Barely have we stepped onto the sidewalk, though, when a whistle sounds, followed by a whole cacophony of them. We’ve been spotted from above—a Limbu gestures with his rifle from his balcony perch for us to stay clear of the building. I hastily pull Sarita back into the anonymity of the crowd before the terrestrial guards can pinpoint whom they’ve been whistling at.
We near Yusuf, and I notice his face is swollen. Blood runs down from his ear and mouth, several of his scabs have ruptured again. I try not to look at him—to be cautious, I tell myself, though it’s really due to guilt. But he catches my eye when we’re still several feet away. Recognition floods in—he opens his mouth and raises his hand to point me out. I brace myself for exposure—the accusing finger, the triumphant shout—can I really blame him after the injuries I’ve caused? One second extrudes slowly into the next—is it even worth fumbling for my weapon, should I simply let the Limbus gun us down? But at the last instant, Yusuf redirects his raised hand to wipe his chin—he licks the blood off his lips and closes his mouth. As we pass, he flashes the tiniest of smirks, while keeping his gaze trained resolutely at the crowd.
Sarita is so distraught at his condition that she tugs on my arm to go back—I’m thankful the burkha keeps her agitation masked. “His brother’s a Limbu, so he’ll be OK,” I whisper, and pull her along.
The road runs past the mosque turnoff to the causeway bridge, but the throng pressing in from the opposite direction makes it impossible to continue. Limbus push through, trying to bring order to the whirlpool of people, flailing their rubber tubes to herd everyone in through the entrance lane. We have little choice but to follow, towards the ornate green arch with white Urdu lettering that frames the mosque. The four minarets and star and crescent flag rising from the top of the gate are just as I remember. I’ve been here twice with my father—once to observe the ailing supplicants who come to seek a cure on Thursdays, once just to soak in the tranquillity of the inner sanctum housing the graves of a Sufi saint and his mother.
Now, the Limbus have erected a tall stage with loudspeakers in the tiled plaza. “These infidels, these kafirs, who tried to kill our innocent children with their terrorist train—” one of them recites, standing next to a slaughtering frame, the kind found in a halal abattoir. Ropes tether two blindfolded figures in bloodstained clothes to a pole. The man on the left pulls and strains to free himself, but the other simply sits slumped on the ground, his head lolling limply on his chest. A rock from the crowd bounces off his body and elicits a weak groan, but he makes no move to protect himself.
“I think that’s Mura,” Sarita says in a strangled voice. “What if they’ve got Guddi and Anupam as well?” She wants to stick around to make sure her train companions aren’t led on stage, but the queasiness is rapidly spreading in my stomach, and I pull her away before the “entertainment” Rahim warned us about can begin.
On our last visit, my father led me down a long flight of steps to show me the strip of beach at the rear of the mosque. Looking for a way to distance us from the stage, I spot the passage that leads to these steps—miraculously, they are unguarded. We climb down to the sand and have barely walked a few paces before we bump into the missing sentry zipping up his pants by a urine-stained wall. He tries to unsling his rifle, but to my surprise, I have faster reflexes. The gun magically appears in my hand, I am transformed to Jaz Bond in an instant.
Except I haven’t quite mastered the art of 006 dialogue yet, I can’t summon the lines I’m supposed to spout. After an awkwardly silent moment, Sarita has the presence of mind to order the Limbu to drop his rifle and raise his hands. She even waves him along through her burkha as if packing her own pistol under her chador.
We walk in a procession along the wall of the old Mahim fort. The sentry stretches his arms high into the air as if accomplishing this smartly is a point of pride for him. He’s almost my height, and about my age as well—doing an automatic shikari appraisal of his shoulders and back, even our builds appear the same. The thought flashes through my mind that our positions might have been reversed had our birth circumstances been exchanged. I try to imagine myself barefoot in a raggedy salwaar kameez like him, trading in the comfort of my Italian sneakers, the snugness of my designer jeans. What would it have been like to grow up in his place? Perhaps surrounded by religious zealots, perhaps hungry, perhaps illiterate? Would the Jazter have turned into a Jihadster? Might free will have prevailed, or was it solely a function of fate?
“A function of opportunity,” I hear my father say. He always maintained that the difference between the tolerant and the extremist was not so great. “Looking into the Other, we can always find something of ourselves within.” By which logic I, too, should have the power to reach out to this Limbu: plant a notion, sow a seed, that might influence him. Who knew what native intelligence lay under that scruffy exterior, what sensitive personality, what endearing face? I decide to share the fact that I’m Muslim—this will be the stepping stone towards establishing a connection.
“Lying dog!” He turns around and spits in my face. “I know you’re one of the Hindus who got away from the train. We’re all around—you’ll never escape.”
So I try to establish my Islamic credentials by reciting the opening of the Koran, not only in Urdu, but also in Arabic. This only enrages him further. “You’ll rot in hell for passing such holy words through your infidel lips!” He spits at me again, but this time I dodge out of the way.
Not only does my bridge-building experiment crash, it provokes the Limbu to get louder and more abusive. “Just try crossing the causeway—our guards will cut your pig-fucking bodies to bits.” Sarita pulls back her veil to register her alarm at his ranting—will I have to kill him to ensure we’re not found out? Except I know I can’t—the only gun this Bond has ever discharged is his own. What I do instead, as our captive brazenly starts calling for help, is to step forward and tap him on the back of the head with the butt of the gun. “Ow,” he says, turning around to look at me angrily, so I tap him again, a bit harder. This time, he staggers to the ground. Reluctantly, I tap him a third time, and to my horror, my hand comes up covered in blood.
We break into a run, clearing the ramparts of the fort, sprinting around a row of sheds whose corrugated roofs reflect the moonlight in strips. Thousands of bamboo poles lie stacked in front, more burst forth from wooden pens, like toothpicks rising from giant holders. Trucks loaded with bamboo stand abandoned all around, parked right on the sand. Looming ahead, I make out a pair of ghostly white cylindrical structures that remind me of the tanks of a petrol refinery. The sea to our left is calm—in the light of the moon, its surface looks oily. The tide is low, but the smell is worse—a blend of putrefying fish and sewage.
I slow down, then come to a stop. Sarita draws up beside me. The causeway is just visible beyond the cylinders—a shadow shooting off over the water towards the fabled shores of Bandra. From this angle, it seems a lot lower than I imagined, something one could almost leap up to grab and swing across by the rafters. Beyond such acrobatics, though, the only practical alternative seems to be to run the gauntlet of surface guards the Limbu has boasted about. “It’s not going to work, is it?” Sarita says. “We’ll have to find a way by sea like Rahim warned.”
So we start searching the sands for a boat. But other than some tarpaulin-covered vessels too enormous to move, our quest only yields two upturned scuppers, with visibly rotten wooden bases.
“I LOVE YOU.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have pushed my luck with those three fateful words. Or perhaps the evil eye from the shikaris at Nehru Park did stick. Although we lived together for three more years, things between Karun and me began unraveling soon after that walk. It started when I accompanied him on a Sunday visit to Karnal to meet his mother.