Chapter 21: Nandini

# Chapter 21: Nandini

## The First Walk

The first time they walked together outside the tapri was a Sunday.

Sundays in Jaipur's old city had a particular quality, the quality of reduced commerce, the shops half-shuttered, the lanes quieter, the city performing the weekly exhale that six days of buying and selling and negotiating and arguing and chai-drinking had earned. The old city on Sunday was the old city in its resting state, the state that revealed the architecture behind the commerce, the pink sandstone walls visible when the shop fronts were closed, the carved brackets and painted frescoes and the jharokha windows showing themselves like actors after the audience has left.

"I want to show you something," Nandini said.

They had finished the morning chai, the adrak wali, the formula, the permanent thing. It was 6:30 AM and the lane was empty in the Sunday way and the bench had held them for thirty minutes and the thirty minutes had been the thirty minutes of the new mornings, the mornings after the choosing, the mornings that were different from the before-choosing mornings because the before-choosing mornings had been the mornings of restraint and the after-choosing mornings were the mornings of acknowledged presence.

"Show me what?"

"The old city. My old city. The old city that I grew up in."

"I grew up in the same old city."

"You grew up in your old city. I grew up in mine. They're the same streets with different memories."

The sentence. The sentence that captured the old city's fundamental condition, the condition of being one city and many cities simultaneously, the same lanes holding different histories depending on which family's feet had walked them and which community's festivals had filled them and which generation's children had played in them.

They walked. The walking was the first walking, the first time that they had existed together outside the tapri's four-foot boundary, the boundary that had been the container for the thirty mornings and that the Sunday walk now exceeded. The exceeding was the expansion, the expansion of the thing from the counter to the lane, from the bench to the street, from the tapri to the city.

She led. She led because this was her walk — the walk that she was giving him, the walk that was her old city's geography, her old city's memory, her old city's specific, Rajput, Rathore, Chandpole version of the lanes that he knew from his own version.

"This is where Badi Maa bought my first jhumka," she said. The shop: a jewellery shop on Johari Bazaar, shuttered on Sunday, the name painted in gold on green: Harikishan Soni: Est. 1932. "I was six. The jhumka was gold, not much gold, maybe two grams, the two grams that a working-class Rajput family could afford for a granddaughter's first earring. But Badi Maa held my hand and walked me to this shop.

The jeweller — Harikishan ji's son, Pramod — put the jhumka in my ears and I cried because it pinched and Badi Maa said: 'Gold always pinches first. Then you forget it's there.'"

Gold always pinches first. Then you forget it's there.

The sentence that Farid sensed, the sentence that he felt the way he sensed the formula's instructions, the hearing that was deeper than the ears, the hearing that was the body's comprehension. The sentence that Badi Maa had spoken about jewellery and that was about everything, about the new thing's initial discomfort, about the adjustment, about the forgetting that was not forgetting but becoming. She lifted her hair. The air touched the damp skin.

"And this, " She pointed. A narrow lane branching off Johari Bazaar, the lane barely wide enough for two people, the lane's walls close enough to touch simultaneously if you stretched your arms. "This is Gali Kumharon Ki. The potters' lane. When I was eight, Badi Maa brought me here for my first kulhad."

"Your first kulhad."

"Every child in the old city has a first kulhad. The first time you drink chai from an earthen cup instead of a steel glass. The first time the clay touches your lips and you taste the earth in the chai — the taste that steel doesn't give, the taste that plastic doesn't give. The taste of the old city itself."

They walked through Gali Kumharon Ki. The lane was lined with pottery, stacked kulhads, decorative pots, diyas for Diwali, the water pots that the old city's homes used before refrigerators. The pottery was clay-red and Sunday-quiet and the lane smelled like kiln and earth and the specific, mineral smell of fired clay.

"I get my kulhads from the last shop on the left," Farid said. "Ghisalal Kumhar.

"Ghisalal! Badi Maa's first kulhad was from Ghisalal. Thirty years ago."

"Ghisalal has been making kulhads for fifty years. He was Dada's kulhad supplier."

The convergence. The convergence that the lane revealed, the convergence of two families' histories in the same lane, the same potter, the same clay. The convergence that said: your old city and my old city share the potter. The kulhad that your Badi Maa drank from and the kulhad that my Dada served from were made by the same hands, the same clay, the same kiln. The convergence that the walking was revealing, the walking that was process by which the two old cities merged into one.

They walked further. They walked through the lanes that Nandini narrated — the Tripolia Bazaar where the bangle-sellers displayed their glass circles in the morning sun, the bangles catching the light and scattering it in coloured fragments across the lane's stone floor. The Bapu Bazaar where the block-print dupattas hung from wooden racks, the racks casting striped shadows in the morning's angle. The narrow gali behind the Hawa Mahal where the syrup-makers made the jalebi batter at dawn, the batter fermenting in steel drums, the drums producing the stubborn, yeasty, sweet smell that was the old city's Sunday morning signature.

"This lane," Nandini said. The lane was unremarkable — a residential lane off the main bazaar, the lane lined with old houses, the houses' painted facades fading. "This is where my father lived. Before the haveli.

"Your father?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Himmat Singh Rathore. Army. Retired. He died when I was fourteen. Heart attack. In the military hospital in Jodhpur."

The information that she had not shared, the information that the thirty mornings had not produced, the information that required the walking, the walking: permission-giver, the walking giving the body the motion that the confession needed, the confession, which was easier when the body was moving because the moving was the distraction from the vulnerability.

"Himmat Singh ji was — he was army. Strict. The kind of strict that the army makes and that the family inherits. But he was also, he brought me books. Every time he came home on leave, he brought books. Not the books that fathers brought daughters, not fairy tales, not Amar Chitra Katha. He brought me Premchand. Manto. Ismat Chughtai. He brought me Urdu writers because he believed that the language you read was the mind you built, and he wanted my mind built in more than one language."

Urdu writers. The Hindu army officer who brought his daughter Urdu writers. The detail that landed on Farid like the chai's first sip: the detail that was warm and sharp and unexpected and that changed the composition of the morning.

"He would have liked the tapri," Nandini said. "He would have liked the formula. He was a systems man. The army made him a systems man. He would have appreciated a three-ingredient system maintained for fifty-five years."

"Three ingredients?"

"Ginger, milk, tea. Everything else is detail."

"The detail is the formula."

"The detail is the formula. Yes. My father would have said that."

They had walked for forty minutes. The walk had taken them in a circle — the circle that the old city's lanes naturally formed, the lanes bending and connecting and returning, the grid within the walls, the grid that brought you back to where you started if you walked long enough.

They were back at Kishanpole. They were back at the tapri. The circle complete.

"Now show me yours," she said.

"My what?"

"Your old city. The old city that you grew up in."

---

He led. He led because this was his walk: the walk that he was giving her, the walk that was his old city's geography, his old city's memory, his old city's specific, Qureshi, Muslim, Ghat Gate version of the lanes.

"This is the Ghat Gate," he said. The gate — one of the old city's original gates, the gate that opened onto the road that led to the cremation ghats (the irony not lost on anyone that the Muslim quarter's gate was named for the Hindu cremation ground beyond it). "Dada walked through this gate every morning at 4:30 AM for thirty-two years. The walk from the house to the tapri. Twelve minutes. He timed it, Dada timed everything."

"You inherited the timing."

"I inherited the timing and the thermometer habit and the obsession with formulas. Genetics or training, the result is the same."

"This, " He pointed to a doorway. The doorway was painted green — the green that was the colour of Islam and that the Muslim quarter's houses wore like a uniform, the green doorways and the green shutters and the green gates, visual declaration of the community's presence. "This is Tariq's house. Tariq who sent the mechanics for the wedding."

"The motorcycle mechanics."

"Tariq is, Tariq is the old city's fixer. Whatever you need done, a leaking pipe, a broken wall, a stuck shutter, a wedding garden's drainage, Tariq's boys can do it. They work on motorcycles because motorcycles are their business, but they can fix anything because the old city's boys learn to fix everything. The old city doesn't call plumbers.

The lane widened into a small square, the square that was the Muslim quarter's informal gathering space, the space where the community's evening life happened, the space where the men sat on charpoys after Maghrib and drank chai (the chai coming from the tapri via the boys' relay system, the relay that was: Junaid carried the order to Farid, Farid made the chai, the boy carried the tray back) and discussed the day's business and the mohalla's news and the cricket match and the things that old city men discussed in the evening.

"This square," Farid said. "This is where the mohalla happens. Not the houses. The houses are private. The square is where the mohalla is public. The festivals, the arguments, the marriages, the deaths: everything happens here. When Dada died, the janaza prayers happened here. 200 people. In this square."

The square was empty now, Sunday morning, the square belonged to the pigeons and the stray cat that lived under the neem tree and the residual memory of the gatherings that the square had held.

"And this: " He stopped at a small, green-painted building. The building was a single room with a dome, the dome modest, the building wedged between two houses. "This is the neighbourhood mosque. The masjid. Where Abba prays. Where Dada prayed.

She looked at the mosque. She looked at the mosque with the expression of a woman who was seeing a building that she had walked past hundreds of times but that she had never entered. The building that was 200 metres from her haveli and that was, in the old city's architecture of separation, another world.

"I've never been inside a mosque," she said.

"Most Hindus haven't."

"And you?"

"I've been inside a temple once. Your Chandpole temple. During Navratri. The procession went past the tapri and Baldev invited me to see the aarti. I went. I stood at the back. The aarti was, the aarti was profitable. The sound of the bell and the smell of the camphor and the light of the diyas. I didn't pray — I don't know Hindu prayers. But I understood the prayer. The prayer was the same prayer in a different language."

The same prayer in a different language.

The sentence that joined the walk's sentences, the Badi Maa sentence about gold pinching, the Nani sentence about chai not asking your name, the Farid sentence about the prayer: the sentences accumulating into the walk's thesis, the thesis, which was: the old city's two worlds are one world in different languages. The kulhad is the same kulhad. The potter is the same potter. The prayer is the same prayer. The only difference is the vocabulary.

They walked back. They walked back through the lanes, his lanes and her lanes, the lanes that the walk had merged, the merging, which was work that the walking performed, the work of combining two geographies into one shared map.

They arrived at the tapri. The tapri that was the midpoint, the midpoint between Chandpole and Ghat Gate, the midpoint between the Hindu quarter and the Muslim quarter, the midpoint that Dada had chosen in 1971 (had Dada chosen the midpoint deliberately? The question that Farid had never asked and that the walk's logic now raised) and that fifty-five years of chai-making had established as the neutral territory, the territory where the lanes met.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"For the walk. For your old city."

"It's the same old city."

"It's the same old city," she agreed. "In different languages."

She left. She walked toward Chandpole: the walk that was the daily walk, the walk of 200 metres, the walk that was now annotated with the Sunday's memories, the memories of the potter and the mosque and the square and the prayer and the sentence about languages.

Farid opened the tapri. The Sunday business. Lighter than weekdays, the Sunday: the old city's rest day. He made chai. He served customers. He performed the formula.

But the formula was different now — not in its ingredients and not in its execution but in its meaning. The formula's meaning had expanded. The formula that had meant "Dada's chai" now meant "the old city in a cup." The formula that had been the inheritance now contained the walk's discovery, the discovery that the formula was the thing that the two old cities shared, the thing that the potter made the kulhad for and the jeweller's daughter drank from and the Muslim quarter's square discussed and the Hindu quarter's haveli's matriarch approved.

The formula was the city. The city was the formula.

And the city: the city that had been two cities and that the walk had revealed as one, the city was the thing that held them both.