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Authors: Vikas Swarup
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important man. We go to Mr Ramakrishna whenever the bulb goes out or the water
pressure becomes low. We beg Mr Ramakrishna when we don't have enough money to pay the
monthly rent. We have been after Mr Ramakrishna to repair a section of the first-floor wooden railing which has become weak and wobbly and poses a safety hazard.
I come out of the room and see Mr Ramakrishna standing with a short, middle-aged man who
frowns and looks as though he has not gone to the toilet for a long time. 'Thomas, meet Mr Shantaram. He is our new tenant, who will be staying in the flat next to yours. I have told Mr Shantaram that you are a very responsible boy, so please help him and his wife and daughter settle down. OK, Mr Shantaram, I will now take my leave.'
'Oh no,' I think to myself. 'No boys.' I try to see his wife and daughter, but only catch a fleeting glimpse of a woman with grey hair, and a girl, older than me, with long black hair tied back, sitting on the bed. Shantaram sees me peering into his flat and hastily closes the front door.
'What do you do?' I ask Shantaram.
'I am a scientist, an astronomer. You won't understand. But these days I am taking a break. I am working as the sales manager in the Vimal showroom. This room here is a very temporary
arrangement. We will be shifting to a de luxe apartment in Nariman Point very soon.'
I know Mr Shantaram is lying. Those who can afford to live in Nariman Point never stay in chawls, not even temporarily.
* * *
The walls of the rooms inside the chawl are very thin. If you put your ear against the common wall and concentrate hard or, even better, if you put an inverted glass against the wall and put your ear against it, you can listen to almost everything going on in the next room. Salim and I do this often with our neighbours on the left, whose room adjoins our kitchen wall. Mr and Mrs Bapat are not a young couple any more. It is rumoured that Mr Bapat even beats Mrs Bapat, but they obviously make up at night because Salim and I often hear their heavy breathing and
panting, their 'oohs' and 'aahs', and we snicker.
I adjust a stainless-steel cup against the wall adjoining Mr Shantaram's room and bury my ear in it. I can hear Shantaram speaking.
'This place is nothing less than a black hole. It is totally beneath my dignity to be staying here, but just for the sake of you two, I will endure this humiliation till I get a proper job. Listen, I don't want any of the street boys to enter the house. God knows what hell holes they have come from. There are two right next to us. Rascals of the highest order, I think. And Gudiya, if I catch you talking to any boy in the chawl, you will receive a hiding with my leather belt, understood?'
he thunders. I drop the cup in panic.
* * *
Over the next couple of weeks, I hardly see Shantaram and I never see his wife or daughter. She probably goes to college every day, but by the time I return home from the foundry, she is inside her house and the door is always firmly shut.
Salim doesn't even notice that we have new neighbours. He hardly gets any spare time from his work as a tiffin delivery boy. He wakes up at seven in the morning and gets dressed. He wears a loose white shirt, cotton pyjamas and puts a white Nehru cap on his head. The cap is the badge of identification of all dabbawallahs in Mumbai, and there are nearly five thousand of them. Over the next two hours he collects home-cooked meals in lunch boxes from approximately twenty-five flats. Then he takes them to the Ghatkopar local train station. Here the tiffins are sorted according to their destination, each with colour-coded dots, dashes and crosses on the lids, and then loaded on to special trains to be delivered promptly at lunch time to middle-class executives and blue-collar workers all over Mumbai. Salim himself receives tiffins by another train, which he delivers in the Ghatkopar area after deciphering the dots and dashes which constitute the address. He has to be very
pressure becomes low. We beg Mr Ramakrishna when we don't have enough money to pay the
monthly rent. We have been after Mr Ramakrishna to repair a section of the first-floor wooden railing which has become weak and wobbly and poses a safety hazard.
I come out of the room and see Mr Ramakrishna standing with a short, middle-aged man who
frowns and looks as though he has not gone to the toilet for a long time. 'Thomas, meet Mr Shantaram. He is our new tenant, who will be staying in the flat next to yours. I have told Mr Shantaram that you are a very responsible boy, so please help him and his wife and daughter settle down. OK, Mr Shantaram, I will now take my leave.'
'Oh no,' I think to myself. 'No boys.' I try to see his wife and daughter, but only catch a fleeting glimpse of a woman with grey hair, and a girl, older than me, with long black hair tied back, sitting on the bed. Shantaram sees me peering into his flat and hastily closes the front door.
'What do you do?' I ask Shantaram.
'I am a scientist, an astronomer. You won't understand. But these days I am taking a break. I am working as the sales manager in the Vimal showroom. This room here is a very temporary
arrangement. We will be shifting to a de luxe apartment in Nariman Point very soon.'
I know Mr Shantaram is lying. Those who can afford to live in Nariman Point never stay in chawls, not even temporarily.
* * *
The walls of the rooms inside the chawl are very thin. If you put your ear against the common wall and concentrate hard or, even better, if you put an inverted glass against the wall and put your ear against it, you can listen to almost everything going on in the next room. Salim and I do this often with our neighbours on the left, whose room adjoins our kitchen wall. Mr and Mrs Bapat are not a young couple any more. It is rumoured that Mr Bapat even beats Mrs Bapat, but they obviously make up at night because Salim and I often hear their heavy breathing and
panting, their 'oohs' and 'aahs', and we snicker.
I adjust a stainless-steel cup against the wall adjoining Mr Shantaram's room and bury my ear in it. I can hear Shantaram speaking.
'This place is nothing less than a black hole. It is totally beneath my dignity to be staying here, but just for the sake of you two, I will endure this humiliation till I get a proper job. Listen, I don't want any of the street boys to enter the house. God knows what hell holes they have come from. There are two right next to us. Rascals of the highest order, I think. And Gudiya, if I catch you talking to any boy in the chawl, you will receive a hiding with my leather belt, understood?'
he thunders. I drop the cup in panic.
* * *
Over the next couple of weeks, I hardly see Shantaram and I never see his wife or daughter. She probably goes to college every day, but by the time I return home from the foundry, she is inside her house and the door is always firmly shut.
Salim doesn't even notice that we have new neighbours. He hardly gets any spare time from his work as a tiffin delivery boy. He wakes up at seven in the morning and gets dressed. He wears a loose white shirt, cotton pyjamas and puts a white Nehru cap on his head. The cap is the badge of identification of all dabbawallahs in Mumbai, and there are nearly five thousand of them. Over the next two hours he collects home-cooked meals in lunch boxes from approximately twenty-five flats. Then he takes them to the Ghatkopar local train station. Here the tiffins are sorted according to their destination, each with colour-coded dots, dashes and crosses on the lids, and then loaded on to special trains to be delivered promptly at lunch time to middle-class executives and blue-collar workers all over Mumbai. Salim himself receives tiffins by another train, which he delivers in the Ghatkopar area after deciphering the dots and dashes which constitute the address. He has to be very
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