The Guru of Love (2 page)

In the dark of night, Ramchandra pulled his sirak closer around himself and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Lately, he'd been having a repeated nightmare, in which he couldn't solve a simple algebra equation in front of his students. He attributed the dream to his heavy load of tutoring and teaching.

Ramchandra had discovered his skills in math early. When he was in the dangerously situated general store in Lamjung with his mother, he'd quickly deduct the cost of the kilo of lentils from the five- or ten-rupee note that she'd just handed to the vendor, and announce, loudly, “Need to return two rupees and twenty paisa.” He'd solve math problems so fast on the small slate his father had given him that his father would say, “Wait, wait, before you erase it; let me see if you did that correctly” And Ramchandra would hand over the slate and grab a pencil and a notebook to scribble something else.

Later, after he and his mother had moved to Kathmandu, he would see a storekeeper in a spice shop laboriously scrawl the items and the prices. But the numbers would zoom inside Ramchandra's head, and he'd announce, in his sullen voice, “Total, seven rupees and fifty paisa.” Often the shopkeeper would squint at him and, in jest, offer him a job as his assistant. He'd want to take the offer, but his mother would always say no, that she wouldn't dream of putting her son to work until he'd finished school. “I want you to be an engineer,” she said. She seemed particularly bent on engineering, either because she liked the foreign-sounding word or she associated it with mathematics. “Engineer, yes,” she would say. “You'll build things.”

Once he started attending school, in a crowded little classroom in Kathmandu, not too far from where he was now teaching, his hand would shoot up every time a math problem was put on the board. Eventually, the teacher started eyeing him with resentment. His friends gave him the nickname Hisabey Hanuman, because his prowess in math equaled the strength of the monkey god Hanuman, who uprooted an entire mountain, held it up on his palm, and flew.

How odd, thought Ramchandra, that he'd called Malati a monkey when he himself had been called a monkey in his youth. In college, when Ramchandra was called to the board to solve a calculus problem that gave the professor a headache, he knew that teaching would be the natural profession for him. And it was, for the most part, but the tutoring sessions wore him out. These days before falling asleep, he'd try to ward off nightmares by visualizing pleasant scenes, like a walk by a blue pond, a bountiful garden, cool mountain air. But Malati's voice, saying, “That's why I'm here. That's why I need help,” kept ringing in his ears.

Tonight, his tossing and turning awoke Goma, who asked, “What's the matter?”

He said maybe he'd had too much tea that day.

She turned on the light. “That girl is bothering you. You should think before you speak. Serves you right.”

“I'm tired,” he said. “It's hard enough, teaching full time at that hellhole, and then tutoring these students day and night.”

“Still,” Goma said, “she's a young girl, and very sensitive. Treat her gently. Think of her as your own daughter.”

“And who'll treat me gently?” he asked. “Who can I turn to for comfort?” He took her hand.

She placed her other palm on his forehead and said, “Why don't I rub your head for a while? You'll feel better.”

He put his head in her lap, and she massaged his face, her smooth fingers gliding across his temples lulling him into a drowsy state. Through half-open eyes he looked at her face. Goma was a small, chubby woman, only a few months younger than he, and he was reaching forty-two. On her forehead was the small red tika she got every morning at the Ganeshthan Temple in the neighborhood. Before the sun's rays fell upon the streets, she would go to the temple with a plate of rice and with flowers she'd picked in the courtyard garden. She'd return home just as the sun's rays lit the window of the house on the opposite side of the courtyard. A large mole sat right below the bridge of her nose, her “beauty spot,” Ramchandra called it.

“You don't need to keep taking on tutees, you know,” Goma said.

“If I don't, how will we pay for the expenses of Dashain and Tihar?” Dashain was only a week away, with Tihar chasing at its heels. It meant that Ramchandra had to dip into his savings to get new clothes for the family, plus at least a hen, if not a goat, for sacrifice to the goddess. In fact, this year he was going to argue against buying a goat, which would cost several hundred rupees. He'd thought of suggesting to Goma and Rakesh and Sanu that they satisfy themselves with a hen, but of course everyone would be disappointed, and neighbors and relatives would talk, especially his in-laws. What else could he do, though? Right now he had only Goma to convince. The children tended to absorb Goma's feelings and mirror them, so if she felt the family couldn't afford more than a hen, they'd reconcile themselves.

“Without the tutees, how will we get out of this hellhole?” Ramchandra asked. “How will we ever build a house of our own?”

Goma put her index finger to her lips. Sanu, thirteen, and her brother, Rakesh, nine, were sleeping in the next room. But as if to support his argument, a horn blared outside, tires screeched, followed by a bang and the revving of an engine. Both Goma and Ramchandra instinctively closed their eyes.

“You can't seem to utter a sentence without using the word
hellhole
these days,” Goma said.

“Well, what do you call this?” He waved a hand.

“I'm not unhappy here,” she said.

“Your parents are unhappy that you're here.”

Over the years, he'd become more bold when speaking of her parents, even though he knew that his complaints made Goma uncomfortable. They had never taken a liking to Ramchandra, even though they had chosen him as their son-in-law. When Ramchandra and Goma got married, he was still living with his mother, in an even smaller flat in Thamel. At that time he was attending Tri Chandra College and, on the side, tutoring students, one of whom was Goma's sister, Nalini.

The marriage proposal had come as a surprise, a few months after Nalini took the S.L.C. exam.

“The proposal is not for Nalini?” he'd asked his mother.

“No, it's for her older sister.”

He'd seen Goma at her parents' house only a few times, when she passed by the room where he was tutoring Nalini, but now he couldn't recall her face clearly. He did remember noting that she was prettier than Nalini, who had a sad, deprived look.

“Why would they want to give their daughter to someone like me?” he asked his mother. Usually, he tutored his students in his small apartment, but the Pandeys had asked him to come to their house, and since they offered him a hundred rupees more than he usually got, he'd gone. He'd been intimidated by the grandeur of the house, by the stern look on Mr. Pandey's face. But he needed the money, and he found Nalini an easy student to tutor.

His mother suggested that maybe his reputation as a bright student had led Goma's parents to give their daughter to him, knowing that he was poor. Perhaps they believed that, with his intelligence, he'd soon occupy a position that was lucrative and that their daughter would live in luxury. Perhaps they were impressed by his behavior when he tutored their younger daughter. “This is a great honor for our family,” his mother had said. “Perhaps our hard days are over.”

At the time he married her, Ramchandra didn't even know that Goma was his age. When his mother showed him her picture, he recalled her face more clearly, and a sweetness entered his heart, and he said yes. The age factor had never bothered him, and it didn't bother him now, although he was annoyed whenever relatives referred to it, as if it were fundamentally wrong for the wife to be the same age as the husband. One relative had said, “Seven years' difference; that's the best. Our ancient texts say that a difference of seven years helps the harmony between the husband and wife.” The man had looked affectionately at his wife, who, exactly seven years younger, was chewing pan, which made the inside of her mouth bright red. She had established herself as a petty gossipmonger, belittling those who had less than she did. Ramchandra didn't know which ancient texts the relative was referring to, but Hindu texts were often sprinkled with such petty advice. “I don't believe in those rules and myths,” Ramchandra had replied, and the relative, still smiling at his wife, had said, “This is our culture.”

In moments of quiet Ramchandra did wonder why Goma hadn't married earlier, when she was in her early twenties, when she could have been easily negotiated into a well-to-do family. Had she done something scandalous when she was young? he wondered. Although when he looked at his wife—the devotional tika on her forehead, her straightforward, sweet manner with him and their children—he knew that he was sinful in even thinking such things about her.

 

Ramchandra was in a classroom in the basement of a dark building, wearing his dirty dark-blue shorts and stained sky-blue shirt. Suddenly the teacher's whip came slashing through the air and struck him across the face, where it became numbers, problems, and he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried, solve them. The other students, in their recently laundered uniforms and ties, mocked him, and Ramchandra called for his mother, “Ama, ama,” and woke to discover that Rakesh was crying out for his mother from the next room. Goma, who usually awoke at the slightest noise, was fast asleep. Ramchandra hurried to the children's room, but he didn't turn on the light lest it disturb Sanu. She was awake, though, and said, “Ba, I think he had a nightmare.” Ramchandra sat beside Rakesh, who was whimpering, and stroked his hair, trying to calm him. Gradually, the boy became quiet and then asked, “Ba, what am I going to get for Dashain?”

“What do you want, my son?”

“A bicycle.”

“Bicycle is too expensive. How about a toy bicycle?”

Rakesh made a face. “All of my friends have bicycles.”

Ramchandra turned to Sanu. “And what do you want?”

“Nothing,” she said. Every day Sanu seemed to be growing more aware of the financial restrictions of her family. “And he doesn't need a bicycle either.”

Rakesh started arguing with her, and, fearing that they'd wake Goma, Ramchandra raised his hand and said, “I can give you a nice story right now. Free of cost.”

“If he gets a bicycle, then I too need something big,” Sanu said.

“We'll deal with that later,” Ramchandra said. “Now the story. In a distant land a long time ago there was a poor girl,” Ramchandra began. He spoke softly so that Goma wouldn't wake up. The naked bulb hanging from the ceiling in the corridor revealed the outlines of his children.

This girl, Ramchandra continued, was seventeen years old and lived with her mother in a hut. The roof of the hut leaked in the monsoon rains, and the entire mud floor became flooded. They were so poor that they ate only one meal each day, usually in the evening by the fire, and the girl's stomach rumbled during the night.

“Will this be a sad story?” Sanu asked.

“Maybe. Just listen.”

“What was her name? The girl?”

Ramchandra was stumped. Then he said, “Malati.”

“But Malati is your student,” Rakesh said.

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

Rakesh became quiet, and Ramchandra continued. The girl always thought about her father, who had left the village a few years ago in search of a job in the city and had never returned. When she went to cut grass for their cow, whose milk they sold for money to get by, she stared out at the horizon, hoping to see her father return, his pockets filled with money and gifts of jewelry for her and her mother. Each night, as she lay on the mat on the floor where they slept, she listened for the knock on the door that would signal his arrival. In her dreams he would appear, well-fed and prosperous, in the city, missing his daughter.

One day, the richest merchant in the village came to their hut and asked the mother for her daughter's hand in marriage. “Your daughter is very beautiful,” said the merchant, who had a long mustache, which trickled down his chin. “She is also a hard worker, so she will make a good wife.” The mother was delighted. In her mind she saw herself in a bright, gold-studded sari, wearing a diamond necklace, with five servants ready at her command. The girl was not happy. The merchant was her father's age, and she didn't like the way his eyes glinted when he looked at her.

Ramchandra didn't know where to go from here, so he stopped, but the children pestered him to continue. “And they lived happily ever after,” he said.

“Who lived happily ever after?” Sanu asked. “The merchant and the girl? But she doesn't like him! That's no story.”

“Shhh, you'll wake up Mother,” Ramchandra said. “We'll continue tomorrow.” And despite their protests, he tucked them under the blanket and left.

In the next room, Goma was awake and bleary-eyed. “I was so tired I didn't even hear. Did Rakesh have a nightmare?”

“Yes, and I told him a story.”

“Which one?”

“I made one up.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.” He snuggled close to her. “It was a nonsense children's story.”

M
ALATI DIDN'T APPEAR
at the next session, and Ramchandra couldn't focus on Ashok, who smiled and kept repeating, “I wonder what happened to that girl.” After he left, Ramchandra changed from his suruwal to his cotton pants, the ones he'd had tailored two years ago. They were already beginning to fray at the bottom, and Goma had been pestering him to have a new pair made, but he'd resisted, immediately calculating the cost: at least fifty rupees for the cloth, another fifty for the tailor. The shirt he wore had a hole in the chest, but Goma had darned it a few months ago, and people would have to look closely before they'd notice it. The ready-made, fine nylon shirt he had received from his inlaws during last year's Dashain festival hung in the closet, unworn. He had fingered the fine cloth a few times, but had never put it on; this was the only way he could strike back at their criticism of his poverty. Just the other day, Mrs. Pandey had mentioned a schoolteacher, a relative, who had moved from a crummy school to a more prestigious one run by the wife of a well-known businessman. “When's that going to happen to our son-in-law?” she said, not looking at Ramchandra but at Goma. And Mr. Pandey had said, as if Ramchandra weren't present, “Keep dreaming, wife. It's been so many years, and still nothing.”