In the City a Mirror Wandering

by Upendranath Ashk

  Smoke Lal Badshah!

  Enjoy life!

  And since that day he’d got a third name along with Laloo and Blockhead—Lal Badshah!

  31

  When Chetan went inside the shop and sat down, Laloo ran off and ordered a glass of lemon sharbat for him even though he had repeatedly refused his offer of a drink.

  Sipping on the sharbat, Chetan looked his old classmate over. Then his gaze travelled to the crates of cigarettes stacked up from floor to ceiling in the back room, and he remembered the Punjabi saying he’d heard from Ma, ‘‘“kha” kheh urāve fer vī “kha” khat.t. ke liyāve!’—that is, a Khatri always comes home with money even if he’s just been wandering about. Although the Khatris considered the merchant Baniyas beneath them, the two were the same in the eyes of the Brahmins by virtue of being in business. ‘This arrant fool, this totally unintelligent Laloo, who ran away from home six times, who wandered off God knows where, now sits here calmly, a successful businessman,’ Chetan thought, and for a moment, he felt jealous of his indecisive, messy friend, with his runny nose and rheumy eyes; but the next moment, he shook off the feeling. He was an intellectual story-writer after all, a newspaper man; his wealth lay in his power. And this guy was a Baniya with a dense brain . . .

  ‘So listen, I hear Amichand has become a deputy collector.’

  This was another blow to Chetan. This was the third time since morning he’d heard about Amichand becoming a deputy collector. He pitied the narrow-mindedness of the people in his mohalla. He wanted to ask sarcastically, ‘Oh, so has he become the Governor?’ But he didn’t, and instead replied in a preoccupied manner, ‘Yes, I heard from Anant. Now he’ll go for training and he’ll become a small-time officer. But he’s hardly becoming a deputy collector today!’

  ‘Chacha Sohan Lal has already started calling him deputy,’ said Laloo. ‘And I’ve heard that Amirchand [Amichand’s older brother] is walking around the mohalla all stuck up, as though he’s the one who’s been made deputy collector, not Amichand.’

  Laloo laughed as he said this and wiped his nose with his sleeve, and then he added in a whisper, ‘I ran into Amirchand this morning. He said if Telu brings Bhago back to the mohalla, he’ll murder him . . . now that his brother has become the deputy, he can do whatever he pleases!’

  ‘Who knows when he’ll actually become a deputy; now he’ll have at least six months’ training,’ repeated Chetan.

  But Laloo was on a roll and didn’t hear what he said. He added, ‘And Telu is bent on bringing Bhago back to the mohalla.’

  Chetan was still thinking about Amichand. He kept remembering the time when he’d greeted Amichand so warmly at Shimla’s Scandal Point, but Amichand’s brusque manner and distant tone had left him cold. He scarcely heard what Laloo said about Telu and Bhago, and said, following his own train of thought, ‘It was good Amichand placed in the competition this time. This was his final chance. If he’d stayed back this time as well, what else would he do but become a better class of clerk in some office?’

  ‘Everyone has his own fate,’ said Laloo. ‘Babu Maniram spent his entire life sitting at a desk at the post office, but his son—who knows—he might be Governor some day.’

  ‘Not Governor, son-of-a- . . . Governor!’ snapped Chetan. ‘If he just makes it to revenue officer by the time he retires that’ll be a big deal. He’s a crammer. It was just a fluke he passed. He sat for the competitive examinations three times before and never passed. Oh, sure, he’ll be Governor one day . . .’

  ‘Amirchand said that if we got self-rule today, Amichand would be a member of the Governor’s council in ten years, or he could even become the Governor himself.’

  ‘Amichand may or may not, but Amirchand will definitely become Governor one day.’

  And Chetan guffawed loudly; he’d pushed the topic from his mind, and also got Laloo off the subject.

  But Laloo wouldn’t let it drop.

  ‘Amirchand has just assured Bada and Debu that as soon as Deputy Sahib assumes office, he’ll hire those two as his orderlies. Debu was the one who gave me the news, when he saw Telu in Mandi, and he said Telu’s thinking of bringing Bhago into the mohalla.’

  For the first time, Chetan paid attention to what Laloo was saying.

  ‘Bhago? Who’s Bhago?’

  ‘Arré, Dharam Chand with the TB’s wife!’

  ‘What does she have to do with Telu?’

  ‘She was the one who ran off with him!’

  ‘With Telu? When? Where? He’s Brahmin; she’s Khatri.’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘I’ve just come to Jalandhar after almost a year,’ said Chetan. ‘After Dharam Chand died, I’d heard that Lala Mukandi Lal had taken her and her children under his protection.’

  ‘Yes, yes, when he was done with his brother’s last rites, Lala Mukandi Lal had new kurtas, dhotis and vests stitched for himself. He bought a beautiful muslin turban, had Chiragh the dyer colour it pearl-grey, and arrived in the bhuvara one day, looking a dandy, and went and paid his respects to his sister-in-law.’

  Lal Badshah laughed and wiped his nose with his sleeve, and then the gist of what he told Chetan in an enthusiastic whisper was that Lala Mukandi Lal had told his widowed sister-in-law, Bhagavati, aka, Bhagavanti, aka Bhago, ‘Please don’t believe that you are alone in this world just because my brother Dharam Chand is no longer with us. There’s still Lala Mukandi Lal in the Andon (Anandon) family, and for him, there’s no difference between his own son Mangal and his brother’s children.’ And from that day on, Mukandi Lal got up early every morning, did some calisthenics first, then filled water from the well for his sister-in-law’s home, and brought her vegetables and other groceries himself. Then one day, he informed the people of the mohalla that he was moving out of his room in the bazaar. His sister-in-law had said that the house was empty and she was scared—without a wife, a home is haunted—but it also feels haunted without a man.

  ‘Bassstard!’ muttered Chetan. ‘First he ruined his middle brother’s widow, then he started laying a snare for the older brother’s widow.’

  ‘But the middle one’s widow wasn’t about to put up with it,’ laughed Laloo. ‘After her son Mangal and his bride had fallen asleep, Shanno went that very night to his room and raised such a stink, my God . . . she was screaming at the top of her lungs: “You ruined my honour and now that I’m old, you want to throw me out after using up my body! You gave me this disease! Yes, I’m going to die but I won’t let you go, etc., etc.!” And people gathered and sat and enjoyed themselves downstairs at Gurdayal the paan seller’s in Chaurasti Atari. When she realized they were listening, she began to scream even louder. Finally, Lala Mukandi Lal placed his turban at her feet and said, “Dear God, don’t ruin my reputation like this in the bazaar! I put on this act for you people’s benefit. Otherwise I’m hardly the age for this sort of thing. I wanted to keep home goods in the home, but if you won’t accept it, that’s fine!”’

  Chetan was starting to enjoy himself. He laughed loudly.

  Laloo told him that Shanno had no objection to home goods coming into the home either (at this point, he wiped his eye with the hem of his kameez) but how could she tolerate having a co-wife forced on her. So, starting the next day, she took Lala Mukandi Lal’s place. She’d get up early in the morning and wash the plinth of the well after singing a prayer to the Satguru, then she’d fill the pots of water for her sister-in-law’s home. She’d send Mangal to get Bhago’s vegetables and other groceries. She’d go to the bhuvara two or three times a day to keep her sister-in-law happy. She brought her and both her children to her place as well. But after a short while, Shanno saw that Mangal had started spending quite a bit of time at the home of his skinny-as-a-cucumber aunt, she of the long chin—casting aside his lovely-as-a-flower bride—and feeding his aunt’s children. One day there was a fierce fight over this issue between Mangal’s wife and Bhago, and such unmentionable things were said by both sides, that the people of the mohalla
covered their ears; Shanno had no choice but to take the side of her daughter-in-law against her sister-in-law. The two sisters-in-law listed one another’s ancestors and showered upon them brand new ‘sweet words’, and then, still not fully satisfied, they began clawing at one another’s hair.

  Telu’s roof and Bhagavanti’s roof were separated by a small curtain. Telu did his calisthenics on the roof every day, after massaging his dark hearty body with oil, and he slept there as well. Nobody knows for sure when the curtain that separated the two roofs was pulled aside. The mohalla people found out when Bhago took her trunk of clothing and jewels and ran off with him one night, taking her children with her, and the mohalla people heard that Telu had taken a house right in Mandi, and that he now lived there with Bhago.

  This time, both Laloo and Chetan laughed, and Laloo slapped Chetan hard on the hand and told him that Shanno had continued to curse the mohalla’s Brahmins all day long, and the Khatris had continued to grit their teeth. But when Aunty Purandei came out of the bhuvara gesticulating angrily and began to sing the virtues of the Khatris and told them to go and catch Telu, report him to the police—why are you cursing at all these people?—then the Khatris, Amirchand foremost among them, announced that if either Telu or Bhago set foot in the mohalla again, he’d give them a thrashing.

  32

  Chetan said goodbye to Laloo, and was walking along towards Adda Hoshiarpur above Panjpir. He wanted to think about Neela, about the pain of separation that had settled deep within him; he wanted to think about Kunti—his desire to pass beneath her window and catch just one glimpse of her was more powerful than ever today; he wanted to think about Chanda—he’d fled early this morning to avoid spending time with her and now he was wandering about aimlessly. But after seeing Laloo, thoughts about Bhago had pushed all those others aside and preoccupied him now . . .

  He had been studying in Class Eight when she’d come as a bride, or more like a slave girl, into the Khatri family of the mohalla. Chetan imagined her childhood—a small village in a verdant valley in the Shivaliks. Just a few homes dotting a mountain slope. Sloping slate roofs that shone like mirrors in the sunlight. A river flowing through the valley below. In the river, a water mill. Green and yellow paddy fields spread out across the valley. Pine trees. When their dry needles covered the slopes, she and her sisters would slip and slide as they walked along. Near the village, a swimming hole at one spot in the river . . . there they’d bathe to their hearts’ content, swim, wash and dry their clothes, throw a ball and sing:

  Bravo my Challa!

  Mix the grain and water

  Challa is on the pulpit

  He doesn’t listen to me

  He listens to my mother

  If she wishes, we will leave

  or dance a kikli:

  Kikkali of the Kaleer

  My little brother brought a turban

  My elder brother brought a dupatta

  Shame on the son-in-law

  who did not bring a thing

  But when she was still a child, her parents had passed away. That was when her playing and singing had suddenly come to a halt. Her uncle had taken her under his protection. And to pay the price of that protection, she had to perform back-breaking labour. She took her guardian’s cattle to graze, hoed the fields, planted crops, cut grass for the cattle and, if there was time, cooked, washed the dishes and brought water from the river. She worked so hard she didn’t even notice when her body changed, and she began to be talked of in the village not just for her labour, but also for her youthful beauty. Proposals began to come in from the surrounding villages; the villagers believed anyone’s fate would be enhanced by her presence in their home. But her uncle wanted cash; after preparing such a hardworking girl he didn’t want to just hand her over to someone. He believed he should get at least one thousand rupees in cash for such a young and industrious girl, but when no one was willing to give even five hundred, let alone a thousand, and Bhagavanti was going on twenty, it seemed to her uncle that if she didn’t get hitched to some post soon, she’d break her tether and run away. So he took her off to Mukerian to look for someone needy there, or someone from Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur or Ludhiana, and so lighten his load. Chetan’s father was assigned to Mukerian Station then. Mukerian was the terminus in those days. There was a large market there. Farmers and businessmen from all over knew him. He was friends with police sergeants, doctors and sub collectors. If even a needle were to drop in the market, he’d find out about it. If someone from the hills came to sell their daughter, how could he not learn of it? When he saw the girl, he thought of Dharam Chand. Mukandi Lal was his childhood friend, and he’d already said several times, ‘Bau Bhai, get my brother settled somehow, I won’t forget the favour all my life.’

  ‘You’ll forget the favour that same day, you bastard, but don’t worry. I’ll thread the needle somehow or other,’ said Chetan’s father laughing.

  He had a message delivered to the marriage broker with whom Bhagavanti’s guardian was staying, saying that he was calling for his friend from Jalandhar, who would be there in two days. And that he should not talk to anyone else until he heard from him. He wrote a letter and sent it via the water carrier to Jalandhar and said that he should bring Mukandi Lal back with him.

  Mukandi Lal came by the next train to Mukerian. He saw the girl. She wasn’t all that beautiful, but she was tall, strong and youthful, and there was a kind of half-slumbering longing in her eyes that pulled at Mukandi Lal’s heartstrings. He didn’t think she’d make a bad sister-in-law. Bhagavanti’s uncle was asking for a thousand rupees, but Pandit Shadiram reasoned with him and put pressure on the broker by insinuating that he’d be sent to jail for selling women, thus forcing him to take four hundred rupees. It was decided that the marriage would be conducted according to tradition. Lala Mukandi Lal would shoulder the expenses for both sides and, having sealed the deal, he went back to take care of the wedding arrangements.

  Chetan recalled what Bhagavanti’s husband, Lala Dharam Chand, had looked like: a skinny man of forty or so; a bit darker than Mukandi Lal; cruel by nature, serious and silent. He had remained unmarried due to a stain on the family honour. Had he parted ways with his brother Mukandi Lal, perhaps he’d have had no difficulty getting married, but he wasn’t prepared to do so.

  And Chetan recalled the story he’d heard from Ma about the stain on the Andon (Anandon) family . . .

  *

  There were four brothers in their home—Jivan Lal, Harjas Rai, Dharam Chand and Mukandi Lal. They had a small ancestral home behind Chetan’s house, which was still just one-storey at the time, when all around it two- and three-storey houses had been built, and it looked like a well from the roof of Chetan’s three-storey house. Lala Mukandi Lal’s great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather had been a high officer in the court of Rana Ranjit Singh, or so they said, but their father had run a grocer’s shop and following the principle of the Persian saying pidaram sultān bud—‘my father was surely a king!’—Lala Mukandi Lal’s elder brother had taken the name of their ancestor and laid the glory of his family thickly upon the people of the mohalla. Their father had not yet reached forty when he passed away. Then Mukandi Lal’s two elder brothers, Jivan Lal and Harjas Rai, began sitting at the shop. In those days, Dharam Chand was apprenticed at the cotton tape shop, and Mukandi went regularly to the akhara. Jivan Lal’s wife, Dammo, was very quarrelsome, so when Harjas Rai married Shanno, their hearths had to be separated in just six months. Mukandi Lal’s mother stayed with her eldest son in the old house, and Harjas Rai took Shanno and his two younger brothers to a rented house in the chowk outside the gali, right across from Chetan’s sitting room.

  ‘Ma, Chacha Mukandi Lal must have been very handsome!’ Chetan had said to his mother once. ‘He still is.’

  ‘Yes, son, he was the most handsome of all the brothers, and then, he also went to the akhara and enjoyed himself while living off his elder brothers.’

  ‘Shanno Chachi must have bee
n about the same age as him?’ Chetan had asked.

  ‘A year or two older,’ Ma replied.

  ‘Ma, people say that when Shanno came here as a bride she was very beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, son, she was very fair; she was radiant then. Harjas Rai seemed like an old man next to her.’

  In six months the hearths had been separated again and in six more months the shops were separated as well. But Harjas Rai did not live long after he married. After just two years he passed away. Then Dharam Chand left the tape shop and took over his brother’s shop, and although Mukandi Lal still went to the akhara, he started to take on household duties as well. He took on the responsibility of filling the water pots for the house, doing the shopping and anything else his sister-in-law needed. Harjas Rai hadn’t yet been dead a year when it was said that Shanno had fallen ill. After that, it was said she’d had a son. An uproar broke out in the mohalla. Jivan Lal and Dammo were in favour of grabbing this ill-omened woman who had cast a blot on the Andon family by the braid and throwing her out. But Dharam Chand was not prepared to do this. He reasoned with Mukandi. He acknowledged that the boy was his before the elders of the mohalla, and the elders threw a chadar over the two of them, and Shanno became the wife of her husband’s younger brother.

  People spread all sorts of nasty rumours. Some thought the inappropriate relationship between the brother and sister-in-law had begun during Harjas Rai’s lifetime. Dammo announced publicly that the sin was Dharam Chand’s and he’d pulled a fast one on innocent Mukandi. But that wasn’t true. Dharam Chand stayed at the shop all day—even his meals were delivered there—whereas Mukandi hung around his sister-in-law all day long, and this much was true: Whether or not they had an inappropriate relationship, Shanno was devoted to Mukandi during Harjas Rai’s lifetime. ‘Now whenever those two quarrel, Shanno makes this accusation at Mukandi,’ Ma had said. ‘She says that he ruined her honour, but the truth of the matter is that she was the one who ruined his.’