by Cyrus Mistry
‘Ah, so you are all here?’ he said, voice syrupy with bonhomie. ‘Good, good. Don’t worry, boys. Nothing’s going to happen to you. They’ll call you in very soon. Just try to be polite. Unfortunately, I have to rush. To the Sessions Court, where that matter of the encroachment is supposed to come up.’
So saying, he strutted away with a friendly wave.
‘Don’t worry. . .? Nothing’s g oing to happen. . .? Behnchoad,’ swore Fali under his breath. ‘All this sly manoeuvring, it’s all his—take my word for it. Suspension orders, everything—it’s all at his prompting: Buchia at his manipulative best.’
‘What encroachment matter was he talking about?’ asked Rusi.
‘On the Babulnath side,’ replied Boman. ‘On that new plot of land donated by the Dadachandjis—’
‘Where—?’ asked Farokh blankly.
‘Arrey, exactly touching the Albless Bungli, on the west side: some fellows have put up bamboos and a tent. A couple has even moved in with a trunk.’
Just then, the peon came out again, holding a slip of paper from which he read out our names. Not all of them, only four actually. One by one, my mates stood up, as their names were called out, and prepared to walk in. I was the only one left sitting. Assuming some oversight on the peon’s part, I too started up, and made to follow the others. But I was stopped.
‘No, no, you must wait. Only those whose names were called.’
What the hell? I thought, sitting down again as the others shuffled into the inner chamber.
They were not inside for long. Four or five minutes later, when they emerged from the boardroom, relief was writ large on their faces. Bomi, Fali and Farokh were all smiles.
‘Didn’t I tell you all,’ said Farokh, ‘I was sure they wouldn’t dare do anything to us. How could they?’
‘Shh. Speak softly,’ cautioned Fali. ‘They’ll hear you inside.’
‘Let them,’ said Farokh. ‘Who’s left inside, anyway?’ Then he explained to me. ‘While we were being made to wait, most of the trustees had finished their business and slunk out by another exit. Only three of the eleven are still inside.’
‘But why didn’t they call you in with us, boss?’ said Rusi, frowning a little. ‘We had already started walking in before we realized you were not among us. . .’
I shrugged.
‘Maybe they have something special to say to me.’
‘Anyway,’ interrupted Bomi, ‘they’ve promised there’ll be no salary cuts for these days of suspension.’
‘So long as we are not found sloshed, they warned us,’ elaborated Farokh, ‘or drinking on the job.’
The peon, who had been inside the boardroom all this while now reappeared and read out my name. Inexplicably nervous, I walked in barefoot onto the highly polished slippery wooden floor of the boardroom; I felt as though I were walking on thin air.
A vast room with wood panelling and a huge oval table in the centre.
Farokh was right. Most of the trustees had already left. Only three remained: a heavily-built dowager in a rich, embroidered sari, a dishevelled weasel of a man in a woollen double-breasted suit, and a large, podgy man in a white dugli whom I recognized instantly as the ubiquitous and obese Coyaji, superintendent of gardens. Despite all the empty chairs around the table, of course, I remained standing, and no one asked me to sit. The portly dowager it was who pouted at first, then scowled and enunciated frostily:
‘Well, Mr Elchidana. . . As you can see, most of the trustees have already left. We are very busy people, you must understand. But before they left, we discussed your case in some detail. Mr Kavarana, your warden, has given us a full report of the unfortunate incident which all of us see as a serious blot on the community. Quite unprecedented.’
Visibly agitated by her mention of the so-called incident, she paused for breath, closely examining my face and appearance, searching perhaps for signs of remorse. The other two men murmured in sympathetic outrage:
‘Really. Evoo to koi divas bhi joyoo nathi!’
‘Indeed very shocking. A blot on the fair name of our community.’
‘Most of the trustees felt you should be summarily dismissed from service. But, as Chairwoman of the Committee for Welfare of Employees, they have left the final decision to me. Mr Maneck Chichgar,’ she said, indicating the other trustee, seated a chair away from her, ‘President of the Temperance Society of India, is also in favour of taking a more compassionate view of your misdemeanours.’
Now the scruffy-looking man in the suit spoke up in a squeaky, nasal voice:
‘You are very fortunate, young man, that the venerable trustee here, Mrs Aloo Pastakia, has such a kind heart. And both of us have a great regard for your father, the Ervad Framroze Elchidana.’
Suddenly, I remembered the name coming up in conversation between my parents, some reference my father made to Aloo Pastakia being ‘the flatulent old battleaxe’ of the Punchayet. Staring wordlessly at my self-important interlocutors seated pompous and contented in their polished, cushioned chairs—all three screwing up their faces to appear oh-so terribly concerned for me, while at the same time slightly discomfited by the whiff of some unpleasant odour I had brought in—in one corner of my head, I could sense a reckless wave of giggles building up.
For a moment I panicked. I knew it just wouldn’t do to burst into a fit of irrepressible tittering, not here. I was in a difficult position as it is. But what actually took place was quite different.
‘How much your father must have been pained to hear of your shenanigans. This drinking problem with khandhias has to be dealt with firmly. Drinking is sinful. It destroys man,’ whined the weasel from the Temperance Society. ‘We can show you a way to control your habit, oh yes. There is a way. . .’ I felt like I was being court-martialled. ‘But it works only if you are ready to give it up completely. And you must follow my method sincerely.’
‘We have let off the others with a strict warning,’ said imperious Aloo Pastakia. ‘But we can hardly do the same with you.’
‘You boys have to learn some discipline. It’s very important,’ said Coyaji, not to be left out.
‘And so, as an exemplary measure, we have decided to put you back on probation for six months.’
‘Probation? But, madam,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve been working at Doongerwaadi for eight years.’
‘So what, eh?’ said Coyaji, brutally. ‘You can work for another eight if you like, but you will have to learn to behave.’
Crestfallen, my protest sounded pathetically feeble and frightened. I barely recognized my own tremulous voice. Nevertheless, I went on.
‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, sir. . .madam, but I wasn’t drunk. The sun was too hot—it was sunstroke. On top of that I hadn’t eaten anything all day.’
‘Well, be that as it may, we have to take some corrective steps,’ the Madam replied; but I had a strong feeling none of them had even heard what I’d just said.
‘It’s for your own good, son,’ said Chichghar, the other trustee. ‘And this applies equally to all the other staff as well: consumption of alcohol will not be permitted on the Doongerwaadi premises henceforth. That is the final decision of all the trustees.’
‘As long as there is no other incident of this sort,’ said Aloo Pastakia, closing the file in front of her with an air of finality, ‘you have nothing to worry about, Mr Elchidana.’
Now the giggly impulse had left me completely, of course. Instead, I felt amazed and angry and disgusted; but perhaps, even more, cold and anxious. What would I have done, if the axe had really fallen, and I had been dismissed from service? Gone back to my father’s fire temple, with my three-year-old in tow?
It had been made amply clear to me that my interview was over. There was nothing more I could say or do. Except to turn around and walk out of the room.
Nine
The day after of our visit to the Punchayet’s office, I divulged the secret of the grotto to the other khandhias.
At an appoin
ted hour, in the late afternoon of the next day, I led them there, one at a time. It wouldn’t have been wise for a gaggle of khandhias to be seen proceeding into the forest for no known reason. That would certainly have been noticed, and perhaps raised an alarm.
Until that afternoon, the grotto had remained a secret, an exclusive crypt whose existence only Seppy and I had been aware of.
Seppy had been dead these past ten months. This had been our hiding place, our refuge, venue of our first lovemaking: a private and precious bond between us made me loath to betray it to the world. Even after she died, I came here by myself a few times, to try and commune with her in my grief. But the grotto had changed: unexpectedly denuded of its charm and cosiness I found it a cold, unfeeling place permeated with the odour of bat droppings.
I stopped visiting it, but had continued to maintain its privacy as though compelled by the rules of a secret fraternity I had once belonged to: a fraternity of two whose only other member had perished some months ago. . . Seppy, I do miss you very much. If only you were still here with me, I wouldn’t be afraid. . . Our Farida must never know the insecurity I felt yesterday in that bloody boardroom.
Now, of course, the situation was different. Which is why, I felt, it might be safer for us to meet in the grotto. As per the new strictures, none of us could afford to be seen consuming liquor on our verandas or even inside our own homes, for that matter—even while off duty.
Truth to tell, on this particular evening it was I, perhaps more than the others, who felt a great desire to drink and discuss with my colleagues how exactly we should react to the outrageous and insulting conditions imposed on us during that morning’s sham ‘inquiry’; and moreover, how we were going to draw the trustees’ attention to our own vital concerns about working conditions— which had not been addressed at all, or offered even a cursory hearing.
We sat on the rock floor. Fortunately, the effusion of water from the niche among the rocks had stopped. Perhaps it still oozed during the monsoon, but for now the floor was dry. The smell of bats was everywhere, though not as overpowering as I remembered it.
By the time all of us had climbed into the cave and settled down, it was already quite dark inside. I lit both the candles that I had remembered to bring along. Then we passed the bottle around, taking our first draughts of the liquor in almost total silence, in an uneasy, flickering twilight.
I had poorly estimated the capacity of my mates to be cowed by intimidation. There was much resentment about the events of the previous morning. I had frequently to remind them to keep their voices down.
‘I mean this whole business of suspension orders, then trustees’ inquiry, and all,’ growled Fali, ‘it was all calculated to slap this ban on drinking!’
‘Are we children or what,’ huffed Rustom, angrily, ‘that they should tell us how to spend our spare time?’
‘Forget spare time, Rusi,’ said Farokh. ‘Even while on duty— ’pecially during duty—if I feel the need to prime myself with a few pegs before going in to wash a stinking corpse, who the fuck are they to—’
‘Never mind a corpse, a normal corpse—that’s normal,’ interrupted Kobaad in his soft voice; he hadn’t spoken all this while. ‘I’d like to see how many of the trustees can cope with even just the sight of an accident victim, or a burns victim—let alone clean and swaddle them for the banquet of the birds.’
‘All that’s exceptional stuff, Kobaad,’ said Farokh. ‘A whole bottle isn’t enough when we have to find strength to tackle such disasters.’
‘What the hell were they talking about?’ said Rusi. ‘I still can’t believe we actually stood there like buffoons, listening to their sermon on the evils of drinking.’
‘The whole idea of first suspending you guys, then calling you to their regal offices,’ said Kobaad, ‘was to put butterflies in your bellies—so that you’d forget to mention your own complaints.’
‘And this business of renewed probation for Elchi is just not on,’ said Boman. I felt grateful someone else had brought this up. ‘He fainted on the road because he was exhausted, not drunk! It’s just not right!’
His words trailed off, but I was reminded of Seppy, and something she had said to me once during one of our evening rambles.
‘It’s such a bloody joke,’ she said. ‘If you guys are so important to the Zarthostis, why don’t they provide you better working conditions? It’s sheer hypocrisy to say you guys’ll have your reward in the next lifetime; yet treat you like offal in this one. . . Why don’t you guys get together, do something about it? Protest. . .’
Like her mother before her, Sepideh was a fighter. Things that she had said to me in the past now became an important source of inspiration.
As the bottle’s contents dwindled, rumblings of discontent grew more raucous. Twice I had to shush them, afraid we might be overheard, and our secret conclave detected. Then, unexpectedly, there was a moment of intense, soul-searching silence: for someone posed the question: what’re we going to do about this state of affairs? I confess I was the one who first mooted the possibility of protest. A phrase we had all heard on Temoo’s radio in the context of Gandhiji’s exertions for home rule had been running in my head. And so it was that the idea of some sort of ‘peaceful non-cooperation’ took root among the corpse bearers, though none of us had any clue what form it should take.
Over the next three days, Rustom and I drew up a charter of demands; very modest and reasonable ones. Not for better wages, but simply an eight-hour working day, overtime compensation and a fixed entitlement of ten days’ casual leave in a year.
When we went across to Buchia’s office late one afternoon, and gave him the petition listing our grievances and expectations, he was careful not to show any reaction.
‘As you know, boys, I am not authorized to take any decision on such matters. I am just a functionary, like yourselves. . .’ he said. ‘But I’ll take this petition myself to Coyaji later this evening, so he can circulate it amongst the trustees.’
Though we had been careful not to make our petition sound like an ultimatum—and nowhere had we referred to the possibility of rebellious action—they must have sensed trouble was brewing.
This time, they did not summon us to their office. Instead, the very next afternoon, podgy Coyaji himself came by to meet us, neatly trussed up in a white dugli. We were asked to congregate in the large hall of the Behramji Petit Pavilion. We took some time getting there, but found him waiting patiently until the whole lot of us had arrived. He was accompanied by Buchia, of course, his yes-man, who remained completely silent all through Coyaji’s speech, although he nodded his head in vigorous affirmation at certain emotional moments of the address.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to take Coyaji seriously, especially when he tried to sound effusive and impassioned. Owing not so much to his impressive girth or the tiny scarlet skullcap perched tentatively on the dome of his head but rather an involuntary dribble of saliva that escaped his mouth after every few sentences he spoke, and often hung there tantalizingly for a few seconds before he became aware of it and mopped it up with the same checked bandana he used to wipe beads of sweat that appeared on his forehead from time to time. That dribble of saliva engaged his audience’s attention more completely, I suspect, than what he was saying, keeping us on the edge of our seats as we tried to guess whether it would be staunched in time, or drip to the floor.
We corpse bearers, Coyaji said to us, should never behave like ordinary factory workers. Never, he repeated for added emphasis, and paused. For the work we did had tremendous religious and social significance for the entire community, and the Punchayet was like our foster father and mother, who looked after us through bad times and good. That such demands as we had presented had been made for the first time in the entire history of the community itself showed they were uncalled for! And that he, personally, was very hurt that we should have felt the need to spell out our demands in a formal petition, as though we were members of a trade union.
Instead, if we had only come to him, in the same spirit as a child approaches its father for extra pocket money, he wouldn’t have felt such a sense of betrayal. Over a cup of tea, he said, we could have discussed and sorted out our differences.
Because, you must always remember, he emphasized, that like every father or mother in this world the trustees are basically good and generous people (in fact, surprise of surprises, after Coyaji’s address, tea and sandwiches were brought into the concourse and served to us. Buchia thought of everything! I wonder if they smashed the cups and saucers after we had drunk from them.) who would never do anything to harm their own children and, keep this in mind always, certainly nothing unfair or exploitative.
He had already been speaking for nearly half an hour. These, we guessed, were his concluding remarks:
‘That’s why we have to trust one another. We are all followers of the same religion. And our religion, the oldest and most influential in the history of mankind, clearly lays down all our rights and duties—not just yours as corpse bearers, but ours, too, as your guardians. And in the perspective of not just the here and now, but in the context of eternity, and all-powerful Ahura Mazda. . . So let us not be hasty, let us not behave like ordinary rabble-rousers and undisciplined trouble-mongers. Someone may have misguided you, I’m sure. But if you choose to follow such negative advice, it’ll only bring us to ruin. Never once in the hundred-and-fifty-year-old history of the Punchayet, has anyone raised such demands, remember that. . .’
Not a single concession was granted to us, even just to mollify or appease—except to proclaim that our grievances would definitely be looked into in greater detail.