Mumbai Noir

M
UMBAI
N
OIR

This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books
©2012 Akashic Books

Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple
Mumbai map by Aaron Petrovich

eISBN-13: 978-1-61775-112-7
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-027-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902728

All rights reserved
First printing

Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
[email protected]
www.akashicbooks.com

A
LSO IN THE
A
KASHIC
N
OIR
S
ERIES:

Baltimore Noir
, edited by Laura Lippman

Barcelona Noir
(Spain), edited by Adriana V. López & Carmen Ospina

Boston Noir
, edited by Dennis Lehane

Bronx Noir
, edited by S.J. Rozan

Brooklyn Noir
, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics
, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing but the Truth
edited by Tim McLoughlin & Thomas Adcock

Cape Cod Noir
, edited by David L. Ulin

Chicago Noir
, edited by Neal Pollack

Copenhagen Noir
(Denmark), edited by Bo Tao Michaëlis

D.C. Noir
, edited by George Pelecanos

D.C. Noir 2: The Classics
, edited by George Pelecanos

Delhi Noir
(India), edited by Hirsh Sawhney

Detroit Noir
, edited by E.J. Olsen & John C. Hocking

Dublin Noir
(Ireland), edited by Ken Bruen

Haiti Noir
, edited by Edwidge Danticat

Havana Noir
(Cuba), edited by Achy Obejas

Indian Country Noir
, edited by Sarah Cortez & Liz Martínez

Istanbul Noir
(Turkey), edited by Mustafa Ziyalan & Amy Spangler

Las Vegas Noir
, edited by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce

London Noir
(England), edited by Cathi Unsworth

Lone Star Noir
, edited by Bobby Byrd & Johnny Byrd

Los Angeles Noir
, edited by Denise Hamilton

Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics
, edited by Denise Hamilton

Manhattan Noir
, edited by Lawrence Block

Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics
, edited by Lawrence Block

Mexico City Noir
(Mexico), edited by Paco I. Taibo II

Miami Noir
, edited by Les Standiford

Moscow Noir
(Russia), edited by Natalia Smirnova & Julia Goumen

New Jersey Noir
, edited by Joyce Carol Oates

New Orleans Noir
, edited by Julie Smith

Orange County Noir
, edited by Gary Phillips

Paris Noir
(France), edited by Aurélien Masson

Philadelphia Noir
, edited by Carlin Romano

Phoenix Noir
, edited by Patrick Millikin

Pittsburgh Noir
, edited by Kathleen George

Portland Noir
, edited by Kevin Sampsell

Queens Noir
, edited by Robert Knightly

Richmond Noir,
edited by Andrew Blossom, Brian Castleberry & Tom De Haven

Rome Noir
(Italy), edited by Chiara Stangalino & Maxim Jakubowski

San Diego Noir
, edited by Maryelizabeth Hart

San Francisco Noir
, edited by Peter Maravelis

San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics
, edited by Peter Maravelis

Seattle Noir
, edited by Curt Colbert

Toronto Noir
(Canada), edited by Janine Armin & Nathaniel G. Moore

Trinidad Noir
, edited by Lisa Allen-Agostini & Jeanne Mason

Twin Cities Noir
, edited by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz

Wall Street Noir
, edited by Peter Spiegelman

F
ORTHCOMING:

Bogotá Noir
(Colombia), edited by Andrea Montejo

Buffalo Noir
, edited by Brigid Hughes & Ed Park

Jerusalem Noir
, edited by Sayed Kashua

Kansas City Noir
, edited by Steve Paul

Lagos Noir
(Nigeria), edited by Chris Abani

Long Island Noir
, edited by Kaylie Jones

Manila Noir
(Philippines), edited by Jessica Hagedorn

St. Petersburg Noir
(Russia), edited by Natalia Smirnova & Julia Goumen

Seoul Noir
(Korea), edited by BS Publishing Co.

Staten Island Noir
, edited by Patricia Smith

Venice Noir
(Italy), edited by Maxim Jakubowski

For Y.T. and D.T.—

who missed each other forever by a single day

T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

PART I: BOMB-AY

PART II: DANGEROUS LIAISONS

PART III: AN ISLAND UNTO ITSELF

Glossary

About the Contributors

INTRODUCTION

T
HE
T
RAFFIC
-C
HOKED
A
CCIDENT BY THE
C
OAST

A
boiling July afternoon. A monster traffic jam on Mumbai’s tony Peddar Road. My taxi driver peers up through the windshield. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s twenty-seven-floor home looms over the thoroughfare like a mammoth pile of Lego blocks. The cabbie remarks in the Bambaiya patois, “What building Ambani has made— right on the road. Some terrorist just has to drive by with a rocket launcher and
buss
!” He glances at me in the rearview mirror with raised eyebrows: khel khatam, game over. Looking through the passenger window, I observe, “Even an AK-47 would do a lot …” The cabbie is skeptical. “From the road? Angle will be difficult to sustain, saab,” he says. “Plus, vehicle will have to go very slow for gunman to do serious damage …” I look again. The man has a point.

The traffic lets up a bit, but we continue to analyze, without a hint of irony, the vulnerabilities of the Ambani residence. Between 1993 and 2011, Mumbai has weathered eight terror attacks. Its inhabitants—12.43 million according to Census 2011—have become unwitting authorities on all the ways that an ordinary day in the city can turn out to be one’s last.

Life in the island city wasn’t always so chancy. Until international terrorism cast its vague shadow over the metropolis in the early ’90s, the pains in Mumbai’s collective neck most often had a face and a fixed address. The city’s denizens knew the names and backgrounds of underworld majordomos. They were familiar with the bastions of extremist religious parties. And they tried their best to stay away.

Before the liberalization of India’s economy in 1991, perhaps the only thing worth striving for was one’s ability to stay on the good side of the law. Mumbai’s middle and working classes were easy to recognize back then: they toiled hard, wore polyester, and fantasized about migrating to the West. Their heroic struggle to choose a righteous life over an easy life often invoked the respect of those who had done away with such bourgeois moral anxieties. The outlaw narrator of Abbas Tyrewala’s story in this volume reminisces how the bhais of his time never harmed Mumbai’s common folk because they were awed by their courage to live honestly and bring up children.

This promise of a “clean life” has driven millions of people over several centuries to abandon India’s rural hinterland and throng Mumbai’s streets in search of employment and social equality. It helps that under its urban façade, the city comprises numerous villagelike communal ghettos where people of similar religious and caste backgrounds can flock together. In Namita Devidayal’s piece, the wealthy, pill-popping homemaker resides in an “all-vegetarian” Jain building, where the appearance of a single nonvegan egg can wreak havoc. Anyone who has gone apartment hunting in Mumbai will testify that the city’s communal boundaries are often as impermeable as national borders.