the better conditions of life of others, I began to feel an affection for them both. I felt that if I had been in their position, confined to Bombay, to that area, to that row, I too would have been a passionate Muslim. I had grown up in Trinidad as a member of the Indian community, a member of a minority, and I knew that if you felt your community was small, you could never walk away from it; the grimmer things became, the more you insisted on being what you were.
With the old man as our host in the front space of his house, the wire-netted enclosure, and with Anwar being only his father’s son there, our talk could only be formal. I didn’t feel that difficult questions could be pressed. For the talk to go beyond the part-time job the old man had been lucky enough to find, for Anwar totalk more freely, and without the worry about being overheard, we had to go somewhere else.
So, gently, trying to avoid accident, we laid our lemonade bottles down on the blue concrete wall against the wire netting; and the old man, who had been getting a little restless himself, read the sign well. He stopped talking, created a pause, and we said goodbye.
We went out again to the narrow lanes, where dim lights threw big shadows. Around the corner, a child was defecating in a patch of light. In somebody’s front room a big colour television set on a low stand flickered and flashed away, without anyone watching. Anwar said they had no television in their own house. His father said that television was against Islam.
We came to where the low-roofed settlement ended, and Bombay proper began again. Beyond a boundary lane or road was a tall block of flats. The enemy were there. That was a Shiv Sena building, Anwar said. When there was trouble the people who lived in those flats threw bottles at the people who lived below.
Past that building, we came to the roaring main road. We went to a small milk bar Anwar knew: fluorescent tubes, ceramic tiles, grey marble, a sink, tumblers of glass and stainless steel.
I said to Anwar, ‘So you live constantly on your nerves?’
Nikhil interpreted the reply. ‘It plays havoc with his nerves.’
As worn-away as his father, his dark face thin and tremulous, he sipped at the milk he had ordered.
He said, Nikhil translating directly for him now, ‘Those children. You have these clashes between children which turn into blood feuds with adults, and I feel helpless to do anything about it. Fights take place between neighbours all the time. When they are Hindus and Muslims – Hindus are in a minority here – it turns into a communal riot. It gets very bad during cricket matches. When there was the World Cup last year – the one-day cricket matches – people became nervous about the India-Pakistan matches. But then neither India nor Pakistan went into the finals. When Pakistan lost the first semi-final to Australia, the Hindus went wild, and they threw stones and broke the asbestos roofs of the huts.’
How those fights troubled him! Both he and his father had spoken with special dread of fights between neighbours, and I wondered whether they had been talking about themselves. I triedto find out. I asked him about the blood feuds – was his family affected in some way?
His reply was unexpected. ‘My brothers have the reputation of being
goondas
, thugs. They’re not the right kind of people. Because of this reputation, neighbours think twice before starting anything.’
Tough brothers – they would, for some reason, have been physically quite different from Anwar and his father. Tough brothers, not the right kind of people – yet they enabled Anwar to talk tough himself. Did that little house contain them all?
I asked Anwar, ‘That man next door, the man who came out to look at us – how do you get on with him?’
‘He’s studying at a college outside Bombay. You can just imagine the kind of brothers I have – I have six brothers, and my father still has to work.’
Some family split
With the old man as our host in the front space of his house, the wire-netted enclosure, and with Anwar being only his father’s son there, our talk could only be formal. I didn’t feel that difficult questions could be pressed. For the talk to go beyond the part-time job the old man had been lucky enough to find, for Anwar totalk more freely, and without the worry about being overheard, we had to go somewhere else.
So, gently, trying to avoid accident, we laid our lemonade bottles down on the blue concrete wall against the wire netting; and the old man, who had been getting a little restless himself, read the sign well. He stopped talking, created a pause, and we said goodbye.
We went out again to the narrow lanes, where dim lights threw big shadows. Around the corner, a child was defecating in a patch of light. In somebody’s front room a big colour television set on a low stand flickered and flashed away, without anyone watching. Anwar said they had no television in their own house. His father said that television was against Islam.
We came to where the low-roofed settlement ended, and Bombay proper began again. Beyond a boundary lane or road was a tall block of flats. The enemy were there. That was a Shiv Sena building, Anwar said. When there was trouble the people who lived in those flats threw bottles at the people who lived below.
Past that building, we came to the roaring main road. We went to a small milk bar Anwar knew: fluorescent tubes, ceramic tiles, grey marble, a sink, tumblers of glass and stainless steel.
I said to Anwar, ‘So you live constantly on your nerves?’
Nikhil interpreted the reply. ‘It plays havoc with his nerves.’
As worn-away as his father, his dark face thin and tremulous, he sipped at the milk he had ordered.
He said, Nikhil translating directly for him now, ‘Those children. You have these clashes between children which turn into blood feuds with adults, and I feel helpless to do anything about it. Fights take place between neighbours all the time. When they are Hindus and Muslims – Hindus are in a minority here – it turns into a communal riot. It gets very bad during cricket matches. When there was the World Cup last year – the one-day cricket matches – people became nervous about the India-Pakistan matches. But then neither India nor Pakistan went into the finals. When Pakistan lost the first semi-final to Australia, the Hindus went wild, and they threw stones and broke the asbestos roofs of the huts.’
How those fights troubled him! Both he and his father had spoken with special dread of fights between neighbours, and I wondered whether they had been talking about themselves. I triedto find out. I asked him about the blood feuds – was his family affected in some way?
His reply was unexpected. ‘My brothers have the reputation of being
goondas
, thugs. They’re not the right kind of people. Because of this reputation, neighbours think twice before starting anything.’
Tough brothers – they would, for some reason, have been physically quite different from Anwar and his father. Tough brothers, not the right kind of people – yet they enabled Anwar to talk tough himself. Did that little house contain them all?
I asked Anwar, ‘That man next door, the man who came out to look at us – how do you get on with him?’
‘He’s studying at a college outside Bombay. You can just imagine the kind of brothers I have – I have six brothers, and my father still has to work.’
Some family split
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