Free Mumbai Noir by Altaf Tyrewala Page B

anything, they almost felt responsible for them.
    The proprietor of Eagle Tyres once told Afroze, Lala’s closest aide, to fuck off. Though rather grand-sounding, this was actually the smallest shop on Lamington Road and Eagle seth, as he was generously called, was the total staff of the eighty-square-foot establishment—its owner, salesman, and mechanic rolled into one.
    Afroze had gotten the worn-out tires of his pig Fiat replaced with secondhand ones that Eagle seth had cut fresh grooves into by hand. After a few months, one of them had burst. Afroze wanted it replaced free of cost. Eagle seth asked if he was insane. A new one cost ten times more for a reason.
    Afroze was livid. Threatened to do many things to Eagle, all of them involving death and bloodshed. But the bald, swarthy, belligerent man offered to give as good as he got. Afroze asked a neighboring shopkeeper if Eagle seth knew who he was. The shopkeeper nodded. “Probably. But he’s crazy. Let it go.”
    Afroze walked off. Went up to Lala and told him about the episode. Abbu laughed. Afroze shook his head. And that was the end of that.
    Until Bakr’a Eid, when Lala sent Eagle seth a small packet of mutton from his qurbani.
    When Abbu retired, his soul was tired. A new order was claiming the future; there was little honor left amongst thieves. New friendships were like today’s marriages: for life or convenience, whichever ended first. The Word was as solemn as a beauty cream’s promise. Women found shame sitting heavy on their heads and shoulders and began to shrug it off.
    The old Pathan discovered two things unchanging in life: the warmth of the sun and the Word of Allah. He spent the remainder of his days basking in one, comforted by the other.
    Early afternoon, and again I can’t fall asleep. I look at the weathered HMT on my wrist. Just late enough to miss Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge . No other tax-free movies around. I stay in bed.
    I no longer visit theaters to watch films. But back in the day, we all did. Abbu frowned upon them, but we loved them. When Bachchan started playing us, we laughed at first. Dressed like that, in those cars, preening like a woman. But soon, the bhais found themselves fascinated with this portrayal. This was how they could—should—appear. And so was born a new generation of “Dons” who tried to live up to the image that those two Muslim writers created. Dressed in suits, wearing dark glasses, driving around white Mercedes with glamorous women on their arms. Glamorous stars in their coterie. Crystal glasses in their hands. Gold-filtered cigarettes in their fingers. From Families, they turned into what that crazy film director called Companies.
    And they were no longer Pathan.
    Pathans did not need titles or inheritance to be convinced of their own indisputable royalty. Royalty was inherent in their solemnity, their larger-than-life ideals, their need for utter peace with their own conscience in a life lived outside the law. They blessed. They dispensed justice. They sent men without honor to their graves. They took their honor to theirs.
    The new bhais were converts from different communities. Konkani and Gujarati Muslims, whose lives had not been lived for generations with the lofty ideals of the mountain peaks, but on the shores of the ever-changing, ever-diabolic ocean. Survival demanded lightness of weight, and flexibility of plan. The ocean demanded emptiness contained in wooden hearts—golden hearts would drown. It’s how the underworld turned treacherous. You could be killed simply because it was advantageous for someone. And dying, you wouldn’t know with any certainty why.
    Now, I go to the theater, not to the film.
    Cinema halls were cheap, air-conditioned places to sleep away three and a half hours of an unbearable life. So, of course, the new city went to work on them. Now they’re small, claustrophobic, cost five times as much for two hours’ worth. And filled with The Kids.
    The Kids. The