A Fine Balance

Epilogue: 1984

IT WAS MORNING WHEN THE GULF flight bringing Maneck home landed in the capital after a delayed departure. He had tried to sleep on the plane but the annoying flicker of a movie being shown in the economy cabin kept buzzing before his eyelids like malfunctioning fluorescent lights. Bleary-eyed, he stood in line for customs inspection.

An airport expansion scheme was in progress, and the passengers were packed into a temporary corrugated-iron structure. Construction was just beginning when he had left for Dubai eight years ago, he remembered. Waves of heat ricocheted off the shimmering sun-soaked metal, buffeting the crowds. The smell of sweat, cigarette smoke, stale perfume, and disinfectant roamed the air. People fanned themselves with passports and customs declaration forms. Someone fainted. Two peons tried to revive the man by arranging him in the stream of a customs officer’s table fan. Water was sent for.

The baggage searches resumed after the interruption. A passenger behind Maneck grumbled about the slowness, and Maneck shrugged his shoulders: “Maybe they received a tip that a big smuggler is coming today from Dubai.”

“No, it’s like this all the time,” said the man. “With all flights from the Middle East. What they are looking for is jewellery, gold biscuits, electronic goods.” He explained that customs had become more zealous because of a recent government directive, which offered special bonuses — a percentage of each officer’s seizures. “So they are harassing us more than ever now.”

“All my carefully folded saris will get crumpled,” complained the maris wife.

The officer looking through Maneck’s suitcase pushed his fingers under the clothes and felt about. Maneck wondered if there would be a penalty for setting a mousetrap inside one’s luggage. After much groping, the officer withdrew his hands and let him through grudgingly.

Maneck squeezed the bag shut, rushed outside to a taxi and asked to be driven to the railway station. The driver was unwilling to make the journey. “It’s right in the middle of the rioting. Too dangerous.”

“What rioting?”

“Don’t you know? People are being beaten and butchered and burnt alive.”

Rather than argue with him, Maneck tried elsewhere. But every taxi driver he approached refused the fare with the same warning. Some advised him to check into a hotel near the airport till things quietened.

In frustration, he decided to offer an incentive to the next one. “You’ll get double of what is on the meter, okay? I have to get home, my father has passed away. If I miss the train I will miss my father’s funeral.”

“It’s not the meter I am worried about, sahab. Your life and mine are worth much more. But get in, I’ll try my best.” He reached for the meter, flipping the FOR HIRE indicator upside-down with a clang.

The taxi extricated itself from the swarm of vehicles that throttled the airport lanes, and soon they were on the highway. In between checking for traffic, the driver observed his passenger through the rearview mirror. Maneck could feel the man’s eyes on him.

“You should think about shaving off your beard, sahab,” the driver spoke. “You might be mistaken for a Sikh.”

Maneck was very proud of his beard; and so what if people thought he was a Sikh? He had started growing it two years ago, grooming it carefully to its present state. “How can I be mistaken for a Sikh? I don’t have a turban.”

“Lots of Sikhs don’t wear turban, sahab. But I think clean-shaven would be much safer for you.”

“Safer? Meaning what?”

“You are saying you don’t know? Sikhs are the ones being massacred in the riots. For three days they have been burning Sikh shops and homes, chopping up Sikh boys and men. And the police are just running about here and there, pretending to protect the neighbourhoods.”

He pulled over to the extreme left of the road as a convoy of army lorries approached the taxi from behind. He shouted to Maneck over his shoulder, over the thunder of the vehicles. “That’s the Border Security Force! The newspaper said it was being sent in today!”

The convoy passed, and his voice returned to normal. “Our best soldiers, the BSF. First line of defence against enemy invasion. Now they must guard borderlines within our cities. How shameful for the whole country.”

“But why Sikhs only?”

“Sahab?”

“You said only Sikhs are being attacked.”

The driver gazed into the rearview mirror with disbelief. Was the passenger feigning ignorance? He decided the question was indeed asked in earnest. “It started when the Prime Minister was killed three days ago. She was shot by her Sikh bodyguards. So this is supposed to be revenge.”

Now he turned and looked directly at Maneck. “Where have you been, sahab, you didn’t hear anything of what has happened?”

“I knew about the assassination but not the riots.” He studied the cracks in the vinyl seat in front of him and the driver’s frayed collar visible above the seatback. Small boils, not yet ready to burst, shone upon the man’s neck. “I’ve been very busy, trying to come back in time for my father’s funeral.”

“Yes,” said the driver sympathetically. “Must be very difficult for you.” He swerved to avoid a dog in the road, a yellow mongrel, mangy and skeletal.

Maneck glanced through the rear window to see if the animal made it to safety. A lorry behind them squashed it. “The problem is, I’ve been out of the country for eight years,” he offered as a further excuse.

“That’s a very long time, sahab. That means you left before the Emergency ended — before the elections. Of course, for ordinary people, nothing has changed. Government still keeps breaking poor people’s homes and jhopadpattis. In villages, they say they will dig wells only if so many sterilizations are done. They tell farmers they will get fertilizer only after nussbandhi is performed. Living each day is to face one emergency or another.” He beeped a warning to someone trudging along the shoulder. “You heard about the attack on the Golden Temple, no?”

“Yes. Things like that are hard to miss,” said Maneck. Where did the fellow think he was returning from, the moon? In the silence that followed, he realized that in fact he knew very little about the years he had been away. He wondered what other tragedies and farces had unfolded in the country while he was supervising the refrigeration of the hot desert air.

He encouraged the driver to keep talking: “What’s your opinion about the Golden Temple?”

The man was pleased at being asked. He turned off the highway near the outskirts of the capital. They passed the burned-out carcass of a vehicle, its wheels in the air. “I will have to take a longer way to the station, sahab. Some roads are better avoided.” Then he came back to Maneck’s question. “The Prime Minister said Sikh terrorists were hiding inside the Golden Temple. The army’s attack was only a few months ago. But the important thing to ask is how the problem started many years ago, no?”

“Yes. How?”

“Same way all her problems started. With her own mischief-making. Just like in Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Assam, Tamil Nadu. In Punjab, she was helping one group to make trouble for state government. Afterwards the group became so powerful, fighting for separation and Khalistan, they made trouble for her only. She gave her blessing to the guns and bombs, and then these wicked, violent instruments began hitting her own government. How do they say in English — all her chickens came home for roasting, isn’t it?”

“Came home to roost,” murmured Maneck.

“Yes, exactly,” said the driver. “And then she made the problem worse and worse, telling the army to attack the Golden Temple and capture the terrorists. With tanks and what-all big guns they charged inside, like hooligans. How much damage to the shrine. It is the most sacred place for Sikhs, and everybody’s feelings were hurt.”

Maneck was touched by the poignant understatement. “She created a monster,” the driver went on, “and the monster swallowed her. Now it swallows innocents. Such terrible butchery for three days.” His fingers clenched the steering wheel, and his voice was shaking. “They are pouring kerosene on Sikhs and setting them on fire. They catch men, tear the hair from their faces or hack it with swords, then kill them. Whole families burnt to death in their homes.”

He drew a hand across his mouth, took a deep breath, and continued to describe the slaughter he had witnessed. “And all this, sahab, in our nations capital. All this while police do their shameless acting, and the politicians say the people are upset, they are just avenging their leader’s murder, what can we do. This is what I say to the stinking dogs-phthoo!” He spat through the window.

“But I thought the Prime Minister was not much liked by the people. Why are they so upset?”

“It’s true, sahab, she was not liked by ordinary people, even though she went about like a devi in a white sari. But let’s suppose she was beloved — do you think ordinary people will behave in this way? Aray, it’s the work of criminal gangs paid by her party. Some ministers are even helping the gangs, providing official lists of Sikh homes and businesses. Otherwise, it’s not possible for the killers to work so efficiently, so accurately, in such a big city.”

They were passing through streets now where smouldering ruins and piles of rubble lined the road. Women and children sat amid the debris, dazed or weeping. The driver’s face contorted, and Maneck thought it was fear. “Don’t worry,” he said. “There will be no trouble because of my beard. If we are stopped, they’ll at once know I’m a Parsi — I’ll show them the sudra and kusti I am wearing.”

“Yes, but they might want to check my licence.”

“So?”

“You haven’t guessed? I am a Sikh — I shaved off my beard and cut my hair two days ago. But I’m still wearing my kara.” He held up his hand, displaying the iron bangle round his wrist.

Maneck studied the driver’s face, and suddenly the evidence became plain: his skin, unused to the razor’s scrape, had been cut in several places. Suddenly, all the incidents narrated by the man — of mutilation and bludgeoning and decapitation, the numerous ways that mobs had of breaking bones, piercing flesh, and spilling blood — everything that Maneck had been listening to with detachment now achieved a stark reality in the razor’s nicks. The coagulated specks of red on the chin and jowls might have been rivers of blood, so intense was their effect against the pale, newly shaven skin.

Maneck was nauseated, his face felt cold and sweaty. “The bastards!” he choked. “I hope they are all caught and hanged!”

“The real murderers will never be punished. For votes and power they play with human lives. Today it is Sikhs. Last year it was Muslims; before that, Harijans. One day, your sudra and kusti might not be enough to protect you.”

The taxi drew up to the railway station. Maneck checked the meter and counted out twice the amount from his wallet, but the driver refused to take more than the actual fare. “Please,” said Maneck, “please take it.” He pressed the money on him, as though that would help him survive the terror, and the driver finally accepted.

“Listen,” said Maneck, “why don’t you remove your kara and hide it for the time being?”

“It won’t come off.” He held up his wrist and pulled hard at the iron bangle. “I was planning to have it cut. But I have to find a reliable Lohar, one who won’t tell the wrong people.”

“Let me try.” Maneck grasped the driver’s hand, tugging and twisting the kara. It would not budge past the base of the thumb.

The driver smiled. “Solid as a handcuff. I am manacled to my religion — a happy prisoner.”

“At least wear long sleeves, then. Cover it up, keep your wrist hidden.”

“But sometimes I have to stick my hand out, to signal my turns. Or the traffic police will catch me for bad driving.”

Maneck gave up, releasing the kara. The driver took Maneck’s hand in both of his and clasped it tight. “Go safely,” he said.

Ab an Kohlah began to weep when her son arrived. How wonderful it was to see him again, she said, but why had he stayed away for eight years, was he angry about something, did he feel he was not wanted? She hugged him and patted his cheeks and stroked his hair while speaking.

“But I like your beard,” she said dutifully. “Makes you look very handsome. You should have sent us a photo, Daddy could also have seen it. But never mind, I am sure he is watching from above.”

Maneck listened silently. Not one day had passed during his long exile that he did not think about his home and his parents. In Dubai, he had felt trapped. Trapped, he thought, as surely as that young woman he had met during one of his domestic maintenance calls to service a refrigerator. She had come to the Gulf as a maidservant because the money promised had seemed so good.

“What is it, Maneck?” pleaded Mrs. Kohlah. “Don’t you want to live here in the hills anymore — is that it? Do you find this place too dull?”

“No, it’s beautiful,” he said, patting her hand absently. He could not stop wondering what had become of that maidservant. Overworked, molested repeatedly by the men of the house, locked up in her room at night, her passport confiscated, she had begged him for help, speaking in Hindi so her employer would not understand. But she had been called away from the kitchen before Maneck could say anything. Uneasy about intervening, all he had done was anonymously telephone the Indian Consulate.

How fortunate he was compared to that poor woman, he thought. Why, then, did he feel as helpless as she was, even here, at home?

And now, as his mother wept, he wished he had answers to her questions. But he was unable to explain, either to her or to himself. All he could offer were the trite, customary excuses: a demanding job, pressures at work, lack of time — a repeat of the empty words he would scribble in his annual letter to her.

“No, tell me the real reason,” she said. “Never mind, we will talk later, after you have rested. Poor Daddy, how much he missed you, and yet he never, ever complained. But I knew that inside it was eating him up.”

“So now you are blaming the cancer on me.”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that! I didn’t!” His mother held his face in her hands, repeating the denial till she was certain he believed her. “You know, Daddy once told me it was the worst day of his life when he let Brigadier Grewal persuade him that a job in the Gulf would be a good thing for you.”

They sat on the porch while she told him about the funeral arrangements for the next morning: dustoors were coming from the nearest fire-temple, which was still a considerable distance. It had been an effort to find two who were willing to perform the ceremony. Most had refused the assignment when they discovered the deceased was to be cremated, saying their services were available only to Zoroastrians bound for the Towers of Silence — never mind if it was a long trip by railway.

“How narrow-minded these people are,” she said, shaking her head. “Of course, we are cremating because it was Daddy’s wish, but what about people who cannot afford to transport the body? Would these priests deny them the prayers?”

It wasn’t going to be an open-air pyre, she explained. The electric crematorium had been booked in the valley — it would be more decorous. And Daddy wasn’t really specific on this point, so it didn’t matter.

The General Store had remained closed since his death. She meant to reopen it next week and continue as usual. “Are you planning to settle back here?” she ventured timidly, afraid of appearing to pry into his affairs.

“I haven’t thought about it yet.”

Daylight was starting to fade about them. He watched a lizard, motionless upon the stone wall. Every now and then, its thin body shot forward like an arrow to catch a fly.

“Are you happy in Dubai? Is your job interesting?”

“It’s okay.”

“Tell me more about it. You wrote that you are a manager now?”

“Supervisor. Looking after a maintenance team — central air-conditioning.”

She nodded. “And what is Dubai like?”

“It’s okay.” He searched his mind for things to add, and realized he did not know the place, didn’t want to. The people, their customs, the language — it was all as alien to him now as it had been when he had landed there eight years ago. His uprooting never seemed to end. “Lots of big hotels. And hundreds of shops selling gold jewellery and stereos and TVS.”

She nodded again. “Must be a very beautiful place.” His unhappiness afflicted her like something palpable. She felt the moment was right to talk again about his returning home. “The shop is yours, you know that. If you want to come back and run it, modernize it. Whatever you like. If you prefer to sell it and use the money to start your own refrigeration and air-conditioning business, that’s also possible.”

He heard the diffident note in her voice and felt miserable. A mother scared to talk to her own son — was he really so intimidating? “I haven’t thought about all that,” he repeated.

“Take your time, there is no rush. Whatever you wish.”

He winced at her efforts to mollify him. Why didn’t she say she was disgusted with his behaviour, with his long absence, his infrequent, superficial letters? And if she did say it — would he defend himself? Would he give reasons, try to explain how meaningless every endeavour seemed to him? No. For then she would start crying again, he would tell her to stop being silly, she would ask for details, and he would tell her to mind her own business.

“I was thinking,” said Mrs. Kohlah, shifting to a less risky subject. “Since you have come after so many years, maybe you should take the chance and visit our relatives. Everyone in the Sodawalla family is dying to see you again.”

“It’s too far to go, I don’t have time.”

“Not even two-three days? You could also say hello to the lady you lived with when you were in college. She would be so happy to see you.

“She’s forgotten me after all this time, for sure.”

“I don’t think so. If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t have finished your certificate. You didn’t like the college hostel, you wanted to come straight back home, remember? You owe your success to Dina Dalai and her accommodation.”

“Yes, I remember.” Hearing his mother say “success” made him cringe.

Dusk fell, and the lizard he had been watching began melting into the stone wall. When it moved, it became sharply visible again. But the creature’s appetite must have been sated, he thought, for it no longer darted at flies — its belly seemed distinctly bloated.

“Maneck.” She waited till he turned his head towards her. “Maneck, why are you so far away?”

He narrowed his eyes to examine her face — his mother was not usually given to such inanities. “It’s because my job is in Dubai.”

“I wasn’t referring to that distance, Maneck.”

Her answer made him feel foolish. Gently touching his shoulder, she said, “Time to start dinner,” and went inside.

He listened to the kitchen noises travelling to the porch, timid as his mother’s words. Pots and pans, and then the knife — a flurry of taps against the board while she chopped something. Water running in the sink. A thud, and a bolt rattling into place, as she shut the window to keep out the evening cold.

Maneck shifted uneasily in his chair. The cooking sounds, the twilight chill, the fog rising from the valley began escorting a host of memories through his troubled mind. Childhood mornings, waking, standing at the enormous picture window of his room, watching the snow-covered peaks as the sun rose and the mountain mists commenced their dance, while Mummy started breakfast and Daddy got ready to open the shop. Then the smell of toast and fried eggs made him hungry, so he pushed his warm feet into the cold slippers, enjoying the shiver that shot through him, brushed his teeth, and hurried downstairs, gave Mummy a good-morning hug and snuggled into his chair. Soon, Daddy came in rubbing his hands, and took great gulps of tea from his special cup while standing, gazing out upon the valley before sitting to eat his breakfast and drink more tea, and Mummy said…

“Maneck, it’s getting chilly outside. Do you want a pullover?”

The intrusion jolted the elbow of memory; his thoughts collapsed like a house of cards. “No, I’ll be in soon,” he called back, irritated by the interruption, as though he could have recaptured, reconstructed, redeemed those happy times if only he had been given long enough.

The lizard still clung to the stone wall, camouflaged within the stone colouring. Maneck decided he would go inside when the fading light made the creature disappear completely. He hated its shape, its colour, its ugly snout. The manner in which it flicked its evil tongue. Its ruthless way of swallowing flies. The way time swallowed human efforts and joy. Time, the ultimate grandmaster that could never be checkmated. There was no way out of its distended belly. He wanted to destroy the loathsome creature.

He took a walking-stick leaning in the corner of the porch, crept forward, and swung at the lizard. The stick made a flat thwack upon the stone. He stepped back quickly, examining the ground at his feet, ready to deliver a second blow if required. But there was nothing there. He looked at the wall. Nothing. He had swung at thin air.

Now he felt relief that he had not killed the lizard. He wondered at what point it had departed, leaving him to conjure up its saurian presence. He looked closely at the wall’s texture. He ran his fingers over the surface to find the spot. There must be some curious marking in the stone, a bump or crack or hollow that had tricked his eyes.

But the outline had vanished. Try as he might, he could not bring back the picture. The imagined lizard had escaped as cleanly as the real one.

The morning after the cremation, Maneck and his mother set off with the wooden box to scatter his father’s ashes on the mountainside where he had loved to walk. He had wanted to be strewn throughout these vistas, as far and wide within the panorama as human effort could accomplish. Hire a Sherpa if you have to, he had joked. Dont dump me in one spot.

“I think Daddy is forcing me to take at least one long walk with him,” said Mrs. Kohlah, brushing away her tears with the back of her hand, keeping her fingers dry for the ashes.

Maneck wished he had accompanied his father more often on his outings. He wished the delight, the eagerness he had shown as a child could have endured in later years, when his father needed him most. Instead, he had succumbed to embarrassment in the face of his father’s growing effusiveness about streams and birds and flowers, especially after the townspeople started talking about Mr. Kohlah’s strange behaviour, his patting of rocks and stroking of trees.

The air was calm this morning. There was no breeze to help disperse the ashes. Maneck and his mother took turns dipping into the box and sprinkling the grey powder.

When half the ashes were gone, Aban Kohlah felt a pang of guilt, felt they were not doing it as thoroughly as her husband would have liked. She ventured into more difficult places, trying to throw a fistful in a hesitant waterfall, mingle some in an inaccessible clump of wildflowers, spread a little around a tree that grew out of an overhang.

“This was Daddy’s favourite spot,” she said. “He often described this tree, how strangely it grew.”

“Be careful, Mummy,” warned Maneck. “Tell me where you want to scatter it, don’t lean so much over the edge.”

But that would not be the same thing, she thought, and persevered in her precarious clamberings down steep paths. Finally, what Maneck had feared came to pass. She lost her footing and slipped down a slope.

He ran to where she crouched, rubbing her knee. “Ohhh!” she said, rising and trying to walk.

“Don’t,” he said. “Just wait here, I’ll get help.”

“No, it’s okay, I can climb up.” She took two steps and sank to the ground again.

He tucked the box of ashes safely behind a boulder, then hurried to regain the road, shouting to someone going by that his mother was injured. Within thirty minutes, a group of friends and neighbours came to the rescue, headed by the formidable Mrs. Grewal.

The wife of Brigadier Grewal had become more and more leaderly in her demeanour since her husband’s death. Wherever she found herself, she automatically took control of things. Most of her friends welcomed this, for it meant less work for them, whether it was planning a dinner party or arranging an outing.

Sizing up Mrs. Kohlah’s predicament, Mrs. Grewal sent for two porters who now worked as waiters in a five-star hotel. In the old days, the duo would carry elderly or infirm tourists in a long-armed viewing chair along the mountain paths and trails to enjoy the scenery. When the new road was built, wide enough to accommodate sightseeing buses, it put the porters out of business.

But the two were happy to get the palkhi out of storage for Mrs. Kohlah. Maneck asked if they would be able to carry her safely, since they might have lost their surefootedness after years in their soft hotel jobs, padding between kitchen and dining room.

“Have no fear, sahab,” they said. “This work was our family tradition, it is in the blood.” They were visibly excited about the chance, however brief, to exercise their old skills.

“Maneck, will you stay and finish the box?” asked Mrs. Kohlah, as she was helped into the palkhi.

“Yes, he will stay,” said Mrs. Grewal, deciding for them. “Maneck, you finish the ashes and catch up with us later. Your mummy will be safe with me.”

She motioned to the porters; they hoisted the palkhi to their shoulders and trotted off in perfect unison, their legs and arms moving like well-oiled machinery, finding a smooth rhythm over the rugged paths to spare the passenger unnecessary jolts. Maneck was reminded of the steam engine his father had once shown him at close quarters … Daddy lifting him in his arms at the railway station, the engine-driver blowing the whistle … shafts and cranks and pistons, darting and thrusting in a powerful, clanking symmetry…

“Oh, if only Farokh could see this,” said Mrs. Kohlah, smiling and crying. “His wife going home in a palkhi after scattering his ashes. How he would laugh at my stylish clumsiness.”

Maneck watched the porters disappear around the next bend, then retrieved the box hidden by the boulder. He resumed scattering the ashes. By and by, a wind came up. The slow clouds, drifting lazily, now began a rowdy race across the sky, their shadows threatening the valley below. He let the ashes trickle from his fingers into the clutches of the wind. He scraped the inside of the box, turned it over, and tapped on the outside. The last traces flew away to explore the vastness.

From time to time, Mrs. Grewal, striding right behind the porters, called out instructions for them. “Careful, that branch is very low. You don’t want Mrs. Kohlah to bang her head.”

“Have no fear, memsahab,” they panted. “We haven’t forgotten our work.”

“Hmm,” said Mrs. Grewal, doubtful. “Watch out now, that’s a very big stone, don’t stumble.”

This time, Mrs. Kohlah did the reassuring on the porters’ behalf. “Don’t worry, they are experts. I am very comfortable.”

The friends and neighbours following after them gave the two palkhiwallas a round of applause as they emerged from the mountain path and continued along the road into town. It had been years since anyone had seen a palkhi float through the streets. The ghost from the past was greeted with delight by all who met it on its journey. Many decided to tag along, swelling the ranks of the spontaneous celebration.

Now and again, the chair party had to stop at the side to allow lorries and buses to pass. After the fifth such halt, Mrs. Grewal became indignant. “Enough of this nonsense,” she said. “Come on, everybody. Step out, all the way out — into the middle of the road. We shall not move for anybody. Not today. Mrs. Kohlah has the right of way, this is a special day for her. The traffic can wait.”

Everyone agreed with Mrs. Grewal, and for thirty-five glorious minutes they marched into town in a determined procession, trailed by lines of impatient vehicles, the drivers honking and shouting. For the most part Mrs. Grewal ignored them, determined not to dignify their cheap cacophony with a retort. Occasionally, though, her outrage made her pause and shout back, “Show some respect! The woman is a widow!”

About an hour after they had started, the rescue party reached home safely, and Mrs. Kohlah was made comfortable in an easy chair, with an ice pack round her knee. Mrs. Grewal sat opposite her in a straight-backed chair, erect as a sentry. She refused to leave with the others, declaring firmly, “You cannot remain all by yourself on the day after the funeral.”

Mrs. Kohlah was a little amused at her manner, and grateful for the company. They reminisced about the General Store, the prosperous old times, the tea parties and dinners, the cantonment days. How wonderful life used to be, how sweet and healthy the air — any time you felt sick or tired, all you had to do was step outdoors, breathe deeply, and you felt better immediately, no need to swallow any medicine or vitamin tablets. “Nowadays the whole atmosphere only has changed,” said Mrs. Grewal.

Just then Maneck walked in, and there was an awkward silence. He wondered what they had been discussing.

“You are back very fast,” observed Mrs. Grewal. “Young people, strong legs. And you managed all right with the ashes?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You are sure you did it properly, Maneck?” inquired his mother.

“Yes.”

There was another little silence.

“And what have you been doing in Dubai?” asked Mrs. Grewal.

“Besides growing a beard?”

He smiled in reply.

“Very secretive. Making lots of money, I hope.”

He smiled again. She left a few minutes later, saying there was no need for her to stay any longer. “You can look after your mother now,” she added meaningfully.

Maneck checked the ice pack, then offered to make cheese sandwiches for lunch.

“My son visits after eight years and I can’t even prepare his food,” lamented his mother.

“What difference is it who makes the sandwiches?”

She took the warning in his voice and retreated, then tried again. “Maneck, please don’t get angry. Won’t you tell me the reason you are so unhappy?”

“There is nothing to tell.”

“We are both sad because of Daddy’s death. But that cannot be the only reason. We were expecting it ever since his colon cancer was diagnosed. There is something different about your sadness, I can sense it.”

She waited, watching him as he cut the bread, but his face remained impassive. “Is it because you did not visit while he was still alive? You shouldn’t feel bad. Daddy understood that it was difficult for you to come.”

He put down the bread knife and turned. “You really want to know why?”

“Yes.”

He picked up the knife again, slicing the loaf carefully while keeping his voice level. “You sent me away, you and Daddy. And then I couldn’t come back. You lost me, and I lost — everything.”

She limped to his side and took his arm. “Look at me, Maneck!” she said tearfully. “What you think is not true, you are everything to me and Daddy! Whatever we did, we did for you! Please, believe me!”

He withdrew his arm gently, and continued with the sandwiches.

“How can you say something so hurtful and then become silent? You always used to complain that Daddy was fond of dramatics. But now you are doing just that.”

He refused to discuss it further. She followed him around the kitchen, hobbling, pleading with him.

“What’s the point of me making the sandwiches if you are going to keep marching with that knee?” he said, exasperated.

She sat down compliantly till he finished and lunch was on the table. While they ate, she studied his face in snatches, when she was sure he wasn’t looking. The sky started to darken in earnest. He washed their plates and put them on the rack to dry. The rumble of thunder rolled over the valley.

“We were so lucky this morning,” she said as the drizzle commenced. “I’m going up to rest now. Will you shut the windows if the rain comes in?”

He nodded, and helped her climb the stairs. She smiled through the pain, leaning with pleasure on her son’s shoulder, taking pride in its strength and firmness.

After his mother was in bed, Maneck returned downstairs and stood at the window to watch the display of lightning, to revel in the thunderclaps. He had missed the rains in Dubai. The valley was disappearing under a blanket of fog. He strode restlessly about the house, then went into the shop.

He examined the shelves, savouring the brand names on the jars and boxes that he had not seen for years. But how small, how shabby the shop was, he thought. The shop that was once the centre of his universe. And now he had moved so far away from it. So far that it felt impossible to return. He wondered what was keeping him away. Not clean and gleaming Dubai, for sure.

He descended the steps into the cellar where the bottling machinery slept. Cobwebs had taken over, shrouding the defeated apparatus. Demand for Kohlah’s Cola had almost vanished in recent times, his parents had written — just half a dozen bottles a day, to loyal friends and neighbours.

He pottered around amid the empty bottles and wooden crates. In a corner of the cellar stood a stack of mouldering newspapers, partially hidden by a bundle of gunnys. He stroked the coarse jute sacking, feeling the bite of the fibre, breathing in its extravagant green smell of wood and vegetation. The newspaper dates went back ten years, and jumped haphazardly over the decade. Strange, he thought, because Daddy used them up regularly in the store, for wrapping parcels or padding packages. These must have been overlooked.

He decided to take them upstairs and browse through them. Reading old newspapers seemed a fitting way to spend the gloomy, rain-filled afternoon.

He settled in a chair by the window and opened the yellow, dusty sheets of the first issue in the pile. It was from the period after the post-Emergency elections that the Prime Minister lost to the opposition coalition. There were articles about abuses during the Emergency, testimony of torture victims, outrage over the countless deaths in police custody. Editorials that had been silenced during her regime called for a special commission to investigate the wrongdoings and punish the guilty.

He skipped to another paper, impatient with the repetitious reportage. The new government’s dithering over how to deal with the ex-Prime Minister did not make stimulating reading either, except for one article which quoted a cabinet minister as saying: “She must be punished, she is a terrible woman, wicked as Cleopatra.” And the only unanimous decision of the paralysed government was to expel Coca-Cola from the country, for refusing to relinquish its secret formula and its managing interest; with a little twisting and turning, the action suited all ideologies in the coalition brew.

Not many newspapers later, the coalition had vaporized in endless squabbles, and fresh elections were to be held. The ex-Prime Minister was poised to shed her prefix and return to power. The editorials now reined in their rhetoric against her, adopting the obsequious tone reminiscent of the Emergency. One grovelling scribe had written: “Can the Prime Minister have incarnated at least some of the gods in herself? Beyond doubt, she possesses a dormant power, lying coiled at the base of her spine, the Kundalini Shakti which is now awakening and carrying her into transcendence.” There was no sarcasm intended, it being part of a longer panegyric.

Fed up, Maneck looked for the sports pages. There were pictures from cricket matches, and the statement by the Australian captain about a “bunch of Third World beggars who think they can play cricket.” And then the jubilation and fireworks and celebration when the bunch of beggars defeated Australia in the Test Series.

He began going more rapidly through the newspapers. After a while even the pictures looked the same. Train derailment, monsoon floods, bridge collapse; ministers being garlanded, ministers making speeches, ministers visiting areas of natural and man-made disasters. He flipped the pages between glances out the window, at the theatre of weather — the lashing rain, windswept deodars, bolts of lightning.

Then something in the paper caught his eye. He turned back for a second look. It was a photograph of three young women. Dressed in cholis and petticoats, they were hanging from a ceiling fan. One end of each of their saris was tied to the fan hook, the other round their necks. Their heads were tilted. The arms hung limp, like the limbs of rag dolls.

He read the accompanying story, his eyes straying repeatedly to the scene that floated like a ghastly tableau. The three were sisters, aged fifteen, seventeen, and nineteen, and had hanged themselves while their parents were out of the house. They had written a note to explain their conduct. They knew that their father was unhappy at not being able to afford dowries for them. After much debate and anxiety, they had decided to take this step, to spare their mother and father the shame of three unmarried daughters. They begged their parents’ forgiveness for this action which would cause them grief; they could see no alternative.

The photograph dragged Maneck’s eyes back to it, to the event that was at once unsettling, pitiful, and maddening in its crystalline stillness. The three sisters looked disappointed, he thought, as though they had expected something more out of hanging, something more than death, and then discovered that death was all there was. He found himself admiring their courage. What strength it must have taken, he thought, to unwind those saris from their bodies, to tie the knots around their necks. Or perhaps it had been easy, once the act acquired the beauty of logic and the weight of sensibleness.

He tore his eyes away from the photograph to read the rest of the article. The reporter had met the parents; he wrote that they had suffered more than their fair portion of grief — they had, during the Emergency, lost their eldest under circumstances that were never satisfactorily explained. The police claimed it was a railway accident, but the parents spoke of wounds they had seen on their son’s body at the morgue. According to the reporter, the injuries were consistent with other confirmed incidents of torture: “Moreover, in view of the political climate during the Emergency, and the fact that their son, Avinash, was active in the Student Union, it would appear to be one more case of wrongful death in police custody.”

The article proceeded to comment on the parliamentary committee’s inquiry into the Emergency excesses, but Maneck had stopped reading.

Avinash.

The rain was pounding on the roof and coming in through the windows. He tried to fold the discoloured newspaper neatly along its crease, but his hands were shaking, and it flapped and crumpled untidily in his lap. The room was airless. He struggled to push himself out of the chair. The paper, with its cellar smell of mould and decay, rustled to the floor. He went to the porch, stealing deep gulps of the rich rain-laden air. The wind rushed through the open door. The fallen pages were blown around the room while the curtains whipped against the window. He closed the door, paced the damp porch a few times, then walked out into the rain, tears streaming down his face.

His clothes were soaked within seconds; wet hair plastered his forehead. He circled the house: down the slope, into the back yard, around the lower level, and up from the other side. Through the wall of falling rain he saw the steel cables tethering the foundation to the cliff. The trusty cables, that had held strong for four generations. But he could swear the house had shifted in the years he had been away. A house with suicidal tendencies, Avinash had called it. A little bit, and then a little more — and eventually it would rip out the anchors, tumble headlong down the hill. It seemed fitting. Everything was losing its moorings, slipping away, becoming irrecoverable.

He took the road out of the town square, almost running now. He did not notice the people who stared. He saw only that photograph. Three saris gripping those fragile necks… Avinash’s three sisters… he used to enjoy feeding them when they were little, they used to bite his fingers in fun. And the poor parents … What sense did the world make? Where was God, the Bloody Fool? Did He have no notion of fair and unfair? Couldn’t He read a simple balance sheet? He would have been sacked long ago if He was managing a corporation, the things He allowed to happen … to the maidservant, and the thousands of Sikhs killed in the capital, and my poor taxi driver with a kara that wouldn’t come off.

Maneck looked up at the sky. Daddy’s ashes, scattered that morning. Getting wet, getting washed away. The thought was unbearable, because then there would be nothing… and Mummy, left all alone…

He raced along the path, which was fast becoming soft and slippery. Running, sliding, stumbling, hoping to find a place that was still green and pleasant, a place of happiness, serenity, where his father would be walking, sturdy and confident, his arm over his son’s shoulder.

Squelching through the mud, he skidded; his arms shot out sideways to keep him from falling. Now he felt the despair his father had felt as the familiar world slipped from around him, the valleys gashed and ugly, the woods disappearing. Daddy was right, he thought, the hills were dying, and I was so stupid to believe the hills were eternal, that a father could stay forever young. If only I had talked to him. If only he had let me get close to him.

But the ashes — they lay in the cold, driving rain. He ran to where he had emptied the wooden box in the morning. Panting, he stopped at each familiar spot where his mother had lingered, but could find no trace of the grey ash. His breath coming in great sobs, he brushed aside leaves, kicked over a rock, shifted a broken bough.

Nothing. He was too late. He stumbled and fell on his knees, his fingers in the ooze. The rain descended pitilessly. He felt unable to rise. He covered his face with his muddy hands and wept, and wept, and wept.

A dog pattered lightly in the muck towards Maneck. He couldn’t hear it through the noise of rain. It came closer, sniffing. He started and uncovered his face when he felt its muzzle upon his hand. The dog licked his cheek. He patted it; was this one of the pack that Daddy used to feed on the porch? He noticed a suppurating ulcer on its haunch, and wondered if the homemade ointment with which his father treated the strays was still on the shelf below the counter.

The downpour was less heavy now. He stood up, wiping his face on his wet sleeve, and looked out across the hillside. Breaks were beginning to appear in the clouds, and fragments of the valley were emerging from the fog.

He stayed where he was till the rain had almost stopped. Now it was a very fine drizzle, so fine it felt lighter than human breath upon the skin. He returned to the place where the tree grew out of the overhang. The dog followed him for a while. The abscess was making it limp, the infection had probably penetrated the bone. Only a few weeks of life left for the poor creature, thought Maneck, no one to nurse it and heal it. Without Daddy around, who will care?

Tears returned to his eyes, and he began walking homewards. The rain had created numerous little rivulets that were coursing down the hill. They would go to swell the mountain streams and strengthen the impromptu waterfalls. Tomorrow everything would burst with green and freshness. He pictured the ashes, carried by all this shining water, travelling everywhere over the mountainside. His father had got his wish — he was being strewn abundantly, with more thoroughness than any human could have exercised: nature’s mighty and scrupulous hand had taken charge, and he was everywhere, inseparable from the place he had loved so deeply.

Wrapped in a Kashmiri shawl, Mrs. Kohlah waited anxiously on the porch, gazing down the road. She waved frantically when Maneck came into view. He picked up his pace.

“Maneck! Where were you? I woke from my nap and you were gone! And it was raining so heavily, I got worried.” She grasped his arm. “Look at you, you’re soaking! And there is mud on your face and clothes! What happened?”

“It’s all right,” he said gently. “I’m fine, I felt like taking a walk. I slipped,” he added to explain the mud.

“You’re just like Daddy, doing crazy things. He also loved rain walks. But go, change your clothes, I’ll make tea and toast for you.” The rain had made the years fall away. He was her little boy again, drenched and helpless.

“How’s your knee?”

“Much better. The ice pack helped.”

He went up to his room, washed, and changed into dry clothes. The tea was ready when he returned downstairs. His mother added two spoons of sugar for him and one for herself. His had been poured in his father’s cup. She stirred it before moving it towards him. “You remember how Daddy always used to drink the first cup, strolling about the kitchen?”

He nodded.

She smiled. “Getting in my way when I was busiest. But he stopped doing that in the last few years. He would just come in and sit down quietly.” Leaning sideways in her chair, she touched Maneck’s head lightly with her fingers. “Look at that, your hair is still dripping.”

She got a napkin from the linen cupboard and began to dry it. Her vigorous towelling with short, rapid strokes made his head roll back and forth. He was on the verge of protesting, but found it relaxing and let her continue. His eyes closed. He could see the masseurs in the city, eight years ago with Om at the beach, where customers sat in the sand to have their heads kneaded and rubbed and pummelled. Waves breaking in the background, and a soft twilight breeze. And the fragrance of jasmine, wafting from vendors selling chains of the milk-white flowers for women to twine in their hair.

“I think I will visit our relatives. And also Dina Aunty.” Her brisk efforts with his wet hair added a curious vibrato to his voice.

“How funny you sound. As if you were trying to talk and gargle at the same time.” She laughed and put away the napkin. “They’ll be so happy to see you. When will you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?” She wondered if it was a ruse to get away from her. “And when will you return here?”

“I think I’ll go back to Dubai straight from there. More convenient.”

She knew the hurt was showing in her face, and he did not seem aware of it. His words grew indistinct to her ears, already travelling the distance he was to put between them.

“What I want to do,” he continued, “is get back to my job quickly — give them notice, find out how soon they will release me.”

“You mean, resign? And then?”

“I’ve decided to come back and settle here.”

Her breath quickened. “That’s a wonderful plan,” she said, restraining, as best she could, the tide of emotion that swept through her. “You can start your own business by selling the shop and — ”

“No. The shop is why I’m coming back.”

“Daddy would like that.”

He left the table and went to the window. It did not always have to end badly — he was going to prove it to himself. First he would meet all his friends: Om, happily married, and his wife, and at least two or three children by now; what would their names be? If there was a boy, surely Narayan. And Ishvar, the proud grand-uncle, beaming away at his sewing-machine, disciplining the little ones, cautioning them if they ventured too close to the whirring wheels and galloping needles. And Dina Aunty, supervising the export tailoring in her little flat, orchestrating the household, holding sway in that busy kitchen.

Yes, he would see all this with his own eyes. If there was an abundance of misery in the world, there was also sufficient joy, yes — as long as one knew where to look for it. Soon, he would return to take charge of Kohlah’s Cola and the General Store. The foundation cables needed attention. The house would be refurbished. He would install new bottling machinery. He had more than enough money saved up.

Mrs. Kohlah went to stand beside him at the window. His hands were on the sill, clutching it tight, the knuckles white. They were strong hands, like his father’s, she thought.

“It’s getting cloudy again,” he said. “There’ll be lots more rain tonight.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “which means everything will be green and fresh tomorrow. It will be a beautiful day.”

He put his arm around his mother and gave her the good-morning hug of his childhood although it was evening. Her contented sigh was almost inaudible. Her grip on his hand, where it rested on her shoulder, was tight and warm.

The rain followed Maneck down the country, down the hills and across the plains, for thirty-two hours on the southbound train. He had almost missed the train; the bus from the town square to the railway station had been delayed by mud slides. Yesterday’s promise of sun and green and freshness remained unfulfilled, the storm still going strong. And at journey’s end, when he emerged from the crowd and clamour of the station concourse, the city streets were shining wet from a heavy downpour.

The taxi stand was empty. He waited at the kerb, surrounded by puddles. There was nowhere to put his suitcase, and he shifted the bag to the other hand.

Then he noticed the crack in the flagstones behind him. Worms were pouring out of it, slithering dark red across the rain-slick pavement. Phylum Annelida. Several had been pulped under the feet of pedestrians. Dozens more continued to emerge, gliding along on a film of water, undulating over the dead ones.

While he watched, the gears of time slid effortlessly into reverse, and the busy pavement became Dina Aunty’s bathroom. It was his first morning in her flat, he could hear her calling through the door, and he froze, keeping an eye on the wiggling battalion’s advance. How she had teased him afterwards. He smiled at the memory. The crack in the flagstones was now almost depleted of worms, as the last stragglers dragged themselves to the safety of the gutter.

He decided to spend the evening with his mother’s relatives, get that task out of the way. Then tomorrow could be devoted entirely to Dina Aunty and Ishvar and Om.

A taxi rattled up beside him. The driver, his arm hanging out the window, looked expectant, smelling a fare.

“Grand Hotel,” said Maneck, opening the door.

He washed, changed his shirt, and set off to suffer the fond attentions of the Sodawalla family. During the course of the evening he patiently allowed himself to be called Mac, flinching while they hugged and

patted and fawned over him. It was a bit like being the prize dog at a kennel show.

“What a terrible shock it was when we heard that your daddy passed away,” they said. “And you people live so far away, we couldn’t even go to the funeral. So sorry.”

“It’s all right, I understand.” He remembered what Daddy used to say about the Sodawalla relatives — no fizz, dull as a flat soda, in danger of boring themselves to death. And in the end, Daddy had lost his own effervescence.

Maneck felt suddenly oppressed in the house, exhausted by the visit. He thought he would collapse if he spent any more time with his relatives. He rose and held out his hand. “It was very good seeing you again.”

“Stay a little longer, spend the night with us,” they insisted. “It will be so nice. In the morning we will eat omelette, and make some fresh prawn patia.”

He refused firmly. “I have a business appointment for dinner. Also some early breakfast meetings. I must get back to the hotel.”

They were understanding about this, suitably awed by the idea of breakfast meetings. They saw him off with blessings and good wishes, and instructions to come soon for another visit. “Don’t make us starve again so many years,” they said.

On his way back to the hotel, he stopped at the airline office and checked his reservation. The agent confirmed the booking: “It’s for day after tomorrow, sir. And your flight departure time is eleven-thirty-five p.m. Please be at the airport before nine p.m.”

“Thank you,” said Maneck.

At the Grand Hotel, he ate a plate of mutton biryani in the dining room. Afterwards, he read the newspaper in the lobby for a few minutes, then collected his key and went to bed. He fell asleep thinking about Dina Aunty, and the time they had sat up late into the night, completing the dresses for Au Revoir when Ishvar and Om had gone missing. The time of trouble with a capital t.

Renovations had transformed the place beyond recognition, and for a moment Maneck thought he was at the wrong address. Marble stairways, a security guard, the foyer walls faced with gleaming granite, air-conditioning in every flat, a roof garden — the low-rent tenement had been converted into luxury apartments.

He checked the nameplates listed in the entrance. The bastard landlord had finally done it, got rid of Dina Aunty — it had ended badly for her. And what about the tailors, where were they working now?

Outside, he felt the returning grip of despair, the sun pounding his head. Perhaps Dina Aunty would know where Ishvar and Om were. There was only one place she could have gone: to her brother, Nusswan. But he didn’t have the address. And why bother — would she really be pleased to see him? He could look it up in the telephone directory. Under what surname?

He rattled his memory for Dina Aunty’s maiden name. She had mentioned it once. One night, all those years ago, when Ishvar and Om and he had sat listening to her tell them about her life. It was after dinner, and she had the quilt in her lap, connecting a new patch. Never look back at the past with regret, Dina Aunty had said. And something about her bright future lost… no, clouded… back when she was still a schoolgirl, and her name was — Dina Shroff.

He stopped at the chemist’s to consult the telephone directory. There were several Shroffs but only one Nusswan Shroff, and he noted the address. The clerk said it wasn’t far. He decided to walk.

After leaving behind the old neighbourhood, the road became unfamiliar. He asked directions of a carpenter sitting by the kerb with his tools in a sack. The carpenter’s thumb was heavily bandaged. He told Maneck to turn right at the next intersection, past the cricket maidaan.

There was a marquee set up at the edge of the field, although no cricket match was in progress. Inquiring crowds were milling around it, peering inside. Over the entrance a sign proclaimed: WELCOME TO ONE amp; ALL FROM HIS HOLINESS, BAL BABA — DARSHAN AVAILABLE FROM 10.00 A.M. TO 4.00 P.M. EVERY DAY INCLUDING SUNDAY amp; BANK HOLIDAY.

A hardworking godman for sure, thought Maneck, wondering what his specialty was — producing gold watches out of thin air, tears from the eyes of statues, rose petals from women’s cleavages?

But his name suggested a trick to do with hair. He asked someone at the entrance, “Who is Bal Baba?”

“Bal Baba is a very very holy man,” said the attendant. “He has returned to us after many many years of meditationing in a Himalayan cave.”

“What does he do?”

“He has a very especial, very saintly power. He tells you any sort of thing you will want to know. All he needs is to hold some of your hairs between his holy fingers for ten seconds only.”

“And what’s the charge for it?”

“Bal Baba has no charges,” said the man indignantly. Then he added, with an oily smile, “But all donations are mostly welcome by the Bal Baba Foundation, anymuch amount.”

Maneck grew curious, and went in. Just for a quick look, he decided — at the latest fakeologist in the city, as Om would say. It would be amusing to tell the tailors what he saw. Something to laugh about together, after eight years.

The crowds were bigger outside the marquee than inside. Only a few people were waiting near a screen behind which sat the very very saintly Bal Baba. Shouldn’t take long, thought Maneck, at the rate of ten seconds per meditation per customer. This was assembly-line darshan and consultation.

He joined the queue, and soon it was his turn. The man behind the screen, in a saffron robe, was bald and clean-shaven. Even his eyebrows and eyelashes had been plucked clean. Not a hair was visible on his face or on the skin left uncovered by the robe.

Despite the bizarrely smooth and shining countenance, however, Maneck recognized him. “You’re Rajaram the hair-collector!”

“Eh?” jumped Bal Baba, startled enough to let the unsaintly ejaculation escape him. Then he regained his composure, raised his head, and enunciated beatifically, embroidering his words with graceful hand and finger movements: “Rajaram the hair-collector renounced his life, his joys and sorrows, his vices and virtues. Why? So that Bal Baba could be incarnated, and could use his humble gift to assist humanity along the pathway to moksha.”

The fancy mannerisms were discontinued after this declaration. He inclined his head and asked in a normal voice, “But who are you?”

“Remember Ishvar and Om? The tailors who used to lend you money in your previous incarnation — your hairy days? I lived in that same flat with them.” While the hair-collector took this in, Maneck added, “I’ve grown a beard. Maybe that’s why you don’t recognize me.”

“Not at all. No hairstyle or beard on earth can deceive Bal Baba,” he said grandly. “So what is your question for me?”

“You’re joking.”

“No, just try me. Go ahead, ask. Ask about job, health, marriage prospects, wife, children, education, anything. I’ll give you the answer.”

“I already have the answer. I’m searching for the question.”

Bal Baba looked askance at him, annoyance shadowing the glabrous face — enigmatic utterances of this sort were his preserve. But he controlled his displeasure and reattached the requisite smile of enlightenment.

“On second thoughts, I do have a question,” said Maneck. “How would you help someone who has a bald head like yours?”

“That is only a small obstacle. The Bal Baba Foundation sells a special hair tonic at cost price — postage and handling charges extra. Made from rare Himalayan herbs, works like magic. In a few weeks, the bald head is covered with thick hair. Then the person comes here, I hold the newly grown hair for meditation, and answer the question.”

“Do you ever feel like chopping it off? For your collection?”

Bal Baba grew enraged. “That was another life, another person. That’s all finished, don’t you understand?”

“I see. And have you visited Ishvar and Om since you returned from your cave? They might have questions for you.”

“Bal Baba cannot afford the luxury of visiting anybody. He is bound to this place, to allow people the opportunity for darshan.”

“Right,” said Maneck. “In that case I better not waste your time. There are thousands waiting outside.”

“May you soon find the bliss of contentment,” said Bal Baba, raising one hand in a transcendent farewell. His eyes were still furious.

Maneck decided to come again next morning, bring Om and Ishvar with him — he didn’t have to leave for the airport till tomorrow night. It would be a great joke, and lots of fun to deflate Bal Babas pomposity. Take him down a notch or two, make him look back at his yesterdays.

The way out was through the rear of the marquee, past a man writing at a wobbly table stacked with letters and envelopes. Maneck stared, trying to remember where they had met. Then he spotted the plastic case in the maris shirt pocket, with its battery of pens and ballpoints. It came back to him — the train, the passenger with the hoarse voice.

“Excuse me, you’re the proofreader, aren’t you?”

“Erstwhile,” he said. “Vasantrao Valmik, at your service.”

“You don’t recognize me because I’ve grown a beard, but I was the student on the train with you, many years ago, when you were travelling for specialist treatment for your throat problem.”

“Say no more,” said Mr. Valmik, smiling with delight. “I remember perfectly, I’ve never forgotten you. We talked a lot on that journey, didn’t we.” He chuckled, and screwed the cap on his pen. “You know, it’s so very rare to find a good audience for one’s story. Most people get restless when a stranger tells them about his life. But you were a perfect listener.”

“Oh, I enjoyed listening. It shortened the journey. Besides, your life is so interesting.”

“You are very kind. Let me tell you a secret: there is no such thing as an uninteresting life.”

“Try mine.”

“I would love to. One day you must tell me your full and complete story, unabridged and unexpurgated. You must. We will set aside some time for it, and meet. It’s very important.”

Maneck smiled. “Why is it important?”

Mr. Valmik’s eyes grew wide. “You don’t know? It’s extremely important because it helps to remind yourself of who you are. Then you can go forward, without fear of losing yourself in this ever-changing world.”

He paused, touching his pen pocket. “I must be truly blessed, for I have been able to tell my whole story twice. First to you on the train, then to a nice lady in the courthouse compound. But that was also many years ago. I’m thirsting to find a new audience. Ah, yes, to share the story redeems everything.”

“How?”

“How, I don’t know exactly. But I feel it here.” He put his hand over his shirt pocket again.

He felt it in his pens? Then Maneck realized that the proofreader meant his heart. “And what are you doing nowadays, Mr. Valmik?”

“I am in charge of Bal Baba’s mail-order business. He does prophecies by correspondence too. People send in clippings of hair. I open the envelopes, throw away the hair, cash the cheques, and write answers to their questions.”

“Are you enjoying it?”

“Very much indeed. The scope is unlimited. I can use all kinds of devices in my replies — essay form, prose poem, poetic prose, aphorism.” He patted the pen pocket and added, “My little darlings are at full flow, creating fiction after fiction, which will become more real in the recipients’ lives than all their sad realities.”

“It’s been good to see you,” said Maneck.

“And when shall we meet again? You really must tell me all about yourself.”

“Maybe tomorrow. I’m planning to bring two friends of Bal Baba.”

“Good, good. See you soon.”

At the exit, the attendant held out a brass bowl containing a little loose change. “Anymuch donation is welcome.”

Maneck threw in some coins, feeling he had certainly got his money’s worth.

The door took a while to open in answer to Maneck’s ring. The stick-wristed figure looked nothing like the Dina Aunty he had left eight years ago. Eight years in passing were entitled to take their toll; but this — this was more than a toll, it was outright banditry.

“Yes?” she asked, leaning forward. Her eyes were pinpoints through lenses twice as thick as he remembered them. The grey in her hair had thoroughly subjugated the black.

“Aunty,” his voice snagged on the obstacle course his throat had become. “It’s Maneck.”

“What?”

“Maneck Kohlah — your paying guest.”

“Maneck?”

“I’ve grown a beard. That’s why you don’t recognize me.”

She came closer. “Yes. You’ve grown a beard.”

He felt the coldness in her voice. Stupid of me to expect anything else, he thought. “I went to your flat… and… you were not there.”

“How could I? It’s not my flat.”

“I wanted to see you again, and the tailors, and — ”

“There are no more tailors. Come inside.” She shut the door, leading the way with small, careful steps, using the walls and furniture to guide herself in the dark hallway.

“Sit,” she said, when they reached the drawing room. “You have appeared suddenly. Out of nowhere.”

He heard the accusation, and nodded. He had no defence.

“That beard. You should shave it off. Makes you look like a toilet brush.”

He laughed, and so did she, a little. He was relieved to hear the silver flash in hers, but it was not entirely enough to cancel the chill. The room they sat in was opulent. Rich old furniture, antique porcelain in showcases, an exquisite silk Persian carpet on one wall.

“Next time you see me, the beard will be gone for sure, Aunty, I promise.”

“Maybe then I will recognize you sooner.” She struggled with a hairpin and patted it down. “My eyes are terrible now. Those carrots you forced me to eat were wasted. Nothing can save these eyes.”

He laughed tentatively, but this time she did not join in.

“You came after very long. A few more years, and I won’t see you at all. Even now, you’re a shadow in this room.”

“I was away, working in the Gulf.”

“And what was it like?”

“It was… it was — empty.”

“Empty?”

“Empty… like a desert.”

“But it is a desert country.” She paused. “You didn’t write to me from there.”

“I’m sorry. But I didn’t write to anyone. It seemed so … so pointless.”

“Yes,” she said. “Pointless. And my address changed, in any case.”

“But what happened to the flat, Aunty?”

She told him.

He leaned forward to whisper, “And you are okay here? Nusswan treats you all right?” He lowered his voice still further. “Does he give you enough to eat?”

“You don’t have to whisper, no one is home to hear you.” She removed her spectacles, wiped them with the hem of her skirt, and put them on again. “There is more food than I have an appetite for.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “And what about Ishvar and Om? Where are they working now?”

“They are not working.”

“Then how are they managing? Especially with Om’s wife, and children?”

“There is no wife, no children. They have become beggars.”

“Sorry — what, Aunty?”

“They are both beggars now.”

“That’s impossible! Sounds crazy! I mean — aren’t they ashamed to beg? Couldn’t they do some other work, if there’s no tailoring? I mean — ”

“Without knowing everything you want to judge them?” she cut him off.

Her scathing tone made him curb his outburst. “Please tell me what happened.”

While she spoke, cold like a knife sliced through his insides. He sat frozen, like one of the figurines in the glass-fronted cabinets around him.

When she reached the end, he had still not stirred. She leaned forward to shake his knee. “Are you listening?”

He gave a slight nod. Her eyes missed the small movement, and she asked again, irritated, “Are you listening or am I wasting my breath?”

This time he used words for his answer. “Yes, Aunty. I am listening.” His voice was lifeless.

Empty as his face, she thought. “You wouldn’t recognize them if you saw them. Ishvar has shrunk, not just because his legs are gone — all of him. And Om has become very chubby. One of the effects of castration.”

“Yes, Aunty.”

“You remember how we used to cook together?”

He nodded.

“You remember the kittens?”

He nodded again.

She tried once more to breathe life into him. “What time is it?”

“Twelve-thirty.”

“If you are not in a rush, you could meet Ishvar and Om. They will come here at one o’clock.”

Emotion re-entered his voice, but not the sort she was hoping for. “I’m sorry — I cannot stay.” The refusal was tinged with terror, his words spilling out in a rush. “I have so many things to do … before my plane leaves tomorrow. My mother’s relatives, and some shopping, and then to the airport. Maybe when I come next time.”

“Next time. Yes, okay. We’ll all be waiting for you next time.”

They rose and walked down the hallway. “Wait,” she said when they reached the door. “I have something for you.”

She returned with her small, careful steps. “You left this behind in my flat.”

It was Avinash’s chess set.

“Thank you.” He swayed, but his voice remained calm. He put out a hand to accept the board and the maroon plywood box. Then he said, “I don’t really need it, Aunty. You keep it.”

“And what would I do with it?”

“Give it to someone… to your nephews?”

“Xerxes and Zarir don’t play. They are very busy men.”

Maneck nodded. “Thank you,” he said again.

“You’re welcome.”

He hesitated, turning the box around and around in his hands, gently running his fingers along the edge. “Bye-bye, Aunty.”

She nodded silently. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek lightly, quickly. She raised her hand as though to wave, stepped back, and began to close the door. He turned and hurried down the cobbled walkway.

He stopped when he heard the door shut. He was under a tree at the end of the path. A bird sang in the branches. He listened, staring at the board and box in his hands. Something fell on his head, and he jumped aside to avoid a second dropping. His fingers felt the sticky splotch. Using leaves from the tree, he wiped his hair and looked up. There was only a crow, the singing bird had flown. He wondered which one was in his hair. Daddy used to say a common crow’s droppings brought uncommon good luck.

He glanced at his watch: twenty to one. Ishvar and Om would be arriving soon. If he spent a few minutes here, he could see them. And they would see him. But — what would he say?

In the quiet street outside the house, he began strolling along the footpath. Up, towards the end of the street, then down again, to Dina Aunty’s house. After several turns, he saw two beggars rounding the corner from the main road.

One sat slumped on a low platform that moved on castors. He had no legs. The other pulled the platform with a rope slung over his shoulder. His plumpness sat upon him strangely, like oversized, padded clothes. Under his arm he carried a torn umbrella.

What shall I say? he asked himself desperately.

They drew nearer, and the one on the platform jiggled the coins in his tin can. “O babu, ek paisa?” he pleaded, looking up shyly.

Ishvar, it’s me, Maneck! Don’t you recognize me! The words raced uselessly inside his head, unable to find an exit. Say something, he commanded himself, say anything!

The other beggar demanded, “Babu! Aray, paisa day!” His voice was high-pitched, challenging, his look direct and mocking. They stopped expectantly, hand held out, tin rattling.

Om! Sour-lime face, my friend! Have you forgotten me!

But his words of love and sorrow and hope remained muted like stones.

The legless beggar coughed and spat. Maneck glanced at the gob; it was tinged with blood. The platform started to roll past him, and he saw that Ishvar was sitting on a cushion. No, not a cushion. It was dirty and fraying, folded to the size of a cushion. The patchwork quilt.

Wait, he wanted to call out — wait for me. He wanted to hurry after them, go back to Dina Aunty with them, tell her he had changed his mind.

He did nothing. The two turned into the cobbled walkway and disappeared from sight. He could hear the castors clattering briefly over the uneven stones. The sound died; he continued on his way.

Past the cricket maidaan, past Bal Baba’s marquee, past the injured carpenter by the kerb, Maneck hurried till he was in familiar surroundings again. He saw the new neon sign of the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel. The place seemed like a prosperous restaurant now, enlarged by having swallowed the shops on either side, its lights humming and flickering fatuously in the afternoon sun. EAT DRINK, ENJOY IN OUR AIR-CONDITIONED COMFORT, said the smaller board under the neon.

He entered, and was shown to a shiny glass-topped table. A neat, uniformed waiter appeared, bearing a large, glossy menu. Maneck placed the chess set on an empty chair beside him and ordered a coffee.

The eating house was busy; it was lunchtime. The waiter hurried back with a glass of water. “Making fresh coffee, sahab. Two more minutes.”

Maneck nodded. On a high shelf behind the cash desk, a loudspeaker emitted vapid instrumental music, purposeless above the restaurant bustle. He gazed at the tables around him, at office workers in bush shirts, ties, jackets, eating energetically, their animated conversations supplementing the clatter of cutlery — office talk, about management treachery and dearness allowances, budgets and promotions. This was a new class of clientele, far removed from the peons and sweaty labourers who used to eat here in the old days.

The coffee arrived. Maneck added sugar, stirred at length, sipped a little. Immediately the waiter, lingering nearby, stepped forward. “Is it good, sahab?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The man adjusted the salt and pepper containers and wiped the ashtray with vigour. “So, sahab, the Prime Minister’s son has taken over. You think he will be a good ruler?”

“Who knows. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“That’s true. They all say one thing, do something else.” He left to attend another table, where the customers had finished eating. Maneck watched him stack the plates, then add to this stack at the next table, and the next, before staggering off to the kitchen with the lot.

He soon returned and inspected Maneck’s half-empty cup. “Anything to eat, sahab?”

Maneck shook his head.

“We have nice tasty ice cream also.”

“No, thank you.” The over-attentiveness was getting on his nerves — the polite smile like part of the new decor, he felt, in the new Vishram. Where he was alone. In the old Vishram, he had always come with Om and Ishvar. Afternoons, at that single, smelly table. And Shankar rolling outside, waving his incomplete hands, wiggling his truncated legs, smiling, rattling his tin. And then his funeral pyre. The priest’s chanting, the burning sandalwood, the fragrant smoke. Completeness. In the crematorium with Daddy this was missing, an open pyre was definitely better. Better for the living…

A group of customers noisily pushed back their chairs to leave; a new batch took their place. They greeted the staff by name. Regulars, apparently. Maneck picked up the maroon plywood box and pushed open the sliding lid, fishing out a piece at random. A pawn. He rolled it between his thumb and fingers, observed that the green felt on its base was peeling.

The waiter saw it too. “You should use Camel Paste, sahab, it will stick it strong.”

Maneck nodded. He drank what remained of the coffee and dropped the pawn back in the box.

“My son also plays this game,” said the waiter proudly.

Maneck looked up. “Oh? Does he have his own set?”

“No, sahab, it is too expensive. He plays in school only.” Noticing the empty cup, he offered the menu again. “Two o’clock, sahab, kitchen is closing soon. We have very nice karai chicken, also biryani. Or some small thing? Mutton roll, pakora with chutney, puri-bhaji?”

“No, just one more coffee.” Maneck rose and went to the back, looking for the wc.

It was occupied. He waited in the passage, where he could observe the brisk kitchen activity. The cook’s perspiring helper was chopping, frying, stirring; a skinny little boy was scraping off dirty plates and soaking them in the sink.

Despite the chrome and glass and fluorescent lights, something of the old Vishram remained, thought Maneck — kerosene and coal fuelled the stoves. Then the wc door creaked open, and he went in.

When he came out, the table nearest the kitchen had been vacated. He decided to take it. The waiter darted across to remind him his second coffee was waiting at the other table.

“I’ll have it here,” said Maneck.

“But it’s not good, sahab. Kitchen noise, and smell and all, over here.”

“That’s okay.”

The waiter complied, fetching the coffee and the chess set before retreating to discuss with a colleague the whims and idiosyncrasies of customers.

Someone called out an order of shish kebab to the kitchen. The cook’s helper stoked the coals and, when they had caught, arranged a few on a brazier. Skewers loaded with chunks of lamb and liver were placed over it. The coals perked up as they were fanned.

How they glowed, thought Maneck — live creatures breathing and pulsating. Starting small, with modest heat, then growing to powerful red incandescence, spitting and snapping, their tongues of flame crackling, all heat and passion, transforming, threatening, devouring. And then — the subsidence. Into mellow warmth, compliance, and, finally, a perfect stillness…

The Vishram’s lunch hours had ended. Past three o’clock, the waiter began hinting apologetically, with a weak attempt at humour. “Everybody ran back to office long time ago, sahab,” he smiled. “Scared of their bosses. But you must be a very big boss, only you are left behind here.”

Yes, only I, thought Maneck. Only slow coaches get left behind.

“You are on holiday?”

“Yes. Bill, please.” He glanced inside the kitchen again. The stoves were off; the cook’s helpers were cleaning the place to get ready for the dinner patrons. On the brazier, the coals had crumbled to ashes.

The total for two coffees was six rupees. Maneck placed ten in the saucer and walked to the door.

“Wait, sahab, wait!” called the waiter, running after him. “Sahab, you forgot your paakit on the chair! And also your game!”

“Thank you.” Maneck slipped the wallet into his hip pocket, and took the chess set.

“All your things you are forgetting today,” the waiter laughed a little. “Be careful, sahab.”

Maneck smiled and nodded, then opened the door, stepping from the air-conditioned chill of the Vishram into the afternoon sun’s harsh embrace.

Gradually, it became difficult for Maneck to make his way along the pavement. He realized he was walking against the flow. Evening had fallen while he had wandered the city streets; people were spilling urgently out of office buildings, heading for home. His watch showed a quarter after six. He turned towards the railway station, to let the human tide carry him forward.

The brunt of the rush hour had passed, but the high-ceilinged concourse continued to reverberate with the thunder of trains. There was a line at the ticket-window. He remembered a story he had heard about ticketless travel, once upon a time.

Abandoning the queue, he jostled through the crowds to get to the platform. The display indicated that the next train was an express, not scheduled to stop here.

He looked around at the waiting passengers — lost inside newspapers, fidgeting with luggage, drinking tea. A mother was twisting her child’s ear to drive home some lesson. A distant rumbling was heard, and Maneck moved to the front of the platform. He stared at the rails. How they glinted, like the promise of life itself, stretching endlessly in both directions, silver ribbons skimming over the gravel bed, knitting together the blackened, worn-out wood of the railway ties.

He noticed an elderly woman in dark glasses standing next to him. He wondered if she was blind. It could be dangerous for her so close to the edge — perhaps he should help her move to safety.

She smiled and said, “Fast train, not stopping here. I checked the board.” She took one step backwards, motioning with her hand to draw him back too.

Not blind then, just stylish. He returned her smile and remained where he was, hugging the chess set to himself. Now the express could be seen in the distance, having cleared the bend in the tracks. The rumble was louder, growing to a roar as it approached. When the first compartment had entered the station, he stepped off the platform and onto the gleaming silver tracks.

The elderly woman in dark glasses was the first to scream. Then the shriek of the pneumatic brakes drowned all other sounds. The fast train took several hundred yards to stop.

Maneck’s last thought was that he still had Avinash’s chessmen.

Under the tree where the cobbled walkway met the pavement, Om dropped Ishvar’s towrope, and they settled down to wait. A bird startled in the dense foliage above them. They kept glancing at the wrist-watches of passersby whom they pestered for alms.

At one o’clock they left the pavement and trundled over the cobbles. The shrubbery and the garden wall of the Shroff residence shielded them from the neighbours’ view. They made straight for the back door, keeping close to the side of the house, and knocked softly.

Dina ushered them in. She filled water glasses for them and, while they drank, dished out masoor in plates from Ruby’s everyday set on the sideboard. How many more years could she do this before Ruby or Nusswan found out, she wondered. “Anyone saw you come in?”

They shook their heads.

“Eat fast,” she said. “My sister-in-law is coming back earlier than usual.”

“It’s very tasty,” said Ishvar, carefully balancing the plate on his lap.

Om grunted his affirmation, adding, “Chapatis are a little dry, not as nice as yesterday. You didn’t follow my method or what?”

“This fellow thinks he’s too smart,” she complained to Ishvar.

“What to do,” said Ishvar, laughing. “He’s the chapati champion of the world.”

“They are from last night,” said Dina. “I didn’t make fresh ones. I had a visitor. You’ll never guess who.”

“Maneck,” they said.

“We saw him passing half an hour ago. We knew him in spite of his beard,” said Ishvar.

“Didn’t you talk to him?”

They shook their heads.

“He didn’t recognize us,” said Om. “Or he ignored us. We even said ‘Babu, ek paisa’ to get his attention.”

“You have altered very much from when he knew you.” She held out the platter of chapatis. “Have another.” Ishvar took one and shared with Om, tearing it in half.

“I told him you would come at one o’clock,” she continued. “I asked him to wait but he was getting late. Next time, he said.”

“That will he nice,” said Ishvar.

Om shrugged angrily. “The Maneck we knew would have waited today.”

“Yes,” said Ishvar, scooping up the last bit of masoor from his plate. “But he went so far away. When you go so far away, you change. Distance is a difficult thing. We shouldn’t blame him.”

Dina agreed. “Now remember, tomorrow is Saturday, everyone will be home — you mustn’t come for the next two days.” She put their plates in the sink and opened the door to let them out.

“Hoi-hoi,” said Ishvar. “What’s this?” A thread had unravelled from the quilt he was sitting on, and was tangled in one of the castors.

“Let me see.” Om reached down to slide the quilt out as his uncle levered himself up slightly on his arms. They found the patch from which the thread had strayed.

“Good thing you saw it,” said Dina. “Or that piece might have fallen off completely.”

“It’s easy to fix,” said Ishvar. “Can I borrow your needle, Dinabai? For a few minutes?”

“Not now. I told you my sister-in-law is returning early.” But she went to her room and fetched a spool of thread with a needle stuck into it. “Take this with you.” She opened the door again for them. “Don’t forget the umbrella.” She tucked it under Om’s arm.

“It was very useful last night,” he said. “I hit a thief who tried to grab our coins.” He raised the rope and hauled. Ishvar made a clacking-clucking sound with his tongue against the teeth, imitating a bullock-cart driver. His nephew pawed the ground and tossed his head.

“Stop it,” she scolded. “If you behave that way on the pavement, no one will give you a single paisa.”

“Come on, my faithful,” said Ishvar. “Lift your hoofs or I’ll feed you a dose of opium.” Chuckling, Om trotted away plumply. They quit clowning when they emerged into the street.

Dina shut the door, shaking her head. Those two made her laugh every day. Like Maneck used to, once. She washed the two plates, returning them to the sideboard for Nusswan and Ruby to dine off at night. Then she dried her hands and decided to take a nap before starting the evening meal.