Ordinarily, Chetan should have felt respectful on hearing of great feats of bravery, but for one thing, he loathed Pandit Gurdas Ram’s two sons—the astrologer Daulat Ram and Pyare Lal (who was known by the name ‘Pyaru Goonda’, or Pyaru the Hooligan)—and for another, ever since he’d heard about how he’d stopped poor Ramditta from getting married, a seed of resentment towards the elderly lathi aficionado had grown in his mind.
*
This seed might not have grown into a tree if he hadn’t seen him at a Brahmin feast eating as though he’d been hungry since birth.
*
Chetan had heard many stories from his Khatri friends of Brahmins eating four or five seers of kheer each. It was perhaps for this reason that the Brahmins were called dogs by the Khatris, but he had never believed it, thinking instead that it was simply due to the enmity which was common between the two castes. No one in Chetan’s home was a heavy eater. Alcoholism had dried up his father’s hunger, but his father’s father, his Dada, who had lived in the country his entire life and was quite hearty, never ate more than four chapatis with his meals. Although his great-grandmother Gangadei had fulfilled all priestly obligations, Chetan’s Dada was a patwari and his father a station master, so priestly duties had more or less stopped in his family. Chetan’s mother didn’t care for accepting priestly alms either. One reason for this was that on holidays, the Khatris gave out as alms to the Brahmins whatever fruits were wasted or leftover in the bazaar, or whatever cloth or pots were selling cheap. (Chetan’s mother believed in always giving high-quality donations and when she gave alms, she gave everything to just one household so that the children could eat until they were full, unlike the Khatris of the mohalla, who gave out just one piece of fruit to each Brahmin household.) Secondly, Chetan’s mother thought that eating second-rate food given as alms made the intellect second-rate as well. On festival days when portions of feast food came for the children, Ma made excuses on their behalf as much as she could. But Dada said that one should partake in such feasts respectfully; if one didn’t, people would say that the Brahmins had grown snooty just because they’d started earning a bit of money.
In the gali of the Baniyas there was a man named Ruldu who used to serve a feast to the Brahmins with great devotion during Shraddha, and all the voracious Brahmins in the city longed for an invitation. He was delighted to feed high-born and non-greedy Brahmins and he always made sure to invite Dada, who never turned him down. One time, when Chetan was perhaps studying in class six, Ruldu had invited him along with Dada. Chetan had heard so much praise for Ruldu that he was quite eager to see for himself what the feast at his house was all about.
Ruldu’s house was right where Baniya Gali meets the bazaar. Small seats were set up on a porch inside the doorway, across a small courtyard. Ruldu stood in the doorway with a pot and bucket. Whenever Brahmins came, he would wash their feet with his own hands and bring them to the porch and seat them.
Large metal plates were set out before them. The first course to arrive was a small shining brass bucket of full of kheer. For some reason, Chetan had a great aversion to kheer, so he took only one ladleful. But yes, he certainly did notice that the kheer was very handsomely made—the fragrance of basmati rice and pure ghee rose from it, there was less rice than usual, and the milk was creamy like rabri. After eating a couple of spoonfuls of kheer, he began to watch the other feasters. When the server with the bucket of kheer reached Pandit Gurdas Ram, and he started to ladle the kheer on his plate, Chetan watched with astonishment as Pandit Gurdas Ram asked, ‘Do you only feed Brahmins kheer with ladles?’ He grabbed the bucket from his hand and poured the whole thing on to his plate. When his plate was completely full, he handed back the empty bucket and began enthusiastically slurping up the kheer, shovelling it into his mouth with his entire hand.
Chetan was quite offended at how loudly he ate. When the guests had finished the kheer and began to eat puris and vegetables, Pandit Gurdas Ram took a second helping of kheer.
Chetan sat and waited for the feast to end a long time after he’d finished his puris, so he could receive his ceremonial donation and thereby enrich his savings (which he was collecting in order to buy a toy on Diwali) by one anna. For him that one anna was much more important than the entire feast.
He assumed that Pandit Gurdas Ram would stand up now that he’d finished off the kheer. Maybe he wouldn’t eat puris and vegetable tarkari. But his astonishment knew no bounds when after eating so much kheer, Pandit Gurdas Ram consumed ten puris and didn’t pay the slightest heed to the jokes and teasing from the others waiting for him to finish.
Chetan dozed off as he sat and waited. He awoke with a start when Pandit Gurdas Ram belched upon the completion of his meal, thinking it must be the sound of an ox belching. Then Pandit Gurdas Ram got up rubbing his belly, and belched even more loudly as he smoothed out his large white moustaches with a greasy hand.
There was something about that gesture that inspired in Chetan a strong loathing for him, and he decided, above all, that he would never again attend a feast, and if Dada forced him to, he’d find out first whether Pandit Gurdas Ram was invited or not.
But slowly, Ma convinced Dada that going to feasts was unbecoming to the honour of his son, and so Chetan escaped this misfortune.
*
As far as Ramditta’s engagement went, Ma told him that a couple of Brahmins had come to Jalandhar from the town of Bilga with a proposal. Harlal Pansari had praised Ramditta’s gentlemanliness greatly and they had even given him the shagun, but because Pandit Gurdas Ram’s son lived in Bilga as well, they thought it right to greet him on their way back.
When Pandit Gurdas Ram found out that they had given their daughter’s shagun to Ramditta, he acted very pleased. He grinned widely and said, ‘You did very well, the poor fellow’s been a widower some four years now, and if he gets married, Daulat’s [his elder son, Daulat Ram’s] wife will get some rest.’ And he explained to the newcomers that the two of them lived in two parts of the same house, and informed them that Daulat and his wife had tried to help Ramditta get married many times, with no success.
‘Why, is there something wrong with him?’ one member of the party suddenly asked.
‘Well, gentlemanliness and innocence can be flaws as well,’ Pandit remarked philosophically. ‘What use is so much gentility when he suffers a financial loss every year?’
‘But Harlal says . . .’ one of the Bilga people began.
‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Pandit Gurdas Ram interrupted. ‘He’s lent so much money to Ramditta. He won’t be free of that shop in this lifetime. Yes, if he gets married and sells off the jewellery from the dowry, there is a chance.’
And Pandit Gurdas Ram laughed slightly. ‘What can I tell you? Ramditta is such an honest man. But Daulat once told me he has some flaw in his blood. When he got married, I told him he should get himself cured. Our Pandit Shyam Ratan is a great hakim; he even said he’d give him a couple of pills and he’d get better. But he didn’t pay me any heed, and see—not only did the child die, but the wife passed away as well.’
Pandit Gurdas Ram laughed again at Ramditta’s foolishness.
‘So did he get cured or not?’ asked one of the Bilga men. His tone was oddly anxious.
‘He won’t do it,’ said Pandit Gurdas Ram laughing. ‘He’s so innocent, he thinks the death of his child and wife were acts of God . . . Oh yes, brother, sure, they’re acts of God, but God also gave us this “brain” we’ve got in our skulls so we can use it.’
And after those Bilga Brahmins touched Pandit Gurdas Ram’s feet and left, they never returned again. Ramditta had to stop right in the middle of his wedding preparations. Around a year later, they found out that same girl was getting married to Pandit Gurdas Ram’s nephew.
*
There was nothing about Ramditta’s appearance that would excite much love towards him, but for some reason Chetan felt a deep sympathy and affection for him. It might have been his meekness, or his deep cons
cientiousness (which made him never dilute the milk in the slightest and ready to fight anyone who accused him of such—the boys of the mohalla only did it to tease him), or his foolishness which always made him lose money; Chetan had never analysed it. But he was fond of him.
Once Ramditta’s engagement was broken, no other matches came for him. The syphilis rumour that Pandit Gurdas Ram had started spread so far afield that no family ever came with a proposal again.
‘Who knows if he’s even ill,’ Ma had remarked, bringing up the topic of Ramditta one day. ‘If he had any such illness, it’s been so many years, it won’t break out again.’ And referring to Pandit Gurdas Ram’s bad deed, she remarked sadly, ‘Brahmin against Brahmin, dog against dog.’
But this wasn’t just a Brahmin flaw. The people of Jalandhar’s Kallowani Mohalla were like the man who punches himself in the eye to create a bad omen for his neighbour. Every last one of them was mired in the same filth and they couldn’t stand to see anyone rise above it or flourish. If two wanted to come together, there were always four to break them apart. This was not just the case with the Brahmins, but with the Khatris as well; if a proposal came for someone, everyone else would do their best to ensure it didn’t come to fruition. They’d praise the boy in front of everyone, grinning widely, but in private conversation they’d pass a couple of remarks regarding the boy’s intelligence or character, or the mother’s bad character, or the father’s financial situation, in order to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of those bringing the proposal. This was why the elders always made matches secretly. But Ramditta’s parents had died when he was still a child. He had no elders to speak accurately on his behalf. Harlal Pansari felt sympathetic towards him (perhaps because he was his neighbour, or because Ramditta was so innocent) but despite his best efforts, Ramditta simply could not get married.
As he grew older, Ramditta’s desire to start a family grew day by day. The people of the mohalla frequently managed to steal his milk and cream for months on end by promising to arrange his marriage. And despite having been robbed before, he’d go ahead and do it again.
Whoever felt like robbing him would just come to his shop and sit, and casually drink a lassi or eat some pakoras a couple of times, then ask in the course of conversation, ‘So, Chacha Ramditta [strangely, even people his age called him “Chacha”], how old are you?’
‘I turned twenty-nine last January,’ he’d say.
And then the person would express sadness that Ramditta hadn’t yet remarried and advise him that he should, with a few sayings in Hindi and Punjabi such as: ‘A house is only happy with a wife’; ‘Without a wife, a house becomes haunted’; ‘Brief is the distance between a bachelor and a madman.’
That day, Ramditta would mix plenty of extra cream in the man’s milk or lassi, or fry his pakoras extra crispy.
Then a few days later, the person would tell him that the daughter of his distant relation (or friend) had come of age, and that he thought it would be wonderful if Ramditta married her. From that day on, Ramditta would stop taking money from him altogether.
A month or two later, Harlal Pansari, who kept track of Ramditta’s accounts due to the loan he’d given him, would get wind of this. Not only would he scold him, he’d also ask the mohalla man what he was doing stealing from a poor man.
But Ramditta would end up getting robbed again, despite putting his hand to his ear and swearing not to do it again.
His desire to remarry was so powerful and he was so cheered at the slightest hope, that one time when Chetan’s mother had casually asked him how old he was, out of sympathy, and he had said that last January he’d turned twenty-nine, and Ma, praising the beauty and accomplishment of his first wife had said that he should get remarried now, Chetan noticed that that day, Ramditta had added an extra paav of milk to the daily seer for no reason.
This weakness of his was known not just to the mohalla’s adults, but also to all the children. Chetan himself had once casually asked him, ‘Hey, Chacha Ramditta, how old must you be by now?’
‘I’m six years younger than your father,’ he replied.
This was his style of replying to boys. He’d mention the boy’s father, or uncle, or older brother, and tell them that he was twenty-nine or thirty.
But as he grew older and began to lose money by giving out free milk and pakoras, Harlal finally sat him down in the quiet of his warehouse and explained that he had no well-wishers in the entire mohalla. These people would drink his lassi and his milk, they’d eat his pakoras, but they would not give him their daughters or sisters to marry. ‘Look, you won’t get married this way. Let me do your book-keeping for a few years. Right now I look over your books sometimes to get my money back, but from now on, I’m going to watch your accounts until you’ve saved up three or four hundred rupees.’
When Ramditta asked what would happen to that money, Harlal explained to him, ‘Look, you’re my age. If I’m thirty-nine, then you must be thirty-nine too. As long as these people from the mohalla are around, they won’t give you a young unwed girl, but if you spend three or four hundred rupees, you can get a child widow from a widow ashram.’
Ramditta was now so eager to get married that he immediately agreed, and for the next three years, he turned over all his earnings to Harlal. Not just that, he stopped indulging the freeloaders. If some thief brought up a girl with him, he would tell him to go and talk to Harlal. And slowly people stopped asking his age and suggesting new proposals.
When Chetan was studying in his first year of college, he heard one day that Ramditta had brought home a new bride. Ma told him the good news the moment he came home, and he immediately put down his books and ran over to the bazaar. On his way home from college, he hadn’t even paid attention to what was going on there.
Ramditta was not at his shop. Chetan was walking back when he saw him coming from Chowk Chaddhiyan. He was walking along jauntily, wearing a Stetson and new long-cloth pyjamas.
‘Congratulations, Chacha Ramditta!’ Chetan cried out.
Ramditta grinned in response, and Chetan liked seeing his smile despite the one broken tooth.
‘Here you’ve brought home a new bride and you haven’t even fed us any laddu!’
‘I’ll bring you some, I’ll bring you some. You go home, I’ll bring some right away.’
And Chetan had just washed his face and hands and started to eat when Ramditta arrived with a tray full of laddus.
‘I’ve brought them to you very first of all,’ he said laughing.
*
But this marriage did not agree with Ramditta. Less than two months had gone by since he’d brought his new wife home after paying the widow ashram three hundred rupees. One day, after noticing that his shop had been closed for several days, Chetan asked Harlal about him and learned that Ramditta was very ill.
Chetan was quite eager to see this new wife of Ramditta’s. Although a child widow had previously married into the mohalla among the Khatris (though they only learned this years later), and one of the Khatris’ young widows had with great fanfare set up house with her younger brother-in-law, the superstitious mohalla was generally against widow remarriage. Although the women of the mohalla had secretly found out about Ramditta’s wife, no one had openly gone to meet her. Even Chetan’s mother didn’t think it right that a widow had come to his house.
One Sunday, when he had the day off, Chetan decided he’d go and see Ramditta after lunch. He’d forgotten to ask Harlal what illness afflicted Ramditta. It was summer, and it hadn’t started raining yet, so seasonal illnesses such as smallpox, typhoid, dysentery, cholera and other such things had spread throughout the city; or maybe Ramditta, after hungering for a wife so long, had overdone it. The Punjabi saying came to Chetan’s mind:
A poor Jat found a cup
Too much water so he drank
His belly bloated up
He fell down with a clank
Perhaps Ramditta was in the same state as that poor man.
The
first house in Chowk Chaddhiyan in front of Barne Pir was Ramditta’s. Actually, the astrologer Daulat Ram lived with his family in the front section, with windows opening towards Barne Pir, and Ramditta lived at the rear. The doorway of the house opened on to the chowk. When Chetan got upstairs after feeling his way along the darkened doorway and up the even darker stairway, he saw that Ramditta lay on the charpoy in his room. There was a string of pearl jasmine around his neck, another hung from the head of his bed, and another was tied to the neck of the clay pot lying nearby, and Ramditta was moaning with high fever.
Ramditta was very happy when he saw that Chetan had come to inquire about his sickness. He motioned for him to sit. Chetan quietly sat down on the edge of the charpoy.
‘Tell me, Chacha, how is your health?’ he asked.
Ramditta shook his head to indicate that he was in poor shape. He ran his tongue over his dry lips.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Chetan.
Speaking slowly between moans, and using gestures, Ramditta told him he’d had a high fever for many days. Today Choti Mata had graced his throat. It was motijhara.
Chetan realized Ramditta had typhoid. In typhoid, tiny pearl-like bumps break out in the throat. The people of the mohalla called this Choti Mata or motijhara, and just as they did nothing to cure smallpox, they did nothing for this either. They simply performed a ceremony to appease the goddess, or Mata, with garlands of pearl jasmine and put the same garlands on the patient.
‘Your Chachi has taken very good care of me,’ said Ramditta, looking to the left. ‘If it weren’t for her, I would have died. She saved me.’
Chetan glanced in the direction Ramditta had glanced. To the left, in the dim light, sat a very ugly middle-aged woman on a stool. Chetan pressed his hands together in greeting from where he was sitting.
But all of his enthusiasm was destroyed. For some reason he had been eager for Ramditta’s wife to be extremely beautiful. Perhaps because he’d heard so much from Ma about how beautiful his first wife had been, he hadn’t pictured him with an ugly wife (although Ramditta himself was extremely ugly). And seeing this woman who called to mind the saying ‘Camel, oh camel, what part of your body is straight?’, he felt disgusted and vexed, and after talking about this and that for a little while, he stood up.
In the City a Mirror Wandering Page 5