The Earth Shall be Enjoyed by Heroes

Abstract

The Earth Shall be Enjoyed by Heroes Murzban F. Shroff (bio) They came for him after his clinic had shut, his secretary had left, and the neighborhood—usually bustling with activity—was a pale shadow of itself, stunned and frozen under the streetlights. There were three policemen and one policewoman, and among them an older constable, who was grim faced but polite. "Sorry to trouble you, Doctor-sahib," he said from behind his whiskers. "You will have to come with us. There has been a complaint against you. Perhaps some mistake, surely some misunderstanding, but we have to investigate, you know." He avoided the doctor's eyes and stared at the floor unhappily. "Give me a few minutes," said the doctor. "You can sit in the waiting room; I will switch on the A/C for you." He knew what this was about. Or rather, he suspected. Those damn builders! Or was it those municipality guys? What did it matter? There was no difference between the two. Each was as insidious, as corrupt as the other. Look what they had done to his serene, beautiful neighborhood. Sent it under the hammer, sent it reeling, till it was disfigured. And Doctor-sahib, who had grown up here, could recognize it no longer. Anyone else in Doctor-sahib's shoes would have been elated with the changes. Any other doctor, that is. Because more development simply meant more patients, and more patients meant more money. Also, people who bought new flats, costing upward of fifty million rupees, wouldn't crib about a hike in fees. If Doctor-sahib had been a shrewd man of progress, he'd be salivating at the changes; he would have braced himself to benefit from the boom. The truth was: he didn't see this rash of construction as a boom. He saw it as an epidemic. The virus of greed, as he called it, which had gripped the city's caretakers and driven them mad. Why else would they permit construction on small plots in narrow lanes? Why else would they approve plans for residential towers that were twenty stories high, with seven levels of parking, when there was no road to take all that traffic? Why else would they sanction projects with no improvement to the infrastructure or to the sanitation? Madness! Sheer madness! Doctor-sahib would think when walking to his clinic. And not that he had kept quiet and been a passive spectator to all this random construction. [End Page 146] First, he had done a survey of the new buildings coming up in the lane behind his clinic. There were three 20-story buildings, cheek-by-jowl, with three apartments per story. That would mean a minimum of 120 cars per building, 360 cars rolling out every morning, on a road no wider than twenty-three feet. Then, via a letter, he had brought this to the attention of the housing department, the municipality, and the road transport organization and, not getting a reply, to the chief minister. When that failed to draw a response, he had written to the newspapers and moved the Bombay High Court for a stay order on the three other projects that were coming up in the lane. The high court had taken serious note of his objections and imposed a blanket stay on all projects in the neighborhood. That's when the phone calls had started, and the death threats. That's when they had vandalized his 1937 Jaguar Roadstar, causing grievous injury to its sleek black body and to his disbelieving heart. It was just as well that Doctor-sahib was a bachelor and had no family of his own. Otherwise, who knows, his adversaries would have harmed them as well. His single status emboldened him in his fight against his opponents. He was sure that the recent complaint was yet another ploy on the part of those thugs. Well, he wasn't going to back out now. Worse case, he would call his old friend Aditya Sharma to the police station. Aditya was an accomplished lawyer. His name appeared regularly in the newspapers. He was often appointed as amicus curiae, a friend of the...