Bombay Rains, Bombay Girls Read online

  BOMBAY RAINS, BOMBAY GIRLS

  Anirban Bose

  HarperCollins Publishers India

  For my children, Nina and Nikhil:

  may you find love like I did

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover Page

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  TWENTY THREE

  TWENTY FOUR

  TWENTY FIVE

  TWENTY SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY EIGHT

  TWENTY NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY ONE

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ONE

  Adi’s Prologue

  On learning that I was going to study medicine in Bombay, someone said to me, ‘You’ve got to see two things in Bombay: the Bombay rains and the Bombay girls.’

  At that time it seemed kind of inconsequential; one of the hundreds of ‘drugs are bad’, ‘don’t smoke’, ‘you must call every week’ pieces of advice that people litter on an impressionable eighteen-year-old about to live alone 2,500 kilometres away from home. Amidst the chaotic litany of arrangements that such a long, unexpected move generates, my recollection of its author got mired in the ambiguity of the advice itself. However, this semi-pubescent line stuck in my brain simply because of its inherent quirkiness.

  On a hot, sticky afternoon in July, Baba and I boarded a train from Ranchi station, waving our goodbyes to a crowd of family and friends there to see us off. Two years of intense studying had come down to this: my roll number had appeared in the newspaper as one of the successful ones in the All-India Medical Entrance Exams – a fact I verified repeatedly to assuage my doubts and my family’s disbelief. A week later, a rather nondescript letter in the dimensions of a glorified receipt arrived in a plain brown envelope. It read:

  Candidate Number: 0069385

  Candidate Name: Adityaman Bhatt

  Rank: 166

  Medical College: Grant Medical College and Sir JJ Hospital, Bombay

  Course: MBBS

  Date of Joining: July 15th, 1990

  I accepted its dullness readily, reconciling it to reflect the ordinariness of my achievement. In fact, to my parents, given my terribly mediocre academic record in school and college, my success as one of the 900 lucky ones out of the 120,000 who had taken the exam was as much of a surprise as my choice of college. And thus, Grant Medical College, being so far away from Ranchi, had become the source of some consternation at home. Although I feigned innocence, I had deliberately put it as one of my choices without consulting anybody. Not that the choice itself was bad. On the contrary, it was an old and reputable college. But I felt too embarrassed to confess to the truth. For, when I had filled in the eligibility forms, ‘success’ had been just a wishful thought, a cynical chuckle, and I had listed the best colleges in the most distant places with an ill-defined angst – a sort of revengeful rebuttal of my mediocrity. I suppose there was an inescapable humour, however puerile, in the incongruity between my lofty choices and my paltry expectations of success.

  Bombay, however, was the icing on my cake of accidental achievement. In my otherwise mundane small-town existence, I had often let my imagination ruminate about getting away to someplace where the highlight of the year wouldn’t be the arrival of the circus. So, while I was joyous at this unexpected turn of events, Baba and Ma didn’t share my unbridled enthusiasm. Several discussions and deliberations followed with friends and family alike, the final consensus being that although Bombay was a ‘fast’ town for simple, innocent boys with ‘pristine hearts’ like myself, the opportunity to study at such a good institution should not be passed up. I knew that in their hearts, Baba and Ma realized my success in the Medical Entrance exams was a flash in the pan, akin to having won a lottery ticket, and so the debates were essentially exercises in semantics. I sat through the discussions with silent indulgence at their delusional, self-serving arguments, secure in the knowledge that nobody in their right mind passes up a chance to study medicine in India, especially not when success was essentially a fluke. It would be a close second to throwing away a winning lottery ticket because you didn’t like the numbers.

  After two days of exhausting travel, as our train slowly rolled into Victoria Terminus, the first thing that struck me was the size of everything. The platform seemed to continue forever, before the train lurched to a sudden stop with an array of loud clangs and forceful hisses, as though begrudging the absence of tracks ahead. People spilled onto the platform of the cavernous station, emerging briskly from the train like angry termites from wood. They straightened their crumpled clothes, paused for a moment to orient themselves, and then hastily joined the hordes swarming towards the exit with an asynchronous orderliness. Thin porters in blood-red uniforms balanced a pyramid of suitcases on their heads, their sweat-lacquered faces frozen with concentration as they advanced towards the main gates with curious bobbing strides. The passengers followed them closely, finding it difficult to keep up with the porters’ pace despite carrying nothing but themselves. An official looking gentleman, braving the heat in his authoritative black coat, stood collecting tickets while his experienced eyes scanned the crowd for potential freeloaders. Departing passengers, waiting for their train to arrive, fashioned makeshift beds out of their luggage, whiling time in a game of cards or with music on the radio. Everybody else, including the stray dogs that gallivanted around uninhibited, understood their plight, carefully sidestepping their sprawled-out arrangements despite the limited space and the traffic jam they produced.

  Outside, Victoria Terminus stood like a spectacular citadel of beauty, shining amidst her bedraggled surroundings like a lotus in the middle of a mud pond. Her yellowish brown granite walls, intricately decorated with domed clock towers, stone animal filigrees, soaring phallic spires, stained-glass windows and cathedral-like pointy arches, glowed mystically under strategically placed lights. Atop an enormous central tower was the figure of a lady with a torch in one hand, whose facial features clearly pointed to the building’s colonial heritage. Large silver coloured letters with the insignia of the Indian Railways announced current occupancy by the Central Railway offices. Although more recent non-architectural additions like the rear ends of air conditioners and makeshift wooden partitions clashed with the historic pomposity stamped all over the building, the overall effect was still stunning.

  In contrast to her stately, dignified silence, a boisterous sea of humanity hummed outside her perimeter, buzzing with manic energy. People moved with a keen sense of purpose as though no one had a minute to spare. Music blared from the shops, taxis and ubiquitous loudspeakers. Giant billboards and gaudy cinema posters cried for attention. Roadside vendors, selling everything from roasted peanuts to jazzy electronics, sat with their colourful wares, intoning their products in strange accents and harmonious phrases, each trying to outdo the other through sheer decibel power. Their eyes keenly searched for gullible newcomers in the crowd who could be lulled into inspecting their wares. Bulky double-decker buses, bursting with passengers, farted great plumes of thick black smoke as they chugged along languidly. Smaller, more intrepid mini-buses jostled for space with a hundred other cars on the narrow roads, the sides of which were steadily
compromised by both vendors and pedestrians. Mopeds and scooters skirted in and out of the traffic, finding room where none existed, while a hapless traffic cop tried to maintain some semblance of order in this chaos.

  I was mesmerized by the carnival-like atmosphere and a sense of impending adventure of exploring this city on my own began titillating my senses. Unable to contain it effectively, I chortled with glee. Baba looked at me questioningly. I sobered up immediately and shook my head to indicate it was nothing.

  With a rigidly straight jaw line and a thick moustache that sat gravely above his lip, Baba looked every bit the disciplinarian that he was. Unimaginative dark-rimmed rectangular spectacles complemented the effect. Everybody who knew the two of us agreed that other than the glasses, his broken nose and his receding hairline, I was a spitting image of Baba’s youth – an observation that gave me considerable pride. A recent growth spurt had seen me shoot past his head rather rapidly – a phenomenon that had made Baba proud. But there was nothing other than irritation on his face at this moment as he looked away, the exhaustion of the long journey making his battle with the heat and noise less successful than mine. Dark circles of perspiration had turned the cloth around his armpits into a darker shade of the blue that imbued the rest of his shirt. His forehead had creased into glittering lines of sweat as he scoured the area for an empty taxi. Soon he spotted one and flailed his arms wildly to hail it down.

  The driver swept in next to us, screeching to a halt amidst a dust cloud inches away from our feet.

  ‘How much to go to Grant Medical College?’ asked Baba.

  ‘Where?’ asked the taxiwala somewhat cagily, his beady eyes squinting at us.

  ‘Grant Medical College,’ repeated Baba. ‘My son has got admission there to become a doctor.’ His voice was a mixture of pride at his son’s achievement and irritation that the taxiwala did not recognize it right away and treat him with the respect and envy such news arouses in small towns like Ranchi.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ said the taxiwala, waving his thin arm dismissively.

  ‘What? Never heard of it?’ exclaimed Baba. ‘It is 150 years old, the top college in Bombay…How can you drive a taxi here knowing so little?’

  The taxiwala scowled. ‘What is the whole address?’

  ‘Here it says…’ scolded Baba, waving my letter of admission in the taxiwala’s face, ‘Grant Medical College and Sir JJ hospital…’

  ‘Arre! So say JJ Hospital then! You should have said that first,’ retorted the taxiwala. ‘It’s about ten kilometres from here!’

  A brief, awkward silence followed.

  ‘So how much do you charge?’ asked Baba, his voice full of hesitation at the inauspicious beginning.

  The taxiwala gave him a strange look. ‘By the meter,’ he said.

  ‘What? By the metre?’ started Baba. ‘We have to go so many kilometres and you are going to charge per metre? Bombay is so expensive, I tell you! This is extortion…in broad daylight! I will write to the newspapers…’

  ‘Arre, sahib, this meter shows the charge here!’ mocked the taxiwala, cutting Baba off and pointing to the square piece of machinery jutting from the front door panel on the left. ‘Haven’t you ever taken a taxi before? Which village have you come from?’

  Baba was suddenly at a loss for words. Suitably embarrassed, he shot one quick glance at the meter before looking away from the pointed gaze of the taxiwala.

  ‘Okay, okay, let’s go. No point debating these things…we are getting late,’ he said, followed by a host of mumbles under his breath that I couldn’t catch.

  The taxiwala tossed our luggage into the trunk. He returned to his seat and slammed the door after him. He scanned our faces in the rearview mirror – his own bursting with righteous indignation – and then set off.

  The taxi weaved its way through the crowded roads. A cool breeze rushed in through the rolled down windows, bringing sudden relief from the sultry heat of the July sun. The air was laced with the mouth-watering aroma of melted butter and fried onions, sizzling in the cast iron pans of the roadside pav-bhaji stalls. I put my head against the window, staring at the stratospheric buildings that flew past. The crush of people on the crowded sidewalks had transformed into a faceless, featureless blur. A thrill ran down my spine, filling me with a giddying sense of achievement. Having never accomplished anything worth crowing about in my life, just getting to Bombay seemed enough to justify this elation.

  Baba, meanwhile, was keeping an eagle eye on the meter. Finally, the taxiwala, in the high chair of the victor, decided to break the silence.

  ‘So where are you from?’ he asked.

  Baba, unsure if this was the beginning of an innocent conversation or the onset of more ‘small town’ ridicule, replied somewhat hesitantly, ‘Ranchi, in Bihar.’

  ‘Arre, sahib, I am from Hazaribagh,’ said the taxiwala, his face lighting up with a smile.

  The taxiwala’s delight at having found someone from a place separated from his hometown by fifty kilometres of dusty, single-lane roads wasn’t something Baba empathized with right away.

  ‘Then how can you treat someone from your place with such disrespect?’ he complained.

  I looked at him with incredulity. ‘Stop trying to pick a fight, Baba!’ I whispered.

  Baba nodded. ‘So…how long have you been in Bombay?’ he asked light-heartedly, before the taxiwala could say anything else.

  ‘This is my eighth year, sahib,’ replied the taxiwala with a cheer that completely belied any memory of the recent acrimony. ‘But my family is still in Hazaribagh… You know, my parents, my wife and three kids…two boys and one girl. I send them money from here. Work is tough to get in Hazaribagh.’

  ‘So how often do you go back home?’

  ‘Maybe once or twice a year, sahib.’

  Within a few minutes of discovering common ground and trading sentimental memories, both of them acquired the engrossment reserved for long lost brothers re-discovering each other’s past. They launched into a discussion of life in Bombay and Bihar, fondly reminiscing about small-town innocence and its corruption in big cities. I could sense Baba’s apprehension about leaving me alone. The temptations that exist in a city this size and the opportunity to study at such a good institution were at loggerheads in his mind.

  The air was heavy with small-town nostalgia when the taxi came to a screeching halt in the midst of traffic, sending us lurching forward in our seats. As we recovered our bearings while trying to discern the cause of such sudden deceleration, I felt the front of our taxi bump into the rear end of the car ahead of ours. The other car’s owner turned around and glared at us. He shifted gears to park his car, and then began to emerge from it.

  ‘Nothing happened… It just touched…no problem…don’t worry,’ said the taxiwala, reassuring us as well as himself. His eyes meanwhile were nervously tracking the other car’s owner, now striding menacingly towards us. The man was a giant, and snorted angrily as he opened the passenger door and got in next to the taxiwala.

  ‘Bhai…nothing happened… Just a small mark on the bumper…No damage!’ pleaded the taxiwala, reflexively backing into his corner.

  Before he could say more, the man clasped the taxiwala’s head with one hand and started raining blows with the other.

  ‘Saale, bhaiya…harami! Don’t know how to drive…bring your filthy ass to Bombay, fucking son of a bitch!’

  The taxiwala shielded his head between his arms and tried to duck under the steering wheel. The man kept throwing blows with such single-minded focus that he paid no attention to our presence less than a foot away. Baba and I stared at him as though we had lost our tongues.

  Then Baba said, ‘Arre, leave him; it’s only a small scratch, if at all.’

  The man stopped and turned to look at us. ‘Get out,’ he said.

  Baba started to protest. ‘But, mister...’

  Still holding the taxiwala’s collar with one hand, the man reached into his back pocket and flicked open a vi
cious looking knife. Holding it menacingly, he snarled, ‘Get out!’

  I clutched Baba’s hand tightly and whispered, ‘Don’t say a word…just get out.’

  We scrambled for the doors. Although terrified, a morbid curiosity overcame me. I kept stealing glances at the continued punishment of the hapless taxiwala, even as we spilled into the middle of stalled traffic. Meanwhile, the traffic lights changed to green and the rest of the vehicles on the road started to honk. The incessant beeps probably saved the taxiwala’s life. The other man got out of the taxi, folded his knife, strode up to his car with supreme nonchalance, and drove off. Baba and I scampered onto the sidewalk, from where we managed to catch a glimpse of our taxi racing away with most of our possessions.

  Standing on the sidewalk as though rooted to the spot, neither of us could think of saying or doing anything for the next few minutes. Around us, life continued uninterrupted, completely oblivious to the drama that had unfolded just a few feet away.

  Finally, Baba spoke. ‘Do you have all the necessary papers and certificates to complete your admission?’

  ‘They’re with me, in my handbag,’ I mumbled, suddenly having lost the strength in my voice.

  Baba let out a long sigh. ‘Let’s at least get that done,’ he said.

  Thankfully, the college was only a few minutes’ walk from where we were. Wary of getting into a taxi again, we trudged along on foot. I followed Baba closely, somatizing the shame of my cowardice by wringing my hands and clenching my jaws. Baba had at least tried to defend the poor man, while I had meekly plotted our exit. Had Baba noticed? How could I have been so afraid? God!

  We could now see the gates of the JJ Hospital campus. A dilapidated, rust-stained sign that read ‘Grant Medical College and Sir JJ Group of Hospitals’ arched from one post to another. Beyond the gates was a driveway that curved in front of the main hospital building. We followed it to the hospital’s main entrance, Baba maintaining his stoic silence, while I burned with shame a few steps behind.