Wadala Bridge - a child's tale

It wasn’t that Hamid had been born to see days of luxury, days of worldly comfort, or even days of simple basic human dignity. It wasn’t that he was accustomed to bright night lights and breezy afternoons. He was not. His world had always been a dim world. But even so, he vividly remembered that night, the darkest of all nights. Hamid had not known many seasons in his seven year old life then but he could make out the difference that night. He had only known the sweltering summers and the wet, damp, putrid, almost nauseating rains. He couldn’t have known any better and any different, for the city had no other seasons. Mumbai was an endless summer worsened by a seemingly endless, alarming and sometimes lethal monsoon.

But he knew that season to be different. December had brought along a certain firmness in the chill the air carried at nights, a certain stubbornness. Actually, the air even used to feel biting sort of! Hamid had not known such sensations. Oh! The shivers, most incomprehensible and the hardest to forget, the way they wracked the entire body and there was absolutely nothing you could do about them! He hated when the other boys of his gang spotted him shivering. They all hated to be caught in the act; tried their best to control and fought back the beast that now and then wanted to run from the bottom of the spine to the top. Poor Hamid had been very unlucky and carried the unenviable record of the highest slip-ups. Only consolation he found was that every single dweller of their street slipped and yielded to this embarrassing monster and the grown-ups didn’t actually seem to mind each other shivering. They all seemed to be fighting the cold. Even Fakira, as they called the roadside drunkard madman, had gathered thicker rags from somewhere and would always move about wrapped in them. Ammi had given him an old looking sweater that she brought from work one day. Said it used to be worn by her mem saab’s son. Frayed though it was, and the wool threads were torn at places, it was somewhat warm. It fit Hamid badly though but then it was a shade short at the waist and a shade long at the arms. Both were good things for Haimd. He liked when he could simply let his palms slide inside the long arms and almost always kept them that way when darkness fell. And then in the mornings, when all the kids went to the train tracks to do their thing, he was grateful for the short waist length and never had to bother about where his sweater was.

It became worse and the chill deepened by the time it was the end of the month. And finally he had seen smoke starting to come out of people’s mouths as they spoke, even of his own mouth as he breathed out. That was so spooky. Aamir, Sachin, Faisal, Suraj, Babar and him, they all used to gather together at night, leaning over the parapet of the Wadala road over-bridge and breathe plumes after plumes of soft white ghostly smoke into the chill of the night as the local trains thundered past under them. The barking of the dogs had grown shriller at nights, mostly taking the shape of long drawn out howls.

It was the night before the festival of the Christian people. David and his family, at the very edge of the bridge footpath where the bridge and the pavement dwellings began, had lit up their shack with some blinking lights. The same lights he had used last time, and the time before that. Where did he keep these flimsy bulbs when the rains lashed the bridge and the water invaded their homes? He decided he had to know and would ask David tomorrow. Ammi had started to cough a lot in the last six months and would sometimes go into fits that were very scary and lasted whole hours. Hamid’s ammi was a woman of some beauty. Atleast to Hamid, she was the most beautiful woman, but he had heard some men in his footpath colony talk about her sometimes and say things about her beauty. He felt good that they all thought she was good to look at and they all stared at her whenever she would walk past them on way to work or other things. But of late, since this coughing started, she had withered every day. Hamid could see the change every passing day and since the last two months, the men and even the women had started avoiding her and never visited their home. Even some of the kids in his gang said their parents had scolded them for having Hamid as company. He had heard from his father that ammi had TB. A bad illness it is, they all said.

Hamid had once drummed up the courage to ask abba why ammi coughed so much and had gotten the same reply that he always got. ‘She’s ill Hamid. She will get better’.

‘Is she going to go away abba?’ He had managed to confide his worst fears. His father had looked into his eyes in a strange way then. He sat down and made Hamid sit in his lap.

‘Why do you ask that Hamid? Who told you she would go away?’

Hamid looked at the concrete and mud floor of the footpath and sulked. ‘Sachin and Faisal were saying that when people get TB, they go away and don’t come back. They said your ammi has got the bad illness and she is certainly going to go away now.’ He suddenly looked up. Tears had welled up in his round eyes. ‘Why do they say this abba? Will she really go away? Will you let her go away? I don’t want her to go anywhere abba. I want to go with her.’

His father had been silent but had simply held him close and he kept running his hand through Hamid’s hair for a long time. Finally he said ‘Hamid, tell your friends your abba will scare the bad illness away. Your abba knows how to beat it. Do you know that your abba also had this illness long before you were born? And your abba fought it and sent it away, packing back to its bad world.’

Hamid looked up with surprise. ‘Really, abba!’ His mouth became so round and big when he ended the word ‘abba’. And it remained so for some time till his father laughed and poked him in the ribs and said ‘yes of course’. What Riaz Malik did not tell Hamid was that he was a young twenty two year old emigrant stuntman in Bombay then, and used to work for a great cinema director who enquired about the health of all his crew and helped him with his TB medication. More importantly, it was the frequent fruit gifts that he sent that kept Riaz’s body fit enough to fight the bad illness. Those were the golden days so to speak. Things had gone a great way downhill since then for Riaz.

Hamid remembered how on that coldest of nights, ammi had started to cough real bad. He had not known about it for a long time. He had been loafing around with his gang near the train tracks, watching the warm looking engine lights cutting through the mist that hung over the cold rails. The shrill screech of the train and the approaching cone of light, the thunderous roar made deeper and scarier by the dampness in the air, the cold rails that became hot just after the train passed. It was all a new experience for them. Babar always ran to the tracks and put his hands on the rails as soon as the train passed. And they all joined immediately. But Babar was mad. He would also touch the rails before the train came. He would not be afraid at all but would simply slouch near the tracks and touch the rails and feel the rumble in them. He always shouted to let them know how it felt. He always invited them but no one ever joined him.

That day, Babar had been sitting near the track which they said carried the fast locals. These ones came very fast, almost as fast as the blue coloured long distance trains that had so many cars. And they always feared crossing this track. They watched as Babar sat motionless with one palm on the rail and the other rubbing the side of his thighs for warmth. He had a dirty muffler over his head and neck and his mother had tied it pretty thick around his ears. It was misty, quite thick actually and the gang kept shouting and hooting to cheer Babar. As the train’s cone of light made faint appearance, they started to howl for him to come back. Babar sat for some more time and let the train come closer. He always did that when he was in the mood. Hamid had become very scared then. By the by, Babar spun around and tried to get up to run but suddenly stopped dead before he could get up. He was looking at his right hand with a disgustful expression on his face. He started rubbing his palm frantically on the stones around the track while they watched in horror as the train came so close. They yelled and jumped and made awful lot of noise but Babar seemed lost in some frenzy.

And then, even before the train reached Babar, he fell forward on his face, as if pushed by someone. At that moment, the train passed him, roaring and sputtering and clanking. It was fast and they could not see if there were any passengers in it. They could not even see if it was a local or the long one. They stood riveted to their places, eyes fixed on the body sprawled beside the tracks as the train’s ruckus thundered past. Hamid had closed his eyes by now in abject fear. He could remember himself shivering so much more than on any cold night and he had made no attempt to hide it this time. What he did not see that night was that all of his motley gang of children was shivering and panting at that moment, arms hugging themselves, heads sunk over their necks, feet still and cold.

They all feared the worst probably. There was no sign of movement in the dark shape lying next to the track. The silhouette could barely be seen in the cold mist and their eyes strained to find some sign of motion, of life. A minute passed, then another. Sachin mustered the courage and called out.

“Babar”.

He might have thought he was shouting but his call came out as something lesser than a whisper. Even Hamid standing at the edge of the group barely heard it. Sachin called out again with some more courage. There was an edge in his voice and Hamid could not help noticing the panic that was filling the air now. No one else spoke at all. It seemed they all waited for Sachin to go on calling, and to share his burden of getting whatever answer lay near the tracks was just too much for them. No one wanted that burden.

Then they heard it – “louder Sachin. Call louder”, a faint trembling voice sang out from the mist. Hamid nearly shrieked and Faisal stumbled from the rock pile he had been standing on. None could keep their eyes anymore on the dark form near the tracks. Fear was gripping their hearts. By and by, their gazes returned when the unbroken silence brought some courage.

Strange, how the same silence was fueling their fear some time ago and now suddenly it became their best hope.

Amir, who stood right next to Sachin, spoke “it was me”.

“What?” Sachin jerked his head towards him.

“Yes. It was me who spoke. I think you should call out louder.”

Sachin kept looking at Amir with a strange expression on his face. Amir repeated, “Babar. Call out to him louder” and he pointed towards the shape with his head.

Sachin understood and let out another “Babar” with greater conviction behind it. Same result. No answer.

Hamid felt some movement behind him and looked back. Was it Suraj who was quietly slinking away into the dark shadows, on the path that led to the top of the bridge? Hamid didn’t have the courage to call out loud after the retreating form. But he did have the gumption to follow. Slow steps, perching ever so lightly on the rough edged stones of the rail tracks. He saw Sachin and Amir standing still. They hadn’t moved at all. They had been standing far ahead and much closer to where Babar lay.

Hamid kept to his retreat, one stealthy step at a time. He passed the drain that ran parallel to the tracks, passed the foot of the narrow ramp that ran up to the road bridge, passed the spot halfway on the ramp where the cat litter used to hang out. The white big one jumped without a sound out of his way and perched on the wall next to the ramp; she accosted Hamid with a silent roar, all teeth bared. That startled him, but not enough to let out a sound. He wouldn’t have made a noise if somebody was chopping his finger off. Not now!

He turned to give one last look. It looked like Sachin had been moving closer to Babar’s body. Amir had followed. They had crossed one track and were about to cross another.

Then, as he focused on the scene below, a shrill screech rang out and a cone of light emerged from under the bridge. A train!

It came so suddenly, Hamid could barely swing his head right to look at the monstrous engine roaring forth. Oh what a ruckus it made. It was the blue long-distance train! And he saw with horror that it was dashing straight into the two boys trying to cross the second track below him. As he turned and started to run, the last image he caught was the boys turning right and shielding their eyes with their hands, a shocked expression on their faces framed by the intense light of the engine.

It was a long time ago that he had seen those faces. Hamid did not go back to his home. He didn’t even go into the footpath colony on the bridge. He had slunk away, quiet and scared, hugging his sweater tightly around himself. He had got down the roadway and taken to the old housing societies that lined the rail tracks. The boundary walls of these tenements were pitiable remnants of their old selves and there were many trees and growing right through them, while parts of the walls had fallen down at so many places. Hamid climbed the roots close to the backyard of one of those buildings and sat huddled in the knotty arms of the tree. He was scared and shivered uncontrollably. The night seemed to have grown darker.

What had happened to Babar? They all had known probably. But what had happened to Sachin and Amir? The image of the shrieking engine with its burning cone of pale yellow light and crashing deafening roars was fixed in his mind. He kept replaying the whole event and kept sitting, chin on the knees, rocking back and forth, gazing down with unblinking eyes. A lot of time must have passed; the night was so dark by now, he had no inkling how much. He couldn’t remember seeing Suraj anywhere when the train came blasting out from under the bridge.

When he suddenly woke up with a start, a very faint light hung all around. It did not seem like morning but just a lessening of the pitch black darkness; it seemed just a wee bit less darker now. The cold was however much harsher and he felt his nose and face cold even without touching them.

 What’s the time? How long have I been here? What happened to Sachin and Amir?

He kept asking himself and the voice in head kept replying – they are dead; don’t go home; you never warned them; you didn’t look out.

Hamid could just not make the voice stop. He buried his head between his knees now and wrapped his hands tightly over it.

‘They’re dead Hamid. You never warned them.’

He pulled his sweater over his head and held his arms tight around his head and his knees.

The voice seemed to grow faint but an image flashed – he saw their faces again, framed in the intense light from the train, and he saw Sachin looking straight at him! Yes, he saw that. He remembered it now. Sachin had cast a glance in his direction just as the two had sensed the train. Just as Sachin looked towards Hamid, the light had blinded both. And their hands had come up trying to shield their eyes.

The voice came back with a recurring monotone – you ran away Hamid, you should have warned them, don’t go home Hamid, they must be searching for you. The words seemed to be spoken by somebody with Sachin’s voice, and there seemed to be many people speaking at once. All the words came tumbling after each other and echoed so much that the repetition made the whole thing a cacophony of many Sachins speaking insistently. He buried his head and his thoughts deeper and deeper between his legs and hoped he would just somehow make the voices stop.

He dreamt of flashing lights, the engine’s yellow cone, and flashing blue lights, flashing and never staying still. He bobbed in and out of nightmares. The voices and the lights haunted him.

And then he felt like a lot of light was all around him. He looked around, eyes rubbed open. Dawn! Diffused light spread out like a veil over everything he could see. And everything was hazy, blurred. He had become used to seeing the world like this, this blurred hazy picture in the morning, since winter had set in. Sachin used to say it was water that froze in the air!

How so impossible? How could water freeze in the air? They all laughed at him when he told these fancy stories. Sachin always told fancy, almost magical stuff; always.

And then he suddenly sat up. Sachin?

And the thoughts of the night came rushing and tumbling again. He heard voices from the bridge above. Voices of many people speaking, in hushed tones, speaking all at the same time.

Were they now searching for him? He could swear he had heard his name being called out sometime in the night. They must have found out!

But he had to know. What had happened to Babar? What had happened to Sachin and Amir?

He thought he saw some silhouettes behind the bridge parapet, framed against the brightening morning sky. He rubbed his eyes and hunched behind the root to peep and get a clear look. There were three figures he could make out in the haze. They all seemed to be looking out over the parapet towards the backyards where he hid. His heart skipped a beat.

Was that Babar? That short sturdy looking shape of a boy leaning over the rails on the parapet. The mists were getting thinner every passing second. He pored harder.

Ya Allah! He gasped. It was Babar!

But how? He had seen it happen, had he not? He had, no no, all of them had seen Babar get hit by the train and fall down. Yes. How could it be him?

He needed to get better look of this boy on the bridge. He slid from behind the root and tip-toed to the wall of the compound that ran perpendicular from the fallen wall his root grew on. This way he was closer now to the bridge and yet, by crouching, he was hidden from view. He hoped he was hidden.

He looked up again. It was Babar! And, there was Sachin and Amir standing next to him!

Hamid’s eyes widened, round, unblinking, moist with the winter air outside and the emotion within. Hamid became more and more sure as he watched gaze fixed, from behind the wall. His spirit seemed to lighten; the heavy thoughts of the night gone by seemed to lose their gravity; with each passing moment, as the light of dawn suffused the scene Hamid’s guilt faded. As a masterful poet of the bygone era has penned, no matter how dark and how deeply hopeless our thoughts are in the bear hug of night, they always vanish in the tender grip of daybreak when the first light wraps its arms around its sleeping children, cradles them and plants a kiss on their cheek.

Hamid may have never known about the many masters of human condition who have penned almost all of humanity’s strifes, dramas, disasters, emotions, catharses and triumphs. But his story was no different from all those. His story too was a human tale, a tale of all the above elements. Maybe not as grandiose as they are for some who are more privileged, but no less in intensity.

Hamid’s guilt soon became so light that he could lift himself and his feet began to obey his commands again. Hamid heaved himself and lurched sideways, and took off on the ramp that rose up to the bridge. His slippers lay forgotten at the bottom of the root that had been his bed for the night.

He ran up the ramp, scaring the cats away from their perch on the wall, barefoot, a large smile livening up his entire face, eyes nearly closed, hair flailing and bouncing as his breezy run gathered pace. Morning traffic on the bridge never matched up to the chaos of the evenings, but today probably was Sunday. Cars and buses were very few and far between, and almost all handcarts and bicycles were out. Sunday morning was one morning when a large majority of the megacities’ dirty hands took time off and lay snoring wherever they had fallen last night; on their hand carts parked neatly in cramped alleys, on footpaths barely inches away from roaring traffic and smoke spewing exhausts, under billboards and on steps of shops closed for the day, their sprawled unresponsive forms announcing firmly the sabbatical of the week. And most notably, they lay under the many flyovers and bridges, safe from the winter chill creeping on the city and from the blazing morning heat that unusually clear skies would bring.

And amidst this sleepy, yet to stir mega city, Hamid ran up the ramp and onto the Wadala bridge, zig-zagging furiously to avoid dogs and humans and buckets and cots and children, towards the group of youngsters standing and now gaping in his direction. They had noticed him and stood with none of the energy that Hamid exuded reciprocating in them. They were all his friends alright, but when Hamid reached them, panting and heaving, and let out a whoop of joy as he grabbed Babar, he missed noticing the blankness of their expressions.  Babar held him but Hamid could not even feel the grasp. He did not mind. He stood back and watched Amir and Sachin with glee, some of the celebration leaving him now.

Sachin broke the strange silence.

“Hamid, where have you been? We searched everywhere.” The words came out more like hushed whispers. Hamid was still not sure what was going on. He was not on their level; his excitement, and relief, still pumping along with the blood at a strong rhythm.

“I … I was, I thought Babar… and I saw”. He could manage broken phrases as he tried to catch his breath back. The gang just stood there and looked on, all their faces nearly blank, well, not totally, but some emotion lurked that Hamid could sense was definitely not happiness.

“I saw Amir and Sachin run over by the fast blue train... I saw the train’s light on them when it happened. I was so…so scared. I ran away and hid in those root trees.” He finished, with every word coming out a little more calm and little less chaotic than the one before it.

He kept panting but his breathing had become nearly normal now.

Babar stepped forward and said “Hamid. I fell when the train passed and blacked out I think. But we have been looking for you all night. Your abbu was looking for you.”

“I know. Abbu must have been angry, very angry. Did he too search for me? How long did you all search? He must be so angry, I am not going to go home now. I have been a fool. If I go home, he will scold me. He doesn’t like me staying out late and I had sneaked out last night.”

Sachin laid a hand on Hamid’s shoulder. “Hamid!”

Hamid snapped out of his frenzy. “Hamid, teri ammi.” Sachin’s face carried a form of scared sympathy, eyes unblinking. He pointed towards Hamid’s shack.

Hamid looked up. And only now he noticed. There were a lot of people thronging his house, people of the footpath colony. Men and women stood around his house talking and Hamid saw children standing among the elders. He had not noticed. And what about his ammi? Why did Sachin mention his ammi? He had been afraid of his abbu, so what about his ammi?

Hamid moved as if in a dream. The people started to shimmer and float. The world went soft, shorn of all edges and corners. As he moved, he felt nothing. The rough ground that he had tread a thousand times since he learned to walk had never felt so … so liquid. He couldn’t allow all this to invade and overwhelm his senses. He wanted so much to know. Just know what had happened… to his ammi?

But invade it did and he was soon standing at the door of his tarpaulin covered dwelling. The floating figures seemed to part away as he glided in towards the place where the footpath ended and his home began. He stood there; the place where cold, bitterness and fear of the world ended and warmth and shelter always began; where sleep was conjured up amidst the ever persistent cacophony of the mad traffic on the bridge.

Hamid stood and he saw. His abbu slumped on the ground, legs stretched, hands planted on the floor behind his back, his head thrown back and body leaning. Riaz Malik’s eyes were closed. Hamid Malik saw many neighbours and friends of abbu bunched around him. They all looked up at him as he entered the door. He saw some tears, some grief, some pity and sympathy, all contorting their faces as they looked at him, eyes blinking sadly. He gazed back with unblinking eyes.

He couldn’t see his ammi anywhere in there. He looked around his home and the warmth, the sleep had gone.

Hamid never could recall what happened after that. Even the events leading up to his home were a dream now, much like the smoke and the mist that hung around on each of those wretched winter nights. He later pieced it together.

His ammi had suffered an attack that night and people had been searching for him. While he hid in the arms of the big tree, his ammi had been snatched away into the arms of death. They later told him he had collapsed on the floor in his home and cried, cried in front of his the framed photo of abbu and ammi’s marriage. He had cried through the day.

And while Hamid had been left feeling shattered by the passing of his mother at such a young age, Riaz Malik had been left alone in the struggle he and Husna had started in the city of dreams; alone, directionless and uncared for.

Fifteen years ago, Riaz Malik had come to the city of many dreams, many passions and a multitude of faces; of many tall edifices pining for a piece of the sky but born out of simple dreams, he was told; of many blinking, changing and colourful lights that he couldn’t even read but he understood well the maxims of life they advertised. He had gone on to see the city and all its glory for himself. Born to landless farm labourers in a small village tucked away somewhere in Aurangabad, his fathers’ way of life had become a dismal drama for him long ago. He wanted out of that drama and headed for the great metropolis of Mumbai, not so much to be rich but more to sketch his own drama in life and to live where, as he put it, a life lived was worth ten.

He had been quite athletic in the village, as most village youth tend to be, and soon, he had met friends who brought him in the gaze of stunt directors and production managers in the many studios that dotted Mumbai. He was not a great performer, but he was the best of the lot perhaps. And what’s most important, he got noticed. The eye of the industry had cast an approving gaze on him while many fellow strugglers had taken to baser means of sketching their life stories; his early day roommates and friends had become barbers, stall owners, vendors on local trains, security guards and a host of other such characters in the mega drama being played out in the metropolis.

While all this was good, Riaz had also begun to see now that though the lofty edifices ran out of the ground to touch the sky, the dirt and grime they had been born in was nothing different, and perhaps much worse than the dark sides of humanity he had already seen. Those edifices and even the people living in them looked beautiful, but they all had been shaped with the same brutal hands he had experienced back in his early life. Riaz Malik was a man reconciled.

So long as he had his work, something that he enjoyed doing, and worshipped, he was not one to complain about life. And he had found love in this city. Husna used to work as a baby sitter at one of the stunt director’s home and Riaz used to visit often for briefing sessions for next day’s action. She liked the athletic young man who seemed to have a future and seemed to be enjoying it too! He liked the whole package that was her.

Hamid had been just what they needed in their already happy life.

And then, probably the jealousy they could feel around them on their tenement on the bridge had become so thick that it had to strike a blow to their deficient but content life. Husna fell to tuberculosis; a rare strain, the doctors said. Some drug resistant thing… Riaz could not comprehend. Either they could cure TB or they could not. He did not understand this technical escape route that fate threw up in his life. That was when the downhill journey began.

With Husna’s death, he lost all zeal to live the ten lives he once coveted in the megacity. It became just a very big, very crowded chaotic shooting set for him; a set where shooting never stopped and the director never ever hollered ‘cut’! Riaz started slipping. The only thing still holding him from falling apart was Hamid, and the feeling he got when he looked into the child’s eyes after he had been gazing at his mother’s picture.

Five months later, on a surprisingly hot day in Mumbai, Hamid lay on the floor of his home trying to sleep the weary, boring afternoon off. Abbu was at work. Hamid heard a faint whimper outside. An animal, maybe a dog, he thought. There were a truck load of dogs on and around the bridge. Literally! The municipality had once carried them all off in a truck and dropped them two days later. Why did they carry those poor creatures, and why did they drop them again? He could never understand.

Hamid was no stranger to dogs, but this one felt different. Hamid decided he had to check it out. He went out and started looking for the source of the noise. As he was getting a little frustrated trying to find the animal and not succeeding in it, there came that noise again, as if to help him. Hamid turned around; under a bundle of discarded old tarpaulin he saw a black glistening object and a pair of beady eyes above it.

Aha! Hamid clapped. That was the dog’s nose and his eyes. Hamid went down on his knees and uncovered the mongrel. It was a puppy still; his heart skipped a beat! Hamid had always yearned for a puppy. They were such cute bundles of joy. He didn’t much like the bigger dogs, always lying around lazily or scrounging here and there with too much purpose. Pups were friendlier and more energetic and much more entertaining.

He had no clue where this muddy white creature came from, or what he would feed the pup, but he instantly decided it was his now. Hamid named the pup Scorpio. Of course that was the only vehicle on the road that he liked, the white and patchy Sorpio. Most of his gang liked it too. The pup slowly began filling some voids in Hamid’s heart and in his life. Some laughter and joy crept back in, edging out some of the bitterness and the feelings of loss; not that it could erase all the grief from a little child’s heart but just enough for him to survive with a smile. Hamid always kept the little companion with him; he ate, played and slept with him. They both even took part in mischiefs together and got their share of scolding together too!

One discomfort the puppy brought into Hamid’s life was something he could never understand. When the dogs and puppies roamed around the bridge, they peed and pooped all over the place, and no one took heed. But the day Scorpio became Hamid’s pet, people started complaining whenever it would relieve itself. He was advised, in tones that suggested emotions nowhere close to advising, that he should keep his puppy close by and make it relieve in his home, or take him down the bridge somewhere. What stupidity! Hamid could never understand what had changed? As if there were no other mongrels doing their thing! As if he could talk to the poor little creature and simply forbid it from peeing and pooping in this otherwise clean colony.

Sometimes, Scorpio accompanied Hamid to his boy gang adventures, but they were few and far between. Hamid had lost appetite for the train track since that fateful day in winter.

What happened then became a news headline, got people of Mumbai rather curious and interested and even became a cause-celebre, but to Hamid, it was the end of life as he knew it. He had barely managed to get out of the grief that hung in his insides.

Riaz had never touched alcohol. It was part of his upbringing and part of his religion too. But with Husna’s guiding and restraining presence gone, he began losing faith in all that was his past, all that was sacred and good. He actually lived as if gasping for breath in a tumultuous torrent, grabbing whatever straws came by his way, trying to stay afloat. And when you are clutching for straws, nothing is too holy or too foolish.

Riaz had come home from a wasted day at work. The alcohol had started to become a morning, noon and night companion to him, and the work had suffered today, like most days now. He had been unable to execute the moves for today’s shoot, and the standby stuntman had had to fill in. Maliya, the stunt director, had shaken his head and given one barrage of choice hindi curses, the tone more of a warning note than insulting. Everyone knew Riaz’s skill and also his current predicament. The money lost was not yet bigger than their humanity.

Riaz had returned late; he had spent most of his time after work getting even more drunk. Hamid was out somewhere. Riaz felt a sudden suffocating feeling, he felt the night was too hot. Maybe it was the alcohol, but nevertheless, he decided to sleep outside on the pavement. That was also one of the taboos from his past. Husna never allowed him or Hamid to sleep outside, no matter what the weather. In a way, Riaz took it like another straw. He wanted to do it as a mark of his defiance to the past, a celebration of the fact that he could break away and live.

He closed his eyes. The only worry that ever lined his brows now was Hamid and his future. But he had a certain faith in the work that he did, the talent that he had. Nevermind today, or yesterday, or the past couple of months; the industry would put him back on his feet, he would be alive again and living that life that was worth ten!

That night, a Saturday night in the city of dreams, a famous star of the dream-weaving industry got into his BMW, somewhat tipsy. He was driving away from a late night private blast, and headed straight to his farmhouse in Lonavla. He might have been a skillful driver, but perhaps the car was too much to resist in his mild tingling intoxicated state. He lost control.

The car ran over a footpath; ran over five men, sleeping by the side of the road – two labourers from a nearby construction site in Wadala, one handcart pusher, one sweeper at a gleaming new multiplex, and Riaz Malik, father of Hamid Malik, casual stuntman in the Bollywood film industry.

Riaz’s father had been angry, almost livid, when he told his father what he was doing in Mumbai. But he was also a man of great reason and sense. He had, by and by, come to accept Riaz’s life and his calling. The only thing that he had ever cautioned Riaz about was safety.

‘Never lose your respect for safety Riaz, no matter what the cost, and no matter what others say’, he had told him once.

Riaz was always careful, but he was also skillful. And he trusted his skill. And more than that, he perhaps trusted the sweet little life he had cobbled together for himself in this chaotic cauldron. ‘Abbu, everybody has their death written down, even before they are born. Riaz Malik will also die, but not while doing a stunt abbu. I promise you that.’ Riaz Malik died for no fault of his. He kept his promise.

Hamid did not speak for seven days after Riaz’s death. There was no known relative of Riaz who could be contacted for the last rites. Hamid Malik completed the last rites of his father. He did not speak while doing them, he did not speak thereafter. He was always seen with his puppy Scorpio, both showing no signs of their young age, both companions in Hamid’s grief. The dog turned out to be faithful, always following his master, always lying close to Hamid, always eating whatever Hamid gave him. And this one thing Hamid never forgot amid his absolute disenchantment from the world around him – he never once forgot to feed his pup.

Karim Sheikh, a long-time friend of Riaz, hailing from the same district, a one-time fellow struggler of Riaz, a failed stuntman and now a successful barber, took Hamid under his care. Rather, it seemed like Hamid had taken him under his care. Abdul, his wife, a son and a baby daughter moved into Hamid’s now lonely home. Not that he did not have a place of his own, but he had a simple tin covered room in the slums below the bridge next to the track, and he did not mind the upgrade to this room on the bridge. It was airier, and had more sun. Karim put up his old shack on rent.

The new family left no stone unturned to showcase their love and more than love, their pity for the motherless, fatherless creature. But as it happens in most lives, Hamid’s woes had just begun. Karim and his family were not Hamid’s family after all; Karim Sheikh was no Riaz Malik and Nargis was definitely no Husna. Hamid started being beaten and punished for slights and dis-obedience; he started being bullied by Abdul, two years older to him; he began filling in as babysitter to the two-year old daughter of the family. He soon became the one who brought tea, who filled water in the morning, who cleaned the house and who dried the laundry. Sometimes he even washed the utensils. The only task Nargis never entrusted Hamid with was buying provisions. Abdul was given the money, and sent to the market.

If Hamid was ever allowed to weep, it was only when the work was done and the family had gone to sleep in the house. Hamid now no longer slept in the shed; there was simply not space enough! Hamid found time to live at night. Hamid often tried to figure out if he could find the faces of his abbu and ammi in the starlit canvas. He found time to share some words with Scorpio, and he used to lie down with Scorpio cuddling next to his master. Both lay awake till late and neither spoke, but both listened to each other.

It was again a rather chilly winter evening in Mumbai that Hamid saw something sitting on top of Abdul’s aluminum case. It was familiar. Then he recognized it. The earthen cup, the kullhad, that his grandfather had got with him from the village when he had come visiting last year. Hamid went back in time for a bit. Of late, he had been traveling quite a lot into the by lanes of memory. He remembered what baba told him about the village. He would have thought they were stories, too good to be true, but for that solitary visit he had made to the village when he was quite young. Not old enough to remember everything, but just enough to recall the smells, the sounds and the serenity. And the most striking imprint that his young heart brought back from the village was the vast expanse all around once you got out into the fields. There was vastness, distance, a kind of far-away quality to any direction you gazed in. Hamid had never been able to forget that.

His baba had told him many tales of village folk gathering around platforms under trees and in open areas, sitting at tea stalls and sipping, chatting after a hard day’s work, with the setting sun and the calling birds providing a musical quality to their evenings. Baba had told him about the earthen utensils everyone used and the smell that they had when you drank or ate from them. Hamid had found that kullhad fascinating and had asked it from baba. Baba had laughed and told him he would break it soon in this iron and concrete jungle. “Hamid bachche”, his baba had said looking into Hamid’s eyes, “in the village if you are made of mud like this kullhad, and you fall in the mud, you are taken care of and get up again. Here, in this city, if you are made of mud and you fall on the concrete, you go to pieces. You never get up again.”

Hamid had taken such good care. He had not let it be broken and had protected it from the harsh grating life of the city that even broke the spirits of men. And then he had lost it. He had never seen it again after his home was taken over by Abdul’s family. He had thought it had been thrown and probably been broken. But no, here it was, the same cup, his kullhad made of earth, the gift from his baba. Baba had passed away some months ago. Abbu had been away in the village for nearly a month. Some matters had to be settled, he had said when he came back. The cup lay carelessly on top of the case, but it wasn’t dusty. It was clean. It looked like it was being used.

Hamid continued gazing unblinkingly at the object. Abdul had stolen it from him! He felt anger coursing through his body, breathing through his nostrils with every breath. Enough! Abdul and his family had taken away his home, the place he yearned so much to go back to, the place full of so many memories of his ammi, and his abbu. The eight feet by six feet space where he could always find sanctuary when the mega city became too suffocating. The place where he could find simple liberating emotions when the city outside became too complex and frustrating. That had already been snatched away from him. But not this!

Hamid made a decision.

The family was out, mother at work and father fetching water and Abdul was playing somewhere; where exactly, Hamid didn’t know. He crept ahead and careful of the girl sleeping on the floor, sneaked up to the earthen cup and finally wrapped his fingers around it. And then he was off!

But he had been wrong. Abdul was just entering the house when Hamid ran into him while running out, the kullhad clenched tightly in his hand. Abdul stumbled with the impact, more surprised than hurt. He too saw the poorly concealed object in Hamid’s hands and immediately scrambled after him, shouting and cursing.

Hamid ran like he would run for his life. He had grown up on the bridge, roads filled with traffic and footpath filled with dwellers, children, dogs, cots, water cans and buckets. He knew his way and he knew how to weave his way really fast. But Abdul had all these qualities and then some more; he was older and taller. Both boys ran out of options fast and ran into each other at the parapet of the bridge right above the rail tracks. The scuffle became a heated duel; curses flying and hair pulled, kicks and fists raining. Hamid was handicapped by the cup he held in one hand all the time. Abdul tried to wrench it away with much effort and fury but with little success. Both were sweating and growing very tired. And then it happened!

Abdul’s fingers began to pry away Hamid’s from the cup, and in panic, Hamid swung his hand away to escape the prying fingers. The sweat on the palms did the damage and the kullhad slipped from his swinging hand and went flying in a long arc and crashed over the tracks.

The two boys, panting hard, stood gripping the parapet, Abdul’s right hand still gripping Hamid’s hair. He let go. Hamid could see the pieces of the cup scattered on the tracks below. The pieces grew hazy. The world became soft and blurred and shaky. His throat became a knot. The last of the heirlooms was broken, the last link to his once beautiful past, to the village he so yearned for, to the grandfather and his toothless laughter, was taken from him. And the memories of endless cups of tea he had had in the cup, sitting on the floor of his home, rain pattering on the tarpaulin over his head and on the footpath outside, and splashing from the tyres of the passing cars; all gone. Images flashed in his mind of Abbu sitting across and sipping his tea from a glass and smiling at him; ammi pouring her own glass by the stove. And his only link to his past was gone!

Hamid spun around and landed an angry fist into Abdul’s belly. Abdul was caught by surprise and fell face forward, his nose ramming into a loose concrete slab. As Abdul lay doubled near the wall, face covered in blood, Hamid escaped and disappeared in the tenements lining the rail tracks. He knew this was bad and he knew a harsh thrashing was coming to him, but not today and not now. He was too angry and too sad for that.

Anxious minutes gave rise to still-born hours. Nothing in the outside world seemed alive and moving from the fetal cocoon Hamid lay hidden in. Scorpio dutifully crouched near him, nose firmly planted between Hamid’s feet. Scorpio knew what was in store. Most times he also got a good share of whatever came his master’s way, be it beatings or bread-crumbs.

Slowly the lights of the city died down. Hamid felt he could not ignore the chill anymore. His sweater had become somewhat short for his frame now, and had acquired many holes.

He turned to Scorpio and whispered, “Scorpio, kya bolta hai, those bakri-chors would have gone to sleep by now?” The dog raised a reluctant year and opened its eyes. They looked frightened still. Hamid understood.

“Arey, aise to we will turn into kulfi Scorpio. I have an idea. Let’s go take a look. I’ll see if I can get my blanket without waking those chors. Then we can go to sleep somewhere.”

The dog lifted its head and gave a quizzical look.

Hamid again understood the objections, but he was very cold by now. He got down from his perch and slowly moved on towards the bridge. The dog followed, cautious as ever. If you waited by the tree, you could have seen two small figures almost clinging to each other, creeping closer to the settlement on the bridge.

He could be very stealthy if he wanted to, and today the price of being careless was just too much. He stole through the dwellings, always taking care that he had a good view of his house and no one from his house could see him. He moved in the shadows mostly, and the loyal dog stayed at the beginning of the bridge. Hamid did not want a dog fight; last thing he needed now. Traffic was thin, and this helped him; he cringed every time the headlights of a passing vehicle flashed and lit up the huts.

Hamid stole the blanket which was never kept inside the house. They never allowed much of his belongings inside as it is. He was thankful today. The blanket was cold to the touch; absolutely cold. It was not much of a blanket either; tattered, worn out to the point of being a thin net at places; and dotted with holes, small and big. But that was all he had; all he was allowed to have.

He crept back all the way where the bridge started. There was a place where there was an electric junction box on the footpath where there were no huts and no one ever slept around it. Hamid sat down and patted Scorpio with glee; the dog reflected the master’s happiness. After a good ten minutes of breathless patting and licking, Hamid laid out some newspapers that he found crumpled behind the junction box and lay down; he pulled Scorpio close to him. The dog was thankful for the warmth he could find and snuggled closer; Hamid was thankful for the warmth he got in return. Hamid recognized the woman in a short dress, staring up at him from the newspaper pages. In a picture next to her he saw a big star; an actor who all the children on the bridge considered their hero and role model. Abbu had once told him he had done many stunts for the man. Hamid had even seen the man once when his abbu had taken him to visit the sets. The picture grew soft and hazy. The man stared back with a big plastic smile from the crumpled pages. Hamid wiped his face on the sleeve of his sweater.

He spread the blanket and attempted to cover both bodies; he succeeded partly. Scorpio had grown bigger of late. The stars today looked different somehow; as if they were about to go on a long journey. Hamid grew tired and his eyelids soon became heavy. He dozed off trying to figure out the faces of his ammi and abbu in the starry mosaic spread out all over him. A corner of the blanket had got twisted and Hamid’s leg was lying uncovered. The cold night air watched the two creatures, sighed, and blew a little. The corner flipped over and both lay covered under the tattered fabric, barely safe from the biting cold that was gripping the bridge now.

A car passed by; the lady in the passenger’s seat saw the boy and the dog sharing the tattered blanket. She smiled, amused and stirred. Then she lay back and closed her eyes. The nonchalant megacity went back to sleep.