There was no sign of their home. Not even a broken-down plinth, a segment of the rear wall or a partially dismembered staircase. Jasoda and her family were almost the last people to abandon Kantagiri and by then even the vultures had taken off. So, it was a mystery as to who could have razed the house to the ground. It was as if someone wanted to erase all traces of it from memory. But the more urgent question was, if their house was gone, where was the man of the house?
It didn’t take much guesswork as to where Sangram Singh would be. There was only one place he had gone to every day of his grown-up life and Jasoda immediately dispatched Himmat to the Palace to inform her husband that his family was back. Himmat stood bemused when he reached the Alakhnanda Palace. It was the same but it had also changed. The marble tiles on the long series of steps had been replaced with new ones. The Kantagiri flag was fluttering in the wind and the façade had a scrubbed, polished look. Uniformed guards stood at the main gate of the compound wall. But there was something else which Himmat couldn’t quite put his finger on. It struck him a little later that it was staring him in the face. The Palace looked so striking because it was standing on a bed of green lawn. Even as he watched, workers were laying squares of readymade lawn at the south-western corner of the Palace.
Himmat approached one of the guards at the security post at the gate. ‘I’m looking for my father who used to work at the Palace. His name is Sangram Singh. I would like to see him.’
‘Do you have an entry pass?’
‘No, we’ve just come back from Mumbai after seven years.’
‘Didn’t your father accompany you?’
‘No, sir, he kept working for His Highness, Parbat Singh.’
‘Too bad. His Highness died a few years ago. And Kantagiri and Paar have a new master.’
‘If that’s the case my father would definitely have joined his service.’
‘If he’s working here his name is bound to be in the employee register in the security booth. Go, take a look. We can call him during the lunch break.’
Himmat went over to the office. The Palace employed eighteen men and women. There was no Sangram Singh in the list of retainers in the register.
‘Father’s not at the Palace,’ Himmat told his mother. ‘Which means he’s not in Kantagiri any more.’
‘How would you know?’ Jasoda asked.
‘Because they have the full list of employees, both permanent and temporary, at the security booth, and his name wasn’t there.’
‘Where would he go? The Palace is his umbilical cord.’ Even as she spoke she was aware that she was trying to reassure herself rather than her son about her husband’s whereabouts.
She had insisted on coming back home only to find herself and her family homeless. Had she made the right decision to return with the family to Kantagiri? It was too late to have second and third thoughts about it. It was evening when she left the three boys at the new bus stand. There was so much building activity going on, the place was unrecognizable. She walked over to the Alakhnanda Palace. Himmat was right, there were security guards at the gate who wouldn’t allow her in. She had walked past the place hundreds of times in the old days but it had not really registered in her mind. The royal family lived there. They were higher beings from an alien world. Her husband served them, though she had no idea what his job was. Now that it had been restored and refurbished and the lights on the first floor were glittering, it looked like a vision from a fairy tale.
Himmat had told her, and so had the guards, that her husband was not there but where else could he be? Had something happened to him? She walked around the Palace wall hoping to find a gate or a hedge she could climb over but there was not a chink she could slip through. How long could her family survive in Kantagiri if she didn’t find her husband? She could perhaps find a job at one of the construction sites but she wouldn’t be able to support her children on what she alone earned and Himmat was too young for such hard labour. She had gone more than halfway around the Palace when someone emerged from an almost invisible break in the hedge, behind which was a short wicket gate. She let the man recede into the distance and walked in.
What now? She was standing in front of a large heavy wooden door on the ground floor. Should she go in? Just look at her clothes. What if they caught her for trespassing and put her behind bars? She pushed the door, it wouldn’t give. She gave it one more try and the deadweight groaned and backed just enough to let her through. The darkness in front of her was like a brick wall. Best to stand her ground and not move. Far away to the right there was a beam of light. She walked softly and peered. Two men, neither of them her husband, were busy cooking. One of the men opened the lid of a pan and inhaled deeply. There was no mistaking the delicious aroma of mutton pulao, cardamom and saffron. She realized she had not eaten the whole day and neither had her children. The cook put the stainless-steel pot of pulao and a large bowl of curd on a tray, placed it in a recessed shaft and pushed a button. The tray shot up out of sight. Where did it go?
She retraced her steps and could now make out an ill-lit staircase that seemed to go on forever. By the time she made it to the top, she was feeling faint and out of breath. She leaned against the banister and realized that she was standing at the centre of a corridor that stretched forever on either side. The room in front of her to the left was brightly lit and had three sets of wide double-doors. When she had got her breath back she ventured in from the door nearest to her. It was the longest room she had ever been in. A table, a few paces shorter than the room itself, occupied the central space. The ceiling was at least two storeys high and four clusters of the most elaborate chandeliers hung from it. On either side, full-length paintings of the Paar royalty looked down with majestic superciliousness. She recognized Parbat Singh; his father, the King; and the Queen Mother. She had seen them drive past her home or at public functions to celebrate Shiva’s or Krishna’s birthday or at the local festival of the goddess, Prathama Devi. There was one spot where, instead of the life-size portrait of a member of the family, there was an embarrassingly erotic painting of a courtesan-like woman seducing an ancient rishi. She was trying to figure out who this shameless woman was when her eye slipped down to someone sitting at the far end of the table. He was dressed like one of the royals in the framed paintings and was having a meal in solitary splendour.
There was no backing off now. The man had seen her. Should she kneel or prostrate herself on the floor? What should she do? She drew her odhani down to cover her face and leaned forward to do at least a namaskar but knocked her head hard against the corner of the table. Something was amiss but she couldn’t figure out what was bothering her. His Highness was watching her as the bearer served him the mutton pulao. With an offhand gesture the seated royal dismissed the help.
‘What are you doing here?’ The man’s voice was low but full of menace. ‘How dare you enter the Palace? How did the security guards allow you in?’
It was absurd but she had the impression the voice was familiar, that she had known the royal for years.
‘Go and stand outside the door and wait for me.’
By the time Jasoda got back to the children at the bus stop, the sun was already peering over the rim of the horizon. The younger two were asleep but Himmat was watching out for her.
‘What took you so long?’ The older boy was barely able to repress his rage at being kept waiting.
Jasoda looked at him absent-mindedly.
‘You found him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then how come his name was not on the roster at the security post?’
‘I guess that must be because he’s a very senior official there now.’
‘Good, so we have a place to stay. I will wake up Pawan and Kishen.’
‘No. He stays in the Palace.’
‘In Alakhnanda Palace? Then we can move in with him to his quarters.’
‘I don’t think so. We’re not to disturb him. He has far more serious matters to attend to.’
Himmat looked at his mother quizzically. He was about to ask her something but changed his mind at the last minute.
‘Maybe he’ll help us find a place to stay in Sharana,’ she said uncertainly.
‘Sharana? But we know people here. This is where there’s bound to be work for us.’
‘We’re bound to find work there too.’
Sangram Singh lay in bed wondering how he could have failed to factor in the return of Jasoda and her children. Other families had been trickling back for some time now and it stood to reason that Jasoda too would turn up. She had told him that Himmat had done rather well in his studies and, if she was to be believed, he could speak English fluently. He had turned the story to his advantage and insisted that in that case the family must locate itself in Sharana, where they now had not only an English-medium school but a full-fledged college run by some Catholic priests. She had not been too enamoured of the idea but he had put his foot down and told her that he would not allow her to play with his eldest son’s future. She was not one to go against his wishes but he knew she had been on her own for many years now and that too in that degenerate city of Mumbai and he was no longer sure he could trust her. First thing in the morning he would send one of his minions to Sharana to rent a cheap place for her, ensuring that she and the children left Kantagiri for good.
He had played his cards well so far. He had hired Ranjan Dasgupta, the same publicist the late Parbat Singhji had hired. Ranjan Dasgupta was a greenhorn then but he had done a fairly good job. He had even got the Times of India to carry an article on the tremendous work the former Prince was doing for the people of Paar. Sangram Singh had to admit the man had been effective. Now the story floated was that Sangram Singh had studied petroleum technology at Harvard and even had three patents to his name while he was still a student. What’s more, he had given up his multi-million-dollar job in the US to work 24/7 to improve the lot of his people. To cover up Sangram Singh’s disadvantage with the English language, Dasgupta portrayed him as a man of few words, modest and reclusive, who preferred to keep conversation to the minimum.
One day some American geologists had turned up and asked for permission to survey the seabed and the adjoining land. Sangram Singh had kept them waiting for three months. He told them that the sea god of Paar, who was his family deity, did not brook any incursions. After the three months, when they came back, he had said, sorry, but the Brahmin priests had ruled against any foreigner polluting the sea. Was there no way around the problem, they had asked. Another four months passed and by then the French too were showing keen interest. At that time, Sangram Singh had told the Americans that he wasn’t saying yes and he wasn’t saying no but the god of rain and water, Varun, needed to be propitiated if the curse of the drought was to be lifted. What would it take, both the French and the Americans wanted to know. It’s not the money, he said, it’s the spiritual depth of your commitment to my land and people. He then quoted an exorbitant price, doubting they would accede to the demand. He was wrong. He should have quoted more, far more. You live and learn, he told himself as he pocketed the two cheques for the Franco-American venture.
Prince Parbat Singh had died barely a few months after signing the papers making Sangram Singh the sole inheritor of his estate. Without Raat Rani, he was a broken man and had wasted away rapidly. Within days of his death, the servants in the Palace had had no option but to leave, since there was no one who could pay their salaries. For Sangram Singh the coast was now clear. The only setback was Raat Rani. She was a geyser of hot, scalding hate and rage and he had had to lock her up in one of the rooms in the cellar. The room had no windows and no light and it was always locked. Meals were served through a dumbwaiter that he had got specially designed. Sometimes she polished off everything on the plate and then for days refused to touch food.
Sangram Singh had tried to reason with her. It was tragic that His Highness Prince Parbat Singh had insisted on seeing the Kojagari full moon and she had got so engrossed in the TV soaps that she had not accompanied him. Had she been with him and steered the wheelchair instead of the Prince doing so, he wouldn’t have gone over the edge and taken that terrible fall.
She admitted her lapse at not having been on the scene but insisted that His Highness had been an ace at navigating the wheelchair and hence it was no accident.
‘So what do you think happened?’ Sangram Singh had asked.
‘You should ask? You planned the whole thing in cold blood.’
‘Right. I guess it’s irrelevant that I had had high fever for over a week and I was hallucinating; that I had been throwing up all that time and nobody even offered me a glass of water, certainly not you. I was so weak I couldn’t even go to the toilet but according to you I went over to the terrace with His Highness and even as he watched, I tipped the wheelchair forward. And then, despite the fact that I was the culprit, you sent the servant to ask me to find the Prince.’
‘You may scoff at me but I know that it’s the truth. Why else would you keep me under lock and key?’
He made sure that the entrance to the cellar was not only double-locked but soundproofed too so that no one could hear her screaming at all hours of the day and night, since she couldn’t tell one from the other in that room. He had to hand it to her, she never ran out of steam. There was something so pure about her loathing for him, it was akin to devotion in its steadfastness. He was seldom prepared for the way she would attack him when he went to her room. Sometimes she stood on the bed and jumped on him even as he opened the door and tried to strangle him with her dupatta drawn tightly around his neck, or she kicked him in the crotch. She had one hell of a kick and a couple of times he had nearly passed out and had caught her just as she started to run up the stairs.
There was never a dull moment with her around. She drew deep furrows on his face with her long nails, bit his arms or thighs or flung whatever was at hand at him. It was curious but he looked forward to these attacks. He felt a rush of blood and excitement in hurting and subduing her and then forcing himself upon her. Her body and breasts were soft and luscious but she could clamp her vagina so tight, it was a mammoth task to force himself in. Sex was so much more fun and satisfying after a violent interlude.
He had seen Prince Parbat Singh with her in bed and the ingenious variations she would introduce into love-making. Why would she not indulge him and do all those wonderful and bizarre things with him? He tried to force her face between his thighs as she had done so eagerly with the Prince but she refused to do his bidding. Well, he would teach her a lesson or two. He held her down till she gagged and was forced to lick and suck him.
One day she sank her teeth deep into his member and crushed his testes in her fist and wouldn’t let go even as he hit out at her wildly. The pain was excruciating and he was screaming but she held on until he gathered her thick plait in his fist, yanked her off and slammed her against the wall. He lay semi-comatose, unable to even whimper as she spouted her battle-cry while trying to snatch the keys from his hand.
‘You shit-face, the Prince left the Palace, the Rolls and all else to me and you’ve had the gall to grab everything, including me. What have you done with the will? Where have you hidden it? Or have you burnt it?’
His teeth were gritted in pain but there was an odd smile on his face as he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and pushed it towards her along with a torch.
‘The bastard, he didn’t leave a thing to me. It’s dated just two days before you threw him down the stairs. How can that be?’ She went over the document again and again. ‘This is a fake. I bet you fabricated it.’ She read bits of it aloud. ‘“His Majesty, my father Raghuvir Singh, used to say that I had a facility for running through an enormous fortune but none when it came to multiplying it. I’ve no idea how much I’ve overdrawn on my account and thus I’m clueless about how heavily I’m in debt or not at all. My accountant abandoned this hellhole a long time back. Unfortunately, I have no head for figures and so I am unable to tell whether I am in the red or on safe ground. I fear, however, that it’s merely a matter of time, maybe just a few years, before I’m forced to declare bankruptcy. I know that Paar is finished. Dead. No one, but no one, will live in this wasteland even if he were paid a fortune to do so. But if after my demise I am still worth anything, all of it should be given to the Shiv-Shambho Temple. That way maybe Eklingji will forgive my one unforgivable and unmentionable act and all the other follies that followed.”’
‘I’ll wager you forced him to sign this fake will.’
‘You think so? In that case I must have also coerced the Chief Justice of the High Court to sign it and put the seal of the state. And that too, as you pointed out, two days before the accident.’
She sat slumped opposite him, all the fury drained out of her. Neither of them spoke. It took him a few hours to be able to hoist himself up. Every step was agony. As he waddled up the stairs he feared she had castrated him. He was engulfed in a tidal wave of self-pity. He would never be able to have sex again. He should have killed that bitch. When he finally made it to the bathroom and looked at himself, his member had bloated monstrously. The tooth marks looked purple-red and virulent. From childhood he had heard that no bite, not even a python’s, was as deadly as a human’s. There was no way he could see a doctor. He would be the laughing stock of Paar and every neighbouring state, if not the whole subcontinent, despite the so-called confidential doctor-patient relationship. He could just hear the people from Sharana and Kajuria sniggering. As for the folks from Kantagiri, it didn’t bear thinking about.
He was sure he was at death’s door but within a fortnight the swelling had gone and he ventured down to the cellar again. He was the one who had been running a temperature and had suffered excruciating pain but it was Raat Rani who had lost weight and looked a shadow of her former self. She didn’t resist him, nor did she swear at him now. He hoped this was just a temporary aberration.
When they were done, she went down on her knees and clasped his legs. ‘I’ll do anything you want. I will cook for you, give you a massage, look after all your needs, have any kind of sex you want. All I ask for is sunlight and air. Please, I beg you. If you are worried that I will betray you, just cut my tongue off. But I can’t live another day without the sun and fresh air and the sky and the moon.’
Did she take him to be a fool? Sun and fresh air and the sky and the moon? So she could tell the whole world who sent Parbat Singh tumbling down?
‘I’ll think about it.’
She was as good as her word. He had merely to ask and she would instantly accommodate his every wish. It got on his nerves. Nothing unpredictable about it; no surprises, no tension, no adrenaline rush. Every time he left, she pleaded with him, ‘Please don’t do this to me. I can’t take it any more.’
Sure, she could. Just fussing, that’s all. Frankly, she was getting on his nerves.
He was busy the next day. When he went down the day after, she was hanging from the ceiling fan in the room.
Jasoda’s husband may have got one of his minions to help locate a cheap place for her and the family but there had been no contact with her after that. Life had in any case taught Jasoda that you couldn’t really depend on anybody, least of all the man you were married to. She had convinced Ratna before she left Mumbai that the most important thing was to be able to stand on your own feet. She had trained her to take over her work. She had also shared with her all the secret ways in which she had avoided the onions and the chillies from singeing her fingers.
That hard-earned money from Mumbai would last her for a short while. It would take time for her to start earning again but Mumbai had taught her a few skills that she could use anywhere in the country. After buying a set of twin heavy-duty kerosene stoves, a supply of onions, potatoes, green chillies and wheat flour from the local market and the Goan bread called pao from a bakery nearby, she set up shop under the peepal tree outside the railway station. She couldn’t, however, find any tamarind in the market. This was bad news. Sooner rather than later she would have to ensure a regular supply. She was a good cook, she knew that, and she was smart enough to offer a free fried savoury to customers on the first day. What came in even more handy was her facility in dealing with the police and the local mafia. She had learnt that it was of little consequence whether or not she or her children got to eat a meal; far more important was that the policeman on duty got a free lunch, dinner or snack. Not just him but once in a while a couple of his cronies too. That way the mafia could go eat crow.
In the meantime, Himmat had joined the English medium school run by the priests. His maths and English teachers complained to the principal that they had an uppity troublemaker in the class who was proving to be a bad influence on the other students. The English teacher, one Mr Kalra, complained that the boy was a braggart and an exhibitionist trying to impress his fellow-students with his phoney English accent and thus making fun of his teacher. Mr Pereira, the maths teacher, said that he was teaching the class how to solve a difficult problem when this Himmat got up and tried to show off by misinforming the class that there were three other ways to solve it, hinting that the teacher’s solution did not pass muster. What was intolerable was that thanks to this know-all, the rest of the class was not only a confused lot but becoming rebellious and unruly.
Father Principal Monteiro was a martinet and he had three concerns: discipline, discipline and discipline. Himmat was asked to write, ‘I will never question the wisdom of my teachers’, one thousand times in his notebook. He was also told to ask his father to report to the principal’s office. Himmat wasn’t quite sure how to deal with the situation. A bit difficult to ask the current boss of Paar to present himself at the Holy Spirit School at Sharana. But there was an even more intractable problem. Batliwala Sir had impressed upon him that his first and only priority was to finish schooling if he was to pursue whatever line of studies and work he wished to. Talk about a bind, he knew his career was already over. It was clear he would be selling fried chillies, onion and potato savouries, pao bhaji, masala wada and tea at his mother’s stall all his life.
He called Suyog Sir.
‘Now calm down and tell me exactly what happened.’ Suyog Sir spoke as he always did – very, very quietly. When Himmat had finished, Suyog Sir said, ‘Send me an email detailing Mr Pereira’s solution and your three alternatives. I will call you back when I’ve gone through the lot. One more thing. If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. I will stand by you.’
Himmat had no idea what transpired between Father Principal Monteiro and Suyog Sir but a maths professor from Holy Spirit College got in touch with him and told him that from now on, like it or not, he would attend Mr Pereira’s classes without uttering a word or making any suggestions regarding multiple solutions to a maths problem. On the other hand, if he cared to continue with higher maths, he was free to come over to the college and work with the maths professor whenever he was free.
Himmat wondered if their tiny one-room tin shed was, if it was possible, hotter at night than in the daytime. Jasoda left the door open 24/7 in the summer months but that didn’t help much. The floor itself seemed to erupt with lava. Pawan climbed up a ladder and slept on the roof. Someone had to keep an eye on the family, so Himmat unrolled the dhurrie outside the door and stretched out on it. All night long trains hurtled past the railway station, their monster electronic horns blaring threateningly. Jasoda was up by five in the morning, chopping onions and peeling boiled potatoes just as she had in Mumbai but her workload had doubled, if not tripled, since she was also the head cook of the enterprise. When there was no money to buy kerosene, she was forced to fall back on iron sigris that used coal and filled the room with smoke.
Himmat would have preferred somewhere quiet with plenty of windows but was shrewd enough to realize that it was sheer luck that they had got this strategically located place next to the southern corner of Platform One. His mother had to merely walk a few steps or climb the stairs and she would be on one of the platforms whenever a train pulled in. But of late she would hold Pawan’s or Himmat’s hand and insist on crossing the tracks. It soon became clear to the older boys that their mother was in the family way. It had puzzled Himmat that his mother had spent just one night in the Palace and yet got pregnant but that hadn’t persuaded his father to let her stay with him.
One of the boys would serve tea to the passengers through the bars of the train windows while she handed over pipinghot savouries in torn quarters of a newspaper. The moment the train departed, her business shifted outside the station.
The station was the busiest part of town and soon Jasoda had a regular clientele from all the other businesses around. They were happy to eat their favourite local dishes like dhokla, khandvi and ghoogras and drink the tea she made but she also offered all the dishes that her former employer in Mumbai sold. Within a few months, Jasoda was employing a young woman to help with the cutting and frying while she went to the market to buy the vegetables. Every night before they went to bed, Himmat jotted down the expenses and earnings for the day and made sure that the debit and credit accounts tallied.
There were other benefits to that furnace where they lived. The stationmaster was a cranky old widower who was perpetually in a bad humour. The sight of Jasoda plying her trade in the station premises and walking across the tracks made him apoplectic. ‘I hope God answers my prayers and one of the fast trains runs over you and your children are instantly orphaned.’ On two occasions he had even got the railway police to put her in the lock-up next to his office but had let her go after a full eight hours since she was obviously pregnant. It was late in the evening of the second visit to the lock-up that she had caught the stationmaster throwing a tantrum as his cook served him dinner in his office.
‘What crimes did I commit in my last life that I have to eat this shit every day? Everything tastes the same. The rice tastes like the chapatis and the dal like piss and the potatoes and ladies’ fingers exactly like vomit.’ He threw the thali at the cook who in turn told him to clean up his own fucking mess because he was walking out that very minute.
That night, Jasoda cooked for one more person and sent a full thali with Himmat.
‘Tell your mother,’ the stationmaster snapped at Himmat, ‘I don’t take bribes. Take the food back.’
‘I can’t,’ Himmat told him.
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because I’m not permitted to eat unless you have your meal first.’
‘Tell your mother I will not be blackmailed.’
‘Maybe, but I am the one who’s caught in the middle and has to pay the price. Please eat. She’s a good cook.’
It was merely a matter of time before Jasoda got paid for cooking the stationmaster’s meals and soon she and her family also got to use the toilet and bath facilities in the second-class waiting rooms.
The clock on the station façade had just struck two at night when Himmat heard a split-second scotched cry of pain. It was so brief, he thought he must have been having a nightmare and went back to sleep. But it recurred not once but three or four times, though it was throttled even faster. When he opened his eyes reluctantly, he saw his mother lying with her knees drawn up. She seemed to be pushing something with all her might while breathing heavily. He drifted back to sleep and suddenly saw a match struck and a flame flare up and die. His mother was leaning forward as she lit another match. There was a gooey something in her lap and she was looking between its legs. She folded a wet face towel lying next to her and clamped it on the baby’s face.
He got up and called out to his mother. ‘Let her be, Maa,’ he said. ‘Please, just this once. I’ll take care of her.’
Meal timings were dependent on train arrivals and departures. It was past eleven-forty-five at night and the family was just about to commence a late dinner since, starting with the Rajasthan Express, all the other trains were three or four hours late. Pawan, Kishen and Himmat would have to rush through the meal to cater to the Kashi Mail, which was due in eleven minutes. They were all sitting on the floor and Jasoda was serving bajra rotis when there was a knock on the door. This was odd to say the least. The only visitors they had were suppliers and they came in the daytime. Pawan opened the door. A man with his face covered walked in.
‘May I have a word with you in private?’ he asked Jasoda.
‘This is the only room we have,’ Jasoda answered.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Pawan asked him.
‘I ask the questions here,’ the man said and stood with their mother just outside the door.
‘So what I heard is true. You now have a daughter.’ The man had lowered his voice but there was no missing his words.
‘Would you care to join us for dinner?’
‘Get rid of her. You should have done that as soon as she was born.’
‘It’s a bit late for that.’
‘No. It’s not. Either you do it or I will.’
‘Do what? Kill the child?’
‘Oh, there are other ways. One could leave her on a platform at the next junction. Or give her to an orphanage.’
Himmat was holding Janhavi in one arm and a large knife from his mother’s collection in the other when Jasoda and the man came in again.
The man stretched his hands out. ‘Come, I will take you on the Ferris wheel and we’ll have a lot of fun.’
‘I think it’s time you went back to your Palace,’ Himmat said softly.
‘Not another word from you unless you want to be whipped.’
‘Try me.’
The stationmaster walked in. ‘Everybody on Platform Three. The Kashi will be steaming in in another two minutes.’
It was soon after the first birthday of the baby girl that Jasoda’s business got a boost from an unexpected quarter. The stationmaster called Jasoda over to his home on the other side of the station and proposed that he would become her unofficial partner and put in money in her business. They would open two stalls, one on Platform One and another on Platform Three. The annual ten-day Prathama Devi festival was just a month away. The locals believed that she was the first of the goddesses and that Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati, Durga, Sherowali and every other goddess was her incarnation. Anywhere between seven hundred thousand to a million people would be visiting the city. Every lodge, hotel, pavement and park would be taken over by the hordes. Two things were certain. They came because they believed that the goddess would never refuse a true devotee. And they all needed to eat at least thrice a day, bless them. Jasoda would have to expand the menu and make sure that she was seen as Annapoorna, the goddess of victuals. The stationmaster had more ideas but he forestalled all questions by recommending patience. ‘Let’s first see,’ he said, ‘how our new venture fares.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Jasoda told him. ‘I’ve just one request. I want a regular supply of tamarind. Can you guarantee that?’
‘Tamarind?’ The stationmaster looked puzzled, and then annoyed. ‘This is not a school trip where the kids want to suck on sour tamarinds till their teeth curl up and fall off. We are going to cater to adults.’
‘You do your job and I will do mine. Just make sure there’s no shortage of tamarind, at least three kilos a day during the Prathama festival.’
Jasoda was accomplished at making the most of almost nothing to cook with and yet lace it with piquancy. She began to experiment with the dishes she had seen Ratna and her Marathi friends cook for their families. Her menu now included bhakarwadis, sabudana khichadi and wadas, upma, wada pao, pao bhaji, sheera, chhole, ragda, bhel and panipuri. But the ace in her menu was the tamarind sauce. It was Pawan who came up with a name for the eatery: The Tamarind Mantra – Khatta Meetha Teekha.
During the festival, the children had to skip school and help out along with the temporary staff that had been hired. They were lucky if they were able to knock off at night for three or four hours. Jasoda was sure that the work was beyond Kishen but he was eager to contribute his mite and to everybody’s surprise, he could handle simple tasks like delivering the freshly cooked food to the two outlets on the platforms.
Janhavi was three years old when Jasoda’s Tamarind Mantra – Khatta Meetha Teekha, or KMT as it was popularly known, started a big branch at the State Transport Complex for interstate bus passengers, next to the railway station, and sometime later, an upmarket restaurant in the Prathama Mall that had come up recently. The family had moved to a one-bedroom apartment in the town’s first fifteen-storey high-rise. Jasoda was loath to agree that the girl had been the harbinger of good fortune. In any case, Janhavi had little interest in her mother or her views. As far as the child was concerned, her mother, brother, sister, father, teacher, friend and foe were all rolled into one person: Himmat.
Sangram Singh had been keenly aware of the passage of time. The Oil Baron (the title was coined by none other than Ranjan Dasgupta as was the family tree that could be traced all the way back to Rana Pratap’s time) had to have an heir apparent. It was high time he got married and fathered a family, an all-male ‘first’ family. For the past year, he had been on the lookout for a young woman from a noble family who would bear him a son and heir. He had narrowed the list down to fifteen, then to ten and then further cut it down to three. It was laborious work, researching over two hundred families and zeroing in on the unmarried women. Some of the spinsters were between sixty and seventy-five years old. It was important to find out why the three he had zeroed in on and who were between twenty-eight and thirty-two, were still in the market. Was there a speech defect, did the lady have the dreaded Mars in her horoscope?
That, however, was the easy part. The problem was the middleman, the rapacious Brahmin priest, Trishul Shankar. He knew every ancient noble family from Kathmandu to Kanyakumari and he was also privy to all the dirty linen that should have remained in the closet. He was a one-man marriage bureau, a walking-talking encyclopaedia on the important families in the country. The only problem was that he would surely be just as well-informed about Sangram Singh, and those important families too would want the full lowdown on the Oil Baron.
Sangram Singh had a fairly good idea about the plus and minus points of the three ladies. Kumari Kamalanayani of Shyamnagar did indeed have lovely lotus eyes and was almost of the right age, just a few months short of thirty, but she seemed more dead than alive and what was worse, was highly educated. Kumari Chitrangadha, the daughter of the former Prime Minister of Sonaghar, was ravishing, haughty and just about the most desirable candidate. He waited for her answer. The priest hinted that she wasn’t worthy of him and he should forget her but Sangram Singh wanted to know just what her response was going to be. It took a month of cajoling and withholding payment to make Trishulji finally come out with the truth: she simply wasn’t interested in the Oil Baron. Kumari Madhurima from Gwalior was not exactly what he was looking for. She was over thirty, thirty-two to be precise, and a little plump but that was okay. She was also a trifle excessively well-endowed where it mattered. Sangram Singh could see himself rocking and rolling on top of her like a small craft on a brisk sea. Her two elder sisters were married and had children who were in their middle teens. If the priest was to be believed, she was a docile creature and would certainly be grateful for the offer of marriage. Her father, Sardar Gaurav Singh of Jainagar, on the other hand, would need some coaxing since Madhurima Devi was his youngest daughter and his favourite and he did not want her to land up beyond the back of beyond. That was perhaps Trishulji’s diplomatic way of telling Sangram Singh that Sardar Gaurav Singh, who was almost as highly regarded as the former Maharaja of Gwalior or Udaipur, did not care to be connected with Paar’s first family. Or perhaps it was the priest-broker’s standard tactic to raise his fees.
He assured Sangram Singh that he could and would perform miracles. He would ensure that come what may this marriage would take place. Indeed, he managed to convince Madhurima Devi that there would not be too many offers after the one from Kantagiri and anyway marriages were a matter of luck. Even those which were supposed to be made in heaven could end up in hell. The priest reported that when the spinster’s parents asked her what she would do in that godforsaken place, she replied without looking up that she would transform the desert into a garden. Now that the lady had said yes, it was a tough call for Sangram Singh. What guarantee was there that his bride-to-be was not past conceiving? Of course he could divorce her if she did not deliver but it would mean he too would be that much older.
Himmat played chess with Janhavi and taught her that arithmetic was nothing but games and riddles. Maths would not be her favourite subject but she was a highly competitive person and nobody was going to get the better of her when it came to the marksheet. She was fluent in English since it was the only language in which her eldest brother conversed with her. He read to her every night and soon she was devouring Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and Birbal stories. She was obstinate to the point of being self-destructive. Yes, even if it meant that she was the one who got hurt the most.
Himmat was currently persona non grata. He had mandated that each of the four siblings was to clean the toilets once in four days. There were two toilets, now that they had moved to a two-bedroom apartment in the same building. Today was Janhavi’s turn. Brother and sister had a run-in every four days. One thing was clear to Janhavi. The days of acquiescence were over. Not that she had bowed to her brother’s wishes more than a couple of times. Her mother was livid that her elder son should even think of asking his siblings to do something that had been the job of the lower castes for thousands of years. But Janhavi was not interested in her mother’s preoccupation with caste. What she knew for certain was that she had better things to do.
Every time it came to a test of wills it seemed Janhavi won hands down and yet Himmat invariably made her feel the loser. Even now he didn’t say a word. He just picked up the plastic brush, poured some Domex solution in the toilet bowl and scrubbed the insides hard, pulled the flush, knocked the water out of the brush and kept the brush back in its holder. It was infuriating to see him tamp his temper down and walk off after washing his hands with soap. The damned slimy bugger, now why couldn’t he just swear at her (she certainly could help him there, she knew more cuss words than all of her mother’s customers put together) or strike her with the flat of his palm instead of letting the whole thing fester?
But today was different. She was going to sort this matter out once and for all. ‘I’m not going to clean the toilet today, tomorrow or ever. What are you going to do?’
Jasoda did not look up from her cooking and the other two brothers pretended to be busy but they were all aware that this was going to be the mother of all showdowns between two people who seemed to have one heart between them.
‘Can we talk this over?’ Himmat asked.
‘No, no talking. You decide.’
Himmat thought about it for a while. ‘You don’t clean the toilet, you don’t get to eat that day.’
Janhavi looked to see if her mother had anything to say but she was busy packing the stationmaster’s breakfast.
‘Fine. You can have my meals from now on.’
She turned around, opened the door, walked out and banged the door shut.
It was not the wedding of the year nor the one that was talked about the most. No film stars showed up at the palatial residence of Sardar Gaurav Singh. But the nuptials were performed with such affection and loving care, it would leave behind the kind of memories that would give the bride succour through many a crisis. It was not merely a wedding but also the bidai for the First Lady of Paar. The former Sardars of all the big, medium and small states and their ladies were there to congratulate and wish Madhurima Devi and her husband a long and happy marriage and many, many heirs.
Sangram Singh was aware that it was not his aura or his credentials which had drawn so many of the Sardars and their wives to his wedding. They had come because they would never dream of insulting Madhurima’s father, whom they consulted about legal quandaries and their endemic squabbles about money. Most of them were wary of Sangram Singh. At the most they enquired politely about his well-being or how the oil exploration was progressing. But Sangram Singh now had access to Gaurav Singh and if he played his cards right, his father-in-law would be the conduit through whom he would gain new friends and influence. He was sure that, given time, he could develop a relationship with this decadent lot.
There were three days of celebration and feasting and traditional dances as well as a good deal of jerking and twitching to Bollywood music which extended into the dawn of the third day when the actual marriage ceremony took place. When it was time for the newlyweds to leave, Madhurima’s father took Sangram Singh aside. ‘What you are about to do, Sangramji, is to pluck my heart out and walk away. If that sounds like a line from a bad Hindi film, it is still the truth. Oh, I’ll survive, make no mistake about that, but take good care of my daughter. She bruises easily even though she will not show it because she is a proud woman. You will perhaps change her name as is the Hindu custom but I beg you not to tamper with all that is good and pure gold in her. She is gentle and thoughtful and caring. Look after her well and she will return your kindness and care a thousand-fold.
‘As with my other daughters, Madhurima too has been given a substantial inheritance. It is in her name and not yours because it is not a dowry. But I would urge you to understand that if there is someone on whom you can never put a price, it is Madhurima. She is priceless. And even in these times when we are all supposed to be equal, she is a true Princess. Give unstintingly of your love to her and she will make you the most loved man on earth.’
No one had mentioned the disappearance of Sameer in all these years but both Jasoda and her two older boys wondered how a second child from the same family could vanish without a trace. It did not fit the most elementary paradigm of probability. These things don’t happen in pairs. You can’t get smallpox twice; nobody dies twice. And yet the children had once again lost a sibling. Janhavi had been missing for six days. The house felt like a morgue. Nobody talked. Jasoda still worked sixteen hours a day. She couldn’t understand why she missed the girl like an amputated limb. After all, she had nearly got rid of her. Was her husband right? Should she have eliminated the girl even at that late stage? The little hussy was blackmailing the whole family as if they had thrown her out of her home instead of her abandoning them.
Himmat and Pawan had been through every lane and by-lane of Sharana, checked out the bus stand and then caught trains to the neighbouring towns and the next few train junctions. Often late at night Jasoda too joined the two brothers in their hunt for their sister. Both Himmat and Pawan had hundreds of pictures of her on their cell phones and showed them around and got enlargements made and pasted them all over town. The stationmaster too had alerted his brother station-heads all the way to Ahmedabad. Himmat had registered a ‘missing girl-child’ case with the police. Both Pawan and Kishen went over at least thrice a day to check whether the police had any news of their sister.
Himmat had not eaten since the day Janhavi had had a spat with him. His mother had tried to reason with him but to no avail. He was convinced it was due to him and his inflexible sternness that his one and only sister had walked out. Even Pawan, who behaved as if he had not a care in the world, would call out for Janhavi in his dreams and wake up with a start. The worst affected was Kishen. Try as he might, he could no longer speak. He had always had a speech impediment but now his tongue had retracted and he would often choke on his food. He was older than Janhavi but without anyone asking her, she had taken over his care. He had his bad days but she knew how to handle him with a mix of affection, cajoling and firmness.
It was past eleven in the night and the door was half open when the girl walked in, swinging a bramble branch. Her hair was matted thicker than a jute sack. She was smelling like a guttersnipe and had an ear-to-ear smile. Jasoda had half a mind to whack it off her face but her daughter was already hugging Himmat and kissing him all over his face.
Jasoda couldn’t resist slapping her bottom and pulling her away. ‘Do you have any idea what havoc you’ve wrought, you strumpet? We’ve gone out of our minds worrying about you. Your brother Himmat hasn’t eaten for six days.’
‘Why is he fasting? Is his stomach hurting?’
‘Because of you, you stupid fool, because you left without having your meal.’
‘But I ate at the station before I caught the train. And I’ve not missed a single meal since then. Do you know you get twice as hungry when you’re travelling?’
‘Where did you go?’
‘To Mumbai, where else? You people are always talking about Mumbai this and Mumbai that. I thought I should take a look at this place so I could also say I’ve been to Mumbai.’
The brothers were staring at her in disbelief. Was she telling the truth or just making it up?
‘So how come you came back?’ Pawan asked her.
‘I wanted to make Himmat Bhaiyya suffer for what he said to me but I realized that if I was absent he would just forget me.’
Jasoda grabbed her ear and was about to twist it a full circle but Janhavi raised her thorny bramble stick.
‘Not you, Himmat Bhaiyya will beat me with it.’
‘That will be the day.’ Jasoda gave up.
Janhavi was back with her favourite brother. ‘I’m never going to leave you. Because when I do, it hurts me more than it hurts you. But you’re never going to leave me either.’ She handed Himmat the branch. ‘Twenty strokes on my bottom. Not a single more. I will be counting.’
In the summer holidays Himmat took Janhavi with him to Mumbai when he went to work in Batliwala Sir’s office and to continue his studies in higher maths with Professor Suyog Gadgil. He had talked to her about how, if it hadn’t been for Batliwala Sir, he would not only have remained illiterate but also may not have survived the deadly infection he had picked up rummaging through the litter bins and separating the plastic from the putrid fungus-ridden food and other junk. He explained to her that there was no dearth of so-called teachers in schools and colleges and even in life. They were either competent or useless but only if you were blessed would you have the good fortune of finding a guru who would remain your role model and guide long after he or she was dead. If she spoke such good English; if she was good at arithmetic, algebra and geometry even though she wasn’t crazy about those subjects; if she loved to read storybooks and wanted to see not merely Mumbai but the whole world, it was because of Batliwala Sir who had opened the doors and windows of Himmat’s mind.
He wanted her to meet his two gurus so that she too would be as blessed as he was. They had gone over the drill many a time on the train to Mumbai. She was to show respect to Batliwala Sir as she would do to any elder by bending low and touching his feet. She was not to prattle and hold forth or show off. Sir was a man of few words and preferred silence to pointless talk.
They were at Sir’s home and now that Himmat had bent low and touched the lawyer’s feet and run his hand over his own head, he introduced his sister to the lawyer. She smiled shyly and, as was her wont, she did something unpredictable: she hugged Batliwala Sir. Was that a spontaneous gesture, her brother wondered, or was it premeditated? Hard to say, though he was well aware that Janhavi was not only someone who knew her mind but could switch on the charm and you were done for.
Batliwala Sir was uncertain how to react for a split second but took the girl in his arms and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Please call me Cawas Uncle and not Batliwala Sir.’
‘Would you like to eat with your fingers, Janhavi?’ Batliwala Sir asked as they sat for dinner.
‘How do you eat, Cawas Uncle?’ she had a counter-query.
‘With a fork and knife, a bad habit I picked up when I was studying abroad. But you don’t have to.’
‘But I want to.’
Himmat was hoping his sister would be sensible and eat as they did at home. Now he was in trouble. This fork-and-knife stuff and the etiquette accompanying it were beyond him. Janhavi observed their host carefully and by the third day had got the hang of it. It was the same with the toilet in their room. She had no idea how to use it and skipped going to the pot for two days. She was intrigued by the nozzle on the side of the toilet bowl and in no time had picked it up and pressed the little lever on the top and wet every centimetre of the bathroom including the mirror and the walls, not to mention herself.
‘I can teach you how to use the toilet,’ she told Himmat proudly. ‘Take a book, sit on the seat and relax. The shit will come through on its own, all in good time and then, imagine, you can wash your arse without using your hands.’
‘I’m glad you solved the puzzle on your own but I hope you are not planning to share your discovery with Batliwala Sir in your inimitable graphic language.’
‘I already did. He was very impressed.’
‘I’m sure it’s been a learning experience for him too.’
She was always tracking Cawas Uncle’s every move. When he sat and read in the room he called his library at night, she too joined him and read the books he bought for her. Twice she went to the court with him. She was spellbound by the proceedings and sat throughout the day’s session without uttering a word or disturbing her Lawyer Uncle. In the evening when she went for a walk in the garden with her brother and Cawas Uncle, she grilled the lawyer about the meaning of what had happened. It was just like cricket, one party won and the other lost, he said, but the game could go on for years, not five days as in a Test match.
‘But it’s not as simple as that,’ he added. ‘They say justice delayed is justice denied.’
‘Do you fight for the bad guys?’ she asked.
‘That’s the law. You are innocent until proven guilty. Guilt is something that either the judge or the jury must decide. My job is to present as powerful a defence as I can for my client. I would do the same for you if you were in trouble.’
‘Even if you knew I had done something terrible?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Doesn’t that make you guilty too?’
He looked at her quizzically. ‘You ask difficult questions. Some of the finest legal minds have been arguing about this for centuries. But let’s not forget even the innocent often require to be defended.’
The day before they left, Cawas Uncle took them to a five-star hotel for dinner. Himmat watched his sister. It was difficult to fathom what went on in that little head of hers. She was like a sponge, absorbing everything going on around her. Two days from now, maybe years later, she would remind you of something you had said, and you would not know how to answer.
‘Picking up from where we had left the subject, have you done something terrible in your life?’ Cawas Uncle asked her.
‘I ran away from home and everybody went crazy looking for me. When I came back, I offered a bramble branch to Himmat Bhaiyya to punish me with. He didn’t. I keep wondering if he was as guilty as I was.’
The results of the twelfth-standard exams were to be out the next day but by the previous evening, hordes of journalists had descended on Jasoda’s home. The first to arrive were the print media folks with their digital cameras, followed by people from the Hindi, Gujarati and even English TV channels. If Jasoda had understood what these men and women were saying, her son Himmat had broken every possible record in the state. There was no end to the questions they asked. Who were his teachers? How come he had scored the highest marks in every subject? Where had he learnt to speak English like that? All these years his school had not figured in academic or any other activities. Frankly, it had held on obstinately to the bottom rung. Was the school banking on him to come first? Which coaching classes had he joined? Had he known all along that he was going to be the star student of the year? What were his plans for the future?
They took pictures of the young man by himself and with his family. Out of the blue someone noticed that one member was missing.
‘Where’s your father?’
‘I think he’s dead.’
He could see his mother jerk her head up in surprise.
‘What do you mean “you think”? Is he or is he not?’
‘We were amongst the very last people to leave Kantagiri when the drought was at its peak but he stayed behind. By the time we got back years later, there was no trace of him. We guessed he must have been a casualty of the drought.’
‘Where did you go when you left?’
‘Mumbai.’
Dear Himmat,
Congratulations. You’ve exceeded my expectations and I assure you they were way above average to start off with. Suyog has a different view. He knew what you were capable of and you didn’t stray from the course. Both of us are of the view (in truth, he more than I, since he’s an academician and from your specialty) that you should do your bachelor’s from Mumbai University. He says the standards in Mumbai University too have plummeted but you could work with him and the two of you could start tackling problems in pure maths, a field that is, as you know, alien to me.
If you agree to this, I will get the room which you stayed in the last time you were here with Janhavi cleaned and ready. You will eat with me and as always you will earn your keep by helping me out in the office.
Let me know your answer at the earliest since we will have to get you admission in a good college here.
Warm regards to you and your family, especially to that imp, Janhavi.
Cawas Batliwala
My dear Cawas Sir,
Thank you for your generous offer not only to look after my board and lodging while I study but also to allow me to work with Suyog Sir. I sincerely hope I will not disappoint you.
As you can imagine, Janhavi was distraught and totally against my leaving Sharana till I assured her, without first taking your permission, that she could come and join us in the summer and winter holidays.
As always I seek your blessings.
Looking forward to being with you,
Himmat
Sangram Singh’s wife Madhurima Devi wondered whether there was a ‘before-and-after’ in every marriage. While Gaurav Singh was alive, she had had an exemplary husband, maybe a little too obvious in his toadying pursuit of her father. He tried to emulate him in every manner. For instance, he picked up billiards in a matter of days and was often on the verge of beating her father but made certain that he fumbled at the critical moment. He insisted on learning how to play polo but was terrified that the horse would throw him off just as it had Parbat Singh.
He had made up his mind to get Gaurav Singh appointed to the Board of Directors of the Franco-American collaboration which was exploring the oil reserves in the Khambat area because he was certain that it would raise his stature not only with the partners but in the industry itself. It took a while but it was a done deal eight months down the road. Unfortunately, his father-in-law popped it a few days before he could attend the first meeting of the board.
The change in Madhurima Devi’s status took place overnight. Everything from now on was a monochromatic ‘after’.
Sangram Singh paid the family a visit the day before Himmat was scheduled to leave for Mumbai. ‘I’ve fixed a job for you, Himmat, with the oil exploration company. I hear you are good at figures. You start work next week as a trainee in the accounts department. The pay is good and you can keep an eye on what those people are doing so that I will know immediately if they are up to any hanky-panky.’
Himmat gave his father a dead stare. ‘I’ve wondered for a long time who’s keeping an eye on your hanky-panky.’
Sangram Singh’s hand flew across and knocked Himmat down. ‘Watch your mouth, you ingrate.’
Himmat wiped the blood from his lip. Janhavi grabbed Pawan’s cricket bat and whacked Sangram Singh on his right shin. It must have been a good hit for he was down on the floor holding on to his leg, whimpering, unable to speak.
‘How dare you?’ Jasoda slapped her daughter.
‘Don’t you ever touch me again,’ Himmat spoke in a barely audible voice, ‘nor any other member of the family. You’ll regret it.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Sangram Singh had recovered his voice.
‘No threat. Unless a dead father can be resurrected.’
‘Stop it, Himmat. I will not have this kind of talk in my house.’ Jasoda turned to her husband. ‘That includes you too.’
‘It’s a disgrace the way you’ve brought up your children.’ Sangram Singh looked disgustedly at his wife but soon calmed down. A smug smile played on his face. ‘I believe I know how to keep you on a tight leash, Himmat. I’m thinking of taking your little sister out of school lest she too goes the way of her oldest brother.’
My dear Cawas Sir,
I don’t know how to say this, so I will say it the only way I know. If I have amounted to anything it is because you took me under your care and guided me at every stage. I was so looking forward to being in Mumbai and not only attending college but working with Suyog Sir. The college would give me a degree and I know that the three major equations which have obsessed me for the last year would gain enormously from Suyog Sir’s insights. But at the risk of sounding ungrateful, I can’t come. Please don’t ask me to elaborate on the subject but Janhavi’s education will suffer or perhaps even be halted if I am not here.
I assure you one thing. I will work very hard and keep in constant touch on Skype with you and Suyog Sir and try to prove worthy of both of you.
I seek your blessings,
Himmat
‘Look what I’ve got for you, Himmat Bhaiyya.’ Janhavi plonked herself on her older brother’s bed at six in the morning. ‘A dozen monogrammed kerchiefs just like Cawas Uncle has in Mumbai. I stitched all the Hs myself. You like them?’
Himmat opened one eye to take a look at the gift. ‘They look so lovely, I wouldn’t dare to blow my snot into them.’
‘Ingrate, that’s what you are. Where’s your suitcase?’
‘Up on the loft.’
‘Aren’t you going to Mumbai?’
‘Nah, maybe some other time.’
‘You changed your mind after what that man said about me?’
‘What an idea.’ Himmat guffawed. ‘You really think the whole world revolves around you.’
‘I can take care of myself.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt that. Not one bit.’
‘Quid pro quo.’
‘What was that?’ It was uncanny how Janhavi picked up a stray phrase, especially if Batliwala Sir had used it, and slipped it in to great effect.
‘I owe you one. A big one.’
Perhaps it was fortunate that Himmat stayed behind in Sharana, for Kishen had begun to behave oddly. He was never articulate but he had now become impossibly silent. He couldn’t stand light and if someone whispered next to him, he would try to clap his hand on the speaker’s mouth. It was Janhavi who realized that he was not just extremely hot to the touch but was completely disoriented. They took him to a private hospital but after the doctors examined him, they refused to admit him. Himmat asked them why but they just shrugged their shoulders. They were getting into a taxi when one of the nurses walked past and waited for them outside the hospital gate.
‘They think it’s viral meningitis. It’s a very rare case and they don’t know if it’s infectious. More to the point, they have no experience in treating it. Besides, they are sure your brother will be dead in two or three days.’
‘He’s not going to die,’ Janhavi piped up. ‘I won’t allow it.’
The nurse smiled. ‘Good luck to you but even if he survives, his brain will not function normally.’
They admitted him to the Sharana Municipal Hospital. It had a terrible reputation and it was called the morgue because you only went there to die. Kishen was in the hospital for five weeks. Himmat and Pawan took turns to look after him but the only person he clung to was Janhavi. He was barely conscious and yet if she so much as left him to go to the toilet, he became highly agitated. As was his wont, Pawan disappeared at the end of the third week without telling anybody. It took another ten days for Kishen to open his eyes.