After the winds raged and the setting sun turned red, someone was seen stumbling along the thickets by the river. A few persons glimpsed an unidentified object flying. Someone said that a great ball of fire had gently dropped him at the village outskirts. His long buttonless coat seemed to flap like wings, perhaps this caused the illusion.

This is the manner in which my Kakabapu returned.

Father laughed at these fanciful tales. He shook his head, “He probably didn’t have enough money for a ticket, so he must have alighted at Vikrampur, performed at gatherings with traveling storytellers-magicians, and in this exciting fashion, finally stepped into the village.”

Grandma was the first to notice his arrival. She swiftly arose from the charpoy in the inner room where she had been asleep, arranged the folds of her sari, covered her head, and asked, “Daughter-in-law, just see, who is it?” A clatter of footsteps was heard in the central courtyard as Kakabapu rushed up the back stairs to the first floor.

Father was reading under the neem tree outside, and viewed our guest with amusement. Grandfather was seated in the front room. “Warm up some water, daughter,” he said. Father cleared his throat, “Ah yes, the valiant prince has returned after a conquest.” No one challenged this. The pace of activities inside the house quickened. Holding on to the mattress stand for support, and then the water shelf, Grandma staggered to the kitchen door and collapsed. Mother lit the kitchen fire, and wiped her eyes with the sari’s edge. Grandma shuffled to the front room flailing her hands about and parked herself by Grandfather’s armchair.

*

I met Kakabapu the next morning. All night I dreamt of forts and leaping horses. The next morning as I was loitering in the backyard, watching the staircase and first floor windows, I saw my mother climb down the stairs after having served tea. She said, “Son, go to Kakabapu and take his blessings.” I caught the banister and skipped up, jumping alternate steps. At first I could only see a back on a chair by the window. A khaki coat hung on a nail. A pair of dust-laden, worn boots stood by.

A pair of red-rimmed eyes turned to me, an arm reached out. “Ranubha!”

I ran to him. “Kakabapu!”

Once in twelve months or a year or two, Kakabapu would briefly visit and then go away again. Some said he sits with kings and emperors. Some said he wanders all over. People said a million things, but I’d pick and choose from among these tales. He’d hardly speak even when he visited for a few days. He’d spend all day on the first floor and in the evening he’d walk in the fields or by the river. He wouldn’t even glance my way, yet I’d believe I was Kakabapu’s special nephew.

He’d take my name in a grave tone, and I’d tremble at the touch of his hand on my shoulder. This was all I needed.

I said enthusiastically, “I’ll go and play?”

“Get paper and a pen.”

“What shall we do with paper, Kakabapu?”

“We shall record the history of the battle of Manekgadh.”

After all, I was his nephew so I did not ask irrelevant questions – like which battle, what the battle was about. I rushed, “I’ll get my notebook.”

“A notebook won’t do. Go to the bazaar. To write, a sheaf of blank sheets is a must. Do you know where the first mortar landed?”

“Upon our neem tree?”

“Since then, our neem stands maimed. From its fertile shoulder, no branches have grown ever since. Ranubha…”

“Yes, Kakabapu.”

“The English had arranged their artillery on all sides, but just look at their naiveté. Against an enemy who was a mere child in war craft, these world-celebrated warriors showed behavior that can be termed idiotic. The first cannonball split the neem tree. The second shell killed a mongrel in Soniwada. Clumsy acts that had made everyone laugh even then. An old woman, Mangu, ran holding a sickle, ‘You cussed scoundrels; if you dare, come face to face.’ Ranubha, do you know how many were killed?”

“Yessir, Kakabapu.”

“We’ll have to put that in the book. Everything will feature in the book. A blood-soaked book cannot lie.”

He sat quietly for a while. Then he said, “And our grandfather…”

“Yessir, Kakabapu, our grandfather.”

“How old was he – do you know that?”

“Yessir Kakabapu.”

“Twenty-one years old. I’ve seen a great deal of the world, wandered about, but a battle between a superpower and a headstrong tiny village – never have I heard of such an ill-matched fight. The argument was simple – We are our own rulers. Who on earth are these British, the offspring of a donkey?”

Climbing down the stairs I wondered, what am I studying, what class am I in – the questions that guests typically ask – were not checked at all! Where were you all this time, why did you step out from the thickets by the river, about the dust on your walking shoes – which region is that from – all my questions remained unasked as well.

The next day, Soni Doctor, astride his horse, came home for a visit. Father and Grandfather rushed up the stairs after him. Soni Doctor’s face was round like a laddoo and when he laughed his lips turned red, as if he’d chewed paan. Heat up some water. Boil this needle. I felt the doctor was addressing me and I ran about carrying out his orders, as if an inspecting team had descended upon school. Mother handed me three glass bottles from the kitchen shelf, and I cleaned them with soap water. The doctor placed sachets of tablets and several bottles of colored syrup on the table. Father took the doctor’s bag and escorted him downstairs. I stood by the table arranging medicine bottles and stacking papers. I heard grandfather clear his throat. Grandfather was seated by Kakabapu’s bedside, trembling.

Grandfather said, “Ranubha.”

“Yessir Grandfather. I’ll go to play…” and I sped downstairs.

*

“It’s history after all, Ranubha, so naturally we’ll begin with the Vedas and Puranas. If we see, nothing becomes ancient. The tale as such continues uninterrupted and is unchanging. When someone is slain, the neighing of his horse must certainly be reaching the sun. The sun is the original ancestor.  Check the town library. You’ll find the epics. The roots are somewhere in there. You won’t find a mention in the accounts of the English. A small village amidst hills and, encircling it, a large army. Tents, cannons, a few hundred killed… such a matter may not have been deemed noteworthy by the descendants of Forbes sahib. The eighty-year old who proudly tied his cummerbund and took to arms, the troop of daughters and daughters-in-law refilling cartridges – how would the British understand all this? There is a book, The History of the Mahikant Agency written by someone from the trader community. Ranubha, in the back pages, somewhere in this tattered old book, you’ll find exactly a four-line mention. Do you know what kind of impression that leaves the reader with? Everywhere in the country paeans were being sung to the administrative might of the British, all the local lords and gentry were paying dutiful obeisance, and the stupid people of a mad village in some corner was bereft of this light of reform.”

*

The next evening, Father said, “He has ruined his health and come here, he should rest, take medicines, it’s his home…”

Grandfather cleared his throat thrice in a row. Whenever he did this, the silence that followed was scary. Father stiffened and stared at him.

“Was it necessary to clarify that it is his house? Is that a matter of some argument?” Grandfather asked.

Father laughed. He quickly moved to Grandfather’s armchair and sat by it, pressing his feet, “I like what you said a lot, Father.”

Grandfather laughed. “You’ve become quite the businessman, I must say. I’ve been watching for some time…”

“All I’m asking – is this an auspicious hour to begin inscribing history?”

Grandfather laughed, “He is a free spirit.”

“He’s never written a two-line letter in all his life, will he write a book now? And Ranubha says that the book begins right at the epics…!”

“How does that matter to you and me? Give him paper and a pen. Just like the Lord Ganesha, our Ranubha is ready to transcribe. We can’t really say. The moment he utters a word, Ranubha writes it down.”

I happily agreed, “Yessir.”

“People will laugh. There isn’t anything to the tale; it’s only been pumped up like a balloon. A handful of youth, perhaps twenty, were brash and raw youngsters were slaughtered, the village left in ruins. Half the homes have not been rebuilt since. If this wasn’t idiocy, what was it?”

Grandma, who had been seated under the awning scratching at the ground with her fingers all this while, suddenly looked up with her visionless gaze. “Now what kind of language is that?”

“Please don’t say anything…” Grandfather reproached her. In the way that a big bird would draw its wings in, Grandma drew close the ends of her saree, and enfolded herself.

Grandfather had this habit of looking into the distance and talking, so it often seemed as if he were searching for something. “Why are you hell-bent upon hurting an old woman’s soul? You may have gone to college and read a few books – so you become learned, but there is a great deal that does not feature in your books. It does not happen the way it seems in folktales, somewhere a cry is heard, some brave draws a sword and jumps into desperate battle, a head or two is sacrificed. The taxes had not been paid for four years. If you consider the money, the sum as such was not large, but that was not the issue. We, alone, are owners of this land. We own the river and we own the fresh air. And when this stubborn will strengthened, don’t you think people like you must have cropped up, talking wisely, driving in the fear of gunfire to steer opinion? The truth is that everyone in the village – the old, the infirm, sundry cats-dogs included – was eager to be butchered. Migrating blacksmiths had been called in to fashion swords and shields. They had camped in the village for over two months. It is said that at the end, when there were no more valiant warriors left to sacrifice, these ironsmiths pulled out strips of red-hot metal from the smithy and stormed the cannon. They’d come here to make a living but, propelled on this wave of valor, they were like a shower of fire sparks. Not even a child of seven or eight was spared. Cartloads of grain were dispatched from neighboring villages, granaries were filled. Wells were dug anew. After receiving the news that the English had started from their camps in Deesa on this campaign, youth rushed home from farewell visits to kinsmen, gathered up their arms, and got battle-ready. The temples were full, the inns filled to bursting, and staying arrangements had to be made at people’s homes. The battle will begin when it has to, but here an auspicious event was underway. Goats were sacrificed, sweets cooked, and intoxicating draughts imbibed. Were all these people foolish? The army surrounded us on three sides and left the entrance on the fourth open. Let someone run if he wants to. For all of twenty-four hours the British waited holding their fire, why didn’t even a mongrel flee town?”

Suddenly a voice was heard in the darkness, “And my Father-in-law…”

Grandfather interrupted, “Now that matter…”

“Why should I let it be?” Grandma’s quivering voice rang out like a battle paean. “This great book-learned man is sitting around, flashing his teeth. I’ll have to tell him a thing or two… Now look this way, towards me. My father-in-law…”

“Isn’t he my grandfather?”

“I said – my father-in-law. He was all of twenty-one and hadn’t been married for six months yet, but he was the first to storm the cannon with a naked sword… my prince-like father-in-law…”

Grandfather stood up. “What will you understand of war? He was blown to pieces and his head fell right about here, where’re now seated, and I was born seven months after this.

*

“Ranubha, there is one rule we have to be clear about.”

“Yessir, Kakabapu.”

I had carried the tales I’d overheard the previous night, as best as I could, to the first floor. I was seated at the western window. Kakabapu was lying on the bed. Tiny drafts lifted the wheat-colored hair at his temple.

I spoke with a lilt “Do you know Kakabapu, this is the way Grandma was speaking, “My father-in-law, my prince-like father-in-law!”

“That’s what I mean. Tell me, where does time have a place in all of this? I feel as if we are at this moment in the front courtyard, father is in his armchair, mother is reciting her rosary by the wall and all around us are clamoring voices and people running for their lives. Right before our eyes, a 21 year-old springs upon a horse and his 80 year-old son bursts with pride. The horse prances with the rhythm of a dancer, and the son murmurs, ‘Oh bhai, do take care.’ His severed head, riding a cannonball, comes seeking its mother. It then falls in the lap of his blind 75 year-old daughter-in-law…”

I asked, “Will all this feature in the book?”

“Everything will be there in the book.”

Looking at the papers on the table, I said, “Haven’t even written a line as yet.”

He laughed, “What did the elder one say?”

“That you’ve never written two lines in your life…”

He laughed so much that tears welled up, and then pointed to the window. “See that?”

I replied, “The river, the thicket, the outskirts.”

“When we were young, we played there a great deal. The world has changed but not the river and the outskirts. The prodigal has returned. The river permitted this. Go now, play a while. Ranubha, even the skies will take an interest in our game.”

After a while I stood up, “Have you taken your medicines, Kakabapu?”

“Soni doctor’s syrups?”

I walked to the table, poured the red medicine and held it before him. Grandfather had called me Lord Ganesha so I was emboldened. “At night, Grandma must be giving you the medicines.”

“Oh right!’

“After everyone is fast asleep she must be creeping here, finding her way by feeling the walls…”

“Looks like you have been spying, Ranubha!” Rolling the glass between his palms he said, “She climbs up the stairs and sits all night on the last step. I tell her, ‘Respected mother, please make your way downstairs, pray rest a while,’ then she says softly, ‘No son, you sleep.'”

“Do you sleep at all, Kakabapu?”

“Oh yes, I sleep very well, a sweet sleep.”

“What happens when you sleep, Kakabapu?”

He replied to an unasked question. “No, I do not dream of battles.”

“What happens, then?”

“All the windows open of their own accord, Ranubha, and the way that one sheds clothes this floor discards walls and flings them aside. White muslin curtains dance freely in the wind. The air on this floor becomes finer than the muslin. That’s all, and amidst all this, the bed is lifted and rocks gently”

Curling my fists, I rushed down the stairs, “In the darkness, Grandma must be singing you lullabies.”

*

One evening, as I was swiftly crossing the front courtyard, someone cleared his throat. “Ranubha.”

I looked up. Father was standing at the window of his room on the first floor.

“Please, will you come here a while?”

I did not usually venture into the east wing, and I felt scared going there. Walls were lined with book-cabinets that reached the ceiling. Father is so learned, everyone would accusingly say. First he studied at Rajkumar College and then in Pune. After finishing his studies he returned home but, once or twice every year, parcels of books would still be delivered.

As I went upstairs, he pointed to a chair, “Sit. Where were you going?”

“To Jamal Mir’s place.”

He laughed. “Right now, does this home need a doctor or a balladeer?”
As if I were challenging him, I straightened and said, “I have to transcribe the ballad of the Manekgadh battle from Jamal Mir.”

As I said this, we were not the only two people on that floor. A man in a large coat stood by my side in mute support, resting his hand on my shoulder. The sightless Jamal Mir sang, distorting the veins in his neck and swaying frantically, a song with no words, only sorrow. Many old men and women were seated around us, swaying to the beat.

“This home is inhabited by the insane, Ranubha. This ritual must have begun the time a young man pulled out a sword and jumped into battle. We lack information about prior historical events. Even this man – your father, standing right before you – was not free of its influence, which is why he ignored options for a government job or practicing law in a place like Mumbai, and he slumbers on in the darkness in his ancestral home, surrounded by moth-eaten books. How many times shall we take on this battle and lose?”

Fine wrinkles surrounded Father’s sharp eyes. I was scared of those eyes. I could not think of anything else, so I held tight to the piece of paper in my pocket and said stubbornly, “The ballad has to be copied into a book.”

“What a brilliant idea. Once you go there, the corpse of the Mir will cough loudly, get up and wail about swaying. He does not have anything better to do. He is like a ragdoll, made up entirely of bits and pieces of colored scraps. Switch him on, and he’ll screech out his song. Don’t dither, Ranubha, you must attend to your task.”

Here he must have been struck by a spot of hilarity, so he gestured to stop me from leaving and picked up a pen from the desk. “If it is a ballad that you want then I can create a new one for you. If a rough scribble in valiant vermilion is to be sketched, I can do that too and, if you try Ranubha, you’ll surely be hailed as a child prodigy. You just have to concoct a smooth mixture of lullabies set in rhyming couplets. Get me some paper…”

Then something happened. Like frozen liquid, peace thickened and presided over the floor. We stood, looking at each other. Muffled sobs could be heard seeping past the walls. Father put his pen away and lifted me onto his lap. “I don’t think there is any need for that ballad anymore, son. The battle is done.”

(Translated from Gujarati by: Mira Desai)