That night I don't dream about a woman in a fluttering white sari. I dream about rings around Saturn and moons around Jupiter.
* * *
A week later, I am alerted by a totally new sound coming from Shantaram's room. 'Meow!' I scramble to the wall with my stainless-steel listening device in hand.
I hear Gudiya speaking. 'Papa, look, I've got a cat. Isn't he lovely? My friend Rohini gave him to me from her cat's new litter. Can I keep him?'
'I am not in favour of any pets,' Mrs Shantaram grumbles. 'There's hardly space in this room for humans – where will we keep an animal?'
'Please, Mummy, he is such a tiny thing. Papa, please agree,' she pleads.
'OK, Gudiya,' says Shantaram. 'You can keep him. But what will you call him?'
'Oh, thank you, Papa. I was thinking of calling him Tommy.'
'No, that is such a commonplace name. This cat is going to live in an astronomer's family, so it should be named after one of the planets.'
'Which one? Should we call him Jupiter?'
'No. He is the smallest in the family, so he can only be called Pluto.'
'Great, I love the name, Papa. Here, Pluto! Pluto, come and have some milk.'
'Meow!' says Pluto.
* * *
These little snippets force me to reconsider my opinion of Shantaram. Perhaps he is not so bad after all. But, once again, I learn that appearances can be deceptive and the dividing line between good and bad is very thin indeed.
I see Shantaram come home one evening, completely drunk. His breath stinks of whisky. He walks with unsteady steps and needs help to climb up the flight of stairs. This happens the next day, and the day after that. Pretty soon it is common knowledge in the chawl that Mr Shantaram is a drunkard.
Drunkards in Hindi films are invariably funny characters. Think of Keshto Mukherjee with a bottle and you cannot help bursting out laughing. But drunkards in real life are not funny, they are frightening. Whenever Shantaram comes home in a stupor, we don't need listening devices.
He hurls abuses at the top of his voice and Salim and I quiver with fear in our room as if we are the ones being shouted at. His swearing becomes such a ritual that we actually wait for the sound of his snoring before falling asleep ourselves. We come to dread the interval between Shantaram's return from work and his crashing out in bed. This interval is, for us, the zone of fear.
We think this is a passing phase and that Shantaram will eventually recover. But it actually gets worse. Shantaram begins drinking even more and then he starts throwing things. He begins with plastic cups and books, which he throws at the wall in disgust. Then he starts breaking pots and pans. The ruckus he creates makes living next door very difficult. But we know complaining to Mr Ramakrishna is out of the question. The voices of a thirteen-year-old and an eleven-year old habitual rent offender do not carry much weight. So we simply duck in bed whenever an object thuds on to our common wall and cringe in fear whenever we hear the sound of a plate crashing or china breaking.
Even this phase does not last long. Pretty soon, Shantaram starts throwing objects at people.
Mainly his family members. He reserves maximum ire for his wife. 'You bloody bitch! You are the one who has brought me down in life. I could be writing research papers on black holes, and instead I am showing blouse pieces and saris to wretched housewives. I hate you! Why don't you die?' he would holler, and throw a peppershaker, a glass, a plate. At his wife, his daughter, her cat.
One night he exceeds all limits and throws a piping-hot cup of tea at his wife. Gudiya tries to shield her mother and the burning liquid falls on her instead, scalding her face. She shrieks in agony. Shantaram is so drunk he doesn't even realize what he has done. I rush out to get a taxi for Mrs Shantaram to take her daughter to hospital. Two days later, she comes to me and asks whether I will go with her to visit Gudiya. 'She gets very lonely. Perhaps you can talk to her.'
So I accompany Mrs Shantaram on my first-ever visit to a hospital.
* * *
The first thing that assails your senses when you enter a hospital is the smell. I feel nauseated by the cloying, antiseptic smell of disinfectant, which permeates every corner of the dirty wards.
The second thing that strikes you is that you don't see any happy people. The patients lying on their green beds are moaning and groaning and even the nurses and doctors seem grim. But the worst thing is the indifference. No one is really bothered about you. I had imagined there would be doctors and nurses swarming all over Gudiya, but I find her lying all alone on a bed inside the Burns Unit with not a single nurse on duty. Her face is completely bandaged; only her black eyes can be seen.
'Gudiya, look who has come to see you,' Mrs Shantaram says, beaming at me.
