The sun burns Chamdi’s neck and causes lines of sweat to trickle down his back. He wants to sit under the shade of a shop roof or tree, but he now understands that in order to eat, he must find work.
So he searches the stores around him to see if there is any place where he might work as a sweeper. He has seen Jyoti sweep the orphanage, and whenever she did not show up for work, he used to help Mrs. Sadiq clean up, so he knows what to do. He stands outside the New Café Shirin Restaurant: House of Mughlai, Punjabi, and Chinese Dishes. But the bald man who sits behind the counter is screaming at the workers in his restaurant. It would be a bad time to approach him.
The next shop, Pushpam Collections, an air-conditioned clothing store, is out of the question because he is afraid to enter it. His white vest is ragged—it has a few holes in it and it has not been washed in a week. Even the brown shorts he wears have weak elastic.
As Chamdi hitches up his shorts, he notices an old man read a sign on a blackboard placed out on the street. The sign is written in Marathi, so Chamdi does not understand the words, but he notes the symbol of the tiger again. After reading the sign, the old man climbs up the steps to the Pooja liquor store. The old man does not say anything when he enters the store, but it seems he must come here regularly because the moment the shopkeeper sees him, he leaves the counter and comes back with a bottle of liquor. The shopkeeper puts the bottle into a brown paper bag. Does the old man hide the liquor in a bag because he is ashamed of carrying the bottle openly? wonders Chamdi. The rows of bottles that are neatly stacked in the display case remind Chamdi of Raman. If Raman were to count the number of bottles he has drunk in his whole life, they might add up to more than what this liquor store holds. There is a large grandfather clock in the liquor store, similar to the one at the orphanage. It says three o’clock. What time is it at the orphanage? The moment Chamdi thinks this, he feels stupid. He knows it is the same time in both places, but the orphanage seems to exist in a different land.
Near the Pooja liquor store is another shop, but its steel shutters are down. An old beggar has made his home outside this shop. He sleeps on a large gunny bag and a metal bowl near his head has a few coins in it. The sun hits the beggar hard in the face and the beggar squints back at the sun with equal force. Even though flies dot his cheeks, he does not seem to care. His eyes are open and he is trying to get up, but does not have the strength to do so. Chamdi wants to help him, but he is worried that if the old man is mad, he might hit Chamdi. He does not want to take a risk because he has already been accused of being a thief.
He walks back towards the water tap and past the mandir.
The window of the doctor’s dispensary is covered with an iron grille. It looks like a big brown cage. Perhaps people break in at night and steal medicines. Chamdi feels sad for the doctor’s patients. Whenever Chamdi has fever, he hates not being able to see the sky. The blue of the sky is the perfect medicine for burning eyes.
He wonders why the dispensary is not yet open. Perhaps the doctor is sick himself. That would be of no use at all. He remembers when Mrs. Sadiq used to get terrible coughs, and she would be forced to lie in bed for a few days. If any of the children were sick at the time, they had no one to comfort them.
Chamdi does not want to think about the orphanage, so he walks away from the dispensary. But as he does so, he feels dizzy. Suddenly he slumps to the ground. He hears a cycle ring loudly in his ear and he tries to get up, but he cannot. The cyclewala weaves around him just in time. “Blind dog!” he yells at Chamdi. Chamdi curses too, but he curses himself for being so frail, for not being man enough to last without food for even a day. It is the heat, he says to himself. He begs the sky for rain, but knows it is a useless request.
He can see the water tap in front of him. He must not pass out in the middle of the street. He must get to the water tap. He rests both hands on the road and thrusts himself up. The water tap spins in front of him. He reaches the tap and clings to it to gain balance.
Luckily, the water has started again. Just seeing it pour out gives him strength. He drinks as much water as he can and tells himself that his stomach is full. If he can convince his stomach that it is full, he will be able to stand. And he will not be lying to his stomach because it will truly be full of water.
But even though Chamdi’s thirst is quenched, hunger makes him weak, and just as he did the night before, he sits under the water tap and closes his eyes to the sounds of the street. He has no idea how sound will help him, but since his eyes are closed, sound is all he has. At first he struggles because the street offers so many sounds at once. But as soon as he hears the ring of a cycle, he knows what he must do, he must use that sound to travel, he must allow the tring-tring to lift him, to take him wherever the ring has been, be it the hard streets of the city or the gravel of small pathways and alleys. And he feels himself rising, and his mind tells him that such a thing is not possible, but he tells his mind to go to hell, and the cycle ring gets dimmer and is replaced by a car horn that sounds like a rhinoceros in pain, yet it is powerful enough to take him away from the water tap and the movie poster above it, and he closes his eyes and smiles because now the car horn is replaced by a truck horn filled with the cries of ten rhinos and he knows that he will use these sounds to travel so far that even the policeman on the movie poster who is so used to chasing gangsters will not be able to catch him, and he tells himself that if he is lucky, his hunger will not be able to catch up either.
The red and green lights have been lowered. Without them, the building matches the sky dust for dust. It is a night without wind, so the shirts, pants, bedsheets, towels, and underwear that are left to dry on the clotheslines remain very still. The clotheslines sag with their weight. Chamdi misses the lights. He liked how they danced from one end of the building to the other. Black patches of tar form shapes on the building. He wonders how old the building is and if people who were born in it still live there. Is it possible to stay in one place your whole life? He thinks these things on purpose, to distract his mind from the hunger. This will be his second night without food.
He sits near the water tap and watches the main road. A taxi goes past, the driver’s right arm outside the car, holding a cigarette, while he steers with his other hand. Chamdi hears the screech of a motorcycle as an old woman comes in speed’s way, and the rider shouts at the old woman, who shouts back with equal venom.
A BEST double-decker bus slants its way across the main road. The white lights inside the bus are bright, and since it is late at night, the bus is nearly empty. A man with a long beard has fallen asleep with his head on the railing of the seat in front of him. Chamdi wonders if the man has missed his stop.
He takes off the white cloth that is tied around his neck and places it on the street, not caring if the cloth will get dirty. Apart from the three drops of blood, it is drenched in sweat anyway. He puts his head on the cloth and lies down. Each time his eyes close, his stomach opens them, administering dull pain to its own walls.
When he hears the sound of a truck, he recalls the garbage truck of less than twenty-four hours ago. He could have taken some bread from the orphanage. Mrs. Sadiq would have understood. All the children must be asleep right now. He has inhaled car fumes all day and he thinks of Pushpa, how she would not be able to breathe if she lived in the street.
Then Chamdi’s eyes close on their own, without him forcing them shut, and images reel through his brain: the pigeons on the walls of the orphanage, bougainvillea petals leaning forward towards his face, and Jesus. He wonders if Jesus knows that he has left the orphanage. He did not get a chance to say goodbye. But over the next few days, when Chamdi does not show up for prayers, Jesus will realize that Chamdi is gone.
Chamdi feels something wet against his ear. He opens his eyes and sees a dog. It stands in front of him for a moment with a white cloth in its mouth, and then starts running, and on an empty stomach and with sleep in his eyes Chamdi must chase this dog because the only thing that connects him to his father is this piece of cloth.
Even though the dog is not fast, and Chamdi is usually a fast runner, he finds it hard to keep up with the animal. He can see it under a streetlight, the hair on its back standing and shining as it turns a corner. The three drops of blood that might belong to his father give him strength, and he surges ahead, only to find that the dog is nowhere. Old buildings surround him, two-storey ones, and the dog could have entered any of the alleys—it is impossible to tell at night.
Chamdi bends over and spits out some bile. He makes a sound like a sick animal. He wipes his mouth with his hand and then wipes his hand on the front of his brown shorts. He hears a whimper. The dog stands near a huge garbage container behind a building. It still holds the white cloth between its teeth, but it is trying to climb onto the container, which is too tall for it. Chamdi creeps up behind the dog, but it senses his presence. He stretches his arms out, as wide as he can. The dog tightens its muscles as if it is about to pounce on him and Chamdi looks at how thin and dirty the dog is. He spots a blue plastic bag on the ground. It looks wet as though it contains something. He picks the plastic bag up and offers it to the dog. The dog does not move. Chamdi whistles softly and dangles the plastic bag close to the dog’s mouth. Then he throws the bag high in the air. The dog jumps and drops the white cloth to the ground. Chamdi grabs the white cloth while the dog smells the dirty bag. He leaves the dog panting in the darkness, its tongue hanging out of its mouth.
I will never take this cloth off my neck until I find my father, he promises himself.
As he ties the cloth around his neck once again, Chamdi feels as though someone is watching him. He whips around only to see a rat entering a sewage pipe. If Dhondu the ghost-boy were here, he would insist a ghost was following Chamdi. Chamdi tightens the knot of the cloth around his neck and starts walking.
He comes across a barrel in the middle of the road. It is full of tar. If he had the strength, he would push it to one side. He ignores the barrel and hopes that no one bangs into it. He hears someone cough. It is a very heavy cough, one that can come only from a sick person. He looks to his left and sees a light on in an apartment. The cough immediately reminds him of Mrs. Sadiq, and he knows that she is not sick, but the loss of the orphanage has made her age so much in the past few weeks. He calls out to Jesus and says a quick prayer for Mrs. Sadiq, but the only response he gets is from the heroine of a Hindi movie as she stares at Chamdi from the poster. Her eyes are the size of moons.
Once again, Chamdi gets the feeling that someone is behind him, but he keeps looking at the poster and notices how, even in the darkness, the heroine’s skin glows. He can read the name of the movie theatre—Dreamland. Large glass windows display posters and photographs of the movie that is playing. He goes and has a look: A man dressed in black rises from the flames of a truck explosion. A mother holds her child tight in her arms and stares angrily at a young man who points a gun at them. A police inspector is a few feet in the air on her motorcycle as she takes it over a jeep. Chamdi is surprised that the police inspector is a woman.
He hears footsteps behind him. He was right: someone is following him. He remembers what Mrs. Sadiq said about Bombay, that it is not safe anymore. But why would anyone harm him? Mrs. Sadiq was just scaring them because she did not want them to leave the orphanage and go out into the streets.
He spots a dangling lightbulb ahead. Steam rises towards the light. It is a food stand. There is an old man steaming something on an iron plate. The old man has no customers, so Chamdi walks towards him. Even though the smell has not yet reached Chamdi, his stomach turns fierce. The pace of his steps increases, and he reminds himself to have the right approach, to be polite and to ask for food.
Just as he nears the food stand, Chamdi hears a voice from behind him: “It’s no use.”
Chamdi turns around. It is a girl, about the same size as him. She wears a faded brown dress that is too large for her and her feet are bare. Orange plastic bangles circle her wrists, and her hair curls over her forehead as she leans her head to one side.
“It’s no use,” she repeats.
“Were you following me?” Chamdi asks.
It is quiet in the side street. Only the far-off car horn can be heard along with the wheezing of the engine as the car changes gears.
“That old man will not give you any food,” says the girl.
“How did you know I wanted food?”
“Look at you. I’ve never seen anyone so thin in my life. You must not have eaten for weeks.”
Chamdi wants to shoot back that it has not been that long since he ate. He wishes he were not so thin.
“Why were you following me?” he asks.
She looks him over thoroughly, inspects every inch of his body, and suddenly Chamdi feels very awkward, as though he is the only boy in the whole of Bombay. He wants water so that he can drink litres and litres of it and fill himself up to a giant size, but the water tap is far away.
“Come with me,” says the girl.
“Where?”
She turns and starts walking. Chamdi does not know what to do. He wants food, and he looks at the food stand again and wonders if he should ask the old man to share a little of whatever is cooking.
“That old man is mean. He won’t give you anything,” says the girl. “But I will.”
Chamdi believes her. He does not know why he feels this way, but he tells himself that so far no one has been kind to him. Perhaps his luck is about to change. So he follows her as she leads him through a narrow street between two buildings. Chamdi looks up at the sky. He knows there is a moon, but it is covered by the clouds. The inner walls of the buildings around him have a dark blue hue.
“Look down and walk,” says the girl.
“Why?”
“You might step on someone.”
Chamdi looks down and sees that people are asleep under the open sky, and no one tosses and turns. They must be at peace, he thinks. Or perhaps they are too afraid to move because they are in the clutches of a nightmare.
Before he knows it, the girl has led him to the main road once again. He is only a short distance from the Pooja liquor store. As soon as he steps on the footpath, headlights hit his face and he loses his balance. The sudden shot of light in his eyes reminds him of his empty stomach. He had thought the eyes and stomach had no connection, but he was wrong.
“Sit down,” the girl says. “I’ll come back.”
But as soon as she turns to leave, a boy appears. He is shirtless and his skin is very smooth. His hair is short, cut right to the scalp. A deep scar stretches all the way from his right lip to his ear. Chamdi notices in horror that part of the boy’s right ear is missing. The boy must be two or three years older than Chamdi. This boy is thin too, but it looks as though the streets have made him tough. His brown pants are rolled up to his ankles.
“Who’s this?” asks the boy.
The girl whispers something in the boy’s ear, then walks away from them.
“Ah, yes,” says the boy. “He’s perfect. So thin.”
“I’m not thin,” says Chamdi sharply. But he feels stupid the moment he says this. Of course he is thin. The Koyba Boys at the orphanage used to call him a walking stick. But it did not upset Chamdi that much because in his dreams that same walking stick turned into a beating stick and thrashed the Koyba Boys to a pulp.
The boy puts his hand in his pocket and takes out a beedi. He lights it with a match, but does not throw the match away. He puts the used matchstick back in his pocket and blows smoke into the sky just as the men did the night before. Chamdi wonders why this boy smokes and why he puts his chin up and blows smoke upwards as if smoke had a choice about which way it travels.
“So you’re hungry?” the boy asks.
“Yes,” says Chamdi.
“But we have no food. We ate it all.”
The boy inhales the beedi deeply, and as he pulls it away from his mouth, the end of the beedi makes his black eyes glow for a moment. His black eyes are narrow, unlike Chamdi’s.
“So where are you from?” the boy asks.
“Here only.” Chamdi decides not to tell the boy the truth. He cannot show that he is new to the streets.
“Here only? Meaning …”
“I live on the road. Just like you.”
The boy extends his beedi towards Chamdi.
“No,” says Chamdi. “I don’t smoke.”
“You don’t smoke? Are you a man or what?”
“I’ve stopped smoking.”
“So where are you from?”
“I already told you. I live on this road only.”
“Oh? What’s this road called?”
“I call it by whatever name I like. What does a name matter?”
Chamdi does not like the way the boy smiles. He knows the boy is testing him.
“If you tell me the exact name of this road, I’ll give you something to eat,” says the boy.
“You told me you had no food.”
“I lied.”
He blows smoke once again. His beedi is half done.
“I’m waiting,” says the boy.
“Kutta Gulley,” says Chamdi.
“You know that’s not the name.”
“It’s the name I have given it. Because this gulley is full of stray dogs.”
“You’re smart,” says the boy. But he does not look at Chamdi. He looks at the beedi and watches it get shorter. “Can you run?” the boy asks.
“Anyone can run,” says Chamdi.
“Not me,” says the boy.
“Why not?”
“I’ll show you.”
The boy throws the beedi to the ground and uses his bare foot to stub it out. He then takes the used matchstick out of his pocket and puts it between his teeth. The moment he starts walking, Chamdi understands why the boy cannot run. His right leg is lifeless and it forces him to walk with a limp. He supports the leg with his right hand, and then he tries to run, and he does so with this ridiculous limp, and he smiles with pride as if he is a clown performing for Chamdi. After a few strides he takes the matchstick out of his mouth and asks, “How was that?” Chamdi wants to say it was wonderful, it truly was, but he decides he does not know this boy well enough to laugh at his deformity.
“Don’t you ever smile?” asks the boy. “Or is your face like my leg? Without feeling?”
“I don’t know you well,” says Chamdi.
“But you just said we share the same address, no? So how come you don’t know me?” He stares at Chamdi’s body, just as the girl did.
“My name is Sumdi,” the boy says. “And that was my sister, Guddi.”
“Sumdi and Guddi.”
“That’s right.”
“What happened to your leg?”
“So now you think you can ask me questions just because you know my name?”
“I thought …”
“Yaar, I’m playing with you. I’ll tell you what happened to my leg. Polio. But what difference? It’s only a name.”
“Like Kutta Gulley,” says Chamdi.
“Kutta Gulley!” shouts the boy. “I like that. So what’s your name?”
Before Chamdi can answer, the girl appears again. She holds a steaming glass of chai in her hand. Chamdi can tell from the colour that the chai is very milky. She holds a slice of bread in her other hand, and even though the bread does not look fresh, Chamdi does not care. He gets up and grabs the piece of bread from her. He shoves it into his mouth and relishes the taste, but not for too long because his throat pulls the piece of bread inwards with great force and sends it to his stomach.
Next, he goes for the chai. His hand shakes as he raises the glass to his mouth. He blows on it a couple of times to cool it down, and takes his first sip. The chai tastes bland, but its warmth enters him readily. He wants to ask for some sugar, but reminds himself that he is not at the orphanage anymore.
Chamdi knows he is being studied by Sumdi, while Guddi stands behind her brother.
“He’s perfect,” says Sumdi again. “He’s so thin.”
“Let’s hope he can run fast,” says Guddi.
“I can run fast,” says Chamdi, although he has no idea why he needs to prove himself.
“Show us,” says Guddi.
“Now?”
“Yes,” she says.
“I don’t have the strength to run now,” says Chamdi.
Chamdi does not like this talk about running. His father was known to be a runner too. He remembers Mrs. Sadiq’s words, The way he ran from you as if you were a ghost … Or maybe she did not say that, but that is the sense he got from her, that he made his father run. And now these two are asking if he can run and it does not look like any good can come of it. But at least they have soothed his stomach.
“Do you need a place to sleep?” asks Sumdi.
“Yes,” says Chamdi.
“Ask him his name,” says Guddi.
Chamdi does not like the fact that she does not talk to him directly anymore. She does not even look at him.
“What’s your name?” asks Sumdi.
“Chamdi.”
“Hah?”
“Chamdi.”
“What a strange name. But I like it. You know why I like it? It sounds like my name. Sumdi. Sumdi and Chamdi. We’ll make a good team.”
Sumdi hobbles over to Chamdi and puts his arm around him.
“We’ll make a great team. I know it.”
“I work alone,” says Chamdi.
He has no idea what he means by this, but he says it to prove to Sumdi that he is a man of the streets. Guddi laughs.
“He talks like a Hindi movie,” she says. “And just look at that scarf he wears around his neck in this heat. It was a bad idea for me to bring him.”
“I will train him,” says Sumdi. “Come with us, Chamdi. Our place is under a tree.”
And Chamdi follows Sumdi because this is the most sensible thing Sumdi has said all night—that their place is under a tree. Chamdi notices that the tree in question is extremely still. Not a single leaf moves. The strange thing about this tree is that it seems to grow from the cement footpath itself. As he gets closer, he can see the earth around the roots of the tree. The tree must be very old, and the footpath has been built around it, he supposes. Attached to the trunk is a makeshift shelter of gunny bags, cardboard, and all sorts of materials that have been pieced together. A few bamboo sticks and ropes hold the gunny bags up. Chamdi can see two steel bowls, a packet of bread with four slices remaining, a rusty tin box, and a small kerosene stove. There is also an old wooden box with “Om” scratched on it.
“Welcome to our little kholi,” says Sumdi.
Guddi lies on the ground under the shelter of the gunny bags. She scratches her toes and grimaces as she does this. Sumdi lies down on the footpath too. He crosses his arms behind his neck and stares at the sky.
Chamdi carefully copies Sumdi’s actions. The problem is that Sumdi’s eyes are now closed and it seems as though he will be fast asleep in a few minutes. Chamdi knows he will find it hard to sleep tonight. The orphanage offered him a bed and clean sheets. Here, the footpath is uneven, and stones and dirt poke his back. All he can do is stare at the sky and hope that its blackness will bring him sleep.
Then he asks himself if the sky is where his mother lives.
This thought has come to him before, but tonight he truly believes it. That is the only reason my father left me, he thinks. I reminded him of my mother. She lives in the sky now. Someday, she will show herself to me.
Chamdi stares into the darkness and traces the shape of his mother’s body. From one star to the next he draws lines, connects them with skin and flesh. He picks the largest star to be his mother’s head and attaches to it tresses of black hair, as he has always imagined she had. He does not use stars as her eyes because he has dreamt of his mother in the past and in his dreams he has seen her eyes: they are exactly like his, large and black, and he holds this image of his mother in the sky.
Soon his eyes close and he can hear Bombay breathe—car horns, the panting of dogs, and something else: the sound of a woman moaning.
Yes, it is quite clear to him that he can hear a woman moan.
He sits up on his elbows and sees a form on the floor, leaning against the wall of the building opposite him. It is too dark to tell who it is, but there is no doubt that the person is in pain. He glances at Sumdi and Guddi. Should he wake them?
If I wake them they might think I am scared, he tells himself.
But Chamdi cannot ignore the moaning. He gets up and slowly walks towards the person. He winces as he steps on something sharp and hopes it is not glass because there is enough glass in him already. He looks down—it is the red cork of a soda bottle. As he approaches the woman he notices that her eyes are closed and she leans her head against the wall. She talks to herself, but Chamdi cannot understand what she is saying.
Just as he is about to touch her shoulder to calm her, he freezes. There is a baby in her lap, only a few months old, and completely still. The woman’s face is lined with dirt, and when Chamdi looks closely, he finds that clumps of her hair are missing. She continues to moan with her eyes closed.
Chamdi is so close to the woman that he can feel her breath upon him. There are creases near her eyes and lines of age have been darkened with sweat and dirt. Her mouth is dry and pale. Chamdi looks at the naked child. He touches the child’s face with his forefinger. It does not move. Go back to sleep, he tells himself. His shaking finger pokes the child again, this time in the belly. Nothing.
“What are you doing?” asks Sumdi.
Chamdi spins around.
“Don’t be scared, it’s only me.”
“I’m not scared.”
“What are you doing?”
“I was just … I think this baby is … not well.”
Sumdi does not seem alarmed by the sight of the woman or the baby in her lap. “Go back to sleep,” he says.
“But the baby’s not breathing.”
Sumdi puts his finger near the baby’s mouth. “I can feel its breath,” he says. “It’s sleeping. Don’t worry.”
Sumdi then holds the woman’s face in his hands. “Amma,” he says to her.
He gently shakes the woman’s face a few times and she stops moaning.
“You know her?” asks Chamdi.
Sumdi puts his hand on Chamdi’s shoulder and leads Chamdi towards their kholi. Chamdi wonders if Sumdi does this to support himself because of his afflicted leg, or if it is a sign of friendship.
“Go to sleep. We have work to do tomorrow,” says Sumdi.
“What work?”
“I’ll show you tomorrow.”
They both lie down on the footpath again.
“Chamdi,” says Sumdi.
“Say.”
“You can run fast, no?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Just answer me. Please.”
“Yes. I can run fast.”
“Good,” says Sumdi.
And Sumdi closes his eyes. His hand touches that of his sister, who is still sleeping, and she stirs in her sleep a little, but the touch does not wake her. And Chamdi’s thoughts are still with the woman—he wonders why she is moaning and what she is talking to herself about so he raises his head and takes a look at her again. She bares her teeth to the moon and the child remains a statue in her lap.
Chamdi looks up at the sky once more and begs his mother to show herself, but maybe that is impossible, so he tells her to arrange the stars in such a way that the name of his father will be revealed, for if Chamdi is to find one man in this city of a thousand-thousand-thousand people, then the least the heavens can do is reveal his father’s name.