A River Sutra (7 page)

Within a week Imrat's audience had expanded. Wealthy people on their morning walks stopped at the balustrade, drawn by the beauty of Imrat singing,

Over the weeks more and more people made the balustrade part of their morning routines, until Master Mohan was able to recognize many faces at the wall, and every day he smiled at a young woman who folded a ten-rupee note, placing it in a crevice in the parapet.

When they dismounted from the tram, the paanwallah shouted his congratulations to fortify them against the raging wife waiting at the music teacher's house.
"Well, little Master Imrat. Your fame is spreading throughout Calcutta. Soon you will be rich. How much money did you make today?"

"Thirteen rupees." Imrat pulled the music teacher toward the sound of the paanwallah's voice. "How much have we got now?"

"Still a long way to go, Master Imrat. But here is another letter from your sister."
The paanwallah kept Imrat's money so Master Mohan's wife would not take it. It was Imrat's dream to earn enough money by his singing to live with his sister again, and each time she wrote he sang with renewed force.
Perhaps it was the fervor in Imrat's voice the morning after he had received another letter from his sister that made the miracle happen.
As Imrat was ending his song a man in blazer shouted, "Come on, come on, my good fellow. I haven't got all morning. Do you read English?"
The music teacher put down his tanpura and walked to the balustrade. The man handed him a paper without even looking at him, turning to the woman at his side. "Does the boy have a name or not? Can't sign a recording contract without a name."
Master Mohan pulled himself to his full height in defense of the child's dignity although the man in the blazer had his back to him. "He is blind and cannot read or write. But I am his guardian. I can sign for him."
"Jolly good. Turn up at the studio this afternoon so the engineers can do a preliminary test. That's what you want isn't it, Neena?"
His companion lifted her face and Master Mohan saw she was the woman who left ten rupees on the wall every day.
She smiled at Master Mohan's recognition. "Is this gifted child your son?"
Master Mohan shyly told her the story of Imrat, suppressing anything that might reflect well on himself, only praising the boy's talent. He could see the interest in her eyes, but the man was pulling at her elbow. "Fascinating, fascinating. Well, be sure to be at the studio at four o'clock. The address is on the contract."
Master Mohan studied the paper. "It says nothing here about payment."
"Payment?" For the first time the man in the blazer looked at him. "Singing for coppers in the park and you dare ask for payment?"
"We are not beggars." Master Mohan could not believe his own temerity. "I am a music teacher. I give the boy his lessons here so as not to disturb our household."
Th e wOma n laid he r han d o n th e man' s arm .

The man laughed indulgendy. "You are the most demanding sister a main ever had. Here, give me that paper." He pulled a pen from his blazer and scribbled down the sum, signing his name after it.

Master Mohan folded the paper and put it carefully in his pocket. When he looked up he saw two men watching him from the other side of the wall. Their oiled hair and stained teeth frightened him, bringing back memories of the musicians who had waited outside the great houses where he had sung as a child, until the menfolk sent for the dancing girls who often did not even dance before musicians such as these led them to the bedrooms.

On their way home Imrat lifted his blind eyes to his teacher and whispered, "But how much money is a thousand rupees? Enough to find somewhere to live with you and my sister?"

The music teacher hugged the child. "If the record is a success you can be together with your sister. Now try and rest. This afternoon you must not be tired."

As they dismounted from the tram the paanwallah shouted, "Last night two musicians were asking about about you, Master. Did they come to hear Imrat today?"
Imrat interrupted the paanwallah. "We are going to make a record and get lots of money."

"A record, Master Imrat! Be sure you sing well. Then I will buy a gramophone to listen to you."
It was no surprise to Master Mohan that Imrat sang as he did that afternoon. The child could not see the microphone dangling from the wire covered with flies or the bored faces watching him behind the glass panel. He only saw himself in his sister's embrace, and when the recording engineer ordered him to sing the studio reverberated with his joy.
"The boy has recording genius," an engineer admitted reluctantly as Imrat ended his song. "His timing is so exact we can print these as they are."
His colleague switched off the microphone. "Ranjit-sahib will be very pleased. I'll call him."
A few minutes later the man in the blazer strode into the office followed by his engineers. "Well done, young man. Now my sister will give me some peace at last. She has done nothing but talk about you since she first heard you sing."
He patted Imrat's head. "Come back in ten days. If the engineers are right and we do not have to make another recording, I will give you a thousand rupees. What will a little chap like you do with so much money?"
But he was gone before Imrat could reply. Master Mohan dared not hope for anything until the record was made. To prevent the child from believing too fervently that he would soon be reunited with his sister, the music teacher continued Imrat's lessons in the park, trying not to feel alarm when he saw the same two men always at the balustrade, smiling at him, nodding their heads in appreciation of Imrat's phrasing.
One day the men followed Master Mohan and Imrat to the tram, waiting until they were alone before approaching the music teacher with their offer.
"A great sahib wants to hear the boy sing."
"No, no. We are too busy." Master Mohan pushed Imrat before him. "The boy is making his first record. He must practice."
"Don't be a fool, brother. The sahib will pay handsomely to listen to his voice."
"Five thousand rupees, brother. Think of it."
"But your sahib can hear the child free every morning in the park."
They laughed and Master Mohan felt the old fear when he saw their betel-stained teeth. "Great men do not stand in a crowd, snatching their pleasure from the breeze, brother. They indulge their pleasures in the privacy of palaces."
"He must finish his recording first."
"Naturally. But after that . . ."
"We will be here every morning, Master." "You will not escape us."
To Master Mohan's dismay the men waited each day at the park, leaning against the parapet until Imrat's small crowd of admirers had dispersed before edging up to the blind boy.
"Please, little Master Imrat, take pity on a man who worships music."
"The sahib's responsibilities prevented him from following his own calling as a singer."
"He could have been a great singer like you, Master Imrat, if he had not been forced to take care of his family business."
Master Mohan could see the smirking expressions on the faces of the two men as they tried to ingratiate themselves with Imrat.
"To hear you sing will relieve the pain of his own heart, denied what he has most loved in this life."
"If you sing well he will give you leaves from Tansen's tamarind tree to make your voice as immortal as Tansen's."
Master Mohan knew these men had once learned music as Imrat was doing now, until poverty had reduced them to pandering to the vices and whims of wealthy men. Even as he despised them he was relieved that Imrat's record would save him from such a life.
Now they turned their attention on Master Mohan.
"We have told the great sahib this boy has a voice that is heard only once in five hundred years."
"The sahib is a man of influence, brother. Perhaps he can arrange to have the boy invited to the Calcutta Music Festival."
The music teacher felt dizzy even imagining that his blind charge, who had been no better than a beggar only eight months ago, might be invited to sing in the company of India's maestros. The great singing teachers always attended the festival. One might even offer to train Imrat's pure voice, taking it to a perfection that had not been heard since Tansen himself sang before the Great Moghul. He nearly agreed but controlled himself enough to say again "You must wait until the boy completes his recording."
Fortunately he did not have to think long about the temptation offered by the two men.
On the day he took Imrat back to the recording studio, the young woman was also present in the office, seated on an armchair opposite her brother's desk.
"I played this record for the director of the radio station. He thinks Master Imrat has great promise, and must be taught by the best teachers available. A talent like his should not be exposed to the dust and germs in the park. There are empty rooms above one of our garages. He must live there."
The woman put her arm around boy. "Wouldn't you like to stay with me? Your sister could work in my house and your teacher would come to see you every day."
The boy nodded happily, and she handed two copies of the record and an envelope of money to Master Mohan. "So it is settled. As soon as his sister reaches Calcutta they will both move into my house."
Master Mohan took the records but left the envelope of money in the woman's hand for Imrat's sister.
"Are we to be given nothing for feeding and clothing this changeling you brought into our home?" Master Mohan's wife screamed when she learned her husband had left the boy's money with the studio owner. "What about the whole year we have kept him, restricting our own lives so he could become rich? Are your own children to receive nothing out of this, only blows and abuses?"
Her fury increased when Imrat's record was released and proved immediately popular.
In the weeks that followed, the record was played over and over again on the radio by enthusiastic programmers. While Imrat waited for his sister to send news of her arrival in Calcutta, Master Mohan was informed by the recording studio that Imrat's record was disappearing from the record shops as fast as new copies could be printed.
Now his wife's rage was inflamed by jealousy. She could hear Imrat's record being played everywhere in the bazaars. Even the paanwallah had brought a gramophone to his stall, storing it behind the piles of wet leaves at his side. Each time a customer bought a paan the paanwallah cranked the machine and placed the record on the turntable, boasting "I advised the music teacher to adopt the child. Even though he was only a blind beggar, I was able to recognize the purity of his voice immediately."
A week before Imrat's sister was due to arrive in Calcutta, the music teacher's wife learned from Mohammed-sahib that her husband had refused to let Imrat perform at the home of a great sahib.
"And he was offering the sum of five thousand rupees to listen to the blind boy," Mohammedsahib said in awe.
"Five thousand rupees!" Master Mohan's wife shrieked. "He turned down five thousand rupees when his own children do not have enough to eat and nothing to wear! Where can I find those men?"
That night the music teacher helped Imrat into the house. To his distress, he found his wife entertaining the two men who had come so often to the park.
She waved a sheaf of notes in Master Mohan's face. "I have agreed the brat will sing before the sahib tonight. See, they have already paid me. Five thousand rupees will cover a litde of what I have spent on this blind beggar over the last year."
The music teacher tried to object but Imrat intruded on his arguments. "I am not tired, Mastersahib."
"Waited on hand and foot by our entire household! Why should you be tired?" She grabbed the boy's arm. "I'm coming myself to make sure you sing properly to pay for all the meals you have eaten at our table."
The two men smiled victoriously at the music teacher. "Our rickshaws are waiting at the corner of the street."
As they rode to the great sahib's house, Master Mohan felt tears on his cheeks. In a week Imrat would be gone, leaving him imprisoned again in his hateful household. He hugged Imrat to his chest, his sighs lost in the rasping breathing of the man straining between the wooden shafts of the rickshaw.
At the high iron gates of a mansion the rickshaws halted. A guard opened the gates and Master Mohan's wife seized Imrat's arm, pulling him roughly behind her as servants ushered them through a series of dimly lit chambers into a dark room empty of furniture.
Wooden shutters sealed the French doors on either side of the room, and large patches of paint peeled from the walls. The floor was covered by a Persian carpet that extended from the door to a raised platform. Above the platform two unused chandeliers hung from the ceiling, shrouded in muslin like corpses.
A man sat on the platform, his size exaggerated by the candles burning on either side of him. The musicians bowed to him obsequiously. The sahib ignored them. Still smiling, the musicians climbed onto the platform where a harmonium and drums were placed in readiness for the concert.
"Come here, little master," the great sahib said. "I am told you have a voice such as India has not heard for hundreds of years."
Master Mohan's wife released her hold on the boy, and the music teacher led him to the platform, grateful that Imrat could not see this empty room with its sealed wooden shutters and the shadows flickering on the peeling walls. As he helped him up the stairs, the music teacher whispered in Imrat's ear, "Only sing the two songs from your record. Then we can go home."
"Soon I will be with my sister again," Imrat answered in a whisper as Master Mohan gently pushed him down in front of the two musicians. "Tonight I must thank Allah for his kindness." For a few minutes only the music of the harmonium echoed through the heavy shadows of the room, and Master Mohan could feel his wife shifting restlessly from foot to foot at his side. Then Imrat's clear voice pierced the darkness.

"/ prostrate my head to Your drawn sword. 0, the wonder of Your kindness. O, the wonder of my submission.

"Do not reveal the Truth in a world where blasphemy prevails.
0 wondrous Source of Mystery. 0 Knower of Secrets. "