voices quietened. They turned their ears to the smooth, anglicised tones of All India Radio which emanated from the temple of sound, propped on the shelf between the bags of spices.
Bublu didn’t understand English. ‘What is he saying?’ he pleaded.
‘Just be quiet, boy,’ muttered one of them. ‘How can we tell with you chattering on.’
‘This morning at eleven o’clock our respected Gandhiji began a fast. He told us of his profound sorrow that there is still so much communal strife in the country. It is his aim to achieve a reunion of hearts of all communities, with God as his supreme and sole counsellor.’
‘Did you hear that?’ the farmers whispered. ‘Gandhiji is fasting again.’ They gazed at each other, their faces etched with anxiety. The troubles were still all around them, they knew that. Every day there were reports of slayings and revenge. They glanced uneasily at old Sharma who was rubbing his elbows and brushing off the dust from his thin, spindly body.
‘What’s happening?’ begged Bublu, seeing the startled concern on everyone’s faces.
‘It’s the Mahatma, he’s going to fast again.’
‘What will be left of his body,’ exclaimed a voice.
The Mahatma was so small, so frail already. It was inconceivable that his skeletal frame could cope with any more deprivation.
‘How can we see a future for India and Pakistan once the British have left, if everyone is at each other’s throats?’ Gandhi had asked. ‘If this is the only way to make the politicians see sense then so be it.’
And so, once more, the Mahatma offered himself as a sacrifice.
That evening, Bublu got the boys to make a bigger fire than usual. The sadhu’s talk of omens and retribution had made him feel uneasy. Even though he was on home ground; even though he had been born in the village, as had previous generations of his family, ever since the troubles had broken out, Bublu had become a stranger – an alien in his own land. No one looked him in the eye, not even those who had known him all his life. His family had all been killed right here among them, and now, it was as if they had never been.
Somehow surviving, he slunk round the district with a raggle-taggle of other boys, who had also been orphaned or displaced. They stuck together in a band and set up camp in the ruined palace. No one else went there because of the ghosts and evil spirits that were reputed to haunt it.
The boys all had nicknames too, so that they could not be easily identified by race or creed. Bublu was the eldest and a natural leader, after having fought it out with Sandeep, whom they called One Eye – though he still had to watch his old rival.
They usually all straggled back to the ruined palace before sunset, bringing with them whatever gains they had collected through the day. It became the code of the group to pool everything – scraps of clothes, materials, objects – anything that might come in useful as a tool or a receptacle; and of course, each knew he must bring something back to contribute to a meal. The boys had agreed on a law: stealing vegetables and sugar cane from the fields was one thing – or scrumping mangoes, guavas and bananas, strictly for their own consumption – but there was to be no stealing from houses or persons. Any boy breaking the code would be punished by the group and if necessary, thrown out.
They were never sure each evening what, if anything, they would eat. Someone usually managed to break off some sugar cane, scrounge discarded radish tops or old chapattis, and if they were lucky, one or two women in the village left out some rice or lentils which the boys cooked up in an old petrol can.
Gradually, they became as tolerated in the district as the crows and stray dogs, which scavenged round the neighbourhood. But Bublu never dropped his guard – not with anyone.
Tonight, Bublu was ever more alert. Kept awake, not by strange noises or the fretful moanings of his companions, but the feeling that, somewhere out in the darkness, the white horse still roamed like an unquiet spirit.
However, his mind was made up. If he got the chance, he was going to catch it.
The clerk’s wife sighed. Her three fat sons clustered round her with pouting faces. Her husband had insisted that they too must fast. ‘It is our duty to support the Mahatma,’ explained the clerk.
‘Why, Pa?’ protested the eldest fat son. ‘How does it help the cause?’
‘After all, he won’t know,’ said the second fat son. ‘No one will know.’
‘Except us and our empty stomachs,’ moaned the third fat son.
But the clerk mercilessly reduced his family’s diet to a handful of nuts and one piece of fruit per day, saying, ‘At least you won’t starve like Gandhiji. He’s taking nothing, only water.’
It was too bad the way he carried his adoration of the Mahatma to such extreme limits and it wasn’t fair on the boys. The clerk’s wife gazed with anguished adoration at her three beautiful sons, as chubby as the god Ganesh and triumph of her womb.
They were a good Hindu family belonging to the Shatryia caste, who had managed to survive the troubles. They had only left the district temporarily when first Muslim, then Sikh gangs rampaged through. But as things quietened down, they returned to rebuild their home, and re-establish their place in the community.
Surely, they were entitled to some dignity? After all, they had to think of their reputation, and the future wives they would need to find for the boys. Yet since the clerk’s conversion to Gandhism he had stripped their modest home of everything that he called luxuries; their bedsteads, chairs, tables, ornaments, rugs – all had been given away or disposed of. He forbade his wife to wear jewellery and made her give away her best silk saris. From now on, they slept on thin mattresses on rickety charpoys, and all of them wore garments made from khadi, the raw rough cotton which had been spun by hand in the villages. She was sure the tailor had smirked when instructed to make their outfits.
Their food too had to be the most humble; just dhal, yogurt, fruit and nuts. No spices, no flavourings and no sweets were allowed.
His children were outraged. Three shiny plump boys, with cheeks like golden butter, who had been nourished and pampered from birth, with lashings of rich milk, cream, butter and cheese; who were used to curries cooked in the highest quality ghee, and ate only the freshest vegetables and fruit, and the finest white rice: whose mother adored making sweets and pastries and savoury samosas – they were to be denied all this – anything that smacked of pleasure or frivolity was banned. Food was for survival, because that was the lot of the poor, and it was with the poor that the clerk forced the whole family to identify.
Whenever they travelled by train, he insisted they cram themselves into the overflowing third class, along with malodorous peasants with their bundles and baskets.
But quite the worst indignity of all, was that the clerk made his wife clean out the latrines – the job of an Untouchable. She had begged and pleaded and screamed, and even threatened to leave home, but to no avail. The clerk told her that Gandhi had declared caste to be evil and must be done away with; that there was
