Hillstation (18 page)

‘Earnest discussion?' asked my sister.

‘I would say heated even,' answered Father.

‘Impassioned?'

‘Certainly it was moving in that direction.'

‘Then there is hope,' said one of my sisters. ‘For nothing can withstand the impassioned fire of the Pushkaran heart. To arms! To arms! Let us go, my comrades, for destiny or death awaits!'

After which Father stood to one side scratching his head while my sisters busily marshalled the villagers into groups and sent them off to the hall. I took advantage of the distraction to nip into my office where the first thing that struck me was the smell. It me took a while to find the source but eventually, behind one of the filing cabinets, I discovered a collection of jerry cans, ropes, back copies of the
Pushkara Daily Gazette
and a box of matches. The smell, I realised, was of petrol.

‘Rabindra?' called my sister.

I glanced out quickly but she was only marching around looking for me. I closed the door quietly and joined the crowds with a nonchalant look on my face.

‘And you can wipe that nonchalant look off your face,' she said when she saw me. ‘There is nothing nonchalant about war. Now, choose a placard and get out there.'

‘Which one?' I asked.

‘Any, it doesn't matter,' she said.

‘How about, “We Would Rather Not Have This Sort Of Thing In The Village Since It Is Not The Sort Of Thing That We Would Rather Have In The Village If You See What I Mean!”?'

‘Except that one,' she growled.

I picked another, hoisting it over my head. ‘I look forward to sacrificing my entrails in the service of Shiva,' I announced, possibly overdoing the rhetoric, waving it around and accidentally catching a light fitting which shattered over my head in a cloud of glass and plaster dust.

‘Never mind that,' said my sister as I bent down to retrieve the pieces. ‘Get another one.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, ‘but I'm not very familiar with the methodology of placard-waving.'

‘Well, for a start, you don't wave it until you are out of operational headquarters,' she said. ‘I would have thought that was obvious. I mean, what is the point of waving it in here?'

‘Practice?' I offered.

‘What practice does it need?' she shouted. ‘You take it out of here. Once you are out of here, you lift it up. You carry it to the demonstration area. When you arrive you stand and wave it. How simple does it get? There is no methodology, that's all there is to it.'

‘Rabindra,' said Father. ‘Stop winding your sisters up.'

‘Perhaps you would like this one?' said Mr Dimpas handing me one of his masterpieces. ‘I think I've got the hang of it now.'

‘Yes, yes,' shrieked my sister. ‘Just take it and go.'

Pushkara could be stunning sometimes, with its silent peaks, trails of cloud and a sky too blue for its own good. On days like this the very earth seemed to intimate a substance beyond itself, like some of those beggars who claim to be a secret prince as we hustle them back on the bus. Sometimes I used to wonder if they really were. But how would you know? Flaking paint on a shop-front threw shadows over itself in an ever-shifting carnival of light. That it continued to play, even unobserved, made me think of all the lives around me, of birds, beasts, microbes and vegetation that didn't give two hoots whether I acknowledged their existence or not (unless they were some kind of bacterial infection, of course, in which case they probably saw me as their nemesis).

I joined the slow procession of protesters making their way to the hall. Some had stopped to chat while others were checking their shops and stalls. A group of elders had gathered under a bodhi tree to debate the epistemological implications of their slogans which leaned, for the time being, against its knotty trunk.

‘Brevity of its own is an intrinsically misleading phenomenon,' one of them proposed, ‘for it is not in the summation but the detail of a thing that its most fundamental characteristics achieve their proper manifestation.'

‘But is not a summation simply the delineation of the essence of a thing?' queried another, provocatively. ‘The essence being that from which the manifested details emerge?'

‘Then you would have it that a human being is but a collection of limbs and body parts,' retorted the first elder, smiling. ‘But if that were the case, you need only cut up some pieces of wood into the shape of arms and legs and so forth, nail them together and hey presto, you've made a human being. And though it may look like a human being, and might even move like a human being, and certainly in the dark you could easily mistake it for one, would you allow your daughter to marry it?'

‘This might explain my son-in-law,' said another, at which they all chuckled.

‘Why are you idling around when there's a war on?' shouted one of my sisters passing them with several placards under her arms. ‘May I remind you that Shiva does not look kindly upon deserters?'

I joined her as the elders scrambled to collect their placards.

‘Have they no sense of the peril we're in?' she sighed.

‘Perhaps you could enlighten me, beloved sister,' I said, ‘as to what peril, exactly, we are in?'

‘Can you not see?' she answered. ‘Already some of the young are asking their parents what's wrong with a little entertainment at the Shri Malek Bister International Events Arena.'

‘And what is wrong with that?' I said.

‘That we should even ask,' she muttered, clutching the placards to her breast as she hurried away.

‘Psst.'

I looked round to see a group of youths pressed into the shadow of a doorway.

‘Master Dimpal,' I said, ‘how are your arches?'

‘Groovin, dude,' he said.

‘You must keep me informed about the dough-balls and let me know if you need anymore.'

‘Sweet, bro',' he answered.

His flat feet had been a major impediment, quite literally, to any marriage prospects evidenced by the giggling of girls as he waddled down the street. It seemed a shame, as he was otherwise well-constructed and of an amiable disposition. My solution had been the insertion of dough-balls into his shoes which had largely mitigated the affliction. I'd even suggested that Dev write it up for the ‘
Lance It!
' but Dev had said there was more to medicine than the pursuit of noble prizes from the hands of svelte Scandinavian women who, in spite of appearances, are tempestuous little hotties under their tight hair and spectacles. When I enquired, he explained that ‘svelte' is a compound noun derived from ‘swelter' and ‘velvet', which I thought interesting, if difficult to construe many circumstances to which it could be usefully applied.

‘You know there are plenty more of these,' I said, indicating my placard, ‘should you feel so inclined.'

‘Word on da street, bro',' said Mr Ghosh. ‘Is you was over da hotel innit.'

‘Well, yes, it's true, I did pop over there,' I admitted.

‘Respec',' said several of them, nodding.

‘You've been listening to Brian's friends again, haven't you?' I said.

‘You dissin' me?' Mr Gupta confirmed. ‘Cause we fought you was, like, one of us, know what I mean? Now you is one of dem.'

‘And who is us, exactly?' I asked.

‘Dude, you is getting the lingo!'

‘No, I meant, if I'm “one of them”, then who is the “us” against whom the “them” are juxtaposed. And please answer me normally. In any case it sounds better when someone's banging a dustbin.'

‘Um,' said Mr Gupta, looking a little chastened, ‘I suppose anyone who isn't a “them”.'

‘That's what Pol was saying,' said Mr Ghosh. ‘You is either an “us” or a “them”, meaning you is either wiv us or against us.'

‘But you despise him,' I said. ‘In your father's bakery, you serve him last and give him the worst cakes. How is that suddenly changed?'

‘We still despise him, obviously,' said Mr Ghosh defensively. ‘But it's the show, innit.'

‘You are referring to the show explicitly banned by the elders?'

‘Yeah,' said Mr Dimpas as the others nodded. ‘And like Pol was saying, you know, what gives them the right?'

‘The right?' I said. ‘Nobody gives them the right. What gives a mountain the right to be a mountain? Does it have to renew its application once a year? Does it require a consensus of opinion from the youth of Pushkara? Does it wait in an ante-room somewhere to learn the outcome of your deliberations? Do we say, “yes, we'll let you stand mountainously around today but we're not sure about tomorrow come back in the morning and we'll let you know”?'

‘So what's with big letters?' said Mr Shoni nodding at my placard.

‘My sisters are of the view that the bigger the letters, the louder the sound they make in your head,' I explained.

‘But it just says “Big Letters”,' said another youth.

I looked at the placard which indeed said merely, ‘Big Letters' in big letters. ‘Well,' I muttered, strolling off towards the hall, ‘I suppose not everyone understands the finer points of polemic.'

To my surprise the barricade was considerably advanced when I arrived, though my sisters seemed to be in a state of distress.

‘Of what use are vegetables?' one of them was screaming at Mrs Knapp.

‘Aubergines, collectively assembled, are extremely difficult to surmount,' replied Mrs Knapp, tartly.

‘So why are they decorated with flowers?' She turned to Mr Goli's ice-creams, neatly arranged in their respective flavours. ‘And what's this?' she shrieked, indicating a Banana Sundae, ‘Who is this supposed to stop?'

Mr Goli picked it up. ‘Let me assure you,' he said, weighing it in his hands, ‘this is not a pleasant thing to receive abruptly in the face.'

She snatched it from him. ‘It makes a mockery of us to think you can throw ice-creams at the enemy.'

‘But if they stop to enjoy a nutritious treat in a choice of delicious flavours, then surely our purpose will have been served,' he answered, cunningly.

She tore at her hair, the bun abandoned, lank tresses flopping raggedly in her face as she marched off, sobbing.

My other sister, meanwhile, was attempting to organise the placard-wavers into ranks according to height. ‘It does not matter that you have blue writing and she has red. We are not putting the colours together. I am asking you to stand here. You, the yellows, what are you doing?'

‘We are the yellows,' said one of them. ‘And we yellows stick together.'

To which the oranges, similarly aligned, murmured agreement.

‘Perhaps we should arrange ourselves according to the size of the writing?' offered a gentleman. ‘It would make sense if the smaller writing was at the front and larger behind.'

‘Are you all idiots?' said my sister, turning to the assembled villagers. ‘Have you no sense of impending calamity? The Turtle is on its way and all you can do is display your produce and come up with lame excuses to be the ones standing in the shade.'

‘Excellent,' said Father hurrying along the road, refreshed from what I guessed was a mid-day nap, his gown around him like a shroud of black feathers. ‘They should be here soon. And this is looking splendid.' He put an arm around one of my sisters but she shrugged it off.

‘They are simply not co-operating,' she wailed. ‘Either they hold their placards upside down or the wrong way round, or they just lean on them.'

‘They'll be ready,' soothed Father. ‘Don't worry. The raging heart of Pushkara and all that. At least we've got a lovely barricade.'

‘But it is mainly constructed from soft vegetables and fruit,' she retorted. ‘How are we to set light to it?'

‘And wooden culinary implements,' said my father. ‘Look, there is even a beautifully arranged collection of ornamental tables. I'm sure they'd burn nicely.'

‘Excuse me,' said Mr Jeenkal, ‘but nobody said anything about burning.'

‘This is meant only figuratively,' smiled Father. ‘Perhaps a few boxes to one side for demonstrative purposes, but nothing likely to endanger anyone.'

‘But how can we endanger the enemy without endangering ourselves?' said my sister. ‘Father, even though you are my father, sometimes I wonder if you are truly committed.'

Before he could reply, the air was shattered by the screech of Sergeant Shrinivasan's siren, wafts of dust curling over the nearby rooftops indicating his rapid approach.

Mrs Batti and Mr Soumodip began to jostle for position in front of their contributions to the barricade: tinned prunes and bead necklaces respectively. Mr Vemuganti turned his ‘No To The Show' placard to reveal, ‘Why Not Enjoy A Refreshing Cold Drink Instead?'

I found Dev on a chaise longue, smoking a bidi. Next to him a notice read, ‘Today Only: Special Discounts For Barbarians'.

‘How are the sisters?' he asked, exhaling slowly.

‘Father won't let them set fire to the barricade,' I said. ‘And they went to all sorts of trouble collecting petrol and whatnot.'

‘Well, I'm sure they'll do what they think is best,' he chuckled dreamily, closing his eyes.

I looked round to see one of my sisters in the entrance porch of the Hall carefully decanting liquid from a jerry can into an old commode. The smell of petroleum spirits made my stomach knot suddenly.

‘Dev?' I said.

‘Mahadev,' he murmured, beginning to breathe heavily.

At that moment, the Sergeant's car raced round the corner, swerving to avoid a sleeping dog. The villagers began to squabble. One of my sisters climbed to the top of the barricade shouting, ‘The Turtle is here, fight as it is written!', while my other sister looked round from the porch, a grim smile on her face, as she raised the commode and began to empty it over her clothes.