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‘Not very well. Just because of the plane crash and so on.’ He was in turmoil. It seemed Gibreel had not managed to escape from his i
‘The film industry is full of wackos,’ Swatilekha was telling George, affectionately. ‘Just look at you, mister.’ But Bhupen grew serious. ‘I always saw Gibreel as a positive force,’ he said. ‘An actor from a minority playing roles from many religions, and being accepted. If he has fallen out of favour, it's a bad sign.’
Two days later, Salahuddin Chamchawala read in his Sunday papers that an international team of mountaineers, on their way to attempt an ascent of the Hidden Peak, had arrived in Bombay; and when he saw that among the team was the famed ‘Queen of Everest’, Miss Alleluia Cone, he had a strange sense of being haunted, a feeling that the shades of his imagination were stepping out into the real world, that destiny was acquiring the slow, fatal logic of a dream. ‘Now I know what a ghost is,’ he thought. ‘Unfinished business, that's what.’
Allie's presence in Bombay came, in the next two days, to preoccupy him more and more. His mind insisted on making strange co
Zeeny, her medical surgeries, college lectures and work for the human-chain demonstration leaving her no time, at present, for Salahuddin and his moods, mistakenly saw his introverted silence as expressive of doubts – about his return to Bombay, about being dragged into political activity of a type that had always been abhorrent to him, about her. To disguise her fears, she spoke to him in the form of a lecture. ‘If you're serious about shaking off your foreig
Should he telephone Allie? Had Gibreel told her about the voices?
Should he try to see Gibreel?
Something is about to happen, his i
It happened on the day of the demonstration, which, against all the odds, was a pretty fair success. A few minor skirmishes were reported from the Mazagaon district, but the event was, in general, an orderly one. CPI(M) observers reported an unbroken chain of men and women linking hands from top to bottom of the city, and Salahuddin, standing between Zeeny and Bhupen on Muhammad Ali Road, could not deny the power of the image. Many people in the chain were in tears. The order to join hands had been given by the organizers – Swatilekha prominent among them, riding on the back of a jeep, megaphone in hand – at eight am precisely; one hour later, as the city's rush-hour traffic reached its blaring peak, the crowd began to disperse. However, in spite of the thousands involved in the event, in spite of its peaceful nature and positive message, the formation of the human chain was not reported on the Doordarshan television news. Nor did All-India Radio carry the story. The majority of the (government-supporting) ‘language press’ also omitted any mentions...one English-language daily, and one Sunday paper, carried the story; that was all. Zeeny, recalling the treatment of the Kerala chain, had forecast this deafening silence as she and Salahuddin walked home. ‘It's a Communist show,’ she explained. ‘So, officially, it's a non-event.’
What grabbed the evening paper headlines?
What screamed at readers in inch-high letters, while the human chain was not permitted so much as a small-print whisper?
EVEREST QUEEN, FILM MOGUL PERISH
DOUBLE TRAGEDY ON MALABAR HILL – GIBREEL FARISHTA VANISHES
CURSE OF EVEREST VILAS STRIKES AGAIN
The body of the respected movie producer, S. S. Sisodia, had been discovered by domestic staff, lying in the centre of the living-room rug in the apartment of the celebrated actor Mr. Gibreel Farishta, with a hole through the heart. Miss Alleluia Cone, in what was believed to be a ‘related incident’, had fallen to her death from the roof of the skyscraper, from which, a couple of years previously, Mrs. Rekha Merchant had hurled her children and herself towards the concrete below.
The morning papers were less equivocal about Farishta's latest role. FARISHTA, UNDER SUSPICION, ABSCONDS.
‘I'm going back to Scandal Point,’ Salahuddin told Zeeny, who, misunderstanding this withdrawal into an i
‘Salad baba,’ she said harshly, ‘I've got to hand it to you, man. Your timing: really great.’
On the night after his participation in the making of the human chain, Salahuddin Chamchawala was looking out of the window of his childhood bedroom at the nocturnal patterns of the Arabian Sea, when Kasturba knocked urgently on his door. ‘A man is here to see you,’ she said, almost hissing the words, plainly scared. Salahuddin had seen nobody coming through the gate. ‘From the servants’ entrance,’ Kasturba said in response to his inquiry. ‘And, baba, listen, it is that Gibreel. Gibreel Farishta, who the papers say...’ her voice trailed off and she chewed, fretfully, at the nails on her left hand.
‘Where is he?’
‘What to do, I was afraid,’ Kasturba cried. ‘I told him, in your father's study, he is waiting there only. But maybe it is better you don't go. Should I call the police? Baapu ré, that such a thing.’
No. Don't call. I'll go see what he wants.
Gibreel was sitting on Changez's bed with the old lamp in his hands. He was wearing a dirty white kurta-pajama outfit and looked like a man who had been sleeping rough. His eyes were unfocused, lightless, dead. ‘Spoono,’ he said wearily, waving the lamp in the direction of an armchair. ‘Make yourself at home.’
‘You look awful,’ Salahuddin ventured, eliciting from the other man a distant, cynical, unfamiliar smile. ‘Sit down and shut up, Spoono,’ Gibreel Farishta said. ‘I'm here to tell you a story.’