Cyrus Mistry - Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

Another thunderclap and he moves away from the well. But I want to stay on: I twist my body in his fixed grasp, turning towards the sight we are walking away from.

‘What is it you want, Phiroze?’ asks Father. ‘All those sparkling jewels?’

All around the well are dozens of small tables with rows and rows of oil lamps, neatly arranged in tiny glasses. Most of the wicks are lit, their flames dancing in the draughty anteroom.

This is deemed a holy well. There could be hundreds or thousands of lamps here — the light-and-fog halo of each dazzled my infant eyes, merging all into a magical chiaroscuro.

Each oil lamp lit by a devotee, I later learned, represented an offering of thanksgiving, or a prayer of supplication, towards the cost of which, he or she was meant to slip a one paisa copper coin into the black slot of a large metal box placed on a table nearby. At the end of every month, Father would open this box with the large key suspended from the nail above it. When I was old enough, he enlisted my help in counting the total offerings. All of it, I was told, went to charity.

But right now, Father isn’t interested in lingering by the sparkling lights around the well. Plodding along lazily in his soft velvet slippers, he carries me into the cool marble-tiled main hall, where huge framed portraits of Zarathustra and all the saints brood on the periphery of the sanctum sanctorum.

Standing outside this dark chamber with its enormous gleaming fire vase, he whispers in my ear:

‘Look Phiroze, look there ,’ directing my gaze at an enfeebled but still penetrating fire, ‘ Khodaiji . .’

After he has had his tea and said his prayers, I know that Father will enter this chamber, clean the excess ash and extinguished embers, stoke the fire and feed it with sandalwood and frankincense. Then, when it’s blazing again, he’ll pull the rope several times, softly ringing the bell suspended from the high ceiling.

But before any of this can happen, the silence of the temple is suddenly shattered by an unholy clatter. So deep, perhaps, is my father’s own absorption in the palpating symbol of God he has just pointed out to me — or perhaps so bemused after the nap he hasn’t completely woken up from — that he jumps out of his skin at the loud report. The reverberating crash runs on for a while before dinning to a slow halt and I, too, experience the prickle of my father’s momentary gooseflesh. I cling tighter, sinking deeper into the comforting largeness of his body. But Father has had a real start, and his voice cracks with anger and alarm as he yells in a wild and intemperate manner:

‘Eh Mehernosh! Bomi! Mackie! Who’s there? Who’s on duty? Making such a racket at sunset? Any sense? Show yourselves!’

But no one appears, and Father decides to ignore this non-compliance.

‘Wash all those platters clean. I insist — every one of them again. And wipe them thoroughly with a clean cloth. I tell you, is there any sense in this? And at this, the hour of lighting lamps?!’ he mutters, as we head back towards his after-nap cup of tea.

Father is still trembling with anger, such has been the shock for him of that sudden clatter of silver trays on marble floor. But collecting himself, he whispers to me, almost conspiratorially,

‘Clumsy oafs. Unless I yell at them, they’ll never learn.’

I can tell he is trying to repair the nervous trauma he was afraid he might have caused by yelling so violently in my ear. For that one moment, he forgot he was carrying a very small boy in his arms.

All through childhood, I don’t remember ever being afraid of Father. If I think back, childhood was a piously happy time that flowered under his protective shelter and gentle authority. An awkwardly built, lumbering man he was powerful in most ways, but always very kind and considerate. I remember his boisterous laughter ringing through the tranquil temple in the evening, when he was amused by something I said or did, or some harmless prank played by Vispy and me, or our shenanigans with one of the pets. But that laughter was to dry up even before Mother died.

Somehow, over time, it congealed into a grim religiosity, a credulously ‘scientific’ approach to spirituality. Of course, I also remember innumerable occasions when my mother complained of his selfishness, but I never really learnt what exactly she meant by that.

Years later, when I was a grown boy, the distance between my father and me widened. Still later, it became a breach, impossible to ford. The playful whimsicality was all gone, scorched by an unbending sense of propriety and piety. I was to learn then, that his anger could be frighteningly implacable, merciless. But I am moving ahead too fast. .

When my father was appointed head priest of the small fire temple on Forjett Hill Road, only my elder brother, Vispy, had been born. Just when my parents had resignedly accepted that God had no more children in store for them, my mother discovered to her delight that she was pregnant again.

The great joy of this occurrence was enhanced by their belief that this second child, conceived nine whole years after the first, and so soon after they had moved into the residential quarters of the temple, could not but be a blessing bestowed on them by the departed and saintly Eruch Kookadaroo, the previous head priest of the temple. While he was still incumbent, Eruchsah always had a great fondness for my father; from his sickbed, he prevailed upon the temple trustees to offer him the post. When I was born, a few months later, on what turned out to be a highly auspicious day of the Zoroastrian calendar, my father read much meaning in my advent into this world. Though Framroze kept his presumptions to himself, and may have shared them on occasion only with my mother, the truth was that in his daydreams he was nurturing great hopes for me, for what I would grow up to become one day.

Small in size and of inconspicuous location my father’s temple may have been, but it was nonetheless venerable for its antiquity, and touching for the loyalty of its devotees, some of whom visited it faithfully every single day of the year.

As I grew up, I never stopped hearing stories of the long lineage of spiritual masters associated with the temple, powerfully endowed priests whose generous blessings flowed to all who prayed before its holy fire. How else could one explain countless, legendary accounts of the miraculous restitution to the righteous of what was always theirs, of near-fatal illnesses vanquished and glowing health regained, of the miscarriage of innumerable wicked schemes which the innocent found themselves inveigled into, eventually emerging triumphant — in short, of the assured fulfilment of every earnest prayer beseeched for on bended knees at the doorway of the temple’s sanctum sanctorum. For seventeen years, this temple was my beloved home, and stories of the miracles of faith my oxygen.

By the time I was born, Vispy was already a school-going child attending a reputed English-medium institution near Flora Fountain. He was a bright boy. His performance at school gave no cause for complaint to his teachers; moreover, increasingly, it became reason for praise and prizes. When I was enrolled in the same institution, Vispy had already reached his penultimate year at school. Given the vast age difference between us, it was natural that we had little in common by way of shared pastimes, or even a strong fraternal bond.

However, of the few activities which we sometimes jointly participated in, none gave us so much mirthful pleasure as feeding the family pets. As I grew in years and Vispy became busier with his school studies, I insisted — and mother acquiesced, albeit uneasily — on taking over this responsibility single-handedly.