Anuradha Roy - The Folded Earth

I sat down next to Diwan Sahib and he said, “Had enough of the Burra Sa’abs?” His eyes twinkled and his wrinkles deepened when he smiled. I felt immediately at ease. I stretched out my legs, swivelled my ankles, and rested my head against the backrest of my chair.

“Why come,” I said to him, “if you will not meet anyone?”

“I am happy enough meeting only you,” he said. “But I never seem to see you. Even when you come in the afternoons you hide behind a newspaper.”

The General began talking at us as he advanced, tap-tapping the Naga spear he used as a walking stick, although it was much taller than him. His voice had long ago acquired the ability to reach the last row of soldiers in a parade. “I never read the papers. And look at my eyesight, perfect! Still driving. Why? Because I never read anything smaller than the headlines. Nothing but anarchy, I say, bombs and terrorists everywhere, waste of time reading about it. ‘Improve your Eye Sight, Never Read or Write’: I told Chauhan to nail that one to a tree — right next to the Central School.”

“Don’t come anywhere near our school,” I said. “It’s hard enough as it is, getting the classrooms filled.”

He frowned at me. “What? Who — ah it’s you, Maya. Better off empty, I say, those classrooms. You’re ruining those pretty village girls by teaching them to read. Social misfits.” Though his head was just about level with mine, the General was confident of his authority. He held himself very straight, and like a cartoon general, he had a thick, white moustache that was curled at the tips. He adjusted the Kumaon Regiment cap he invariably wore and looked at the empty chair beside us.

Diwan Sahib held his flask out and said, “Sit down, General Sahib, I know why you’re interested in my company all of a sudden.”

The General lowered himself into the chair and held a glass out towards the hip flask. “Where’s that boy of yours? Hasn’t he come? Heard he lives here now.”

“He’s gone off somewhere. Wandering. Trekking, he calls it.” Diwan Sahib said, concentrating on his pouring of careful drops from his flask into the glass.

“Strange to see him after all these years, our young Veer. Don’t mind me, Diwan Sahib, he’s your nephew, of course. But — Maya, I knew this boy when he was just this high — and even when he was a little child he was like a grown-up. You know? I’d make jokes — every other child would laugh his head off — but this boy? Nothing. Not a smile even. Couldn’t get a word out of him.” The General gave a loud laugh after his first sip of rum. “Takes after his uncle, doesn’t he? Yes, Diwan Sahib?”

Ramesh ambled across and patted the General on the shoulder. He was the only man in Ranikhet who would take such a liberty. “I say, General,” he boomed, “you have named your house General’s Retreat, but Generals should never retreat, they should always advance.” His face turned pink as he chortled with merriment. Ramesh was a retired economist from Harvard whom everyone called Professor. He told people to their faces what others did not dare to say behind their backs. He got away with it because of his unquenchable good humour. Now he settled down with a sigh, helped himself to Diwan Sahib’s hip flask, and said, “Next time we should meet at home. I brought lots of Kingfisher beer from Delhi. And I have a new recipe for mutton biryani.”

“I didn’t know you cooked,” I said.

“Oh no, Maya, of course I don’t cook.” Ramesh waved his hand grandly as if to gesture at his battalion of cooks. “I will make the biryani only in the way that Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal.”

The Brigadier stood at the far end of the garden with an earnest-looking woman, who seemed to be an outsider. She was asking him, “What happens when a soldier has doubts about war, sir? What if they don’t want to fight?”

“We call such people bullshitters,” the Brigadier said. “That’s what we say, damn bullshitters!”

The woman mustered courage and said, “Sir, what about all this we hear, of army men raping and molesting women in the Northeast — and in Kashmir — ”

The Brigadier interrupted her in a sharp voice that we heard across the lawn. “One rotten fruit here or there, Madam, doesn’t make a bad basket. We deal with deviants, we do it more swiftly than anyone else.”

The hotel manager tried drawing the woman away. “Ah, Kusumji,” he said in arch tones, “now why don’t you have another samosa? And look, all those ladies at the flowerbed there want to show you something. You remember the rule, Kusum-ji, parties and politics don’t ever mix, isn’t that what they say?”

Mr Chauhan thumped a table and said, “That I will put on a signboard right away! And also, Politics before Food, Does your Digestion No Good. In fact, this I may prepare and send you for display in your hotel’s lobby.”

The once-desolate bungalow was painted and polished. Its once-dislocated windows sat squarely within their frames, its roof shone red with fresh paint. The hotel manager’s profession had trained him in setting up a pretty home: the tablecloths had frilled edges, vases sprouted fresh flowers, wrought iron lampshades hung from the trees. There was a new terracotta birdhouse, too small for the long tail of the magpie struggling to enter it. Huge striped canvas umbrellas shaded the tables. Two bearer boys went from person to person with trays of drinks and pakoras. One of them held his tray out to me. I was intrigued by his face, which had the startling beauty of young boys in the paintings of Renaissance Italy.

I said, “You are new here, aren’t you?”

He was taken aback at being spoken to. “I travel wherever Sa’ab goes,” he stammered. His voice was a mismatch, too deep for his slight, young body. He gave me a smile that showed a mouthful of crooked teeth. “I am Kundan Singh,” he said. “I am not really a bearer, I am the cook.”

Ramesh, sitting beside me, spoke before Kundan Singh could say anything more. “You know, once I had a cook who was not really a cook. In Lucknow when I was teaching there. His name was George. Anglo-Indian fellow — they all used to join the Railways then, but George was a cook. So one day I asked him, George, how did you become a cook? Why didn’t you join the Railways? You’re an Anglo-Indian, I say. And you know what he said?”

“Tell us.” I said. Kundan lingered with his tray, stealing a fearful glance over his shoulder in case his lingering was noticed.

“You know what he said? He said that for most of his life, he had been an engine driver.” Ramesh slapped his chair’s arm, roaring with mirth. “At least that explained why his cooking was so third rate. But that is not the end of it, my boy” — Kundan had shown signs of leaving — ”that is not the end of it. He was an engine driver for fifteen years and then the railways sacked him. He was very puzzled, you know — they told him to leave after so long in service. Why? On one medical check-up they had found that he was colour blind. The railway people said an engine driver had to know the difference between red and green — for the signals, you know — but George was very upset. He said to me, Sir, I understand that an engine driver must distinguish between red and green, but as life is all shades of grey, and as for fifteen years I could tell red’s shade of grey from green’s, I ask you, Sir, what does colour blindness mean to those who can see what’s what? But this was really too much! So much philosophy from an engine driver I could not take. Besides I realised why his food tasted so bad — the man didn’t know when he was putting chilli and when turmeric or cumin into food! All the spices looked like blue powder to him.”

Ramesh picked up a pakora from Kundan’s tray and said through his munches, “Beta, what were you before you were a cook? You didn’t drive a bus, or write poetry, did you? One never knows.” He waggled his head sagely in my direction.