Last Man in Tower (28 page)

BOOK SEVEN

Last Man in Tower

2 SEPTEMBER

Shanmugham loved, more than any other part of the city he lived in, this drive over the Bandra bridge. At night, with the water in the Mahim creek glossy black, the glowing signs of the Lilavati Hospital ahead, the square lights of the slums puncturing the darkness below him, it was like gliding over a film set.

Now, in the late afternoon, he saw the hazy blue piers of the half-built Worli SeaLink, standing in the distant water like a bridge from this world to the next. Sweat dripped from his helmet into his eyes and burned them.

He dreamed of orange juice served on crushed ice with lots of sugar and a sprinkling of red masala powder on top. He hoped he would find a fresh-juice stand close to the lawyer’s office.

Parking his bike near the train station, he removed his helmet and gave his hair a good shake, scattering sweatdrops around him like a dog that has taken a bath.

Among the ramshackle buildings by the train station he searched for the lawyer’s office. The glint of an open razor in a barber’s shop caught his eye. Famous Hair Cutting Palace. This was the landmark near the office.

He waited on the other side of the road.

Next to him, a man stood in a wooden booth surrounded by tomatoes, cucumbers, and boiled potatoes in buckets of water. With stacks of white bread and a bowl of butter on his table, he sliced the vegetables fine. A series of cardboard signs in English hung by thread from the ceiling of the little booth:

D
O NOT ASK FOR CREDIT
D
O NOT DISCUSS OUR COMPETITORS RATE
D
O NOT ASK FOR FREE PLASTIC BAG
D
O NOT ASK FOR EXTRA TOMATO SAUCE
D
O NOT STAY FOR LONG TIME AFTER EATING

Shanmugham looked with envy at all those interdictions. The sandwich-maker might be a poor man, but he could lay down his own law.

But me, I have to do what the boss says
.
He throws the stick, I have to catch
.

He wondered if he should get a quick toast sandwich.

An old man with an umbrella and a slight limp in his left leg went past the Famous Hair Cutting Palace, and turned into the building next door. Shanmugham stopped thinking about food.

A milky lunette let grey light into the stairwell of the Loyola Trust Building; a pigeon was thrashing its wings on the other side.

Masterji stopped on his way up to his lawyer’s office to kick the pain out of his left leg. He looked at the restless silhouette of the bird. He thought:
Where did the rains go?

Taking out his handkerchief, he patted his moustache, which was soaking wet, and put the damp cloth back in his pocket.

The anaemic Ganesha sat in its dim niche on the landing. The small votive oil lamp added burnt fuel to the smell of meat curry. The four khaki-clad security guards were once again playing cards beneath the idol of the Ganesha. Their chappals, shoes, and socks napped together in a heap by the wall.

Within the Milky Way of the city, you can sometimes recognize an autonomous solar system: like these men playing their card games in near silence on this dim landing, breaking only to eat lunch or replace the wick of the oil lamp. Rich they would never be, but they had this eternal card-and-companionship afternoon. Masterji wondered, as he walked around the guards’ hands and feet, which looked like another set of cards placed on the ground, if they maintained a No-Argument book here.

P
AREKH AND
S
ONS
A
DVOCATE
‘L
EGAL
H
AWK WITH
S
OUL
& C
ONSCIENCE
’

The courtesy in the lawyer’s office was much improved this time. The peon with the red pencil behind his ear smiled and said: ‘I’ll
on
the air-conditioner, sir, you’re sweating. The worst time of the year, isn’t it? The rains stop and it’s the middle of summer again.’ He took Masterji’s black umbrella, gave it a shake, and placed it in a green plastic bucket with umbrellas of other colours.

A glass of water arrived on a brown tray; the peon bowed before Masterji.

‘I’ve brought you the coldest glass of water in Mumbai city, sir. Cold-est.’

Is he expecting a tip for this?
Other petty workers, going about the office with their files, smiled at Masterji. He remembered the feeling – which he had had once at the Vakola market – of being mistaken for a millionaire. Sipping the ice-cold water, he considered the mystery of his situation, when the peon said: ‘You can go in to see Mr Parekh, sir.’

Head down, Parekh was on his mobile phone, the three silver strands over his bald head shining in the light. The gold medallion was tucked into his shirt, and bulged between the second and third button.

Parekh looked up, and stared through his thick glasses at Masterji, who had decided to sit down.

‘You phoned me, Mr Parekh. You said there was good news and I should come to see you before noon.’

Nodding, as if he remembered now, the lawyer summoned his mucus and discharged it into the spittoon.

‘You are not my only client, Masterji. I am at any given moment fighting a baker’s dozen of slum rats.’

Masterji, appropriately chastened, nodded. A peon came in with tea for the lawyer. Some minutes passed like this, with Parekh reading a typewritten letter and squinting at his mobile phone each time a text message arrived with a loud chime. Feet thumped on the low ceiling. The cracks in the wooden planks expanded.

The door to the office opened, and an assistant – or was it his son? – approached the lawyer. Parekh took a document from him, squinted, and threw it back at him.

‘This is not the right good news. Not relevant to Masterji’s case.’

The assistant left; Masterji waited; feet moved across the ceiling.

‘One thing has to be confessed, Masterji,’ Parekh said. ‘I had doubts: that night when they cut off the power, for instance. Or when your copetitioner, that Mr Pinto, was threatened. But you have stayed true. You have proved yourself sovereign of your plot of earth.’

Masterji nodded. ‘Men of our generation, we have seen much trouble. Wars, emergencies, elections. We can survive.’

‘True,’ Parekh said. ‘Men of a certain generation, you and I are.’

The assistant reappeared in a few minutes with another document; and this time, the old teacher knew it was relevant to his case. Parekh looked at Masterji; his browless eyes sparkled.

‘The good news is a sizeable one.’

Masterji smiled. ‘What is the good news?’

Still flipping through the pages of the document, Parekh said: ‘A settlement. It will be a famous settlement. Shah versus Murthy.’

‘But who has given me this settlement?’

Mr Parekh turned to his assistant or son, as if in appreciation of this joke.

‘Oh, Masterji,’ he said. ‘The builder, of course. And in fact – between us, Masterji – we have fooled Mr Shah.’ He wiped his lips. ‘Because you had a weak case to begin with. We can say it openly now.’

‘A weak case?’

‘Of course.’

Masterji turned from Parekh to the other, and back to Parekh.

‘How can
you
make a settlement without speaking to me? I have the share certificate: I own my flat.’

Parekh smiled sadly. ‘No, sir. You don’t. Fundamentally speaking, sir, neither you nor any member of any registered co-operative housing society anywhere in this state is the proprietor, strictly speaking, of his or her flat. Your Society is the sovereign of your flat. You own a share certificate in that Society. If the Society decides to sell your flat, you have no right to dissent. Regarding which…’ He turned to clear his throat. The son or assistant recited: ‘Dhiraj T. Kantaria and others versus Municipal Corporation and Co., 2001 (3) Bom. C.R. 664; 2002 (5) Mh. L.J. 779; 2004 (6) LJSOFT 42.’

The lawyer wiped his lips and said: ‘Exactly.’

‘But Mofa…’ Masterji mumbled. ‘Mofa, Mofa?’

The lawyer ran his hand over his three silver strands. ‘The name of Mofa Act is not to be taken lightly.’ He shook his head. ‘For thirty years you have taught your students in accordance with Dharma. Now let us be two teachers to you, Masterji. Even some lawyers who have been twenty, thirty years in this honourable profession don’t understand what Mofa Act is, frankly speaking. Common man cannot understand subtleties of Mofa Act. Because you have to think of how Mofa behaves with MMRDA and BMC.’

‘MHADA,’ the other reminded him. ‘MHADA.’

‘Very true. In this city, MHADA is always there. Somewhere in background. Sometimes in foreground. We must not forget that the government is about to repeal ULCRA any day. Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act? All this we have to think before we bring up the name of Mofa Act. Understand? Don’t worry. We understand on your behalf.’

Masterji saw before him not just two bullying lawyers, but the primal presence of authority.
Is this how my students saw me all those years?
Beneath that low ceiling, an old teacher sat crushed under understanding.

This lawyer with the hidden gold medallion, and this young man, son or assistant, were crooks changing coins in the temple of the law. That was why Parekh had asked for the phone number of the Secretary; all this time the two of them had been in contact.

Masterji looked at the photograph of Angkor Wat, and asked: ‘You spoke to Mr Shah? Behind my back?’

‘Mr Shah contacted
me
. His man came here – nice Tamilian fellow, what was his name? Shatpati? Shodaraja?’ The lawyer tapped a tooth. ‘No business card, but he gave his number. I can renegotiate. Squeeze an even better settlement for you.’

‘I don’t want a better settlement.’

‘We’ll get you the
best
settlement.’

‘I want
no
settlement. I will find another lawyer.’

‘Now, Masterji.’ Mr Parekh leaned in to him. ‘The others will ask for a retainer and waste your time and tell you the same. Frankly, sir: I don’t understand what it is you want.’

‘I keep telling you:
nothing
.’

At once the A/C seemed to stop working: Mr Parekh wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief.

‘Sir: these real-estate men pick on us senior citizens. Politicians and police are in their pay, you must know that. They shot an elected member of the city corporation dead the other day. In broad daylight. Didn’t you see it in the papers? Old men must stick together in this new world.’

‘
You
are threatening me now?’ Masterji asked.

‘My own lawyer?’ Mr Parekh sneezed into a handkerchief, and then said,

‘I am threatening you, sir, with the facts of human nature.’

Instead of an Angkor Wat behind the lawyer’s head, Masterji now saw an image of the High Court of Bombay: a Gothic structure with a soaring roof, ancient and massive, sitting like a paperweight on the city, and symbolizing, for its residents, the authority of law. Now this High Court and its high roof shuddered and its solid Gothic arches became shredded paper fluttering down on Masterji’s shoulders. Mofa. MHADA. ULCRA. MSCA. ULFA. Mohamaulfacramrdama-ma-ma-abracadabra, soft, soft, it fell on him, the futile law of India.

Just then he heard Mr Parekh’s young colleague say, ‘You didn’t even charge him for your basic expenses, Father. All the photocopying we had to do. You have a conscience, that is why. All senior citizens are your family.’

So he is the son
, Masterji thought. The possession of this fact – trivial, and irrelevant to his troubles – mysteriously filled him with strength. He put his hands on the arms of his chair and stood up.

‘Now wait here,’ the younger Parekh said, realizing that the bird was about to fly. ‘If you’re going to leave like this, what about our dues? What about all the photocopying we did for you?’

From behind him, Masterji heard the young man’s voice protesting: ‘Let’s stop him, Father – at once. Father, let’s run after him.’

The green bucket fell over as Masterji pulled his umbrella from it, and splattered his ankles with water.

Past the guards and their blind deity he walked, down the old stairs – past the pigeon, thrashing behind the blind lunette.

Purnima
, he prayed,
swoop down and lift me from the land of the living
.

His wife answered him, as he ran out of the Loyola Trust Building, in an aroma of freshly fried potatoes.

He stopped at a fried-snacks shop.

In seconds a ball of batter-fried
vada pav
, bought for four rupees, was dissolving in Masterji’s gut. Oil, potato, cholesterol, trans-fats slowed the whirlpool in his stomach.

Wiping away the humiliating slick of grease on his lips, he found a grocery store where he could make calls from a yellow payphone wrapped in plastic. Gaurav would be at work now. The one place where that boy might be free of his wife’s influence. Umbrella under his arm, he called Vittal, in the school library, and asked for the phone number of Gaurav’s bank, the Canara Cooperative Society. With a second rupee, he called the bank and asked for Mr G. Murthy, junior branch manager.

‘It’s me. Your father. I’m calling from Bandra. Something very bad has just happened.’

There was silence.

‘What is it, Father? I’m at work.’

‘Can you speak now? It’s urgent, Gaurav. No, it’s a payphone.
I’ll
call back from this same number. Ten minutes.’

Telling the grocery store owner to keep the phone free for him, he ran over to the fried-snacks store, and bought another
vada pav
.

Munching on the batter-fried potatoes, he walked back to Parekh’s office: at the barber’s shop, he saw a familiar dark face reflected in one of the mirrors.