Manil Suri - The City of Devi

He embarked on a “rath yatra” around the country—a chariot odyssey along which he evoked Hitler’s call for a “final solution.” Other leaders had undertaken rath yatras in the past, such as the famous crusade which led eventually to the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque. Bhim’s was a high-tech version, employing giant video screens to incite spectators, sophisticated communication techniques to mobilize and manipulate mobs. Most successful was his use of the new TwitterSpeak service, which broadcast his messages to the cell phones of illiterate followers directly in speech form.

After that, the carnage surged to levels my father said had only occurred once before—during the 1947 Partition. It was self-perpetuating, he noted—as investors the world over fled from India’s chaos, the resulting economic collapse made people even more ready to scapegoat their Muslim neighbors. “Our new central government leaders should be shot—so desperate to hold on to their coalition that they barely dare squeak out any criticism of Bhim.” The BBC began using words like “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” in its reports on India. Pakistan blustered a lot about intervening militarily to save its “Islamic brethren” but didn’t as yet have Chinese support. It must have contented itself with an increase in terrorist financing, because soon after, a dozen landmark temples—from Badrinath to Meenakshi—fell victim to bombs. Bhim used this as the perfect excuse to further ramp up the HRM pogrom.

The Times of India reported that several cities with enough of a minority population to put up resistance had split into Hindu and Muslim sections, with Christians and Sikhs slinking in wherever possible. Maps showing the imminent divisions for Mumbai began appearing on the internet. Although the boundaries changed wildly from day to day, our area of Colaba always fell in a Hindu enclave. The meatwalla, a Muslim, stopped coming to our door, as did the man who sold biscuits from the large iron trunk he carried on his head. The Ahmeds down the hall reluctantly traded their sea-facing flat with a Hindu family occupying a Dongri one-bedroom. The Mirandas, a Christian family on the floor below us, also disappeared, as did Dr. Kanchwalla, whose name could have been Muslim, but was actually Parsi.

Perhaps more people vanished as well, perhaps the upheavals around me were more dramatic. Caught up in the turmoil in my personal life, I failed to notice.

LOOKING BACK, I can pinpoint the exact night things changed with Karun. Pakistan had joined the Chinese invasion two days before, making a series of bombing sorties all the way to Delhi that morning. Rumors of an air raid on the rock carvings at Elephanta Island had left Mumbai on edge. Unable to find a cab, I had to walk back all the way from my mother’s house. When I finally got home, Karun seemed rather keyed—from the rumors, I assumed. But it turned out he hadn’t heard yet—something else must have happened to make him so tense. Before I could find out, he led me to bed, thrusting between my legs with such conviction that I thought we would at last achieve our fourth star. Abruptly, though, he lost his momentum, his expression slackened, his attention skittered somewhere else. He excused himself to get a glass of water, switching to kisses down my body when he came back. The Jantar Mantar he performed, with a touch of delirium almost, rocketed me quickly to climax. When it came my turn, though, I didn’t have much success. Eventually, he buried his head against my body and said he just wanted to be held.

He remained off-kilter all week, distracted to the point of feverishness (though his temperature was normal—I checked). Each night he came to bed seemingly determined to prove himself. Although he valiantly compensated afterwards, I saw him increasingly frustrated by his recurring lack of success. I scoured the nearby market daily for pomegranates but the war with Pakistan had taken them off the shelves.

I almost didn’t make my weekly visit to my parents the following Tuesday, since Karun looked so unwell. But he insisted he felt fine—he seemed anxious I keep my appointment. I returned to find the flat empty—Karun came back only at eleven-thirty p.m. He looked disheveled, almost crazed—I could have sworn I smelled alcohol on his breath. “It’s the astroparticle conference I’ve been organizing—we had an emergency meeting. First the riots, now this war—the preparations are not going well.” He didn’t look at me when he spoke, and I wondered if I should believe what he said. In the morning, I could tell he hadn’t slept.

He grew increasingly jittery in the days that followed. Some nights, I awoke to find him sitting in the dark, his hands cradling his head. He refused to divulge what was wrong, insisting he’d be fine once the conference had been held. We stopped having sex—not even Jantar Mantar—the dates in my diary remained starless. The nightly air raids had thrown the city into complete turmoil—in fact, the entire world was teetering after the new September 11 attacks. I reasoned Karun must be wound up, like everyone else. He instructed me not to reveal his whereabouts to anyone who might ask—the hostilities seemed to have made him paranoid as well. Only later did the thought that somebody might be blackmailing him (about what? surely astroparticles weren’t classified?) enter my head.

On our last night together, he clung to me with great tenderness. “I love you so much. When this is all over, we’ll go and—” He didn’t complete the sentence. I had the feeling he stared at me all night as I slept.

He left before I awoke, calling from Bandra that afternoon. “I’m at the institute annex—the center where they’ll hold the conference. The attendees come in on Sunday, so with everything going on, I may as well just stay here till then.” His cellphone seemed to be getting no signal, so he gave me the number for the front desk. By then, the idea of a conference in the midst of such global chaos was painfully absurd, but I could tell from his strangled voice how much he hated lying to me, so I kept up the pretense. Later, I realized he must have planned the trip—his duffel bag was missing, and even the classical CDs he listened to during yoga were gone.

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer came up to check on us after that evening’s bombing attack. They mentioned in passing that the conference was cancelled three weeks ago—had Karun been planning his escape since then? I dialed the number he’d given me, but it kept returning a busy signal. The next morning, when the new communiqué about Pakistan’s threatened nuclear attack appeared, I called again. I kept trying day after day without getting through, until the electricity failed and the phones went dead.

THE TRAIN PICKS UP SPEED. I keep my eyes averted out the window. Mura comes over and gazes with me at the houses going past. Only their tops are visible now, the rest obscured by a wall in between. “I remember when I was a child, we used to ride the train every Sunday to visit my uncle in Goregaon. There weren’t so many houses then, or walls for that matter—at Santa Cruz, one could see all the way to the planes parked at the airport.” He begins to caress the back of my neck. “Did you grow up in the suburbs or the city?”

I brush his hand off my body, but he manages to latch onto my fingers. He buries his face into my hair and inhales deeply. “Ah, that lovely fragrance convent school girls have. Is it the shampoo or the soap or just that wealthy South Mumbai scent?”

I turn around to try and squeeze away but he has me cornered against the wall. “Very educated, are you? College, probably. That’s why you’re not very impressed with our devi. Look at Guddi and Anupam, all bubbling with excitement. So completely convinced Devi ma’s come to save her own city.”