Authors: Vikas Swarup
The carnival contained several large tents housing attractions
for the whole family. Laughter rang out from the Hall of Fun
House Mirrors and shrieks from the Freak Show, which promised
a man without a stomach and a woman grafted on to a snake's
body. There was even a giant wheel, a photo studio and a magic
show. But the biggest queue was outside a tent advertised as
RANGEELA DISCO DHAMAKA. Men ogled at the ten-foot billboard
over the entrance which had cut-outs of two girls in oversized bras
and hot pants striking provocative poses. The sound of loud music
came from inside the tent.
A ticket vendor sitting inside a booth winked slyly at him.
'Wanna have a look? Only twenty rupees.'
'No,' laughed Eketi. 'Why waste money just to see a woman's
breasts?'
He showed much more interest in the archery stall, where
customers tried to win teddy bears by using a bow and arrow to
puncture balloons pinned to a square board. After observing
several failed attempts, he stepped up to the stall owner and
handed over a ten-rupee note from the five he still had with him.
A group of small children clustered around him and cheered him
on. As he took aim, the sinews in his body tensed up. Memories of
that last pig hunt on the island came rushing back, touching him
with its distant excitement. He released the arrow and it hit the
balloon right in the centre of the board. The children whooped
and jumped; the owner grimaced and parted with a teddy bear.
Eketi handed the toy to a little girl and picked up another arrow.
By the time he left the stall, the children had twenty teddy bears
to play with and the tearful manager was preparing to close his
booth.
Buoyed by his success in archery, Eketi jauntily crossed a gravel
road and found himself in a completely different area of the Magh
Mela grounds, where the air hummed with the chanting of
mantras and the chiming of bells. The
akharas
were here, serving
as the temporary headquarters of the various spiritual sects whose
leaders competed openly for the attention of the public by
employing heavy-duty public-address systems.
It was here that he encountered the Nagas once again. The
naked
sadhus
were gathered around a courtyard, sitting on rough
charpoys smoking
chillums
or doing physical exercises. In the
centre of the courtyard was a mound of ash which they used to
daub their bodies with. The
sadhus
retreated to a large white tent
after a while and Eketi gingerly stepped into the courtyard. He
stripped off his clothes, stuffed them inside his canvas bag and
dived into that mound of ash as though it was a tankful of water.
Like a buffalo wallowing in the mud, he rolled in the ash, smearing
his face, his body and even his hair with grey, luxuriating in the
thrill of being naked once again.
As he was about to leave, a Naga
sadhu
emerged from the tent.
The tribal crouched on the ground like a cornered animal, but the
sadhu
smiled at him through glazed eyes and offered him a
chillum
. Eketi smiled back and took a deep drag. Even though he
had been addicted to
zarda
– chewing tobacco – on the island, he
was unprepared for the heady rush of marijuana. It made him feel
inexplicably light-headed, as though several small windows had
opened up in his brain, making the colours brighter and the
sounds sharper. He swayed on his feet and clutched the
sadhu
for
support, who grinned at him and shouted '
Alakh Niranjan!
' –
'Glory to the One who can neither be seen nor tainted!' In that
instant Eketi became one with the Nagas, and they accepted him
as one of their own. Theirs was a house without any distinctions.
The ash bleached away all difference, reduced everyone to a
uniform shade of grey, and their psychedelic trance brooked no
differentiation of class or caste.
Eketi relished being without clothes and roamed the township
like a free spirit with licence to paint his body. Living like a Naga
sadhu
carried other advantages as well. Devotees gave him alms,
restaurant owners gave him free meals, and the guards at the
Hanuman Temple never objected to his sleeping on the covered
veranda at night. Within a week, he had learnt to say
alakh
niranjan
and offer blessings to devotees, wield a trident and dance
around the sacred fire with the other Nagas.
He especially enjoyed smoking the
chillum
. The
ganja
made
him forget his pain. It made him forget Dolly and Ashok and
Mike, it made him forget about what he would do next, where he
would go next. He was content to live simply for the moment.
In this fashion a month went by. Maghi Purnima arrived, the last
of the major bathing days before Mahashivratri and the end of the
Magh Mela. Eketi was sitting by the riverbank, watching a steady
stream of pilgrims take a dip in the
sangam
, when the ground
beneath him shook and a massive explosion ripped through the
area like a roll of thunder. So strong was the force of the blast that
he toppled down. He saw black smoke rising behind him, billowing
up into the sky like a whirling cloud. And then shrieks started
reverberating in the air. When he got up, there were people lying
everywhere, bleeding and screaming. He saw a young boy with his
leg blown off, a torso lying headless. The sand was strewn with
broken glass, bloodstained clothes, slippers, bracelets and belts. A
tea stall made of corrugated iron had been reduced to a smouldering
mass of mangled metal. Men and women with blood
dripping down their faces were running around with demented
looks, desperately calling out the names of their near and dear
ones. Fires raged in several places.
The speed of the attack – everything seemed to have
happened in the twinkling of an eye – confounded Eketi. Its
ferocity overwhelmed him. The Mela had descended into utter
chaos. Already a mini stampede was breaking out near the river as
the pushing, jostling pilgrims piled on top of each other in their
desperation to get out. Police sirens were sounding everywhere.
Quickly putting on his red T-shirt and khaki shorts, Eketi followed
the hordes sprinting towards the exit. Once he had reached the
safety of the main road, he tapped a rickshaw-puller standing by
the roadside. 'Which way to the railway station, brother?'
Allahabad railway station bore no sign of the carnage happening
in another part of town. Trains came and went. Passengers
embarked and disembarked. Porters hustled and bustled. It was
business as usual.
Eketi leaned against a cold-water dispenser and wondered which
train to take. He had no knowledge of Indian cities, and he had no
money. That is when his eyes fell on a thin, clean-shaven man with
short black hair sitting on a station bench a short distance away, with
a cigarette in his mouth and a grey suitcase nestling between his legs.
He gave a start when he realized it was Ashok Rajput.
Eketi could easily have turned around and walked away, but he
went up to the welfare officer and folded his hands. 'Hello, Ashok
Sahib.'
Ashok looked at him and almost choked. 'You!' he exclaimed.
'Eketi made a big mistake by leaving you,' the tribal said
contritely. 'Can you now send me back to my island? I don't want
to stay here even one extra day.'
Ashok's initial fluster quickly subsided and Eketi saw the old
scornful arrogance return to the welfare officer's face. He threw
away his cigarette. 'You worthless black swine. I've spent the last
four months desperately searching for you. And you think you can
just walk up to me and ask me to send you back? You think I am
a bloody travel agent?'
The Onge kneeled down on the ground. 'Eketi begs forgiveness.
Now I will do anything you say. Just send me back to
Gaubolambe.'
'Then first swear that you will obey my every command.'
'Eketi swears on spirit blood.'
'Good.' Ashok softened. 'On that condition I will take you
back to Little Andaman. But not immediately. I still have some
business to finish here. Till then you will work as my servant.
Understood?'
The Onge nodded.
'What were you doing in Allahabad?' asked Ashok.
'Nothing. I was simply passing time,' said Eketi.
'Did you visit the Magh Mela?'
'Yes. I am coming straight from there.'
'You are lucky to be alive. There was a terrorist attack, one
of the biggest. They say at least thirty people were killed in the
bomb blast.'
'Were you there too?'
'Yes. I care more about your tribe than you do. I came to the
Magh Mela searching for the sacred rock.'
'So did you get it?'
'No,' Ashok said regretfully. 'A thief stole it from Swami
Haridas's tent in the mêlée after the bomb blast.'
'Then is it gone for ever?'
'I don't know. I am hoping it will surface when the thief tries
to sell it to someone.'
'So where are you going now?'
'To my hometown. To Jaisalmer. That is where you are also
going, by the way.'
Their train arrived in Jaisalmer the next morning. The railway
station was like a fish market, with a rabble of rickshaw- and taxidrivers
chanting the names of their hotels, touts holding banners
advertising all manner of guesthouses, and a mob of commission
agents accosting passengers with offers of cut-price camel safaris
and free Jeep taxi services, only to be driven back by policemen
with sticks.
Ashok blinked in the blazing sun and wiped the perspiration
from his brow with a handkerchief. Even though it was the last
week of February, dry heat crackled in the air like electricity.
The welfare officer seemed to know everyone in Jaisalmer. '
Pao
lagu
, Shekhawatji,' he said to the superintendent at the station.
'
Khamma ghani
, Jaggu,' he greeted the owner of a corner
cafeteria, who hugged him warmly and offered him a cold drink.
'This is my city,' Ashok wagged a finger at Eketi. 'You try anything
funny and I will know in a second. Understand?'
The Onge nodded his head. 'Once Eketi has sworn on spirit
blood, he has to keep his promise. An Onge who breaks his
promise earns the wrath of the
onkobowkwe
. He dies and becomes
an
eeka
, condemned to live below the earth.'
'I am sure you wouldn't want such a terrible fate,' said Ashok.
They boarded a battered auto-rickshaw which made a racket as it
navigated the narrow streets of the city.
Eketi saw scattered houses, some cows sitting on the side of
the road and a woman walking with a pot of water on her head.
All of a sudden he shouted, 'Stop!'
'What's the matter?' Ashok asked, clearly annoyed at the
interruption.
'Look!' Eketi shrieked, pointing in front of him. Ashok saw a
group of three camels lumbering down the road.
'You've never seen them before, but they are perfectly harmless
animals.' Ashok laughed and told the driver to continue.
Minutes later they were inside a street market. Rajasthani
women in dazzling red-and-orange
odhnis
, their arms loaded with
bangles, crowded around clothes shops and fruit vendors while the
men sported colourful turbans and impressive handlebar
moustaches.
And then, through the haze of heat and dust, a magnificent
yellow sandstone fort rose in the distance like a shimmering
mirage. With its majestic ramparts, delicately sculpted temple
towers and myriad bastions suffused with honey-coloured light,
the citadel looked as if it had sprung straight out of some medieval
fantasy.
Eketi rubbed his eyes to make sure they were not playing
tricks on him. 'What is that?' he asked Ashok in an awestruck
voice.
'That is the Jaisalmer Fort. And we are going right inside it.'
The auto-rickshaw protested as it climbed Trikuta Hill, atop
which perched the golden fort. As the fort neared, Eketi saw that
the bastions were actually half-towers, surrounded by high turrets
and joined by thick walls.
They entered the fort complex through a giant gate which led
to a cobbled courtyard, from where a maze of narrow lanes led in
all directions. The courtyard was full of pavement shops selling
colourful quilts, stone artefacts and puppets. A turbaned musician
played the
sarangi
while his similarly dressed companion peddled
the
manjira
, regaling a flock of foreign tourists who flitted around
them, snapping pictures.
As the auto-rickshaw travelled deeper inside, the fort became
a city within a city, dotted with magnificent houses. Signboards,
banners and electric wires disfigured many of these ancient
havelis
, but the intricacy of the carvings on their latticed façdes
was nothing less than poetry in stone. The secret, serpentine alleys
teemed with activity. Little corner shops sold everything from
soap to nails. Roadside fruit-sellers sat with high piles of apples
and oranges. Bearded tailors pedalled away at their sewing
machines to the bleating of goats. Music blared from roadside
restaurants and mingled with chants from the nearby Jain temples.
Children flew kites from crumbling rooftops and cows masticated
leisurely in the middle of the road.
As they passed a row of painted mud-and-thatch houses,
Ashok directed the driver to his ancestral residence, a large,
dilapidated double-storeyed
haveli
with latticed windows and a
carved wooden door studded with iron spikes. The door was
unlocked and they entered an open courtyard.
A lanky boy, around thirteen years of age, dressed in white
kurta
pyjamas, emerged from the veranda. 'Chachu!' he shouted
in delighted surprise and ran to Ashok, who embraced him with
surprising tenderness.
'How tall have you grown, Rahul!' the welfare officer said.
'You are seeing me after five years, Uncle,' the boy replied.
'Is Bhabhisa home?' Ashok asked.
'Yes. She is in the kitchen. I will call her.'