The carnival contained several large tents housing attractions for the whole family. Laughter rang out from the Hall of Fun House Mirrors and shrieks from the Freak Show, which promised a man without a stomach and a woman grafted on to a snake's body. There was even a giant wheel, a photo studio and a magic show. But the biggest queue was outside a tent advertised as RANGEELA DISCO DHAMAKA. Men ogled at the ten-foot billboard over the entrance which had cut-outs of two girls in oversized bras and hot pants striking provocative poses. The sound of loud music came from inside the tent.
A ticket vendor sitting inside a booth winked slyly at him. 'Wanna have a look? Only twenty rupees.'
'No,' laughed Eketi. 'Why waste money just to see a woman's breasts?'
He showed much more interest in the archery stall, where customers tried to win teddy bears by using a bow and arrow to puncture balloons pinned to a square board. After observing several failed attempts, he stepped up to the stall owner and handed over a ten-rupee note from the five he still had with him. A group of small children clustered around him and cheered him on. As he took aim, the sinews in his body tensed up. Memories of that last pig hunt on the island came rushing back, touching him with its distant excitement. He released the arrow and it hit the balloon right in the centre of the board. The children whooped and jumped; the owner grimaced and parted with a teddy bear. Eketi handed the toy to a little girl and picked up another arrow. By the time he left the stall, the children had twenty teddy bears to play with and the tearful manager was preparing to close his booth.
Buoyed by his success in archery, Eketi jauntily crossed a gravel road and found himself in a completely different area of the Magh Mela grounds, where the air hummed with the chanting of mantras and the chiming of bells. The akharas were here, serving as the temporary headquarters of the various spiritual sects whose leaders competed openly for the attention of the public by employing heavy-duty public-address systems.
It was here that he encountered the Nagas once again. The naked sadhus were gathered around a courtyard, sitting on rough charpoys smoking chillums or doing physical exercises. In the centre of the courtyard was a mound of ash which they used to daub their bodies with. The sadhus retreated to a large white tent after a while and Eketi gingerly stepped into the courtyard. He stripped off his clothes, stuffed them inside his canvas bag and dived into that mound of ash as though it was a tankful of water. Like a buffalo wallowing in the mud, he rolled in the ash, smearing his face, his body and even his hair with grey, luxuriating in the thrill of being naked once again.
As he was about to leave, a Naga sadhu emerged from the tent. The tribal crouched on the ground like a cornered animal, but the sadhu smiled at him through glazed eyes and offered him a chillum. Eketi smiled back and took a deep drag. Even though he had been addicted to zarda – chewing tobacco – on the island, he was unprepared for the heady rush of marijuana. It made him feel inexplicably light-headed, as though several small windows had opened up in his brain, making the colours brighter and the sounds sharper. He swayed on his feet and clutched the sadhu for support, who grinned at him and shouted 'Alakh Niranjan!' – 'Glory to the One who can neither be seen nor tainted!' In that instant Eketi became one with the Nagas, and they accepted him as one of their own. Theirs was a house without any distinctions. The ash bleached away all difference, reduced everyone to a uniform shade of grey, and their psychedelic trance brooked no differentiation of class or caste.
Eketi relished being without clothes and roamed the township like a free spirit with licence to paint his body. Living like a Naga sadhu carried other advantages as well. Devotees gave him alms, restaurant owners gave him free meals, and the guards at the Hanuman Temple never objected to his sleeping on the covered veranda at night. Within a week, he had learnt to say alakh niranjan and offer blessings to devotees, wield a trident and dance around the sacred fire with the other Nagas.
He especially enjoyed smoking the chillum. The ganja made him forget his pain. It made him forget Dolly and Ashok and Mike, it made him forget about what he would do next, where he would go next. He was content to live simply for the moment.
In this fashion a month went by. Maghi Purnima arrived, the last of the major bathing days before Mahashivratri and the end of the Magh Mela. Eketi was sitting by the riverbank, watching a steady stream of pilgrims take a dip in the sangam, when the ground beneath him shook and a massive explosion ripped through the area like a roll of thunder. So strong was the force of the blast that he toppled down. He saw black smoke rising behind him, billowing up into the sky like a whirling cloud. And then shrieks started reverberating in the air. When he got up, there were people lying everywhere, bleeding and screaming. He saw a young boy with his leg blown off, a torso lying headless. The sand was strewn with broken glass, bloodstained clothes, slippers, bracelets and belts. A tea stall made of corrugated iron had been reduced to a smouldering mass of mangled metal. Men and women with blood dripping down their faces were running around with demented looks, desperately calling out the names of their near and dear ones. Fires raged in several places.
The speed of the attack – everything seemed to have happened in the twinkling of an eye – confounded Eketi. Its ferocity overwhelmed him. The Mela had descended into utter chaos. Already a mini stampede was breaking out near the river as the pushing, jostling pilgrims piled on top of each other in their desperation to get out. Police sirens were sounding everywhere. Quickly putting on his red T-shirt and khaki shorts, Eketi followed the hordes sprinting towards the exit. Once he had reached the safety of the main road, he tapped a rickshaw-puller standing by the roadside. 'Which way to the railway station, brother?'
Allahabad railway station bore no sign of the carnage happening in another part of town. Trains came and went. Passengers embarked and disembarked. Porters hustled and bustled. It was business as usual.
Eketi leaned against a cold-water dispenser and wondered which train to take. He had no knowledge of Indian cities, and he had no money. That is when his eyes fell on a thin, clean-shaven man with short black hair sitting on a station bench a short distance away, with a cigarette in his mouth and a grey suitcase nestling between his legs. He gave a start when he realized it was Ashok Rajput.
Eketi could easily have turned around and walked away, but he went up to the welfare officer and folded his hands. 'Hello, Ashok Sahib.'
Ashok looked at him and almost choked. 'You!' he exclaimed.
'Eketi made a big mistake by leaving you,' the tribal said contritely. 'Can you now send me back to my island? I don't want to stay here even one extra day.'
Ashok's initial fluster quickly subsided and Eketi saw the old scornful arrogance return to the welfare officer's face. He threw away his cigarette. 'You worthless black swine. I've spent the last four months desperately searching for you. And you think you can just walk up to me and ask me to send you back? You think I am a bloody travel agent?'
The Onge kneeled down on the ground. 'Eketi begs forgiveness. Now I will do anything you say. Just send me back to Gaubolambe.'