1950

THE STRANGER
I am Krishna. No, not that Krishna, the charioteer who stood calmly on the battlefield of Kurukshetra and expounded the Bhagavad Gita to the reluctant warrior Arjuna. I am another Krishna, an ordinary boy of eight, hurrying to be nine those many years ago. It's strange that none of us can remember the exact date of the event. We didn't mark it then in our mental calendars, as we didn't think it was an important day in our lives. But I do remember. . .
   It was sunset, the best time of the day, when our Nayana returned home from his office with a European lady. To say we were astonished by her sudden appearance was to understate our reactions. A sorcerer couldn't have performed a more amazing materialization. That morning we had waved goodbye to our Nayana, like any normal day, and he'd not warned us that he would return with this stranger. 'Who is she?' we whispered to one another.
  'I don't know,' we chorused in reply. We had been sprawled, sweaty and dusty from playing, on the lower parapet of the fountain. But now we tumbled down, one after another, into the fountain well.
  'Who is she?' Anjali whispered again. No one replied. She turned to me and put an arm around my shoulder. 'Did Nayana tell you this person was coming?'
  'No,' I said. 'I don't remember.'
  Occasionally I was told things that the other children weren't, but because I was a dreamy boy, I would forget to pass on the nugget of information. Everyone asked what I dreamt about, and I confessed 'nothing'. My thoughts were ephemeral and I could never articulate them, but everyone seemed to understand that I would naturally be the most affected by what had happened to us.
  On that long ago evening there was a harmony, mathematical and emotional, among us. My sisters Anjali and Kaveri were the elder, with Anjali two years older than Kaveri. Kaveri, in turn, was two years older than my brother Jagan and he two years older than me. We were each other's best friends, and I believed this was how it would be until the very end of our lives. Every waking and sleeping moment we spent together. We went to and returned from school together, played together, ate and bathed together and often slept together. We breathed each other's breaths, thought each other's thoughts, dreamt each other's dreams.
  Apart from us, there were our three female cousins who were also witnesses to the European lady's visit. They were the daughters of a great-aunt, pretty girls, slight and supple as bamboo. Sushila, Leela and Valli matched the ages of Anjali, Kaveri and Jagan, almost to the month. I was the only one without a female cousin of my age in this small gang. The male cousins in the household were a few years older, and preferred more adult company than ours. All our cousins and their parents lived with us in the enclosed world of our compound. We were a living tapestry, seamlessly woven together by blood and marriage. A stranger would not have been able to tell where one thread began or where another ended.
  'What are they doing?' Anjali asked and lifted me up. 'Talking. . . smiling at each other'. . :
  The European was tall, about Nayana's height. A formal distance separated them. The light was grey, barely enough to see by. Vishnu, Thatha's bhouy, stood on the steps, also looking at Nayana and the woman in surprise. The dogs, impatient with our hiding game, barked and bounded across the lawn to Nayana. He looked across to the fountain.
  : I whispered down to the others.
  They came towards the fountain, still absorbed in their conversation. The woman stopped and looked back at our house.
  ‘. . . and now she's looking at the house.’
Her head craned up, turned from side to side, but she was still too near. She would need to walk twenty yards beyond the fountain; only then could she see the top of the central dome behind the high turrets.
  , . . . and he's telling her about the house,' I reported, as father pointed out the water spouts carved out of marble.
  I wanted to wriggle free of Anjali and run to Nayana, but if the others were hiding from this stranger, I too had to remain in hiding with them. Anjali lowered me down. We were trapped like squirrels in the fountain well and couldn't escape to the house without being seen. We strained, and heard only their continued approach, the click of their heels on the marble footpath. Sudden silence. They had stopped at the rim of the fountain. Anjali pressed a finger against her lips.
  'Krishna,' Nayana called me.
  We were surprised, as Anjali was always the first to be introduced to strangers in our children’s protocol.
  'Why me?' I whispered. 'You must come too.' It was dark now, the evening noisy with crickets.
  'I can't,' Anjali said. There was a touch of outrage in her whisper. She was being slighted in this meeting with the stranger. 'You have to go by yourself.' Anjali pushed me away towards the steps.
  'Why is he being called first?' Kaveri wondered.
  There had to be a reason: Nayana always worked to a plan, but Kaveri couldn't puzzle it out at that moment Of course, it was many I years later that we understood why I had been summoned first. But now, watching me reluctantly crossing the fountain floor to the steps, she decided, not out of any resentment but out of a sense of protecting her favourite, that they should all accompany me in this meeting with the stranger.
She rose. 'Come,' she said to the others, but only Leela and Valli rose along with her. I stopped and waited.
  'Stay where you are,' Anjali whispered fiercely. 'If Nayana wants us, he'll call us. Don't go poking your nose in.'
  'Why should Krishna have to go alone? You all can see he's unhappy.'
  'It's only Nayana,' Anjali said. 'Not some monster.' She turned to Jagan who had been sitting quietly, almost indifferent to our situation.
  'What should we do?'
  He was the only one who did not resemble us. We had oval shaped faces while his was quite square with a prominent jawbone, like our Thatha. Also he was an obedient boy, never complaining or causing problems, unlike us, and he was just a shade darker too. This darkness was remarked upon not by us but by the elders, relatives, friends, strangers. Only then were we made conscious that he was just that bit different from us. He was Ava's favourite. She had raised him from the moment he had been weaned and spoilt him more than she ever did us.
  He didn't reply immediately, though he sensed the urgency and saw that I was near the top step. Ava believed he thought out everything, whether word or action, in meticulous detail, which was why he took his time. .
  'We should go with Krishna,' Jagan said.
  Anjali hesitated, a flicker of annoyance that he had backed Kaveri and not her.
  'Don't you want to know who this lady is?' he added slyly. That decided them and they rose in unison to follow me. They moved tightly together like a small herd of chital warily approaching a water hole.

OUR NAYANA

    I would have waited for them but Anjali shooed me on ahead, as Nayana had called for me. But she was determined now to hear what would be said in front of this stranger. I climbed the steps. The Great House was barely lit, faintly silhouetted against the clouded night sky. Lights, like faded fireflies, were on in the verandah and a few downstairs rooms but the rest was shrouded in darkness. In contrast, the smaller house in the distance was afire with lights and the shadows of many people moving around.
    Out of shyness, I didn't look directly at the European, although I sensed her watching my approach in the gloom. I saw only my graceful Nayana. He wore a cream silk double breasted suit, a silk handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket. He took a few steps forward and even in this movement there was athleticism and style.
    There was a sense of quiet confidence and comfort in his presence. His shoulders were held straight back and were in a line as straight as his moustache, both of which clearly reflected his military training. Nayana wanted us to be as straight-backed as him and, unless we forgot, we'd straighten the slouch in our shoulders in his presence.
 'Come, Krishna,' Nayana said, and opened his arms wide.
   I ran into his arms. I loved his odour of faint and salty perspiration, the roughness of his skin in the evening compared to the smoothness of the morning, and the smell of alum which he used to staunch the blood from the nicks and cuts of shaving. When I was old enough I intended to grow a moustache as straight as his with a slight upward lilt at the ends, like tiny buffalo horns. .
Nayana kissed and released me. He saw now the others approach through the gloom and a slight frown appeared but was quickly erased. He ignored them, turning me around so that 1 faced the European lady.
  'I want you to meet Aunty,’ he said. 'Her name is Victoria Greene. Miss Greene, this is my youngest child, Krishna.'
  Miss Victoria Greene knelt to my height, smiling. 1 couldn't tear my eyes away from her hair. It was such an unusual colour, pale as sunlight, shoulder length and held in place by two small combs. I checked the urge to reach out and caress it. I imagined it would be hard and hot as gold. She had a strong face, with determination in the set of her lips, waxy and pronounced in their shaping, contrasting sharply with the surrounding whiteness of her face. Like a small animal, I sniffed; she smelt unfamiliar, not of jasmine, attar, sandalwood, but of something sweeter and stronger, an alien scent, and below that a subtle tendril of perspiration. I avoided looking into her eyes, now level with mine as they seemed to feed off my face. I sensed she wanted me to like her; I couldn't tell why, but that sense also reached down from Nayana.
  'Oh, he is beautiful: she said, not to me but to Nayana.
   I was used to such flattery. My female cousins and great-aunts would make this very observation almost daily, and then pinch my cheeks, hard, and kiss their finger tips. The worst offenders were my sisters. They both treated me as if I were a favourite doll. Apart from the pinches, they combed my hair up into a peak and tied ribbons in it, or else bounced me up and down like a ball or dressed me in female attire. There was no end to their affection, which sometimes drove me into a rage.
  'Say "hello" to Aunty: Nayana commanded softly.
  'Hello: I said, and she took my hand and shook it. Her palm was damp and she dabbed it with a tiny handkerchief. I "wiped my palm on my shirt front
  The others loomed out of the darkness, silent and wary of this woman and looking to Nayana for guidance. He spoke their names and she smiled at them and said her 'Hello, how do you do?' to embrace them all, but they didn't reply.
Instead Anjali nudged Kaveri and her cousin Sushila in the sides and whispered, 'See her legs?'
   Miss Victoria Greene's legs were naked from below the knee. Their whiteness was distinct in the darkening evening. Her feet were encased in square open-toed shoes which had high heels. Our own feet were bare and dusty.
   'Has she no shame?' Kaveri and Sushila whispered back. Only schoolgirls in their uniforms revealed so much of their legs. They had spoken in Telugu and were overheard.
   'Do they speak any English?' Miss Victoria Greene asked Nayana.
   'Of course they do,' he said defensively, and made them feel they had let him down somehow with their whispering. 'Say "good evening" to Aunty.'
    But since Anjali refused to say a word to her, the others too remained mute. Our cousins were excluded from these introductions, and after a minute or two of standing awkwardly they edged away one by one, back into the darkness, to circle    around and head for the house. Their bangles tinkled prettily as they moved and faded away into a fast jangle as they ran the last few yards and up the steps.
   'Now let's see if I have their names correct,' Miss Victoria Greene said, as she peered into the darkness at our faces. 'Kris-hna is the youngest, the baby; then we have Jag-en. That's An-jelly. . . no - that's Cau-very, and the tallest is An-jelly.'
   We were unsure whether she was talking about us or total strangers. Her mispronunciation sounded quite deliberate.
   Lined up, we felt her steady gaze. We thought then it was to recognize one from another should we ever meet again. Her gaze rested only briefly on Anjali, the near woman. It passed to the others, lingered a few moments, and finally settled on me.
   'What lovely children you have,' she finally passed her judgement. 'Poor things. And it must be such a burden for you, bringing them up all alone.'
    A breeze, deliciously sweet with the approaching rains, blew a thick strand of hair across her face. She brushed it back, holding it with one hand and looked skyward. We all did, like eager lookouts on a sailing ship. We were parched; the earth was hard as iron and anaemic, the grass burnt brown tufts. It had been a year since the last rains and that monsoon had been scanty. The metallic blue sky had darkened gradually to a smoky pearl. It was no longer pearly but blackening and thickening; thunder rumbled, lightning lit our faces.
   'It's on time at least this year,' she said, studying the rolling clouds. 'I hope it will be a good one. God knows we need it'
   This told us she was no stranger to the country. Other European women would have looked at those black clouds and only dreaded the damp discomfort ahead. Or, if the sky was hard and white, they dreamt of the cool hills of Simla or Ooty.    The monsoon blew through Miss Victoria Greene's veins too. She knew the monsoon and its importance; she too had depended on its cycle, and was emotionally planted in the country as firmly as we were.
   'The car'll take you home.' Nayana made a move to take her by the arm. It was an intimate gesture which my sisters immediately noticed. Maybe he sensed their stiffening for his hand dropped, and he used his white panama as a guide for her to follow.
   'Goodbye,’ she said. 'I hope we’ll meet again soon.'
   'You children had better get ready for dinner and bed,' Nayana said.
   They turned and strolled away towards the porch which had grown brighter as the evening darkened. The chauffeur, Balram, waited by the rear door of the Pontiac. Vishnu still stood on the steps, and it seemed as if only a moment had passed since the car had pulled up and she had emerged from that rear door.
   'Wait,' Anjali whispered as we began to move away towards the small house. We stopped. 'I want to know why he brought her here.'
    Anjali, our leader, was always bold. She had little time for evasions or excuses, impatient with courtesies. Adults found her unsettling, as she quickly saw through their pretensions.
    We drifted after the two adults. Our bare feet made barely a whisper on the marble pathway while their heels clicked in unison. We noticed that a black handbag hung from the crook of her right arm and her hips swayed as she moved. The dress clung to her behind, which rolled from side to side. Nayana talked to her and she listened, replying now and then.
    They stopped at the car and Balram opened the rear door with a flourish. Nayana and Miss Greene shook hands formally and he helped her in, touching her elbow delicately. For a moment her face remained framed in the window, looking at him, and then the car was moving swiftly up the long drive. We came into the light, even as Nayana was climbing the broad steps of the Great House.
    'Who is she?' Anjali asked. .
    He turned and studied us thoughtfully. We saw our own reflection in his face. Chokras and chokris, dusty, dirty, sweaty, barefoot, dishevelled. He remained the figure of elegance and neatness, a world apart, almost detached from us. We shuffled our feet and wriggled our toes in the dust
   He said finally, 'I've been thinking about you all very seriously. And she's an aunty I wanted you to meet.' He pulled up his right sleeve with one finger delicately to look at his watch. 'I'd like to see you all in my room in ten minutes.'
   'What's her jati?' Anjali asked.
    He hesitated a moment, as if this normal question was unexpected and he wasn't certain how to answer. We were Telugus and by ancient profession bangle sellers. Our ancestors once had had the delicate task of holding a strange woman's hand and slipping a pretty bangle around her wrist .
   'Victoria Greene is an English name,' he said and ran lightly up the steps.