The Solitude of Emperors (20 page)

As we approached the dining hall, I noticed vast cauldrons being washed in one corner of the courtyard. I asked Professor Menon whether many pilgrims visited the shrine and whether they were all fed. He said this was not the pilgrim season, it was too cold, but they were preparing for the saint’s Feast Day, which fell on 5 January. They were expecting at least a hundred visitors then, especially if the weather held up. My mind flashed back to the conversation we’d had the previous evening, about when Rajan would try to enter the shrine. Something told me he wouldn’t make his attempt during Republic Day—he wouldn’t cool his heels in Meham for three weeks, would he? But if he made his move during Feast Day, there would be media in attendance, even if it comprised only local stringers, and there would be enough people to witness his triumph. And he would need to triumph this time; it wouldn’t help his cause if, having thrown down the gauntlet, he was to fail again.

‘Will you be able to attend the festival?’ the professor was asking.

‘I certainly intend to,’ I said grimly. I told them my suspicions and the professor nodded. ‘Yes, of course, it makes sense, I should have thought of that.’

‘But why not take over the shrine in the spring, at Easter or one of the other major Christian festivals when there will be thousands more people from all over the country?’ Noah asked.

The professor thought for a moment, then said, ‘I think it would be much more difficult. You’ve seen the crush of pilgrims who arrive for Easter service at the shrine, not to mention the thousands of tourists who come hoping to see the cross start to bleed. It would be too tough to control. Rajan would prefer to deal with a more manageable crowd. No, I think Vijay is right, it will probably be Feast Day.’

‘Should we tell Brother Ahimas?’

‘I don’t see why not, but I doubt he’ll want to do anything. We’ll just have to alert the police and the Collector.’

~

Brother Ahimas was just the way I had imagined him to be. He was a man of medium height with long flowing white hair, an untrimmed beard and dark eyes that fairly shone with compassion. He unsettled me. His direct, open gaze and the saintliness he projected made me feel uncomfortably aware of myself. He greeted Noah affectionately, and then turned to me. Noah introduced me as a friend of his from Bombay, whereupon, unprompted, I launched into a hurried explanation of how I had ended up in Meham: the riots in Bombay, the attack, the aftermath, my work at the magazine, the assignment I was on. All through my nervous chatter, Brother Ahimas kept his disconcerting gaze fixed on me. When I eventually ran out of things to say, he remarked gently, ‘You have endured much at a very young age, thambi, but by God’s grace you have survived. Come, let’s have lunch, we can talk some more.’ He took my arm and led the way to the lunch hall, followed by Menon and Noah.

There were three people eating in the big room. Brother Ahimas greeted them, walked over to a corner, settled down on a mat and invited us to sit. Volunteers served us a meal of sambhar, avial and rice on banana leaves. The custodian said grace and we began to eat. The food was simple but it was well prepared, and I quickly finished what was on my leaf and accepted another helping before I realized that none of the others had finished. I waited somewhat awkwardly for them to catch up with me, and wondered who might broach the subject of Rajan. When it became clear that Noah and the professor were not going to bring it up, I decided to plunge in. ‘Aiyah, I think the shrine is in great danger; the people who attacked it earlier this month are going to try again on Feast Day. They might try to pass themselves off as pilgrims,’ I said, adding as much detail as I could. The custodian heard me out in silence, and then said, ‘Thambi, the shrine has been under attack many times in the past, but it still stands. For as long as it is God’s will, no harm will come to it, and if God wills otherwise, it is only bricks and stone that will be destroyed.’

‘But aiyah, what of those who make the pilgrimage? This shrine must be defended for their sake, don’t you think?’

‘It is said, thambi, that when the saint first came here, it was a wild and inhospitable place, but he didn’t mind, he had been led here by God. In his time there was no building, no shrine; his message was spoken under the Nilgiri skies, and no matter what happens I have no doubt that the saint’s message will live on.’

I couldn’t argue with that sentiment, and as neither Professor Menon nor Noah seemed inclined to say anything, it seemed pointless to continue. ‘Come now, you must eat, your food is growing cold,’ the custodian said gently. I finished hurriedly, and we went out into the mild afternoon sun. For an old man, Brother Ahimas was very fit. He walked briskly to the outer edge of the Tower of God, where a low ridge provided a natural barrier. All around us the mountains padded away into the distance, an army of giants turned to stone. Under the luminous plane of the sky, the forests that clothed their lower slopes glowed green, and it was easy to imagine that we were looking at a wilderness untouched by man and consecrated by God. Far below us, dimly glimpsed through the haze, we could see a line of greenery that marked the passage of a river.

Why was it, I wondered unhappily, that even the earth’s paradises were not spared from destruction? Was this God’s own hand at work, tearing apart the perfection he had created? It made no sense at all.

‘You’re lucky, my friends,’ Brother Ahimas said. ‘This place is usually wreathed in cloud, but it’s been an exceptionally clear day. I usually say my prayers here at dawn, and this morning I understood, as if for the first time, that we are truly blessed to live in this holy land. Long before the rest of the world emerged from the darkness of ignorance and apostasy, when other races were still worshipping the Gods of war and vengeance, the great sages and rishis of Hinduism understood that they were false Gods, and the only true God to be found within every one of us was the God of compassion.’ He paused for a while, gazing out over the mountains. My mind went back to Mr Sorabjee’s manuscript and the story in it about Emperor Akbar’s debating hall of faith, the Ibadat Khana, and I thought Brother Ahimas would have fitted right in with the other religious savants who adorned it. He broke the silence. ‘We have been able to find God in fire, water, air and stone, so why is it that we don’t seem to be able to find Him in our hearts? The monuments we raise up in His name grow grander and grander but when will we realize that they have no value in His eyes if we fill them with hate and violence?’

He put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and said, ‘That you have found a purpose after the trauma you have suffered is something we should be thankful for. But do not worry about this shrine. Nothing can destroy the handiwork of God.’ He took his hand off my shoulder, made the sign of the cross over us and left.

When he had disappeared from view, I asked Menon if there was anything he could add to the details that he had given us the previous evening of how the shrine might be defended in the event of attack. ‘It is possible to defend it, if you’re wholly committed to the effort,’ he said. ‘If the attackers make it up the steps, there are only two approaches and they can be easily guarded. The only problem is that Brother Ahimas will not allow any form of active defence. He says the saint was an apostle of peace, and any violence will desecrate his memory. The last time, about a dozen youths, Christians, Hindus and Muslims, arrived at the shrine with a variety of weapons but Brother Ahimas sent them away. Fortunately, as you know, the weather saved the day, and soon after the town elders organized a peace march and calmed the people, so Rajan couldn’t do any real damage, but if he is planning a sneak attack, then we will have a problem.’

‘The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that he will make his move on Feast Day,’ I said.

‘Yes, we will need to be extra vigilant,’ the professor said.

‘I’ve said this to Vijay before but I’ll say it again,’ Noah said. ‘I’m aware I’m the lone dissenting voice here but Rajan is too smart to want to alienate the people of this town. The shrine is part of their daily lives, they wouldn’t want it to be destroyed. I think he might try to give us a scare, but I don’t think he’ll do anything drastic.’

I thought of the poor muddy streets of Meham, the aimless young men who stood around on its street corners, and their faces merged with the faces of the thugs who had tried to destroy Bombay and I knew Noah was wrong. He didn’t know what people like Rajan were capable of, he didn’t know how susceptible people with nothing else in their lives could be to the allure of religious feuding.

‘We thought Bombay could not be destroyed, and that’s what a lot of people thought about the Babri Masjid. But there’s no telling what people can do when they are caught up in a religious frenzy,’ I said.

‘I agree with Vijay,’ Professor Menon added sombrely. ‘We should take every precaution we can.’ He told us he would phone the police and the Collector, and quietly arrange to have some of the town’s young men patrol the approaches to the shrine.

It was time to go, I had to attend the New Year’s Eve celebration at the club with Brigadier Sharma. I told Professor Menon that I would spread the word there about Rajan’s intended plans so we could muster as much support as possible.

10

Fuchsia Wars

The true gardener, Noah once said to me, sees the world very differently from the rest of us. Where you or I might remark upon the beauty of a rose or be captivated by the riotous colour of a bed of geraniums, the gardener will focus on a mottled leaf that might be the first sign of disease, or pick up a clod of earth and crumble it in his fingers to gauge its porosity and alkaline content, or read the clouds or the behaviour of birds and other strange portents which are incomprehensible to non-gardeners. I had never so much as uprooted a weed, so the mysterious world of the gardener was, I suspected, forever shut to me. The gentlemen gardeners of the Fuchsia Club of Meham seemed, at first glance, to be as ignorant of gardening as I was, but they didn’t let that bother them.

The club’s claim to be the oldest continuously active association in the Nilgiris was not belied by the age of its members. They all appeared to be over seventy; the Indian cabinet seemed positively sprightly by comparison. But neither their advanced years nor the fact that they had never dirtied their hands with topsoil prevented them from making vigorous contributions to the club’s last meeting of the year.

~

As soon as I got home from the shrine I had hurriedly bathed and changed, and it was just as well that I did, for at a quarter to seven a midnight-blue Mercedes, buffed and polished until it shone, with a uniformed chauffeur behind the wheel, pulled into the driveway.

The Brigadier got out to shake hands, and I was immediately conscious of how underdressed I was in my grey trousers and sweater. In contrast, the Brigadier could have stepped from the pages of a magazine aimed at the Distinguished Older Gentleman: grey flannels, blinding white shirt, crested blazer, regimental tie and well-shined black shoes. Everything about him exuded wealth. Noah had told me the Brigadier’s wife’s family were prominent Delhi industrialists. He must have barely met the army’s height requirement, but his erect carriage, fierce, upswept, almost cartoonish moustache and direct gaze more than made up for his lack of inches. He took in my attire and frowned for a moment, then said, ‘Umm, you’ll need a tie, but we can fix that quite easily, old boy.’ He sized me up a little longer, and then bellowed, ‘Karunakaran.’

The chauffeur, who seemed to be ex-army as well, stiffened to attention.

‘Tie lao. Jaldi,’ the Brigadier growled and, to my astonishment, the chauffeur opened the boot of the car and brought out a portable tie rack on which three ties were draped.

‘Always be prepared is my motto,’ the Brigadier said smugly. ‘I fancied that you might not know the rules of the club, old chap, so here we are.’ He drew out a silvery grey patterned tie, shook his head, and finally decided on a plain red tie that he thought would go with my beige sweater. Before I could react, he had folded out my collar, slung the tie around my neck, knotted it expertly, bent my collar back into place, and then stepped back to examine his handiwork. He pronounced himself satisfied and we set off.

On the way to the club, he told me about the genesis of the FCM. Noah had already told me a bit about it, but I wasn’t about to say that I knew anything—I wanted to avoid the inevitable question about my informant—so I let the Brigadier hold forth.

~

About twenty years ago, while he was serving in the army, he had been posted to the Nilgiris as a member of the directing staff at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington. He had attended the college as a young student officer several years earlier, and both he and his wife had been enchanted by the place. During his second sojourn in the Nilgiris his wife had succumbed to the allure of gardening, the favoured pastime of senior army wives and other upper-class women in the district. In the course of one of her periodic forays to the Sims Park Nursery, which offered the widest selection of plants, she had noticed a small shrub with vividly coloured flowers and had immediately bought it. The gardener who was showing her around didn’t know what the plant was, so he had taken her to his superior, who had identified it. The Brigadier winked at me, and said with a bray of laughter, ‘The poor man didn’t know to pronounce it, he called it a Fuck-sia.’ I smiled along with him, and he continued his story.

The lone bush had flourished in the Brigadier’s garden, but all his efforts to procure other specimens had failed. The nursery didn’t know how it had come to be included in its shipment of plants and so didn’t know how to order it, and none of the Brigadier’s contacts could get any more for him. Meanwhile, the exotically named De Groot’s Happiness was the envy of every gardener in the district.

When he retired from the armed forces, he and his wife had decided to settle down in the Nilgiris, rather than return to Bhopal, his home town. They had bought a house in Meham, and transported the treasures of their garden, a number of fuchsias among them (for the efforts of the Brigadier and about a dozen other equally determined gardeners had succeeded in procuring a few more varieties of the plant from other hill stations in India) to their new home. It was around then that the Brigadier had taken over the gardening club at Meham, an association affiliated to the Meham Club, which comprised a score of elderly gentlemen who used it as a pretext to get away from their wives and families for one afternoon every month. Gardening played a very small part in their deliberations, it was more a time for gossip, good food and vast amounts of rum. After the Brigadier arrived, all that had changed. Determined to make the best of his retirement—he had seen too many of his fellow officers drop dead or go to seed when they were discharged with a pension—he poured all his energy and enthusiasm into the gardening club. He did not let his lack of experience with spade and pruning knife deter him; there would always be proper gardeners who could be relied upon to actually sow the seeds, water the plants and stamp out the weeds; what was necessary was to make the gardens of Meham the best in the district, and that needed strategy, organization and a firm, decisive leader.