The Association of Small Bombs(79)

“I was also in a hospital like this and I was OK,” Mansoor said, referring to his first visit to the hospital after the blast to get the shrapnel out of his arm.

“But you didn’t stay in the hospital, beta. We took you home. These days a lot of antibiotics are being dumped in our rivers—I’ve read drinking river water is like drinking Crocin. All the bacteria are resistant to medicine. You should cover your nose. Most people die in these hospitals from staph infections and pneumonia.”

You should have been a bloody doctor, he thought, but kept his mouth shut. He noticed people staring at him because of the skullcap and broadened his chest in defiance.

Passing through the ICU, they found Ayub lying on his own bed (most of the other victims were doubled or tripled, head to foot, on beds). “Ayub bhai,” Mansoor said.

Ayub smiled weakly from his metal bed and held out a bandaged hand. He did not actually feel so weak anymore but knew it was crucial to act the part. After the explosion, the pain, the loss of his left eye, which had sliced the world in half, tunneled it, he’d woken up in the hospital surprised and frightened—though he’d been told, during training, that such an outcome was far from extraordinary. Terrorists were always being blown up by their own bombs; if he were injured, he’d been told, he was to play a confused victim and supply a Hindu name.

Now he waited, in panic, for communication from Shockie or Tauqeer.

“Do you know they’re calling you Mr. Galgotia?” Mansoor asked. (Ayub had named himself after his favorite bookstore, Galgotia & Sons.)

“They’re confused about everything.” Ayub waved it away. “Hello, auntie.”

“Hello, beta,” she said. After ascertaining he hadn’t talked to his parents, she said, “Do you have your mummy and papa’s phone number? We should call them. Otherwise your pain’s under control? We can make arrangements to transfer you to a private room.”

“That’s a good idea,” Mansoor said. “The state you’re in, it might take you ten more days, and you’ll feel better if you have a room of your own.” He felt self-conscious offering this privilege to his Gandhian friend. He sighed. “I couldn’t believe you were in a blast, yaar. I thought I was imagining it. But your eloquence was undiminished.”

“It’s like what you had said. One remembers nothing.”

“Something about the intensity of the sound and the speed with which things get rearranged,” Mansoor said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “It’s like being sucked into a tornado. The mind doesn’t know how to process it. But you should have phoned us, yaar. That couple who came, the ones who run the association, they’re family friends.”

Ayub’s neck twitched. He had recognized the couple—but they had not recognized him—and he’d been very uneasy the whole time he’d been speaking to them and into the camera. Yet he’d gone ahead with the interview in hopes that his comrades would see that he was injured and that he’d given away nothing. At the same time he worried about his parents watching him on TV. “I would have called but I couldn’t remember the number and my mobile—I don’t know where it is.”

“The hospital has a directory,” Mansoor said. “But believe me, I understand. I couldn’t remember my own home number when the blast happened,” he said, looking triumphantly at his mother. All these years and they had never believed his story!

“Your mummy and papa’s number?” Afsheen repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around the shabby ward. The place was heady with the stink of sweat.

“Even that I can’t remember,” Ayub said, smiling.

“We’ll talk to the doctor and get you moved,” Afsheen said. “If you give me their name—”

This was the thing about his mother, Mansoor thought. Financial troubles or not, she was extremely generous.

“Mr. and Mrs. Azmi,” Ayub said, unable to lie anymore. “Of Azamgarh. And no need for the room, auntie.” But he did not push hard. Better to be put out of public view.



“What was he doing in the market?” his mother asked as they left the hospital in the car.

Mansoor knew there was a kernel of suspicion buried in her generous soul. He coughed. She’d never really cared for his friend, had been suspicious of his antecedents, his needlessly long stay. “He’s not from a rich background,” Mansoor said. “That’s why he was shopping in Sarojini Nagar. I told you—he’s a very impressive guy. He did his engineering and then he came to Delhi and decided to do social work. Can you imagine someone from our background doing that?”

She smiled and shook her head absently. Noticing her nervous tremor, he was angry, sad, afraid. Life was an endless parade of tragedies: solve one thing and another rushes to take its place. He was consumed by the idea that his mother, this noble creature with her dark thick skin and mauve lips and particular motherly creases, was going to die. He put his hand over hers. “But it’s bad luck for him,” Mansoor continued. “He doesn’t have much of an income and I think he’s the only son in India, so it’ll be tough for his parents.”

“We’ll take care of him,” his mother said, smiling.

“It’s so ironic,” he said to her. “He was the one in my NGO who was the most staunch believer in nonviolence. He’s the last person it should have happened to.”