The Two Krishnas (15 page)

They had just seen Amitabh Bachchan’s new super hit film
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar
and although it was already nightfall, as a special treat, Chacha was taking them to Juhu Chowpatty for some ice-cream. It was to be their little secret. The motorized rickshaw found its way through the multitudes of the city, weaving through yellow and black taxis, BEST double-decker buses, trucks requesting HORN PLEASE OK, vacant strollers and relentless beggars.

The end of such an outing always depressed Atif but at least there was one more stop today. He wished he could stay on with Chacha and never have to go back to his disciplinarian father and nervous mother. As the motor rickshaw zigzagged like a buzzing bee between the unceasing flurry of man, motor and animal, Chacha slunk away into a deep silence and Atif wondered if he too was sad and that maybe that’s why he had decided on this excursion.

Atif sat next to his Chacha, bumped by the choppy ride, cradling images from the film like a newborn. In the film, Rekha, who had become Atif’s screen goddess, played the stunning prostitute Zohrabai who ends up giving her life for Sikandar, played by her real-life lover, Amitabh Bachchan. Their doomed love affair, laced with songs that became instant classics—especially “
Salaam-e-Ishq Meri Jaan
,”– made an indelible impression on Atif’s young heart. Their simmering chemistry and passionate performances convinced Atif, as it had audiences all over, that the two of them belonged together, on and off screen, society be damned. In his little mind Atif could see that this was the only way to love. Recklessly and without rules.

He was sure to play the scenes out with Kamal later on, especially the part when Zohrabai is dying in Sikandar’s arms, bidding him a tearful goodbye. He was regretful that Kamal couldn’t be there so he could play Sikandar’s role more authentically. No matter, all Kamal had to do was cradle him in his arms and regret his misplacement of affection for so long. It was Atif who would have the tough part –gasping for air as he delivered the heart-wrenching dialogues. Would the soundtrack cassette include dialogues? he wondered. How much easier that would make it. Chacha would surely buy it for him.

When the rickshaw came grudgingly to a halt, street urchins and beggars, sometimes entire families, equipped with karmic promises and reminders of the virtues of altruism, closed in on them for alms. Years later, in another part of the world, where the smell of rot would be replaced by the weight of smog, Atif would balk at the cold steeling, the rigid indifference that the city had adopted towards the surrounding poverty. But for now, Atif sat next to his Chacha, more treats waiting for him at the beach, and a lollipop clutched tightly to his breast.

When an old, dark woman in a soiled sari cradling an infant with his big, haunting eyes persisted on getting some coins, Chacha shooed her away. Normally he just plain ignored them. “
Arre, kai ko tang karti hai? Mana kardiya na? Chal, patli gulli pakad!
Get lost!”

The woman scampered away to the next car before the lights turned and another opportunity would be lost. The little boy in her arms looked back at Atif, who suddenly felt the urge to surrender his lollipop to him. Too late.

When the rickshaw came to a blinding halt to avoid a swerving cyclist, who in turn was clearing out of the way of an ox, Chacha, like all Bombaykers who were accustomed to this hazardous kind of driving, lost his temper.
“Arre, akal ka dushman, gadi zara dekh ke chalao!”

Was it Aunty Zainab that Chacha was upset about? Atif wondered. Maybe the powerful film had resuscitated dormant emotions in him. Who wouldn’t melt against the fiery passion of Zohrabai and Sikandar? Atif couldn’t remember much about Aunty Zainab. She was a like a figure in a fog. The only thing he could recall was that she had waist-long hair and had once brought him a tin of Cadbury hazelnut chocolates when she had visited with Chacha. He had heard her name being mentioned in the hushed
guss-puss
of his mother and the gossiping neighbors when they congregated in his kitchen in the afternoon.

Of these, Darya
“Durbin,”
dubbed such because of the binocular-eyes with which she kept surveillance over the comings and goings of the entire neighborhood from her third story flat in the next building, had been the most vocal and mysterious. Darya Durbin was a tough, shrewd old woman, small and frail only in appearance. The cataracts in her eyes did nothing to compromise what she absorbed with manic dedication. She was a Parsi, famous for etching out a safe strip between the perennially rioting Hindu and Muslim, East and West, Indian and English. The Parsis typically clustered together as if by forming their own little nexus they could forget the city that their homes were actually domiciled in. But her deceased husband had gambled all their money away and their grown son only provided a paltry stipend from his luxurious Apollo Bunder apartment so she was no longer able to live in Khusrao Baug or other Parsi colonies. Whenever this realization came upon her, she fell into a black mood and she heaved and groaned like a sick woman. When she vented out her problems, Darya Durbin expected others to wear suitably mournful faces and to fall into loud exclamations of pity at her sufferings. The rest of the time, Darya Durbin, having fallen upon hard times, now found twisted solace in the misfortune of others.

“Far be it from me to say anything mean about anyone, what is the benefit to me anyway?” she always began with a few perfunctory
tsks
. “But from the very, very beginning I just knew that that Zainab was up to no good. Something, don’t ask me what, told me.” A heavy sigh. “Some shameless women,
tsk, tsk, tsk,
they have only one thing on their mind! And what can you expect? After all, these days they are reading all those
firangi
magazines, no? And they are filling their
mathas
only with all these strange ideas. A little bit of plumbing problem, and
whoosh!
off they go!
Faata-fat!
” Darya’s bitterness curved her lips downwards like a bent spoon.

“
Chee! Chee!
What
besharam
things you are saying, Daryabai!
Arre
, how do we know anything about their problems?” Khadija jumped to her brother-in-law’s defense.

“
Arre, deekra
, I know such women. Just look na, at that
daakan
who has put a spell on my poor Sorab.” Darya dabbed her eyes even though there were no visible signs of moistening. “God knows what she’s thrown in my poor son’s food. Something was fishy as a pomfret. I knew from the very beginning but would he listen? No! It was all ‘Firoza this and Firoza that.’ Stupid woman also started to rearrange our whole place, did you know that? Went on and on about some Sheng fui, Feng fui, who knows what? Hunh! The stupid cow doesn’t even know that all this we already have in the
Vaastu Shastra
. Don’t need some
angrezis
to tell us about such things!”

“
O-pho!
That is not
angrezi,
” Mrs. Vaid corrected, stifling a laugh. “Feng Shui, it is Chinese, Daryabai.”

“Chinese-finese, we don’t need them!” she barked and Mrs. Vaid almost jumped back, frightened.

The way Darya Durbin squinted her eyes with concentration and gnashed her dentures in silence for the next few seconds, it was obvious she was picturing Firoza flung into the Tower of Silence so that the vultures could have their way with her long before her death. Then, she could toss roasted peanuts into her mouth while sitting on a bench at Hanging Gardens, and watch with delight the vultures in the distance, circling the tower where in less than forty minutes they would have picked her to the bone. Truly, there is no justice in this world!

“
Kabhi aankhen dekhi hain?
Have you seen her eyes?” Mrs. Vaid chortled. “She was breast-fed on carrot juice. We don’t call her
durbin
for nothing!
Arre,
once she opens her eyes, forget the window, she can see through every man’s
lungi
in town.”

Atif couldn’t understand why Aunty Zainab would have left over something as trivial as a plumbing problem in their house. Why couldn’t someone have been called to fix things before they got this out of hand? He wondered what Zainab must have looked like. Must be like Rekha. Why, even the names sounded alike. Zohrabai and Zainab. Yes, all beautiful women looked like Rekha. And they always knew when to exit and leave their men devastated. Some, like Aunty Zainab, thundered out the front door because the faucet wasn’t working, and others slipped out of life itself, like Zohrabai in the film, as a way to take up permanent residence in their hearts of their lovers. Women who stayed on, who lingered long after the poetic lines had been delivered and the mundane set in, became inevitably dowdy and plain; the lackluster girl-next-door types, who never got to sing the
wah-wah
eliciting torch songs or dance the pulsating
mujra
. Like Amitabh’s real life wife, Jaya Bhaduri. Or his own plain mother.

When they disembarked the rickshaw at Juhu Chowpatty, Atif and Chacha headed straight for the ice cream stand where Atif asked for a
sitafad kulfi
and Chacha got some coconut juice and
Bhelpuri
. They walked along the gritty sand of the beach, the brackish waters of the Arabian Ocean on one side and the crowds on another. Away from the donkey rides, dancing monkeys, acrobats and romancing couples, they found a secluded spot, where they could sit facing the ocean. Chacha, still somewhat lugubrious, had already discarded the
Bhelpuri
tray and coconut, but Atif continued lapping away at his ice cream.

“You are enjoying yourself,
na?
” he asked, scratching his cheek with the stained, elongated nail of his little finger.

“Yes, Chacha. Best film! Very good ice cream!” he said, shaking his little head from side to side.

“Yes, yes,
ekdum
solid! And
Rekha, ekdum jhakaas!
I will be buying you the cassette, too. So fond of music you are.” He slapped the back of Atif’s head playfully. “Rekha is staying around here only, you know?” As one of Mumbai’s posh localities, Juhu domiciled many of the famous film stars’ bungalows and it wasn’t unusual to find crowds gathered outside the gated properties, hoping to catch glimpses of their celluloid gods.

Atif grew delighted. He could already feel the cassette in his hand, hear the soundtrack in his mind. And he didn’t even have to ask for it! This had worked out easier than he had imagined. He licked the remnants of cream, tossed the depleted stick on the sand and leaned over Chacha’s knee to kiss him on the cheek and thank him.

Chacha laughed, revealing
paan
-stained teeth. “You are good boy. Very good boy. Now you do something special for Chacha?”

Atif nodded eagerly.
“Hanh
, Chacha. Should I kiss other cheek?”

Chacha surveyed the surroundings carefully and then began to undo the drawstrings to his cotton pants. When he leaned back on the sand and pulled them down to his thighs, he revealed his limp cock resting on a dark thatch of hair. “
Idhar aa
,” he said, reaching out for Atif. “
Arre, kai ko gabhrata hai? Aja.
Dekh,
Chacha ko bahut dard hota hai
,
na?”
he said. “Touch it a little bit to make the pain go away.”

Something within Atif made him hesitate, step back. Chacha beckoned with his large hand impatiently. “
O-pho! Kaha na, idhar aane ko.
Why you are scared,
henh?
You don’t want Chacha to feel better?”

Atif gnawed his fingers, feeling something was inherently wrong.

“
Phir?
Chal, chal, jaldi kar
. Hurry up now. You want Chacha to buy you cassette,
na?
”

Atif would forever remember the salty smell of the sea, its distinct fishy odor mingling with the smell of
garam masala
and sweat emitting from Chacha’s pores. At first it had made him retch but in time—over the almost two years that they had repeated this after hours in the dark theater during which Chacha also managed to fondle him as if out of paternal affection—Atif grew accustomed to it and, innocent to the forbidden nature of their relationship, even began to crave his uncle.

Then one day, without any explanation, Aunty Zainab returned.

Chacha, like the emasculated man everyone accused him of being behind his back, took her back in without a word and with open arms. Chacha and Atif stopped going to the films together because Chacha was now spending time with her and Atif began to despise the woman who had ripped the fabric of their relationship. Every once in a while when Chacha visited, he would toss Atif the cassette to a film he would now never get to see. This only exacerbated his pain. He longed for afternoons at the cinema with Chacha, to be touched, to relieve Chacha of the pain in the sand dunes at the beach while Chacha’s eyes surveyed the surroundings and his hands pushed Atif down into the mustiness between his legs. No longer would he remonstrate or show any reluctance before giving in. If only he could have another opportunity to be needed again.

Brokenhearted, Atif even took the matches from the primus stove in the kitchen and set the latest cassette ablaze by the hills of garbage outside as morose dogs mewled around, then watched it melt and curl like a howling face through his own teary eyes, cursing Zainab under his breath.

Then he met her.

Atif was devastated that this woman—who had the temerity to walk out on Chacha and then waltz back in like a
rani
and usurp everything that he had built with Chacha—looked nothing like Rekha.