A Matter of Geography
Page 22
A seagull sailed high, almost motionless, on one of the last monsoon drafts of the season—the monsoons, both longed for and dreaded, life-sustaining and destroying, chose this moment to beat down in large, heavy drops, causing a sea of umbrellas to open along the beach. I, lost in this hurry, rushed to the side of the road opposite and hailed a cab—or perhaps several cabs, since I could not see whether they were occupied through the rain that curtained my glasses. Finally, one did stop with much ceremony, splashing mud and water over the cream trousers I had thoughtlessly worn.
“St. Xavier’s,” I said as I dried my head with a handkerchief.
“Through Churchgate/Dhobitalao or seaface, saab?”
“You decide, but just get me there.”
The rains beat down as great chargers pounded against the seawall on Marine Drive, through which my cabbie was inching his way. Help me hear something above my heartbeat, God, I prayed. Don’t let it be the cabbie’s voice, I added. Exerting Himself to listen to my supplication, He kept the cabbie silent. Baby steps, I thought, building my faith in His existence.
I walked into the classroom and looked around. The students returned my gaze expectantly; I dismissed them with a project, giving them class time to complete it—a ploy used by Ms. Faria, my English teacher from a past life. At my desk, I opened L. E. Dickson’s History of the Theory of Numbers, and stared at its pages, its memories of a past meeting with Dr. Apte and my own interest in Mathematics embedded somewhere in its pores as I rubbed the pages for comfort, direction, until the bell sounded. Meandering along the corridors to the teacher’s rest room, I noticed the young nymphettes whose life had yet to be lived, their eyes on their nails, the boys and sometimes a passing glance at me, and knew that in all that lay my reality. Entering the Teachers’ Rest Room where, on many an occasion, I’d glanced towards Ms. Raikar with disgust and intolerance, I now saw her once again at the table where she last sat looking out into the courtyard. Her delicate fingers tapped the table impatiently, nails painted coral pink. Her ring finger, which had last worn a sparkling sapphire, was now bare and a very slight pigment mark told a tale. No words necessary here…
Perhaps it was the seagull, the sudden monsoon, that shifted my vision, cleared the internal storms, made way for a new season. Sheila did indeed have very lovely skin, and her hair hung long and loose below her shoulders—a soft yet uncharted landscape; a challenge. In that moment, sensing she was being watched, she looked up at me and smiled. Her eyes were, surprisingly, a blue shade I had never seen before, and I stepped forward to swim in them.
Epilogue
12th February, 2010
Tukia, the keeper at the Borivali National Park, was assigned the task of feeding the panther. His experience with animals in general not being extensive, he was awarded the sole task of feeding this panther, who he had fed ever since its capture as a young cub back in 1968. He entered the enclosure while the animal, old and frail, watched from a distance waiting for his daily visit. Tukia was accompanied by a guard armed with a tranquiliser gun, though he had established a history of long friendship with the aging beast. The panther’s meals were left in a small cave-like area in a corner of the large enclosure, usually in the mornings.
That morning Tukia, as he was wont to do every morning, walked to the enclosure’s fence and looked for the animal in the distance. He circumnavigated the barricade, making clicking noises, like the one his grandmother made when feeding chickens, but he could detect no movement inside the enclosure. Puzzled, he and the guard cautiously entered. The animal could not be found anywhere, but what they did find surprised both men. Sitting atop an unusually large pile of faeces, a strange looking creature of a rat-like species peered back at them. Both men were nonplussed, never having seen such an animal before, though one would expect that they’d be familiar with most species living in that forest, having worked there their entire lives. Tukia’s own parents were tribals who’d lived in the National Park, same as their parents before them.
The guard’s response instinctive, he raised his gun and shot a tranquiliser dart into the creature, stunning it. Pulling out large rubber gloves that he always kept handy for just such an occasion—being prone to dreaming big dreams of adventure, at one time even going so far as to imagine a superhero, Dartman, who (in disguise, of course) worked as a forest guard—he scooped up the creature with one hand and they locked the enclosure, making off to the resident zoologist, Mr. Khan.
Mr. Khan shook his head silently. He seemed surprised—if he could seem anything but inscrutable, being blessed with an expressionless face, or having studiously developed it on the job. He’d spent many years training to view all creatures as specimens to be measured, weighed, analysed, classified, and that left no space for emotion or surprise. But he nodded as if talking to himself.
“Where did you find this creature?”
“On the top of the faeces of the panther.”
“And the panther?”
“Gone…”
“Gone?”
“Yes, gone…”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes, disappeared.”
He nodded, inscrutable once again. He prodded the pink and yellow skin with one gloved finger. Then he measured the creature, which did not look larger than 5 inches, and proceeded to weigh him, putting 30 grams in his balance, and adding another 5 grams to balance the scale. He took a small wire mesh cage, slipped the creature delicately inside, and locked the cage. He dismissed the two men and proceeded to his writing desk to file a report:
Date: 12th February, 2010
Time: 11:30 a.m.
The creature was brought in stunned by the guard. It was found on top of faeces of the panther. The panther’s whereabouts are not known. No possible escape route found. On measurement and general appearance of the creature it could be classified in the genus Heterocephalus, what is referred to as a naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber). The creature is not native to the Indian subcontinent and is largely native to parts of East Africa. Its presence in this forest is uncommon and must be further investigated. The animal is only one of the two species of mammals that are eusocial. Its physical traits allow it to thrive underground and it has no pain sensation in its skin since it lacks substance-P, a neurotransmitter responsible for sending pain signals to the central nervous system.
Mr. Khan, stopping at this point in his report, assessed whether any further details should be provided. Perhaps this would suffice, he thought. Who would read this report anyway? He reread what he had written and wondered whether to erase the mention of eusociality. This would only cause Mr. Marathe, his boss, to call him in for an explanation. After careful consideration, though, he chose to complete the report with more detail:
The naked mole rat species have a complex social structure. One female queen and two or perhaps three males have reproductive abilities. The rest of the colony function as sterile workers who gather the food and maintain the nest while the larger workers handle security in case of aggression.
I may point out here, as a matter of interest, that the naked mole rat is born blind. The babies are nursed for the first month by the queen and then workers feed them faeces until they can ingest solids. Naked mole rats are coprophagous. Interestingly, they have the longest life span among rodents.
Mr. Khan decided he had been elaborate enough and stopped at this point. He went with the paper and the little cage to his boss in the room down the corridor. On his way, he saw the two keepers still loitering near the door.
“Are you sure that the panther is not lurking somewhere in the enclosure?”
“Absolutely sure.” Tukia, generally a mildly unsure man, nodded decisively.
Mr. Khan nodded once again and went onwards down the corridor. He stopped outside the room and read the nameplate as if to confirm that Mr. Marathe, his boss, still occupied that room. No reason, really, but for hesitancy borne out of long years of unpleasant interaction with this individual. He finally knocked on the door.
Hearing no sound from within, he made bold to push the door open. Lying on his stomach, stretched on the sofa without a shirt, Mr. Marathe was enjoying a back massage administered by his peon, who would possibly be paid through overtime wages from the office budget. Hiding his disgust, which exceeded what he felt when he viewed the naked mole rat, Mr. Khan set the cage on Mr. Marathe’s table and stood by, seemingly deferentially, waiting for the operation to cease. Mr. Marathe, unconcerned with his surroundings, in the throes of the massage, began to moan in small gurgles, quite unaware of the waiting scientist.
Pulling out a chair, Mr. Khan waited, now watching the rodent closely. Incredible, he thought, this rodent is spotted. Perhaps sunburn? Never having seen one before, nor having any opportunity to study the mole rat in live circumstances, he wondered. Maybe a mild suggestion in his report may have been in order.
Mr. Marathe, now aware of having company and seeing Mr. Khan through the corner of his eyes, turned and sprung up, looking superior despite the internal embarrassment he surely felt.
Aadmi gira tho bhi taang upar—Though the man had fallen his leg is still in the air, Mr. Khan thought resentfully. I would like to wipe that silly look of superiority off his face.
“You should have knocked. Anyway, why are you here?”
Mr. Khan pointed to the little cage, inspired. “The panther we captured in 1968 is missing. Instead, they found a naked mole rat in its place.” He wondered whether he should ascribe this to a phenomenon of evolution, but thought better of it.
“What is a naked mole rat? I have never seen any such creature before.”
Mr. Khan could feel a bubbling hysteria mount inside of him. He imagined Mr. Marathe, whose face resembled some lichen-covered surface, shaving in front of his bathroom mirror. Underneath that scraggly facial hair he could see the face of a naked mole rat.
“What are you giggling about?” Mr. Marathe cursed under his breath, something that amounted to you circumcised butcher. That served to bring Mr. Khan back to the present.
“The details are in the report, sir”—now feeling spitefully delighted at the explanations that Mr. Marathe would have to give to the government about the missing panther.
Mr. Marathe had sat at his desk and was scanning the report. He rang the bell on his desk for the peon who had just left the room. The peon, who stood just outside the door, was inside within a second.
“Yes, sa’ab?”
“Call Tukia immediateliy.”
Tukia, expecting this, had stationed himself not far from Mr. Marathe’s door. He entered, looking a bit apprehensive.
“Did you leave the enclosure open yesterday when you fed the animal?”
“No, sa’ab, it was locked even today when we went there to feed it.”
Have you checked carefully for the animal? Is it lying dead somewhere inside the enclosure?”
“We checked carefully, but this is all we found,” he said, pointing at the creature inside the little cage.
Mr. Marathe’s mind moved quickly over the facts, the evidence, and his own predicament. There did not seem to be a furor over any escaped beast out in the city, nor had the forest dwellers reported any episode. There could be only one answer to his now spiralling stress. He took the magnifying glass that he kept on his table to sometimes read—his vanity not allowing him the more convenient option of wearing reading glasses—and peered closely at the creature in the cage. Yes, there is only one answer—and looking at the spots through the glass he had convinced himself beyond doubt that this creature was indeed the panther.
He rocked on his chair, one hand behind his neck now, ordering those around him:
“Tukia, take the armed guard and carefully look through the grounds and report back. Mr. Khan, we had a casualty with a snake from the display not so long ago, didn’t we?”
“The snake did not survive.”
“So I recall. What did we do with its glass display cage?”
“It is still in its place, minus the snake.”
“Good. Go get it,” he said, turning to the peon.
He sat for the next ten minutes pondering the creature, counting the spots. He wondered if he’d have to promote Mr. Khan to get his endorsement.
“Congratulations Mr. Khan,” he said, when the peon returned with the display case, “you have made the discovery of the century. Who would have known that a panther could be reduced into a naked mole rat? Yet in our forest we have just that…a wonder of science and nature, such that no one has heard of—at least not in this country,” he corrected, uncertain whether it had happened in other parts of the world, never having kept himself abreast of international affairs. “I will have to recommend your promotion.”
Mr. Khan, unable to respond to this development, kept silent. Mr. Marathe handed the glass case to Mr. Khan along with the wire cage that held the rodent.
Put it in a glass case and have it on display. Let the world see that there, within, is what once was a panther.”
Acknowledgments
If I list my thanks to all who have played a role in my life and in the writing of this novel, it would fill the pages of a book. How far back does one go? It frightens me to think I will have missed someone, however small their contribution, both positive and negative, that made this book, made me…
However, I must thank my publishers Mosaic Press, especially Howard Aster and Matthew Goody who have put in so much work to bring this book to readers, taking their role as a publisher with such dedication and above all sharing a respectful relationship which I am sensitive to as a writer.
Joyce Wayne, thank you for helping this process along and for your friendship.
I thank Sagorika Easwar, John Calabro and Sylvia Fraser for their friendship and reading the book and commenting on it and Caitlin Alexander for her editing which made the book so much better than the original.
I would also like to thank the Ontario Arts Council for their assistance.
Above all I thank God for staying so close to me in all I do.