means shopping expeditions, leather handbags

to admire in Csango, which she’ll visit even if

she buys nothing, only inspects and desires.

“Looking at” costs nothing; but the proprietor

doesn’t mind, as if he knows it’s somehow connected

to business. Then the haunts whose names

she’s inherited from my parents; the incredibly Olympian

Joy Shoes; R. H. Rai; Ramniklal Zaveri

to exchange an old ornament; from shop to shop, as

the book tour fizzles out, and we find we’re at a loose end

with two days left in this city, and nowhere

to go. Suresh has promised to take us

for dhansak to the Paradise Café. Here, by the entrance

near the Kodak Studio on the main road, is the shrine,

already wet with religious dousings and drownings,

and a small driveway where Suresh’s scooter

is parked. He lives on the second floor; on the third

is a guest house where Iranians and Arabs put up.

Below, in the compound, is a detached room

which, for five years, has been a Shiv Sena office. Tonight

it wears a lit and festive air. Two policemen

have been posted by the gates, as if to say

“We’re taking no chances.” When one of them, corpulent

and whiskered, smiles at my daughter (she, at a year

and a half, is a veteran talker and walker, and

wanders near him), I feel a disquiet.

She smiles back at him, as if it’s possible

to make friends with the intractable. He relaxes;

glances at me. Is he guarding the Sena

or against it? We go to the building, conferring,

making sure not to look back over our shoulders.

Chasing a Poet: Epilogue

Chasing a Poet: Epilogue

“He hangs out at the Wayside Inn till four.”

Thus, Adil, whose eye, looking away,

promises, says a young poet, to conceal something.

Leave this watering hole behind, Bombay Gym,

and take my wife and half-sleeping child

in a taxi towards Jehangir Art Gallery.

Installations this week in Kala Ghoda.

“You’d better move fast, if you want to catch him,” Adil

says, consulting, in his squinty, alien way,

my watch. In the Inn, I don’t see him at first,

Kolatkar, his face youthful, his eyes

baleful, like a student’s, his hair and moustache

grey-white, as if they were made of cotton wool, a prankster’s

disguise. He’s concealed in the shadows, open

to strangers, but forewarned of me.

The Inn’s semi-deserted; the famous smell

of fish and chips has disappeared; some of the chairs

and tables have been enlisted for a reading

tonight. I go up, to introduce myself

before Thursday ends, and this man melts away.

He’s about seventy years old; he

appraises me as a college boy would a teacher

who’s interrupted him smoking marijuana.

He says he’s heard of me; invites

me to sit down. “I saw your poster

in Crossroads yesterday. You’re reading day after,