The Lost Man of Bombay (The Malabar House Series)

by Vaseem Khan

Independence had brought freedom to the country, but with it had come opportunists settling into the vacuum left by the departing British.

It seemed not to occur to her detractors that their objections were at odds with the ideals of the new India. Hadn’t women fought the same fight, shed the same blood? Why should they be denied the right to participate in Nehru’s bright new dawn?

India was steaming ahead, forging an identity that would define her place in the world in the decades to come.

A lingering hangover from the colonial era might have dulled her political senses, but India was now awake, seven millennia of tradition and history reasserting itself.

Since the numinous hour of independence, many of the revolution’s earnest ideals had fallen by the wayside. Nehru had inaugurated the new nation in an ecstasy of sanctimony, but the backdrop of Partition and the riots that had left a million dead was proving a poor platform from which to set out a mantra of unity and universal brotherhood. Corruption, sectarian violence, and the tumult of a thousand factions pulling in a thousand different directions had put the lie to Gandhi’s vision of a post-colonial utopia.

In a place like Bombay, the concept of innocent until proven guilty only applied to those with wealth, power, or influence.

The shadow of Partition still lay over the country, the communal violence unleashed during those terrible years, lingering in the memory like a dark dream. If a fractious peace reigned, it was merely the embodiment of Nehru’s will; sporadic bouts of violence continued to shatter the notional unity.

In the Old Country, a pukka accent and a sterling education meant little when set beside the colour of a man’s skin.

That had been Gandhi’s great achievement. To demonstrate to the world that you couldn’t claim to be the arbiters of fair play while cheating your fellow man at every turn.

The battle with India’s colonisers was over, but the battle for women to take their place in the new society Nehru was fashioning was just beginning.

Our struggle to rid ourselves of the British has convinced the average citizen that any authority might be overturned, by the simple expedient of disobedience. The one authority to which this rule doesn’t seem to apply is one none of us can see or touch or hear, at least not directly.’ She looked at him blankly. ‘God, Persis.