In the City a Mirror Wandering

by Upendranath Ashk

  ‘No, no, no trouble at all!’ objected Chacha Fakir Chand. ‘Please consider this your own shop.’

  Then suddenly Chetan recollected his duty. He introduced Hunar Sahib to Chacha Fakir Chand and Chacha to his friends.

  ‘If Bau were here (Chetan’s father’s friends called him “Bau [short for Babu] Shadiram” or just “Bau”), he’d ask you to recite a couplet,’ said Chacha Fakir Chand, referring to Chetan’s father’s colourful personality. ‘He loves music and poetry. I don’t really understand much myself.’

  ‘What use is a couplet the ordinary man cannot understand?’ cried Hunar Sahib. ‘I consider simplicity and efficiency the greatest virtues of a couplet. I don’t recite the “If you don’t understand, God help you” type of couplet.’

  Hunar Sahib dragged over a stool, sat himself down, and told the rest of them to sit on the stoop. Then he told Chacha Fakir Chand how he had rendered the difficult verses of the Gita into easy Urdu—this way the educated and uneducated alike could feel the Gita deeply with their hearts—‘I’ll recite some verses for you,’ he said suddenly. ‘See if you understand them or not.’

  And, without waiting for a response, he recited that same translation of the Gita that he’d already recited to so many people since morning. The third time only Chetan was listening.

  Chetan couldn’t tell from his detached expression whether or not Chacha Fakir Chand understood any of it, but he listened intently and offered praise as well. It was in the midst of this that the crank boy returned with the ice.

  ‘Chacha ji, since you have your own factory, why don’t you order a maund or two of ice and keep it here?’ asked Chetan. ‘Do you supply bottles only to shopkeepers, not openly to customers?’

  ‘I get an entire block every morning, beta,’ said Chacha. ‘There was such a rush today at twelve o’clock, all of it was finished off. It’ll be delivered again in the evening.’

  The crank boy in the meanwhile had washed and crushed the ice and put it into clean glasses. Then he opened three bottles and handed them each a glass.

  The pink of the rosewater and that light fragrance! As soon as the glass reached his hand, Hunar Sahib swayed and recited a couplet in reference to his soda:

  Sheikh ji, soda is not the daughter-of-the-grape9

  Why have you grown anxious without reason?

  This was a couplet Chacha Fakir Chand understood, and he praised it, as did Ranvir and Nishtar.

  Well pleased, Hunar Sahib cried, ‘Here’s another!’

  Love is like the bubbling of soda

  Now you see it, now you don’t

  ‘Wah wah! Wonderful!’ Chacha Fakir Chand was thrilled. When Hunar Sahib had emptied his glass, he ordered the crank boy to open four bottles of Vimto.

  The brand Vimto had just come out in those days. An ordinary bottle of lemonade could cost only six paisas, but a Vimto was six whole annas. It tasted like Coca-Cola. Chetan felt uneasy. ‘No, Chacha ji,’ he said. ‘Please don’t open any for me.’

  He had thought Hunar Sahib would take his hint. But he remained silent. His face shone at the mere mention of Vimto.

  ‘How did you get rid of your thirst with just one bottle?’ asked Chacha Fakir Chand. ‘One time your father drank up an entire brass pot of lassi made for eight men all on his own.’

  ‘All on his own!’ chirped Hunar Sahib. ‘How much lassi was that?’

  ‘There must have been sixteen or seventeen glasses!’ replied Chacha Fakir Chand and he began to tell the story.

  ‘One day, we were coming home after exercising. It was summer. We were terribly thirsty. I dissolved some sugar and made one and a half seers of lassi in a small brass pot.

  ‘“Yaar, put in some more water, I’m really thirsty,” said Bau.

  ‘“There’s enough water,” I replied.

  ‘“Bastard, I’m going to drink that whole thing myself!” thundered Bau.

  ‘There were eight of us. I had counted two glasses per person and put in enough for sixteen and one more on top of that. I was annoyed and said, “If you drink all that on your own, I’ll give you a one-rupee reward!”

  ‘And Bau didn’t even ask, “Bastard, where will you get one rupee from?” He just picked up the pot and put it to his lips and he didn’t set it down again until he’d swallowed it all down to the last drop.’

  Although Chetan had no special love for his father, his chest swelled with pride on hearing this story and he looked around proudly at his companions.

  By then the crank boy had opened the bottles of Vimto and filled their glasses. Chacha Fakir Chand presented the very first glass to Hunar Sahib.

  Taking the glass, Hunar Sahib remarked, ‘This reminds me of a couplet. It is a humorous one, but it might have been composed for Pandit ji himself:’

  Even the ocean cannot quench my thirst

  Oh cup-bearer, today pour me a whole pot of whisky

  At this, he pretended his Vimto was whisky and put it to his lips lustily.

  All of Chacha Fakir Chand’s boredom had vanished. On just hearing the word whisky his face flushed with the thrill—‘Wah, wah! What a couplet! If Bau Shadiram were here, he’d praise it. Truly, for him, even a jug is not enough.’

  And Chacha Fakir Chand began to tell a tale about the time Pandit ji had put a bottle to his lips and finished it in ‘just one gulp’.

  Hunar Sahib licked his lips as he polished off his glass of Vimto. Vimto wasn’t whisky but he felt a little buzzed all the same. He recited one more couplet:

  Though thirst was assuaged by the cup

  What’s left is thirst for beholding you

  After reciting the couplet with relish, he said, ‘Chacha ji, we’ve slaked the thirst of our gullets but we will always be thirsty for conversation with you.’ Having established an uncle-nephew relationship with him, he added, ‘Now, whenever I come to Jalandhar, I won’t leave without paying my respects to you.’

  And he stood up and took out his wallet.

  Chacha Fakir Chand took the wallet from his hand and placed it back in his pocket. He mentioned his friendship with Chetan’s father, Pandit Shadiram, and his great debts to him and told him that when it came to Chetan’s friends, they should consider this factory their own and come whenever they wished.

  Feeling much pleased, Hunar Sahib assured him that if he wanted them to hand out any advertisements for Mandi Soda Water Factory, he should think of him; he’d prepare such a great ad in verse that people would be amazed.

  And saluting his host with a ‘Vande Mataram!’ as he pressed his palms together, he stepped down from the shop. His disciples came after him, and Chetan too set off behind them after paying his respects to Chacha Fakir Chand.

  9 The daughter-of-the-grape, i.e. liquor.

  25

  Chetan again walked along behind his companions, hitching up his pants as before, as he carefully forged a path through the mud of the bazaar. His thoughts strayed from Chacha Fakir Chand to Chowdhry Gujjarmal, Tejpal, Desraj and his father’s other friends . . . His father had a thousand faults, but nonetheless, his friends were prepared to do anything for him at the drop of a hat. Chetan wondered if he had any friends like that. And he realized that he did not have even one. There was Anant, but would Anant be willing to do anything for him as Chowdhry Gujjarmal, Lala Tejpal or Chacha Fakir Chand would for his father? When he thought about it, he felt the answer was no . . . But what had he himself done for Anant? Was wandering around together in school and college a sufficient basis for friendship? When Chetan thought about it, he felt perhaps it was not. Perhaps there was more giving and less taking in friendship. Whether it was Gujjarmal or Tejpal, Daulat Ram or Desraj, whether they liked Chetan’s father or not, Chetan knew that if they needed something, any one of them could go to his father and he would leave no stone unturned to help them. Perhaps it was this sense that bound Pandit ji’s friends to him. They knew in their heart of hearts that all his cursing was superficial, that whatever he owned was all for his friends . . . and drag
ging his feet through the mud of the bazaar, Chetan felt for the first time jealous of his father, who angered him but also terrified him, and for whom he even felt somewhere in his heart a deep hatred . . . He’d been wandering around since morning. If he’d had any intimate friend with whom he could share his feelings, who could understand his troubles, how much more relieved he’d feel if he could spend the day wandering around aimlessly with him, even if the friend did nothing else . . . but he had no such friend. He was completely alone. He’d seen nothing beyond himself to help him conquer his harsh struggle, and as long as we don’t do anything for anyone else, how can we expect them to help us? One friend takes care of you, another helps with money, a third gives love. There’s no greater fool than he who wants care in exchange for care from a friend, money for money, or love for love . . . Perhaps Chetan’s father wanted nothing from his friends; perhaps he just wanted them to allow him to serve them and when he understood his friends no longer needed him, he avoided them. Now that Gujjarmal and Tejpal had settled down, and become white collar—respectable leaders of their own mohallas—Pandit Shadiram had also moved away from them, keeping company instead with those he could wine and dine, those for whom he could do favours and whose company filled his free time. The strange thing was that he still showed no hesitation in hosting friends who cursed him behind his back, and he knew they cursed him, too. ‘I don’t hold my hand out to beg from anyone,’ he liked to say. ‘If you’re putting something in someone’s hand, don’t do it like this,’ he’d spread out his hand as though waiting to receive something, ‘but like this!’—and he turned his hand over and held his fingers together as though placing something in an outstretched palm.

  *

  The mud grew even deeper where the bazaar turned towards Mandi. It was as though there was no paved street at all today. The wheels of the bullock carts had furrowed the street terribly. Not only had they formed two deep ruts down the centre, but they’d also gouged the street at other points, and the entire road now resembled a mason’s mud pit. Chetan wasn’t sure how he’d manage to avoid the mud and get to Mandi Gate. He walked along, placing his feet gingerly in the footprints of the other pedestrians walking back and forth along the sides of the street . . . and then somehow a new side of his father’s married life occurred to him . . . His mother was devout, faithful and virtuous, but for the first time it seemed to Chetan that she could be the reason for half his father’s profligacy . . . His father had started drinking in his boyhood. He was sociable, generous, a friend of friends. Ma had been raised in a Mishra home. In her religion, everything her husband did was sinful. Since he couldn’t cook meat in the house, nor drink, he’d taken to staying out most of the time. His mother had once told Chetan that when she came as a bride, she hadn’t allowed meat to be cooked in the house for several years. His father sang very well and he often stopped beggars playing the iktara or the sarangi in the street. After listening to their songs, he’d give them a couple of rupees instead of just a couple of paisas. Sometimes he’d invite the mirasins to sing on festival days and wave money around before giving it to them the way men reward dancers. Ma thought this absolutely terrible. His father liked to sing tales; he’d get excited and belt them out. In Ma’s opinion it was unforgivable to have tales sung in a house where there were children and, as soon as his father left, she’d gather up all the tales and lock them in the trunk in the dark hallway in case the children somehow caught a glimpse of them . . . and by the time Ma had figured it out, it was too late. A woman from a less devout home could certainly have straightened him out as the wives of Gujjarmal and Tejpal had . . . Chetan became thoroughly convinced that if Ma had allowed his father to eat meat and drink in the house or if she’d cooked and served the meat herself, then his father wouldn’t have gone out and wasted so much money . . . And Chetan was surprised that he’d never looked at his father’s life from this perspective before. He’d thought of him as a sinner, a scoundrel, a cruel man, an alcoholic and a gambler, a carouser. But what was there in the house for such an impulsive man? He didn’t believe in prayers and worship, fasting and customs and rules—their home must have seemed an enormous void for his art-loving soul, and if he ran out of the house just as soon as he came in, was that surprising? Ma always said that he was only awful towards his family members. The rest of the world had only good things to say about him, because he wined and dined them all, the whole world’s children were his children, he treated only his own as though they weren’t his . . . But perhaps that wasn’t the case . . . If he could just ask his father . . . if his father could tell him—tell him about the mental process of his early married life . . . but it was still difficult for him to speak in front of his father . . . As he slid along in that mud-filled trough that was Mandi, Chetan imagined his devout, devoted mother who placed the greatest faith in fasting and rules, gods and goddesses, sin and virtue, and his uncouth, rowdy, sociable father. He imagined the early days of their married life, and whereas before, his heart only melted for his mother, for the first time a strange compassion welled up in his heart for his father—there must have been such a void inside him to make him always keep his buddies so close.

  *

  ‘Jija ji, Jija ji?’

  Caught up in his own thoughts, Chetan was walking by Lala Jalandhari Mull’s shop, when he started on hearing Ranvir’s voice. Hunar Sahib and his pupil were seated on the front stoop of the shop washing off the grime from their mud-soaked feet and shoes.

  ‘Arré bhai, where were you wandering off to like a man who’s blind and deaf? You see no one, you hear nothing,’ Hunar Sahib called out.

  Chetan turned back, still holding up both his trouser legs.

  26

  Shri Jalandhari Mull ji ‘Yogi’ was breathing in and out noisily and Chetan found it hard not to laugh. He got the impression that Yogi ji had sat down on the mat for his breathing exercises merely for their benefit. Downstairs, his accountant had told them that Yogi ji stayed at the shop until one o’clock; after that, he went up to the rooftop room to spend time in thought, reflection and meditation. He wrote down their names on a chit and took it upstairs, then returned and told them, ‘Yogi ji is seated on his mat, please either wait here a few minutes, or go and sit quietly on the mattress.’ Chetan was all for waiting downstairs, but Hunar Sahib said, ‘Come on, let’s go and sit upstairs. Then you’ll see how when Yogi ji meditates, his lofty thoughts begin to have a spontaneous impact on those sitting near him.’

  Hunar Sahib went up the stairs and spoke his name outside the door to announce his arrival. Then Chetan heard swift footsteps inside the room. It’s possible he was mistaken, but it sounded to him as though someone had leapt up from somewhere and gone to sit in another spot. Yogi ji’s little boy came out of the room and showed them in before going away. As soon as he entered, Chetan saw Yogi ji seated on his mat in the lotus position, breathing heavily.

  Hunar Sahib—and Ranvir and Nishtar, following his example—prostrated themselves near Yogi ji’s feet like devotees and then sat down on the mattress, and Chetan sat down behind them with his back against the wall. He did not hope for any thought connected to Yogi ji’s meditation to pervade his mind spontaneously—at times, his gaze rested on Yogi ji’s heavyset body, or his frog-like neck, or his shaven head, or sometimes on the blackish pimple below his nose on the right side of his cheek. And Chetan wondered what his own problem was: Why did he give himself a hard time instead of relaxing? He would have completely avoided coming here, but then again, he was secretly eager to see what ‘Sarfarosh ji’ looked like as ‘Yogi ji’, and he thought if there was any opportunity, a discussion might make him feel less dejected.

  When he had been a poet, Yogi ji had looked more like a wrestler, and he didn’t look any different now. He’d got fatter and his belly protruded. Gazing at his round belly, it occurred to Chetan that perhaps it was in fact this growing mid-section that had inclined him towards yogi-dom.

  Chetan didn’t put any faith in yogic pra
ctice. Since childhood, he’d had his doubts about it, and as there was no learned person in the house to resolve his doubts, and life had not given him the leisure to study this deep and mysterious subject on his own, he always took advantage of any opportunity to discuss it with those more knowledgeable than himself.

  As Chetan sat there waiting for Yogi ji’s concentration to break, he recalled numerous things he’d heard about yoga in his childhood.

  *

  Like most of the country’s lower middle class people, he’d received some mixture or other of Indian philosophy (which included all sorts of rumours and superstitions from Hindu and Muslim cultures, fused with true knowledge) in his pabulum. From his childhood on, Dada ji had told him tales of rishis and munis—holy men who had attained powers from deep ascetic practices, and who, by performing austerities in Himalayan caves, managed to live for several hundred years . . .

  Chetan always wondered how those rishis could live for several hundred years when ordinary people pass away by the time they reach seventy or eighty.

  Dada had a simple solution for his doubts: ‘On the day a man is born into the world,’ he would say, ‘Brahma (the Ordainer) fixes the day of his death. An accounting of man’s every breath exists in Lord Yama’s register and when his breaths are completed, Lord Yama’s messengers come and take him away—he doesn’t even get to take one breath more. Rishis and munis take as many breaths as the Ordainer has written in their fate, but when they cause their breaths to rise with yogic practice, they don’t exhale for weeks, or even months.’ And Dada ji would tell him the tale of Maharshi Bhrigu’s son, Chyavan Rishi, who had sat in penance with his back against a tree for years and years. His entire body was covered over in grass and leaves, and ants formed an anthill around him. There were only two holes for his eyes in that pile of dirt. Then one day, the daughter of King Sharyati, Sukanya, came that way playing with a girlfriend. Thinking the pile of earth merely an anthill, she stuck a thorn into the hole, poking the rishi right in the eye, and his concentration was broken.