THE MAGICAL PALACE (34 page)

I finished the food quickly. I had not tasted anything and I did not care. I was devastated. My world was changing forever.

That night, as I lay in bed next to Rani, restlessly tossing and turning, I overheard my parents talking at the dining table.

‘I don’t want to leave,’ Ma said to Baba, her voice quivering.

‘I know, I know,’ he responded. ‘But I cannot stop it. I cannot do anything to change this. What to do? What to do?’

I finally fell asleep. I woke up the next morning in a state of shock which was to last for days. I tried to behave as if it was all a dream, determinedly pushing away all bad thoughts and building an armoured fortress of denial. But reality crept in insidiously through cracks, even as the examinations loomed closer and closer. I welcomed the distraction they offered. Everything else was too painful to think about.

12

Even though relatively early in the season, it was the coldest onset of winter that even the old people could remember.

‘Cover your ears. If you don’t, you will catch a cold,’ Ma advised.

I had to wear what was called a ‘monkey cap’. The cap covered the head, ears and neck, leaving the face exposed, very much like a chainmail headdress, and I hated the prickly wool, which made my skin itch. The school bus would be full of boys in similar caps. Rani, however, did not wear a monkey cap. Her Cleopatra-style fringe would be immaculate when she left the house and when she returned.

‘Here, Monkey Baba,’ she would shout out loud as I returned from school, following it with a monkey howl. And then, one day, it happened. The real monkeys arrived.

We were sitting in the veranda outside the dining room and I was dangling my legs off the edge. Rani was sitting behind me, against the wall, reading a book. The late morning sun was a welcome relief after the morning chill.

‘Don’t sit like that,’ Rani ordered me. ‘And stop fidgeting like a monkey.’ She laughed.

‘Why?’

‘Because you will slip and fall, that’s why. And though you look like a monkey, you are, unfortunately, not one.’

‘No, I won’t fall.’

We were bickering thus when I was distracted by a blur of brown on the roof of the servants’ quarters. Behind us, inside the dining room, mounds of dirty dishes and cutlery bore testament to a big, lazy breakfast. The shelf in which my mother kept the food to protect it from flies had a large bowl of bananas and apples perched on top of it. Ma was in the kitchen.

‘Did you see that?’ I asked Rani excitedly.

‘See what?’ she replied, looking up from her book.

‘The brown animal that just whizzed by. I think it was a monkey.’

‘Don’t be stupid. We don’t have monkeys here, and you know that. Actually, that is not true. We do have a monkey here, and that is you!’

‘Look!’ I yelled, pointing to the branch hanging over the roof of the servants’ quarters.

Rani turned in the direction I was pointing. ‘Ma!’ she screamed.

Right there, in front of our eyes, was a large, brown rhesus monkey. He was sitting on the branch staring at us fearlessly. I was sure he was the leader because behind him were fifteen or twenty monkeys, a mixture of adults, juveniles and infants. His expression was peculiar. He had a woebegone face with small eyes and many scars on his face, the result of past skirmishes, I thought. One of his ears was partially missing. His long tail dangled below his formidable, muscular body and he seemed to be surveying us with as much curiosity as we were.

Suddenly, he jumped off the branch onto the rooftop of
the garage, which was right under the tree, while the other monkeys watched him. Screaming in terror, Rani and I ran away, expecting an attack. Seeing us run, he chased us on to the veranda. I stopped and turned to face him in a moment of sheer bravado.

‘Go away!’ I yelled, waving both arms at him.

Surprised, the monkey skidded on the veranda floor. But he was not intimidated for more than an instant. He rebounded and jumped at me, his teeth bared, a deep growl coming from his chest. That did it. Rani and I ran into the house and shut the door behind us, locking the monkey outside. It was a long time before we opened the door to the veranda and we did that only after making absolutely sure that the monkey was gone.

This incident laid the groundwork for our future relationship. The monkey leader, having established himself as the victor, soon succeeded in scaring all the residents of the palace grounds. From then on, he went wherever he wanted to, ate what he wanted to eat and did exactly what he desired.

A few days later, as Rani and I sat around the tea table, the leader appeared at the dining room door, taking us by surprise. He walked in on all fours, looked at us, then at the fruit on top of the shelf. Before we could absorb what was happening, he was off with a banana. We jumped up shouting a few seconds after he disappeared through the door, his tail smacking the frame as he exited in a hurry.

‘What happened?’ Ma came running into the dining room, terrified that someone was hurt.

Monkeys were not unusual in Hyderabad. When I had gone to the Tirupathi temple, one of the holiest shrines of Sri Venkateswara, it had been impossible to ignore them. They
were everywhere, inside and outside the temple compound, boldly willing to take what they wanted from the pilgrims. But we had never had an invasion of monkeys at the palace before. The evergreen trees in the gardens were thick and green, their upper branches forming a rich and well-knit canopy that provided sustenance to many feathered and furry creatures. These canopies proved to be an irresistible attraction to this team of monkeys, who appeared to have left their old haunts looking for a better environment and had decided to settle in the palace grounds.

The encounter in the dining room was the first of many. The leader of the troop had little fear of humans, but his troop was shy. I would look up into the tall trees and find them sitting on branches, jumping around, constantly chewing on something. Most exquisite of all were the babies with their miniature faces, bodies, sad little eyes and tiny fingers. The mother monkeys would walk on all fours, on the rooftop of the servants’ quarters or the garage and sometimes in the garden, while the babies clung to their chests, hanging upside down. I was always concerned that one of them would fall and get hurt, but they never did. The first hint of major mischief came one morning when one of the monkeys stole a pair of glasses from an office worker. It took quite a bit of trickery on Shankar’s part to get them back; he eventually bribed the culprit with a banana.

The monkeys made the palace more exciting for me and were a welcome distraction. The pressure was on at school. Impatient to get home, I was first in line for the bus, for the days were getting shorter. As I walked from the front gates to the lawns, to the servants’ quarters, to the back of the palace, the mango grove, the guava grove, the ruins and other areas, I would look up, my eyes scrunched, looking
for the troop. I found them every day before I had finished searching the grounds. Each time, I heaved a sigh of relief. I could no longer imagine the grounds without them. When the darkness fell, the monkeys inevitably retired to the trees behind the servants’ quarters.

At school, the results from the last set of tests before the final examinations were handed out. All my hard work had paid off.

Miss D’Souza handed out the corrected papers for the various subjects after.

‘Rahul has scored the highest marks in algebra.’

And so it went. I could not believe my ears. I had scored the highest marks in four subjects. Each time, Ranjan grabbed the paper from my hands and stared at it in disbelief, comparing his incorrect answers to my correct answers. He was sulky all day and ignored me, hanging out with Suresh Khosla and his gang.

It was almost the end of the day when the bomb dropped. We were waiting for the last period to start. Ranjan turned to me and asked, ‘Where is my pen?’ His eyes glinted in a strange way.

‘I have not seen it,’ I replied, feeling uneasy. ‘I have no idea, but I can help you look.’

We looked without success under the chairs in the classroom.

‘Quick, quick, Miss D’Souza is coming. Get back into your seats,’ the class monitor warned us, and we scrambled into our chairs.

The class continued as usual. I saw Ranjan speak to Miss D’Souza during the class when we were all busy reading a
section of English composition. She looked surprised, and then at me. I knew right away that something was up.

At the end of the class, Miss D’Souza spoke. ‘Ranjan’s pen is missing. Has anyone seen it?’

The class did not volunteer any information.

‘Has anyone taken it? If you have, come forward now.’

No one moved.

‘Okay … So you are going to make this difficult,’ she said. ‘Rahul?’

‘Yes, Teacher?’

‘Ranjan says that you have stolen his pen.’

I felt as if the ground had opened up and I was sinking into a deep, deep abyss. ‘No, I have not,’ I said, my voice tense and high, my heart pounding in my throat.

‘I want you to return it to Ranjan if you have indeed taken it. Perhaps you borrowed it and did not tell him?’

‘But I do not have it.’

‘Frankly, Rahul, it is hard for me to believe that it is true. Ranjan?’

‘Yes, Teacher,’ Ranjan said, a pained look on his face.

‘Are you sure that you saw Rahul take it? Rahul says he does not have it.’

‘Yes, I am sure. If it were not my expensive pen …’ He looked at me, then turned to her again, a sincere expression on his face. ‘ … I would not have mentioned it.’ He sounded heartbroken.

‘Okay, then,’ Miss D’Souza said reluctantly.

Everyone knew that Miss D’Souza prided herself on being a sharp teacher—so sharp, in fact, that she regularly warned us not to underestimate her. ‘Don’t try to pull wool over my eyes. I am fair but no fool,’ she would say when confronted with a shifty student. ‘I don’t care if your father
is the chief minister or if you are the class prefect. If you break the rules, I will punish you. I will make an example of you.’

Her usually soft mouth became a thin, hard line and her voice took on a note of steel. ‘Let us clear this matter once and for all. Rahul, please empty out your school box.’

I looked at my school box. It lay on its side and was unlatched. A sick feeling came over me. Someone had opened it.

‘But Teacher …’

Miss D’Souza saw my hesitation and her voice grew sharper. ‘I will have to ask you again to empty your school box. You are making me lose my patience.’

Ranjan smirked. I still hesitated.

‘I don’t care,’ Miss D’Souza snapped. ‘I don’t care if you kiss the ground—you still have to return his pen.’

The class giggled. It was a fall from grace for me—from being first in class to the ignominy of being labelled a thief. I looked at Ranjan. He was clearly enjoying himself. I knew at that moment that my friendship with him was over.

‘Well, hurry up,’ Miss D’Souza said impatiently. ‘I don’t have all day.’

I could not believe how angry she was. Ranjan must have said something terrible about me to her. Had he told her I was a homo? Then why had I not been summoned to Mrs Joshi’s office? My hands started shaking.

I opened my school box. I could see no pen. Mrs D’Souza took it from my hands impatiently and started rummaging around.

‘Ranjan, is this the one?’ she said, holding up an expensive monogrammed Sheaffer pen.

‘Yes, Miss D’Souza, it is,’ Ranjan said, looking pleased.

Miss D’Souza handed the pen to Ranjan. ‘Meet me after class,’ she snapped at me and turned to the blackboard. Titters rose in small waves through the classroom.

I sat down at my desk, feeling alone and miserable. After all my efforts to avoid extra attention, I had ended up in this awful situation.

Class dragged on forever. Ranjan avoided eye contact with me and left as soon as the bell clanged. Soon, only Miss D’Souza and I were left in the room. My feet felt leaden as I dragged one behind the other on my way to her desk.

I stood in front of her, scared and worried. But not guilty. She looked up from the papers she was shuffling on the desk.

‘Rahul, I am so disappointed in you. You are such a good student—I am shocked that you would do anything like this! I could not believe my ears when Ranjan told me that he saw you take his pen and hide it in your box.’ Her voice was stern. ‘There are a few things that will not be tolerated in this school. Students are expelled for those actions. This is one of them.’

My heart sank. So this was it. An ignominious end to my glorious run at school.

Miss D’Souza handed me some papers. ‘Take these to your parents, please, and bring them back tomorrow with their signatures.’

‘But Miss D’Souza,’ I said, my voice a bare whisper as I choked back tears, ‘I did not steal the pen. I am not a thief.’

‘The evidence is against you. Only Mrs Joshi can revoke punishment in this matter.’

That afternoon, I sat in the bus feeling miserable, not knowing what to do. I looked at the handwritten note. It
was addressed to my parents. The words in Miss D’Souza’s characteristic flourish made my heart sink.

I remembered Mr Puri picking up Amit’s bag and the empty chair that was left behind—no one could save me from the same fate. I went home with the most horrible feeling of dread.

‘Rahul, are you all right?’ my mother said when she saw me. ‘You look sick.’

‘I am fine, Ma.’

‘Is something the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ I said and quickly went into my room to wash up and change. I did not go out into the garden to see what the monkeys were doing—I had to think of a way to get out of this mess. Looking for a place to hide, I ended up on the back stairs, clutching the note from Miss D’Souza, halfway up to Colonel Uncle’s apartment. He never took the back stairs and Rani was still not back from school. It was a safe spot. I lay the paper next to me, hugged my knees and put my head in my lap, feeling sick with fear. What if I was expelled? What if I was sent to boarding school by Baba as punishment? Why had Ranjan been so cruel? The anger and humiliation of the afternoon welled up inside me and I cried, my body racked by guttural sobs.