And I Saw Myself Running

Translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell

“At exactly two o’clock, take a look at your watches,” he announced. “Right when the clock strikes two, I’ll pass on.”

A tone that boasted of his all-powerful lineage. He could lift people up, fell them, kill them, make them rot away. Even death: he could summon death too, if he wished.

That day, as always, Baba rose at dawn and went out to make the rounds of the property. Or perhaps to bid farewell to every leaf, every snake. After his stroll, as was his custom, he went outside the big gate and headed down to the river, walking by every single ghat. At the first ghat: morning prayers; at the second: tooth brushing; at the third: wrestlers massaging their muscles; at the fourth: meditation and ritual bathing; at the fifth: washermen; at the sixth: yoga; at the seventh: shaving. The river was crowded with a profusion of boats, all filled with worshippers pouring their filth into the waters as they praised the Lord: Har har Mahadev.

Baba twirled his staff and took two deep breaths. He cast a fleeting glance at the cremation ghat and then turned toward home.

A pyre was burning at the cremation ghat, as always. So absorbed was a band of water buffalo in soaking their bodies in the ghat’s warm waters, that only their snouts protruded. New pallbearers arrived. The moment the bier was placed in the row, two goats rushed over, eager to chew up the piles of marigold garlands. The dog lying near the hot coals on the other side of the biers still dozed—once the pyre had cooled, he’d go digging for bones.

I smiled. As though the marigold garlands offered to the goat were for Baba’s funeral; it was his pyre that afforded the water buffalo their warm nap; his bones that would wind up in the dog’s jaws. I felt a foolish, weeping laughter bubbling up inside me, one that would return again and again. But I remained unaware of this as I skulked along behind Baba.

Various people from the city and the mohalla joined him along the way, and by the time we returned to the mansion, it was truly a royal procession—Baba in front, and all his people trailing off in the distance behind him.

The household stirred into action the moment he set foot on the threshold, as always. Up until then, the air had lazed quietly, but now it began to flutter about, whizzing with dust and flies.

“Look over here! Dirt! Look over there! Bits of grass!”

Baba’s invectives began, and in an instant, all the women and servants stood at attention, ready to sweep and dust with anything on hand: brooms, sari borders, dusters. The dozing mosquitoes were shocked awake for fear of Baba, and began to bite me. As I itched my arms and legs, Baba roared, “Why are you standing around scratching yourself like a ruffian, don’t you have anything better to do!”

In Baba’s presence, everyone’s faces were calm, but their hearts pounded as they dashed madly about in his service, this way, that way. He was given a mustard oil massage, and water was drawn from the well to pour into the brass tub for his bath. I took his clothing out of the almirah and placed it on the bed. Baba rested his special staff with the snake hook on the floor in his distinctive style, then went out to the porch to oversee all the arrangements himself.

He watched as the cot was made up with a plain sheet and bolster. The Shiva lingam and copper tray were brought from the puja ghar and everything was readied for the worship of Shiva.

He went to the tent alongside the garden, just outside the gate, to look in on Bhutt Maharaj’s preparations for the feast, and saw to the setting out of cots and durries in the garden for visitors to sit and dine on. The aromas of cooking—poori, sabzi, halwa—wafted in the air. And at the plinth of the well, his angocha stretched tightly over his langot, Tissu Pehelwan athletically ground hemp on the grindstone, all his bhang implements laid out before him.

Baba spoke some words of blessing and went off to take his bath, a look of serene satisfaction upon his countenance.

“Clothes!” he shouted, and I came running, his dhoti, kurta, and langot draped over my arm. I felt the heat of his eyes on my body.

He stared at me as he wiped himself down with his angocha.

“You never stand up straight!” he barked, and sent me away.

Then he began to dress in his langot. Under his dhoti, he always wore a langot, into which he stuffed his tobacco, slaked lime, money, and so forth. His hand would disappear into the dhoti and suddenly produce any one of these items as if by magic. Despite my keen desire to see the rupee notes emerge filthy and sweaty, they always came out crisp and dry; lightly scented. It made me feel helpless, a bit nauseous, even.

“I’m the one who’s fifty, but you look like an old man,” he’d joke.

He wrapped himself in his yellow dhoti and went toward the inner room, with me following, holding his kurta.

There he opened the almirah, applied chandanyukt cream to his face, oiled his exceptionally long, thick hair, and parted it down the middle with a comb. A strong smell of perfume emanated from his hair as he reached out and took from my arm his embroidered, golden silk kurta that rippled like a flag as it unfurled, awe-inspiring and graceful without any ironing at all.

Baba turned again toward the almirah. Now he removed a key hidden in his clothing and opened his safe. Look, he motioned.

I looked: There were bundles of paper and rupee notes.

He picked up one bundle, stuffed it effortfully into his langot, then locked the safe and tossed the key to me. “Now it’s all up to you.”

But then he stopped, took back the key, inserted it in the lock, took the bundle back out of his langot, put half the notes back into the safe, and stuffed the remaining half into his langot.

And thus he emerged before us all, bright and shiny.

Everyone fell silent. As they always did. But in today’s silence, a surprised whispering.

Everyone turned toward Baba, who walked over to the puja stool and sat down.

The ingredients for the hemp pill—bhang, sugar, almonds, black pepper, munakka—had already been ground fine. And Tissu Pehelwan had put them into his angocha and poured milk over them. Now he was pressing the pill with his fist, filtering out the bhang.

Baba began to recite the prayer to Shiva in his powerful voice:

Nagendra naraya trilochanaya

Bhasmang raagay maheshwaraya

Namah shivay

Om namah Shivay

Baba lit the lamp. He offered milk, yogurt, ghee, honey, and rose water to the Shiva lingam, then smeared it with a chandan tika and added the bel patra. He offered the ber, paan, and dhatura, added the flowers, and lit the incense.

Om namasteth bhagwan

Vishwesaraya mahadevaaya

Trayamabakaaya tripurantakaaya

Trikaaghi—kalaaya

Kaalagni—rudraaya niilakaanthaaya

Mrityunjaya sarveshwaraaya sadaadhiwaaya

Shrimaane mahaadevaaya sadaadhiwaya

Shriimaan mahaadevaya namah

He offered the bhang to the Shiva lingam from the copper pot, and set out the feast of halwa puri aloo.

Then he took the bhang prasad and ate his fill of the feast.

He stood up, gargled, and turned toward the crowd. Om namah Shivaay: he folded his hands in a namaskar.

All the voices rose together: “Har har Mahadev.”

Everyone paid their respects with enthusiasm. Baba held up one hand in blessing and, with the other, indicated that everyone should be fed. After that, he sat down on the bed on the porch and assumed an attitude of silence.

People began to eat and drink and chat among themselves. The prayers continued, and the bhang was distributed. Every now and then, someone would get up and peer into the porch, touch Baba’s feet, then return. Baba and his magic. Baba. Mahadev. Shiva.

All the village dignitaries had arrived. Baba’s civil surgeon friend had been especially invited, his stethoscope still hanging around his neck. His job was to continue monitoring Baba’s pulse and heart rate.

He sat staring at Baba like a complete fool, almost as though Baba’s face were itself a heartbeat monitoring device. Perhaps he hadn’t really believed before, but now—what was this? Baba’s pulse was getting slower by the minute, and his heartbeat fainter. He might have been anxious too, that this game in which his friend had asked him to take part turned out to be a grave matter; in legal terms, he was assisting in a murder or suicide. But by now he was no longer capable of doing or thinking anything, whether to interfere or to administer medicines.

This was a specialty of Baba’s. Stupefy everyone in his path at will. Women, men, snakes, me.

It was this that tormented me. I couldn’t even enjoy watching him die: even then I was executing his command!

A little while later Baba lay down on the cot.

A few minutes before two, he turned his eyes toward me—or toward the crowd? Then he looked at his doctor friend.

He smiled.

He closed his eyes.

At exactly two o’clock, Baba passed away.

As the doctor grew ever more anxious, he stared at everyone else like they were the doctors, not he, and why wouldn’t they do something?

The process of finding Baba’s pulse terrified him now; he felt so incompetent, it almost seemed like it was he at the brink of death, not Baba. As we lifted up Baba and placed him on the floor, the clock struck two.

The crowd erupted in a sky-splitting wail of praise and mourning.

And I? Although I was now free, I fretted. I was sure that if I were able to slide behind Baba’s closed eyelids, I would see the familiar flame of victory dancing there. I tried to suppress my anger: don’t look out of place, I told myself. Now you’re completely in charge. He’s gone, leaving you the protector. His voice is gone; now it’s yours. And I wished I could laugh at that motionless body, unable to stir, just like his snakes. If the old man could see himself now, still, dead, he’d boil with rage at the humiliation.

But laughter would be just as perverse as anger, and who knew, he himself could rise and burst out laughing at all of us.

So I covered my mouth with my fists in fear.

Nonetheless, a few stray chuckles escaped through my fingers.

“Beta, beta, get ahold of yourself,” I heard someone say. “Baba has left us, calm down.”

I started to laugh out loud, but everyone kept saying, “No, beta, don’t cry.”

It was already dark by the time we had all, various and sundry, cremated him at the burning ghat, and I had returned to the mansion.

When I lifted the flap of the gate, I was accosted by the same fear I’d experienced right there, without fail, ever since childhood. It had been when I was small, returning from somewhere with Baba, riding on the back of his scooter. It was already dark, and Baba had put his feet down, leaving the scooter on, and reached out to lift this same flap and push open the gate. Then right before us, in the scooter’s headlight, appeared a cobra with its hood up! As though caught in a spotlight but perfectly frozen, as though the spotlight were an iron cage in which it had been trapped.

The cobra was terrified. I was terrified. Its forked tongue darted about helplessly; I choked with terror.

“So, should I let it go, or catch it?” Baba whispered in my ear.

“Leeetttt…it…go…” I stammered.

Baba turned off the scooter light and then immediately switched it back on. That instant was enough to make the snake feel it had been freed from its cage, and it disappeared.

By then I felt even more terrified. Had the snake been an illusion, or was its disappearance the illusion? For the rest of my life, I had been unable to shake the fear that engulfed me at that moment. Whenever I reached the gate, that feeling of being trapped between the snake and Baba returned, and I longed to escape from that prison. I was prepared to confess to a crime I had not committed if it would help me escape my humiliation. And for this reason, I began to shrink, and Baba began to grow taller, as though his life were continuously expanding and mine contracting. As a result, I was stuck at five feet, zero inches, and he had reached six feet or more.

But today there was no snake—I felt reassured—nor was Baba there.

When I came inside, the servants stopped working and stood about uncertainly. I gave them some instructions, but I was certain the bastards were comparing their former master of the thundering commands to his idiotic weirdo of a grandson.

“Move the cot out to the courtyard!” I admonished. The dolts probably thought I wanted to sleep by the porch. I would tell them it was stifling in there, and I wanted a cool breeze, okay?

A clay lamp burned in the porch, and the way the shadows flickered in its faint, quivering light almost made it seem like someone lay on the nearby cot. I watched from the courtyard. But I was overwhelmed by fatigue: not the kind one feels from a full day, or an entire funeral, but from centuries of exhaustion. I began to fall asleep. It was the kind of deep sleep that could even lay to rest the memories of people of enormous strength. Those who feared no one, not even snakes, and answered to no one.

At night, I felt I could hear the slithering swish-swish slowly gathering about me. I sat up and realized that all the snakes on the property had arrived at the house, hissing and swishing. Slithering through the grass, sliding through cracks between rocks, under bushes and hedges, crackling through dry leaves, through all the places they hid for fear of Baba, and whence his staff had pulled them, smashing to bits their snaky arrogance. Now they all emerged of their own accord, swish-swash, as though the news had reached them that Baba, along with his staff, had departed, and now there was nothing to fear—come out in the open, gather; tonight we will celebrate.

I began to feel wonderfully excited. I slammed open the porch door. The lamps still burned by the cot, but no one was there. I cheerfully opened the door leading out to the garden, as if to say, “Look! Come! Everyone, come see for yourself: there’s no one on the cot. There’s nothing; nothing at all.” I felt like running about madly and shouting down every hole, every crack, every blind gali: “Come out! Now it’s just me, only me!”

But no one needed my invitation. I felt as though everyone—every thing—was emerging, advancing toward the mansion, in a flowing, rumbling procession, passing by the plinth of the well and entering the porch, to shimmer and bow their heads before the Shiva lingam like the flame above it. Loads of snakes: hundreds, thousands of emasculated snakes, mincing and prancing. Then they gathered in the garden in front of the porch. There was no end to their relief and they swayed in delight, and, one by one, all stood on the points of their tails like ballerinas, and waved their necks about, their hoods in the air and their eyes glowing—shimmering jewels—and it was a moonlit night and the garden had become a rippling field of snakes, which is truly a sight worth seeing and I was seeing it.

And I kept on seeing it, watching from the doorway of the porch. They writhed by my feet, one at a time, each sending a flicker through the lamplight, as though to announce victory over Baba, since he’d been lying there not long ago, growing cold, cold and motionless; lifeless and totally frigid.

In the writhing field beneath the moon, all the beaten snakes and humiliated beings performed a unique dance together, and all their eyes glowed like electric spinning tops.

The next morning, I got up and ran toward the porch at the front of the house the moment I opened my eyes, to see the remnants of the night’s celebration. But I found only a scene of mourning there; a gathering of visitors come to see Baba. Actually, they’d come to see me, to observe mourning and to ensure the continuation of their usual arrangements on the property. One person’s shop contract, another’s field shareholding agreement, another’s orchard business: everyone was beholden to Baba’s beneficence. They always sang his praises. Baba was everyone’s mother and father. Baba was all-powerful. Baba, who feared no one, under whose shelter all were protected, who took care of everyone and provided for all, who gazed benevolently upon all; even the snakes were beloved by him. Because of his presence, there was no need to fear the dense population of snakes on our property—they were either Baba’s disciples or emasculated.

Usually, snakes memorized the image of their attackers so that if they died in a conflict, their friends and relations would recognize the murderer and seek out opportunities for revenge. But according to the rules of our place, they internalized Baba’s image to inform their women and children that they must recognize this face and take care not to leave slither-marks in the sand, because then Baba would appear and work his enchantments.

Baba’s arrival was always swift. He arrived spinning his iron-hooked staff, hiking up his dhoti. He would first investigate the snake-marks, then scour the leaves and rocks, digging at the earth. The terrified snake would then emerge, quivering helplessly, hissing. At such moments, Baba always donned his terrifying Bhairav guise, and the more poisonous the snake, the more his eyebrows beetled and his eyes blazed. The snake would scramble to escape but find itself too weak. Its eyes would fill with a piteous timidity. Baba’s strong grip on its throat forced open its mouth, and its tongue slipped out, weak, helpless, rendering it not fearsome but foolish.

And thus, between tongue and tail, it was robbed of all its honor.

I could almost hear the moaning, and this brought to mind my grandmother.

Whenever Baba came home from the thatched cottage, Dadi would attempt to look busy. The moment he set foot on the threshold was like an earthquake erupting. Everyone scurried about industriously. Dadi would grab a tray of uncooked dal and rice from a servant, and with a smooth, expressionless face begin to sort out the pebbles; or she’d start beating the winnowing basket. At Baba’s command she’d enter his room, as though she’d only just noticed his presence.

“No,” she’d whimper. She did not want to give him the key on the silver ring stuffed into the waist of her sari. Baba’s eyes turned to burning coals, and in a single leap, he’d knock her over and pin her beneath him. Restraining her with his legs, he’d search at her waist, and then, keeping her thus imprisoned, he’d open the chest next to the takht. Dadi would tremble. There was jewelry in the box, and Baba would pull out some ornament or other. Once victorious, he overflowed with love and caressed Dadi affectionately. “I’ll bring you a new one,” he’d promise.

When Baba stood up, Dadi always looked disheveled and spent. He would then return to the cottage, and I’d panic. I’d leave the window where I’d been hiding and run.

And I saw myself running.

It’s quite strange to see oneself running. It’s the sort of sight that makes you laugh, but you don’t, because who laughs at themselves? That body whose back I saw, that was mine, that was a human child; but the way I ran didn’t look human; I ran like an animal. All the centuries—from before the creation of humans until now—were contained in that bizarre tangle of species that existed in me, and right in the spot where my backside shrank with fear as I ran, you could almost sense the presence of a lowered tail.

Dadi died and now Baba was gone too, and before me were gathered the people he had created or destroyed, and all around now wandered joyously the snakes Baba used to grab like they were women, the snakes he’d terrify to weeping but not kill, the snakes he’d fondly caress. He would neither kill them, nor allow anyone else to do so.

Under his authority, no one could kill or wound a snake on his land. Anytime anyone found a snake that was crushed or battered, they’d begin to hyperventilate. They could be deemed responsible since they’d found it. They might even consider swallowing the snake whole, just so no clue remained; but what if a clue did reemerge, in their vomit or their shit?

So essentially, the snakes were under the protection of Baba, and he did not kill them, nor did he let them die. Instead, he had his fun with them. A snake would try to flee in one direction, but Baba would block its path. Then it would try the other way. He’d toss it in the air so it would fall back into his grasp, mewling pathetically. He would let it go, then jump up and trap it again. He would challenge it with his eyes and urge it on with words. There would be heavy breathing, from both him and the snake. He’d smack himself on the rump. The snake’s eyes would fill with rage, pain, fatigue. Its hood would rise involuntarily, and it would whip its head back and forth to escape Baba, as though it were dancing. Baba would jump, swerve, punch it below the neck. Like a boxing match. The snake would jerk its neck, leap about helplessly, longing to sink its teeth into something. People would say, “But Baba, the snake is poisonous, let it take a small bite just for the sake of it. Make it a little drunk on its own poison.”

“He has every type of poison in his blood,” they said of Baba, “and now he has so much power in him that if a snake bites him, it will die, but he will not.”

The poison had become immortal, and because of this, no one but Baba himself could take his life.

We onlookers shrieked and shouted, “Jay Bholenath!” The cobra’s eyes showed defeat, whilst Baba’s showed victory.

Then Baba would get bored. He’d throw the snake in the air once more, and just as it was about to fall on the ground, he’d execute a leap and step on its tail, seizing its neck in his hands, just below its begging tongue. He’d grab it in his fist as though he were grabbing it by the collar, to make it stand up straight.

Then he’d poke the hook of his staff into the snake’s mouth. The defeated snake, having lost all its suppleness, would be left hanging straight, like a spear. Its mouth would remain open even after Baba let go. In that instant, Baba would snap its poison tooth in two, like he was snapping a neem twig, breaking its poison sack and depriving the snake of its very existence. Then he’d throw the snake around his neck like a garland and wander off cheerfully.

Off he’d go on some other errand in the mohalla, looking just like Shiva and smiling affectionately as the young ladies shrieked.

Now listen to what happened next. Baba, diminished and unseen, was still the driving force of life, and of my life especially. Visitors were assembled in the garden, and I was walking in that direction after bathing. Anyone could see I was walking that way. That’s what they saw, and I had the sense that they were seeing me in Baba’s place: I was appearing there. Should I turn and run? And see myself running again? Should I let them see my tail again?

So I kept walking.

But listen to this. Ostensibly, I had only four yards to walk, but here I was, forced to traverse my entire past and history. “Walk straight!” I could hear Baba shouting in my head, so I stuck out my chest a bit. But no one seemed to gaze upon me in awe. Despite my broad chest, my spine, which everyone knows gives one an air of authority when it goes straight up and down, writhed like a snake and, paralyzed deep down inside, I swayed. And it seemed as though Baba were shouting grandly from somewhere on the sideline: “Where are you going, Raja!” And I went limp, my head hanging.

Everyone stared at me: Here comes Grandson Sahib! He can’t handle himself; how will he handle us! So different from Baba, who kept even the snakes here protected and nonpoisonous. If it were he that approached, the earth would tremble; the whole crowd would shiver. That’s how he was, how it was in his day.

“Which has passed,” I wished I could scream. That legend is over, where one man alone could find such strength. My heart fermented with rage and rebellion: it’s a crime to give anyone so much power, to awake his inner God; it transforms him into Satan.

Suddenly, I felt as though Baba might burst out laughing any moment, and warmly toss a snake around my neck like a garland. Something happened to my facial expression at this thought, and to my insides as well.

Another moment from my childhood: Baba saw a mark on the sand, and realized there was a snake nearby. At a distance of one hundred meters, he started digging a hole with his staff, and then, truly, a tail began to flicker. It was a black snake, and when Baba pulled it out, it came up like a kite on a string. “You shit!” cried Baba squinting at it. “You were eating mice!” He was about to toss the snake away, when it snarled out of habit. “Aha!” Baba turned on it abruptly. “Pretending to be a cobra, are you?” he growled. He tossed his staff to one side, picked the snake up, and danced it around like a dust rag.

It was so weak and still he was about to toss it away. But then his eye fell on me. “Want to wear it?” he asked.

A crowd had assembled. Everyone was watching. Baba’s grandson. A frightened, ineffective snake. How could I slip away? I nodded, snaking with fear, the snake hanging limp with fear.

It was not slimy. It was smooth. Inside, I burned with fear, but on the surface I was nonchalant. I had to roam about the mohalla wearing the snake for ages, and the women, who surrendered before Baba’s masculinity when they saw a snake turned earthworm around his neck, burst out with a jingling laughter that jangled with their jewelry—their own, or Dadi’s—when they saw me.

I hid the tears in my eyes, the anger in my heart, the rebellion in my mind, and walked on.

I sat down in the chair where Baba always sat.

The man before me began to whimper and sob when he saw the tears in my eyes. “Baba is no more,” he lamented.

Even more people burst into tears, and I was astonished, anxious, stupid, useless. He was…no more? My eyes searched this way, that way, ahead. I started to tremble. I should say something.

“He’s gone, yesterday’s standards and ideals are gone.”

I cleared my throat and continued. “Baba isn’t dead, he is enthroned in your hearts. But…”

“Baba isn’t dead, Baba won’t die.” A chant flew up from the weeping mourners.

Sob sob sob—words spewed from my mouth, as did the resentment in my heart—these were his praises they were singing: “Now there will be no one who is a mother and father to all, no one with a connection like his to the Earth, to the property, to nature, no master of snakes now.”

As I spoke, I began to come to the unusual realization that the crowd was watching me with adoration: That grandson that was always totally silent, see how he speaks, and with such reverence!

How had Baba tricked everyone into seeing me as the exact opposite of what I was? Even words of scorn sounded like praise to them. Though he was dead, his eyes could still trap me in their cage of flame.

I wanted to shut up, but my tongue had slipped, and it kept slipping: “May your birth and lineage fill you with such pride that you can take control of a snake and truly turn it into a worm. A worm that will live or die, according to your will, for you are a higher being.”

“Truly spoken, yes, yes!” cried the crowd, even more blindly faithful in their Baba-worship than ever.

“We don’t realize that the higher he rises, the lower we fall, and where he sees a worm, we see a snake. In his eyes we are nothing but dust, everything becomes a dunghill; his cosmic dance is gathering speed…”

“Victory to Mahadev! The highest power. Lord Shankar himself!”

“How can anyone be so powerful? Only God…” I babbled.

“Only God; all hail Baba!” someone cried.

A flood of tears, a mountain of prostrations, cries of: “Jay jay—Victory! Victory!”

I was a dwarf, my tongue flickering about, eyes in pain.

Poor thing, grieving for his Baba: this was how everyone saw it.

A bad roll of the dice. But they lay where they’d fallen. Whenever someone else arrived, my tongue started flickering and babbling again: “Baba this, Baba that.”

“Raja has started living a bit too much in the past,” people said. “Always singing the praises of his Baba!”

They grew bored of me and avoided me, for fear I would start again and never shut up.

I could clearly discern this feeling on their faces. The feeling of being trapped. If only he would add a comma or a period; pause a moment to take a breath or swallow his spit, and then we could run away. But my tongue wanted to recite Baba’s misdeeds, and the more unhelpful it became, the more unrestrained it grew. I had to cut loose its burden and let it fall away, to make it lighter.

But to the listeners, it looked like something else: He’s experiencing a delightful sensation on his tongue, which he sucks like a lemon drop; his mouth will water until it transforms into an ocean of flavor, and we’re the ones who will drown.

You are impatient, I thought. The comma and period are not coming, won’t come, because the book I am reading to you, I read not letter by letter, but page by page, unhindered.

But what was I to do about my tongue running thither and my tail hither? In this tug of war between tongue and tail, what got bruised, and what wavered, was the spine…

Or did the spine crack, and in its place a chasm form, a narrow cavity in the shape of a spine? When I found myself alone, I did penance. But the incongruity of all the things I was unable to say, despite my tongue moving, lay wounded in the dark shadows of the hole, ashamed, base, coiled, hissing.

Alas! All these old, flourishing, slithering beings got stuck in the leftover space of that hole, and the serpentine mass came through me, hissing, to slide down my tongue, a gathering of thoughts, which people label as cremation ground renunciation. The days after Baba died were the same as the ones before. The property ran on his orders, the hangers-on were his, even my tongue must have been in custody of his unseen gaze. I was useless! The work never ceased, yet I didn’t even have to lift a finger.

This was the dressing-down Baba gave me as he tore up my job application: “You ass, what’s the need for this? You’re nuts! Idiot!” He waved his hands in the air. “No one can say anything to you! No one can lift their eyes to look at you! You’ve inherited great wealth from your ancestors. For generations, no one in this house has lifted a finger to work, and yet food and luxuries come our way with no effort at all. You step out of here and I’m done with you,” he thundered. “I will kick you out! Are you washing your hands of your wealth?” He stared at me in astonishment, wondering that his own flesh and blood could turn out to be such a madman. “We bow before no one. We don’t follow other people’s rules—we make our own. You’ve gone completely mad,” he trumpeted. “Going off to work for someone else—loser!”

And I ran, my tail between my legs.

But not now. No running, no tail. Strolling. Quietly. It could be that I was strolling quietly among my voices that wouldn’t emerge, or sounded like something else the moment they did.

Without realizing it, I had strolled in the direction of the thatched cottage. The cottage was surrounded by mango and guava orchards, with a straw hut in front. Baba referred to the big house as the farmhouse and all the lands as agriculture, but the thatched cottage was his home. Dadi had never gone there, nor had I—not since the day Baba cooked some food because he was in a good mood, and asked me how I liked it. I had said that the mooli was not properly pressed, the charuri was watery. Baba ran after me, roaring, and slapped me hard.

And I saw myself running, even faster.

Women used to come to this cottage, this I knew. Then he had given the cottage to that woman, and had also continued to give her Dadi’s jewelry. We didn’t go over there. Baba went back and forth between the big house and the cottage.

Sometimes, he’d be sitting in front, under the thatched roof, where both the big house and its outside gate were visible. I would walk out of the house softly. I hadn’t yet reached the gate, when a voice would come from behind me, in the orchard.

“Hey there, Raja, where are you going?”

Always, following me.

Now too, it felt like someone was behind me, but I didn’t turn around.

Baba would say that he could recognize snakes when he saw them, and he could tell the age and appearance of a woman just from the sound of her footsteps. That was a brown rat snake, slithering among the branches. Those heavy footsteps belonged to a fat woman huffing and puffing along, carrying a bag of fruit and vegetables. Those feet stepping softly, they belonged to a middle-aged woman, she must be crying; she’s left her house after a scolding. That was a colorful snake, leaping from plant to plant, as though it were finally fed up and flying away, with Baba’s staff like a paper airplane, to escape his tricks, and this one, with the tinkling anklets, walking in sandals, was a young woman, beautiful, joyful.

A girl, I guessed. She walked lightly. In a hurry.

It was morning and perhaps I was not yet fully awake. The softness of the night’s rain still lingered in the air. There was shrubbery on both sides of the path. The morning’s glow glinted on the leaves resting quietly above, not reaching the tangled branches below, or the old roots that lay in deep shadows. It almost seemed as though darkly-hued nature longed to wear a shining cap.

But it might also be that these were the deep shadows where beings that must cloak themselves in nature’s darkness sleep, wake, and wander.

When those who disturb nature are exposed, where do they go?

Thus I walked sleepily down the path, until I arrived at a small gate. Even as I reached out to open it, I didn’t fully awaken. Just then, a shadow raced by me and ran inside the veranda. This broke through my drowsiness, and it was then that I realized I’d arrived at the cottage. And that was the girl who’d been following me!

I would have turned tail and fled, but then the girl would have seen me running.

What’s the big deal, I reasoned, it’s my property, after all.

The woman who lived there had been given the orchard contract. One of my uncles had been urging me to transfer it to him so he could start a juice and jam business. Had I strayed this way to deliver her the good news that her well-wisher was gone, and soon she would be too?

As I was thinking this, I heard a voice: “The langurs come early every morning, beta. Come in, Raja.”

The woman opened the door, and called me Raja, a name only Baba had called me.

Or maybe she called me a langur, I thought, blinking.

Just then, the langur in question began causing a great commotion among the guava branches.

“All right then,” I murmured, and as I entered the room, I was startled by a life-sized portrait of Baba. He wore a long coat with a closed collar, his gaze sidelong, and here I was, a dwarf; his langot was concealed, his watch chain hanging from his upper pocket, and here I was, worthless. Behold his majesty! How would I respond if he were to suddenly cry out to me, “Hey, Raja, where are you?”

If I continued to walk forward, despite wishing to walk backward, at some point or other we’d surely collide. And I did collide. With a table. On which lay a multitude of snakes.

I jumped, and my tail jumped too, like a snake. And then got stuck between my legs.

Someone laughed, unseen. Baba, I thought, gritting my teeth. But no, this was a girl. The girl. The same one who had been behind me and then run ahead?

“He used to gather up their skins and bring them to Pinni.”

A table decorated with snakeskins.

“My niece.”

One shouldn’t be afraid of snake skins, but I was. So many colors, so many patterns. A cobra, a karait, a Russell’s viper, a rat snake, a sindoor-colored one…that one I didn’t know, Baba hadn’t told me about it. I felt jealous.

“Please, sit on the veranda,” said the woman.

It was not I, but the langur, who jumped down onto the veranda with a thud. As though to put an end to my waiting, the girl emerged, laughing. She greeted me with a namaskar, and ran to chase the monkey off into the trees.

And then there was much fuss over showing me hospitality.

“Wash your hands here…she’ll put out some water…won’t you wash your feet…your grandfather always did…it’s no trouble—breakfast is on its way…you can eat it here or there…your grandfather sometimes had it both places…he’d have breakfast there, then come here and see mango juice and kachauri, and he’d sit down again…you don’t eat kachauri…cornflakes…toast…Pinni, get the gardener’s son to go and get a loaf of bread…the station shop will be open, it’s open twenty-four hours…Pinni…Baba…chase the langur away…no one’s afraid of that naughty thief…how can you refuse halwa…your grandfather used to wolf it down…we can hardly let you go away hungry…if it were winter we’d make tilkut…we know what you like…tilkut…every year, your grandfather used to bring sesame seeds and gur because he said Raja likes tilkut…brought them straight to me…no one’s as handy as me…he used to say so himself…and Raja, I would make it…he was always thinking of you…damned langur…put out yesterday’s roti, or it’ll break the tree…”

I was eating, so my mouth was shut. It had never occurred to me, once Dadi had died, where the tilkut was coming from. The langur was knocking twigs and leaves onto the ground.

“Pinni, sit here a little while…talk to Raja…I’m making pakaudis…no, Raja, just light moong dal pakaudis…taste them…she’s studying, doing her BA.”

Pinni sat down and I asked her what she was studying.

She laughed. “My aunt just told you.”

“You don’t seem like a BA student.” I blushed. “You seem too young,” I added in a grown-up tone.

She was pleased.

I was pleased that she was pleased. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at Baba hanging from the wall. “Did Baba make you to catch a snake?” I asked to make her laugh more.

Pinni laughed more. So did the woman, who had returned with a plate of pakaudis. Her cheeks had grown plump, and her squinty eyes peeking out above them were almost concealed. I felt a sense of satisfaction.

“Oh my, there are so many snakes here…they drop from the thatched roof every other day…but he was never scared…take some, yes…even when he was old he ate twice as much as you…you don’t like them…they’re little and you won’t even notice them…he feared no one…tea!” she cried. “Bring it with your cap on…they’ve been wandering about bareheaded since your grandfather left us…he was very strict…but he feared you…‘No…nonsense,’ he would say, ‘…not at all…impossible…I don’t drink much tea…no, no, not coffee either…milk…oh my goodness!’”

I kept looking up at the thatched roof, wondering where I should slide my chair. Periodically, I glanced at the portrait…which stared back at me? Or at Pinni, who was younger than me?

“I’ll make shikanji,” she said, going inside.

I waited.

I hadn’t known about her. Was she a daughter of the mohalla, or did she come from outside? “Never lay a hand on a daughter of the mohalla,” Baba always used to say. I knew about the woman. And about Dadi’s jewelry.

I’ll look at the woman, I thought, through Baba’s eyes. I secretly let my glance slide down her whole body. I was disgusted. But no, he hadn’t been the peeping type. He had looked exactly where he wanted to. Had she felt proud when she’d received the divine glance? Or did she want to flee? Did she lose her way among the fruit trees?

“When we gave him milk, it was a whole pitcher-full,” she said, laughing.

“And bhang,” I joked, trying to gaze fully at Pinni. She’d come back with a cup of shikanji.

“But when he was working, he was completely focused, wouldn’t speak for hours.”

He didn’t speak to me for years. Not even when I stole back Dadi’s bangles. After that, I stopped going into the thatched house. He didn’t even give me any commands or reprimands, but I just kept running from him.

“He was scared of you. ‘Raja has become very intelligent,’ he’d say. ‘What can I say about him? The thing is, if he talks back, my honor will be destroyed,’” she said, laughing. “What’s so special about guava, it’s just fruit, you can eat it, it’s yours after all,” she added. “He couldn’t lose. If someone beat him, your grandfather would be a wreck.”

She chuckled. I wanted to ask Pinni some sort of question, like: What subject are you studying? She would like that. But then it slipped my mind.

“So…what’s next?” I asked wisely.

“Nowadays they want a donation, that’s how you get admitted, not from having good grades,” answered the woman. “I keep saying go into teaching…”

“Computer,” said Pinni.

“Do that, but in teaching,” I suggested cleverly.

She laughed.

I laughed.

“Get her in somewhere. Your grandfather knew everyone; you do too…” continued the woman.

She was this side, I was that side. Depending on what side you’re on, your appearance expands and contracts. I was on the side of becoming optimistic about myself.

“Why won’t she get admitted? Of course she will.” I rested my eyes on Pinni.

“You tell him, Pinni. You chat, Pinni,” the woman was saying. “She’s educated, she’ll say educated things, I’m illiterate—kala akshar bhains barabar! Raja knows, ask him what you should study, where you should work…”

“You wanted to work, didn’t you, in the city?” Pinni asked.

“Oh, oh,” the woman said, beginning to beat her brow. “He…” she said, as though revealing a secret, “burst out sobbing. ‘Now Raja wants to work at a job! What made him want to work, our ancestors never even shaved their own faces, and here he is, becoming someone else’s servant’…these huge fat tears…‘If he goes, I’ll worry constantly.’”

Has this only happened to me: a short trip transforming into a journey that spans centuries? And an impromptu conversation making one completely relive one’s life? Was my life still the same life, or had it turned into some other?

The thatched cottage. Baba used to sit upon this very chair. Watching all the comings and goings. “Aha!” His eyes blazed like coals. “Crackle! Pop!” And the guy before him would burn to ashes.

The woman speaking. The girl sitting cool and quiet. Baba’s portrait on the wall behind them.

Did his face show his fear that I would leave? To live some new separate life? Somewhere else? Far from his eyes?

I chuckled, haha. A familiar sound.

The haha chuckling was making me breathless.

And now there was a commotion outside. Not a langur, but children with a pole, knocking guavas off the trees. Pinni jumped up and ran after them. And I followed her.

“Snake! Snake!” the children shrieked suddenly.

Green, like the branches on which it lay still to camouflage itself. Being Baba’s grandson, I knew this one.

“It’s not poisonous, it’s just scared,” I said. “Look.” I held out my hand, took the pole, and poked the writhing snake. It darted here and there to hide among the branches. “Look, look,” I said, looking myself.

The snake stared at us sadly from huge, dilated eyes, and panted quickly to make its body expand like a balloon behind its silly, pointy head; its black and brown freckles stretched over the green balloon. A joker in an inflated green suit, balanced on a pointy end. The gums of its pink mouth stretched so wide it could only weep now. Making us laugh.

Baba would laugh, and I would fear.

I chuckled, hahaha. I wanted to see, if I turned my face toward the portrait, would he be fearing I would run, that I might weep?

But instead, I was turning my head and glancing secretly from fearful eyes.

I handed the pole to Pinni and the children. “Look at it, it’s just a silly cartoon,” I said. “Do whatever you want with it, but don’t kill it.”