The Death of Vishnu (25 page)

I
T WAS ONE
thing to grasp the base of Vinod Taneja’s balcony. It was quite another, as Mr. Jalal learnt, to get a grip good enough to pull himself up. He tried to prod himself on by imagining the bedroom door breaking open and the crowd rushing in with their lathis. He would make quite a target, suspended between balcony and railing, every inch of his body exposed. There was only one chance he had, and that involved edging his way along the railing to the front. From there he might be able to reach up beyond the base to the bars that formed the grille of Mr. Taneja’s balcony.

Mr. Jalal started inching along the metal bar, turning his feet this way and that, as if doing the twist. His hips swiveled and his buttocks swung, to give his body the momentum it needed. He danced his way along the railing, like a guest inebriated at a party responding to some particularly foolhardy dare. Once he reached the front of the balcony, he stood there panting, at the mercy of the wind. Feet perched on the railing, fingers scraping towards the overhanging balcony, body curving outwards, like a diver now, striking a pose before a jump.

He was at the moment of truth. He could not see the metal grille of the balcony above, but of course it had to be there. All he had to do was reach up on his toes and grasp it. The stone abraded his skin as he stretched up and grabbed around for the bars. He felt the tips of his fingers brush against metal. He managed to curl one index finger around a bar, but that was it. No matter how he strained, he could not get a more trustworthy grip.

Then a thought occurred to him. If he could wrap his index finger around, surely he should be able to do the same with his longer middle finger. And with the next finger as well, which was the same length as his index finger. Inspired by this logic, Mr. Jalal tried again, and was able to get not only the two extra fingers around, but the thumb and then the little finger as well.

Now that he had a grip with one hand, there was only one way to extend it to the other. Closing his eyes, Mr. Jalal propelled himself off his support, reaching up to grab the bar with his other hand. It worked—he opened his eyes to see his feet dangling over the courtyard below. Like those of a freshly hung prisoner swinging from a tree, he thought morbidly.

Only the final step remained, to pull himself up. Mr. Jalal hadn’t done pull-ups since he had been in the eighth standard. He had never got very good at them, his adolescent body always flopping against the walls of the gym as he strained to drag it up. The PT master, Mr. Kola, used to go around and strike the back of the students’ legs with a switch if they couldn’t perform the exercise. Mr. Jalal’s calves would be red and welted at the end of every PT period.

He remembered all the notes his father wrote out for him requesting he be exempted from PT. On some days, Mr. Kola would accept the notes, but on others, he would force Ahmed to run an extra lap around the field as punishment for trying to get out of PT. Mr. Jalal wished now he had not skipped any of the classes, and that Mr. Kola was there with his switch, to prompt him on to the next floor.

He struggled to bring his eyes up to the level of his hands. But he couldn’t accomplish even that. He tried calling out to Mr. Taneja again, but his upstairs neighbor still did not come. Mr. Taneja, he knew, liked to sit in the other balcony, the one that faced the street. He had often seen him there from downstairs, head tilted back against his chair, eyes closed, lost either to sleep or to thought. He imagined his cries reaching through the upstairs flat and rousing his neighbor. Mr. Taneja’s hands appearing like miracles from the air above, to powerfully grab hold of his own, and pull him effortlessly to safety. Perhaps Mr. Taneja would insist they have tea together on his balcony, while they waited for the police. They would chat about this and that, and Mr. Jalal would nibble on a biscuit, waiting for the opportunity to slip in some detail of the message he was trying to spread. Surely Mr. Taneja, with his superior education and background, would be easier to convince than the people from downstairs clamoring so irrationally for his blood.

But no magical hands appeared in front of Mr. Jalal. Perhaps, if he couldn’t lift himself up, he should go back to his other option, of jumping down. But to do that, he should be hanging from the railing of his own balcony, not Mr. Taneja’s, since the current position just added another floor to his fall. Now that he had launched himself off, how would he reverse the maneuvers that had left him suspended here? Mr. Jalal tried swinging his feet to reestablish contact with the railing, but all they touched was air.

He was stuck. It would just be a matter of time before they broke down the door and found him there, like some insect stretched out in a web. Maybe he could plead with them. The cigarettewalla seemed a little more level-headed than the others, maybe he was the one to appeal to.

What had happened to Arifa? He hoped she was not badly hurt, that they had not directed their anger on her when they couldn’t get him. How attentively she had listened to everything he’d said earlier when they had lain together in bed. He had thought he was converting her, not realizing her attentiveness had been driven by skepticism, by guile. She had tried to find inconsistencies in his story, to listen for discrepancies that would prove him wrong. He had been surprised, but heartened at this reversal of roles. Arifa, his wife, finally learning to use his own weapons against him.

She had gone through so much at his hands. He was suddenly overcome with guilt—he had not been a good husband. Or perhaps he had just not been the
right
husband. Someone suitably matched, who could appreciate—who
deserved
—her innocence, her unspoiledness.

And what about Salim? Had he failed him as well? Had he been inadequate as a husband
and
a father? Mr. Jalal hung from the balcony and took stock of his parenting years. There had been a distance he had felt from the start, a removal from the day-to-day upbringing of his son. Why couldn’t he have involved himself more? Learnt the names of Salim’s friends, gone to his cricket and soccer games, sat with him when he did his homework, not let all the years go by? Why had he allowed aloofness to become the hallmark of their interaction? He supposed he could always lay the blame on his own relationship with his father. That would be the traditional Freudian theory, wouldn’t it—a bit crude in this day and age, but surely still valid. There must have been so many other theories proposed over the years—but was there anything really startlingly new, anything that wasn’t just a refinement of the original idea? Mr. Jalal resolved to try and keep better abreast of things.

Getting back to Salim, though, what was the mystery of the dupatta, and why did the people outside insist on linking his son with the Asranis’ daughter?

And even more bewildering, how could they possibly imagine that he, Ahmed, was somehow involved, and what exactly was he supposed to have done?

A sparrow tried to alight on his hair, and Mr. Jalal bobbed his head instinctively to prevent it from landing.

It was all so sad. He was sure that in a less agitated setting, they could have all sat down and led themselves, step by step, to the answers that would have explained everything. The electrician’s outburst about the Gita was particularly unfortunate. Mr. Jalal tried to remember what he could from the book. Didn’t it teach that it was impossible to kill someone? That one was just reincarnated into another life, the choice of which depended on the deeds one performed in this existence? He wondered how that would apply to his situation. It was obvious the mob wanted him dead. Which in a way might be good, since martyrdom seemed the most reliable way to amass a following. He could plunge to his death below, and still come back. Surely his sacrifice would assure him rebirth in at least a comparable situation. He might even be able to take up his message where he had left it. Though there would be the problem of age—who would keep his following alive while he was growing up?

The sparrow returned, and Mr. Jalal shook his head again, more emphatically this time, to scare it away.

Perhaps that was what he should do. Allow himself to be killed by the mob, so that he could prove his integrity. It didn’t appear he was going to have much of a say in the matter anyway. He imagined the door finally bursting open, to reveal the crazed faces on the other side. “There he is,” the paanwalla says, and the crowd streams in and packs the balcony. He actually manages to dodge the first blow, but the second one knocks out both his arms. He hangs for an instant suspended in midair, looking up one last time for Mr. Taneja. Then the floors begin to pass before his eyes, Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak wave at him as he sails by, and he hears himself hit the courtyard on his back. Even as the faces two stories above fade out of focus, he makes out with satisfaction the guilt that begins to bloom across them.

Yes, that should be his strategy. All he had to do was hold on until they finally tore down the door. When they saw what they had done, saw his blood reddening the cement for their benefit, realization would strike them. He would be no more, but his message would ring accusingly in their ears. They would be forced to follow it, if only out of guilt. Perhaps they would even build a shrine for him, to mark the very spot where he would take his last breath.

The thought buoyed Mr. Jalal’s spirits. Why was it taking them so long? he wondered. He could hear shouts and thuds, but the door was still unbreached. What kind of mob was this anyway, that it couldn’t defeat a simple bolt?

Suddenly Mr. Jalal felt a sharp nip between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, a nip that almost made him let go his hold. He looked up and saw a flutter of brown feathers. It was the sparrow, its tail sticking out above the overhang. Was this a conspiracy—first people, now birds—was he to be attacked by locusts next? Didn’t the sparrow have anything better to do than go after him?

The feathers jerked upwards, and he braced himself for another bite. The pain pierced all the way to the bone this time. Mr. Jalal screamed, a scream made more intense with a rage-filled desire to drive the bird away. But the sparrow remained unmoved. It resumed its exploration, pecking at the knuckles, jabbing at the fingers, savaging the skin and the fleshy parts, as if the back of his hand was a treasure field that had to be plowed up with its beak.

In a fit of fury, Mr. Jalal grabbed at the bird, actually managing to pluck out some of its feathers as it took to the air. But on their way down, his fingers clawed past the bar and were unable to regain their grasp. Suddenly the ground appeared where the sky had been, and a clump of feathers floated by his face. Then, as he swung one-handedly above the courtyard, the sparrow dove defiantly past his forehead and flew away.

Mr. Jalal steadied himself as best as he could. He tried not to think of the metal digging into his fingers, or the stone overhang scraping the skin off his wrist. It was fortunate he had been fasting so long, and was thus better able to support his weight. There was not much longer he would have to wait anyway, they should be coming through the door any minute. Surely his destiny was to hang long enough to attain martyrdom at the hands of the crowd. Wasn’t that the reason he had ended up on this balcony, alone and at their mercy? Instead of choosing the one in the other bedroom, the one with people available below and Mr. Taneja waiting above to rescue him? Faith, as they said, could move mountains, and now he himself had acquired a share. His fingers would maintain their grasp, his body would remain aloft, as long as he held on to his faith.

It was so ironic. The reason all these people were after him was that he had experienced a vision from the Gita. From
their
holy book. What perverse pattern of logic could possibly have equated this with blasphemy in their minds? Mr. Jalal swayed in solemn contemplation from his bar. How long ago had it been since he had last read the Gita? Ten years? Maybe more? Wasn’t it amazing that something he had read so many years ago should remain buried in his subconscious, to emerge suddenly in a dream?

Mr. Jalal stopped swaying. What was he thinking? It hadn’t been a dream at all. It was a vision, a revelation, from Vishnu himself. His perusal of the book had nothing to do with it.

Or did it? Wasn’t it true that once something entered the brain, it always remained there? Dormant, perhaps, but never without the possibility of being rejuvenated? Wasn’t it well known that people had memories that cropped up from nowhere, spoke languages they had only heard, never learned, had nightmares of long-forgotten incidents that had occurred when they were children? Had he completely forgotten
The Interpretation of Dreams?
What would be so unusual about such a vivid scene tucking itself away in some secluded crevice of his brain, biding its time cozily until an opportunity to spring out presented itself?

No, he was getting it wrong again. Images floating up from the subconscious were never as pointed, as purposeful, as his vision had been. He had to be vigilant now, not to revert to his former self. One could tear apart any experience, no matter how insistent or inspiring, if one unleashed the ravenous hounds of skepticism. He would not let them out again, not this time. He had come to this juncture based on his experience, based on the faith he had felt budding inside. That same faith that protected his grip on the bar, that was preventing him this very second from hurtling to the ground below. This was his destiny in life, to be a leader, a prophet. He would not allow his destiny to be subverted by his skepticism.

But did this destiny make any sense? To sacrifice his life in the hope he could have another? What kind of insane gamble was that? It was one thing to believe, to have an open mind, but had he gone completely crazy? Why was he so eager to abandon everything he had ever absorbed, to repudiate his years of scholarship, of scrutiny? What good was his faith anyway, if it was only supporting him long enough to see him struck down to his death? Wouldn’t he be better served hanging on to his life, rather than hanging on to such faith?