The Cripple and His Talismans (10 page)

“What is that?”

“I will dip it in my cutting.”

“Cannot eat!” He staggers back some more. There is no trace of the Hindi movie walk now.

“You want to try?”

“Abdul bhai! Abdul bhai!” he shouts hysterically. I assume Abdul bhai is the owner. I must be careful. Abdul bhai sounds like dynamite.

Abdul gets up from his place behind the counter and hitches up his black pants. He grunts a little. I had mistaken his hair to be oily. It looks more like water. That is not a good sign. People who water their hair are dangerous. For one, it shows they have too much free time and will therefore snap at the slightest provocation. Two, the hair-watering type is commonly of a certain profile, mainly gangly (belonging to a gang). Three, the constant need for wetness is the result of a hot head.

“Abdul bhai,” the waiter starts again. “This man is being shyana.”

“I’m not being clever,” I tell Abdul.

“Shyana buntai?” Abdul’s hand is the size of my foot. I thank God for my deformity; it might inspire pity in Abdul.

“Abdul bhai,” I say. I turn to my left so that the absence of my arm is even more apparent.

“I am not Abdul bhai,” he says.

“You are not?” I ask.

“I am.”

“I am confused.”

“I am, but not to you.”

“Sorry,” I tell him.

I slowly drag the finger toward the edge of the table. A few more inches and I can place it in the bag. I must not lose the finger at all costs.

“AK
Munna Tiger Lily!” he shouts.

“What?”

“You must call me
AK
Munna Tiger Lily.”

“Okay,” I say. By now, the waiter has calmed down. His eyes are on the finger so I stop moving it.

“Go on,” Abdul says. “Call me by my name.”

“Could you repeat it, please?”

He steps a foot closer.

“Sir, I wish to get your name perfectly right,” I plead.

“
AK
Munna Tiger Lily.”

“A gun, a boy, a tiger, a lily,” I say to myself.

“A gun? You have a gun?” asks Abdul.

“No. I’m just being literal.
AK
for 47. It will help me remember your name. And Munna means boy. So.”

“So you don’t have a gun?”

“I don’t have an arm to carry a gun,
AK
Munna Tiger Lily,” I say.

“I noticed,” he replies.

“What a relief. This waiter did not even see that I’m a cripple.
AK
Munna Tiger Lily, you are a pride to the hotel industry. Did you train in Switzerland?”

“Without training,” he says proudly.

“That’s remarkable,” I say. “If only this man here had your manners.”

Abdul looks at the waiter. “How many times I have told you to be courteous?”

“Courteous?” replies the waiter.

This is my chance. I must point out this show of disrespect on the waiter’s part. “Sir
AK
, this man is making a fool of your courtesy.”

“Are you?” he asks the waiter, who fidgets nervously with his rag.

“Abdul bhai, do not listen to him,” pleads the waiter.

“AK
Munna Tiger Lily!” he booms.

“But I always call you Abdul bhai.”

“You have lost that privilege.”

I add: “I think Sir
AK
is much better. It is regal.”

Adbul raises an eyebrow. “Yes, it is much more better.”

“But this man wants to eat a finger,” shouts the waiter.

I put the finger in the brown paper bag and get up from my table. Abdul puts his hand on my shoulder.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says.

I remove the finger from the bag. “Let me go or I will eat this finger right in front of you,” I threaten.

Abdul takes his hand off my shoulder. The waiter moves away as well. I put the finger two inches away from my mouth. I try not to let my revulsion show.

“Okay, leave,” says Abdul.

“That’s not all,” I say. “I want you to tell me where this finger points.”

“Where it points?”

“Don’t pretend,” I say. “You know the In-charge. You know Baba Rakhu. Quick, where does it point? I warn you, I’m getting hungry.”

“I told you he is crazy!” shouts the waiter.

“Sir
AK!
Sir
AK!
Sir
AK!”
Abdul yells back.

“I will eat this biscuit.”

“Wait,” says Abdul. “If you take a lotus and place it on water, what will happen?”

“It will float,” I reply.

“Wrong! It will sink.”

“Why?”

“The giant who lives underwater will pull it from below.”

“What giant?”

The finger is perilously close to my mouth. I am speaking into it as if it is a microphone.

“This giant, is it a hint?” I ask. At this point I would look for clues in the cornea of the blind. But I have faith that I will be directed to the next point from here. When I was young, all my learning took place at Lucky Moon.

Abdul looks at his slab of a hand and steps forward to hit me. As I retreat, my foot lands on a shoot of crushed sugarcane.

“Tell me what to do with the finger!” I plead.

“Get rid of it. It reeks of death,” he says.

I nod in the direction of the flies, mosquitoes and crushed cane, and step out of Lucky Moon. I am glad time has not made it sanitary; I may even organize a school reunion here. Naturally, I will invite only those who used the word “cutting.” I look at the street and notice that apart from two handcarts and an old scooter, Clare Road is still Clear.

H ere is the story of Gardulla that I heard as a child, about how he came to live underwater. Let him be known as Gardulla the Giant. Let his home be the river Baya in an ancient land. Let it be written in blood that Gardulla the Giant was as real as the mosques of this city. Let him be an awning that protects us from the dark clouds of jealousy, for it was jealousy that brought about his birth and ultimately his demise.

Long before Gardulla was born, the river Baya had a friend, a peacock that walked along her banks. The two enjoyed racing with each other. Baya was a young river then, fast and gushing, but she did not always win. The peacock had a red and blue fan that reached far into the sky when open. When the wind blew strong, it carried the peacock with a speed that Baya could only wish for.

It was only natural, then, that the two became lovers. It was natural, but accidental as well. Very early one morning, when it was still dark, the peacock woke to practise his run. It was the month when the mountains ate the wind. As such, he had been losing to Baya of late and she did not let him forget it. “Your fan has no wind,” she would taunt. “Maybe you should keep it closed forever.”
The peacock would pretend to enjoy the banter, but would bow his head in shame as soon as Baya flowed past. He needed a victory to make Baya’s mouth dry of hurtful words.

As the peacock raced at the foot of Baya, he thought he heard a wind. He stopped to open his fan. It had been days since he had felt the wind and he wanted to remind himself what victory tasted like. As he waited, he knew his eyes would soon close with that first rush of air, the blue of his feathers trapping the wind, storing it for future use.

But the wind came from another direction, for the first time ever, with such great force that he was plunged into the river. He had never touched Baya before, and to fall upon her, like some cheap rock, brought him great shame. Even greater shame than when he lost his races.

Baya liked the warmth of the peacock’s feathers, the melting of his colours with her liquid skin. She slowed down and raised him to her mouth in the darkness. She kept him there, swirled around him, until she seeped into his every pore. The peacock put his head inside her and drank her. In this manner, they carried each other in themselves until the darkness lifted. As the first drops of light fell, the peacock opened. Balanced on Baya, the fringes of his blue and red fan glowed as the sun rose behind him. The two stopped racing forever; instead they vowed to carry each other to heaven.

For giants to be born, a special seed must be sown. Or a tangle of weeds must come loose on their own. Giants are special, like secret recipes. They are not born
by
or
of
. They are born
because
.

After the racing stopped, Baya and the peacock were entwined, it seemed forever. Wherever Baya went, the peacock followed. He loved how long her reach was, how she would sometimes rise from behind him, and, at other times come toward him in a playful rage. Their world was complete and each day as the darkness left, the peacock would dip his head into Baya and let her enter him.

But there are some days when the sun does not rise. Or even if it does, the darkness is so thick you cannot see it. When such darkness comes, your eyes record a false light, one that you have created out of fear. On one such day, Baya expressed her dread. She grew cold, even though the peacock tried hard to keep her warm. His skin was not enough so he bent down low into her belly to take her in. He had never gone so deep before, and Baya thought it was someone else — another lover. Like a fool, she called this other lover’s name.

The peacock felt a burning in his heart. It grew so strong that Baya tried to move away from him. This time, the peacock needed no wind. His heart drove him to tearful rage and he rose up out of Baya and followed her, his fan, black as a bad dream, spun over the sky in evil might. The closer he came to her, the farther away Baya went. They raced, gathering speed with every drop of hate and fear. As the peacock’s heat grew, Baya tried harder to escape. She flung herself far and wide, much farther than she knew, and finally lashed the peacock against a tree.

Blue and red filled the air. Before Baya could regain her calm, the song of the peacock’s death began. It cut through her centre and she parted. She took over land that was not hers. She took over flowers and grass and herbs and small fruit trees. It was not her fault, but she could not stop her grieving. Finally, unable to bear the sight of the peacock fallen, she swallowed him whole and hid him in the folds of her skin.

A vow had been broken. Baya and the peacock had promised each other heaven and gave each other death instead. But they gave each other something else, too: a special seed that the peacock’s death had left behind. Because the peacock had been jealous, Gardulla was born. Thus, he was born not
by
or
of
, he was born
because
. The wind chanted his name like a favourite season. “Gardulla,” said the wind. And Gardulla popped his little head out of the water and got his first taste of sun. The wind, unable to see his feet, thought that the little boy was tall enough to stand on his mother’s bed. “Why,” said the wind, “is this Gardulla a giant?” And for a second time, he was born
because
— because the wind could not see.

It is absurd that a river and a peacock could give birth to a little boy. It is absurd that upon being told by the wind that he was a giant, Gardulla simply stretched his legs out and became one. By the same token, I ask you, why is the wind allowed to talk? We cannot see it, but we listen to it more clearly than to the words of men. And why is it that while
we
are made of water, only the clouds can give it to us? We could be trees. Or we could be alive only because trees breathe us in.

Gardulla could never leave the water. He thought of Baya as water and not as his mother because she was too distant. Although she lay against him all the time, not once did she coil around him. She was cold and silent and Gardulla did not know why. His only joy was watching the world around him. By now Baya had stopped crying and had shrunk to her old size once more. The grass, flowers, herbs and fruit trees grew along her banks again.

Time passed in this manner. Days repeated themselves with such monotony that new days were a thing long forgotten. Until a little girl, her hair brown as a haystack, came to play alongside Baya. Baya liked the little girl; whenever the little girl came, Baya sang. At first Gardulla thought nothing of this. But then he felt the warmth of his mother, and he knew it was not for him. The warmth reached toward the little girl — it changed its path like a treacherous arrow. Unable to bear the sight of the little girl, Gardulla put his head inside the water for the first time.

He was horrified by what he saw. Feathers of blue and red were scattered across the folds of his mother’s skin. When Baya sensed that Gardulla saw the peacock, she tried to hide his feathers. And when you hide something, it means your heart is halved. The other half is buried under your lips.

The next time the little girl came to play, Gardulla’s eyes shot blood. But he lowered them so she would not see his anger. The little girl ran through the grass and became thirsty. She bent toward Baya to quench her thirst. Baya could not help it. She felt warm again. The little girl reminded Baya of her lover. Gardulla, on the other hand, was like a carving on a tombstone for Baya, synonymous with her husband’s death. Gardulla was a record of all that she wished to forget.

Now Gardulla was sure. The girl was his stepsister and his mother’s favourite. As the little girl drank, he reached his arm out and caught her. When he lifted the little girl, Baya became fast and young again. She raged against him with all her might. She crushed him, telling him that she was killing him with the force of her love. Gardulla’s life poured out of his eyes. He could not believe Baya was doing this, and yet it made no difference. He could have fought back, but he simply let go of the little girl. In time, the force of Baya crushed his head. Not wishing to keep him close, she sent him to her feet, where he was taken away by the earth.

There are always flowers for the dead. Baya placed a white lotus in the large palm of her dead son. The lotus sank with Gardulla. Thus, whenever you see a sinking lotus, it is because the giant who lives underwater pulls it down from below.

So here I am in Love Lane ready to mourn the death of lovers. It is hot and I am worried that the finger I carry will melt. I must find its use fast. It will come to me like rain when I least expect it.