UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. Death in Gorakhpur

Ten years ago, almost, a man fell off the stairs in our chhavni at the farm. The stairs were only half built, and the railings had as yet to be installed. I still don’t know what he was doing there at night, possibly looking for his brother who worked for us... In the dark, he fell from the stairs onto concrete.

He did not die immediately. They brought him to the city, to a hospital in the night, where we — my father and I — rushed to see an old man who lay broken and dying from a fall in our empty house. The farm was 17 km from the city. I had mapped it, kilometre by kilometre, through broken roads and unmade ones, through a dirt track that turned into a muddy strip in the monsoons, from a place which had no cars. I do not know how they brought him, how they managed to get a vehicle, or what vehicle it was. I know that he did not come alone. His family came with him, and we sat under the sodium lights outside the hospital as the women wailed, and asked us to help.

What could we do? My memory is blurred, maybe it was the shock of the moment, of the time and darkness. I do not remember seeing the dying man. Maybe my father did, or maybe we were both denied permission — his condition was critical. And then it no longer was. The wailing, which had subsided, rose again. We knew it was over.

Except, of course, it was not. Things do not end at death. The corpse had to be transported back to the farm. It was my responsibility.

We borrowed my uncle’s jeep. I would not drive. That task lay in steadier hands, that of Ram Prashad, my uncle’s driver. He was — still is — a dapper gentleman with an innate sense of style and a calmness that I have long admired. I was glad to be riding with him, even if the dead man in the back did not make the trip anything less than horrible.

Ram Prashad drove quietly, steadily. Those travelling with us, relatives and loved ones of the dead, quieted to the sound of running wheels, until grief rose again, a wail and a cry at a time, to subside again. By the time we reached the farm exhaustion had silenced everybody. We unloaded the body, gently, in the dark. And a man who was alive, if broken, came home a corpse.

We had nothing to say to each other on the way back. The dead and the grieving had been delivered home, but it did not make the jeep any less empty. The weight of death seemed to linger, press down on us from behind as we navigated the dark road through the forest, and it was almost at the city edge that I saw something at Ram Prashad’s feet that made me exclaim. I pointed at it and spoke, although I no longer remember what exactly I said. There was fire, from somewhere inside, that I could glimpse through the cut-outs from which the brake and clutch pedals emerged. He reacted quickly, bringing the jeep to an immediate halt by the roadside, and we both jumped out.

Moving quickly, he unclasped the brackets and flung open the bonnet. Immediately the night was illuminated by the fire dancing around the engine. A small pipe must have loosened, and a spark from the bumpy journey must have set the petrol alight. I was dumbstruck, unable to move. All I could think of was that diesel burns but petrol explodes. Ram Prashad, though, acted. He grabbed some loose soil from the side of the road which they were widening, and flung it at the fire. It dampened it only slightly, but his move freed me from my fear-based paralysis. I turned to grab two large handfuls of loose earth and flung it with all my might at the flames. A few more handfuls and the fire was out.

I sagged in relief and as is common in such circumstances, a great pressure seemed to be released from my shoulders. Ram Prashad only smiled slightly and pointed to a tomb by the side of the road that was still lit late at night with a single light bulb. He said he always paid his respects to the saint there when he drove on the road. I have no care for saints, and was just glad that Ram Prashad had the quick wit and the steady hands that evening, when I drove to the farm and back with death.