House of the Sun - 1989

An imprint of Century Hutchinson Ltd

Extract

From Chapter One

Bhai Sahib examined Mrs Hathiramani’s horoscope.  He sat cross-legged on the stone floor in a once white vest and dhoti.  The vest had a hole and a remnant of his lunch, eaten hurriedly to the sound of Mrs Hathiramani’s arrival in his temple, had left a deep yellow stain upon it.

Mrs Hathiramani had arrived out of breath after the climb dowstairs from her home on the fourth floor, two stories above Bhai Sahib in the building they called Sadhbela, and shouted, ’O, Bhai Sahib.  Anybody there?’  She carried a plate of cashew nut sweets covered by a yellow checked cloth.

Behind the faded curtain dividing his living quarters from the front room of his home, set aside for use as a temple, Bhai Sahib stopped eating.  His wife frowned and rested a spoon in a pan of dal before continuing to serve her husband.  She gave him a meaningful look.  Neither replied to Mrs Hathiramani’s loud summons.
‘Do as you wish then.  I know you are there.  I am waiting,’ Mrs Hathiramani threatened.  Her voice was gruff and masculine.  She removed the cloth from the plate of sweets and put it on the altar beneath a picture of Guru Nanak, beatific and serene.  Then she lowered herself awkwardly onto the floor, placed the red cotton-bound horoscope before her and stared grimly at the curtained doorway, beneath which she cold see Bhai Sahib’s bare, sandaled feet, and the legs of a table and chair. 

Bhai Sahib returned with a sigh to his lunch.  Soon Mrs Hathiramani heard him hawk and rinse out his mouth.  He appeared from behind the curtain, wiping his nose on a small blue towel.  He was a corpulent man with protruding eyes, cheeks of grey stubble, and a coarse moustache…

…Bhai examined the close lines of faded blue script, written down long ago at the time of Mrs Haathiramani’s birth, and the symmetrical designs in the worn booklet.  At a page with a drawing of a sun surrounded by lotus petals he paused.  The sun, besides long rays emanating from it, had a human face with large sober eyes and a heavy moustache.  Within each of the lotus petals was more blue script that Bhai Sahib read with a serious expression. 
‘What is it?’ Mrs Hathiramani asked, leaning forward.  She was alarmed, not so much at what might be written in the horoscope, but at the change in Bhai Sahib’s expression.  She sensed already it would be difficult to dilute the course of whatever destiny was in store for her…