Shiv and a nurse help Meena onto the X-ray table. Shiv can see that Meena is in pain but she does not say a thing. The firm set of her mouth and her clammy hands overwhelm him with a protective feeling, a feeling that is entirely superfluous, considering it has nowhere to go.
An hour later they are in the doctor’s room; he holds Meena’s X ray up to the light. “Looks alright,” he says, and Meena perks up immediately.
“When do I get rid of the cast?” she asks him, leaning on her elbows to sit up.
“Oh, the cast,” he says, and the telephone rings. For the next five minutes he grunts a series of h’ms, yes’s and noes into the phone, his monosyllabic version of the doctor’s bedside manner. His pen traces elaborate doodles on the pad before him.
“The cast, Doctor,” Meena says the instant he puts down the phone. “You said it would be off in three to four weeks. Three weeks if I was careful about resting the leg.”
“It’s been just over two weeks now.”
“Yes, but you said the X ray was alright.”
“It’s healing—you don’t want to interfere with that. You can put both feet on the ground and use just one crutch. Or use a walker.”
“But for how long,” begins persistent Meena.
“Let’s see—you could get an X ray and a checkup in another five weeks or so.”
“Five more?” gasps Meena and the telephone rings again. The doctor covers the mouth of the receiver with his hand and says, “I’ll see you then.” His lips stretch in imitation of a smile and he returns to his telephone. His head bends over the doodle pad.
Boredom. Yet another power cut. Meena is restless and sullen. She complains that her knee is itchy. Halfway down the cast, it is impossible to reach. But she refuses to give up; she has, by now, an imaginative range of what she calls scratchers. A sharp letter opener; a discarded comb; a long white-ribbed peacock feather; an incense stick. She keeps these in a brass jug on the table by her bed. Every now and then Shiv sees her inserting one of the scratchers into her cast, her skirt bunched up at the top of her thigh. Her face has, at these moments, the concentration of a predator, entirely without inhibition or self-consciousness. Once, when she sees him watching, she complains that the cast is chafing her ankle. He follows her instructions. His finger dripping with cream, he traces circles round her ankle over and over again. The raw skin gleams once he has drawn this slippery anklet. Then he rolls bits of cotton into small balls and pushes them into the lower end of the cast.
But it is not always so easy to distract her. If Rekha were here, she would have known how to fill up the empty minutes with bright, purposeful small talk. But she is not here—and Shiv is not sorry the task of amusing Meena is entirely his. Keep the conversation light, he tells himself as if lecturing an earnest student. Keep it playful, skim over all the boring puddles like a dragonfly. Tell her stories, entertaining anecdotes. Meena loves it when the butt of the joke is what she calls the cardboard tyrants: the university authorities, the management, the senior faculty. And god knows there are enough clowns among them; Shiv sacrifices them without a qualm. He racks his brains for a new story.
“Did I tell you about the Admin Officer and the gender petition?” (Shiv is terrified he may repeat a story and lose his audience of one.)
“No.” Meena yawns, then covers her mouth with her hand like an afterthought. She looks at him expectantly.
“A group of women employees took a petition against gender discrimination to the Officer. Okay, he said to them, show me your gender thing. Oh no—you show us yours first, said the women.”
Meena’s eyes sparkle; Shiv is getting addicted to this sparkle.
University folklore converted into stories with punchlines. Childish games with words: rector as rectum, adult education as adultery education. Shiv is taking a crash course from Meena on how to live with power and not give up laughter. Survival by play; play as survival mode. Words, more words. What else can connect them? A passing touch, an accidental meeting of his fingertips, her skin, when he settles the cushion under her foot. He knows every inch of the cast that takes the shape of her leg.
“Will you get me something to read?” she asks him.
He eyes the pile of pamphlets her friend Amar has left on the table. “Oh, I’ve read those, they’re not exactly absorbing,” she says airily. “I’ve read half of Orientalism and the book is in the hostel. Could you get me a copy? And wait—” She searches under the mess of sheets and pillows and finds something else she has been reading. Asterix, Obelix and Co. “Will you get me some of these?” she asks a little sheepishly. “Especially Asterix and the Normans—I haven’t read that.”
He bounces up and out, charged with energy and purpose as if she has asked him to get her the moon. He buys her Edward Said and a pile of Asterix, and for good measure, Tintin as well. But this is apparently a mistake. “Tintin is nothing like Asterix,” she says, no longer sheepish about her closet comichabit. “It’s shamelessly imperialist.”
He promises to return the Tintin immediately.
“And if you’re going out, will you get me batteries for the emergency light?” (He has been insisting she keep this by her bed in case the power fails at night.) “Oh, but don’t get batteries made by those murderers Union Carbide.”
When Shiv returns with the approved batteries and the generally approved flavor of ice cream, Meena is in the bathroom. It takes her half an hour to have an unsatisfactory shower with her cast in a plastic bag held in place with a piece of string. He puts away what he has bought and uses this time to make her bed. The sheets are damp. There are two dead mosquitoes on one pillow, and a bloodstain shaped like a teardrop. He straightens the sheets, dusts them down top to bottom with the pillow. (Rekha will never believe he has done this instead of Kamla.) Before he returns the pillow to the bed and covers it with the bedspread, he pauses for a minute, looking at the lumpy, leaky pillow in his hand. He buries his face in it. The pillowcase does not smell fresh. It is not exactly unpleasant either; it smells warm, human, of hot cheeks and thick damp hair. He breathes in, holds the smell. He fills a bottle in his brain with this perfume, a nameless essence. Then he traps it, hoards it, and holds it in with a tight-fitting stopper.
The morning begins with “loadshedding” for an hour, then a “breakdown” for two. By the time the power finally returns, Meena has gone back to sleep. Kamla too has returned to work, though she looks too washed out to do much. Shiv settles down with his neglected papers upstairs. Amita Sen has called to say that she has to send a course module to the printing unit. He is to read it, approve it and send it back to her. Then with careful politeness, she asks how his ward is; she does not ask when he is returning to the Department.
Amita’s module begins with the obligatory Lesson Objective; Shiv has trained her himself to follow this safe structure familiar to their students. After reading this lesson you will be able to … In this case, it is drawing links between the major religions of India and social reform movements.
As if a button has been pressed, a part of Shiv is on the alert as he reads on. Though he has never said as much, the Head pushed for Shiv’s being In-Charge of B.A. History because he was sure that Shiv would, while being liberal, “balance any Marxist bias.” The Head’s great fear is that the “consensus approach” so dear to his heart may be demolished by some course expert who is “too controversial” or “dominating” or “given to extreme ideas.”
The real danger they face is that they put their lectures down in print. Unlike regular teachers, they never get a chance to correct or qualify what has already been said in an earlier class. Shiv remembers all the indignant letters of protest they got some years ago when two little illustrations got past the course editor. One was a line drawing of a congregation of Muslim faithful bent in prayer, all the bent figures facing exactly the opposite of the prescribed west. Even worse, the second line drawing attempted to illustrate polygamy: the drawing had a graybeard reminiscent of some venerable old mullah in
the center, surrounded by four women pulling him in four different directions.
But Amita’s module is bland and beyond reproach. Shiv puts it aside and goes on to the next lot of papers, all part of a course on the Far East. His attention wanders; he wonders what Meena would make of the Head; of Amita; of their entire troupe of module-peddlers.
Meena. Fish-eyed. Fish-eyed, dark-browed, tangle-haired. Wide-hipped, generous-lipped. The list he can chant seems endless. Shiv invokes Meena, Meena’s attributes, with a thousand names—like a devotee who mumbles himself into a stupor. A devotee whose words keep him upstairs in safety, while the flesh and blood reality lies downstairs in her room. The room. Such dignifying of that small space, a glorified hole, to call it a room. Meena must feel she is sleeping in a cupboard, marking time while lying prone on a shelf. She is too young to appreciate such compact safety, the comfort of being held in and enclosed.
Shiv turns back to his work, resolute. By the afternoon he has taken care of all the papers on his desk except for the new lesson. He gets up, tired and virtuous, and goes downstairs. He makes his way to Meena’s room.
Shiv and Meena sit in the stream of late afternoon light filtered by the mosquito mesh on her window. Shiv has drawn the curtain halfway across so that the sun does not get in Meena’s eyes. The TV is on. Meena has been yawning her way through the third B-grade detective film she has seen this week. Shiv’s contribution to her enjoyment sits on a tray she balances on her lap. A cup of tea, the chocolate bourbon biscuits she is partial to, a bowl of tangy masala peanuts.
The detective has just discovered that he has been double-crossed by his love interest, a blonde with a fictitious Barbie-doll figure. There is a sense that this betrayal will speed up the film; the decisive chase and shootout are just minutes away. Just then the telephone by Meena’s bed rings shrilly. Shiv picks it up. Meena reaches for the remote and lowers the volume. The detective plays out his inevitable triumph over the baddies in silence.
A young man whose name Shiv doesn’t catch is on the phone, asking for the “professor sir.” The man introduces himself as a reporter of a newspaper called Current.
“Professor? Professor Shiv Murthy? Can you confirm that you are on leave?”
“Yes,” says Shiv, “but how would that interest your paper?”
“Sir—professor—I want to meet you for an interview. About your controversial article.”
“What article? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Sir, are you saying ‘No comment’? Don’t you want to present your side of the story?”
“I would, if you would only tell me what the story is.” Shiv swallows his exasperation. “Are you sure you have the right person? I teach in the History Department of the Central University. KGU. I can’t remember when I last wrote an article in a newspaper or magazine.”
“Sir.” (The way he uses the word tells Shiv how completely he disbelieves him.) “I am talking about your article—or maybe you call it textbook or course or something—on some poet—wait a minute, please, sir, I have it here. Oh yes,” he says, and reads from his notes. “It’s an article on the twelfth-century poet and social reformer Basavanna. And you have yourself confirmed that you are on leave. Are you denying that you went on leave because of the protests against the article, sir?”
Shiv remains silent, trying to take it in; but none of it makes any sense yet.
“Sir? Are you still there? Did the university ask you to go on leave or is it voluntary?”
“My leave? I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you till I have found out what this is all about.”
“Not even a short interview on the telephone, sir?”
“No.”
“No comment, sir?”
Shiv hangs up.
Meena has put aside her tray midway through Shiv’s conversation with the alleged journalist. She is no longer yawning. “What is it,” she asks eagerly. “What’s happened?”
“I don’t really know. Somebody from a paper called Current asking for an interview. Have you heard of this paper?”
“No, but what do they want to interview you about?”
“That’s the strange part. This man seems to think I have gone on leave because of something I wrote—because there have been protests against it. He said something about Basavanna. I have written a course module on social reform movements in medieval India, where there is a lesson on Basava—usually referred to as Basavanna or Elder Brother Basava—but why would anyone protest about that?”
They sit in puzzled silence, then Meena says, “Why don’t you find out what it’s about? Suppose it’s true and someone else calls? What if your Arya is up to something? You should know what’s been happening while you have been on leave.”
Shiv considers this. He supposes he should call Menon or Amita—just in case this is not some kind of sophisticated crank call. But how would a crank caller know his name? Or that he has written a history lesson for B.A. correspondence students on Basava?
The telephone rings again. Shiv looks at Meena, then picks it up with some trepidation. It’s the Head.
“Shiv?” This use of his first name is so out of character that Shiv immediately knows something is wrong.
“Yes, Dr. Sharma,” he forces himself to say. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Shiv. Look, let me get to the point. I don’t know if you are aware of it, but there is a problem with your medieval Indian history lessons.”
“Yes, I had a peculiar phone call from someone claiming to be a journalist. He wanted to know why I am on leave. What seems to be the problem?”
“Your lesson on Basavanna’s movement for social reform has been leaked somehow to the press.”
“But Dr. Sharma,” Shiv interrupts, “our lessons are hardly classified information. Anyone can get hold of them, in a library or in one of our study centers.”
“I know, I know. But this time it’s fallen into the wrong hands. It’s a pity you didn’t guard against ambiguity, Shiv. Apparently there is a certain lack of clarity in the lesson—anyway the lesson has hurt the sentiments of a Hindu watchdog group. You know our policy is to steer clear of controversy.”
Meena leans forward, her face attentive, though she can hear only one end of the conversation. Shiv waits for the Head to catch his breath and go on.
“The Dean and I have received an angry, abusive letter about this lesson. I told the Dean I had not read the lesson myself since you are in charge of the B.A. program. This group, something called the Itihas Suraksha Manch, accuses you of distorting history and historical figures.”
“Distorting history?” Shiv asks like a stupid echo.
The Head ignores his interruption. “It seems you have implied that Basavanna’s city, Kalyana, was not a model Hindu kingdom. It seems you have exaggerated the problem of caste and written in a very biased way about the brahmins and temple priests. And also you have not made it clear enough that Basavanna was much more than an ordinary human being. There are people who consider him divine, you know.”
“And my leave? What has that got to do with it?” Shiv asks, though he is beginning to discern a mad logic in the instant web being woven around him.
“Yes, we will have to decide what to do about that. There is a rumor that you have gone on leave because the lesson has got you into trouble.”
“Dr. Sharma, I didn’t know I was in trouble, as you put it, till five minutes ago.”
“Well, Shiv, we will have to act swiftly to stop this from growing into a controversy. A full apology or retraction from you will be best—we can decide what to call it so that it is not too embarrassing for the Department—or for you of course. And we may have to send instructions to all our study centers to discontinue use of the booklet that contains this module. Maybe we will have to decide to reprint without the lesson. I have to meet the Dean tomorrow morning at eleven-thirty and give him a report. Please meet me before that—wait, I just remembered something else—maybe it’s best we m
eet in the Dean’s room. And get hold of a copy of the lesson by then if you don’t have one at home.”
Shiv can do nothing but agree, he is so bewildered by it all. He thinks of his careful vetting of Amita’s module this morning; a morning so far back in time that he can hardly believe he planned to tell the story of the polygamy line drawing to entertain Meena.
Meena breaks into his confused thoughts and goes, in her special way, straight to the heart of the matter. “It’s Arya, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, but some crazy group has got hold of a lesson I wrote for the medieval history course. As far as I have understood, they are objecting to the fact that I have not made the heroes heroic enough, and that I have made the villains too villainous. At any rate, they claim the lesson distorts history.” (Shiv mimes quotation marks to enclose the word.) “It seems I have not sung enough of a paean to the glory of Hindu kingdoms; and that I make too much of caste divisions among Hindus.” Shiv frowns at the TV; the silent screen fills with madly celebrating village folk advertising their discovery of Coke. He takes the remote from Meena and switches it off. “The group is called the Itihas Suraksha Manch. The protection of history! Whoever heard of history having to be protected?”
“Protect?” says Meena with a knowing sneer. “The minute they use the word you know they mean attack.”
Shiv considers this for a moment. It sounds a little shrill to him, and far too neat, but—it is true that whether people are talking about culture or history or women’s rights, protection has become a much-abused word. A cover-up for all kinds of bullying tactics.
But Meena is a step or two ahead of Shiv. “What are you going to say tomorrow? You will have to chalk out a plan. Obviously you can’t apologize or take back a word of the lesson.”
Shiv’s heart sinks. Is it all so obvious? He feels his eloquence about the complexities of history drying up at the thought of confronting fists, threats, physical danger in any form at all.
The telephone rings again. He picks it up in a daze. Nothing will surprise him, not even a call from the Dean asking for his resignation.
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