1981
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott. Fitzgerald
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It sometimes astonished him, the amount of chaos that could even fit in one small house. His mother would always keep chopping something: onions, eggplants, spinach, fenugreek leaves; or frying: fritters, sautes; or roasting and blending spices from the market: coriander and cumin and fenugreek and carom and fennel seeds, dried red chili peppers, cassia sticks, bay leaves, peppercorns, and cloves.
On the other hand, his father would be a nightmare on holidays, playing the tiny black radio on and on- listening to the news in English and Gujarati, and then playing searching for Bollywood songs by switching channels, adjusting the antenna, rotating the turner very slowly- all while sitting by a window in the hall.
A child from the neighbor kept crying outside, and the crows kept cawing loudly and tirelessly, the traffic of Bombay spat its shadows on their lowland- the sound so validly repetitive and frustrating, his skin went pale to the slightest. The bell at the temple rang immensely, lingering in the air a couple of seconds after being hit. This was it.
Bell-Frying-Radio-Crows-CryingNeighbors-Traffic. It was as if the world had lost the meaning of the word Quiet, or perhaps the word annihilated itself from the language itself as it heard all the sounds on this planet. He picked up the inherited copy of The Great Gatsby with a pencil stuck somewhere in the middle as a bookmark and rushed to the hall, slipping into his slippers, and already jumping down the stairs, skipping a step at a time.
"I'll be back before dinner!" He called out before he ultimately left the house. By the time he reached the road, he had heard his mother yell something out but did not pay any attention. He walked through the footpaths of the crowd, the wind openly dancing like invisible art, crows flying in groups, and all the motors made to run people from place to place- honking, screeching, heating. He walked, and after a couple of heated minutes, it still felt like he'd walked for hours and hours of the day, and the sun didn't wish to melt.
He reached where his mind told him to- a park. It was quiet, even though there seemed to be a crowd.
The gates were massive, black in color- as black as a moonless night. The grilling on those metal doors were intricate works of iron that twirled around metal rods and stood still in the middle of two bars, like soldiers standing in attention at parade grounds. At the very center of the garden, a beautiful fountain sat patiently, decoratively, asking for attendees to sit on itself, letting them use the water in its body. It wasn't too big, but it was white, cozy-looking. What distracted people while they entered the garden, was the tree?- peacock? Or a tree cut as a peacock, with magenta bougainvilleas strangled at their roots to the stems.
But it was not as noisy, as it was quiet back home. No, even with so many people that walked around, played, read, studied, talked- there was not an iota of muddling. There were people who were walking around the carved pathway, older men sitting with their legs parted and chatting through dentures and then cackling like madmen, or buffoons- whatever made children believe older men to be demons. Of course, there were women, strangling children by their hands, some picking those creatures on their shoulders in their baggy sarees or burqas, some strolling around with friends, smiling as quietly and hiddenly as possible. The children played running and spitting and hitting, some eating mud, some throwing mud, very few sitting alone, away. It reminded Rumi of himself, how away he felt, isolated, unseen, tired.
He spotted a bench thereupon which only an older man's buttocks were resting, and so quickly strode with very long steps. When he sat there, he looked around and then down at his lap, where he held the book. Finally, he thought. He took a deep breath. But before he could open the book and find the bookmark he'd left in there, the wrinkled man seated there addressed him, in his raspy, weak and tired but deep voice.
"Aahh. Novel? Is that a novel?" He asked in a surprisingly surprising tone.
Rumi did nothing but nod, impatiently, uninterested.
"But you're so young! Why not play? Or study? Guides? Digests? You have nothing?"
"No, sir."
"But... you're a boy. Your parents don't say anything?" The older man asked that question with shock, so much so that the depth of his voice dropped, and the pitch rose.
But then Rumi decided not to talk at all. He knew these kinds of sleazy men, tired and disgusted of their lives, waiting to be buried. These were the men that made the lives of their daughters-in-law and daughters or wives miserable, taunting and questioning and asking and demanding- nothing satisfying their healthy wait to die. One of their legs was already buried in a grave, bones, and organs deteriorating.
He opened the book, finally, without waiting for any other obstacle or distraction. And so he read, as dedicatedly and tirelessly, immersing himself into prosy-poetry, the artful setting of words that would translate his heart and mind and transfer him to a place, non-existent and time, long gone; of love and love-making, and fools:
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
With the stride of the lightest air and force of a meteor, at the edge of the garden, a tiny rotating ball pierced the vacuum and, with a tail of mirage, bounced on Rumi's hand suddenly, catching him by surprise and drifting away further. He hissed, loudly to make the children freeze and then think and then run away from there, not bothering about the ball. He just held his right wrist and twisted it from right to left and then vice-versa, looking around with wild wolf-eyes, scanning for the perpetrators, like hunting, preying for the enemy. But then his eyes landed on something- someone.
He saw a man, old and different and white. Like other older people in the park, he did not sit with any friend and chat and laugh, but he just kept walking in a tiny area, as if he was confined by chains. He wore a ragged t-shirt and a pair of shoes that were worn out and overused, with dust and mud collected at the bottom. His trousers looked old too, but ironed crisply, too tidily, neatly, one that could perhaps fool almost everyone easily. His hair was gold and white and places- like patches of sun and shadows on the earth. If anything, he did not look as loosely as his clothes. Instead, his face was as fresh as the first puff of cold summer breeze, his hair as soft and shiny as the hair on maize growing in the fields and his body, untried, unpushed.
He was like the blood in the yolk early morning, or the smoke in the forest, moon in daylight, recognizable, easy to be spotted. For every one that walked there primarily looked like Rumi- brown shades of skin, curled up and oily hair, early wrinkles, surrounded by noise.
"He's English, I believe," said the old man that to Rumi's shock and disappointment, still sat beside him. "His ancestors must have left him here, or perhaps he was forgotten. Lost?"
Rumi looked at his neighbor and then back at the white-skinned man, knowing that wasn't the truth. No, he knew that this white man was not English; he was French. And that he was the one who kept coming to his father's cafe almost every day, sipping on Irani chai and munching quietly, on some Bun-Maskas. He remembered watching him practically every day, coming in and greeting his father in a very thick non-french accent.
Rumi had once asked his father about him, out of sheer and innocent curiosity. His name is Charles. He is from France! Do you know France? It is a country in the European continent- you must know, they teach you this in geography class, no? They speak French there like we speak Hindi or Gujarati. Français, they call it. But he lives here now. And he's old. As old as me- aha! He even speaks English! Poor fellow, I say! He lives alone! No family, too, can you imagine?
"No," Rumi replied defensively, unknown care or perhaps just authority of knowledge taking over. "He's French. I know him. My father knows him. He is.... he's a customer!" Rumi went on, telling the older man the name of the foreigner that didn't notice them or a word they said about him, telling him everything his father had departed about Charles.
"Oh but, he's not as poor, so you think!" The older man next to Rumi said again, with surging confidence in their debate. "No, he is not. I have seen him, many times-many times at Studio 29. Do you know that place? It is a night-club where people dance and drink and smoke. Word is, they also do drugs!" He gasped a little for air, and inhaled loudly and quickly, to continue, not let Rumi interrupt his winning climax. "It is only a member-exclusive club!"
Studio 29 was a rich people's place. There was nothing that exceeded the classiness of Bombay, except five-starred hotels- and then the club, bar, whatever they called it. It was a reasonably new room, but rumor said that from the inside, it had velvety chairs and shimmering curtains. The only songs that played there were in English, disco or rock- whatever was popular.
But Rumi had only heard about the place, never seen it. And to know, (the whole Bombay scene knew) that the club was only a rich and famous place- not for all, yet preserved.
It discombobulated Rumi at first, thinking of how Charles would walk up to his father's cafe looking like dirt, all ragged and oiled up. He imagined Charles in white suit-ups, with bell-bottom pants and transparent yellow glasses, dancing to hot new melodies from the west.
The old white man, if anything, became an even more compelling case, a curious case for Rumi. Everything he seemed to be knowing or guessing about Charles turned itself around and proved to be wrong. Every Time.
No, he didn't originally or strongly speak English; but mostly French. He did not have an accent like other westerners do. He spoke Hindi very fluently too. And now, he realized that this poor-looking old white, white man was a show; that he was, in reality, a rich old rat, like almost everybody thought.
Rumi got up then and decided to leave the old neighborhood and have a stroll and perhaps walk back home.
He walked under the palms, swallowing the pass of the day like a gulp of water, and washing it out. He kept walking past the benches, the mild cold breeze kicking in like an innocent child. With the aroma of fishy sea driving the growing darkness of the climbing night, Rumi saw something that at once stopped his breath.
Behind the humongous canopy of the Banyan tree in the corner of the garden, he saw a man sitting on the grass against a very thin, bright and tired woman, looking into each other's eyes. They smiled, but the gaze didn't shift. After a couple of seconds, the girl broke out into loud laughter of soft echoes, and the man, stupendously, lost, kept smiling with teeth looking at her. His silent happiness felt like the quiet blossoming of flowers, the sweet scent of Lily, the bright sun rays of the sunflowers. It was as if that sound of utter, plain happiness, with eyes full of mischief and joy, made the man feel full as if the earth had tied him up, his breath sucking in as if taken away; the face of his wife?- girlfriend? glistening like life, shimmering with such delicacy and young, young madness that it made her skin as shiny as marble, bright as Lilies. A certain wave of divinity surrounded them as if the act of sitting in public and watching someone you love was the only Holy act of God.
And Rumi, stood lost at their sight; eyes lost in overpowered questioning, mind in a fog. At that moment, the first thing to occur in his mind, one that hopped like a frog, was that if he had ever seen his parents like that. Not in the open just watching each other with dumb-founded fascination, but being in love. Or just showing love, or even saying those words. He had never seen them going out together, or holding hands, or saying things that'd only make sense to them.
All he knew was that he loved his mother, and he loved his father. But, he never realized that he had never thought of loving Maa and Baba, together as one.
Aren't people who are married supposed to be in love? He thought. But Daisy loved Tom, even though she loved Gatsby too. She loved her husband after marriage.
And then, he suddenly looked away from there, to the sky first- the blue spread of plainness now, and then to the leaves that shimmered like tin sheets in the sun. The scent of the flowers then sprung with the wind throughout the grassy, green garden and mesmerized children and women and older men with peaceful bliss. Some children plucked them and put them in their pockets. Young men and women would pluck the flowers and then the petals- trying to determine whether their significant other loved them or not.
But then Rumi walked, tired of the place, just wanting to go back and sleep, perhaps in noises of cutting and frying and news and songs and cries and traffic.
And so he walked alongside the horizon and watched the Sea while he found his way back home.
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