He dreams of fire again, vast, swift-flowing streams of it spreading out with absolute abandon, absolute freedom, and wakes up sweaty and terrified. His first thought is of his money. He takes it out of his inside pocket and counts it – it’s all there, slightly damp from its proximity to his underwear, which is wet with the sweat from his groin and thighs as he had lain dreaming. Before his heart has stopped rattling, he decides he has to stow away the money in a safer place: so many people have seen him make money, who knows what is going through their heads, if one or two of them are not petty thieves, pickpockets – after all, these places are full of people who are up to no good. Who can be trusted these days? Certainly not strangers in a strange town. He has heard of thieves who can slit pockets with such a sharp knife that the sleeping man who is being robbed does not feel the slightest disturbance to awake him. It is so skilfully done that he doesn’t even become aware of the theft as soon as he wakes up. Only when he searches inside his trousers or shirt to use some of the earnings does he find that his hand has gone clean through a hole.
The brainwave startles even him. He takes the money, folds each ten-rupee note on its horizontal axis and moves towards Raju, who gets up from his sitting position immediately. Lakshman crouches and contemplates him for a while, wondering how he is going to do it. Raju yawns – Lakshman can see the flash of his teeth and gums and tongue, and even his throat in the diffuse moonlight, and a brief gust of his rotten breath hits him. That view of the inside of Raju’s mouth makes him even more nervous. Moving quickly, Lakshman loosens the collar-band around Raju’s neck, chanting meaningless words in his usual cooing sing-sing tone all the while, and inserts the thin strip of folded money carefully under the band. He realises that he has forgotten the stick. His hands shake as he keeps one firm finger pressed against the notes, tightens the band and eases his finger away. There. The money is now safe. No one will ever dream of that as a hiding place, should they want to rob him. Besides, even if they guessed, who would dare approach a bear?
The early hint of rain is beginning to touch the sky and the air when Lakshman and Raju arrive in the outskirts of what seems like a small, contained town – Varadapur, the black letters against the yellow-painted stone sign says. It is too small for trains to stop here. The afternoon fills with the milk of mist, low-lying in the open fields before the human habitations begin. Lakshman can smell it mingled with the odour of cow-dung – it is not mist but smoke from the chulhas being lit for the evening cooking. The sky turns a dark purple at the hinge of dusk and darkness; Lakshman fears a tremendous downpour, but it only spits for a few minutes, just enough for the dry earth to release that subtly rotting smell, then stops. Lakshman reads it correctly: the end of summer is here. He is lucky that the imminent monsoon coincides with his arrival in Varadapur, where he can look for some kind of shelter for the next three or four months.
A walk down the only paved road running as the spine of the town reveals something unusual: a series of almost identical buildings on either side of the road, near the centre. They are each four storeys high, with the outside of the curved front verandas all painted a rectangle of yellow, which must once have been the colour of ripe mangoes but is now closer to muddy shit. But still, compared to the greyness of the exposed concrete elsewhere – the paint must have been erased by years of rain, sun and neglect – the tenacious yellow is startling. Surrounded by overgrown ferns and weeds and set back from the road in what looks like a thinning jungle of pines, the buildings are all in such a state of dilapidation that Lakshman cannot tell at first if they had once been occupied and are now abandoned, or if the construction work had been discontinued at a very late stage. Floors and railings of some of the balconies are missing; the short, flying-bridge-like stairways connecting one building to another on each storey are broken and dangling in mid-air; leaking pipes have left indelible lines of rust, all exactly in the same spots on the different buildings; broken and missing windows, some boarded up, some like hollowed-out eyes, give on to the darkness inside, others have rusted or missing grilles. The buildings have compounds abutting them and shared with the others; clearly a housing complex. The yards are cracked, rife with weeds, barely visible. It is a spectacle not of ruin but of the process of ruination. This is the kind of place where ghosts live.
Lakshman’s first thought is that if these buildings are derelict, with no signs of inhabitation, he and Raju may be able to find a temporary home here, before moving on towards the plains after the end of the monsoons. In whatever state of disintegration, one of these could still offer a roof over their heads to protect them from the rain. But months on the road, one day here, the next day somewhere else, living like a bird or a wild animal, have sharpened a certain kind of instinct in him and he decides to wait until it’s dark before exploring the buildings. In the interim, he walks around for a while, taking in the town, always on the lookout for ideal places where they might be able to perform, spots that are likely to attract the largest possible numbers, the location of the shops, the ragged streams of slums on the periphery … The reconnaissance reveals a large school, set in its own grounds, now just a stretch of loose, level dust, and a BDO complex.
Lakshman discovers that he can get a square meal of dal, rice and sabzi every day at around one o’clock at the canteen of the BDO for five rupees only. And he finds out the history of the ghost buildings. They were built to house the employees of a big national machine-tools company, which had to close down its operations in Varadapur after ten years. Most of the inhabitants had left, either because they got a transfer to another branch, or because they lost their jobs and could no longer live in accommodation that came with their work. The company had done nothing with the houses, letting them stand and rot instead. A few of the flats still have people living in them – who knows what their rights are? But a lot of them are empty, probably unsafe, given that time has eaten into them so thoroughly. Most are inseparable from the wild undergrowth surrounding them, even during the dry months, nests to insects, reptiles, animals. This much Lakshman pieces together while he and Raju have tea and samosas at a roadside stall. The usual group of stragglers and curious people with nothing to do, nowhere to go, hang around asking questions – Doesn’t he bite? Does he attack with his claws? How old is he? Where did Lakshman find him? Is Lakshman a qalandar? Will Raju dance now? When will they put on their act? He dodges and parries and gives partial replies, calculates what sort of answers are going to serve him best. They talk aimlessly for a good while – about whether the monsoon is going to arrive on time, about the school, about the temples in Varadapur. This last subject breaks down a certain invisible barrier; the men understand now that Lakshman is not a real qalandar – that is, not a Muslim. He knows he may have to stay in this town for some time, so he makes an effort to be warm and friendly and get to know the familiar faces. He buys matches, a candle, and tries to push away the thought of what he might need to live in one place for longer than a day or two, for that thought is a trap, the enormous lid.
When it’s totally dark, he walks back with Raju towards the ghost housing complex. He steps over the low stone wall that marks the margin of the road and stands amidst the dried ferns, behind a tree, calf-deep in undergrowth, and watches, letting his eyes become adapted to the darkness. After what feels to him a long time, he thinks he can make out a light at a window on the second or third floor in a building east of where he is standing, a good distance away. The one closest to him has been entirely devoured by the dark. He ties Raju to a tree and makes his way, slowly and carefully, to this one, afraid to strike a match to see where he’s planting his feet. The rustle of his footsteps is too loud to his ears. He can hear Raju sniffing around in the earth. He wonders how close he is to the building when he receives a small shock – he can suddenly see weak firelight framing the edges of an imperfectly boarded-up window. Someone is in there: a place to avoid. He cannot see anything around him, he doesn’t know in which direction he can, or should, move. He lig
hts a match and in its brief lifespan can only make out cracked concrete and weeds at his feet and shadowy details of a corner of a wall, maybe even a door or a doorway, but all is shadow and flicker before darkness reasserts itself. It doesn’t seem like such a good idea to have come here in the dark. The thought of criminals and miscreants using this as their den occurs to him and he wants to run away swiftly – it doesn’t look as if it’s going to rain tonight, another night under the open sky would be perfectly possible.
He doesn’t understand what pulls him along, surmounting the fear, to explore. He lights his candle; impossible to move without it, now that he is almost within the housing complex. In that weak yellow glow, he navigates himself away from the house in which he had seen some light to a building diagonally behind it, across a cement compound shared by both. In this one there is an electric bulb on one of the top floors. There is a doorway to his right, leading into pitch-darkness. He enters; the candlelight is as useful as a wet paper bag; still, it’s the only thing he has. He trips over a raised bit – a stair – and falls. The candle escapes from his grip and rolls away, but fortunately continues to burn. Lakshman grabs hold of it and looks at where he has fallen: two stairs, leading to a landing, on either side of which are two identical doors, or rather one set of doors, shut, and another doorway with its doors missing. He enters and finds himself in a large empty room. The floor is littered with dried leaves, bits of broken brick, inches of dust, unidentifiable debris and rubbish, broken glass near the window, which is missing all the panes from the wooden frames, a strew of dried pellets that look like goat-droppings … Something scurries away across the floor. A rat? The walls are stained and cracked and, in places, oddly furry. There is a dark patch in one corner of the floor, near the window, where the room seems to slope, or it could be a shadow, an area where the candlelight doesn’t reach. There is a doorway next to it, presumably leading further inside the flat to the other rooms.
Lakshman has exhausted his supply of fearlessness; he cannot bring himself to explore the whole place in the dark. He wants to check if there’s anyone living, or hiding, here but doesn’t know how to go about it: should he call out? Should he bring in Raju first and then go looking with him? The presence of a bear could protect him from all manner of things. Besides, he feels lonely without Raju. He turns and heads out, candle in hand, his neck and back prickling with fear, an atavistic fear of something getting him from behind. It’s odd that dark open spaces, such as fields, copses, forests, roads, do not hold this terror for him, only dark interiors, rooms, the insides of houses.
He tries to retrace his steps but is certain that he is losing his way.
In desperation, he lets out a loud whisper – Raju, Raju.
Nothing except a general rustling.
He calls out, now using his whole voice – Raju, Raju.
An answering sound reaches him, something between a chatter, a yawn and a squeaking. Lakshman’s fear dissolves.
The spectacle that greets Lakshman at first light, after a sleepless night of fears and discomfort, gives him a shock. The interior is filthier and more dilapidated than candlelight had revealed. To Lakshman, who has some sketchy knowledge of buildings, renovation and decoration, everything in here has crossed that line beyond which it cannot be cleaned, restored or repaired but has to be destroyed and begun, from scratch, again. That dark area he saw yesterday is not a shadow but a huge tongue of slime that has survived, wet and gleaming, all through the blood-evaporating summer. There is a bloom of orange mould – or is it rust? – occupying one-third of the ceiling. The wall in which the doorway is set is spored by a rash of black spots. There are paw prints in the dust and splotches of paan- and gutka-spit on the floor and splattering the lower third of the walls. Through the doorway that leads inside he crosses a short passage that gives on to what used to be a kitchen and an empty room beside it; the wall between the two is broken. Doors lean off their hinges and the wood at the bottom is eaten away in wildly serrated curves. The sink in the kitchen looks dry – there is no running water, Lakshman checks – yet all the pipes are corroded by rust, some sections into a fine filigree work. How could everything be so dry and yet marked so much by the wet at the same time? The small window in the bathroom, missing all its glass, looks out on to the side of the adjacent building that is a mirror image – a vertical series of identical tiny bathroom windows with the rusty, disintegrating cages of the grilles protecting the small bedroom verandas two or three feet away from them, repeated on each level. The rust scars from the metal bars outside the bathroom windows and the veranda grilles score the side of the building in thick orange tracks. Lakshman takes in the bathroom. The rajma-shaped toilet on the floor, with a raised, ridged rectangle on each side to plant the feet on, is full of dried leaves and has turned the colour of dried blood from, presumably, white; a huge colony of cockroaches on the walls, some scurrying about, most of them still and waiting; again, that strange mixture of opposites, slime and mould on one hand, extreme aridity on the other. The bedroom, while of a piece with the rest of the flat, is comparatively less afflicted. In here Lakshman sees the first and only piece of furniture in the entire place – a broken chair, partially burnt, with a large lick of soot on the wall behind it. Apart from this, the flat contains only the gathering rubble of its own slow disintegration. It is this room that Lakshman decides to make his home for the rainy season, and the front room, Raju’s, with the bars on the window serving as the tethering post. If anyone tries to enter, a bear just inside the entrance will serve as an effective deterrent, Lakshman hopes.
There is a tiny nub of panic in him: he has to make the bulk of his money for the next three months in the days – no one knows how many – before the rains begin. He goes out with Raju and finds a temple. A blue-faced Shiva, smiling subtly, is enshrined there, sitting on a cow, one leg raised and folded over, the other one hanging. Lakshman buys a garland and a watermelon from one of the men who have spread out their wares on jute sacking or baskets just outside the temple, on the verge of the road. There’s much excitement among them – Look, look, a bear’s arrived! Lakshman offers the flowers and fruit to the dozing priest, who wakes up, takes in Raju with a glance, then sits up and says – Stay away, stay away, this is a temple, can’t you see? It’s not for people of your kind.
Lakshman retorts – I’m not a qalandar. I come from Deodham, I’m a kayasth. If I were a Muslim, I wouldn’t have bothered to come here. Which Muslim brings offerings to Shiva?
The priest looks suspicious but accepts the marigold garland and the watermelon, if reluctantly, then rings a little hand-bell, sprinkles some water on him and murmurs something hurriedly that sounds like a mantra. Lakshman sits, feet tucked under his bottom, and brings his head down on the first step of the three leading to the tiny vestibule where the priest is stationed, looking at him with unmasked distaste. Against the wishes and hopes of tens of millions of people in the country, Lakshman prays for a big delay in the onset of monsoon.
When he raises his head, the priest asks – A bear, huh? Let’s see him dance.
Lakshman says – There aren’t enough people here.
The priest says irritatedly – If you put in some effort to get people here, there would be. It’s a temple, there are crowds here at certain times.
Lakshman understands why the priest is keen to have him put on a show in the temple precinct. He weighs it up and finally says – Thik hain, I’ll do it, but not now, it’s getting too hot, we won’t be able to get many people. You tell me when the crowds come, which times of the day, and we’ll be here.
The priest, too, does some kind of inner calculation before he agrees – Come on Friday, come early in the morning, six or seven. Friday is the big day of worship here.
Lakshman and Raju are at the temple early on Friday morning. The flower-sellers, fruit-sellers, vendors of relics and puja paraphernalia are all there. The purohit doesn’t show any sign of recognising him. There are, however, around eight or ten people
, mostly women, who have come to worship. They are all distracted by the presence of a bhaloo and a bhaloo-wallah. Lakshman sets up his station a few yards from the temple. He begins playing the damru and the sing-song chant inviting people to come and see the dancing bear. Lakshman keeps this up until enough people have gathered, maybe twenty or thirty. A couple of cars have stopped and their passengers have come out to see what’s going on – who knows if they’ll stay? These people have more money, Lakshman knows, than the townspeople. He begins to sing his incomplete film-songs while tugging on the rope that goes through Raju’s nose. Raju jigs and cavorts and walks round in a circle. How dirty and dusty his pelt looks, Lakshman thinks, but look at his claws – they look like miniature swords made out of grey iron. The butterflies on that stream: how beautiful they were; and Raju enchanted, too.
On a whim, Lakshman says – If you give him something, he will take it, he knows how to accept things.
He knows he is tempting Fate but hopes that Shiva, so near him, will send him his blessing. Lakshman leads the upright Raju around in a circle. The bear’s front paws are held near his throat, as if he is a supplicant in this court of spectators. Lakshman picks out a man from the inner circle and says – Give him something, go on, something small, a fruit or a vegetable, he’ll take it. The man looks embarrassed; he doesn’t move. But the man next to him says – Here, take – and fishes out a banana. Lakshman gently touches his stick to Raju’s front paws. The animal extends one of them towards the fruit and, miraculously, as if Shiva really has seen what is going on in Lakshman’s head, Raju makes a bowl of his paw – Lakshman can see the grey pads, like stones held in the bear’s palm – and lets the man give him a banana, which he wolfs in an eye-blink, even as the people are clapping and expressing their amazement at his darling cleverness. Lakshman is, to begin with, stunned; he recovers himself quickly – it wouldn’t do to let anyone guess what a fluke the trick was – and lets his heart swell with gratitude for Shiva.
A State of Freedom Page 15