Featuring a paanwallah, this novel uses satire to comment on religion, identity, and freedom

My name…Peter. About myself, I can tell you nothing. About others, everything. My job is to sit here with my eyes open and my mouth closed, and at the police station with my mouth open and eyes closed. Yes, I wanted to be a poet once. But it’s come to this. Because I play mute, people throw coins at me. Some bring me food, which goes straight into the manhole. This is no place for blind faith. This is no place to trust food thrown at beggars. Here, nothing is wasted. Food is thrown away when it turns stale. Even then, some squeeze virtue out of it. A saying is doing the rounds – “neki kar aur dariya mein daal [do good and throw it at sea]”. That must have risen somewhere else. Here, people throw garbage at sea and recover something good from it.

I receive advice from some well-meaning sorts, “Peter, go, sit outside the temple. Why are you wasting your time here? At least there you will get good food.”

I hear but don’t listen. If I had it in me to take good advice, I wouldn’t be a beggar. It would be so out of character. Then there are those who bloom as the world withers. They treat me with respect. They confer dignity.

“Ay Peter, want to sell some opium?”

“Ay Peter, that’s our place, right around the corner. If anyone asks, send them over. We’ll give you a little something.”

Such offers are made every day. I say yes. Days pass. No one remembers. It is easy for them to forget. If you don’t speak, people assume you are stupid.

This street is filled with shops selling the wares of the world. They don’t sell cloth but muslin from Cairo, not spices but saffron from Kabul, not shoes but Oxfords from London, not food but kheema at Irani cafes. The shops are sturdy square blocks with signs painted in tea over milk.

The port’s a five-minute walk.

The air’s humid. When it smells of nothing, it smells of fish. Before dawn, the garbage carts pinch delicate noses. At seven, the first batch of fruit cakes and buns from Sunlight Bakery is ready for queuing customers. They will run out in an hour, but not without teasing the neighbourhood. The afternoon is pulled in by the simmering pots of gravied meats at Café Olympia. By four, the shopkeepers have burnt sandalwood incense to clear the air for the evening customers. At six, the sun is ready to set. The last offerings are made at the Hanuman Temple. The flower women sitting outside the temple drop their wilting whites into a heap. Their slow, scented death inaugurates the night. Now, the nightwalkers are in charge. The Arabs bring their intensity. Their perfumes – walnut and musk, however earthy – will sting. The queens of the night spread rose.

I sit across a paan shop. It is the centre of the world, the centre of this Causeway. The shop holds one person, Bhola. Short, a bit wide, wearing a discoloured white vest with a hole near his heart, no chest hair, seated cross-legged, making paan for his customers. Across him is a platform – a short table with his paan paraphernalia. The interiors are wooden, painted green and red. Bhola opens and closes jars and containers real fast. Sometimes, he uses a spoon. His movements sound like a xylophone; they are marking time.

Customers are standing around, talking, chewing paan, spitting. The drain hole next to them is red and wet, angry and wanting. A customer arrives, white shirt, beige pants, a shaggy face that looks forever in need and a fast tongue, like he really knows what he wants, lacks the means, but rationalises – what are means anyway in the whole scheme of things.

“See, I live in a box the size of my socks,” Bhola says with a flutter in his voice.

What’s this? Has he turned romantic?

“Now what?” the customer asks.

And Bhola’s voice climbs higher,

“Well, I live in a box,
the size of my socks,
And I haven’t worn them still.
What?”

Bhola cuts his voice loose and lets it escape into the universe, the way one would allow a kite, but no kids run after this one, and so he again traps his heart in his web of routine. The vibrations bring warmth to his face and open his eyes. They look freer, more willing.

“For now, just read this. That will be enough for me,’ Bhola points to the writing on the slaty wall to his right.”

The customer, no longer as sure-footed, tries to catch the rhythm that has just escaped Bhola’s mouth, hoping that Bhola will once again fly or at least set adrift, for we are in a port city, and he would be able to secure paan without any financial troubles, “If you live in a box and sleep in your socks, how many rules can you own?”

“For decoration, quite a few. For the matter at hand, one is enough, for me and for you,” Bhola responds. He is no pillar of steel, but he is no blade of grass either. He doesn’t concede to debtors.

“I understand. Let me pay by the end of the month,” the customer says.

“That went by two days ago, my little friend…now read.”

The customer turns to the notice.

“Read it aloud. Sacred words are good for everyone.”

A debtor shall pay twice if the debt is due and denied.

— Manusmriti

A person in debt will not enter paradise until the debt is paid off.

— Koran

The wicked borrow and do not repay.

— Bible

Ears have perked in the vicinity, but faces have not turned. When matters are too important, ignorance is bliss. The customer has nonetheless done Bhola a good deed. Some around the shop have now heard the rule and memorized it. They will pass it on, “Do you know what happened at Bhola’s shop today – a man in debt will never enter paradise.” And everyone will know that Bhola does not give credit. But people will still ask. Rules don’t rule this country, not even rules set in stone. Stones, too, are not rule-bound. They have become raw, sexual, overflowing with beauty, and so many that iconoclasm will become obsolete before it dents anything.

Excerpted from Darako, Parashar Kulkarni, Penguin India.