Annotation

At the very edge of its many interlocking worlds, the city of Bombay conceals a near invisible
community of Parsi corpse bearers, whose job it is to carry bodies of the deceased to the Towers of
Silence. Segregated and shunned from society, often wretchedly poor, theirs is a lot that nobody would
willingly espouse. Yet thats exactly what Phiroze Elchidana, son of a revered Parsi priest, does when he
falls in love with Sepideh, the daughter of an aging corpse bearer
Derived from a true story, Cyrus Mistry's extraordinary new novel is a moving account of tragic love
that, at the same time, brings to vivid and unforgettable life the degradation experienced by those who
inhabit the unforgiving margins of history.
Cyrus Mistry
About the book
About the author
Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer
One. Present Tense, Bombay, 1942
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
HEAD OVER HEELS
Nine
Two. Echoes of a Living Past
Ten
Eleven
Three. Future Imperfect
~ ~ ~
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Endgame
Authors Note
~ ~ ~

Librs.net
Librs.net.

Cyrus Mistry
Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

About the book

At the very edge of its many interlocking worlds, the city of Bombay conceals a near invisible
community of Parsi corpse bearers, whose job it is to carry bodies of the deceased to the Towers of
Silence. Segregated and shunned from society, often wretchedly poor, theirs is a lot that nobody would
willingly espouse. Yet thats exactly what Phiroze Elchidana, son of a revered Parsi priest, does when he
falls in love with Sepideh, the daughter of an aging corpse bearer
Derived from a true story, Cyrus Mistrys extraordinary new novel is a moving account of tragic love
that, at the same time, brings to vivid and unforgettable life the degradation experienced by those who
inhabit the unforgiving margins of history.

About the author

Cyrus Mistry began his writing career as a playwright, freelance journalist, and short story writer.
His play Doongaji House, written in 1977 when he was twenty-one, has acquired classic status in
contemporary Indian theatre in English. One of his short stories was made into a Gujarati feature film. His
plays and screenplays have won several awards. His first novel, The Radiance of Ashes, was published
in 2005.

Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

For Jill and Rushad

One. Present Tense, Bombay, 1942

One
Oi, Elchi, you bloody drunkard! Still lolling in bed?!
There was no sound more revolting or hateful to the ears than that voice which plucked me rudely
from my garden of dreams.
I was under the bower of the giant banyan with Seppy. Of all our numerous hideouts in the forest, this
was her favourite. But in that instant, when Buchias hideous falsetto impinged on my consciousness, she
was gone.
A wretched fatigue hugged every inch of my body like a lover. On my threadbare mattress, I clung to
traces of remembered sweetness, longing for more sleep, but knew it would be denied me. . The flimsy
front door of my tenement was being slammed and rattled with an ugly insistence. Presently, the odious
shrieking came again:
Two minutes is all Im giving you! Not out by then, straightaway Im dialling Coyajis number. And
so much the better if hes mad for being woken at this hour. .Ill tell him everything: fucking corpses have
begun to stink, mourners are congregating, but your chief khandhias still in bed, pissed out of his skull.
Abusive harangue, the crunch of footsteps on gravel. .both receded.
Oh fuck you Buchia, you arent paying for our drinks, are you? No time for a sip of water, let alone a
tumbler of booze.
Rustom and Bomi would have given anything for a quick stopover last night all of us deadbeat
after walking those six miles to Laal Baag and back with a stiff more corpulent than most but even
simple-minded louts like us know better than to leave a corpse unattended on the pavement while guzzling
at an illicit den. So, we hit upon a compromise: resting one end of the bier against a compound wall,
Falis brainwave this, Bomi ran in and purchased a bottle. Snugly secured between the corpses stout legs
for the remainder of our jaunt, it had to be pried out with some force once we deposited the body in the
washroom of the allotted funeral cottage.
Now how is that any of your business, bloody Buchia? Those damn biers we lug around solid
iron each weighs nearly eighty pounds! And all corpses arent emaciated by death, let me tell you.
Some positively swell, growing more flaccid by the minute. Besides, how else, I ask you this, how else
are the best of us to keep up this carrion work, this constant consanguinity with corpses, without taking a
drop or two? The smell of sickness and pus endures; the reek of extinction never leaves the nostril.
Good sport that he is, Fardoon waited until I had knocked back my share of the booze before joining
me for the arduous job of washing the man mountain. Fardoon doesnt drink.
Its a job that takes courage and strength, believe you me rubbing the dead mans forehead, his
chest, palms and the soles of his feet with strong-smelling bulls urine, anointing every orifice of the body
with it before dressing him up again in fresh muslins and knotting the sacred thread around his waist. All
the while making sure the pile of faggots on the censer breathes easy and the oil lamp stays alive through
the night; all this, before we retire ourselves well past midnight. So whats your fuckin fuss about, you
bastard of a Buchia?
One side of my head was throbbing, raw; felt a bit of a corpse myself. Then my eyes lit on the wall
clock: twenty past six already!
Early morning silence punctuated by a tittering of birds soothed my nerves, but the muscles still
ached. . Outside the wire-meshed window, a sprig of pale orange bougainvillea swayed slightly. As I
climbed out of bed, the rays of a fledgling sun touched the treetops lightly with a golden brush. The sky

was deep blue and softly luminous, without a speck of cloud. Had I really woken up from dreaming? Or
was this a dream I was waking to?
How beautiful and peaceful is this place much of the time, at least where the faithful consign
their dead to the vultures in a final act of charity, their bones pulverized by the sun, then washed away.
.subsumed in the elements.
I grew up not far from here. When I was still a child, I may have been brought along by my parents to
attend a funeral or two; but it was only much later I began to see this as my garden, my own private forest:
an enchanted place in which I was free to roam, marvelling at leisure at the shapes, smells and colours of
nature, the magnificent trees, birds, bushes and all that rocky wilderness.
Near the hills summit brood the squat towers three in number their jaws open to the sky,
allowing birds of prey to descend and eat their fill, then fly up once more, unhindered. Surrounded on
every side by a town that grows more noisy and populated by the day, this estate is so vast and secluded
that no syllable of human voice or activity grates upon its timbre of peace. Though death is its precise
reason for existence, in this garden, life overwhelmingly is the victor.
I first set eyes on my Sepideh in the forest on the hill. Even the most fleeting remembrance of Seppy
can bring tears to my eyes so evanescent her presence, so brief our togetherness.
This was her home, in a more literal sense than I realized when I first saw her. I had caught glimpses
of her before wandering through overgrown banyan vines, running, once, at breathtaking speed after a
peacock through tall grass. I didnt know then she considered animals her dearest friends. She fed as many
as she could every day, often by her own hand: wild squirrels, pheasants, pye-dogs, stray cats, as though
they were her personal pets.
The first time I approached her she was stooped to the ground placing a small bowl of milk in a
clearing.
Whos that for? I asked, as she straightened herself.
She was shy and only smiled without meeting my eyes; but after a moment answered:
A snake. A big grass snake who comes and drinks it all up, whenever I have any to spare.
Lovely as the breeze wafting through the trees, just as light and feathery, she seemed to me a gawky,
yet beautiful child of nature, completely at home in these woods in which I befriended her, and later,
became her lover. Seven years have passed since then. .
Already I feel like a pack animal. I am twenty-six years old and strong as an ox, but the works
definitely telling on me, on each of us. . No, I dont mean the physical strain that can be rough, no doubt
so much as the contempt and abuse we receive for doing a job no one else will touch.
Cant deny I always knew it would be rough. Its more than most people can stomach, many had
warned me: let alone you, the coddled son of a priest. But in those first years, Seppy was at my side.
Nothing, not the direst predictions of ruin and misery could have kept us apart. People said it was
disastrous for first cousins to wed, that our children would be cretins! But we never felt we had a choice,
you see. And never once in those seven years did I ever feel let down, or regret my decision. Nor did she,
for that matter. Every evening, returning home from work, the happiness that gleamed in her eyes salved
my every ache and bruise, healed the smarting of swallowed insults. In our mealy, narrow cot at night, her
love refreshed and rejuvenated my body. And all that alarmist talk came to nought; our child was born
perfectly normal.
But now, Seppys no longer with me. . And even in dreams I dont see her so often. Dull nausea
swelled and passed as it did every morning when I woke to the certain knowledge of being alone. My
heart ached with longing for the woman who had taught me how to love; but I was running late. . I threw a
crumpled muslin gown over my night clothes, slipped into my white cloth bootees and cloth cap, both
essential accessories of my uniform, and knotted the strings on my face mask. I paused for only an instant

to gaze at my three-year-old curled up in a corner of her mattress. Unmoved by Buchias ruckus, she was
still engrossed in a deep sleep. A fierce surge of tenderness shuddered through my body, and I swore on
Seppys sweet forehead to protect her, always.
Come son, your teas getting cold. .
Temooruss living quarters abutted my own, separated by no more than half a wall of exposed brick
and flaking plaster, and a thatched veranda. He would have heard Buchias screaming, and got a cup of tea
ready for me. Not so much from the kindness of his heart, I should say, as to hasten me off to work so he
can have my little one all to himself when she wakes. It annoys me how possessive he grows, day by day.
Crossing the threshold that divides our homes, I came face to face with Temoo: seated, as always, in
his square, rattan chair, in the same pair of striped pajamas Id seen him wearing for weeks now; the same
translucent vest with the ripped sleeve that revealed his dark, hairy body: a thin, vulpine man of scruffy
habits, made ridiculous by age, and an incongruous tumescence at his abdomen. Since Seppys death,
weve been thrown together a lot I depend on him much more now, I do but try never to forget I
shouldnt trust him an inch. Yet nearly every day of the week, for several long hours, I am compelled to
leave in his custody the most precious portion of my being: my baby, Farida. Simply, I have no option.
A large mug of tea stood on the small teapoy beside him, covered with an upturned saucer.
Behnchoad Buchia woke me from such a deep sleep, said Temoorus. Bullying and yelling his head
off first thing in the morning! What that bastard needs. .no, I wont say it. .
What. .?
Dont like to start my morning with swear words, but really, a bamboo up his arse. All the bloody
way. .
Ill drink to that, I said, swallowing a generous swig of lukewarm tea. Six corpses, yesterday! No
joke, Temoo, lugging them in from all over town. And on top of it, the joker claims we came back
sozzled.
Fucking slob doesnt know his arsehole from his gob. Stinks up the place with his farts and his
taunts. What that man needs is a good hiding, but wholl give it to him, I ask you? Hes our warden. .our
boss. Whos going to question the boss?
Not to fret, my boys! said a voice over our heads. Just leave it to the One-Above. .
We looked up and saw Burjor, leaning over his balcony. But he wasnt speaking of himself.
Time will come for that man, too, when he will choke on his wickedness mark my word, boys
bleed remorse.
Once a bodybuilder, this fair-skinned and still handsome corpse bearer had suddenly lost an
alarming amount of weight in recent months, and much of his proud swagger. Though he grew feebler by
the day, and his clothes had started to hang loosely on him, he remained rather self-conscious of his looks
the prominent, clean-shaven rock jaw, the thickset, well-trimmed moustache, green eyes whats
more, Burjor never once complained about lifes unfairness. He remained confident of the infallible
perfection of the divine master plan. He now declared, in the dramatic and slightly pompous fashion hes
given to:
One-Above watches everything, mind you. That maaderchoads days are numbered.
Was I imagining it, I wondered, or had a furtive edge of bitterness crept into Bujjis voice of late?
Oi, Bujji! yelled Temoo hoarsely, dont wreck your morning bad-mouthing excrement.
Well, someone has to flush a turd into its pit and bury it. Too much stink. .too many flies. . Am I
right or am I wrong? Tell me? chuckled Bujji. If I had any strength left in my body, Id do it myself.
Like Bujji, everyone at the Towers had some reason to hate the man we were talking about. His real
name was Nusli Kavarana, but his treatment of us menials was so sadistic that he was universally known
as Buchia, or the Corker. He was some sort of labour contractor, directly in charge of hiring and firing

us corpse carriers as well as all the maintenance staff on the estate; but very thick with Coyaji, the
Punchayets secretary for gardens. God knows what sort of deal those two had struck up, but somehow,
Buchia had become an inviolable fixture in the Towers establishment.
Now today, God knows what sort of day itll be, I said, resuming my conversation with Temoo.
Do you? I mean, have you heard anything at all? Bloody hell, so many Parsi corpses in one day is just not
natural.
Papers say certain districts have seen an outbreak of gastro: Parel, Dockyard, Khetwadi. .but these
things have happened before. Shouldnt last more than a few days.
Gastro?
Thats only the official euphemism, boys: more likely cholera, interjected Burjor from above; then,
with apocalyptic finality, he turned to go in, saying, But no one, mind you, knows just how bad. .and it
could last longer than just a few days. .mind you.
So much fanfare about that bloody hearse they bought insertion in Jam-e-Jamshed and all gone
phut already? I asked Temoo.
At the garage being repaired, son, he replied. Engine trouble, claims Buchia, but my point is,
whether its cholera, or gastro, or whatever, theyd better hire more khandhias. You guys should refuse to
work like this. Sixteen hours, eighteen hours. .! And especially, you, a nussesalar! In my time, no hearse,
no nothing. But we never saw more than two, at most three corpses in a day. Oh yes, there was another
time, much worse than this, even earlier. .in my fathers day. .
It had always been a hereditary profession. Generations of inbreeding within families belonging to
the small sub-caste of corpse bearers together with a self-imposed and socially enforced isolation
had rendered them freakish, awkward and genetically unsound. How completely sad and despairing then,
that corpse bearers continue to squirm and thrash about while trying to find ways to escape its inherited
tyranny. My own case was completely unusual, of course: people were usually shocked and disbelieving
when they learned that I voluntarily chose to marry a khandhias daughter, opting for a life at the Towers
of Silence.
By rights, of course, I do rank higher than a mere corpse bearer. Before joining service at the
Towers, I went through five weeks of training at the fire temple built on an eminence in this vast, forested
estate, just a stones throw from the Towers themselves. After several days in solitary retreat and ritual
purification, after committing to memory several runic hymns in a dead language, I was initiated by the
high priest of the temple and formally proclaimed a nussesalar.
This strange word from the ancient Avestan means Lord of the Unclean. Nussesalars are corpse
bearers, too, make no mistake about that, but invested with several ritualistic, priest-like duties. In our
faith, dead matter is considered unclean. Segregation of the ceremonially purified corpse, to prevent its
re-contamination at the hands of overly emotive mourners, is only one of my duties. More important is the
responsibility I have of protecting the living from the contamination supposedly spewed by corpses.
All corpses radiate an invisible but harmful effluvium, according to the scriptures. Through
prescribed ablutions, prophylactics and prayers, Im supposed to protect the general populace and
myself from the noxious effects of the dead; indeed, you could say the nussesalar shields the
community from all that evil and putrefaction by absorbing it into his own being. In return for which noble
service, the scriptures promise, his soul will not be reborn. The nussesalar who performs his duties
scrupulously, forever escapes the cycle of rebirth, decrepitude and death. What the scriptures forget to
mention, though, is that in this, his final incarnation, his fellow men will treat him as dirt, the very
embodiment of shit: in other words, untouchable to the core.
Ordinary corpse bearers dont have it any easier, believe me. Thats how our people feel about their
dead and all who come in contact with corpses. You could say, though, that as a nussesalar, I am a
glorified untouchable.

Temoos sharp. Hed been rambling on about his fathers time, but is aware I havent been listening.
Now he stops talking, and wont resume until hes sure he has my attention.
The plague it was, then, like I was telling you, he said, finally taking up his story again. I
remember Papa telling Mumma, Zarthostis are dying like flies; never thought Id live to see this day. .
And as for the others on these islands, every day hundreds are picked up in bullock carts from the streets
hundreds! all castes and creeds cremated in heaps at the municipal commons in Parel, Sewree. .
Come to think of it: that might explain Buchias abuses and threats. In times like these, you guys are
entitled to an allowance, did you know that? Have any of you seen this special allowance? Now what do
they call it?
My attention had strayed again. Was Farida awake, and crying? No, I had imagined it. .not a sound
from my end of the block.
I mean, for us. Our forefathers made provisions for this sort of thing. .what do they call it?
Pandemic allowance! bellowed Temoorus triumphantly, pleased that his memory hadnt let him down.
Pandemic allowance. . Trustees have made provisions for this kind of situation its written in the fine
print of the Punchayet deed and Buchia, I daresay, is probably planning to pocket it all himself. Dont
take this lying down, son, I tell you. That warden will eat us alive.
At the mention of eating, I felt a mild pang of hunger, but noticed there were only two slices left in
the rusting bread-box; besides, I had lingered too long over my tea.
I must go. Keep an ear open for Baby, I said to him. Theres some milk in the vessel on my
sideboard. She likes her bread soggy and sweet.
Of course, son, of course, dont I know that? Saved those two slices just for her. Ill be listening;
dont worry at all. .

Two
Inside the stone cottage, in the centre of the floor lay the dead man, stretched out on an iron bier.
Nearby, a small fire crackled in a thurible on a silver tray. The cleansing smell of smoke and incense
and sandal was everywhere. Three sides of the room Buchia was right: the mourners, present and
waiting were crowded with women of various ages draped in freshly laundered white saris: swans,
elegant in their grief. They sat shoulder to shoulder in closely arranged wooden chairs, their hair covered
by scarves or the bob-pinned trains of saris, contained, like their grief, in an orderly, well-adjusted
decorum. Some of them conferred in whispers.
The men wore spotless white as well, but ambled outside or stood around in random clusters on the
crowded veranda. Some of them wore tall, brooding headgear. Most knew each other and exchanged
pleasantries or condolences in muted murmurs. Everyones head was covered, and many bent in
prayer. Must have been an important bawa, this big man, I thought to myself, to have attracted such a large
and well-decked retinue of mourners.
Standing outside the funeral chamber, I hurriedly untied and re-knotted the sacred girdle around my
waist. Fardoon was already there, waiting. Hes a nussesalar, too, though at least twenty years my senior.
Presently, we entered the stone cottage together.
Gripping a hefty, three-inch-long iron nail I had collected from the storeroom on my way up, I got
down on my haunches, and described a circle on the floor at a radius of about three feet around the supine
body in an anticlockwise direction. Fardoon tagged behind me at the end of a long white cloth tape, both
of us softly reciting, in tandem, thirty-three Yatha Ahu Vairyos one of the prescribed ancient hymns that
keeps the demon of foulness at bay. This magic circle, once drawn, firmly seals in the invisible
contamination emanating from the corpse, or so it is believed. This was all pretty much routine. I wasnt
going to be needed again, until it was time to carry the corpse up to the tower. And I was thinking perhaps

there might be just enough time to catch a nap. .? One of the khandhias Bomi or Fali perhaps would
have been assigned the task of bringing up Moti the bitch on a leash, to show her the corpse once the
priests were through.
But before we could make our exit through the crowded funeral cottage, two robed priests padded in,
not willing to wait anymore. They seemed to be sulking, impatient about the delay I had presumably been
responsible for.
Holding a long white handkerchief between them, they swayed from side to side, chanting a prayer of
penitence beseeching forgiveness from the Almighty on behalf of the large, dead man whose name was
Peshotan Pavri.
Meanwhile, a young girl, possibly a granddaughter of the deceased, began wailing. An older woman
sitting beside her put an arm around the young girl and squeezed her comfortingly, while another, in front
of them, turned in her chair and began whispering urgently:
No, no my dear, mustnt cry like that. .
Papas happy, darling, whats there to cry about? said the other woman.
If you shed tears, theyll only become like heavy boulders pinning his soul down to earth. . Let him
go, let him soar up, Ruby. .
Presently, the young girls sobbing softened to a whimper, became more sibilant, elegiac.
People never give a thought to death while theres still time, I reflected, as the priests droned on.
And when it comes upon you unannounced, theres shock and disbelief, and a great gnashing of teeth.
As Fardoon and I withdrew from the crowded funeral hall, the congregated mourners shrank
perceptibly, leaving a clear, if narrow, passage for us to walk through. I was thinking of my own little girl,
who must be awake now, perhaps sitting in her grandpas lap, munching on those two slices of bread. .
Despite my misgivings about the man, I felt grateful for Temoo that he was there to keep her company; that
Coyaji had allowed the dotard to stay on in his quarters even though hes too old for any real work.
Lost in thought, I didnt notice a particularly lean, cadaverous man with a large mole on his forehead
seated on the veranda among crowds of family and friends; nor did he see me approach. Perhaps he was
merely inattentive or too abstracted from long hours of prayer? One leg hoisted over the other, vigorously
wagging his cocked foot at the ankle while silently moving his lips, he was completely engrossed in a
thick, but diminutive prayer book.
As I passed him, my leg brushed against this mans oscillating shoe. Accidentally, of course, but the
man who had seemed so lost in prayer, so oblivious of his surroundings, suddenly sprang to life. With the
suddenness of a spring-operated toy he leapt to his feet, and began trembling like a leaf. A few other
mourners noticed that something out of the ordinary was going on. Now the bony figure started making
loud and insistent buzzing noises, like an incensed bee. He was saying something to me, abusing me in all
probability, protesting his defilement at my hands but all of it wordlessly, without parting his lips
which remained tightly pressed together.
Having once trained for priesthood myself, I was familiar with this routine practiced by the most
devout: the hallowed chain of prayer they have been so diligently weaving must not be interrupted by the
profane utterances of everyday speech: hence, the buzzing. In a ferocious dumb charade the man was
urging me to keep my distance, to take my unholy self out of his sight, disappear from the very face of the
earth (if I read him correctly) all the while flailing his arms and fists in the air like one possessed.
Other mourners stood up too, shocked. The man whom I had thus desecrated by the graze of my shin
against his polished leather shoe seemed angry enough to strike me, but fear of further despoilment
rendered him impotent, and apoplectic with rage.
I felt an urge to break into guffaws of laughter. I felt like embracing this strangely awkward man so
terrified of the demon of putrefaction; smothering him in a friendly bear hug, and saying:
Do you seriously believe you wont need me one day? Astride those emaciated shoulders rides the

ghost of a corpse. You dont see him now, but its only a matter of time, believe me, before your blood
turns to ice, your limbs harden like wood. Then, ask yourself, will your near and dear ones wash and
clothe you for the final goodbye? No, sweet man, youll have to depend on one of us. And then, well
have to rub you all over. .
Of course, I didnt dare deliver that tirade; instead, only mumbled contritely:
Forgive me, please. My mistake, bawaji, please forgive. . and bowing low, quickly took my leave
of him, as the rest of the grim congregation on the veranda glared at me.
I had witnessed instances of corpse bearers being fined by Coyaji, or even thrashed by selfimportant and wrathful members of our tribe for sitting on a bench intended for public use, or merely
leaning against a wall in one of the pavilions during large funerals that teemed with mourners. Infringing
the strict rules of segregation could be dangerous for us corpse bearers. Greatly relieved to have got away
so lightly, I allowed my mind to relax, feel once again the silence and peace of the woods.
I had been feeling rather queasy and unwell all morning; what I wanted to do most of all was get
back to my quarters and catch some sleep. But while cutting through the casuarina grove I found myself
intercepted by Buchia. How the news of the tiny furore I had caused got to him so swiftly Ill never know,
but hes not one to overlook such blunders. Without any qualms, spiritual or otherwise, Buchia thought
nothing of laying hands on us corpse bearers. By close association, I suspect, he sees himself as
completely sullied anyway.
Cant see where youre going, behnchoad? Bumping into all and sundry, instead of minding your
own fuckin work?
Buchia wore long sideburns that flowered into a sort of fleecy half-beard. He had a high dome of a
forehead with very little hair on his head. Something about him never failed to evoke a sense of revulsion
in me. It wasnt just his unpleasant foul-mouthedness, or his oddly androgynous voice always startling to
hear. Something about the very core of the man was unmistakably malodorous, if not malignant.
Short and stocky, but very strong, all of a sudden he slapped me on the back of my head. There didnt
seem to be much force behind the blow, but for a few seconds I was seeing double.
Dont you dare lift your hand on me! I protested, reflexively raising my bunched-up fist.
And what will you do, my dear Piloo? he laughed. Box my ears?
His tone was no longer threatening, but teasing rather, almost affectionate in its use of my
abbreviated name. No one else ever called me that. He put his arm around me, tickling the nape of my
neck with his index finger, as if I were a kitten, but I shook him off fiercely with my elbow.
Your dad used his influence to get you this job, you know that, he purred. But is he here now to
protect you? I let you have a good snooze until so late this morning, kept everyone waiting so you could
wake up fresh, didnt I? Answer me, Piloo, didnt I? Now cool off, and get some more rest while you can.
Only make sure youre back in forty-five minutes to take the corpse up to the tower. And immediately after
that, be ready to start moving again. Ive already informed the others.
What?!
Clearly, there was no redress against this unpleasant mans manipulative authority.
What on earth are you staring at me for? continued Buchia. The three others on duty will
accompany you. Theyre washing the bier. And Jungoo as well.
But where to, now?
Colaba. Cusrow Baag.
Colaba! Oh God. .!
Take the address from my office before you leave. Groaning and moaning wont help when theres
work to be done.
Well start straight after lunch, then? I asked.

Was there a hint of assertion in my voice? Perhaps, but it was already a quarter to ten, and I was
famished.
Dont act cocky with me! Didnt I just tell you, immediately after this body has been consigned to
the tower?
I saw him raise his hand, as if to smack me on the head again, but I glared at him so fiercely he
checked himself.
Next funeral has to start at four. If you wait for lunch youll never make it back before sunset. Itll
take you two hours just to reach Colaba.
This is too much, saheb. .even we need to eat some time. And rest. Its heavy work. Whats
happened to the hearse?
Never mind the hearse. These are trying times for everyone. Just do as youre told, Piloo. There
will be other times, later, for rest. And recreation, too. Dont you think I, too, could use some of that once
in a while? What do you say. .? And he scratched the nape of my neck again.
Sickened, I walked away without saying another word. Buchia had a reputation for liking boys, of
bringing young men up to his quarters at night. If he had touched me again, I swear I would have struck
him; but the truth is, I was completely off-colour that morning, ruing my previous nights indulgence. A
pint of country would have served us better than the full bottle that wed glugged down at top speed: truth
to tell, a most dreadful exhaustion had made us greedy for self-effacement.

Three
Make way! Make way for the corpse. .
By the time we reached Kalbadevi, Rustoms resounding bass had lost some of its operatic flair, his
cries feebler and less frequent. My own legs felt tentative and wobbly. Nonetheless, people stepped aside
respectfully, some even muttering to themselvesA Parsi corpse!as though impressed that death had
actually touched a member of that privileged and idiosyncratic community.
This was going to be a long and tedious trudge, we all knew, even though we were taking the
straightest possible route past Flora Fountain and Dhobi Talao, through Girgaum and Hughes Road,
then on to the Towers. Once, under the sun, I stumbled, nearly losing my grip on the bier.
I had had nothing to eat since last night. Just before leaving the house in Cusrow Baag, kindly
neighbours of the bereaved family had handed us an earthen pot of fermented toddy tart as hell, but I
drank thirstily, my mouth was parched and brown lumps of sweet jaggery tucked into rounds of soft
white bread; sustenance for the long walk back.
For a while, the weight of the bier and corpse seemed entirely manageable. In fact there was a spring
in our step. On certain streets, which were practically deserted, remembering Buchias admonition about
the next funeral having to start at four oclock, we raised the tempo and jogged. There, Rusis sporadic,
breathless bellow actually helped us find our rhythm, but we couldnt keep up that pace for long.
Lets slow down a bit, gasped Boman.
Slow down, of course, slow down. . seconded Rusi, wheezing and heaving, well make it back in
time, not to worry.
But it was already half past two. We had lost a lot of time almost at the start of our return journey
when we were held up by a commotion in the street caused by a large group of rowdy nationalists, who
were yelling anti-imperialist and pro-Swadeshi slogans outside an emporium for clothes near the Army
and Navy Stores. It was a place called Crawford and Allen: Importers of Fine Apparel. The protestors
were taking exception to the dress shirts, jackets, jodhpurs, derbys or whatever was contained in a large
number of parcels a wealthy man and his wife had just walked out of the shop with; browbeating them to
show allegiance to the cause of Indias independence by consigning every last parcel in their arms to a

large bonfire blazing on the macadamized public road.

Traffic had slowed down, there was smoke everywhere. Several Anglo-Indian officers in white
stood by, glowering under their sola topees, none too pleased with the sweltering summer heat, smoke,
fire and the sloganeering of nationalists. The protesters were cordoned off from the general public by a
posse of Indian sepoys. Then something happened, what it was I didnt see.
Perhaps somebody threw a stone. The officers barked a directive, and immediately a fracas ensued.
The sepoys, in their baggy blue shorts, began caning the vociferous protestors. Many were arrested, and
bundled into a waiting police van. Moti was barking her head off. Finally, one of the officers noticed us
waiting patiently with a corpse and dog, and gave instructions to let us pass.
A Parsi funeral must be concluded before sunset. In Parsi-populated areas there was certainly no call
for vocal histrionics. The sight of four burly men in white muslins, shouldering a corpse on a bier and
walking as fast as they could was self-explanatory: the public knew where we were headed, and why in
such a hurry. People made way for us long before we approached. Jungoo, the erstwhile driver of the
defunct hearse, was walking a little ahead of us, holding on tight to the excitable Motis leash. It was he,
really, who should have been clearing a path for us, admonishing pedestrians that a corpse was on its
way. But, that very morning, he had complained of a sore throat; as always, Rustom was happy to take on
the part of crier, boastfully revelling in the reverberations of his own deep voice.
Make way! Make way for the corpse. .
Nobody quite remembers how the custom of showing a corpse to a dog began, but its probably as
old as ancient Persia itself. Before modern medicine reserved that right for itself, it was canines that were
believed to have an uncanny ability to sniff out the slightest flicker of vitality persisting in a body
presumed dead. Hence, not once, but thrice in the course of the funerary ceremonies my Moti is brought
before the corpse. Invariably though, after no more than a moments hesitation, she wrinkles her snout and
looks away.
By the time we reached Opera House, obstructions in our route had increased manifold: all manner
of traffic, crowds of people on foot, bullock carts, stray cows, taxis, public trams rattling past, and every
now and then, a chauffeur-driven private sedan honking obstreperously. The voices of street hawkers rang
in our ears through several long stretches during our journey.
Fresh leafy vegetables. .fresh methi, sua, maat. .
Bombeel. .taaji, safed bombeel!
Langraa. .langraa. .dasheree. Juicy, sweet dasheree. .
Given the fierceness with which the sun was beating down, it was unlikely that either the leafies or
the Bombay duck had retained any of their proclaimed freshness. The mangoes looked quite luscious,
though. It was already a quarter to four, and I was terribly thirsty.
Shall we take the short cut through Khareghat Colony? asked Jungoo.
Hardly much shorter, snapped Rusi. And taking those steep rocky shelves with a corpsell slow us
down even more.
Clearly, he was peeved, for not once had Jungoo offered to relieve him of his load. Not a corpse
bearer himself, Jungoo was no stranger to nusso either; his own elder brother had been shouldering
corpses for years. And Jungoo would have known just how difficult it is for the same person to yell for
gangway while carrying the weight of a corpse and bier.
Having made it up to Kemps Corner and almost into the gates of the funeral grounds, something
happened to me which I cant quite account for, even after all these years. Its never happened before, or
since.
Fatigue, dehydration and exhaustion all that, yes, but something else, too: for I went under at the
very junction where one road bifurcates to Forjett Hill towards the small fire temple where I grew up.
Even on a normal day, if in the course of my work I happen to casually pass by the lane that leads to my

fathers temple, the emotions that surge in me can be quite disordering. This time, however, I simply
passed out.
Not in an instant, as with the flick of a switch, but rather gradually. .my legs turning to jelly and
folding in, even as I heard clearly the agitated voices of my fellow-shoulderers.
Oh my God, watch out!
Whatre you doing, ghair chodiya! The bier! Hold on!
Help, someone. .Elchis collapsed.
As I crumpled to the ground all this was reported to me only later the corpse slid off the bier
and turned turtle, causing a great uproar and commotion among passers-by. For me, the only odd
impression which I still retain is that it wasnt a gradual tunnelling into darkness; rather, I felt
overwhelmed by the intense, dazzling heat of an inferno a fierce, blinding white light that drew me
to it relentlessly and then, at the very last moment when I felt I should be consumed by it, repelled me
violently: plunging me into complete darkness.
And all through this vertiginous delirium, but one bleak and sorrowful awareness held me in thrall:
the white marbled spotlessness of the fire temple where I had spent some of the happiest years of my life,
and the all-pervading presence in it of my father, its head priest, who, in the last many years, had refused
to speak to me, or even set eyes on me. When I came to, minutes later, I felt immense bereavement. All
that immaculate purity and holiness was out of bounds for me. Everything I had once held dear was lost,
and forever, I had become a pariah. .

Four
My earliest memories are aural: a burst of startling thunder, the thrumming of torrential rain.
Early evening, but already rather dark, a storm is raging outside.
Father has just woken up from his afternoon nap. While Mother puts the kettle on for his tea, he
carries me in his arms, strolling idly, but at the same time gripping me with what seems like excessive
caution. He carries me through the cool, shadowy back rooms of the temple, and into the dry, thatched
arbour of the open-air well. When he stops by the well to peer in, Father clutches me even more tightly. I
squirm in his arms, lean forward and drink in a glimpse of its deep, dark emptiness.
Another thunderclap and he moves away from the well. But I want to stay on: I twist my body in his
fixed grasp, turning towards the sight we are walking away from.
What is it you want, Phiroze? asks Father. All those sparkling jewels?
All around the well are dozens of small tables with rows and rows of oil lamps, neatly arranged in
tiny glasses. Most of the wicks are lit, their flames dancing in the draughty anteroom.
This is deemed a holy well. There could be hundreds or thousands of lamps here the light-and-fog
halo of each dazzled my infant eyes, merging all into a magical chiaroscuro.
Each oil lamp lit by a devotee, I later learned, represented an offering of thanksgiving, or a prayer of
supplication, towards the cost of which, he or she was meant to slip a one paisa copper coin into the
black slot of a large metal box placed on a table nearby. At the end of every month, Father would open
this box with the large key suspended from the nail above it. When I was old enough, he enlisted my help
in counting the total offerings. All of it, I was told, went to charity.
But right now, Father isnt interested in lingering by the sparkling lights around the well. Plodding
along lazily in his soft velvet slippers, he carries me into the cool marble-tiled main hall, where huge
framed portraits of Zarathustra and all the saints brood on the periphery of the sanctum sanctorum.
Standing outside this dark chamber with its enormous gleaming fire vase, he whispers in my ear:
Look Phiroze, look there, directing my gaze at an enfeebled but still penetrating fire, Khodaiji. .
After he has had his tea and said his prayers, I know that Father will enter this chamber, clean the

excess ash and extinguished embers, stoke the fire and feed it with sandalwood and frankincense. Then,
when its blazing again, hell pull the rope several times, softly ringing the bell suspended from the high
ceiling.
But before any of this can happen, the silence of the temple is suddenly shattered by an unholy clatter.
So deep, perhaps, is my fathers own absorption in the palpating symbol of God he has just pointed out to
me or perhaps so bemused after the nap he hasnt completely woken up from that he jumps out of
his skin at the loud report. The reverberating crash runs on for a while before dinning to a slow halt and I,
too, experience the prickle of my fathers momentary gooseflesh. I cling tighter, sinking deeper into the
comforting largeness of his body. But Father has had a real start, and his voice cracks with anger and
alarm as he yells in a wild and intemperate manner:
Eh Mehernosh! Bomi! Mackie! Whos there? Whos on duty? Making such a racket at sunset? Any
sense? Show yourselves!
But no one appears, and Father decides to ignore this non-compliance.
Wash all those platters clean. I insist every one of them again. And wipe them thoroughly with a
clean cloth. I tell you, is there any sense in this? And at this, the hour of lighting lamps?! he mutters, as
we head back towards his after-nap cup of tea.
Father is still trembling with anger, such has been the shock for him of that sudden clatter of silver
trays on marble floor. But collecting himself, he whispers to me, almost conspiratorially,
Clumsy oafs. Unless I yell at them, theyll never learn.
I can tell he is trying to repair the nervous trauma he was afraid he might have caused by yelling so
violently in my ear. For that one moment, he forgot he was carrying a very small boy in his arms.
All through childhood, I dont remember ever being afraid of Father. If I think back, childhood was a
piously happy time that flowered under his protective shelter and gentle authority. An awkwardly built,
lumbering man he was powerful in most ways, but always very kind and considerate. I remember his
boisterous laughter ringing through the tranquil temple in the evening, when he was amused by something I
said or did, or some harmless prank played by Vispy and me, or our shenanigans with one of the pets. But
that laughter was to dry up even before Mother died.
Somehow, over time, it congealed into a grim religiosity, a credulously scientific approach to
spirituality. Of course, I also remember innumerable occasions when my mother complained of his
selfishness, but I never really learnt what exactly she meant by that.
Years later, when I was a grown boy, the distance between my father and me widened. Still later, it
became a breach, impossible to ford. The playful whimsicality was all gone, scorched by an unbending
sense of propriety and piety. I was to learn then, that his anger could be frighteningly implacable,
merciless. But I am moving ahead too fast. .
When my father was appointed head priest of the small fire temple on Forjett Hill Road, only my
elder brother, Vispy, had been born. Just when my parents had resignedly accepted that God had no more
children in store for them, my mother discovered to her delight that she was pregnant again.
The great joy of this occurrence was enhanced by their belief that this second child, conceived nine
whole years after the first, and so soon after they had moved into the residential quarters of the temple,
could not but be a blessing bestowed on them by the departed and saintly Eruch Kookadaroo, the previous
head priest of the temple. While he was still incumbent, Eruchsah always had a great fondness for my
father; from his sickbed, he prevailed upon the temple trustees to offer him the post. When I was born, a
few months later, on what turned out to be a highly auspicious day of the Zoroastrian calendar, my father
read much meaning in my advent into this world. Though Framroze kept his presumptions to himself, and
may have shared them on occasion only with my mother, the truth was that in his daydreams he was
nurturing great hopes for me, for what I would grow up to become one day.

Small in size and of inconspicuous location my fathers temple may have been, but it was
nonetheless venerable for its antiquity, and touching for the loyalty of its devotees, some of whom visited
it faithfully every single day of the year.
As I grew up, I never stopped hearing stories of the long lineage of spiritual masters associated with
the temple, powerfully endowed priests whose generous blessings flowed to all who prayed before its
holy fire. How else could one explain countless, legendary accounts of the miraculous restitution to the
righteous of what was always theirs, of near-fatal illnesses vanquished and glowing health regained, of
the miscarriage of innumerable wicked schemes which the innocent found themselves inveigled into,
eventually emerging triumphant in short, of the assured fulfilment of every earnest prayer beseeched
for on bended knees at the doorway of the temples sanctum sanctorum. For seventeen years, this temple
was my beloved home, and stories of the miracles of faith my oxygen.
By the time I was born, Vispy was already a school-going child attending a reputed English-medium
institution near Flora Fountain. He was a bright boy. His performance at school gave no cause for
complaint to his teachers; moreover, increasingly, it became reason for praise and prizes. When I was
enrolled in the same institution, Vispy had already reached his penultimate year at school. Given the vast
age difference between us, it was natural that we had little in common by way of shared pastimes, or even
a strong fraternal bond.
However, of the few activities which we sometimes jointly participated in, none gave us so much
mirthful pleasure as feeding the family pets. As I grew in years and Vispy became busier with his school
studies, I insisted and mother acquiesced, albeit uneasily on taking over this responsibility singlehandedly.
Hilla, my mother, always had a soft spot for animals: to care for those dumb creatures who never
complained about their personal woes seemed to her a worthy, ennobling activity. Over the years, she had
accumulated a small menagerie of pets, housing them in the temples small backyard: a goat, who gave us
milk every morning, a dourly enigmatic tortoise who could stride about with astonishing celerity when he
wished to, two frisky adopted strays who loved to render him inactive by knocking him onto his shell (for
no apparent reason), and an African grey parrot, Hormaz, who had belonged to Hillas father before her,
and was estimated to be at least eighty years of age.
At various times she also tried rearing rabbits, squirrels and hens, though somehow, the latter were
always very short-lived. The brief melancholy occasioned by the death of one of these minor pets (and its
subsequent burial in the backyard), was a recurrent and heart-sinking motif that sounded like the temple
bell through my childhood, and one of the few intense emotions I regularly shared with Mother.
Alone among the pets, the parrots favoured status allowed him space within our cramped living
quarters, where a tall wooden stool served as pedestal for his impressive brass cage. Most of the time,
however, Hormaz loathed being caged. He preferred to flap around our two rooms, or sat perched atop
the dome of his cage, from where he would fix a sharply hooked gaze on the mundane preoccupations of
humans. Only at dusk, when it was his bedtime, would he quietly strut back into the barred enclosure and,
without warning, commence an outraged squawking to remind Hilla of the hour, that it was time to cloak
his cage with the patched and musty blanket reserved for this purpose, without which, apparently, Hormaz
couldnt find it in him to fall sleep.
Framrozes own bedtime wasnt much later, though he was less impatient, and needed no more than a
light supper to go out like a light. By 8 p.m. he was snoring loudly. The others stayed up until later.
Sometimes, Vispy had homework to complete, and Hilla, her household chores. But the entire family was
always considerate about not disturbing the exhausted high priests sleep. They knew he had set his alarm
at forty-five minutes past midnight, so that at one oclock in the morning, for the fifth and last time before
daybreak, he would rise and re-enter the temples marble sanctum sanctorum to sweep up the excess

embers and ash from the big fire vase, feed the fire with sandal and fan it back to life; then finally, at that
desolate hour, ring several times the sonorous brass bell that hung from the ceiling inside the tiny square
chamber.
Having thus marked the division of the day into the last of its five segments, Framroze would return
to bed; that is, until 4.30 a.m., when he got up again to perform his ablutions, mumble his prayers and
resonantly chime in the new morning. Shortly after, Hilla got up and began preparing the leavened breads,
the sticky brown sweet with nuts and raisins which children love, the doughnuts, boiled eggs and crisply
fried paapri. All of this was placed alongside fruits and a few buds of white flowers in trays of German
silver, to make up the offerings which would be sanctified during a clutch of prayer services that began as
early as 6 a.m. but concluded just before noon.
Framrozes rubbery, porpoise-like frame was always to be seen lumbering hurriedly through the
cool, tranquil inner halls of the Zoroastrian temple; that is, when he wasnt seated cross-legged on the
floor, taking part in some prayer service himself. His odd hours of waking and sleeping may have partly
explained his perpetual air of dopiness, though even this was probably an inaccurate perception. In fact,
he was a very busy man, attending politely not only to those who came to his temple to requisition prayers
for their deceased, but also arranging for other freelance priests to fulfil some of these commissions at
pre-arranged hours.
Moreover, he had to maintain a small notebook, in which he carefully noted the names of the
deceased persons and all their relatives and ancestors whose names must be mentioned in the course of
the recitation. He had to remember to give these names on a slip of paper to the officiating priest (or his
junior partner) who would be performing the recitation. Often, subsequent to a flurry of ceremonies held
during the first month after the occurrence of death, most relatives made it a point to have these and
diverse other ceremonies repeated every month on the same day, sometimes for as many as twelve years.
So there was a large amount of paperwork involved in all this for Framroze recording,
scheduling, billing. Each ceremony cost the deceased relatives a certain modest, but specific amount.
Only a portion of this amount went to the officiating priest. The rest of it covered the costs of various
oblational offerings that were consecrated by the sonorous recitation of ancient Avestan hymns. Then,
neatly packaged in paper parcels, the blessed fruit and bread were shared among the relatives of the
family that had requisitioned the ceremony.
Besides all that, of course, someone had to take responsibility for ensuring a regular supply of fresh
flowers and fruits for the services, and other comestibles for the resident priests family. Fortunately,
there were florists and fruit and vegetable vendors who stopped by in the evenings, when the temple was
at its most serene. Ardesar, my fathers assistant, himself a junior priest, or even Hilla, usually managed
to secure bulk bargains for these products, and fix a date for the next delivery.
Often, Framroze had very little time for Hilla. I suppose this is what she must have meant by his
selfishness. Days would pass without his enquiring after Vispys progress at school, and it was Hilla who
held the fort, as it were, ensuring that a fresh school uniform was washed and ironed every day, that his
homework was completed the evening before and his dry lunch ready and packed in his tiffin box every
morning; that the familys meals were cooked after Vispy left for school, that our tiny quarters were
always spotlessly clean.
While they attempted to keep this complex domestic routine under control, for quite a while
apparently, without knowing it myself, I had made my parents very anxious by refusing to speak. My
eyes shone, possibly, with some spark of intelligence, and occasionally I bestowed upon some member of
my family the most endearing smile. But talk I wouldnt, nor even, like babies do, blow spittle or burble
meaninglessly. I was already three, and they had begun to worry that I was a little backward, if not
actually feeble-minded; well, certainly not as bright as my elder brother of that there was no question.
However, all of a sudden, I capsized their disparaging beliefs. One day, I finally did say something

 a recognizable word! My first word, though, was not Mama, or Papa, or Vispy. Rather, it was
something that sounded like muss-muss. It took Hilla a while to decipher, until she observed that I was
trying to attract the attention of the parrot, Hormaz.
When Hilla reported the incident to him that evening, Framroze was thrilled.
The first word that escapes his lips, he pronounced solemnly, is the name of the Almighty Creator.
I have always known that wonderful things are in store for this boy. He may have had a tardy start but,
perhaps, Hilla, one day our Phiroze will become a great priest, or a renowned Zoroastrian scholar.
But my interest in the parrot came to an abrupt and chilling end. My mother at least, I believe, was
never able to forgive me for what I did. To the others, it only seemed to confirm what they had always
suspected: that I was a dull and pig-headed child.
Whatever opinion my family may have had of me, it probably had little effect on me. For at the age of
four or about then, I grew into quite a brat, still often unintelligible in my locution, but nevertheless, very
voluble and self-confident. Often wide-eyed and dumbstruck by Vispys ability to carry out the most
prodigious feats, I was cautioned never to attempt any of them until I was his age. Such as walking along
the narrow parapet of the temples veranda, which was quite deserted in the evenings, or turning multiple
somersaults on Papas large bed. I felt proud of Vispy, of all his achievements, especially those for which
he was lauded at the school he went to for the better part of the day. These were sometimes mentioned or
discussed over family dinner.
One of his skills, which I would often marvel at, was the ease with which, on a squally January
evening, after school, he put a kite up in the sky. There was a narrow stairway that led up to the temple
terrace, and Id follow him there. Sometimes, there were dozens of kites already in the sky, controlled by
other invisible strings careening, swooping, wafting, bobbing, spinning out of control, gliding high on a
gentle breeze, or soaring deep into a darkening sky. Once, but only once, after he had put his kite up very
high in the sky, Vispy allowed me to hold the thread. It was the lightest moment of my life. I felt myself
airborne, flying. And also, I felt a great and momentous responsibility, as though I had been temporarily
put in charge of a planetary configuration or of one of the worlds rarest elements; as if the earths
continued equilibrium was entwined in my fingers to maintain. But before I could savour the moment for
any length of time, Vispy took the string away from me.
Youll cut your hand, dont fool around! Theres ground glass coating this twine. .
I didnt understand what he meant by that. But my interrupted tryst with the sky may have inspired me
to fly Hormaz.
Since I knew I could never put Vispys kite up in the sky by my own efforts, and would have left it
hopelessly mangled had I tried, it seemed far easier to try and fly a bird. The very next afternoon, soon
after he had left for school, I took down the reel of thread from where it lay atop Vispys cupboard, and
approached Hormaz quietly. Since there was no question of my being able to take the bird up to the
terrace, I thought Id fly him right there in our front room. Mama and Papa were napping in the next one.
With the trusting and slightly impatient indifference of an eighty-year-old, the parrot refused, at first, to
react: perhaps, he thought, this little brat how can he hurt me?
But when I had quickly wrapped the string thrice around his neck, he began to squawk in alarm. I
hadnt bargained for all this noise. I had just wanted to fly Hormaz around the room at the end of my
string. Instead, he began to flutter and tremble and shriek, terrified. Flapping his wings madly, he would
rise just a few inches, then descend again trembling, screaming his head off. I knew all this noise would
wake up my parents. Before that happened, and they put an end to my experiment, I wanted Hormaz to fly
up in the air just a bit and circumnavigate the room, maybe only a couple of times at the end of my string.
So I tugged at the string, but he didnt move. Then I tugged harder.
And this time, he did take off; Hormaz flew up with a great deal of force. And suddenly, there was

blood everywhere. Not just on the feathers of the grey parrot lying on the floor, but everywhere, on my
fingers and hands as well. And suddenly, I was shrieking louder than the parrot had been a minute ago.
Several cries and exclamations followed soon after first concern, then horror Mother rushed
into the room and began shrieking, too. That was my first experience of death, though I was too young to
know it by its name.
For many years after this, my parents were kind enough not to remind me of my stupidity, or blame
me for this tragic mishap. It was tacitly accepted by my parents that I had been just too young, too foolish
to fully understand what I had done. But even to my as yet underdeveloped ability to make inferences, the
inescapable relation between the hard tug at the sharp kite-flying string, my own bloody fingers and the
fallen parrot on the floor locked together with a terrifying logic. I couldnt have put words to what had
happened, but my guilt was enormous. Within myself, I was grieving silently for Hormaz and the whole
episode only made me more taciturn than before.

Five
The notion that I was the stupid one in the family caught on.
To be sure, I did many foolish things when I was small the unfortunate near-decapitation of
Hormaz being only the first. That all my family believed I was endowed with an inferior intelligence was
evident in the way they spoke to me, and of me. There may have been some degree of genuine concern
underlying the tacit complicity they shared over my alleged mental deficiencies; but it was annoying to me
that my mother, father and brother all seemed bonded in a conspiracy of nervous apprehension, as
though continually watching for further signs of my dull-wittedness. Rather than reassure them that their
fears were misguided, I found it more gratifying to confound them with further evidences of my idiocy.
No, even thats not completely true. My cussed disposition may have ensured that I felt perversely
contrary, antipathetic to their bewildered suspicions. But I never deliberately postured, or projected
myself as someone, or something I wasnt. If my folks saw me as doltish, it was because their minds were
already predisposed on that score.
And, perhaps, the biggest reason for this prejudice had its root somewhere in my own undeniable
light-headedness: every now and then, for no apparent rhyme or reason, I would burst into bouts of
irrepressible giggling. No matter how ostentatious or forbidding an occasion might be, no matter how
dignified, exalted or solemn if I sensed that some kind of formality was being called for, in itself this
condition was sufficient to set me giggling.
Until the age of five or six, I suppose this is generally tolerated and may even seem cute. But the
older I grew the more absurd any requirement of pomposity or piety seemed; immediately and
automatically irrespective of context it evoked in me a burst of unstoppable and hearty rejoicing.
Naturally, eyebrows were raised at this kind of compulsive, brazenly disrespectful, side-splitting
risibility. To this day, I have to make a special effort to exercise control over this aspect of my reflexes.
The mere knowledge that a part of me is telling me to restrain myself is enough to unfasten the lid on my
irreverence.
I had grown up in the rear of a fire temple which was revered and visited by scores of people daily.
At all times of day and night, every nook and corner of the temple was sanitized by the cleansing perfume
of sandal and incense. In our tiny quarters at the back as well, the air was redolent with the smell of
piousness; and our lives tangled in an elaborate network of rules and proscriptions that had been instilled
in us from a very young age. Everything was sanctified and respect-worthy. No room here for fatuity, or
impiety.
There were procedures for everything for eating a meal, for pissing, for taking a crap, for
washing ones arse, for how to wash ones hands after doing that, for taking a bath; and above all, for

when and how frequently one must recite the prayers which would restore some measure of
wholesomeness to ones sullied, contaminated self.
Personal hygiene and purity the rules of which, according to my father, were clearly laid down in
our ancient texts were essential prerequisites to spiritual progress. Naturally, I could not help being
amused by the overblown logic or lack of it in some of these injunctions, which may have had good
reason for being enjoined upon primitive pastoral tribes some three thousand or five thousand years ago,
but didnt need to be glorified into obsessive, all-embracing moral codes. Their obvious rationale at the
time would have been sanitary it seemed evident even to me not mystical, or scientific, as my
father would have us believe.
Why do you think there are so many strange, new, incurable diseases in the world? Why do people
no longer live to be a hundred, or a hundred and fifty, or two hundred years old as they used to in the
olden days? Why do you think evil has been able to tighten its stranglehold on humankind? Framroze
would rage, if he ever he saw Vispy or me slip up in our routines.
Its because people have forgotten the conjunction between hygiene and spirituality, he would
continue, answering his own question. Or because they presume it is inconsequential. No wonder the
world has become such a bedevilled place!
Nevertheless, of all my family members, it was my father I was closest to. His capacity for softness
and indulgence towards me seemed limitless. There were times, I remember, during my fits of endless
giggling even while scolding me to stop being an ass I could discern in his eyes and in the lines on
his face, despite the thick camouflage of a riotous salt-and-pepper beard, the disallowed flicker of an
impulse of love, the suppressed urge to join in my infectious giggling. Or did I imagine it?
In fact, until the time he completely disowned me, and never wanted to see my face again, my father
was the only one in the family who refused to believe there was anything deficient with my intelligence.
Unlike Mother, whose love for me was fraught with unspoken fears that she had perhaps given birth to a
completely obtuse and moronic second child, I felt deep down that Father was actually proud of me; that,
secretly, he continued to nurture hopes that once I had run through my juvenile frivolities, and stopped
playing the fool, I would emerge a brilliant religious scholar, if not a respected high priest like himself.
My performance at school, however, was disappointingly below par, and far below the record
established by my brother before me. Having cleared his matriculation exam with an impressively high
score, Vispy was the recipient of a scholarship from a Parsi charitable fund for boys from
underprivileged families. Already, he had joined a commercial institute where he was learning typing and
shorthand, as well as bookkeeping and accountancy. Now that he had grown up, he travelled to the
institute and back on the citys public transport buses and trams, sometimes returning late in the evening
only just in time for dinner. I envied Vispy his new-found freedom, but was constantly reminded by my
parents that he had earned it.
Dunce!
Donkey!
Dullard!
Some of the elderly teachers at school, I couldnt help notice, reserved their angriest invective for
me. On the verge of retirement themselves, they made it a point to recall the years they had spent giving
instruction to my brother with exaggerated nostalgia and yearning. My own family members thought it,
frankly, improper and nonsensical to even draw such comparisons between us.
The truth was I had no real interest in school, or in enforced learning. Nevertheless, goaded and
punished, threatened and yelled at, often the butt of the practical jokes of my classmates I suspect they
saw me as a simpleton, too, but I didnt mind I stumbled slowly up the ladder through high school; but,
alas, I failed to clear my final matriculation exam.

Father was disappointed. On a number of occasions during the last two years, he had been urging me
to study hard, and see if I could possibly even improve on Vispys score. He was hoping that a healthy
spirit of competition between the brothers might serve to uncover the depths of dormant potential in me.
When he heard I had failed, he was as supportive as he could bear to be.
Start studying right away for the second attempt! he said to me sternly.
All those who failed were given a second chance by the Board to reappear for the exam in eight
months time.
This time make sure that you not only pass, but do so with flying colours! Of course, I will do what I
can, to help. .
He muttered that last line sotto voce, as if reminding himself of something he had undertaken to do. I
understood that he was making me a promise. Father had a great belief in the miraculous power of our
ancient liturgy. In that respect, he was a worthy successor to his mentor, the great Dastoorji Eruchsah
Kookadaroo. In the latters small bedroom, now occupied by my father (my mother, Vispy and I shared the
other larger room, so as not to disturb Father during his odd hours of sleep), the venerable Eruchsah had
preserved, in a wooden cabinet, some arcane handwritten manuscripts in the forgotten Avestan language.
Before he passed on, he had bequeathed this rare heritage to my father. The pages of these
manuscripts were so old that they practically crumbled on touch; the writing on them faded, but
nevertheless legible. One afternoon, while mother was getting our dinner ready in the kitchen, I
discovered Father alone with a roll of brown-gum tape repairing one of these long, loose-sheaved
notebooks whose parchment-like pages were coming apart. Abstractedly, as though speaking only to
himself, he said:
Hidden in these sacraments are vibrations so powerful that when recited aloud, they can make the
impossible come true: the mortally ill healthy again, the impoverished discover untold wealth and the
foolish find it in them to utter words that command respect from the wise! Only, strong faith is demanded
in their recitation; the kind of faith that can manifest a towering blaze on sodden earth.
I understood that Father, busy as he was, intended to unleash the power of these ancient formulae to
help me pass my matriculation exam. I was touched, and promised myself I would reciprocate his faith in
me by doing my very best.
Despite my staunchest resolve, I found myself unequal to the task of competing with Vispy; indeed, of
applying myself to any form of concerted study.
Every time I tried to focus on reading, or cramming, I encountered an immense rock-like barrier in
my head which made me wonder if I wasnt really the dunce and fathead my family had always made me
out to be. On the other hand, it was also true that left to my own resources I was pretty certain this was no
infirmity a weakness of sorts, perhaps but what I really craved was something more robust than
books. To find myself out-of-doors, unconfined by Fathers fire temple with its holy smoke, salutary
fragrances and workaday miracles: to be adult, free to go out and earn money, make my way in the world.
.
By the time I was in my teens, I intensely hated the feeling of being hemmed in by the norms of
temple living, of being controlled in the myriad subtle ways a family employs to augment dependence and
prolong childhood. But I knew that so long as I continued to live with my parents, nothing would change,
my day-to-day routine remaining as invariable as the hoarsely stentorian chanting of the priests through the
morning in the prayer hall, in a language that nobody had spoken or understood for the last three thousand
years.
The real disappointment, though, that irked my father was not so much my dismal performance at
school as the fact that though I was already sixteen I was not even a naavar yet. This is the first test one
negotiates on the road to full-fledged priesthood being ordained a novitiate priest. Not that my father

wanted either of his sons to become full-time priests like himself: he knew only too well how low his
profession had slumped in our burgeoning city of commerce. There was no money in it and not much
respect either. Nevertheless, in those days, every family of the priestly caste deemed it necessary and
appropriate for their sons to go through at least this first stage of ritual training and initiation.
Vispy had already acquired a reasonable fluency in the scriptural passages one has to commit to
memory in order to become a naavar. For most people, I suppose, this isnt a very difficult task. In fact he
had easily cleared that milestone while still in his fifth form and, since then, had been qualified and fully
authorized to participate in certain of the less abstruse liturgical services.
(In those days, students matriculated in their seventh year of school. By the time I reached my
seventh year, however, an augmented curriculum compelled the education board to move the final exam
up, so that I had already been attending school for eight whole years when I failed my matric. During his
final year of school, not wanting to distract him from his studies, my parents had denied Vispy permission
to participate in the Mukhtaad ceremonies. Otherwise, for two consecutive years prior to that, the young
naavar had donned the robes of a priest and joined in the jamboree of prayer.)
During All Souls Week which with us Zoroastrians actually lasts an entire ten days preceding the
New Year Fathers small temple was virtually besieged by earnest supplicants entreating him to
requisition prayers for their dear departed.
Impossible! Ek minute bhi nathi, Father would expostulate. But how? From where will I find the
time?
The regular customers had booked their date and time weeks in advance. But every year saw an
additional influx of believers who, by word of mouth, had heard stories of the fire temples wondrous
aura of immaculate purity, where prayers were weighted with so much sincerity (and so well articulated)
that they were actually known to elicit results.
At such times, Vispy, and several other young naavars like him, were summoned to perform the
additional ceremonies. Then, every square foot in the marbled floor of the main hall would be crowded
with frowzily-clad priests in white muslin gowns, some even younger and more diminutive than myself
and I had thought I was short sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor, surrounded by trays of fruit,
flowers and daraanmalido. Three sides of the rectangular room were circumscribed by long banquet
tables crowded with silver or copper flower vases, each one in memory of a departed soul who, it was
believed, returned during this season to partake of the incorporeal feast of prayer and food provided for
by his or her family. There were also a few, small round tables holding a single vase each for those who
could afford this exclusivity and didnt want to be huddled among a rabble of souls and, of course,
dozens of glistening thuribles in the large room, one for each of the ceremonies being performed,
crackling and spluttering with the strong aroma of righteousness.
By a skilful manipulation of timings, Father was able to accommodate everyones needs, and
ceremonies in remembrance of the dead proceeded thick and fast, six, sometimes even eight, being
performed simultaneously at any given hour of the morning. Before noon, though, all such ceremonies
came to an end.
Lucky Vispy, how I envied him: he was allowed to retain the stipend he received for each ceremony
performed, to use as he pleased. In my own case, I was not offered even a paisa in pocket money. Though
my father could scarcely have afforded it had he wished to, he justified my deprivation, to himself as well
as the rest of the family, as meet punishment for a rash, frivolous and undisciplined offspring.
By 8 p.m., when Father retired, if mother was not feeling too tired herself after dinner had been
served, she would stretch out on the creaky easy chair with the book of liturgies open in her hand to some
passage I was having difficulty with. I would sit beside her on a low stool repeating aloud after her
certain verses and phrases in the hope they would stick in my memory. But every so often these strange
sounds would trigger off involuntary aural associations in my mind that brought on the giggles. For

instance, there was this extraordinary passage:

Mem pah geti manido
Oy-em goft, oy-em kurd, oy-em just, oy-em bud budastead.
It probably meant something completely profound and sublime, but in the wicked recesses of my
mind I heard its intrinsic meaning distinctly. Utterly far-fetched nonsense, which never should have been
verbalized; yet, only as a lark, I couldnt resist offering it to Mother as my free translation of the
passage:
If I dont get my malido on time,
I may just go nuts, and bite someone in the bud!
In an instant that seemed to linger for aeons, her eyes enlarged in growing disbelief. The effort of
suppressing both anger and utterance Father already fast asleep in the next room rendered her voice
flutey and jagged with hysteria:
Cant show respect to even the most sacred? Whats wrong with you? Whats to become of you, you
silly oaf? Everything is funny to you! Youll end up a complete failure, a nobody: a jokester! And, in the
bargain, break your poor fathers heart. .
Her words echoed in my ears long after we had repaired in all sobriety to the holy text. I certainly
didnt want any harm to come to my father. Already, he endured acute flatulence and during his worst
bouts, complained of chest pains.
As I had failed miserably in the final board exams, when the new academic year started, I no longer
had the legitimate pretext of leaving for school every morning. At the same time, my curiosity about the
world outside had increased tremendously. Luckily, my parents were officially notified about extra
coaching classes that the school was providing for its eleven monumental duffers (including yours truly).
Also, to my advantage, they were more than aware of my friendship with Rohinton Kanga, whose
father, Nariman, had just commenced production of bolts of cotton cloth at his new mill in Worli. Nariman
Kangas reputation as entrepreneur extended well beyond the Bombay province. Though Kanga Mills was
only one of over a hundred such enterprises that had been inaugurated in the state during the last fifty-odd
years (and the third, among Kangas own), this mill had the distinction of being the first to be located in
the Worli area. Moreover, Nariman had recently been in the news for simultaneously constructing rows of
neat little back-to-back tenements not far from the mill, providing subsidized housing for his workforce
that had been drawn from the native populations of Solapur and Nasik. This was considered another
feather in the cap of Kangas numerous innovative achievements.
Given his considerable wealth, well-publicized philanthropic impulses, and unimpeachable prestige
in the temporal world, Framroze and Hilla were actually proud of the fact that his son was a close friend
of their own. That Rohinton, on occasion, had actually visited our quarters behind the temple, spent lazy
afternoons stretched out on the easy chair playing draughts with me, or noisily sipping a Dukes aerated
ice-cream soda, fetched post-haste by a temple boy or sometimes by Mother herself, if no temple boy
could immediately be located from Merwaans, the corner Irani store.
Though my father frowned darkly at gossip he sometimes heard about Nariman Kangas freethinking
ways and ardent nationalism, he was willing to ignore it since it was after all only hearsay. I, too, had
been shrewd enough never to let on to family a piece of knowledge I was privy to: that during the sticky,
summer months of Bombay, Rohinton himself and probably, even his dad, or so my friend assured me
never wore a sudrah under his shirt: the sacred vest that every self-respecting Zoroastrian wears next
to his skin: his spiritual armour.
So when I bruited the story that Rohinton was helping me prepare for my second attempt at the board
exams, they were pleased, and in a smug, self-congratulatory way, never once attempted to check the
veracity of my claim. The joke was that Rohinton himself had only just scraped through the finals. A

plump, happy-go-lucky fellow with rolls of baby fat still cushioning his neck, forearms and cheeks,
Rohinton would have shrieked with merriment had he heard I had cast him in the role of my tutor.

Six
Those were the best moments of my youth, when I could be out in the streets on my own.
Usually, I would escape from the temple precincts as early in the morning as I was able to, without
any fixed destination in mind. More often than not feeling, I suppose, obliged to live out the fiction I
had created I would head in the direction of Mazagaon. Rohinton had a large extended family of
siblings, grandparents, cousins, servants and pets, who shared a two-storeyed, many-roomed ancestral
bungalow at Mazagaon. The house, which was named Mon Repos, was encircled by a vast expanse of
greenery, flowerbeds and moats. It seemed so enormous that I hardly ever met most of the people who, I
believed, lived there. I knew that Rohintons brothers were much older than he, and worked in offices. I
had never met them myself. As for his parents and grandparents, they were very busy people, too. I knew
that his father had married twice, first a red-haired Irish woman he met during his student days in England,
who gave him one son, and died rather young herself. Later, he married Rohintons mother, a Parsi from
Karachi, who bore him three more children of whom Rohinton was the youngest.
His fathers eccentric tastes and enormous wealth were on display everywhere inside the house, in
the shape of elaborate chandeliers, ornately-framed portraits of his forefathers, a grand marble stairway
leading to a living room furnished with expensive Persian carpets, vases from China and a stone
sarcophagus that dated back, purportedly, to Roman times. Outside, in the park, under a gazebo, stood a
marble bust of Rohintons great-grandfather, Framji Kanga, whose adventurous trading in opium and silk
during the early nineteenth century had ushered generations of the Kanga family along the path of financial
plenitude.
Above all, the park boasted a small private zoo. Among the various animals, the deer and nilgai
roamed unhindered, while some others a porcupine, leopard, orangutan and an enormous python were
confined to spacious individual enclosures. There were also three enormous, though gentle, hounds who
were allowed to run free in the grounds. A high compound wall circumscribed the large park, heralded by
an imposing wrought iron gate.
Mother would have given me two half-anna coins, just enough for my fare on the tram from Gowalia
Tank to Mazagaon and back. These were terrific joyrides for me, as the tram slowly trundled through the
crowded streets and bazaars of the town. But at the end of my journey to Mazagaon, I didnt always feel
like visiting the Kangas. I felt close to Rohinton, but it was obvious to me that we belonged to different
worlds and I could never feel entirely at ease under the fastidious eyes of so many bearers, stewards
and watchmen.
When Rohinton and I tired of our idle diversions: gawking at the animals, teasing them or slyly
feeding them when the park wardens attention was elsewhere trying, somehow or the other, to hold the
animals capricious gaze for as long as possible we played nine tiles, or tried our hand at an abridged
version of the game of cricket (all the rage then, what with a largely Parsi cricket team having just
returned victorious from the MCC, and Nariman himself, after a business trip to England, bringing home a
fine, willow bat for Rohinton; pads, gloves, stumps, a full line of accessories as well). But the absence of
playmates shrank our engagements to skeletal proportions it was always just Rohinton and me,
although the hounds were always eager to join in and even cricket is no fun on such a diminished scale.
Finally, tiring of our feeble distractions, we would venture outside, taking long exploratory rambles
through the dock areas of Mazagaon.
The pier was so vast and busy no one ever took a second look at what we were about. Usually, we
had nothing to do anyway, but lose ourselves in the crowd, look around, wonder, fantasize. Coolies,

labourers, mechanics, unemployed layabouts, people waiting to sign up for a job, or a passage or so
we imagined were everywhere, as were bales of hemp or cotton, great coils of rope, loosely folded
sheets of sail-cloth and canvas, barrels, and all kinds of paraphernalia connected with the small and big
trawlers and barges that had dropped anchor there, or the merchandise and men they were carrying.
Just to see the small murky cove off Mazagaon, widening into the vast expanse of sea only partly
visible from the pier, yet stimulating enough to my minds eye, which didnt hesitate to fill in every
imagined detail. Tall masts with unfurled sails rising above cavernous hulls, the focsle, or forecastle,
where the wild crew bunked the bosun, the coxswain and quartermaster, and other mariners who kept
afloat every shape and size of vessel skiffs, barques, steamers, freighters, trows, and once, we even
saw a military frigate. Rohinton had picked up seafarers slang from dipping into his fathers paperback
collection of adventure tales of the sea, and took vicarious pleasure in awakening in me a great yearning
for the sailors life. I marvelled often at the putative pleasures of this solitary calling, and wondered if I
shouldnt run away to sea, escaping forever the narrow, claustral world of the fire temple in which I
languished.
A hot, hazy day. Perched atop a large heap of crudely chopped logs, casually observing the hustle
and bustle of the dockyard, we became aware of an odd-looking man standing some distance away,
staring. In fact, you could say he was frowning at us. .who was he? Did he recognize me, perhaps, or both
of us? Was he a friend of my fathers, by any chance? Had I ever seen this man among the dozens who
visited the temple every day?
Short and fat, he was dressed in an oversized brown suit. When he started walking towards us, we
noticed he had a curious start-and-stop gait, punctuated by an imperceptible limp. Rivulets of sweat
streaked down his brown face, and lost themselves in overgrown, salt-and-pepper stubble. But the most
menacing aspect of the man was, by far, his bulging eyes: bloodshot and popping out of their sockets as
though in consequence of some extreme outrage inflicted on him, or of the terribly severe and vengeful
moral outlook this had engendered. For one foolish instant, the thought crossed my mind that I should leap
off the heap of timber and run as fast as I could, before the fat man got anywhere closer to us. But I didnt
move, and neither did Rohinton. We returned his stare stonily, and waited for him to approach.
Bas. .?
He gestured quizzically, when he was finally standing in front of us: but for a minute or so after that,
kept silent, only regarding us in turn with those truculent eyes, as though wishing to examine us from every
possible angle.
Well. .? No work-business? No lesson-paani? What do you have to say for yourselves, you
loafers?
The rhetorical intent behind this gruff questioning was evident to us, and we didnt attempt any reply.
His voice was hoarse and he spoke inarticulately, as though with a swollen tongue.
Its obvious that you boys have little, oh-so-little interest in studying, focusing. . he said, looking
terribly aggrieved, as if wounded by some wanton act of negligence on our part. We continued to gawp
dumbly at this stranger; and he in turn to goggle at us with those angry, protuberant eyes.
In my time, too, there were many like you at school. .loafers and layabouts, truants and shirkers.
Absconders! And I can tell you from my many years of experience and observation all of them, every
single one, came to nought!
The fat man continued to drip perspiration from his forehead, speaking in a furious manner, stumbling
over his words, spraying spittle as he spoke. As though his thoughts were racing faster than his tongue
could move, as though the pressure of all he had to say rendered his speech breathless and blurred.
I know. . I know people, he said, I have tonnes of experience. I tell you, I can read people like a
book, inside out. . Now you, for instance, he pointed a crooked index finger at Rohinton, I can tell just

by looking at you, you hate studying. . Youve never read a book in your life, and wont, if you can help
it.
It made me squirm to listen to this assessment of Rohinton which seemed so much more applicable to
me.
Well, it takes all kinds. . he continued, at the same breakneck speed. The fat man was unstoppable.
This boy, now. . he was pointing his stubby, crooked finger at me, now this boys different: hes
thoughtful, hard-working, persevering. But of what use are all these virtues, if he keeps bad company?
Your friends will be the ruination of you. I know what happened in my own case.
What happened in your case? Im sure both Rohinton and I would have given a great deal to know
the answer. But before our curiosity could be satisfied, suddenly this strange fat man was shouting at us in
an intemperately loud voice:
Why are you not at school? Tell me. What are you doing out here, loafing about the docks? Answer
me! Where is your school? Tell me, at once.
We are quite finished with school, sir. Waiting to go into college.
Actually, in Rohintons own case this was perfectly true. He was to leave for England next month.
His father had arranged for him to join a finishing school at a place called Bath, before he was old enough
to attend college in Cambridge.
Dont you lie to me! the fat man became threateningly aggressive. We spoke the same lies when
we were dodging school. Ill teach you a thing or two about telling lies. So what, you boys attend college
in your school uniform, do you?
In fact, Rohinton was in casual home wear. Only, his light brown shirt more or less matched the
shade of our beige school shirt; as for me, thats what I slipped into every morning, and the dark brown
trousers of my school uniform, when it was time to leave home (supposedly to attend my extra coaching
classes). And here I was actually cutting classes, I thought to myself guiltily the fat mans
apprehensions were not entirely misplaced.
I never lie, sir, Rohinton insisted, with a hint of loftiness. My friend here is yet to finish his final
year of school, thats why hes in his school uniform. As for me
But the fat man wasnt listening. He had bent down and picked up a heavy piece of wood, which he
was brandishing ominously.
I dont want to hear any more lies, Im warning you, he spluttered in uncontrolled rage. What you
boys need is a good whacking. A whacking you wont forget for the rest of your lives. And later, youll
thank me for it, too. Indeed, you will. If anyone had given me a good thrashing when I was playing truant
from school, I might well have been someone else today. .
But this moment of reflective respite was overtaken by renewed rage. He began swinging the piece
of wood wildly in the air, flailing it about him like a madman, seemingly intent on carrying out his threat.
When he took small but purposeful steps in our direction, I was scared. It was too late for us to start
running now.
Unexpectedly, as if out of nowhere, another man, a rather lean, clean-shaven man, appeared from
behind the fat man and said something softly in his ear. I cant be sure I heard him right, but this is what it
sounded like:
Dhunjibhai wants to see you in his office. .
This innocuous message, whatever it meant, had a devastating effect on the fat man. He seemed to
crumble, deflate. .his anger and his bullying left him in an instant, and he became as frightened as any
schoolboy who has been summoned to the principals office.
Oh, no. .Ive done nothing wrong, I swear. But why, why does he want me? No, please. .please no,
sir.
The other man seemed familiar with the situation, and firmly but soothingly placated him.

Come. Dont be afraid. Dhunjibhai will take care of everything. .

So saying, he led the fat man away, holding him rather firmly by the arm. Meanwhile, the fat man
seemed to have forgotten our existence, for he turned meekly, and left without even a glance in our
direction. Such was our incredulity at this strange encounter, and our sense of relief at how it ended, that
we burst out laughing.
When they were out of sight, Rohinton denied that he had been afraid.
I was sure all along he wouldnt touch us. He darent. Why, if I had only mentioned my fathers
name, he would have started sweating some more!
But he might not have believed you, I pointed out.
How not? How dare he not believe me? I would have given him my fathers phone number.
Not too many people had telephones in those days, except the most important.
I would have taken him home, shown him my park. If he still didnt believe me, I would have set my
dogs on him.
And he went on in that vein, blustering rather like the fat man who had just been taken away. Not for
the first time in the course of our friendship I noticed how much store Rohinton set by status, how much
pride and importance he attached to family wealth and background. I was beginning to tire of him. The
truth is, after that day, I gradually distanced myself from Rohinton, and met him only once more before he
left for England.
Just as well. Thrown on my own resources, I learned to live with myself, exploring areas of Bombay
that I had never seen before.
Everywhere, the hum of activity: buildings were coming up, traffic circles were being laid out,
provincial-type bazaars replaced by structured marketplaces, itinerant hawkers provided permanent
stalls, trading of every kind was rampant and thriving. I travelled to every nook and corner of town on
every tramway route available. Buses were more expensive, so I avoided those. And if I found I had not
enough tram fare, I walked. Actually, this was by far the most exciting means of getting around, for I could
stop wherever I chose, and stare all I wanted; nobody cared. Silently, I absorbed into myself all the
throbbing nervous energy of a young, vernal city taking shape all around me. It made my skin tingle.
The fat man at the docks who had challenged us who was he? I never did find out. I presumed he
was more of a loiterer than Rohinton and me put together; and perhaps not quite right in the head. But as
day after day passed during those fateful eight months, I was even more surprised that I had managed to
get away with my duplicity, my sham of preparing for the exams for so many weeks and months! It was
amazing that during all these days of my peregrinations about town, I was never once spotted by some
distant relation or family friend and my truancy reported to my parents.
Through most of those months a period which I had promised my father I would devote to making
my second assault on the citadel of school-leaving exams I lived deceitfully. And all the while, dont
forget, Father was waking up half an hour earlier than usual, to recite those special prayers for my success
in the approaching exams.
Did I know what I was doing? I think I did: the task of preparing for the exams let alone
competing, or qualifying in them seemed so completely insuperable I felt it pointless to even attempt. It
was beyond me. After all, I was the acknowledged duffer of the family; besides, it was now obvious to
me, dishonest and without an ounce of conscience. Here I was, cleverly weaving this web of lies to put
my parents off the scent of my trickery for their own peace of mind, too or so I would have myself
believe.
And how did I occupy myself during those eight months? As I mentioned, I had quickly tired of
Rohinton and his company. The places I visited, the things I did during that time have no special relevance
to this story to what was to come soon after: that is, the best part of my remaining life yet, some of

them have stuck, indelibly, in memory.

December of my seventeenth year.
It must have been December, I believe, though Im only guessing: only six in the evening (I remember
looking at the luminous dial of my watch, a navjote present from Father), and it was already dark, with
relatively few people about.
I should have been hastening homewards, but an argument with Mother that morning, in which she
had threatened to curtail what she described as my excessive freedoms made me stubbornly decide not
to return home until after eight. I had been walking aimlessly, when something made me stop at the
derelict shrine of a Sufi saint behind an abandoned railway siding, near the Cotton Green Station.
At least thats what the flower-stall man outside told me it was. He said the service was about to
begin, and offered me a long string-and-flower chaddar he had been weaving, for four annas. I said I had
no money.
Take it, anyway, bachche, spread it on Babas kabar, he said. Baba will help you. .with health,
wealth, peace of mind. Everything will come to you if you believe in Babas blessings.
I took off my sandals at the entrance, washed my feet under the tap outside, like I saw other devotees
before me doing, and ventured in. It wasnt a very clean place visitors washed before entering, but
there was no duct for the waste water to drain away, and the white-tiled floor it wasnt marble, I
couldnt help notice was smeared with patterns of mud and wetness.
A great many people had gathered inside the cavernous, domed hall. I was directed by an acolyte to
first go into the inner room, and make my offering. In a small chamber was the tomb of the Sufi Baba from
the last century (whose name was mentioned to me several times that evening, but I cant for the life of me
remember it now) overlaid with dozens of floral tributes, like the one I was carrying. The service was
about to begin. Then I noticed that apart from the innumerable devotees and volunteers congregated
inside, on a sort of raised balcony above the main hall was a gathering of numerous women and young
girls, who seemed to belong to the durgah.
Wretchedly poor, their clothing bedraggled, they looked like they had been rescued from the streets
and provided shelter at the shrine. On the other hand, there was something strange about them. Their faces
seemed haunted, vacant. They stood, or sat on the floor, motionless, drained of expression, like zombies.
Others, among them, however, were completely preoccupied with the enactment of recurrent, mindless
gestures acting out twitches and tics, compulsive rotations of the neck and head, contortions of the hip
and torso. I hadnt noticed this earlier, but was startled to see that many of them were actually manacled,
their ankles clamped and attached to individual chains leading onto one collective ring in the wall,
secured by a large padlock.
An elderly devotee standing beside me followed my perturbed gaze, and whispered, Yes, poor
unfortunates. .their minds have slipped. .someone lays a black spell on them, and their own families dont
know what to do. So they bring them here. .by Babas grace most go home cured. He resolves every kind
of problem. I could tell you if you only knew what miracles he has worked. Oh, oh. .shh. .the
service begins. . he pointed out, immediately assuming a countenance of devout absorption.
The first resonant murmur of taut skin drew my attention to a huge kettledrum in a corner of the hall,
placed on a slightly raised pedestal; a garishly colourful cloth was tied as decoration around the
enormous drum. A slow, hypnotic beat began to rumble softly, at first. Dhoom. .da-bhoom-bhoom-dhoom.
.da-bhoom. . da-bhoom-bhoom-dhoom. .
The drummer, striking the drum with long, padded knobsticks, appeared to be entering a trance of
deep concentration, such were his own exaggerated movements. Slowly, the tempo increased, and he
struck the drum more fiercely with every minute: layers of rhythm and resonance enveloped us. The
commanding precision of his mighty booming, its irresistibly gradual and intoxicating acceleration

brought life, I noticed, to the women in the balcony. Someone must have released their chains for the
service, for they were on their feet now, swaying in their places, though their movements were still
measured and restrained, as though they were only gradually rousing out of a deep stupor.
But as the drumming grew louder and more abandoned though still preserving the compulsive
strictness of its rhythm they were possessed by frenzy, a wild spontaneity. Shaking their limbs, rolling
their heads, moving backwards and forwards with inebriated ecstasy, gyrating round and round like
dervishes, straining every muscle in their bodies with a savage energy. As if they knew in the privacy of
their tortured souls that this was their only means to free themselves from enslavement to the overriding
beast they had been consorting with.
When, after a passage of twenty minutes or more, the drummer, unable to drum any harder or faster,
reached a prolonged crescendo that culminated in a sudden, ear-splitting halt, a great sigh of release
swept through the hall. Or did I imagine it? I saw that a great many of the women had collapsed and were
lying on the floor of their balcony, made insensible by their pitiless exertions.
This was but one unusual experience I had during my explorations of the city: my discovery of a
revered nineteenth century Sufi saint whose grace relieved mental suffering through the medium of
orgiastic drumming and dancing. Coming as it did, so soon after my encounter with the fat man at the
docks in retrospect, probably a very disturbed fat man the spectacle of the crazy women made a
deep impression on me. But my fascination with the strange and unfamiliar took me to many other places
as well, where most people would never ordinarily venture.
As I left the durgah it was rather late. If my activities of the last eight months were found out, would
my parents too conclude I was not in my right mind, that someone had laid a black spell on me, and
chain me here in Sufi Babas durgah for treatment? Unlikely. They would probably rely on the restorative
powers of my fathers Zoroastrian prayers. Though, if they thought to consult me again, unlikely I
might feel more sanguine about dancing at sundown to those unstoppable drumbeats as a method for
mending my dislocated priorities.
But I was clever enough not to be seen hanging about those parts of town where I was likely to be
spotted. I chose instead to discover seedier segments of the inner city, and its outskirts. Places where no
self-respecting Parsi would care to be seen: slums, shanty towns, areas in which low life and sin and
poverty flourished; dens of vice and iniquity, where gambling, boozing and whoring thrived. On the other
hand, it may have been no accident given the daily overdose of morality and righteous living I was forcefed at home that I deliberately sought out these very areas and activities if only to find out to what
extent indulgence in vice was truly pleasurable, and if it really resulted in the dreadful aftermath so often
predicted.
Of course, I was too young to actively experiment with these moral quandaries. I suppose, if I had
some pocket money, I might have. But, in fact, I remained always on the periphery of these goings-on,
more a spectator than a participant, somewhat dazzled though, I do confess, by the riotous and undeniable
vitality of wickedness. Only once, I have to admit, when I had, by chance, saved up on days of tram fare, I
succumbed, following a buxom banana-seller into the stairwell of a dilapidated building where, alas, my
anticipation of promised pleasure was so intense it was all over and done with in a flash; and I, wet and
sticky in my underpants, was poorer right away by three rupees and five annas.
Then again, there were other places I wandered in, where you might least expect to find the son of a
Zoroastrian high priest given the horror of contamination our people are susceptible to. The Muslim
burial grounds at Charni Road, Chandanwadi, the Hindu cremation field nearby, where pyres burn and
smoulder at all hours of day and night, even the ruins of the burial ground for British soldiers at Lands
End, beyond the Afghan War Memorial. I spent several hours here trying to read the quaintly sentimental
or eerie inscriptions on broken tombstones and defaced engravings embedded in the earth.
Was it some prescient foreboding of my destiny that drew me to these terminal resting places? And

afterwards, when I returned home to sleep in my own bed at night, I never once cleansed myself, never
took the ritual bath necessary to wash off such spiritual ordure as presumably clung to me, and I carried
back into my fathers fire temple. He would have been horrified, had he known of my polluting misdeeds.
Even now, if there is an afterlife, and he has divined my awful secret, Im not sure hell forgive me.
At least two or three times, I remember walking through the relatively deserted afternoon streets to
the Muslim cemetery at Charni Road. Bombay was never so hot in those days as it is now. It was warm,
but there were always soothing and balmy breezes blowing from the sea, even when it wasnt high tide.
I was surprised to find several well-dressed men, both middle-aged and old, as well as the very
poor and pathetic, stretched out on low cots smoking long pipes through the evening, dreamily selfabsorbed. Later, one of the men in charge here told me it was afeem, or opium, they were smoking and, if I
wasnt interested in having any, I shouldnt come there at all. He offered me a free trial smoke if I wanted
one. I did, but it only made me cough and feel nauseous.
The Hindu cremation grounds were livelier, if only for the bright fires, the crowds of mourners, the
chants, the pyramids of wood kept in readiness; and, of course, the body handlers in charge of laying the
corpses atop the prepared pyre. Often enough, these latter were drunk as lords.
I went to a Parsi-run school, but I was more than familiar with certain Biblical sayings: As you
sow, so shall you reap. When I think of all that went awry in my life, I wonder sometimes if those cruel
twists and turns of fate were not simply meet punishment for a fatuous giggler who even in the face of the
divine could never contain his asinine impulses. Theres one incident from my distant past that
embarrasses me still when I think of it. This was before I met Seppy. I had just rediscovered the vast
grounds of the Towers of Silence. Thrilled that such a lush arboreal kingdom could exist in the heart of the
city, I spent hours on that occasion wandering alone among its gardens, orchards and copses. Before I
turned to go home, I came upon a small heap of brambles, twigs and weeds, obviously swept into a corner
off the walkway by some mali, and fired. A small bonfire was crackling and dancing in front of my eyes.
As I stared into its radiant centre, fascinated, I felt a strong urge to pee.
Now fire, for any Zoroastrian even one that is consuming garbage carries an inescapable
association with the Holy Fire. There was definitely a perverse impulse behind the sudden urge. But I
was young, and my bladder was healthy. After a moments indecision, I simply turned away and walked
home.
Whatever was wrong with me then probably remains unchanged. A part of me frivolously drawn to
evil, allying willy-nilly with Ahrimans dark legion. .? Nonsensical thoughts, such as these, make me
laugh. As an old man, I do feel remorse for my childish extravagances. But another part of me could never
regard itself, or life, with such joyless earnestness.
When I look back at that time I see now how apt it is that the graph of my life should have begun to
ravel thus. Impossibly entangled in a maze of lies of my own creation, I grew increasingly fearful and
restive that soon, my dishonourably appropriated freedom would be denounced, my wickedness brought
to light and I, publicly shamed.
Surprisingly, my school hadnt communicated any concern to my parents about my unflinching
absence from its extra coaching class (having concluded, perhaps, that I had given up my intention of
essaying a second attempt). In this frame of mind, increasingly apprehensive about my clandestine
wayfaring in the city, I decided to put an end to it. But more pertinently, these aberrant tramps became
unnecessary and devoid of meaning at around this time, for I had just discovered once again, and quite by
chance, that the most beautiful and, moreover, completely secluded island of peace in the entire city was
located no more than ten minutes walk away from my own home.
I speak of Doongerwaadi Hill, the estate of the Towers of Silence which, in those days, was largely
deserted, wildly overgrown with vegetation and fruit, and to which access could be had from five or six
different points of entry. As a child I was probably taken there once or twice to attend family funerals, but

I had practically forgotten its existence. Nor were there any security personnel around in those days, to
stop unauthorized entry. From thereon, I began to spend all my time in the sanctuary of its woods.

Seven
During a funeral I accompanied Mother to in this period, I caught my first glimpse of her in the far
distance. Long-boned and gangly, with a shock of thick uncombed curls, a wild-looking creature about my
age. .who was she? What was she doing there all by herself in the woods?
There was something strangely beautiful and desolate about her. Or perhaps, about the setting I spied
her in. Anyway, I was completely fascinated. My pursuit of favour with Sepideh for that was her name,
I discovered later, a name deriving from Persian lore began that very afternoon; for I went back to look
for her, soon after I had seen Mother home.
My courtship of this strange creature of the woods was almost wordless. The dense florescence we
were surrounded by this could well have been a tropical forest in some remote part of the world
only heightened our sense of naturalness, our knowledge of the intrinsic validity of what we were about.
We felt happily in-apprehensive of being disturbed by the world of adults. Spontaneously, and quite
fearlessly, we discovered together, the tremendous world of sexual love. And we were adult enough not
to shrink from it from the responsibility of it from understanding, in a complete sense, that from this
moment on, there was no going back.
When I went back to Doongerwaadi that afternoon, the sun had dropped low, and the forest was
filled with shadows. I spotted her almost immediately, though, reclining on the low-drooping bough of a
mango tree with her eyelids shut. Sepideh looked so relaxed, at first I wondered if she was asleep. So
raw, so natural lying there in the dusky half-light, I imagined I might have walked into a dream. She must
have seen me at the funeral that morning, for she opened her eyes as I approached, and smiled shyly. But
on that first occasion, I could not speak to her. A disembodied voice called out from afar:
Seppy! O Sepideh! Come home for a minute, will you?
She did not reply, merely slid off the bough and started obediently towards the corpse bearers
quarters. She was barefoot. She did not turn back to look at me, nor smile again. I hung around there for a
while, but she didnt come back. Not to be put out, I went there again the very next morning.
It was a splendid day. The birds chirped gaily, light danced and shimmered off every leaf of every
tree, the whole park was magically alive, but I couldnt see Seppy anywhere. Presently, she found me, and
unassumingly sat herself down beside me, on the convoluted, extruding roots of a large guava tree. We
spoke. I asked her name, and told her mine. She told me this was her home, that she lived here with her
father. Her mother was dead. For a while, it seemed like we had run out of things to speak about, and
remained silent. By then the sun had risen high in the sky, and it was hot, and we were thirsty. She said she
knew a place, a secret place where it was very cool and there was natural, icy-cold water.
Would you like me to show you this place?
I nodded, and she took me walking deeper into the woods alongside the hill, no more than five
minutes away. Years later, it came to be known among us khandhias as the grotto, that is after I showed it
to some of them as a trysting place; though at the time I speak of, it was indeed Seppys own secret lair.
Against one side of the craggy hill, stood an immense conical boulder which, when viewed from the
outside, appeared to stand flush against the rising incline of the hill; a casual passer-by would assume it
was just one of several topographic irregularities of the terrain. But, if one clambered up to the top of this
rock and it wasnt so sheer; sure-footed herself, Seppy showed me how to do it behind the curved
top edge of the boulder was a drop of about five feet and enough space to land in without hurting oneself.
And immediately ahead, the low entrance to a small cave formation, inside which, at a wedge in the rock
face of the interior, a natural spring oozed chilled water.

Yaah! I sucked in a deep breath of cold air, after I had found my feet again, and both of us had
slaked our thirst.
It felt almost wintry inside if you came in from the hot sun, yet incredibly calm and pleasant and
quiet. A canopy of foliage screened the space between the cave and the rock from light as well as
attention. It was impossible to tell from the outside that, for those who sought complete privacy, the
hillside offered them this improbable, astonishing asylum.
That morning, in this very hideout, Seppy and I commenced our journey of mutual self-discovery.
Both of us, so young and inexperienced, had an unerring sense of how to proceed, of what was happening
to us, or between us. This had to be love, we were certain. . It only took that first physical touch:
incandescent, it fused us. She wasnt shy. After that, nothing could have rent us apart. Even later, when all
the disturbances had commenced, all the bickering and interventions by family and world, even then we
never lost for a moment that silent understanding we had found between us, like the telepathic complicity
of deaf-mute twins. Together, we were defined, happy, ourselves. Alone, we were amorphous,
directionless, rather lost.
And every evening, once it was dark, as I wended my way home from Kemps Corner to Forjett Hill
Road, I felt alone, and puzzled over that emotional conflict I probably would never have been able to
define or verbalize then. The conundrum that lurks behind sexual joy, perhaps behind every form of
ecstasy: that ultimately theres nothing to satiety but emptiness, something not far removed from the void
of despair. But this was only an abstract, momentary sensation; in reality, with every meeting, every
merging, our love grew more steadfast, inviolable. She was not afraid. She trusted me. We were able to
laugh together; everything we did, the whole world, seemed funny. Osmotically, as it were through
touch and caress she communicated her own strength and fearlessness to me.
How else would I have found the courage during the nocturnal showdown that was about to take
place to stand before my father and admit that I was in love with the daughter of a corpse bearer; and at
that, as I was to discover later, of a man who was his sworn enemy from the time when I was practically
an infant.
Most of the time, I knew my father as a preoccupied and mild-mannered man; but that didnt mean he
wasnt capable of yielding to bouts of great rage. As a child, I had seen him once deliver a ferocious slap
to a young chaasni boy who had consumed the choicest pieces of consecrated fruit he had been assigned to
deliver to the home of a family, and then, when questioned about it after the family complained of
receiving a much depleted chaasni lied outright, first to Ardesar, and then to my father as well, while
he was questioning him.
Did your elders never warn you not to tell lies? I could hear him yelling at the boy, furious. He was
probably just a few years older than me. Never let a falsehood slip through your lips, even by mistake,
do you understand?
Father had a complete horror of the act of deliberately uttering a falsehood. He saw it as a terrible
sin, a willingness to play ball with the Devil! Unable to efface the memory of that backhanded wallop he
once delivered to the chaasni boy, I was petrified that night. I trusted his love enough to know that he
would never strike me, and all through childhood, he never had: yet the enormity of my crimes of
commission and omission were now in the balance and, I feared, could easily tilt it.
Yes, I do recall that season of my vagrancy and call it apt, insomuch as it was fully congruent with
what was to follow soon after. When this eight-month period ended, instead of attempting to answer my
exam as I had promised Father I would, I abruptly relinquished everything I held dear, embracing instead
a completely new chapter in my life: narrow and segregated, cut off from most people and family,
microcosmically cloistered, yet beautiful in its own fashion; even uplifting, you could say, for the very
seclusion it enjoined on me.

The choice was thrust on me, and I embraced it with both arms because that was the condition
Seppys father stipulated: if I wanted to be with her, I was to marry her first, and be willing to live and
work at the Towers of Silence. I didnt take long to discuss or debate this proposal with my elders, or
even with myself. My response was: if thats the choice, so be it.
That night, when I got home quite late, I should have been surprised to see Father still up. He was
seated at the small square marble table in the front room where the rest of us usually took our dinner, long
after he was already in bed. But tonight, he was seated there himself, staring at the floor. Was he unwell?
Mother and Vispy were there, too, standing behind him. My mother was hugging herself as though she
were feeling cold, or frightened. Vispy had his arms akimbo, in the manner of a severe taskmaster. The
expressions on both their faces, their refusal to meet my eyes, except in fleeting, reproachful glares,
convinced me that the game was up.
Where were you? asked Mother, in the hurt-filled voice she reserved for such occasions.
The usual, I answered, trying to sound as casual as possible. Classes. Then I went for a stroll with
Rohinton. Before catching the tram back. Have I come home so late?
See? See? yelled Vispy, glowering, unable to contain himself. God knows where hes learnt to tell
lies like that. .or maybe Ahriman, more likely.
My father spoke sternly to Vispy:
Shut up! You stay out of this. .
Then he looked at me, and asked:
Have you been studying, son? We heard something else. That youve been spending a lot of time at
Doongerwaadi?
Now look at that, I thought to myself, the very place I had assumed would be a safe haven
compared to walking the streets, which I had been doing for so long prior to that had been my undoing.
Caught off guard, I averted my eyes to the floor, which both Mother and Vispy all-too-promptly seized
upon as an admission of guilt.
But why? asked Mother, even more agonized by her sense of hurt, as if my unworthy behaviour had
cast a slur on her own parenting. Dont you want to study, be like your brother, and finish your matric?
What did we do wrong? I never treated you differently from Vispy. Both my sons are equal, I always said.
My eldest may be smarter in studies, but dont underestimate my younger. Dont you want to finish with
school, get ahead in life like Vispy? Its okay if youve failed once. Second time youll definitely pass.
Nothing to be disheartened about. Just dont
My father, who had been silent all this time, spoke rather roughly:
Hilla, please! Jara bolva bhi desay ke nahi? his deep guttural voice, seethed with irritation. Let
the boy answer!
There was a moments silence, while I collected my thoughts.
I cant study, Daddy. Its too difficult. .
I told you Id help. Only try your best, didnt I say? he reprimanded me.
I cant, Daddy, I know I wont make it. I know my best just isnt good enough. Its too difficult. .for
me, at least, I said, sneaking a glance in Vispys direction.
My father looked away. Now he was hurt for my deficient faith in the power of his prayers.
If I felt I had any chance, I would, I would have tried my best. . I mumbled apologetically, but Im
not making any headway. Its all meaningless to me. You see, I feel I should simply start working, begin
my life. .I cant do this. .I dont want to be a burden on you-all anymore.
My mother, who had been waiting to interrupt, couldnt contain herself.
Have you gone completely Work? Youre so young still, and what will you do? In todays world,
without being a matric-pass no employer will let you even stand before him, let alone give you a job! Are

you going to start muttering prayers day and night, like your poor father here? Didnt I tell you? she said,
addressing Framroze now. All peas in a pod are not the same. We should be thankful that God has given
us one bright boy. Studies were never Phirozes cup of tea. How much I have struggled, year after year,
just so they wouldnt hold him back, make him repeat the class. .Maths, English, Science. Every evening
after school, Ive been sitting with him, trying to drill a smattering of knowledge into his head, hoping he
would retain it until the next morning. Sometimes, his studies were too difficult even for me to grasp. I
wont deny it the same things that were smooth sailing for Vispy. But what do you know about all that?
What do you want to know about all my struggles?
Stop complaining! my father raised his voice, then muttered below his breath, Silly woman. .
But before the war of words between my parents could escalate, it was Vispy who butted in:
See, again! How cleverly he has deflected the conversation from his misdemeanours to his studies.
But what studies? Jaalbhoy Master told me he hasnt attended a single revision class! I stared at my elder
brother, amazed. I had no inkling until now that he harboured so much resentment against me.
And just this morning, Temoorus Kaka phoned me at my office. I had to take a half-days casual
leave to meet him at Doongerwaadi. I felt so ashamed to hear all the things he had to tell me.
I had never felt anything but admiration and pride towards Vispy and his achievements. What was it
that had made him turn on me so viciously? If Temoo Kaka had indeed complained to him about me, he
could have spoken to me privately. I could hardly believe my own ears as he went on. And from the way
my mother kept nodding her head emphatically and righteously as he ranted, as if to confirm that she
already knew the truth of all these sordid details, it became obvious to me that, while working himself up
into a rage, Vispy was repeating them for a second, or perhaps even a third time. The animosity of this
terminal confrontation was essentially on display for my fathers mortification, it seemed to me, as if to
prove to him, finally, who was the worthier son.
. .days on end, days on end, from morning till evening in their hideout in the woods until even Nusli
Kavarana, the warden, noticed their goings-on and complained to Temoo that he must put an end to this
public indecency and imagine, with that slut!
Enough said, rumbled my father, looking completely distraught. I have heard enough. .
Not the half of it, Daddy, continued Vispy venomously, I havent told you the worst part: Temoo
Kakas ultimatum to Phiroze is that if he wants to meet Sepideh again, he should be willing to marry her.
And work and live with her at Doongerwaadi!
Saalo badmaash!
That was my fathers only impulsive outburst, and for the first time in my life I saw a spark of hatred
in his eyes. But it was there for only a moment, before it faded. Meanwhile Hilla and Vispy were
speaking at the same time.
An insult to our family! Proposing such a thing to the son of a high priest!
How dare he talk like that, the drunkard! He should be thrashed! Flogged with sticks and chains!
A thousand lashes would be too little. Teach him a lesson, Daddy. Complain to the Punchayet and
get him sacked from his job. Then hell learn his position. Such insolence. .!
While my mother and brother were engaged in this monody of vengeance, I remained completely
silent, my eyes transfixed by that great jumble of my fathers grey beard that seemed to me to quiver and
twitch ever so slightly. His eyes, beneath those shaggy eyebrows, were on the verge of dissolving into
tears. When he spoke, the other two persons in the room fell silent.
Listen to me, Phiroze. . Without knowing it, you have become entangled in something that goes back
many years. This man has been waiting patiently all these years to find the right moment to plunge his
khanjar into my belly. And now its in, hes twisting it. You dont know what this is all about.
But I do, Father. I know I love Sepideh. Im not concerned with Temoorus. And Im willing to
yes, I want to marry her, Father. . I heard a gasp of horror from my mother, but didnt look at her. Until a

few days ago, I didnt even know we were related.

Hes gone completely mad, screamed Mother.
Shameful. . muttered Vispy, under his breath.
Shes your first cousin, son; well, almost. The girl may be blameless in all this. But we have no
contact with that family anymore, havent had any since
Blameless! screamed Mother. That loose bitch? And shes so much older than our Phiroze! This
has all been very cleverly planned and plotted, dont you see? Just my rotten luck that I decide to take
Phiroze to Hirji Mamas funeral. Temoorus would have certainly recognized me immediately, and pointed
Phiroze out to her, and immediately, the seduction starts. . What scoundrels!
Oh, stop it, Mum! I snapped irritably. Nobodys been plotting anything. .
Shut up, both of you, shouted Father, at the end of his endurance. Anyway you cant marry such a
close relative, you should know that, you fool. But do you know what this is all about, what choice you
are being asked to make? Do you know what it means to live the life of a khandhia?
I was thinking, Father. .if I have to, maybe I could train to become a nussesalar? Its the closest Ill
ever come to being a priest.
(I forgot to mention this: some weeks ago, when Mother reported to him that I had finally succeeded
in memorizing the longer segments of the liturgy, Father had strongly urged me to pursue my initiation into
naavarhood. I pleaded that I needed time to study for my upcoming exam.
But theres no harm in taking your books along, countered Father. In the nine days of retreat, when
you have to maintain a pious and meditative frame of mind, youll find plenty of time to study. Reading is
a pious activity. And then see how well you do in your exams! An idle mind, as they say, can so easily
become the Devils workshop!
So I did go into retreat, carrying a fat science textbook as alibi, and did try to qualify as naavar, at
one of our four main Fire Temples in Bombay, Wadiajis, the one near the big ice-cream shop at Charni
Road. As luck would have it, on my very second night there, I had a wet dream. The shrivelled-up old
dastoorji, Muncherjee, who had been assigned the task of grooming me through my initiation, was
crestfallen when he saw the telltale blotches on my freshly laundered, white pajama next morning. Almost
writhing in dismay or was it disgust? he moaned, Aai joyoo? Thats why we keep telling you boys,
thats why we always tell you finish your naavar ceremony before you turn fifteen at least! Or youll
have trouble. Youll have to start all over again, my boy. .
I could have started my retreat again, made a second attempt; but just as I had privately resigned
to failing my matric a second time over, I had no faith at all in the sustained piety of my own dream life. I
gave up on this venture, too, and quietly returned home. . That was almost two months ago.)
What did you say? asked my father. Nussesalar? Well, that might be preferable, I suppose, to being
a mere khandhia, he nodded, approving sourly. Its supposed to be a noble vocation, thats true. .but you
would still remain an outcast, dont forget. Ostracized from society, unable to meet your family. .
But. . I wanted to speak, yet couldnt find the words.
Even if you went through all the purificatory rites and rituals, and even if I was sure you had been
through them diligently and precisely, without being lax or slipshod, I still wouldnt want you to enter my
fire temple. .do you understand? Now lets go to bed. I have to be up tomorrow at 4.30 a.m. instead of at 4
a.m., like I have been doing these last three months thinking that you were planning to sit for your
exams next week.
I nodded dumbly, and hung my head in shame. As Father rose stiffly to retire to his bedroom, I knew
he was a deeply disappointed man.

Eight

In all fairness, none of us could possibly have expected the debacle of the corpse to go unnoticed.
A dead body deserves some modicum of respect and deference. Thats a belief that cuts across
religious persuasion. Right there on the road where it happened, Im told, it caused much righteous
murmuring. The incident even got a brief mention in the next mornings Bombay Chronicle, which Vera,
Rustoms daughter (who worked as a steno at Gagrat, Limbuwalla & Co, the well-known solicitors
firm), brought home with her. Rusi showed me the ripped out snippet.

HEAD OVER HEELS

Bombay, 6th August 1942
Eyewitnesses stood flabbergasted some even terror-stricken when an unfortunate corpse
toppled off a bier, falling flat on his face in the middle of a busy thoroughfare. Some claimed that the
body immediately began to twitch, as though in great agony. Subsequent investigations revealed no
substance to this claim, however, which originated, possibly, in some onlookers imaginative fancy.
The corpse was quickly returned to its place on the bier, and carried into the sprawling, Elysian
demesne of the Parsi community at Malabar Hill, wherein its members dispose of their dead. One
corpse bearer, who had momentarily lost consciousness and was probably responsible for the biers
collapse soon revived. In a few minutes, traffic on the road began to move smoothly again.
For more than a week, we heard nothing more about this matter. Of course, even more dramatic
events took place in our immediate vicinity in the days to come, whose countrywide ramifications
probably diverted attention from my own unfortunate fainting fit; though not for long. .
The mornings funeral had just ended. For once, we had a free moment to ourselves. An impromptu
get-together took shape around half a seer of milk that Bomi had to spare.
Cant understand what Sola was thinking when he went and bought an extra half-seer from the shop,
he said, offering it to Rusi. In this heat, before you know it, itll curdle.
Rusis mother, Aimai, made some spicy masala tea for everyone. Farokh and Kobaad were there,
too. We were seated on the wrought iron bench on Rustoms veranda a few additional chairs had been
pulled up smacking our lips while sipping the aromatically pungent tea, when the first reports began to
filter in of a terrific commotion at the Gowalia Tank Maidan, just a short walk from where we were.
Today it had been Bujji, Sola, Yezdi and one other person Manek, if Im not mistaken who had been
walking past the fairground with a corpse, while these historic events were unfolding. Bujji came up to
Rusis veranda afterwards and told us what he had heard and seen.
Saala, he said, still wiping his eyes with a kerchief. What dhamaal! How to describe to you,
boys? Here you allre sitting peacefully sipping tea, and there something dreadfuls going on, no more
than a stones throw away. .
What? Whats going on? Didnt hear a thing. . we exclaimed in unison.
Theyve been given marching orders, he said, which made no sense at all.
Who? Whatre you talking about, boss?
Are you okay, Bujji? Why are you crying like that?
Those devils fired some shells in the air that made everybody cry. Im surprised you guys didnt
hear anything, said Bujji.
I did, I heard some noise that sounded like firing, said Kobaad. But muffled. Too distant and so
soft I thought it couldnt be gunshots. I had no idea what it was.
It took a half-cup strained from the dregs of Aimais tea vessel which she had promptly reheated
for Bujji to get a coherent story out of him. Apparently, at a recent Congress Working Committee

meeting, Gandhi had given his call to the British to Quit India. This the four khandhias heard from the
large crowd of people both sympathizers and bystanders who had collected near the maidan where,
for perhaps the first time in Bombay, Indias tricolour was hoisted. The crowd, as well as the main
organizers of the event were brutally caned by police and later, tear-gas shells fired to disperse them.
Did you see Gandhi? Was he addressing the crowd? Rustom asked Bujji.
Bujji shook his head.
There was some woman who hoisted the Indian flag.
What woman? Wasnt Nehru there?
No one, Bujji explained. All Congress leaders have been arrested, thats what people say, and
Gandhi, too. That chemical they fired at us whatever it was makes your eyes burn like anything. .
he said, dabbing his eyes once again. For a few minutes it blinds you, you feel your eyes are on fire; then
the tears start streaming like anything. .
All four khandhias were alarmed to have been caught in this disturbance because people were being
arrested at random around them. But more than that, worried about the corpse they had to carry back
safely. Bujji smirked and said, Wouldnt do to have one more topple off the bier, would it now? This
time, it would have caused a stampede. The others sniggered at my discomfort.
It wasnt until one night, two weeks later, while fiddling with the dial on his radio that Temoo
accidentally tuned in to a womans voice (was it the same woman Bujji saw hoisting the flag at Gowalia
Tank?) and we heard Gandhis own words what he would have wanted to say to the people on that day
when he gave the call to Quit India, if they hadnt slammed him behind bars:
. .The mantra we have to adopt is Do or Die. We shall either free India or die in the attempt. We
shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery.
That was all we heard, before the voice was drowned out by disturbance and static.
The British completely overreacted to this open challenge. Thousands of Congress party leaders and
workers were jailed. In the days to come, news of mass arrests incensed people all over the country.
Telephone and telegraph wires were cut, railway stations attacked, bridges blown up, police stations
burned to the ground. In a few corners of the country, the administration was paralysed, and parallel
governments set up. But within two months or so the disturbances died down, and the rule of law was
restored.
But Im getting ahead of myself here. It shouldnt have surprised anyone, I suppose, that we hadnt
heard the last of the corpse that had toppled.
Only a week later, one afternoon I was once again on Rustoms terrace keeping him and Boman
company, when we saw a dishevelled Edulji, with an office folder clutched tightly under his arm,
shuffling up the slope one step at a time.
Aavo, Edulji, aavo, said Rusi to the old man who had just climbed onto the porch. And to what do
we owe this gracious visit?
Look, I want to tell all of you right away: I had nothing to do with this, stuttered Edulji, facial
muscles twitching. The browbeaten old man worked under Buchia, as his secretary, dogsbody and
whipping boy. Just on that account we felt sorry for him, though not a lot. We had to be careful, always, as
to what was said in his presence; the cur was known to carry tales back to his master.
For a moment, in my minds eye I saw a picture of Seppys fey, pliable face doing a perfect imitation
of Eduls twitch: nose puckering up in the same instant as his lips shot to one side, in a sort of ludicrous
smirk like the anticipation of an elusive sneeze and I had to suppress a giggle. But Edulji heard it
and stared blankly at me, while twitching even more furiously.
Im just the postman, you could say. Even these letters, I didnt type them.
What letters, Edulji? asked Rustom.

Well, see for yourselves. Theres one for each of you. Direct from head office.
Edul wiped perspiration off his face with his hand and began handing over our letters.
Rustom Anklesaria. .Boman Khambatta. Theres one for Farokh Chinoy, another for Fali Bamboat. .
Wheres Fali?
Fali isnt here. I think hes on evening.
And Jungoo Driver. .hes not here either, I suppose, said Edul. Finally, Phiroze Elchidana. . he
said, and handed me mine. Excuse me, I have to go look for Fali. Any idea if hes up in his quarters?
Nobody answered Edulji. Limping, slowly, he was already halfway down the path muttering to
himself before any of us could tear our eyes off our letters. Nevertheless, he couldnt have got far enough
to not hear the torrent of swear words and abuse that issued from Rusis veranda a few moments later.
Apart from me, the others couldnt read English fluently, but somehow, both Rusi and Bomi had
grasped the gist of the letter. Poor Aimai, who had come out when she heard Eduls voice, became
particularly fretful, poring anxiously over her sons shoulder.
Phiroze, she said, you read yours aloud for all of us.
I had run through my letter silently, once. It was enough to make one furious. Mine, at least, said that I
had been suspended pending an inquiry into the disgraceful incident during which a corpse was allowed
to tumble off a bier and onto the road, causing a public outcry, and shaming the Zoroastrian community of
the city. An inquiry was to be held on Saturday, at 10 a.m., and all concerned pall-bearers were expected
to be present. It turned out that all three of us had received more or less identical letters. But there had
been one for Jungoo, too, whom Edulji had gone looking for. And Jungoo only came along to help clear
the way; he wasnt even shouldering the bier.
What are they trying to do? asked Aimai querulously, in a frightened voice.
Give us a scare, no doubt, said Rusi, in his guttural bass. Lets see how far theyll go. .
Well, for one thing, they wont pay us for all the days we stand suspended, said Boman, worried.
Most corpse bearers lived from hand to mouth, from week to week, even day to day. Many had large
families to support. How can they do this to us? he exclaimed angrily. They dont give us time to eat
nor drink, make us work like donkeys! And if one of us faints in the midday sun, all five are made to pay
the price! Is that justice?
Does it matter who actually passed out? asked Rusi. Tomorrow it could be you or me. Dont
worry, Elchi, were behind you. Every one of us is in the same rotten eggshell, trying to stay afloat.
They cant do this to us, said Bomi again, shaking his head. Its absurd. .
And at a time of epidemic? exclaimed Rusi. The trustees must have taken leave of their senses!
Our brigade of corpse carriers, in the employ of the Punchayet, consisted of only thirteen men. Plus
two nussesalars. And as yet only one hearse driver, not to mention a defunct hearse. With five of us under
suspension, were the others going to be made to work double and triple shifts? It was ridiculous this
disciplinary measure now? When they should have been hiring more workers to help us cope with the
pestilence. There was no sense to it. It was clearly a ploy of some sort, a pressure tactic. But to what end?
Since the last three days, some sort of normalcy has returned, pointed out Bomi. Maybe theres no
epidemic, after all.
Too early for anyone to say, insisted Rusi reasonably. There could yet be another spate of deaths.
Wait another week, and well know.
At the end of a half-hours desultory discussion, the anxiety and alarm that had gripped us initially
was more or less dissipated; all present, I think, felt more upbeat. We may have received suspension
orders, but it was only a feint by the management, of that there was no doubt. If anything, somehow we
suspected it was we who had the upper hand.
This happened on a Wednesday; still two days to go before the inquiry, which was on a Saturday. If,
under duress, I was being offered two whole days of restful repose, what was there to quibble about? I

could use them to sleep longer hours, spend more time with my daughter.
When I reached home, there she was seated in Temoos lap on the veranda.
Daddy, daddy! she called out in her shrill voice, stretching her arms and her entire body at me.
Youre home?
I picked her up and hugged her tightly.
All day, sweetheart, Im here.
Temoo seemed puzzled by my response. But I didnt feel it necessary to explain, and he didnt ask.
The inquiry was to be held in the boardroom of the Parsi Punchayets office at Hornby Road. Washed
and soberly attired only Farokh was decked out in an outrageously jazzy shirt which none of us had
seen on him before; Bomi told us he had borrowed it from his brother, Sola, for the occasion all five of
us met early and caught a BEST double-decker tram at Gowalia Tank, that took us rather swiftly through
Girgaum, Cheera Bazaar, Dhobhi Talao and on to our destination, the sumptuously arcaded Hornby Road.
As soon as we had climbed up the stairs to the third-floor office which was located in a splendid
stone mansion (none of us had had reason to visit it before today), it became evident we were expected.
There was an elevator, but the uniformed liftman in charge of it, after a couple of terse questions, seemed
to guess who we were, and asked us to take the stairs. Fali was inclined to start an argument with him.
Arrey, he grumbled aloud, we are here on official work. Who the hell is he to but Farokh put an
arm around his shoulder and led him up.
Its only two floors. .
Three, I say, not two! And Id like to take I never get a chance to. . By then we were already
climbing up.
On the landing of the third floor, we were met by a grumpy, middle-aged clerk with an enormous,
bald head, whose almost total loss of hair was further underscored by two longish grey tufts protruding
from behind each ear.
Chaalo ni, chaalo ni, he urged us as soon as he saw us lumbering up the stairs, pointing at the wall
clock in the lobby. You are ten minutes late. Cant keep them waiting like this, you understand? Theyre
our guardians, our providers. No, no, no. . now dont be in such a rush! Just wait a few minutes, please,
while I explain all the rules before you enter.
He told us that he would be showing us through the main office to the trustees boardroom, which
was a rather grand and important place. But first we must take off our footwear and leave it outside the
office.
Walk in quietly, please. Dont fidget, or touch anything along the way.
We were led through a large room clustered with wooden desks whose tops were fitted with green
rexine, and behind which sat the office staff mostly men already engaged in examining documents,
or typing them. A few visibly indigent Parsis waited in queue for an interview with an officer. As we
trooped in silently, barefoot, the office staff couldnt resist glancing at us, though only for the briefest
instant, before averting their eyes.
Not out of diligence or mindful application to their work but rather, as it were, nervous
apprehension: as though afraid that even a slightly prolonged gaze might tarnish their spiritual well-being.
That fleeting peek they gave us was probably resentment as well, disapproval of their superiors wisdom
in inviting a bunch of raffish outcasts to their well-appointed workplace. How did they know who we
were? Is there something about corpse bearers that makes us identifiably different from average visitors
to the Punchayet offices?
The bald clerk, our chaperone, was impatient and rude. However, he showed us in gingerly, not
saying much along the way, holding his breath almost, as if fearful of breathing the same air as us, into
what was obviously a dark storage room. He switched on a naked electric bulb. Cobwebbed and dusty,

cramped with cupboards, shelves, and volumes of obsolescent, mildewed paper, there was a wooden
bench in the centre of the small room that had probably been placed there just for us. We were asked to be
seated, and wait.
Dont go anywhere, he instructed us. Just sit here. No making any noise, please.
Initially we spoke only in whispers and remained seated, as we had been instructed to. This being
our very first visit to the august offices of the Parsi Punchayet, we were a little overawed. But we had a
long wait, and gradually, we were back to our normal selves. After a while Rustom stood up and started
pacing. He muttered loudly:
Saala, they ask us to be here at ten sharp: its a quarter to eleven already. Im feeling so damn
hungry. Left without breakfast, just to be on time.
Forget it, Rustom, ribbed Fali. You have no rights, certainly no right to feel hungry. Youre
suspended, remember?
Breakfast? added Farokh, not to be left out. But thats what youre here for! Breakfast with the
trustees.
After a while, he said, Oh, dont look so sad, Rusi. In fact, its quite possible, isnt it? Since were
suspended, maybe none of us actually exists? How could you possibly be hungry if youre not there?
Think of that. .pinch him, Bomi, pinch and see if he squeals.
Oh, I get you. . said Rustom, quickly catching the bug of waggish frivolity. But if thats the way it
is, they may as well string us up at the end of a rope, he grinned, wickedly. Then wed really be
suspended.
But Fali was not about to let him score that point; immediately, he exclaimed with mock vehemence:
Oh come off it, Russ-ba, dont try to play the martyr. Speak the truth and shame the Devil for once.
Tell us: arent you suspended often enough as it is?
This time, Rustom didnt get it: he was taken aback.
What nonsense! What do you mean by saying such a thing? In twenty-five years, never once have I

Every evening, in fact, if youre honest, Fali continued with a straight face. Once youve downed
your quota of navtaank, dont you feel afloat? Suspended in mid-air?
Now look whos splitting hairs! said Bomi. Charred kettle covets the burnt pot?!
Our frivolous banter and guffaws soon drew forth a uniformed peon from the inner chamber, holding
a stern index finger to his lips: our merriment, restrained as it was, had evidently been seeping through the
boardrooms closed doors.
Arrey, pankha to lagaao, dikra, Rusi said to him, wiping his forehead with a grubby handkerchief.
Its hot in here. And if we have to wait much longer, how about some chai, or something?
But in the next instant, before the nonplussed peon could decide how to respond to this aside, one of
the double doors of the boardroom swung open, and a curiously chastened figure slunk out whom we
almost didnt recognize: Buchia. In freshly laundered white trousers and bush shirt, he smirked at us, first
sheepishly; then the half-smile actually widened to a beam. For a moment we stared back, thunderstruck,
as though we had encountered a spectre in broad daylight.
Ah, so you are all here? he said, voice syrupy with bonhomie. Good, good. Dont worry, boys.
Nothings going to happen to you. Theyll call you in very soon. Just try to be polite. Unfortunately, I have
to rush. To the Sessions Court, where that matter of the encroachment is supposed to come up.
So saying, he strutted away with a friendly wave.
Dont worry. .? Nothings g oing to happen. .? Behnchoad, swore Fali under his breath. All this
sly manoeuvring, its all histake my word for it. Suspension orders, everything its all at his
prompting: Buchia at his manipulative best.
What encroachment matter was he talking about? asked Rusi.

On the Babulnath side, replied Boman. On that new plot of land donated by the Dadachandjis
Where? asked Farokh blankly.
Arrey, exactly touching the Albless Bungli, on the west side: some fellows have put up bamboos
and a tent. A couple has even moved in with a trunk.
Just then, the peon came out again, holding a slip of paper from which he read out our names. Not all
of them, only four actually. One by one, my mates stood up, as their names were called out, and prepared
to walk in. I was the only one left sitting. Assuming some oversight on the peons part, I too started up,
and made to follow the others. But I was stopped.
No, no, you must wait. Only those whose names were called.
What the hell? I thought, sitting down again as the others shuffled into the inner chamber.
They were not inside for long. Four or five minutes later, when they emerged from the boardroom,
relief was writ large on their faces. Bomi, Fali and Farokh were all smiles.
Didnt I tell you all, said Farokh, I was sure they wouldnt dare do anything to us. How could
they?
Shh. Speak softly, cautioned Fali. Theyll hear you inside.
Let them, said Farokh. Whos left inside, anyway? Then he explained to me. While we were
being made to wait, most of the trustees had finished their business and slunk out by another exit. Only
three of the eleven are still inside.
But why didnt they call you in with us, boss? said Rusi, frowning a little. We had already started
walking in before we realized you were not among us. .
I shrugged.
Maybe they have something special to say to me.
Anyway, interrupted Bomi, theyve promised therell be no salary cuts for these days of
suspension.
So long as we are not found sloshed, they warned us, elaborated Farokh, or drinking on the job.
The peon, who had been inside the boardroom all this while now reappeared and read out my name.
Inexplicably nervous, I walked in barefoot onto the highly polished slippery wooden floor of the
boardroom; I felt as though I were walking on thin air.
A vast room with wood panelling and a huge oval table in the centre.
Farokh was right. Most of the trustees had already left. Only three remained: a heavily-built dowager
in a rich, embroidered sari, a dishevelled weasel of a man in a woollen double-breasted suit, and a large,
podgy man in a white dugli whom I recognized instantly as the ubiquitous and obese Coyaji,
superintendent of gardens. Despite all the empty chairs around the table, of course, I remained standing,
and no one asked me to sit. The portly dowager it was who pouted at first, then scowled and enunciated
frostily:
Well, Mr Elchidana. . As you can see, most of the trustees have already left. We are very busy
people, you must understand. But before they left, we discussed your case in some detail. Mr Kavarana,
your warden, has given us a full report of the unfortunate incident which all of us see as a serious blot on
the community. Quite unprecedented.
Visibly agitated by her mention of the so-called incident, she paused for breath, closely examining
my face and appearance, searching perhaps for signs of remorse. The other two men murmured in
sympathetic outrage:
Really. Evoo to koi divas bhi joyoo nathi!
Indeed very shocking. A blot on the fair name of our community.
Most of the trustees felt you should be summarily dismissed from service. But, as Chairwoman of
the Committee for Welfare of Employees, they have left the final decision to me. Mr Maneck Chichgar,

she said, indicating the other trustee, seated a chair away from her, President of the Temperance Society
of India, is also in favour of taking a more compassionate view of your misdemeanours.
Now the scruffy-looking man in the suit spoke up in a squeaky, nasal voice:
You are very fortunate, young man, that the venerable trustee here, Mrs Aloo Pastakia, has such a
kind heart. And both of us have a great regard for your father, the Ervad Framroze Elchidana.
Suddenly, I remembered the name coming up in conversation between my parents, some reference my
father made to Aloo Pastakia being the flatulent old battleaxe of the Punchayet. Staring wordlessly at my
self-important interlocutors seated pompous and contented in their polished, cushioned chairs all three
screwing up their faces to appear oh-so terribly concerned for me, while at the same time slightly
discomfited by the whiff of some unpleasant odour I had brought in in one corner of my head, I could
sense a reckless wave of giggles building up.
For a moment I panicked. I knew it just wouldnt do to burst into a fit of irrepressible tittering, not
here. I was in a difficult position as it is. But what actually took place was quite different.
How much your father must have been pained to hear of your shenanigans. This drinking problem
with khandhias has to be dealt with firmly. Drinking is sinful. It destroys man, whined the weasel from
the Temperance Society. We can show you a way to control your habit, oh yes. There is a way. . I felt
like I was being court-martialled. But it works only if you are ready to give it up completely. And you
must follow my method sincerely.
We have let off the others with a strict warning, said imperious Aloo Pastakia. But we can hardly
do the same with you.
You boys have to learn some discipline. Its very important, said Coyaji, not to be left out.
And so, as an exemplary measure, we have decided to put you back on probation for six months.
Probation? But, madam, I whispered. Ive been working at Doongerwaadi for eight years.
So what, eh? said Coyaji, brutally. You can work for another eight if you like, but you will have to
learn to behave.
Crestfallen, my protest sounded pathetically feeble and frightened. I barely recognized my own
tremulous voice. Nevertheless, I went on.
I dont know what youve heard, sir. .madam, but I wasnt drunk. The sun was too hot it was
sunstroke. On top of that I hadnt eaten anything all day.
Well, be that as it may, we have to take some corrective steps, the Madam replied; but I had a
strong feeling none of them had even heard what Id just said.
Its for your own good, son, said Chichghar, the other trustee. And this applies equally to all the
other staff as well: consumption of alcohol will not be permitted on the Doongerwaadi premises
henceforth. That is the final decision of all the trustees.
As long as there is no other incident of this sort, said Aloo Pastakia, closing the file in front of her
with an air of finality, you have nothing to worry about, Mr Elchidana.
Now the giggly impulse had left me completely, of course. Instead, I felt amazed and angry and
disgusted; but perhaps, even more, cold and anxious. What would I have done, if the axe had really fallen,
and I had been dismissed from service? Gone back to my fathers fire temple, with my three-year-old in
tow?
It had been made amply clear to me that my interview was over. There was nothing more I could say
or do. Except to turn around and walk out of the room.

Nine
The day after of our visit to the Punchayets office, I divulged the secret of the grotto to the other
khandhias.

At an appointed hour, in the late afternoon of the next day, I led them there, one at a time. It wouldnt
have been wise for a gaggle of khandhias to be seen proceeding into the forest for no known reason. That
would certainly have been noticed, and perhaps raised an alarm.
Until that afternoon, the grotto had remained a secret, an exclusive crypt whose existence only Seppy
and I had been aware of.
Seppy had been dead these past ten months. This had been our hiding place, our refuge, venue of our
first lovemaking: a private and precious bond between us made me loath to betray it to the world. Even
after she died, I came here by myself a few times, to try and commune with her in my grief. But the grotto
had changed: unexpectedly denuded of its charm and cosiness I found it a cold, unfeeling place permeated
with the odour of bat droppings.
I stopped visiting it, but had continued to maintain its privacy as though compelled by the rules of a
secret fraternity I had once belonged to: a fraternity of two whose only other member had perished some
months ago. . Seppy, I do miss you very much. If only you were still here with me, I wouldnt be afraid. .
Our Farida must never know the insecurity I felt yesterday in that bloody boardroom.
Now, of course, the situation was different. Which is why, I felt, it might be safer for us to meet in the
grotto. As per the new strictures, none of us could afford to be seen consuming liquor on our verandas or
even inside our own homes, for that matter even while off duty.
Truth to tell, on this particular evening it was I, perhaps more than the others, who felt a great desire
to drink and discuss with my colleagues how exactly we should react to the outrageous and insulting
conditions imposed on us during that mornings sham inquiry; and moreover, how we were going to
draw the trustees attention to our own vital concerns about working conditions which had not been
addressed at all, or offered even a cursory hearing.
We sat on the rock floor. Fortunately, the effusion of water from the niche among the rocks had
stopped. Perhaps it still oozed during the monsoon, but for now the floor was dry. The smell of bats was
everywhere, though not as overpowering as I remembered it.
By the time all of us had climbed into the cave and settled down, it was already quite dark inside. I
lit both the candles that I had remembered to bring along. Then we passed the bottle around, taking our
first draughts of the liquor in almost total silence, in an uneasy, flickering twilight.
I had poorly estimated the capacity of my mates to be cowed by intimidation. There was much
resentment about the events of the previous morning. I had frequently to remind them to keep their voices
down.
I mean this whole business of suspension orders, then trustees inquiry, and all, growled Fali, it
was all calculated to slap this ban on drinking!
Are we children or what, huffed Rustom, angrily, that they should tell us how to spend our spare
time?
Forget spare time, Rusi, said Farokh. Even while on duty pecially during duty if I feel the
need to prime myself with a few pegs before going in to wash a stinking corpse, who the fuck are they to

Never mind a corpse, a normal corpse thats normal, interrupted Kobaad in his soft voice; he
hadnt spoken all this while. Id like to see how many of the trustees can cope with even just the sight of
an accident victim, or a burns victim let alone clean and swaddle them for the banquet of the birds.
All thats exceptional stuff, Kobaad, said Farokh. A whole bottle isnt enough when we have to
find strength to tackle such disasters.
What the hell were they talking about? said Rusi. I still cant believe we actually stood there like
buffoons, listening to their sermon on the evils of drinking.
The whole idea of first suspending you guys, then calling you to their regal offices, said Kobaad,
was to put butterflies in your bellies so that youd forget to mention your own complaints.

And this business of renewed probation for Elchi is just not on, said Boman. I felt grateful someone
else had brought this up. He fainted on the road because he was exhausted, not drunk! Its just not right!
His words trailed off, but I was reminded of Seppy, and something she had said to me once during
one of our evening rambles.
Its such a bloody joke, she said. If you guys are so important to the Zarthostis, why dont they
provide you better working conditions? Its sheer hypocrisy to say you guysll have your reward in the
next lifetime; yet treat you like offal in this one. . Why dont you guys get together, do something about it?
Protest. .
Like her mother before her, Sepideh was a fighter. Things that she had said to me in the past now
became an important source of inspiration.
As the bottles contents dwindled, rumblings of discontent grew more raucous. Twice I had to shush
them, afraid we might be overheard, and our secret conclave detected. Then, unexpectedly, there was a
moment of intense, soul-searching silence: for someone posed the question: whatre we going to do about
this state of affairs? I confess I was the one who first mooted the possibility of protest. A phrase we had
all heard on Temoos radio in the context of Gandhijis exertions for home rule had been running in my
head. And so it was that the idea of some sort of peaceful non-cooperation took root among the corpse
bearers, though none of us had any clue what form it should take.
Over the next three days, Rustom and I drew up a charter of demands; very modest and reasonable
ones. Not for better wages, but simply an eight-hour working day, overtime compensation and a fixed
entitlement of ten days casual leave in a year.
When we went across to Buchias office late one afternoon, and gave him the petition listing our
grievances and expectations, he was careful not to show any reaction.
As you know, boys, I am not authorized to take any decision on such matters. I am just a functionary,
like yourselves. . he said. But Ill take this petition myself to Coyaji later this evening, so he can
circulate it amongst the trustees.
Though we had been careful not to make our petition sound like an ultimatum and nowhere had
we referred to the possibility of rebellious action they must have sensed trouble was brewing.
This time, they did not summon us to their office. Instead, the very next afternoon, podgy Coyaji
himself came by to meet us, neatly trussed up in a white dugli. We were asked to congregate in the large
hall of the Behramji Petit Pavilion. We took some time getting there, but found him waiting patiently until
the whole lot of us had arrived. He was accompanied by Buchia, of course, his yes-man, who remained
completely silent all through Coyajis speech, although he nodded his head in vigorous affirmation at
certain emotional moments of the address.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to take Coyaji seriously, especially when he tried to sound effusive
and impassioned. Owing not so much to his impressive girth or the tiny scarlet skullcap perched
tentatively on the dome of his head but rather an involuntary dribble of saliva that escaped his mouth after
every few sentences he spoke, and often hung there tantalizingly for a few seconds before he became
aware of it and mopped it up with the same checked bandana he used to wipe beads of sweat that
appeared on his forehead from time to time. That dribble of saliva engaged his audiences attention more
completely, I suspect, than what he was saying, keeping us on the edge of our seats as we tried to guess
whether it would be staunched in time, or drip to the floor.
We corpse bearers, Coyaji said to us, should never behave like ordinary factory workers. Never, he
repeated for added emphasis, and paused. For the work we did had tremendous religious and social
significance for the entire community, and the Punchayet was like our foster father and mother, who
looked after us through bad times and good. That such demands as we had presented had been made for
the first time in the entire history of the community itself showed they were uncalled for! And that he,

personally, was very hurt that we should have felt the need to spell out our demands in a formal petition,
as though we were members of a trade union. Instead, if we had only come to him, in the same spirit as a
child approaches its father for extra pocket money, he wouldnt have felt such a sense of betrayal. Over a
cup of tea, he said, we could have discussed and sorted out our differences.
Because, you must always remember, he emphasized, that like every father or mother in this world
the trustees are basically good and generous people (in fact, surprise of surprises, after Coyajis address,
tea and sandwiches were brought into the concourse and served to us. Buchia thought of everything! I
wonder if they smashed the cups and saucers after we had drunk from them.) who would never do
anything to harm their own children and, keep this in mind always, certainly nothing unfair or exploitative.
He had already been speaking for nearly half an hour. These, we guessed, were his concluding
remarks:
Thats why we have to trust one another. We are all followers of the same religion. And our
religion, the oldest and most influential in the history of mankind, clearly lays down all our rights and
duties not just yours as corpse bearers, but ours, too, as your guardians. And in the perspective of not
just the here and now, but in the context of eternity, and all-powerful Ahura Mazda. . So let us not be
hasty, let us not behave like ordinary rabble-rousers and undisciplined trouble-mongers. Someone may
have misguided you, Im sure. But if you choose to follow such negative advice, itll only bring us to ruin.
Never once in the hundred-and-fifty-year-old history of the Punchayet, has anyone raised such demands,
remember that. .
Not a single concession was granted to us, even just to mollify or appease except to proclaim that
our grievances would definitely be looked into in greater detail.
Already humiliated by the events of the last fortnight, the boys were not impressed by the high moral
ground taken by Coyaji, nor the syrupy pap he had just dished out. We were on our best behaviour, of
course no one heckled him, or argued during his discourse. But, as soon as he had left, another meeting
took place, a great deal livelier, on Rustoms terrace. Coyajis polemical efforts had only made everyone
more determined not to let things quietly return to the way they were.
And yet, given the way poor people generally tend to accept their lot as unchanging, and
unchangeable, it is quite likely they would have. Reverted to normalcy, that is, had the trustees handled
the situation a little more sensitively.
The next week or ten days were eventful, possibly the busiest we had known. I dont mean just with
our regular duties. Those proceeded as usual, of course and the number of corpses had definitely gone
down in recent days but there was the matter of Jungoo Driver.
Poor Jungoo. . It had been only three days since he had got back behind the wheel again of a more or
less functional hearse. This was of course a great boon to us corpse bearers who, otherwise, would have
been trudging along for several hours every day lifting the load of corpse and bier. But our luck and
Jungoos didnt hold out. On the very fourth day after he had started driving it again, a BEST bus
rammed diagonally into the drivers end of the hearse, nearly toppling it. Jungoo suffered two minor
fractures and many abrasions. His condition wasnt serious, and luckily, Bujji and Kobaad were with him.
Winding through the narrow streets of Girgaum to collect a corpse, the accident happened before
they could reach the bereaved partys address; so in its aftermath, they were not burdened with the
responsibility of protecting a corpse. The driver of the BEST bus was arrested by the cops for drunken
driving, and Bujji and Kobaad got Jungoo admitted to the Parsi General Hospital.
Much later, that evening, on the day of the accident, I was at Rustoms when a deeply agitated Cawas
stumbled in. Cawas, or Cowsi, as we called him, was Jungoos elder brother, a corpse bearer of many
years standing. That night, he looked suddenly older and somewhat stunned as if suffering the effects of
concussion; as though he had himself been driving the battered hearse, not his younger brother.

He wont get a paisa, thats what he says. . Imagine! Not a paisa!

Cawas was nearly in tears. Apparently, he had just met Buchia to ask him for an advance towards
defraying Jungoos hospital expenses. Buchia had been impatient and ill-tempered, deliberately sadistic.
Of course not, said Rustom. If you expect Buchia to shell out anything from his own pocket youre
sadly deluded! A bloody miser, if ever there was one.
No, no! spluttered Cowsi, unable to speak clearly. Buchia said hed spoken to Coyaji. In the
afternoon after the accident by phone. Cant pay for careless driving, he tells me.
Who? Buchia? I asked.
No, no, listen! He was only reporting what Coyaji said. Then that Edul, that bloody chamcha, puts in
his two bits: Few hundreds will anyway go towards repairing the damage to a brand new hearse. .
What! says I, brand new? Its been with the garage these last five weeks. At least the body was
brand new, before your brother banged it up. .
Then Buchia continues, And whos to say he hadnt been tippling with his good-for-nothing friends
before he left for the pick-up in the afternoon? Should be happy he doesnt have more serious injuries of
his own. . Thats Buchia for you, the hullkutt: Coyajis in no mood to pay for anything, he says. Dont
even ask. Dont even ask. .? Now what do I do? Howll Jungoo settle the hospital bill? His wife and
kids, how theyll manage?
Calm down, calm down, Cowsi. . Rustom urged. They cant refuse to pay. Theres a police record
to show it was the bus driver who was drunk. . Other trustees will make Coyaji see sense. Only, it may
take a little time.
If necessary, well come with you to talk to the trustees, I, too, reassured Cawas.
Initially, though, we khandhias had to take a collection to help Jungoos wife and kids get by. Buchia
himself, in a rare gesture of generosity, conceded fifty rupees, twenty of which were meant to go into the
collection for the family, and the remaining thirty to be deposited at the hospital as an advance payment on
Jungoos bills. No doubt, Buchia would claim it later from his bosses, or find a way to compensate
himself for the expense. If, that is, the suggestion to placate us with a small contribution hadnt come in the
first place from Coyaji himself.
Usually one of the women Dolly or Khorshed or Perin carried a simple tiffin of home-cooked
food to the hospital for Jungoo; the hospital provided a free tea and breakfast, but meals had to be paid for
separately.
He was recovering nicely, and would be discharged in a day or two, the doctors had confided in
him.
Dont feel like leaving this place at all, he would lament to whoever carried him his lunch. So
much peace, so much rest. . Its like being in heaven. .
To make his discharge from hospital a little less regrettable, we had planned a small get-together on
the occasion of his return. In the end, a sort of meeting did take place, but with only a few of us present.
Nor were we clinking glasses or passing around the bottle. A grim affair it was, all told, at which we
could only review our options. And we felt emboldened enough not to find it necessary to repair
secretively to the grotto.
For that very morning of the day on which Jungoo was to return home, we received another visit
from Edul. This time, he was carrying only two letters: one for Rustom, and the other one for me.
It was clear from the contents of these letters that both of us had been identified as ringleaders or
motivators behind the charter of demands, and the person or persons who had thought it fit to send us these
letters wanted to snuff out any nascent trouble seen to be brewing at the Towers of Silence. Without a
doubt, you could say, it was the trustees own obtuseness that forced our hand, and led us all to the edge of
a precipice.

The most depressed sub-caste of the relatively affluent Parsis of Bombay its khandhias and
nussesalars had never before struck work. Not that they didnt have enough cause or provocation for
such direct action, or that there was any substance to Coyajis claim that the trustees cared for them as
though they were their own children.
I suppose the truth was that centuries of oppression and indoctrination had effectively robbed them of
the imagination required to conceive of a different order of life, or to question a creed according to which
the Almighty Creator had relegated them to such a lowly, depraved existence, while hypocritically
promising them (at least us nussesalars) liberation from rebirth for faithfully carrying out their laborious
duties in this lifetime. The argument smacked so completely of human rather than divine machination; I
could see this more clearly, I suppose, because I didnt actually belong by heredity to the sub-caste of
corpse bearers.
Yet, ensnared in manacles of obfuscation, the vice-like grip of fear was unyielding. Even to convince
Rustom that what I was proposing wasnt utterly rash and suicidal took almost two hours of argument and
debate. Finally it was belligerent Farokh who said something that tilted the balance.
If we let them get away with intimidation this once, he observed aloud, while sitting with us, they
will espouse this method as an all-time effective strategy for controlling us hiring and firing at will.
I should explain: the two fresh letters that Edul had delivered to us that morning stated that my
services as nussesalar were terminated forthwith, and that I should vacate my quarters in fifteen days
time, for indulging in subversive activities against the interests of the community even while on
probation. And Rustoms letter actually referred to the dire fate of other troublemakers, warning him of
a similar end to his long and hitherto successful career as corpse bearer, should he continue his
association with mischief-mongers who were raking up trouble in the peaceful environs of the Towers of
Silence.
On reading his letter, Rusi maintained a stunned silence for a whole minute, his large body heaving,
as he breathed in deeply. Cant remember if I mentioned this earlier, but Rustom is a pretty senior person
who had already completed twenty-five years of service. In our community of khandhias, he is regarded
as a sort of father figure, a particularly kind and well-meaning soul who could always be relied on for
advice and support. By involving him in the disciplinary action taken against me, the trustees had made
their worst faux pas.
As for the termination letter issued to me, I could not but believe that it was Buchia once again who
had wrongly advised Coyaji to take this action. His cloying interest in me had grown to a point of
obsession, at around this time, as also his unbridled sense of power. Knowing I had a small baby to feed
and shelter, he would have liked nothing better than for me to turn up at his doorstep, begging for a
reprieve.
Never before, and never since, have the corpse bearers of Doongerwaadi, the Towers of Silence,
gone on strike.
In August 1942, when British towns and cities were reeling under attack from the German Luftwaffe,
and Hitlers army had undertaken major offensives in Europe, Africa and Russia (Temoos radio, as you
see, kept us informed), we corpse bearers were completely united amongst ourselves in launching a
hartaal a complete stoppage of work. Our decision to down tools, as it were or rather, not lift
corpses took Buchia, Coyaji, and the entire Parsi Punchayet completely by surprise. They were so
flummoxed that for the first twenty-four hours, they did not react, as if hoping against all evidence to the
contrary that the next morning they would find things had returned to normal.
Fortunately for us, in our line of work, no lockout or closure can be imposed by the management. For
the assembly line of corpses keeps moving, regardless of whether the latter are disposed of or not. Calls
to Buchias office, reporting deaths and asking for the corpse to be carried away continued as usual,

followed by persistent and progressively impatient reminders. But no corpses were removed from the
homes of the bereaved on that day, or for the next three days.
I had persuaded Rustom that there was no chance of our being summarily dismissed for dereliction
of duty, and blacklegs being hired to do the work. It wouldnt be easy to find replacements from within the
Parsi community in a hurry; nor would any self-respecting Parsi allow his near-and-dear ones to be
handled by an untouchable Hindu or Muslim beggar.
Within twenty-four hours, there was a great furore in the community. Letters to the editor in the local
and vernacular papers came in, fast and furious. Only the most colourfully worded were printed.
Many of them condemned the Parsi Punchayet for being a bunch of lazy and corrupt self-seekers,
puffed up on privilege, for allowing the situation to get so out of hand, for treating the corpse bearing
caste with so much contumely and contempt that they had no option but to fight for their rights by refusing
to work. This line of thought represented the reformist minority in the community, who felt that mindless
adherence to age-old practices and conventions had alienated its weakest section; that bigoted and
inflexible views were endangering the entire community and, in fact, the very traditions which our
forefathers had sought to uphold and protect.
But the voice of orthodoxy was overwhelmingly represented, too, people who felt enraged that
khandhias had actually dared to hold the community to ransom, that we should be summarily sacked
and punished in the harshest possible way. This faction even took out a small procession that marched
through the streets demanding the strictest reprisals against us, carrying placards that made unpleasant
broadsides such as:
BLACKMAIL IS THE LAST RESORT OF SCOUNDRELS
and
THOSE WHO FEED THE VULTURES HAVE BECOME OMNIVORES THEMSELVES!
They staged a sit-down protest on the pavement outside the Punchayet buildings entrance for ten
minutes or so but, not having applied for police permission to do so, the cops soon shooed them off for
obstructing pedestrian movement.
A feeble attempt was also made to engineer a split in our ranks in the hope, I suppose, of its leading
to more defections. The target of this insidious potshot was poor Fardoonji, who was issued a veiled
threat by Edul that he could lose his quarters and be out in the streets if he didnt cooperate. I dont know
exactly how old he was at the time, but he was certainly very old. He might have appeared to be the most
suitable candidate for this ugly gambit, because of his strong sense of duty and propriety, and the great
reverence he showed towards all forms of authority be it Punchayet trustees, or the Almighty himself.
I still remember what Fardoonji said when he came to condole after Seppys death: Dont judge
Him, son. Dont be angry. . We dont understand everything that happens to us. How could we. .how could
anyone? So vast the world is, the heavens so much vaster, and so much going on all the time, continuously.
We can only bow our heads and pray. . Im very sorry, Phiroze. If theres anything you need. .
But, though docile, he was a good man, and held out.
Despite the mixed public reaction, we corpse bearers stuck to our guns, so to speak. The strike
lasted only three-and-a- half days before the trustees climbed down and granted all our demands,
including the provisions for overtime, casual leave and my unconditional reinstatement. It was a tense
period for us. During those three days the price of ice in Bombay skyrocketed from eight annas per kilo to
six rupees per kilo.
Remarkably, the vultures themselves seemed to know in advance that no funerals were scheduled.
Instead of the scores of scavengers who collect at the Towers regularly, in time for their repast, that first
morning of the strike saw only three or four circling the sky vapidly; and within a minute or two even
those were gone. After that, for the next three days until the strike was over, not a single vulture was seen
anywhere near the Towers of Silence.

Once an agreement was reached between trustees and corpse bearers, there was a large backlog of
funerals to be cleared. For those next three days, a fair amount accrued to us khandhias and nussesalars by
way of overtime. And the vultures, too, clocked in with precision once the strike was over. Though
instinctually constrained from gorging, they, too, I presume, enjoyed a continual and unlimited feast.
Initially, the mood amongst us was jubilant and celebratory. Most of us were working fewer hours,
and our monthly incomes had gone up. When I resumed work, along with all the others, nobody said a
thing to me; I was pleased to have come out of this sorry and slightly desperate chapter of my life cleanly.
One night when, out of sheer boredom, Temoo rigged the power line from the lamp post outside his
tenement to his radio (Yezdi Electrician had done it for him several times before, and showed him how),
through much static and radio noise, while randomly fiddling with the tuner on his set, he caught once
again that womans voice we had first heard by chance about a month ago.
This is the Congress Radio calling on 42.34 metres from somewhere in India. Bapus message to all
Indian people is very clear. These are his words: Now we have given the call to our rulers to Quit India,
every one of you should from this moment on consider yourself a free man or woman, and even act as if
you are free and no longer under the heel of this imperialism. This is no make-believe. . You have to
cultivate the spirit of freedom before it comes physically. . The chains of a slave are broken the moment
he considers himself a free man.
For some reason, we all remembered Udham Singh, the martyr. It was perhaps two years ago All
India Radio had informed us of a man who had shot Brigadier Michael ODwyer at a public meeting in
London. The news was exhilarating. When given a chance to speak his final words before he was hanged,
Udham Singh had simply said, I have no regrets. I feel proud to be the one who executed the butcher of
Jallianwalla. . To the memory of that Sardars raw courage, we drank that night what was probably an
unreasonable quantity of hooch.

Two. Echoes of a Living Past

Ten
It startles me that in all these preceding pages not once have I attempted a detailed description,
physical or otherwise, of my Sepideh; even though she was the centre of my life still is, she remains
there as also, she must inevitably be of these copious, rambling notes. Having realized this, I ought at
least to try. Though the very thought of such an effort makes me clammy, sinks my stomach into queasy
disequilibrium but why?
The answer is obvious. Seppys gone; and because shes no more, I must rely solely on recollection
to evoke what would surely have overblown into an impersonation larger than life. Do I need to fear this?
How indeed could exaggeration creep into a description of someone who constituted my world, my whole
life? Or am I being dishonest to persist in believing so?
How quickly it becomes difficult to remember a person who is dead with any sort of clarity. No
matter how I may long to believe otherwise, there are no signs or messages from her, from the beyond,
that shes still there. Or, if she is, that she has any interest at all in the fate of us living. . The details are
fading faster than I can hold on to them.
Though we enjoyed being together at all times, Seppy and I never did have much to talk about, or
discuss. By way of shared experience, we began with little in common. And as far as the world outside
was concerned, by no stretch of imagination or experience, was that our domain. Cut off, completely and
irrevocably from it, all the news that ever filtered in from that world came by word of mouth, or emanated
from the large wooden cabinet of a box-like radio that Temoo owned.
In his own estimation, a priceless instrument, the radio was manufactured in Germany, and had
been acquired somehow by his late wife, Rudabeh, from some well-wisher in earlier days. No, in those
early days, our living quarters were not electrified no electric lights, no fans, no radios. We lived by
candlelight and, if we ran out of those, or oil for the lamps, or kerosene, as was so often the case, natural
light alone defined the shape of our waking hours.
Though electricity was in Bombay already, it was still just a bit expensive and there were relatively
few domestic consumers. Buchias own office-cum-quarters had electricity. And one electric street lamp
splashed a patch of brightness at the beginning of the wooded path leading to the upper funeral cottages;
happily, this lamp post was situated immediately outside the khandhias tenement block. It was from the
junction box of this lamp post that Yezdi Electricianthats what we called this lanky youth with the
long hair and awkward, camel-like gait to distinguish him from Yezdi Tumboly, another more senior
corpse bearer would tap the line to power Temoos radio.
This was a covert operation performed only after sundown, for Buchia would never have
countenanced such piracy. Initially, Temoo himself was terribly jittery about the entire undertaking: the
very idea of stealing electricity, as much as of the perilous act of sticking a screwdriver into the T-shaped
slit of the junction box to prise its lid open, then locating the tiny cranny pointed out to him by Yezdi
(amidst a jumble of other wires and terminals) into which he must insert the open end of the extended
power cord that snaked from the radio, out his window, along the ground and all the way up into the
junction box. It did seem frighteningly unsound; but then, once accomplished, the radio and Temoo, and
several others from our community, too came into their own.
Usually that street light was switched on at dusk. If not, he would call on me to hold up a candle or a
kerosene lamp while, fumblingly, he sought to make contact. Yezdi had created a permanent joint for him
to the radios power cord, increasing its total length by some eight or nine yards. He had warned Temoo

repeatedly, of course, about the danger of coming into direct contact with a charge of electricity. No
wonder Temoo was so jittery. But, over time, he grew more confident about rigging this clandestine
power connection even when Yezdi wasnt around to supervise.
You see, Temoorus was always terribly proud of his radio and had jealously protected it ever since
it had been gifted to his wife; even in the days when it was no more than a mere showpiece that occupied
one corner of his dining table a mute wooden cabinet he would wipe the dust off it with a soft cloth
every morning, tending to it almost worshipfully as if it were a deity, or the very fountainhead a magic
box from which all knowledge and truth flowed. Now that it could be made to break its silence, he was
overjoyed.
Whenever an event of any significance occurred in our country or the world, and we got wind of it
from someone who had heard something, or seen a newspaper, the event or crisis immediately took on the
excitement of a festive, social occasion in our small community of corpse bearers. For then sometimes
by advance notice, or prior submission the power connection was rigged, the radio turned on, and the
air became thick with voices, music and the crackle of static.
Word spread quickly. Anyone was welcome to drop in and listen, and subsequently, sit around airing
views, analyses, predictions. If they had something to drink, or munch on at home, they were expected to
bring it along a sort of tithe or offering for the privilege of listening to these critical broadcasts. Most
often, of course, nobody had anything of the kind, and they came empty-handed; but nonetheless felt free to
hold forth.
1935 was the year in which Seppy and I got married. It was also the year, I remember, in which a
new Government of India Act was proclaimed by our British rulers. When Gandhiji undertook his famous
Salt March in 1930, I was still in school. But the response had been terrific: there were similar marches
undertaken all over the country, and massive civil disobedience. People refused to pay rent, revenues and
taxes. In the face of this open challenge to the law, once again we witnessed brutal police violence,
repression and mass arrests. Gandhiji and Nehru were both clapped in jail; but the British remained
unbending in their attitude.
The call for complete Swaraj was then countered by this very insipid legislation of British
parliament that promised gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to
progressively achieving responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. The
demand for setting up a committee to draft a constitution for independent India was completely
overlooked. Temoo often tuned in to ISBS as well, or Indian State Broadcasting Service, which later
became AIR All India Radio, or Akashvani. But sometimes, he was also able to catch short wave, and
we heard the news from England.
Appeasement of legitimate national aspirations was flatly denied to us Indians. Yet, almost every
other night or certainly on weekend nights, we heard confusing reports which indicated that British, and
other European leaders, were recklessly appeasing the insane ambitions of a dictator who was
systematically militarizing his country in contravention of the restraints imposed on it by the Treaty of
Versailles. It was a frenetic and difficult time difficult to understand, I mean. Events unfolded so
bewilderingly fast one couldnt hope to grasp their logic, much less the politics that had inspired them.
The fragmentary bits of information we culled from short wave often didnt make any sense to us at all;
yet, there was a frightening momentum in the build-up that led to World War II.
My interest in sports and sporting events was rather keen even at that age, for I remember listening
with dismay to a BBC report that alleged exclusion of several high-ranking Jewish athletes from the 1936
Olympics in Berlin. Why on earth any government should want to exclude its best sportsmen I couldnt
understand until I had learned a little more about Hitlers own beliefs and ideas.
Initially, it did seem that he was intent on presenting a clean image of himself to the world. Before
the international press delegation could arrive in Berlin we heard of this only much later, of course

Hitler had ordered his stormtroopers to clean up the city of its anti-Semitic posters and insignia. Even
later, after the war had started, we heard reports of the cold-blooded murder of a handful of German
journalists who heroically refused to toe the Nazi line: who had believed it was important to report
accurately on what was going on in Germany during those years.
Well, as I said, all this proceeded at a reckless pace, but we did get some glimpse into the shape of
things to come. It wasnt our world, though, and we didnt have much to do with it. Except that it became
very obvious that our rulers adopted different standards when dealing with unrest in their own colonies,
and quite different ones for negotiating with their European neighbours.
Seppy and me, we listened awhile but usually, once we had grasped the gist of the headlines, we left
the old fogies to their meagre celebration and boisterous arguments. If it was a bright, moonlit night, we
would stroll through the groves into the forest. The truth was our lives were so closed, so dispossessed,
even world wars, riots, or our own countrys struggle for independence hardly seemed to matter. So far
removed were we from these fateful eventualities of history that, except by a complex chain of inferences
and deductions, none of them touched our personal lives at all.
It wasnt very late one evening when Seppy and I walked through the casuarinas, towards the pear
orchard, without speaking. . The sky was beginning to darken, but still held promise of great calm.
Tell me one thing, Fuzzy, will you? she said, breaking the silence.
Seppy thought Phiroze sounded too old-fashioned and staid, and almost always called me by that pet
name she had made up. I must add, in those days I usually wore my hair long, and it was very curly.
But you must promise to be completely honest, she insisted. Only then does it make sense. .
Promise me youll search your heart before you answer.
But answer what? I was curious. You havent asked me anything.
She waited a long moment before replying. Come to think of it, something had been bothering her
lately.
Do you have regrets about your decision? I mean to marry me, and be trapped forever in the Towers
of Silence?
Trapped? Didnt know I was, I joked. I still have a few years left before they carry me up and
dump me in a tower. And even then, the birds wont take more than ten minutes to set me free. Before you
know it, Ill be soaring high in blue skies.
Im serious, Phiroze, she said, almost mournfully. I stay awake at nights sometimes thinking about
this. It just wasnt fair to you, was it? To have to give up everything: your family, your studies, the whole
world, and be confined to this shadowy, overgrown reserve. .
Oh I dont really see myself as confined, I replied. Usually, once or twice a day at least I do go out
to fetch a corpse or two. As far as my studies went, I was always rather a dummy. If I hadnt given
them up, my school would probably have expelled me. Anyway, Ive come to think of this place as the
most beautiful in the whole world, Seppy. It really is. This is paradise we live in, Seppy, dont you think
so, too?
You know what I mean, Fuzzy, dont lets pretend. .
No, I dont, honestly. I couldnt ask for any better deal than to be held captive in paradise. With a
licence to roam freely inside its boundaries and with you by my side at that. You dont know what the
city outsides like: all noise, and dirt, and people. . Anyway, I should ask you, what is it that you regret
about our marriage?
I dont. I only feel that I didnt give you a chance. You are so young, Fuzzy. And sex is such a
powerful thing. Once I had made love to you, I knew there was no way I would lose you. .
For a moment my mind flashed back to what Mother had said on that night of the confrontation, that
my first encounter with Seppy was no more than a cleverly plotted ruse for seduction.
Perhaps we shouldnt have made love at all until we got married. . she mused. Thats what I feel, I

shouldnt have let you. That way you would have been free to find out if you really wanted to marry me.
.and all the baggage that came with me this place, the ostracism whether you really wanted to take
on any of that. Of course, you didnt. Nobody could have.
Given a choice, let me tell you. . I said, putting my arms around her, Id marry you again,
sweetheart. . and kissed her beneath a raspberry tree in full blossom, under the waning blush of a
darkening sky.
We lingered awhile under its canopy, and she persisted with her train of thought:
Youve always been so gallant and charming about this. .I love you, too, Fuzzy. . But the work itself
doesnt bother you? I mean, dont you find it too demanding, too demeaning?
Its a cakewalk, dear Seppy, I remember replying. Dont you worry about that. .and you, Sepideh,
are my sugar plum fairy of these woods. Its you who make it all so easy. But if you dont watch out, soon
you may end up being my sugar plump fairy!
We laughed. Just a week or so later, Seppy found out, and told me that she was pregnant. How
beautiful she was with child, how sated with happiness. . There were worries, too, because we had been
reminded over and over again of the dangers of marrying a close family relation. But thank heavens,
Farida was born absolutely normal.
The flowering of meaning and intellect in my life happened only after I met Seppy and fell in love.
We shared something very special which even now isnt easy for me to define. I could oversimplify and
call it a sense of humour. But it was something much tougher, yet more frail. A shared matrix of
perception? I suppose one could call it that whose common nodes so intricately intersected that
there was complete parity in our understanding of all things: the world, people and every eventuality we
encountered in life.
This was no small thing, I should say, for it meant that no matter how rough a day either of us had
had, a mere look in the eyes, the subtle sparkle of a smile, a fleeting caress in passing, any form of
communication however insignificant could transform ones mood in an instant, engendering a whole new
perspective for the other partner as well. It worked that way with both of us.
Our daughter, Farida, was already a year old when, one afternoon, Temoos radio was turned on.
This had become possible only because Buchia was away on leave for three days, making a personal
pilgrimage to Udvada.
The news was all thunder and fury about maverick Germanys invasion of Poland, and Prime
Minister Chamberlains reluctant but angry declaration of war. There were disturbing though still
unconfirmed reports coming out of Germany Austria and Czechoslovakia as well about the
deportation of Jews to concentration camps.
I remember some of the excitement, comments and expostulations that were flying around Temoos
crowded living room, before we made our exit.
What have we to do with their war, tell me? Let them perish if they want to!
Just like that, without asking anyone, without checking with us first they declare that India is at war,
too. .? And what prizes can we expect for fighting in their war?
No prizes, brother. Just the glory of crushing the bogey of Fascism!
Fascism-bashism is all very well but why put our lives on the line? Dont we remember where all
our sacrifices of the last war got us? The Jallianwalla massacre, the Rowlatt Act. Why is Gandhi being
such a hypocrite?
No prizes for guessing why Congress leaders are such arse-kissers. . So they can step into British
shoes, once vacated. No matter if they be stinking with the sweat of those red monkeys, or soaked in
Indian blood. Finally, power is the key. .theyll do anything to take over, once our lords and masters
decide its time to go home.
Actually, that Hitler seems to me quite a decent, no-nonsense politician, really. We could use

someone strong like that in our own country, dont you think, instead of these crafty khaddar topeewalas!
Oi, oi, interrupted Temoo, derisively, we already have one Buchia here, dont forget! Behnchoad,
Hitler no baap!
Farida will wake up any minute, Sepideh said to me, softly. It was time for us to leave. This time we
werent planning a stroll, just getting back next door to our end of the tenement where our infant babe was
sleeping, like an angel. Its time for her feed, I can tell, she said; the ache in her milk-engorged breasts
was growing more intense.
What I had said by way of reassurance to Seppy was quite true. To this day I am amazed how strong
I was, how easily I took to the work. I am short, and built a little stockily, but I had endless reserves of
energy.
I still remember my embarrassment on being teased by the other candidates at the naavar retreat
which I flunked. It was the old priest, Muncherjee, in fact, who indulged in a sly witticism, while the
other boys roared with laughter:
Perhaps koustee, not kustee, would have suited you better, Phiroze! he had punned, while reaching
out to pinch my biceps.
Maybe freestyle wrestling, rather than ritual and prayer. God knows, he could have been right! Some
of my strength and bulk has survived, though the muscles have frayed. When I look in the mirror I see that
outwardly, give or take a little, I still look much the same as in my younger days. Except that rather
rapidly Ive lost almost my entire curly mop of hair. Now only a wispy aureole still attaches itself to my
shiny pate, giving me an appropriately monkish appearance. If Seppy were still here, she would have had
to think up another pet name for me: Egghead? Ostrich?
I miss my Sepideh very much. Sometimes I fear I wont be able to carry on without her calming
presence. Why did she have to die so suddenly, so improbably? Just when our happiness was reaching its
zenith, and hers, too: just as she was beginning to realize the meaning of motherhood, the joy and
anticipation of watching her only child grow up. .
But no matter how bereft I may feel, I have to carry on, if only for Faridas sake. I had promised
Seppy as she lay dying I would look after her daughter, make sure she went to a good school. . No, for my
own sake, too. . Theres no choice in this, is there? At all times life demands from one courage, and
perseverance. Humour, too, perhaps wit and discretion as well. . Without a grain of each of these, Id
certainly feel crushed by the monstrous encumbrance of an incoherent and meaningless existence.
Dreams, reality, nightmares are these, in fact, distinct planes of consciousness? Or merely
different modalities for perceiving the one grand canvas of an indivisible reality?
There have been moments in my life when I have felt genuinely confused by this question whether
a distinct line of division exists between subconscious and wakeful reality; or whether that bewilderment
we experience in such moments of obfuscation is itself an illusion. .
The very last night I slept in my family quarters in the Soonamai Ichchaporia Agiari for that is
what my fathers small fire temple is called, in memory of its founding benefactress, an entrepreneur of
the last century who, incidentally, provided employment to dozens of indigent women at a barn-like
sweatshop on Sleater Road which produced bhakra, pickles, popatji, and other savouries I was
terribly exhausted; both physically and emotionally. The next morning, I was to leave for the Towers of
Silence: that is, to make a more or less permanent separation from my family and the home I had grown up
in perhaps all too quickly. I still had two-and-a-half months to go before I turned nineteen.
Physically, of course, I was tired because I had spent much of my day finding, deciding about and
putting together the things I would be taking along: my few clothes, my sudrahs, my topee, a couple of

pairs of underwear and socks, various knick-knacks and lucky charms that held an emotional significance
for me from childhood. A volume of Gujarati stories about a folk hero called Hameed Mia who had the
power to become invisible at will, and his adventures with Parween Banu, his wife. I had heard these
stories read out to me several times by Mother when I was a child, yet felt reassured by the idea of
keeping the book with me. They were funny stories, and Mother used to read them to me when I wouldnt
sleep. My entire luggage fitted into my old school bag, and Vispys, both of which I had been told I could
use to transport my things. We had no suitcases or trunks in the quarters which could be spared.
I spent the whole afternoon searching for a scrapbook I hadnt come across in a long while. In it, I
had pasted a rare newspaper clipping of the first All-India Cricket Team to tour England, which boasted
of seven stalwart Parsi players, including Homi Kaka and Meherji Bulsara. The scrapbook had never got
further than three or four pages of cricketing snippets for want of a supply of printed matter after
which I had diversified to include swimmers, cyclists, bodybuilders and other stars from the sporting
world. The eighty-page notebook was less than a third filled, but it was something I had done, something I
didnt want to just leave behind even though Vispy had located and contributed about half a dozen of
its portraits. No, it was my scrapbook.
My exhaustion, Im sure, was most certainly caused not so much by physical exertions as by the
unrelenting emotional flagellation Mother inflicted on both of us, herself as well as me, unable to accept,
until the final moment, the inevitability of what was to befall her unhappy family.
Throughout that entire last day she had been at least partly effective in suppressing her tears not
so for most of the previous week; but now Mother resorted to a new stratagem of abstaining from
looking at me altogether, wearing an expression of dreamy nonchalance, or looking into the distance even
while speaking to me, which she only did if she absolutely had to. Perhaps it was her buffer against
breaking down altogether. Whatever had to be said, in any case in simple phrases, or lamentations of
grief had already been expressed, and expended in fairly extravagant measure. Now, only lassitude
remained.
In the evening, after he returned home from work, and Father hadnt yet come in for his dinner, Vispy
pulled me aside for a brief, confidential chat.
Youre still only eighteen, right? he said to me in a slightly hoarse whisper.
Nineteen, soon, I pointed out.
Lucky bugger, arent you, Phiroze, you should know that. .
Lucky?
Ill be twenty-seven next month, you know. .and so far, Ive never been with a woman.
You will, you will. . I said to him with an air of superiority, unwilling to forgo the trump he was
offering me, when the right woman comes along.
Right or wrong, I dont know, he confessed, almost mournfully, right now I feel just any woman
would do.
I didnt see Father that night at all. It appeared he had decided to make an appearance much later than
usual, so he could avoid meeting me. In the last few days his nocturnal schedule of early sleep and rousing
had gone completely awry; although, however tired or somnolent he might feel, he had never once missed
his mornings vigil of ringing the temple bell at cocks crow.
I embraced Mother silently and wished her good night. She didnt speak, but returned my tight
embrace and kissed me on the forehead.
I must have fallen asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, but my sleep was disturbed
by a string of dreams. As usual, they were rather fragmented and humdrum. A boy of eleven me,
presumably was being taken through the paces of tying the sacred girdle around his waist by an
enormous, bearded priest. My father? Not Muncherjee, certainly.
Evidently what was in progress was my navjote ceremony, for the burly priest standing behind me

held my hands aloft, in which I held raised, my kustee. He was enunciating with precision and vigour
those passages which must be spoken while knotting the thread in its three all-important stages. I had to
articulate the words in unison with the priest, while he guided me through the procedure. The odd thing
was I couldnt concentrate on any of this, because the priests long beard kept caressing the nape of my
neck as his chin wagged while uttering the words of the ancient text with guttural precision.
Unintentionally, yet without respite, and perhaps without his knowledge, the priests whiskers tickled me
so that finally I broke into a helpless chuckling. This angered him greatly, and I immediately desisted. But
somehow, before I knew it, I found myself hopelessly entangled in my own sacred cord which had
developed elastic properties, elongating inexplicably into a coil several yards longer than it should have
been. Enraged, he expostulated in my ear:
Shame on you! Dont know how to do even that much? And youve come out to perform your
navjote? Shame on you!
Next I was on the terrace of the fire temple, flying a kite with Vispy. But this time, it was I who was
in charge; Vispy was only cheering me on, guiding me with hints, strategies, tactics. The sky was chockfull of other kites, and very breezy; with masterful finesse, I cut them down, one after the other, watching
them detach from the controlling strings of their manipulators, swoop and go into free fall. Even more than
myself, it was Vispy who seemed to be enjoying himself greatly, yelling whoops of orgasmic delight with
every kite that came a cropper, urging me to cut some more. .screaming, after each triumph, that bloodcurdling war cry of every kite fighter: patang kapyo che!
Then I was in a dark forest: it was dusk; this was my forest, I was sure, though an exceptionally
dense and wooded part of it which I had never seen before. On the darkening horizon I could make out the
silhouettes of the Towers. In a small clearing at my feet, I was digging a pit with a shovel, to bury a
collection of dead animals presumably, my own expired pets. I shovelled in a dog, a leopard, an
ostrich, a porcupine, and finally, incredibly, an entire hippopotamus! When I looked up again, I saw that
every branch of every tree around me was populated by hundreds of vultures. A moon was up and, by its
light I could see that each of these dark creatures was staring hungrily, not at the dead beasts I was
burying, but at me. In my dream I remember thinking, how odd that there are vultures still out even after
dark. .
Something must have made me stir at that moment, for I began to feel half-awake, woken up by a loud
argument in my fathers room. Yet, in what seemed like just a few minutes after, a deep sleep
overwhelmed me, drowning everything out. When I finally rose in the morning, I was no longer sure if
what I had overheard was something that actually happened, or if it was all a dream.
My mothers voice, with shrewish sophistry was disinterring and dissecting some episode from my
fathers youth.
Why werent you straight with her right at the start? You should have warned her right then that you
couldnt help her, that you had a fiance. You should have let her know right then you were about to get
married and start a family of your own. Instead you led her on. .
Whore you talking about?
As if you dont know. Your Rudabeh, of course
Please never mention that name inside my agiari!
My fathers voice, usually thick and gruff, sounded subdued, almost frightened in the face of
Mothers vengeful aggression. But presently, he shouted back:
Whats wrong with you, Hilla? Have you gone completely mad? That was twenty-five years ago,
and the woman has been dead for nineteen! You wake me up in the middle of the night to rake up some
stale, moth-eaten slander thats over and done with?
Oh, itll never go away, dont fear, some things never do. And how can you think of sleeping on a

night like this? I havent slept a wink.

Then go to sleep, why dont you? Whats so special about this night?
Whats so special you ask? Tonights the last night my son will spend in his home. Maybe the last
time well see him again. And you ask me whats so special about this night. .?
I could hear Mother sobbing bitterly.
Its all your fault. All your fault. .because you could not treat your own sister with some decency
and respect.
Not sister, Father corrected her. Half-sister.
Okay, half-sister, but you still didnt treat her right. You had no kindness in your heart for the woman
you had once desired!
Oh stop it, Hilla! She was a bloody tramp!
That was later, we all know about that. She became the most sought-after harlot in Bombay. But
before? When both of you were young? Dont think I know nothing about all that went on before you
married me.
Oh, for heavens sake, Hilla, go to bed! The woman has been dead for nineteen years!
That she may be, said Mother. But today my son has to pay a high price for your swinish conduct.
It was you who drove her to whoring, you beast! You! I know it! By your refusal to help when she was in
trouble, by your heartless and spiteful conduct. .
When I woke up in the morning, I was much surprised to find I could recall such a lot. All jumbled
up, no doubt, and Im terribly lazy with remembering my dreams, but these ones had seemed so
particularly vivid, they were still before my eyes. Nevertheless, I had a busy day ahead of me and didnt
want to spend much time dwelling on the imponderable. Like other fragments that had preceded it, I
dismissed this bizarre conversation between my parents as no more than an effulgence of my own fervid
imagination. Soon, it sank once again into the pond of oblivion from which, no doubt, it had bubbled up,
unheralded.
Always shrouded in mystery, especially for her own bewildered child, Rudabehs death occurred
when her daughter was only three.
Sepideh had never heard any real explanation of how, or when or why it happened. She was too
young, and Temoo, I suppose, too ashamed of the truth of his own indirect acquiescence to, if not
complicity in, its causes to be able to explain it to his own child in any meaningful way.
Seppy saw her mothers dead body only once, during its last rites when, except for a few inches of
exposed nose and lidded eyes, she was entirely covered by a tightly-drawn white sheet. She wasnt able
to touch her mother, or embrace her. In accordance with Zoroastrian practice, she was constrained to
maintain a distance of three feet from the body whose ritual purification had been concluded, and could
only watch her from among the line of chairs put out for mourners. Within the hour, once the priests had
recited their prayers, her mother was carried away from the funeral hall by four burly khandhias, to
become a meal for patiently waiting vultures. Once again, of course, Seppy was not allowed to join the
small train of male mourners that followed the body up the hill.
Once, while she was pregnant and reminiscing, Seppy told me how bitterly she had cried on the day
before her mothers funeral when her father was summoned by the police to identify a body. Not at the
apparent confirmation of her mothers death, she explained, for that had somehow already dawned on her
during the two days she had been missing, but in her desperation that her father should take her along, not
leave her alone now. Naturally, he didnt think it fit to take along a child to the morgue. Instead, he left her
with Bujji, his wife, Khorshed, and their two young children.
I felt I was being punished, she explained, for what had happened to my Mama. As if in some way
I was responsible.

Bujjis old mother was alive then, and shared the flat with them. The children were unable to distract
Seppy from her distress. It was the old lady, however, who put her in her lap and rocked her hypnotically,
while whispering hoarsely in her ear:
Rarye nahin, dikra, rarye nahin. . Mamane chhootkaro mulyo. Dont cry, child, dont you cry. .
Mamas found her freedom.
This formula, repeated over and over again, accompanied by tender caresses over her face, hair, and
entire body, calmed her; as the calculated secrecy and patchy verisimilitude surrounding the account she
had been given of her mothers disappearance and death had failed to. The hollowness of the story that
her mother had been out with a friend, when she met with an accident her own intuitive conviction that
some essential information was being held back (for why, she had reflected later on, as her ability to
reason grew sharper, would extensive police investigation be involved in a simple accident, or for that
matter why was there such grief and shock in it for her father, once he had identified her body; and why
was her body covered like that at the funeral, so as to conceal every part of her face, except her nose and
eyes?), all these unanswered questions disturbed her greatly. Something worse had happened to her,
which she was not being told about. As if there was anything worse than the horror of losing a mother. .
And that final cruelty of not being allowed to touch or kiss her mother even after she finally found
her laid out in the funeral hall had, over the years, congealed in a ball of pain that Seppy had never been
encouraged to address, or appease.
In the beginning, we often discussed this tragic event of her childhood at length. By this time, of
course, Seppy had collated every piece of information that she could worm out of Temoo, and others in
the community who had been around at the time.
There was some kind of dispute over inheritance Im told, I said to Seppy during one of those
extended exhumations of the remote past. I learned about it myself only quite recently, before moving
here, to the Towers. .
During my last few days at home I had often heard things which hardly made any sense to me: tearful
and bitter recriminations from my mother, raking up a part of Fathers past I knew nothing about. Mostly,
she seemed to be only muttering them to herself; and I knew the cause of her emotional disquiet was my
own impending departure. Later, after I had moved to the Towers, some of the things she had said began to
piece together. Seppy had been curious to learn every detail.
Apparently, my grandfather, Rustomji Framrozes father married a second time, after his first
wife died. Your mother was born to his second wife, Meheringez, who was, as you know of course, a
Zoroastrian Irani. By the time she was born, Framroze himself was already twelve. They grew up in the
same house. When Rudabeh was sixteen, and Father was in his late twenties. . Now this is my mother
speaking and I would take it with a generous pinch of salt, knowing how possessive and jealous she can
be according to her, he was so besotted by your mothers virginal beauty, he actually wanted to marry
her!
Rustomji was furious: he wanted to know if his son had taken leave of his senses. Wiser counsel
prevailed, however, and it was impressed upon Framroze that this would be tantamount to incest. And if
he should persist in harbouring such filthy thoughts, Rustomji threatened to disinherit him and throw him
out of his house.
After that strong rebuff, Framroze turned his attention to religion, and seriously pursued his vocation
as priest. Rustomji lived to a fairly ripe age, even outliving your grandmother, Meheringez. By the time he
died, my father had already met Hilla, and married her. If Im not mistaken, Vispy, too, was born.
Now Rustomji wasnt exactly wealthy, and the flat they had been living in at Sleater Road actually
belonged to a cousin, who was keen to repossess it. You probably know all this anyway. .
Go on. There may be some detail I havent heard of.
Ironically, there wasnt much Rustomji had left behind to share anyway, but Framroze, apparently,

didnt think any of it should go to Rudabeh.

Dont I know it? said Seppy, interrupting my monologue. Thats something Temoo has never been
able to stop harping on.
My father was the elder son and heir in any case. And by then, Rudabeh had started an affair with a
known profligate and hooligan of the locality, Temoorus Ollia. .
After Rustomji died, she even moved in with this man. Framroze was unforgiving, even vicious in
his condemnation of his sisters moral turpitude. Temooruss hard-drinking ways soon led to unhappiness
and penury for Rudabeh, and Framroze felt his censure and disapproval stood vindicated.
Eventually, by way of compensation, he did do something to help her, I continued. But there was a
wicked and deliberate irony about it. He used his contacts with the Parsi Punchayet, to get a job for
Temoorus as a khandhia at the Towers of Silence.
My mother had added to this story a small detail which I didnt feel I should disclose to Seppy. It
wasnt at all significant in that sense; but I remember, I myself was rather shocked to hear it from Mother;
for I had never had reason before this to believe my father capable of stooping to such tawdry meanness.
Apparently, when he called Rudabeh to hand over the appointment letter for Temoorus, he spitefully
declared that given her paramours fondness for the bottle, there was no better or more suitable position
he could find him.
One other incident from her mothers brief life, which again I deliberately withheld, not wanting to
further humiliate her, or compel her to relive her mothers shame, humiliating enough for me to think of my
own fathers outrageous behaviour:
This was from the time after Rudabeh and Temoorus had moved into their quarters at the Towers,
and a sort of thaw had set in their relations with my father. He had himself offered to give his sister a
monthly handout of fifty rupees, or thereabouts, to help them tide over their financial difficulties. Only out
of the goodness of his heart not obligation, he had emphasized and if he should find it difficult at any
period in the future to persist with this dole after all, he had his own wife and school-going sons
needs to look to he would feel free to stop it, forthwith.
I realize its impossible I should actually have been witness to the scene I am about to describe. Not
even as an infant in arms you see, for I was only born a year after Rudabeh met her unfortunate end.
And yet, this incident remains vividly before my eyes, as though I had actually been present.
(Which only goes to show, I suppose, that parents should exercise greater discretion when they speak
in front of their children. For mere tangential references, snatches of invective or exaggeration as I surely
must have overheard in later years, became fodder for my seemingly disinterested but actually heightened
childs receptivity, lodging deep in the recesses of my subconscious mind, and acquiring entity.)
Mother had once described to me and Vispy while we were seated at the table helping her clean the
french beans for our dinner though this must have been specially for Vispys ears, I would imagine; she
was very close to my elder brother, and often complained to him about various aspects of my fathers
behaviour, and besides, she would have presumed I was too young to understand how at the beginning
of every month Rudabeh came to the temple gate and waited outside humbly, until Framroze came out and
handed over some money, or sent it across with one of the temple boys if he was too busy. Mother didnt
approve at all of the way he had treated his sister, and felt it was completely wrong that we children
werent even aware she was our aunt, who visited the temple every month but wasnt allowed in, and that
we actually had a cousin, about the same age as us whom we had never even met.
The scene I seem to recall having witnessed myself, but which I could not possibly have, was one in
which standing outside the imposing wrought iron gate under the sun, my aunt absent-mindedly held with
both hands, or leaned against, the gates ornamental fluted columns. Just then, Father came out himself
with the money, and was incensed by what he saw:
Dont touch! Keep away! Dont press against the gate! he yelled at her from across the prayer hall.

What are you trying to do, girl? Have me reconsecrate my whole fire temple?!
Even before she left from there, he instructed one of the temple boys to start washing the entire gate
thoroughly with soap and warm water. Her humiliation must have been so great she never came back for
her dole again. As it happened, the day after her last visit to the temple, a silver karasyo, that is, a
ceremonial pitcher, was found to be missing. Anyone could have stolen it, I suppose, but my father chose
to believe it was Rudabeh who was guilty of the theft, which was his explanation of why she never
returned for her next handout, the following month, or thereafter.
How much of all that I imagined I remembered was factual, how much compounded by my own
overwrought fancy I cant really tell. But no sooner had I surrendered some of the less painful shards to
approximately fit the vacant spaces of the puzzle, Sepideh herself began sifting through the grist of her
melancholia trying to make further sense of it.
From earliest childhood, I seem to remember that Mother was often missing. She would put me to
bed, and go out. If I woke up after she had left, Temoo was always there for me, to soothe me back to
sleep with a feeding bottle, a warbling or a petting. But often, I would obstinately refuse to go back to
sleep, and continue crying for my Mama; then, agitated, weary and tormented, Temoo would start
muttering about his truant wife, would take me in his arms and walk me up and down the room, rocking
me, calling her names under his breath which I didnt quite understand but caught the emotional drift of. .I
felt very close to my dad at those times, even believed in his harassed love for me. Didnt know then, that
my mother was out with strangers at his behest and with his approval, doing what she was doing to earn
some extra money which meant, I suppose, money for all of us.
When I was old enough to walk about, stay up until later, sometimes I would see them myself:
strange men I had never seen before come to pick her up in fancy cars. Only that last night I went to sleep
rather early. She had kissed me and tucked me in; I didnt even know she was planning to go out. The next
morning she wasnt there; when it was evening, and she wasnt back yet, Temoo grew worried.
He didnt see the man who picked her up that evening?
He couldnt give the police a description, nor a name or address. This time, it seems, Temoo told
me later, the client had only sent his car and chauffeur. We never saw her alive again. Thirty hours later,
the police found her body, dumped on the rocks off Lands End. Years later, I found out from Merwaan,
whose childhood friend and neighbour had grown up to become an inspector in the police force. .
Merwaan?
A khandhia, who died himself soon after. . Somehow, he had kept in touch with this friend. .
Merwaan wasnt even all that old when he died. Just past fifty. .
What?
The post-mortem report showed my mother had been tortured, then strangled. There were cigarette
burn marks on her body. Maybe some sexual abuse, too, Im not sure. Her last client was some kind of
pervert it would seem. .I can talk about it now without breaking down. .because its you Im talking to. I
know you care. . It must have been horrible for her. .horrible. .
He was never caught?
No, never, she shook her head.
Poor Rudabeh, I said, in a whisper. Im so sorry. .
Temoo believes that everyones death is preordained. .the time, the place, the kind of death we
have. . So theres nothing we could have done to help her, thats what hes always said, perhaps to
console me. And himself. Though at other times, hes also raged against Framroze held him
responsible. .
My father?
For never sharing Rustomjis bequest, small as it may have been, with my mother. If we had a little

more money, such escapades as she periodically undertook might have become unnecessary. . Wait, let me
show you my mother. .the only photo I have of her.
It was a fine portrait whose backdrop and lighting suggested it had been photographed in a studio;
though the print had faded considerably with time. She was a handsome woman, with strong, broad
shoulders, and an impressive bosom, wearing pendant earrings, and three long chains of beads, or semiprecious stones. The smile that flickered on her lips was faint, so removed as though it came from very far
away, and wasnt worn to please anyone. Her eyes showed great depth or was it simply great
isolation? She was clearly a very private person, and it was impossible to read any identifiable feelings
into that half-smile, or those expressionless eyes. Sepideh took the photograph back from me, and folded
it into the soft cloth she had unwrapped it from, before carefully putting it away. Another time, Seppy said
to me, while speaking of her mother:
Oh, she had a wonderful sense of humour, a great fighting spirit. .
Wiping her eyes which had begun to glisten with the precipitate of anguished memories, she
continued:
When I was really little, she would spoil me completely with her coddling. .she couldnt bear to see
the slightest shadow of glumness or dispiritedness in my face. Immediately, if she thought she had sighted
it, shed do her best to cheer me up by clowning, or saying something silly, or even performing a
comical little jig just for my amusement. She would have me in splits of laughter in no time, till the tears
started rolling down my cheeks. . Only after she was dead, I often wondered if her desperation to keep me
distracted and happy at all costs didnt have something to do with a deep suffering of her own or the
memory of a suffering something which she had never let any of us catch a glimpse of. .
Poor Seppy, she suffered, too. Until the end, there were days when she seemed completely
overwhelmed by gloom. She told me she had never been able to quite rid herself of that feeling of guilt
that kept coming back to haunt her that she had been, in some way, responsible for her mothers
suffering and extinction. How strange then, that our own daughter Farida should have lost her mother
when she was almost exactly the same age as Seppy had been when Rudabeh met her unhappy end: three
years old.
Now older, Farida didnt like being carried about in mine, or anyone elses, arms. For me, there was
nothing more pleasurable than to lift her lightweight, elfin body, and squeeze it tenderly against mine, as
we strolled through the bamboo grove, or pear orchard, in the fading evening light.
This was the only free time I found to spend with her, after my work was done, and she had put away
her schoolbooks. I liked to take her out, away from Temooruss obstinate fussing. But already, she had
discovered she didnt like being carried as much as she enjoyed walking beside me like a grown-up,
conversing with me with the thoughtful circumspection of an adult. On one evening, that I can recall
clearly, she seemed to be in low spirits. Her moodiness reminded me of her mother, Sepideh. For a while,
she didnt object to my carrying her; but, within minutes, she said rather firmly:
Put me down, Daddy.
After only a short distance of walking hand in hand, her tiny palm smothered in my coarse and
calloused one, a faint tremor informed her voice as she whispered the question that was, I realized, at the
brooding swirl of her sadness:
Daddy, why did the snake bite my mummy?
Well. . I thought for a long time before answering. Snakes dont know right from wrong. . Your
mother must have stepped too close to that cobra, he must have been scared she would harm him. .
Mummy would never harm anyone. .she loved animals.
He didnt know that. . He was scared. . And she didnt see him, until he bit her. . Your mother loved
all creatures. She would feed the squirrels with her own hand, and they were not scared to come up close

and nibble. .stray dogs, peacocks as well. . That snake didnt know all this, you see. .
But then. .why. .? She let her question trail off.
Farida was perhaps not able to state in words what she wanted me to clarify, but I sensed her
meaning. Even had she found the words, Im not sure I would have had the answer. It was a question that
has troubled me for several years.
Throughout childhood and youth, I cultivated, as well as earned the reputation of being a goodnatured simpleton. But despite willingly abiding in this rather low-brow realm, I remember harbouring
always a secret yearning even a quiet confidence, you might say that there was, that there had to be,
some overarching meaning to the universe.
Im sure Im not alone in feeling this, and dont deserve any special credit for it. Its probably
something about the way our brains are wired that makes us humans crave this grand design some of
us, like my father, even believed they had grasped, and harnessed it that there is some divine formula
or secret equation, that connects every phenomenon of existence, every shimmering facet of life and death.
Father believed this divine secret wasnt accessible to everyone, that it required deep and great faith to
comprehend. But Ive noticed, elaborate systems of belief have been concocted and espoused over the
centuries by man merely to buttress this sad need for meaning; indeed to make lifes transience bearable.
Perhaps the question Farida had been unable to verbalize was just this: if her mother loved animals
so much, and cared for them, then why, in our little garden of paradise, did the reptile have to infect our
happiness so conclusively, so irreversibly? Was there simply no justice or propriety in this universe?
It was much darker now, as we approached the denser, gloomier forest at the top of the hill.
We had already left behind the three Towers, and now circumvented the fourth, defunct one,
overgrown with weed and thicket, much of whose masonry had crumbled. . Just a few yards away was
Seppys favourite hangout, the giant banyan, its aerial roots so overgrown and entangled, it was
impossible to see any detail of it in the dark: it looked just a huge woolly, prickly mass.
I would have preferred to turn back, but Farida wouldnt hear of it.
Just a little further, Daddy, please. .
No one ever comes here, dear, really wed better be getting home now. . Stubbornly, she kept
walking, looking at her feet, as if she hadnt heard me.
If you want to go any further, young lady, Ill simply have to carry you.
To my surprise, she readily agreed the abundance of ferns and thistle would have begun to scratch
and tickle her ankles hugging me warmly, as I raised her to my arms.
The sounds of the twilit forest pressed about us, eerily. The trees towered over us, encircled with
thick, winding creepers that looked in the dark like monstrous serpents skulking for prey. Through the
canopies of the trees, occasionally, one could still see glimpses of the cloud-banked evening sky. The
ground I was walking on was a carpet of decaying leaves, dead branches and occasional, rotting fruit.
There were mango trees here and banana, berries, pepper and wild pineapple. . Soon it would be
completely dark. I began to smell the prospect of a drizzle. But my little one, like her mother before her,
wanted to press on, probing unrelentingly into her own unbearable, incomprehensible loss.
Was it here that she got bitten?
Somewhere in these thick woods, I imagine. . Dont know exactly. I wasnt home when it happened,
if you remember. . you may not, of course, you were so
I do remember, Daddy, I do. Her leg was swollen, she was in great pain. When they carried her in, I
started crying. .
Myself, I was pretty familiar with these unfrequented parts of the estate: secret places that glowed in
the late evening and night with a natural phosphorescence engendered by the forest itself and its unique
mix of vegetation and decay. Nobody ever visited these areas, in the course of things. In any case, they
were out of bounds for all except the corpse bearers who had no reason to wander so far beyond the

Towers. But I had walked here several times, late at night, aching for some contact with my lost partner.
Beside myself with grief, I would talk to her aloud in these woods, weep, rage. . Had she merged with the
forest, the banyan tree, those hills in the distance or those dark clouds? I would plead with her for some
intimation, some sign. . but there was nothing; never.
It was here, in fact, born out of sheer frustration, that the realization came to me for the first time,
dark and comfortless: how inhuman and cold Nature could be, how alien to man. I hugged Farida tightly
and said to her, rather firmly, We have to go back now. .
The way back to our quarters, downhill, was that much easier to cover. But it had begun to rain, quite
heavily. Though we got back in practically no time, Farida and I were both pretty wet by the time we
reached Temoos portico. He was standing in the doorway, framed by shadowy lamp-light from the room
behind, looking worried and rather haggard.
Where did you go?
His voice was quavering with fright, or perhaps it was anger.
Thank God youre back. So worried I was. Dont take my baby out roaming so late. . Handing her a
towel, he said, Wipe your hair, first. .I even climbed up to the kennels, thinking you might be there with
Nancy and Tiger. .
Those names Farida had chosen herself, when she was only four, for a pair of dogs Buchia adopted
after Moti died. Farida liked to think of them as her own pets, as Moti, and before her, Jehanbux, had been
her mothers.
When she had changed into something dry, Temoo took the towel from Faridas hand, and asked, in a
kind voice:
Bhookh lageech, dikra?
Farida nodded dumbly.
Come. .the food is hot.
Ask her, I said in my defence at last, she didnt want to turn back even until just ten minutes ago.
Never mind, never mind, said Temoo, more conciliatorily, as we took our places at his table.
Wash your hands first, baby. Come Phiroze. Some potato-gravy and bread.
Whenever he felt up to it, which was pretty often, Temoo cooked a meal for my daughter and me.
What do I have to do the whole day? he would say, Cooking helps me pass the time.
But that cloying protectiveness he felt he owed my little one was the price I had to pay for such
familial comforts.
Nevertheless, she was his granddaughter. And the sudden loss of Sepideh had been traumatic for him,
too.
He was alone at home when she got bitten, and Seppy compounded his panic when she told him she
believed it was a cobra that had stung her. He was frantic. In those days anti-venin serum was not
available, even though I heard some months later that the Haffkine Institute at Parel had begun producing a
very limited quantity. God knows if they had had any in stock at the time Seppy needed it. But in such
emergencies, most people would resort to the services of witch doctors and shamans. To Temoos credit,
during my absence, he actually went out and found one, who claimed to be able to cure even the most
poisonous of snakebites. And if it was a cobra that bit Seppy, it is remarkable that his unusual methods
succeeded in prolonging her life for up to ten hours.
When I came home at a half past three that afternoon, I was astonished to see a wild-looking faqeer,
with thick matted hair, a long, dusty beard, and ugly, misshapen teeth, in Temoos front room. His mouth
was red with betel juice, his eyes bloodshot. He was chanting some peculiarly tuneless refrain in a low
voice, while moving his feet in a shuffling sort of step-dance he was performing around a small clay pot
of milk that was placed on the floor. Around the pot of milk, in red chalk, some spells, symbols, had been

inscribed in an unknown algebra. Some of my neighbours were gathered on the veranda, grimly
unresponsive to my salutations; and of course, Temoo, inside, who burst into tears as soon as he saw me.
He could not bring himself to mouth anything articulate or comprehensible, but instead gestured to me to
go on inside.
On Temoos cot lay my dear Sepideh. Her foot had turned purple, presumably on account of the
ferocious coir-rope tourniquet fastened above her ankle, but also because of a blend of yellow, green and
several other colourful powders which her wound had been liberally plastered with. As soon as I uttered
her name, she opened her eyes and smiled at me.
Thank God youre back. . she whispered. I held her face tenderly between my hands. But I saw that
her sense of relief at my homecoming was shadowed by a vast sadness in her eyes: a reluctant resignation
to the fact that our great romance was perhaps drawing to a close. It was now my turn to dissolve into
tears, and I had to bite my lower lip hard to keep from sobbing aloud.
Seppy, my darling, dont worry, please. You will become completely well again, my love. Dont
you worry.
But even to my own ears, my confidence sounded hollow and credulous. Perhaps I imagined it, but
Seppy responded with a very slight movement of her head that disavowed my reassurances. As yet, the
paralytic effect of the cobra venom had spread no further than her leg.
Temoo had now collected himself and began to explain to me what was going on. He said that the
disreputable-looking faqeer in fact had a formidable reputation in these matters; that his incantations and
dance steps were meant to placate the serpent deity, so that after it ceased to be angry with Seppy for
stepping on it, the very same cobra would appear again at Seppys convalescent bed; and with a second
bite draw out the venom from her body; following which, he or she would spew the poison into the bowl
of milk, thus neutralizing its effects; then Seppy would definitely recover and return to normal health.
My heart sank when I heard this. I was horrified that Temoo had actually been persuaded to believe
this cock and bull story, that it could be the likely, or even possible, outcome of his daughters traumatic
injury.
Theres still hope, son, he said. Something told me I should trust this wild faqeer. He definitely
has some powers. . Dont give up hope, Phiroze. .the snake will definitely reappear when its dark. .thats
what he swears. .
Hope, that palliative of every human suffering: in desperation, we cling to the flimsiest of straws.
My own mind raced back to the fire temple, my fathers temple, and my fathers god whom I had, if not
rejected, at least shown scant reverence for. He was in all probability a far more powerful god than this
faqeers.
My mind recalled in quick succession all the marvellous stories I had heard in childhood of the
miracles wrought by faith of the ten-year-old polio-afflicted boy who had lost the use of his legs but
who, after a twenty-minute spell of complete devotion, his forehead pressed to the threshold of the
sanctum sanctorum, got up without any help and started walking away not realizing himself he had been
cured; of the poor widow with six children facing starvation who found a small pouch of priceless jewels
in her own backyard; of the old woman reunited with her long estranged, hate-filled son. . I wanted to go
back to the temple and prostrate myself at the marble doorstep of the sanctorum if that might save
Seppys life; I was almost certain it would. But then I remembered: even just to set foot under the temples
porch, I would first need to undergo a nine-day retreat of cleansing and self-purification. I wasnt sure
that Seppy would last nine hours.
At 6 p.m., while there was still light and for that reason, according to the faqeer, the snake could
not revisit her the cobra venom had spread to her diaphragm muscles, rendering them feeble and
ineffectual; and soon after, to her lungs; at six-thirty, she breathed her last. Both Farida and I were at her
side a quietly sobbing Temoo as well when Sepideh passed away.

So much for the miracles of faith.

Eleven
When I moved out of home some twenty-six years ago I brought along a half-dozen, half-used
school notebooks. Now mildewed, and inhabited by shoals of silverfish, are they the reason for my
compulsive scribbling?
The years have gone by in a flash: such occasional note-taking as I do helps harness time, or so I
imagine; lends a slightly firmer skeleton to the galactic emptiness of my life. .and makes me feel more
composed.
Perhaps life is like that: slippery, elusive, impossible to get a hold on. The difference between this
moment and the next is only one of awareness. . Yet we drift from morn till night, from day through
week through months and years distracted, inattentive, and completely unprepared for the ambush
the moment of our inevitable extinction.
How can I deny death its unfair advantage of surprise? So that finally, when it does arrive, I am
awake and aware, observant and unastonished!
Ah! But to what avail, you ask? Is there something awaiting us in the beyond? Some new
landscape well be spirited to: Elysian fields, blue skies; or perhaps smoking sulphuric pits, rivers of
lava? On the other hand, it could be mere vanity that makes one crave such an advantage over death.
That prompts the immense certitude we all share through our years of being alive that the innermost
being doesnt dematerialize in an instant; nor all the years of ones lived life simply wash away like so
much flotsam on the tides of time. .
Limp as a stuffed puppet, the lifeless body stiffens very quickly; and then its a real pain to wash
and dress, to wind and knot the kusti around its insensible stump of a torso. There have been moments
when, alone with a corpse at dead of night, I have been seized with a tremendous urge to slap its face
hard as I could. Never did give in to such barbaric impulses: too cowardly, tasteless, and somehow,
definitely profane. Yet the desire to provoke a reaction from the dead remains for me, Ill confess,
compelling.
Because, if the dead are really and truly dead, null and void, snuffed out without a trace then
everything we grow up believing in is a lie. All religion, theology, my fathers life and beliefs and
prayers, the pumped-up power of faitheverything is simply wishful fantasy.
(i)
Farida, my daughter, is nineteen already. Next year will be her final year at the Punchayet-run school
she attends, if all goes well. But like me, she too is disinclined to prepare for her matriculation.
Even if I put in all that hard work, she says, Im afraid I wont pass. How terrible I would feel. .
And you, too, Daddy, you would be angry with me, no?
I suspect the real reason she feels this way is because her mind is already on the boys, on marriage
and babies. Some new recruits have been added to our corps, and one of them, Khushro, is rather goodlooking. Spotted Farida with him once, rambling in the woods. Shes still too young for marriage or a
serious love affair, overprotected and spoilt as she has been by her grandpa and me.
Didnt I ever tell you? I laughed. I didnt complete my matriculation either. But then, I never had a
mind for studies. I wasnt any good at them, like you are. And besides, twenty years has made such a great
difference, my dear. Today everyone needs to be educated, keep up-to-date. Theres so much competition.
And if you ever want to get out of this rut Im stuck in. .look how well Veras doing.
I do admire Rustom and his wife, Silla, for the way they raised their daughter. Silla, of course, is no
more. Even though like Farida, Vera too has no siblings and since the last twelve years, no mother
either through her years of growing up her parents enforced discipline on her in just the right doses.

Not only did Vera finish her school and her post-matriculate secretarial course in record time, her
shorthand and typing were of such excellent quality and speed, she landed a plum job with the solicitors
Gagrat, Limbuwala & Co. But this was only the beginning of her dream run.
Gagrats partner, Homiar Limbuwala who later broke away and started his own law firm has a
son called Shapoor, about the same age as Vera. This boy took a fancy to her. He was supposed to be
attending college doing his masters in jurisprudence, but there he was, always at his fathers office on
some pretext or other, mulling over statute books, looking through records of old cases and whatnot. Then,
after office closed and most of its staff left, he would ask her out and they would spend time together at
Marine Drive or the Hanging Gardens, almost every evening. On one such evening, several months later,
Shapoor asked Vera to marry him.
Now Vera had been prudent enough never to bring her boyfriend home to their flat in the
Doongerwaadi quarters. But on the other hand, she had never deliberately deceived him either. All he
knew about her station in life was that she lived in a flat at Malabar Hill, even today universally
acknowledged as the most respectable and well-heeled address to have in Bombay. The period of
courtship led to love, and at the end of those few months, Vera definitely began to care for Shapoor very
much; as for him, he seemed entirely smitten by the slim, tall and soft-spoken Vera. The boy must have
told his parents about his feelings for the girl in Daddys office and the Limbuwalas began making
discreet inquiries.
Imagine the poor girls indignation and embarrassment when early one morning, on reporting to work
as usual, she wasnt permitted by the watchman I repeat, the watchmanto gain entry into the office.
He was apologetic, but firm: sahebs orders. Instead of taking her usual seat at the typists and
secretaries pool, she was kept waiting on the pavement until the accountant came out and handed her an
envelope containing one months salary to cover her notice period, and a pre-dated letter of dismissal. No
reason or explanation was provided in the letter. She was sent packing home that very morning.
Vera had always suspected that Shapoor lacked the gumption to stand up to his father, if ever it came
to defending his choice of betrothed. Sure enough, the boy didnt even make any attempt to contact Vera
again, presumably in accordance with his fathers wishes. Or perhaps he wanted to, but didnt dare incur
his wrath.
I heard all this later, from Rustom, who was completely distraught by the turn of events that had
overtaken his daughters life. He had always taken great pride in her achievements, her strength of
character, and the rapidly escalating graph of her career. Why, only recently when she had told them that
Shapoor Limbuwala had asked for her hand in marriage, he and Aimai, his mother, had been ecstatic. .
Finally, a narrow exit from the stifling subjugation of their lives this was nothing short of deliverance
if not for him and his mother, at least for his daughter. And now suddenly this: in retrospect, he told
me, the thought had occurred to him it was just too good to be true.
He said to Vera that he would resign his job and move out of Doongerwaadi, if that would make her
more acceptable to her prospective in-laws, but Vera wouldnt hear of it.
At first she laughed bitterly, Rusi said, and then when he persisted in his offer, and wanted her to at
least communicate it to Shapoor, she became angry.
What do you think, Daddy? That I have no pride or self-respect? Vera had flared up. Am I now
supposed to start feeling ashamed and furtive about how my father has spent the last twenty-eight years of
his life?
I dont matter in this, Rustom had argued. You dont understand, Vera. This is your one chance to
escape forever from this trap I put all of you in.
Its your life, Daddy, Vera had replied. Our life. And you had no choice when you were orphaned
at a young age, and your uncle cheated you and turned you out. You should be proud of what you achieved

despite the odds.

All thats past history, Rustom had replied, Im talking about now. About your life. .
Never once in all the years of our friendship had Rusi talked to me about how he came to be a corpse
bearer. I could hardly ask him to disclose details now.
And how do you think I will feel every time Shapoor touches me. Vera had continued, unable to
accept her fathers viewpoint. Knowing what hes thinking? And when we have children if we do
have children am I supposed to hide from them who their grandfather was? Just because those puffedup pot-bellied moneybags hold corpses in such revulsion? Thanks, but no thanks!
She refused to discuss the matter any further, Rusi said to me, taking off his spectacles, and wiping
his eyes with his handkerchief. I suspect he was crying not because he was sorry for his daughter, but
because he was proud of her. This had been a terrible blow to him. And hes nobodys fool not to realize
why it had happened.
My poor girl has been sitting home for the last two weeks, moping. I think she had really come to
love that boy. . Now, who could have done this, I ask you? Im sure the Limbuwalas didnt find out just by
accident. They must have received a phone call telling them what their sons fiances fathers profession
is. .
I knew he felt the needle of suspicion pointed to Buchia, who was the only person capable of such
deliberate meanness. And ever since his inept handling of the khandhias strike, and his consequent
embarrassment before Coyaji, and Coyajis own discomposure before the other trustees, Buchias stock
had gone down considerably; as also his unconditional authority within his sprawling, herbaceous
fiefdom. And Buchia knew very well that apart from me, Rustom had been a guiding force behind the
strike.
It could just as well be anyone else, I said to him, not because I believed it but just for the sake of
argument.
But what could anyone elses motive for such a dastardly act be? Rustom asked me, genuinely
bewildered.
(ii)
But I hadnt had the courage to disclose even to my closest friend events that had occurred just a few
months after the strike was over. It was all just a bit too complicated and convoluted, and finally, too
distasteful a story for me to even attempt to narrate. Years had passed but I hadnt breathed a word about
it to a soul.
He sent a message to me through Daamji, one of the gardeners, summoning me to his office. Buchias
living quarters and office are contiguous. It was already about seven in the evening, which should have
made me smell a rat. I went up to his office, but he wasnt behind his desk; the door was open, and a lit
table lamp glowed on his desk.
Is that you, Phiroze?
The shrilly nasal voice from the adjacent room, unmistakably Buchias, seemed to be in some state of
tremulous excitement. Presently, he emerged, knotting the drawstring on his striped pajamas; his broad
hairy chest was visible from behind the loose, diaphanous sudrah he wore.
Baes, baes. . he gestured at a chair. You do remember what day it is tomorrow, Piloo. .
What day. . I repeated after him blankly, wondering if there was something I had promised to do,
but forgotten.
Rather solemnly, Buchia went on:
Tomorrow is 28th February, my dear Piloo. That is, the day on which your probation period finally
ends. .
I was mystified.
What probation? I laughed. Thats an old story.

After the strike, my own reinstatement, along with all the other gains we had achieved, was never in
question.
Yes, said Buchia. But like the allotment of casual leave, the regulating of working hours and
payment of overtime, this is one matter you and your desperados didnt demand in writing. So, you see,
theres no record of it; as far as we are concerned, the probation period still holds, even if we have
revoked the dismissal.
What! I asked, alarmed. It was fully agreed upon and accepted that I would be reinstated! This is
nonsense!
Yes, but my dear Piloo, you didnt take it in writing. . Reinstated yes, but still on probation.
Tomorrow morning, in fact, it has been suggested to me, I could send you a letter stating that your
probation period has ended, and that, alas, I am not happy with your work. So. . he shrugged.
I was silent, but my hands and feet had turned cold. Jobless and without a place to stay, where would
I go with Farida. .? His face was expressionless as a mask. But as I stared into it I imagined I glimpsed a
wicked grin lurking behind those stern thickly compressed lips, those deadpan eyes.
I shouted at him in exasperation nevertheless, even now unsure if he was serious, or playing some
kind of trick on me.
What! Is this a joke, saheb?
No, no, Ill simply have to say your work isnt satisfactory. What will you do then, Piloo, what will
you do, tell me? Will you call another strike?
Why do you want to say such mad things, saheb. . You know very well, I didnt call the strike, it
was everyone together. . And I dont think this is fair at all. .
He had remained completely earnest through the preceding rigmarole. If anything, there was an
aggrieved accusatory ring to his voice as if it was we strikers who had betrayed his kindness; but below
the affected tone of hurt, I was sure I could detect the low whirring whetstone of Buchias characteristic
malevolence.
He was sharpening his knives, reminding me with barely concealed glee that he knew as well as I
did: all thirteen of the remaining corpse bearers, quite satiated by the gains they had all collectively made,
were not likely to go on strike a second time just to demand my renewed reinstatement if it should
come to that. Nor had we made any progress with formally registering our trade union of corpse bearers
with the Labour Board (though the process had been initiated). It was true. Buchia and the rest of the
blessed trustees if they were in the know of this at all could actually get away with such an
incredible piece of calumny.
Oh, dont look so sad, bawa, Buchia said.
There was a complete transformation now in his tone and manner. Even his high-pitched voice
seemed to drop a few tones, becoming soft, almost syrupy and unctuous.
I would never, never do anything like that to you, my friend. . he said.
For a moment, I almost believed it. . I said despite myself, terribly relieved.
Never, I could never do such a thing. .and you with your little one. .enu naam su?
Farida. .
Farida. . Where would you both go to? What would you do? Never, never. I could never do such a
thing to you, he reiterated. Im not a monster. .Im there for you, Piloo. I promised you once, and I meant
it. I will never let you get hurt, Piloo. .Im your friend. .I was only pulling your leg just now.
I laughed with Buchia, who was chuckling aloud at having successfully duped me.
You were frightened for a moment, werent you? Tell me honestly?
I nodded sheepishly, while continuing to smirk and giggle, and sportingly share in his amusement; but
also embarrassed. . I suppose I knew where all this was leading.
Without warning, Buchia embraced me, and a tearful emotiveness crept into his voice. His shiny pate

was right under my nose now, smelling of pomade. Until just a moment ago he had kept up a rather formal,
avuncular manner; now suddenly, I found him sobbing in my arms, trembling like a wet, bristly puppy, and
holding on to me as tightly as he could.
Why, why do you hate me so, Piloo? Dont you like me at all. .? Accept me as I am. We could be so
happy together. .so happy. . Let me, let me just touch you. .I can give you so much pleasure, so much
pleasure, you have no idea. .
And his hand moved to my crotch. He began rubbing it and squeezing it. I didnt react, I confess. I
didnt brush it off. I suppose that makes me something of a whore. But the truth is only a minute ago he had
given me a real scare, reminding me of his own potential viciousness. And besides, I didnt have the heart
to compound the contempt I suspected he must already feel for himself.
I had always been aware of his perverse interest in me even before this evenings melodrama was
enacted; but this time he was begging of me, rather pathetically, to show some lenity. I didnt react at all;
just stood there frozen like a statue in some childrens game and let him have his way. The whole physical
encounter didnt last longer than a few minutes. I was wondering what I should do next to bring his
sentimental incontinence to an end. As he was fiddling with the buttons on my fly, he experienced a
seizure of sorts that left him gasping; and me breathless, for he had tightened his embrace on me into a
fierce, vice-like grip. Then very slowly, he released me, and tenderly kissed my lips.
Come. Please come by any time at all, he said, in the evening preferably, when we have both
finished our days work. . If youre ever feeling lonely or bored, dont hesitate to stop by. We can pass the
time together. .I can give you so much pleasure, believe me, Piloo, a-ha-ha-ha-ha, Ill make you so happy,
so happy. . And for a moment Buchia embraced me again, gratefully.
I hadnt told anyone about this meeting with Buchia. I suppose I had preferred to forget the whole
incident. I could have said something about it to Rustom now. Instead, I continued to address his
rhetorical question.
Pure malice.
Nonsense. I cant think of anyone else but Buchia who would stoop so low.
In a dog-eat-dog situation, nobody likes to see one team member make a clean exit. . Theyll pull
him down. . And besides, the parents of the boy would have found out eventually, anyway.
Perhaps. Or we could have found some way of. .Vera might have been able to talk to Shapoor, break
it gently. . Im quite sure that Limbuwala received a call from Buchia. I know it in my bones. .I could kill
that bastard. .
He said it very quietly, without a trace of anger, but I could see that he meant it.
A crueller twist to Veras story was that for quite a while, she had no reference letter, no certificate
of endorsement putting on record her four years of sterling service to Messrs Gagrat, Limbuwala and Co.
It would have been difficult for Vera to find a new job on the basis of her previous experience without
such a certificate. Luckily, within two months, Limbuwala decided to launch his own firm. Then Rusi
Gagrat, a very decent sort by all accounts, sent a message to Vera to come and see him at his office and
provided her with the generous testimony she so sorely needed.
For some reason he did not offer her old job back, perhaps not wanting to cause offence to his
former partner. Subsequently, with a reference from Gagrat, Vera found another well-paid job, this time
with the patent lawyers Hathangadi and Golikeri. She has since become quite indispensable to that firm.
But now that I have related Buchias story to my notional readers no one else knows about it, and
I intend to keep it that way I shouldnt leave out mention of the fact that it wasnt all odious or
unpleasant. Nor was I completely unmoved by his embracing and fondling and kissing. Strangely, I felt,
after a very long time, human again; living again, grateful to Buchia that he saw me as more than just some
cadaverous, unclean thing whose very breath it was undesirable to commingle with.

Later that evening, I thought of my unyieldingly rigid father whose mind, so trussed up in the twists
and turns of religious ideology, had severed ties, forsworn the love he had once felt for me and never
wanted to set eyes on me again. Who did not even send me a message when Mother lay dying in great
suffering in the General Ward of the Tata Memorial! If it were not for Vispys dropping in to give me the
news, I would have had the shock of seeing her pain-wracked, shrivelled corpse carried in on a stretcher.
But even Vispys communication was just a token thing, and came too late. I rushed to the hospital that
very evening but by then she wasnt conscious. Heavily drugged with morphine, she had slipped into a
coma which she never came out of. Nor did she ever learn that I was at her bedside at the end, longing for
a flicker of her eyelids, a single moment of recognition.
(iii)
All through childhood my father doted on me, and I on him. Mother was much closer to Vispy than to
me, or so I believed.
Maybe I was wrong, for when I got married to Sepideh, she was the only one from the grooms side
who thought it right to be present (of course, Vispy came along, too).
Framroze, my father, claimed to be much too busy to be able to take the morning off and did not
attend. Though I knew, without anything having to be said, he was simply boycotting the wedding,
protesting what he had described to my face as my everlasting imbecility!
My marriage to Sepideh, recorded in a unique register of corpse bearer weddings maintained by the
Parsi Punchayet, was officiated over by the head priest of the fire temple in the Towers of Silence
complex, where Id had my training as nussesalar. These weddings, of course, never boasted a large
retinue of guests, except for other corpse bearers, and sometimes, very rarely, a family member or two.
My mother and Vispy were present at the ceremony, representing the grooms side. From the brides side,
there was only Temoorus, her father, who also signed as witness.
In the evening of the same day, there was a small celebration, in the casuarina grove, where some
chairs had been put out. Other corpse bearers attended, and made merry on a small cache of three rum
bottles paid for and provided by Temoo. Even Buchia made a brief appearance, though he wouldnt drink.
That was Seppys dowry three bottles of Hercules Triple X Rum, which we all shared.
Not that my mothers decision to be present derived from any feeling of acceptance of my marriage
to Sepideh, or any desire to celebrate it. In fact, until it became amply clear that I was leaving my
homestead renouncing, by choice, my birthplace, my family, my origins, to become a social outcast
she resorted to all forms of hysteria, blackmail, threats, even bribery and inducement to get me to change
my mind.
In the end, she relented, witnessed the wedding, and even gave a pair of gold bangles that had
belonged to her mother as a wedding gift to her daughter-in-law. In that sense, I had always found her less
dogmatic than my father, more human. A part of the reason for her decision to attend the wedding may
have also been to act differently and independently from her husband, who, she felt, was too swollen with
the religious authority invested in him by priesthood and who attempted to control her life and actions as
well. Later, when our child was born, she came and stayed with us for a few days. Even later, when
Seppy died, she was by my side for the next three days. She tried to persuade me then to resign, and come
back home with Farida. But I knew from the way she proposed this it was her own idea, which didnt
have the approval of my father.
When she returned home after staying with me, I know she would have had to undergo an excessive
number of purification rituals at the behest of my father, without which he would have been unwilling to
readmit her into his temple.
In that sense, though I loved Father very much, and she loved Vispy more than either of us or so I
imagined in the end I knew my mother had acted in a more humane manner than he. Perhaps at the
bottom of it all, there was some fundamental unhappiness in their relationship, that selfishness on my

fathers part which she had imputed; and all those rules and strictures he made it incumbent on her to
uphold, his means of controlling her. During all those years, though, that we were living together as a
family, I dont remember ever seeing her so deeply unhappy. Yet the unimaginable pain and suffering the
uterine cancer put her through make me wonder how profoundly neglected her sense of hurt really was.
Vispy, partly to justify his own failure to inform me in good time of her illness, told me that her
physician, Dr Variava, had termed it a galloping cancer which consumed many of her vital organs within
barely a month of its detection.
Everything happened so quickly. Here we were rushing from pillar to post, from agiari to Tata
Memorial and back, getting her meals prepared, taking them to hospital. .though she had almost
completely stopped eating. .and here Papa and I were also tied up with saying prayers and managing the
fire temples affairs. . You have no idea what kind of a hectic few weeks we had; and then just when the
doctor gave us some hope that she might be going into remission, and she seemed indeed to be feeling
better, Papa said to me, First thing we should do now is inform Phiroze. . Just then the doctor found that
the cancer had spread to her brain as well, and there was no hope. . It all happened so quickly. .
After her funeral, when all the other mourners had left, we spent some time together as a family,
Father, Vispy and myself, seated in the pavilion, chatting. Temoo had sent a special chair for me from the
storehouse, so that I could sit with them without polluting the benches meant for the public. Most of the
conversation was about how terrible her anguish had been, all that suffering suddenly heaped on her. .
Aapre thi to jovay bhi nahi! said Father. So painful, so painful. .it was impossible for a normal
person to witness. Bichari ne chootkaro mulyo, thats the way I look at it. There is no other way. .
Towards the end, said Vispy, they would keep her drugged almost twenty-four hours a day. To
ease her suffering, her agony. .
I remember thinking, while Father was waxing eloquent about her pain and suffering: perhaps there
was some love he felt for her, after all.
But as they were getting ready to leave, and we were enveloped by a deeply shared sorrow as well
as, I suppose, some sense of relief, my father spoke again. And this time he said:
You know, your mother never believed in strictly following the prescribed customs of our religion.
Even when she was younger, and she would go into her monthly cycle, she wouldnt accept quarantine.
She would leave the menstruating room at will, wander around the house, touch anything and everything,
until I had to shout at her to go back inside. .
Even when your child was born, even when your wife died, I told her: dont live there in the
khandhias quarters, just meet Phiroze if you want to, have a bath and come home. But she was just too
stubborn, Hilla, always, about not following these traditional practices. . You see, this is what can
happen. Cancer is a modern disease, and it comes from neglecting ancient truths. .
Still horrified and deeply disturbed by the accounts of my mothers intense suffering, I hardly heard
what my father was saying. I was thinking to myself, is there no justice in the world? Why, on what
account, did my mother have to suffer so much? What were her crimes?
But as they drove out the gates of the Towers of Silence in a taxi they had found waiting just inside
the compound and waved goodbye to me, I was astonished that my father could have been so unbelievably
tasteless and ugly in saying what he had just said: I suppose it took me a few moments simply to register
what he had been on about, and only after the taxi melted into the stream of traffic at the Kemps Corner
junction did I feel an enormous rage welling up inside me. .
Wickedly unjust, thoroughly muddled, preposterous these adjectives hovered imprecisely in my
head, aimed not merely at qualifying my fathers cherished beliefs about the world, but the world itself:
our universe, and the lot of its hapless denizens. If there is a god who is responsible for all the profusion
of life and locomotion in the universe, then surely that being has arrived at an advanced stage of senility, I
declare, or one of cynical and extreme indifference.

(iv)
My curiosity fuelled by Veras reference to her fathers hard times in childhood, I couldnt resist
asking him about it one afternoon when we were alone.
I dont like to remind myself of that phase of my life, he said. I lost both my parents in quick
succession to the cholera epidemic of 1908. I was only ten years old then, my little sister, Soona, only
seven. .
Instead of looking after his children, as he had promised Rustoms father on his deathbed he would,
his uncle, Savak, turned them out of the house within six months of the fathers death. Pretending offence
and outrage at some imagined slight or injury inflicted by young Rustom on his wife and infant baby, he
was vehement and ruthless. At the time his wife was pregnant again; the truth, Rustom said, was that they
wanted the flat exclusively for their own family.
For some months, Rustom lived and slept in the streets with his sister, Soona, who didnt survive the
ordeal; she developed a high fever and a stomach infection that despite her brothers frantic efforts
couldnt be treated in time.
I swore to avenge my sisters death, fantasizing all kinds of terrible ways in which to kill Savak, but
finally could do nothing. I had no one to help me bring him to justice. But there was a neighbour in the
building who knew of my plight, and of Savaks villainy. He took me to see a lawyer friend he had, who
actually filed a writ petition in the Small Causes Court, paying for all costs himself. But it was dismissed
you see I had no papers at all to prove my fathers ownership of the flat, nor even my own birth
certificate to prove I was my fathers son. Savak had destroyed everything, and fabricated his own
documents. . Finally, I went back to Darvish Petigara. .
Petigara. .?
The man whose place Buchia took when he retired. .I had already met him before at the time of
Soonas death. Out of pity, he offered me a job. I accepted, of course, with a sense of relief. By then I was
very tired. .all my anger, my fantasies of a triumphant vengeance, fizzled out once I began handling
corpses. . Like everyone else, you see, I was an egoist. I used to believe too much in myself. But this job
makes you aware that all that self-importance is nothing but illusion. What is a man in the end, Phiroze,
but the powder of a few dried bones. .?
(v)
Just think about it, persisted Cawas, taking a large swig from his glass of rum and soda. It was the
hour of our regular booze-up.
Incidentally, the so-called strictures against drinking at Doongerwaadi seemed definitely to have
lapsed. Nobody cared anymore whether we drank or not. The only deciding factor became the availability
of funds. Fali, always willing to initiate a collection drive, complained that that afternoons contributions
were so insignificant wed have to be content with just one bottle between the eight of us. All present on
Rustoms terrace, listening to Cawas hold forth, had contributed for the raw concoction we were sipping.
A father will not touch his sons dead body. A son will not touch his own dead father. . So much
repugnance about death? So much disgust for corpses and even before any stench or rotting has
started?
Where did you buy this booze, Bomi? asked Fali indignantly. Seems to me definitely adulterated
with some potion that inspires the most boring of sermons!
Bakaro and Bakwaas: Sellers of fine liquors. . said Bomi, taking his cue from Fali, and everyone
laughed.
No, no. Im serious, said Cowsi. See. When it comes to disposal of the corpse, our religion is so
sensible. We dont pollute the earth by burying, nor the air, by cremating. .everythings so nice in our
religion must be the finest in the world: we are not asked to fast, avoid liquor, or congregate on
Sundays for prayer. A happy normal life is all we are asked to lead earn money, eat your meat, drink,

enjoy. . Only this one thing is so strange. .

Pun bol ni, bawa, bol ni, just what is it you find so strange? Such a long preamble, but we still
havent a clue. .
Let Cowsi speak at his own pace, protested Rustom. None of you youngsters know the meaning of
patience.
Speak, speak, bawa, speak, relented Fali, pretending a yawn. But dont complain afterwards we
finished the bottle while you were chewing your words. .
Our revulsion for corpses, said Cawas. Thats what Im talking about, Fali. .
Wah! Such an original point that takes you two hours to make? Fali ridiculed Cawas. Thats why
you have your job, ghela!
I call it ingratitude, said Rustom, nodding at Cawas in agreement, completely ignoring Falis
disdainful interjections. Squeamishness and ingratitude. Thats if you will call a spade a spade.
Its as if they dont want anything more to do with him, elaborated Cawas. Or her.
Ya, sure, agreed Jungoo, as if they were all just waiting to pack him off.
When the person is dead and gone, countered Fali disdainfully, wheres the question of having
anything more to do with him?
Although we had been ignoring Falis boorish comments, I could see they were beginning to irritate
Rustom.
All that bacteria and invisible radiation the scholars and priests keep harping on. . said Bomi,
joining the discussion. Arrey, Ive been cleaning corpses for some years now, but never have I found
them to be such deadly or dangerous creatures.
Aae ghela, said Fali again, belligerently. He was already sounding quite drunk, maybe even feeling
sidelined in the argument he had himself initiated. He turned his ire on Bomi now. You cant call them
creatures. Creatures are living things. Corpses are dead. Fucking dead.
Yes, replied Bomi calmly. But are they dangerous? Like some of the living that we know? Arrey
Rusi, just give this fellow something to eat, if you have any ganthias or anything. Again hes been drinking
on an empty stomach. Even though he knows very well he becomes like a hungry beast when he does that.
What! Whats that youre saying about my stomach? My stomach may be empty, but my head isnt.
Like yours! shouted Fali, suddenly combative again. Behnchoad, dont you put on airs with me!
Shut up, Fali. Stop being so bloody aggressive all the time, shouted Rustom, who might have been
feeling a little drunk himself. Try and understand what we are saying. . Then he called out aloud, Mumma. .
The evening threatened to get completely chaotic, because Fali was not willing to accept a put-down
like that. He stood up aggressively, just when Aimai, who had already figured out the cause for all the
raised voices, walked in with a plastic plate filled with an assortment of ready fried savouries.
Yes, thats just what we need. Now eat that up first, said Rustom to Fali. Not another word from
you, and no more drinks until you finish whats in the plate. Thank you, Mum-ma.
But I say, arent you getting a bit carried away here, Cawas? Bomi pursued the discussion as if
there had been no interruption at all.
Why? You dont believe what Im saying is true?
Dont believe everything he says. . muttered Fali grumpily, sitting down again. Im not really
hungry, Ill eat just a bit, anyway. .
But once he started chomping, Fali couldnt stop until the plate was empty.
Well, no one can deny it, said Bomi. But theres another side to it, too, isnt there?
At least you could have saved a ganthia or two for the rest of us! Khaadhro!Jungoo kidded Fali.
Dont make too much noise, bawa, said Aimai. Please. .Im off to sleep. Rustom, Vera isnt back
yet.

She told us, didnt she, before going out shell be late tonight?
Then theres no need to worry, I suppose. Goodnight boys. A chorus of murmurs bade Aimai good
night.
Has to be up at four oclock tomorrow to wash the corpse that just came in. She and Dollamai are
supposed to do it, explained Rustom.
Oh yes, I heard, said Bomi. A fairly young woman got knocked over by a train, while crossing the
tracks at an unmanned level crossing. .
My mother is eighty-two. Ive told her to stop doing this work. But she wont listen. She says
washing the dead gives solace and meaning to her life. . Oh, then shell sniffle and sob to herself quietly,
whole morning. The grief of the bereaved affects her deeply. .
Poor Aimai, such a kind heart! said Cawas. But washing up a train accident wont be childs play.
.
Sure it wont, agreed Bomi. And to think they still dont pay our women anything for this service.
.
Except that hundred-rupee bonus, once a year at Pateti, said Khushro.
Oh yes, once a year. Or if the relatives choose to tip them. . Let our union register with the Labour
Tribunal, then well take up all these issues, one by one, said Rustom.
Excepting me, I doubt if anyone present was aware of the story of Veras dismissal from her office.
For Rusi at least this discussion, about the horror we hold corpses in, was hardly a theoretical one.
What other side were you thinking of, Bomi? asked Cawas, picking up the conversation again
where it had been diverted.
Other side. .? Oh yes. . Just that people are so disturbed by death, so shocked, they cant accept it.
There are those who will cling to their departed. .
Why, of course, said Jungoo. Nobodys saying we are such monsters that have no feelings. .
Thats just the point Im making. Hardly a week ago, Bomi continued, Bujji and I met this young
man, thirty-five or so, a bachelor, who had probably been living with his mother all his life. Just couldnt
accept it. Weeping bitterly like a little suckling, squeezing, embracing, touching every part of her
Its these all these priests Jungoo started to say, but Bomi wouldnt be interrupted.
He wouldnt let us leave with her body. Just a little longer, just a little longer, he kept blubbering.
Then when we said we absolutely had to go, he actually wanted to lie on the bier beside her and ride in
the hearse. . Luckily, an elderly neighbour of his intervened, and yelled at him, Stop this nonsense, Percy.
Get a hold of yourself. Mama is gone. Shes never coming back. . Get that into your head! Only after a
severe dressing-down, which continued for a few minutes, the son seemed to return to reality. Then the
neighbour joined his hands and said to us, You gentlemen, please leave. .
Well, Ill tell you another story, said Khushro, unexpectedly, after a pause in the conversation.
Relatively young and new to our company, Khushro had been shyly sipping his glass in a corner, not
saying much. His story actually made us all relax and laugh, everyone, including Fali. Just the previous
day, he told us, Khushro had been with Fardoonji and Farokh to Dhobhi Talao, to pick up what turned out
to be a very obese dead woman.
Fardoonji, as you know, is an old man, without much strength left in his body, said Khushro. When
we saw her size, we were definitely alarmed. Even assuming we could lift her up, would she fit on the
bier? We gazed at her and scratched our heads. . No, Im not exaggerating. She was huge, this woman, a
giant. You were telling us, Bomi, of this boy who wanted to lie down on the bier next to his mother. This
one looked like even on her own she wouldnt fit; she would need two biers tied together side by side!
What shall we do now? Farokh whispered to me. First thing we did, of course, was to call Jungoo out
from where he was hiding in the drivers cabin.
I was alarmed, too, said Jungoo, vouching for the womans size. Somehow, huffing and puffing

like coolies, we moved her onto the bier.

Spilling off its sides she was, too, interjected Farokh.
The next part was more difficult lifting the woman and the bier onto the floor of the hearse. .
The funny thing about it all, explained Khushro, was that through all this, the husband and two
grown-up sons merely stood by disinterested, not offering to lend a hand, and moreover acting very
casual, as though they considered it all in the days work for us professionals. Behnchoad, Farokh and
Jungoo and me, our balls nearly fell off, but somehow we managed to lift the bier and push her into the
hearse.
Then the husband visibly relaxed. He sidled up to me and said in a tearful whisper, Carry her
gently, please, I beg you. . Like a flower. .
Then, shamefacedly, like a man indulging in a private, dirty act, he slipped me two tens. .
Two tens? For carrying a grand piano? exclaimed Bomi. You should have thrown them in his
face!
Khushro said, to all of us who had been following his story:
I was too breathless, too exhausted even to think of anything to say. .nor did I feel the need to retort.
But as we drove off, a perfect answer popped into my head. And I regretted not being more quick-witted.
I wanted to lean out of the moving hearse, and yell at the top of my voice:
Like a flower, bawaji? Who? That she-elephant. .? For her youll need a crane!
I like Khushro. He seems a genuinely decent sort.
(vi)
Another member of our corps who interests me a great deal is young Kobaad. Only eighteen when he
started work at the Towers, that is, about the age I was when I first met Sepideh, he should be at least
twenty-five now.
I knew Kobaad had come from some place outside Bombay Nargol or Dahanu or Bharuch or
Bhiwandi, one of those Parsi settlements in Gujarat I forget which. While he was still a child, his
father, a small trader, moved to Bombay with his wife and five children. He had shifted to the city to try
and improve his business prospects.
It was a miscalculation. While he had been making a living of sorts in the small town in Gujarat,
several things went wrong for him when he moved here. He could not establish himself, and found living
expenses too high. Finally, he was reduced to becoming an itinerant vendor: needles and threads, twine,
thimbles, knitting prongs, hair brushes and plastic combs, glass baubles, trinkets and other such trifles;
these were the objects he carried in a large, shiny tin trunk from door to door. He spent most of his day
marching through various housing colonies of the congested inner city, calling out in a cracked and
quavering voice that shrieked audibly above the din of traffic:
Nikhiya-bur-rush. .sooeee. . Bangles and beads, thimbles and thread, all sizes of stainless steel
needles. .
One day, while walking through crowded Kalbadevi peddling his wares, he was gored and trampled
upon by a mad bull which may have been dazzled by the light of the hard sun reflected in his shiny tin box.
The box, too, containing his treasure trove, was trampled upon and crushed. The totally unexpected death
of his father was a great blow to the poor mother and the little ones.
Kobaad, being the eldest, it fell upon him to drop out of school and start working. But the mother
wanted him to find employment anywhere, so long as it was not within the weltering chaos of a city that
had already claimed her husband.
The horror and pity of their recent bereavement, the feeling of intense piety it had inspired in her, the
great natural beauty and peace she experienced and imbibed during the three-day funeral obsequies at
Doongerwaadi made her decide to seek a job for Kobaad that would rarely, if ever, take her son outside
the boundaries of this safe haven; where, apart from everything else, the Punchayet would provide

rudimentary residential quarters for the whole family. Her efforts bore fruit, and Kobaad was appointed
corpse bearer.
But more than anyone else in his family, I do believe it was young Kobaad who was most deeply
affected by his fathers sudden death. For nearly three months after the latters bizarre accident, Kobaad
seemed preoccupied, continuously in a state of distracted dreaminess, other-worldliness call it what
you will as though it was he, rather than his father, who had crossed over into the shadowy unknown.
You could see he was grieving terribly.
Then after three months had passed, late one night I heard the plaintive sounds of a harmonium. I
knew that Kobaad owned one, but had never heard him play it. He was playing softly now, hesitantly,
without pumping the bellows too hard, searching out a plaintive tune. Three nights later, I heard him
singing that same melancholic tune, along with lyrics he had put to it. The song was in Gujarati, set to a
jaunty rhythm. It was very moving nevertheless; especially if one spared a moment to think of the events in
Kobaads own life that had prompted such a sad and obsessive investigation into the heart of
impermanence.
I will try to give a rough translation of what I remember of that unforgettable song:
Foolish to make plans:
O how foolish
To dream, presume, aspire. .
Every calculation you so painstakingly undertook
Is flawed. The numbers simply refuse to add up
To anything but nought. .
Time flashes past you. A
Mans life is as enduring
As a lit matchstick, and just as
Brittle.
Oh yes, Ive said it once,
But Ill
Say it again:
Tis foolish to make plans,
To dream, presume, aspire. .
You know nothing turns out quite the way
You had hoped.
Nothing,
Oh, nothing ever does.

I have rendered the gist of the song into English from memory. I may have dropped a line or two,
perhaps even a whole verse. But as to its circular melody, the hauntingly resonant chords, I have no way
of evoking their beauty. . Saddening, and painful to consider what will become of Kobaads considerable
talent in the years to come.

Three. Future Imperfect

~ ~ ~
Keepers of the Unclean. .? Is that how posterity will label this sketchy log? Future generations
wont be interested in it at all, Im certain; nor is there any likelihood of its ever coming to public
attention.
Still, as I dip my stylus in a pot of Watermans royal blue ink, and continue to scratch upon the
leftover blanks of my eviscerated notebooks, the irony doesnt escape me. As much as I hated those
eight years of schooling, they gave me the tools to keep myself occupied through the bleakness of my
declining years. .
As a rule, I cant bear to read any of this. Yet when I do turn the pages back, reread it in snatches,
I wonder if I havent compromised the veracity of my narrative with too much grimness. Maybe an
unmistakable deficit of humour as well?
I must point out: rubbing shoulders with the dead at odd hours of day and night doesnt
necessarily make us more gloomy, dour or over-serious about life. The truth is, like everybody else we
corpse bearers, too, behave with the smug breeziness of immortals convinced that death cannot
strike us down in the conceivable future.
Make no mistake my own narrative may be responsible for this erroneous impression but
much of the time our lives were anything but dull, dreary and repetitious. Despite routine, there was
always room for excitement, passion and a frenzied tomfoolery.

Twelve
The end of World War II saw a spurt in building activity in Bombay. As land prices escalated, the
vast wild acres of the Towers of Silence attracted several encroachment attempts.
Almost all of this land had accrued to the Parsi Punchayet over the years, in bits and pieces as well
as larger tracts, through the generosity of its wealthy donors. In those early days none of the big builders
and land sharks, who would later jointly destroy the charm and beauty of Bombay with their unbridled
greed and frantic building, were active yet. Meanwhile, the Punchayet had an encroachment case pending
in the High Court against a pair of Muslim brothers called Jameel and Ijaaz Sheikh. These were small fry.
The Sheikhs had owned, since their fathers time, an adjacent plot on the Teen Batti side, on which
stood a shop selling brass and copper vessels. Now the father was dead, and the sons had extended its
rightful boundaries by about twenty feet into our grounds, setting up there a makeshift hut made of
bamboo, planks of wood and thatch. Here they had installed a desk and two chairs, with a painted
signboard outside reading if you pleaseReal Estate!
On information provided by the Punchayets officers, their law firm, Craigie, Lynch and Dubash had
served them a notice for trespassing. Eviction proceedings should have started right away, and thats what
the law firm strongly advised, but even in those days, the Punchayet was completely embroiled in a
finicky delegation of authority. While they dawdled over procedure, the Sheikh brothers got an ex parte
stay order from the court, claiming the disputed land had been paid for by their father, and had been in the
family for the past twenty years.
Now it so happened that one morning when Buchia and Edul were measuring the boundaries of the
said segment in order to have it fenced, they were rather rudely asked by the elder Sheikh brother to
leave, since they were trespassing!
Buchia was furious, and would have assaulted the man there and then, had Edul not intervened and

restrained him. That afternoon Buchia organized a posse of about ten young and spirited corpse bearers,
asking them to report to him at sundown; he said he had a plan that would show the encroachers their
place.
I wasnt among those picked for this punitive mission. But, after dark, under Buchias direction the
boys, casually dressed in their sudrahs and shorts, created mayhem at the disputed site, ripping up the
wood-thatch-and-bamboo cabin, smashing the table and chairs, pulling down the signboard advertising
real estate and breaking it in two. Fali was bent on putting a match to the debris they left behind, but
Buchia categorically warned him against indulging his pyromaniacal instincts; at which a disappointed
Fali muttered to the other boys under his breath as they walked away, just loudly enough for Buchia to
hear:
Saalo bailo!
When I heard accounts of what fun they had had vandalizing the illegal structure, teasing and
roughing up the lackey appointed by the Sheikhs to guard the place at night, I almost wished I had
volunteered for the job and shared in their collective discharge of pent-up frustrations. But reprisal was
swift, for the brothers made a police complaint. The very next afternoon the Deputy Commissioner of
Police, a Mr Ignatius Strickham accompanied by three constables and a police van, entered the secluded
premises of the Towers of Silence. Strickham himself rode in on horseback.
(i)
Now this was rather unusual, I should point out. Strickham was obviously new to India, and his job.
Perhaps he was trying to impress and intimidate the locals with the added stature the horse gave him. But
under the Places of Worship Act first enacted by the East India Company, for more than a hundred years
the diverse religious communities of India had been assured the privilege of maintaining the sanctity of
their places of worship. Moreover, the small corps of mounted police which had existed in eighteenth
century Bombay had been disbanded long ago. I heard later that Strickham was a horse-lover who
maintained his own private stable of horses.
As became evident, this arrogant and possibly corrupt officer was entirely out of tune with the times.
For the year I speak of was, I think, 1945, or 46: the War was over, the British were engaged in talks
with Indian leaders to find a face-saving and ostensibly fair formula under which to withdraw and return
to its own people the jewel of the British empire, which they had zealously guarded for so long.
You there. .! Yes, you, I am speaking to you!
Concisely insolent in manner, but with an underlying nastiness to his voice the middle-aged
Englishman, Im told, cantered all the way up the hill to where the fire temple broods with its flame kept
alive through all hours of day and night.
Do you know where I can find the manager. .? Here! I say, do you speak English? I said do you
know where I can find the manager?
Clean-shaven but for a thick moustache that showed flecks of grey, dressed in white flannels and
wearing a pith helmet, the deputy commissioner, whom none of us knew to be a high police official,
persisted in thus rudely demanding information from two old priests who had emerged from within and
stood frozen at the temples entrance. Somewhat taken aback to see this ill-tempered, red-faced apparition
within a restricted space of the Towers, they pointed mutely in the direction of Buchias office, upon
which the policeman yanked the horses reins fiercely and spurred it on. All who saw this unlikely figure
on a brown sorrel, bounding over hedges and galloping down quiet pathways, were stunned; especially to
hear him yelling at the top of his voice:
Where the hell is that bloody manager?
When the policeman finally located his office, Buchia happened to have stepped out on his rounds;
but it didnt take Strickham long to find and accost him.
Are you Mr Kavarana, the manager of this place?

Whore you? Horses are not allowed in here!

You are under arrest, Mr Manager.
And who may you be, sir, if I may ask?
Deputy Commissioner of Police, if thats any of your business.
Some of the policemans impatience may have communicated itself to the horse, which whinnied and
stood on its hind-legs for an instant. Buchia was dumbfounded, and more than a little frightened; he had no
idea when he triumphantly and unilaterally undertook to evict the encroachers that he was violating a
courts instructions. He combed his fluffy sideburns nervously with his fingertips before asking:
On what charges?
Assault, destruction of property, rioting and disturbing the peace. Come with me, please.
Meanwhile, the constables in the police van had driven up to the adjoining disputed plot, and
escorted back the watchman, who was wearing a white bandage on his crown; as well as Jameel and
Ijaaz Sheikh.
Pouting grouchily, and limping every few steps, the watchman evidently well-tutored by his
employers made a show of identifying members of the previous nights mob for the police; that is, he
pointed out almost everyone he came across on the estate (barring the better-dressed mourners at the
afternoons funeral), including a couple of gardeners who had been busy since early morning planting
saplings for a proposed bamboo grove behind Albless cottage, and one seller of sandalwood who
normally sat on a chair by the main gate retailing sticks to those attending the days funerals but who had
left his post propelled by curiosity, alarm and an insidious feeling of excitement when the equestrian
Englishman galloped past him.
The burra saheb rounded up men of different ages and professions, and had them bundled into the van
a motley group of corpse bearers in pajamas, sudrahs and prayer-topees, two gardeners in khaki shorts
and mud-stained vests, the sandalwood-vendor and Buchia; all twenty-two of them were, moreover,
handcuffed, and driven down to the Colaba police station where they spent a rough and sleepless night in
the lock-up.
Later, I heard from those who had been present, there was a curiously contrived temper to the whole
episode, as if the objective was to intimidate the culprits of yesterdays destructive merriment, rather than
apply the rule of law. Why a police officer should be so partisan in an ostensibly criminal matter was
something that wasnt speculated upon until much later, but Im glad to say our boys, and Buchia as well,
suffered these indignities without feeling cowed; in fact, they displayed a healthy and outraged resistance.
While all this was happening, myself, Jungoo and Kobaad were out. We drove back in the hearse
with the corpse we had gone to fetch to a dark and desolate Towers of Silence with hardly anyone about.
The sun had already set, and the whole place was immersed in an air of mourning. Luckily Edul had
plucked up the courage to phone Coyaji as soon as the police van drove away and inform him of the
arrests. Next morning all twenty-two prisoners were brought before a magistrate, and released on bail, for
which the required amounts were put up by the Punchayet.
Three weeks later, when the case came up for hearing, the Punchayets lawyers had built a strong
defence for its clients: land records had been dug up, certified gift deeds were produced and the verbal
testimony of old-timers like Rustom and Fardoonji invoked to assure the magistrate that the land which the
Sheikh brothers were claiming had never been in their, or their fathers, possession during the last twenty
years. As for the relatively minor charge of assault on the watchman, some clever cross-examining of his
deposition deflated the claims of serious injuries inflicted by a murderous mob.
As a final and dramatic trump in support of their contention, a handwritten receipt was produced by
the plaintiffs acknowledging payment of Rs 12,000 by a Mohammed Ghulam Sheikh to the Parsi
Punchayet in 1919. But a brief examination of the paper by the courts clerk, and then the magistrate
himself, led him to observe that it was entirely deficient in details of the plot allegedly purchased; and

moreover only semi-literate in its language. It was rejected by the magistrate outright as a crude and
unconvincing attempt at forgery; the case was dismissed.
The deputy commissioner of police, Strickham, too, came in for some strongly censorious comments
from the English magistrate, a man called Peabury, who found the policemans entry into the Towers of
Silence on horseback, and his handcuffing of the accused overzealous beyond the farthest limits of
civility. This observation made in court was widely reported in the Indian press; and word of mouth
even insinuated that Strickham was corrupt, and had probably received a large amount of money from the
Sheikhs to behave in the way he did.
(ii)
Several months after this rumpus died down, we were already on the cusp of 1947the year in
which India got her independence when, late one evening, I had a visitor at my quarters whom I didnt
immediately recognize.
It was already dark when he knocked at my door, and though we now had electric lights at
Doongerwaadi, the one on my veranda hadnt been turned on.
Phiroze. .?
It was a husky, soft voice, which sounded familiar, but I couldnt place it. Only when the stranger
drew closer as though wishing to embrace me, I recognized him at once: it was my old school buddy.
Rohinton?
His face was round, his shoulders broad and fleshy: expansively at ease with himself in a colourful
bush shirt, he still retained much of his baby fat but his features seemed wrinkled and pitted: Rohinton
Kanga all right, but no longer the carefree and cheerful friend I remembered. Before I could stop him, he
enveloped me in his arms and hugged me tightly. I was seeing him again after the passage of a very long
time.
I observed only one unexpected change in his appearance. Like myself, he too had lost most of his
hair; but, in his case, two outgrowths at the rear extreme of his crown grey, hopelessly entangled
bushes, straggling sideways gave him the mien of a winged creature caught in a moment of fluttery
indecision before taking flight.
Better have a thorough bath, once you get home, I said, apologetically. Ive just got back from
washing a very old dead man. .
He grimaced, opening his mouth wide and cried dismissively:
Aaargh. .! Bullshit, all bullshit. Baloney. Makes no sense at all. . Anyway, Im so happy to see you
again, Phiroze, and he gave me another bear hug.
Its what fifteen years since you left for England?
Fourteen, actually. Oh, Ive been back, Ive been back before. . said Rohinton apologetically,
several times as a matter of fact, but never thought to look you up. .until this time, when I need your help.
Thats fine, no problem. Im a nussesalar, you know, a Custodian of the Unclean, I reminded him.
You could hardly have invited me to a social gathering of your family and friends, and expected them to
welcome me warmly.
Why not? Why not! asked Rohinton angrily, emphatically. I just dont believe in all that bullshit.
Youd be surprised how deeply ingrained these beliefs are. .I dont believe myself as a rule that
exposure to corpses contaminates the living, yet right now I feel an urgent need to bathe. Ill feel uneasy
and restless until I do. But tell me what
Dont let me stop you, dont let me stop you. . Please, go ahead. Ill wait.
You said you needed some help?
Well, yes, well talk about that when youre feeling more relaxed. It was my dad who suggested to
me, reminded me in a sense, that you might be able to help us.
In what way?

In this whole matter of Josephs last rites. . Maybe you should have your bath first? Then well talk
at length. . And besides, Im sure theres so much else we have to catch up on as well. .
It was then the penny dropped. So Joseph Maloney was Narimans first son by his Irish wife. And
the entire hullabaloo that had been going on for the last two weeks or so I was only vaguely aware of
its shrill repercussions about a Christian foreigner who had renounced his faith, and was seeking
permission from his deathbed to be allowed a Zoroastrian funeral was Rohintons half-brother! During
all the hours I had spent in my youth at Mon Repos, Rohintons sprawling Mazagaon bungalow, never
once had I set eyes on this ruddy half-Irish half-Parsi whose moribund spiritual aspirations were
exercising Zoroastrian passions in the city of Bombay to a never-before-scaled pitch of rabidity.
Please do sit, Rohinton. Make yourself comfortable. I wont be long.
When I came out of the bathroom, I saw that Farida had made some tea for us. Rohinton was sipping
his appreciatively, while another cup, covered with an upturned saucer, waited for me.
When Margaret went back to Ireland, Joseph went with her. My father couldnt make that first
marriage work. .but soon after the poor boy was only six then she fell ill and, in a few months, died.
He was brought up in Ireland, and later England, by her relatives.
Though he retained his mothers name, Maloney, said Rohinton, not wasting much time on
preliminaries, Joseph claims hes always felt a deep connection with my dad, which he was able to
renew only after so many years. In the meanwhile, at Oxford, he had studied World Religion, and even
done a doctorate in Zoroastrianism. .but then it was not so much his intellectual appreciation of our
religion, as his visits to Bombay and his meetings with my dad that deepened his desire to convert to
Zoroastrianism.
But your dad himself was never very much into I interrupted him.
Traditional religious ideas? he completed for me. No, never. He was a liberal, a freethinker. . But
now, in his old age, hes changed completely. You should see him: hes turned completely revivalist. Does
his Kashti prayers devoutly three times a day, coughing away in front of an afarghan; his greatest wish
which I suppose hes praying for is to see the religion prosper again, the faithful acquire a proper
understanding of its basic tenets and the ultra-orthodox shed their hidebound prejudices. .
And secretly, hes confided in me, he also believes in the imminent advent of Bahram Varjawan, the
legendary preacher and messiah, who, it is believed, has already been born somewhere in the Middle
East whose dynamic reinterpretations of Zarathustras teachings will lead to a great resurgence of
Zoroastrianism, perhaps even, or so Dad hopes, a new, independent nation of Zoroastrians, which will be
among the foremost in the world.
A tall order, I responded, somewhat sceptically.
Well, I confess there are times when I wonder myself if in his old age he hasnt lost his marbles. .
But hes quite sanguine about it all, protested Rohinton, and willing to put his money where his mouth is.
In fact, two years ago, the last time Joseph was in India, they had planned for him a series of twenty
lectures aimed at the average Parsi, on everyday as well as abstruse matters of faith. . But it was
indefinitely postponed when, during that very trip to India, a variant of the Hodgkins disease that had
killed his mother some forty-odd years ago was detected in Joseph. He went back to England, and doctors
there confirmed it as well.
Hodgkins disease? I asked, and he nodded.
Nowadays its more often called Hodgkins lymphoma. Basically, a form of cancer that attacks the
immune system and white blood corpuscles. . You see, the problem is that Josephs navjote was never
performed. His mother, and after her, her relations, brought him up as a Roman Catholic. Otherwise,
technically, with a Parsi father, he should be perfectly eligible for a Parsi funeral. And now that hes on
his deathbed, no Parsi priest will agree to perform his navjote.

If youre hoping I can persuade Father to do it. . I said, and before he could express in words the
exasperation that showed on his face, I hurriedly completed what I wanted to say: No chance! My
fathers the most diehard fundamentalist you could hope to meet!
But havent you been following whats going on in your city? said Rohinton, who had been waiting
patiently for me to finish. Why, its all over the papers!
Actually, after Seppys passing it was true it had happened so gradually I hardly noticed it myself
I had lost touch, as well as interest, in the outside world. Temoos radio had been silent for some
years, and gathering dust. Now, of course, we had electricity. Aspi and Sola, a couple of others had
bought radios too, but I hardly ever listened to it. Whatever little I came to know about the world was
gleaned from the tittle-tattle of my better informed, more loquacious colleagues.
You see, after Dad offered them a donation of Rs 25 lakh, which the Punchayet gratefully accepted,
it has softened its position on the issue. But the trustees are now saying that since theres never been a
precedent of a terminally-ill person adopting the Zoroastrian religion in the concluding hours of his life,
they will have to first refer the matter to the high priests and religious scholars.
Dad is completely moved and saddened by the homecoming of his firstborn, whose untimely and
tragic drift towards death is too painful for him to watch. My father is very, very keen to make it possible
to comply with Josephs final, most heartfelt wishes. Of course, the hardcore element in the Parsi public
is even more incensed. Theyre saying that the Parsi Punchayet has been bribed by Nariman Kanga, that
its willing to put the religions core values on sale, if the price is high enough.
Now sixty-seven, my father, Framroze, had over time acquired an inviolable reputation for
righteousness and integrity, apart from the one of being a bad-tempered priest who never tolerated any
hanky-panky from his subordinates. Among the Council of High Priests (whose meetings he hardly ever
attended) as well as informally, he had grown extraordinarily in stature.
In fact, when news of his wifes premature death overlapped with long-forgotten tales of a dissolute
and lascivious son who preferred to marry a khandhias daughter rather than follow in his fathers noble
footsteps, Framroze acquired, among common people, the aura of a long-suffering, tragic and saintly
figure, whose opinion on religious matters carried tremendous authority. Nariman Kanga would have
known that, which is why he wanted his support. It would definitely strengthen the Punchayets case, too.
But whether my father would agree to go against the fierce gale of public disapproval, and favour
sanctioning Josephs last rites, was an open question. Personally, I doubted it very much.
I could certainly speak to him. Ask him what he feels. . The difficulty is that he doesnt like to even
meet me. .
Ah, said Rohinton, maybe were being a little unfair here. How do you know what his feelings for
you are now? So many years have passed since you married against his wishes. . And even that poor girl
you wed, its a long time since she passed away. .people change with the passage of time. . Your father
may be secretly longing for a rapprochement, how do you know?
Er, yes. .its possible, I replied. Though I do keep up with news from home whenever I meet
Vispy. . He drops in, every now and then. And Ive had no inkling of such a mellowing.
Hey, whats Vispy up to?! asked Rohinton.
Nothing. . Just another job as accountant, like the one he had before. . This ones slightly better paid,
I think, with a firm that manufactures nuts and bolts. .
Is he still single, then? asked Rohinton. Ran into him once at Gowalia Tank, during a previous
visit.
Hes single. Goes out walking by himself in the evening. Sometimes he walks here, at the Towers.
Anyway, Ill definitely go and meet my dad. Tomorrow, perhaps? Ill do what I can for Joseph.
Lets make it a date, then. Tomorrow evening? I could pick you up in my car.
I dont think hed like that. Ill have to talk to him alone.

No, of course, said Rohinton. I meant Ill drive you there, and wait outside in the car. And after
you finish your meeting with him, we could go some place, have a drink and dinner at a restaurant, catch
up with all the news?
But I have no idea how long itll take me to persuade Father. Or if Ill have any success at all.
You can take as long as you like. Ill be waiting outside. Two hours, three hours, doesnt matter. .
And please do mention to him that my dad has offered to send a car and chauffeur to pick up Framrozeji
and bring him to Dr Billimorias Nursing home at Queens Road, where Joseph has a private suite on the
top floor. . His systems are rapidly failing one by one; there are needles and tubes kept permanently
sticking into him, and nurses attend him day and night; but hes still conscious most of the time. Framrozeji
could talk to Joseph himself, and see how much this means to him. .
Let me speak with Father first. Im not terribly hopeful, but Ill try. The best time to meet my father
would be, I suppose, around six-thirty in the evening when hes finished with the days work and eaten his
dinner. . Tomorrow. .? I hesitated, doubtful for a moment; then remembered: Oh yes, from tomorrow,
luckily, for the rest of this week Im on morning shift, my duty ends at four-thirty. Could you come here
then, Rohinton, a little after six?
Of course, Phiroze. Definitely. Ill be there. Thank you. Thank you so much. .
Dont thank me yet, Rohinton, I cautioned my school friend, as he got up to leave. And have a good
nights sleep. .
(iii)
When Rohinton rolled by next evening in his red Buick convertible and honked obstreperously
outside the khandhias quarters, I was ready.
He held the car door open for me, and as I slid into the seat beside him, I saw that a couple of my
neighbours had appeared on their balconies to see who it was; among them, Temoo. Very old now and
suffering a great deal on account of the growth in his belly, I wondered if seeing me drive away like this
at night, in a fancy car, brought back memories for him of similar nights when his wife Rudabeh was
driven away in equally swanky cars; and of that one fateful night, when she never returned. I suppose it
did. But why am I thinking of that now?
Cant tell you how much this means to me. .as well, said Rohinton, driving out of the wrought iron
gateway of the Towers of Silence, and taking a sharp right. I mean, apart from what it means to my dad. .
Joseph is fourteen years older than me, you know, and I cant say I ever got to know him well before this
visit. Hes a really nice guy though, you should meet him sometime. .
Then, as an afterthought added, Well, there may not be much time. .
What are the doctors saying?
They dont give us any hope. Its only a matter of days now.
Shops at Kemps Corner were downing their shutters, or were already shut. There were hardly any
other cars on the road.
He must be in a great deal of pain, then? I asked.
If he is, he doesnt show it, answered Rohinton. Hes medicated a lot, and dopey sometimes, but
still surprisingly cheerful.
A few hawkers with their baskets could be seen squatting on the pavements as we drove past. A man
selling purple grapes, another selling oranges, yet another pineapples; then a balloon seller with a gas
cylinder on wheels filling up more balloons to add to a bunch of already inflated ones secured to his wrist
with long lengths of string, the whole profusion of colourful gas balloons swaying gustily in a strong
breeze as it aspired towards a darkening sky.
A family of street performers was tiredly wending its way home: a man, a woman, two kids and a
puppy you could tell they were performers or acrobats by the paraphernalia they were carrying
between them: thin, long wooden poles, metal hoops, sharp skewers and one large cogged wheel whose

precise application I had no way of guessing; though it was probably used in some trick the little dog
performed.
Even in this condition he believes, with complete sincerity, that every suffering we undergo in life
is perfectly calibrated to serve as a platform for surmounting specific flaws in ones own character.
.opportunities to polish our spiritual selves, become better persons. .
Everyone whose paths we cross Joseph believes our partners in life, our friends, all who
give us grief or joy or frustration are merely playing out their insensible moves in perfect consonance
with a preordained framework of spiritual conflicts and imperatives planned for our growth. The planet
itself is a veritable crucible, said Rohinton, quoting his half-brother, and our time in it intended to
purify weaknesses, purge baser instincts, clarify the soul essence through how else, but through
suffering? Thats why, Rohinton went on, speaking mellifluously as he cruised along, Joseph is so
fascinated by the Zoroastrian symbol of fire, a symbol of cleansing and purity. In his hospital suite, he
keeps an oil wick burning day and night at his bedside.
The Buick halted at an intersection. In the stream of cars and buses cutting across us diagonally in the
direction of Warden Road raced an ambulance with its bell clanging furiously, recklessly overtaking the
slow moving traffic that impeded its progress.
Im only representing to you the conclusions Joseph has come to after all his years of study. Myself,
I cant say Im sure what I believe.
Well logically speaking, Josephs point of view may well be the only one possible to espouse, I
said. To ensure that all the senseless suffering we see around us doesnt become. . a desperately
paralysing burden. However, whether logical plausibility can be seen as evidence of certainty. .its a big
leap to take!
Who can say? I guess you and me just dont have the time to think about these things. Only a
philosopher like Joseph has that luxury.
Meanwhile, a very old, bent and obviously poor woman wearing a faded Koli-style sari hitched
loosely between her legs stepped off the pavement and approached our stationary vehicle. She tottered
momentarily; then steadying herself, bent a little to peer through the window I was sitting at. She wasnt a
beggar, no; only bent on peering inside out of some sort of curiosity, appraising the interior of the
exclusive car we were seated in. But it was not to her taste, for she shook her head from side to side
disapprovingly, as though finding something in it deficient. Or she may have been appraising the cars
inmates rather than its decor.
Rohintons hand went to his shirt pocket feeling for change to give the old woman, but just then the
traffic began to move, and so did we. The charitable impulse was quickly abandoned.
I turn left into the next lane, right?
No, no. You better park somewhere outside here. Ill walk up.
Best of luck, Phiroze.
(iv)
At this time of evening, the lane that meandered up to my fathers small fire temple was entirely
deserted; not a soul about. Though it wasnt completely dark yet, most houses on both sides of the lane
didnt have any lights on. A solitary street lamp at the end of the footpath threw a sallow, bluish glow on
the fire temples spacious portico, with its finely hewn, bare stone benches. Evidently, the fire temple had
closed for the night.
I went around the temple following a small pathway that led to its rear to my fathers quarters. I had
hoped the back entrance would be ajar. No such luck. It was tightly shut; however, I could see that the
kitchen light was on.
I knocked. No one answered. There was no sound from inside. Then I knocked again, harder. After a
minute the back door opened, cautiously. And my fathers hoarse voice asked:

Kaun? Vispy?
No, its me. Phiroze.
When he had opened the door wider, he still didnt step aside to let me in.
I thought Vispy had forgotten his key. But its you. .why have you come here?
I have something to ask of you, Papa. Something important. A favour. I explained. Dont worry,
Papa. Ive washed myself very carefully before coming here. Including application of taro at all key
points of my body, as you taught me.
When we met at my mothers funeral, Father himself told me that the nine-day ceremony of
purification could be abridged in cases of extreme emergency, and what procedure to follow in such
cases.
But what was so urgent? Now, at this time of the night. .? Is there some problem, son? Come on,
come in.
In that instant, I saw something in his eyes, or imagined it: a flicker of warmth that made me want to
embrace my father but Im glad I held myself back; for as I entered he stepped aside, rather
deliberately, ensuring no physical contact was made between us. I stood there sheepishly, looking around
my mothers kitchen, which was as it had always been: only dustier, more cluttered and, overall, gloomier
than I remembered it. My father and I remained standing just within the doorway.
Youre alone, Papa? Wheres Vispy?
God alone knows where he goes loitering every night. I thought he had forgotten to take his key
again, and it was him knocking. . Cant expect anything from that boy; never could expect anything from
you either. If thats the way it has to turn out, Im content. .Im content. .
This last was practically an aside, muttered to himself. I felt sad to see him so lonely, yet too proud
to admit it.
Well, tell me: what is it you want from me now?
It was his way of inviting me to speak my mind, but considering I hardly ever met him, let alone
craved favours of him, seemed a little unfair. But I felt it expeditious not to point that out.
You remember my friend from school, Rohinton Kanga?
Hmm.
This is about his half-brother, Joseph Maloney Kanga, who is dying. .
Ah. I thought it would be some such murky business. .
He believes. Joseph truly believes. .he wants to become a Zoroastrian before he dies. At least he
wants to go out of the world like a Zoroastrian.
Well he isnt a Zoroastrian, can never be. . He should have thought of it earlier. If he wants the
vultures to make a meal of him, he should request the vultures. Why ask me? Whether theyd be willing to
consume the product of a mixed marriage? Im sure they wont be that finicky. .
It was many years since my father last shared a joke with me. Many years, perhaps, since he had a
shy at making any joke at all. As such this wasnt such a bad attempt. Both of us broke out into chuckles at
first, then guffaws of laughter that continued for a whole minute. .and I was reminded for a moment of our
closeness in younger days.
But seriously, Papa. .Im told that it really does mean a lot to him. He would like to go through the
Zoroastrian rites at death.
But all these years, where was he? Having his malido, I suppose, and eating it too?
Once again, Father revelled heartily in his own sense of humour, but this time I could only smile.
In any case, what have I to do with it? Framroze continued. Nariman Kanga has already done the
needful. Trustees know which side their bread is buttered on. Ho-ho-ho. . His amusement with the
relevant facts of the issue, which he was clearly better informed about than me, seemed compulsive.
But public opinion is against it. They will be making a reference to you, I believe. To the priests.

Thats all eyewash, Phiroze. Show-shaa for public consumption. Tell Rohinton, itll be okay. Where
theres so much money involved, why should they care for the opinion of priests? When Joseph dies, his
body will be placed in the dokhma, and the three-day ceremonies too will be permitted. Whether hes had
a navjote or not. .
But he hasnt, you know that.
Who cares? Do you? Only those who care for the religion feel it matters. The founding fathers of the
Punchayet had vision. Todays trustees are nothing but a bunch of banias. Panhandlers and money
managers. I tell you, theyll allow the funeral to take place.
I could feel the irritation mounting in my father. Perhaps he was just getting tired of having to stand in
the doorway through such a long conversation. Or perhaps I pushed my luck just a little too far when I
asked him in a philosophic vein:
Personally, Papa, do you really believe it matters how we go out of this world? I mean, whether one
is a Hindu or Muslim or Parsi, after we die in what manner our corpse is disposed of? I mean, does it
make a difference to the soul that survives the bodys destruction? The means of our arrival into the next
world? After all, the body is no more than a worn-out shell, I would think. .
I should have kept my mouth shut. For it was then my fathers notorious bad temper flashed. And
once again, I became painfully aware of the abyss separating our ways of thinking.
Of course it does! What are you saying? Every soul has a predetermined destination. And if it does
not follow every detail of its spiritual map into the next world, it is bound to lose its way, and suffer
terrible confusion and disorientation possibly for millennia to come. .!
He suddenly stopped short, refusing to discuss anything further with me. Within a few seconds his
whole bearing and manner had changed. His large body was hunched over now, and more tense.
You! he shouted at me, almost viciously. A nussesalar asking such a question? You who are
supposed to minutely oversee the correct transmission of every Zoroastrian soul on its trajectory into the
beyond! Its because of people like you our religion and community have suffered! When you were small I
would dream of a day when you would mature and become a priest! Or a serious scholar! But what did
you become? Apostate! Go away! Get out, I say! I want to sleep. Thats all you could make of yourself. .
Apostate! he muttered to himself, trembling with suppressed rage as he showed me out and slammed the
door on me.
I hesitated in the dark, outside. But the moment was lost, and he had even switched off the kitchen
light. I had wanted to say something nice before leaving, something gratefulLook after yourself, Papa.
Try not to get so angry. Try to get a good nights sleep, Papa. I love you. . But perhaps it was wiser to
leave quietly, lest the vehemence I inspired in him did violence to his health.
Well. I stumbled back to the car waiting at the end of the dark lane, disturbed by my fathers final
explosion of temper, wondering what exactly the word apostate meant; although I could guess at its
meaning. I assumed it meant someone like myself who had betrayed his father and his religion.
After I got into the Buick, Rohinton was keen to learn every word of how the interview had gone. It
cheered him greatly to hear Framrozes prediction that the Punchayet would oblige the Kangas, and
Josephs funeral after he died would be allowed to proceed along Zoroastrian lines.
I was in no mood for the kind of evening Rohinton had planned, but it turned out a novel experience
for me, which I cant say I didnt enjoy. He drove me to the Taj hotel at Apollo Bunder which I had only
seen once or twice from the outside during the youthful days of my wanderlust. Upon entering it for the
first time, I was already feeling somewhat dazed by its opulent interiors, its liveried and impressively
large-built doormen who were very formal and severe, though welcoming, its high stuccoed ceilings and
glittering chandeliers, finally its plush carpeted elevator that took us up to an exclusive bar and restaurant
on its terrace called The Rocking Boat; I got very quickly sozzled on a couple of strong Scotch whiskies
with soda and ice, thereafter losing any inhibition I might have had about enjoying myself.

Rohinton ordered an array of delightful food as well crabmeat, fried pomfret, asparagus and a
mutton dum pulao. An astonishing dessert completed the meal: sugared peaches in caramel custard with
pineapple and cherries and a topping of ice cream!
(v)
Although it was about one oclock when we finished our meal, Rohinton was in no hurry to leave
and ordered more coffee. He was keen to get on with the catching-up hed said wed do. He wanted to
know about Sepideh, how Id lost her so early in life, whether I enjoyed my work or found it oppressive,
how I felt about the social stigmas that were imposed on my profession. I enjoyed talking to him about
myself, my feelings in these and other matters, but every now and then found myself so completely
absorbed in the grand view we had of the bay from our table, that I felt as though I had to tear my attention
away from it to address some question Rohinton had put to me; the large ships anchored in the distance,
the mesmeric pulsating of their lights on the dark waters, the immense glittering canvas of the starry skies:
momentarily I actually felt a resurgence of my youthful longing for the life at sea!
We were the last customers still left in the restaurant; everyone else had left long ago. Two waiters
hovered at a discreet distance, wondering how to tell us they were closing. But I suppose they must have
sensed from Rohintons manner a handsome tip coming. My friend was in fact in no mood to wind up. He
was so elated by the outcome of my meeting with my father, and the words I had reported to him, he
ordered cognac. Then he started off about his life in London.
Of the flat he maintained there at a place called Kings Cross, and a woman called Lizbeth, who
looked after it for him when he wasnt there, and lived with him as his wife when he was, though they had
never married. He said England was a wonderful place, but most of its people were small-hearted and
racist. He told me of an ultra-nationalist group he was part of, some of them Indian, others Irish, who met
every week, usually at his place in Kings Cross, to plan the overthrow of imperial rule in India.
Most of our group just dont approve of Gandhis methods, they find them too soft. I wonder. . In
fact, before I came to India this time Ill let you into a secret, but you must keep this to yourself, he
said, lowering his voice to a whispera proposal was made to me: now just keep this to yourself. .
Rohinton actually glanced around, to ensure that no one was listening, but all the other tables were
unoccupiedthat I help build a bomb at a secret location in Bombay. You know the new viceroys just
been appointed? the idea was to find someone to throw it at him during a visit he has planned to the
Gateway of India, after his investiture in Delhi. When the question of a secret location in Bombay came
up, I immediately thought of you, and the Towers of Silence. But let me tell you, I completely rejected the
idea. I didnt agree to do it.
(When he told me this, I, too, immediately thought of the grotto as an ideal place for building
bombs!)
In principle, I found it impossible to agree with the idea of a parting kick for the British, or a
lesson to imperialists for all time to come. I thought it rather foolish to endanger negotiations for
independence with a terrorist act at such a late stage. Besides, after I arrived in Bombay, my dad apprised
me of Josephs condition, which is how I approached you for a completely different and more meaningful
purpose.
Twice, a waiter drew near our table respectfully bowing, and said the restaurant and bar were
closing now. But Rohinton wanted a last round of cognac for the both of us, which the waiter obliged us
with. We knocked it back with gusto and finally made our way out of the restaurant.
We didnt feel like going home right away, so we spent another half-hour sitting on a wooden bench
on the pier, listening to the lapping of the waves, gazing at the stars in a cloudless sky.
Thank you, Phiroze, for a great evening, Rohinton said when he finally dropped me home at almost
four in the morning. Both of us felt flushed with a mutual sense of warmth our youthful bond had been

revived, of that there was little doubt.

At Kemps Corner, before he turned into the gate of the Towers of Silence, we heard an itinerant
hawker who was carrying a wooden tray of glasses containing something white and viscous on his head.
In the stillness of the cold morning, he was calling in a sharp, high-pitched voice:
Doodh na puff. .doodh na puff. . Jelleee. .
I should thank you, Rohinton, I replied. After all, you paid what must have been a whopping bill at
the Taj!
Aargh! he said, making his favourite deprecating grimace once more that evening, Moneys no
object. Did you have a good time, Phiroze?
I had a great time.
Thats what matters. Alls well that ends well, thanks to you. .
Thanks a lot, Rohinton.
He waved to me and drove away.
But, as we found out the following day, all wasnt well, and wouldnt end so well either. Neither of
us had any inkling when we parted, that though one conspiracy, hatched in London to blow up
Mountbatten with a bomb constructed at the Towers of Silence was quite rightly abandoned even
before it could be further elaborated on, another conspiracy, amusingly paltry and low-down in intent, yet
equally nasty, would be enacted at the very location before the next forty-eight hours had elapsed.

Thirteen
Two days after my evening with Rohinton at the Taj, Joseph Maloney Kanga passed away. His
body arrived at Doongerwaadi late in the afternoon, in a private hearse requisitioned by Dr Billimorias
Nursing Home.
Before it could be moved from the hospital stretcher onto our iron bier, a flurry of phone calls flew
to and from Buchia to Coyaji and from Coyaji to other senior trustees of the Punchayet. Finally, it was
decided by the higher-ups, (and Buchia was told to follow instructions precisely), that the body be
accepted as usual on presentation of a death certificate from the presiding doctor, and normal procedures
for a Zoroastrian funeral followed. However, as an additional if unusual precaution, Buchia was advised
that after the body was ceremoniously placed on the floor of Wadiajis cottage, with an oil lamp at its
head and a tray of sandalwood and afarghan at its feet, he should ensure that the door of the cottage was
padlocked through the night, until mourners started arriving in the morning for the funeral.
Whoever issued these instructions hadnt taken into account the fierce reaction of orthodoxy amongst
the corpse bearers themselves a contagion Buchia himself had caught in full-blown form rather early in
his career. For nearly a month, debate on the issue had raged in the vernacular press, dividing
Zoroastrians in the city. The more liberal, pro-reform sections, perhaps sensing how volatile and
sensitive this matter was to the common people, adopted an ambivalent and particularly indecisive
posture.
They argued that though Joseph could not strictly speaking be considered a Zoroastrian, and hence
wasnt entitled to avail of a funeral at the Towers of Silence, his case was a unique one, and any
exception made for it neednt become a binding precedent for all time; that his scholarly intimacy with the
faith was akin to, if not equal to, the ritual significance of a navjote, which for circumstantial reasons he
had been denied; moreover, as the son of a fully fledged and altruistic Zarthosti, Nariman Kanga, the
trustees of the Parsi Punchayet were not violating any essential mandate of the authority invested in them
by allowing his funeral to take place; and finally, that the valuable donation made by Nariman Kanga
would go a long way towards benefiting the needy of the community (but which should not be interpreted
under any circumstances as having biased the Punchayets decision).

The legalistic shilly-shallying of the reformist faction, both within the Punchayet and outside it, led
to the orthodoxys vocal majority raising its campaign to a shrilly hysterical intensity. Their leaders were
quoted in the press describing the proposal to minister funeral rites to Joseph as the Great Betrayal.
Naturally, khandhias, nussesalars and priests, that is, all those in charge of physically handling the corpse
and conducting obsequies for it, could not be expected to remain dispassionate at the centre of this great
clamour. Myself, frankly, I felt quite indifferent to the whole hullabaloo; though mostly sorry for Joseph
and his family. In the course of the afternoon, when instructed to do so by Buchia, I completed the washing
of his corpse. That was the full extent of my arrested acquaintance with Joseph Kanga.
Now Buchia himself, a very traditional-minded person when it came to religious matters, was
horrified that the body of a half-caste Parsi who had never had a navjote, was to be allowed into the
sacrosanct space of the Towers. For the first time in his long tenure, he felt completely at cross-purposes
with his bosses, whose feeble judgment he felt had undermined his own authority and competence. In
other words, he felt that left to his own devices, he would have found a better solution to the entire
complicated dilemma, neither offending orthodox Zoroastrian sentiment, nor repudiating Kangas
generous donation.
It seemed amazing to me that Buchia, who had been in cohorts with the trustees so slyly during the
khandhias strike, and did everything he could to subvert it, should now mutinously, albeit covertly, be
militating against their decision in the matter of Joseph Kangas funeral. Even more amazing, perhaps,
was the decision of a group of khandhias to approach Buchia to ventilate their disquiet, and seek his
views on finding some last-minute redress for it.
Over my dead body, Buchia is reported to have declaimed when the group of five approached him:
it was Farokh, Fali, Jungoo, Shiavux and Homiar, I believe.
I realize Ive hardly mentioned these last two in my narrative so far. From among the newer lot
recruited after the strike, I took an instant dislike to Shiavux, whose foppish, effeminate and craven
manner put me off the very first time I met him, and as for Homiar, I found him decidedly dull; so never
really got to know either of them. Nor was I present at that meeting where Buchia made that emphatic
response and as it turned out, prophetic as well to their discontent about the funeral which was to
take place the following morning.
The kidnapping of Joseph Maloney body, pre-planned, and meticulously executed in the small hours
of the morning, was the concluding act in a sordid and farcical morality play which no one got wind of,
until the very end. But there was a completely unexpected fall-out to it, an unscripted final scene, which
was irreversibly played out as well. The following description of that nights events is a reconstruction
based on my subsequent conversations with Farokh and Jungoo.
Nettled that the wishy-washy submissiveness shown by his superiors in a matter which, in his
opinion, constituted a serious threat to the tradition and conventions of an ancient religion which
customary practices, after all, had been its mainstay, and the very reason for its having survived the
depredations of the centuries Buchia decided to take matters into his own hands.
It was of crucial importance of course, he realized, that this be a top secret operation. If he was at all
apprehensive about it, it was only because he knew he could not pull it off on his own, and would be
compelled to depend on his accomplices. That afternoon, in his office, he tried to impress on the gang of
five the utmost need for secrecy. He told them that the police would definitely press charges against all of
them if they were found out. The other matter which he stressed as being of greatest importance was that
they should remain sober, and not under any circumstances, touch alcohol during that entire night.
As far as the first imperative went, all five kept their word, not disclosing their plans to anyone
outside the gang, not even their closest friends or their wives. Of course, Buchia had been careful to
reveal even to his co-conspirators no more than a small fragment of his plan at the time, only as much as

was absolutely necessary to carry it forward. Somehow, it seemed, the boys had unexpectedly developed
great confidence in their leaders ability and acumen. As far as the second condition went, however
that of abjuring alcohol there may have been some difficulty. For one thing, the operation was
scheduled to commence at 1 a.m. Now, for confirmed boozards to be able to stay awake and alert at that
hour without recourse to a swig or two of the warmth-giving beverage seems unlikely. Some of their
actions and conversations during the long night that followed also indicate that one or two of them may
have consumed more than just a swig or two.
Buchia himself had padlocked the door of Wadiajis funeral cottage, after Josephs body was
deposited there. The key was in his office but cleverly, to ensure he himself wasnt directly implicated, at
a quarter to one that night he got one of the boys to break the lock using an iron rod as a wrench. Jungoo
had been told to bring the hearse up to the cottage. Within minutes, Josephs body was shifted into the
hearse. At precisely one oclock, Buchia got into the front cabin next to Jungoo, and the four others,
Farokh, Fali, Homiar and Shiavux squeezed into the back of the hearse with the corpse.
Lets go, Buchia whispered to Jungoo. It was a cold night; and a full moon bathed everything in
ghostly white. The engine of the vehicle wouldnt restart until the boys in the back got out and pushed it
for a hundred feet or so to a point where the declension in the hill was marked. Then it just took a nudge,
and the hearse rolled down, firing the cylinders of its engine spontaneously. The boys cheered, and Jungoo
raced the engine for a few seconds until Buchia shushed them harshly.
Do you donkeys have any sense at all? he asked in an urgent whisper. The watchman will be up
here in a minute to investigate what the ruckus is all about. .
Everyone quietened down.
Where to now? Jungoo whispered back at Buchia.
Sewree, he answered. The cemetery do you know it? where we can give our friend a decent
Christian burial. .
As it was the watchman at the gate of the Towers of Silence was completely dead to the world,
smothered in a muffler and a monkey cap. He didnt stir even when the hearse approached.
See, said Buchia. Just look at the scoundrel! Paid to stay awake, but already adrift in the land of
Nod. Anyone who had a mind to could easily enter, steal a corpse, and walk away with it. . It was meant
to be a sort of self-deprecating joke, for thats exactly what he and his cronies were up to. But nobody
laughed. Instead, Fali asked in all seriousness:
Now who would want to steal a corpse? Death has already robbed him of everything he ever
owned. Why pillage a pauper?
Nobody had an answer to that philosophical aside either. Then Shiavux intoned with the
sanctimonious propriety of a schools head-boy:
Please understand: were not stealing a corpse; no, actually were only relocating it. And that, too,
for a very good cause: to protect the purity of our religion and race.
If he had expected their leader, Buchia, to applaud his sentiments, he must have been disappointed,
for Buchia only frowned, then growled at Shiavux:
Okay, okay, then. Less said the better. .
Meanwhile Homiar, who had stepped out to open the gate for the hearse, shut it again and climbed
back in.
Snoring away like an ox, he said. Wouldnt have woken up if I had kicked the chair out from under
him. .
Im glad you didnt, said Buchia. Try to think straight, boys. One witness is all itll take to identify
the lot of us tomorrow, when the shit hits the fan. .
Then they were off to Sewree. Streets deserted, not even a stray dog in sight. Poor people who might
normally have been sleeping in the open on the pavements had found shelter under the awnings of shop

fronts, or in the forecourts of residential buildings. It was the 23rd of December. The boys in the back
were glad to be huddled together, despite having an icy corpse in their midst. Jungoo was the only one
who had come prepared for the chill, wearing a long-sleeved pullover. Buchia wore a thick linen vest
whose deacon-like choker protruded from under the collar of his shirt. Occasionally at junctions and
turnings, he gave directions to Jungoo, who wasnt as confident as he was, of the shortest route to Sewree.
There was something else that was bothering Buchia. In the prelude to the withdrawal of British
forces from independent India, the partitioning of Bengal and the Punjab had become inevitable, and
already reports of serious communal violence were coming in from these parts of the country. Bombay, as
yet, hadnt experienced anything comparable, nor would it even in later weeks and months when
migration, dispossession and violent death afflicted more than a million people on the subcontinent. But
travelling so late at night with a raffish, disorderly bunch of young men crammed in the back of a hearse
made Buchia nervous.
Just in case we are stopped by a military or police patrol, he told his co-conspirators, let me
speak, and stick to my story: we are only routinely transporting a corpse from the home of a bereaved
family in Wadala to the Towers of Silence.
Yet moving in the wrong direction? pointed out Fali. Were heading away from the Towers, arent
we? And what an odd time of night to be transporting a corpse, dont you think?
Well, lets just hope they dont notice it, said Buchia irritably, peeved by Falis quibbling.
But Fali was in an expansive mood. Sighing to himself, thinking about God-knows-what, he muttered
philosophically:
Many a slip between the cup and the lip. .
In the crystalline silence of the night, Buchia heard him, and got angrier.
For your sake, I certainly hope there hasnt been. I mean, any slip between the bottle and your lips.
.Fali! I can tell youve been drinking.
No, saheb, not at all. Not a drop, I swear. Not a drop of alcohol has passed these lips in the last.
.what, forty hours? Smell my mouth, Fali protested, thrusting his face at Buchia who was in the front seat.
Buchia recoiled.
Smells of Colgate, Buchia said, disgusted.
Always remember to brush my teeth after dinner, said Fali smugly.
But nothing untoward happened. At no checkpoint were they stopped, nor did they see any military
patrol. The night remained uneventful and icy as the deserted streets they were driving through until their
vehicle came to a grinding halt outside the imposing cement archway of the Sewree cemetery.
Honk twice, and flash your headlights three times, Buchia instructed Jungoo, who did as he was
told.
It was a pre-arranged signal, in response to which one gate of the cemetery swung open with an
awful creaking, and a very short, bearded man appeared. Buchia got out of the hearse to meet him. The
man had an enormous head. He was wearing baggy shorts and a sleeveless vest, but didnt seem to feel
the cold. Though dwarf-like in stature, the bearded mans broad shoulders and thickset neck were
intensely thonged by muscle; moreover, his large, extraordinary head was full of the oddest bumps, bulges
and indentations; not unlike his hirsute, stumpy legs. He must have been younger than Buchia, though not
by very much: his hair, too, had receded entirely and what was left of it was tied in a straggly pigtail at
the back. On his vast and amazing forehead sat a huge carbuncle that shone by the light of the moon, red
and inflamed.
For a few minutes, he and Buchia stood there, arguing. The caretaker, or whoever he was seemed to
hold his ground, persistently shaking his head in refusal. Then Buchia extracted a wad of notes from his
hip-pocket reluctantly, counted it, and handed them over to him. The other man counted the notes again.
Presently Buchia climbed back into the hearse beside Jungoo. The bearded caretaker walked ahead and,

very slowly behind him, the hearse followed.

I had visited the Sewree cemetery during the days of my peregrinations in the city, at least once, if
not twice. I remember it as a pleasant enough place, vast and undulating, with paved footpaths, masses of
furrowed earth, trees, shrubs and gravestones. Buchia must have been in touch with the caretaker the
previous evening, for the latter led the way, with the hearse crawling behind him, until he raised his hand
for it to halt. He had led them to a freshly dug open grave which was to become Joseph Kangas resting
place.
Beyond a point, there was no access for the van, so the body had to be physically carried out to its
grave. However, before that could happen, an unanticipated problem arose, bringing Buchia and the
caretaker nearly to blows.
Wheres the coffin, man? the caretaker yelled in alarm when he saw Josephs corpse being carried
out of the hearse on an open bier. How can you bury a body without a coffin!
We dont use coffins, said Buchia. We feed them to vultures. Everyone has different systems, you
see.
Then you should have followed your own! the caretaker snapped at Buchia, rudely. Why bring him
here? Can you see any vultures here?
But Gomes, that was the first time the others heard him address the caretaker by name. Realizing
that he hadnt taken into account a crucial requirement, Buchia continued to argue, Well cover him in
mud. The earth will be his coffin!
I cannot allow that, insisted Gomes, who seemed more than equal to Buchia in stubbornness.
What! exclaimed Buchia, both annoyed and aghast. Where will I find a coffin at this time of
night?
I cannot allow a body to be buried directly in the soil, repeated the caretaker stiffly. Its just not
done its an outrage for you to even think thats possible!
But how does it help to put him in a box? Anyway the box will rot, and worms will get at him.
Stray dogs, hyenas, bandicoots would dig him up before that, if hes not in a coffin. You have to put
a body in a coffin. Or take it back! A rules a rule, the caretaker was emphatic and obdurate. Otherwise,
take him back to your Towers, why dont you, and feed him to the birds. . This is a Christian cemetery.
It was a contest in aggressive obstinacy that Buchia sensed he was losing. Moreover, his nasal
falsetto compared unfavourably with the others deep and resonant voice which lent him authority.
Well, said Buchia at last, dont you have any old coffin lying around?
The caretaker shook his head.
The old ones are all underground with decaying skeletons in them. I do have a new one, which I
was getting ready. I can let you have it if you want. But itll cost you eight hundred rupees.
Eight hundred Buchia was shocked. Thats highway robbery! You see, now? Buchia appealed
to his band of corpse bearers. You see what this is all about? He wants to rob me! Ive already given you
two thousand!
Thats for the use of the plot of land, for digging the grave and bending every rule for you. This is
for the coffin. Ill return nineteen hundred if you decide not to bury him here. . One hundred I keep for
digging the grave. .
Buchia had five young men behind him, but the caretaker was not intimidated in the slightest by their
presence. He stood there rooted, fiercely refusing to budge, and Buchia glared at him.
It was then that Fali spoke, in the tone of a courteous and wise mediator:
Please sir, do not mind me if I make a suggestion. .
The caretaker turned to look at him. Buchia stared at him suspiciously as well, almost certain now
that Fali had ignored his cautionary warning about not tippling. But he looked sober; and Buchia was
secretly glad for any help he could get in finding a way out of this impasse.

Sir, this gentleman the deceased is a respectable Christian, and we want him to have a proper
Christian burial. But he has no money, and no family to provide for his coffin. If you would only allow us,
my friends and I can knock together a coffin in no time. Some scraps of wood, a box of nails, a hammer. .
The caretaker looked incredulous as he heard Falis inventory of his requirements. Meanwhile,
Farokh whispered something urgently to Fali in Gujarati, and Fali replied in English,
Why, its only a box. We could easily
Now the caretaker interrupted, speaking harshly and contemptuously.
Dont want you buggers messing around my workshop. .I can see how respectable you-all are,
holding a funeral at two in the morning.
There were complications. . You must believe us. The deceased is a sad, unfortunate person who
has already suffered a great deal. . Let us not make things more unpleasant for him said Fali.
But Buchia cut him short. Presumably tired and exasperated, he had decided it was time to take
matters in hand and adopt the one tactic he found most effective in such situations: that is, to show rage.
Or perhaps he did genuinely take offence:
Whore you calling buggers, eh? suddenly raising his voice, he shrieked. You bloody pimp! You
swollen-headed greedy pig of a Gomes! Youve been leading me on from yesterday. Haggling, haggling. .
Every chance you get you want to squeeze out some more. Youre taking advantage of our difficulty. Even
now at the last minute I know what Ill do. Give me back my money. Give me back my money! Well
go find some other burial plot.
You can have your money back at the gate, said the caretaker. On your way out. First load the
corpse back into the van.
What! yelled Buchia, now really annoyed at being crossed. I want it now, you understand? Then
well put the corpse back in. Right now! Hand it over, shorty!
At the gate, I said. On your way out.
When I say now, I mean NOW! screamed Buchia, like a madman, and lunged murderously at the
caretaker.
Despite the brightness of the night, Buchia hadnt noticed that the man he was attacking was standing
in front of a freshly dug pit. The big-headed dwarf nimbly stepped aside at the very last moment, and
Buchia would surely have crashed into Joseph Kangas intended grave but for a reflex split-second
parrying on his part. Instead, he fell hard, sideways, against a stone; and while doing so, managed to grab
the caretakers arm and pull him down as well. The latter wasnt hurt, though. He quickly got back on his
feet and dusted himself, while louring at the man sprawled at his feet in pure disgust.
But Buchia must have been in intense pain, for he started weeping. Not very loudly, he tried to
suppress his sobs, yet he was loud enough for everyone to see that something had gone terribly wrong.
Be brave, sir, dont cry, Fali consoled him. At least you didnt fall into the grave. Then we would
have had to bury you here only. .with or without a coffin!
But Buchia was in no mood for jokes. He wouldnt even let the boys help him up. From the way he
held himself, and gradually manipulated himself on to his haunches, it seemed like he had broken a bone,
possibly his left collarbone. The pain must have been agonizing, but Buchia kept his presence of mind.
Putting his right hand in his pocket he pulled out a bunch of notes and gave them to Farokh.
Count out eight hundred rupees and give them to him. Lets finish what we came here to do.
Next morning, when the mourners started arriving for Josephs funeral, and his body was missing, all
hell broke loose. Buchia, whose injury had not been attended to all night, was trembling, and delirious
with pain and fever. Many of the senior-most trustees including Aloo Pastakia, Tehmton Anklesaria, and
the Punchayets Chief Executive, Burzhin Hirjibehdin, had decided to attend the funeral as a mark of
respect and courtesy to Nariman Kanga. Coyaji was there, too.

Buchia was in no position to answer any questions. At night, he had stubbornly refused to seek
admittance to any hospital after the last shovel of earth was heaped on Josephs coffin, saying he wanted
to spend what remained of the night in his own quarters. But it had turned out to be the worst night of his
life; for he could neither sleep nor ward off the fanciful torments his wakeful brain fabricated in
anticipation of what the morning would bring. The pain must have been bad, too. Mercifully, during the
outbreak of all the commotion over the missing body, Farokh and Jungoo quietly bundled him off to the
Parsi General.
The redoubtable Nariman Kanga was completely distraught when he heard that his sons body was
missing but only for a few minutes. He recovered quickly and phoned his friend Ignatius Strickham,
now Commissioner of Police, who promised to immediately visit the Parsi General Hospital to crossexamine Buchia, and launch a probe into this devilish piece of trickery enacted no doubt by some
extremist splinter group of the orthodoxy.
In the condition he was in, for Buchia to see the red-faced Englishman towering over his hospital
bed firing questions at him must have put the fear of God in him, possibly precipitating his untimely end.
He didnt die of a broken collarbone, of course, but during that cold night when he had wrestled or
tried to wrestle a dwarf to the ground, he had apparently caught a severe chill, that swiftly progressed
into double pneumonia from which he never recovered.
On his deathbed, under the gimlet eye of Ignatius Strickham, Buchia confessed to kidnapping the
corpse of Joseph Kanga and revealed the place of his interment. Shortly after, he died. Nariman Kanga
dropped all charges against the miscreants who had kidnapped Josephs body. Nor did he desire that his
sons body be exhumed, or renew his efforts to arrange for him the Zoroastrian funeral he had so desired
while still alive. Instead, he decided to let him lie in the selfsame grave undisturbed, and built a modest
monument of flawless white marble in remembrance of his son at the site. It can still be seen at the
Sewree Christian cemetery, smeared with dust and bird droppings, with its slightly cryptic but finely
etched inscription still very legible:
Gentlest of souls,
Savant and scholar extraordinaire,
Who sought in death as in life to be
A morsel of tasteful
Charity.
Here lies Joseph Nariman (Maloney) Kanga (19021947)

Fourteen
For years, the forest on the hill had been my refuge.
Thick woods might more precisely describe the tangled profusion of fruit and flowering trees that
covered the hill. Thickest near the summit where the crude path that led to the rusty iron gate of a small
white fire temple was almost lost in tall grass and bramble; here grew casuarinas, banyans, date palms,
mango, pear and so many flowering bushes and trees whose names I do not know. On occasion, I would
spot a hare or a snake here; sometimes peahens, once, even a deer. In this strangely enchanting Eden, I felt
completely at home.
Then, one day I saw a forest nymph, lying cradled in the low branch of a tree. After that, everything
changed for me. .

Difficult to say when exactly my interest in the world began to wane. It didnt happen in an instant, or
a day.
Yet, if compelled to choose a moment, I would have to pinpoint the day Sepideh died. Remember
this, though: the entire strike, Faridas prolonged schooling, my brief intimacy with Buchia, my evening
with Rohinton at the Taj, the abduction and forced interment of Joseph Kanga, Indias independence, the
departure of the British, all these happened long after Seppy died and I cant remember feeling so
completely uninvolved in any of these events while they were happening, as I now feel from most public
affairs. Perhaps its just that Ive grown too old to care.
The British left India, Indians took over, but nothing really changed. When India achieved
Independence from its British rulers, if I remember rightly, Gandhi was in favour of disbanding the
Congress party. He wanted to abandon Western-style confrontational politics, and concentrate on
reaffirming basic values of self-help, service and upliftment of all; on rebuilding a community-based
consensus at the village level. But Gandhi fell to the bullets of a Hindu fundamentalist who believed he
had betrayed the nation. After him, many leaders rose to power who strove to create a nation out of
fragmented regional interests, but not one of them shared his vision. Nor did any of them care to pause and
look back, reassess where, along the high road of history, he or she may have taken a wrong turn.
As in the usual course of things, earthquakes, floods, droughts, riots, wars, exploitation of the
helpless, accidents, calamities of every sort continue to take their toll the meaningless, mindless
decimation of millions of human ants, or should I say, vermin? Im not talking merely about the misery of
the poor, or the disingenuousness of the powerful, but of that unstoppable merry-go-round of human
suffering, of the abominable lack of any higher meaning or significance to life, entirely at the mercy as it is
of random death. I have lived through almost sixty years of what was probably a historically significant
century, and sometimes I do wish I had taken better notes, paid greater heed to Temoos radio for the news
of the world it gave me. But I never cared to: the torrent of human suffering ran unabated, shutting out
every glimmer of hope.
Politicians failed to act, reneged on promises; betrayed the people who elected them to office.
Everywhere, everyone in public life, whoever he or she might be, is on the make, feathering a private
nest. And so it has continued for decades. The only change I can make out in this compulsive industry is
that incidents of fraudulence, cheating and theft of public money have accelerated both in frequency and
volume beyond the wildest dreams of even those who first concocted them; until the very concept of
probity in public life has become laughable.
Out here in my narrow microcosm of the Towers of Silence, too, so much has changed. For one thing,
the roll call of the dead has been relentless. I dont mean just the dead we attend to, but from among our
own.
Poor Bujji was the first to go. His son had found a job, his daughter a husband. Living alone, without
any visitors ever coming up to his flat, his body withered and dried like a twig. His front door had to be
forced in when he didnt appear for several days, and the smell from his flat became unmistakable. . A
man, once proud of his looks, slunk into himself, and faced death alone in an attic room.
Aimai, much older than he, died shortly after. . And within six months, after a very brief illness, my
friend Rustom, too. It was as if the bond between him and his mother was more essential than any of us
had realized. Surprisingly, Vera didnt take it so badly.
For a while, poor Temoo continued to potter about trying to help me in the kitchen. But the innocuous
lump in his stomach had grown into a sepulchral mound that nagged him to tears; until one day, it burst and
killed him of internal haemorrhaging. It was a bad blow for Farida, as I had always feared it would be.

But not as bad as the one that followed some three years later. Her childhood boyfriend, Khushro,
had found a decent, well-paying job and moved out. He promised Farida he would come back and marry
her once he had set up a home and saved some money. But he never did. The worst of it was that she
didnt know how to contact him, because he had changed jobs and moved on.
Like her spiritual sister, Vera, who has also remained single, Farida too may be headed for
spinsterhood. But Vera at least has her work at the law firm, which is prized highly. Faridas job is much
more low-profile, on the shop floor of a workshop which manufactures nuts and bolts in Parel. Her Uncle
Vispy helped her secure it. She enjoys travelling to work and back on a BEST bus everyday, but
complains that traffic in the city is growing at an alarming rate.
Hardly anyone is still around who took part in the strike thirty-five years ago. But many of the
advantages we wrested from our tussle with the trustees have resulted in positive change. Right now, for
instance, theres some replastering of my building going on. Whitewashing of all quarters every three or
four years is a regular feature now. Children of khandhias and nussesalars are given free education up to
high school, and easy loans or scholarships are available to those who show promise, or desire a
university education. A new community room has been set up near the Albless pavilion, where theres a
carom board, table tennis and a television set.
But even here, at the Towers of Silence, commercial exploitation of properties has begun. Four acres
of sylvan land were recently sold to a well-known Bombay builder for vast sums of money, and trees
have been cut. Construction of a deluxe block of apartments has commenced; it will be called Ahura
Apartments. Apparently, only bonafide Zoroastrians who can afford these exclusive flats, and who have
booked them early enough, will move in. I fear for the wild garden of my youth. The teeming city nibbles
at its edges. The turn of the wheel may well have become irreversible.
A few days before he died, Temoo begged forgiveness of me.
At the time I speak of, he was seventy-four, and rather obese. His fleshy brown skin hung loose,
patchy and discoloured; unhealthy eruptions covered his forehead and other parts of his body. A large
mole on his right cheek, which had been dry for some years, had begun to ooze. The protuberance in his
abdomen had become more pronounced. When he left his bed to walk to the toilet, he needed to support it
with his right hand; in his left, he gripped a stout walking stick.
What for? I asked him, puzzled, but immediately suspicious.
Ah, he groaned. You ask me for what. .? Tears started rolling down his cheeks, and his voice
choked in sniffles and sobs. I was not impressed. In the past, I had seen him produce tears at will.
Can you see my suffering? he asked. If I were able to, I would go to Framroze and throw myself at
his feet. . My Sepideh was taken from me so young. .it was punishment for my sins! Look at me now. .
And for a few minutes once again he was crying piteously. The notion crossed my mind that what he
was about to tell me was something along the lines of what my mother had declared after my first
encounters with Sepideh, that it was all a conspiracy hatched by Temoorus to have her seduce me.
Hatred was in my heart, Phiroze. . The desire to avenge Rudabeh had consumed me. . But I had no
idea that my daughter would fall so completely in love with you, or you with her. .I never thought that you
would marry her, and renounce the world. .
But thats what you asked of me. . That was the condition you made. .
Yes, yes, I know. .but I never thought you would actually agree. That your parents would permit you
to follow such a course.
They didnt have a choice. . Well, while it lasted we were very happy, Seppy and me. I certainly
dont think you need to ask my forgiveness. Im sure she doesnt either.
But it didnt last very long. . Thats my point. My intention was evil. .to harm Framroze. . Instead, it
was I who was punished, and my Sepideh taken from me so young. .I miss her so much, Phiroze. .I miss

her. .
Once again, the tears rolled, streaking his pitted brown cheeks with a film of gloss. I had not
understood yet what he was on about. I waited patiently for him to come to the point, but my mind had
wandered back to the days and weeks that followed Seppys sudden demise. .
I was devastated and, I have no doubt, Temoo was, too. But even more unbearable and frightening to
witness was the enormity of Faridas pain; my poor three-year-old cried inconsolably every night after
her mothers passing; and her tears wouldnt cease until they were snuffed out by sheer exhaustion, or
crushed under masses of accumulated sleep.
Initially, a panic-stricken concern for finding ways to distract the child from her overwhelming grief
bonded us: two adults, relatively inexperienced in the ways of parenting, we urgently sought means to
help her cope. But independently of our efforts, Farida displayed a gracious willingness to not dwell on
sorrow and, as if to compensate herself, grew exceedingly attached to her grandpa.
We needed each other, Temoo and II, more than he. I had to keep working, and was often away from
home for long hours, while he kept my daughter company. A smug awareness of this imbalance in our
respective compulsions gradually became evident. It took the form of a sublime indifference on his part
towards my own disquiet, which I had expressed on numerous occasions: that between us we might end
up spoiling the little princess at the centre of our lives if we indulged her every whim.
At this time, Temoo was still drinking. The rowdiness of his younger days, which Id heard
something about while Seppy was still around, would erupt, suddenly, late in the night and, within
moments, his outpourings of grief turn abusive. But, such imprecation and insult as were spewed out
during these nocturnal displays of rancour were not directed so much at me as at my father, who Temoo
claimed had robbed and ruined his family. Somewhat incoherently, his ranting ran on late into the night;
long after I had stopped listening, after I realized it was impossible to tell whether he was mourning his
recently deceased daughter, Sepideh, or her long-departed mother, Rudabeh, for whose tragic end Temoo
squarely placed the blame on Framrozes head.
During one such particularly rowdy and rage-filled spectacle one night, Farida woke up. Aghast at
seeing her usually kind and affectionate grandpa in the wild state he was in, she burst into tears. To his
credit, I should say, after that traumatic night, which must have been harrowing for Temoo, too, he gave up
drinking. Yet his tearful incoherence on this occasion brought back to mind those drunken tirades. I had
almost switched off listening when I realized he was saying something quite different.
Your father is a good man, Ill admit it. .a saintly man, in fact. He will outlive me, of course. I have
but a few days left. Thats why Im speaking to you. . His tone of voice, too, had dropped to a hoarse
whisper. Ask your father for the ruby earrings. . Ask him.
My face must have expressed total incomprehension. I had never heard Seppy mention any such
earrings before.
They were Rudabehs earrings, from her fathers time. Framroze kept them when she moved out of
his home. At first he said it was for safekeeping. . Later, he denied it. Completely. Denied having any
memory of them. He didnt give them back. . Its not fair, is it? Not fair at all. . Now at least, they should
come down to Farida. . Framroze may be a good man, I wont deny it, but how can he do such a thing?
I nodded agreement, but even now my face must have shown disinterest. I could not see myself
visiting Father one evening to ask for some chimerical earrings that had belonged to long dead Rudabeh.
But Temoo emphasized once more, with much seriousness and urgency:
They are real rubies. .large ones. .in a beautiful gold setting. . For a brief moment, I thought I saw
his dull eyes glint. Should be worth a lot of money. Lots and lots of it. . They must go to Farida now. .
Tell him that was my last wish, tell him thats what I said before I died.
In those days I often heard about Vispy, that he had been seen loitering around the Towers complex in

the evenings, but to what purpose or pleasure I had no clue. Then one night, I surprised him alone in the
cottage of a dead young woman whose body Dollamai had just washed and laid out in preparation for the
mornings funeral. The light in the room was off, but the glow of the oil lamp and the dying embers of the
afarghan revealing.
He was on the floor near the corpse, and the sheet covering the dead woman was in disarray. He
moved away very quickly and stood up when I opened the door and switched on the light.
Vispy! Whatre you doing here?
He looked sheepish. My heart sank. I had come to the funeral cottage only to retrieve a bottle of
sanctified bulls urine which Dollamai told me she had forgotten there by mistake.
Well, I was just passing through, you see. .I thought. .I was just. . His voice sounded thin and unsure
of itself. No, it isnt what youre thinking, Phiroze. . he said, running his hand over imaginary beads of
sweat on his forehead.
What am I thinking?
My voice sounded rather more aggressive than I would have liked it to. I stared at him for one long
moment, then looked away. .but in the very next, I felt quite ashamed, for he went on to explain, sounding
perfectly sincere.
You see, I knew this lady. .I had met her several times. . Ask Vera if you dont believe me; it was
she who introduced us. . If Shernawaz had lived, I had planned to propose to her. To marry her. .
Im very sorry to hear that, Vispy. .Im so sorry. . Then youll be at the funeral tomorrow?
Yes, of course, yes, Vispy said. Ill see you tomorrow.
And he left quickly, looking very relieved. Obviously, that wasnt sufficient reason to doubt what he
was telling me. Yet the gratitude he felt in that moment for letting him off the hook? made me
wonder. Could prolonged sexual deprivation drive a man to such extremes? Again, I was ashamed to be
thinking such thoughts about my own brother.
A few months later, when Father died, Vispy did me a return favour. Involuntarily, my mind once
again connected it with the night on which I had surprised him in the funeral cottage. Perhaps it is entirely
twisted of me to think of it that way. But this favour, if I can call it that, bestowed on Farida, gave her a
significant advantage.
Father was eighty-six when he died, still in good health, and able to manage his personal needs and
chores without assistance. Though he remained, as it were, titular head priest of the Soonamai
Ichchaporia Agiari, a few years before he died, I believe, a couple of relatively junior priests had
significantly relieved him of his administrative duties there.
As a child, I had been very close to Father. Later the rift between us widened, and for a while I felt
we had become adversaries. In spite of that, his death came as a great emotional shock to me. Initially,
when Vispy informed me of his passing, over the telephone, it was as if, despite his advanced age, I could
feel only disbelief. As though in the deepest recesses of my mind, I had wished him to live, and actually
believed he would, forever.
It was after midnight when Vispy called. The watchman summoned me to Buchias office, now
occupied by his successor, a slightly younger man called Rutnagar, to take the call. In the meantime,
though, Vispy had already been speaking to Rutnagar, notifying him about Framrozes death, and arranging
for the hearse to be sent early in the morning. The funeral was planned for 4 p.m., the next afternoon, and
Vispy told me when I took the phone, that he had already telephoned the offices of Jam-eJamshed and
Bombay Samachar just in time for the announcement to appear in the mornings newspapers.
You will officiate as nussesalar at Papas funeral, wont you? he asked me on the phone, rather
persuasively. I hesitated for a moment, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps Father had left
written instructions asking for any other nussesalar to observe the rites except his apostate son; and Vispy

was deliberately concealing this stricture from me out of the kindness of his heart.
Do you think it is what he would have wanted?
Of course, of course, said Vispy, no question about it. That goes without saying.
I listened silently for any hint of unease beneath his ardour; then, after a moment, said:
In that case, Id be happy to. .
Most of that night, for some reason, I couldnt sleep a wink. My mind remained awake, disturbingly
animated by memories of my father, my mother and my childhood with Vispy.
At 6.30 a.m., when it was time to leave for the fire temple, I regretfully got out of bed, and then woke
up Farida from a deep slumber, whispering to her that she should try to take the afternoon off from work,
so as to be able to come home by 4 p.m. if she didnt want to miss her grandfathers funeral.
Everything went according to schedule. There was a huge turnout of mourners for my father wellto-do admirers of his seniority and moral authority, a couple of priests from the temple, some Punchayet
trustees as well, but by and large, and in very significant numbers, the simple folk who visited his fire
temple every morning. They filled the funeral cottage and pavilion to overflowing. Myself, I remained
slightly numb and dispassionate through the day. My poor sleep during the previous night must have added
to my sense of disorientation.
Only after I had lent a shoulder to three colleagues and carried Framroze up the hill, depositing him
on the topmost step of one of the Towers; only after I had turned my back on him, and whipped the sheet
off his naked corpulent body, clapping my hands loudly three times which was the signal to let
mourners gathered in the small temple garden know that the consecrated body of my father had been
offered to the vultures to devour, that they should commence their prayers for the effortless transmission
of his soul; only after all that was over and done with, and the mourners had left, and a deep silence had
descended once again on the Towers, only then did the floodgates of my grief open, and I cried bitterly for
my father whom I would never see again.
That night, I had a strange dream that remains as vivid today as it was on the night I dreamt it, so
many years ago. You see, my father died in 1966. And the remarkable thing about this dream lies in its
significantly prophetic nature. For in those days, vultures were still very much around. With preternatural
instinct, these common Indian scavengers would populate every branch of every tree in the Towers of
Silence complex until their greedy, motionless, black-brown-white presence loomed everywhere, stark
and brooding just about thirty minutes before the scheduled hour of a funeral. When I had that dream,
no one in their wildest fancy could have guessed that vultures in India were on their way to extinction.
In the dream, I was walking through some kind of narrow sluice or gutter. There wasnt much water
here, only a kind of viscous, transparent fluid, and a great many dead bodies decomposed, half-eaten,
some only bone with shreds of torn flesh sticking to them. .I was wading through this ghoulish tumult of
the dead searching frantically for something or someone: my dead wife, or at least for her gold bangles,
which I was convinced in my dream I had forgotten to slip off her arms when I had carried her up to the
Towers so many years ago. Now that I suddenly recalled this oversight, I got into a state of panic; yet, I
was hopeful of still being able to find the bangles. No, I couldnt: instead it was Seppys corpse I found,
remarkably well-preserved amidst all the horrific rotting and decomposition! I noticed at once that her
arms were thin and bare. The gold bangles my mother had given her at our wedding were nowhere to be
seen. Then Seppy opened her eyes and smiled at me, warmly. I became aware I couldnt help notice
that the whole area around us was illumined by a strange, unearthly glow emanating from her ears from
a pair of exquisite, gold earrings studded with brilliant rubies.
Dont be afraid, Seppy said to me, and repeated, dont be afraid. . We are all alive every single
one of us in one form or other. .yes. . We are still alive. .!
I found her statement most bewildering, for in my dream I was jostling through dead bodies, stepping
over them. But I felt immediately comforted, warm and happy. For a moment, I surfaced from this bizarre

dream closer to the periphery of wakefulness, and remembered in my stupefaction, that on at least two
occasions after Seppy died, I had pawned those bangles to pay for some school requirement of
Faridas and later redeemed them; finally, I had sold them outright to the same pawnbroker at Grant
Road. How silly of me to forget about it, and worry!
Having thus reassured myself as to what had become of my mothers bangles, I sank back into a
deeply refreshing sleep.

Endgame
It wasnt until the late 1980s that an amateur ornithologist in Bombay observed a steep decline in
the population of vultures.
He was immediately denounced by Zoroastrian orthodoxy as an agent provocateur set up by the
reformist faction to bring disrepute to an ancient system of corpse disposal that was immaculate in its
efficiency, hygienic and, moreover, ecologically sound. Vested interests were behind such propaganda,
they claimed, intent on fomenting dissatisfaction with the ancient system to replace it with such offensive
alternatives as stinky, polluting crematoria. These vested interests actually had their eyes on the vast
commercial potential of the valuable real estate of the Towers of Silence, which was held in trust for the
community by the Parsi Punchayet.
By the mid-nineties, the issue had become a talking point in the small community of Bombay Parsis,
especially as there was a visible reduction in flocks of vultures that congregated at the Towers whenever
there was a funeral. There was an incident as well, in which a middle-aged Parsi woman, who had
recently lost her own mother, entered the restricted space of one of the Towers and took photographs of
half-eaten corpses in an advanced state of decomposition. The photographs, published by a Parsi tabloid,
immediately caused a great furore.
They are fake, most Parsis claimed, shocked by the temerity of the woman. Its so easy in this day
and age of computers to execute such visual tricks, they said. We are not fooled. Besides, the rays of the
sun, above all, are powerful enough to destroy any residual corruption vultures or no vultures. The
trustees, moreover, had installed three powerful magnifying lenses high atop skyscrapers around the
Towers to catch the rays of the sun and aim them directly onto the steps of the Towers where bodies were
exposed to the birds. Khurshed Nagirashni, the heavenly spirit of solar fusion, will do her cleansing
work, they said, not to worry.
But on this point, I myself remain sceptical. With pollution and smog growing thicker by the day in
Bombay, besides four months of cloudy, monsoon skies, how can the suns purifying power actually
pulverize entire corpses, if there are no vultures left to aid it? Meanwhile, security has been heavily
beefed up at the Towers, especially around its restricted areas, to prevent a recurrence of any such
unauthorized intrusion. The culpable watchmen who allowed this outrage to take place have been duly
sacked.
What is the truth, you ask? I confess I dont myself know.
I am eighty years old now. My father, as I mentioned earlier, lived to eighty-six, hale and hearty until
the end. But I am crippled by severe arthritis; and very painful, if intermittent, sciatica. I fear that my
youthful excesses with alcohol they continued until fairly recently, to be honest are taking their toll.
Its months since I walked up to the Towers. I am hardly able to leave my quarters now. Once again, the
trustees have been kind, and they continue to let me reside here in semi-retirement. I suppose they realize,
too or Rutnagar may have been consulted on the matter I wont be around for much longer anyway.
This may be my last entry. My commitment to keeping these notes is wearing thin. Even clutching a
ballpoint pen and scribbling have become rather painful activities, you see. My sense of the chronology of
events, too, has become rather muddled: I often find myself confused as to the correct sequence of

historical events. I suppose it just doesnt matter enough to me which came first: the chicken or the
egg!
For years, demographers have been giving warning of the dwindling numbers among Parsis. All that
sound and fury, and contentious dialectic on the issue with the usual stridency of disagreement between
reformist and orthodox camps about whether or not to permit conversion of non-Parsis into the
community has remained unresolved. Its a sad irony, I suppose, though pretty amusing as well: vultures
have become extinct, even before Parsis could. A core element of our communal identity, a distinguishing
feature of our ancient creed is lost. Three thousand years or more of a preciously revered tradition is at
end because of a certain drug much used in veterinary compounds, which causes kidney failure in vultures
that consume animal carcasses packed with it.
My quarters are just too far from the Towers for any stench of half-eaten rotting corpses to waft my
way in the evening breeze. I cant go up there to verify the claims made by some of the more raucous
reformists. Perhaps I dont want to find out.
But before I finally give up on these notes, there is something very much more important I need to set
the record straight on: this account would remain incomplete if I didnt. All these years I have regretted
having no contact at all with Sepideh. A number of times in my notebooks I have remarked on the
persistent frustration of my desire to sense her presence, see signs of her surviving spirit, find reason to
believe she is somewhere out there, that I will communicate with her again, if not in life, then after my
own death. Well, just a few days after my father died, almost thirty years ago, something remarkable
happened that gave me reason for hope. In fact, though Im old and ill, and probably wont live long, it
has given a whole new perspective to my sense of being alive; filled me with child-like anticipation for
the near future. I dont fear death any more, even look forward to its claiming me soon.
But why, you may ask, if it was so significant did I wait thirty years to put it down on paper? I have
often asked myself the very question. .
It took me that long, I suppose, to come to grips with what flies so completely in the face of
rationality: to accept that there must be dimensions of being which coexist along with the one we yoke our
precious credos of reason and logic to.
Only a few days after my father died, Vispy was given notice by the temple authorities to vacate the
premises, and move Fathers personal effects out. A new head priest had been appointed, one Ervad
Dhanjishaa Colabawalla, who would be occupying the quarters soon, the letter said, once they were
cleansed and a certain purifying ceremony for new beginnings performed.
It was May, the height of a particularly hot summer. Vispy asked me if I would like to come and help
him decide what to retain of Papas things and what to dispose of. Luckily for him, he had recently found
an apartment, fairly close to his workplace in Parel, that he could rent. I hesitated, but somehow knew it
was important for me to go. This was in 1966, many years ago. I didnt feel so physically crippled then as
I do now, and I was glad for the chance to revisit the place I had grown up in, though I didnt expect to be
allowed to roam about freely. The main temple area, of course, was out of bounds for me, but as far as my
movements within the back quarters themselves went, no objections were raised. I didnt know why I had
come, but something drew me. Just memories, a desire to imbibe for one last time the air he had breathed,
the objects he had touched, the mustiness and fragrance of my long-vanished past?
Vispy had already packed his own things in a suitcase. There was almost nothing here that didnt
belong to the temple. Beds, a couple of simple wooden cupboards, a writing bureau. I looked through the
manuscripts in the cabinet of ancient liturgy that my father had prized so much, which he had inherited
from his predecessor Dastoorji Kookadaaroo. Strictly speaking, I suppose, I could have argued that these
were his personal property. But I had no use for them, and Colabawalla would find them more interesting,
probably. In the final analysis, I suppose they were temple property. Besides, how was I going to remove

a dozen bulky volumes from the premises without eyebrows being raised and questions asked?
Vispy offered me a folding pen-holder attached to an inkstand, which stood on the writing bureau. I
wiped the dust off its long plastic platform with my fingers, touching it gently, caressing it. In that moment
something happened. I became completely detached from my immediate surroundings. I could barely hear
Vispys voice; he was saying something to me.
Take it, Phiroze, please. You should have something that belonged to Papa. .
No, no, no. . You take it, I muttered, feeling suddenly dopey and faint, and very hot.
And once again, I was dazzled by the white heat of an inferno, a great blinding light. But this time,
unlike on that previous occasion so many years ago when I lost consciousness and sent a corpse toppling
off a bier, I felt only very hot, and completely withdrawn from my surroundings disorientated. At the
same time, though I was in a daze, my attention converged with single-mindedness on only one thing: the
brown rectangle of a wooden drawer. It was as if that mahogany object with its ornate handle was pulling
me to it.
As though in a trance, I gripped the brass handle and pulled the drawer smoothly out of the writing
bureau and laid it on the floor. Then, with an uncanny precognition, an abstracted sureness of focus, I
inserted my arm up to the elbow all the way into the back of the vacant cavity left by the drawer. I didnt
know what I was doing. There was something somnambulistic about my actions, as though I were acting
out a dream. Yet my thumb found a precise spot in the top left-hand corner of the rear of the cavity. I
pressed hard, and the false bottom of a secret compartment sprang open. I felt around, and found in it a
smooth, square box which, I suppose, was what I was looking for.
What? Whatre you doing there?
Vispy had been speaking to me all this while, but only now I heard him.
Whats in that box, Im asking you, he was almost yelling at me.
I opened it. There were two of them, side by side. The ruby earrings!
I hadnt seen them ever before. I didnt even completely believe Temoo when he told me about them.
As far back as I could remember, I had never seen my father releasing the hatch on this secret
compartment, nor had he ever shown me how to do it; so it was not some childhood memory that had
suddenly engulfed me. It was quite simply amazing! How did I discover the earrings, and find them with
such a weird ease, as though I was being guided by some unconscious or supernal knowledge?
They were Rudabehs earrings, I explained to Vispy, holding the box out for him to see. Temoorus
told me about them, but I didnt believe him. He wanted them to go to Farida.
Well, good thing, then, you found them. Just in time, he said reassuringly, before we moved out of
here for good. Imagine if we had left them behind in that desk; they would be lost forever. Can I look at
them again. .?
Theyre beautiful, he observed, taking the box from my hand. Should be worth a fair amount, I
would think. Of course, give them to Farida, please, they are hers. . By rights, they should go to Farida.
I slipped them into my trouser pocket, and with Vispy carrying his own suitcase, we left the
Soonamai Ichchaporia Agiari the small fire temple at the dead end of a by-lane off Forjett Hill Road,
where many believe that miracles, when earnestly prayed for, are realized.
I hadnt prayed for any miracle. I hadnt prayed at all in ages. Dont get me wrong. I know from all
those years I spent in childhood with my father that faith is a peculiar pool.
The longer the human soul swims in that pool of faith, soaking in the effulgence of its own dreams
and longings, the more its need for rationality recedes, its very preoccupation with reality. Excuses are
made for every frustration or impediment that doesnt quite merge into the perfect blueprint of miraculous
resolution already etched into ones hopes and prayers: thus, theres never any scope for disappointment.
The person becomes blind to everything but the bewitchment of his own beliefs.

I was well aware of this, and wary of it too. But in this, my own case, I hadnt been expecting
anything. I didnt even fully believe in the earrings, as a matter of fact; that they werent merely a figment
of Temoos grouse-laden past. Yet, when I found them, it was not by chance or through diligent searching.
It was not I who unearthed them but a force outside of me that momentarily transfigured my consciousness
and guided me to them. Can you blame me for seeing it like that?
The quickening of my senses which seized me in those few minutes when I was possessed by a spirit
of foreknowledge, while Vispy puzzled over what I was up to; when combined with the indelible memory
of the dream I had soon after Father died, in which Seppy assured me that the dead were not dead at all,
but still alive, make me feverish with excitement.
Or do you think old age is catching up with me after all? That I have merely succumbed to the
bewitchment of my dreams? I dont care what you believe. I know she is still out there waiting for me.
That I will meet her again. .

Authors Note
In 1991, I was commissioned to write a proposal for a Channel 4 documentary on corpse bearers in
the Parsi community of Bombay. The film was never made, but one story I heard in the course of my
research on this small, segregated caste stayed with me.
It was about a middle-class Parsi dock worker of the last century, who married a khandhias
daughter. He was in love with her, and gave up his job and his former social life to begin work as a
corpse bearer. He took this step on the insistence of the girls father who had his own reasons for exacting
vendetta on the dock workers family.
The person who told me this story, Aspi Cooper, was son to this improbable marriage. Improbable,
because no one in his right mind would voluntarily accept the vicious stigmas that attached to the
profession of corpse bearer in those days (albeit less pernicious possibly, than what untouchables of
mainstream Hindu society still face). Once a khandhia himself, Aspi found a way to ameliorate himself
from this condition of social backwardness; at the time I met him, he was a successful racecourse
bookmaker. The protagonist of the story, however, the former dock worker, was his late father, Mehli.
In 1942, while still a young man, Mehli Cooper organized and led an unprecedented and never-tobe-repeated strike of khandhias. He was promptly suspended and the strike fizzled out in a day or two.
When later reinstated, according to his son, he became entirely submissive and quiescent, thus eking out
the next forty-odd years of his life as a khandhia at the Towers of Silence.
Though I believe this story to be historical fact, there is no mention of the strike in the annals of the
Parsi Punchayet; nor could Aspi, who was very young at the time, provide me any details of it. Such
descriptions of the circumstances and course of the strike provided in the novel are purely fictional; as
also many of my descriptions of the topography and layout of the Towers of Silence, which to this day
remains out of bounds for all except Zoroastrians.
Landing on the west coast of India in the eighth century CE, after fleeing from successive Muslim
invasions of their homeland, Persia, the Parsis of Bombay later prospered under the colonial rule of the
British. Until recently, they had successfully preserved most of their religious traditions and customs. In
recent years, however the community itself and its miniscule population have been on the decline.
As a mark of my respect for a man I never met, I would wish this novel to be an offering to the
memory of Mehli Cooper. I also want to thank my late fathers dear friend, Mr Adi Doctor, for giving me
his valuable time and scholarly explanation of the traditional Zoroastrian system for disposing of the
dead. For such doctrinal inaccuracies or misrepresentations as may have crept in the reader should
remember this is essentially a novel, a work of fiction I alone am responsible.
Cyrus Mistry

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