By the time the different groups of stragglers reached Sharana railway junction, there were over two hundred of them. Jasoda was worried that whatever little money she had would not be enough to get her and her family to a big city. But it appeared that none of the others were thinking of buying tickets so she didn’t either. Instead she propelled and pushed her mother-in-law and children into a compartment in the first train that came along.

It took Jasoda a fortnight to realize that it was not a good idea to set up home in one of the side streets behind the Mumbai Central Railway Terminus if she was to support her family. A man who had turned up three days earlier had told her this was his territory and like other beggars she would have to hand over her earnings to him. He would gauge how good she was at eliciting money from passers-by and then decide what percentage he would give her.

‘Let me settle down’, she told him, ‘and then we can haggle about money.’

‘How many days do you need?’

‘Give me fifteen.’

‘You’ve been here a fortnight. Seven more days is all you will get.’

She nodded her consent and decided to look around for a more congenial place.

There was no space for the children to walk or play and Jasoda was terrified that they would get run over by a bus or taxi. There had been only one car in Kantagiri in the last decade, that of His Highness. But here the cars, buses and taxis were all stuck together back to front. For Jasoda, Mumbai would always be a blur. Hours after midnight there was still no quiet, no winding down.

She left the three children in the care of their grandmother and walked around every day trying to find a place that would do as a temporary residence and might be safer for the children to wander around. It would also have to be more lucrative. Late one morning she entered a small garden. Somewhere a woman was screaming her head off. Jasoda couldn’t take her eyes off the body of water on the other side of the garden. ‘What’s that?’ she asked the gardener who was watering the plants.

‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ he asked her. ‘Have you never seen the sea?’

‘Is that the name of your river?’

‘I just said it was the sea. The Arabian Sea. It’s saltwater.’

‘How far does it reach?’

‘It doesn’t end. It goes around the earth.’

She stood there watching the waves. Should she settle down here with the children and their grandmother? The woman was still shrieking. Jasoda decided to explore the area a bit more. She went on to the rocks outside the garden. They were littered with excrement but the tide was already sweeping it into the waters. She wanted to climb on to the embankment and wet her feet but the rocks looked sharp and dangerous. Best to explore the place some other time. She was leaving the garden when she saw a group of women standing outside a shed at the other end where the woman was crying. Death was a common occurrence for Jasoda. No point joining that circle of mourners.

She was wrong. No dead person there. A young woman was thrashing about helplessly in the little tin shed while the other women stood by helplessly. The pregnant woman must have been in her late teens. Her hands were tight fisticuffs. She was sweating profusely. The blood had drained from her face and she looked exhausted.

‘How long have the delivery pains been going on?’ Jasoda asked nobody in particular.

‘A day. Maybe more.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Ratna.’

‘Where’s her husband?’

‘He’s working as a construction labourer.’

‘And her family?’

‘In the village.’

Jasoda went back into the garden, picked up the watering hose, washed her hands and came back. ‘Will someone give me a bit of oil, please? I need to find out how far the baby’s come.’

‘Who are you?’ someone asked.

‘I’m a midwife.’

An old woman hurried off and came back with a bottle of cooking oil. Jasoda poured the oil generously on her right hand, spread her odhani over the girl and whispered in her ear, ‘Ssssssshhhhh. This is going to hurt a bit, Ratna.’ She slipped her hand inside the would-be mother’s skirt. ‘Breathe normally and relax. It will take just a minute.’ The woman was in no shape to answer. Jasoda’s hand was in now and groping around. It was as she had suspected. The baby’s foot was caught on the side of the vagina but that could be easily taken care of. The problem was the young woman herself. She was terrified. A few calming words and a healing touch and the baby would be out.

‘You’ve killed her,’ one of the women said loudly. ‘She’s stopped breathing.’

‘No,’ Jasoda said softly. ‘She’s fainted out of fear, nothing else.’

It took five minutes to move the foot out of the way.

‘Anybody has a knife? Any knife?’

‘The fruit vendor across has one.’

One of the women got it.

‘Fire anywhere? Hold the blade on fire and come back as soon as it turns red.’

Jasoda waved the knife in the air for a minute to cool it and then cut the cord. She held the child’s head in the palm of her left hand and slapped it hard on its bottom. It threw up a bit of placenta and inhaled sharply.

‘It’s a girl,’ she told the mother and waited for instructions. When none came, she asked, ‘You want to keep it?’

‘Yes,’ the mother whispered. ‘Otherwise why did I go through so much pain?’

It was clear to Jasoda that she was in another country now. ‘It’s time for me to take your leave.’

‘Don’t go.’ The young mother held her hand tightly.

Jasoda washed the baby and handed it over to the mother. ‘Do you and your husband stay here?’

‘Yes,’ the young mother told her. ‘What shall I call the child?’

‘How can I tell you? Your husband and you must decide.’

‘I’m sure he’ll call our daughter by the name of some siren from the films. He likes those kinds of women and holds it against his mother that she chose me. Now that my breasts are fuller, I’m sure he’ll get me pregnant round the year.’

‘My husband chose the names for all my sons.’

‘And you named the daughters?’

‘I don’t have any.’

‘Now you have one. What shall I call her?’

‘We’ll call her Heera. If Ratna is a jewel, your daughter will be a diamond.’

Jasoda returned to the garden that evening with her family and the few vessels and clothes they had carried with them. She had come to know a few of the women because of the delivery and the young mother would be her guide. But what proved to be the decisive factor was the water she had seen flowing from the hose in the garden. At least that would not be a problem as it was in Kantagiri. And then there was that big lake they called ‘dariya’ at the back of the park that she wanted her children to see. It was the same colour as the sky. If she was to believe the gardener, it had no beginning and no end.

Jasoda would never get used to the traffic. She worried that a truck would climb the pavement and run over her brood. Before she went to bed she made sure that her family lay as if conjoined. The youngest, Sameer, tended to sleepwalk and that was a constant worry. Every now and then she woke up at night to check whether he and her other two children and their grandmother were still with her.

The little money she had collected before leaving Kantagiri was nearly over. She had tried to find a job as a servant in the tall buildings across the road but the security guards in most of them wouldn’t let her enter the premises. Even when no one stopped her and she knocked on a door (it took her time to discover something called a bell which rang inside), the lady of the house invariably asked her for a reference or proof of previous employment. It was clear this was not going to work. She would have to try something else and very quickly at that.

There were always beggars at the traffic lights near the church, many of them children, but Jasoda was loath to send Himmat and Pawan there. The drivers of buses, trucks, cars and taxis seemed to have only one thought in their heads, to run over as many people as possible. But she changed her mind when all she had left was ten rupees. There was one other factor: despite strict instructions not to leave the pavement, the children, including little Sameer, played hide-and-seek amongst the stalled cars, wove in and out of the traffic, ignoring the speeding motorbikes burning rubber for an appointment with Yama.

That afternoon she posted the children at the traffic lights after instructing them to tag along with Ratna Maasi and always stay within sight of her. By the first evening, Pawan had brought home eleven rupees and Sameer four but Himmat had nothing. Ratna told Jasoda that Pawan was a regular charmer. He had to merely place a finger shyly under his chin and switch on a double-dimpled smile for the rear window of a car to be rolled down and the woman in the back seat to dip into her wallet and part with a rupee coin or even a fiver once in a while.

Jasoda didn’t quite know where he had picked up the new language that she had heard him speak to the people in the cars. ‘Pleaje, maddam, give phive ruppije.’ He followed it up with a tuneless song. ‘No fadder, no mudder. No brudder, no shister. Nutting to eet. Give phive ruppije, pleaje,’ he sang. Sameer was the unpredictable one. He was still competing for attention. Ratna told strange stories about him. A big plush car with a siren stopped at the red lights and a woman in a brocade sari that must have cost a hundred thousand or more pulled the window down and handed Sameer a rupee. He examined the coin and said, ‘Merkedes car, zari sari and you give me one rupee? You keep it. Bad days coming your way.’ The woman began to howl. ‘Drive, drive,’ she yelled at her driver. ‘That filthy boy has cast an evil eye on us.’

Jasoda worried that Himmat was far too mature for his age. She knew he was unhappy. He wanted to go back to school and study or at least lay his hands on a book and read it. She had held his face tightly between her palms. ‘I’m sorry I can’t afford to send you to school. You are the man of the family now and the only one I can depend on. So, go out and beg and return with more money than Pawan and Sameer combined.’

It was no use. Himmat refused to beg. He would stand at the traffic lights but not utter a word. He was neither hostile nor friendly. He stared at the passengers without blinking and made them feel uneasy till one of them extended his hand and proffered a coin. Ratna had seen a man offer him a tenner but Himmat had refused to touch it. Sometimes a passenger might be peeling the wrapping of a chocolate or biting into an apple and impulsively hand it over to him but he would turn his head away.

Jasoda thrashed him till her mother-in-law intervened and hid the boy behind her. ‘You’re more than willing to eat from the money your brothers earn but you are too proud to do a bit of work yourself. From tonight you can go hungry till you change your mind.’

For two days, the boy refused to eat. She could see him wilting and stealing a glance as the rest of the family ate. On the third evening, he handed her five rupees.

‘So, you’ve come around finally.’ He was silent. His hand shook and he seemed ready to collapse. Obstinate as a mule, that’s what he was. She was relieved that he had caved in.

It was a week later that she learnt Himmat hadn’t had a change of heart but had started working with a ragpicker who went through the litter from three huge bins near the bus stop. Himmat helped him separate the paper, glass, plastic and other trash from the rotting food. They then moved to the litter dump behind the car park and the short strip where men with ponies offered rides in the evenings to three- and four-year-olds, one arm around the child’s waist as they ran alongside. It was back-breaking work and even after washing with a harsh soda-based soap, Himmat’s hands and forearms itched and sometimes he drew blood scratching them even as he lay exhausted at night.

Jasoda had been so preoccupied with getting to know the city, settling down and eking out enough to feed her family, she hadn’t noticed that she had missed her period for a few months – three months, to be precise. She had to find work in a hurry since there would be one more mouth to feed soon. Every once in a while, she was asked to help deliver a baby for a woman who was living on one of the pavements at the traffic-signal junctions in the vicinity or in a corner of Chowpatty Beach where a fair number of the migrants from the drought-ridden areas had settled down.

Pawan was still the main breadwinner but he got distracted quickly and anyway everything depended on the mood of the people sitting in the cars and taxis. There was one other problem. Most cars that passed the broad road near the garden were regulars and familiarity induced philanthropic fatigue. Their occupants looked the other way when a beggar whom they had patronized more than a couple of times knocked on the window. The only alternative was to change locations every week or two but Jasoda couldn’t abide the thought of one of her children getting lost or turned into pavement invalids in an accident.

Himmat ate a stale chapati from the previous night’s meal before going to work and, if he was lucky, the chapati wrap came with a lump of jaggery inside it. He left for work by seven-thirty a.m. He came back around four p.m., famished and done in. He strove to double his daily wages by working twice as hard but his earnings rarely went beyond fourteen or fifteen rupees and often the next day he was far too tired to make even five rupees.

Ratna’s daughter Heera was not the most loveable of children. She could cry for hours, stop for a few minutes to be breast-fed and immediately revert to testing the limits of forbearance of those around her. Her father had hinted that perhaps it would be better if she was left on the rocks when the high tide came in. There was no one who could pacify her, not even her mother. The only exception was Himmat. She would giggle and smile any time she saw him and fly into his arms even when he was unprepared for her reckless leap. At night, Ratna would beg Jasoda to allow Heera to lie next to Himmat so that the little girl as well as the rest of them could get some sleep.

‘That’s my Aunt Jasoda,’ Ratna said to the surly man before he could get a word in. ‘She arrived just four days ago from her village where there’s a drought and people are dying all the time.’

The man ignored Ratna and addressed Jasoda. ‘You have been here for nearly three months and haven’t paid a paisa for occupying my road. Now that I am back from my hometown, you owe me three months’ rent.’

‘The Sarkar owns the road.’ Ratna had warned her new midwife-friend not to provoke the man but Jasoda was not about to follow her advice. She didn’t have the money. Nothing could alter that. Might as well try a bit of spunk and see what happens.

‘As far as you are concerned I am the Sarkar. I’m not just the government, make no mistake, I’m the Almighty Himself. I can throw you and your children out of the city if I want. I can take your children away and put them to work if you don’t pay the rent and you will never see them again.’

‘What do you want me to do? I don’t have the money to feed the children. How am I going to pay you?’

‘There are five of you. That’s one hundred and twenty-five per month. By the first of next month, you will owe me three hundred and seventy-five.’

What was she going to do? She could take the children and their grandmother and disappear. The question was, where would she go? By now she had begun to grasp that there was not a road in the city which wasn’t controlled by the pavement bosses. She had heard that in some other places they charged thirty-five or even fifty rupees per person. This place had much to recommend it. The garden had a water tap and the rocks behind the wall at the back served as toilets for the whole family and many others. Ratna’s husband Mohanlal had worked out an arrangement with the keeper of the place. Ratna or Jasoda would cook his meals so long as he supplied the grains, lentils and vegetables. Naturally, the wood for the fire would come from the trees in the garden.

The next morning, Jasoda sat Himmat and Pawan down and explained to them how grim their situation was. They were grown-up children now and would have to share the burden of earning enough to pay the surly man. She would allow Pawan to venture further afield and see which traffic-light junctions were the most lucrative. Himmat too would have to pitch in after his regular working hours and help collect extra money whichever way he could. She herself set out after she had fed the family. This time she didn’t merely scour the buildings on her road but went farther afield to Nepean Sea Road, Narayan Dabholkar Road and Malabar Hill. She was not in the mood to take a ‘no’ but that’s all that she got for three-and-a-half weeks.

It must have been a week later when Himmat came back with a small sack full of mogra flowers and a reel of rough thread.

‘Where did you get the money?’ Jasoda asked him.

‘I borrowed it from my boss.’

‘What are we supposed to do with so many flowers?’

‘I thought we could make garlands and sell them.’

‘Do you know how to knot the flowers?’

‘You could show me.’

‘I haven’t a clue. Besides, it would take us the full night to make garlands and by that time the flowers will have wilted and died.’

The flowers did wilt and die but a couple of days later Himmat once again brought a handful of mogras. Jasoda was about to berate him when he flashed one of his rare smiles and gave her a flower garland he had made for her hair.

‘That’s beautiful. Who taught you?’

‘Secret, secret. But I’m going to show you and Daadi how it’s done. All we need is practice and we can sell them at our corner and make some money.’

Jasoda was returning from one of her day-long sojourns to find work when she saw a tall building where the security guard was missing or more likely had gone to the toilet. That way she had a better chance of not being stopped or thrown out. She was through checking out the first four floors and was on the fifth when she saw water flowing from under a door. She rang the bell a couple of times and then didn’t take her finger off. Finally, a man in a three-piece suit, wet from top to toe, opened the door. He threw up his hands and spoke in some foreign tongue.

All she could make out was that he was inviting her in and then he went wading through the water in the front room straight to the bathroom. She followed him. The shower-pipe was broken and the blast of water from it was crashing into the opposite wall and cascading down, flooding the whole place. She ran to the kitchen soaked to the bone and looked into every drawer and then turned to the man in the suit with a wooden spatula in her hand and started banging her fist. He looked puzzled and shook his head and then something clicked. He ran into the passage and opened a chest of drawers and pulled out a hammer. She was back in the bathroom now, standing on a chair, a face towel in one hand and the hammer in the other.

She tried to jam the mouth of the pipe with the towel but the pressure of the water kept throwing it back. The trick, she realized, was to shove a corner of the towel in and hold it there so that the flow decreased and then hammer the towel in bit by bit with the thin end of the spatula. It took a full ten minutes but the water had now begun to drip slowly from the lower end of the towel. The owner of the flat was on the phone and Jasoda had got hold of a broom and was pushing the water in the front room back into the bathroom. Then she started wiping the floor with a towel and wringing it in a bucket. The man looked at her aghast and waved his hand as if to say no, no, no. She ignored him till he joined her on the floor with another towel and started to swab alongside her. She whisked the swab from him. A man has his work and a woman hers and both should respect that fine line.

The plumbers came an hour later and repaired the damaged pipe. She went back with five hundred-rupee notes and a job.

Despite the language problem, Jasoda and her employer managed to settle upon a monthly salary. She was worried that his intentions might not be honourable but he was never at home except on weekends, when he kept to himself. It was not a big flat but she kept it meticulously clean, hoping that the owner would recommend her to his friends and she could get more work. She had to collect enough to put something by for the very last month of pregnancy and perhaps another month after delivery.

If she wanted she could have had the run of the place from eight-thirty in the morning till seven in the evening from Monday till Friday. But at the most she had a bath when it was very hot. She was not sure how to operate the shower and had been drenched the first time she had opened the wrong tap. She preferred to collect the water in a bucket and sit down on the plastic stool and bathe. She didn’t do this too often because she was afraid of leaving an unnoticed strand or two of her hair on the floor.

On the third Sunday, he asked her a question in sign language that she didn’t have a problem comprehending. He was asking her why she hadn’t cleaned the toilet in all these days. She told him that was not her job. He must have been stupid or maybe he wanted to demean her. He kept asking her why not and even took it upon himself to show her how it was done. Disgusting, that’s what it was. She told him she was leaving and wanted her salary for three weeks. He looked puzzled and kept repeating the same question: Why? She was at the door when he gave her a full month’s salary.

Jasoda would have to start looking for a job once again but with the unexpected bounty from her ex-boss she decided to take the children to Chowpatty Beach that evening for bhel puri. She was about to cross the road a little beyond the Babulnath temple to get to the sands when she saw some women girdling the banyan tree in the middle of the road with a string and praying to it. That’s what all the married women used to do in Kantagiri before the drought: gather around the banyan tree next to the temple on Vata Savitri day and pray. That was a long time ago. That temple was in shambles and the holy tree had been cut and hacked for wood to create cooking fires.

She took Himmat aside and told him to take charge of his younger brothers for a few minutes while she ran across to the tree to pray. It was when she was standing in the middle of the road that she realized that she had no string. Luckily the other women had got their own balls of twine and she requested one of them to give her some. It was a large banyan. She circled it seven times with the string, cut it and tied the ends. In Kantagiri, it wouldn’t have done to stand and pray. She dropped down to the ground and invoked the gods.

That night when everybody had gone to sleep, Himmat turned to his mother as she pulled the sheet over and tucked him and Heera in. ‘What were you praying for, Maa?’

‘It is Vata Savitri day, the day Savitri made Yama, the god of death, bring her dead husband back to life. So, on this auspicious day married women pray that they will get the same husband for the next seven lives.’

‘So you can have the same children too for seven lifetimes?’

Jasoda looked at her son anew. ‘I hadn’t thought of that but what a good idea to have you and Pawan and Sameer with me for seven lives.’

She was big with child now and her breasts had swollen. A couple of months and she would be feeding a baby again. The surly man had come at the beginning of last month and she had paid him in full, including the arrears. Then she had lost her job, or rather given it up, and had sought to explain to the rent collector that she was once again jobless and would pay him in full when she got work.

‘Bloody hell, every few days you come up with a new excuse. You better cough up the money or you are out for good.’

It was past midnight when he slipped under the odhani which covered her. She would have screamed but his hand was clamped over her mouth. When he released it, she asked him in a fierce whisper, ‘What are you doing? I’m pregnant. My mother-in-law’s here.’ He was undoing the buttons of her blouse.

‘You owe me,’ he said as he sucked at her nipples. The pressure on her bloated belly made it hard for her to breathe and she tried to push him off but he held on tightly to her. He was chewing furiously at her nipples. The pain was unbearable and she was sure that they would bleed in a minute.

‘Where’s the milk?’ he asked with suppressed rage.

‘Don’t you know that comes only when the baby is born?’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ He pulled up her skirt. It took all her selfcontrol not to scream as the man penetrated her brutally. She turned her head sideways to avoid his sour alcoholic breath. The children’s grandmother was staring at her.

The next morning after the children had left for work, the old lady took off her only piece of jewellery, the heavy gold rings that pulled her earlobes down all the way to her shoulders, and handed them to her. ‘Pawn them and pay that man.’

Jasoda shook her head. ‘My gold bangle will take care of him.’

‘Don’t argue with me. Leave the bangle for an emergency.’

‘Vahidullah, oh Vahidullah, where the hell is that old man? Baijnath, Purandas. Has everybody in the Palace died?’

The bell in the bedroom that rang in the kitchen had stopped working three months ago and His Highness had been yelling for the servants for the past five minutes. ‘I know you’re standing outside, Sangram Singh. I saw you peering from behind the door as always, eating the lady in my bed greedily with your eyes. Now that you’ve had your fill of her, would you do me the great kindness of fetching one of the help in the house? But before that, give me a hand to move into the wheelchair.’

Sangram Singh pushed open the heavy teak door and entered the room. His Highness had thrown a sheet over his mistress. ‘Hukum. Your wish is my command.’

‘Spare me that bogus servility and just do my bidding.’

Sangram Singh assisted the Prince into the wheelchair, then ran down to deliver his message. He didn’t have to go very far since the elderly Vahidullah was already making his laborious way up the stairs.

‘How many times do I have to tell you, Vahidullah, that I will not tolerate this parasite staying in my Palace, eating my food, drinking my water, slyly eyeing my mistress and making himself at home? And yet it is this man’s accursed face that greets me every morning and ruins my day.’

The old retainer was used to the Prince’s tantrums but he was taken aback by the fury in his tone. Sangram Singh meanwhile was trying to calm His Highness down. He had this new smile he was cultivating of late and his tone had the patience required when talking to children. ‘Easy, easy, don’t get so worked up, Highness. You know it’s bad for your health; very, very bad. You know that your father died of high blood pressure. They say it’s hereditary. You don’t want to bring that upon yourself, do you now?’ Sangram Singh turned to the sleeping lady in his bed. ‘Madam, I must ask you to excuse my presumption in disturbing you but I am worried about his Royal Highness. Do, do please ask him not to get so agitated. He has already suffered an accident when riding his favourite horse but this could lead to something far more dangerous and the consequences could be…’ Sangram Singh paused for effect. ‘How should I put it, tragic.’

‘Abey bhosadike, I will see you in the grave long, long before I kick the bucket.’

Sangram Singh smiled blissfully. ‘Sugar in your mouth, Highness. I couldn’t ask for a better fate than to precede you to the afterlife and make all the preparations to welcome you when you join me. And may that day never arrive.’

‘Won’t some kind soul rid me of this self-serving, sycophantic glib-mouth? Vahidullah, where in the name of our revered gods are Baijnath, Purandas and Allauddinmiya? Tell them to get my driver on the double and ask him to run over this leech as we throw him on the road.’

‘Ghanikhama, Huzoor, forgive my insolence but you sacked Baijnath, Purandas and Allauddinmiya three weeks ago, because you said they did little work and were a burden on the treasury.’

‘Ask Baijnath to rejoin duty immediately.’

‘Huzoor, they’ve all left Kantagiri in search of a living, like the rest of the residents.’

‘That’s a relief. All they did all day long was sit on their haunches and yak away in these dire times. Do you have any idea how perilous our finances are at this moment?’

‘I’m too old and too illiterate to know anything about such matters, Huzoor, but I must tell you that we are very short of servants. There’s me, there’s Kripanidhi who sweeps and swabs the house and washes the clothes and then there’s Jairam who alone knows how to prepare your favourite dishes and also washes the vessels. So, till you find someone else, Sangram Singh has his uses. He goes to Jalta and does all the shopping for us. Otherwise, there will be no food on the table.’

Sangram Singh took it as given that he was now officially a member of His Highness’s household. He locked up his own house – not that there was much left for anyone to steal from it – and moved into one of the larger guest bedrooms in the Palace. Within a month or two he had annexed a few of the adjoining rooms. The chaise longue with the lion’s head fronting the armrest had made its way from the former zenana to his new quarters. As it got colder in autumn, he took over the sunroom with its semicircle of French windows looking out on to the parched garden and grounds at the rear of the Palace. His favourite place for warming himself in the sunlight was the love seat. On some days, he sat on the left-hand seat and at other times, at the other end. A couple of times the sweeper, Kripanidhi, had caught him talking to the absent beloved on the other side and quickly shuffling over and continuing the back and forth of the conversation.

There were scores of rooms in the Palace and Kripanidhi wouldn’t have been able to say precisely what had migrated to Sangram Singh’s quarters, or from where. Besides, while her salary did not come from Sangram Singh’s pocket, he had slipped into the role of caretaker of the estate and had made himself responsible for disbursing salaries to the servants. She had quickly grasped that it would be foolhardy to cross him. When Sangram Singh had first moved in, it was with two sets of clothes – one that he wore and the other that hung on the clothesline in the bathroom. But now his wardrobe appeared to be growing. He had taken an unused cerulean blue brocade curtain he had found in a cupboard and had given it to the tailor in Sharana to make a knee-length sherwani for himself.

‘I heard you scream so piercingly, I dropped everything I was doing and ran out of the room where I was doing the accounts.’ Sangram Singh was breathless and panting. ‘You were having a nightmare as you dozed off on the wheelchair. You said something about it being a long time ago … and how could you possibly remember what happened.’

The Prince stared coldly at the factotum. ‘What else did I say?’

‘You said you had nothing to do with it.’ Sangram Singh paused. ‘You mustn’t worry so much, Huzoor. Not everything in one’s dreams is true.’

‘I’m not one bit worried, you ass. And I would like to tell you that I don’t dream. Full stop. I never dream. You’re making this up. I live in the present and with my eyes open. And I certainly don’t sleep when I am in this wretched wheelchair.’

‘Of course you don’t dream if you say so.’ Sangram Singh switched on his indulgent-parent-with-obstreperous-child smile. And now he moved to being solicitous doctor with impeccable bedside manners. ‘But you mustn’t let that affect you and raise your blood pressure. I’m sure you remember your grandfather and your father suffered from the same condition.’

‘So you keep saying. But I don’t suffer from any condition, you arsehole. And neither did my father. The only condition I suffer from is you.’

In Kantagiri, almost all the problems of the last ten or twelve years could be traced back to the absence of water. In Mumbai, Jasoda had discovered water again, flowing water. In many parts of the city, she had heard, there were severe water shortages. But the garden adjoining the pavement and the deal she and Ratna had made with the senior gardener had taken care of their water needs. If you were poor, the big problem in this city was how to store the water. The three brass vessels Jasoda had brought along with her were for cooking. Bottles, even plastic ones, cost money. And both glass and plastic bottles broke or cracked and needed to be replaced frequently. Himmat’s new job settled that problem once and for all. Although there was a heavy demand for recyclable plastic bottles amongst ragpickers, every once in a while, Himmat was allowed to take a couple of them home.

It was a filthy, dangerous job with green or black fungus on days- or week-old pizzas, dal mixed with rice gone green, rotting meat, putrid oranges and all kinds of worms, ants, cockroaches and other creepy-crawlies scampering across or digging into the leftovers. But Himmat wasn’t given to complaining. After the first minute, the nose became immune to the stench. And there were other advantages. If some of the food or fruit had not gone bad, he would eat it then and there, or take it over to his mother. Occasionally he found an old godhadi, a vest, T-shirt or sari. But the most precious gift from the garbage heap was an English storybook with lovely coloured pictures.

It was barely nine weeks since Himmat had started working but already he could sort out the garbage at twice the speed of the older man whom he was assisting. His daily wages had gone up, though not proportionately. He had also discovered some tiny bits of black plastic with minute yellow stripes and lines called circuits, which, when collected separately, fetched a good price. Then disaster struck. His boss developed a fever. His hands started suppurating from broken red blisters and they swelled up. Soon his hands had no sensation and he was not able to use them at all. Himmat worked all day singlehandedly till the boss-man turned up at four-thirty in the afternoon, checked the piles of plastic and glass, weighed the stuff, dipped his hand underneath his polyester shirt, peeled the notes from his cloth wallet and left. Eventually, Himmat’s sick elder co-worker had to be admitted to a hospital. Himmat caught the bus and went to visit him at Nair Hospital in the evenings and handed over his share of the previous day’s earnings. The man’s condition kept deteriorating and within a month he was no more.

Himmat knew almost immediately that he had lost his livelihood, for the day after his boss’s death, the heavies were on the scene asking him to get the hell out of there. He had tried to plead and protest and tell them that this was his beat but one of the hoods took a swipe at him and Himmat hit the concrete. ‘Abey maderchod, does this place belong to your father?’

Himmat’s head was still in a red haze but he was not likely to go down quietly. ‘Like it belongs to yours, right?’

The man was about to kick him but was interrupted by a low, dead voice. ‘Leave the boy alone.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’m Plastick. Any more questions?’

‘We’ll get you far more productive workers than this useless little twit.’

‘No, you won’t. There’s nobody faster than him.’

The toughs were about to take off when the leader of the gang whispered to Himmat, ‘You watch it, pipsqueak. Who knows, someone might want to break those lovely fingers of yours.’

Plastick shook his head in mock despair. ‘I don’t think it’s a good thing to mess with this boy here.’ No one had seen Plastick draw his knife out but its steel point was at the gangleader’s throat. ‘Because then I might want to mess around with you.’

Himmat knew now that he had four things going for him. He was the fastest worker in the business. He still had a job. His salary would be doubled. And he could bank on Plastick to protect him.

It took him just twenty-four hours to learn how mistaken his assumptions were. Plastick turned up at four-thirty p.m. sharp the next day. When the counting and the weighing were over, Himmat got paid.

‘This is only half of what I earned today.’

The dead eyes looked at him sadly and the dead voice said, ‘No, it’s the full sum.’

Himmat counted the money again. ‘No, it’s not.’

‘Let me see.’ Plastick took the notes back and counted each note separately. ‘I was right. It is the full sum. Mumbai is the fastest maths teacher in the world. Children get half of what adults do, it’s as simple as that.’ He put the notes back in his cloth wallet. ‘Come to work on time tomorrow.’ Plastick’s dead hand patted Himmat’s cheek. ‘Otherwise, you will be working for free like today.’

It was true. Mumbai was the fastest teacher in the world.

Jasoda had still not found a job. The folks in the tall buildings would take one look at her belly and the door of the apartment would close before she could ask if they needed a cook or a servant to do the cleaning. That, however, had not deterred her from setting out daily. There had to be a job out there and if there wasn’t she would have to create it through sheer willpower and get it. Her protruding belly was always ahead of her now and she followed it sedulously.

She was at the petrol pump next to the garden when a taxi executed a sharp u-turn and nearly knocked her over. She started to swear at the driver when he opened the door and jumped out. ‘Bloody stupid woman. She gets into my taxi to go to the train terminus and then tells me to stop because she’s about to have a baby and says you’re the only one who can help her.’

The woman was past forty and it was her first child. Jasoda took her to the tin shed in the park. It was not a difficult delivery but the woman’s vagina had lost its elasticity so the baby took a good deal of coaxing. Every now and then the woman was too tired to push and rested her head on Jasoda’s lap.

‘How did you know I was a midwife?’

‘I used to work with the roadside food place in the lane next to the big stone archway till yesterday.’

‘You mean the place which sells tea, snacks like bhajiyas, batata wadas, pao bhaji?’

‘Not just snacks. Since last year, the owner has started serving a full meal right there on the road. Oh God, help me please. If this is what it means to have a baby, I don’t want it.’

‘Mind your tongue. Don’t cast an evil eye on your own child.’

‘All the pavement dwellers know there’s only one midwife in our locality and she stays next to the garden.’

‘So why did you give up the job?’

‘Because I don’t have to work any more. My husband’s got a good job in Doha.’

‘Push. Push hard.’

‘I can’t. I’m exhausted.’

‘Push. You can rest after the baby’s out. Who’s taken over your job?’

‘No one.’ It was difficult to make out whether the woman was screaming because she was in pain or it was her way of forcing the baby out. ‘Help me, I’m going to die.’

‘No, you are not. Push.’

The baby’s bald head inched out.

‘Push harder.’

The baby was out now.

‘They are looking for a replacement.’

She had got the job but every night she wished she hadn’t. The owner-cum-chief cook had taken one look at her bloated stomach and said, ‘Oh no, not another pregnant woman.’

‘You don’t have to worry. I’m here to stay. I will work even on the day I deliver my child.’

‘That’s what they all say and ditch me when the baby comes.’

‘Try me.’

‘I will but I’m warning you I will be looking for someone who’s through with making babies.’

‘Why don’t you tell me what the job is?’

‘You won’t want to do it once you come to know what it is.’

Jasoda had to report for work at five-thirty in the morning. Fortunately, the tiny establishment which had started out as a tea stall and now also served snacks and meals was barely five minutes from the garden. Her first task at that early hour was to briskly scrub the mud off twenty kilos of potatoes in a tub of water, refill the tub, light the kerosene stove and put the potatoes to boil. That done, she set about peeling ten kilos of onions and chopping them, her eyes watering profusely. The knife was nothing but a thin steel sliver thirty centimetres long, sandwiched between two strips of wood just long enough to serve as a handle and tied at the rear end with a strand of exposed copper wire. The blade had been honed so fine, one wrong move and very likely you would have lost a piece of your finger and the chopped onions would be floating in blood. Khat-khat-khat khatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhat, from six in the morning the blade was at it and though it stopped around nine, it kept chopping Jasoda’s and her family’s brains for the next two or three hours. Even little Heera now spoke only khatkhatkhatkhatkhatkhat.

The potatoes were next in line. Jasoda fished out one hot potato at a time, plunged it into a bowl of cold water, peeled it and threw it into the tub. When they were all naked yellow, it was time to crush them to a uniform mash and hand the lot over to the chef. He would make thick pancakes of the mash, then stuff them with onions, green peas, grated radish, cauliflower or cabbage, seal the open ends and deep-fry them.

At seven, Jasoda would stretch out her hand towards the roof of the leather footwear stall to retrieve the plastic tray filled with green chillies. She had handled dry red chillies all her life and had pounded them to a powder at the end of the season in a tall hourglass mortar. Most of it was used at home but if the crop was good, she sold the chilli powder to the grocers in Jalta. But chopping these green chillies was like holding your hands above a powerful flame and it took days for the burning to cease. Half of the chillies would be deepfried whole so that customers could chomp on them. The rest, Jasoda cut into tiny bits, which would lace the other snacks.

By seven-thirty the tiny lane with the big stone arch was alive with vendors and customers and all those people who went for a walk every morning in the garden next to Jasoda’s home. There was only one pavement in the lane and there was no way any pedestrian could use it. Just two weeks back, a new wooden stall selling cheap leather shoes, sandals, chappals and all kinds of plastic monsoon footwear had been put up next to where Jasoda sat. Sprawled next to the leather guy was the flower-family – mother, father, sons, daughters-in-law and cousins expertly stringing mounds of marigolds, lilies and mogras into garlands for the gods. And at the end of the lane was the fruit vendor with the damaged voice box, who earlier had a single four-wheeled cart and now two more, plus several wooden cartons to house apples, oranges, bananas, custard apples, guavas, pineapples and any other seasonal fruit arranged against the compound wall of the building behind. Two days ago, a vegetable vendor had set up his shop on the tarred road itself above the grill of the rainwater gutter.

Sangram Singh whispered something as he helped the Prince bathe.

‘Why are you muttering, kaminey? I trust you are not whispering sweet nothings in my ear.’

‘Huzoor, what I am about to tell you is going to upset you. Should I tell you or not?’

‘No, whatever it is, don’t tell me.’

‘Quite right you are. It’s not worth getting a stroke because of some dream you were having. You know you can trust me never to breathe a word of what I heard you say.’

His Highness whooped with laughter and fell off the stool on which he was sitting. ‘Yes, Sangram Singh, yes, if there is one person on the face of the earth I can trust to stab me in the back, it’s you.’

‘Ah, Huzoor, I am glad I am a source of so much entertainment for you. I have always held it as my first and last duty to be of service to you.’

‘You must take me for a perfect ass to think that I would be taken in by your fawning and boot-licking. I know exactly what you are up to. The only service you’ve ever considered doing, Sangram Singh, is to yourself. You don’t give a damn about your wife, your children or your mother. And least of all about me.’

That morning, immediately after breakfast, His Highness wanted to be taken to the grand dining hall with its huge Italian crystal chandeliers where visiting royalty used to be feted and dined in the days when his father entertained lavishly. As was the Prince’s wont, the moment a thought crystallized in his mind, he became impatient. It was almost like whatever he wanted done had to be done before he had even expressed his wish. Right now he wanted to see the Ravi Varma painting of Menaka seducing the great ascetic Vishwamitra, which his great-grandfather, Tej Bahadur Singh, had bought from the painter himself and put up at the centre of the rear wall of the dining room. Now His Highness wanted it hung in his bedroom directly in his and his mistress’s line of vision.

Sangram Singh was manoeuvring the wheelchair through the middle door of the dining room when Parbat Singh remembered that he had forgotten his glasses in the bedroom. ‘How do you expect me to look at the painting without my specs, you fool? Do you have to be reminded of every single thing? Next thing I know you will be telling me that you need a personal secretary. Well, what the hell are you waiting for, idiot? Go, fetch them. Now.’

Sangram Singh walked across the endless corridor and into the east wing where the private quarters of the royal family were. The Prince’s specs were on the bedside table. He picked them up and was placing them in the bejewelled case when he heard singing from the bathroom. It was a full-throated, joyous voice, telling you that on this planet all you got was one shot at life and if you didn’t make the most of it, whose fault do you think it was? Sangram Singh pushed the door open gently.

The Prince’s mistress Raat Rani was stepping over the low bathtub with her hand outstretched to collect the neatly folded towel from the clothes rack. Sangram Singh stood transfixed. He had never seen anything so flawless. Her wet hair was loosely tied above her swan-like neck. She was fair as a pale pink rose in the first flush of morning dew. Her breasts below the raised right hand were full but firm. Her purple-rose nipples were tender and taut. Between her legs was a dark flower of magnetic power. Then her long hair came undone and cascaded all the way down her spine. Sangram Singh stood spellbound. Oh, there was no doubt about it. She was the same celestial woman in the painting in the grand dining room, only more ethereal. Little wonder she had been able to seduce the great ascetic Vishwamitra whose powers of concentration were so renowned that the gods themselves feared him.

Sangram Singh was out of breath, having drunk her in one long, heady draught. She dropped the folded towel on the floor and her hand swept up the tall crystal flower vase with its stale roses and flung it at him. The vase hit the bridge of his nose and under his right eye. Blood streamed into his eyes, nose and mouth. Yes, he thought, yes, he wanted her to open every vein and artery in his body and smear herself with his blood and thus prove that he alone had the right to possess her.

‘What took you so…?’ His Highness looked as if he had seen a ghoul walking. ‘What the fuck have you been up to? How did you get that cut on your cheekbone?’

‘It’s nothing, really. I fell while getting your specs, Huzoor.’ Sangram Singh smiled as he handed over the glasses.

The lid of the wheeled bin had been thrown all the way back on its hinges and the garbage rose up like a miniature mountain. Himmat was tall for his age but his hands couldn’t reach all the way to the top. He had been attempting to tilt the big trolley towards himself to start separating the plastic from the other stuff when the pyramid came crashing down and fell all over him. He was in a state of shock when someone smacked him on the head.

‘Stupid fool, look what you’ve gone and done.’ The lid of the plastic container had fallen off and its ghastly blue-green, smelly goo had fanned out on the road and on the white pair of trousers of the bespectacled man who had hit him. ‘Is your father going to clean this mess on my trousers?’

Himmat didn’t understand English but he got the drift of what the man was saying and wouldn’t look up. He knew he had been in the wrong but he was seething since he didn’t think there was any need for physical chastisement.

A couple of weeks later, he was sitting in the garden behind his roadside home, trying to read the storybook he had picked up some weeks ago, but he was not making much progress. The teacher in the school back home had taught his class the English alphabet and Himmat had learnt to spell thirty-seven words and then the school had closed down.

‘This is the third day you’ve been on the same page.’ It was that man who had knocked him on the head. ‘Aren’t you the boy who dirtied my trousers?’

Himmat did not look up but folded the book and got up to leave.

‘Sit down.’ The man whisked the book from Himmat’s hand and started to read. ‘Once upon a time…’

He was in the garden every evening. He took his ten rounds and then sat with Himmat. In time, Himmat would learn that the bespectacled man was a Parsi named Cawas Batliwala. Himmat had heard him speak Hindi and Gujarati though he conversed with Himmat only in English.

‘What did I say in my dream the other day?’

‘Oh nothing, Huzoor. You were quite right to have told me you were better off not knowing.’

‘Don’t try my patience, Sangram Singh. What did I say?’

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

‘You didn’t do what?’

‘That’s what you said, Huzoor.’

‘Well, that settles matters, whatever they may have been. It’s clear I didn’t do it, whatever “it” was. Besides, who knows what you are talking about.’

Sangram Singh had begun to part his hair in the middle. He was going grey and he spent hours lovingly colouring his hair and combing and brushing it in place. Sometimes at night after he had helped His Highness change into his pyjama suit and tucked him into bed, he ironed the newly tailored brocade sherwani and churidar and tried them out in front of the full-length mirror. Despite the middle-parting, his burgeoning beard and waxed moustache, something seemed to be missing. He wasn’t quite sure what it was till he dislodged one of the long, curved swords that hung on the wall of the durbar hall and posed with it. He took to practising his posture, demeanour and a supercilious look on his face till it became ingrained in him.

It was obvious that he needed at least three more sets of formal royal clothes. Fortunately, since he had spent months noting down every single item in the Palace, he had a fairly good idea where to locate the brocade cloth for achkans and sherwanis. Then he began trying out a new way of signing his name. It was perhaps the toughest job he had attempted and there were times when he went to bed furious with himself.

A couple of weeks before Jasoda thought she would be delivering her baby, she told her employer that for the next few weeks she would like to work from home.

‘Why? What’s your problem?’ he asked.

‘No problem. I don’t think you would want me to deliver my baby in front of all your customers. I promise you, even on the day I deliver, my mother-in-law will do all the work and hand it over to you.’

‘And what if you started pilfering some of the food?’

A wry smile crossed Jasoda’s face. ‘Even if I did, I know I would not lose my job, would I now?’

Her employer looked uncertain for a moment. Jasoda was right. She had proved herself invaluable. ‘Okay. The onions will be sent over the previous night to your place and one of the men will hand over the boiled potatoes to you by six in the morning or even earlier and collect the onions. I want the mash and the green chillies as always by eight a.m.’

The two older boys were close to each other and Himmat would teach his younger brother English. That wasn’t very often, however, since Pawan had begun to roam far and wide in the city and sometimes he would fetch as much as a hundred or a hundred and fifty rupees, though at other times he came back empty-handed. Jasoda would occasionally ask him how come his earnings were so erratic but the boy would smile and tell her, ‘Sometimes it pours and sometimes there’s a drought in the sky. That’s life.’

Jasoda wondered where her second son had picked up such picturesque adult phrases but she decided it was best not to enquire too deeply. Himmat had an inkling but he would never talk about it. He had seen his brother at the Haji Ali dargah and sometimes at the Mahalakshmi temple running errands for the men in the shadows who dealt in afeem, ganja, hash or some pills whose names he didn’t know.

But it was Sameer who was the real mystery. It was as if he watched you even when his eyes were closed. It was impossible to make out what went on in that little head of his. He didn’t speak much but he always made you feel naked.

This time around, Jasoda had prayed for a girl since she did not want to have another mouth to feed. Five hours had passed and then seven but the foetus was still stuck. She had a fairly good idea what the problem was. The umbilical cord was where it had no business being, around the neck. She had seen her share of such cases, the last one being Poonam. The outcome was often grim for both the baby and the mother. Jasoda was pale with exhaustion. The only reason she was still alive and breathing was because of the unbearable pain. This was a new experience for her. She had never had problems with delivering her own children. Nine hours had gone by now. The baby was bound to be dead. She knew she was next. Thank God. The earlier the better. But of course she couldn’t let that happen. Her family depended on her. She slipped in and out of consciousness as Himmat, Pawan, Sameer and even Heera watched in silence.

It was a boy. Her mother-in-law cleaned him up. Something was wrong with him. He’d gone blue. But such a good-looking boy. The name Kishen would be just right for him. All she had to do was to tie a headband around his head and tuck a peacock feather in it. Now hand him a flute and he would be the image of the blue god.

The Parsi man had given Himmat a cake of soap called Lifebuoy and his first question was always the same. ‘Did you have a bath after work today?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘Let me check.’ Mr Batliwala smelt Himmat’s scalp, then his armpits and finally his hands. ‘Seems okay except behind the ears. Make sure the ears too are cleaned tomorrow and every day.’

Himmat was kept on a diet of Billy Bunter stories for two weeks. All conversation was in English. Occasionally, Himmat would forget and say yes or no or a full sentence in Hindi and was instantly ticked off.

‘English. You will speak English with me and nothing else. You are welcome to speak your mother tongue or Hindi or whatever language your folks converse in at your home. With me it will be English and nothing but, you follow? Now tell me the full story that you read today.’

‘Yes, sir.’

By the fourth week, when Himmat could manage a conversation in English almost effortlessly, Batliwala Sir had brought a set of five books, one each on biology, geography, history, arithmetic and an English reader. They were the same books that the teacher himself had studied thirty years ago. ‘The tuition is free,’ Mr Batliwala told Himmat, ‘but you will pay for the books. That’s the only way you will know the value of education.’

Batliwala was an old-fashioned taskmaster and on the lookout for Himmat to slip up. But the boy was studious and even when he couldn’t concentrate at night because he was so tired, he made it a point to get up early and finish his homework before going to the garbage sorting centre.

‘Where’s your tail today?’ Cawas Batliwala asked Himmat one evening.

The boy pointed to Heera on a patch of green across. She was busy checking out the taste of grass and earth. Himmat ran over and picked her up and slapped her lightly on her bottom. Heera was delighted. ‘More, I want more.’ Those were her first English words.

Himmat was more than proficient at arithmetic and Batliwala thought it was time to introduce the boy to algebra and geometry. He got the hang of geometry as if he was born to it but had no head at all for the ‘x multiplied by y equals to’ stuff. Batliwala was a patient man and he explained the principles of algebra over and over again to his student. Himmat nodded his head sagely but that didn’t mean he had followed a damn thing.

‘Why are you pretending you’ve understood what I am teaching you when what you write on the page proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are entirely clueless?’ Batliwala lost it then and slapped Himmat. Heera burst into tears. Three elders taking their evening walk in the garden stopped and the one who was bald spoke up. ‘How dare you raise your hand on that poor boy? If you ever do that again, I will personally report you to the police.’

‘No, you won’t.’ Himmat had found his voice. ‘He’s my teacher and I deserve a thrashing for being so stupid.’

Then Himmat picked up Heera and started to leave. Cawas Batliwala, age fifty-three, bachelor and lawyer, could not have been more stunned if the boy had told him to bugger off or had flung a stone at him.

‘I’m not good at algebra. You’re wasting your time on me. I won’t be coming from tomorrow.’

‘Put the little one down,’ Batliwala thundered and the three old men turned around to look at him once again. ‘If you ever talk of not coming back to class, I assure you I will thrash the daylights out of you.’

There was no algebra the next day; just physics, chemistry and biology. The next week there was no teacher and the week after that too. Himmat had been expecting something like that. He understood that even the best teacher in the world couldn’t teach a stone.

Sangram Singh had been running a temperature for the past week and had the runs for the last four days. He said he had picked up some awful infection from the water and that he would not be able to fetch the daily paper from Jalta. He had been to the vaid in the next village but the ghastly bitter powders he had given had only made his condition worse and now he was vomiting too. What he needed to do was to see the allopathic doctor at Sharana who would give him a sui. The injection was his only hope but how was he to get to Sharana? He was sinking rapidly. It didn’t look good. He lay in bed and hardly touched the meals Vahidullah brought him.

Every morning His Highness yelled for Sangram Singh and when he didn’t show up, Vahidullah was asked to fetch him, dead or alive. ‘You tell that chronic liar and shirker that I am not running a dharamshala. It’s been a week since I saw a newspaper and I have had to wheel myself around the Palace on my own. For all I know he expects me to be at his beck and call and serve him his meals and polish his shoes. Run down, Vahidullah, and inform Sangram Singh that he will not be served any meals from now on. As a matter of fact…’

‘Ghanikhama, Huzoor,’ Vahidullah interrupted the Prince hesitantly, ‘but Sangram Singh has not touched food for the last week.’

‘Kindly have the courtesy to let me finish. First of all, I don’t for a minute believe that that perpetual prevaricator is skipping meals. I am sure he’s feeding himself behind your back and eating twice as much. Kindly convey to him that even if he’s on his deathbed, I will personally throw him out bag and baggage if he doesn’t present himself within the next five minutes. Tomorrow is the Kojagari full moon night and I expect him to take me to the terrace to witness it and pray to the moon god as is my custom every year.’

Sangram Singh didn’t make it in the stipulated five minutes but he came up tottering and then collapsed on the floor outside the royal drawing room where the Prince was waiting for him.

‘Enough of your histrionics. No one’s buying your thirdrate sickly acting.’

Sangram Singh stayed put. His Highness shoved his foot under the factotum lying on his face and turned him over. Sangram Singh seemed to be in a dead faint, more dead than faint really. His eyes had somersaulted inside their sockets. His mouth was open and there was a revolting green goo leaking out of the right corner.

Parbat Singh shuddered and frantically wheeled his chair backwards. ‘Cholera, he’s got cholera. The bastard’s going to infect me. Is anyone there? Vahidullah, Jairam, Kripanidhi, get this man out of my sight. Bury him before we all get his disease.’

The sun was about to set but a chubby yellow moon with bursting cheeks was already on its way up. His Highness’s shahtoosh shawl had got caught in the spokes of his wheelchair and he was having a difficult time manoeuvring it. Suddenly, his wheelchair shot forward and he was nearly thrown off. ‘What the f…’ The TV in the bedroom was on full blast and Prince Parbat Singh had to raise his voice to be heard. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack. Don’t you ever creep up on me like that.’ His Highness wrapped the shawl tightly around his shoulders. ‘I thought you were dead. You certainly look it.’

‘Vahidullah mentioned that you would need help to get to the terrace and be taken around to see the Kojagari moon.’

‘Yes, I do. But not if you are going to give me some horrible infection.’

Sangram Singh pushed the wheelchair slowly forward so that His Highness could get a better view of the moon. The Prince brought his hands together, closed his eyes and recited a long Sanskrit shloka. He bowed low to the moon and opened his eyes. ‘Did you know that my family is descended directly from the moon god? You do know that we are his regents on earth, don’t you?’

‘Will the moon cease to be if Kantagiri no longer has an heir to the throne?’

‘Do you know what they do with tongues that don’t fit in the mouth? They chop them off from the root. Now I have a question for you. Do you remember what you told me some months ago?’

‘I’ve said many things to you, Huzoor.’ Sangram Singh smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘Though not half as many as you’ve told me.’

‘What you said was, “You know you can trust me never to breathe a word of what I heard you say.”’

‘You certainly may trust me, Huzoor.’

‘Sure, I can. But you also said that it was not worth getting a stroke because of some dream I was having. Now tell me, Sangram Singh, what dream would leave me paralysed for the rest of my life?’

‘Best to let sleeping dogs lie, Huzoor.’

‘I know only one dog.’

‘Who might that be?’

‘You don’t know? Only one dog here. Guess who? So let’s hear the dog’s story. What did I say in my dream?’

Sangram Singh hesitated. He cleared his throat. He looked around for some way to escape but realized he was trapped.

‘Now, will you tell me or would you rather that I threw you down these stairs?’

‘What you said, Huzoor, was, “Nothing special about what I did. It’s an honourable tradition all over this country and has been so for thousands of years. Only the weak and ineffectual follow the law of primogeniture. The difference between my twin brother’s time of birth and mine was a mere three minutes. A kingdom needs a strong and decisive Warrior-King who will lead his people. My people needed me and I rose to the occasion.”’

‘Is that what I said?’

‘Yes, Huzoor, those were your very words and noble sentiments. You are right. Only the strong and capable should rule this land.’

Sangram Singh and his master were near the edge of the marble stairs. There was a beatific smile on the Prince’s face as he breathed in deeply and looked at the enormous yellow orb of the moon as it rose in the sky. Sangram Singh tipped the wheelchair forward with a slight push. His Highness went thud, thud, thud, thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud for another forty-four steps and then lay on the floor. Sangram Singh walked down slowly. His Highness’s neck looked a trifle misaligned. When he spoke, his mouth dripped saliva. The words got jumbled so badly, they were indecipherable. The more inchoate he became, the more angry he got and slithered on his own words. ‘Youdon’thavenono no fever. Youwere justpretendingto be shick. Andyoumadeupallthosedreams, nightmaresreally, didn’tyou?’

‘Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. But that’s how your brother disappeared, am I right?’

The Princeling closed his eyes. The sun had set. Winter twilights had a very short life in these parts. Sangram Singh checked His Highness’s pulse. It was faint and erratic. He took off his shoes and climbed the stairs softly. The TV was still blaring in His Highness’s bedroom. He peered through the tiny gap between the two doors. Raat Rani was staring spellbound at the mother-in-law putting a hex on her son’s wife on the TV screen. Sangram Singh tiptoed to his room, pulled the blanket over his head and went to sleep.

It must have been midnight when there was frantic knocking on the door. It took Sangram Singh a while to wake up. The banging had become desperate and he could hear Raat Rani yelling his name. Before he could pull the bolt back fully, Raat Rani had flung the door open and was blabbering frantically. Vahidullah was with her.

‘She wants to know whether you’ve seen His Highness.’

‘I saw him last morning.’ Sangram Singh’s voice was a whisper. ‘And he thought I had got cholera and he sent me back.’

‘No, you fool,’ Raat Rani yelled. ‘Did you see him this evening or rather, at night?’

‘No, he didn’t want to see my face again. Anyway, I was too weak to get up.’

‘He’s gone missing, I can’t find him anywhere.’

‘Where’s his wheelchair?’

‘We can’t find that either.’

‘How can that be?’

‘That’s why we want you to find him.’

‘I’ve been sick for over a week now.’

‘Just find him. I’ll make sure you are duly rewarded for your trouble.’

Sangram Singh could barely walk but he dragged himself from room to room and from passage to passage. He scoured the Palace. He went to the kitchen, the dining room, the billiards room, the guest bedrooms, the servants’ quarters, he climbed up to the garret. He was so weak he had to hold on to Vahidullah and even then he passed out twice but he didn’t give up. It was nearly four in the morning when he walked down the slope on which he used to roll His Highness’s wheelchair to the Palace grounds.

‘Don’t waste your time going to the stables and offices,’ Raat Rani shouted out to him. ‘You know very well that he couldn’t negotiate any incline on his own.’

‘We’ve looked everywhere but that’s not enough. Like you said, come what may, we have to find His Highness. Vahidullah and I will comb the stables and the grounds just in case…’

‘Wait, I will come with you.’

She had a torch with her and she directed the beam at the empty stables and then at the office rooms, which had not been used since the time the scant staff had left Kantagiri because of the drought. They were near the bottom of the marble stairs when the beam caught the spokes and rim of the wheelchair. His Highness was lying awkwardly on his side on the floor, knees drawn halfway to his chin. He was frozen to the touch. Raat Rani called out to him again and again and attempted to shake him awake. She flopped down next to him. Sangram Singh and Vahidullah attempted to get His Highness back on the wheelchair. But try as they might, they couldn’t manoeuvre him onto the seat, for he kept sliding down.

Raat Rani burst out crying. ‘Is he dead? Is my Prince dead? Oh no, I loved him so. What will happen to me?’

Sangram Singh cut her weeping short. ‘Madam, please fetch your pocket mirror. It will tell us whether His Highness is alive or dead.’

‘I’m not leaving him. Let Vahidullah fetch my vanity case. It will have a mirror.’

Within a few minutes Vahidullah was back, panting. Raat Rani got out the mirror and held it close to the Prince’s nose. They were fortunate that it was Kojagari night and the moon shone brightly. The mirror clouded with a thin film of the Prince’s breath. Raat Rani couldn’t control her joy. ‘Oh, Sangram Singh, he is alive. Yes, there’s the breath of life in him. Thank God and thank you.’

Raat Rani insisted on His Highness being carried up to his bed. Perhaps the exercise might have succeeded if either of the two men had been able to heft the Prince single-handedly, since he had folded into three parts like a large ‘z’. Finally, Vahidullah and Sangram Singh managed to carry him up the first six steps but before Sangram Singh knew what was happening, he found himself lying with the Prince atop him. Raat Rani took charge now. She took off her odhani and after much effort sat the Prince down in the wheelchair even as he involuntarily tried to leap out. Then she tied him to the back of the chair with the help of other two. It took a while but together they wheeled him up the slope and into the bedroom and covered him with a heavy blanket.

‘Vahidullah, make some strong hot coffee for him, strong enough to wake up the dead.’ The old man was about to rush out when she stopped him. ‘No, wait. I’ve a better idea.’ She went to the bar in the room and picked out a single malt. ‘This will do the job.’ She spooned the drink into the Prince’s mouth, tilting his head back to ensure that at least some of it went down his throat.

After twenty minutes of this spoon-feeding, Raat Rani gave up. ‘This is not working. Take the Rolls and fetch the doctor from Sharana, Sangram Singh.’

‘That will take a few weeks, Madam Sahiba.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the Rolls will not roll. Its gearbox needs to be replaced.’

‘What about the old Maruti Esteem?’

‘It’s got no petrol.’

‘Is that true, Vahidullah?’

‘How would I know, Sahiba? I know nothing about cars.’

‘There’s no time for guesswork. His Highness and I haven’t taken a ride in it for six months, maybe more. I guess there’s no alternative but for you to take the cycle and fetch the doctor on the double, Sangram Singh. His Highness needs to be attended to immediately if he’s to recover. Will you do it for your master?’

Sangram Singh flopped down on a chair. ‘I certainly would if a dead man could cycle.’

Just then the Prince opened his eyes. Raat Rani’s face lit up and she jumped up and thanked each one of the thirty million gods and kissed the Prince till he nearly gagged. ‘Oh, I’m so relieved you are all right. We looked for you all night and finally found you at the bottom of the stairs. What were you doing there?’

After a while it was clear that the lady’s effusiveness didn’t seem to register and wouldn’t elicit any response. It was decided that as soon as it was morning, Sangram Singh should locate a villager who would cycle down to Sharana and fetch the doctor to treat His Highness.

No one had taken a census of Kantagiri and the two hundred and fifty-seven villages which Parbat Singh was supposed to have inherited from his ancestors, but it would have been something of a major event if the data gatherers had run into man or beast in Paar in the course of a day in the last few years. The five or six noble families had left the ‘arse-end of the world’ soon after the drought had gripped the region. By the fourth year of the famine, most of the farmers, traders, priests, untouchables and journeymen had left their homes and migrated to different parts of the country. As for those who had stayed put, they had very likely headed for that nameless address where the dead congregate.

It took till eight in the morning for Sangram Singh to find a man who could ride a bicycle and was willing to go all the way to Sharana and get the doctor. His name was Pitamberdas and he said he had worked as a postman. Raat Rani handed over fifty rupees to persuade him to go to the railway junction town and another two hundred and fifty rupees for the doctor as an advance payment.

It was long past midnight and there was still no sign of Pitamberdas or of the doctor. By the next morning, it was clear that the postman had either died on the way or more likely had gone away with the cycle and the three hundred rupees, never to come back.

For some reason, Raat Rani never did believe that the man had been hired in the first place. She was sure Sangram Singh had pocketed the money.

Two days had gone by but there was no improvement in the Prince’s condition. He was running a fever and looking gaunt. When he opened his eyes, he did not recognize Raat Rani or any of the help. The mistress went over to Sangram Singh’s suite of rooms and knocked on the door. It was a long while before he opened it.

‘I fear for His Highness’s health. He’s definitely sinking.’ For the first time since Sangram Singh had come to know her, her voice sounded conciliatory. ‘I know you are unwell but please go and fetch the doctor from Sharana. Cycle down or get a ride from Jalta in one of the trucks on the main road. Here’s my gold bangle. Sell it and that will take care of the doctor’s fees. The rest is yours.’

Sangram Singh sat on the bed, not responding.

She was not sure that he was all there or registering what she said. She held his hand. ‘I will give you the other bangle too when you return. It will be yours. For keeps.’

Sangram ignored her and headed for the Prince’s bedroom. The Prince looked a dead grey. He was having severe difficulty breathing. He realized he would have to give in to Raat Rani’s request. He left for Jalta and was back with the doctor by late afternoon.

‘He should have been taken immediately after the fall to the hospital in Sharana,’ the doctor said after he had examined the patient at length and had put his twisted and broken arm in a makeshift plaster. ‘Better still to Ahmedabad or Mumbai. No guarantee, mind you, but that might have checked the damage. My guess is that he has also had a paralytic attack. I am going to prescribe some medicines to make it easier for him to breathe. They will also take care of his fever and the shock to his system but I don’t want to raise your hopes. Even if he survives, he will remain bedridden the rest of his life.’

‘What do you mean “even if he survives”?’

‘Just that. We have no idea how badly his vital internal organs have suffered. It might be better if he didn’t.’

She looked at the doctor defiantly. ‘We’ll see.’

‘I wish you luck.’

Raat Rani had switched off the TV in her room. If it took superhuman effort to live without it, she was not about to show it. She cradled the Prince all night long and sang lullabies to him when he had difficulty breathing; she bathed him and applied hot and cold compresses to help ease his blood circulation. She massaged his limbs with Ayurvedic unguents and oils to loosen them and forced him to take herbal inhalations thrice a day so that his vocal cords would regain their strength; she cooked his favourite dishes and fed him.

The paralysis eased somewhat but H.H. now became infinitely more cantankerous than he was before the fall. His one and only weapon against Raat Rani was obstinacy. He would refuse to do the exercises the doctor had recommended; he flung the food she brought him; he mulishly refused to take the inhalations; he let forth strings of what sounded like gibberish though she knew that they were the choicest of swear words. Her response was to dismiss his tantrums with gusts of laughter. She made it a point to converse with him and tell him stories about how her father had been cheated by his partner and had had a stroke and she had to work at all kinds of jobs to feed him and her siblings. That was not all. She moved on to other hilarious escapades of princes and industrialists vying for her attention. One of them even chased her in the nude while the man’s wife and servants watched the farce. But there was worse to come. Sometimes the wives developed a crush on her.

Sangram Singh was party to everything she did since he alone could lift the Prince any time he wanted to turn on his side, move or sit up in bed, when he had to be taken to the toilet or when he became overexcited and had to be physically restrained. It was curious – the moment Sangram Singh appeared on the scene in the morning, the Prince became uncontrollable. His gobbledygook emerged in a flash flood. His blood pressure shot up and a look of intense loathing and hatred shone in his eyes. Raat Rani worried that H.H. might burst an artery and get another paralytic attack. ‘Why does he get apoplectic when he sees you?’ she enquired.

‘I’m his punching bag. He knows he can bully me, say or do anything he wants and I won’t take offence.’

Raat Rani didn’t appear to be convinced. She thought there was something more to it than met the eye. Then one day, she accosted Sangram Singh in the corridor outside the Prince’s and her bedroom. ‘I know what happened that night.’

‘Which night?’

‘You know the night I’m referring to. You pushed His Highness’s wheelchair over the stairs.’

‘Really? You saw me do it? What other horror stories are you going to invent to cover up the fact that you pushed him over the stairs after you had pestered him night and day for months to write a new will and leave all his property in your name? I am going to tell the police exactly what you did when I fell ill and couldn’t get out of bed. Vahidullah will vouch that I am telling the truth.’

She smiled. ‘He won’t. H.H. will.’

‘You made damn sure that he’ll never recover. Even the doctor said his case was hopeless.’

‘You better believe me, the doctor was wrong. H.H.’s on the mend,’ the mistress retorted.

Sangram Singh had to admit that the bitch had wrought something of a miracle through her persistence. It was evident now that she could decode the Prince’s gibberish.

One day, while lifting the Prince in his bed, Sangram Singh accidentally touched a tiny spot just above His Highness’s sixth lumbar vertebra. It reduced him to tears. The pain was so great that the Prince could not talk for some minutes. That discovery resolved many a problem for Sangram Singh. Any time H.H. became difficult or obstreperous, he would ask him, ‘May I ease your pain, Huzoor?’ and Parbat Singh would immediately quieten down. As a matter of fact, Sangram Singh had to merely look at the Prince and he would immediately be on his best behaviour.

A few days later, Raat Rani knocked on Sangram Singh’s door.

‘Please come in.’

‘No, thank you. Have you got my keys?’

‘Your keys? Do please come in.’

‘I’m fine where I am.’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘The keys, have you got my bunch of keys? I can’t find them anywhere. As a matter of fact, I can’t locate His Highness’s keys to the safe either.’

‘Those I have.’ Sangram Singh turned his back on her and pulled out something from a drawer in his cupboard. ‘Here they are.’

Raat Rani walked in, her hand outstretched. A heavy black blanket came down on her head and she was hauled in and the door closed.

The new arrival had a name now. Kishen. He was growing but everything he did took time. It was as if there was a hiatus between what he saw or felt and how he reacted. Even when Pawan pinched him, it took almost a minute for him to start bawling though the skin had already turned purple. It was difficult to tell whether he was happy or in pain. You could give him a two-day old chapati or feed him a pink-and-green pastry, which Pawan sometimes got when he had had a particularly good day, but the expression on Kishen’s face rarely changed. Sometimes Jasoda wondered if good and bad, tasteless and delicious made no difference to him.

All these months, Jasoda had been worried about Sameer, who would wander off awake or in his sleep without telling his mother, but of late it was Pawan who was the source of most of her anxieties. He had always been a charmer. The boy had an irresistible smile and when he set his mind to it, he could flirt even with his mother. Of late he had got something called a cellphone and within days he had become an expert at it. He could call anybody with the phone and he got calls on it too. Oddly enough, when his phone rang he took care to move away so that no one knew who he was talking to or what about. He played with the phone for hours on end and every once in a while he would try to teach his mother how it worked. But Jasoda could never get the hang of it, nor could she fathom how such a small device could do all the things Pawan said it did.

In the last few months he was the only one in the family who had put on weight and his dress sense had developed to the point where he was on par with the latest fashions. Unlike his brothers who had two pairs of clothes that had been repaired and re-repaired and patched up, he had four pairs of long shorts, the type that reached below his knees, three checked shirts and a pair of trousers. Jasoda had enquired where he had got them from and he had a pat answer. ‘Where do you think I got them from? They are third-generation hand-me-downs.’

‘No, they are not. They are brand new.’

‘If you say so. Then obviously they were a size too small for the boy the parents had bought them for.’

Jasoda had begun to grasp that her second son was a slippery customer. To talk to him was to try and hold a skidding soap in your hands. Where was he getting the money from? Every now and then he offhandedly, or maybe deliberately, let on that he had gone to see a film. He had even taken Himmat to see one. Of her three sons, (the fourth was far too young), he was the one who had erased all traces of Kantagiri. Mumbai had become his city. If you took his pulse, you would hear the city’s heartbeat. You could feel it in his loping, jaunty step and the way his body moved. He loved the mad monsoons and the feral energy coiled in them. They gave the city a good lashing and scrubbing and cleaned it up. And the sea went wild trying to grab whole chunks of sky. He didn’t mind the smog either. It made the place more mysterious – now you saw the city, now you didn’t.

She was feeding little Kishen late one night when Pawan stumbled home. The spring in his step, which rocked to the sound and song of Mumbai, was gone. He was battered and there was a purple sheen to his bruises. The left eye was swollen closed and the bones in his face had been rearranged. He was limping and his lower lip was torn. The act of breathing seemed to cause him excruciating pain. It was obvious he had a few broken ribs.

Jasoda put the baby down in a hurry and rushed to take care of her second son. ‘What happened?’ she kept asking him.

‘What happened?’ Pawan flung the question back at his mother when she wouldn’t stop asking. ‘Nothing. Got into a fight. That’s all.’

‘That’s all?’ Jasoda wanted to pick up the broom or anything she could lay her hands on and bash him senseless. She had suspected for some time now that Pawan had fallen into bad company and had tried several times to find out what he was up to. There were occasions when he was away half or three-quarters of the night and she had sat up waiting for him, convinced that she would never see him again. But he always came back and offered a flippant excuse or an outrageous lie to explain his absence. And every time Jasoda had been so relieved that the boy was alive, she had let him off the hook after making him swear on Prathama Devi that he would be back home, come what may, by seven in the evening. No, the broom would not do. It would be far better if she carved him up with the onion-knife. At least that way she wouldn’t go berserk with fear and anxiety.

Jasoda had been expecting the surly man. Come the first of the month, he was always there to collect the money, or rent, as he called it. He made it a point to turn up late at night. She was sure he had been counting the days and was keeping a watch on her. After all, he had been waiting for Kishen’s arrival more eagerly than her.

He counted the money carefully. ‘You’ve given me twentyfive rupees less.’

‘No, I’ve not. Count again.’

‘Don’t teach me how to count. Your rent has gone up.’

‘Why? Next month you will tell me to cough up fifty rupees more.’

‘I will, too, if you deliver twins next month. This is Mumbai. Nothing comes free, least of all space. As if the pavement was not crowded enough, you’ve added another child to the lot.’

‘Where am I going to get the money from?’

‘If you don’t have the money to pay the rent, you are welcome to vacate the place and leave. I’ll get much more from the next lot.’ He waited for a response from her, knowing well that there would be none. ‘That’s settled then. Keep the money ready.’

He was gone then.

Jasoda heaved a sigh of relief but knew he would be back.

She was into her third dream at night when she smelt the man. Initially, she thought the dream was reproducing his smells faithfully. He had a soggy, rancid smell as if neither he nor his clothes had been aired for the past few years. But there was something worse, a cloying stink that almost cut off her air supply. Clammy and rotting, that’s how she thought of Mumbai and its people, putrefying from the day they were born. She and her family had been unable to bathe for weeks, months actually, in Kantagiri and yet the desert air and sand ensured that you were dry and odourless.

She was awake now. He was under the sheet covering her and his teeth had sunk into her left breast and he was sucking the thin milk. He was squeezing the other breast now with his right hand and licking the oozing liquid every now and then. Kishen would have to go hungry for his next feed.

‘You are hurting me,’ she said softly. She didn’t want to be humiliated in front of her mother-in-law all over again. He ignored her. Perhaps he had not heard her. She told him again, ‘Please stop. You’re hurting me.’ Is this what sucking the nipples did, made people deaf?

The old lady had her eyes shut tightly and turned her back on Jasoda and the surly man. Jasoda slipped her left hand into the man’s loose cotton trousers and after a bit of a struggle undid the string and pulled them down. The elastic of his underwear had gone slack so it slipped down without much effort. Slowly she started to massage his member. In no time the man had become short of breath and was moaning and biting further into her breasts.

Jasoda’s right hand stretched back to the aluminium platter and threw off the cotton cloth covering it. She grabbed a handful of the finely cut green chillies and played with them. The man was in a hurry to get inside her. ‘Easy, easy.’ Her right hand was back under the sheet now, the palm of her hand holding his member tightly.

His eyes glazed over with unbearable pleasure and then he was screaming, ‘Fire. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What did you do to me?’ He was rubbing his penis to assuage the burning and the pain but that only seemed to make matters worse. He tried to stand up but got entangled in his underwear and fell over. His trousers had fallen off and he was running helter-skelter, sobbing and screaming. ‘Oh God, I’m on fire. Water please, water, water.’ The yelling and screeching had woken up his tenants on the pavement and after the initial shock of seeing their landlord naked waist down, they were mesmerized by the red lobster that kept swelling up in front of their eyes. Jasoda picked up the two-litre bottle Himmat had brought over a week ago and poured the water on the man’s belly and the fork of his legs. The men on the pavement whooped with laughter and the women sniggered and wondered how capacious Jasoda’s innards were to accommodate such a swollen creature inside herself. The man’s voice gave out and he was writhing in pain and whimpering. ‘Oh God, let me die. Someone please kill me, I beg you. I can’t take this burning.’

There was no teacher anymore but Himmat still had his books. He knew them by heart, not because he had memorized them but because he had read them over and over again. Come evening, he would go to the garden with Heera and sit on the same bench where Cawas Batliwala had taught him. Batliwala Sir had told him that tuitions were free but not the books. It was a lot of money but Himmat had been able to set aside small amounts over the months. He wished he knew where Batliwala Sir stayed, so he could have handed them over to him.

He practised his English on Heera. He read to her from his books. She was a parrot and repeated whatever he said word for word. It had become something of a comic routine for Ratna or their neighbours to ask Heera who she was going to marry. And the parrot would instantly repeat the words Pawan had taught her: ‘I’m going to marry my childhood sweetheart, Himmat.’

‘You are late, Himmat, a full four minutes late.’ It must have been five weeks, maybe more, since he had seen Batliwala Sir. He was sitting at his old place with another man. Sir had lost at least ten kilos and was a paler version of his Parsi white complexion. He had obviously been sick.

‘I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.’ Batliwala Sir was about to say something when Himmat interrupted him. ‘Have you been ill, sir? Very ill?’

‘I survived and here I am.’

‘I … I … I missed you.’

‘I missed you too but I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. This is my friend, Dr Suyog Gadgil. He’s a famous mathematician. And this is Himmat, the boy I was telling you about. And that little girl there in the grass is his sister Heera.’

‘Hello, Himmat. I’ve heard so much about you.’

Himmat did a namaskar to the new man and stood silently. He had no idea what was expected of him.

‘Himmat, why don’t you run home and fetch your algebra and other exercise books? Mr Gadgil’s going to help you with the maths.’

Himmat didn’t seem too happy at the request. He looked at Heera to rescue him but she was busy playing with her collection of sticks and broken twigs.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on little Heera,’ Cawas Batliwala said.

Himmat had no choice now but to fetch his books.

‘Why don’t you show the algebra exercise book to Mr Gadgil? It’s his subject. He is one of the world’s great authorities on advanced algebra and has won many international prizes for his work.’

Himmat was reluctant to part with the books.

‘You don’t have to be so worried, Himmat. There’s no better teacher than him. Once he teaches you, you’ll whizz through algebra without any problem.’ Batliwala Sir laughed heartily. ‘And he won’t shout at you the way I did.’

Professor Suyog Gadgil checked the algebra textbook and then went over the pages of the exercise book slowly, looking more and more perplexed, till he came to the end. ‘Your student, Mr Batliwala, may have had problems in the beginning but he’s managed to solve all the equations in the book.’

‘Must have just copied the answers,’ Cawas Batliwala replied confidently.

‘What you see are not just the answers. You can see how he’s worked his way through every one of them.’

‘Did you take anybody’s help, Himmat?’

Himmat was quiet.

‘I asked you a question, Himmat. No one’s going to get angry if you did.’

‘I did them on my own, sir. It took me about three weeks to get the first one right. Then it was okay.’

Early mornings were hectic for Jasoda. She was up by five and slipped into the park through a tiny gap in the fence and went on to the rocky shoreline where she could brush her teeth, go to the toilet and finish her bucket-bath without anyone watching her. That done, she got the kerosene stove working and put the potatoes to boil, then moved to chopping the ten kilos of onions and half a basket of chillies. The work demanded concentration. Some months back her attention had wandered and she had lost the tip of her left index finger.

She was busy peeling the potatoes and turning them to mash when her eyes glided over her sleeping family. Heera was snuggling up to Himmat and pulling his ear to wake him up and, as usual, her mother-in-law had her mouth open and was snoring heavily. There was a knot in the potato in her hand and she flicked it out with the end of the knife. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, though she couldn’t figure out what it was. She glanced at her sleeping family again. Seemed the same as always, as far as she could make out. No, there was an empty space between Himmat and Pawan. For a moment she could not figure out who slept there. Sameer. Where was he? Had someone kidnapped him when she had gone for her morning ablutions? Everybody in the family knew he wandered off at night in his sleep but there was one reliable thing about sleepwalking. He was invisibly tethered to his bed and he always came back.

Himmat picked up Heera and went to look for him on the rocks and Pawan ran all the way to the flyover at Kemps Corner and up Peddar Road and circled back. Ratna combed the by-lanes on their road and her husband was sent off to Nepean Sea Road. At ten a.m., Jasoda and Ratna went to the Gamdevi Police Station. The police were reluctant to register a missing-person report and tried to convince Jasoda that many a child came back within twenty-four hours. Jasoda shook her head. She was sure her son had been kidnapped. She even knew who had stolen her boy, though she had no proof, and the police warned her that making unfounded accusations could get her into serious trouble.

Jasoda explained to the sub-inspector how the man had tried to rape her and how she had prevented him. The police took her seriously then and after two days located the surly man. They interrogated him and kept a tab on the man.

‘We have our ways of finding out the truth from the most hardened and uncooperative criminals,’ the sub-inspector told Jasoda, ‘but this man is innocent.’

Jasoda shook her head and left. Every day, after she had delivered the potatoes, onions and chillies to the food stall, she went over Mumbai street by street, lane by lane, all the way to Virar on the Western Railway line and Ulhasnagar on the Central tracks, often getting lost herself. Not once did she think of giving up. She called out Sameer’s name on lonely roads as well as crowded ones. She never doubted that either that day or the next, maybe the next month or year, she was bound to receive a response from her son. She never admitted it even to herself that somewhere deep inside she feared Sameer had either been blinded or crippled and sent to beg.

Himmat had two teachers now – Professor Suyog Gadgil, who dropped by once a week at the garden for algebra lessons, and Cawas Batliwala, for the rest of the subjects. The renowned mathematician had an odd way of teaching, if at all you could call it that. Most of the time he sat quietly next to Himmat and let him figure out the problem. At the most he would drop a hint or two to help Himmat along.

‘How’s Himmat doing?’ Cawas Batliwala asked Professor Suyog Gadgil after eight months. ‘Does he have a head for the subject?’

‘The boy has an appetite for maths. He keeps nibbling and gnawing at a problem all by himself and has staying power, however tough the going might be. That’s what matters. The question is, does he have a teacher who can make him think things through so that he can solve any kind of equation on his own?’

Batliwala wasn’t quite sure what Suyog Gadgil was trying to tell him but the fact that he turned up every week was encouraging. And he was right about Himmat’s appetite. He needed to be fed all the time, whether it was history, physiology, geography, physics, maths or English storybooks.

Three weeks later when Himmat turned up for class, he seemed disoriented and he had sores on his arms with maggots crawling over them. Cawas Batliwala felt his forehead and his hand got singed. Himmat was admitted to hospital and a week later it became clear that the open sores and the high fever were the least of his problems. The boy had a tapeworm that had slithered under his cranium.

Batliwala had a case of an acute conscience. Why had he not stopped the boy from scavenging in the filthy litter bins a long time back? He now took charge of Himmat and talked to the doctors every day. The boy’s grandmother kept watch over the boy during the day and Jasoda joined her in the afternoon. Every evening, Batliwala swore that he would tell Jasoda that the doctors did not hold out much hope but one look at her and he couldn’t gather enough courage to speak the truth. The boy was delirious and it was touch and go for days. It was six weeks before Himmat was allowed to go home.

That year the monsoons played hooky and seven people died fighting over a bucket of water in the city. The garden next to Jasoda’s pavement had not been watered for three weeks. Many of the super-rich as well as the migrant labourers and their families were already leaving and Jasoda had to decide in the next few days whether she and her family would have to move again to some other place. Then on the ninth of September, the skies opened and stayed open for five days. The pavement where Jasoda had her home went under. In the previous three years, when the rains had flooded the roads, Jasoda and her family had tagged along with Ratna’s husband, a worker at the high-rise that was under construction, and taken shelter on one of the top floors.

This year things were different. The earlier building was fully occupied now. For two nights running, Jasoda and her extended family stood under the awning of an apartment building and got soaked. On the third night, she managed to coax the security guard to allow her and her brood to sleep in the passage outside an empty flat on the second floor. He agreed for a hefty fee and on the condition that they would leave the premises by five-thirty in the morning. As luck would have it, the guard himself dozed off and it was only at ten past seven that he woke up in a panic and tried to hustle them out of the building. That was difficult because the old lady was past getting up. She had passed away in her sleep.

Jasoda and her mother-in-law had eyed each other with suspicion, if not hostility, in all the years in Kantagiri. Oddly enough, it was Mumbai, the city without a conscience or a thought for others, that had changed their relationship. They had become a team in the years they had spent on the pavement. Now the old lady was gone and the least Jasoda could do was to give her a decent cremation. But forget money for the wood pyre, there was no one willing to even take her to the burning ghats. Himmat had not worked for over two months and was now without a job. Whatever little Jasoda earned went to feed the family. All day long, the grandmother lay covered in a dirty sheet in a corner of the garden. Around midnight, the old lady had become hard as the rocks facing the sea and the stench from her was unbearable. Ratna’s husband and three other men carried her to St Steven’s Church next to the traffic lights and left her on the steps. Jasoda bent down and asked her mother-in-law for forgiveness but pleaded that she had no alternative but to leave her in the care of the Christian God who, for reasons beyond her, had been nailed to a cross. Hopefully, his priests would take good care of her.

‘I need to have a word with you, Himmat.’

The boy was in the middle of his first lesson with Cawas Sir after his near-fatal illness when his employer called out to him. Himmat excused himself and walked over to Plastick.

‘Where the fuck were you all these days? You think you can ditch me and disappear, causing me enormous losses? Understand this, gandu, I intend to recover every rupee you owe me. And with interest.’

‘But my brother Pawan informed you that I was admitted to the hospital.’

‘Yes, sure. I have heard that “sick” story just about a million and a half times to believe that crap. Report to work tomorrow. Remember that you don’t get paid till…’

‘He’s not going to work for you any more,’ Batliwala interrupted the garbage-boss.

‘Abbe bhosadike, you keep out of this. This is between Himmat and me.’

‘Himmat is my ward.’

‘Sure, that’s why you put him to work.’

‘I was wrong. I should have stopped him from working for you a long time ago.’

‘Well, you didn’t. And he owes me money.’

‘No, he doesn’t. He nearly lost his life because you didn’t even give him gloves to protect him.’

‘Nonsense. Get back to work tomorrow, Himmat, or else…’

‘There’s no “or else”. Don’t you dare threaten the boy because if you try anything funny, you will have to deal with me. Here’s my card. I am a lawyer and senior partner in Batliwala and Cooper.’

A week later, Himmat had two jobs. At eight in the morning he went to Batliwala Sir’s flat on the top floor of an old building close to the garden that looked out to the sea. He swept and swabbed the place and cleaned the toilet. The lawyer taught him how to use the washing machine and the dryer, and he learnt how to iron clothes. At 9.45 the driver took Himmat and his boss down to Batliwala and Cooper. One of Batliwala Sir’s assistants taught the young acolyte to file papers and run errands for the company. But as Batliwala pointed out, the main purpose of going to the office with the boss was to learn how to operate a computer and watch all that was going on in the office.

‘You’re a fast learner and you will pick up what the practice of law is about. Who knows you might end up a judge in the Supreme Court. But you can’t become a lawyer or engineer or get a good job without a university degree. And you can’t get into any university without a school-leaving certificate. So I’m enrolling you in an evening school. Suyog and I will of course continue your private tuitions but only on the weekends.’

Unlike the old days in Kantagiri, Himmat was reluctant to go to school. Thanks to Gadgil and Batliwala, he was way ahead of the class and was admitted directly to the ninth grade. Often, he was ahead of the teachers too. But there were some benefits. Within a matter of weeks, he was solving equations and doing homework for a fee for students who were much older than him. And soon he was giving tuitions to some of them.

It was past midnight when Pawan saw a man cross the street in front of their pavement. It was dark and he couldn’t see what the man was doing there. And then the intruder struck a match and everything was clear. Himmat’s former employer, Plastick, threw the match into the litter bin in which Jasoda kept her family’s clothes and another into the bin in which she stored the grain and foodstuff. The plastic bins caught fire and the flames rose high and lit up the people asleep on the pavement, the trees in the garden along with its hedge and the steel fencing. Pawan raised an alarm and managed to nab the culprit.

Jasoda was happy that her second son was still around and not altogether beyond redemption but she feared that someday he too would disappear the way Sameer had. The thought of Sameer kept her awake most nights. She was willing to eat fire and iron nails just to get one glimpse of him. Had God showed up in person, she would have caught him by the collar and blinded him unless he showed her where her son was and gave him back to her.

Jasoda explained to each member of her family that they would have to make do with the pair of clothes they were wearing till she and Himmat had collected some extra money.

Every few minutes, Parbat Singh asked for Raat Rani. His words were more whistle than sense but Sangram Singh got the drift. ‘Where is Raat Rani? What have you done to her? Where have you hidden her? I know you. You found out that she knew it was you who sent my wheelchair all the way down to the bottom of the stairs. I bet you wanted to kill me.’

‘Stop. I said stop. You got that wrong. What would I do with you dead? Now shut up. I’ve got lots of work to do.’

‘Give me back my Raat Rani or I’ll kill you.’

‘Good idea. But before you do that, ask yourself who’ll feed you then? You want to know the truth? She’s gone. She didn’t want to be with a cripple. She’s never going to come back.’

‘You’re lying. May you die a pig’s death.’

The Notary Public came over from Sharana to witness His Highness signing over the power of attorney to Sangram Singh in case he was out of town or unable to sign any documents regarding his estate due to ill-health or any other unforeseen circumstances. Before the event, prayers were conducted to urge the gods to give Parbat Singhji a long, healthy and fruitful life. H.H. sat magisterially on his throne, his bottle-green brocade sherwani and silk shalwar concealing his injured right leg that was never going to recover and the left one that had a heavy limp since it was a few centimetres short. His neck was a little askew and, if you looked closely, you would see that his right hand was twisted oddly. Everything was going smoothly. Tea was served along with the traditional mithai offered first to the gods and then to the guests. It was time for H.H. to sign the papers, following which the Notary Public would witness the document. The cheque which was to be handed over to him had already been prepared and kept on a silver thali.

During the dress rehearsal, everything had been worked out to the last detail and Parbat Singh had cooperated in exemplary fashion. Unfortunately, His Highness seemed to have had a change of heart at the last minute, for now he threw the mother of all tantrums. His left hand flung the inkwell at the Notary Public and blinded him with the black ink. All the while, he kept up a non-stop barrage of expletives and accusations of which the visitor couldn’t make head or tail. He stood on his left leg while hanging on to his chair. He dropped the legal papers down on the floor, undid his shalwar string and peed on the documents. Howsoever grudgingly, Sangram Singh had to admit that the Prince had ambushed him. He had pulled out an ace and outsmarted him. He had no idea when, or, if at all, he could coax the Notary Public to visit again.

There was only one way to bring the proverbial horse to the water and make sure he drank it. Even in this back of beyond, there was nothing more persuasive than crisp, fresh notes with the picture of the Father of the Nation on them to coax the Notary that another trip to the Palace was worth it. There were no dress rehearsals this time. Just a quick heart-to-heart talk with H.H. a few minutes before the signing of the new will.

‘Okay, I’ve got to give the devil his due. You were good, bloody good the last time.’

H.H. smiled archly and cackled. ‘Wasn’t I? Just tells you, you can never underestimate Parbat Singh. He will always have a trick or two up his sleeve.’

‘Yes, you are right. Only thing is, one lives and learns.’ Sangram Singh took out an artist’s paintbrush with a thin handle from his pocket and held it in front of the Prince. ‘Recognize this?’

‘Sure, what’s the big deal? It’s an overused paintbrush, that’s all.’

‘A trifle more than that, I would say. It’s a pain-brush.’ Sangram Singh slipped behind H.H. and plugged the rear end of the brush between two of his damaged lumbar vertebrae. Only when Parbat Singh was not just done with screaming but had fainted, was the paintbrush pulled out.

‘Let’s get some things straight,’ Sangram Singh told His Highness when he regained consciousness. ‘You behave yourself and sign the will and, who knows, you may find Raat Rani in your bed within a week.’

‘Where is she?’ Parbat Singh looked suspiciously at his former toady. ‘Let me see her first and then I will decide.’

‘No, you don’t. You should know by now that I take the decisions here.’ The brush was back between the two vertebrae.

‘I get the message,’ H.H. said breathlessly. ‘I’ll sign anything just so long as I can get Raat Rani back.’

This time around too when the Notary came over, Sangram Singh was his usual obsequious self. The only difference was that he would not leave the Prince’s side and his right hand seemed to be supporting the master in the back. Even the Notary was forced to admit that H.H. was exceptionally cooperative and of his own free will had signed his last will and testament where he spelt out that after his demise, all his belongings including the Alakhnanda Palace would pass on to his most faithful friend and advisor, Shri Sangram Singh.

Jasoda may have thought of going back to Kantagiri every so often but for her children Mumbai had become home. Himmat had some memories of his birthplace but he preferred not to recall them. For Pawan, the big metropolis on the west coast of the country was the beginning and the end of the world. Over the years, every once in a while, Jasoda would meet someone, or a whole family, from her part of the world and the news would always be the same. No news. There were no stragglers left and no one was foolish enough to return to the land of the dead. As a matter of fact, even Kajuria, apparently, had fallen on hard days. The former King and his family were on a skiing holiday near Davos in Switzerland two years ago when they were caught in an avalanche and their bodies were never found. Princess Antaradevi, after Umaid Singh had disappeared, had been married off to a widower-Princeling from the principality of Kailashnagar. The Prince had come back home drunk one night to find a man holding the Princess’s hand as she lay in bed. He proceeded to stab her thirty-one times even as the man kept telling him that he was the family doctor and had been called because the Princess was pregnant and had been throwing up all evening.

More than a year later, Jasoda ran into some people who had different tales to tell about Kantagiri. They had not been back themselves but had met some folks who had made the journey and returned with rather fantastic accounts of the changes taking place there. No, they didn’t look like the kind who would spin a story but everybody knew that Paar was ‘mirage’ country and it was often impossible to draw the line between reality and illusion. Or perhaps the more apt word for the latter was delusion. The rumour was that some big foreign companies had calculated that there were vast reserves of something called kala sona in the sea some thirty-seven kilometres to the west of Kantagiri and so the economy of the place was steadily limping back.

It seemed that on any ordinary day you could see all kinds of people from other parts of the country walking around busily surveying and mapping the area not merely surrounding Kantagiri but way beyond it to where the sea was. Every now and then a big car with white men and even an occasional white woman would rush past, leaving behind clouds of dust and sand. There was talk of major investments in the offing, and a fair amount of construction was taking place. Twenty minutes from the Alakhnanda Palace, His Highness was putting up a four-star hotel which would later be converted into a five-star facility with a swimming pool. A swimming pool, really? The next thing you would hear, the man reporting this news said, was that heaven was being transferred to Kantagiri.

Over the next two years, Jasoda heard more and more bizarre stories. Some kind of deal had been forged with Kajuria, which permitted Kantagiri to access the water from its lake. It was not just the water that was coming from Kajuria, the denizens of the place too were migrating to Kantagiri. And now the Bank of Baroda had reopened its branch office there. Kala sona, it turned out, was oil from which kerosene and petroleum were extracted. Apparently, the whole world wanted kala sona and that’s why Kantagiri was now going to be rich and famous.

Jasoda had begun to spend sleepless nights. Should she stay in Mumbai, which her children now thought of as their home (truth to tell, so did she), or should they go back to Kantagiri where the children’s father was? It was no longer a hypothetical question. She would have to choose one or the other soon. She kept running into folks who had similar stories to tell about Paar. If one was to believe them, Paar was turning into a highly desirable destination, though the story-tellers themselves were not about to head back home.

Then about a year later, Jasoda was at Chowpatty, walking along the sands, when she came across a family that had packed its belongings, balanced them on their heads and was setting out for Mumbai Central where they intended to catch the next train to Sharana.

Half and half is how Jasoda thought of herself. She was convinced that not just her mind but even her body was in halfand-half mode. Half of her was convinced that it was time to go back home to Kantagiri. The other half smirked and asked her whether she was just plain irrational and stupid. Go back to what? It had not made an iota of difference to her husband Sangram Singh when she had left home. So for whose sake was she so hellbent on going back?

‘What about you, Pawan?’ she had asked her second son. ‘Would you like to go back home? Everything has changed there. Kantagiri is no longer a village. There are cars everywhere just as in Mumbai. They say the railway line will be extended all the way to our home.’

He had smiled one of his beguiling smiles and held her hand. ‘Any time you’re ready.’

She realized her mistake almost instantly. Pawan would promise her anything to please her. Life, as far as he could make out, stretched out to the next moment and no further. The important thing was to get by without displeasing anybody while getting your own way.

There was no point asking her youngest, Kishen. He had not laid eyes on his father, his father’s home or his town and he had no interest in them. He was not a difficult child, even though his brain had been damaged at birth, but he liked a set routine. It made him feel secure. When they were by themselves she had told him stories about railway engines that travelled all day and night, and that their tails were thrice as long as the garden where they lived, and how much fun it would be to sit inside a tail and watch the world speed past him. Here one minute and gonegonegone the next minute.

‘Yeeeesssss, I want to sittttt in the t-t-t-tail and be gonegonegone,’ he had screamed with joy while his tongue kept hitting invisible speed barriers. She was conscious that she was like Pawan when she talked to Kishen. She tried to make him happy whichever way she could, even if that meant lying to him. How was she to explain to him that he had a father who had not seen him? What made things worse was her guilt since she had not been able to whisk him quickly out of her uterus, even though she had been a midwife for so long.

It was Himmat who confounded Jasoda with his response. ‘Why would you want to go back to that man? He treats you worse than a slave. I doubt if he even remembers who you are.’

‘It so happens that that man is your father.’ Jasoda slapped Himmat. ‘You will speak of him with respect.’

Himmat stared at his mother. ‘If you prefer to lie to yourself, that’s okay with me.’ There was no defiance in his voice, just a statement of fact. ‘You have a job here. They make you work hard but they also pay you well. Same with me. I also go to school. It’s no great shakes but I am one of the luckiest people I know. Outside school I have two of the best teachers. I can’t ask for more.’

Jasoda knew that Himmat was making sense. Every night she tossed and turned on her makeshift mattress. What should she do? Stay in Mumbai or go back home to Kantagiri? Shouldn’t she and her family spend at least a few more years here? Maybe they should never go back. And the next minute she was full of guilt. Her husband was all alone there. What did he do for lunch and dinner? He was not the best of husbands but how could you fight what was predestined? The one article of faith that had been burnt into the lining of her brain without anyone speaking of it was that a wife’s place was with her husband and not hundreds of miles away. Besides, she was failing her duty to her children. They needed a father as much as a mother.

She stopped talking about returning home and settled down to the life she had made in the city. The food stall where she worked was growing so fast, her salary had nearly doubled. She had introduced a dish called sweet-and-sour potatoes in tamarind and jaggery sauce and it had been a superhit. The owner of the stall was grateful to her and was talking of making her a partner.

Jasoda and her children were on their way to Kantagiri.

It had not been an easy departure. Her employer had refused to give her her dues because he couldn’t find anybody else to take her place. She argued and fought with him but he wouldn’t relent. Why would she want to leave when forty per cent of the business was going to be hers? Sure, there would be some woman or the other who would be more than willing to take on the job but he knew from experience that she wouldn’t last. Most of them gave up in the first month; in fact, they gave up within the first week itself because of sore and swollen fingers and eyes. No, she had better find someone, train the person, make sure he or she stuck it out till the fingers and eyes had stopped reacting and then maybe he would give her her wages.

She had made up her mind and there was no stopping her now. Kishen was not going to be a problem. And Pawan too. She knew he would ditch her at the last minute. That left Himmat. He may have been reluctant to go back but when push came to shove, he was not likely to let his mother down. Mr Batliwala had come to see her and tried to reason with her. He told her that her eldest son was a gifted student, and that there was a strong chance that taking him back home would put an end to what could prove to be a brilliant career. She was not sure what that meant but there was no dissuading her.

Mr Batliwala sat down with Himmat and chalked out a weekly regime which the boy was to follow. They would be communicating with each other daily.

‘You will take the laptop you are using in the office. I’ve checked if Kantagiri has a wi-fi network. The news is good. They are setting up an advanced system because the Americans had laid that as a precondition for investment. You might hate going to school in your part of the world even more than the evening school here but let me never hear that you missed a day.’

As in the past, the Batliwala curriculum would be much broader than that of any school in the country. Gadgil Sir would be in charge of the maths course. Himmat would continue to assist Mr Batliwala’s office in filing and cataloguing cases and affidavits and his salary would be paid directly into his account as in the past.

‘It’s your money, you’ve earned it. But I would rather you didn’t dip into it unless there’s a crisis. I will invest it for you so that you will have enough later on for higher education.’

On the day before their departure, Mr Batliwala bought Himmat a cellphone. ‘Use it sparingly. Send me an SMS if there’s something urgent and I will call you back the moment I am free.’

‘What are you going to do about Heera?’ Himmat had asked his mother. It was the one subject that Jasoda had been studiously avoiding but her eldest son had trapped her and she knew that there was no escaping that looming question mark.

‘Nothing is what I’m going to do. She’s not my daughter. Let her mother take care of her.’ She had tried to fob off her son with that flippant answer but it was obvious he was not impressed. Besides, it was not going to solve the problem. Later that night she picked up the conversation where she had left it. ‘I don’t know. Do you?’

Himmat shook his head. He had spoken to his mother about Heera but he was well aware that he was as much the problem as the girl. How was he going to manage without his shadow?

‘We’re leaving tonight. No more postponing,’ Jasoda told Ratna. For the past fortnight, Ratna had pleaded with Jasoda, ‘One more day, just one more.’

Ratna was about to protest but there was a finality to Jasoda’s voice which would not brook any argument.

Jasoda had woken Kishen and Himmat around two in the morning. As expected, Pawan hadn’t returned, even though she had warned him about their departure. She had already packed up their meagre belongings and they were nearly past her former employer’s eatery when they heard a tiny voice and the patter of fast feet.

‘Wait, Himmat Dada, wait. Don’t leave me. Please wait. I’m coming with…’ Heera took a tumble and fell hard on her face.

‘Whatever happens,’ Jasoda had warned her children, ‘you will not say a word to Heera. If she wakes up and runs after us, we will not stop. Is that understood?’

The child was still down when Jasoda reached her and picked her up in her arms. She was bleeding from her nose and had scraped her knees badly.

‘I’m coming with you.’ She was disoriented but she knew her mind.

‘We’re not going anywhere.’

‘I saw you leaving me.’

Three days later, Himmat and his family had left. Jasoda resorted to a trick all the women from her village knew and she herself had had to use when Sameer, the one who had disappeared and haunted her days and night without let, would become excessively obstreperous. She purchased a little afeem outside the Babulnath temple, stirred it in a rasmalai syrup and offered it to Heera as a parting gift.

As the train departed Mumbai Central at six-twenty-five in the morning, Himmat saw his brother weaving in and out of the crowd on the platform, chased by three tall men. Himmat hung on to the pole at the doorway and extended his hand as the train gathered speed and then Pawan’s hand was in his and he was in.