opposite even has a second storey, like two Lego bricks affixed one on top of the other. The owner works in the Gulf, Babu explains. ‘He died recently.’ The way he says it, I imagine the man’s ghost still lugging bricks on a construction site in Dubai, carefully saving his money to send as remittance home.
I breathe deeply as we leave the hut through the rear door. The salt air, caustic and ungranulated, clears my head and fills my lungs. I take another gulpful as my eyes adjust to the sunlight. In front is the sea, lapping against the litter-strewn rocks below. Across the water sweeps the curved esplanade of Marine Drive, known as the Queen’s Necklace for its twinkling lights after dark.
A footpath of sorts, lined with an open drain, separates the huts from the sea. ‘Sometimes it floods,’ Babu remarks without any special emphasis, lowering a flat hand to his thigh to show how high the water rises. He points to the stain of a tidemark on his parent’s brick-plaster house.
I see that a fishing rod is wedged on the zinc roof between odds and sods rescued from the sea. Fishing, along with swimming, comprises a childhood passion that Babu has taken with him into adulthood. ‘I fish just there,’ he says, pointing to a rocky outcrop at the water’s edge. As if following his finger, a small boy emerges from a nearby shack, clambers down the sloping sea wall, drops his trousers and defecates on the exact same spot. Two elderly men are similarly engaged further along the wave-splashed rampart.
We begin to make our way back to the car. As we turn to leave, a gap-toothed young man just out of his teens joins us. Babu introduces him as Govind and describes him as his ‘brother-in-law’. His obvious youth (he must be two decades younger than Babu’s youngest sister) makes that doubtful. Perhaps he’s the brother, or even the son, of his genuine brother-in-law? Either way, there’s an evident affection between the two.
‘Govind is into crime and all,’ Babu says, gently cuffing the semi-relative on the back of the head. The young man looks at him blankly, his mouth drooping open like a thirsty dog’s. It’s theexpression of a halfwit or a drug user. Which of the two, I can’t tell.
Govind is still in eleventh standard. Babu’s younger charge somehow owns property. Inherited, quite probably. Walking back through the slum, Babu points out a single-room shack. A woman is scrubbing her child in the far corner of the furniture-less space. Her husband is at work. He checks stock levels in a biscuit factory. The couple pays Govind one thousand five hundred rupees per month for the privilege of the leaking roof and concrete floor. His rental portfolio comprises two other similarly spartan dwellings.
Despite the steady income, Babu worries that he is wasting his youth. He’d like to see him with a career. What about driving? Babu counts several driving protégés in the slum. His preferred means of instruction are unorthodox (‘I teach by hitting and slapping’), but all have gone on to secure jobs. Govind is not cut out as a driver, though. Too little concentration, according to Babu. ‘Anyway, driver is not a good status job, actually.’
In conspiratorial tones, he leans over and shares his own aspiration for the younger man. ‘I’m trying to get him into the police.’ Govind grins inanely. It is one of the few legitimate professions to which the young delinquent appears vaguely amenable.
As the months pass, I’d like to think Babu and I become firm friends. Or as firm as our different backgrounds, languages and cultures allow. The more we lunch, the more we confide, as though food and privacy are inversely correlated. He regularly asks me about my wife and children, who are living in a rented flat in Kerala and whom I miss when I’m away. We talk at length about his family too: the progress of Jyoti’s diet, Nabi and Ashu’s school marks, his parents’ ever-failing health. Some of what he shares
I breathe deeply as we leave the hut through the rear door. The salt air, caustic and ungranulated, clears my head and fills my lungs. I take another gulpful as my eyes adjust to the sunlight. In front is the sea, lapping against the litter-strewn rocks below. Across the water sweeps the curved esplanade of Marine Drive, known as the Queen’s Necklace for its twinkling lights after dark.
A footpath of sorts, lined with an open drain, separates the huts from the sea. ‘Sometimes it floods,’ Babu remarks without any special emphasis, lowering a flat hand to his thigh to show how high the water rises. He points to the stain of a tidemark on his parent’s brick-plaster house.
I see that a fishing rod is wedged on the zinc roof between odds and sods rescued from the sea. Fishing, along with swimming, comprises a childhood passion that Babu has taken with him into adulthood. ‘I fish just there,’ he says, pointing to a rocky outcrop at the water’s edge. As if following his finger, a small boy emerges from a nearby shack, clambers down the sloping sea wall, drops his trousers and defecates on the exact same spot. Two elderly men are similarly engaged further along the wave-splashed rampart.
We begin to make our way back to the car. As we turn to leave, a gap-toothed young man just out of his teens joins us. Babu introduces him as Govind and describes him as his ‘brother-in-law’. His obvious youth (he must be two decades younger than Babu’s youngest sister) makes that doubtful. Perhaps he’s the brother, or even the son, of his genuine brother-in-law? Either way, there’s an evident affection between the two.
‘Govind is into crime and all,’ Babu says, gently cuffing the semi-relative on the back of the head. The young man looks at him blankly, his mouth drooping open like a thirsty dog’s. It’s theexpression of a halfwit or a drug user. Which of the two, I can’t tell.
Govind is still in eleventh standard. Babu’s younger charge somehow owns property. Inherited, quite probably. Walking back through the slum, Babu points out a single-room shack. A woman is scrubbing her child in the far corner of the furniture-less space. Her husband is at work. He checks stock levels in a biscuit factory. The couple pays Govind one thousand five hundred rupees per month for the privilege of the leaking roof and concrete floor. His rental portfolio comprises two other similarly spartan dwellings.
Despite the steady income, Babu worries that he is wasting his youth. He’d like to see him with a career. What about driving? Babu counts several driving protégés in the slum. His preferred means of instruction are unorthodox (‘I teach by hitting and slapping’), but all have gone on to secure jobs. Govind is not cut out as a driver, though. Too little concentration, according to Babu. ‘Anyway, driver is not a good status job, actually.’
In conspiratorial tones, he leans over and shares his own aspiration for the younger man. ‘I’m trying to get him into the police.’ Govind grins inanely. It is one of the few legitimate professions to which the young delinquent appears vaguely amenable.
As the months pass, I’d like to think Babu and I become firm friends. Or as firm as our different backgrounds, languages and cultures allow. The more we lunch, the more we confide, as though food and privacy are inversely correlated. He regularly asks me about my wife and children, who are living in a rented flat in Kerala and whom I miss when I’m away. We talk at length about his family too: the progress of Jyoti’s diet, Nabi and Ashu’s school marks, his parents’ ever-failing health. Some of what he shares
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