The Solitude of Emperors (23 page)

‘Quite a knockout, you should have seen her when we were at school. Fuck, she was amazing. Noah was a pretty cool guy too back then, so you could see why they would get together. But things became messy quite soon. It was rumoured that he had got her pregnant, and although there was no evidence for this, we assumed the worst—you know how it is when you’re in school, everyone fantasizes like mad. But of course what made things really bad for Noah was the fact that her father was Brigadier Sharma. He might seem harmless now, but he was a real terror back then. Maya was pulled out of school and sent to live with her grandparents in Delhi, while Noah only managed to avoid being expelled because his father grovelled before the authorities.’

‘But surely the Brigadier wouldn’t have it in for Noah for so long, just because he went out with his daughter in school?’

‘No, it gets worse. After Maya left, Noah went to pieces, man. He started hanging out with the local rowdies, began to miss classes, do drugs—basically he went crazy. I’m surprised he didn’t kill anybody, he was so volatile that he kept getting into fights all the time. I remember once in the market near the bus stop he got into an argument with a guy twice his size, a bus conductor who had caught him travelling without a ticket. A bunch of us from school were there, it was a half-day, and we were basically loafing around. We saw what was going on, so we gathered around to watch the fun. The conductor was getting really angry, he was threatening to drag Noah off to the police station, really screaming at him. I’ll never forget what Noah did that day, man. He was smoking a cigarette, and just as the conductor began to yell at him again, he took the lit cigarette out of his mouth and threw it down the man’s throat. It stopped the bugger cold, he began gagging and clutching at his throat, and Noah just strolled out of there. He was quite something.’

‘Is that why the Brigadier can’t stand him? Did he get into a fight with him?’

‘No, sorry, I was digressing a bit. See, Maya had a brother, Karan, who was a couple of years senior to me, and he absolutely idolized Noah, wanted to be just like him. When his hero started doing drugs and shit, he took the same route, only Noah escaped while Karan was really fucked. I don’t know exactly what happened, but he was taken out of school and sent to Delhi as well. A few months later we heard that he had committed suicide or died of a drug overdose, nobody was quite sure which, but the Brigadier blamed Noah for everything. He had him arrested on charges of drug running, and although nothing could be proved and Noah was released, the school authorities couldn’t take it anymore and he was expelled. This time even his father couldn’t save him. After he was thrown out, he’d be spotted hanging around the market with the local riff-raff, then his father retired to his home town in the plains, somewhere near Nagercoil, and Noah went with him.’

I was tempted to question Kamath’s last statement. I’d believed the elderly priest was Noah’s father, but this was apparently not the case. Yet there were so many other places where my informant’s story didn’t mesh with Noah’s that I thought I’d just let him continue, see where his narrative led. The Brigadier had been transferred a few months later, Kamath said, and peace returned to Meham; then, a couple of years after he had disappeared, it was rumoured that Noah was back in town. Apparently he had tried his hand at various things in the plains, but nothing had worked out and he had decided to return to the place he knew best.

He had found work as a salesman in a grocery shop in the bazaar. It was the last permanent job he’d had. After less than a year he had quit or been told to go, and had begun to live by his wits. It was said that he was part of a gang that stole cars in towns in the Tamil Nadu plains, drove them up to Meham, repainted them, changed the number plates, filed off the registration numbers and sold them through second-hand car dealers in Karnataka. When the gang was rounded up by the police Noah was arrested but all charges were dropped, presumably because he was only loosely connected with the gang, and nothing could be proved against him. Then he had found temporary employment as a gardener in one of the big hotels. Perhaps that was how he had met Arumugam, I thought.

‘That might have led to a sort of career, except that the Brigadier retired from the army and decided to settle down in Meham. Nobody here has the guts to take on the Brigadier, you know, so Noah was let go from even that measly job, and after that he just dropped out of sight. People said that he was making a living as a flower thief, stealing and selling exotic plants—you know how cut-throat the competition is around here.’

‘I’ve heard that the flower thief was actually a chap called Arumugam,’ I said.

‘I bet Noah told you that,’ Kamath said with a short, not unkind laugh. ‘As far as the world was concerned, Arumugam was the thief, but he was just the fall guy; he was a stupid labourer who couldn’t even grow a potato, let alone spirit delicate plants out of well-guarded gardens. No, the way I’ve heard it, Noah would do the job, give Arumugam a hefty cut and let him be arrested by the police because apparently he had sworn he would never get arrested again after his encounters with the cops, and he never was… After that I lost in touch with local gossip. I went to college in Madras…’

When Kamath returned he had lost sight of Noah, in fact he thought he’d left town—someone had told him he was working for an insurance company in Coimbatore.

‘No, he told me he’s been living in the cemetery for the last ten years…’

‘Wow really? It’s amazing he’s kept out of sight for so long. I must say I did hear a rumour a while back that he had been employed by a local church as some sort of caretaker, but it was one of those random pieces of information… So that’s where he’s been all this time. It’s astonishing when you come to think of it, all that frenzy and commotion in his youth, and now the peace of the graveyard. It almost seems appropriate, Noah was always original in his approach to life.’

Kamath’s story and the chilly night air were beginning to clear my head. Feeling vaguely disloyal as I did so, I asked him if he knew whether Noah had studied in America.

‘America. Come on, you’re joking,’ Kamath said, shaking his head vigorously. ‘To the best of my knowledge, he has never left Tamil Nadu.’

‘Are you sure? Maybe when you were in Madras…’ I asked, trying to be casual.

‘Look, I don’t live with him so I don’t know
everything
about him. But I would certainly have known if he’d left town. Even when I was in college, during vacations I’d catch up with everything I’d missed. Meham is a small town, and in a place like this everyone knows everybody else’s business.’

But he hadn’t known Noah was living in St Andrew’s Cemetery; it could be that he didn’t know quite as much as he pretended to. I knew I was probably grasping at straws, but I was hoping against hope that not everything Noah had told me was a lie. Feeling increasingly discouraged, I asked him whether he knew if Noah had ever worked for a publishing house in Bombay, whether he had written poetry. Unexpectedly Kamath said he wouldn’t be surprised if Noah had published poetry. Apparently in school when he wasn’t being punished for some misdemeanour or other or wasn’t on the sports field, he was always carrying a book around with him or was holed up in the library. ‘There was a rumour doing the rounds that he went there so frequently because the librarian, Miss Welk, a fairly attractive woman in her fifties, would allow you to kiss her for a rupee, but I think that was just the perverted imagination of 400 boys in their early teens. No, Noah was always a great reader, and if memory serves me correctly he even won a couple of prizes for poetry recitation at the annual school fete. He wasn’t a fool by any means.’

Kamath lapsed into silence for a moment or two, then said thoughtfully, ‘He was a strange fellow, was Noah. Such a huge bundle of contradictions, you know, fearless when it came to challenging authority, obviously intelligent, always up to something, and with the sort of negative charisma that made every girl want him and every boy envy him. But even back then I knew that he would crash and burn. I’m surprised he’s still alive…’

I nodded, and Kamath said, ‘Living in a cemetery, huh, doesn’t surprise me really. He’s the sort of guy who’d think it’s pretty cool to hang out with ghosts.’

~

We saw the lights of a car turning into the drive. Kamath exclaimed with surprise and peered at his watch. ‘It’s half-past eleven, somebody’s making a pretty late appearance; Meham must really be catching up with the times if you can go party-hopping here on New Year’s Eve.’

The car, a white Ambassador, drew up under the portico, and a man stepped out. We couldn’t see him clearly until the car pulled away, but as he came forward into the light, Kamath shot to his feet with a fervent, ‘Welcome, welcome, sir. I had heard you were back in Meham, but I didn’t know you were coming to the club tonight. I could have picked you up.’

The man he was fawning over was trim and compactly built. Although I would later learn that he was in his mid-forties, he looked much younger. He had clear intelligent eyes, an unlined, clean-shaven face, a full head of hair parted neatly in the middle, and a smile that was quite disarming. Seemingly impervious to the Meham chill and club rules, he was dressed in a well-cut cream safari suit, with an obviously expensive shawl slung around his shoulders. He chatted easily with Kamath in an accent that I couldn’t place but found oddly familiar. The mystery was explained soon enough, for Kamath who seemed to have momentarily forgotten I existed, turned to me and said, ‘Vijay, I would like you to meet Mr Rajan, one of Meham’s great men. Sir, this is Vijay from Bombay; he is visiting us for the holidays.’

I was taken aback, I hadn’t expected to meet the man who was looming so large in my mind. The last traces of alcohol in my system were dispelled by the shock of the encounter. Through my agitation I saw that Rajan had put out his hand. I shook it mechanically, and willed myself to register what he was saying.

‘Are you enjoying yourself in Meham, Vijay?’ he asked in Bombay-accented English. ‘They say we have the third-best climate in the world, after Kotagiri and… and…’

‘Somewhere in northern California, sir,’ Kamath said with a fawning laugh.

‘Thank you, Kamath,’ Rajan said, and added something in Kannada at which Kamath clucked and fluttered and cackled. Turning to me, he asked where I was from, and when I said K— he immediately switched to Tamil. If his dexterity with languages was meant to impress, it did; it was an effortless performance. He asked me where I lived in Bombay, and when he learned it was Colaba, he said we should meet when we both returned to the city—he owned a shop on Colaba Causeway and was there at least twice a week. An overweight man in an ill-fitting suit lumbered up, and Rajan asked him in Hindi whether he had found a good spot to park, at which his companion said irritably that he’d double-parked—there was no space to be had anywhere along the driveway.

‘I could have my driver move my car,’ Kamath offered eagerly. Rajan said he shouldn’t bother, he was only going to be at the club for a short while to wish his friends the very best for the New Year before going on to the Ooty Club to greet his friends there, but Kamath insisted and he gave in graciously. The overweight man was introduced to us as Mr Mansukhani, the friend Rajan stayed with when he visited Meham. Kamath rushed off to find his driver, followed by Mansukhani, and I was left with the man I had been demonizing ever since I had first heard of him. Although I tried to steel myself against his easy charm, Rajan had the knack of breaking through people’s defences, and I soon found myself conversing with him about Bombay, shaking my head ruefully about the myriad annoyances of the city but agreeing with him that there was no place on earth quite like it. The other two returned, and Rajan was preparing to walk into the club when it struck me that here was the perfect opportunity to fix an appointment.

‘Sir, Mr Rajan, I would very much like to have a meeting with you.’

‘Sure, bhai, sure, let me give you my card. Give me a call when you are in Mumbai.’

As he was fishing around in his trousers for his wallet, I blurted out, ‘No, here in Meham. I am doing an article for a Bombay paper, and I would like to interview you.’

‘Times of India?’
he asked and I nodded, comforting myself with the thought that it was not a total fabrication; I had once published a short piece in the newspaper. Rajan conferred quickly with his friend and then said with a smile, ‘No problem, bhai. Tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock. At this address in the market.’ He scribbled something on the card he was holding out. ‘Give me a call in the morning and Mansukhani will give you directions on how to get there.’ He shook hands with Kamath and me, as did his friend, and then he was gone, walking rapidly and confidently into the club.

‘Hey, man, that sounds great. Can I come with you to the interview?’ Kamath asked.

‘He might clam up, you know. It’s always best to do interviews one on one, I’ve discovered; you’re able to draw your subjects out more.’

Kamath looked dubious. ‘But he’s a public figure, he must be used to having people around all the time.’

This was true, but I couldn’t have Kamath around; I wanted to get Rajan to open up, especially with regard to his designs on the shrine, and that would be next to impossible with others around. I said that in my experience even the most experienced politicians were more forthright if they were interviewed on their own. Fortunately Kamath seemed not to want to argue the point, for had he asked me the names of famous politicians I had interviewed I would have been unable to give him a single one.

‘He’s a great man, you’re in for a treat. When you know there are people like him from Meham, it makes you proud to have grown up here.’ He went silent for a bit, then added, ‘And so humble, so friendly, despite everything he’s achieved. He’s a crorepati, could buy up all those bastards in the club and still have enough money left over to hang the Kohinoor around the neck of that actress he’s sleeping with. And to think he started with nothing. Right here, man.’