In the City a Mirror Wandering

by Upendranath Ashk

  *

  Chetan suddenly propped himself up on his elbows. ‘You idiot,’ he cried out to himself. ‘That treasure was snatched from you, you idiot! Because you were worthless, you were a coward, you were mean-spirited. It was your own stupidity that got her snatched from you and handed over to someone else.’ He wished he could beat his head against the bench. But instead he lay there for a few minutes, staring into the void. Then he took a deep breath and relaxed again . . . He thought about the wedding of his distantly related sister-in-law in Alawalpur and an incident that had occurred there became magnified manyfold before his eyes in its minutest detail.

  *

  Chetan lies ill in a rooftop room. He has a high fever. His throat is swollen. His wife can’t come to him. She sends Neela instead. The children are kicking up a racket in the room. Chetan has a terrible headache. ‘For God’s sake, get them out of here!’ he cries out feebly.

  Neela scolds the children and chases them away. She shuts the door and pulls the chain across, and comes to sit at the head of his bed. He moans with pain. She slowly starts to massage his head. Chetan is half asleep. Neela’s enchanting voice pours into his ears like a peaceful tune—sweet music coming from somewhere very far away.

  She runs her fine fingers through his long curly hair and says, ‘Jija ji, your hair is so beautiful, long, black and curly!’

  And she asks, ‘Tell me, Jija ji, how did you get these curls? Did you curl your hair yourself or did it happen naturally? My hair can’t do that. My hair is long, but it’s not curly.’

  And she takes her braid and shows it to him so he can see how soft her hair is, how long, but not curly.

  Chetan takes the soft cool braid in his hands, burning with fever, and slowly unplaits it, and the long, black, soft, fragrant tresses fall across his face. And Neela cries out, ‘Jija ji, you’ve undone my braid!’

  She pulls her hair back but Chetan won’t let go. And Neela doesn’t really try to free her hair. Chetan takes those soft, dense tresses in both his hands and spreads them over his face—Neela leans over him . . . so close . . . so close . . . that suddenly he has a powerful urge to take her in his arms and kiss her. But he just kisses her hair. And that too in such a way that Neela doesn’t notice and she continues to speak, talking about how she won’t get married, and why do people get married at all if they regret it so much later? And she tells him of the tragedy of her elder sister Meela’s marriage. And suddenly she caresses his face and says, ‘Jija ji, you’re growing a beard, why don’t you shave?’ And she laughs, ‘Shall I get a razor and do it myself?’

  And she caresses his lips with her hand and says, ‘Jija ji, your lips are chapped, shall I put a bit of butter on them?’

  Chetan places his hand on hers and presses it lightly to his lips.

  *

  When he’s feeling a bit healthier and is better able to think properly, he calls for Chanda.

  ‘I’ve been sick for four or five days now. I’ve had such a fever—did you even ask about me?’ he asks.

  ‘Why do you ask? I’m always keeping track of you. What are you having problems with? Neela’s here . . .’

  ‘Neela . . . Neela . . . Neela . . .’ he explodes and adds, almost yelling, ‘You should be sitting by me!’

  ‘You don’t know,’ says Chanda in a meek and emotional voice. ‘If I sat next to you, people would talk. The women in this family will say anything. Neela . . .’

  ‘What I’m saying, Chanda, is that you’re crazy,’ he retorts with annoyance. ‘Neela’s not a child any more. She’s fourteen or fifteen and I . . . Don’t you see I’m a man! A weak man!’

  Chanda bursts out laughing. ‘You were scaring me. But I’m not scared of that. She’s my little sister. So what if she’s my uncle’s daughter? I’ve always considered her a sister. Her honour is in your hands. She’s playful, she can make little mistakes, but you can’t.’

  And she gazes at her husband with boundless, generous faith as she strokes his brow.

  *

  And the result of this faith is that when Neela comes to him again with milk and then chases away the boys and sits at the head of his bed to serve him, she leans him against her and props him up with her arm, and he suddenly takes her in his arms and kisses her, and he is not able to forgive himself. In the evening when Neela’s father comes to see him, he hints at everything that has occurred.

  And quickly, Neela’s marriage to a middle-aged military accountant is arranged and Chetan watches as his beloved treasure, which had come to him unbidden, is transferred to another.

  *

  He sees Neela holding out her thin, pale arm over the drain in the courtyard; the leeches on her wrist have sucked her blood—that wrist, thinner than before, yellowish, but even more beautiful than ever—like a blossom flowering in a rocky cave. He has tried to forget the Neela he had known, but she has lodged somewhere deep inside him. She gives him an abrupt ‘Hello.’ After Alawalpur this has been their only interaction. Has he come from so far away, all the way from Shimla, just to hear this dry ‘Hello’? But when he hears she is marrying a widowed military accountant in Rangoon, something begins to gnaw at him. He tries to talk to her, but doesn’t get more than a brief word or two in response.

  ‘How are you, Neela?’

  ‘I am well!’

  ‘Neela, you look ill.’

  ‘No, Jija ji!’

  ‘Neela, you’re going so far away.’

  ‘Yes, Jija ji!’

  ‘Neela, are you angry with me?’

  ‘No, Jija ji!’

  He wants to speak openly with Neela before being separated from her; he wants to lighten his soul and beg her forgiveness, but he doesn’t get a chance and walks irritably upstairs to the room on the roof. After that, he doesn’t attempt to speak to her.

  *

  Farewell. Music plays outside. Chanda comes upstairs several times to tell him Neela is leaving, and that he should give her shagun, the bridal gift. But he won’t move. He decides he’ll go quietly and place the shagun in Neela’s hand when they’ve walked on a bit, when she’s veiled and seated as a bride. But suddenly his heart begins to pound—Neela is coming upstairs jingling with jewellery and weighted down with bridal clothing.

  ‘Namaste, Jija ji! Please forgive me my mistakes!’

  ‘Neela, forgive me . . .’ and he bows down at her feet.

  ‘Jija ji, what are you doing!’ She lifts him up and runs off, suppressing a sob.

  *

  Chetan slowly beat his head against the bench two or three times—he felt as though he were being stabbed. He turned over and lay flat on his back. But it was seven or so in the morning, and a sharp, shimmering sunlight had already spread across the roof. His eyes could not take the glare. He turned over again and lay down as before, letting his arm dangle from the bench. Then those same sights, those same conversations, those same words, began to spin through his head once more. But this part of the bench was shaded by a curtain. The curtain’s shade, so close to the sharp monsoon sunlight, made the cement pleasantly cool. His exhausted, tense mind relaxed with the pleasure of that cool touch. He dozed off.

  But he wasn’t able to stay asleep for long. Suddenly he was startled again and sat up for a moment, his legs dangling foolishly. He’d had another dream . . .

  He saw . . . he saw . . . it wasn’t a bench . . . Neela was lying there, wearing that same glittering clothing, and her fair cheek pressed against his own. He sat up.

  The sunlight had reached that part of the bench as well and his body was growing hot.

  He couldn’t stay here . . . he couldn’t stay . . . He would run off to Lahore again. Oddly irritable now, he got up, ran into the room and shook his wife awake.

  ‘It’s getting late. You’re still asleep. What will Ma say?’

  Chanda rearranged her dishevelled clothes and sat up on the bed. ‘I’ve been up so many nights,’ Chanda replied. ‘I was sound asleep.’

  And she smiled bashfully.

 
When he saw that exhausted face and those dry lips parted slightly in a bashful, sad smile, Chetan felt overcome with a flood of compassion, and something made him take her head in his lap and kiss her brow.

  2

  Chetan kissed his wife and even walked her downstairs and explained to Ma that they had slept late because they were so exhausted by Neela’s wedding; he even laughed as he said this, but secretly he couldn’t stop himself from feeling annoyed. He was finding it difficult to remain in the house for even a moment. He got ready quickly and went outside.

  By the well, he ran into Jagdish, commonly known as Disa—one of the Chowdhrys—walking along foolishly, his mouth agape. Time was, the Chowdhrys had had quite a bit of clout. They’d owned shops selling Muradabadi pots in Chaurasti Atari and made money too; but nowadays Chowdhry Badhawa Ram and his younger brother, Chowdhry Sulakkha Mull, were famous—not just in the mohalla, but throughout the city—for their addiction to opium. Sulakkha Mull had no children and Badhawa Ram had four daughters and two sons. The girls’ weddings had broken him, and the boys weren’t the least bit educated. Disa was a draughtsman at the court and his younger brother wandered about as a vagrant under the tutelage of Sarna Debu, learning the ropes of hooliganism. Chetan wanted to avoid Disa, but Disa came up and hugged him. ‘When did you get home, brother?’ he asked.

  Chetan hadn’t even had time to reply, when Disa added, ‘Amichand’s become a deputy! The results came out in the papers yesterday. I found out in court.’

  ‘How’s your draughtsmanship going?’ replied Chetan, as though he hadn’t heard him.

  But Disa wasn’t listening to Chetan. ‘Come on, let’s congratulate him,’ he said, throwing his arm around Chetan as he tried to get him to turn towards the bhuvara.1

  Chetan recalled running into Amichand at Shimla’s Scandal Point, where Amichand had behaved as though he’d already become a deputy before the exam results had even come out (Chetan had approached him, crying out, ‘Hey, Amichand, what are you doing here?’ He’d held out his hand warmly, but in response Amichand had only reluctantly held out two fingers, a far-off smile on his face). Chetan wanted to respond with some biting remark, when Amichand himself appeared, coming from the bhuvara clad in a white shirt and trousers. His neck was a bit stiff and he was gazing straight ahead, as though he could see them, but didn’t choose to. If it had been the old days, Chetan would have gone up to him, shaken his hand and congratulated him. But now he just glanced at him quickly and looked away again.

  Disa left Chetan and went over to Amichand. Disa wanted to go up to him and embrace him, but the future deputy collector, who’d gone from being known as just ‘Amiya’ to being called by his full name, Amichand, was now coated in the sort of armour that would rob a mere draughtsman of the courage to attempt such informality. So Disa just said, ‘Hello, brother! Congratulations!’ and laughed delightedly.

  Amichand responded to Disa’s hello without looking at him—he just moved his lips slightly—and walked right past without stopping. He didn’t think it proper to say anything in response to the congratulations. But Disa followed him. It almost seemed to Chetan as though Disa were wagging his tail though he didn’t have one.

  ‘The bastard is kissing up to him, as if Amichand’s going to turn a damn draughtsman into a sub-collector,’ joked someone sarcastically behind him.

  Chetan turned and looked—Shyama, one of the Jhamans, was coming from the bhuvara. The Jhamans were Brahmins. There were two Brahmin houses at the other end of the bhuvara, a little beyond where Amichand’s brother, Amirchand lived. Three Jhaman families lived in the three-storey house, one door of which also opened out into Khoslon ki Gali. The other one-storey house belonged to Pandit Gurdas Ram, whose son, Pyaru, and grandson, Debu, were noted goondas, known not just in the neighbourhood, but throughout the city for their thuggishness and hooliganism. The Jhamans were Amichand’s neighbours (and therefore hated him), and anyway it had been thus since the very beginning between the neighbourhood’s Khatris and Brahmins.

  Shyama walked up to him.

  ‘This Amiya hasn’t just been made a goddamn deputy, but these people think they’re up in heaven now,’ he muttered angrily, waving to Chetan as he walked quickly by. ‘When he came home last night, Amirchand was saying that when Uncle Telu comes back to the neighbourhood, he’ll bust his head open. I’m on my way to Mandi to get Uncle Telu. We’ll see whose head gets busted!’

  Chetan had returned to Jalandhar after a long absence. He was unaware of the current obsessions. He wanted to stop Shyama and ask him what the dispute was between him and Amirchand but, for one thing, Shyama was in a hurry and, for another, the thought of Amichand and Amirchand vexed him, and besides, he did want to go see his old classmate Anant right now. So he didn’t stop Shyama; when Shyama turned towards Harlal Pansari’s shop, Chetan went towards Barhaiyan to see Anant.

  *

  Anant was still lying on the charpoy on the open roof when Chetan woke him. The sound of Chetan’s knocking had roused him, but by the time his mother had unfastened the chain and Chetan had made it upstairs, he’d turned over and started dozing again. Chetan shook him when he got there, and Anant wrapped himself in the sheet, adjusted his tahmad and sat up, still sprawled out on the charpoy.

  ‘Oh, hi, when did you get back from Shimla?’

  ‘I got here three days ago but it was my sister-in-law’s wedding. I went to Basti as soon as I got here! I got back just last evening.’

  ‘So she’s deserted you, has she?’

  Chetan sat quietly and stared at the open sky. High above, a vulture circled round and round, in tighter and tighter loops with each turn. Chetan followed it with his eyes.

  Seeing that this topic was a sore spot for Chetan, Anant changed the subject. He laughed slightly and asked, ‘How was Shimla? Did you see Amichand there . . . ?’

  Chetan’s gaze was still fixed on the vulture. ‘It was great!’ he responded distantly, as though from way up in the sky where the great bird circled. He didn’t respond to the part about Amichand.

  ‘He won the competition!’

  Chetan stared up at the sky.

  ‘So how is your “Mahatma” anyway?’

  ‘Which Mahatma?’ asked Chetan suddenly, turning his gaze from the sky.

  ‘You know, that doctor, Kaviraj Ramdas, the one you were so full of praise for after you first met him that you dedicated your book to him . . .’

  Anant hadn’t even finished what he was saying when Chetan chuckled, ‘Oh, that Mahatma . . .’ He was about to use an obscenity, but his eye suddenly fell upon Anant’s mother standing close by, her hands on her hips.

  ‘Hello, Aunty, how are you?’ he turned and asked her with a rueful laugh.

  ‘My, my,’ she said. ‘You just spent three months in Shimla but you look even sicklier than before!’

  Chetan wanted to curse the weather in Shimla with a few ‘sweet words’ but all he said was, ‘No, Aunty, the weather there isn’t beneficial to everyone; the air is quite heavy. I lost my appetite completely, and my stomach was always bad.’

  ‘Then rest here a few days; you’ve come home from a high mountain. Your cheeks are sunken.’

  ‘He’s fine,’ said Anant. Turning to Chetan, he said, ‘What our mothers and sisters think is, if you say someone looks healthy you’ll invite the evil eye, so they’ll say a buffalo looks healthy if it looks as thin as a blade of grass.’ And he chuckled.

  But Anant’s mother felt she’d done her duty, and went back down the hallway without listening to her son’s critique.

  Chetan felt as though he needed Aunty’s sympathy more than Anant’s sarcasm. The three months of life in Shimla spun before him . . . when he’d bathed outside in the cold and worked day and night, sometimes deep into the night in that close, dark room. All the walking he did was from home to the dhaba, or from the dhaba to home, especially on those days when he was busy writing Kaviraj’s book for him . . . and his health really hadn’t been good.

  �
��No, my health has actually got worse,’ he said sadly. ‘Aunty is right.’

  And sitting there, Chetan told Anant the entire story of his stay in Shimla.

  Anant chuckled even louder.

  ‘You’re an old fool!’ he cried. He paused for a moment, then asked, ‘What happened to that story collection of yours, the one you were going to publish with Kaviraj’s help, which you wanted to dedicate to him?’

  ‘The very first thing I’m going to do when I get back to Lahore is tear up that dedication.’

  ‘Then how will you get it published?’

  ‘Even if the story collection doesn’t get published for the rest of my life, I still won’t take his help, nor will I dedicate it to him.’ He stood up.

  Anant stood up as well. ‘Sit here for five minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll just get ready. I have to go to Chowk Sudan. I’ll go with you as far as Atari.’

  Just then Aunty returned and asked, ‘Do you want lassi or milk?’

  Before Chetan could say anything, Anant had draped a towel around his shoulders and, stopping on his way to the bathroom, he called back, ‘No, Ma, we’ll get lassis at Ramditta’s shop. Don’t worry about it!’

  ‘You’ve come back after so many days, you will stay for a while, won’t you?’ asked Aunty, her hand on her hip.

  ‘No, Aunty, I would have left today, but Ma said my father might come home today. So I’ll just stay for one day. But I’m leaving tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh yes, you’re a Lahorite now, what do you care for Jalandhar these days?’

  And Aunty returned to the kitchen. It was hard for Chetan to remain sitting there. He began to stroll around the roof, but after making just one round, he felt alarmed . . . His thoughts were again caught up in a storm, so he went into the kitchen to extricate himself from them. Aunty had filled a ladle with ghee and onions and was holding them over the fire, waiting for them to turn red. Chetan’s eyes were glued to the onions as they slowly swelled, then turned red around the edges, then dried up and turned brown, as though it were something he’d never seen happen before, while Aunty told him of her back pain, so when Anant arrived, Chetan heaved a sigh of relief and stood up.