s safe with us.�
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‘OK. But don’t let any of the other boys know. You see, there is this actress living in Juhu Vile Parle. Whenever I am a little short, I go to her. She not only gives me food, she also gives me money to cover the shortfall.’
‘What is her name?’
‘Neelima Kumari. They say she was quite famous at one time.’
‘What does she look like?’
‘She must have been very beautiful in her youth, but now she is getting old. She told me she is in need of domestic help. If I didn’t have a leg missing, I would have run away from here and taken up a servant’s job in her house.’
I dream that night of going to a house in Juhu Vile Parle. I ring the bell and wait. A tall woman opens the door. She wears a white sari. A strong wind begins howling, making her long black hair fly across her face, obscuring it. I open my mouth to say something, and then discover that she is looking down at me. I look down and discover with a shock that I have no legs.
I wake up, drenched in sweat.
We get introduced to Moolay, a thirteen-year-old with an amputated arm.
‘I hate my life,’ he says.
‘Why don’t you run away?’
‘Where to? This is Mumbai, not my village. There is no space to hide your head in this vast city. You need to have connections even to sleep in a sewage pipe. And you need protection from the other gangs.’
‘Other gangs?’
‘Yes. Two boys ran away last month. They came back within three days. They couldn’t find any work. Bhiku’s gang wouldn’t allow them to operate in their area. Here, at least we get food and shelter, and when we are working for Maman none of the other gangs bother us.’
‘We don’t want to get involved with any gangs,’ I tell him and recite a doha. ‘Kabira Khara Bazaar Mein, Mange Sabki Khair, Na Kahu Se Dosti, Na Kahu Se Bair. Kabir is in the market place, wishing the welfare of all; He wants neither friendship nor enmity with anyone at all.’
We meet Sikandar, the import from Pakistan.
A ripple of excitement goes round the mess hall. A new kid has arrived. Mustafa brings in the new inmate and we all crowd around him. Mustafa is the most excited. ‘We got him this morning from Shakeel Rana’s consignment,’ he says and slaps his thighs in delight.
The boy is no more than twelve years old. We touch him as though he is a caged animal. But he doesn’t look like an animal. He looks more like the alien we saw in a Britannia biscuits commercial on TV, with an oval, tapering head, Chinese eyes, a thick nose and thin lips. Mustafa tells Punnoose, ‘He is from the Shrine of Shah Dola in Pakistani Punjab. These boys are called “Rat Children”.’
‘How do they get a head like that?’
‘I have heard that they put iron rings on the baby’s head to stop it growing. That is how you get this unique head design.’
‘I think he has a lot of potential. Maman will be pleased,’ says Punnoose.
‘Yes,’ Mustafa concurs. ‘A real high-value item.’
For some reason, the rat boy reminds me of a bear I saw once with Father Timothy in Connaught Place. He had a tight collar round his neck and a black mask covering his mouth. His owner would poke him hard with a pointed stick and he would stand on both his hind legs, saluting the people gathered round him. They would throw coins at him. The owner would pick up the money and pull him away for another performance. I was struck by the eyes of the bear, which seemed so sad that I had asked Father Timothy, ‘Do bears cry?’
I discover Jitu, hiding in a closet.
He holds a plastic bag in his hand with a yellowish-white substance inside. He opens the end over his nose and mouth and inhales deeply, pressing the bottom of the bag towards his face. His clothes smell of paint and solvent. There is a rash around his nose. His mouth is sweaty and sticky. After he inhales, his half-closed eyes turn glassy and his hand begins to tremble.
‘Jitu! . . . Jitu!’ I shake him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t disturb me,’ he says in a drowsy voice. ‘I am floating on air. I am sleeping on the clouds.’
I slap him. He coughs up black phlegm.
‘I am addicted to glue,’ he tells me later. ‘I buy it from the cobbler. Glue takes the hunger away, and the pain. I see bright colours, and occasionally my mother.’
I ask him for some glue and try it. After I inhale, I start to feel a little dizzy, the floor beneath me appears to shift and I begin to see images. I see a tall woman, clad in a white sari, holding a baby in her arms. The wind howls, making her hair fly across her face, obscuring it. But the baby reaches out his tiny hand, and with gentle fingers smooths away her tresses, prises open her face. He sees two haggard, cavernous eyes, a crooked nose, sharp pointy teeth glistening with fresh blood, and maggots crawling out of the folds of her lined and wrinkled skin which sags over her jaw. He shrieks in terror and tumbles from her lap.
I never try glue again.
Meanwhile, our musical training is coming to an end. Masterji is extremely pleased with Salim’s progress. ‘You have now mastered the art of singing. Only one lesson is left.’
‘And what is that?’
‘The bhajans of Surdas.’
‘Who is Surdas?’
‘He is the most famous of all bhakti singers, who composed thousands of songs in praise of Lord Krishna. One day he fell into an abandoned well. He could not get out. He remained there for six days. He went on praying and on the seventh day he heard a child’s voice asking him to hold his hands so that he could pull him out. With the boy’s aid, Surdas got out of the well, but the boy disappeared. The boy was none other than Lord Krishna. After that Surdas devoted his life to composing songs in praise of Krishna. With the single-stringed ektara in his hand, he began singing songs depicting Krishna’s childhood.’ Masterji begins singing, ‘Akhiyan hari darshan Ki Pyasi – My eyes are hungry for your presence, Lord Krishna.’
‘Why are his eyes hungry?’ I ask.
‘Didn’t I tell you? Surdas was completely blind.’
On the last day of our musical training, Masterji showers accolades on Salim for singing one of Surdas’s bhajans perfectly. I am testy and distracted. My encounters with Maman’s boys have left me distraught. Though in a sense we are all children of a lesser god, Maman’s boys seem to me to be a particularly disadvantaged lot.
Punnoose comes into the room to talk to Masterji. They speak in low voices, then Punnoose takes out his purse and begins counting out some money. He hands over a sheaf of notes to the music teacher, who tucks it gratefully in the front pocket of his kurta. They leave the room together, leaving me alone with Salim and a harmonium.
‘I should never have left Delhi,’ I tell Salim. ‘You have at least become a good singer, but I have gained nothing from this trip.’
It is then that I notice a hundred-rupee note lying on the floor. Punnoose must have dropped it while counting the money. My first impulse is to pocket it, but Salim snatches it from my hand and insists that we must return it. So we go down the corridor to the room Maman uses as his office, where Punnoose and Mustafa hang out.
As we approach the door, we hear voices coming from inside. Maman is talking to Punnoose.
‘So what did the Master say after finishing his lessons? He is getting more and more expensive.’
‘He said that the older one is useless, but the young kid has a lot of potential. He says he’s never trained a more talented boy before.’
‘So you think he can bring in at least three hundred?’
‘What is three hundred? When he sings it is magic. And his face? Who can resist his face? I would say easily a potential of four to five hundred. We have hit the jackpot, Maman.’
‘And the other boy? The tall one?’
‘Who cares? The bastard will have to fend for himself. Either he gets us a hundred each night or he remains hungry.’
‘OK. Send them out on the trains from next week. We will do them tonight. After dinner.’
A chill runs down my spine as I hear these words. I catch Sa
lim’s hand and rush back to our room. Salim is confused about the conversation we heard, and the reference to numbers. But the jigsaw is piecing itself together in my brain.
‘Salim, we have to escape from this place. Now.’
‘But why?’
‘Because something very bad is going to happen to us tonight, after dinner.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I understand everything. Do you know why we were taught the bhajans of Surdas?’
‘Because he was a great poet?’
‘No. Because he was blind. And that is what we are going to become tonight, so that we can be made to beg on local trains. I am convinced now that all the cripple boys we have met here have been deliberately maimed, by Maman and his gang.’
But such cruelty is beyond Salim’s comprehension. He wants to stay.
‘Why don’t you run away alone?’ he asks me.
‘I can’t go without you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I am your guardian angel, and you are part of my package deal.’
Salim hugs me. I take out the one-rupee coin from my pocket. ‘Look, Salim,’ I tell him. ‘You believe in destiny, don’t you? So let this coin decide our future. Heads we leave, tails we stay, OK?’
Salim nods. I flip the coin. It is heads.
Salim is finally reconciled to escaping from Maman’s den, but his mind is full of doubt. ‘Where will we go? What will we do? We don’t know anyone in this city.’