*   *   *

THE GURU COLLAPSED on the street, not far from his house, one afternoon, when he was on his way home. One moment he was squinting at the sun, and trying to avoid someone’s shoulder brushing past him, and the next moment, almost inadvertently, without quite realising it, he’d crumpled—bent and fallen over. A few passersby and loiterers ran towards him; he was familiar to them as the one who taught music, and from the window of whose ground-floor chawl they could sometimes hear singing. He wasn’t unconscious, but had had a temporary blackout; he kept saying, “Theek hai bhai, koi baat nahi, it’s all right, it’s fine,” as they helped him up, and one of the people, a sixteen-year-old boy who knew the way to his home, insisted on accompanying him, holding him by the arm during the slow progress homeward.

“Dadiji,” said the boy to Mohanji’s mother, who’d been unprepared for what greeted her, “Panditji fell down. He should rest for a while.” He sounded conciliatory, as if he didn’t want to alarm her.

“Haan, haan, rest; I’ve been telling him to rest,” said the mother, as Mohanji, saying, “Theek hai, beta,” to his companion, lay down on the divan and put one arm across his eyes.

His wife was not at home, nor were his two children; they’d gone to visit his wife’s father in another part of the city. This chawl was where he’d grown up, and where he’d also got married. His father, who was a teacher and singer himself (he’d died eleven years ago), had moved here thirty years ago, and they’d had no intention, or opportunity, to move out since. Gradually the house had come to be known in the chawl as “Panditji’s house.” It was here, when he was nine or ten years old, that his father had taught him kheyal and tappa and other forms of classical music.

*   *   *

“MOHANJI,” SAID MRS. CHATTERJEE, “what happened to you?” It wasn’t as if she’d been worried; it was just that she abhorred practising alone—she preferred him there when she sang.

“I don’t know what happened, behanji,” said the guru with a look of ingenuous puzzlement. “I fell ill.”

“I heard,” said Mrs. Chatterjee, nodding slightly. “Mrs. Raheja told me … she told me you fell down.” The guru looked discomfited, as if he’d been caught doing something inappropriate. At once, he looked somewhat triumphant.

“It might be low blood pressure.” She took him to her doctor—Dr. Dastur, a middle-aged physician. He saw his patients in a room on the second storey of a building in Marine Lines. Mrs. Chatterjee sat with Mohanji in a waiting room with three other patients, waiting to be called in. Half an hour later, when they went inside, Dr. Dastur greeted her with: