The Folded Earth
Page 27
3. My tenant, Ms Maya Secuira, is to inherit the papers pertaining to Edward James Corbett. She is also to have the enclosed letters of Edwina Mountbatten and J. L. Nehru.
4. The money in my bank account is to be divided equally between Himmat Singh and Puran Singh, Charu and Dharma Devi.
5. All my household goods and clothes are to go to Himmat Singh, to sell, dispose of, or keep, as he pleases.
6. The house and all its grounds are to go to Ranveer Singh Rathore, provided he undertakes to allow lifelong rent-free cottages on the estate to Dharma Devi, her son Puran Singh, and her grand-daughter Charu Devi; and also allow Maya Secuira to occupy her cottage as long as she pleases. The original deed is enclosed, showing the boundaries of the estate Ranveer Singh Rathore is to inherit from me.
Signed and witnessed.
I hold the will and letter up to shade my eyes and look at the jumbled shadows of the words through the sunlight. I think back to those early conversations with Veer when he told me in bitter tones about the way he was sent from the house of one relative to another as a child, parcelled out between them on school holidays. How none of them ever had time for him. How he grew attached to one or two of them, and hoped they would announce all of a sudden that they were his parents. How, by magic, he would know where he belonged and would have a real home. How Diwan Sahib had imitated leopards and thrushes for him sometimes, but returned in five minutes to his gin and his women. How Veer had hungered for affection and never found any.
I put the papers down. How I had yearned to comfort Veer in his loneliness then!
I lie very still and listen to the barbets calling. They sit on the dahlia trees snapping the large flower buds between their beaks, like nuts they are cracking open as a snack. There are big yellow lemons warming and ripening on their stems. Unless the will is made known to the world, all of this – the house, the stream, my cottage, my garden, the spruce, oaks, rhododendron and deodars – all these will go to a stranger, some Brigadier or Colonel we do not know, after being in Diwan Sahib’s family for two generations.
But that is how it is with houses, and I have lost too much to care. I will find another and make it a home again.
I read the will once more.
I am balanced on the edge of a knife. I am the knife. I can do harm.
Diwan Sahib’s face appears before me, his white hair a mess, his beard overgrown, and he says, “Go on, what are you waiting for? You know what I’d do. Revenge is a kind of wild justice.”
I remember him at his fireplace, thrusting the pages of his manuscript into it, then throwing the photograph of his dogs into the flames, watching his life burn.
I think of Michael with his broken ankle, on a frozen slope by a lake filled with skulls, watching his friend being whited-out in a blizzard, seeing him recede into the distance, calling him back, begging his help, losing his strength with every shout, knowing all the while that there is nothing ahead for him but a slow dying.
Slivers of ice clink in the corners of my heart. If I were turned inside out now, there would be frost and hailstones where blood and muscle were.
I hold the will and Diwan Sahib’s letter to Veer tight in both hands, and I rip the pages in half, and then the halves into quarters. The sound of tearing paper lacerates me. I notice the portion that has the words, “Ranveer Singh Rathore, provided he undertakes … “ and rip it into tinier and tinier pieces, until not an alphabet can be distinguished of the name.
I throw the pieces of paper in the air. The shreds that drift over me are almost indistinguishable from the white butterflies dipping over the wild flowers in this garden gone to seed.
The eagles are still watching me from the mile-high crook of a deodar tree. Around them the afternoon has begun its rapid wintertime decline and the sun’s long rays slide gently now, and give no warmth. I will need to get up from the grass before the chill seeps into my bones.
The eagles feel the change in air and light. The first of them flexes its talons like an athlete, spreads its wings and leaves its branch. The other is still looking in my direction. Eventually it turns its basilisk gaze away and follows its mate. The day is over, they have to hunt for a perch to sleep on now. They are lifted higher and higher by air currents as they wheel and arc and sail towards the last hill of the world.
GLOSSARY
arrack
liquor distilled from the fermented sap of toddypalms, or from fermented molasses, rice, etc.
babu
suffix added to men’s names to show respect; bureaucrat
barasinghas
Rucervus duvaucelii, a species of deer with great horns, native to India and Nepal
batasha
crunchy sugar candy
beedi
cheap cigarette made of tendu leaf and tobacco
beta
affectionate term for male child
bhajan
Hindu devotional song
bhang
preparation from the leaves and flowers (buds) of the female cannabis plant, smoked or consumed as a beverage
Binaca Geet Mala
a popular music programme on radio in the 1960s and ’70s.
biryani
richly flavoured rice cooked with meat, a speciality of Hyderabad
carrom
a game similar to billiards, but played without cues on a lacquered plywood board. Popular in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
chacha
uncle (specifically, father’s younger brother)
chadar
long scarf
chaiwallah
man selling tea
charas
hashish hand-made from cannabis, which grows wild throughout the Himalaya
chikoo
Manilkara zapota, Sapota, a common soft fruit
chootiya
strongly abusive word for fool
chota bachha
small child
chote sahab
young master
chowkidar
watchman
coolie
porter
darshan
holy audience
dekchi
a large cooking vessel
Deo Bhoomi
land of the Gods
Diwali
festival of lights celebrated everywhere in India
dosa
a pancake native to South India, made from a fermented batter of ground rice and lentil
dupatta
long scarf worn by women
durbar
court
firanghi
foreigner
ghee
clarified butter used in cooking and in rituals; also in cremations
gitti
a game played with five stones, similar to jacks
gongura
a sour, leafy vegetable found in South India
gutka
an addictive mix of crushed betel nut, tobacco, catechu and lime, sold in foil packets
half-sari
a full-length skirt and fitted blouse, combined with a long scarf, commonly worn by girls in South India
hawai chappals
rubber flip-flops
hum
we
jaggery
solid molasses
jalebi
a pretzel-shaped Indian sweet, both crisp and juicy with syrup when freshly fried
jhadu
broom
kheer
creamy rice pudding often flavoured with nuts and cardamom
khidmatgar
bearer or valet; a servant
kumkum
coloured powder used to decorate or anoint the forehead
kurta
long shirt
kutala
a digging implement with a curved blade
langur
monkeys of the genus Semnopithecu, widespread in South Asia
machan
improvised tree loft to hunt or watch animals from
/> madua
millet
mandi
wholesale market
murukku
a fried snack from South India
namaste
common Indian way of greeting anyone, by joining the palms
nilgai
literally, blue bull; Boselaphus tragocamelus, a large antelope
paan
betel leaf folded with areca nut, tobacco and other condiments, usually consumed after meals
paapam
Telugu expression meaning “You poor thing”
pakoras
vegetable fritters
papad
poppadum
poori-aloo
cheap, streetside meal made up of deep-fried Indian bread and potatoes
pugree
turban
roti
thin wholewheat bread baked every day, a staple food
sadhu
wandering holy man, mendicant
sala
bastard
salwar kameez
combination of a long shirt (kameez) and loose trousers (salwar) commonly worn by Indian women
samosas
deep-fried, triangular pastry filled with spicy vegetables
sanki
half-witted
shikari
hunter
sindoor
the red colouring in the parting of a married woman’s hair
sola topi
pith helmet worn in colonial times
thataiyya
Telugu for grandfather
theek
alright/well
tum
you
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
D. C. Kala, Amit Sen, and Ravi Dayal decoded the hills for me. Their erudition, wit, and individualism, their ability to combine austerity with pleasure, make them a unique Himalayan species now extinct.
Something Arundhati Gupta said started off this book. She also read its first draft as did Myriam Bellehigue, Sheela Roy, Shruti Debi, and Partho Datta. Rukun Advani suffered countless drafts and demands, and there is a lot of his writing and thinking between the lines. Christopher MacLehose, with his idiosyncratic genius, worked on successive versions as he would on an unmade garden: a space to inhabit, plant ideas in, and over time grow into a book.
Manju Arya’s insights have provided much entertainment and education. Mahiraj Mehra’s doctoral work on Ranikhet was a rich source of information, as were conversations with S. Ramesh and Akshay Shah. I have benefited from Janet Morgan’s Edwina Mountbatten: A Life of Her Own, Martin Booth’s Carpet Sahib, D. C. Kala’s Jim Corbett of Kumaon, and P. N. Dhar’s Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy. Another delight was The Social Economy of the Himalayans, by S. D. Pant, which arrived out of the blue from MacLehose Press. The book is an example of the many overwhelming kindnesses of Christopher, Koukla, and Miska MacLehose, who break every cliché there is about the cruel impersonality of modern publishing. As do many others at MacLehose Press and Quercus, especially Katharina Bielenberg and Nicci Praca.
Ivan Hutnik and Thomas Abraham’s involvement in this book are fortuitous culminations of old friendships. Nasreen Kabir, Radhika Prakash, and Manishita Das will as always shelter me through its publication. To each of them I am ever grateful.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Part Two
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Glossary
Acknowledgements