Mumbai Noir by Altaf Tyrewala Read Free Book Online Page B

countries being traced on the walls by white ants. He knew he should sleep, but he worried for Rahim each night. He’s got Abba’s genes, muttered Rahman to the floor. Thank god he’s goonga or he’d be cussing with every third breath. Where does all that impatience come from? Rahman had told Rahim he’d go with the pandus when they came knocking last month, but Rahim had insisted on being the martyr this time. The last time the cops had picked up Rahman; the welts they’d left on his legs had still not healed.
    The cops had been getting increasingly frantic over the last few years. Bomb blasts had begun to hit the city with the frequency of public holidays. Before the police could wrap their heads around a bomb that blew out of a tiffin carrier near the Gateway of India, another splattered limbs from a scooter near Dadar. Casualties were far too many and suspects far too few. It seemed that Versova, the land’s end, was inoculated from this virus. But then six months back a taxi blew up in Vile Parle. The wheel that sprang free from the blasted cab rolled past many police thaanas and teetered to a halt near Versova Koliwada, the fishing village, where the RDX landings were suspected to have occurred. It was only logical, the media had insisted, because after the ’80s when Versova used to be a smuggler’s favorite place to weigh anchor, it had fallen off the radar, and the state’s watchful eyes had since turned to places as far off as Panvel and Mumbra, red spots on the map of the 1993 terror attack trail.
    Why would these fishermen fill their catch with bombmasala? thought Rahman, upset at the state’s insinuations. And even if they had, what did a poor migrant auto-rickshaw-walla have to do with it?
    Last night Rahman had been quiet. Rahim had poked him in the ribs to squeeze a sound out of him. The jab was futile. Rahman had finally been convinced that being picked up by the pandus five times now in less than a year was God’s way of telling them that He did not approve of their deceit. On the contrary , gestured Rahim, amused, look at it this way—if I got locked up, you would be free forever, because you would not officially exist . Rahim had gurgled with the exertion of his gesticulated explanation. But Rahman had felt his heart sink even further.
    * * *
    Rahman had never been too keen on Rahim’s “plan.” Rahim had applied for a single auto-rickshaw license. They’d found themselves a little kholi out here in Khoja Gully, in the heel of the fishing village, so far from even the skeletons of the decayed boats that on most months their landlady forgot she owned this little shack that she had to come collect the rent for. No one here knew there were two of them. They emerged one at a time. Rahim drove the rickshaw by night. And Rahman—as Rahim—drove it by day. The owner who rented his auto to Rahim had never in his thirty-year rickshaw career seen one man drive an auto both shifts, seven days a week. He was initially skeptical, worried Rahim might belly-up his three-wheeler if he fell asleep at the handlebar. But over time Rahim had convinced him of his “inasmonia,” explaining to him in a badly spelled brief essay scribbled on the behind of a restuarant menu that he never got sleep, so he’d rather make a living all the time.
    This wild lie had one downside. Rahman too had to be mute to the world outside. Which meant he could only talk to Rahim. Who could only talk back in gestures.
    Rahman was starting to forget what a real conversation felt like.
    Rahim slept soundly by day. Rahman tried to sleep at night, but the weight of this falsehood pressed down so hard on his heart that it kept his eyes sprung open, till the threat of dawn would inject some urgent fatigue into them and they would grudgingly close for a couple of hours each morning. This made Rahman tired. Of this life. Of being alone in what he felt. Of this strangely imposed burden of muteness. Of this unforgiving city. And the