Coromandel Sea Change

by Rumer Godden

  ‘No, I don’t like politics in my dining room,’ Auntie Sanni said. She did not like quarrelling either.

  Dinner at Patna Hall always ended with dessert, homemade sweets, crystallised fruit, fresh nuts, on especially fine porcelain plates, each with a finger bowl filled with warm water and floating flower petals. ‘No one has finger bowls nowadays,’ Kuku had said, ‘and these are silver. They have to be cleaned.’

  ‘Kashmiri silver,’ said Samuel. ‘Old Master Sahib brought them from Srinagar.’ The silver was chased with a design of chenar leaves and iris, lined on the inner side with gilt.

  ‘Of course they must be cleaned and polished,’ said Samuel. Generations of polishing had worn them thin but, ‘No one in my dining room’, said Samuel, ‘has a dessert plate without a finger bowl.’

  He placed them himself in front of Blaise and Mary. ‘How pretty,’ said Mary of the finger bowls and Samuel smiled.

  ‘Samuel likes that girl,’ Auntie Sanni said to Colonel McIndoe as Mary looked up at the old butler.

  ‘Do you think I could have a few carrots and sugar lumps for my donkey?’

  ‘Of course, Miss Baba.’

  Miss Baba had slipped out and Blaise’s displeasure was back. He said to Mary, ‘Miss Baba! You’re not a child. It’s not your donkey and you’re not going to adopt it,’ and, to Samuel, ‘Memsahib doesn’t want any carrots,’ and then, ‘Talking of which, I would rather you wouldn’t be so friendly with this Mrs Manning.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s something about her, Mary. I’m a good judge of character,’ said Blaise with satisfaction. ‘You must let me know best.’

  ‘Even when I don’t think you do?’

  ‘They don’t look very happy over there.’ Lady Fisher had been watching. ‘Rory’s an old friend, John, and we knew Archie Browne.’

  ‘Slightly.’

  ‘Slightly or not, go and ask those young people to have coffee with us on the verandah.’

  Mary had not wanted to have coffee on the verandah; she wanted to be out in the night but Blaise was flattered at being asked by Sir John Fisher. ‘He’s really my chief – by remote control,’ he had whispered to Mary. Blaise had completely recovered himself and now, as he stood talking, the lights showed off his fair hair. Kuku, her vivid sari showing off the brown plumpness below the tight gold of her bodice, brought his coffee, fluttering her eyelashes as she served him; he took the cup without noticing her and went on talking to Sir John. Blaise was palpably enjoying talking to Sir John – Because he is Sir John, thought Mary, which was captious but she knew it was true. Well, why not? she told herself and, It’s you who are cross now. We’re both tired. Yet she did not feel tired, it was only . . . I didn’t want to spend my first real Indian night in chit-chat.

  She was sitting on a low stool beside Lady Fisher who, in courtesy, was asking her about her father – ‘It’s a long time since we saw Rory’ – about England and the wedding in Bombay . . . Just what I don’t want to talk about.

  If only I could get up and walk away, thought Mary, be back on that other verandah where I can watch those waves coming in roller after roller, sending their wash far up the sand. If I could look over them and see how the sky comes down over the sea to meet the horizon, a great bowl of stars. If I held up my hand against it, all round my fingers would be nothing but air, emptiness. I don’t want to say Rory is well – as far as I know; that Bumble and I were married in Bombay’s cathedral. I don’t want to say I like India. Like! When I’m . . . what is the right word? Yes, enthralled. Then she looked at Lady Fisher, who had discreetly returned to her embroidery and was listening to her husband and Blaise – or thinking her own thoughts? And what must she be thinking of me? thought Mary uncomfortably. Why, tonight, am I not able . . . ? Oh, I wish something would happen, or somebody come to rescue me.

  A sudden hubbub filled the verandah. Dr Coomaraswamy had come back surrounded by some of the young men but, ‘Go. Go,’ he cried to them. ‘Go now. I must think,’ and mopping his bald head he came along the verandah giving small moans.

  ‘My dear fellow!’ Sir John helped him to a chair. ‘Let me get you a drink. Brandy?’

  ‘Iced water. Please. Please.’

  ‘And for me,’ Mr Srinivasan was even more dishevelled and distressed, ‘if you would be so kind. Water.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Blaise but Kuku had already gone.

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Catastrophe!’ Dr Coomaraswamy sank into the wicker chair, his head in his hands, while Mr Srinivasan beat his together. ‘Catastrophe? Utter catastrophe.’

  ‘What kind of catastrophe?’

  ‘Krishnan . . . Krishnan Bhanj . . .’ Dr Coomaraswamy could hardly speak. ‘Candidate in the state of Konak for the Root and Flower Party, our Party, our candidate—’

  ‘Was our candidate,’ moaned Mr Srinivasan.

  ‘Was?’ Sir John was startled. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘He has withdrawn?’

  ‘No. Oh, no! No. No!’

  ‘Better if he had,’ wailed Mr Srinivasan.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Worse than that,’ and Dr Coomaraswamy said in a voice hoarse with shock, ‘Krishnan Bhanj has taken a vow of silence.’

  Silence. How lovely, thought Mary as a torrent of talk broke out above her. Auntie Sanni and Colonel McIndoe had joined the group; Kuku came with tumblers of iced water as Dr Coomaraswamy began to tell the tale.

  ‘We were all on the platform. Every influential person. All such important people. I, the chairman of the Root and Flower Party—’

  ‘And Krishnan?’ asked Lady Fisher.

  ‘Nat-u-ral-ly. Krishnan – on the platform. I myself was speaking, only to introduce him, you understand – I myself—’

  ‘For long?’ asked Lady Fisher.

  ‘Oh no, not at all. Perhaps ten minutes.’

  ‘Ten minutes is long for an introduction,’ said Sir John.

  ‘It was the inaugural speech.’ For a moment Dr Coomaraswamy had dignity, then the injury welled up. ‘Speaking – on the platform when Krishnan got up and – and—’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He walked out.’

  ‘Well, Indian politicians often do walk out,’ said Lady Fisher.

  ‘Yes, Lady Sahib, but he left a note.’

  ‘It was I who picked it up,’ Mr Srinivasan moaned again.

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It said,’ came the unfailing voice of Mr Srinivasan, ‘ “This is enough. I am not speaking tonight. I am not speaking throughout the campaign. I have taken a vow of silence.” ’

  A sound, quickly smothered, came from Sir John, a sound that made Dr Coomaraswamy look at him sharply.

  ‘This Krishnan Bhanj,’ Mary, in a low voice, asked Lady Fisher, ‘what is he like?’

  ‘Blue-black,’ said Kuku derisively.

  ‘Kuku! I know he’s dark—’ Lady Fisher protested.

  ‘Blue-black,’ Kuku insisted. ‘Which doesn’t suit his name.’

  ‘ “Krishnan” comes from the Hindu god Krishna’, Lady Fisher explained, ‘one of the avators or manifestations of Vishnu, second god of the Hindu Trinity – Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva, Death, who is also Resurrection. Whenever there is trouble on earth Vishnu comes down; at first he was a fish, then an animal, later as a man or god like Krishna, who is usually shown with a blue skin.’

  ‘Blue? A blue skin?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Pale blue,’ said Lady Fisher. ‘Krishnan is dark but he is a man and he can’t help his colour. After all, he isn’t Krishna. The god is blue because he drank poison in the milk of his wet nurse. She was a demon in disguise but the milk did not harm him, only her. He sucked so fiercely that he emptied her body of all energy and she fell dead. That’s what they say.’

  ‘Old folk tales,’ said Kuku in contempt.

  ‘They’re not exactly folk tales,’ and Lady Fisher smiled. ‘When Krishna came down on earth, he was
, of course, a baby. He had to be abandoned by his royal parents but was found by a cowherd who brought him up, like Perdita in The Winter’s Tale.’

  ‘William Shakespeare,’ said Kuku, proud to know.

  ‘Yes.’ Lady Fisher’s needle went in and out with a gentle plucking sound that made this, to Mary, fantastic conversation of gods and demons mixed up with cowherds and poison, everyday.

  She looked up at Auntie Sanni who had come to sit with them, towering among them; Mary was reminded of a mountain with small towns, villages and farms and their innumerable occupations and preoccupations held safely in its folds. Auntie Sanni obviously loved to hear Lady Fisher talk, and Mary guessed that Auntie Sanni would be indulgent to any belief – as long as it is belief, thought Mary. And why am I so interested? she wondered. Usually I hate being told things, but now she wanted to know more about these strange immortal beings and, ‘Go on, please,’ she said to Lady Fisher.

  ‘As Krishna grew older he sported’, Lady Fisher chose the word carefully, ‘with his foster father’s gopis.’

  ‘Gopis?’

  ‘Milkmaids.’

  ‘Sported!’ Kuku was indignant. ‘Imagine, Mrs Browne, the gopis were so much in love with him they longed to be his flute so that his lips would perpetually caress them. Silly girls! Like all men, he was heartless.’

  ‘All men?’ Lady Fisher laughed. ‘Certainly not all men. Take Krishnan Bhanj.’

  ‘Like all men.’ Of course! As Lady Fisher said, this Krishnan Bhanj is a man. That thought gave Mary a slight shock and, looking at Kuku, she wondered if perhaps he had ‘sported’, that exact word, with her. ‘You know Mr Bhanj?’

  ‘He was staying here when I first came.’ Kuku gave a still indignant little snort. ‘He called me Didi – sister. I am not his sister.’

  ‘I’m sure he said that as he would have said Bhai – to a young man.’ Lady Fisher defended him. ‘Bhai means brother,’ she told Mary.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Kuku with venom and, I can guess it was you who tried to sport with Krishnan, thought Mary with a sudden astuteness, which was confirmed when Kuku said, ‘Krishnan. Krishna. What is the difference? All Krishna did was to play tricks on poor girls.’

  ‘Not always,’ said Lady Fisher. ‘Remember, there was Radha.’

  ‘Radha?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Krishna met his match with Radha in more ways than one. She seemed to be a gopi but Radha was a god as well.’

  ‘Goddess. She shone among the gopis.’ Though she was contemptuous Kuku had seen pictures from the Hindu scriptures. ‘Anyway, Krishnan Bhanj may think he is a god but he’s not Krishna.’

  ‘That’s not what the villagers think.’ Mr Menzies had come up the verandah and was standing beside them.

  ‘Krishnan Bhanj was so good, so excellent,’ Mr Srinivasan lamented. ‘A barrister, he is particularly versed in law, England returned.’ Mr Srinivasan’s English belonged to the thirties and forties. They talk differently, thought Mary. They don’t take short cuts – is not instead of isn’t; will not instead of won’t; they break up syllables . . . ‘Par-tic-u-lar-ly’ ‘Krishnan also speaks English per-fect-ly,’ Mr Srinivasan was going on. ‘Also his great advantage to us is that he speaks Tamil as well as Telegu.’

  ‘What advantage is that if he will not speak at all?’ Dr Coomaraswamy was in despair.

  ‘Where is Krishnan now?’ asked Sir John.

  ‘We do not know. We do not know anything.’ Once more Mr Srinivasan beat his hands together.

  ‘I, myself,’ said Dr Coomaraswamy, ‘am going now to look for him. He was at Ghandara where, for the election, as I have told you, he preferred to stay.’

  ‘One little room,’ Mr Srinivasan went on, ‘a charpoy, table and chair, not even a fan when he might have stayed here. He cannot be in his right mind. To go off and leave us in this fixation.’

  ‘We went straight to headquarters. He was not there,’ explained Dr Coomaraswamy. ‘He left his clothes, his suit, shirt, tie— ’

  ‘Even his shoes, his socks!’

  ‘So what is he wearing?’

  ‘I suppose national dress. Maybe only a lunghi. It would not be past him, our candidate!’ Dr Coomaraswamy cried bitterly. ‘What has come over him? Where is he?’

  ‘Have you asked in the village?’

  ‘Nat-u-rally. They are a wall.’

  ‘You mean, they stonewalled?’

  ‘Yes, walls of stone!’

  ‘They knew in the village before you knew.’ It was the first time Auntie Sanni had spoken.

  ‘But why should he have come here, except to Patna Hall? What is there for him here in Shantipur?’

  With quiet footsteps, the young Sharma came along the verandah, made a graceful namaskar to the company and handed the Doctor a note.

  ‘I ab-so-lute-ly do not understand,’ Dr Coomaraswamy cried when he had read it. ‘Why? What use?’ and he read it aloud. ‘ “Tomorrow, by first dawn, you will get a lorry and in it set up a small pandal . . .” ’

  ‘What is a pandal?’ Mary whispered to Lady Fisher.

  ‘A sort of tabernacle. The people make them on festival days for an image of one of the gods. They are usually bamboo, decorated with banana tree stems and garlands of lucky mango leaves and marigolds.’

  ‘ “A pandal,” ’ read Dr Coomaraswamy, ‘ “as for a god. I will sit in it. The people will see me.” But this is idiotic!’ he cried. ‘This is i-di-o-tic.’

  ‘It is brilliant,’ said Mr Menzies.

  ‘Surely,’ Blaise said to Sir John when the Indians had gone, ‘it can’t be serious. This Krishnan must be some sort of jumped-up play actor who has taken them all in?’

  ‘On the contrary, Krishnan Bhanj has not only been canvassing for weeks throughout Konak, for the past five years, he has been steadily and culminatively working towards this election in his own way here in Konak and doing untold good, how good we shall not know for perhaps decades. Besides, his father is perhaps the most respected politician in all India, of absolute integrity,’ said Sir John. ‘I know of no one who would not trust him.’

  ‘And extraordinarily good-looking, with a great presence,’ came from Lady Fisher. ‘Krishnan is very much his son.’

  ‘Vijay Bhanj has been Ambassador in Washington and has represented India in conferences everywhere from Sri Lanka to Moscow. No young man could have a better background.’

  ‘Partly because’, said Lady Fisher, ‘his mother, Leila, is a deeply spiritual woman, some of which, I think, is in Krishnan too. She comes from near here, from South India which perhaps has the deepest roots. I love Leila,’ and Lady Fisher told Mary, ‘When I came out to Delhi, as a new bride, she would not let me be the usual English wife, blind to the country. She taught me Hindi and about Hinduism for which I shall be eternally grateful. I hope, Mary, someone will do the same for you.’

  ‘Sir John laughed. He laughed. I am sure of it.’ Dr Coomaraswamy was standing by the window of the first floor room in the party’s headquarters at Ghandara. The room, usually used as his office and usually buzzing with activity, was silent; the whole of the two-storey stucco-faced house, important in this town of bazaar shanties, corrugated iron, cheap concrete blocks, was empty. Every helper had been sent far and wide, some to look for Krishnan, some in search of the required lorry.

  On the outside, the house verandah and balconies were swathed with muslin draperies in the Root and Flower Party’s colours, green, saffron yellow and white: ‘Green for hope, saffron for holiness, white for pure intention,’ Dr Coomaraswamy liked to explain. Over them hung the party’s posters; for weeks the disciples had been putting them up all over the state – it was a point of honour between all parties not to tear down each other’s posters. They were pictures with a symbol. ‘You must remember most of our people cannot read, so the party symbol is of utmost importance.’ Dr Coomaraswamy always emphasised, ‘And it must be recognisable instantly.’ Krishnan’s symbol was of three wise-looking cows lying among flowers; they would be on the voting p
apers too and instantly identifiable with Krishnan. ‘There is’, Dr Coomaraswamy said in satisfaction, ‘not one man, woman or child who does not know the Krishna story.’ At Headquarters every poster was garlanded with fresh lucky mango leaves; their very freshness seemed a mockery to Dr Coomaraswamy.

  He was not even sure now about his inaugural speech. He heard Sir John’s voice, ‘Ten minutes is long for an introduction.’ ‘But I like to speak,’ said Dr Coomaraswamy piteously to the empty room. ‘Also, what I had to say, was it not important?’

  ‘Yes, but it still depends on the way you say it,’ Krishnan had cautioned and, ‘He knows me,’ Dr Coomaraswamy had to admit. Krishnan had also forbidden any expletives: ‘No foul words or abuse.’

  ‘But Gopal Rau has denounced you as “cheat”, “liar”, “hypocrite”; Mrs Retty as “dirty humbug”, “ignorant swine”—’

  ‘And in return you will call them “gentleman”, “lady”, “benefactor”, “mother”, even, “prince”.’

  ‘But those are kindly.’

  ‘It depends on how you say them.’ Krishnan had smiled.

  ‘Yes, but,’ Dr Coomaraswamy had been sad, ‘my words were so beautifully foul!’

  He had opened his speech with what he thought was simple directness – and in the current fashion: ‘Friends,’ and then went on, as Mr Srinivasan told him afterwards, to spoil it by ‘people of Konak, men, women and our beloved children: accustomed as I am to public speaking, tonight when I come to open this, the final week, of our Root and Flower Party’s campaign for which we owe so much to so many of you, my heart is so full that I can hardly speak . . .’

  ‘Speak. Speak,’ hissed Mr Srinivasan who, as always, had been close beside him.

  ‘The few words I have to say to you tonight are of such import, such freshness, newness of approach that they awe me and make my very lips to tremble . . .’

  ‘Don’t tremble. Go on!’ mouthed Mr Srinivasan.

  ‘We shall begin with the root. The root goes on to flower, the flower will bring you fruit, much fruit. For you, for all Konak, perhaps for millions, our new manifesto offers this hope. Men and women, for you, at this very moment, hope is hovering with bright wings . . .’