There was bad blood between the village and the ashram. Sushant Kane told him all about it. All these were wild lands and poor villages when the visionary monk from the order imagined an ashram here. The village now called Mosulgaon was already here and the poor dirty people there did not want the brave and kind-hearted saffron monks to build schools and training centres for blind boys and dairy and poultry on their lands and put walls around them that the venom of its poor dirty neighbours could not melt. And they did that and kept the poison away but not the crooked music of their prayer song that floated over the walls so many times a day.
Children like Pir and Sana who wandered around all day gathering their meals and growing up on their own found their way inside the ashram walls too. Pir even worked at the dining halls of the school hostel washing dishes and eating there and they all knew he was from Mosulgaon but it didn’t matter because he was so small. But he looked smaller than he was as he’d never had enough to eat. Yogi came to know that he could appear at places no one expected him to and he had heard many adults speak their minds. People didn’t care what they were saying before him because he was a small boy dressed up in khaki PT shorts thrown away by some student and he cleaned the tables of rice and curry stains before laying fresh plates on them. So he heard people at the ashram talking about Mosulgaon, and knew the stories told by Nitai the ancient caretaker about how they had to come with the great saffron monks with axes and sticks to fight the local savages and create the ashram like a newborn baby.
Pir and Sana were electrified by Yogi. It made Yogi shudder though he stayed strong and showed nothing. They hated the ashram. But still they shared something with him because he was from there. After all, their lives were lived in and around the ashram, in its garbage heaps and its piles of unwashed dishes and rain-drenched trees. Probably they loved him more because he had left the ashram and joined their Party. The Party that fought for the poor people’s land.
They chatted with him and their eyes sparkled when they did. He was given rich food—pizza, pastries and biryani—and he shared his food with them as nobody in the Party would give them such food. They ate hungrily. They brought him gossip. They knew things like which housewife in the neighbourhoods had fucked which Party member to get her son into a top city school or which member’s farts smelled like deep-fried eggs. Things like that.
None of them talked about the ashram. Ever. The empty place. The Class 10 boys had all gone home to prepare for their board exams. The younger boys were there, leading their little lives on the campus with the L-shaped hostel buildings and the mango-grove before the school that all three of them knew well. But they never spoke about that place. Sometimes Yogi wanted to ask if they went back to wash dishes in their dining hall or steal a bowl of dal or pick garbage from the campus. He wanted to know. But he never asked.
When he was on the podium to give a speech, Pir and Sana were always in the front row. Their eyes sparkled even before Yogi started to speak.
They sat still while he spoke, but to him it looked like they were dancing.
Ghosts
Prashant Kane’s boys left the teachers’ quarters soon after the board exams. The anxiety that had knotted around the exam days vanished and the house started to breathe again.
Naren Das had done very well. 100/100 in mathematics, and near-perfect scores in all the science subjects, faltering in English as everybody knew he would, but he would surely get into the science stream in the ashram’s Plus 2 division and from there IIT would be a breeze. Luben Kisku had bombed the exam. He was not as smart as Das and he really belonged to the football field. The ashram had large green football fields. But in the end, you could not belong there. You had to belong to algebra, and to the coaching manuals for the engineering entrance exams. Luben was out. They had given him many chances, even a home and he had failed.
‘You got 78 per cent,’ SrK came and told Yogi, winking.
‘78 per cent!’ Prashant Kane said, black shock on his face.
It was an okay score for the world outside. In the ashram, where students came out at the top of the charts, it was a mess. Even Prashant Kane’s hardy tribal boys scored a full 10 per cent higher and more. Anybody who scored 78 per cent had thrown his life away.
Yogi felt like a laugh. He was surprised that he had bothered to go for the exams at all. SrK might have been disappointed if he had bunked them. After all, he was a teacher.
Yogi stayed on. He knew where he was headed. Finally. Raghav and Sushant Kane would make sure he got there. There were colleges in the city with rich and festering student unions.
He got into Class 11 in a local college where Raghav’s boys and girls ruled the union. For people at home, he had stories. That Sushant Kane was his true teacher and he was willing to let him stay with him while he studied at the college next door. His father barely heard what he said. All he wanted to do these days was to be with Ivy Kar, all the time. His mother could not understand why he needed to stay in the ashram staff quarters even though he wasn’t going to the college there but one outside. She had learned that he had become a youth volunteer at the Party office and had started speaking at meetings in one of the city neighbourhoods; she was a bit anxious but was pleased that he was getting close to the poor people’s party who hated the idle rich.
‘SrK is wonderful,’ he told his mother. ‘He’s helped me all through school.’
‘He did, did he?’ His mother said. ‘God knows you need someone to watch over you. Your father doesn’t remember he has a son.’
Yogi frowned. He didn’t want to talk about home. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t remember he had a family. Did he?
‘It’ll be like staying in the hostel,’ he said. ‘SrK’s house is just outside the Mission.’
His mother understood. But he knew she actually pretended to understand as the most important thing was that she didn’t want him to be around their home and his father. Of course it was much better for him to stay with a teacher since he was going to a college next door to their house.
Prashant Kane’s eyes cut through Yogi whenever he saw him. Why was he still here? When he was no longer a student at the ashram? But he couldn’t say anything. Nothing against his younger brother. Prashant was bigger and more muscular and the boys were much more scared of him but he could not make sense of Sushant. He didn’t speak much to Sushant and it was clear he didn’t like facing him. What could he do to Yogi?
Prashant Kane hated him. So why did he do that thing?
When Yogi returned from college that evening, Prashant Kane was in the drawing room.
Yogi’s heart stopped. Kajol sat next to Prashant Kane.
It was that time of the day. Almost quarter to six—10 or 15 minutes of the day that belonged to them. It was their time, their stolen time, before games ended. Quarter to six. Yogi was always in the shower room at that time, and he knew Kajol would come in, ready to join him in the shower stall next to him. Fifteen minutes before the other boys came back to the hostel. Fifteen minutes of the day Yogi would never forget. He would take those minutes to bed at night, long after they were over.
Quarter to six.
Kajol wore the white shirt and trousers that were the uniform of the ashram college. Strangely, he looked younger in them, as if he was trying to play the part of an older boy. How long since Yogi saw him last? He couldn’t think.
‘Kajol got 94 per cent in his boards,’ Prashant Kane said. ‘100 in Chemistry.’
Kajol looked at Yogi and smiled. He did not seem to have heard Prashant Kane.
‘I know, Kajol,’ Yogi said. ‘I knew you would do well. Everyone knew.’
‘We’re counting on him to top the IIT entrance test too.’ Prashant Kane said. ‘Straight into computer science at Kharagpur! He makes us all proud!’
Kajol did not seem to hear anything. He looked at Yogi. His eyes were smiling.
The poison had softened in Prashant Kane’s eyes. Yogi knew he wanted to make him feel sad but h
e was also really proud of Kajol. Everyone was. How could they not?
‘How are you?’ Kajol asked. ‘You don’t come to the ashram anymore.’
It wasn’t a complaint. It was just a question.
‘Yes,’ Yogi said. ‘It’s been a while since I went there.’
More than a year now. Since the day he packed up and left for Sushant Kane’s house. Why on earth would he want to go back there? What did the place have?
‘Is Sushant here?’ Prashant Kane got up. ‘I need to find him.’
Neither of them noticed him. He was gone.
Yogi felt nervous. Now there was nobody else. Kajol could be sharp and bitter.
But Kajol just spoke with a smile.
‘The old gang misses you,’ he said. ‘Shome, Rajeev. Nilanjan has started a new magazine. They get it printed from College Street.’
‘Really?’
‘And there’s a new boy from South Point School who’s joined Class 11,’ his eyes met Yogi’s again. ‘He’s been acing the debate competitions.’
‘Really?’
Aditya Som. Yogi had heard about Aditya Som. Prashant Kane loved to say what a great debater he was. Apparently his speeches were laced with old-fashioned curse-words which kicked audiences into shockwaves of laughter.
‘He’s alright. But nothing like you,’ Kajol said, his eyes looking into Yogi’s.
Happiness was a bright light inside Yogi’s chest. He wanted to say something but couldn’t.
Kajol kept talking. Yogi didn’t hear anything. But he saw his lips. Lips he had sucked on for long minutes. They moved, as if he was breathing through them. Alright but nothing like you. It rang in his head. Nothing like you. It went again.
‘Prashant da brought you here.’ Yogi said. ‘That was nice of him.’
‘No, not Prashant da,’ he said. ‘Kamal Swami. He said I should come and see you.’
Silent lightning blazed through Yogi’s head. The smell of incense and the fresh clean cotton of saffron robes, the pale and hairy arms and beautiful buck-teeth. The kind smile that lit you up and saw everything inside. The Lotus.
‘Kamal Swami,’ machine-like, Yogi repeated.
‘I needed him to tell me,’ Kajol said.
‘Why?’ Yogi asked.
‘I’ve wanted to come and see you for a long time,’ he said. ‘But everything has become different.’
What was Yogi to do?
‘I was worried the other boys would find it strange,’ Kajol said.
The other boys. Shome, Rajeev, Bora. The rest of them.
No one knew Kajol always came back from the playgrounds 15 minutes early. That they were in the shower stalls when there was nobody there.
‘When Kamal Swami told me, I knew I could come. He asked me to come with Prashant Kane.’
Prashant Kane was nowhere to be seen. He had left.
‘I can’t spend my days without you.’ Kajol’s voice trembled.
‘Why did you leave?’ He whispered.
His eyes were wet.
‘What has happened to you, Yogi? Why did you go away?’
‘Go away, Kajol? I’m in a college in the city. School is over.’
‘Why did you leave?’
For Kajol, life in the ashram would never be over. It was eternal. It was madness.
There was an ache in Yogi’s chest. Blood would stain his shirt.
‘I loved those days.’ Kajol whispered.
‘Kajol, we were kids.’ His heart beat wildly as he said it. ‘It is the past.’
‘Is it?’ Kajol asked. ‘The past? How easily you say that.’
Words flooded through Yogi, but he didn’t speak.
He was terrified that his voice would sound hoarse, that he wouldn’t be able to call it his own.
Red Ink
The college attic was a scary place. Swords were bunched up there like flowers. Big, rusty swords like sleepy animals.
‘Rusty blades are good,’ Raghav always said. ‘When you ram them into the bastards you know they are going to be real sick.’
And then he laughed. Everybody laughed. Raghav would never ram a sword into someone. He would be very nice to them. And they would vote for him.
But why did they have the swords up there bunched up like deadly flowers?
‘Toys for boys,’ Malini always made a face when she said it. ‘Just hardwired to remember the violence. The Naxal days when the police made them run so they could shoot them in the back.’
‘Swords say Partition,’ Her deputy Akram would say. ‘Most people think of swords and Muslims together. The ghosts of the partition riots.’
‘Because your dicks are chopped at the tips?’ Malini would ask.
Akram would laugh but Yogi knew he didn’t like that joke. But he had to laugh. Malini was the general secretary of the college union.
Malini made everyone nervous. It was hard to understand why at first. She looked like a supermodel. She dressed shabbily because she was in the Party, but she was so stunning that the shabby dress looked even more striking on her. And she was never angry, always joking around. But people who didn’t like her said that she could talk a snake into giving up its fangs to her—that she had really done so and now she carried those fangs at the back of her tongue and the things she could do with her tongue! Talk any crowd into following her like a bunch of zombies. They also said she left three top buttons of her coarse dusty-brown kurta unbuttoned while she did that, but people who hate you will say anything.
Malini loved the sound of Yogi’s voice. ‘The magic voice,’ she would say, ‘there’s magic yet in heaven and earth not heard in dreams anywhere.’ She became a scary thing when she said such stuff.
She taught him the language of politics. Marx and materialism and China and Naxalbari. He learned even though he could not understand everything. With Malini one just learned, one couldn’t help it.
Not today.
Malini made him teach classes on the Party. In the college. There were professors who were on their side. They stayed back in the canteen drinking tea while union boys and girls went to teach. And they taught what mattered, not useless things like the old shit in Greece and Rome and Akbar’s court. Just the tales of Lenin and Mao. Malini pulled all the other union teachers from the forces and wanted Yogi to teach everything. ‘There is magic in your voice,’ she would say hoarsely, ‘Magic in your throat. Go kill them.’
Yogi lost his way to the class today. He didn’t know how it happened. He was just going around the canteen. There were voices, many voices, cigarette smoke, songs, and large white flags with red letters on them like dripping blood. But they felt far away and he couldn’t hear the voices properly. Even though they were very loud, he couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying. There was spiky graffiti on the walls and the pillars that seemed to melt off like dark kajol on people’s eyes. He saw a couple of men and women smile and call him; he saw their hands waving but could not hear anything they were saying.
He could not find his way to the classroom. The students were waiting there. Nobody could leave as the boys from the union would be guarding the doors like bulldogs. He couldn’t make sense of where the classroom was. He was only going around the grounds and the canteens and the washrooms down here.
He was alone.
No one knew him here. Malini always said she got him like no one else did. But she was too busy with her schemes and alleys around the union and the Party and the corridors of power in the city. She taught him many things. But she never paused to listen.
The voices rose from the canteen again, like tendrils of blue smoke. The most clever boys and girls sat in the canteen. They were too clever to go to class. They sat there all day talking about Cuba and China and Naxalbari and ways of luring poor villagers to pack the meetings at the Brigade Parade Ground. The promise of a meal usually worked, and clever words worked like a dream.
Everybody liked to talk. Nobody liked to listen. It was all about how loud you could be and how sharp your
jokes were. It was like a non-stop fighting match that floated on cigarette smoke.
People were scared of Malini because she could whip them and make them bleed with her words. When she walked into the canteen, the voices hushed. People were terrified who she might attack and who would redden and bleed. Nothing to do with the three open buttons of her shabby kurta. Nothing at all.
Raghav could talk. He always sounded slow and sleepy but everyone knew he heard the slightest sound anywhere. His eyes looked bloodshot like an alcoholic’s but he had worked forever to take down Ethyl Alcohol and his empire of hooch.
Words and words and words. They were like little daggers people liked to sink in one another’s flesh when they were not looking. Nobody saw anybody or listened to others as everything was caught in the wiry claws of smoke. Graffiti bled on the walls and clotted back into the night again.
Why was he here?
He needed to slow down and breathe. He walked into the washroom. Staring at the mirror over the washbasin, he was at a loss. He had forgotten, suddenly, why he had come inside. Why did he step in here? He did not need to pee. The mirror over the washbasin was stained and dirty. Someone had scrawled in red ink: Bleed the bourgeoisie to death!
The walls closed in on him. Cobwebs swam closer and tried to muffle him. Patches of cracked plaster grew larger till the room was about to crack into pieces. Graffiti screamed from every inch of space on the walls—there was a whole universe of them, in all shades of violence. Obscenities, carved in smaller, gentler letters on the wood of the doors, moaned out loud and the bite marks of anger shrieked and tried to punch and claw at him.
He shut his eyes. He thought he was going to crash onto the floor. He wanted to sit down.
The Scent of God Page 16