It was in this house, oddly, that he’d first seen Lata Mangeshkar. She, sitting on the little divan in her white sari, talking to the members of the household in her babylike voice. She had seemed tiny to Shyamji. He glanced at her; although her songs often floated about in his head, he was, at that moment, curious about what she looked like, sounded like. They brought her puris and potatoes on a plate — it seemed she’d asked for them specifically — and she ate them carefully and said: ‘I love eating anything Arati makes.’ Arati was married to Motilal, Shyamji’s wife’s brother: everyone knew she was a good cook. A small cordon of family members, of children and cousins intermittently talking to each other, had formed itself around Lata. He was introduced to her as Ram Lal’s son, and at this she showed a passing flicker of interest. When you are introduced to the great, you have a fleeting impression that they have taken in your features and your name, and that they’ll remember you the next time you meet. Shyamji was happy to pay his respects with a namaskar, then retreat into the background.
Later, when she was practising a song with Motilalji — without accompaniment, without harmonium — he was surprised that he could not hear her. He then went a little closer; the familiar voice became audible, small and sharp. So this is what a microphone could do!
Motilalji himself was a marvellous singer, astonishingly accomplished; but this was the pinnacle of his achievement — to have his talent mutedly applauded by Lata, to give her a few tunes for the bhajans she sang, to accompany her on the harmonium at the occasional public concert she gave, and to act as a filler during those concerts: that is, to sing a song or two when she wasn’t singing, and the audience was distracted, going out for coffee or to the toilet. At first, they’d all thought it was a miracle — a result of ‘bhagya’, fate — this conjunction with Lata Mangeshkar, and it was expected that, when the time came, she’d surely ‘do’ something for him. But she hadn’t ‘done’ anything for him; he had continued to be her filler, he hadn’t become a music director. What could she do? explained the family. But the relationship with Lata, to all outward purposes, was cordial; it could even be described as ‘particularly close’.
Part of Motilalji’s problem was drink; no use blaming others for a self-inflicted problem. Drink made him more solitary; late in the evening, he would sit alone, talking to himself. The rest of the day, if he was sober, he was abrasive; as if the world somehow displeased him. And his talent became a problematic responsibility he did not know what to do with; it was as if, having given so much to his gift — hard work, practice — he wanted something in return; and not having got that ‘something’, whatever it might be, he had decided to punish both himself and everyone around him.
Motilalji came into the room, looked around him, and appeared barely to notice his brother-in-law. But he had noticed him of course; ‘Bhaiyya, at this time of the morning?’ he said.
‘No, I had a moment,’ said Shyamji, ‘and I thought I’d stop for a glass of water.’
‘Well, did you get it?’
‘I did, and it gave much ananda,’ said Shyamji. Motilalji seemed to mull over this remark and dismiss it. He came to Shyamji and for the first time looked him in the eye.
‘Where are you going now?’ he asked; Shyamji smelled drink on his breath. Although the smell revolted Shyamji, he kept his expression amenable. He noticed that Motilalji’s teeth, bared briefly, had flecks of paan on them.
‘I was going to see a chela of mine at twelve o’clock, but I’m in no hurry — he’ll wait.’
Shyamji thought of this student of his, an enthusiastic young man whose voice kept going off-key, and put him out of his mind.
Motilalji patted his hair and smoothed his creased kurta. ‘Come with me then,’ he said, glancing at a mirror, and then at his watch.
It turned out that they were going to Cumballa Hill. This was not far away, and they might have walked it in half an hour. But Motilalji had lavish tastes; as they descended from the small hill on which the house stood, he hailed a taxi. They sat at the back, Shyamji wondering if they could have taken a bus. ‘Arrey, who will take a bus for such a short distance! And these buses tire me — I am not well.’ He looked distractedly before him.
Besides, no bus would have taken them straight to the building. Motilalji began to hum with a sour expression on his face, as if he was never on holiday from his talent and vocation, and resented the fact, as the taxi made the round from Peddar Road to Kemp’s Corner, and then turned right at the Allah Beli Cafe´ and continued down the straight lane. Shyamji, by contrast, was wide-eyed and curious, as if he was still not bored by this area. He was also silent. The small intermission of the journey seemed to have mixed up daydream and reality for him. He watched the sunlight fall on the different buildings; the old, deceptively homely but expensive shops on Kemp’s Corner; the multi-storeyed buildings in the lane in which mainly Gujaratis lived, with their sense of crowdedness; then the sense of spaciousness again as they turned into the hill, with its older buildings.
They came now to an old, large, three-storeyed house. ‘Arrey, dekho,’ said Motilalji, ‘I have only two rupees change in my pocket. These fellows will never have change for a hundred rupee note. Give him five rupees, will you, Shyam?’ and with that he got out of the taxi. Shyamji noticed, as he fished resignedly in his kurta pocket, that Motilalji’s dhoti was quite shabby. But he was not drunk; he was walking straight. They went up a single floor in an old lift, one that apparently never caught the sunlight. In a way that was both unworldly and dramatic, Motilalji rang the bell next to a large door with a brass nameplate.
The door was opened by an ageing bearer, a grey-haired Malyali, who’d grown inured to the incursion of people like Motilalji into the flat. Certain skills brought you into contact with the well-to-do, he’d decided; and in his thirty years as cleaner, boy, and bearer, he’d seen a range of skills. Besides, the lady of the house liked singing; the people he’d worked for had always had interesting hobbies, and he preferred the employers that had hobbies to the ones that didn’t have any. He was accomplished enough to feign a look of tolerance and respect toward Motilalji; he didn’t know the other man. Then, with an approximation of childlike enthusiasm, he padded off barefoot towards the bedroom to say, ‘Memsaab, music teacher has come!’
Motilalji sat on the sofa with a sort of half-smile on his face, while Shyamji turned his head momentarily to look at the flat; glancing back quickly over his shoulder, he saw the potted plants in the veranda. Motilalji leaned towards him to say something; but the lady was approaching them; he cleared his throat.
‘Mallika,’ he said, ‘I hope you don’t mind that I brought my dewar with me!’
The dewar, the brother-in-law, looked a bit startled; he felt, more than ever, that he was in someone else’s house, and that he’d been manipulated by Motilalji for a reason only he knew. He was also surprised, and mildly offended, that Motilalji referred to the lady by her name, rather than ‘Mallikaji’ or ‘didi’.
The lady smiled and nodded at Shyamji. John came out of the room with a harmonium, and placed it on the carpet.
‘She’s been learning from me for seven — eight months now,’ said Motilalji. ‘You should listen to her — she has a good voice. She’s very proud though.’
Shyamji quailed. He pretended he hadn’t heard.
‘My dewar’s name is Shyam — Shyam Lal,’ said Motilalji. ‘The late’, and he glanced at the heavens, ‘Pandit Ram Lal’s son. He’s quite a good singer, and a teacher too. He’s still young, though.’