Vikram Chandra - Love and Longing in Bombay

“What’s that one looking like a calendar for?” Rajesh said, turning his eyes towards the mirrored one, who was still giving us those deadly looks now and then. I think maybe she owned the place.

“It’s Rajasthani, idiot,” I said.

“So?”

“Means ethnic, you know.”

“I don’t. Ethnic manjhe ?”

“Ethnic means real. Like from a village.”

He looked baffled, but then Sandhya came leaning through the crowd, dragging Anubhav behind her. Anubhav was wearing a white silk kurta , very traditional, with a black shawl draped over one shoulder, and if someone tells you beauty doesn’t matter, they’ve never been to an arty party. Anubhav wasn’t good-looking exactly, but he had curly black hair cut in a thick halo around his head, a fine long nose, lovely brown eyes, good height, and as I looked around, squinting through a silvery champagne haze, I saw how everyone looked longingly at him, at the comeliness of his expensive English-medium arrogance, at the impervious grandeur of his self-regard. Standing next to him, we were peasants.

He nodded at us. I raised my glass, and he ever so slightly gave us his shoulder and began to talk to some people on the other side of Sandhya. A feeling passed like a shadow over Rajesh’s face, not disappointment or resentment but a single flicker of hope. I wasn’t jealous — it wasn’t desire, not that at all — no, I felt it also, the eternal dazzlement of the outsider. I touched Rajesh’s hand and raised my glass at him and we drank. Then a man passed us. He was a small man, dressed all in white, but when he walked through the crowd it drew apart for him. His gaze passed impersonally over me as he went.

“You know him?” It was Anubhav, raising an eyebrow at Rajesh. “I saw him look at you.”

“Who was he?” I said.

“That was Ratnani,” Rajesh said. I shook my head. “Ratnani, Ratnani Construction. Really, Iqbal, sometimes you’re so stupid. Ratnani’s built half the big buildings in the city.”

“Ah,” I said. “Of course.”

“So how do you know him?” Anubhav said. “Tell me, yaar.” He was standing next to Rajesh now, a hand on his shoulder. Rajesh shrugged and made a show of emptying his glass. But I could see he was pleased.

“I work for him,” Rajesh said.

“I thought you worked for the Post Office,” Anubhav said.

“No,” Rajesh said. “I work for Mr. Ratnani.”

I laughed, and snorted a gulp of champagne into my nose. Anubhav watched me splutter and dab at myself. “You’re a liar,” he said to Rajesh. And he turned away.

“No, I’m not,” Rajesh said. He said it quietly, but he was angry, and I believed him. I put a hand on his arm. What he was saying, what I suddenly believed, made no sense. But he was looking past me, at Anubhav.

“Hundreds of people in Bombay work for Ratnani,” Anubhav said. “So maybe you did something for somebody who works for him.”

“Not like that,” Rajesh said. “I work for him directly. Even to his house I’ve been. I could introduce you.”

“Sure,” Anubhav said in English, smiling. “Sure.”

“Come on,” Rajesh said, and he shrugged me away. He took Anubhav by the arm and led him through the crowd. I followed, frantic now, I don’t know why, pushing through and leaving a trail of outraged glances and whispers. Rajesh and Anubhav moved in a half-circle through the room, but Ratnani was nowhere to be seen. They stood in a corner now, craning their heads. I was staring at Rajesh, trying to catch his eye, and past him I saw Ratnani shoving open a black door. Rajesh followed my glance and saw the white shoulder and white pants, and then the door closed.

Inside the bathroom Ratnani’s whites were overpowering. The walls were black marble, the floors were black, the urinals were black, even the mirrors somehow had a black tinge to them. I could see Anubhav’s reflection repeated again and again in the glass. The room was so large and cool and luxurious I would have been afraid to piss in there. But Ratnani was standing in front of one of the urinals, his legs spread wide, his head thrown back. He looked as if he were thinking of something very important. The sound of his urination was loud.

“ Salaam‚ sahib” Rajesh said.

Ratnani turned his head, looked at Rajesh for a moment, then turned back to his reflection in the wall. “ Salaam ,” he said.

“I’m Rajesh Pawar, sir.”

The tinkling slowed and stopped. Ratnani hunched his shoulders, and I heard the sound of his zipper. He turned to the row of washbasins. “Good,” he said. His face was wide and dark and heavy, and his hair receded on both sides of his forehead, leaving a narrow peak.

Rajesh stepped forward, turned a tap on. Ratnani leaned forward, soaped and washed his hands. When he finished, Rajesh handed him a small white towel. “I work for you, sir.”

“Really?” Ratnani said, drying his hands. “That’s good.”

“You remember I came to your house, sir?”

“Many people come to my house.”

“But I came with …”

Ratnani handed the towel to Rajesh, and looked at him directly. His eyes were calm. “I’ve never seen you before,” he said. Then he turned, stepped past Anubhav, and pushed the door open. Before the door could shut behind him, Anubhav had gone through it. Then Rajesh and I were alone, he with the towel still in his right hand.

“Rajesh,” I said.

He turned away from me, towards the basins. I put a hand on his shoulder and he jerked it off, took another step, further, his face turned away, and it was absurd but I had the sense that he was crying. I had never seen him cry. So I pushed through the black door, back into the noise, and Sandhya and Anubhav were standing nearby, their heads close together. I walked over to them, and we were then surrounded by a sudden knot of people, they laughed and shook hands with Anubhav and Sandhya and me, I saw white teeth shining, and diamonds, and a face receded away from me, floating like a flower on the swell of clinking chatter.

I blinked, and I heard Anubhav’s voice, raised high: “Nice work, Vidyarthi. Interesting. Really interesting.” A waiter came through the crowd, holding up a tray. I turned away, a new glass in my hand, and the roiling crowd carried me along as I drank. I went as hopelessly as, as a man without a friend in the world. The cold liquid came past the constriction in my throat and stumbled me and I laughed, and laughed again. I stood in the centre of the long room and held the glass in front of my face and drank slowly and carefully. When the glass was empty I went back to the bathroom and found it empty. I pushed at the door to each of the stalls and found them unoccupied. Outside, I saw Sandhya, just her red scarf and the angle of her cheekbone through a commotion of shoulders. I pushed my way through, and she was talking to the mirrored woman and a man with his hair held back in a ponytail. They were standing on two sides of her, with her face close between theirs.

“Sandhya,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Where’s Rajesh?”

“Not now, Iqbal,” she said.

“But Rajesh.”

“I haven’t seen him.” She and the other two looked at me for a long moment. “I’m buying, Iqbal.”

What, I wanted to ask, and with what exactly, but the man took Sandhya by the elbow and the ethnic woman pointed to something on the opposite side of the gallery, and they went, all holding on to each other. I took another glass off a tray and trudged along. I was suddenly heavy with exhaustion, and the light came in spirals, circling around my head. As I leaned close to a canvas the colours breathed across its surface, filling my eyes with a roseate brightness.

“If you stand further away you can see what it is,” somebody said loudly into my ear.