Cast a Lazy Eye

A “special” like me has a girl like Nandini. I have an unknown past and she is most concerned about losing her identity. Mumbai, her fitful muse, nourishes her and also eats away her being. I get to hear a lot of what she thinks on the subject. Every day she bemoans a lost custom, a forgotten festival, a curtailed ritual, or even words that lost have utility and disappeared. She feels we are being reduced to a lowly herd by Navi Mumbai, the new Bombay.

“Cast a lazy eye on this city,” she said once.

What?

“Or make love instead.”

She has been reading poetry in the parlor while getting her legs waxed. Nandini was determined that she would not simply be a sufferance like her city. Every day she observed Mumbai and compared it to her Pune, the smaller metropolis just two hours from here, and in her dispassionate manner she stated that the character of the city would not endure. To endure was to die. To all those who glorified the ability of the city to bounce back from adversity she had this to say: Mumbai Devi is a selfish hag full of selfish people. Its known benefactors, the Parsis, were also selfish. They had selfish enclaves and selfish sperm. Even the worms in the compost in their baugs were Parsi.

Roaming the city she felt for the small nooks, corners, parks, and temples—Gowalia Tank, Gamdevi, Teen Batti, Banganga, and Bhuleshwar. There were Christian precincts, Muslim gullies, Goan houses, the Lohar Chawl, Crawford Market, P D’Mello Road; the list was endless. She looked hard at the people in these places to see if they belonged. She wasn’t so sure.

Mumbai has no sons and daughters. The city changes hands way too often, even as you speak. Belonging is hard to come by; even if you own a few square feet on the twentieth floor, one day your sea view might suddenly be obscured. The only upward graph the city has is one that shows property prices.

Nandini wants to disrupt Mumbaikars. I don’t know what drives her or what causes her grief but her chief instigator is the city. Standing outside Churchgate Station in the morning, being part of the rushing hordes of office workers, she cannot believe the cops use a dirty rope to shepherd them through traffic. She rails at the inefficiency of the ticket counters and cannot understand the patience people have, standing endlessly in long lines. In town hall meetings, between heated arguments about parking and water conservation, she asks people to calm down and read the Bhagwad Geetha.

The rampant encroachments in the city disturb her, the illegal power-tapping, the water-hoarding, the hafta or bribe that is demanded by people doing jobs they are being paid for, the noise pollution—all of this gets to her every day.

Despite all this Nandini is proud of her city; she loves Mumbai. Love is too strong a word for me. I like Mumbai and I hide my liking behind a veneer of criticism. But it is a hard-working city and I fit in. I am thorough, diligent, and I do my job without delving into the “greater good” or the “higher purpose” which other encounter teams believe in or say they believe in.

Nandini leads Heritage Walks that are a mixture of fun and learning. Some days I follow her and hover in the periphery. Some days I mingle with the group. By now I know a lot about Bombay. Every building has character and every place has history. And every chutiya on the street is on the make. I say, You want to see Mumbai? Look into their eyes.

Today she is looking pretty in a red and yellow salwar kameez. I watch the others as they observe her. I can never get used to the sight of her. I am tailing her because Special Branch has information that a gang is out to hurt her for what I have done to one of their own. The intelligence is unconfirmed but we need to be careful. I had to tell Nandini about the report and for once she said nothing. But I’m sure the unsaid will surface later. (I can imagine her confronting me, saying, One day it will come home to roost, this monster you’re rearing.)

“Art deco?” she questions the group, raising an eyebrow.

The group stares at the Regal Cinema. It is early on a Sunday morning and there is a slight haze in the sky. A breeze is coming in from the road that leads to the Gateway of India and the Arabian Sea behind it.

“Architect Charles Stevens; the theater opened in 1933,” says a smart aleck. He’s juggling a bunch of handwritten notes, a smartphone, and a large camera.

“Looks fairly ordinary,” observes somebody else. “I prefer multiplexes.”

The Regal Cinema had its moment in another era. It was an era when every city in India had a Regal, an Odeon, and a Ritz, and the crème de la crème wore trousers and pressed shirts and watched Hollywood movies.

“This is a single-screen theater,” says Nandini. “Somehow that sounds dated.”

“Isn’t that the Shantaram Road, the Colaba Causeway?” asks another, pointing toward a crowded lane.

There are ten of them in today’s group. Four young couples from Bangalore and Chennai wanting to “know” Mumbai and two cheerful European backpackers. The latter perk up on hearing the S-word.

“Really?” says one of them. He pulls out the hallowed book and feels its dog-eared pages. “Can we go there now?”

“Later,” says Nandini. She pirouettes on her feet and her salwar flows in a full circle behind her. The group follows her gaze and takes in an eclectic mix of buildings and roads.

They are standing at the center of a parking lot where six roads meet. On weekdays it becomes an island marooned in a sea of traffic. This is where Nandini begins her South Mumbai Walk, where the city for a moment reverts to Bombay. On Sunday mornings it is quiet, traffic is thin, and you find time and space to take shade under fully grown trees. Around you are buildings that have withstood the relent of time, and the air you breathe is testimony to bygone eras that have been erased inadequately.

A few deep sighs and they set forth into the road that leads to the Taj Mahal Hotel. I hang back for a while and peer into an antique store called Phillips.

“Watch your step,” warns Nandini. “Careful not to walk over those drains with your noses open.”

They tread carefully around the iron grates that dot the roadsides. The pavement is irregular and footwear tangles with broken stone. Visitors can never get used to the smells of Mumbai—around restaurants, on the train, near the docks, in the vicinity of street people, and from the sewage that courses through those ubiquitous drains. The smell of fish and saltwater, the dank smell of cloth and sweat, the fumes from vehicles, and sewage fill this place we call Mumbai.

At the gateway the shutterbugs get busy. The sea is calm and a few boats provide fodder for cameras. The Taj Mahal Hotel sits in profile against scattered clouds. A variety of merchants and opportunists accost them for trade and favor and Nandini waves them away weakly. And here her wandering eye comes into play. She spots the people at the margin, the ones sleeping on the pavement, the balloon seller who is puffing his cheeks and blowing his wares, and the mofussil group that has arrived by van at an early hour to capture the sunrise and then head for the Elephanta Caves. I find her glancing at me and I nod ever so slightly. I part with some loose change and grab a pink balloon.

She gathers the group for a brief history lesson. They listen patiently but their eyes cannot help but roam. “Look, there is Shivaji on a horse,” says a middle-aged man, and a younger woman photographs pigeons taking flight.

She does the causeway next and that takes an hour. The group could easily spend a full day there lingering about.

“Come back here in the evening,” she advises them. “Come back here to the streets of Colaba at night if you are adventurous.”

“What kind of adventure?”

“Look around. People shuffle at night through smoky joints. You can find a place that serves cheap alcohol and fried surmai fish where they also play the music of Al Stewart and Jethro Tull. Just remember to stay anonymous.”

They head back to the six-road crossing. Nandini moves toward a nearby structure. The group is distracted by two beggar women holding infants, who they finally pay to move away. Nandini meanwhile stands and observes this building that has so captured her imagination.

“Made of stone, more than a hundred years ago,” she begins.

“Architect Stevens,” reads Smart Aleck from his notebook. “But wait, that doesn’t make sense.” He looks toward Nandini with confusion.

“It wasn’t designed by Charles Stevens but by his illustrious father, Frederick W. Stevens.”

The structure is very different from the nearby theater. It is made of chiseled stone blocks and there is no carving. Yet the architecture, the design, and the detailing come from a spare, compelling aesthetic. There are a series of arches across the facade and the detailing is inlaid with stones of varying colors and sizes.

“Damn, it’s a beauty,” someone from the group mutters.

And then they glimpse the sign out front that reads, Maharashtra Police Headquarters.

“Cops, in this building? I mean, why?”

“Why not?” replies Nandini.

He shrugs.

“Let me tell you something. The police of Mumbai have moved into buildings with character and history, and perhaps rightfully so. Think about it: the cops in Mumbai write its history. This city is big and in your face; crime is big, business is big, and so is the police force. And offense is taken and given.”

The group glances around curiously and eyes a traffic cop. He is a little overweight, wearing fashionable dark glasses and a gleaming belt. He is busy giving someone a ticket in Marathi.

“Mumbai police have developed a character that takes from the city,” continues Nandini. “Every now and then, Mumbai throws up superstar actors, billionaire businessmen, and crime warlords. Cops get big on you too, so the police force has responded by rearing so-called supercops, or they at least like to propagate that rumor.”

“The papers make such a big deal about encounter cops and shootouts,” someone says.

Nandini laughs. She glances toward the lamppost where I am standing. As if on cue I release the balloon. It rises and tangles with a wire before bursting. Everyone turns in my direction. Some of them duck and others laugh nervously.

A little later they reach the Victoria Terminus Station. It is a remarkable structure with vertebrate arches and ribbed turrets. It has domes and there are figurines and gargoyles in the mix as well. The building could be a Victorian palace or a Gothic seminary. There is a more recent extension on the side that is ordinary and more down to earth, where the passing hordes don’t bother looking up and merely climb aboard trains each day to lead them to suburban homes and factories.

“Architect Stevens,” Smart Aleck announces again smugly.

Nandini walks them through an alley past another Gothic-looking structure. A sign outside says, Mumbai Police Headquarters. The building is marred by fat sewage pipes that crisscross its facade. There are Y joints, L joints, and gravity-defying U shapes. Finally she leads them to their minibus, gives a brief summary, and sends them on their way.

* * *

Some days Nandini follows me. She retraces my steps. How does she choose the days and how does she get them right? Simple. She reads about what’s been happening around the city in the newspaper, stares hard at me, then reads my face. I ask her why she does this. She says she needs to know and she needs to understand. And sometimes she needs to set things right.

“I don’t need a conscience,” I tell her. “And please don’t keep count.”

She doesn’t listen.

Later that evening Desai calls and says, “Rest easy; the information was spurious. No need to follow your wife around more than you already do.”

* * *

Why does Nandini show the tourists these police buildings when there is so much else to see here? I am at least glad she stopped at the Mumbai police HQ because a few steps away there is a small nondescript structure whose architect is unknown. This is the Special Branch, an elite unit of Crime Branch, Mumbai. No one from this branch wears a uniform, even on field duty. No names are displayed and there is no roll call. The building is squat and square and it has no detailing. Nothing that happens here gets recorded and yet the stuff of myth and legend is cast in every stone.

The front portion of this building houses a small, secretive unit called the Third Squad. It is ruled by a taipan named Ranvir Pratap. He is a living legend. The rear of this building is operated by a unit informally known as the Khabari Squad, which deals in nuggets of information and billets of dirt. Heading this network is a King Rat called Tiwari. Both warlords have an unknown rank which is quite senior.

Both men also have one common trait: they are constantly talking. In the case of Ranvir, he simply assumes I am there and most times I in fact am. In the case of Tiwari there is nobody. The turd talks to himself.

The contrast between the two teams is remarkable. Members of the Third Squad are known to be quiet and antisocial. It seems we do not mingle and we have no opinions to share. Our boss approves of this framework. The Khabari Squad, on the other hand, makes a living by trafficking in rumor, opinion, and hearsay. According to my boss all are treated with the same brush and painted up as fact.

Ranvir Pratap and Tiwari report to a dry, dull suit named Parthasarathy. He is an IPS officer and a bookworm who has risen to great heights by some unknown accident. In meetings he echoes what people say and usually does nothing. At the last meeting held in his fabled office, Parthasarathy asked Ranvir Pratap to put his team through a series of medical tests, including home visits from a counselor. A lady (she was indeed a lady) named Ms. Daftary called on us and she immediately fixated on the three fat thesauruses sitting on my table. She asked me why three. I had never even thought about it before. Perhaps this went back some years, I told her, when in my school and college I was accused of being emotionless and cold. I was also called moody, sullen, withdrawn, and introverted. Words like these became my name if not my identity, and I had to look to these fat tomes for synonyms and meanings. And then suddenly Ms. Daftary, the kind lady, asked me if I felt any pain. Pain? I mean an ache, she said. I said no, other than some odd gym-related stress now and then. She said that wasn’t what she was referring to. And then she spoke to me about phantom pain. She said people who lost limbs sometimes feel a pain from that very limb that no longer physically exists. This was a phantom pain but it was very real, and sometimes it was so acute that it wrecked people’s lives. I was whole, hale, and hearty, I replied, but she did not laugh. Neither did Nandini, who by this time was paying complete attention. Do you miss not having a father or mother? asked the kind lady. Was this the ache, the phantom pain she was asking me about? Perhaps. Never having a parent, could that still qualify as—? Yes, she said. And thinking about this later, but not too hard, I felt that there might be something called a father figure who perhaps I’m unconsciously acknowledging. It wasn’t such a big deal. I mean, I did respect Ranvir Pratap a lot and I did follow orders and we as a team obeyed. Above all we obeyed.

You need to see Ranvir Pratap in the evening of his life. He has a distinctive air, gray hair, and that word I found after much search: erudition. How do I describe him better? Perhaps in another time and place I will.

But I have to try to understand him to answer the question that Nandini poses now and then: “How can you trust a man who puts your life on the line?”

The easy answer is: “You have to.”