Roman poets often wrote about half-bird, half-woman things that lured sailors to the altar of their deaths. Things that sang till the skulls on their island looked like precious ivory art. Dangerous, irresistible huntresses, dressed to kill. To me, it was the rumour that came closest to imitating a siren’s song in real life. To be seduced by a rumour was to listen to this very song on loop.
You could tempt the world with a sensual secret. With the soft, feral striptease of a scandal. All it took was Henry’s calculated lies to behead Anne Boleyn. Word of mouth that turned teenage girls into Salem witches. A single grapevine that led to the boiling of Jahanara’s lover. I thought about her hiding her beloved until her father, Shah Jahan, heard of their affair. I thought about her waiting in her palace seconds before, soaked in perfume, ready to kiss ghazals out of the man’s throat. I wondered if any of it was real, or simply good storytelling; an illicit romance built from thin air to ruin a princess’s reputation in a time when reputations could be so easily ruined.
But it was in the forest that I first discovered a rumour in heat, rubbing against hungry ears. It was here, within the stone walls of St. Margaret’s campus, that I learned to walk on fire. Here that I found myself caught in the sacred museum of bones in the closet. Here that I heard the myth of a woman who drowned in a lake, and became smitten by her in the very strain of Prince Salim.
The first time I dreamed about her, I thought she was bewitching. Her thick, charcoal-skinned hair bore the ancient sorcery of inebriating anyone who as much as looked at it. How did I feel when I saw her? Like there was no returning to my own name. And so, fearlessly, I walked towards her, as if I were moving towards the gates of the afterlife. She was singing into a riot with the entirety of her lungs, her spirit a boom box. I had no grace, no shame, no decency. I kept staring, following, even crying for her, enmeshed in the marrow-deep turbulence of her grief, grieving along, knowing I was eternally damned. When I woke up in the morning, I was left with a song in my chest, and I hummed it all the way to class, senses raging, heart illuminated.
I told nobody about my dreams. About the woman dipping in and out of the water until it turned into ambrosia. Not even the man I loved. I still remembered the nights kissing through cable-stayed bridges as the taxi drove on, when I almost told him. When we put our heads out the window and suddenly, the golden lights flashed above us, and in that moment, I felt like I was born for love. Only love. It had been another time. Another life.
Years down the line, the city of Bombay had grown to look like her. A dark fairy tale. The trees were paler, the buildings felt older, the skies looked like smoke, and the weight of dreams and desperation was heavier, still. It was a difficult city to live in, a city that had a lot to tell. The Portuguese writer-historian, Gaspar Correia, had referred to it in his “Lendas da India” as Bombaim, which meant “good bay.” With the advent of the British rule, it became “Bombay.” And then, of course, there was Mumbai, another name, derived from the local deity, Mumba Devi. Mumba Devi was the patron goddess of the first people of the city, who’d mostly been fishermen and salt collectors, back when it had just been an archipelago of islands. Here, Rudyard Kipling was born. Here, the first-ever bus service in the country began. Here, romantics came in search of their big dream of becoming a superstar, with nothing but a few train tickets and coins jingling in their pockets. Here, the lunchbox delivery chain never once failed its people, and even went on to be praised by Forbes. Here, everyone gave you directions if you were lost, no matter how busy they were.
I remembered the last time I was in Bombay. I remembered the water ghoul, the sensitive boy from Kolkata, the frosty leader and her political games. And then there was my first friend, Scheherazade. Scheher, who had always been a force to reckon with, a mystical sphinx. Scheher, with the silk robes and crystal bracelet and husky, suggestive laughter. Scheher, who had once sat next to me in the bus, anxiously biting her metallic nails after a lover’s spat with her toxic boyfriend. The first thing I’d noticed about her wasn’t the hair painted the colour of warm autumn or the paper earrings swinging in the breeze. It was how fiercely vulnerable she looked. I’d never seen anyone wear fragility with such reckless power.
Her house had been gorgeous, a gift from her father. Photographs of Banksy’s art and a large mood board lay framed on her wall. She’d been a hoarder. Books. Bus passes. Feathers. Sea shells. Newspaper clippings. Fancy containers. Collectible rare editions of classic novels. Anything, everything. Once she’d met a man selling potions at a carnival and had bought nearly everything. And then, of course, there had been that ugly bamboo puppet at the antique store in Kala Ghoda. She’d kept it next to the infamous yellow table lamp with all the sticky notes on it.
And at Scheher’s, a slice of rose scent always hung in the air. The profound smell of old wood and books clung to the turquoise tiles. Big windows, embroidered lavender curtains and house plants added grace to the room. Incense sticks and ashtrays left it rooted and truthful. A lone hand-painted teapot with a Rumi quote decorated the otherwise simple kitchen. It had been our sanctuary.
We used to lie on her carpet and share a Marlboro and vada pav, Bombay’s famous bread bun stuffed with potato fritters. We used to spacewalk on the possibilities of life as we stared at the cityscape outside. She would braid my big, carnivorous curls for me, and I would paint her nails. Sometimes, if we were in the mood, we would take turns riding her bike to the beach, and there, we would play jazz music and watch the night break into complete darkness, hyperaware that what separated it from becoming an abyss was the deck of constellations it wore like a bride. And then we would head back after gorging on desi Chinese food, just in time for some gin and unripe mango juice. We’d fall asleep gently under glow-in-the-dark stickers, and in the morning, I’d walk back to my apartment. That year had been lovely, and only the incidents that followed after had caused its beauty to age.
Had time suspended that year? Again and again, it felt that way. Because every time I was in the city, I could still see everyone’s faces. Hadn’t I returned during the spring festival only to be preyed upon by more memories of us tying each other’s sarees and laughing when they came loose? When I sat making sugar crystal garlands with my new friends, didn’t my mind still wander off to that time I’d done the same with Scheher, who’d ended up eating the whole garland because she’d been hungry? Hadn’t it been so prosperous, three years ago, when we’d worn matching bracelets and danced in the terrace and made dishes together with sour tamarind and coriander seeds? How could I dream of getting it back now?
Excerpted with permission from Our Bones in Your Throat, Megha Rao, Simon and Schuster India.
