Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

A door clicked behind them and they were in a garden surrounded by tall brick walls. Their rescuer motioned them away from the door and deeper into the garden — it was the singing boy from the bazaar. He was about their age, but with a prematurely balding, round head that sat on his shoulders like a smooth ball; he smiled at them and walked backwards, shaking his head as if at some great joke. When they were out of sight of the wall, deep amongst green peepuls and mango trees, he squatted down by a fountain, snapping the thread that ran over his shoulder and around his body.

‘So what was it?’ he said. ‘What did you do?’

‘Took some food,’ Sanjay said. The branches above were thick and intertwined, so that despite the afternoon sun it was dark under the trees, and his skin was suddenly cool from the sweat drying off.

‘When I saw you in the morning I knew it was a matter of time. Where are you from? Listen, this is Lucknow, there is no need to take like that, Lucknow will give you what you want. Don’t believe? Ask. What did you come here to be? I came here to be a cook, and I am already an apprentice at a halwai’s, and soon I’ll be a regular understudy to a great chef. So say — what do you want to do?’

‘Soldier,’ Sikander said. ‘I want to be a soldier.’

‘I don’t want to be anything,’ Sanjay said, leaning over to the side and curling up on the soft grass. ‘Nothing at all.’ He could feel the mud under the grass, damp and fresh-smelling.

‘Listen,’ Sikander said. ‘Can we get something to eat?’

‘My name’s Sunil. Surely’

‘You stay here, Sanjay,’ Sikander said.

Sanjay heard them walking away, and then there was only the occasional rustle of wind through the leaves, a regular cheeping as he sank gratefully into a deep sleep. When he woke somebody was shaking him, and the swaying trees above stretched fantastically high and curved to a dark violet sky, as if he was under water; he fought against the motion, trying to retreat into the calm emptiness, heard a voice saying Sanju what do you want to be, but resisted, and then his stomach knotted and a painful rush of saliva jerked him awake, because there was the hot smell of food, promising satisfaction. He sat up dizzily, and the black shapes of the trees loomed towards him and then away, and again there was the question what do you want to be, and for a moment he didn’t know where he was or who.

‘Poet,’ he said automatically, and began to eat, scooping up scalding handfuls of rice and dal from the plantain-leaf wrappers. The food smeared over his face and dropped onto his chest, and once he put in such a large handful that he choked and struggled, but finally with a violent convolution got it all down. He ate and ate, until it was all gone; at the fountain he drank with his head lowered to the water like an animal. Finally he stopped and looked up at the sky, at the terrible distances and size of the clouds and the strange, alien shapes of the trees against them. ‘Poet,’ he said helplessly.

‘You’ve come to the right place to be a poet,’ Sunil said.

‘Yes,’ said Sikander excitedly. ‘Listen, Sanjay, you’ll never know who I saw. We went from shop to shop, talking to people that Sunil here knows, getting a little bit of food here and there, and then we went round to the back of the great houses, and Sunil talked to cooks and maids, and we were coming around the corner of one of these houses, and I saw a man on a horse, riding away from us. There was something about him, about the way he held his back, the throw of his head, so I pulled Sunil back around the wall, and peered out carefully, and you know who it was?’

Sanjay shook his head.

‘As soon as I looked,’ said Sikander, ‘he knew he was being watched. He held back the horse, then turned him slowly, shading his eyes with his hand, and so I flung my head back and held myself close to the wall.’

‘It was Uday,’ said Sanjay.

‘Himself. I knew if we stayed a moment longer he would find us, and finding us I don’t know what he would do, take us back or not, so I drew Sunil away. He serves a great lady in that house, Sunil says. What do you think?’

‘Stay away from him,’ Sanjay said. ‘He’ll make us go back.’

‘What to do then?’

‘Stay here,’ said Sanjay. After the food he was quite content to remain in the grove, and it seemed to him a fine situation, to write poetry in a clump of trees; Lucknow outside, with all its blandishments, was preferable at a distance, where its slight imperfections, its puzzling deviations from symmetry and elegance were diffused and hidden. But its food was good, and he said so to Sunil, who instantly started to tell tales of famous cooks and large-hearted gourmands:

Once (said Sunil) there was a cook named Mashooq Ali, who was famous for his mastery of food-disguise, and the tales of his prowess reached the renowned connoisseur Ajwad Raza. Ajwad Raza made a boast, in front of his friends, that no cook could fool him, and so the delighted young gentlemen set up a contest. On the proclaimed day Ajwad Raza sat down to one of Mashooq Ali’s meals, took a mouthful of rice and was chagrined to discover that each grain was an artfully polished sliver of almond; then Ajwad Raza thought to clear his palate by taking a bite of pomegranate, but the fruit was a confection of sugar, the seeds were pear juice, and the seed-kernels were almonds. And so each thing he ate was something else, until finally he accepted defeat, and said the world had never seen such an artist, and Mashooq Ali said, bowing, Allah is generous and his ways are mysterious.

One other time (said Sunil) there was a wrestler named Abu Khan, a most monstrous being who consumed at one sitting twenty seers of milk, two and a half seers of dried nuts and fruit, six large loaves of bread and — we have it on good authority — an ordinary-sized goat. Of his greed he made a virtue and swaggered with his enormous body through the streets, until becoming annoyed, a certain learned munshi, a Pandit Jayaram, a physician of the body and fancier of pigeons, invited the behemoth to dine. The wrestler sat at the mat, twirling his moustache and rubbing his hands over his chest, and when no food came he snapped at the servants and waxed sarcastic at the munshi’s expense. Then he began to shout, and made as if to leave, but the servants bowed and delayed, saying just another minute, please be patient. By the time the food came the wrestler was sweating freely, and his face was red, and when he lifted the cover off the plate his eyes bulged and he could hardly speak, because on the plate was a single small round ball of rice. So he threw it into his mouth with barely a glance, and called for more, but the servants said, that was all, great man. Abu Khan cursed and started to rise, thinking of where he would go to fill his belly, but suddenly he sat back down as if struck — his stomach was full, and his limbs filled with heaviness, as if he had eaten a granary, and a brood of hens besides. Now the servants brought out sweet savories, and said, here is dessert, maharaj, but Abu Khan could not eat; they brought out sherbet, and wine, but Abu Khan could not drink. Then the munshi appeared in the door-way, with a plate of the rice Abu Khan had consumed, and ate it all, easily and with delight; afterwards he drank some water, and threw the remaining grains of rice to the pigeons that fluttered about him. Abu Khan understood his lesson, and said, truly pride is the downfall of man. And the munshi said, eat not lustfully and indiscriminately, but with knowledge and humbleness, because the heart of a thing is a mystery, and what is big is small, and what is small, indeed, is big.

While Sikander and Sunil searched for food, every day, Sanjay sat in his grove and wrote poetry: he meant his lines to be precise, elegant and steely, but inevitably a touch of Mirism revealed itself, like a faint spice, remembered rather than tasted; after a day of this he gave in and decided to write a love poem full of gentle longing and sadness, but now the words drifted about and finally settled into an edge so hard and keen that it drew blood from his tongue, and the birds shrieked in alarm at the sudden dark burst of bitterness. So when he wanted a feeling as diaphanous as incense smoke, as slowly sliding, what came out instead was: