Murzban Shroff’s collection of stories justifies his claim to be a primary muse of the city
Mumbai, Bombay, the Big Mango, is the city of the subcontinent with the greatest diversity of class, religions, castes, regions, professions, complexions and characters. To call it a mixed bag or a melting pot would be using lazy metaphors for this nuclear-fusion furnace of cultures and convictions.
Murzban Shroff’s collection of stories justifies his claim to be a primary muse of the city. The stories are insightful exposures of the conceits, deceits, ambitions, triumphs, failures, affections and afflictions of the range of Mumbai’s population, from rich businessmen, magnates, bar-owners, advertising entrepreneurs to policemen, servants, slum-dwellers, dancing girls…
In the first story Ruffled Feathers the inhabitants of a protected high-rise building encounter the nuisance of a trapped pigeon. Shroff uses the crisis to introduce the panoply of residents whose names tell us who is a Sindhi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Parsi, etc. The Indian consciousness (not conscience!) harbours stereotypes for citizens of each region. Shroff’s narrative moves subtly away from these to create, through even a couple of expressions, palpable characters. And the pigeon? (This is a review, not a spoiler!)
Then, at the other end of the economic/social spectrum, in Hafta: A Price we meet police constable Tiwari and his young female friend Sushila who scavenges through garbage bins and sings in a drunkard’s den for a living.
Tiwari faces the dilemma of his village father being fined for allowing his stray bull to impregnate his neighbouring farmers’ pedigree cows. Does he have to abandon his principle of never taking bribes to get his dad off the hook? Property and claims on it have been historical themes for centuries in Mumbai. In All That We Own, a rich property-owner’s wife finds a purpose in life, founding a fitness club for the rich which prospers until the property housing it faces a crisis! (No, it’s not a literal earthquake…)
Most of the stories are based on acute observation, but one suspects one or two are based on incidents from Shroff’s own life. In the case of Accidental Karma, readers will hope it’s entirely fiction as it involves a horrible incident in which a mad taxi driver traps the protagonist’s leg in the seat and door of his cab and drags his prostrate body along the street.
Two stories reference the attack by Pakistani terrorists on Mumbai in November 2008 and their rampage of killing. Murzban addresses a diatribe to the murdering terrorists, with verses interspersed with the prose.
The second piece, ‘Meherunissa’, concerns the change that this terrorist assault brought about in one of Shroff’s college friends.
In an ‘Introduction’ to the collection Shroff denounces the recent development of Mumbai — highways along the coast and tunnels with roadways. It reads to some as Luddite protest and to others as the heartfelt concern of someone who is an observer and custodian of the soul and the muse of Mumbai.
Muses over Mumbai
Murzban F. Shroff
Bloomsbury India
pp. 252; Rs 699
