Latitudes of Longing Read online

  Overnight, the rivers revealed cracks only oceans could fill. It is in water’s nature to absorb the void, made jagged with crevices, peaks, and other irregular symmetries. Only a fool would consider the shores of continents, sandbanks, and parched patches the ends to the unbroken surface of water. At best, they are breaks and pauses. Or mindless chatter. Islands are mindless chatter in a meditative ocean.

  He peeped from his queen-sized bed and looked at his wife’s silhouette. He wondered what the continents were thinking. Perhaps Pangaea dreamed of being a million islands. Perhaps the million islands now dreamed of being one. Like the ridiculously dressed sailors sent forth by mad queens, perhaps the continents also discovered that the end of one’s world is another’s beginning.

  How does it matter, he thought. Even if we had the answers, we’d still be lonely. Like the island he lived on, he was too far into the ocean to change paths. Only god could help him endure the loneliness created by their separate beds. For a brief moment, the atheist wanted to believe in god.

  Brought up a devout Hindu, Girija Prasad’s atheism wasn’t an act of rebellion. He was just stretching his belief system, the way Pangaea stretched her arms. All the languorous ship journeys he’d made between England and India, Calcutta and Port Blair, had changed him. “When you stand on a ship’s deck and meditate upon the blue-green, it’s the closest you come to staring into infinity,” he once wrote to his brother. “Standing alone in the face of infinity, it’s not your beliefs but what you have rejected that bothers you.”

  It was the closest they would get that night. Continents apart in their beliefs, god was the precarious isthmus connecting them.

  And, at that moment, the devil was a goat.

  “Can you hear it?” she asked. “The bleating.” And Girija Prasad lost his erection, the ninety-ninth one in the first two months of their marriage.

  IT IS NOT THAT GIRIJA PRASAD kept track of all his lost erections, but the phenomenon had swiftly turned into a symbol of nervousness and unconsummated love, the way roses were a celebration of love itself, of announcing that invisible, intimate thing two people shared.

  As an adult, Girija Prasad had never lived with a woman and could only imagine the onslaught brought about by having a lady in one’s life. He emptied out half his wardrobe, giving her the higher shelves and hangers. But after observing the wives of other officials, he realized that his wife might also possess a different sari for each occasion, with matching bangles and sandals. Accordingly, he had a new wardrobe constructed in Burma teak. Intoxicated by the beauty of a face he was yet to see, he had a full-length mirror installed on the wardrobe door. There was also the problem of curtains. He didn’t have any. Privacy was a female issue and, more important, Girija Prasad didn’t have any neighbors to hide from. So he hung his lungis, the only suitable pieces of cloth he possessed, over the windows.

  Before setting off on the difficult and hopeful journey most animals make in search of a mate, he thought of her. Although he had prepared his lair in anticipation, how could he show her his gratitude? Shakespeare and the Romantics had taught him that women loved roses, or at least being compared to them, so he ordered a crate of the most beautiful ones he had seen, found on the distant blue hills of Kalimpong. When they arrived a month later, after an arduous journey over mountain passes and sea, only one had survived. He opened the crate to confront the mangled stems and withered buds of what should have been gigantic fuchsia-pink roses. He took it as a sign—an ominous sign. He was determined to nurse the only sapling that survived. He would keep it in his office to protect it from the harsh sun—only the gentle rays of sunrise and sunset for this one—and use a drip to water it. A recent study in the Oxford Journal of Applied Aesthetics proved that plants were fond of Western classical music, especially Mozart, so he lugged his gramophone to his office, needling his symbol of love continuously in order to revive it.

  When he returned with his wife, Girija Prasad was ecstatic to find a solitary rose bobbing in the air, staring back in shades of pink. The bungalow was finally, truly, good enough for his bride.

  * * *

  —

  Popularly known on the islands as Goodenough Bungalow, Girija Prasad’s residence had been constructed in the 1930s to house the visiting Lord Goodenough during one of his voyages. As was the case with most visiting dignitaries, no one really knew the purpose behind his excursions to far-flung corners of the empire, especially to an upcoming penal settlement like the Andaman Islands. After decades of failed attempts and shifting sites, the jail and its headquarters had finally been completed. Two out of three laborers, mostly prisoners, would die—by tribal arrows, centipede bites, crocodile attacks, hanging, torture, and good old homesickness—while the jail was being constructed, and the remainder would perish inside its stone walls. Their deaths would be no loss to the empire.

  The isolation of the archipelago would spur the colonizers’ imaginations to create elaborate methods of torture, dedicating entire islands to specific methods. It would also inspire Lord Goodenough to do more than just inspect masonry and dance with the natives. A secret desire propelled him to visit the newest acquisitions of the Raj. It was the desire to name. His own name had forced him to develop a sense of humor early, one that he’d waited all his life to unleash on unsuspecting creatures, objects, and lands. From the dull comforts of his ancestral manor, the lord kept a close watch on developments in the Indian Ocean, littered with squiggly islands. Islands, intuitively speaking, made the perfect canvas for practicing the art of nomenclature. The heightened isolation would cause species to become endemic, sooner or later, demanding a unique name. The only exceptions to the rule were the British themselves. They had broken most laws of nature by leaving their island to multiply on others without losing any of their original characteristics—only their marbles.

  Lord Goodenough believed that proper nouns ought to marry languages, the same way colonization forced distinct cultures to. When he sailed into an undiscovered bay while eating breakfast on a luxurious ship, he named it Breakfast Bay, and the landing spots around it he named Marmaladeganj, Baconabad, and Crumpetpur.

  The lord spent a week in the house in which Girija Prasad now lived. Built on a formidable mountain peak, the location was a popular crossing point for tribals going from west to east, until political prisoners were forced to hack down the thicket to the threatening sound of guns being fired into the air. The bungalow was built on stilts to survive heavy rains and earthquakes. A machan was set up as well, three stories above the ground. It was from this fantastical height that he espied what he would go down in history for spying upon.

  Through his binoculars, he saw a group of naked tribals with significantly bigger breasts and buttocks than all other recorded groups. Distracted by their enormous assets, he did not notice the extra thumb they all possessed. Lord Goodenough would spend weeks searching for the perfect name for them, one that was simple yet reflected the glory of those buttocks and breasts.

  The name found him much later, on the voyage home, as he sat in the ship’s dining room, cutting up his bacon into six equal parts—a morning ritual that he found therapeutic in the boredom of the high seas. Trapped as he was in his childlike attempts at playing god, the name brought him closer to finding god. And that is how the island’s most dangerous, six-fingered tribe was christened the Divine Nangas, or the Divine Nakeds as the Oxford Dictionary later translated it.

  * * *

  —

  Five years after Lord Goodenough’s visit to the Andamans, an earthquake would mock all its colonial constructions, splitting the very island the British headquarters sat on in half. Goodenough Bungalow too would come down, and the machan would slip off the mountain as if it stood on a banana peel. The earthquake was a harbinger of bigger catastrophes, World War II in particular.

  * * *

  —

  During the war, the Andaman Islands
would be the first to claim independence from the British, only to be captured by the Japanese. While the white people ate with forks, knives, and spoons, the short people used only two sticks. This simplicity of thought was reflected in their methods of torture. Why shackle someone when you could twist their legs and hands until they broke? Why hang someone when you could behead them with an efficient swish of the sword? And why force the locals to part with their produce when you could drown them mid-ocean to end food scarcity?

  While the British viewed the destroyed bungalow as a pack of cards strewn across the lawns, the Japanese saw in it an opportunity. Like a professional cardsharp dealing out a new round, they would put the house back together and declare it their headquarters, building bunkers on the surrounding slopes. They would introduce the gigantic snail, a native of Malaysia and a high source of protein, to the island. When the British ships surrounded the islands and cut off all their supplies, the snail would become their savior, a ready snack that didn’t even need salt. A decade later, decrepit bunkers would be the only reminders left of the snail-eaters. The number of snails would sharply increase, making them one of the most destructive garden pests, second only to the barking deer introduced by the British for game.

  When the tide turned in favor of the Allied forces, Lord Goodenough would create a new committee in the House of Lords to bring the islands back into the fold. But the joy of winning World War II would be as short-lived as a sunrise. For the sun had set on the British Empire. The Andaman Islands would now be part of an independent India. He couldn’t help but feel betrayed. Despite his position as an influential aristocrat in the biggest colonial power the world had ever seen, he couldn’t go back to the place that had brought him close to god.

  Caught between the starving snail-eaters and the retreating sahibs, the island remained a no-man’s-land for almost two years. In that time, four drunken Karen youth—a community the British had imported from Burma to work their farms—declared themselves supreme rulers of the land and made Goodenough Bungalow their palace. They spent their evenings on the patio, doodling mustaches over King George’s image on the British rupee and fashioning flags from tablecloths. Hours would go by as they debated the national symbol of the free islands. Would it be the ferocious one-foot-long centipede, or the tiny, gentle swiftlet that made her nest out of her own spit? By 1948, the Forest Department would be the newly founded nation’s sole outpost on the islands, like a frayed flag fluttering on a treacherous snow peak.

  * * *

  —

  When Girija Prasad decided to move into Goodenough Bungalow without knowing any of this, he did so for the very reason the Divine Nangas, the British, the Japanese, and the Karens had been drawn to it. From this peak, you could see the sun glisten on a deceptively blue sea. It made you feel like the king of the world.

  And while Girija Prasad contemplated bringing his bride here, Lord Goodenough contemplated moving on. He plotted a voyage across the Pacific Islands instead. As the couple spent the first month of their marriage cocooned inside the furious layers of a storm, the lord resumed his journey toward god. Touring in the Pacific, he realized that all names, no matter how unique or new, were ultimately synonyms for a universal yet elusive truth. The nature of life, the struggle for survival, it all remained the same, no matter how many fingers a creature possessed.

  Soon after, he died.

  SHE MADE ALL THOSE who called the bungalow their home, living and dead alike, nervous. Like the bachelor Girija Prasad, the place was jittery on its stilts. Her presence confused the ghosts of freedom fighters, the perpetually starving snail-eaters, and Lord Goodenough himself, who shuffled between the Pacific, the Andamans, and his ancestral manor, chasing warm currents.

  Life as ghosts had been liberating, until Chanda Devi’s clairvoyant gaze reminded them of their tattered presence and uncouth ways.

  “It is impolite to enter a lady’s bedroom,” the lord warned the Punjabi mutineer who was in the habit of lolling upon beds like a dog. “And, you, get yourself a new uniform. I gather you died in a blast that blew your brains out and clothes off, but the lady will be shocked if she sees a naked man roaming in her garden, especially one of such diminutive proportions,” he ordered the Japanese soldier. But the man didn’t understand English. So Lord Goodenough took the liberty of wrapping the British flag around his waist himself.

  The soldier was confused. Then he was grateful.

  IT IS ONLY AT TEATIME that the two of them are compelled to sit face-to-face. For Chanda Devi runs out of things to serve and must force herself to be still. It is an art the bungalow has mastered. It has endured storms, earthquakes, and wars by simply not budging from the pinhead peak surveying the ocean. Sitting in the garden, watching a hibiscus sun set over an emerald-green archipelago, leaves the couple unsettled. It forces them to swim in the solitary world of thoughts, preoccupations, and visions. Yet it doesn’t feel lonely.

  “Everything is here for a reason.” He tries to break the spell, pointing to the garden. “The lemongrass you brewed the tea with,” he says, sipping on his cup, “I planted it to hold the loose soil on the slope, to prevent flash floods in the rains.” She smiles. He is encouraged. “The lemon too…” he goes on. “To value a lemon is to value the wisdom of all creation. In the jungle, you can squeeze it over leeches that have latched on and they shrivel instantaneously. You can squeeze it over bites and wounds as an antiseptic. And when you are dehydrated, nothing revives you more than an entire lemon, especially the rind.”

  She is blushing now. Her cheeks are fuchsia pink, like the rosebush in front of them. He is perplexed. How can this talk of lemongrass and lemons transform the mercurial lady into a shy bride? There is an awkward silence, so he repeats himself. “I planted everything in the garden myself. It is all here for a reason.”

  “Thank you,” she blurts out. “The roses are beautiful. Had it not been for your will, they wouldn’t have survived.”

  It is his turn to blush.

  It is only much later, as he’s whiling away the hours in his office, that he wonders: How did she know? She had arrived after the rose’s revival.

  * * *

  —

  Days give birth to a new sky, harboring both the sun and the rains. Under the bright gaze of late morning, a weak drizzle endlessly wets the islands, fomenting mushrooms and fungus wherever it falls, on bark and skin alike. It is one of those days when you find yourself looking up at the sky, hoping to catch a rainbow. The air is heavy, and the heart is heavier still.

  When the harsh sun and raindrops pour down like colored sand in the same hourglass, the phenomenon is called the “hour of the wedding.” In different folklore, depending upon the tellers’ longitude, latitude, dreams, dispositions, and eating patterns, different creatures are forced to tie the knot—foxes, snails, monkeys, ravens, leopards, hyenas, bears, the devil too at times. For hell, like everything else, is built by the domesticated few. The bachelors may keep the world spinning, but it’s the married ones that keep it grounded.

  On the islands, the hour of the sun and rains belongs to someone else. Far from folkloric unions, it belongs to Goliath centipedes. Creatures one foot long with claws that can snatch men out of reality, taking them back to that moment when they left their mothers’ wombs, howling like newborn babies. The centipedes have no interest in settling down, least of all with humans. The islanders know this, for they’ve been bitten.

  Crawling out from their sunless subterranean lairs, all these invertebrates seek is to bask in the sun and feast on the flurry of insects that dance after the first rains. But human beings, obsessed with mythic unions, cannot understand such a simple desire. When someone comes too close, they bite out of fear. And the schism grows deeper. Humans: once bitten, twice shy. Centipedes: shy once, biting twice.

  * * *

  —

  Girija Prasad sits on the steps of his porch, dedicate
d to the act of sunning his toes. Often, officials find mold growing between their digits when they remove their jungle boots. It is his worst nightmare. A staunch academic, he fears turning into a specimen himself. But this morning, the ritual is an excuse to sit outside and gaze at his wife, busy in the garden.

  Chanda Devi is out in the vegetable patch, plucking out the day’s menu under the drizzle. She is the picture of grace and balance. As she sits on her haunches, her center of gravity seems to be her voluptuous derriere, which hangs in the air, precarious and unsupported. She holds on to an umbrella between her shoulder and cheek, using both her hands to weave through the growth.

  She picks tomatoes with the same intensity with which she combs her hair, serves him his meals, and treads the unpaved inclines of the islands. It makes him nervous. He doubts the strength of his own hand when he offers it to her. He questions the virility of his appetite when he cannot finish the fifth roti she places on his plate.

  As he watches her, the picture of all his yearnings takes a blow. Suddenly, Chanda Devi is on the ground. His wife has fallen in the mud. She is shielding herself with the umbrella and is using her hands to fend something off.

  He runs toward her, barefoot. He’s afraid she’s seen a centipede or, even worse, been bitten by one.

  “Where is it?” he shouts out. “Don’t be afraid, I will kill it!”

  “Kill what?” she asks him, baffled. She doesn’t need his hand as she gets up and brushes the wet mud from her elbows.

  “The centipede!”

  “Where?”

  “Where did it bite you?” he asks, anxious to get her back into the bungalow and squeeze a lemon on the wound before she faints from the pain.