*
But Chetan found Debu’s personality much more interesting than those of his two colleagues.
*
Debu had one squinty eye. When the people of the mohalla spoke of him contemptuously, they added ‘kana’ or ‘squint-eye’ to his name. His father, the astrologer Daulat Ram, had been one of the minions of Chetan’s father, Pandit Shadiram. Daulat Ram’s education had consisted of just three or four years of study in the field of moneylending, but he’d spent the greater part of his life in the skeining business, or patphera. During Chetan’s childhood, Jalandhar was famous for silk-dyeing and sateen. Raw silk was dyed in large vats and pots. There were scores of boilers for dyeing. When the water was drained off after the dyeing, an odour spread throughout the gali and all the drains ran with colour. When Chetan would come home from his primary school in Qila Mohalla, he often covered his nose with his sleeve to avoid the stench. The loose, dyed skeins would be sent into Patphera Bazaar, the skeining market. Two skeiners would sit across from one another on stools. One would wrap a dyed silk skein around his knees and then spread his knees apart. Then he would move his knees from left to right, letting go of one thread at a time. The other would wrap each thread around his own knees to create a skein, just the way a kite-fighter creates a skein with his pinkie and thumb from string cut down from another’s kite. The men formed the skeins so rapidly that Chetan would be transfixed, standing in Patphera Bazaar for hours watching the skeining of fine silk thread.
Sateen—the silken fabric woven on Jalandhar’s looms—was so thick and lovely that it was sold far and wide. Coloured threads of silk were cross-woven together to give an amazing impression of sunlight and shade. Wide sateen skirts or ghagras, and suits were usually stitched for weddings. But when cheap, machine-made silk threads and fabrics started coming from abroad, this Jalandhari handicraft was finished. Not only did sateen stop being made, but silk-dyeing work came to an end, and Patphera Bazaar lay deserted. After that Pandit Daulat Ram took up the work of his forebears—family priesthood. Upon becoming a priest, he began sitting in the company of Qila Mohalla’s famous astrologer Pandit Atma Ram, and one day he marked his forehead with three lines of ash, made a knot in his braid, wrapped a shawl printed with the name of Ram over his naked upper body above his dhoti, and announced that he was an astrologer. All the same, Chetan knew perfectly well that this respected astrologer, despite saying ‘No, no,’ at Chetan’s father’s parties, partook nonetheless and, despite shaking his head in refusal, ‘drank’ when Pandit Shadiram forced him to (but only when three or four friends pressured him into it). Chetan had seen astrologer Daulat Ram’s ‘refusals’ and ‘acquiescences’ when performing waiter duties at his father’s parties. Daulat Ram would say, ‘Look, Shadiram, don’t force me! I went to Haridwar and left all this behind me. Why are you making me partake in sin with you?’ or ‘Look, I’m not the same Daulat Ram any more, I’m a priestly astrologer. You’re a Brahmin too, but you’re even worse than the mlecchas—the non-Hindus—leave me to my piety!’ and Chetan knew what he was getting at. Upon the respected astrologer invoking ‘mother— Haridwar’ and dharma and karma, Pandit Shadiram would order his comrades to shake all the Haridwar and piety from the bastard! And two or three of them would leap up and descend upon the pious astrologer, while Pandit Shadiram would personally force the glass to his mouth—the astrologer’s shawl imprinted with the name of Ram would fly off, his sacred thread would become a noose around his neck, they’d hold him down from all sides, and then he’d take a sip of wine as though under extreme duress. But then, when he’d glance towards the glass again, all tied up like that, his eyes would become thirst personified. His thirst seemed to bubble up like steam when the cover of a pot is suddenly removed. Chetan would watch the steam of longing bubble from his eyes and overflow on to every part of his face as Daulat Ram laughed and whimpered with feigned anger. And when he’d take the first sip, he’d cry out, ‘Get away from me, you’ve destroyed all my dharma earned over all these years!’ And he’d take hold of the glass, shove his restrainers aside and sit up, forgetting all righteousness. Oh, how he’d lash out at Pandit Shadiram and his other colleagues with the filthiest of curses expressed in the purest Punjabi as he lifted the glass to his lips.
Sometimes, when he returned home from these parties in the middle of the night, he’d be singing in a voice that sounded like a busted drum:
Oh my Ram, I am your sinner!
The next day, he’d roundly curse Pandit Shadiram and his depraved comrades, keep a fast for penance and recite prayers. Whether he actually fasted and prayed, Chetan didn’t know, but he made sure to announce as much to all passers-by, while seated at Harlal Pansari’s shop.
Chetan never did understand why Daulat Ram, if he really was such a pious man, showed up at Chetan’s father’s house the moment Pandit Shadiram came into Jalandhar. Why didn’t he just steer clear of the parties instead of later paying the price by fasting and praying?
His wife—Debu Kana’s mother—was a strict and quarrelsome woman. And it was also well known in the mohalla that she beat her husband. How affectionate would a woman who beat her husband be towards her own children? Thus, as a result of this ‘boundless affection’ of his mother’s, Debu had grown accustomed to slaps across the face and punches to the back from infancy. (Some parents do believe in the philosophy that a child’s bones are strengthened from beating, and their lungs from crying.) When Debu fled from this ‘affection’ of his mother’s, he always ended up with his young uncle, Pyare Lal, who was himself adept at rendering bones thoroughly steely.
Pandit Gurdas Ram’s youngest boy, astrologer Daulat Ram’s younger brother and Debu Kana’s uncle, Pyare Lal, aka Pyaru, was one of those youths who was born from his mother’s womb a goonda. Chetan remembered that ever since he’d been conscious, Pyaru had been the chief among the mohalla’s mad, wayward boys. When he was studying in Class Two and Three, Pyare Lal had been just a couple of classes ahead of him. Because he was older, he took everyone under his patronage and performed all sorts of mischief. If anyone refused to do as they were told, then, in his words, he’d ‘mould’ them, that is, he’d beat them senseless. Chetan usually avoided his group, but living in the mohalla, he did sometimes end up with them. He remembered two such incidents from his childhood days quite clearly.
*
It was summer and small, unripe mangoes were in abundance. It was fun to eat the tiny mangoes with salt, but since he would be scolded at home if he was seen with them, and told that his eyes would be inflamed and his throat would get sore, Chetan used to go out to Company Bagh or to the fields outside the city with the other mohalla boys, where they’d pay no heed to the sun or the hot loo wind, to the dust or rain storms, and pick up the fallen mangoes, or knock them down with stones—Pyaru and Debu both had such good aim, their first or second shot would fell the fruit, whereas the rest of them threw stones that usually fell two to three yards on either side—then they’d sit in the shade of a tree, peel, cut and salt the mangoes, and eat them. Their eyes smarted and their throats felt sore, but neither of these afflictions could deprive them of the supreme pleasure of eating those tiny fruits.
One morning on their way to school, someone proposed they go and pick mangoes from Tikka’s garden.
Pyaru wasn’t in the mood to go that day. ‘Those mangoes have started coming into the market to be sold by now,’ he said. ‘What’s the point of picking them from trees? Come on, I’ll just get you some along the way.’
In those days, most of the bookshops were in Bohar Wala Bazaar, but there were two large vegetable shops there as well, at the turning from Mitha Bazaar towards Bohar Wala Bazaar. It was morning, and there was a large crowd at the shop. The basket of green mangoes lay right on the ground. When they were still at a distance, Pyaru called out, ‘How much for the mangoes today?’
The vegetable seller was busy. ‘Two for a paisa,’ he responded as he weighed out the other customers’ merchandise. Then Pyaru cut
through the crowd and arrived at the basket of mangoes. He winked subtly, and Debu came up behind him.
Pyaru boldly picked up a pair of mangoes and handed them back to Debu, who distributed them to the other boys. When every boy had got mangoes, he held up two more in his hand and showed them to the vegetable seller from the crowd; he handed him one paisa and then took his disciples off to school.
Another time he took all his comrades out for muskmelons. The melon market was in Chowk Imam Nasiruddin. Melons were stacked up in piles there, surrounded by crowds of customers. Pyare Lal sneaked into a circle of customers crowding around one such pile. They were nice melons and the crowd was dense. He went and squatted in front. Debu, who was his lieutenant in such matters, slipped into the crowd and sat behind him; Jagna went behind Debu and stood slightly stooped over. Pyaru picked out two large melons and, stroking them, called out to the shopkeeper, ‘How much for these?’ The shopkeeper’s attention was elsewhere. Then Pyaru rose slightly and rolled the melon through his legs. Debu pushed the melon through his legs to Jagna, and Jagna passed it to the very last comrade who took it across the bazaar and gave it to the boy sitting at Charat Singh Corner.
Pyaru, after pushing one melon to the back, selected another one, and when he saw that the shopkeeper wasn’t paying attention, pushed it through his legs and picked up a third.
On the day of Nirjala Ekadashi, Chetan went with his Dada to get melons from the market, and Pyaru and his gang came too. Since Debu had already told him what they would do, Chetan watched him as Dada purchased the melons.
After Chetan left the market with his Dada, he saw them all in Lal Bazaar, picking up the melons, pounding them in two with their hands and eating them exactly as villagers do . . .
*
But Pyaru didn’t just do all this, he did many other things as well: he smoked cigarettes and beedis, sang vulgar songs, played dirty jokes on boys and cursed obscenely, or rather, he educated his disciples in all forms of obscenity. No one in his group ever had the nerve to contradict him or he’d beat the dissenter to a pulp.
The thing that astonished Chetan was Pyaru’s courage. Especially in terms of stealing—it was second nature to him to go out to Bara Bazaar with his band, wait until the fruit seller’s attention was elsewhere, then nick apples or pomegranates or bunches and bunches of bananas. Not just that: a typical exploit of his would be to go to a fair, stand in a crowd gathered around a sweet-seller, hold up one rupee and show it to the sweet-seller a couple of times, then put it in his pocket; after that, he’d take puris (without paying any money), then get the change back from the sweet-seller. It wasn’t that he never got caught; if he got caught, he’d quietly put the stolen item right back, but if the sweet-seller cursed at him or scolded him, he’d haul off and sock him, declaring that he was being falsely accused of theft. Because of all the fun that could be had during such activities, Chetan wanted to go with him too, but for one thing, he was afraid of getting beaten by Pyaru, and for another, he was afraid of getting caught and dishonouring the name of his station master father. He also knew that if his father found out that he’d stolen something, he’d bury him alive. As with all fathers who have seen every kind of sin, Chetan’s father too wished to see his sons become completely virtuous, good boys (although he’d never said so).
But Debu faced no such difficulty. He found ever new happiness in wandering about with his uncle. Sometimes his uncle would beat him mercilessly for some minor infraction, but Chetan had never seen tears in Debu’s eyes even after so much thrashing. His mother had made his bones so strong in his infancy that nothing could affect Debu, even if his uncle walloped him so hard that his hand started to hurt . . . and his uncle saw to it that this ‘worthy’ nephew of his became proficient in every art. Yes, Debu did have one shortcoming, but it wasn’t in his uncle’s power to make it right. Although Pyaru’s skull too was stuffed with hay in place of brains, his hay was a bit of a higher class than his nephew’s (he could never be called knowledgeable or intelligent, but he was definitely rather cunning—he noticed suitable opportunities in fighting. If an opportunity wasn’t favourable, he’d avoid it). Debu had no capacity for reflection whatsoever. He’d leap into a fight heedless of all consequences. He didn’t worry at all if his adversary was strong or part of a group and because of this, he’d been badly thrashed many times, and many times, after they’d found out about it, he’d been brought back in a semi-conscious state. But as soon as he got healthy again, he’d grab his opponents one by one and beat them up, taking revenge so thoroughly that others, finding him alone, wouldn’t have the courage to raise a hand against him themselves.
*
Chetan remembered two incidents related to Debu in particular, because he himself had played a role in both.
*
The first incident was from those days when Debu’s wife was extremely ill. The thing was that, like his uncle, Debu was not very educated. His uncle had failed the Matric. Debu had got stuck at Class Five, although he’d managed to plagiarize his way through to the third division, and just as the uncle had been married off the moment he’d failed school, so too had the nephew. This was the only solution the parents of Kallowani Mohalla had for improving their sons—marriage! Then, although the boys were ruined even more by this, and went on to produce ruined offspring, they believed this to be the fate of Kallowani Mohalla, and tricked themselves into believing that they’d fulfilled their duty as parents now, and if all that was fated in old age was enduring hardship at the hands of their sons, what could be done?
Debu’s wife was beautiful. But a beautiful wife could not tie Debu down. Whether his wife was lovely or not she had only one use for Debu, and he worked her fully for it. He didn’t believe he had any other duty as a husband. If he had known better, he wouldn’t have believed this, but he didn’t know any better. Debu’s negligence and his mother’s atrocities dragged that innocent girl into the embrace of tuberculosis in only two short years (when the people of the mohalla had glimpsed her charm as the palanquin was lowered, they had declared that Debu must surely have given a gift of pearls in his previous birth). She lay on a charpoy by the window of the room on the Barne Pir side, and coughed and coughed, and sometimes passers-by below would be seized with terror when they heard her.
Although he’d never done anything for that sickly wife of his, one evening, Debu saw some Muslim boys playing chikri in the shade of the neem tree at Barne Pir. He mentioned his wife’s sickness to them and demanded they not make any noise and told them to run along from there.
There were Muslim neighbourhoods on three sides of Kallowani Mohalla—the entire district beyond Barne Pir was Muslim. Who could bloody well stop them from playing chikri near the Pir’s tomb? When they ignored what he said, he immediately picked up the board and turned it over, cursing at them all the while. The game pieces scattered all about. The Muslims surrounded Debu, who was alone.
Chetan had been visiting from Lahore for two days. He was talking to someone in the mohalla, when a small boy came running and asked where Chetan’s brothers Parasaram and Shankar were (Parasaram and Debu had been in the same class and because they both frequented the akhara, they were great friends; in the meantime, Shiv Shankar had started going to the akhara as well).
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Chetan.
‘There’s a fight going on at Barne Pir between Debu and the Muslims.’
Chetan knew both of his brothers. They didn’t hesitate in the slightest when it came to fighting; so, wanting to avoid them getting their heads busted open, he ran over himself to put an end to the matter instead.
He had just made it to Jwali Mehri’s kiln, when he saw that Debu was standing with his back to him, surrounded by a semicircle of four or five boys, who were preparing to crush him.
Just then, Debu turned around and cast a glance back at the sound of Chetan’s footsteps, or to see if anyone from the mohalla was coming (from such a distance he couldn’t have gathered in that one second who was co
ming, but it was enough for him to know that someone was). The next moment, he climbed on top of one of the boys and knocked him backwards, and then the whole group fell upon him.
Debu actually had an amazing knack for grabbing his adversary by both legs and knocking him flat with lightning speed: he’d lift him up by both ankles and the next moment, his opponent would fall to the ground, bang, flat on his back. Debu’s grip was so powerful that his opponent just couldn’t move. If he grabbed the legs of the boy whose turn it was during kabaddi, he wouldn’t let him drag him even two inches, let alone reach the line. And he’d knocked over the boy who was threatening him the most among all those surrounding him. When Chetan got there, he saw that one boy was beneath Debu, and the rest were pounding on him from above, but he still had the first one pinned.
In the City a Mirror Wandering Page 17