Red Earth and Pouring Rain

by Vikram Chandra

  As Sanjay wrote down these things, most of which he did not understand, he wondered what it felt like to have a hip that refused to bend, a mouth that spat involuntarily. The morning after the excursion over the river, he had woken up early, and looking around the tent, at his friends sleeping, their faces washed orange by the light from the roof, he had been conscious that nothing would be the same again. He had looked at them, noting Sikander’s long nose (just like his mother’s), his curving eyelashes, Chotta’s round face and his nervous grip on the sheet even as he slept, and Sanjay wondered for the first time what it would be like to be them. For all his strength, his natural assumption of leadership, did Sikander ever feel fear? Did he wake up in the dark? What was it like to be murderously angry, to have that blank rage that Chotta found so easily? Or what was it like to be anyone else, to graze sheep, to carry baskets of rice across watered fields, to ride a horse and love it or, for that matter, to shit fifty-pound cylinders of steaming green dung?

  Sanjay realized that something had happened to him, that until now he had been content to let people enter his life and act upon him, and he had accepted their presence and their actions as natural phenomena, as stimuli to be reacted to spontaneously; but now he doubted everything: he considered himself curiously, examined his own emotions and sensations, listened to his own breathing, and the simplest action —drinking a glass of milk, sitting at dinner with the others —became an event difficult to get through because of his acute sense of himself, because everywhere there was an irony inseparable from existence.

  So in the afternoons, when it was too hot for dictation, Sanjay eagerly ran down to the river, where he found the one chore he could lose himself in: he scrubbed and washed Gajnath with the one-pointedness of a meditation, lifting aside folds of skin and getting into the most hidden cracks, where minuscule creatures lived and fed. Sometimes Sikander and Chotta wandered by and sat at the water’s edge, quiet; their unusual stillness, without fail, broke Sanjay’s concentration, so that he felt he had to make conversation to relieve the awful burden of mounting silence. So he made flourishes with his pumice stone, and great splashes of water, and finally one day —anything was better than nobody saying anything —he was reduced to offering a note to Sikander to read to the mahout: ‘If Gajnath is the king of elephants, why does he serve us?’

  ‘Ah, Gajnath,’ said the mahout. ‘He is not only the king, he is the descendant of kings. Listen, in the great Akbar’s court, there were many elephants who were declared khacah, that is, they were to carry only the emperor. There was Koh-shikan, the Mountain-Destroyer; Uttam, the Amorous; Madan Mohan, the Heart-Ravisher; Sarila, the Polished; Maimun Mubarak, the Highly-Sedate; and many, many others, but of all these the captain-elephant was Aurang-Gaj. Aurang-Gaj was the beloved of Akbar, for his excellent proportions, for his courage and his loyalty, and he was given ten servants to serve him, and every day one hundred and sixty pounds of good foods. And so Aurang-Gaj carried his emperor at the most auspicious of occasions…’

  ‘Yes,’ Sikander said, reading from a note. ‘But all the same the great Aurang-Gaj could have squashed the emperor Akbar like a peanut, so why carry him?’

  ‘Because Akbar captured him.’

  ‘But how did Akbar capture him?’

  ‘By cornering him in a valley, then having other tame elephants box him in and lead him in.’

  ‘But why did these other elephants begin to serve Akbar?’

  ‘Because Akbar tied them to trees, and lashed them or starved them or anything else until the pain became unbearable, and then they decided that it was better to serve Akbar than suffer endlessly or die.’

  ‘And so they all gave up?’

  ‘They gave up nothing, they just decided to go on living. And so they served Akbar, but even the strong must grow weak, so that now Akbar’s descendants huddle in their peeling palaces in Delhi, and the children of Aurang-Gaj are scattered over Hindustan.’

  ‘But ever, did ever any of the elephants just say no, enough, no more?’

  ‘In a thousand ways, every day. They serve us, we are their masters, that much is obvious. But if you live with them long enough, you know they understand that in reality they are the stronger, but to openly refuse would result in destruction. So they are endlessly patient, and they endure, and when you want them to go fast they go just a little slower than necessary, and when you want them to do something, they pretend they don’t understand, oh, no, master, we are just dumb animals, we don’t understand anything. Their rebellion is in little things, because they understand that it is better to endure and survive than to say no and die.’

  ‘But Akbar loved Aurang-Gaj, and Aurang-Gaj loved Akbar?’

  ‘In a way, in a manner of speaking, and that is the strangest thing of all.’

  Sikander and Chotta stood up then to watch the Englishwoman as she walked to her boat, which stood ready to take her back across the river; every afternoon, she came across with one of the younger Englishmen, to make her way to Sikander’s mother’s tent. Then, when Sikander’s mother refused her an audience, she sat on a folding chair, under an umbrella, sending in servant after servant with arguments and appeals to what she called ‘common sense’: the girls will be educated, they will be schooled in the best of environments, they will become polished mems and will marry the most eligible and powerful of men, surely you must consider what is best for them, for their futures. Receiving no replies, the Englishwoman would fold her chair, click shut her umbrella, and retreat over the river for the night, to return the next day. In the red tent, Sanjay would find Sikander’s mother in a rage, snapping at Ram Mohan as if he were the one who was trying to take her daughters away; even though she refused to meet the Englishwoman, she listened to each of her messengers avidly, her eyes downcast.

  ‘What does she think?’ she would burst out after the messengers left. ‘What does she think, a mother doesn’t worry about her daughters’ future? I know too well the sort of education they will give.’ A pause as another messenger came in. ‘I will not have them be made into something else.’

  The two girls watched and listened quietly, their haughtiness quite broken by the experience of being at the centre of a struggle which caused such anger and grief; in fact it now seemed to Sanjay that they treated their mother with not a little affection as she plied them with food and encircled them with the watchful ferocity of a lioness. He was unable, ever, to find them alone, and was too shy to attempt a conversation in front of other people, but was content to watch as they played games of cards and parchesi with Sikander and Chotta, giggling and whispering to each other. They obeyed their mother instantly, without question, and seemed to enjoy their sessions with a local tailor and a jeweller, who outfitted them with bright ghagras and fine wrought-silver bangles and necklaces, so that they looked like little replicas of their mother. All this ended abruptly and without ceremony one hot afternoon, when everyone was dozing —Hercules strode into the tent, found the chamber where the girls were sleeping next to their mother, kicked aside two maids, lifted the children up by their arms with one hand, and when his wife pulled at the girls he hit her back-handed and knocked her over the bed. By the time Sanjay, Ram Mohan, Sikander and Chotta woke up he was already outside, handing the girls to two red-coated English cavalrymen who, escorted by English infantry, made their way to the river and across it. Hercules came back into the tent, brushing past his sons without a glance.

  ‘Have I not treated you well?’ he said to Sikander’s mother in his accented Urdu. ‘Have I not given you everything you needed? Have I not given you a house, servants, money? Have I not let you have your sons, as you wanted?’

  She looked at him very directly, a small red mark on her right cheek, and said nothing.

  ‘The girls I wanted to look to, and I have been a good father to them. I want them to be educated, and to grow up as Englishwomen. That is the best thing for them, and that is what I have wanted for them. Do you understand that? I will go now to Calcutta wi
th them, and leave them there in the care of friends. If you want you can come, be with them until we come back.’

  She said nothing, and he turned smartly on a heel and walked out; she sat without moving, on the floor beside the bed, and the evening came with its slow loss of shape and outline, its smell of flowers and water, and then the night. Sanjay and the others sat beside Sikander’s mother through the dark, and Sanjay found that he did not need sleep, or even day-dreams: to watch her face, her eyes, as the shadows moved slowly, was enough. In the morning, when the birds began to call, she said in a very clear voice, suddenly:

  ‘Bring sandalwood.’

  Ram Mohan pushed himself up from a half-reclining position, next to Sanjay. ‘What?‘

  But Sanjay knew already, somehow, what she wanted; some muscle or nerve, some single clear stream of emotion that stretched from his groin to the base of his neck tightened and convulsed.

  ‘To make a pyre,’ she said.

  The word spread through the camp like a quick wind; within minutes the tent was crowded with maid-servants who crouched on their haunches, staring at the slim figure in the middle.

  ‘Bring wood,’ she said again. When nobody moved she got to her feet, quickly and energetically, and walked between them, calling them by name, pleading, and no one moved. She then kicked them, raging, reminding them of the years they had eaten her salt, but they only wrapped their arms around their legs and lowered their heads to their knees, and finally she turned to Ram Mohan.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘I have been insulted,’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You know everything,’ she said. ‘I only do what I should have done long ago.’

  ‘Not this. This is a crime.’

  ‘I am a Rajput. Padmini did it, with all her princesses. The scriptures advise it.’

  ‘What scriptures?’ he said, face red. ‘Which ones? The ones that do are lies and inventions.’ Ram Mohan went on for some ten minutes, quoting commentators and citing precedents, demolishing the authority of every text which could possibly support what she planned, ending with, ‘For a Hindu, all scriptures are without meaning anyway, and tradition itself is against it.’

  ‘Very good,’ she said. ‘Then I choose it, I alone. Bring wood.’

  ‘Think of your sons,’ he said.

  Sanjay looked at her sons, and saw that Sikander was weeping; Chotta was staring at his mother with a stunned look on his face, but Sikander was gazing up blindly at the roof, at the place on the cloth where the sun appeared as a clouded glow, and was crying. His mother said quickly:

  ‘My sons are Rajputs. They will understand. Bring wood.’

  ‘No,’ Ram Mohan said.

  Slowly, she stepped forward, four or five strides, hesitated, then reached out to him and put a hand on his shoulder; feeling Ram Mohan shudder, Sanjay looked at him for a moment, then back at her. She suddenly seemed younger, and a blush spread from her shoulders; she took her hand from Ram Mohan, and stood with her arms folded across her chest, like some girl in a painting. Abruptly, Ram Mohan struggled to his feet and left the tent.

  They built the pyre —a platform of short lengths of wood stacked some three feet high and soaked with ghee —by the water. In the tent, Sanjay and Sikander and Chotta watched the maids dress her; they draped her in the red of a bride, and put thick gold bracelets on her arms. She seemed relaxed, and raised her arms away from herself often, in order to admire the gold against her skin.

  ‘Bring me some kheer, will you?’ she said, now soft and smiling at the servants. A black-skinned khansamah came, his fat legs shaking, bearing a common kitchen pot and an old iron spoon. While she ate the sweet rice-pudding, a crowd of thousands gathered outside, from the surrounding villages and fields: their murmuring swept over the tent like a breaking wave, and Sanjay’s vision oscillated crazily, doubled by his old injury and multiplied by dizziness and sweat. ‘Come sit by me,’ she said. ‘All of you.’

  She had used a Lucknow attar of jasmine, and the light smell lifted Sanjay’s head, ridding it of the soft hum from outside. He blinked and looked around: Sikander was still crying, Chotta was looking at his mother’s face, his mouth open.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘Remember who you are. Always remember who you are.’ She looked at Sanjay. ‘And you. You with your dreams.’ She spooned a mouthful. ‘Come. It’s time to go.’

  She leaned on Chotta’s shoulder, and he put an arm around her; Sikander and Sanjay walked behind. Outside, the crowd fell silent, and only the flags fluttered and the river moved slowly in the sunlight.

  ‘Will you chant something?’ she said to Ram Mohan.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever is supposed to be said.’

  ‘I don’t know what is supposed to be said.’

  ‘Chant anything.’

  ‘All right. It is the only thing I can do.’

  ‘From the first moment,’ she said, stepping up to him, ‘from the first moment, you forgave everything I was and did. And this, this is nothing, because you will be here always.’ She turned to her sons, ‘Remember. Death is nothing.’ In three quick steps she crossed from the ground to the top of the pyre, and a single huge shout lifted from the crowd, leaving a silence hard as stone. She sat, still licking the iron spoon. ‘It is very sweet,’ she said, smiling, and then she put the spoon in her lap, folded her hands in front of her, and slowly her eyelids sank. She took a deep breath.

  ‘You are the eldest son,’ Ram Mohan said to Sikander, and from an earthen pot lifted a piece of wood, blackened and flickering at one end. Sikander looked down at the torch, then at the sky, always away from his mother. ‘Now,’ Ram Mohan said, ‘please.’ But Sikander let his arms fall to his sides, and sobbed helplessly, his chest rising and falling. With a shout (what did he say?), Chotta spun and snatched the torch from Sikander, paused for a single lost moment (how long?), then bent to the wood, reaching, and with a single gasp it ignited all over. Sanjay ran, but found his hand grasped by Sikander, five nails pressing into his skin (he felt it break, instantly, in five separate places).

  ‘Look,’ Sikander said, turning his head away. ‘Look.’

  For one quick convulsion of muscles Sanjay fought, but as always he was unable to budge Sikander, and then Ram Mohan began to chant, and Sanjay looked, and the flames had risen, she sat not moving, her head high, a dark figure. With his hand still in Sikander’s (he feels his blood trickle), Sanjay looked, and Ram Mohan had begun to chant an ancient song in Sanskrit,

  Dhritarasthra uvacha —

  Dharmakshetre kurukshetre samaveta yuyutsavah

  Mamakah pandavasraiva kim akurvata Sanjay…

  Dhritarashtra said—

  Gathered on the dharma plain of Kurukshetra

  O Sanjay, what did my sons and the sons of Pandu do?

  while on the burning wood, a blue vapour races over the dark outlines of the naked body (all coverings burnt away?), and then the wood collapses and they are all driven back by a shower of glowing-red, stinging embers, all except Chotta, who stands alone, welcoming the wounds, and Sikander, still holding his friend, still looking away, follows the sun, which roars and consumes, and nothing can be seen, Ram Mohan breaks and cannot sing, and Sanjay shuts his eyes, but still sees the pyre, clearly and not in imagination, the precise flames, the faces of those watching, the arrangement of utensils on the ground, the flick of a woman’s chunni in the wind, an old man, bearded, unfamiliar, walking around the pyre, and Sanjay understands that whatever he does he cannot refuse to see, and he opens his eyes, looks fully into the fire, remembers that she asked for a chant, and quite naturally and without thinking begins to sing,

  Nainam chindanti sastrani nainam dahati pavakah

  Nacainam kledayanty apo na sosayati marutah…

  Weapons do not cut it, fire does not burn it,

  Water does not moisten it, wind does not dry it.

  They waited for three days and nights for the remains of the holocaust to cool; on the last
of these nights, when the grey ashes could almost be touched, Sanjay talked to the old man who had appeared beside the pyre. This old man, who was invisible to everybody but Sanjay, came and sat beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. The old man had straight hair held by a circular band over his forehead, a clipped beard, eyes half-closed as if in meditation, dark skin, a shawl with a flower pattern draped over one shoulder.

  ‘I am Yama,’ the old man said. ‘The Lord of Death.’

  Sanjay looked at him, and the old man’s face was calm and refined, his demeanour that of an aesthete.

  ‘There will be more of this, won’t there?’ Sanjay said.

  ‘Yes,’ the old man said, and just then Sanjay fluttered his left eye (the wind lifted the ashes), and for a moment the other disappeared, his voice lost. ’… sab lal ho jayega —everything will become red.’

  ‘More of this,’ Sanjay said, and began tearing a strip off his dhoti.

  ‘Wait,’ said the old man, reaching out to him. ‘Listen, you must listen…’

  But Sanjay had already closed his left eye, and he then wrapped the cloth around his head so that it was firmly held shut: the old man disappeared.

  ‘You go to hell,’ Sanjay said.

  After the ashes were thrown into the water, they stayed by the river, the whole party seemingly paralysed, no one willing or able to give the order to move one way or another. Sikander and Chotta rode all over the plain, leaving early and returning in the late evening, exhausted and blackened by dust; Ram Mohan sat by the river, his feet in the water, refusing umbrellas and cushions; and Sanjay spent the days with Gajnath. On the sixth morning Hercules came rushing back across the river, pale and incredulous, accompanied by the woman and Sarthi. As Hercules raged through the camp, kicking and shouting and interrogating, Ram Mohan said to Sikander and Chotta and Sanjay, ‘Wait. I wish to tell you a story.’

  He told them a story: Once a woman named Janvi was captured as a citadel fell, and a man called Jahaj Jung —who loved her —escaped from the burning city; Janvi’s captor, Hercules, made a marriage with her, but by sheer force of will she produced only daughters, and one day she sent to Jahaj Jung, asking for sons; he sent back shining laddoos, and all who touched them became a part of the story, and Janvi and her neighbour Shanti Devi ate the laddoos; and when the sons were born a cobra held them.