A Son Of The Circus (6 page)

In Dr Daruwalla’s opinion, Dhar’s mother had always been too selfish for motherhood; and 40 years after the accident of conception, the woman was demonstrating her selfishness again. That she’d arbitrarily decided to take one twin and abandon the other was sufficient selfishness for a normal lifetime; that she’d chosen to protect herself from her husband’s potentially harsh opinion of her by keeping from him the fact that there’d
ever been
a twin was selfishness of a heightened, even of a monstrous, kind; and that she’d so sheltered the twin whom she’d kept from any knowledge of his identical brother was yet again as selfish as it was deeply insensitive to the feelings of the twin she’d left behind … the twin who knew everything.

Well, the doctor thought, Dhar knew everything except that his twin was coming to Bombay and that his mother had begged Dr Daruwalla to be sure that the twins didn’t meet!

In such circumstances Dr Daruwalla felt briefly grateful for the distraction of old Mr Lai’s apparent heart attack. Except when eating, Farrokh embraced procrastination as one greets an unexpected virtue. The belch of exhaust from the head gardener’s truck blew a wave of flower petals from the wrecked bougainvillea over Dr Daruwalla’s feet; he stared in surprise at his light-brown toes in his dark-brown sandals, which were almost buried in the vivid pink petals.

That was when the head mali, who’d left the truck running, sidled over to the ninth green and stood smirking beside Dr Daruwalla. The mali was clearly more excited by the sight of Inspector Dhar in action than he appeared to be disturbed by the death of poor Mr Lai. With a nod toward the scene unfolding in the bougainvillea, the gardener whispered to Farrokh, ‘It looks like a movie!’ This observation quickly returned Dr Daruwalla to the crisis at hand, namely the impossibility of shielding Dhar’s twin from the existence of his famous brother, who, even in a city of movie stars, was indubitably the most recognizable star in Bombay.

Even if the famous actor agreed to keep himself in hiding, his identical twin brother would constantly be mistaken for Inspector Dhar. Dr Daruwalla admired the mental toughness of the Jesuits, but the twin — who was what the Jesuits call a scholastic (in training to be a priest) — would have to be more than mentally tough in order to endure a recurring mistaken identity of this magnitude. And from what Farrokh had been told of Dhar’s twin, self-confidence was not high on the man’s listed features. After all, who is almost 40 and only ‘in training’ to be a priest? the doctor wondered. Given Bombay’s feelings for Dhar, Dhar’s Jesuit twin might be killed! Despite his conversion to Christianity, Dr Daruwalla had little faith in the powers of a presumably naive American missionary to survive — or even comprehend – the depth of resentment that Bombay harbored for Inspector Dhar.

For example, it was common in Bombay to deface all the advertisements for all the Inspector Dhar movies. Only on the higher-placed hoardings – those larger-than-life billboards that were everywhere in the city – was the giant likeness of Inspector Dhar’s cruel, handsome face spared the abundant filth that was flung at it from street level. But even above human reach, the familiar face of the detested antihero couldn’t escape creative defilement from Bombay’s most expressive birds. The crows and the fork-tailed kites appeared to be drawn, as to a target, to the dark, piercing eyes – and to that sneer which the famous actor had perfected. All over town, Dhar’s movie-poster face was spotted with bird shit. But even his many detractors admitted that Inspector Dhar achieved a kind of perfection with his sneer. It was the look of a lover who was leaving you, while thoroughly relishing your misery. All of Bombay felt the sting of it.

The rest of the world, even most of the rest of India, didn’t suffer the sneer with which Inspector Dhar constantly looked down upon Bombay. The box-office success of the Inspector Dhar movies was inexplicably limited to Maharashtra and stood in violent contradiction to how unanimously Dhar himself was loathed; not only the character, but also the actor who brought him to life, was one of those luminaries in popular culture whom the public loves to hate. As for the actor who took responsibility for the role, he appeared to so enjoy the passionate hostility he inspired that he undertook no other roles; he used no other name –he had
become
Inspector Dhar. It was even the name on his passport.

It was the name on his
Indian
passport, which was a fake. India doesn’t permit dual citizenship. Dr Daruwalla knew that Dhar had a Swiss passport, which was genuine; he was a Swiss citizen. In truth, the crafty actor had a Swiss
life
, for which he would always be grateful to Farrokh. The success of the Inspector Dhar movies was based, at least in part, on how closely Dhar had guarded his privacy, and how well hidden he’d kept his past. No amount of public scrutiny, which was considerable, could unearth more biographical information on the mystery man than he permitted – and, like his movies, Dhar’s autobiography was highly far-fetched and contrived, wholly lacking in credible detail. That Inspector Dhar had invented himself, and that he appeared to have got away with his preposterous and unexaminable fiction, was surely a contributing reason for the virulence with which he was despised.

But the fury of the film press only fed Dhar’s stardom. Since he refused to give these gossip journalists the facts, they wrote completely fabricated stories about him; Dhar being Dhar, this suited him perfectly –lies merely served to heighten his mystery and the general hysteria he inspired. Inspector Dhar movies were so popular, Dhar must have had fans, probably a multitude of admirers; but the film audience swore that they despised him. Dhar’s indifference to his audience was also a reason to hate him. The actor himself suggested that even his fans were largely motivated to watch his films because they longed to see him fail; their faithful attendance, even if they hoped to witness a flop, assured Dhar of one hit after another. In the Bombay cinema, demigods were common; hero worship was the norm. What was uncommon was that Inspector Dhar was loathed but that he was nonetheless a star.

As for twins separated at birth, the irony was that this is an extremely popular theme with Hindi screenwriters. Such a separation frequently happens at the hospital – or during a storm, or in a railway accident. Typically, one twin takes a virtuous path while the other wallows in evil. Usually, there is some key that links them – maybe a torn two-rupee note (each twin keeps a half). And often, at the moment they are about to kill each other, the telltale half of the two-rupee note flutters out from one twin’s pocket. Thus reunited, the twins vent their always-justifiable anger on a
real
villain, an inconceivable scoundrel (conveniently introduced to the audience at an earlier stage in the preposterous story).

How Bombay hated Inspector Dhar! But Dhar was a
real
twin,
truly
separated at birth, and Char’s actual story was more unbelievable than any story concocted in the imagination of a Hindi screenwriter. Moreover, almost no one in Bombay, or in all of Maharashtra, knew Dhar’s true story.

On the ninth green, with the pink petals of the bougainvillea caressing his feet, Dr Daruwalla could detect the hatred that the moronic head mali felt for Inspector Dhar. The lout still lurked at Farrokh’s side, clearly relishing the irony that Dhar, who only pretended to be a police inspector, found himself playing the role in close proximity to an actual corpse. Dr Daruwalla then remembered his own first response to the awareness that poor Mr Lai had fallen prey to vultures; he recalled how he’d relished the irony, too! What had he whispered to Dhar? This is
your
line of work, Inspector.’ Farrokh was mortified that he’d said this.

If Dr Daruwalla felt vaguely guilty that he knew very little about either his native or his adopted country, and if his self-confidence was a mild casualty of his general out-of-itness in both Bombay and Toronto, the doctor was more clearly and acutely agonized by anything in himself that identified him with the lowly masses – the poor slob on the street, the mere commoner: in short, his fellow man. If it embarrassed him to be a passive resident of both Canada and India, which was a passivity born of insufficient knowledge and experience, it shamed him hugely to catch himself thinking like anyone else. He may have been alienated but he was also a snob. And here, in the presence of death itself, Dr Daruwalla was humiliated by his apparent lack of originality – namely, he discovered he was on the same wavelength as an entirely stupid and disagreeable gardener.

The doctor was so ashamed that he briefly turned his attention to Mr Lai’s grief-stricken golfing partner, Mr Bannerjee, who’d approached no closer than a spot within reach of the number-nine flag, which hung limply from the slender pole stuck in the cup.

Then Dhar spoke quite suddenly, and with more curiosity than surprise. ‘There’s quite a lot of blood by one ear,’ he said.

‘I suppose the vultures were pecking at him for some time,’ Dr Daruwalla replied. He wouldn’t venture any nearer himself– after all, he was an orthopedist, not a medical examiner.

‘But it doesn’t look like that,’ said Inspector Dhar.

‘Oh, stop playing the part of a policeman!’ Farrokh said impatiently.

Dhar gave him a stern, reproachful look, which the doctor believed he absolutely deserved. He sheepishly scuffed his feet in the flowers, but several bright petals of the bougainvillea were caught between his toes. He was embarrassed by the visible cruelty on the head mali’s eager face; he felt ashamed of himself for not attending to the living, for quite clearly Mr Bannerjee was suffering all alone – there was nothing the doctor could do for Mr Lai. To poor Mr Bannerjee, Dr Daruwalla must have seemed indifferent to the body! And of the upsetting news that he couldn’t yet bring himself to impart to his dear younger friend, Farrokh felt afraid.

Oh, the injustice that such unwelcome news should be
my
burden! Dr Daruwalla thought – momentarily forgetting the greater unfairness to Dhar. For hadn’t the poor actor already contended with quite enough? Dhar had not only kept his sanity, which nothing less than the fierce maintenance of his privacy could ensure; he’d honored Dr Daruwalla’s privacy, too, for Dhar knew that the doctor had written the screenplays for all the Inspector Dhar movies – Dhar knew that Farrokh had created the very character whom Dhar was now condemned to be.

It was supposed to be a gift, Dr Daruwalla remembered; he’d so loved the young man, as he would his own son – he’d expressly written the part
just for him
. Now, to avoid the reproachful look that Dhar gave him, Farrokh knelt down and picked the petals of bougainvillea from between his toes.

Oh, dear boy, what have I gotten you into? Dr Daruwalla thought. Although Dhar was almost 40, he was still a boy to Dr Daruwalla. The doctor had not only invented the character of the controversial police inspector, he’d not only created the movies that inspired madness throughout Maharashtra; he’d also fabricated the absurd autobiography that the famous actor attempted to pass off to the public as the story of his life. Quite understandably, the public didn’t buy it. Farrokh knew that the public wouldn’t have bought Dhar’s true story, either.

Inspector Dhar’s fictional autobiography manifested a fondness for shock value and sentiment that was remindful of his films. He claimed to have been born out of wedlock; he said his mother was an American –currently a has-been Hollywood movie star – and his father was an actual Bombay police inspector, long since retired. Forty years ago (Inspector Dhar was 39), the Hollywood mother had been shooting a film in Bombay. The police inspector responsible for the star’s security had fallen in love with her; their trysting place had been the Taj Mahal Hotel. When the movie star knew she was pregnant, she struck a deal with the inspector.

At the time Dhar was born, the lifetime support of an Indian police inspector seemed no more prohibitive an expense to the Hollywood star than her habit of adding coconut oil to her bath, or so the story went. A baby, especially out of wedlock, and with an Indian father, would have compromised her career. According to Dhar, his mother had paid the police inspector to take full responsibility for the child. Enough money was involved so that the inspector could retire; he clearly passed on his intimate knowledge of police business, including the bribes, to his son. In his movies, Inspector Dhar was always above being bribed. All the
real
police inspectors in Bombay said that, if they knew who Dhar’s father was, they would kill him. All the real policemen made it clear that they would enjoy killing Inspector Dhar, too.

To Dr Daruwalla’s shame, it was a story full of holes, beginning with the unknown movie. More movies are made in Bombay than in Hollywood. But in 1949, no American films were made in Maharashtra – at least none that were ever released. And, suspiciously, there were no records of the policemen assigned to foreign film sets for security, although copious records exist in other years, suggesting that the accounts for 1949 were liberated from the files, doubtless by means of a bribe. But why? As for the so-called has-been Hollywood star, if she was an American in Bombay making a movie, she would have been
considered
a Hollywood star – even if she was an unknown actress, and a terrible actress, and even if the movie had never been released.

Inspector Dhar had claimed, at best, indifference regarding her identity. It was said that Dhar had never been to the United States. Although his English was reported to be perfect, even accentless, he said that he preferred to speak Hindi and that he dated only Indian women.

Dhar had confessed, at worst, a mild contempt for his mother, whoever she was. And he professed a fierce and abiding loyalty to his father, which was marked by Dhar’s resolute vow to keep his father’s identity secret. It was rumored that they met only in Europe!

It must be said, in Dr Daruwalla’s defense, that the improbable nature of his fiction was at least based on reality. The fault rested with the unexplained gaps in the story. Inspector Dhar made his first movie in his early twenties, but where was he as a child? In Bombay, such a handsome man wouldn’t have gone unnoticed as a boy, especially as a teenager; furthermore, his skin was simply too fair – only in Europe or in North America would he have been called dark-skinned. He had such dark-brown hair that it was almost black, and such charcoal-gray eyes that they were almost black, too; but if he actually had an Indian father, there wasn’t a discernible trace of even a fair-skinned Indian in the son.