The Inheritor

I was uneasily approaching thirty. With a solid hangover of post-colonial liberal education matched with family traditions of acquired neurosis. Things you mostly get free, if you have been little ambitious. This imperial city, of wasting palaces, ill positioned fountains, dark tree clad streets, peopled with dreamers, retired, dry and unhygienic men had added to my troubles. I was fresh in the department of philosophy, of a very provincial university, teaching, talking, coughing most of Kant, Spinoza and a bunch of others, in my awakened times. But I never thought of them seriously. Other than this, I was cultivating a secret life. I was trying to change. This was when I was taking silent walks; keeping flowers in a vase, slim stalked white Carnations. They had a tranquilizing effect on my disturbed nerves. An absurd quantity of misdirected anger, towards nobody in particular, and a god like pity would fuel me among people, amidst streets. I thought I suited better in this decaying ancientness, after all that mindless swinging in a metropolis. I hated dogs in all forms. I hated big cities.

My habitat was a small room; hired out of an old lady’s two-storied house. That must have been a respectable mansion in old times. She had two huge silver rings pierced painfully on her wrinkled nostrils. She was sick and hardly talked. But each afternoon when the streets would be vacant, she would take a walk to a near by temple with anxious steps and return soon after. She never carried any flowers or other material for the gods. The house looked completely abandoned even in broad daylight. In a mood to underestimate the physical aspects of existence, I had selected this old lady’s house. It had become discolored and wild plants coiled on all its outer walls. Initially there was an offer from another young widow with a busty body and a very wide mouth, for an accommodation. She had recently lost her husband in army. It was as a paying guest. I did not take that for fear of unwanted happenings that I could foresee. I disliked negotiated sex. It is degrading. And possibly, the house had a huge male dog. I think I was more predisposed towards adventures with some safety. Under some guidance. That is why all my former female companions were at least some years older to me. They rightly calmed my insecurities. But none of them lasted. The problem was with my own uncertainty of giving somebody any due share in a relationship. I was adamant even on bed. Because of this fear they all went their ways. I was not a choice for life.


Two huge coconut trees touched that little balcony like space where I had kept a little terracotta pot with money plant. There was a very rusted bicycle lying at one corner. I liked the innocence and grace of clean money plant leaves. Another larger one was on my three-legged study table. Some other wooden object supported the fourth leg. I loved standing in the street and looking at this house. That filled my heart with some kind of self-knowledge. It was a contrast to its growing neighborhood. The rusted nameplate near its wooden gates read “Amualaya-1910”.

Two months later, the father of an unusually fat girl, my neighbor, died. I knew of the death only when a strong synchronous noise of a bunch of women started bombarding my eardrums around midnight. It was less respectable for that silent old man. They thought they were crying with honesty. On the eleventh day that fat girl had come to ask me to join in for a small function. I did not go. I had no ability to show timely emotions. After a few days when the family had returned to normalcy, that small ill- mannered dog rolled down under a truck and its entire body resembled a crushed banana skin. I always guessed from its untimely howling that it was hungry for sex. Apart from this, my landlady’s growing sickness often bothered me. What if she dies and police enquires? Who will be the inheritors of this property? Had she a will? Her very severe pain, somewhere in her back was making her desperate and gave her a ghostly appearance. I had little concern for true human pain. Its manifestations would leave me disturbed for hours. Once I tried to knock her door when she was sobbing very loudly, She did not open. May be she lacked trust on her tenant. This but made me think of my own mother.

My small rat hole also had a toilet and a bath attached. That was next to that other sickly room, now occupied. All changed in moments. I had no say. Tenants have no say. But my fear was sharing that toilet. When I got up and was about to open its tin door, it was locked. A rapid and anxious noise of somebody finishing. My immediate anger was on that landlady. But her frail identity made me calm down. “Well poor woman needs some more money”. When that man emerged, he looked fresh in the morning light and his long, dirty sacred thread fixed in his right ear. A tradition among the Brahmins during such acts of self-pollution. He slowly walked inside his room and locked it. I had a revolting feeling to enter into that toilet. He was smoking inside. I stood looking at two kites circling the sky above me. “If it comes straight and takes my eye”. I thought. That thin, long necked young man, a round T-shirt with a picture of Che Guevara came out. A perfect frame of contemporary illusion, I thought. I was still standing under the influence of uncertainty.

He almost giggled like a girl and told “ sorry, if I took a long time”.

“Its no problem”. I had to say. That was no time for an introductory talk between two tenants.

A knock on the door got me up from my chair. The landlady was out with an umbrella. It was sunny. I wondered how she climbed that staircase without sliding down. I often thought of such very tragic consequences. I opened and she walked in. She could see the very insane arrangement of my room. I cleared some clothes from the bed and she sat down. She smiled. I offered her a little water sensing her dryness of throat. In spite of age and illness she looked from a high family. Must have been beautiful in her younger days.

“ I did not inform you of the new boy. You were not there when he came in. but he seems gentle,” she said. Her voice matched her vintage personality.

“ Well, that’s ok. Anyway it’s your property. I may look for something else after I return from home”

“ When you are going”

“Tomorrow’s morning train”

She looked sorry for that. The fear of losing a tenant. I took the happenings easy. I saw that young man taking a stroll in the available space on the roof and smoking peacefully, being in a motive to say something.

When I had entered the house, the lady had clearly instructed me “ do not put any nails on the walls”. I did not observe that. I had three framed reprints, two of Picasso and one of an Indian artist on the west side wall, and some teaching time tables pasted on the other. She looked at them. One was a nude. Her face became stiff. I looked outside. It was not my idea to educate the entire universe on such themes.

“When my husband died, out of tuberculosis, my son made these two rooms upstairs and transferred me. They lived downstairs till all perished in the train accident. Then I again returned to the ground floors. .” She told, being thoughtful, not exactly sad, I saw the young man standing near the door listening our talk. He had finished smoking.

“I hope you have settled in. Meet your friend,” She told him looking at me.
I shook hands.

After the old lady went down stairs, she fainted there. We two took her to a nearby health center. Her body had turned blue and her veins visible on that sunken face. The doctor told, “ She has very low blood pressure. Don’t worry, she will be all right”. We waited outside and in that wait got closer to each other. We had the same ambition at that very point. That bought us to a plane where we could further develop our human contact. His youngish, obsolete and less serious face became at once sincere .In that hurry of putting the old lady inside an auto rickshaw, he had not forgotten to anticipate the wait at the hospital. He had bought a paperback to read. He was unsure about a friendly talk with me. The very soulful scream of a woman in labor came from the adjacent room. The expectant father was before me with some relatives. Within a few minutes he would authenticate his reproductive abilities. He will be a changed man. I got up and peeped through the window, to see what was the condition of our landlady. Her face silent and a bottle of saline hanging from a rusted iron stand attached with the bed.

The doctor, who looked much like a shopkeeper, concerned and vague, came out and said, “ It should be over in another two hours. Her old body is not taking the fluid fast.”

My companion slowly came towards me and said, “ If you don’t mind you may go. I have off today.”

That was his way of showing concern. I reflected on his proposition. Then I had no major thing to do except mailing a manuscript to the editor of International Journal of Oriental Studies. I had painfully revised it. That could be done in the afternoon; I thought. “ Don’t bother. I will be here. We will see what happens,” I said. He smiled and put his nose inside that book’s brown pages. A great work often looks cheap in paperbacks. From the fading back cover; I guessed it was Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”. It did not impress me, as it could have some years before. When he was through few pages, his face growing a little serious, he asked me,

“ What will happen if something goes wrong”?
“ If she dies you mean?’
“ Not exactly. And she does not have any body.”
“ In that case you will have to cremate her and do what it calls for. I am going home for a month.”

He fell silent. I was very straight on the issue. He pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and went out side to the courtyard. I saw him looking everywhere and smoking. I had little urge to smoke in an almost empty stomach. The incapacity to offer solace to someone occupied me. When he returned he went near the window, and had a glance of the lying lady.

“Its half finished. May be one hour more”. He said and sat down. He looked at me and asked, “ You are at the university”

“Yes. Teach philosophy”. He felt assured of his information.

“ I am at a call center. It’s a company that deals with Italian toilet pans. Mostly I do night shifts.”
I had known about this new breed of young people earning fat money in call centers. In spite of their very fast lifestyle, they lacked self worth. They were pushed into the times, like slaves.

“ When did you come here”? I inquired

“Oh. I came just two days back. From the States. Precisely a village near Philadelphia. I was there for two years. And when I came here, I found my accommodation gone. My friend had left that keeping my two suitcases in the office. Somebody told of this house. I just got in”. He told with ease. Now I was in a position to understand his interest in Kafka.

“ This work sucks you”. “You have a nice job. You have freedom” he remarked in a very thoughtful mode. At least he understood that. That was little metaphysical for his narrow mouth. I just nodded in agreement. I knew my own knowledge of freedom. He meant his.
A hospital stretcher rolled down towards us. The lady had recovered her senses. She wanted to smile.

The doctor bought me to a corner and asked “ may I know your relationship with the patient?

I said “ tenant’
He said nothing more. We brought her back folded in a rickshaw. She had become tiny.

I left for my home the next morning. I stayed there for a month. They were all after me for my marriage. They had put my name in a dozen marriage agencies. When I looked at those pictures, one after the other with descriptions, I had pity. I had to return when I got a telegram from my neighbor announcing that the landlady was on deathbed.

ON MY RETURN JOURNEY, I cheered my self-reading a P.G.Woodhouse, fixed on the upper berth, smelling hot steel roof of the train bogie. I did not know if that lady was still alive or in ashes. That boy was least capable of handling a death. When I reached, there was a crowd .The lady had passed away the night before. Two men, one of them in a lawyer’s black coat pulled me to a side, where they were preparing a van for the body to be carried, and told
“ Sir, since there are no hairs to this house currently, at lest here, we have to go according to the deceased’s will”. He was objective and business like.
“ What is that”? I asked
“ There is the name of one Mr.Laxminarayana. We don’t know his where about yet. But she has entrusted the property to him. We will put a notice in the local papers. If he comes fine. You have no reasons to worry”

“ If he does not come- if he is dead?”

“ Then the court will take over and do what ever seems fit. Probably an auction. Its a prime land now”.

I got the whole picture of the event. My already upset mind was not prepared to go through that. I lacked desires of material things. My neighbor, who was looking very tired came up to me and helped me through the crowd to go up. He was holding my little suitcase. That was brotherly. The entire crowd was interested in celebrating death. He had been through the initial feelings of a known person dying near you. Anybody will have that, as far as that is not a dog, and another human bring. Often it makes you aware of a standard truth called death. The end of all temporal transactions. He looked sleepless.

“ I am relieved that you came immediately. She had a very terrible temperature last night. And when I wanted to take her to a hospital at night, she declined. As if she was certain of dearth. In spite of a very painful breathing, she held my hands and gave those papers. And told to hand it over to one lady. Then she fell silent. I saw death for the first time. I closed her eyes, as I had seen people doing in movies. Morning I found, the lady in question was from a NGO. See we don’t have to mess into this affair. So don’t sign anything that this lawyer is saying, Just we will vacate and go our ways. If you wish, we can jointly hire a house somewhere.” He told at one breath. He wanted to say these things to somebody confident.

I understood his anxiety. I told, “ You don’t worry. I will see what is the matter. You go and take rest”. That was a reflection of my previous experience. My tone was brotherly. When my grandmother had died, I was there. She did not make a will. And the very night of the death, my father’s adopted brother, an otherwise intelligent man, but who did not know how to use that, told me “ you now go to a hostel. This property is in my name”. I scolded him in such strong words that it hurt his ego. He cried. But somebody suggested me that I should go. Since things were on paper. Papers matter in such things. This occasion seemed similar.

I saw that lawyer, whose recently colored moustache seemed to disintegrate, while he climbed the stair -case. He stopped for a moment. A cat had jumped from the window kitchen to go to the neighbor’s house roof. That was their cat.

“ I am sorry to bother you. But I request you to come to the funeral. Its ready. As she was a Brahmin lady, so lots of rituals. They are taking her to the electric crematorium. Its up to you’

“ Can’t she be burned in the traditional way-I mean with mango or some other wood?”
I had nauseating feelings of an old lady dying in electric heater. It seemed disrespectful. I would not do that to my mother.

“ See, that’s a bit costly affair. The people from the NGO have little money for this. But I will request.”

He went down and had a talk with a woman around forty who was supervising the entire procession. She was from the NGO, I guessed. A priest was there, busy arranging things for the last ceremony. A neighborhood boy was busy gathering coins that some of them were throwing amid cheer.

I got inside my room and looked that show from the balcony. An enormous emptiness of confused feelings occupied me. I was incapable of thinking what to do. The lawyer and the lady knocked my door. That lady looked younger her age. She held a little yellow file in her hand. That must have been the will.

She told me “ I am Hemalata. Actually my mother was a close friend of the diseased. So she thought it appropriate to entrust the affairs to us. I run a small NGO. Mostly dealing with old age people.

I just nodded my head.

“ As you already know, if the legal inheritor does not come, we have to intimate the matter to the court. That’s the procedure. But if that happens, it will be a waste. So I thought a little request to make you. Since you are a bachelor”

“ What is that”?

“ I suggest that you stay here for some time. At least till that man comes”

I was not prepared to do that. I remained silent for some time and told “ See, right now the point is to cremate the lady in a peaceful manner. These issues we can see later”. She perhaps got a hint of my anger. But that was not the case. I was basically confused.

They had agreed to burn her. So the procession went to a riverbank, on the very outskirts of the city. Some other bodies already halfway through the fire. Firecrackers like sounds came when the skulls would blast. When our lady was kept on the nicely arranged wood plates, and the priest had finished his utterances, he asked for somebody to light it. It was a customary thing. They convinced me to do that. I did that. A huge fire engulfed the entire thing. We returned quite late. Few dogs were searching for leftovers, when I had the final glance of the area. I did dot like to return with the crowd. I wanted to see the effect of such things on my soul. I decided to walk back

I had a very long sleep. When I got up I saw my neighbor was packing his things. He was getting ready to leave. He was terrified.
He came and told, “ I am going to a friend’s house to stay. What about you”. He was motivated to leave. It was not my habit to stop people from their actions. But there certainly was an attraction developed by now between us. It reflected in his damp voice.

“ I will decide tomorrow”. I told.

He gave his address of his new place on a small paper. And told “ come some times”.

He left. I helped him in his luggage till the gates. When I stood in the road and looked back at the house, gray in a May evening, it had a hunting image. I was the only occupant there amid an ad-hoc legal arrangement.


That night I did not sleep at all. The very idea that, I was alone in that places, filled my heart with anxiety. There were no human voices. It was not fear. It was the uncertainty of the body to move in a vacuum. Around dawn, I saw a dream of the departed landlady, sitting under a tree near a river. There were no monstrous earrings on her nose. I did not want to follow the entire sequences of the dream. I got up and kept reading a book. It was a book on popular philosophy. I had to write a critical review of it for a journal. It was a lousy book by a pretending academic. He did not know how to spell Schopenhauer. I was about to blast it. I was trying to concentrate in the void on something. I left that book and went to the balcony. It was now less crowed. I closed the toilet door that was swinging in the wind. A white morning was breaking in the sky. I looked inside the room that was now vacant, through the window.

It became a full-fledged morning. That was the last day of summer holidays before the university would open. I got inside my room and saw a key bunch on the table. I had not noticed it before. It had a little bronze replica of the dancing Siva as the key ring. It was of the down stair house. I thought of opening the house and see what was there. I forget about the legality of the matter. When I opened, I giant rat, the size of a small cat, made its way out jumping on my foot. In contrast to my own existence, the house, with marvel floorings was spotless and had ornamental furniture. There were four rooms. It did not seem that large from outside. The drawing room’s walls were full of photographs. Of her husband, children and herself. I thought so. Old black and white pictures having frozen time in their frames. I inspected the husband’s photograph. He was young and was uniformed in a military man’s pomp. He looked straight into my eyes, an outsider in his house, and I moved to the other little wooden frames that had three young girls, in old time skirts. They were her daughters perhaps. And other four pictures were of her own. Taken at different phases of her life, in different set ups. They looked like a happy family. Two big rooms, mostly bedrooms, were on the left. Now void, with rose wood beds, mirrors fixed on their sides. I did not have the desire to go inside them. I sat down on a sofa and looked at a huge study table kept below those photographs, near one tall ivory lampshade. I switched it on. One of the drawers of the table was not closed properly. A thick bundle of letters and one dairy were in it. One letter I took out and saw it was written from London. Letter writer’s name was yellowed with age of the paper. It was stamped on 18th October 1982 from London. From Oxford. I took out another from the bundle; it too had the same address of dispatch. There the name was Mr.Mahendranath. I did not want to open and read that. I suspected he must have been a relative, a foster son, somebody. But not the husband or son. Pictorial evidence did not suggest her having a son. He appeared to have died in his prime, in a battlefield. I came out closing the door and it left me in a state of more confusion.

As I stood smelling the dampness of the morning air, the newspaper boy threw the paper, rolled in a rubber band, which fell directly near me. He smiled at me. The second page, where local news was there, I found an item. “ Lady dies leaving property to an unknown man”. When I read it completely, my name was at the last sentence, saying me as “ the current occupant”. The benefactor was Laxminarayana. Facts were right. Only the time of death was wrongly mentioned as morning. But what was the damn necessity to have my name there? Now the matter was public and I did not want that kind of publicity. I thought of the way the lady was deserted by her own people when she lived.

I continued staying there waiting for Mr.Laxminarayana to come and take charge.

One morning, as I sat reading the newspapers, one very sorry looking figure knocked the door. He had unwashed hairs for years and his skin looked worm infected. He must have slept in mud. But when I opened the door, his face deviated towards a respectable frame. His eyes were bright. He had class.

“I am Laxminarayana”. He said, as he attempted to hold my hands. I was socked to see this man as the inheritor. They happened in fictions.

On a little close examination, I remembered him seeing very often somewhere. That was the temple courtyard, near the university gates. He was a street lunatic.

He came in and sat on the floor.

“ I am not here to claim the property sir. I don’t want this ghastly thing now that had eaten many lives. It will be very kindness of you, if I can take a Photograph of my mother”. He was precise in his talk. He was not at all unsound. He displayed more humanity.

“ But why I did not see you here when she was alive”

“ That’s a long story. I have forgotten some. But she used to meet me everyday and give food. She was my foster mother. She had no son”. He fell silent.

I took him downstairs and he cried when he took that dead landlady’s framed photo from the walls.

“ Who are all these then” I wanted to know of the others in pictures. And “ who is this Mahendranath from London?”

He did not answer. I slowly saw him vanishing through the gates.

One morning, when I stood near that temple, near the university gates, I saw a crowd. There was a municipality van, waiting to load a dead body in its dirty back. When I went near, it was Laxminarayana. He still had that class. Even in death.

I had no real desire to stay there. I handed over the keys to that from the NGO.Now they have an orphanage there.

After few months, I left the house and the city for London on a research fellowship. Often a desire came to me, to find Mr. Mahendranath, whose letters I had seen in the old lady’s drawer.