The Assassin's Song (16 page)

R.D. was a man offew words, but what he spoke that day was abundant enough. I had promise and he could help me. What more could a boy want? This was fate; luck had come knocking. It does not come twice. “I will ask my father,” I said.

“We can't afford cricket coaching,” was my father's first line of defence against this sweet invitation from the world.

“But it's free!”

“Then think of your position. Cricket for enjoyment is fine. Play all you want and be healthy. But don't take it seriously so it runs your life.”

Three days I pleaded, wept, sulked. The news spread in the village: Harish, Utu, and others came to congratulate, eyes wide with admiration, envy. Is it true, Kanya? It's true. All the way in Baroda? Where will you stay? There, itself—in R.D.'s home. And then?—play for Baroda? Gujarat Lions, ey? Maybe. I say, Kanya, you could play for India! Grins all around. If you've come this far, what's impossible? Everything, don't you see, I've already been spoken for.

Bapu-ji could not be moved. “Think of your position. You are the gaadi-varas.”

“I don't want to be gaadi-varas!” I finally screamed at him, “Let Mansoor be gaadi-varas!” and ran out of his library.

The shrine of Pirbaag had suddenly become quiet to pay heed to my tantrum. People stared at me where I had come to a halt on the pavilion, grief-stricken, trembling. Finally, Master-ji came up and put his arm around my shoulder.

“Calm, Karsan, be calm …”

His hand firm upon me, he walked me up and down the shrine; people staring, moving aside for us. We walked between the larger graves, draped with heaps of flowers and chaddars, and around Pir Bawa's empty throne where he had breathed his last, and past the rows of marble stones laid flat upon the earth, neatly engraved in Gujarati, commemorating my ancestors, the Sahebs of the past. All the while his voice beside me a constant, comforting murmur.

“Look at all this, beta … this is your trust; see the looks in the people's eyes, their hopes and fears, their devotion—for generations they've come
here and left with solace in their hearts, with guidance and hope. You will give it all up for a bat and ball? Think, Karsan. Your Bapu knows best, he is the Saheb.”

We had stopped at the mausoleum, its dark gaping entrance open before us. A worshipper emerged and hurried past us. My anguish was now gone, and I felt free of that possessive illusion. I began to see sense. Master-ji gently pushed me forward. “Go speak to Pir Bawa,” he said.

I took off my slippers and went inside, inhaled the incense and perfume and the cotton dust from the chaddars. I looked at the silver crown at the head of the oversized grave.

“I am sorry, Pir Bawa. I will do as you please.”

Outside, back in the dry and hot March sunshine, I could see clearly now where my destiny lay. The life of the shrine had resumed. The pilgrim from Goshala went about circumambulating the mausoleum endlessly; the Rabari girl, my secret tormenter whose name I didn't know, smiled slyly at me; she had seen that I was a little boy after all, who could cry up a tantrum; but I couldn't help a sly little smile of my own.

When I returned to the house, Ma was waiting for me. Opening her arms wide with a smile, she folded me in a tight embrace and gently ruffled my hair. But there were tears in her eyes when she released me. “Sometimes it's what's written for us, Karsan,” she whispered. “Your Bapu too had no choice.”

“I know, Ma.”

Mansoor patted me on the small of my back in sympathy, though he seemed to have enjoyed the scene outside.

And so it was back to my world of newspapers and the school, and NAPYP on Sundays. I still had my more modest desire to show up Pradhan Shastri with the boxing prowess I was acquiring in secret from Mr. David.

Mr. David continued to make his occasional forays into our town, where he could depend on the hospitality of our home. Bapu-ji enjoyed talking to him, and Ma's reservations about his caste were gone; his education and status had elevated him. Soon after he had arrived and made his greetings he would take Mansoor's hand and the two would go out for
a walk, heading always first for the Balak Shah tomb in the Muslim quarter. It was a quieter and simpler place than ours, without the crowds; perhaps it reminded Mr. David of the faith he had abandoned. When he had spent his moment there, he would walk about town with my brother, buying him a treat before returning to us with some fresh namkeens or sweets.

One Sunday afternoon I went along with them, much to the resentment of Mansoor, who paid me back by trying to trip me all the way. Shastri's training was over and I had changed out of my uniform. Pirbaag was emptying, and Bapu-ji was sitting in the pavilion with someone. Ma, perched on the front stoop of our house, watched the three of us leave through the gate at the road.

I had ventured only once beyond the massive fortified entrance of the Muslim quarter, with my father, on that night more than a year ago when a terror had been threatened on Haripir, and a terrible ransom exacted. This time I discovered that the grave of the Child-imam Balak Shah lay in the verandah of the mosque. Under the peepal tree in the centre of the compound, as we arrived there, sat the old sheikh Sayyed Ahmed, surrounded by a few worshippers. I did my pranam to him with joined hands, which he acknowledged with a quick wave of the hand, and Mr. David said, “Salaam alaykum,” which Mansoor echoed to my surprise, and the sheikh replied appropriately. Beside him was the ancient black stone, famous for its prophecies, polished to a shine by age, its bottom surface curved so that it rested on a tangent plane.

In our bare feet we first went up the steps to the verandah to pay respects at the Child-imam's little grave, which rested beside the somewhat bigger one of his mother. Mr. David stood in front of the two graves with his hands raised palms upward before him and his head lowered, his eyelids too. I didn't know how to pray in such a situation and could only imagine the mother and child: Who had died first? Mansoor had however learned the proper way from Mr. David, and he too raised his hands in the posture of prayer. When they had finished, the three of us came down to observe the ritual of the black stone. The procedure was to go and bow before the sheikh, make a silent prayer, then sit in a crouching position upon the curved stone. If it rotated, your prayer would be answered.

A boy of about my age stood up from the stone, looking sheepish and disappointed.

“Go, sir,” said a young man to the teacher, speaking familiarly. “Beg with complete faith and Balak Shah will surely give.”

“No, Hussein, I am sorry. I am a Christian, I've told you once before, nai,” said Mr. David firmly. Then he saw the looks on our faces—Hussein, Mansoor, me—and Sheikh-ji eyeing him sceptically from the ground where he sat.

“Accha, I'll do it,” Mr. David relented and stepped forward. Hussein grinned at his success, and the sheikh waved Mr. David over.

The teacher put one foot gingerly on the stone, covering a good part of its length, then he had to be supported as he brought the other foot on and lowered himself into a crouch; he grimaced slightly and adjusted his posture. Finding balance, he closed his eyes.

“Wish, what do you wish?” Sheikh-ji asked. A little smile now played above his white beard as he looked abstractedly towards the mosque and waited.

Mr. David muttered inaudibly, then said, “I have wished.” Sheikh-ji said a prayer in Arabic; then in Gujarati he said, “Pir Balak Shah, if you accept this humble man's prayer, please show him your miracle.” He lowered his sight to watch the stone.

We all stared breathlessly at the stone, except for Mr. David, who first looked straight ahead, then turned his face to gauge our reactions. Slowly the stone under his feet turned on its axis like a large compass, taking him through almost a quarter circle. Everyone except the sheikh cried out with joy and wonder.

Evidently Mr. David's prayer would be answered.

Next, Mansoor and I each stepped up to have a go with the stone. It did not turn for us.

Hussein told me, “Next time, iman-se karna, do it with faith, and he will surely reward you.”

“What did you wish, sir?” we asked Mr. David, as we walked out the mosque enclosure, past the shanties, and onto the road through the massive gate.

Mr. David looked at us both and said with a mischievous smile:

“I'll tell if you tell.”

“Kaho né!” Tell us!

“All right. Then it's your turn. I wished that my application to go to America will be successful.”

“You are going to America, sir?”

His silence could only mean yes, and it was a sad thought. I didn't know of anyone who had gone away, except for Raja Singh, who disappeared for weeks or months sometimes. But he always returned.

“America? Why so far, sir? Go to England, it is close.”

“America is as good … even better.”

We walked in silence for a while, then Mr. David added slowly, “You are free to be anything you like in America.”

“But in India you are also free?”

He did not reply. He asked, “And you, Karsan—what did you wish for?”

“It's a secret, sir.”

“But I told you my wish.”

We walked a few paces in silence before I could bring myself to speak.

“Actually—to tell you the truth, sir, I wished for nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing, sir.”

He turned thoughtful, and just then Mansoor revealed his own wish. “Bapu-ji will buy me a tricycle, Bapu-ji will,” he chanted joyfully.

His wish would be granted, even though the stone had not turned for him.

“Why, Karsan?” Mr. David prodded me gently.

“You know the story of Abraham and Isaac, sir—”

“Ye-es …?”

“Isaac didn't matter. He could not wish.”

Mr. David put an arm around me, squeezing the sob out of me, and we walked home together.

We had reached the fork in the road, where the shop was quiet, the eldest of the Damani brothers sitting at the till, staring out. He did not greet us; indeed, his manner since the arrival of Pradhan Shastri had become more arrogant than before, and his visits to our shrine, which
had been occasional, had ceased altogether. On the street, outside the shop, a vendor was scooping out fresh bhajias from a wok. Diagonally across was Shastri's house, pennants flying, Sanskrit recital blaring over a loudspeaker.

As Mr. David gave our order for the bhajias and we waited, Pradhan Shastri came hurrying out from his open gate. Seeing me, he broke into a grin and complimented, “Ah, Karsan—my messenger!” I had recently been made a delivery boy for his pamphlet,
Hindu Pride.

Shastri's eye wandered curiously to the man beside me. In all his visits to Haripir, Mr. David had not met Pradhan Shastri. Now they stared at each other momentarily, then each said, “Namasté” in a formal greeting. Shastri went on to chat with the shopkeeper, buying soap or something, and Mr. David, with a sheepish smile at me and my brother, turned to pay the vendor.

It was the strangest incident. Over the years, having recalled it again and again, I became convinced that the two men had known each other before they met that day.

One afternoon after NAPYP exercises, as Harish, Utu, and I hung out on the road, leaning against a truck and sucking on ices, Shastri came out from his house and called out to us from his gate: “Ay Karsan, Harish, Utu—come here, quick!”

We ambled over, and he took us past the yard, where we usually met for our sessions with him, into his living room. We entered with a sense of rare privilege and looked around in curious silence. Shastri's two lieutenants, both sitting on floor mats against a wall, smiled coyly at us. One of them, Varun, was stringing together garlands of yellow flowers; the other, Devraj, looked idle. The walls were covered with a deep red cloth and hung with various decorations. The air was musky. From one wall, six eminent-looking men stared out at us from their identically framed photographs. I recognized none of them.

This was when Shastri first gave us his pamphlets to distribute in the village. We left and did as instructed.

It was curious, I observed to myself, not then but gradually over the days and weeks that followed, that neither Nehru nor Gandhi were up on
Pradhan Shastri's wall. Most homes and shops I knew had photos of at least one of them hanging prominently. They were our gods, they had gone to jail for the independence of our country. But I knew that not everybody cared for them. Gandhi had been shot to death a few years before I was born, when Nehru had uttered the famous words, “The light has gone from our lives …” When Nehru died, the Damani brothers handed out sweets outside their shop, prompting Ma to utter scornfully, “They're refugees, what do you expect, all refugees hate Nehru and Gandhi.”

When Nehru had been sick, prayers were said for him all across the country. Bapu-ji had said a prayer for him on the pavilion. But the inevitable happened; while I was in school, the news came from somewhere— perhaps from the street outside—that Pandit-ji had died. Some of our teachers had wept. Driving me home from school, Raja Singh too shed a tear. “What will happen to us, Kaniya, only Bhagwan knows,” he had sighed. “A good man has died and the demons are waiting to pounce upon this land.”

Visions of menacing Chinese filled my mind.

So, what did the patriot Pradhan Shastri have against Gandhi-ji and Nehru Chacha? Why did he deny them a place in his pantheon? The answer could be found in the issues of
Hindu Pride:
Gandhi had apparently appeased the Muslims, almost given the country away to them; and Nehru had denied the Hindu nature of our country, opting instead for a secular nation at independence.

I began to feel uneasy about Shastri and NAPYP; their message contained hate and exclusion. Each time we returned from our exercises on the field, marching proudly with our staves, singing patriotic songs, we could hardly be unaware of the poorer boys who had not made it into our corps, staring silently at us. Among them, outside their immense gate, were the Muslims, including the two sons of the murdered Salim Buckle, one of them Mukhtiar.

One morning I brought a few copies of Shastri's pamphlet for Raja Singh. I already knew that the driver of Kaleidoscope had nothing but scorn for Shastri's brand of patriotism, so why would I present him with copies of
Hindu Pride
? Perhaps, perversely, simply to provoke a reaction. It was swift. Exclaiming “Arré,” his eyes flashing for an instant, he threw
my dubious gift out the window. And then he remained silent and brooding all the way to school.