Tales From Firozsha Baag

Auspicious Occasion

With a bellow Rustomji emerged from the WC. He clutched his undone pyjama drawstring, an extreme rage distorting his yet unshaven features. He could barely keep the yellow-stained pyjamas from falling.

“Mehroo! Arré Mehroo! Where are you?” he screamed. “I am telling you, this is more than I can take! Today, of all days, on Behram roje. Mehroo! Are you listening?”

Mehroo came, her slippers flopping in time — ploof ploof — one two. She was considerably younger than her husband, having been married off to a thirty-six-year-old man when she was a mere girl of sixteen, before completing her final high-school year. Rustomji, a successful Bombay lawyer, had been considered a fine catch by Mehroo’s parents — no one had anticipated that he would be wearing dentures by the time he was fifty. Who, while trapped in the fervour of matchmaking at the height of the wedding season, could imagine a toothless gummy mouth, morning after morning, greeting a woman in her absolute prime? No one. Certainly not Mehroo. She came from an orthodox Parsi family which observed all important days on the Parsi calendar, had the appropriate prayers and ceremonies performed at the fire-temple, and even set aside a room with an iron-frame bed and an iron stool for the women during their unclean time of the month.

Mehroo had welcomed her destiny and had carried to her new home all the orthodoxy of her parents’. Except for the separate “unclean” room which Rustomji would not hear of, she was permitted everything. In fact, Rustomji secretly enjoyed most of the age-old traditions while pretending indifference. He loved going to the fire-temple dressed up in his sparkling white dugli, starched white trousers, the carefully brushed pheytoe on his head — he had a fine head of hair, not yet gone the way of his teeth.

To Rustomji’s present yelling Mehroo responded good-humouredly. She tried to remain calm on this morning which was to culminate in prayers at the fire-temple; nothing would mar the perfection of Behram roje if she could help it. This day on the Parsi calendar was particularly dear to her: on Behram roje her mother had given birth to her at the Awabai Petit Parsi Lying-in Hospital; it was also the day her navjote had been performed at the age of seven, when she was confirmed a Zoroastrian by the family priest, Dustoor Dhunjisha; and finally, Rustomji had married her on Behram roje fourteen years ago, with feasting and celebration continuing into the wee hours of the morning — it was said that not one beggar had gone hungry, such were the quantities of food dumped in the garbage cans of Cama Garden that day.

Indeed, Behram roje meant a lot to Mehroo. Which is why with a lilt in her voice she sang out: “Com-ing! Com-ing!”

Rustomji growled back, “You are deaf or what? Must I scream till my lungs burst?”

“Coming, coming! Two hands, so much to do, the gunga is late and the house is unswept

“Arre forget your gunga-bunga!” howled Rustomji. “That stinking lavatory upstairs is leaking again! God only knows what they do to make it leak. There I was, squatting — barely started — when someone pulled the flush. Then on my head I felt — pchuk — all wet! On my head!”

“On your head? Chhee chhee chhee! How horrible! How inauspicious! How…” and words failed her as she cringed and recoiled from the befouling event. Gingerly she peeked into the WC, fearing a deluge of ordure and filth. What she did see, however, was a steady leak — drip drip drip drip — rhythmical and regular, straight into the toilet bowl, so that using it was out of the question. Rustomji, still clutching his pyjama drawstring, a wild unravelled look about him, fumed behind her as she concluded her inspection.

“Why not call a good plumber ourselves this time instead of complaining to the Baag trustees?” Mehroo ventured. “They will once again do shoddy work.”

“I will not spend one paisa of my hard-earned earnings! Those scoundrels sitting with piles of trust money hidden under their arses should pay for it!” stormed Rustomji, making sweeping gestures with the hand that was free of the pyjama string. “I will crap at their office, I will go to crap at their houses, I will crap on their doorsteps if necessary!”

“Hush, Rustomji, don’t say such things on Behram roje? Mehroo chided. “If you still have to go, I will see if Hirabai next door does not mind.”

“With her stupid husband there? A thousand times I’ve told you I will not step inside in Nariman’s presence. Anyway, it is gone now. Vanished,” said Rustomji with finality. “Now my whole day will be spoilt. And who knows,” he added darkly with perverse satisfaction, “this may even lead to constipation.”

“Nariman must have left for the library. I will ask Hirabai, you might have to go later. I am going there now to telephone the office, and when I come back I will make you a nice hot cup of tea. Drink that quickly, gudh-gudh, the urge will return,” soothed Mehroo, and left. Rustomji decided to boil water for his bath. He felt unclean all over.

The copper vessel was already filled with water. But someone had forgotten to cover it, and plaster from the ceiling had dripped into it. It floated on the surface, little motes of white. Like the little motes that danced before Rustomji’s eyes when he was very tired, after a long day in the hot, dusty courthouse, or when he was very angry, after shouting at the boys of Firozsha Baag for making a nuisance with their cricket in the compound.

Plaster had been dripping for some years now in his A Block flat, as it had been in most of the flats in Firozsha Baag. There had been a respite when Dr. Mody, gadfly to the trustees (bless his soul), had pressed for improvement with the Baag management. But that period ended, and the trustees adopted a new policy to stop all maintenance work not essential to keep the buildings from being condemned.

Following a period of resistance, most of the tenants had taken to looking after their own flats, getting them replastered and painted. But to this day Rustomji stubbornly held out, calling his neighbours fools for making things easy for the trustees instead of suffering the discomfort of peeling walls till the scoundrels capitulated.

When the neighbours, under the leadership of Nariman Hansotia, had decided to pool some money and hire a contractor to paint the exterior of A Block, Rustomji, on principle, refused to hand over his share. The building had acquired an appalling patina of yellow and grey griminess. But even the likeable and retired Nariman, who drove every day except Sunday in his 1932 Mercedes-Benz to the Cawasji Framji Memorial Library to read the daily papers from around the world, could not persuade Rustomji to participate.

Totally frustrated, Nariman had returned to Hirabai: “That curmudgeon won’t listen to reason, he has sawdust in his head. But if I don’t make him the laughing-stock, my name isn’t Nariman.” Out of this exchange had grown an appended name: Rustomji-the-curmudgeon, and it had spread through Firozsha Baag, enjoying long life and considerable success.

And Nariman Hansotia had then convinced the neighbours to go ahead with the work, advising the contractor to leave untouched the exterior of Rustomji’s flat. It would make Rustomji ashamed of himself, he thought, when the painting was finished and the sparkling façade of the building sported one begrimed square. But Rustomji was delighted. He triumphantly told everyone he met, “Mr. Hansotia bought a new suit, and it has a patch on one knee!”

Rustomji chuckled now as he remembered the incident. He filled the copper vessel with fresh water and hoisted it onto the gas stove. The burner hesitated before it caught. He suspected the gas cylinder was about to run out; over a week ago he had telephoned the blasted gas company to deliver a new one. He wondered if there was going to be another shortage, like last year, when they had had to burn coals in a sign- the weekly quota of kerosene had been barely enough to make the morning tea.

Tea, thank God for tea, he thought, anticipating with pleasure the second cup Mehroo had promised. He would drink it in copious draughts, piping hot, one continuous flow from cup to saucer to mouth. It just might induce his offended bowels to move and salvage something of this ill-omened morning. Of course, there was the WC of Hirabai Hansotia’s that he would have to contend with — his bowels were recalcitrant in strange surroundings. It was a matter of waiting and seeing which would prevail: Mehroo’s laxative tea or Hirabai’s sphincter-tightening lavatory.

He picked up the Times of India and settled in his easy chair, waiting for the bath water to boil. Something would have to be done about the peeling paint and plaster; in some places the erosion was so bad, red brick lay exposed. The story went that these flats had been erected in an incredibly short time and with very little money. Cheap materials had been used, and sand carted from nearby Chaupatty beach had been mixed in abundance with substandard cement. Now during the monsoon season beads of moisture trickled down the walls, like sweat down a coolie’s back, which considerably hastened the crumbling of paint and plaster.

From time to time, Mehroo pointed out the worsening problem, and Rustomji took refuge in railing at the trustees. But today he did not need to worry. She would never mention it on a day like Behram roje. There was not any time for argument. Her morning had started early: she had got the children ready for school and packed their lunch; cooked dhandar-paatyo and sali-boti for dinner; starched and ironed his white shirt, trousers, and dugli, all washed the night before, and her white blouse, petticoat and sari; and now those infernal people upstairs had made the WC leak. If Gajra, their gunga, did not arrive soon, Mehroo would also have to sweep and mop before she could decorate the entrance with coloured chalk designs, hang up the tohrun (waiting since the flowerwalla’s six A.M. delivery) and spread the fragrance of loban through the flat — it was considered unlucky to omit or change the prescribed sequence of these things.

But celebrating in this manner was Mehroo’s own choice. As far as Rustomji was concerned, these customs were dead and meaningless. Besides, he had repeatedly explained to her what he called the psychology of gungas: “If a particular day is important, never let the gunga know, pretend everything is normal. And never, never ask her to come earlier than usual, for she will deliberately come late.” But Mehroo did not learn; she trusted, confided, and continued to suffer.

Gajra was the latest in a long line of gungas to toil at their house. Before her it had been Tanoo.

For two years, Tanoo came every morning to their flat to sweep and mop, do the dishes, and wash their clothes. A woman in her early seventies, tall and skinny, she was bow-legged and half blind, with an astonishing quantity of wrinkles on her face and limbs. Where her skin was not wrinkled, it was scaly and rough. She had large ears that stuck out under wisps of stringy, coconut-oiled grey hair, and wore spectacles (one lens of which was missing) balanced precariously on a thin pointed nose.

The trouble with Tanoo was that she was always breaking a dish or a cup or a saucer. Mehroo was prepared to overlook the inferior sweeping and mopping; the breakage, however, was a tangible loss which Rustomji said would one day ruin them if a stop was not put to it.

Tanoo was periodically threatened with pay cuts and other grimmer forms of retribution. But despite her good intentions and avowals and resolutions, there was never any improvement. Her dim eyes were further handicapped by hands which shook and fumbled because of old age and the long unhappiness of a life out of which her husband had fled after bringing into it two sons she single-handedly had to raise, and who were now drunkards, lazy good-for-nothings, and the sorrow of her old age.

“Poor, poor Tanoo,” Mehroo would say, helpless to do anything. “Very sad,” Rustomji would agree, but would not do more.

So plates and saucers continued to slip out of Tanoo’s old, weary hands, continued to crash and shatter, causing Rustomji fiscal grief and Mehroo sorrow — sorrow because she knew that Tanoo would have to go. Rustomji too would have liked to feel sorrow and compassion. But he was afraid. He had decided long ago that this was no country for sorrow or compassion or pity — these were worthless and, at best, inappropriate.

There was a time during his college days, as a volunteer with the Social Service League, when he had thought differently (foolishly, he now felt). Sometimes, he still remembered those SSL camps fondly, the long train rides full of singing and merriment to remote villages lacking the most basic of necessities, where they dug roads and wells, built schoolhouses, and taught the villagers. Hard work, all of it, and yet so much fun, what a wonderful gang they had been, like Dara the Daredevil, the way he jumped in and out of moving trains, he called himself the Tom Mix of the locomotive; and Bajun the Banana Champion — at one camp he had eaten twenty-one of them, not small ailchee ones either, regular long green ones; every one had been a real character.

But Rustomji was not one to allow nostalgia to taint the colour of things as he saw them now. He was glad he had put it all behind him.

The way it ended for Tanoo, however, eased the blow a little for Mehroo. Tanoo arranged to leave Bombay and return to the village she had left so long ago, to end her days with her sister’s family there. Mehroo was happy for her. Rustomji heaved a sigh of relief. He had no objections when Mehroo gave her generous gifts at the time of parting. He even suggested getting her a new pair of spectacles. But Tanoo declined the offer, saying she would not have much use for them in the village, with no china plates and saucers to wash.

And so, Tanoo departed and Gajra arrived: young and luscious, and notorious for tardiness.

Coconut hair oil was the only thing Gajra had in common with Tanoo. She was, despite her plumpness, quite pretty; she was, Rustomji secretly thought, voluptuous. And he did not tire of going into the kitchen while Gajra was washing dishes, crouched on her haunches within the parapet of the mori. When still a young boy, Rustomji had heard that most gungas had no use for underwear — neither brassiere or knickers. He had confirmed this several times through observation as a lad in his father’s house. Gajra provided further proof, proof which popped out from beneath her short blouse during the exertion of sweeping or washing. With a deft movement she would tuck back the ample bosom into her choli, unabashed, but not before Rustomji had gazed his fill. Like two prime Ratnagiri mangoes they were, he felt, juicy and golden smooth.

“Her cups runneth over,” he would then gleefully think, remembering time and time again the little joke from his beloved school days at St. Xavier’s. Though not given to proselytizing, the school had a custom of acquainting all its students, Catholic or otherwise, with the Lord’s Prayer and the more popular Psalms.

Rustomji’s one fervent wish was that some day Gajra’s breasts should slip out far enough from under her choli to reveal her nipples. “Dada Ormuzd, just once let me see them, only once,” he would yearn in his depths, trying to picture the nipples: now dark brown and the size of a gram but with the hidden power to swell; now uncontrollably aroused and black, large and pointed.

While waiting for his wish to come true, Rustomji enjoyed watching Gajra modify her sari each morning before she started work: she hauled it up between her thighs and tucked it in around the waist so it would not get wet in the mori. When altered like this, the layers produced a very large, very masculine lump over the crotch. But her movements while she, steatopygic, completed her daily transformation — bending her knees, thighs apart, patting her behind to smooth down the fabric — were extremely erotic for Rustomji.

Mehroo was usually present when this went on, so he would have to pretend to read the Times of India, looking surreptitiously from behind or over or under and taking his chances. Sometimes, he remembered a little Marathi rhyme he had picked up as a boy. It formed part of a song which was sung at every boisterous, rollicking party his father used to give for his Parsi colleagues from Central Bank. At that time, little Rustom had not understood the meaning, but it went:

Sakubai la zaoli

Dadra chi khalti…

After many years and many parties, as Rustom grew up, he was allowed to sit with the guests instead of being sent out to play in the compound. The day came when he was allowed his first sip of Scotch and soda from his father’s glass. Mother had protested that he was too young, but father had said, “What is there in one sip, you think he will become a drunkard?” Rustom had enjoyed that first sip and had wanted more, to the delight of the guests. “Takes after his father, really likes his peg!” they had guffawed.

It was also around this time that Rustom started to understand the meaning of the rhyme and the song: it was about the encounter of a Parsi gentleman with a gunga he caught napping under a dark stairwell — he seduces her quite easily, then goes his merry way. Later, Rustom had sung it to his friends in St. Xavier’s, the song which he remembered today, on Behram roje, in his easy chair with the Times of India. He hoped Gajra would arrive before Mehroo finished using Hirabai’s telephone. He could then ogle brazenly, unhindered.

But even as Rustomji thought his impure thoughts and relished them all, Mehroo returned; the office had promised to send the plumber right away. “I told him ‘Bawa, you are a Parsi too, you know how very important Behram roje is’ and he said he understands, he will have the WC repaired today.”

“The bloody swine understands? Hah! Now he knows it, he will purposely delay, to make you miserable. Go, be frank with the whole world; go, be unhappy.” And Mehroo went, to make his tea.

The doorbell rang. Rustomji knew it must be Gajra. But even as he hurried to answer it, he sensed he was walking towards another zone of frustration, that his concupiscence would be thwarted as rudely as his bowels.

His instinct proved accurate. Mehroo rushed out from the kitchen as fast as her flopping slippers would allow, scolding and shooing Gajra away to do only the sweeping — the rest could wait till tomorrow — and leave. Sulking, Rustomji returned to the Times of India.

Mehroo then hurriedly made chalk designs at the entrance, not half as elaborate or colourful as planned. Time was running out; she had to get to the fire-temple by eleven. Dreading the inauspiciousness of a delay, she hung a tohrun over each doorway (the flowers, languishing since six A.M., luckily retained a spark of life) and went to dress.

When she was ready to leave, Rustomji was still coaxing his bowels with tea. Disgruntled over Gajra’s abrupt departure, he nursed his loss silently, blaming Mehroo. “You go ahead,” he said, “I will meet you at the fire-temple.”

Mehroo took the H route bus. She looked radiant in her white sari, worn the Parsi way, across the right shoulder and over the forehead. The H route bus meandered through narrow streets of squalor once it left the Firozsha Baag neighbourhood. It went via Bhindi Bazaar, through Lohar Chawl and Crawford Market, crawling painfully amidst the traffic of cars and people, handcarts and trucks.

Usually, during a bus ride to the fire-temple, Mehroo attentively watched the scenes unfolding as the bus made its creeping way, wondering at the resilient ingenuity with which life was made liveable inside dingy little holes and inhospitable, frightful structures. Now, however, Mehroo sat oblivious to the bustle and meanness of lives on these narrow streets. None of it pierced the serenity with which she anticipated the perfect peace and calm she would soon be a part of inside the fire-temple.

She looked with pleasure at the white sari draping her person, and adjusted the border over her forehead. When she returned home, the sari would be full of the fragrance of sandalwood, absorbed from the smoke of the sacred fire. She would hang it up beside her bed instead of washing it, to savour the fragrance as long as it lasted. She remembered how, as a child, she would wait for her mother to return from the fire-temple so she could bury her face in her lap and breathe in the sandalwood smell. Her father’s dugli gave off the same perfume, but her mother’s white sari was better, it felt so soft. Then there was the ritual of chasni: all the brothers and sisters wearing their prayer caps would eagerly sit around the dining-table to partake of the fruit and sweets blessed during the day’s prayer ceremonies.

Mehroo was a little saddened when she thought of her own children, who did not give a second thought to these things; she had to coax them to finish the chasni or it would sit for days, unnoticed and untouched.

Even as a child, Mehroo had adored going to the fire-temple. She loved its smells, its tranquillity, its priests in white performing their elegant, mystical rituals. Best of all she loved the inner sanctuary, the sanctum sanctorum, dark and mysterious, with marble floor and marble walls, which only the officiating priest could enter, to tend to the sacred fire burning in the huge, shining silver afargaan on its marble pedestal. She felt she could sit for hours outside the sanctuary, watching the flames in their dance of life, seeing the sparks fly up the enormous dark dome resembling the sky. It was her own private key to the universe, somehow making less frightening the notions of eternity and infinity.

In high school she would visit the fire-temple before exam week. Her offering of a sandalwood stick would be deposited in the silver tray at the door of the inner sanctuary, and she would reverently smear her forehead and throat with the grey ash left in the tray for this purpose. Dustoor Dhunjisha, in his flowing white robe, would always be there to greet her with a hug, always addressing her as his dear daughter. The smell of his robe would remind her of mother’s sari fragrant with sandalwood. Serene and fortified, she would go to write her exam.

Dustoor Dhunjisha was now almost seventy-five, and was not always around when Mehroo went to the fire-temple. Some days, when he did not feel well, he stayed in his room and let a younger priest look after the business of prayer and worship. But today she hoped he would be present; she wanted to see that gentle face from her childhood, the long white beard, the reassuring paunch.

After marrying Rustomji and moving into Firozsha Baag, Mehroo had continued to go to Dustoor Dhunjisha for all ceremonies. In this, she risked the ire of the dustoorji who lived in their own block on the second floor. The latter believed that he had first claim to the business of Firozsha Baag tenants, that they should all patronize his nearby agyaari as long as he could accommodate them. But Mehroo persisted in her loyalty to Dhunjisha. She paid no attention to the high dudgeon the A Block priest directed at her, or to Rustomji’s charges.

Under the priestly garb of Dhunjisha, protested Rustomji, lurked a salacious old man taking advantage of his venerable image: “Loves to touch and feel women, the old goat — the younger and fleshier, the more fun he has hugging and squeezing them.” Mehroo did not believe it for a moment. She was always pleading with him not to say nasty things about such a holy figure.

But this was not all. Rustomji swore that Dhunjisha and his ilk had been known to exchange lewd remarks between lines of prayer, to slip them in amidst scripture recitals, especially on days of ceremony when sleek nubile women in their colourful finery attended in large numbers. The oft-repeated Ashem Vahoo was his favourite example:

Ashem Vahoo,

See the tits on that chickie-boo …

This version was a popular joke among the less religious, and Mehroo dismissed it as more of Rustomji’s irreverence. He assured her they did it very skilfully and thus went undetected. Besides, the white kerchief all dustoors were required to wear over the nose and mouth, like masked bandits, to keep their breath from polluting the sacred fire, made it difficult to hear their muttering in the first place. Rustomji claimed it took a trained ear to sift through their mumbles and separate the prayers from the obscenities.

The H route bus stopped at Marine Lines. Mehroo alighted and walked down Princess Street, wondering about the heavy traffic. Cars and buses were backed up all the way on the flyover from Princess Street to Marine Drive.

She neared the fire-temple and saw parked outside its locked gates two police cars and a police van. Her step quickened. The last time the gates had been closed, as far as she knew, was during the Hindu-Muslim riots following partition; she was afraid to think what calamity had now come to pass. Parsis and non-Parsis were craning and peering through the bars of the gates; the same human curiosity had touched them all. A policeman was trying to persuade them to disperse.

Mehroo lingered on the periphery of the crowd, irresolute, then plunged into it. She saw Dustoor Kotwal leave the temple building and walk purposefully towards the gate. Jostling her way through the milling people, she attempted to get his attention. He was, like Dustoor Dhunjisha, a resident temple priest, and knew her well.

Dustoor Kotwal had an announcement for the Parsis: “All prayers and ceremonies scheduled for today have been cancelled, except the prayers for the dead.” He was gone before Mehroo could reach the gate.

She now began to pick up alarming words in the crowd: “ … murdered last night … stabbed in the back … police and CID ….” Her spirits faltered. All this on Behram roje which she had done everything to make perfect? Why were things being so cruelly wrenched out of her control? She made up her mind to stay till she could speak to someone who knew what had happened.

Rustomji finished his cup of tea as Mehroo left. He decided to wait awhile before his bath, to give his obdurate bowels one more chance.

But after another ten minutes of the Times of India and not a murmur from his depths, he gave up. Getting things ready for the bath, he arched his back till his bottom stuck out, then raised one foot slightly and tensed. Nothing happened. Not even a little fart. He inspected his dugli and trousers: the starch was just right — not too limp, not too stiff. He rubbed his stomach and hoped he would not have to go later at the fire-temple; the WC there was horrid, with urine usually spattered outside the toilet bowl or excrement not flushed away. To look at it, it was not Parsis who used the WC, he felt, but uneducated, filthy, ignorant barbarians.

Rustomji performed his ablutions, trying to forget the disgusting leak from above while he had squatted below. Fortunately, with every mugful of hot water he scooped from the bucket and poured down his back, splashed on his face, and felt trickle down his crotch and thighs, that foul leak was reduced to a memory growing dimmer by the moment; the cleansing water which flowed down the drain swept away what remained of that memory to a distant remove; and once he had dried himself, it was blotted out completely. Rustomji was whole again.

Now all that lingered was the fresh refreshing scent, as the advertisement proclaimed, of lifegiving Lifebuoy Soap. Lifebuoy Soap and Johnnie Walker Scotch were the only two items which endured in the sumptuary laws passed down to Rustomji through three generations, and he relished them both. The one change wrought by the passing years was that Johnnie Walker Scotch, freely available under the British, could now be obtained only on the black market, and was responsible for Rustomji’s continuing grief over the British departure.

Emerging from the bathroom, he was pleased to discover his bowels no longer bothered him. The desultoriness plaguing his morning hours had fled, and a new alacrity took charge of his actions. The bows on the dugli gave him some trouble as he dressed, usually it was Mehroo who tied these. But in his present mood he was more than a match for them. With a last brush to his brilliantined hair he perched the pheytoe on it, gave a final tug of encouragement to the bows and surveyed himself in the mirror. Pleased with what he saw, he was ready for the fire-temple.

The H route bus stop was his destination as he stepped out buoyantly. The compound was deserted, the boys were all at school. In the evening, their noisy games would fill it with rowdiness and nuisance that he would have to combat if he was to enjoy peace and quiet. Confident of his control over them, he decided to pass the H route bus stop and walk further, to the A-1 Express, past Tar Gully and its menacing mouth. His starchy whiteness aroused in him feelings of resplendence and invincibility, and he had no objection to the viewing of his progress by the street.

There was a long queue at the A-1 bus stop. Rustomji disregarded the entire twisting, curving length and stationed himself at the head. He stared benignly into space, deaf to the protests of the queue’s serpentine windings, and pondered the options of upper deck and lower deck. He decided on the lower — it might prove difficult to negotiate the steep flight of steps to the upper with as much poise as befitted his attire.

The bus arrived and the conductor was yelling out, even before it came to a standstill, “Upper deck upper deck! Everybody upper deck!” Rustomji, of course, had already settled the question. Ignoring the conductor, he grasped the overhead railing and stood jauntily on the lower deck. The usually belligerent conductor said nothing.

The bus approached Marine Lines, and Rustomji moved towards the door to prepare for his descent. He managed quite well despite the rough and bumpy passage of the bus. Without bruising his mien or his attire, he reached the door and waited.

But unbeknownst to Rustomji, on the upper deck sat fate in the form of a mouth chewing tobacco and betel nut, a mouth with a surfeit of juice and aching jaws crying for relief. And when the bus halted at Marine Lines, fate leaned out the window to release a generous quantity of sticky, viscous, dark red stuff.

Dugli gleaming in the midday sun, Rustomji emerged and stepped to the pavement. The squirt of tobacco juice caught him between the shoulder blades: blood red on sparkling white.

Rustomji felt it and whirled around. Looking up, he saw a face with crimson lips trickling juice, mouth chewing contentedly, and in an instant knew what had happened. He roared in agony, helpless, screaming as painfully as though it was a knife in the back, while the bus slowly pulled away.

“Saala gandoo! Filthy son of a whore! Shameless animal — spitting paan from the bus! Smash your face I will, you pimp …”

A small crowd gathered around Rustomji. Some were curious, a few sympathetic; but most were enjoying themselves.

“What happened? Who hurt the…

“Tch tch, someone spat paan on his dugli…

“Heh heh heh! Bawaji got paan pichkari right on his white dugli…

“Bawaji bawaji, dugli looks very nice now, red and white, just like in technicolor…”

The taunting and teasing added to the outrage of tobacco juice made Rustomji do something dangerously foolish. He diverted his anger from the harmlessly receding bus to the crowd, overlooking the fact that unlike the bus, it was close enough to answer his vituperation with fury of its own.

“Arré you sisterfucking ghatis, what are you laughing for? Have you no shame? Saala chootia spat paan on my dugli and you think that is fun?”

A ripple of tension went through the crowd. It displaced the former lighthearted teasing they were indulging in at the spectacle of the paan-drenched bawaji.

“Arré who does he think he is, abusing us, giving such bad-bad ghali?” Someone pushed Rustomji from behind.

“Bawaji, we’ll break all your bones. Maaro saala bawajiko!” Beat up the bloody bawaji.

“Arré your arse we’ll tear to shreds!” People were jostling him from every side. The pheytoe was plucked from his head, and they tugged at the bows of the dugli.

All anger forgotten, Rustomji feared for his person. He knew he was in serious trouble. Not one friendly face in this group which was now looking for fun of a different sort. In panic he tried to undo the hostility: “Arré please yaar, why harass an old man? Jaané dé, yaar. Let me go, friends.”

Then his desperate search for a way out was rewarded — a sudden inspiration which just might work. He reached his fingers into his mouth, dislodged the dentures, and spat them out onto his palm. Two filaments of saliva, sparkling in the midday sun, momentarily connected the dentures to his gums. They finally broke and dribbled down his chin. With much effort and spittle, he sputtered: “Look, such an old man, no teeth even,” and held out his hand for viewing.

The collapsed mouth and flapping lips appeased everyone. A general tittering spread through the assembly. Rustomji the clown was triumphant. He had restored to himself the harmlessness of the original entertaining spectacle, pheytoe back on head, teeth back in mouth.

Then, under the amused gaze of the crowd, Rustomji undid the bows of the dugli and removed it. Going to the fire-temple was out of the question. Tears of shame and rage welled in his eyes, and through the mist he saw the blood-red blotch. With the dugli off he still felt a little damp on the back — the juice had penetrated his shirt and sudra as well. For the second time that day he had been soiled in a most repulsive way.

Someone handed him a newspaper to wrap the dugli in; another picked up the packet of sandalwood he had dropped. At that moment, when Rustomji looked most helpless, a bus arrived and the crowd departed.

He was left alone, holding the newspapered dugli and the sandalwood in brown paper. The angle of his pheytoe had shifted, and he no longer looked or felt unassailable. Feebly, he hailed a taxi. It was a small Morris, and he had to stoop low to get in, to keep the pheytoe from being knocked off his head.

The horror of what Mehroo had found out at the fire-temple abated on the way home. Her thoughts turned to Rustomji; surely he should have finished his bath and arrived at the fire-temple, she had waited there for over two hours, first outside the gates, then inside. Maybe Rustomji has already found out, she hoped, maybe he knows the prayers were cancelled.

She turned the latchkey and entered the flat. Rustomji lay sprawled on the easy chair. Thrown on the teapoy beside him was his dugli, the blood-red paan stain prominent.

He was surprised to see her back so soon, looking so distressed. Mehroo always came from the fire-temple with something resembling beatitude shining on her face. Today she looked as though she had seen sataan himself inside the fire-temple, thought Rustomji.

She moved closer to the teapoy, and the light caught the dugli. She shrieked in terror: “Dustoor Dhunjisha’s dugli! But … but … how did you —?”

“What rubbish are you talking again? Some swine spat paan on my dugli.” He decided not to mention his narrow escape. “Why would I have that fat rascal Dhunjisha’s dugli?”

Mehroo sat down weakly. “God forgive you your words, you do not know Dustoor Dhunjisha was murdered!”

“What! In the fire-temple? But who would —?”

“I will tell you everything if you wait for one minute. First I need a drink of water, I feel so tired.”

Rustomji’s stolidity was pierced through. He hurried to the kitchen for a glass of water. Mehroo then told how Dhunjisha had been stabbed by a chasniwalla employed at the fire-temple. The chasniwalla had confessed. He was trying to steal some silver trays from the fire-temple when Dhunjisha had unwittingly wandered into the room; the chasniwalla panicked and killed him. Then, to be rid of the corpse, he threw it in the sacred fire-temple well.

“They found the body this morning,” continued Mehroo. “I was let inside later on, and the police were examining the body, nothing had been removed, he was still wearing his dugli, it looked exactly like…” She motioned towards Rustomji’s on the teapoy, shuddered, and fell silent.

She began to busy herself. She carried her glass back to the kitchen along with Rustomji’s teacup from earlier that morning, and lit the stove to get lunch ready. She came back, examined the blot of paan on his dugli and wondered aloud about the best way to remove the stain, then was silent again.

Rustomji heaved a sigh. “What is happening in the world I don’t know. Parsi killing Parsi … chasniwalla and dustoor…”

He, too, fell silent, slowly shaking his head. He gazed pensively at the walls and ceiling, where bits of paint and plaster were waiting to peel, waiting to fall into their pots and pans, their vessels of water, their lives. Tomorrow, Gajra would come and sweep away the flakes of white from the floor; she would clean out the pots and pans, and fill fresh water into the vessels. The Times of India would arrive, he would read it as he sipped his tea, and see Nariman Hansotia drive past in his 1932 Mercedes-Benz to the Cawasji Framji Memorial Library to read the daily papers from around the world. Mehroo would wipe away with water the coloured chalk designs at the front entrance and take down the tohrun from over the doorways — the flowers would be dry shrunken scraps by morning.

Mehroo looked at Rustomji musing on the easy chair, and felt inside herself the melancholy of his troubled, distant gaze. This rare glimpse of the softness underneath his tough exterior touched her. She slipped away quietly to the bedroom, to change her sari.

The unravelled yards of crumpled fabric, unredeemed by sandalwood fragrance, were deposited on the bed. There was no point in folding and hanging up the sari beside the bed, it could go straight for washing. She regarded it with something close to despair and noticed, on the wall beside the bed, marks left by trickling water from last year’s rains.

This year’s monsoons were due soon; they would wash clean the narrow streets she had passed through that morning on her way to the fire-temple. And in the flat the rain would send new beads of moisture, to replace last year’s marks with new imprints.

The aroma of dhandar-paatyo, wafting from the kitchen, gently penetrated her meditation. It reminded her that Behram roje was not over yet. But she returned to the kitchen and put off the stove — it would still be a while to lunch, she knew. Instead, she prepared two cups of tea. Between ten A.M. and four P.M. she never drank tea, it was one of her strictest rules. Today, for Rustomji’s sake, she would make an exception.

She went back to him, asked if he was ready for lunch and, receiving the anticipated refusal, smiled to herself with a tender satisfaction — how well she knew her Rustomji. She felt very close to him at this moment.

He shook his head slowly from side to side, gazing pensively into the distance. “Stomach is still heavy. Must be constipated.”

“And the WC?”

“Still leaking.”

She re-emerged with the two cups she had left ready in the kitchen: “Another cup of tea then?”

Rustomji nodded gratefully.