Train to Delhi (13 page)

‘Doesn't he deserve a special tip?' Haseena suggested, turning to Gautam.

13

F
inally, Purnima landed up at Gopinath's as a temporary maidservant, highly recommended by his cousin Padamnath Trivedi, for her ‘competence, resourcefulness and devotion to duty'.

Purnima was, of course, happy to get a breather to look about for a permanent position elsewhere. Fired by Sarita, rejected by Gautam, the new job came to her as a boon. What had hurt her most was the callous manner in which Gautam had shoved her off.

All right, she said to herself, if he could be so insolent, she could also have him wound up a little. And now that she'd be working in a house near St. John's, she could somehow let the bishop in on how he'd manipulated to get his conversion certificate.

‘Competent and resourceful' indeed she was, because within two days of her taking up the new job, she started hanging about the church. She'd stay back at the vegetable vendor's, facing St. John's, for hours together, hoping to run into someone from the cathedral.

Then it happened, on a pleasant, quiet morning. As she was standing at the vendor's, buying some vegetables, she saw a coffee-coloured man coming out of the church, carrying a jute sack in his right hand. As the man turned towards the shop, she at once placed him as a cook. In the community of servants, there's a kind of instinctive recognition of each other's status.

She didn't look too excited—only her fingers, which had been nimbly picking up crisp little peas as if they were rare green pearls, slowed down a bit.

‘How're you this morning, Sam?' asked the vendor.

‘All right, thank you.'

‘I've some fresh potatoes for your master, and lettuce too. I've kept this stuff apart.'

‘Thank you very much,' said Sam. ‘He's been asking for the lettuce, specially.'

‘Then won't you seize your treasure before somebody else takes it?'

The vendor pulled out a basket of fresh vegetables from behind his cushioned seat. It was obvious he'd hidden it away for his privileged customers only.

Purnima threw a side-glance at the dark man who was standing close by.

‘May I also have some lettuce, please?' she asked.

‘Sorry,' replied the vendor, ‘it's all gone. I'd got it for the bishop only. Maybe next time.'

‘I won't mind sharing some with you, ma'am,' Sam said, turning to her. ‘You may take as much as you like.'

The voice was tender and gracious. Just the sort of man, she thought, she could use.

‘No, I won't deprive your master of the lettuce,' she said, feigning to have changed her mind. ‘I'll be around for a month or so … I can wait.'

Seizing the moment to introduce herself to the vendor and the servant, she told them how she'd worked for all sorts of people, her last employer being a journalist.

‘I'm glad you'll be around,' Sam said, looking somewhat restive. She was wasting his time, he thought. He picked up his sack to move across the street.

But now determined to hold him back, Purnima kept the conversation going.

‘You work for the bishop?' she asked.

‘Yes, please,' he replied, rather impatiently, but he didn't wish to sound impolite. ‘I've been with St. John's since I was a little boy. But the bishop is quite new to the church.'

‘From Goa?' Purnima knew that most of the Catholic priests in Delhi came from there, or the Malabar Coast.

‘No, he's an Englishman,' he said. ‘And I wonder if you know an Englishman's weakness for potatoes and lettuce.' He threw in the last bit just to sound pleasant.

Purnima was aching to move in on some pretext. ‘I'm sure your bishop knows my former master, Mr Gautam Mehta.' She now fired the first shot.

‘Of course,' said Sam. ‘Even I know him. He was baptized only the other day, at a quiet brief ceremony.'

‘How much would your bishop know about him, really?' Purnima asked, a sneer in her voice.

‘Not much, I guess,' replied Sam. ‘He just came for the baptism. They discussed some theology, and I happened to bring in a soft drink for this gentleman.'

‘That baptism,' hissed Purnima, ‘it was all a sham. Just a rip-off, a big hoax on your church.'

‘Was it?' asked Sam, somewhat puzzled.

‘He did it just to get his divorce,' Purnima now charged in. ‘Change your religion and you get it in a jiffy—as simple as that.'

‘Oh, Jesus!' exclaimed Sam.

‘Don't you think your bishop should like to know all this?'

Sam looked befuddled. His fingers closed tightly on his sack full of potatoes and lettuce, as though it was the only stable thing he could hold on to.

‘Father Jones,' muttered Sam, ‘would feel terribly hurt to hear this.' Then he added: ‘I wonder if an Englishman could ever plumb an Oriental's devious mind.'

Three days later, an old Austin pulled up in front of a house at Anand Parbat. Father Jones had picked up Gautam's address from the baptism register. But it was a different bishop; his sallow face now showed signs of inner disquietude and his hands, soft and sensitive, were shaking. Nervously, he knocked at the door, taking out his handkerchief to wipe off the beads of perspiration from his forehead.

Since Gautam's mother had gone out shopping, it was Shamlal who answered the door. He felt surprised to see an Englishman, in hood and gown.

‘Is it Mr Gautam Mehta's house, please?' asked the bishop.

‘Yes, sir … I'm his father. Won't you come in, please?'

‘Thank you.'

Shamlal ushered the visitor in, motioning him to sit on the divan. In a flash, he understood who the man was.

‘Is it Father Jones?'

‘Yes, Mr Mehta.' There was a moment's pause. ‘Since you don't have a phone, I thought I could come without an appointment. I hope I haven't intruded …'

‘Most welcome, Father,' Shamlal said, somewhat anxiously.

Shamlal was intrigued by the bishop's visit. Was it just a courtesy call to meet his son, a new convert?

‘I'm sorry my son's out of town,' said Shamlal. ‘He's gone to Allahabad for a few days on a special assignment. I guess you know he's with
The Challenge.'

‘I do,' said the bishop; then added, ‘in fact, I happen to know a lot more about him than I should.' There was an edge to his voice. ‘Maybe I should talk to you, instead of your son.'

‘Yes, Father.'

‘Is your son divorced?'

For a moment Shamlal felt as if he'd been hit on the head. But he soon managed to recapture his composure. With the bishop's brusque question, everything now fell into a pattern. Obviusly, someone had let the bishop in on the thing.

‘Yes, Father. He got it last week.'

Shamlal proffered the additional information to show there was nothing to hide from anybody.

‘Pardon me, Mr Mehta, but didn't your son use the church to get his divorce?' the bishop asked, raising his voice. ‘Was it honest?'

Again, he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Nervously, he slipped to the divan's edge and nearly fell off. But he soon steadied himself.

‘No, Father,' replied Shamlal, emphatically. ‘He didn't abuse the church in any manner, if that's what you mean.'

‘How?'

His sea-blue eyes stared quizzically at Shamlal.

‘It was just a coincidence, speaking truthfully,' said Shamlal. But as he stressed the last word, he felt a lump in his throat. ‘Believe me, he went to you out of his pure volition, in response to his innermost spiritual urges. He had it coming all these years. You may take my word for it, Father.' Shamlal paused, as though to recharge his mental battery. ‘Let me tell you something. My son has always been a very independent young man, a loner. All my Hindu orthodoxy could never condition him. In fact, now it's the other way around. My own dogmatism has started cracking up under his influence … Do you know, Father, that in Lahore I used to hold public rallies against Christianity? Now I see everything in an entirely new perspective.'

The bishop regarded the speaker's face closely; he somehow felt overwhelmed by Shamlal's words, though he still looked a little perplexed. Seeing the bishop softening up, Shamlal moved in to nail it down.

‘In fact, now I believe that Jesus was a sort of a yogi. Because he could control his physical agony on the cross.'

Father Jones moved closer to the speaker, deeply touched by this tribute to his Lord.

‘Jesus never felt his own pain, Mr Mehta,' the bishop said, in a mellow tone. ‘It was always the suffering of others that anguished him.'

‘Precisely! Perhaps I now believe in Christ as another Hindu avatar, another manifestation of Vishnu.'

Father Jones felt exulted to hear all this. This was one of the most gratifying moments of his life.

‘The real problem was his wife,' Shamlal now decided to play his trump card. ‘She refused to go along with him.'

‘Yes,' said the bishop, ‘I do remember his telling me something about her.'

‘So there was no other way except to split, gracefully.'

‘Now I see.'

Seeing that he'd scored over the bishop, Shamlal now closed in. ‘Excuse me, Father, but who told you about the divorce?'

‘My servant got it from your son's former maidservant.'

‘Aha!' exclaimed Shamlal. ‘It's now crystal clear. That woman, Father, is a malevolent creature—a compulsive liar and thief. Fired by my son's former wife, she came to Gautam for a job. But in spite of his generous nature, he couldn't take her back. So now this viper goes about spitting venom everywhere.'

‘I'm sorry I've caused you so much pain … Now I understand it all.'

As the bishop stood up to leave, Shamlal said: ‘Won't you stay on for some tea, Father? My wife should be back any moment.' Inwardly, however, Shamlal was desperately eager to see the back of this man.

‘No, thank you,' said the bishop. ‘I'm afraid I must go now. Perhaps another time.'

‘But you should come again, Father,' said Shamlal. ‘It's been an honour to meet you. My house is blessed!'

But as the visitor walked out, he said to himself: ‘Ah, the gullible Englishman!'

14

I
ndependence gave Allahabad a prestigious position among the metropolitan cities of India. If Delhi was the administrative capital of the country, Allahabad began to function as its political headquarters.

Originally founded in 1583 by the Muslim emperor, Jalaluddin Akbar, and named by him as the City of God (al-Allahabad), it has witnessed the rise and fall of several dynasties. It has also been recognized as the confluence of diverse cultures, religions and languages. The massive fort that now towers above the bank of the holy Ganges was raised by Akbar around the famous Ashoka Pillar, bearing the Hindu emperor's edict of tolerance, peace and forgiveness. But, paradoxically, this fort became the scene of a cold-blooded massacre of several British families during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Here, they were starved for many days before they were bayoneted to death in the presence of their English commander, who was then blindfolded and shot through the heart.

Independence saw the city again become an arena of violence. Since it had a preponderance of Hindu population, the Muslims here felt very insecure. Most of them had already fled to Pakistan, but those who stayed on herded together in small, cohesive colonies, scattered all over the city. In spite of the impassioned pleas of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the only Muslim minister in the Central Cabinet, and Jawaharlal Nehru's spirited denunciation of Hindu fanaticism in Allahabad, his birthplace, the Muslims here refused to stir out of their settlements and mix freely with other communities.

One such settlement was Mohalla Kashana, where Haseena's truncated family now lived—her mother, sister and uncle. In spite of the communal tension in the city, Haseena had, much against the advice of her parents, continued to attend classes at the Islamia College till she was abducted one afternoon, as she was walking back home in a burkha.

She was now returning to a fatherless home, with a Hindu—no, a Christian—she corrected herself. She couldn't foresee how she would be received by her family. Would she be discarded as a defiled thing, a fallen woman? Maybe her mother would have been happier, she thought, if she'd stayed back in Delhi, whatever might have been the circumstances.

The tonga they'd hired at the station suddenly pulled up at the Curzon Crossing.

‘But we're going to Mohalla Kashana,' Haseena reminded the Hindu driver, who displayed a three-striped caste mark on his forehead.

‘No, ma'm, I go no further,' snapped the driver. Then, after a pause, ‘But aren't you Hindus?'

‘Of course,' replied Gautam, intervening. ‘We're just visiting a Muslim family there—old friends.'

‘You can't be friends with Muslims any longer,' the driver shot off. ‘They're all bastards, sir—fanatic Pakistanis at heart. Now that the Englishmen, their protectors, are gone, we'll take good care of them.'

The man had worked himself into a frenzy as though he was haranguing a large audience.

‘But not every Muslim's bad,' retorted Gautam, ‘nor is every Hindu a saint.'

‘No time to listen to your idle sermonizing, sir,' the driver said. ‘You'll soon find out the truth for yourself.'

Gautam paid him off brusquely and then helped Haseena out of the vehicle.

It was now Haseena who led the way towards Mohalla Kashana, which was just a few yards away. Stopping near a tea-stall, she asked him to wait there.

‘You may have some tea or coffee. I'll be back soon.'

It turned out to be an hour's agonizing wait. Was she held back because of the mourning over Rahim's death, or was it the family's refusal to take her back? His mind was in a turmoil.