The Way Things Were (56 page)

‘A girlfriend, really. Where? Skandu!’

‘In school. She’s called Aurora and – it’s so funny! – she’s from a place called Auroville . . .’

‘I know Auroville, of course. Aurora! The dawn. What a lovely name. Cognate, you know, with the Sanskrit u
ṣ
as. She’s all over the
Ṛ
g Veda, your Aurora. U
ṣ
as and sandhy
ā
, the dawn and dusk. Where did I read something beautiful about them the other day? The new Calasso perhaps; it’s not out yet, but he sent me some pages. “U
ṣ
as and sandhy
ā
, everyone wanted to couple with them, for coupling is the image of connection” – I’m paraphrasing, of course! – “and u
ṣ
as and sandhy
ā
were the image of the supreme connection.” Bandhu! Which, as you know, is related to the English bind, the Latin
fides
,
fidelis. Adeste, fideles, Laeti triumphantes
. . .’

‘Baba!’

‘I’m sorry. I thought you’d enjoy it. Is she pretty, your Aurora? Is she faithful? Aurora what?’

‘Borealis.’

Toby laughed uproariously. And, in that moment, he was briefly himself again. Whole, not hollowed out.

‘Aurora Vohra.’

‘You’re having me on!’

‘I’m serious. Her father is Punjabi.’

‘Good Lord. Not Pompy Vohra?’

‘That’s him. You know him?’

‘I do. A very fine fellow. He was a professor of I.P.’s at Stephens. And then, yes! – you’re absolutely right; I remember now! – he went off to live in Auroville. Very much part of that Sixties/Seventies moment. How extraordinary that his daughter should be your girlfriend! Have you told your mother?’

‘No, not yet.’

And, suddenly, at the mention of I.P. and of Uma, a sadness came over Toby. But it made Skanda happy, for momentarily his father was familiar again. The disjointed broken quality was gone.

‘How is that going, by the way? Uma and her businessman.’

He only ever referred to Mani that way.

‘I hate him.’

But Toby, either out of principle, or because the pain was too great for him, refused to encourage Skanda. With his eyes blank in their sockets, the crow’s feet ever deeper, he said simply, ‘You mustn’t say that. You must be a support to her. I ran into them, you know, some months back, in the lobby of the Oberoi . . .’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. It was a nice chance to catch up, for Uma to meet Sylvia, and for me to meet her businessman. He’s not a bad sort, you know. The trouble with a man like that is he already knows all that he wants to know. But . . .’ His voice trailed off.

‘But what?’

‘But not a bad sort. Not a bad sort at all. And you must be there for your mother. You’re almost a man, now.’

Toby looked at Skanda as if seeing him for the first time, his height, his build, his green speckled eyes, his longish black hair. ‘A very handsome man at that, I should add. She’s a lucky girl, this Aurora. I hope you’ll bring her to Kalasuryaketu. Pompy Vohra’s daughter! Incredible! How strange life is, Skanda.’

Then, he said, ‘I spoke to I.P., you know, the other day. I called him in New Zealand, just to fill him in.’

For a moment Skanda thought he meant on the changes in their lives. But no.

‘On the madness over this temple. On these shiny-faced thugs in saffron, wanting to build a temple in the place where Lord Ram was born.
In a manger
, no doubt! Who are these people, Skanda? Crusaders? Mujahideen? Not Hindus, surely. Can you imagine? No culture in the world less anxious about place and time than ours. A
panchronistic
flatland, Deshpande called it. A sacred scheme that could be – and was – reproduced anywhere. Never needed an army, never an imperial project. But, despite that, it went everywhere, as far as Java, purely on the appeal and confidence of that culture. Never jealous, Skandu, never mean-spirited, never interested in stamping out the local culture that came under its great vault. Never Rome. And yet as grand as Rome: among the most effortless and peaceful transmissions of culture the world has known. And these greasy little swines in saffron will see it reduced to the mean objective of demolishing a mosque and building a temple. It’s too squalid for words.’

Then – and only then – did he give some indication of why it hurt him so much. He said, ‘And you know who their real enemy is, Skandu? Not the Muslims. They, poor fellows, are just stand-ins. Their real enemy is their past. They act as if they want to preserve it; but they want to destroy it, to remake it completely.’

‘But why?’ Skanda said, for truly he did not understand what his father meant.

‘Why?’ Toby said. ‘Because it’s inconvenient, no less than I am inconvenient. It doesn’t tell them what they want to hear. But what they don’t see is that their repackaging their culture in this way will not strengthen it; it will kill it. And what’s happening in Ayodha in the name of Hinduism is far more alien to the culture of this land than that little Mosque.’

The road from the club, which was in a clearing in the forest, curled out into Willingdon Crescent. Soon neither club nor road would exist; or, if they did, they would be either renamed or relocated. Skanda would never drive down that road again.

A precise line of orange fire burns away on the margin of a sky to which colour is gradually returning. Her pedicure is done, her toes, their nails painted a bright red, are separated and drying. Pooja has brought them snacks – a stale mezze – which Uma does not like. When she is gone, Uma, suspicious perhaps of Maniraja’s tawdry glad-eye, says, ‘You know, this girl, Pooja, she has no language.’

He expects her to say more, but she stops there, as if wishing to be prompted.

‘How do you mean?’ Skanda says, wondering what Maniraja has said or done to cause this sudden assault on Pooja.

‘I mean she has no language. Her English, well, you can tell what it is. But the interesting thing is that she has no Hindi either. I said to her the other day, “What do you speak at home?” She said, “English.” Can you imagine?! The global pariah, your father would have said. And, on that front, I must say he was dead right.’

‘In what sense?’

‘In the sense that long before this new world of ours, of iPads and Twitter, came into being, he predicted a frightening loss of language for this country. A moment when, just as the need for expression would be greatest, the means of expression – language, namely – would be at their most inadequate. And I’m afraid he was absolutely right. Well before the dots were as dispersed as they are now, Toby would talk of the need to be able to join them. It was one of the reasons he was so insistent about Sanskrit when it came to you.’

Then, after a pause, she says, ‘And? Was he right? Did your learning Sanskrit make things easier? Did it give you an advantage of some kind?’

‘It did. Yes,’ Skanda says, embarrassed to be questioned so seriously by his mother. ‘I suppose that in making it possible for me to see through language, it gave me a glimpse of an underlying unity, which, when things are as fragmented as they are, is a comfort.’

‘A comfort? How?’

‘Well, it’s like a metaphor, isn’t it? This shared history of sound and meaning – for how the world can be both various and one, impartite . . .’

‘Impartite?’

‘Indivisible. Of one essence, but distinct.’

‘Really. How?’

‘The way space in a jar – Coomaraswamy’s metaphor, by the way, for
ā
tman – is distinct, and yet indistinguishable from space without.’

She holds his gaze for a moment, as if seeing something that is beyond his grasp – an emotional judgement more important than his intellectual – then, releasing him, she says, ‘You’re so much like your father.’

And, as if taking pleasure in having made him speak seriously only to mock him, she continues, in a different vein, ‘Well, you know what does it for me? This!’

She waves her iPad at him.

‘This is what helps me make a whole of the world.’

‘Your iPad?’ he laughs.

‘I’m not joking. This has helped me piece together my life more than any little ability to see through language . . . Time, distance, what happened then, what happened now – memory – it has simplified all those things: they’ve all just collapsed into one another. I’ll give you an example,’ she says, seeing something sceptical in her son’s face, ‘I.P. leaving. Such a big deal for me. I’d say the biggest thing that happened in my adult life. My brother – my little brother – leaving in the way he did. Those long years of his absence, the trunk call every several months. It broke me in half.’ She narrows her gaze, as if to say,
I don’t do emotion; this is the most you’re going to get out of me.
‘But now? Now I FaceTime him, twice a week. And it’s as if he never left. There are many things like that: all the pals from the old days. Nixu, Chamunda: I hardly see them anymore – they’re both so busy with political life now – but we send each other direct messages on Twitter. Even Gayatri – despite being in a wheelchair – manages to send me the odd email. And Priti, if she wasn’t so scatty, would do the same. Ditto certain historical events . . . take 1984. So much of what was sinister about it was the silence that fell over that time: now you can wikipedia 1984; you can see footage on YouTube. The past is not as obscure as it once was. Distances don’t have the same meaning. Your father leaving India in 1992, never to return, meant something then, when there was one flight a day to London, and no mobile phones. But, by 1998, or certainly 2008, when there were seventeen flights a day to London alone, and Skype, and mobiles, and Facebook and whatnot, it meant nothing.’

‘It meant something to him.’

‘A tremendous amount. I know! Which is why your bringing him home was so important and your immersing his ashes . . . Have you done that, by the way?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Skanda! What are you waiting for?’

‘I don’t know, Ma, this has been a strange year . . .’

‘We can give you a ride, you know, in the plane? Would you like that?’

‘To where?’

‘To Allahabad. Or wherever. I can ask Mani; it’s no big deal.’

‘No. No, thank you.’

‘Well, it’s your father, his ashes, do what you want. But what was I saying earlier?’

‘His leaving.’

‘His leaving, but not just his leaving. His whole approach to things, to history, to memory, to place, to civilization: it was of another time. He used to think people couldn’t do without an idea of their past, without an idea of who and what they were. But I think probably they can. The result might not be spectacular. Ha, look at Pooja! But she doesn’t seem on the verge of an existential crisis either, if you know what I mean!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That perhaps people can get by with a lot less than we thought. That perhaps this thin overlay of global culture, a few malls, a few movies, a mobile phone or two, is more than enough for most people. Enough to get them through . . .’

‘But there’s more to life than just getting through.’

She makes a face, a faintly Gallic expression of indifference – a tant-pis! – and says, ‘To you perhaps.’

Pooja has appeared behind her in the semi-darkness. She senses her presence and, turning round, says, ‘What? Time to go?’

‘No, not yet, ma’am. Chief has called. He’s on his way back. Some traffic, he’s stuck in . . .’

‘How long?’

‘Fifteen-twenty minutes.’

‘Oh, OK. Fine.’

Pooja goes about the little cabin, turning on the lights, which create a magical and violet effect.

‘Should I be on my way?’ he asks.

‘Stay a minute longer. What were we talking about?’

‘About how nothing matters anymore.’

‘Ah, yes,’ she laughs. ‘My favourite subject.’

‘Do you feel at least that we should aspire to more? That the hope Baba expressed that night, before leaving the country, was valid?’

‘The night after the Mosque came down?’

‘. . . was
brought
down. Yes.’

‘Why were we all together that night?’

‘Ma, come on,’ he says sternly, feeling in moments as these that Rudrani’s judgement of their mother is correct: that she is complicit in what happens to her, and that she enjoys reliving those episodes that, no matter how wretched, give her the illusion of having lived hard. ‘The Shivaji Sheraton? Have you forgotten?’

‘Ah,’ she says, jaunty laughter now turning to embarrassment. ‘One of the many times I almost left Mani. Yes, of course, how could I forget: the Shivaji Sheraton!’

The Shivaji Sheraton was the airport hotel where Skanda and his mother stayed on the night Pompy Vohra came to dinner and Uma and Mani had one of their ugliest fights on record.

It had till then been an interminable winter, balmy, dull, full of awkwardness. Mani’s insistence that Skanda stay with them in his holidays had meant that, though he was home, he was terribly homesick for his sister, for his grandparents, for his flat and life in Delhi. His mother and Mani lived in a modern apartment, placed at an awkward angle to the sea, which was visible – a greenish-brown causeway of water, often in retreat – through the gaps in the squarish buildings, their faces moist and blackening in the salt air. There was an odd feeling in that flat of being at once cloistered and exposed. The little air-conditioned space sealed with glass and glue, and then the street and surrounding squalor, where it felt as if an explosion or natural calamity had occurred and thrown everyone together, abolishing all personal boundaries, and creating an intimacy akin to that of a refugee encampment. It was an exhausting cycle of human activity: people bathing, cooking, washing, worshipping and mingling.

The air in the flat, too, went between cycles of tedium and tension. There were cyclical explosions at mealtimes, interspersed with long lecturing conversations, usually about politics. For Skanda there was the awkwardness of witnessing his mother adjust to this life. The little jogs along the sea face that she would accompany Maniraja on, the two of them kitted out in fluorescent clothes and insect-green sunglasses; making conversation with his friends and relations; dressing up for dinner in a sari, a bunch of keys in her petticoat; the sadness of the bedroom door closing at night. He felt like a dumb animal forced to observe the customs and habits of a species other than his own.