River of Gods (19 page)

She sits on the cool cool veranda of the Imperial and checks her mail
The magazine likes the story. Likes the story a lot. Wants to pay her
eight hundred dollars for the story. She thumbs agreement to the
contract through to the United States. One step on the path to high
Kabul, but only one step. She has a next story to plan. It will be a
politics story. Her next interview will be Sajida Rana. Everyone's
after Sajida Rana. What's the angle? It's woman to woman. Prime
Minister Rana, you are a politician, a leader, a dynastic figure in a
country divided over a traffic roundabout, where men are so desperate
to marry
they
pay the the dowry, where monster children who
age half as fast as baseline humanity assume the privileges and
tastes of adults before they are biologically ten, that is dying of
thirst and about to start a war because of it. But before any of
that, you are a woman in a society where women of your class and
education have vanished behind a new purdah. What was it that enabled
you, virtually alone, to escape that silk cage of cherishing?

Not a bad line that. Najia flips her palmer open. As she is about to
thumb it in her palmer chirps. It'll be Bernard. Not very Tantra,
going to a fighting club. Not very Tantra, going with another man.
Not that he's possessive, so he doesn't need to forgive her, but what
she needs to ask herself is, is this going to advance me down the
path to samadhi?

"Bernard," says Najia Askarzadah, "fuck off and stay
fucked off. I thought you didn't do jealousy or is that just another
thing you tell women like the Tantric thing with your dick?"

"Ms. Askarzadah?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were something else." She's
listening to a lot of air noise. "Hello? Hello?"

Then: "Ms. Askarzadah. Be at the Deodar Electrical warehouse,
Industrial Road, within the next half hour." An educated voice,
lightly accented.

"Hello? Who are you, look, I'm sorry about."

"The Deodar Electrical warehouse, Industrial Road."

And he's gone. Najia Askarzadah looks at the palmer as if it is a
scorpion in her hand. No call back, no explanation, no
identification. She taps in the address the voice gave her, the
palmer displays a route map. She's out the gate on her moped within
the minute. Deodar Electrical is part of the old
Town and Country
studio lot, broken up into small businesses when the series went
virtual and moved into Indiapendent's Ranapur headquarters. The map
leads her to the huge double doors of the main studio, where a teen
in a long kurta and waistcoat sits at a table listening to cricket on
the radio. Najia notices he wears a Shivaji trident medallion, like
the one she had seen around Satnam's neck.

"Someone called me, told me to come here. I'm Najia Askarzadah."
The youth looks her up and down. He has an attempted moustache. "Ah.
Yes, we were told to be expecting you."

"Told? By who?"

"Please come with me."

He opens a small access door in the gates. They duck through. "Oh,
wow," says Najia Askarzadah.

The rath yatra stands fifteen metres high under the studio floods, a
red and gold pyramid of tiers and parapets, riotous with gods and
adityas. It is a mobile temple. At its apex, almost touching the
studio girders is a plexiglass cupola containing an effigy of
Ganesha, throned, the people's god, claimed by the Shivaji. The base,
a wide balcony for party workers and PR, rests on the backs of twin
flatbeds.

"The trucks are ganged together," the guide says
enthusiastically. "They will always move in tandem, see? We will
fit ropes if people want to be seen pulling, but Shivaji is not about
exploiting anyone."

Najia's never seen a space launch, never even been close to rocketry,
but she imagines the launcher assembly buildings share this buzz and
industry: embraced in cranes and gantries, workers in coveralls and
spray masks working up and down the golden flanks, light joinery
robots poking their glue-gun probosces into crannies and corners. The
air is dopey with paint and glass fibre fumes, the steel shed rings
with power staplers, drills, and buzz saws. Najia watches a Vasu go
up on a hoist. Two workers with Shivaji stickers on their coveralls
glue it into position at the centre of a rosette of dancing
attendants around a throned Vishnu. And at the centre, the golden
ziggurat of the holy vessel. The chariot of Jaggarnath. The
juggernaut itself.

"Please, feel free to take photographs," the teen aide
says. "There is no charge." Najia's hands shake as she
calls up the camera on the palmer. She goes in among the workers and
machines and clicks until her memory is full.

"Can I, I mean, the papers?" she stammers at the Shivajeen,
who seems to be the only person at the studio in any form of
authority.

"Oh yes," he says. "I am presuming that is why you
were brought here."

The palmer calls softly Again, an anonymous number. Najia answers
carefully.

"Yes?"

It is not college-voice. It's a woman.

"Hello, I have a call for you from N. K. Jivanjee."

"Who? What? Hello?" Najia stammers.

"Hello, Ms. Askarzadah." It's him. It really is him. "Well,
what do you think?" She has no words. She swallows, mouth dry.
"It's, um, impressive."

"Good. It's supposed to be. It cost a damn pile of money, too,
but I do think the team has done an outstanding job, don't you? A lot
of them are ex-television set designers. But I'm glad you like it. I
think a lot of people are going to be equally impressed. Of course,
the only ones that really matter are the Ranas." N. K.
Jivanjee's laugh is a deep, chocolate gurgle. "Now, Ms.
Askarzadah. You do understand you've been given a highly privileged
preview that will make you a goodly sum of money from the press? No
doubt you're asking, what's this about? Simply that the party I have
the honour to lead occasionally has information it does not wish to
release through conventional channels. You will be this
unconventional channel. Of course, you do realise that we may suspend
this privilege at any time. My secretary has a short prepared
statement that she will forward to your palmer. It's a piece from me
on the pilgrimage; my loyalty to Bharat, my intention that the
pilgrimage be a focus for national unity in the face of a common
enemy. It's all checkable back to my press office. Can I expect to
see something in the evening editions? Good. Thank you, Ms.
Askarzadah, bless you."

The prepared statement comes through with a discreet chime. Najia
scans it. It is as N. K. Jivanjee said. She feels as if she has been
hit across the front of the head with a big, soft, heavy bat. She
hardly hears the Shivaji boy ask, "Was that him? Was it really
him? I couldn't make it all out, what was he saying?"

N. K. Jivanjee. Anyone can get Sajida Rana. But N. K.
Jivanjee
.
Najia Askarzadah hugs herself with joy. Scoop! Exclusive! Pictures
copyright Najia Askarzadah. They'll be syndicated around the planet
before the ink's dry on the contract. She's on the bike, course set
for the
Bharat Times
office, swinging out through the wire
gates into the path of an oncoming school bus before the thought
penetrates the amazed numbness.

Why her?

Mumtaz Huq the ghazal singer will perform at ten. Shaheen Badoor Khan
intends to be well away by then. It is not that he dislikes Mumtaz
Huq. She features on several compilations on his car system, though
her tone is not as pure as R. A. Vora. But he does dislike parties
like these. He clutches his glass of pomegranate juice in two hands
and clings to the shadows where he can peek at his watch unseen.

The Dawar garden is a cool, moist oasis of pavilions and canopies
among sweet-smelling trees and precision-pruned shrubs. It speaks of
money and bribes to the water department. Candle lanterns and oil
torches provide barbarous illumination. Waiters in Rajput costume
move among the guests with silver trays of eats and alcohol.
Musicians saw and tootle to an electric bass from a pandal under a
harsingar tree. Here Mumtaz Huq will perform and afterwards there
will be fireworks. That is what Neelam Dawar has been telling all her
guests. Ghazals and fireworks. Rejoice!

Bilquis Badoor Khan seeks her husband out in his place of
concealment.

"Darling heart, at least try and make an effort."

Shaheen Badoor Khan deals his wife a society kiss, one on each side.

"No, I'm staying here. Either they recognise me and all they
want to talk about is war, or they don't and it's schools, share
prices, and cricket."

"Cricket—that reminds me." Bilquis touches Shaheen's
sleeve lightly, an invitation into conspiracy. "Shaheen, this is
priceless. I don't know where Neelam gets them. Anyway, this terrible
grubby little country wife, you know the sort of thing, straight off
the Bihar bus, married up and everyone's got to know about it. There
she is, over there. Anyway, we're standing around talking and she's
hovering, obviously wanting to get her two rupees in, poor thing. We
get round to the cricket and Tandon's century and she says, wasn't it
marvellous, on the eighth and final ball, just before tea. I mean to
say. Eight balls an over. Just priceless!"

Shaheen Badoor Khan looks at the woman where she stands alone under a
pipal tree, a beaker of lassi in hand. The hand around the silver mug
is long and slender, patterned with henna. Her wedding ring is
tattooed on her finger. The woman carries herself with country
elegance, tall, refined in an unaffected, unsophisticated way. She
looks unutterably sad to Shaheen Badoor Khan.

"Priceless, yes," he says, turning away from his wife. "Ah,
Khan! I thought you'd show your heathen face here."

Shaheen Badoor Khan had tried to steer himself away from Bal Ganguly
but the big man can smell news like a Luna moth. It is his purpose
and passion as proprietor of Varanasi's premier Hindi news site.
Though he is never without his posse of unmarried stringers—the
kind of parties he is invited to draws the kind of women they hope to
marry—Ganguly is an obdurate bachelor.
Only a fool works his
life away building his own cage
, he says. Shaheen Badoor Khan
also knows that Ganguly is a big giver to the Shivaji.

"So, what's the word from the Sabha? Shall I start digging a
shelter or just stockpile rice?"

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but no war this week." Shaheen
Badoor Khan glances around for escape. The bachelors circle around
him.

"You know, it wouldn't surprise me if Rana declares war and half
an hour later sends the bulldozers into Sarkhand Roundabout."
Ganguly laughs at his own joke. He has a big, gurgling, infectious
laugh. Shaheen Badoor Khan finds himself smiling. The devotees
compete for who laughs loudest. They check to see if any women are
looking. "No, but come on, Khan. War is a serious matter. It
sells serious amounts of advertising space." The unattached
women in their own private pavilion glance past their chaperone,
smiling but shy of eye contact. Shaheen Badoor Khan's attention is
again on the country wife under the pipal tree. Between worlds.
Neither one nor the other. That is the worst place to be.

"We won't go to war," Shaheen Badoor Khan says smoothly.
"If five thousand years of military history has taught us
anything, it's that we aren't good at wars. We like the pretence and
the posturing, but when it comes to battle, we'd rather not. That's
how the British rolled right over us. We sat in our defence positions
and they kept coming, and they kept coming and we thought, well;
they'll stop sometime soon. But they just kept coming, bayonets
fixed. It was the same in 'oh-two and 'twenty-eight up in Kashmir, it
will be the same at Kunda Khadar. We'll pile our troops on our side
of the dam, they'll pile theirs on their side, we'll exchange a few
mortar rounds and then everyone can march away, izzat satisfied."

"They weren't dying of drought in 'twenty-eight,'" one of
the paperboys says angrily. Ganguly pulls up, next witticism aborted.
Bachelor reporters do not speak out of turn to Prime Ministerial
Private Secretaries. Shaheen Badoor Khan uses the embarrassment to
duck out of the conversation. The low-caste girls follow him with
their eyes. Power has the same smell, town or country. Shaheen Badoor
Khan dips his head to them, but Bilquis is on an intercept course
with her former lawyer friends. The Ladies Who Used to Litigate.
Bilquis's career, like a generation of educated working women, has
vanished behind a veil of social functions and restrictions. No law,
no imam, no caste tradition took them out of the workplace. Why work,
when five men claw for every job and any educated, socially adept
woman can marry into money and prestige? Welcome to the glass zenana.

The clever women are talking now about a widow of their acquaintance;
an accomplished woman, a Shivaji activist, quite intelligent. No
sooner back from the burning ghat and what do you know? Bankrupt. Not
a paisa. Every last stick of furniture gone as surety. Twenty
forty-seven, and still an educated woman can be turned out on to the
streets. At least she hasn't had to go to, you know. The "O"
people. Has anyone heard from recently? Must look her up. Girls need
to stick together. Solidarity, all that. Can't trust men.

Musicians take up positions in their pandal, tuning, striking notes
off each other. Shaheen Badoor Khan will make his getaway when Mumtaz
Huq comes on. There is a tree near the gate, he can hide in it's
shadows and when the applause starts, slip out and call a taxi.
Another has seen the opportunity, a man in a rumpled, civil servant's
suit holding a full flute of Omar Khayyam. His hands around the glass
are quite refined, as are his features, but he carries a heavy five
o'clock shadow. He has great dark, animal eyes, with animal fear in
them, in the way that animals instinctively first fear everything.

"Do you not fancy the music?" Shaheen Badoor Khan says.