the motor parts shop
and the IT school through the screen of ashok trees. At once he is in
a different world. The first thing money buys in India is privacy.
The street roar is hushed to a pulse. The insanity of his city is
shut out.
The house staff has lit naphtha flares all along the drive to welcome
the returned prodigal. Drummers greet Vishram Ray with a tattoo and
escort the car, and there is the house, wide and proud and
unbelievably white in the floods. Vishram finds uninvited tears in
his eyes. When he was beneath its roof he had always been ashamed to
acknowledge that he lived in a palace, cringing at its pillars and
pediments and wide portico screened with honeysuckle and hibiscus,
its bloody whiteness, its interior of swept marble and old quaint,
pornographic wood carvings and ceilings painted in the Nepali style.
A family of merchants had built it in the British days in a style to
remind them of home. The Shanker Mahal, they named it. Now that
adolescent contempt, that embarrassment at being privileged, is swept
away as he steps out and the house assails him with the old
remembered smells of dust and neem trees and the musk of the
rhododendrons and the faint reek of the sewage system that never
really worked.
They await him on the steps. Old Shastri, on the lowest rung, already
namasteing. Flanking him, the house staff, in two wings, the women to
his left, the men to the right. Ram Das the venerable gardener is
still there, an incredible age now but still zealous as ever, Vishram
doesn't doubt, in his eternal war against the monkeys. On the middle
rank, his brothers. Eldest Ramesh seems taller and thinner than ever,
as if the gravity of the interstellar objects he studies is drawing
him into the sky, spinning him into a rope of inquiry. Still no
significant female. Even in Glasgow, Vishram heard Bharati diaspora
rumours about weekend specials to Bangkok. Next, perfect brother,
Govind. Perfect suit perfect wife perfect twin heirs Runu and Satish.
Vishram sees the middle body fat piling around his chest. The stellar
DiDi, former breakfast-tivi presenter and trophy bride, is at his
side. At her side the aya cradles the latest line in the dynasty. A
girl. How 2047. Vishram coos and chuckles little Priya but something
about her gives him the idea that she's a Brahmin. Something primal,
pheromonal, a shift in the body chemistry.
His mother holds the top step; superior in her deference, as Vishram
always remembers her. A shadow among the pillars. His father is not
present.
"Where's Dadaji?" Vishram asks.
"He will meet us tomorrow at the head office," is all his
mother will say.
"Do you know what this is about?" Vishram asks Ramesh when
the greetings and cryings and look-at-you-haven't-you-got-bigs? are
done. Ramesh shakes his head as Shastri motions with a finger for a
porter to carry Vishram's case up to his room. Vishram doesn't want
to answer questions about the limo, so he begs jet lag and takes
himself off to bed. He'd expected to be given his old room, but the
porter guides him to a guest bedroom on the sunrise side of the
house. Vishram is affronted at being treated as a stranger and
sojourner. Then, as he settles his few things in the huge mahogany
wardrobes and tallboys, he is glad not to have his childhood
possessions watching him as he returns from his life beyond them.
They would drag him back, revert him to teenage again. The old place
never had air-conditioning worth a damn so he lies naked on the
sheets, appalled by the heat, reading faces in the foliage of the
painted ceiling, and listening to the rattle of monkey hands and feet
in the vines outside his window. He lies on the edge of sleep,
slipping towards unconsciousness and reawakening with a start as some
half-forgotten sound breaks through from the city beyond. Conceding
defeat, Vishram goes naked on to the iron balcony. The air and the
perfume of the city of Siva powder his skin. Clusters of winking
aircraft lights move over the hazy yellow
and the IT school through the screen of ashok trees. At once he is in
a different world. The first thing money buys in India is privacy.
The street roar is hushed to a pulse. The insanity of his city is
shut out.
The house staff has lit naphtha flares all along the drive to welcome
the returned prodigal. Drummers greet Vishram Ray with a tattoo and
escort the car, and there is the house, wide and proud and
unbelievably white in the floods. Vishram finds uninvited tears in
his eyes. When he was beneath its roof he had always been ashamed to
acknowledge that he lived in a palace, cringing at its pillars and
pediments and wide portico screened with honeysuckle and hibiscus,
its bloody whiteness, its interior of swept marble and old quaint,
pornographic wood carvings and ceilings painted in the Nepali style.
A family of merchants had built it in the British days in a style to
remind them of home. The Shanker Mahal, they named it. Now that
adolescent contempt, that embarrassment at being privileged, is swept
away as he steps out and the house assails him with the old
remembered smells of dust and neem trees and the musk of the
rhododendrons and the faint reek of the sewage system that never
really worked.
They await him on the steps. Old Shastri, on the lowest rung, already
namasteing. Flanking him, the house staff, in two wings, the women to
his left, the men to the right. Ram Das the venerable gardener is
still there, an incredible age now but still zealous as ever, Vishram
doesn't doubt, in his eternal war against the monkeys. On the middle
rank, his brothers. Eldest Ramesh seems taller and thinner than ever,
as if the gravity of the interstellar objects he studies is drawing
him into the sky, spinning him into a rope of inquiry. Still no
significant female. Even in Glasgow, Vishram heard Bharati diaspora
rumours about weekend specials to Bangkok. Next, perfect brother,
Govind. Perfect suit perfect wife perfect twin heirs Runu and Satish.
Vishram sees the middle body fat piling around his chest. The stellar
DiDi, former breakfast-tivi presenter and trophy bride, is at his
side. At her side the aya cradles the latest line in the dynasty. A
girl. How 2047. Vishram coos and chuckles little Priya but something
about her gives him the idea that she's a Brahmin. Something primal,
pheromonal, a shift in the body chemistry.
His mother holds the top step; superior in her deference, as Vishram
always remembers her. A shadow among the pillars. His father is not
present.
"Where's Dadaji?" Vishram asks.
"He will meet us tomorrow at the head office," is all his
mother will say.
"Do you know what this is about?" Vishram asks Ramesh when
the greetings and cryings and look-at-you-haven't-you-got-bigs? are
done. Ramesh shakes his head as Shastri motions with a finger for a
porter to carry Vishram's case up to his room. Vishram doesn't want
to answer questions about the limo, so he begs jet lag and takes
himself off to bed. He'd expected to be given his old room, but the
porter guides him to a guest bedroom on the sunrise side of the
house. Vishram is affronted at being treated as a stranger and
sojourner. Then, as he settles his few things in the huge mahogany
wardrobes and tallboys, he is glad not to have his childhood
possessions watching him as he returns from his life beyond them.
They would drag him back, revert him to teenage again. The old place
never had air-conditioning worth a damn so he lies naked on the
sheets, appalled by the heat, reading faces in the foliage of the
painted ceiling, and listening to the rattle of monkey hands and feet
in the vines outside his window. He lies on the edge of sleep,
slipping towards unconsciousness and reawakening with a start as some
half-forgotten sound breaks through from the city beyond. Conceding
defeat, Vishram goes naked on to the iron balcony. The air and the
perfume of the city of Siva powder his skin. Clusters of winking
aircraft lights move over the hazy yellow
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