Sometimes, these stalls were smashed up during police raids. I liked to imagine that one day a raid would occur as I was passing, and in the mêlée and chaos of the clash, My Fair Lady would fly through the air and land at my feet, unnoticed by anyone. Of course, there wasn’t much I could have done with it following the miracle, because our old gramophone played only 78 rpms.
After strenuous negotiations in which Mummy, Percy, and I exhausted ourselves, Percy agreed to ask his friend if I could listen to the album. Arrangements were made. And the following Saturday we set off for Jamshed’s house. From Firozsha Baag, the direction of Malabar Hill was opposite to the one we took to go to school every morning, and I was not familiar with the roads the bus travelled. The building had a marble lobby, and the lift zoomed us up smoothly to the tenth floor before I had time to draw breath. I was about to tell Percy that we needed one like this in Firozsha Baag, but the door opened. Jamshed welcomed us graciously, then wasted no time in putting the record on the turntable. After all, that was what I had come for.
The afternoon dragged by after the soundtrack finished. Bored, I watched them work on an airplane. The box said it was a Sopwith Camel. The name was familiar from the Biggies books Percy used to bring home. I picked up the lid and read dully that the aircraft had been designed by the British industrialist and aeronautical engineer, Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, born 1888, and had been used during the First World War. Then followed a list of the parts.
Later, we had lunch, and they talked. I was merely the kid brother, and nobody expected me to do much else but listen. They talked of school and the school library, of all the books that the library badly needed; and of the ghatis who were flooding the school of late.
In the particular version of reality we inherited, ghatis were always flooding places, they never just went there. Ghatis were flooding the banks, desecrating the sanctity of institutions, and taking up all the coveted jobs. Ghatis were even flooding the colleges and universities, a thing unheard of. Wherever you turned, the bloody ghatis were flooding the place.
With much shame I remember this word ghati. A suppurating sore of a word, oozing the stench of bigotry. It consigned a whole race to the mute roles of coolies and menials, forever unredeemable.
During one of our rare vacations to Matheran, as a child, I watched with detachment while a straining coolie loaded the family’s baggage on his person. The big metal trunk was placed flat on his head, with the leather suitcase over it. The enormous hold-all was slung on his left arm, which he raised to steady the load on his head, and the remaining suitcase went in the right hand. It was all accomplished with much the same approach and consideration used in loading a cart or barrow — the main thing was balance, to avoid tipping over. This skeletal man then tottered off towards the train that would transport us to the little hill station. There, similar skeletal beings would be waiting with rickshaws. Automobiles were prohibited in Matheran, to preserve the pastoral purity of the place and the livelihood of the rickshawallas.
Many years later I found myself at the same hill station, a member of my college hikers’ club, labouring up its slopes with a knapsack. Automobiles were still not permitted in Matheran, and every time a rickshaw sped by in a flurry of legs and wheels, we’d yell at the occupant ensconced within: “Capitalist pig! You bastard! Stop riding on your brother’s back!” The bewildered passenger would lean forward for a moment, not quite understanding, then fall back into the cushioned comfort of the rickshaw.
But this kind of smug socialism did not come till much later. First we had to reckon with school, school uniforms, brown paper covers for textbooks and exercise books, and the mad morning rush for the school bus. I remember how Percy used to rage and shout at our scrawny ghaton if the pathetic creature ever got in his way as she swept and mopped the floors. Mummy would proudly observe, “He has a temper just like Grandpa’s.” She would also discreetly admonish Percy, since this was in the days when it was becoming quite difficult to find a new ghaton, especially if the first one quit due to abuse from the scion of the family and established her reasons for quitting among her colleagues.
I was never sure why some people called them ghatons and others, gungas. I supposed the latter was intended to placate — the collective conferment of the name of India’s sacred river balanced the occasions of harshness and ill-treatment. But the good old days, when you could scream at a ghaton that you would kick her and hurl her down the steps, and expect her to show up for work next morning, had definitely passed.
After high school, Percy and Jamshed went to different colleges. If they met at all, it would be at concerts of the Bombay Chamber Orchestra. Along with a college friend, Navjeet, and some others, my brother organized a charitable agency that collected and distributed funds to destitute farmers in a small Maharashtrian village. The idea was to get as many of these wretched souls as possible out of the clutches of the village money-lenders.
Jamshed showed a very superficial interest in what little he knew about Percy’s activities. Each time they met, he would start with how he was trying his best to get out of the country. “Absolutely no future in this stupid place,” he said. “Bloody corruption everywhere. And you can’t buy any of the things you want, don’t even get to see a decent English movie. First chance I get, I’m going abroad. Preferably the U.S.”
After a while, Percy stopped talking about his small village, and they only discussed the concert program or the soloist’s performance that evening. Then their meetings at concerts ceased altogether because Percy now spent very little time in Bombay.
Jamshed did manage to leave. One day, he came to say goodbye. But Percy was away working in the small village: his charitable agency had taken on the task full time. Jamshed spoke to those of us who were home, and we all agreed that he was doing the right thing. There just weren’t any prospects in this country; nothing could stop its downhill race towards despair and ruin.
My parents announced that I, too, was trying to emigrate, but to Canada, not the U.S. “We will miss him if he gets to go,” they told Jamshed, “but for the sake of his own future, he must. There is a lot of opportunity in Toronto. We’ve seen advertisements in newspapers from England, where Canadian Immigration is encouraging people to go to Canada. Of course, they won’t advertise in a country like India — who would want these bloody ghatis to come charging into their fine land? — but the office in New Delhi is holding interviews and selecting highly qualified applicants.” In the clichés of our speech was reflected the cliché which the idea of emigration had turned into for so many. According to my parents, I would have no difficulty being approved, what with my education, and my westernized background, and my fluency in the English language.
And they were right. A few months later things were ready for my departure to Toronto.
Then the neighbours began to arrive. Over the course of the last seven days, they came to confer their blessings and good wishes upon me. First was Bulsara Bookworm’s mother, her hair in a bun as usual and covered with the mathoobanoo. She said, “I know you and Jehangir were never very good friends, but that does not matter at a time like this. He says best of luck.” She put her arm over my shoulder in lieu of a hug and said, “Don’t forget your parents and all they did for you, maintain your good name at all times.”