Dahanu Road: A novel (12 page)

When the Warlis found the body they decided it was time to retaliate. To see a brother’s face deep in cow dung, to see his shorts all the way down to his shins, a parai stained with blood … it was enough to drive away the poverty that crippled the Warlis, the malnourishment that weakened them.

A day later, when Pestonji was going to the beach in his horse carriage, a group of men surrounded him. The driver of Pestonji’s carriage was a Warli and he had agreed to help. At first, when they surrounded him, Pestonji was enraged. He threatened to have them beaten by the police, and this seemed to work because two men ran away, and there were only three left. But these three men killed his horses right before his eyes. They ripped the beasts apart, tore their strong, black chests with long knives, and watched as Pestonji shivered in fright. “Where’s your big voice now?” they asked him. “Why don’t you use a parai now?”

Pestonji had no answer.

When he saw his horses slump, his legs jellied. The Warlis kicked him in the head again and again. They did not get a
chance to kill him because another carriage approached from behind, the carriage that carried Pestonji’s wife and son.

When Shapur Irani heard about this, he was worried that the landowners were going to hit back. The police were going to help the landowners, and the Warlis had just made their lives more difficult.

Shapur Irani was right.

The first thing the landlords did was have the Lady of the Red Flag arrested. She was responsible for the changing face of the Warlis. For months, the police found out, she had been walking from village to village talking to the Warlis, uniting them under the Red Flag. In every village the Warlis gave her tea and ambil, they treated her like a god, they listened to every word she had to say, and then
their
words would start.

They were not words. They were mountains.

So strong, they could not be made up.

When he heard their stories, which the landowners described as fabrications of a communist mind, Shapur Irani had to bow his head in shame. In every story, the landowner was the demon. Only the religion of the demon changed. He was either Hindu, Muslim, or Zoroastrian.

In one village, a few miles from Dahanu, a Muslim landlord named Abdul had buried his servant alive because he had broken a mango from the landlord’s tree without permission. At first, Abdul had severely beaten the servant, but because a crowd of Warlis had gathered, Abdul decided that the beating was not enough. Since there was a crowd of Warlis, they needed to be put to work. So he made them dig a hole, and they had no idea why they were digging this hole, but when
they finished, Abdul tossed this beaten-up but living servant inside, a middle-aged fellow named Sukhar.

The other Warlis were then asked to cover Sukhar with mud. While they did this, Abdul smoked a cigarette. When they finished, they were told to leave their shovels and digging tools on top of the covered hole. They were to get back to work, and if anyone tried to get Sukhar out, he would be in next, lying by Sukhar’s side.

But the incident that pummelled Shapur Irani was not a story of violence. It was a story of separation. A young man and woman in love, the man standing outside the granary of a landlord on his wedding night, his head hanging in shame, while his bride was inside, and a landlord inside the bride, only a door separating the man from his wife, sobbing silently for choosing a wife who was beautiful, whom he had to walk with afterwards listening to the sound of crickets, an open moon pouring whatever light it could on them, finally disappearing behind a cloud.

This was the story that made him retch.

What if he had been the groom? What if he had to stand outside a granary while some beast tore his Banu apart?

It was not the Lady of the Red Flag who was bringing the Warlis together. It was acts such as these that sent such a shock through Warli men and women that it awoke their ancestors, made their ghosts rip through the chickoo trees with the speed and darkness of bats.

But the landowners blamed the Lady for the Warli uprising.

And when they heard rumours that she was about to organize a strike, when they heard that she was talking about “rights” and “fair wages” and “the abolishment of the marriage
slave,” they knew her morale needed to be broken. So the landlords fed the police handsome sums of money, entertained them at their bungalows, gave them the finest whiskey and cigars, and encouraged them to take as many Warli women as they wanted.

The police of Dahanu had never been inspired in such a way before. They went after the Lady of the Red Flag like hyenas chasing raw meat. The landlords had her locked up because she was a rare and dangerous bird, and a bird like her should never be seen, she needed to be in a cage until she lost her colour.

But it could not end there.

While her colours faded, the Warlis needed to be pushed back a few centuries so that even the notion of a strike would seem like complete insanity, a disease that could only end in a slow death.

As Pestonji himself put it, recovering from his head injuries with the quick healing only the promise of revenge could bring, “Now the dams of hell shall break loose.” Warli spines would be cracked so hard, neither the Lady nor her Red Flag would ever be able to make the Warlis stand again.

“The landlords are going to create mayhem,” Shapur Irani confided to Banu. “They are going to unleash torture unlike ever before. I cannot let that happen.”

“Don’t get involved in this,” said Banu. “Please.”

“I have to.”

Ever since Vithal’s beating under the tree, he had been unable to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw little Ganpat crawl up to him. Tears were trickling down the child’s face, and as soon as Shapur Irani picked him up to comfort him,
Ganpat whispered in Shapur Irani’s ear,
Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.

As a Zarathushti, he would not let anyone be tortured. He had done it once, and even though Vithal’s wife had stolen the money, the punishment was far greater than the crime, many suns and moons greater. If Shapur Irani had dispensed true justice, he would not be haunted by his actions.

This was a chance to redeem himself.

As Vamog had told his son, “Ahura Mazda’s light is always available. It is we who choose to stand in the shade.”

But Shapur Irani knew that the landlords were not interested in doing the right thing. He needed to find a way to convince them that
not
torturing the Warlis would be to their advantage, that it would help them gain more power.

He said a silent prayer as he stood outside Gustad Mirza’s bungalow, where the landlords had all gathered to discuss the Warli situation. He knew that if he did not intervene, goons would be hired and violence would escalate. Then no one would be safe.

When he showed up, everyone was surprised because Shapur Irani had always remained aloof. In fact, he was known to dislike the Parsis, even though the Parsis and Iranis were both Zoroastrians. He considered them to be cowards who were not men of the soil. He thought of the Iranis as superior, true wrestlers, and the Parsis as men sitting at typewriters in Bombay, licking the arses of the British. He secretly envied the Parsis; he admired the names they had made for themselves
under the British, as lawyers, scholars, businessmen, tax officials—some of them had even become members of Parliament in England. But education and influence notwithstanding, some of the Parsis were brutal as landlords. Parsis like Gustad Mirza.

All the landlords sat in the living room of Gustad Mirza’s sprawling bungalow. It was much bigger than Shapur Irani’s, with fancy white cutlery and paintings, roses at each table, teak cupboards with carved designs of lions and elephants, large oval mirrors, and guns hanging on the wall. Kerosene lamps had been lit and placed all over, especially on the porch, to make the bungalow look like it was wearing jewels.

Twenty of the most powerful landowners of Dahanu, including five Muslim landlords and four Hindu ones, were present. There was whiskey, there was chicken, but Shapur Irani was in no mood to eat or drink. He looked at the overfed Parsi faces around him and wanted to piss on them.

Gustad was short, stocky, and bald, with pimple scars on his face. He got up from his chair and shook Shapur Irani’s hand. His thick neck gave him a mean and bullish look.

“What brings you here, Shapur?”

“The same thing that has brought all of us here,” Shapur Irani replied.

“What’s that?” asked Gustad.

“A Warli woman’s smelly cunt.”

He forced himself to speak like that. He had to pretend to be one of them, crude and heartless. He had to act as though he shared their opinion of the Warlis, that they were servants without souls.

Gustad laughed. Shapur Irani noticed one gold tooth.

“I am here,” Shapur Irani said, “because I have heard that you are all planning an attack on the Warlis.”

“Not an attack,” said Tafti, an old man with thick eyeglasses. “We are disciplining them.”

Gustad sat back in his chair and placed his feet on the glass table. His brown leather shoes looked very expensive.

“The Warlis are now getting coverage in the Bombay press,” said Gustad. “These journalists cannot be trusted. They ate our food, drank our booze, and then went back and wrote whatever they wanted.”

You mean they wrote the truth.

“And now there is talk of the Warlis going on strike,” said Gustad. “They need to be whipped back into shape.”

“True, true,” said Shapur Irani. “They must be crushed. But if we hurt them, our reputation as educated landowners will go down the drain. Violence is not the answer.”

“Perhaps we should write them a letter?” asked Gustad. “In the finest calligraphy?”

“Torturing the Warlis will only make us look bad. And it will strengthen their case. You are all men of learning. Surely men of learning do not resort to violence.”

“Shapur, get to the point,” snarled Gustad.

“We make a speech. We offer to negotiate. That way the journalists will be on our side. We show that we are willing to listen to their terms.”

Anything to avoid carnage.

“A peaceful attempt at negotiation must be made on our part,” he continued, pushing harder, but not too hard, lest his motives be found out. “If that fails, then we can talk about discipline.”

By then, Shapur Irani figured, the press would be involved much more, and it would be hard for the landlords to inflict torture without being exposed to some degree.

“We are the ones in power,” he said. “Kings do not get sympathy. By talking, we will seem reasonable.”

Gustad folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. Tafti removed his eyeglasses and bit his lip. The Hindu and Muslim landlords shuffled in their cane chairs and pondered Shapur Irani’s words.

“Even if we agreed,” said Gustad, “your idea won’t work. We cannot go from village to village making speeches. The hamlets are too spread out.”

“Then gather all the Warlis together. Make one speech.”

“Why would they come?” asked Gustad. “They do not trust us.”

It was the only iota of truth that Shapur Irani had heard all night. But he had no idea how to get the Warlis together.

“Forget about it,” said Pestonji. “I am a fan of Bhagat Singh, not Gandhi. Bring on the violence.”

Such was the madness of Pestonji that he would not spare a single tribal. A small bullet of terror punctured Shapur Irani when the Hindu and Muslim landlords nodded their heads.

“But it will be to our benefit,” said Shapur Irani. “If we—”

“I am not interested in benefit,” said Pestonji. “That bloody whore from the Red Flag is responsible for my head wounds.”

It was this statement that gave Shapur Irani an idea.

“If that whore has caused all the problems,” he said, “she will also provide a solution.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gustad.

“The Warlis love her. They worship her because for once they feel someone is on their side. She has lived with them, she has eaten with them, and she has heard their stories.”

“So?”

“She will help us gather the Warlis in one place. We spread a rumour that the Lady of the Red Flag is dying in prison. She is very sick, she is on her deathbed, and she has asked the Warlis to assemble at Dahanu beach three days from now to fight for her release. We make sure the journalists are there to record the event.”

“What makes you think the Warlis will show up?”

If an iron rod was shoved up your arse for stealing coconuts, if you were buried alive for breaking a mango off a tree, and if your bride had been taken in a granary by someone just after your wedding, and suddenly a woman showed up from nowhere and gave you hope, the least you would do is assemble on a beach if you heard she was dying.

But he did not say this. His disgust for them was simple, and so was his answer: “They will come.”

Shapur Irani was not pleased that he had perpetrated a lie, but the ruse was necessary. It was either that or the spilling of innocent blood. He did not truly expect a gathering to bring about any progress; the landlords were too pigheaded and ruthless for that. But once the press covered it, they would be obliged to report any future violence, and the landlords would be forced to parade a more benign persona.