The Moors Last Sigh

as: ‘Adam Braganza’. And before that: ‘Aadam Sinai’. And before that? If, as the admirable sleuths of the press discovered and afterwards informed us, his biological parents were named ‘Shiva’ and ‘Parvati’, and considering his – forgive me for harping on them – really very large ears indeed, may I suggest ‘Ganesh’? Though ‘Dumbo’ – or ‘Goofo’, ‘Mutto’, ‘Crooko’ – or let’s settle for ‘Sabu’ – might be more appropriate in the case of the detestable Elephant Boy.
    So, that twenty-first century kid, that fast-track Infobahni, that arriviste crooning I-did-it-I-way, proved to be not only a scheming usurper, but a moron – who thought himself uncatchable, and therefore got caught with laughable ease. And a Jonah, too; dragged the whole shooting-match down with him. Yes, Adam’s arrival in our family unleashed the chain-reaction that knocked the great magnate of Siodicorp off his high perch. Permit me, if you will, to recount, while keeping all traces of schadenfreude out of my voice, the principal highlights of the gigantic débâcle of the family business.
    When the super-financier V. V. ‘Crocodile’ Nandy was arrested and arraigned on the extraordinary charge of bribing central government ministers to provide him with crore upon crore of public-exchequer funds, with which he actually intended to ‘fix’ the Bombay Stock Exchange itself, a simultaneous arrestee was the above-named – the so-called – ‘Shri Adam Zogoiby’, who had allegedly been the ‘bagman’ in the affair, carrying suitcases containing huge sums of used, out-of-sequence banknotes to the private residences of several of the nation’s most prominent men, and then, as he subtly put it in his evidence for the defence, ‘accidentally forgetting’ them there.
    Investigations into the wider activities of ‘Shri Adam Zogoiby’ – carried out with great zeal by the police force, fraud squad and other appropriate agencies, under intense pressure from, among others, the highly embarrassed central government, and also the MA-controlled Bombay Municipal Corporation, which, in the words of the MA President, Mr Raman Fielding, demanded that ‘the nest of vipers must be cleaned with Flit and Vim’ – soon revealed his involvement with an even more colossal scandal. The news of the vast global fraud perpetrated by the chiefs of the Khazana Bank International, of the disappearance of its assets into so-called ‘black holes’, and of its alleged involvement with terrorist organisations and the large-scale misappropriation of fissile materials, delivery mechanisms and high-technology hard- and software was just beginning to reach the public’s incredulous ears; and the name of Abraham Zogoiby’s adopted son cropped up on a series of forged bills of lading that had been issued in connection with the ticklish affair of the smuggling of a stolen supercomputer from Japan to an unstated Middle Eastern location. As the Khazana Bank collapsed, and tens of thousands of ordinary citizens from the drivers of hypothecated taxi-cabs to the owners of newsagents and corner shops all over the NRI world found themselves bankrupted, details continued to emerge of the close involvement of Siodicorp’s banking arm, the House of Cashondeliveri, with the crashed bank’s corrupt principals, many of whom were languishing in British or American jails. Siodicorp stock went into free fall. Abraham – even Abraham – was all but wiped out. By the time the cash-for-armaments scandal broke, and the strong allegations regarding his personal involvement in organised crime brought him to court to face criminal charges including gangsterism, drug-smuggling, giant-scale ‘black money’ dealings and procuring, the empire he had built from the da Gama family’s wealth had been smashed. Bombayites pointed at Cashondeliveri Tower in a sort of revolted awe and wondered when it would crack, like the House of Usher, and come toppling down to earth.
    In a panelled courtroom, my ninety-year-old father denied all charges. ‘I am not here to participate in some masala-movie remake of The Godfather, like some made-in-India Bollywood Mogambo,’ he said, standing defiantly erect, and smiling disarmingly, the same smile that his mother Flory had recognised years ago as the rictus of a desperate man. ‘Ask anyone from Cochin to Bombay who is Abraham Zogoiby. They will tell you he is a respectable gentleman in the pepper-and-spices