Introduction

After losing her mother, Pinky Mittal has been raised by her devoted grandmother and extended family within a bungalow atop Malabar Hill, Bombay’s old colonial enclave and one of its most exclusive neighborhoods. Together, they partake in an ominous twilight ritual – the vigilant locking of a bathroom door every evening before sunset. One stifling summer night, Pinky is driven to unbolt the door, accidentally unleashing the ghost of a girl child who had drowned there years earlier. As the monsoons erupt over Bombay, the ghost plunges the bungalow into chaos and the Mittal family struggles to come to terms with tangled memories of the child’s death. In the center of it all, Pinky must find the courage to uncover the drowning’s mysterious truth before the ghost enacts its final revenge. A richly evocative tale that unfurls from the luxurious heights of Malabar Hill to the labyrinthine depths of the city’s underworld, Haunting Bombay illuminates a nation’s darkest fears and desires, and underscores the singular power of utterance

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

THE BRINK:
1947

Can the subaltern speak?
—gayatri chakravorty spivak
a a a
Might they not be the cracks and chinks through which another
voice, other voices, speak in our lives? By what right
do we close our ears to them?
—j. m. coetzee, FOE
The girl moved like water itself, unthinkingly toward the darkening
horizon. She was only sixteen, or maybe seventeen. A brilliant red
sari clung to her body. Tangled hair lashed at her face.
Now, as the thickening dusk closed in upon her, the girl stood on
the outskirts of the village, little more than a cluster of thatched huts
huddled at the water’s edge. A solitary coconut tree rose to the sky,
straining against the heavy winds. Somewhere a dog barked incessantly.
She took a step back, waiting for the moon to slip behind scattered
clouds. The mirrorwork on her sari cast pale, misshapen circles
of light upon the ground. She tried to touch them with her left foot,
the dancing lights illuminating her toes, the middle one adorned with
a silver ring, the stub of a sixth gracelessly curled under. She pressed
onward, fi ghting a feeling that she was being repelled by some invisible
energy, a collective fear.
Her destination was not the village itself but a solitary hut on its
outskirts. Unlike the others, this one was badly weathered, its coconut-
frond roof rotted, its interior pitch black. The wind stung, as if in
warning, pulling her back, back. She did not stop until she reached the
THE SEA INSIDE
<
S H I L P A A G A RWA L 4
decayed bamboo mat tied to the doorway, dimly remembering weaving
it as a young child. Here it was, proof that she had once inhabited
this place at the world’s rim, before she had begun to bleed, before the
women had gathered, their salty voices crooning the ancient tale of
the menstruating girl who caused the waves to turn blood-red and sea
snakes to infest the waters. She should not be here. She knew this. Yet
she pulled the mat away and stepped in.
The fi rst thing she saw was the glint of the moonlight on bangles.
A fi gure squatted in the corner of the hut, rocking back and forth on
her haunches.
“You’ve come back,” a voice said.
The girl nodded, wanting nothing more than to weep. But this was
not a time to be weak. She wanted something from this woman, this
blind midwife who had powers, unspoken powers. “Help me.”
The tinkling bangles fell silent.
“You must,” the girl pleaded, eyes shining with loss, “you were the
one who cursed me!”
The midwife cackled.
The girl dropped her face, remembering the taunts, the bits and
pieces she gleaned from the other children when they dared speak
about her ill-fated birth.
It had been Nariyal Poornima, the day that the fi shermen returned
to sea after the long rainy months during which no fi shing was done.
Monsoon season was the breeding time for the fi sh, and the men had
stayed away while the ocean’s bounty was reproducing under the turbulent
waters. Women, too, emerged that early morning, walking in
the opposite direction, toward the shrine, to offer prayers to Ekuira,
deity of the seas, patron of the Koli fi sherpeople.
“Your Ma walked slowly,” the midwife offered in a glutinous voice,
“her belly pushing out so far that we thought there were two inside.
She went to pray.”
The girl knew of the small shamiana that rose from the treacherous
rocks, its thick cloth canopy decorated in colorful patchwork. She
was never allowed to go near but once visited it in secret, a single velvety
marigold clutched in her small fi ngers to offer at the small stone
shrine devoted to Ekuira, the orange-faced goddess with eight-arms,
born from the body of Lord Brahma, Creator of the Universe. O most
H A U N T I N G B O M B AY 5
compassionate Goddess, she had recited a prayer of fi sherwomen for
their husbands, your oceans are so vast, and his boat so insignifi cant.
“Afterwards, your Ma cracked a coconut at the goddess’s feet.”
The girl braced herself, knowing what came next, that her mother’s
birth-water had broken open, defi ling the shrine. The other fi sherwomen
had dragged her away, spitting accusations. When her father’s
boat failed to return that evening, no one had been surprised.
The midwife cackled once more, then as if suddenly tired of the old
story, she pulled out a small, rusted lantern and lit it. Her face—dried
and weathered as salted shrimp—cast eerie silhouettes upon the wall.
“You’ve been banished again,” she stated.
Had I been there just this morning? the girl wondered, remembering
the warmth of the body next to her, the scarlet-tinged light fi ltering
through the colored glasswork of the wall. “I must go back,” she whispered,
unable to keep the desperation from her voice.
“Once you’ve been banished, you can never go back, not in life,
not in death,” the old woman muttered. Her unseeing eyes bored into
the girl’s face. “They will have done a purifi cation ceremony, just as
we did the day you left, to block your spirit from entering. That’s why
you can’t go beyond my hut into our fi shing village. That’s why you
can never return there.”
“There must be some way,” the girl implored, her eyes wild. It had
been home, that bungalow. She was only a servant there, true, but for
a little while, she had been much more. She pulled out the merciful
stash of money that Maji, the bungalow’s matriarch, had given her
and placed it in the midwife’s gnarled hands.
The old woman seized the cash and bit into the wad with broken,
blackened teeth. A line of saliva dripped down her chin. “There is
one way,” she said slowly, her tobacco-stained mouth curling into a
smile, “but it involves an exceptional sacrifi ce. You must be strong,
unwavering.”
“I will!” The girl gritted her teeth as if to underscore her determination.
She was nothing, nothing if she could not be there.
“I was right to banish you. Someone else has died.”
“An accident, a baby—”
“I thought you had learned the ways of birthing,” the old woman
sneered, “always lurking nearby so others couldn’t see you.”
S H I L P A A G A RWA L 6
“I delivered the baby safely, there wasn’t time for the lady to go to
the nursing home. It came too fast. Maji ordered the boiling water
and sheets. I told her that I knew the way so she let me deliver it
while the others waited outside. I did it exactly as I had seen . . . and
then—” Her voice broke.
“You were away when the baby drowned.”
The girl nodded.
“Just like with your father. An accident perhaps. Perhaps not. There
will be other deaths, other fatal accidents.”
“Other?”
The midwife hooted once more, her tongue lolling to one side.
“You defi led the Goddess, your birth-water and blood raining down
upon her altar. You were exiled when you began to bleed. You are dangerous—
unknowingly, unconsciously—during your six days of bleeding.
You draw dark powers from impure blood, blood of any kind
from that region—birth blood, menstrual blood, virgin blood.”
The girl felt the stickiness between her legs, she had begun her cycle
that very morning, an alarmingly heavy one.
The old woman began to mutter, “Exiled at thirteen, thirteen-year
exile.” She lifted a mat on the earthen fl oor and stuck her arm down
into a hole. One by one, she pulled out tiny packets wrapped in old
newspaper and lay them in front of her. From somewhere inside her
ragged sari, she pulled out a small coconut: raw, smooth, green.
“Why go back?” she asked. “What do you desire there?”
The girl looked away, remembering the feeling of tresses entangled
in the thick of the night, skin so fragrant she had only to be in the
same room to be intoxicated by it. A forbidden touch in a scarlettinged
room.
The midwife crowed horrifi cally as if she had read her mind, and
then, regaining her composure, opened the newspaper packets. In
each lay a powder, some velvety yellow, others a gritty brown, blue,
black. She began mixing them together, all the while chanting in low
tones. The dog’s barking drew closer and with it came the snapping of
footfalls upon dried palm fronds. The girl glanced over her shoulder,
regretting that she had not pulled the mat back over the doorway.
Moving quickly now, the old woman cracked the coconut open with
a sickle-shaped koyta and poured in the powder mixture, stirring it
H A U N T I N G B O M B AY 7
into the coconut milk. The concoction smoked, fi lling the air with a
foul, polluted smell.
The girl drew back, horrifi ed.
“Exiled at thirteen, thirteen-year exile,” the midwife muttered
again. And then her blind gaze fell upon the girl. “For thirteen years
you cannot go back.”
“No!”
“The fulfi llment of your desires carries a price, an unfathomable
price.”
“I’ve lost too much already,” the girl whispered as the smoke coiled
around her. “I won’t lose this.”
“Think of that then,” the midwife commanded, holding the reddish,
snaking liquid to the girl’s lips. “You must think of that as you
drink. What you desire will become your truth.”
The girl hesitated, touching the mole upon her cheek for luck.
“Fast now, fast, someone is near!”
And the girl once again remembered the feel of warm skin, the sweet
breath of laughter. And the loss was so deep, so intense that she felt a
deep hatred boil up inside her chest for those who had cast her out that
morning, severing her from the only place she regarded as home.
As the fi rst drops of the elixir touched her tongue, her desire was
not love.
But revenge.
BEGINNINGS:
Thirteen Years Later
<
We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all
her children may dwell.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
Speech On the Granting of Indian Independence
August 14, 1947
a a a
Hich: A person who is nowhere, a thing which has no
place, no identity or personality of its own,
from ‘hichgah’—nowhere.
—From the Old Pahlavi Persian
Zia Jaffrey, THE INVISIBLES
Pinky Mittal’s earliest memory was of glistening water. It splashed
and crashed along with the sounds of wheels straining to push
forward, the crack of a switch upon a bullock’s bleeding back, shouts
of men, whimperings of hungry children. There was a buzzing, a
screeching, like the sound of a kettle of vultures, their formation like
blackened bubbles rising from the river.
In this memory, so primal that it came to her only as a dream, Pinky
stared at a woman in a sari, golden yellow like the champa fl ower. The
woman looked to the barren sky as if beseeching the gods, and then—
slowly, very slowly—began to fall into the current. She was carried
swiftly downward, the sari palloo trailing behind her like the fl uttering
of a dying bird. Pinky cried out, the sound coming out as a baby’s
inconsolable wail, but the golden woman sank without a sound.
And then came comprehension.
It was her mother.
Pinky woke with a start in the strangely stifl ing room. Sweat poured
from her skin and pooled in every crevice of her body, between her
fi ngers, behind her knees, into her eyes. She opened them, feeling
THE BUNGALOW
<
S H I L P A A G A RWA L 12
the sting of salt, the blurriness of tears, and instinctively reached up,
grasping for something solid in her dream-induced haze, and knocked
over a covered steel cup by her bed. It clattered to its side, spilling
water across the polished wood fl oor.
She lifted herself up on to her elbows, taking a moment for the
recurring nightmare to fade away, and the familiarity of the room to
offer comfort. From her vantage point, upon a mattress positioned at
the side of her grandmother’s bed, Pinky could make out the hulking
outline of the cabinets lining one wall, each painted with fanciful,
ocher-colored chinoiserie murals. As a child, she had spent hours
tracing the long, tapering branches which occasionally meandered
from one panel to the next. She had woven endless, circular stories
about the exotic birds who inhabited the trees: the cruel, sharp-beaked
crimson one with the white-tipped feathers, the quiet russet one who
pecked amongst the thatches of long grass, the little baby one who
chirped longingly from her tiny nest. On one rectangular panel, the
painted branches ended in a cluster of vermilion-colored berries that
Pinky had long ago ordained with magical powers.
She drew out each story, peppering it with obstacles and twists, as if
to delay the fi nal moment, to savor the thrill when the sole, gossamerwinged
butterfl y on the panel swooped down and saved the berries
from the cruel bird. And then, spanning the breadth of the six murals,
she distributed the berries in a queenly way. And by magic, the onelegged
bird grew another leg and the blue bird with faded feathers
received shiny new ones. Pinky always saved the fi nal berry for the
sad, little baby bird who had lost its family. Eat it, she whispered to
the baby bird, it will bring them back.
Rubbing her eyes, she stretched as if to push the last sticky dream
remnants away and then opened a small teak chest inlaid with intricate
enamel work on the fl oor next to her. It contained her most precious
possessions: fresh pencils that had arrived by ship, a box of sticky
oil pastels, a tin of enameled jacks sent as a gift from a relative in
Haridwar, a swatch of emerald silk, and a faded magazine photo. In
lieu of actual photos of her dead mother, of which none remained,
Pinky had torn out a picture of the actress Madhubala from an old
copy of Filmindia. In it, Madhubala is looking out into the distance
as if lost in thought, her face and hair framed by an ethereal glow. She
H A U N T I N G B O M B AY 13
is stunning, her lips parted slightly, a pearl choker at her neck. Over
time, Pinky had forgotten that the photo was not really her mother.
She knew very little about her, except for a few stories about her childhood
and the fact that she drowned while crossing a river.
Pinky carefully returned the photo to the chest, pushing it against
the wall next to a heavy dresser with a small brass mirror overturned on
top. Just above her on the imposing Edwardian-style bed, her grandmother’s
enormous belly rose from a faded sheet like a snowcapped
peak, her snores already at deafening levels. A mosquito coil burned
in one corner, releasing a bittersweet smell, where a temperamental
air-conditioning unit jutted out from the wall. Pinky clicked the knob
and the machine sputtered to high, offering a blast of cooling air. It
was early June, the hottest, most unbearable, most humid stretch of
the year, and sleep without the AC was nearly impossible.
She sat on the bed, pulling her grandmother’s warm hands, knotted
and thick with bluish veins, into her own. They were life-giving hands,
ones that had held her, clothed her, and fed her ever since she had been
a motherless infant thirteen years ago. When Pinky was younger and
still sleeping in the huge Edwardian bed, she used to hold on to one
of Maji’s hands through the night and perform a little ritual whenever
she was afraid or sick. Turning it face up, Pinky ran her fi nger along
the lines in the palm, starting with the thickest one that curved around
the thumb. She meticulously touched a line for each of her years, as if to
somehow map herself into the infi nite universe within Maji’s hand.
She incanted a small prayer: I am in you. Even at thirteen, Pinky still
continued with this small assertion of belonging.
After she had fi nished, she wiped up the spilled water and retrieved
the steel cup. Peering down the dark east hallway that ran from a
locked teak door on the front verandah and across the entire length
of the bungalow, she could barely make out a dim glow from a large
window overlooking the back garden. A parallel hallway ran down
the other, west side of the bungalow, dividing it into roughly three
sections with bedrooms, bathrooms, and the kitchen in either wing,
and the front parlor, the dining hall, and living room in the center.
The one-story bungalow had been built over a hundred years earlier
by a high-ranking East India Company offi cer as an architectural
symbol of the British Raj. His wife, longing for the tidy coolness of
S H I L P A A G A RWA L 14
Home, however, had irritably christened the bungalow The Jungle.
Pinky loved its elegant symmetry and grand teak doors, its Moghulinspired
archways, and the lush, tropical garden in back with its grove
of mango trees.
During the season, the trees dripped with the fl eshy, golden fruit
and Maji gave away all they did not need, sending baskets to friends
and relatives throughout Bombay. Mango-picking day was a festive
day in the bungalow, a holiday unto themselves. The gardener arrived
at the crack of dawn with extra workers and they collected huge basketfuls
of the fruit, while Pinky and her cousins sat under the trees,
biting into the sweet fl avor, their faces smeared bright orange. They
are Lord Ganesh’s favorite, too, Maji always told them as she clipped a
handful of auspicious mango leaves to hang on the front verandah.
Later in the day, she supervised the distribution of the mangos in the
ornate dining hall while her daughter-in-law, Savita, sauntered around
the long, polished dining table, squeezing and prodding the fruit to
ensure that the best ones were earmarked for her relations.
Pinky stepped into the stifl ing hall, deprived of the artifi cially
cooled air that the bedrooms and the front parlor typically enjoyed.
The wooden fl oorboards, which normally creaked and sighed with
the slightest pressure, absorbed the lightness of her feet. Pinky knew
these fl oors, knew where they gave way and where they were supported.
She walked across them with unthinking familiarity.
She crept past her uncle and aunt’s room, stopping to peer through
the crack at their door where their low voices diffused into the hall
along with the soft whirring of their modern air conditioner. Wedging
her body against the crack, she indulged in the rush of chilly air that
dried the sweat along one leg, arm, and cheek.
“As if it isn’t enough that we’ve taken in Pinky,” Savita sniffed, her
delicate features tightening with anger. The upper ribbons on her
imported silk nightgown lay untied, revealing the tiny glitter of a diamond
dangling between her breasts. “I can’t believe you just sent ten
thousand rupees to her father.”
“At Maji’s request,” Jaginder said as if to assure her that he would
not have been so generous on his own. The years had added a slouch
to his once proud shoulders, a shadow of stubble fell across his handsome
face. “A loan only.”
H A U N T I N G B O M B AY 15
“Loan?” Savita’s voice grew shrill. She pointed a slender, manicured
fi ngertip at him in accusation. “We have nothing to do with them
anymore. Why should we give them money?”
“He’s Pinky’s father after all.”
“What father,” Savita snorted. “He’s remarried, he has other children
now, he hasn’t even bothered to visit since Maji took her in!”
Outside in the hallway, Pinky felt a hot sting of tears in her eyes.
Savita never let an opportunity pass to make her feel unwelcome in
the bungalow, like a beggar. She’s not your sister, she would admonish
her sons whenever Maji was out of earshot, she’s your destitute cousin.
Remember that.
Pinky retreated into the comfort of darkness, making a quick left
under a scalloped archway, breathing in the bungalow’s aroma of sandalwood,
peppers, and fried cumin. It was so dim, that for a moment,
she thought there might be a power outage. Then her eyes fi xed on
ruby stains of color fl ickering upon the walls emitted by series of
stained-glass and brass handis. She pressed her hand to the wall of the
corridor, watching as the color settled upon her skin like a kiss.
At the west hallway, she turned right, into the kitchen where a tall,
decorated earthen urn of boiled water stood on a marble countertop.
Pinky glugged down the tepid water with relief and refi lled her cup. A
wave of sleepiness washed over her.
Turning down the corridor to return to her room, she unexpectedly
heard the scrape of a door and backtracked, fi rst peeking around
the corner, then tiptoeing to her cousins’ bedroom. The three boys
were the only inhabitants of this side of the bungalow. Pale moonlight
fi ltered in through the window, revealing the sleeping bodies of the
fourteen-year-old twins. Dheer’s pudgy body was thrown carelessly
across the mattress, his mouth gaping open, while Tufan’s lean one
was curled tightly into a ball as if he were still a baby. The third bed,
that belonging to seventeen-year-old Nimish, however, was empty.
Thinking she had a few minutes before his return, Pinky crept to his
bedside and placed her cup of water on his night table next to a cluttering
stack of books, bookmarks sticking out midway from each one.
She leaned in and inhaled his salty, sensuous scent and then, blushing,
glanced at the slumbering twins to ensure they had not awakened and
seen her. Dheer let out a reassuring, rumbling snore.
S H I L P A A G A RWA L 16
Pinky touched her hand to Nimish’s warm pillow and inhaled
again. A book peeked out from underneath it and she reached for it,
fi ngering its odd title, The Fakeer of Jungheera. It felt old and dusty
and she knew immediately that it belonged to the musty library at the
end of the hallway. It fell open to a page where a miniature chart titled
“An Ideal Boy” was carefully taped inside the book, covering an entire
page. The chart detailed the twelve most essential behaviors, including
“Salutes Parents” and “Brushes Up The Teeth,” each one accompanied
by a gaudy illustration. Pinky could not help but smile. Nimish had
received this chart in primary school. He had showed it to her and the
twins when he returned from class that day, the four of them rolling
with laughter and taking turns pretending to be the upright little boy
in the pictures with his clean, white shirt and knickers, dutifully “Taking
The Lost Children To The Police Post.” And yet, even though they
had mocked it, Nimish had kept the chart all these years, taped inside
this random book. Perhaps Dheer or Tufan needed daily behavioral
cues but Nimish already, effortlessly, embodied the dutiful son.
Curious now at Nimish’s lengthy absence, Pinky replaced the
book and decided to look for him in the library. She hesitated as
she passed the children’s bathroom, which consisted of two separate
doors, one leading to a tiled bathing area and the other to a toilet
and sink. The door to the bathing area was like all the others in
the interior of the bungalow, made of shiny wood inset with three
panels. A delicately carved chakra occupied the center of each panel.
What made it different, however, was the vertical bolt at the very top
of the doorframe, out of reach.
For as long as she could remember, this door was unexplainably
bolted at night, the thick metal rod sliding into place with an echoing
crash. The children were forbidden to touch it after sunset. In place of
a rational explanation for this nightly ritual, the children came up with
their own wild theories. The twins were sure that the bathroom was
transformed nightly into the headquarters for their father’s superhero
activities or perhaps into a hideout used by the infamous criminal Red
Tooth. They, of course, dared each other to get out of bed to touch
the door or wiggle the handle, which they did before racing back and
throwing themselves under the covers. Once they even rigged a pair
of chairs so they could reach the bolt. But as Tufan touched it, he
H A U N T I N G B O M B AY 17
tumbled over. The weight of the seats left ugly bruises and cuts. At
the sound of the crash, Savita had come running at them hysterically.
What do you think you’re doing? she had yelled, slapping them each
several times across the face. Do you want to die? Do you?
After that, none of them dared to try again despite their claims
of bravery and the shrugging off of Savita’s ominous warning. Yet
they could not account for the sound the water pipes made at night,
the odd rattlings, the strange whooshing that did not settle until just
before dawn.
Pinky pressed herself against the wall to be as far away as possible.
She did not want to look but of their own will, her eyes fell upon the
bolt. A chill shot to her fi ngertips. She raced to the library.
“Nimish?”
The library must have been grand in its day, with its elaborately
carved bookshelves, dark paneled walls, heavily upholstered couches,
and glass chandelier, but by the time the bungalow passed into Maji’s
hands several years before Independence, it had already suffered from
neglect. The once-plush carpet was bare in ever-growing patches, the
chandelier housed an intrepid family of spiders, and even though they
were thoroughly cleaned once a year, the thick, gloomy curtains stank
of stale cigar smoke.
Its faded, forgotten glory soothed Pinky. When the rest of the bungalow
had been updated, this sole room remained as it was, lost in the
past. Nimish spent hours in here with the books, breathing in the residue
of another era. His plan was to read every single book that the
library contained, from the hard burgundy or green leather covers richly
engraved in gold to the small ones dressed in cloth dust jackets, all the
while imagining what it was like to have been a pukka English sahib. So
far he had read every single autobiography of the English Indian Civil
Service offi cers—the elite competition-wallahs who governed India
and then vainly penned their memoirs upon retirement—the works of
Kipling, and the entire, paperback series of Wheeler’s Indian Railway
Library.
A faint sliver of moonlight fi ltered between a crack in the heavy
drapery and fell in a jagged line upon the threadbare carpet, across a
rectangular table adorned with a large, multiple-piped hookah, and
onto several books with intense blue bindings. Pinky felt her way to
S H I L P A A G A RWA L 18
the window and looked to the sky. The moon slipped into a dark
haze. The clouds had started gathering that afternoon, little billows of
smoke in the bright, sunlit sky that foretold the monsoon’s impending
arrival. Oh, how they had obsessed about nothing else all that scorching
day but the joy of those fi rst drops of eagerly awaited rain from
the heavens.
The moon brightened and Pinky’s heart stopped as she caught sight
of Nimish. There he was, on the driveway, his tall, slender frame,
fi nely chiseled face, and copper brown skin glowing. He was pacing
back and forth, his fi sts clenched as if in determination, eyebrows
knitted above thin, wire spectacles. Pinky wiped the sweat trickling
from her hands onto her pajamas and rapped on the window. But
Nimish had already turned away, heading toward the back garden.
Pinky raced down the hallway, out the side door, and past the
garage which Gulu, the driver, shared with the black Mercedes. A frisson
hummed in her chest as the humid air drenched her thin pajamas.
Above her, a gust of wind rustled a broken kite impaled upon a tree
branch. And just past the bungalow, a grand white-marble lotus fountain
stood in the grassy center of the garden surrounded by a pond, a
stone pathway, and a ring of rosebushes. Beyond that lay the thickness
of the trees.
Pinky stood breathless, pressing her back against the stone wall that
separated their bungalow from their neighbors’, the Lawates, on the
other side. She called to Nimish in sharp whispers. A love song from
the hit fi lm Dil Deke Dekho, took root in her head as she cut into
the expansive garden, which was exquisitely groomed by the gardener
who arrived every day with nothing more than a rusted sickle for
landscaping and a fresh coconut for quenching his thirst.
She had always loved Nimish, even as a little girl, drawn to him as
if he were the father she never had. When she was younger, he had
hovered over her, shielding her from unkind remarks and accidental
harm. In the last years, however, as her body began to change, Pinky
wanted more from him than simply this . . . this paternal affection.
She had begun to notice, with a fl ush, the soft tones of his laughter,
the gloss of his hair.
He was so carefree with his younger brothers, teasing them, guiding
them, and occasionally throwing a sympathetic arm around them
H A U N T I N G B O M B AY 19
after they were punished. But with Pinky, he had become more distant,
his communication limited to passages read out loud from his
countless books or professorial monologues if she asked for help with
her schoolwork.
“Nimish?” she whispered again. Could he be right there, behind that
tree, waiting for me? She reached out, imagining the feel of his strong
hand in hers, on her.
She could almost picture a fl ash of silk behind a tree, betraying the
presence of a troupe of dancers that was waiting for the lovers to meet
before breaking into fl irtatious song and dance. Nimish had led her
out here, she was sure of it, to confess his love. This was her Bollywood
moment.
Somewhere in the distance a door closed.
Pinky snapped out of her reverie.
Had Nimish gone back? Had she somehow failed in her scripted
role? She raced back through the foliage, carelessly treading upon lovingly
tended fl owers until she reached the edge of the bungalow. And
then she dashed across the moonlit driveway.
The bungalow’s darkness embraced her.
Back in the air-conditioned coolness of the boys’ room, Dheer snored
in loud, choppy breaths and Tufan lay in a sweaty, satiated slumber, his
hand tucked into his pajama bottoms. But Nimish’s bed was still empty.
Pinky hid herself behind it, slowing her pounding heart and fi ghting off
the cold, clammy feel of sweat beginning to dry.
“Where are you?” Pinky whispered into his pillow.
She could not imagine what he could be doing in the dark garden
alone, behind the immense stone wall that surrounded the bungalow
on three sides, the fourth protected by an equally imposing gate
complete with welded-iron arrowhead caps. But then, as she mentally
walked the yard, she remembered that the wall was not impassable
after all. There was a way to get through, to get out. Could it be?
She once again picked up The Fakeer of Jungheera and glanced at
the poem opposite the gaudy “Ideal Boy” chart. My native home, my
native home, Hath in its groves the turtledove, And from her nest she will
not roam—For it is warmed with faith and love. But there is love, and
there is faith, Which round a bleeding heart entwine, To thee devoted even
to death—And oh! That love and faith are mine!
S H I L P A A G A RWA L 20
Slowly, meticulously, as the urgent words sunk in, she untaped
the chart from the opposite page. There, hidden behind the “Ideal
Boy” was his not-so-ideal truth, his turtle dove in a tamarind tree.
Yes, the stone wall had a small opening that led to one and only
one place, the Lawates’ next door. And Nimish’s little bird was none
other than seventeen-year-old Lovely Lawate, beaming exquisitely
in black and white.
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

CENTER vs. PERIPHERY

The bungalow atop Malabar Hill can be seen as a metaphor for the nation as “the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.” Who belongs in the bungalow and who does not? And what does this say about who has power within the Indian nation?

What is Pinky’s position in the Mittal household? How do her interactions with the supernatural transform her place within the bungalow?

What are the geographic centers in the novel? And what are the peripheries? What happens when those who dwell in the peripheries reach into the center? What happens when those in the center are pushed to the peripheries
SILENCE INTO VOICE

What compels Pinky to reach out to the ghost? What finally connects them across the divide of death? On page 116, Pinky asks Nimish, “How do you talk to someone if you are afraid?” And he answers, “A story, you begin with a story.” What are some examples in the novel of how stories are used to forge connections?

How do Pinky and the ghost eventually betray each other? Why does Pinky at first refuse to hear the truth about the drowning, and what makes her finally understand that she must hear it?

What happens when the silenced members of the Mittal household – the ghost, Avni, and Gulu – begin to speak the truth of the drowning? And why is this so terrifying? How do their ‘voices’ reimagine the story that had been told of the baby’s death?

Aside from language and utterance, what are the other modalities of communication amongst the characters in the novel?
VESSELS OF POWER

The baby’s death seemingly begins with Savita’s barren breasts and Jaginder calling for the milk-production cereal. What is the role of milk in the novel and what power does it have over life and death?

What are the roles of various forms of water in the novel and their relation to life, death, and power?

How does the midwife’s prophesy that young Avni draws “dark powers from impure blood, blood of any kind from that region – birth blood, menstrual blood, virgin blood” play out with her possession of Lovely and Pinky?
TRUTH & DECEPTION

The novel begins with the midwife telling the girl, “What you desire will become your truth.” Who is the girl and what is her desire? Is she able to fulfill it? Lovely’s desire is “to be free.” What does this mean to her, and does she find it?

On page 67, Dheer says “I believe that all things change but the truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.” Who shares this understanding of truth and who resists it?

Everyone in the Mittal household, including the servants, have secrets. How do these secrets affect their view of the baby’s death and their feelings toward Avni? Which secrets are eventually revealed?

Savita is very superstitious while Maji is extremely religious. How do these views coexist and conflict within the bungalow? What roles do superstition, religion, and spirituality play in the novel?

How did the baby die? Was it an act of love, or one of shame?

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