On the turning of Dimtimkar Street into Temkar Mohalla, a mobile repair store flourishes. Every new customer, while praising the proprietor’s acumen, remarks on an odour almost sublimated, passed off almost, as a whiff of imagination. For forty-seven years, Mhamdu chopped meat with the finesse of a mobile repairman on a trunk of seesham inherited from his father, along with meat cleavers and a sharpening strop. For forty-seven years the trunk, steadfast like granite, stood right there in the shop where sim-cards are now arrayed. Mhamdu sits on the stoop across the street, finding in the eyes of every punter a former customer of trotters, kidneys or testicles. Once in a while he plays contrapuntal tunes in his head, chopchopchop a-chopchop, backbeats he once composed while reducing muscle to mince. Twice a day, every day, he tweaks his skullcap, puts down his lungi for modesty and airs a grilled vest as he enters Iqbal Restaurant (Pride of Nagpada). He is granted moong daal and rice, a largesse that bleeds him internally, as he swirls scraps of gourd in his bowl. The owner of the Iqbal eyes him cursorily, satisfied Mhamdu still walks on something promised to him for the two square meals. The sole may have worn down but the leatherwork remains burnish’d. Angtha and karangali are wound into exquisite veins, like the braided knee-length tresses of Tamil heroines in old Hindi films. The kapshi patta across the foot is adorned with a die-punched floret, topped off with a fluffy gonda, red as a cherry on black forest cake. Each stitch identifies the mochi who made it. Mhamdu is aware he is being inspected as he rises to wash his hands. Under the tap, he opens out his gnarled palms; digits rise like crags in the Deccan Traps, metamorphic remnants of the furnace of eruption, denuded of all vegetation. In contrast, the soles of his feet are as soft as a healthy liver, protected port and starboard by side flaps of leather. He turns his back on the longing gaze and walks to resume his vigil on the stoop. Mid-street, he is accosted by a posse of cattle on whom no one has the gotis to claim ownership. Like a believer, he touches the rump of the one nearest, his fingers meet bone instead of loin. It sears his soul to let them scavenge detritus on Dimtimkar Street, chewing plastic instead of cud. As the malnourished horde moves on, he recites a fatiha under his breath. He no longer visits the Sangetras Mosque on Hujara Street, not a hundred feet away. His promise has made him a heathen. He can never leave his footwear outside a place of worship, an agreement is an agreement. Owner of the last pair of Kolhapuri chappals in the known universe, Mhamdu has set down his twinkling knives, conceding defeat to a vegetarian city. He burnt this bridge himself, handing over keys and location to a boy whose skills lie in shuffling printed circuits. In the years he has left, he looks back at the times he made it out (between his chopchopchop a-chopchop) alive, in 1969, in 1984, in 1992 and again in 1993, using his bulk and his blades to intimidate his way out of conflict, flying rather than fighting, letting his trusty Kolhapuris snatch him out of harm’s way even as, successively in 1969, 1984, 1992 and 1993, they burnt his shop down. For nearly a year after, every passer-by salivated unselfconsciously, assailed by the almost sublimated, almost imaginary whiff of burnt meat.