Seahorse. Janice Pariat

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СКАЧАТЬ into the Ridge Forest. Trying, fervently, to avoid thinking of a news item from a few weeks ago—a corpse had been found, hastily hidden in the undergrowth. For days, newspapers plied their choicest headlines: “Mystery Body”; “Mutilated beyond recognition”; “Advanced stages of putrefaction.”

      Apparently, this happened here with disconcerting frequency.

      And if it wasn’t the discovery of a corpse, the Ridge, as with most ancient places, seethed with other stories. Of unhappy spirits that lived in its trees. Of a strange creature, similar to a white horse with a very long neck, which could often be sighted at night. Of a ghostly woman and child weeping. It was well known too that amorous couples found shelter here behind the cover of shadow and leaves.

      In all honesty, I might have preferred coming across a ghost.

      My journey through the forest proved quiet, and disappointingly, uneventful.

      Beneath my feet, the ground squelched, softened by months of monsoon rain, and the air carried the smell of damp, decaying things. Here and there, a high-rising gulmohar, now green and unblooming, and the sparse babul with yellow summer blossoms. Hidden amid the others, the petite ber, with drooping, glossy leaves, and, of which I was fondest, the golden amaltash, when it was radiant against a blue April sky. I hadn’t ever spotted any yet, but the forest was inhabited by gentle chinkara and blue-coated nilgai. Once or twice, I thought I’d glimpsed a tiny leaf warbler, and the sudden scarlet of a rose finch. Over the years, this place had remained unaltered while the landscape around its fringes transformed rapidly—on one side the university buildings, on the other, the Civil Lines neighborhood, demarcated from imperial-era military zones, a remnant of the British Raj. In comparison to the south of the city, though, the north was relatively static.

      The South, if you’ll forgive the hyperbole, was our generation’s brave new world.

      Heaving with suddenly wealthy neighborhoods, its roads peeling under the speed of foreign cars. Everywhere the fresh scent of money, the incredible hum of movement.

      It all seemed terrifically heady and exciting, but here, in the north, beyond the Dantian circles of Connaught Place, the tangle of crowded markets in the old walled city, the hulking sandstone loneliness of the Red Fort, life was still somewhat slow and untouched.

      And that afternoon, as I tread on a slushy dirt track, listening to the sounds of a forest, I could have been miles away from a city of many millions.

       “In a forest,” Lenny once told me, “all time is trapped.”

      Admittedly, tramping through the Ridge wasn’t a preferred pastime. I was on a journalistic mission. In my first year in college, I’d been accosted by Santanu, a lanky Bengali with the (still) faint beginnings of a mustache and wispy long hair.

      “Would you like to write an article?” he asked.

      “For?”

      “The college newsletter.” Of which Santanu was the often despairing, yet resilient, student editor.

      “I’m not sure I’m the best person for this.”

      “You’re in English Lit, aren’t you?”

      I nodded.

      “Everyone in the Lit department can write. Or at least has some secret ambition to be the next Rushdie or something.”

      Accustomed to persuading reluctant contributors, Santanu wasn’t one to give up easily—“I’ll give you plenty of time”; “You’ll see your name in print”, and finally, “I’ll buy you beer.”

      Okay, I said, suddenly convinced.

      Since then, I often wrote for the newsletter—a piece on the oldest academic bookstore in Kamla Nagar, a commercial area near the University, interviews with visiting lecturers, a book review as though penned by Chaucer: But thilke text held he nat worth an oistre.

      That day, I was trudging through the forest looking for a story.

      Soon, I came to a clearing. And there stood a four-tiered tower, atop a stepped platform, built of fire-red sandstone, capped by a Celtic cross.

      Santanu wanted me to write on the Mutiny Memorial.

      Apart from solemn, elegiac monument to the dead, it also served, for years now, as a frequent nocturnal hangout for university students. For gatherings of the least expensive and un-glamorous kind. Usually, the birthday boy spent the money his parents sent him to buy “something nice” on a neat half dozen bottles of whisky. Now, though, the place was vacant, strewn with the remnants of revelry, cigarette butts, broken bottles and greasy bits of newspaper.

      The tower glowed warm and fiery against the sky. Over a century ago, it had been built by the British to commemorate the soldiers who died in the Mutiny of 1857. (Or as Santanu explained, more appropriately “India’s First War of Independence.”) It rose above the trees in solid, symmetrical lines, tipped by elaborate Gothic adornments. On the walls, white plaques carried the indecipherable names of the dead. An arched doorway led to the upper tiers, although a thick, rusty chain was slung across the entrance and a signboard, in English and Hindi, warned against using the stairs. I peered inside; the rubble floor was choked with weeds and plastic bags. It was moving and absurd all at once—this promethean bid for remembrance. Its faithfully distilled recording of history. I looked around wondering if this was the only one in the forest. What other monuments were there, rising from the ground like giant tombstones?

      In the stillness of the evening, I heard a distant echo of voices, the slap of footfall. It might have been students, gathering to drink or smoke weed. Perhaps a courting couple, looking for some privacy. Through the trees, I caught a glimpse of two figures. One in a long blue kurta. Peppery grey hair. The other in a pastel shirt. In his hand, an old-fashioned briefcase.

      I was caught in inexplicable panic.

      In that instant, I could have jumped into the shrubbery—but the noise might alert them. What would I say if I were seen? It was too late to flee down the path leading out of the forest to the main road.

      Perhaps it was better to stay where I was.

      Unless, it suddenly struck me, they’d come here to be on their own.

      They were getting closer; I could hear laughter, the sharp crack of undergrowth.

      On impulse, I jumped over the chain strung across the doorway and ducked inside, fumbling up the stairs that spiraled into darkness. Loose rubble scattered from under my feet, and a queer stench clung to the air, a mixture of urine and moldy dampness.

      Their footsteps grew louder, hitting stone. I could hear the art historian’s voice.

      I imagined them gazing at the tower.

      From here, his could be the only voice in the world.

      “Architecturally, there’s nothing quite like it in Delhi.” Adheer was speaking. “It’s built in a high Victorian Gothic style…”

       Did he really need to explain this to an art historian?

      “Why this particular place, though?”

      I didn’t know, but Adheer hazarded a guess. “It was the site of a British СКАЧАТЬ