‘Adaab arz, Ustad Sahib.’
Ustad Majeed Khan turned to see Ishaq. A single glance at the young man was sufficient to remove the ease of his meditations and to remind him of the insults that he had had to face in the canteen. His face grew dark with the memory; he picked up two or three tomatoes from the stall, and asked their price.
‘I have a request to make of you.’ It was Ishaq Khan again.
‘Yes?’ The contempt in the great musician’s voice was unmistakable. As he recalled, it was after he had offered his help to the young man in some footling matter that the whole exchange had occurred.
‘I also have an apology to make.’
‘Please do not waste my time.’
‘I have followed you here from your house. I need your help. I am in trouble. I need work to support myself and my younger brothers, and I cannot get it. After that day, All India Radio has not called me even once to perform.’
The maestro shrugged his shoulders. ‘I beg of you, Ustad Sahib, whatever you think of me, do not ruin my family. You knew my father and grandfather. Excuse any mistake that I may have made for their sakes.’
‘That you may have made?’
‘That I have made. I do not know what came over me.’
‘I am not ruining you. Go in peace.’
‘Ustad Sahib, since that day I have had no work, and my sister’s husband has heard nothing about his transfer from Lucknow. I dare not approach the Director.’
‘But you dare approach me. You follow me from my house –’
‘Only to get the chance to speak to you. You might understand – as a fellow musician.’ The Ustad winced. ‘And of late my hands have been giving me trouble. I showed them to a doctor, but –’
‘I had heard,’ said the maestro dryly, but did not mention where.
‘My employer has made it clear to me that I cannot be supported for my own sake much longer.’
‘Your employer!’ The great singer was about to walk on in disgust when he added: ‘Go and thank God for that. Throw yourself on His mercy.’
‘I am throwing myself on yours,’ said Ishaq Khan desperately.
‘I have said nothing for or against you to the Station Director. What happened that morning I shall put down to an aberration in your brain. If your work has fallen off, that is not my doing. In any case, with your hands, what do you propose to do? You are very proud of your long hours of practice. My advice to you is to practise less.’
This had been Tasneem’s advice as well. Ishaq Khan nodded miserably. There was no hope, and since his pride had already suffered through his desperation, he felt that he could lose nothing by completing the apology he had begun and that he had come to believe he should make.
‘On another matter,’ he said, ‘if I may presume on your further indulgence – I have been wishing for a long time to apologize for what I know is not forgivable. That morning, Ustad Sahib, the reason why I made so bold as to sit at your table in the canteen was because I had heard your Todi just a little earlier.’
The maestro, who had been examining the vegetables, turned towards him slightly.
‘I had been sitting beneath the neem tree outside with those friends of mine. One of them had a radio. We were entranced, at least I was. I thought I would find some way of saying so to you. But then things went wrong, and other thoughts took over.’
He could not say any more by way of apology without, he felt, bringing in other matters – such as the memory of his own father, which he felt that the Ustad had demeaned.
Ustad Majeed Khan nodded his head almost imperceptibly by way of acknowledgment. He looked at the young man’s hands, noticing the worn groove in the fingernail, and for a second he also found himself wondering why he did not have a bag to carry his vegetables home in.
‘So – you liked my Todi,’ he said.
‘Yours – or God’s,’ said Ishaq Khan. ‘I felt that the great Tansen himself would have listened rapt to that rendering of his raag. But since then I have never been able to listen to you.’
The maestro frowned, but did not deign to ask Ishaq what he meant by that last remark.
‘I will be practising Todi this morning,’ said Ustad Majeed Khan. ‘Follow me after this.’
Ishaq’s face expressed complete disbelief; it was as if heaven had fallen into his hands. He forgot his hands, his pride, the financial desperation that had forced him to speak to Ustad Majeed Khan. He merely listened as if in a dream to the Ustad’s further conversation with the vegetable seller: ‘How much are these?’
‘Two-and-a-half annas per pao,’ replied the vegetable seller.
‘Beyond Subzipur you can get them for one-and-a-half annas.’