Manil Suri - The City of Devi

The only certainty to emerge was that we couldn’t count on the West, so embroiled in its own cataclysms now, to protect us any longer. So when a new Pakistani communiqué surfaced the day after Karun left, settling definitively on a nuclear strike as a deterrent against defeat, the panic that had remained at bay so far started escalating. The proposal went into great detail about the order and logistics of the missile launches, picking the date based on how long the country’s weaponry reserves could stave off collapse in the current conventional war.

By the next day, the message had mysteriously blanketed the web—all I could pull up on my computer screen was an image of the communiqué and nothing else. My watchman was also abuzz about it—a recorded version in Hindi had gone viral over phone networks. The same phantom voice called over and over again, inflaming the computerless (but mobile-equipped) masses with the inevitability of an October 19 attack.

Uma arranged for us all to flee in my father’s car almost immediately after that. “The further south, the safer—the missiles will have a harder time reaching us in Kerala or Madras.” She begged me to accompany them, as did both my parents—but without Karun, how could I leave? I waited on the balcony for him every night, wondering if he had got stuck somewhere, trying to return to me. Could he breathe the same air, see the same stars, which ever since the blackout shone so exuberantly?

Perhaps the others who’ve stayed have similar reasons. Or perhaps they just believe themselves invincible, having survived the terrorists and enemy planes so far. They say only ten percent of us remain (how they arrived at this statistic, I have no idea)—the city looks emptier by the day. Even with phones and the internet dead from lack of electricity, the nineteenth still fires Mumbai’s synapses, powers its rumor mills. The date gives order to our lives through the chaos and confusion, blinks dependably through the haze. Europe and America could exist on a different planet: we’re too mesmerized by our approaching doomsday to care about theirs.

My khaki friend articulates the question that throbs in all our brains. “It’s not like the Pakistanis can be trusted—who knows when they really intend to launch? Why not finish them off first—why are we taking such a chance?”

OF COURSE, NO MATTER how terrifying the threat, one can’t stay high on it for too long. We’ve learnt to distract ourselves, to flick through magazines while waiting for the bomb. I watch as people form clusters around the room, as the curds of a social order begin to thicken and clump. A group of businessmen stakes out the center by spreading a red blanket on the ground and surrounding it by a border of footwear. They sit on the blanket with their backs to the rest of the room, talking animatedly in Gujarati and massaging their bare feet. The Maharashtrians gravitate towards the right, forming a solid block next to the area cordoned off for the medical staff, while a south Indian language (Tamil? Malayalam?) emanates from the other side of the room. A circle of saffron-clad women hovers patiently near a man with high-caste marks on his forehead, as if waiting to see whom he will select as his bride. Even the far side of the room, which resembles an abandoned chemistry laboratory with its shelves of dusty flasks and beakers, gets colonized. I make out knots of people squatting in the dark between the stacks: servants, ayahs, laborers in shorts and torn white undershirts.

Should I try to be included in a group? I could ask about getting to Bandra, to Karun—perhaps someone might help. The congregation closest to me looks particularly affluent—men in safari suits and women in silk saris lounge like cocktail party guests. All that’s missing are drinks in their hands. One of the women throws back her head and laughs splendidly from deep within her throat. I notice the heavy gold bangles she wears, the two necklaces, the earrings. Is this her idea of how to dress for war? Then I see the rip in her sari, the pleats spattered with mud, and feel guilty. Maybe she is fleeing from a bombed-out house, carrying all the valuables she can. Our eyes meet, and I nod at her in sympathy. She seems to reciprocate in a half-smile, as if a full one would be too reckless, would commit her too much. Encouraged, I get up from the floor, discreetly dust myself off, and go up to stand next to her.

“The bloody rascals,” the man in the tan safari suit says. “Three years we gave them work, and they walked out, the whole lot of them, the day after the war started. Nobody’s interested in service anymore.” With his short hair and starched mustache, he looks like a colonel.

“Least of all cooks and gangas. And don’t even mention drivers,” a woman who might be his wife adds. Her sari is bright red with gold paisleys embossed on the border. Could she have been interrupted on her way to a wedding?

Another man, also in a safari suit, shakes his head in despair. “I thought at least our generation was safe, that it would be the next generation, our sons and daughters, who’d have to deal with this kind of disloyalty. But even if there was a smidgen of reliability left, this war will have killed it. God knows what we can look forward to—how much these bounders will ask for once they return.”

“What about you? Have all your servants fled as well?” the woman with the jewelry asks. She is still only half-smiling, still erring on the side of caution.

“Oh, there’s only two of us, so we’ve never really needed a servant.” As soon as I blurt this out, I realize my blunder. The colonel coughs, the woman’s expression turns to one of frightful regret. “Though the ganga who cleans the dishes did stop coming last week.”

But it’s too late, I’ve failed the test. A pall falls over the group, and the women dab themselves with their handkerchiefs. Their gold flashes at me in reproach for setting my sights too high. I throw out my question about the train to Bandra anyway, but am greeted with silence. “We don’t have much occasion to go to the suburbs,” one of them finally responds. “Certainly not by train.” Conversation only normalizes after I meekly edge away.

I exile myself to the far side of the room—I will enjoy the unassuming company of the beakers and flasks. A man in sneakers and jeans sidles up. I ignore his throat-clearing, his fidgeting, the flurry of movements to attract my attention. In the midst of this air raid, could he possibly be trying to pick me up? “Hello,” he says, in an accent that might be an attempt to affect a film star. Despite myself, I look up.

My fears are immediately confirmed. He is handsome, with lady-killer eyes and a very flattering haircut. His body, though compact, looks like it may have gone through hours at a gym to attain such definition. He probably sees me as fair game, now that my mangalsutra is gone. I give him a short and cauterizing glare, then turn away at once.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bother you. I was just wondering where you—”

I walk away mid-sentence. With all the problems I’m already juggling, a proposition is the last thing I need. I find a spot to sit on the floor, making sure a moat of ayahs surrounds me, to discourage my potential Romeo.

The woman closest to me sits cross-legged with a boy in her lap. She wears a coarse cotton sari with a red and green border, looped between the legs in the style followed by washerwomen. Perhaps I should befriend her for added insurance against my would-be suitor. How worthy I would feel for crossing the class barrier—a welcome distancing from the rich socialites’ nastiness. The woman’s son is clad in pants frayed to the calves, and a T-shirt so dirty that the picture on it is barely visible. I peer at his chest and make out a crudely done likeness of Donald Duck.