Arresting God in Kathmandu
Read Arresting God in Kathmandu Online
Authors: Samrat Upadhyay
Copyright © 2001 by Samrat Upadhyay
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Upadhyay, Samrat.
Arresting God in Kathmandu / Samrat Upadhyay.
p. cm.
ISBN
0-618-04371-3
1. Kathmandu (Nepal)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR
9570.
N
43
U
63 2001
823'.92—dc21 00-061328
e
ISBN
978-0-547-52621-8
v1.0914
To Ammi, Buwa, Babita, and Shahzadi
I want to thank the following people for their generosity of time and spirit, which shaped this book: my editor, Heidi Pitlor; my wife, Babita; and my teachers and friends Paul Lyons, Robbie Shapard, Ian MacMillan, and Mitsy Takahasi.
R
ADHIKA
was making the evening meal when Pramod gave her the news. The steam rising off the rotis she was cooking burned his nostrils, so he backed out of the kitchen and into the narrow hallway. When she turned off the gas and joined him, he put his arms behind his back and leaned against the wall.
“What should we do?” she whispered. Their seven-month-old baby was asleep in the next room.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Who could have foreseen this?”
“Hare Shiva,” she said. “How are we going to pay the next month’s rent?” Her eyes filled with tears.
“What’s the use of crying now? That’s why I never tell you anything. Instead of thinking with a cool mind, you start crying.”
“What should I do other than cry? You’ve worked there for three years, and they let you go, just like that? These people don’t have any heart.”
“It’s not their fault.” He tried to sound reasonable. “The company doesn’t have enough money.”
“So only you should suffer? Why not one of the new accountants? What about Suresh?”
“He knows computers,” Pramod said.
“He also knows influential people.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then opened the bedroom door to check on the baby.
“Okay, don’t cry. We’ll think of something. I’ll go and see Shambhu-da tomorrow.” Shambhu-da, though only a distant cousin of Radhika’s, was very fond of her and referred to her as his favorite sister. He was friends with a number of bureaucrats and had helped several relatives find jobs. Pramod knew Shambhu-da’s business was shady; he was involved in building contracts throughout the city that were the source of numerous under-the-table handouts. But if anyone could help him find a job, it would be Shambhu-da. “Something’s bound to happen,” Pramod told Radhika. “We will find a solution.”
Yet despite those spoken assurances, Pramod did not sleep well that night.
The next morning, while it was still dark, he went to the Pashupatinath Temple, made a slow round of the temple complex, and stood in line to get tika from the priest in the main shrine. After putting the paste on his forehead with his third finger, he prayed that Lord Shiva’s blessing would help him. When he was young, Pramod loved to visit this famous temple of Lord Shiva, who had protected the inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley since ancient times. He used to walk through the large complex, making his way among the other worshipers to touch the feet of the gods scattered throughout. But he hadn’t been here in months, and he briefly wondered whether he had neglected Shiva. By the time he stepped out of the temple’s main gate, the sky was tinged with gray, and he remembered that he would not have to go home to eat and change his clothes for work.
Yesterday afternoon, his director had called him into his office. “Pramod-ji, what can I say? Not everything is in my power.” Power, thought Pramod. Of course the director had the power!
On his way from the temple, Pramod saw pilgrims going to pay homage to Lord Shiva. The beggars who slept around the temple complex lined the side of the street, clanking their tin containers. When people threw money and food in their direction, the beggars would eye one another’s containers to see who’d got a better deal. The monkeys that roamed the area were also alert, ready to snatch bags and packets from people who looked timid. The smells of deep-fried jilebies, vegetable curry, and hot tea wafted from stalls.
Pramod noticed Homraj slowly walking toward the temple, his cane hanging from his arm. A few years ago Pramod had worked with him in the accounts department of the Education Ministry. Although Pramod turned his face as he passed, Homraj saw him. “Pramod-ji, I didn’t know you were such a religious man!” he shouted. Then, coming closer, he added, “What is the matter, Pramod-ji? Is everything all right?”
Pramod hesitated, then told him about the loss of his job.
“Tch, tch,” said Homraj, shaking his head. “I’d heard their profits weren’t so good, but I didn’t imagine they’d let go a diligent worker like you.”
The temple bells rang in the background as they stood in the middle of the street. Pramod remembered that he had to catch Shambhu-da before he left for work, so he excused himself.
At Shambhu-da’s house, he found two other men waiting in the living room. An old servant told Pramod that Shambhu-da was still doing puja, praying and chanting to the gods, but would join him after half an hour. Pramod sat down on the sofa, and the two men looked at him suspiciously as he gazed at the pictures of religious figures on the wall. He ignored the men and concentrated on the framed picture of Lord Shiva with the snake god, Nag, around his blue neck. After a few minutes, one of the men asked, “Aren’t you Prakash-ji?’’
Pramod gave him an irritated look and said, “No. My name is Pramod.”
“Oh, yes, yes, Pramod-ji. Why did I say Prakash? I know you. You’re Shambhu-da’s brother-in-law, aren’t you?” He was a small, ill-dressed man with a pointed nose and a pinched mouth.
Pramod nodded.
“I met you here a year ago. Don’t you remember me?”
Pramod shook his head.
“Kamalkanth; that’s my name.” The man looked at him expectantly. The other man, who had a broad, dull face, nodded.
“So what brings you here this morning?” Kamalkanth asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Pramod wished the man would stop asking questions.
But he didn’t. “You work for Better Finance, don’t you?”
Pramod was about to say something when the servant appeared with three glasses of tea and announced that Shambhu-da was coming out. Now all three men concentrated on the doorway, where Shambhu-da shortly appeared.
He was wearing only a dhoti, his hairy stomach and his ample breasts bulging above it, and was singing a hymn, one from the puja he performed every morning. After solemnly distributing fruit offerings from the gods to his guests, he asked the servant to bring him juice.
“What brings you here today, brother-in-law?” Shambhu-da asked Pramod.
“Oh, it’s been quite a few days, so I just came to see about your health. Radhika sends her regards.”
Shambhu-da nodded and turned toward the other men.
Kamalkanth took a sheaf of paper from his briefcase and said, “I have arranged everything here in order, Shambhu-da. All the figures are accurate—I checked them again and again.”
“All right,” said Shambhu-da. “Why don’t you two come back next week? Then we can sit down and talk about your commission.”
The two men left, smiling obsequiously, and Shambhu-da turned his attention to Pramod.
“Everything is finished, Shambhu-da,” Pramod said. “I’m finished.”
Shambhu-da took a sip of juice.
“I’ve lost my job.”
“Why?” Shambhu-da didn’t look the least bit perturbed.
“They say the company doesn’t have any money.”
“Do they have other accountants?”
“Yes, there’s a young man who knows computers.”
“Ah, yes, computers. They’re very fashionable these days, aren’t they?” Shambhu-da smiled, then became serious again. “This is no good. No good. Hmmmmm. How is my favorite sister taking all this? How is the baby?” When the baby was born, Shambhu-da had declared that he would be her godfather. Pramod hadn’t liked the idea, but Radhika assured him that if something were to happen to them, Shambhu-da would see to it that their baby didn’t suffer.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Shambhu-da said. “We’ll come up with a solution. Not to worry.” He asked Pramod about the director and jotted down his name. Then he stretched and yawned. The telephone rang and Shambhu-da became engrossed in a conversation, mumbling
hmmm
and
eh
every so often. Pramod looked at all the paintings of the religious figures on the walls—Kali, Ganesh, Vishnu, Shiva—and wondered whether they had anything to do with Shambhu-da’s prosperity and quiet confidence. When he realized that the telephone conversation was not going to end soon, he got up to leave, and Shambhu-da, covering the mouthpiece with his palm, said, “I will see what I can do.”
Everyone came to know about Pramod, and everywhere he went, friends and relatives gave him sympathetic looks. He was sure that some, those who saw his work at the finance company as lucrative and of high status, were inwardly gloating over his misery. But he tried to act cheerful, telling his friends and relatives these things happen to everyone and that he would certainly find another job. After all, his years of experience as an accountant had to count for something.
He hated his voice when he said this. He hated his smile, which painfully stretched the skin around his mouth; he hated having to explain to everyone why he had lost his job; he hated their commiseration; and he hated Radhika’s forlorn look, especially when they were with her relatives, who were more well-off than those on his side.
Every morning before sunrise, he walked to the Pashupatinath Temple. The fresh air cleared his mind, and he found solace in the temple lights before they were switched off at dawn. A couple of times he came across Homraj, who always asked anxiously, “Anything yet?” Eventually Pramod timed his walks so that he would not run into Homraj again.
And every day, after his trip to the temple, Pramod visited people of influence, those who had the power to maneuver him into a job without his undergoing the rigors of an examination or an interview. He tried to maintain faith that something would indeed turn up, that one day he would find himself in an office of his own, seated behind a desk, with a boy to bring him tea every couple of hours. He missed the ritual of going to the office, greeting his colleagues, settling down for the day’s work, even though he had been doing the same job for years. He delighted in juggling numbers, calculating percentages, making entries in his neat handwriting. He loved solving math problems in his head, and saw it as a challenge to refrain from using a calculator until the last moment, or only as a means of verification. He loved the midday lull, when everyone in the office ordered snacks and tea, and a feeling of camaraderie came over the workplace: people laughing and eating, talking about mundane things that happened at home, teasing one another, commenting on politics.
Pramod kept up his visits to Shambhu-da’s residence, showing his face every week or so, asking whether anything had come up, reminding Shambhu-da of his predicament, playing on the sense of family by mentioning, every so often, that Radhika was his favorite sister. On every visit, Shambhu-da assured Pramod that a job prospect appeared likely and would be certain within a few days. But even though Shambhu-da nodded gravely when Pramod described his strained financial situation, Pramod realized that he had to wait longer and longer to see Shambhu-da. Kamalkanth snickered whenever they happened to be there at the same time. Sometimes when he and his companion looked at Pramod and murmured to each other, Pramod felt like leaving and forgetting about Shambhu-da once and for all.