The Village by the Sea (19 page)

‘Before I go home, I will buy presents for my sisters,' he said. ‘I will save all my watch money for that.'

Coconut Day came at last, even before the rains were properly over. It no longer poured day and night as during the monsoon – only drizzled occasionally from a passing cloud. The clouds were no longer a mass of grey wool blanketing the city but had separated into creamy puffs that floated along in the sunshine and the breeze. The sea was much calmer: the waves no longer towered over the boulevards and crashed across the streets but simply heaved, muddy and tired after all the storms. The buildings of the city were still damp and mouldy but no longer stood in several feet of water and were beginning to dry.

On Coconut Day it drizzled in the morning but that was when people were still indoors, doing
puja
with sticks of incense and garlands of marigolds and dishes of sweets that were placed before Ganesha, the elephant-headed god who
was the patron god of Bombay. When the crowds came pouring out on to the streets in the afternoon, carrying coconuts to throw into the sea, the sun had come out and gilded the battered, untidy city with a sheen of gold.

Hari and Mr Panwallah were among the thousands and thousands of people who streamed down to Chowpatty, the beach Hari had taken for a fairground when he saw it on his first day in Bombay. Today it really
was
a fairground. The police were out, directing the traffic, making way for the processions to cross Marine Drive on to the beach – again reminding Hari of that first day in Bombay. Every inch of sand was covered: there were more hawkers and stall-keepers than ever, selling hot salted snacks, ice creams, coloured drinks, balloons, tin whistles and paper horns to excited children. And, of course, green coconuts. Everyone bought a green coconut to carry into the sea as an offering to it at the end of the season of storms, in thanksgiving for its safe end.

Mr Panwallah, still rather white and bent from his long illness but very cheerful and almost energetic again, bought Hari a coconut. ‘You keep your money for presents for the family,' he said when Hari tried to pay for it – and they pushed
their way through the crowds to the edge of the sea. There were men pounding on drums that hung by straps from their necks, and others who danced behind and before them, sticking out their elbows and bending their knees and shouting as they frolicked along. Women were dressed in their brightest and newest saris – pink and yellow, violet and orange – and all had flowers in their hair. Some of them threw red powder into the air and it settled on their heads and shoulders and glinted in the afternoon sun.

Then they were out on the flat, wet sand for the tide was out, far out. The wet sand glistened and reflected the great pink clouds that sailed along in the golden sky. Children were running barefoot over it to the sea where fishermen waited in boats for those who wanted to row out to sea and immerse their coconuts in the deep. Others were just tossing their coconuts in or wading in to set them afloat. Thousands of coconuts bobbed and floated and sank. Hundreds of urchins splashed through the waves and dived for them.

Suddenly Hari pushed aside the two boys on either side of him, dashed past a tall man in front of him, and to Mr Panwallah's astonishment, shouted, ‘It's mine! It's mine!' and dived into the
spray to grab a coconut thrown by someone else and fiercely fought over by three or four other boys. Hari was waist-deep in water, the spray was being churned up all around him, and there he stood, clutching the coconut to him and beaming triumphantly at Mr Panwallah.

Mr Panwallah laughed with amazement. As Hari came out dripping with his prize, he chuckled. ‘So, you've become a real city boy at last, have you? You've learned to push and fight your way with the city boys, have you? Hari, Hari – I never thought I would see you do such a thing.'

Hari began to feel ashamed and looked around for a beggar to whom he could give the coconut, but Mr Panwallah was not shocked: he was laughing.

‘Yes, you can manage now,' he said, in a pleased way. ‘You will manage all right – I can see I don't have to worry about you any more.'

Hari came back to Thul not by ferry after all but by bus – Jagu and Mr Panwallah having bought him a ticket jointly for the bus. Mr Panwallah had said goodbye to him at the shop door, quietly slipping him another ten rupee note as a farewell present, and sniffing to keep back his tears, while Jagu had taken the morning off from work to accompany him to the bus depot and see him on to the right bus. ‘Got your money safe with you, Hari?' he kept asking anxiously. ‘Be careful of pickpockets. Don't touch your pocket, don't let anyone see you have so much money with you …' for he was as anxious as Hari himself that his earnings got to the family in Thul safely. Again and again Hari had to promise
to be careful, to send a postcard as soon as he reached Thul, to keep in touch with Jagu. Then at last the bus drew out and there was nothing to do but wave to each other silently.

As he left the city behind him – the slums, the peeling grey houses, the open foul-smelling gutters, the wayside bazaars, bus depots and traffic – he pressed his face to the window, searching for signs of the open country. They crossed a long, broad bridge and below it was the sea – not the sea as he knew it at Thul but the sea that separated Bombay from the mainland, a marshy sea that sank and swelled with the tide. Still, it smelt of salt as well as of mud and there were not only clumps of reeds at the edges but fishing boats and nets and glittering piles of ‘windowpane' oysters as well. Hari shook with excitement but after that there was another long dreary stretch – the factory belt of Thana, pouring out evil-smelling smoke and chemicals into the discoloured sky, all the land around blighted and bare, not a blade of grass to be seen and the few remaining trees coated with suffocating dust. Hari wondered if this could possibly be the way that the green coastline from Rewas to Alibagh would look like one day.

There were a few signs of the beginnings of such a transformation: the highway was being widened, a railway bridge under construction, old large trees cut down and bulldozers and steamrollers at work, but the rice still stood golden and ripe in the fields, the low hills beyond them were violet and bronze, the sky clear and blue. They crossed a flat and lazy river that wound through the rice fields, then drove through a forest of large-leafed
sal
trees and at last were out on the coastline and Hari could see the coconut palms once more and the blur of blue in the distance that was the sea.

The bus set him down on the highway beside the hill with the temple on top. Although the old dusty road was being widened and tarred and many of the
sal
and banyan trees along it had been cut down to clear the way, Thul itself seemed unchanged. The hill stood, sunlit and sere, and it was still topped by the small white cube of the temple. Hari turned off the highway into the dusty, deeply rutted path between the coconut and betel palms that wound through the silent, sleepy village.

Hari came down the path through the coconut grove to the cluster of old gnarled casuarina trees on the beach. Here the breeze blew up salt and
fresh, and there was the sea. The real sea, the open sea, not the sea that lapped the island of Bombay. Hari sank down on the roots of a casuarina, cupped his chin in his hand and stared and stared and stared at it. He wanted to make sure it was exactly as he remembered it, and it was. The tide was coming in, it boomed and thundered on the silver sand. The three black rocks were being submerged, only the tops showed above the creamy froth on the waves. Out along the horizon the sails of the fishing fleet showed like the wings of gulls or like butterflies, white and bright and brave against the skyline. Closer to shore were the two small islands of Undheri and Kundheri, rocky and green. Smaller fishing craft bobbed around them, trying to get back to land, to the village.

Sighing with relief, Hari got up and turned into the path over the dunes that were webbed with seaside morning glory, their flowers unfurled in flat mauve saucers. He passed his single small field and saw that the girls had sown the usual crop of
tindli
in it – the tiny marrows hung from the grapelike vines that had been trained over a bamboo trellis. He passed the white bungalow,
Mon Repos,
and noticed that its monsoon wrapping of thatch had been removed and that it
gleamed white in the greenery. Then he came to the creek where the heron still stood on its stone, fishing, the kingfisher dived down in a flash of blue and the egret rose up from the reeds as white as snow. He crossed the log that lay across the creek and saw that the frangipani tree was in flower. In its shade the old hut looked as dark and dismal as ever, its earthen walls crumbling, its palm-leaf thatch hanging crooked and tattered over the eaves.

He would change it all: he would rebuild the hut, he would work on it now that he was home and make it bright and cheerful and happy.

‘Lila, Bela, Kamal!' he called.

In an instant Lila was at the door, her old purple sari gathered about her, her face peeping out, brown and curious. When she saw him, she gasped. They stared at each other. Then she ran out crying, ‘Hari! Hari, I knew you would come. It's Diwali tomorrow and I knew you'd come!'

‘How did you know? I didn't write.'

‘Oh, I knew, I knew you would,' Lila smiled. ‘And we made sweets for you, Hari – come and eat.'

Hari wanted to ask a hundred questions, all at once, about their mother, their father, Bela and Kamal, about the village and Biju's boat and everything. Instead, he followed Lila into the house. Old and shabby it might be, but how shady and cool it was. He felt grateful for it, just as it was, and stood breathing in its air silently. Only the invisible pigeons could be heard, letting flow their musical notes like soft, feathered bubbles trickling through the air.

Then Lila came towards him with a brass tray on the palm of her hand. It was heaped with the sweets she had made of rice powder and cream, sugar and flour and semolina and coconut.

Hari said, ‘But I must wash first: I am dusty.' He went out by the back door where the big earthenware jar stood filled with water from the well and tipping it over, he washed his face and hands, sprinkling some of the cool water on his hair as well. He felt that in all the nine months that he had spent in Bombay he had not had a wash as cool and refreshing as this.

When he turned Lila was standing in the doorway with a towel and he took it from her and wiped himself.

‘How good the water feels here,' he said.

‘Our well is sweet, you know,' she said, smiling.

‘But so sweet – I had forgotten.' He shook his head, making drops fly. ‘I forgot too much. Lila, where's Mother?' He did not dare look at her face for fear there would be a sign on it of bad news, but Lila looked back at him steadily.

‘Mother is away in hospital, in Alibagh. The de Silvas took her there in the car. I go to see her sometimes, when I have the bus fare. She is much better.'

‘How –?'

‘With good food and proper medicine, I suppose. The doctor said it was anaemia which she got because of having poor food to eat.'

Hari tried hard to take that in. He knew the food they ate was inadequate but he had not known you could fall ill because of that. Now he would have to see to it that they ate better.

‘I have all sorts of plans, Lila,' he burst out. ‘I'll tell you –'

‘Come, eat your sweets first. We made them for Diwali but we'll start celebrating today,' she laughed and went to get the tray with the sweets. Hari reached out for his favourite, a fried dumpling stuffed with sweet semolina and grated coconut, and bit into it greedily. It was crisp and
delicate, the way Lila always made them. His mouth was still full when Bela and Kamal arrived.

They didn't know what to do next – hug each other, talk or eat sweets. They tried to do everything at once, and there was hubbub. Then Hari brought out presents for them – the presents Mr Panwallah had helped him purchase in Bombay with his watch repair money – bangles for the younger girls, metal ones with a gold and silver wash that made them shine, and a sari for Lila: not one of those thick homespun ones one could buy in the village, but a mill-made one of filmy, silky cloth, striped pink and white like some freshly bloomed morning flower. The three girls were wonder-struck when he unfolded it for them to see – nothing so pretty, so expensive or so fashionable had ever come into their house before. Lila gasped and the little girls squealed and pressed their hands to their mouths.

‘Hari-
bhai
, where did you get so much money from? How could you spend so much?'

‘I've brought back money, too,' he assured them. ‘I saved up everything I earned in Bombay, I never spent anything there – I never went to the cinema or even bought a cigarette. I had two jobs,' he boasted – he could not help it, he knew
the girls were enjoying it as much as he. ‘I worked in an eating house where the proprietor gave me free board and lodging, as well as a salary, and I worked in a watchmender's shop next door. I was paid for the watches I mended – I have learned to repair watches, you know.'

‘Repair watches?' cried Bela and Kamal in amazement.

‘Repair watches?' echoed Lila hollowly, her face falling. It seemed the most useless skill anyone could bring back to the fishing village of Thul where no man ever had need to look at a watch in order to know when to take his boat out or when to bring back the fish. The tide told you that, and the sun.

Hari could tell she was disappointed. ‘I know there are no watches here now, Lila – but wait till the factory comes up, and the housing colony is built. Then there will be plenty of people with watches around here – and I'll be the only man in Thul who knows how to oil and repair them so that they won't have to go all the way to Bombay to get it done. Things will change here, Lila.'

‘Will they?' she asked doubtfully. ‘When? How long will it take? And what are we to do till then?'

‘But I've brought back money with me, too. I want to discuss that with you – and with Mother when I go to see her.' He did not mention their father – he knew that would be useless. ‘We can put it to some use. I thought we might buy chickens and start a poultry farm in our field: it is too small for a market garden but it is big enough for a poultry farm. We could begin by selling eggs in the village. By the time the factory comes up and all those workers come to live here, we shall have chickens to sell, too. We can make a living with a poultry farm.'

Bela and Kamal shouted with delight. They thought it a wonderful idea. They passed the tray of sweets round once more.

‘You two can look after the chickens when I set up my watch shop,' Hari told them. ‘I'll get the poultry farm started and then hand it over to you to run.' He beamed at them because he could see they liked the idea.

‘It will be the first poultry farm in Thul,' Kamal shouted. ‘There is one at Kihim, and several in Alibagh, but this will be the first one in Thul – and it will be ours.'

‘There used to be one here,' Lila reminded them. ‘Old Sabu had one – you can still see all the
broken pens and the wire netting in his garden. It failed.'

‘That's because there was no one in Thul to buy his eggs and chickens, Lila,' Hari explained. ‘And he had no van in which he could take them to Bombay to sell. But now people will be coming to Thul instead – thousands of them – we'll have more buyers then we can supply. You'll see, Lila – it'll flourish; it can't fail. And there'll be eggs and chicken for Mother to eat, too,' he added, trying hard to coax her into being cheerful.

She smiled at once at the thought. ‘It'll be good for Mother,' she agreed. ‘She might even be able to help – when she's stronger.'

‘You'll have to tell me everything. Give me all the news. You never wrote.'

‘We didn't know where you were. Whenever anyone went to Bombay, we sent messages, but no one could find you.'

He nodded. ‘I wanted to be by myself for a while, on my own. Father –' and at last he said the word he did not want to say – ‘Father, where is he?'