Our Favourite Indian Stories (9 page)

But that day the book had no significance for me. For a long time I stood under the lamp post, holding the book and looking at the room upstairs.

The window of Mother's room was closed, but a sepulchral light shone through.

That was our last evening in Simla.

 

Translated by
Jai Ratan

Rajendra Awasthi

He could not sleep the whole night. He wondered why he kept on turning on his sides. Other passengers in that small railway compartment were fast asleep, almost unconscious. After all there was none among them for whom he should have to keep his eyes open. Entering the compartment, he had casually glanced at his fellow-passengers, and then had turned to read the newspaper of the day. But he knew very well that his attempt at reading was just a way to pass time.

Outside the window, the forest looked as though it had come to a standstill. At first it seemed that there was nothing at all in the darkness. Only the train whistling in the stillness and chaotic sounds like vessels clanging. If one sees friction produced on the surface of the iron rail one can see sparks, and the sound seems to signify blows rattling the Past. All night the compartment swayed like a windmill. He remembered every sound... the sound of the speeding train as well as the static stations.

The route was not new to him, or the train, or the accompanying sounds and the floods stretching outside. But when the Past suddenly starts knocking at the door of the Present, the person experiencing those moments suddenly trembles with unlooked-for possibilities. As he read the names of the stations in the faint light of the dusk, he felt a strong jolt. It was as though someone had suddenly called out to him,
'Arre,
do you recognise her?'

'No, mother, who is she?'

'Look closely. Of all the persons, you can't recognise her?'

He had then looked carefully at the bashful cheeks, the downcast eyes, the imitation pearls on the nose, the lips parted slightly and a marigold flower fixed in the well-oiled hair. He saw earrings in the shape of half moons and a straight central parting, tinted vermillion. From somewhere, he heard the sound of a child crying and her heavy, deep breathing telling so many untold stories.

He felt as though hot steam had jolted him from behind and was running down his neck

'Ma, you're talking in riddles.'

Mother became angry: 'What! You've forgotten everyone after going to Delhi? She's Ramrati, yes, Ramrati!'

It seemed as if a voice from the Past had wafted in and called out — 'Ramrati!'

The voice whirled round the Fort of Madan Mahal and struck its walls. The echo created a disturbance in every corner of his heart: 'Now, you shouldn't hold me by my plait like that. Supposing I start screaming?'

'So what?'

'Go away! Are you going to play hide and seek with me or... ?'

And then a loud voice came floating: 'Sunita has been caught! Come out, everybody. She will be blindfolded!'

'We shall come here and hide again.'

'Why, pray? I won't come here again,' he had said.

Nevertheless, he had kept going back to the same corner of Madan Mahal Fort where Time stood gazing at the deep trenches. He remembered catching worms that formed lac on the
palash
trees behind the mangos and custard-apples that had grown at random. He remembered singing the tune of the mildly blowing breeze, and the fear emanating from the grave-yard where the spirits lay buried with the sinking sun.

During one such hide-and-seek game, he had clipped Ramrati's plait with a pair of scissors. What else could he do if no one believed in what he said? Then the visits had stopped. There had been quarrels and feuds. Inspite of those, at every lonely turn of the road, there was teasing and sticking out of one's tongue at the other!

What a long time back it had all been! How on earth could he recognize Ramrati? And when he did recognize her afresh, there had been her complaints and reproaches to deal with.
He had become such a big officer! He couldn't even get a new wig for her. There was no dearth of saris in Delhi. And one gets chappals in so many colours! Fashions change every day. He could have got something for her—something currently in fashion. Couldn't he take her to Madan Mahal dressed in that fashion ?

'No...' it was a helpless situation for both of them.

He remembered the continuous stream of visitors to their house and then Father calling out, 'Do see who has come. When you were young, you used to be in his house the whole day. Now you don't come even when we call you. You must touch his feet.'

How could he convince his father that he had travelled far from the Past? Even as a child, he had found it irksome. Now he just could not lower his head before anyone. What else does a man have except his dignity and self-respect? How often does one have to lower everything day and night?

It's a mockery too that all of them still considered him to be an ordinary man. They praised him and admired him, but clearly they had something else on their minds. It was not difficult to read their faces. Their looks concealed their complaints. He had noticed a similar look in his father's eyes. Father had always wanted to build a mansion in the ancestral backdrop so that the neighbours would be left staggered in amazement. During each visit home he would be shown a new blueprint of the dream house. Father had always expected him to deposit a pile of currency notes with him so that the blueprint on paper could be turned into a reality. He had already borrowed a thousand rupees and passed them on to his father. At that moment Father had quietly taken the money, but he had overheard him remarking to his mother in the evening, 'See, didn't I say he has plenty of money? He earns quite a lot — only he doesn't want to give it to us....'

'Why won't he give it? For whom is it meant, after all?'

'Not for us,' father had said emphatically. 'What can you do with a thousand rupees? For him it's just some dirt off his hand. He saves that much money every month!'

He had heard that by mere accident and was stunned. He had regretted that he had ever borrowed the money at all. What a complicated situation it was! There was trouble if he did not give money, and when he did, the wonderful compliments! His mind protested.

But however much he may have revolted against him, Father's importance could not be denied. The day Father died, he was overwhelmed with sorrow and grief. He had not even been able to see him before his death. That was painful enough and then, the pain of seeing his body reduced to ashes! How frequently he had broken down while carrying his ashes to the Ganges. What he was carrying in his hands was stark reality. That is the fate of man, he had thought, and yet the things he does before reaching that point! The line of transition when the Past is turned into history — that alone is the range of his identity. He felt like shouting at the ashes of his father, 'You did build your house. Then why didn't you carry it away with you?'

He could not imagine that the burden of Father's death could be just an everyday occurrence to others. He could not bear the priests on their bicycles pursuing him as he carried his father's ashes, bundled in a red cloth, to the banks of the Ganges.

'They stick to you like dogs stick to dead flesh,' he thought.

But he deliberately forced himself to smile and say, 'Don't follow us. We are just going to the riverbank for a quiet walk.'

He had heard the reply, 'Why are you telling a lie,
Babu?
Sorrow is writ large on your face...
Arre
, we shall perform all the rites and only charge a nominal fee. Oh, yes! Where do you come from?'

And then a whole list of names, known and unknown, meaningless talk and arguments that hurt. Ultimately, irritated, he was compelled to agree, 'Very well, man, do perform the rites.'

Looking at his sorrowful face the priest resorted to his usual tricks. For the priest his sorrow was a mere joke. He had not been able to spend even a few quiet moments with his father who was dead.

He had not even been able to tell him, 'You wanted to pile up things to show off to society, which waited only to see the fun of your death! Society only aims at satisfying its own greed. All those people are in no different from dogs who always come back with their tails between their legs, even after having been repeatedly kicked.'

But no.... if his father could not understand that in his lifetime, how would he understand it after his death? How often had he felt like scattering his father's ashes in the air just there and going back! All the compromises he had avoided making all along, he now had to make at the funeral of his father. He still had that pain in his heart. He had done everything—made rice-balls, recited
mantras,
held the sacrificial grass in his hand, handled the newly-worn sacred thread as though he had been wearing it all his life, even faithfully lowered his head before the priest, mumbling the entire list of his ancestors. He had enacted exactly the same drama played by the bride and bridegroom at the time of their marriage to buy each other's bodies. At the end of the whole farce came the moment of making payment to the priest. You would think that the entire scenario had been arranged just for that!

The sun had started peeping out like the light emerging from a corner of a theatre. He saw that the compartment was no longer quiet. His three fellow passengers were up and about. They seemed to be addressing themselves. One asked about the station that had just passed, and another looked at the railway timetable to find out about the next station. The whole of their outside world seemed enclosed in the railway compartment. Morning held the smell of stagnant water. He opened the window, looked out and was kissed by a whiff of fresh air. The racing trees seemed to jump like hares.

He had even forgotten his destination. His fellow passengers were exchanging notes about the rest of the journey. Though there, he was really not there. For how long his sister had been complaining! He had not visited his city after his father's death. The ceremony for his father's death anniversary had been performed by his brother. In between, six or seven monsoons had come and gone. His sister was keen to tie
raakhi
around his wrist. Every time he wrote a letter, wet with tears — she reminded him of his father. Would she have behaved like a stranger if his father had been alive? Actually nobody bothered about him. He had seven nephews and nieces and, though all remembered him, nobody knew what their uncle was doing. His sister only remembered that when she was a child, she used to get a rupee for tying
raakhis.
Now... ?

Tears came to his eyes. How brother and sister had quarrelled as children! How the sister used to drink away the brother's share of milk and then add water to it! And how she used to be beaten up when discovered! Only then was it that she had come to realize the difference between being a boy and a girl. She had to wash her brother's shirts every day and if she didn't do that, he would catch hold of her by her hair and beat her up. But there was always peace between them when mother was not at home.

When their period of peace extended a little longer, the two of them would play 'house-house' in the balcony. The sister would become the wife of the brother and then both of them would enact all the scenes from the world of reality with a touch of drama. They imitated everything — starting with the quarrels between their parents and ending with a display of all that symbolizes love. They would also have a rag-doll. Everything was so life-like, yet now so meaningless! That's what infuriated him. Marriage, love—everything was so complicated! They devoured life like vultures, till one was reduced to ashes and was tied up in a bundle.

Verily, like travelling by train, he had left all those halts behind. His sister's face remained fixed before his eyes. Her face appeared to him like a mushroom grown in a pot, with seven new offshoots sprouting, and the taller mushroom gazing at those sprouts with pride. They would all welcome him on his arrival. At the same time, there would be only one thought in everybody's mind, 'Brother has become a big officer; uncle has a machine to print currency notes; his terelene bush shirt is stitched just to fit us; his trousers too, fit us perfectly. Why should uncle have three fountain pens? Brother is funny because he keeps his suitcase locked.
Arre,
does one keep things locked up in one's own house? Chiffon tie-and-dye saris are very much in vogue these days. Brother must have surely brought at least one such
sari
for us. After all, doesn't he have to make up for not one but five or six
raakhi
presents?'

He sensed how his brother-in-law, with his air of detachment talked in a hushed tone. He was vocal about the fact that, since he belonged to the same clan, he should not have severed his ties and chosen for himself a separate path. And having done so, he was now duty-bound to make amends.

He got up suddenly, opened his attaché case, brought out a copy of the railway timetable and started flipping through its pages. As he turned the pages, he forgot what he had wanted to see. He glanced at them one by one. He felt that his companions' eyes were glued to those pages. He surveyed those eyes in one go. Shekhar's eyes sprang up from his files. Shekhar had now become a schoolteacher. Hari was an overseer. Deshmukh was a police sub-inspector. Savita... He wanted to observe more closely, but could not make out anything. It seemed that only the expression of her eyes was absorbed by the timetable printed on newsprint. He tried very hard but couldn't find Savita anywhere. Remembering her, his thoughts flew to himself. Was he something apart from those memories? Perhaps not... Then, why had he decided to appear for his I. A. S. ? Who had provoked him to do that? All of a sudden, he had become the Director of a very big department. After all, why? How?

A flood of worries surrounded him as it were. Everything happens according to tradition. Whoever allowed a flower of modernity to bloom in the jungle of tradition?

The moving train had slowed down. Perhaps it was nearing a station. He put the timetable on the seat upside down and his eyes started roving in the compartment. There were two passengers on the opposite seat. One of them was reading the morning paper and the other was gazing at him. He encountered that gaze. The other passenger at once lowered his eyes and looked away.