Narcopolis

The driver had a cricket match going on the radio, India vs Pakistan turned up loud. On the way to Rashid’s, for an hour and a half in the lunchtime traffic, I listened to the old Hindu — Muslim sibling anxieties recycled in the guise of expert commentary. I got off at the junction of Shuklaji Street and Arab Gully and caught a quick savour of change. New blocks loomed at the Bombay Central end of the street, short glass-and-steel buildings that seemed to have come up overnight. The brothels and drug dens were gone. In their place were hundreds of tiny cubicles or storefronts, each indistinguishable from the next. The street itself was as cramped and ramshackle as ever, but there was a McDonald’s on the corner and a mini mall and supermarkets, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of the neighbourhood followed. I walked around the street for many dazed minutes. Then I realized I was standing in front of it. The entryway had been bricked up. You had to go around the side and there it was, Rashid’s old khana, now become an office space. There were plywood partitions and desks under tube lighting and young men and women sat at terminals and spoke into headsets. A television in the corner was tuned to a news channel and a boy in a blue uniform went around with tea. The old washing area, with its tin barrels and open drain, had been converted into a kitchenette with two tiny sinks and a miniature fridge. A man sat in a cubicle to the left where the balcony had been. It was the only private space in the room and his was the only desk with a computer and printer. He clicked off his screen and stood up.

‘You are?’

‘Looking for Rashid, he used to own this place. Do you know where I can find him?’

‘Not here. You can leave your number on that pad and I’ll ask him to call you.’

A small group gathered around us.

‘Look, can you tell him an old friend is here to see him? I won’t take much of his time.’

‘You have to give me your name, old friend, some information, otherwise he won’t see you.’

‘Tell him I was a regular here in the old days and I’ve come a long way to pay my respects.’

I saw something flicker, an involuntary something triggered by a word I’d said or a cadence. He motioned to a chair but I stayed where I was. The others dispersed and Jamal and I stood facing each other like cowboys in a chapatti western. He drew first. Yes, I’m Jamal, he said, and his hand was slack and gripless. I asked if his father still lived upstairs. He hesitated. Then he said: My father is no longer in the drug business. Are you sure you want to see him?

*

The office workers did several things at once, their accents full of the new intonations of cable TV and recognizable anywhere in the world, America via Friends and Seinfeld. Two women sat at adjoining desks and discussed a client. She has a longassed name, four syllables, said one. What, said the other, like Gonsalves? No, said the first, four sill-a-bells, like O-Doh-her-tee, and I’m like, shorten it, bitch. The second woman said, Call her Doh. Yeah-ah, said the first, I know what to call her. They laughed and looked at me and stopped laughing. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror tacked to one of the walls. I carried a red leather bag with a change of clothes. I had keys to a borrowed room in the suburbs. I had a notebook and cellphone and money and I had no reason to be there. When Jamal returned, he’d exchanged his white business shirt for a kurta and skullcap. On his feet were jutis I’d never seen in Bombay, dark camel skin, the tips curled in a huge arc.

He said, ‘My father is busy, he isn’t meeting anyone.’

‘He’ll want to see me. I was a friend.’

‘You were a customer. He had many customers and they all thought they were his friends. It was business, but he wasn’t good at it.’

‘Jamal, you don’t like it, I know, but your father is my friend. Can I see him?’

‘Sit down and have tea. We’ll discuss, then we’ll see.’

*