Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories Read online

  Published by Random House India in 2012

  Copyright © Janice Pariat 2012

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  EPUB ISBN 9788184003390

  For my parents

  I found the marvelous real with every step.

  —Alejo Carpentier

  Contents

  1. A Waterfall of Horses

  2. At Kut Madan

  3. Echo Words

  4. Dream of the Golden Mahseer

  5. Secret Corridors

  6. 19/87

  7. Laitlum

  8. Sky Graves

  9. Pilgrimage

  10. Boats on Land

  11. Embassy

  12. The Discovery of Flight

  13. Hong Kong

  14. The Keeper of Souls

  15. An Aerial View

  Acknowledgements

  A Note on the Author

  A Waterfall of Horses

  How do I explain the word?

  Ka ktien.

  Say it. Out loud. Ka ktien. The first, a short, sharp thrust of air from the back of your throat. The second, a lift of the tongue and a delicate tangle of tip and teeth.

  For I mean not what’s bound by paper. Once printed, the word is feeble and carries little power. It wrestles with ink and typography and margins, struggling to be what it was originally. Spoken. Unwritten, unrecorded. Old, they say, as the first fire. Free to roam the mountains, circle the heath, and fall as rain.

  We, who had no letters with which to etch our history, have married our words to music, to mantras, that we repeat until lines grow old and wither and fade away. Until they are forgotten and there is silence.

  How do I explain something untraceable? The perfect weapon for a crime. Light as pine dust. Echoing with alibis. Conjuring out of thin air, the ugly, the beautiful, the terrifying.

  Eventually, like all things, it is unfathomable. So, how do I explain?

  Perhaps it’s best, as they did in the old days, to tell a story.

  I learnt about the word long ago, when I was young and had seen no more than thirteen winters. In those days, the nights were so cold that frost gathered on our roofs and gardens like snow. Well, that’s what the bilati men said it looked like, for we had never seen snow in all our lives. They would huddle by the fire at the gate to Sahib Jones’s bungalow and talk about their homes far away across the sea. I would bring wood and coal to bolster the flames, and eavesdrop; they paid no attention to this dark, snotty-nosed boy in his threadbare clothes and frayed woollen shawl. They’d speak of places I’d never heard of, names that slipped through my memory like little silver doh thli I tried to catch in the streams. I dreamt about it sometimes, the land of gently rolling hills, thatch cottages, and women white as the ‘tiew khlaw that grew wild by the roadside. The bilati men had come to guard the land and tea plantation of an owner we hardly saw; their presence there forever changed the lives of the people of Pomreng village.

  It was the 1850s, and Pomreng was a smudge that probably couldn’t be found on any map of the area at the time. It lay nestled on a bit of grassy flatland, a cluster of fifty huts, ribboned by a river that flowed languid and deep before plunging down a steep rocky cliff. Shillong, then called Laban, lay at the end of a rough, day-long, horse-cart journey on a dirt track twisting through forested hills or miles of desolate countryside. Our people rarely ventured out except for the occasional family visit or trip to the big market. Nothing ever happened at Pomreng; it was a quiet life, marked by sowing and harvests, steady as the seasons. Which was why there was great excitement at the news that a judge from Sylhet had bought vast swathes of land outside our village, to grow tea and build himself a pleasure palace full of wondrous things. ‘The ceiling will be high as the trees,’ it was reported. ‘They’re bringing maw-Sohra all the way here for the floors.’ It would have a hundred rooms and a hundred servants. Eventually, the palace turned out to be a humble lime-washed, stone bungalow atop a hillock, with a smaller cottage and sheds and stables further down the slope. But we weren’t disappointed; it was still the largest construction we’d ever seen. The judge arrived with his family on a short vacation at the end of the monsoon, and departed soon after, but they left behind a unit of soldiers and their horses. The estate was managed by a missionary named Thomas Jones, and rumour had it that he was on the run from a rascal bilati businessman in Sohra who wanted him hanged for encouraging the locals to question the price of his goods. We didn’t know if that was true, but Sahib Jones did look perpetually worried, his sombre face pale as a stub of bitter white radish. He strode around dutifully inspecting the tea bushes and large garden, checking every once in a while on the men and their animals, yet there hung about him an air of nervous disquiet.

  My young mother worked as a maid for his wife Memsahib Greta, which was how I ended up employed as help around the house and estate, doing various odd jobs and running errands. I didn’t mind; we needed every bit of spare cash since my father walked out on his wife and five children one night in a drunken fury and never returned. I also worked extra hard because my secret ambition was to some day get out of Pomreng and make my way to Shillong. If I could, I would take my mother and siblings with me. The little money I saved I hid in an old sock under my mattress. Every morning, I’d crawl out of bed as dawn broke outside our shuttered windows, bathing the hills in milky white light, and head to Sahib Jones’s kitchen, a stone building separate from the main house, where my mother would be preparing sweet red tea in a large blackened kettle. From there I’d carry the cups on a tray out to the men—first the ones who’d been up all night at the gate, and then to the others. After a while, I came to know them well—Pat, a big man the size of a bear; Roger, the one with blazing orange hair; Trotter, a stout red-faced soldier with the loudest voice in camp; and Sahib Sam, the only one who thanked me when I handed him his cup of tea. I marvelled at the strangeness of their skin, their eyes like bits of coloured glass, the unfamiliar intonations of their language. Even their smell, I thought, was different. I wondered why they’d given up their homes and families to protect a cold, muddy slice of land in a place they couldn’t possible care about. But as Mama Saiñ, the village headman, said, it was the bilati men with their guns and cannons who ruled us, and hence this was their territory too. Besides, he added, they were also probably people on the run, like Sahib Jones, who found shelter and safety in Pomreng’s isolation. I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Trotter, Pat and some of the others were criminals—they were rough, filthy-mouthed men who grew more garrulous and aggressive by the day. Sometimes I saw them whip the plantation workers or knock them down with their horses.

  ‘Move, you bastards,’ they’d shout. ‘Get to work before we peel the flesh off your bones.’

  I was petrified of them and kept out of their way as much as possible. Since I was small and insignificant, it wasn’t too difficult to slip past them unnoticed. I did quite well
until one morning when I tripped while carrying a tray, and spilled hot tea on Trotter’s lap.

  ‘Bastard,’ he yelled, jumping up from the moora, and cuffing my ear so hard I fell to the ground bleeding. He was about to strike again when suddenly a pair of legs in muddy black boots appeared in front of me.

  ‘Leave the boy alone, Trotter, it was an accident.’ It was Sahib Sam.

  ‘Burnt my balls, the little son of a bitch.’

  ‘That’s good to know, Trotter. Some of us were worried you didn’t have any.’

  The laughter that followed drowned out Trotter’s belligerent shouts.

  ‘Are you alright there, boy?’ A pair of bright blue eyes looked into mine. Sahib Sam had bent over me, his hand on my shoulder. I nodded, too scared to speak, and as soon as I was on my feet, I ran like I was being chased by a wild animal.

  From that time on, I saved the largest cup of tea for Sahib Sam, and the choicest piece of meat for his dinner, the sweetest ‘pu khlein cakes bought from our local market, and the largest, driest logs of wood for whenever he was on night duty. As captain of the unit he had probably warned Trotter as well, for apart from a string of verbal abuses if I happened to pass by, the red-faced pig left me alone.

  For almost a year, we existed companionably enough, mostly because the bilati men were indifferent towards us, and all we felt on our part was awe and more than a little fear. They stayed within the confines of the plantation, training, taking care of their animals, settling in, and we kept to our village and the countryside beyond, preparing for weekly market days, attending archery competitions and quietly ploughing our fields, eking out a living from Pomreng’s hard, red soil. I think trouble started when the soldiers ventured into the village. Around the camp I heard them talk of the tedium of their work, the place, their lives. Of having nothing much to do, and nowhere to go. Sahib Jones, though a fair and just master, frowned upon epicurean revelry, so the men weren’t given many days leave to travel to Shillong. Although they didn’t lead what could be called a tough life. Far from it. Apart from a few instances where cattle were carried off by tigers, there was no great danger from other perpetrators. The men were filled with boredom and restlessness. They started attending market days, and bullied the sellers over their prices, sometimes walking off without bothering to pay. Sahib Sam and his friends didn’t do this, I noticed, but among the villagers who didn’t know one soldier from another, grumbled murmurs started about them in general. ‘When are they going to leave?’, ‘Who do they think they are, stealing from us.’

  The place where the men liked to meet and play cards was Bah Lumen’s jadoh stall located at the end of the only main road that ran through the village. Apart from tea, the stall also served local kiad, a clear, strong alcohol made from rice, that the bilati men enjoyed immensely. At first the owner was pleased—‘They all drink like fish…it’s good business’—until fights started breaking out, food and drinks were ordered on credit, and women of (what my mother called) unsavoury character started appearing on the premises. They seemed alright to me, cheerful and friendly, and generous with their laughter. Sometimes when I helped out at the jadoh stall for a little extra money, I’d see the men call a girl over, negotiate a price, and then disappear to the barracks.

  ‘The brothels are in Laban, not in my food shop,’ complained Bah Lumen, and Mama Saiñ would tell him that the town was too far for hot young blood to travel and he might as well start charging a commission from the whores. There were rumours that some soldiers, Trotter and his gang I suspect, would pick up village women returning from the fields or from fetching water from the river, and carry them off on their horses. Sahib Sam, I was relieved to see, paid attention only to one young lady—Bah Lumen’s eldest daughter, Haphida, a pretty girl with clear skin, bright eyes and hair so long it touched the back of her knees. She would shyly bring over his food and tea, and he’d try and converse in the few Khasi words he’d learnt, but, as I came to understand later, you didn’t need language to decipher a lingering glance or touch of the hand. If Bah Lumen disapproved, there was nothing he could do, and he only voiced his objections to Mama Saiñ or to no one in particular as he chopped onions or stirred a pot of lumpy yellow rice.

  ‘These outsiders, what do they think? He’ll get my daughter pregnant, and we’ll have a half and half on our hands. I’ve heard it happens. All over the place, little bastards running around with blue eyes and white skin.’

  While he and the village seethed in slow resentment, Sahib Sam and Haphida, oblivious to the world outside their own, met every day, in the lull between afternoon tea and the evening revelry. Often, I saw them go for walks, and though I followed close behind, I hardly heard them converse. They’d stroll leisurely by the river, while twilight hovered over the valley, darkening the hills around us, and make their way to the waterfall. There, they’d sit on one of the large boulders, Haphida’s hair flowing onto the ground. He’d gather it up carefully and place it on her lap, or pluck wild ‘tiew khlaw for her to braid into her locks. Once, they kissed, tentatively at first, and then suddenly with great urgency, as though time and the world were passing them by. Other kids from the village, who’d been bathing nearby, whistled from the undergrowth, sending a shower of stones from their catapults.

  ‘Ei, Sahib bilat, kbih noh,’ they shouted, while Haphida flushed a deep crimson. She refused to tell Sahib Sam what they’d said but I presume he guessed for he shouted back, saying he’d have them whipped.

  The breaking point, though, between the village people and the soldiers, had nothing to do with the two lovers. One market day, when Trotter walked off with a bunch of corn cobs he didn’t pay for, the local farmer spat at the soldier’s boots.

  ‘What did you just do?’ shouted the red-faced pig.

  ‘You’re a thief,’ said the farmer in Khasi, ‘a thief with no balls.’

  Or something like that. The versions vary. Yet I suppose it didn’t matter what he said, Trotter would have had his revenge simply for being talked back to. The man was tied to Trotter’s horse, and dragged behind him for a day. When he was finally released, his body was caked in blood and dust, his skin shredded to mulch. He didn’t last the night.

  The village council met in Mama Saiñ’s hut, and gathered around the heath. Close to the glowing embers stood a wooden thlong, perpetually filled with water. Our people believed it could predict the future—the higher the water level, the better the harvest. Right now, though, no one cast a glance at the vessel. There were other, more tragic things to discuss. I was there to stoke the fire and serve tea spiked with kiad to bolster their ravaged spirits. A muted rebellion ran through the crowd in the room. One young man couldn’t contain his anger any longer. ‘Something must be done,’ he spluttered.

  Mama Saiñ, flames dancing in his eyes, sipped his drink in silence. A murmur rose around him, voices filled with anger and grief. It was cruel what the bilati men had done (what some of the bilati men had done I wanted to add, but didn’t dare), they needed to be punished, to be driven out of the land, the village would fight them and take its revenge for all the wrongs the outsiders had committed.

  Finally Mama Saiñ spoke. ‘What will we fight them with?’

  A silence fell broken only by the hiss and crackle of the fire. The bilati soldiers had guns, while we wielded only primitive swords and shot inadequate wooden arrows.

  ‘There are enough of us against them,’ someone shouted. ‘Damn their guns, we can overpower them by sheer strength and numbers.’

  A chorus of agreement swelled in the room.

  Mama Saiñ shook his head. ‘We would lose too many men. Would you have your own brothers slaughtered in vain like chickens?’

  The debate continued for almost an hour, until an old man, whom everyone called Nong Kñia, spoke up. He’d been sitting in the corner, quietly observing the proceedings. ‘Rangbah,’ he said softly, ‘we can fight them with words.’

  Gasps of disbelief and laughter escaped the crowd. The old man rem
ained stoic and silent, his silver beard catching the firelight. His face, though lined and aged, held the resolute stamp of pride. Mama Saiñ nodded, and looked around at his people. ‘We have one weapon, poor as it may seem, the power of ktien—the word. It is our last resort because it is dishonourable to fight an enemy without giving him a chance to defend himself.’

  ‘That could be corrected,’ said the old man. ‘We won’t strike the men.’

  ‘Then what?’ said a man sitting closest to the fire. I recognized him as the younger brother of the farmer who’d died. ‘They killed Jymmang. We need to kill them.’

  The old man shook his head. ‘There are other ways to render them powerless.’

  Late that night, after my younger siblings were put to sleep, my mother and I warmed our hands by a small coal chula. I asked her who the Nong Kñia was and what he meant by ktien. My mother, her face sunken in tiredness, looked at me and smiled. ‘He is the bearer of the word. The one who performs our rituals and communicates with the gods. The memsahib says she would like to teach me to read and write, with something called “alphabet” that her husband has invented for our language. I explained to her that we have no need for these things—books, and letters, and writing—and that everything we know about the world is in the sound of our words, ki ktien. It has the power to do good…’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked quickly; I rarely heard my mother talk of these things. She was always too busy or, at the end of the day, often exhausted. ‘Like your grandfather,’ she replied. ‘He could heal a person by uttering a mantra. Once, I remember I cut my hand while splitting bamboo…and he held it, and spoke into it, and the bleeding stopped. People would come to him if they had fish bones stuck in their throat—he’d chant the words and rub their neck with oil and ash, and the bone would be gone. He told me there are mantras that hungry travellers can chant for an animal to appear before them so they can feed, and to bring clean water from a river, or fruit from a tree.’