Tales From Firozsha Baag (2 page)

When the neighbours, under the leadership of Nariman Hansotia, had decided to pool some money and hire a contractor to paint the exterior of A Block, Rustomji, on principle, refused to hand over his share. The building had acquired an appalling patina of yellow and grey griminess. But even the likeable and retired Nariman, who drove every day except Sunday in his 1932 Mercedes-Benz to the Cawasji Framji Memorial Library to read the daily papers from around the world, could not persuade Rustomji to participate.

Totally frustrated, Nariman had returned to Hirabai: “That curmudgeon won’t listen to reason, he has sawdust in his head. But if I don’t make him the laughing-stock, my name isn’t Nariman.” Out of this exchange had grown an appended name: Rustomji-the-curmudgeon, and it had spread through Firozsha Baag, enjoying long life and considerable success.

And Nariman Hansotia had then convinced the neighbours to go ahead with the work, advising the contractor to leave untouched the exterior of Rustomji’s flat. It would make Rustomji ashamed of himself, he thought, when the painting was finished and the sparkling façade of the building sported one begrimed square. But Rustomji was delighted. He triumphantly told everyone he met, “Mr. Hansotia bought a new suit, and it has a patch on one knee!”

Rustomji chuckled now as he remembered the incident. He filled the copper vessel with fresh water and hoisted it onto the gas stove. The burner hesitated before it caught. He suspected the gas cylinder was about to run out; over a week ago he had telephoned the blasted gas company to deliver a new one. He wondered if there was going to be another shortage, like last year, when they had had to burn coals in
a
sign-
the weekly quota of kerosene had been barely enough to make the morning tea.

Tea, thank God for tea, he thought, anticipating with pleasure the second cup Mehroo had promised. He would drink it in copious draughts, piping hot, one continuous flow from cup to saucer to mouth. It just might induce his offended bowels to move and salvage something of this ill-omened morning. Of course, there was the
WC
of Hirabai Hansotia’s that he would have to contend with – his bowels were recalcitrant in strange surroundings. It was a matter of waiting and seeing which would prevail: Mehroo’s laxative tea or Hirabai’s sphincter-tightening lavatory.

He picked up the
Times of India
and settled in his easy chair, waiting for the bath water to boil. Something would have to be done about the peeling paint and plaster; in some places the erosion was so bad, red brick lay exposed. The story went that these flats had been erected in an incredibly short time and with very little money. Cheap materials had been used, and sand carted from nearby Chaupatty beach had been mixed in abundance with substandard cement. Now during the monsoon season beads of moisture trickled down the walls, like sweat down a coolie’s back, which considerably hastened the crumbling of paint and plaster.

From time to time, Mehroo pointed out the worsening problem, and Rustomji took refuge in railing at the trustees. But today he did not need to worry. She would never mention it on a day like
Behram roje
. There was not any time for argument. Her morning had started early: she had got the children ready for school and packed their lunch; cooked
dhandar-paatyo
and
sali-boti
for dinner; starched and ironed his white shirt, trousers, and
dugli
, all washed the night before, and her white blouse, petticoat and sari; and now those infernal people upstairs had made the
WC
leak. If Gajra, their
gunga
, did not arrive soon, Mehroo would also have to sweep and mop before she could decorate the entrance with coloured chalk designs, hang up the
tohrun
(waiting since the flowerwalla’s six
A.M
. delivery) and spread the fragrance of
loban
through the flat – it was considered unlucky to omit or change the prescribed sequence of these things.

But celebrating in this manner was Mehroo’s own choice. As far as Rustomji was concerned, these customs were dead and meaningless. Besides, he had repeatedly explained to her what he called the psychology of
gungas:
“If a particular day is important, never let the
gunga
know, pretend everything is normal. And never, never ask her to come earlier than usual, for she will deliberately come late.” But Mehroo did not learn; she trusted, confided, and continued to suffer.

Gajra was the latest in a long line of
gungas
to toil at their house. Before her it had been Tanoo.

For two years, Tanoo came every morning to their flat to sweep and mop, do the dishes, and wash their clothes. A woman in her early seventies, tall and skinny, she was bow-legged and half blind, with an astonishing quantity of wrinkles on her face and limbs. Where her skin was not wrinkled, it was scaly and rough. She had large ears that stuck out under wisps of stringy, coconut-oiled grey hair, and wore spectacles (one lens of which was missing) balanced precariously on a thin pointed nose.

The trouble with Tanoo was that she was always breaking a dish or a cup or a saucer. Mehroo was prepared to overlook the inferior sweeping and mopping; the breakage, however, was a tangible loss which Rustomji said would one day ruin them if a stop was not put to it.

Tanoo was periodically threatened with pay cuts and other grimmer forms of retribution. But despite her good intentions and avowals and resolutions, there was never any improvement. Her dim eyes were further handicapped by hands which shook and fumbled because of old age and the long unhappiness of a life out of which her husband had fled after bringing into it two sons she single-handedly had to raise, and who were now drunkards, lazy good-for-nothings, and the sorrow of her old age.

“Poor, poor Tanoo,” Mehroo would say, helpless to do anything. “Very sad,” Rustomji would agree, but would not do more.

So plates and saucers continued to slip out of Tanoo’s old, weary hands, continued to crash and shatter, causing Rustomji fiscal grief and Mehroo sorrow – sorrow because she knew that Tanoo would have to go. Rustomji too would have liked to feel sorrow and compassion.
But he was afraid. He had decided long ago that this was no country for sorrow or compassion or pity – these were worthless and, at best, inappropriate.

There was a time during his college days, as a volunteer with the Social Service League, when he had thought differently (foolishly, he now felt). Sometimes, he still remembered those
SSL
camps fondly, the long train rides full of singing and merriment to remote villages lacking the most basic of necessities, where they dug roads and wells, built schoolhouses, and taught the villagers. Hard work, all of it, and yet so much fun, what a wonderful gang they had been, like Dara the Daredevil, the way he jumped in and out of moving trains, he called himself the Tom Mix of the locomotive; and Bajun the Banana Champion – at one camp he had eaten twenty-one of them, not small
ailchee
ones either, regular long green ones; every one had been a real character.

But Rustomji was not one to allow nostalgia to taint the colour of things as he saw them now. He was glad he had put it all behind him.

The way it ended for Tanoo, however, eased the blow a little for Mehroo. Tanoo arranged to leave Bombay and return to the village she had left so long ago, to end her days with her sister’s family there. Mehroo was happy for her. Rustomji heaved a sigh of relief. He had no objections when Mehroo gave her generous gifts at the time of parting. He even suggested getting her a new pair of spectacles. But Tanoo declined the offer, saying she would not have much use for them in the village, with no china plates and saucers to wash.

And so, Tanoo departed and Gajra arrived: young and luscious, and notorious for tardiness.

Coconut hair oil was the only thing Gajra had in common with Tanoo. She was, despite her plumpness, quite pretty; she was, Rustomji secretly thought, voluptuous. And he did not tire of going into the kitchen while Gajra was washing dishes, crouched on her haunches within the parapet of the
mori
. When still a young boy, Rustomji had heard that most
gungas
had no use for underwear – neither brassiere or knickers. He had confirmed this several times through observation as a lad in his father’s house. Gajra provided further proof, proof which popped out from beneath her short blouse during the exertion
of sweeping or washing. With a deft movement she would tuck back the ample bosom into her
choli
, unabashed, but not before Rustomji had gazed his fill. Like two prime Ratnagiri mangoes they were, he felt, juicy and golden smooth.

“Her cups runneth over,” he would then gleefully think, remembering time and time again the little joke from his beloved school days at St. Xavier’s. Though not given to proselytizing, the school had a custom of acquainting all its students, Catholic or otherwise, with the Lord’s Prayer and the more popular Psalms.

Rustomji’s one fervent wish was that some day Gajra’s breasts should slip out far enough from under her
choli
to reveal her nipples.
“Dada Ormuzd
, just once let me see them, only once,” he would yearn in his depths, trying to picture the nipples: now dark brown and the size of a gram but with the hidden power to swell; now uncontrollably aroused and black, large and pointed.

While waiting for his wish to come true, Rustomji enjoyed watching Gajra modify her sari each morning before she started work: she hauled it up between her thighs and tucked it in around the waist so it would not get wet in the
mori
. When altered like this, the layers produced a very large, very masculine lump over the crotch. But her movements while she, steatopygic, completed her daily transformation – bending her knees, thighs apart, patting her behind to smooth down the fabric – were extremely erotic for Rustomji.

Mehroo was usually present when this went on, so he would have to pretend to read the
Times of India
, looking surreptitiously from behind or over or under and taking his chances. Sometimes, he remembered a little Marathi rhyme he had picked up as a boy. It formed part of a song which was sung at every boisterous, rollicking party his father used to give for his Parsi colleagues from Central Bank. At that time, little Rustom had not understood the meaning, but it went:

After many years and many parties, as Rustom grew up, he was allowed to sit with the guests instead of being sent out to play in the
compound. The day came when he was allowed his first sip of Scotch and soda from his father’s glass. Mother had protested that he was too young, but father had said, “What is there in one sip, you think he will become a drunkard?” Rustom had enjoyed that first sip and had wanted more, to the delight of the guests. “Takes after his father, really likes his peg!” they had guffawed.

It was also around this time that Rustom started to understand the meaning of the rhyme and the song: it was about the encounter of a Parsi gentleman with a
gunga
he caught napping under a dark stairwell – he seduces her quite easily, then goes his merry way. Later, Rustom had sung it to his friends in St. Xavier’s, the song which he remembered today, on
Behram roje
, in his easy chair with the
Times of India
. He hoped Gajra would arrive before Mehroo finished using Hirabai’s telephone. He could then ogle brazenly, unhindered.

But even as Rustomji thought his impure thoughts and relished them all, Mehroo returned; the office had promised to send the plumber right away. “I told him
‘Bawa
, you are a Parsi too, you know how very important
Behram roje
is’ and he said he understands, he will have the
WC
repaired today.”

“The bloody swine understands? Hah! Now he knows it, he will purposely delay, to make you miserable. Go, be frank with the whole world; go, be unhappy.” And Mehroo went, to make his tea.

The doorbell rang. Rustomji knew it must be Gajra. But even as he hurried to answer it, he sensed he was walking towards another zone of frustration, that his concupiscence would be thwarted as rudely as his bowels.

His instinct proved accurate. Mehroo rushed out from the kitchen as fast as her flopping slippers would allow, scolding and shooing Gajra away to do only the sweeping – the rest could wait till tomorrow – and leave. Sulking, Rustomji returned to the
Times of India
.

Mehroo then hurriedly made chalk designs at the entrance, not half as elaborate or colourful as planned. Time was running out; she had to get to the fire-temple by eleven. Dreading the inauspiciousness of a delay, she hung a
tohrun
over each doorway (the flowers, languishing since six
A.M
., luckily retained a spark of life) and went to dress.

When she was ready to leave, Rustomji was still coaxing his bowels with tea. Disgruntled over Gajra’s abrupt departure, he nursed his loss silently, blaming Mehroo. “You go ahead,” he said, “I will meet you at the fire-temple.”

Mehroo took the H route bus. She looked radiant in her white sari, worn the Parsi way, across the right shoulder and over the forehead. The H route bus meandered through narrow streets of squalor once it left the Firozsha Baag neighbourhood. It went via Bhindi Bazaar, through Lohar Chawl and Crawford Market, crawling painfully amidst the traffic of cars and people, handcarts and trucks.

Usually, during a bus ride to the fire-temple, Mehroo attentively watched the scenes unfolding as the bus made its creeping way, wondering at the resilient ingenuity with which life was made liveable inside dingy little holes and inhospitable, frightful structures. Now, however, Mehroo sat oblivious to the bustle and meanness of lives on these narrow streets. None of it pierced the serenity with which she anticipated the perfect peace and calm she would soon be a part of inside the fire-temple.

She looked with pleasure at the white sari draping her person, and adjusted the border over her forehead. When she returned home, the sari would be full of the fragrance of sandalwood, absorbed from the smoke of the sacred fire. She would hang it up beside her bed instead of washing it, to savour the fragrance as long as it lasted. She remembered how, as a child, she would wait for her mother to return from the fire-temple so she could bury her face in her lap and breathe in the sandalwood smell. Her father’s
dugli
gave off the same perfume, but her mother’s white sari was better, it felt so soft. Then there was the ritual of
chasni:
all the brothers and sisters wearing their prayer caps would eagerly sit around the dining-table to partake of the fruit and sweets blessed during the day’s prayer ceremonies.