Between the Assassinations

DAY SIX (EVENING): BAJPE

Bajpe, the last area of forested land in Kittur, was marked out by the founding fathers as one of the “cleansing lungs” of the town, and for this reason was for thirty years protected from the avarice of real estate developers. The great forest of Bajpe, which stretched from Kittur right up to the Arabian Sea, was bordered on the town side by the Ganapati Hindu Boys’ School and the small adjacent temple of Ganesha. Next to the temple ran Bishop Street, the only part of the neighborhood where houses had been allowed. Beyond the street stood a large wasteland, and beyond that began a dark lattice of trees-the forest. When relatives from the center of town visited, the residents of Bishop Street were usually up on their terraces or balconies, enjoying the cool breezes that blew from the forest in the evening. Guests and hosts together watched as herons, eagles, and kingfishers flew in and out of the darkening mass of trees, like ideas circulating around an immense brain. The sun, when it plunged behind the forest, burned orange and ocher through the interstices of the foliage, as if peering out of the trees, and the observers had the distinct impression that they were being observed in return. At such moments, guests were wont to declare that the inhabitants of Bajpe were the luckiest people on earth. At the same time, it was assumed that if a man built his house on Bishop Street, he had some reason to want to be so far from civilization.

GIRIDHAR RAO AND Kamini, the childless couple on Bishop Street, were one of the hidden treasures of Kittur, all their friends declared. Weren’t they a marvel? All the way out in Bajpe, on the very edge of the wilderness, this barren couple kept alive the all-but-dead art of Brahmin hospitality.

It was another Thursday evening, and the half a dozen or so members of the Raos’ circle of intimates were making their way through the mud and slush of Bishop Street for their weekly get-together. Ahead of the pack, moving with giant strides, came Mr. Anantha Murthy, the philosopher. Behind him was Mrs. Shirthadi, the wife of the Life Insurance Company of India man. Then Mrs. Pai, and then Mr. Bhatt, and finally Mrs. Aithal, always the last to descend from her green Ambassador.

The Raos’ house was all the way down at the end of Bishop Street, just yards away from the trees. Sitting right on the forest’s edge, the house had the look of a fugitive from the civilized world, ready to spring into the wilderness at a moment’s notice.

“Did everyone hear that?”

Mr. Anantha Murthy turned around. He put a hand on his ear and raised his eyebrows.

A cool breeze was blowing in from the forest. The intimates came to a halt, trying to hear what Mr. Murthy had heard.

“I think it’s a woodpecker, somewhere in the trees!”

An irritated voice boomed down:

“Why don’t you get up here first, and listen to the woodpeckers later? The food has been prepared with a lot of care, and it’s getting cold!”

It was Mr. Rao, leaning down from the balcony of his house.

“Okay, okay,” Mr. Anantha Murthy grumbled, picking his way down the muddy track again. “But it’s not every day a man gets to hear a woodpecker.” He turned to Mrs. Shirthadi. “We tend to forget everything that’s important when we live in towns, don’t we, madam?”

She grunted. She was trying to make sure she didn’t get mud on her sari.

The philosopher led the intimates into the house. When they had finished scraping their chappals and shoes on the coconut-fiber mat, the visitors found old Sharadha Bhatt squinting at them. She was the proprietor of the place, a widow whose only son lived in Bombay. It was understood that the Raos stayed on in their cramped apartment, so far from the heart of town, partly out of concern for Mrs. Bhatt-she was a distant relative. A suggestion of intense religiosity clung to the old lady. The visitors heard the drone of M. S. Subbulakshmi singing “Suprabhatam” from a small black tape recorder in her room. Sitting with her legs folded on a wooden bed, she struck at her thighs alternately with the front and back of her left palm as she followed the rhythm of the holy music.

Some of the visitors remembered her husband, a celebrated teacher of Carnatic music who had performed on All India Radio, and paid their respects: politely nodding toward her.

Done with their obligation to the ancient lady, they hurried up a wide stairwell to the Raos’ quarters. The childless couple occupied a crushingly small space. Half the living area consisted of a single drawing room, cluttered with sofas and chairs. In a corner, a sitar was propped up against the wall, its shaft having slid down to a forty-five-degree angle.

“Ah! It’s our intimates once again!”

Giridhar Rao was neat, modest, and unpretentious in appearance. You could tell at once that he worked in a bank. Since his transfer from Udupi-his hometown-he had been the deputy branch manager at the Corporation Bank’s Cool Water Well branch for nearly a decade now. (The intimates knew that Mr. Rao could have risen much higher had he not repeatedly refused to be transferred to Bombay.) His wavy hair was flattened with coconut oil and parted to one side. A handlebar mustache-the one anomaly in his demure appearance-was neatly combed and curled at the ends. Mr. Rao had now thrown a short-sleeved shirt over his singlet. The fabric of the shirt was thin: inside its dark silk, the thick singlet glowed like a skeleton in an X-ray.

“How are you, Kamini?” Mr. Anantha Murthy asked in the direction of the kitchen.

The drawing room furniture was a motley mix-green metal seats discarded from the bank, a torn old sofa, and three fraying cane chairs. The intimates headed for their favorite seats. The conversation began haltingly; perhaps they sensed, once again, that they were as haphazard a collection of people as the furniture was. None was aware of any blood relation to the other. By day, Mr. Anantha Murthy was a chartered accountant catering to Kittur’s rich. In the evenings he became a committed philosopher of the Advaita school. He found Mr. Rao a willing (if silent) listener to his theories of the Hindu life-and that was how he had become part of the circle. Mrs. Shirthadi, who usually attended without her busy husband, had been educated in Madras and espoused several “liberated” views. Her English was exceptionally fine, a marvel to listen to. Mr. Rao had asked her to speak on the subject of Charles Dickens at the bank a few years ago. Mrs. Aithal and her husband had met Kamini at a violin concert the previous May. The two of them were originally from Vizag.

The intimates knew that the Raos had selected them for their distinction-for their delicacy. They realized that they bore a responsibility upon entering that cozy little garret. Certain topics were taboo. Within the wide circumference of acceptable conversation-world news, philosophy, bank politics, the relentless expansion of Kittur, the rainfall this year-the intimates had learned to meander freely. Forest breezes came in from the balcony, and a transistor radio precariously balanced on the edge of the parapet emitted a steady patter of the BBC’s evening news service.

A late arrival-Mrs. Karwar, who taught Victorian literature at the university-threw the house into chaos. Her vivacious five-year-old, Lalitha, charged up the stairs shrieking.

“Look here, Kamini,” Mr. Rao shouted at the kitchen. “Mrs. Karwar has smuggled your secret lover into the house!”

Kamini rushed out of the kitchen. Fair skinned and shapely, she was almost a beauty. (Her forehead was protuberant, and her hair thinnish at the front.) She was famous for her “Chinese” eyes: narrow slits that were half closed beneath the curve of heavy eyelids, like prematurely opened lotus buds. Her hair-she was known to be a “modern” woman-was cut short in the Western style. Ladies admired her hips, which, never having been widened by childbirth, still sported a girlish slimness.

She rushed up to Lalitha. She hoisted the little girl into the air, kissing her several times.

“Look, let’s wait till my husband’s back is turned, and then we’ll get on my moped and drive away, huh? We can leave that evil man behind us and drive away to my sister’s house in Bombay, okay?”

Giridhar Rao put his hands to his waist and glared at the giggling girl.

“Are you planning on stealing my wife? Are you really her secret lover?”

“Hey, keep listening to your BBC,” Kamini retorted, leading Lalitha by the hand into the kitchen.

The intimates acknowledged their keen delight in this pantomime. The Raos certainly did not lack the skill to keep a child happy.

The voices of the BBC continued from the radio outside-a gravy of words that the intimates dipped into when their conversation ran dry. Mr. Anantha Murthy broke one long pause by declaring that the situation in Afghanistan was getting out of hand. One of these mornings the Soviets would come streaming over Kashmir with their red flags. Then the country would regret having missed its chance to ally itself with America back in 1948.

“Don’t you feel this way, Mr. Rao?”

Their host had never anything more to express than a friendly grin. Mr. Murthy did not mind. He acknowledged that Mr. Rao was not a “man of many words”-but he was a “deep” fellow all the same. If you ever wanted to check little details of world history-like, for instance, who was the American president who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima; not Roosevelt, but the little man with the round glasses-then you turned to Giridhar Rao. He knew everything; he said nothing. That kind of fellow.

“How is it you remain so calm, Mr. Rao, despite all this chaos and killing that the BBC is always telling you about? What is your secret?” Mrs. Shirthadi asked him, as she often did.

The bank manager smiled. “When I need peace of mind, madam, I just go to my private beach.”

“Are you a secret millionaire?” Mrs. Shirthadi demanded. “What’s this private beach you keep talking about?”

“Oh, nothing, really.” He gestured toward the distance. “Just a little lake with some gravel around it. It’s a very soothing place.”

“And why haven’t we all been invited there?” demanded Mr. Murthy.

The guests sat up. A triumphant Mrs. Rao entered the drawing room bearing a plastic tray whose multiple compartments brimmed with the evening’s first offerings: dried walnuts (which looked like little shrunken brains), juicy figs, sultana raisins, chopped almonds, slices of desiccated pineapple…

Before the guests had recovered, the next assault followed:

“Dinner is ready!”

They went into the dining room-the only other room in the house (it led into a little alcove-kitchen). An enormous bed, plump with cushions, lay in the middle of the dining room. There was no pretending not to see the conjugal site. It lay there, brazenly open to view. A small table was pulled up right next to it, and three of the guests hesitantly took their seats there. Their embarrassment disappeared almost immediately. The informality of their hosts, the voluptuous softness of the bedding beneath them-these things soothed their nerves. Then dinner rolled out of Kamini’s little kitchen. Course after course of fine tomato saaru, idli, and dosas flowed out of that factory of gustatory treats.

“This kind of cooking would amaze people even in Bombay,” proposed Mr. Anantha Murthy, when Kamini’s pièce de résistance-fluffy North Indian rotis, lined inside with chili powder-arrived on the table. Kamini beamed and protested: he was all wrong, she had so many inadequacies as a cook and a housewife!

When the guests rose, they realized that their buttocks had left wide, warm, and deep markings on the bed, like an ele phant’s footprints in clay. Giridhar Rao brushed aside their apologies:

“Our guests are like gods to us; they can do no wrong. That’s the philosophy in this house.”

They stood in line outside the washroom, where water flowed from a green rubber pipe twisted into a loop around the tap. Then back to the drawing room for the highlight of the evening-almond kheer.

Kamini brought out the dessert in breathtakingly large tumblers. The shake-served warm or cold, according to each guest’s pleasure-was so full of almonds that the guests protested that they had to chew the drink! When they looked into their tumblers, they held their breath in wonder: shiny flecks, strands of real saffron, floated between the pieces of almond.

They left the apartment silently, heeding Mr. Rao’s request not to disturb the sleeping Sharadha Bhatt. (The old lady turned restlessly on her wooden bed as they departed; in the background the religious music droned on.)

“Do come next week!” Mr. Rao said from the terrace. “It’s the week of the Satyanarayana Pooja! I’ll make sure Kamini does a better job with the cooking next week, unlike tonight’s disaster!” He turned into the house and raised his voice: “Did you hear that, Kamini? The food had better be good next time, or you’re divorced.”

There was a laugh, and a high-pitched scream from inside: “You’ll be the one to get divorced, unless you shut up!”

Once at a safe distance, the intimates burst into chatter.

What a pair! The man and woman such complete opposites! He was “bland,” she was “spicy.” He was “conservative,” she was “modern.” She was “quick,” he was “deep.”

Still picking their way along the muddy road, they began to discuss the forbidden topic with all the excitement and eagerness of people who were discussing it for the first time.

“It’s obvious,” said one of the women, Mrs. Aithal or Mrs. Shirthadi. “Kamini is the one ‘at fault.’ She wouldn’t have the operation. No wonder her life is racked by guilt. Don’t you see how she throws herself on any available child in a storm of frustrated maternity, showering them with kisses and blandishments and caramel chocolates? What does that signify, if not guilt?”

“And why did she refuse the operation?” demanded Mr. Anantha Murthy.

Obstinacy. The women were sure of it. Kamini simply refused to acknowledge that the fault was hers. Some of Kamini’s stubbornness, to be sure, came from her privileged background. She was the youngest of four sisters, all fair as buttermilk, the darling children of a famous eye surgeon in Shimoga. How she must have been spoiled as a child! The other sisters had married well-a lawyer, an architect, and a surgeon, and they all lived in Bombay. Giridhar Rao was the poorest of the brothers-in-law. You could be sure that Kamini was not the kind of woman to let him forget this. Haven’t you seen how defiantly she rides about town on her Hero Honda moped, as if she were the lord of their household?

Mr. Anantha Murthy raised several objections. Why were all the womenfolk so suspicious of Kamini’s “sportiness”? How rare to find such a free-thinking woman! The fault was surely his. Haven’t you seen him refuse promotion after promotion just because he would have to move to Bombay? What does that tell you? The man is lethargic.

“If only he would show…some more initiative…the problem of childlessness could easily be solved…” Mr. Murthy said, giving his bald head a sad philosophical shake.

He even claimed to have given Mr. Rao the names of doctors in Bombay who could solve his lack of “initiative.”

Mrs. Aithal reacted indignantly. Mr. Rao had more than enough “spunk” in him! Didn’t he have such thick facial hair? And didn’t he ride an entirely masculine red Yamaha motorcycle to the bank every morning?

The women enjoyed romanticizing Mr. Rao. Mrs. Shirthadi irritated Mr. Murthy by suggesting that the modest little bank manager was also in secret “a philosopher.” Once she had caught him reading the “religious issues of the day” column on the last page of the Hindu. He seemed embarrassed at this discovery, and parried her inquiries with jokes and puns. Still, the feeling had grown that beneath all his joking, he was undeniably “philosophical.”

“How else can he be so calm all the time, even without children?” Mrs. Aithal demanded.

“He has a secret of some kind, I’m sure,” Mrs. Murthy suggested.

Mrs. Karwar coughed and said, “Sometimes I fear that she might be thinking of divorcing him”-and everyone looked concerned. The woman certainly was “modern” enough to think of trying something like that…

But they had reached their cars now, and the group broke up and drove away one after the other.

Later in the week, though, the Raos were observed as they circled the Cool Water Well Junction on his Yamaha bike. Kamini sat on the backseat holding on to her husband tightly, and the observers were surprised to see how the two of them looked like a real couple just then.

The following Thursday, when the intimates returned to the Raos’ residence, they found Sharadha Bhatt herself open ing the door for them. The old woman’s silver hair was disarrayed, and she glared at her tenants’ guests.

“She’s having trouble with Jimmy-you know, her architect son in Bombay. She’s asked him again if she can come to stay with him, but his wife won’t allow it,” Kamini whispered, as she led them up the stairs.

Because of the anticipation of an extraordinary meal this evening, Mr. Shirthadi was putting in a rare appearance alongside his wife. He spoke passionately about the ingratitude of today’s children, and said he sometimes wished he had stayed childless. Mrs. Shirthadi sat nervously-her husband had almost crossed the invisible circumference.

Then Mrs. Karwar arrived with Lalitha, and there was the usual shouting and shrieking between Kamini and the “secret lover.”

After the sherbet, Mr. Anantha Murthy asked Mr. Rao to confirm a piece of gossip-that he had turned down another offer to be posted to Bombay.

Mr. Rao confirmed this with a nod.

“Why don’t you go, Giridhar Rao?” demanded Mrs. Shirthadi. “Don’t you want to rise in the bank?”

“I’m happy out here, madam,” Mr. Rao said. “I have my private beach, and my BBC in the evenings. What more does a man need?”

“You are the perfect Hindu man, Mr. Giridhar,” said Mr. Murthy, who was growing restless for dinner. “Which is to say, you are almost completely contented with your fate on earth.”

“Well, would you still be contented if I ran away with Lalitha?” Kamini shouted from the kitchen.

“My dear, if you ran away, then I’d be truly contented,” he retorted.

She shrieked in mock outrage, and the intimates applauded.

“Well, what about this private beach that you keep talking about, Mr. Rao-when are we going to see it, exactly?” Mrs. Shirthadi asked.

Before he could reply, Kamini came scampering out of the kitchen and leaned over the banister.

A stertorous breathing grew louder. Sharadha Bhatt’s face became visible as she limped up, one stair at a time.

Kamini was agitated. “Should I help you up the stairs? Should I do something?”

The old woman shook her head. Half out of breath, she stumbled onto a chair at the top of the stairs.

The conversation stopped. This was the very first time the old woman had joined the weekly dinners.

In a few minutes the intimates had learned to ignore her.

Mr. Anantha Murthy clapped his hands when Kamini came out with the appetizer tray.

“So, what’s this I hear about your taking up swimming?”

“And if I am?” she snapped, putting a hand to her waist. “What’s wrong with that?”

“I hope you are not going to wear a bikini like a Western woman?”

“Why not? If they do it in America, why can’t we? Are we less than them in any way?”

Lalitha giggled furiously as Kamini announced plans for the two of them to buy the scandalous swimsuits right away.

“And if Mr. Giridhar Rao doesn’t like it-then the two of us are going to run away and live together in Bombay, aren’t we?”

Giridhar Rao glanced nervously at the old woman, who was gazing at her toes.

“All this ‘modern’ talk isn’t getting you upset, is it, Sharadhaamma?”

The old lady breathed heavily. She curled her toes and stared at them.

Mr. Anantha Murthy ventured a comparison between the barfi that Kamini had put out on the appetizer tray and the barfi served in the best café in Bombay.

Then the old lady spoke in a hoarse voice:

“It is written in the scriptures…” She paused for a long time. The room went silent.

“…that a man…a man who has no son may not aspire to enter the gates of Heaven.” She breathed out. “And if a man doesn’t enter Heaven, neither can his wife. And here you are talking of bikinis and wikinis, and cavorting with ‘modern’ people, instead of praying to God to forgive your sins!”

She breathed heavily for another moment, then got to her feet and hobbled down the stairs.

When the intimates left-it was a truncated evening-they found the old lady outside the house. Sitting on a suitcase bursting with clothes, she was bellowing at the trees.

“Yama Deva, come for me! Now that my son has forgotten his mother, what more is there for me to live for?”

As she called to the Lord of Death, she struck at her forehead with the stems of her fists, and her bangles jangled.

Feeling Giridhar Rao’s hand on her shoulder, the old woman burst into tears.

The intimates saw Giridhar Rao gesture for them to leave. The old lady had exhausted her histrionics. Her head sank onto Kamini’s breast, and she convulsed in sobs.

“Forgive me, mother…The gods have given us each our punishment. They gave you a uterus of stone, and they have smashed the heart in my son’s chest…”

After they had put the old lady to bed, Mr. Rao let his wife climb the stairs first. When he joined her, she was lying on the bed with her back turned toward him.

He walked onto the veranda and turned the radio off.

She said nothing as he picked up his helmet and headed back down the stairs. The kick-starting of his engine rent the quiet of Bishop Street.

In a few minutes, he was heading down the road that went through the forest toward the sea. On either side of the speeding bike, serried silhouettes of coconut palms bristled against the blue coastal night. Hanging low over the trees, a bright moon looked as though it had been cleaved by an ax. With its top right corner sliced off, it hung in the sky like an illustration of the idea of “two-thirds.” After a quarter of an hour, the Yamaha bike swerved off the road onto a muddy track, thundering over stones and gravel. Then its engine went dead.

A lake, a small circle of water inside the forest, came into view, and Giridhar Rao stopped his bike, leaving his helmet on the seat. Fishermen had cleared a small shore around the lake, which was bounded on the far side by more coconut trees. At this hour, there would be nets all over the lake, but there was not another soul to be seen. A heron, walking through the shallow water at the edge of the lake, was the only other living thing in sight. Giridhar had stumbled upon his lake years ago, on a drive through the forest at night. He had no idea why no one came here; but a small town is like that, full of hidden treasures. He walked beside the lake for a few minutes, then sat down on a rock.

The water, its glossy surface broken by black ripples, looked like sheets of molten glass settling one on top of another.

The heron flapped its wings and rose into the air. Now he was all alone. He hummed softly, a tune from his bachelor days in Bangalore. A yawn expanded his face. He looked up. Three stars had emerged from the tatters of a gray cloud; together with the two-thirds moon, they composed a quadrilateral. Mr. Rao admired the structure of the night sky. It pleased him to think that the elements of our world were not cast about at random. Something stood behind them: an order.

He yawned again and stretched his legs out from the rock.

His peace was broken. It had begun to drizzle. He wondered if he had remembered to fasten the windows above their bed; the rain might strike her face.

Leaving his private beach behind, he sprinted to his motorbike, donned his helmet, and kicked the machine to life.

One morning in 1987, all of Bishop Street woke to hear the dull thack-thack-thack of axes hacking away at the trees. In a few days, chain saws were buzzing, and cranes were scooping up huge portions of black earth. And that was the end of the great forest of Bajpe. In its place, the inhabitants of Bishop Street now saw a giant pit filled with cranes, trucks, and an army of bare-chested migrant workers carrying stacks of bricks and cement bags on their heads like ants moving grains of rice. A giant sign in Kannada and Hindi proclaimed that this was to be the site of the SARDAR PATEL IRON MAN OF INDIA SPORTS STADIUM. A DREAM COME TRUE FOR KITTUR. The racket was incessant, and dust swirled up from the pit like steam from a geyser. Outsiders who returned to Bajpe thought the neighborhood had become a dozen degrees warmer.