Ravan and Eddie

by Kiran Nagarkar

  ‘Shall we discuss this later, Father? We have a guest with us, little Ravan.’

  ‘Some guest. I’m going to take little Ravan’s hide off. He’s been stabbing his hosts in the back all these months.’ Mr Sarang pulled Ravan up by his collar. ‘Tell them, tell them, you bastard, how you’ve been running back and forth carrying messages for them.’

  Mr Sarang’s hand came down like a wrecking ball but it fell on Shobhan. She had her arms protectively around Ravan.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, you slut?’ Mr Sarang’s attention flitted from one person to the other.

  ‘Because of all your nine unmarried daughters, she alone had found a man and I rejoiced for her.’

  ‘Do you want her to go around with a bhangi?’

  ‘Wouldn’t make a difference to me whether he’s a sweeper or a mechanic, so long as she’s happy.’

  ‘I know your game. Nobody will look at you, so you want to ruin the lives of your other sisters.’

  ‘That’s not true. She’s never wished anyone ill.’ Tara had finally found her voice. ‘I met him on my own. I love him.’

  ‘Love? Love? Is that what’s made you three months pregnant?’

  ‘He wants to marry me, Father, and I want to marry him and have his baby.’

  ‘And what happens to my other daughters? Who will marry them once they discover that we have a Mahar, an untouchable, sorry, a neo-Buddhist, isn’t that what one calls them now, among us?’

  ‘We are all going to die spinsters, Father, because there are just too many of us and you haven’t got the money to bribe a caste-Hindu to take us off your hands.’

  Mr Sarang’s leg rose in the air. It slammed into Tara’s belly. It was a powerful kick. Tara staggered and then fell back.

  ‘Don’t please.’ Ravan crumbled. ‘I want to marry Tara.’

  ‘No daughter of mine is going to live with an untouchable: Never.’ He kicked her again, a little harder, if that was possible. When Shobhan tried to pull him away, he threw her against the wall. A slow, red pool was forming under Tara.

  Eight

  Eddie’s double life was almost second nature to him by now. What was it that prompted him to keep the Sabha part of his life a secret? How do we know even as children what is taboo? There was no law against reading story-books during leisure time in Eddie’s house. Then how had he sensed that the Mahabharata stories would not find favour with his mother? The Sabha had never been referred to in his home. It is doubtful if Violet knew that it was called the Sabha, let alone what its programme and agenda were. Coming right down to it, nobody on the fifth floor ever mentioned the Hindus in the other four storeys.

  Gut feeling, instinct, the atmosphere in his home, his Catholic upbringing, call it what you will—and no explanation will ever be sufficient—Eddie kept his secular Hindu incarnation separate from his Catholic life.

  He got four annas every week as pocket money. With that and the two rupees twelve annas he had left over from the money Granna had given him on his last birthday, he bought a red loincloth and two pairs of khaki half-pants. The loincloth he washed daily after class and hung up on the latch of the locker in the corridor of the gym. The half-pants he washed every Saturday with soap he filched from home.

  Chawl No. 11, where the gym and the Sabha corner of the open grounds were, was not in Violet’s direct line of vision had she stood in the kitchen window and looked out. But even if it had been, Violet had no interest in what was going on outside. She had looked out once, a long, long time ago, from the balcony on her landing and lived to regret it. Once in a while, Eddie saw Pieta walking past in the distance but neither she nor any of his Catholic neighbours had reason to pass by the Hindu Gym.

  The one person who watched him, Eddie preferred to think he was spying on him, was Ravan. At such times Eddie went into overdrive. His chest filled out, he wielded his staff with exaggerated zeal and on a couple of occasions almost hurt himself. He yelled Jai Hind louder than everybody else and gave Ravan sidelong glances filled with contempt. But Ravan’s visits were aimless, a matter of habit and for lack of anything better to do.

  How many times had he seen the picture? Yet every time he was about to flip the page, he stopped, mesmerized. There were ten other pictures of Lord Krishna in the book. The child Krishna standing on an unsteady pile of vessels and stealing curd from a clay pot hanging from the rafters on the ceiling. Krishna at eight years of age smiling mischievously from the branches of a tree while maidens bathing in the lake below pleaded with him to return their clothes. The same child Krishna holding up Mount Govardhan on the tip of his finger and protecting his people from the deluge. Shri Krishna invisibly frustrating Dushyasan’s attempt to disrobe Draupadi in the presence of the august elders in Dhritarashtra’s court.

  There were four or five others, all of them favourites. But the killing of Shishupal was in a class by itself. It was the only one where you saw Shri Krishna as an active warrior. Shishupal was an evil man who had committed every crime under the sun. The patience of God is great. Besides Shishupal was family, Krishna’s cousin. Krishna gave him plenty of rope to hang himself by. He swore that he would not touch Shishupal till he had committed a hundred sins. Hundred was a big number. Besides, who was keeping count? No one. Except Shri Krishna. Years passed. Suddenly one day, Shri Krishna appeared before Shishupal, his eyes glittering with a light even brighter than the halo around his head. Shishupal realized that his time was up. In the picture he had begun to reach for his sword and Krishna was smiling. There was a serenity in Krishna’s face that was breathtaking, it was also a face that was strong, decisive and unforgiving. ‘Ninety-nine crimes, yes. A hundred, no.’ Even as he spoke, he let loose his sudershan chakra, the missile disc that spun at phenomenal speed around his little finger. In the illustration the chakra had already severed Shishupal’s head which was lying on the floor and was arcing back.

  Jesus was and always would be Eddie’s Lord God. There was never any doubt about this in his mind. And yet what was that thought that had slipped through his mind like a fish out of a net? Oh Lord God, was he committing sacrilege? Was his cup of sins brimming over? He shut his eyes tight but the thought darted through again. Was it the devil, was his soul lost forever, the perdition that Father D’Souza always talked of, whatever it meant, had it claimed him already?

  Why didn’t Jesus ever laugh or play a practical joke? Did he never have any fun in life, not even a day of it? Why was he always so glum and long-faced? Did he never have a fist-fight as a child? Did he ever throw a stone at a clay-pot hanging high from the ceiling, knock a hole through its bottom and drink buttermilk from it? Oh, he knew Jesus was stronger than the strongest but why was he not tough and muscular. Why was he so goody-goody? Now that the dam had burst, he might as well spill it all.

  He remembered his first communion. The day coincided with his birthday. His mother had always sewn his clothes but they were school uniforms or daily wear. She was a seamstress. She was at her sewing machine from ten in the morning till eight at night, sometimes even later. But they were mostly women’s clothes, dresses, tops, skirts. This time, for his first communion, Violet had become far more ambitious. She had sewn him a white silk shirt with a frilled front and a pair of soft and glossy white trousers made of some material called satin duck.

  He had seen a white peacock in the zoo at the Victoria Gardens. Its long feathers and tail trailed behind, a little ruffled and tacky. The monsoons were imminent and under the darkening sky, right there in front of his very eyes, as if someone had pulled a string lever, the peacock’s feathers fanned into a shimmering white orb. It picked up its right foot, held it up daintily for a few seconds and then walked towards him. The whole magnificent edifice of taut and snowy lace undulated in fluid waves as it tensed and relaxed. Eddie wasn’t quite sure why he felt a little faint and breathless with the beauty of it.

  He felt like that peacock on the day of his first communion. All around him was a tremulous glow of electric white. Everyone�
��s eyes, he was convinced, were on him even though there were eleven other boys and girls walking towards the altar with him.

  Now it was his turn. Father Agnello D’Souza dipped the thin white wafer in the wine in the polished silver chalice and placed it lightly on Eddie’s protruding tongue. That wave in the peacock’s feathers was building up in him. It rose and it rose till it was higher than the stone steeple of St Sebastian’s Cathedral. The body and blood of Jesus Christ. Not real. Just make-believe. Symbolic, Father D’Souza had said. He felt worse than a cannibal, eating and drinking God. The wave gathered itself to a towering height, pierced the heavens and broke. His vomit had spattered all over his shirt and Father D’Souza’s embroidered, gold and silver chasuble.

  Whenever Eddie went for the sacrament of the communion he gagged, his intestines churned and he choked. He could never get over it. The Romans had killed Jesus almost two thousand years ago, that’s twenty times hundred, and they were still drinking his blood and eating his body and forcing him to do the same.

  After that first communion, Eddie could never touch meat. Whatever the vices he was to develop later, he would never become a drunkard. He would wake up at night screaming in utter terror that someone had slipped the Host in the bread or a little wine in the cold kokum soup. Even his mother, who had never forgiven him for the fiasco in church, was shaken by the depth of his despair though she had no idea when and where and how it came to be.

  He lay with his eyes shut tight, his fists balled up into his wrists, his mouth clenched lipless as they tried to open his lips and force the wafer down his throat. Then he asked the one question he knew he could never ask: was it not possible to commune with God without spilling his blood any more?

  His eyes were still shut when lightning fell and burnt a hole, a cavernous hole in Eddie’s back. He was slammed awake so abruptly, he nearly threw up and fell out of his chair. His mother was blabbering like a demented woman. But that was the least of his problems. She had planted such a singeing slap on his back that the imprint of all the five fingers of her right hand stood out in relief on his chest.

  ‘Idol worshipper.’ Eddie could barely decipher her hysterical words. ‘Where did you get this satanic book? Did that Hindu boy, the devil himself, give it to you?’ She was beating him like a woman possessed, slapping him, boxing his ears, pulling his hair.

  ‘It’s a story-book, Mom, that’s all.’ Shouldn’t have opened his mouth. She was outraged by that simple statement.

  ‘It’s a passage to hell lined with thirty-three million Hindu gods and goddesses. Wait till I talk to Father D’Souza.’ She grabbed the book and stared at the technicolour miracles Shri Krishna was performing.

  ‘Give me back my book.’

  Violet walked into the kitchen and flung it out of the window. It was so unexpected an action, Eddie ran past her and stretched out across the window to grab it. It sped down five storeys and landed with a little muted thud. The binding came undone and a couple of sections detached themselves from the rest of the book. Shri Krishna’s sudershan chakra was still on its flight back. Oh, to recall the missile and send it spinning to his vile mother.

  He straightened up, walked to the door and unlocked it.

  ‘Don’t you dare leave this room.’

  Eddie opened the door. Violet was screaming now.

  ‘That’s it. I don’t ever want you back in this house.’

  Granna came and took his hand and drew him to her.

  ‘You stay out of this, Mother.’

  ‘That’s enough, Violet.’

  Ravan had taken to going to the St Theresa’s School grounds near the Byculla bridge. He was afraid of the teacher’s temper but the memory of the man floating weightlessly kept coming back to him at odd times, and every evening he found himself hanging around St Theresa’s School pavilion.

  It took him seven days to ask but finally he accosted the man as he was leaving the large one-storeyed stone building with the sloping roof that housed the gym, the tae kwon do room and all the sports equipment of St Theresa’s.

  ‘Will you teach me?’ The words came out frightened and indistinct.

  ‘Are you from St Theresa’s?’ the teacher asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Speak English?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with teaching me?’

  ‘In this place I ask the questions. Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a hundred rupees for six months. You’ve got that kind of money?’

  ‘No.’

  That settled matters. Ravan started to walk away.

  ‘It’s seventy rupees for the 5.30 classes in the morning.’ The master spoke to his back.

  Seventy, hundred, a thousand, it was all the same, where was he going to get the money from? Ravan shook his head and kept walking.

  ‘I’m going to the St Theresa’s School gym from tomorrow. Will you wake me up in the morning?’

  ‘What time?’ Parvati asked.

  Ravan was sure his mother knew that he wasn’t attending the Sabha any more, even though Lele Guruji had not sent an emissary or a note saying that her son had been chucked out of class for good.

  ‘Five o’clock. The master is going to teach in English.’

  ‘That’s nice, isn’t it? You’ll become strong and healthy and get to learn some English on the side.’

  The clock in the tae kwon do room said 5.28. But all the students were already there. They had changed into the white on white suit and were warming up. At 5.30 they had fallen in place. Ravan craned his neck over the window-sill to see what was going on.

  For a while he stood still and watched the boys exercising. It began to drizzle. He couldn’t contain himself for long. He started to mime whatever they did. It seemed easy till you started to do it yourself. Within minutes he was drenched. He had made up his mind that he would imitate every action and gesture but not the staccato sounds they let out. Before he knew it, he too was barking. It came naturally. The one didn’t seem possible without the other.

  His timing was a little off. His ‘huh’ was a fraction of a second later than theirs. He shut up for some time but he had the feeling that the master was aware of his presence. It was pouring now.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’

  Ravan was so engrossed he hadn’t noticed the peon from the gym. It was the fourth day and he was getting the hang of things. Bloody careless of him. ‘Just watching.’

  ‘You think this is a free show? Mr Billimoria is not running charitable classes. You want to learn tae kwon do, you pay for it. Otherwise get the hell out. Sala, bhag.’

  ‘Learn what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Learn what did you say?’

  ‘Tae kwon do. Don’t even know what you are learning?’ This time he pushed Ravan.

  I told you to remain in the dark, Ravan muttered to himself, did you listen? Now stay out for good. But five minutes after the peon left him, Ravan was back.

  It was raining pretty hard when Ravan left home. By the time he was halfway to the St Theresa’s grounds there were gale winds that broke every single rib in his umbrella. The storm drains and the gutters were completely choked. The water from the bridge came racing down. In a matter of minutes the road was flooded and the water had risen to his calves. The wind howled and keened. And the rains crashed down as if the sky had caved in. Monster raindrops pelted him like hail. You could hardly call them raindrops, they were sheets of swirling dark glass with ragged ends.

  He was fond of the rain and getting wet in it was one of the high points in his life but the thunder unnerved him today. It bombarded him from all sides and left him light-headed. Lightning pulsed through the sky and lit up the hairline fractures in it. It rolled on the tar road and slithered off it onto the crossed grill of the railway bridge about a furlong away.

  As Ravan reached the maidan, there was a shivery sound of tinfoil in his ears. It made the eardrum resonate to its own frequency and jangled his nerves.
His fifth or sixth step into the field and he began to get an idea of what it must mean to be caught in quicksand. His foot felt weightless as it sank into the tall grass and kept going into the squelchy earth. When he tried to lift it, there was a sucking hiss in his canvas shoe and he was trapped. He would have to dislodge the whole earth to get his foot out. There it was, that erratic vibration in his ear again. He trudged on. He knew there was no way that the class would be held in this cyclone but it became a matter of honour for him to make it to the gym.

  He suddenly understood what the sound was. The wind was lifting off the corrugated tin sheets nailed to the sloping roof of the Mazagaon Cricket Club next to the St Theresa’s gym and sending them hurtling across the open grounds. Now he was truly frightened. He tried to run and duck the missiles of death which whizzed past him. They were birds of prey and they were playing with him in that vast and abandoned field. But the running didn’t take him far since his feet got caught in the quagmire under him. Exhausted, he stood still and watched this sound and light show with the flying objects. He saw a monster sheet headed straight for him. He was felled violently to the ground. He was sure he had been decapitated when someone lifted him in both arms and sprinted to the gymnasium.

  Mr Billimoria opened the lock of the tae kwon do room with his keys and switched on the light. He brought out two towels from one of the cupboards and handed one to Ravan. Ravan was not sure what to do with it.

  ‘Open it and dry yourself.’

  Ravan followed Mr Billimoria’s example, stripped himself to his underwear, vigorously rubbed himself dry and tied the towel around his waist. Mr Billimoria went to the cupboard again, took a tae kwon do suit off a peg and slipped into it. He took another from a neatly folded pile on the shelf and handed it to Ravan and proceeded to light a kerosene stove. He showed Ravan how to tie the belt and asked him to bring over two stools from the corner. ‘Sit,’ he said and handed a mug of tea to Ravan. ‘Feel better?’