mud colour. Seeing me walk up, his father, standing near Aakash, said, ‘He’s come at just the right moment.’ Aakash seemed pleased to see me and rested his elbow on my shoulder. Megha sat at the other end of the tent with the women of Aakash’s family. Their fight, Aakash explained, had been caused by the MC asking Megha and Aakash whether they had come as a married couple. Megha, feeling she could not lie in the presence of the goddess, had replied, ‘Yes,’ and Aakash’s sister-in-law had overheard. Aakash said that he had tried to cool the situation, but Megha felt he was letting her down. She had apparently got back into her car and driven home. Aakash had had to bring her back in person; and he was now worried that members of her family had discovered where she was. ‘Tonight’s final,’ he kept saying in English. An uneasy peace prevailed between Aakash and Megha, and its mood was mirrored on stage by two children, in liver-coloured satin, playing Krishna and Radha in a pageant of sorts.
The boy wore a black matted wig with painted sideburns and heavy make-up. There was something dark and tantalizing about his exposed armpit hair, seeming to emphasize his adolescence. The girl was plump and well formed, with a reddish-brown dupatta falling from a bun at the top of her head. They had a confrontational relationship, now dancing, now sulking, sometimes they were making up, sometimes she was attacking him with a rolling pin. His favourite expression was an appeal to the crowd, a stunned wide-eyed expression seeming to say, ‘Isn’t she mad?’ before retaliating himself. She never looked at the crowd, more like a soap opera wife than Krishna’s consort. There was a lot of Bollywood-style dancing, which ended with a freeze in godly postures. It was at this point that Sudama appeared.
A group of colony boys had collected at one side of the stage, slouched on chairs, laughing and hanging on to one another. One of them said, as though he’d seen it many times before, ‘This is really something to watch.’ Aakash suddenly became protective of me, and taking me by the hand, led me to one side of the tent, away from the blaring speaker. He gestured to me to sit down, then sat next to me. I felt, as I had many times with him, that in his moments of self-doubt and trouble, he rehabilitated himself through his friendship with me. In these moments he was tender, giving, eager to please, as if my approval could restore him to his normal levels of self- confidence.
A boy with a broken tooth and a thin, expressive face appeared on stage. He wore simple white clothes and his hair was tied with red rubber bands in a long cone. He was Sudama, Krishna’s childhood friend who falls into poverty. Barely able to feed his family, he goes looking for Krishna, who has by then become the King of Dwarka. But when he arrives at his doorstep, the guards prevent this near beggar from going in.
Standing outside a make-believe door, the teenage Sudama began singing a moving song, which at times had the audience in tears. Calling Krishna by all his different names, he sang, ‘Murli vala, your memory would trouble me, my faith in you must not break.’ In the end, he seemed to have succeeded in informing Krishna that he was standing outside his door, because Krishna, having dropped his godly freeze, now rushed out, and taking the broken Sudama in his arms, fell to the ground and began washing his feet. At this moment, Aakash, with tears in his eyes, put his hand behind my neck, massaging it as he once had at the Begum of Sectorpur’s. Forever able to see himself in exalted scenarios, whether it be Bollywood or Dwarka, he said, ‘Remember?’
‘Remember what?’ I said, not wishing to let him down.
‘Remember the time when I washed your feet?’
On stage, Krishna had brought Sudama into his palace and had seated him on his wooden throne with its red felt fabric. Radha had seen this and was enraged. But Krishna by this point had had enough of her and pushed her aside. Some great tension was expressed here, but it wasn’t clear what. The colony boys were both riveted, and judging by their scornful howling, repelled by Sudama’s story. It was easy to imagine how these Indian stories glorifying poverty were not always pleasing to them, easy to see how they were at once familiar and something young people, especially, were a little tired of.
I could hardly believe, given the hour, that the tent was full, and at least half full with children. They sat mesmerized, watching the re-enactment of these ancient stories. And for a moment it felt as if we were all children, with our tired, gaping expressions. The pageants in their medieval and ribald way brought out instinctive emotions – tears, laughter, sadness and joy. And this also deepened my feeling of childhood.
In his second act Sudama became a comedian. He had a mobile phone, which rang incessantly. He would answer it, saying, ‘Oh, hello, you’re such and such person from Madras. Funny, you should call right now, you know who I’m sitting with? Yes, Krishna, Krishna Kanhaiya, right here in Dwarka. Oh yes, he has a very nice palace. The wife’s a demon, but the palace is beautiful. What? You want to speak to him? Hold on one second.’ Then he would run among the crowd, handing them the phone. Each skit ended with him hugging and kissing the person he gave the phone to. He came over to us and gave Aakash the phone, and from the applause and hooting that came from the colony boys, it was clear how much they admired him.
When he had gone, Aakash, perhaps feeling better, began to tell me some of what had occurred between Megha and him. ‘She showed me her scars, you know?’ he said. ‘Her skin is bruised and dried up in many places. I can’t tell you, I felt such anger. She was saying, “Take me away from here. What kind of people are these, who don’t love me the way I am, but make me have lipo so they can marry me off?” I felt so bad. I could have made her lose the weight, but she said, “No, if you had, they would have married me off. You were right to leave the weight on. And anyway, anyone who marries me won’t marry me for my figure, but for me.” You know what her mother said to her?’
‘Her mother?’ I said, fighting my way out of this sudden outpouring. ‘What, does her mother know?’
‘Yes, man. Lul told her. Not about the marriage of course, but about the relationship. I told you before, tonight is final. Everyone’s finding out.’
‘What did the mother say?’
‘She said, “Pack your things and go. He’s eyed your money and that’s all. In a few days, when the money doesn’t come, he’ll start saying, ‘Come pick up your daughter, she’s waiting.’” She was ready to come then and there. I’d spoken to my father and he also agreed. He said, “Bring her. We’ll give her the full respect of a daughter- in-law.” But I consulted with some people and they thought it wasn’t wise. The family could have slapped a kidnapping case on me.’
‘But you’re legally married.’
‘Still, they can,’ Aakash said gravely. ‘You know, I’m not worried about myself. I think nothing of my safety. It’s my family I’m worried about. I don’t want them to endure anything on my account. I worship my father, you know? He’s done so much for me.’ Then his tone changed. ‘But if they lay a finger on me,’ he said, ‘I have some pretty good connections too. I’ve lived many lives. I know people who even make thugs shit in their pants, believe me. And they’ll never find me. I’ll quit Junglee; my address, they don’t know; my credit card is not linked to my home address; they’ll never find me.’ It was the first time I had heard fear and resignation in his voice. And it drew animal instincts like self-preservation from him. He said, ‘I love Megha. I would do anything for her happiness. But you know, I’ve come a long way too. I can’t throw it all away for love. I have to think of my family, their reputation in the colony…’
He was unable to say more because the MC, now full of fresh energy, had retaken the stage.
Though it was nearly five a.m., he said, ‘The second phase of the night is about to begin. All that has occurred so far has only been to awaken the night.’
The tent rang with cheers and applause. The MC smiled, showing bright orange teeth. ‘The most important segment of the night is the telling of the story of Tara and Rukmani, the two daughters of Raja Patras. I am inclined, as I tell this story, set over three lifetimes, to sometimes forget what I’m saying in the middle. Should this happen, you must come to my assistance.’
The tent thundered in approval, then a deep quiet fell over the crowd and the story began. But a few seconds into it, someone was heard speaking in the back. ‘Go home and sleep,’ the MC snapped. ‘Really, go home and sleep. This story is the jewel of the night. I will tell it even if there are only five people listening. If you’re going to utter even a single word, then please go home and sleep. This story is not for you.’ A shamed silence prevailed. A few people turned their head to see who had spoken. The MC, calm once again, restarted the story.
‘Raja Patras, content in his kingdom, had all that he ever wanted – money, power, the love of his people. The only thing he lacked was a child. He prayed to the goddess, performing the appropriate ceremonies, and soon he won her favour. He was told that within a fixed period he would be blessed with two daughters. And he was.’
At this, a stray cry from one of the colony boys went up: ‘Victory to the true durbar.’
The MC’s expression darkened. He held up his hand, with its many gold rings, threateningly, like a mother about to beat a child. The tent shook with laughter.
