A Matter of Geography Read online

  - Søren Kierkegaard

  I can only begin from the end. Not the end of my story, but the end of our lives as we knew it. Anna’s family, the Fernandeses, and mine were neighbours in Billimoria Building. Though we were neighbours, we grew up as one family. But all that changed the day we saw the Muslim bakery on fire, that December of 1992. Dad, who worked as a Police Inspector in the Nagpada Police Station, had warned us that there was some kind of trouble fomenting, but its magnitude took us all by surprise.

  The previous evening, on the 8th of December, Mohamed Farooqui, who lived in room no. 26, several rooms away from us, got stabbed. When I call them rooms, you will have guessed that these apartments were small, with no separate bedrooms as in the flats inhabited by more prosperous families. Two strangers, not from our neighbourhood (where we knew every resident either by name or face), followed Mohamed as he returned from the small but flourishing hardware shop he ran. Sometimes his son, Ali, would sit in for him, but I don’t think Ali made such a good fill in, being only sixteen and more interested in anything other than hardware. Fortunately, this was one of those days when Ali stayed home, and so he escaped his father’s fate.

  Waylaying Mohamed as he reached the junction of Nesbit Road and St. Mary’s, nearly home, the two strangers asked him whether he was Mehmood. “No,” he said, unsuspecting, volunteering more information than asked for; he pointed to his room on the second floor. “I am Mohamed. I live in Billimoria Building, there, the window with the sheets hanging out to dry.” At which they stabbed him, screaming, “Mussalman, suvar—Muslim pig.”

  Anna, who spent much of her time at the window, for she suffered from asthma and felt claustrophobic within the small confines of their apartment, witnessed the stabbing. Shaking till her teeth chattered and gasping asthmatically she pointed and gestured as she told her father, “They k-killed him, they killed h-him.”

  Mr. Fernandes, peering past Anna out the window, caught sight of the backs of the two men running away from the bleeding Mohamed down the silent, deserted street. He rushed over to us in room no. 18, two doors down the verandah of the second floor, and both Dad and he raced down the stairs. In a normally crowded street, under normal circumstances, crowds would by now have surrounded Mohamed, cogitating on what best to do, talking to each other, sharing notes on the happening. But this, we realised, not being normal times, Mohamed lay there alone, huddled and bleeding on the desolate street. Dad and Mr. Fernandes hailed a passing taxi and lifted Mohamed between them, hauling him into the back seat. Both of them sat in front with the driver. They took him to the J.J. Hospital, very close to where Mohamed ran his business.

  Later that night Mohamed died. Just moments before, he opened his eyes and called for Mr. Fernandes, who stood at the foot of his bed. Mr. Fernandes mistook this sudden spurt of life as a sure movement to recovery. Mohamed then enunciated clearly, though weakly, “Mehroonisa aurAli ka khayal rakhna—watch after Mehroonisa and Ali,” and then, as we Catholics say, gave up his spirit.

  We did not connect that event to the larger situation until the next morning, when someone torched the Muslim Bakery.

  It had been almost fifteen years since I picked up the book that’s sat in my drawer looking forsaken but as fresh as when she gave it to me. Anna’s neat notebook lay under my socks and undergarments in the top drawer, covered in brown paper with a white label, much like those we stuck on all our notebooks in school. She had tied it with red string, securing it with a neat bow on the top of it. Every time I glanced at the book I felt anger tic under my eyes. An anger that never went deeper because I allowed barely a moment to pick out what I wanted from that drawer, pushing it shut before succumbing to any unwelcome desire to read it. But with Anna’s imminent arrival announced by Mother, I looked at the diary once more, for a very long moment…Anna had always wanted to be a writer.

  With trembling hands I untied the thread that bound the book and opened it randomly. Clutching at my chair, I lowered myself mechanically, words flying at me as if I’d opened Pandora’s box; the evil in our lives bursting out from my repressed memory. It was as though it were just yesterday that our lives had been turned upside down. Anna’s words brought it all back—the year that I turned 21, an adult and yet so much a child.

  On that fateful day in December of 1992, as we rushed to the window and watched the fire brigade noisily hurry down our street to rescue a burning bakery, I first learned that Ali was Muslim.

  For all the sixteen years of my life, there were only two kinds of people in our world—the Catholics and the non-Catholics. In the Catholic school that I attended, there were the Catholics who sat together for the Religion period, and while we discussed the gospel or other issues that kept us being ‘good Catholics,’ the non-Catholics moved over to another classroom for a separate lesson in Moral Science. I never was inquisitive enough to ask what they actually taught there, but really, that was the only time we knew anyone was different from us.

  A burning bakery can wipe innocence. It is no accident that they stabbed Ali’s father the night before, we were soon to realise. That bubble of innocence that was once opaque now became transparent, giving us a glimpse into a world that soon would be ours; like drawing heavy curtains open and looking out with surprise and a bit of difficulty at the world out there in bright sunshine. That day, we looked at our neighbours differently. Who were they? Ali was Muslim. The Surves on the first floor in room no. 16 were Hindus. Ms. Ezekiel, a Jew, a very mysterious Jew. Mimosa? We knew nothing about her except what she told us. She’d escaped from Burma and lived here as a refugee, till she met Paddy and married him. Paddy, Irish, tall, red-faced, and most of the time drunk, had stayed here even after the British left, making him incongruous in the neighbourhood. He’d later gone the way of most drunks—cirrhosis of the liver, leaving his widow with no means whatsoever. Mimosa did some odd jobs, baby-sat, and often went scavenging from neighbour to neighbour enquiring what they had cooked for the day, mostly in a very refined tone. But more than these personal details, our neighbours were Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Anglo-Indian, Indo-Burmese, and we were Catholics. In a sense, I understood how Adam felt after he ate the apple. Suddenly Eve was a woman and they were naked.

  Daddy said we were all the same and Mummy, silent and thoughtful, looked infinitely sad. Mummy generally never looked sad. She says she did feel this way once before: She had a pet pig, or so she thought. She bathed her pig, talked to him and she sat on his back as a child playing pretend Cowboys and Indians. Oh my God! Is that how the word piggyback came to be used? Anyway, she even gave him a name—Balthazar, after one of the Magi. Lots of bonding with the pig later, she realized that Balthazar was no pet but bought as a piglet to be fattened in time for her First Holy Communion party. That was the only other time Mummy was really sad, or so she says. Seeing her shake her head from side to side made us all sad. We always reflected Mummy’s feelings on most things.

  That day we became more Catholic than we had ever been in our life. Mummy took out a box of religious treasures—little crucifixes, miraculous medals, rosaries that sparkled, scapulars and such-like, which we had received over the years from Don Bosco’s church in gratitude for the charitable donations Daddy made regularly. They were kept away, almost like reserves for a rainy day. Our rain had arrived in torrents.

  Mum opened the box silently and first took out the ‘miraculous’ medals and laid them aside. She then reached for the crucifixes, strung them on black cords and passed them around the circle we had made around her, instructing us to wear them prominently outside our clothes. Even Daddy, used to meting out the orders, silently put the cord over his head and adjusted the cross outside his shirt.

  The Marchon family from room no. 19 never went to church. They said they were Catholics, and I suppose they were. What with names like Joe, Mili, Miriam, etc. But they did not go to church. Mummy strung all the crosses she had in her box and sent Daddy with them to the Marchons, who lived in what we considered a House of Sin for more re
asons than their lack of church attendance. Mummy knew they would not have crucifixes to hang around their necks.

  WE ARE CATHOLICS, our crucifixes announced.

  Chapter Three

  “The reason why certain intuitive minds are not mathematical is that they are quite unable to apply themselves to the principles of mathematics, but the reason why mathematicians are not intuitive is that they cannot see what is in front of them…”

  - Blaise Pascal

  In the telling of my tale it may seem I am rambling, for all you want to know is why Anna left us to go to Canada. The larger events of sectarian violence, being Catholic in a Catholic neighbourhood—almost a Catholic ghetto—the very fabric of our lives in Billimoria Building, its residents, even its structure—all of these seemingly minor details conspired against us. Trust me when I say it is all important, it all adds up, these seemingly irrelevant larger and smaller issues.

  The Mahabharata and the Ramayan were my favourite stories growing up.. It played on TV at a time when all we could see was an occasional Sunday Bollywood movie or a late night Charlie Chaplin, or Here’s Lucy. Programming shut down at 11.00 p.m., only heightening our fascination with the TV. The Mahabharata aired on a Sunday morning; all of us faithfully went to church, listened to the gospel and the readings from the Bible and the homily, secretly waiting for the service to end. We then rushed home to settle down to the Mahabharata—almost ironic, for even the devout, most conservative of Catholics were totally hooked on this Hindu mythology of gods, greater and lesser, and of men, brave and cowardly.

  Not just our lives but the very social structure adapted to the Ramayan and Mahabharata. We no longer went next door to talk to our neighbours, nor were we occupied in the special Sunday lunch, a family affair around the dining table. We sat with our plates in front of the television, focused on the screen, with not even a glance at those sitting around us. Some neighbours who did not have a television would come over to the homes that did, to watch. In that sense, sharing did still happen. The cricket matches, the Commonwealth games, the Asian games and the Sunday movies were times when neighbours did sit together, but focused on the television and not on each other.

  The Ramayan and Mahabharata, came with the promise of endless stories, of stories within stories, of a hundred thousand verses, of relationships of love, of war, of magic, and a world of India that was within our blood. Our stories were woven around it, our proverbs, phrases, culture, and philosophies fed upon these epics and shaped our narratives. Our world filled with its magic, heroes, love, family; we fashioned our sensibilities around it, engulfed. Matrons of superior reserve broke down in tears, cheered, and laughed along with the story. Many a friendship on the suburban trains sprung up discussing the latest episode.

  It was only reasonable that when, in 1990, the festival of Rath Yatra, the procession of Ram’s chariot, was announced by one of the political parties, we were excited. Though I was eighteen at that time, and Anna but thirteen, we, in our almost naïve, cloistered view of all things non-Catholic—viewed in a light of distance, awe, and fairytale-like quality—welcomed this, unaware of its political motivations. We could relive our favourite story. A larger-than-life drama, played on the Nation’s stage and through the streets; its grandeur appealed, its drama excited. Every wall in Bombay displayed graffiti: CHAL AYODHYA--Come to Ayodhya—SHILANYAS LEKE—With Your Brick. Like the posters that announce films or advertisements to everyone who passes, it announced the impending drama.

  Our vocabulary did not stretch beyond a smattering of Hindi words, to be understood and spoken only at the Hindi class in school; they were not part of our life of English words, reading, speaking; of Shakespeare, P.G Wodehouse, Charles Dickens, Laurence Oliver. We even dreamt in English. In learning to speak, read, write in English, our thoughts and cultural understanding were imprinted with English thought; our grammar from Wren and Martin had phrases, authors, philosophies of living, loving, and the world as seen through the English authors we read. Just as Alexander’s empire was confronted with Greek assumptions, the Greek way of life, so was our immersion in the British way. A community, to be functional, must have shared expectations. Did we? We lived in a world cut out from a very large part of the country that was impacted differently, lived differently, had different assumptions that we in our bubble had no knowledge of despite being born in Bombay and having lived here our entire lives.

  Perhaps you will forgive me here when I admit that “Shilanyas” was not within our comprehension. We thought this was a mela, a large fair. I recall being puzzled at the slogans. Unexplained, no small print, no riders, just a slogan we spent no time thinking about, carrying on with our little misconceptions. People raised their eyes to the constant reminder painted on walls and pillars all over their cities and towns. Reluctantly tearing their gazes away from the television that brought the stories of heroes and gods and family and magic and miracles, they knew that their destiny, their duty, their karma and dharma, in order to be a true Hindu, was to join this movement to restore a temple in Ayodhya, where Lord Ram was born.

  My friend of later years, Dr. Apte, a social worker and a very devout Hindu—very chauvinistic about Hinduism, I believe—would religiously go every Sunday in khaki brown shorts to train in the camps of the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organisation, to be a good Hindu and defend the faith and the country. Crusaders defending the faith without armour, wielding sticks, in clothes grown men should never wear; I have never understood how a bunch of bony men with flared khaki shorts, sticks, and some unskilled exercise routines could do a better job than the Indian Army. For in my mind, logically in a country that was democratic and primarily Hindu, did they need to defend Hinduism? Were they under attack? Would I trust them to defend me? Or was I part of the enemy?

  Dr. Apte lived a distance from my home, but I met him on the train one afternoon when, after leaving the college early, I found a seat next to this very bony, ascetic-looking man. He sat calmly looking at the world, in direct contrast with my disgusted state of mind after having taken part in a heated discussion started by a very obnoxious colleague, Ms. Raikar, in what was ironically called the Teachers Rest Room, and stomping out. Having a good way to go before reaching our destinations makes friends of the most unlikely of men. Dr. Apte spoke English, enunciating every syllable very strongly but always correctly. A very interesting chap, self assured; even when he did disgusting things like dig in his nose, he acted like it was the most pleasurable, socially acceptable activity that nature demanded. Almost like pushing one’s hair from one’s eyes or loosening one’s collar. In many ways, though I did not know it at that time, he would assume an oracle-like quality in my life.

  Our train had stopped midway between stations because of an accident on the track ahead—generally the reason for many a lasting friendship among co-travellers on the suburban trains. Dr. Apte and I refused to do the undignified thing that most of the passengers had resorted to—jumping onto the track and walking along it to destinations unknown. Both of us knew that joining the desperate march would save us very little time. We decided our time could be better spent with a book till they had cleared the tracks. I opened L. E. Dicksons’ History of the Theory of Numbers and all at once was absorbed in a world of definition, certainty, and comfort. Dr. Apte, leaning under to better to see the title of the book I was engrossed in, spoke from somewhere down below. “Ah! You are reading Mathematics?”

  This is the marvel of the Marathi language or perhaps just of Dr. Apte. Most of his questions were rhetorical. Jevtos ka? Are you eating? That’s when he saw me eating. Or Padtos ka? Are you reading? if he chanced on me doing so. There have been times he has entered my bedroom as I slept, shaken my foot peeping out from below my sheet, waking me up and asking, Zoplas ka? Are you sleeping?

  I answered, “Yes, I teach Mathematics. And you? I mean, what do you do?”

  -----

  I had planned to sit in with my other teaching colleagues in the staff room, but found myself su
ddenly sucked into conversations I wanted no part of… The most annoying Ms. Raikar, a colleague I took pains to avoid, had once again steered us into the “Amche Mumbai—Get the outsiders out” debate.

  Somehow these debates triggered the worst in me. On this day my mind was already reeling with Mother’s announcement of Anna’s arrival. Provoked as I was at the least hint of the events that had separated us, this conversation had brought up feelings I thought I had no time for.

  My annoyance rising, my own tolerance tested to the utmost by now, I escaped the staff room to go home and rest amid the anonymity of the city. I stopped on the way to buy a sandwich.

  “How do you want it?”

  “Very hot, and put a piece of cheese too.”

  The sandwich stall was a small glass case atop a stand that folded at the end of the day—or perhaps at the end of the proprietor’s cucumbers and bread—and accompanied him home, pushing and jostling to enter an already swelling train.

  Finding myself outside the railway terminus, sandwich in hand, I looked up at this marvel of architecture, Victoria Terminus—newly named Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus. The spinal cord of Bombay, its tracks run up the long back of the city, its stations, set vertebrae-like every few kilometres as it heads North, carrying to and fro the millions of faceless, nameless flesh. In this robotic city there’s no time to look up at the sky, yet up there on the top of its dome, the statue of Progress reaches for the heavens. Somewhere in the foundations of its Gothic grandeur is hidden the remains of what was once a temple of the local fisher folk, dedicated to the Goddess Mumbra Devi. Commerce stamping out the spiritual. Mumbra Devi, the goddess after whom they reportedly want the city to be named…Mumbai. Not even the gods can stop the wheels of this city turning.

  Moments later, as if a tsunami, the crowds swelled out of the terminus, stopping all lanes of traffic as they pushed their way across the street. I moved against this tide of bodies without noticing the sweat and grime that rubbed against me: my space ending somewhere between my dermis and epidermis. I entered Platform No. 1 and into the 5.30 Chembur train; my body taking its direction from its own involuntary movement of habit, my mind dazed. Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus it was now called, but Victoria Terminus it stayed…and Mumbai? Bombay it shall remain for me! Do not the names of our streets and railways and our hills and valleys reflect and place our history? Would we have located the Garden of Eden long ago, had not a stream of vain ancient politicians wasted useless moments renaming it?