The house was decaying, but gracefully. It had received no care or attention for many decades, and yet it preserved all of its magnificence, its faded paint a gentle reminder of grander times gone by.
The hulk of an American dreamboat, a Plymouth, rusted in the portico, with deflated, disintegrating tyres. Inside, a vast hall with several doors leading variously to rooms and an inner courtyard, a broad staircase leading into the darkness of an upper storey. A gallery belonging to this upper storey ran around the hall at a height of fifteen feet or so, and looked down on the hall. In which were sofas resting on the scratched, faded black and white tiles of the floor. The sofas were large enough to seat two dozen, with velvet covers which had not aged as gracefully as ordinary fabric would have. A grandfather clock in a corner whose yellowed face told the ages that had passed, bookcases with their glass fronts opaque with grime, some Thanjavur dolls on a window sill, iron bars of the windows black with rust, the wildly overgrown garden beyond them.
Morning sunlight streamed in through these windows. But it looked tired and watery, as though tinted sepia.
Deepak started. He was gazing at the patch of light that the sunbeams made on the floor. Illumined by this sunlight, he saw with some alarm now, were a pair of bare feet which appeared to take shape from the very dust motes. Proceeding upwards from the feet, his eyes travelled into the relative gloom beyond the patch of sunlight, up hairy shins (the hair was snowy white), and then a veshti which was yellowing with age, and then a hairy pot belly and chest, and a face with a snowy, scraggly beard, a large and hairy nose, and a pair of eyes that were fixed on him with the peculiarly glassy stare of the aged drunkard.
The man was seated in an old easy chair with cane seat and back, and wooden arms that had acquired a fine polish, no doubt from regular use for repose.
Deepak took two hesitant, shuffling steps and stopped.
“Uncle?” he said.
“Whose uncle?” said the old man, in a voice that sounded hoarse and rusty, as though unused to speech.
Deepak was silent for a moment while he considered this.
“Deepak’s uncle?” he said finally.
“Who is Deepak?” said the old man.
“Me,” said Deepak, feeling that this was a difficult start to the interview.
“Why?” said the old man, as if proving him right.
“I’m your uncle,” said Deepak and then paused. He had mixed it up. “You’re my uncle, actually.”
“I know who I am,” said the old man. “Why?”
Deepak wondered if this was a deep, searching question aimed at discovering root causes. Did the old man wish to know why he was Deepak’s uncle, and not someone else? Then he decided it was a simple request for the reason for this intrusion.
“My mother, your sister, sent you a letter. About my…my shop.”
The old man continued to stare, and then held out his hand. Deepak assumed he wished to shake hands with a long lost relative, and proffered his, and almost fell on his uncle when the latter gripped his hand and used it to haul himself to his feet.
The old man stood, swayed gently, almost as though this was a voluntary action in the same way a good stretch is, and lurched away surprisingly briskly.
He made his way to the stairway, and climbed it with jerky motions of the limbs, as though driven by ratchets and chains. Deepak followed, watching in fascination his uncle’s broad and hairy back, with its concavity above the small of the back.
The stairway led to the gallery, on to which several doorways opened. The old man led the way to one of these and passed through into a large room with several large items of furniture. A chest of drawers, an old rosewood desk with a sliding cover, a steel bureau with a still shiny mirror…
“What are you doing here?” said the old man, sounding surprised. He had caught a glimpse of Deepak’s staring face in the mirror.
Deepak cleared his throat, wondering if this meant he had to start at the beginning, or just to say he had assumed that he was meant to follow the old man, his mistake, he would go back downstairs and wait for him.
But his uncle did not wait for a reply. He opened the bureau, groped in it for a few moments, and produced a cheque book. He took this to the rosewood table, uncovered it, found a pen in one of its drawers, and filled out a cheque.
This he handed to Deepak, stared glassily and gloweringly at his face, and pointed wordlessly at the door.
Deepak succeeded in startling the old man by bending convulsively to touch his feet. The old man uttered a little yell of alarm and hopped backwards. Deepak straightened up, gave him a look in which surprise at this reaction mingled with gratitude, and deciding that words were inadequate and superfluous, turned around and hurried away.
*****
He had not thought to look at the cheque until he came home, some two hours later (the buses on this route had very low frequency). It was his mother Savithri in fact, who first properly examined the cheque and pointed out that it was blank.
Deepak stared blankly at her.
The little woman gazed at him, this tall beanpole of a son, and gritted her teeth. He had a weak jaw, with the chin flowing smoothly into the scrawny neck with its nervously bobbing Adam’s apple, large glassy eyes that never showed the light of intelligence, a long nose, long gangly limbs and long silences.
She sighed. She handed him the cheque. It was true. There was his uncle’s scrawled signature, but nothing in the blank space after ‘Rupees’.
“Did you tell him you need two lakhs?” said his mother. “Take it back to your uncle, tell him he’s forgotten to fill in the amount. Tell him two lakhs would do nicely. It will cover the cost of the shop. It’s a grocery store that you will open in the front room of our house, which is no.3, Rangayya Naicker Street, Mylapore.”
Deepak was puzzled. Why was she spelling it all out? Why was she giving him the address of their house? He knew it well, for he had spent all twenty five years of his life in it. He suspected it had not changed in the seventy five years since the house had been built.
“Why are you telling me our address?” he said.
His mother sighed again. Surely he got this bovine dullness of intellect from his father. Her husband had been docile, placid, unburdened by thoughts of any kind. He had drifted through the eddies and swirls of life’s swift currents like a lethargic log. He had passed on his dim wits to his son, and then passed away, leaving her to cope.
Savithri had thought up the grocery shop scheme in a fit of despair. It was time her son was married. And ‘grocery shop owner’ would sound better in the matrimonial market than ‘jobless, witless youth’. She pitied the girl who would be inveigled into marrying this mandha buddhi, but she shushed her conscience, told it to be practical. How could her son survive in this kali yuga without someone to look after him? She wouldn’t live forever, and her soul would be unquiet if she died and left him all alone.
She kept the two of them fed and clothed by making pickles and snacks and selling them to the neighbourhood households. She planned to make up a major portion of the store’s stock in trade with these.
But still, there was need for capital for the initial stock. And that is why the appeal to her elder brother, who had not spoken to her in fifteen years. It was not like they had quarreled, but he was an eccentric who had no use for human company. Even as a child, he had appeared to live in a mental world that overlapped only slightly with hers, which was the ordinary one of family, society and survival. He had inherited the family wealth, which was very small, and had somehow managed to add to it until he had acquired his grand bungalow and was to all appearances a wealthy man.
And now here was the cheque to prove it. Except that it was blank. A sudden thought occurred to her. Did he intend that they fill in the amount themselves? Was he telling them, help yourself, I have plenty of the stuff?
“Okay, amma,” Deepak was saying, slipping on his worn hawai chappals. “I’m leaving. I think I can catch the 4.30 bus to Tondiarpet if I hurry. Then, after that…” He paused, his brain creaking as he worked out his schedule for the rest of the day.
“Wait,” said Savithri. “Don’t go today.”
“Why?” said Deepak.
“It’s not an auspicious time,” she said simply.
“Okay,” said Deepak, removed his chappals and reclined on a straw mat on one of the two dais in the verandah, with the narrow passage between them that led into the house. He watched the traffic of Rangayya Naicker Street, and was well entertained. He was content to stay put. All this travelling was stressful.
*****
Three days passed. Deepak wallowed contentedly in inaction. Savithri wrestled with indecision. What figure should she write into the blank space in the cheque? She was astounded by the complications that sprang from this seemingly simple question.
An endless succession of what ifs and why nots and maybes and maybe nots followed each other in a tedious, repetitious circle, like a snake swallowing its tail. Five lakhs, she told herself. What if it was more than the account held? But why not? Surely such a wealthy man would have more than that in the bank? What if he didn’t? Why not? If she put in a figure that was too high and the cheque bounced, could she send Deepak back to her brother for a fresh cheque? Why not? What if he refused to give them another chance? Maybe he intended it to be a game. Three chances to guess my net worth. Three chances and you’re out. In the streets, no hope of a secure future for your son. Why not just say two lakhs and leave it at that? What if even two lakhs was too much? Why not ten lakhs then, if it came to that. Why not ask her brother what he meant by giving them a blank cheque? Why not go to the bank and ask them how much her brother had in his account?
She clucked at herself. This agony of indecision was making her stupid. She stared at the blank space in the cheque, a great chasm between her and a future untroubled by worry for her son.
Finally, as she woke in the dawn of the fourth day to a ghostly, mocking image of the cheque floating before her sleepy eyes, she decided that this had gone on long enough. She would send Deepak back to his uncle, and ask him to fill in the blank cheque himself.
*****
“Did he fill in the cheque?” she asked eagerly as Deepak paused to slip off his chappals at the verandah.
Deepak paused in his simple task to consider this question.
“No,” he answered, eventually.
“Did you ask him to?” she said, with a strong suspicion that he may have forgotten why he went to see his uncle and returned without saying a thing to him.
“Did I ask who to do what?” said Deepak.
“Did you ask your uncle to fill in the blank space in the cheque? Do you remember what I told you?”
“I remember what you told me. You told me to go to my uncle and ask him to fill in the blank space in the cheque. No need to repeat everything a thousand times. Appa!”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t I what?”
Savithri gritted her teeth.
“Why didn’t you ask your uncle to fill in the cheque?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Idiot, wooden head. This zamindar’s son is suddenly too proud to ask his uncle for help, is he? Alright. Now you look after yourself. Only that Venkatachalapathy can help you. I’m giving up. Just don’t forget to perform my final rites after I’m gone. Do that much at least for me. I don’t want my spirit to hang around and watch over you anxiously.”
“What are you talking about?” said Deepak. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t ask him, I said I couldn’t.”
“And why not, maharaja?”
“Because he wasn’t there. The house is locked.”
Savithri was momentarily silenced.
She recovered after a moment and said, “Maybe he went out for a walk, or maybe he is visiting a friend. Couldn’t you ask someone there? Doesn’t the house have a watchman?”
“No,” said Deepak, slowly. “No watchman. I asked one of the neighbours. They said he left three days ago and has not returned.”
Savithri sank onto the dais in the verandah, stymied.
A thought came to her that made her start to her feet in alarm. “Where is the cheque?” she said. Her son could have lost it with effortless ease.
Several anxious moments passed in which Deepak checked first his shirt pocket, and then each of the three pockets in his trousers, and then produced the cheque from his shirt pocket after all.
*****
Two days later, Deepak made another expedition to his uncle’s bungalow. He returned and reported that it was still locked and deserted.
Savithri blamed herself. She should have sent Deepak back to his uncle on the very day he had brought the blank cheque.
With a sigh, she once more entered the twilit world of indecision, the trishanku swarga between maybe and maybe not.
The next day, the mami from two doors away arrived for a jadi of pickles and gossip that was far hotter than the pickles. They sat in the kitchen as Savithri filled the jadi with pickles from one of her big stainless steel dabbas. Savithri told her about the blank cheque. She had deep misgivings about this. It was like advertising it during oliyum oliyum on TV. No, worse. The entire neighbourhood would know all about it in a matter of hours, together with speculations and fictions about how many crores that lucky Savithri had suddenly come to possess.
But she would lose her mind if she did not talk to someone about this. Her son was useless as a counsel. He would only stare blankly at her and infuriate her. The mami, whose name was Kamakshi, listened with her eyes goggling and mouth open, as though devouring the news with her whole being.
Savithri regretted her indiscretion even before she finished her story. Kamakshi would be worse than useless. She would irritate her with inane questions and observations. Savithri was presently proved right.
“Why didn’t your brother marry? Was there something…you know…”
“I don’t know,” said Savithri, snappishly. “As if that matters now.”
“Maybe he found someone and eloped? And that is why he left the house so suddenly and mysteriously. Lust can turn you into a fool even at fifty.”
“He’s over seventy. He is ten years older than I am. Please don’t be idiotic.”
Kamakshi nodded and fell silent. But she was unabashed and was merely thinking up something even more stupid to say, Savithri knew. However, when she spoke again, it was to voice a suggestion that sounded surprisingly sensible.
“Why not go to Rangu mama with the cheque? He might know what figure to put in it. He frequently says the planets have all the answers, if you ask them in the right way.”
Savithri looked at her with wild surmise. Rangu mama was the neighbourhood astrologer. He also doubled as the marriage broker, because all the horoscopes came to him for bride and groom matching. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of this herself? Savithri filled the jadi to the brim.
“You’re right,” she said to Kamakshi. “I will go in the evening. After Rangu mama’s nap. I will take Deepak’s horoscope too. It is time to look for a girl for him anyway.”
Kamakshi nodded solemnly and hurried away. She had done a good deed and she had gossip gold to share with a dozen mamis in the neighbourhood. It was almost coffee time too. This tidbit should be good for at least three glasses of coffee that day.
*****
Rangu mama ran his hand through his snow white beard and spoke in his oracular voice.
“You can fill in any amount you like,” he said. “Why two lakhs, even two crores will not be too much. Your son’s chart is excellent.”
Savithri gave him one of her rare smiles.
“I’m making mysore pak tomorrow mama. Please ask mami to give me an empty dabba.”
Rangu mama smiled in his turn. He was fond of sweets, but Savithri’s mysore pak was closer to amrutham than any old sweet.
“Mala,” he yelled. “Bring an empty thooku for Savithri here. She’s making mysore pak tomorrow.”
“Just one small thing,” he continued, to Savithri. “You have to wait for six months before you deposit the cheque. Rahu is aspecting Deepak’s lagna lord, but the sun will transit to the ninth house in June. That is when everything will change. Lakshmi will come into your house then. And a girl who is verily like Mahalakshmi too. You have asked Rangu mama to start looking. You can tell the boy his bachelor days are numbered. Heh heh.”
But Savithri looked distinctly unhappy. Her heart sank. Six months! Why couldn’t he have said five months, or even five and a half?
“What are you saying mama, the cheque is valid only for six months!” she said, plaintively.
Rangu mama stopped smiling. He scratched his beard and frowned. Then his brow cleared. Here was a thought.
“I’ll think about it. I will have a plan by the time you bring the mysore pak tomorrow.”
Savithri nodded stiffly, her lips pursed. The old man was thinking about the mysore pak, not her son’s future.
*****
But when she arrived next day at Rangu Mama’s ‘office’ on the dais at the entrance to his house, she found she had misjudged him. He had evidently racked his brain. And his solution was beautifully simple. Cash the cheque in May, but don’t touch the money until June, he said. Savithri was elated. But she had a tiny niggle. Could the planets be tricked like this? For it did sound like a trick.
Rangu mama ate some mysore pak and closed his eyes in ecstasy.
“Divine nectar!” he said. “Of course the planets cannot be tricked. But Savithri, you must understand the chart shows that our Deepak boy’s finances will be rock solid after May. And no one can stop that, not even the planets. It has all been written by a higher power.”
Savithri relaxed. This sounded logical.
“But what is the amount mama? How much?” she said, returning to the original question.
“What is Deepak’s birth date, hmm…” Rangu mama consulted the chart. “Ah, 9th. A good number. Nine lakhs. You can write nine lakhs on the cheque.”
This sounded a little simplistic to Savithri, but she said nothing. She didn’t want to be trapped again in the endless, nightmarish circle of indecision. And nine lakhs was a nice, comfortable sum. There would be money for the shop and the wedding too. And then some.
*****
Savithri spent the next few weeks fending off questions about the cheque. Everyone wished to know what happened next in the neighbourhood thriller. Savithri said the same thing to everyone: Rangu mama had said the time was not right to cash the cheque.
Towards the end of May, Savithri took Deepak and the cheque to the Parthasarathy Swamy temple, and asked the priest to place it at the Lord’s feet. The priest anointed it with manjal kunkumam, addressed an extra prayer to the Lord’s consort, the Goddess Lakshmi, for prosperity and brought it back to Savithri reverently. He was from the neighbourhood too and knew all about the famed cheque. He was almost as anxious about cashing it as Savithri herself. He blessed Deepak with an early marriage and a long life and a good memory (“Don’t forget this old mama when you are a rich man.”).
Savithri made Deepak take down an old suitcase from a loft and they hired an auto from the local stand (who demanded five rupees extra since he too appeared to have heard of the cheque). They arrived at the bank in Tondiarpet well before lunch time. Savithri was nervous. Would the bank make difficulties? Who knew what arcane rule they would cite as an objection to her son’s good fortune? And if they agreed to cash the cheque, would the suitcase hold nine lakhs? She would ask them to give the cash in ‘big’ notes. Which led to another question. Would the bank have that many big notes? Savithri chided herself for being so naive. Nine lakhs was small change for the bank. She told herself sternly to be calm and collected.
It didn’t take long. The cashier took one look at the cheque, said, “No account here in the name of Lord Labhak Das,” handed it back to Savithri, and said, “next!”
Savithri was gently moved aside as the person behind her took her place at the counter. She stood stock still, trying to work out what had happened. Deepak took the cheque from her.
“He’s right,” he said. “The signature says Lord Labhak Das. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. That’s not uncle’s name, is it?”
Savithri forced herself to look at the signature on the cheque again. She had not really studied it before. It was an untidy scrawl which the cashier had deciphered with a practiced eye. She had assumed it said Lakshmi Narayan, which was her brother’s name. But Lord Labhak Das! What was her brother thinking? Why couldn’t he simply say he was not willing to help? Why play such a cruel joke? How would she face the neighbourhood now. She could just see Kamakshi’s tongue wagging. And what of Deepak’s future? His marriage?
*****
A month passed. The neighbourhood had stopped talking about Savithri’s ‘sad misfortune, heh heh’. Even Savithri had stopped thinking about it. She was busy making pickles and snacks. She had to earn two lakhs at least before she departed this world. And she had to find a girl for Deepak who would be the brains of the family but stupid enough to marry him. Then she scolded herself for thinking like this. He was not a genius, but he was a nice boy. Just like his father, she thought, in a rare maudlin moment.
She was making murukku at the moment and had leisure to think as her hands worked of their own accord thanks to long habit.
“Vanakkam,” called a voice from the street. “Is this Savithri mami’s house?”
Savithri washed her hands and hurried to the verandah. A young man, dressed nattily in a t-shirt and jeans stood on the other side of the threshold. He was carrying a heavy trunk. A cloth bag, evidently also brought by the young man, rested on the dais. A car stood in the street. Two faces stared from two doorways beyond the car.
“Yes, I’m Savithri,” said Savithri, and waited for the young man to proceed. She found her mouth had dried up, though she couldn’t have said exactly why. The situation was unusual, yes, but not alarming, surely?
“Lakshmi Narayan’s sister?” said the young man.
“Yes,” Savithri, wishing she didn’t sound so curt.
“OK, mami, our watchman left these for you. He went away suddenly to Kasi, and we found his belongings in our bungalow with a note saying that they should be delivered to you. So I have brought them to you. Sorry, I couldn’t come earlier, because I was in America. I returned to supervise the demolition of the bungalow. We are going to build flats in its place. I’m glad I could locate you so easily. You see, your brother’s note didn’t give your door number.”
Savithri stared at him wordlessly for a long moment.
“I don’t understand,” she said, finally. “Why should I take your watchman’s belongings?”
“Because you’re his sister, right?” said the young man. “Lakshmi Narayan’s sister? Please take them, I’m sure everything is in order, I didn’t open them. Alright then, please take care, I’ll come.”
The young man turned on his heel, climbed into his car and drove away. Savithri stood staring at the trunk and the bag, her brother’s worldly possessions, her brother who had been the watchman of the bungalow that they had supposed was one of his worldly possessions.
*****
It was Deepak who opened the bag (which contained a Srimadbhagavatham in twelve volumes, an old sandalwood chess set that Savithri recognised as belonging to her father) and then the trunk, which contained more memorabilia from Savithri’s childhood and a letter addressed to her.
“Dear Savithri,” Deepak read out, “I’m going to spend my last days in Kasi. I am sorry about the trick I played with the blank cheque. But you shouldn’t mind it overmuch. You always knew I was not right in the head. When Deepak arrived, I was about to take a nap and wished to be alone. Anyway, about Deepak’s shop. There is a yellow bag in the trunk I’m leaving behind for you. I think there are three or four lakh rupees in it. Maybe more. I haven’t counted it in a long time. Part of it is our inheritance from father, which by right belongs to you. I have never had much use for money. Take it with my blessings.”
*****