Turbulence (4 page)

“Uzma, I need to ask you something.”

“Yes, sorry. Have I done anything illegal? No. It’s just been a really great trip so far. I’ve been really lucky.”

“You were lucky in college. You were popular in college. But these last two weeks — there’s something I’m not getting here. I keep trying to figure it out. Sure, you’re hot. But I’ve lived in this city all my life, and I’ve known you for four years, and something just doesn’t fit. No one has the kind of luck you’ve been having so far.”

“No one you know, you mean. Maybe I’m just… right, I sound like a complete bitch saying this, but maybe I just have a destiny here, yeah? Maybe this was where I was meant to be. Look, I know what you’re saying. It’s been weird. Not just in Mumbai. People in Lucknow kept trying to invite me into their houses and feed me. It’s just been wonderful. You know — you ever have the feeling that you’re part of something bigger?”

“Yes, but it never means anything. What are you talking about?”

Uzma stirs uncomfortably. “See, on the flight from London to Delhi — it’s about thirteen hours, you know, you’ve been on it — I had this dream. A really long dream, because I pretty much slept through the entire flight — don’t remember a thing after getting on that plane.”

“So you slept on the plane. Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, that was really when things got a bit odd. It was this really bizarre dream. I was at a big awards show — like the Oscars, but more Bollywood, you know, lots of dancers and glitter — and I was getting prize after prize after prize, and everyone who was anyone was there and they all loved me and we all went to this smashing party afterwards. And they told me I was the best actress ever and everyone would come see all my films and they would make the world perfect.”

“So you had a good dream. But how is this relevant?”

“I don’t know. But then I landed in India, and ever since I got here people have just been incredibly good to me. Maybe I’m just — meant for this. Maybe everything’s just going to fall into place for once. Maybe this is what happens to some people. You don’t know, right? I know it sounds really stupid and vain, and I’ve been trying not to think about it. But I have this strange
feeling that everyone’s going to love me and everything’s going to be all right.”

“Well, I’m happy for you. I suppose this is what it feels like for people when they find out what they’re meant for. I wish I knew what I was meant for.”

“I can’t believe I just told you all this. You must hate me now. I sound like such an ultimate cow.”

“No,” Saheli says. “I don’t hate you. I don’t even feel jealous of you, and I really should. It’s all very strange. I think you’re right. You’re going to be a big star.”

As the auto whines towards Versova, towards Uzma’s next conquest, Saheli looks at her former classmate, now staring out at the sea as the wind caresses her hair, and feels a burst of sadness. That sense of loss every first agent, every first small-time director, every childhood friend, every parent knows. The knowledge that your part in the story is done, that something larger than you is taking place but there’s no real room for you in it any more. The slow realisation that you were part of something once, but it’s gone now, it’s slipped out of your fingers. The star has moved on, and it’s time to take a bow and make your exit as gracefully as you can.

Uzma stretches out on her old, creaky four-poster bed and looks out of her window. The sun is setting outside, and her room is bathed in amber light, tiger-striped on her wall through the palm trees just outside her window. The sharp, pungent smell of the sea drifts in; a gentle breeze tinkles through her wind-chime. The breeze is warm and salty but her room stays pleasantly cool. The first thing Uzma noticed about her new home was how pleasant it was for Mumbai, almost as cool as the air-conditioned five-star hotels she has been drifting in and out of for her meetings with the tycoons of Bollywood.

Today is her first day in her Yari Road home. It’s an old, somewhat fusty four-storey building — a very strange house for Versova, where most old buildings have been torn down and replaced by large multi-storied housing complexes with gates and guards and fancy names. Uzma has a whole floor to herself: her new landlord has warned her that she might have to
share her floor with another tenant, but there’s plenty of room — there are three large bedrooms on this level alone. And there hasn’t been any talk of rent. To add to this cocktail of delight, her landlord has not shown any definite signs of being a pervert or a werewolf. Only a certain excessive brightness in his eyes and an air of barely concealed amusement at everything around him prevent him from seeming completely ordinary.

Aman Sen is an unremarkable-looking man in his early twenties, medium everything. Most of the men Uzma has had conversations with since arriving in Mumbai have been extremely impressive in one way or another: ambitious, well-groomed, fast-living, ultra-sharp entertainment types in various shades of attractive. There’s certainly nothing unattractive about Aman, it must be said, but he’s the person whose name everyone at a glamorous Mumbai party forgets within two seconds of hearing it. Following the recently delivered commandments of Saheli’s father, Uzma has Not Been Too Friendly with this Spouse-less Landowner, thus cunningly avoiding a Compromising Situation, but she had Aman pegged as eccentric but harmless within two minutes of meeting him. Compared to the sharks she has been swimming with, he is but a goldfish.

Aman shares the first floor of the house with Tia, an effervescent, curvaceous and altogether adorable Bengali woman in her early thirties who swept Uzma up in a huge hug the second they met and has now decided, to Uzma’s slight worry, to be her best friend and constant companion. Tia and the other two inhabitants of the house, whom Uzma has not met yet, have only known Aman for two weeks, but already Tia and he are very close — unless Tia walks around in tiny shorts in front of everyone she knows. Uzma is on the second floor, and on the
third are the two mysterious entities described to Uzma as the Scientist and Young Bob.

Tia has taken charge of the house: she runs the kitchen, the errands and most of the conversation. The house was probably not built for renting out. There’s only one kitchen, a vast hall-like room on the ground floor that has seen cooking on a mass scale once, but now lies mostly unused. The rest of the ground floor is divided between a dining room and a huge and draughty living room where a few very modern sofas, a foosball table and a very large flatscreen TV stand uncomfortably, like jugglers at a funeral.

This is the first time since her arrival in India that Uzma has been alone in a large room for any length of time, and now that she has space to breathe she is surprised to find how much she misses her family. Something about Tia reminds her of her eldest brother Yusuf’s wife. Probably the loud and tuneless singing that Uzma can hear drifting upstairs as Tia attacks yet another room somewhere in the house, armed with a duster, a mop, a bucket and a smile.

Uzma’s phone is on silent. She has decided not to go out tonight, to spend time with her new housemates. But her housemates don’t seem to be particularly social: Aman disappeared into his room hours ago and hasn’t emerged yet, and something tells her that the Scientist and Young Bob might not be the most delightful company. Uzma potters around her room for a while, wishing she was better at spending time by herself, when she sees Tia coming down the stairs from the third floor.

“I thought you were downstairs,” Uzma calls. “Who’s singing?”

“What singing?”

Uzma listens again and finds, to her surprise, that there is indeed no singing.

Tia shrugs. “It’s Mumbai, Uzma. There’s always some noise somewhere. You bored? Come with me.”

They head to the living room and plonk themselves down on the sofas, and Tia tells Uzma the story of her life, of her childhood in Assam and her marriage, at the tender age of twenty, to a tea estate manager from Darjeeling. It hadn’t been a very happy marriage: her husband had been handsome but weak-willed, and her in-laws fierce and medieval.

Evening turns slowly into night as Tia speaks lovingly of the green hills near Guwahati and the swift grey waters of the ever-shifting Brahmaputra River, and Uzma listens in wonder, trying very hard to not reveal to Tia that she doesn’t really know where Assam is. As she watches Tia’s eyes shine, sees her laugh uproariously over the smallest things, she realises that no matter how awful Tia’s family had been, for her to abandon that life and come to Mumbai, to live in a house full of strangers younger than her, is a far more difficult journey than any Uzma herself will ever have to make.

“It’s not so bad,” Tia says. “I’m really happy with this house. Aman’s a sweetheart — you’ll love him when he gets a bit more comfortable around you — the other two are hilarious, and I have to say I really like you. I’m glad I came to Mumbai.”

“You should have come years ago, then.”

“I could have — but I couldn’t leave my son, could I?”

“You have a son?”

“Yes. Three years old now. You’ll love him when you meet him.”

“You must miss him terribly.”

Tia’s smile vanishes completely. “I’m with him, always,” she says, rising from the sofa, not meeting Uzma’s eyes. “I’ll never leave him. Dinner?”

Dinner turns out to be a grilled lobster, sitting red and voluptuous in the kitchen, and Uzma is delighted. “Did you make this? When? How?”

“I’m very efficient,” Tia says. “You’ll see.”

They sit in the dining room in happy silence and devour the lobster. Aman doesn’t make an appearance, but as the mighty crustacean’s last white, succulent meaty bits are on the verge of vanishing there’s a shuffling noise at the door.

“Uzma, meet Balaji Bataodekar, also known as Bob,” Tia says as a plump, dark, Elvis-haired boy, not more than fifteen, enters the room warily. He sticks out a pudgy hand, which Uzma shakes with due solemnity. Bob, however, is here on matters far more important than meeting glamorous women from distant lands.

“Can I have some?” he asks, looking meaningfully at the lobster.

Tia glances at him, then at Uzma, and says, “Of course, darling. But not too much, no? It heats up your stomach. There’s lots of ice-cream in the fridge.”

“I’m sick of ice-cream,” Bob says, scooping up the remaining fragments of lobster and shovelling them into his mouth. “Sick of nimbu-pani, sick of mint. I want vada-pav, mutton kolhapuri and pizza. With lots of jalapenos. That’s what I want.”

There’s a huge muffled boom from upstairs.

“The Scientist at work,” Bob says.

“Aman told me the soundproofing was finished,” Tia says.

“It is,” Bob says, and sniggers.

“Can I meet him?” Uzma asks. “Sorry, I’ve been up really late the last few nights and I’m terribly awake. Can we go up?”

“You should definitely meet him,” Bob says.

“I’d rather not,” Tia says, covering a forced yawn with a delicate hand. “He hates being disturbed when he’s working. I think we should all go to sleep.”

Uzma recognises refusals when she sees them, and doesn’t push the matter.

An hour later, Uzma is nowhere near sleep; her body has become accustomed to heading out for the second party at around this hour. The coolness that enveloped the house has vanished: it’s a hot and muggy night, and aspiring queens of Bollywood do not enjoy sweating under creaky fans. The only sounds to be heard in the house are dull clangs from the third floor. Uzma decides it is time to be social again.

After swiftly and silently climbing the stairs, Uzma finds the third floor’s layout is the same as hers. The door of the room directly above hers is open. She sees Bob stretched out on his bed, asleep, his hands clasping his considerable belly. He appears to be in some discomfort; his face is clenched and he’s sweating profusely. Not finding anything in this sight to engage her extensively, Uzma turns and walks down the narrow corridor by the stairs to the door behind which lie the Scientist and his Vulcan-like clangs. She knocks, quietly at first, and then loudly, and then, unused to rejection, starts banging on the door, even before she remembers the room has been soundproofed.

After a few minutes, the door opens and Tia comes out, adjusting her clothes.

“What’s wrong?” Tia asks.

“Nothing. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come up and hang out with the guys if they were awake. Am I — sorry, I think I’ll just go back to bed. Good night.”

The door to the Scientist’s room is ajar behind Tia, and a bright green light comes out of the room, making Tia’s head glow a vaguely sinister green. Uzma flinches a bit when Tia beams at her and her teeth shine fluorescent.

“No, you’re not interrupting anything,” Tia says with a giggle. “I just like being here and watching him work sometimes. Come in. Make as much noise as you like, you won’t disturb him.”

Uzma wants to point out that Tia had said, just a while ago, that the Scientist hated being disturbed. Instead, she tiptoes in and observes the Scientist’s room with a mixture of awe and incredulity.

The wall between two bedrooms has been knocked down, forming one large hall. The sizeable windows have been shut and covered; a gigantic split air-conditioner hums away on a wall. To Uzma’s left is a ceiling-high pile of assorted objects and apparatus: metal sheets, wooden planks, boxes full of screws and bolts and other little thingummies that Uzma cannot name, naked computer motherboards, containers of an incredible variety of shapes, materials and sizes, dozens of tools for cutting, welding and shaping, miscellaneous toys and gadgets, vehicle spare parts, gas cylinders, evil-looking liquids bubbling in flasks that sit on stands, rising out of the debris like lighthouses. A lot of these have been wired, soldered or otherwise melded into nameless machines, each of which is performing its own assigned mysterious task.

The sheer variety of objects is stunning. It would not be
surprising if the entire mass rose and formed a bizarre sentient golem-like creature, the love-child of a laboratory, a witch’s cauldron and the bedroom of Leonardo da Vinci as a child. From this mountain of scrap, hundreds of wires trail out across the room, at first in amorously intertwined clusters, but then forming independent streams and tributaries, flowing across an ocean of grease stains, spilt paint and burn smudges, dotted with islands of more clustered junk.