“She lies awake listening to the cock crow, and the crows caw, and the clink of bottles as the milkman arrives. It’s a good life, she thinks, all things considered.”
This was my second time reading (primarily poet) Eunice de Souza’s novella Dangerlok. First published in 2001, this is a spicy, racy account of a spinster who shares her flat with her pet parrots in a lively neighbourhood in Mumbai.
Stranger danger
Rina Ferreira is a “jungli” tea-drinking, cigarette-smoking college lecturer who seems to be single by choice. Besides teaching English literature to college students and being a silent bystander in workplace politics, her days are taken up by writing letters to her former lover David and listening to – possibly made up – tales by her bai about the “dangerlok” of Mumbai – all kinds of no-gooders who lurk in the city. Moreover, just about anyone whom the bai finds dangerous, tiresome, or doesn’t like can be a “dangerlok”. It’s a broad category. When she is not busy suspecting those around her, the bai and her family can be found celebrating every festival – religion no bar – and praising the many miracles of Don Boss (otherwise known as Don Bosco).
The bai’s fixation with the dangerlok is bad enough but everyone else Rina knows is equally irksome. Her colleagues are excited about the demolition of the Babri Masjid though they lament the absence of “Indian” values of the college students. Perhaps picking one’s nose or listening to Gangubai Hangal is the true mark of being Indian, she offers. In addition to these petty feuds, the English department constantly gets into trouble for “corrupting youth” with its syllabus. Poems have obscene words, some novels are too vulgar, the works. The only relief is that she actually enjoys teaching.
But being a person of literature is not easy. There is all sorts of writing happening these days and every Jane and Joe wants to be not just a poet, but an “eminent poet”. Arundhati Roy is still fresh from her Booker Prize win and the new Nissim Ezekiel biography does not hit the right spot. Rina has plenty of grouses with the changing literary scene in English writing. The only thing that seems to concern the new crop of writers is the quest for greatness instead of producing work of any real quality. Something I’m sure would bug Rina if she was still around today…
Despite her old lover taking up a new girlfriend, Rina has not stopped writing to him. Though we do not get to read his responses, it’s safe to assume that he too is writing to her – and quite eagerly too. She tells him about her days, muses about this and that, and pries for information about his current relationship. There’s another man in the scene – Jay. He seems to be what we call a “situationship” these days. Rina calls him on the phone to ask if he’ll stay with her forever if she promises him “passion and scorn”. He says to her, “Mad or what?’ and hangs up. A classic no-relationship relationship. The next best thing to being a spinster is becoming a nun. But Rina doesn’t have the appetite for it. The electrician is the man in her life, she decides. You could trust him completely and he’d never refuse to help you. I can’t disagree with her.
A free bird
Besides the tumults of her personal relationships and her friction with colleagues, Rina is witness to – what she calls – the “yuppification” of Bombay. Bungalows are razed to give way to impossibly expensive flats, bougie-sounding apartment complexes (like Colaba Woods) have banned smoking in their premises while the filthy air circulates in the city anyway, hole-in-the-wall eateries that served fish curry and rice have suddenly become flagbearers of traditional Bombay cuisine as concluded by magazines and TV shows. Suddenly the prices are no longer nominal (and fixed) and the restaurants charge whatever they feel like depending on the season. The humble officegoer has been replaced by the moody foodie. Like every Bombaywallah, she is frustrated with the city’s rickety design and participating in the “Bombay Olympics” against her will – leaping over ditches, hoiking up her saree to run to catch a train, avoiding the paths of taxis that don’t care for pedestrian crossings. Still, she loves the city and cannot imagine living anywhere else. Another situationship if you will.
Rina might not realise this but like her bai, a great deal of her time is spent observing those around her – the neighbour from “Utter Pradesh” and her mother-in-law, the two men who flit in and out of her life, the parrots she has come to own, the no-face people that she walks past on the streets every day, the taxi drivers, the eminent poets and wannabe writers, her students who find it difficult to be respectful to the working class. The lack of a husband, nagging mother-in-law, or children is not exactly a loss. If anything, she has the complete freedom to live – and complicate – her life as she pleases.
Dangerlok is a difficult book to describe but an easy one to fall in love with. Rina’s constant chatter is full of life and energy like the city of Mumbai itself. Her wry humour and grudging resignation to the pandemonium around her made me laugh out loud. She’s quick to show her frustration but is also equally generous to share her affection – the stray pup she takes in for a few days before it dies, the unsympathetic post office workers who make her run around in circles for a stamp, the parrots that have become an integral part of her life. De Souza writes about Rina like she’s describing an eccentric aunt whom you have only heard about and never met. She’s a bit crazy, happily unmarried, courts lovers in her old age. She’s intimidating but quietly glamorous. You’ve never admitted it to anyone but you know you want to be her. She is and makes the dangerlok look really cool. You want to be her when you grow up – parrot parroting, cigaretteing, jungli teaing. A fabulous creature and the stuff of legends.
PS. The caricature of De Souza on the front cover with a parrot on her head is inspired by an actual photograph of the author!
Dangerlok, Eunice de Souza, Penguin India.
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