Hillstation Page 2

  It might have been this thought which triggered off a seismic shift in my consciousness, or it might have happened anyway. Pol and I could never decide which, but over the span of a single summer, what might have been a blur in the farthest reaches of our peripheral vision suddenly had the effect of jerking our heads round so forcibly that our necks hurt. An afternoon breeze, tugging playfully at the slender hem of an embroidered sari walking in front of us, would become the only visible thing in the universe. Whereas before it might have seemed effortless to nod and say good morning to the baker’s daughter or the weaver’s sister, suddenly it was all we could do to breathe. If any of these feminine apparitions actually spoke to us, the rushing noise in our ears rendered us incapable of hearing, while a gelatinous paralysis of our mouths left any sort of reply out of the question. And even when there wasn’t a girl in sight, idle thoughts that might have wandered aimlessly over any old thing began to swerve violently towards the single, throbbing, oddly uncomfortable and entirely imaginary conjuration, based largely on guess-work with a little help from Dev’s anatomy books, of a girl with no clothes on.

  And so our talks, as we strolled up to the meadows or sat in the caves, changed inexorably from the best way to sneak up on a rabbit to whether Jasminda or Chocha provided the greater level of sensory intoxication. Uncomfortable as it was, we accepted the unsolicited arrival of carnal desire as something that eventually happens to everyone, even girls. And it wasn’t too hard to work out that if you had the same effect on a particular girl as she had on you, then you were in trouble. Unless your respective parents approved, in which case it was marigolds all round.

  Although I wasn’t entirely ineligible, such prospects as I had were largely derived from my proximity to Dev. As a Doctor who had been to England he was the apogee of matrimonial desirability, the coveted prize of every high-born family, though he had thus far resisted their many propositions. As his brother, I might have satisfied most second sisters, but such were the aspirations of all sisters that I had either to wait until he’d made his decision, or settle for one whose resentments at the implicit failure would tarnish any hope of marital accord. Dev’s argument was that a man of his stature required a properly educated wife, which is to say, from the plains. That no sensible family from the plains would consign their daughter, however ugly, to the hills meant a celibacy for Dev to which he seemed placidly resolved.

  Pol stood by the cave-mouth picking stones from the wall. The bats had started to fly in and out, speckling the light with fidgeting silhouettes. For me, the sudden uprush of hormonal disquiet was merely another source of frustration. For Pol it was a catastrophic obstacle to his quest for spiritual perfection.

  ‘All I wanted,’ he moaned, ‘was to meditate, do my pujas and not become like my father. But now the mind, like a tempestuous horse, races off in all directions to wallow in lascivious images of ankles, bangles and the hair over Kula Nabwar’s shoulders.’

  ‘Her skin!’ I sighed, imagining its smooth undulations under my fumbling fingers.

  Pol looked round, a liquid shape against the sky. ‘It was in some previous life,’ he said, ‘that we turned our thoughts to the transient pleasures of the material world. A moment, that’s all it took. Some footling thing. And now we must pine for liberty while our souls thrash helplessly in lurid chains of insidious discontent.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, shifting the moss under my head. ‘I expect that’s it.’

  Pol was dark-skinned as befitted his birth. He had a thin moustache which his father would have liked him to grow thicker though I’m not sure that was an option at this time. How can you be taken seriously in business, Malek Bister would say, without a decent moustache? His hair was another battle-ground, Pol preferring it tidy while Malek insisted he tussle it like a movie star. The fact that Pol cared at all about his inner being was a major source of irritation to his father who took great pleasure in declaring, preferably with elders in earshot, that there was no such thing.

  Pol slumped back against the wall. ‘We just have to accept,’ he sighed, ‘that we have becomes slaves to lust and the heinous consequences thereof.’

  ‘Which is quite spiritual, isn’t it?’ I offered.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Accepting the consequences.’

  ‘If we have the strength,’ he said after a while. ‘Think about it. Marriage, family, the years of unremitting toil. To climb from the stained shame of a conjugal bed, slouching to work for a few meagre rupees, staggering home again to rage at nothing, the supper late, our slippers cold, and then, as night falls, to squirm before our demons, not least among which is the dream of how it might have been. Once a week we shall satisfy our wives. And once a month we shall become so inebriated that she beats us with a broom. And in this manner shall the days of our lives unfold as youth, joy and the tender aspirations of our early years bleed to nothing and we die.’

  ‘I wouldn’t object to marrying Jasminda Biswas,’ I said, ‘but the only reason her parents even talk to me is because they half-suspect that Dev fancies her so, really, I don’t stand a chance.’

  Pol turned slowly back to the sky.

  ‘And as for you,’ I said. ‘Who’s desperate enough to marry a Bister? You’d be lucky to get the squinty one with bad breath.’

  ‘Your remarks,’ he said, lifting a spider from the wall, ‘are sometimes less constructive than you think.’ He let the spider crawl back. ‘It is true that our prospects are not high, but don’t you see?’ He looked at me earnestly. ‘The uglier she is, the more stupid and unpleasant, the more useless and ungrateful, the greater our chances of spiritual transcendence. For what do the scriptures, and just about every holy man who ever came here looking for somewhere else, say? Through suffering alone is liberation possible. So let us agree, Rabindra, to find the worst possible wives, to spawn the worst possible children, to live the worst possible lives so that our spirits have no choice but to flap like free birds to the great beyond!’

  As I’ve said, in my opinion merely metaphysical solutions are no solutions at all.

  ‘You suffer if you want to,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got other plans.’ He moved to speak but I carried on. ‘You know Mr Dat? Of course you do. And we all know his wife, Mrs Dat. You can hear them shouting when he gets home at night. And how does he walk? Eyes to the ground. And why’s that? I’ll tell you: suffering. Is that spiritual?’ Pol shook his head. ‘And what about your mother?’ I demanded. ‘Completely mad. Everyone knows that. But why did she go mad? Assuming she wasn’t mad to begin with. Because of your father. Because of her marriage. So how does that help her transcend the world of mortal delusion? She’s more deluded than anyone I know. And what’s the cause of that? I’ll tell you again. Suffering.’

  Pol studied his shoes in the half-light, then straightened his back. ‘I shall marry as the gods decree,’ he said. ‘The least appealing she is, the more conducive to my inner calm, for there shall be no danger of me ever enjoying a single moment with her, carnal or otherwise. That is my vow.’ He jutted his chin out like an ascetic deciding on some terrible penance. ‘As the gods will,’ he intoned, ‘so we act. There is no choice in these things.’

  ‘But are they not,’ I said, ‘open to persuasion?’

  He stared at me.

  ‘And is it not customary,’ I continued, ‘for people with a particular wish to perform such oblations as may be necessary for the gods to grant it?’

  Pol looked out again, stroking the frail strands on his upper lip. ‘Only if the wish is lawful,’ he said. ‘But can it ever be lawful to wish for personal happiness at the expense of one’s spiritual prospects?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘maybe not. All I know is that my wish is to marry an English girl.’

  He moved his mouth for a moment. ‘A what?’ he said at last.

  ‘An English girl.’

  ‘But why?’ he said.

  ‘Bec
ause they are effortlessly beautiful. Because they are elegant, mysterious, and wear peculiar shoes. But most importantly, because they live in England which is where I wish to live, with an English wife, in my English house, doing nothing but English things on a daily English basis.’

  ‘Your father would never send you to England,’ said Pol.

  ‘Then she will have to come here. We’ll meet by chance and fall in love. Father will be impressed, my brother delighted. They’ll sit around discussing whether The Charge of the Lightbulb Brigade was heroic disaster or just plain stupid. And then, once the formalities have been completed, she’ll take me home with her.’

  He ran his hand through his hair, inadvertently ruffling it. ‘How?’ he said. ‘No English person has ever come here, never mind two English girls looking for husbands. Not in living memory, not in dead memory, never!’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  He stared at me again.

  ‘Well, think about it. The longer it hasn’t happened, the greater the chance of it happening now.’

  ‘That is not the proper application of the laws of probability,’ he said, looking at his shoes again. ‘Alright,’ he said after a while. ‘I accept that your wish is an appealing one. But let me tell you, there is no wish less lawful than for what can never be. For if it were the slightest bit lawful the gods would not have made it impossible.’

  ‘Perhaps it is up to us to make it possible.’

  ‘How?’ he barked suddenly, his eyes, a little bulgy anyway, threatening to pop out at me.

  ‘In the traditional manner, through sacrifice and austerities,’ I said calmly. ‘We’ll light fires, burn some butter, recite a few prayers and, if it please the gods, they’ll grant our wish.’

  Pol began to walk in circles. ‘And if this desire is not lawful?’ he asked. ‘I mean, inherently sinful, devious or malicious.’

  ‘Then they won’t grant it.’

  ‘They will punish us.’

  ‘What could be worse,’ I said, ‘than staying here for the rest of our lives?’

  He twined his fingers nervously. A bird called from outside. Then he took a breath and sat down. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am resolved. God willing, I shall marry some local harridan nobody else in their right mind could possibly want. If we cannot find one here, then my father will make enquiries in the city on the plains. Those with a shortage of decorative features, brains and modesty are in plentiful supply down there, by all accounts, and generally available. The dowry will not concern us. But if I marry an English girl…’ A vein on his temple began to throb. ‘I shall never be free of the bad Sanskara that has rendered me an outcast. Happy yes, but never free.’ He folded his arms with the finality of one so flattered by the sound of his own argument he no longer cares if it’s right.

  ‘No-one doubts,’ I said, ‘that you must have done some pretty dreadful things in a previous embodiment to earn such a bad one this time around. But if you really want to make up for it, what greater sacrifice could there be than to imperil your soul for the sake of a friend?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he retorted, ‘to imperil a friend for the sake of his soul.’

  ‘Well, good luck,’ I said a little tartly. ‘No doubt you’ll be happy to come back as a temple monkey.’

  ‘It was not my intention,’ he answered quietly, ‘to aim so high.’

  ‘The fact is,’ I said, ‘you’ve read the Vedas, you’ve studied the rites. If I tried reciting prayers, the gods would send me back to school. I’m asking you, for my own personal happiness, even at the expense of my future embodiments, please.’

  He remained motionless.

  ‘I’ll invite you to my wedding,’ I said.

  ‘I would not be allowed at your wedding,’ he replied

  ‘The reception?’

  ‘We’d still need a Brahmin,’ he said, ‘even if I performed the rites.’

  ‘I’m a Brahmin.’

  He stared at the sky, stared at the floor, took a deep breath and said. ‘Very well, if that is your wish.’

  And so we began.

  Over the next few weeks Pol devoted himself with all the zeal characteristic of those for whom the road to enlightenment runs via discomfort. He took to wearing the itchiest clothes he could find, eating nothing but vegetables and drinking only water. He spent hours at night reciting the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and even verses from the Vivekachumadi. His Father stopped me in the streets one morning.

  ‘What have you done to my son?’ he said, jabbing at me with a cigar. ‘Poisoning his mind with all this Brahminical shit. I caught him in the bathroom yesterday trying to stick his leg round his neck.’

  ‘Your shadow is on my foot,’ I said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘It is not proper for a low-born shadow to cross a high-born foot.’

  At which he marched off, muttering.

  My contribution was to wash more thoroughly and to bow each morning to the little effigy of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, on our mantelpiece. It is Ganesh, after all, who imposes and removes obstacles and, since the obstacles to my finding an English wife included, among other things, an eight-hour drive from a city foreigners rarely visit, plus the many thousands of miles she’d have to cross even to get that far, I reckoned he was worth a few nods.

  I also refrained from eating meat which worried my father who was of the opinion that red meat enhances virility and if I was to get married it wouldn’t do to be non-virile at the very moment when such things are most called for. He consulted Dev about this. Dev consulted his text-books and, after a few days’ research, advised my father that vegetarianism was not inconsistent with Hindu practice which had done the Indian people well enough over the centuries. Father asked if ‘well enough’ included getting our arses thrashed by the British who ate nothing but meat all day and invented guns. This rather upset Dev who didn’t like to hear ill spoken of the people who’d taught him to be a Doctor. After which Father, feeling contrite, expunged the remainder of his rage in my direction by telling me that every family he’d approached on my behalf had slammed the door in his face.

  Each evening, after sweeping the floor and putting the instruments in a tub of hot water to soak, I would close up the large front doors of the clinic and head off towards the mountains. The clinic was at the lowest end of the village, near the bus stop. The mountain road, with its teasing glimpses of a world beyond, ran from the other side, along the high street, past the shops and houses from which people would call me over sometimes, asking for a little more of whatever it was I’d given them last time. Perhaps their rash had returned or their grandmother’s disposition was still cantankerous. More recently some of them had taken to making fatuous remarks along the lines of ‘no daughter of mine would be seen dead marrying a Clinic Skivvy’, and I would make a mental note to give them something for constipation, whether they had it or not. But at last, leaving the houses behind, my breath would catch a little as the road turned sharply upwards, hard stone giving way to dusty dirt, the sides growing precipitous, as the distant slopes across the valley stretched into haze, veiled in the silver shrouds of early evening.

  Pol would be waiting for me with a crackling fire and some tasty samosas from his mother’s kitchen. Just as I worked for my brother, as a menial in the clinic, so Pol worked in his father’s various business ventures. Although Malek Bister had started out with a simple scooter repair shop, he had soon expanded to saris, foodstuffs, jewellery and domestic accessories, taking advantage of his frequent visits to the plains to buy in bulk and undercut the competition. The collective fury this provoked in the village was not, however, merely the result of failed shops, bankruptcy and destitution. Although Brahmins are genetically obliged to look down on merchants, it is the privilege of merchants to look down on everyone else. That a low-born outcast should have engaged in commercial activities was seen by many as imperilling the spiritual equ
ilibrium of the entire village. For proof, they pointed to the growing divisions among them since, while many vowed never to buy a single item from the tainted shelves of a Bister retail outlet, others found the prices a bit too tempting.

  But what caused the most outrage was his ‘cynical attempt to emulate the natural philanthropy of his betters’, as it was put one evening at an angry village meeting, with the construction of a new village hall, ‘on his own land, from his own design and with his own bloody money’ as he riposted at the very same meeting. Thereafter, The Sri Malek Bister Memorial Hall had continued to be a source of acrimony, particularly between the musicians who would have liked to play there and the elders who forbade it. Eventually after several hikes in the price of petrol that Malek was forced to institute ‘in order to recover the costs of his civic munificence’, it was agreed that a concert would be held. To Malek’s delight, the first recital, a classical performance on the Rudra Veena, had taken place to a sizeable audience though some of the elders refused to turn up and one or two walked out during his opening speech. For various reasons the concert itself had not been a success, and the hall, thereafter, had remained closed. At any rate, Pol was at liberty to exploit the diversity of his father’s enterprise since nobody knew, at any time of day, which of the many premises he was in.