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Authors: Rohinton Mistry

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Tales From Firozsha Baag

BOOK: Tales From Firozsha Baag
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INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM FOR
Tales from Firozsha Baag

“Mistry’s voice is solid and experienced, wise and humorous, and with this single book he has placed himself in the foreground of our first rank of storytellers.”


Ottawa Citizen

“His ability to bring to life a complex world through a wide cast of characters is such that this book deserves a place of honor next to the village-life stories of India’s master practitioner, R.K. Narayan.”


Maclean’s

“These short narratives form an elegant mosaic that should confirm Mistry as a rising star in the literary firmament.”


Publishers Weekly

“[He] works his way into the hearts and minds of Firozsha Baag’s residents, creating a world rich in emotion and incident, all of it astonishingly varied in character. His writing is moving and comic ….”


Globe and Mail

“Mistry’s joyful notation of the world reminds us that description is one of fiction’s first and gravest tasks.”


The Guardian
(U.K.)

“ … penetrating compassion, humor, and warmth.”


The New Yorker

“In its quiet way, a small masterpiece.”


Kirkus Reviews

“By the end, the reader’s likely to exclaim What a feast of words!”


Newsday

BOOKS BY ROHINTON MISTRY

Tales from Firozsha Baag
(1987)
Such a Long Journey
(1991)
A Fine Balance
(1995)
Family Matters
(2002)

Copyright © 1987 by Rohinton Mistry

First published by Penguin Books Canada Limited, 1987

Published in trade paperback with flaps by McClelland & Stewart 1992
Trade paperback edition first published 1997

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Mistry, Rohinton, 1952
Tales from Firozsha Baag / Rohinton Mistry.

eISBN: 978-1-55199-441-3

I. Title.

PS
8576.1853
T
34 2002    
C
813′.54    
C
2002-901227-9
PR
9199.3.
M
494
T
35 2002

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

The following stories were previously published in slightly different versions. “Auspicious Occasion” in
The Fiddlehead
, No. 141, Autumn 1984, and
The New Press Anthology
#2:
Best Stories
, General Publishing, 1985. “One Sunday” in
The Antigonish Review
, Number 61, Spring 1985. “The Ghost of Firozsha Baag” in
Quarry
, Volume 35, Number 2, Spring 1986. “Condolence Visit” in
Canadian Fiction Magazine
, Number 50/51. “The Collectors” in
Malahat Review
, Number 72, 1985. “Of White Hairs and Cricket” in
Waves
, Volume 14, Number 3, Winter 1986. “Lend Me Your Light” in
The Toronto South Asian Review
, Volume 2, Number 3, Winter 1984. “Exercisers” in
Canadian Fiction Magazine
, Number 54. “Condolence Visit,” “The Collectors” and “Lend Me Your Light” in
Coming Attractions #4
, Oberon Press.

SERIES EDITOR: ELLEN SELIGMAN

EMBLEM EDITIONS
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
75 Sherbourne Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 2P9

www.mcclelland.com/emblem

v3.1

Auspicious Occasion

W
ith a bellow Rustomji emerged from the
WC
. He clutched his undone pyjama drawstring, an extreme rage distorting his yet unshaven features. He could barely keep the yellow-stained pyjamas from falling.

“Mehroo!
Arré
Mehroo! Where are you?” he screamed. “I am telling you, this is more than I can take! Today, of all days, on
Behram roje
. Mehroo! Are you listening?”

Mehroo came, her slippers flopping in time – ploof ploof – one two. She was considerably younger than her husband, having been married off to a thirty-six-year-old man when she was a mere girl of sixteen, before completing her final high-school year. Rustomji, a successful Bombay lawyer, had been considered a fine catch by Mehroo’s parents – no one had anticipated that he would be wearing dentures by the time he was fifty. Who, while trapped in the fervour of matchmaking at the height of the wedding season, could imagine a toothless gummy mouth, morning after morning, greeting a woman in her absolute prime? No one. Certainly not Mehroo. She came from an orthodox Parsi family which observed all important days on the Parsi calendar, had the appropriate prayers and ceremonies performed at the fire-temple, and even set aside a room with an iron-frame bed and
an iron stool for the women during their unclean time of the month.

Mehroo had welcomed her destiny and had carried to her new home all the orthodoxy of her parents’. Except for the separate “unclean” room which Rustomji would not hear of, she was permitted everything. In fact, Rustomji secretly enjoyed most of the age-old traditions while pretending indifference. He loved going to the fire-temple dressed up in his sparkling white
dugli
, starched white trousers, the carefully brushed
pheytoe
on his head – he had a fine head of hair, not yet gone the way of his teeth.

To Rustomji’s present yelling Mehroo responded good-humouredly. She tried to remain calm on this morning which was to culminate in prayers at the fire-temple; nothing would mar the perfection of
Behram roje
if she could help it. This day on the Parsi calendar was particularly dear to her: on
Behram roje
her mother had given birth to her at the Awabai Petit Parsi Lying-in Hospital; it was also the day her
navjote
had been performed at the age of seven, when she was confirmed a Zoroastrian by the family priest,
Dustoor
Dhunjisha; and finally, Rustomji had married her on
Behram roje
fourteen years ago, with feasting and celebration continuing into the wee hours of the morning – it was said that not one beggar had gone hungry, such were the quantities of food dumped in the garbage cans of Cama Garden that day.

Indeed,
Behram roje
meant a lot to Mehroo. Which is why with a lilt in her voice she sang out: “Com-ing! Com-ing!”

Rustomji growled back, “You are deaf or what? Must I scream till my lungs burst?”

“Coming, coming! Two hands, so much to do, the
gunga
is late and the house is unswept

“Arre forget your
gunga-bunga!”
howled Rustomji. “That stinking lavatory upstairs is leaking again! God only knows what they do to make it leak. There I was, squatting – barely started – when someone pulled the flush. Then on my head I felt – pchuk – all wet! On my head!”

“On your head? Chhee chhee chhee! How horrible! How inauspicious! How…” and words failed her as she cringed and recoiled from the befouling event. Gingerly she peeked into the
WC
, fearing a deluge of ordure and filth. What she did see, however, was a steady leak – drip
drip drip drip – rhythmical and regular, straight into the toilet bowl, so that using it was out of the question. Rustomji, still clutching his pyjama drawstring, a wild unravelled look about him, fumed behind her as she concluded her inspection.

“Why not call a good plumber ourselves this time instead of complaining to the Baag trustees?” Mehroo ventured. “They will once again do shoddy work.”

“I will not spend one paisa of my hard-earned earnings! Those scoundrels sitting with piles of trust money hidden under their arses should pay for it!” stormed Rustomji, making sweeping gestures with the hand that was free of the pyjama string. “I will crap at their office, I will go to crap at their houses, I will crap on their doorsteps if necessary!”

“Hush, Rustomji, don’t say such things on
Behram roje?
Mehroo chided. “If you still have to go, I will see if Hirabai next door does not mind.”

“With her stupid husband there? A thousand times I’ve told you I will not step inside in Nariman’s presence. Anyway, it is gone now. Vanished,” said Rustomji with finality. “Now my whole day will be spoilt. And who knows,” he added darkly with perverse satisfaction, “this may even lead to constipation.”

“Nariman must have left for the library. I will ask Hirabai, you might have to go later. I am going there now to telephone the office, and when I come back I will make you a nice hot cup of tea. Drink that quickly,
gudh-gudh
, the urge will return,” soothed Mehroo, and left. Rustomji decided to boil water for his bath. He felt unclean all over.

The copper vessel was already filled with water. But someone had forgotten to cover it, and plaster from the ceiling had dripped into it. It floated on the surface, little motes of white. Like the little motes that danced before Rustomji’s eyes when he was very tired, after a long day in the hot, dusty courthouse, or when he was very angry, after shouting at the boys of Firozsha Baag for making a nuisance with their cricket in the compound.

Plaster had been dripping for some years now in his A Block flat, as it had been in most of the flats in Firozsha Baag. There had been a respite when Dr. Mody, gadfly to the trustees (bless his soul), had
pressed for improvement with the Baag management. But that period ended, and the trustees adopted a new policy to stop all maintenance work not essential to keep the buildings from being condemned.

Following a period of resistance, most of the tenants had taken to looking after their own flats, getting them replastered and painted. But to this day Rustomji stubbornly held out, calling his neighbours fools for making things easy for the trustees instead of suffering the discomfort of peeling walls till the scoundrels capitulated.

BOOK: Tales From Firozsha Baag
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