Our Favourite Indian Stories (45 page)

'Sir, all of them are dependent on the farm for their livelihood and with them around we have never felt any labour shortage. That is why this farm is famous in the whole of the district. Every
babu
who has left this farm has now become an officer.'

I nodded my approval. Milakhi Ram started assigning work to the labourers and I went across to my quarters. After breakfast, lighting a cigarette I looked out. Green fields stretched right up to the foothills of Kailodhar. Beyond them lay forests of pine and deodar and kail, and still higher, white snow rested on the tops of mountains and hills. What a lovely landscape! Then I turned my eyes to the fields. Red, blue and yellow scarves tied on the heads of the girls and women seemed to bob up and down.
Shalwars
tucked above their calves and hands busy weeding grass, the women presented an enchanting picture. The only sound came from the rising and falling of
bhakhs
. I felt light and pleased with myself. After watching this scene for many days I started feeling that the women were indeed indispensable to the farm.

There were the older ones—Bilmoo, Seti, Malati, and the middle-aged ones—Murtu, Durgi and Papalu, who never missed a day's work. Then there were Bishno, Savitri and Kamalo who worked less but were more lively and full of fun. They were young and pretty and laughed uninhibitedly. In movement, their red, blue and yellow scarves looked like butterflies in flight. I felt like
Kahna
among
gopies
.. I would keep standing at the boundary on pretext of supervising their work. My eyes would sometimes wander to the collars of their shirts and at other times catch the beauty bursting out of their torn clothes. I would pull up one and get blessed by another. Thus my days passed. Bhakhs livened the weeding of rice fields and the digging of maize fields.

One day Milakhi Ram said to me hesitantly, 'Sahib, you are still alone. Days pass somehow. I wonder how you pass the nights. If you wish, shall I make some arrangement?'

I gave him the go-ahead signal but on condition that no one should get to know of it. The same night Savitri came to me. What I had considered as the most difficult act till my age of twenty-one turned out to be such a simple matter!

That night I grew up from an awkward boy of twenty-one into a man. After that it was sometimes Bishno and sometimes Kamalo who continued to help me become a full-fledged man. In order to please them I would always give them something—sometimes hay, sometimes corn and sometimes money. It did not cost me anything. I was surprised that nobody talked about this matter. Savitri was the prettiest of the lot and it was she who kept me company on most of the nights.

The rainy season had just got over. Crops started changing colour. They turned from green to red and then donned a golden coat until the plants started dancing in the wind. Their beauty was too much for them to hold on their own: it called to be reaped.

That night it was Savitri. Somewhere near, a drum was beating;
bhakhs
were being sung and perhaps nati was being danced. Just then Savitri told me that a 'little babu' was on its way. The sounds coming from outside turned into a pandemonium. Each beat of the drum was like a hammer blow on my head.

The crops were good that year. Therefore, every night there would be drum beating and
bhakh
singing, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. It always seemed to me as if a crowd was coming to my quarter, raising their voices and brandishing their arms. And then the pounding inside my head would begin.

The paddy was harvested, but the hammer blows inside my head. I ceased to listen to the music of the mountain hills or enjoy the beauty of Nature spread out in front of me. The mountains now appeared to be like walls. I felt encircled by tall pines and
deodars
with no way to get out. The encirclement seemed to be zeroing in on me. I felt the noose rolling down from the tops of hill ranges, passing over the pines and
deodars
, coming down, stepping over the barbed wires around our farm, and closing in on my quarters. Sometimes, lying in bed I felt as though somebody had clutched at my heart. There was no respite from the hammering in my head and chest.

I thought of my mother and of my younger sister. What would they think when they came to know of this? Why had I done it? How would I get out of it? Sometimes I consoled myself with the thought that Savitri was not involved with me alone, but must be having other lovers too. Yet what seemed strange was that nobody had said anything to me so far.

Milakhi Ram seemed to have sensed what I was going through, as I had not sent for any girl for many days. It was an off day perhaps. I was reading the newspaper seated in a chair in the courtyard of my quarters when Milakhi Ram came in. He had with him three or four small boys. A handsome one— about five or six years old struck me. The little boy looked at me and smiled. When he laughed, his eyes narrowed a bit. I noticed that he was squint eyed. I beckoned to him to come closer but he didn't and continued to laugh from afar.

Milakhi Ram said, 'Sir, can you guess whose son he is?'

I remembered that I had seen someone who resembled him. Who was it? I could not recollect. Suddenly my predecessor's face flashed before my eyes. The same hesitant smile, the same squint eyes. The hammering in my head started again and my face became flushed.

I looked towards Milakhi Ram. He was smiling. The blue gums over his yellow teeth gave me a strange feeling of revulsion. His upper lip was raised like a dog's.

I turned white and blurted out. 'The previous
babu
?'

The hunter was quick to grab its victim. 'Yes, sir! the previous babu... You have got it right. But why are you alarmed? You are not going to remain here forever. A year, or at the most two or three years. Then a new
babu
will come. This Murata and Durgi and Papalu, Kamalo, Bishno, Savitri, they are all products of this very farm. And they are all here to render services at the farm, whatever the form of service. This arrangement must continue, otherwise there will be a dearth of labour here also. After all,
Sahibs
must leave behind some memento!'

Wheat began to be harvested but Savitri did not come. I learnt that she had given birth to a daughter.

I could clearly see what Savitri's daughter was going to undergo fifteen- sixteen years hence.

I wished I could get myself transferred to another place before seeing the face of the infant at Savitri's breast.

Om Goswami

A
koel
was cooing. But Kalo was silent. The bunch of boys was laughing. Kalo was quiet. Amman's corpse was empty but Kalo's eyes were full. Memories had become congealed like ice at a spot beyond thought — a wordless realm. There was a certain void in the mind which rankled somewhere inside.

She cast a glance towards the park. Bapu was digging in the dahlia flower beds behind the
saintha
and
mehndi
plants. How thin he had become in a single day! Eyes swollen and a deep red — like the red petals of
malwa
. Hair dishevelled like the grass in the lawn.

She wondered and kept wondering for a while how they would live without Amman. Amman, whom she had seen and lived with ever since she remembered. Amman would be sweeping the lawn with a broom and she would be holding the end of her
dupatta
which trailed along. She would watch the children playing in the park timorously. She felt like playing with them. Seeing her looking at the children thus, Amman would say,
'Kaffanus
! the day has just begun and they've come to spoil the place.' Amman had got a tiny broom made for her, just like a toy, with a red handle and sticks of different colours tied together. She would sweep with great enthusiasm the interior of her little hut.

Both she and Amman assisted Pheenu in his work but still he had so much to do that he became tired. How difficult it was to complete all this work and keep the long park spread on both sides of the canal tidy! It was too much for a single man — picking up leaf plates, fallen leaves, empty matchboxes, cigarettes stubs, bits of papers. It could drive a man out of his wits.

People simply came, spread a lot of litter and left. Pheenu would survey the whole thing in the morning, get annoyed and then start cleaning up.

'What do these bastards thinks? They spread offal and go,' Amman would start swearing in a quivering voice.

The flow of water in the canal was closed during the winter months. The canal looked like the bed of a dry drain. The number of visitors had also dwindled. Only in the afternoons and evenings some people came, ate what they brought along, played cards or just lazed around. They would pick the leaves of flower plants or split canna-leaves and crush them with their fingertips. Amman hated these people, 'Why can't they eat and drink at home?' she would say. 'The trees are without leaves. It is not spring and there are no flowers. These rotten people come here only to spoil the garden.'

'Fun lovers revel even in cremation grounds, Amman! What do they have to do with spring or autumn?' Pheenu had tried to make her see the point every now and then during these ten years.

Amman would offer thanks-giving when the dry grey season ended. She wished that
saabs
from the city would come with their families and spend their afternoons in the park, and children would chase butterflies. In summer, when there was a rush of people, the number of those who came to the park to drink, decreased. All told, summer suited all the three of them when the whole park turned into a fair. They had to work till late in the night. It would sometimes be daylight while they were still sweeping the litter. Sometimes they would find some small treasures in the heap of sweeping — spoons, cigarettes; notes, small coins. The canal flowed with snow water from the Chenab, Amman took her bath thrice a day or sat on the square stone slab placed under a
sheesham
tree on the water's edge, with her feet dipped in the cold water. A branch was bent over the stone slab and thick leaves spread a sort of umbrella overhead. In the scorching heat, when some wandering whiff of breeze shook the tender leaves, Amman would start humming some
Pahadi
folksong. Kalo wondered how Amman's voice became so sweet at such moments. If one were to hear her shouting abuses, one would close one's ears and jump into the canal. That slab was Amman's throne on which she sat like a Mughal queen, surveying the
meena-bazaar
of the fair.

In winter, work was less but there were no gains. At best, they would find some half a quarter liquor bottle among the cypress bushes, which could be sold for a few
annas
.

Amman waited impatiently for the onset of summer but when it came, she started feeling fed up. Hearing the interminable noise of people, she longed for winter. While waiting for winter, she had encounters with several men and women. Those who tasted these encounters did not dare to talk to her again.

'The old hag looks every inch a witch.'

'She can fly in the air and gobble up a sparrow's liver.'

'She changes herself into a witch at night. Then her eyes burn like lights and her hair is let loose.'

Gossip of this kind was indulged in by the children of clerks who would go to the park to pass their afternoons. These children repeated what they heard from their mothers, like parrots. Then such talk would travel to the children of petty vendors who played truant from school and came for a cold bath. The gossip then gathered more floss. Some children rubbed sandy soil over their bodies, seated themselves under the shades of trees and narrated stories heard from their uncles and those concocted by themselves. As the lips of the raconteurs moved slowly, those of the listeners trembled, their eyes widened as though ghosts had really descended around them. Vendor Sharma's little son said, 'If you see a ghost or a witch, you should repeat the Hanuman
mantra
.'

'Will the ghost allow you to do all this?'

'Be quick with it, mentally. Hanuman is so powerful!'

All the boys had their faces shadowed by dread. The whole group looked up to the young Sharma. He knew more than the others. But Kaku bucked all of them up. 'If you have a piece of iron in your hand, no evil spirit or ghost can come near you. Or you should have fire in your hand. It can be a lighted cigarette also. The ghost will simply flee.'

That day other boys were surprised to see a steel bangle in Dayal's wrist and a lighted cigarette between his lips.

'One should have all one's weapons ready. One never knows which weapon will work against the ghost.' said Dayal.

The next evening all boys except young Sharma came equipped with steel bangles and cigarettes as soon as it was dark. Sharma looked odd without the bangle and the cigarette. He begged Dayal to give him his bangle.

'You get another. I've spent full four
annas
for it.'

'Is this how you value friendship? I'll tell your brother that you smoke stealthily.'

This strategy worked. Dayal removed the bangle from the wrist and gave it to him, saying. 'There is one condition, however. You should teach us the entire Hanuman
mantra
.'