A Suitable Boy(552)

And then at last Lord Rama appeared; and Sita, in a yellow sari; and Lakshman, smiling, his quiver glistening with arrows.

The eyes of the spectators filled with tears of joy, and they began showering flowers on the swaroops. The children clambered down from their perches and followed the procession, chanting ‘Jai Siyaram’ and ‘Ramchandra ji ki jai!’ and sprinkling rose-petals and water from the Ganga on them. And the drummers beat their drums with renewed frenzy.

Mahesh Kapoor, his face flushed with annoyance, seized his wife’s hand and pulled her to one side.

‘We are leaving,’ he shouted directly into her ear. ‘Can’t you hear me? I have had enough… Veena, your mother and I are leaving.’

Mrs Mahesh Kapoor looked at her husband, astonished, almost disbelieving. Tears filled her eyes when she understood what he had said, what she was to be deprived of. Once she had seen the Bharat Milaap at Nati Imli in Banaras, and she had never forgotten it. The tenderness of the occasion – with the two brothers who had remained in Ayodhya throwing themselves at the feet of their two long-exiled brothers – the throng of spectators, at least a lakh of people – the devotion in everyone’s eyes as the small figures came onto the stage – everything came back to her. Whenever she saw the Bharat Milaap here in Brahmpur she thought of that occasion in all its charm and wonder and grace. How simple it was and how wonderful. And it was not merely the tender meeting of long-separated brothers but the first act of Ram Rajya, the rule of Rama when, unlike in these factious, violent, petty times, the four pillars of religion – truth, purity, mercy, and charity – would hold up the edifice of the world.

The words of Tulsidas, long known by heart, came back to her:

Devoted to duty, the people walked in the path of the Vedas, each according tp his own caste and stage of life, and enjoyed perfect happiness, unvexed by fear, or sorrow, or disease.



‘Let us at least wait till the procession has reached Ayodhya,’ Mrs Mahesh Kapoor pleaded with her husband.

‘Stay if you want. I’m going,’ snapped Mahesh Kapoor; and, forlornly, she followed. But she decided that tomorrow she would not persuade him to come for Rama’s Coronation. She would come alone and, not subject to his whims and commands, she would see it from beginning to end. She would not be prised away yet again from a scene that her soul thirsted for.

Meanwhile the procession wound its way through the labyrinthine alleys of Misri Mandi and the contiguous neighbourhoods. Lakshman stepped on one of the burnt-out bulbs from the Jawaharlal Light House, and yelped in pain. Since there was no water to be had immediately, Rama picked up some rose-petals that had been strewn in his path and crushed them against the burn. The people sighed at this sign of brotherly solicitude, and the procession moved on. The chief of fireworks now set off a few green-flared rockets that soared into the sky before exploding in a Chrysanthemum of sparks. At this, Hanuman rushed forward, waving his tail, as if reminded of his own incendiary activities in Lanka. He was followed by the monkey throng, chattering and shouting with joy; they reached the marigold stage a couple of hundred yards before the three main swaroops. Hanuman, who today was even redder, plumper and jollier than he had been yesterday, leaped onto the stage, hopped, skipped, and danced for a few seconds, then jumped off. Now Bharat understood that Rama and Lakshman were approaching the river Saryu and the city of Ayodhya, and he too began to move towards the stage along the lane from the other side.





15.11


AND THEN suddenly Rama’s procession stopped, and the sound of other drums was heard together with cries of terrible grief and lamentation. A group of about twenty men accompanied by drummers was trying to cut across the procession in order to get to the Imambara with their tazia. Some were beating their breasts in sorrow for Imam Hussain; in the hands of others were chains and whips tipped with small knives and razor-blades with which they lashed themselves mercilessly in jerky, compulsive motions. They were an hour-and-a-half behind time – their drummers had turned up late, they had got into a scuffle with another tazia procession – and now they were trying to push forward as fast as they could, desperate to get to their destination. It was the ninth night of Moharram. In the distance they could just make out the spire of the Imambara lit up with a string of lights. They moved forwards, tears coursing down their cheeks – ‘Ya Hassan! Ya Hussain!’ – ‘Ya Hassan! Ya Hussain!’ – ‘Hassan! Hussain!’ – ‘Hassan! Hussain!’

‘Bhaskar,’ said Veena to her son, who had grabbed her hand – ‘Go home at once. At once. Where’s Daadi? –’