There was light. White and piercing. He could not open his eyes before it, after the darkness. It was as the old books said; light, only light. There was the faint odour of burning; perhaps the smell of his own smouldering flesh and bones. But also there was pain, in the region of his head and throat, which he had not expected to feel. He must face the light, he must understand. There was a loud clap, like thunder. Lokumal opened his eyes, turned his head and saw Jyoti beside him. She put a cool hand on his forehead.
‘You never sleep to this time, Daddyji. I have been so worried about you. It is as I thought, you have a fever. You have caught a cold in these monsoon breezes. Today the rain has started with a vengeance. The roads will soon be flooded.’
‘What is the time?’ Lokumal struggled up and looked about him. It might still be illusion; his life played back for him to assess.
‘It is eleven o’clock. And downstairs there has been such excitement; we have had a fire. Mrs Hathiramani burned rubbish on the balcony in the wind. Now all her husband’s books have gone.’
Lokumal remembered in his life no time of fire at the Hathiramanis’. He moved his head and felt a pain. Jyoti plumped up his pillows, and then offered him tea. He sipped at it, leaning back and observing his room, clean as he had left it the night before. He looked at the bedside table and saw the tape recorder was gone. He had given it to Tunda Maharaj, he remembered. This missing link with reality seemed proof that he had not died.
Emotion welled up in his already painful throat, tears came suddenly to his eyes. He turned his head to the sea, and was met by rain blocking out the view. There was the sound of water everywhere, sluicing down windows and drainpipes. He had failed miserably on the path of Knowledge. He sighed at the thought of his rejection.
‘I am the taste of the waters. I am the light in the moon and the sun. I am the syllable Om in all the Vedas; I am the sound in ether and the manhood in men.’ He spoke the words softly with closed eyes. He was far from perfection, far still from even the most basic renunciation of attachment. And seeing suddenly, with humility, the smallness of himself, he saw how easy it was to become bloated with illusions of piety, emanating spiritual arrogance. He had thought God safely in his pocket, and God in truth had stayed away.
He had undoubtedly many lives yet to live, still caught in the net of worldly attachment. For this he had woken again to the sea and the rain, and the wet kisses of his grandchildren. He had need in himself to look deeper, much deeper. He sighed, overcome again by humility.
JJyoti returned to the room with some aspirins, Lokumal took the two she gave him. ‘They will send the children home early from school, if the rains flood the roads,’ he said, thinking of them beside him again, and the tale he would tell them that night.
‘I doubt it,’ warned Jyoti, handing him his tea to wash down the aspirins. ‘But if guests cannot wade to my party tomorrow, what shall I do?’ she groaned.
‘Why then we shall have a party of our own,’ Lokumal beamed, for he felt suddenly in a festive mood. ‘Tomorrow night I shall join you and your friends, if you will invite me.’
‘Will it not upset you?’ Jyoti asked, surprised. ‘Meat will be on the table, and alcohol will be served,’ she added in a guilty voice.
‘But I shall not drink,’ chuckled Lokumal, ‘and from the table I shall take only vegetarian things; not everything will be meat, I suppose? These things no longer upset me.’
Jyoti looked at him in astonishment, and in sudden emotion bent to embrace the old man. He patted her cheek and his heart swelled with happiness.
‘Call Rekha and Mrs Watumal,’ he instructed Jyoti, when next she came into his room. He would suggest the marriage of Mohan and Padma, and explain about the dowry to the women himself. He could also now see the wedding, and perhaps even bless its offspring. Maybe there was also something he could do to help Sham. He was a good boy at heart, not a thief. Lokumal remembered his birth in Sadhbela, a boy after three girls; they had to lay him at once upon a bed of gold coins, to allay misfortune. Kishin Pumnani had no gold coins left by then; he had requested Lokumal and Mr Murjani to lend him some for the occasion, to bring the boy good luck. Lokumal sighed at this long-ago memory, and the progress of Sham’s life. So many things seemed suddenly to need Lokumal’s attention, now he found himself alive.
He lay back on his bolsters when Jyoti had gone, and stared at the streaming windows and the grey sea, freckled by bursts of spume. There would be time now to experiment with the tape recordings, building up as he had wished to a choir of voices, roaring out on a single tape. It would fill all who heard it with reverence. He would take a copy of the tape to Swamiji; he had decided after the rains to make a pilgrimage. Swamiji would already have left the summer heat of Rishikesh, and have settled himself high in the mountains, at Gangotri, in a simple hut. He would be pleased with the recording. But first, Lokumal realized, he must retrieve his tape recorder from Tunda Maharaj. He could not yet have returned to his village, expecting a cremation. He was a rascal, no better than the rest, who had passed in succession in and out of the broom cupboard behind the front door. He would have some explaining to do. It was he who had set the date of death, and swore to the verity of it. Lokumal called again to Jyoti, and when she appeared asked her to summon Tunda Maharaj.
‘He came early this morning,’ she said. ‘I told him you were sleeping late and seemed restless, and I thought you were unwell. He said not to disturb you. He said he was on his way back to his village; his son was getting married.’
‘The rascal has gone off with my tape recorder. If I had died in the night, he would not even have waited for my cremation. I’ll have nothing more to do with him.’ Lokumal shook his head in sad fury.
‘Calm yourself. Prakash has another machine in our room. I will bring it to you. The school has phoned, it is sending the children home. In the centre of town the flooding is bad,’ Jyoti said. ‘As usual the drains can’t cope with the rain.’
Soon Lokumal heard the children return, and called to them through his open door. They came running to him, excited at the dislocation of the day. He put his arms about them and breathed in their sweet smell, of milk and talcum powder and liquorice, and an odour of gunpowder lifting off Ravi.
‘What is this smell?’ asked Lokumal, sniffing in disapproval.
‘Bang. Bang. You’re dead,’ Ravi shouted, pulling a cap-gun out of his pocket. Lokumal fell back on the pillows, and pretended he could not be roused.
‘Oh no. Don’t die, Grandad. Don’t die,’ Bina shouted in sudden alarm. At her distress Lokumal opened his eyes, emotion in his throat. Joy welled blatantly through him.
‘I am here with you still, for a long time,’ he reassured them. The children climbed upon his bed, to sit astride the bolsters. Bina hugged him in relief.
‘Today we have all afternoon to listen to stories,’ Ravi announced in a tone that defied argument.
‘Yes, yes,’ Lokumal hurriedly agreed. ‘Which one shall it be?’
‘There is time also to record our voices on your prayer tape, like you wanted to,’ Bina reminded him.
‘Yes, yes,’ Lokumal agreed in delight, and then remembered the missing machine.
‘Tomorrow we shall do it,’ he promised. ‘Now there is time for everything.’ He gave a deep sigh, and pulled the children close to him. Beyond the windows the rain pelted down. The crows dripped and grumbled in the trees, the sea hit the beach in huge breakers. Lokumal closed his eyes, and listened to the deluge flush out the last of the long, parched season. He squeezed the small bodies beside him and smiled.
‘There is time now for everything. Everything.’ He gave a great laugh and slapped his knee. Outside the rain hit the windows ecstatically.