The Song of Kahunsha

by Anosh Irani

  Chamdi flinches as though he is being shot.

  He hurls the bottle through the window.

  He turns away as the bottle smashes on the floor. Flames rise. Screams shatter the night. It is as though the fire is an animal and it is hungry for humans.

  As the men around him flee, Chamdi stares at Anand Bhai, who stands rooted to the ground. Dressed in black, Anand Bhai looks like he is part of the night itself. Chamdi cannot understand how Anand Bhai can smile at a time like this. Anand Bhai shows no intention of running away.

  But Chamdi runs.

  FOURTEEN.

  The adda is completely deserted. Not one of Anand Bhai’s men is around. Even the door to his room is closed. The goat is awake in a corner of the adda, tied to a wooden post. It lies on its fours and lifts its head from time to time. Chamdi sits on the ground and stares at the goat. It has been more than an hour since he got here, but he has still not knocked on Darzi’s door.

  One look at him and Guddi will know that he has done something terrible. What can he say to her—that I, Chamdi, have taken lives? Perhaps she will not recognize him. What if his face has already begun to change because of what he has just done?

  But Mrs. Sadiq would recognize him in a second. He can feel her breath in his ear right now: Remember, once a thief, always a thief. I am much more than a thief, he says to her. It would cause her so much pain she would stop breathing altogether.

  If only he had stayed at the orphanage. He would have lived with his bougainvilleas all day and night. He closes his eyes and envisions them caressing his face. But the moment they touch him, they recoil.

  He sees Hanif’s wife instead. She just looks at him, her long black hair in flames.

  A sudden scream explodes in the night. Chamdi opens his eyes, but no one is around. He hopes Anand Bhai will cut off his ears, because if his ears remain, they will carry the screams of Hanif and his family for the rest of his life.

  Perhaps the people of the mohalla are fighting the fire, he tells himself. The shack will be destroyed, but the family might survive.

  As soon as he thinks this, he knows it is impossible. Anand Bhai stayed there to ensure that no one escapes. All Chamdi can hope for is that Hanif’s family stops breathing long before the fire does.

  He hears a heavy cough through the door. The door opens suddenly—it is the old woman. She is still coughing. She steps out into the night, spits onto the gravel of the adda, and lets out a small “aah.” She has still not seen Chamdi. He is not yet ready to face anyone. The old woman turns to re-enter her room.

  “Chamdi?” she asks.

  Her eyes become narrower as she peers through the darkness. Chamdi does not answer, nor does he stand up. He stays motionless on the floor with his back against the wall—one leg folded, the other outstretched.

  “Chamdi …” says the old woman again. Her voice is softer this time.

  Even though her back is bent already, the old woman bends lower, towards him. Her closeness makes him uncomfortable. She places her palm on his head, keeps it there for a while. She says nothing. She straightens up as much as her body allows and goes back into the room.

  He can hear her walk about the room. There is the clash of utensils, followed by Darzi’s heavy snoring. It starts and stops abruptly. Chamdi is glad that Guddi is still asleep. He does not have the courage to face her. He decides to get away from the room. Sitting here, he feels cold, like his heart is shivering.

  Just as he is about to place his palms on the ground and thrust himself up, he hears a voice: “Tonight, we will enjoy …”

  It is Anand Bhai. He has a whisky bottle in his left hand and his right hand is around a man’s shoulder. It is the man who rammed the iron rod into Hanif’s face.

  “Rani’s bringing a friend,” says Anand Bhai. “We’ll enjoy. Do you want to enjoy?”

  “Yes,” says the man. “I want to enjoy.”

  They both laugh in a hoarse manner, and Chamdi stays extremely still. He hopes they do not notice him. As they are about to walk past him, the door to Darzi’s room rattles. A hand pushes the door open and the door hits the wall. Chamdi knows it is Guddi’s hand and he wants her to go back in.

  Anand Bhai and the man turn in alarm. But the moment they see Guddi standing in the doorway, they relax. Anand Bhai’s attention turns to his right, to where Chamdi is crouched.

  “Chamdi,” says Anand Bhai.

  He climbs up the three small steps that lead to Darzi’s room and bends down towards Chamdi, just as the old woman did.

  “You did well tonight,” says Anand Bhai. “You were very brave.” He puts his hand on Chamdi’s shoulder and squeezes it. “Remember this night. Tonight, you’ve become a man.” Chamdi can smell the alcohol on Anand Bhai’s breath. His black shirt sticks to his sweaty chest. Anand Bhai turns to Guddi and asks, “Do you know what our hero did tonight?”

  Chamdi is so still, it is as though he has forgotten how to move.

  But Anand Bhai moves. He moves towards Guddi. He places his hand on Guddi’s head and looks at Chamdi. “The two of you are very special to me,” says Anand Bhai. Then he puts his fingers underneath her chin, looks directly at her, and says, “Even you are special, Guddi.”

  Anger rises from Chamdi’s chest. It makes him stand up and face Anand Bhai. His right palm clenches into a fist.

  “Remember what I said, Chamdi,” says Anand Bhai. “So you be loyal …”

  The old woman walks out then. She slowly stretches her arm out for Guddi, and Guddi goes close to her and sticks to her body.

  “Anand, it’s late,” she says firmly. “Go to sleep.”

  When Chamdi notices how Guddi sticks to the old woman’s body, he understands something. Perhaps this is the only place where Guddi is safe. Right here, at Anand Bhai’s adda. Right next to Anand Bhai’s mother. She cares for Guddi and will not allow Anand Bhai to harm her. Chamdi can never trust Anand Bhai—he can go back on his word in a second—but he can count on the old woman. As long as she is alive, Guddi will be safe. If he and Guddi run, the old woman will not be able to protect them. Anand Bhai will find them and Guddi will suffer terribly.

  Anand Bhai puts his hand in the pocket of his black trousers and takes out a fifty-rupee note. He places the money in Chamdi’s palm.

  “You did well tonight,” Anand Bhai says again.

  Chamdi cannot bring himself to fold his fingers around the money.

  Anand Bhai smiles at the old woman as he climbs down the three steps and takes a swig from the bottle. He places his arm around the man’s shoulder again, and they walk towards Anand Bhai’s room, their feet crunching the gravel beneath.

  Chamdi stares at the money in his hand. It is a fresh fifty-rupee note, more money than he has held in his life. But he despises the touch of it against his skin. He fights the urge to tear it up. He closes his fingers over the note and puts it into the pocket of his shorts. He will need money now. He will need it to feed Guddi and Amma. He might need it to run. He does not know.

  The old woman enters the room again. He can hear her pouring water into a vessel. His legs feel weak and he sits down once more. Guddi sits down too. She does not say anything. Chamdi watches Anand Bhai open the door of his room. He puts the whisky bottle to his mouth, finishes whatever is left, and throws the empty bottle to the ground.

  Chamdi stares at the wall that separates the adda from the school playground. In a few hours, the sun will rise. The doors of the one-room homes will open, the smell of beedis will flood the adda, and the school bell will ring.

  Chamdi can feel Guddi looking at him. He continues to stare at the cement wall in front of him.

  “What happened?” she asks softly.

  Chamdi wants to close his eyes and place his head in Guddi’s lap, but he is unable to. An eerie silence envelops the adda as if everyone is awake in the darkness.

  FIFTEEN.

  Slabs of stone are visible amongst the ruins of the burnt building. Rats dive into holes as bits of glass sparkle un
der the streetlights.

  Guddi walks in front of Chamdi with three bananas in her hand. The old woman gave them to her and asked them to come back for chapattis and dal the next day. She also said she would let Guddi have a bath if she wished.

  As they approach their kholi, Guddi increases the pace of her steps.

  Amma is back at the kholi. She holds the baby in her arms, looks to the night sky, and whispers as though she is offering her own child to the sky for safekeeping.

  Guddi goes towards Amma and gently places her palm on Amma’s back. Amma keeps looking at the sky, but hands the baby to Guddi, then stops whispering. She shakes her head from side to side as she slowly lowers her gaze.

  Guddi places the baby on a plastic sheet beneath the kholi. She peels a banana and feeds it to Amma. Amma holds on to Guddi’s hand—she does not want Guddi to let go of the banana. She swallows it down, like it is liquid. Chamdi wonders if the baby is still unwell. When morning comes, he will buy some milk for it. He will see to it that the baby does not die.

  He spots something on the ground in a corner of the kholi. A lump forms in his throat as he holds Sumdi’s cream shirt in his hand. It smells of sweat and beedis. It must have been the last thing Sumdi touched. He must have thrown his shirt to the ground just before he positioned himself outside the temple. Chamdi wonders how a shirt can make him feel like this. He did not cry even once when the fire was burning Sumdi’s body, but now this shirt …

  Amma finishes the banana and lies down next to the baby and closes her eyes. She does not even know she has lost a son, thinks Chamdi. A couple of flies sit on her face and he drives them away. She licks her lips as he does this. He wipes off droplets of sweat from the baby’s stomach, but quickly takes his hand off it.

  Now Guddi eats a banana, and she hands Chamdi the one that remains. He begins to peel it, but he does so very slowly, as though he fears eating it. He cannot bring himself to eat it. His eyes are still on the baby. He wants to tell Guddi that he has killed one just like it.

  She knows. She knows what he has done.

  Or she will find out in the days to come. Everyone will talk about the burning of a family in Shaan Gulley, and she will understand his part in it because Anand Bhai called him a hero.

  Chamdi watches the baby’s belly move up and down as it breathes. The other baby … Hanif’s baby … it must have been sleeping too. No, he reminds himself. He heard the baby’s wail from inside the house. It was wide awake.

  Something is clawing at his heart. He does not know how to make it stop.

  Perhaps he should speak to Guddi, tell her exactly what he has done.

  No, he will never tell her. He knows Guddi is watching his every move. He is glad. He has been forced to commit a horrific act because of her.

  Let her watch.

  The moment he thinks this, he is ashamed. He must not blame her for what has happened. Sumdi or Guddi would have done the same for him.

  Guddi leans over and steadies his hand. He did not even realize that it was shaking. He immediately takes his hand away from hers—it is the same hand that held the bottle.

  “Whatever happened, it will be okay,” she whispers to him. “It’s okay.”

  It will never be okay, he thinks.

  “Come with me,” says Guddi. “I want to take you somewhere.”

  Chamdi lies on the ground and closes his eyes. There is no use in going with her. No matter where she takes him, the flames of Shaan Gulley will always follow him.

  SIXTEEN.

  A taxiwala’s car stereo plays an old Hindi song. As Chamdi walks, he looks in through the front window of the parked taxi, at a string of white jasmines that hangs from the rear-view mirror. Then he looks at the garland in his hand and tells himself that the one he holds is special. Not because it is made of marigolds and lilies, but because he has made it himself. He has made it for Sumdi.

  Guddi has been wanting to bring Chamdi here for a while now. The only reason he has finally agreed to go with her today is because it was exactly a month ago that Sumdi died. But in the days that have passed, Chamdi has hardly spoken.

  As they take the bend towards the Taj Mahal Hotel, crows caw in the trees. Through their branches, Chamdi can see the sky, a shy tinge of orange. In the dawn, the tring-tring of a milkman’s cycle can be heard. He trudges past them in khaki shorts and a blue shirt, a steel container hanging from the side of his cycle.

  As they approach the sea wall, Chamdi notices the Gateway of India in front of him. He sees the brown structure, its four turrets, its central archway, and he wonders why it was built. The Taj Mahal Hotel opposite resembles an old palace, its corners flanked by orange domes, a larger dome in the middle. Pigeons chatter away on the white arches of windows and some flutter alongside its stone walls. Uniformed cleaners hum to themselves and mop the concrete steps of the hotel. To the right of the hotel, coconut trees line the compounds of residential buildings, and even though the buildings look old, their balconies are spacious, and they seem strong.

  Around Chamdi, women sweepers clean up the night’s garbage with thick straw brooms and old men walk by the sea wall in white shorts. A man with a curling moustache sits on his haunches with a kerosene stove by his side and sells chai in small paper cups. Stray dogs and pigeons share the footpath along with beggars, and a man without legs is asleep in his hand-operated wheelchair. A bus driver stands outside his blue tourist bus with an incense stick in his hand, which he circles round and round, and chants a prayer in a low, heavy voice. Chamdi wants to say a prayer too, for Hanif the taxiwala, but he closes his eyes and asks Hanif to forgive him instead.

  “I used to come here with my father,” says Guddi. “We used to sit here all day and eat chana. This is my favourite place in Bombay.”

  Guddi sits on the sea wall and dangles her feet over the edge, the water below her. She looks at Chamdi and he knows she wants him to do the same. As he takes his place beside her, the sun sends its soft glow all around. This area is very different from anything Chamdi has seen. There is so much space, the sea does not seem to end.

  Chamdi feels the garland in his hands. The old woman has taught him to leave just the right amount of space between the flowers so that they can breathe. He liked it when she told him that. In a few hours, he will go to Darzi’s room, sit on the floor with a basket full of marigolds and lilies by his side, and thread garlands.

  He looks towards the horizon and thinks of Sumdi. By now, Sumdi must have fulfilled his dream. He must have visited every single corner of Bombay, witnessed every cricket match, bet at every gambling den. Sumdi’s words rush to him: Then I will fly over the sea like a champion bird, and never ever stop. Even though the sea is so vast, Sumdi would cross it in no time. Who knows, he might even have a beedi in his mouth.

  Chamdi has made this garland for Sumdi because he never had a chance to say goodbye. When the flames ate Sumdi’s body, all Chamdi did was watch. He hopes Sumdi forgives him. With this thought, Chamdi throws the garland into the sea. The garland moves farther and farther away. Where will the sea take it? he wonders. He wishes Guddi and he could float away in the same manner, to whatever country lies on the other side.

  “Sometimes I dream Sumdi is in our village,” says Guddi, “and he’s pretending he cannot walk. Just for fun.”

  Chamdi says nothing. He listens to the chatter of pigeons and is reminded of the orphanage wall. Perhaps by now the orphanage has already been destroyed. He hopes everyone is okay, especially Mrs. Sadiq and Pushpa.

  “Chamdi, please talk to me,” says Guddi. “So what if we work for Anand Bhai? We are still good, no?”

  He raises his head a little and catches a glimpse of her feet, the cracks lined with dirt, then at the brown dress that sits in her lap, loose and ill fitting, then at the orange bangles she never takes off, but he is unable to look any higher—at her face, into her eyes.

  “Chamdi, you must talk to me,” she says. “You hardly talk to me.” Her voice begins to crack.

 
But he just stares at the water, at the small boats that sway from side to side. The sweeper’s broom makes a rustling sound behind them. The panting of dogs can also be heard.

  Chamdi faces the horizon and runs his hands across his ribs. They are as sharp as ever, but he now knows that they will never transform into tusks. Nor will police-tigers emerge from the blue-and-yellow stripes of police station walls. He will have to find other ways to protect Guddi.

  But he has nothing to hold on to. When he left the orphanage, he had Kahunsha. He saw it so clearly, like it was real, as though it did truly exist. Now even his bougainvilleas are of no use.

  He hears Guddi take a deep breath. He still does not look her way because if she is crying, he will not be able to do much.

  But Guddi begins to sing.

  Her voice takes Chamdi by surprise, and for a moment, he watches the water directly below him gently push itself against the sea wall. Guddi’s voice is soft at first, but when it rises, he is reminded of the beauty in her song the first time he heard it, and he knows that even though she is sitting right next to him, she is far, far away.

  He looks into the distance, at the manner in which the sea and sky meet as though they are friends. Soon the sea will nudge the sun into the sky, and the sea might do the same with her song so that it can reach her father, and even Sumdi.

  But he feels that she is singing for him. He wonders how Guddi can bring herself to sing for him even though it is she who has lost a brother. She has hardly cried, and it might be because she wants Chamdi to feel better. He wonders where she gets the strength.

  Chamdi looks at the way in which her left hand is outstretched in front of her, as though she is showing her voice where to go. She is guiding her voice over the water, and by the sway of her hand, her voice will know what waves to jump over and which ones to crash into. Her orange bangles clink into each other as she does this, and he traces his way up her elbow, to the sleeve of her dress, when he notices her chest.

  Guddi sings with so much power that her chest heaves up and down.