Hillstation (12 page)

‘Revered brother,' I said, sitting at his feet, ‘I am perplexed.'

‘Join the club,' he said.

‘All my life I have been told how admirable the English are…'

‘There's a dog for sale,' he interrupted. ‘But who'd buy a dog when you can chuck a bone out the window and five scraggy mutts jump to catch it?'

‘At least culturally and administratively,' I continued, ‘notwithstanding the occasional bombarding of Maharajas out of their palaces.'

‘And these are dogs that don't even belong to anyone, just nameless bags of fluff and bone, I suppose. Do you think dogs who don't belong to anyone have names?' he asked.

‘But now that we have actual English people among us, surely we should be welcoming them with open arms?'

‘And if they don't have names,' he continued, ‘what do you think they call each other? Or maybe they don't. Maybe they just mooch around without bothering too much about who they are or why.'

‘Is this not an ideal opportunity to celebrate our cultural similarities and even our differences; Indians never being much inclined to bombard anyone out of anything? You might even find that you have mutual acquaintances. I'm sure it's possible.'

‘And here it says that Miss Gopal is now sixteen years old and available for marriage. But everyone knows her parents have been saying that for the last five years and she'll never get married unless they can do something about her vexatious disposition.'

‘Perhaps they know the Queen and can pass on your regards.'

‘Do you know she hit her last suitor over the head with a broom because he didn't take his shoes off at the door?'

‘Noble brother,' I said, ‘whose venerable feet I am not fit to touch, I implore you to discover what is irking Father. If it is the apprehension that Mr Bister is responsible for the arrival of our English visitors, then he is wrong in this.'

‘Haven't you been to see Miss Gopal?' said Dev looking at me. ‘Twice, wasn't it?'

‘Three times.'

He chuckled, turning a page.

‘Father still insists we would make a good match.'

‘I don't suppose she attacked you, did she?'

‘Yes, a little.'

‘But you must have been warned about the shoes.'

‘Indeed, but when I bent down to take them off, my shirt became un-tucked at the back. She said, how many times have I told you not to wander around like an over-dressed baboon with your shirt hanging out. I answered that, as she'd never mentioned it before, this could only be regarded as a first infringement.'

‘And what did she say to that?' asked Dev.

‘She attacked me with a broom.'

‘Did she strike you?'

‘No, I jumped aside. But the blow saw to some wooden nick nacks on the hall table, after which their pet dog, excited by all the commotion, attempted to seize the broom for himself. I left them struggling in the hall where, judging by her screams, I assumed he'd turned his attentions to something more accessible.'

‘Well, that would explain why they are also advertising their dog,' said Dev.

‘Mahadev,' I said, returning to the point. ‘I have a confession to make. Or rather two. The first is of professional misconduct at the clinic this morning.'

‘Oh, really,' he said, frowning into the vacant hollow of his empty cup.

‘A patient came to see the Doctor but I attended to her instead.'

‘So?' he said. ‘You know I'm far too busy to footle about with every petty ailment that saunters in bleating for medical attention.'

‘But I behaved as if I was the Doctor.'

‘In what way?' he asked, tilting the cup and sucking at it.

‘In the way that I ushered her into the consulting room with a vague air of pompous authority. By standing in front of the door so she couldn't read the words “Minor Ailments” on the plate. In not wearing my white coat so she couldn't see the name-badge pinned to my top pocket. On one occasion I allowed the sunlight to glint off my stethoscope knowing that nothing inspires confidence more than medical equipment the purpose of which is mysterious. When I sat at my desk it was with a proprietorial air, and when I gazed thoughtfully into space it was to convey the impression that I knew what I was talking about. And, worse than all of this, when she enquired obliquely as to my professional status I failed to refute the implicit suggestion that I might be medically qualified. All of which amounts, I fear, to the masquerading of myself as a person beyond his true credentials.'

‘Did you kill her?' he said, squinting into the cup.

‘I don't think so,' I said.

‘Was she lying prostrate, mouth open, not breathing, with a glazed look in her eyes?'

‘No.'

‘Well, those are the usual symptoms,' he said. ‘For future reference.'

‘I am fairly certain,' I said, ‘that she left the clinic alive.'

‘No harm done, then.'

‘However,' I said, faltering slightly, ‘this transgression of clinical protocol pales beside the gravity of my other confession.'

‘Do you think you could get one of our sisters to make me another cup of tea?' he said.

‘They have gone to their room to entreat the gods to remove whatever blight in their souls caused them to have so reprehensible a brother,' I said. ‘But I'll make you one, if you wish.'

As I watched the warm chai bubble in the saucepan, I couldn't help wondering if Dev's dismissal of my infractions amounted to an absolution or if I would still have to pay for them later. If the forced departure of my beloved was part of the bill, I was obviously paying big time, perhaps even for one or two past crimes. It was Sergeant Shrinivasan's view that a good thwack from his cane dealt not only with immediate misdemeanours but those from past lifetimes and even lifetimes to come. At least that's what he wrote in his deposition to the District Police Administration after some of the villagers had complained about his excessive use of force even in situations where no force had been required. His argument had been accepted and his use of the cane, thereafter, all the more enthusiastic.

Dev accepted the tea with a smile.

‘Revered brother,' I said, ‘If the arrival of these English persons has caused any upset in Pushkara, then I fear the blame is to be laid with me.'

‘How's that, then?' he said, taking a sip and smiling. I knew just how he liked it.

‘Because it was not under normal circumstances that they were brought here,' I said.

‘Yes,' he said, picking up the paper. ‘I know.'

‘You know?' I said, startled.

‘Their plane was struck by lightning which shorted out the electrical circuits forcing them to make an emergency landing in the city on the plains.'

‘That is indeed how it might appear,' I said. ‘But the lightning was no accident.'

‘Lightning is always an accident,' chuckled Dev, ‘it's hardly the sort of thing one can organise in advance.'

‘But that's exactly the point,' I said. ‘Pol and I made it happen, through our sacrifice and austerities, the storm, the rain, the aeronautically debilitating bolts of lightning, everything.'

‘Well, that's very interesting,' said Dev. ‘I didn't know you were in the habit of performing sacrifices.'

‘I'm not,' I said. ‘But I was desperate.'

‘For what?'

‘An English bride. Which the gods have now provided.'

He chuckled. Then he chuckled some more. Then he raised the tea to his lips and put it down again chuckling so much it spilt. I made a mental note to ask Mrs Pallabhi to mop it up in the morning.

‘Rabindra,' he said. ‘You might have wanted an English bride, but no amount of grovelling to abstract concepts is going to make one drop out of the skies.' He paused for a moment. ‘Hmm, I see what you mean. But alright, obviously it can seem a bit like that sometimes. Things do. If you sit around long enough, sooner or later two completely separate things are going to happen in a way that seems connected. But the fact is it doesn't mean a thing, Rabindra. Really, it doesn't mean anything at all.'

‘But didn't one of the holy men tell us that everything is connected to everything else and nothing happens without a reason?'

‘Yes, he did,' said Dev. ‘Until one of the goats attacked him on the upper slopes. You remember? The goatherd accused him of provoking the goat which the holy man denied. Well, either he had done something to provoke the goat or he hadn't. You see? Philosophy is just the loose assembly of whatever vague ideas happen to suit us at the time. You break a tea cup and say it wasn't your fault. It just happened to drop out of your hands. You might have carelessly let go of it, but are you responsible for gravity? Or maybe a breeze tipped it off the table, but that wasn't your fault either because somebody else opened the window. A plane is struck by lightning and you think it's because you chucked a spoonful of ghee on a fire. But let's look at it another way. The gods aren't concerned with our petty problems. They're too busy maintaining the balance of good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, the great duality that is the weft of ignorance and stupidity commonly referred to as “the universe”. So it's not that easy to catch their attention. You can't just trot along your whole life paying them scant regard until you want something and then come over all pious in the hope they'll be happy with a couple of marigolds. They want unremitting obsequiousness every day for years on end. And only then, if at all, will they even consider coughing up some grudging little boon.'

‘It wasn't just a couple of marigolds. Really. It was… a whole load of penances. For instance, I washed every day, almost, well mostly…'

‘And you prayed?' he interrupted. ‘How often? Once? Twice? For a couple of weeks hoping they'll be impressed? Are you kidding? What about before then? You think they don't keep count? And I don't mean the daily requests for Mrs Pallabhi to cook something other than egg curry for once, or “please god, direct my shoe more accurately at that bloody cockroach.” That's nothing. We still get egg curry and the shoe bounces harmlessly away as the cockroach scurries off laughing at our futile beliefs.' He leaned forward, earnestly now. ‘When have you prayed, really prayed, with your entire being stretched out, flayed and sobbing, 'til it hurts?'

‘When Mother was sick, I prayed for her to get better.'

‘But she didn't,' said Dev quietly.

‘And after she died, I prayed for her not to be dead.'

‘Let it never be said,' he muttered, ‘that you are undemanding.' He looked down for a moment. ‘Well, there you are,' he said suddenly. ‘It's just as I was saying. Things happen as they will and beyond the odd bit of tinkering with the few things we might be able to tinker with, there's nothing much we can do about anything. These holy men drone on about causality and connection but the truth is nothing means anything beyond this big, ugly, meaningless muddle we muddle along with until we muddle no more.'

His eyes had clouded now as they did sometimes after dinner, or when I needed him to advise on a diagnosis, or just because the day was warm, or cold, I could never quite determine the cause. In the days after Mother's death I had thought they would never sparkle again. It was during his first year back, newly qualified and the clinic thriving. They said he had the touch. Whatever that was. Until it came to Mother. He had tried every remedy at his disposal. Finally he was forced to pronounce her beyond the reach of medical intervention and we could only wait. Young Doctors, fired with the zeal of their new skills, often believe they can accomplish anything. That Dev's first disappointment should have concerned his own mother made the ineluctable rites of professional seasoning all the more bitter. Thereafter he had confined himself largely to research, leaving the humdrum ailments and clinical management to me. I was never quite sure if it was a misguided sense of guilt or the desire to find a cure for everything that made his devotions to the frontiers of medical science so earnest.

I left him to his contemplations, having long ago given up trying to lighten them, and went round to the
Puja
Room at the side of the house to talk to Mother. It was the quietest place I knew, with its soft lights and warm shadows, in spite of the busy streets outside. In the presence of love, they say, even the gods hold their breath.

My sisters had lit some oil lamps and sprinkled fresh rice over the altar. The centrepiece, as in every Pushkara household, was a figurine of Lord Shiva, God of The Dance, his four hands raised, one foot on the wriggling monstrosity of The Turtle. For generations these had been crafted by the same Pushkaran family, the Aptalcharys. Indeed, some said that every Shiva tended to look a bit like its maker, especially as their hair receded and the Great God began to sport a comb-over. When he'd grown a beard one year there was uproar. Later attempts to introduce a moustache met the same fate.

I knelt on the cushions, folded my hands into my lap and bowed reverently for a few minutes. When I looked up he was smiling back through his spectacles with the bemused squint characteristic of the present Mr Aptalchary. To his left was the newspaper cut-out of a guru, since no shrine was complete without the image of some venerable gent swathed in flowers. To his right was a picture of Mother in her twenties, long before I'd known her, though the slightly anxious eyes were familiar enough.

‘Mother,' I said, ‘I am confused.'

‘You should try being a dead mother speaking through the imagination of her child,' she retorted.

‘How are you?' I said.

‘Dead,' she said. ‘How do you think?'

‘Silly question, I suppose.'

‘When was the last time you gave your ears a good poke out?' she said. ‘I'll bet you've got wax in there from two years ago.'