Family Matters Page 34

  “How much, uncle?” asked the youngster eagerly.

  Yezad smiled. “Five rupees?”

  “Sure.” The boy selected a sliver of the fragrant wood, handed it over with both hands, and took the money.

  “Thank you.” Yezad held the piece reverently. He was tempted to lift it to his nose but remembered, through the mist of years, being told it was impolite to sniff the sandalwood that was for Dadaji, you had to be patient till you were inside, where you were free to enjoy the fragrance from the sacred fire.

  Turning to go, he hesitated. “Can I borrow a cap?”

  The boy glanced at his father and received a nod. He placed a box of prayer caps on the counter, of various sizes, mostly black, some grimier than others with hair oil and pomade.

  Yezad looked queasily through the lot to find one that wasn’t quite so unappetizing. A maroon specimen at the bottom of the box seemed clean. Probably not popular, he thought, because of the colour. The prayer cap his mother had bought for his navjote ceremony had been this very shade of maroon. He was seven then – and how proud the family was that he had mastered the prayers already. Others had to wait till nine or eleven.

  He located the seam of the cap, knowing that it went to the back, and covered his head. “I’ll return it in a few minutes.”

  “It’s okay, uncle, you can pray as long as you like.”

  Yezad started to reply, “I’m not going to …,” and stopped. “Thank you,” he said, and made his way through the compound to the veranda for ablutions.

  He washed his hands and face, dried them with his handkerchief, and sat down to remove his shoes, eager to proceed inside to the tranquil room with the fire. Standing in his socks, he kicked his shoes under the bench.

  But as he climbed the steps past the fluted columns, a sense of discomfort gnawed at him. He halted – it didn’t feel right to go in without first doing his kusti. The training from decades ago forced him back to the veranda.

  Then he realized he didn’t know which direction to face. No one else was praying from whom he could take the cue. He recollected it had something to do with the sun; and it was evening, the sun had probably set by now, so …

  At random he decided to face the parapet, and commenced untying the kusti’s reef knots, glad no one could see him fumble. His fingers had lost the knack of working behind his back. He felt more comfortable when he came to the knots at the front.

  And now, to his amazement, the words of Kem Na Mazda rose silently to his lips as though he’d been reciting the prayer all his life, morning and night, without missing a day. Phrase upon phrase, into the next section, through Ahura Mazda Khodai and manashni, gavashni, kunashni, into the final preparation for retying the kusti.

  Slap-slap, slap-slap, he heard a pair of sapats behind him. They were getting closer. Very close now. And he felt a hand upon his shoulder. It was the elderly priest with the long white beard, the one who had caught him peering through the entrance.

  The dustoorji smiled and wordlessly turned him around a hundred and eighty degrees. Yezad was mortified. He wondered how long the dustoorji had been watching. And had he seen him struggling with his kusti, tugging clumsily at the knots?

  The dustoorji put a finger to his lips to counsel silence – the thread of prayer was not to be broken by profane speech and unnecessary explanation.

  Yezad nodded. The dustoorji’s hand, still resting on Yezad’s shoulder, shifted to his nape, then ran firmly downwards to the small of his back.

  Three times the dustoorji repeated the gesture along his back. Yezad felt as though he were physically removing something, pulling strands of stress out of his tortured being. Then, patting his shoulder again, the dustoorji continued on his way, slap-slap, slap-slap down the corridor.

  Moved and confused, Yezad finished retying the kusti. Why had the dustoorji rubbed his back? He wondered if his problems were so obvious, his face harried, his brow clouded.

  He went inside, his feet revelling in the luxury of the rich old Persian carpets as he padded through the vast hall. Surely it was at least six degrees cooler than the street.

  He reached the end and paused outside the adjoining room, smaller and much dimmer than the hall he had just traversed. He felt the sudden urge to remove his socks as well. Peeling them off, he stuffed them into his trouser pocket and stepped into this room, which led to the sanctum. The sacred chamber, the place where the fire dwelt, demarcated by a marble threshold that the laity could not cross.

  As a child, Yezad had been powerfully attracted to the sanctum. Not even all dustoorjis went into it, only those in a state of ritual purity. He had often fantasized about giving his parents the slip and running inside to stroke the huge silver afargaan that shone majestically on its pedestal, holding aloft the flames that rose and fell with the hours of the day. But it was forbidden. Just to approach the threshold, Dadaji’s private place, had filled him with reverent fear – he worried he would stumble and fall, and a part of him, a hand or a finger, would accidentally cross the prohibited barrier, with some terrifying consequence …

  A dozen feet from the sanctum’s threshold, he sat on the carpeted floor and rubbed his hands over the lush carpet, enjoying its gentle prickle, smiling at his childhood self. The fire was only a glow of embers. Not much smoke, though the room was rich with sandalwood fragrance. Occasionally there was a loud crack as a spark flew towards the high dome.

  How still it was, how restful. And the fire burning … burning continuously for almost a hundred and fifty years, since this atash-bahram was built … the same fire his parents had gazed upon, and his grandparents, and great-grandparents. The thought filled him with quiet, with reassurance.

  Minutes passed. An old woman came in, her head covered by a scarf knotted tightly under her chin. She deposited a stick of sandalwood in the tray, knelt laboriously, then left. Yezad wondered if he too should make a move, it was getting late, Roxie would worry. He was reluctant to leave this place of tranquility. But he could always come again. Tomorrow, after work. He would leave promptly when the shop closed, not waste time with Mr. Kapur or Vilas, come here directly …

  A dustoorji entered, gathered the sandalwood in the tray, and proceeded to the sanctum. He lowered the protective square of mulmul from his head to cover his nose and mouth – the fire must not be polluted with human breath. Yezad smiled, thinking of the long-ago jokes about priests and masked bandits.

  The dustoorji halted at the threshold and turned to look at him. Yezad felt flustered, as though his thoughts had been read. The dustoorji pointed to his shirt and the fire, from one to the other.

  Yezad looked: his stick of sandalwood was still in his pocket, the dustoorji was merely inquiring if he wanted to include it in this offering.

  “Yes, thank you,” he whispered, and handed it over.

  Now the dustoorji stepped into the sanctum to perform the ceremony for the changing geh. Sunset, thought Yezad, and the fourth geh of the Zoroastrian day had commenced. He watched the ritual cleansing of the sanctum, the pedestal, the afargaan, the quiescent preparations before the offerings to the fire.

  How calming, thought Yezad, to watch all this, to let the peace of the moment fill the room. Why did it have such a timeless quality? How comforting, to see the figure in the flowing white robe, see him moving, unhurried, employing the various silver utensils in the ceremony, performing the mystical gestures that were repeated five times each day, performed with an elegance that could come only with the cumulative grace of generations and centuries, so that it was encoded in blood and bone …

  Now the dustoorji was ready to serve the fire. Expertly he tended the glowing embers, and flames began to lick at the tongs, growing to the soft murmur of prayers as he added the sandalwood collected from the tray.

  And there, thought Yezad, with the rest, was his five-rupee piece as well, with all the other sticks carried here by hands like his. Which part of the fire, which tongue of flame was fed by his offering? Was the fire divisible in that
way? Did it matter?

  The dustoorji now moved to the conclusion of the ceremony. He approached the bell hanging in the corner of the sanctum and sounded the boi. At the first pure clang, loud and sudden, Yezad’s heart skipped a beat. Then the peals rang out in a glorious chain, filling the sanctum and the dome, the dark room and the hall, proclaiming the new geh to the entire temple. It was ringing out life, thought Yezad, it was ringing hope, and his heart sang with the bell.

  Then there was silence. The dustoorji, with a final obeisance to the fire, gathered ash in a silver scoop and offered it to Yezad. He took a pinch for his forehead and throat. The dustoorji touched his own forehead in Yezad’s direction and disappeared.

  Yezad approached the sanctum again. The fire was burning vigorously, the flames leaping with joy, and the room was a dance of light and shadow. He stood absorbed for a few moments, then felt it was churlish – churlish to refuse to bow before a sight so noble in its simple beauty. If he did not bend now, for this, what would he bend for?

  He knelt; his forehead touched the marble threshold; he remained bowed for a long while.

  In the vast hall he paused to pull on his socks before returning to the veranda to retrieve his shoes.

  The evening had grown dark as he emerged from the fire-temple. He walked through the compound with his wealth of repose, handed over the borrowed cap to the smiling boy at the sandalwood shop, and headed home.

  Roxana insisted, as she got into bed, that she could smell sandalwood fragrance on him.

  “I went to the atash-bahram this evening,” said Yezad.

  “Why, suddenly?” She kept her voice casual. She knew her face was showing an excess of joy, and was glad the bedroom light was off.

  “Had a very busy day, needed some quiet. And I remembered your suggestion.”

  “How was it?”

  “Peaceful.” He adjusted his pillow and added, “What I wouldn’t give to have one corner of this flat as peaceful.”

  She smiled in the darkness, and summoned up the courage to inquire, “Did you … pray?”

  “Of course not.”

  She didn’t believe him.

  The delayed-action epiphany Yezad was awaiting failed to arrive. Every day he watched Mr. Kapur for some sign that what had been planned was working like a time-release capsule, gradually making its way through the digestive tract of his mind. And each day he was disappointed, for the boss came in, inspected his reindeer, and retired to his cubby-hole. He seemed pensive, and no longer invited Yezad inside at the end of the day.

  Then one morning, with just over a week to Christmas, Mr. Kapur arrived unusually late, close to noon. Yezad asked what had delayed him.

  “Delayed?” Mr. Kapur checked his watch. “You’re right – look at the time. I didn’t realize how long it would take by public transport. You see, I’ve finally sold my car.”

  “You came by train?”

  “Taxi,” said Mr. Kapur with a touch of embarrassment. “But the train is what I really wanted to take.”

  He described his strange adventure in detail: he’d gone to the station eager to become one of the millions who travelled like livestock upon the rails. Each time a train came in, he had pushed his way forward, and each time he was left behind on the platform. Once, he was at the very nucleus of the throng, certain that he would get on, but some centrifugal surge had elbowed him aside.

  Yezad nodded. “That happens.”

  “After trying for over an hour I gave up. But I’ll make another attempt tomorrow. I think it’s a question of practice, like bowling a leg break.” He looked regretfully at the unused ticket and chucked it in the dustbin, while Yezad asked why the sudden keenness on train travel.

  “It’s a philosophical decision – we talked about it once. I want to embrace everything my city has to offer. I want to mingle with her people, be part of that crush of bodies in the streets and trains and buses. Become one with the organic whole that is Bombay. That’s where my redemption lies.”

  So much for Vilas’s faith in his actors and in epic realism, thought Yezad. Poor Mr. Kapur, he was too far gone into the realm of fantasy. The realm of his rhetoric. Which he truly believed, and which, in the end, would accomplish nothing. That was the sad part.

  “I ask myself why I was unsuccessful today. My spirit is one hundred per cent willing. Is my flesh slightly less? Still repulsed by body odour and dirty clothes and oily hair? Maybe. But I will overcome, I will take the train.”

  Yezad worried about his boss’s blood pressure, and hoped he would tire of his train idea, come to his senses, and buy another car shortly.

  The next day, however, Mr. Kapur dragged himself into the shop, dishevelled and limping. Husain ran to get him a chair, and Mr. Kapur flopped into it while Yezad relieved him of his attaché case. The peon poured tea in a saucer, which he held to his employer’s mouth.

  This irritated Mr. Kapur; he waved it away and took the cup. A few sips later, fortified, he commenced his tale: “You remember some months ago, I witnessed the miracle of a man being scooped up by passengers who were themselves hanging outside the train, clinging by their fingers. They had gathered the runner into the safety of the compartment, making room for one more, though it was fully packed.

  “Well, late last night, it occurred to me as I lay in bed that I could be the man on the platform. All I had to do was put my trust in my fellow Bombayites, and I would be able to get aboard.

  “So this morning, when the train started moving, I moved alongside. It was easy at first, the speed was very slow. The men hanging in the door struggled to squeeze inside. Bit by bit everyone seemed more secure, able to grip a handle or railing.

  “Soon it would be my turn, and though I was out of breath, I raced to stay with the train. I held out my arm. Someone gestured. Was it a greeting or dismissal, I wondered, and reached up with both arms so they couldn’t misunderstand, wouldn’t think I was merely waving goodbye.”

  Mr. Kapur paused and gazed sorrowfully into his teacup. “They didn’t help me, Yezad. Not one man held out his hand to grasp mine. They looked at me like I was some stranger. Yes, okay, I am a stranger. But I’m also their Bombay brother, am I not? And they just stared through me. Others seemed to find me amusing, turning to one another to laugh.”

  He drained his cup and gave it to Husain. “There was no miracle for me, Yezad. I tripped and fell as I neared the end of the platform. And then I took a taxi.”

  The rejection appeared to have broken his spirit. He sat in the doorway like an invalid waiting for his bed to be readied.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he whispered at last.

  “Yes?” Yezad expected him to admit that selling the car was a mistake.

  “On the way here in the taxi I asked myself, Why was I abandoned on the platform?”

  Because the train was full, thought Yezad, and because they couldn’t hear the romantic nonsense filling your head. “Hard to say,” he answered.

  “No, it’s not. Just look at me – my clothes, my shoes, my hair. Go on, tell me what you think.”

  Yezad scrutinized the handiwork of Mr. Kapur’s expensive hair stylist and moved his eyes downwards to the open collar of his fine linen shirt. Though smudged and crumpled from his railway adventure, there was no mistaking its quality; likewise his trousers with their perfect drape, cut from some lightweight blend of natural fibres. And finally there were his Italian loafers, whose supple leather gleamed with smug supremacy.

  “Well?” said Mr. Kapur, getting impatient.

  “Stylish, with a touch of class – that’s my verdict.”

  “Exactly. And that’s the problem. My whole appearance screams one thing: I am not one of you. For all that I have in common with the passengers, I might as well be from outer space. Why should their embrace carry me into the train when I’m doing my best to say, See me, so superior to you!”

  Mr. Kapur swore to remedy this defect. From now on, he would buy his clothes not in air-conditioned department stores but at
the pavement shops of Grant Road and Girgaum – kurta-pyjamas, or ill-fitting pants with crotches that wedged, and short-sleeved bushcoats that gripped the armpits. And no more socks and shoes, but chappals of the sort that would produce corns and calluses, allow the grime of Bombay to encrust his toenails.

  “And never again am I going to Signor Valente’s Salon. A pavement barber in Khetwadi will do the needful. After he hacks my hair, then we’ll see if the train passengers pluck me off the platform or not.”

  “So when will you complete your transformation?” asked Yezad, unable to resist the taunt.

  Mr. Kapur counted silently on his fingers. “In nine days. Right after Christmas.” He rose and walked briskly towards his office, for the morning’s dejection was already dissipating.

  “By the way,” said Yezad. “Sometimes even cheap clothes look good. Make sure it’s a bad fit, before buying your new wardrobe.”

  But with Mr. Kapur’s confidence regained, trying to needle him was like attempting to hurt a pincushion. “I will indeed,” he said, then stopped, turned around, and stepped into the Christmas window.

  NIGHTLY, IN CHATEAU FELICITY, the row from the Munshi flat was audible from the ground floor to the rooftop. It commenced as soon as the handyman went home with his tool box, continuing through dinner, till he and his wife retired.

  The quarrels surprised (and distressed) Jal, because when Edul had first started work on the ceiling, Manizeh was glad for her husband. It was no secret in the building that her proscription against using his skills in their own flat had always made her feel guilty.

  But this job was of a magnitude quite unlike the little repairs Edul was used to muffing; it had been going on for days, and Manizeh had begun complaining that she missed him every evening. As time passed, her complaints grew sharply bitter: she might as well be a widow, her husband was never there with her.