Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

I AM SITTING in a church. The roof curves high above, and the light is clear, the names — Indian and English — of men gleam from the walls in gold. This is the St. James Church in Delhi. It is very quiet, and the rush of the cars and trucks on the road outside is stilled. In front of the altar, even with the ground, is a great stone slab, marked:

HERE REST THE

REMAINS OF THE LATE

COLONEL JAMES SKINNER C.B.

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE,

AT HANSI

4th DECEMBER 1841

THE BODY WAS DISINTERRED,

REMOVED FROM HANSI AND BURIED UNDER

THIS ON THE 19th JANUARY 1842

I don’t know why they moved him. When I walk around the church, on the wall I find the reason.

THIS CHURCH WAS ERECTED AT THE

SOLE EXPENSE OF THE LATE

COLONEL JAMES SKINNER C.B.

IN FULFILMENT OF A VOW

MADE WHILE LYING WOUNDED

ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

OF THE MEMORY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE

AND IS TESTIMONY

OF HIS SINCERE FAITH IN THE TRUTH

OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

I say to Sikander, my name is Abhay, I knew someone who knew you, and I ask, where are your mosque and your temple, but he cannot reply from under his stone. I try to pray, but I cannot, and I walk outside into the bright sunlight. I don’t know why I came, to this church, to this place, but somehow I had to come, to greet what lies buried there and everywhere. I am also asking for help, I suppose, because my friend Saira is wounded and near death.

When I had finished telling my story of returning from foreign lands, the noise was rising outside. There were shouts and calls, loud arguments, the frightening roar of crowds, of conflict. Since then I have tried to find out what the fight was about, and I have discovered that there were dozens of factions, a hundred ideologies, all struggling with each other, there were politics old and deep, alliances and betrayals, defeats and triumphs, revenge and friendship, the old story, you’ve heard it before, but there was one new thing, one new idea that overwhelmed everything else, and this was simply that there should be only one idea, one voice, one thing, one, one, one. So as I finished my story, and as Sanjay lay with his head in Yama’s lap, a fight broke out, we heard the clamour from inside. Saira was holding Sanjay’s hand, and when it began he started, a look of pain on his face, and without a pause Saira leapt off the bed and ran outside. I sprinted after her but she was fast, and not hesitating she ran into the roiling crowd, amongst the men and women pushing and beating at each other, and she called, ‘Stop! Stop it. Stop it right now’ There was a light about her, an energy that stilled those who saw her, and as she ran into the middle of the maidan the crowd cleared around her and I think she would have succeeded, she would have stopped it all, but dropping out of the sky there was already a black point, a singularity, a bomb. Nobody knows whose it was, what party affiliations it had, whether it believed in this or that, but it came down, perfect and sleek and technologically advanced and clicking, and when it burst it did what no one has been able to do ever, it stilled every voice and its roar became the owner of the world. Saira was still running and I don’t believe she ever saw it. It wounded her, only her, it hurt her in ways I can’t bring myself to describe. She is alive but she is wounded.

We took her to hospital, and the good doctors struggled to save her. Finally it was decided that she should be taken to Delhi, to the All-India Medical Institute, and before we left I came back to my house, her blood still on my clothes. I found my father and mother still sitting with Sanjay, whose chest heaved up and down, his eyes were almost closed. He had been waiting, I think, only for news of her. He had said he would not speak again, but when I told him he broke his vow and told me something. I whispered to him, and then he put his hand in mine, and with a trembling, feathery finger he traced the words on my wrist, Help her.

‘How?’ I said.

He said: ‘Tell a story.’

Why, how, my questions were still bursting out when his finger shook one last time on my wrist, and I may have imagined the word that it wrote on my pulse, I cannot be sure, but he said, Brother, and then he died. I held his body, small it was, in my arms and I wept. Then I asked my father, what does one do with the body of this animal? He shook his head. Finally we walked through the dark streets of the town, through the curfew, unseen, and then into the country. We found a river — its name I do not know, I could not find it again — and I lowered Sanjay into the water, and the steady current beating against my thighs carried him away quietly.

I am now in the hospital room, watching Saira. My parents and hers keep anxious vigil, and the serious young doctors of the Institute are fighting hard to save her. I trust them, and I like them, but I remember what Sanjay told me, and I know there is more to be done. Her little face is framed by bandages, and her hands lie still on top of the sheets. I tell my elders that I will be back, and then I walk out, out of the room and out of the building, into the street. There are people walking about the gates, cars and scooters passing by. I take a deep breath. I am mad, perhaps I will be arrested. Will I wander barefoot in the streets of Delhi, will you exile me from this city I love? Will you listen to me? Will you stone me, will you imprison me? I cannot care, I must tell a story. Listen. I am about to tell a story. I will tell you about wives, and good doctors, soldiers, poets, tribesmen, loafers and goondas, untrustworthy characters, loan-takers, dashing pilots, fast horses, card-players, socialites, actresses, politicians, I will tell you about underground deals, black money, great loves, cross-country runs, farmers and their crops, fisheries and city councils, religious leaders and, of course, cavalrymen. I will tell you a story that will grow like a lotus vine, that will twist in on itself and expand ceaselessly, till all of you are a part of it, and the gods come to listen, till we are all talking in a musical hubbub that contains the past, every moment of the present, and all the future. And the great music of that primeval sound will reach Saira’s ears, and she will rise from her bed, she will shake off her bandages and she will jump down to stand with her hands on her hips, and she will say, laughing, what’s the matter, yaar, why so long-face, want to play a game of cricket? And we will all walk to the maidan holding hands, and as we walk you and I will look from side to side and we will see them all, we will see that everyone is there, all our fathers and mothers and their enemies, all together now, and in the crowd a bottomless basket of laddoos will pass around, and we will all eat our fill. We will play till the sun sets, feeling fine and free and running about. Then we will sit in circles and circles, saying, bless us, Ganesha; be with us, friend Hanuman; Yama, you old fraud, you can listen if you want; and saying this we will start all over again.

FOR KIND WORDS, help, and inspiration, my thanks to Yogi Jain; Gilbert Bose; Roshna and Sudha Kapadia; Robert Mezey; Martha Andresen; Steve Erickson; Brad Dourif; Wendy James, friend and patron of the arts; John Barth; Donald Barthelme; Lynn Nesbit; Eric Simonoff; Alexis Quinlan; David Harvey; Amy Storrow; Leslie Richardson; David Davidar; Nicholas Pearson; Jordan Pavlin; Margo True, who made it possible, for whom each page was written; and my sisters, Tanuja and Anupama.

Greeted with thunderous critical acclaim throughout the world, Vikram Chandra’s extraordinary first novel brings to life the epic sweep of India’s history — and a memorable road trip across modern America.