Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Where’s that Ganesha?’ said Hanuman, stretched out lazily on one of the rafters, scratching his belly.

‘Supervising in the kitchen,’ Yama said. ‘Something special, I expect.’

It was something special, all right, but nothing unusual. Rather ordinary, actually. I knew because I had asked for it. I jumped up, motioned to the others to keep eating, and went behind the house, where under the peepul trees three halwais had been cooking non-stop since the early morning. Beside each of the three huge karhais were baskets piled high with glistening, golden but quite ordinary bundi-ka-laddoos.

‘Took a while, but they’re doing it correctly now,’ Ganesha said. The three halwais had red faces and sweaty elbows. They had grown testy at first with Ganesha’s instructions, passed to them by me on notes. But now they were staring pridefully at the perfect laddoos. ‘A good laddoo,’ Ganesha said, ‘is not a simple thing.’

So we called everybody out of the house, and I sat by the baskets and handed them all their laddoos. They queued for them in a long snaking line and I gave to them all.

Then Abhay and Saira came and stood in front of me, their laddoos cupped uneaten in their palms.

‘Where’s yours?’ Saira said.

I took one. Hanuman sat on the wall, Ganesha beside me, and Yama leaned against the peepul tree.

‘To life,’ Abhay said, raising his laddoo.

‘And to death,’ I mouthed, raising mine, but I don’t know if he understood me.

And then we ate our laddoos, watched over by the gods.

Afterwards we sent the leftover laddoos out to be distributed on the maidan. I sat on the roof and watched the sun set over the city, and the jostling crowd below. I could see them all eating, the leafy platters of laddoos passing from hand to hand. I could see all their faces, eager and laughing in that golden light. The birds swirled madly overhead, rising and dipping in dark waves. There was the sound of music from all directions, and under it all, the murmur of voices, as deep and endless as the sea.

‘It’s time to start,’ Abhay said.

I nodded, and started towards the staircase, and then suddenly I grew dizzy and had to sit down again.

‘What’s wrong?’ Abhay said.

I shut my eyes, opened them, and wrote: I am very tired.

He squatted beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Perhaps we could take a break today, a holiday from telling.’

No. Not now. I don’t have time. There’s not much left.

‘I’m sure the judges will let you off for this evening. Considering the circumstances.’

No, that’s not what I mean. Stories change you as you tell them, this story could go on forever but I’m no longer frightened of silence. I have told you of how I defeated death. But Yama is no longer my enemy. I must continue, not to keep his noose away but simply to finish. We are almost finished, and we must finish so we can start again. Let’s finish. Hurry. I’m tired. I’m alive but my strength is almost gone. Let me tell while I can. Listen…

WHEN SANJAY AND SUNIL CAME OFF THE MOUNTAIN, the snows were melting and the rivers crashed along the gorges with a leaping carelessness. Sometimes the whole side of a cliff would tremble and shear away into the boiling water, leaving a brown dust sliding across the surface. Sanjay walked quickly down the slopes, eager for the coming encounter with a new world, but Sunil hung back, wary, it seemed, of a time in which they were suddenly old men. Their lives were gone, vanished, and Sunil told him of everything that had gone over the years: his shining son was dead, faded and silent; his parents were dead, of disappointment and loneliness; the Begum Sumroo was dead, of peaceful old age and a wish for rest after a life too rich to be called happy; Sorkar and Chottun and Kokhun were dead, Sorkar of a fever which left him deliriously and happily speaking a tongue which nobody at his village bedside understood; the Reverend Sarthey and Markline were dead, Sarthey in his sleep with a contented smile on his face, Markline after a bursting vessel jetted blood through his nostrils and flung him about on the floor of a castle in Scotland; Sanjay’s two teachers of poetry were dead, both the Pandit and the Englishman killed by heartbreak when Hart was exiled as an undesirable from Lucknow by the English resident; they were all dead.

‘It is incredible to me that death takes us all,’ said Sunil. ‘Really it finishes all of us. I never really understood that. But we are strange and alive.’

But Sanjay walked even more strongly, hearing this chant of death; he laughed at the trees fighting vainly against the wind and the cutting water, at the birds and their tip-headed looks of terror and their constant struggle. He laughed, and he felt completely alone and invincible. He felt purpose and velocity, like an arrow almost at its target.

In Delhi Sanjay sat in Chandni Chowk, and a crowd gathered around him, staring quietly. He was now used to this, it had happened in every village and at every well. They stopped to look at his white skin, which despite all the walking took no sun, at his black eyes, at the certainty which sat on him like a venomous cloud. He does not speak, they whispered to each other. But he had a seriousness which was extraordinary enough, especially as he sat in the bazaar street and watched the English drive by. A carriage came past, full of holiday cheer and picnic baskets, going gaily towards the Red Fort. A few minutes later another rolled by, and this time Sanjay rose and walked after it, the crowd after him. They stopped in front of the Fort. The carriage had gone in through the gate, and now Sanjay looked around for Sunil. But Sunil had anticipated, and was already in conversation with a Marwari bania, a well-dressed man wearing a gold-lined turban and a fine kurta; he held a perfumed kerchief to his lips as he spoke.

‘Where are they going?’ said Sunil.

‘They are going to look at the emperor,’ the bania said.

‘You mean they are going for an audience with the emperor?’

‘No, they are going to look at the emperor.’

‘Look?’

‘Yes. They walk in, they go to the private apartments. He sits on an ordinary chair. They walk in and look at him, emperor of Hindustan. They smile. He nods at them. They do not bow because they are English. I think he tries to write poetry. They remark upon the ragged state of the curtains, the meanness of his robe. He is called the Emperor of Hindustan but his writ runs not even in his own city’ He paused. The Emperor of Hindustan is a tourist attraction. The Emperor of Hindustan is also a fine poet.’ He laughed.

The bania turned to look at Sanjay before he walked away, and Sanjay recognized with surprise a resolution equal to his own, and understood then that all the cuts he had taken in the cave were matched and even bested by the daily insults that others had felt outside. Another carriage passed, and an English lady peered out at Sanjay through a pair of lorgnettes, and Sanjay knew what she would tell at home: an almost naked, pale man with white hair and wild eyes, my dear, a holy man! Sanjay spat after the carriage, and the crowd murmured, grinning, and the guards at the gate of the Fort, leaning on their spears, laughed quietly. Sanjay took a piece of paper from Sunil and wrote.

Sunil held up his hand for silence. He pointed at Sanjay: ‘Hear: everything will become red. Everything will become red.’

Sikander and Chotta were still alive. They were famous, and they lived in adjoining houses, mansions, off Chandni Chowk; they were renowned, and there were tales of their exploits. They and their regiment had tamed the country around Delhi, had made it safe for the people. As they had made it safe they had mastered it for their masters the English; and so the yellow horsemen were feared for their speed and their suddenness. Sanjay heard all these stories as he walked to the houses, and it was as if all the dreams of their childhood had somehow become true, and had become bitter in becoming real. As he knew they would, the houses had gardens that backed up against each other, and between the gardens was a high wall, worn down in one place where someone climbed over often. Sanjay stood below looking at the smoothness where the stone had been rubbed black, and as he turned it all seemed so familiar that he looked around for a huge knot, a ball of entanglement beyond unravelling. But there was no knot, and no stories being told under the mango tree, and so he sat and waited.