‘All bogus, all bogus,’ said Qamar, with a look of contempt. He was a man of principle and could not abide charlatanism.
‘You should not say so, Master Sahib,’ said Kishor Babu mildly. ‘It is quite scientific. Palmistry – and astrology too. Otherwise why would the stars be where they are?’
‘Everything is scientific for you,’ said Qamar. ‘Even the caste system. Even worshipping the linga and other disgusting things. And singing bhajans to that adulterer, that teaser of women, that thief Krishna.’
If Qamar was spoiling for a quarrel, he did not get what he wanted. Maan looked at him in surprise but did not interfere. He too was interested in what Bajpai and Kishor Babu would say. As for the Football, his small eyes darted swiftly from one side to another.
Kishor Babu now spoke in a slow and considered voice: ‘You see, Qamar Bhai, it is like this. It is not these images that we worship. They are only points of concentration. Now tell me, why do you turn towards Mecca when you pray? No one would say that you are worshipping the stone. And with Lord Krishna, we do not think of him in those terms. For us he is the incarnation of Vishnu himself. Why, even I am named after Lord Krishna in a way.’
Qamar snorted. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘that the ordinary Hindus of Salimpur who do their puja every morning before their four-armed goddesses and their elephant-headed gods are using them as points of concentration. They are worshipping those idols, plain and simple.’
Kishor Babu sighed. ‘Ah, the common people!’ he said, in a manner that implied that this explained everything. He was a firm believer in the caste system.
Rasheed felt it necessary to intervene on the side of the Hindu minority. ‘Anyway, people are good or bad according to what they do, not according to what they worship.’
‘Really, Maulana Sahib?’ said Qamar sourly. ‘So it doesn’t matter who or what you worship? What do you think about all this, Kapoor Sahib?’ he continued provocatively.
Maan thought for a few seconds but said nothing. He looked over to where Meher and two of her friends were trying to put their arms around the corrugated bark of the neem tree.
‘Or don’t you have any views on the subject, Kapoor Sahib?’ Qamar persisted. Being from outside the village, he could be as abrasive as he wished.
Kishor Babu was now looking quite distressed. Neither Baba nor his sons had so far participated in the theological skirmish. Kishor Babu felt that as his hosts they ought to have intervened to prevent it from getting out of hand. He sensed that Maan did not care at all for Qamar’s method of questioning, and feared that he might react strongly.
In the event, Maan did not. Still looking for the most part towards the neem tree and only occasionally glancing at Qamar, Maan said: ‘I don’t think about these matters. Life is complicated enough without them. But it is clear, Master Sahib, that if you think that I am evading your question, you are not going to give me or anyone else any peace. So I see that you are going to force me to be serious.’
‘That is no bad thing,’ said Qamar curtly. He had appraised Maan’s character quickly and had come to the conclusion that he was a man of very little account.
‘What I think is this,’ said Maan in the same unusually measured manner as before. ‘It is entirely a matter of chance that Kishor Babu was born in a Hindu family and you, Master Sahib, in a Muslim one. I have no doubt that if you had been exchanged after birth, or before birth, or even before conception, you would have been praising Krishanji and he, the Prophet. As for me, Master Sahib, being so little worthy of praise, I don’t feel very much like praising anyone – let alone worshipping them.’
‘What?’ said the Football, rolling belligerently into the conversation and gathering momentum as he spoke: ‘Not even holy men like Ramjap Baba? Not even the Holy Ganga at the full moon of the great Pul Mela? Not even the Vedas? Not even God himself?’
‘Ah, God,’ said Maan. ‘God is a big subject – too big for the likes of me. I am sure that He is too big to be concerned about what I think of Him.’
‘But don’t you ever have the sense of His presence?’ asked Kishor Babu, leaning forward in a concerned manner. ‘Don’t you ever feel that you are in communion with Him?’
‘Now that you mention it,’ said Maan, ‘I feel in direct communion with Him just now. And He is telling me to halt this futile argument and drink my tea before it gets cold.’
Apart from the Football, Qamar and Rasheed, everyone smiled. Rasheed didn’t enjoy what he saw as Maan’s endemic flippancy. Qamar felt out-manoeuvred by a cheap and irrelevant trick, while the Football was foiled in his attempt to foment trouble. But social harmony had been re-established, and the gathering broke up into smaller groups.