House of the Sun

by Meira Chand

  Her mother was once more obsessed with diamonds, and now there was no escape.

  ‘There’ll be nowhere to wear it all, in America,’ said Kamal.

  ‘I’ll lock it up in a box and think of it as an investment,’ Rani decided.

  ‘Sneakers and jeans, preferably old ones, is all you’ll need on campus,’ Kamal added.

  ‘Please don’t tell my mother that. She might call off the engagement.’ Rani began to laugh imagining her mother’s expression at the sight of her daughter, as she was soon determined to appear, in frayed sneakers and dirty jeans.

  They reached the glass doors of the hotel. The rain sluiced down beyond. Kamal put up an umbrella as they hurried to where he had parked the car. But Rani suddenly darted away and ran ahead of him.

  ‘Hey,’ he shouted. ‘Where are you going?’

  She did not know why she ran, nor when she would stop, nor where. She held her face up to the rain and let it pelt freely down upon her, and laughed aloud, again and again.

  26

  ‘Mohan is a waster,’ said Chachi. ‘Only dreaming all the time, and refusing to help his father. Why should we marry our Padma to this kind of boy?’ She pulled herself up on her string bed to face Rekha.

  ‘Now he is working with Sham a great change has come over him. Dada Lokumal says the fault is with his father, not with Mohan,’ Rekha explained. She had spent some time with Lokumal, before Mrs Watumal had joined them. Tears filled her eyes when she thought of the goodness of the old man.

  ‘Without even consultation you have agreed?’ Chachi inquired through pursed lips. ‘In this house it seems the views of elders are given no respect. The Watumals are Bhaibund, we are Amil. Why should our Padma marry a Bhaibund boy? In Sukkur—’

  ‘Those times are gone,’ Rekha said firmly. ‘We cannot refuse Dada Lokumal’s kindness. The boy and the girl have known each other since childhood. The family is like our own family, and Padma will stay here in Sadhbela. It could not be better,’ said Rekha. ‘Besides, through his work, Sham is also now Bhaibund.’

  ‘Since when is a Bhaibund family like an Amil family?’ Chachi argued, and turned to the wall with a shrug. ‘If this is your decision, then what can I say if the views of elders are no longer needed?’ She wound her scarf in a blindfold about her eyes and lay down. ‘The last time also my voice was not heard,’ she muttered.

  Since her views had not been sought, she could not now show she was in favour of the marriage, but she had decided to go herself, when Rekha was out, to thank Dada Lokumal. Nothing after Lakshmi’s death could ever be the same for them. Yet she sensed in herself, as she did in Rekha, an almost imperceptible shift, the first thin crack in the darkness of their present life with this incredible news.

  ‘It is a good match. It is God’s work,’ she muttered sleepily, and did not realize she spoke aloud. Beside her Rekha smiled sadly, for the first time in many weeks.

  *

  ‘I left in the morning and when I got home I found Padma already engaged. The whole thing was a shock, however pleasant,’ Sham said the next day in the factory to Lata. He peered down from the office window at Mohan, speaking animatedly with a group of workers on the floor of the factory. He had been working enthusiastically, and since his engagement to Padma the night before, he seemed fired by even greater drive. Marriage would steady him; it was the best thing that could have happened. Sham still had difficulty digesting it all. Dada Lokumal’s kindness and the speed of events had left them all breathless.

  ‘It was so quick,’ Lata agreed. ‘I never heard of such a lightning engagement.’ She began to laugh. ‘Mohan has had his eye upon Padma for some time. I know there is an age difference, but I do not think it matters.’

  ‘Padma seems happy,’ Sham agreed.

  ‘Mummy is like a new person,’ Lata told him. ‘In twenty-four hours her life has changed. Mohan is engaged, and Sunita has had a look at the widower, and says she will accept him. So now there are two weddings to arrange. Mummy and Aunty Rekha, and Mrs Hathiramani and Mrs Bhagwandas, are rushing up and down to each other all day, to discuss one or another detail. The whole building has been stirred up. And Rani too is engaged, did you hear? Soon Sadhbela will be strung with fairy lights for a wedding on every floor.’

  ‘That leaves only you,’ Sham said.

  ‘Oh, there are widowers lined up for me too,’ Lata laughed. ‘But I’m not Sunita; I’m not worried about being an old maid. I’m happy working here. The place is going to grow, I can see it already.’

  Sham sat down at his desk, picked up a pencil, and made a doodle on a message pad. Lata turned away and began stacking ledgers on a shelf. ‘If you got married and could also work here, would you change your mind?’ he asked, filling in a portion of the geometrical squiggle before him.

  ‘How many husbands would allow that?’ Lata shrugged.

  ‘I would,’ he replied and continued with the doodle, trembling at his audacity, amazed at where the words had come from. Ten minutes before no such thought had been in his head. He realized suddenly that he had carried the words deep within him since that time after Lakshmi’s death, when Lata’s quiet presence had filled his home. And now, near her constantly, he felt a strange diminishment in those hours she was absent. He forced himself to think of her withdrawal from his life, into a marriage like Sunita, with a suitable widower, and felt such a confusion of painful emotion that he thrust away the thought.

  ‘You?’ Lata gasped and sat down. She made no attempt at an answer. He waited for her to laugh. Instead the silence grew wider between them.

  He should never have spoken. He began to black in each area of the doodle, pressing down hard with the pencil. He had nothing to offer but a houseful of broken old people, no money, not even a room of his own for the privacy of marriage. And Lata was five years older than him. It was impossible. He looked up suddenly in fear of what he had said, and saw her agitation. The easy companionship they had worked in would be finished now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Forget I asked. It was a mad idea. I don’t know where it came from. It wouldn’t work, it’s quite wrong.’ He looked down again at the message pad. A great construction of complex shapes towered up on the page before him.

  ‘Yes, a mad idea,’ Lata said suddenly in a hard voice. ‘Who could want an old maid like me? Don’t worry, I’ll forget you ever spoke. You’ve no need to feel sorry for me, you know.’

  ‘Sorry?’ He looked up in alarm. ‘The thought never entered my head. Don’t call yourself an old maid. You’re not. I was sorry for my boldness in suggesting such a thing. What can I offer? No proper home, a houseful of old people, no money. Who would ever marry me?’ He added more boxes to his tower, and blackened a further triangle. They fell silent again. He pressed his pencil to the pad industriously. He heard her stir.

  ‘Your family are good people. A house can always be rearranged, partitions be put up. And you are earning money now, the future need not be bad. Why should you not marry?’ she asked, her voice low and flat. Looking up again, he saw tears in her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t ask you out of pity,’ he repeated. ‘I meant it, but it’s a silly idea for the reasons I’ve told you. And it has upset you, I didn’t mean that.’ He looked down again, miserable.

  ‘You take the offer back then?’ she asked in a fierce voice.

  ‘It was a mad idea,’ he repeated, and bent his head lower over the pad in shameful embarrassment. There was silence again. He heard her stand up and turn to the shelf of ledgers. He raised his eyes as she spun suddenly round to face him, her face angry, and wet with tears.

  ‘What’s mad about the idea?’ she yelled suddenly. ‘There’s nothing mad about it at all. If you want my view, it’s a good idea.’

  He dropped the pencil and stared at her. ‘Oh my God,’ he exclaimed and began to laugh, while Lata continued to cry.

  ‘It’s a very, very good idea,’ Lata sobbed and sat down again, and searched for a handkerchief.

  ‘What
’s good about the idea?’ Sham inquired. He offered his handkerchief over the desk.

  ‘Nothing really, to those who don’t know,’ Lata replied. She took the handkerchief and blew her nose.

  ‘But those who know might feel it could work?’ Sham asked quietly.

  ‘I think so,’ said Lata, not looking at him.

  ‘Then perhaps it’s not such a mad idea. Perhaps I should reconsider,’ Sham announced.

  ‘I think you should,’ Lata smiled, lifting her face to him now.

  ‘Think of the things people will say,’ Sham warned.

  ‘Who cares what they say?’ replied Lata. ‘Already they’ve said so much, what does a little more matter?’

  ‘You’re right,’ Sham agreed. ‘I suppose you’re always going to be right. That’s the trouble with finding a sensible wife.’

  ‘They’ll say you’re hen-pecked,’ Lata laughed.

  ‘They’ll say you’re a cradle-snatcher,’ Sham returned.

  ‘Who cares?’ Sham threw the memo pad up in the air. Lata caught it neatly and put it back in its place.

  ‘Behave yourself,’ she said.

  27

  The rains came driving down, hitting the ground and blowing up again in great misted clouds. The crows in the mango and tamarind trees were silent and wet. Thunder hit them like gunshot, throwing them up in squawking clouds. Mr Hathiramani listened to the rains’ enveloping splatter against the glass. Mrs Hathiramani and Raju were continuously occupied with buckets, and the business of mopping up about the windows. He drummed his fingers on the wall. He lay stretched out upon the rexine sofa, wedged between the two refrigerators in the living room. He stared up at the picture of Durga on the fridge before him, recently adorned by his wife with an unusually lavish garland. The smell of smoke still filled his home. He wore garments loaned by Mr Bhagwandas, and had slept the night upon the living-room floor on sheets lent by Mrs Watumal. He had seen little of his wife. Soon after his arrival home from the nursing home, in a taxi with Mr Watumal, Mrs Hathiramani had disappeared to arrange the engagement of Mohan to Padma. She had returned to find the smell of smoke had impregnated the milk and the cashew nut sweets on the sideboard in the bedroom.

  ‘God has saved me,’ Mr Hathiramani remarked as she sent Raju with the smoky remains down to the sweeper and his family. ‘One bite of those sweets would probably have killed me.’

  ‘Nothing can kill you,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied. ‘Saturn is no longer in the House of the Sun.’

  ‘Still you quote that nonsense?’ Mr Hathiramani frowned. ‘How did this fire start?’ he asked again.

  Mrs Hathiramani shrugged, and when pressed resorted to tears. Raju stood silent beside her.

  His first night at home had not put Mr Hathiramani in a good humour. The floor was hard. He had shared it not only with his wife, but also with Raju. ‘Put him out in the corridor, like other servants,’ Mr Hathiramani insisted.

  ‘He is like a child to me,’ Mrs Hathiramani retorted.

  His sleep had been broken and confused. He awoke with the first light, and went into the fire-wrecked room. The sweepers had cleared away the half-burnt books, the mattress and the remnants of curtains. They had washed and scrubbed for hours. He stood in the doorway and stared. It looked a different place, barren and echoing, without its padding about the walls. Sooty burn marks stretched to the ceiling.

  ‘Where is my diary?’ Mr Hathiramani returned to the living room and roused his wife.

  ‘That too must have burned,’ she mumbled sleepily. Beside her, a few yards away, Raju dozed with an arm flung over his eyes.

  Mr Hathiramani returned in fury to the bedroom, and sat down on the charred frame of the bed. He dropped his head in his hands. His inner life was in ruins. The records of the building were gone. Without the richness of the past, the charting of the future seemed meaningless to him. It was without purpose to think more of Arrivals and Departures, or even to open the front door. And with the loss of Miscellaneous Past his gift to humanity had vanished. It was comparable only with the loss of his library in Sind, left to the illiterates who had chased him with knives from his home.

  He raised his head, and stared once more at the bareness of the room. In a corner, almost hidden by a metal trunk, he saw a small pile of salvaged books and walked across to them. On top were the scorched remains of Shah Abdul Latif. The book fell open in his hand automatically, at ‘The Song of the Necklace’. He closed it quickly. He felt strangely nauseous at the sight of Latif. Thoughts of wading once more through the labyrinth of translation made him feel as he had once with jaundice. The other books were all from his collection on Sind, saved by their position at the far end of the room. He sat down on the frame of the bed again.

  The impoverishment about him was disturbing, as was the real meaning of the fire. He paced about, and pondered the sudden violence of the event. He pondered upon the meaning of violence, as it applied to himself and his life. Violence had forced him to flee Sind without an hour’s notice, to live forever in disinheritance. The love of his homeland would die with old men like himself. The children of Sadhbela knew nothing of the grandeur of Sind, lost forever now. He felt responsibility rise in him again. Latif had not been what was needed. He stood up in sudden excitement. The world called instead, he saw suddenly, for The Hathiramani Newsletter. Spread about the world were community after community of expatriate Sindhis, who knew little of their culture. It was his duty to speak to them. His heart beat violently. The purpose of the fire was clear to him now.

  He reassessed the bare room. With some rearrangement, space could be made for a small printing press. In Sind he had had his own press, and published each month a thin pamphlet of topical irreverences, that had been well received in Rohri and Sukkur. He would be a journalist and a publisher again, and have a worldwide readership now. The newsletter would go to communities in Hong Kong, London, New York, Madrid, Lagos … destinations flew through his mind. In these places were settled Sindhis for whom his newsletter would reinstate identity. They would learn of the Sind of ancient times, which had played a prominent role in the epic folk history of the Mahabharata. They would learn of Arab invasions and religious infighting, long before Partition. They would learn of the modern history of Sind with its freedom movements, and Gandhi’s love of his many close Sindhi friends. Sind had participated in all the great moments of Indian history. Long before Greece led Europe, Sind was a sophisticated civilization, from which even the Sumerians derived their culture. The names of famous poets, kings, mystics and politicians were all to be found in Sind. They would learn of great happenings, they would learn of great men. Through the Hathiramani Newsletter, expatriate Hindu Sindhis would rise and consolidate. Mr Hathiramani took deep breaths, unable to contain his excitement. He rushed out of the room and woke his wife.

  ‘I want the bed moved, and the cupboard. The sideboard must be transferred to the living room. I have need of space in the bedroom.’ Mrs Hathiramani drew the sheet over her head. Raju gave a snore.

  Mr Hathiramani did not wait for an answer but returned to the bedroom, to his remaining books. There was plenty of information on Sind, the first newsletters would be easy. He would soon find new source books for reference. There would be also an editorial column, with his own thoughts on vital Sindhi matters. God’s ways were strange, thought Mr Hathiramani. As often as not, disaster had brought him to a better place. He ran a hand over his books, and looked at the rain-smeared windows. The monsoon always induced in him a contemplative mood.

  *

  Mrs Hathiramani had had a busy morning. Apart from attention to Mr Hathiramani, and the necessity of frequent mopping up at the leaking windows, she had spent time with Bhai Sahib, who had returned the night before from Nasik.

  Bhai Sahib was in agreement with all Mrs Hathiramani had done. ‘These books held him too much. But he is a scholar and a philosopher, such men are like that.’ He was disappointed to see Mrs Hathiramani empty-handed once more, especially as Saturn had re
treated from the House of the Sun with a minimum of destructiveness. It was essential to show gratitude for such deliverance; such gratitude was best shown in monetary form. ‘Some offering is necessary,’ he suggested, averting his eyes.

  ‘Some charitable act will do instead?’ Mrs Hathiramani asked with a secretive smile.

  ‘If that is your wish, it will do,’ Bhai Sahib was forced to reply.

  ‘Then my mind is made up,’ answered Mrs Hathiramani.

  *

  She had no time alone with Raju until they were in the kitchen, preparing boiled carrots and beans for Mr Hathiramani’s lunch.

  ‘He can eat only this English food, and one small dry chapati,’ explained Mrs Hathiramani through pursed lips, and made a sound of deep disgust.

  ‘How will he live, Memsahib?’ Raju worried.

  ‘He says my food has made him ill. He seeks only to insult me,’ Mrs Hathiramani fumed.

  ‘You are cooking food fit for Maharajahs, Memsahib,’ Raju soothed, and scratched his chest through one of the holes in his vest.

  ‘Even so, our Sahib says he will eat only boiled carrots,’ Mrs Hathiramani sniffed. ‘Still, he is alive. I am not yet a widow; for this I am not ungrateful. Listen now to me, Raju, donkey. I am going to give you education. Tell me, are you pleased?’ Mrs Hathiramani put down a spoon, and turned to beam at Raju. ‘I will send you to night school.’

  ‘I do not want education.’ Raju shrank back against the wall.

  ‘But always you are telling me, “Please, Memsahib, give me education”,’ Mrs Hathiramani roared.

  ‘I have changed my mind,’ Raju answered.

  ‘Donkey, I am giving you education and you do not want it?’ Mrs Hathiramani leaned forward angrily. ‘Tomorrow I will throw you out.’

  ‘If I have education, then, when I grow up, my brains will burst like Sahib’s,’ Raju replied, and returned his attention to stringing the beans.

  ‘Your Sahib’s brain is too big for his head, that is why it burst,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied, and blew angrily through her nose.