Cyrus Mistry - Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

‘Didn’t I tell you all,’ said Farokh, ‘I was sure they wouldn’t dare do anything to us. How could they?’

‘Shh. Speak softly,’ cautioned Fali. ‘They’ll hear you inside.’

‘Let them,’ said Farokh. ‘Who’s left inside, anyway?’ Then he explained to me. ‘While we were being made to wait, most of the trustees had finished their business and slunk out by another exit. Only three of the eleven are still inside.’

‘But why didn’t they call you in with us, boss?’ said Rusi, frowning a little. ‘We had already started walking in before we realized you were not among us. .’

I shrugged.

‘Maybe they have something special to say to me.’

‘Anyway,’ interrupted Bomi, ‘they’ve promised there’ll be no salary cuts for these days of suspension.’

‘So long as we are not found sloshed, they warned us,’ elaborated Farokh, ‘or drinking on the job.’

The peon, who had been inside the boardroom all this while now reappeared and read out my name. Inexplicably nervous, I walked in barefoot onto the highly polished slippery wooden floor of the boardroom; I felt as though I were walking on thin air.

A vast room with wood panelling and a huge oval table in the centre.

Farokh was right. Most of the trustees had already left. Only three remained: a heavily-built dowager in a rich, embroidered sari, a dishevelled weasel of a man in a woollen double-breasted suit, and a large, podgy man in a white dugli whom I recognized instantly as the ubiquitous and obese Coyaji, superintendent of gardens. Despite all the empty chairs around the table, of course, I remained standing, and no one asked me to sit. The portly dowager it was who pouted at first, then scowled and enunciated frostily:

‘Well, Mr Elchidana. . As you can see, most of the trustees have already left. We are very busy people, you must understand. But before they left, we discussed your case in some detail. Mr Kavarana, your warden, has given us a full report of the unfortunate incident which all of us see as a serious blot on the community. Quite unprecedented.’

Visibly agitated by her mention of the so-called incident, she paused for breath, closely examining my face and appearance, searching perhaps for signs of remorse. The other two men murmured in sympathetic outrage:

‘Really. Evoo to koi divas bhi joyoo nathi!’

‘Indeed very shocking. A blot on the fair name of our community.’

‘Most of the trustees felt you should be summarily dismissed from service. But, as Chairwoman of the Committee for Welfare of Employees, they have left the final decision to me. Mr Maneck Chichgar,’ she said, indicating the other trustee, seated a chair away from her, ‘President of the Temperance Society of India, is also in favour of taking a more compassionate view of your misdemeanours.’

Now the scruffy-looking man in the suit spoke up in a squeaky, nasal voice:

‘You are very fortunate, young man, that the venerable trustee here, Mrs Aloo Pastakia, has such a kind heart. And both of us have a great regard for your father, the Ervad Framroze Elchidana.’

Suddenly, I remembered the name coming up in conversation between my parents, some reference my father made to Aloo Pastakia being ‘the flatulent old battleaxe’ of the Punchayet. Staring wordlessly at my self-important interlocutors seated pompous and contented in their polished, cushioned chairs — all three screwing up their faces to appear oh-so terribly concerned for me, while at the same time slightly discomfited by the whiff of some unpleasant odour I had brought in — in one corner of my head, I could sense a reckless wave of giggles building up.

For a moment I panicked. I knew it just wouldn’t do to burst into a fit of irrepressible tittering, not here. I was in a difficult position as it is. But what actually took place was quite different.

‘How much your father must have been pained to hear of your shenanigans. This drinking problem with khandhias has to be dealt with firmly. Drinking is sinful. It destroys man,’ whined the weasel from the Temperance Society. ‘We can show you a way to control your habit, oh yes. There is a way. .’ I felt like I was being court-martialled. ‘But it works only if you are ready to give it up completely. And you must follow my method sincerely.’

‘We have let off the others with a strict warning,’ said imperious Aloo Pastakia. ‘But we can hardly do the same with you.’

‘You boys have to learn some discipline. It’s very important,’ said Coyaji, not to be left out.

‘And so, as an exemplary measure, we have decided to put you back on probation for six months.’

‘Probation? But, madam,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve been working at Doongerwaadi for eight years.’

‘So what, eh?’ said Coyaji, brutally. ‘You can work for another eight if you like, but you will have to learn to behave.’

Crestfallen, my protest sounded pathetically feeble and frightened. I barely recognized my own tremulous voice. Nevertheless, I went on.

‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, sir. .madam, but I wasn’t drunk. The sun was too hot — it was sunstroke. On top of that I hadn’t eaten anything all day.’

‘Well, be that as it may, we have to take some corrective steps,’ the Madam replied; but I had a strong feeling none of them had even heard what I’d just said.

‘It’s for your own good, son,’ said Chichghar, the other trustee. ‘And this applies equally to all the other staff as well: consumption of alcohol will not be permitted on the Doongerwaadi premises henceforth. That is the final decision of all the trustees.’

‘As long as there is no other incident of this sort,’ said Aloo Pastakia, closing the file in front of her with an air of finality, ‘you have nothing to worry about, Mr Elchidana.’

Now the giggly impulse had left me completely, of course. Instead, I felt amazed and angry and disgusted; but perhaps, even more, cold and anxious. What would I have done, if the axe had really fallen, and I had been dismissed from service? Gone back to my father’s fire temple, with my three-year-old in tow?

It had been made amply clear to me that my interview was over. There was nothing more I could say or do. Except to turn around and walk out of the room.

The day after of our visit to the Punchayet’s office, I divulged the secret of the grotto to the other khandhias.

At an appointed hour, in the late afternoon of the next day, I led them there, one at a time. It wouldn’t have been wise for a gaggle of khandhias to be seen proceeding into the forest for no known reason. That would certainly have been noticed, and perhaps raised an alarm.

Until that afternoon, the grotto had remained a secret, an exclusive crypt whose existence only Seppy and I had been aware of.

Seppy had been dead these past ten months. This had been our hiding place, our refuge, venue of our first lovemaking: a private and precious bond between us made me loath to betray it to the world. Even after she died, I came here by myself a few times, to try and commune with her in my grief. But the grotto had changed: unexpectedly denuded of its charm and cosiness I found it a cold, unfeeling place permeated with the odour of bat droppings.

I stopped visiting it, but had continued to maintain its privacy as though compelled by the rules of a secret fraternity I had once belonged to: a fraternity of two whose only other member had perished some months ago. . Seppy, I do miss you very much. If only you were still here with me, I wouldn’t be afraid. . Our Farida must never know the insecurity I felt yesterday in that bloody boardroom.