by Meira Chand
‘Daddyji, you are not well. Tomorrow, I don’t care what you say, I shall call a doctor to you. Not Dr Subramaniam,’ she warned. Lokumal’s cheeks were inordinately flushed, there was no doubt in her mind, he was unwell.
Tunda Maharaj sat a while longer with Lokumal and then retreated, wiping his eyes upon his saffron shawl, clutching some volumes of religious texts Lokumal had given him.
‘Later they will give you the radio, but not at once. Sometimes these legal matters take time,’ Lokumal warned.
‘How long will I have to wait? It is a wedding present for my son,’ Tunda Maharaj demanded, but in a sad voice.
‘This one is not new, but you may take it.’ Lokumal lifted his own radio-tape recorder from the bedside table. ‘Later, you will receive the other one. Then you will have two.’ Tunda Maharaj nodded acceptance. Since he had no fingers, Lokumal pushed the handle of the radio over the stub of the old man’s fist, and opened the door for him. He watched Tunda Maharaj’s progress up the corridor, and closed the door with a sigh.
He began the last of his preparations then, the final placing of things in orderly piles, the removing of his watch and rings, for such things from a dead body could not be claimed. He sat a long time, cross-legged before the shrine in his room, turning his prayer beads, murmuring the appropriate rites. He took a shower, and dressed himself in clean, starched pyjamas and kurta and finally, stretching out on the bed, turned out the light. He felt unbearably exhausted, his head ached more and more. But he was ready, at peace with the dimension before him. The words were already within him.
He who meditates on the Seer, the ancient, the ruler, subtler than subtle, the supporter of all, whose form is beyond conception, who is suncoloured beyond the darkness…
He who does so at the time of his departure with a steady mind, devotion and the strength of yoga, and setting well his life force in the centre of his eyebrows, he attains to this Supreme Divine Person.
He who utters the single syllable, Om Brahman, remembering Me as he departs, giving up his body, he goes to the highest soul.
He began then silently to repeat to himself the old Sanskrit words of Isvara, the Personal God, Seer, Creator and Ruler of the Cosmos, the light opposed to darkness.
And slowly, behind his closed eyes, darkness descended in a light.
23
Mrs Hathiramani felt alone with the problems of purification. Without the advice of Tunda Maharaj or Bhai Sahib, it was impossible to know the appropriate rites. After leaving Lokumal she hurried up the road to the Hanuman Temple at Walkeshwar Tank, but the priest was nowhere in sight. The temple was cool, and bare of all ornament but a crude figure of Hanuman. Mrs Hathiramani circled devoutly a number of times but, clanging the bell above the door, and emerging again into the sun, she felt little wiser about purification procedures.
She mentioned her worry to Mr Hathiramani when she arrived at the nursing home. Since the hospital was near his own house, Mr Hathiramani had forbidden his wife to take up residence with him. He allowed her to spend part of the day in attendance, but sent her home at night. Mrs Hathiramani had protested, pointing to the spare bed in the room, and the right of wives to abide with husbands. She protested too at the rejection of the tiffin carriers of food she brought, to strengthen him. Special Diet, said a notice on Mr Hathiramani’s door. ‘Can you not read?’ asked an impudent nurse. Mrs Hathiramani breathed angrily through her nose, and refused to confirm this truth.
She had no choice but to tell Mr Hathiramani about the lack of leniency there would be the following day in the House of the Sun, and the need for purification. Some colour returned to Mr Hathiramani’s pale face, and he sat up in bed.
‘When will you cease your ignorant nonsense? My patience is exhausted.’
‘Only because of the evil of Saturn you are ill,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied.
‘I am ill from diabetes,’ Mr Hathiramani answered.
‘What is this diabetes?’ Mrs Hathiramani scoffed.
‘It is sugar in the blood,’ Mr Hathiramani informed her.
‘What is wrong with sweet blood? These doctors know nothing, only finding new things from which to make money,’ Mrs Hathiramani argued.
Mr Hathiramani closed his eyes and forced himself to be patient. Mrs Hathiramani pursed her lips. ‘I am going; that is what you want. I have many things to do before you come home.’ At the door she relented. ‘I will make you some cashew nut sweets, your favourite.’
‘I am not allowed to eat such things. Do you want to kill me?’ yelled Mr Hathiramani. Mrs Hathiramani closed the door firmly upon her husband’s ranting.
Without further delay she took a taxi to Mataji, and battled once more with black-skinned pigs and clucking hens. Mataji lay prostrate upon a string bed, felled by bronchial influenza, brought on by the monsoon breezes. She extended some croaking sounds in welcome, and then turned her face to the wall. Mrs Hathiramani sat on the floor beside Mataji’s bed, and explained the need for purification.
‘I can do nothing,’ Mataji gasped, caught by a fit of coughing. ‘I am ill.’
‘Only you can help me,’ Mrs Hathiramani implored.
Mataji sighed, and clicked her tongue with unaccustomed impatience. She attempted some incantations and a weak rolling of the eyes, then lay still once more. Mrs Hathiramani bit her lips.
‘Tell me anything. Anything,’ she pleaded.
‘All evil is centred in his diary. It is hiding there,’ announced Mataji suddenly, with a smile of inspiration.
Mrs Hathiramani gave a sob of relief. ‘I knew you would help me. What rite will chase out the evil?’
‘I can say nothing more today.’ Mataji was shaken again by coughing, and refused to speak. Mrs Hathiramani walked unhappily to the door. Mataji’s daughter accompanied her, staring at her handbag. Mrs Hathiramani extracted hurriedly a bundle of two-rupee notes, which she thrust in apology at the girl.
*
Now that she knew where the evil was hiding, Mrs Hathiramani was filled by a renewal of faith. If no one could advise upon the appropriate rites, she must see to the matter herself. As Raju opened the door on her return, it slammed shut abruptly behind Mrs Hathiramani, snatched out of his hand by a gust of wind.
‘Tomorrow it will rain, Memsahib. This time when it starts, it will not stop,’ Raju forecast. Mrs Hathiramani nodded distractedly and walked towards the bedroom.
‘I have ground up cashew nuts for the sweets, Memsahib,’ Raju announced, running after her. Mrs Hathiramani did not reply and shut the bedroom door in his face. She sat down on the bed to think.
In the dusk the room seemed to close in upon her. Around the walls, stacked to a height, were books and newspapers yellow with age, green with mould at floor level, where the sweeper’s wet cloth swished about. Mould spotted the spines of frayed books, whose titles were hieroglyphics to Mrs Hathiramani. The massing of print upon their pages filled her with a secret awe, in spite of irreverence before her husband. She had learned many things from Mr Hathiramani; she was not immune to his education.
A gust of wind blew in again, and rustled the papers like a mound of dry, crumbling leaves. She picked up a book at random, opened its worn, bleached cover and found unexpectedly, between geographical surveys, pictures she recognized, of the wooded hills of Mussorie. She remembered the direness then of Partition, and how they had fled Rohri. They had made their way first, after eventually arriving in Delhi, to Mussoorie, to the summer home of friends, hoping to escape the worst. In a wooden house with a wide verandah, they had lived briefly on the slope of a hill. It was a predominantly Hindu area but on the ridge above lived several Muslim families. Mrs Hathiramani remembered even now the terrible commotion of their eventual dispatch, and the looters’ lack of regard for all manner of valuable items. These rejects were tossed out of windows and doors, and rolled down the slope to Mrs Hathiramani. She had collected a redoubtable pile of things: English biscuit tins, a candlestick, a small rug from Kashmir with two holes. The saucepans
she left where they fell, in the grass amongst tall trees, for these might have been used for the cooking of meat, and Mrs Hathiramani wished not even to touch them.
She came suddenly back from her thoughts to the darkening room, and the sound of Raju’s anxious scrabbling on the door. ‘Memsahib, are you all right? I make you tea? I bring you one Thums Up drink?’
Mrs Hathiramani’s eyes were damp with tears. Mr Hathiramani had been a good husband. Thinking back to those days in Rohri, waiting for children that never came and that they had desired, she knew a different man might have berated her badly. She turned her head, and saw before her on the bedside table Mr Hathiramani’s diary. The room was in shadow, but the diary gathered the last strands of light and glowed upon the table, impenetrable and mysterious. Mrs Hathiramani drew back in fear. Between the covers of the diary was the trapped spirit of her husband, sucked dry by endless, seductive blank pages, that drew the life force out of him.
‘O, Memsahib, please answer me.’ The scrabbling on the door was louder, Raju’s voice was tearful.
‘Donkey, I am coming,’ Mrs Hathiramani answered at last. ‘Make the cashew nuts ready. Boil up the syrup.’ She stood up and turned on the light. It was late, she had tomorrow before her still. Mr Hathiramani did not return home until evening. There was time enough for purification, now she knew where the evil lay.
*
Mrs Hathiramani woke early the next morning and knew immediately what she must do. On the sideboard the cashew nut sweets were ready to welcome home Mr Hathiramani, the bedroom was full of their nutty aroma. The sky was tarnished with cloud. The rain was approaching, blown off the horizon in a misty bar, pushing the wind and the waves before it. The palms on the shoreline bent in the flurry, like umbrellas blown inside out. The breeze rustled through mango and tamarind trees, turning up leaves to the pale indecency of their undersides. Mrs Hathiramani spied the dhobi hurrying along the beach towards Sadhbela, like a small dark ant before the curdled ocean, the smooth white egg of his washing bundled upon his back. Soon he would arrive at her door. The change of seasons made no difference to the morning bustle in Sadhbela. The sweeper already moved crablike on his haunches over the floor, the scratch of his twig brush filling the room. The clank of the lift was continuous with morning departures, the bell echoing endlessly in shrill demand. The fishermen, and hawkers of fruit and vegetables, with huge baskets of produce on their heads, all circulated within Sadhbela at this hour and stopped at Mrs Hathiramani’s door.
The dhobi arrived; a thin, dark man with a large moustache and a morose expression. He heaved his bundle off his back and began to count out laundered sheets. Soon he went, and Mrs Hathiramani was free of the pestering of vendors. The stone floors of the flat were washed and clean, her refrigerators were full of fresh vegetables and fruit. Starched linen was ready to spread upon the bed, and crisp pyjamas and shirts piled waiting for her husband. Mrs Hathiramani felt a mounting excitement. She placed new garlands of flowers, delivered by the flowerwoman, over the picture of Durga on top of the refrigerator. She lit incense and stood some time in prayer.
‘Bring the sweeper’s metal bucket and light me some coals,’ Mrs Hathiramani ordered Raju, when her meditation was over.
‘What are we doing, Memsahib?’ Raju inquired with an anxious expression.
‘We are doing what I tell you, donkey,’ she replied.
Mrs Hathiramani went into the bedroom and opened the doors to the balcony. The wind blew in upon her. Saturn was getting a buffeting, blasted unceremoniously out of the House of the Sun. She could see for herself the lack of leniency in the atmosphere; clouds raced across the sky. She felt at one with this cosmic activity, an accomplice in its task. Raju entered the room walking carefully, carrying a small pot of coals, fanning it with a newspaper.
‘Put it here.’ Mrs Hathiramani pointed to the balcony. The wind whipped the coals to glowing, and drew smoke before Raju returned, jangling a rusty pail. Mrs Hathiramani ordered the lighted coal to be tipped into the bucket.
The diary was too large and awkward to fit the bucket. Mrs Hathiramani opened the covers and began to strip out the pages, her great arms moving easily, ripping them from the binding. For a moment she had been deterred by the closely hatched lines of writing, shut before her like impenetrable armour, hiding a secret world. But she kept in mind that within this mesh, her husband’s soul was bound and trapped. With a determined cry Mrs Hathiramani threw the pages into the bucket.
The flames caught the paper immediately; Mrs Hathiramani began to laugh. Page followed page. The bucket became clogged and the fire could not breathe.
‘Bring kerosene, Raju,’ Mrs Hathiramani ordered, and Raju hurried away.
‘Is this Sahib’s order, Memsahib?’ he inquired, returning with a measure of oil.
‘It is God’s order. Give me the oil,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied. The fire flared up again.
Raju stood back uncertainly. ‘Sahib not happy with this,’ he warned.
‘Shut your mouth,’ Mrs Hathiramani answered. ‘Because of this book, his brains have burst.’ All now that was left of the diary were its blue covers. Mrs Hathiramani broke these over her knee, and stood back satisfied as the flames consumed them. The heat fired her cheeks and stirred in her veins. She looked back into the room, at the mouldering books and papers still piled against the walls. Within their musty pages lurked the same destructive essence.
‘Bring those papers next, Raju,’ Mrs Hathiramani ordered.
‘Memsahib, I am frightened,’ Raju hesitated.
‘You are frightened to do God’s work?’ Mrs Hathiramani roared. ‘Tomorrow, I will throw you out.’ Raju gave a sob, and fetched a pile of magazines from the nearest stack.
‘Memsahib, wind is too strong. It is dangerous,’ Raju advised, looking up at the wild sky.
‘Then pull the bucket near the door, where it is sheltered. Careful, it is hot,’ Mrs Hathiramani ordered. Raju squatted down, and pushed the bucket with a stick to where Mrs Hathiramani indicated.
‘This work is too much for only one bucket,’ Mrs Hathiramani said, assessing the room behind her.
‘There is the metal tub ayah uses to wash the clothes,’ Raju remembered, and dragged in the tub and then another bucket. Mrs Hathiramani filled them with more papers and books.
‘Now pour on more kerosene,’ Mrs Hathiramani ordered, and clapped her hands as the fire flared up. Raju jumped about, his anxiety suddenly overcome at the splendour of the blaze.
More papers were added, the smoke billowed, sparks flew about like fireflies. Mrs Hathiramani grew as excited as Raju. She danced about beside him, great folds of flesh slipping and sliding and juddering. Her eyes streamed with tears from the smoke. And beyond the balcony, over the sea, the clouds streamed faster and faster, torn by the wind like chiffon unravelling across the sky, blowing in upon Sadhbela. The curtains flapped at the windows in an unrestrained way, but now Mrs Hathiramani had no fear. Saturn was in her control. She picked up another book.
*
Two floors above, Mrs Watumal’s washing struggled in the wind upon the bedroom balcony. In the living room, Mr Watumal sat with the morning newspaper. Sunita lay on the couch with a magazine, Mrs Watumal peeled a gourd at the table on to a battered metal plate, in preparation for lunch. Lata was absent, at the factory with her brother and Sham.
‘Now that your business is bought over, Lata is no longer working for her father. She is working for another man, a man with a no-good reputation. What now will people say?’ Mrs Watumal worried.
‘Let it be. This is her destiny.’ Mr Watumal sighed, then sniffed. ‘What is that smell? Burning?’
‘Mrs Hathiramani’s Raju has burned her lunch. Now he will get a beating,’ Sunita sniggered. ‘Soon we will hear his screams.’
‘Do not speak those people’s name in this house,’ Mrs Watumal warned. ‘They wish us only evil. Because of them Mohan’s life is ruined.’
‘Something definitely is burning.’ Mr Watumal stood up
, and went out of the front door to inspect. ‘Smell is less there. Something is cooking in our kitchen?’ he asked when he returned.
Mrs Watumal held up the gourd and knife. ‘Still I am preparing.’
Mr Watumal shrugged and walked into the bedroom, and from there let out a cry. Mrs Watumal and Sunita ran after him. The washing was alight, in flames upon the balcony.
‘Bring water,’ Mr Watumal yelled. The servant came running, even Sunita stirred. Several buckets of water were thrown quickly over the washing lines, and soon the blaze abated. Mrs Watumal rushed out to examine the charred, dripping remnants, and at once began to cough. Smoke billowed about, spark-filled and crackling. There was the sound of shouting and singing from below. Mrs Watumal let out a cry.
‘It is Mrs Hathiramani. She wishes now to set us on fire. She is already rejoicing. Listen.’ Mrs Watumal’s heart beat violently. ‘Let her kill me, face to face,’ she announced.
‘Face to face is always best,’ Mr Watumal said, trying to calm her. ‘Hathiramani is a reasonable man—’ He was stopped by his wife rushing out of the room.
Mrs Watumal rang the bell, and thumped upon Mrs Hathiramani’s door without immediate success. The shouting and singing continued. She thumped again in fury, and at last heard footsteps approaching. Mrs Hathiramani opened the door and stood as an Amazon before Mrs Watumal. Her skin glistened with sweat and heat, soot smeared her cheeks, her hair was askew, her eyes gleamed.
‘You wish now to kill us?’ Mrs Watumal screamed, pushing past Mrs Hathiramani into the hallway, and taking up position. ‘Our Burmawalla knows of your evil. She is protecting us.’ Mrs Watumal stood, hands on hips, filling Mrs Hathiramani’s corridor.
‘What is this? Who is this Burmawalla?’ Mrs Hathiramani asked, wiping sweat from her neck with the end of her sari.
‘You think our Mohan is not good enough for your relatives. You have ruined his life,’ Mrs Watumal yelled.