by Vikram Seth
‘The police used to take little bribes then, now they are big ones,’ said Baba. ‘And the day will come when they will take huge ones. There is no respect for the law. The whole world is being destroyed. These people are selling the country. And now they are trying to take away the land that our forefathers earned with their sweat and blood. Well, no one is going to take away a single bigha of my land, I can tell you that.’
‘But if it’s the law—’ said Maan, thinking of his father.
‘Now, you’re a sober young man,’ said Baba. ‘You don’t drink or smoke and you are law-abiding and respect our customs. But tell me, if they made a law that you should not pray to Mecca but to Calcutta instead, would you obey it?’
Maan shook his head, trying not to smile at the thought of either eventuality.
‘It’s the same thing,’ said Baba. ‘Now Rasheed tells me that your father is a great friend of the Nawab Sahib, who is well respected in this district. What does the Nawab Sahib think of this attempt to grab his land?’
‘He does not like it,’ said Maan. He had learned by now to state the obvious as blandly as he could.
‘And nor would you. I can tell you that things will get worse and worse. As it is, things have begun to fall apart. There’s a family of low people in this village who have turned their mother and father out to starve. They eat well enough, but they’ve turned them out. Independence has come—and now the politicians want to finish the zamindars off—and the country has collapsed. In the old days if someone had done this—dared to turn his mother into a beggar—a mother who had fed him, cleaned him, clothed him—we would have beaten him until his bones and brains were set right. It was our responsibility. Now if we beat people up they’ll immediately start a court case, they’ll try to lock us up in the police station.’
‘Can’t you talk to them, convince them?’ asked Maan.
Baba shrugged impatiently. ‘Of course—but bad characters are improved less by explanations than by the lathi.’
‘You must have been a very severe disciplinarian,’ said Maan, quite pleased at the traits he would have found intolerable in his own father.
‘Oh yes,’ agreed Rasheed’s grandfather. ‘Discipline is the key. You have to work hard at everything you do. You, for instance, should be studying, not wasting your time talking to an old man like me. . . . Tell me, did your father want you to come here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, to learn Urdu—and I suppose to gain some experience of the villages,’ improvised Maan.
‘Good . . . good. Well, tell him this is a good constituency. He has a good reputation among our community. . . . To study Urdu? Yes, we must protect it . . . it’s our heritage. . . . You know, you would make a good politician yourself. You kicked the Football through the goalposts very smoothly. Of course, if you join politics from this place, Netaji would probably assassinate you. . . . Oh, well . . . well, carry on, carry on. . . .’
And he got up and started walking towards his house.
A thought struck Maan.
‘You wouldn’t happen to know what a giggi is, Baba?’ he asked.
Baba stopped. ‘A giggi?’
‘Yes.’
‘No. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Are you sure you’re reading it right?’ He walked back and picked up Maan’s exercise book. ‘I don’t have my glasses.’
‘Oh, it’s Meher who’s demanding a giggi,’ said Maan.
‘But what is it?’ asked Baba.
‘That’s the problem,’ said Maan. ‘She woke up and wanted a giggi from her grandfather. It must have been part of a dream. No one in the house knows what it means.’
‘Hmm,’ said Baba, considering the crisis. ‘Perhaps I’d better go and help.’ He changed his direction and went towards his son’s house. ‘I am the only one who really understands her.’
10.21
Maan’s next visitor was Netaji. It was now quite dark. Netaji, who had been away on mysterious business for some days, wanted to ask Maan about many things: the SDO, the Nawab Sahib’s estate at Baitar, the wolf-hunt, and love. But he could see that Maan was quite busy with his Urdu, and decided on love. After all, he had lent Maan the ghazals of Mir.
‘Is it all right to sit here?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ said Maan. He looked up. ‘How are things?’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Netaji. He had by now almost entirely forgiven Maan for his humiliation at the railway station because a number of grander humiliations and successes had occurred since then, and on the whole he was making progress in his plans for world conquest.
‘You don’t mind me asking you a question?’ said Netaji.
‘No,’ said Maan, ‘any question except that one.’
Netaji smiled, and proceeded. ‘Tell me, have you ever been in love?’
Maan pretended to be annoyed in order to avoid the question. ‘What kind of question is that?’ he asked.
Netaji was apologetic. ‘You see—I thought life in Brahmpur—in a modern family—’ he began.
‘So that’s what you think of us—’ said Maan.
Netaji retreated quickly: ‘No, no, I don’t—and anyway, why should I mind what your answer is? I only asked out of curiosity.’
‘Well, if you’ve asked such a question,’ said Maan, ‘you must be prepared to answer it yourself. Have you ever been in love?’
Netaji was not at all unwilling to answer. He had given the matter a lot of thought of late. ‘Our marriages, you see, are all arranged,’ he said to Maan. ‘It’s always been so. If I had it my way, I’d do it differently. But what’s done is done. I’m sure I would have fallen in love otherwise. But now it would only confuse me. How about you?’
‘Look, here comes Rasheed,’ said Maan. ‘Should we ask him to join our discussion?’
Netaji took his leave hurriedly. He had to preserve his nominal position of superiority as Rasheed’s uncle. As Rasheed approached, he gave him a peculiar look, and disappeared.
‘Who was that?’ said Rasheed.
‘Netaji. He wanted to talk to me about love.’
Rasheed made an impatient sound.
‘Where were you?’ said Maan to Rasheed.
‘At the bania’s shop, talking to a few people—trying to undo some of that ancient Sagal damage.’
‘What is there to undo?’ said Maan. ‘You were very fiery. I was full of admiration. But it seems that for some reason your father is very annoyed with you.’
‘There’s a great deal to undo,’ said Rasheed. ‘The latest version of that incident is that I came to blows with the good elders and claimed that the Imam of the Sagal mosque was an incarnation of Satan. I also have a plan to set up a commune on the lands of the madrasa—once I have persuaded you to persuade your father to somehow take it over. But people—at least in Debaria—seem to doubt this part of the story.’ Rasheed laughed shortly. ‘You have made quite a good impression in the village. Everyone likes you; it amazes me.’
‘Looks like you’re in trouble, though,’ said Maan.
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. How can one argue with ignorance? People know nothing and want to know nothing.’
‘Tell me,’ said Maan, ‘do you know what a giggi is?’
‘No,’ said Rasheed, frowning.
‘Then you’re really in worse trouble than you imagine,’ said Maan.
‘I am?’ asked Rasheed, and for a second he looked genuinely worried. ‘By the way, how are your exercises going?’
‘Tremendously well,’ said Maan. ‘I’ve been working on them ever since you left.’
No sooner had Rasheed gone indoors than the postman dropped by on his way home, and handed Maan a letter.
He exchanged a few words with Maan; Maan responded without knowing what he said. He was dazed.
The envelope, a very pale yellow, seemed to be as cool and gentle as moonlight. The Urdu script was fluid, even careless. The postmark said ‘Pasand Bagh P.O., Brahmpur’. She had written to him after
all.
Desire made him weak as he held the envelope to the light of the lantern. He had to get back to her—at once—no matter what his father—or anyone—said. Whether his exile was officially over made no difference at all.
When he was alone again, Maan opened the envelope. The faint fragrance of her familiar perfume mingled with the night air. He saw immediately that to read this letter—with its almost evasive cursiveness, its casually sprinkled diacritical marks, its compressions—would be far beyond his own rudimentary ability in Urdu. He pieced together the salutation to Dagh Sahib, made out from the physical appearance of the letter that it was laced with poetic couplets, but for the moment could get no further.
If there was no aloneness here in the village, Maan reflected with frustration, there was no privacy either. If Rasheed’s father or grandfather were to pass by and his letter happened to be lying open, they would pick it up quite unselfconsciously and read it. And yet to comprehend even part of it, he himself would have to look at it for hours and try to piece it together glyph by glyph.
Maan did not want to have to pore over it for hours. He wanted to know immediately what Saeeda Bai had written to him. But whom should he ask for help? Rasheed? No. Netaji? No. Who would serve as his interpreter?
What had she written? In his mind’s eye he saw her right hand with its brilliant rings move from right to left over the pale yellow page. As he did so, he heard a descending scale on the harmonium. He realized with a start that he had never seen her writing anything. The touch of her hands on his face—the touch of her hands on the keyboard—these needed such little conscious interpretation. But here her hands had moved across the page in a pattern of speed and grace, and he had no inkling what it meant of love or indifference, seriousness or playfulness, pleasure or anger, desire or calm.
10.22
Rasheed was indeed in worse trouble than he imagined, but it was the next evening that he found out about it.
When, after an almost sleepless night, Maan had asked him that morning for help with Saeeda Bai’s letter, Rasheed had gazed thoughtfully at the envelope for a moment, looked uncomfortable (probably with embarrassment at the request, thought Maan), and, to his great surprise, agreed.
‘After dinner,’ he had suggested.
Though dinner seemed months away, Maan had nodded gratefully.
But the crisis broke immediately after the evening prayer. Rasheed was summoned to meet five men gathered upstairs on the roof: his grandfather; his father; Netaji; his mother’s brother who had arrived that afternoon without his friend the guppi; and the Imam of the mosque.
They were all seated on a large rug in the middle of the roof. Rasheed made his adaabs.
‘Sit down, Rasheed,’ said his father. No one else said anything beyond responding to the salutations.
Only the Bear appeared to be genuinely welcoming, though he looked profoundly uncomfortable. ‘Have a glass of this sherbet, Rasheed,’ he said after a while, handing him a glass with a red liquid inside. ‘It’s made from rhododendrons,’ he explained. ‘Excellent stuff. When I visited the hills last month. . . .’ He tapered off into silence.
‘What is this about?’ asked Rasheed, looking first at the awkward Bear, then at the Imam. The Imam of the Debaria mosque was a good man, the senior member of the other big landowning family in the village. He usually greeted Rasheed in a warm manner, but Rasheed had noticed a distance in the last couple of days. Perhaps the Sagal incident had upset him as well—or perhaps the rumours that were proliferating had confused one Imam with another. Anyway, whatever his own theological or social errors, it was humiliating to be required to answer charges of rudeness to what looked like an accusatorial committee. And why had the Bear been called to join them from a considerable distance away? Rasheed sipped his sherbet and looked at the others. His father seemed disgusted, his grandfather stern. Netaji was trying to look judicious; he succeeded in looking complacent.
It was Rasheed’s father who spoke in his paan-rough voice.
‘Abdur Rasheed, how dare you abuse your position as my son and as a member of this family? The patwari came here looking for you two days ago. When he could not find you, he spoke to me, thank God.’
Rasheed’s face went white.
He could not speak a word. It was all too clear what had happened. The wretched patwari, who knew perfectly well that it was Rasheed who was supposed to visit him, had decided to find an excuse to talk directly to his family. Suspicious and worried about his instructions, and knowing where the ghee on his roti came from, he had decided to bypass Rasheed himself to seek confirmation. Doubtless he had come during afternoon prayers, when he could be fairly certain that Rasheed would be at the mosque, and completely certain that his father would not.
Rasheed clutched his glass. His lips felt dry. He took a sip of sherbet. This action appeared to infuriate his father further. He pointed his finger at Rasheed’s head.
‘Don’t be impertinent. Answer me. Your hair looks wiser than the mulch it is growing on, but—and keep this well in mind, Rasheed—you are not a child any longer and cannot expect a child’s indulgence.’
Baba added: ‘Rasheed, this land is not yours to give or take. The patwari has been told to undo your disgraceful instructions. How could you do this? I have trusted you since you were a child. You were never obedient, but you were never underhanded.’
Rasheed’s father said: ‘In case you are inclined to create further mischief you should know that your name is no longer attached to those lands. And what a patwari writes is difficult for the Supreme Court to undo. Your communist schemes will not work here. We are not so easily taken in by theories and visions as the brilliant students of Brahmpur.’
Rasheed’s eyes flashed with anger and resistance. ‘You cannot dispossess me like that,’ he said. ‘The law of our community is clear—’ He turned to the Imam, appealing for confirmation.
‘I see you have made good use of your years of religious study as well,’ said his father bitingly. ‘Well, I would advise you, Abdur Rasheed, since you are referring to the law of inheritance, to wait until the auspicious moment when my father and I are both resting in peace near the lake before you avail yourself of it.’
The Imam looked profoundly shocked, and decided to intervene. ‘Rasheed,’ he said quietly, ‘what induced you to go behind your family’s back? You know that good order depends on the decent families of the village acting properly.’
Properly! thought Rasheed—what a joke, what a hypocritical joke. It was proper, no doubt, to tear virtual serfs away from the plots they had tilled for years in order to safeguard one’s own self-interest. It was becoming increasingly clear that the Imam was present only partly in his capacity as spiritual adviser.
And the Bear? What did he have to do with all this? Rasheed turned his eyes towards him, wordlessly pleading for his support. Surely the Bear must understand and sympathize with his intentions. But the Bear could not hold his gaze.
Rasheed’s father read his thoughts. Baring the remnants of his teeth he said: ‘Don’t look towards your Mamu for encouragement. You cannot go running to him to find shelter any longer. We have discussed the matter thoroughly together—as a family—as a family, Abdur Rasheed. That is why he is here. And he has every right to be involved in this, and to be shocked by your—your behaviour. Some of our land was bought with his sister’s dowry. Do you think we will give up so easily what we have worked to develop, to cultivate, to expand for generations? Do you think we don’t have enough trouble with the late rains this season to wish a plague of locusts upon our heads as well? If you give one plot of land to one chamar—’
The baby started wailing downstairs. Rasheed’s father got up, leaned over the parapet into the courtyard and called out:
‘Meher’s mother! Can’t you stop that child of Rasheed’s from making such a racket? Can men not talk together without being disturbed?’
He turned back to say: ‘Remember this, Rasheed: our patience is not unen
ding.’
Rasheed, suddenly furious, and hardly thinking of his words, burst out: ‘And do you think mine is? Ever since I have come to the village, I have received nothing but taunts and envy. That destitute old man, who was good to you, Abba, in the old days, and whom you now ignore—’
‘Don’t try to stray from the subject,’ said his father sharply. ‘Keep your voice low.’
‘I am not straying—it is his evil and grasping brothers who waylaid me at their mosque and are now spreading these vile rumours—’
‘You see yourself in a very heroic light—’
‘If there was justice, they would be dragged to the court in chains and made to expiate their crimes.’
‘Courts, now, so you want to bring courts into this, Abdur Rasheed—’
‘Yes, I do, if there is no other way. And it will eventually be the courts who will make you too disgorge what for generations you have—’
‘Enough!’ Baba’s voice broke in like a whiplash.
But Rasheed hardly heard him.
‘Courts, Abba—’ he cried, ‘you are complaining about the courts? What do you think this is? This panchayat, this inquisitorial committee of five where you feel you can insult me freely—’
‘Enough!’ said Baba. He had never before had to raise his voice with Rasheed a second time.
Rasheed was quiet and bowed his head.
Netaji said: ‘Rasheed, you must not see us as a court. We are your seniors, your well-wishers, who have gathered together in the absence of strangers to advise you.’
Rasheed kept a tight rein on himself and managed not to say anything. From below the baby began to cry again.
Rasheed got up before his father could, and called towards the courtyard: ‘Wife! Wife! See that the child is comfortable.’
‘Have you considered them in this matter?’ asked his father, indicating with his head towards the courtyard.
Rasheed stared wildly.
‘And have you considered Kachheru himself?’ added Baba grimly.
‘Kachheru—?’ said Rasheed. ‘He doesn’t know about this, Baba. He doesn’t know anything about this at all. He didn’t ask me to do anything.’ He held his hands to his head. Again an intolerable pressure had begun to pound at his temples.