Excerpt: The Children of Dadar Bridge

Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto bring together their favourite short stories about the city they call home, creating a rich, varied, vibrant portrait of the republic that goes by many names—Bombay, Mumbai, Momoi, Bambai and many others.

Maya Nagari is a majestic book about a majestic city.

The following is excerpted from a short story by the same name, written by Krishan Chander and translated from Hindustani by Jerry Pinto.

When God appeared in the dim room of the Koliwada Chawl where I was scanning my tattered banian for lice, I had been hungry for two days and was sick of my unfortunate life.

God said, ‘I want to see the children of your city.’

‘Get lost,’ I said. ‘I don’t have the time.’

God said, ‘What if I were to order you two slices of bread, a one-egg omelette and a single cup of tea at the Irani restaurant I see at the corner?’

‘Is that a promise or heavenly hot air?’

God took a tenner out of his pocket and waved it in front of my eyes. I sprang to my feet.

‘You should have said that first only,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Why waste time? Nothing in Bombay is free. Not even time.’

At the Irani restaurant, I said to the bearer: ‘Give the man what he wants but get me four slices of bread, a two-egg omelette and a double shot of tea, and be quick about it.’

God said combatively, ‘I said two slices, a one-egg omelette and a single cup of tea.’

I replied, ‘You were probably thinking of a restaurant in heaven when you made that offer. Things are different here. The

bread is sliced so fine, it’s transparent. If you put some butter on it, you could shave with a slice. And the eggs? The hens of Bombay lay eggs so small that a one-egg omelette can only be found with a magnifying glass. That single cup of tea? You’ll find tears that are bigger.’

God didn’t agree and so we began to argue. Ten minutes later we were still at it when the manager threatened to call the police. Suddenly God backed down and ordered a two-egg omelette, a double shot of tea and four slices of bread for me; for himself, an Aspro.

I said, ‘For nothing you’re making a fuss. If you had agreed first only, you wouldn’t have needed the Aspro.’

God looked embarrassed. ‘My friend, foreign exchange is such a problem these days. I was only given a hundred rupees to spend in Bombay. And I have no idea how long I will have to stay. So I have to keep a watch on every paisa.’

‘Forget you,’ I said angrily. ‘You think you have a problem with foreign exchange? Problems are what the poor have. The pettiest of businessmen who has his own workshop can manage foreign exchange. You run the workshop of the world, how can you have any problem?’

‘You don’t understand,’ God tried to explain. ‘God has to follow the rules or how will the world work?’

‘Why won’t it?’

‘Well, what if I were to suspend the laws of nature and make that bread as hard as stone?’

‘Bombay’s bread is harder,’ I replied.

‘Okay, what if I were to make the tea poison for you?’

‘In Bombay, I drink tea every day with a good dollop of poison in it.’

‘Okay, then, what if I were to slow light down so that the rays of the sun approached the earth at three miles per hour? Wouldn’t you die?’

That shut me up. It was an excellent example. I bowed my

head and got on with the task of locating the omelette on my plate.

*

A little while later, we reached Dadar Bridge. Under the bridge, there was an Om Temple in which sadhus were crushing bhang. On one side, mangy dogs were sleeping by the edge of the steel jungle of the railways. On the other side, there were piles of fodder. On the third, the steps to the bridge where, wrapped in tatters, beggars were seeking alms. In other words, there were beautiful scenes to behold in all four directions.

God said with a sniff, ‘Where have you brought me?’

‘To meet children?’

‘But where are they?’

I said, ‘Before we meet them, wouldn’t it be better if we became as little children for a while? You could do it in a trice and you wouldn’t need foreign exchange.’

In the next second, we were children, both in ragged shorts and dirty banians. I had a basket of guavas; God had a big wooden tray filled with colourful picture books for children. We hurried to the top of the bridge and placed our goods by the steel jungle.

‘Hey, what are you two up to?’ an old woman shouted. ‘Move those baskets.’

The woman was an ancient ugly crone with a terrifying rasp for a voice. She too was selling guavas.

I said, ‘This is a government bridge. Anyone can trade here. So why not me? This is not your pop’s property.’

Right next to the hag was an eight-year-old boy with a basket of bananas. He glared at me and growled, ‘You moving that or should I?’

I took his measure before replying. He seemed my inferior in age, in height and in strength. So I challenged him: ‘I’m not moving. What’ll you do?’

He shot to his feet like a lightning bolt. In the next instant,

he kicked me in the stomach and landed a fist on my jaw and I was on the ground. God tried to intervene but he got a bloody nose for his pains.

‘Pick up that basket,’ the boy ordered.

I looked to God for help but he was busy stanching the blood flowing from his nose, so I picked up the basket and we quietly walked on. A few steps later, God said, ‘I could have taken him. One shot and he’d have been seeing stars. But that’s against my principles.’

‘I’m sure,’ I said, rubbing my back gingerly.

A little further, another boy was selling fountain pens on a small stool. He was calling, ‘Real Schaeffer pens, only four rupees.’

God was astonished. ‘You can’t buy a Schaeffer pen for seventy-five rupees. How can he afford to sell real Schaeffer pens for four rupees?’

‘Maybe his dad’s a billionaire?’ I said. ‘And he wants to do some good in this world that God has made. Maybe we can sit near him?’

‘Move along, move along,’ the boy said when he saw me nearing. ‘Go find your own spot. Don’t ruin mine.’

I said: ‘I’m selling guavas; he’s selling books. No competition to you.’

The boy said bitterly: ‘You must be new to Dadar Bridge or you wouldn’t say that. You don’t know the ways of customers, I can see. They change their minds like that. They stop for a fountain pen and buy a guava instead. Get away with you. Go on, beat it…’

He was bigger and stronger so we beat it.

God said angrily: ‘You thought I couldn’t take him because he was bigger? I could have finished him but that would have been against my principles.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ I said.

Now we were at the end of the bridge. No one would let us sit next to them. At the end there was a boy, no, not

a boy, a young man of about twenty or twenty-two, who had an old umbrella to which he had attached a series of brightly coloured handkerchiefs. When he twirled the umbrella, a rainbow unfurled before our eyes.

‘Can we set up shop here?’ I asked the youth.

‘Why not?’ the youth said. ‘Take out four annas each.’

God took out an eight-anna coin and handed it over promptly. We sat down next to him and began hawking our wares. An hour passed.

I sold six guavas but God couldn’t sell a single book.

God was despondent. ‘I brought these books with such excitement. Don’t the children of Bombay read?’

‘Of course, they do,’ the youth said in a confident tone. ‘I’m a BA Pass myself.’

‘A BA Pass and you’re selling hankies?’ God asked in surprise.

The youth laughed again. He called to his companion. ‘Hey, Victor, come here.’

Victor was peddling smuggled watches. He came over. The hankie seller introduced us: ‘This is Victor, FA Pass.’

Then he introduced the others: ‘This is Sharif, Entrance Pass. That’s Ghome, eighth standard pass. Phiroze—he’s studying in the fifth standard. This is Gorkha—he’s studying in the fifth standard too and sells blouses…’

‘But…’ God looked at all of them, amazed. ‘When do you go to class?’

‘We’ve never been,’ they laughed as they replied.

‘Then how can you say you’re FA or Entrance Pass?’

‘If I had been to school, I would have been a BA pass by now; and Sharif would have passed his entrance. If Gorkha had been to school, he’d not be selling blouses but studying in the fifth standard.’

Seeing a crowd gathering around us, a police constable came up.

‘What’s all this?’ he asked, waving his little stick in the air.

‘Nothing, Hawaldar Sahib,’ said Victor, peeling back dark lips to show a splendid set of white teeth. ‘Two new recruits to the Bridge of Business.’

The Constable said: ‘That’s against the law.’

‘Take out two rupees,’ Victor whispered to us. ‘Then you can sell on the Bridge for a month.’

‘What if we don’t?’ God asked.

‘Then it will be against the law,’ Victor said.

‘Hmm,’ said God and stood a while in thought. Then he took out two rupees and gave them to Victor. Victor took the Constable aside.

In a little while, the Constable departed. The boys went back to their spots and their sales. Another hour-and-a-half went by but God did not sell a single book. People bought guavas, they bought hankies, they bought fountain pens, they bought socks, they bought blouses but no one bought a children’s book.

‘This is really odd,’ God said, disappointed. ‘I thought parents would buy these lovely books for their children but…’

‘When they don’t have money to buy school books, how are they going to buy story books?’ I asked God.

God was about to answer when from the foot of the stairs, there was an uproar. I saw a tall robust man begin to climb the stairs. He had a talisman tied around his throat with a black thread, tight trousers and an orange striped t-shirt. He took the stairs slowly, regally. All the beggars rose to their feet and bowed to him. People began to murmur and mumble and when he got to the top, the hankie seller flashed all thirty-two and snapped off a crisp salute. Only the two of us remained seated near our goods. He shot me a sharp look. He placed the tip of his shoe on God’s tray and then kicked it. He turned to Victor. ‘What are these two kids doing here?’

Victor said, ‘Dada, they’ve just joined today. They’re new here. The constable has agreed too.’

Dada described the antecedents of the constable in words of great colour. ‘Tell them, four annas a day and they can sit here,’ he added.

‘But the Constable gave us permission,’ God said angrily. ‘If the police have given us permission, who are you to interfere?’

‘Who am I?’ Dada began to roll up his sleeves. ‘Who am I? You want to know who I am,’ he repeated. Then he picked up God’s tray and threw it off the bridge. The beautiful books spread bird wings as they fluttered down on to the tracks. My basket of guavas followed in short order. Then the Kalyan Local, shrieking as it passed, crushed the books. As soon as it was gone, a swarm of boys erupted as if out of nowhere and fell upon the guavas.

No one so much as looked at the mangled books.

There were tears in God’s eyes. Victor said softly, ‘The Bridge is Dada’s territory. He is its master. No one can sit on it without his say-so. Ask forgiveness. Pay your four annas every day. Or he’ll make your life miserable.’

‘Why should I pay? I won’t pay!’ God said in a determined voice. ‘I will never pay. And I will sit here and sell.’

Dada ground his teeth and grabbed God by the throat. He whipped out a long knife with a mother-of-pearl handle. I buried my teeth in Dada’s calf. He spun round, losing hold of God, and both of us made a run for it. Dada gave chase for a long time but we managed to make it into Ranjit Studios. Now this was someone else’s territory so he had to turn back, cursing and threatening, as he went.

For the next half hour, we went to ground in the art department, behind the image of a three-headed Brahma. It was only when silence fell and we had caught our breaths and regained some measure of courage that we began to edge our way out of hiding. It was lunch time and the workers were in the canteen, hence the silence.

God looked at Brahmaji’s image and said: ‘This three-headed image is of Brahmaji, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will it ever be worshipped?’

‘No sir. In a film studio, only Mammon is worshipped. This

is a plaster cast of Brahmaji. It will be placed on a set and when its work is done it will be smashed and Ravana will be built of the same material.’

‘Hmm,’ God was smiling as if a thought had occurred to him.

‘What?’ I asked.

God said, ‘When I began the work of creation, Brahma came to me and asked me for three heads instead of the usual one. I was surprised and asked him, “What will you do with three heads, Brahmaji?” But he insisted. “Just give them to me. What do you have to lose?” So eventually I gave him the three heads. At the time, I could not understand his demands. But today when that man had me by the throat on the bridge, I thought perhaps it would be good to have four heads to work on Dadar Bridge. Now I think Brahmaji wasn’t wrong.’

‘Right or wrong, I don’t know. Who knows what big folk think? What I know is that it’s hard enough trying to keep even one head on your shoulders in this world, if you had three heads you would have three mouths to feed and where would you get that much food?’

Talking about food made me hungry.

‘You’re always hungry,’ God joked.

‘Don’t you ever feel hungry?’

‘No, never. Sometimes, I do get a headache,’ said God, and seemed a little sad.

‘When does it hurt?’

‘When a star begins to wander from its path, when a flower withers before its time, when a mother and her child are parted, my head starts to hurt.’

‘Does your head hurt or does your heart?’

‘My head. I have no heart. I did not give hearts to the devas either. Only man ended up with a heart, and only man can sin.’

I looked at God in some surprise but there was nothing on his face. No thought, no worry, only the innocence of a child. Suddenly it seemed to me as if the trunk of a statue of

Ganeshji lifted up and bowed in front of God. God was startled and looked down at me and smiled slowly, ‘Come, let’s satisfy your hunger.’

‘Impossible. Has man’s hunger ever been satisfied?’

In the canteen at Ranjit Studios, I first drank a Coca Cola. Then I ordered a daal fry, a chicken fry, biryani fry and kheermalai. God ordered an Aspro. He took it and as he drew out his wallet to pay the bill, the notes in it caused a glitter to light up the eyes of a dwarf film-actor.

This was Tiku, who was around forty years old. He acted as a boy or a child and excelled at comedy. These days he was not doing well. I could tell this from the way he was looking at the heaped plates in front of me. Other than this, if we met on Dadar Bridge and I had anything to spare, he would borrow a couple of annas.

Tiku’s face was hairless and innocent. He was at least a foot shorter than we were. Looking at God, Tiku smiled and then came to sit by him.

‘Just joined the film industry?’ Tiku asked God even as he watched me wipe my plate clean of chicken, his tongue flickering over his lips. Even as he spoke to God, he kept an eye on me.

God said, ‘I just got here today.’

‘Want to act in films?’

‘If I get a chance.’

‘Parents?’

‘I have none,’ said God, his head bowed in sorrow.

Tiku came a little closer. He put a hand on God’s shoulder and indicating me, said, ‘Is that your younger brother?’

‘No, he’s just a friend,’ said God.

Tiku looked at me with extremely suspicious eyes, as if he thought me a thief rather than a friend. I responded by looking at him with dislike. Tiku asked, ‘Does he also want to act in films?’

‘I don’t know. Ask him,’ said God.

‘Why bother?’ Tiku said, glaring his dislike of me. ‘His face says he will never become a film star in this life.’

‘What does my face say?’ God asked.

‘There is a unique innocence to your face. It is the kind of face that will humble the mightiest of child stars. Your face is destined to be a Face.’

‘And mine is destined to be a mug?’ I asked angrily. Tiku could not recognise me because I was inside the body of a child. Or I would have set Tiku to rights. However Tiku ignored me and turning to God again, he asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Bhagwan.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I do not know.’

‘You look to be my age. You might be around twelve.’

‘Are you twelve?’ God asked Tiku.

‘Next Christmas, I will be twelve,’ said Tiku in a somewhat subdued fashion.

Then he put a loving hand on God’s shoulder and said, ‘You must consider me your brother from this day forth. My name is Tiku. I have been working in the film industry for thirty…I mean three years. I’m counted among the best and brightest of the child stars but I can tell that I will never get to the position that is soon to be yours. There’s something in your eyes.’

‘What is it?’

Tiku ignored that and said, ‘If you do exactly as I tell you, I will make you the biggest child star in the country. Do you know how much Daisy Makrani is paid for a film?’

God asked, ‘How much?’

‘Thirty thousand rupees.’

‘Thirty thousand rupees! No, no, that’s impossible,’ said God, almost in a shout. ‘For a ten-year-old?’

‘And film star Somi? He’s just eight, only eight years old. Do you know how much he makes for a film?’

God shook his head, dazed.

‘Forty thousand.’

‘Forty thousand!’

Tiku said: ‘Fifteen years ago, I mean, five years ago, or rather five months ago, I got him his first role.’

‘Forty thousand,’ God was astonished. ‘And the allowance they gave me when I came down here was only a hundred rupees. I’ve never seen more than a hundred rupees in my life.’

‘Stick with me kid, and I’ll introduce you to the film directors,’ Tiku began to drag God away.

‘My God, where are you going?’ I asked in despair.

‘To become a film star,’ God replied instantaneously and his voice was filled with a vibrant excitement. ‘Stay here,’ he said when I made to follow him. ‘Sit in the canteen. I’ll go and become a film star and return.’

Grinding my teeth in a rage, I sat down. An hour later, he returned alone.

‘Where’s Tiku?’

‘He stayed back. I have to meet him near Hindmata Cinema in the evening.’

‘So tell me what happened. Who did he take you to meet?’

God was grinning from ear to ear.

‘In a few days I’m going to be a film star. I’m not going back to heaven. Next week, I begin work on my first film. They’ll pay me thirty thousand. I’ll roam around in a Cadillac, I’ll have an air-conditioned flat to live in. I’ll have all the things I don’t even have in heaven. And my name will appear in all the newspapers.’

‘But your name is famous already. Your name is taken everywhere.’

‘Not in the newspapers, it isn’t. Tell me, which newspaper mentions me? Yes, my name is mentioned regularly in temples, in mosques, in churches and gurudwaras. But do I get mentioned in newspapers, in hotels, in nightclubs? I get no mention in the interesting places. But now my picture will appear in Moviefare and it will be worshipped and I will get to work with Nirupa Roy. And you know what? Ashok Kumar and Pran are also in the film.’

God was almost dancing for joy.

‘You’re run mad,’ I said flatly. ‘Who will run the world if you become a film star?’

‘Let it go to Hell,’ God thundered. ‘Every time I so much as think about the world I get a headache.’

I drank another Coca Cola morosely and asked, ‘How was all this decided so quickly?’

‘My face, my innocent face did the trick,’ God explained. ‘Tiku is a prince among boys. Firsthe took me to an assistant director. The assistant director heard my tale of woe with sympathy and when he heard I was an orphan, he felt sorry for me. He asked, “Do you have two rupees?” He said, “Give it to me. Today, the director did not give me lunch money. I’ll return it to you tomorrow. There’s a great role in the next film. You shall be the child star in that. I’ll introduce you to the director.” So I gave him the two rupees.’

‘You gave him two rupees!’ I almost shouted.

‘Yes and he immediately took me to see the director. The director was busy taking a shot. But when the assistant director went and told him that an extremely beautiful child wanted to act in films, he came running up. He too heard my tragic tale and when he found I had no parents, he took pity on me and said, “Do you have ten rupees?” I said that I did. He said, “Give it to me. The producer did not give me a cheque today. If he gives it to me tomorrow, I will repay you. And I will work with you in my next film.” I gave him ten rupees and I am going to work in his next film. Then he took me to see the film producer. He was on a trunk call to Calcutta. But when he heard I had come to meet him, he came immediately. When he heard I had no parents, he was full of sympathy and asked, “Do you have twenty-five rupees in your pocket?” I said, “Yes.” He said “Give it to me. The distributor was supposed to come with my cheque today but he didn’t. When he comes tomorrow, I’ll pay you back and sign a contract for thirty thousand rupees with you.” So I gave him twenty-five rupees and I will be working with Nirupa Roy and Pran and Ashok Kumar.’

God’s voice was full of faith. There was a great light upon his face, a light of happiness.

I slapped my forehead. Then I asked, ‘Didn’t Tiku take anything from you?’

‘He took five rupees. He’s going to return it tomorrow. And he’s meeting me at Hindmata Talkies today. He’ll take me to meet a new film company. Tiku is a very nice boy.’

‘Tiku is not a boy,’ I said, my voice shaking with anger. ‘He is a forty-year-old dwarf who plays children’s parts. God promise, you are a fool.’

The light in God’s face dimmed a bit. His innocent face seemed so sweet then that I felt bad to have caused him hurt. I took his hand and said, ‘Never mind. Let bygones be bygones. Better get out of here or you’ll have no money left.’

At five pm, we were standing at Hindmata.

Two hours later, no Tiku.