A Curious Indian Cadaver Read online

  This was not the time to confess that he was sometimes tempted to do just that.

  “Well? What do you suggest I do?” he continued. “They won’t let me go back to the office.” He wrinkled his broad nose in disgust at his prolonged isolation and stuck his full pink lower lip out in a full pout. “Superintendent Chen is going to keep me at home for as long as possible while pretending he’s just concerned about my health! And you won’t even let me have a smoke.”

  His wife gazed at him thoughtfully.

  “What is it?” he asked suspiciously. She looked smug, like Tendulkar needing a mere four runs with three overs to go.

  “My cousin in India – Jesvinder?”

  He didn’t know – was quite unable to identify individuals amongst the massed hordes of his wife’s relatives – but decided not to interrupt.

  “Her daughter is getting married in Mumbai. I think we should go for the wedding.”

  ♦

  The choofa ceremony was just ridiculous, decided Ashu. She tried to keep any expression that reflected her thoughts from showing on her face. It was bound to provoke questions. Or, more likely, a lecture. One of those ‘you’re such an ungrateful child, you don’t know how lucky you are’ refrains.

  “You’re such a lucky girl,” coo-ed a toothless old crone on cue. Ashu thought the wizened creature was some sort of great-aunt but she wasn’t sure. Who could remember the details of every family member who had crawled out of the woodwork on the news of her impending nuptials? No day passed without her mother introducing her to yet another relative who would clasp her hands and kiss her cheeks and congratulate her on her astonishing good fortune.

  “Achha, why such a glum face? Maybe you can’t wait for the wedding day?”

  This was the air-headed interjection of one of her air-headed cousins. To be fair, the girl was usually a sensible creature who got good grades in school but there was nothing like a family wedding to turn everyone under the age of seventy-five into a moron. Especially the girls, all dreaming of meeting Mr. Right. Or to be more precise, all dreaming that one of the officious community matchmakers would find Mr. Right and be able to convince him that she, the girl, was docile, fair, had child-bearing hips, was from a family that usually only produced sons and was an excellent homemaker.

  Ashu glanced down at her clothes. Such finery. She felt like a Barbie doll – a politically correct, dark-haired, dusky-skinned Indian version – in a hot pink salwar kameez. She wriggled her shoulders. The outfit was so rich with embroidery and embellishments that it was actually weighing her down. Or maybe it was just the sure and certain knowledge of what the future held that constituted the burden on her shoulders.

  “I got a call today – even your aunty and uncle from Singapore are coming.” Her mother, Jesvinder, had seen the warning signs – pursed lips and stormy eyes – and was intervening to distract her daughter.

  This piqued Ashu’s interest. “From Singapore? I didn’t even know we had relations there.”

  “My cousin – mother’s brother’s daughter who married that policeman.”

  “Policeman?”

  “Inspector Singh from Singapore police. Verrry high up in the Force.”

  Ashu nodded thoughtfully. He might be useful, this senior policeman. Someone she could consult on this matter that was keeping her awake at nights – as if she didn’t have enough on her mind to provoke insomnia a thousand times over. She glanced in the mirror. They’d painted her face carefully but the discerning would spot the hint of dark shadows under her eyes. She saw her best friend, Farzana, watching her anxiously and essayed a weak smile.

  “What sort of policeman?” she asked.

  “Murder.” The younger of her two brothers, only a year older than her, used the word with relish.

  She scowled at him. Ranjit lived his life in some sort of Bollywood parallel universe where he was a swashbuckling hero who always got the girl and not a pimply twenty-seven year old with the family nose and an Adam’s apple that protruded further than his chin.

  Ashu hadn’t inherited the family nose with its distinct bridge which was a shame because if she had, that paragon of all desirable traits in a husband, Kirpal Singh, might have been persuaded to look elsewhere for a bride. In the end, her family pedigree, educational achievements and indubitable beauty, not to mention the dowry promised by her grandfather, had outweighed her taciturn demeanour on their formal introduction. She’d been told later by Aunty Harjeet that Kirpal had interpreted her silence and monosyllabic answers as a perfectly understandable shyness. So much for scaring away a few suitors. It seemed that her husband-to-be was not a great reader of character.

  She turned her attention back to the mysterious uncle from Singapore. “What do you mean ‘murder’?”

  “He’s a murder investigator,” explained Ranjit. “Tracks down murderers,” he added as if she was some sort of halfwit.

  “Actually he could have been even more senior in the Force – but he doesn’t want to be promoted. He likes his work.” This explanation from Aunty Harjeet was greeted with melancholy headshakes all around. It struck Ashu as a commendable independence of spirit but she knew it was precisely the sort of eccentric behaviour frowned upon by her family.

  “He sounds like an interesting man,” offered Ashu, in defence of this unknown uncle. She should have known better.

  “Very difficult for the wife – your Aunty, my cousin sister,” continued Aunty Harjeet, reaching for her thick long single plait of hair and coiling it around her neck and over her shoulder. It looked like she was in the grip of an ebony boa constrictor. “All his cohorts are much more senior than him now.”

  Headshakes greeted this loss of face.

  “And,” inserted the old crone who seemed to have a very firm handle on the family gossip, “I have heard that this Singapore inspector of police smokes tobacco.”

  There were gasps and shudders. “It is shocking that a Sikh gentleman should have a fondness for cigarettes,” agreed an uncle. “It is banned by our religion – by Guru Nanak Singh himself.”

  “So is alcohol,” said Ashu pointedly. The men of her family were never averse to a thimbleful of Johnnie Walker – and then some. It was typical of the hypocrisy that so annoyed her about her relatives. Once again she was ignored although shocked murmurs still echoed through the room as the conversation was relayed to those in the further reaches who might have missed the gossip first-hand. Ashu took a moment away from her own troubles to feel sorry for this unknown uncle, Inspector Singh. If he was hoping to be welcomed warmly into the bosom of the family when he got to India, he was in for a rude surprise. She wondered what, or who, had persuaded him to put in an appearance. He didn’t sound like the sort to attend the faraway weddings of unknown nieces as a matter of courtesy. Probably hen-pecked, she concluded.

  The bangle ceremony was reaching its zenith. Her maternal uncle produced a beautiful wooden casket with intricate mirror work on the lid. Probably made by some poor village artisan who hadn’t been paid enough to feed his family for a week, she thought dismissively. He opened it slowly and with a flourish. There were ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ from the gathered clan. A row of red and white bangles, glinting and gleaming, were nestled in red satin.

  He took them out reverently and she extended her wrist, noting the complex patterns of henna that had been painted on a few days ago. The henna was a dark brown hue, the colour of old blood. Ashu suppressed a shudder. It was bad enough to have been turned into a piece of installation art without imagining that the graceful lines had been etched into her flesh with a sharp knife.

  The family took turns to slip the bangles on her wrist. Ranjit slung one on, grinning broadly as he did so. She had to smile in response to his delight. Her eldest brother was last and she realised that he’d been silent and distracted during the ceremony. It was not like him, he much preferred to dominate conversations, expressing his views loudly and with authority. Ashu wondered what was bothering him – and then decided she
didn’t care. Tanvir was part of the reason she was in this predicament and she could not forgive him for it. She’d asked him if she had to go through with the wedding, begging him to see her point of view. A single raised eyebrow had expressed his surprise and disapproval at the question. “Will you break your grandfather’s heart?” he’d asked and she had found that the answer to that question, even if it was at the expense of her own freedom and happiness, was ‘no’. And then the final straw – he’d gripped her upper arm hard enough to bruise and said in that ugly voice, “Be careful, Ashu. I will not allow anyone to bring dishonour to the family.”

  When she was laden down with bangles – twenty-one of them – Ashu wagged her fingers experimentally and they jangled merrily in complete contrast to her dour frame of mind.

  “Forty days you must be wearing them now,” cackled the old crone. “And only your husband is the one allowed to remove them.”

  “How am I supposed to get any work done?”

  “That is the origin of the tradition,” explained her mother. “The bride is allowed to rest for her big day because she cannot do housework, cleaning and cooking, with all these heavy, noisy bangles.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of housework exactly,” said Ashu dryly and was met with gales of laughter. It was always the same, realised Ashu. Whenever she was at her most serious, her relations assumed she was joking. Well, they would be none the wiser if she slipped the unwieldy accoutrements into her handbag and snuck out of the house. Matters were too important to be left as they were while she indulged in long-winded preparations for her society wedding.

  “And now we can look forward to the Anand Karaj,” said Aunty Harjeet, fixing her wandering eye on her niece with disconcerting intensity. “It will be the talk of Mumbai. Your grandfather has spared no expense for his favourite granddaughter.”

  “You should be very grateful,” chuckled the old witch.

  Anand Karaj – the wedding ceremony. She knew it meant a ‘blessed union of souls’. Ashu fought back the sudden tears, overwhelmed by events that were unfolding with the speed of a Mumbai taxi. She didn’t doubt that there could be such a thing – a blessed union of souls. She, after all, had been fortunate enough to find just such a person, to feel just such a bond.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t with that paragon of all Sikh virtues, Kirpal Singh – her husband-to-be.

  ♦

  Later that week, Tanvir sat at a corner table in Leopold’s, peering at the menus that were under the clear plastic table top. There had been some hesitation about the choice of location. Was it necessary to choose a Mumbai landmark to meet? his guest had asked. Even he, a foreigner, had heard of the café. Surely that was the best way to ensure that they were spotted? Tanvir had patiently explained his thinking. He was a wealthy, well-known man-about-town. Everyone knew his antecedents and his connections and most importantly, thanks to his grandfather, his prospects.

  So if they planned their meeting in some hole-in-the-wall tea shop where the vendors still sold chai in disposable clay cups, and he was spotted, there would be eyebrows raised and questions asked.

  He mimicked the tone. “Yaar, you won’t be believing who I saw hanging around a real goonda place!”

  But Leopold’s, even since the attacks, especially since the attacks, was where he and his ilk belonged: the young of Mumbai, the future of India with their imported cars, Italian shoes, tailored Nehru jackets and, in his case, matching turban. Religious trappings as a fashion accessory. It was a strange world whichever way you looked at it.

  Tanvir glanced at his watch. He’d been waiting half an hour now. Jaswant was running late. Surely, Canadians – even Canadian Sikhs – didn’t follow Indian time where ‘ek’ minute actually meant twenty? He contemplated his new friend. So far he’d proved himself reliable. Most likely he had underestimated Mumbai traffic and was stuck in a taxi somewhere inhaling exhaust fumes. He shook his head – Jaswant had told him there were areas in Canada where turbans outnumbered baseball hats. Mind you, Canadian Sikhs hadn’t always made themselves popular. They had downed an Air India flight en route to Canada in 1985 in revenge for the storming of the Golden Temple. The authorities referred to them as ‘homegrown terrorists’. Tanvir smiled. It sounded so wholesome. Like organic vegetables.

  There was a steady stream of people coming in and Leopold’s was filling up as it always did. A mixture of expats, tourists – there was a macabre edge to their presence now, since the bombings – and locals. Like kichiri, this aspect of Mumbai. Many random ingredients thrown in to season a single dish. Some added spice and sweetness but many of the ingredients left a bitter aftertaste.

  A voice at his shoulder said, “Arrei, bhai,” and he turned around, smiling with pleasure. Jaswant pulled up a chair and sat down.

  A groups of acquaintances wandered over. Mumbai was just a big bloody village, decided Tanvir. He restrained himself with difficulty from telling them to get lost. He knew what was coming – useless chitchat, some backslapping, sarcastic remarks about his tailor or his love life. But the chance meeting would be quickly forgotten unless he behaved out of character. So he would have to bite his tongue and grin and appear as delighted to see them as they were to see him.

  “Tanvir, you’re too important nowadays to make time for your old buddies, eh?”

  He shrugged at the overweight thirty-something advertising executive. “Busy, man. You know how it is.” He winked broadly. “Got to make time for the girls.”

  The group turned as one to look at Jaswant, curiosity awakened by a stranger in their midst. “Who’s your partner in crime?”

  Unfortunate choice of words. “My cousin down from Canada,” Tanvir said untruthfully and then grinned. “Looking for an Indian bride.”

  Jaswant clasped a few extended hands, adding, “The Canadian girls, they don’t know how to cook like my mother any more!”

  There was loud laughter but also understanding.

  “My sister is the best cook in Mumbai,” said one of the men, propping his expensive shades on his thick mass of oily hair.

  “Well, then – email us a photo and proposed dowry,” said Tanvir. “But you need to know, bhai – it’s gonna take a lot of zeros to prise my cousin away from his mother!”

  His friends looked suitably impressed. They knew he, Tanvir, was worth a lot. Rumours were already flying about how many lakhs were being demanded in the marriage mart for him. Even more than had been paid for his sister – the family was going to turn a profit. Not for Tanvir and Ashu, grandchildren of Tara Singh, the desperate adverts in the ‘personal’ sections of the daily papers. He’d had a few giggles just that morning over some of the classifieds. Homely. Fair. High moral values. Apparently, ‘homely’ meant having home-making skills as opposed to being pug ugly. It was just as well he didn’t have to trawl through the thousands of pages of ‘fun-loving girls who loved cooking’, all of whom seemed to have extensive educational qualifications but were described as being ‘at home’. Was all that education just to add column inches to the adverts in pursuit of a husband?

  “Yes, if my cousin says it’s OK, I’ll be round to sample her wares,” said Jaswant to more loud laughter although the brother of the girl looked offended.

  “Why don’t you lazy bastards find something to do?” asked Tanvir. “My cousin and I have things to discuss.”

  “Like which clubs you’re hitting this evening?”

  “Exactly,” said Tanvir, high-fiving the guy and wishing that he could punch him instead for forcing him to play this ridiculous role when he had more important things on his mind.

  The group took the hint and wandered away to pounce on some other acquaintances and Tanvir turned to Jaswant, temper restored. “So, ‘cousin’ – time to make a plan.”

  “Well, we have the goods,” said Jaswant, smiling.

  “I saw the newspapers – the ‘audacious raid’, ‘inside job’ – good work.”

  “Money makes all things possible,” explained his friend.
/>
  “Well, bhai, that’s why I’m here.” Worried creases suddenly slashed his cheeks. “But are you sure we’re in the clear?”

  “The authorities think it was the Pakistani intelligence services – ISI. To cause trouble in Kashmir.”

  For some reason this amused Tanvir and he began to chuckle. In a moment his companion had joined in too.

  ♦

  The plane was coming in to land. The wheels had been cranked out with some clanking and juddering. Singh felt a wave of apprehension. His wife sensed his tension and looked up from her reading material.

  “I don’t like flying, especially the taking off and landing bits,” he explained, more to distract himself than anything. His wife knew very well his dislike of being airborne.

  “Nothing to be afraid of. Many new private airlines in India because country is a huge economic success, even bigger than China,” said his wife, self-appointed oracle of India.

  Inspector Singh was always suspicious of exponential growth in any industry but particularly the gravity-defying ones. Did they have the pilots for the rapid expansion? Did all the new employees know what they were doing or were they dancing through the skies with the insouciance of mosquitoes? The policeman glanced out of the window nervously although there wasn’t much he could do if a careless jet was bearing down on them.

  “Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Sahara…” she added.

  “Kingfisher? But that’s an Indian beer!” He might not be an expert on birds or airlines but he certainly knew his beer.

  “Also airline,” she replied.

  “Well, I hope they’re not sampling the wares,” he grumbled. The policeman very much regretted agreeing to visit India for the wedding of his wife’s niece. But there was no going back. Mrs. Singh was adamant. They would both attend the celebrations and it would give him a chance to catch up with that branch of the family which had not fled India for greener pastures. There was no point explaining to his wife that avoiding her relatives was one of his main ambitions in life and he’d always been grateful that at least some of the pack remained in India.