The Sunday Paper (Complete Version)

As Sorabjee made his way down the wooden stairs, he took extreme care to do it as noiselessly as possible. With his left palm firmly on the banister, he placed his feet very carefully on the rungs, much like one blows softly into a lover's eye. He descended the stairs in steps of ones and twos, halting after every six rungs to catch some breath, all the while pressing the cotton balls in his ears tight. He disliked the creaking of the wooden stairs?he it hated more than his advancing age, his arthritic joints, and his loneliness.

'Those idiots in the society office; doing ghotala with other peoples' money all the time! They should be thrown down these very stairs! How many times how many times did I tell them about this creaking mess? More times than all of their ages combined. Motherfuckers all!' he grumbled softly. It was an art he'd mastered: his soft grumblings sounded like the sieving of talcum.

It was only six in the morning, and he did not wish to awaken the residents of Sea View Apartments. Especially the loutish Mehroo on the second floor''a floor below him''who never let go any chance to ask for a small favor everytime she saw him coming down the stairs. In his mind's eye he often saw an image of her sitting on a stool behind the door, a narrowed eye firmly on the peephole, her sagging bosom heaving with every deep breath, waiting for him to appear in the circular world seen through it. A graying voyeur. A pain in his bony ass. Was it a surprise then that she hardly had any friend?

On the way to the agiary, women from the building often gossiped that her sons were busy chasing non-Parsi girls all over Mumbai.

Their men weren't far behind.

'The Mistry boys are such cads I tell you Sorabjee! I caught the elder one what's his name yes Hormadz I caught him the other day with a girl at Chowpatty. She didn't look Parsi to me not a chance! She was so dark I tell you! I've forbidden my boy from befriending them. They are bad influence a stigma to our people,' an armchair critic from the third floor had once told him, his forehead perspiring exponentially in absolute agreement with his agitation.

'What can one expect from a womb like that Jamsetji Jeejibhoy?' Sorabjee had almost spat in distaste.

Mehroo had married a non-Parsi, a scandal that had rocked the community, and had led to the premature death of her father. Moreover, she'd divorced shortly after her second son was born. That she'd spurned the proposal from a then strapping, raven-haired Sorabjee was something that was never discussed beyond closed doors in Sea View Apartments.

Subsequently, Sorabjee married loneliness, for it could not spurn him.

'The day she married that madrasi, I knew theirs was a relationship destined to fail. How many such marriages have lasted? I can count them on the fingers of my right hand; more fingers than successes I say! Can those madrasis ever match a Parsi boy? Can anyone ever equal a Parsi?' he'd often vocalize his grouse to any Parsi within earshot as he bought eggs, bread, liniments, and lip balms for her over the years. Occasionally, he'd end up paying from his pocket when Mehroo went broke, but that was years ago when her boys were still in primary school.

Presently, as he neared the landing on the second floor, he pursed his lips and espied her closed door with relief. The dried toran on her door rustled softly in a cool wind that filtered in through the grilled concrete at the end of the flight of stairs. On the floor a chalk design of the fish he'd seen yesterday made it amply clear that the old lout was still asleep. It was a Sunday after all; not everyone would be up at this unearthly hour: for a newspaper of all things.

As Sorabjee's back faced the Mistry household's door he heard the deafening click of a latch.

He gritted his teeth in absolute defeat.

'Arrey Sorab, it's raining heavily baba. You aren't carrying an umbrella, can't you see outside?' Mehroo rattled in her sing-song voice as she stood in her doorway with a tray in her hand that carried some chalk powder, a cheap plastic mold with a dotted fish across its face, and a divo.

'Mehroo, it's a slight drizzle for God's sake!'

'Nothing doing! Wait, I'll get Hormadz's umbrella for you. I can't see my dear brother getting drenched to the bone while I sit here in the warmth of my home.' She placed the tray by the door, and walked into her flat. He could hear Hormadz's sleepy, agitated banter. The divo's flame swayed from side to side; he helped end its dilemma with the sway of his arm.

'Brother she calls me ' His mumble stopped abruptly as he heard her footsteps approaching the door.

'Here Sorab, take this umbrella. Be careful if a strong wind blows, it might turn turtle. Hormadz got it repaired yesterday only. Can you do me a small favor? Buy me some milk from the bhaiyya.'

'Mehroo, I need to buy the newspaper! And the bhaiyya is '

'Is only a few steps ahead Sorab. In fact it's exactly ten steps ahead if you trust me. Walking is good for your heart!' she smiled and handed him a twenty rupee note.

'Then Mehroo, it's an exercise you'll never need.'

Sorabjee stocked the crumpled note in his shirt pocket.

As Mehroo sprinkled the chalk powder on the mold, she could hear the stairs creak a few decibels louder.

'This man will never change,' she smiled as she lit the divo.

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The corridor was still dark when Sorabjee returned to his flat. He fumbled for the keyhole for a few seconds as he felt its rounded hollowness alternately with his wet fingers and the key. Finally the levers tumbled. The trip to the newspaper kiosk wasn't uneventful. The umbrella did turn turtle as Mehroo had warned when the rain was at its fiercest, leaving him soaking wet.

'She did this on purpose the hag that she is. Gave me an umbrella that's as useless as her boys! I am sure she's by her window behind those curtains amusing her wretched self with a little laugh,' he'd cursed her as he struggled to rein in the umbrella all the while glancing at Mehroo's window.

He threw the umbrella in a corner, and sat on the sofa without bothering to fetch a towel. Beads of rainwater traveled down his spine as he wiped his palms on the softened suede. The newspaper was spread on the teapoy, and taking turns he tossed the main pages, the sports supplement, and the women's magazine that came every Sunday on the floor. His face broke into an awkward smile once he spotted the ad he'd placed in the Parsi Samachar.

Though he hated to admit it, Sorabjee was a lonely man. Through the years, the loneliness grew over him, like a second skin that he increasingly found difficult to shed. Ever since his retirement, the increasing spare time he had on his hands became his greatest concern. The last time the demon of loneliness stabbed at his heart was when he'd fractured his arm. Though Mehroo did look after him; the lonely nights in rooms that smelled of antiseptic, the constant stream of visitors for the patients resting next to him, and the pitying faces of the nurses drove home the point real hard: that he was lonely.

Help Wanted

A sixty year old Parsi gentleman invites

PARSI GIRLS ONLY

to play his daughter for a day.

The girl should be a good cook.

Suitable person will be rewarded

handsomely.

Interested

parties please contact: +91-022-561660785

Adding the +91 was Sorabjee's idea, though the Samachar's executive was rather adamant that their newspaper wasn't read beyond the municipal limits of Greater Mumbai.

'The motherfucker would not have another word from me!' he'd told Mehroo, 'what if some good Parsi girl sees this ad in Jerusalem or Tehran? I wouldn't allow a few missing numbers to ' he moved his closed fist in a gesture that said screw.

Placing an ad for a maid in the Parsi Samachar was Mehroo's suggestion; though she certainly wouldn't have approved of the ad as it appeared this morning.

'Arrey Sorabjee, ever since Nauheed left, your house is so empty. Why don't you hire a full-time maid to look after you? By the grace of Ahura Mazda, you have enough money that will take good care of all your needs till the dokhma invites you,' Mehroo had told him shortly after his niece had been married off to a boy in Dahanu.

'For a change, Mehroo, you are making sense.'

Though he just about tolerated his niece, the thought that his sister eyed his sea-facing flat troubled him more.

'She's worse than a C-grade actress I tell you Mehroo. All she wants is this flat this flat which our father bought where we were born. A flat she visits once a year on the pretext of visiting me.'

Coomi was born when he was almost twenty, and the chasm between them had only widened over the years. The last time the siblings met on a happy note was when he attended his niece's Navjote in their ancestral home in Diu. Shortly after the Navjote, Nauheed was promptly sent to look after him.

'Coomi, why burden the little girl? Let her play and have fun. What help will she be to this old man anyway?'

His sister would not relent; at current property rates the flat would certainly fetch more than a crore! What if this senile man bequeaths it to some useless charity? So on a rainy August morning, the old man and his niece boarded the express train for Mumbai. The train ride had been ordinary, like it always used to be, nothing changed here at the outskirts of Mumbai: this often came as a relief to him. The only remarkable thing about the journey was a realization; that the little girl was as useful to him as a tampon. He'd gone all the way under the seat to fish out the inflatable pillow from his bag; the girl was amused at her uncle's antics, but the thought to help him did not cross her mind.

'Mama, why do you carry a pillow? It's not an overnight journey!' she'd asked him while trying to stifle a smile.

'At least the girl isn't fake does not pretend to be what she is not. I wonder whom she's taken after, not her mother of course,' he'd chuckled at his little joke.

The months that followed were as chaotic as the peak hour Virar fast. She'd filled the ageing flat with her youthful energy, but she was extremely lousy at household chores. To his horror Sorabjee had once caught her with one of the Mistry boys on their terrace well after dark in a passionate liplock. Mehroo had dismissed the incident by reminding him about some episode when he was a boy.

That reminder had curtly drowned the agitated complaint.

With the passing years Sorabjee showed no sign of kicking the bucket, and this gave Coomi sleepless nights. At times she felt that he might have to attend her funeral if her health continued its downward spiral accelerated by asthma. So reluctantly she'd married Nauheed off, and prayed to the good lord that He make her brother a good uncle.

That was six months ago. In the days that followed an assortment of maids had made his life hell. One was an atrocious cook, the other a petty thief, and the worst of the lot had made a pass at him. Everyday as he descended the stairs, he'd crib to Mehroo about these maids from Hell.

'These ghati women are no good I tell you Mehroo. This morning I found a piece of Rin in my sadra. Can you believe that?'

Sorabjee fetched a pair of scissors and carefully cut a larger area around the ad along jagged edges. He then proceeded to cut finely along the black lines that bordered the ad. This was the third ad that he'd placed in the Parsi Samachar''the last one. Not one person had called in the past weeks. He'd checked and rechecked the phone number, the font size, and the message. Everything seemed fine to him. Not one day passed when Mehroo failed to ask him whether anyone called.

'I have placed the receiver off the hook Mehroo. Riff raff from all over Mumbai keep calling. Not one decent Parsi girl!'

He placed the ad in a file which carried important documents ranging from his school mark sheets to his first offer letter to the love letters he never gave Mehroo.

'A city of millions and not one good Parsi girl,' he mumbled as he made his way to the bedroom to change into another sadra pyjama.

As Sorabjee stood by the window, with his eyes closed, listening to the rain; the phone rang.

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'You are a liar,' Sorabjee minced no words.

His stern gaze failed to unnerve the portly figure seated on the sofa across from him.

'Excuse me?'

'You lied to me on the phone about your age.'

'Oh! Did I? A woman always does. I did tell you that I am old enough to be your daughter. Am I too young? Will people mistake me for your granddaughter?' she asked all the while fussing over a muck stain on her kameez.

'How old are you?'

'A-ha. It takes six decades of bad manners to ask a woman her age, and a newborn's naiveté to expect an honest number. At sixty, you should be teaching me manners!' she smiled.

'A father ought to know his daughter's age!'

'Fair enough, let me explain. You are allegedly sixty, so assuming that I was born when you were in your early twenties, my age would be ' she began fussing over the stain again, scraping it with her index finger, the dirt settling snugly in her outgrown nail.

A chill went down his spine as she continued to scrape the stain. He could see images of the dirt?whether it was dog shit or human was beyond him?mixing with the dal as she sprinkled salt in it.

Salt as she saw it, but salty shit as he saw it.

'Late thirties?' he tried diverting her attention.

'Bingo! Late thirties, what a delightful play of words! I almost tell you my age, and then I almost don't. I love these generalizations, their ambiguity is so reassuring. I mean I could be 36 or 37 or heavens forbid 39! I'll place my bet on 36 if I were you. You not too honest with your age either Mr. Mubarakai.'

'Am I?'

'Yeah. I mean look at you!'

She took a good look at him. Sorabjee found it rather difficult to hide his discomfiture. He did not like being examined, not even by a doctor. And here he was, being examined like an excavated mummy, by a woman he'd never seen before, and worst of all he was to be blamed for this predatory humiliation. He played with the mole on his left arm, felt its fleshy mass, his eyes focused on the wall behind her.

'You don't look a day over fifty fifty five. If you do away with that paunch, and dye your hair, I'll make that fifty. Sounds good?'

'Your eyes are brown. I'd rather have a daughter with sea-green eyes; just like me,' he spoke as he gazed at the shimmering sea in the distance. It was a murky gray, as the city relentlessly emptied its constipated bowels in it.

'The ad missed out on this detail Mr. Mubarakai. Moreover, I am not a big fan of inserting colored pieces of glass in my eyes. No way! Not even for a million rupees, let alone doing it for a rent-a-day father. By the way, do you believe in genetics?'

'That's not important as long as you can see, which I assume you do. Will you be kind enough to tell me what compelled you to come? Now that it's clear that a million rupees can't dissuade you from doing what you won't do on a normal day.'

'Excuse the exaggeration Mr. what should I call you?'

'Sorab will do.'

'I was exaggerating papa. I am sure you wouldn't want your daughter to call you Sorab. Would you? You can call me Mimi, that's what everyone calls me. Even my boys!'

'Mimi! What kind of a name is that? And why do you boys call you that? I will call you Navaz. Why are you here Navaz?'

'Well, you wouldn't mind your daughter calling you Sorab. So there. Navaz sounds quite pompous to them and to me. I hated the name as a kid, even now; I would rather be called gangubai! Do you listen to FM? Have you ever heard the sunshine show on 96.3 Sunny FM eight to ten am every morning? Where we play the latest songs, hottest happenings in the city, and traffic updates with a lot of masti, magic, and chutzpah.'

'Feels like I am listening to one now.'

'I hosted that show.'

'Hosted? You mean you are jobless?'

'Not yet. The show's producer found a PYT who is good both in the boardroom and the bedroom.'

'And you knock my door for the money. Neat plan I should say. Come here every Sunday; show some pity on an old man you wouldn't give a second look otherwise.'

'You must be joking.'

'I am not.' His patience was running thin.

'I mean did you expect your ad to throw up an angel filled with daughterly love, complete with a halo, and delicate wings that crumple at the slightest touch!' she batted her eyelids mocking a demure angel.

'I did not expect you either.'

'Fact is stranger than fiction, isn't it? I expected a gentleman, and I got you. So the deal's even. What will you like for lunch?'

'Before you cook, you'll have to cut your nails,' he walked toward the showcase.

'Boiled nails?' she arched her eyebrows.

He paid no attention to her senseless wisecracks. Nothing made sense to him; she wasn't his real daughter. She was being obnoxious from the moment she had opened her loud mouth. If she were indeed his obnoxious real daughter, he would have kicked her out. Compared to this uncouth woman, even Mehroo seemed to belong to the cr'me-de-la-cr'me. Yet, here she was, still sitting on the sofa. He wondered why he tolerated her; he didn't have to. But he did.

As he opened the glass-fronted door, and salvaged a nail cutter from a plastic box, he could see her digging her nose.

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Sorabjee sat at the dining table surveying the culinary concoction laid out in front of him. The dal, rice, cabbage, and curds looked edible all right. In fact, he found the aroma appetizing; the last time he had a delicious lunch was at Mehroo's insistence.

She'd brought a bowl filled to the rim with kolmino patio, which he'd politely refused to accept.

'Did Coomi pay you to poison this patio? Or did she promise you one of the sea-facing rooms?'

Only after she'd insisted a little more that he'd reluctantly accepted the bowl.

By now it was clear to Sorabjee that Navaz loved audible chewing. He gulped the dal and rice with a spoonful of curd here and a mouthful of cabbage there as noiselessly as possible.

'Not bad,' this was the closest he could come to complimenting another soul.

'Coming from you, that's a huge compliment. It's like Hitler you know, peace be upon him, doing the hula as blacks and Asians and Hispanics win one medal after the other, I am honored…thank you!' she mumbled with her mouth full with semi-masticated food.

'What does your husband do?'

'You mean my ex? He runs a seedy bar in Byculla. The kind where moneyed perverts come to watch girls younger than their daughters gyrate in garish clothes. He married one such thing. The last I heard of him he was in Malaysia?he loves to travel.'

'And your boys?'

'They live with him. The courts had enough evidence to brand me a wanton debauchee?a whore as my ex boasts to his friends. The kind who hops in a bed with a new man every night; how I wish my sex life was that spicy. I am sorry '

'No no it's okay. You must have fought back?'

'I wanted the divorce and my boys. Didn't work out that way well, you win some you lose some, such is life. Rice?'

'What about your parents? This must have been tough on them.'

'Never knew them. I was brought up by a distant aunt in Navsari.'

Sorabjee's face showed a tinge of pity much against his wishes.

'Now now don't get all sentimental. I am not the Nirupa Roy types, I've moved on with life. I've had a good life, a happy childhood?I am happy to be alive!' she gave out a throaty laugh.

'You are lying again Navaz. A broken marriage, kids snatched away, and a job you'll soon lose. How can you be happy? How can anyone be happy in the face of such calamities?'

'Calamities! You are getting creative with the words. Let me ask you something. Are you happy?'

'Well, I don't know. Never really thought about it.'

'You not bad at lying either; not that I am,' she tried rapid damage control, 'How do you define happiness?'

'Will you pass me the rice?' her questions were getting uncomfortable, so he made a lame attempt to evade her voyeuristic, catty curiosity.

She looked at him in the eye as she passed him the rice. For a moment the only sound in the room was that of her chewing, and the whimpering of a dog outside.

'Happiness is when you live for others,' she'd been itching to end the silent spell.

Sorabjee continued to eat.

'You don't believe me do you?'

'So you are happy because you live for others? Whom do you live for? For your husband who left you for another woman? Or for your kids? When was the last time you saw them? Do you live for your self? A depressed, lonely woman who's about to lose her job?'

'Do you know that the old beggar woman who sits on the pavement across from your building is fluent in German? That she was a teacher in the Bombay Scottish School, and her name is Prema. When was the last time you noticed her? She's my best friend. Have you ever seen the three legged dog that loiters in your building's compound? He's been here since he was a four legged puppy. I feed him morning, noon, and night. Did you visit the newspaper vendor when his only son died? Did you know that he had a son? I live in the wing next to yours. You've passed by me umpteen times. Yet, you never saw my smile; never smiled back.'

'Why on earth should I bother about people who don't matter to me?'

'How many people do you know who matter to you?'

He had no answer. Who mattered to him? Coomi, Nauheed, or Mehroo? The newspaper vendor or the barber or the telephone repairman? Navaz abruptly left the dining table, picked up her umbrella, and walked out of his flat even before Sorabjee cold react. He was amazed at her dexterity; that some one as portly as her could be so quick.

'You don't want the money?' he called after her, but she did not utter another word.

Sorabjee spent a sleepless night listening to the pitter patter of the rain.

The next morning Mehroo stood by the curtains of her window looking for Hormadz who'd long gone to buy a can asafetida from the bania. She'd missed Sorab on his way down. As she tried to spot her boy in a crowd of unfamiliar faces, she could not miss the spotlessly clean sadra pajama. She rubbed her eyes twice to make sense of what her eyes saw. Was it Sorabjee talking with the filthy woman on the pavement, offering her a wrapped newspaper or was she hallucinating?

She pinched her arm.

'I am sure he's feeding that beggar the patio I'd given him last week. What a wretched man!'

As she saw Sorabjee waving out to her, she couldn't help shifting her gaze to the sea.

'That old lout, she'll never change,' so murmured Sorabjee as a light drizzle fell on his jet black hair.

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