Janpath Market, 11.30 am

- Le-lo le-lo
- Painti painti
- Le-lo le-lo
- Painti painti
- Jal-di le-lo
- Painti painti
- Sasta painti
- Painti painti
- Achha painti
- Painti painti
- Cotton le-lo
- Painti painti
- Madam le-lo
- Painti painti
- Jor laga key
- Painti painti
- Hero ban ja
- Painti painti
- Painti painti
- Painti Painti

- Feels nice to stand in the sun.
- I think you must close your eyes.
- It’s so warm and bright in the sun.
- But I think you must close your eyes.
- I think I must close my eyes in the sun.
- Feel better no?
- Feels like home.
- What? It’s a market. It’s not home.
- It is. You do not know. Home is many rooms living together.
You do not know because you do not see. You have no eyes.
This is the doorstep. That is the roof. There is the green
Where summer plays butterflies with all the wicked cousins,
Near the old Cycas palm, near the orange tree where I hid
From you and you hid from me because we were only children,
Where one could stand and clearly hear,
At night, the drums beat fifty miles down the valley.

Let’s scratch ‘round the cowshed and see Bahadur’s room. Come come come you
Whack the shishon leaves, I’ll kick stones and chuck pebbles down the slope
And let’s race down race down race down

to where the hills
fold their legs
foot on foot
thigh on thigh

Quiet! It’s the stream where women wash their clothes with their dreams and cows
Drink sometimes and do not touch anything you find here, they feed the dead here

water flows
between the folds
of rock and rock
from an arm hole

Uncle had stood here when papa died, and he had stood leaning
His hand on my shoulder and had cried.

- Let’s forget that.
- Alright.

- Just press your ear to the wet side; can you hear the water rumble
in the rocks?
- LOOK THERE! Look on the boulder! Look the bride!
she squats
beneath a bramble
with eyes
large
and lamp
with light
woman in red cover
and gold threads

- My god! What is she doing here?
- At this time?
- She’s staring
- She’s not looking away
- Aye! Kya hai?
- She’s running, she’s running away
- Keep quiet keep quiet keep quiet

I have a headache. Wish I could go home and sleep.

- Maybe we should go to the temple and get something to eat.
- No.
- There are too many people here. Maybe we should find a quiet place and sit.
- No.
- What should we do then? Can’t just stand here like this.
- Was that him?
- Who?
- I think I just saw him in the crowd.
- Who?
- Never mind.
- Do you think it could be a sign?
- I don’t know.
- Shall we go back to the landlady and borrow money?
- No. Let’s try and remember him.
- Why? Are you afraid to forget?
- Yes.
- I am sure he wouldn’t mind. He was a good man.
- Yes. He was my favourite uncle.
Always wore his hand-knit woollens - the oil stained monkey cap in winter,
He was a man of shy ways
‘he was beautiful once
‘he had a poet’s eyes
It was always warm in his lap.
– But that was before cancer came and emptied his brain.
- I think it was sent by the woman we all caused pain.
- Maybe, but let’s not talk about that.
- Yes, let’s remember him before he forgot our name,
Let’s think of him as the sailor, who loved the shovel and the plough,
As gentle hands, which stroked the cow, which patiently worked the weeds,
Giggling away with the women

‘he had a girl's voice
when he was a boy
‘he had a boy's ways as a man
‘he once played Sita
doe eyed and all"
- He was unlike the others, wasn’t he?
- Yes, other men beat their wives; other boys loved men with hard lives,
And they were all rude; they smoked and drank and sat talking at the porch
- But he wept for his mother on the high seas like a child

‘he was a good sailor
‘he was never unafraid"

- You are remembered by girls, who were playmates and young wives once,
- Now counting children with days, with fond smiles, far looks, shrugs and sighs,
- You are remembered as the quiet sailor walking home in summer
Coming the downhill path, handing shy gifts, colourful scarves, perfume, silk

‘he wanted a slow life
‘he did not want to be a sailor
‘he wanted talk
‘he wanted to make gossip
with sisters, love with wife
‘to walk the cows
‘and to sleep
in his own
house

- Band kar oye,
- Aa gaye oye
- Aa gaye oye
- Band kar oye,
- Corpration waaley aa gaye oye
- Band kar band kar
- Pappu ki ley gaye, bhag le!
- Pappu ki ley gaye?
- Hanh! Oye Gattu band kar oye
- Band kar oye,
- Aa gaye oye
- Aa gaye oye

- The house is full with faces that loved him in feeble stammering ways.
Now, when you are long dead, taken downhill to the fire corners,
Your soul let loose, departed, fed and nourished with food and water
Fruits and leaves, incantations and songs of half attentive brahmins
And a self absorbed family,
You come eyebrow raised, frightened, to this unready house, unwelcome, Unsummoned.

- I came to see the children play.
I must leave now.
- Why?
- I have to see off someone till the Timil tree.
- Shall I also come? Please please please. You can't say no to me. I always
- No, this time I'll go alone. You go and play. Maybe another time.

- Let’s wait for him. I am sure he’ll be back.
- What about the other’s inside the house? Shall we tell them?
- No, they wouldn’t know what to do. Let us meet him and then forget.
- Wait isn’t that him holding the peach tree?

- Yo theek na-ha, theek na-ha,
Ija, you bhal ni bho

in the room for the dead
a man with his shoulders
and his back
and his sacred thread
in the dark
keeps an earthen lamp
burning

- Bhiter jhan ja rey!
O ija o ija na na na na na na.
Wan jhan ja.
Yo ki hai go ija? O ija O ija

a brother strokes
his waist long hair
and knots it on top
of his head

He is in my arms, my god, and the tears are unstoppable unstoppable

- O ija O ija O ija O ija myor bho!
Myor dagar shey chhi
O ija O ija O ija Yo ki hai go?
O ija O ija O ija

- Oh my god isn’t that terrible?
- Don’t move. Wait for the policeman to go before you weep.
- And it happened though he always was good and grateful
And though he remembered his mother among friends - what a pity!
It happened though he always brought the women gifts from the city.
- Don’t move. Wait for the policeman to go before you weep.
- Ma told me that it was a splendid dress he sent home from Russia
With frills and lace, but it was long ago when the house was still full
Of people.

- The policeman has a stick, do you understand that? Can’t you keep quiet?
- Yeah right. You know
There used to be an old Apricot tree that climbed the red roof,
One branch almost touched the chimney. It was the strongest the tallest,
Such an apricot tree it was.
Then one day, he leaned over his walking stick, and his one son climbed up
The branch and up on the roof and one son axed the tree and one stood
Gnawing a stick, gnaw gnaw gnaw, spitting and shouting at Bahadur
who was younger then
and stronger
who thought
he was
one of us

And they all asked him to cut it down to cut it down to cut it down.
And around, leaping over the flower beds we laughed and we ran
Pulling skirt ends, throwing our caps in the air, feet and laughter,
And we sang brother to brother, sister to sister, cousin to cousin,

O banni tera banna aya rey
Tujhey lene aya rey
O banna teri banni ayi rey
Tujhey lene ayi rey

an old widow
suns her lines
on a blanket
in the silent
courtyard
coughing
- The policeman has gone. Let’s go home.
- But the roof is not red anymore

the pigeons
would fly down
to the beam

The tanks and the trough are shrunken, the goats are sold, the cows are without Milk - they have forgotten their names, they no more hurry home,
They no more seem to like the fields.

old teacher
stands at the gate
reads a name
slowly to herself
from the marble

- Hmm, it’s an old family in decline.

- Who is she?
- She’s the old teacher from the big house who makes tasteless tea.
- And the others?
- I don’t know.
I do not recognize them all; I cannot answer all the voices
That come without footfall.
Not all the trees, nor all the rocks.
There used to be a house and a family.
There have lived many men
Before the lights came and the roads cut in to the rocks.
How can I tell?
- But surely it must all add to something!
A word and a word, a face and a face.
- Yes.
- What is it?
- Nothing. Maybe it’s the woman who went to the village god.
she was somewhat
dissatisfied
she cried to the downhill god without incense
without incantations
colour
rice
light

She said, let them all die to the last man.
- So what are you going to do now?
- Nothing. Let’s walk back to the room. The sidekick says there is a new production coming up.
- Ok. Bye then.