Read Ellis Peters - George Felse 09 - Mourning Raga for Free Online Page A

jowl with the new. They halted before a low green hedge, a narrow strip of garden, and a tall, plain, Victorian colonial house.
    ‘Temporary headquarters. Down south, near Mehrauli, we’ve got a couple of villas for living quarters, but we shall only be there a few days, then we’re headed for Benares to do the Deer Park scenes at Sarnath, right where they happened. But this is where we keep our gear and do the office work.’
    ‘What is the film you’re making?’ Tossa asked curiously.
    ‘Didn’t Dorrie tell you? It’s an epic about the life of the Buddha. Time was when it would have been called:
World, Farewell
! or some such title. Nowadays we do these things straight, and simply call it
The Buddha
. After all, if you can have a film called
The Bible
you can have one called
The Buddha
, can’t you? That’s what the producer wants. But Ganesh Rao says the accent is on the man, and it ought really to be called
Siddhartha
. So my guess is, that’s what it’ll be called in the end.’
    ‘I’ve
heard
of the Buddha,’ Anjli said delicately, not committing herself to total ignorance, ‘but I don’t really know the story. Could you tell it to me?’
    ‘Ashok is the man you want, he’ll tell you everything you need to know. Give him a blast, Tom, he can’t have heard us come.’
    Tom obliged. The fan-lighted door of the house opened promptly, and a small, slender man in close-fitting trousers and a grey achkan came dancing down the steps with a music-case tucked under his arm. His eyes were black and long-lashed, his smile aloof and courteous, and his colour palest bronze. Surprisingly the rest of his features, full, mobile lips, hooked nose and jutting cheek-bones, were so jagged that he looked like a head by Epstein, and a good one, at that.
    He said: ‘Welcome to Delhi!’ in a soft, shy voice, and clambered nimbly into the minibus, where he dumped his music-case between his feet and clasped fine, broad-jointed hands across his stomach. The first two fingers of his left hand were scored at the tips with deep, stained grooves, many-times-healed and many-times-re-opened wounds, smeared with cream that glistened when the light caught it.
    ‘Meet Ashok Kabir,’ said Felder, ‘our musical director. You ask him nicely, Anjli, and he’ll play you some of his music for
Siddhartha
presently, when we get him warmed up. Ashok, the little lady wants you to tell her all about this film of ours.’
    Anjli Kumar and Ashok Kabir looked at each other suddenly, attentively, at a range of about one foot, and in their own personal ways fell in love at first sight. Dominic, watching with sharpened senses, thought, good lord, I never dreamed it would be that easy. I needn’t have worried, I was just standing in for whoever it was going to be. Anjli saw the native, the initiate, the authority, whose grace was such that he was willing to share what he knew with whoever went to meet him in the right spirit. Ashok, the artist, and himself complete, saw the homing exile unaware of her wishes or her needs, a fragmented child unable to recognise her fractures, much less repair them. They looked at each other with wonder, interest and respect, and had nothing yet to say.
    ‘Now down Janpath, fast as you like,’ said Felder contentedly, ‘but take it easy where it crosses Rajpath – did I tell you that’s the King’s Way, you folks? Janpath is the Queen’s Way! – so they can get a look right along to the government buildings. You think you’ve seen something when you’ve seen the Mall, in London? Wait till you get a load of this! And then go round the back of the Lodi Park to Keen’s, and we’ll drop the bags off and sign in…’
     
    Keen’s was an old-fashioned but English-run hotel, in an ancient white Indian house that turned a blank face to the street on all sides, and lived a full life about its internal courtyard and gardens, with a balcony for every room – every suite, if the truth be told – on its first