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My mother, Maya, who was a storyteller -- her name, aptly, means "illusion" -- used to say that writers have a specialresponsibility to the world because they have the power tochange it. They must be careful how they tell their tales, and to whom, forstorytelling is an act whose effects are incalculable and endless.
These are things I remember from my childhood, those evenings offorty years ago in India, when she was surrounded by her clever friends -- artists, musicians, filmmakers -- in our drawing room full of candles (kept forpower cuts, but used regardless) and ... in my mind's eye I see bottles ofwine, but this is the memory playing tricks. In the fifties there were no Indianwines and Maya's guests had to do their merrymaking with whisky distilledin Bangalore and obtained, on my father's account, from the naval stores.
Music, laughter, intense discussion, this is what I remember, my mothermoving round the room in a silk sari that changed color as the light caught it,putting a record on the gramophone, pulling a book off a shelf to show someone,holding a match to an incense stick, calling to Yelliya, our surly south Indiancook, to bring the food. Dinner was rarely served before midnight. HowMaya loved those gatherings. She wore a large red kumkum dot in the middleof her forehead and this seemed to accentuate her eyes, which were darkand huge and shone with excitement as she talked. I would creep out of bedand hang, half hidden in a curtain, watching and listening. I was alwayscaught, of course, and dragged in my pajamas before the company to be scolded and petted and praised, after which I would be allowed to sit for awhile, with a glass of lemon squash, listening to the conversation.
One night I particularly remember. My mother was talking to a bear of aman with a beard that lay like a bib upon his chest. He wore the long muslinkurta that is practically a uniform for Bengali intellectuals. A twiglike pipestuck from his hairy mouth. His name was Babul Roy and I remember thinkinghow funny it was that they called him Bubbles. Bubbles was in those daysan arty and rather unsuccessful film director and Maya was eager to tell himabout her new story. (It was her screenplay period, cinema was exciting,Satyajit Ray had just released Pather Panchali, two of her scripts had recentlymade it to the screen.)
"How should we behave," my mother was saying, "when we don't knowwhat the result of our actions will be? Not even don't know, can't know?"
"You won't catch me with this bait again," said Bubbles, sucking on hispipe in a way that made it chuckle in sympathy. "This is your favorite impossiblequestion."
Catch with this bait ... ? Did Bubbles really say that? It seems unlikely,but is what comes to mind -- my eight-year-old brain was obsessed with fishing. In any case, Maya got what she wanted, which was not an answer, butthe chance to launch into her plot.
"Let's make you the hero of the story," she said. "One day yo u leave yourhouse and, outside, find a street boy being beaten by two policemen. Theyhave tied his wrists to your railings and are thrashing him with their batons.He's the same age as Bhalu, but a lot smaller. He's howling. His dirty face isstreaked with tears. When they see you, the policemen stop. You ask what thehell they're doing. They say they are interrogating him because they suspecthe may be about to break into your house. You, decent soul, are outraged. Youorder them to release him. They grumble that people like you are the first tocomplain about crime, and now you're stopping them doing their job. Tenrupees shuts them up."
"Ten rupees? I wouldn't give those bahinchods ten annas," said Bubbles.
"Not even ten pice!" I shouted. It was a horrible story. I felt sorry for theboy. I could feel the blows of the policemen's sticks landing on my head and back. Bubbles, who had forgotten I was listening, was mortified. He said tome, "Hey, Bhalu, champ, you forget what I just said."
"He already knows that word," said my mother. "You should hear hisgrandfather. My God! Every second syllable!"
My father's parents had come down from Kumharawa to visit us in Bombay.This was before we moved to the hills. The old man complained aboutevery bahinchod thing. The fruit, the fish, the vegetables. He quarreled withthe bahinchod dhobi and the twice-bahinchod milkman. This isn't the rightmoment to tell the story about the cow. After they left, I missed him horribly,and Maya said she had forgotten how coarse village ways were.
"So, anyway," she resumed, "you take the boy inside, and tell your servantsto feed him. They, of course, think you've gone mad."
Bubbles nodded. I was fascinated by the way his pipe shot out little cannonballsof smoke, like the engines that chuffed through Ambona station.
"He eats like the starving animal he is. You ask him about his family, lifeon the street, but he won't talk. He doesn't trust you. What he does do is askyou for money. You give him five rupees. After he leaves, you find that yoursilver Ganesh statue is missing."
"And the servants say, ‘See, I to ld you so' ... "
"Your servants urge you to report the theft," said Maya.
"Otherwise suspicion falls on them."
"You're angry, of course, about the statue, the boy's contempt for yourkindness, but mostly with yourself for being bourgeois enough to think thatone decent act can erase a lifetime's brutality. Reluctantly, you go to the policestation ... "
The Death of Mr. Love
Excerpted from The Death of Mr. Love: A Novel by Indra Sinha
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