Our Favourite Indian Stories (29 page)

The woman puffed her cheeks angrily and looked away.

Nobody had ever treated her as a mature, grown-up woman. Her husband treated her sometimes like a child and sometimes like a maidservant. He was not really a wicked man. But he was obstinate and quite selfish. Her mother-in-law and other elderly women in the house used to order her about. Much of her time was spent with the children. She had to understand them and it was only to them that she could freely express her thoughts and feelings. No wonder she thought and behaved like a child!

The girls soon forgot this interlude and began to search for new excitement with eager eyes. Their eyes had a malignant glint like a lizard's, looking intently for prey.

Suddenly they noticed that their father's head was dropping forward. It kept on drooping before their eyes. This frightened them all. Involuntarily, they all clung together, digging their fingers into each other's arms. They kept on staring at the drooping head as if bewitched. Their heads too leaned forward in an oddly sympathetic movement.

The younger girl was bolder than the rest. She tried to touch her father's knee and call out to him to wake up. But her hand never touched the knee and the words died on her lips. The man's head drooped more and more.

Meanwhile the baby woke up. It stretched its body and started screaming and kicking. The frightened woman and the girls tried to quieten it. The woman pushed a nipple into his mouth. But the baby kept on screaming.

The man woke up with a start. The woman crouched over the baby like an animal expecting a blow. The girl's eyes fluttered. But they were lucky. The man did not lose his temper. He only said gruffly. 'Well! Why is the baby crying? You didn't beat him, did you?'

'Why would I beat him?' she mumbled.

'What did you say? When are you ever going to learn to talk loudly and distinctly? Eh!' He spoke in a gruff superior tone, which he adopted when making fun of one of his stupid students.

The girls could make out from his manner of speaking that he was in a jovial mood. So they smiled obediently and also from a sense of relief.

The woman was annoyed. Not with her husband but with the girls because they laughed. She, however, controlled herself and said in an even, respectful voice, 'It is very warm in here. That is why the baby is crying.'

'Well! Well! You are feeling warm, are you? What else could happen anyway if you are muffled up in a
sari
all the time?' said the father. He said this loudly and over and over again. He wanted his wife as well as everybody else to understand how very stupid she was.

But all this effort was really uncalled for. She had accepted long ago that she was a stupid person.

The man picked up the baby—his only son—fondly. He wiped the boy's perspiring face with one end of his
dhoti
and made him stand near the window. The fresh air and the passing scene made the child happy. It started playing with the window bars.

'Look now. See how happy he is,' said the father to drive his point home again.

The woman smiled weakly. After all she was stupid, wasn't she? Why then make so much fuss about it?

The proud father fondled the baby. He did it with a certain condescension but with evident pleasure. The girls and the mother looked on obediently and happily. They were all convinced for the time being that it was nice to fondle a baby although otherwise they found it very tiresome to humour a child. The girls too started playing with the little boy.

'Won't you come to me?' asked one of the girls, holding out her hands towards the baby. But the child showed resentment.

The other girl tried her own methods of persuasion. But again there were screams of protest. The father slapped the girl fondly and said, 'Why must you bother him?'

They all laughed. But the woman felt inexplicably jealous. She wished she had behaved foolishly and received that fond slap. It was a foolish thought and she knew it. After all that is not the way a husband behaves towards his wife. So she tried to forget about it and looked out of the window and for a moment experienced vividly the sense of speed. She was reminded of her childhood and how she, along with her friends used to ride high on the swing. They would sing in high-pitched voices and the rhythm of the swing used to be in the rhythm of their songs. She was reminded of a tune. She hummed it and it floated away on the breeze. It floated away carrying with it memories of a happiness so ecstatic that it hurt her to think about it.

For a moment she was riding high on a fair breeze that was happiness. Everything looked enchanted. She saw a little house—just the house she had built for herself in her childhood dreams.

'Look! What a lovely little house!' she cried.

Her gaiety surprised and disturbed her husband. He looked at the house and said in a superior, matter of fact tone, 'Well! What is so exciting about it? It is a house like any other house. It is not the Taj Mahal. It is just an ordinary house. What is so exciting about it?'

He said this loudly and sarcastically so that everybody might hear and appreciate his wisdom. Nobody took any notice of him. But he was not going to allow his thoughtful remarks to be ignored. So he looked at his daughters and asked, 'What do you think of that, girls?'

The girls laughed sheepishly. Rather too obediently for his liking. They evidently had not caught the point. So he repeated his words with enough stress to show off his own knowledge of existing monuments such as the Taj Mahal and the ignorance of his wife in matters beyond the household.

Why had he to do it? Why? The woman did not ask herself that question but just sat there helplessly like a tormented, captive bird. But her husband was not satisfied with that. He took a sadistic delight in making her unhappy and in erasing her personality.

He turned to his little son, 'Who is stupid, my darling? Who is stupid?'

He evidently wanted his son to point at his wife. But the child unpredictably turned round and pointed at him.

'You!' the man cried, passing it off as a joke. 'You!'

The little woman burst out into hysterical laughter. She utterly forgot herself and splashed around in a puddle of childish glee. Her husband was annoyed but he tried to continue smiling. The little woman however, kept on laughing. Peals upon peals of laughter. There was no stopping her.

This was too much for her husband.

'Stop it!' he shouted. 'What is there so funny about it? Why are you laughing like a donkey?'

His tone was menacing and her laughter died abruptly on her lips. The frothy merriment suddenly vanished. She was back in her cage. Once again she sat there with drooping shoulders. This reassured and pleased her husband and to clinch the matter, he growled; 'Now hold the baby, will you? And it is time the children had something to eat. Wipe the baby's face clean. Don't you see it is dirty?'

She obediently started doing all these chores. She poured a little water on a piece of cloth and wiped the baby's face with it. She cleaned the baby's nose very delicately so that it would not scream and give another opportunity to her husband to scold her. She then pleaded with the girls that they should hold the baby while she served them snacks. She opened a brass can and put the eatables on pieces of paper for the girls. She was careful to see that both the pieces of paper had pictures on them, for otherwise the girls would have started quarrelling over that. One of the girls was fond of
karanjis
. So she served her an extra
karanji
. The other one was fond of
chakalis
. So she gave her an extra
chakali
. She gave her husband a piece of paper and held the can to him so that he might help himself. For, however she served him and whatever she gave him he always found fault with her.

She thus tried hard to please everybody and when they needed her services no more, she put a few of the snacks on a piece of paper for herself and started eating with an appropriately guilty expression on her face. Her mother-in-law never used to give her enough of anything to eat, so that to eat less than what she wanted had now become a habit with her. While she ate, she had also to mind the baby. That made it impossible for her to eat with relish. But that didn't matter. For she knew her place and had accepted her role, and she could not make any demands on anyone.

While eating, she thought of the numerous other chores she would have to attend to later. They were to reach home late in the night. It would not be possible to get milk at that time. But the baby had to be fed. Otherwise it would whimper and cry and that would annoy her husband. It would not be possible to prepare anything more than a makeshift meal. And that was not likely to satisfy her husband or her daughters. Her husband would certainly refuse to eat if he was not served pickles. The younger daughter would not touch the food if she were not served a tasty curry. But what could she do about it?

These thoughts kept on revolving in her mind. The train sped on. The sun dipped in the western horizon and the evening breeze spread coolness all around. The passengers, dazed so long by the suffocating heat of noon, now came to life. They yawned and flexed their backs and started talking. She shared the general feeling of relief and tidied up her hair with a sweep of her hand.

The train stopped at a station. A vendor was selling ice candy on the platform. The girls pressed their noses against the window bars and stared at the vendor greedily. The woman too peered out of the window and looked hopefully at the vendor. They all looked at the head of the family out of the corners of their eyes.

The younger girl was bolder than the rest. She asked her mother with pretence of innocence, 'That man is selling ice candy. Isn't he?'

'I don't know. Why not ask your father?' said mother.

The mother and the daughter eyed each other slyly.

The girl's father was taken in by this stratagem.

'Yes. That man is selling ice candy all right. How about it, girls? Would you like to have some?' he asked.

The girls giggled with their noses pressed against the window bars. Their mother was forgotten. She kept on looking hopefully at the candy bars. The younger girl ignored that look in her eyes. But the elder girl took pity on her mother.

'Anna!' she said, 'do give one to mother.'

The man looked at his wife and asked. 'How about it? Do you want one?'

'Oh, no! What would I want candy for?' she protested.

'Don't you listen to her. She would like to have one. I know,' said the girl.

'Why then don't you say so?' growled the man and bought a bar of candy for her too.

The woman accepted it guiltily and sucked at it. It tasted sweet and cool. She paused to let that pleasant sensation sink in. She then opened her mouth to suck at it again. But the baby had been looking intently at the coloured object. It thrust forward its hand to snatch it. The candy bar slipped from her hand and fell down on the floor. It did not reach the expectantly open mouth of the woman this time.

That drove the woman mad with rage. She had had enough of her children and her miserable household. She wanted to thrust the baby in its father's arms and scream at him. 'Here are your children! You can do whatever you like with them! But I am through! Understand? I am through!'

She wanted to get off the train and walk away. She would walk on and on until she dropped dead. Nothing really mattered any more.

Of course, she did not do anything of that sort. The lid had blown off for a while. That was all. After a wild surge of animal fury she landed again in the dark damp hole of her existence.

Just then a woman entered the coach. She was about the same age as this mother of three children. But there was an air of ease and assurance about her. She ordered the
coolie
to put her luggage properly on the shelf and when he began to demand excessive payment she curtly ticked him off. Having disposed of the
coolie
, she looked around for a seat. Everybody was staring at her. But she coolly ignored them all.

The mother of three children looked at this woman and was fascinated by the way she bore herself. With an automatic movement, she tidied up her
sari
and her hair, and her expression became more stupid and guilty.

'It looks as if she is a doctor,' she said. To her mind a woman having a dispensary or running a maternity home of her own represented the pinnacle of feminine achievement. She glanced at her husband with a question in her eyes.

Her husband gave a start. She had caught him in the act of staring hungrily at that woman. So he tried to look unconcerned and said contemptuously, 'Nonsense! She couldn't be a doctor. I think she is just a nurse or a primary school teacher. She is giving herself airs. That is all. You know how things are these days.'

The elegant woman walked up to them and rather curtly asked the man to move aside and make room for her. He was occupying the space of two seats on a crowded train, and she showed her disapproval of his callous attitude towards others passengers' comforts by talking brusquely.

The man's wife was amazed. She was alarmed for the woman, for her husband was certainly going to snub her. She looked forward with bated breath to her husband's grand performance.

But things turned out differently. Her husband apologetically pulled himself together and said, 'Certainly! certainly! Do have a seat.'

The man's wife was disturbed and perplexed. The other woman had reduced her giant-sized husband to the stature of a timid little man. She stared at the woman with awe tinged with resentment.

But the respect was short-lived. She noticed that there was no
kumkum
mark on the elegant woman's forehead. She was a widow. A miserable, wretched widow!

She instantly drew for herself the conventional picture of a widow and eyed that woman. But soon she had her doubts. For there was not a trace of unhappiness on that woman's face. She did not look a cringing, forlorn person at all.

Her mind wove contused ideas for a while and then suddenly there was a dark suspicion in her mind. This elegant woman could be one of
those
women. She involuntarily put her arm protectively around her daughters and frowned at the woman with suspicion and contempt.