Jehangir quickly tried to assign a number in his mind to the stamps in the containers of Maghanlal Biscuitwalla and Lokmanji Mithaiwalla, to all of the stamps in the round tins and the oval tins, the square ones and the oblong ones. He failed.
Once again Dr. Mody laughed at the boy’s wonderment. “A lot of stamps. And they took me a lot of years to collect. Of course, I am lucky I have many contacts in foreign countries. Because of my job, I meet the experts from abroad who are invited by the Indian Government. When I tell them about my hobby they send me stamps from their countries. But no time to sort them, so I pack them in boxes. One day, after I retire, I will spend all my time with my stamps.” He paused, and shut the cupboard doors. “So what you have to do now is start making lots of friends, tell them about your hobby. If they also collect, you can exchange duplicates with them. If they don’t, you can still ask them for all the envelopes they may be throwing away with stamps on them. You do something for them, they will do something for you. Your collection will grow depending on how smart you are!”
He hesitated, and opened the cupboard again. Then he changed his mind and shut it — it wasn’t yet time for the Spanish dancing-lady stamp.
III
On the pavement outside St. Xavier’s Boys School, not far from the ornate iron gates, stood two variety stalls. They were the stalls of Patla Babu and Jhaaria Babu. Their real names were never known. Nor was known the exact source of the schoolboy inspiration that named them thus, many years ago, after their respective thinness and fatness.
Before the schoolboys arrived in the morning the two would unpack their cases and set up the displays, beating the beggars to the choice positions. Occasionally, there were disputes if someone’s space was violated. The beggars did not harbour great hopes for alms from schoolboys but they stood there, nonetheless, like mute lessons in realism and the harshness of life. Their patience was rewarded when they raided the dustbins after breaks and lunches.
At the end of the school day the pavement community packed up. The beggars shuffled off into the approaching dark, Patla Babu went home with his cases, and Jhaaria Babu slept near the school gate under a large tree to whose trunk he chained his boxes during the night.
The two sold a variety of nondescript objects and comestibles, uninteresting to any save the eyes and stomachs of schoolboys: supari, A-i chewing gum (which, in a most ungumlike manner, would, after a while, dissolve in one’s mouth), jeeragoli, marbles, tops, aampapud during the mango season, pens, Camel Ink, pencils, rulers, and stamps in little cellophane packets.
Patla Babu and Jhaaria Babu lost some of their goods regularly due to theft. This was inevitable when doing business outside a large school like St. Xavier’s, with a population as varied as its was. The loss was an operating expense stoically accepted, like the success or failure of the monsoons, and they never complained to the school authorities or held it against the boys. Besides, business was good despite the losses: insignificant items like a packet of jeeragoli worth ten paise, or a marble of the kind that sold three for five paise. More often than not, the stealing went on for the excitement of it, out of bravado or on a dare. It was called “flicking” and was done without any malice towards Patla and Jhaaria.
Foremost among the flickers was a boy in Jehangir’s class called Eric D’Souza. A tall, lanky fellow who had been suspended a couple of times, he had had to repeat the year on two occasions, and held out the promise of more repetitions. Eric also had the reputation of doing things inside his half-pants under cover of his desk. In a class of fifty boys it was easy to go unobserved by the teacher, and only his immediate neighbours could see the ecstasy on his face and the vigorous back and forth movement of his hand. When he grinned at them they looked away, pretending not to have noticed anything.
Jehangir sat far from Eric and knew of his habits only by hearsay. He was oblivious to Eric’s eye which had been on him for quite a while. In fact, Eric found Jehangir’s delicate hands and fingers, his smooth legs and thighs very desirable. In class he gazed for hours, longingly, at the girlish face, curly hair, long eyelashes.
Jehangir and Eric finally got acquainted one day when the class filed out for games period. Eric had been made to kneel down by the door for coming late and disturbing the class, and Jehangir found himself next to him as he stood in line. From his kneeling position Eric observed the smooth thighs emerging from the half-pants (half-pants was the school uniform requirement), winked at him and, unhindered by his underwear, inserted a pencil up the pant leg. He tickled Jehangir’s genitals seductively with the eraser end, expertly, then withdrew it. Jehangir feigned a giggle, too shocked to say anything. The line started to move for the playground.
Shortly after this incident, Eric approached Jehangir during break-time. He had heard that Jehangir was desperate to acquire stamps.
“Arré man, I can get you stamps, whatever kind you want,” he said.
Jehangir stopped. He had been slightly confused ever since the pass with the pencil; Eric frightened him a little with his curious habits and forbidden knowledge. But it had not been easy to accumulate stamps. Sundays with Burjor Uncle continued to be as fascinating as the first. He wished he had new stamps to show — the stasis of his collection might be misinterpreted as lack of interest. He asked Eric: “Ya? You want to exchange?”
“No yaar, I don’t collect. But I’ll get them for you. As a favour, man.”
“Ya? What kind do you have?”
“I don’t have, man. Come on with me to Patla and Jhaaria, just show me which ones you want. I’ll flick them for you.”
Jehangir hesitated. Eric put his arm around him: “C’mon man, what you scared for, I’ll flick. You just show me and go away.” Jehangir pictured the stamps on display in cellophane wrappers: how well they would add to his collection. He imagined album pages bare no more but covered with exquisite stamps, each one mounted carefully and correctly, with a hinge, as Burjor Uncle had showed him to.
They went outside, Eric’s arm still around him. Crowds of schoolboys were gathered around the two stalls. A multitude of groping, exploring hands handled the merchandise and browsed absorbedly, a multitude that was a prerequisite for flicking to begin. Jehangir showed Eric the individually wrapped stamps he wanted and moved away. In a few minutes Eric joined him triumphantly.
“Got them?”
“Ya ya. But come inside. He could be watching, man.”
Jehangir was thrilled. Eric asked, “You want more or what?”
“Sure,” said Jehangir.
“But not today. On Friday. If you do me a favour in visual period on Thursday.”
Jehangir’s pulse speeded slightly-visual period, with its darkened hall and projector, and the intimacy created by the teacher’s policing abilities temporarily suspended. He remembered Eric’s pencil. The cellophane-wrapped stamp packets rustled and crackled in his hand. And there was the promise of more. There had been nothing unpleasant about the pencil. In fact it had felt quite, well, exciting. He agreed to Eric’s proposal.