Tales From Firozsha Baag (16 page)

Mamaiji
spun enough thread to keep us all in
kustis
. Since Grandpa’s death, she spent more and more time spinning, so that now we each had a spare
kusti
as well. The
kustis
were woven by a professional, who always praised the fine quality of the thread; and even at the fire-temple, where we untied and tied them during prayers, they earned the covetous glances of other Parsis.

I beheld the spindle and
Mamaiji’s
co-ordinated feats of dexterity with admiration. All spinning things entranced me. The descending spindle was like the bucket spinning down into the sacred Bhikha Behram Well to draw water for the ones like us who went there to pray on certain holy days after visiting the fire-temple. I imagined myself clinging to the base of the spindle, sinking into the dark well, confident that
Mamaiji
would pull me up with her waggling hand before I drowned, and praying that the thread would not break. I also liked to stare at records spinning on the old 78-rpm gramophone. There was one I was particularly fond of: its round label was the most ethereal blue I ever saw. The lettering was gold. I played this record over and over, just to watch its wonderfully soothing blue and gold rotation, and the concentric rings of the shiny black shellac, whose grooves created a spiral effect if the light was right. The gramophone cabinet’s warm smell of wood and leather seemed to fly right out of this shellacked spiral, while I sat close, my cheek against it, to feel the hum and vibration of the turntable. It was so cosy and comforting. Like missing school because of a slight cold, staying in bed all day with a book, fussed over by Mummy, eating white rice and soup made specially for me.

Daddy finished cutting out and re-reading the classified advertisement. “Yes, this is a good one. Sounds very promising.” He picked up the newspaper again, then remembered what
Mamaiji
had muttered, and said softly to me, “If it is so
duleendar
and will bring bad luck, how is it I found this? These old people –” and gave a sigh of mild
exasperation. Then briskly: “Don’t stop now, this week is very important.” He continued, slapping the table merrily at each word: “Every-single-white-hair-out.”

There was no real enmity between Daddy and
Mamaiji
, I think they even liked each other. He was just disinclined towards living with his mother-in-law. They often had disagreements over me, and it was always
Mamaiji
versus Mummy and Daddy.
Mamaiji
firmly believed that I was underfed. Housebound as she was, the only food accessible to her was the stuff sold by door-to-door vendors, which I adored but was strictly forbidden:
sarnosa, bhajia, sevganthia;
or the dinners she cooked for herself, separately, because she said that Mummy’s cooking was insipidity itself. “Tasteless as spit, refuses to go down my throat.”

So I, her favourite, enjoyed from time to time, on the sly, hot searing curries and things she purchased at the door when Daddy was at work and Mummy in the kitchen. Percy shared, too, if he was around; actually, his iron-clad stomach was much better suited to those flaming snacks. But the clandestine repasts were invariably uncovered, and the price was paid in harsh and unpleasant words.
Mamaiji
was accused of trying to burn to a crisp my stomach and intestines with her fiery, ungodly curries, or of exposing me to dysentery and diphtheria: the cheap door-to-door foodstuff was allegedly cooked in filthy, rancid oil – even machine oil, unfit for human consumption, as was revealed recently by a government investigation.
Mamaiji
retorted that if they did their duty as parents she would not have to resort to secrecy and
chori-chhoopi;
as it was, she had no choice, she could not stand by and see the child starve.

All this bothered me much more than I let anyone know. When the arguments started I would say that all the shouting was giving me a headache, and stalk out to the steps of the compound. My guilty conscience, squirming uncontrollably, could not witness the quarrels. For though I was an eager partner in the conspiracy with
Mamaiji
, and acquiesced to the necessity for secrecy, very often I spilled the beans – quite literally – with diarrhoea and vomiting, which
Mamaiji
upheld as undeniable proof that lack of proper regular nourishment had enfeebled my bowels. In the throes of these bouts of effluence, I promised
Mummy and Daddy never again to eat what
Mamaiji
offered, and confessed all my past sins. In
Mamaiji’s
eyes I was a traitor, but sometimes it was also fun to listen to her scatological reproaches:
“Muà ugheeparoo!
Eating my food, then shitting and tattling all over the place. Next time I’ll cork you up with a big
bootch
before feeding you.”

Mummy came in from the kitchen with a plateful of toast fresh off the Criterion: unevenly browned, and charred in spots by the vagaries of its kerosene wick. She cleared the comics to one side and set the plate down.

“Listen to this,” Daddy said to her, “just found it in the paper: ‘A Growing Concern Seeks Dynamic Young Account Executive, Self-Motivated. Four-Figure Salary and Provident Fund.’ I think it’s perfect.” He waited for Mummy’s reaction. Then: “If I can get it, all our troubles will be over.”

Mummy listened to such advertisements week after week: harbingers of hope that ended in disappointment and frustration. But she always allowed the initial wave of optimism to lift her, riding it with Daddy and me, higher and higher, making plans and dreaming, until it crashed and left us stranded, awaiting the next advertisement and the next wave. So her silence was surprising.

Daddy reached for a toast and dipped it in the tea, wrinkling his nose. “Smells of kerosene again. When I get this job, first thing will be a proper toaster. No more making burnt toast on top of the Criterion.”

“I cannot smell kerosene,” said Mummy.

“Smell this then,” he said, thrusting the tea-soaked piece at her nose, “smell it and tell me,” irritated by her ready contradiction. “It’s these useless wicks. The original Criterion ones from England used to be so good. One trim and you had a fine flame for months.” He bit queasily into the toast. “Well, when I get the job, a Bombay Gas Company stove and cylinder can replace it.” He laughed. “Why not? The British left seventeen years ago, time for their stove to go as well.”

He finished chewing and turned to me. “And one day, you must go, too, to America. No future here.” His eyes fixed mine, urgently. “Somehow we’ll get the money to send you. I’ll find a way.”

His face filled with love. I felt suddenly like hugging him, but we never did except on birthdays, and to get rid of the feeling I looked
away and pretended to myself that he was saying it just to humour me, because he wanted me to finish pulling his white hairs. Fortunately, his jovial optimism returned.

“Maybe even a fridge is possible, then we will never have to go upstairs to that woman. No more obligations, no more favours. You won’t have to kill any more rats for her.” Daddy waited for us to join in. For his sake I hoped that Mummy would. I did not feel like mustering any enthusiasm.

But she said sharply, “All your
shaik-chullee
thoughts are flying again. Nothing happens when you plan too much. Leave it in the hands of God.”

Daddy was taken aback. He said, summoning bitterness to retaliate, “You are thinking I will never get a better job? I’ll show all of you.” He threw his piece of toast onto the plate and sat back. But he recovered as quickly, and made it into a joke. He picked up the newspaper. “Well, I’ll just have to surprise you one day when I throw out the kerosene stoves.”

I liked the kerosene stoves and the formidable fifteen-gallon storage drum that replenished them. The Criterion had a little round glass window in one corner of its black base, and I would peer into the murky depths, watching the level rise as kerosene poured through the funnel; it was very dark and cool and mysterious in there, then the kerosene floated up and its surface shone under the light bulb. Looking inside was like lying on Chaupatty beach at night and gazing at the stars, in the hot season, while we stayed out after dinner till the breeze could rise and cool off the walls baking all day in the sun. When the stove was lit and the kitchen dark, the soft orange glow through its little mica door reminded me of the glow in the fire-temple
afargaan
, when there wasn’t a blazing fire because hardly any sandalwood offerings had been left in the silver
thaali;
most people came only on the holy days. The Primus stove was fun, too, pumped up hot and roaring, the kerosene emerging under pressure and igniting into sharp blue flames. Daddy was the only one who lit it; every year, many women died in their kitchens because of explosions, and Daddy said that though many of them were not accidents, especially the dowry cases, it was still a dangerous stove if handled improperly.

Mummy went back to the kitchen. I did not mind the kerosene smell, and ate some toast, trying to imagine the kitchen without the stoves, with squat red gas cylinders sitting under the table instead. I had seen them in shop windows, and I thought they were ugly. We would get used to them, though, like everything else. At night, I stood on the veranda sometimes to look at the stars. But it was not the same as going to Chaupatty and lying on the sand, quietly, with only the sound of the waves in the dark. On Saturday nights, I would make sure that the stoves were filled, because Mummy made a very early breakfast for Daddy and me next morning. The milk and bread would be arriving in the pre-dawn darkness while the kettle was boiling and we got ready for cricket with the boys of Firozsha Baag.

We always left by seven o’clock. The rest of the building was just starting to wake up: Nariman Hansotia would be aligning, on the parapet of his ground floor veranda, his razor and shaving brush and mirror beside two steaming cups, one of boiling water and the other of tea, and we often wondered if he ever dipped the brush in the wrong cup; and the old spinster Tehmina, still waiting for her cataracts to ripen, would be saying her prayers facing the rising sun, with her duster-çoat hoisted up and slung over the left shoulder, her yellowing petticoat revealed, to untie and tie her thick rope-like
kusti
around the waist; and the
kuchrawalli
would be sweeping the compound, making her rounds from door to door with broom and basket, collecting yesterday’s garbage. If she happened to cross Tehmina’s line of vision, all the boys were sure to have a fine time, because Tehmina, though blurry with cataracts, would recognize the
kuchrawalli
and let loose at her with a stream of curses fouler than any filth in the garbage basket, for committing the unspeakable crime of passing in front of her, thereby polluting her prayers and vitiating their efficacy.

Even Daddy laughed, but he hurried us along as we lingered there to follow the ensuing dialogue. We picked our way through sleeping streets. The pavement dwellers would stretch, and look for a place to relieve themselves. Then they would fold up their cardboard pieces and roll away their plastics before the street sweepers arrived and the traffic got heavy. Sometimes, they would start a small fire if they had
something to cook for breakfast, or else try to beg from people who came to the Irani restaurant for their morning
chat
and bun. Occasionally, Mummy would wrap up leftovers from the night before for Daddy and me to distribute to them along the way.

It had been such a long time since we last played cricket. Flying kites had also become a thing of the past. One by one, the things I held dear were leaving my life, I thought gloomily. And Francis. What about poor Francis? Where was he now, I wondered. I wished he was still working in the Baag. That awful thrashing he got in Tar Gully was the fault of Najamai and Tehmina, those stupid old women. And Najamai saying he stole eighty rupees was nonsense, in my opinion; the absent-minded cow must have forgotten where she left the money.

I put down the tweezers and reached for the comics. Daddy looked up. “Don’t stop now, it should be perfect this week. There will be an interview or something.”

Avoiding his eye, I said stolidly, “I’m going to read the comics,” and walked out to the compound steps. When I turned at the doorway Daddy was still looking at me. His face was like
Mamaiji’s
when the thread broke and slipped through her fingers and the spindle fell to the floor. But I kept walking, it was a matter of pride. You always did what you said you were going to do.

The comics did not take long. It used to be more fun when Daddy and I had a race to the door to grab the Times, and pretended to fight over who would read the comics first. I thought of the lines on Daddy’s forehead, visible so clearly from my coign of vantage with the tweezers. His thinning hair barely gave off a dull lustre with its day-old pomade, and the Sunday morning stubble on his chin was flecked with grey and white.

Something – remorse, maybe just pity – stirred inside, but I quashed it without finding out. All my friends had fathers whose hair was greying. Surely they did not spend Sunday mornings doing what I did, or they would have said something. They were not like me, there was nothing that was too private and personal for them. They would talk about anything. Especially Pesi. He used to describe for us how his father passed gas, enhancing the narrative with authentic sound effects. Now he was in boarding-school. His father was dead.

From our C Block stone steps I could observe the entire length of the compound, up to A Block at the far end. Dr. Sidhwa’s black Fiat turned in at the gate and trundled laboriously over the rough-hewn flagstones of Firozsha Baag. He waved as he went past. He looked so much like Pesi’s father. He had the same crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes that Dr. Mody used to have, and even their old cars seemed identical, except that Dr. Mody healed animals and Dr. Sidhwa, humans. Most of us had been treated by him at one time or another. His house and dispensary were within walking distance of Firozsha Baag, even a sick person’s walking distance; he was a steadfast Parsi, seen often at fire-temples; and he always drove over for his house-calls. What more could we want in a doctor?