by Tahir Shah
He was busy attending to last-minute arrangements. Two hundred kilos of a magical paste had been prepared, concocted according to a secret Ayurvedic recipe. Pujas were taking place around the clock to appease malevolent forces. The air, thick with incense, aggravated my breathing difficulties. The police had been briefed in case of rioting. Astrological tables had been checked and double-checked.
Harinath asked us to sit, before excusing himself. The tattered door urgently required reinforcing with a plank of wood. Once he had taken his seat on a charpoy in the courtyard, he clarified the central details of the cure.
“Every year more and more people come,” he declared, swaying from side to side. “See how popular is this miracle of miracles! It all started with my ancestor.”
“Which one?”
“My great-great-great-grandfather. You see, he was a very generous man,” winced Harinath. “He was known throughout Hyderabad for his good deeds. During the monsoon of 1845, he saw a sadhu sitting in the pouring rain. The mystic was cold, hungry, and abandoned by the world. So my ancestor – Veerana Gowd – brought him here, into this house. He fed him, and nursed him back to health. Weeks passed. Then, just before the sadhu was about to go on his way, he revealed the fish miracle to my forefather.”
“Fish miracle?” I mumbled. “Where exactly do the fish come into it?”
Harinath Gowd recited a string of orders to his son.
“The holy man,” he continued, evading my question, “said that from henceforth the well in the courtyard would be full of magical water … we were to use it to make a special paste. The water, the ingredients of the paste and the astrological timing together form the magic of the miracle. The sadhu said my family were to serve a free cure for asthma on the first day of the monsoon. If any fee was charged for the remedy, it would have no effect… charge money, and the magic would be broken. That was about a hundred and fifty years ago. True to our word, my family has never charged for the cure.”
Initially, news of the miraculous remedy was slow to spread. In the first few years, asthmatics from the back-streets adjacent to the Gowds’ house turned up. But as the years passed, more and more people heard of the miracle. And as more heard of it, and tried it, word spread faster and further.
In any other country, if half a million patients arrived at your house appealing for a miracle, the authorities would demand forms to be filled and permits to be signed. But in India, where miracle remedies are a way of life, things are far more straightforward.
Watching a Hindi movie on television the night before the asthma extravaganza, the five Gowd brothers seemed remarkably relaxed. Didn’t it bother them that five hundred thousand asthmatics were pounding on the door?
Shivram Gowd, the eldest of the brothers, stretched out to turn up the TV’s volume, to drown out the frenzied groans of asthmatics in the street.
“Of course we’re not worried,” he said. “Remember: this isn’t a feeble allopathic medicine … but a miracle cure!”
The sheer number of patients demanding the unconventional prescription has meant that, in recent years, the Gowds have had to take on extra staff. More than five hundred volunteers were ready to make sure things went smoothly. Hundreds more were at action stations, preparing to hand out free drinking water and custard creams donated by local businesses and charities. Whereas sufferers were all once treated in the Gowds’ ancestral home, now special stalls were erected in neighboring streets to administer the physic to the maximum number over the twenty-four-hour period.
The sadhu’s directions ensured that the Gowds make no profit from their miracle cure. But it was obvious they enjoyed being the center of attention for one day a year.
“We are proud to be helping people in this way,” intoned Shivram Gowd warmly.
Would he prefer the miracle cure to be handed out on more than one day a year? Shivram Gowd paused to take in the cries of the half-million patients outside. Rolling his eyes, he whispered, “No, one day a year is quite sufficient.”
Bhalu and I had no hope of leaving the Gowds’ home, which was totally besieged by asthmatics. Hyperventilating and bent double after the arduous journey, the majority were planning on spending the night standing upright, crushed in the crowd. All night, mantras were repeated over the great basins of mysterious beeswax-colored paste, which had the consistency of marzipan and the smell of purifying offal. We bedded down on the flat roof of the Gowds’ home.
As dawn rose over the Mughal city of Hyderabad, a prolonged ritual began in the confined courtyard of the Gowds’ ancestral home. The five brothers sat on a raised platform surrounded by their families, as their forefathers had done before them. Dressed in sacred saffron robes, they blessed the tubs of oily ointment. Out in the maze of winding lanes, the asthmatics and their families were jostling about with restless anticipation. The miracle was near.
Shortly after seven a.m., I poked my head out into the street. At the front of the queue was an aged farmer from Orissa. He said his name was Krishna Punji. In his hand was a transparent plastic bag. In the bag was a live gray fish.
“I’ve been here six weeks,” he announced feebly. “I wasn’t sure when the miracle was to be held. So I came a bit early. You see, I’ve got very bad asthma.” He let out a loud wheeze to prove his point.
“What’s the fish for, though?” I asked.
Krishna Punji scratched his head. “This is a miracle fish cure … that’s why I have murrel fish.”
I scanned the crowd. Everyone was clutching an identical polythene bag. In each bag was a live fish. Like children bringing goldfish home from the fair, they held them up to the light.
Unable to get a clear explanation from anyone, I pulled my head back inside. I sidled up to Harinath, who had been so helpful. I tried to ask about the significance of the fish; but he had no chance to respond. Like his brother, Shivram, he was also too occupied, praying at the family shrine. Bhalu was of no use either. Having spied an attractive girl trapped in the throng, he had hurled himself over the wall to be with her. So I stood next to the shrine, in silence, waiting for the miracle cure like everyone else.
On the stroke of eight, Harinath Gowd made it known that the crucial moment for the annual miracle asthma cure had arrived. The members of the extended family hustled around the elder brothers. Shivram declared that the Gowds always started by taking the medicine themselves. As a guest, I could go first. Great, I thought to myself, I’ve got ahead of five hundred thousand others. This is what I call real queue-barging.
The sense of elation was short-lived.
Shivram juggled with a polythene bag for a moment or two, emptying a live three-inch murrel fish into his hand. The creature’s miniature jaws were prized apart. A pellet of the foul-smelling yellow paste – the size of a walnut – was forced into the fish’s mouth and around its head. The Gowds’ extended family strained closer to watch my moment of joy. One of them indicted for me to stick out my tongue. The fish and I exchanged a troubled glance. The murrel seemed to be demanding an explanation. Alas, I was as bewildered as he. What came next was a new experience for both the fish and me.
In a single, expert movement, Shivram Gowd thrust his hand at my face. Having a grown man’s fingers lunging to the back of one’s throat is deeply unpleasant. But it’s nothing in comparison to the sensation of a live and terrified murrel fish – bearing fetid miracle ointment – swimming down one’s esophagus.
As my torso folded at the waist, my throat retching uncontrollably, the battered doors of the Gowds’ home were pulled inward. A great surging tidal wave of asthmatics flooded into the courtyard. At its crest was Krishna Punji. Still gagging as my poor murrel fish fought to swim upward – like a salmon returning to its spawning waters – I watched as the Orissan farmer handed over his fish. Obediently, he opened his toothless mouth as wide as he could and, before he knew it, the speckled murrel fish was slithering south towards his stomach.
Nervously, I voiced my disapproval at the medicine. But suppo
rters were reserved in backing my campaign. Rather than being appalled by the unorthodox treatment, the half a million asthmatics couldn’t seem to get enough of it.
Out on the street every urchin was crying out, “Machhi! Machhi!”, “Fish! Fish!” The competition between sellers kept the prices down. The emphasis was very much on size, everyone believing that the larger the fish, the better it would clean out the throat as it went down.
“The wringling of the fish is very beneficial,” Harinath Gowd called out to me, as he shoved his complete hand into a south Indian woman’s mouth. The patient began to choke. Her fish was almost seven inches long – far too large to negotiate anyone’s throat. A harsh thump on her back dislodged it. The murrel fish could be seen amid rows of teeth, frantically trying to swim backwards, towards safety. Engulfed by the waves of asthmatics, Harinath Gowd again jammed his fingers down the woman’s throat. The seven-inch fish headed into the dark abyss of the patient’s esophagus, never to surface again.
If you recoil at the prospect of swallowing an oversized antibiotic, forget the Gowds’ miracle cure. It’s traumatic for the patient; and is no easy remedy to administer. Every step of the procedure had its own hazards. When removing it from the bag, the fish tended to flail about and fall into the mud underfoot. With the throng so tight, bending down to search for a lost fish was distinctly hazardous. More difficult still was the business of levering the murrel’s jaws apart and inserting the nugget of paste. Even when this had been achieved, the creature had to be propelled head-first down the sufferer’s throat. Administering the medicine a single time would be an achievement worthy of praise. But performing it half a million times in a single day was a miracle in itself.
Every city, town and village of the subcontinent seemed to be represented at the Gowds’ tiny home. Buddhist monks, Assamese tribesmen, businessmen from Bangalore, Goans and Tamils, Pashtuns and Sikhs: all had congregated together into a whirlwind of life, all frantic for the miracle. Many were gasping for breath, seized by asthmatic attacks brought on by the swarm of bodies pressing tighter and tighter. Others were screaming hysterically as they were separated from their children. Every moment the turmoil heightened to a new pitch. The mob was compressed like liquid injected through a syringe. Then, suddenly, it was rife with rumors. The stocks of fish are running out. The supplies of miracle paste are almost at an end. Stampede followed. Babies were clutched above heads to prevent them from being sucked down. Pots of murrel fish were held high in the air. Moments later, the half-million murrel fish were not the only casualties of the day. Two elderly men were killed in the stampede, trampled underfoot.
With news of the Gowds’ medication spreading throughout India, and abroad, a regular stream of fraudsters have tried to capitalize on the miracle cure. Quacks and charlatans in every large city advertise a similar antidote on the same day each year. Most claim to be related to the Gowds. Unlike the five brothers from Hyderabad, they charge handsome sums for their medicine.
“It’s expected that fakes will try to make money from this,” said Harinath Gowd pragmatically. “We have been offered millions of rupees by multinational drug companies for the formula, too. But we don’t have any fear of the con-men, or of people copying our recipe through reverse engineering. They can copy us all they like, but we have one thing they can never have … the magical blessing of the sadhu.”
Not surprisingly, the Gowd family’s miracle cure for asthma is the laughing stock of the medical establishment. Gulping down live fish may sound like nothing more than mumbo-jumbo. But the remedy could have a scientific grounding after all. Scientists at the Royal Prince Alfred Institute of Respiratory Medicine in Sydney recently published a possible cure for asthma. And it happens to be – very fresh oily fish. Fresh fish, they say, has anti-inflammatory properties which can soothe an asthmatic’s airway passages.
Back outside the Gowds’ ancestral home, the local police officers had all but given up trying to keep control. Pickpockets from across India were busy taking advantage of the crowds. Amongst them somewhere, I feared, was the inimitable Bhalu.
Hour after hour, thousands of asthmatics received the treatment. All through the day, the afternoon, and then the night. By six a.m. the next morning, the short-lived shantytown around the Gowds’ two-room house began to break up. The pickpockets were boarding trains for other cities. The balloon-sellers, beggars, and most of the five hundred thousand asthmatics had disappeared. By seven a.m., the fish merchants were frantic to get rid of their supplies. The bottom had fallen out of the murrel-fish market for another year.
TWENTY-TWO
Lord Elvis
My asthmatic condition had improved overnight. But I was quite unsure whether the Gowds’ ancient prescription had anything to do with my recovery, which may have resulted from Hyderabad’s pleasant climate. Now that the murrel fish was swimming about inside me, I considered what to do next. Should I hasten back to Calcutta? Surely the magician would be back from his trip by now. I could pick up the Madras Mail and be back in time for bed the next day. It was a tempting option. I had much to report on to Feroze … everything from trephination and earth eaters to petunia-colored contact lenses, vast gemstones, and now miraculous murrel fish.
But a nagging insecurity pushed me on. If I arrived back at the mansion without crossing the subcontinent – from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea – the Master would doubtless feel it necessary to humiliate me. He had not ordered me to traverse the nation, but I had a feeling he expected it. Having borne the brunt of his animosity so often before, I pledged to continue westward … to Mumbai. Maybe I would be in time to watch the monsoon break over Back Bay. It may be a mad dash, I reflected, but I will return to Calcutta with my head held high.
As always, the Trickster was enthusiastic about continuing the journey. We had developed a curious symbiotic relationship. I needed him to translate and listen to my tedious stories; and he relied on me as the one trusted person who would haul about his pillowcase sacks of swag.
As we went to Nampally Railway Station, to catch the train to Mumbai, I exchanged a quizzical glance with Bhalu. “Tell me your motives,” it said. The Trickster rubbed his nose, smiled, and looked away. He had secret reasons for accompanying me: reasons which I hoped, one day soon, I would learn.
* * * *
Shortly after three-thirty, the Minar Express heaved westward from Hyderabad, bound for Mumbai. By breakfast next morning we would be strolling down Colaba Causeway, breathing air fresh from the Arabian Sea.
I crouched forward on my seat and peered out through the open window. Within minutes, the train was carving its way through the endless shanties. I watched rag-pickers and goats foraging for scraps in the rotting piles of waste. Three boys, who had made crumpled kites from plastic bags and string, were running through the sludge with their arms high like triumphant athletes. Not far away, a veiled corpse was being conveyed at waist height by mourning relatives. The light paled to platinum and silence followed. The whining of the locomotive faded. The air outside chilled very slightly … the leaves of a jamun tree rustled like crisp crepe-paper. The indigo storm clouds grew a little darker, the wind whipped up, the light turned bluer. Then, and only then, the first bewitching drops of the monsoon burst forth.
I thrust my head from the carriage window into the downpour, whooping like a rodeo star. By the time I retracted, a foreign couple was sitting adjacent to me. I knew instantly that they were from the American Deep South. Even before I heard their accents, I had read the clues. Both were dressed identically: neat London Fog raincoats, Reebok running shoes, and waterproof money belts. There was no hint of Californian ostentation about them; nor was there the crumpled, carefree clothing favored by New Yorkers. Both in their late fifties, the couple were sensibly dressed. Their large physiques implied a diet rich in fried food. These were not finicky nouvelle cuisine vegetarians from the coasts. An entirely different strain of human altogether: they were catfish folk. During my time in Tennessee, I had deve
loped a great fondness for deep-fried fish. And only a Southerner understands the joys of catfish.
As I scanned their shirt-fronts for tell-tale stains of catfish oil, they smiled in time with each other. Friendliness to fellow travelers is a hallowed rule of the South.
“I'm Jake Dorfman, and this here is my wife, Matilda,” intoned the man warmly.
I surrendered my name. As always, it was awkward for untrained vocal cords to create the sound. Jake and Matilda repeated my name numerous times, as if they were learning a foreign language using a cassette tape.
“No catfish here!” I blurted out, hoping to jump straight into a conversation.
In hindsight, I agree it was an odd opening gambit.
“Thank God for that,” laughed Jake, as he straightened his maroon cloth cap. “We’re vegans, can’t stand catfish … its horrible stuff.”
“You don’t eat meat?”
“Nope, we don’t believe in killing animals for food,” cooed Matilda.
“Oh, I love meat,” I muttered, without thinking. “Can’t get enough of it. And catfish – all deep-fried and crunchy – it’s the only fish I like. I lived on it in Memphis.”
The couple exchanged a solicitous glance. They seemed troubled at my lack of tact. Whenever I'm planning ahead to say the right thing, I put my foot in it. Somehow, I had to back-pedal enough to steer the conversation towards safe ground. I prayed no one would ask what had taken me to the South in the first place. But I was too slow off the mark.
“What brought you to Tennessee, Turhur?”
“Urn, er, um … I was writing about something there.”
“Oh?” winced Jake, leaning across expectantly. “What might that have been about?”
“Um, er, well … I was writing about the local social issues …”
“Oh, yeah? What aspects of social life?”
“Um, well …”
I stared out of the window and prayed the train would plunge off a cliff, or that a freak plague of locusts would engulf us. But the cliff and the locusts didn’t come in time. Jake and his wife were waiting for their answer.