Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer (14 page)

‘Forget spare time, Rusi,’ said Farokh. ‘Even while on duty— ’pecially during duty—if I feel the need to prime myself with a few pegs before going in to wash a stinking corpse, who the fuck are they to—’

‘Never mind a corpse, a normal corpse—that’s normal,’ interrupted Kobaad in his soft voice; he hadn’t spoken all this while. ‘I’d like to see how many of the trustees can cope with even just the sight of an accident victim, or a burns victim—let alone clean and swaddle them for the banquet of the birds.’

‘All that’s exceptional stuff, Kobaad,’ said Farokh. ‘A whole bottle isn’t enough when we have to find strength to tackle such disasters.’

‘What the hell were they talking about?’ said Rusi. ‘I still can’t believe we actually stood there like buffoons, listening to their sermon on the evils of drinking.’

‘The whole idea of first suspending you guys, then calling you to their regal offices,’ said Kobaad, ‘was to put butterflies in your bellies—so that you’d forget to mention your own complaints.’

‘And this business of renewed probation for Elchi is just not on,’ said Boman. I felt grateful someone else had brought this up. ‘He fainted on the road because he was exhausted, not drunk! It’s just not right!’

His words trailed off, but I was reminded of Seppy, and something she had said to me once during one of our evening rambles.

‘It’s such a bloody joke,’ she said. ‘If you guys are so important to the Zarthostis, why don’t they provide you better working conditions? It’s sheer hypocrisy to say you guys’ll have your reward in the next lifetime; yet treat you like offal in this one. . . Why don’t you guys get together, do something about it? Protest. . .’

Like her mother before her, Sepideh was a fighter. Things that she had said to me in the past now became an important source of inspiration.

As the bottle’s contents dwindled, rumblings of discontent grew more raucous. Twice I had to shush them, afraid we might be overheard, and our secret conclave detected. Then, unexpectedly, there was a moment of intense, soul-searching silence: for someone posed the question: what’re we going to do about this state of affairs? I confess I was the one who first mooted the possibility of protest. A phrase we had all heard on Temoo’s radio in the context of Gandhiji’s exertions for home rule had been running in my head. And so it was that the idea of some sort of ‘peaceful non-cooperation’ took root among the corpse bearers, though none of us had any clue what form it should take.

Over the next three days, Rustom and I drew up a charter of demands; very modest and reasonable ones. Not for better wages, but simply an eight-hour working day, overtime compensation and a fixed entitlement of ten days’ casual leave in a year.

When we went across to Buchia’s office late one afternoon, and gave him the petition listing our grievances and expectations, he was careful not to show any reaction.

‘As you know, boys, I am not authorized to take any decision on such matters. I am just a functionary, like yourselves. . .’ he said. ‘But I’ll take this petition myself to Coyaji later this evening, so he can circulate it amongst the trustees.’

Though we had been careful not to make our petition sound like an ultimatum—and nowhere had we referred to the possibility of rebellious action—they must have sensed trouble was brewing.

This time, they did not summon us to their office. Instead, the very next afternoon, podgy Coyaji himself came by to meet us, neatly trussed up in a white dugli. We were asked to congregate in the large hall of the Behramji Petit Pavilion. We took some time getting there, but found him waiting patiently until the whole lot of us had arrived. He was accompanied by Buchia, of course, his yes-man, who remained completely silent all through Coyaji’s speech, although he nodded his head in vigorous affirmation at certain emotional moments of the address.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to take Coyaji seriously, especially when he tried to sound effusive and impassioned. Owing not so much to his impressive girth or the tiny scarlet skullcap perched tentatively on the dome of his head but rather an involuntary dribble of saliva that escaped his mouth after every few sentences he spoke, and often hung there tantalizingly for a few seconds before he became aware of it and mopped it up with the same checked bandana he used to wipe beads of sweat that appeared on his forehead from time to time. That dribble of saliva engaged his audience’s attention more completely, I suspect, than what he was saying, keeping us on the edge of our seats as we tried to guess whether it would be staunched in time, or drip to the floor.

We corpse bearers, Coyaji said to us, should never behave like ordinary factory workers. Never, he repeated for added emphasis, and paused. For the work we did had tremendous religious and social significance for the entire community, and the Punchayet was like our foster father and mother, who looked after us through bad times and good. That such demands as we had presented had been made for the first time in the entire history of the community itself showed they were uncalled for! And that he, personally, was very hurt that we should have felt the need to spell out our demands in a formal petition, as though we were members of a trade union. Instead, if we had only come to him, in the same spirit as a child approaches its father for extra pocket money, he wouldn’t have felt such a sense of betrayal. Over a cup of tea, he said, we could have discussed and sorted out our differences.

Because, you must always remember, he emphasized, that like every father or mother in this world the trustees are basically good and generous people (in fact, surprise of surprises, after Coyaji’s address, tea and sandwiches were brought into the concourse and served to us. Buchia thought of everything! I wonder if they smashed the cups and saucers after we had drunk from them.) who would never do anything to harm their own children and, keep this in mind always, certainly nothing unfair or exploitative.

He had already been speaking for nearly half an hour. These, we guessed, were his concluding remarks:

‘That’s why we have to trust one another. We are all followers of the same religion. And our religion, the oldest and most influential in the history of mankind, clearly lays down all our rights and duties—not just yours as corpse bearers, but ours, too, as your guardians. And in the perspective of not just the here and now, but in the context of eternity, and all-powerful Ahura Mazda. . . So let us not be hasty, let us not behave like ordinary rabble-rousers and undisciplined trouble-mongers. Someone may have misguided you, I’m sure. But if you choose to follow such negative advice, it’ll only bring us to ruin. Never once in the hundred-and-fifty-year-old history of the Punchayet, has anyone raised such demands, remember that. . .’

Not a single concession was granted to us, even just to mollify or appease—except to proclaim that our grievances would definitely be looked into in greater detail.

Already humiliated by the events of the last fortnight, the boys were not impressed by the high moral ground taken by Coyaji, nor the syrupy pap he had just dished out. We were on our best behaviour, of course—no one heckled him, or argued during his discourse. But, as soon as he had left, another meeting took place, a great deal livelier, on Rustom’s terrace. Coyaji’s polemical efforts had only made everyone more determined not to let things quietly return to the way they were.

And yet, given the way poor people generally tend to accept their lot as unchanging, and unchangeable, it is quite likely they would have. Reverted to ‘normalcy’, that is, had the trustees handled the situation a little more sensitively.

The next week or ten days were eventful, possibly the busiest we had known. I don’t mean just with our regular duties. Those proceeded as usual, of course—and the number of corpses had definitely gone down in recent days—but there was the matter of Jungoo Driver.

Poor Jungoo. . . It had been only three days since he had got back behind the wheel again of a more or less functional hearse. This was of course a great boon to us corpse bearers who, otherwise, would have been trudging along for several hours every day lifting the load of corpse and bier. But our luck—and Jungoo’s—didn’t hold out. On the very fourth day after he had started driving it again, a BEST bus rammed diagonally into the driver’s end of the hearse, nearly toppling it. Jungoo suffered two minor fractures and many abrasions. His condition wasn’t serious, and luckily, Bujji and Kobaad were with him.

Winding through the narrow streets of Girgaum to collect a corpse, the accident happened before they could reach the bereaved party’s address; so in its aftermath, they were not burdened with the responsibility of protecting a corpse. The driver of the BEST bus was arrested by the cops for drunken driving, and Bujji and Kobaad got Jungoo admitted to the Parsi General Hospital.

Much later, that evening, on the day of the accident, I was at Rustom’s when a deeply agitated Cawas stumbled in. Cawas, or Cowsi, as we called him, was Jungoo’s elder brother, a corpse bearer of many years’ standing. That night, he looked suddenly older and somewhat stunned as if suffering the effects of concussion; as though he had himself been driving the battered hearse, not his younger brother.

‘He won’t get a paisa, that’s what he says. . . Imagine! Not a paisa!’

Cawas was nearly in tears. Apparently, he had just met Buchia to ask him for an advance towards defraying Jungoo’s hospital expenses. Buchia had been impatient and ill-tempered, deliberately sadistic.

‘Of course not,’ said Rustom. ‘If you expect Buchia to shell out anything from his own pocket you’re sadly deluded! A bloody miser, if ever there was one.’

‘No, no!’ spluttered Cowsi, unable to speak clearly. ‘Buchia said he’d spoken to Coyaji. In the afternoon—after the accident— by phone. “Can’t pay for careless driving,” he tells me.’

‘Who? Buchia?’ I asked.

‘No, no, listen! He was only reporting what Coyaji said. Then that Edul, that bloody chamcha, puts in his two bits: “Few hundreds will anyway go towards repairing the damage to a brand new hearse. . .” “What!” says I, “brand new? It’s been with the garage these last five weeks.” “At least the body was brand new, before your brother banged it up. . .”

‘Then Buchia continues, “And who’s to say he hadn’t been tippling with his good-for-nothing friends before he left for the pick-up in the afternoon? Should be happy he doesn’t have more serious injuries of his own. . .” That’s Buchia for you, the hullkutt: “Coyaji’s in no mood to pay for anything,” he says. “Don’t even ask.” Don’t even ask. . .? Now what do I do? How’ll Jungoo settle the hospital bill? His wife and kids, how they’ll manage?’

‘Calm down, calm down, Cowsi. . .’ Rustom urged. ‘They can’t refuse to pay. There’s a police record to show it was the bus driver who was drunk. . . Other trustees will make Coyaji see sense. Only, it may take a little time.’

‘If necessary, we’ll come with you to talk to the trustees,’ I, too, reassured Cawas.

Initially, though, we khandhias had to take a collection to help Jungoo’s wife and kids get by. Buchia himself, in a rare gesture of generosity, conceded fifty rupees, twenty of which were meant to go into the collection for the family, and the remaining thirty to be deposited at the hospital as an advance payment on Jungoo’s bills. No doubt, Buchia would claim it later from his bosses, or find a way to compensate himself for the expense. If, that is, the suggestion to placate us with a small contribution hadn’t come in the first place from Coyaji himself.

Usually one of the women—Dolly or Khorshed or Perin— carried a simple tiffin of home-cooked food to the hospital for Jungoo; the hospital provided a free tea and breakfast, but meals had to be paid for separately.

He was recovering nicely, and would be discharged in a day or two, the doctors had confided in him.

‘Don’t feel like leaving this place at all,’ he would lament to whoever carried him his lunch. ‘So much peace, so much rest. . . It’s like being in heaven. . .’

To make his discharge from hospital a little less regrettable, we had planned a small get-together on the occasion of his return. In the end, a sort of meeting did take place, but with only a few of us present. Nor were we clinking glasses or passing around the bottle. A grim affair it was, all told, at which we could only review our options. And we felt emboldened enough not to find it necessary to repair secretively to the grotto.