Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Will you teach me?’

Hart was silent, his face pale in a dusty shaft of light from the door. ‘If you ask, I must give. What will you start with? Shakespeare?’

‘That’s old,’ Sanjay said. ‘What are they reading now, over there? What’s new?’

And so Sanjay began his study of English, and his writing of a new, unprecedented poetry, his pursuit of fame and perfection.

Six months later, almost at the same time, both Sikander and the Begum proclaimed an intention to leave Lucknow; the Begum’s subterfuge-ridden diplomacy was over, her talks finished, and she longed for Sardhana, while Sikander, it seemed, had finished his apprenticeship and longed for the realities of service. All this, Sanjay thought, was normal: these were the inevitable partings of adult life, the diverging paths that led away from the common ground of childhood; it was all somehow too natural to grieve over, and meanwhile he was filled with the exhilaration of a rapidly growing packet of poetry, some interest from a publisher, the hope of youthful fame. And so the morning of parting caught him with neither fear nor sorrow, but with a self-reliant sort of confidence; the Begum left with the rising of the sun, and all would have gone quietly but for her unexpected announcement as her palanquin was lifted from the ground: ‘I plan to become a Christian.’

At this remark Sanjay ran up beside the swaying carriage (‘Huh-ha-ha-huh’) and tried to look through the brocade curtains.

‘You might as well be the first to know,’ she said. ‘After all my discussions with various rulers, and my understandings of politics, and divinings of the future, I know one thing: we are going to lose; everything will become red. If you want to live, think about this.’

Even with the weight of the palanquin on their shoulders, the bearers now began to outdistance Sanjay, and finally he stopped, his thighs shaking; after a while he turned and walked back to Sikander. ‘And you,’ Sanjay said. ‘What will you become?’

‘I’m going back to Calcutta, and I’ll arrange for somebody to catch me, some friend of my father’s. After I’m grabbed and back in custody I’ll ask for an introduction, a few letters. I’m going to seek de Boigne; he’s still around, you’ve heard the stories about him, every day there’s a new one. He’ll give me a job.’

But Sanjay was looking at him helplessly, becalmed, his carelessness shredded and made useless by these dangerous thoughts of becoming, these cannonades of elemental change; of what use were these brittle ideas of soldier, poet, if all the time, underneath, some sinister conversion happened, leaving you like an inverted snake, same on outside, changed within? After a while, he was able to move again, and that evening say good-bye to Sikander with self-possession, even elegance, but it was several days before he was able to write with his customary vehemence and live up to his pen-name; soon, he was shocking the sheep, just as before, but there were several nights when his project of innovation seemed distant and even repulsive. On these nights the darkness was filled with memories and voices, I have been insulted, what is the eater and the eaten, Nachiketas, grant me death, and even further, a puzzling memory of a tiger’s roar echoing across sun-dappled water, a walk into the mountains, the snow awaiting. But this disquiet dimmed, and the days passed, the work continued, generally small successes followed minor disappointments, the weeks that were unremarkable in every way, and the months faded into each other, the years passed and Sanjay could remember nothing about them. Nothing, that is, except the legend of Sikander the soldier, which grew by the telling, and Sanjay heard incredible stories about his friend: his troop of cavalry was so fast that it could be in two places at the same time, it was seen one evening in one place and the next morning it appeared at a foe’s campfire a hundred miles away, ready with lance; Sikander was bravest of the brave, in a duel with six horsemen he lanced two with one thrust, fatally butted a third with the heel of the lance on the withdraw, and cut off the heads of two more with a single flashing cut of a horse-hilted sabre, and spared the last; yes, he was generous, more so with his enemies than his friends, because that is true honour; he was wise, he sat at the durbar of his regiment and let the veterans rule, and there was love among the men, and the regiment was one; it was the best unit of irregular horse in Hindustan; they were fearless, they were bold and dashing, they were beautiful. Listening to all of this, Sanjay thought, maybe he will be a king after all, and the glory of Sikander’s legend made him aware of the slow boredom of his own life, and he wondered about his own ambitions, thinking, is this all, is there no more, is this life?

‘But,’ said Sandeep, ‘always, in the future, glorious and perfect, was Gul Jahaan. When boredom pressed, when Sanjay was crushed by nostalgia for childhood, she stood in front of him, recalled in complete and dazzling detail. So he went on.’

‘But,’ said a monk, ‘what really happened to Sikander?’

‘And what about Chotta?’

‘What about Jahaj Jung?’

‘Yes, yes, wait,’ said Sandeep, looking a little harried. ‘It’s all coming. So listen; in these years, during them, infrequently and unpredictably, Sanjay received letters from Sikander. Sometimes they were brought by soldiers, sometimes by traders, but whenever they came the course of Sanjay’s life was broken, and he was cast always into a sort of panic, his own life suddenly seemed strange to him. The first letter, for instance, came just after his first collection of poetry was published, and because of the letter Sanjay felt strangely lonely at his own celebrations, and looked at his poetry, thinking how odd it was, words on a page, so fragile and artificial, black on white.’

‘But what did the letter say?’

‘So, listen,’ said Sandeep. ‘Listen…’

This was the letter.

My brother,

I observed long ago your reluctance to put pen to paper in pursuit of anything other than poetry, and so am reluctant to send you anything in the epistolary mode: how exacting must be the standards of one who refuses to use words in anything but song! But I am resolved unshakably not to be parted from my childhood, and will cling to you despite all fear and all disapproval, therefore I will pen something, however poor and undeserving of praise. So, begging excuse for the roughness of a soldier’s language, indulgence for the blunt-facedness of a man of hands, forgiveness for natural clumsiness, I plunge now headlong into the customary opening: With the fervent hope this letter finds you in happiness, best of health, etc., etc.

What shall I tell you? I am not wise in narrative, and the actuality of a soldiering life is full of trivia, endless details, long waits, boredom; but I shall attempt to tell you. I will cut away all the baggage, and hope that what I give you will entertain. Now attend: I left you with grief, I was full of grief, these separations are too final, feel like dividings and tearings; then I felt for the first time mortality, felt for the first time that life is not endless. Did we believe that once, together? I left, and came safely to Calcutta; here I contrived to be discovered in a bazaar by a servant of Colonel Burns (my godfather, you may remember): I was taken back to his house, and thence to tears, sisterly recriminations (they remembered you), hasty messages to my father, you may imagine it all. I bore it all patiently, and when things calmed a little, I was finally asked, well, since you refuse to be a printer, what would you like to do? I said only, I will go for a soldier, and this occasioned another barrage of tears, dissuasions and the like, coming finally to the objection, the British will have no use for you, a country-born. Well, I said, quietly, I will serve the Marathas; again, refusals and arguments, but I stuck it out and after all I had my way, a letter of introduction to de Boigne was procured and I was off.