The Boatman

by John Burbidge

  What had started a year or so before as a vague idea was about to become reality. Memories of a dinner conversation with my mother in London four years earlier came flooding back. The psychic she had visited had been right. I would experience a major change in my life, but not the kind either of us could have conceived. Maybe this was to be my time of reckoning. How I wanted to share with my mother what had happened to me. But how painfully difficult, if not outright impossible, that seemed. For her, it was bad enough that I had joined such a nondescript organization for such ill-defined work, and with no pay. On top of that, to declare that I was gay might be too much for her to handle. I agonized over whether and how I should break this news to her. Sensing that my fate was in the lap of the gods, I made a small offering to the elephant-headed Ganesh enshrined in the front lobby just before leaving for the airport.

  As I pushed my way through the crowd outside the arrivals hall, I nearly despaired when I discovered two flights from the Persian Gulf had landed shortly before my mother’s. She would have to contend with hordes of returning Indians laden with enormous quantities of goods. I anxiously watched the exit door, as passenger after passenger came into view, pushing carts stashed high with boom boxes, television sets and towering mattresses. I visualized my mother collapsing in a corner of the giant arrivals hall and bursting into tears.

  After more than 40 minutes, I could hardly believe my eyes when she burst through the glass door into the steamy morning air. Wearing a loose-fitting, bright pink cotton dress, she was an easy target for the sea of self-appointed luggage carriers that was about to come crashing down upon her. Determined to beat them at their own game, I left Anil’s driver at the barrier and raced towards her like a protective security guard shepherding a head of state.

  ‘Hi Mum,’ I yelled. ‘You made it! Good to see you.’

  ‘Yes, I made it,’ she said in a self-congratulatory kind of way. ‘But it would have taken me a lot longer if it hadn’t been for a nice customs man back there. He didn’t even bother to check my luggage. He led me to the front of the line and whisked me through. Crikey, it was a real zoo!’

  I gave my mother’s hand a gentle squeeze and kissed her right cheek, then guided her cart in the direction of our driver.

  ‘Aren’t we getting a taxi, John?’

  ‘No, Mum. We don’t need to. Anil has given us his car and driver while you are here.’

  My mother had met Anil and appreciated his kindness. But carrying an occasional package was one thing. Offering your home, guesthouse, servants, car and driver for two weeks was quite another. I had a hunch my mother would take a little time adjusting to this pampering.

  ‘I know this might feel a bit strange, Mum, but you’ll have to get used to having people do things for you that you would normally do for yourself. But it won’t last, so enjoy it while you can.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll manage. It will be nice to have someone else doing things for me for a change.’

  As we sped away from the terminal building it was a little after 3.30 am. One advantage of arriving in Bombay in the early hours of the morning is that you are spared witnessing this urban monster arouse itself from restless sleep and drag its Leviathan body into another day. I was torn between the impulse to shield her from the harsh realities of India, and encouraging her to enjoy its unanticipated pleasures. However, managing such a balancing act stretched me to my limits. It was time for me to let go and allow the mystery to take charge.

  I’d had quite a bit of practice at letting go these past few years, but something else was going on here. My mother had dared to step outside the safe confines of her tightly controlled world and enter the dramatically different universe in which I lived. For the first time in my life, I had a strong, instinctual urge to protect her and guide her through the maze she was negotiating—the puzzling customs, the confusing speech patterns, the unfamiliar tastes and smells, and the sharp contrast between the detached, impersonal way people often deal with you in public and the close bonds that one forges on a personal level. My greatest fear was that she would find it all too much and withdraw from the challenge.

  Although we were both lacking sleep, the excitement of our pending adventure kept us wide awake. When Anil’s servant, Rahul, welcomed us to our new abode with a pot of tea, any lingering doubt about taking a nap disappeared. As she stood on the balcony of Anil’s apartment and looked out over the manicured garden below, the screeching of parakeets shattered the morning’s tenuous calm. She could have been in a cameo of a Merchant Ivory film, surveying her private estate with matronly pleasure. I wondered what she was thinking as she tried to take in the new world she had burst in upon. I suspect she was pleasantly surprised by its luxuriant surroundings and deceptive serenity. Since our itinerary was filled to the brim, I had tried to leave this first day uncluttered to allow my mother to overcome jet lag and give us a chance to become reacquainted. I sketched out plans for our next two weeks and asked her if there was anything she would like to do. But she was content to let me decide everything, in the same way she had always relied upon my father to handle the details.

  The overnight train ride to Kolhapur went without a hitch, although each time we stopped I was concerned some government official might board the train and demand our compartment. When we arrived in Kolhapur early the next morning, I searched the platform for our hosts, but couldn’t see them. I was about to give my mother her first experience riding an auto-rickshaw, when a pale green Mercedes pulled up and out popped smiling Govind, a stocky young man with a chubby face. He extended his hand to me in welcome.

  ‘Nice to see you again, John.’

  Before I could introduce my mother, he turned to her and gestured with a brief namaste.

  ‘Welcome to Kolhapur, Mrs. Burbidge.’

  As a medical student, Govind had chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps. Being an only child and son in a wealthy Indian family would not have been easy, since all expectations for personal and professional excellence would have been heaped upon his shoulders. But Govind seemed to take it all in his stride. He showed no signs of being spoilt and acted maturely for his age.

  ‘Sorry I am late,’ he apologized, ‘but I had a little trouble with the car.’

  Self-taught motor mechanics was another of Govind’s skills that I would come to appreciate during our short time together. For the next several days, he acted as our host, guide, driver, shopping assistant and medical adviser. In a subtle way, he also acted as a buffer between my mother and his parents.

  As we pulled up at the entrance of his family compound, the chowkidar rushed to open the gates to allow us through. The car had scarcely come to a halt when the door was opened for my mother by an attentive servant and Govind’s parents presented themselves on the front steps. A confusion of namastes and limp handshakes followed, as often happens when Westerner meets Indian for the first time. I had primed my mother to refrain from handshakes and showed her how to do the traditional namaste instead. After this initial flurry of activity, we were ushered into the downstairs living room with its floor-to-ceiling windows that sucked in the brilliant morning light. Govind’s mother whispered ‘Chai, chai’ to the kitchen staff, as our luggage was carried upstairs by one of the servants.

  ‘So how was your trip down from Bombay?’ asked Dr. Vasant, looking at my mother.

  There was a momentary silence while she marshaled her words. I was about to come to her aid when she replied.

  ‘It was very comfortable, thank you. We had a whole compartment to ourselves, which…’

  ‘Ah, so you were lucky enough to get the VIP suite, eh!’

  ‘Yes, I understand it took a bit of doing, but…’

  ‘It can definitely take a bit of doing, with all this tomfoolery these politicians play. And where are you staying in Bombay?’

  ‘A good friend of John’s has given us the use of his beautiful home while he…’

  ‘You know, my brother is in Bombay. You could stay with him an
d his family if you wish.’

  After the preliminaries were over, Govind’s mother, Mira, escorted us upstairs to the guest bedroom. It was about three times larger than the one my mother had left behind in Australia. I remembered the nights I had spent in this room while visiting from the village, and how difficult it was at first to reconcile its exorbitant space and comfort with the confined area and hard wooden floor on which I normally slept. Learning how to operate in both worlds and move effortlessly between them was another valuable lesson India had taught me.

  Over the next several days we explored the city and its surrounds as we visited the former Maharajah’s palace, drove to a nearby hill station, and were hosted by other friends in their homes. In contrast to Bombay and Delhi, Kolhapur operated at a less frantic pace that made it ideal to ease my mother into India and prepare her for what was to come. But most of all, I had chosen Kolhapur because of the nearby village where I had worked. Prior to our arrival, I had sent a telegram to our village staff to arrange for our visit. They were adept at hosting visitors but I had no idea how my mother would react. With Govind as our driver, we headed out early one morning on the 45-minute drive to the village. I had traveled this way many times, usually on a state transport bus and occasionally on the back of a motorcycle that belonged to one of the more affluent villagers. Never had I sat in the back of a chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

  Word of our arrival spread fast. As we walked around the community, several elders joined our entourage and ‘Namaskar Mr. John’ echoed from doorways and windows. We stopped by the two-room school, the potter’s house, the dairy cooperative and the flour mill, before coming to a halt at the brick-making factory run by the village’s lowest caste. With sari-clad women and ponytailed young girls seated on the ground, my mother stood between me and the head of this impoverished community while Govind took our photo. The photograph shows a relaxed and confident mother smiling at the camera. Did she find my strange world not quite so intimidating after all? Was she even a little proud of what her wayward son had done? Years later, after she had moved to a nursing home, I came across this photograph. On the back she had written: ‘The project where John first worked when he went to India…it is now entirely run by Indian folk.’ I took this to be a ringing endorsement of my endeavors.

  But our short stay in Kolhapur wasn’t all accolades for me. On several occasions, I found myself in the hot seat, gently warmed by the courteous ways of Indian women. Both Mira and the wife of another doctor friend we visited decided to use my mother’s visit to press their claims for me to marry. Marriage in India is not a matter of personal preference but carries a social obligation to not only ensure the continuation of the family line but to care for elders in their final years. That I was in my early thirties and had not yet married was incomprehensible and disturbing to my Indian friends. Mira, who was demure and soft-spoken, had started naming young women whom she considered suitable matches for someone committed to ‘social work,’ as she referred to my community development activities.

  My mother had been asking about my intentions to marry for some years but appeared to have resigned herself to what looked like a lost cause. Now she found reassurance in others who supported her position. The topic arose on several occasions during our stay in Kolhapur and each time I avoided making any commitment. At one point, Govind came to my rescue. Whether it was out of a sense of being in the same boat or whether he suspected my true sexual leanings, I never discovered.

  ‘Give the guy a break,’ he quipped. ‘He can make his own decisions when he’s ready. Besides, it’s different in the West.’

  Silence filled the void that his words had created. Mira stepped into the breach and steered the conversation to another topic, but not before berating her son for his outspokenness. I was grateful for Govind’s bold stand, which appeared to have an effect, since the subject never came up again during the rest of our stay.

  On our final night, after a mouth-watering feast of Kolhapuri specialties, we retired to the living room with several relatives who had joined us for the evening. Mira asked if my mother would like to listen to some ghazals. I felt it would be a chance for her to taste something new that probably wouldn’t come again, so I gratefully accepted the offer. Mira produced her tamboura and sat down on a mat on the floor. After tuning the instrument and clearing her throat, she launched into her first piece. Her ululating voice filled the room, gathering momentum as she progressed. It may not have been music my mother understood or felt comfortable with, but Mira’s virtuosity enraptured her.

  The next day, before leaving for the station, I asked Govind to take me to the market so I could buy my mother a memento of Kolhapur to take back with her to Australia.

  ‘I know the very thing,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  We jumped into the Mercedes and made straight for a store in the market that sold plaster statues of Indian women playing classical instruments. I picked out one that was small enough to fit comfortably in a corner of my mother’s living room. When I presented her with it, she lit up like a small child opening a Christmas gift.

  ‘It’s so beautiful!’ she exclaimed. ‘And it is just like Mira played last night. It will always remind me of my wonderful visit to Kolhapur.’

  I had the statue packaged in a box generously padded with straw. My mother guarded it carefully on the train to Bombay and sat it on her lap throughout the flight back to Australia. For her remaining years, it occupied a prime position on her dark red credenza, adding elegance to the room and often drawing comments from visitors.

  ‘Yes, John bought me that when I went to India,’ she would say, with a hint of pride in her voice. ‘It comes from a place called Kolhapur.’

  * * *

  On our return to Bombay, I again asked my mother to let me know if there was something she would especially like to do, but she declined. However, there was one question she did ask from time to time: ‘When are we going to visit the Institute?’ I promised we would do it soon, although something kept me from making it a priority. An unexpected meeting with one of my coworkers at Nariman Point brought my delaying tactics to an end. Having her hair done was one of my mother’s weekly rituals, so when she discovered the range of offerings of the Oberoi Hotel beauty salon, and their modest prices compared to those in Australia, she decided to treat herself to the whole palette—manicure, pedicure and hair. While I was waiting for her to emerge from the salon, I ran into Dorothy in the lobby. She asked how my mother’s visit was going and invited us to join her and her husband for lunch one day. When I told her of my mother’s interest in visiting our staff quarters, she suggested we all go back together in a taxi.

  My mind flew into panic mode, since I had no idea what she would be walking into. I was most concerned about the state of my room, which I shared with a young German who must have been the only one of his countrymen born without the Germanic gene for orderliness. I had managed to keep the room tidy most of the time I had spent there, but since I had been away more than a week I suspected it would look like the aftermath of a hurricane.

  I made a quick phone call to our residence and explained my dilemma to one of our American staff. He promised to make sure the room was presentable. When I returned Dorothy had been joined by my mother and they had struck up a conversation. Things seemed to be falling into place nicely.

  Dorothy offered to act as guide to our staff quarters, but when it came to my own room I took over. As I walked through the curtained doorway my jaw dropped. Sprawled out on the lower bunk, dressed only in his underwear, was the sleeping form of one of our British colleagues. He must have just arrived in Bombay and crashed on the nearest bed. Or perhaps knowing I was away, someone had suggested he make use of my bed. The remainder of his clothes lay strewn over the floor and my desk was covered in papers, books and mail.

  It was too late to take remedial action. My mother was hot on my heels and bristling to see this innermost sanctuary of my private life. I apologized for the mess but she act
ed unfazed by it. She made straight for the desk and honed in on the photograph my German roommate had displayed of his parents.

  ‘You don’t have any photos of your family, do you?’ she commented.

  Her simple statement caught me off guard and sent me spiraling downwards. I groped for something appropriate to say and found nothing suitable. The truth was, it had never occurred to me to display photos of my family. They felt so disconnected from my present life. My father had died 10 years before, my mother was emotionally distant, and my only sister lived a world away in Canada. Moreover, there was no one else in my life to whom I had any strong personal attachment. I did have snapshots of some of my favorite Indian friends but I wouldn’t have dared display those. When I joined the Institute, it was as if I had entered a religious order and put all other ties on hold.

  We adjourned to the front porch where Dorothy brought us tea and biscuits. As we sat there, I wondered what was going through my mother’s mind. From the moment she got out of bed in the morning until she lay down again at night, she was exposed to a universe of difference that demanded responses from her. That could be quite draining and I tried to be sensitive to it. When she would ask a question or make a comment, I responded as honestly and accurately as I could. But there was one question I was not sure how I would handle. Part of me hoped we could avoid the subject as we had done for years. Another part desperately wanted to get it out on the table and deal with the consequences. I decided to let my mother make the first move.

  The opportunity presented itself sooner than I could have guessed. After leaving the Institute, we took a taxi back to Malabar Hill. As we were waiting at an intersection for the lights to change, my mother looked out the window and noticed two young men holding hands. This wasn’t the first time in India she had witnessed such a sight, but so far she had not commented on it. She turned towards me, screwed up her eyes, and posed the question.