Dahanu Road: A novel (6 page)

He picked up the whiskey bottle that he had placed on the ground. He unscrewed the cork and took a large gulp. He felt better when the whiskey went down his throat, as though a great river had entered him to give him strength.

Night would fall soon. Shapur Irani always thought of dusk as a beggar. It had no light, it had no darkness; it lived on the scraps that were fed to it by day and night.

He bent down and placed the whiskey bottle in the hole.

Prohibition was a curse from God, and the government was a pawn in God’s cruel joke. Perhaps God really cared about his liver, but Shapur Irani did not. This was the thirty-first bottle he had hidden in the ground. He knew exactly where each bottle was, under which tree. There were no markings on the trees, but the shape of their trunks was enough. Some were mere saplings, but the older trees were more or less the same height, and their trunks resembled human legs. They had swellings on them like knees, some puffy, some as smooth as a woman’s. He knew each tree in the way he would know a brother, and because he didn’t have a brother, he loved the trees even more. After all, he had watched them being born. He had watched them being planted by the local tribals, under his supervision, and he remained patient for years until some of them were finally old enough to give fruit.

Thirty-one bottles of whiskey during prohibition was an achievement. Shapur Irani had made contact with a man named Raghu who worked at the Royal Brewery in Bombay, which brewed special whiskey for the British officers. Raghu stole RB whiskey from the stockroom and sold it to Shapur Irani for a good price. He would also occasionally stay in Shapur Irani’s bungalow, take back as many chickoos as he wanted, and drink as much coconut water his bladder could hold.

Shapur Irani breathed in the cool air, which never failed to comfort him.

If only his father were alive. Vamog would be proud to see what Shapur Irani had become. He owned fifty acres of land, he was fit, he had the large forehead of an intelligent man, his
black eyes were small like a rodent’s so nothing escaped him, and he had the legs of a Persian wrestler.

Look, Father, Shapur Irani would have said. This is your land, all yours, and it does not matter where your shadow falls.

Vamog’s thick sideburns would have rushed to meet his beard in celebration, the creases on his forehead would have relaxed, and he would have walked every inch of the farm, praising Ahura Mazda for his benevolence, whispering to the chickoo buds the prophet’s teachings,
Manashni, Gavashni, Kunashni.

Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.

There was no doubt that Vamog was in safe hands now.

He had surely been one of Zarathushtra’s most loyal followers. Vamog spoke of Zarathushtra with such adoration and respect, it would not have surprised Shapur if his father had served the prophet himself 3,500 years ago.

“In the beginning, no one had faith in our prophet,” Vamog told his son. “Except for one man. He was Maidhyoi-mangha, the prophet’s cousin. For years, he was the only disciple.”

Then Vamog peeled an orange, slipped a juicy slice into his mouth. The tanginess of the orange always gave his eyes a delightful squint. Even though Shapur knew what was coming next, he cherished his father’s stories; each time, there was something new to be learned.

“One day Zarathushtra challenged the priests in the court of King Vishtaspa to a spiritual debate,” he said. “When he defeated them, those hyenas imprisoned him.”

He flung the orange peel over Shapur’s head. A moustache of sweat was forming over Shapur’s lips in anticipation.

“While Zarathushtra languished in prison, King Vishtaspa’s
beloved white horse was paralyzed. Our prophet declared that he could heal the horse. All Zarathushtra did was touch the horse like this” —Vamog placed his hand on his son’s shoulder—“and the horse was able to walk again. That was when King Vishtaspa embraced our prophet’s teachings and thus started the rise of Zoroastrianism.”

Vamog’s face went into an exaggerated squirm. He was trying to show his son that he was in deep thought.

“Can you tell me who the hero of this story is?” he asked.

“King Vishtaspa,” replied Shapur.

“No,” said Vamog. “The king, in my opinion, was not the hero. It was Maidhyoi-mangha. Only he was the true Zoroastrian.”

“Why is that?” asked Shapur.

“He did not need a miracle to believe.”

Banu could not wait to tell her husband. She could not sit, she could not stand. She was an excited melon ready to burst. The grandfather clock ticked away in front of her, but she knew that time had no meaning in Dahanu. In Dahanu, all that mattered was light. The sun was mighty and its position of utmost importance. Shapur Irani never owned a watch because he felt it was meaningless. Looking at the sun, he would be able to tell the time five minutes this way or that.

The grandfather clock chimed seven times and she knew he would be home soon. Banu did not like him wandering about the farm after sunset. There were too many snakes. Just a day ago, the workers had killed a huge cobra. They beat it to
death with sticks. It would be hard to spot a black cobra at night. That is why she always kept all the windows closed. They lived on the farm and a cobra could easily enter the bungalow through one of the windows. But the more she tried to shake off the thought, the more the cobras fanned their fangs before her eyes and danced like banished angels, once having the power to grant wishes and heal, now reduced to creatures that were hunted and burned.

She carried the lantern with her to the mirror and looked at herself. She was a pretty woman, she knew that. She was fair, her black hair was long and wavy, and according to her husband, whenever she looked at him with her brown eyes she made him feel as though he would be forever protected in their glow. He made fun of her smile all the time—he teased her that it was so mischievous, she must have been a nymph in a previous life.

The flame of the lantern shivered, shared her excitement. She wished the cracks in the chalky white walls would disappear. On some days after the cooking was done, after she had brushed her hair and taken her walk, she would stare at the cracks in the walls and cry. She would cry because she had been married to Shapur Irani for five years now and she had not given him a son. Not that he asked for a son, but she knew he wanted one badly. She was twenty-one now, old compared to the sixteen-year-old bride she had once been, and her husband was thirty-two. She was too scared to have a baby in the first year, but as time went on, she realized something was wrong. The fault had to be hers. Her husband was a hot-blooded Irani, and he once boasted that he was capable of producing a baby a day, so he was not the problem.

But all of that was in the past. A baby was about to come into this world, and she would tell him that tonight. Sometimes her husband would put his head on her stomach like a little child, and she could feel the air from his mouth and nostrils, a thin stream of love and assurance. If he did that tonight, she would tell him. Son or daughter, he would be overjoyed, and she would soon have someone in the house with her, someone to look after. She paced up and down the living room, unable to wait. “Chaalni, Shapur,” she said out loud. Come on. This was going to be the happiest day of his life.

As Shapur Irani walked, he crushed leaves under his feet. The chickoo trees always shed a carpet of leaves and there were days when he could barely see the soil. He noticed that his white trousers were soiled at the knees from his digging. Shapur Irani always wore white. He never owned anything other than white trousers and white half-sleeved shirts. Even though he could afford almost any clothing he wanted, he kept his attire simple in honour of his forefathers, not allowed bright colours by the Muslim rulers, who believed that the garments of a dull, unclean species had to reflect their stature.

The sun had set completely now, and he had to be careful not to trip over any thick roots. He did not want to disturb his trees. He was respectful of them; they needed rest just like everyone else. When he planted them, some when he was only sixteen, they gave him permission to breathe. Breath that had been stifled in Iran, breath that had barely returned since the day he lost his father.

If it had not been for an Iranian baker named Daryoush, who saw young Shapur walking the streets of Bombay shell-shocked from the loss of the only living soul he cared about, Shapur Irani would not have survived.

Triumph was sacred to Vamog. Triumph of good over evil.

That was what being a Zarathushti was about. “We are not fire worshippers as the Arabs think we are,” Vamog used to tell his son. “All natural light is symbolic of Ahura Mazda. That is why we consider fire holy. That is why we pay respect to the sun. These are just vehicles for us to reach Him.”

Vamog told his son that Ahura Mazda, Lord of Wisdom, had an arch-enemy.

Ahriman, the Dark One. The further a man moved away from good thoughts, words, and actions, the closer he went towards Ahriman, the more he was aiding Ahriman in his stinking evil designs. The Earth was Ahriman’s playground, where he threw pieces of temptation from the skies that the weak gobbled up in minutes, the consequences of which they would experience in the afterlife. “That is why Ahura Mazda has put the sun in the sky,” said Vamog. “A reminder for all to choose light instead of what Ahriman throws our way.”

But Vamog always made sure to tell his son that the outcome of the fight between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman was predetermined. Zarathushtra foretold a day when Ahriman would be vanquished forever. “But we have to
earn
that,” Vamog said, “by using our free will wisely.” And then came the part young Shapur relished, where his father became Ahriman and chased him around the house. As Shapur was cornered in the kitchen, Vamog raised his arms and bent his wrists, his fingers turning into Ahriman’s claws; he clutched
his son by the neck, trapping him in a deadly grip: “I will destroy you, Shapur.” Shapur pointed to the sun outside, to the light floating in through the low roof, and said to his father, “You are no match for the light of Ahura Mazda,” and Vamog fell to the floor, lay there choking, sputtering, panting.

After his father’s death, Shapur Irani would not have believed in light or goodness had it not been for Daryoush the baker. Daryoush was young Shapur’s saviour, his archangel, who had a nose like a beak and soft white hair like feathers, whose love for something as simple as bread allowed young Shapur to believe in something as simple as the chickoo.

Early each morning, Daryoush would inhale the scent of warm bread, and paint young Shapur’s nose with dough and call him by the name of that great Iranian clown, Khosrow Anushirvan. It was only after Daryoush’s death that Shapur Irani realized there was no clown called Anushirvan. There was a king by that name, and perhaps Daryoush’s beak-nose could point to the future in which young Shapur would grow into a king who walked on his land with strong strides as he was doing right now, as he was born to do.

The moment Banu saw the dirt on his white pants and the manner in which his shirt stuck to his sweaty chest, she knew what he had been up to. A few strands of his thick black hair were also out of place.