‘Sharana? But we know people here. This is where there’s bound to be work for us.’
‘We’re bound to find work there too.’
Sangram Singh lay in bed wondering how he could have failed to factor in the return of Jasoda and her children. Other families had been trickling back for some time now and it stood to reason that Jasoda too would turn up. She had told him that Himmat had done rather well in his studies and, if she was to be believed, he could speak English fluently. He had turned the story to his advantage and insisted that in that case the family must locate itself in Sharana, where they now had not only an English-medium school but a full-fledged college run by some Catholic priests. She had not been too enamoured of the idea but he had put his foot down and told her that he would not allow her to play with his eldest son’s future. She was not one to go against his wishes but he knew she had been on her own for many years now and that too in that degenerate city of Mumbai and he was no longer sure he could trust her. First thing in the morning he would send one of his minions to Sharana to rent a cheap place for her, ensuring that she and the children left Kantagiri for good.
He had played his cards well so far. He had hired Ranjan Dasgupta, the same publicist the late Parbat Singhji had hired. Ranjan Dasgupta was a greenhorn then but he had done a fairly good job. He had even got the Times of India to carry an article on the tremendous work the former Prince was doing for the people of Paar. Sangram Singh had to admit the man had been effective. Now the story floated was that Sangram Singh had studied petroleum technology at Harvard and even had three patents to his name while he was still a student. What’s more, he had given up his multi-million-dollar job in the US to work 24/7 to improve the lot of his people. To cover up Sangram Singh’s disadvantage with the English language, Dasgupta portrayed him as a man of few words, modest and reclusive, who preferred to keep conversation to the minimum.
One day some American geologists had turned up and asked for permission to survey the seabed and the adjoining land. Sangram Singh had kept them waiting for three months. He told them that the sea god of Paar, who was his family deity, did not brook any incursions. After the three months, when they came back, he had said, sorry, but the Brahmin priests had ruled against any foreigner polluting the sea. Was there no way around the problem, they had asked. Another four months passed and by then the French too were showing keen interest. At that time, Sangram Singh had told the Americans that he wasn’t saying yes and he wasn’t saying no but the god of rain and water, Varun, needed to be propitiated if the curse of the drought was to be lifted. What would it take, both the French and the Americans wanted to know. It’s not the money, he said, it’s the spiritual depth of your commitment to my land and people. He then quoted an exorbitant price, doubting they would accede to the demand. He was wrong. He should have quoted more, far more. You live and learn, he told himself as he pocketed the two cheques for the Franco-American venture.
Prince Parbat Singh had died barely a few months after signing the papers making Sangram Singh the sole inheritor of his estate. Without Raat Rani, he was a broken man and had wasted away rapidly. Within days of his death, the servants in the Palace had had no option but to leave, since there was no one who could pay their salaries. For Sangram Singh the coast was now clear. The only setback was Raat Rani. She was a geyser of hot, scalding hate and rage and he had had to lock her up in one of the rooms in the cellar. The room had no windows and no light and it was always locked. Meals were served through a dumbwaiter that he had got specially designed. Sometimes she polished off everything on the plate and then for days refused to touch food.
Sangram Singh had tried to reason with her. It was tragic that His Highness Prince Parbat Singh had insisted on seeing the Kojagari full moon and she had got so engrossed in the TV soaps that she had not accompanied him. Had she been with him and steered the wheelchair instead of the Prince doing so, he wouldn’t have gone over the edge and taken that terrible fall.
She admitted her lapse at not having been on the scene but insisted that His Highness had been an ace at navigating the wheelchair and hence it was no accident.
‘So what do you think happened?’ Sangram Singh had asked.
‘You should ask? You planned the whole thing in cold blood.’
‘Right. I guess it’s irrelevant that I had had high fever for over a week and I was hallucinating; that I had been throwing up all that time and nobody even offered me a glass of water, certainly not you. I was so weak I couldn’t even go to the toilet but according to you I went over to the terrace with His Highness and even as he watched, I tipped the wheelchair forward. And then, despite the fact that I was the culprit, you sent the servant to ask me to find the Prince.’
‘You may scoff at me but I know that it’s the truth. Why else would you keep me under lock and key?’
He made sure that the entrance to the cellar was not only double-locked but soundproofed too so that no one could hear her screaming at all hours of the day and night, since she couldn’t tell one from the other in that room. He had to hand it to her, she never ran out of steam. There was something so pure about her loathing for him, it was akin to devotion in its steadfastness. He was seldom prepared for the way she would attack him when he went to her room. Sometimes she stood on the bed and jumped on him even as he opened the door and tried to strangle him with her dupatta drawn tightly around his neck, or she kicked him in the crotch. She had one hell of a kick and a couple of times he had nearly passed out and had caught her just as she started to run up the stairs.
There was never a dull moment with her around. She drew deep furrows on his face with her long nails, bit his arms or thighs or flung whatever was at hand at him. It was curious but he looked forward to these attacks. He felt a rush of blood and excitement in hurting and subduing her and then forcing himself upon her. Her body and breasts were soft and luscious but she could clamp her vagina so tight, it was a mammoth task to force himself in. Sex was so much more fun and satisfying after a violent interlude.
He had seen Prince Parbat Singh with her in bed and the ingenious variations she would introduce into love-making. Why would she not indulge him and do all those wonderful and bizarre things with him? He tried to force her face between his thighs as she had done so eagerly with the Prince but she refused to do his bidding. Well, he would teach her a lesson or two. He held her down till she gagged and was forced to lick and suck him.
One day she sank her teeth deep into his member and crushed his testes in her fist and wouldn’t let go even as he hit out at her wildly. The pain was excruciating and he was screaming but she held on until he gathered her thick plait in his fist, yanked her off and slammed her against the wall. He lay semi-comatose, unable to even whimper as she spouted her battle-cry while trying to snatch the keys from his hand.
‘You shit-face, the Prince left the Palace, the Rolls and all else to me and you’ve had the gall to grab everything, including me. What have you done with the will? Where have you hidden it? Or have you burnt it?’
His teeth were gritted in pain but there was an odd smile on his face as he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and pushed it towards her along with a torch.
‘The bastard, he didn’t leave a thing to me. It’s dated just two days before you threw him down the stairs. How can that be?’ She went over the document again and again. ‘This is a fake. I bet you fabricated it.’ She read bits of it aloud. ‘“His Majesty, my father Raghuvir Singh, used to say that I had a facility for running through an enormous fortune but none when it came to multiplying it. I’ve no idea how much I’ve overdrawn on my account and thus I’m clueless about how heavily I’m in debt or not at all. My accountant abandoned this hellhole a long time back. Unfortunately, I have no head for figures and so I am unable to tell whether I am in the red or on safe ground. I fear, however, that it’s merely a matter of time, maybe just a few years, before I’m forced to declare bankruptcy. I know that Paar is finished. Dead. No one, but no one,
will live in this wasteland even if he were paid a fortune to do so. But if after my demise I am still worth anything, all of it should be given to the Shiv-Shambho Temple. That way maybe Eklingji will forgive my one unforgivable and unmentionable act and all the other follies that followed.”’
‘I’ll wager you forced him to sign this fake will.’
‘You think so? In that case I must have also coerced the Chief Justice of the High Court to sign it and put the seal of the state. And that too, as you pointed out, two days before the accident.’
She sat slumped opposite him, all the fury drained out of her. Neither of them spoke. It took him a few hours to be able to hoist himself up. Every step was agony. As he waddled up the stairs he feared she had castrated him. He was engulfed in a tidal wave of self-pity. He would never be able to have sex again. He should have killed that bitch. When he finally made it to the bathroom and looked at himself, his member had bloated monstrously. The tooth marks looked purple-red and virulent. From childhood he had heard that no bite, not even a python’s, was as deadly as a human’s. There was no way he could see a doctor. He would be the laughing stock of Paar and every neighbouring state, if not the whole subcontinent, despite the so-called confidential doctor-patient relationship. He could just hear the people from Sharana and Kajuria sniggering. As for the folks from Kantagiri, it didn’t bear thinking about.
He was sure he was at death’s door but within a fortnight the swelling had gone and he ventured down to the cellar again. He was the one who had been running a temperature and had suffered excruciating pain but it was Raat Rani who had lost weight and looked a shadow of her former self. She didn’t resist him, nor did she swear at him now. He hoped this was just a temporary aberration.
When they were done, she went down on her knees and clasped his legs. ‘I’ll do anything you want. I will cook for you, give you a massage, look after all your needs, have any kind of sex you want. All I ask for is sunlight and air. Please, I beg you. If you are worried that I will betray you, just cut my tongue off. But I can’t live another day without the sun and fresh air and the sky and the moon.’
Did she take him to be a fool? Sun and fresh air and the sky and the moon? So she could tell the whole world who sent Parbat Singh tumbling down?
‘I’ll think about it.’
She was as good as her word. He had merely to ask and she would instantly accommodate his every wish. It got on his nerves. Nothing unpredictable about it; no surprises, no tension, no adrenaline rush. Every time he left, she pleaded with him, ‘Please don’t do this to me. I can’t take it any more.’
Sure, she could. Just fussing, that’s all. Frankly, she was getting on his nerves.
He was busy the next day. When he went down the day after, she was hanging from the ceiling fan in the room.
Jasoda’s husband may have got one of his minions to help locate a cheap place for her and the family but there had been no contact with her after that. Life had in any case taught Jasoda that you couldn’t really depend on anybody, least of all the man you were married to. She had convinced Ratna before she left Mumbai that the most important thing was to be able to stand on your own feet. She had trained her to take over her work. She had also shared with her all the secret ways in which she had avoided the onions and the chillies from singeing her fingers.
That hard-earned money from Mumbai would last her for a short while. It would take time for her to start earning again but Mumbai had taught her a few skills that she could use anywhere in the country. After buying a set of twin heavy-duty kerosene stoves, a supply of onions, potatoes, green chillies and wheat flour from the local market and the Goan bread called pao from a bakery nearby, she set up shop under the peepal tree outside the railway station. She couldn’t, however, find any tamarind in the market. This was bad news. Sooner rather than later she would have to ensure a regular supply. She was a good cook, she knew that, and she was smart enough to offer a free fried savoury to customers on the first day. What came in even more handy was her facility in dealing with the police and the local mafia. She had learnt that it was of little consequence whether or not she or her children got to eat a meal; far more important was that the policeman on duty got a free lunch, dinner or snack. Not just him but once in a while a couple of his cronies too. That way the mafia could go eat crow.
In the meantime, Himmat had joined the English medium school run by the priests. His maths and English teachers complained to the principal that they had an uppity troublemaker in the class who was proving to be a bad influence on the other students. The English teacher, one Mr Kalra, complained that the boy was a braggart and an exhibitionist trying to impress his fellow-students with his phoney English accent and thus making fun of his teacher. Mr Pereira, the maths teacher, said that he was teaching the class how to solve a difficult problem when this Himmat got up and tried to show off by misinforming the class that there were three other ways to solve it, hinting that the teacher’s solution did not pass muster. What was intolerable was that thanks to this know-all, the rest of the class was not only a confused lot but becoming rebellious and unruly.
Father Principal Monteiro was a martinet and he had three concerns: discipline, discipline and discipline. Himmat was asked to write, ‘I will never question the wisdom of my teachers’, one thousand times in his notebook. He was also told to ask his father to report to the principal’s office. Himmat wasn’t quite sure how to deal with the situation. A bit difficult to ask the current boss of Paar to present himself at the Holy Spirit School at Sharana. But there was an even more intractable problem. Batliwala Sir had impressed upon him that his first and only priority was to finish schooling if he was to pursue whatever line of studies and work he wished to. Talk about a bind, he knew his career was already over. It was clear he would be selling fried chillies, onion and potato savouries, pao bhaji, masala wada and tea at his mother’s stall all his life.
He called Suyog Sir.
‘Now calm down and tell me exactly what happened.’ Suyog Sir spoke as he always did – very, very quietly. When Himmat had finished, Suyog Sir said, ‘Send me an email detailing Mr Pereira’s solution and your three alternatives. I will call you back when I’ve gone through the lot. One more thing. If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. I will stand by you.’
Himmat had no idea what transpired between Father Principal Monteiro and Suyog Sir but a maths professor from Holy Spirit College got in touch with him and told him that from now on, like it or not, he would attend Mr Pereira’s classes without uttering a word or making any suggestions regarding multiple solutions to a maths problem. On the other hand, if he cared to continue with higher maths, he was free to come over to the college and work with the maths professor whenever he was free.
Himmat wondered if their tiny one-room tin shed was, if it was possible, hotter at night than in the daytime. Jasoda left the door open 24/7 in the summer months but that didn’t help much. The floor itself seemed to erupt with lava. Pawan climbed up a ladder and slept on the roof. Someone had to keep an eye on the family, so Himmat unrolled the dhurrie outside the door and stretched out on it. All night long trains hurtled past the railway station, their monster electronic horns blaring threateningly. Jasoda was up by five in the morning, chopping onions and peeling boiled potatoes just as she had in Mumbai but her workload had doubled, if not tripled, since she was also the head cook of the enterprise. When there was no money to buy kerosene, she was forced to fall back on iron sigris that used coal and filled the room with smoke.
Himmat would have preferred somewhere quiet with plenty of windows but was shrewd enough to realize that it was sheer luck that they had got this strategically located place next to the southern corner of Platform One. His mother had to merely walk a few steps or climb the stairs and she would be on one of the platforms whenever a train pulled in. But of late she would hold Pawan’s or Himmat’s hand and insist on crossing the tracks. It soon became clear to the older boys that their mothe
r was in the family way. It had puzzled Himmat that his mother had spent just one night in the Palace and yet got pregnant but that hadn’t persuaded his father to let her stay with him.
One of the boys would serve tea to the passengers through the bars of the train windows while she handed over pipinghot savouries in torn quarters of a newspaper. The moment the train departed, her business shifted outside the station.
The station was the busiest part of town and soon Jasoda had a regular clientele from all the other businesses around. They were happy to eat their favourite local dishes like dhokla, khandvi and ghoogras and drink the tea she made but she also offered all the dishes that her former employer in Mumbai sold. Within a few months, Jasoda was employing a young woman to help with the cutting and frying while she went to the market to buy the vegetables. Every night before they went to bed, Himmat jotted down the expenses and earnings for the day and made sure that the debit and credit accounts tallied.
There were other benefits to that furnace where they lived. The stationmaster was a cranky old widower who was perpetually in a bad humour. The sight of Jasoda plying her trade in the station premises and walking across the tracks made him apoplectic. ‘I hope God answers my prayers and one of the fast trains runs over you and your children are instantly orphaned.’ On two occasions he had even got the railway police to put her in the lock-up next to his office but had let her go after a full eight hours since she was obviously pregnant. It was late in the evening of the second visit to the lock-up that she had caught the stationmaster throwing a tantrum as his cook served him dinner in his office.
‘What crimes did I commit in my last life that I have to eat this shit every day? Everything tastes the same. The rice tastes like the chapatis and the dal like piss and the potatoes and ladies’ fingers exactly like vomit.’ He threw the thali at the cook who in turn told him to clean up his own fucking mess because he was walking out that very minute.