Cracking India

by Bapsi Sidhwa

  Cousin erupts with a fresh crop of Sikh jokes.

  And there are Hindu, Muslim, Parsee and Christian jokes.

  I can’t seem to put my finger on it—but there is a subtle change in the Queen’s Garden. Sitting on Ayah’s crossed legs, leaning against her chocolate softness, again the unease at the back of my mind surfaces.

  I fidget restlessly on Ayah’s lap and she asks: “What is it, Lenny? You want to do soo-soo?”

  I nod, for want of a better explanation.

  “I’ll take her,” offers Masseur, getting up.

  Masseur leads me to the Queen’s platform. Squatting beneath the English Queen’s steely profile, my bottom bared to the evening throng, I relieve myself of a trickle.

  “Oye! What are you gaping at?” Masseur shouts at a little Sikh boy who has paused to watch. His long hair, secured in a top-knot, is probably already addling his brain.

  Masseur raises his arm threateningly and shouts: “Scram!”

  The boy flinches, but returning his eyes to me, stays his ground.

  The Sikhs are fearless. They are warriors.

  I slide my eyes away and, pretending not to notice him, stand up and raise my knickers. As Masseur straightens the skirt of my short frock I lean back against his legs and shyly ogle the boy.

  Masseur gropes for my hand. But I twist and slip away and run to the boy and he, pretending to be a steam engine, “chookchooking” and glancing my way, leads me romping to his group.

  The Sikh women pull me to their laps and ask my name and the name of my religion.

  “I’m Parsee,” I say.

  “O kee? What’s that?” they ask: scandalized to discover a religion they’ve never heard of.

  That’s when I realize what has changed. The Sikhs, only their rowdy little boys running about with hair piled in topknots, are keeping mostly to themselves.

  Masseur leans into the group and placing a firm hand on my arm drags me away.

  We walk past a Muslim family. With their burka-veiled women they too sit apart. I turn to look back. I envy their children. Dressed in satins and high heels, the little Muslim girls wear make-up.

  A group of smooth-skinned Brahmins and their pampered male offspring form a tight circle of supercilious exclusivity near ours.

  Only the group around Ayah remains unchanged. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Parsee are, as always, unified around her.

  I dive into Ayah’s lap.

  As soon as I am settled, and Ayah’s absorption is back with the group, the butcher continues the interrupted conversation:

  “You Hindus eat so much beans and cauliflower I’m not surprised your yogis levitate. They probably fart their way right up to heaven!” He slips his palm beneath his armpit and, flapping his-other arm like a chicken wing, generates a succession of fart-like sounds.

  I think he’s so funny I laugh until my tummy hurts. But Ayah is not laughing. “Stop it,” she says to me in a harsh somber whisper.

  Sher Singh, who had found the rude sounds as amusing, checks himself abruptly. I notice his covert glance slide in Masseur’s direction and, looking a little foolish, he suddenly tries to frown.

  I twist on Ayah’s lap to look at Masseur. He is staring impassively at the grinning butcher, and Butcher’s face, confronted by his stolid disfavor, turns ugly.

  But before he can say anything, there is a distraction. A noisy and lunatic holyman—in striking attire—has just entered the Queen’s Garden. Thumping a five-foot iron trident with bells tied near its base, the holyman lopes towards us, shouting: “Ya Allah!” A straight, green, sleeveless shift reaches to his hairy calves. His wrists and upper arms are covered with steel and bead bangles. And round his neck and chest is coiled a colossal hunk of copper wiring. Even from that distance we can tell it’s the Ice-candy-man! I’ve heard he’s become Allah’s telephone!

  A bearded man, from the group of Muslims I had noticed earlier, goes to him and deferentially conducts him back to his family. As Ice-candy-man hunkers down, I run to watch him.

  A woman in a modem, gray silk burka whispers to the bearded man, and the man says, “Sufi Sahib, my wife wants to know if Allah will grant her a son. We have four daughters.”

  The four daughters, ranging from two to eight, wear gold high-heeled slippers and prickly brocade shirts over satin trousers. Frightened by Ice-candy-man’s ash-smeared face and eccentric manner, they cling to their mother. I notice a protrusion in the lower half of the woman’s burka and guess that she is expecting.

  His movements assured and elaborate, eyeballs rolled heavenwards, Ice-candy-man becomes mysteriously busy. He unwinds part of the wire from the coil round his neck so that he has an end in each hand. Holding his arms wide, muttering incantations, he brings the two ends slowly together. There is a modest splutter, and a rain of blue sparks. The mad holyman says “Ah!” in a satisfied way, and we know the connection to heaven has been made. The girls, clearly feeling their distrust of him vindicated, lean and wiggle against their mother, kick their feet up, and whimper. Their mother’s hand darts out of the burka, and in one smart swipe, she spanks all four. Nervous eyes on Ice-candy-man, the girls stick a finger in their mouths and cower quietly.

  Holding the ends of the copper wire in one hand, the holyman stretches the other skywards. Pointing his long index finger, murmuring the mystic numbers “7 8 6,” he twirls an invisible dial. He brings the invisible receiver to his ear and waits. There is a pervasive rumble; as of a tiger purring. We grow tense. Then, startling us with the volume of noise, the muscles of his neck and jaws stretched like cords, the crazed holyman shouts in Punjabi: “Allah? Do You hear me, Allah? This poor woman wants a son! She has four daughters... one, two, three, four! You call this justice?”

  I find his familiarity alarming. He addresses God as “tu,” instead of using the more respectful “tusi.” I’m sure if I were the Almighty I’d be offended; no matter how mad the holyman! I distance myself from him mentally, and observe him stern-faced and rebuking.

  “Haven’t You heard her pray?” Ice-candy-man shouts. Covering the invisible mouthpiece with his hand, in an apologetic aside, he says: “He’s been busy of late ... You know; all this Indian independence business.” He brings the receiver to his ear again.

  Suddenly he springs up. Thumping his noisy trident on the ground, performing a curious jumping dance, he shouts: “Wah Allah! Wah Allah!” so loudly that several people who have been watching the goings-on from afar, hastily get up and scamper over. Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims form a thick circle round us. I notice my little Sikh friend. I can tell from the reverent faces around me that they believe they are in the presence of a holyman crazed by his love of God. And the madder the mystic, the greater his power.

  “Wah, Allah!” shouts Ice-candy-man. “There is no limit to your munificence! To you, king and beggar are the same! To you, this son-less woman is queen! Ah! the intoxication of your love! The depth of your compassion! The ocean of your generosity! Ah! the miracles of your cosmos!” he shouts, working himself into a state. And, just as suddenly as he leapt up to dance before, he now drops to the ground in a stony trance. Our ears still ringing from his shouts, we assume his soul is in communion with God.

  The woman in the burka, believing that the holyman has interceded successfully on her behalf, bows her body in gratitude and starts weeping. The bearded man fumbles in the gathers of his trousers and places two silver rupees bearing King George’s image at the holyman’s entranced toes.

  Holding the holyman’s pious finger, feeling privileged, I return to our group.

  “Aiiay jee, aiiay! Sit, Sufi Sahib; sit! We are honored!” exclaim the men in half-awed, half-mocking welcome, making room for Ice-candy-man between the Government House gardener and Masseur. Laying his trident aside, lighting a cigarette and assuming his customary, slouching pose on the grass, the holyman becomes Ice-candy-man.

  The Government House gardener places his hand affectionately on Ice-candy-man’s thigh, and says, “Sufijee, have you heard the lat
est about the Lucknow Muslims?” In his quiet way, he is getting his own back for Butcher’s wisecracks about the levitating vegetarian Hindus.

  The overly polite Lucknow Muslims are notorious for endlessly saying: “After you, sir,” and “No, sir, after you!” My attention is riveted. The Government House gardener relates his joke.

  Two Muslim gentlemen arrive at a public toilet at the same time.

  One insists, “After you, sir.”

  “No, sir, you first! After you!” insists the other.

  Until, eventually, one of them resignedly says: “You might as well go first, sir... I’ve been.”

  Ayah becomes breathless laughing and almost rolls on the grass. Her sari slips off her shoulders and her admirers relish the brown gleam of her convulsed belly beneath her skimpy blouse, and the firm joggle of her rotund bosoms.

  A clutch of Hindu children with caste-marks on their foreheads, curious at the burst of laughter, run up timidly and suddenly yell: “Parsee Parsee, crow eaters! Crow eaters! Crow eaters!”

  “We don’t! We don’t! We don’t!” I scream.

  The gardener, threatening to get up, throws his turban at them and they scamper in squealing disarray.

  “Why do they say that?” I ask fiercely.

  “Because y‘all do ‘kaan! kaan!’ at the top of your voices like a rowdy flock of crows,” says Ayah.

  Ice-candy-man tucks his green shift between his legs as if he’s wearing a dhoti, and acting like a timid Banya, declaims:“We were only seventeen; they were a gang of four!

  How we ran; how we ran; as we’d never run before!”

  It is so apt to the occasion that my anger vanishes.

  I have heard this couplet before. A glimpse of four Sikhs, Muslims or Parsees is supposed to send a mob of Banyas scurrying.

  Chapter 12

  A strange black box makes its appearance in my parents’ bathroom.

  It is Saturday and Cousin is visiting for the day. Mother, the indefatigably mirthsome Mrs. Bankwalla, Mrs. Singh and Maggie Phailbus, the schoolteacher who also lives on Warris Road, are sitting on the veranda. Having drawn their chairs close to the marble-topped coffee table they talk in hushed voices that fade into silence when we pass. Even Mrs. Bankwalla’s explosive conviviality is subdued. I’ve noticed a lot of hushed talk recently. In bazaars, restaurants and littered alleys men huddle round bicycles or squat against walls in whispering groups.

  We are playing kick-the-can in the garden. Cousin, Adi and Peter form one team and Rosy, Ayah, Papoo-with-babe-on-hip and I the other. It’s girls versus boys, and having Papoo on our side compensates for Rosy’s erratic play.

  Abruptly Cousin puts his hand on his fly and, awkwardly shuffling his feet, dashes away. The game is suspended.

  When Cousin returns we can tell by his studied nonchalance he has something to tell. We gather about him. After sliding his eyes this way and that, he looks at us out of the wide and innocent eyes he displays whenever he has something to hide. He signals with a sly tilt of his head, and Adi, shoving Ayah from the back, rushes her out of the garden. Ayah good-naturedly disappears into the kitchen.

  “I have seen something strange,” confides Cousin portentously. “Follow me.”

  In a furtive group we move past the portico to the side of the house. Cousin pushes open the bathroom door. We get a whiff of Dettol and, as we crowd the steps, I immediately see the black wooden box. It is heavy-looking, about a foot high, long and narrow. Like a coffin for a very thin man. Rosy, turning pale, whispers, “Someone is dead.”

  We are agreed it is a coffin. It looks sinister enough. But the species of the corpse baffles us. Adi and Peter squat to examine the stays.

  “It’s locked,” says Cousin, who has already examined the locks. Without a word he attempts to lift the box. I give a hand. Rosy shies away. The box is heavy, and in the constricted space we are only able to lift it a foot or so. We try to shake it and tilt it. There is a very slight, heavy and dull movement.

  “Definitely a corpse,” declares Peter.

  “As if you can tell,” I say.

  “What else can there be in a coffin, stupid!” says Adi.

  We hear Mother’s voice. Footsteps in the bedroom. We exchange alert glances and scamper into the garden to resume our game.

  Cousin kicks the misshapen can distractedly, and our pursuit of him is half-hearted and abstracted.

  But no one tells us what’s in that box.

  “A snake? A skeleton? A corpse?”

  The servants don’t know. The other adults maintain a maddening silence. We are not to be inquisitive: it belongs to Father and it’s nobody’s business but his.

  We wander about with glazed, preoccupied eyes and pinched faces. We waste away.

  Electric-aunt has begun to force-feed Cousin. She pinches his nostrils, and when he opens his mouth to breathe, pops in a tablespoon of food. She releases his nostrils only after he swallows the morsel.

  Mother begins to sit with us at our small table with the oilcloth and, beguiling us with fairy tales, charming us with her voice, slips spoonfuls into our mouths.

  Muccho chases Papoo with a broom shouting: “Hai, my fate! If that accursed slut dies on me, how will I show my face to Jemadar Tota Ram?”

  Tota Ram is Papoo’s prospective husband... An almost mythical figure no one’s seen.

  Even Mrs. Singh has begun to supervise her offspring’s feed.

  Gandhijee too is off his feed, we hear. There is a slaughter of Muslims in Bihar—he does not want it to spread to Bengal.

  It doesn’t.

  Inspired by Gandhijee, we launch a more determined fast.

  We turn sallow, hollow-eyed, pot-bellied. Electric-aunt’s frenzied anxiety becomes chronic. Mother turns into a prophetess of doom. “Mark my words,” she says eerily, “you’ll remain weaklings the rest of your lives!”

  Muccho has taken to beating her hollow breasts and crying: “What face will I show Tota Ram?” And Mrs. Singh is moved to wring her hands!

  Their strategies change. Cousin is force-fed chocolates and carry-home ice cream by my resourceful aunt. They are easier to force-feed than food. He goes about with stuck nostrils and an open mouth. Mother’s fairy tales turn into horror stories and every time we form our lips in an “O” and suck in our horrified breaths, we unwittingly also suck in food. Their American mother is so upset when she sits before Rosy-Peter’s hollow cheeks and full plates that she bursts into tears: and Rosy-Peter, astounded by this spectacle of maternal emotion, permit her to pour food into their gaping mouths. Muccho has started sweet-talking and spoon-feeding her stupefied and incredulous daughter.

  Colonel Bharucha gives us calcium-and-glucose injections.

  If they want to get Gandhijee to eat the next time he fasts they should send for Muccho and Electric-aunt and Mother and Colonel Bharucha. And even the unformidable Mrs. Singh.

  As mysteriously as it has appeared, the box disappears.

  While I lead the life of a spoilt little brat with pretensions to diet, forty miles east of Lahore, in a Muslim village, Ranna leads the unspoilt life of a village boy shorn of pretensions. While Ayah shovels spoonfuls of chicken into my mouth as I doodle with Plasticine, Chidda, squatting by the clay hearth, feeds her son scraps of chapatti dipped in buttermilk. All day, baked by the sun, Ranna romps in the fields and plays with dung. And—when I close my eyes and I wish to—I see us squatting beneath the buffalo, our mouths open and eyes closed, as Dost Mohammad directs squirts of milk straight from the udder into our mouths—and I can still taste its foddery sweetness.

  It is a little over a year since my visit to Ranna’s village. Imam Din, who feels that the tension in the cities will spread to the villages, and is concerned for his numerous kin in Pir Pindo, decides to pay them another visit. When I excitedly protest and exclaim that I will go with him, he surprises me by agreeing at once, in a preoccupied way, that I can if Mother consents.

  Mother consults Father, her friends, Ayah; and finally gives he
r hesitant permission—provided we go by train. Trains don’t go to Pir Pindo, but we can get off at Thokar, and hire a tonga for the two remaining miles.

  We have been in Pir Pindo for two days. On Baisakhi, the day that celebrates the birth of the Sikh religion and of the wheat harvest, we go to Dera Tek Singh. I ride on Imam Din’s shoulders, Ranna on his father’s—at the head of a procession of nephews, uncles, cousins, brothers, grandsons and great-grandsons. The women and girls—except for me, because I am insistent, and from the city—stay behind as always. The men go to the Baisakhi Fair every year: before Ranna was bom—before his great-grandfather was born!

  Dost Mohammad is walking in front of us. His head wrapped in a crisp white puggaree, his lungi barely clearing the mud behind his squeaky-new curly-toed shoes, a hookah swinging in his right hand, he looks like a prosperous landlord: and, riding atop his Father’s shoulders, Ranna imagined that the other villagers looked at them in awe and said among themselves (as Punjabis—even little ones—are wont to imagine), “Wah! There goes that fine-looking zemindar; walking at the head of his family with his handsome son on his head!”

  It is the thirteenth of April. The wheat has been harvested; the spring rains have spent themselves, and the earth is powdery. From on top of Imam Din’s head I see the other groups of villagers converging on Dera Tek Singh: Hindu, Muslim, Sikh—as they raise their own majestic trails of dust.

  The festival is already in full swing when we arrive. A group of four fierce-looking Sikhs, their hair tied in turbans and wearing calf-length shirts over tight churidar pajamas, perform the Ghadka before drifting waves of admirers. Wielding long swords and staves, clashing them to the beat of drums, the dancers lunge, parry, and twirl to the accompaniment of folk singers extolling the valor of ancient Sikh warriors. The singers shriek, their voices hoarse from the dust, and the effort to be heard above the uproar. There are several such groups.