When we met Ravan and Eddie for the very first time, they were new entrants to the world, neighbours in Central World Department (CWD), chawl 17, in Bombay (one presumes of the 1950s/60s) and unknown
When we met Ravan and Eddie for the very first time, they were new entrants to the world, neighbours in Central World Department (CWD), chawl 17, in Bombay (one presumes of the 1950s/60s) and unknown to each other. Even at that insignificant age, they played a role in each other’s lives, or rather Ravan — real name Ram Pawar — inadvertently caused the death of Eddie Coutinho’s father, a crime that sent mother Violet into weeds for the rest of her life, a role she somewhat relished as it allowed her to be a martyr. No one does martyr as well as a Catholic mother and Violet, who had married beneath her, forsaking her aristocratic Goan upbringing, was to the manner born.
The boys went through all the joys and miseries of growing up and some — Eddie joined the Sabha, an organisation of radical Hindus which kicked out Ravan for asking too many disconcerting questions. He, however, had a talent for catching a tune, which his mother, no less harassed by a living but inert husband, marvelled at. They both discovered films.
In time, these two boys grew up, became friends and set out to conquer the world. But first they had to cope with it, understand it. Kiran Nagarkar’s first book in this series was a marvel, a saga of not just two artless adolescents but also of Bombay itself.
Their adventures continued in the next book, The Extras. How appropriate that the two young men found themselves in the film business (no Bollywood at that time), as sidey junior artists, those men and women who are always in soft focus in the background, propping up scenes while the stars get to be in the front. But nothing could keep them down — they were soon in the company of the famous and seemed set to become stars themselves after forming a musical partnership.
Now comes Rest In Peace: Ravan & Eddie, the end of the trilogy, though it doesn’t really feel like a conclusion, because despite their fame, Ravan and Eddie continue to remain in the CWD chawl where each section has its own malodour, and where people queue up for the toilets carrying tin lotas. It is here that the big names of the film industry come to meet these new wunderkinds, holding their nose but pretending that they too have risen from similar humble backgrounds. How well Nagarkar knows not just the chawls but also the false pieties and perfumed hypocrisies of the suited-booted class of film producers, ready with the advance and the contract that will bind these two innocents for life.
“The visitors behaved as if they themselves did not reside in palatial bungalows in the Juhu Reclamation Scheme or in Pali Hill but had spent all their lives in chawls like CWD Number 17. Some of them sat on the floor and chatted with Parvatibai. They drank the thick brew that passed for tea in the Pawar household in the cheapest crockery though Ravan and Eddie had seen what tantrums they threw on the sets of the Makaibari Darjeeling or Premium Orange Pekoe (they wouldn’t stoop to drinking anything else) was not made just so and served in the finest paper-thin porcelain tea-service; oops and don’t forget to warm the teapot.”
The boys, dazzled by the zeroes on the piece of paper which they cannot understand, sign up many films and soon enough realise they do not have the time or the wherewithal to create so many songs. Threats of lawsuits follow.
Meanwhile, they are joined by Aasman, lyric and story writer extraordinaire, herself one of a big Muslim brood, thus completing a neat circle in this most cosmopolitan of cities. All are united by ambition, but not the naked kind; their humanity never deserts them, even in the most difficult of situations and this most chaotic, noisy and vulgar of cities, because what is Bombay but an over-painted floozy on the make, hiding her warts under all that gloss and glitter.
It is clear that Ravan and Eddie are never really going to “make it”. They have the talent, but not the guile. The chawl has taught them the smarts and how to survive in the most difficult of situations, but has not scarred them sufficiently for them to claw their way to the very top. Moreover, they are out of their depth when faced with the real sharks — the construction magnates, the filmwallahs, the gangsters.
Why, they fumble even in love. Ravan, devoted to his girlfriend Pieta — surely one of Nagarkar’s more compelling characters — takes forever to make it official while Eddie yearns away for his lost love who went away with a rich brat. Lady luck comes their way for a short while, but then they almost push her away, foolishly attempting to produce a film (and star in it) with real dacoits. The real bullets and the enmities among the dacoits lead to a bloody conflict that leaves death and destruction in its wake.
Rags, riches, rags; such is the saga of these two lovable fellows, plodding on while the city changes right in front of their eyes and their fortunes are in the gutter, pushing them further to the margins. At one stage they are ready to even become corpse bearers, a truly laugh-out-loud episode that only underlines their desperation, but which then opens up improbable business opportunities. This is Bombay, bhai, everything is bijness here, they seem to say, even if a Christian has to offer cremation services, much to the horror of his devout, Catholic mother.
Where once their adventures were picaresque, they now sound tragi-comic, even sad. A shadowy figure remains on Ravan’s tail, reminding him of some past sin and threatening to turn his life upside down. Gangsters dominate the horizon of Bombay today; Nagarkar draws from the headlines — the Taj Mahal hotel burning, the floods in the city that submerge everything — adding a touch of bathos to an already ridiculous though no less sinister situation. Gang fights have now come out on to the streets; inevitably, the two boys get caught in the crossfire.
Is the author angry at what Bombay and the world at large has become
Nagarkar does not rail, he is too sophisticated for that and his characters have not an ounce of self-pity, but the world as it was once has now inevitably crumbled, leaving a large gaping hole in its place. Everyone is on the make. There is honour, but there is also sleaze lurking about; the boys soon discover that it is the latter that has begun to assert itself. The scum walk the earth freely; in the circumstances, Ravan and Eddie have no option left but to look for other worlds. “Falling falling falling ,” the opening words of the novel become a leitmotif.
Nagarkar’s voice has always been sardonic, but the joie de vivre of his earlier work has been nudged out by a steely darkness. The first book was about the intimacy of the chawl, where one’s business was everyone’s business. Someone was always poking their nose into the other’s affairs, sometimes literally. The chawl continues to play a looming role here, as not just a home, but a security blanket, to which the boys return, their friendship intact even after all the vicissitudes.
Is this how we thought the two exuberant boys would end up Their lives began in a chawl, but surely they had the making of something bigger than themselves In the second book, The Extras, both Ravan and Eddie had hope, but ultimately, as we see, they hurtle to their doom. Is it a satisfying finale to this sorry tale, no less epic than the classics in the lessons it holds out Yes and no. There is an end, a literal one, but for those who have rooted for these no-hopers, wanting them to not fall but to rise and snatch at least a small victory from their many defeats, it is not a gratifying closure.
The bigger question is, despite everything, do they win That will always depend on what this brutal world thinks winning means. Nagarkar’s two characters will remain unforgettable talismans for all those striving to break out of their limitations, but with the unease that, in the end, they may still end up as losers.
