The Grammarian Read online

  THE

  GRAMMARIAN

  THE

  GRAMMARIAN

  a novel by

  ANNAPURNA POTLURI

  COUNTERPOINT

  BERKELEY

  The Grammarian

  Copyright © 2013 Annapurna Potluri

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Excerpts from The History of Doing by Radha Kumar. Copyright © 1993 by Radha Kumar.

  Excerpts from India by Pierre Loti. Copyright © 1913 by P. Loti, Translated from the French by George A. F. Inman. Copyright © 1993 by George A. F. Inman.

  Excerpts from The Lusiad: Or, the Discovery of India, an Epic Poem by Luis de Camões, translated by William Julius Mickle. Copyright © 1798 by William Julius Mickle.

  Excerpts from Urdu Letters Of Mirza Asadu’llah Khan Ghalib by Mirza Asadu’llah Khan Ghalib, translated and annotated by Daud Rahbar. Copyright © 1987 by Daud Rahbar.

  Excerpts from Bharati—Patriot Poet Prophet by S. Ramakrishnan. Copyright © 1982 by S. Ramakrishnan.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Potluri, Annapurna, 1979-

  The Grammarian / Annapurna Potluri.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-61902-005-4 (hardcover)

  1. Philologists--Fiction. 2. French--India--Fiction. 3. Families--India--Fiction. 4. Self-realization--Fiction. 5. India--Social life and customs--20th century--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3616.O8446G73 2013

  813'.6--dc23

  Cover design by Ann Weinstock

  Interior design by meganjonesdesign.com

  COUNTERPOINT

  1919 Fifth Street

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.counterpointpress.com

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to my beloved grandmother Satyavati Challagulla, and in loving memory of my grandparents Nagamalleswara Rao Challagulla and Annapurnamma and Ramachandra Rao Potluri.

  2012

  NEW YORK

  “Seulement ces paroles: Je me trouve justement condamné.”

  “Mere words. I consider myself justly convicted.”

  THE RED AND THE BLACK

  STENDHAL

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE

  1896

  TWO SUMMERS BEFORE, Paris was abuzz with rumors of the American inventor Thomas Edison’s “Peephole Kinetoscope,” through which reporters in New York City and London had already been seduced by the image of Carmencita. It would be five years until Parisians would have a firsthand look, at the Exposition Universelle, but for the time being, the news reports in France served to stir excitement. After the reporters, men who had the twenty-five cents to see her through the small hole in the box holding a rather large and unwieldy machine watched Carmencita roll her hips without remorse or shame into their subconscious. Zaftig, clad in white, Carmencita, who had thrilled the crowds at Koster and Bial’s on 34th Street, lifted her skirts joyously to music unheard by her viewers, her small feet in white heels skipping along effortlessly as the potato-starch grain of the film moved over her like a sparkling, sheer veil covering the voyeur’s eyes. Edison’s machine could take 46 photographs per second. These photographs were shown in rapid succession, and thus Carmencita was able to pirouette into the viewer’s mind, as did the visions of Sandow the strong man flexing, or James Corbett knocking out Peter Courtney in the sixth round in an Orange, New Jersey, boxing ring.

  Antoine Lumière, a painter and owner of a photography shop, had been invited by Edison that Paris summer to see an exhibition of the Kinetoscope, and upon returning to Lyons, he recounted what he had seen to his sons Auguste and Louis. Auguste was the older brother by two years, and the two bore a striking resemblance to each other. They would inherit their father’s interest in photography and the burgeoning science of filmmaking.

  In less than two years, the Lumière brothers had improved Edison’s process and had prepared a sampling of six short films: Entry of Cinematographe, The Sea, Arrival of a Train, A Demolition, Ladies & Soldiers on Wheels, and Leaving the Factory; viewers found The Sea particularly moving: four men running along a jetty, jumping into a tumult of waves. On the waves, rolling white crests, silent and powerful, carried the men back to land. To pay for the equipment, its maintenance and a hall in which to show the films, the brothers charged Parisians one frank for ten minutes of film. But for that amount, a Parisian could as easily treat himself to an evening at a music hall. Disheartened by the public’s complaint of overcharging, Louis said, “The cinema is an invention without any future,” and attempting to at least pay for the fees they had to cover when they failed to sell out the hall, the Lumières took their invention on the road to London and Bombay, where their cinématographe device and the films it recorded were to be exhibited to the foreign public.

  Reading about the cinématographe in the London newspapers his butler brought from town, in the long leap-year February of 1896, Shiva Adivi sent word to his friend Jamsetji Tata, a Parsi Gujurati.

  Tata lived in Bombay and had been working there as a businessman amidst the 1857 rebellion and had heavy Persian eyelids, as per his ancestry. Adivi wanted to see the cinématographe, and he hadn’t been to Tata’s home, the Esplanade House, in some time; he enjoyed his old friend’s great collection of Chinese and Japanese art. Tata also had an X-ray photograph that he had obtained by writing William Röntgen a letter of admiration—flattered, Röntgen sent Tata an image of his wife Anna’s hand, showing in shades of blue her long bones visible beneath the flesh with the interruption of her wedding ring. Esplanade House itself was classically Moorish. Tata’s sons were British educated and had been working in their father’s business, expanding the millworks that had begun in Nagpur on the first day of 1877 after their father had studied the industry of the Lancashire mills. The first Tata mill was named the Empress Mill, in honor of Victoria, empress of India.

  Tata received the idea with exuberance: “My dear Adivi,” he replied, via the post, “I would be thrilled if you would be my guest during your stay in Bombay. I too have heard of the frères Lumière, as my son would say—he’s always off to Pondichéry these days—overseeing the fabric mills.

  “Regarding the cinématographe: I am also very curious about this contraption. The word is that it shall be here in July. If I can be of any aid in your travel plans, you will let me know. Otherwise, myself and Hirabai look forward to your visit. Our best to your dear wife and children.”

  THE MONSOON SEASON began in June, and Adivi watched much of it from the raised verandah of his home; he stood on the cool stone watching the rain hit the soil and the rocks heavily and constantly for days and days. His wife and mother stayed indoors most of the time: his wife Lalita, the young mother still taking care to put coal-colored kajal on her eyes; his mother, the widow, in
a simple white sari. Both of them herding his daughters, Anjali and Mohini, through the day in a routine of feedings, games, naps and gentle scoldings. They took care of his small daughters and, wary of water-borne germs, felt it was best to keep them from the rain. The female world of child-rearing had left him feeling alienated from his family in the last few years, and he was eager to get away and see Tata, a friend he had made in the mill industry before he was married.

  Having children did not alter his views on the universe, or change his ideas of what was and was not possible in this life. The only way in which he changed was in his own understanding of what his capacity for love was. With his first daughter, Anjali, his love became depthless, an ocean that swept over his senses, his emotions, his better judgment; he became fiercely protective, and constantly worried. This much was true: he could not love anyone more than his daughters. For Adivi, having daughters was like holding sand in his palms while wading in the ocean; too soon, they would wash away from him, out of his grasp, shed his name, defy his word; his girls were his for precious little time. Glad though he was to go away on holiday, he would miss them—their squealing, excitable laughter, the weight of their fat, silky little bodies in his arms, the way they were alternately lovingly protective of each other and then fought mercilessly, their funny little ways. He had big, wild dreams for his girls: he would send them to England for university as he had once wanted to do. His girls would be beautiful and kind like their mother. He would teach them poetry.

  This would be his first trip for pleasure since his honeymoon in Jaipur, the pink city, seven years before. Then, he had been a young man without a mustache and with a new bride whose hair was thick and black and reflected the light like a lake. They had only just met. When they stood on the roof of Nahargarh Fort in the evening overlooking Rajasthan, she turned to look at him, her face framed by inky black braids, and he wanted to tell her she looked beautiful but he was too shy. At night when they lay next to each other, he wrapped her hair around his hand. Now it was too late to tell her, not because she had lost her beauty but because it wasn’t the same anymore. It had lost its youthful translucency and reformed itself into an earthy maternity that was more powerful than its earlier incarnation but no longer exclusively his.

  In late June, he said good-bye to his family and felt a bit light on his feet. He mounted a horse-drawn carriage to set off for the long journey to the Madras train station. The railways were established primarily to ease British business, and though plans were in effect to build a station at Waltair, the stone had not yet been laid. His longtime butler, Subba Rao, kept him company along the route, but they exchanged few words; their stations in life prevented them from speaking freely.

  When they arrived at Madras Central Station, Subba Rao hired coolies to lift the trunks into the first-class car. They were filled with Adivi’s Saville Row suits and homemade sweets made by servants under his mother’s strict guidance—more than once the servants threw up their hands in frustration, allowing his mother, Kanakadurga, to take over the cooking. Subba Rao shook hands with Adivi and dropped into a shallow bow, “Have a pleasant stay in Bombay, Sir.”

  “Thank you Subba Rao. I will send word of when I will return once I get to Bombay.”

  “Yes, Sir. The household staff would like to extend our fond greetings to Mr. Tata.”

  “Yes Subba Rao.” He gave Subba Rao dinner money for himself and the coach driver and then reached back into his wallet and gave him a few more bills. “Buy chocolates for the girls in town—Anjali likes the milk chocolates from the import store near Asilmetta, and be sure to give the horses some bananas tonight.”

  He slept much of the way up north, enjoying the scenery. When he felt especially restless, he would walk to the water closet and run cold water in the basin, remove his suit jacket, roll up his sleeves and splash his face.

  ADIVI WOKE AS the train closed in on Venice. The slowing rocking of the train made his body jerk to and fro more pronouncedly, and as his head was thrown forward, his hair fell over his forehead. Drowsy and disoriented, he looked out the window and saw a Venetian horizon moving in on him, and only moments later realized he was now in Bombay, its magnificent Gothic Victoria Station looming in the distance. Soon he would set foot on the Bombay soil. The station had been completed some fifteen years before, in the style of what was called, in fashionable circles, Indian Gothic. Adivi stood to retrieve his hand trunk; he would have station coolies bring down the rest.

  When the train finally came to a stop, he was surprised to see his friend’s face out the window grates and felt flattered that Tata had come to receive him personally. Tata would not tell Adivi as much, but it was not for the sake of friendship or hospitality alone that he came to receive him; Tata enjoyed any excuse to take a trip to the station with its statue of the queen on its dome, its red roof and turrets. When it was being built, he would frequent the construction site, enjoying it at each stage, watching his city grow. Adivi descended the train and Tata greeted him with open arms and directed his servants to unload his friend’s luggage.

  The room at the Esplanade House Adivi was given was Spanish themed, and as he retired for the evening, the oil lanterns illuminated two dark, Mediterranean beauties. A framed print of Goya’s Naked Maja adorned one wall: a virginal woman with soft eyes, her face framed with obsidian ringlets, her body the color of the inside of a shell, a pane of light over her heart. On the opposite wall was Velázquez’s The Toilet of Venus, Venus’s body supple and lovely, turned away from the painter’s gaze, an unapproachable glamour about her with her red hair, a winged, cherubic Cupid holding up a mirror into which she gazed contentedly.

  In the mornings, he took his coffee with Tata in his sitting room. Tata subscribed to the British and European papers and the Hindi ones as well as the local, Marathi-language ones.

  Reading an update of the Indian National Congress in one of the Hindi papers, Adivi snorted. “More than ten bloody years since they formed and they’ve still done nothing.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Adivi, these things take time.”

  “My friend, I agree that some of the current practices and regulations need to be reformed, but these people want to rule the country? They can’t even get themselves in order. Tilak is on about Hindu nationalism even if it means that all these . . . these uneducated peasants can marry their eight—nine-year-old daughters off! Half of Congress I’m sure aren’t positive they want the English out, they’ve elected an Irish president, and all the while Gokhale is sitting in the back with his ledger board counting the number of radishes planted per square foot of soil in some bloody backwater or counting the number of spots on spinach leaves . . . will that man never grasp the big picture? Is he simply trying to bore the English out of India? . . . sometimes it seems these so-called freedom fighters are just riding the back of Irish nationalism . . . ”

  “It isn’t child marriage that Tilak is opposed to; he opposes the idea of the legitimacy of British rule, Adivi. You must admit it is a terribly principled stance! He has a point.” Tata sipped the last of his coffee. “Even reasonable laws perhaps should not be put forth if the government advocating them is unreasonable . . . ” He rose, stretching. “At any rate, we can’t worry about INC politics today, Adivi.” He set down his coffee cup and smiled. “Tonight is the Lumière exhibition—it is at the Watson in the Kala Ghoda—I’ve hired a coach for tonight,” Tata beamed, “it is a nice excuse to wear something extra smart.”

  THE COACH WOVE through the streets of Bombay, and Adivi noticed that the signage on the sky-blue Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue was in English, Marathi and Hebrew. It had been built a few years prior by Jacob Elias David Sassoon, the son of Baghdadi Jewish immigrants, who named the synagogue after his father. Like the train station, it had a Gothic influence.

  “The inside is incredible,” Tata offered, noticing his friend admiring the building. “Gold gilt work, an arched mezzanine, beautiful Middle Eastern tile floors, colored stain-glass windows . .
. truly spectacular.”

  “Ah . . . how beautiful,” Adivi answered, not looking away.

  The synagogue was in the Kala Ghoda—Black Horse—district, so named because of the obsidian stone used in the imposing statue of Edward VII, prince of Wales, mounted on a dark stallion in the district’s main intersection, his shoulders thrown back in triumph.

  “Amazing that Victoria is still alive, isn’t it?” Tata said, nodding in the direction of the statue. “Wonder if you’ll ever get your chance, old boy.” The prince was fifty-nine years old but still under the rule of his mother. “Well, I suppose his time is busied with hunting.” The prince had recently had all the clocks at Sandringham House set a half hour faster than Greenwich Mean Time to allow himself more time in the day to hunt with his dogs, including his beloved Sandringham black Labradors.

  “She is one tough old lady . . . ” Adivi replied, distracted. He only thought of the evening ahead. Tonight he was going to see the Lumière brothers’ films. Adivi was looking forward to The Train the most: the vision of the filmed train was so intense that the audiences of Paris and London jumped for fear of being run over by it. They passed too the newly built library, the Bibliotheque Dinshaw Petit, built by another prominent Parsi, whose slight and long-deceased forefather had kept the affectionate nickname French traders had given him. Tata pointed to it, “A new French-language library.”

  Tata and Adivi arrived at the hotel an hour before the screening was to begin to start the evening with tea and refreshments—the hotel was known for its English–style tea service with scones and cucumber sandwiches. The Watson was a new hotel, a grand cast-iron building designed by Rowland Mason Ordish, who had just finished the Albert Bridge on the Thames. Every room in the place had its own balcony, and there was a ballroom in the atrium. The Watson’s dark-skinned doorman approached the Tata coach, and as per his instructions opened the door, but when he saw Tata and Adivi, he knitted his eyebrows.