Ode to Broken Things (15 page)

She had realised this in the confusion of a night in Ohio ten months ago. Pitch black and cold outside, there had been a lunar eclipse swallowing up the moon in imperceptible bites, gradually. The moon was supposed to turn a livid red but, instead, there had been a gradual darkening until it was gone.

Agni, weary and tired, had stood shivering on the large balcony of the motel. She had asked herself what was waiting at the core of it all, still waiting to be discovered, to make it all bearable. And the darkness and the coldness answered her question:
Nothing
.

Greg had changed, and so had America. She had returned to the room and made love to Greg out of regret and a sense of finality.

Her grandmother’s stroke, eight months ago, had brought her back to Malaysia permanently.

Then, one day in April, when the gaiety of the Bengali New Year forced her into another communal gathering in Port Dickson, Agni found herself alone on the beach, fleeing the claustrophobic concern of relatives. The sand was coarse and loose as she walked with difficulty, her feet leaving shallow imprints on the beach. The breeze blew lazy clouds across a sky that was turning dark, swallowing the distant mountains in a blue mist. Far away, she could see some bathers, most likely Malay or Indian women who were fully clothed, and their full skirts billowed like parachutes in the undulating sea.

She had stopped, shocked by the recognition in that scene.

She felt the familiar band around her throat squeezing it tight, leaving her breathless. The women sank with the waves and she closed her eyes.

When she forced them open again, she saw the women rise again and, within the wave that crashed at her feet, she could hear the sound of their laughter – a happy sorority. The pain loosened its grip as she sucked in the salty sea breeze, exhaling the ghost.

New beginnings, she had thought, sinking into the waters of the Straits of Malacca, which washed her clean. Even under the setting sun, sweat beaded her upper lip with a hint of moisture, but the water felt deliciously cool. The waves soaked into her with a sharp rush, and she felt herself sinking into the sand and mudwater.

The wet sand in her cupped palms swirled and clung to her hand. In the breeze she felt the intangible spirit of the land:
I, too, am a child of this soil; I will make it my own
.

I, too, am a bumiputri.

It was her history, Indian and Malay and Chinese and much miscegenation, which had been played out on these shores, and she could hear the voice of Shapna, from the depths of a childhood memory:

In ancient times, ships would set sail from an east Indian port, past the Nicobar Islands, on the breath of the north-east monsoon that breaks in October. From there, they would head for the protected seas west of the island of Sumatra. The Kedah peak stood tall as a landmark from far out at sea, and the sailors used it for navigation. Some ships sailed northwards, to the Isthmus of Kra, where traders would then cross the narrow stretch of land, where they would stay for months, until the winds of the southwest monsoon began guiding them home in May. This was the rhythm of trade, for a mere twelve hundred miles separated ports on the eastern coast of India from the western Malayan ports.

In the Bujang Valley, between the Merbok River and Gunung Jerai, there is an archaeological site with ancient temples and Hindu statues and a museum with ancient relics
.
It’s a place where the Indian traders left their footprints from a pre-Islamic age.

Agni had always made fun of Abhik’s involvement in grass-roots groups, teased him about a lawyer’s need to chase ambulances in different forms, but maybe, now, it was time for her to try to belong here as much as he did.

More than anything else, since Shapna’s stroke, Agni had been hounded by the unanswered questions about her past. Shapna’s silence, she knew, meant another chapter closing forever on her own history. It was time for her to find her own answers, to stop running, and make this country her own.

She had her eyes closed but, when she felt another presence, she knew Abhik had come. The slight turbulence in the water touched her before he did.

“Hello Bondhu,” he wiped away a wet curl, “You okay?”

He grabbed a fistful of wet sand, slowly releasing it on her hand, the grains of a caress.

She had meant only to nod, but the swell of the sea and the soft mud under her feet made her tumble towards him. He caught her easily, a thumb grazing a breast, and it seemed only natural that she should blend into him, into arms that seemed to fit just right around her body, to press her mouth into his, and let his tongue in. He tasted of the sea, of salt, and earth, and a slight sweet residue. He was real and solid, and Agni, nudged by the waves and the yielding sand under her toes, let herself go, slowly sinking into something which felt like coming home.

The breeze had carried the laughter of the women in
saris
, swimming lazily to shore, their sodden
pallus
like colourful trains behind them.

He was already an hour late for the Deepavali Open House at his grandparents’ home. Abhik sped up the sloping driveway, taking the curve with his foot on the accelerator and swinging the car violently at the apex. The last thing he expected on the top of the drive was the beaten up Peugeot.

“Slow down!” Agni shrieked next to him.

Abhik hit the brakes with the deftness of long practice. The wheels of the
BMW
churned the gravel as it veered off the road to the right.

The two men standing by the Peugeot glanced up sharply. “Thanks again for the ride,” Jay was saying. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for everything…” He broke off as he saw Agni and Abhik approaching. “Agni! And you must be Abhik! Agni, meet Colonel S. We have been colleagues for many years. Colonel S, this is Agni. You knew her mother – Shanti? Shanti and I, if you remember, were very good childhood friends. And this is Abhik.”

Abhik shook Jay’s hand. “Professor Ghosh, it’s great to finally meet you. Colonel S, what an unexpected honour to have you at my family’s Open House.
Please
come in.”

Colonel S smiled. “Ah, Happy Deepavali my young friend! Unfortunately, I have another prior engagement, so I must wish you Happy Deepavali at your door.”

“Please, I insist that you have at least a small drink with us, Colonel, it’s the first time you are visiting our home,” Abhik urged.

The Colonel was mumbling something when Agni interrupted, a frown lining her forehead. “I have seen you before,” she extended her hand, “at the airport?”

Colonel S brushed her hand lightly before touching his heart. “I don’t think so,” he said evenly.

“Yes,” Agni insisted, “at the airport. On Monday. You were there in the evening.”

The Colonel laughed easily. “Perhaps old men my age start looking alike,” he said. “White hair, sallow skin, stooped back. But I would have remembered a girl as pretty as you, my dear.” He turned to Abhik, “I really have to go, young man; I have to travel far. Thank you again for your invitation.”

Wishing everyone a cheery Happy Deepavali, Colonel S got into his car and drove off with a beep of his horn. The three of them stood silently and watched as his car spluttered down the driveway.

“He’s lying,” Agni said through narrowed eyes. “I saw him at the airport.”

Jay couldn’t curb his annoyance. “Why the hell would he need to lie?”

Abhik adroitly stepped in between them and manoeuvred Agni through the open doorway. “We should go in now, Professor Ghosh. My grandparents are very eager to meet you. Thank you so much for coming.”

“I should be thanking
you
for the invitation! Please call me Jay.”

“Your parents were my grandparents’ friends – so I really should at least call you
mesho
or
kaku
or some sort of uncle?”

Belligerent Boyfriend
. Jay felt his age highlighted by the younger man’s words. Uncle indeed! He could see the beginnings of a smirk on Agni’s face; this young man was clearly marking the boundaries with kinship terms.

He smiled broadly. “Please, I insist you call me Jay.”

“Okay, if you insist! I am sorry you won’t be meeting my parents today. My father is away on his UN assignment for another ten months in Brazil. My grandparents are very eager to meet you though.”

The open house was in full swing. Abhik’s grandmother, Mridula, was near the door, surrounded by a number of women, but she bustled towards him at once. Jay guessed that Mridula must be at least in her early seventies now, but she was dressed in the colours of a much younger woman. Her slate-grey
sari
had an enormous red border and her jet-black hair was streaked with warm red highlights. Right in the middle of her forehead was an artistically twirled grey curl. Jay smiled as he mused whether the curl changed to match all her outfits.

She returned his smile. “Jayanta!” She raised her hands and clasped his firmly, “I am so glad you could come! I asked Abhik to go fetch you,” she looked at Abhik dolefully, “but the children nowadays are
always
too busy.”

“No problem at all. A friend dropped me off here,” he assured her.

“Come, come, you must meet my husband Ranjan. He has been waiting for you to arrive.”

He followed her through the throngs of people, who interrupted their passage with greetings for Mridula, and sized up Jay as he folded his hands in a
namaskar
. She finally stopped next to a bald man in a wheelchair, holding court amongst a large group of other men.

Jay had only a vague memory of the man before him but seeing Ranjan after so many years brought his childhood back again. Ranjan was a documentary filmmaker, and cultivated a certain distinctiveness that had always made him stand out. Jay recognised the elegant figure in his ivory
kurta
with the subtlest of
chikan
embroidery. The
churidar
pyjamas, which folded into waves over his crossed ankles, were of a slightly lighter shade. He seemed as understated as his wife was loud, and Jay felt a rush of affection for this man who had aged so badly.

Ranjan was gesticulating wildly while talking. “The problem,

Oy! – Let me finish here. The problem with us Indians is that we don’t think like Malaysians. All Malaysians have the same problem, but these Hindsight 2020 buggers, take the Hindsight fellers, ah, why
HIND
, like Hindu eh? Why not ask for our rights as Malaysians? We build all these temples here that look like they’re from Madras and Rajasthan, for what? We need Malaysian buildings, hah, like the mosque-church-temple
rojak
, and be Malaysian here. You say you want Hindu rights; of course the Muslims don’t like it.”

“Eh, you think this country is a Petronas advertisement, ah, all
muhibbah
and harmony?” the man on the right interrupted. “That’s for TV only,
dey
, all your artsy-fartsy talk cock only. The problem is not about
us
becoming Malaysians. It’s whether they see us as foreigners. You think they’ll be happy if we build a temple like a mosque, hah? They’ll pull it down, say it’s an insult. Non-Muslims are not allowed to use the word Allah anymore,
kan
? Go to any country in the West – Europe, America, Canada, or just go down the road only, look at Shah Alam, and you will see huge mosques, round domes, copied from Istanbul or Cairo, all from a glorious Islamic past in another country. Where is the Malaysian in this, hah? Bullshit only!”

“It
was
more
muhibbah
and racial harmony,” another man insisted, “in our days, but not any more. We,” he stabbed his own chest with a finger twice, “we failed in this… to ask for more… to give our children more.”

The man in
batik
stood up. “What,
lah
, you fellers, Malays have been protected under privileges for forty years.
For-ty years
,” he emphasised, visibly annoyed. “They don’t know the meaning of competition any more. Stop blaming anyone else for their problems!”

Mridula stepped deftly into the middle of the circle and held up her hands. “Quiet!” she hollered. “You all will fight all night about this, so let me introduce you to our
special
special guest, Professor Jayanta Ghosh. We knew him as a small child, running around without any clothes on.”

Jay joined in the genial laughter of the men. “It’s a pity that you only have this
langto
picture of me in your memory!” he told Mridula reproachfully. Then, turning to the men, he said, “Please call me Jay.”

“Welcome back, Jayanta!” Ranjan’s clasp was as warm as his voice. “Tell me, how are your parents? And your brother?”

“My parents both passed away,” he acknowledged the murmured condolences with a slight dip of his head. “But my brother is well. He is a father of two boys now, and lives in Texas.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your parents,” Ranjan pointed to his weak legs regretfully, “but really, there’s no reason to live at this age, unless you have grandchildren around.” He gestured towards Abhik, who was zigzagging through the crowd with two wine glasses in his hand, “That boy keeps me going.”

Mridula looked up at Jay. “Don’t listen to him. He still has his friends and his beer to keep him happy! But tell me about your own family… Do you have children?”

Jay didn’t mention the divorce. Instead, he reached for a picture in his wallet, “We have twin boys, both doctors now. See, here’s a picture of Tublu and Gublu at their graduation.”

Mridula held up the pictures of the two boys and saw the clear likeness. They looked like Maheshbabu, their grandfather, not so much in their features, but the way they had of looking confidently at the world.

That extraordinary confidence of Maheshbabu. She remembered it well, for it kept them alive during the war.

They looked up to two men in the community then: Nikhil and Maheshbabu. Nikhil was soon stripped of all his authority with the ban on immigration, which left him without a job. Then, with the fall of the British, Nikhil began to drink steadily, reaching for the local
arak
and toddy when all other bottles ran dry.