The Death of Vishnu

toppling the delicate table on which it was perched.
    By the fourth blow, Arifa had come to his rescue, and was grappling with the paanwalla, holding his lathi-wielding arm and trying to bite it. Mr. Jalal was dimly aware of the paanwalla screaming out an epithet, and his wife saying through blood-stained teeth, “Run, Ahmed, run—to the bedroom.” He saw the electrician swing his lathi behind Arifa, and tried to warn her, but his mouth seemed filled with wool. As Mr. Jalal turned around to flee, he had a glimpse of Arifa sinking to the floor, a thin red line forming at her temple.
    He was about to enter their bedroom when he remembered there was no latch on the door. So he swerved into Salim’s room instead, and slid the heavy metal bolt across—the one Salim had insisted on having installed for privacy. Almost immediately, there was the sound of pounding. Mr. Jalal heard the paanwalla say, “Let us in,” in a very reasonable tone.
    The door seemed to strain and bulge. Mr. Jalal backed away from it, but the bolt held fast. He looked around the room, and found a chair to put under the doorknob. There was no other door in the room, only two windows and the balcony. Unlike the one in the other bedroom, this balcony did not open onto the street, but onto the courtyard at the back of the building. He wondered if someone in the courtyard would hear his cries and come up if he shouted for help. Then Mr. Jalal remembered that everyone from downstairs was already in his living room, and they were, in fact, the ones trying to break down the door.
    The door heaved. How much time did he have before it gave? There was only one thing to do. Mr. Jalal went to the balcony and looked down.
    The first floor had no balconies. He would have to jump all the way to the ground to escape. He studied the courtyard two floors below. The cement looked extremely hard, and Mr. Jalal wondered whether cracks would form in the surface when his body hit the ground.
    Perhaps he should go up, instead of down. Mr. Taneja’s balcony overhung his own, perhaps he could pull himself up to it. Mr. Taneja, he was sure, would protect him—he had a phone, and they could call the police. That seemed to make more sense than to risk being injured in a jump to the ground. And then, as he was lying there, having the mob descend on him to finish him off.
    Mr. Jalal hoisted himself onto the railing of the balcony. With one hand on the wall of the building, he balanced himself with both feet set on the railing. He called Mr. Taneja’s name several times for help, but there was no response. Then, trying not to look down, and amazed he was doing this, Mr. Jalal advanced along the railing and reached towards the overhang of Mr. Taneja’s balcony with his free hand.

    L ET ME TELL you, my little Vishnu, let me tell you a tale. A tale about the yogi-spirit Jeev born again and again and again. About how one can rise to be a Brahmin, and then fall down to the level of a monkey again.
    His mother’s words come down the remaining spiral of steps. Vishnu always feels sorry for Jeev in this story. He wonders if he should be careful himself, not to fall, now that he has climbed so high.
    It was bad luck, really, that brought Jeev tumbling down. Though the problem also lay with the village in which he was born. A village where the castes were still very separate—not like today, here in Bombay—and Brahmins, especially, were expected to enforce all the old rules. The lowest castes were not to let their shadows fall over the path of a Brahmin, they were to carry a broom everywhere to sweep the ground clean after their feet contaminated it, and they were punished for the slightest mistake.
    Jeev might not have found himself agreeing with all the rules, had he stopped to weigh their fairness or lack of it. But he followed them like everyone else in the village. They had, after all, been around for centuries—who was he, a newly realized Brahmin, to argue with such wisdom? He was expected to treat the lowest castes with rigor, to contribute to the squalor of their days. Didn’t this, in fact, help them grow, prod their souls through a painful but necessary phase? A phase he must have endured himself to have reached this station, so where was the unfairness, where was the harm?
    One day the village jamadarni happened to straighten herself from the gutter she was cleaning just as Jeev was walking by. Without thinking, she looked right into his face, even began to wish