Half a Rupee: Stories Read online

  She could suddenly make out the face of the PM at the surge of the crowd that had slowly begun to ebb behind him. And she speared his face with her gaze as a fish is speared in a hook.

  Her jaws stopped grinding. The bone of fear was crunched, finally. And slowly the circulation of blood began to return to normal. Swaran looked at her again. Her face was now relaxed. There was no sign of fear on it, no sign of conflict either. But the way she had locked her gaze on to the face of the PM, he found it a bit strange. As if she had suddenly fallen in love with him. Her eyes had begun to smile as if they were caressing him. And she began to move towards the PM with a sense of fulfilment. The headman was trying to control the crowd, along with the volunteers. And she was floating towards the PM.

  A number of eyes lit up on his face, on his ears, on his forehead, on his chin, his bottom. She could see everything, see the universe at play. She took the garland from Swaran and put it around his neck as if it was her own swayamvar and she had finally chosen her soulmate—together in life and together in death.

  An explosion burst open the seams of time and they both transgressed time together to enter the annals of history—immortalized for all time to come.

  Half a Rupee

  When Chandu ran away from Class Three, he paused for breath only after he had reached Bombay. It is an altogether different story that he now works at the minister’s bungalow. But he still remembers every little thing.

  For three straight days and three straight nights he had been awake. When he finally did fall asleep on a footpath in Byculla, the havildar kicked him awake right in the middle of the night to ask, ‘So bhai, which UP have you come from?’

  ‘Faizabad.’

  ‘Accha … one atthanni gimme … no free sleeping on this footpath … what?’

  For a moment Chandu thought that he had seen the man in some phillum. They talked like that only in the phillum.

  ‘I don’t have any money … if I did, I wouldn’t have come to the city.’

  ‘This no city. This is Mumbai—what? This is metropolis. Come, one atthanni gimme.’

  Jhumru who was sleeping next to him woke up, ‘Aye Deva … why you troubling the boy? Here, take this atthanni and let us sleep.’

  Jhumru picked up a half-rupee coin from the handful of change under his pillow and flung it in the havildar’s direction. Deva caught it in mid-air and said, ‘Saala miser, paying for him—he is your own or what?’ He moved ahead clinking the atthannis in the palm of his hand.

  Chandu failed to understand what kind of a city this was—it kicked you but it also caressed you. Sleep did not come to him the rest of that night.

  He bumped into Jhumru again the next morning.

  ‘So … coming straight from the village? With so much oil in your hair you thinking of becoming a hero?’

  ‘No, yaar … I’ve—’

  Jhumru few off the handle, ‘Whores have yaars. Call me chacha; everybody here calls me chacha—Jhumru chacha.’

  Chandu swallowed his own spit and thought it wise to keep his quiet.

  Jhumru said, ‘Deva will be here again. For allowing you to sleep here he takes money … one week one atthanni.’

  Blood drained from Chandu’s face, revealing a yellow, jaundiced face.

  ‘You want to live here in this city—don’t become a turmeric. Become chilli, red hot chilli.’

  After a pause, Jhumru said again, ‘Coming to Chowpatti? Big leader, big speech … five rupees we will get.’

  ‘Five rupees? What do we need to do to earn that?’

  ‘Listen to leader’s speech. Clapping-clapping. And shouting “Jai ho!” Nothing more.’

  Chandu smiled, ‘Five rupees for this?’

  ‘Yes! But fifty per cent mine. Listen, palty giving ten rupees to Deva. He cutting five rupees and only giving five rupees to me. He getting order of fifty people from our footpath. I arranging all. Understand?’

  Chandu nodded his head. ‘Ho.’ That was the first Marathi word that he had learnt.

  Chandu felt it all over again: what kind of a city was this—it fed you and also bit you.

  Jhumru said, ‘We all like komri only.’

  ‘Komri, what is komri?’

  ‘Komri meaning chicken. This city throwing foodgrain. And we pecking tuk-tuk like chicken. And when we becoming fat and big on free food then we getting chopped.’

  ‘Who chops us?’

  ‘The king-log.’

  ‘And who are they?’

  ‘In this city, king only two kind of people. Firstly—the palty people. Giving talk. Giving speech. Giving note. Taking vote. And secondly—the gun-and-knife people. Taking money. Not taking lives. But sometimes, taking lives, giving money.’

  ‘You mean the goonda-log?’

  ‘Goonda-log, they both. Only difference—ishtyle.’

  It did not take Chandu long to learn the ways of the metropolis.

  A man from the party had come with Deva the next time. He counted the men and asked, ‘When Netaji says, “Mumbai konachi”—who does Mumbai belong to—what are you all going to say?’

  Everybody shouted in unison, ‘Mumbai aamchi!’

  ‘Aye Madrasi … say it in Marathi, okay, not in Tamil. What are you going to say?’

  ‘Mumbai aamchi!’

  ‘Good!’

  When he went away Chandu said to Deva, ‘Bhau!’ He had heard people call Deva ‘bhau’, big brother. Deva’s features softened. ‘Bhau how much does this party-wallah get for one man?’

  Deva’s face hardened again, ‘What is it to you? You getting your five atthannis or no?’

  ‘Five atthannis are hardly anything, Bhau.’

  ‘Enough for five week sleeping rent or no?’

  ‘For sleeping, yes, but what does one eat, Bhau?’

  ‘I calling you here or what? Which UP you coming from—tell, tell.’

  ‘Faizabad.’

  ‘Who giving you food in Faizabad? Who? Tell, tell.’

  Chandu uttered such a big lie that he himself shuddered under its impact. He began to stutter, ‘We—we were farmhands, a … a family of poor workers on daily wages, Bhau. And suddenly terrorists surrounded us and taar-taar-taar-taar they … they shot my full family down … brother, sister, mother, father … everybody.’

  He could not think of anything further. He had begun to quiver. But Bhau’s face had softened. He thought that Chandu was telling the truth.

  ‘I seeing what I can doing. Finding you some work later. You knowing some reading-writing or what?’

  ‘I can … I was in Class Three when I ran away from the village school.’

  ‘Can write your name?’

  ‘Ho!’

  ‘And also mine—can?’

  ‘Ho!’

  ‘Fine, then! From tomorrow you working with me. I having to fill my dairy for whole week. My Hindi not so good. National language, no? Government allowing writing only in that. I tell I know, when getting job. But that saala, there is one man who taking four atthanni for filling the dairy only one time one week. In this metropolis nobody doing anything for nothing. What?’

  Chandu’s work was done. But still he asked, ‘Bhau, why do you always do all your counting in atthannis?’

  Bhau laughed halfway through and said, ‘Because “common man” like us only having half of things—half-plate eating, half-night sleeping, half laughing, half crying, half living and also half dying. This atthanni never becomes full rupiah.’ He paused a while and then said, ‘This top type thinking or what?’ And then added in a hushed tone, ‘A Naxalite told me this.’

  Chandu started following Bhau around like a reporter. Whatever he did, he would ask Chandu to write it down. Chandu started living with Bhau in his kholi. At times, he would even cook a meal and take it to wherever Bhau was on duty.

  A little below Byculla, next to Sarvi Hotel, is a small, narrow lane. A man hawked his wares on a khomcha right at the head of the lane. He looked very Urdu-speaking. He did not have a license. Bhau found out one
day, took his diary out and asked him, ‘What you selling?’

  The man spoke in a pronounced Lucknavi style, ‘Khamire ki gulqandiyan.’

  Bhau was startled, ‘What?’

  ‘Fermented gulqand, sahib.’

  ‘But what is that?’

  ‘Rose-petal … try it for yourself.’

  ‘Hoon!’ he savoured the offering. ‘Apan chaa naav kay?’ he asked in Marathi. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Ishaqul Rahman Siddiqi.’

  Bhau raised his voice a little, ‘Say it in Hindi … understand … say your name in Hindi.’

  The man said it all over again, ‘Ishaqul Rahman Siddiqi.’

  Bhau drew in a deep breath, poised his pencil over his diary and asked him, ‘Short e or long ee?’

  ‘What’s that, sahib?’ Between his Urdu and Bhau’s Hindi, things were lost.

  Bhau slapped his diary shut and said, ‘Look … I am letting you go this time, but this is not going in my report. In my report your name entering Babu and you selling aloo. What?’

  By then Chandu had arrived. Bhau handed over his diary and pencil and said, ‘Write it down! Name—Babu. Business—selling aloo. Chandu, take four atthanni from him.’ Saying this, he moved on.

  Something similar happened another time as well. Chandu was in the grip of fever that day, so he was unable to accompany Bhau. Bhau came back and told him the story.

  ‘You knowing that Vinayak Rao Road.’

  This was when Deva had been transferred to Warden Road; he now lived in a kholi in Worli.

  Chandu egged him on, ‘So, what happened at Vinayak Rao Road?’ He was now familiar with the roads of the metropolis.

  ‘Cow dying.’

  ‘Whom did it belong to?’

  ‘Having no idea. One of those cow-log that keeping wandering on the roads with their families. Bloody that cow coming and dying on that road. Such difficult name—Vinayak Rao Patwardhan Road. Who writing it all down? And that too in Hindi?’

  Chandu burst out laughing.

  ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘Taking two hours. But I dragging the cow by catching the tail. Dragging and dragging. My breath becoming difficult and difficult but finally I succeeding in bringing the dead cow onto next road. Taking me two hours.’

  ‘But why did you drag it to the next road?’

  ‘Next road name is Bapu Road. Easy writing.’

  ‘Who gave you the atthanni?’

  ‘The man in front of whose house the cow dying.’

  Bhau and Chandu’s friendship was now quite a few years old. And in those few years, Bhau had made him accept and quit numerous jobs. Then he called in a favour with a party-wallah and got him appointed as a watchman at the residence of a minister.

  Chandu had by now become a proper Mumbaiite. The minister had a lot of trust in him, enough to send him on a number of personal errands. It had now become Chandu’s job to fetch the minister’s briefcase. Chandu had now left counting in atthannis behind. But at times some give and take of atthannis still did take place.

  Then one day there was a huge explosion at the bungalow.

  The minister was in his office. Startled, he nearly shot up from his chair. And the very next moment, Chandu fell at his feet. Right behind him was a man wielding an AK-47.

  ‘What? What’s the meaning of this?’ He turned to look at Chandu and admonished him, ‘Why—why did you let this man walk in, Chandu?’

  ‘I—I did not, sahib, the man just pushed me in.’ Chandu wobbled and staggered to his feet at gunpoint.

  ‘Who are you, brother?’ the minister had by now registered the gun in the hands of the intruder and his voice had softened a notch.

  ‘Who do you think I am?’

  ‘A terrorist … I think.’

  The terrorist smiled. The minister did too.

  ‘Why are you holding him?’ The minister gestured towards Chandu.

  ‘He is my hostage.’

  ‘Mine too,’ the minister quipped.

  ‘Really? Your hostage? How can he be a hostage when he was roaming freely outside?’

  ‘Unlike you, I don’t have to wield a gun to take a hostage.’

  ‘Then how do you keep a hold on them?’

  ‘First with notes, then with votes. I hold them captive for five years.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘A renewal. Every five years we renew our term for another five years.’

  The terrorist changed his stance, took hold of his gun and said, ‘This leave-and-license system is not going to work any more.’

  ‘Then what will?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him? Between you and me, only he is common. The common man!’

  The minister asked Chandu, ‘Tell me, what do you prefer—death by bullet, die once and for all … or—’

  The terrorist stepped forward, ‘Or die a little every day … bit by bit … die every five years?’

  Chandu paused a little, stole a look at the two of them and then thrust his hand in his pocket.

  The terrorist threatened, ‘What’s in your pocket?’

  Chandu was not flustered; he said, ‘Nothing … just an atthanni … I want to toss and find the answer.’

  He took a step forward. And the moment he tossed the coin up in the air they both yelled, almost in unison, ‘Heads.’

  Thankfully the atthanni did not come back down. Or else … on both its sides it would have been Chandu’s head.

  VI

  Growing up, I was struck by a thought

  Shouldn’t I ask around how important is it

  To grow up—

  Gagi and Superman

  Superman comics and videocassettes had begun to pile up in my house. In the beginning these piles were to be seen only in the children’s room. But slowly they began to slide out of their rooms and encroach on my bookshelves too. If I pulled out a book, 2–3 Superman comics would topple down. For a few moments I would wonder what to do with them and then I would deliberately shove them behind my books. A few times I even told Umi, ‘Why don’t you sell them off to the kabadi-wallah?’

  ‘Mummy … no!’ Buchki, my little one, just sprang up from nowhere. Even now she had a Superman book in her hand. She looked at me and said in English, ‘Papa! How can you! Superman is Superman! Why don’t you sell a few of your own books? Now, even Superman needs a little space.’

  Umi sauntered away laughing, ‘The videocassettes are yet to come. Her room is already overflowing.’

  ‘But where did all these come from?’

  ‘Gagi! She’s the one, the supplier.’

  Gagi was the same age as my daughter and in the same grade too, but she went to a different school. About half her growing-up years had been spent in our house, and the rest in her own parents’—Vikas Desai’s and Aruna Raje’s.

  She lived for only eleven years.

  All day long all these kids ever did was watch Superman on TV and read Superman comics. If I said something they would straightaway put their marksheets in front of me—now you cannot reprimand children who got straight As in every subject. And these kids excelled not only in studies but in everything they did.

  One day I really got fed up and scolded all of them roundly. Gagi was quick to retort, ‘Uncle, Superman is like God. He can do anything, just like God.’ Gagi was quick of wit.

  She was only nine years old when she was diagnosed with cancer—bone cancer. Poor Puggi and Buchki. Puggi was Basu Bhattacharya’s daughter. Because all three of us—Vikas, Basu and I—were filmmakers, it was but natural for the kids to get together often at one of our places. And because my wife did not stay with me, they felt a little more free in my house, a little more independent. So my house had become their playground.

  Once we all happened to be in Bangalore together. Vikas was very fond of swimming. He would spend most of his free time in the swimming pool. He would teach the kids to swim too and generally horse around with them in the pool. He was a little on the heavier side. Gagi once said, ‘Pap
a, you are so fat … how come you don’t sink in the pool?’

  ‘Water is very strong, sweetie. It can carry huge ships.’

  ‘But how come my wristwatch sank then?’

  Vikas was without an answer. He stole a look at Aruna and she burst out laughing. Vikas was visibly embarrassed, so we left the poolside and retired to our room. When a little later Vikas returned with Gagi, she was limping a little. The limp did not augur well. It was the first hint of the impending tragedy.

  When Gagi found it increasingly difficult to walk, treatment for her leg started. A number of different kinds of shoes were made and tried on her. But the pain in her legs refused to subside. She was very fond of learning Kathak. That was the first thing that had to stop. But she would still vocalize the rhythm. She would dance with her mouth—while stumbling towards the car, while scrambling down the stairs: ‘Tar kut taa thaee … tar … kut taa thaee … thaee …’

  Music was in her blood, in her genes. Her father’s uncle, Vasant Desai, was a famous music composer. When the pain in her legs became nagging and a constant occurrence, Gagi became irregular at school. But Kathak was one thing that she really missed and she expressed her desire to resume her dancing lessons. Aruna arranged for a dance master to give her private lessons at home. But though Gagi put on her dancing bells, her ghungroos, she could never really dance again—she could only walk in them.

  For the first time now, Dr Adhikari became suspicious—he began to suspect that the problem was not in her legs or her knees but in the marrow of her shin bones. When X-rays were inconclusive, other tests began to be performed. Vasant shifted into his uncle Vasant Desai’s house which was just opposite Jaslok Hospital, right on Peddar Road.

  Dr Adhikari had reached a diagnosis but he kept hoping against hope, conducting test after test; but one day finally he had to place the medical reports in front of Vikas and Aruna. Gagi was sitting outside the doctor’s chambers. Vikas and Aruna sat inside in stunned silence. Gagi’s cancer was now confirmed without any doubt. Before Vikas and Aruna left the doctor’s chambers they swore that they would never shed a tear in front of Gagi. The two of them fought the calamity with great fortitude. We did not see either of them shed a single tear in Gagi’s lifetime—whatever was left of it—however often and however much they might have cried in the privacy of their own room.