The City of Devi: A Novel (6 page)

“She sounds like she was very strong.”

“She became that way—fierce, even. I suppose she had to harden herself. She was ferociously determined I be happy in life. And quite ruthless with anyone she considered out to hurt me.”

“Do you suppose she would have liked me?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“My mother likes you too.” It wasn’t quite the symmetrical response, and the awkwardness of articulating it made me blush.

Karun stared silently at the clouds, and I wondered if I had been too forward. When he spoke, he did so haltingly. “I’ve always envied people who know exactly what they want. I sometimes wonder if I could ever be as sure as they seem. If I could experience the feelings I’m supposed to with the same intensity. My mother knew this doubt in me—that’s why she kept urging me to search for a lasting anchor in life. I think she worried that after her, I’d simply drift around, vainly trying to re-create some past ideal.”

My heart started racing. Did his words hold the hint of a hidden invitation? An allusion to the very topic I had been so apprehensive about broaching? I felt as if nearing the conclusion of some game of nerves, like threading the loop over the wire, I had just a short way left to go without making a mistake.

“It’s been over three years since she died—two more than the year she gave me to mourn her. Every night, I can almost hear her whispering into my ear, ‘Settle down now, forget the old. Marry, have a child, build a new trinity.’ I thought it would be a simple matter, but in truth, I haven’t been able to follow through. Even though I’ve been wanting, even though I’ve been lonely. Perhaps it’s a matter of confidence, of being sure one can fulfill the expectations from the other side. Do you know what I mean?”

I didn’t. Was he letting me know, gently, of his disinterest? Declining politely before I posed the question? “Don’t you want to get married?” I found myself asking, more plainly than I would have liked. Then, when Karun didn’t reply, I added, “I do.”

“I know.”

“But you don’t want to,” I murmured, completing the thought for him. A huge weight seemed to lift from me as I said this. The loop had touched the wire, the buzzer had gone off to announce I had lost. The suspense was over, I could breathe in the monsoon air freely.

“It’s not that I don’t. There’s nothing I’d like better than to belong again, be part of my own family. I think I just worry too much about not knowing how things might turn out. Sometimes when you get close to someone, they end up caring for you differently. All the certainty people have—that you have—I wish I could feel the same.”

Was he trying to caution me about something? I couldn’t quite decipher his warning. “One is never completely sure, of course, but one has to try.”

Here was my opportunity, I knew, to follow up on Uma’s advice. I closed my eyes and brought my face to his, guided only by the thought of his lips. When I neared enough to sense his breath, I pressed my mouth quickly to his. Then I withdrew noiselessly, afraid of the bird-like sound my parents made on the rare occasions they kissed. I opened my eyes, but didn’t allow my gaze to climb too high up Karun’s face.

Did my adventurousness put the onus on him to reciprocate? Did he really want to kiss me back, or did he feel obliged, had I embarrassed him into it? I kept my attention focused on the line that first drew me in. It darkened in the middle, then separated in two, then blurred as his mouth drew closer. If there was drama in the universe, it should have started raining at that instant, but it didn’t. There should have been thunder in the background to commemorate the event, lightning to illuminate the instant of contact. I felt the swell of his lips against mine, tasted the salt from the sea on their surface. The wetness behind them felt warm and strangely personal on my tongue. Something in my mind shrank from the idea of sharing saliva, but it was precisely this intimacy—so shocking, so electrifying—that left the muscles in my throat engorged and took away my breath.

We kissed again, and this time it did begin to rain. Slowly at first, then in a majestic sweep, and then, as the wind picked up, in large sheets that billowed in from over the sea and spun and whipped around the tower. The water seeped into my hair and pelted my face, but I didn’t relinquish the contact my lips engaged in. Thunder started up, slowly at first, like a deep and distant drumbeat rolling in from somewhere near the horizon. It danced over the water, coming closer all the time, as if heralding the approach of the long-awaited ocean liner, which would surely be looming right behind us if I looked. But I kept my eyes closed, and my mouth upon his, until the thunder subsided, and bells began to ring.

Except they weren’t bells, but whistles, and they came not from the sea, but from the guard below. He sprinted towards the tower, waving his hands, blowing his warning angrily. Round the pool stood the teenage swimmers, forced out by the rain, jabbering and pointing at us like excited monkeys.

“We should go down,” Karun whispered.

I was about to follow when the realization came to me. We had kissed, it was true, but the compact between us had not yet been sealed. There was another step needed to affirm us as a couple—a ceremony to test his commitment to me. Standing up there on the tower, amidst the drama of the clouds and the whistles and the rain, I saw it. The chance to leave our old selves behind, make the break together to be free. “No, not that way,” I said. Would he care enough to accompany me?

He didn’t understand until I began to edge backwards along the platform. “You can’t be serious, Sarita.” He stared in bewilderment as I reached the diving board. “You hardly even know how to swim.”

Some of the boys below guessed my intentions as well. “Jump, jump,” they shouted, as the watchman began racing up the steps two at a time.

Karun advanced towards me. “Don’t go any further, Sarita, or you might fall off. Here, take my hand.”

“Only if you come with me.” Gingerly, I put one foot on the diving board, then the other. The rain had made it slippery, but I balanced on it, testing its stiffness, gauging how it bent under my weight. The water looked agonizingly far, like something designed for a daredevil act—visions of the boy who had struck his head and drowned flashed through my brain. It would all be worth it, I told myself, as I tried to focus on the new life awaiting.

I reached the middle of the diving board. “Grab hold of me. I’ll pull you back,” Karun said, and this time he managed to clasp my hand. For a moment, I almost let him bring me in. But then the watchman, whistling and gesticulating, burst upon the platform. I took an instinctive step back, and the shift in weight made me lose my balance. In the split second before I fell, I released Karun’s hand, but the momentum pulled him along as well.

I’d expected the jump to be exhilarating, like riding down a glass-enclosed elevator, with breathtaking vistas of the city flashing by. Instead, blinding rain obliterated the views, the sensation of falling was petrifying. The water packed a nasty wallop as I tore through its surface, knocking the wind from my chest and, it seemed, shooting up into my very cranium.

But it didn’t really matter, because when I surfaced, Karun emerged right next to me. The boys around the rim hooted and clapped as he wrapped an arm around my body. As the thunder added its own applause and the engorged clouds lavished us with blessings, Karun towed me to safety.

3

SUPERDEVI
RELEASED THAT SUMMER, DELUGING EVEN NON-MOVIE
people like us with its hype. The most expensive Indian film ever made, thanks to the backing of
both
Hollywood
and
the Indian mafia! Lata M. teams up for her techno comeback with Lady Gaga (who Uma said was a famous pop star)—their title duet rockets to the top of charts worldwide! And up in the sky, a bird, a jet—no, Superdevi herself, zooming overhead behind a prop plane as we sat (and tried to ignore her) on the beach at Chowpatty. Supposedly, the script borrowed extensively from
Slumdog Millionaire
and
Superman
(films which neither of us had seen) in telling the story of a young girl from the Mumbai slums with the power to assume different avatars of Devi to fight crime. Uma kept herding us to McDonald’s, which was giving away all nine incarnations from the movie as collectible action figures throughout India (and parts of England and New Jersey), free with food purchases (vegetarian only, so as not to upset Hindu sentiments). She collected eight of the figures, turning off the light at home to show us how they glowed in the dark just like Superdevi. Despite foisting dozens of McAloo Tikki sandwiches on us, however, she never managed to acquire the elusive Kali incarnation (toting her AK-
47
from the final battle scene).

The movie managed to surpass even the most optimistic projections. I read breathless reports in magazines of kids dragging their families to see it three and four and even ten times, of the urban youth of India finding spiritual enlightenment in Superdevi’s incarnation as call center worker to fight tele-fraud, of desis in New York and London and Sydney bringing such gaggles of white friends to screenings that the film quickly spilled over to mainstream international release. A Zee TV program documented how
Superdevi
wielded its greatest power over rural India, whose citizens experienced it not as movie but as religious odyssey (calling the heroine “Ooper-devi” which translated to “Upper-devi,” in several Indian languages). The reporter followed scores of villagers making pilgrimages from miles around to get the Superdevi’s blessing at a small theater in Ambala, where both fire exits had been converted into Devi shrines for patrons to leave flowers, coconuts, and monetary offerings. A guard stood on stage throughout to make sure audience members didn’t try to touch the Superdevi for her blessing when she appeared on screen. Perhaps the most definitive evidence of the film’s popularity appeared in the calendar art sold on city streets: all the goddesses from Laxmi to Saraswati to Parvati bore striking resemblance to
Superdevi’s
child heroine Baby Rinky. Even our sand sculptor abandoned his trimurtis in favor of more profitable Devi carvings.

“This is for all the potato sandwiches at McDonald’s,” Uma said as she handed me two tickets for a Saturday matinee at the Metro. “I know neither of you much follows movies, but with Karun’s thing for mythology, it should be interesting.”

Bollywood had dramatically changed since I last looked, because
Superdevi
had slick production values and expensive special effects, unlike the tacky
1970
s potboilers my mother liked to watch on DVDs. But the plot seemed just as hokey, as preposterous and formulaic, and I wondered what all the fuss was about. I had difficulty keeping Superdevi’s more minor incarnations separate (Cyber Devi, X-ray Devi, and Antibiotic Devi, in particular), though with most of the story revolving around schemes to destroy Mumbai, she appeared for a good part as Mumbadevi.

To my surprise, Karun enjoyed the movie much more than I did—he seemed unperturbed by the frequent suspension of logic, the willful violation of every law of physics. “I wish Baji could have seen it. He always talked about Devi coming to life.” Karun’s one reservation related to the Vishnu and Shiva characters who popped up in the climax to form a terrorist-exterminating threesome with Superdevi. “They should have developed those roles more, seized the opportunity to delve deeper into the concept of the Trimurti.”

As expected, sitting together in the theater brought back all of Karun’s shyness. After the first half hour, though, he started to relax, as if the darkness had begun to dissolve through his inhibitions. We even held hands on the armrest between us following the intermission—in fact, I got the distinct sense that he relished the element of covertness. After that, we began going to the movies regularly—his favorite theater was the Regal, which, curiously, he said he’d frequented quite often in college. When I asked him to tell me something about the films, he oddly couldn’t recall much of what he’d seen.

THE KHAKIS ARE
on the warpath. Their commotion plucks me from my cinema reverie and deposits me back in the hospital basement. “Look at him,” their leader shouts, pointing at the man they hoisted into the air minutes ago. “Look at the condition he’s in.” The man tries to sink in deeper behind the bandages plastering his face. Someone has finally removed the noose around his neck—it lies coiled on the ground, waiting for another victim.

“A complete outrage. These cowardly Muslims who’ve almost succeeded in getting one of our own Hindu brothers killed.” He does not elaborate on how, exactly, the Muslims are to blame. “I’ve told my men to root out every last Muslim in this room so there’s never a repetition of something like this. The HRM will find them and make this shelter safe for you again.”

I should have guessed from the saffron threads: the Khakis are part of the right-wing HRM, the Hindu Rashtriya Manch organization, responsible for so much of the nation’s bloodshed. They fan out through the crowded basement, peering at licenses and ID cards—when unavailable, they demand to see an intact foreskin. “My driver carries all the papers,” the man in the tan safari suit sniffs. “When the all-clear sounds, you’re free to ask him.” He sputters in outrage as a Khaki roughly grabs his belt, then staggers to the floor bleeding after receiving a corrective punch in the face.

“No, please, stop,” the woman with the gold paisley sari shrieks, throwing herself over his body, as if she’s been watching Bollywood movies all her life precisely in rehearsal of this move. “He’s my husband, he’s Hindu—we’re both Hindu—look, here’s my mangalsutra.” A Khaki bends over to take a closer look, then rips it from her neck and holds it laughing above his head.

A figure heads towards me and I stiffen upon recognizing my would-be Romeo. Is he going to try again to strike up a conversation? Then I realize he’s actually threading his way away from the line of advancing Khakis. Our gazes meet, and something flickers in his eyes—I guess at once he must be Muslim. He’s almost past me, headed towards the dark recesses with the bottles and flasks, when the woman with designs on my pomegranate spots him. “Look, that sisterfucker’s trying to get away. Quick, catch him!”

Within seconds, two Khakis are upon him. “Let me go,” he cries as they pin his hands behind his back. The muscles strain in his arms and neck. “I’m Hindu, I tell you. My name is Gaurav.”

“Why were you trying to escape?”

“I wasn’t—I just thought it was darker back there—I had to urinate.”

One of the Khakis fishes around in Gaurav’s pockets. He finds a sheet of paper which he unfolds and stares at myopically. It’s clear he can’t read. “It’s just an old receipt,” Gaurav says.

“Where’s your ID?”

“At home. I left my wallet there to keep it safe.”

The Khaki smiles. “Actually, you’re always carrying your ID—you’re attached to it. My colleague will take you to the back and check while you use it to urinate.”

They are guffawing and twisting his arms behind to lead him back when I find myself instinctively stepping forward. Perhaps the bashed-in face of their previous victim spurs me—I cannot stand by again, cannot stomach another body getting broken and hanged. A smidgen of guilt at having treated my Romeo shabbily is also mixed in—for all I know, his designs may have been completely honorable. “I know this man. You can let him go. His name is Gaurav Pradhan.”

I’m not sure from where I get the surname. The Khakis are as startled at my intervention as I am. “How do you know him?”

“He lives in my building. He’s Hindu. I’ve run into him at Mahalaxmi temple, many times.”

As they wonder whether to untwist Gaurav’s arms, my nemesis, the pomegranate harridan, pipes up. “She’s lying. She has to be Muslim herself—that’s why she’s trying to save him. He must be her
boyfriend
.” She uses the English word.

“Don’t listen to her. You can see I’m a married Hindu woman—look at the bindi I’m wearing.”

“Anyone can take some color and draw a dot on their forehead. If you’re married, then where’s your mangalsutra to go along with your bindi, Muslim bitch?” She spits in my direction.

The Khakis confer with each other. The woman summons up more betel juice to aim at me. “I saw them talking to each other not five minutes ago—the sisterfucker and his Muslim whore.” She squirts, remnants dribble down her chin.

One of the Khakis turns to me. “Why don’t you come with us to the back? We can sort it all out there.” The gleaming new interest in his eyes unsettles me. He pretends to help me by the arm through the maze of people, but his grip is so tight I can feel his fingers dig into my flesh.

As I try to figure out how to extricate myself from the danger I’ve foolishly put myself in, the anti-aircraft guns start up. The sound of an explosion comes from outside, followed by another. The room seems to list to one side, as if the building is tipping over, as people run towards the slatted windows to peer through. A piercing whistle-like screech draws even more gawkers, and just as everyone crowds against the wall facing the street, it explodes.

A thrill passes through my body, a wild and terrified elation: I have been bombed. Then I hear the screams, see the arms and feet sticking through the rubble. The Khakis abandon their hunting game and rush to help the victims. I join in as well, in an effort to rescue two half-buried women—the white of their dresses identifies them as nurses.

I’m helping a doctor clear more fragments of wall when I feel a mouse-like movement in my salwaar. I look down to see grubby brown fingers easing out my pomegranate. It’s the boy with the Bimal Batak T-shirt. I try to seize his wrist, but he wriggles free. He scampers over the rubble towards the hole in the side of the building and I scrabble up after him. Squeezing through the opening, I follow him into the bright sunshine.

He dashes down the road, but I easily outrun him. “Leave it,” I order, catching him by the collar, but he does not obey. I grab his arm as he tries to bring the pomegranate to his mouth for a bite. “Little thug,” I say, and twist so hard that he screams and lets go. He spits at me as I retrieve the fruit from the ground, then flings a fistful of gravel in my direction and runs away.

I stand on the road to clear my head. Anti-aircraft fire still echoes in the distance, but I know the planes with the bombs have already flown away. Behind me lie the smoking remains of the Liberty, and I wonder if this is the enemy’s strategy—to destroy all the cinemas. An ancient building down the street lies in ruins as well—perhaps its tired bones have collapsed just from the trauma of witnessing the attack.

Still numb and euphoric over my bombing and escape, I head for the Marine Lines train station.

KARUN AND I
got married that October at the Indica. We chose a hotel at Juhu in recognition of the picnic on the day we met. Our first choice had been the Sun ’n Sand, since it cost less, but we decided to splurge since they had no dates available until February. Uma tried to get us to have a funky ceremony on the beach itself, which I nixed. Although Karun would have preferred a court wedding, he went along with the entire priest-and-seven-circle spectacle for my mother’s sake.

The guests were almost entirely from my family’s side. When pressed to add his own invitees to the list, Karun put down the names of some of his research institute colleagues. I had been hoping to meet his long-term friends from Delhi and Karnal, but he explained it was too far to expect them to make the trip. He didn’t even have any names from his three years of college in Bombay. “I got to know some people quite well, but I’ve lost contact since.”

His only aunt took the train down from Delhi, accompanied by his two cousins. “We never thought our Karun was one to ever get married—to such a pretty bride, no less,” they said in Punjabi-flecked Hindi. “There must have been something in your Bombay water, to have so quickly cured the bachelor in him.”

Uma told me she’d tried to squeeze out information about Karun’s past, but his relatives didn’t seem that close. She was still trying to uncover evidence of a former romantic involvement—not as something to hold against him, but purely as reassurance that he was like everyone else. “All they talked about was his studiousness, how well he did in school. His aunt said he suffered from asthma after his father passed—to cure it, he took up swimming and practiced yoga every morning for an hour.”

“He still does that. Is that the best you could dredge up?”

“I’m just trying to fill in the blank pages, Sarita. Everyone’s so relieved at your marrying that they’ve checked neither background nor character—just this mad rush to get you wed. You’ve told us the story about how he accompanied you in the plunge from the diving board over and over, but have you really found out enough about him to spend your life together?”

“Of course I have. His background isn’t so mysterious—it’s not as if he comes from a long line of murderers. And we’ve talked about everything under the sun—from our favorite foods to our favorite theorems in calculus.” The calculus bit, a lie, I threw in just to provoke her: I was closer to Karun in educational grounding and way of thinking than she, with her history B.A., could ever hope to be with Anoop.

“But are you two really in love?”

“I wouldn’t be marrying him if we weren’t.”

In the four months since the diving tower, Karun and I had spent a good deal of time together. In addition to our newfound interest in cinema, we’d also started trying restaurants, especially several of the new ones that seemed to open every week in the mill area. On a day-long excursion to the amusement park at Essel World, we rode the Zyclone roller coaster four times in succession at Karun’s insistence, followed by an equal number of rides on the new Super Drop, based on Superdevi’s descent to earth after visiting the moon goddess. Our outings always felt a bit like playing hooky, as if being in each other’s company freed us from obligations, gave us dispensation to have the fun we’d never had. Karun had become both more relaxed and more expressive—by my count, we’d exchanged five “I love you’s” so far.