Dahanu Road: A novel (7 page)

“How many bottles are you going to hide?” she asked.

“I’m doing it for you, my darling,” he replied.

“I don’t drink, Shapur.”

“Sorry, I forgot. For some reason I keep thinking that you are a big drunkardess.”

He wiped his face on her shoulder, on the thick strap of her cream nightgown.

“Chee!” she said. “You dirty man.”

“Yes, yes, I am dirty. You want to see how dirty I am?”

“No.”

“Come on, let me show you.”

Then he growled like a tiger, and she knew what that meant. It was a game they played. He called it Tiger-tiger.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. She loved how muscular his arms were. The old wooden bed was covered by a mosquito net. Shapur Irani hated the mosquito net because he wanted to throw her on the bed, and he had done so once and the mosquito net had ripped, and she had shouted at him, and she was in no mood for any tiger after that.

“You and your mosquito net,” he said as he put her down.

“There’s nothing wrong with my mosquito net,” said Banu as she straightened her nightgown. “I don’t like being bitten.”

“But which tiger stops when he sees a mosquito net? It doesn’t make sense, Banu. You’re spoiling it all for me.”

“Just wait. Always in such a hurry, you men,” she said as opened one side of the mosquito net and let him in. “There, the tiger is in. You can start growling again.”

“I don’t feel like it now.”

“You’re such a child.”

“And what did you mean when you said, ‘you men’? How do you know what men are like? I thought you had only been with me.”

“I’ve been lost in the woods many times, my dear.”

And that was enough for him. He put his hand under her nightgown and climbed on top of her.

“Always in such a hurry,” she said.

The tiger did not last long. Banu wanted him to go on, to growl and growl, but he had failed her tonight. He lay next to her and was snoring loudly, on this bed that had been in her family for generations. After she got married, she insisted on bringing this bed to Dahanu. Shapur Irani was very uncomfortable with this. “How can we sleep on this bed when your grandmother has slept on it? Do you want me to think of Najamai when I undress you?” Banu insisted that she would not get sleep on any other bed. “But we are newly married. We are hardly going to sleep,” he said. The wink made no difference. The bed stayed. She had played cards on this bed with her mother, and she had heard stories from her grandmother Najamai. She always admired Najamai’s teeth. For an old lady she had most of her teeth, and Najamai insisted it was because she always tried to speak the truth. “The more you lie, the more your teeth fall out,” she used to say.

In the darkness, she snuggled close to her husband, tickled his forearm and listened to the crickets. He was built like a truck, this man, and his skin was reddened by the sun, and when he drank, his face became even redder and his neck looked like it was about to explode. She giggled to herself when she thought of his tomato face. He was eleven years older than her, and she liked that he was experienced. At times
she found his strength funny, especially the manner in which he shook her hand the first time they met, as though a colonel was shaking the hand of a soldier—firm, commanding, and awkward. She had laughed out loud and her mother shouted at her for that, but Shapur Irani was amused. He confessed later that he was surprised he was not angry. They met three times after that, always at her house, and her mother would eavesdrop from the other room. Banu had wanted to go for a walk with him alone, but her mother had refused. “It’s not what a respectable girl does,” she had said. All it took was four meetings and the date was decided, the prayers were said, rings exchanged, promises made, and then she was off to Dahanu. The chickoo farm was a big change from the city, and she missed the bazaars and the trams and the opera houses, but she loved this man, and he loved his farm. “In marriage there is always give and take,” Najamai had said. “We are the house-makers and they are the house-breakers.” She did not think of her husband as a breaker at all. He was good to her, and even though his snoring prevented her from sleeping, all she needed to do was punch him hard in the stomach and he would wake up momentarily and fall asleep a minute later. She had about five minutes before he started snoring again.

Banu boxed him and he woke up, as always, quite unperturbed. Then she whispered in his ear, “Put your head on my stomach.” He was too groggy to understand, so she shook him. “Wake up, Shapur.”

“Hah? What is it?”

“What kind of sad tiger are you?”

“I’m tired.”

“I have something to tell you.”

“Oh no,” he muttered.

“I’m not complaining about anything. I just want to talk. Put your head on my stomach.”

He groaned and got up from his sleep, then placed his head on her belly. She was naked and she could feel his breath on her skin. That air contained all her husband’s hopes and desires, his truth, his love, it contained everything. She remained silent for a while and stroked his hair so that he was comfortable but not asleep. She would write a letter to her mother tomorrow and tell her the news. There would be a lot of excitement in the house, particularly among her sisters. They were twins, only twelve, and she would write in her letter that they were about to become aunties. But before she could write to them, she had to tell her husband.

“Shapur, are you awake?” she asked.

“You know,” he mumbled, “I am not a real tiger. I am an idiot who is ruled by his wife.”

“That’s not true. You are a tiger. And the tiger is about to have a cub.”

“What?”

“Yes.”

“You mean …”

“Yes.”

She wanted to say more, but when she saw her husband’s reaction, how his small eyes became round as moons, and how he got up from the bed and hugged her hard, she knew what she had said was enough.

Nine months later, Shapur Irani’s excitement could still not be contained.

But he tried not to think of his unborn child as he stood under a mango tree and waited for Ejaz. He chose a tree that could not be seen from his bungalow because he did not want to disturb Banu. Ejaz was taking too long. Ejaz, the Pathan. Ejaz, the only man in Dahanu who was the same height as Shapur Irani. Ejaz, all of six feet five inches.

Shapur Irani was having tea at Dahanu station one day when he saw a man alight from the train. He could tell from the man’s loose black garb that he was a Muslim, a Pathan. This man towered above everyone, and Shapur Irani and Ejaz locked eyes like two beasts that recognized each other. Ejaz lowered his eyes first because he was the one without work. Perhaps he could tell from the manner in which Shapur Irani stood, tall and uncompromising, that he was a landowner, a man who commanded respect.

Ejaz walked straight up to Shapur Irani and said, “I am looking for work.”

It was a moment Shapur Irani would never forget: a Muslim was asking an Irani for work. But Shapur Irani knew that the Pathan was not from Iran. The men who beat his father were not the same as this man. Maybe that was why he felt no disdain for the Pathan.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“I live in Bombay,” said Ejaz. “But my father was from Peshawar.”

“Why are you in Dahanu?”

“I am on the run.”

Shapur Irani liked the man’s honesty. He did not ask what
Ejaz had done. Sometimes men of strength had to do things that went against their conscience.

“Ejaz, you will work for me,” he said.

That was eight months ago, and in a short time Ejaz had earned a reputation as the fiercest foreman in Dahanu. When he stared at the Warlis with his black eyes, the men went quiet. All he needed to do was stand over them to make them realize how undernourished and weak they were. He had a long black beard, which he was proud of, and in his first week as foreman, he made himself a weapon that terrified the Warlis—he took a wooden club and hammered nails at one end. He told Shapur Irani that he did not intend on using it on the Warlis. It was just to scare them.

Shapur Irani thought about this first meeting as he waited for Ejaz under the mango tree. He could scarcely wait for the mango season to arrive so he could sink his teeth into that juicy yellow. “The juice of the sun,” he would say to Banu. “This is sun juice you’re drinking.”

Ejaz finally came into sight, dragging a man along the ground. The man was crying and pleading, but Ejaz was a rhinoceros who dragged his victim through the soil. It was one of the farm workers, Vithal. About forty, a man in a white loincloth, with taut stomach muscles, good forearms, thin hair, thin legs, and a deep voice.

“Seth, I did not do anything,” said Vithal.

“Did anyone ask you to speak?” shouted Ejaz.

Ejaz led Vithal to the foot of the mango tree. Shapur Irani wiped the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

“It was him,” said Ejaz. “Vithal is the thief.”

“Are you sure?” asked Shapur Irani.

“I’m sure.” Ejaz stroked his beard as he said this, as though that was enough.

“Did you find the money in his hut?”

“No, I did not find any money. But don’t worry, seth. In a few moments, he will talk.”

Shapur Irani wished Ejaz had proof.

By now, three workers had gathered around the tree. Men of similar stature, their heads low, darting scared glances towards Vithal from time to time. They did not have the guts to say anything. Vithal did not look up at Shapur Irani. He lay on the ground face down and stared at the soil.

“Did you take the money?” asked Shapur Irani.

“No, seth,” said Vithal. “I did not steal.”

“Seth, his wife works on the farm,” said Ejaz. “Shall I call for her?”

“Yes,” said Shapur Irani.

It would buy time. He hoped that by then the man would confess, and Shapur Irani could go home. He wanted to place his feet in warm water and release all the tension; he longed to smell his wife’s hair, especially soon after she had washed it. Violence was not what he wanted on his land. As a landlord, he had never administered a single beating.

Ejaz barked orders at one of the men gathered there. He fled immediately, the power of Ejaz’s voice giving him fearful wings. In the meantime, Ejaz tied Vithal to the mango tree. Ejaz’s black figure was a complete contrast to the sun and blue sky. Shapur Irani wondered why, even when it was hot, Ejaz wore black.

Vithal kept pleading his innocence. He kept on begging to be released, saying that he did not know what Ejaz was talking
about, that the Pathan was a dishonest man, and the seth should not believe the Pathan, and ever since the Pathan came to the farm, the workers had been unhappy and he ill treated the workers and took their wives for his own pleasure.

But that was not Shapur Irani’s problem. Ejaz was a lusty man and, who knows, the Warli women might secretly enjoy being taken by a big Pathan. Shapur Irani employed Ejaz because the Warlis were beginning to rebel. They were staging rallies at the instigation of a communist party called the Red Flag and they needed to be taught a lesson. Fear needed to be instilled in them; they needed to be reminded who was king, and the Pathan did a great job of making them fearful. At least four landowners had enquired about the Pathan. They too wanted someone as ferocious as him to protect their land. But the Pathan was loyal to his employer because in his very first week, Shapur Irani had asked him an important question: “How many children do you have in Bombay?” “I have only one child,” answered the Pathan proudly. “A son.” And Shapur Irani had replied, “From now on, he is my son too.”

Within a few minutes, Vithal’s wife arrived at the scene. She was followed by most of the workers on the farm— about ten men and seven women. As soon as Vithal’s wife saw her husband tied to a tree, she ran to Shapur Irani and fell at his feet.

“Please don’t hurt him,” she said. “He hasn’t done anything.”

“I didn’t say he’s done anything,” replied Shapur Irani.

“Seth …” said the wife, and failed to add anything else.

“I haven’t seen you before,” said Shapur Irani. “When did you start work?”

“Just now,” she answered.

It was Ejaz’s job to employ men and women from time to time, if one worker fell sick or died.