Family Matters (37 page)

“Yes, all you wanted was to play with fire.”

Yezad looked at him scornfully. “Instead you bring a pair of bloody fake actors. They and their dramatic epiphany! Where is it? Where is Mr. Kapur’s revelation, his clarity of vision?”

Vilas pretended to check his pockets. Yezad did not laugh.

“It will take time,” he consoled him. “Only in novels do you get instant results.”

“As if things weren’t bad enough, now I have to be responsible for that envelope stuffed with thirty-five thousand rupees. I’ve got to keep it safe for two imaginary Shiv Sainiks who will never show up.”

“Actually, Yezad, the money gives you an excuse to keep reminding Mr. Kapur of his duty. If our two thespians have planted the seed, your prompting could make it grow.”

“And should I use a stage whisper?” asked Yezad savagely.

“Don’t be upset. Why not hope for the best?”

Yezad thumped down the three steps and walked away, his head throbbing. By the time he turned the corner, he felt all his strength had drained from him. He was conscious of dragging his feet. How annoyed his mother used to get when he did it as a child. Don’t walk khassar-khassar, she would scold, lift your feet.

He realized he was taking the long way to the station, past Wadiaji fire-temple. Well, the walk would do him good. What was the point of rushing home to those two wretched rooms? They would do nothing for his pounding headache, he needed peace and quiet.

Nearing the fire-temple, he glanced through the gate at the compound, and the little garden at its centre. He found himself envying those able to enjoy the serenity within. So could he, he reminded himself – all he had to do was put on a prayer cap and enter. But it would be dishonest, when he wasn’t religious, hadn’t even said the brief kusti prayers in twenty years. On the other hand, he still wore his sudra – nothing more pleasant against the skin than soft mulmul. And every morning after his bath he did wrap the kusti around his waist, albeit haphazardly. But it was from force of habit. And to keep Roxana happy.

On the other hand, there was no rule that he had to be religious to enter the fire-temple. The sign said Admittance For Parsis Only – he was one, and entitled to go inside.

Should he? What would he do, once within its cool, hushed interior? He hesitated at the little sandalwood shop.

“Hallo, uncle.” A young boy was behind the counter this evening. “Want to buy sukhad, uncle? It’s genuine Malbari.”

Then Yezad saw the older man on a stool below the level of the counter. Training his son in the business. Would there be a business when the boy became a man, wondered Yezad, the way the Parsis were dwindling in Bombay, and the way people like himself treated the faith? And the sandalwood trees fast disappearing, thanks to bandits and smugglers like Veerappan …

“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.

T
he 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.