By-Ways of Bombay | Page 7

the sleepy answer, "for my opium is
good, the daily subscription but small; and there be many whom trouble
and sorrow have taught the road to peace. They come hither daily about
sundown and dream till day-break, and again set forth upon their day's
work. But they return, they always return until Sonapur claims them.
They are of all kinds, my customers. There, mark you, is a Sikh
embroiderer from Lahore; here is a Mahomedan fitter from the railway
work-shops; this one keeps a tea shop in the Nall Bazaar, that one is a
pedlar; and him you see smiling in his sleep, he is a seaman just arrived
from a long voyage."
You hazard the question whether any of the customers ever die in this
paradise of smoke-begotten dreams; and the answer comes: "Not often;
for they that smoke opium are immune from plague and other sudden
diseases. But the parrot which you see in the cage overhead was left to
me by one who died just where the saheb now stands. He was a
merchant of some status and used to travel to Singapore and South
Africa before he came here. But once, after a longer journey than usual,
he returned to find that his only son had died of the plague and that his
wife had forgotten him for another. Therefore he cast aside his business
and came hither in quest of forgetfulness. Here he daily smoked until
his money was well-nigh spent, and then one night he died quietly,

leaving me the parrot." You peer up through the fumes and discern one
bright black eye fixed upon you half in anger, half in inquiry. The bird's
plumage is soiled and smoke-darkened; but the eye is clear, wickedly
clear, suggesting that its owner is the one creature in this languid
atmosphere that never sleeps. What stories it could tell, if it could but
speak-stories of sorrow, stories of evil, tales of the little kindnesses
which the freemasonry of the opium-club teaches men to do unto one
another. But, as if it shunned inquiry, it retreats to the back of its perch
and drops a film over its eye, just as the smoke-film shutters in the
consciousness of those over whom it mounts guard.
Further down the indescribable passage is a similar room, the
occupants of which are engaged in a novel game. Two men squat
against the wall on either side, surrounded by their adherents, each
holding between his knees a long-stemmed pipe built somewhat on the
German fashion. Into the bowls they push at intervals a round ball of
lighted opium or some other drug, and then after a long pull blow with
all the force of their lungs down the stem, so that the lighted ball leaps
forth in the direction of the adversary. The game is to make seven
points by hitting the adversary as many times, and he who wins
receives the exiguous stakes for which they play. "What do you call
this game," you ask; and an obvious Sidi in the corner replies:--"This
Russian and Japanese war, Sar; Japanese winning!" The game moves
very slowly, for both the players and onlookers are in a condition of
semi-coma, but the interest which they take in an occasional coup is by
no means feigned, and is perhaps natural to people whose daily lives
are fraught with little joy. Round the corner lies a third room or club,
likewise filled with starved and sleepy humanity. Near the door squats
a figure without arms, who can scratch his head with his toes without
altering his position, "What do you do for a living, Baba?" you ask; "I
beg, saheb. I beg from sunrise until noon, wandering about the streets
and past the "pedhis" of the rich merchants, and with luck I obtain six
or eight annas. That gives me the one meal I need, for I am a small man;
and the balance I spend in the club, where I may smoke and lie at peace.
No, I am not a Maratha; I am a Panchkalshi; but I reck nothing of caste
now. That belongs to the past."

A light chuckle behind you, as the last words are spoken, brings you
sharp round on your heels; and you discern huddled in the
semi-darkness of the corner what appears in the miserable light of the
cocoanut oil lamp to be a Goanese boy. There are the short gray
knickers and the thin white shirt affected by the Native Christian boy;
there is the short black hair; but the skin is white, unusually white for a
native of Goa, and there is something curious about the face which
prompts you to ask the owner who he is and whence he comes. The
only reply is a vacant but not unpleasant