Such A Long Journey (8 page)

The taxi-driver slammed on his brakes inches from Gustad. People from the footpath ran to where he lay. A small crowd gathered.

‘Lay him out comfortably,’ said one.

‘Needs water, he has fainted,’ said another. Gustad could hear their voices, and felt as if someone was pushing him back, keeping him from rising.

The taxi-driver asked his passengers to leave. They protested, then departed hurriedly when they realized they would not have to pay what was on the meter. Someone called for the water-seller across the road. The peculiar street sound carried well over other noises, a mixture of hissing, aspirating and susurrating. ‘Hss-sst-sst-sst! Paaniwalla!’ The man crossed the road at a trot with his bucket and glasses. Gustad’s forehead was bathed, although his entire face was already wet with rain. Perhaps they felt that water colder than rain was required to revive the fallen man.

He opened his eyes. A second glass was filled and held to his lips, but he would not drink. The water-seller emptied it on the road and said, to no one in particular, ‘Two glasses, twenty naye paise.’

‘What?’ said the taxi-driver, ‘You have no shame? You can’t see the man has had a serious accident, he is in pain, fainting?’

‘I am a poor man,’ said the water-seller, ‘I have children to feed.’ He had a large purple mark on one side of his face, and a high-pitched voice with an irritating whine.

The crowd took sides in the argument. Some said the heartless scoundrel should be driven away with a kick, while others saw his point. Determined not to be done out of his only sale all day, he spoke up again. ‘The man has had an accident. So? He will pay the ambulance and the doctor and the hospital, to get mended. Why should I be the only one left out? What is my sin that I don’t get my twenty naye paise?’

‘
Theek hai! Theek hai
!’ agreed the crowd. More were swayed to his side. Then Sohrab pulled a rupee out of the seven he had received that morning. Gustad wanted to say something to him about counting the change carefully, but could not produce the words. The paaniwalla left with his bucket and glasses, grumbling under his breath. In the rain, his high-pitched whining voice took up the futile cry. ‘Ice-cold paani, sweet-sweet paani!’

Attention focused again upon Gustad. The taxi-driver offered to take him to a doctor or to hospital. But Gustad was able to whisper, ‘Khodadad Building,’ before almost passing out again. He remembered vividly what a kind man the taxi-driver turned out to be. He took charge of things calmly, cheering up Sohrab who was frightened and on the verge of tears now. ‘We’ll soon be there, don’t worry, traffic cannot stand here for ever.’ He asked him about his school, his studies, what standard he was in, and kept up a steady conversation till they reached Khodadad Building.

Major Bilimoria was at home, and he came immediately on hearing the news. He told Dilnavaz about Madhiwalla Bonesetter. ‘Take him to a regular hospital like Parsi General, and all you will get is regular treatment. Or regular ill-treatment, depending on Gustad’s luck.’ He chuckled.

Dilnavaz imagined the Major had seen many gory injuries in the army, it was natural for him not to be worried. He continued, ‘They love to use their chisels and saws and hammers and nails in the hospitals. And after their carpentry is done, they give you a big fat bill because their tools are so expensive.’ Gustad heard him through his pain, and found the risible descriptions very reassuring. He knew it would be all right now, Jimmy would look after everything. ‘With Madhiwalla Bonesetter there is no operation, no pins, no cast, nothing. No bill even, except whatever donation you want to give. And the Bonesetter’s methods are amazing, I am a living witness. Sometimes, the army surgeons called him to help with difficult cases. The things he did were just like magic.’

It was decided. Using the same taxi, they proceeded to the large hall where Madhiwalla Bonesetter was in attendance that day. The taxi-driver refused his fare. ‘I don’t want profit from your pain,’ he said.

Then Jimmy picked Gustad up in his arms like a baby and carried him inside. Jimmy was one of the few who was his equal in strength, as they had found out over the years during their bouts of arm-wrestling.

Jimmy waited by his side till Madhiwalla Bonesetter attended to him. Later, he brought the two long, heavy sandbags that the Bonesetter had insisted on for Gustad, to immobilize the leg while the fracture healed.

What would I have done that day without Jimmy, he wondered. But then, that was the amazing thing about him, he was always there when needed—call it coincidence, call it friendship, that was Jimmy’s way.

iii

Gustad rubbed his eyes and opened them. His mouth was dry. He reached for the glass of rum-beer, then remembered it had been emptied earlier. He rose, raised high the wick of the kerosene lamp, and carried the light to his desk. For the thousandth time, his heart filled with gratitude for Jimmy Bilimoria. If it hadn’t been for Jimmy’s taking him to Madhiwalla Bonesetter, he would be a complete cripple today. Instead, here he was, without crutches or stick, or the terrible heaving-swaying walk of Tehmul-Lungraa.

He opened the wider of the two drawers to rummage for writing-paper. His limp was more pronounced than usual. Despite the years since the accident, Gustad had not fully accepted that it was his strength of spirit as much as Madhiwalla Bonesetter’s miracle cure that had tamed his limp—suppressed it, kept it at an ignorable minimum.

He found an uncrumpled sheet, and tried a ballpoint on his palm: he disliked the difference in ink colour if a pen reneged in mid-letter. Then he changed his mind and opened the desk cabinet.

The ancient learned smell of books and bindings came again. He breathed it in deeply. The box of nibs lay on its side where it had tumbled earlier. He opened it and selected one after scratching the points of several against his left thumbnail. He found a holder, fitted the nib, and uncapped the bottle of Camel Royal Blue.

The holder-steel felt good in his writing hand, so much more substantial than a plastic ballpoint pen. Such a long, long while since I used one. No one wrote with them any more, not even in schools. But at one time that was how children made the transition from pencil to ink. This was the bloody problem with modern education. In the name of progress they discarded seemingly unimportant things, without knowing that what they were chucking out the window of modernity was tradition. And if tradition was lost, then the loss of respect for those who respected and loved tradition always followed.

It was almost two a.m. but Gustad was not sleepy. Mixing memory and sorrow, he thought fondly of the old days. At last, he dipped the nib in the ink bottle and began. The shadow of his writing hand fell on the paper. He moved the lamp to the left, completed the address, and dated the letter. As he wrote the salutation the power returned. The bulb blazed over the dining-table. After hours of darkness, the harsh electric light flooded the room insolently from corner to corner. He switched it off and resumed writing by the kerosene lamp.

Chapter Five

i

At water-tap time Dilnavaz awoke automatically, and her first thoughts were about Gustad and Sohrab. The terrible, terrible things they had said to each other. Exhausted, she stumbled sleepily to the bathroom. Water, water. Drums to fill. Hurry. Kitchen tank to fill. That big bucket. And milk to buy…

While she waited outside for the
bhaiya,
Miss Kutpitia beckoned her upstairs. ‘Please don’t take it to mind,’ Dilnavaz blurted out on reaching the landing. ‘He was very upset.’ It too had bothered her all night, Gustad’s lack of restraint, shouting back at a lonely old woman.

‘That’s not why I called you. I am worried about your son.’

‘Sohrab?’

‘Your eldest,’ said Miss Kutpitia. ‘He reminds me so much of my Farad.’ A flicker of tenderness played upon her face, then expired like a candle in the wind. Once, all of Miss Kutpitia’s thoughts and dreams were reserved for her nephew, Farad. A long time ago, on a day that mixed great joy with profound sorrow, her brother’s wife had died while giving birth to Farad. And on that day Miss Kutpitia took a vow: never to marry, for ever to dedicate her life to the widower and his child. So she became mother and teacher, friend and slave, and whatever else she could think of, to little Farad. Her devotion was returned by the child, who sensed very early on, without ever exploiting the fact, that he was her reason for living. It had been a golden time in Miss Kutpitia’s life.

When Farad was fifteen, he and his father went for their usual week’s holiday to Khandala. On the return journey, there was an accident on the Ghats. A lorry driver lost control, colliding first with a busload of vacationers, then the car in which Farad and his father were riding, and all three vehicles went off the mountain road. The lorry driver was the lone survivor. On that fateful day thirty-five years ago, Miss Kutpitia locked up her heart, her mind, her memories. From then on, no one was allowed into the flat beyond the front hallway.

‘Your Sohrab reminds me in every way of my Farad,’ she said. ‘In looks, in brains, his way of walking, talking.’ Dilnavaz knew nothing about Farad. It had happened long before she had married and come to Khodadad Building. She looked puzzled, and Miss Kutpitia continued. ‘Brilliant boy. Would have taken over his father’s law practice if he had lived.’ That was all she said, grief no longer being something that needed unburdening. Over time, her carapace of spinsterhood had accreted in isolation. And there was no way for a person to tell if, under that hard shell, fate’s cruelly inflicted gashes were still raw or had scarred over.

‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ started Dilnavaz.

‘No need. Tears have all been cried long ago. Not one drop remains.’ She placed two fingers on the bags under her eyes and tugged downwards. ‘See? Fully dry.’ Dilnavaz nodded sympathetically. ‘But I called you because I heard everything last night. Do you know why Sohrab is behaving like this?’

Dilnavaz was grateful for the concern after her night of lonely anguish. ‘My mind refuses to work when I try to understand. Makes no sense at all.’

‘You are saying that suddenly he does not want to study at this IIT place?’ Miss Kutpitia narrowed her eyes as Dilnavaz nodded. ‘And up to now he wanted to go, no one forced him?’

‘No one. I am trying to remember, but I think it was his own idea, when he was just a young boy in school.’

Miss Kutpitia’s eyes became thin slits. ‘In that case, only one thing is possible. Somebody has fed him something bad. In his food, or in a drink. Definitely
jaadu-mantar.
’

Dilnavaz politely masked her scepticism; and yet, she thought, how tempting, to believe in magic—how quickly it simplifies and explains.

Miss Kutpitia looked grim. ‘Do you know someone who would profit by Sohrab’s failure? Who would like to steal his brains for their own son, maybe?’

‘I cannot think of anyone.’ Dilnavaz shivered suddenly in spite of herself.

‘It could even be an evil mixture he stepped on in the street. Many ways exist to do such black things.’ Her eyes blazed wide with warning now. Big as meatballs, thought Dilnavaz. ‘But don’t worry, there are also ways to fight it. You can start with a lime.’ She explained the process, and the precise gestures required. ‘Do it for a few days. Before the sun sets. Then come to me again.’ Turning to go inside, she said, ‘By the way, you saw how right my lizard’s tail was.’

‘How?’

‘Your dinner. All spoilt by quarrelling. And the power also went off. Chicken slaughtered in your house was very unlucky. The curse of the death-scream stayed under your roof.’

‘It was Gustad’s idea,’ said Dilnavaz. On her way home, there floated in her sleepy mind a droll parallel between the chicken and Darius’s revenant, pneumonia-inflicting fishes and birds. Poor Miss Kutpitia, such a sad life.

In her eagerness to get back to bed, the letters on Gustad’s desk went unnoticed.

ii

She was still asleep when Sohrab awoke and found his father’s writing implements abandoned after the long night of rumination and reverie. The vigil for dead days and dying hopes had ended when the early, bleary hours of morning crept upon Gustad, the rum-beer exacting its toll.

Sohrab picked up the holder-steel, wondering why his father had been using that fossil. He, too, had lain awake, agonizing over the hurt, the confusion, the harsh words—was he to blame for all of it? The answers were not easy to come by, they lay in the garden of the past, which memory had dug up and replanted in plots of its own choosing. The seed of Sohrab’s troubles had germinated long ago, long before last night, when his parents discovered how easily things came to their first-born, at home, in school, at work or play. There seemed to be nothing Sohrab could not do, and do well. Whether it was arithmetic, or arts and crafts, or moral science, he bagged several prizes each year on Prize Distribution Day. Regularly, there were awards for elocution and debating. In the interschool drama competition, the play he acted in walked away with the trophy. His exhibits in the school science fair finished first. And before long, Gustad and Dilnavaz were convinced their son was very special.

Thus, it was inevitable that when Sohrab showed an interest in model airplanes, Gustad was sure he would grow up to be an aeronautical engineer. Replicas of famous buildings, made to scale, brought forth predictions of brilliant architecture. And tinkering with mechanical things like can-openers could only mean one thing: a budding inventor. Of course, Sohrab’s lot could have been much worse, for the love and adulation of parents for their firstling have been guilty of far more terrible things.

Sohrab’s only perceptible failure during his school years befell his flirtation with insects. In the eighth standard he was awarded a prize for general proficiency, a book called
Learning About Entomology.
He read it, pondered the contents over a few days, then started catching butterflies and moths with a home-made net. He killed them in a tin containing wads of petrol-soaked cotton. When the fluttering ceased, he opened the tin and unfolded the wings gently. The wings were always clenched tight over the legs and proboscis, folded in the reverse of their natural direction, as if,
in extremis,
the butterfly had tried to fend off the noxious fumes by covering its head. In a race with rigor mortis, he stretched the four membranous wings symmetrically on a spreading board (also home-made). A few days later, dry and light as tissue paper, the butterfly would be ready for mounting.

Everyone praised his beautiful work. They admired the lovely colours and patterns on the wings as if he had had a personal hand in designing them. The specimens were pinned through their thoraxes and neatly mounted in the display case which he made from plywood with his great-grandfather’s tools. This was Gustad’s greatest source of joy: to see Sohrab use those tools. He repeated what he said so often, that it must be in the blood, this love of carpentry.

Then the moths and butterflies began to fall apart. Soon, maggots were crawling inside the case, and it was a nauseating sight. Day after day, Sohrab could do nothing but watch, paralysed. When the maggots finished their work, they disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived, and Sohrab threw the butterfly case on the dark shelf in the WC
chawl.

But this failure, instead of scotching rumours of his genius, was not allowed to be his failure. Gustad was only too glad to shoulder the blame. ‘It was my fault,’ he said, ‘for getting petrol instead of carbon tetrachloride, and for not obtaining the proper drying agent Sohrab wanted.’

Sohrab chased no more after butterflies. To be the world’s premier insect scientist was deleted from Gustad’s catalogue of careers for his son. Afterwards, Sohrab focused only on mechanical things and things of the imagination. He dismantled and reassembled the alarm clock, repaired his mother’s mincer, and fashioned a still-projector with a magnifying glass found in Gustad’s desk. He projected on the front-room wall the frames from comics that came with the Sunday paper: Dagwood Bumstead’s family, or a life-size Phantom. Major Bilimoria was always there for the show, rising often to pose beside the image—imitating the Phantom by swinging a fist and uttering sounds like thud! pow! or wham! Then it would be time for the Sunday
dhansak
lunch.

Gustad’s and Dilnavaz’s proudest moment in Khodadad Building came when Sohrab put on a home-made production of
King Lear,
pressing Darius into service, plus a host of school and Building friends. The performance was held at the far end of the compound, and the audience brought their own chairs. Sohrab, of course, was Lear, producer, director, costume designer and set designer. He also wrote an abridged version of the play, wisely accepting that even an audience of doting parents could become catatonic if confronted by more than an hour’s worth of ultra-amateurish Shakespeare. But it was not till Sohrab was in college that it struck him curiously: Daddy never made pronouncements or dreamed dreams of an artist-son. It was never: my son will paint, my son will act, he will write poetry. No, it was always: my son will be a doctor, he will be an engineer, he will be a research scientist.

Now, as he wiped the nib and screwed on the bottle cap, he remembered that Daddy had showed him the holder-steel once, when the age of pencils was ending. With the age of ink came plans for the future. The dream of IIT took shape, then took hold of their imaginations. And the Indian Institute of Technology became the promised land. It was El Dorado and Shangri-La, it was Atlantis and Camelot, it was Xanadu and Oz. It was the home of the Holy Grail. And all things would be given and all things would be possible and all things would come to pass for he who journeyed there and emerged with the sacred chalice.

To try and separate the strands of enthusiasm which went into that noble fabrication was futile. To determine whose idea it was, and who was to blame, was as difficult as identifying the monsoon’s first raindrop to touch the earth.

Sohrab saw the two letters on the desk. He read the Major’s quickly, then his father’s elegantly penned nib-and-ink response, while Dilnavaz rose for the second time. It was her duty, she felt, to say something about last night. But he spoke first: ‘Did you read Major Uncle’s letter?’

‘What letter?’ He held it up. ‘Must be an old one,’ she said. ‘You know how Daddy likes to collect things.’

‘No, this came just four weeks ago. See the postmark.’

Gustad stumbled past to the bathroom, rings around his eyes. She waited for the stopper’s tell-tale metallic rattle. ‘He slept so late last night.’ Her voice was gently accusing.

Later, when Gustad was having his tea she said, ‘We saw the letter.’

‘I don’t know who is “we”. For me you are the only one present here.’

She ignored that. ‘You have started hiding mail. I wonder what else you are hiding.’

‘Nothing! I wanted to think about Jimmy’s letter without getting a thousand suggestions from all the geniuses in this house. That’s all.’

‘A thousand suggestions, is it?’ Dilnavaz was stung. ‘For twenty-one years we discuss everything together. Now I am a nuisance? And Jimmy doesn’t even tell the details. How do you know you are doing the right thing?’

Gustad said the details did not matter, it was the principle, of helping a friend. ‘All this time, it has been Major this and Major that. I said forget him, he is vanished like a thief. But no. Now he writes for help, I say yes, and you are still not pleased.’

‘And what if it is something dangerous?’

‘Rubbish.’ He pointed to Sohrab. ‘Why is that one grinning like a donkey?’

‘Don’t get angry again, Daddy,’ he said, ‘I think you made the right choice, but—’

‘Oh! He thinks Daddy made the right choice! Haven’t you told him he is no longer my son?’ Fiercely sarcastic, Gustad bowed his head mockingly. ‘Thank you, thank you sir! Thank you for your approval. Go on. But what?’

‘I was just thinking about Jimmy Uncle and your friends talking politics. He always used to say, “Only two choices: communism or military dictatorship, if you want to get rid of these Congress Party crooks. Forget democracy for a few years, not meant for a starving country.” ’

His imitation of the Major’s clipped bass-baritone was very good, and Dilnavaz laughed. Gustad enjoyed it too but was careful to conceal his approval, as Sohrab continued: ‘Imagine if Jimmy Uncle is planning a coup to get rid of our corrupt government.’

With the saucer of tea in one hand, Gustad supported his forehead in the other. ‘Idiotic-lunatic talk is starting again. Imagine something useful, imagine yourself in IIT!’ He kneaded his forehead. ‘What Jimmy used to say is just a way of talking. Everybody does it when there are droughts and floods and shortages, and things go wrong.’

‘I know, I know, I was only joking. But what about the leaders who do wrong? Like the car manufacturing licence going to Indira’s son? He said Mummy, I want to make motorcars. And right away he got the licence. He has already made a fortune from it, without producing a single Maruti. Hidden in Swiss bank accounts.’ Dilnavaz listened intently as Sohrab described how the prototype had crashed in a ditch during its trial, yet was approved because of orders from the very top. She was the self-appointed referee between father and son, her facial expressions registering the scores.

‘Good to see your son reads the newspapers,’ said Gustad, finishing the tea in his saucer. ‘He may be a genius, but let me teach him something. Whatever you read in the paper, first divide by two—for the salt and pepper. From what’s left, take off ten per cent. Ginger and garlic. And sometimes, depending on the journalist, another five per cent for chilli powder. Then, and only then, will you get to the truth free of
masala
and propaganda.’ Dilnavaz was pleased with his impromptu lesson. Her scoreboard updated itself. Gustad leaned back and slid his cup towards the kettle.

‘But I heard this from an eyewitness,’ said Sohrab. ‘One of my college friends. His father works at the testing centre.’

‘College friend! Filling your head with rubbish and idiotic-lunatic talk. Be grateful this is a democracy. If that Russiawalla was here, he would pack you and your friends off to Siberia.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘When he talks like this, the blood in my brain begins to boil! If I have a stroke, it will be your son’s fault, I am warning you!’

She watched, distressed. The vestiges of what had resembled a keen debate (she had half-enjoyed it, hoped it would usher in normalcy) was rekindling last night’s pyre. She signalled to Sohrab to say nothing.

‘For the last time, take my advice,’ said Gustad. ‘Forget your friends, forget your college and its useless degree. Think of your future. Every bloody peon or two-paisa clerk is a BA these days.’ He picked up his response to Major Bilimoria and went to the desk for an envelope.

Dilnavaz motioned to Sohrab to follow her. In the kitchen she selected a lime from her basket and bade him close his eyes. ‘What’s this?’ he protested. ‘What are you doing with the lime?’

‘It’s not going to hurt, just makes your brain healthy.’

‘What nonsense. My brain does not need any help.’

She shushed and pleaded that he do it for her sake, it was bad to have too much pride. ‘So many things science cannot explain. And a lime cannot harm you, can it?’

‘Oh, OK!’ He closed his eyes resignedly. ‘First Daddy gets dramatic, then you get necromantic. You two drive me crazy.’

‘Don’t be rude. And don’t use big-big words.’ She held the lime in her right hand and described seven clockwise circles over his head. ‘Now open your eyes, look hard at it.’ She drew it away from him with a downward motion, towards his feet, and tucked it in a brown paper bag. Later, it would be tossed into the sea. This last step was crucial, Miss Kutpitia had explained; it was imperative not to discard the lime with the garbage.

Suddenly, everything Miss Kutpitia said seemed imbued with deep wisdom.