by Sharon Maas
One night she woke me up and pressed a finger to my lips, wrapped me in a blanket and guided me through the darkness of the garden and out into the street. It must have been very late at night because the street was quite empty. Janiki had both hands on my shoulders and almost pushed me along, and though I was not fully awake and though she did not speak I felt the urgency in her manner and hurried as best I could, sometimes tripping on the edge of
the blanket dangling around my hastening feet, sometimes stumbling on one of the many potholes we crossed.
We walked for a long time but soon I had an idea where we were going to, and I was right – she was taking me to Amma’s sister’s home. Saasna Aunty. Saasna Aunty seemed to know we were coming because the moment Janiki touched her shoulder – she was sleeping on the back veranda – she sprang to her feet like an uncoiling spring, and ushered me into the house. It was all so stealthy, so secret!
‘You are safe here,’ Janiki whispered to me and kissed me on my forehead. ‘I will find your daddy and he will come and get you. Saasna Aunty will be kind to you. I have to go back to America now but I will find your daddy for you. Paruthy Uncle is not telling me his address but I will find it.’
I felt so scared because I knew that Janiki was scared, though I couldn’t tell what of. Nobody had yet told me anything of what was really going on, though I knew it was all about money. Now that I am older I know that Janiki should not have taken me to Saasna Aunty, because of course that was the first place Paruthy Uncle looked for me next day when he found I was gone. And early in the morning he appeared, and there was a big quarrel. I didn’t know what it was really about at the time, I was so confused, but I heard bits and pieces of the things they shouted at each other: Saasna Aunty pleading with Appa’s brother to let me stay with her, it wouldn’t cost anything, and then Paruthy Uncle’s nasty remark, that neither would I earn anything. That last remark I remember most of all because of the nasty way he said it. Nasty things stay in a person’s mind as well as kind things; they are like thorns sticking in there and even if you try to pull them out they edge themselves in deeper. So I never forgot those words of Paruthy Uncle, that I would not earn anything, and that was the first time I realised that I had to earn my living from now on. And Paruthy Uncle took me back home, but not for long. And Janiki could not help because she had already gone back to America.
Chapter 9
Kamal. Moti Khodayal, 1974
Kamal was now twelve, tall for his age and handsome. But he was ill. He was dying. Rani Abishta sent for the best doctors; doctors from Bombay and Delhi, and they all said the same: Kamal was dying.
‘What does he have?’ Rani Abishta cried. She would have had the doctors whipped for incompetence. She almost wept in frustration, if only she could weep.
The doctors shrugged and packed their bags. ‘We don’t know. We can’t help him. He has decided to die and he will die.’
Rani Abishta sent for doctors from abroad but they could not cure Kamal either. ‘The disease is mental. He needs a psychiatrist,’ these foreign doctors said, so Rani Abishta sent for a psychiatrist, the best available in all the country. The psychiatrist sat next to Kamal’s bed with a notepad in his hands and tried to talk to Kamal but Kamal did not answer. He stared at him with vacant eyes, or turned his head away.
Finally – and Kamal heard the words clearly through the mists that veiled his mind – Rani Abishta spoke the magic formula that would lead to healing.
‘Send for Swami Naadiyaananda!!’
Though his eyes were closed, Kamal knew the moment Swami Naadiyaananda entered his room. He felt a cool hand on his scalding forehead and light filter through his soul. He heard the soft words whispered: ‘Come out of the night, Kamal. Come out of the night. Come into the sunshine. All will be well.’
He opened his eyes.
Swami Naadiyaananda had a shaven head, shining like honey, and eyes that saw through him and knew him. When Kamal looked into those eyes he no longer wanted to die. He felt life stir within him and he felt the certain knowledge that it was not his time to die. He felt grace like a glorious dawn within him, and he returned the swami’s smile.
‘All will be well, my son,’ said Swami again. ‘You will leave the palace.’
To Rani Abishta, Swami said: ‘The disease is spiritual. He is suffering from asphyxiation of the soul. You must let him go. A bird in a cage has no option but to lie down and die, even if that cage is golden. This boy must spread his wings, and fly.’
From that day on Kamal recovered rapidly, but he never saw Swami again to thank him. There was so much to thank him for: soon, very soon, he was leaving, going to board at the Kodaikanal International School in the Palini Hills of Tamil Nadu. Rani Abishta herself had given the order, it was said – it had to be so – and she had done so on Swami’s advice.
It was Kamal’s friend, the counsellor Jairam, who told him the truth. ‘He said if you remain here you will surely die. He told Rani Abishta she had abused his words; that she had lived against his injunctions; that she herself was killing you. Only for your sake he returned: to save you, he said. It is her one last chance.’
‘Swami Naadiyaananda,’ Kamal mused. ‘I have heard that name before, when I was a boy. There was some mystery surrounding it, some kind of taboo attached to it. Do you know…?’
Jairam laughed. ‘Everybody knows,’ he said. ‘Everybody knows except you. We were forbidden to tell you when you were a boy. Now, what does it matter? Now, you are leaving anyway. So I’ll tell you. When you were a baby – you were not a year old, and your father had just been killed in prison – Swami was in the palace. Rani Abishta had sent for him in her grief and her anguish, not knowing which way to turn, alone with you, the only heir. She needed his guidance in that situation. He was Rani Abishta’s guru, you know, who came from his hermitage in the Himalayas once a year until he spoke the words that made her send him away – for ever.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Well, your Rani Abishta had great plans for you. You would become a great statesman and businessman. You would grow wealthy in the silk industry. You would receive the best education the world has to offer. You would be rich, famous, powerful – you would be India’s leader, bringing back royalty, restoring all the kingdoms to their rightful heirs. You would turn back time. Oh, she had so many ideas, so many plans, some of them far-fetched, impossible, and you were at the centre of them. Swami took one look at you and said: “This is a child of God. He is not made for worldly matters. He will renounce women and gold – he will be a monk.”
‘Rani Abishta flew into a rage, tried to make him take back those words – she believed whatever Swami said would inevitably come true – but he refused to recant. That’s when she banned him from ever setting foot in the palace again. She ordained that his name should never again be spoken. She went so far as to banish our religion from being practised anywhere in the palace – she turned against God himself, as if that could prevent what God himself had ordained! She hardened her heart. You were to be trained by worldly, private teachers, and reared expressly for the role she had set for you. You were not to go outside – she knew the story of the Buddha, she knew how the sight of poverty and suffering could inspire a man to seek the highest goals of the spirit, turn him away from worldly gains. So you were not to know poverty and suffering. You were to be kept a prisoner in a golden cage – like the Prince Gautama. But Prince Gautama escaped, and became the Buddha, and you, too, escaped, in your own way.
‘When you were dying Rani Abishta knew she had lost the battle – for the time being. She would never have sent for Swami had she not truly feared for your life, and known that her rejection of her guru was responsible for your illness, and that only he could heal you. She genuinely loves you, you see.’
‘So now she will let me go?’
‘Yes. Swami said you should go out into the world and get an education. Rani Abishta is still Rani Abishta – ambitious as ever, and she will never give up on
her dreams for you, the only heir. But she has modified them somewhat; and besides, she may be a dreamer, but she is a realistic dreamer. She knows to be a statesman you will need an education; the best India can offer. She also now believes that in letting you go she can hold you all the better. When you see the suffering outside, she believes, you will want to take up the reins of power. She’s sending you to a Christian school: the Christian ethic, she believes, is kinder and more tolerant towards worldly ambitions and temporal affairs than the Hindu. So now it’s up to you.’
Kamal shrugged. ‘What do I know about power? What do I care? I’m glad I didn’t die, and I’m glad I’m leaving the palace. I look forward to Kodaikanal. But what the future holds – what is written in my destiny – who knows?’
‘Possibly only Swami.’
Chapter 10
Kamal 1978–1985
Kamal’s years at Kodaikanal flew by, as happy times always do. He found friends and freedom. He found hobbies; he discovered a talent for both music and acting. He learned to play the piano tolerably well, and the guitar, and sing along. He joined a theatre group and discovered he was particularly good at playing dastardly villains. He was the brightest student in his class, and could take his pick of the best universities in the world. He wanted to go as far away from Rani Abishta as possible. He chose the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the USA.
Rani Abishta, of course, had been strictly against his going abroad. There had been a hot discussion, with her extolling the virtues of the Indian universities in Calcutta and Bombay and Delhi. But since his illness a subtle change in the balance of power had taken place, and Rani Abishta knew now that there was nothing she or anyone in the world could do when Kamal had made up his mind. She accepted defeat on this issue with something very much like grace.
Besides, she told Jairam, there was absolutely no sign of Kamal fulfilling Swami’s prophecy. Kamal might be intense and strong-willed, but definitely not religious: there was no danger of him taking sannyas, becoming a monk. He had chosen to study engineering for his degree – what could be more worldly than that? She had pleaded with him to take up economics, business studies, law, degrees that would fit into her plans for him, but he had refused. She pleaded with him to at least let it be textile engineering, which would come in useful when he took over the silk business, but no, stubborn as usual, Kamal had set his mind on civil engineering. And, he told her, he had absolutely no intention of going into the silk business.
Rani Abishta shrugged and accepted defeat. It was a pity; but, after all, the family business ran itself. She had placed good and trustworthy men in charge, and with only a minimum of supervision the profits were good. The market for patola silk was still thriving – patola silk was royal silk, and although there were no more royals in India, there were plenty of millionaires who behaved and dressed like royalty. They had also expanded, invested, purchased a struggling silk company in Tamil Nadu, built it up. Moved on to a lesser, but still exquisite, quality for their top range, and more commercial qualities for the export market, and profits had only increased in the last few years. People would always want silk; women would always want to wrap themselves in fine garments. The future was rosy.
* * *
In his third year at MIT, Kamal received a bulging envelope from Rani Abishta that made his blood boil.
‘Soon your studies will be over, my son,’ she wrote, ‘and no doubt the offers of work will be flooding in. It is time to start looking for a bride for you and I have initiated the process. In the envelope you will find five possibilities: all beautiful ladies with good connections. I have already negotiated with their parents. I have decided we will not demand a dowry as we are modern people, but the connections are important. My favourite is Miss Battacharya – a lovely girl and her father owns a chain of retail fabric outlets all over the North. They are from Delhi. She is having an excellent education, which she will complete at the end of this year. She is perfect for you but if you prefer one of the others I am quite understanding. All of them are extremely suitable, just that Miss Bhattacharya is the best.’
Kamal threw away the entire packet of colour photographs and marriage proposals, and wrote Rani Abishta a curt reply: ‘None of them are right for me, Daadi. Please do not send any more marriage proposals, and please do not search for anyone else.’
* * *
Kamal met Caroline Mitchell in his fourth year at MIT. He first came across her at a Thanksgiving party in the home of a friend, and he spent that first evening answering all her avid questions about India.
As Caroline had spent her early years in the care of an Indian nanny, Meena, she had been nourished for years on the stories of the great epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. Meena had created a paradisical India in her mind, a place of flowers and birdsong and fabulous palaces and magical landscapes, snow-capped majestic mountains and sparkling lakes. As she reached adulthood and became involved with liberal politics she of course came to understand that this India was a clichéd, one-sided version of a very complex country; that the real India was far more multifaceted; that great misery and ugliness existed there side by side with the beauty and sublime ideas. But she remained fascinated. Against her parents’ advice she chose anthropology as her major, and for the theme of her thesis, the Language and Culture of the Dravidian People of South India.
She would be going to India! In a year’s time, she told Kamal; to do the fieldwork in Tamil family traditions necessary for her thesis. She hoped he could give her some tips, maybe some addresses?
She looked up at him with warm amber eyes that somehow touched him with their cool blend of naivety and intelligence. That naivety came from a pre-knowledge of India that was entirely idealistic and totally clichéd, established by a homesick nanny in whose lap she had dreamed her first Indian dreams, and later modified by a thousand books and articles written by Westerners, brimful of Western prejudices and Western condescension. Kamal was able to set her straight on a number of issues.
They were so thoroughly engaged in the discussion that they did not notice the passing of time, and had to be gently levered out of their wicker chairs on the wraparound porch at two in the morning. Caroline lived with her parents in Cambridge, just a ten-minute walk from the friend’s home. Kamal walked her home.
They talked all the way. Then Kamal felt her hand in his, and stopped speaking in mid-sentence. They walked the next few paces in silence. Then Caroline said, ‘There’s my house,’ and pointed with her other hand, and Kamal squeezed the hand in his.
‘I hope—’
‘Kamal, it was—’
They spoke simultaneously; both stopped and looked at each other and laughed. Then Kamal said, ‘Go ahead, you first.’
Caroline took his other hand and clasped them both between her smaller ones. ‘I just wanted to say, I haven’t had such a stimulating evening for… oh, my God. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a stimulating evening in my whole life! It was awesome, talking with you, Kamal, and I think we’re going to be great friends.’
Caroline’s words were prophetic. They not only became the best of friends, they became lovers. From that first evening Kamal had known that this was the woman he was going to marry. She was so different from him, and not only physically, with her long blonde hair and pale heart-shaped face. She was the stranger he longed to embrace because she represented the half of him he did not yet know, that missing part of him that, once united with him, would make him whole. She was intellectual and warm at the same time; genuinely interested – no, interested was too weak – enchanted by India and all things Indian; touchingly ingenuous; sometimes brittle, but the brittleness was only superficial and easy to melt. They could talk for hours, and be silent for hours; when the first snow fell she drove him out to the countryside and they walked through the whiteness without speaking a single word, arms slung around each other in a silent intimacy overflowing with warmth, and though the bitter cold stung his bare cheeks Kamal felt the winter must melt
before them, like the snowflakes melting on his lashes. He opened his lips and caught the snow on his tongue and laughed out loud. Caroline, her face small and white in the soft maroon shawl wrapped around her head, glowed with inner joy. She pressed an icy-cold, snow-encrusted glove against his cheek and said, ‘Kamal Bhandari, if you don’t promise to marry me I swear I’m going to lie down right there in that snowbank and let the snow drift over me and cover me till I look like the Abominable Snowman and just wait there until you do!’
Kamal chuckled and moved her hand from his cheek. He pulled off her glove and flung it away onto the snow, and replaced the warm hand on his warm cheek.
‘That’s more like it. Now, Caroline Mitchell, what do you want me to do? Go down on one knee and propose officially?’
‘No. Just say it. Say it. Say you want to marry me. Say you want to be mine for ever and ever.’
‘You know it already.’
‘But I want to hear it. I want you to say it out loud. I can’t stand this deep Indian silent communication. Go on, just say it.’
‘You don’t know me properly yet, you know. Wait till I get you back to India. I will turn into the tyrannical Indian patriarch of your worst nightmares! I will ravish you as my wife and keep another four in my harem just for good measure. I will keep you well under my foot, forbid you to step outside the walls of our marital abode unless you walk four paces behind me. You will occupy yourself with raising five fine sons to follow in my revered footsteps. You will refer to me exclusively as “Father of my Sons” and bow your head, hiding your face in the folds of your sari, when I enter the room. You will humbly serve me delicious meals you have cooked with devotion on golden platters and only take food yourself when I and all our sons have been sated. When I die you will—’