Pestonjee’s uncle lived in Surat. He was old. He did not have any children. He had a chikoo farm, retained by the family for generations. For the past two years his health had been deteriorating. He needed looking after. Persis was relieved. Bombay was agitating her. In the carriage, on the way to the station, Pestonjee saw that cow again, white with red horns. She was seated, content. He remembered the way she had run amok in the office, into the photographer and his equipment and created a ruckus in the filing room. How he and Natwarlal had salvaged the files. How he had fallen and yet managed to get rid of her. The temple wall remained as infirm as ever. The cow, on the other hand, was healthier, busy with the unusually large bounty of grass she had received. Since the plague, she had run out of favour and had to fend for herself. Now it seemed that this entire affair was her way of restoring equilibrium.

42

The mill worker sat on the pavement, his back against the grey stone wall of the British Chewing Gum Company. He did not know what was going on or why he could not move his body. Through the fractured light that pierced his blood veiled eyes, he tried to make sense of a blurry image. His daughter was sitting idly on a swing. Above her, a banyan tree, sprawling, protective, motherly. She called out to him with outstretched hands. Next to her, a brown mum suckled her pups. She had food, fresh from the oven, and milk too. A mother, white with brown spots, sat nearby. Her polka-dotted coat shone in the sun. Kittens frolicked around the grandmother, chasing cotton balls as she looked on fondly. An infant hugged the grandmother, his tiny arms around her neck. He lifted his legs and swung to and fro to the breeze of the Ganga, the mother of all mothers. Monkeys swung on the branches. The infant joined the monkeys. The bells of the temple rang, bringing order. The mill worker’s daughter jumped off the swing and ran towards the grandmother who kissed the girl’s cheek with her soft mouth and her long tongue. The old found care among the young. The young found their mothers eventually, all of them; the first, who gave birth to them, expecting more than just grass and grain; the second, whose unbroken record of service did not end even with her death; and the third, who carries with her the flesh, bones, intestines, horns and skin, of all mothers, as they flow in and out of the cycles of birth and rebirth in search of salvation in their motherland.

Acknowledgements

To my grandfather who told stories every day. To my grandmother who embossed on metal and painted and dragged me to the workshops she taught and took. They looked after me.

To my father who wanted to be a playwright.