The Mountain Shadow

‘So, you’re Lin!’ she said, cutting him off and turning to face me. ‘Keki Uncle, may his spirit shine in our eyes, used to talk about you a lot. Did he mention me? Anahita? His niece? Farzad’s mom? Arshan’s wife? He said you were quite the one for talking philosophy. Tell me, what is your take on the free will versus determination dilemma?’

‘Give the boy a chance to relax, Mother,’ Farzad’s father said as he shook my hand. ‘My name is Arshan. I’m very pleased to meet you, Lin.’

He turned to Farzad then, fixing him with a stern but loving frown.

‘And as for you, young man –’

‘I can explain, Pop! I –’

‘You can explain my hand across your backside!’ Anahita growled. ‘You can explain how we worried so much we didn’t get a wink’s worth of sleep the whole night? You can explain how your poor father was roaming on the road at two o’clock in the morning, looking for you, because maybe a water truck ran over you and left you crunched up like scrambled eggs in a ditch?’

‘Mom –’

‘Do you know how many ditches there are in this area? This is the peak area for ditches. And your father searched through every one of them, looking for your scrambled eggs corpse. And you have the shamelessness to stand here, in front of us, without a scratch on your miserable hide?’

‘You might at least be limping,’ a young man said as he approached us to shake hands with Farzad. ‘Or slightly disfigured, na?’

‘This is my friend Ali,’ Farzad said, exchanging a penitent smile with the young man, who was his twin in height and weight, and seemed to be roughly the same age.

‘Salaam aleikum,’ I said.

‘Wa aleikum salaam, Lin,’ Ali said, shaking hands. ‘Welcome to the dream factory.’

‘Lin got me out of jail this morning,’ Farzad announced.

‘Jail!’ Anahita shrieked. ‘Better you should have been in one of those ditches, with your poor father.’

‘Well, he’s home now, Mother,’ Arshan said, gently pushing us toward the tables on the left side of the huge room. ‘And I’ll bet these boys are both very hungry.’

‘Starving, Pop!’ Farzad said, moving to take a place at the table.

‘No you don’t!’ a woman countered, tugging at Farzad’s sleeve.

She was wearing a colourful salwar kameez of pale green tapered trousers and a flowing yellow-orange tunic. ‘Not with those hands full of jail germs! Who knows what diseases you’re infesting us with, even as we speak. Wash your hands!’

‘You heard her!’ Anahita said. ‘Wash your hands! And you, too, Lin. He might have infected you with his jail germs.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I have to warn you in advance, though,’ she cautioned. ‘I lean towards determinism, and I’m ready to roll my sleeves up, if you’re a free will man.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And I don’t pull my punches,’ she added. ‘Not when it comes to philosophy.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

We washed our hands at a sink in the open kitchen, and then sat down at the long table on the left-hand side of the huge room. The woman in the salwar kameez immediately served us with bowls of meat in fragrant gravy.

‘Have some mutton now, you young fellows,’ she said, seizing the moment to pinch Farzad’s cheek between her fingers. ‘You’re a naughty, naughty boy!’

‘You don’t even know what I’ve done!’ Farzad protested.

‘I don’t need to know any such thing,’ the woman averred, giving his cheek another mutilating twist. ‘You are always a naughty, naughty boy, no matter what you’re doing. Even when you’re doing good things, you’re naughty also, isn’t it so?’

‘And cheeky,’ I added.

‘Oh, don’t get me started on cheeky,’ Anahita agreed.

‘Thanks, Lin,’ Farzad muttered.

‘Don’t mention it.’

The woman in the salwar tunic twisted one more bruise into Farzad’s cheek.

‘You’re a cheeky, cheeky, cheeky boy.’

‘This is Zaheera Auntie,’ Farzad said, rubbing his face. ‘Ali’s mom.’

‘If you have a taste for pure vegetarian,’ another woman, wearing a pale blue sari, suggested brightly, ‘you might like to try this daal roti. It’s fresh. Made from just now.’

She placed two small bowls of the saffron-coloured daal on the table, and unwrapped a napkin of freshly cooked rotis.

‘Eat! Eat!’ she commanded. ‘Don’t be shy.’

‘This is Jaya Auntie,’ Farzad stage-whispered. ‘It’s kind of a competition between Zaheera Auntie and Jaya Auntie as to who’s the best cook, and my Mom stays out of it. We’d better be diplomatic. I’ll start with the mutton, and you start with the daal, okay?’

We pulled the bowls of food closer, and began to eat. It was delicious, and I ate hungrily. The two women exchanged knowing glances, happy with the drawn result, and sat down beside us.

A few adults and children joined us at the long table. Some came from the ground-floor apartments, while others climbed down from the interconnected catwalks to stand near us, or sit further along at the table.

As Farzad took a hungry bite of his mutton in masala gravy, Anahita approached from behind and smacked him on the back of the head, as swiftly and unexpectedly as Lightning Dilip might’ve done. All the children near us laughed and giggled.