by Saurav Jha
The artist, meanwhile, is talking with the academics about her recent exhibition on mass graves. They purr in appreciation and on the spot issue her an invitation to come and speak at a conference they are organizing on ‘Fragments of Nationhood: Notes on a Country That Is Not a Country’.
I can feel the hair standing on S’s forearms, though I also feel giggles arising somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach. The former MD excuses himself to get seconds. Ravi Aneja joins the chat and says, ‘This is an interesting theme. In fact, one would think from reading several Indian scholars – though I must confess I read only English and not any of the other languages – that the idea of India itself is a creation.’
‘Exactly right,’ says the younger of the academics, her smug face cracking to reveal a smile.
‘Of all the lies,’ I hear S saying, ‘that the British came up with in their time, this, Ravi, is the very worst.’
The younger academic starts.
‘Young man,’ she starts to say, but S is looking at Ravi Aneja.
‘The idea that only the Westphalian model of nation state is valid is yet another example of Western intellectual arrogance. There are civilizational states too, which have evolved into modern nation states.’ He pushes his chair back, and with no regard for the fine sensibilities at hand, the chair screeches rudely. ‘The idea of Bharata, Bharatavarsha, is extremely old. And since its spatial contours have been recorded in text after text, it seems strange that strategies which were clearly meant to aid a colonial regime continue to find academic echo. Excuse me,’ he says and leaves. The former MD returns, his plate heaped with lavender ice cream and moong dal halwa.
I am left with the awkward task of negotiating this affair. The academics have turned their glassy faces at each other again and have decided to studiously avoid me – who in the world invited us? – but the artist is exhibiting a fluttery sort of energy. I address Ravi. ‘I am going to give you one example. There is a text in Sanskrit, called the Natyashastra. It is an ancient encyclopaedic work on dramaturgy. Some compare it to Aristotle’s Poetics but that’s plain silly, because the English translation of the Poetics is about thirty pages while the Natyashastra is immense. About thirty-six chapters averaging eighty to hundred verses each. It’s very elaborate. Anyway, what I want to say is that the Natyashastra is by no means a religious text. It concerns arts and aesthetics. Chapter 14 of the Natyashastra concerns regional variations in performance. There are all the different parts of India mentioned in it – it could be adapted to a Doordarshan programme talking about our unity in diversity in a blink, you know. And this is but one example. Anyway, enjoy your dinner,’ I say. ‘We must be off.’
I finish my lavender ice cream in two seconds and look for S. I wonder where else he is picking a fight. Then I notice he is talking to his editor, that wonderful man, and I relax. And once I set down my plate, we are ready to leave. Ravi Aneja meets us by the doorway and gives us his card. ‘That you are staying in Paharganj has me interested already. Did you know,’ he lowers his voice, ‘that government files used to be sold in Paharganj once?’ We chat for a few moments and then we apologize to Ravi, we really must be off.
‘I’ll call you guys,’ he tells us. Downstairs, in the lobby, as I try to keep pace with S, who always strides extra-fast when he’s annoyed, I spy Boo and Moo sitting on one of the sofas.
‘The book?’ I ask in sudden panic.
‘Right here,’ S says, and flips it out from under his arm.
We are in an auto on the way back, and the wind streaming in has dispelled the energy spikes the dinner raised. I take the book from him and run my finger down the spine. It feels solid. The only question is whether it will take our weight.
‘What weight?’ S asks.
I realize I’ve spoken loud. ‘Oh it’s a silly story. You know how we used to have chapel in school every morning, right? So mostly we had stories from the Bible or moral science lessons. But there was one teacher who used to come up with more interesting stories. There was one about an old woman who died and found herself in a room. Apparently, it would be decided there if she would go to heaven or hell. God appeared and asked her, “Have you done anything meaningful in your life?” The old woman thought and thought and thought. Finally she came up with one thing. “I once gave a carrot to a beggar.” “Right,” God said and went to an anteroom. He returned with a carrot in a plastic bag, like an exhibit in a courtroom drama. “This is that carrot. Now you have to see if this carrot will pull your weight to heaven or not.” The old woman is led to an open field and asked to hold the carrot aloft. The carrot does appear to rise in the air, and soon the old woman is dangling from the carrot and rising heavenward. That’s the context in which I meant it. We’ve taken so many decisions in the name of the books – this book, the very first – just wondering if it’ll carry our weight heavenward.’
We’re in Paharganj now. It’s half past ten. Though some of the roadside shops are winding up for the night – the men are packing up their sweaters and bags and watches – the restaurants ought to be buzzing. The cool folks ought to be stepping out into the streets only now, emerging from the alleys in twos and threes.
‘So what happened to the old woman?’
‘I can’t remember the end of the story. Something happened. Bad, I guess. With a moral for schoolchildren. Bas bhaiya, rok dijiye.’
We let the auto go outside the German Bakery where the twins are supposed to meet us. My sari is riding up my ankles and the pallu is crumpled.
The twins are sitting in our usual place, though the German Bakery is deserted. Unusually. But before we get to them, Alam, who is standing by the counter, asks us, ‘Have you heard the news?’
We cannot read his face. It’s an odd mixture of excitement and horror. We wave at the boys. ‘Yes,’ Alam says in English, ‘they have been waiting for you. I am going to shut the place now. We were just waiting for you to come.’
‘Why so soon?’ I ask, but it is S who asks the moot question. ‘What news?’
‘There has been a blast in Pune,’ Alam says, sitting down on his chair. ‘In the German Bakery near Osho ashram. The owner is well known to me. Many people are dead. Indians. Foreigners. The bakery is very close to the Chabad House, so some people are saying that Israelis were the target.’
The boys come and stand by us at the counter, and we talk for a few minutes with Alam. Then we troop out silently. Paharganj is in usual mode, though the owner of the bookstore is unusually bright-eyed; two of the regular layabouts are deep in conversation with the fruit seller. In front of us, three or four policemen arrive with yellow barricades. But they are not sure what they are supposed to do, and they stand in one corner and speak among themselves. The next evening, though, we would see two barricades at either end of Main Bazaar Road; autos would no longer be allowed inside and a couple of policemen would be on duty by the barricades.
‘Is that the book?’ Motty asks.
‘Oh, yes,’ S says, and hands it to him.
They pore over it from every angle and unleash a torrent in Hebrew.
‘It is big day, SJ,’ Zvika finally tells us. ‘We would like to take you for a drink. Whatever may have happened, we must celebrate the book. That is what we must always believe. Terrorist attacks are meant to make people afraid – so you have to fight it by not being afraid.’
Together we enter one of the many bars in Paharganj – and truth be told, it is not as seedy as I’d imagined it to be. In the dim light we see it is extremely crowded, and the only table for four that is available is right in front of a TV stuck on the wall.
We order our drinks, and when they arrive, we even manage to raise a toast, but the mood is overshadowed by the Pune tragedy. After they got the news, the boys had rushed to the Chabad House here to enquire if they had more news.
At eleven, Zvika’s phone rings. It’s their mother. He steps out to take the call.
In any case, it’s late. We decide to call it a day and Motty clears the tab. By then, Zvika is back. ‘They’ve just got the news. They heard Chabad House, and immediately thought there’s been a blast in Delhi. You know how mothers are?’
We step out and walk through the shadowy streets.
‘They want us to return home,’ Zvika says, finally. ‘It’s crazy, right?’
We stand outside the ATM, our usual place, but there is a deep emptiness that descends. The boys begin to talk about the book again.
S tells them about the party.
My mind drifts and the edges of the Paharganj streets begin to advance towards me. Perhaps I have drunk too much?
But I don’t want to move from that spot.
There is something going on in the air, and I want to understand it.
Even in that state of half-formed drama, suddenly, I realize what is different. The cool but surprisingly sweet breeze that blows in and tangles up my hair says the season has turned.
It is no longer winter.
Thirteen:
How to Let Go, How Not to Let Go
Sair kar duniya, ki gaafil zindagaani phir kahaan?
Zindagi gar kuchh rahi, toh naujavaani phir kahaan?
Wander the world, ay drifter, where will you get this life again?
And even if life remained, where would you find this youth again?
— Immortal lines by Ismail Merathi. Quoted by Rahul Sankrityayan in his famous essay ‘Athato Ghumakkad Jigyasa’.
52
I still cannot say how it would have turned out if my mother had not called the next morning and told me that my grandfather was dying. Would we have continued travelling?
But she did call – and in the grey light of the morning after the blast, in our cold blue room – her voice seemed tinny and distant. Was it possible that she – that most practical of practical women – sounded needy? She asked if we had any plans of returning.
I did not know what to say.
Truth was that we had no plans any more.
The Paharganj posture had dug into our soul. We were low on money. We could only mark time in these familiar streets, read second-hand books and wait for S’s pitches to be accepted. He could do articles. We could wait for money to come into his account, I could edit a few books, and we could travel again. Until then we might stay here and watch spring take over Delhi.
Or we could return. Enact the same routines by other familiar streets.
There is something frightening about the death of a beloved grandparent for the likes of me, cosseted by generations of ancestors as I was growing up. It puts nothing between death and one’s own parents.
S, though, belongs to another land.
And it is only this – the death of an old person who has lived a full life and in the end is surrounded by old children and young grandchildren, perhaps even a great-grandchild or two – it is only this normalcy that has ever stood between us, like a giant distorting mirror mashing up our pasts and presents and making us strangers to each other, scions of an alien species. In his land, there is something odd about this sight. Old people dying surrounded by mourning white-haired children.
And it immediately breeds in him nightmares. He worries about the lone man in the island that is his home – his father.
He tells me that given how low our funds are at the moment, perhaps it is better, more practical, that we return to Calcutta. I can see my grandfather. I can see my mother. He can be with Daddy. We can save up for a couple of months and set out again. This time, the holidays would be on and we could travel unfettered. Not have to worry about the university either.
Consider the parents, he says to me, reasonably. Let’s go home.
It is morning in Paharganj. All I can do is lie still.
Saurav
The next day, we are supposed to meet the twins for lunch but we only find Motty in Khosla Café, another thali joint, sitting quietly in a corner. Zvika is having a tough day. He has stayed back in the room to think things over and write his diary. He has not written for days – and is now swirling in a sea of stress. He invariably gets into these stressful situations, Motty says calmly. It’s better if he spends some time on his own until he feels better.
After lunch, none of us want to return to our rooms. It is a pleasant sunny day, and we decide to go to Jantar Mantar. We take the metro and then walk past the protestors, who sit in groups and sip tea. Motty stops to read the placards.
Inside, we walk past the sundial and sit in the shade.
Even I am too exhausted to lecture the others about Sawai Jai Singh’s legendary work.
‘Our parents are very worried, Dippy,’ Motty says, addressing D as everyone does when the matter at hand is complex.
‘I can understand,’ D replies.
‘They are very, how can I say, sensitive. Also, they are getting old. But Zvika does not want to listen. He says that blasts happen in Tel Aviv also. He wants to travel to Andaman and help with the Chabad House there. He has apparently promised the rabbi and can’t go back on his word. He has got quite involved in this religious thing.’
‘Hmm,’ D says. ‘It has become a spiritual journey for him suddenly.’
‘Exactly,’ says Motty. ‘But he must consider our parents also.’
The sun hides behind the clouds and everything falls into shade. Both D and Motty lose colour from their faces, and from where I sit, they seem strangers.
‘What do you want to do?’ D asks him.
‘I think I will have to return. Zvika can travel on and return when he is ready. But I shall forward my ticket to Bangkok, spend a few days there and go back to Holon. At least one of us will be home. I think, for me, the journey ends here. I would like to travel more – I could do this forever – but I also want to go back to my life. You know?’
Consider the parents: at least one sibling must.
My brother’s family is currently in Calcutta with my father – the reason I can travel and be away. But they are supposed to leave for Moscow at the end of summer. And knowing my brother and the path he wants to chart in the corporate world, he is probably never going to return to our hometown. What after that?
D and Motty get up to walk around and take photographs.
I stand near the sundial and watch people come in and children run and lovers kiss. I watch the light dance on the dial.
Epilogue
Summer in Calcutta. White afternoon sky that blurs at the horizon, where buildings stand like toys. In street corners, rickshaw pullers drink sattu dissolved in water, doused with salt and a pinch of sugar. They cover their faces with wet red gamchhas and recline on the seats. When you step out of the house, you feel, first, the sun on your face. It is not the stark sun of Delhi that sucks up moisture from every surface but a hot, dizzy, moist ball that pinches and prickles, that teases and shreds, until beads of sweat begin to gather on the brow and the upper lip. And then, if you are lucky, you will feel on your face a very slight fine breeze that bears the hint of a river. You remember that you are, after all, in a port city and the brown river, the Bhagirathi, named after the king who made unbelievable penances to liberate his ancestors from bondage, sends you this breeze.
It is hot and the streets are deserted. You hug shadows – trees and buildings – as you walk and you realize fleetingly (you will forget this once you’ve reached your air-conditioned destination) that tree shadows are the most beautiful, most underrated things on earth. Your clothes will be wet with sweat, and unless you are careful, you might catch a cold indoors. Summer in Calcutta is a landmine for the careless, though for the romantic and the eccentric, it is something precious. A season that grows on you by reminding you of the value of truths.
You are late.
Or, at least, you are sure you’re late, though your husband looks up from his phone and tells you that the flight from th
e Andamans has only just landed. It will take your friend at least an hour to get to Park Street. You are, in fact, early.
You walk up and down the pavement beneath the colonnaded mansion, past the bookstore, the Freemasons Hall, the odd little shops, until you pause at the edge of the footpath and watch traffic flowing from every direction. You have been in Calcutta for two months and witnessed the difficult summer unfold: death and longings. You cannot wait to see your friend arriving from the Andamans – you had not thought you would see him again.
After Paharganj, he went off the radar. Then one day you hear there has been an earthquake in the Andamans and you call him. There is no response. You worry. Then, at night, he calls you and says he is coming to Calcutta en route to Bangkok. He would like to see the two of you. You tell him, none of this seeing business, he has to stay with you. Period. He begins to laugh. At the back there is a consistent roar. ‘Is that the sea?’ you ask your friend Zvika Hillel, and he says, ‘Yes, yes, it is so beautiful here, Dippy, so blue and white and green that I feel bad Motty could not see it. I will tell you everything when I come.’
You retrace your steps down the pavement, past the magazine stores, back to the bookstore and Trinca’s.
‘I hope he finds his way,’ you sniff.
‘He has travelled thousands of kilometres across India. He’ll be fine,’ your husband tells you, softly.
You enter a glass-fronted cafe and keep your eyes on the road. The afternoon is beginning to dissolve. The tops of the buildings catch the sun and the road is in the shade. Texts are exchanged. At 4:15 a yellow taxi stops outside. Zvika Hillel emerges with two backpacks, a small one in front, a huge one at the back, and his shock of hair and Baghdadi nose and that smile. You catch up excitedly, order coffee and talk nineteen to the dozen. ‘When will you guys start travelling again?’ he asks.