Jasoda

  ‘That is most heartening. Do you have any recollection at all whether some months ago you had told me that you had been to school?’

  ‘I do. Very clearly.’

  ‘And that you knew how to read and write?’

  ‘Yes, I most certainly know how to read. Even English, Huzoor.’

  ‘I won’t vouch for this but I have the oddest feeling that at that very time you had, of your own free will, offered to write down the contents of every room, in every nook and corner of the Palace.’

  Sangram Singh had begun to look worried, as if he had just heard the first fibrillation of a fatal heart condition in his own person. ‘Yes, Huzoor, I did. And I have almost forty-seven notebooks to prove it.’

  ‘Ah yes, one last thing. Is it possible that I may not be aware of it but that my parents, my revered father, the late King, and my beloved mother – I do so hope that their souls have found eternal peace – may have forgotten to send me to school and that, in actual fact, I may be illiterate?’

  ‘What strange questions and doubts are plaguing your mind, Huzoor? I have seen you travelling to your public school in Dehradun. I have watched you read the newspapers in the days before the drought when the state transport buses used to pass near Jalta and your driver whom you dismissed some time ago would bring them to the Palace. What’s more, I have even caught you reading a two- or three-hundred-page book with dirty pictures when you were in college. Take it from me, you are an educated man, though you gave up studies before appearing for your final BA exams.’

  ‘Then pray tell me,’ Prince Parbat Singh’s voice suddenly rose to a thunderous volume and his frame trembled as if he was suffering from a malarial rigour, ‘how come I am unable to decipher a single letter, or make sense of a single word, leave alone a sentence or a paragraph that you’ve written? What infernal gibberish have you been inscribing on page after page? Forty-seven volumes, did I hear you say – that you had filled forty-seven volumes with the minutest and most precise details about the condition of every item in this Palace?’

  ‘I did, Huzoor; exactly my words.’

  ‘Pick up your handiwork and read out any page you like to me,’ His Highness’s voice boomed. ‘If you fail to do so, let me assure you that I’ll string you up upside down by the feet from the crossbeams.’

  A foolish grin had spread on Sangram Singh’s face.

  ‘Read. Intelligibly. Your life depends on it.’

  Sangram Singh held up a volume in his hands. The double flap that went around the book fell away from his right hand. He stared at the page, which was full of scratches and squiggles, loops, commas, ditto signs and arrows, tall posts, broken circles and asterisks, aborted geometric symbols and crosses and knots but not a single alphabetical letter or word. There was so much overcrowding that the sign-language markings kept colliding into each other.

  ‘I’m waiting for you to unravel the mystery of your unique shorthand. Rest assured I will flay you alive with my brand-new horse whip if I find, as I am sure I will, that it’s plain drivel and you were aiming to do me out of hearth and home.’

  Sangram Singh stared past the Prince’s face as if he had ceased to exist.

  ‘Why the fuck are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘This is the inventory of all that is in Guest Room Number One. A shisham king-size double bed with a Dunlop foam mattress, four pillows, an Italian silk canopy. Two bedside tables with a Tiffany reading lamp on either side. A mahogany roll-top writing table – length: four feet one inch; width: two-and-a-half feet; height: three feet. A mahogany chair to complement the writing table. A wall-length teak wardrobe adjoining the bathroom door – height: eight feet; width: two-and-a-half feet. Two armchairs with foam seats and back cushions. A matching table with an adjustable standing lamp next to it with twin branches for two separate lights.

  ‘Four large cupboards filled with books, many of them unopened. The notice pasted on the glass doors of the first one says, “Fiction from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries”. The notice on the second informs us that this one has plays and poetry. The third has history and the last one philosophy and religion. Let me start with the fiction cupboard. Here are the names of the authors and their novels: Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded; Clarissa. Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones; Joseph Andrews. Lawrence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; A Tale of a Tub; Letters to Stella. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe; Moll Flanders; The Journal of the Plague.’

  His Highness’s face had been going through a series of changes starting from sheer loathing and disdain to disbelief to puzzlement bordering on deep-seated unease. Sangram Singh had started out slowly, reading from the notebook and then dipping into the records stored in his memory and gradually picking up velocity as he got further and further into enumerating the list of books.

  ‘Stop, stop, stop. It’s pure torture to hear you bugger the English language with your atrocious pronunciation. For that alone you should be hung, drawn and quartered.’ The Prince wheeled over to the last cupboard. ‘Go to the fourth cupboard. And read out the names from the first book onwards. Don’t for a minute believe that you can get away with this fake stuff which you have obviously memorized. I will be checking out every single name—’

  Sangram Singh was off before the Prince had finished. ‘The fourth cupboard, as I told you earlier, has books on philosophy, political philosophy, religion and the polemics of religion, and science and history. Here are the authors and the names of the books. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract; Confessions. John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government; Essays on the Law of Nature; An Essay Concerning Human Nature; An Essay Concerning Toleration.’

  ‘Not Loke as in poke or bloke, you bloody illiterate idiot.’ His Highness was screaming now. ‘Lock as in a tala, the damn steel gadget you put on your door to safeguard your house.’

  ‘Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan; The Elements of Law and Politic; Man and Citizen.’ Sangram Singh did not take his eyes off his master and continued as if the Princeling had congratulated him on his precise memory. ‘Thomas Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature; An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals; The Natural History of Religion. Michel de Montaigne’s Essays; Letters to Raymond…’

  ‘One more word out of you and I will cut your tongue off. How you butcher the words and this beautiful language. Tell me the truth now, the honest truth and not some bullshit or I will have every bone in your body broken. What black magic are you practising that you can’t read but you know every single book and item in my house?’

  ‘But I can read. It’s just that I have my own system of writing.’

  ‘Don’t give me that cock-and-bull story. Tell me, what voodoo are you practising?’

  ‘I have to read something just once and I remember every word. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh, is that all? Would you please do me a favour and hand me that vase next to you.’

  ‘Why, Huzoor?’

  ‘Maybe I’m thinking of giving it to you as a gift for your monumental memory.’

  Sangram Singh picked up the vase on the table next to him and handed it to the Prince.

  Parbat Singh flung the porcelain vessel at Sangram Singh with such force, it hit him on the head and broke, crashing down to the floor. Sangram Singh swayed and stepped back, his forehead bleeding profusely.

  ‘Now, now, Huzoor, calm down,’ Sangram Singh’s soothing voice was full of concern as he dabbed the blood with the end of his shirt sleeve, ‘or you’ll have a heart attack.’

  ‘Sangram Singh, it’s my intention to give you a series of not attacks but earthquakes, so that by tonight you will be dead and no longer able to practise your dreadful mojo on me.’

  Sangram Singh smiled as if he was the master of the house and it was the Prince who was currying favour with him.

  Jasoda sent Himmat to the Palace two days running. Sangram
Singh hadn’t been home for over a week now. On the first day, Himmat came back after three hours without meeting his father. The second day he went early. One of the servants opened the door of the pantry.

  ‘Your father says he’s busy and will not be able to see you.’

  ‘When will he come home?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Please ask him. I have important work with him.’

  The servant closed the door and did not come back.

  The next day, Jasoda rang the suppliers’ bell outside the kitchen at the rear of the Palace. When a retainer opened the door, Jasoda shrouded her head and face. ‘Tell him,’ no married lady would ever take her husband’s name and that too in front of a stranger, ‘if he’s not home within an hour, I’ll come over and meet His Highness, and find him wherever he is.’

  ‘I don’t know where Sangram Singh is. It’s a big house.’

  ‘Just give him the message.’

  The servant started to close the heavy wooden doors.

  ‘One hour. Otherwise I’ll hold you responsible.’

  Himmat and Pawan kept a lookout for their father on the road. Their mother had told them that he would not be back for a couple of hours, perhaps even longer but they waited anyway.

  ‘How do you know he’ll return today when he hasn’t come back for so long now?’ Himmat had asked.

  ‘Because I know.’

  Pawan faithfully reported the scene on the road. There was a pigeon climbing onto another and a dog from the untouchable colony had pounced on them but they had flown away. The grocer had come down from his home on the first floor and was unlocking the triple locks and latches of his shop.

  ‘How come he opens his grocery store so late these days, Maa? It’s almost midday.’

  ‘Because there are hardly any customers left, silly,’ Himmat answered.

  ‘Who asked you? I was talking to Maa.’

  Poonam Chachi was going to the temple with her baby. The grocer spat when she passed his shop. The tailor was trailing behind her as if he had nothing to do with her.

  ‘Maa.’ This time it was Himmat. ‘Where does Poonam Chachi buy her bajra and oil and onions?’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ Jasoda told him from inside the kitchen. ‘The tailor does the shopping.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the grocer’s, where else?’

  ‘I thought the grocer doesn’t talk to him.’

  ‘Business is business even if you are not talking to someone.’

  One of Pawan’s friends was getting a thrashing from his mother. She stopped suddenly, took off his shorts and then went back to peeling his bottom.

  Pawan’s commentary abruptly stopped.

  Turning the corner in the distance was an electric shimmer that was rolling forward at tremendous speed without making a sound. Himmat and Pawan stood transfixed. It was a fleeting image, a heavenly body, a confluence of light and speed. The hood of the silver Rolls Royce of 1927 vintage was down. His Highness was wearing pilot’s goggles. His head was covered in a flamboyant pink saafa whose tail flapped restlessly around the face of a woman who sat next to him. Milk was darker than her fair skin. She was laughing, her head thrown back. His Highness accelerated and headed the automobile straight for the children. It was a sight of such intense beauty, the car could have run them over and they would not have moved. A slight swerve without losing speed and the silver apparition was already disappearing into the horizon.

  By two in the afternoon, Himmat and Pawan had given up on their father and fallen asleep next to their grandmother. Sangram Singh came at four.

  ‘Who gave you permission to come to the Palace? Have you no shame?’

  Jasoda waited for her husband’s wrath to peter out.

  ‘Did you think for a second that I would respond to your threats and ultimatums? What was so important that it could not wait?’

  ‘There’s nothing to eat in the house.’

  ‘What am I to do about it?’

  ‘I need money to feed the children. Your mother needs to see a doctor badly. The baby hasn’t had any milk either.’

  ‘Then feed it.’

  ‘There’s no milk in my breasts.’

  ‘Am I to breastfeed the baby then?’

  ‘Give her the money,’ the mother spoke to her son. ‘If she doesn’t eat, her body will produce no milk.’

  ‘You keep out of this, Maa,’ Sangram Singh snapped. ‘What about the money you earn as a midwife?’ he asked Jasoda.

  ‘There’s no one left in the village to have babies. What the tailor gave me got over yesterday.’

  ‘About time you, the children and Maa left.’

  ‘Where would we go?’

  ‘Where everybody from the village has gone. To some city or the other.’

  ‘And you, won’t you come with us?’

  ‘I’ve got responsibilities here. Do you expect me to leave His Highness?’

  Sameer Singh, Jasoda’s third son, was unlike the two older boys. He did not cry. Instead, he did something which had no name. Whatever it was he did, it could cut off your breathing, shatter your equilibrium, pulverize your patience and break your spirit. It could gouge out eyes, tear the eardrums, flush out your intestines, yank out your fingernails. He was underfed and occasionally starved. That should have made him dull and listless but instead he became malevolent. The odd thing was that even on a full stomach he was no different.

  There was no joy in the boy, no variation of mood and humour; just an acrimonious resentment, an unflagging and ceaseless rage. He had a bone to pick with the world but even after he had picked it clean, he bore it an undying grudge. Nothing could assuage it. He had no teeth yet but he nearly managed to chew Jasoda’s nipples. What passed for lips was a vulture’s beak that snapped and tore away as at carrion meat.

  There was a violence in him that made Jasoda and the others wary. He had resolved that his mother’s sole business in life was to dedicate herself to him. He would not brook any distraction on her part, any slackening of interest or sign of fatigue. If she spoke to his brothers, spent time dressing or feeding them or nursed his grandmother, it made him apoplectic. The veins in his throat tensed and became engorged, his voice became hoarse, his eyes seemed ready to split open and he began to asphyxiate.

  ‘Will you look after your brother for me?’ Jasoda asked her older boy. ‘Please, Himmat. I have some urgent matters to attend to.’

  ‘You know he’ll never stay with me. He hates Pawan and me.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Jasoda said without too much conviction. ‘It’s just that he takes time to adjust to people. Here, hold him gently and he’ll be fine.’

  That was not a good move. Sameer went for Himmat’s eyes and nicked him on the eyelid while screaming as if his mother and brother were trying to bury him alive. Jasoda took him back.

  ‘Give him to me,’ the grandmother told Jasoda.

  ‘Are you sure? He’s being difficult.’

  ‘When is he not?’

  ‘I’m closing shop,’ the grocer told Jasoda. ‘There’s no business left in the village. I’m lucky if I get a customer or two a day.’

  ‘Buy the vessels. They are solid brass and copper vessels which belonged to my grandmother.’

  The grocer shook his head. ‘Go home, Jasoda. I’m not a pawnbroker.’

  ‘Please, I’ll take whatever you give.’

  ‘What will I do with your old brass and copper when I’m going to join my cousin’s business in Jodhpur?’

  ‘Then lend me money. I’ll pay you whatever interest you charge.’

  ‘I closed down the moneylending operation six months ago. I took the villagers’ farms as security and burnt my fingers. This land is worthless. The drought could go on forever.’

  Jasoda ferreted inside the copper water pot. Almost her whole forearm disappeared but she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She tilted the vessel and there was the sound of something sliding down. She brought out a packet wrapped
in cloth and laid it on the counter.

  ‘What’s this?’ the grocer asked. ‘Even if it’s gold bricks, I don’t want them.’

  Jasoda untied a knot and stood the family gods up one by one.

  ‘What will I do with them? I have family deities of my own,’ the grocer said as he examined the brass, copper and bell-metal images. ‘Take them back. They belong in your house.’

  Jasoda packed the gods, arranged the vessels one inside the other, placed them on her head and carried the last three in her hands. She walked away casually but it was still a tightrope walk with that load balanced on her head. She must have gone fifteen metres when the grocer called out to her. She stood still a moment, then slowly turned around and walked back.

  ‘Yes?’

  The grocer couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether to talk or not. ‘Nothing, nothing.’

  Jasoda did not move.

  ‘It’s nothing really. I heard Poonam had a baby.’

  ‘You heard right.’

  ‘I believe you were the midwife?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Was it a boy or girl?’

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘Just wondering, that’s all.’

  ‘May I leave then?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You think I’m the father of the child?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘But is it possible?’

  Jasoda looked at him a long time. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘I’ll take the Narayan.’

  Jasoda bent on her knees without altering the vertical line of her backbone. When the copper water pot came to rest on the ground, she lowered the vessels from her other hand and then deposited the pile resting on her head on to the ground. She handed over to the grocer the bell-metal image of Lord Vishnu sleeping on the infinite coils of the serpent Shesha.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  The grocer measured three kilos of bajra and two of lentils and emptied them into two of Jasoda’s tote bags.

  ‘Barely eight months since I threw her out. The child’s got to be mine. What’s the name of the girl?’