Mr Iyer Goes To War

by Ryan Lobo

  ‘It’s time for that bedsore to be cleaned.’

  ‘Doctor, this great soldier has been coughing a lot – too much,’ Iyer says, pointing to the Major.

  A voltage fluctuation makes the tube light splutter and the TV come on. A bus has plunged into the river, thirty-seven pilgrims dead at last count. A pimply reporter grasps an oversized mike with both hands and talks excitedly to camera. A slanging match between various bobbing heads on a panel follows. The anchor is apoplectic.

  ‘Turn, Iyer,’ says Krishna, taking a tube of ointment from his valise.

  ‘The name is Bhīma.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Yes Bhīma. Turn,’ Krishna opens the tube, watching the anchor verbally assaulting a guest and waving his arms like a crab.

  Iyer lies on his belly, exposing the clasps of the knee brace that Krishna removes with practised speed before applying the ointment.

  ‘You should try to avoid the steps on the banks,’ advises Krishna, unimpressed with the healing.

  ‘Yes, SIR,’ mocks Iyer.

  ‘Are you taking your pills, man?’ Krishna asks, kneading cream into the joint.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Open your mouth, Iyer.’ Iyer opens his mouth, the pills invisible behind his lip.

  I must try another medication, Krishna thinks, getting up and closing the ointment tube, though Sizopin was the one that promised the fewest side effects. Turning to the Major, he gives him a quick once over with his stethoscope.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Iyer asks. ‘That cough is continuous.’

  ‘Age. Only age, Iyer,’ Krishna says as he puts the stethoscope back in the valise and snaps it shut.

  ‘You mean you don’t know.’

  ‘I mean just what I said.’ Krishna swings his valise over his shoulder, relieved at the prospect of leaving the room. ‘You must eat your tablets, Iyer. I know you can’t see it now, but I worry what might happen if you don’t.’

  Iyer grins and opens his mouth, sticking his tongue out as far as it goes. ‘See, nothing.’

  Shaking his head, Krishna leaves and Iyer prises the tablets from behind his top lip with his tongue and spits them into his hand. Tossing aside the blanket, he hobbles to the window and, aiming carefully, drops the pills fifteen feet below into the begging bowl of Omnath, who lives under an abandoned tonga.

  The Major’s coughing grows more laboured as the morning progresses. Iyer tries hitting the call button several times, but no one hears it ring, as there is no electricity – not that it’s answered much at the best of times. Iyer starts to get out of bed to go downstairs and summon Khanolkar from his office, bracing himself for the staircase, when the Major starts moaning. He sounds like he’s struggling for breath; he stretches an arm towards Iyer, his hand pale and frozen into a claw.

  ‘What is it, Major?’

  The Major chokes and falls back onto the bed, gasping in distress.

  ‘Someone! Please come. Hello!’ shouts Iyer, calling first out of the front door, and then out the window.

  ‘Coming!’ Mattroo cries from the courtyard.

  The television snaps on again. Another pimply young reporter is reporting on Jayachandra’s election campaign, as Jayachandra exits a crowd, his way cleared by a small army of lathi-wielding policemen. A break for advertisements; the Major sits up. He is no longer struggling to breathe. He looks at Iyer as if he wants to say something, then at a point far away and collapses back into bed.

  Iyer thinks that he sees his soul, like a glowing orb, escaping from his mouth, though it could also have been the vapour of his breath caught in the sunlight. When Mattroo finally appears, Iyer tells him to go and get the doctor. Krishna arrives twenty minutes later and covers the Major’s face with a sheet, after a half-hearted attempt at resuscitation.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, patting Iyer’s shoulder before he leaves.

  Iyer turns in his bed to face the window. The mayflower tree is bare, and Iyer hears the parakeets, the sloganeering and the rat-a-tat of auto-rickshaws accelerating down the lanes as usual. Death has been a frequent visitor and everyone knows the drill.

  Soon Khanolkar would haggle over dues with whichever relative he could get on the phone. Then Mattroo would clean the room. Then Iyer would have to protect his books and scrolls from the swab water, which would slosh about the lowest Reader’s Digests, already rotten, that prop up the real books, stacked higher for that reason.

  Then fat Bencho would come by to collect the corpse, as his ancestors had done for as long as anyone could remember, which would then be taken to Manikarnika ghat, and the Major would merge with the sky and river. Mattroo arrives with Khanolkar. Haggling. Water. Swab. Reader’s Digests soaked. The odour of phenyl. Major Rane covered up. Iyer keeps an eye out for thievery, sitting up on his bed when Mattroo swabs towards his cupboard, his arm wetting the floor in arcs, spreading the grime out evenly.

  When Mattroo leaves, Iyer sits on his bed and lifts his weak leg off the mattress and onto the floor with his hands. From the lowest drawer of the bedside table he takes out the Major’s revolver, wrapped in oilcloth. Unwrapping it, Iyer hefts the weapon, stands up and looks in the mirror.

  An old man with a revolver. The opening frame of a comedy skit.

  He is not familiar with how to use it, but the weight of the weapon is reassuring. ‘Unlicensed,’ the Major had told Iyer, as if its ownership made him a revolutionary. Iyer wraps the revolver up again, moves it to his own drawer and locks it, giving it a good tug to check that it’s secure.

  Then Iyer returns to bed, where he stays for a long time, folded like food wrapped in a banana leaf. Later that day, he hears bar-headed geese honking in the distance as they soar over Kashi, flying from Siberia. He stares at the ceiling. It stares back.

  3

  A few hundred yards from the home, in the shadow of a soot-covered building behind the funeral pyres at Manikarnika, a fat, drunk man in ill-fitting trousers and a formerly white shirt, inured to the odour of burning corpses and rotting flowers, tries to read from a dog-eared textbook.

  He takes a breath and hopes he won’t forget these lines he’s practised so many times before. Before him, two perspiring, inebriated Doms – stereotyped by some for their unsteadfast habits – rest against a blackened wall after their night’s duty of inflating the cost of wood while staving feet and elbows back into the flames.

  Clearing his throat, he reads, the book a few inches from his squinting eyes: ‘“Long years ago go … we … made a … try … tryst … tryst with desti … nee …”’ he strains, trying to pronounce the most famous line of the most famous speech in independent India, his furry eyebrows united in concentration.

  ‘Bencho, will you forget us when you become prime minister?’ quips one of the Doms.

  ‘“At the stroke of … the midnight hour, when … when … when …”’ continues Bencho, ignoring the sniggers, but his trousers fall to mid-buttock to guffaws from the audience.

  ‘You bastards! Once I learn English I will show you!’ he hisses, pulling up his trousers. ‘“India will … awake to life and freedom,”’ Bencho finishes in a roar, to much hooting and applause from his audience of two. Just as he is about to orate another line, he is interrupted by his cell phone, ‘Yes, sir. What is it, sir? OK, sir. I will come, sir. Yes, sir. Definitely.’

  Khanolkar always has a look of slight discontent about him, as if he has just found half a worm in his guava, thinks Bencho as he hurries towards the home for the dying.

  When inmates at the home die, Bencho comes by and performs the necessary rituals for a nominal fee from Khanolkar, who invariably overcharges the families of the deceased. Khanolkar hates Bencho, as Bencho knows exactly how much Khanolkar is overcharging them; Bencho winks and nods at Khanolkar, sometimes mid-cremation, and it is this familiarity – more than the mockery – that makes Khanolkar seethe with rage. But still, Bencho is cheap, so he continues to be used.

  When Bencho reaches the home, he smoothes his hair down, tucks in his shirt and
heads for Khanolkar’s office.

  ‘Good morning, sir!’ Bencho cheerfully greets Khanolkar, whose nostrils immediately flare from the tart aroma of arrack.

  ‘Drunkard,’ he snarls.

  ‘Is Iyer Sir here, sir?’

  ‘Sadly, yes,’ says Khanolkar, closing the office door.

  Mala, an old lady with dementia, pops her head out of her room, her hair in disarray.

  ‘How is Raju? Has he passed his third year?’ Bencho asks her. ‘First-class distinction,’ she answers, smiling.

  ‘Where is my three hundred rupees?’ Mattroo demands, standing by the stretcher, pointing a piece of bamboo at Bencho, who spins around as if he is expecting some kind of an attack.

  ‘I gave it to your mother this morning,’ sings Bencho, leaping sideways to avoid the bamboo flung at him by Mattroo. Feeling sober, Bencho runs up the stairs, dodging another missile and stopping only when he reaches Iyer’s room.

  Taking a deep breath, Bencho takes another shot at smoothing down his hair and tucking in his shirt. No light emanates from under the door, and the curtains are drawn. Bencho presses his ear to the door, but there is no response. Silence. He knocks lightly. There is no reply. Licking his lips, he considers knocking again.

  ‘Who the bloody hell is it? Who the hell?’ shouts Iyer from the darkness.

  Reassured, Bencho enters. It is dark except for some light filtering in from the window. Bencho can make out the Major’s corpse. Squinting, Bencho is able to see Iyer seated on a chair by the window, obscured in the shadow with what seems to be a steaming tumbler of tea in his hand.

  ‘Good morning, sir. The dead body is ready?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Bencho pulls back the sheet and closes the Major’s half-opened eyes. Taking a white shroud from the backpack, he tears off a section and spreads it out on the ground by the bed. It is very thin cotton and takes time to reach the floor. They both watch it as it undulates and flutters open.

  ‘Sir, I have request for you.’

  ‘What is it now, imbecile? What is it now?’

  ‘Sir, I have request for you. But first, tell me one poem?’ asks Bencho, placing one arm beneath the Major’s shoulder and another beneath his knees, lifting him off the bed and lowering him onto the shroud.

  ‘Bencho …’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ Bencho says, adjusting the Major’s arms by his side.

  ‘You are useless,’ Iyer says, evenly. ‘I have not met a soul as useless as you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ grins Bencho, dropping a few rice grains from his pocket into the Major’s mouth. Then, unscrewing a Bisleri bottle filled with Ganges water, he pours a few drops into the Major’s mouth before quickly binding his jaw with the torn-off section of the shroud. Standing up, Bencho admires his handiwork.

  ‘Sir, look. Rane,’ says Bencho proudly, pointing at the Major, all trussed up and ready for combustion.

  ‘Do you want a tip?’

  ‘No, sir. Definitely not from you.’

  ‘Well, I am not giving you any.’

  ‘I cannot take from you, sir, except, except …’ says Bencho shyly.

  ‘OK, now you can go.’

  ‘Except ... one … poem. You are the best poet in Varanasi, sir.’

  ‘I don’t want to recite you a poem.’

  ‘Sir, before you would recite every time.’

  ‘Well, this is after and I don’t feel like it.’

  ‘Sir, please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, sir. Then I will tell,’ Bencho says, removing a tin of sandalwood paste from his backpack.

  ‘Actually, Bencho, I don’t want to listen to your poetry.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he says, smiling, rubbing sandalwood paste on the Major’s forehead. ‘I am going to tell you my poem.’ Unperturbed, he removes a bit of extra paste from the Major’s forehead and puts it back in the tin.

  ‘Shut up, Bencho. Take him and go.’

  ‘But sir …’

  ‘OK, tell me. Tell me, please,’ Iyer says sarcastically.

  ‘Definitely, sir,’ grins Bencho. ‘It’s about my boat and also my dear donkey Trishala, sir.’

  Standing astride the Major’s corpse, Bencho clears his throat and recites in Hindi.

  She falls off the waterfalls, drowns in whirlpools,

  Dashed against the rocks, she struggles.

  In search of calm water.

  When will the river end?

  Oh my darling, when will the river end?

  ‘Touching. Where’s the donkey?’

  ‘Sir, it’s about my donkey: she’s the one who falls in the river!’

  ‘Where’s the boat?’

  ‘My boat is worrying about my donkey, who falls in the river.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Iyer, thinking deeply for a moment, ‘that does make sense.’

  ‘Sir, mine is nothing compared to yours,’ says Bencho, lifting up the Major’s corpse, his arms underneath his back and knees.

  ‘Shut up, Bencho. Shut up and get out! Poetry does not mean the same today as it did once upon a time. Once upon a time, people had self-respect. Once upon a time the learned were on top and the thugs at the bottom. The pyramid has been turned upside down. We have made sure the thugs and bandits are at the top and those with integrity at the bottom,’ shouts Iyer, his voice rising with every sentence. ‘Today the learned and wise have neither power nor wealth, so why would anyone want to emulate them or uphold order, law and integrity? All anyone needs to do is see where a brahmachari like myself – an incarnation of the Bhīma – is, to know what happens to integrity in this world.’

  ‘Sir? Can you please pass that sheet?’ asks Bencho, standing with the Major cradled in his arms.

  ‘Don’t “sir” me! The life of the brahmachari is the quest for the immortal in oneself. Do you understand what a quest is?’ Iyer asks angrily, reaching over, grabbing the sheet and throwing it towards Bencho.

  ‘Sir. Yes, sir. IMM-OR-tal. IMM-OR-TAL. Quest! What is this word?’

  ‘Never mind, Bencho,’ Iyer says, suddenly tired, leaning back in the chair with the tea, which has stopped steaming.

  ‘Sir,’ says Bencho, carefully placing the Major on the sheet. ‘I want to ask you my request.’

  Iyer does not reply; instead he leans forward and pours his tea out of the window, narrowly missing Omnath.

  ‘Sir, I want to run for elections. I need a ticket. Come with me to see MLA Jayachandra at Kanauj. With your English and Delhi contacts, he will take me for sure. I have the whole ghat in my hand. All we need is one day. We can use my boat.’

  ‘So you can become another thief, a looter?’

  Mattroo enters with the bamboo bier and places it on the floor. Ignoring Iyer, he grabs the Major’s feet and stares grimly at Bencho, who takes the other end, silent after Iyer’s rebuke.

  ‘Sir. We can take my boat,’ Bencho says again, softer, lifting the Major onto the bier.

  ‘Too dangerous, Bencho, especially with all the recent disturbances, and I am too old. Now leave me.’

  ‘Please, sir.’

  Iyer sighs and closes his eyes. They take the Major and go.

  As they turn the corner, Iyer recites Kalidasa in Sanskrit, in his best elocution voice.

  For Yesterday is but a Dream, And Tomorrow is only a Vision;

  But Today lived makes Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,

  And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.

  Look well therefore to this Day

  Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.

  There is a loud crash as Bencho loses his grasp of the stretcher. The Major clatters down the stairs. Mala sticks her head out of her door and issues a stream of curse-words so fast they all become one long, bilious sound.

  ‘Beautiful!’ says Bencho, his eyes filling up with tears.

  ‘You mad fool!’ screams the ward boy, rushing down the stairs.

  ‘When did you write that?’ asks Bencho, unperturbed by the Major’s first steps into the afterlife.r />
  ‘I didn’t.’

  Arguing over the division of the proceeds they were to receive from Khanolkar, Bencho and Mattroo make their way to Manikarnika ghat, negotiating their way through the crowded streets. Perched on their shoulders, the Major is light as a child.

  ‘Bencho, this man was a soldier. He fought wars, didn’t he?’ asks Mattroo.

  ‘Yes, so?’

  ‘Don’t you ever wonder what lives they led?’

  ‘No. They’re dead.’

  Traffic is clogged by men stretching banners of competing parties from one end of the road to the other. They reach Manikarnika, where the river is murky and filled with children diving for the jewellery the cremated had on their persons. Boatloads of tourists float by, their cameras flashing as the Doms go about their business, stoking the pyres and haggling with relatives. Bencho unties Trishala and loads some wood on her. Then they carry the Major down the stairs, towards the pyres on the bank. They prepare the pyre, Bencho expertly throwing the larger logs atop the smaller ones. They place the Major on the pyre, feet facing south so that once released by fire, his soul can walk in the direction of the dead. After wetting the body with a little ghee, Bencho places a glowing ember on the Major’s chest. Then, without ceremony, he yanks a flaming log out from another pyre and sticks it into the kindling beneath the body, allowing the pyre to burst into flame.

  As the old soldier spirals starwards in a trembling column of ash, Bencho reflects on the lines that Iyer had spoken – that yesterday is a dream and tomorrow, a vision. He likes the way he had felt when he heard the lines, and he wishes that he, too, could be a poet one day. But before dreams or visions could be indulged in, he would need to collect payment from Khanolkar.

  4

  A peculiar feeling creeps into Iyer’s life after the Major’s death. He does not miss him, but his death affects Iyer in a way his previous roommates’ passing had not. Iyer feels afraid. He starts taking his Sizopin again.

  After the Sizopin kicks in, Iyer loses his need for answers. He lies in bed for days at a time, staring at damp patches on the ceiling, letting them be just patches and not auguries. The dampness is only dampness. His knee does not improve or deteriorate. A stiffness sets into his joints, as though they are encased in cement, and Iyer watches his junctions as if his bones belong to someone else.