The Storyteller (14 page)

The football thudded into my chest, sending me crashing to the ground. The apprehension on young faces turned to contemptuous amusement once they had a closer look at me.
The girls giggled. A bespectacled boy kicked my wig that lay on the ground. I snatched it and placed it on my head with as much dignity as I was able to muster. Then I moved speedily to grab the football. I ran to the field and kicked it as high as I could. The tension snapped. Noisily the boys ran after me.

It was a robust game, without rules. I was knocked over several times. One of the boys tripped me. But the fun of participating as an equal was a thrilling experience. I even managed to kick a goal against my own team.

The voices reached me over the din we created. It sounded like a serious quarrel. I stopped to listen. I stood motionless as the ball was dribbled past me. Our goalkeeper was stranded. Two nil against us, thanks to me. Screams. The bewildered boys watched me leave the field.

In the front yard of the house was a dreadful sight. Fists pressed against her sides, saliva trickling down the corners of her mouth, eyes radiating outrage, and her face convulsing with pain, as though it had been splashed with an irritant, stood Baji. It was inconceivable that this was the same person who displayed such delicacy and adroitness in her dance movements. Baji had been grace, beauty and imagination. She had trilled our senses without uttering a word. But now the feral in her had burst into the open with vengeful ferocity.

Confronting Baji was Mohammad Shafiq, flanked by his two sons. They linked arms and stood defiantly, asserting their right to discriminate against us. Embarrassed guests huddled in groups and pretended not to hear the stream of invectives Baji hurled at them.

‘
Haramzadas
!
Ghadey ka aulad
! Buggered goats! Has it ever occurred to you that we are humans? Like you! What is the purpose of denying us a place at your table? Why may we not eat with your guests? Tell me! What right do you have to insult us like this?’

Mohammad Shafiq glared back. ‘It wouldn’t be…well…right.’

In the midst of this ugly confrontation, there she was again, standing in the verandah. Mine…

‘
Abey langur
!
Ghandoo
! We don’t have hairy balls dangling between our legs, but we do know how to eat from a plate. We know how to sit on chairs. We can talk politely…’

She was frowning and whispering to an elderly woman next to her.
Please look at me.
I smiled. I frowned. My memory fogged and I couldn’t remember a prayer. I invoked Bhagwan…No encouragement. Allah…No help.
Jesu
!
Be my saviour
!

‘Enough!’ One of the sons, a well-built man, stepped forward. ‘Leave this place at once or we will call the police!’

‘Leave this place at once or we will call the police!’ Baji mimicked with a shake of her head. ‘And how much will you pay them to beat us and lock us up?’

A blast of horns and trumpets, accompanied by the bludgeoning noise of drums, interrupted them.

‘They are here!’

There was a rush for the front gate. This was my opportunity. I headed in the other direction. As I reached the steps leading up to the verandah, someone called her.

‘Meena, can you come and help us?’

Meena! M-e-e-n-a…The name vibrated with a resonance that made me forget about myself and crowned me with an impossible hope. I lingered on the bottom step, undecided whether I should follow Meena inside. But I was also curious about the arrival of the bridegroom. Would he be handsome? Someone I would find attractive?

Suddenly, firecrackers exploded. A chatter of excited anticipation ripped through the guests. I pushed and shoved my way back to the gate. The bridegroom rode a white horse. He was
dressed in a cream-coloured
sherwani
and
choost
pyjamas. A red turban. His face was veiled with strings of flowers.

I imagined myself on his horse. How would I look dressed like him? Alas, not as impressive a sight, I had to admit.

An entourage of men, women and children arrived in taxis, private cars and rickshaws. Young relatives of the bride assembled at the gate to demand money before allowing the bridegroom inside. The
hijras
were lined up in front of the gate, singing in subdued voices. I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong, but it wasn’t like Baji to allow the attention to shift from her. Mohammad Shafiq’s sons greeted the bridegroom and helped him off his horse.

Without warning, the singing soared to a high pitch. The tempo of the movements increased. And then…and then…Oh, it was so wonderfully wicked! The
hijras
turned their backs on the newly arrived guests and flashed themselves. What a brilliant display of flesh and colour! Bunched-up saris held firmly in both hands, they swayed sideways. Backward and forward thrusts. Faster…faster. Then they turned their bottoms towards us. My resolve to see Meena was weakened. The mounds of gyrating flesh were tattooed with serpents devouring men and women.

I rushed forward to join them. I undid the safety pins and exposed myself. I imitated their movements. There was shoving and abusive shouts. We cursed the house of Mohammad Shafiq and doomed the marriage to failure. Infertility. Diseases. Jealousy. Domestic rivalries. Ruination. The terrible power of the
hijras
!

The paralysed silence exploded into a chaos of noise and activity. Women shrieked and covered the eyes of their children. Young women gasped. Some giggled nervously. Shrivelled crones muttered snatches of prayers and begged Allah to protect them from the Malice of the Evil One.

‘A sure sign that doomsday will soon be on us!’ an old woman wailed. ‘May our sins be forgiven on Judgement Day!’

Men linked arms and formed a ring around us. They pleaded, cajoled and threatened.

‘Ohlululululu…Ohlululululu…Ohlululululu…’ We ululated and shrieked, driven to greater efforts of senseless noises after witnessing the confusion we generated so effortlessly.

‘Police! Has someone called the police?’

‘In the name of Allah! Stop it! Please stop!’ Mohammad Shafiq sobbed. ‘My honour has been ruined!’ He sank to his knees, snivelling and twitching in despair.

Whistles sounded. A battered van rattled into view. Khakiclad enemies…

The
hijras
made a move to kiss the men, who fell away as though threatened by death. An opening allowed us to escape. I chose to crawl between the legs of a tall man, tickling his marbles as I went. I glimpsed Meena leaving with the old woman. The
hijras
scattered with the pots filled with
biryani
, running in preplanned directions. The panic among the guests caused a stampede, impeding the policemen from chasing us.

If the sight of Meena enervated me for an instant, a recognisable voice jolted me into running. I didn’t have to look. Ram Lal.

‘Arrest them!’ Mohammad Shafiq shouted. ‘Get them all! They have destroyed me! Constable Saheb, anything. Anything, but get them!’

I felt the pain in my neck. I could almost feel the hot ashes on my face. I was tempted to turn and weave my way to his legs. But there were too many policemen combing the area, menacingly waving their sticks. Patience, patience.
I shall get you, Constable Saheb. I am still hurting. I shall have revenge.

I followed Meena and the old woman. They walked through narrow lanes and smelly alleys. I could not bring myself to associate Meena with such abject surroundings. We would soon leave the stench of belching gutters and garbage piles, the inertia of diseased animals and the motley of dreamless humans with vacant eyes. There was a way, there had to be a way—an opening into one of Delhi’s forbidden suburbs where she lived in palatial luxury, attended by a brood of smiling servants and entertained by tireless musicians. A white building, gleaming under a benign sun, set among tropical trees and flaming flowers. Somewhere in the garden, by the crystal fountain, she would await the gift of destiny.

The house was wedged between a grocer’s shop and an abandoned stable. They disappeared through a dim entrance. Flights of crumbling steps. Slippery and dirty. A door squealed open. Muffled and tired voices of a minor disagreement. A bolt clicked into place.

The gulf of loneliness. The princess and the dwarf stranded on opposite shores. Who cut the rope and sank the boat? Perhaps it was never there…

I sat on the landing, sniffing the air for traces of her presence. My nostrils dragged in the smell of urine, rotting offal and vegetable peelings. The dampness of the slimy wall was cool against the back of my neck. The yellow afternoon meandered in through a small round window, high on the wall. Specks of vague remembrance floated lazily in the funnel of light. Torn memories hounded me, even though I treated the past as a child might attempt to distance itself from the monsters of its nightmares.

I waited, wary of being conned by Hope. She could never be entirely trusted. A treacherous whore, a deceitful bitch who knew my weaknesses and lured me regularly into wandering beyond the enclosures of what I was.

Where had I arrived this time?

A densely foliaged grove. A stream murmured quietly. It was the season of perpetual twilight and no decay. I was a restless traveller.
Find me
, she teased. I groped my way to her ivy-covered doors. They opened easily and exposed the rawness of her life. I tasted the pulsating flesh. Her gasp of pain sent me tumbling into a raging river. I couldn’t care if I drowned. What was left, now that I had thrust myself into the terrifying infinitude of darkness? I thought I knew about love and its insatiable appetite from the safety of a distance, cushioned in my shell of dreams. But here, suspended between receding desire and growing confusion, there was no certainty of its worthiness.

A scream? Feeble kicks interrupted my dream. I realised I had wandered too close to the door. The old hag slapped me down to the hardness of the floor. Meena rushed out with a shopping bag. My snarl turned into a bashful grin.

‘You! I saw you at the wedding!’

Did I have a twin brother? There couldn’t be two of us in the same world. I nodded, getting to my feet.

‘What do you want? Why did you follow us?’

‘I…I thought you might need help. With all the trouble…’ The motions of my hand betrayed my inability to offer a credible excuse. ‘Do you need someone to help you? I could do your shopping, clean the rooms. Anything you please. I need a job.’ The whine in my voice added the right note of urgency.

‘Please leave. I don’t wish to call the police.’

‘Meena!’ The old woman’s disapproval made it known that I was being leniently treated.

‘Go back inside, Ma. It’s all right. He’s too small to do me any harm.’

Finally we were alone. Together.

‘Why did you follow us?’

The flinty sharpness in her voice made me retreat into survival mode. I crept backward towards the steps.

‘You were with the
hijras.
You upset Mohammad Shafiq and his guests. What you did was very unkind.’ Unexpectedly she burst into a girlish giggle.

I moved forward. ‘It was funny!’

‘In an ugly kind of way. Where do you live?’

Even for her I couldn’t reveal what was forbidden. ‘Not too far from here.’

‘Do you always dress like that? Are you a dwarf
hijra
?’

I turned around and went down the steps.

‘Do you want to come on Tuesday morning and help me carry the shopping? Are you strong enough? I won’t be able to pay you much.’

I was back on the landing. ‘I don’t need…Whatever you can.’

‘Can you be trusted? Silly to ask that. A widow can trust no one.’

What was that? A widow? I sprouted wings.
May he turn the other way and enjoy the rest of time. Lovely, considerate skeleton! Death was good.
I hopped down the stairs, afraid to say any more. She could change her mind.

Tuesday…I would discreetly ask Chaman to locate the day in the confusing flux of time.

‘The carpenter was here today,’ the gaoler gloats, pushing a tin plate under the door.

I wait until he reaches the top of the steps. ‘So was the hangman.’

He stops. I can hear his heavy breathing. ‘When? How do you know? Who let him in?’ It is my turn to withhold information. ‘Who let him in?’ he repeats slowly.

I ignore the question. ‘It is impossible to put a noose around my neck.’

‘Because you have no neck.’

‘Difficult to hang me.’

He is not pleased. ‘The carpenter is bringing the timber in a few days. It won’t be long now.’

‘Any day. I’m prepared.’

‘Prepared?’

‘I’ve done all that is important in life.’

‘What have you done, you miserable beetle?’ he explodes. ‘You haven’t achieved anything!’

‘I’ve been in love. That’s more than you’ve done.’

He comes rushing down the steps, threatening to mutilate
me. He grips the bars and screams. I will be minced and fed to the dogs in the streets. He will speak to the hangman and bribe him to prolong my agony. A lost and lonely bully. I am far too pleased with my perceptiveness to be offended by his ravings.

Love…It’s a wonderful experience, full of warm sensations. Even if it is not reciprocated.

It was not a great distance, but it took me most of the morning to get there. Did I walk or float? I cannot tell. On the edge of consciousness there was celebratory dancing among a carnival of colours, happy noises and a build-up of expectations. I loitered on street corners and watched naked children play. It was fun to chase startled dogs along broken footpaths, imitating their barks and snarls. I disrupted a dance of monkeys by throwing stones in the circle where they performed. A snake-charmer chased me for a short distance after I flipped the lid off a large straw basket. A snake slithered out onto the footpath and alarmed pedestrians. The day was ripe for mischief. The urge to snatch a bag subsided when a woman offered me money. She must have seen me staring at the peanuts and hot
gram
on a vendor’s trolley. I sat under a tree and ate peanuts with salt and chilli powder.

Hours…days. Segments of a week or a month had never been of significance to me. But now the irrelevance of time intruded into my life like a threatening stranger. Tuesday came after Monday and before Wednesday, I kept reminding myself. Tuesday…Tuesday. I imagined our trip to the market. How long was it possible to stay there? We could stretch time in lengthy bargaining sessions and pause for frequent rests. Food and cold drinks. Whatever she desired. I checked to see how much change was left. Not nearly enough to entertain her.

I resolved to step out on my own the next day and work near the Lahore Gate of the Red Fort. Lightning Fingers considered
this an easy area to operate in, especially when the big tourist buses arrived to dump sweaty, wide-eyed
goras
from the other side of the world.

Namaste Saheb. Salaam Memsaheb. Allow me to show you around the Red Fort? Tell you about its history? This way, please…You are most kind! Now, observe and learn about one of the great wonders in India. Get away, you shameless salesman! Never buy anything from them, Saheb. All four-twenty business. Watch your handbags! As I was saying…Ah, observe the House of Drums where deafening sounds announced visitors of distinction. There! The Divan-i-am where the Emperor sat on his throne and ruled the world. Eunuchs fanned him with peacock feathers as the assembly listened to the monarch’s wisdom. And beyond…alas, little remains. The private quarters were a paradise on earth. The garden of Hayat Baksh with orchards and emerald lawns fragrant with kuzah, gulal and nargis. Flowing among them the River of Behaesht. Pools and fountains. Bulbuls singing on the fruit trees. But now? Nearly everything has disappeared. Pause to imagine, Sahebs and Memsahebs. Imagine what it must have been! Let your minds create the joys of Paradise. On to the Pearl Mosque…Those ugly buildings? Barracks built by ignorant conquerors…

Clicking cameras. Videos. Diary entries. Hastily written postcards. Conversations with their private ghosts. Tired faces and weary limbs.

Collection time. Yes sir, a rich harvest was to be had.

I expected the
haveli
to be crawling with police. Cursing
hijras
resisting arrest. Amused onlookers. From the opposite side of the lane there was nothing to suggest the drama I was anticipating. Surely the police had managed to track them down? I waited and observed, my senses alert for any unusual movement. Pedestrians, carts, animals.

They were gathered in the courtyard, washing themselves with scented soap and warm water, smoking and chewing
paan.

Gulbadan spotted me first. ‘There he is! The little wretch!’

‘Come here!’

I approached Baji with trepidation. ‘Who told you to dance with us?’ she demanded. ‘Did I say that you could flash yourself and spoil the effect?’

I was grabbed and flung to the ground. ‘Shall we shave off his hair?’

‘Rub his balls with chilli paste?’

‘Turn him out without his clothes!’

Baji snapped her fingers and silenced everyone. ‘
Ay larka
! What have you to say?’

There was only a question that was troubling me. ‘Why haven’t the police arrested you?’

More abuses. Instead of apologising, I had been impertinent. Baji’s eyes narrowed and her lips tightened in disapproval. Suddenly she slapped her thighs and roared with laughter, as if I had cracked a prized joke. ‘Arrest us? The police?’ The mood changed. Grinning faces and furtive looks. Words I could not hear. ‘Is he stupid or innocent?’ Baji pointed a crooked finger at me.

‘I don’t think he knows,’ Gulbadan said good-naturedly.

They told me about their years of understanding with the police. Bribes in exchange for token arrests. Free meals and massages. Rehearsed arguments and mock scuffles. There were mutual benefits in peaceful coexistence. Somehow
I
felt betrayed. That the
hijras
had willingly stooped so low as to collude with the police was an unacceptable compromise. I did nothing to hide my disgust.

‘Life is about arrangements with people you don’t necessarily like,’ Baji explained in a subdued voice.

A plate of
biryani
distracted me. I wolfed down the food and asked for more. Unlike Barey Bhai, Baji could be generous with money. We haggled over the amount I was offered.

‘You didn’t do much!’ she argued half-heartedly.

Chaman had advised me not to settle for less than forty rupees.

‘I am being fleeced by a midget!’ Baji complained. ‘Why do I give in like this?’

‘Because you love me?’

She wrinkled her nose and rubbed her face with a damp towel. ‘There is nothing about you to love.’

I ignored the remark, letting it brush past a smug exterior that had fallen into place since I met Meena. ‘Will you take me with you again? I can get some firecrackers at a cheap price. I have a friend…’ I looked around meaningfully, thinking of Manu.

She scratched her chin irritably. ‘People did laugh at you. Shall we take him? There is a birthday soon.’ Baji had the infuriating habit of pretending that her decisions stemmed from the advice she received from her
chelas.

‘Yes!’ they chorused. A few vigorously nodded their approval.

‘Another chance.’ She looked at me as if I were being bestowed with a rare honour. ‘But you must do as I say. Promise?’

Promises? They meant nothing to me. Dull words destined to be forgotten as soon as I uttered them. Dutifully I mumbled my agreement. My mind was settled on the type of entertainment I would provide.

‘Baji…’ I was apprehensive about invoking her wrath. ‘Can I have some more money? In addition to what I earned? An advance…’ I had a vague inkling of how an advance worked. It made me feel important.

She dismissed my request without hesitation. ‘But I won’t tell Barey how much I gave you for being a nuisance.’ She winked conspiratorially. ‘What shall I say?’

‘Ten rupees?’ I responded gleefully, my thoughts racing through Chandni Chowk, rummaging among the trinket stalls.

‘Five rupees, I think. He’ll take that money from you. But he must never know how much you were paid!’ she warned.

I spent the evening with Kaka. He had taught me how to play the flute and to my surprise he presented it to me.

‘I won’t be needing it any more,’ he insisted, when I expressed some reservation about taking his favourite possession.

The unexpected gift created a barrier between us. I felt as if he were saying his farewell. We didn’t talk as much that evening. Nothing was said about girls with big breasts or the mind’s ability to see what the eyes couldn’t. Nor did we manage to laugh. A heavy gloom settled over us. In the silence he seemed to drift away from me.

‘Kaka, is there something you are not telling me?’

‘Hamilton Saheb’s ghost came to me last night.’

‘And?’

‘He was only there for a moment. He extended both his hands towards me and then disappeared.’

‘Kaka…’

‘I must sleep now. I must be ready.’

I went behind the godown and sat on the wall. Chaman was unusually busy that night. There was a full moon for company. I discovered that I could play the flute well enough to entertain myself. I avoided thinking about Chaman’s slithering nakedness and the faceless men who mounted her.

When I crept back into the godown nearing dawn, sleep deserted me. I lay on the mattress, listening to the snoring and
the sounds of insects. Chaman coughed intermittently and groaned in her sleep. I resisted the impulse to wake her up and continue the fight that had flared after she came out to sit with me on the wall. ‘One man in a day or a hundred. What difference does it make?’ Chaman had argued, when I said that she had too many clients in the evenings. She earned more money than the rest of us. She accused me of stupidity and flounced off.

My money was safely stashed away in the hole, and yet I was haunted by the fear of its loss. I kept imagining Barey Bhai’s hands, like a pair of claws, reaching under the planks and removing what was exclusively mine.

The sky lightened and I drifted into a tunnel of darkness, listening to the distant murmuring of insanity.

A mountain top. The shrill cry of a huge eagle. It flew off with Meena on its back. She carried my satchel bursting with all the money I had saved. I ran after the bird, shouting:
It’s all for you. I was saving it to spend on you.
In my rage and hurt I did not realise that I was on the edge of a slope. In the silence of my fall, new lives gave birth. The moon spoke and the stars laughed. The sky was crowded with curious gods who had left their sanctuary to watch me hurtle to my death. I heard them talking about mistakes and aborting future lives as I began to experience the calmness of the fall. Wings fluttered. She hadn’t abandoned me! The bird plunged alongside me for a distance. I envisaged a grand, tragic ending. A transmutation into the great myths of love. Then, quite suddenly, the eagle swerved to the right and flew off. I heard the laughter of malicious delight. I looked towards the sky. The gods had disappeared…

The sudden awakening made me think of Kaka.
I must be ready.
I ran out of the godown to the tiny shack where he slept. Kaka was sitting on the ground outside, munching a piece of bread.

‘The ghost couldn’t come,’ he muttered. ‘It was busy in someone else’s story.’

I sat with him until the first rays of sunlight hit the pile of rubbish in front of us.

Visitors were streaming out of buses when I reached Lahore Gate. Hordes of Rajastanis and South Indians chattered excitedly as they waited for the guides to organise the different groups to enter the fort. Not a single bus with white-skinned tourists.

I slipped into the Red Fort and went inside into the Diwan-i-am. A sad, forlorn place despite the crowd. I pictured the women’s quarters forbidden to outsiders. Splendidly decorated apartments, graced with surrounding gardens and streams. Marble walls inlaid with precious stones. The throaty laughter of ignorant contentment. Whispered gossips about the Emperor’s darkest secret.
It is unjust to deny the King the privilege of gathering fruit from the tree he himself planted.
Women strolling among peacocks and deer. Storytelling eunuchs entertaining the ladies in the harem. Sycophantic courtiers. Servants and musicians in constant attendance. Silk awnings fluttered in the breeze, and the air was laden with the aroma of ripe mangoes and apricots. But even in the replica of Paradise there was scandal and intrigue. Jealousy. Forbidden love. The insatiable lust for land. Destructive desire for power and control. Suspicious eyes, peering through
jali
screens. The differences between what was seen and the words uttered. Stories about Jahan Ara Begum’s orgies and the horrible death of a lover, plotted by her father. Boiled to death in a cauldron of water intended for a royal bath. The invisible, but ever present, serpent gliding among the inmates of the court, tempting ambitions and evoking vanity.

A world of extremes. I could have so easily belonged there, thriving on the lies, treachery and atrocities. What tales I might
have spun! The women I could have dazzled and snared. What passions and flaws…

Huh? A string of
goras
! I rushed outside.

More buses had pulled up. All of them crammed with foreigners. A self-conscious, elderly couple seemed reluctant to join the quick-walking cluster of middle-aged tourists. The guide was a bald local dressed in cotton trousers and full-sleeved shirt. He held up a green and yellow flag and blew on a whistle.

‘This way, ladies and gents! We shall enter through the main gate. It is best not to stop at the stalls for souvenirs. Later I shall take you to a government-run shop where quality is guaranteed. Kindly watch your bags and wallets, cameras and other valuables. Come along, please!’

I approached the elderly couple. ‘
Saheb, Memsaheb
, welcome to the Red Fort!’ An extravagant bow. ‘A private tour conducted by a descendant of a royal dwarf. My ancestor was a scribe in the Emperor’s court. He recorded conversations, made notes and wrote official letters. He was a friend of the great traveller, François Bernier.’