House of the Sun

by Meira Chand

  ‘But I—’ Rani began in fury, and stopped. ‘But I don’t know you. Not really.’

  ‘We could have a few dates, to get to know each other,’ he suggested.

  ‘Dates? Are you mad? You know my mother. I have to be glad I’m even getting a look at you,’ Rani exploded. The whole thing was developing outrageously.

  ‘Nowadays everyone is allowed a few dates, to see if they like each other. My parents don’t mind how much of you I see.’

  ‘But my mother—’ Rani began.

  ‘If you say you’re considering the proposition, how can she object? Of course she’ll insist you’re chaperoned, probably by your brother. But what of it? We can still have a good time. I can take you to a disco now, and she can’t say anything,’ Kamal replied. ‘No one can push us into anything. And we’ll agree to be frank. If we think it won’t work, we’ll say so to each other. Nothing is lost by a date or two – not in these circumstances. Why not have some fun?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rani. ‘Let me think. All this is a shock.’

  ‘But you’ll consider things?’ Kamal asked, a sudden urgency again in his voice.

  ‘I’ll consider things,’ nodded Rani. ‘Only because it’s you,’ she added, unable to stop herself, surprised at the trembling of her hands. The three women stopped talking and looked towards them. She forced herself to smile and noticed the tightness of her mother’s expression. She wished suddenly to laugh out loud.

  *

  ‘Had I known they were related to those awful Lalwanis, I’d never have bothered to go,’ Mrs Murjani exclaimed in the car, going back to Sadhbela. ‘His mother could have at least worn a sari.’

  ‘They have entry in Delhi into the first family,’ Rani replied, looking out of the window as they passed the Regal Cinema.

  ‘That is so, but still …’ Mrs Murjani replied, lost for an appropriate reply.

  ‘Why didn’t you explain to me clearly what it was all about?’ Rani inquired.

  ‘Explain? You wouldn’t have even got out of bed, if I had explained. As it is, it was a waste of time. He’s not suitable,’ Mrs Murjani replied.

  ‘But I like him,’ said Rani. ‘I think he’s nice.’

  ‘Nice …’ Mrs Murjani exploded.

  ‘I don’t think I shall like anybody else,’ Rani mused.

  ‘You haven’t seen anyone yet. There are so many good boys in Bombay,’ Mrs Murjani protested, drawing in an angry breath.

  ‘You want me married, and I’m saying I’ll consider Kamal. You are being difficult now!’ Rani exclaimed.

  ‘Can a daughter be allowed to speak like this to her mother?’ Mrs Murjani pressed her handkerchief to her lips. ‘How can you like him, you don’t know him?’ she cried in sudden desperation.

  ‘But I’m going to get to know him. We’re going to have a few dates, to see if we really like each other,’ Rani informed her.

  ‘Dates?’ yelled Mrs Murjani.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rani. ‘Chaperoned, of course,’ she relented.

  ‘But he’ll take you to America if you marry him, far from your family,’ Mrs Murjani reasoned icily.

  ‘I might like America,’ Rani replied.

  ‘There you must scrub your own toilets,’ Mrs Murjani warned.

  ‘If everyone does it, then what is the shame?’ Rani asked.

  ‘Oh my God,’ cried Mrs Murjani.

  Rani settled back in the car seat, and gazed out of the window. He had looked so different in a suit and tie, with his hair exactly in place. There had been nobody else as good-looking in the Sea Lounge; he too did not leave her untouched. The idea of marriage to him had possibilities. And she would study. Law. Social work. Commerce. Anything she wanted. Kamal would respect an educated wife.

  Kamal. She said his strange name to herself, and smiled. Ascending Walkeswar Road, up Malabar Hill, she glimpsed the sea and looked out to the far horizon. She thought again of Lakshmi.

  On her side of the seat Mrs Murjani was silent.

  22

  The sun was thick and hot, and fell upon Lokumal’s bed where he sat with three tape recorders. Beyond his room he could hear the carpenters’ hammers, as they finished off the bar. The rains had spilt a deluge or two and then retreated, and hung about upon the horizon in a threatening manner. An oily gleam covered the sea, beneath which it shifted restlessly.

  Tunda Maharaj was in need of a shave. White bristles roughened his scalp and chin, his Brahmin lock hung wispily. ‘The sun is lord of the tenth house and occupies the ninth. He is now in conjunction with Murcury, lord of the eighth and seventh houses and with Saturn. In these circumstances the sun is empowered with death.’ He chanted with closed eyes.

  ‘There is no change then?’ Lokumal sighed.

  ‘No change,’ nodded Tunda Maharaj. ‘Tomorrow Saturn moves out of the House of the Sun. In his exaltation the sun will show no leniency.’

  Lokumal sighed again. He looked out of the window at the sea, and wished he felt no pain at the thought that he would wake to it no more.

  ‘Listen once more to my will, Maharaj,’ he said. Tunda Maharaj wrinkled his forehead in concentration, as Lokumal read through his bequests.

  ‘You promised me a transistor radio,’ he reminded Lokumal.

  ‘Only wait, Baba. It is here at the end of the list,’ Lokumal said. He had left nothing unthought of, even his prayer beads were to be divided, between Jyoti and Prakash and the two children, and were to be turned each day in his remembrance.

  ‘Leave me now, Maharaj,’ he said. His head ached, his throat was tight with emotion.

  ‘In the evening I will come again.’ Tunda Maharaj slid off the chair and shuffled towards the door in his black rubber shoes, turning the knob between the stumps of his fists, beneath his saffron shawl.

  The last thirty-three days had been divided by Maharaj into three sequences of eleven. On each eleventh day, Lokumal was to feel peaks of growing detachment and spirituality. It was impossible to admit his real feelings to Maharaj. Instead of joy at the release awaiting him, the metastases of attachment grew stronger within him.

  ‘The work of a man whose attachments are sundered, who is liberated, whose mind is firmly founded in wisdom, who does work as sacrifice, is dissolved entirely.’ He shook his head sadly, repeating the Gita as Tunda Maharaj closed the door behind himself.

  On each of the appointed eleventh days he had searched within himself, in the still of his soul, in the early hours of morning meditation, for the progressive Maharaj forecast. Invariably, the sound of the waves penetrated his calm, and the faces of his grandchildren appeared before him. In a lifetime of meditation this had never occurred. He drew a trembling breath and turned to his tape recorders. One was his own, the other two had been lent by Bhai Sahib and Mr Bhagwandas. About him his room was clean and orderly. He had left only what would be useful to the family, books that would instruct, religious pictures to inspire, mementoes that would remind them of his presence always. The tape recorders had been borrowed to leave further guidance, in the form of Swamiji’s prayer.

  He inserted two tapes, on to which he had already recorded his prayer, in the first and second machines, and readied a blank tape in the third machine. He settled himself, drew a breath, and pressed the buttons of all three instruments. His voice trumpeted forth in a resonant duet, lifting simultaneously off the two recorded reels, backing him in multiple prayer. He spoke into the third machine, recording a choir of three voices on to the blank tape. The voices spoke as one.

  O Parabrahma, Paramatma

  You are the beyond God

  The highest of the high …

  Beside him on his bed, the tapes wound slowly forward while Lokumal swayed, eyes closed, lost in the undulation of his own chanting.

  Outside in the lounge, drinking a mid-morning coffee, Jyoti looked up from planning a party menu in celebration of the bar, and listened to the choir in Lokumal’s room. She felt worried about him; he looked anxious and unwell, he was acting oddly. She hoped he was n
ot ill. Tomorrow she would call a doctor; someone other than Dr Subramaniam, who came each day with his blood pressure kit and pronounced nothing wrong, when an obvious blight was upon Lokumal’s face.

  She looked down again at the pad in her hands, and made an alteration to the menu. She must be sure there were not too many gravy dishes or too many fried things, the balance must be right. Across the room the bar stood ready … she had feared it would not be finished in time for the party. A workman still flashed his hammer about, putting the finishing touches to the trim. She found she needed to sit often upon strategic chairs, and assess the bar. It was more handsome than she had hoped, and enhanced the room with the glint of crystal, and the jewel colours of the many bottles. The bar was of bamboo, with a flounced awning of pink candy-striped cotton above; it was light and charming.

  Earlier, coming out of his room in the morning, Lokumal had strode forward to inspect it. Jyoti held her breath. But Lokumal only smiled gently and asked, ‘Is it as you want?’ and embraced her fondly, before returning to his room. As she sipped again at her coffee the door bell rang. The servant showed in Mrs Hathiramani, huffing and puffing and wiping the sweat from her neck on her sari.

  ‘Too hot, too hot. Soon now again it must rain.’ She stopped, and squinted across the room. ‘What is this?’

  ‘The bar is ready,’ Jyoti replied.

  ‘This is a bar? For the drinking of alcohol?’ Mrs Hathiramani walked nearer to inspect. ‘It is too simple in design,’ she announced. ‘Once, in Sukkur, Mr Hathiramani took me to the house of a famous judge. There also they had a bar. The front was black leather with gold designs of gods and dancing girls. It looked very fine. Not like this.’

  ‘This is a modern bar,’ Jyoti replied, refusing to be drawn. Mrs Hathiramani turned away, unable to summon up more interest. Her thoughts were crowded and disturbed.

  ‘I need to speak with Dada Lokumal. Is Tunda Maharaj still there?’ Mrs Hathiramani asked. Her face was permanently knitted with anxiety, since her husband’s departure to hospital. She lumbered towards Lokumal’s door.

  Lokumal had just finished recording his prayer. He suppressed his impatience at the sight of Mrs Hathiramani’s bulk in his doorway. On this last day he had things of his own to settle, and little time for Mrs Hathiramani’s troubles.

  ‘Come, daughter, sit. Listen with me to this.’ Lokumal replayed the final recorded tape of his three voices chanting in unison, and beamed with pleasure at the result. ‘Is this not a fine thing?’ he asked as the prayer ended.

  ‘A very fine thing,’ Mrs Hathiramani agreed in a distracted voice; she needed practical advice, not prayer. ‘Tomorrow Mr Hathiramani is to return from hospital. Suddenly, this morning, Bhai Sahib has left on a visit to Nasik and will not return for three days. Tomorrow Saturn moves out of the House of the Sun. I must know if some purification is necessary, before Mr Hathiramani returns,’ she said.

  Lokumal gave a deep sigh, as distracted as Mrs Hathiramani by troubled thoughts. ‘That is true, tomorrow Saturn moves out of the House of the Sun. Tunda Maharaj says, in his exaltation the Sun will show no leniency.’ He repeated the old priest’s prophecy.

  Mrs Hathiramani gave a moan at this further news of the Sun’s malevolent joy at the departure of Saturn. ‘If this is true, then certainly some purification is needed before Mr Hathiramani’s return. Without Bhai Sahib or Tunda Maharaj, who is to advise me?’

  ‘Have faith, nothing more is needed,’ Lokumal replied, with suppressed impatience. Mrs Hathiramani stood up in agitation. Lokumal was not a priest, and in the matter of rites could not advise. She turned towards the door.

  ‘Wait one moment, daughter,’ Lokumal called her back. ‘I wish to speak with you.’ Mrs Hathiramani sat down again.

  ‘I am an old man. It is difficult to know how long I will be in this world,’ he began, and silenced Mrs Hathiramani’s protest with a wave of his hand. ‘The death of Lakshmi has upset me, it is always in my mind. This was her destiny, we could do nothing, her karma was too strong. In that family though there are still two more girls, one now of marriagable age. For Lakshmi it is too late, but a similar fate should not befall Padma. In Lakshmi’s arrangements you had taken a hand—’

  ‘I had no part—’ Mrs Hathiramani interrupted in self-defence.

  ‘I am not speaking to blame you, daughter. I am asking you to offer Padma to Mohan Watumal,’ Lokumal announced.

  ‘Mohan Watumal?’ Mrs Hathiramani exclaimed. ‘He is a waster. Because of his reputation he cannot get a girl.’

  ‘He has been spoiled, and there is no business to hold his interest. The fault is with his father. But now Sham is to work with them, as you have heard. Is this not a good opportunity, for the families to be further joined? And Padma will remain in our own Sadhbela family.’ Lokumal smiled. He had evolved the idea slowly, as he paid out the bills for Lakshmi sent him by Mrs Samtani. Each bill left him sadder and more thoughtful. Had he known the state of things, he would have helped Lakshmi; but he had known nothing.

  ‘Mohan is a waster and Mrs Watumal wants dowry. Without dowry Mohan could get a good girl, even a beautiful girl, from a poor family. But Mrs Watumal wants dowry.’ Mrs Hathiramani pursed her lips. ‘Sham has a job, but he will not have money immediately for such a dowry. Padma will have to wait.’

  ‘But if Padma had a dowry, then what do you think of the match?’ Lokumal inquired.

  ‘Then nothing is wrong with such a match,’ Mrs Hathiramani considered.

  ‘Then I leave it to you to make the suggestion, to both sides,’ Lokumal said.

  ‘How can I suggest a match with no dowry? Mrs Watumal will laugh in my face. Already she wishes me no good,’ Mrs Hathiramani retorted, impatient with Lokumal’s apparent befuddlement.

  ‘I will provide the dowry,’ Lokumal replied. Mrs Hathiramani gasped. ‘In my will I have made some provisions for charity. Is this cause not a charity?’ Lokumal asked.

  He had not intended to discuss the matter with Mrs Hathiramani or Mrs Bhagwandas. He intended to leave instructions in his will, for an amount from the charities to be set aside for Padma’s dowry. Sham would be on his feet by the time Veena’s turn came. He was suddenly relieved by speaking with Mrs Hathiramani, to know one more thing was settled on his last day.

  Mrs Hathiramani felt her spirits lighten at Lokumal’s suggestion. Such a match would not only give Padma a future, but repair the loss of face suffered by Mrs Bhagwandas and Mrs Hathiramani in the sad affair of Lakshmi. ‘Leave the matter with me. I will speak with Mrs Bhagwandas. With dowry this match is a good one. Who is Mrs Watumal to object?’ Mrs Hathiramani said, and hurried off to consult Mrs Bhagwandas. Lokumal leaned back on his bolsters.

  *

  The day passed quickly, to his distress. He waited for the return from school of his grandchildren, and soon they came, swinging into his room with lusty cries at release from incarceration. They scrambled up on to his bed, and sat amongst the bolsters pointing to the three tape recorders.

  ‘Why so many, Grandad? Your bed is like a shop,’ they laughed. He made them sit quietly and played the prayer to them; the final, triple-voiced tape in one machine, and the other two as back-up. Five taped voices filled the room, and his own accompanying them swelled the choir to a sixth. The children listened in awe.

  ‘Such a good noise you make, Grandad,’ they smiled. Hearing the magnificence of such volume, Lokumal was tempted to start his recordings again. If he recorded and re-recorded often enough, he could reach an ensemble on a single tape of one hundred voices. He put the thought aside, time was a commodity; the tape of three voices must suffice. The children joined in for a last round, singing out in a clear, piping treble. Such sweet notes, thought Lokumal, would be a joy to record. When the prayer was over the children dragged him from his bed, to examine the bar with them. He went without reluctance on this last evening, happy in obedience to their wish.

  ‘Is it not pretty?’ Bina asked, pointing to the striped awning.

  �
�Very pretty,’ Lokumal replied, and gave her a hug.

  ‘Underneath, there are one hundred bottles of whiskey,’ Ravi boasted, pointing to the depths.

  ‘Very good,’ agreed Lokumal, and tickled his armpits until Ravi screamed.

  ‘Like Aladdin’s cave,’ said Bina in awe of the glinting glass and jewel colours. At their insistence Lokumal examined with them all the bottles, and felt touched only by love, before which the little bar seemed of no greater threat than a seaside stall, that sold glasses of iced sherbet.

  In her guilt over Lokumal, Jyoti had cooked no meat for days, but served only those dishes that pleased him. Lokumal ate with appetite, commenting upon his pleasure. Prakash was pleased at Jyoti’s new discretion, and smiled at her across the table.

  ‘Let us sit together in one last prayer for the night,’ Lokumal requested, when Tunda Maharaj arrived after dinner.

  ‘It is late for the children,’ Jyoti argued. All day she had listened to the chanting of prayer from Lokumal’s room. She was not inclined to its continuance through the evening.

  ‘It will not take long,’ replied Lokumal. ‘I have a surprise for you.’

  When they were seated in his room, he turned on the tape recorders. The volume swelled out in thunderous harmony, the children gave a cheer. Lokumal frowned in mock severity, and pressed a finger to his lips. He began to recite the prayer, leading the orchestra of voices on the tapes. Sitting cross-legged upon his bed, he stared at the beloved faces about him that soon he would see no more. Tunda Maharaj sat on a chair swinging his legs, and smiled sadly.

  ‘This tape is for you all,’ Lokumal announced at the end, taking the triple-voiced recording out of the machine. ‘Play it sometimes in the future when I am no more, and remember me.’

  ‘Oh Daddyji, what nonsense you talk,’ Jyoti said, getting up, relieved the prayer was over. ‘You can play it yourself to us, every night. Come, children, it is late.’

  He was forced to say goodnight, and hugged the wiry bodies of the children tightly. Prakash and Jyoti he embraced with such trembling that Jyoti again looked at him severely.