our blue van, being passed through all three sections of it depending on his fancy, his long, soon to be cut locks flying this way and that.
Before leaving the small town, we hit traffic. Orange-faced trucks with large loads crowded the narrow street. On the petrol tank of one, there was a drawing of a palm and dune. Below, white letters read: ‘Iraqi water. Drink frugally, my queen.’ For many minutes, the line of trucks didn’t move. Aakash admired a new house: ‘Look at the kind of houses people are building.’ I had thought at first the remark was a sneer, but I was wrong; it was a compliment. The house was narrow, four storeys high, in beige sandstone, with red grilles, balconies and silvered windows.
When the traffic didn’t move, Uttam tried to slip ahead of the queue. The minute the van nosed out of its lane, it was honked at angrily by oncoming traffic. The queue had closed behind us and Uttam was left with no choice but to take the car to the right, across the oncoming lane, as far off the road as he could. As soon as he did, the tyres caught in deep black mud. One by one, they confessed the futility of their revolutions.
Aakash jumped out to push, as did Anil; I hesitated, then got out too. At first they thought putting bricks under the tyres would be enough for them to catch, but soon it was clear that they would have to push the car on to the bricks. My position on the left was not ideal; the patch widened where I stood, I was wearing sandals. Despite my uncomfortable angle to the car, I pushed. The car broke its inertia, but just as the wheels left the deep grooves they had made, they splattered black mud on to my white pajama. My right leg was covered from my sandals to the hem of my kurta. Aakash roared with laughter, not now that self-deprecating laugh, but a harsh, instinctive cackle. Uttam appeared and began to wipe furiously at the mud, making things worse. I buried the anger I would normally have shown him for fear of being singled out as soft and privileged.
‘You should have left it,’ Aakash said, when his laughter subsided. ‘There’s a technique in pushing.’
I wanted to hit him. Uttam saw this and brought out a bottle of water from the back. Aakash took it from him and poured it down my leg, squeezing mud and water out of my pajama. Then he washed my feet, looking up at me the entire time. It was a difficult gesture to read. I couldn’t tell if it was like the tenderness he’d shown me in the teashop or whether, by tending to me so thoroughly, he was further asserting his power as a man who could do anything.
After a short drive on a country road, past flat fields of ripened wheat, their arrows hard and golden like wasps, heralding better than any number of flowering trees the approach of summer, we arrived at a small open-air temple in the shade of a peepal tree. A pool of green water lay some metres below, surrounded by pale land.
‘This first temple,’ Aakash’s father said as we got out of the car, ‘honours an even older ancestor than the one I spoke of in the car. It is from him that we derive our caste.’
‘How old?’
‘Oh, I can’t say!’ Aakash’s father said. ‘Three, five, seven hundred years old. All I know is that it was even before the British time in India. It was during the Mughal time when Akbar was emperor.’
‘So, in the sixteenth century?’
‘Yes, maybe. Anyway, in that time, this ancestor did paltiyans from here to Jagannath Puri. When he arrived, the temple doors were closed. So he says, “If I have shakti in me, these doors will open.” The priest there said, “These doors will never open. Jagannath, Lord of the World, will not see you now.” My ancestor said, “Move aside. You’re just a priest; I speak directly to my god.” And, phataak, the doors of the temple swung open, Jagannath himself appearing. He said, “Ask, if you ever meant to ask.” My ancestor fell to his feet and asked the great Lord of the World that no one in
Before leaving the small town, we hit traffic. Orange-faced trucks with large loads crowded the narrow street. On the petrol tank of one, there was a drawing of a palm and dune. Below, white letters read: ‘Iraqi water. Drink frugally, my queen.’ For many minutes, the line of trucks didn’t move. Aakash admired a new house: ‘Look at the kind of houses people are building.’ I had thought at first the remark was a sneer, but I was wrong; it was a compliment. The house was narrow, four storeys high, in beige sandstone, with red grilles, balconies and silvered windows.
When the traffic didn’t move, Uttam tried to slip ahead of the queue. The minute the van nosed out of its lane, it was honked at angrily by oncoming traffic. The queue had closed behind us and Uttam was left with no choice but to take the car to the right, across the oncoming lane, as far off the road as he could. As soon as he did, the tyres caught in deep black mud. One by one, they confessed the futility of their revolutions.
Aakash jumped out to push, as did Anil; I hesitated, then got out too. At first they thought putting bricks under the tyres would be enough for them to catch, but soon it was clear that they would have to push the car on to the bricks. My position on the left was not ideal; the patch widened where I stood, I was wearing sandals. Despite my uncomfortable angle to the car, I pushed. The car broke its inertia, but just as the wheels left the deep grooves they had made, they splattered black mud on to my white pajama. My right leg was covered from my sandals to the hem of my kurta. Aakash roared with laughter, not now that self-deprecating laugh, but a harsh, instinctive cackle. Uttam appeared and began to wipe furiously at the mud, making things worse. I buried the anger I would normally have shown him for fear of being singled out as soft and privileged.
‘You should have left it,’ Aakash said, when his laughter subsided. ‘There’s a technique in pushing.’
I wanted to hit him. Uttam saw this and brought out a bottle of water from the back. Aakash took it from him and poured it down my leg, squeezing mud and water out of my pajama. Then he washed my feet, looking up at me the entire time. It was a difficult gesture to read. I couldn’t tell if it was like the tenderness he’d shown me in the teashop or whether, by tending to me so thoroughly, he was further asserting his power as a man who could do anything.
After a short drive on a country road, past flat fields of ripened wheat, their arrows hard and golden like wasps, heralding better than any number of flowering trees the approach of summer, we arrived at a small open-air temple in the shade of a peepal tree. A pool of green water lay some metres below, surrounded by pale land.
‘This first temple,’ Aakash’s father said as we got out of the car, ‘honours an even older ancestor than the one I spoke of in the car. It is from him that we derive our caste.’
‘How old?’
‘Oh, I can’t say!’ Aakash’s father said. ‘Three, five, seven hundred years old. All I know is that it was even before the British time in India. It was during the Mughal time when Akbar was emperor.’
‘So, in the sixteenth century?’
‘Yes, maybe. Anyway, in that time, this ancestor did paltiyans from here to Jagannath Puri. When he arrived, the temple doors were closed. So he says, “If I have shakti in me, these doors will open.” The priest there said, “These doors will never open. Jagannath, Lord of the World, will not see you now.” My ancestor said, “Move aside. You’re just a priest; I speak directly to my god.” And, phataak, the doors of the temple swung open, Jagannath himself appearing. He said, “Ask, if you ever meant to ask.” My ancestor fell to his feet and asked the great Lord of the World that no one in
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