Tales From Firozsha Baag (29 page)

But the promises were always smothered by a fresh wave of reproaches awaiting him at home. If he managed to speak in the spirit of autonomy that she had inspired in him earlier in the evening, it still turned out unfavourably.

“See?” Mother would say with mournful satisfaction, “see how it proves my point that she is a bad influence? He goes to her and returns with such cruel words in his mouth. And who put them there, that is all I am asking. Because such words were not there before. Now I must start all over again to remove her effect on him. Then he will be more like the son I once knew. But how long can I go on like this, how long?” she would conclude dolefully, whereupon Jehangir abandoned the balance of his painstakingly prepared words.

He looked at his parents now, supporting each other as they slept through heat and dust. The photograph was in his wallet. They had told him to bring it along. He had taken it with her camera during the college picnic at Elephanta Caves. She later gave him a copy. It was a black-and-white, and as he gazed at it he could feel the soft brown of her eyes drawing him in, ready to do her will. The will of my enchantress, he liked to imagine.

Mother had taken to going through his trousers and wallet. He was aware of these secret searches but had said nothing, not wanting to add to her sorrow and to the bitterness that filled the house.

The day after he received the photograph, she triumphantly found it: “What is this, why must you carry her photo with you?”

“What right did you have to look in my wallet?”

“What right? What right, he says! To his own mother he says what right! A mother does not need any rights. A mother exercises her judgement out of love. A mother does whatever she knows is right for her son.”

The photograph was brought up constantly for days after, and with each passing day the rhetoric grew increasingly forceful and wildly inventive.

“It is not enough to see her makeup-covered face in the evening. He must also keep her photograph.”

“People have been made to go crazy by a photo with a magic spell on it. Maybe her parents are involved in this, trying to snare my son for their daughter.”

“She knows you will go to study in America one day and settle there. By thrusting her photo on you she is making sure you will sponsor her. Oh yes, it begins with a photograph.”

“Be careful you don’t forget your own mother’s face, you don’t have much time to see it these days.”

And always, the eight o’clock ultimatum: “Remember, the door will never open for you after eight o’clock.”

In the end Mother was glad to have the photograph. “One good thing she did by giving it to you. Now we have something to show Bhagwan Baba.”

The train braked in preparation for the approaching station. A
kayrawalli
climbed aboard to flop upon the floor with her basket of
plantains. She mopped her brow with one corner of her sari, rubbed her eyes, and sat with drawn-up knees after administering a good scratching in some region under the sari-folds. Any minute now she’ll start badgering the passengers to buy her plantains, thought Jehangir. But she sat where she was, enervated, with no inclination to acquire business. Perhaps she did not dare to wake the slumbering people. In school they used to say that for a quarter rupee a
kayrawalli
would lift her sari and flash for you. For a rupee she would even perform with a plantain. He wondered if it was true.

The glass bangles on her wrists tinkled as the train swayed along and she fell asleep. The plantains in her basket looked bruised and battered, beginning to show black patches because of the heat. They would have to be thrown away if they remained unsold. Granny had a saying about eating them: a plantain in the morning turns to gold in the stomach and a plantain at noon is silver, a plantain in the evening turns to brass in the belly, but a plantain at night is iron in the gut.

He wondered why the
kayrawalli
was travelling away from the city and towards the suburbs. People like her brought fruit to the city. Maybe she was on the wrong train.

Just like Father and Mother and me. To think that I put the thought in their heads.

Once, in the midst of a bitter outburst, he had said, “Why don’t you ask your famous Bhagwan Baba if he also handles matchmaking? Maybe he’ll be in my favour.” He spoke with what he thought was biting sarcasm. Everything now had a habit of degenerating into a sarcasm contest.

But they liked the idea very much. “It was only a joke,” Jehangir pleaded, sarcasm retreating in alarm.

Mother and Father thought it was the best way to decide his future. They tried to convince him to make the visit. Mother was harshly dictatorial at first, then lachrymose and pleading. “What we want,” she tearfully entreated, “is for you to come and talk to Bhagwan Baba about the girl, to find out if she is right for you. Agree that Bhagwan Baba is never wrong, believe again as you believed once when you were younger.”

And Jehangir stopped objecting when reminded of the many miracles wrought within the world of his childhood. Miracles were no doubt easier to believe in that long ago world. But the memories began to prey on his notions of loyalty to the past, his nostalgia for a home happy and loving despite its material meagreness, and guilt for considering (however briefly) repudiation of Bhagwan Baba. Besides, he reasoned, he had nothing to lose, it could not get worse. If he was lucky, a favourable pronouncement would make things much easier.

And with the agreement to take Bhagwan Baba’s advice, a measure of calm returned to their lives. Hostilities were suspended and the harsh words temporarily silenced.

The
kayrawalli
awoke and balanced the basket of plantains on her head. She got off at the next station, which was also the one Jehangir and his parents were waiting for.

The medium-sized house had a spacious veranda at the front. A wooden bench sat on the veranda, and around the house a lush vegetable garden with several pumpkin vines and tomato plants. Tucked away in one corner was a large bench-swing, hanging still. Still, too, was the greenery in the garden. Not a breath of breeze.

A large crowd was waiting for Bhagwan Baba. People stood in a line leading up to the veranda, in silence or soft conversation, reverent hands clutching packets with offerings for Bhagwan Baba. There was none of the hysterical activity usually associated with holy men, no burning of incense, no chanting, no peddling of holy pictures or religious artifacts.

Jehangir’s parents explained that when Bhagwan Baba was ready he came out to the wooden bench. The visitors then went up to the veranda and sat with him, one by one or in a group if it was a group consultation.

A man just ahead of them in line overheard, and spoke up as though waiting for the cue: “There is nothing to worry about. Bhagwan Baba is wonderful. Whatever he will say or do, it is only for
your own benefit.” Bhagwan Baba started granting audiences at eleven
A.M
. It was now eleven-thirty. With the air of one privy to special information the man said, “Bhagwan Baba knows best. If he is late it is for a good reason.” His hands performed practised gestures to embellish the earnestly devout speech: fingers bunched together to describe a vertical line in the air; right index finger wisely held aloft and lowered through an arc into the left hand; palms together in a clasp; and so on. “We are only simple human beings, so
how
to understand everything Bhagwan Baba will say or do, how to know
why
his spirituality is manifesting in one way and not in another?” He paused, then added unctuously, “For us, it is only to stand and wait till Baba is ready to mingle with poor souls like you and me!”

Jehangir found the man’s effusive devotional talk embarrassing. He wished his parents would stop encouraging him by nodding pious looks of agreement. Bhagwan Baba appeared now, supported by two men. Something like a collective suspiration was audible in the garden. Then the scattered whispering fell silent. He was dressed in a white
kurta-pyjama
, and looked quite frail, with bare feet. His head was bald but he had a white beard. A short stubbly beard. And he wore dark glasses.

“Sometimes he takes off the glasses,” the man whispered, “then at once puts them back on. Everyone waits for that, to see his eyes.
Exactly
what it means I don’t understand. But it is absolutely significant,
most
definitely.”

Two little boys and their older sister climbed onto the bench-swing in the corner of the vegetable garden. Their clambering set it into a gentle, squeaky oscillation. The sister sustained the motion of the swing with a pushing-kicking movement of her legs. During the forward swing her skirt billowed, then fell with the retreat; forward and back, billowed and fell.

Out of a long-formed habit Jehangir, craning, positioned himself to obtain the best view. When he had newly started going to college he discovered a pastime to which the Law of Diminishing Returns did not apply. The excitement of descending the stairs sometimes kept him from paying proper attention during class. There were two flights to each floor, and as he rounded the splendidly carved newel at the
end of the first flight, his eyes lifted upwards. Above him flowed a stream of panties, a cascade of crotches out of the heavens, while he descended slowly, hand upon the balustrade to keep his balance, for it was heady stuff.

The thrills of this sport suffered greatly after that day at choir practice when she spoke to him. He realized that she could be amidst the descending crowd while his head was thrown back at a right angle to his trunk. It would be mortifying if she spotted him in this stance, she who believed him shy and, doubtless, pure of mind. Like Mother who, until recently, would say with pride, “My Jehangir, such a quiet good boy,
aitlö dahyö
, make
choon
or
chaan
. Does everything I tell him.” What a revelation if she could enter his prurient mind. Ironic that two women so different could share the same misconception, both beguiled in identical ways.

The bench-swing reminded him of the exercisers in the children’s playground. He now gave that place a wide berth when he visited the Hanging Gardens, preferring to think that the playground and the exercisers belonged to a part of his life which had concluded for good. He wondered if the exercisers still went there every night, if their muscles had developed further since he last saw them more than two years ago.

The children lost interest in the swing. It slowed down, steadying into its former stillness, with the squeaks coming further and further apart, then dying away completely. Jehangir turned away from it, feeling victorious after his sighting. Not only had he succeeded, he had done so in Bhagwan Baba’s garden amidst devotees thinking pious thoughts, and the touch of blasphemy was particularly satisfying. The sanctimonious fellow in front had been quiet for a while, not sharing any more of his insider’s information. His turn was next. He smiled at Jehangir and his parents, and stepped up to the veranda. The sun had progressed in its descent, and the pumpkin vines and tomatoes would soon need watering. A slight breeze was evident in the faint rustle of leaves.

Now they were first in line. Jehangir’s apprehension and uncertainty returned. He began digging frantically in his trousers for the photograph before remembering that on the train, while his parents
slept, he had transferred it from his wallet to his shirt pocket. “How do we start this?” he asked. “Do I show the photo first?”

Mother said she would take care of that. All he should do was listen carefully when Bhagwan Baba spoke.

From Bhagwan Baba’s house to the railway station was a short walk along a dirt road. Jehangir and his parents hurried along silently in the face of a rising wind. A sombre, rainless cloud cover dominated the sky.

The dirt road was deserted. The suns midday sharpness had been replaced by a heavy, stifling air mass moving over the land. Clouds of dust rose at the least provocation and Mother held a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. A few simple shacks and shanties on either side of the road were the only structures on the barren plain. Their sunken-cheeked occupants watched with empty eyes as the three figures made their way to the station.

The shelter of the waiting-room was a relief. It was deserted except for the man attending to the cold-drink stand. They purchased three bottles of Limca and settled on a bench to await their train. The bottles were closer to tepid than the ice-cold promised by the sign, but the drink was refreshing.

Bathrooms were located next to the cold-drink stand. From behind one of the doors emerged the song of a broken tap, the copious drip splashing in complex, agitated rhythms upon the stone floor.

“Shortage of water everywhere. But listen, listen to the shameful waste,” said Father. He sipped Limca through the straw, anticipating the final empty gurgle to signal the end. “It was a little disappointing. He removed his dark glasses to see the photo, but did not say much. And three hours in line.”

Mother said, “That is normal. Bhagwan Baba never speaks unless you ask him specific things. Jehangir did not open his mouth
sidhö-padhrö
, to speak clearly. Not one word. What do you expect Bhagwan Baba to do?”

“But you said you would explain …”

“I said I would begin for you. That does not mean you show no interest in what is your problem.”

“I don’t have a problem. You do because you don’t like her.” The entire day had passed without argument. Now it seemed the heat and dust would take their toll.

“I never said I do not like
her
. But no sense talking to you, you don’t want to understand. We decided to come, you should have shown more concern. Now we still don’t know what is the best thing for you.”

Jehangir returned the empty Limca bottles to the cold-drink counter. A ceiling fan hung motionless in the waiting-room, and he pointed to it when the cold-drink man caught his eye. “Power shortage,” the cold-drink man replied. “No lights even. At night I sell by lantern light. And kerosene is not cheap. So price of cold-drinks had to go up.”