The Eighteenth Parallel (17 page)

Then an outburst of Razakar rhetoric—'Is Hyderabad a leasehold of the Indian Government? It is a quirk of history that the jailbirds of yesterday should now be oppressing princes of the old lineage. Here in Hyderabad we have a three-centuries old royal house blessed by Allah. A line of seven generations of kings. But now, the days of the Indian blackguards are numbered. The foam- topped waves of the Bay of Bengal shall soon wash the feet of our Rustom-I-Dewan, Arastu-i-zamon, Lt. General, Muzaffar-al-Mulk, Wal-Mumaik, Fateh Jung Sippah Salar Mir Usman Ali Khan Bahadur Nizam-ul-Mulk, Asaf Jah. The waters of the Arabian Sea shall wet the beautiful sandals of the Nizam, the faithful ally of the British Government. The sacred Asaf Jahi flag shall fly over the Red Fort at Delhi.'

Chandru scanned every page and every inch of the
Bulletin
but there was nothing about Gandhi. So Gandhi was not dead then.

'Why are you giving the papers back? Don't you want them?'

'It was just that somebody began a rumour that Gandhi is dead. I thought I should check.'

'That's no rumour, boy. It's true. That's why we've cancelled tonight's show.'

'God! It's true, then!'

'Yes my boy, true, sadly true.'

'But there's nothing in the papers.'

'This issue was printed at four.'

'Not a single word in it.'

'He was not dead then,' he said with grief in his voice, and turned the knobs of a radio that was lying in a corner. It did not look like a radio at all from where Chandru stood. As the man turned its knobs, it presented a simulation of mustard seeds spluttering in hot oil. The man was about to switch it off when suddenly he sat up straight and alert, and fine-tuned the set. He said 'Listen. That's Pandit Nehru.' The voice spoke in English.

'The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere. The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many, many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented something more than the immediate present, it represented the living, the eternal truths.'

The radio went on but Chandru came out of the room. A cinema hall in a remote corner of the town had killed Gandhi. Gandhi was really and truly dead. The darkness of the January night seemed intensified by the trees on the road. There was darkness everywhere. The light had gone. It was no ordinary light. And yet at that time his mind had had room only for the details of the physical reality. There was nothing left for him to do now but to go back home—a two-and-a-half mile walk from Tivoli. It was the Cantonment area where until recently military trucks hurtled up and down like demons. The army had gone away now, though ghosts of it probably hovered over the cemetery on the parade grounds. There had to be quite a few of the Christian variety. Even Tivoli Cinema was supposed to have its resident ghost. If all who died became ghosts could Gandhi also have become one? Could he at least see Gandhi's ghost?

He had never seen Gandhi. The names of all those places Gandhi had visited, all the places he had stayed in, sounded like places in some imaginary world: Wardha, Yeravda Prison, Sevagram, Sabarmati, Noakhali, Hindi Prachar Sabha of Madras.

Ah, the Hindi Prachar Sabha in Madras. Gandhi had come down to Madras, to visit this organisation, but never Hyderabad State. He had visited every part of India but not Secunderabad. Was it that the people here had no love for him? No
need
of him?

'Gandhi! Gandhi!' Chandru screamed the name as he ran. His voice stilled the insects of the night for a moment. From somewhere on the darkened branches of a tree a bird cried back in distress. Chandru left the road and ran across the parade grounds wailing, 'Gandhi...! Gandhi...!' The grounds were large—even hundreds of military trucks and troops together would hardly cover a small part of it. The vast barren land had tree-lined roads on all sides, but the trees had now merged with the darkness of the night and were invisible. The vast expanse of the sky was sprinkled with tiny stars. A small bush tripped him up and Chandru fell flat on his face. The ground had been flattened hard with red earth, the colour of which was not distinguishable at night but there were many big and small stones with edges sharp enough to hurt. He was hurt badly. Blood trickled from his head down to his lips. Chandru sat up and began to pound and kick and pummel the earth. 'You're dead now, dead, dead,
dead.'

Then he stood up. He had hurt his hands and legs as well. He began to run again, in another direction, towards the cemetery. He tripped and fell again. 'I haven't seen you even once!' He beat the ground again and again, raised his voice as much as he could and cried, 'Oh Gandhi! Gandhi!' He looked all round as if expecting Gandhi to materialise. He was amazed at his own frenzy.

He then began to scratch the ground with his fingernails. It was hardened earth and didn't yield much—a handful of dust was all he could collect. He threw it up skywards. Then he got up again and dashed forward into another frantic, aimless run. When he fell down again, he began to bang his head on the ground.

A car zoomed past on the road by the race course. It must have been a good half-mile away, but Chandru began to race towards it, running for all he was worth. But it was gone. Then he fell again. His whole body was burning though he felt the cold mist through his torn clothes. He tore them some more. He tripped near a heap of gravel meant for some construction work on the site and began to throw the stones about, until he sprained his right shoulder. The last effort to fling a stone made him cry out in pain. 'Amma!' By now his breath was like bellows, his whole body aching and sore but the frenzy in him hadn't drained. The pain that lingered was that of being tricked, cheated, betrayed. Looking at the sky, he hurled a stone at it, this time with his left hand. A short parabola, followed by a plop. That was all. The sky looked just as rt had always looked and the stars twinkled as they had always twinkled, winking among themselves like naughty children.

As he lay flat on the ground, exhausted, the night seemed to take on different hues. A viscous layer of darkness floated above the air. He shot out his hands, slamming them on the ground. Then he waved them in a wilder arc. He realised he was lying on a cricket pitch. Perhaps a pitch he himself had played cricket on. Thoughts of home came to him. Would the lights be on now? Or would everyone still be groping about in the dark?

Maybe they were asleep by now. No they would all be waiting for him, awake. Very confused about news of Gandhi, not knowing what really happened. They were probably crying. None of them would have the heart to eat. Dinner would be left untouched in the kitchens, for rats and roaches to have their fill. And the poor buffalo would be lowing away neglected.

Lying in the open in absolute solitude was soothing. Wasn't it? But was it? Wasn't it? One thing was certain now, he had been betrayed, betrayed even by Gandhi.

Anger and sorrow welled up, the wilderness become unbearable, and he began to run. All the pictures he had ever seen of Gandhi floated before him. Once there had been a photograph of Gandhi – a large one – stuck on the front of a decorated railway engine. That had been his last ever glimpse, his last ever contact with Gandhi. That had been the locomotive of the train in which Gandhi had toured South India. A locomotive just as black as the darkness now. And now here he was, panting and puffing like a locomotive. He stopped suddenly, screamed, and once again slumped to the ground, sobbing.

3

Nagaratnam had come home. Though delayed by a month, the university examinations had somehow been conducted. Only half the college students had paid their examination fees, and only half of those who had paid up had sat for the exams and God knew how many would get through. But Nagaratnam had done well. Her family had decided to leave Secunderabad. Her father had grown a moustache and beard under the pretext of being ill. That had taken care of the medical certificate needed for two months' leave. He had also managed a police permit to leave the State. It only remained now for the Twelve Down to take them up to Kazipet Junction the following Saturday. They'd reach Kazipet at night and wait there for four hours until the Grand Trunk Express came in and their carriages were attached to it. Anyhow, that was how it usually was. The hope was that things would remain the same this whole week.

After that, it would be Bezwada at eight-thirty in the morning and Madras in the evening. That was freedom. If things improved in Hyderabad, they might come back. Otherwise, they'd settle down somewhere else. There were many colleges in Madras Presidency. 'Only my father will have to come back here,' Nagaratnam said. 'It's two years to his retirement. I came to say goodbye to all of you. Chandru, will you remember me? Why, what's happened to your face? You look awful. Will you write to me? I'll write to all of you.'

Chandru stood gazing at Nagaratnam's face. It had become customary with him to let those who spoke to him go on while he continued to watch their faces. It had been a long time since he had seen Nagaratnam at close quarters. When you saw a girl in a crowd, in a public place, you had an impression of her which stayed with you. Seen as close as this, Nagaratnam did not conform to his image of her at all. She was altogether too grown up and too dark. Her face was not all that silken and smooth—did she really have so many warts and blemishes? A fine growth of hair covered her forehead and cheeks so that her hair went beyond her hairline, much like the way she herself was now going to step beyond the limits of Hyderabad.

'Why don't you say something?' Nagaratnam said, flashing an affectionate smile at him.

'Just thinking of something.'

'You're not listening to me, of course.'

'I
am
listening.'

'Impossible, you didn't hear a word of what I said, I'm sure.'

'Shall I repeat everything you said?'

'Oh forget it.'

For a while neither spoke. Then Nagaratnam said: 'In a way, I'm glad to leave this place. But also afraid. Our relatives who stay in so many places are all so different from us. To think I must go and live among them—it's really frightening... But there you go drifting into your own thoughts again.'

'Shall I say something?'

'What?'

'What's been on my mind.'

Nagaratnam seemed to shrink a little. Chandru could see that her instinctive wariness didn't allow her to let him go on. Never before had she spoken to him for any length of time. She had always treated him like a child, patronisingly. What was more, she could communicate that that was all he was to her without her so much as moving a muscle on her face, or flicking an eyelid. All the while, she knew quite well that Chandru waited at all sorts of places just to catch a glimpse of her. But today, there was a new-found security in her imminent departure. She could be generous with him and talk to him. Why, it was only two months ago that there was a new rumour about her, that she had gone missing for two days. That a girl with such an experience behind her could say she was afraid...

'Goodbye then,' she said and floated out, leaving Chandru a little dazed. She had walked in when least expected, spent an incredible ten minutes with him and walked out, leaving him no chance to prove the relationship. Just for a while she seemed so intimate and the next moment she was gone.

I have no need for such girls, thought Chandru. I'm finished with them. Six months ago, if she'd spoken to me, it would have made my day. Women cannot rouse me any more. Nagaratnam was still in the house, taking leave of everyone. Chandru still had a chance to draw attention and he might just... After all, she was going to leave them for ever...But no, he didn't make the effort.

The gulmohar tree in their garden was ablaze with red flowers. Great regulars for observing seasonal rhythms, these trees never let down the month of May. The rains of Hyderabad were as regular too. Come sixth or seventh June and you found the first rains knocking at the door. Not heavy rains, of course. If Hyderabad ever got real rains, you wouldn't find people subsisting on maize and custard apple, would you ?

Quite unlike the radiant-looking gulmohar, the peepal, margosa and banyan looked withered. The grass on the ground had shrivelled to pale stumps. Thorny bushes had survived. There was even a yellow flower among the thorns. A mass of red flowers on the tree above, and on the ground, as far as the eye could see, a single yellow flower. These days, the jars and tins in the kitchen were all empty. One could barely manage to scrape together a little grain from the bottoms of the tins. Vegetables were available but little else for cooking—no salt, no chilli. Even groundnut oil had become a scarce item because buses had now switched over from diesel to groundnut oil. The fares had been doubled to make up for the cost. There was one consolation in all this—there might be little cooking worth the name going on in your own kitchen, but you had only to go out into the streets to get the smell of a feast. Half the oil in the buses went up in smoke. But the smoke-smothered city was also enveloped in the smell of fritters—bajji, vadai, omapodi, karaboondi.

The Nagpur refugees were still hawking these snacks and a lot of restaurants – Hindu as well as Muslim – bought up all they made. After all, everyone had to eat. No distinctions there. Father was going through a bad time in his office. A Muslim had taken charge. He spoke only Urdu and ran the office in Urdu. A host of others like him had been inducted into the Railway Department, which untill now was the preserve of the British, Anglo-Indians, and the Tamil and Telugu speaking peoples. It had now been taken over by the Nizam. The new recruits were largely from Maharashtra and Bihar. Each group spoke its own brand of Urdu. Father said they had problems following each other's Urdu.

Father was also afraid, afraid of some indistinguishable menace. A policeman had snatched away his walking stick and taken him to the police station the other day for carrying a dangerous weapon. The sub-inspector warned him and let him off, but didn't return the stick. There were other walking sticks at home but Father gave up carrying a stick. It was sad to see him go out without his stick.