Chapter 1a: Odali

YOU could say that life began at forty-five for me. I had just completed a gruelling twenty-four months in the Sir Ram Gopal Singh University, working on my thesis with a doctorate in mind. I was a software designer going nowhere in a job that entailed inventing games for the commercial market. So I thought I might as well take a sabbatical and put a Ph.D. behind my name. The university was shabby, but it had one distinction — some of India's finest minds in the field of electronics and mathematics resided there. The faculty were on the whole brilliant but eccentric to a fault. For instance, my professor in math, Dr Mahbub Koreish, refused an associate professorship in M.I.T. simply because no one made dhal curry (lentil curry) like it was done in Kojali, the university's small satellite town. And the chapattis (flat bread) were the best anyone could get for a hundred kilometres around.

A few days after the successful defence of my thesis I went on a holiday to a nearby hill resort. I needed the cool air of the hills to sooth my fevered brain. I had to get away from the stifling heat of the plains and I needed time to think. What did I want to do with my life? Going back to inventing games was one option. I wasn't sure I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. I had a nice balance in my bank and I held several copyrights that brought in a steady income; nothing great but enough for my bachelor needs. Already offers from INTEL and AMD, Penang, had arrived and soon more offers would be on the way.

Meanwhile the dean urged that I should go and enjoy the cool air of a hill station. I could collect my parchment when I returned, the registrar said. Have a good holiday and a good rest and see what India has to offer, they urged. So I went and booked into a remote rest house one hundred kilometres from Kojali.

The journey took me past towns seething with people, somnolent villages, through jungles and over sluggish rivers. The journey took four hours because the car I hired kept breaking down. The driver, a ripe old Sikh who smelled of rancid ghee, patiently tinkered with the engine every time it gasped to a stop and got it going again. There was an indefinable rapport between car and owner.

"This is a werry reliable car, sahib. It belonged to my grandfather and it gave my family excellent service," he reminded me proudly. I wasn't surprised the car kept breaking down. The car looked every inch an heirloom and I didn't belabour the obvious.

The rest house was also a relic from the days of the British Raj. Its air of stiff and faded gentility dated it to the time of Victoria. A small porch marked the entrance to a wide vestibule at the end of which a broad flight of stairs swept upwards to the first floor. Narrow passages flanked both sides of the stair well. The bedroom doors opened to these passages. The dining room was on the left as you entered the building and the lounge was on the right as well as the tiny library whose shelves were filled with dated, leather-bound books. The only concession to modernity was the tattered copies of Indian Movie News replete with cover pictures of sultry and bosomy Bollywood stars.

The lounge had glass-paned full-length windows, the kind that were called French windows (I always wondered why), that opened to a broad terrace shaded by a sun-baked pergola infested with the flaming branches of a flowering bougainvillea. The terrace was furnished with wrought iron tables and chairs. Once in a while they pinged as the iron contracted with the cooling day. There were five rooms upstairs. It wasn't, after all, an important hill station from the time when the country was British India. It had been patronised mostly by various minor government officials on their hijrahs of inspection through the district.

I was given the room over the porch and it had a bathroom attached. There wasn't a shower, which wasn't at all an inconvenience, since I was used to filling a dipper with water from a large earthen jar and sluicing the water over myself. About ten to twelve dippers of water wet the bather completely. You then lather your body and scrub your legs and toes before repeating the process until you are squeaky clean.

The bedroom was comfortable although the furniture was decidedly period. There was even a porcelain wash basin in its wooden stand with a large pitcher containing water by the side. Amazing! That sort of furniture went out with my great-grandfather who was a medical officer in Rangoon before he was transferred to Singapore.

My great-grandfather was a crusty old Parsee who didn't give a damn whose toes he stepped on. He quarantined a whole shipload of people including a party of whites because a lascar had the smallpox. For his devotion to duty and Doing The Right Thing he was transferred to Shanghai where he died of cholera during an epidemic. The mattress was, thank God, firm and the bed clothes spotlessly clean.

My room overlooked the garden, which rioted with colour. Roses, gerberas and dahlias bloomed with vivid exuberance. The air was heavy with the scent of the roses, pink oleander and jasmine. It was already late and the day was edging into the evening so I decided a walk around the place would do me good. I was seduced by the tranquillity of my surroundings. I wanted to breathe the fresh hill air and enjoy the cool breeze that ruffled the leaves of the trees surrounding the rest house. The oppressive heat of the lowlands had sapped my energy and the invigorating cool air of the uplands was an immediate pick-me-up. So I left my suitcase unopened and decided I would stretch my legs a bit and give the staff time to get a hot bath ready for me. I couldn't wait for tomorrow. I went down to make arrangements for the evening and to inform the manager of my plans. To my astonishment the manager objected strenuously to the idea.

"Please, Mr Kaid," he said greatly agitated and wringing his hands. "Dat's not a good idea at all. In fact, it is a very bad idea. Werry easy to get lost in the hill paths which vind here and dere."

The man had a problem with his consonants.

"But I won't be going far, Mr Gupta. I promise you," I replied to Gupta's protests. Gupta was the manager and local expert. He was reed thin and very tall, at least a head taller than me. He was stooped which made him look like a dark brown question mark. His hair was pomaded and it clung to his scalp in a thick, black, curly cap. He was one of those people who could look worried even when he smiled. But as matters turned out, he was right. Strangers to the district had no business taking walks by themselves in those hills. I stubbornly insisted on going for a short stroll round the place. No further than to the end of the road in full sight of the rest house, I assured him. And would he see that a hot bath was ready for me when I returned? He bowed his head and mumbled something.

"It isn't vize, Kaid Sahib," he kept on saying. At the time he used my real name but for this narrative Kaid will do nicely. There's no cause for me to hark to a life that has gone. "Vit a little patience de guide vill soon be here. Then he vill take you for a long valk through our beautiful hills."

"What on earth could happen to me? I don't intend to go beyond a mile. And I will keep to the road."

"Dese hills have a bad character, Kaid Sahib, and people 'ave been known to wanish under most mysterious circumstances. There is great puzzlement regarding dese unsolved mysteries." Gupta was a failed BA (Bachelor of Art) and his English tended to be a little exotic. When the British ruled India, those who failed to gain their degrees often advertised themselves as Failed BAs in order to obtain employment as clerks or teachers in rural schools.

"Tish, posh and tush," I said, dismissing his fears. "Really, Mr. Gupta, I just want to stretch my legs a bit. All that cramming and writing has left cobwebs in my head. A little walk around these precincts is all I want. I'll be back for dinner."

He opened his mouth to make another protest but I took off smartly. I meant exactly what I had said. I just wanted to stretch my legs a bit so how was it that I turned off into a narrow track which suddenly appeared about half a mile from the rest house? I followed that trail without a care. I heard the distant lowing of a cow and a wild dove cooed softly in a nearby tree. Through a break in the tangled foliage I looked into the valley below and I saw the village that gave this station its name. I continued my walk. It was truly a magical time. The air seemed to glow and I breathed in the perfume of jungle orchids, faint and provoking like the tantalising fragrance of a woman as she walks briskly past you.