A THOUGHT FOR THE CRIPPLED
The sun seems weaker, the birds less chirpy, the air more polluted, the sky a shade darker.
When you have been plucked from a beautiful big bungalow, with a lovely sunlit garden, and dumped in a crumbling house where you are forced to live in a crowded dormitory with dozens of other kids, I suppose you do acquire a somewhat jaundiced view of life.
And it doesn’t help if you actually have jaundice. Jaundice is a pretty uncomfortable disease, but it has one very good outcome. You are removed from the stuffy dormitory and put in a room all by yourself. It is a huge room with a metal bed and green curtains. It is called the isolation ward.
I have been confined to bed for the last two weeks. But it seems as if I have been sick ever since they picked me up from the church after Father Timothy’s death. They didn’t come for me in a jeep with a flashing red light. They came in a blue van with wire-meshed windows. Like the type they use to round up stray dogs. Except this one was for rounding up stray boys. If I had been younger they would probably have sent me to an adoption home and promptly put me up for sale. But since I was eight years old, I was sent to the Delhi Juvenile Home for Boys, in Turkman Gate.
The Juvenile Home has a capacity of seventy-five, and a juvenile population of one hundred and fifty. It is cramped, noisy and dirty. It has just two toilets with leaky washbasins and filthy latrines. Rats scurry through its hallways and kitchen. It has a classroom with ramshackle desks and a cracked blackboard. And teachers who haven’t taught in years. It has a sports ground where grass grows as tall as wickets and where, if you are not careful, you can graze yourself against stones the size of footballs. There is a sports instructor in crisp white cotton bush shirt and knifeedge pressed trousers. He keeps cricket and badminton equipment in a nice glass case, but never allows us to touch it. The mess hall is a large room with cheap flooring and long wooden tables. But the surly head cook sells the meat and chicken that is meant for us to restaurants, and feeds us a daily diet of vegetable stew and thick, blackened chapattis. He picks his nose constantly and scolds anyone who asks for more. The warden, Mr Agnihotri, is a kind, elderly man who wears starched kurta pyjamas made of khadi cotton cloth, but we all know that the real power is wielded by his deputy, Mr Gupta, nicknamed the Terror of Turkman Gate. He is the worst of the lot, a short, hairy man who smells of leather and chews paan all day. He wears two thick gold chains around his neck which jangle when he walks, and carries a short bamboo cane with which he whacks us whenever he feels like it. There are dark rumours that he calls boys to his room late at night, but nobody will discuss it. We want to talk about the good things. Like being allowed to watch television in the common room for two hours every evening. We huddle around the twenty-one-inch Dyanora TV and watch Hindi film songs on Channel V and middle-class soaps on Doordarshan. We especially like watching the films on Sunday.
These films are about a fantasy world. A world in which kids have mothers and fathers, and birthdays. A world in which they live in huge houses, drive in huge cars and get huge presents. We saw this fantasy world, but we never got carried away by it. We knew we could never have a life like Amitabh Bachchan’s or Shahrukh Khan’s. The most we could aspire to was to become one of those who held power over us. So whenever the teacher asked us, ‘What do you want to become when you grow up?’ no one said pilot or prime minister or banker or actor. We said cook or cleaner or sports teacher or, at the very best, warden. The Juvenile Home diminished us in our own eyes.
I came to know many boys in the Home very intimately. Some younger, mostly older. I met Munna and Kallu and Pyare and Pawan and Jashim and Irfan. Being sent to the Juvenile Home from Father Timothy’s house was like a transfer from heaven to hell for me. But only when I met the other boys did I realize that for many of them this was their heaven. They came from the slums of Delhi and Bihar, from the shantytowns of UP and even from as far away as Nepal. I heard their stories of drug-addicted fathers and prostitute mothers. I saw their scars from beatings at the hands of greedy uncles and tyrannical aunts. I learnt of the existence of bonded labour and family abuse. And I came to fear the police. They were the ones responsible for sending most of the boys to the Juvenile Home. Boys caught stealing bread from a roadside stall or hawking black-market tickets at a theatre, and unable to bribe the constable. Or, most often, framed simply because the inspector didn’t like their faces.
Many of these boys were ‘repeaters’, which meant that they had been returned to the Juvenile Home even after someone had taken custody of them from the Juvenile Welfare Board. Munna returned after being ill-treated by his stepmother. Jashim was hounded out by his cruel brother. Pawan returned because the relative he was restored to put him to work in a seedy motel and the police caught him. Despite such experiences, many boys still pined to be ‘restored’, ready to exchange a known hell for an unknown one.
Without even trying, I became their leader. Not because I was bigger, not because I was more aggressive, but because I spoke English. I was the orphan boy who could speak and read the magic language, and its effect on the officials was electric. The head warden would ask how I was doing from time to time. The sports teacher allowed me to set up a makeshift cricket pitch in the front courtyard, where we got in four or five decent games before Munna broke the warden’s window and all sports were banned. The stern cook occasionally obliged me with a second helping. Gupta never called me to his room at night. And the doctor instantly put me in the isolation ward without the usual delay, thereby preventing me from infecting the whole dormitory.
I had been enjoying my exclusive stay in the isolation ward for over two weeks when another bed was moved into the room. A new boy had arrived, I was told, in a very bad condition. He was brought in on a stretcher in the afternoon, wearing a torn orange vest, stained and scuffed shorts, and a yellow tabeez around his neck. And that was my first meeting with Salim Ilyasi.
Salim is everything that I am not. He has a wheatish complexion and a cherubic face. He has curly black hair and when he smiles his cheeks dimple. Though he is only seven years old, he has a keen, questioning mind. He tells me his story in short, halting sentences.
He comes from a very poor family, which used to live in a village in Bihar. The village was mostly made up of poor peasants, but there were also a few rich landowners. It was predominantly Hindu, but there were a couple of Muslim families too, like Salim’s. His father was a labourer, his mother a housewife, his elder brother worked in a tea stall. Salim himself attended the village school. They lived in a small thatched hut at the edge of the zamindar’s compound.
Last week, in the cold and frosty month of January, an incident took place in the village’s Hanuman temple. Someone broke into the sanctum sanctorum at night and desecrated the idol of the monkey god. The temple’s priest claimed he saw some Muslim youths lurking near the grounds. Bas, that was it! The moment the Hindus heard this they went on a rampage. Armed with machetes and pickaxes, sticks and torches, they raided the homes of all the Muslim families. Salim was playing outside the hut and his father, mother and brother were having tea inside when the mob attacked. Before his very eyes, they set fire to the hut. He heard his mother’s shrieks, his father’s cries, his brother’s wails, but the mob would not allow anyone to escape. His whole family was burnt to death in the inferno. Salim ran to the railway station and jumped on to the first train he saw. It took him to Delhi with no food, no clothes and not one familiar face. He lay on the platform for two days, cold and hungry, delirious with fever and grief, before a constable discovered him and sent him to the Juvenile Home.
Salim says he has bad dreams at night. He hears the sounds of the mob. His mother’s shrieks echo in his ears. He shudders when he visualizes his brother writhing in the flames. He says he has begun to hate and fear all Hindus. He asks my name.
‘Mohammad,’ I tell him.
Over time, Salim and I become very good friends. We have many things in common. We are both orphans, with no hope of being ‘restored’. We both love playing marbles. And we both love watching films. I use my influence to get him a bed next to mine when we move back to the dormitory.
Late one night, Salim is summoned to Gupta’s room. Gupta is a widower and lives alone on the compound. Salim is worried. ‘Why is he calling me?’ he asks me.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘I’ve never been to his room. But we can find out today.’
So Salim walks down to Gupta’s room and I tiptoe behind him.
Gupta is sitting in his room wearing crumpled kurta pyjamas when Salim knocks on the door. ‘Come . . . come, Salim,’ he says in a slurred voice. He has a glassful of golden liquid in his hand. He gulps it down and wipes his mouth. His eyes look like big buttons. I watch from the little space between the two curtains in the doorway. He strokes Salim’s face, tracing his fingers over his bony nose and thin lips. Then abruptly he orders, ‘Take off your shorts.’
Salim is confused by this request.
‘Just do as I say, bastard, or I will give you a tight slap,’ Gupta snarls.
Salim complies. He pushes down his shorts hesitatingly. I avert my eyes.
Gupta approaches Salim from behind, his gold chains jangling. ‘Good,’ he mutters. I see him unfasten the cord of his pyjamas and lower them. I can see his hairy backside. Salim has still not understood what is happening, but a fog is lifting from my brain. With startling clarity I suddenly comprehend what had happened in Father John’s room that night. And what had followed the next day.
I let out a piercing scream that shatters the silence of the night like a bullet. It wakes up the boys sleeping peacefully in the dormitories; it wakes up the cook, snoring in the kitchen; it wakes up the warden in his bedroom; it even wakes up the stray dogs, which begin to bark madly.
Gupta doesn’t know what has hit him. He hastily pulls up his pyjamas and tries to shoo Salim away. But the cook, the warden and the guards are already on their way to Gupta’s room. They discover his dirty secret that night (though they do nothing about it). But Gupta also discovers me lurking behind the curtains. From then on he becomes my mortal enemy. Salim is shaken, but unhurt. He had given up his animus against Hindus a long time ago. But a fear of abuse is embedded in him for the rest of his life.
It is a beautiful spring day. And it appears even more beautiful because we are outside the confines of the Juvenile Home. We have all been taken on a day trip by an international NGO. We travel by air-conditioned bus all over Delhi. We have lunch in the zoo and see the animals. For the first time we see a hippopotamus and kangaroos and giraffes and the giant sloth. We see pelicans and flamingos and the duck-billed platypus. Then we are taken to the Qutub Minar, the highest tower in India. Laughing and jostling, we climb the stairs and peer out from the first-floor balcony. The men and women on the ground seem like ants. We shout ‘Hooooo’ and listen for the sound to peter out before it reaches the ground. Finally, we are taken to India Gate to see a big carnival. We are each given ten rupees to spend on any attraction we choose. I want to ride on the giant wheel, but Salim tugs at my sleeve and pulls me to another booth. ‘Pandit Ramashankar Shastri,’ it says. ‘World-famous Palmist. Only Rs.10 per reading.’ An old man is sitting inside the booth, wearing a dhoti kurta. He has a white moustache, a vermilion tilak on his forehead, and thick lenses. A black choti juts out from the back of his head.
‘I want to show my hand,’ Salim says. ‘It is only ten rupees.’
‘Don’t be foolish,’ I tell him. ‘These chaps are conmen. They cannot know your future. And, in any case, there’s not much in our future worth knowing.’
‘I want to show my hand just the same.’ Salim is adamant.
‘Fine.’ I give in. ‘You go ahead, but I’m not spending my ten rupees on this crap.’
Salim pays the money and eagerly extends his left hand. The pandit shakes his head. ‘No, not the left hand. That is for girls. Boys have to show their right hand.’
Salim quickly extends his right palm. The palmist peers at it with a magnifying glass, and analyses the scrabbly lines as if they were a map of buried treasure. Finally he puts down the magnifying glass and lets out a satisfied sigh. ‘You have a remarkable hand, my boy. I have never seen a better fate line. I see a very bright future for you.’
‘Really?’ Salim is delighted. ‘What will I become?’
Mr Shastri has obviously not thought about that. He closes his eyes for ten seconds, then opens them. ‘You have a beautiful face. You will be a very famous actor,’ he declares.
‘Like Armaan Ali?’ squeals Salim.
‘Even more famous,’ says the pandit. He turns to me. ‘Do you also want to show your hand? It is only ten rupees.’
‘No, thank you,’ I say and begin to move away, but Salim bars my way.
‘No, Mohammad, you have to show your hand. For my sake, please.’
With a resigned look, I fork out my ten rupees and extend my right hand.
The pandit scowls at me as he adjusts his thick glasses and examines my palm. He pores over it for more than five minutes. He makes some notes, does some calculations.
‘What’s the matter?’ Salim asks, alarmed.
The palmist frowns slightly and shakes his head. ‘The line of head is strong, but the line of heart is weak. And, most importantly, the line of life is short. The stars do not seem to be right. The alignment of the planets is inauspicious. The Mount of Jupiter is good, but the Mount of Saturn cancels it out. There are obstacles and pitfalls. I can do something to ease your way, but it will cost you.’
‘How much?’
‘Around two hundred rupees. Why don’t you ask your father? Isn’t he the one who owns the big bus?’
I laugh. ‘Ha! Panditji, before spinning this yarn about my future, you should have checked out who we really are. We are not rich kids. We are orphans from the Delhi Juvenile Home in Turkman Gate and this bus doesn’t even belong to us. Still, you conned us into parting with twenty rupees.’ I pull Salim. ‘Come, let’s go. We have wasted enough time here.’
As we are walking away, the palmist calls me. ‘Listen! I want to give you something.’
I return to the booth. The pandit gives me an old one-rupee coin.
‘What’s this, Panditji?’
‘It’s a lucky coin. Keep it. You will need it.’
I hold it in my fist.
Salim wants an ice cream, but we have just one rupee and that won’t buy us anything. We watch the other kids enjoying their rides. I flip the coin aimlessly and it slips out of my fingers and rolls underneath a bench. I bend down to pick it up. It has come up heads. Next to it lies a ten-rupee note, dropped by someone. Like Magic. Salim and I buy ice creams. I slip the coin carefully into my pocket. It is indeed my lucky charm.
Salim is sad that my future has not turned out to be as bright as his, but he is also excited about becoming a film star. In front of us is a huge billboard of a new film. In lurid colours, it shows the hero with a gun in his hands, blood on his chest and a black bandanna around his head; a villain wearing a twisted grin; a heroine with big breasts. Salim stares at it, transfixed.
‘What are you looking at, Salim?’ I ask.
‘I am trying to see if the black headband will suit me,’ he replies.
We are sitting in class, but Mr Joshi, our portly teacher who specializes in burping and picking his nose, is not teaching. He is reading a novel, which is carefully hidden inside the textbook he holds in his hands. We pass the time making paper aeroplanes, etching patterns on the wooden desks and dozing. Suddenly Munna, who has been instructed to monitor the corridor, comes running in. ‘Masterji, Masterji,’ he says breathlessly, ‘Warden Sahib is coming.’
Mr Joshi lets out a loud burp and quickly jettisons his novel. He snaps his fingers and stands up. ‘OK boys, so what were we discussing? Yes. You were all telling me what you want to become when you grow up. Who wants to go next?’
Salim puts up his hand. The first time he has ever done this.
‘Yes, Salim, what do you want to become?’
‘I will become a famous actor, Masterji. An astrologer has told me,’ he says triumphantly.
The class squeals with laughter.
There are two versions of who the big man is. Some say that he is a very rich diamond merchant with no offspring of his own. So from time to time he comes to the Juvenile Home to adopt children, who are then taken to his palatial home in Mumbai. Others say that he actually owns a school in Mumbai, where he takes children he finds promising for proper training. Either way, one thing is clear. If you are selected by Sethji, your life is made.
Salim doesn’t care whether Sethji is a diamond merchant or a school owner. He is mainly concerned with the fact that the big man is from Mumbai – the centre of the film industry. He is convinced that Sethji has come to pluck him from here and take him to the glittering world of Bollywood. It is his destiny. The palmist’s prediction is going to come true.
We are all lined up in the mess hall for an inspection by Sethji. Salim has taken a bath. Actually, he has taken three baths, scrubbing himself again and again to remove every trace of dirt. He has put on his best clothes. His hair is nicely combed. He is the most presentable boy in the Home. But I fret at his desperation. If he is not selected, he will be shattered.
Sethji finally arrives, accompanied by two other men. He doesn’t look like a diamond merchant. He looks more like a gangster. But then, we’ve never seen a diamond merchant. Perhaps they look like gangsters. He is very swarthy and has a thick black moustache, like the dacoit Veerappan’s. He wears a white bandgala suit. A long, thick gold chain dangles down from his neck to his second button. His fingers are loaded with rings with different coloured gems. Some red, some green, some blue. The two henchmen with him look exactly like henchmen. I learn later that they are called Mustafa and Punnoose. Gupta is also with them, leading the way. His two gold chains look modest in comparison with Sethji’s.
‘Sethji, you seem to have forgotten us, coming after such a long time. Many new boys have arrived since your last visit. I am sure you will find many to your liking,’ Gupta tells him.
The inspection begins. All of us put on our best smiles. Sethji goes over each boy, appraising him from head to toe. I don’t know what he is looking for, because he does not ask us any questions, just looks at our faces. He completes one round of inspection. He does not even glance at me twice. Then he goes over the line once again. When he comes to Salim, he stops.
‘What is your name?’ he asks in a heavy South Indian accent.
‘S . . . Salim Ilyasi,’ Salim stammers in his excitement.
‘When did he arrive?’ he asks Gupta.
‘About eleven months ago, from Chhapra in Bihar.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Eight.’
‘Does he have anyone?’
‘No, Sethji. His whole family died in a communal disturbance.’
‘How sad,’ says Sethji. ‘But he is just the kind of boy I need. Can you sort out the paperwork?’
‘You just have to tell me, Sethji. Whoever you want will be restored to you in no time. For this boy, we’ll show Mustafa as the uncle. The Welfare Board will not create any problems. In fact, they want to get rid of as many kids as possible.’
‘Fine. For this visit, let’s settle on just this one kid.’
Gupta looks at Salim, and then he looks at me, standing next to Salim. ‘What about him?’ He points at me.
Sethji looks me in the eye, and shakes his head. ‘He is too old.’
‘No, Sethji, he is only ten. Name is Thomas, speaks perfect English.’
‘Makes no difference to me. I don’t need him. I want the other one.’
‘They are thick as thieves, these two. If you take Salim, you have to take Thomas as well.’
Sethji gets annoyed. ‘I’ve told you, Gupta, that I don’t want any Thomas Womas. I am only taking one boy and that is Salim.’
‘I am sorry, Sethji, but I insist. If you take Salim, you will have to take Thomas. It is a package deal.’
‘Package deal?’
‘Yes. Buy one, get one free. I won’t charge you for Thomas.’ Gupta grins, displaying his paan-stained teeth.
Sethji goes into a huddle with his henchmen.
‘OK,’ he tells Gupta. ‘Prepare the papers for these two. I’ll collect them on Monday.’
Salim rushes into my arms. He is on top of the world. That night, he doesn’t sleep from sheer excitement. He has celluloid dreams of life in Mumbai. Of golden sunsets on Marine Drive with Amitabh and rose-coloured dawns on Chowpatty with Shahrukh. I don’t sleep that night either. I toss and turn in my bed. But I don’t dream of stardom and paradise. I dream that I am a hawker on the pavement, selling fruits. A dark swarthy man bends down to buy some mangoes from me. I see his gold chain dangling. He tosses me some change. I put a nice juicy mango in his bag, and then quietly slip in a rotten banana. For free.
The train journey to Mumbai is uneventful. Salim and I travel in the second-class sleeper compartment with the henchmen Mustafa and Punnoose. Sethji, we are told, has gone ahead by plane. Mustafa and Punnoose wear lungis, smoke beedis and sleep most of the time. They tell us very little about Sethji. They say his real name is Babu Pillai, but everybody calls him Maman, meaning ‘Uncle’ in the Malayalam language. He is originally from Kollam in Kerala, but has been settled in Mumbai for a long time. He is a very kind man, who runs a school for disabled kids, helping them rebuild their lives. Maman believes that disabled children are closer to God. He rescues children from juvenile homes, which he believes are nothing but jails under another name. If Maman had not saved us, we would have ended up cleaning car windscreens at traffic lights or sweeping floors in private houses. Now we would be taught useful skills and groomed for success. Mustafa and Punnoose are excellent salesmen. By the end of the trip, even I am convinced that being picked by Maman is the best thing that has ever happened to me and that my life will now be transformed.
From time to time, the train passes through slum colonies, lining the edges of the railway tracks like a ribbon of dirt. We see half-naked children with distended bellies waving at us, while their mothers wash utensils in sewer water. We wave back.
The sights and sounds of Mumbai overwhelm us. Churchgate station looks exactly as it did in Love in Bombay. Salim half expects to bump into Govinda singing a song near the church. Mustafa points out the beach at Marine Drive. I am fascinated by my first sight of the ocean, where giant waves crash and roll against the rocks. Salim doesn’t see the majestic ocean. He looks at the stalls selling soft drinks and snacks. ‘That is where Govinda and Raveena had bhel puri,’ he points out excitedly. We pass through Haji Ali’s dargah. Salim raises his hands to Allah when he sees the shrine, exactly like he saw Amitabh Bachchan do in the film Coolie. We pass through the districts of Worli, Dadar and Mahim, Mustafa and Punnoose pointing out major landmarks to us. At Mahim Fort, Salim gestures the taxi driver to stop.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mustafa asks.
‘Nothing. I just wanted to see the place where the smugglers offload their consignment in the film Mafia!’
As we approach Bandra, Juhu and Andheri, dotted with the sparkling residences of film stars, with their high boundary walls and platoons of uniformed guards, Salim becomes maudlin. Through the taxi’s tinted windows, we gape at the sprawling bungalows and high-rise apartment blocks like villagers on a first trip to the city. It is as if we are seeing Mumbai through a chromatic lens. The sun seems brighter, the air feels cooler, the people appear more prosperous, the city throbs with the happiness of sharing space with the megastars of Bollywood.
We reach our destination in Goregaon. Maman’s house is not the palatial bungalow we had come to expect. It is a large decrepit building set in a courtyard with a small garden and two palm trees. It is ringed by a high boundary wall topped with barbed wire. Two dark, well-built men sit in the porch smoking beedis and wearing thin, coloured lungis. They are holding thick bamboo sticks in their hands. They cross their legs and we catch a glimpse of their striped underwear. A strong smell of arrack radiates from them. Punnoose speaks to them in quick-fire Malayalam. The only word I can catch is ‘Maman’. They are obviously guards employed by Mr Babu Pillai.
As we enter the house, Mustafa points out a set of corrugated-iron structures beyond the courtyard, like huge sheds. ‘That is the school Maman runs for crippled children. The children live there as well.’
‘How come I don’t see any children?’ I ask.
‘They have all gone out for vocational training. Don’t worry, you will meet them in the evening. Come, let me show you to your room.’
Our room is small and compact, with two bunk beds and a long mirror built into the wall. Salim takes the top bed. There is a bathroom in the basement which we can use. It has a tub and a shower curtain. It is not as luxurious as the houses of film stars, but it will do. It looks as though we are the only children living in the house.
Maman comes to meet us in the evening. Salim tells him how excited he is to be in Mumbai and how he wants to become a famous film star. Maman smiles when he hears this. ‘The first and foremost requirement for becoming a film star is the ability to sing and dance. Can you sing?’ he asks Salim.
‘No,’ says Salim.
‘Well, don’t worry. I will arrange for a top music teacher to give you lessons. In no time at all you will be like Kishore Kumar.’
Salim looks as if he might hug Maman, but restrains himself.
At night we go to the school for dinner. It has a mess hall similar to the one in our Juvenile Home, with cheap linoleum flooring, long wooden tables, and a head cook who is a carbon copy of ours back at the Home. Salim and I are told to sit at a small round table with Mustafa. We are served before the other kids come in. The food is hot and tasty, a definite improvement on the insipid fare we got in Delhi.
One by one the children start trickling in, and instantly challenge our definition of hell. I see boys with no eyes, feeling their way forward with the help of sticks; boys with bent and misshapen limbs, dragging themselves to the table; boys with two gnarled stumps for legs, walking on crutches; boys with grotesque mouths and twisted fingers, eating bread held between their elbows. Some of them are like clowns. Except they make us cry instead of laugh. It is good Salim and I have almost finished our meal.
We see three boys standing in one corner, watching the others eat, but not being served themselves. One of them licks his lips. ‘Who are these boys?’ I ask Mustafa. ‘And why aren’t they eating?’
‘They are being punished,’ Mustafa says. ‘For not doing enough work. Don’t worry, they’ll eat later.’
The music teacher comes the next day. He is a youngish man, with an oval, clean-shaven face, large ears and thin, bony fingers. He carries a harmonium with him. ‘Call me Masterji,’ he instructs us. ‘Now listen to what I sing.’ We sit on the floor in rapt attention as he sings, ‘Sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa.’ Then he explains, ‘These are the seven basic notes which are present in each and every composition. Now open your mouth and sing these notes loudly. Let the sound come not from your lips, not from your nose, but from the base of your throat.’
Salim clears his throat and begins. ‘Sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa.’ He sings full-throated, with abandon. The room resonates with the sound of his clear notes. His voice floats over the room, the notes ringing pure and unsullied.
‘Very good.’ The teacher claps. ‘You have a natural, God-given voice. I have no doubt that with constant practice, you will very soon be able to negotiate the entire range of three and a half octaves.’ Then he looks at me. ‘OK. Now why don’t you sing the same notes.’
‘Sa re ga ma pa dha . . .’ I try to sing, but my voice cracks and the notes shatter and fragment like a fistful of marbles dropped on the floor.
The teacher inserts a finger in his ear. ‘Hare Ram . . . Hare Ram . . . You sing like a buffalo. I will have to work really hard on you.’
Salim comes to my rescue. ‘No, Masterji, Mohammad has a good voice too. He screams really well.’
Over the next two weeks, Masterji teaches us several devotional songs by famous saints and how to play the harmonium. We learn the dohas of Kabir and the bhajans of Tulsidas and Mirabai. Masterji is a good teacher. Not only does he teach us the songs, he also explains the complex spiritual truths portrayed through these songs in the simple language of common people. I particularly like Kabir, who says in one of his verses:
Maala pherat jug bhaya,
mita na man ka pher,
kar ka manka chhod de,
man ka manka pher.
You have been counting rosary beads for an era,
But the wandering of your mind does not halt,
Forsake the beads in your hand,
And start moving the beads of your heart.
The fact that Salim is Muslim is of little consequence to Masterji as he teaches him Hindu bhajans. Salim himself is hardly bothered. If Amitabh Bachchan can play the role of a Muslim coolie and if Salman Khan can act as a Hindu emperor, Salim Ilyasi can sing Thumaki Chalat Ram Chandra Baajat Painjaniya with as much gusto as a temple priest.
During this period, Salim and I come to know some of the other boys in the cripple school, despite subtle attempts by Mustafa and Punnoose to prevent us from mixing too much with those they mispronounce as ‘handclapped’ kids. We learn the sad histories of these boys and discover that when it comes to cruel relatives and policemen, Mumbai is no different from Delhi. But as we learn more and more about these kids, the truth about Maman also starts to unravel.
We befriend Ashok, a thirteen-year-old with a deformed arm, and receive our first shock.
‘We are not schoolchildren,’ he tells us. ‘We are beggars. We beg in local trains. Some of us are pick-pockets as well.’
‘And what happens to the money you earn?’
‘We are required to give it to Maman’s men, in return for food and shelter.’
‘You mean Maman is a gangster?’
‘What did you think? He is no angel, but at least he gives us two square meals a day.’
My belief in Maman is shattered, but Salim continues to lay faith in the innate goodness of man.
We have an encounter with Raju, a blind ten-year-old.
‘How come you were punished today?’
‘I didn’t earn enough.’
‘How much are you required to give each day?’
‘All that we earn. But if you give less than one hundred rupees, you are punished.’
‘And what happens then?’
‘You don’t get food. You sleep hungry. Rats eat your belly.’
‘Here, take this chapatti. We saved it for you.’
We speak to Radhey, an eleven-year-old with a leg missing.
‘How come you never get punished? You always make enough money.’
‘Shhh . . . It’s a secret.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s safe with us.’
‘OK. But don’t let any of the other boys know. You see, there is this actress living in Juhu Vile Parle. Whenever I am a little short, I go to her. She not only gives me food, she also gives me money to cover the shortfall.’
‘What is her name?’
‘Neelima Kumari. They say she was quite famous at one time.’
‘What does she look like?’
‘She must have been very beautiful in her youth, but now she is getting old. She told me she is in need of domestic help. If I didn’t have a leg missing, I would have run away from here and taken up a servant’s job in her house.’
I dream that night of going to a house in Juhu Vile Parle. I ring the bell and wait. A tall woman opens the door. She wears a white sari. A strong wind begins howling, making her long black hair fly across her face, obscuring it. I open my mouth to say something, and then discover that she is looking down at me. I look down and discover with a shock that I have no legs.
I wake up, drenched in sweat.
We get introduced to Moolay, a thirteen-year-old with an amputated arm.
‘I hate my life,’ he says.
‘Why don’t you run away?’
‘Where to? This is Mumbai, not my village. There is no space to hide your head in this vast city. You need to have connections even to sleep in a sewage pipe. And you need protection from the other gangs.’
‘Other gangs?’
‘Yes. Two boys ran away last month. They came back within three days. They couldn’t find any work. Bhiku’s gang wouldn’t allow them to operate in their area. Here, at least we get food and shelter, and when we are working for Maman none of the other gangs bother us.’
‘We don’t want to get involved with any gangs,’ I tell him and recite a doha. ‘Kabira Khara Bazaar Mein, Mange Sabki Khair, Na Kahu Se Dosti, Na Kahu Se Bair. Kabir is in the market place, wishing the welfare of all; He wants neither friendship nor enmity with anyone at all.’
We meet Sikandar, the import from Pakistan.
A ripple of excitement goes round the mess hall. A new kid has arrived. Mustafa brings in the new inmate and we all crowd around him. Mustafa is the most excited. ‘We got him this morning from Shakeel Rana’s consignment,’ he says and slaps his thighs in delight.
The boy is no more than twelve years old. We touch him as though he is a caged animal. But he doesn’t look like an animal. He looks more like the alien we saw in a Britannia biscuits commercial on TV, with an oval, tapering head, Chinese eyes, a thick nose and thin lips. Mustafa tells Punnoose, ‘He is from the Shrine of Shah Dola in Pakistani Punjab. These boys are called “Rat Children”.’
‘How do they get a head like that?’
‘I have heard that they put iron rings on the baby’s head to stop it growing. That is how you get this unique head design.’
‘I think he has a lot of potential. Maman will be pleased,’ says Punnoose.
‘Yes,’ Mustafa concurs. ‘A real high-value item.’
For some reason, the rat boy reminds me of a bear I saw once with Father Timothy in Connaught Place. He had a tight collar round his neck and a black mask covering his mouth. His owner would poke him hard with a pointed stick and he would stand on both his hind legs, saluting the people gathered round him. They would throw coins at him. The owner would pick up the money and pull him away for another performance. I was struck by the eyes of the bear, which seemed so sad that I had asked Father Timothy, ‘Do bears cry?’
I discover Jitu, hiding in a closet.
He holds a plastic bag in his hand with a yellowish-white substance inside. He opens the end over his nose and mouth and inhales deeply, pressing the bottom of the bag towards his face. His clothes smell of paint and solvent. There is a rash around his nose. His mouth is sweaty and sticky. After he inhales, his half-closed eyes turn glassy and his hand begins to tremble.
‘Jitu! . . . Jitu!’ I shake him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t disturb me,’ he says in a drowsy voice. ‘I am floating on air. I am sleeping on the clouds.’
I slap him. He coughs up black phlegm.
‘I am addicted to glue,’ he tells me later. ‘I buy it from the cobbler. Glue takes the hunger away, and the pain. I see bright colours, and occasionally my mother.’
I ask him for some glue and try it. After I inhale, I start to feel a little dizzy, the floor beneath me appears to shift and I begin to see images. I see a tall woman, clad in a white sari, holding a baby in her arms. The wind howls, making her hair fly across her face, obscuring it. But the baby reaches out his tiny hand, and with gentle fingers smooths away her tresses, prises open her face. He sees two haggard, cavernous eyes, a crooked nose, sharp pointy teeth glistening with fresh blood, and maggots crawling out of the folds of her lined and wrinkled skin which sags over her jaw. He shrieks in terror and tumbles from her lap.
I never try glue again.
Meanwhile, our musical training is coming to an end. Masterji is extremely pleased with Salim’s progress. ‘You have now mastered the art of singing. Only one lesson is left.’
‘And what is that?’
‘The bhajans of Surdas.’
‘Who is Surdas?’
‘He is the most famous of all bhakti singers, who composed thousands of songs in praise of Lord Krishna. One day he fell into an abandoned well. He could not get out. He remained there for six days. He went on praying and on the seventh day he heard a child’s voice asking him to hold his hands so that he could pull him out. With the boy’s aid, Surdas got out of the well, but the boy disappeared. The boy was none other than Lord Krishna. After that Surdas devoted his life to composing songs in praise of Krishna. With the single-stringed ektara in his hand, he began singing songs depicting Krishna’s childhood.’ Masterji begins singing, ‘Akhiyan hari darshan Ki Pyasi – My eyes are hungry for your presence, Lord Krishna.’
‘Why are his eyes hungry?’ I ask.
‘Didn’t I tell you? Surdas was completely blind.’
On the last day of our musical training, Masterji showers accolades on Salim for singing one of Surdas’s bhajans perfectly. I am testy and distracted. My encounters with Maman’s boys have left me distraught. Though in a sense we are all children of a lesser god, Maman’s boys seem to me to be a particularly disadvantaged lot.
Punnoose comes into the room to talk to Masterji. They speak in low voices, then Punnoose takes out his purse and begins counting out some money. He hands over a sheaf of notes to the music teacher, who tucks it gratefully in the front pocket of his kurta. They leave the room together, leaving me alone with Salim and a harmonium.
‘I should never have left Delhi,’ I tell Salim. ‘You have at least become a good singer, but I have gained nothing from this trip.’
It is then that I notice a hundred-rupee note lying on the floor. Punnoose must have dropped it while counting the money. My first impulse is to pocket it, but Salim snatches it from my hand and insists that we must return it. So we go down the corridor to the room Maman uses as his office, where Punnoose and Mustafa hang out.
As we approach the door, we hear voices coming from inside. Maman is talking to Punnoose.
‘So what did the Master say after finishing his lessons? He is getting more and more expensive.’
‘He said that the older one is useless, but the young kid has a lot of potential. He says he’s never trained a more talented boy before.’
‘So you think he can bring in at least three hundred?’
‘What is three hundred? When he sings it is magic. And his face? Who can resist his face? I would say easily a potential of four to five hundred. We have hit the jackpot, Maman.’
‘And the other boy? The tall one?’
‘Who cares? The bastard will have to fend for himself. Either he gets us a hundred each night or he remains hungry.’
‘OK. Send them out on the trains from next week. We will do them tonight. After dinner.’
A chill runs down my spine as I hear these words. I catch Salim’s hand and rush back to our room. Salim is confused about the conversation we heard, and the reference to numbers. But the jigsaw is piecing itself together in my brain.
‘Salim, we have to escape from this place. Now.’
‘But why?’
‘Because something very bad is going to happen to us tonight, after dinner.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I understand everything. Do you know why we were taught the bhajans of Surdas?’
‘Because he was a great poet?’
‘No. Because he was blind. And that is what we are going to become tonight, so that we can be made to beg on local trains. I am convinced now that all the cripple boys we have met here have been deliberately maimed, by Maman and his gang.’
But such cruelty is beyond Salim’s comprehension. He wants to stay.
‘Why don’t you run away alone?’ he asks me.
‘I can’t go without you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I am your guardian angel, and you are part of my package deal.’
Salim hugs me. I take out the one-rupee coin from my pocket. ‘Look, Salim,’ I tell him. ‘You believe in destiny, don’t you? So let this coin decide our future. Heads we leave, tails we stay, OK?’
Salim nods. I flip the coin. It is heads.
Salim is finally reconciled to escaping from Maman’s den, but his mind is full of doubt. ‘Where will we go? What will we do? We don’t know anyone in this city.’
‘I know where we will go. Remember that actress Neelima Kumari that Radhey told us about? She needs a servant. I have her address and I also know which local train goes there.’
‘How about going to the police?’
‘Are you out of your mind? Haven’t you learnt anything since Delhi? Whatever you do, wherever you go, never go to the police. Ever.’
We are inside the bathroom in the basement, listening to the steady beat of water dripping from a leaky tap. Salim is on my shoulder with a knife in his hand, trying to work the bolts holding the wire-mesh window in place.
‘Hurry,’ I whisper through clenched teeth.
Upstairs, Maman’s guards trample through our room, opening closets and cupboards. We hear shouts and abuses. A bottle crashes, jangling our frayed nerves even more. Salim is terrified. He is breathing quickly in short gasps. The beating of my heart intensifies till I can almost hear its pounding. Footsteps come closer.
‘Only one is left,’ says Salim. ‘But it is jammed. I don’t think I can open it.’
‘Please . . . please try again!’ I urge him. ‘Our lives depend on it.’
Salim tackles the bolt with renewed urgency, twisting the knife into it with all his strength. Finally, it gives way. He takes out the four bolts and lifts the wire mesh. We can see the palm trees outside swaying gently in the breeze. There is just enough space for us to crawl out. Maman’s men are about to come down the stairs to the basement when Salim manoeuvres himself through the window. Then he grasps my hand and helps me slither out. We clamber on to a mound of gravel and rubble, gasping and panting. The moon is full, the night is calm. We take in deep gulps of fresh air. It smells of coconuts.
We are sitting in a local train going away from Goregaon towards the centre of this vast metropolis. The train is not crowded at this time of night and there are only a few passengers in our compartment. They read newspapers, play cards, criticize the government, fart. A soft-drinks vendor enters the compartment carrying a plastic cool-box filled with multi-coloured bottles. ‘Coke, Fanta, Thums Up, Limca, 7 Up,’ he shouts in a high-pitched voice. The bottles are chilled, we can see tiny droplets of moisture beading their surface. Salim looks at the soft drinks and passes his tongue over his parched lips. He feels his front pocket and pats it reassuringly. The vendor looks at him hopefully. Salim shakes his head and the man moves on.
Soon another pedlar enters the compartment, a bearded old man wearing round glasses. There is a large tray hanging from his neck, filled with a plethora of rusty tins, cloudy glass bottles and small plastic packets containing an assortment of gnarled roots, dry leaves, powders and seeds. ‘Yusuf Fahim, Travelling Hakim,’ he announces. ‘I have a treatment for every ailment. From cancer to constipation, just name your condition.’ Unfortunately for him, there are no sick persons in the compartment, and he departs shortly, leaving behind a pungent smell of turmeric and ginger.
We watch the flickering lights of the city as the train rushes past housing colonies and sports stadiums. We catch fleeting glimpses of people sitting in their drawing rooms, watching TV, eating dinner, making beds. When our destination is only two stops away, we hear shuffling footsteps from the far side of the compartment.
A small, undernourished boy of about seven or eight appears. He is wearing a blue top and dusty shorts. He walks with the help of a stick and holds an ektara in his hands. We do not recognize him: he is not one of Maman’s boys.
He stops no more than fifteen feet from us and breaks into a full-throated rendition of ‘Sunire Maine Nirbal Ke Balaram – I have heard that Krishna comes to the aid of the weak’, one of Surdas’s most famous poems.
We cringe as the singer’s melodious voice cascades over the compartment. Images of Maman’s boys come flooding back to us. Raju and Radhey and Ashok and Moolay. Salim squeezes up to me and I shift deeper into the corner of my seat. But like a radar the singer’s head tracks us. He seems to look at us accusingly through unseeing eyes. For five tortuous minutes we listen to him complete his song. Then he takes out a begging bowl and asks for alms. Only a handful of passengers are left in the compartment and nobody even bothers to hunt for change.
As the empty-handed singer is about to pass our side, Salim takes something from his front pocket. He holds it in a clenched fist and looks guiltily at me. I nod silently. With a pained expression, Salim opens his fist over the singer’s outstretched hand. A crumpled, hundred-rupee note drifts into the beggar’s bowl.
Smita shivers involuntarily. ‘I cannot imagine there are still people in this day and age who can inflict such cruelty on innocent children.’
‘It is sad, but true. If Salim and I had not escaped that night, perhaps we would still be singing songs on local trains, like that blind singer,’ I reply.
‘So did you finally land that job with Neelima Kumari?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘And what happened to Salim?’
‘Neelima Kumari arranged a room for him in a chawl in Ghatkopar.’
‘But in the last story, weren’t you working in a foundry and living in the chawl?’
‘That was after I had left Neelima Kumari – or rather, after she had left me.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You will soon find out.’
Smita shakes her head, and presses ‘Play’ on the DVD remote.
Prem Kumar faces the camera. ‘We now move on to question number four for ten thousand rupees. This one is also straightforward, but only if you know your devotional singers. Mr Thomas has told us he believes in all the religions. Let’s hope he knows his bhajans.’ He turns to me. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Ready,’ I reply.
‘OK. Question number four. Surdas, the blind poet, was a devotee of which god: a) Ram, b) Krishna, c) Shiva or d) Brahma?’
The music commences.
‘B. Krishna.’
‘Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?’
‘Yes.’
There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes.
‘Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! You have just won ten thousand rupees!’ declares Prem Kumar. The audience claps. Prem Kumar grins. I don’t.
