Someone Else's Garden (38 page)

You must never give up your good job in the city. Never come back here, especially now that Bapu knows about the money orders. Bapu went quite mad when he found out that Amma had taken all the money you sent. He beat Amma, and then started on Sneha. It is the worst for Sneha, we have no offers for her. You should see her condition, she begs at Lala Ram’s for food. Though our loans are forgiven, the rains failed again, and we have no money. The thatch is gone from the roof and the floor is always wet. I know Bapu’s planning to sell Sneha in the Red Bazaar soon. But I think I can save her by bringing her to the city. Amma says I am her only hope now. Sometimes I don’t know what I am supposed to do. Thank God we will be coming to the city soon.

You must look out for those brothers of ours. If you see them, send them back to Amma. Please come and see our new Netaji Lokend Bhai when he comes to Begumpet,

Your loving brother,

Prem

Netaji Lokend Bhai. She can recite an opera to happiness and apprehension. The slippers, the look, the hands on her shoulders. She thought they were to remain a distant sweet memory, but the mention of his name has caused the best part of her past to spring to life. Mamta stays holding the letter. She feels a moment of pride. ‘My brother wrote this letter. Can you believe that?’

‘The Red Bazaar?’ Cynthia D’Souza has her own questions.

‘It’s near the old quarter where all the tanneries are.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘You ask your amma about it.’ Mamta doesn’t elaborate.

‘Oh, it’s one of
those
places, is it?’ She is just worldly enough to hint at the reality of prostitution. ‘So what will you do about your sister?’

‘Nothing. What can I do about Sneha? How can I look after her here? Where will I put her? Under the stairs?’

‘Ask Mummy to help you find her a job.’

‘Do you really think I should?’

‘You can’t let her stay in that place. Shall I write the letter?’ The girl with large breasts and finely painted lips, who only eats with a spoon and fork and never anything she doesn’t like, pleads on behalf of hair-slowly-turning-orange-soon-to-be-sent-to-the-Red-Bazaar Sneha.

‘Yes, please write the letter. How will I send it to my brother?’

‘Oh, that’s easy, we’ll send it care of this Lokend.’

‘But he’s such a big man. Why would he give Prem the letter?’

‘Well, is he or isn’t he a saint?’

Mamta giggles. ‘All right, we’ll send it to Lokend Bhai.’

Cynthia jumps straight into a cross-legged position on her bed. She writes quickly. Mamta stares up at her from her squat. She pulls Mrs D’Souza’s donated sweater closer round her. The thought of becoming her sister’s saviour makes her cringe.

‘You’ll get sick, wrapped up like that in this heat. Get sick and die before you can see your brother or your sister at the rally.’ Cynthia has never understood her sweeper’s aversion to wind. ‘God, I hate the heat. I don’t remember another year when it was this bad.’ For a brief moment the girls hold the letter together at either end and peer into its heart. One smells of rose soap, the other of phenol.

The letter will arrive days after Lokend, Prem and Sneha have left for the city.

No one else in the building seems as stirred up as Mamta with the prospect of a political rally right in the heart of Begumpet, so she has made it her personal mission to round up as many people as possible to go with her. She must pick amongst her own. The rich will watch it on television.

She starts with Kalu. ‘You must come and hear him speak. You will be a changed man by his words. He’s from my village. I know him.’

‘You mean the man who is standing against a hijra. Now that’s not what I call fair play. Someone with balls standing against someone with none! The people say they will vote for the hijra because all those they’ve voted into power before didn’t use their balls.’ Kalu holds himself between his legs with two fingers to make his point; he gave up coddling Mamta’s coyness ages ago. ‘Maybe this time someone without balls will surprise us. Hijras are rejects of society, they have no families, with fewer mouths to feed, they won’t need as much in bribes. Now that’s logic even I can understand,’ he says.

‘Logic, phah! It’s an insult to someone like Lokend Bhai. No matter, no one will make a better politician than my Sahibji. He is a saint. He came to my wedding.’ It was six months after she met Kalu that she told him she was married and a runaway. He didn’t show much interest in her story then and hasn’t up to now.

‘Go on, making up your grand stories. Why would he come to your wedding?’

‘Kalu, I’m telling the truth. He gave me a box of sweets . . . cashew barfi, the most expensive kind.’ She stops. The box with the face of the goddess.
Jai ho Devi, Devi jai ho. The box I left behind with her.
The suppressed memory of a child abandoned becomes vivid again. An involuntary bleat slips from her lips.

‘Not crying for our Netaji, are you?’ ‘Of course not!’ ‘Once he is elected, the bribing and corruption will start. You just watch. They all change, even the best of them.’

‘No! Not him. He’s a saint. He’ll never change. He’s helped so many people. He’s dead against the dowry system. He cares for us. My brother works for him now. He made Gopalpur safe. He did so much for the victims of the bandits. He gave his lands away. Now tell me how many zamindars would do that?’

‘He has given away his lands to fool people like you. Come to the city, but you still remain gullible.’ He doesn’t bother hiding his disappointment in Mamta. ‘He’s given away his lands in the hopes of earning something better. Power.’

‘I don’t care what you say. I’m going to tell my amma . . .’
Tell my amma,
the comforting phrase jumps to her lips before she realises that option is no longer available to her, ‘about the posters that hang above the number six bus stop.’ More posters have been painted by the star makers, their colours heightened to add allure to the man. Lokend Bhai’s eyes hold Mamta in their gaze each time she walks past, and she hugs those eyes close like a lovesick fan.

‘He has a pet mongoose that lives inside his kurta. Imagine that. Only someone saintly like him could tame a wild animal like that. I tell you, Kalu, if you tried putting a mongoose inside your kurta, it would tear your heart out.’

‘Really? A mongoose?’ ‘Yes, and those animals are dangerous. After all, they do bite the heads off cobras.’ This is how legends are created, in innocent conversation.

‘A mongoose,’ he says, filled with awe. The legend takes root. ‘And mind you, it’s a big black one, not one of those skinny ones that the snake men drag behind them like cats on a rope.’ The legend becomes a myth. ‘He’s bringing my brother to the city with him and my sister too. Come with me to listen to his speech. Then you’ll change your mind.’

At first Lokend used to return to the Big House only because his father wanted him to, then it was because Asmara Didi needed to see him, and finally it was for Daku Manmohan’s sake. Now, with his father gone, Asmara Didi living with the bandits’ wives, and Daku Manmohan murdered, he has no reason to return.

‘Ram Bhaia, I’m going.’

‘I know you think I ordered his death,’ says the elder brother.

‘Ram Bhaia, it is not for me to say anything. What’s done is done. Forgive yourself if you feel the need.’

‘It’s easy for you to say that. You were his favourite. How dare you stand there and accuse me of Daku Manmohan’s murder.’

Words are useless, Lokend knows. Anger swallows a man’s judgement. He hugs his elder brother. ‘You know I’ve found love to be the best protection? Well, maybe love is too strong, try liking first. Like the person you would otherwise despise, like the person you would otherwise shun, like the person you would otherwise resent. Like them, and suddenly their deeds lose their malice, their actions become full of enjoyment, full of fun, full of laughter. Do this and you know you have the Power. Do this for long enough, and you know you
are
the Power.’

‘You and your lecturing, you think you have an answer for everything and everyone. Well, I’m not looking for answers, I’m not looking for sympathy . . . I just want to be heard.’

Lokend squeezes his brother close one last time. A time will come, he knows, when information will turn into knowledge with experience, and finally into wisdom with understanding. That is the path of all evolution.

‘Here is the great Lokend Bhai himself, the son of a zamindar, from a long line of illustrious nobility, but he chooses to live like a common man. Now who wouldn’t trust such a face?’ Mrs Sahai is an avid campaigner for the Party. Hers is a tidy story, the daughter of a national hero without enough charisma to make it to the top, she has developed a knack for spotting new candidates. Not one of her ‘finds’ has ever lost an election. ‘Lokend Bhai –’ she stresses the Bhai ‘– I thoroughly approve of Bhai. It has just the right ring to it. It is better than Sahib, better than Abba, better than Bapu. Bhai. Brother. Too long have politicians distanced themselves from the voter, but Bhai makes you one of them . . . brother to all people.’

All this time, people round him assumed Lokend would never enter politics, but they had their hopes, and they thought their hopes enough to fashion his destiny. Without his consent, Mrs Sahai put his name up as her party’s candidate. Without his knowledge, Ram Singh announced that his younger brother was leaving Gopalpur for the city to become a big politician.

Mrs Sahai is responsible for the larger-than-life posters of Lokend in pinkish hues all over Begumpet. The very ones that have Mamta all stirred up. So how did she swing this one? The story goes that one of Lokend’s grand aunts hailed from the outskirts of Begumpet. It was an important connection. The opposition tried to knock it down, but she had the papers prepared to prove that he had Begumpet blood, albeit two drops of it, flowing through his veins.

From all the candidates Mrs Sahai has found in the past, she knows this one is the most promising. His history is so compelling. Freeing the bandits first catapulted him to fame, then what he did for the bandits’ families propelled him higher, but what he did for the victims of the bandits was unquestionably his crowning glory.

But what of Lokend? What has prompted him to join the Congress Party? What has brought him to this decision which forces him to mire himself in the most corrupted temporal situation imaginable? Why now, when at last he is free of the Big House, free to work unfettered, binding himself to no one, giving help where it is needed, is he consenting to live by other’s rules?

Could it be that he wants to put himself to a test? Or is it guilt? Guilt for the pain he caused, guilt for the pain he could not erase, guilt for the pain he ignored? No, it isn’t a test or guilt that charges his actions, but a seeking mood that has fallen upon him like night, taking him deeper into the depths of self-exploration. He needs to know if he is a true yogi, someone who can perform action, live in the temporal, and still attain bliss.

Mrs Sahai finds him most perplexing. Sometimes he seems lost and she feels the need to wave a hand in front of his eyes. He asks the most peculiar questions and never accepts the answers for what they are. His is a strange mind that works in a mysterious way. He was very keen to meet his rival, face to face, over a cup of tea.

All of Mrs Sahai’s dilly-dallying has got her nowhere. Lokend won’t be deterred, he will meet his rival, the hijra Nirmala Devi, even if he has to go and find her himself. ‘Now, Lokend Bhai, don’t be put off by what you see. Your opponent is a hijra. What can I tell you? They make such a mockery of the election, pitting a hijra against you. I know it isn’t worthy of you, but a landslide victory will convince them. You just wait and see,’ she speaks to the whole city, ‘make a mockery of what we stand for, will you? Make a mockery of me?’

‘Oho, Mrs Sahai, leave it. Hijras are very strong people. They belong nowhere. Adversity is their lot right from birth. I bet you she is fighting fit. No matter, let’s see what she has to say.’

The meeting is on neutral ground, at a teashop, and not at the Congress Party office, which Nirmala Devi’s assistant refers to as that pit of snakes.

The tea arrives simultaneously with Nirmala Devi. She has on the most boisterous pink in an effort to look more womanly than the most bona fide female. Mrs Sahai wrinkles her nose. She hopes there won’t be any embarrassing clapping. ‘Let’s keep this short,’ says Mrs Sahai, poking another pin into her bun.

The two women regard each other. One thoroughly adorned, the other fastidious, almost mousy.

‘Of course we will keep it short, madam. After all, my time is most valuable.’ Nirmala Devi has the affectations of a silent movie actress. Mrs Sahai breathes deep, stifling her words. She is pleased that she managed to convince Lokend to leave his mongoose behind with his servant, Prem. What a combination that would have made, a richly painted hijra and a man with a mongoose up his kurta. She almost chokes on the picture.

‘Lokend.’ He folds his hands exactly before his heart. ‘Namaste’, he says.

‘Namaste,’ she replies without folding her hands. ‘I have heard of you. You got the bandits to surrender, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, you could say that.’ ‘So where are these bandits now?’ ‘Daku Manmohan was murdered, his two chiefs are in jail in New Delhi, and the rest of the gang is in various jails in these parts. Except for the two chiefs, they should be out in three years. But surrendering is not what it was about. It is about making sure we don’t create any more bandits.’

Nirmala Devi crosses and uncrosses her legs. Her chiffon sari, as soft as dew, climbs like a creeper over her stuffed bra. She wants to dislike her rival.

‘So that’s your platform, is it? No more bandits?’ She sniggers broadly on the inside, her assistant sniggers visibly on the outside.

‘Yes, that is my platform. No more bandits. No more thieving in any form, not by the weather, not by acts of God, not by politics or politicians, not by bureaucracy, not by society, not by custom, not by religion, not by any other man, not by industry – nor the lack of it – not by husband, not by in-law. That is my platform. No more thieving.’