Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer (13 page)

This time, Rustom didn’t get it: he was taken aback.

‘What nonsense! What do you mean by saying such a thing? In twenty-five years, never once have I—’

‘Every evening, in fact, if you’re honest,’ Fali continued with a straight face. ‘Once you’ve downed your quota of navtaank, don’t you feel afloat? Suspended in mid-air?’

‘Now look who’s splitting hairs!’ said Bomi. ‘Charred kettle covets the burnt pot?!’

Our frivolous banter and guffaws soon drew forth a uniformed peon from the inner chamber, holding a stern index finger to his lips: our merriment, restrained as it was, had evidently been seeping through the boardroom’s closed doors.

‘
Arrey, pankha to lagaao, dikra
,’ Rusi said to him, wiping his forehead with a grubby handkerchief. ‘It’s hot in here. And if we have to wait much longer, how about some chai, or something?’

But in the next instant, before the nonplussed peon could decide how to respond to this aside, one of the double doors of the boardroom swung open, and a curiously chastened figure slunk out whom we almost didn’t recognize: Buchia. In freshly laundered white trousers and bush shirt, he smirked at us, first sheepishly; then the half-smile actually widened to a beam. For a moment we stared back, thunderstruck, as though we had encountered a spectre in broad daylight.

‘Ah, so you are all here?’ he said, voice syrupy with bonhomie. ‘Good, good. Don’t worry, boys. Nothing’s going to happen to you. They’ll call you in very soon. Just try to be polite. Unfortunately, I have to rush. To the Sessions Court, where that matter of the encroachment is supposed to come up.’

So saying, he strutted away with a friendly wave.

‘
Don’t worry. . .
?
Nothing’s
g
oing to happen. . .
?
Behnchoad
,’ swore Fali under his breath. ‘All this sly manoeuvring, it’s all
his
—take my word for it. Suspension orders, everything—it’s all at
his
prompting: Buchia at his manipulative best.’

‘What encroachment matter was he talking about?’ asked Rusi.

‘On the Babulnath side,’ replied Boman. ‘On that new plot of land donated by the Dadachandjis—’

‘Where—?’ asked Farokh blankly.

‘Arrey, exactly touching the Albless Bungli, on the west side: some fellows have put up bamboos and a tent. A couple has even moved in with a trunk.’

Just then, the peon came out again, holding a slip of paper from which he read out our names. Not all of them, only four actually. One by one, my mates stood up, as their names were called out, and prepared to walk in. I was the only one left sitting. Assuming some oversight on the peon’s part, I too started up, and made to follow the others. But I was stopped.

‘No, no, you must wait. Only those whose names were called.’

What the hell? I thought, sitting down again as the others shuffled into the inner chamber.

They were not inside for long. Four or five minutes later, when they emerged from the boardroom, relief was writ large on their faces. Bomi, Fali and Farokh were all smiles.

‘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.

Now, of course, the situation was different. Which is why, I felt, it might be safer for us to meet in the grotto. As per the new strictures, none of us could afford to be seen consuming liquor on our verandas or even inside our own homes, for that matter—even while off duty.

Truth to tell, on this particular evening it was I, perhaps more than the others, who felt a great desire to drink and discuss with my colleagues how exactly we should react to the outrageous and insulting conditions imposed on us during that morning’s sham ‘inquiry’; and moreover, how we were going to draw the trustees’ attention to our own vital concerns about working conditions— which had not been addressed at all, or offered even a cursory hearing.

We sat on the rock floor. Fortunately, the effusion of water from the niche among the rocks had stopped. Perhaps it still oozed during the monsoon, but for now the floor was dry. The smell of bats was everywhere, though not as overpowering as I remembered it.

By the time all of us had climbed into the cave and settled down, it was already quite dark inside. I lit both the candles that I had remembered to bring along. Then we passed the bottle around, taking our first draughts of the liquor in almost total silence, in an uneasy, flickering twilight.

I had poorly estimated the capacity of my mates to be cowed by intimidation. There was much resentment about the events of the previous morning. I had frequently to remind them to keep their voices down.

‘I mean this whole business of suspension orders, then trustees’ inquiry, and all,’ growled Fali, ‘it was all calculated to slap this ban on drinking!’

‘Are we children or what,’ huffed Rustom, angrily, ‘that they should tell us how to spend our spare time?’