Manil Suri - The City of Devi

We sight more jets. None fly directly overhead, but their presence reminds us that the war continues in full force. Surely this increased activity is ominous, considering that the nineteenth is tomorrow. Jaz feels just the opposite, given the sounds of bombardment we hear. “If they were planning on dropping the Big One in twenty-four hours, why would they bother with this small stuff right now?” Minutes later, a volley of explosions sounds from the direction of Juhu, as if the Devi might be putting on a special morning edition of her show. A black column of smoke rises in the distance—Karun wonders if it’s the hotel.

“Might very well be. Bhim apparently had a special thing going with the CIA or some other such protector—who exactly, I didn’t find out. With him gone, the Pakistanis—” Jaz breaks off, as a fresh series of explosions send an enormous tree-shaped cloud of smoke into the sky. “Such a glaring target, what with the Devi and all. I’m amazed they held back for so long.”

As more smoke billows up, I have a vision of Devi ma bursting through the cloud. Darting after the jets that bombed the hotel to shoot lasers at them with all four extended arms. One after another, the planes succumb, disappearing in loud and spectacular fireballs. Even as the wreckage falls towards the water, Devi ma lets loose some extra rays to dispatch the parachuting pilots—she’s never been known for mercy, one cannot expect impunity messing with her. Then she heads back to land, towards her cheering droves, another morning’s errand done.

BY TEN, WE STAND at the northwest edge of Versova, where Malad Creek cuts off the land. Madh Island lies directly across the water, barely a few hundred meters away, the ruins of its fort visible on a knoll to the left. The rickety landing wharf is gone, probably the victim of a bombing attack. Craters line our side as well, which is puzzling, since the shore had little worth bombing to begin with. No terminus, no docks, not even an elevated landing platform—the place has always been notorious for forcing ferry passengers to disembark directly into the mud. Further down the creek, the mast of a capsized boat sticks up through the water, its exposed lines still supporting tattered pieces of sailcloth. Two small fishing vessels float next to it like dead fish, their hulls overturned.

The bombs have not spared the fishing village next to the shore either. Even though most of the shantytown lies in ruins, a fair number of people mill around. A man walks ant-like along the water’s edge with an enormous bundle on his back, while in the shade of a small tree, a woman sits next to a pile of belongings nursing an infant. Jaz goes looking for hawkers selling food, and returns with four plastic bottles of water and a stack of chappatis, stale to the point of crispness. “I think I saw some Khakis in there. Best to stay hunkered down, in case Das and his men have made it here from the hotel.”

We realize we don’t know where the ferry will stop—on this side, or across the water. Jaz goes back into the village to ask around, but nobody seems sure which ferry he’s talking about. “All they know is that one of the boats taking people to the opposite bank was bombed, after which the other two took off. Since then, people have been forced to swim across. Some of them drown.”

Since we can’t take the chance of the ferry missing us, the only sure way is to have someone stationed on either side of the creek. “Why don’t I swim there?” Karun suggests. With no boat available, and both Jaz and I possessing only rudimentary aquatic skills, we have little choice but to go along with this idea. However, I’m filled with apprehension. What if something happens? If Karun gets caught in debris lurking under the surface, or falls victim to the current? Who knows what dangers lie on the other side, where he’ll wait alone and unprotected? “Don’t worry,” he tells me, as he strips off his clothes and piles them neatly next to the provisions Jaz has assembled. “There’s no controlling fate.” At the last minute, he decides to take his pants tied around his waist, because he doesn’t want to wait on the other side just in his underwear.

As he wades into the water, some sort of premonition makes me shout after him. “Don’t go. We’ll be fine waiting here—the ferry’s bound to see us if we wave.”

He turns around. “Stop worrying, or I’ll have to take you with me.” For a moment, I wish he would, that we were back at the pool and it was time for a lesson again. Then he lunges forward to embrace the water, and swims away with sharp, precise strokes. I stand on the shore with Jaz, watching the third vertex in our triangle recede further and further away.

“He’s always been very good in the water,” Jaz says, after Karun’s made it to the other side, after I’ve finally stopped looking for the shark or tidal wave that will claim him, finally exhaled. “I remember, once we went to a beach at Marve and—” He stops, perhaps sensing my unresponsiveness. For a minute, we both watch Karun wring his trousers to squeeze the water out—he puts them on and waves.

“I want to apologize for following you the way I did.”

I suppose I could answer that I would have done the same. But I don’t—I’m not quite ready to play the make-up game. And yet, the fact that Karun is far away from the two of us brings me closer to Jaz in a way I can’t quite understand. Perhaps it’s the act of looking across the water, the bond of both being in love with the same person. Is this what wives feel in a harem?

“I know it’s going to take some adjusting,” Jaz says. “Certainly for me it will. But I think we can work things out, wherever we end up. Once we accept that all our interests lie in this.”

I feel a sense of unreality hearing this from him—the idea of starting life anew, in another place, in such an altered relationship. Could he really have thought much about it? Not just about the grand issues, the ones dealing with body and emotion, but the hundreds of mundane decisions we’d have to make—cooking food, doing laundry, choosing toothpaste? Again, I don’t answer, and the conversation stops there.

The ferry arrives early—saving me from the panic I might have felt if it were even slightly delayed. We needn’t have worried about the two different banks—Sequeira, on the boat, spots us right away. “My favorite married couple! How’s your honeymoon going? You’ve decided to get away?”

“As you seem to have, Uncle.”

“Yes, although it breaks my heart. It’s not so much to escape the bomb, as to escape Bombay.” He’s dressed spiffily in a cream-colored safari suit, together with an ancient pith helmet—the kind an Englishman venturing into the jungle a century ago might wear.

During the short ride to the other side to pick up the “brother” I was looking for, Sequeira tells us about the attack on Bandra—how the Limbus have hijacked a train filled with arms and are using the cache to try to expand north. “I didn’t dare open the club last night, even for the final dance—too dangerous, with all the marauding gangs about. Thankfully, Afsan still came by to make the ferry run as he’d promised.” The explosions we heard were, indeed, at the Indica, though Sequeira isn’t sure whether Limbus or enemy jets engineered the strike. “Rumors have it Bhim’s been killed—can you imagine how long people have waited to hear this? With everyone getting so wild and ugly now, Mumbai’s the last place to be. Before Pakistan can destroy the city, its citizens will.”

But I have stopped listening. Because there stands Karun on the shore towards which we close in. Chest still glistening from the creek, pants wrinkled against his skin, he extends his arms. I know the gesture is not just for me, but the only emotion I can hold on to after even such a short separation is relief. As soon as the landing plank has been lowered, I run across the marshy land to embrace him.