The Hero's Walk (34 page)

“Who says Rama is the hero?” he had asked once. “Why not Ravana? After all, he, too, was a great and beloved king. He was a musician, a learned man. Just because he had ten wives and lusted
after another man's wife, he is a villain? Look at your Rama. Did he not abandon his wife after all the fireworks were over? If he is a hero, I am a superhero. See how long I have stuck with you?”

And Nirmala had replied, in too good a mood with the excitement of the approaching festival to be truly angry, “Ravana had a big ego. Like you. A hero is humble.”

There would be no lamps or crackers this year in Big House. All of a sudden he longed for them. The flickering lights, the thin rain that always fell on the night of the festival, the aroma of chakkuli and khara sev frying in the kitchen, the flash of silk as the women and girls dashed in and out of the house. He wanted yesterday to come back to him whole and unspoiled.

He watched the lights go off, one by one, until there was only the dark rectangle of the apartment building. He heard Arun enter the house. And several hours later, Putti opening the front door to get the milk. He dozed off briefly and was woken again by a whimpering cry from Arun's room across the landing. For a few minutes, Sripathi lay there wondering whether he was imagining it. There was a louder cry and he hurried across to see what was wrong. Nothing. The child was sound asleep, her right arm tight around a faded cloth cow. Arun's bed was empty. Must be in the dining room reading or planning another protest march, thought Sripathi wryly. He straightened the sheet on the little girl's body and sat at the edge of her cot, contemplating her thin face, the tangle of long hair curling over the pillow, the curve of her eyelids fluttering in sleep. The whites of her eyes shone from the gap between her lids like sickle moons. Maya, too, had slept with her eyes slightly open. What kind of dreams or nightmares wandered behind those tender lids? wondered Sripathi. If he and Nirmala could barely contain the grief they carried within them, how could this frail creature who had lost the two people she had known best in all the world? He had thought that, as was natural in this world governed by time, his life would stop and his children's would surge past like runners bearing the chalice
of his memory. They would tell their grandchildren about him. Happen upon his photographs, his pens, after his death and say, “Ah look, these were Appu's most beloved possessions. He never let us touch them, you know.” Never, not even in his nightmares, had he chanced upon the possibility of being alive after his child was dead.

Sripathi touched Nandana's head again, wishing that he could allow himself to let go, to give the child all the love that he had dammed up. He was ashamed of the distance he maintained, aware that the child could sense his unease and was puzzled by it. She never indicated that she wanted anything of him, although she seemed comfortable with Nirmala and Arun. Especially Arun, who spent patient hours with her explaining life in this bewildering place of noise and people, not in the least bothered by the child's silence.

How can I face my grandchild when I am responsible for her mother's death? Sripathi asked himself. The more he thought about his actions eight years ago, the more convinced he was that his anger had somehow brought about Maya's demise. He had cursed her for her refusal to marry Prakash, for humiliating him by breaking the engagement, for obliging him to face Prakash's father when he went to return the jewellery they had given Maya as gifts, for blackening the family name in the entire town. And the curse had killed her.

Nandana stirred in her sleep again, and Sripathi automatically patted her on the back the way he used to do when Maya and Arun were children and then placed a hand on her forehead to make sure that she did not have a fever. Her forehead was cool and moist. Sripathi rose from the edge of the bed, straightened out a few sheets of paper lying on Arun's desk and decided to go down for a cup of tea.

His son was in the dining room, books spread out on the table before him. He was busy scribbling on sheets of paper. “Working on something?” asked Sripathi, rubbing the back of his neck. He was
determined to be pleasant no matter what the provocation. Even though the sight of Arun's shaggy, uncut hair and the torn green shirt made him itch with irritation. “A new project?”

“Yes,” said Arun briefly.

“What is it about?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Why should I ask otherwise?” said Sripathi. I have lost one child because of my temper, he reminded himself. Not another one as well.

“Have you heard of the Olive Ridley turtles?”

“Yes, I saw something in the papers.”

“And you really want to hear more?” Arun asked cautiously.

“I am most interested in knowing what turtles have to do with the fate of this world, or for that matter, with your future.” Sripathi couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice.

“We are all part of nature, Appu. If the natural world goes, so do we. All the industrial effluents being dumped into the sea are destroying the turtles, and soon they will destroy us too. Before long the water table will be affected, and instead of drinking water we will be drinking chlorine or whatever poison is being unloaded.”

“Too much talking as usual,” grumbled Sripathi. “Turtles! Couldn't you find anything more useful to work on?”

Arun pushed his chair back angrily and left the room. “No point talking to you,” he said. Then he came back again and glared at his father. “You lecture me all the time. You want me to get a job, no? Tomorrow itself I will find one.”

“Oh, of course, the world is waiting for Mr. Arun Rao to come along and ask for a job! Yes indeed, there are jobs lying like pearls on the road for you to pick up as you walk past. Let us see what kind you will come back with.”

Arun left without another word, out the back door, closing it softly behind him. Sripathi was alone with the spasmodic snorts and starts of the ancient Zenith refrigerator. He had purchased it at
a ridiculous price twenty years ago when he was doing the advertisement for it.

“Japanese at heart—strong and steady” he had written flatteringly about the motor.

Almost believed it too. Until the company collapsed. The engine wasn't all that strong, it turned out, and almost every customer had returned the product for a full refund. Sripathi's was the only one in the entire country that had survived without a problem all these years. The owner had told him that on one of his bi-annual visits to look at the fridge with awed wonder. He was bankrupt, living on the goodwill and charity of his brothers, and Sripathi didn't have the heart to refuse him this small pleasure. How was it that he could find kindness in his heart for everyone but his son? he asked himself, wishing that he had not been so harsh tonight. It had not been his intention, but somehow the words had just flown out of his mouth. He remembered his father's uncle, Rama Rao, a kind old man who had lived alone on Veerappa Street in a small, bare house, perfectly content with whatever he had, with no desire for anything that he did not. Sripathi's father used to visit him once a fortnight, always taking Sripathi along with him. As soon as they entered the little house that crouched like a gnome in the squalor of the street, Rama Rao would shuffle forward, chuck Sripathi under the chin with a trembling hand and exclaim, “My goodness, how this boy has grown!” Rama Rao spoke excruciatingly slowly. It took him half an hour (or so it seemed to the young Sripathi) to pull a single sentence out of his mouth.

One day, in the middle of a long story that the old man was narrating, Sripathi, conscious that his father would be furious, had burst out impatiently, “Rama Uncle, why do you take so long to say anything?”

And the old man had gazed at him with merry eyes and replied, still very slowly, “Ah, my boy, once the words are out of my mouth, I cannot push them back in. So it is better that I think carefully before I allow them to escape.”

Sripathi wished that he had assimilated this advice more thoroughly. He went out onto the verandah and picked up the newspaper, took it back upstairs to the balcony and opened it to the editorial page. One of his letters was there:

He waited for the usual frisson of pleasure that seeing his byline produced, but nothing happened. He felt as dead as a broken branch.

No fair, thought Nandana. She was always It when they played hide and seek in the apartment block. She and Nithya and Meena and Ayesha. It was a trick, she knew, but she couldn't figure out how they did it.

“Close your eyes and count to twenty,” commanded Nithya.

Reluctantly, Nandana leaned against the wall of the building and shut her eyes. One-two-three, she counted.

“Sweet baby,” crooned a voice close to her ear, startling her. She opened her eyes. “Lovely baby, my little one, come here.” It was the sad lady on the ground floor who always sat on her patio and stared
at nothing. Koti had said that she was mad. Nandana backed away nervously. What did mad people do?

“Cheating! Cheating!” screamed Meena, peering around the building to check whether Nandana was done counting. “Game up! She was cheating. Her eyes are open already.”

Nandana shook her head. She never cheated. Never ever. The other two girls emerged from their hiding places. “You have to be punished for cheating,” said Nithya.

“Yes, yes, yes!” sang Meena and Ayesha. “She has to cross her eyes for ever. She has to be den three times.”

No tears, no tears, Nandana told herself. Tears were a sign that the battle was lost. Her father had told her that when Janet Lundy was mean to her at Molly's birthday party. She had cried then, great gulping sobs that had soaked the front of her new dress and made the cake taste funny in her mouth afterwards. But she wasn't going to lose now. She twisted the end of her frock in her right fist and held on tight. She wished that she had her Moona cow with her.

“No, those are stupid punishments,” said Nithya. “I've got a better idea. She has to pass a test.”

What test?

“She has to run through the tunnel between A and B blocks.” Nithya pointed to the dark alley that separated the two apartment buildings. Meena and Ayesha giggled nervously. “But that is a no-no place,” whispered Ayesha.

“The tunnel test,” said Nithya firmly.

Nandana gazed fearfully at the dark, forbidding passage. There were wicked spirits in there. All the children had told her that. And the crazy old man from the second floor hid there sometimes—the Chocobar Ajja. Mamma Lady had warned her to run away when she saw him. But Mamma Lady was bugging Nandana these days. She had not found the red coat. She had lied to her.

“If you don't do the test, we will never play with you again,” said Meena.

Nandana hesitated and walked timidly over to the high, narrow gap between the two buildings. Behind her the girls giggled, a little frightened. “She is a cowardy-custard,” said Nithya.

“My mother said that it was a un-sani-tary place,” said Ayesha. “She'd beat me if she knew.”

“Tattle-tale!” said Nithya. “How will she know if you don't tell her?” She turned to Nandana, her arms on her hips. “Are you going or are you frightened?”

No
way
, thought Nandana. She entered the tunnel, and behind her she could hear the girls gasp and squeal. “We'll wait for you at the other end,” shouted one of them before they ran off.

It was twilight in the tunnel. Light from adjoining apartment windows shimmered weirdly off the slimy walls, and the ground was groggy with overflow. It smelled of rotting fruit in there and made Nandana want to vomit. Sewage pipes ran down the walls like snakes, and the sound of toilets flushing, taps running, showers jetting, teeth brushing, songs singing and families talking were all translated into eerie moans and whistles, sighs and gurgles. Something soft slithered against her sandalled ankle and with a scream of terror, she hurled herself out of the other end, sobbing with relief.

The three girls were waiting for her, but as soon as Nandana emerged, they ran around the corner of the building. All the tears that she had collected inside herself burst through, and she cried harder and harder. They were mean, like her parents. They had gone away. She had prayed every night to Hanuman to send her parents back to her, the brave monkey god Aunty Kiran had told her about, who always helped people in trouble, who made everybody happy. But it hadn't worked. The monkey god hadn't done anything at all.