The Assassin's Song (11 page)

The garden, cont'd. The war with China, and …

A new hatred had set in among us, bitter and poisonous, as expressed by an unforgettable cry.

Chou en Lai, hai! hai! Chou en Lai, hai! hai! Shame on you, Chou!

A procession of boys raging on the road, casting shame on the Chinese premier, among them Harish, Utu, and me. Somehow, in all the excitement Harish had ended up screaming his head off while straddling Utu's and my shoulders, perhaps imagining this was how he would ride that aggressor Chou en Lai, who had lied to Nehru about our two nations' friendship and had now attacked us. Our voices turning hoarser, we jogged from one end of the village to the next, then back.

By which time the invocation had altered,
Chin-chao-mao, hai! hai!

The nation was at war against a monstrous, cunning enemy. China. We fought the British and threw them out; our ancestors fought sultans and rajas; but what kind of enemy was this? Stories of Chinese devilry threw our hearts into fear. What dharam did they have, they who ate dogs and rats. They had masses of people.

Chin-chao-mao. The evil triplet: China our communist neighbour, Chou the liar, Mao the mastermind.

Nehru was lolloping about in Africa or London conferring about world issues when he was stabbed in the back by Mr. Chou en Lai, who not long ago had professed, “Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai,” we are brothers.

“Bhai-bhai shai-shai nothing,” said Raja Singh contemptuously. “Chowen Lai threw Chacha Nehru a googly …,” and changing
metaphors, he added that the Chinese premier had made our Nehru dance the twist.

The year was 1962.

It has been said that everything about our country changed beginning those weeks as the possibility of war teased us and we reassured ourselves it could not happen, we were ready, and then suddenly it was upon us with a full-scale Chinese offensive that frightened us. Can you pin the present to a given event in the past? Memory plays tricks. But so much happened then that pointed indelibly—and in hindsight, yes—to the world that unfolded for us: the country I have returned to, my place in it. Our own fanatics may have killed Gandhi, but the final nail on the coffin of his message was hammered in by the Chinese attack. No more the friendly namasté India of nonviolence and renunciation, of homespun cotton and hunger strikes; we would be serious now.

The previous day, October 20, had been Mansoor's birthday. Normally this would have called for a small domestic event, with a pilau cooked at home, with peas and potatoes, and sweets distributed to our few friends. But this time we outdid ourselves in an excess of worldly joy and celebration. The result, it seemed, was catastrophe.

At Pirbaag, the Saheb's birthday was always an occasion for thanksgiving and a restrained form of ritual celebration by the followers. The urs or death anniversary of Pir Bawa, celebrated as his wedding or union with the Universal Soul, was the greater festival. Visitors came dressed in new clothes and thronged the shrine, with much ceremony the Pir's grave was anointed like a bridegroom, and there was a communal meal. Ginans were sung into the early hours. But this day Mansoor had turned five, and Ma used a sophist's argument to call for a celebration: the Saheb's sons were important too, wouldn't one of them become the next Saheb? There should be a public event, albeit a small one. It turned out to be a large party, in the pavilion, with food and music and such abundant joy that our world had become different and profane for an afternoon. A cake was brought from Ahmedabad by Master-ji, brilliantly decorated with pink
and yellow icing, and silver balls, and Mansoor's name in smart blue English script across it. It lay prominently on a stool, a new and alien icon, a subject of profound admiration.

There were the traditional Gujarati songs, of course, celebrating the birth of a son, and his mischievous yet innocent and beloved ways when older, which described Mansoor so well. Someone ventured a film song; someone else performed a skit. A Johnny Walker lookalike appeared and drew laughs with his rascally antics; and the most outré of all, a drunkenand luscious-looking Bollywood Helen in a sinuously seductive slow dance. Mansoor was called from play and the cake was cut, while those who could—even those who couldn't—sang “Happy Birday to You,” just as in the films.

Present, too, was my special someone, that very first and secret heartthrob, a nomad girl of the Rabari caste who always wore the same red embroidered head shawl, dozens of plastic bracelets, and a nose stud the size of a small coin. She looked new to the area, must have been a year or so older than I; her face was long and her piercing grey eyes would boldly return my gaze at our shrine, where she came on Saturdays. Try as I might, I couldn't keep my eyes off her for long, all my cockiness turned to sudden ache and vague desire. I was becoming a man. I had already asked Ma, “Is it possible to marry a Rabari girl?” She had answered, “Jah, jah,” go away, with a wave of the hand and a gentle shove of dismissal. My question was only rhetorical, the girl belonged to the realm of what was not possible. She was different. Now at the party my mother followed my looks, met my eye briefly, and had the last remaining slice of the precious cake sent to the girl. That earned me a brief smile, I think, of gratitude.

My father meanwhile squirmed in his seat. This was Ma's occasion, she had ambushed him with it. What was there to celebrate in a birth, he would have told her. The message of the shrine was about the punishment that was the cycle of birth and death and the illusion that was the world. But my father bore it, this celebration of a birthday; he smiled, he waved, he clapped as required, all with restraint and embarrassment.

Finally, Mansoor, who was crazy about bows and arrows, and spears and guns and slings, was presented with a dhanush, a bow-and-arrow set of his own, brought from Ahmedabad by Master-ji. The little boys went to
fight the bandits on their make-believe rocky terrain of Kathiawad, among the graves. The sacrilege was complete.

On Ma's face, as she watched the proceedings around her, a look of profound happiness, and embarrassment, and, dare I say it, guilt.

Bapu-ji stood up to go and rest. He could have gone from the pavilion directly into his library, then straight into the house; instead he decided to step down and acknowledge the people standing outside among the graves. Having done so, he stopped before the mausoleum, joined his hands to do a pranaam to the Pir. As soon as he turned to proceed towards the side gate of the house, an arrow shot from the new dhanush hit him in the side of the neck.

He gave out a brief but sharp cry, a very human cry, clutched at the wound, and stumbled onto his knees. The turban toppled from his head. His attendants rushed forward to help him up and then walked him into the house.

The neck wound drew a stream of blood; it could have cost him his life, for the boys in their excitement had lost the rubber cup at the tip of the arrow. What would hurt more in the days ahead was the knee that had bumped the pavement. The child who had released the arrow was none other than Mansoor. Having done so, he stood behind the large grave of Jaffar Shah, his kohled black eyes wide open, a nonplussed look upon his face.

That night, while Bapu-ji was in bed, his face drained, his neck bandaged, and running a fever, several of his young followers arrived, having just heard on the radio the news of China's attack in the northeast.

Ma told them the Saheb was tired and needed to sleep. But they had come in the earnest belief that the end of the Kali Age, predicted often enough in the ginans and by the Saheb, might be nigh, and the Saheb had to be informed. The day's events—a blatantly profane celebration in the house of Pir Bawa—had been ominous enough.

My father heard out these earnest young men, smiled indulgently at them, and said, “Let's see.” He waved them away, then closed his eyes.

Later that night, fully awake yet weak, Bapu-ji sat up in bed and asked for tea, and when he'd had it with a biscuit, he got up and went to the library.
There, sitting against a cushion on the floor, his desk on his lap, he began to write. A white cap on his head, glasses on his nose.

Ma asked me to go and put a shawl round his back. Silently and with great care I proceeded to do so. I couldn't tell if he noticed me. With a nib, attached to a holder, that he would dip into a bottle of black ink, he was copying onto foolscap paper the contents of a few ancient-looking pages preserved between sheets of glass. I had secretly observed him at work before, but tonight, in this state, his fevered hand scratching on the page, the blotter used sporadically to dry the ink, I sensed the urgency of his mission, his dedication—to preserve our story for posterity.

Ma's night of abandon had ended badly, and she was blaming herself for the double calamity, the wounding of Bapu and the wounding of Mother India. “It went too far,” she said, almost in tears. “The variety program was too much. That Helen girl—chi-chi-chi …” She shook her head in disgust. “But how could I stop her, or tell all the people to leave?”

“Ma, you brought down the Mahabharat upon us, with your sin,” I teased her.

She could have giggled then, but this was a grave matter. What was left unsaid was that she had used up her savings, and perhaps gone into debt, for our afternoon of abandon. What had got into her?

“I am here,” Mansoor declared, drawing his bow and arrow. “Why worry? I will destroy those cowardly Kauravas!”

Ma pulled him into an embrace, saying fondly, “My Arjun is here.”

How well he fit inside her arms. Usually he was her Munu, today he had graduated into a fighter hero.

In school, no opportunity was missed to speak about the war. Many of us discovered patriotism, as more than words, an urgent feeling. The staff room would echo raucously with argument, our prime minister's name invoked with much anger, for having kept the nation unprepared. In the assemblies, special prayers were said; as the anthem was sung, some pupils and even teachers broke down into tears. One day some army bigwigs came and spoke to us about glorious careers in the military, about patriotism and the need to defend Mother India. They told us about Shaheed Dinoo, who had bravely gone behind enemy lines, walked up to their commander,
and said, “I was a Chinese boy who was kidnapped by the Indians. I will take you through the pass.” And when the Chinese followed him, thishoom-thishoom, our jawans were waiting for them. And Dinoo? The Chinese commander had his head cut off.

If the ultimate objective in life was to attain moksha, release from the cycle of birth and unity with the Absolute, did the outcome of this war matter? Had it already been settled by karma? On the other hand, the Gita enjoined duty no matter what the result. Thus discussed my father and his close followers. Meanwhile ordinary men and women prayed and sang to the gods; women knitted sweaters, donated their gold.

When our local MP arrived in the back of a pickup, standing beside a large brass tapela in which to collect the gold, it was Mansoor who took the bulkier of Ma's two bangles to add to the collection.

And when in school some of the older boys collected signatures pledging to defend the nation, I too pricked my forearm with a pin and signed my name in blood.

Did our India even have place names like Namka Chu? Or Thagla Ridge? Or Che Dong?

It was at Namka Chu, a gorge high in the Himalayas at the border with Tibet, that the Chinese first attacked, with their AK-47s and large guns, their booted, well-trained soldiers. They came from all directions, surprising the fewer Indians who sat shivering in their cotton clothes and canvas shoes, manning light machine guns. Oh yes, our Punjabis and Gurkhas and Assamese and others were heroic, but they stood no chance. They were outnumbered and outmanoeuvred; Indian regiments were soon in disarray, the platoons fighting to the last man. They were annihilated. Hundreds dead, hundreds wounded and captured.

And the “shameless” Chinese, as Nehru called them, were moving to other positions, threatening an all-out war.

We had been attacked and could not defend ourselves.

In spite of the bile and nervousness which the war produced in us, there was an element of comedy to our exaggerated responses that we would
long remember. Ma prepared for the eventuality of the Chinese army reaching as far as Gujarat by having two kitchen knives sharpened; jewellery and other valuables like photographs and a sari had been gathered and packed in a trunk to take with us if we had to leave our home. A blanket, a ladder, and some food and medicine were on standby, in case we had to make a jump and hide in the dry well at the back of the house. A snake had already been forced out of it.

“We are ready,” Ma then said, red-faced and huffing from her efforts, a determined look on her chubby features. “Let them come!” Aawé to khari, Chin-chin lok! Beside her, her little Arjun with his bow and arrow.

One late evening after dinner, as I sat at my table in the courtyard poring over newspapers, my father came over from the library and said to me, “Karsan—come with me outside for a moment.”

Ma had come out of their room and stood watching as Bapu-ji and I stepped out from the side of the house into the shrine compound. Bapu-ji had in his hands a package wrapped in an old copy of
Samachar.
I followed him to the large grave of Jaffar Shah in front of the mausoleum. My father stopped at the foot of the grave, went down on his knees; I did likewise, and watched with surprise as he pried out a loose brick from the ground. Under it was a piece of damp wood that he also removed to reveal a recess. I peered into it, saw that it was about a foot deep and empty.

“Put this packet in there and close the space,” Bapu-ji said, handing it to me, “and do not speak to anyone about this.”

“Bapu, can the Chinese attack us all the way here?” I asked.

He thought for a moment. “It's best to be prepared for anything. This has been our hiding place for generations.”

The moon had come out and was three-quarters full, casting long shadows in the compound, the silhouettes of trees bearing silent witness to what my father and I had just accomplished, and I also recall a brief scent of flowers blown by an intermittent breeze. There was a slight sound and we both gave a start and looked towards the gate, but there was nothing unusual in sight. I helped Bapu-ji up and we walked back to the house. Mansoor was fast asleep in his bed in our room.