They pushed huge trays of the tiffins on long wooden carts, six men and more to a cart. Through the heavy metal-traffic of buses, trucks, scooters, and cars, they made deliveries at offices and businesses all over the city. None but the men and women who operated the service knew exactly how it was done: how barely literate men evolved the bafflingly complex system of symbols, colours, and key numbers to mark and identify the cylinders; how, day after day, hundreds of thousands of those identical containers swept through the city on their wooden axles, oiled with sweat, and reached the right man or woman, among millions, every time; and how all that was achieved at a cost measured in cents rather than dollars. Magic, the trick that connects the ordinary to the impossible, was the invisible river that ran through every street and beating heart in Bombay in those years, and nothing, from the postal service to the pleading of beggars, worked without a measure of it.
"What number that bus, Linbaba? Quickly, tell it."
"Just a second." I hesitated, peering out of the half-open window of the taxi and trying to read the curlicue numbers on the front of a red, double-decker bus that had stopped opposite us momentarily. "It's, ah, it's a one-zero-four, isn't it?"
"Very very fine! You have learn your Hindi numbers so nicely. Now no problem for you, reading numbers for bus, and train, and menu card, and drugs purchase, and other good things. Now tell me, what is alu palak?"
"Alu palak is potato and spinach."
"Good. And nice eating also, you have not mention. I love to eat it, alu palak. What is _phul _gobhi and bhindi?"
"That's... oh yeah, cauliflower and... and okra."
"Correct. And also good eating, again you are not mention. What is baingan masala?"
"That's, ah, spiced eggplant."
"Again right! What is it, you're not enjoying eating baingan?"
"Yes, yes, all right! Baingan is good eating, too!"
"I don't like it baingan so much," he sneered, wrinkling up his short nose. "Tell me, what am I calling chehra, munh, and dill?"
"Okay... don't tell me... face, mouth, and heart. Is that right?"
"Very right, no problem. I have been watching it, how nicely you eat up your foods with the hand, like a good Indian style. And how you learn to ask for the things-how much this, how much that, give me two cups of tea, I want more hashish-speaking only Hindi to the people. I have seen this all. You are my best student, Linbaba. And I am your best teacher also, isn't it?"
"It is, Prabu," I laughed. "Hey! Watch out!"
My shout alerted the taxi driver, who swerved just in time to avoid an ox-cart that was attempting to make a turn in front of us. The taxi driver-a burly, dark-skinned man with a bristling moustache-seemed to be outraged at my impertinence in saving our lives. When we first took the taxi he'd adjusted his mirror until he saw nothing in it but my face. After the near miss he glared at me, snarling a growl of insults in Hindi. He drove the cab like a getaway car, slewing left and right to overtake slower vehicles. There was an angry, bullying pugnacity in his attitude to everyone else on the road. He rushed to within centimetres of every slower car in his path, sounding his horn, then all but nudging it out of the way. If the slower car moved a little to the left, in order to let him pass, our driver drew beside it, pacing it for a time and shouting insults. When he spied another slow vehicle ahead, he sped forward to repeat the procedure. From time to time he opened his door and leaned out over the road to spit paan juice, taking his eyes off the traffic ahead for long seconds as we hurtled along in the rattling cab.
"This guy's a nut-case!" I muttered to Prabaker.
"Driving is not so good," Prabaker replied, bracing himself with both arms against the back of the driver's seat. "But I have to say, the spitting and insulting is a first-class job."
"For Christ's sake, tell him to stop!" I shouted as the cab accelerated into a squall of traffic, lurching in the swerve left and right. "He's going to kill us!"
"Band karo!" Prabaker shouted. Stop!
He added a pithy curse, for good measure, but the driver only became more enraged. With the car hurtling along at top speed, he turned his head to snarl at us. His mouth was wide open, and his teeth were bared. His eyes were huge, their blackness streaked with rage.
"Arrey!" Prabaker shrieked, pointing past the driver.
It was too late. The man turned quickly. His arms stiffened at the wheel, and he hit the brakes hard. There was a skating, sliding second... two seconds... three seconds. I heard a guttural gasp of air from deep in his throat. It was a sucking sound, like the lifting of a flat stone from the moist clay on the edge of a riverbed. Then there was the whump and crash as we slammed into a car that had stopped in front of us to make a turn. We were thrown forward into the back of his seat, and heard two thumping explosions as two other cars rammed into us.
