the grand witch, Indira Gandhi, when he’d come in to get the
Times
at half past eleven one morning nine months ago; Ananda had overslept and had no idea the world had changed in the small hours. While making his usual pointless arc from Fitzroy Square to Grafton Way, he’d noticed the flag on top of the Indian YMCAat half-mast and was puzzled; looked back twice to check the flag, then put it out of his head till Manish, in his faded maroon jumper, told him with that same look of concern: “Do you know Mrs. Gandhi’s been shot?” “What?” “Yes.” “Is she dead?” “They’re not saying.” That and the next day Ananda wondered if his country would splinter at the news; and would he be stranded in Warren Street if it did? And for how long then would he have to be here? He’d never before doubted his nation and its viability. But it survived and persisted through the violence and through the seasons. Manish, a bit of a divine messenger in disguise, continued to give Ananda the latest cricket scores along with the small change.
Surya. Helios. Phaeton’s dad.
The interiors of English houses weren’t built to cope with uninterrupted, heat-inducing sunshine. But odd how it conferred beauty, even on these very streets—Warren, and Whitfield, Grafton Way, even illuminating Charlotte Street, which otherwise seemed permanently to be in the shade. It wasn’t as if the sun was just the ruler of the universe that he, Walia, and even the Patels lived in; he was its creator—not only in sending out the ray of light that penetrated the seed and stirred the shoot. The sun wove maya—the fabric of the visible world. Some Hindus said that maya was dream, or illusion; but there was nothing else to speak of—the visible world was all there was. It was his work. Daily the enchantment recurred—except in England, not daily; there were weeks and months of anaemic reality, when the sun was reluctant, and Tottenham Court Road was an industrial version of itself. On such days, the lights of the night were more uplifting—the lamps, the lit shopwindows on Oxford Street, the neon advertising—than the light of day, and you prayed for the day’s end so you might seek out areas alive with artificial glitter. But today—like yesterday—the sun was out, and living as well as inert things verified his handiwork: shakchunni, the cabbages in the crate outside her shop, the newspaper rack—all were complicit in this work-in-progress: the day.
—
The English outside the Grafton Arms had taken off their shirts; expanses of pink with ruddy blotches, swigging down lager. If only they’d had more sun! This is what they’d have been like—semi-naked, sedentary, congregated in pairs or threes. They wouldn’t have needed Empire—because their souls would have been full.
Alas, that’s not the way history had turned out. The weather was what it was; Empire had happened; Ananda was here. Sometimes, in November, when the day shrank and grew damp, Ananda daydreamed about what it would have been like if India had been colonised by the Caribbean. He’d have been at a Caribbean university, in shirtsleeves the whole year. The thought consoled him as he made his way to Malet Street.
But that wasn’t how history turned out!—which is why he was in Warren Street rather than St. Kitts or St. Lucia. That’s why the people from St. Kitts and St. Lucia were here too—the little shop on the corner of Whitfield Street, with its euphoric spells of music.
Thank goodness for immigrants! They—tired West Indian women steering prams before them, Caribbean workmen at building sites, wrestling with each other during their breaks like teetering boys, Paki gentlemen in worn black suits, the sudden swarms of dark-skinned children following in the wake of a schoolteacher,even the industrious, practical, seldom-smiling Chinese—they brought some sunshine to a place starved of light. The Gujarati and Pakistani shopkeepers kept the day from sputtering
Times
at half past eleven one morning nine months ago; Ananda had overslept and had no idea the world had changed in the small hours. While making his usual pointless arc from Fitzroy Square to Grafton Way, he’d noticed the flag on top of the Indian YMCAat half-mast and was puzzled; looked back twice to check the flag, then put it out of his head till Manish, in his faded maroon jumper, told him with that same look of concern: “Do you know Mrs. Gandhi’s been shot?” “What?” “Yes.” “Is she dead?” “They’re not saying.” That and the next day Ananda wondered if his country would splinter at the news; and would he be stranded in Warren Street if it did? And for how long then would he have to be here? He’d never before doubted his nation and its viability. But it survived and persisted through the violence and through the seasons. Manish, a bit of a divine messenger in disguise, continued to give Ananda the latest cricket scores along with the small change.
Surya. Helios. Phaeton’s dad.
The interiors of English houses weren’t built to cope with uninterrupted, heat-inducing sunshine. But odd how it conferred beauty, even on these very streets—Warren, and Whitfield, Grafton Way, even illuminating Charlotte Street, which otherwise seemed permanently to be in the shade. It wasn’t as if the sun was just the ruler of the universe that he, Walia, and even the Patels lived in; he was its creator—not only in sending out the ray of light that penetrated the seed and stirred the shoot. The sun wove maya—the fabric of the visible world. Some Hindus said that maya was dream, or illusion; but there was nothing else to speak of—the visible world was all there was. It was his work. Daily the enchantment recurred—except in England, not daily; there were weeks and months of anaemic reality, when the sun was reluctant, and Tottenham Court Road was an industrial version of itself. On such days, the lights of the night were more uplifting—the lamps, the lit shopwindows on Oxford Street, the neon advertising—than the light of day, and you prayed for the day’s end so you might seek out areas alive with artificial glitter. But today—like yesterday—the sun was out, and living as well as inert things verified his handiwork: shakchunni, the cabbages in the crate outside her shop, the newspaper rack—all were complicit in this work-in-progress: the day.
—
The English outside the Grafton Arms had taken off their shirts; expanses of pink with ruddy blotches, swigging down lager. If only they’d had more sun! This is what they’d have been like—semi-naked, sedentary, congregated in pairs or threes. They wouldn’t have needed Empire—because their souls would have been full.
Alas, that’s not the way history had turned out. The weather was what it was; Empire had happened; Ananda was here. Sometimes, in November, when the day shrank and grew damp, Ananda daydreamed about what it would have been like if India had been colonised by the Caribbean. He’d have been at a Caribbean university, in shirtsleeves the whole year. The thought consoled him as he made his way to Malet Street.
But that wasn’t how history turned out!—which is why he was in Warren Street rather than St. Kitts or St. Lucia. That’s why the people from St. Kitts and St. Lucia were here too—the little shop on the corner of Whitfield Street, with its euphoric spells of music.
Thank goodness for immigrants! They—tired West Indian women steering prams before them, Caribbean workmen at building sites, wrestling with each other during their breaks like teetering boys, Paki gentlemen in worn black suits, the sudden swarms of dark-skinned children following in the wake of a schoolteacher,even the industrious, practical, seldom-smiling Chinese—they brought some sunshine to a place starved of light. The Gujarati and Pakistani shopkeepers kept the day from sputtering
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