In the City a Mirror Wandering

by Upendranath Ashk

  ‘But Ma, Shanno is so ugly now.’

  ‘She got a sickness from Mukandi. As soon as he married Shanno, he began hanging around with girlfriends—he himself was spared but Shanno was disgraced.’

  Chetan was acquainted with this matter, because even in those days, Shanno walked about with a wound on her thigh, and just like Ma always said in Punjabi of the Kaliyug, ‘Chor uchkkā chaudhri, ’gund.i ran.an. pardhān’—the thieves rule the roost and their molls are in charge—she was the headwoman of the mohalla in those days. She got up bright and early every morning. She now handled the task of cleaning the plinth of the well, she was the one who organized prayer meetings for the holy men and, just as Laloo had said, she was the one who had complained to Amirchand that her sister-in-law had disgraced the Andon family by running away with Telu.

  Chetan laughed to himself. He thought about the things that had been said about Shanno from time to time, since his childhood up until just a few years ago. He imagined how Shanno had lit up the dark room of that home with her splendid beauty: she’d been fair, tall as a cypress, and shapely. And he imagined her younger brother-in-law: eighteen years old, thin, strong, narrow-waisted, broad-chested, fair as milk, with golden-red hair. The brother-in-law was still handsome, but when you saw the ruins of Shanno it was difficult to even guess how the building had once looked.

  There was nothing wrong with Dharam Chand. Serious and hardworking, he wouldn’t agree to abandon his younger brother, and the blemish had remained on his name, and he had stayed a bachelor until he married Bhago.

  *

  Chetan was perhaps studying in Class Eight or Nine in those days and during the holidays, he always went to Mukerian. He was included in the wedding party of Chacha Dharam Chand, and had come with the procession to Jalandhar. After Ma had seen the bride she had come home and said, ‘There’s something about her eyes. I doubt that girl will stay put with the Andons.’

  But as long as Dharam Chand remained alive, Bhago stayed with him. Lala Dharam Chand was entirely under her control. That same Dharam Chand who, despite the urgings of the whole world, wouldn’t abandon his brother and sister-in-law, couldn’t even stay with them six months after marrying. And so their homes were separated again. Again the shops were divided. Dharam Chand moved to the second floor of a house in the bhuvara. He gave the shop to Mukandi and reopened the tape shop in Chaurasti Atari. He lived eight more years after he married. He was forty or forty-one and Bhago twenty or twenty-one when they’d married. During those eight years they even had two children, of whom the girl was seven and the boy five. Dharam Chand had suffered from asthma even before he married. He’d been starved for intimacy. He overdid it a bit. The asthma got worse. The silence of the summer nights was often broken by his continuous coughing. The people sleeping on the roofs were woken from their slumber and sleepy children were roused and started to cry. His detractors said that he was suffering from tuberculosis rather than asthma and avoided going to his house as much as they could. Thus years went by and his asthma increased and one night he passed away from a fit of coughing.

  *

  Somehow Chetan’s heart was filled with enormous sympathy when he thought about Bhago’s past. Her childhood had been marked by want; want had marked her youth as well; when she got a husband, he had been middle-aged; and on top of that, he was an asthma patient; his relations were base and wretched; what was so bad about her running off with Telu? It’s not like Dharam Chand had left her any valuable property. If she stayed, she’d have to put up with Shanno’s abuses, suffer as the target of the lust of her middle-aged brother-in-law just so she could survive. If she ran off with the man she preferred, who was her age (even if he was a Brahmin), was that such a bad thing? If she’d ended up with a Khatri, perhaps the partner wouldn’t have had so much trouble. But do women really have a caste? Do rivers or the earth have a caste? She was no different from Kunti and Chanda . . . so courageous and so brash . . . but was not the tragedy of her life basically even deeper—she had been like a bird, soaring about in the free atmosphere of the mountains, and now she was trapped in the cage of Kallowani Mohalla. Where could she fly off to? If she flew out of one cage, wouldn’t she just get trapped in another? Was the atmosphere in the Jhamans any better than that of the Andons? Wasn’t there the same damp, the same suffocation, the same meanness? But that Telu, that dusky, muscular young man—his was the cage she preferred—for her, it was paradise. With Telu, she’d drink up all the poison of that suffocating atmosphere as though it were nectar. She was not born into the slavery of lower-middle-class cities, she had a zest for living her life according to her own desires, so why shouldn’t she be bold? Chetan shook his head with displeasure. Just then someone placed a hand very lightly on his shoulder from behind.

  ‘Vande Mataram!’ said the man, and laughed slightly.

  Chetan turned . . . the man was tall, but looked of medium height due to the hunch between his slumped shoulders; he had a wheat-coloured complexion and a sharp face (the long nose and sunken cheeks made it look even more angular), and wore an open-buttoned achkan coat, homespun churidar pyjamas, and a Gandhi cap on his head.

  ‘Oh hello, Govindaram ji, Vande Mataram . . . Vande Mataram,’ said Chetan.

  ‘I heard from Hunar Sahib you were in town,’ he said, walking alongside Chetan. ‘I thought you would come my way, but I’ve been waiting two days and haven’t seen your face. Tell me, are you well? I heard you’d just returned from enjoying the delights of Shimla.’

  ‘Forget delights, I’ve just been experiencing frights; but frights are a new experience as well, that’s what I’ve just been learning about . . . What are you doing over here in Panjpir?’

  ‘I’m owed money for a block by one party, and since I’m short of cash, I thought I’d just bring it myself. Hardly anyone comes of his own accord to pay me at the shop . . . where are you coming from and where are you headed?’

  ‘I ran into Hunar Sahib at Rudra Sen Arya’s shop. I’ve just come from walking all over—Khalsa Hotel, Company Bagh, the Widows’ Aid Society, and Lala Jalandhari Mull ji Yogi’s place with Hunar Sahib. I may be going back to Lahore tomorrow or the next day, so I thought, “Why not take a look at my old haunts?”’

  ‘But you didn’t come my way?’

  ‘I was thinking of going over there on my way back from Kot Kishanchand through Puriyan Mohalla and Qila Bazaar. How could I come to Jalandhar and not take a round of Bhairon Bazaar? How could I pass by your door without knocking?’ And Chetan laughed.

  ‘Hunar Sahib was supposed to come this evening. He’s translated the Bhagavad Gita into ordinary Urdu. He thought there should be a meeting about it and he’d read it aloud.’

  ‘He told me to give you the message that he’ll come to your room this evening,’ said Chetan. To himself, he added, ‘That’s why he’s covering the length and breadth of Jalandhar—so that everyone will come to the meeting.’

  ‘When I found out you were coming, I was very happy. I’ll definitely arrange the meeting, but if you can say a few words about this new poem of his it would be great.’

  ‘I might leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Come on, let’s talk while we walk.’

  ‘I’ll come by your room on my way back from Kot Kishanchand.’

  ‘Then come on, let’s walk as far as Khingra Gate.’

  And he put his hand on Chetan’s shoulder in the style of a politician.

  33

  Bansi the vegetable seller of Lal Bazaar and Lala Govindaram, the stamp maker and engraver, had something in common. After the self-rule movement, they’d been seen about the bazaar much less. When the movement was at its height, the two of them were involved in it night and day; when there was a lull, Bansi sold vegetables or participated in swadeshi poetry competitions with Rehmat at his shop, and Lala Govindaram sat all day at the open window of his room above Dina Nath the bookseller and engraved blocks. At that time the modern-style printing blocks weren’t yet made in Jalandhar, and Lala Govin
daram engraved prepared blocks—the only one who did this work in the entire city. His room, which was on the second storey of the house, jutted out slightly over the bazaar and bore a signboard reading ‘Block Maker and Engraver’ that could be seen from afar. But the bugle of a political movement would sound somewhere in Gujarat, Maharashtra, or in central India, and Lala Govindaram would stand, abandoning his tools, forgetting customers and blocks, and wander about from gali to gali, mohalla to mohalla organizing rallies and processions. Bansi would ring the bell and make the announcements and proclamations, and Lala Govindaram would go to the homes of speakers and volunteers and gather them all together. Although from ’21 to ’31 (as long as Chetan remained in Jalandhar) he had organized thousands of meetings, he, like Bansi, was not able to give any speeches in the meetings. He’d choose chairmen for his meetings who would be able to make up for the weaknesses of some speakers with their brilliant speeches when there was extra time.

  But they had something else in common, more than their aptitude for successfully organizing meetings. Their love for the self-rule movement was unstinting and they were enormously industrious and dutiful. If they were determined to do something, they wouldn’t stop until they’d completed it. In the days of the movement, they joined scores of pickets and went to jail eleven times in ten years.

  Chetan was studying in Class Six during the movement of ’21 when he heard both their names from the tongue of every child. Mahatma Gandhi was about to lead a procession. There was an extremely cruel district administrator by the name of Buck, who tried to stop the procession in Civil Lines in front of the courthouse. But the procession continued by. It was an incredible mass of people. The authorities were not prepared for such a large procession. Mahatma ji’s car had gone ahead, but Buck rained down blows on the rest. Lala Govindaram first staged a sit-in in front of the courthouse. They beat him mercilessly, dragged him off and threw him into the police car and took him away. That night, Mahatma Gandhi praised Govindaram’s heroism and dutifulness to a full assembly. And he said that no one could keep enslaved a country whose soil had produced a beloved son like Lala Govindaram. Mahatma ji gave his speech and proceeded to Ludhiana. As soon as he left, Buck decreed all assemblies illegal. And when people refused to give in, he gave the command to use lathis against them, and the skies echoed with cries of ‘Victory to Mahatma Gandhi!’ and ‘Victory to Lala Govindaram!’ They’d been wounded by lathis but they didn’t budge from the rally. Buck attempted to quash the movement mercilessly but his violence only added fuel to the fire. In galis and mohallas people named all the neighbourhood dogs ‘Buck’ to relieve the resentment in their hearts. Around that time, a scary black stray dog showed up from God knows where in Kallowani Mohalla. Immediately the people of the mohalla dubbed him Buck. (When that dog went mad after a year, people chased after it with sticks and the brutal beating it received was surely intended for Deputy Commissioner Buck as well. People were unwittingly beating the crazy deputy commissioner, not the mad dog.)

  *

  The side of Lala Govindaram that Chetan saw during the days of the boycott of foreign clothing would always be engraved in his mind. Foreign clothing was collected from gali to gali, mohalla to mohalla, for seven days, and on the eighth day, at Nadiram’s Tank, a bonfire was lit and the protestors were clubbed with lathis by the police. A list was prepared of the homes in the city that had not yet donated foreign clothing. Government officers were left off the list; the volunteers made it their mission to gather clothing from the rest. But there were some souls who were not persuaded by all their explanations, entreaties, shouts of victory and curses. The volunteers even called for their deaths, but they remained unmoved, as though those curses were not for them but for someone else. Among them was a well-to-do but miserly goldsmith by the name of Bhavaniya Ram. He would not donate even an old-fashioned, locally made rag, and this irked the volunteers; they felt that if one of their own people could not be prevailed upon, they’d surely fail with the foreign government. For six days, the volunteers visited his home constantly; different groups went, but it had no impact on him. The worst part was that instead of giving them foreign clothing, he roundly cursed both them and the Congress party. If it had been an ordinary movement, people would have torn him to pieces, but it was a non-violence movement, and the goldsmith was also a miser, and an eccentric to boot. When the volunteers finally gave up, Lala Govindaram himself decided to go there with two comrades on the final day.

  In those days, discipline had become fairly lax in schools. The whole thing was a huge spectacle for the children. They wandered about the galis and mohallas shouting ‘Long live the revolution!’ When Chetan came out of the house in the morning, sometimes he’d go out with one band of children, sometimes another. He was quite eager to learn whether the goldsmith had won or the volunteers. Chetan went to watch with every group that came to his house. Sometimes he felt angry: Why didn’t they just grab the goldsmith’s turban? And sometimes he even felt a certain amount of respect for the goldsmith who remained unmoved despite all the pressure. He was eager to learn who would finally win the tug of war! When Lala Govindaram decided to go himself, he went along too.

  The goldsmith’s shop was about ten or fifteen shops into Lal Bazaar. Lala Bhavaniya was forging a piece of jewellery, his head wrapped in a silk turban incredibly filthy from continuous use. Lala Govindaram went and stood before his shop and said, very politely, but in a commanding tone, ‘Lala Bhavaniram, your sacrifice for national independence has not yet been made. Take off your silk turban and give it to us.’

  ‘“Take off your turban and give it to us”—as if you’ve opened up a turban shop?’ grumbled Bhavaniya without looking at him, continuing with his work.

  ‘Fine,’ said Lala ji. ‘I made a vow coming here that we would not allow you to be a party to sin. We will give our lives right here, but we won’t budge until we’ve got the turban.’

  And Lala Govindaram stood on one leg and turned his face towards the sun. Chetan didn’t remember how long he stood there, or what mantra he recited. All he remembered was that Lala Govindaram’s face gradually became imbued with a peculiar brightness, his veins tightened, his eyes rolled back and Chetan felt that if he continued to stare at the sun like that, it would climb down its rays and Bhavaniya and his shop would burst into flames. Just then Bhavaniya laid down his tools: he took off his turban and placed it at Lala Govindaram’s feet.

  *

  Chetan had had great respect for Lala Govindaram ji since his childhood; he’d seen him working doggedly for the Congress movement, and Chetan was the sort of child who likes to wander about with his favourite leader, but is too shy and awestruck to speak to him. The first time he had come into contact with him was when he was studying in college and his older brother had quit the headache of running a laundry and, under the influence of his friend, the expert dyer, dry cleaner and nationalist poet Shri Rajaram, had jumped into the nationalist movement. His brother had ended up becoming a dentist, and was now happily pulling and filling his patients’ teeth at his clinic in Anarkali, Lahore, and Shri Rajaram had opened a laundry in Ferozepur, or, who knows, perhaps he’d abandoned that too and gone somewhere else, but anyway, Lala Govindaram had been there as well. Chetan’s awe of him had only grown since then, and whenever he came to town, he made sure to go by his room for fifteen or twenty minutes of conversation.

  Lala Govindaram was a lover of literature; he always made sure there were plenty of poets at his meetings, and encouraged new ones. Poets were crucial for setting up meetings. A few poets would make a meeting more entertaining with their brilliant poems, and then the principal speaker would start his speech. When Hunar Sahib came to Jalandhar he went to read poems at a few of the meetings. So impressed by the Congress movement was he, that he’d stopped wearing a suit and started dressing in a homespun dhoti, kurta and cap, and writing nationalist poems with panache. Chetan was still in awe of Lala Govindaram, but Hunar Sahib’s true self had been revealed to him
. His nationalist poetry was as thoroughly empty as the drum of his personality. He never wrote poems that would get him arrested for treason. He made little effort for great gains; one achieves union with the beloved and doesn’t miss out on paradise either. That’s what his nationalist poetry was like as well:

  In every leaf is seen the majesty of the nation

  In every particle is seen the visage of the nation

  No idol can ever be so appealing

  To those whose hearts are filled with the visage of the nation

  On one occasion (when he’d taken Chetan to a reading of his poetry at a meeting) he’d recited his poem in a lustrous voice. But he’d used the same poem at a religious meeting in Lahore on the occasion of Ram Navami; when he stood up to recite his poem, he’d changed only one word—he’d replaced ‘nation’ with the name ‘Ram’!

  In every leaf is seen the majesty of Ram

  In every particle is seen the visage of Ram

  It seemed to Chetan that it was Hunar Sahib’s one goal in life to receive cheap praise cheaply. True literature, which requires labour, was perhaps not his thing. He’d knock together a poem, then make the rounds of the whole city reciting it to friends and acquaintances; after that, he’d organize meetings to recite it, and have it published in as many papers as possible. Sometimes Chetan thought, ‘If he just invested half the amount of time he spends throwing all this together into true literature, perhaps he wouldn’t have to do all this running around’; but by now this system had become second nature to him. Chetan had spent many years with Hunar Sahib, helping him out with all the running around and studying him, but he’d left all that behind long ago, and Hunar Sahib was still stuck in that same swamp. Wandering with him since morning, Chetan had full well understood what he was up to. He no longer felt one iota of respect for him and now Lala Govindaram was asking him to introduce his poem . . . Sure, he could give such an introduction to his poem, he thought, that Hunar Sahib would never turn his face towards Jalandhar again! But for one thing, Hunar Sahib was his elder brother’s friend, and for another, he had once called him ‘Guru’, and although Chetan was no longer his pupil, Hunar still considered himself his guru, and Chetan was embarrassed by that.