The Cripple and His Talismans

by Anosh Irani

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Prepare to enter a world where the norms of human behavior—even the rules governing time and gravity—are set on their heads. This dark and wry fable begins with the narrator waking up and discovering he is missing an arm. He has no idea how he lost it or how to find it—but as he searches the chaotic, often surreal streets of Bombay, he meets an absurd and marvelous cast of characters who offer him clues: a woman selling rainbows, a beggar living under an egg cart, a coffin maker who builds finger-sized caskets, a giant who lives underwater, a homeless boy riding the rails. They all lead him to Baba Rakhu, master of the underworld, who will reveal the story of his lost arm—for a price.

Funny and wise, violent and tender, The Cripple and His Talismans is an impressive debut. A bestseller in Canada, it has been compared to the works of Samuel Beckett, Lewis Carroll, and Salman Rushdie.

Release date: April 15, 2005

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Print pages: 256

Sample

In the beginning there was a little boy. He was alone in the universe and everything was dark and quiet.

One day he saw a tree, very far away. Then it vanished and everything was dark again. Being simple and humble by nature, the boy became scared and wished for strength. In his heart he felt warm; the warmth spread all over his being.

“What did my vision mean?” the boy asked. He waited for an answer, but none came.

“I must make the place of the tree like its many limbs,” he decided. “Let them branch out to become the roads of the world. Let none of them ever be cut off.”

He made the place and its tree out of the distance, and waited for a long time. He observed this place during his wait, and was not happy with what he saw. So he flew to it.

There he saw another forked form that he had created. It was like a walking tree, and he called it Man. Man was bent over, entangled in his own embrace.

“You use your limbs wrongly,” said the boy. “They are meant to embrace others, not yourself.”

The boy freed Man of his own clasp. “Now use your limbs well,” he said.

The boy saw another form and named it Woman. He realized that there were many forms gathered there. He named them all: Tiger, Snake, Smoke, Tree, Fire, Soil, Water and Wind. The boy flew above them all because he could.

“This is the place of the tree with its many limbs,” he told the forms. “You must use them well, and let none of them be cut off.”

All the forms were confused.

“These limbs branch out to become the roads of the world,” the boy explained.

Smoke was still unclear.

“In life, there are three main paths,” the boy explained again. “The first one is crooked. It means that you are simply pretending to come toward me. Only the sly and devious shall take this path.”

Hearing this, Snake slithered away, dragging Soil with it. Tree needed Soil to live, so it followed.

“Next is the straight path. It leads only to me. It is very long and few will complete it. There is nothing to do along the way, except pray.”

In truth, the road that led to the boy was the most wondrous of all roads. But the boy had no wish to present it as such. This was a test. But none of the forms took that road.

“The third path has the possibility of flying, of tigers, of flying tigers,” said the boy. “It means anything can happen.”

It was Woman who first walked on the third path. She needed things to make her happy. So she took Tiger to ride on, Fire to keep warm, Water to wash her hair and Wind to blow through it. Smoke followed because Fire went.

The boy was upset with these choices. By not taking the straight path, the forms had cut off a limb. Only Man was left, so the boy turned to him.

“Go away,” said Man. He motioned the boy away with a flick of the wrists. And once again Man was entangled in his own embrace.

The boy told him, “I can see what is going to happen here. There will be magic, poverty, thievery, music, pollution, dancing, murder, lust and very little prayer.”

“Leave me alone,” said Man. “Promise me that you will never come here again.”

“First tell me what this place is called,” said the boy, “so I remember never to visit it, for it is no longer the place of the tree.”

“Bombay,” said Man. “There is no other like it.”

“Thank God,” said the boy.

It was then that the boy realized who he truly was. He kept his promise never to return.

The man’s look tells me that I have made a mistake. He moves closer to my face, but his eyes focus on the dim light bulb that hangs above me in the center of his beedi shop. His skin is soot, dark but smooth. Mosquitoes are converging around the bulb. He listens to their murmur.

“Yes, I’m the In-charge,” he whispers.

He looks at the mosquitoes around the bulb. They stick to it and exchange places with one another, a small dance to pass time between transmissions of malaria.

I try to get his attention. “Gura has sent me,” I tell him. “He says you have information about my lost arm.”

He covers my mouth. His palm smells of tobacco and money. There is also the stink of genitals but I try to dismiss that. He releases his hand slowly.

“I will draw a map for you,” he says.

It is dim and dusty, and I am being hit and bitten by insects. I realize that he waits for me to respond.

“A map will be helpful,” I say.

His dark hands are beautiful compared to the rest of him. His face is round as an earthen pot and his ears are long. Strands of hair with the dryness of straw stick out of his lobes. But his hands are thin as if crafted from black paper. Mine are lighter, more the color of soil. I am one hand less now; in fact, a whole left arm less, if one insists on staring at me under the mosquito bulb.

He plucks out a short pencil from behind his ear. Apart from Shivaji beedis, he also stocks packs of Marlboro, Gold Flake, Charminar, Dunhill, Four Square and 555 on thin wooden shelves. I look at his small shop and wonder how he stays in this hole all day. I look to the side, at the shop next to his. It is a flower shop, just as constricting. Most of the flowers are dead. White buckets hold the fragrant corpses.

He now has a piece of paper on top of the glass jar that contains sweets. The paper already has numbers scribbled all over it so I do not know how he will draw a map.

“You are here,” he says, his eye on the paper.

He draws a spiral, keeps circling. In order to make him stop before he puts a hole through the paper, I respond. “I understand, In-charge.”

I use his title in the hope that he will reveal his name.

“You are here,” he repeats. The circling continues. “You must follow a few landmarks. They will direct you to the games. But I cannot tell you what the landmarks are.”

“Games? What games?”

He hands me the chit of paper. One spiral shows me where I am. Two inches from it, a darker spiral shows me where I must go.

Let me have my arm for just a second so I can teach him a lesson. I am not accustomed to being mocked. I am a novice cripple.

“At least tell me which direction I must take,” I ask the In-charge.

“You will know. I’m busy. Now go.”

No one is around. If there were customers, I could understand if he said he is busy. But not even the flower man is visible. We are in one of the city’s gullies, a by-lane that only the local residents use.

I take the map and walk out on the street. I hold it under the streetlight with my right hand. If I had both arms, I would have a better grip. I try not to think of my disability. At times it makes me so rabid that I want to rip my other arm off. I then realize that I do not have an arm to pull the other one off. This angers me even more.

A lost arm causes much more than physical disorientation. I question many more things. Why does so and so have an arm? Why is he happy? Why is she beautiful? Why is the orange that I eat sour?

I think of Gura the floating beggar. It was he who led me to the In-charge. The moment I lost my arm, two months ago, I felt like a pariah in the company of normal people. After I got out of the hospital, I sold my white-marbled apartment by the sea and moved to one with stone flooring, where flying cockroaches and mosquitoes sang at midnight. I did not speak a word for two whole months. It was as though my arm had done the talking before.

Gura was the first person I talked with, this very morning. It happened naturally. In my new physical state, I recognized Gura as my equal — a beggar I could speak to. Gura’s remark startled me.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it,” he said.

He sat at the entrance to my building. I had never noticed him before. Was it obvious that I had recently lost an arm? I looked at him and saw the face of darkness — a little hell, fallen trees.

“What will I get used to?” I asked. These were the first words I had uttered in two months. Instead of feeling better, I felt as though I were choking on my own vomit.

“Absence,” he said. His body and face were more stained than the footpath he sat on. “There is an absence,” he continued. “And you are not handling it well.”

Why should I? I thought. It is not as if I have lost my wallet. In fact, even when I lost my wallet I never handled things gracefully.

Then he leaned toward me. “Now listen,” he whispered.

Gura scratched a boil on his thigh. He picked out flakes from his scalp. He bared his teeth to the sun until they got hot. He licked his lips, tweaked his eyebrows and crossed his arms.

“Why are you staring at my face?” he asked.

“You said to listen.”

“Not to me.”

“To whom, then?”

“The street. All answers lie in its sounds. In the bicycle bell of a little boy also lies the wail of his mother, for she knows he will leave her soon when he is crushed by a speeding truck.”

“That’s quite dark.”

“He is dark.”

“Who?”

“You tell me.”

“Why are you talking in riddles?”

“How are riddles shaped?”

“I don’t know.”

“They coil round and round like gullies.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You’re sucking it out of me like a mosquito.”

“No, I’m not.”

“If there is a dispute then talk to the In-charge.”

“Who?”

“The In-charge!”

Beggars do that, I thought. They feel God has abandoned them so they put someone else in charge. Poverty strips them of their brain. They start counting colors instead of money, and when colors run out they try and invent their own. That drives them to madness because it is impossible to think of a color that does not exist.

So I walked past Gura and up the four steps that led to my flat. I was about to open the door when he said something that made my heart pound.

“The In-charge knows about your lost arm. That which you do not.”

Words like this come once in a lifetime, and you hear them even if your ears have been torn from your head and stamped into the earth.

“What does he know?”

“Ask him.”

“Where can I find him?”

“Your arm will show you. Point it.”

I raised the only arm I had toward the fire temple in the distance. Gura shook his head. I pointed to the post office and the three-star hotel. Then to the flyover and dancing bars below. The Central and State Banks, the old Parsi library, the gas cylinder shop, the nursing home known for selling babies when mothers were not looking. Soon all of these had been indicated.

“I’m lost,” I said.

“Then use your lost arm.”

“But it does not exist.”

“Nothing really does.”

I faced the old cinema that showed B-grade Hindi movies. I imagined I was using my absent arm to point. Since I had time, I turned toward the clock repair shop. Then I pointed at the toy shop whose sad moustachioed owner looked like he was selling sick puppies instead. I had spun a complete 360 so I looked at Gura, who urged me to carry on.

“But I’ll keep going round and round in circles,” I said.

“Like a Jalebee!” he laughed.

I felt very foolish. A beggar was mocking me. So I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out some money. It was the only way to save face. A rich man without an arm is still superior to a poor man with one.

“It’s a hint,” said Gura.

“You want to eat Jalebee?” The poor fellow suddenly had a craving for orange coiled sweets?

“You can’t eat this Jalebee. But can you go to it.”

I understood.

There was only one area in the city where gullies wound like riddles, where the in-roads were black as death, messages from prophets were scribbled on the walls and babies walked like tiny gangsters, toting guns and milk bottles.

“Jalebee Road?”

“Good work, my crippled genius.”

“Will you take me there?”

“I have begging to do! You think I can afford to waste time?”

“Then how will I find the In-charge?”

“Even the blind can find him.”

So when night fell, I walked to Jalebee Road. In the heart of Jalebee Road there is a tree. It is the oldest tree in the city, without leaves, and is considered holy, a refuge for all lost souls. It is said that a sage sits in its hollow, an addict who has run out of ganja, who heals the sick and poor by sucking the sadness out of their lungs. (No one has proved this, but people do feel better after circling the tree.)

So I went round and round the tree. After all, I was a lost soul, too — I did not know where to go. Even though there were a few people near the tree, they ignored me. Then an old woman, as bent as the tree itself, joined me. She walked as though it was a marriage ceremony and she was my ancient bride. Perhaps her husband had abandoned her on their wedding day many years ago. If it made her feel better, who was I to enlighten her? We both circled, but she soon wandered off toward the balloon factory in the distance. I must have circled the tree one hundred times.

I was so dizzy, the residents of Jalebee Road flew toward me.

The street children came first. They flew sideways and they were all scratching their heads and laughing. In their laughter I could hear the shouts of their fathers, too: drunk, angry at the walls, washing the dirt off their lips with every sip. Suddenly Gura’s words made sense. All answers lie in the sounds of the streets.

So I closed my eyes and opened myself up to the sounds around me. The blaring horn of a truck said “move out of the way or I’ll kill you”; the wind blew through the old, bare tree and made a wailing sound as it yearned for leaves. But it was the bark of a stray dog that made me open my eyes. It sounded like the cough of a wise old man who had walked down from the hills, past the plains and into this winding pit.

There was a deep gash in the dog’s white skin. As it licked the flies off the wound, I saw its cold, silver eyes. The dog was blind. Yet it looked straight at me and smiled. Was it laughing at my deformity? Then it sniffed the earth, licked an ant-ridden packet of Glucose biscuits and walked past me toward a narrow lane. Just before it entered the lane, it turned around and spoke in garbled sounds, dog language, in which A’s are yells, B’s are cries, C’s are pleas and D’s are direct commands.

I heard a distinct D. Follow me, it said.

And then I understood Gura’s final words. Even the blind can find the In-charge. A blind animal would lead me, if I was humble enough to allow it. It went past the cheap tailors and roadside barbers, and stopped outside a small cigarette shop. It was very dark and all I could see at the counter was a light bulb. It was so dim, it seemed to spread darkness around with confidence, as if it were a cure for light. Not a soul was around. The dog whimpered, raised its hind leg and watered the parched earth.

I leaned over the counter and saw a dark man, born of the night bulb itself, hiding in his own shop, speaking to his glass jars filled with sweets, whistling to his packets of supari and paan masala, counting money fast-fast. I asked him if he was the In-charge.

“Yes, I’m the In-charge,” he finally whispered.

So now here I stand, late at night, in one of the by-lanes of Jalebee Road, and stare at the map the In-charge has just given me. I hope it gives me some clue as to where I must go next. It can be north or south of the shop. You will know, the In-charge said.

I hear a sound, a cough.

A man is asleep on a handcart, a rag over his eyes to stop the streetlight from invading. Slowly he turns in his sleep. The rag of cloth is off his face. Maybe I should take my first bearings from him. His head is north, his feet south. One uses one’s head to think, so maybe that is where I should head. But one uses feet to walk. So perhaps south is where I should walk.

The logic of the armless.

The man coughs again. I see his face clearly and another thought strikes me. The man looks South Indian. I shall go south.

As I walk, I wonder what I am doing here. I am sensible, literate. I should handle my loss with dignity.

I question the In-charge’s actions. Why can’t he just tell me where I must go? As I look behind me, the beedi shop is now the size of a sugar cube. Maybe I have walked far enough. I look at the map again. The first spiral is light. The second spiral, my destination, darker.

The human mind is weak. Scribbles on a chit of paper taunt it. I think about the fried eggs I had in the morning. Did I put too much pepper on them? Whenever I am reminded of my arm, I try to think of mundane things. This tactic is as useful as the map I hold.

The street gets darker. This is strange, since the streetlights are at an equal distance from each other and all of them work. With each step I take, darkness envelops me. I feel the tip of her fingers, the softness of her palm, the warmth of her hands against my face. I hear her hum — it is the sound . . .