The Great Indian Novel

The Third Book: The Rains Came

13

‘That’s the last bloody straw,’ the British Resident said. He was pacing up and down his verandah, a nervous Heaslop flapping at his heels. ‘Indigo inquiry, indeed. I’ll crucify the bastard for this.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the equerry said unhappily. ‘Er. . if I may. . how, sir?’

‘How?’ Sir Richard half-turned in his stride, as if unable to comprehend the question. ‘What do you mean, how?’

‘Er. . I mean, how, sir? How will you, er, crucify him?’

‘Well, I don’t intend to nail him to a cross in the middle of the village bazaar, if that’s what you’re asking,’ the Resident snapped. ‘Don’t be daft, Heas-lop.’

‘Yes, sir, I mean, no, sir,’ the aide stuttered. ‘I mean, I didn’t mean that, sir.’

‘Well, what did you mean?’

Sir Richard’s asperity invariably made the young man more nervous. ‘I mean that when I asked you how, I didn’t really mean how, you know, physically, sir. When I said how I meant sort of what, you know, what exactly you meant when you meant to, er, crucify him. . sir,’ Heaslop ended a little lamely.

The Resident stopped, turned around, and stared at him incredulously. ‘What on earth are you going on about, Heaslop?’

‘Nothing, sir,’ replied the hapless Heaslop, backing away. He was beginning to wish himself back on the North-West Frontier, being shot at by the Waziris. At least there he knew when to duck.

‘Well, then don’t,’ Sir Richard advised him firmly. ‘There’s nothing as irritating when I’m trying to think as hearing you go on about nothing. Sit down, will you, and pour yourself a stiff drink.’ He gestured at a trolley laden with bottles and siphons which now stood permanently on the verandah.

Heaslop sat gingerly on a lumpily cushioned cane-chair and busied himself with a bottle. Sir Richard continued to pace, his white sideburns, in need of a trim, quivering with the strength of his emotion. ‘This man has publicly confronted, indeed humiliated, the Raj. Which means for all practical purposes the King-Emperor. Whom I represent. Which means he has humiliated me.’

‘Er. . I wouldn’t take it so personally, sir,’ Heaslop began.

‘Shut up, Heaslop, will you, there’s a good fellow,’ came the reply from the Resident, whose round red cheeks gave him the appearance of a superannuated cherub, albeit one whose wings have been trod upon by a careless Jehovah. ‘When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.’

The equerry subsided into a sulky silence.

‘He has humiliated me,’ his superior went on. ‘And he has made matters worse by drawing attention to his former position here, which means I shall be unwelcome in every planters’ club from here to Bettiah.’ He glowered pinkly at the enormity of the privation. ‘Never in the entire history of my family in India has such a thing happened to any of us. Not even to my brother David, who spends his time drawing pictures of animals.’

He stopped in front of the young man, who was drinking deeply from a tall glass. ‘I must do something about this rabble-rouser,’ he muttered. ‘Presuming to usurp the legitimate functions of the district administration! Standing half- naked before a representative of His Majesty and inviting him, daring him, to pronounce sentence on his open defiance of the law! Serving on so-called “inquiry committees” and depriving honest planters of their livelihood! There has to be an end to this nonsense.’

Heaslop opened his mouth in habitual response, then thought better of it.

‘Things are bad enough already,’ Sir Richard went on. ‘We have native lawyers declaiming against our rule in every legislative forum, even when they have been nominated to their seats for the most part as presumed Empire loyalists. We have had a nasty little boycott of British goods, with fine Lancashire cotton being thrown on to bonfires. We have even had bombs being flung by that Bengali terrorist, Aurobindo, and his ilk. But all these were, in the end, limited actions of limited impact. Ganga Datta shows every sign of being different.’

‘In what way, sir?’ Despite himself, Heaslop was intrigued.

‘The man challenges the very rules of the game,’ the Resident barked. ‘Paradoxically, by using them for his own purposes. He knows the law well, and invites, even seeks, its sanction by deliberately — deliberately, mind you — violating it in the name of a higher truth. Twaddle, of course. But dangerous twaddle, Heaslop. He appeals to ordinary people in a way the chaps in the pin-stripe suits in the Viceroy’s Council simply can’t. In Motihari they flocked to him, irrespective of caste or religion. Untouchables, Muslims, Banias all rubbing shoulders in his campaign, Heaslop! And he stands before them in his bed-sheet, revelling in their adulation.’

Heaslop remained studiously mute. ‘You know what the fellow dared to say when the President of the Planters’ Club commented on the inappropriateness of his attire?’ Sir Richard rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a newspaper clipping. ‘”Mine is a dress,’” he quoted in mounting indignation, ‘”which is best suited to the Indian climate and which, for its simplicity, art and cheapness, is not to be beaten on the face of the earth. Above all, it meets hygienic requirements far better than European attire. Had it not been for a false pride and equally false notions of prestige, Englishmen here would long ago have adopted the Indian costume.” I ask you! Your precious Mr Ganga Datta would have the Viceroy in a loincloth, Heaslop. What on earth is that sound you are making?’

For Heaslop, overcome by the image of Lord Chelmsford’s sturdy calves bared in Delhi’s Durbar Hall, was spluttering helplessly into his glass.

‘Drastic measures are called for, Heaslop,’ Sir Richard continued, unamused. ‘I’m convinced of that. This fellow must be taught a lesson.’

‘How, sir?’ Heaslop asked, in spite of himself.

The Resident looked at him sharply. ‘That’s precisely what I’m trying to give some thought to, Heaslop.’ He lowered his tone. ‘We’ve capitulated too often already. Think of that terrible mistake over the partition of Bengal. We carve up the state for our administrative convenience, these so-called nationalists yell and scream blue murder, and what do we do? We give in, and erase the lines we’ve drawn as if that were all there was to it. That could be fatal, Heaslop, fatal. Once you start taking orders back you stop being able to issue them. Mark my words.’ He stopped pacing, and turned directly to his aide. ‘What action can we take? It must be something I can do, or recommend to the States Department, something in keeping with the gravity of his conduct. If he were still Regent I’d have his hide for a carpet. But I suppose it’s too late for that now.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Heaslop agreed reflectively. ‘Unless. .’

‘Yes?’ Sir Richard pounced eagerly.

‘Unless it isn’t really too late,’ Heaslop said slowly. ‘I have an idea that, if it’s a question of our competence to act against him, we might be able to, er, catch him on a technicality.’

‘Go on,’ the Resident breathed.

‘You see, when Ganga Datta handed over the reign, I mean the reins, of Hastinapur to the princes Dhritarashtra and Pandu and retired to his ashram, he was obliged under the law to notify us formally that he had ceased to be Regent,’ Heaslop explained carefully. ‘But he was probably so busy organizing the marriages of his young charges as soon as they’d come of age, that he quite simply forgot.’

‘Forgot?’

‘Well, it happens, sir. In the ordinary course we’d hardly pay much attention to it. Many of the princely states are less than conscientious about observing the fine print of their relations with us. Indians simply haven’t developed, ah. . our sense of ritual.’

Sir Richard looked at him suspiciously. Heaslop did not blink. ‘But doesn’t the court at Hastinapur employ an Englishman as a sort of secretary, to attend to this sort of thing?’

‘Well, yes, there is Forster, sir, Maurice Forster, just down from Cambridge, I believe. But he seems to, ah, prefer tutoring young boys to performing his more routine secretarial duties. I have the impression he doesn’t take many initiatives, sir. Never quite managed to get the hang of what India’s all about. Considers it all a mystery and a muddle, or so he keeps saying. He waits to do what he is told, and I suspect that if the business of the notification didn’t occur to the Regent, it wouldn’t have occurred to poor Forster, either.’

‘Hmm.’ The Resident’s round features softened with hope. ‘And what exactly does this permit me to do, Heaslop?’

‘Well, sir.’ Heaslop sat up, choosing his words carefully. ‘If we haven’t been notified that Ganga Datta has ceased to be Regent, then technically, as far as we’re concerned, he still is. I mean, despite any other evidence to the contrary, we’re entitled to consider him to be in full exercise of the powers of Regent until we have been formally notified otherwise. Do you see, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, man, go on.’

‘Well, sir, if he’s still Regent — ’

‘He has no business going about preaching sedition outside the borders of the state.’ Sir Richard finished the sentence gleefully. ‘Conduct unbecoming of a native ruler. I like it, Heaslop, I like it.’

‘There’s only one thing, sir,’ the equerry added in a slightly less confident tone of voice.

‘Yes?’ The fear of bathos added octaves to the Resident’s timbre. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve overlooked something, Heaslop.’

‘No, sir. It’s just that what he did, sir, in Motihari, wasn’t exactly criminal, sir. The case was withdrawn. On the direct orders of the Lieutenant-Governor of the state. And then he was invited to join the official inquiry committee. It might be going too far, sir, for us to proceed against him for something Delhi doesn’t consider seditious.’

‘Piffle, Heaslop, piffle.’ Sir Richard’s tone was firm. ‘That case wouldn’t have been withdrawn if the indigo market weren’t already in the doldrums. Your nationalist hero simply provided a good excuse to withdraw a regulation that wasn’t needed any more, and earn the goodwill of some of these babus.’ Sir Richard glowered at the thought. ‘And don’t make the mistake of assuming that Delhi thinks with one mind on a question like this. Not a bit of it. For every Lieutenant-Governor Scott with a soft spot for the uppity natives, there are ten on the Viceroy’s staff who believe in putting them in their place. Besides, Paul Scott and his ilk can’t tie our hands on a matter concerning the princely states. It’s simply none of their damn business.’

‘If you say so, sir.’ Heaslop tried to keep the anxiety he felt out of his voice. He was beginning to feel like Pandora after casually opening the box. ‘What exactly do you propose to do, sir? I mean, there isn’t much point in demanding his ouster as Regent, is there, when we know perfectly well he isn’t Regent any more?’

‘Ouster? Who in damnation spoke about demanding his ouster, Heaslop?’ ‘Well, you said, sir, I mean no one, sir, but you did say that if he were still Regent you would —’

‘Have his hide for a carpet.’ Sir Richard recalled his metaphor. ‘I’m not foolish enough to ask for his dismissal from functions he no longer exercises, Heaslop. It’s not a symbolic victory I’m looking for. I want to teach Mr Datta, and any others like him, a lesson they’ll never forget.’

‘May I ask how, sir?’ Heaslop’s voice was faint.

‘You may indeed, Heaslop, and I will answer you in one word,’ Sir Richard replied, rubbing his hands in anticipatory satisfaction. ‘Annexation.’

14

‘I’m not sure I want a hundred sons,’ Dhritarashtra said to his bride. ‘But I’d be happy to have half a dozen or so.’

They were reclining on an enormous swing, the size of a sofa, which hung from the ceiling of their royal bedroom. The unseeing prince lay on his side, propped up against a bolster, his head supported partly by an elbow and partly by Gandhari’s sari-draped lap. His new princess, playing idly with strands of his already thinning hair, did not smile at his words, nor did she look at him. Gandhari the Grim, as this frail, dark beauty was already being called in the servants’ quarters, could not, for her eyes were completely covered by a blindfold of the purest silk.

‘You shall have a son,’ she said softly, ‘who shall be strong and brave, a leader of men. And he shall see well enough and far enough for both of us.’

Her husband sighed. ‘Dearest Gandhari,’ he whispered, his free hand reaching for her face and feeling the satin bandage around it. ‘Why must you do this to yourself?’

‘I have already told you,’ she replied, decisively moving his hand away. ‘Your world is mine, and I do not wish to see more of it than you do. It is not fitting that a wife should possess anything more than her husband does.’

A fragrance of the attar of roses wafted slowly down to him as she spoke. It was one of the signs by which he could tell her from any other presence in a room, that and the silvery tinkle of the payals at her ankle. ‘How often must I tell you that you would be more useful to me the way you are?’ Dhritarashtra asked sadly.

He never ceased to marvel at the strength of this woman’s resolve. For a young girl, embarking on adulthood and marriage, to vow never to see the world again! What it must have meant to her to make this sacrifice, to blot out the world to conform to an idea of matrimony even fiercer and more intense than that handed down over the generations. What was it that drove her to this extreme act of self-denial? Not just tradition, for even the tradition of the dutiful wife, the Sati Savitri of myth and legend, did not demand so much. Not love, for she had never set eyes on Dhritarashtra before; nor admiration, for the days of his greatness still lay ahead. No, it was some mysterious inner force that led this young girl to will herself into blindness, to give up the glory of the sunlight and the flowers, to renounce the blazing splendour of the gulmohars or the gathering thunderclouds of the monsoons, to have to judge a sari by its feel rather than its colour, a space by its sound rather than its size, a man by his words rather than his looks. It was a sacrifice few, let alone this delicate wisp of a woman, would be thought capable of making.

‘Useful? It is not a wife’s role to be useful.’ Gandhari tossed her determined head. ‘If that is all you want, you can hire any number of assistants, secretaries, readers and scribes, cooks and servants and even women of pleasure. As I am sure you have done whenever you have felt the need.’ She ran her fingers through his hair to remove any hint of offence. ‘No, my lord, a dharampatni is not expected to be useful. Her duty is to share the life of her husband, its joys and triumphs and sorrows, to be by his side at all times, and to give him sons.’ A note of steely wistfulness crept into her voice. ‘A hundred sons.’

Dhritarashtra had never known a woman like this in England. He tried to inject a note of playfulness into the conversation. ‘Not a hundred. That would be exhausting.’

His quiet wife did not. laugh. This was not a subject on which she entertained levity. ‘Who knows? That is what the astrologer has foretold. It would take a long time, to produce a hundred sons.’

‘And so it would.’ Dhritarashtra the sceptic, with his Cambridge-taught disbelief that the stars could be read any more accurately than the tea leaves he constantly brewed, chuckled, and reached for his wife. This time his hands touched a different fabric, and felt a responsive warmth beneath. ‘So what are we waiting for?’

His fingers tickled her and at last she laughed too. The swing rocked with their love, at first slowly, then with accelerating rhythm, casting moving shadows on the walls that neither could see.

15

Behave yourself, Ganapathi. What do you mean, how could I know? You don’t expect me to spell out everything, do you? I just know, that’s all. I know a great many things that people don’t know I know, and that should be good enough for you, young man.

Meanwhile, as they say in those illustrated rags which I suppose are all your generation reads these days, Pandu was having the time of his life with his two wives. The scandal-burdened Kunti was every bit as delectable as her reputation suggested, and the steatomammate Madri, if less symmetrically proportioned, more than made up for this with the inventiveness of her love- making. Pandu was always something of a physical soul, if you get my meaning, and he revelled in the delights of bigamy, taking due care to ensure that his pleasures were not prematurely interrupted by pregnancy.

It was, of course, too good to last. That, Ganapathi, is one of the unwritten laws of life that I have observed in the course of a long innings at the karmic crease. It is just when you are seeing the ball well and timing the fours off the sweet of the bat that the unplayable shooter comes along and bowls you. And it is because we instinctively understand this that we Hindus take defeat so well. We appreciate philosophically that the chap up there, the Great Cosmic Umpire, has a highly developed sense of the perverse.

Didn’t think I knew much about cricket, did you? As I told you Ganapathi, I know a great deal about a great deal. Like India herself. I am at home in hovels and palaces, Ganapathi, I trundle in bullock-carts and propel myself into space, I read the vedas and quote the laws of cricket. I move, my large young man, to the strains of a morning raga in perfect evening dress.

But we were talking about something else — you mustn’t let me get distracted, Ganapathi, or you will be here for ever. Was it not the profound inscrutability of Providence I was on about? It was? More or less? Well, in Pandu’s case it manifested itself quite early. He was in bed one day with both his consorts, attempting something quite unspeakably imaginative, when an indescribable pain shot through his chest and upper arm and held his very being in its grip. He fell back, unable to mouth the words to convey his torture, and for a brief moment his companions thought their ministrations had brought him to a height of ecstasy they had never seen before. But a quick look lower down convinced them something quite different was the matter. They frantically screamed for help.

‘Massive coronary thrombosis,’ said Dr Kimindama, as Pandu lay paler than ever under the oxygen tent. ‘Or in plain Hindustani, a whopping great heart attack. He’s lucky to be alive. If it weren’t for the prompt call,’ he added, looking with appreciation at the two not-quite-shevelled ladies beside the bed, ‘I’m not sure we could have saved him.’

Pandu recovered; his big heart rode the blow and knit itself together. But when he was ready to resume a normal life the doctor took him aside and gave him the terrible news.

‘I’m afraid,’ Dr Kimindama said, ‘that in your case there is one prohibition I must absolutely enjoin upon you. The circumstances of your attack and the present condition of your heart make it imperative that you completely, and I mean completely, give up the pleasures of the flesh.’

‘You mean I have to stop eating meat?’ Pandu asked.

The doctor sighed at the failure of his euphemism. ‘I mean you have to stop having sex,’ he translated bluntly. ‘Your heart is simply no longer able to withstand the strain of sexual intercourse. If you want to live, Your Highness, you must abstain from any kind of erotic activity.’

Pandu sat heavily back on his bed. ‘That’s how bad it is, doctor?’ he asked hollowly.

‘That’s how bad it is,’ the doctor confirmed. ‘Your next orgasm will be your last.’

Think of it, Ganapathi! To be married to two of the most delightful companions that could have been conjured from Adam’s rib, and yet to be denied, like an over-cautious chess-player, the pleasures of mating! Such was the lot of my pale son Pandu, and it could have been the ruin of a lesser man. But the blood of Ved Vyas ran in his veins, don’t you forget that, Ganapathi, and he resolutely turned his back on his misfortune, and his wives. His putative father had died of his lust, and Pandu had no desire to conform to the pattern.

‘This is a signal,’ he explained to his grief-stricken spouses. ‘I must pull up my socks, turn over a new leaf and make something of my life, if I am ever to acquire salvation. Sex and worldly desires only tie a man down. I am determined to roll up my sleeves and put my nose to the grindstone, not forgetting to gird my loins while I am about it. I shall practise self-restraint and yoga, and devote myself to good causes. Oh, yes, and I shall be sleeping alone from now on.’

16

It was a time of great grief and much sorrow

When Pandu rose up from the dead;

For starting today (not tomorrow)

He must renounce the joys of the bed.

The medic didn’t give him an option

Except ‘tween this world and the next;

To live (and avoid any ruption)

He just had to give up sex.

To young Pandu, as you can imagine

It came as a painful wrench;

He could enjoy life’s great pageant

But he couldn’t lay hands on a wench.

To his wives, two lovely ladies,

He could offer no more than a kiss;

They might as well have lived in Hades

For all the hope they could have of bliss.

Yes, after those nights full of pleasure –

Full of baiting and biting and laughter –

They would now have only the leisure

To contemplate the hereafter.

Good deeds! was now the motto

Of the rest of their lives on this earth;

No frolic, no getting blotto,

No foreplay, no unseemly mirth;

No, nothing but an ascetic’s toga

And the quest of the good and the right:

A regular session of yoga

And a guru to show him the light.

Thus Pandu abandoned the pastime

Of expending in women his lust;

He shrugged passion off for the last time

And set off to strive for the just.

And where else could he go, Ganapathi, but to his uncle Ganga, now ensconced in his ashram on the river bank? Of course, Pandu the so-recent sybarite was not about to enrol straight away in the commune and take cheerfully to his share of dish-washing and toilet-cleaning; he remained initially an occasional day-scholar, coming to listen to Gangaji’s discourses when he could, then returning to the comforts and — for he was still the younger brother of a blind maharaja — the responsibilities of the palace.

This was about the time of Motihari, just after, in fact, and the ashram was already beginning to attract its fair share of hangers-on. You know the song, Ganapathi:

groupies with rupees and large solar topis,

bakers and fakers and enema-takers,

journalists who promoted his cause with their pen,

these were among his favourite men!

Pandu joined this motley crowd at Gangaji’s feet, listening to his ideas and marvelling at the disciples’ devotion to him. He learned of politics and Gangan philosophy:

of opposing caste

unto the last

(for Sudras are human, too)

of meditation

and sanitation

(and cleaning out the loo).

He learned to pray

the simple way

(for Ganga taught him how)

to help the weak

turn the other cheek

(and always protect the cow).

Soon he sounded more

like his mentor

(than any other chela)

Spoke Ganga’s words

ate Ganga’s curds

and became even paler.

He brooked no debate

on being celibate

(a trait that’s Sagittarian).

His passionate defence

of abstinence

turned others vegetarian.

Poetry, Ganapathi, but it’s not enough to sing of the transformation of Pandu under Ganga’s tutelage. No, one must turn to prose, the prose of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan biographies and the school textbooks. How about this, O long-nosed one? In discourse his speech became erudite, his tone measured. In debate he thought high and aimed low. He became adept at religion, generous in philanthropy and calm in continence. No? You don’t like it? Well, take it down anyway. We must move on: Pandu has begun quoting the shastras at unlikely moments, applying the most arcane of our ancient concepts to the circumstances of everyday life, and we must not leave these unrecorded.

17

Where shall we rejoin Pandu? He began, you see, to enliven his conversation with legend and fable — a myth, he thought, was as good as a smile — and his moral tales would curl the pages of the Kama Sutra. Shall we intrude upon him as he tells his red-eared Madri of lustful Vrihaspati, who forced his attentions upon his pregnant sister-in-law Mamta, and found his ejaculation blocked by the embryonic feet of his yet-to-be-born nephew? Or of the Brahmin youth who turned himself into a deer to enjoy the freedom to fornicate in the forest, until he was felled by a sharp-shooting prince on a solitary hunt? Or should we, instead, eavesdrop on our pale protagonist as he pontificates on the virtues of celibacy to his ever-sighing mate Kunti?

‘But sons I must have,’ said Pandu one day, after a close reading of the holy books. In addition to Gangaji he had been spending some time with his grandmother Satyavati and with, need I say it, me, and we all had, as well you know by now, Ganapathi, fairly flexible ideas on the subject. Flexible, but sanctified by scripture, as Pandu explained to his doe-eyed wife Kunti:

‘I have learned to live without sex, as Gangaji has done for so much longer, but I cannot, like him, hope for salvation in the next life without a son. His is a life of exceptional merit and purity and good works; he need never spill his seed, yet a thousand sons will step forward to light his funeral pyre. I am not so fortunate, Kunti. No ritual, no sacrifice, no offering, no vow will help me attain the moksha that is denied the sonless man.’

He gazed at his wife with sorrowful eyes — no, Ganapathi, make that with eyes full of sorrow — and spoke in the firm voice of a preceptor, detached from the subject of his discourse. ‘I have talked to our elders and read the scriptures, and they tell me there are twelve kinds of sons a man can have. Six of these may become his heirs: the son born to him in the normal course from his lawfully wedded wife; the son conceived by his wife from the seed of a good man acting without ignoble motive; the son similarly conceived, but from a man paid for this service; the posthumous son; the son born of a virgin mother; and finally, the son of an unchaste woman.’

Kunti listened speechlessly, with widening eyes. Her learned husband went remorselessly on. ‘The six who cannot become his heirs are: the son given by another; the adopted son; the son chosen at random from among orphans; the son born from a wife already pregnant at marriage; the son of a brother; and the son of a wife from a low caste. Since I need an heir it is clear that I cannot adopt a son; you must give me one.’

Kunti looked at him with what the poet — and don’t ask me which poet, Ganapathi, just write the poet — called a wild surmise. She was beginning to get his drift, and she was not sure she liked the way his wind was blowing.

‘I cannot, as you know, give myself a son through you. I do not know how to go about obtaining the services of a surrogate father. But I leave it to you, Kunti. Find a man who is either my equal or my superior, and get yourself pregnant by him.’

Kunti raised a hand to her mouth in horror. ‘Don’t ask me to do this,’ she pleaded. ‘Ever since we met I have remained completely faithful to you. You know people have already gossiped about me before we were married. Don’t give them an excuse to start again, my darling. Besides, I know we can have children together. Couldn’t we, whatever that doctor might say? If we’re really careful?’

‘No, we can’t,’ Pandu replied, ‘and you know I simply can’t afford to take the chance. Look, Kunti, it’s very good of you to want to stay faithful to me and I appreciate it, really I do. But you’ve got to realize that for a good Hindu it is far more important to have a son, indeed to have a few sons, than to put a chastity belt on his wife.’

Kunti, still shocked — for you know the conservatism of our Indian women, Ganapathi, they are for ever clinging to the traditions of the last century and ignoring those of the last millennium — waited for the inevitable exegesis from the shastras. It was not long in coming. Pandu readjusted his lotus position, tucking his feet more comfortably under his haunches, and went on in high-sounding tones. ‘You know, if you read our scriptures you will realize that there was a time when Indian women were free to make love with whomever they wished, without being considered immoral. There were even rules about it: the sages decreed that a married woman must sleep with her husband during her fertile period, but was free to take her pleasure elsewhere the rest of the time. In Kerala, the men of the Nair community only learn that their wives are free to receive them by seeing if another man’s slippers aren’t outside her door. Our present concept of morality isn’t really Hindu at all; it is a legacy both of the Muslim invasion and of the superimposition of Victorian prudery on a people already puritanized by purdah. One man married to one woman, both remaining faithful to each other, is a relatively new idea, which does not enjoy the traditional sanction of custom. (Which is why I myself have had no qualms about taking two wives.) So I really don’t mind you sleeping with another man to give me a son. It may seem funny to you, but the deeper I steep myself in our traditions, the more liberal I become.’

He could see she was not yet convinced. ‘Look, I’ll tell you something that might even shock you, but which, in fact, is in full accordance with our divine scriptures and ancient, traditions. It’s a closely guarded family secret that even I learned only when I became a man. Vichitravirya, my mother’s husband, isn’t really my father. Nor Dhritarashtra’s, for that matter. Our mothers slept with their husband’s half-brother, Ved Vyas, when their husband died, to ensure he would be graced with heirs.’ Pandu saw that this story, at last, had sunk in. ‘So you see? You’d just be following a family tradition. You’ve always done as I asked you to — so go and find yourself a good Brahmin and give me a son.’

Kunti’s resistance melted at last. ‘The truth is,’ she began, ‘I don’t really know how to tell you this, but I already have a son.’

‘What?’ It was Pandu’s turn to register offended astonishment. ‘You? Have a son? By whom? When? And how could you talk so glibly of having been faithful to me?’

‘Please don’t be angry, my dear husband,’ Kunti implored. ‘I only mentioned it because you brought up the subject this way. And I have been faithful to you. My son was born before we even met, before your family asked for my hand for you.’

Comprehension dawned on a paling Pandu. ‘Hyperion Helios,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘The travelling magnate. So the scandal-mongers were right after all.’

Kunti hung her beautiful head in acknowledgement.

‘And where is your son today?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kunti admitted miserably. ‘I was so ashamed when he was born — though I shouldn’t have been, for he was a lovely little boy, his golden skin glowing like the sun — that I put him in a small reed basket and floated him down the river.’

‘Down the river?’

‘Down the river.’

‘Then there isn’t much point in talking about him, is there?’ Pandu asked a little cruelly.

‘Someone must have found him,’ Kunti said defiantly. ‘I’m sure he is still alive. And I know I’ll recognize him the moment I see him again. His colour — it’s so extraordinary I’m sure no one else in these parts would have anything like it. And then there’s his birthmark — a bright little half-moon right in the centre of his forehead. There’s no way he could have got rid of that.’ She turned to Pandu. ‘If you want a son, I know we can find him,’ she pleaded. ‘Let us have inquiries made in the area.’

A wind blew, Ganapathi, at those words, stirring up leaves, dust, shadows, clothing; eyelashes flickered in disturbed hope; an age sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ Pandu replied. ‘It’s no use. A son born to you before we were even married, even if he were found, how can he be an heir of mine? No, you will simply have to find someone else, Kunti.’ A hard edge entered his voice. ‘And it shouldn’t be all that difficult for you. After all, you do have the experience.’

Kunti seemed about to say something; then her face assumed a set expression. ‘As you wish, my husband,’ she said. ‘You shall have your son.’

18

I remember, Ganapathi, I still remember the night our late Leader was born. It was a monsoon night, and the rain lashed down upon us, while a howling wind tore branches off trees and ripped roofs off shacks, turned our pathetic parasols inside out and drove the water into our homes. I entered the palace dripping, handed the shambles of my umbrella to the bowing servitor and mounted the stairs towards the women’s quarters. A female attendant came out of Gandhari’s room just as I reached the landing. Something about her expression led me to fear the worst. I asked her quietly, ‘How is she?’

‘Still in labour, sir.’

I nodded, both troubled and relieved. Still in labour: but it had been twenty-four hours already, time enough for me to receive the news and make my way through the mounting rage of the storm to the palace. And still she lay there; Gandhari the Grim lay there and sweated and suffered. I had a vision of that small, frail, delicately proportioned body stretched out and arched in the most grotesque of contortions, as a hundred lustily bawling sons fought their way out of her half-open womb. .

And then, from behind Gandhari’s closed door just down the corridor, there emerged a single, long, wailing sound. We both stood transfixed. It was a baby’s cry and yet it was more than that; it was a rare, sharp, high-pitched cry like that of a donkey in heat, and as it echoed around the house a sound started up outside as if in response, a weird, animal moan, and then the sounds grew, as donkeys brayed in the distance, mares neighed in their pens, jackals howled in the forests, and through the cacophony we heard the beating of wings at the windows, the caw-caw-cawing of a cackle of crows, and penetrating through the shadows, the piercing shriek of the hooded vultures circling above the palace of Hastinapur.

‘What was that, sire?’ the woman servant asked, fear writ large on her face.

‘Dhritarashtra’s heir has been born,’ I said.

I was right. For when the doctor emerged from Gandhari’s room he was ashen with the strain. It had been the most difficult delivery of his life, he said, and it had taken a terrible toll on the brave young mother. She had survived, but she could never have children again. This one child would be her only offspring.

‘A boy, of course?’ Dhritarashtra, anxiously leaning on a cane, his dapper features strained with anticipation, asked the doctor. For weeks the midwives had said that all the signs pointed to a male heir: the shape of Gandhari’s breasts in the eighth month, the sling of her uterus in the ninth. ‘How is he?’

‘A girl,’ the doctor said shortly. ‘And she’s very well.’

The cane slipped with a clatter from Dhritarashtra’s hand. A servant bent to pick it up and the new father leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

I slipped quietly into the room and shut the door behind me. ‘It is I, my child,’ I said. ‘I have come a long way to congratulate you.’

‘A girl!’ Gandhari’s head was sunk into her pillow and the beads of perspiration had yet to dry on her face. She had refused to take off her blindfold even to see her own infant, and it clung wetly to her closed eyelids. Her customary grimness was accentuated by a startling pallor, as if all the blood had been drained out of her in the delivery. ‘Is that all I shall have to show, Uncle, for the hundred sons you once promised me?’

I looked at her, pity overwhelming the admiration I had always felt for this spirited woman. I felt the exhaustion of that long wet night, the fatigue of that long hard birth; and my mind is still haunted by the image of poor grim Gandhari, head sunk into the pillow because she had failed to create the son her husband needed. History, Ganapathi, is full of savage ironies.

‘Your daughter, Gandhari,’ I said, taking her hand in mine, ‘will be equal to a thousand sons. This I promise you.’

I could not see into those closed eyes; I knew she did not believe me. Nor would she have believed what destiny had in store for her painfully wrought child. Gandhari would not live to know it, but her sombre-eyed daughter, Priya Duryodhani, would grow up one day to rule all India.