"But Ganesh Chaturthi finished last week," Joseph said, referring to the annual festival where hundreds of Ganesh figures-some small enough to hold in the hand, and others towering ten metres tall-were pushed through the city to Chowpatty Beach and then hurled into the sea amid a crowd of close to a million people. "I myself was in the mela at Chowpatty. The time for it has finished, Linbaba."
"I know. I was there, too. That's what gave me the idea. I don't think it'll matter that the festival is over. I wouldn't think twice if I saw a Ganpatti at any time of the year. Would any of you ask questions if you saw a Ganesha, on a trolley, being wheeled down the street?"
Ganesh, the elephant-headed God, was arguably the most popular in all the Hindu pantheon, and I was sure no-one would think to stop and search a little procession featuring a large sculpture of his form on a moving trolley.
"I think he is right," Jeetendra agreed. "Nobody will say anything about a Ganesha. After all, Lord Ganesha is the Lord of Obstacles, na?"
The elephant-headed god was known as the Lord of Obstacles and the Great Solver of Problems. People in trouble appealed to him with prayers in much the same way that some Christians appealed to their patron saints. He was also the divine ministrant of writers. "It will be not a problem to push a Ganesha to Nariman Point,"
Joseph's wife, Maria, pointed out. "But how to put that Kano bear into the disguise-that is a problem. Just putting him in the dress was a very difficult job."
"He did not like the dress," one of the bear-handlers declared reasonably. "He is a man bear, you know, and sensitive about such things."
"But he will not mind the Ganesha disguise," his friend added. "I know he will think it is very good fun. He is very greedy for attention, I have to say. That is one of his two bad habits: that, and flirtations with girls."
We were speaking in Hindi, and the last exchange was too swift for me to follow.
"What did he say?" I asked Johnny. "What was Kano's bad habit?"
"Flirtations," Johnny replied. "With girls."
"Flirtations? What the hell do they mean?"
"Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I think-"
"No, don't!" I interrupted him, disowning the question. "Please ... don't tell me what it means."
I looked around me at the press of expectant faces. For a moment I felt a thrill of wonder and envy that the little community of neighbours and friends worried so much about the problems of two itinerant bear-handlers-and the bear, of course. That unequivocal involvement, one with another, and its unquestioning support-stronger and more urgent than even the co-operation I'd seen in Prabaker's village-was something I'd lost when I'd left the slum to live in the comfortable, richer world. I'd never really found it anywhere else, except within the high-sierra of my mother's love. And because I knew it with them, once, in the sublime and wretched acres of those ragged huts, I never stopped wanting it and searching for it.
"Well, I really can't think of another way," I sighed again. "If we just cover him with rags or fruit or something and try to push him there, he'll move and make a noise. And if they see us, we'll get stopped. But if we make him look like Ganesh, we can chant and sing and crowd around him and make our own noise-as much noise as we want. And I don't think the cops would ever stop us.
What do you think, Johnny?"
"I like it," Johnny said, grinning happily in appreciation of the plan. "I think it's a fine plan, and I say we give it a try."
"Yes, also _I like it," Jeetendra said, his eyes wide with excitement. "But, you know, we must better hurry-the truck will only wait for one or two hours more, I think so." They all nodded or wagged their heads in agreement: Satish, Jeetendra's son; Maria; Faroukh and Raghuram, the two friends who'd fought and been tied at the ankle by Qasim Ali as a punishment; and Ayub and Siddhartha, the two young men who'd run the free clinic since I'd left the slum. Finally, Joseph smiled and gave his assent. With Kano trundling along on all fours beside us, we made our way through the darkening lanes to the large double-hut that was old Rakeshbaba's workshop.
The elderly sculptor raised his grizzled brows when we entered his hut, but affected to ignore us and continued with the work of sanding and polishing a newly moulded section of a fibreglass religious frieze almost two metres in length. He worked at a long table made from thick builder's planks, lashed together and resting on two carpenter's trestles. Wood and fibreglass shavings covered the table and lay in chips and whorls, along with rinds of papier-mache, at his bare feet. Sections of the sculpted and moulded forms-heads and limbs and bodies with gorgeously rounded bellies-rested on the floor of the hut amid a venerable profusion of plaques, reliefs, statues, and other pieces.
