So I think this might be my last South Downs story for a while....
The
Whispering Chattri
Sunil
struck a match and with it, he lit the incense stick that rested in
the small glass vase in front of him. A warm sweet aroma swiftly began to diffuse into
the thick cool air around him. The scented particles intertwined with
the floating particles of music. As he sat on the stone steps of the
Chattri, he watched the tiny columns of white smoke swirl upwards
into the night sky from the glowing amber tip, he absorbed the faint
melodic notes of an old Hindi folk song that resonated around him.
The dark navy blue sky was adorned in crystal stars, the contours of
the white dome gleamed brilliantly in the moonlight and a wind, a
whispering wind, blew softly across the hills. He felt a warmth wash
over him then, a calmness. He was home now. He was home.
Sunil
repeated this ritual every once in a while when he was feeling
particularly homesick. He would walk up the grassy hills from Patcham
and settle on the steps of the Chattri where he would chant a prayer,
play the same Hindi folk song on his old Nokia, light an incense
stick and bask in the warmth. He was back where he belonged. He was
back in his small rural village in faraway India.
Sunil
stretched his legs out and lay down flat on the step. His head
descended onto the icy stone and he gazed up at the dark sky, a
weariness travelled through his body and settled within his heart. He
hadn't slept much during the night, in fact he couldn't remember the
last time he had. Sunil still couldn't get used to sleeping on a bed,
he wasn't accustomed to it. His whole life he had slept on a charpai,
a bedstead of hemp stretched on a wooden frame held up by its four
legs. He couldn't get used to the sinking feeling he would get when
he lay on the bed. He would lie awake for hours waiting for sleep to
descend upon him, with only his restless thoughts for company. He
would find himself wondering how he had arrived there, in that
strange town in a foreign land. He would wonder what everyone was
doing back home in his village- he could imagine his mum gathering
the crops from the fields and his father and brother ploughing the
land. He could picture them coming together at nightfall to share
roti, salan and stories. Sometimes while he was lost in his thoughts,
he would hear the laughter of his flatmates rise up from the lower
levels, it offered him a lonely sort of comfort. A distant longing.
As
a cool wind blew through him and a single starling flit across the
sky, Sunil brought to mind all the images that had made up the day, all the moments. He had woken up at
sunrise and walked by the seafront before going in to university to
sit his lecture. Afterwards he spent a few hours in the library
studying, then at dusk he started his evening shift at Bombay Spice
where he worked as a waiter. His mum had called him just as he was
about to leave. She didn't call him very often, maybe once a month
and he always got that same inexplicable feeling when she did, when
he heard her soft voice on the other end of the line. She asked him
how he was doing and he dutifully responded that he was doing fine,
better than fine, he was doing well. She told him she was cooking
daal that evening, his favourite and he would cheerfully reminisce
about her cooking and then she regaled him with the goings on in the
village. He cherished the brief conversations he shared with her.
They made him feel more connected to reality- to his reality and to
a way of life that made sense to him.
Sunil
felt his eyes well up as he remembered her final words. 'Beta,
mujhe tumhari yaad bahut ati hai,' she had said with a deep maternal
warmth. Son, I miss you very much. Sunil replied with a gruff, I miss
you too mah, before putting the phone down quickly. He felt his
sadness rise to the surface and knew his voice was on the verge of
breaking. She would know. If he continued talking to her, she would
know. She would hear it in his voice- the pain, the loss, the longing
to be home again. The words were always on his lips, always. He could
never say them. He could never voice the words- Mah, can I come back?
Mah, main akela hoon. I am alone. He couldn't burden her with his
heavy thoughts and abiding grief. He wouldn't, not after everything
she had done for him- everything she had given him and given up for
him. No, he would endure it. He would go on. He had to. Sunil slowly
closed his eyes and pretended that he was back at home again, lying
on his charpai outside under the Indian sky.
Sunil
had found out about the Chattri three months ago. Early one morning
he was walking by the seafront in Brighton when he came by an old
Indian man, a guru named Sri Nagavanshi. He saw Sunil, he saw the
troubled look that marred his face and so he called him over in Hindi
and asked him questions, a whole series of questions. He asked him
about his life and his family and his studies and what had brought
him here- to that bright and colourful seaside town and Sunil told
him, he told him everything.
He
couldn't remember how long they had been there, time seemed to
dissipate as they got lost in conversation, otherworldly conversation
about the cosmos and the sun and the fields and the constellations. They shared stories and memories of India too- of the smell of gol
gappas and sweet jalebis, the colours of the rainbow- reds and
yellows and oranges and golds and the cacophony of sounds and the
people. They talked a lot about the people- the rickshaw drivers and
the shop keepers, the crooks and the beggars and the beautiful women.
Sunil couldn't have been more grateful to be there, to have someone
to talk to, to connect with. He couldn't have been more grateful to
have someone to speak his language with. It was a great gift to be
able to communicate in his mother-tongue. A gift he never appreciated
till he arrived in England. Soon, as morning gave way to noon and before
they parted ways, the wise old guru promised Sunil he would take him
to the Chattri, a memorial dedicated to the Indian soldiers who
fought and died in the First World War. They would say a prayer
together. Sunil agreed, he would surely go. He missed his lecture
that morning, it was the first and only lecture he had missed since
beginning his degree programme at Brighton University.
A
few days later, just before sunrise Sunil met Sri Nagavanshi at the
foot of the hill in Patcham and they walked up together in silence.
He couldn't describe the feeling he got when he set eyes upon the
white dome in the middle of the open hills, in the soft light of
dawn. He climbed up the steps behind the old guru and watched as he
lit an incense stick and placed it in a small glass vase on the
ground. They both performed the ritual chants and then sat down to
watch the sunrise. Sunil remembered that morning well, he remembered
everything Sri Nagavanshi had told him about the Chattri- the secrets
it held, the whispers of his countrymen, the spirits that reigned the
hills. He regaled Sunil with the history of the monument and the
story of the fifty-three soldiers who were cremated on the hills
nearly a hundred years ago. He told Sunil how it happened- how the
mourners would gather together at the bottom and the bodies would be
carried, they would chant as they crossed the downs. He told him
about the rituals. Sunil was familiar with them, but so far removed
they were from the land surrounding him, that he couldn't quite seem
to picture it- the sprinkling of water on the concrete, the building
up of the wood blocks for burning, the exposing of the face, honey
and ghee passing though the deceased Indian's lips. Despite being so far from home, from their families and their relatives, they were
cremated in the same way as their ancestors. It was a beautiful and
comforting thing to know and as Sunil listened to the old man, he
felt his connection to the Chattri grow.
Ever
since that morning, the morning Sri Nagavanshi had taken him to the
memorial, Sunil had felt a great affinity to the stone white Chattri
and the fields that surrounded them. He felt an even greater
affinity towards the Indian soldiers who were cremated there, the soldiers who had died in a land so far from home. He often went to
the Chattri when he was feeling homesick. He would usually hike up at
night, when the fields were still and absent and the holy moonlight
would bathe the dome.
Sunil
was still and calm under the sky. He cherished the moments he spent
there resting. It was the only place he could rest. It was the only
place he had discovered, since his arrival eighteen months ago, that
he felt protected and safe. As he rested his body, he found his mind
wonder, as it so often did. He thought about the soldiers that were
cremated at the spot where he lay. He listened to them whispering in
the wind, he felt their presence in the air and in the surrounding
soil and he offered them a prayer. He spoke to them, as he often did. He asked
them questions, a myriad of them. Why did you come here? Why did you
leave India? Did you ever feel as lonely or displaced as I do now?
Did you miss your family as much I miss mine? Did you miss your
mothers' aloo paratha's? Did you miss your father's life lessons? Did
you miss your country fellows? The warmth and familiarity of life at
home?
Sunil
did. More than anything else in the world, he missed the warmth and
familiarity of his life at home, in his village. He missed the laughter he
shared with his friends and family and neighbours, he missed
mealtimes with the crowds. He missed sharing out food. He missed his
mum's cooking. He missed the slow pace of life, the long
mid-afternoon conversations, the connection he felt with his
surroundings, with the land and the present. He missed cycling three
miles to his school, early morning through the narrow lanes on the
edge of the green green fields, he missed the yellow hues in the sky in the early morning. He missed greeting the cows and the horses as
he went. He missed the birds. He missed the birdsong. It was
different in England, the birds looked different and they spoke a
different language- a language Sunil didn't understand. In fact
everything was different, the grass and the sky and the buildings and
the roads. It was a different world. A world he didn't feel part of
it, a world he didn't feel he belonged to.
City
life moved too fast for him- he couldn't keep up. When he jotted down
orders at the restaurant or took out library books using a machine or
when he walked down the high-street and streams of people flitted
past him in a blur- he couldn't keep up with city life. He couldn't
catch his breath and align himself with it- with this new reality.
This lonely new reality, in which everything moved so fast and life was emptier than it should be, for him at least. He wasn't used to being alone. He wasn't used
washing his own clothes and cooking his own food and sitting quietly
in an empty room. He couldn't adjust to it.
He
missed the simplicity of life back home. A simplicity that he
resented growing up, a simplicity that stifled him. He missed wearing
his plain dhoti- he missed feeling the light woven cotton against his
skin. He missed his sandals too. Sunil suddenly opened his eyes and
lifted his head to look across at the black loafers he was wearing.
They didn't look or feel like they were his feet. They didn't belong
to him. He felt like a different person in his work uniform, in his
white starched shirt and black trousers. These weren't his clothes.
This wasn't him. He lay his head back down and as he closed his eyes,
he wondered if the soldiers felt comfortable wearing their uniforms.
In the black and white pictures on the board they appeared stoic and
it was hard to tell. Did you like wearing those clothes? Did you like
speaking their language? Is it just me? Am I different?
A
fierce wind danced around him, he heard the whispers, they comforted
him, they told him he wasn't alone. For that moment he felt as though
he was part of a fellowship, a unique fellowship of outsiders. He
opened his eyes and looked up at the stars. He heard them more
clearly then, the whispers of every soldier who was cremated on the
hill. He listened to them, he felt their spirits glide across the
hills, across the night sky and he felt like he was home- amongst his
ancestors, amongst his people, amongst his family and his friends. He
could feel them. They were close to him, they were present....
Sunil
watched as the bright lights of a plane slowly moved across the dark
sky. Back home, he would lie on the charpai for nights on end just
counting the numbers of aircrafts passing over the village, over the endless fields and small mud houses. He remembered looking up at the
planes flying by and thinking to himself, one day I'll get out of
here. I'll be on one of those planes. I will discover a new world, a
different world, a world in which I can be whoever I want to be. It
was in his fate, he knew it, he would one day leave. He would get
away from his family who were always there and that village in which
nothing ever really happened. He would go west.
All
his life, he dreamed of going to Britain to study. His dreams were
the cause of his hard work, his steely focus, his determination. He would dream about what life would be on the outside, he
dreamed of pretty girls running through fields of sunflowers like
they did in the films. He dreamed of the friends he would make and
the fun they would have, the knowledge he would gain, the places he
would discover. It was everything he had worked towards since he was
a child, this. This was it- his big dream, his great escape. Only he
never imagined it would be so lonely- so different. He never imagined it would be so difficult.
He
was nineteen years old, all the friends he had made in England, well
if they could be called friends, for his idea of friendship seemed to
be very different to theirs, were set. And it wasn't that he hated
it, being there, he had learnt so much, he had met so many good
people, but they weren't his people. He felt out of place most of the
time. When he first arrived, he hoped that he would get used to it,
but he didn't- the food, the culture, the way of life- it was all so
alien to him still. He was lonely. That's what it came down to
mostly. He didn't have anyone to talk to, about the things that
mattered to him, about India. Right then, he thought back to one of
his earliest exchanges...
'But
in India, we eat together, always. It is custom,' he had said to his
friend.
'For
God's sake Sunil, you're not in India any more!' he had errupted. Sunil felt most alone amongst his Indian friends,
they had embraced this new life, they loved it and he felt jealous
that they did. But they were different, they were from wealthy
families, they came from the cities, of course for them it wasn't so
very different. For them home wasn't so far away, it wasn't a rare
and brief and long-awaited conversation.
As
the incense burned away and the fragrant smoke had subsided, Sunil
remembered what Sri Nagavanshi had said, that before the bodies were
burned, pictures were taken of the face of the deceased and they
would be sent to relatives in faraway India.
Sunil's
family had always supported him. They had shown him a love that only poor people knew or felt. It was a deep and comforting love. Perhaps they had
shown him too much of it, because the outside world felt cold to him
and he felt lost and isolated. Sunil thought of them often. They
always did the best by him, made sure he could study at whatever
cost. They didn't send him to work on the field like they did his
older brother. He was different. He was special. He didn't fail them,
Sunil was awarded a full scholarship in England as a result of years
of hard work.
Sunil set his gaze upon the stars once more. He was afraid of
disappointing people, he was afraid of disappointing his parents. He
was afraid of disappointing himself. His course would end in another
eighteen months and then he would have to go back to India, he would
have to find a job with a top company in the city. He would have to
carve out a life for himself, not a life he had chosen, but one that
others wanted for him. Sunil wanted to live off the land, he wanted
to stay in his village- he knew his village. Life made sense there.
He felt the wind blow again, embracing him softly- reminding him that
he wasn't alone. Was it as hard for you as it was me? Were you
afraid, of going back? Of what the future might hold for you when you
did? As the questions drifted through his mind, Sunil felt himself
grow drowsy and soon, in between thoughts and with the wind and the
spirits still blowing through him, still comforting his body and soul, fell
asleep there on the steps of the Chattri...
