Ten million people and counting; alleys teeming with people during the day but alone and dark at night; Bombay is an easy city to get lost in; an easy city to feel lonely in.
Whenever I am lonely and lost in Bombay, I always find solace in the sunset off the City’s coast. The brown water of the Arabian Sea gets ready to gorge down the pale polluted sun; the heat of the day settles down and light turns to twilight; I feel at peace.
It’s been over fifteen years since I met Razia. I met her at the center for our 12th grade exams. I studied at the Aryan Education Society (a school for upper caste Hindu boys). Razia was from Anjuman-E-Islam (literally the Islamic Society), a school in the inner-city.
The nineties in Bombay saw the height of communal discomfort between Hindus and Muslims. We razed to the ground one of their sacred mosques, in retaliation they planted suicide bombers on Bombay’s crowded streets, in retaliation we killed and raped their people on the streets, in their homes, their offices … you know how it goes. Bombay was about to be over-run politically by the right-wing nationalists calling themselves the Warriors of God – a group of Hindus, an Aryan Brotherhood of sorts, who believed they were the true purveyors of the Aryan race – who wanted Muslims to pledge their allegiance to the Indian motherland or else be prepared to be booted across the border into Pakistan – our little brothers of a lesser faith.
‘Sometimes these Muslims should know their place, India is a Hindu country and they can practice their religion as long as they accept this fact, else we should send them to rot in Pakistan’, my father, a proud Warrior of God, used to muse.
Under these circumstances, the chance for someone like me to get to know someone like Razia was very rare.
Eyes peering through a burqah, enquiring, yet kind, she asked, “Excuse me are you also studying for your French exam?”
I was taken aback; I well prepared for the exam and was just skimming through the textbook. But I needed to focus and wasn’t prepared to be disturbed, let alone by someone dressed like her.
‘Their womenfolk, all day in their burqahs, they stink,’ my father used to say. I could understand, Bombay was a very hot place and people wearing burqahs had to be stupid.
“Yes I am; did you want anything?”
“I am sorry. I forgot my books at home. Could I borrow your copy of “En Enchanges” book?”
“Umm… okay… but I need it back in five minutes”
She raised her veil, “Sure, really sorry again”. She didn’t stink. Her hair was short and her face fair unlike mine.
After five minutes, as promised, she handed back my book, “Thanks.”
“Why do you wear a burqah?” I don’t know why I asked that question, must have been the heat, must have been the exam or maybe it was how strikingly beautiful she was.
“Why? Do you like what you see?” she said with a hint of a twinkle in her eye and walked down the hallway.
‘Hmm; a Muslim and a flirt’, I thought.
Three hours later the exam ended, I was happy–I thought I had crammed enough to pass French and the summer holidays had begun–and was packing up my pencils, pens, erasers and my trusty blade with which I sharpened pencils when I saw Razia approaching me.
“Excuse me, could I ask you for a favor? I am a little worried as this is a Hindu neighborhood. Could you walk me home? It’s just a couple of blocks.”
‘Interesting excuse’ I thought to myself.
Meeting Razia had easily been the most interesting experience of my whole life. It awakened a yearning I didn’t want to get rid of. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip by. I decided to walk her through my neighborhood over the yonder to the inner-city ghetto – what Indians proudly refer to as Asia’s largest slum.
The awkward silence on the way back was a little uncomfortable, guess she felt it too.
She asked, “So do you get to walk Muslim girls often?”
“No, you are my first”, I replied; she smiled.
Another awkward silence ensued.
Not being able to bear the silence, I blurted, “So do you have a boyfriend?”
“Excuse me?”
“I asked if you have a boyfriend.”
“Not sure if that’s any of your business. But you boys are so predictable”, the twinkle again. ‘Time to go in for the kill’, I thought.
“Sorry if I seem too nosy, just trying to kill time, don’t worry I am not interested in you people”.
Growing up in the ‘socialist, secular Indian Republic’, in the eighties, meant watching television with family-friendly and sanitized programs and advertising. For example our national television used to urge Indian men to use contraception by propagandizing the concept of a happy family – that meant a mother, a father and two kids – without doubt the surest way to bliss – ‘Us Two, Our Two; a happy family’. My father used to joke, ‘I am sure when they advertise in the Muslim areas they use ‘Us five, our twenty-five; a poor and dirty family.’
“I used to have a boyfriend but don’t see him anymore. Father found out and prohibited me from seeing him again.”
It was getting dark, unusually so for a monsoon evening in Bombay, suddenly everything was quiet at once, we walked some more.
“Is your boyfriend Muslim?”
“Umm… yes he is. But I am pretty open-minded.”
Suddenly, we heard footsteps running towards us. A group of ten people with the Warriors of God saffron headbands approached us with medieval damascene swords in their hands,
“What is your name?” one of them asked me.
I was prepared for such an eventuality, “Robert Da Cunha.”
‘Pretend to be a Christian and you never have to worry if the attackers are Hindus or Muslims’, my father had warned me.
”Foreskin or no foreskin, guess that is the true test isn’t it? Drop your pants”, a rather fierce looking midget from the group said.
My religion does not expressly demand a circumcision and dropping my pants did not cause me much concern other than the obvious embarrassment of doing it in front of Razia.
“Sure”, I said. Seeing my confidence, the midget lost his; soon the group focused its attention on Razia.
I was ready, “She is my girlfriend and we are dressing up for a fancy dress ball at Mahim church; it’s the last day of festivities before the beginning of Lent.”
That seemed to do the trick. The midget peered close to her veil and smelled her, he seemed satisfied.
“Hmm… she doesn’t stink, can’t be a Muslim” the midget guffawed to his group. He stared at me once before turning back and running on to the next unsuspecting Muslim.
It was the Hindu Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers who pioneered suicide bombing on a mass scale in the twentieth century. They started by first killing off their ministers and politicians and then when India meddled in their affairs they responded by killing our then ex-prime minister.
‘But Muslims’ my father used to say, ‘…are not ideologically driven like the Tamil tigers, they become suicide bombers because their God promises them 72 virgins in heaven, I wonder if they ever run out of virgins up there.’
“Thank you so much for what you did back there.”
“Don’t worry about it”, I replied.
Moments passed, think I was getting more and more into Razia’s good books. She broke the silence, once again flirtatious, “As I was saying I am open-minded.”
“Yes Razia, but are you a virgin?”, I was feeling confident and was now tired of this game.
“What?”
“I said did you fuck your Muslim boyfriend? Are you a virgin?”
“Look here, I really appreciate you helping me out back there, but these questions are becoming awkward. I am safe now; think I can take care of myself from here. Thank you”
“It’s a simple question—are you or are you not a virgin?”
“Why do you even want to know?”
“’Cause I just remembered something my father said to me about Muslim virgins.”
“Thanks again for all your help. I see my neighborhood, bye.”
“I take that as a yes” I responded as I held her hand firm and turned into the alley adjacent to her ghetto before she could scream. “Look, my father is a policeman, please let me go.”
She deserved to know why. “My father was a smart man, but they killed him”, I said.
“Who did?”
“Why you people, of course, you remember the suicide bomber near the railway station last year? He did not kill just the mayor, my father was among the twenty bystanders killed”, I had tightened my grip on Razia’s wrist.
“But what did I ever do to you? Please let me go; please.”
“Nothing”, I pondered over what she said. She had done nothing to me, she was probably the nicest anyone had been to me in over a year, she had short hair, a fair face and she did not stink. But my father’s death had to be avenged; and Razia was a Muslim virgin.
“I am sorry Razia. I see no other way. All I want is peace and fewer Muslim virgins.”
I undid her dress and her innocence as she began screaming, I felt sorry for Razia, thinking what would have happened if I hadn’t had the French textbook or if she approached someone else for the book. But I didn’t feel any remorse; after all she was a Muslim.
Razia was beautiful naked but loud in her screams of agony or ecstasy. Her shrieks had long been drowned by the solitude of the dark alley and the cacophony of her ghetto behind us. Bombay is an easy city to get lost in; it is also an easy city to get away with murder.
As I was wiping the razor clean, the Warriors of God midget walked up to me and chortled, “Boy did I embarrass you by asking you to drop your pants; so guess you took care of this one all right?”
“Yes, she is useless in heaven now”, I had cut her throat clean – let all the blood into a gutter – very halal.
“Next time make up a better story – whoever heard of a Catholic going out in a burqah for a fancy dress ball and that too before Lent!”, it was the first time in a year that I laughed. As I walked back home to my orphanage, I heard the police sirens wail loudly. The sun set over Bombay—what a glorious sunset it was.