The House of Blue Mangoes (21 page)

‘Well, I suppose not,’ the businessman said grudgingly. He mopped his face with his handkerchief and looked hopefully down the platform. But there was no sign of the Governor. An engine exhaled somewhere. It was exhausting to talk in the heat, but the silence didn’t last long for the businessman, who had evidently been brooding over what had been said, abruptly burst into speech again.

‘I suppose the real problem is the educated native. Macaulay, a sterling fellow in most respects, made a mistake when he advocated that we develop a race that was Indian in blood and colour but European in opinion, morals and intellect. Gave the natives ideas above their station. That’s why we had the Mutiny, and that’s why we have these problems today. Keep the heathen illiterate and unchristian and control him with a whip, that’s the only way.’

Cooke was dangerously close to anger. ‘You don’t happen to believe that, do you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ the businessman said bluntly. ‘You can’t trust the native. Not now, not ever. Unless you want to preside over the dissolution of Empire. It was because we trusted them that the Mutiny took place. God, women and children cut down in cold blood, dismembered, thrown into a well. Cawnpore and Lucknow will be remembered a thousand years from now, all because we weren’t vigilant enough and trusted the brown man. Whenever I hear one of these Indians whining about injustice, all I need to do is recollect 1857 and I could cheerfully pistol-whip them.’

‘We were no better,’ Cooke said. ‘Do you know that we made all the Indians who were captured at Cawnpore lick the blood from the floor of the building where the slaughter took place before hanging them? And that we erased whole villages, killing and maiming and torturing? The Devil Wind, they called it.’

‘But they deserved it, the bastards, we had to stand firm to ensure it was never, ever repeated. And we have to be ruthless with these mischief-makers today,’ the businessman said, refusing to back down.

‘Enough,’ Nicholas said, stepping into the breach, his voice soothing. ‘There’s no reason to get excited. Most of these so-called nationalist leaders have no real support and we have no cause to worry, unless they join forces. But that won’t happen, especially now – there’s an internal power struggle going on among the Extremists and Moderates in the Congress and some other organizations. So while there might be some fireworks, everything will die down quickly. The Tamil is a timid creature not given to sustained anger.’

With reason, thought Cooke. The inhabitants of Britain’s first acquisition had had the stuffing knocked out of them in various campaigns: the Poligar Wars, the defeat of Tipu across the border, the suppression of the Vellore riots a hundred years ago. No, the Tamil had suffered and tended to behave himself. But you couldn’t be too careful.

‘Do you really think these protests will come to naught?’ he asked the journalist.

‘I expect so,’ Nicholas said. ‘Nothing we’ve heard seems to indicate anything to the contrary. A few children throwing stones at policemen, protest meetings, the usual stuff.’

‘Natives cannot be dealt with too severely,’ the businessman said darkly. ‘Any misdemeanour and you should hang them. Do they still blow them from the barrels of guns?’

‘Afraid we can’t oblige you there, Mr . . .’

‘Damn, where’s Lawley?’ Nicholas exclaimed suddenly. ‘He’s never been this late. Anything we should know, Cooke?’

‘Nothing that I would know about,’ Cooke said.

‘Think I’ll just go and see what’s happening,’ the businessman said, getting to his feet. Without shaking hands with either of them, he walked off in the direction of the crowd.

‘Who was that excrescence?’ Cooke demanded when he was out of earshot.

‘Oh, he’s quite popular, my dear fellow. You should get out more, get to know your city’s charming social set.’

‘Damned if I will,’ Cooke said. ‘Not a day passes when I don’t wish I was back in the district. Madras is beginning to get to me.’

‘That’s the problem with you district-wallahs,’ Nicholas said. ‘All you can think about is striding around the countryside being noble and worthy. You should learn to relax. Drink, after Lawley’s gone?’

‘No, thank you, I think I’ll go for a long walk, clear my head.’

It was late evening by the time Chris got to the Adyar river, one of his favourite haunts in the city. The sun was low on the horizon, turning the water the colour of molasses. A young moon had scraped a sliver of yellow in the sky. The calm of the river and the scrub that massed on its banks, shot through with bird-calls and the unseen rustling of small creatures of the night, acted as a much needed restorative. But his respite was brief, as his argument with the businessman returned to bother him. Was repression the only way to control this land? Would they be able to keep Indians from having a say in their own country for ever? Hardly likely, he thought, sooner or later something would have to give. Didn’t that disgruntled boor see that unless the British worked with the people they ruled, they would, at some point, be faced with something far worse than the Mutiny? A phrase from one of the nationalist leaders, who had compared the Swadeshi movement to a raging fire, occurred to him. It had been reported widely, often approvingly, by sections of the Indian-owned media. Would they all be incinerated in the blaze? He hated himself for feeling so panicky. That was another thing he disliked about the city. Detached from the immediate reality of the country, you spent your time obsessed with rumour, inaccurate newspaper reports and gossip. God, what wouldn’t I give to be back in Kilanad, he thought. With real problems that I could actually have a hand in solving!

It had grown darker and he could hardly see the path, so he decided to turn back. About halfway to the car something about the river, the scrub, and the position of the moon in the sky awakened in him a memory of Chevathar. That time had been the most calamitous of his career. He’d worked without pause for weeks, especially as his acting superior had no knowledge of the district, and it had been a miracle that the troubles had been brought under control. He would put in for his transfer soon. He would journey back to Chevathar, revisit the village that his friend the priest had fought so valiantly to save. If only they had listened to him. He hadn’t heard any news of his former Collector, Nathaniel Hall. Nobody knew anything about him. But he had come to know a couple of years ago, from a colleague in Burma, that the crooked lawyer Vakeel Perumal had resurfaced in Rangoon. How unjust, he thought, that people like him continued to prosper while the good were buried, and in time forgotten.

35

Sunk in its own concerns, Chevathar was untouched by the rumblings of nationalist politics in 1907. The new year opened in the village with grey, headachy weather. The prospect of yet another weak monsoon, the fourth in a row, was awful to contemplate – crop failure, possible famine, which would in turn lead to an inability to pay taxes and government levies on land and farms.

By the bridge leading to Meenakshikoil, three young men were idly skimming flat stones across one of the pools that the river had shrunk to, the projectiles hiccoughing across the still rust-red surface. Aaron Dorai, the oldest of the three, abruptly left off what he was doing and stretched out on the rocky bank, staring into the closed face of the sky. He had inherited his mother’s good looks, but was saved from appearing too feminine by a strong jaw and luxuriant moustache. He had lived his young life hard and looked old for his years. When he had run away from home he had ended up in Ranivoor where he had gone to work in a grain merchant’s store. He had lasted a little over six months before the dark dingy store, the choking dust of rice, wheat and pulses that filled the air and the loud bullying voice of the proprietor, who sat behind the counter like a recumbent elephant, began to get to him. He moved on to Tinnevelly, Puthulum and Mannankoil, working for a while in each place, indulging in petty thievery and hanging out with the unemployed loafers, before moving on. He had been beaten up, he had gone hungry, he had faced unexpected kindness and equally unexpected blows, but he had lived intensely. A little over five years after walking out, he had decided to return to Chevathar.

He was surprised to find neither his mother nor his brother nor his aunt Kamalambal at the Big House. Abraham and Kaveri had a well-rehearsed story to tell: Kamalambal, poor thing, had died of cholera; they missed her greatly, but they weren’t sure if they should tell him the truth about Charity and Daniel. With well-feigned reluctance, the concocted details had tumbled out: his mother and his brother, they said, had declared that they could no longer live in such reduced circumstances and were returning to Nagercoil. Nothing could make them change their mind, not even (Kaveri said) his chithappa reminding them of Solomon-anna’s ultimate sacrifice in defence of their family home. Aaron was quick to grasp the unstated message. ‘I always knew that my brother was unworthy of the name he bore. But my mother!’ He had raved and ranted in a fury while his aunt and uncle tried to look aggrieved and sorrowful and empathetic all at once. As a result of these revelations Aaron was irrevocably confirmed in his hatred of his brother and his mother.

Abraham and Kaveri had succeeded in their purpose. What they hadn’t counted on was that Aaron would decide to stay on in Chevathar. But, to their relief, it soon became apparent that he had no interest in farming nor did he want to be thalaivar. Life went on for Abraham and Kaveri much as it had before. All they needed to do was keep Aaron fed and clothed and stay out of his way when he was in a rage. As before, he spent most of his days hanging out with three or four other disaffected young men in Meenakshikoil, drinking endless cups of tea and smoking beedis in the tea stalls in town, teasing young girls or old men when the fancy took him – frittering away the days and nights and coming home only to sleep. A year passed, then another. He was filled with disquiet and a deep frustration, but he had no idea of what to do with himself.

This past week, the attention of Aaron and his friends had been temporarily diverted by the impending visit of the Abel Circus, a European-owned show that had never played in Kilanad before. Fearing trouble in the major towns of the Presidency, the proprietor had decided that Kilanad, and specifically its southernmost town, Meenakshikoil, would be more suitable for the circus’s ‘winter’ tour, which usually began soon after New Year’s Day.

As soon as the crude handbills were pasted on the walls of huts and the few public buildings in town, the inhabitants, especially the adult male population, were gripped by a feverish excitement. Abel was a smart businessman, and years of experience had given him acute insight into the minds of paying customers. His handbills, printed in one colour on cheap white paper, were not subtle. In the foreground, a European woman (it was easy to deduce that the boldly drawn figure with exaggerated breasts, hips and thighs was European because she wore her hair loose and bobbed, had oversize lips, and was costumed in undersized briefs and a scanty bra) smiled invitingly, while assorted lions, tigers, clowns and dwarfs formed a poorly drawn, barely discernible backdrop. In the mofussil, Abel’s audiences were mainly male, entranced by the sagging thighs and tits of the poorly paid, fair-skinned Anglo-Indian women he employed, whose act consisted mainly of parading around the ring in sequins, tights and skimpy costumes. Only one of them had the skills and figure to do a simple trapeze act, the rest strutted and simpered, though for most of them even this was an act of torture, their weight and their bunions making the straightforward act of walking the boards in high-heels difficult and painful. The audience didn’t care about the shortcomings of the artistes. They flocked to the circus to bury their collective face, or at the very least their eyes, in the fleshy white (or an approximation thereof) thighs of its star turns.

But a week was a long time to rely on the imagination: Aaron and his friends had discussed the buxom ladies of the circus until their conversation was tired and worn.

‘Stranger in town,’ Nambi, who was facing the road, said abruptly. Aaron and Selvan swivelled in that direction. The man approaching them was of medium height, with an aquiline nose and a high forehead. He was a couple of years older than them, and was dressed in a travel-stained jibba and veshti. He asked the trio directions to the Dorai house.

‘Why do you want to know?’ Aaron asked curiously.

‘I need the thalaivar’s help,’ the stranger said simply.

‘I’ll take you there, I’m his nephew,’ Aaron said, and he clambered to his feet. Waving goodbye to his friends, he climbed the slope to the road, and they set off in the direction of the Big House.

As they walked, the stranger introduced himself as S. V. Iyer, a lawyer from the capital.

‘Melur?’

‘No, Madras,’ Iyer said, and Aaron’s estimation of him soared. There was something about the man that had already prevented Aaron and his gang from harassing him, but now his feeling of respect deepened. The stranger was curious about Meenakshikoil, Chevathar and Aaron’s own family. Flattered, Aaron told Iyer about the battle of 1899, about which the other had heard, the heroism of his father and his Joshua-chithappa.

‘A tragic business,’ Iyer said. ‘We could have used men like them.’

They were quite near the house by now. Aaron asked the stranger why he was visiting Meenakshikoil.

‘I’ll tell you soon, especially as I think I’ll need your assistance.’

‘In what way?’ Aaron asked.

‘You’ll find out, but the main reason I’m here is because of something every one of us needs to be involved in.’

The young lawyer’s eyes grew animated, but before he could expand on what he was saying, they were home. Abraham came forward to greet them. After the preliminary courtesies, Iyer explained why he was visiting Meenakshikoil and Chevathar.

‘Revolution, aiyah, revolution. It is up to every one of us to throw the white man into the sea. He has oppressed India and enslaved us for too long. And now he has gone and partitioned Bengal.’

‘Be careful about what you say. You know that, as thalaivar, I’m responsible to the authorities for this place. Don’t talk incautiously.’