Now, however, he thought — and said as much to Mahesh Kapoor — that the best thing would be for all men of goodwill to rejoin the Congress. Nehru was firmly back in charge, he felt, and with Nehru, more than with anyone else, people of his community felt safe. When Maan mentioned that his father was considering the option of contesting from Salimpur-cum-Baitar, Baba was encouraging.
‘But try to get the Congress ticket. The Muslims will vote for Nehru — and so will the chamars. As for the others, who knows: it will depend on events — and how you run your campaign. The situation is very fluid.’
That was a phrase that Mahesh Kapoor was to hear, read, and use a great deal in the days to come.
The brahmins and banias of the village came separately to see him as he sat on a charpoy under the neem tree outside Rasheed’s father’s house. The Football was particularly ingratiating. He told Mahesh Kapoor of Baba’s methods of foiling the Zamindari Act by forced evictions (omitting his own attempts in the same direction), and offered to act as Mahesh Kapoor’s lieutenant in the area should he choose to run from there. Mahesh Kapoor, however, was non-committal in his response. He did not much care for the scheming Football; he realized that there were very few brahmin families in Debaria, none in the twin village of Sagal and not many in the villages around; and it was clear to him that the man who mattered most of all was the ancient and energetic Baba. He disliked what he heard about the evictions, but he tried not to dwell on the sufferings he knew they caused. It was difficult to be someone’s guest and prosecutor simultaneously, more particularly if you were hoping to seek their help in the near future.
Baba asked him a number of questions over tea or sherbet.
‘How long will you be conferring on us the honour of your presence?’
‘I will have to leave this evening.’
‘What? Aren’t you going to stay for Bakr-Id?’
‘I can’t. I’ve promised to be in Salimpur. And if it rains, the jeep will be stuck here, perhaps for days. But Maan will be here for Bakr-Id.’ Mahesh Kapoor did not need to mention that if he was sounding out a future fief the subdivisional town of Salimpur, with its concentrated knot of population, was an essential stop, and that his participation there in the Id celebrations would pay rich dividends in the future. Maan had told him that his secular stand was popular in the town.
The one person who had very mixed feelings about Mahesh Kapoor’s visit was the young Netaji. When he heard that Mahesh Kapoor was in the village, he rushed back from Salimpur on his Harley Davidson. Netaji, who had recently been put up for election to the District Congress Committee, felt that this was an opportunity for contact-making that was too good to be true. Mahesh Kapoor had a name and a following, and, however thinly such silver was beaten into foil, he hoped that some of it might cover him as well. On the other hand, he was no longer the powerful Minister of Revenue but plain Shri Mahesh Kapoor, MLA, a member no longer of the Congress but of a party of uncertain prospects and unmemorable name that even now seemed riven with disagreement about whether to wind itself up. And the acrobatic Netaji, who had his ear to the ground and his finger to the wind, had concrete proof of Mahesh Kapoor’s weakening might and clout. He had heard about Jha’s power in Mahesh Kapoor’s own tehsil of Rudhia, and had imbibed with particular satisfaction the news of the swift transfer of the arrogant English-speaking SDO who had snubbed him so painfully on the platform of Salimpur Station.
Mahesh Kapoor took a walk around the village in the company of Maan and Baba — as well as Netaji, who forced himself upon them. Mahesh Kapoor appeared to be in an excellent mood; perhaps the respite from Prem Nivas had done him good — or the open air — or Majeed Khan’s singing — or simply the fact that he could see political possibilities in this constituency. They were tailed by a motley gang of village children and a small, black, continually bleating goat that one of the children was driving along the muddy path — a glossy-headed goat, with pointed little horns, thick black eyebrows and mild, sceptical yellow eyes. Everywhere Maan was greeted with friendliness and Mahesh Kapoor with respect.
The great monsoon sky over the twin villages — indeed, over much of the Gangetic plain — was overcast, and people were worried that it might rain the next day, on Bakr-Id itself, and spoil the festivities. Mahesh Kapoor for the most part managed to avoid any political talk. All that sort of thing could be left to electioneering time. Now he simply made sure that he was recognized. He did namaste or adaab as was appropriate, drank tea, and made small talk.
‘Should I go around Sagal as well?’ he asked Baba.
Baba thought for a second. ‘No, don’t do that. Let the web of gossip do its work.’
Finally, having made his rounds, Mahesh Kapoor drove off, but not before thanking Baba and saying to Maan:
‘Perhaps you and Bhaskar are right. At any rate, even if you didn’t learn much Urdu, you weren’t wasting your time.’
Maan could not remember the last time his father had praised him. He was extremely pleased, and more than a little surprised. A couple of tears came to his eyes!
Mahesh Kapoor pretended not to notice, nodded, looked at the sky, and waved in a general way to the gathered populace as the jeep squelched off.
14.22
Maan slept in the verandah because of the possibility of rain. He woke up late, but did not find Baba louring angrily over him asking him why he hadn’t been to morning prayer.
Instead, Baba said: ‘So you’ve got up, I see. Will you be coming to the Idgah?’
‘Yes,’ said Maan. ‘Why not?’
‘Then you should get ready quickly,’ he said, and patted a fat black goat that was browsing meditatively near the neem tree.
The others in the family had preceded them, and now Baba and Maan walked across the fields from Debaria to Sagal. The Idgah was located in Sagal; it was part of the school near the lake. The sky was still overcast, but there was also an undercast of light that added brilliance to the emerald colour of the transplanted rice. Ducks were swimming in a paddy field, scrabbling for worms and insects. Everything was fresh and refreshing.
All around them, approaching the Idgah from different directions, were men, women and children, all dressed in festive attire — new clothes, or — for those who could not afford them — clothes that were spotlessly clean and freshly pressed. They converged on the school from all the surrounding villages, not merely from Debaria and Sagal. The men were for the most part dressed in white kurta-pyjamas; but some wore lungis, and some allowed themselves coloured kurtas, though of a sober colour. Maan noticed that their headgear varied from white, close-fitting filigreed caps to black, glossy ones. The women and children wore brightly coloured clothes — red, green, yellow, pink, maroon, blue, indigo, purple. Even under the black or dark-blue burqas worn by most of the women Maan could see the hems of their coloured saris or salwaars, and the attractive anklets and chappals on feet patterned with bright red henna and splashed with the inescapable mud of the monsoon.
It was while they were walking along the narrow paths that a man, old, thin and hungry-looking, and dressed in nothing but a dirty dhoti, intercepted Baba and, with his hands folded, said in a desperate voice:
‘Khan Sahib, what have I done that you should do this to me and to my family? How can we manage now?’