Finding Arun (15 page)

‘Really you don’t have to,’ quipped Hanara
spitefully, sharply contrasting with Lucky’s now shining face.

‘Fine, then it is settled. Now, if you are not
eating, then at least I am taking you back to Puri.’

Aaron nodded his agreement, unsure how he would get
back to the city otherwise.

‘Where are you staying?’

‘At the Mayfair Beach Resort Hotel.’

‘What a surprise,’ Hanara mouthed sarcastically,
tutting in disapproval.

Lucky and Aaron both ignored her and, beaming, Lucky
scampered off to his room in search of something to cover his
chest. Feeling uncomfortable with the silence, Aaron started to say
something, but swiftly changed his mind, not wanting to incite yet
more of Hanara’s wrath. Lucky quickly returned wearing a thin beige
shirt that hung loosely from his slight frame and the pair made
their way outside towards his rickshaw. Hanara followed them as far
as the front door, but remained tacit when Aaron wished her
goodbye.

Huge clouds of terracotta dust were generated as
they made their way back to Puri and without the shelter provided
by a proper taxi, Aaron found himself intermittently covering his
mouth to keep from inhaling deep lungfuls of the powdery earth.
Appearing to be immune to the plumes of dirt, Lucky rambled on
relentlessly throughout the journey, asking Aaron all of the
questions that they hadn’t had time for back at the house. He was
eager to learn all that he could about his brother and seemed
particularly intrigued by his lifestyle back in England. Aaron did
his best to answer between mouthfuls of dust and by the time they
were approaching the Mayfair Beach Resort Hotel, Lucky seemed quite
disappointed to learn that Aaron’s life was not quite the glamorous
existence that he had imagined.

‘So you really don’t know any of the royal
family?’

‘No, Lucky, I'm afraid that I don’t,’ answered
Aaron, chuckling at the absurdity of the question as he hopped out
of the rickshaw.

He approached the front cabin and found himself in
the uncomfortable position of not knowing whether he ought to pay
Lucky for the ride; the journey was not exactly a short one and
chauffeuring tourists around the city was, after all, his brother’s
livelihood. Not wanting to appear rude or presumptuous, Aaron
fished in his pockets until he felt the crumple of notes beneath
his fingers and pulled out two hundred rupees. Lucky looked at him,
at once insulted.

‘Please, keep your money.’

‘But you’ve driven me all this way, I –’

Lucky held up his hand, immediately silencing
Aaron’s feeble protestations.

‘What is it if I can’t even give my only brother a
ride?’

Aaron was once again touched and humbled by Lucky’s
words. Lucky would still have to make his way back to the village
and the round trip would consume not only his time, but a
considerable amount of fuel too. Yet there he was, a relative
stranger with a beguiling crooked smile, who in the space of a few
short hours had unquestioningly welcomed Aaron into both his heart
and his home.

‘Thank you,’ he said in his sincerest tone, ‘you
really didn’t have to.’

‘No, Aaron, thank you. You didn’t have to come
back.’

THE following morning, Aaron was enjoying his second
cup of chai in the hotel restaurant, when the waitress delivered
two slips of paper bearing the hotel’s letterhead to his table.
Surprised and intrigued, he quickly opened out the first of the two
notes and began to read the neatly printed message.

ROOM 702: MR RUTHERFORD, AARON

22/05/12

CALL FROM MR RUTHERFORD, ARTHUR AT 8.42 PM

PLEASE RETURN THE CALL

Aaron glanced at his watch: it was nine o’clock on
the 23rd May. He had no idea how he had missed Arthur’s call the
night before, especially since he had lain awake in his room for
much of the evening, mulling over the events of the day. It was too
late in the night to call home now and he would have to return the
call later, but such an arrangement suited him better. He still
wasn’t certain how he felt about everything that he had learned and
moreover how he was going to explain it all to Arthur, but he knew
that the old man would be quick to rubbish any hypothesis that
might incriminate his beloved wife. Putting the first message to
one side, he opened up the second to find a handwritten note,
scrawled in the ink from a leaky blue ballpoint pen.

Hello Arun!

I came very early to the hotel, but you are not yet
awake. I am doing a few jobs and then I will come back to pick you
from the hotel at 10.00 am.

Hope you will be awake!

Your brother, Lucky

Aaron felt a warm, fuzzy feeling wash over him at
the words on the page and he was once again struck by Lucky’s
thoughtfulness and generosity. Though Hanara’s scathing words had
played on his mind for much of the evening, Lucky’s kindness and
convivial hospitality had more than compensated for them, and it
had left Aaron feeling a strange sense of attachment and acceptance
that he hadn’t anticipated. Excitedly, he glugged down the last of
his chai and rushed upstairs to prepare himself for the day
ahead.

At ten o’clock sharp he presented himself outside of
the front of the hotel, but Lucky had not yet arrived. He chatted
amicably with the concierge, who by now boasted a healthy
fascination with his unusual requests for transport to destinations
distinctly off the tourist map, but half an hour later Lucky was
still nowhere to be seen. Just when Aaron was beginning to worry
that something untoward might have occurred, he spied Lucky’s
rickshaw, bedecked in stickers professing his allegiance to the
Indian national cricket team, pulling up outside the hotel. The
concierge was quick off the mark, stepping into the road to shout
angrily at Lucky and to wave him out of the hotel grounds.

‘Wait! What are you doing?’ cried Aaron, leaping to
Lucky’s defence.

‘Rickshaws are not allowed, sir. Only official taxis
for the hotel guests.’

‘He’s not here for the hotel guests, he’s here for
me.’

‘I don’t understand. Do you know this man, sir?’

‘Yes, he’s my brother,’ declared Aaron proudly.

Lucky peeked out of the rickshaw and beamed at him,
his sweet, crooked smile consuming his entire face. Aaron flashed
him a conspiratorial grin while the concierge apologised profusely,
mortified to have caused offence to a hotel guest. When he was
satisfied that Aaron had accepted his apology and would not be
making a complaint, he moved aside to allow the young man to
clamber into the rickshaw behind Lucky.

‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning, brother,’ replied Lucky brightly.

‘I was beginning to think that you weren’t
coming.’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘Because you’re almost an hour later than you said
that you’d be.’

‘Oh that is nothing only, Aaron. Nobody in India is
ever on time; you will see. In fact I am early actually.’

Aaron chuckled at Lucky’s nonsensical logic, but he
didn’t press the matter any further. He was simply grateful to be
in the shining young man’s company once again.

‘Are we going back to your house?’

‘Eventually,’ Lucky answered with a mischievous
twinkle in his eye.

He guided the rickshaw out of the hotel complex and,
after a near- collision with an oncoming motorcycle, joined the
morning madness on Puri’s roads. The day was already hot and
sticky, causing the city’s impatient drivers to be more irritable
than usual as they sounded long blasts on their horns, fed up of
trying to advance through the gridlock. Ordinarily Aaron would have
demanded to know exactly where they were going, but there was
something about his big brother’s innocently disarming smile that
put Aaron at ease, and he was happy to simply sit back and take in
the view on the way to wherever Lucky was planning to take him.

It happened that Lucky had taken it upon himself to
act as Aaron’s tour guide for the day. During their journey back to
Puri the previous night, he had been horrified to learn that Aaron
knew almost nothing about his birthplace, and moreover that he
hadn’t been to, nor did he plan to, visit the many temples and
sites in and around the city. Orissa was a unique state, in which
custom and tradition had been carefully preserved despite the
seasonal influx of tourists and pilgrims to its treasure trove of
sites, and Lucky wanted Aaron to know and love his hometown as much
as he did.

He wasted no time showing off the best of the city,
weaving in and out of the traffic along the coastal road, affording
his brother breathtaking views over the Bay of Bengal. The sea was
a glittering, shimmering expanse as the midday sun reflected off
its shiny surface, and Aaron found himself captivated by its simple
charms as he watched the fishermen trawling amongst the gleaming
waters. They had almost travelled the length of the beach, when
Lucky abruptly turned inland and, beyond a fortified wall, the tops
of an elaborate building complex came into view in the
distance.

Two glistening, white-tiered pyramids sat in front
of a tall stone tower crowned by an eight-spoke wheel, which itself
rose up mightily from between several smaller, salmon-pink
buildings and walls. They drew closer and closer, until Aaron
became overwhelmed trying to take in the sheer size of the
labyrinthine structures.

‘What is that?’ he shouted, leaning forward so that
Lucky could hear him over the rhythmic chugging of the rickshaw’s
engine.

‘That is the great Jagannath Mandir,’ Lucky shouted
over his shoulder.

‘What’s a Jagannath Mandir?’

‘It’s a temple, for Lord Jagannath, one of our
gods,’ explained Lucky, pressing his foot harder on the accelerator
so that they began to speed even faster towards the cluster of
buildings.

When they eventually reached the area surrounding
the Jagannath Mandir, Lucky was forced to slow back down as the
roads, overrun with crowds of people, became almost impossible to
navigate. Day-tripping tourists poured forth en masse from large
coaches, vendors sold food, souvenirs and religious offerings at
the roadside, and beggars and hustlers surrounded the mandir trying
to procure whatever they could. It was at once a majestically
chaotic sight to behold, but one that Aaron was becoming accustomed
to and now even associated with India.

Lucky parked alongside a long line of other
rickshaws and hopped out of the front cabin, motioning for Aaron to
follow him. Still in awe at the beauty of the Jagannath Mandir,
Aaron dutifully trailed behind him, his eyes never leaving the
spectacle so that invariably he trod on the backs of Lucky’s heels
several times as they meandered through the crowd. Lucky led Aaron
around the fortified wall that surrounded the complex, delivering a
thorough and obviously well-versed explanation of the mandir’s
history, buildings and significance within the Hindu faith. Aaron
listened intently, enthralled by the many stories, and by the
richness of the traditions and customs of a culture that he
suddenly felt ashamed not to know more intimately.

The Rutherfords were quintessentially British, as
were most of their friends, family and surroundings, to the extent
that Aaron had never encountered anyone even remotely ethnic unless
he was on holiday. It was what had made him stand out so much
growing up and equally the reason that he had never really felt
comfortable in his own skin. Yet to his surprise and delight,
though many of the ideas and practices that Lucky described were
alien, they somehow resonated with him, touching his soul with the
familiarity of an old friend. Eager to learn more, his appetite for
information became insatiable, but Lucky’s patience never waned,
and he answered all of Aaron’s questions so expertly that people
were soon surreptitiously following them and listening to his
unofficial guided tour.

An hour later, when they had completely
circumnavigated the wall, they found themselves back outside of the
main entrance where, much to Aaron’s confusion, Lucky began to lead
him away from the mandir.

‘Wait! Aren’t we going to go inside? I want to see
all of the things that you’ve just been telling me about.’

‘Ah, but you are not allowed to go inside,
Aaron.’

‘Yes I am, Lucky, look – people are going
inside.’

‘Look carefully,’ Lucky answered simply, nodding in
the direction of the mandir entrance.

Aaron glanced over at the gate where the police were
checking crowds of people before allowing them beyond the walls of
the complex.

‘I don’t get it,’ moaned Aaron, still mystified.

‘
Only Indians are allowed inside, Aaron. Even
only
Hindu
Indians
are permitted,’ he added for precision.

Aaron glanced over at the gate again and, sure
enough, not one of the throng of visitors entering and exiting the
mandir looked foreign.

‘Why is that?’ he asked curiously, feeling like an
outsider all over again.

‘I’m not certain exactly. It has not always been
this way, but I think some foreign people made a trouble in the
mandir one day and now they don’t allow any foreign people
inside.’

‘Couldn’t we try?’ whined Aaron, feeling slightly
put out. ‘I am Indian after all … and they don’t know that I’m not
Hindu.’

‘Oh no,’ replied Lucky gravely, furiously shaking
his head, ‘we mustn’t lie, Aaron. Lying is wrong, especially in the
mandir. They are making all sorts of checks and they will know it
for sure that you are not Hindu; I don’t want to get a
punishment.’

Lucky looked genuinely fearful of the consequences
of any attempt to break the mandir’s rules and his face was so
serious that Aaron could only laugh, conceding that they would not
be going inside.