‘You mean you brought it home alive from the market?’
‘Of course. Makes all the difference in the taste, you know, slaughtering fresh and cooking—’
‘Can you please explain to Dinshawji later? After we eat?’ said Dilnavaz sharply. The two men looked up, surprised, and glanced around the table. Her sentiments echoed silently from the other three faces.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Gustad. He and Dinshawji resumed attacking the stew with gusto, but the others pushed their food back and forth on the plate. Roshan’s countenance had acquired the slightest tinge of green. Gustad realized how seriously he had erred: something had to be done to restore the good appetite. ‘Wait, everybody, wait,’ he announced. ‘We haven’t yet sung “Happy Birthday” for Roshan.’
‘Arré, not allowed to delay “Happy Birthday”. Chaalo, chaalo! Right now!’ Dinshawji clapped his hands, having taken the cue.
‘But food will get cold,’ said Dilnavaz.
‘How long does “Happy Birthday” take?’ said Gustad. ‘Ready: one, two, three,’ and with a wave of his hand he led the singing. Once he had started, everyone joined in enthusiastically, and as they came to ‘Happy Birthday, dear Roshan’, and Roshan smiled with pleasure at the mention of her name, Dinshawji reached over to tickle her again, ‘Gilly gilly gilly!’ catching her completely by surprise. She almost fell off her chair with laughing.
Then Gustad raised his beer glass: ‘God bless you, Roshan. May you live to be an old, old woman in good health — learn a lot, live a lot, see a lot.’
‘Hear, hear!’ said Dinshawji, and everyone sipped from their glasses. Roshan had Raspberry in hers. Dilnavaz had only water, but she swallowed a little beer from Darius’s glass. ‘For good luck,’ she said, shutting tight her eyes as it went down bitterly, then opened them and beamed at everyone, looking slightly surprised.
‘Wait, wait,’ said Dinshawji, and Darius at once said, ‘Hundred and twenty pounds.’ ‘Naughty boy!’ parried Dinshawji, then continued, ‘Hold on to your glasses, everybody.’ He cleared his throat and placed his right hand over his heart. Unmindful of his tongue’s perpetual difficulties with the ‘sh’ sound, he began reciting to Roshan:
I wiss you health, I wiss you wealth,
I wiss you gold in store;
I wiss you heaven on earth,
What can I wiss you more?
There was more clapping, and sips were taken from glasses round the table. ‘Bravo!’ said Darius, ‘bravo!’ and then the flat was plunged into darkness.
For a moment there was that surprised silence touched with fear which clutches the heart on such occasions. Almost immediately, however, the sound of breathing and other normal noises resumed. ‘Everybody stay seated,’ said Gustad. ‘First, I will get my torch from the black desk. Check what’s wrong.’ He groped his way slowly. ‘Probably a fuse or something.’ He switched on the torch but the light was dim. The beam gathered strength after he thumped the bottom.
‘Take me to the kitchen,’ said Dilnavaz. ‘Candles and the kerosene lamp will at least let us finish eating.’
While she busied herself, Gustad went to the window. He spied a figure in the compound whose walk was unmistakable. ‘Tehmul! Tehmul! Over here, ground floor.’
‘GustadGustadGustadalldarkandblack.’
‘Yes, Tehmul. The whole building is dark?’
‘Yesyeswholebuildingdarkeverythingdark. Blackroadlights. DarkeverythingdarkGustad. Darkdarkdarkdark.’
Dinshawji came to the window, trying to follow the exchange. ‘OK, Tehmul,’ said Gustad. ‘Be careful, don’t fall.’
Dilnavaz lit the kerosene lamp, which was not enough to brighten the entire room. But the table looked very warm and inviting. ‘With the black paper everywhere, even starlight and moonlight is blocked out,’ she said, to no one in particular.
‘Was that a mouth or the Deccan Express?’ asked Dinshawji. ‘You understood anything?’
Gustad laughed. ‘That’s our one and only Tehmul-Lungraa. Takes a little practice to understand. Anyway, we don’t have to check the fuse. Whole neighbourhood is blacked out, nothing to do but wait.’
‘Do not wait,’ said Dinshawji. ‘Or you’ll be late, just fill your plate.’
‘One poem after another! You are in good form tonight, Dinshawji,’ said Gustad. ‘We will have to call you Poet Laureate from now on.’
‘Laureate-baureate nothing, I am a son of Mother India. Call me Kavi Kamaal, the Indian Tennyson!’ He grabbed the torch from Gustad and held it under his chin. The light cast an eerie glow over his sallow complexion. He hunched up his shoulders and began to prowl like a spectre around the table, reciting in an unearthly voice that emerged from a death mask:
Gho-o-osts to right of them,
Gho-o-osts to left of them,
Gho-o-osts in front of them,
Hungry and thirsty!
Everyone cheered and clapped except Dilnavaz who was now frantic about the food getting cold. Dinshawji took a bow and handed the torch back to Gustad. Flushed with success and inspiration, he declaimed, ‘Though dark is the night, please take no fright, we shall eat by candlelight. Or kerosene light.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Gustad. ‘But light or no light, I have one more wish to make. For Sohrab, my son, my eldest: to you, good luck, good health, and may you do brilliantly at IIT. Make us all very proud of you.’
‘Hear, hear!’ cried Dinshawji. ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow! For he’s a jolly good fellow!’ Everyone joined in, and the singing got louder and louder. They did not hear Sohrab saying ‘Stop it’ till he repeated with a shout, over the singing, ‘STOP IT!’
The voices ceased abruptly, in mid-melody. Their features frozen, everyone looked at Sohrab. He sat staring angrily at his plate. The candles cast nervous shadows that shivered or yawed wildly when the flames were disturbed by breathing.
‘Food is getting really cold,’ said Dilnavaz, although it was the last thing she cared about now.
‘Yes, we will eat,’ said Gustad, ‘but,’ to Sohrab, ‘what is the matter suddenly?’
‘It’s not suddenly. I’m sick and tired of IIT, IIT, IIT all the time. I’m not interested in it, I’m not a jolly good fellow about it, and I’m not going there.’
Gustad sighed. ‘I told you not to drink the rum. It has upset you.’
Sohrab looked up scornfully. ‘Fool yourself if you want to. I’m not going to IIT anyway.’
‘Such brainless talk from such a brainy boy. How is it possible, I ask you,’ he said, turning to Dinshawji. ‘And why, after studying so hard for it?’ Dilnavaz moved the dishes around, picked up serving spoons and set them down again. But the comforting clatter of crockery and cutlery was powerless to restore normalcy. Gustad silenced her with a wave of his hand. ‘Say why. Becoming mute helps nothing.’ He paused, more bewildered than angry. ‘OK, I understand your silence. This is a birthday dinner, not the right time for discussion. Tomorrow we will talk.’
‘Why can’t you just accept it? IIT does not interest me. It was never my idea, you made all the plans. I told you I am going to change to the arts programme, I like my college, and all my friends here.’
Gustad could contain himself no longer. ‘Friends? Friends? Don’t talk to me of friends! If you have good reasons, I will listen. But don’t say friends! You must be blind if you cannot see my own example and learn from it.’ He stopped and stroked Roshan’s hair as though to reassure her about something. ‘What happened to the great friend Jimmy Bilimoria? Our Major Uncle? Where is he now, who used to come here all the time? Who used to eat with us and drink with us? Who I treated like my brother? Gone! Disappeared! Without saying a word to us. That’s friendship. Worthless and meaningless!’