The Death of Vishnu (26 page)

Mr. Jalal felt his grip begin to falter. It was the doubt, of course, lubricating his fingers insidiously, so they began to slip. There seemed no way out—the courtyard waited patiently below in either case, whether he chose to bolster his faith or ignore it. At least if he chose the first path, he could be a martyr, rather than just an outline on the cement below. But perhaps his choice no longer mattered. Perhaps he had gone too far, perhaps gravity had grown tired of being tempted by his dangling body. He felt his fingers begin to unravel. One by one, they started losing their contact with the bar, and he found himself grasping at the metal, then at the stone, then just at air.

There was a crash, as the door in the bedroom finally gave. Then Mr. Jalal felt his body fall, as voluptuously as a jackfruit from a tree, and the ground came up with astonishing speed to greet him.

V
ISHNU CLIMBS THE
steps as he has climbed steps all his life. Even though he cannot feel the stone underneath. He raises one leg, then the other, mounting the stairs one by one, as if gravity still had a hold on him. This is the last flight he will mount before he becomes a god, he thinks, so he will perform the act as a human would. As an exorcism of his mortality, a farewell to his physical being.

He can feel his expectation rising as he approaches the top. What will he find? Will there be a cluster of gods behind the terrace door? All gathered there already, monitoring each stair he ascends, waiting to celebrate his arrival in their midst? He hears them applaud as he mounts the final step. Is that Shiva taking off his crown and polishing it on his sleeve? Brahma placing it on Vishnu’s head and slapping him on the back? He feels an elephant trunk wrap around and lift his body high above the cheering gods—it is Ganesh, twirling him into the air. There are monkeys swiveling by their tails around the antennas, Hanuman swings from pole to pole in their midst. And that tune he hears above the clapping and the dancing—could that be Krishna, playing his solitary flute somewhere?

Only one god does not take part in the festivity—Vishnu sees him all dressed in red and green, standing apart from the rest. The god nods gravely, and raises his mace in greeting, but Vishnu does not recognize him.

But enough, he thinks, enough of these gods. Surely Lakshmi must be here in their midst as well. His eyes scan the crowd with excitement, impatience. Where is his Radha, he wonders, his Ambika, his Rukmini? His everlasting love, his eternal other half, who gives him sustenance, without whom he is not complete?

One by one the divine bodies separate, and he sees her features emerge. Like the moon from behind parting clouds, like the stars after a rain. She walks towards him, her body wet from the Ganges, flowers garlanding her bosom, perfumes rising from her skin. She reaches all four of her hands out—he finds, magically, that he can take each one of hers in one of his own.

He feels her fingers rub against his. Not the human sense of feeling, that he no longer possesses, but a deeper, more profound contact—what souls would experience when they caressed, were they composed of skin and flesh. Her arms draw his body close to hers, and the feeling spreads down his chest, his stomach, his groin, to wherever they make contact. Buds open and turn into fruit between them, rivulets of milk slide over their skin. He sees fields of mustard sprouting from the ground around, their yellow heads rising towards the sun. She touches her lips to his: he tastes the lushness of forests, the sweetness of springs. He looks into the face with which he has journeyed through so many lives—he is part of her, and she is part of him.

His body enters hers. It is like the earth opening to admit him. He finds himself carried away, up snowy Himalayan slopes, through valleys of teak and pine, down streams of ice-clear water that surge into the Ganges. Onward and inward he plunges, his thoughts overcome by sensation, his feeling and emotion coalescing, until only a single knot of energy remains. Energy trapped between their bodies, energy that dances and crackles, like electricity arcing through a filament, like sun rays trapped in crystal. He feels himself pulled in further, feels the energy seal him in, his body becoming one with hers, united with a cohesion so strong it is painful. For an instant, he has a clear look at her face: lips together in a half-smile, dew adorning the corners of closed eyes. Then the explosion arrives, their bodies fly apart into stars, stars that streak through the heavens, and populate the furthest reaches of the universe.

“In every life they live,” he hears his mother say, “in every avatar they assume, they will find each other and be united, again and again.”

But he is still on the steps. His Lakshmi is up there somewhere, waiting to ignite with him, but only if he is a god, not if he is a man.

God or man, god or man, the question strikes up in his mind with each step he takes. He has already been through this over and over again. All the magic of his ascent—what will possibly explain his powers if it turns out he is a man?

Suddenly, an answer comes to him, an answer that stops him in midstep. What if he is dying? What if these new abilities are not powers, but symptoms—symptoms of death? What if he is climbing, not to immortality, but to nothingness? The steps spiraling out in front of him—so few that he can almost count them—what if this is all that remains between him and the end? He imagines reaching the top and opening the door, stepping out to the terrace, and finding all the gods have vanished. All except the solitary red-and-green-decked figure, standing by the parapet. The figure turns around and beckons to him with its mace. Recognition comes with a shock—it is Yama, the god of death.

Vishnu stares up at the terrace door. It is open a crack—is there someone behind it, peering down at him? He wonders if he should try to go back, descend to his landing, try to reclaim his body, rewind the movie of his life. Or should he keep climbing, throw open the terrace door, boldly deal with whatever lies behind? He looks down the stairs he has just ascended—they seem strangely disorienting, listing before his eyes, rolling into the dark. He has climbed too far, he has worked too hard—there can be no return.

Perhaps the answer is to not let his mind waver, to fix it on the immortality he has been promised. Even if it does turn out to be Yama behind the door, what, really, has he lost? Does he enjoy his current existence so much that he cannot bear to give it up? Is the plot of this life so compelling that he will not exchange it for another?

He resumes his ascent. Shutting out the sound of “God or man, god or man,” that still echoes with each step. Instead, he lets his mother’s words fill his mind.

“One day my Vishnu will find his Lakshmi, and Garuda the eagle will appear to fly them to Vaikuntha.”

He imagines opening the terrace door just as Garuda is alighting from the sky. The sun’s rays splash like liquid gold off Garuda’s head, they glance off his neck and sluice across his feathers. On his back, attached with strands of velvet, is the chariot in which they will be carried away.

Garuda nuzzles Lakshmi’s head with his own, then bends so she can climb into the chariot. Lakshmi waves to Vishnu from the chariot, and he runs across the terrace to join her. But before he can get there, his path is blocked by Yama’s mace.

“Not so fast, my friend,” Yama says, and thrusts his mace at Vishnu. Vishnu feints, he dodges, but Yama seems to be everywhere.

“Time to rest,” Yama says, and waves the mace in Vishnu’s face. All at once, Vishnu feels his alertness begin to wane.

“Sleep, my friend,” Yama says, his voice sounding far away.

Vishnu knows he must keep awake, he must not fall to Yama. He looks around for the chariot, but Lakshmi and Garuda have flown away. What did his mother say, how can he bring them back, how will he get to the paradise of Vaikuntha? He concentrates on her voice again, but the words she says are not the same.

“When the age of Kaliyuga is drawing to a close, then my little Vishnu will take a rest.”

This is not the message he wants. He tries to retune his mother’s voice, but the signals he receives remain the same.

“Ananta the snake will rise from the sea, and on his endless coils will my Vishnu rest his head.”

Vishnu takes another step. He imagines the walls getting covered with scales around him, the stone turning soft and fleshy under his feet, as if it is the body of a living thing. He looks at the staircase. It is rising and dipping before him, like the coils of some fantastic being.

“The sun will go down and the seas will die as Vishnu closes his eyes.”

He tries to negotiate the rearing segments, but loses his balance and falls. Drowsiness moves in swiftly to overcome him.

“Sleep will engulf my Vishnu, as time comes to an end.”

The buckling has stopped, the stairs are uncoiling smoothly under him. His body is rocked gently by the undulations passing beneath. He turns around and looks with half-closed eyes at the door looming ahead. He tries to drag his body to it, up the three or four steps that are left.

“For eons will he sleep on Ananta, regaining all his strength. Only opening his eyes when it is time to begin the cycle again.”

Vishnu knows the time for the great sleep is here. He is almost at the door, separated only by two steps. He can still crawl up, he thinks, he can still look through. All he has to do is cross the threshold to attain all the powers that await. But he is so tired. The last thing he notices is an ant emerge from a crack in front of his face and begin to crawl up the step leading to the terrace. Then all sound dies down, the lights dim, and as his eyes close, he thinks that a movie is about to start.

“F
INALLY HERE, SEE
it now,” the man is saying. “So many decades in the making,
The Death of Vishnu.
” The man is standing on a chair in front of the ticket booth at Metro Cinema, next to the large “House Full” sign. Moviegoers are milling all over the place. Lines of people are stretching from the advance booking booth, they are snaking as far as the train station at Marine Lines.

“Better than
Bobby,
bigger than
Sholay,
see it now,
The Death of Vishnu.
” Touts are black-marketing balcony tickets. Already the price has climbed to twenty-five rupees. Someone has extra tickets, and a fight breaks out as the crowd surges to get them.

“Amitabh Bachchan as Vishnu, Reshma as Padmini, see it now,
The Death of Vishnu.
”

Vishnu takes the tickets out of his pocket. Where is Padmini? He told her to be here at 6:30
P.M
. Now they’re going to miss the advertisements, which Vishnu likes so much.

“Hear the music by Laxmikant Pyarelal. See the killer dance by Helen. Snap your fingers to the number one hit ‘I am Vishnu, king of the universe.’ See it now or wait till you can get the tickets,
The Death of Vishnu.
”

Padmini pushes through the people. She is breathless. Vishnu watches the gold-colored necklace resting on her bosom rise and fall as she inhales and exhales.

“Sorry I’m late.” She brushes off the dress she’s wearing, as if it were covered with dust. “Mai, what a crowd. How did you ever get the tickets?”

As they go through the entrance of the theater, she puts her hand on his. “Finally, a proper theater,” she says.

Vishnu buys her a cold drink and a samosa. She eats the crisp part first, then the potatoes. “Ooo, nice and spicy,” she says, pulling out a whole chili from the filling and putting it in her mouth.

The movie starts. Vishnu’s mother comes on the screen. They are in their hut together, and she is singing a song to him, about the games he will play when he meets the baby Krishna. Suddenly, a storm breaks out, and lightning and thunder and rain start lashing the hut. The door opens, and lightning crackles as Vishnu’s father walks in. It is Pran, the villain, his eyes red and bloodshot, the muscles in his jaw twitching, his lips set in a thin, cruel line.

“Oh, ma,” Padmini says, and draws closer to Vishnu in her seat.

Vishnu can feel her hands gripping his arm as the Holi scene appears on the screen. He sees himself singing and dancing as he plays Holi with his mother. The screen fills with color, and then shifts to his father drinking bhang. Padmini’s leg rests next to his, and he detects a tremble running through it.

Slowly, Vishnu puts an arm around her chair, then raises it so that it barely brushes the nape of her neck. She is too absorbed in the movie and does not notice. He lets his arm ease around her neck. Her cheek brushes against his shoulder. She nibbles the last of her samosa, the empty wrapper clutched between her fingers in her lap.

Kavita is played by a newcomer, Usha Bahaduri. Vishnu likes her very much. During the Divali song on the staircase, when Usha climbs up and down with phuljadis in her hands, he starts clapping his hands along with the music, as others are doing in the audience. Padmini looks at him disapprovingly.

But then Reshma, playing Padmini, comes on the screen, and Padmini sits back in her seat. “She should have lost some weight for the role,” she sniffs to Vishnu, “though her acting, thank God, has improved.” There are several songs that Reshma sings, and this makes Padmini happy.

“Do you think she’s doing me justice?” she asks with concern during the interval, and Vishnu assures her she is.

“She’ll get a
Filmfare
award, you just wait and see,” he says.

Padmini asks Vishnu to buy her an ice cream, so they go to the lobby. He leaves her by the cardboard cutout of Reshma and Amitabh, but when he comes back with an orange bar, she is no longer there. She returns a few minutes later, her face flushed. “I went to see what the ladies’ room looks like. Do you know they have those English-type seats there?”

Padmini takes the wrapper off her orange bar. “Let’s go see the balcony,” she says. Vishnu follows her up the stairs, into the dress circle. Padmini looks down at the screen, then turns to look up at the rows stretching all the way to the top. “It’s so nice up here,” she says. “These seats must cost a lot more.” She licks her bar wistfully.

The movie starts again, and Vishnu is engrossed by the love triangle Kavita finds herself in. Tears come to his eyes as Kavita bends down next to him on the landing and bids him farewell. He tries not to let Padmini see that he is crying.

There is another song, in a flashback sequence of Padmini and him in Mr. Jalal’s car, driving along Marine Drive. They go to Hanging Gardens and the love scene in the car follows. “Chhee!” Padmini says, averting her head, as Vishnu appears entwined with her on the screen.

The story progresses and Vishnu sees himself ascending the steps. He wishes the movie would be more clear about what he is climbing towards. Whether he is the god Vishnu, or just an ordinary man. He is almost at the terrace door when Padmini gets up suddenly, excusing herself to go to the ladies’ room. Vishnu feels like warning her to wait, they are near the climax, the movie is almost over.

The terrace door opens. Vishnu leans forward in his seat. He has not seen this part, he does not know what comes next. He wishes Padmini was watching with him. But her seat is empty. He looks at the seat on the other side, and that is unoccupied as well. He looks around, and row after row stares emptily at the screen.

Vishnu gets up. He is the only one left in the theater. The light from the projector strikes the top of his head and creates a void that stretches all the way down the picture. He walks towards the screen, and the shadow gets lower and smaller, until it is just a thumbprint at the bottom. He climbs the steps leading up to the stage. The movie continues in the empty auditorium, a succession of unseen images flashing through the dark.

Vishnu walks across to the center of the stage, then turns to face the projector. The screen is a giant lit field extending above and around him. He tries to see the seats, but the light from the projector is too strong. For all he knows, they may be filled again, Padmini and the rest of the audience getting ready to applaud as he takes his final bow.

He looks hard at the light. For an instant, he imagines the screen stretching out across the sky above the terrace. Then the image vaporizes in the blaze of the projector. He wonders what makes the light so strong. Why can he just see white when he looks into it? Where are the greens and reds that dance across his clothes? He looks at his body—it is drenched in color. His arms, his hands, his legs, are luminous, brilliant. He feels the brilliance being absorbed through his skin, saturating his flesh, flowing through his blood all the way to his fingertips. He starts radiating brilliance himself. Brilliance that illuminates each row of empty seats, brilliance that paints each wall a blinding white, brilliance that turns the curtains into sheets of light. As Vishnu watches, the entire theater becomes incandescent. He looks down at himself, but he can no longer tell where the light ends and his body begins.

T
HE FIRST THING
that struck him about heaven was the whiteness of it all. The ceiling was white, the walls were white, there were white curtains that shimmered in the breeze. It made sense, of course—white was the color of unbroken light—it symbolized a purity, a wholeness, an unblemishedness, and wasn’t that what heaven was supposed to be all about? Even the sunlight streaming in seemed so much whiter now—could this be because heaven was situated somewhere closer to the sun?

So he had done it, Mr. Jalal thought. He had attained martyrdom, attained sainthood. He wondered what they must be doing down on earth. Had they rallied yet around his message, around Vishnu? Or were they still gathered around the corpse he had left behind, cursing their blindness, praying for redemption, straining to touch his face, his feet, any part of his holy body? Perhaps the cigarettewalla, or even the paanwalla, would take up his baton, be the new leader, spread the word. Mr. Jalal felt he should forgive all his tormentors, harbor no animosity in his heart. This was the proper attitude to adopt, now that he was in heaven.

How relieved he felt to have made the right choice. For even though he had not managed to hang on, even though he hadn’t actually been
beaten
off the balcony as planned, he
had
made the effort. What counted was that at the instant he fell, the correct thought had been dominant in his brain.

Or had it? Hadn’t he wavered, hadn’t doubt clouded up in his mind at the end? It was so hard to remember. Surrounded as he was now by this whiteness, this serenity, though, could things have really not worked out well?

He wondered if he should get up and explore heaven. On earth, he had never allowed himself to believe in it, but had heard people make all sorts of claims about it. It would be interesting to see if any of them were true—the pearly gates, the gold spires, the rivers of milk—probably none of these existed. What would be nice, though, would be a TV room, through which residents could monitor the progress of things on earth.

He sat up and took a deep breath of the fresh heavenly air. Why did it smell of disinfectant? And was that the sound of car horns he heard through the window? And what were those casts doing on his legs? Suddenly Mr. Jalal started noticing a number of incongruities—the cupboard filled with jars and bottles, the blood pressure gauge on the table, the bedpan by the door. And the white apparitions gliding through the corridor outside—the ones he had thought might be ghosts—weren’t those nurses’ uniforms they were wearing?

“How do you feel?” One of the apparitions had walked in the door and was taking his pulse. “You were quite lucky—jumping like that and breaking so little.”

“Where am I?” Mr. Jalal managed to say.

“Bhatia Hospital. Your wife’s on the next floor.”

“My wife?”

“They’re trying to do the best they can.” The apparition’s eyes narrowed and it looked at him with a hardness he found flustering. “Someone hit her quite hard, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“She may have bled inside.”

The apparition put a pill in his mouth and a glass of water in his hand. “The police are waiting to record your statement, once the doctor has seen you,” it said, swishing briskly out the door.

Mr. Jalal sat on the bed with the glass in his hand. The insistent note of a truck horn blared from the road below. He noticed the tattered border of the curtain, the dust on the windowpane, the buildings lined up stolidly against the cloudless sky beyond. He had not died. He was not a martyr. This was not heaven. He tried to make sense out of what the nurse had said. Why had all this happened? Was it all a result of undertaking his quest? Could this all be part of a test, part of the penance expected from him? Was this the price tag that accompanied faith?

But Arifa? What had she ever done—why was she the one being made to pay? He wondered what was going to happen to her, what he was going to say to the police, what they would do to him. Would he tell them about Vishnu? Would he tell them about his vision? Was his faith strong enough to convince them? To convince himself?

The pill began to dissolve in his mouth, and Mr. Jalal tasted the bitterness seeping into his tongue. Wasn’t medicine, ultimately, a matter of faith? Faith that the doctors knew what they were diagnosing, faith that their prescriptions would make you whole, faith that the tablet dissolving in your mouth would cure you, not kill you. Weren’t entire hospitals built on faith? The floors that supported the beds, the walls that held up the floors, the bricks and mortar and cement that composed the walls. And the patients sitting on the beds, clutching at their sheets and their blankets, shivering as the medicines entered their bodies, wondering what the pills were supposed to cure.

For the second time that day, Mr. Jalal felt himself falling. But this time, there was no courtyard to break his fall, no ground to separate him from the blackness that opened below.

Kavita tried to remember the lines of the song. Was it Nutan or Meena Kumari who sang it? She could see the film now, the young widow turned out of her dead husband’s house, forced to make her lonely way back to the village where she was born.

Of course, Salim wasn’t dead. Just incompatible. This much was clear after the night she’d spent with him. What a place to take her to, the waiting room at Victoria Terminus. At three o’clock in the morning, when the first train out to Jhansi wasn’t until six. Couldn’t they have just left later, she had asked, trying to make herself comfortable amidst the crowd of humanity. Especially the crying babies. Kavita had looked at their mother, a young Muslim girl in a burkha, not much older than herself, and shuddered.

And Jhansi? What kind of destination was that to elope to?
Jhansi?
All it was famous for was the Rani of Jhansi, but that had been in the previous century—or had it been the century before that even? Here she had been having visions of Kulu or Simla or Darjeeling, all places she’d dreamt about going, and to campaign for which she’d certainly dropped enough hints the last few weeks. But Salim had called these choices impractical, saying Jhansi was where he had a good friend, with whom he could start a car repair business.

Didn’t people drive cars in other parts of the country, she had felt like pointing out. And a
car repair
business? All that grime and that grease and that oil—is that what she’d be looking forward to smelling every evening?

“But I love cars,” Salim had said, and Kavita had tried to console herself with the idea that cars were bigger and more important machines than Voltas pumps.