Tales From Firozsha Baag (13 page)

The album on the desk, able to produce such changes in Dr. Mody, now worked its magic through him upon the boy. Jehangir, watching and listening, fascinated, tried to read the names of the countries at the top of the pages as they sped by: Antigua … Australia … Belgium … Bhutan … Bulgaria … and on through to Malta and Mauritius … Romania and Russia … Togo and Tonga … and a final blur through which he caught Yugoslavia and Zanzibar.

“Can I see it again?” he asked, and Dr. Mody handed the album to him.

“So what do you think? Do you want to be a collector?”

Jehangir nodded eagerly and Dr. Mody laughed. “When Nusserwanji Uncle showed me his collection I felt just like that. I’ll tell your mother what to buy for you to get you started. Bring it here next Sunday, same time!”

And next Sunday Jehangir was ready at nine. But he waited by his door with a Stamp Album For Beginners and a packet of 100 Assorted
Stamps – All Countries. Going too early would mean sitting under the baleful eyes of Mrs. Mody.

Ten o’clock struck and the clock’s tenth bong was echoed by the Modys’ doorchimes. Mrs. Mody was expecting him this time and did not block the doorway. Wordlessly, she beckoned him in. Burjor Uncle was ready, too, and came out almost immediately to rescue him from her arena.

“Let’s see what you’ve got there,” he said when they were in his room. They removed the cellophane wrapper, and while they worked Dr. Mody enjoyed himself as much as the boy. His deepest wish appeared to be coming true: he had at last found someone to share his hobby with. He could not have hoped for a finer neophyte than Jehangir. His young recruit was so quick to learn how to identify and sort stamps by countries, learn the different currencies, spot watermarks. Already he was skilfully folding and moistening the little hinges and mounting the stamps as neatly as the teacher.

When it was almost time to leave, Jehangir asked if he could examine again Nusserwanji Uncle’s album, the one he had seen last Sunday. But Burjor Uncle led him instead to a cupboard in the corner of the room. “Since you enjoy looking at my stamps, let me show you what I have here.” He unlocked its doors.

Each of the cupboard’s four shelves was piled with biscuit tins and sweet tins: round, oval, rectangular, square. It puzzled Jehangir: all this bore the unmistakable stamp of the worthless hoardings of senility, and did not seem at all like Burjor Uncle. But Burjor Uncle reached out for a box at random and showed him inside. It was chock-full of stamps! Jehangir’s mouth fell open. Then he gaped at the shelves, and Burjor Uncle laughed. “Yes, all these tins are full of stamps. And that big cardboard box at the bottom contains six new albums, all empty.”

Jehangir quickly tried to assign a number in his mind to the stamps in the containers of Maghanlal Biscuitwalla and Lokmanji Mithaiwalla, to all of the stamps in the round tins and the oval tins, the square ones and the oblong ones. He failed.

Once again Dr. Mody laughed at the boy’s wonderment. “A lot of stamps. And they took me a lot of years to collect. Of course, I am lucky
I have many contacts in foreign countries. Because of my job, I meet the experts from abroad who are invited by the Indian Government. When I tell them about my hobby they send me stamps from their countries. But no time to sort them, so I pack them in boxes. One day, after I retire, I will spend all my time with my stamps.” He paused, and shut the cupboard doors. “So what you have to do now is start making lots of friends, tell them about your hobby. If they also collect, you can exchange duplicates with them. If they don’t, you can still ask them for all the envelopes they may be throwing away with stamps on them. You do something for them, they will do something for you. Your collection will grow depending on how smart you are!”

He hesitated, and opened the cupboard again. Then he changed his mind and shut it – it wasn’t yet time for the Spanish dancing-lady stamp.

On the pavement outside St. Xavier’s Boys School, not far from the ornate iron gates, stood two variety stalls. They were the stalls of
Patla Babu
and
Jhaaria Babu
. Their real names were never known. Nor was known the exact source of the schoolboy inspiration that named them thus, many years ago, after their respective thinness and fatness.

Before the schoolboys arrived in the morning the two would unpack their cases and set up the displays, beating the beggars to the choice positions. Occasionally, there were disputes if someone’s space was violated. The beggars did not harbour great hopes for alms from schoolboys but they stood there, nonetheless, like mute lessons in realism and the harshness of life. Their patience was rewarded when they raided the dustbins after breaks and lunches.

At the end of the school day the pavement community packed up. The beggars shuffled off into the approaching dark,
Patla Babu
went home with his cases, and
Jhaaria Babu
slept near the school gate under a large tree to whose trunk he chained his boxes during the night.

The two sold a variety of nondescript objects and comestibles, uninteresting to any save the eyes and stomachs of schoolboys:
supari
,
A-i chewing gum (which, in a most ungumlike manner, would, after a while, dissolve in one’s mouth),
jeeragoli
, marbles, tops,
aampapud
during the mango season, pens, Camel Ink, pencils, rulers, and stamps in little cellophane packets.

Patla Babu
and
Jhaaria Babu
lost some of their goods regularly due to theft. This was inevitable when doing business outside a large school like St. Xavier’s, with a population as varied as its was. The loss was an operating expense stoically accepted, like the success or failure of the monsoons, and they never complained to the school authorities or held it against the boys. Besides, business was good despite the losses: insignificant items like a packet of
jeeragoli
worth ten paise, or a marble of the kind that sold three for five paise. More often than not, the stealing went on for the excitement of it, out of bravado or on a dare. It was called “flicking” and was done without any malice towards
Patla
and
Jhaaria
.

Foremost among the flickers was a boy in Jehangir’s class called Eric D’Souza. A tall, lanky fellow who had been suspended a couple of times, he had had to repeat the year on two occasions, and held out the promise of more repetitions. Eric also had the reputation of doing things inside his half-pants under cover of his desk. In a class of fifty boys it was easy to go unobserved by the teacher, and only his immediate neighbours could see the ecstasy on his face and the vigorous back and forth movement of his hand. When he grinned at them they looked away, pretending not to have noticed anything.

Jehangir sat far from Eric and knew of his habits only by hearsay. He was oblivious to Eric’s eye which had been on him for quite a while. In fact, Eric found Jehangir’s delicate hands and fingers, his smooth legs and thighs very desirable. In class he gazed for hours, longingly, at the girlish face, curly hair, long eyelashes.

Jehangir and Eric finally got acquainted one day when the class filed out for games period. Eric had been made to kneel down by the door for coming late and disturbing the class, and Jehangir found himself next to him as he stood in line. From his kneeling position Eric observed the smooth thighs emerging from the half-pants (half-pants was the school uniform requirement), winked at him and, unhindered by his underwear, inserted a pencil up the pant leg. He
tickled Jehangir’s genitals seductively with the eraser end, expertly, then withdrew it. Jehangir feigned a giggle, too shocked to say anything. The line started to move for the playground.

Shortly after this incident, Eric approached Jehangir during break-time. He had heard that Jehangir was desperate to acquire stamps.

“Arré
man, I can get you stamps, whatever kind you want,” he said.

Jehangir stopped. He had been slightly confused ever since the pass with the pencil; Eric frightened him a little with his curious habits and forbidden knowledge. But it had not been easy to accumulate stamps. Sundays with Burjor Uncle continued to be as fascinating as the first. He wished he had new stamps to show – the stasis of his collection might be misinterpreted as lack of interest. He asked Eric: “Ya? You want to exchange?”

“No
yaar
, I don’t collect. But I’ll get them for you. As a favour, man.”

“Ya? What kind do you have?”

“I don’t have, man. Come on with me to
Patla
and
Jhaaria
, just show me which ones you want. I’ll flick them for you.”

Jehangir hesitated. Eric put his arm around him: “C’mon man, what you scared for, I’ll flick. You just show me and go away.” Jehangir pictured the stamps on display in cellophane wrappers: how well they would add to his collection. He imagined album pages bare no more but covered with exquisite stamps, each one mounted carefully and correctly, with a hinge, as Burjor Uncle had showed him to.

They went outside, Eric’s arm still around him. Crowds of schoolboys were gathered around the two stalls. A multitude of groping, exploring hands handled the merchandise and browsed absorbedly, a multitude that was a prerequisite for flicking to begin. Jehangir showed Eric the individually wrapped stamps he wanted and moved away. In a few minutes Eric joined him triumphantly.

“Got them?”

“Ya ya. But come inside. He could be watching, man.”

Jehangir was thrilled. Eric asked, “You want more or what?”

“Sure,” said Jehangir.

“But not today. On Friday. If you do me a favour in visual period on Thursday.”

Jehangir’s pulse speeded slightly-visual period, with its darkened hall and projector, and the intimacy created by the teacher’s policing abilities temporarily suspended. He remembered Eric’s pencil. The cellophane-wrapped stamp packets rustled and crackled in his hand. And there was the promise of more. There had been nothing unpleasant about the pencil. In fact it had felt quite, well, exciting. He agreed to Eric’s proposal.

On Thursday, the class lined up to go to the Visual Hall. Eric stood behind Jehangir to ensure their seats would be together.

When the room was dark he put his hand on Jehangir’s thigh and began caressing it. He took Jehangir’s hand and placed it on his crotch. It lay there inert. Impatient, he whispered, “Do it, man, c’mon!” But Jehangir’s lacklustre stroking was highly unsatisfactory. Eric arrested the hand, reached inside his pants and said, “OK, hold it tight and rub it like this.” He encircled Jehangir’s hand with his to show him how. When Jehangir had attained the right pressure and speed he released his own hand to lean back and sigh contentedly. Shortly Jehangir felt a warm stickiness fill his palm and fingers, and the hardness he held in his hand grew flaccid.

Eric shook off the hand. Jehangir wiped his palm with his hanky. Eric borrowed the hanky to wipe himself. “Want me to do it for you?” he asked. But Jehangir declined. He was thinking of his hanky. The odour was interesting, not unpleasant at all, but he would have to find some way of cleaning it before his mother found it.

The following day, Eric presented him with more stamps. Next Thursday’s assignation was also fixed.

And on Sunday Jehangir went to see Dr. Mody at ten o’clock. The wife let him in, muttering something under her breath about being bothered by inconsiderate people on the one day that the family could be together.

Dr. Mody’s delight at the new stamps fulfilled Jehangir’s every expectation: “Wonderful, wonderful! Where did you get them all? No, no, forget it, don’t tell me. You will think I’m trying to learn your tricks. I already have enough stamps to keep me busy in my retirement. Ha! ha!”

After the new stamps had been examined and sorted Dr. Mody
said, “Today, as a reward for your enterprise, I’m going to show you a stamp you’ve never seen before.” From the cupboard of biscuit and sweet tins he took a small satin-covered box of the type in which rings or bracelets are kept. He opened it and, without removing the stamp from inside, placed it on the desk.

The stamp said España Correos at the bottom and its denomination was noted in the top left corner: 3
PTAS
. The face of the stamp featured a flamenco dancer in the most exquisite detail and colour. But it was something in the woman’s countenance, a look, an ineffable sparkle he saw in her eyes, which so captivated Jehangir.

Wordlessly, he studied the stamp. Dr. Mody waited restlessly as the seconds ticked by. He kept fidgeting till the little satin-covered box was shut and back in his hands, then said, “So you like the Spanish dancing-lady. Everyone who sees it likes it. Even my wife who is not interested in stamp-collecting thought it was beautiful. When I retire I can spend more time with the Spanish dancing-lady. And all my other stamps.” He relaxed once the stamp was locked again in the cupboard.

Jehangir left, carrying that vision of the Spanish dancer in his head. He tried to imagine the stamp inhabiting the pages of his album, to greet him every time he opened it, with the wonderful sparkle in her eyes. He shut the door behind him and immediately, as though to obliterate his covetous fantasy, loud voices rose inside the flat.

He heard Mrs. Mody’s, shrill in argument, and the doctor’s, beseeching her not to yell lest the neighbours would hear. Pesi’s name was mentioned several times in the quarrel that ensued, and accusations of neglect, and something about the terrible affliction on a son of an unloving father. The voices followed Jehangir as he hurried past the inquiring eyes of his mother, till he reached the bedroom at the other end of the flat and shut the door.

When the school week started, Jehangir found himself looking forward to Thursday. His pulse was racing with excitement when visual period came. To save his hanky this time he kept some paper at hand.

Eric did not have to provide much guidance. Jehangir discovered he could control Eric’s reactions with variations in speed, pressure, and grip. When it was over and Eric offered to do it to him, he did not refuse.

The weeks sped by and Jehangir’s collection continued to grow, visual period by visual period. Eric’s and his masturbatory partnership was whispered about in class, earning the pair the title of
moothya-maroo
. He accompanied Eric on the flicking forays, helping to swell the milling crowd and add to the browsing hands. Then he grew bolder, studied Eric’s methods, and flicked a few stamps himself.