Tales From Firozsha Baag

Exercisers

If you don’t want to take our word for it,” said Jehangir Bulsara’s parents to him, “that’s fine. Ask Bhagwan Baba. Let him decide, with his holy wisdom, that the girl is unsuitable for you.”

That was last week. Now the day of the journey was here; Mr. and Mrs. Bulsara, with Jehangir, were bound for Bhagwan Baba’s dwelling place in the suburbs. From outside the gates of Firozsha Baag they took the bus to Bombay Central Station, and boarded the Sunday morning local.

Such guidance-seeking train journeys were customary for the parents, but this one was solely for Jehangir’s benefit. “Your entire life’s happiness is at stake,” they had insisted. “When Bhagwan Baba speaks your eyes will open, all will become clear.”

At first, Jehangir had refused to go. But: “You had double pneumonia when you were eight,” Father had reminded him, “and even the doctor was despairing. I came to Bhagwan Baba and your health returned.”

And Mother added, “After Father lost his job, who do you think helped, his friends, our relatives, who? Bhagwan Baba, and we have enough to eat and wear, thanks to him.”

Thus it went, although the examples were dredged with difficulty out of the past. Due to the passage of time they had relinquished the greater part of their preternatural lustre, and appeared in a disappointingly mundane light. But when Jehangir was younger, he used to think it wonderful that there was a Baba who aided his mother and father with blessings and advice and kind words. Life was hard, always full of want and worry, and assistance from any quarter was welcome. The little boy who used to sit on the steps of C Block to watch the others at play, and who used to spend Sunday mornings with Dr. Mody and his stamps, would ask God every night to help his father and mother.

The boy was now nineteen and in his third year at university, but he still carried the distinct memories of poverty and anxiety, memories of envelopes labelled Rent, School Fees, Ration, Kerosene, Light, and Water, envelopes which were forever examined and shuffled and re-examined because there was never enough money in them (and never would be), and were worn ragged and tattered along the edges due to such constant handling and scrutinizing, as if the shuffling and sorting and re-examining would lead to some discovery that would make the money last longer.

So in the end Jehangir agreed to consult the holy man of the suburbs and let him exercise his tenuous infallibility. He looked out of the train window. What he had not realized, till the moment of boarding, was the full baseness of it all. It struck suddenly, in the pit of his stomach, like nausea. Cringing inwardly, he wondered what she would say if she knew about the act of betrayal he was shortly to perpetrate. Probably despise him forever, and he would deserve it.

The suburban local was at the outskirts of Bombay; they would arrive at their destination in forty-five minutes. The “17 Standees Allowed” by the scratched and peeling sign had already been exceeded by the crush of Sunday morning commuters, but not to the extent of a weekday train: as yet, there were no roof-riders or window-clingers. In the sky the sun was higher than when the train left Bombay Central. The heat began to strengthen rapidly now, seeming to feed on itself, growing more oppressive with every breath. From metal straps hung the standees, listless, upraised arms revealing identical damp patches under sleeves of shirts and blouses. Overhead, the fans turned ineffectively, whirring and rattling, their blades labouring with feeble rotations, trying to chop the air thick with heat and odour, scattering it around uselessly in the compartment.

In fitful sleep his parents leaned against each other. They swayed as one with the train’s motion, on the wooden bench that constituted third-class seats. The bench, and the compartment in general, was randomly adorned with red stains of paan: the oral effluences of past passengers, relics of journeys done and gone. Time and dust had done their work, too, aging and dulling the tobacco-betel-nut juices to varying degrees of redness.

Mother held a brown paper bag in her lap. It contained three oranges and three bananas for Bhagwan Baba. Offerings were not compulsory but people brought gifts out of gratitude, she had explained to Jehangir: “And Bhagwan Baba usually gives back half after blessing it. Very rich people bring expensive gifts, boxes of almonds and pistachios, large cartons of mithat, whole baskets of prime alphonso mango, sometimes even jewellery. But the beautiful thing is, he does no more for them than he does for the poorest. It is one of the signs of his saintliness.”

All in the compartment were now asleep or trying to attain that envious state. Even the ones hanging from the straps like drowsy trapeze artists, lost in a swaying, somnolent exercise. Occasionally a new set of people entered when the train stopped. They were noisy and fidgety at first. But the contagion of lethargy quickly subdued them. They fell silent under the spell of the whirring fans which swivelled jerkily from side to side. With a nervous tic, twitching like victims of a heat-induced malady.

Sleep was one way to escape the discomfort; Jehangir shut his eyes to see if he could. He ceased bracing himself against the movement of the train, allowed the head and shoulders to droop forward to sway, and let his whole body sway with the train, unresisting. Like his parents’ opposite him, his movement became one with the movement of the compartment. Rolling to and fro, swaying side to side, as the train decreed. Surrendering to the torridity of the air and the hypnotic drone of the fans, the close click-click of the standees’ metal straps and the seemingly remote clackety-clack of the rails, he was ready to cross over from the edge of torpor into slumber, succumbing slowly to the swaying, swaying slowly.

The train stopped, and Jehangir straightened with a start. Did I really fall asleep? He anxiously scanned the platform for the station’s name. No, this was not the one. The compartment lurched into motion. The train resumed its journey, and the possibility of sleep was now crowded out by thoughts of Bhagwan Baba, his parents, and her; but mainly of her.

She was the first girl he had ever gone out with.

Jehangir’s school years had been devoid of girls. His parents could not afford the exorbitant fees which, for some peculiar reason, were common to all coeducational high schools, and from whence issued rumours, periodically, about students being “dismissed for attempting sexual intercourse on school property.” The rumours, vicariously relished and savoured when they reached the boys’ schools, fuelled and stoked high the envy and frustration rife within those walls. Their occupants had a heavy study load. Besides the regular subjects, they learned to forgo things taken for granted by their wealthy counterparts in coeducational schools — things such as music lessons, camping trips, and guided tours to Jammu and Kashmir. But they discovered ways to make up for it. They learned how to use their eyes to undress their female teacher and gaze longingly at the outline of her bra, drop erasers or pencils and linger at floor level to retrieve them while she sat at her desk on an elevated platform (the days when she wore a sari were barren, black days), and carry home unforgettable images of flowery panties.

These pursuits went a long way in honing imaginations and developing agility and suppleness in tight places. Unfortunately, the supply of female teachers dwindled drastically in the higher grades, when their need was greatest. But the students believed that within the egalitarianism of university life all wrongs would be righted, and continued to believe until they arrived, bright-eyed and optimistic despite their awkwardness, to discover their faith had been groundless.

Jehangir had been trapped in St. Xavier’s Boys School; its effects lingered, and even in college his first two years had been fallow. He lacked the sophistication of the chaps from coeducational schools, in their Levi’s and other imported clothes, who took pleasure in flaunting the ease with which they mingled and joked in the college canteen before the gawky ones from boys’ schools or the “vernacs” from non-English medium schools (at the bottom of the sophistication hierarchy) who continued shamefacedly to clothe themselves in old school uniforms at their parents’ insistence to get the frill wear out of them.

Jehangir suffered the superciliousness of the boys from coeducational schools with a silent rage. Sometimes he was consumed by bouts of inferiority which he palliated by trying to accept with calm resignation that the gulf between them and him was no wider than the one between him and the dolts in Firozsha Baag. But such fatalism did not make things less embittering. He despised their sardonic comments to the innocent ones who kept using ‘periods’ instead of ‘lectures’: “Periods, my friend, occur for menstruating females and schoolboys. In college we attend lectures.” He envied their long and loud laughter laden with confidence, their clearly forceful and distinct speech during class discussions, which he could not help but compare to the diffident mumbles of the others.

He observed them, tried to learn from them and be like them, but remained inevitably mired in his reticence when it came to girls.

She started talking to him one day while they waited for choir practice to begin. It had taken a lot of courage, two years’ worth of it, to join the college choir. As he correctly guessed, it was comprised mainly of members of that hateful species from coeducational schools who, in addition to their sartorial advantage, came equipped with prior experience from school choirs and corresponding portions of arrogance. All he had was a love of music and a good but untrained ear. After the first meeting he decided never to go again. He had felt like a gatecrasher at an exclusive party.

But a week went by during which he re-collectéd his courage, and the day for choir practice arrived. She was a soprano, he sang bass. She started the conversation, and Jehangir was relieved to find he had no trouble keeping it going. She had a lot to say, especially about Claude, the conductor: “The pompous jackass thinks all the girls in the choir are his personal property. The next time he puts his arm around me, I’m going to take his baton and poke it in his froggy eyes.” Jehangir laughed, surprised at how naturally it came.

They had talked often after that. His fear of blushing when spoken to, or stumbling over his words if he thought they were being overheard gradually diminished. They discovered a common interest in reading; and she invited him to her house. He borrowed books, met her parents, and went back often for more. She sometimes mentioned movies she had seen or wanted to see, and how it would be fun to go together, but they always stopped short of making definite plans.

Jehangir had never been much of a cinema-goer. Amidst the bunch of envelopes marked Rent, Water, Light, and others, the last was labelled Pocket Money. But this one always stayed empty. And if sometimes he had enough money for a cinema ticket, there was no one at school or in Firozsha Baag he really cared to go with. The low opinion he had of the boys in the Baag, formed during the days of Pesi paadmaroo and the misery his life had been then, persisted. He preferred to sit on the steps of C Block and read, or watch the activity in the compound. Sometimes, he heard them heroically recounting their feats in the cinema: chucking paper balls of empty potato-chip bags at strangers, or hooting and whistling in the dark to provoke shushing sounds from the audience. He felt nothing but contempt for their puerile antics. A delight in Nariman Hansotia’s yarns on the steps of A Block was the only thing he shared with them.

When Mrs. Bulsara decided he was old enough to go out alone provided he always returned by eight o’clock, Jehangir varied the routine of his evenings. He began going for walks to the Hanging Gardens. His favourite place there was the children’s playground after the children left at dusk. Then, it was occupied by men who transformed it into a gym every night. They came regularly, and improvised by using the various combinations of bars and railings of the slide or swing for pull-ups and push-ups, and the plank of the see-saw for sit-ups. They must have had an arrangement with the night-watchman, because the playground was strictly for children. Jehangir, hidden behind a bush or tree, watched the exercisers. They fascinated him. Their rippling, sweating muscles were magnified versions of the bodies of the boys in the school gym. Watching their powerful torsos and limbs had a strange effect on his own skinny body, it sometimes triggered a longing for brawn and sinew in his slender arms and legs.

Later, in college, Jehangir stopped going to the Hanging Gardens. He was suddenly very conscious of his aloneness, and felt silly wandering around amidst ayahs with children or couples looking for solitude. Hiding and watching the exercisers did not seem right, either.

The cinema became his new haunt. In the dark movie theatres it did not matter that he was alone. If he sat next to a girl, he would fantasize that she had come with him and was throbbing just like him. He let his elbow touch her arm as if by accident on the armrest they shared. When she edged past him during intermission or after the movie, he gently grazed the back of her thighs with his knees, almost like a light caress. He would manoeuvre to make a show of allowing her maximum room, but made sure to get the most feel. Those were moments of pure ecstasy, moments which he re-lived in bed at night. Sometimes, if there was a particularly active couple next to him, he spent more time watching them than the screen, employing the contortions of a head trained in school under desks and benches. But a stiff neck and an ache at his centre were his only companions when he emerged from the theatre.

Several choir practices later, she went with him to the cinema, and Jehangir found it hard to believe that he had not come alone again to the darkened hall of possibilities. After the intermission she was gently massaging her right wrist, having sprained it the day before. He asked if it was hurting terribly, and later remembered the moment with pride, that he had had the courage and presence of mind to stroke the wrist without a word when she held it out for him over his lap. The stirring which began at his centre swelled with each stroke; after a while their fingers entwined, clumsily, until the index, middle, and ring found their proper places, and interlocked in a tight clasp. He was tremendously aroused but did not dare do anything else. Much too soon the flag appeared on the screen and the audience rose for Jana Gana Mana. His tremendous arousal was quickly doused. All that remained was a nasty ache, the unpleasant residue of lust unreleased, as though he had been kneed in the groin.

It was a while since the train had stopped at a station. Jehangir crossed his legs. He was disgusted with himself. Getting excited again at the mere memory of holding hands. He had read in various magazines and books that boys of fifteen in America enjoyed regular sex, and had the privacy to do it, while he at nineteen was still a virgin, worked up just at the thought of holding her hand, and it was all very unfair and frustrating.

The train was passing by farmland. The fields were sere, brown and bare, and the little vegetation persisting tenaciously was parched yellow. The monsoons were late again, and here, outside the city, the delay was writ harsh across the landscape.

In the city, too, there were hardships. The quota of tap water had been curtailed, and Jehangir had been waking up at five A.M. for the past month to help Mother fill up storage drums for bathing and cleaning and cooking, before the supply was cut off at six A.M.

Scrawny cattle foraged amidst the stubble in the fields. Telegraph poles whizzed by, menacingly close. Poles which periodically cracked open the skulls of commuters who travelled hanging from doors and windows, and provided fodder for the death toll faithfully recorded by city newspapers. A death toll sharing the inconspicuity of inside pages. Side by side with assaults on scheduled castes in one village and murders of harijans by brahmins in another.

When he had brought her home the first time, it had been for a very short visit. He had warned his parents beforehand, praying that Mother would take the hint and remove the mathoobanoo from her head; the white mulmul square made her look like a backward village Parsi from Navsari, he had recently decided. But he was not spared what he thought was a moment of shame and embarrassment. There were quick introductions and several awkward silences, then they left for choir practice.

Later, when Jehangir returned, Mother said during dinner that he should not be seeing so much of the girl. “This is not the time for going out with girls anyway. The proper time will come after finishing college, when you are earning your own living and can afford it.” In the meantime, if he did go out occasionally after asking for permission, he would have to continue to be home by eight o’clock. It would not do to stay out later than that and let things get too serious.

Jehangir said that he would be home by eight if she did not wear that mathoobanoo.

“I am not going to tolerate your ifs-bifs,” said Mrs. Bulsara, covering her hurt with brusqueness, “what I am saying is for your own good.” It was obvious, she said, that the girl came from a family better off than they were, her life-style would make him uncomfortable. “Trust a mother’s instinct. It is only your happiness I think of. Besides, she is the first girl you have gone out with, you might meet someone you like more. Then what?”

“Then I’ll stop going out with her.”

“But what of her feelings? You might be giving her serious hopes.”

“No one has any serious hopes. It’s so silly, all these objections.”

“It is always a serious matter where a girl is involved. You will not understand that at your age.”

Dinner finished without any real unpleasantry. But not for many nights after that. The dinner-table talk grew sharper as days passed. At first, words were chosen carefully in an effort to preserve a semblance of democratic discussion. Soon, however, the tensions outgrew all such efforts, and a nightly routine of debilitating sarcasm established itself. Every dinner saw the same denunciations brought forth, sometimes with a new barb twisted through them.

“There’s something about the way she talks. Without proper respect.”

“Saw what she was wearing? Such a short skirt. And too much makeup.”

“Because you are going out with her you think electricity is free of charge? Ironing shirt and pant from morning till evening.” The ancient dented serving-spoon, descended through hands of foremothers, struck the pot of brinjal with a plangency denoting more to come.

“Why must a girl wear so much makeup unless she is hiding something underneath.”

“Shines his shoes till I can see my unhappy face. More shoe polish has been used after meeting her than in all the years before.”

“If she does not respect your parents, how will she respect you? Your whole life will be unhappy.”

Father said only one thing. “Trust your mother’s instincts. I always do, they are never wrong.”

Things rapidly became worse. Not a day passed without quarrelling. They said things to each other which they would not have dreamt of saying at one time; bitter, vindictive things. Every few days there was a reconciliation at Father’s insistence, with sincere hugs and tears of remorse which sprang from the depths of their beings, so fervent was the desire to let peace and understanding reign again. But this would last for a short time only. The strange new emotions and forces which had taken hold, indecipherable and inscrutable, would soon be manifest again; then the quarrels and hurtful words would resume.

After the first few visits Jehangir did not bring her home any more. Besides, she always refused to come under some pretext — she had felt the antagonism that silently burgeoned on her arrival. There was no outward sign of it, on the surface all was decorum and grace, welcome and kindness. But to sense what lay underneath did not take much. She also picked up the unintentional hints he dropped during those evenings when they met after an excessively trying time at home. Then she would try to help him, and before they parted he would agree to stand up to his parents, become independent, and many more promises.

But the promises were always smothered by a fresh wave of reproaches awaiting him at home. If he managed to speak in the spirit of autonomy that she had inspired in him earlier in the evening, it still turned out unfavourably.

“See?” Mother would say with mournful satisfaction, “see how it proves my point that she is a bad influence? He goes to her and returns with such cruel words in his mouth. And who put them there, that is all I am asking. Because such words were not there before. Now I must start all over again to remove her effect on him. Then he will be more like the son I once knew. But how long can I go on like this, how long?” she would conclude dolefully, whereupon Jehangir abandoned the balance of his painstakingly prepared words.

He looked at his parents now, supporting each other as they slept through heat and dust. The photograph was in his wallet. They had told him to bring it along. He had taken it with her camera during the college picnic at Elephanta Caves. She later gave him a copy. It was a black-and-white, and as he gazed at it he could feel the soft brown of her eyes drawing him in, ready to do her will. The will of my enchantress, he liked to imagine.

Mother had taken to going through his trousers and wallet. He was aware of these secret searches but had said nothing, not wanting to add to her sorrow and to the bitterness that filled the house.

The day after he received the photograph, she triumphantly found it: “What is this, why must you carry her photo with you?”

“What right did you have to look in my wallet?”

“What right? What right, he says! To his own mother he says what right! A mother does not need any rights. A mother exercises her judgement out of love. A mother does whatever she knows is right for her son.”

The photograph was brought up constantly for days after, and with each passing day the rhetoric grew increasingly forceful and wildly inventive.

“It is not enough to see her makeup-covered face in the evening. He must also keep her photograph.”

“People have been made to go crazy by a photo with a magic spell on it. Maybe her parents are involved in this, trying to snare my son for their daughter.”

“She knows you will go to study in America one day and settle there. By thrusting her photo on you she is making sure you will sponsor her. Oh yes, it begins with a photograph.”

“Be careful you don’t forget your own mother’s face, you don’t have much time to see it these days.”

And always, the eight o’clock ultimatum: “Remember, the door will never open for you after eight o’clock.”

In the end Mother was glad to have the photograph. “One good thing she did by giving it to you. Now we have something to show Bhagwan Baba.”

The train braked in preparation for the approaching station. A kayrawalli climbed aboard to flop upon the floor with her basket of plantains. She mopped her brow with one corner of her sari, rubbed her eyes, and sat with drawn-up knees after administering a good scratching in some region under the sari-folds. Any minute now she’ll start badgering the passengers to buy her plantains, thought Jehangir. But she sat where she was, enervated, with no inclination to acquire business. Perhaps she did not dare to wake the slumbering people. In school they used to say that for a quarter rupee a kayrawalli would lift her sari and flash for you. For a rupee she would even perform with a plantain. He wondered if it was true.

The glass bangles on her wrists tinkled as the train swayed along and she fell asleep. The plantains in her basket looked bruised and battered, beginning to show black patches because of the heat. They would have to be thrown away if they remained unsold. Granny had a saying about eating them: a plantain in the morning turns to gold in the stomach and a plantain at noon is silver, a plantain in the evening turns to brass in the belly, but a plantain at night is iron in the gut.

He wondered why the kayrawalli was travelling away from the city and towards the suburbs. People like her brought fruit to the city. Maybe she was on the wrong train.

Just like Father and Mother and me. To think that I put the thought in their heads.

Once, in the midst of a bitter outburst, he had said, “Why don’t you ask your famous Bhagwan Baba if he also handles matchmaking? Maybe he’ll be in my favour.” He spoke with what he thought was biting sarcasm. Everything now had a habit of degenerating into a sarcasm contest.

But they liked the idea very much. “It was only a joke,” Jehangir pleaded, sarcasm retreating in alarm.

Mother and Father thought it was the best way to decide his future. They tried to convince him to make the visit. Mother was harshly dictatorial at first, then lachrymose and pleading. “What we want,” she tearfully entreated, “is for you to come and talk to Bhagwan Baba about the girl, to find out if she is right for you. Agree that Bhagwan Baba is never wrong, believe again as you believed once when you were younger.”

And Jehangir stopped objecting when reminded of the many miracles wrought within the world of his childhood. Miracles were no doubt easier to believe in that long ago world. But the memories began to prey on his notions of loyalty to the past, his nostalgia for a home happy and loving despite its material meagreness, and guilt for considering (however briefly) repudiation of Bhagwan Baba. Besides, he reasoned, he had nothing to lose, it could not get worse. If he was lucky, a favourable pronouncement would make things much easier.

And with the agreement to take Bhagwan Baba’s advice, a measure of calm returned to their lives. Hostilities were suspended and the harsh words temporarily silenced.

The kayrawalli awoke and balanced the basket of plantains on her head. She got off at the next station, which was also the one Jehangir and his parents were waiting for.

The medium-sized house had a spacious veranda at the front. A wooden bench sat on the veranda, and around the house a lush vegetable garden with several pumpkin vines and tomato plants. Tucked away in one corner was a large bench-swing, hanging still. Still, too, was the greenery in the garden. Not a breath of breeze.

A large crowd was waiting for Bhagwan Baba. People stood in a line leading up to the veranda, in silence or soft conversation, reverent hands clutching packets with offerings for Bhagwan Baba. There was none of the hysterical activity usually associated with holy men, no burning of incense, no chanting, no peddling of holy pictures or religious artifacts.

Jehangir’s parents explained that when Bhagwan Baba was ready he came out to the wooden bench. The visitors then went up to the veranda and sat with him, one by one or in a group if it was a group consultation.

A man just ahead of them in line overheard, and spoke up as though waiting for the cue: “There is nothing to worry about. Bhagwan Baba is wonderful. Whatever he will say or do, it is only for your own benefit.” Bhagwan Baba started granting audiences at eleven A.M. It was now eleven-thirty. With the air of one privy to special information the man said, “Bhagwan Baba knows best. If he is late it is for a good reason.” His hands performed practised gestures to embellish the earnestly devout speech: fingers bunched together to describe a vertical line in the air; right index finger wisely held aloft and lowered through an arc into the left hand; palms together in a clasp; and so on. “We are only simple human beings, so how to understand everything Bhagwan Baba will say or do, how to know why his spirituality is manifesting in one way and not in another?” He paused, then added unctuously, “For us, it is only to stand and wait till Baba is ready to mingle with poor souls like you and me!”

Jehangir found the man’s effusive devotional talk embarrassing. He wished his parents would stop encouraging him by nodding pious looks of agreement. Bhagwan Baba appeared now, supported by two men. Something like a collective suspiration was audible in the garden. Then the scattered whispering fell silent. He was dressed in a white kurta-pyjama, and looked quite frail, with bare feet. His head was bald but he had a white beard. A short stubbly beard. And he wore dark glasses.

“Sometimes he takes off the glasses,” the man whispered, “then at once puts them back on. Everyone waits for that, to see his eyes. Exactly what it means I don’t understand. But it is absolutely significant, most definitely.”

Two little boys and their older sister climbed onto the bench-swing in the corner of the vegetable garden. Their clambering set it into a gentle, squeaky oscillation. The sister sustained the motion of the swing with a pushing-kicking movement of her legs. During the forward swing her skirt billowed, then fell with the retreat; forward and back, billowed and fell.

Out of a long-formed habit Jehangir, craning, positioned himself to obtain the best view. When he had newly started going to college he discovered a pastime to which the Law of Diminishing Returns did not apply. The excitement of descending the stairs sometimes kept him from paying proper attention during class. There were two flights to each floor, and as he rounded the splendidly carved newel at the end of the first flight, his eyes lifted upwards. Above him flowed a stream of panties, a cascade of crotches out of the heavens, while he descended slowly, hand upon the balustrade to keep his balance, for it was heady stuff.

The thrills of this sport suffered greatly after that day at choir practice when she spoke to him. He realized that she could be amidst the descending crowd while his head was thrown back at a right angle to his trunk. It would be mortifying if she spotted him in this stance, she who believed him shy and, doubtless, pure of mind. Like Mother who, until recently, would say with pride, “My Jehangir, such a quiet good boy, aitlö dahyö, make choon or chaan. Does everything I tell him.” What a revelation if she could enter his prurient mind. Ironic that two women so different could share the same misconception, both beguiled in identical ways.

The bench-swing reminded him of the exercisers in the children’s playground. He now gave that place a wide berth when he visited the Hanging Gardens, preferring to think that the playground and the exercisers belonged to a part of his life which had concluded for good. He wondered if the exercisers still went there every night, if their muscles had developed further since he last saw them more than two years ago.

The children lost interest in the swing. It slowed down, steadying into its former stillness, with the squeaks coming further and further apart, then dying away completely. Jehangir turned away from it, feeling victorious after his sighting. Not only had he succeeded, he had done so in Bhagwan Baba’s garden amidst devotees thinking pious thoughts, and the touch of blasphemy was particularly satisfying. The sanctimonious fellow in front had been quiet for a while, not sharing any more of his insider’s information. His turn was next. He smiled at Jehangir and his parents, and stepped up to the veranda. The sun had progressed in its descent, and the pumpkin vines and tomatoes would soon need watering. A slight breeze was evident in the faint rustle of leaves.

Now they were first in line. Jehangir’s apprehension and uncertainty returned. He began digging frantically in his trousers for the photograph before remembering that on the train, while his parents slept, he had transferred it from his wallet to his shirt pocket. “How do we start this?” he asked. “Do I show the photo first?”

Mother said she would take care of that. All he should do was listen carefully when Bhagwan Baba spoke.

From Bhagwan Baba’s house to the railway station was a short walk along a dirt road. Jehangir and his parents hurried along silently in the face of a rising wind. A sombre, rainless cloud cover dominated the sky.

The dirt road was deserted. The suns midday sharpness had been replaced by a heavy, stifling air mass moving over the land. Clouds of dust rose at the least provocation and Mother held a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. A few simple shacks and shanties on either side of the road were the only structures on the barren plain. Their sunken-cheeked occupants watched with empty eyes as the three figures made their way to the station.

The shelter of the waiting-room was a relief. It was deserted except for the man attending to the cold-drink stand. They purchased three bottles of Limca and settled on a bench to await their train. The bottles were closer to tepid than the ice-cold promised by the sign, but the drink was refreshing.

Bathrooms were located next to the cold-drink stand. From behind one of the doors emerged the song of a broken tap, the copious drip splashing in complex, agitated rhythms upon the stone floor.

“Shortage of water everywhere. But listen, listen to the shameful waste,” said Father. He sipped Limca through the straw, anticipating the final empty gurgle to signal the end. “It was a little disappointing. He removed his dark glasses to see the photo, but did not say much. And three hours in line.”

Mother said, “That is normal. Bhagwan Baba never speaks unless you ask him specific things. Jehangir did not open his mouth sidhö-padhrö, to speak clearly. Not one word. What do you expect Bhagwan Baba to do?”

“But you said you would explain …”

“I said I would begin for you. That does not mean you show no interest in what is your problem.”

“I don’t have a problem. You do because you don’t like her.” The entire day had passed without argument. Now it seemed the heat and dust would take their toll.

“I never said I do not like her. But no sense talking to you, you don’t want to understand. We decided to come, you should have shown more concern. Now we still don’t know what is the best thing for you.”

Jehangir returned the empty Limca bottles to the cold-drink counter. A ceiling fan hung motionless in the waiting-room, and he pointed to it when the cold-drink man caught his eye. “Power shortage,” the cold-drink man replied. “No lights even. At night I sell by lantern light. And kerosene is not cheap. So price of cold-drinks had to go up.”

Jehangir nodded indifferently and returned to the bench. Father said, “Bhagwan Baba did not say much. But it seems to me he did give an answer. He said life is a trap, full of webs. Ask yourself, what does the sensible person do if a trap is facing him? Avoid, get away from it. So I think Bhagwan Baba was saying that Jehangir should stay away from that girl.” He was pleased with his interpretation.

“But if that was what Bhagwan Baba meant, why not say it plainly?” said Mother. “Every other time he has given us plain answers, simple language.”

“I don’t know. There is always a reason for what Bhagwan Baba does. That much I know. To me his words sounded like a warning for Jehangir.”

“But Jehangir is not saying anything. Again you are staying quiet, like you did with Bhagwan Baba. Tell us whatever is on your mind.”

And he was tempted to tell: of the sight which had shocked and embarrassed him one night when he had come home, changed his clothes, and left them on the pile for the gunga to wash next morning. A few minutes later he had returned, having forgotten his pen in one of the pockets. But Mother was there, sniffing; scrutinizing the gusset under the light. To find smells of illicit sex? Stains to corroborate her suspicions of the girl’s sluttishness? Evidence that her boy had been ravished by a flesh-and-blood succubus? She had started counting garments for next day’s washing quota when she saw him.

Trying to conceal the rough edge of resentment that crept into his voice now, he was only partly successful. “You keep saying the girl, the girl, the girl. You know her name is Behroze, why don’t you use it? Do you think if you pronounce her name she will become more real than she is?”

His parents shifted uncomfortably. “You never talk to us these days,” said Mother. “You were not like that in school. How you used to come home and tell me everything. The little butter we could afford I would always save for you, make your tea, help with homework. And how you used to go running to Dr. Mody every Sunday at ten o’clock, do you remember, with your stamps.” Those happy years brought a wistful smile to her face. She reached out as if to stroke his cheek. But the memories also exacerbated the imperfection of the present, and she left the gesture unfinished.

“We never treated you like other parents when you misbehaved. That old Karani woman in B Block, she used to make her boy stand naked out on the steps for punishment, to shame him. A brilliant CA he is now, but to this day the poor man has not completely recovered from that cruelty. And Dr. Mody, rest his soul, would slap his son Pesi left-right on the face. Outside in the compound for all Firozsha Baag to see.” Mother paused, remembered the point she was trying to make, and continued.

“Maybe it is because you have changed so much that we fret. You used to care about our problems, worry just like Daddy and me. More and more selfish you seem to be now, so what am I to think? That your new life in college, and your new friends, and that girl — Behroze — have changed you.”

“Again we are starting to argue. No use talking of it now,” said Father, “when we are all so tired.”

“But I want to tell you what I think,” said Jehangir. “Bhagwan Baba talked about a trap. He also said no one can do anything about it. No one means not you or I or Bhagwan Baba himself. So what is the point of a warning no one can act upon?”

“You see what I mean?” asked Mother, turning in despair to Father. “What I mean when I say he has changed? He takes all these logic and philosophy courses in college and gives us smart answers. We begged and borrowed to pay his college fees, and this is the result. Not afraid even to twist the words of Bhagwan Baba. Don’t forget, all your smartness and your ambition to go to America will come to nothing. This girl will change you and keep you here. Then you will finish your days like your father and me, in poverty and filth.”

The suburban local to Bombay Central was announced over the loudspeaker. As the train swept in, Mother realized that the brown paper bag of oranges blessed by Bhagwan Baba was missing. Jehangir raced into the waiting-room and back to the compartment where they had found seats.

“You can eat one every day for the next three days,” Mother said. “It will help you think clearly about your problem.”

Jehangir did not tell Behroze about Bhagwan Baba. She would dismiss him as a fake, lumping him in the same category as the quacks and charlatans of whom there was no dearth in Bombay, who sold their charms and potions and had a thriving trade among the educated and the uneducated alike. It would lead to an argument, and he did not want to have to defend Bhagwan Baba.

That week, he missed choir practice and went to the Hanging Gardens. He walked, taking the short cut up the hill as he had done so many times with her. He mulled over the words of Bhagwan Baba. Not that it matters one way or the other what he meant, he kept assuring himself. A trap, he had said. Did he mean Behroze trapped me? That was absurd. Why would she want to? If anything, he had trapped Behroze, luring her with his melancholy looks and the sad and gentle air which so became him and his shyness. Or had Bhagwan Baba meant trap in a larger — sort of cosmic — sense, so that he and his parents and Behroze were all trapped, and must work out their lives within its confines? This interpretation at least had some metaphysical appeal to it.

The sun was on the verge of setting when he arrived at the Gardens. There was yet another possibility: that he could not break with Behroze even if he wanted because these things were out of man’s control. Ludicrous, the thought that he was seeing her impelled by some higher force.

On weekdays the Gardens were empty except for ayahs with their charges and the elderly out for a constitutional. They left when it got dark. Then couples arrived to seek privacy behind bushes and trees. But shortly after dusk a gang of men roamed through the Gardens, flushing out twosomes in their sanctuaries. They would stand around and snicker, or yell out obscene encouragement punctuated by lewd flourishes of hands and fingers, till the couples took flight in frustration and embarrassment.

Jehangir walked till the sun went down. The ayahs and the little children departed with their prams and toys, and across the greying skies a flock of sparrows ushered them to the exits, chirping urgently. He could go on seeing Behroze as if nothing had changed. But then the squabbles, the scenes verging on hysteria, the bitter taunting would continue to fester. In one way Bhagwan Baba’s words made sense; life is a trap — I cannot solve both problems. How long could such terrible discord persist without rupturing something vital? He never understood that so much unhappiness could come upon the happy, loving family they used to be. A horrible end would come of it, some awful mess, if things continued in their clamorous, disturbed manner.

He emerged from the Gardens through the gate opposite the one he had entered by. Where the shik-kababwalla sat. Fanning his coals, and the skewers ready in his basket, loaded with bits of beef and liver. Nodding at Jehangir in recognition. Then across the road and into Kamala Nehru Park, with its hedges sculpted into the shapes of animals and birds. In bright sunlight, when freshly trimmed, the figures were delightful to look at. But now the hour was passing through the final moments of dusk, and the shapes were indefinable. Looming in a strange, unearthly manner. Possessing neither the randomness of nature nor the manicured discipline imposed by man.

He left quickly. Something eerie about the place. Back into the Hanging Gardens, to retrace his steps homeward, down the hill.

And then a slight detour occurred to him, through the children’s playground. His heart raced a little as he approached, wondering if the exercisers would be there.

He heard their panting before he saw them, and hurried to turn the bend in the hedge and position himself at his old place. Unnoticed, he watched their sweating bodies perform. The old fascination returned at the sight of their rippling, bulging muscles. In their rhythm and symmetry, in the sureness of their pulse, in the obedient responses of their limbs he rediscovered what he had always found strangely enticing, and remembered the days in the gym at St. Xavier’s: the smell of sweat, the camaraderie that flowed, the slapping of flesh, the search for the hairiest chest, bushiest armpit, longest pubic hair, the grabbing and jostling, all the fun which he was never a part of, always ignored by the boys, always isolated.

And now, regarding these fellows building bodies by night, a wild urge came over him. To step out of his concealed spot and touch their muscles, feel the hardness, make his body join theirs in the exercises. To engage in good-hearted physical competition, to see who could do the most push-ups, to arm-wrestle, to grunt and heave together.

But it was only momentary. I was never good at such things, I’ll look foolish. He laughed at himself and left, feeling better now. As if the straining, exerting muscles of these men at exercise had kneaded away the disquietude and anxiety he had been feeling about Behroze, about Bhagwan Baba, about his parents. Nothing is a trap, I exercise control over my own destiny.

To discover where he had been, Mother began some skilful questioning. She stalked around, observing his face for suspicious-looking marks or blemishes, his shirt and collar for questionable discolouration. Instead of ignoring this customary examination he said, “You won’t see anything. Behroze never puts on makeup when we go out for kissie-koatie.”

She clutched at her throat with both hands. “When a son speaks so shamelessly to his mother it is the end.” And Father scolded in his mild way: “It is a disgrace when you talk like that.”

Next evening he was drawn again to the Hanging Gardens. Lack of rain was obvious in the fading lushness of the lawns, but what green remained was still soothing. All the fountains were dry, their coloured lights switched off, and the little waterfall was a slope of grey sun-dried rock. After a few minutes of aimless strolling he went down to the overhang. It was the most secluded spot in the Gardens, at the edge overlooking the sea. Thick with bushes and trees on all three sides, and two wooden benches affording a spectacular view of Chaupatty beach, from the Queen’s Necklace along Marine Drive to the modern skyscrapers mushrooming at Nariman Point.

Behroze and he had come here once when both benches were unoccupied, on a slightly cool December evening. There was a gentle breeze. They sat down, his arm around her, watching the sky till the first star appeared. The gang of voyeurs was nowhere in sight, and Jehangir had a plan: to turn her head and kiss her when it was darker. A few moments later she reached her hands up to his face — she must have had a plan, too. But there were footsteps. He froze, then tore away from her hands.

The newcomers, a man and woman, occupied the other bench and began kissing desperately. The man’s hands seemed to be everywhere, down her blouse, up her skirt. Jehangir and Behroze did not need to look; they could feel the heat of the feverish activity.

When Jehangir finally snatched a glance, the man was supine on the bench, his fly undone. The woman’s face buried in his lap. Moans of pleasure. And a vague memory was transported from a great distance, pitting his intense desire to watch against an urgent need to leave, to cover up his eyes, to blot it all out: it was an evening on the veranda of their flat; the little boy stood with Mother at the window, taking the evening air and looking out beyond the compound wall. A boisterous group of men approached from the direction of Tar Gully, and down the main road three young women. As they closed the distance between them, one of the men suddenly cupped his hands around his crotch and said something the little boy could not hear, something about suck and mouth and money. There was giggling among the girls. The little boy tried hard to see what happened next’. But Mother dragged him away, saying he shouldn’t be looking at the filthy behaviour of wicked mavaalis and evil women; he should forget what he saw and heard or God would punish him and their whole house.

The evening had been spoilt. As they got up to leave, the night-watchman who patrolled the Gardens appeared. The fellating couple remained oblivious to the banging of his nightstick and other diversionary tactics. Finally, without going closer, in stentorian Pathani tones he called out, “Arré bhaisahib, lying on the benches is prohibited, please sit up straight,” and the couple broke apart.

The night-watchman left; Jehangir and Behroze followed. Jehangir cast one backward glance: the couple was down again upon the bench, her mouth upon his lap. And fleeing the overhang, he recalled the panicked tearing of his own face from Behroze’s hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I just couldn’t help it.” He bundled up his frustrated desires into a tight, aching package and descended the hill in silence. Images of the couple on the bench abandoning themselves to their wild and desperate lust had danced unendingly before his eyes.

Jehangir sat on the grass now, under a lamp just outside the overhang. The overhang and its benches. Benches everywhere. Paan-stained ones in the train were third-class seats. Bhagwan Baba’s veranda bench — sit on it and he told you a riddle. The one in the waiting-room was for drinking lukewarm Limca. And the overhang bench — reserved for sucking lessons, and wet dreams that trickled down your thighs to make embarrassing starched pyjama legs, which the gunga probably examined with interest when she washed the clothes.

A shower of gravel descended upon him, striking his head and neck and back. He jumped up. Saw three boys sprinting away. Started to give chase, then stopped. What will I do even if I manage to catch the urchins?

He was trembling and could not sit down again. Breathing hard. Quick short breaths. Hands shaking. Armpits damp. He decided to walk. To the children’s playground. The gym-by-night. Where children’s game equipment became the parallel bars of the poor; where the stone-broke used the see-saw to bench-press, with flagstones for weights. Yes, they would build their muscles, one way or another.

As the twilight faded the exercisers arrived, and stripped down to lungoatee and vest. A little adjustment of the pouch with a swift downward movement. Tucking in and fine-tuning of the formation within. Then tightening expertly the knots of the waistband.

Their bodies moved through the various exercises, and once again Jehangir felt the urge to join them, join them in their sweating, rippling activity. He imagined meeting them every evening, taking off his clothes with them, down to his shorts and sudra; they would sweat and pant together, a community of men, and when the exercises were done they would all go arm in arm, laughing and joking, for a hot and spicy shik-kabab and sugar-cane juice. He could even learn to smoke a bidi with them.

He seriously considered taking up exercising. He was tired of being a skinny-armed, stoop-shouldered weakling. He would start in private, at home, and after his body strengthened he could join them in the open air. Surely they would welcome him. It would be a fraternity sufficient and complete.

He would go to Behroze’s house on Saturday and say he had to speak to her about a serious matter. Make a clean break.

He prepared a mental list. He decided to conclude by saying that their relationship was making everyone unhappy: first, his parents were; she was, too, because they did not like her; besides, she could not tolerate their influence on him. Now she could resume her life as it was before he trespassed into it. Yes, trespassed, that was a good word, he’d use it.

The Kamala Nehru Park beckoned from across the road, through the dusk. The maali must have been at work, cuttings and twigs and leaves lay in heaps around the hedges. The sculptures looked magnificent, the birds on the verge of flight, the camel and elephant and giraffe about to lumber off into the darkness. But all of them ultimately frozen. Trapped, like Bhagwan Baba said. The words of Bhagwan Baba. Should be labelled A Philosophy For The Faint Of Heart And Weak Of Spirit. Or better still, The Way Of The Sculpted Hedges.

Behroze was alone when Jehangir arrived on Saturday evening. Her parents were out, so was the servant.

“You missed choir practice on Thursday,” she said accusingly, crossing her legs. Her skirt slipped above the knee, exposing part of her thigh, and she did not pull it down.

Jehangir sensed nervously that somewhere in this was a challenge to him. The trace of hostility in the air narrowed the distance between them and made the room more intimate. Outside in the compound a game of volleyball was in progress, and the dull thud as the ball met flesh and bone could be heard inside the flat.

“I’m sorry. I had something very important to do. It concerns us. I would like to talk to you about it.” The note of formality in his short, complete sentences sounded reassuringly in his ears. “This is the first time you’ve been alone at home,” he ventured with an echo of her accusing tone.

“You didn’t come since last weekend. Maybe my parents think we’ve broken up, and they didn’t need to stick around to guard my virginity.”

Jehangir turned away to look outside the window. He felt very uncomfortable when she talked like this. The flat was on the ground floor at an elevation that raised it above the compound, and he could see the volleyball in its flight over the net but not the boys who smacked it. A few minutes of daylight remained. When the room began edging towards darkness she reached out to switch on the table-lamp. Her movement caused the skirt to rise a little more.

“They’ve gone to a wedding at Albless Baag. Won’t be back till eleven o’clock,” she said.

“And Shanti?”

“Gone to visit her family. Has the weekend off.”

“I could not come last Sunday, I went with my parents to Bhagwan Baba—”

“Your string is showing again,” she interrupted. He reached behind, thinking his kusti had slipped out over the waistband of his trousers.

She laughed scornfully. “Not your kusti, I meant your mother’s extra-long apron string. Anyway, tell me about your Baba. This should be good.”

“If you’re going to mock me even before I…”

“I’m sorry, go on.”

Jehangir described the visit to Bhagwan Baba and the pronouncement. He paused before announcing his own decision about them. She adjusted her skirt properly over the knee and said, “But does that make any difference? Surely you don’t believe all that mumbo-jumbo.”

“But that’s not the reason —”

“Your parents will try anything, you know they hate me.”

“They don’t hate you,” he started, and stopped. His well-tempered sentences wrought for the occasion now seemed silly — he realized he had known it all along, even as he rehearsed the words in the Hanging Gardens. He looked outside. The volleyball no longer flew over the net, and the boys had either gone home or down to the bhelpuriwalla for a snack. The sudden gloom was due to the sky’s fierce clouding, which had overtaken the gradual change from dusk to night. In the window the curtains flapped, violently at times.

The decision made in the Hanging Gardens was no comfort. No comfort at all. Refused to buoy him up. Instead, it suddenly started to dissolve. Where was the peace and serenity he experienced that night in the Hanging Gardens? How could it come and go so quickly? To recapture his elusive confidence he imagined himself in the Gardens amidst the community of exercising men, sculpted hedges, chirping sparrows. But they swam pointlessly through his mind now. It was all meaningless.

Drawn by his anguished face, she came and sat beside him on the sofa. She slipped her hand in his; the scorn had gone out of her eyes, leaving them soft and brown. She moved closer, and he put his arm around her. His confusion and anxiety started to evaporate. He remembered the other time on the overhang bench: what would have been their first kiss had been interrupted by the unrestrained, coarse, unabashed passion of the other couple. Today there would be no interruptions. She switched off the lamp. Outside, there was the first rumbling of thunder, very distant, and the first drops of rain. The fresh, wholesome smell of earth was soon in the air. It was still raining when Jehangir was racing homeward. People waited, huddled under awnings of shops or overhangs of buildings, under whatever shelter was afforded till the shower passed. There was gladness on all faces at the rain which had at long last arrived.

Outside a jhopadpatti, where even at the best of times a hundred and twenty residents depended on one water tap or the fortuity of a malfunctioning fire-hydrant, the joy of celebration was the most intense. Children and grownups soaped their bodies, tattered clothes and all, and stood gratefully under the cleansing waters from heaven. Mothers washed naked babies to the accompaniment of gleeful squeals. Some women were scouring their grimy, greasy pots and pans. Little rivulets of soapy water were soon running down the pavements leading from the jhopadpatti into the main street.

Jehangir was soaked to the skin. But he did not notice it, as he noticed nothing else around him. He was oblivious to the celebration of rain, to its freshness and abundance, to the delicious coolness and comfort that graced the air which barely an hour ago had been vile and full of threat.

With long desperate strides he splashed through the puddles. Some of them were ankle-deep, and his shoes were soon waterlogged, but he hurried along. The rubbled pavement abandoned in mid-construction was impossible, so he took to the road.

A car fixed his soaking figure in its headlights, honking in annoyance. Sweat mingled with the rain-water coursing down his face. Waiting for a bus back to Firozsha Baag in this weather was pointless, it would take too long. He was panting hard, gasping for breath, but did not slow down. And his wretched, anguished mind would not be rid of her seated figure on the sofa, her hair over her soft brown eyes in which there were traces of moisture.

And to think that just a few minutes before he’d been sitting beside her on the same sofa, they were holding each other so close. Things could not be more perfect, it had seemed to him at that moment.

“Isn’t this like a Hindi movie?” she had said smiling, adding wickedly to make him blush, “only thing is, I should be wearing a sari made transparent by rain. Even the thunder and lightning soundtrack is perfect for lovers” Lovers? Was that a hint? She had stroked his hair. “Tell your parents and your Baba they did not succeed.”

Jehangir had rested his cheek against hers, at peace with life and all its tangled complexities. His eyes wandered around in the dark, passed over the clock (a flash of lightning showed eight-fifteen), the outline of the bookcase, the piano and the frowning bust of Beethoven.

Eight-fifteen. Was that the right time? He had to find out. The radium-painted numbers of his watch dial would glow in the dark and show the correct time. He shifted, uneasy, and tried to move his hand. But she’d noticed immediately.

“If you want to look at your watch don’t be so sneaky about it.” She shook off his hand.

“I’m supposed to be home by eight.” He looked at his watch.

“I know. You remind me every time you see me.”

“In my watch it’s almost eight. It’s set with the clock at home. We eat dinner by it,” he added apologetically, as if that would set things right. Short, complete sentences again, for reassurance. He got up.

“Going home on time for your mother is more important than —?” and she broke off. Her eyes rested for a moment on the cushions which lay about the sofa, comfortably rumpled, still holding the heat of their bodies, then returned to his face. He did not reply, just glanced at his watch again. Tidying up in great haste, he tucked in his shirt, put the crease back in his pants, smoothed down the tousled hair: raced with the clock of Mother.

Behroze watched in stark disbelief at this exhibition of terror, the transformation from man to cowering child. “Calm down, will you? Your mother’s world won’t end if you are late. Haven’t you learned yet? All these are just her tactics to —”

“I’ve told you before I know they are tactics,” he snapped back, “and I’m doing it all because I want to, because her life has been troubled enough, because I don’t want to add more misery to it. Because, because, because! Do you want me to repeat everything again?”

Then he had stooped to pull up his socks. As he was leaving he turned around, and that was when he saw what he’d least expected — two tiny tears moistening her lower lashes.

And side by side with this image that refused to go away was the sickening thought which had struck in the pit of his stomach, like nausea — the one interpretation of Bhagwan Baba’s words which he had never considered during all his rumination in the Hanging Gardens: that the trap was the one laid by Bhagwan Baba himself. To trick him into ending it this way.

He rushed through the streets like a madman, shivering, tormented and confused, glancing at his watch again and again. His breath was coming hard, he thought he would collapse. Finally, he turned into the compound and stumbled up the three steps of the C Block entrance and into the lift.

He rang the doorbell. Just one short burst. His finger slid off, the arm fell limply to his side. There was no energy to complete the prearranged signal of rings that the family members used: two short and one long.

Mother opened the door narrowly, leaving on the chain. “Trying to fool me or what, with just one ring?”

Jehangir shook his head. He clung feebly to the door, wanting to speak, but the words could not form through the panting.

“You know what time it is?”

He nodded, holding up his watch. Eight-thirty.

“This time you crossed the limit. Your father says be patient, he is just a boy. Just a boy, yes, but the boy has climbed to the roof.” She shook off his hand and slammed the door shut.

Still leaning against the door, he reached for the bell and rang it. Desperately, again and again, two short bursts and one long burst, two short and one long, over and over, as if that familiar signal would magically open the door. It remained shut. From inside the flat, silence. His arm fell. He slid to the floor and settled down to wait.

His breathing returned to normal but the wet clothes clung to him, he was very cold. During his school years, Mother used to accompany him on rainy mornings with a towel, a change of socks and shoes; at school she would dry his feet, help him into fresh socks, exchange his gumboots for the dry shoes.

He pulled his handkerchief and wiped his face, then pushed back the wet hair. The door was exposed to a gusting wind from the balcony. It made him shiver, and he shuffled into the narrow corridor sheltered by the staircase. He looked at his watch. Still eight-thirty. Must have stopped, clogged with rain water. It was a gift from Mother and Father for getting first class with distinction in his ssc exams. He hoped the neighbours would not open their doors: the news would spread through all three blocks of Firozsha Baag. Then the boys would find new names for him. He fell into a light sleep, leaning against the wall, till the soft clanking of the chain being removed from the door woke him up.