The Eighteenth Parallel (9 page)

Pyari Begum posed a problem. His perception of her had changed recently. She had been no more than a fat girl before. But now she was not just fat but pretty and deserved a second look. She now looked straight at him as at an acquaintance and did not avert her face.

For some time now, two other families had come to stay with Pyari Begum's family next door. They hadn't come there on holiday. Chandru knew they had come from Sholapur. If Kasim hadn't offered them refuge, they would have been housed in the bamboo shacks on Station Road. They were all Muslims. So was Nasir. But how vastly different they were!

Chandru felt a twinge of regret now. He had not taken proper leave of Nasir Ali Khan. Nasir couldn't be expected to invite Chandru to cricket practice every time. But after the fiasco of that evening, Chandru doubted if he would ever feel like going to the nets again on his own.

Chandru wanted to cry but he couldn't. It had been like this for quite some time now. Laughing heartily, crying openly, expressing one's thoughts freely, all these had become impossible. Months had gone by since he last spoke to Morris and Terence, his neighbours and long-time friends. As for his new friends, he was at a loss to continue any conversation beyond the first two minutes.

Chandru bolted the front door of his house from the outside. He shut the gate and walked towards the peepal tree. Dry twigs from the tree snapped under his feet. He had often collected these twigs and bundled them for the family priest to use to light the ritual fires. The priest had brought a new astrologer home one day. Unlike the general run of astrologers, this one had predicted no glorious future for him. For that matter, this astrologer had never read any of their horoscopes at home without a preliminary pout and a tch-tch. Mother had nicknamed him Saturn, Sani is thought to be dark-complexioned. This astrologer certainly was. He was so dark that it would have been difficult to see him at night. Chandru was thought to be under the sinister influence of Sani right now. His wild speculations next turned to the name 'seven-and-a-half years' Sani'. Folk etymology made it sound like 'seven-and-a half-countries Sani'. Did the sinister planet dog your steps through seven and a half countries as well, he wondered. Was he perhaps accompanying him at this moment? Where was he?

Chandru looked around. The block of houses lay stretched like the sleeping giant Kumbhakarna of the
Ramayana.
The second block of the Barracks was hidden from view. The spire of the church rose straight into the sky. He had been to the church only that evening, looking for the buffalo. Rough, open country to his right with a few buildings in the distance, and then the Christian cemetery. English ghosts, a hundred years old, would be enjoying themselves here at this hour of night. The place was scary even in the day. But wait, how was it that he could see the cemetery which was half a mile away? Was it perhaps because Saturn was with him?

Then there was the banyan tree. One needed the intervening distance to get a full view of the tree. It looked so incredibly large, as large as a hill. The tiny red fruit on the tree were not visible now. Did they burst after they turned red? Or did they redden and burst after the crows had scattered them to the ground? It didn't matter. The tree was now a dark mass, a charcoal drawing on an immense grey canvas. Not a leaf stirred. But in its own way, it was breathing. In deep silence. Probably oxygenating.

What was that noise? A rustle? A snake. He watched fascinated as it slithered quickly past him. Its path wasn't wavy at all. He stood watching until it merged into the dark and at last was lost to sight. A snake. He had been seeing snakes recently, in fact ever since he had had these dreams. He had seen three during the last few months though he hadn't seen any before that in the nearly eight years he had been in this place. Snakes – the cobra – Nagaratnam. Her name meant the jewel on the cobra.

Nagaratnam. Another girl who one could not pass without turning to look again, a look that never failed to churn up his system. He shouldn't have these thoughts about people who were older, should he? But then did age count in these matters? Besides, of all the girls who interested him, it was Nagaratnam who seemed to reciprocate his interest somewhat – though you never knew for sure – with that twinkle in her eyes. Was it perhaps a Get-away-you-gawky-adolescent sort of look that she gave him?

Chandru had heard things about her from here and there. But only Ranga had given him anything like a cogent account of her. It wasn't inspired by his dislike of her. Nagaratnam had never encouraged Ranga. Maybe there were no specific reasons for her behaviour; maybe there were.

Maybe Ranga's tactics to draw her attention were to blame. But then, boys had been much worse. Ranga was infatuated with her just as half of Secunderabad was. Nagaratnam had become an obsessive topic of discussion with him, but he never got to know her personally. Only those really close to you could ever think it was all right. Others would only talk. Ranga must have ruminated on all the gossip he had heard about Nagaratnam and then come to his own conclusions. But where was Ranga now? He'd left without an address. Couldn't he have written at least a line from wherever he was?

Weighed down by a sense of loss, Chandru wondered if Ranga had befriended him only because of Nagaratnam. No. There had been much more to their friendship than that. Oh for the days they had spent together, walking endlessly and sharing their thoughts.

It was Ranga who had properly initiated Chandru into cricket. But, curiously, as long as Ranga was there, Chandru had learnt nothing. As a batsman, he didn't last beyond the first four balls, and as a bowler, he always found the ball displaying a will of its own. The worst bit was that he wasn't even a good fielder. But a strange thing happened once Ranga left the place. All the techniques that Ranga had taught him so lovingly and painstakingly, all that which eluded him as long as his mentor was present, were now within grasp, just so simple. The ball as it came sailing towards him was no longer a blur. It was now possible for him to talk to the ball, rebuke it and dismiss it from his presence. Even Krishnaswamy's brother Goku of Second Line Barracks, who used to smirk every time he went to bat, now nursed a feeling of inferiority. When Chandru was chosen captain there had been no murmur of dissent. Even if a few had demurred, and you had asked them to suggest a better name, the answer would have been long coming. In the last three months, Chandru had led his team in seven matches, winning five and drawing two. He had notched up a grand total of 318. Only once had he scored below thirty. It was always a 40, 50, even a 77 once. If only Ranga had been there to see him now!

Ranga would then be the captain, of course, but to score like this under him would have been glorious. Ranga's family was among the first to leave Secunderabad because of the Razakar menace. Or was it just that his father had been transferred? Whatever it was, Ranga had left.

The Muslim song had ended. There was a stillness everywhere, not broken even by the hum of crickets. Standing where he was, Chandru turned and looked in all directions. The whole place seemed to have grown. When he looked at his house, it seemed to have moved out quite far. Yet, when he looked at the whole scene with a wide-angled view, the distances were still proportionate, everything was in its place. The world had somehow ceased to be solid—from beneath his feet, it kept flowing, flowing out on all sides, like a picture drawn on the surface of an enormous balloon growing or shrinking as the balloon grew or shrank. As if a hurricane were blowing against a giant bubble in space, making it bulge, squeeze and shake. He himself had grown and grown till, he could reach the skies. He could stretch out a hand and pluck a few stars. Then, slowly, the vision began to dissolve back to normalcy, even as he stood pleading with all his heart, 'Oh, no, no. I want it to stay!' Everything became mundane once more—the same old church and the same old cemetry. It reminded him of a painting of an English landscape. A landscape seemed to call for a vista with a few scattered buildings, fields, a stream, some distant hills. A dog or a cow could be allowed somewhere in the painting, but a man never. If he were to be included in the painting of Lancer Barracks, it would cease to be scenic, thought Chandru.

He started to walk towards the banyan tree. At home, he usually avoided the dark recesses, even when there were people around. But now, at dead of night in the open, he felt no fear, or to be more precise, something greater than fear urged him on. But what was he afraid of? Of losing his life? But, unless one knew what life was, was it really possible to be afraid of losing it? Still, it couldn't be denied that he had felt fear, not for any silly reason, but for weighty, sound, substantial reasons. There was some connection between this fear and the other development, this excruciating response to the presence of women. Something seemed to have entered his body – another life, a spirit, a vaporous thing or may be it was just plain water! This thing inside him scared him, it induced dreams. And now, at midnight, it was propelling him towards the tree. He did not really care for the peepal tree. But the banyan tree was a repository of deep memories .for him, redolent with countless hours of absorbing play. The banyan tree was like a home away from home. Sitting on its branches he had watched time pass by. Unlike at home, where no relationships were possible unless you bruised yourself with constant activity. You just couldn't hope to escape talking to others. This gentle undemanding tree laid on no such conditions. But then, look at it this way—would it care if I were to be ruined, damned, destroyed? Not at all. So it had its limitations.

Suddenly he felt the moving cinema of his mind cease. He saw a figure under the banyan tree.

Someone was kneeling on the ground, hands covering the face. Was it all right for him to go near? Chandru stood still.

The next minute he knew. He began to walk towards the figure. The woman gave him no indication that she had seen him. Chandru walked up to her as quietly as possible.

'Julie,' he whispered. She gave a start. But she recognised him immediately. 'Chandru! What you doing here man?' she said sniffing. He had been wrong. It was not Julie but Mannas' second daughter Laura. This was all the more surprising because Laura was not the sort of person to sit alone and cry. Though he now felt as close to her as to Julie, he could have sworn that she wasn't the languishing sort. Yet here she was, crying just like her elder sister. Even physically she reminded him of her sister.

'What's the matter?' he asked.

'Oh, nothing. Nothing.' she had controlled herself by now.

'Is there anything I can do? Tell me.'

'Oh, just don't tell anyone you saw me here, like this.'

Chandru hesitated. 'Is anyone else here?'

Laura shook her head. Then she stood up and began to walk towards her house. Chandru called her softly and took her hand in his. She turned back to look at him, still standing where she was. In the dark shade under the banyan, they could not see each other's faces clearly.

Laura said 'Chandru,' then threw her arms round him and began to sob. Chandru held her and stroked her back soothingly. He had been in a similar situation before, with Laura's elder sister Julie. But he had then known the cause of her grief. The soldier who had promised to marry her had vanished without a word. But long after he left, she had clung to the fond hope that he would still return and propose marriage to her. When realisation finally dawned that hers was a hopeless case, she had broken down. But she was a mature woman. Not a mere girl like Laura. Could it be that Laura too had got herself entagled in some such thing, young as she was? He had not seen Laura think of herself as a woman or behave like one until now, when she was crying at midnight, all alone, under the banyan tree.

Laura stopped crying and looked up at Chandru's face. Her eyes glistened in the gloom but their expression could not be read. Chandru wiped her cheeks at a guess. Yes, they were wet.

Laura stood gazing at him for a while. Then she freed herself and walked away. As he watched her enter her house, Chandru smoothed his shirt. Laura had left the scent of some cheap face powder on him.

With Laura gone, Chandru didn't relish the idea of standing alone under the banyan. For the first time that night he felt afraid. The residents of Lancer Barracks led a secluded existence, cut off from the real world beyond. Which was why the two of them had come to a banyan tree on a sleepless night, he haunted by his cricket memories, and she perhaps by memories of a lover who had left her. Surprising how they had both come there at the same time. Anyone who had chanced to see them together or happened to hear of their meeting would imagine all sorts of things. Yes that was just like Lancer Barracks. But in the town outside, there would be many who would be asleep, but also many who couldn't sleep because they were afraid. Fear stalked the city, fast depleting it of its women and children. They were being sent to places outside Hyderabad State. If they began planning such a move in Chandru's family, who would they send and where? And those left behind, was it all right if the Razakars beat them up to a pulp? How long would the Razakars hold the city in terror? And, those refugees from Nagpur, were they to make the pavements of Secunderabad their permanent home?

For the first time since he woke that night, Chandru felt his mind return to near normalcy. With increasing clarity came the realisation that no slick solutions were available for any of the questions that troubled him. If only some men would show up now and knock his head in with their staves. His eyes drooped, heavy with sleep.

1

It had rained at night the past few days. You wouldn't know it had rained till you got up in the morning. That was how it always rained in this place — a fugitive drizzle now and then. Chandru knew it had rained that night when he put on his shoes in the morning. Only yesterday he had made a resolution never to leave his shoes and slippers on the veranda near the trellis. He could at least have moved them to a safer place before going to bed, but didn't, and now they were soggy and heavy.

Chandru put on his shoes before getting into his trousers. All of them in the barracks – Kasim, Venkat Rao, Jaffar Ali, Mannas, in short, everyone, who wore trousers – did this. By following this sequence, you could avoid crumpling your trousers while bending down to lace up your shoes. Despite these measures, and no matter how carefully you wore the clips at the end of the trousers, a half hour's pedalling was sure to have the trousers ballooning at the knees. It was impossible to get rid of this baggy knee. The creases of your trousers would drop straight till the knee and then follow a curve before they became straight again in the nether regions. But today he wasn't going to ride his bicycle. Three times in the past week he had some trouble or other with his bicycle and Father and Mother both felt it would be better not to take it out till things had calmed down a little. Yes he'd better not.

Chandru gathered up his books and started for college. A hot sun beat down. Good, his shoes would dry on their own.

The fronts of the houses were all empty, all twelve of them deserted. But this was a mirage-like phenomenon. All of a sudden, the place would fill up with school-goers and office people and those who came out to see them off. Once that happened, it would be impossible to walk past in peace. You'd have to smile at everyone, stammer out answers to any questions that might be asked and then for all your trouble, finally leave with a bad taste in your mouth. In fact, when Chandru crossed the block he felt nervous. The Mannas house was quite noisy with Terence and his mother shouting at each other. God, there was Laura as well.

Attempting a frozen expression on his face, Chandru hurried on. It was only after he had reached the main road without any further mishap, that he felt secure in the anonymity offered by its width and walked towards the station to board the bus for college.

The Secunderabad railway station looked like a granite fortress and the people who moved about in front of the building looked like clockwork toys. The station had a large front and few entry points. An Albion bus decorated with a tin plate marked '7' stood shuddering with its engine on. Once started in the morning, this engine was probably not switched off until the night. Diesel fumes permeated the surroundings. Chandru went round to the entrance of the bus and found that it was full.

A few people waited outside ready to climb in when the bus started. He looked inside and felt his spirits sink just a little—Nagaratnam was not among those present.

The driver and the conductor climbed in together and the bus groaned to a start. There were at least fifteen passengers clinging to the broad steps of the vehicle, making it tilt precariously. If Hansel and Gretel were to be taken to the forest in this bus they would have an easy time tracing their way back home, following the fumes belched out by the bus.

The bus didn't stop until it reached Manohar Talkies. The regular commuters got in and some unfamiliar people got off. Then there were stops at the clock tower, Minerva Talkies, Ramgopal Statue and Raniganj. And then began the mile-long Tank Bund. This hassle-free run with no stops between seemed to soothe the bus into a smooth crawl. Although Chandru could not see the lake from his perch in the bus, the breeze that played over the waters did not deflect itself from him. The whole bus felt its impartial caress. Tank Bund had changed its appearance periodically with every change of the Nizam's Chief Minister. It was the ñrst thing that struck the eye of every visitor to Hyderabad city and everyone tried his hand at beautifying it. It started with a wall running along the road. Railings rather than a wall, said someone, and the wall was demolished. Then came the changes in those balconies. Let them be brought down to the level of the pavement, said someone else. Sir Mirza Ismail. And so it was demolished; and rebuilt. Beautification of the cities in the princely states seemed to have been an obsession with Sir Mirza Ismail. It was said that he left Mysore a beautiful city. But here in Hyderabad, he lost his minister-ship too soon to effect much change. He was followed by the Nawab of Chattari, a man with a moustache that reminded you of a cow's horns. One half of it was pulled out by its roots by Kasim Razvi's Razakars. Poor man, that must have hurt. He left and the one who came after him, the latest in the line, was Laiq Ali. Mountbatten and Sardar Patel were now in Delhi. And India had become free. As were Bhopal and Junagadh. After all that dilly dallying, they had finally opted to join the Indian Union. The Indian tricolour was flying atop Delhi's Red Fort. The day for Bharati's joyous song of liberation in D.K. Pattammal's resonant voice had at last dawned. But here was Hyderabad still holding out against independent India. The Congress party had organised a join-the-Indian Union Day and someone had managed to secretly hoist the Indian flag at dawn in Sultan Bazaar. The police were in a quandary. 'Bring down the damn thing.'

In the meantime the Razakars and refugges intensified their sloganeering—
Azad Haiderabad rahenga, Lal Quile par chalenga!
On the other hand, there was this Narasimha Rao asking him to put his name in blood to a piece of paper. The bus had crossed the lake. Five minutes, and he should be in college.

Chandru got off the bus at Fateh Maidan along with a several others, and the bus left the place. The principal of Nizam College was standing at the college gate. Shorn of the forbidding aura of his own room, he no longer looked like some great mythical hero. Just another person, out in the open. He was herding the students at the gate and on the pavement outside into the college: 'Get in, Get in.' The old bicycle keeper was there with him. He would let you escape for a consideration even now. Hyderabad's two–anna bit, a small thin disc less than a half-inch in diameter, was very handy to slip into palms.

Chandru stopped a good distance from the college gate, where he stood undecided. The Nampalli Road, which converted this place into a three-road junction ran alongside the Fateh Maidan and curved out of sight. There wasn't much traffic on it. A large peepal tree stood at the intersection of the roads. Chandru would have to stand under the tree to catch the bus home. A single large tree amidst the broad paved roads and buildings built to last centuries. No Chief Minister seemed to have ordered it cut down as yet. A police inspector and two constables stood under the tree now.

The 9.55 bell rang and the principal went in. Only a few students now stood with Chandru outside the gate. The inspector kept an eye on them from across the road. Two buses from opposite directions came in and stopped there, and the place became busy again.

Two young men dressed in white kurtas and pyjamas jumped off the compound wall of the Fateh Maidan on to the road. Where had they hidden themselves all this while? They began to cross the road. By the time they reached the college, they had produced Gandhi caps and put them on and chanted
Vande Mataram,
the war cry of the Indian freedom fighters.

Their feeble shouts could not have carried ten feet, but the police inspector was alerted. The young man advanced towards the crowd on the pavement which was now shouting 'Long live India!' and 'Down with police tyranny!' Their shouts had become more strident now.

The inspector gave orders and then all three of them started to cross the road. Just then three motorcycles tore across one after the other, thus delaying the policemen's crossing. Meanwhile the two young men joined the crowd on the pavement outside the college and they shouted 'We want—' Chandru and the others completed the chant shouting:

'Merger!'

'We want—'

'Merger!'

'Down with—'

'Police tyranny!'

The inspector and the constables had now reached the crowd which began to thin out gradually. When the inspector finally got to the Gandhi-cap men who had started the round of slogan shouting, the rest of the crowd stood at a safe distance.

Chandru watched the faces. The young men were not quite free of fear, nor was the inspector's face without a trace of panic. He caught both the men by their hands and said something like 'Uh huh hum... uh huh hum.' As if in response, the young men stood silent. The inspector swore at all his constables. One of them ran out somewhere. The inspector now addressed the crowd on the pavement 'Disperse, disperse, please.' Even without waiting for his appeal, the crowd had lost the appearance of a crowd. Some ten or fifteen people stood scattered watching the Gandhi caps and the policemen.

The Gandhi caps were not from Nizam College. One of them kept wiping his face with a handkerchief. If they found this indeterminate wait in the streets in the sun irksome, the policemen found it no less so. At last the policemen who had been rebuked by the inspector returned with a cyclericksha. The inspector asked the Gandhi cap boys to climb into the ricksha, which they did. In the meantime a bicycle was brought for the inspector by another policeman. It must have been the inspector's. He began to ride it and the cyclericksha followed him. The two policemen brought out their bicycles from somewhere and began to follow the cyclericksha. The inspector turned to look at the young men and said pointing to their caps. 'Take them off.' Without a murmur of protest the young men took off their Gandhi caps.

The whole scenario gave Chandru the impression of a play written by a sleepy dramatist. An exciting beginning to achieve something great had fizzled out even as it began. The protesters as well as the police were unsure of themselves.

There were hopes of attending the first hour's class now. The galleries where the science classes were held had only one entrance, and that directly in front of the lecturer's table. English classes were better in this respect, because they were held in the Salar Jung Hall which had about eight doors, allowing you to enter from behind, from the sides as well as from the front. A latecomer could get in unobtrusively, even if he lost his attendance. It would have been a great help if all first periods had been English. Especially at this time when the happenings of the morning were very likely to recur.

Indeed the past week had been eventful. As happened today, Chandru was inevitably involved in some of the incidents. The other day Hari Gopal had sent him to watch the fun at the college gate. Chandru asked him to come too but no, he had already seen it all. He had more or less driven Chandru to the gate where there were four girls – women – middle–aged almost. They were driving away anyone who entered the college from the outside. What they said was not clearly audible. He couldn't even make out what language it was. Chandru went through the gate, stood outside the college for a while and went in again. Two women came forward and offered him something. He involuntarily stretched out his hand. They laughed and placed a glass bangle in his open palm. All those who stood by joined in the laughter. They were making fun of him for being effeminate, for attending college— 'The State of Hyderabad has refused to join the Indian Union; Swami Ramanand Tirth has been arrested and is now in jail. Thugs led by Kasim Razvi and the Razakars and encouraged by the Nizam are running amok spreading terror in the State. Arms are being smuggled in for these thugs and for the Nizam's forces, and look at this week-kneed man here, he wants to go to college!'

That was the message conveyed by the offer of a woman's bangle to him.

Chandru didn't know what to do with the bangle. If he threw it away it would be an insult to them. If he put it in his pocket, he would be accepting an insult. He offered it back to them. They laughed. He thrust it into one of the women's hands and ran into the college grounds. He did not attend any class after that but watched the women from a distance. He observed that they didn't offer any bangles to those students who came in with a swagger. Or to those who came by car. All those who dressed loudly were left severely alone. It appeared that protests and boycotts were all meant for those poor persons who lacked the wits to answer back, those for whom life was a struggle even otherwise. They were expected to give up the little they had. If they didn't oblige, they were fair game to be mocked, coerced and compelled into submission. The bell rang, announcing the end of the first period. Relief at last! Chandru went to join his classmates.

2

My debut as a singer among the Tamil residents of Hyderabad, who in those days were a mere three or four thousand, now remains to be chronicled. As was the case with my other assorted acquisitions like the letters of the alphabet, the tables, tip-cat, climbing trees, playing tops or flying kites, my musical training took place with little conscious effort on my part.

It happened when a Mr Alwar started giving music lessons at home to my sisters. For girls, a grounding in classical music was as compulsory an accomplishment as knowing how to wash dishes. Mr Alwar took over the music classes with the same vigour as my mother taught the girls to scour utensils with mud and ash.

I don't remember Mr Alwar as ever being younger than sixty. He had a large knot of hair suspended off the nape of his neck. The general belief was that this heavy knot was meant to keep the rolling of his head within reasonable limits as he sang. He would make his appearance at our house, large bag in hand, some time between seven and eight every morning. Without waiting for anyone, he would spread a mat on the floor and sit down. After about fifteen minutes, my eldest sister would enter, place a harmonium before him and vanish. A further fifteen minutes would pass before my second sister appeared and set down a brass chembu of water to drink. Fifteen minutes again, and my mother would bring him some coffee. After coffee, Alwar would enjoy a leisurely chew of betel leaves and arecanut. Then the lesson would begin with sol-fa exercises in the raga Mayamalavagaula:
sa-ri-ga-ma.
The teacher had to cut in now and again to get them both to keep the same pitch. When the sol-fa was done, they would begin that little song about Ganesha, the one taught to beginners. By now my older sister would be bursting with suppressed giggles. Occasional peals of unprovoked laughter would punctuate her singing and soon infect the other sister as well. Then the teacher would get angry. At this point one would find Mother intervening with a few resounding slaps on the girls' backs. The general melee and the lesson itself would not last beyond nine-fifteen or nine-thirty when we children would gulp down a hasty meal and leave for school. Alwar would be on his way to teach another girl who might live a couple of miles away. How and when Alwar found the time to go home, eat, sleep and look after his family was a mystery. You'd find him at all odd hours of the day, at some house or other, propagating the beginner's raga Mayamalavagaula. If ragas had presiding deities as was believed, the deity of Mayamalavagaula was sure to take care of his needs in the hereafter. As for his needs here and now, he was paid only three rupees per house.