A question of keys

I HAVE lived outside India for more than half my adult life. Settling back into the country was very difficult for me, because my ways of living and thinking did not coincide with those of most people here. I had other difficulties. A historical accident made English my mother tongue; I had no real command of any Indian language. Moreover, and this seemed important in India, I lacked a family structure. I was not close to my relatives. I believed in personal privacy and an individual code of ethics, and differed from those around me. Much about India attracts me, but living in it has abraded my sensibilities day by day for 20 years.

Indira Gandhi once complained to me that all festivals in India, Hindu, Muslim, or Christian, are celebrated in a very barbaric way. I agreed with her. The excess of colour and noise offends me. My nostrils resent the stench of fireworks and bodies. I find the essence of these events raw and primitive.

A few days ago, the Ganpati festival started in Mumbai. I came back to the block of flats where I live to find a procession drumming and dancing in the road outside. It was raining hard and most of the dancers were drunk. Wearily I went upstairs, tried my key in the door and found it wouldn't turn. I summoned Suresh, the wiry Garhwali watchman. He tried with the same result. My neighbour joined us, a Gujarati bank manager, coming home exhausted after work. He also tried and failed. They started an excited discussion about why the key would not turn. It seemed to me typical of Indians to start irrelevant discussions on why a problem existed before one tried to solve it. But my neighbour said, "Please be comfortable in my flat." I had never spoken to him before. My English habits had prevented me, though we have lived in close proximity for two years. His wife seemed undismayed by my arrival, though like him she had been at work all day. She offered me tea and sweets. I used their phone to call my landlord. It was a festive day. It would be two hours before he could come with a spare key.

"Please," said my hostess, "be at home in our house." She switched on the television. It was a Gujarati programme: "My husband's favourite," she smiled. He said, "No, no. He does not understand Gujarati." She switched to an English channel. It was a gracious gesture; I do not know why it surprised me.

It had occurred to me meanwhile that my back window was open. It might be possible to climb in. My neighbour came down with me to inquire. The procession of celebrants had passed by, but three people remained. They were ragged and drunk, and were sharing a bottle of country liquor with Suresh.

The large slum down the road was their home. The procession, carrying a statue of Ganpati, had been headed there. These men had dropped out for a drink, and were now much intrigued by my problem, helpfully explained to them by Suresh. Two months ago, when some repairs had been done here, they had briefly provided casual labour. "We stole most of the ladders," said one of them, "but one was broken, so we left it. I know where it is. It will do for this work." He found the broken ladder. His friends and he held it steady while Suresh worked his way up under a downpour of biblical dimensions, till he reached my window.

Then, like a small ape, he swung through it. Our drunken helpers roared applause. We all dripped our way upstairs, where Suresh, sodden but triumphant, stood framed by my open front door. "Saheb," he said, "we have done it!" He looked and sounded exactly like a Sherpa on the summit of Everest. The neighbour's wife came out of her flat and clapped. Everyone was laughing. I was surprised when the slum dwellers started to leave without a tip. Suresh had happily accepted one, and I felt these men deserved some reward. I held out money. I smiled. I imitated a man quaffing from an imaginary bottle.

This attempt at mime was disastrous, and caused my audience to stare at me in a puzzled, slightly worried way. They seemed afraid that recent stress had adversely affected my mind. I tried out my Hindi. "Piyo, piyo," I said, unfortunately in an Oxford accent. This brought further incomprehension, and deeper anxiety, to the faces around me. My neighbour made a courteous and timely inquiry. "Sir," he asked, "what message are you trying to convey to these people? None can understand you." I said, "I want them to have a drink on me." He reluctantly translated this. The slum dwellers touched my feet, and went away cheerfully to carry out my wishes. Before my neighbour left me, he said, more in sorrow than reproof, "Sir, one must not encourage the lower classes to drink." Two hours earlier his attitude and choice of words would have enraged me, made me feel he embodied all the faults of India. I now felt that his wife and he were naturally kind people, not responsible for the tradition they had inherited. We now smile when we meet. I still don't know his name. The festival drums still disturb my nights and days, but I tolerate them. Suresh treats me as an equal, not a superior, which is what I prefer. The other day he said, "How much thara those slum people must have drunk, saheb, because of you. You made them happy for one night. They have very hard lives otherwise."

I should perhaps have felt guilty, but was glad. That night I had for once become part of India, only because a key would not turn in the lock it was designed to open. That could probably only have happened in this country. But I seemed, almost by accident, to have found another, better kind of key.

DOM MORAES

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