The Assassin's Song (28 page)

“As to Godlessness, which you warned me against, believe me when I tell you that there seem to be too many faiths around. This is a religious
country! Even gurus and pirs from India have a following here; they go around teaching, though I believe many of them to be fakes. Sometimes I warn the people I know here about fake gurus. Spirituality and the meaning of life seem to be on many people's minds. This should please you!

“As to morality: here, Bapu, you were right. One has to watch out, and believe me I do watch out. Boys and girls freely express their feelings for each other; they touch, and so on, quite openly, in the most rude ways, just as in American films. But this is not something for you or Ma to worry about, I am not an American after all.

“Still, there is a lot to learn here; I know that you wanted me to study science—physics and astronomy; but I am looking around before I decide my course (they call it ‘major’ here); this is what my adviser has suggested to me. There is all the world's knowledge here, Bapu-ji.

“I miss you and Ma, and of course dear Mansoor, very much and think about you all every night when I go to bed; our home is most vivid in my mind and I remember every corner in it. Tell Ma not to shed too many tears for me, and Mansoor, I hope, is behaving himself now that he is the eldest and the only boy at home.

“I touch your feet. Bless me, Bapu-ji.

“Your loving son,

“Karsan.”

My father wrote,

“May Pir Bawa preserve son Karsan, his successor at Pirbaag, with good health and always keep him resolute on his path …

“In the world in which you find yourself, there will be many temptations, both of the spirit and of the body. Those of the body will be easier to fight than you may think at first. Those of the spirit you must especially beware of. They are the slow-working poisons that eat your insides and leave you bereft of your soul and empty of your purpose.

“The ginan says,

Kesri sinha, swarupa bhulayo
Aja kero sangha, aja hoi rahiyo.
Saffron Lion forgot his true self
Living with goats, he became a goat.

“Never forget yourself and your mission in life. You are special.

“Your mother and brother have read your letters and rejoiced. They should write to you in due course. Meanwhile accept their greetings and prayers.

“Remember to give me the details of all the subjects you are studying there—I can advise you on their value to you. Physically I may be far from you, but in spirit I am as close to you as your breath.

“With all my blessings,

“Your Bapu-ji.”

The story of Saffron Lion. A handsome lion cub once strayed from his kin and was lost in the forest. He found himself among a herd of goats, and he grew up with them. They were generous to him and he learned their ways and came to think of himself as one of them. He ate leaves and thorns, he bleated. When danger threatened, in the form of lions and foxes, he ran away with them.

One day a pride of lions attacked, having stalked the goats and surrounded the herd. The poor goats ran blindly all together, seeing no possibility of escape. Saffron, too, was terrified. As he ran behind the others, he saw a lioness come bounding after him, determined—it seemed to him—to tear his heart out. But something inside Saffron this time made him stand his ground; he stopped to face the enemy and gave a mighty roar. At that moment, the lions all stopped in their tracks, they slunk away.

Saffron was disturbed. Why had his friends not stood up to the lions as he had? They, on their part, began to shun him. He was left to trot along after them. The other animals jeered at him, though when he attempted to speak to them, they ran away. One day a wise old tortoise took pity on him and told him, “Young sir, take a good look at yourself when next you drink at the river.”

Thus Saffron Lion discovered his true self.

Karsan Dargawalla a lion among guileless goats? It seemed more the other way round, so naive and nervous I often felt. And yes, at times I was lonely and terrified. That after all was the flip side to the joy and exhilaration of freedom. Even my American friends had their blue moments sometimes, missed their moms and dads, little brothers and sisters.

A letter to Pirbaag took three weeks to get there; I received one after the same interval, always on a Monday. And so weeks passed, time measured in postal deliveries.

Bapu-ji's epistles were guidance from a distance, pointing out the hazards of my journey out here alone; he had let me go, and awaited my safe return back to the fold. Each time, though, having waited until noon to pounce upon my sky-blue air letter in the mailbox, as I read it over once and then more carefully again, I would feel that pull of the heart at the absence of any intimacy in his words; a single sentence from my father to say that he missed having his eldest son around. I wanted dearly to be missed; I was certain they missed me at home—how could they not? If I could recall my home so minutely, how could they have forgotten their Karsan? But Bapu-ji was not the one to say how fondly he remembered pulling my cheek, or playing cricket with me when I was very young; or even just seeing me around with a cricket bat or poring over the papers at my table in the open courtyard. In the final analysis, family and relationships were mere sansara—a cage keeping you in this world, chained to the cycle of births. This he had always taught, as the Saheb of Pirbaag. All his worry and concern, his love for me, he kept restrained within him, with that detachment he had cultivated and believed to be essential towards the objects of the world, while he waited for me to return and take up my duties as his successor.

But I recalled, felt in every bone of my body the very fatherly embrace he had given me when I left. It was that rare instance when that reserve had broken.

And Ma? She who had been all tender emotion—tears and laughter— sent her regards and love but would not write. The thought would cut woundingly through any understanding I tried to compose on her behalf. I would recall that it was Mansoor who had been her favourite. But
then, I chided myself, Don't be a baby. She
had
loved me. Didn't we sit outside on the steps of the house, just she and I, when with a naughty smile she would confess to me about a visit to the movies? Didn't she trust me with the unspoken secret of her disguise? Then why no word from her?

How happy must Mansoor be to have seen the back of me, the muchpraised and favoured successor to the throne. He had always been jealous, creating ways to divert attention from me. He would now have the run of the house, and access to my things—my bat and gloves, my tall, gold pencil cane that I had won as a prize, the V-neck cricket sweater I could not find when packing.

“Dear Mansoor,

“Even though you don't reply to my letters, Bapu tells me you like receiving them. So here is another one and I hope you do reply this time. I cannot imagine what keeps you so busy that you cannot reply to your brother who is so far away and remembers you all the time.

“You are free to use my cricket bat, the one with the autograph of Garfield Sobers, but please, please don't be careless with it. Remember to treat it with linseed oil once a month—but not more; don't leave it lying carelessly in the sunlight. It can break.

“Did you or Ma find my cricket sweater?

“Harish has not replied to my letter. Nor have Raja Singh or Ma. What is wrong?—have you people given up on me so soon? And what news of Utu? Is he in Dar es Salaam yet?

“But tell me how you are doing. I am happy for you that you will be attending St. Arnold's. You will not regret it. How do you get to school? How are your studies? How are you at badminton now? Now there you picked a game I simply cannot play!

“I have sent you a shirt by parcel post. I bought it at discount but in rupees it still cost a lot. Don't worry, I could afford it!—and I know you will like it. Ask Ma what happened to the théplas she promised to cook and send me. No sooner the son is out of sight than he is forgotten—tell her I said that!

I couldn't help the feeling sometimes that I had stepped onto a tiny island, and no sooner had I done that than it had started to drift away. I was terrified, then, of drifting into nothingness, into an endless darkness, anchorless; without belief, without love; without a people or nation to go home to. Is that what freedom was?

But my father kept his sight on me, he would help me chart my course in this perilous sea. Did I want that? A long breath. I could not say it yet, but I was beginning to know in these silences that no, I did not want that long-distance navigator, I would take the terror of the unknown with the thrill of discovering myself and the world.

“Dear Ma:

“May Pir Bawa bless you and keep you in the best of health, with which blessing I write that I am fine and hope and pray you are the same. I am eating well and have not fallen sick even once. I did fall down once, but I am all right now. I miss your cooking—your chevda and seviya and kadhi and fried bhindi. But most of all I miss talking to you and hearing the stories you told from the filims …