In the Shadow of Crows

by David Charles Manners

  And when a difficult and restless sleep eventually came, she dreamt of mountains. Of the Shakti Tree, gundruk and churpi. Of Jayashri, Jamini and Jiwan.

  Back at Varanasi City Station, Bindra had explained in slow, clear Nepali to the man at the window that she needed two tickets to the mountains. She had told him that she was going to find her son. His name was Jiwan. Perhaps he had seen him some weeks ago? Small boy, dressed like an Aghori Baba.

  Jyothi had opened the folded newspaper for his mother and had shown the disinterested ticket-wallah the money given to them by the temple priest, to prove that they could pay. The unexpected sight of a bundle of rupee notes in the possession of such a vagabond hillwoman and unkempt child had naturally caught the clerk’s attention. He had counted up the money, then passed over the counter two Gclass tickets to Dinantapur Junction, northwards in Rohilkhand.

  “No seat guaranteed!” he had shouted at Bindra twice, in English. She had not understood.

  Eighteen long hours later, the train finally dragged itself into Dinantapur Junction. Bindra struggled to her feet in the mayhem of a station arrival. She peered out of the small, barred window above them. She could see no hills. She breathed in the scalding air. She could smell no forest.

  Jyothi clung to his mother’s ragged sari as they anxiously descended into the boisterous crowds on the platform. Bindra directed him towards the communal tap, where they filled their water canister and washed their faces. They peered across the platforms in both directions. No mountains.

  Bindra waited and watched. She decided they had better follow the jostling tide, but quickly found themselves forced and pushed until they were outside, exposed to the full flare of searing sunlight. Bindra was panting for air beneath her shawl, but did not dare expose her hands or head to public view. She did not fear for herself. Only for Jyothi.

  Bindra drew her son towards the shade of the station canopy and sat to gather her thoughts.

  “Are we where we’re meant to be?” Jyothi asked, offering his mother gritty, metallic-tasting water from the canister.

  Bindra scanned the horizon. A shimmering mirage of wilting rickshaw-wallahs, brightly painted lorries, rusting buses and crumbling concrete desiccated in an infernal haze.

  Suddenly, the roar of “Jaldi jao! Jao! Jao!”

  A policeman was storming towards them with fierce intent, raising his baton with every savage order for them to “Get moving fast!”.

  Bindra stood tall and drew Jyothi close to her side.

  “Dajoo,” she began, smiling at the perspiring officer, “elder brother, please tell us where we go to find the mountains . . .”

  “Saali kutti!” he spat at her.

  “We have come very far to find my youngest son. His name is Jiwan. Could you direct us to the Aghori Babas?” “Yahan se nikal ja, kutiyaa!”

  She did not understand the words. She did not need to.

  Bindra and Jyothi turned their faces from the angry, vicious man and scuttled out into the sunlight.

  ***

  “Did you know Sah’b-baje took a princess as a wife?” Phupu asked, resting a papery hand on my shoulder. The day had passed with inexplicable speed, as we had acquainted each other with our family histories, giving credence to an array of inherited tales.

  “Sah’b-baje?” I asked.

  “British-master-grandfather,” she awkwardly translated, sending the rest of the room into hearty guffaws. “Your Uncle Oscar.”

  “Ah yes, my Grandmother spoke of her, my great-aunt who was a princess,” I nodded enthusiastically. “She said people stepped off the path when she approached and bowed their heads.”

  “Her name was Isi Mutanchi,” Phupu smiled fondly, “but in our Nepali way, she was known as Kaili-boju, ‘fourth-daughtergrandmother’. She was a Lepcha, one of the local tribe from these hills, whose father was the Raja of Phuptshering and the Mandal Overlord of Pachin - you know, where Margaret’s Hope tea estate now lies, near Darjeeling.” I did not. “Well, Sah’b-baje had fallen very sick with dysentery in his own tea-garden at Turzum. Very sick indeed. He was not just an important man, but was much liked and respected. He did so many good things to help the people and improve their lives. Clean water, medicines, cinchona, and all. So the Raj-kumari, the Princess Isi, nursed him. She saved his life, they fell in love . . . the rest you must know.”

  Phupu was brimming with history and proud of her past. Proud of her improbable mix of English, Swedish, Nepali and Lepcha blood.

  “And do you understand her name, Mutanchi?” she asked.

  I shook my head, longing for her to continue.

  “Mutanchi is the name the Lepcha give themselves,” she explained. “It means ‘Beloved of the Mother’, of the goddess Itbumoo - Mother Nature, if you like. They’re a remarkably friendly people, peace-loving and uncomplicated. They live in the forest, with names in their Rongring language for every bird, plant and butterfly to be found in these mountains, which delighted Sah’b-baje. He was a passionate naturalist and won awards in London for his lepidopteran studies - you see how he taught me that impossible word! But the Britishers just couldn’t train the Lepchas to work the tea-gardens. They would throw off all the clothes that the planters and missionaries had made them wear in an instant - and run back into the trees, laughing and singing! Perhaps you already know of their reputation? It still enthrals anthropologists - and shocks priests of all persuasions!” she chuckled. “So the sah’bs shipped in the Nepalis instead.”

  I was fascinated.

  “But, of course, Sah’b-baje lived in very different times. The Britishers did not approve of such mixed-race unions. Their Christian god-wallahs refused to marry them. He had to keep Kailiboju secret, even here, and hide the children when Europeans passed through, to avoid a scandal. Even when Mallory and Irvine called in on their fateful route to Everest, we all had to stay down below without a whisper, until the coast was clear! And yet, you know, Sah’b-baje - your Uncle Oscar - loved and cared for all his family, unlike many of those Britishers in India who disowned and discarded their chi-chi children to the street, or abandoned them to orphanages.”

  Phupu rested back into her sagging chair and sighed with her memories. Again, I was back in Sussex, back with my Grandmother.

  “It was in the same basement room where we used to hide,” she continued, drawing me closer, “that, after Sah’b-baje’s passing, we found hidden bundles upon bundles of English pound notes. Perhaps it was the upheavals of Independence and Partition, but in those days rumours were running wild. My parents were assured that, with the demise of the Raj, the Bank of England had also collapsed, and because of the fall of the Bank of Simla some twenty years before, we all believed it. For months on end, these big bundles of Sah’bbaje’s money, his secret savings for our security, were played with by us children in our silly games, then used as kindling on the kitchen fire - yes, I know, I know! - until all were reduced to ashes ...”

  The appearance of a silent servant girl in the doorway brought the recounting of family tales to a disappointing end. She bowed her head and indicated to Phupu that dinner was served. I was led through unlit corridors and down a staircase to a feast illuminated by candle and oil lamp. Steaming pots of sticky rice, vegetable curries of ginger and garlic. Spicy raw salads, eggs baked in a creamy coriander sauce, served with a variety of fresh rotis.

  As at distant Dalba, the family did not eat with me. Only Samuel kept me company at the table. The others stood to watch with manifest delight at my every mouthful, taking it in turns to plunge forwards with spoons piled high and refill my plate, despite my remonstrations.

  As a band of “cousin-brothers” prepared once again to escort me through the darkness and back to the hotel, my indulgent “aunties” asked me to stay, to live with them in Kalimpong.

  “Don’t leave, cousin!” they begged. “Learn Nepali here wi
th us. And we’ll find you a good and beautiful wife!”

  They all laughed out loud and slapped their palms.

  So I laughed too, even as I fought to restrain the searing memory of slim, dark fingers that had once entwined and loved my own.

  ***

  Bindra and Jyothi were tired. They had walked slowly, from stretch of shade to length of shadow. The heat was unbearable.

  As they wilted behind the trunk of a dead tree, Bindra threw off her shawl and gasped for air, hair limp with perspiration, damaged scalp throbbing with new infection. She longed for a mountain stream in which to plunge. Even the thought brought a sighing smile.

  “Ama,” Jyothi mumbled through dry lips, “have you taken your foreigners’ medicine today?”

  She had not.

  “We have to take care with our water and there isn’t enough for me to swallow them,” she admitted, trying to dip a narrow edge of her shawl into the canister to wipe his face and eyes. “Now drink,” she insisted, awkwardly lifting the metal container to his mouth between her wrists.

  “But Ama, you must!” Jyothi implored, his lips soft again and glistening as his thin, pink tongue explored their wetness. “I only needed a sip, so there’s plenty left for your paraiharuko dabai.”

  Bindra was unconvinced she needed to continue taking the Doctor-Madam’s pills. The kindly woman had already told her that the disease had been stopped in its destructive course. Surely it was better, then, to save the remaining medicine in case it ever returned. Surely it was better to keep it stored, in case she were ever to discover a new birthmark on any of her chora-chori children.

  However, to appease the anxiety of her son, Bindra turned to her carrying cloth, cumbersome and heavy with the doctor’s boxes. She pushed one towards him, and he drew out a single, silver strip, polka-dotted with three different-coloured tablets. Jyothi squinted as the aluminium flashed in the aestival blaze, then abruptly, instinctively flinched.

  A thin man with high cheekbones and harshly coloured hair had silently appeared beside them. He was dressed in bright-bleached kurta pajama and exposed a bloody grin.

  “Namaste-ji,” he beamed, spitting a heavy globule of suparistained saliva into the dust. “Aap kaha aai ho?” he enquired with a nasal whine through darkly discoloured teeth.

  Jyothi moved closer to his mother and wrapped his fingers around her forearm. He did not like this man. He did not want him near her.

  The intense heat had slowed Bindra’s responses, and she suddenly realised the hairless scarring across her head was still openly exposed. She self-consciously drew up her shawl.

  Having induced no response, the man turned to Jyothi and asked, “Thik hai?”

  This Bindra understood. She rocked her head in courtesy, even as she turned away, to indicate that all was well.

  Bindra drew Jyothi to sit on her other side and together they quickly wrapped the medicine back into the cloth.

  “Behenji, kya baat hai?” the man asked, moving to sit beside Bindra.

  She shook her head to show she did not understand his Hindi and hurriedly instructed Jyothi to tightly tie the knot.

  “Kya aapko chot lagee hai?” he pressed, pointing to her head, then indicating with his smooth, raised chin towards her fingerless hands and heavily bound feet.

  “Aapka ghar kaha hai?” he tried.

  This Bindra thought she understood. He wanted to know where they lived.

  “Paharma,” she replied quietly, eager to move away from the unsettling, intrusive stranger. “In the mountains.”

  Despite her caution not to engage with his eyes, the man became animated with her concession to respond.

  “Dinantapurme?” he continued. “And in Dinantapur?”

  Bindra shook her head and struggled to her feet. She looked from side to side, but did not know in which direction to start walking. It was impossible for her to move in this heat. Impossible for her to think.

  The man rose to stand in front of them. He grinned his scarlet gash at Jyothi and stretched out long, thin fingers to take his hand. Jyothi recoiled and plunged his face into his mother’s pharia sari.

  The man sniggered.

  “Aaiye,” he said, beckoning them to follow him. “Ghar! Ghar!” he pointed with affected excitement.

  The tall, thin man in the bright-bleached kurta seemed to be promising them a house.

  ***

  I awoke to discover that I had slept through a great storm.

  Rain squalled across perse peaks, filtering dawn light into fickle, iridian hues. Ghoulish clouds hung low over a sodden landscape, trailing in vast wreaths about fantastic hills.

  My new cousin Samuel had insisted upon keeping me company at the Himalayan View the previous night. I had felt him tremble as his arm slipped round to hold me as I prepared to sleep. He had said it was their custom, that his parents would be proud, and with some glee asserted that his cousin-brothers would now be jealous that he had been “the chosen one”.

  After breakfast porridge, we shared a soapy bucket-bath, then strolled out into clarty streets. Samuel first led me up to the old Scottish church, its stained glass lately broken when a schism in an already diminished congregation had resulted in the hurling of bricks to vent a doctrinal sulk. We tried the doors, but found them locked, so squelched through soggy cottage garden, muddy chicken yard and on to forest in which a hillside graveyard lay. Above us, punk-fuzzed monkeys grumbled in the wet, whilst far below, beneath a pall of mist, the Teesta scored between Bengal and Sikkim its circuitous incision.

  Samuel clutched fast my arm as we braved a dangerous declivity to press on amongst dense scrub and scattered stones. Monsoonmellowed epitaphs bore witness to the lives of lowland missionaries who had arrived with foreign burr and Bible, only to soon sicken in exotic climes and swiftly merge with mountain humus.

  Beneath dark, dripping trees, Samuel slowed us to a halt.

  “This is where they lie,” he whispered, I thought to mark respect. “So now let’s go,” he hissed and tugged to draw me back.

  I stood astonished to have reached this isolated patch of unmarked ground, precariously perched on a Himalayan foothill’s fragile slope. And yet to now know the tranquil saturation of this place, that to another would bear no significance or worldly worth, was the culmination of an abundant life of familial inheritance and grandmotherly affection.

  “Dajoo, please!” Samuel intruded with a beseeching scowl. “I’ve got the proper creeps!”

  “Just one last thing,” I insisted, bending to place a hand upon the earth. I touched my heart and spoke aloud the names of Uncle Oscar and Aunt Isi, then chose a stone to fit my pocket.

  Samuel crouched to peer in puzzlement at my quirk.

  “A final gift my Grandmother asked of me,” I explained. “From

  Uncle Oscar’s resting place to hers . . .”

  I looked hard into the trunk-cut mist. I had now eaten a mango from its tree, as she had asked, and held a Dalit. I had sat with sadhus and collected a memento of a grave. I had fulfilled her every wish, and yet found no solace in their attainment. Only sorrow at one more conclusion. Sadness at another end.

  “Well, good! You’ve done your duty,” Samuel hurried his approval, glancing anxiously around as though bhut ghosts might be prepared to leave their foggy peace and hunt us home. “So now,” he spluttered in my ear, pulling on my shoulders to heave me upright, “let’s please be getting out of here!”

  We dredged our way back into town where, despite the weather, the haat market bustled, barter babbling over vegetables and fruits, bloody meat and stinking fish. Drifts of embroidered shawls and woolly jumpers, kitchen utensils and handmade tools. Neat bluffs of churpi yak’s cheese and murcha yeast-pats to ferment chhang millet-brew. Tumbles of milk lollipops, flip-flops, Durga-covered calendars and all the paraphernal
ia of puja.

  Then, the spices!

  Multi-hued hillocks of clove, cassia, coriander seed and peppercorn, heaped high onto squares of saffron cloth. Turmeric for colouring, preserving and treating tender inflammation. Pink garlic, bay and curry leaves for flavour. Sweet cardamom to fragrance puddings, and knotty clumps of ginger root to make digestive teas. Tamarind, fenugreek and mustard. Cumin, aniseed and mace. Mountainous rainbow ranges of tongue-scalding chillies of every size and shape, piled into sparkling pans of beaten brass.

  I closed my eyes to draw the piquant air deep into my chest.

  I was instantly back in Priya’s house. Her mother cooking dhansak and chopping kachumber. Her sisters grating jaggery and nutmeg. Her father sitting in his armchair watching Betamax Bollywood and crunching crisp, peppery papads that glistened with warm peanut oil. The sudden clarity of memory offered unexpected comfort and I found myself smiling, even as it stole my spice-laced breath.

  Samuel clasped tight my hand in his and drew me on through boisterous crowds. Deep amongst the throng, beside a stinking culvert clogged with sewage-caked plastic and rat-gnawed cat, I caught sight of an elderly Nepali in tatty traditional dress. The old man bowed, beaming in delight as we crouched to scan the dusty offerings scattered across his damp blanket stall. I rummaged through mouse-dropping-peppered piles of mani prayer wheels and japamala prayer beads, insect-riddled manuscripts and mothmunched cloth. And all the while, the aged peddler looked backwards and forwards, from Samuel to me.

  He spoke and Samuel chuckled, translating that the old man had asked if it were possible we were related.

  “Why would he think that?” I asked, bemused.

  “He says we feel like brothers!” Samuel laughed and proudly hugged my arm with both of his.

  Beneath the clutter, I found a wormy wooden plaque inscribed with angular calligraphy. I asked its price. The Nepali shook his head and told Samuel that he could not let me walk away with anything so beetle-tooled and broken. He attempted to direct my attention instead to a cardboard box of shiny, new trinkets. I insisted on the ancient board.