Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis

‘So we’re waiting for the African to shit, that’s what you’re telling me?’

‘Yes,’ said the Mandrax man, and he laughed without making a sound. ‘He brought the garad in his ass and he’s been trying all day to shit.’

‘That’s completely fucking disgusting.’

Rumi made a face but he made no move to leave.

‘The shit’s in his shit, that’s why we’re waiting?’

‘That’s how it gets here. Mules, like.’

‘African donkey, more like.’

‘You want government-controlled health warnings? Everything neat and organized, nutrition information on the side and best-before dates, stuff doesn’t get you off take it to the Consumer Protection Bureau, petition the dealer?’

It was a long speech for the Mandrax man and it silenced Rumi, but only for a moment. He coughed into his fist and rubbed his hands together. He said, I saw a Negro once when I was a kid. In my school, he was an exchange student from Nigeria. He looked so dirty, like a monkey. The shock made me puke. Then, when I was living in LA, I saw lots of them and I learned not to puke. I learned to be a man of the world. But not even in LA, where, believe me, weird things happen on a daily basis, not even there did I wait in line for a Negro to shit.

*

This chooth country, cunt country, how the fuck are you supposed to live here without drugs? Look at the Gujaratis, chooths, we all know this, kem cho choothiyas. Human calculators, you can’t even talk to them without giving them cash, they’re such accomplished chooths. And the Kashmiris, complete chooths, offer them your hand, they’ll take your ass. It’s their nature; they can’t help it. And what about the Madrasis, all those Keralites and Kannadigas and so on? Chooths, undu gundu choothiyas, idli dosa choothiyas, nothing personal, but it’s true, you know it and I know it. And Punjabis, do I even have to mention Punjabis? Number one chooths, the Punjus. They’ll eat and drink with you and all the while they’re measuring you for a coffin. Bengalis? Bengalis are beyond your average category of choothiyadom, they’re chooths of the highest order, first-quality bhodrolok choothiyos, who invent new levels of choothiyaness daily. Followed closely, as in everything, by the Oriyas, who are more in the league of chooth wannabes. But none of them approach the level of choothiyahood perfected by the Sindhis, who are the world’s most sophisticated chooths, inventors and tweakers of the choothiya’s guidebook, in short, chooth perfectionists, true masters of the genre. As for the Christians, the Anglos and Goans, chooths, as you know, unquestionably chooths, though they’ll act as if the word has never left their lips or entered their brains. And the UPites and APites, they’re criminals to a man, born criminals, you can’t trust them with a pencil. Then there are the chooths in waiting and the chooths by association, such as the Parsis and the tribals. Now that may seem like an odd chooth combo, but it’s not. They are exactly alike in at least one way, they act like they aren’t chooths, but they are, deep inside they are utter chooths. The only non-chooths in the entire country are Maharashtrians. I grant you there’s been some degrading of the rule in recent times but at least with Maharashtrians what you see is what you get: islands of sanity in a sea of chooths. But even here, in the only non-choothiya place in the whole choothiya country, I challenge you to live here without turning to Grade A narcotics, said Rumi, leaning across the staircase to knock on the door in rapid frustrated bursts.

*

He was still knocking when the door opened and we were motioned inside by a hijra in a cotton sari stained with mud and water. The room was small, bare except for a few sleeping pallets and oil lamps and a poster, a picture of a yellow-haired girl in a wide-brimmed hat and the words ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’. In a corner, Rashid was filling a cigarette with powder. When he lit up, the joint gave off a tang of derangement and for a moment I smelled the colour of it, acid green, like the barium of firework displays.

‘I get a commission, but I tell people to stay away from this shit.’

He used the English word. Sheet .

‘Afeem’s different.’

‘Afeem.’

‘The old word for opium. You lie back, someone makes your pipe, you take your time, you enjoy.’

‘Until the world changes and everything goes to hell,’ I said, pointing. ‘A beautiful piece.’

‘At least five hundred years old and it will last another five hundred, longer than all of us. I bought it on Shuklaji Street from a Chini refugee who escaped to Bombay. He demanded a lot of money, as much as you’d pay for an antique in a shop on Colaba Causeway, but look at the carvings and the teak. I bought two for ten thousand rupees around twenty years ago. They must be worth lakhs today.’

He was looking at the pipe but he had a heroin joint burning in his fingers. And I wasn’t interested in opium: I wanted to be kicked in the head.

Rumi whispered, ‘Yaar, something get you?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Everybody here’s a Muslim except you and me. You see this?’

I didn’t respond: garad had a way of putting things in perspective and socio-theology went to the bottom of the pile. But we were overheard. I was waiting my turn to go inside when Rashid said, ‘Sit here. Tell me why you think Muslims cannot be trusted.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You don’t have to say what’s written on your face.’

‘There’s nothing on my face except boredom, Rashidbhai. Boredom and more boredom. I came to your shop for so many years but what do you know about me?’

‘I know you’re a garaduli. Isn’t that the important thing?’ He laughed loudly at his own joke. Then he said, ‘You switched from chandu to garad when you moved to Bandra, you talk English when you’re high and you’re a Nasrani. Now tell me why you don’t trust Muslims. We are all smokers here, nashe ki aulad, there’s nothing to fear.’

‘It’s not that you’re not to be trusted.’

‘Then?’

‘Then why not talk about it, the thing we don’t talk about? Is that what you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘My religion is no way of knowing me.’

‘Mine is a way of knowing me. When I pray I feel I’m doing something clean.’

‘But why pray so the whole neighbourhood hears your prayers? Why use microphones? And drums and music in the middle of the night.’

Just then the Mandrax man said, ‘There’s a town in Kerala, like, the main road has a temple, a mosque and a church, all using loudspeakers, loudest street in the world.’

Rashid said, ‘The city has changed, people wear their religion on their faces. As a Muslim I feel unwanted in many places, you should feel it too.’

‘I feel it. Who doesn’t?’

‘As a Nasrani, you should feel it as much as me. Okay, all Muslims cannot be trusted but what about the Hindus?’

Rumi said, ‘What about the Hindus, Rashidbhai?’

‘Arre, you, with the hammer in your briefcase, you’re just waiting for another war.’

‘Hammer?’

‘Choothiya, the whole street knows about your hammer.’

‘It’s a precaution.’

‘Must be, there are no nails here.’

Some of the men sitting against the wall laughed, but Jamal, Rashid’s son, did not smile. He was in his teens then and he was serious and self-absorbed.

‘Tell me why you have the name of a great Muslim poet if you are a Hindu?’

‘It’s a nickname.’

‘Rumi is a mighty name for a mighty shai’ir.’

‘Rumi is a Muslim name?’

‘Jalal al-Din Rumi. Bhadwas who never read a book will recite a ghazal by him as if they wrote it themselves.’