by Meira Chand
Mrs Hathiramani’s skin no longer felt hot. Instead a burning began deep in her body. The hurt of three months burst suddenly from her. ‘Because of your evil Mr Hathiramani is ill. He spoke only the truth about Mohan. My Mataji knows all this, and she is protecting me.’ Mrs Hathiramani stepped forward. Mrs Watumal retreated further down the corridor with a sharp intake of breath.
‘You wish now to burn us in our beds,’ Mrs Watumal yelled.
‘I will tell the town you made my husband ill,’ Mrs Hathiramani shouted back.
‘I have done nothing to your husband,’ Mrs Watumal replied, shocked by the suggestion.
‘And what have I done to you?’ Mrs Hathiramani stared at Mrs Watumal, who appeared less menacing at close quarters; the lump on her forehead was almost imperceptible.
‘What is this burning for, then?’ Mrs Watumal asked in a calmer voice. Mrs Hathiramani began to explain about Saturn in the House of the Sun, and then remembered Lokumal.
‘Dada Lokumal is giving a dowry to Padma,’ she announced. ‘He wants her to marry Mohan. What do you think of such a match?’ Trapped smoke hung in a layer above their heads. Mrs Watumal sat down upon Mrs Hathiramani’s rexine sofa, unable to speak for shock. Smoke caught in her throat, and she began to cough.
‘Raju, bring one Thums Up drink,’ Mrs Hathiramani ordered and sat down beside her, relieved at the sudden return to normality. Now that both Saturn and the diary were disposed of, things were immediately improving.
‘How much is the dowry? Why is he giving?’ Mrs Watumal said at last, recovering her breath.
‘He is giving because he is a pure man. He thinks only of others,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied.
‘From childhood Mohan has liked Padma, and she is a good girl,’ Mrs Watumal mused. ‘Have you spoken to Rekha yet?’
‘I will do it today,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied. ‘They will not object, that is certain.’
‘Memsahib!’ Raju screamed in sudden terror from the bedroom.
The tin bath and the buckets, filled with smouldering debris and forgotten in the commotion, had been revitalized by the wind and caught the bedroom curtains. The end of the bed was in flames, and with it the laundered sheets and shirts, and the Dictionary of Quotations. The fire reached towards the Britannica, waiting along the wall.
Mrs Hathiramani and Mrs Watumal rushed into the room, and drew back before the blaze. Raju offered a saucepan of water. Appearing suddenly beside her mother, Sunita gave a scream. She turned and hurried out again, calling urgently to Gopal, to summon the watchmen with their fire hoses.
Mrs Hathiramani stood fixedly in the bedroom doorway, smoke smarting in her eyes and throat. Behind thick cloud, the spurt of fire ate its way without her help, to further piles of literature. Mrs Hathiramani stepped forward into the smoke, picked up a book and hurled it determinedly into the flames.
‘Come away,’ Mrs Watumal implored, holding her sari to her mouth and coughing. Mrs Hathiramani seemed not to hear, and reached for another book. Mrs Watumal took her by the arm and pulled her from the room.
Smoke filled the living room and the corridor. Mrs Bhagwandas appeared from downstairs. Gopal and the watchmen arrived with a tangled mass of perished hose. Mr Watumal and Sunita pushed their way in past the mad beggarwoman, the dhobi, and a crowd of servants who had gathered about the open front door. Raju hopped up and down in terror, clutching at Mrs Hathiramani’s sari.
‘Memsahib, we shall die, like Lakshmi. The whole building will burn. Do not die, Memsahib. You are like a mother to me,’ he sobbed.
‘Shut up, donkey,’ Mrs Hathiramani roared. ‘It is only the last of Saturn. The Sun is showing no leniency.’
Gopal and the watchmen disentangled their hose, and dragged it to the bedroom. Water squirted from multiple leaks, forming large puddles on Mrs Hathiramani’s living-room floor. Water drenched them as they lifted the hose to spray upon the flames. The fire hissed, smoked blackly, and died abruptly in a stench of charred paper and wood. Mrs Hathiramani gave a sob of relief, and sank down on her rexine sofa. Raju crouched at her feet, still clinging on to her sari, whining uncontrollably.
‘It is over now, sister,’ Mrs Bhagwandas comforted, sitting down beside Mrs Hathiramani, and patting her back.
‘It looked worse than it was,’ Mrs Watumal added, seating herself the other side of Mrs Hathiramani.
‘Only the curtains and books and the mattress have gone. Everything else is saved. Soon it will look like before,’ Mr Watumal assured, coming out of the bedroom after inspecting the damage.
‘Are many books left?’ Mrs Hathiramani inquired with a sob, and brightened unexpectedly as Mr Watumal shook his head.
‘Unfortunately not. Bhau Hathiramani will feel this badly. It is a terrible loss for him. I will go myself and bring him from the nursing home this evening. You are in no proper state,’ Mr Watumal offered.
Sadhbela resounded suddenly with a loud clap of thunder. Raju started up and ran to the window.
‘Memsahib, it is raining. Now really the monsoon has begun.’ He wiped his eyes on his hand and smiled.
‘Hari Om,’ whispered Mrs Hathiramani, and leaned back on the sofa in relief. Saturn had left the House of the Sun, now at last there would be peace.
24
There was light. White and piercing. He could not open his eyes before it, after the darkness. It was as the old books said; light, only light. There was the faint odour of burning; perhaps the smell of his own smouldering flesh and bones. But also there was pain, in the region of his head and throat, which he had not expected to feel. He must face the light, he must understand. There was a loud clap, like thunder. Lokumal opened his eyes, turned his head and saw Jyoti beside him. She put a cool hand on his forehead.
‘You never sleep to this time, Daddyji. I have been so worried about you. It is as I thought, you have a fever. You have caught a cold in these monsoon breezes. Today the rain has started with a vengeance. The roads will soon be flooded.’
‘What is the time?’ Lokumal struggled up and looked about him. It might still be illusion; his life played back for him to assess.
‘It is eleven o’clock. And downstairs there has been such excitement; we have had a fire. Mrs Hathiramani burned rubbish on the balcony in the wind. Now all her husband’s books have gone.’
Lokumal remembered in his life no time of fire at the Hathiramanis’. He moved his head and felt a pain. Jyoti plumped up his pillows, and then offered him tea. He sipped at it, leaning back and observing his room, clean as he had left it the night before. He looked at the bedside table and saw the tape recorder was gone. He had given it to Tunda Maharaj, he remembered. This missing link with reality seemed proof that he had not died.
Emotion welled up in his already painful throat, tears came suddenly to his eyes. He turned his head to the sea, and was met by rain blocking out the view. There was the sound of water everywhere, sluicing down windows and drainpipes. He had failed miserably on the path of Knowledge. He sighed at the thought of his rejection.
‘I am the taste of the waters. I am the light in the moon and the sun. I am the syllable Om in all the Vedas; I am the sound in ether and the manhood in men.’ He spoke the words softly with closed eyes. He was far from perfection, far still from even the most basic renunciation of attachment. And seeing suddenly, with humility, the smallness of himself, he saw how easy it was to become bloated with illusions of piety, emanating spiritual arrogance. He had thought God safely in his pocket, and God in truth had stayed away.
He had undoubtedly many lives yet to live, still caught in the net of worldly attachment. For this he had woken again to the sea and the rain, and the wet kisses of his grandchildren. He had need in himself to look deeper, much deeper. He sighed, overcome again by humility.
JJyoti returned to the room with some aspirins, Lokumal took the two she gave him. ‘They will send the children home early from school, if the rains flood the roads,’ he said, thinking of them beside him again, and the tale he would
tell them that night.
‘I doubt it,’ warned Jyoti, handing him his tea to wash down the aspirins. ‘But if guests cannot wade to my party tomorrow, what shall I do?’ she groaned.
‘Why then we shall have a party of our own,’ Lokumal beamed, for he felt suddenly in a festive mood. ‘Tomorrow night I shall join you and your friends, if you will invite me.’
‘Will it not upset you?’ Jyoti asked, surprised. ‘Meat will be on the table, and alcohol will be served,’ she added in a guilty voice.
‘But I shall not drink,’ chuckled Lokumal, ‘and from the table I shall take only vegetarian things; not everything will be meat, I suppose? These things no longer upset me.’
Jyoti looked at him in astonishment, and in sudden emotion bent to embrace the old man. He patted her cheek and his heart swelled with happiness.
‘Call Rekha and Mrs Watumal,’ he instructed Jyoti, when next she came into his room. He would suggest the marriage of Mohan and Padma, and explain about the dowry to the women himself. He could also now see the wedding, and perhaps even bless its offspring. Maybe there was also something he could do to help Sham. He was a good boy at heart, not a thief. Lokumal remembered his birth in Sadhbela, a boy after three girls; they had to lay him at once upon a bed of gold coins, to allay misfortune. Kishin Pumnani had no gold coins left by then; he had requested Lokumal and Mr Murjani to lend him some for the occasion, to bring the boy good luck. Lokumal sighed at this long-ago memory, and the progress of Sham’s life. So many things seemed suddenly to need Lokumal’s attention, now he found himself alive.
He lay back on his bolsters when Jyoti had gone, and stared at the streaming windows and the grey sea, freckled by bursts of spume. There would be time now to experiment with the tape recordings, building up as he had wished to a choir of voices, roaring out on a single tape. It would fill all who heard it with reverence. He would take a copy of the tape to Swamiji; he had decided after the rains to make a pilgrimage. Swamiji would already have left the summer heat of Rishikesh, and have settled himself high in the mountains, at Gangotri, in a simple hut. He would be pleased with the recording. But first, Lokumal realized, he must retrieve his tape recorder from Tunda Maharaj. He could not yet have returned to his village, expecting a cremation. He was a rascal, no better than the rest, who had passed in succession in and out of the broom cupboard behind the front door. He would have some explaining to do. It was he who had set the date of death, and swore to the verity of it. Lokumal called again to Jyoti, and when she appeared asked her to summon Tunda Maharaj.
‘He came early this morning,’ she said. ‘I told him you were sleeping late and seemed restless, and I thought you were unwell. He said not to disturb you. He said he was on his way back to his village; his son was getting married.’
‘The rascal has gone off with my tape recorder. If I had died in the night, he would not even have waited for my cremation. I’ll have nothing more to do with him.’ Lokumal shook his head in sad fury.
‘Calm yourself. Prakash has another machine in our room. I will bring it to you. The school has phoned, it is sending the children home. In the centre of town the flooding is bad,’ Jyoti said. ‘As usual the drains can’t cope with the rain.’
Soon Lokumal heard the children return, and called to them through his open door. They came running to him, excited at the dislocation of the day. He put his arms about them and breathed in their sweet smell, of milk and talcum powder and liquorice, and an odour of gunpowder lifting off Ravi.
‘What is this smell?’ asked Lokumal, sniffing in disapproval.
‘Bang. Bang. You’re dead,’ Ravi shouted, pulling a cap-gun out of his pocket. Lokumal fell back on the pillows, and pretended he could not be roused.
‘Oh no. Don’t die, Grandad. Don’t die,’ Bina shouted in sudden alarm. At her distress Lokumal opened his eyes, emotion in his throat. Joy welled blatantly through him.
‘I am here with you still, for a long time,’ he reassured them. The children climbed upon his bed, to sit astride the bolsters. Bina hugged him in relief.
‘Today we have all afternoon to listen to stories,’ Ravi announced in a tone that defied argument.
‘Yes, yes,’ Lokumal hurriedly agreed. ‘Which one shall it be?’
‘There is time also to record our voices on your prayer tape, like you wanted to,’ Bina reminded him.
‘Yes, yes,’ Lokumal agreed in delight, and then remembered the missing machine.
‘Tomorrow we shall do it,’ he promised. ‘Now there is time for everything.’ He gave a deep sigh, and pulled the children close to him. Beyond the windows the rain pelted down. The crows dripped and grumbled in the trees, the sea hit the beach in huge breakers. Lokumal closed his eyes, and listened to the deluge flush out the last of the long, parched season. He squeezed the small bodies beside him and smiled.
‘There is time now for everything. Everything.’ He gave a great laugh and slapped his knee. Outside the rain hit the windows ecstatically.
25
‘But what is wrong with the family?’ Mr Murjani asked his wife, as they prepared for bed. They had returned from a dinner with the Balanis, in the Oberoi Sheraton Hotel. The Lalwanis had been there and also the Premchands. After dinner all the young people had disappeared into the discotheque. Mr and Mrs Murjani had returned home alone.
‘How will Rani be happy so far from home, in a strange country? Those Lalwanis talk and laugh so loudly. And Mrs Balani wears dresses, like a Parsi or a Christian. I have not seen her yet in a sari. The first time the boy came here with Pinky, his clothes looked fit only for a servant. They do not seem suitable,’ Mrs Murjani complained. Her husband struggled into his pyjamas.
‘They live abroad. Life there is different, more casual. The family is of good reputation, well-known to everyone, and that is what matters. The boy has a future, even if he doesn’t want to enter his father’s business. Balani has his own factories in the States, one for ballbearings and the other for the production of medical equipment. This is a good line for India, too. Through him we could achieve a tie-up. I have been looking for some time for a new line; India needs such equipment. Balani too is interested in a tie-up – I had a long talk with him. He will speak to his American associates.’
‘Business, business,’ Mrs Murjani muttered, rubbing cream on her face before the mirror.
‘They have money; Rani will be denied nothing. She will live as she is accustomed to; this is what matters. And there is such a strong liking between the boy and the girl. It is noticeable to everyone. How will you marry her to someone she does not like, but you find more suitable? We live now in modern times, and she is a strong-willed girl. She takes after me,’ Mr Murjani said with a note of pride.
‘I am well aware of that,’ Mrs Murjani replied, and closed the lid on a jar of moisturizer with a savage snap.
‘Be thankful she has chosen this boy. I like him.’ Mr Murjani got into bed. ‘I am looking for a way to expand abroad. I see nothing wrong with a daughter in America. We shall become an international family.’
‘She too will learn to wear dirty jeans, or dresses like her mother-in-law.’ Mrs Murjani bit her lips in frustration.
‘She will do as she wishes. I am not worried. She is a sensible girl at heart. After marriage you will see how sensible she will become, all this rebellion will be forgotten. At this age the blood is hot. She should have been married two years ago, when I suggested.’ Mr Murjani reached out to put off the light.
Mrs Murjani lay quietly beside him. Her thoughts strayed back to the trouble over Sham Pumnani, that had thankfully been averted. She thought of Lakshmi, devoured by an unfeeling family. She remembered her terror out on the rocks of the dhobi ghat, and the sudden vision then of the precariousness of existence. She had hoped to secure as a husband for Rani the son of some minor nobility, or an industrialist wealthier than Mr Murjani. But the reality was far from a disaster. As lawyers the Lalwanis were famous names throughout India. And the Balanis were known f
or entrepreneurship, not only in India, but in every expatriate community of Sindhis settled about the world.
‘Marriages are made in heaven,’ Mrs Murjani sighed, and resigned herself to the matter.
She closed her eyes, and the gleam of gems filled her mind. The diamond setters must return immediately; jewellery for the dowry must be finished quickly, for the Balanis wanted an early wedding. They would delay their departure to America, if the marriage could be quickly arranged. Thank goodness, thought Mrs Murjani, that she had preparations in hand. You never knew when something like this would blow up, with a daughter of marriageable age. But in America, where would Rani get a chance to wear lavish gems; she had heard the social life was unbelievably casual, and people preferred costume jewellery. Before sleep descended she saw a picture of Rani, in dirty, torn jeans and frayed sneakers, with a thick collar of diamonds about her neck. Mrs Murjani gave herself thankfully to oblivion.
*
Coming out of the disco, Kamal caught Rani’s hand. Their hearts still pumped from the exertion and music. He pulled her near him and grinned.
‘You’re quite sure about this?’ he asked.
‘Quite sure,’ Rani answered and gave a laugh. The others had gone on ahead; they were alone in the lift. He pulled her nearer and kissed her.
It was all going to happen soon. They were going to Paris for their honeymoon. By the Autumn she would be in America. Just in time, Kamal said, for the beginning of the academic year. They had found numerous ways to be alone, and discussed their future together in detail. She was going to take a Masters in social work. Kamal agreed with her decision. Application forms for colleges were already on their way. Once, he asked her what made her choose that subject. She did not tell him about the dhobi ghat, and the old crone whose hut she had peered into. Or those sights of the city, suddenly seen with new clarity, on her way to the Samtanis. Or Lakshmi. She thought a lot about Lakshmi.