Our Favourite Indian Stories (34 page)

The Assamese-looking bald man and the others came close to her. Lima whispered something in their ears and their faces lit up, glowing in relief. Patting her back, Raghuda said something in her praise.

The man called Hamen suddenly turned towards Gonu and his friends.

'Hey kids, come here,' he spoke in Assamese. 'Don't be afraid boys, come here.'

Gonu grasped Lalu's hand hard. Their heartbeats increased. They became scared.

'The poor follows are scared. I think they will run away', the one called Arun said.

'They will have to come, they must come. Now, give me the bag of apples.' Hamenda brought down the bag containing apples from the jeep and pulled some out. The red ripe apples glowed in the sunshine as if tempting them.

'Come here, friends take these,' he prodded the boys in a persuasive, friendly voice.

Lalu went forward as if mesmerised. He was followed by Rudra, Butu, Gonu... Flames of fire from inside their stomachs leapt up, their eyes focussing only on the red ripe apples.

'Well, you all will get one apple each. But before that you will have to lie on the grass here like good boys.'

Gonu and the other boys were almost forced by Arun, Lima and Raghuda to lie prostrate on the grass and they meekly complied with their instructions. They lay beside the pulseless bodies of the fishing-rod-crazy, mango-searching boys who were gone forever. Skinny, terrified-faced, torn-clothed Gonu and Butu merged with the corpses easily.

Promptly, the camera froze this hair-raising scene.

'Once I went to see a movie of Godard. I think it was
The Lacrosse Players
. There was a scene exactly like this one. A school bus had met with an accident and the children had been thrown everywhere by the impact. One of them was still clinging to his school bag, text books and copybooks while lying in pools of blood. What a terrifying scene! After all Godard knew well how to create a scene,' said Raghuda. His aloof nonchalant face could still be warmed by this memory.

'Have you seen Godard's latest picture
All about Mrs. Kere
....'

Gonu and his friends stood up. Lalu was lying beside the corpse of the fishing-rod-crazy boy. Standing up, he stared hard at the pulseless body. Then he carefully looked at his own. Then at Gonu and Butu. Probably some equation was going on in his mind. The tall youth tossed away one apple each to the boys, in a dismissive gesture.

'You are, delaying, Arun. Mr Bhatta will get bored waiting for us at Nagaon,' the one called Ranjan was getting impatient. 'Moreover, if we are to visit Laarighat also....'

'Not Laarighat, Ranjanda. L-A-H-R-I-G-H-A-T.' Lima corrected him smilingly. 'The names are also a muddle. By the way, these people are fortunate. Otherwise the world would not have come to know the names of these villages. Now the names of the villages are in the headlines of each and every newspaper.'

Their jeep started.

The dumb eyes of Gonu and his friends saw how the engine of the jeep roared, how the smoke billowed out, how the wheel moved and how the machine sped away. The jeep disappeared out of sight, disturbing the innocent virgin dust of the village road....

The size of the apple on Gonu's palm dwindled gradually. They had never tasted an apple before. As soon as the jeep became lost to sight near the sharp turn of the river, the apples in their hands also disappeared.

The dreamy-eyed kids slowly returned home— a glorious taste on their tongues and the memory of a jeep on their simple minds.

Translated by
Jyotirmoy Chakravarte

Akhtar Mohi-ud-din

Nabir Shalla, the darner, was already three score and ten. He owned a ramshackle, two-windowed wooden house on the banks of the Jhelum. He sat in the verandah of this house engaged in his work, his thick glasses mounted tight on his nose, and crooned his favourite rhymes with a child-like lisp:

She brought me a goblet of wine,

And took my breath away.

Nabir Shalla had passed most of his years sitting in the verandah and all this time had remembered only two songs, which he recited in season, and out. The second song was:

Her skin is smooth as a ripened peach,

Oh God! Keep her safe from the world's gaze.

 

From early childhood there had been a curious lisp in his speech. With the loss of teeth it had become more pronounced. The little swath of grey beard shone like snowflakes on his face as if small tufts of cotton scattered over the garment of Dame Shalla had been glued to his cheeks. In spite of a distinct tremor in his hands, he was able to make a living; indeed customers flocked to him for he has an expert at the job, many times better than most.

Nabir Shalla loved his ramshackle house and his wife Khotan Didi more than anything else in the world. Every evening she would gently press his back and caress away his day's fatigue, fetch him platefuls of hot rice, and fill his
hookah chilam
¹
. Whenever he sat in the verandah crooning his rhymes and running his darning needle through a patch of
rafal
²
cloth, she would sit in front of him, sifting cotton or spinning at her wheel. Nabir Shalla would make a sly comment, 'You be the 'prentice and I the master.'

Pricked by his remark Khotan Didi would retort, 'Why should I be the 'prentice? Why not you?'

Khotan Didi had only one tooth left in the front of her upper jaw; and since her lower lip had caved in, this tooth hung out like a nail. Her face was wrinkled like a shrunken turnip and her hair matted like dirty white cloth. It was twenty years now since she had her last child but in her life she had been confined about ten times. Unfortunately, none of her children had survived except her two daughters. Both of them were now settled in their homes and had relations of their own. In their wooden shack Nabir Shalla and his wife lived reasonably well without ever encountering a serious misfortune; they had run into debt to pay for their daughters' marriage but had gradually paid off the last penny. Khotan Didi had only one regret. None of her sons had lived long enough. It was rumoured that the Shallas possessed a large moneybag, worth a thousand or two. Heaven alone knew their real position; they lived off their meagre earnings and that was all.

His thick glasses mounted on his nose, Nabir Shalla worked on a piece of a
rafat
cloth today, crooning his favourite rhyme with the same child-like lisp:

She brought me a goblet of wine,

And took my breath away.

 

By his side sat Khotan Didi at her spinning wheel humming in tune to the music of the wheel. It had rained, though not for long, yet the waters of the Jhelum were muddy and the heat was oppressive. He would have preferred not to work in this heat but then he was the sole earner. Whether he liked it or not, work he must. He had begun to realise that it was his own sweat and blood that went into mending of other's clothes. He was all in a sweat and the
rafal
cloth on his bare knee gave him much trouble. But work he must, and in order to forget his discomfort he hummed his rhymes while he worked. He finished darning a patch, and in order to cut the cord, cast about in search of his scissors. But they were not to be found anywhere.

At last he asked his wife, 'Wherever have you put the scissors?'

'I put them on the shelf,' she replied.

'Bring them here. I need them.'

Khotan Didi had rheumatism in her legs. She could not move about and found it difficult to stand on her legs. If she had her own way she would not have moved about at all for the rest of her life. Yet she could not turn down her husband's request. She moved in considerable pain and began searching for the scissors. She looked on the shelf, looked into the small tin-box, but the scissors were nowhere to be found. Nabir Shalla grew impatient. He wanted to finish with his work and stretch his limbs and rest.

'Look sharp! Will you?' he cried.

Khotan Didi pulled a bag from the shelf; it was full of worn out children's garments and old clothes.

'How very sad!' thought Khotan Didi, 'The children all dead, but the clothes still intact.'

And one by one she remembered her children and the tears suddenly sprang to her eyes. Her flat breasts began to tingle. As she was throwing the old clothes about, she chanced upon a pair of rose red pyjamas. These were the pyjamas she had worn on her marriage day, a long, long time ago, But they were still there— the only thing left of her dowry. Her heart gave a sudden throb as she plunged into the memories of her youth.

Khotan Didi felt abashed. She tried to hide it away from her husband. But the glaring red colour of the garment screamed for attention. She blushed all over, her heart beating like that of a virgin's and tongues of flame licking her entire body. She was the newly wedded bride and Nabir Shalla her youthful groom. Images floated before her eyes of her godmother leaving her nuptial room and of Nabir Shalla approaching. For a moment Nabir Shalla appeared before her once more as a young man. She looked sideways at her husband. He chuckled and hummed his usual melody:

Her skin is smooth as a ripened peach....

 

Nabir Shalla appeared really young in his
pheran
³
and pashmina
chaddar
⁴
while a turban of the finest brand of muslin crowned his head. Here was the groom fresh from the marriage ceremonial; here was the bride weaving a net of silly ideas and anticipating the advances of Nabir Shalla with trepidation.

With persuasive softness, Nabir Shalla cajoled her, 'Why don't you put on those pyjamas?'

Khotan Didi blushed again. She said nothing.

Nabir Shalla continued, 'Come on, why not?'

He let his patch of cloth drop and came near his wife, speaking with feeling, 'Why do you hesitate? Put on the pyjamas. You're a nice woman.'

'You're a big fool,' said his wife irritably. 'But why?' asked Nabir Shalla.

Khotan Didi sat quiet and motionless. It was not easy for her to make free movements with her body any more.

'All right,' growled Nabir Shalla, and went down the stairs. Khotan Didi felt relieved. She gathered up the clothes and tied them in a bundle. But she did have a last look at the rose-red pyjamas before hiding them under a pile of rags and tossing the bundle into the shelf. She looked around for her husband. Wherever could he have gone, she reflected. But in her heart she felt a twinge of regret. Why had he not forced her to wear the garment? She felt sad.

It was some time before Nabir Shalla came back humming his rhymes. Khotan Didi now felt embarrassed, and she blushed every time she remembered her bridal pyjamas; it was difficult for her to live down the memories of her youth. But Nabir Shalla was in a gay mood. He ascended the stairs singing softly. Now he stood before her holding a pound of mutton in his hands and handing it over to her he asked, 'Did you put those pyjamas on?'

Then, after a pause, 'What an obstinate woman you are!'

'Aren't you ashamed of yourself? At your age, behaving like a monkey,' his wife remonstrated.

'Ashamed?' cried Shalla. 'Aren't we man and wife?'

Khotan Didi tried to change the conversation. 'What's this mutton for?' she asked.

'To cook, what else?'

Khotan Didi at once realised that she had a lone tooth and Nabir Shalla none, so who could do justice to the mutton? But Nabir Shalla was no fool.

He said, 'Boil it until it's soft. It won't be too hard to chew. But why have you still not put those pyjamas on?'

He tugged at her and pouted like a baby and would not let her go. At last she agreed that Nabir Shalla should leave her alone to change into the red pair of pyjamas.

Nabir Shalla left the room and went down the stairs holding the pound of mutton in his hand. Khotan Didi shut and bolted the door. She untied the bundle quietly, passed the string through the pyjamas and changed into them. She was all-aflutter. She forgot her rheumatism for the moment and went down, looking forward nervously to her encounter with her husband. Suppose some one saw them! O my God! Whatever was he up to at this age? Oh, God, what a prospect! With her thoughts all ajumble, she entered the kitchen noiselessly.

Nabir Shalla had mounted a pot on the hearth to boil the mutton and was sitting, now singing and now blowing into her fire. Khotan Didi would have preferred to have sat down without her husband noticing her. But her foot caught on a mat string and down she came with a thud. Nabir Shalla gave a start. He saw Khotan Didi prostrated on the floor and uttered a long frightened cry. But in a moment Khotan Didi lifted her chin and smiled at her husband. Nabir Shalla held her arm and helped her to get up.

'You aren't hurt, I hope?' Nabir Shalla asked anxiously. Khotan Didi shook her head in reply, now thoroughly abashed.

'Well, get up then,' Nabir Shalla pleaded. Again the same shake of the head in reply. He insisted that Khotan Didi should stand up in her pyjamas. She tried to resist but he was on the warpath. He seized her and pulled her up like one possessed and began to tease her amorously like a newly wed. Khotan Didi forgot that she was an aged woman and had grandchildren; Nabir Shalla forgot that all his teeth had fallen out and that his son-in-law was already an old man. It was a marvellous sight to see Khotan Didi holding her ground and Nabir Shalla tugging at her sleeve, shoulder, or whatever he could lay his hands upon. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Somebody coughed. Nabir Shalla hobbled back to his place and sat as if nothing had happened. Khotan Didi was bathed in sweat. The newcomer was none other than their elder son-in-law who had been watching their amorous antics with a puckered brow.

'
Salam-alaikwn
,
⁵
' said Nabir Shalla. 'Please come in.'

But the son-in-law retraced his steps without saying a word, his face flushed like a red-hot flame. Khotan Didi felt drowned in shame like one caught red-handed.

She looked guiltily at her husband, but he suddenly got up saying, 'Why do you look so guilty? But why? Isn't this our home? And a man is a prince in his own home, isn't he?'