Shantaram полностью

Kishan Mango Kharre was a tiny man, shorter even than Prabaker, with very close-cropped grey hair, a short, grey moustache, and a prominent paunch on his otherwise slender frame. He wore the white cap, cotton kurtah shirt, and dhoti of the farmer caste. The dhoti is technically described as a loincloth, but the term robs the garment of its serene and graceful elegance. It can be gathered up to become work shorts for labour in the fields, or loosened to become pantaloon-style trousers with the ankles free. The dhoti itself is always moving, and it follows the human contour in every act from running to sitting still. It captures every breeze at noon, and keeps out the dawn chill. It’s modest and practical, yet flattering and attractive at the same time. Gandhi gave the dhoti prominence on his trips to Europe, in the struggle for Indian independence from England. With all due respect to the Mahatma, however, it’s not until you live and work with India’s farmers that you fully appreciate the gentle and ennobling beauty of that simple wrap of fabric.

Prabaker dropped his bags and ran forward. His father sprang from his seat on the yoke, and they embraced shyly. The older man’s smile was the only smile I’ve ever seen that rivalled Prabaker’s own. It was a vast smile, using the whole of the face, as if he’d been frozen in the middle of a belly laugh. When Prabaker turned to face me, beside his father, subjecting me to a double dose of the gigantic smile-the original, and its slightly grander genetic copy-the effect was so overwhelming that I found myself grinning helplessly in return.

‘Lin, this is my father, Kishan Mango Kharre. And father, this is Mr. Lin. I am happy, too much happy, that you are meeting each other’s good selves.’

We shook hands, and stared into one another’s eyes. Prabaker and his father had the same almost perfectly round face and the same upturned, button nose. However, where Prabaker’s face was completely open, guileless, and unlined, his father’s face was deeply wrinkled; and when he wasn’t smiling, there was a weary shadow that closed over his eyes. It was as if he’d sealed shut some doors in himself, and stood guard over them, with his eyes alone. There was pride in his face, but he was sad, and tired, and worried. It took me a long time to realise that all farmers, everywhere, are just as tired, worried, proud, and sad: that the soil you turn and the seed you sow are all you really have, when you live and work the Earth. And sometimes, much too often, there’s nothing more than that-the silent, secret, heartbreaking joy God puts into things that bloom and grow-to help you face the fear of hunger and the dread of evil.

‘My father is a very success man,’ Prabaker beamed, proudly, his arm around the older man’s shoulders. I spoke very little Marathi, and Kishan spoke no English, so Prabaker repeated everything in both languages. Hearing the phrase in his own language, Kishan lifted his shirt with a graceful, artless flourish, and patted at his hairy pot-belly. His eyes glittered as he spoke to me, waggling his head all the while in what seemed to be an unnervingly seductive leer.

‘What did he say?’

‘He wants you to pat his tummies,’ Prabaker explained, grinning.

Kishan grinned as widely.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, yes, Lin. He wants you to pat his tummies.’

‘No.’

‘He really wants you to give it a pat,’ he persisted.

‘Tell him I’m flattered, and I think it’s a fine tummies. But tell him I think I’ll pass, Prabu.’

‘Just give it a little pat, Lin.’

‘No,’ I said, more firmly.

Kishan’s grin widened, and he raised his eyebrows several times, in encouragement. He still held the shirt up to his chest, exposing the round, hairy paunch.

‘Go on, Lin. A few pats only. It won’t bite you, my father’s tummies.’

Sometimes you have to surrender, Karla said, before you win. And she was right. Surrender is at the heart of the Indian experience. I gave in. Glancing around me, on the deserted track, I reached out and patted the warm and fuzzy belly.

Just then, of course, the tall green stalks of millet beside us on the path separated to reveal four dark brown faces. They were young men. They stared at us, their eyes wide with the kind of amazement that’s afraid, appalled, and delighted at the same time.

Slowly, and with as much dignity as I could muster, I withdrew my hand from Kishan’s stomach. He looked at me, and then at the others, with one eyebrow raised and the corners of his mouth drawn down into the smug smile of a police prosecutor, resting his case.

‘I don’t want to intrude on your dad’s moment here, Prabu, but don’t you think we should be getting along?’

‘Challo!’ Kishan announced, making a guess at the meaning of my words. Let’s go!