Ravan waited to be handcuffed. Mr Tamhane was prosecutor, judge, jury and executor, and he was about to take Ravan into custody. Running away wasn’t going to help. It would only confirm his guilt and besides Mr Tamhane’s posse of policemen would drive up in their blue-black vans, comb the CWD chawls and pin him down to the ground with bayonets.
‘Ah, Master Ravan Pawar, do tell us of your assignations with Tara Sarang.’
As always he had got it all wrong. Mr Tamhane didn’t know or didn’t care about the blob of spit fizzing on his son Anant’s sparse head of hair. He was after bigger game. Oh God, how did he know that Ravan had touched an untouchable, not just once but thirty, maybe eighty times and … and, Ravan couldn’t get himself to say the words, and hadn’t washed himself clean after each occasion. He knew Mr Tamhane did, though if one is to be absolutely factual, he screamed his meagre lungs out warning untouchables and their shadows to steer clear of him and so did Mrs Tamhane and Anant. What did he do, Ravan wondered, when he travelled by the local Harbour branch of the railways to office daily and discovered that an untouchable was not casting a shadow but was standing and sweating copiously next to him? Did he jump from the train, or did he throw the offending body out and then excuse himself from his Lordship’s presence and go and have a bucket bath in the court premises? Incidentally, were there bathrooms in court houses and did they have water all day long? Come to think of it, nobody else in the chawls made such a song and dance about an untouchable shadow. Oh sure, the old-timers shrank into themselves but it was a covert, surreptitious act, the same as when you happened to pass by a leper.
‘Who would have thought that the notorious Ravan, ten-headed abductor of the beautiful consort of Shri Rama, Princess Sita herself, is a closet Shri Krishna?’ Ravan could feel Mr Tamhane’s leer stick to his back like black tar.
Had the man lost his marbles? Had the Court clerk gone completely bananas? Ravan had no doubt about it. Mr Tamhane had obviously taken leave of his senses.
‘I know the gopis beckon,’ Mr Tamhane had caught up with Ravan, ‘but can you not delay the dalliance in the groves of Brindavan a little, Lord Shri Krishna? Tarry a while and share with us poor mortals, lascivious tales of your thousand and one nights at the Sarang household. And pray, do tell us which of the nine hundred and ninety-nine positions invented and expounded by the great master of concupiscence, Vatsayan in his all-time classic, Kama Sutra, have you been practising?’
‘My name’s Ravan, not Shri Krishna and what gopis are you talking about?’
‘You can no longer fool us, you’ve been discovered, you are the blue god, Shri Krishna, under the guise and name of Ravan. As to the gopis, the dear shepherdesses, there are at least nine of them in the Sarang household. Doubtless a trifle overripe but luscious and full of juice, nevertheless.’
He had been called all kinds of names, he had long since been resigned to that, what do you expect with a name like Ravan. He had heard them all, good and bad, mostly bad, there was nothing, absolutely nothing new that anybody could say to him, nothing that would hurt or surprise him. And yet here was this disagreeable and dried-up old man whose prurient insinuations and strange revelations made Ravan feel dirty and left him speechless. He was sure Mr Tamhane was mocking him despite his straight face but he was hard put to understand the nature of the joke and the lewd suggestions in his words.
‘Mighty tales of your insatiable sexual appetite, of all-night gambolling and cavorting, of endless lascivious adventures and frolicsome lechery have reached the four corners of the world. Will you marry all nine of the Sarang girls on the same day or will it be on consecutive nights? I have heard that good old Sarang, the girl-making machine, is heaving a sigh of relief. Are you going to take over from where he left off? Will you have a dozen, make it a double dozen daughters from each of the Sarang beauties?’ Mr Tamhane shook his head sadly. ‘We’ll all have to vacate the CWD chawls to make room for your brood.’
Ravan tucked the peacock feather in his head-band, tied the yellow silk sash around his waist and scampered out with his flute. He was the first one up and he wanted to wake up the whole world. He reached the grassy knoll where he and his friends played. The river was a swollen dark welt on the land. Not a cow mooed or moved. His friends the cowherds were lying haphazardly, still asleep. He closed his eyes and formed a hole with his lips which he fitted over the one in his flute.
This is what he liked most, waking up a still life. He breathed softly into the flute. The air grazed and rubbed its back against the walls of the reed and a deep, hollow sound like wind in a cavern came forth. The first tentative notes grew in number and strength and became a song of creation that echoed from mountain top to mountain top. The birds in the trees shook their feathers, cleaned themselves and trilled. The river Yamuna slipped out of the vice of night and caught silver fire from the sun as it flowed down boisterously. The wind yawed and yawned and bumped into the cowherds. They woke up with goose pimples and found newborn calves sucking frantically at their mothers’ teats. Where were the milkmaids, they wondered, as they tried to drag the young ones away. If they didn’t come soon the whole of Brindavan would have to go without milk today. But they underestimated the power of Ravan’s song. You could hear the bells on their anklets long before you saw them. There they were, Savitri, Shobhan and Tara, Kausalya and Ragini and the other sisters. Their hips swayed and their skirts swirled. But instead of milking the cows, they formed a circle around Ravan and began to do the ras-leela dance.
‘Stop it, Krishna, stop playing,’ the boys swore at Ravan. ‘If you don’t, the girls won’t milk the cows.’
‘That’s between you and them.’ The rising sun shone over Ravan’s blue skin naked to the belly button till it matched the turquoise blue of the peacock feather in his head-band.
‘No one will marry you once you are seen with this philanderer, Krishna,’ the boys warned the girls. ‘Your parents will skin you alive. Come away and milk the cows. You know very well who will complain about you if he doesn’t get curd for dinner this evening, the very same Krishna for whom you are willing to risk your name and your honour.’
Those foolish boys might as well have asked the Sarang girls to stop breathing. Of course they didn’t listen. Ravan could barely conceal his joy. He accelerated the pace of his song. The cows were standing ten deep watching the duet between Ravan’s flute and the girls’ feverish dancing. The birds came and sat on the branches of the trees. Those who couldn’t get a place sat on the horns of the cows and watched bewitched. Even the simple cowherds forgot to crib and bitch and wondered what the results of the mad competition would be. Faster and faster the girls pirouetted around Ravan. It was a giddy sight, all those bright coloured skirts swirling madly, long plaits flying in the air and the clipped accelerating beat of the wooden sticks striking each other. Which of the Sarang sisters would fall in a dead faint first?
Ravan seemed to have forgotten the world, his eyes were closed and his flute was a song that would never cease. And yet with infinite grace and care, he brought his song as well as the girls to a stop.
Savitri was the first to garland him. ‘You are mine today and forever,’ she said. It was only when Kausalya, Ragini and Sumitra put strings of mogra flowers around his neck that he realized he was married to the girls. It was Tara’s turn. She pulled him close to her with her garland and whispered, ‘You are mine, Krishna, only mine, today and forever.’ Shobhan was last. ‘How did you dance, Shobhan? Nobody would have suspected that you have a club-foot.’ Shobhan’s answer was simple. ‘I can do anything for you. I’m yours, Krishna, for now and for always.’
That night Ravan took his wives home.
‘Your father can’t support one woman and you think you can look after nine, you polygamist?’ Parvatibai asked him.
‘What’s a polygamist? And you don’t have to worry. I don’t have to do a thing. They married me, they are going to support me, Ma.’
‘Over my dead body. No son of mine is going t
o live off his wives.’ Parvatibai slammed the door in Ravan’s face.
He took his wives to the Sarang place. Mr and Mrs Sarang were waiting for him at the door. Mrs Sarang was wearing a green nine-yard sari and the diamonds in her big nose ring sparked like silent flashbulbs. She lit a lamp, circled it in front of Ravan’s face and put a dot of crimson powder on his forehead. Mr Sarang embraced him. He handed him a package, gift-wrapped in red foil.
‘Open it, open it,’ he beamed. Ravan pulled the ribbon gently and the knot came undone. Inside were BEST bus tickets of every denomination. ‘You and your new family can travel a whole year anywhere in Bombay with them.’
Ravan was overwhelmed. He touched his father-in-law’s feet and tried to enter the room.
‘What are you doing?’ Mr Sarang asked him sharply.
‘Coming home.’
‘Do you think I got rid of my daughters so that you could bring them back to stay with me? Don’t you ever show your face to me.’
Just for one night, Ravan thought in desperation, we’ll stay in the toilets for one night and look for another place tomorrow. He tried to make his wives comfortable but all night long they were disturbed by men and women who wanted to use the facilities urgently. It was as if everybody in Chawl No. 17 had eaten shrimps and had got the runs. It was odd but even the people from the Catholic floor were coming down in droves.
At 2.30 a.m. there was a cryptic knock on the door.
‘Tara,’ a voice whispered, ‘Tara, open the door, it is me, Shahaji Kadam.’
Ravan looked at Tara. Even a blind man could have seen that she was in two minds and the mind wanting to go to Shahaji was far stronger. Ravan bolted the door and told Tara to stay where she was. Shahaji kept knocking and begging for another half-hour, the pest, but Ravan was unmoved.
He was woken by a twittering and cheeping of birds. There were at least a hundred babies clambering all over him.
‘Whose are these?’ he asked in a panic.
A chorus of voices answered him, ‘Yours.’
He looked at his wives in disbelief. ‘Who’ll look after them?’
‘God gave them to us. He’ll look after them,’ they said.
He saw them clearly for the first time. They were an odd lot. If they had not been his own, he would have said they were a horrid combination of chicks and dwarfs. They craned their necks to look at him and they kept saying the same thing over and over.
‘Daddy food. Daddy biscuits. Daddy bread. Daddy basundi.’
‘Why are they making such a racket?’ Ravan asked his wives.
‘They want to be fed.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Try feeding all hundred of them.’
Tara undid her blouse. Before she had exposed her bosom, the babies were all over her. They fought furiously for her nipple. One managed to get to it. There was a terrible cracking sound. His beak broke and hung limp. Her breasts were made of stone.
In the morning the rent collector handed Ravan a notice. It was curt.
‘You are illegal tenants. Get out or by tomorrow you’ll be charged with unlawful occupancy.’ It was signed: Mr Tamhane.
The next day when Mr Tamhane came to evict him, Ravan was crouched in the far corner of the toilet. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong but those bird-children seemed to have increased exponentially.
‘Open the door, Shri Krishna,’ Mr Tamhane ordered him.
Ravan would have liked to obey the court’s orders but stepping down would have meant trampling at least fifty or sixty of his children.
‘Daddy food, Daddy food, Daddy food.’
The cacophony got on Mr Tamhane’s nerves. He was incensed by Ravan’s recalcitrance. He ordered the bailiff to pull down the door. It was a mistake. Thousands of little babies, wave upon wave of them, burst out and inundated the passage and the corridors. Mr Tamhane was flung back and submerged within seconds. Nobody heard from him again.
There was an exodus the next day. Ravan saw his mother leaving. She was carrying a mattress and a primus stove. There were thousands of others with her. The Dixits, the Monteiros, the Ghatges, the Labdes and the Bhoirs, Eddie and his family, they were all running for their lives pursued by his hordes. Whoever stumbled did not stand a chance. His children ate him or her.
When the last of the tenants had disappeared, they turned upon Ravan.
‘Where have you been, Ravan?’ There was no accusation in the voice, just concern. ‘You haven’t come home for over a month now. I have been up twice and left a message with your mother. Didn’t she tell you?’
Ravan would not look at Shobhan.
‘Didn’t she?’ Shobhan was perplexed.
‘She did.’
‘You don’t feel like coming any more to our place?’
Didn’t Shobhan ever get hurt? How come she was always calm and caring and just a fraction distant so you never knew what went on in her mind?
‘I’ve missed you and so has everyone else. We haven’t got the carrom board out since you disappeared,’
‘They call me names and say nasty things to me.’
‘Who calls you names?’
‘Mr Raikar and his wife, Mr Lele, especially Mr Tamhane. And all the boys in the chawls. Even Eddie from the top floor.’
‘What do they say?’
‘That I am Shri Krishna and the Sarang sisters are my harem of gopis. They ask me where my peacock feather is. Mr Tamhane’s son Anant wanted to know whether I had stolen your clothes while you were bathing. Eddie Coutinho told one of his Sabha friends to ask me how long you and I had been married.’
‘They are jealous of our friendship and they want to break it. You’ll ignore them, won’t you?’ Ravan nodded his head eagerly. The Sarang sisters were the only friends he had left. ‘Come tomorrow and have dinner with us. I’ll cook something special for you.’
Ravan was feeling a trifle uncomfortable but he had no regrets. He had overeaten and he wasn’t sure when the buttons at his waist would pop out and fly. How could he have stayed away from them so long? They were his family. Parvatibai was his mother and she protected him like a tigress protecting her cubs. But she was always busy, cooking, marketing, cutting vegetables, keeping accounts. She tried to make conversation with Ravan, ask him what had happened at school, what the new teacher was like, she washed his clothes and carefully put them under his father’s mattress so they were creased just right, but no conversation of theirs lasted more than a couple of minutes. As for his father, there were times when Ravan forgot that there was such a person. There were no dramatic ups and downs in their lives, no laughter and crying and reconciliations. Mr Sarang was wrong. It was terrific to have so many children. A large family was a world by itself. If you had one, you didn’t need anybody else.
The game of bluff was in full swing. Everybody, even Mrs Sarang had joined in. There were loud cries and hysterical laughter. Mr Sarang was a little low-key but he had been caught out twice and was sure to be planning some new strategy. Ravan was chewing the fat paan Shobhan had got for him. His mother never allowed him to eat one.
‘Just for today,’ Shobhan had said and smiled, ‘because you are back among us.’
‘The lings of sharks,’ Ravan announced with his mouth full of betel leaf, saliva and loads of masala: cardamom, freshly grated coconut, finely cut betel nut, fennel and rose-petal preserves, the whole concoction dipped in some cloyingly sweet yellow syrup.
‘What?’ Mrs Sarang asked him. ‘What did you say?’
‘Re bings of larts.’ Ravan enunciated each word lucidly.
‘Ma, forget him.’ Tara shook her head in disgust. ‘He’s sozzled. He’s eaten so much and now his darling Shobhan’s given him a paan, he’s out for the count.’
‘He’s not. I can follow every word he said.’
‘Is that so, Shobhan? Well, what did the Prince of Darkness say?’ Tara asked Shobhan.
‘Three kings of hearts. Ravan swallow the juice. You can’t hold it forever.’
‘Shall I play?’ Savitri asked tentatively.
Tara interrupted her. ‘No, it’s my turn.’
‘No, it’s not.’ Mr Sarang’s voice was unusually shrill and querulous.
‘It is, Father,’ Yamuna tried to reason with him.
‘Four kings of hearts.’ Tara looked around defiantly daring someone to contradict her.
‘She’s lying. The bitch is always lying.’
‘That’s the idea, Father.’ Yamuna was exasperated at her father’s obtuseness. ‘You can always call her bluff.’
‘I am calling her bluff.’ His voice was a manic screech now. He knocked the cards out of Tara’s hands. ‘Pretending to go and see movies with Sandhyarani. As if I don’t know who Sandhyarani is. Shall I tell them, shall I tell them, you bitch?’
‘Not today, Father.’ Shobhan held Mr Sarang’s hand gently. ‘Not today. It’s my birthday.’
‘The izzat of our family is at stake and you talk of your bloody birthday, you cloven-hoofed goat. Do you know who she has been seeing on the sly?’
‘I know. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
The old man went berserk after that. ‘You knew, you knew she was seeing Shahaji Kadam, that untouchable slime from the ground floor and you kept quiet? Oh you bitch, how could I have fathered such a traitor?’
Ravan and Eddie Page 10