Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

When he calmed, Ram Mohan carried him to the sacred fire, cradling him against a chest loosened by age, and hurried the priests through the ceremony, finally dropping the seven-stranded loop over his neck and under a shoulder (the Brahmins chanting), saying, ‘Now you enter this world, now the world is yours,’ and Sanjay started at a sudden sputtering blaze of the fire caused by the ghee dropping from the priests’ fingers; through the momentary sparks and the heat-warped air, he saw Chotta and Sikander, faces rapt, sweating slightly, fixed on the flame, on the crumbling of the wood, the complex evolving patterns of ember and blaze (like quick cities seen from afar), calculating, it seemed, the possibilities of demolition by fire: What do the gods eat? What is lost? What is purified?

He shines forth at dawn like the sunlight ,

transmuting the sacrifice in the manner of priests

unfolding their meditations .

Agni, the God who knows well all the generations, visits

the Gods as a messenger, most efficacious .

With this verse, Ram Mohan began his dictation of the Vedas, at first checking Sanjay’s transcription often, but finding, with no little satisfaction, that his scribe demonstrated preternatural accuracy, he concentrated on recalling what he could of the scriptures, scraps from the Rig and the Yajur, fragments from the Sama, a sloka or two from the Katha Upanishad; a word or a phrase from the Vedas would remind him of a verse by Kalidasa, and so, more for the edification of his nephew than the benefit of the Englishman, he would recite a couplet or two about sweeping rain and the elephant-walk of the beloved.

Sanjay, head bent over the palm-leaf, flicking the wrist on his pen-hand, invented elaborate flourishes and ritualistic reachings for ink, curlicued stylistic embellishments to the characters, all to gain time for the faintest chance for reflection, of comprehension: Yajnavalkya? Svetaketu? Who were these young men? Nachiketas? But there was barely time to put down one line before Ram Mohan was ready with the next (with a smile of satisfaction), and at the end of the morning, Sikander and Chotta would appear to hover impatiently, tiring quickly of the verbiage.

The session’s work, however, was not officially over until Sanjay’s end Sikander’s mothers appeared, bringing paan, attar, and other refreshments; then the boys escaped, the brothers supporting Sanjay between them as he tottered along, his balance still shaky, his progress (when alone) often impeded by his tendency to bump into things — in deciphering his double-world, he often made mistakes about placing the phantom image, about deciding what was real and what was not. In their games, he was usually the rich merchant, and they the robbers, or he the powerful but stationary king, and they the dashing cavalrymen; it was on one of these afternoons, the afternoon after Sanjay had transcribed the story of Nachiketas, that he was set to be the guard at a treasury, while they played the adventurers questing for the key. He sat under a tree, in the grove some distance from their homes, next to a nullah where animals knelt and scraped at the dry bed for water; he sat on a mound — which represented the entrance to the underground passage-way, walls encrusted with precious jewels, naga-kings hissing — wishing that his double-vision rendered, as a compensation, widened perspective, instead of two versions of the same visual event placed side-by-side. An ability to see both coming and going, forward and back, would have proved a vital asset in the games with Sikander and Chotta, who moved slowly and silently, floating over the crisp leaves and brittle branches of summer, appearing suddenly to aim a blow at the back of Sanjay’s neck (‘Oy, Sanjay, are you deaf as well as cross-eyed?’ ‘You’d never make a sentry at my father’s regiment, buttons-instead-of-eyes!’).

Sanjay started then, because Sikander and Chotta appeared, unexpectedly, where he could see them; noiseless, as usual, but undoubtedly, plainly visible when a good ten feet off. Sanjay rose to his knees, hands signalling I-see-you, but the others covered the intervening ground in a quick-flash instant (how do they do that?), thrust a forearm each under his shoulders, and lifted him off the ground, into the bushes. He started to struggle, but a warning, painful pinch stilled him, just in time to hear a steady shuffling through the trees, a familiar rhythm to it, attempted stealthiness with an unmistakable clumsiness underneath; a gait is like a man or a woman’s script — attempts at masquerade fail because the disguise is usually so exaggerated, and who can hide that arrogance, that assumption of strength that demands of things to move aside when the foot is put down, that assumes all roads will be smoothened? — it was, of course, Hercules. But Hercules was skulking now, his furtive-ness emphasized by his obvious eagerness, by the haste with which he angled through the bushes. He passed the boys by, and Sanjay saw Sikander and Chotta look curiously at each other, clearly puzzled by the jackal-in-the-bush demeanour of their father. Without a word, a decision was made — they pulled Sanjay to his feet, placed him between them, behind Sikander and in front of Chotta, and began to follow Hercules.

Sanjay had, for as long as he could remember, understood that Sikander and Chotta had somehow learnt the techniques of being invisible (or had they been born with the skill?), but on this day he watched them exercise their art — they placed their feet wide-toed and ball first, quickly and surely, but without suddenness, so that a dry leaf, instead of cracking and crackling, only moved and bent, and obligingly bore the weight. Sometimes Sikander and Chotta seemed to delight in following their quarry so closely that it seemed impossible that he not see them — and he did look back, often, with the quick uptilted nose of a sniffing feline — but when it seemed that he must see them, they froze, and were somehow camouflaged by the shadow and sunlight, the golden grass and earth. Sikander’s right hand, held behind him and below the waist, signalled stops and starts, safety and urgency; they passed from a maidan to a cluster of huts, and here Hercules straightened up, pulled at his lapels, extracted a kerchief and wrapped it, brigand-fashion, around his face, and resumed his usual, stately walk; now Sikander and Chotta modified their strategy — they strolled along, keeping Hercules barely in sight, stopping to look at fruit baskets and chat-seller’s wares.

Sanjay realized, with a quick rush of excitement at having penetrated a forbidden zone, that they were in a settlement of low-caste people; he looked about himself with the eager curiosity of a foreigner, half-expecting and wanting to be shocked, but all around them were the business and affairs of ordinary, familiar life — food, chores, children, animals, the washing of clothes, and perhaps the only extraordinary thing was a difference in the tie of a turban, or a particular way of wearing a dhoti. The presence of three unknown boys seemed to provoke no hostility, but rather a blank, level stare that said precisely nothing; Sanjay was beginning to be disappointed that nothing more strange had happened when Hercules turned left down a lane. The boys turned the corner just in time to see him ducking into a door, and tugging aside a ragged red curtain hanging over the lintel; there were some children playing by the open drain that ran along the side of the lane, pulling a little wooden cart to and fro.

‘If we could get up on the roof,’ Chotta said.

‘Right,’ Sikander said.

Sanjay pawed at Sikander’s arm, shaking his head, but the two brothers were already stepping down the lane, jumping over the cart as it rattled along; they edged over close to the hut, stood with their backs to it, watching the game, and the moment no eyes were turned their way, they dashed off to the rear, pulling Sanjay along. Behind the hut, a cow raised its head to look at them, then swung back down to its feed; Sikander and Chotta found a chink in the mud wall, wedged their feet into it, and pulled themselves up to the thatch above. They reached down for Sanjay.