One of the Jhamans had said, ‘No, he’s not crazy, he just drank too much liquor and wasn’t in his right mind.’
His mother had called him upstairs to tell him not to go to the bazaar at all. But Chetan went into the open sitting room on the second storey, and from there he caught a few glimpses of Jagtu. He was waving his arms as lunatics do, and yammering curses; first he ran stark naked from the bazaar towards the bhuvara, then, perhaps because the door to his own home was still locked, he ran back towards the bazaar. The memory of his skinny, milk-white body flashed before Chetan’s eyes like lightning.
Jagtu, who had always been so silent, who had always walked with his eyes to the ground as he passed through the mohalla on his way to and from Mandi, was now swirling about shamelessly like a tornado. Who knows how long he would have continued to terrorize the mohalla, but Amichand’s elder brother, Amirchand, had caught hold of him, brought him to the Chowdharain’s doorway and beat him so brutally that he ran from the mohalla again and never returned.
And a few chapters of the books he’d read while ghostwriting for Kaviraj Ramdas swam before Chetan’s eyes. He sighed. In this deprived, illiterate mohalla, where lack of education and culture held sway alongside hunger and thirst, where young unmarried men spent their whole lives full of longing, what else would they become besides dishonest gamblers—adulterous, profligate and insane? Was it any surprise that illnesses settled in for generations, hollowing out each generation in their wake? Often when an unmarried man married after a considerable delay, he’d have already fallen prey to sexual diseases, and if a young widower didn’t remarry, he’d end up falling victim to such illnesses as well, and wander crazed from gali to gali.
*
Deep in thought, Chetan reached the triangular chowk of Papadiyan Bazaar, when suddenly his attention was arrested by two shopkeepers fighting over a game of chaupar in the corner.
This particular chowk in Papadiyan Bazaar was quite small. The shops on the right side veered away from the bazaar, then turned straight again, to form a sort of a triangle by which the right side of the bazaar was turned into a smallish chowk. To one side, at the edge of the bazaar, Salho (Saligram) was rolling out papads in front of his shop. First he made balls of the dough from mashed lentils and chickpea flour, and set them out. Then he coated them lightly in oil and rolled them once each with the rolling pin to flatten them out. After that, he picked them up a second time and rolled them into a ball and threw them on to a nearby mat. His heels rose slightly as he squatted and pressed them out. After rolling out the papad, he’d toss it on the mat and then plant his heels on the ground again.
Inside the shop, his boy Melaram was washing the dal in baking soda, the odour of which had spread throughout the chowk. Wherever there was sunlight in the chowk, papads had been spread out on mats, the rolled black pepper peeping out like tiny eyes. Dyed dupattas and turbans fluttered lightly in the breeze from a clothesline stretched across the chowk by the corner dyer, Chiragh, and right in front of Salho the papad maker, Relu was grinding dal on the grindstone of the bazaar. He wore only a loincloth and undershirt and the sinews of his arms and shoulders were taut.
Although the papad makers were engrossed in their work and it was still early in the morning, there was a notable lack of excitement in Papadiyan Bazaar. In the rest of the shops—there were a few goldsmiths, a tobacconist, Moghar the plumber’s shop (who was still called Moghar Patphera although he’d given up skeining work years ago), and Dwarka’s cotton and tape weaving shop—all was still and the owners of these shops were taking part in a chaupar game set up in the corner.
Chetan saw that Chiragh the Dyer and Moghar Patphera were the ones actually playing the game—although, at that moment, they were fighting as they played—while the rest crowded about them in a ring. Among these, he saw Daulat Ram the astrologer, his long braid knotted up, clad in nothing but a cloth printed with the name of Ram wrapped around his waist and wooden sandals. Since the chaupar cloth was spread out below Dwarka’s shop, he was seated right on his stoop, wearing a dhoti that ended a bit above the knees, his sacred thread across his naked torso, baring his yellow twig-like teeth in a grin and enjoying the game.
Papadiyan Bazaar was never an exciting bazaar anyway, but what with these chaupar players leaving behind all worries in this world, utter dullness reigned. However, this wasn’t the only bazaar like it. In Jalandhar there were (and still are today) countless such bazaars where games of cards, chess, or chaupar carry on from morning to evening.
*
When Chetan, tangled up in his memories of the lives of his uncles, neared the chaupar players, he heard raised voices and, looking up, he saw Moghar Patphera suddenly take off his shoe and smack Chiragh over the head two or three times in quick succession.
Chiragh was a pale young man. Handsome, pointy-brown moustaches adorned his face. He wore a trailing parrot-wing turban on his head, a striped boski kameez and a tahmad around his waist.
With the very first blow, his turban fell off. For a moment, he stood there stunned, then cursing fulsomely, he leapt towards Moghar. But the astrologer held him tightly in his arms, remonstrating with him. A couple of people grabbed hold of Moghar as well.
Chetan asked an onlooker what had happened.
Then he learned that Chiragh and Moghar had each bet a seer of milk on the turn. Moghar had won all seven pieces; only one had ended up in the house of hell. All seven of Chiragh’s pieces had died, but in one hand he had killed two twelves, two fourteens and two sevens, and not only had he boldly freed one of his pieces and won, but he’d also given a beating to Moghar’s one piece lying in hell. And he didn’t let that piece of Moghar’s rise again. If Moghar lifted it up, he’d beat it down. Finally Chiragh beat all seven pieces. Each player had only one piece remaining. But by ill fate, Moghar ended up in the house of hell again and Chiragh beat him, and Moghar was mortified and pulled off his shoes and hit him.
Moghar claimed Chiragh had won the piece through trickery; his piece had also come into the house of hell, but he’d moved one house back. And not only had he won the game by trickery but he had also sworn at him, crying, ‘This isn’t skeining, it’s chaupar! It’s not something your average riff-raff can pull off!’ That low-down dyer had had the nerve to swear at Lala Moghar Mull and taunt him, crying out, ‘Let go of me, let’s see what he’s got!’
Chiragh probably wouldn’t have calmed down and would have knocked a few more heads together, but Daulat Ram the astrologer leaned his shiny oily braided head near Chiragh and said, ‘Now, brother, if the only thing that will calm you down is taking revenge, why don’t you hit me with your shoes!’
And as soon as the Brahmin bowed his head before him, Chiragh’s anger cooled. He bent down and touched his feet. As he stepped over to his shop, he swore at all the other shopkeepers and called them impotent—they only knew how to win—and then, cursing himself even more roundly, said he’d sooner sleep with his own mother than play with any of them again.
‘What a vow that good-for-nothing’s made! But he’ll be back to playing again in two days!’ Chetan thought to himself and, casting a glance of revulsion at all of them, he continued on his way.
Whenever he came to Jalandhar and happened to pass that way, and saw the games of cards, chess and chaupar, he thought to himself, ‘How can these people waste so much time?’ He was astonished at the lack of ambition and ineffectiveness in such people in comparison with his own ambitions and hard work. Sometimes he envied them too. He wished he had no worries whatsoever, that he had no sense of responsibility, that he had no desires and that he could happily play chaupar all day long like them. But he shuddered to imagine such an aimless existence. He felt that even if he wanted to, it was beyond him to live that way. He wouldn’t even last two days . . . and the image of Hakim Dina Nath swam before his eyes—a man who had intelligence, a powerful means to rise above his station, and one whose struggle had always given Chetan inspiration, yet nonetheless, still struggled a
way in Jalandhar . . .
*
As he walked over to Dina Nath’s shop, the last several years passed before Chetan like the colourful clouds of a monsoon evening.
2 Skeining, or patphera, involves wrapping skeins of silk around the knees to untangle the threads.
6
Dina Nath, who was known only as ‘Dina’ or ‘Thallu jariye da puttar’3 before he attained the title ‘Hakim’, was quite wise even in boyhood. He was just a few years older than Chetan, but right from the beginning, Chetan had got along very well with him.
Dina Nath’s father, Thallu Ram, and his uncle, Dal Chand, regularly went to the akhara. They had at least warded off the sense of laxity one got from their names in terms of their physical forms. They were of medium height, fair and fit, with large round eyes and handlebar moustaches—yes, in terms of their mental acuity, it was a different story, but you can’t expect sharp minds from goldsmiths! Dina Nath also exercised at the akhara, but he had a much sharper mind than either his father or his uncle. He adored reading. Chetan was just in Class Six when Bhai Sahib started reading novels rented from Mahantram Booksellers in Bhairon Bazaar. Watching him and secretly reading the books he brought home, Chetan also developed a fondness for reading. Whatever spending money he got, he saved up to rent more novels, and he and Dina Nath would read together whatever books he brought home.
First, he read Chandrakanta, then he read Chandrakanta Santati, then Bhoot Nath and then The Arabian Nights. One day he was standing at Mahantram’s shop, just flipping through books, when he saw a book with the title Magic of Bengal. He brought the book home. He read the secrets to many magic tricks, but he couldn’t figure out how to set up a single one. Then he showed the book to Dina Nath. Dina Nath kept the book for only two days, but he must have noted down numerous tricks in that short time, because after that, for the entire month, he showed Chetan a new trick every single day.
One morning, on the way to school, when Chetan went to get him in Gali Barhaiyan where he lived in the house opposite Anant’s, Dina Nath produced a colourful ball from his pocket with a piece of twisted cotton string threaded through it. Dina Nath pulled one end of the string, then stretched each end of the string in his hands until it was taut. Chetan watched with astonishment as the ball balanced atop the string, near Dina Nath’s finger and thumb. Then Dina Nath whispered a mantra to himself: ‘Go, son!’ and the obedient ball swung around to the bottom. Dina Nath again commanded, ‘Stop!’ The ball stopped. Whenever Dina Nath commanded, the ball would move; when he told it to stop, it stopped.
Dina Nath astonished the other boys with his magic all day at school, and Chetan kept asking him for the secret of the trick.
He recalled how he had threatened him for days, until Dina Nath finally came out with the secret . . . Although the string was pushed through the top of the ball and came out the bottom, the hole wasn’t straight; inside the ball it came together at a 120-degree angle. If the string was at all loose, the ball would spin around, and when it was stretched taut, it would tremble to a stop.
‘I had to ruin several balls before I got the formula right,’ Dina Nath told him joyfully. ‘The holes have to be equally long on both sides and they should meet exactly in the middle of the ball.’
‘That’s it?’ asked Chetan, paying Dina Nath’s joy no heed. He’d thought perhaps the whole thing really did work on the strength of the mantra.
The next week, Dina Nath showed him an even more interesting trick. He held out his left hand in the shape of a half-moon, with one card in it. Chetan saw that it was the queen of hearts. Then he took just a pinch of ash in his other hand, sprinkled it over the card and, crying ‘Vanish!’ he waved his right hand over it. The queen of hearts was transformed into a matchbox; Dina Nath took a match from it, lit it, then blew it out.
Chetan was amazed. ‘Show me again!’ he cried.
Dina Nath put both his hands behind his back. The next moment, that same queen of hearts was in his left hand. Chetan was staring at him hard to make sure Dina Nath wasn’t sneakily hiding anything from him. But in the blink of an eye, he’d sprinkled the pinch of ash on the card, waved his right hand over it, and the queen of hearts became a matchbox again.
When Dina Nath finally told him the secret after several days of threats and grovelling, Chetan was disappointed again. The card that was in Dina Nath’s hand was a completely ordinary small, thin card. Dina Nath had cut one side of the matchbox cover off and glued it to the back of the entire card. The box filled with matches he kept hidden in the fist of his right hand and when he waved his hand from below to above, the card stuck to it and became a matchbox.
‘That’s all!’ said Chetan. ‘That trick was even easier than the first one.’
‘Oh, it’s an easy trick?’ Dina Nath made a face. ‘If it’s so easy, how come you were beating your head for so many days; how come you couldn’t figure it out?’
‘It’s not easy to guess,’ retorted Chetan, trying to make himself feel better, and he asked Dina Nath to prepare a trick just like it for him.
Two or three weeks later, Dina Nath showed him an even more amazing trick. He took out a completely new deck of cards and shuffled it thoroughly, then told Chetan that he should shuffle it himself and take out a card. Chetan shuffled the deck thoroughly and took out a card. It was the nine of diamonds. ‘Light it with a match,’ said Dina Nath.
‘But then you’ll be one card short.’
‘Burn it!’
Chetan nervously set fire to the new card. When it had turned completely to ash, Dina Nath picked up a framed glass box filled with sand. Shaking it up and down, he showed that there was nothing else in it, then took a pinch of ash from the card and sprinkled it over the box. After this, he placed the box against the wall and, murmuring a mantra, he began to wave a handkerchief over it. Chetan’s eyes popped out when he saw that slowly the curtain of sand disappeared and the same shiny new nine of diamonds appeared in the glass box.
When Chetan finally learned the secret to that trick after many threats and entreaties, he was even more disappointed than before. Every single card in the deck had been the nine of diamonds. There had already been a card in the frame. While they were talking, Dina Nath had turned the frame over and the sand had started to slide down.
All these astonishing magic tricks turned out to be exactly the same. Chetan would be excited by the trick when he first saw it, but when he learned the secret, he’d completely lose interest. Although he learned several of the tricks from Dina Nath, and had even been praised by the boys in the neighbourhood for them, he was no longer as thrilled by magic tricks as he had been at first.
Then one day, he took out a book from Mahantram Booksellers called Treasury of Spells. After reading just the first chapter, he decided he would develop exceptional hypnotism skills and astonish Dina Nath. He drew a circle with black ink on a blank piece of paper and stuck it to the wall before him, following the instructions given in the book. He closed the door, lit a candle, spread out a mat, knelt down and focused his gaze on that circle. He thought the paper might be a little too high; it was written in the book that the ink circle should be directly in front of one’s eyes, so he lowered it a bit. Now it was a little too low. Then he put it up a little higher and, feeling fully satisfied, he went and sat on the mat again and focused on the circle. Staring unblinkingly at it, he began to count to hundred. When he reached ten, he blinked. The second time he blinked at twelve, the third time at fifteen. Each time he got a little further. When he got up after an hour, he felt quite happy—although his eyes were watering—because he was making good progress according to what was written in the book.
But on the seventh day, he was forced to end his training. His eyes were smarting. It was summer. His already weak eyes were strained from staring so hard in the dim candlelight in that humid room. When he found no relief despite applying zinc lotion around his eyes for three or four days—in fact, his discomfort had only increased—Bhai Sahib took him t
o see Dr Jivaram.
Dr Jivaram was not a real doctor. He’d spent his entire life as a compounder at Mayo Hospital. Upon his retirement he’d moved to Kot Pushka, opened a dispensary on the ground floor of his house, and started calling himself a doctor. He wrote the prescriptions himself and prepared the medicines as well. After examining Chetan’s eyes, he said he had trachoma. He’d have to perform a ‘caustic touch’, he said, and advised him not to read in poor light and not to read lying down, otherwise his eyesight would be ruined. He sat down on a stool and told Chetan to sit on the floor and lean his head back in his lap. Dr Jivaram was a sturdy man. His lips were shaded by huge white moustaches. He wore a loose-fitting shirt and a huge turban on his head. When Chetan leaned his head in Dr Jivaram’s lap and looked up at him, he felt nervous. Then Dr Jivaram touched each of his eyes with the caustic. Although he rinsed out Chetan’s eyes with cold boric water after the caustic touch, Chetan began to whimper with pain. He felt as though his eyes had been touched with burning embers. He returned home from Kot Pushka with the help of Bhai Sahib, almost a blind man. Dr Jivaram had said he should have the caustic touch administered one more time, but Chetan never went back. Instead, he got a prescription from Hakim Nabi and had a package of barberry root extract, musk and camphor made up by Jeetu Attar, the compounder and, lying in the dark in his room, he applied a poultice of these to his eyes for a whole week. After fifteen days, when his eyes got better, he was rid of the hypnotism bug as well.
In the City a Mirror Wandering Page 7