Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer (20 page)

It was here, in fact, born out of sheer frustration, that the realization came to me for the first time, dark and comfortless: how inhuman and cold Nature could be, how alien to man. I hugged Farida tightly and said to her, rather firmly, ‘We have to go back now. . .’

The way back to our quarters, downhill, was that much easier to cover. But it had begun to rain, quite heavily. Though we got back in practically no time, Farida and I were both pretty wet by the time we reached Temoo’s portico. He was standing in the doorway, framed by shadowy lamp-light from the room behind, looking worried and rather haggard.

‘Where did you go?’

His voice was quavering with fright, or perhaps it was anger.

‘Thank God you’re back. So worried I was. Don’t take my baby out roaming so late. . .’ Handing her a towel, he said, ‘Wipe your hair, first. . .I even climbed up to the kennels, thinking you might be there with Nancy and Tiger. . .’

Those names Farida had chosen herself, when she was only four, for a pair of dogs Buchia adopted after Moti died. Farida liked to think of them as her own pets, as Moti, and before her, Jehanbux, had been her mother’s.

When she had changed into something dry, Temoo took the towel from Farida’s hand, and asked, in a kind voice:

‘
Bhookh lageech, dikra
?’

Farida nodded dumbly.

‘Come. . .the food is hot.’

‘Ask her,’ I said in my defence at last, ‘she didn’t want to turn back even until just ten minutes ago.’

‘Never mind, never mind,’ said Temoo, more conciliatorily, as we took our places at his table. ‘Wash your hands first, baby. Come Phiroze. Some potato-gravy and bread.’

Whenever he felt up to it, which was pretty often, Temoo cooked a meal for my daughter and me.

‘What do I have to do the whole day?’ he would say, ‘Cooking helps me pass the time.’

But that cloying protectiveness he felt he owed my little one was the price I had to pay for such familial comforts.

Nevertheless, she
was
his granddaughter. And the sudden loss of Sepideh had been traumatic for him, too.

He was alone at home when she got bitten, and Seppy compounded his panic when she told him she believed it was a cobra that had stung her. He was frantic. In those days anti-venin serum was not available, even though I heard some months later that the Haffkine Institute at Parel had begun producing a very limited quantity. God knows if they had had any in stock at the time Seppy needed it. But in such emergencies, most people would resort to the services of witch doctors and shamans. To Temoo’s credit, during my absence, he actually went out and found one, who claimed to be able to cure even the most poisonous of snakebites. And if it
was
a cobra that bit Seppy, it is remarkable that his unusual methods succeeded in prolonging her life for up to ten hours.

When I came home at a half past three that afternoon, I was astonished to see a wild-looking faqeer, with thick matted hair, a long, dusty beard, and ugly, misshapen teeth, in Temoo’s front room. His mouth was red with betel juice, his eyes bloodshot. He was chanting some peculiarly tuneless refrain in a low voice, while moving his feet in a shuffling sort of step-dance he was performing around a small clay pot of milk that was placed on the floor. Around the pot of milk, in red chalk, some spells, symbols, had been inscribed in an unknown algebra. Some of my neighbours were gathered on the veranda, grimly unresponsive to my salutations; and of course, Temoo, inside, who burst into tears as soon as he saw me. He could not bring himself to mouth anything articulate or comprehensible, but instead gestured to me to go on inside.

On Temoo’s cot lay my dear Sepideh. Her foot had turned purple, presumably on account of the ferocious coir-rope tourniquet fastened above her ankle, but also because of a blend of yellow, green and several other colourful powders which her wound had been liberally plastered with. As soon as I uttered her name, she opened her eyes and smiled at me.

‘Thank God you’re back. . .’ she whispered. I held her face tenderly between my hands. But I saw that her sense of relief at my homecoming was shadowed by a vast sadness in her eyes: a reluctant resignation to the fact that our great romance was perhaps drawing to a close. It was now my turn to dissolve into tears, and I had to bite my lower lip hard to keep from sobbing aloud.

‘Seppy, my darling, don’t worry, please. You
will
become completely well again, my love. Don’t you worry.’

But even to my own ears, my confidence sounded hollow and credulous. Perhaps I imagined it, but Seppy responded with a very slight movement of her head that disavowed my reassurances. As yet, the paralytic effect of the cobra venom had spread no further than her leg.

Temoo had now collected himself and began to explain to me what was going on. He said that the disreputable-looking faqeer in fact had a formidable reputation in these matters; that his incantations and dance steps were meant to placate the serpent deity, so that after it ceased to be angry with Seppy for stepping on it, the very same cobra would appear again at Seppy’s convalescent bed; and with a second bite draw out the venom from her body; following which, he or she would spew the poison into the bowl of milk, thus neutralizing its effects; then Seppy would definitely recover and return to normal health.

My heart sank when I heard this. I was horrified that Temoo had actually been persuaded to believe this cock and bull story, that it could be the likely, or even possible, outcome of his daughter’s traumatic injury.

‘There’s still hope, son,’ he said. ‘Something told me I should trust this wild faqeer. He definitely has some powers. . . Don’t give up hope, Phiroze. . .the snake will definitely reappear when it’s dark. . .that’s what he swears. . .’

Hope, that palliative of every human suffering: in desperation, we cling to the flimsiest of straws. My own mind raced back to the fire temple, my father’s temple, and my father’s god whom I had, if not rejected, at least shown scant reverence for. He was in all probability a far more powerful god than this faqeer’s.

My mind recalled in quick succession all the marvellous stories I had heard in childhood of the miracles wrought by faith—of the ten-year-old polio-afflicted boy who had lost the use of his legs but who, after a twenty-minute spell of complete devotion, his forehead pressed to the threshold of the sanctum sanctorum, got up without any help and started walking away not realizing himself he had been cured; of the poor widow with six children facing starvation who found a small pouch of priceless jewels in her own backyard; of the old woman reunited with her long estranged, hate-filled son. . . I wanted to go back to the temple and prostrate myself at the marble doorstep of the sanctorum—if that might save Seppy’s life; I was almost certain it would. But then I remembered: even just to set foot under the temple’s porch, I would first need to undergo a nine-day retreat of cleansing and self-purification. I wasn’t sure that Seppy would last nine hours.

At 6 p.m., while there was still light—and for that reason, according to the faqeer, the snake could not revisit her—the cobra venom had spread to her diaphragm muscles, rendering them feeble and ineffectual; and soon after, to her lungs; at six-thirty, she breathed her last. Both Farida and I were at her side—a quietly sobbing Temoo as well—when Sepideh passed away.

So much for the miracles of faith.

When I moved out of home some twenty-six years ago I brought
along a half-dozen, half-used school notebooks. Now mildewed, and inhabited by shoals of silverfish, are they the reason for my compulsive scribbling
?

The years have gone by in a flash: such occasional note-taking as I do helps harness time, or so I imagine; lends a slightly firmer skeleton to the galactic emptiness of my life. . .and makes me feel more composed
.

Perhaps life is like that: slippery, elusive, impossible to get a hold on. The difference between this moment and the next is only one of awareness. . . Yet we drift from morn till night, from day through week through months and years distracted, inattentive, and completely unprepared for the ambush—the moment of our inevitable extinction
.

How can I deny death its unfair advantage of surprise? So that finally, when it does arrive, I am awake and aware, observant and unastonished
!

Ah! But to what avail, you ask? Is there something awaiting us in the beyond? Some new landscape we’ll be spirited to: Elysian fields, blue skies; or perhaps smoking sulphuric pits, rivers of lava? On the other hand, it could be mere vanity that makes one crave such an advantage over death. That prompts the immense certitude we all share through our years of being alive that the innermost being doesn’t dematerialize in an instant; nor all the years of one’s lived life simply wash away like so much flotsam on the tides of time
. . .

Limp as a stuffed puppet, the lifeless body stiffens very quickly; and then it’s a real pain to wash and dress, to wind and knot the kusti around its insensible stump of a torso. There have been moments when, alone with a corpse at dead of night, I have been seized with a tremendous urge to slap its face hard as I could. Never did give in to such barbaric impulses: too cowardly, tasteless, and somehow, definitely profane. Yet the desire to provoke a reaction from the dead remains for me, I’ll confess, compelling
.

Because, if the dead are really and truly dead, null and void, snuffed out without a trace—then everything we grow up believing in is a lie. All religion, theology, my father’s life and beliefs and prayers, the pumped-up ‘power of faith’—everything is simply wishful fantasy
.

(i)

Farida, my daughter, is nineteen already. Next year will be her final year at the Punchayet-run school she attends, if all goes well. But like me, she too is disinclined to prepare for her matriculation.

‘Even if I put in all that hard work,’ she says, ‘I’m afraid I won’t pass. How terrible I would feel. . . And you, too, Daddy, you would be angry with me, no?’

I suspect the real reason she feels this way is because her mind is already on the boys, on marriage and babies. Some new recruits have been added to our corps, and one of them, Khushro, is rather good-looking. Spotted Farida with him once, rambling in the woods. She’s still too young for marriage or a serious love affair, overprotected and spoilt as she has been by her grandpa and me.

‘Didn’t I ever tell you?’ I laughed. ‘I didn’t complete my matriculation either. But then, I never had a mind for studies. I wasn’t any good at them, like you are. And besides, twenty years has made such a great difference, my dear. Today everyone needs to be educated, keep up-to-date. There’s so much competition. And if you ever want to get out of this rut I’m stuck in. . .look how well Vera’s doing.’

I do admire Rustom and his wife, Silla, for the way they raised their daughter. Silla, of course, is no more. Even though like Farida, Vera too has no siblings—and since the last twelve years, no mother either—through her years of growing up her parents enforced discipline on her in just the right doses.

Not only did Vera finish her school and her post-matriculate secretarial course in record time, her shorthand and typing were of such excellent quality and speed, she landed a plum job with the solicitors Gagrat, Limbuwala & Co. But this was only the beginning of her dream run.

Gagrat’s partner, Homiar Limbuwala—who later broke away and started his own law firm—has a son called Shapoor, about the same age as Vera. This boy took a fancy to her. He was supposed to be attending college doing his masters in jurisprudence, but there he was, always at his father’s office on some pretext or other, mulling over statute books, looking through records of old cases and whatnot. Then, after office closed and most of its staff left, he would ask her out and they would spend time together at Marine Drive or the Hanging Gardens, almost every evening. On one such evening, several months later, Shapoor asked Vera to marry him.

Now Vera had been prudent enough never to bring her boyfriend home to their flat in the Doongerwaadi quarters. But on the other hand, she had never deliberately deceived him either. All he knew about her station in life was that she lived in a flat at Malabar Hill, even today universally acknowledged as the most respectable and well-heeled address to have in Bombay. The period of courtship led to love, and at the end of those few months, Vera definitely began to care for Shapoor very much; as for him, he seemed entirely smitten by the slim, tall and soft-spoken Vera. The boy must have told his parents about his feelings for the girl in Daddy’s office and the Limbuwalas began making discreet inquiries.