Beautiful Thing Read online

  Apsara sniffed and wiped her face on her sleeve.

  Leela rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ she said to me with a short laugh. ‘Mama’s simple, I told you. Next time for sure she’ll ask if you know her mother—who died of tuberculosis before I was born. You just say, “Of course Apsaraji, her kadhi chawal is mast!”’

  ‘I may be simple Leela,’ snorted Apsara, ‘but I’m not deaf.’

  Leela nipped the knitting out of her mother’s hand and threw it petulantly on the floor. ‘Enough of this mummy,’ she said in the baby voice she used to great effect with customers. ‘Why are you always thinking about other people? Let the child run nanga panga, naked. You give me head massage!’

  { 5 }

  ‘I want a good break, yaar.

  No cut-piece, sidey role for me’

  Apsara was not the only woman in Leela’s life. She was certainly not the most important. Beautiful Priya was. Leela loved her best friend Priya the way I imagined she would one day love her own child—with a longing even immediate proximity could somehow not fulfil. She petted her, fretted over her health, insisted on sharing everything with her—sleep, dreams, secrets. Clothes, meals, cigarettes.

  If Leela could, she would have shared life’s every experience with Priya.

  Leela’s friendship with Priya proved to her that she could love someone and in turn be loved, with no caveat on either side. Her love was so sincere, so pronounced, it was like she meant for it to say to the rest of us, ‘this is how you should love me.’ And also, ‘why don’t you love me like this?’ In the world in which they lived, in which deceit equalled success and all success was ephemeral, Leela and Priya’s friendship was the one true thing they could count on.

  Leela also coveted what Priya had, but in a wistful way, entirely without malice.

  Who could blame her?

  Priya had sculpted cheekbones, a sharp nose, endless dancer’s legs. She had ‘rich girl’s hair’—straight, slippery, shiny. Translucent skin. And unlike any bar dancer I knew, perfectly white teeth.

  When we first met, I couldn’t wrap my head around her. She wasn’t supposed to be here, on Leela’s bed, the mattress pinched thin and punched with holes, so long past its expiry date it should’ve been junked in the marsh that separated Mira Road from the rest of Bombay—children floated paper boats on it, scavenged plastic bags they would sell by the kilo from it, they called this bobbing of other people’s faeces and filth dariya, the river. And she was certainly not supposed to be sitting opposite Apsara—forever chewing, spitting, knitting, grousing Apsara, whose idea of beauty was a plate of bhajjias or a new ball of wool.

  Having introduced us, and making space for me on the bed, Leela drew Priya’s head into her lap and started to gently comb her hair. Her face bright with adoration, she said to Priya, as I saw her do every time they met, ‘Ai, tu star kab banegi?Hame yahan se kab legi?’ When will you become a star? When will you take us away from here?

  ‘Arre arre,’ giggled Priya coquettishly, ‘if I’d wanted to get into Bollywood wouldn’t I have become a household name years ago? You know directors have been breaking my door since I was this big!’ She pulled her hands apart to illustrate.

  ‘But I want a good break, yaar. No cut-piece, sidey role for me. Shah Rukh, Shahid, Saif.’ Her velvety lips parted. ‘Koi Kapoor, koi Khan. Should be of some level na?’ She looked slyly over, to make sure I was listening. ‘Otherwise, purpose?’

  On an average day in Bombay thousands of men, women and children take acting and dance classes and make the rounds of studios hoping to catch the eye of the person who will transform them from the one who gazes awestruck at the big screen, to the star who looks down from it.

  A couple of Old Monk rum and Cokes later, it all came out: ‘After I got married, I gave up my Bollywood dreams,’ admitted Priya. ‘I wanted only to look after my husband, myself and our baby. I never went with kustomers or even visited friends, ask anyone! I have one vice, gutka. But then my baby died. My husband left. I was alone. What’s an alone girl to do? Chase films? Chase fame? No! Drink! Why? Because a man will desert you, work will desert you, children will desert you, but swear on my mother, alcohol will never desert you.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Leela. ‘Bottle is your best friend.’

  ‘But of course,’ Priya yawned dismissively at me, her breath gutka-rum-Gold Flake, ‘you won’t understand any of this. You’re an outsider. You know zero of the troubles I’ve been through.’

  She eyed me expectantly.

  I complied. Why don’t you tell me?

  Leela put aside the comb, unfurled herself from her lotus position and cuddled up to her mother, her expectant face turned to Priya. Priya’s stories, as time would tell, were like a saas-bahu serial—they went on forever and became increasingly, grippingly complicated. Although the narration of her love stories allowed Priya to inhale most of the friendship oxygen, Leela didn’t mind. It allowed her to admire her friend’s astonishing beauty without embarrassment. ‘When I take tension,’ she said to me, ‘I close my eyes and think of Priya.’

  Shortly before she turned eighteen—and of legal age—explained Priya to me, she married a man called Raj. They had become lovers a few weeks after he’d begun to visit her dance bar, Rassbery, which, like Night Lovers, was also in Mira Road.

  ‘No, it wasn’t too soon! Have you even seen Raj?’ Priya’s eyes gleamed. ‘Oh you’re missing something! He has Saif’s tashan, Shah Rukh’s muscles and Salman bhai’s . . .’—here Priya winked suggestively and pulled her hands apart, wide, so I couldn’t miss what she meant—‘you know! “Priya, Raj! Priya, Raj! Priya, Raj!” Everywhere we went people would look at us and sigh, “Priya, Raj!” We were that first-class-looking together! I even had his “foto” on my cell! I lost ten good-good kustomers because of him, the kind that would throw one thousand rupee notes on me. Raj would come into the bar and I wouldn’t look at anyone else. “Janu darling, my darling janu,” I would whisper into his ear all evening.

  Kustomers would yell, “Ai ladki! What’s wrong with you? Am I paying you to talk to another man?” Oh you should have seen me snap! “You bastard pimp!” I’d yell back. “You’re only a kustomer you are and that too you have a little-little dick I know it very well! But this one here,”’ Priya’s face softened, ‘“he’s my husband! My life! My love!”’

  When she discovered she was pregnant, Priya hired Pramila, an orphan who lived in the same chawl doing odd jobs, to help out at home.

  ‘Raj said, “I beg to you, don’t keep her here. I’ll give you five hundred rupees, give it to her and pack her off.” But did I listen? No! We fought and fought and we both got so hot when he slapped me I slapped him right back. He slapped me again and before he could do it one more time I stopped his hand like this and said, “Durrlings! She’s a girls, I’m a girls. What can go wrong if we live together?”’

  After she delivered a stillborn, Raj asked if she would mind if he slept with Pramila—to get over the trauma, you know.

  Priya said damn right she would mind.

  He went ahead anyway.

  ‘I was so furious I got divorced that evening itself. Lucky me,’ Priya said, as though she had demonstrated great foresight, ‘we hadn’t married in court.’

  ‘That Pramila!’ Leela narrowed her eyes. ‘You loved her like a sister! If it wasn’t for you . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Priya. ‘I treated her like my best friend. But never mind her, didn’t my Raj return?’

  Leela nodded enthusiastically.

  And did you take him back? I asked, on the edge of the bed.

  Unless Priya was being creative, this was one of the most gripping, and bizarre, love stories I had ever heard. Romeo and Juliet had nothing on Raj and Priya.

  ‘Just like that?’ Priya scowled. ‘Do I look like a Thane-side dhandewali? First, I flat refused. For one whole week every time he came home I’d grab my dawai and pour it down my throat. What medicine? You name it. I bought it. How I scare
d him! The second week he brought me a hamper of chocolates and oranges. I snatched up a blade from my box, cut one of the oranges and I flung it at him, like it was Holi ka gulal! Then I cut myself, kachak! Here, see the mark,’ she gestured proudly. ‘The mark of my love! My anger!’

  Apsara nodded appreciatively.

  ‘The week after that, he took me to a hotil and we sat in the coffee shop. He spoke to me franks, decent. Bade log ki badi baat. The big talk of big people. He touched my hair. He fed me with his own hands, a sandwich. Then, only then, and not one minute before mind you, did I relent.’

  For an outsider like me, Priya’s anxious pursuit of love was difficult to comprehend. She was young. She made her own money. And she was a beautiful woman in a line in which beauty was prioritized and privileged.

  And yet, Priya’s beauty did not give her the upper hand in her relationships. Having won her over, Raj was again taking her for granted, by starting an affair with one of her colleagues at Rassbery. He was open about it, speaking of the woman and of her adoration for him like it was information Priya would benefit from.

  ‘He’s full enjoying!’ Leela said indignantly.

  Priya wanted the affair to end. The woman was a whore. One look from Raj and nine months later she would—for sure!—turn up with twins. So she planned to confront the woman that evening, to match fists if necessary.

  Just in case violence introduced itself into the conversation—and Priya knew it would because ‘that one’ was ‘no kalass’—she wanted to carry ammunition. Leela wilfully suggested a hammer. But Priya didn’t have the stomach for a fight that might scar her face. She considered chilli powder, and on Apsara’s insistence planned to stick a small but heavy torch into her handbag.

  ‘If she acts smart give her one like this!’ Apsara said, making a thwacking motion with her beefy fist.

  ‘No,’ Priya shook her head. ‘I want to punish her, but in my own way. Oh her truth-lies, lies-truth, oh her whisperings into Raj’s ear are driving me mad.’

  ‘Doglapan!’ cried Leela, curling her lips. Treachery!

  What did she say? I asked.

  ‘Priya? Which Priya? Oh, that one, true, she’s a booty. But you know we call her mattress. What to do? So many men have slept on her!

  ‘Are you the prime minister’s first born that Priya will throw down a red carpet for you?

  ‘Do you know, Priya has only two sets of clothes, and one of those she sleeps in? Be careful! Could well be her body is crawling with lice!’

  ‘Imagine!’ glowered Apsara. ‘Imagine saying that about our Priya. Priya beti?’

  ‘Hahn, aunty?’

  ‘Beti, I’m telling you, hit her one hard on the head. That will silence her for good.’

  ‘Yes,’ encouraged Leela. ‘Beat her! Beat her Priya; beat her repeatedly so that the next time she goes to work it’s in a Silent Bar.’

  Apsara started laughing like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. ‘What a good idea! Make her a . . . a,’ she giggled and hissed.

  ‘A lundchoos!’ she hooted. ‘Make fatty into a lundchoos!’ A cocksucker.

  { 6 }

  ‘To be held, even in the arms of a thief, is worth something’

  Priya walked into Rassbery carrying in her handbag a torch and a sealed packet of chilli powder. She had no intention of using either. She should have been emboldened by her love for Raj, but she hoped, frankly, that Barbie had stayed home.

  But Barbie (real name Panna Lal) sauntered right out of the make-up room. How had she known Priya had arrived?

  She walked straight towards Priya.

  Although Priya stood her ground, she couldn’t but inwardly recoil. Barbie was taller, broader and meaner than anyone in Rassbery, man or woman. She was ‘fair like a ghost’, fat ‘like a fisherwoman’, and the belly chains she wore were thick as fingers.

  What did it matter? Raj was bewitched. And so were Barbie’s customers.

  Their behaviour! Thumping tables, screaming out, jumping so their shirt buttons flew open and their Nokias fell out.

  The noise! ‘Wah! Wah! Wah! Barbie-Panna Lal! Wah! Arre wah!’

  Barbie may have looked like a bai, but when the lights were turned down and the music was turned up, she blossomed like a lotus in a pond. She laughed with vigour and gyrated like all she wanted was you.

  Priya knew the other dancers envied her beauty, but she knew too that they pitied her presumed naivety. What excuse did she, of all people, have to lose a ‘husband’, a baby and now a boyfriend? Look at Barbie, they marvelled. So single-minded, so sure of herself. Mark our words, the dancers said, Barbie’s babies will carry their father’s name as proudly as a constable wears his badge.

  ‘You!’ Barbie said, interrupting Priya’s thoughts.

  ‘Yes, so?’ demanded Priya, sounding braver than she felt. ‘Is this your father’s house?’

  Barbie considered. No, it wasn’t.

  She extracted a packet of gutka from her bra, ripped it open and emptied the contents into her mouth. ‘Good you came,’ she said, flinging aside the packet. ‘We have matters to discuss. It’s best you stay away from my man, let me tell you franks. Otherwise God knows what I may do. Ask anyone, when Barbie gets angry Kalyug descends.’

  ‘Why would I come near your man?’ asked Priya, amazed. ‘Did I lose my mind on the Bombay-Poona highway? But you’re right, we do have things to discuss. And what I have to say to you is this—stay away from my man, Raj. Stay far, far away. Like you don’t know we want to marry, shameless whore! We want to, we will, and when we do, I won’t have you storming the pandal making a first day first show for everyone.’

  ‘Arre madam!’ spat Barbie. ‘Have you lost your mind? You come here!’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Arre, come here, I said! What are you afraid of? If I wanted to beat you, you sickly little twig, you think I would have waited this long? Come here, I said!’

  Priya glided up defiantly. ‘What is it?’

  ‘See here!’ Barbie thrust her wrist into Priya’s face.

  Priya didn’t blink. Barbie’s wrist had been gouged into.

  Placing her bag down, Priya began to roll up her left sleeve. ‘Do you think my hand slipped while I was cutting apples and oranges?’ Her wrist was charred with cigarette burns.

  Barbie touched Priya’s wrist. ‘So,’ she said, unfurling a smile. She edged closer to Priya, until Priya could smell her sweet gutka breath, her sour, combative sweat. And Barbie could smell Priya too, Priya supposed—the Revlon Charlie perfume she favoured. They sniffed each other out like dogs assessing threat levels.

  ‘Born yesterday?’ Barbie said kindly. ‘Think we’re fighting over a vada-pav?’

  She grabbed Priya’s wrist and, before Priya could object, stuck it into her sari blouse.

  ‘Have you gone mad?’ Priya cried. ‘What are you doing?’

  Barbie held firm. Priya squirmed, and as she realized what it was she was touching she squirmed harder. ‘Ai hai!’ she yelped.

  ‘Are you mad?’ she gasped, genuinely worried.

  Barbie smiled and let go of Priya’s hand. ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Good men don’t grow on trees. They don’t fall from the sky. And let’s be franks, rarely do they enter Rassbery.’

  ‘And this,’ she touched her breast, ‘this will fade. It will be okay, I know. But oh, you should have seen Raj’s expression when I showed him. I could have eaten it! I would have paid for it!’ Barbie’s face was full with pleasure. ‘It was worth it, Priya, I swear to you. It was worth it.’

  Priya stared at Barbie. She had no words. Her bravado. Her chilli powder, her torch. How ridiculous she was! Priya wished her pitiful little weapons would disappear and that she could disappear with them.

  What good was a torch on the body of a woman who would mutilate herself so grossly for Raj’s affections? If Priya fought Barbie now, not only would she lose—‘Who am I fooling?’ she thought, ‘I am a sickly twig!’—wasn’t it likely Barbie would take a knife to another
part of her body? What next? Would she cut off her entire breast? Scoop out her vagina to assure Raj she would never, could never, cheat on him?

  Picking up her bag, Priya walked past Barbie and into the make-up room where the other girls had been following the fight, each with her own inverted tumbler against the wall.

  ‘I’m not a beggar for love!’ exclaimed Priya, throwing her bag down. ‘She can have him.’

  She stared at the girls with a challenge on her face. They stared back with pity.

  When I dropped by at Leela’s two evenings later, she and Priya were still talking about Barbie. Their voices held a grudging respect. Like Barbie, and like every bar dancer they knew, they too were cutters. Leela chipped away at the skin under her Timex. Priya burnt herself. They would use anything—cigarettes, lighters, knives, pens, beer caps, the flotsam in their handbags, the jetsam in their make-up boxes.

  But Barbie had taken something not even worth commenting on for those in the line and turned it into a moment that would enter Rassbery lore. She was so determined to get that mangalsutra around her neck!

  The friends wished they were as far-thinking. As innovative. As brave.

  Leela explained her cutting to me. Every time she felt thwarted—when Shetty wouldn’t take her calls, and she knew it was because he was with his wife—she would drink. As she drank, the plunging sensation that had started in her stomach, tumbling and racing through her body, would begin to slowly dissipate. I had seen what would happen next. Leela would eat in grasping handfuls, she would crank-call ex-lovers, phone friends to insist they come over, badger those of us who were already there for approbation.

  And then, when the euphoria died, she cut herself.

  She cut deep, she liked bleeding hard. She would mock, ‘Knives are good for slicing kuchumber, kanda. But also good for slicing wrists.’