by Vadhan
‘I know you cannot understand Telugu, so I will speak in English. Please forgive errors, thank you,’ said the man.
Sheila nodded again. Vidush sat right next to her; he glared at all of them as though they were the main suspects in a murder case.
‘Tell me lady, what we can do for you?’ Raju asked her, in hesitant English.
‘Mr. Raju, the government is setting up a wind energy and hydro energy plant in this place. You might have read about it in the local newspapers.’
It was now Raju’s turn to nod.
‘However, there is resistance among the villagers. They seem to think we are here to take their lands away. Nothing could be further from the truth. If things go as planned, every man, woman and child in Gudem will benefit from what we’re going to do.’
‘Lady, what you want from us?’ Chelapathi Raju asked again.
‘I want you to help us start our work as soon as possible.’
‘How we can assist you?’
‘We need to test locations for wind power density. The other places we tested around here are not good enough. The only place left to test it is the open ground around the memorial hall. You need to convince Mr. Surya, the owner of the land, to cooperate with us.’
Chelapathi Raju translated Sheila’s request to the rest of the Panchayat council members who were till then clueless.
One of the members said to Chelapathi Raju in Telugu, ‘The Raakshas that hunts by the night will not let them anywhere near the Hall. It will kill them all. These people will not believe it even if we tell them. We should let them deal with Babu Garu.’
‘Dearest Lady,’ Chelapathi Raju said, ‘why you not talk to Babu Garu on your own?’
‘To whom?’
Raju smiled. ‘We are what we are today because of the Surya family. Do you understand? From landless penniless labour, we are today tillers of our own land because Rajah Surya Prasad Surya Bahadur Garu, God bless him, gave every labourer and farmer working for him a piece of land, an identity, and pride. So we called him Rajah Garu, a king among men, not only by title but by character. Raghuram is his son. What his father could not do, he did. He has, what to say…err…created Trusts and Foundations that take care of the people of two thousand villages. He lives by earning money through lawyer work while his family fortune is used for us. We call him Babu Garu because there are no kings anymore, at least that’s what they tell us.’
Sheila listened to the man.
‘And you want me to talk to your Babu Garu? Will he talk to me?’
‘I don’t see why not? You could have tried talking to him before you requisitioned his land.’
It was not Chelapathi Raju who spoke, nor any of the council members. Sheila turned around in her seat to see who the crisp voice belonged to. Before her stood a short, rather intense looking man. He had close military cropped hair and he wore a sleeveless white cotton shirt and a crisp white dhoti, like the rest of the farmers.
‘Who are you?’
‘Err...he is Poti...you know the guy I told you about,’ Vidush said.
‘My Name is Krishna Naidu, Madam. I am the castle caretaker,’ said Poti in accentless English.
‘Will you set up the meeting then? Is Mr. Su... I mean Babu Garu, here in Gudem?’
‘We’ll come back to you. Leave your phone number with Chelapathi,’ Poti said. The squat man nodded once to the council members before walking away. He hopped into an off roader and whizzed away in a cloud of dust.
Sheila started to say something but checked herself.
‘Yes?’ said Chelapathi Raju.
She shrugged as if to say, ‘what the Hell’. ‘You do realise that there is a law which abolished Princely States and all the lands were anyway supposed to be seized and redistributed among the landless. It’s not as though Surya’s father did you people a favour by giving you the land.’
Chelapathi Raju let out a yip of a laugh. Like a gunshot. Then he explained it to his fellow council members. All of them joined in with their own yips. Like several guns going off.
‘Lady, Rajah Garu gave the lands to us in the year 1946, one year before independence of India. He was all of twelve years at the time. The Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land Reforms Act, it came to force in the year, 1973. Rajah Surya Prasad was no more when the law came into force. Is there anything else?’
Sheila stared at the man for a time. She made no move to leave. ‘Why? Why did he do it?’
‘Because he lost nothing and gained the love of two thousand villages. His urban properties are more than enough for the royal family to live in comfort. You see lady, he needed the goodwill of the villagers to do what he had to do.’
‘And what might that be?’
Chelapathi Raju sighed. ‘That’s something only old pichi Rathaya can tell you. If you want answers, speak to him.’
‘Why can’t you tell me?’ Sheila asked.
‘Because I don’t know what Rajah Garu did on that fateful night. None of us do. We were forbidden ever to ask about it. Only one man among us who was there when Rajah Surya Prasad Surya died in 1971 really knows it and that’s pichi Rathaya. I don’t know if he would even tell you, but you can try.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘where do I find pichi Rathaya?’
Chelapathi Raju heaved a mighty sigh. ‘The word pichi is not part of his name, dear lady. In Telugu, my mother tongue, pichi means ‘mad’. He lives down the country road you took to get here; you can’t miss it. The road leads right up to his old shack. One other thing, I told this to Sathyanarayana before he went missing. Don’t interfere with things that you cannot understand.’
‘Did Sathi speak to you? What happened to him and his family?’
‘Dear lady, if I tell what happened to the young fool, you will not believe. So I will not tell. I only pray that you do not become target of same fate as Sathyanarayana. I beg you, please do not concern yourself with this place.’
Sheila smiled her icy smile, ‘Oh, but it concerns me Mr. Raju. Thank you anyway.’
A short drive led them to a single thatched roof hut near a running stream. It must have been a river once, going by the sand colouration. There were a few palm and mango trees around the hut. An old man with skin the colour of copper was seated on an easy chair outside the hut, staring at the skies through a pair of dark glasses. Sheila requested the driver to ask around for Rathaya.
‘Madam, the blind man with the dark glasses is pichi Rathaya. He says he will see you,’ the driver reported.
Sheila and Vidush approached the man. He waved for them to sit next to him on a couple of old cane easy chairs. He was blind. They could tell by his mannerisms. The scientists thanked him and lowered themselves into the chairs. His face was creased with age but he was sturdy. Rathaya radiated tranquillity, a sense of complete ease not easily found amongst people.
‘We are here to ask about...’ the driver started to say in Telugu.
The man lifted a wrinkled but sturdy hand. He spoke in perfect English.
‘Do you know how old I am, Miss?’
‘No sir.’
‘Ninety-five.’
Sheila baulked at him. The man had a set of strong if slightly greyish teeth and a head full of salt and pepper hair. Except for the fact that he was blind, he seemed to be healthy in all respects and did not appear a day older than seventy.
‘What can I do for you?’ Rathaya asked after giving sufficient time for the information to sink in.
‘You speak excellent English sir; I was wondering how?’ Sheila asked him.
Rathaya smiled ruefully.
‘I accompanied Rajah Garu during his home tuitions. He could not go to a regular school after he lost the use of his feet. I was his personal guard. But, he treated me like a brother. He made me learn all that he did.’
The old man fell silent, as though collecting his thoughts. ‘However,’ said Rathaya all of a sudden, ‘I assume you did not come all this way to ask me that.’
Sheila stared at the
man, even more surprised. Did he know why they were visiting him? How could he?
‘I was told to talk to you about Rajah Surya Prasad and what may have happened to him. Can you help us?’
Rathaya was contemplative for a moment before he spoke.
‘The concept of maya was prevalent in ancient India. By maya, I mean illusion. The Ancients, in their wisdom, said the root cause of all evil is illusion in its many permutations and combinations. They said if you really see the world for what it is, there is nothing to see. All that we hear, see and feel are tricks played by maya on our mind. Are you familiar with it?’ he asked Sheila.
‘Yes sir... I have heard of it. Everything is an illusion and therefore all that we see is not real except for God. It’s a very Hindu and Buddhist philosophy that espouses the cause of renouncing earthly needs and assets for a realisation of the so-called “self ”.’
Rathaya nodded happily.
‘Yet, it took scientists like you all this time to figure out that at the sub-atomic level, everything is nothing and nothing is everything, we are all atoms. Our senses therefore are fooled by maya, the imagery that our mind recollects for us. What we believe to be the world around us is really not there, wouldn’t you agree?’
Sheila was astonished by the blind man’s casual take on quantum theories.
‘Yes, it took a lot of time for the modern scientist to catch up with what you call the wisdom of the “Ancients”.’
‘Yet, dear Sheila Garu, illusion will inextricably bind you until the time this is over.’
‘What do you mean by that? How do you know my name?’ Sheila asked, a little perturbed.
Rathaya did not answer her. Instead, he said, ‘Babu Garu will not come to see me and I cannot go to him. You realise, I am blind to your world and my world will lead me elsewhere. You must convince him to talk to me. He must learn to wield the Agniputr before it’s too late. It’s been long enough that he has avoided his destiny. The bindings we laid on the abomination are wearing thin. They will not last much longer. It will break free very soon.’
‘What bindings? What abomination? Who will break free? Sir, you’re not making any sense.’
Rathaya appeared to be in a different world, altogether. ‘The experiment, you see, it failed,’ he said. ‘That is why the Sable Parch is trying to contain something that ought to have been destroyed. The containment will not work for ever. It was only supposed to be a temporary measure, just to gain time. But we’ve lost too much time.’
‘Which experiment are you referring to?’
‘It was treachery...treachery did us all in.’
‘Please, you have to be more specific.’
‘When you meet Babu Garu tomorrow, bring him to me. Please...you must convince him. Only you can.’
Sheila’s mouth dropped open. The old man was simply inexplicable. How did he know she was meeting Raghuram Surya the next day?
Sheila was certain they were his first visitors. The panchayat members could not have preceded them. It was the only track from the grove to Rathaya’s hut for miles. Yet, Rathaya, considered as insane, knew she would meet Raghuram Surya in the morrow. Was it something about his uncanny ability that made others brand him as mad? She thought it best to ask the old man.
‘How did you know I am to meet him tomorrow?’
Rathaya smiled, ‘It’s a small world. Word travels Miss. After all, we are all atoms, don’t you know that atoms communicate with each other? Don’t you think they speak to each other?’ the man laughed. ‘After all, the Copenhagen interpretation established that atomic particles communicated with each other when observed. Am I wrong?’
By this time Sheila was in tears. She did not quite know why she was crying. It was definitely not grief. It was more of wonder. A magical creature had presented itself to her and she was enthralled by its capabilities. So much so that all she could do was cry. Nothing had prepared her for this extraordinary old man.
‘No sir, you are not wrong,’ she said shakily.
‘Yet, you don’t know how I am right.’ The man laughed merrily, which morphed his otherwise sombre face into a Santa Claus countenance.
‘They tell me a lot of things, the atoms. People think I am crazy, pichi Rathaya, but am I? What is not crazy, Miss Sheila? I am living proof that quantum physics, or at least some part of it, is sound. What if I tell you that this blind old man sees everything, but at a sub-atomic level? What if I tell you that this is my curse? What if I tell you that when I die I live on, hence death is also an illusion? I am everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Seems very hard to believe I surely know.’
‘Yes sir. It is very hard to believe you know all this.’
‘Ah! But that is the unfortunate side effect of failing to wield the Agniputr.’
Agniputr! It was the second time Rathaya had mentioned it.
‘What is the Agniputr?’ she asked in a shaky voice.
Rathaya ignored her question.
‘Please be my emissary, my dear scientist. Tell Babu Garu to meet me. There is much to discuss.’
He removed his dark glasses and trained his sight on her.
Sheila froze. Her wonder melted like a snowflake in the desert. Terror gripped her instead. Blind terror. She could hear Vidush’s ragged breathing. Their driver was on his feet.
Rathaya had no iris. A blood red nerve ran horizontally across the white of each eye like an overlaying thread.
The old man put his glasses back on. He resumed his gaze skyward.
It was a dismissal. Sheila knew deep inside that he was watching their every move and that he would continue to watch them until they met with Raghuram Surya and conveyed his message. What would happen beyond that, she did not know. All she knew was that, like a pawn in a game of chess, she was being gravitated inexorably towards Raghuram Surya, a man she admired and despised at the same time.
CHAPTER 14
THE Xenon came to a smooth halt. Raghu stepped out of the vehicle. He was dressed in a black T-shirt, open at the neck and black jeans. He just stood there for a while, drinking in the sight of his castle. Memories surged through him like a tidal wave. It happened each time he returned to his roots, as though the place was pleading with him not to forget it.
Raghu climbed the steep stairs leading to the porch but in his mind he was that ten-year-old boy holding his grandmother’s hand on one side and his mother’s on the other as he climbed the very same stairs that led to his castle. Poti walked behind Raghu with his luggage. One of the servants rushed forward and relieved Poti of his charge.
Krishna Naidu was short, just about five feet and therefore his nickname, Potodu, which meant ‘short fellow’ in Telugu. Almost everyone called him Poti. His muscular frame and a quick mind made up for the apparent shortfall in height.
‘I hadn’t opened your quarters upstairs in months, didn’t have time to clean up the place, it took seven of us all of a whole day to set it right, I wish I could clean up this place more often,’ Poti said.
‘Clean up this place? That’d take years…’ Surya laughed.
‘Just your room and the central courtyard, I can’t hope to clean the Khazana room or the armoury though sometimes occasionally, I clean up the prayer room as well.’
‘Khazana-treasury, armoury...words from a different life time. I don’t mention this place even to my friends, they wouldn’t believe me,’ Raghu said wryly.
‘Do you still have that dream of being chased around the Kota in your underpants?’ Poti’s eyes were dancing with humour.
‘Oh yes...Poti...but not as often as I used to. It still scares the living daylights out of me. The best part is, I don’t know what’s chasing me. There are two of them, a guy holding a couple of swords and something else that I cannot quite see.’
‘I guess, err...are you sure it wasn’t a vision of you being chased by all your girlfriends?’
Raghu grinned evilly. ‘Not girlfriends, I am sure...why would I run? Besides it’s a nightmare from when I was a ki
d.’
‘A premonition of things to come, perhaps?’ Poti teased.
Raghu stepped into the main hall on the ground level of the old castle. Gunny bags of rice, sugarcane, mangoes...the aroma of all of them mixed, inexorable, fired images into his mind’s eye. They brought the tears out every time. The longer he was away from the castle, the more painful was the return. The limestone walls, the huge wooden rafters on the high, almost dark ceiling, the sheer feel of the castle brought the loneliness out into the open like an uncleaned sewer. An emptiness so deep that it could never be filled. A love so giving from his loved ones long gone that none could compensate for it. The loss was so painful that he could not ever love anyone again.
Raghu could almost hear his grandmother’s walking stick on the granite slabs of the winding first floor veranda, tchak, tchak!
‘Babu Raghu, don’t get too close to the well...My son…’ her words still echoed in his mind. His lips trembled with the emotion that surged through him as though he was a breached dam. ‘Nanama,’ he called out to her in the empty room, though she was long gone.
He let his hands run over the twenty-foot rosewood doors of his castle. It gleamed dully in the morning sun. His skin against the intricate designs, the dust clinging to him like a long lost lover.
Raghu figured Poti had maintained the place better than he cared to mention. The short side tables were still intact, legs designed like elephant trunks. The craftsmanship was a mixture of the many influences on Indian art, Mughal, European, and Hindu. Surya sat tentatively on one of the sofas; his fingers felt the familiar velvety softness of the fabric when his eyes fell on the old gramophone record player with the built in speakers in the corner of the room.
‘It still works but the needles have to be filed. I can have one of the lads do it if you want me to,’ Poti offered. Raghu had not realised Poti was right behind him.
‘Yes please,’ Raghu said thickly.
‘Consider it done, Babu.’ Poti left the room, calling for Musali, Chander, Yenkana and the rest of his retinue.
Surya was now in the square central courtyard. There was a bunch of plantain trees right in the middle, just like in the old days. On all four sides, verandas led to other parts of the Kota. One led to the huge pooja room with its myriad photographs and paintings of almost all the gods in the Hindu pantheon.