But Moazzam was now counting and tickling Meher’s toes – to her great delight. ‘Sometimes he says the most interesting and even sensitive things,’ said Rasheed. ‘He is very puzzling. The trouble is that his parents spoiled him, and did not discipline him at all. Now he just follows his own inclinations. Sometimes he steals money from them or others and goes off into Salimpur. What he does there no one knows. Then he resurfaces after a few days. He’s very intelligent, even affectionate. But he’ll come to a bad end.’
Moazzam, who had overheard this, laughed and said, a little resentfully: ‘I won’t. It’s you who will come to a bad end. Eight, nine, ten; ten, nine, eight – keep still – seven, six. Give me that charm – you’ve played with it long enough.’
Noticing a couple of other visitors approaching in the distance, he handed Meher to her great-grandfather, who had emerged from the house, and wandered off to investigate and – if necessary – challenge them.
‘Quite a mischievous kid,’ said Maan.
‘Mischievous?’ said Baba. ‘He’s a rogue – a thief – at the age of twelve!’
Maan smiled.
‘He broke the fan of that bicycle-operated winnowing machine there. He’s not mischievous, he’s a hooligan,’ continued Baba, rocking Meher to and fro, very vigorously for an old man.
‘Now he’s so big,’ continued Baba, throwing a dirty look in Moazzam’s direction, ‘that he has to have fancy food. So he steals – from people’s pockets. Every day he steals rice, daal, whatever he can, from his own house and sells it at the bania’s shop. Then he’s off to Salimpur to eat grapes and pomegranates!’
Maan laughed.
Suddenly Baba thought of something. ‘Rasheed!’ he said.
‘Yes, Baba?’
‘Where’s that other daughter of yours?’
‘Inside, Baba, with her mother. I think she’s feeding.’
‘She’s a weakling. Hardly seems to be a child of my stock. She should be given buffalo’s milk to drink. When she smiles she looks like an old woman.’
‘Many children do, Baba,’ said Rasheed.
‘Now this is a healthy child. See how her cheeks glow.’
Two men – also brahmins from the village – now approached the open courtyard, preceded by Moazzam and followed by Kachheru. Baba went forward to greet them, and Rasheed and Maan moved their own charpoy closer to the end of the courtyard where Rasheed’s father was sitting with the Football. It was becoming a conference.
To add to the numbers, Netaji also appeared shortly from the direction of Sagal. Qamar, the sardonic schoolteacher who had made a very brief appearance at the shop in Salimpur, was with him. They had just been visiting the madrasa to talk with the teachers.
10.17
EVERYONE greeted everyone else, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Qamar was not delighted to see such an accumulation of brahmins, and greeted them in the most perfunctory manner – although the recent arrivals, Baj pai (complete with his sandalwood-paste caste-mark) and his son Kishor Babu, were very good people. They for their part were not happy to see their fellow-brahmin, the Football, who was a mischief-maker and liked nothing better than to set people off against each other.
Kishor Babu was a shy and gentle soul. He told Maan that he was very pleased to make his acquaintance at last, and took both his hands in his own. After that he tried to pick up Meher, who, however, would not let him and ran off to sit on her grandfather’s lap while he examined the betel-nuts that Kachheru had brought. Netaji went across the way to fetch another charpoy.
Bajpai had caught hold of Maan’s right hand and was examining it carefully. ‘One wife. Some wealth,’ he said. ‘As for the line of wisdom…’
‘…it seems not to exist.’ Maan finished the sentence for him and smiled.
‘The line of life is not very favourable,’ said Bajpai encouragingly.
Maan laughed.
Qamar meanwhile was looking disgusted at this whole exercise. Here was another example of the pitiful superstition of the Hindus.
Bajpai continued: ‘You were four children, only three remain.’
Maan stopped laughing, and his hand tensed.
‘Am I right?’ said Bajpai.
‘Yes,’ said Maan.
‘Which one passed away?’ asked Bajpai, looking at Maan’s face intently and kindly.
‘No,’ said Maan, ‘that’s what you have to tell me,’ .
‘I believe it was the youngest.’
Maan was relieved. ‘I am the youngest,’ he said. ‘It was the third who died when he was less than a year old.’