‘So, California!’ Mayank said.
‘Yeah, well, nearby anyway.’ He’d been accepted into a BA programme in film-making, about which he knew nearly nothing; the efficient woman who’d arranged everything for him at Brite Lites Educational Consultancy said that he was going to have a fantastic time.
‘Are you going to come back?’ Mayank’s round eyes were candid and Ashish was exasperated. If he said no, he’d feel disloyal and irritated with himself; if he said yes, he’d feel unadventurous and therefore still irritated with himself.
He slapped his right hand to his heart. ‘My homeland is always with me,’ he said in Hindi, in a baritone, film-star voice.
Mayank leaned back and patted his stomach. Ashish looked up at the ceiling, which was roughly the colour of the inside of a teapot, and at the walls, where the usual admonitory signs were displayed; then at the waiter’s face, which combined many features of the ceiling (colour, lack of sheen) and the walls (resistance to change, a formal severity) with an elegant boredom all its own.
‘Coffee?’ Mayank said.
‘Sure. You want to go to the Idiot-Idiot near Gateway? Go for a walk first?’
‘Okay.’
Ashish settled the bill at the counter and they went out into the sunlight. It felt strange to walk past Esplanade Mansion but Ashish just nodded to the owner of the stationery shop and they continued. He had no desire to go inside and inspect the rotting atrium outside his childhood home again. It was easier to pretend that part of his life was completely over; he felt vindictive, as though Esplanade Mansion had been responsible for the unhappiness in his life. He smiled; they were still under the building, walking in the wide arcade of its cast-iron pillars.
‘What?’ Mayank said.
‘Oh, nothing. Just, for a minute I thought maybe I’ll miss Bombay.’
‘Hah, miss what! Everything’ll be as good in California. Better! Even the weather is good there.’
‘Yeah.’
They walked in the colonnade of the Taj Mahal hotel, past the raffish old streets off Apollo Bunder and then back along the promenade, watching the brown sea smack softly against the wall.
‘Smells of piss here,’ Mayank observed.
‘This is a pick-up spot,’ Ashish said. ‘Apparently.’ Even at this hour of the afternoon there were a couple of louche looking men hanging out near the wall, though there were couples too, and a family from out of town; they bought ice cream from the Mewad ice-cream seller and he then took their photograph. It was cloudy, but near the water the reflected light made Ashish’s eyes ache.
They loped towards the monument, which always looked oddly decorative and small when you approached it; it had been built as a sort of three-dimensional gift tag and stuck onto the city. The usual vendors were here: the postcard-seller with the dirty red Kathiawadi turban, and the various tight-trousered Polaroid photographers. They smoked cigarettes and frowned into the sun; there wasn’t much of a crowd.
‘Well,’ said Mayank, hands on slightly podgy hips. He resembled his father at this moment; he puffed out his lower lip and squared his shoulders.
‘Well.’
They gazed about them, Ashish wondering what the hell he was supposed to be looking for. Was he meant to be feeling sentimental?
‘Coffee?’ he said.
‘Chal.’
A couple of tiny Pardhi kids approached them, with their beautiful faces and dusty hair. They looked cranky, rather than hopeful: it was that time of afternoon.
‘Uncle, uncle,’ began one, pawing at Mayank’s trouser leg.
‘Don’t touch,’ said Mayank sententiously.
‘Brother,’ tried the other, weaving around Ashish.
‘Uncle, we’re hungry.’
‘Do you want vada pao?’ Ashish asked.
‘We want pao bhaji!’
‘Give us money to buy rice!’
‘Come on, fuck off,’ Mayank said, removing the hand of the older child from his trousers. The kids followed them to the crossing at Regal, then lost interest and stopped to say hello to a frightening looking European man whom they seemed to know.
‘Hey, look, what are they doing with that guy?’ Ashish said.
‘What guy?’ Mayank was already making purposefully for the cool of the coffee shop.
Ashish slowed down and craned his neck to watch – the man was bending down and telling the kids something, and they were negotiating with him.
Mayank pushed open the door of the coffee shop.
‘There are some sick fuckers around,’ Ashish said. He followed his friend into the air-conditioned space where, in a strange mock-up of a living room, put-out-looking foreigners and unabashed locals sat drinking enormous cold coffees behind the plate-glass window.
When they were leaving the Idiot-Idiot for the station, gulls were crying overhead: that golden hour before sunset when the city looks like a mirage that’s about to disappear, leaving behind only a clean beach. Ashish had a sudden longing to do everything – go to Chowpatty, go to Juhu, revisit all his favourite places, go everywhere he had ever had, or expected to have, or nearly had, a good time, and suck what remaining essence of feeling he might out of the places.
They stood at the junction, waiting to cross: behind them the clothing stalls, a Nigerian hustler outside Cafe Leopold, and the smell of the sea. An expensive looking car pulled out smoothly ahead of them. The windows were open. Mayank nudged Ashish.
‘What?’
‘Wasn’t that Sunder?’
Ashish turned towards Mayank, and found the westerly setting sun in his face. He squinted into its warmth and blinding orangeness. ‘Was it?’ he said.
The traffic light changed.
Ashish looked down the road; he couldn’t even see the car any more, though he thought he saw sun glinting off its rear windscreen. But it could have been any car.
‘I think his new wife was there with him, there was some girl anyway,’ Mayank went on.
‘Must be her,’ Ashish said.
They crossed the road and paused at the next crossing, opposite the Institute of Science.
Ashish was caught between trying to probe his feelings and not reveal this fact to Mayank. So he kept talking about it.
‘Are you still in touch with Sunder?’
‘No yaar, not since before he got married.’
‘Do you think he saw us?’
‘Don’t know, maybe.’
They walked on, passing the graceful university gardens.
‘It’s weird that he didn’t even wave or something. If he saw us. Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe it wasn’t him.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘Maybe, in the sense?’
‘Kya?’
‘Maybe…?’
Mayank nearly ground to a halt in front of the high court; the policeman on duty looked at the two of them suspiciously. Mayank stared at Ashish. ‘What are you talking about?’ he enquired.
‘Nothing.’ Ashish glared at his shoes and they resumed walking. In his head, Ashish continued the conversation; he silently cursed Mayank for not realizing this was all he wanted to talk about. Instead, his friend kept chattering about Ashish’s packing and preparations, whether he’d be able to work as a student, and what the course might be like.
As they drifted up the wide road towards Fountain Mayank said suddenly, ‘Maybe you should call Sunder before you go.’
Ashish thrilled inside; it must be a sign that Mayank had brought up the name.
‘No, no…Do you think so?’ he said.
‘If you want to,’ Mayank said.
‘Not particularly.’
There were a couple of bookstalls near the odd, witch-like drinking fountain at the American Express Bank, and Ashish looked at them absent-mindedly.
Mayank, annoyingly, seemed to accept that the topic had changed. But it continued to thread through Ashish’s mind.
‘Do you think I should?’ he reprised.
‘Maybe, you seem to be thinking about it a
lot.’
Ashish glared at Mayank, but the taller boy didn’t seem to have meant anything funny.
‘Maybe I will, if I have time,’ he said finally.
They passed under the shade of the bank porch and strolled through the arcades until they reached VT. The high-ceilinged, light hall of the grand station was more relaxed on this Saturday afternoon, though the five o’clock crowd was beginning to arrive.
‘So this is goodbye,’ Mayank said.
‘Yeah, I guess.’ Ashish stared at his shoes, smiled, and then squinted into the sun and at the passers-by; he hated this and wanted it to be over as soon as possible, but knew that he’d feel bad as soon as he’d forced out a brusque goodbye and walked away.
‘Take care of yourself,’ Mayank said. He looked concerned, which was depressing, as was the admonition; Ashish couldn’t think of anyone he felt less able to take care of. Mayank reached down and embraced him and he tried to enjoy the hug. He didn’t know how long it would last, was already beginning to feel sad, and wasn’t sure how much to let himself go, so he tensed and waited for it to end. After a time it did, and he stepped back, horrified to find himself slightly teary.
‘I’m going to miss you, man,’ Mayank said. His big, honest face was sad and earnest. Ashish and he remained looking at each other for a moment.
‘You’ll miss your train,’ Ashish said. Mayank hugged him again, and then cuffed him on the shoulder. ‘Stay in touch,’ he said, pointing at Ashish.
‘Yeah, of course.’
Ashish watched the tall, heavy figure stride away; then he turned and walked, head down, towards his own train. The crowds were intolerable; he felt small and buffeted in the big station. He remembered the Sunday when his uncle and he had taken the train, carrying Ashish’s things, and illogically but with the weight of complete emotional certainty he knew that his whole life would be like this: leave-takings with an edge of bitterness, for who knew what was around the corner and who would reappear after a separation? But Mayank, loyal Mayank, he told himself; then he thought again of the expensive beige car gliding down Colaba Causeway into the setting sun.
The train journey brought back the hopeful, depressing trips to Kalina to see Narayan, and he felt melancholic; finally he’d understood what life was like, the meetings and partings it entailed. It was a thought that only made him more attached to his life and the people in it. From his window seat he looked with hungry eyes at the dirty worlds next to the tracks: the brightly painted shacks, the grubby faced children, the ugly concrete tower blocks, the smells. It was his city, his world; it might be imperfect, but it was home. Yet he knew that only his imminent departure nurtured this sudden passion for Bombay, which sometimes was a neutral environment in which he existed, and at other moments felt like a trap he’d never escape. He thought again of Sunder, not the actual Sunder, but a new, strangely compelling person who sat in his car and saw Ashish and glided, nonetheless, serenely on, the sun glinting on his back windscreen as though on a chariot.
Ashish leaned into his sadness. He was almost surprised when his station arrived; he hadn’t been expecting it so soon. As he climbed the dirty, crowded steps to the overpass and the exit he reminded himself this was another journey he wouldn’t be making for a long time. A tiny middle-aged woman, thin and darkened by the sun, and carrying a large basket of aubergines on her head, bumped into him. She thrust a bony hand hard against his chest so that she wouldn’t fall, and glared at Ashish as she recovered her balance; she muttered something, then pushed on into the crowd.
Chapter Twenty-one
‘So you came all the way to meet me. I’m touched, yaar.’
The day of Ashish’s departure: Madhavi smiled and linked arms with him as they left the cafe and walked to Churchgate. She’d now return to college, and he’d take the train home to finish packing and, later that night, go to the airport. They’d spent the last two hours eating cake and discussing everything. Madhavi had favoured Ashish with some of her theories about life: everything happens for a reason, all events are connected, the right destiny will find you in the end, that sort of thing.
‘Well, you’d been reminding me that I promised to take you out, so I thought we’d better do it before I left. And it was all your idea in a way, America and everything. Also, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time,’ he said. He stepped away from the crossing, where a bus was hurtling towards them, and pulled her back too. A couple of crows rode atop the bus, which was headed for Colaba.
She looked up at him, her big eyes round. ‘What?’
Ashish sighed. ‘Your alarm clock. It always goes off at midnight and rings for twelve minutes. Why the hell do you set it if you’re not going to get up?’
She started to laugh. ‘You can hear that? No, I always think I might do some study for an hour before I sleep.’
‘Hm,’ he put on his mock-significant face, ‘maybe that happens for a reason too.’
Madhavi laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, I have to go. I have to meet Renuka. See you later.’ She gave Ashish a sudden hug and left.
He stood watching her, and getting jostled by the people hurrying into the subway; she turned and grinned at him and waved. ‘Bye, keep in touch!’
‘Yeah yeah!’
Ashish went to pack the last odds and ends. There were various pieces of paper strewn around his room: his study timetable, its colours faded; a sheet with a poem he had tried to write; lists and notes to himself. A powerful sense of dread filled him; his chest contracted. He could hardly breathe. Was this a panic attack? He missed everything and everybody in the world so much that he could hardly move for sadness.
He sat on the bed and noted the feeling in his exercise book; his head pounded and he felt slightly queasy. Then he got up and continued stuffing the old papers, and a passport photo of himself that he’d found on the floor, into his bag. He took Satish uncle’s watch, still wrapped in a hanky, out of the cupboard, looked at it, then put it in the cupboard again.
There was a sudden flash of white near the window. He ran to it; the owls were back. They sat on the sill of the flat that had been sold, and watched him while he packed.
His aunt called from the passage, ‘Leave all the tidying up, Ashu, I’ll do it!’ In these last days she had returned, apparently without thinking about it, to calling him by his childhood name.
‘Coming.’ He turned to look at the owls a last time and the nausea, the anxiety and sadness of parting moved through him like a wave. He picked up the cracked cricket bat and, like a batsman who has scored a double century, raised it and smiled at the different corners of the room: the bookshelves, the desk, the window, the bed and the cupboard with its rust-clouded mirror and the sticker of Viv Richards. He waved an imaginary helmet. Applause rang in his ears. He put the bat down, picked up his backpack and left.
The fluorescent light hurt his already tired eyes; he slumped, exhausted, on one of the moulded armchairs in the airport. They were upholstered in maroon velour and obviously dated from the 1970s. This would be his first flight, and he couldn’t relax. There’d been long queues in the departure halls while he checked in his baggage and got a boarding pass; he’d watched his suitcase disappear behind the lackadaisical, heavy skirt of rubber panels that covered a mysterious opening.
His aunt and uncle waited with him. They had bought passes that allowed them to stay until he had to go through Immigration, and down a rough carpeted slope into unfamiliar territory. It was all so strange, this new landscape; it was another world, that made him sad and afraid. But he was impatient to experience his emotions in peace. If only they would go; he didn’t want them to go, but he looked at their patient, tired, excited faces and felt that they didn’t belong in this adventure, which wouldn’t be able to start until they had left.
‘Don’t wait, Mohan mama, it’ll get late.’
‘Passengers for the delayed flight AI130 departing for Dubai at 2.45 are kindly requested to proceed to gate number 37 immediat
ely as the flight is now ready for boarding,’ began an announcement.
‘Don’t be silly,’ his aunt said. Her face was a mix of tenderness and tears. ‘We’re not going to leave you here and go.’
‘Passengers for the delayed flight AI130…’
‘Do you want to eat something?’ his uncle asked.
‘No, we just had dinner, how can I be hungry.’
‘I’ll just come,’ Mohan said. Lakshmi and Ashish watched him stride into the fluorescent-lit hall. His figure became smaller and the light shone through his hair onto the crown of his head. Bored looking policemen lounged near the barriers at the entrance; they witnessed these separations every day.
Ashish got up and stretched. ‘You really don’t have to stay,’ he repeated to his aunt. To his embarrassment, she looked as if she would cry. She held his hand.
‘I know it hasn’t been an easy year,’ she said. ‘But this is your home now, remember that. You can come any time, whether your parents are here or not. Come at Diwali if you like, your cousins will all be here.’
‘Okay,’ he said. She let go of his hand and he rehoisted the rucksack on his shoulder, uncertain for a moment just which stage in the journey he’d reached.
Mohan mama returned, with a packet of chocolate éclairs, a sweet Ashish had always liked. ‘Just in case,’ he said, handing them over.
‘Thanks,’ Ashish muttered. Now he was afraid he’d cry. He’d spotted, out of the corner of his eye, a few other young people, all toting laptops; they must be students too. They were parentless, sitting about and laughing; obviously this wasn’t their first year away.
His uncle seemed to read his mood. ‘Come,’ he said to his wife, ‘we’ll go now.’
‘But there’s still time, they said he doesn’t have to go yet.’
Mohan put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s time, let him be,’ he said.
Ashish’s mouth twisted. He dug his nails into his palm. His aunt, then his uncle hugged him. Mohan’s embrace was structured, awkward but protective; as ever, it felt like a hug from a well-meaning robot. ‘Come back soon,’ he said, when he drew away.
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