Red Earth and Pouring Rain

by Vikram Chandra

  Finally, with the look of a man who has encountered an unfamiliar, immutable natural force, Hercules began to seek a compromise —the journey, he said, would be sanctioned if the party were escorted by a detachment of the Company’s cavalry, which precaution would properly foster an atmosphere of official formality and strength likely to prevent criminal mishaps. My daughters must come with me, Sikander’s mother said. Leave them out of this foolishness, you will endanger their health, the air in this country is foul always, but especially fecund for fevers at this time, and who knows what waters they will have to drink, and why not go to the river here, on the edge of the town, if you must, it’s just as good, to my eye. There is only one holy river, they will drink what I have tasted first, Sikander’s mother said, and whatever you want you have done with them, you have done with them as you Angrez do to your women, so that now I can hardly speak to them, but before I die I will see them bathe once in the river.

  At this Hercules looked a little taken aback, even a little ashamed, and he said, perhaps if Mr. Sarthey and two of his companions could go along to chaperon the whole affair, maintaining, thus, a sense of propriety and so on. Fine, Sikander’s mother said, but Sanjay’s uncle will come, he must come to look after the boy’s health. The cripple? Hercules said, I suppose it is all right if Mr. Sarthey is there too, but all in all this is a sorry piece of women’s uselessness, and too damn close to the monsoons for comfort. But Sikander’s mother was already gone, looking to packing of provisions; Hercules turned, nodded at his sons, and walked back to his part of the house, clearing his throat.

  Nine days later, the party set out. In front of Sikander’s house, elephants shook their heads, camels refused to get to their feet under their loads, horses balked and cantered about, servants ran about doing nothing, dogs barked, soldiers shouted orders and palanquin-bearers sat in groups, smoking sullenly. But finally, out of this swirling mass, a stream evolved and sluggishly headed off down the street —a party of cavalry went first, lance-heads sparking red from the first sun, and Sikander and Chotta, after much consultation and assurance, were allowed to go with them, seated in front of two grey-bearded officers; behind, their mother and sisters followed in two curtained palanquins (the bearers now chanting steadily, ‘Hunh-HA, Hunh-HA, Hunh-HA’), surrounded by attendants on foot; then came an elephant named Gajnath, the largest elephant in the group, and on this elephant, behind the mahout, sat Sanjay, giddily happy, almost unaware of the slight pain in his right upper arm, caused by the bony grip exerted on it by his uncle, who sat bolt upright behind him, his face twitching in alarm each time Gajnath’s back rolled and dipped in the course of a stride. As they wound through the streets, children ran out onto balconies and roofs to look at the horses, the soldiers, and Gajnath; Sanjay straightened up, concentrated on looking directly ahead, and wished they had a band of musicians to play some sprightly martial tune —he was a king on his way to survey his domains, he was a prince off to win a beautiful princess in spite of scheming rivals, he was commander of a small army headed into battle with a powerful invading tyrant.

  ‘O Gajnath, Lord of Elephants, you are indeed mighty, O Expansive One,’ Ram Mohan said. Finding that the pressure on his arm had ceased, Sanjay turned, his illusion broken, to his uncle, who was laughing at the way Gajnath had twisted his tail to one side and high, at the huge steaming circles of black dung he was depositing, one after another, in the middle of the street. Then Gajnath stopped, and began to mark the path with a dark, wet circle that soon spread at least twenty feet, and two soldiers who cantered past raised their right hands and said, ‘Fine, fine, very good!’ and the on-lookers applauded in wonder, and Sanjay wished he could get off and look at the prodigious stream, for surely it was something to be remembered. But just then, as Gajnath finally lowered his tail, three horsemen in black, their long coats flapping, rode up and past, their faces held carefully up, nostrils quivering, and then took positions around the red palanquin bearing Sikander’s sisters. One of them, whom Sanjay recognized as the choleric foreign gentleman from the garden, the speaker with the book, leaned close to the curtains and spoke, then straightened up to peer about at the crowds with unmistakable hostility, or at least fear.

  ‘I think that one, the one with the red face, is the one who wants our books, Sanju,’ Ram Mohan said. ‘What’s the matter? Do you want to pee? No? Listen, if you want to, you must, keeping it in has the most undesirable results. We’ll hold you here at the back of the howdah, and you can make a nice mark in the mud just like Gajnath. No?’

  Sanjay shook his head violently, aghast at the loss of regal dignity such a procedure would entail; in fact he wasn’t sure of the reason for his sudden uneasiness, at his inability to sit still. He shut one eye, and the three black horsemen rode steadily alongside the red palanquin; he repeated the same operation through the other eye, and still they trotted along, surrounding the palanquin like guards; he opened both eyes, and the three became six, a black circle.

  ‘Listen,’ Ram Mohan said. ‘I’ll tell you a story, all right? Did I ever tell you about the play that your father and I wrote once, long ago, when you weren’t even with us, and the knot, and Sikander of Macedon, who wanted to kill the world? Did I tell you about that? Well, in it, we had a part, a scene which dealt with this very issue, a short scene that we took out before we performed it in court, because Skinner, yes, Sikander’s father, in his capacity as resident, advised us such a thing was incompatible with the dignity of the court, that’s what he said, ‘the dignity of the court,’ which he had himself degraded and humiliated until the Raja became like a nervous old camel, but in any case there was this scene, want to listen? Listen, then; it went something like this. This is the famous scene when Sikander comes upon some sadhus under a tree, and we thought we’d done a good job of it, but the Company man said that Sikander of Macedon deserved a more dignified treatment, more exalted dialogue, but in any case it went like this. Sikander, you understand, is speaking to the sadhus through a translator.

  TRANSLATOR

  He wants to know why you’re naked.

  SADHU

  Ask him why he’s wearing clothes.

  TRANSLATOR

  He says he’s asking the questions here.

  SADHU

  Questions give birth only to other questions.

  TRANSLATOR

  He says people who get funny with him get executed.

  SADHU

  Why?

  TRANSLATOR

  Because he’s the King of Kings. And he wants you to stop asking questions.

  SADHU

  King of Kings?

  TRANSLATOR

  He came all the way from a place called Greece, killing other kings, so he’s King of Kings, see.

  SADHU

  Fool of Fools. Master-Clown of Clowns. Maha-Idiot of idiots.

  TRANSLATOR

  You want me to tell him that?

  SADHU

  I said it, didn’t I?

  TRANSLATOR

  You’re crazier than he is. He says he’ll kill you. Right here, right now.

  SADHU

  I’11 have to die someday.

  TRANSLATOR

  Listen, don’t do this. He’s demented, he doesn’t realize who you are, he thinks naked people are poor savages. He’ll really kill you.

  SADHU

  I’ll really have to die someday.

  TRANSLATOR

  He wants to know why you aren’t scared of dying.

  SADHU

  That’d be silly.

  TRANSLATOR

  He says that’s not a satisfactory answer.

  SADHU

  What sort of answer would he like?

  TRANSLATOR

  He says you should tell him exactly what mystic path you followed to reach this sublime state of indifference. And he wishes you would stop asking questions. Really, this is incredible, I think you’ve got him hooked.

  SADHU

  Mystic path?

  TRANSLATOR
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  Mystic path. Literal translation.

  SADHU

  When I feel like shitting, I shit; when I feel like eating, I eat.

  TRANSLATOR

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this —he doesn’t know whether to be upset or horribly fascinated. You’re very good at this. He says that shitting when you feel like shitting is irresponsible, you should have some discipline in your life, instead of lounging about naked under a big tree. He says people who shit when they feel like shitting never do anything with their lives.

  SADHU

  Ask him how often he shits.

  TRANSLATOR

  You want to ask Sikander of Macedon how often he shits, in public?

  SADHU

  I said it, didn’t I?

  TRANSLATOR

  You know, you’re starting to get on my nerves with this answering-questions-with-questions dodge. All right, I’ll ask him. I think he’s speechless. I think he’s upset.

  SADHU

  O-ho. I thought he looked constipated the moment I saw him.

  TRANSLATOR

  What? What? You want me to tell him that?

  SADHU

  Why not? Tell him that’s probably why he’s impelled to invade other nations and massacre tribes and all of that —any student of yoga will tell you that mistreating the body leads to mental disaster. Yogic science has shown that people who hold it in are inescapably driven to behaviour like running about slashing at people, besieging towns, and frivolous acts of bravery.

  TRANSLATOR

  Now you’ve done it. He has those fits when he gets angry, see, he’s rolling about on the ground. Last time he did that he put a city of eighty thousand to the torch, no survivors.

  SADHU

  He’d be a lot better off if he shat more often. I wonder what his per week rate is.

  TRANSLATOR

  I’m not going to ask him, understand? He’ll kill you and all your friends and probably all the rest of Sindh too. I refuse on the grounds of conscience. It’s my job but I refuse for the well-being of all the population of this country.

  SADHU

  There’s a yogic cure for constipation. Every morning, you take… TRANSLATOR

  TRANSLATOR

  Shut up. Shut up. You’ve caused enough trouble for one day.

  SADHU

  You’d be remembered as the man who saved the world from Sikander the butcher. Get this fellow shitting right and he’d probably go home, quiet as a lamb.

  TRANSLATOR

  No, no. You’re lucky, he’s decided killing you would be bad for his campaign at this moment, he’d look cruel, and then nobody would surrender. He’s having his chroniclers strike this conversation from the record. Now history will state that Sikander the Great met some strange naked men under a tree, that’s all.

  SADHU

  Well, well. Good luck, friend.

  TRANSLATOR

  Good luck to you too, or is that what one wishes people like you? Now I’m asking questions.

  SADHU

  Why don’t you write this down, or at least the gist of it? Then this history will remember you as the originator of the world’s only all-comprehensive theory of imperial conquest: the constipation hypothesis, or the shit-glory affinity.

  TRANSLATOR

  No, thanks. Even if I hated my children, I would wish other curses on them, not ridicule.

  SADHU

  You’d save the world from a lot of tight-assed murderers.

  TRANSLATOR

  No. No.

  SADHU

  You’ll see. All the truly great liberators will admit this theory into their ruminations and calculations.

  TRANSLATOR

  No.

  SADHU

  And so the world dies, from a surfeit of surly sphincters. It is, after all, so very simple.

  And so, that’s how it went, and your father and I, we thought it one of our better efforts, but the Company man said that Sikander would have asked more penetrating questions about philosophy and metaphysics, so we had to take it out, our metaphysic of shit. And a very sorry day it was, when we had to do this, it seemed to take the centre out of our dramatic construction, or should I say, all the horseshit out of our Sikander.’ Ram Mohan laughed, then shouted, ‘Oh, you are truly magnificent and noble, sweet Gajnath,’ for at that moment the animal blared out a huge, resounding, richly-odoured, indisputably-elephantine fart. Sanjay laughed in silent accompaniment to Ram Mohan’s long cackle and the raucous guffaws of the servants and soldiers and attendants, but then he glanced ahead, and the angry man’s face was very white under his wide black hat, and his mouth was drawn up tight like a purse with its strings pulled taut, the pink lips puckered, and in the middle of all the laughing, all the new smells of the countryside, the bantering of the soldiers and the maid-servants, Gajnath’s easy rolling grace, all the anticipation of the river and the road ahead, amongst all of this a very cold fear took hold of Sanjay, and he comprehended completely and without doubt that something very bad was about to happen.

  But, as always, the sun came up, and the road now wound through fields and groves of trees, and behind Gajnath horses and camels and people on foot trailed out for two and a half miles; horsemen rode up and down importantly, their turban-tails floating behind them, metal clinking reassuringly, and Sanjay’s dread receded. Sikander and Chotta rode back with their officers and tossed up half a dozen mangos, foraged from a grove of trees by the road; Sikander had the reins now, and he was turning the horse confidently and sharply, causing his greybeard to laugh with delight.

  ‘Who knows where these came from, whose orchard?’ Ram Mohan said. ‘But on the other hand, it is the road, and in difficult circumstances dharma permits the eating of unknown food. Eat, eat.’

  They rolled the small green mangos between their palms, pulping them, then opened a small slit in one corner with their teeth; the cool, unbelievably sweet golden juice spurted into their mouths, thickened by long delicious strands. Gajnath slowed and extended his trunk above his head.

  ‘He wants one,’ his mahout said. ‘Gajnath requests a mango. He is partial to them.’

  Sanjay handed one forward, and Gajnath took it from his mahout’s hand as delicately as a musician accepting a piece of paan from an admirer; a moment later, he put his questing, sniffing instrument above his forehead again.

  ‘Gajnath wants more,’ Sanjay scribbled on a slate.

  ‘Gajnath the magnificent,’ his uncle said.

  ‘Gajnath always wants more,’ his mahout said, rubbing a hand over the cracked grey skin between the two flapping ears; as if in gratitude, Gajnath quickened his pace, bringing them closer to the palanquins again. The three firangis had wrapped strips of white cloth around their faces, and rode with their heads down; leaning on the front of the howdah, Sanjay watched them slump further and lower in their saddles, and now as the heat mounted the shouting and chatter subsided, so there was only the repetitious creak of leather, the shuffling of feet through mud and dust, the officious blowing of horses and the wheezing of the elephants; the sky was a huge dome above, high, hard and totally blue. Now Sanjay’s neck seemed to grow limp, and his head lolled; he felt his uncle pull him back, and he tried to utter a protest, no, I want to watch the road, watch them, but the dark was good (Had Ram Mohan drawn the curtains on the howdah?), and Gajnath rocked him, up, down and around, is this the sea, mother, will I dream, can I? The dream came, a ship, a black, viscous sea, water lapping, endless days, eternal sky, and a feeling of resignation, the same quietness hour after hour, years passing; Sanjay awoke abruptly, eagerly, glad to discover again Gajnath’s tireless stride, to find Ram Mohan’s familiar wheezing as he slept with his head against the side of the howdah. Sanjay moved a sequined curtain aside, then squinted against the glare; the horses were plodding, necks craning low, but far ahead there was a glint of red, lost now and then in the green. Sanjay settled down to wait, impatient now, because he had seen the tents being folded and loaded onto camels, and
had been told that a party of servants would leave early, in the darkness of the early morning, and knew that hot food awaited, a chance to stretch cramped limbs, and of course an opportunity to examine, at close hand, the behaviour and appurtenances of the firangis. His earlier feeling returned now, undiminished, but now the apprehension was spiced with the anticipation of an encounter with the unknown: he promised himself he would listen carefully to the language of the firangis, would note its inflections and tones, and that he would badger Sikander and Chotta to teach him the meanings of the words that he remembered distinctly, di-gra-did, si-vil-iz-a-shun, prau-gres, di-cay. Happily, he knelt and poked his head out between the curtains, then shook his uncle awake, handing him a note. Ram Mohan cleared his throat, then called, ‘Come on, Gajnath, faster, faster, Sanjay says they have mangos waiting for us at the tents, and sherbet, and barfi.’