‘Permit me, sir,’ said Murugan Mudali, ‘permit me to take the child home. I want my wife and daughter to see her. May I keep her till the afternoon?’
‘Of course.’
‘But Shridhar is ill. I want to see him,’ said Usha. The children had build little stone stands from which they spoke to each other across the wall.
‘Shridhar will be well. The doctor is coming,’ Govindan Nair assured her.
The Mudali took the child in his arms and, smiling to himself, closed the garden door. Usha was going to see Grandmother. Was she beautiful? Will she give me glass bangles? Will she take me to the temple? ‘Grandfather,’ she said, ‘will you take me to the temple just once?’
‘Why, we’ll go now. We’ll go home and take Grandmother. We’ll go to the temple,’ he said.
How beautiful the god was you will never never know. The god lay on his seven-headed serpent. His one wife at the feet and another rising from his lotus navel — blue he lay and in deep sleep. Grandfather wept profusely. One weeps in temples. Grandfather and Grandmother went then to Chalai Bazaar and bought Usha two ankle bands of silver. She looked so lovely she wanted to go back to the temple.
There’s only one depth and one extensivity and that’s (in) oneself. It’s like a kitten on a garden wall. It’s like the clock of the Secretariat seen through a mist of clouds — time moves on according to a moon (and the sun) but the offices go on working, people scribbling, smoking, typing, belching, scratching, farting big, fibbing, exuding asafoetida perspiration or the acrid smell of buttermilk — there will be peons to whom a rupee warrants well, but two warrant more, and up the staircase you go, one, two, and three, and each step is worth a rupee, on to the first floor. On the second floor the prices are higher. You pay ten rupees a step. And on the third, it’s like offerings to the Maharaja, you pay according to ceremony. And above it all sits time like a nether world recorder asking no questions. It revolves on itself and when the hour comes it strikes. And off it goes — something. What is it that is gone? What is time? What is death? In fact you could ask what is life. You issue a ration card. Your house number, numbers of the family, are all indicated: you are class A, B, C or D. You buy what you want and when you want, but only what is available. Governments are notoriously mismanaged. A railway car might have gone off to Coimbatore containing rice for Cannanore or Conjeevaram. What matters is that the station begins with a C. Cannanore, Conjeevaram, Coimbatore. It would almost make a nice mantra. Life is only such a mantra — you go on saying life life, or in Sanskrit jeeva jeeva (and in Sanskrit it sounds more real), so you go on living. Jeeva is life. So I live. There is a clock tower. Then there is the ration shop. Ration Office No. 66 is just above it. The Revenue Board is under the clock tower, and that is where I work. Down the road that goes to the hospital is Ration Office No. 66. That is where Govindan Nair works. His face is full now. I have a house. I have laid the foundation for myself — and through time. The Secretariat clock will go on chiming forever, and as long as it chimes, it will go on telling you the time forever; can you imagine a state without a government? You must have permanence. So permanence is the Secretariat with the clock tower. I hear the clock chime at night from my house. Thus I live a bit of eternity. My house has a garden wall. There is, as you know, a bilva tree by the wall. A hunter once broke twigs off the bilva, you will remember, and down the leaves fell on the oval emergence of the alabaster. Shiva was pleased with this unknowing worship. I look towards the garden wall. Lord, I am not even a hunter that in his nervousness lets down bilva leaves. Lord, what hope is there for me?
Govindan Nair always appears at such a moment. These are the sort of thoughts that run through me in the morning. I usually wash my face and feet. Then I go to the Home Friends for my coffee and upma. By the time I return the Malayalarajyam is on my veranda. I read it from beginning to end, about Hitler and the wars, Churchill and the speeches, and then I begin to scratch the curve of my feet. I have a house now, my own. Usha is lying inside. She will wake soon and say, ‘Father.’ What a mysterious word it is. ‘Father,’ she says. As if I were able to be the cause of anything. For father simply means cause of her. And the cause of cause, what is it? Is it not she? Could there be a father without a daughter? What would Usha be without me? What would this house be if I did not own it? It is not possible not to own it and yet it would somehow be mine? Air I own not, yet I breathe. I breathe myself. Do I own I?
Such are the terrible thoughts that oppress me. Govindan Nair is my guide. He lives across the wall, and the bilva spreads like a holy umbrella above him. It gives him spiritual status.
So Govindan Nair comes and says: ‘Mister, I am in grave trouble.’
‘What?’ I ask.
‘My son is seriously ill.’
‘What illness? For days he’s had no fever.’
‘Shantha is there. She will tell you.’
‘But what is it?’
‘It’s called fever. But it might any day be called pneumonia.’
‘How did it come?’
‘Just as its name came. From somewhere. He was convalescent. He played in the rain planting roses. He got wet. Then he came here and stood talking to Usha across the wall. So you could say Usha gave it to him.’
‘What?’
‘Since you want a cause, anything is the cause. The more innocent a thing, the more mysterious its cause. You wear a Gandhi cap — a two-anna piece of one-foot cloth that any man can put on his pate, and not even what his irreverent bladder empties could be held in the cap’s depth, such its size — yet you could get arrested for anti-British activity. Innocence is the most dangerous thing in the world. So Usha is the cause of Shridhar’s illness.’
‘Don’t make fun of me. Tell me seriously.’
‘I speak seriously, sir. All I say is serious. If not, would I blow my precious foul breath to the world?’ He looked almost angry. ‘Do you think I joke when I say Usha is the cause of my son’s illness? She is six years old. He is seven years old. They stood under the bilva tree and said many serious things. Did you know what they said to one another? She touched his cheek and said: ‘You are like my brother.’ And he said: ‘Father says you are my wife.’ And she became so shy, she ran away. So off he ran, Shridhar, to Shantha, and said: ‘Mother Shantha, make Usha my wife.’ He stood silent and, with closed eyes and folded hands, prayed. She said: ‘Why not when you grow up? When the koel is big it makes a nest. When the koel is big and another koel comes, they make a bed to which eggs are born. When you can build a nest, you will marry Usha.’ ‘But Usha has a house now,’ he said. ‘Can I not be married now that she has a house? And we will grow eggs.’ Usha got fever that night. She thought she was growing eggs. Next morning she went to the latrine. She was so afraid she threw off her eggs. She is all right now. Shridhar got the new disease. He does not know how to throw it off. I must buy him a house too, perhaps,’ said Govindan Nair, and was silent for a while. ‘It’s a good idea if I tell Shridhar: Shridhar, I will buy you a house also, and this might get him to feel better. When you have a house in prospect, your heart pumps good blood. Yes, that’s the trick. Thank you for the thought,’ he said, and, jumping across the wall, he was gone. Was I responsible for his thought? Was I responsible for Usha’s birth? Was I? Was Usha responsible for Shridhar’s illness? So I am the sole responsible person. Lord, where shall I go now? For I am cause.