Kaushalya laughed at her fears. “Nimmo, you are always worrying about something. One day at least leave all your fears at home and relax!”
Nimmo’s face tightened stubbornly. “If you want you can go and sit up front. I’m staying here with my daughter,” she said firmly, holding Kamal close. All she knew was that they were in the middle of a crowd of about fifty thousand people and that crowds were unpredictable— they could go berserk with joy or anger, it didn’t matter which. Look at the tragedy at the Kumbh Mela last year— a million people celebrating a holy event, and for some little thing there was a stampede, killing hundreds. This was a country of excesses, and Nimmo was determined not to be a victim ever again.
She sat there for an hour listening to Mrs. Gandhi’s nasal, strident voice echoing and whistling through the loudspeakers set up all over the field, outlining her plans to eradicate poverty, to raise literacy, to improve the lives of the people of the country. She had heard versions of the same speech before and knew there was truth to what Satpal had said about a politician’s worthless promises.
And yet, there was something about the tiny figure draped in a sari on that stage, the leader of one of the largest and most confusing countries in the world, that moved Nimmo unutterably. She admired Indira Gandhi, she thought tearfully, she adored her, she would vote for her always. Perhaps someday her Kamal would also become prime minister. At that moment, surrounded as she was by thousands of rapt faces, the lights of the city flickering to life as dusk descended and promises echoing all around, everything seemed possible.
FOURTEEN
INTERLUDE
Vancouver
October 1971
October flew in on the back of a cold wind laden with regret for another year’s ending. Front yards sprouted scarecrows, bats and ghosts cut out from black and white cardboard, witch’s hats were propped up on poles and cobwebs were sprayed on to bushes. Bright orange pumpkins of all sizes sat on doorsteps grinning crookedly, waiting for dusk, when their black eyes would light up with the glow of candles. Trees shook their nude branches at the solemn Vancouver sky, and on the ground leaves rustled and whispered and occasionally lifted and whirled like brightly garbed dervishes. It rained briefly and the leaves settled into heaps of muddled wetness. A puddle glinted like an uneven silver coin on the dark road outside the house.
Leela stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes. It was a day off from her job at The Bay, where she worked in the shoe department. Her neighbour Elena, the white-haired woman who had smiled at Leela the morning she had first arrived in Vancouver, and with whom she had developed a warm friendship, was a manager at the department store and had suggested she apply there when a vacancy had come up three years ago. Leela enjoyed the days she worked there, and the company of the other salesgirls, especially Erin, a pretty blonde with large, sad eyes, who wiped the cash desk clean repeatedly with a mixture of vinegar and water. She had long, beautiful hands of which she was very proud and which she kept soft by applying cream from a tube in her purse every hour. Erin had showed Leela around the store, covered up for her when she made mistakes and generally made her feel less of a foreigner and a stranger. In the early days, before Leela learned to deal with rude or demanding customers herself, it was Erin who unobtrusively managed the situation.
“She’s like One of Us,” Leela had told Balu at the end of her first month at work. “Exactly like.”
She finished the dishes and moved to the service counter separating the tiny kitchen from the living-cum-dining room, carefully balancing her knife, the cutting board and a bowl of vegetables. From there she had a clear view of Arjun moping on the battered couch in front of the television. Now fourteen years old, he was a lanky boy, with long hair curling around his ears and down his forehead, partially obscuring his thin face.
The front door banged open and Preethi, a small, round and confident ten-year-old, came in, followed by three other children—Matt, who lived next door, Jasbeer and Wendy Wu. Leela looked up from the dishes and smiled at the chorus of greetings—Hello Mrs. Bhat, Hi Aunty-ji, Hello Mrs. Bhat—and the thud of feet as the four friends made their way up to Preethi’s room. At least one of her children appeared to have slipped into life here with wild enthusiasm, Leela thought. She guiltily remembered her initial antagonism towards the Chinese, and now here was Wendy, her daughter’s best friend. Preethi had met her in Mrs. Wu’s shop the first time Bibi-ji had taken Leela there to buy vegetables. But the two girls had not spoken until school started and they found themselves in the same class. The friendship, Leela discovered from Preethi, had been sealed when Wendy offered Preethi candy from the stash she always carried in her school bag and, in exchange, received a marble that Preethi had stolen from Arjun. Leela and Wendy’s mother, Linda Wu, had also established a friendship based on their mutual scorn of the Canadian education system.
“No math, no sentence formation, no spelling, what kind of education?” Leela demanded, as she and Linda waited outside the classroom for their daughters to emerge.
“Only play, play, play,” Linda agreed. “No homework. No classwork. Play play play!”
“Phonetic spelling!” Leela said with disgust. “Spell any way, and then learn later how to do it right! What kind of thing is this? When we were children …” And so they went, the two women, happily dissecting western ways, agreeing that whether Chinese or Indian, the eastern way was best in the end, worrying about their children’s abilities compared with those of the genius kids back home.
And then, in 1968, Jasbeer had joined Preethi’s group, a year older than them all, tall, lost, awkward and inarticulate at first, unable to understand anything the three children said to him because the only languages he knew were Hindi and Punjabi. But in the way of children, whose minds and tongues and hearts are malleable, Jasbeer learned swiftly enough, although he still seemed to Leela an intense boy given to dark moods.
She raised her head and listened to the sounds coming from Preethi’s room above for a minute or two, and was reassured by the muffled laughter. A little more than four years had passed since she had stepped into this house. The phone book that had seemed such a catalogue of strangers that first day was now crowded with friends and acquaintances: the Singhs of course, the Majumdars, Elena from next door, Matt’s parents Brian and Cathy, other Indians scattered around Vancouver, her colleagues at The Bay, Balu’s colleagues, Wendy’s mother … the list went on. The Indians especially were now her family, Leela thought affectionately. As for her children, they must be grateful for the number of Aunties and Uncles they had acquired since their arrival here.
“What are you watching, Arjun?” Leela asked, looking over at her son.
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing? Obviously it is something that you are watching. It looks like The Brady Bunch. Is it?”
“So if you know what I’m watching, why are you asking me?” Arjun demanded.
“I was just … never mind. Did you finish your lunch?” Mundane details were comforting. They could be answered with a simple yes or no, could make Leela feel she was still in control, could still take care of her children. Are you hungry, are you sleepy, did you brush your teeth, do you need money for bus fare? Any other topic took her into the pre-adolescent’s territory, a place that seemed to be filled with nebulous, lurking disasters, sourceless anger, confused sadness, all those depthless rivers of emotion that Arjun had to traverse before reaching the larger confusion of adulthood.
“Yes, Amma, I ate my lunch,” Arjun replied. “Now will you leave me alone?”
He rarely went out, Leela thought fearfully; he seemed to have no friends. Leela had snooped in his room, checked his schoolbag and his trouser pockets; for traces of what, she wasn’t entirely sure. She knew Arjun’s unhappiness as soon as it began. But the searching told her little about the reason for his present melancholy.
Her anger with Balu for bringing them here flared—if he hadn’t, she would not have had to get a job, she would have been at home r
ound the clock keeping an eye on her children, she would have had her mother-in-law to share her worries. At the thought of the old lady, Leela’s mood became even darker. Six months ago, a telegram had arrived from Vimala urging Balu to come home immediately as his mother had suffered a stroke and was not expected to last much longer. Balu had left for Bangalore, reaching the city only a day before the old lady died. It hurt Leela that she and the children had not been able to afford to fly back home to see her one last time.
She set the vegetables to cook on the stove and joined Arjun in front of the television to watch a program about death rituals in ancient civilizations. She felt absurdly happy when she drew him close to her and he made no protest, not even when she stroked the hair off his forehead. Her moment of peace came to an end as three pairs of feet clattered down the stairs and hurried out of the door. A moment later Preethi came down and flung herself on the couch. “What are you watching?” she demanded.
“An educational program,” Leela said, thinking that television had some advantages. “About Egyptian death rituals.”
“Why did they make such a fuss?” Arjun muttered. He yawned and pretended boredom even though he had been watching intently enough before his sister’s arrival. “What does it matter what happens to you after you die?”
“Of course it matters!” Leela squeezed her son’s bony shoulder gently. “I hope you will do all the correct rituals for me when I die.”
“Amma, I don’t want you to die,” Preethi said, wrapping her arms around her mother’s body.
“Everyone has to die sometime,” Leela replied. “But I won’t go for a long, long while yet, I promise. Not until you are an old lady yourself.” She kissed each forehead and hugged her children closer. “Although, when Yama the Death God comes for me, I want all the ceremonies,” she said firmly. “I want to be cremated with wood from the mango trees in the grove behind our house in Bangalore. And don’t forget a small piece of sandalwood to scent my journey.”
“Like they did for Ajji?” Preethi asked.
“Yes.”
“I miss her, Amma.”
“So do I, baby,” Leela said.
“And what if the Death God cannot find his way to you here in Canada? What if he doesn’t have a map of the world?” Arjun joked.
“That’s why I’m saying I have to go home to die. No confusion and lost roads for Yama-raja.” Leela hugged both her children to her again. She would never let them forget that other place, home. They would soon be returning, and until then it was her duty to keep it alive in their minds. She would show them the photo albums that she had carried away with her and say to them: This is the house that Rama Bhat built. This is the ghost that lives in the house that Rama Bhat built. This is the swing that hangs from the tree in the house that Rama Bhat built.
Beside her Preethi sat up excitedly. “Amma, can I go dressed as Yama tonight? Can I, Amma? It’ll be so cool!”
“Go? Where?” Leela asked, confused.
“Today’s Halloween, remember?” Preethi reminded her. “Everyone’s going—Jas and Matt and Wendy. So can I?”
“Yes you can, but not as Yama. It might be an insult to him,” Leela said firmly.
“Then what should I wear?” Preethi asked in a resigned voice. She knew that Leela did not believe in wasting money on costumes. One year she had been a monster in a Rajasthani sheet with green elephants running around brown and black lotuses and roses and other flowers—an exotic monster, her mother assured her. The next year she was a garbage-bag monster.
Leela stood up and looked thoughtfully at her diminutive daughter, so like her in build and appearance, but with Balu’s brown eyes.
“I know!” she exclaimed. She went to the kitchen, rummaged around in one of the cupboards and emerged triumphantly with a box of aluminum foil. She pushed Preethi into a chair and wrapped some foil around her head. She extended one long piece and twisted a few more bits about it so that it stuck out like the spout of a teapot. Then she went to the shoe cupboard and pulled out an unopened box. It contained a pair of gaudy silver slippers—Bibi-ji would love them, Leela thought—that she had bought for Preethi because they were eighty percent off. Preethi had flatly refused to wear them, and they had lain in the back of the cupboard ever since.
“Here, put these on,” Leela said.
“What am I supposed to be?” Preethi asked, surveying herself in the hallway mirror, resigned to her mother’s parsimony.
“I don’t know. How about a saucepan? Yes, that’s it, you are a saucepan. And do you remember the rules?”
“Yes, Amma.”
“Tell me?”
“Don’t leave the street, don’t enter people’s houses, don’t leave the group, don’t eat anything until I come home and show you what I got.”
Restricted zones and Lines of Control were applied firmly. It seemed to Leela that the edges of a ten-year-old’s life were as fraught with danger as that of a country at war.
“Good girl!” Leela said. “You will be only on this street?”
“Yes, I promise, Amma. Nowhere else.”
“Hand on my head? What will happen if you break your promise?”
“You will die and I will be dragged off to hell.”
“ I will die, that’s all. This hell-well is Christian business, I don’t know all that. I will die and you will have to pay for it in your next birth. And most important of all, if someone tries to touch you anywhere at all, scream and run away, understand?” She looked sharply at her daughter.
“Yes, Amma,” said Preethi. “Now can I go, please?”
At that moment there was a banging on the front door. Leela opened it and walked her saucepan daughter out to meet Bibi-ji with Jas dressed as Frankenstein in tow, and a rather solid Matt as a spaceman.
“And what are you supposed to be, Preethi?” Bibi-ji asked, touching the foil wound around the girl’s head.
“My mother says I am a saucepan,” Preethi said.
“Oh, I see,” Bibi-ji said, suppressing a smile.
“Well, I am not going to waste money on a costume,” Leela declared.
“I agree,” Bibi-ji replied. “But Pa-ji insists on getting the boy something new every year. He says it is to help him settle in better. I don’t understand it, though. Jasbeer has to dress like a monster and go knocking on doors to settle in?”
The three children bunched together to give each other confidence, and clutching their pillowcases they headed next door to Elena’s.
“Look at them,” Bibi-ji said. “So sweet they look, no, Leela?”
“Yes, they do,” Leela agreed, gazing after the children with equal fondness.
“But your Preethi is a good girl. My Jasbeer is always in trouble. I am so tired of seeing that principal, Mr. Longbottom, every other week.”
“Passing phase, Bibi-ji. Don’t worry,” comforted Leela. “He will grow out of it. Arjun is also going through the same thing. Not in trouble at school, but so quiet, no friends, you know?”
“That’s what you said last year also, Leela. When is this passing phase going to pass?” Bibi-ji asked plaintively.
“I think part of the problem—and don’t mind my saying this, Bibi-ji—is that you spoil him,” Leela said, looking severely at her friend. “You buy him too many things— everything he demands—regardless of whether he has been good or not. He does not have a sense that his actions have consequences.”
“I know, I know. I can’t seem to help it. But the presents, that’s Pa-ji’s fault. He likes buying things for the people he loves. I have told him a hundred times, but will he listen to me? No, not at all.” She jingled her keys and then said, “Perhaps it is inside the boy, something he was born with and that we cannot change.”
“His uyir,” Leela said.
“And what’s that?” Bibi-ji asked.
“A Tamil word—it refers to something a person’s soul has brought with it from a distant place in the universe— not inherited from the parents, nor acquired from the
place, or the food, or air, or earth, or water even. Uyir is the mystery in every one of us, the thing that makes us move and grow, the thing that makes us alive. Sometimes this uyir is good and sometimes it is made bad. It all depends on the circumstances and the position of the stars at birth. Maybe.”
Bibi-ji nodded and was silent for a few moments. Then she jingled her keys again and said, “Well then, Leela. I hope and pray that my Jasbeer’s uyir isn’t bad.”
“Don’t worry, Bibi-ji,” Leela said, touching her friend’s arm. “He will be fine. Believe me.”
She walked Bibi-ji to her car and waved as she drove slowly down the road, looking for the three children. As she did each year, she would follow them to make sure they did not get into any trouble and then drive them home for cake and milk.
Back inside the house Leela descended to the basement, her India, where the fragrance of incense lingered in the still air, the water pipes had been camouflaged by a false ceiling and the unfinished walls were draped with an assortment of colourful cotton bedcovers. Her gods were waiting for her there, their silver faces impassive as she rang a small silver bell loudly to catch their attention—to summon Brahma back from wherever he was busy writing fates on newborn foreheads, to wake Vishnu from his eternal slumber, to get Shiva to stop his dallying with Parvathi and listen to her, Leela Bhat, wife of Balachandra Bhat of Bangalore. She offered the obligatory flowers (a couple of clematis blossoms, a blue mop-head hydrangea) and fruit purchased the previous day from Mrs. Wu’s shop, lit a fresh stick of incense and went on the offensive. “Why?” she demanded. “Why are you making my son so unhappy? Have I not taken care of you? Have I not prayed to you twice a day every day of my life? And is this how you reward me for my faith?”
She wept some, she grumbled some more, she flattered the movers and shakers of heaven, and earth, and purgatory and all the unseen places between Here and There. Then, satisfied that she had laid her case before them as best she could, she returned up the stairs to the other world, with its battered and borrowed sofas, the chattering television, the print of a Degas dancer hanging lopsided on one wall and the batik print of a busty Bharat Natyam dancer striking a challenging pose on the opposite wall. Arjun was sprawled where she had left him, but it seemed to her that her swift appeal to the gods had wrought a change in his demeanour. He was smiling at the television screen, which cast blue spasms of light on the walls, and Leela was content. The gods were on her side after all.
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? Page 18