special.
Thus, it was inevitable that when Sohrab showed an interest in model airplanes, Gustad was sure he would grow up to be an aeronautical engineer. Replicas of famous buildings, made to scale, brought forth predictions of brilliant architecture. And tinkering with mechanical things like can-openers could only mean one thing: a budding inventor. Of course, Sohrab’s lot could have been much worse, for the love and adulation of parents for their firstling have been guilty of far more terrible things.
Sohrab’s only perceptible failure during his school years befell his flirtation with insects. In the eighth standard he was awarded a prize for general proficiency, a book called Learning About Entomology. He read it, pondered the contents over a few days, then started catching butterflies and moths with a home-made net. He killed them in a tin containing wads of petrol-soaked cotton. When the fluttering ceased, he opened the tin and unfolded the wings gently. The wings were always clenched tight over the legs and proboscis, folded in the reverse of their natural direction, as if, in extremis, the butterfly had tried to fend off the noxious fumes by covering its head. In a race with rigor mortis, he stretched the four membranous wings symmetrically on a spreading board (also home-made). A few days later, dry and light as tissue paper, the butterfly would be ready for mounting.
Everyone praised his beautiful work. They admired the lovely colours and patterns on the wings as if he had had a personal hand in designing them. The specimens were pinned through their thoraxes and neatly mounted in the display case which he made from plywood with his great-grandfather’s tools. This was Gustad’s greatest source of joy: to see Sohrab use those tools. He repeated what he said so often, that it must be in the blood, this love of carpentry.
Then the moths and butterflies began to fall apart. Soon, maggots were crawling inside the case, and it was a nauseating sight. Day after day, Sohrab could do nothing but watch, paralysed. When the maggots finished their work, they disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived, and Sohrab threw the butterfly case on the dark shelf in the WC chawl.
But this failure, instead of scotching rumours of his genius, was not allowed to be his failure. Gustad was only too glad to shoulder the blame. ‘It was my fault,’ he said, ‘for getting petrol instead of carbon tetrachloride, and for not obtaining the proper drying agent Sohrab wanted.’
Sohrab chased no more after butterflies. To be the world’s premier insect scientist was deleted from Gustad’s catalogue of careers for his son. Afterwards, Sohrab focused only on mechanical things and things of the imagination. He dismantled and reassembled the alarm clock, repaired his mother’s mincer, and fashioned a still-projector with a magnifying glass found in Gustad’s desk. He projected on the front-room wall the frames from comics that came with the Sunday paper: Dagwood Bumstead’s family, or a life-size Phantom. Major Bilimoria was always there for the show, rising often to pose beside the image—imitating the Phantom by swinging a fist and uttering sounds like thud! pow! or wham! Then it would be time for the Sunday dhansak lunch.
Gustad’s and Dilnavaz’s proudest moment in Khodadad Building came when Sohrab put on a home-made production of King Lear, pressing Darius into service, plus a host of school and Building friends. The performance was held at the far end of the compound, and the audience brought their own chairs. Sohrab, of course, was Lear, producer, director, costume designer and set designer. He also wrote an abridged version of the play, wisely accepting that even an audience of doting parents could become catatonic if confronted by more than an hour’s worth of ultra-amateurish Shakespeare. But it was not till Sohrab was in college that it struck him curiously: Daddy never made pronouncements or dreamed dreams of an
Thus, it was inevitable that when Sohrab showed an interest in model airplanes, Gustad was sure he would grow up to be an aeronautical engineer. Replicas of famous buildings, made to scale, brought forth predictions of brilliant architecture. And tinkering with mechanical things like can-openers could only mean one thing: a budding inventor. Of course, Sohrab’s lot could have been much worse, for the love and adulation of parents for their firstling have been guilty of far more terrible things.
Sohrab’s only perceptible failure during his school years befell his flirtation with insects. In the eighth standard he was awarded a prize for general proficiency, a book called Learning About Entomology. He read it, pondered the contents over a few days, then started catching butterflies and moths with a home-made net. He killed them in a tin containing wads of petrol-soaked cotton. When the fluttering ceased, he opened the tin and unfolded the wings gently. The wings were always clenched tight over the legs and proboscis, folded in the reverse of their natural direction, as if, in extremis, the butterfly had tried to fend off the noxious fumes by covering its head. In a race with rigor mortis, he stretched the four membranous wings symmetrically on a spreading board (also home-made). A few days later, dry and light as tissue paper, the butterfly would be ready for mounting.
Everyone praised his beautiful work. They admired the lovely colours and patterns on the wings as if he had had a personal hand in designing them. The specimens were pinned through their thoraxes and neatly mounted in the display case which he made from plywood with his great-grandfather’s tools. This was Gustad’s greatest source of joy: to see Sohrab use those tools. He repeated what he said so often, that it must be in the blood, this love of carpentry.
Then the moths and butterflies began to fall apart. Soon, maggots were crawling inside the case, and it was a nauseating sight. Day after day, Sohrab could do nothing but watch, paralysed. When the maggots finished their work, they disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived, and Sohrab threw the butterfly case on the dark shelf in the WC chawl.
But this failure, instead of scotching rumours of his genius, was not allowed to be his failure. Gustad was only too glad to shoulder the blame. ‘It was my fault,’ he said, ‘for getting petrol instead of carbon tetrachloride, and for not obtaining the proper drying agent Sohrab wanted.’
Sohrab chased no more after butterflies. To be the world’s premier insect scientist was deleted from Gustad’s catalogue of careers for his son. Afterwards, Sohrab focused only on mechanical things and things of the imagination. He dismantled and reassembled the alarm clock, repaired his mother’s mincer, and fashioned a still-projector with a magnifying glass found in Gustad’s desk. He projected on the front-room wall the frames from comics that came with the Sunday paper: Dagwood Bumstead’s family, or a life-size Phantom. Major Bilimoria was always there for the show, rising often to pose beside the image—imitating the Phantom by swinging a fist and uttering sounds like thud! pow! or wham! Then it would be time for the Sunday dhansak lunch.
Gustad’s and Dilnavaz’s proudest moment in Khodadad Building came when Sohrab put on a home-made production of King Lear, pressing Darius into service, plus a host of school and Building friends. The performance was held at the far end of the compound, and the audience brought their own chairs. Sohrab, of course, was Lear, producer, director, costume designer and set designer. He also wrote an abridged version of the play, wisely accepting that even an audience of doting parents could become catatonic if confronted by more than an hour’s worth of ultra-amateurish Shakespeare. But it was not till Sohrab was in college that it struck him curiously: Daddy never made pronouncements or dreamed dreams of an
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