Mr Iyer Goes To War

by Ryan Lobo

  ‘So what?’ Bencho says, but he is intrigued by Iyer’s words.

  ‘Dark times can call forth poetry locked within the hearts of people.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Kashi is poetry forced to be a city. And we will be its poets. Do you understand?’

  ‘Sir? All I want is that introduction, sir.’

  ‘What is your greatest dream? Your greatest ambition, Bencho?’ asks Iyer earnestly.

  Bencho turns.

  ‘My dream?’

  ‘Yes. Your dream.’

  ‘Sir, no one has ever asked me that.’

  ‘Well then, what is it?’

  ‘I have only one dream sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I want to become a politician.’

  Iyer looks at Bencho and shakes his head from side to side, utterly disgusted.

  ‘Is that all? Do keep in mind, Bencho, that we are often kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It is my goal just like Robinson Crucho; I want to have an island, but a town will do. But you cannot get fired once elected, and I can make good money. Even if you are sent to jail, your wife can stand for the elections. And my children can also become politicians and nobody can take away what we have earned.’

  Iyer scoffs; as if this is child’s play.

  ‘Fact is, Bencho, I’ll make you a politician in the first town I control.’

  Stunned, Bencho stares into Iyer’s eyes looking for signs of deceit, but Iyer is stone-faced.

  ‘Can you really make me a politician?’ Bencho asks, trying hard to control his delight.

  ‘What do you think? Of course!’

  ‘We need to meet that Jayachandra, and they usually ask for a lot of money. And ...’

  ‘Bencho, the word of a brahmachari is his bond,’ interrupts Iyer, waving Bencho’s questions away. ‘I said that I will make you the corporator of the first town I conquer.’

  ‘Conquer, sir? What does that mean? You will win elections? But we will need money for the trip, and I have none.’

  ‘Money is nothing,’ says Iyer, whipping out a wad of notes and handing it to Bencho, who takes it with both hands.

  ‘Come with me and the world will be ours, Bencho. We will journey into the heart of things and reclaim our country from Bakasura.’ Iyer locks eyes with Bencho. ‘I promise you. Adventure does not lie outside us, but within,’ Iyer says, touching his own breast. ‘Ordinary life does not interest us! We want the fantastic life! We will reclaim what has been taken from us. We shall become what we once were – once upon a time! Because real history flows in our veins; it not written in the books.’ Saying so, Iyer leaps onto the dreaming Vishnu, slips and nearly falls into the sewer.

  Bencho rushes forward, grabbing him by the seat of his pants.

  ‘Sir, I want fantastic also,’ Bencho says, his eyes shining, pulling Iyer back from the brink.

  ‘And we will.’

  ‘Shall we offer a puja before we head out?’

  ‘No Bencho. Not necessary. Our orders come from above and all will be revealed in our dreams. Come. Pujas are not always necessary.’ And with that, Iyer leaps over the abyss like an ageing gazelle.

  ‘Coming, my dear sir, I am coming,’ says Bencho, seeing himself surrounded with comforts, much respected, stealing only what was meant to be stolen, and protected from all harm by his station.

  Bencho leaps across the sewer, this time landing a good foot away from its edge, where Trishala chews steadily, unmindful of the ways of men. Full of zeal for their coming journey, they walk towards the river, turning their backs on the shattered temple, destroyed hundreds of years ago by men with similar ideas of adventure.

  9

  Flaming lamps light up the river and massive spotlights come on along the entire extent of the ghat. The tourist boats have been tied up, and thousands of pilgrims head to the water’s edge to bathe, pray and make offerings of marigolds and floating aartis to the river.

  Khanolkar has rented a boat, and is now plying the waters close to the banks along with Krishna, scouring the crowds for Iyer. But they miss Iyer and Bencho, who because they keep to the shadows as they move towards Manikarnika ghat, where Bencho keeps his boat.

  At Manikarnika ghat, blackened buildings rise from the river enveloped in funeral smoke and the stench of burning flesh. Buffaloes wander among the pyres, and an unusually large crowd of men walk between the flames or stand atop the platforms. The Doms haggle with relatives as they stoke the pyres and turn the corpses with long bamboo staves, watched through the haze of smoke by hungry long-nosed dogs.

  The boat is about a hundred metres away, six feet long and with a hull that has swelled with age and leans to one side. It has a pitted mast and a tattered black tarpaulin that doubles up as a sail, painted saffron but now more speckled than saffron.

  Khanolkar gives up the search and instructs the boatman to dock the boat near Manikarnika, where Bencho comes into his view. The wind turns, blowing smoke over Krishna and Khanolkar and obscuring Iyer, who slips by unnoticed towards the boat.

  ‘Ah, Bencho! Have you seen Iyer?’ asks Krishna, covering his face with a handkerchief.

  ‘No, sir. Iyer? Not at all.’ Bencho replies, not daring to meet Khanolkar’s gaze, which is seemingly piercing through his soul.

  Hearing but not seeing the doctor, Iyer quickens his stride, beginning to jog. Tears come to his eyes – both from the fog and his knee; so long has it been since he has come this way. He reaches the steps leading up to the Doms’ verandah, where a line of corpses are stretched out under white shrouds, awaiting their turn. As Krishna and Khanolkar’s voices grow louder, Iyer crouches by the corpses beside an unlit pyre.

  The boat is anchored nearby, a crow on its mast. Iyer looks with disgust at the ash-coloured water he would need to wade through to get to the boat. A large black corpse-eating catfish swims by, its dorsal fin protruding from the water, and Iyer recoils.

  A few yards away Bencho is talking to an increasingly suspicious Khanolkar.

  ‘No, sir. I have not seen Iyer. No. Of course not! How would I know where he is? I barely know him. You mean that Iyer from the home, right?’

  Khanolkar does not say a word, just keeps up his stare.

  ‘Definitely not,’ blathers the unnerved Bencho, glancing in the direction of the unlit pyre where Iyer is crouching and then looking away. Following his gaze, Khanolkar leaps over the railing and rushes towards the pyre, only to find no one but a tired priest conducting a funeral, and some tired Doms, unamused by his antics.

  Om asato ma sadgamaya,

  tamaso ma jyotirgamaya,

  mrityorma amritamgamaya

  Om shanti shanti shanti

  Oh Almighty! Lead us from lies,

  From darkness to light,

  From death to immortality,

  Om, May there be Peace Peace Peace.

  The priest sets the pyre alight as the corpse’s male relatives view the cremation from the platform above the ghat. Nauseated by the smoke and stench but not subdued, Khanolkar tells Bencho to let them know as soon as he sees Iyer. He heads back towards the boat where awaits Krishna, still holding the syringe.

  Bencho heaves a sigh of relief, but his relief soon turns to terror when the inspector whose father he’d dropped sees him from the platform.

  ‘You! Monkey. Dog. Donkey!’ the inspector shouts, jumping off the platform and landing like a cat on the banks, walking towards Bencho with his moustache bristling. Bencho walks away even more purposefully, breaking into a run and darting around another pyre that the priest has just sprinkled ghee on, preparing to set it alight. The inspector doggedly follows, pushing Doms out of his way, and corners a cowering Bencho near the pyre.

  The priest scolds the inspector and lights the pyre with a flaming branch.

  A red-headed American tourist materialises, moving in for a photograph.

  The inspector reaches forward and grabs Bencho by his collar.
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br />   The photographer’s flash goes off, blinding the inspector.

  And then the unthinkable happens.

  The swaddled corpse sits up, its shroud on fire, and bellows into the inspector’s face, who screams and lurches backwards. Iyer rips off the burning shroud, swatting at the flames with his palms.

  The redhead clicks her camera again, more out of shock than intentionally; the inspector reels backwards, and Bencho – who hasn’t yet registered what has happened – shrieks like a schoolgirl. Iyer rolls off the pyre, scattering the buffaloes with his bellowing and sending Doms and flaming logs flying in all directions. Leaping to his feet, he tears off what is left of the shroud, shoves past the inspector and races towards the water, followed by a gibbering Bencho.

  The inspector recovers and gives chase. From the top of the ghat, Khanolkar and Krishna watch with their mouths open as Iyer runs up the steps towards the stone balustrade, smoke still rising off him.

  ‘Iyer! Bhīma! Stop! Your knee,’ screams Krishna as Iyer leaps over a mourner.

  ‘Come back, I just want to help,’ says Khanolkar.

  Iyer’s knee begins to hurt, though he can still put his weight on it. He pauses on a stone platform that extends out over the river. He looks at the boat in the distance, manned by a panicking Bencho, and then towards Khanolkar and Krishna running towards him.

  It would be so simple to stop this.

  Pausing like an Olympic diver, Iyer extends his hands above his head in a Namaste just as Bencho pulls the stone anchor onto his boat.

  No one will judge me if I go back.

  ‘No, sir!’ screams Bencho from the boat, knowing that the water is shallow. He attempts to start the boat, pulling on the starter handle.

  ‘Om nama Shivaya,’ Iyer intones, taking a deep breath.

  I will be shown the way.

  He can hear Dr Krishna’s voice. ‘You can’t dive there! Please! No! Iyer!’

  The ancient stone platform Iyer stands on is firm and reassuring.

  Iyer closes his eyes and locks his stomach muscles.

  His body goes slack as the twilight fades. His breathing is even. He relaxes his eyelids and through the slight gap, sees stars appear on the barren eastern bank. A sudden exhaustion envelops him. He inhales deeply, focusing on the space between breaths. His breathing slows, and a cold Himalayan wind from the river washes over the ghat.

  How many people have watched the fires from this point?

  Iyer leaps over the edge, crashing into the water with a belly flop. He hits the water with the sound of a very tight slap, and blacks out momentarily before sinking like a stone, the air knocked from his lungs.

  The water is strangely deep, and Iyer turns to face the surface from where light shafts descend into the gloom. The water becomes clear. He hears what sounds like the calling of whales, but more melodious.

  A luminous blue form floats in the depths below him. He feels no fear. Another shape moves past him and then another. Gangetic dolphins are gliding around him as he sinks. The blue form rises from the darkness, and it is a young man with the face of an angel. He swims up to Iyer and looks into his eyes, his own eyes radiating an otherworldly peace. The being takes Iyer’s hand and, with a powerful kick, swims towards the twinkling surface, the dolphins spiralling around them like ghosts.

  Iyer regains consciousness when his head comes into contact with the air. The murky water is about a foot deep. The riverbed is soft; when he lifts his head from the water and tries to stand, he sinks up to his ankles in the mud. He chokes and coughs out the water he has swallowed and, retrieving a staff, sticks one end of it in the mud, holding onto it like a spear. Head throbbing, Iyer sees Bencho and launches himself into the river, swimming past the inspector, who is unable to swim, and is hence wading through the shallows.

  Iyer reaches the boat, and Bencho drags him onto the deck.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ shouts the inspector as Bencho poles away. ‘You think I can’t find you?’

  Standing at the stern with great effort, Iyer tries to tell the inspector that he is a precocious microphallus. But he has no breath left, so he watches, his lungs slowly filling with air, as the inspector grows smaller and the blur-grey distance between them stretches.

  Bencho discards the punting pole and rows towards the centre, where the river flows faster. He takes no chances, as Khanolkar might hire a boat and come after them. As they begin to float faster, he raises the tarpaulin and attaches its corner ropes to the mast and sides of the boat. It crackles open, catching the wind.

  The boat reaches the centre, where the water flows fastest, and straightens up on its own. In a few minutes they are carried from the ghats and out of the city. They find themselves in twilight, wind and silence, the small clouds above illuminated on their undersides by the glow of the disappearing city.

  A tremendous relief steals over Iyer and he collapses onto the deck, trying to cover himself with his blanket, oblivion engulfing him.

  Home.

  The tarpaulin is full of wind and crackles gently; the ropes stretched tight. The boat moves fast and straight. Reaching over, Bencho pulls the blanket over Iyer, the best poet in Varanasi.

  10

  When the river current slows down, Bencho gets the motor working; the engine comes to life with the rattling of its surrounding planks. Eventually, the ghostly clouds of Varanasi are left behind, and they travel between black banks, passing fields, villages and scrubland. The motor breaks down after a few kilometres, when they are going between mustard fields, barely visible in the moonlight.

  There is little sound except for the dipping of the oars and a gentle wind as the travellers float under a luminous half moon, its other half crumbled into stars. Iyer sleeps without dreaming for the first time in weeks as Bencho rows steadily, his arms aching but not unpleasantly. He sweats out the arrack he had consumed earlier, the lactic acid of his exertions flowing in his arms like a clarifying agent. He imagines his political career once it has been kicked off by Iyer’s introductions.

  He would be fair and accept only small bribes. He would indulge in just enough thievery to keep life balanced, saving himself from the idealism his dear sir suffered from. He would get a car. A small one – no – maybe a four-wheeler, as the roads are very bad, but that would be it. No bodyguards, no foreign jaunts and no souped-up Toyota Land Cruisers like the other politicians. He would marry the most beautiful woman in all of Kashi and purchase jewellery for her once a year, maybe on Diwali, and on the New Year, of course. Given his position, he would have to pay for his niece’s marriage, but he would make it a loan, interest-free, of course, or maybe he would charge a small interest for the sake of discipline.

  When Bencho’s arms get tired he dozes, the river carrying them along. He’s woken up when the boat runs aground on a tiny island, some twenty feet across, and a flock of rain quail burst from a tree, filling the air with the sound of beating wings. He pushes the boat onto the sandbank and ties it to some reeds. They are safe now, and he feels calm. The boat tilts and Iyer – still sleeping – slides to the side. Bencho’s cell phone is wet, so he takes out the battery and removes its outer case, spreading the pieces out on the deck to dry before lying down in the bottom of the boat, falling asleep almost immediately. He dreams of a white Ambassador bursting through the streets, its siren lights flashing, followed by another white Ambassador bristling with bodyguards.

  The boat, jerked upright by Bencho’s weight, slips free of the reeds and slides into the river, flowing upstream. It turns within an eddy and then drifts sideways.

  The sound of a splash wakes Iyer. Sitting up, he realises that his face is wet. They are floating in a still lake with no banks visible, the cloudless sky one with the horizon. Iyer steps over a snoring Bencho, wiping the droplets off his face. The air is windless. The water is like glass.

  The splash sounds again. Iyer turns and sees a disturbance in the water a short distance from the boat, as if something large has broken the crystal surfac
e. A ripple heads towards the boat. As it nears, he looks down in the depths and sees a long, scaly form turn below. The disturbance rocks the vessel.

  ‘Bencho,’ he whispers, but Bencho does not stir.

  Picking up his staff, he peers over the side, shading his eyes from the sun. He peers into the gloom, his cupped hands an inch above the water. As he stares, a massive crocodile bursts out of the water – jaws agape – grabs him about the head and shoulders with yellow teeth and yanks him into the river.

  11

  Shock. Water. Teeth.

  Iyer’s arms are pinned to his sides as the crocodile attempts to swallow him whole, shaking him from side to side underwater, a muscular peristalsis urging him down its undulating gullet, which presses relentlessly around Iyer’s face.

  God save me.

  Iyer wakes with a yell – this time for real – waking up Bencho and startling a rhesus macaque that has leapt onto the boat from an overhanging branch.

  Sitting upright with shock, Iyer shoos away the monkey, which bares its teeth and walks away across the bow, upright. It puts a hand on its hip, unlike any monkey Iyer has seen before. Still startled by his dream, Iyer notices the foam. It fills the surface of the river in thick clumps, sometimes ten feet high, and bubbles blow about them like confetti. The monkey attempts to jump onto a branch attached to a dead tree and fails, landing in the foam and into the invisible river with a muted splash. The froth moves as it swims to the bank unseen. The monkey pulls itself out of the water again, flopping down in the mud like a drunkard and turning glassy eyes towards Iyer.

  Iyer is rattled.

  ‘Bencho?’ he says, panicked. ‘How long have we slept? Where are we? What was that?’

  Bencho rubs his eyes and takes in the landscape, a chemical smell filling his nostrils. The water is invisible, the banks are lined with dead trees, and it looks as if the boat is floating on frothy milk. Little rainbows appear and disappear in the mist. Iyer shakes his head, willing the vision to pass, but it is no vision. He leans over the side of the boat and waves away the bubbles to reveal the black water beneath. Taking a handful of it, he smells it and wrinkles his nose in disgust. It’s cold; he buttons up his Mysore jacket.