Such a Long Journey

by Rohinton Mistry

  Whatever Malcolm the musician’s intentions, over the course of several Sunday mornings he presented a prelude on Catholicism before launching into the theme of beef and variations thereon. Christianity came to India over nineteen hundred years ago, when Apostle Thomas landed on the Malabar coast amongst fishermen, said Malcolm. ‘Long before you Parsis came in the seventh century from Persia,’ he teased, ‘running away from the Muslims.’

  ‘That may be,’ rejoined Gustad, ‘but our prophet Zarathustra lived more than fifteen hundred years before your Son of God was even born; a thousand years before the Buddha; two hundred years before Moses. And do you know how much Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?’

  ‘OK man, OK!’ Malcolm laughed. ‘I give up.’ Since Crawford Market was only a short walk from the church, they were soon in the great hall of meat. There, Gustad received an overview about beef: its nutritional value, the best ways to cook it, the choicest parts, and, most importantly, the butchers in Crawford Market who sold the choicest parts.

  The following Sunday, Malcolm continued the story of Christianity. Saint Thomas was approached courteously by Hindu holy men, by brahmins, sadhus and acharyas, who wanted to know who he was and why he was loitering around these parts. The meeting took place at the sea-shore. Saint Thomas revealed his name, then said, Do me a favour, cup your palms, immerse them under water, and fling water to the sky. They did so, and the water splashed upwards and fell back into the sea. Saint Thomas asked, Can your God keep the water from falling back? What nonsense, Mister Thomas, said the Hindu holy men, it is the law of gravity, the law of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, so it must fall back.

  Then Malcolm the meat maestro pointed out a most critical point about beef-buying: if the fat had a yellowish tint, it came from a cow, not as desirable as buffalo, whose fat was white. And it was not easy, he said, to distinguish between the two – there was such a variety of gradations, and the light in that huge hall of meat could play tricks, so that very often yellow seemed white. After the first few times, he let Gustad lead the way, to give him practice, he said, practice and more practice, the secret weapon of all virtuosi.

  Then Saint Thomas turned to the fishermen and asked, If my God can do it – if He can keep the water from falling back – will you worship Him and forsake your multitude of pagan gods and goddesses, your shoals of idols and deities? And the Hindu holy men whispered amongst themselves, Let us have a little bit of fun, let us humour this Thomasbhai, this crazy foreigner. They said to him, Yes, yes, we will, Thomasji, most definitely.

  So Saint Thomas briskly waded out a few feet, cupped his hands, and flung sea-water to the sky. And, lo and behold, it stayed suspended in the air: all of it: the tiny droplets, the big drops, the elongated ones and the round ones, all stood suspended, and refracted the sunlight and sparkled most wondrously, with the perfect glory of the Lord God who created all things. And the crowds gathered on the beach: the fisherfolk, foreign tourists, pilgrims, diplomats, committee chairmen, bankers, mendicants, scallywags, lazy idle loafers, vagabonds, along with the Hindu holy men, all fell promptly to their knees and asked Saint Thomas to tell them more about his God so they too could worship Him.

  The last step (after learning to distinguish between buffalo and cow) involved the ability to identify the choicest sections. Malcolm revealed that the neck portion, which the butchers called neckie, was the tenderest, with the least fat, and quickest to cook, thus saving on fuel bills. Neckie was also the sweetest-tasting, and Malcolm assured Gustad that once he learned to appreciate it, he would never return to mutton, not even if he could afford it some day.

  Years later, when Gustad was shopping on his own, he was always willing to share Malcolm’s wisdom with friends and neighbours. He wanted to train them in the art of beef-eating, so they too could give up the expensive mutton habit. No one, however, was as receptive to the idea as he had been with Malcolm. Eventually, Gustad had to abandon all hope of spreading the gospel of beef.

  And a time also arrived when Gustad himself shopped no more at Crawford Market, settling instead for whatever stringy bits of goat, cow or buffalo that the door-to-door goaswalla of Khodadad Building brought. By this time, he had lost touch with Malcolm, and was spared embarrassing explanations about the tenuous, tangled connection between his desertion of Crawford Market and the sadhus’ nationwide protest against cow slaughter. It was easier to remain the silent, unknown apostate of beef.

  ii

  Roshan peered through the cracks in the wickerwork and refused to feed the chicken. She had never seen a live chicken, or even a dead one that had not been cooked. ‘Come on, don’t be frightened,’ said her father. ‘Picture it on your birthday dinner-plate and you won’t be afraid.’ He lifted the basket. Roshan flung the grain and snatched away her hand.

  The chicken was used to its new surroundings by now, and pecked busily at the grain, clucking contentedly. Roshan was fascinated by the bird and its movements. She imagined the chicken as her pet. It would be like a dog story in her English Reader. She could take it out in the compound for a walk, holding the bristly coir cord like a leash, or it could perch on her shoulder, like the picture in the Reader of a green parrot with a boy.

  She was still dreaming in the kitchen when Darius and Sohrab came to inspect the chicken. Darius put rice on his palm. The chicken ate from his hand.

  ‘Show-off,’ said Sohrab, stroking its wings.

  ‘Does the beak hurt?’ asked Roshan.

  ‘No, just tickles a little,’ Darius answered. Now Roshan wanted to pet it too and reached out gingerly, but the chicken was suddenly nervous again. It flapped its wings, evacuated its bowel and retreated.

  ‘It did chhee-chhee!’ exclaimed Roshan.

  Dilnavaz’s sorely tried patience ran out. ‘See that mess? Everywhere a mess! In the kitchen your silly chicken makes the mess! And in the front room all your books and newspapers, and blackout paper over the windows and ventilators! Dust and dirt and mess everywhere! I am fed up!’

  ‘Yes, yes, Dilnoo-darling, I know,’ said Gustad. ‘Sohrab and I will make that bookcase one of these days, then all the books and papers will fit nicely. OK, Sohrab?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Sohrab.

  She looked at them. ‘Bookcase is all very fine. But if you think I am going to clean that chhee-chhee, you are making a mistake.’

  ‘By the time Saturday morning comes, there will be a lot more,’ said Gustad. ‘Don’t worry, I will clean.’ He took it in his stride, but it was a definite miscalculation. In his childhood home there were servants to clean up after the flock.

  Sohrab calmed the chicken, holding down its wings, and invited his sister to pet it. ‘Come on, it won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Look at that,’ said Gustad, very pleased. ‘You would think he has been handling chickens all his life. Look at the expert way he holds it. I’m telling you, our son will do wonderfully at IIT, he will be the best engineer ever to graduate from there.’

  Sohrab released the bird. It dashed under the table, its movements making the roughly-braided coir twist come alive, writhe like a thin, fraying snake. ‘Stop it,’ he said to his father, clenching his teeth. ‘How does a chicken have anything to do with engineering?’

  Gustad was taken aback. ‘Why are you getting so upset, with just a little joke?’

  ‘It’s not just a little joke,’ said Sohrab, becoming louder. ‘Ever since the exam results came, you are driving me crazy with your talk of IIT.’

  ‘Don’t raise your voice at Daddy,’ said Dilnavaz. It was true, she realized, they had been discussing it endlessly, making plans and provisions. How he would live in the student hostel at Powai, and come home at the weekends, or they would visit him with a picnic lunch, the college was so close to the lake and the scene-scenery was so beautiful. And after he had finished IIT he would go to an engineering college in America, maybe MIT, and -. But when this point was reached Dilnavaz would say it was time to stop dreaming and tempting fate, because Sohrab h
ad not even started at IIT as yet.

  She understood how he felt. Even so, he could not be allowed to shout. ‘We are feeling very happy about it, what else? Why do you think your father bought the chicken? After hard work all day he went to Crawford Market. With two grown boys in the house, it is a disgrace that he has to do the bajaar. When he was your age he paid his own college fees. And supported his parents.’

  Sohrab left the kitchen. Gustad replaced the basket over the fowl. ‘Come, leave it alone now, must not be disturbed all the time.’

  *

  Around midnight, Dilnavaz awoke to go to the WC and heard the chicken clucking softly. Must be hungry again, she thought, switching on the light. The faint beseeching sounds made her forget how firmly she had spoken against live chickens. She went to the rice jar and knocked over the copper measuring cup. It hit the floor with a clang that woke the flat. Everyone soon assembled in the kitchen. ‘What happened?’ asked Gustad.

  ‘I was going to the back, and the chicken made a sound. I thought it was asking for more food,’ she said, holding out her fistful of rice.

  ‘Asking for more food! How much do you know about chickens that you understand what it is saying?’ said Gustad.

  Cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck came the muted response from the basket. ‘Look, Daddy,’ said Roshan, ‘it’s so happy to see us.’

  ‘You think so?’ The child’s remark pleased him and erased his annoyance. He patted her hair. ‘Since the chicken is awake, you can give it some food, then back to sleep.’

  They repeated their goodnight-Godblessyou’s to one another and returned to their beds.

  iii

  Roshan fed the chicken and played with it all next evening after school. ‘Daddy, can we keep it for ever? I will look after it, promise.’

  Gustad was amused, also a little touched. He winked at Darius and Sohrab. ‘What do you think? Shall we save its life for Roshan?’ He expected them to protest and lick their lips in anticipation of the feast tomorrow.

  But Sohrab said, ‘I don’t mind, if Mummy can live with it in the kitchen.’

  ‘Please Daddy, can we keep it, then? Even Sohrab wants it. No, Sohrab?’

  ‘Enough silliness for one day,’ said Gustad.

  On Saturday morning, the butcher who made deliveries to Khodadad Building knocked at the door. Gustad took him to the kitchen and indicated the basket. The butcher held out his hand.

  Gustad was annoyed. ‘Years and years we have been your customers. Now for one small favour you want payment?’

  ‘Don’t get angry, seth, I don’t want payment. Something must be put in my palm so I can use the knife without sinning.’

  Gustad gave him a twenty-five paisa coin. ‘I forgot about that.’ He left the kitchen, not anxious to watch or hear the squawk of final desperation, and waited at the front door.

  Moments later, the chicken whizzed by his legs and into the compound. The butcher came running after. ‘Murgi, murgi! Catch the murgi!’

  ‘What happened?’ yelled Gustad, joining the chase.

  ‘O seth, I held the string, lifted the basket!’ the butcher panted. ‘Then string is in one hand, basket in the other, and chicken runs between my legs!’

  ‘Impossible! Tied it myself!’ Gustad’s slight limp became an ugly hobble when he ran. The faster he ran, the worse it grew, and he did not like people to see. The butcher was ahead of him, gaining on the bird. Fortunately, it had turned right when it emerged in the compound, keeping close to the black stone wall, which led it to a dead end instead of the main road.

  Lame Tehmul was there, pacing with his swaying, rolling gait. He dived for the chicken, and, to everyone’s surprise, including his own, was successful. He held it up by the legs, waving it at Gustad with frantic glee as it screeched and flapped desperately.

  Lame Tehmul could be found in the compound from morning till night, rain or shine. Whenever Gustad reflected on the miraculous cure that Madhiwalla Bonesetter had worked on his fractured hip, it was Tehmul who came to mind. For Tehmul-Lungraa, as everyone called him, was a supremely pathetic example of hip-fracture victims who had had the misfortune to be treated by conventional methods, condemned to years on crutches and walking-sticks, with nothing to look forward to but a life of pain, their bodies swaying frighteningly from side to side while they strained and panted and heaved in their pitiful pursuit of ambulation.

  Tehmul-Lungraa gave the compound’s solitary tree a wide berth, as though it was going to reach out and deal him a blow with one of its branches. He had, as a little boy, fallen from its height in his attempt to rescue a tangled kite. The neem tree had not been kind to Tehmul, the way it had to others. For children in Khodadad Building, cuttings from its soothing branches had stroked the itchy rashes and papules of measles and chicken-pox. For Gustad, neem leaves (pulped into a dark green drink by Dilnavaz with her mortar and pestle) had kept his bowel from knotting up during his twelve helpless weeks. For servants, hawkers, beggars passing through, neem twigs served as toothbrush and toothpaste rolled into one. Year after year, the tree gave unstintingly of itself to whoever wanted.

  But there had been no such benevolence for Tehmul. The fall from the neem had broken his hip. And although he had not landed on his head, something went wrong inside due to the jolt of the accident, perhaps in the same way that earthquakes will crack houses far from the epicentre.

  After the fall, Tehmul was never the same. His parents kept him in school, hoping to salvage something. Whether it worked or not, he had been happy trudging there on his little crutches, and they paid his fees till the school refused to accept them any more, politely advising that it would be better for all concerned if Tehmul’s scholastic career was terminated. His parents were long since dead, and his older brother looked after his needs. The latter was a sort of travelling salesman and usually away from home, but Tehmul did not mind. In his mid-thirties now, he still preferred the company of children to adults, with the exception of Gustad Noble. For some reason he adored Gustad.

  Tehmul-Lungraa could often be seen directing traffic around the demon tree, warning children to keep away from it if they knew what was good for them, lest they suffer his fate. He no longer used crutches, but walked up and down indicating his rolling gait and twisted hip for their benefit.

  And the children, by and large, treated him well; there were very few instances of vicious harassment, not counting the advantage they took of a weakness Tehmul had. Things that travelled through the air enchanted him – things that soared, swooped or dived, things flying and fluttering in freedom. Whether it be bird or butterfly, a paper dart or a falling leaf, he never tired of trying to possess it. Aware of his fascination, sometimes the children would toss a ball or twig or pebble his way, but always slightly out of reach. Always, he would gamely persevere to catch it and fall over himself. Or they would throw a football away from him, then stand back and watch him stumble after it. Just when he thought he was catching up, his uncoordinated feet would kick the ball further, and his frustrating chase began over again.

  But on the whole, Tehmul got along well with children. It was the grown-ups who ran out of patience with some of his annoying habits. He loved following people: from the compound gate to the building entrance, and up the stairs, always wearing a big grin, till they shut the door in his face. It bothered some of them so much, they would hide by the gate and peer into the compound to see if the coast was clear, or wait till his back was turned and then sneak through. Others dealt with it by yelling and shooing him off, wildly waving their arms till he understood he was not wanted, though utterly bewildered as to why this should be so.

  If Tehmul’s trailing habit did not irritate them, his scratching habit was certain to. He scratched perpetually, like one possessed, mainly his groin and armpits. He scratched with a circular movement, a churning, scrambling, stirring motion of his hand, and those who sought more subtlety in a nickname than Tehmul-Lungraa called him Scrambled Egg. Women claimed he did it deliberately to annoy them. They
said that his hand regularly moved downward in their presence, and it was rubbing and caressing himself that he did, more than scratching. Muà lutcha, they said, knew perfectly well what all his parts were for, never mind if his head was not right – what with a big packet like that, and no underwear even to keep it all in place, it was shameful to have him wandering around dingle-dangle.

  Lastly, the words of Tehmul-Lungraa’s abbreviated vocabulary always emerged at breakneck speed, whizzing incomprehensibly past the listener’s ear. It was as if some internal adjustment had been made to make up for the slowness of his legs with the velocity of his tongue. But the result was extreme frustration for both Tehmul and the listener. Gustad was one of the few who could decipher his speech.

  ‘GustadGustadchickenrace. GustadGustadchickenranfastfast. I-caughtIcaughtGustad.’ Tehmul proudly displayed the bird by its legs.

  ‘Very good, Tehmul. Well done!’ said Gustad, his practised ear sorting out the spate of words. Tehmul’s cascading utterances were always bereft of commas, exclamation marks, semicolons, question marks: all swept away without the slightest chance of survival. The verbal velocity only allowed for the use of the full stop. And it was not really a full stop the way Tehmul used it; rather, a minimal halt anywhere he chose to re-oxygenate his lungs.

  ‘GustadGustadrunningrace. Fastfastchickenfirst.’ He grinned and pulled its tail.

  ‘No, no, Tehmul. Race is over now.’ He took the chicken and handed it to the butcher waiting, knife in hand. Tehmul clutched his own throat, performed a slitting gesture and emitted a terrified squawk. Gustad could not help laughing. Encouraged, Tehmul squawked again.

  Miss Kutpitia had watched the chase from her window upstairs. She stuck her head out and applauded: ‘Sabaash, Tehmul, sabaash! Now we will get you a job as the chicken-catcher of Khodadad Building. Now you are not only the rat-catcher, you are rat- and chicken-catcher.’ Shaking with what might have been silent mirth, she withdrew her head and shut the window.