House of the Sun (27 page)

The rains came driving down, hitting the ground and blowing up again in great misted clouds. The crows in the mango and tamarind trees were silent and wet. Thunder hit them like gunshot, throwing them up in squawking clouds. Mr Hathiramani listened to the rains’ enveloping splatter against the glass. Mrs
Hathiramani
and Raju were continuously occupied with buckets, and the business of mopping up about the windows. He drummed his fingers on the wall. He lay stretched out upon the rexine sofa, wedged between the two refrigerators in the living room. He stared up at the picture of Durga on the fridge before him, recently adorned by his wife with an unusually lavish garland. The smell of smoke still filled his home. He wore
garments
loaned by Mr Bhagwandas, and had slept the night upon the living-room floor on sheets lent by Mrs Watumal. He had seen little of his wife. Soon after his arrival home from the nursing home, in a taxi with Mr Watumal, Mrs Hathiramani had disappeared to arrange the engagement of Mohan to Padma. She had returned to find the smell of smoke had impregnated the milk and the cashew nut sweets on the sideboard in the bedroom.

‘God has saved me,’ Mr Hathiramani remarked as she sent Raju with the smoky remains down to the sweeper and his family. ‘One bite of those sweets would probably have killed me.’

‘Nothing can kill you,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied. ‘Saturn is no longer in the House of the Sun.’

‘Still you quote that nonsense?’ Mr Hathiramani frowned. ‘How did this fire start?’ he asked again.

Mrs Hathiramani shrugged, and when pressed resorted to tears. Raju stood silent beside her.

His first night at home had not put Mr Hathiramani in a good humour. The floor was hard. He had shared it not only with his wife, but also with Raju. ‘Put him out in the corridor, like other servants,’ Mr
Hathiramani
insisted.

‘He is like a child to me,’ Mrs Hathiramani retorted.

His sleep had been broken and confused. He awoke with the first light, and went into the fire-wrecked room. The sweepers had cleared away the half-burnt books, the mattress and the remnants of curtains. They had washed and scrubbed for hours. He stood in the doorway and stared. It looked a different place, barren and echoing, without its padding about the walls. Sooty burn marks stretched to the ceiling.

‘Where is my diary?’ Mr Hathiramani returned to the living room and roused his wife.

‘That too must have burned,’ she mumbled sleepily. Beside her, a few yards away, Raju dozed with an arm flung over his eyes.

Mr Hathiramani returned in fury to the bedroom, and sat down on the charred frame of the bed. He dropped his head in his hands. His inner life was in ruins. The records of the building were gone. Without the richness of the past, the charting of the future seemed meaningless to him. It was without purpose to think more of
Arrivals
and
Departures,
or even to open the front door. And with the loss of
Miscellaneous
Past
his gift to humanity had vanished. It was comparable only with the loss of his library in Sind, left to the illiterates who had chased him with knives from his home.

He raised his head, and stared once more at the bareness of the room. In a corner, almost hidden by a metal trunk, he saw a small pile of salvaged books and walked across to them. On top were the scorched
remains of Shah Abdul Latif. The book fell open in his hand automatically, at ‘The Song of the Necklace’. He closed it quickly. He felt strangely nauseous at the sight of Latif. Thoughts of wading once more through the labyrinth of translation made him feel as he had once with jaundice. The other books were all from his
collection
on Sind, saved by their position at the far end of the room. He sat down on the frame of the bed again.

The impoverishment about him was disturbing, as was the real meaning of the fire. He paced about, and pondered the sudden violence of the event. He pondered upon the meaning of violence, as it applied to himself and his life. Violence had forced him to flee Sind without an hour’s notice, to live forever in disinheritance. The love of his homeland would die with old men like himself. The children of Sadhbela knew nothing of the grandeur of Sind, lost forever now. He felt responsibility rise in him again. Latif had not been what was needed. He stood up in sudden
excitement
. The world called instead, he saw suddenly, for
The
Hathiramani
Newsletter
. Spread about the world were community after community of expatriate Sindhis, who knew little of their culture. It was his duty to speak to them. His heart beat violently. The purpose of the fire was clear to him now.

He reassessed the bare room. With some
rearrangement
, space could be made for a small printing press. In Sind he had had his own press, and published each month a thin pamphlet of topical irreverences, that had been well received in Rohri and Sukkur. He would be a journalist and a publisher again, and have a worldwide readership now. The newsletter would go to
communities
in Hong Kong, London, New York, Madrid, Lagos … destinations flew through his mind. In these places were settled Sindhis for whom his newsletter would reinstate identity. They would learn of the Sind of ancient times, which had played a prominent role in
the epic folk history of the
Mahabharata
. They would learn of Arab invasions and religious infighting, long before Partition. They would learn of the modern
history
of Sind with its freedom movements, and Gandhi’s love of his many close Sindhi friends. Sind had
participated
in all the great moments of Indian history. Long before Greece led Europe, Sind was a sophisticated civilization, from which even the Sumerians derived their culture. The names of famous poets, kings,
mystics
and politicians were all to be found in Sind. They would learn of great happenings, they would learn of great men. Through the
Hathiramani
Newsletter,
expatriate
Hindu Sindhis would rise and consolidate. Mr Hathiramani took deep breaths, unable to contain his excitement. He rushed out of the room and woke his wife.

‘I want the bed moved, and the cupboard. The
sideboard
must be transferred to the living room. I have need of space in the bedroom.’ Mrs Hathiramani drew the sheet over her head. Raju gave a snore.

Mr Hathiramani did not wait for an answer but returned to the bedroom, to his remaining books. There was plenty of information on Sind, the first newsletters would be easy. He would soon find new source books for reference. There would be also an editorial column, with his own thoughts on vital Sindhi matters. God’s ways were strange, thought Mr Hathiramani. As often as not, disaster had brought him to a better place. He ran a hand over his books, and looked at the
rain-smeared
windows. The monsoon always induced in him a contemplative mood.

*

Mrs Hathiramani had had a busy morning. Apart from attention to Mr Hathiramani, and the necessity of
frequent
mopping up at the leaking windows, she had spent time with Bhai Sahib, who had returned the night before from Nasik.

Bhai Sahib was in agreement with all Mrs
Hathiramani
had done. ‘These books held him too much. But he is a scholar and a philosopher, such men are like that.’ He was disappointed to see Mrs Hathiramani empty-handed once more, especially as Saturn had retreated from the House of the Sun with a minimum of destructiveness. It was essential to show gratitude for such deliverance; such gratitude was best shown in monetary form. ‘Some offering is necessary,’ he
suggested
, averting his eyes.

‘Some charitable act will do instead?’ Mrs
Hathiramani
asked with a secretive smile.

‘If that is your wish, it will do,’ Bhai Sahib was forced to reply.

‘Then my mind is made up,’ answered Mrs Hathiramani.

*

She had no time alone with Raju until they were in the kitchen, preparing boiled carrots and beans for Mr Hathiramani’s lunch.

‘He can eat only this English food, and one small dry
chapati
,’ explained Mrs Hathiramani through pursed lips, and made a sound of deep disgust.

‘How will he live, Memsahib?’ Raju worried.

‘He says my food has made him ill. He seeks only to insult me,’ Mrs Hathiramani fumed.

‘You are cooking food fit for Maharajahs,
Memsahib
,’ Raju soothed, and scratched his chest through one of the holes in his vest.

‘Even so, our Sahib says he will eat only boiled carrots,’ Mrs Hathiramani sniffed. ‘Still, he is alive. I am not yet a widow; for this I am not ungrateful. Listen now to me, Raju, donkey. I am going to give you education. Tell me, are you pleased?’ Mrs Hathiramani put down a spoon, and turned to beam at Raju. ‘I will send you to night school.’

‘I do not want education.’ Raju shrank back against the wall.

‘But always you are telling me, “Please, Memsahib, give me education”,’ Mrs Hathiramani roared.

‘I have changed my mind,’ Raju answered.

‘Donkey, I am giving you education and you do not want it?’ Mrs Hathiramani leaned forward angrily. ‘Tomorrow I will throw you out.’

‘If I have education, then, when I grow up, my brains will burst like Sahib’s,’ Raju replied, and returned his attention to stringing the beans.

‘Your Sahib’s brain is too big for his head, that is why it burst,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied, and blew
angrily
through her nose.

‘And my brain?’ Raju asked.

‘It is small,’ Mrs Hathiramani answered.

‘Small brains do not burst?’ Raju inquired.

‘Small brains do not burst,’ Mrs Hathiramani confirmed.

‘Then it will do no harm to have education?’ Raju asked.

‘It will do no harm,’ Mrs Hathiramani confirmed.

‘Then I am accepting education, Memsahib,’ Raju grinned. ‘It is good I have small brains.’

‘You should thank God you have small brains,’ Mrs Hathiramani said grimly, with a look down the corridor into the living room. On the sofa her husband already flicked restlessly through a salvaged book, retrieved from the pile in the bedroom. A look of excitement filled his face.

‘Sahib’s brains getting big again, Memsahib,’ Raju warned, thrusting his head out of the kitchen door and following Mrs Hathiramani’s gaze.

‘Finish stringing those beans,’ Mrs Hathiramani roared. ‘Who is asking for your opinion?’