Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Who are all these people?’ said Mrinalini, who had been peering out. ‘They’re not all children, you know’

‘One of them must have told a favourite uncle or something,’ Abhay said, ‘and then of course everyone must have found out.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Mrinalini said. ‘It’s getting packed out there.’

There was a determined knock on the door. Mrinalini opened the door and then stepped back. Saira came in, face tear-stained, her hand firmly clasped by a large, fleshy woman dressed in a green salwarkameez, an older version of Saira herself.

‘Sister,’ she said to Mrinalini, ‘what is this Saira is telling me? She came home so late last night and I said, where were you, but she wouldn’t tell. Again this evening she was ready, very eager to go somewhere, so I said unless she told me…’ Then she saw me, sitting over the typewriter. ‘Oh, Allah, it’s true. A monkey. A typewriter.’

‘She wasn’t going to let me come,’ Saira said, wiping her cheeks with the back of a hand. ‘Mama, this is Sanjay. See, he types.’

Mama was staring at me, eyes bulging, caught half-way between horror and awe. So I typed: ‘Namaste, ji. I am Parasher. Your daughter has helped me in my time of need.’

She backed away, moving her head from side to side.

‘Mrinalini, what is this thing you have in your house?’

‘Zahira,’ Mrinalini said. ‘It’s all right. He’s nothing bad.’

‘How do you know? He could be anything.’

‘Hanuman’s here,’ Saira said. ‘Hanuman the Great.’

‘Sanjay’s done nothing bad yet,’ said Mrinalini.

Zahira looked at both of them, perplexed. I started to type again, but stopped as three loud crashes rang out in the court-yard, one after the other.

‘Mrinalini,’ said Zahira, ‘they’re knocking over your flower-pots.’ Glass crackled and splintered outside. ‘That was your sliding window. Who are these people?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before.’

‘They’re not even from this mohalla. They can’t come into your house and do this. Come.’

Zahira left, followed by Mrinalini, and a moment later we heard Zahira’s voice lash out, and the court-yard fell silent. Smiling, Saira peeked out the door.

‘Saira, you stay in there.’ Saira ducked back in.

‘She’ll have them organized in a minute,’ Saira said.

‘Too neat,’ Yama said. ‘Much too timely’

‘The three crashes,’ Hanuman said, jumping down from his perch and stalking around the room, tail swinging restlessly, ‘the three crashes like three drum-beats rising to a crescendo, completed by the glass breaking, just in time to distract that lady, to make her a participant. Much too neat.’

‘Do you sense a hidden hand?’ Yama said, standing up.

‘A hidden something or other,’ Hanuman said. ‘But where? Where are you hidden, whoever you are?’

‘Who?’ I said. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Someone who wants a story told,’ Yama said.

‘Someone who is bound to monkeys,’ Hanuman said, ‘but that’s me, and I’m already here.’

‘Judging by the timing and the rhythm of those crashes,’ Yama said, ‘an aesthete. A protector of poets.’

‘Too vague still,’ Hanuman said, ‘but apply logic; Yama, ratiocinate. I feel something, someone here; look at the hair on the back of my neck. But my blood is rising, like on a hunt; you are the cold one, the icy thinker. Think. You know your own methods; apply them.’

‘A protector of Parasher, and who is Parasher?’ Yama said, sitting down. ‘A sometime singer and poet, a lover, a fomenter of revolutions, a monkey. No. Nothing yet.’

‘Nothing,’ said Hanuman, leaping around the room, his tongue flicking in and out between his hard yellowed teeth. ‘Something, something, I smell something. Why are you so much trouble, Sanjay? Why did you come to this house, singer?’

‘Food,’ I said. ‘I was hungry. You can’t blame me for that.’

‘Food!’ Yama cried. ‘That’s it! You’re a thief, Parasher, a filcher of clothes, a robber, a pilferer, a rifler!’

‘Listen, calm down,’ I said. ‘I was only making a living.’

‘Thieves and poets,’ Hanuman said, ricocheting from the walls, eyes dark, ‘poets and thieves. And who is the fat patron of poets and thieves? All right, you fat snoot-face, where are you? Come on out, broken-tusk!’

There was a scraping behind the wall under the bookshelves, a rubbing of something over brick and wood, and Hanuman leapt at the wall, hand outstretched. His fist punched a hole in the wall (my friends watched the brick shatter, mouths open) and disappeared behind the plaster; for a moment, Hanuman struggled, pulling back, and then a nasal voice said: ‘All right, all right. I’ll come out.’

Hanuman eased away from the wall, and a small mouse backed out of the hole, its tail still gripped by the Wind-son’s fingers. A small figure hopped off the mouse’s back and took a few steps, growing larger with every step. My face curved in a ridiculous smile; I clapped my hands; I burst into laughter.

‘O snoot-face!’ I said. ‘O marvellous excellent fat one!’

Ganesha picked daintily at his shawl with plump fingers, until it lay just so, and his trunk twisted about his head and neck, adjusting the brilliant necklaces of unearthly stones and the crown of gold.

‘Do you have to be so rough, monkey?’ he said. ‘Uncouth.’

Hanuman was scratching the mouse between its ears, and he looked up, laughing. ‘What were you doing skulking inside walls, han?’ Hanuman said.

‘There was a story to be told, and so, naturally, I came. Even though people around here seem to have forgotten who I am.’

‘The remover of obstacles himself,’ Yama growled. ‘So it’s been you all along. Did you interfere with my scribes? Have you been casting spells, making things easy for this monkey-man here?’

‘Who, me?’ said Ganesha, looking innocently at the Death-lord with his sunken elephant eyes. ‘I haven’t done anything at all. I’ve only been here for the last minute or so.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, bowing to the son of Shiva. ‘Thank you.’

‘I did nothing,’ he said, his big grey head inscrutable, the ears flapping gently to and fro. ‘Come, nearly time to start.’

He settled himself on the bed, next to the typewriter. Saira hopped up onto the sheets and sat on the other side of the machine. The door opened, and Zahira and Mrinalini came in. I could hear faint whispers circling the court-yard.

‘I’m not sure about this still,’ Zahira said, putting a protective arm around her daughter.

‘Sister, it’s all right,’ Mrinalini said. ‘My son’s here too.’

‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ Zahira said, looking at Abhay curiously. ‘Well, Allah will protect. But only the children are in the house now; the rest of the crowd is outside, scattered on the maidan, and they want to listen to the story, too. Will you pass papers back and forth, from here to the court-yard, from there to outside? And it will be read here, and then there?’

‘It’ll never work,’ Ashok said. ‘You’re asking for confusion.’

Ganesha nudged me and whispered in my ear, and I typed: ‘Ganesha is here (we seek his blessing in our endeavours to attain wisdom and knowledge).’ I received another nudge, none too gentle, in the ribs (just as Saira squealed, ‘Ganapati baba moriya, Ganesha is here!’), and so I went on: ‘Ganesha asks if you have a stereo speaker and if you do you should put it on the roof, never mind about the wires.’

Instructions were sent out to the willing children for this to be done, while I explained to the rest of my family (I think I can use that word now) what had happened. They looked a little concerned: one god in the house is fine, I could see them thinking, and two is better, but three in a room is a lot of divinity in a very small place, and what if this trend is to continue? Can we expect to see the whole immeasurable pantheon in the near future, the shining hosts? Should we also prepare for visitations from the big hitters themselves (Ashok’s phrase), the heavy dudes (Abhay, edgy) and the boss ladies (Mrinalini, smiling) like Shiva and Parvati and Vishnu and Lakshmi and maybe even Brahma himself? That was a dizzying thought, and who can predict the actions of the mighty (Hanuman shrugged, Yama and Ganesha looked inscrutable), so I made reassuring noises and tried not to look nervous. The story-telling hour was drawing near.