Chapter 51: Eesa and England
Having made preparation to depart for England Eesa, for old times' sake, went to bid goodbye to Ram. As he entered, the veranda abutting the large courtyard teemed with supplicants. A servant dressed like a royal sentry ushered him in. Inside on the main wall of the study in the palatial home hard bound law reports and portraits of Nehru and Gandhi framed an imperial sized fire place. Zillapur's winters lasted no more than two months and hardly cold enough to warrant a fireplace, Eesa thought. The Gora Sahibs had them in the cold places like Shimla but the black sahibs mimicked them in the subtropics.
Ram shook his hand asked, "Good to see you Eesa. You don't look a day older than when we last met."
"Now that's a lie but I suppose defending liars one gets used to lies."
"Oh, no not at all," complained Ram shaking his index finger to make the point, "But what can I do for you."
"Nothing, I don't need anything; I just came to say good bye before I leave for England soon"
Ram and the place seemed strange; Eesa felt out of place; the bonds of youth that had brought Eesa to see him felt no more.
"You know I was thinking the RSS fanatics could only kill Mahatma's body. The corrupt Congressmen are killing his spirit and by the way all those people outside in the yard, are they clients?"
"No, many are supplicants."
"I thought so they were!"
"And you know the problem? The likes of you think stomachs can survive on ideals alone."
"Oh how could money and power supplant the country as the Gods to worship?" said Eesa getting up.
From Ram's home Eesa walked to the mansion to bid farewell to Sujata and Teg, the latter if here were there. He was tired and he kept touching and feeling his days' old stubble and moustache searching for answers to the question he had asked Ram about money and power, Ram's Gods?
He asked Sujata sharbat for he needed it to calm his nerves unsettled by the visit o Ram's. She told him Sameer was in town and wanted to see him, he promised to wait for Sameer at home the next day and returned to his small home that he had built with his savings and the proceeds of their Chajjuwara home. Fatigued, he slipped into the chair on which he had sat thousands of hours reading and preparing notes for lectures and fell asleep.
Late the same evening Sameer arrived at the mansion. Next morning Sameer and Teg sat in the yard near Penis' resting place sipping the last bits of tea in their cups when Sameer looked at Moustachioed's watch he was wearing and said, "Time to go Eesa Chacha." Just then he saw Jaggi walk through the gate.
"Brother Jaggi weren't you supposed to be at college?"
"Yeah, I'll tell you later, first get me a glass of water."
Teg got him a glass of water and he gulped it down before the three of them began a walk to Eesa's home which took them though the crowded streets, roads and byways of Zillapur, often by the open naalian filled with raw sewage, sleeping cows and their fresh dung, stray dogs, rickshaws and their bells, buses, trucks and cars belching smoke, their incessant horns; and in the midst of it all pedestrians rushing forth, on guard for their lives.
Finally Eesa's weather warped door greeted them.
Sameer knocked several times eventually pushing the door open. In his white dhoti and shirt Eesa sat face down, legs under him and arms extended forward, forehead touching the cement resting on the floor as if to kiss the soil for one last time before flying away. Teg noticed a black lump on the back of hi skull and turned the body face up, revealing a dark blood soiled spot on the floor where his forehead had rested; the forehead too, had a small laceration and a large, dark contusion on it.
"He's been killed," said Teg as Sameer and Jaggi looked around but they saw nothing taken or disturbed. In the neighbourhood none seemed aware of anything unusual as Teg asked around and went to the neighbour who had the keys to Eesa's home to inform him of the death. The neighbour who had the keys to Eesa's home to inform him of the death. The neighbour handed him the spare keys while they found Eesa's set hanging in the lock on the inside of the door.
Eesa was fond of saying an untimely death was a blessing for those torn about difficult issues as he had been about England; for the deceased the death ends all questions, he used to say. The boys lifted him on to a bed, locked up and hurried to the mansion. The hostel students were at school and Sujata was taking a little breather from the daily grind, sitting in the Sun facing the gate.
"You're back so quickly, weren't you suppose to see Eesa off in the afternoon?"
"Ma, we found Eesa taya dead on the floor; we asked the neighbors; you know he never locked the door when he was home and nobody seemed to have noticed anything suspicious."
With the passing of Uttam, the Naths, Preeti, Sham and now Eesa, Sujata had become somewhat used to death and sprang into action dispatching Teg and Sameer to run out and make phone calls to Teg;s school in Amritsar and Jagat at the college. She took Jaggi with her to the cremation grounds where the bearded Jalan, his name "burning" apt for a cremator, recognised Sujata as one of the two women dressed in gorgeous saris at Aarti's cremation.
"The body could come here by 6 pm. Would it work?"
"Yes Bibi ji," said Jalan.
"I hope it doesn't rain," said Jaggi before noticing the metal canopy over the cremation platform.
Giving Jalan part payment and promising to pay the rest at the funeral they walked away. At the gate of the grounds they bumped into Penis' assistant Manoj there to pay for his master's wife's funeral.
"Sorry to hear about her passing. Did you ever find anything about him?" asked Sujata.
"No Bibi ji, evaporated into thin air, ether-like."
Sujata swiftly walked away as if lingering around Manoj might reveal her the murderess of Penis while jaggi's mind was meditating on cremation and he wondered aloud about cremating the Christian Eesa.
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