Left from the Nameless Shop

by Adithi Rao

  Brother Abranches looked across the room at Kulla. The boy seemed more cheerful today. Or was he just imagining it? Maybe he had shown his dog to Doctor Bhaskara the previous evening, and now its leg was better? His gaze wandered to Manju, whose head was bent over his notebook. Abranches watched him for a long time, his thoughts whirling and stumbling over each other. He seemed to be fighting some internal battle, but the boys never looked up from their work and so they never saw their headmaster’s troubled expression. Suddenly he came to a decision. Snatching up a green flier from inside the drawer, he wrote on the blank side of it the words: Will we get funding for the new school building?

  Folding the paper into a tiny square, he tucked it into his palm and began to pace between the rows of desks. When he reached Manju’s desk, he looked around to ensure that nobody was watching, then discreetly dropped the note on the boy’s desk, and walked away. Manju looked up from his book in surprise. He opened the note and read the words. He gazed at the headmaster’s retreating back uncertainly. The headmaster sat down in his chair behind the teacher’s table, carefully avoiding Manju’s eyes.

  At 3.00 that afternoon, the end-of-school bell rang. The children raced out of their classrooms and, within minutes, the place was empty. From the window of his office, Abranches watched them leave. Then he slowly made his way to the dilapidated section. The shaft of light coming through the hole in the roof was dimmer now, more mellow. The priest tapped the first pillar experimentally. It made a muffled, heavy sound. He tapped the second. It sounded the same as the first. But when he tapped the third pillar – Manju’s pillar – the sound was different. It seemed lighter, somehow. He tapped it again. This time the musical quality was unmistakeable. Curiously, he put his ear to the pillar, drew back a little, then tried again. As he listened, his eyes widened. He put an arm around the pillar, pressing even closer, listening more intently. And that’s when his eyes fell on the parapet wall running alongside the pillar. On it was the green flier with the question he had written earlier that day.

  Will we get funding for the new school building?

  The flier had been held down with a stone to keep it from blowing away. And below the question, in dark red ink, was a single word written in a clear, boyish hand: YES!

  A smile lit up the priest’s tired face, his tired heart. And from across the schoolyard, at that same moment, the telephone in his office began to ring.

  6

  Decent Haircuts

  Speaking of establishments, there was another one in Rudrapura called the Decent Haircutting Saloon (Gents Onely Plis). Anthony, the barber, had asked Devendrappa to paint him a signboard for it, and the lorry-and-signboard painter had outdone himself. On the upper right hand corner of the board was the portrait of a handsome man with thick, glossy hair (who looked suspiciously like a certain Kannada film hero that Devendrappa happened to adore). In the upper left corner was a woman. In consideration of the fact that this was a gents-only salon, the lady had been painted with her back to the viewer. Devendrappa had endowed her with a serpentine braid flowing prominently down her back. And then, he had crossed her out.

  ‘Why?’ asked Ebenezer of his cousin when he saw the board.

  ‘So that ladies will feel encouraged to be growing their hair, and not to be coming into my shop for hair cutting. This is men’s salon, no?’ explained Anthony.

  ‘Aah!’ sighed Ebenezer, deeply impressed. ‘Devendrappa is a cultured man!’

  The Decent Haircutting Saloon (GOP) was located left from the Nameless Shop, about two furlongs up the road past the post office. It stood peacefully by itself on Thatcher Mine Road, nestled away in the shade of thick raintrees. A wooden seat with cushions bearing the marks of none-too-clean trousers, served as the barber’s chair. The cushion covers had been embroidered by Anthony’s wife Tessie as a gift to him on their wedding day.

  The room boasted a rosewood door, a pair of windows, and a rickety bench for customers to sit on while they waited to be attended to. The powerful shafts of light from the windows made an interesting effect when Anthony’s scissors sent hair flying into the air, where they lingered magically for a moment before falling softly to the ground. A menu listed all the services the salon provided, and everything cost only a few rupees. Anthony did not believe in overcharging his customers.

  The walls were filled with framed pictures hanging on rusty nails. The one of Anthony and his beautiful Tessie on their wedding day was the only personal photograph in that motley collection. All the rest were black-and-white shots of Rudrapura over the decades – the general post office, the old railway station before it was renovated, and Sheshadri Saab’s white Ambassador, the first car any Indian had ever owned in this town. One frame was empty and had a dusty garland of plastic roses around it. ‘For my photo once I am dead,’ explained Anthony to anybody who asked. Occupying a place of honour was a photograph of a famous politician surrounded by members of the Lions Club of Rudrapura & Chithalli, taken when he had come to inspect the old gold mines before they were shut down. Anthony was in that photo smiling widely, all but eclipsed by the girth of the President of the Lions Club. One might have missed him entirely had he not had the presence of mind to circle himself into prominence with a red felt pen.

  The new signboard was a recent addition, and had only been ordered on Anthony’s daughter’s insistence. Once, when Rose was a little girl in school, she had painted this very name on a jagged tin sheet as a surprise for her father. He had cherished it through rain and shine, letting it hang awry over the salon door, not because the length of its rope could not be adjusted, but because the tin sheet itself was crooked. Rose was a woman now, and had learnt her spellings. But while she had persuaded her father to turn in the old tin board for a better one, she was unable to persuade him to correct the spellings on it. He retained the original words in memory of that distant day when his child had come home with her little offering tucked under her arm, her palm bleeding from where the corner of the tin sheet had cut her.

  Sheshadri Saab, the formidable patriarch of the mansion on Wadiyar Street, arrived once a month at the Decent Haircutting Saloon (GOP) with his ten-year-old son Gopala, and four nephews in various shapes and sizes. The boys took turns to climb into Anthony’s chair, and while the hairdresser cut their hair – very short, it might be added – he chatted with Sheshadri Saab. Sheshadri, who was mercurial and impatient even in the best of times, listened to the barber’s silly anecdotes with a fortitude and good-humour that flummoxed the long-suffering children of his family.

  The fact was that Anthony was probably the simplest, most guileless fellow in all of Rudrapura, and for this reason had managed to make a place for himself in everybody’s heart, even grouchy Sheshadri’s.

  It was just such an oft-repeated anecdote that Anthony had been telling Sheshadri one summer, sixteen years ago, on the day this story began. Anthony was giving Gopala a haircut as he rambled on.

  Sitting in the barber’s chair, the top of Gopala’s head did not quite reach the mirror. So he could only guess at the horrors Anthony’s shears were wrecking upon his precious locks by the speed at which they were snipping, and the alarming amount of hair flying all over the place. Gopala didn’t dare object, for he thought it ill-advised to argue with a bossy parent and a razor-wielding barber, no matter how strong a case he may have.

  As Anthony snipped away, the boy narrowed his eyes to keep the sharp bits of hair out of them. Where they had landed on his nose, the itch drove him crazy. He tried to blow them off, but they clung on damply and wouldn’t budge. Furtively he withdrew his hand from under the towel and scratched his nose. The cold metal of the scissors just millimetres away from his ear made goosebumps spring up over his arms. He suppressed a shudder. Oblivious, Anthony chattered on.

  ‘… and the string of flags hanging over the entrance came down just as the chief guest was passing under it, Sheshadri Saab!’ Anthony let out a guffaw that caused his scissors to slip. Chak! A clump of Gopala’s hair fr
om the front of his head landed in his lap. Gopala cringed in horror.

  ‘I told you not to move, Gopal baba!’ chided Anthony gently, and the boy froze. ‘Ayyayyo! Now look what you made me do. It’s become so short!’ The boy’s face betrayed panic but he didn’t dare move. Never one to trouble himself over anything for long, Anthony recovered quickly and said, ‘Never mind, never mind. It is only hair; it will grow back.’

  Meanwhile, Gopala was trying to strain his neck upwards imperceptibly to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He was wild with desperation to survey the damage. But try as he might, he could see nothing because he was just not tall enough.

  In order to repair the flaw, Anthony cut the rest of Gopala’s hair even shorter, rendering him almost bald. Then he dusted him down with a soft brush and pulled the towel off, saying, ‘Okay, Gopal baba. All done!’ He eased the boy off the chair and turned to wipe down his scissors in preparation for his next customer. Back on his feet, Gopala slowly came to face the mirror.

  ‘Nice?’ asked a smiling Anthony.

  Gopala caught his father’s forbidding reflection in the mirror and forced a weak smile. He nodded, placed ten rupees on the counter and left the salon.

  As Gopala stepped out, his cousin Sridhara, who was next in queue, paused on the threshold to survey Anthony’s latest handiwork with widened eyes. He grimaced, then noticed his uncle watching him and quickly rearranged his face. With glum resignation, he went inside and took his place on the barber’s chair.

  Outside, the rest of Gopala’s cousins were waiting. Sheshadri was not the sort of man who inspired childhood confidences, and his son and nephews preferred to sit on the steps outside the salon where they could bicker in peace, rather than squeeze their five young selves onto a bench inside, with their uncle’s unrelenting, dhoti-clad posterior just inches away from their faces.

  All three of the boys on the steps had already had their haircuts. But none had it as short as Gopala. Gopala wasn’t surprised at all when the eldest, Murali, looked up, saw him and said with a derisive gleam in his eyes, ‘Anthony’s made your hair even shorter than usual! Ha ha! Did Sheshi Doddappa request a summer special for you or what?’

  The others sniggered sycophantically. Sulking, Gopala slapped the back of Dhruva’s head because, at the moment, he was the only one younger than himself. ‘Ay!’ yelled Dhruva, glaring at the offender and rubbing his head. Murali and Sanjaya collared Gopala, and the cousins were just preparing to get into a scuffle when three urchins appeared around the corner and spotted them on the salon steps. They were the fellows from the old miners’ settlement on the east side of Five Lights, and were at constant loggerheads with Sheshadri’s brood.

  The newcomers stopped short and sized up the situation. Delighted by what they saw, one of them called out, ‘Ay, nodappa, it’s the Pancha Pandava baboons all freshly styled by Anthony! They look like film stars, no?’

  His mates roared with laughter. Another among them pointed at Gopala and cried, ‘Arjuna has been given an Anthony-Special-Ganja-Cut! Lovely it is! Ay, as soon as Sahadeva comes out, the five of you should head straight for Bollywood! Amitabh Bachchan will become insecure and run off!’

  The four cousins bristled. Their internal quarrels forgotten, they charged down the steps together. The Old Miners turned and fled, still laughing and calling out rude things over their shoulders, while the cousins chased after them. Sheshadri Saab came rushing out to yell angrily after his boys, demanding that they come back immediately. But for once in their lives, the cousins threw caution to the winds and disappeared as one around the bend of Thatcher Mine Road. There would be hell to pay once they got home, but they would pay it gladly. It would be worth it.

  Around a kilometre along the road they caught up with the enemy, and gave and received the trashing of their lives. They outnumbered them, but the minors from Old Miners’ were no sissies. They bit, punched and kicked in right earnest. What brought about their downfall in the end was the fact that, when Gopala and company grabbed on to handfuls of their abundant, lice-infested locks, the Old Miners’ boys could not retaliate in kind. You see, just minutes ago, Anthony had ensured that there was nothing left there to grab.

  When the four boys got home all muddied and bruised, they found Sheshadri waiting for them by the back door, his heavily muscled arms crossed uncompromisingly over his massive chest. He looked terrifyingly grim, and even the springy, black hair growing thickly on the back of his hands seemed to point at them accusingly. Beside Sheshadri stood Anthony, dark and lanky with his pronounced Adam’s apple standing out from his long, scrawny neck. Across the garden wall, a pair of anxious brown eyes peeked at them; Sumana, the neighbour Veerappa Gowda’s little daughter and the cousins’ favourite playmate, had heard Sheshadri narrating the incident in angry tones to his wife, and had come to ensure her friends would survive his wrath.

  When the boys appeared around the house and saw the reception committee waiting for them, they froze. Sumana gasped and Murali turned his head quickly. Their eyes met and held for a second before Sumana’s vanished behind the wall. Murali took a deep breath and turned back to his uncle to face the music. Sheshadri’s body was rigid. Waves of anger emanated from his tall, formidable frame, making him appear gigantic. When he lowered his arms slowly, Gopala glanced down and saw that his father’s hands were bunched into fists. His head spun as a wave of fear washed over him.

  Suddenly Anthony stepped forward and dropped to his knee in front of Dhruva.

  ‘Dhruva baba, you’re hurt!’ he exclaimed, touching the child’s swollen lip and examining the blood that came away on his finger tip.

  ‘Sheshadri Saab, Dhruva is hurt!’ cried the barber anxiously, twisting around to look up at the other man. There was such genuine distress in his eyes that Sheshadri was momentarily caught between two extreme emotions – his own and Anthony’s. Nobody spoke, no one moved.

  Then, Lakshmi, Sheshadri’s sister, emerged from the house holding a cup of fresh cow’s milk. She took in the situation in one quick glance, and her eyes settled on Sumana’s tear-filled ones across the garden wall. Suddenly she smiled, and the tension dissipated. The boys breathed a quiet sigh of relief, and Sheshadri’s fists slowly unclenched.

  ‘Ba, Dhruva, let’s clean your lip and put awasthi on it,’ she said pleasantly, holding a hand out to the youngest of her nephews. Anthony let him go and the boy sidled up to his aunt, who sprinkled some of the milk on his head, handed the cup to her brother and led Dhruva away inside.

  Anthony slowly got to his feet, eyeing Sheshadri anxiously. At that moment, Gopala realized three things. First, that Anthony Uncle had accompanied Sheshadri home not to reprimand them, but to make sure that his father did not hurt the boys. Second, that had his own mother, or any of his other three aunts been the ones to bring out the customary cup of milk, Sheshadri would have proceeded with the trashing he had originally planned for the boys. And third, that Sridhara, the bloody coward, was probably hiding inside the house to save his own hide when, for all he knew, his colleagues were being murdered in the backyard!

  ‘Hmm,’ grunted Sheshadri, holding out the milk. Murali stepped forward, and in accordance with the manner prescribed for Brahmins to purify themselves after a haircut, took some and sprinkled it over his head. Next came Gopala, followed by Sanjaya. Then all three boys went around the side of the house, shed their clothes and took turns to have a bath under the hand pump. One pumped the water vigorously while the others washed until, taking turns, all three boys were done. When they returned to the house, they found Anthony sitting in the front veranda with Sheshadri Saab, sipping coffee from the ‘outsider cup’. Sheshadri was drinking from his usual brass one.

  After the barber had left and lunch had been eaten and cleared away, the elders went upstairs to take their afternoon naps. Gopala wandered about the house disconsolately. His arm hurt from where one of the Old Miners had punched him, and he rubbed it. He wandered into the outhouse situated in one corner of the backyard
, and began looking for string. He thought he might make a kite and fly it with Sanjaya later. Suddenly his eye fell on a lonely cup standing by itself on a shelf. Anthony Uncle’s cup. The one from which he had drunk coffee that morning. The ‘outsider cup’, because Anthony Uncle was an outsider and not a Hindu. Anthony Uncle, who cut their hair – very short – month after month, year after year; who had held Dhruva and wiped his blood away with his bare fingers…

  Gopala reached up on tip-toe and carefully eased the cup off the shelf. He looked into it, wonderingly. It was made of inexpensive ceramic and had tiny yellow flowers printed all over it. Slowly, tentatively, Gopala raised the cup and touched the rim to his lips. He waited to see what would happen, and was a little surprised when lightning didn’t strike him dead.

  Six years had passed since that historic battle with the boys of Old Miners’ colony. After the punch-up on Thatcher Mine Road, the boys kept a respectful distance from the ‘Pancha Pandavas’, and on occasion even went so far as to be polite to them.

  Now, half-a-dozen years later, Gopala had other concerns of a more pressing nature. Somewhere along the way puberty had hit, and in a haze of hormones, he had mistaken his bright-eyed, cheerful, pimply countenance with its too-long nose for being film-star material. To that end, he spent hours grooming himself, experimenting with acne-free face creams, and lifting dumb-bells that he had sneaked into the house and hidden in the bottom drawer of his cupboard along with his underwear. Murali’s badminton racket went missing. It turned up four months later in the attic wrapped in one of Gopala’s dhotis, from where it had been, that whole time, surreptitiously removed and used as a substitute for a guitar whenever Gopala posed in front of the mirror trying to decide on his ‘look’. When the real reason behind the missing racket came to light, the cousins ragged him mercilessly for weeks. While this might have reduced him to tears in the past, he now remained undaunted. When one was as determined as he, one seldom let public ridicule get in the way. Which of the great actors today had been taken seriously during their days of struggle? Respect would come in due course. Until then, Gopala would persist.