MaximumCity excerpt

From Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

 He is a runaway from Bihar, Adil tells me. The boy told his employer, the stall owner, the he would be going; a time of 5 p.m. had been given. The employer said, If you go, you're fired. He went to the Salon. He got fired. The boy is interested in poetry, a slender youth with athin moustache and wispy sideburns creeping into a beard. He appears very self-confident, even stubborn. He may have come to the group lured by the possibility of meeting poets, but he may also find a proper job through connections with the English-speaking people. Through most of the evening, he is quiet, looking down at the table. He can't join our conversation, which is in English. When people want tea or chars, he gets up and fetches it for us without being asked. It is his station. An architect-poet asks him to recite some of his poetry. And so he does, a metrical piece about destinations, in Hindi. I like the sound of it. At the end of it, nobody says, 'Wah, wah,' as they might have in Bihar. There is, instead, an embarrassed silence. The architect asks him if he has any more. He reads another, that he has written just the previous night-on the footpath, under the streetlamp-to the same reaction. Then I ask him if he's written any on Bombay. He brings out a sheaf of papers, all written over, every inch of them. - - -     I write down my name and phone number for him. In my notebook, in a fine script, he writes his name, 'Babbanji.' He pauses. 'What else?' There is nothing else. He has no phone number. Tonight, he is going to try to find a patch of footpath to sleep on. He'll try Churchgate. He has a tote bag with him that contains all his belongings. He is to call me the day after. I will try to find him a job. - - -     Babbanji comes to my uncle's apartment and looks for several minutes at the sea from the eighteenth-floor window. He has with him his blue cloth travel bag, bearing the Marlboro logo. He is wearing the same plaid shirt I have always seen him in, with metal buttons. It is not dirty, he must find a way to wash it during his bath. Without saying anything, he sits down, takes out a piece of paper, and begins composing a poem. Periodically he peers at the view for fresh inspiration. When he is finished, he reads it out to me. It is about the sea, and how all the rivers of the world can flow into it; it will refuse nobody. He will not leave the sea, the poet promises. - - -     Babbanji is not yet seventeen. He is confused about why I want to write about him and advises me of the arduousness of the task if I'm really interested: friendly advice from one writer to another. 'A story is written about those who have a destination in mind. I have come here to start my story. If you are interested you will have to wait. The road is very long, and I have to walk on it. I have to let the story develop. What can you write about sixteen years?' His bag is filled almost entirely with papers: certificates, poems, a notebook. He picks up odd pieces of paper to write on. He shows me one such: a dust jacket he found on the road ...     Inside, on the blank space, there is a poem Babbanji has written on Bombay: What could be sold in this carnival? What intoxication could there be in this earth that the naive and innocent come to this crossroads of rushing and thieving? ...      They are in search of dreams that will clash with their dreams.



© Suketu Mehta