A luxury coach lumbered by; it was bound for Rajasthan. Mohan read the inscription on its side: Pushpa Vihar. The bus was nearly empty – it’d pick up returning Rajasthanis throughout the city before it left in earnest – but a few curious faces peered out at the start of their long journey. There was a small silver altar on the dashboard, and strings of black pompoms hung from the rear bumper to protect travellers from evil looks. A young man hung out of the doorway, enjoying the breeze on his face.
The morning was always so beautiful here. The location of the shelter, which hid under its dirty tarpaulin and the gnarled, ancient-looking banyan tree, meant that only those who knew about the letter writers came to find them. The workers in the offices, hotels and restaurants in Ballard Estate, Horniman Circle, and the inside streets of Bazaargate passed every day and were used to seeing the writers. But disoriented-looking white tourists, their belongings trussed to their backs and their money strapped to their waists, would pass, stand near the shelter, which served as a traffic island, and peer in; they’d be affronted because they couldn’t work out what was going on inside. Khan would call out to them, showing off: ‘Hello? Yes, Madam?’
And there were the pigeons, who spent their day moving with apparently frantic urgency from tree to tree. They’d suddenly all take off from the banyan here and rise, wings flapping madly, before heading either to the taller banyan outside the GPO, or the trees in Bhatia Baug in front of the station. If you looked up you saw the birds themselves – in passing, one or the other would casually drop a chalky blot on the road below. But if you remained gazing ahead, you saw only their shadows, which fluttered and moved with even more delicacy and life than the real birds: their silhouettes would rise, flap their wings and return to roost in the shadow of the tree.
He was starting to feel pleasantly hollow – that meant it would soon be time for lunch – when a small, familiar figure with a pot belly hailed him cheerfully. Kamble worked as a peon at the sessions court; he had been to deliver an order at the municipal corporation building. He sat on the stool next to Mohan, smiled, and took out his handkerchief to mop his face and the top of his head, which glistened in the humidity. Mohan passed him the water bottle; the other man leaned, in a friendly way, on one wooden arm of Mohan’s chair, a thing of tubular steel and disintegrating plastic webbing.
‘Getting hot now,’ Kamble observed. He tilted his head back to pour the water directly down his throat; a gold ring on one fat finger winked at Mohan.
‘Busy day?’
Kamble put down the bottle and wiped his mouth. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Summer session. Just a few cases: anticipatory bail, chain snatching, one foreigner who got caught’ – and here he waved in the direction of the GPO’s enormous dome – ‘posting marijuana to herself.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘When it didn’t arrive she came back from abroad to ask what happened to the parcel. Strange how people always think they won’t get caught.’
Mohan chuckled. Kamble replaced the lid of the water bottle. He relaxed and leaned back on the chair arm, and his eye fell on the book on Mohan’s table. ‘Hey, the BMC is moving the booksellers today, you heard?’
‘Moving?’
‘Evicting them. Part of the anti-hawker thing.’
‘But what are you saying?’ Mohan held onto the small desk as though it was about to fall.
‘Come, you want to come and see? I’m walking back. One of the peons in the BMC was telling me. The trucks went this morning.’
Mohan stumbled up. He looked around; most of the letter writers had arrived. Khan nodded at him. ‘Yes yes, you go.’
‘I’ll go and come,’ he muttered. He reached for the book, then left it where it was.
‘Don’t walk so fast, re!’ Kamble ran after Mohan, who had shot out in front of a taxi. The driver was outraged; he braked, gave the horn a long blast and leaned out of the window to question Mohan’s relationship with his family. The letter writer ignored him and hurried on. They crossed the road and headed into the arcades, which were shot with hot strips of sun.
‘Look,’ said Mohan suddenly. ‘None of these people has a licence either.’ He stopped and waved at the hawkers, thin young men in tight shirts and jeans, belts with exaggerated buckles; they folded their arms and eyed him in return.
Kamble shrugged. ‘It’s part of what they’re doing everywhere, they say it’s to clear the main roads so people can walk more easily in the morning,’ he said apologetically. He put a hand on Mohan’s arm and smiled at one of the more aggressive looking hawkers.
‘Corruption. The booksellers have been there for years – people who take the train stop there on their way to office.’
‘Well –’
‘Quickly!’ Mohan had seen a bus, rolling to a halt a few yards ahead; he pulled Kamble after him through a white stucco arch and they dashed for the stop.
‘You want to take the bus? But –’
‘It’ll be faster.’ They climbed aboard as the bus began to move, and pushed their way down the narrow aisle between the humid bodies of the other passengers.
The bus took an age to cover the short distance. Finally it reached the stop just before Fountain: they pushed their way to the front and jumped down. Mohan was sweating; the back of his neck prickled. ‘Come on,’ he said. His head pounded. They darted across the first road, waited at the crossing, and started to cross the second, but as he hurried he felt a small release at his right foot: the strap of his sandal had broken.
Two green municipal trucks were parked near the junction. Mohan’s hand flew up to clutch his head. Men in dusty blue uniforms were picking up books by the armful and throwing them into the back of the nearer truck. His broken sandal flapping, he ran towards them.
‘What are you doing? You can’t do this! Stop! Wait!’ The man ignored him, and grinned at the drama. Mohan saw the thin bookseller from the day before. ‘Where are they taking them?’ he asked wildly.
‘Some warehouse or godown, I don’t know where. I don’t know how we’ll ever get them back.’ The young man stood still, his arms full of thrillers; he looked adrift, as though he had no idea what to do next.
‘Here, I’ll take some.’ Mohan started to scoop up the volumes scattered around them.
‘Oye, you can’t do that,’ the BMC man said. ‘They’re being confiscated.’ He picked up another armful and walked to the truck. A policeman, smacking his stick into his palm, strutted up. ‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘Move on!’ He was bored, Mohan noticed; probably he wanted his lunch.
‘Come on, re,’ Kamble said. He took Mohan’s arm and tugged at it. Only a few books remained, lying on the ground and beside the railings. Mohan handed those he held to the young bookseller. One fell from his arms and Mohan stooped and picked it up, touched it to his forehead in apology. It was a business book, with confident red letters on the cover: Master of Your Own Fate.
Mohan, still clutching the book, allowed Kamble to pull him towards the crossing. ‘My sandal’s broken,’ he muttered.
He went home early, feeling dazed and unreal. The outer door was closed because it was the afternoon and a time of rest; the flat was warm, silent, and sleepy. His wife opened the inner door.
‘I
