Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa

thirteen hundred!”
    Like English proverbs, Ahura Mazda’s name elicits enthusiasm.
    â€œWe will cast our lot with whoever rules Lahore!” continues the colonel.
    â€œIf the Muslims should rule Lahore wouldn’t we be safer going to Bombay where most Parsees live?” asks a tremulous voice weakened by a thirteen-hundred-year-old memory of conversions by the Arab sword.
    A slight nervousness stirs amidst the timorous. There is much turning of heads, shifting on seats and whispering.
    â€œWe prospered under the Muslim Moguls didn’t we?” scolds Colonel Bharucha. “Emperor Akbar invited Zarathushti scholars to his darbar : he said he’d become a Parsee if he could ... but we gave our oath to the Hindu Prince that we wouldn’t proselytize—and the Parsees don’t break faith! Of course,” he says, “those cockerels who wish to go to Bombay may go.”
    â€œAgain Bombay?” says the man sitting at the end of my bench
who had objected to our coming to India in the first place. “If we must pack off, let’s go to London at least. We are the English king’s subjects aren’t we? So, we are English!”
    The suggestion causes an uproar: drowned, eventually, by Dr. Manek Mody’s remarkable voice. “And what do we do,” he asks, “when the English king’s Vazir stands before us with a glass full of milk? Tell him we are brown Englishmen, come to sweeten their lives with a dash of color?”
    Mr. Bankwalla, precise as the crisp new rupee notes he handles at the bank, says, “Yes. Tell him, we came across on a coal steamer ... and drop a small lump of coal in the milk. That will convey the unspoken message of love and harmony.”
    â€œAs long as we conduct our lives quietly, as long as we present no threat to anybody, we will prosper right here,” roars the colonel over the mike.
    â€œYes,” says the banker. “But don’t try to prosper immoderately. And, remember: don’t ever try to exercise real power.”
    The wag at the back, who’s been champing at the bit to butt in, stands up and irrelevantly shouts: “Those who want four wives say aye! Those who want vegetarian bhats and farts say nay!”
    There is a raucous medley of ayes and nays. There is nothing like a good dose of bathroom humor to put us Parsees in a fine mood. It is impossible to conduct the meeting after this.
    Â 
    We emerge into the sun’s brassy blast and our faces crinkle in self-defense. Mother reminds us to rub the ash from our foreheads. Ayah looks as if she is melting. The tongaman removes the horse’s feed sack and we pile into the tonga.

Chapter 6
    I sit on the small wooden stool and Ayah’s soapy hands move all over me. Water from the tap fills the bucket. Ayah, squatting before me, rubs between my toes. I’m ticklish. Deliberately she rubs the soles of my feet and, screaming, I fall off the stool and wiggle on the slippery floor. She pins me to the cement with her foot and douses me with water from the tin bucket. By the time I’m dried, powdered and lifted to the bed Ayah is drenched.
    Now it is Mother’s turn. Ayah calls her and she appears: willing, conscientious, devout, her head covered by a gauzy white scarf and smelling of sandalwood. She has been praying.
    Ever since Colonel Bharucha tugged at my tendon and pressed my heel down in the Fire Temple, Mother massages my leg. I lie diagonally on the bed, my small raised foot between her breasts. She leans forward and pushes back the ball of my foot. She applies all her fragile strength to stretch the stubborn tendon. Her flesh, like satin, shifts under my foot. I gaze at her. Shaded by the scarf her features acquire sharper definition. The tipped chin curves deep to meet the lower lip. The lips, full, firm, taper form a lavish “M” in wide wings, their outline etched with the clarity of cut rubies. Her nose is slender, slightly