In the City a Mirror Wandering

by Upendranath Ashk

  40

  Chetan’s father thought (this is what the people of the mohalla had told him) that Amirchand would be at his uncle Sohan Lal’s, who ran a bangle shop in the bazaar a little beyond Jaura Gate. Sohan Lal had moved to the shop when his wife had passed away, and given the house to Amirchand. Amirchand had got married, had a child, and there was no longer room in the Chowdhry home where Lala Maniram lived.

  But when Pandit ji arrived at the shop, Brahmin youths in tow, hurling profanities at the mohalla’s Khatris, Sohan Lal said that Amirchand had not come his way. Pandit ji showered him with some especially ‘sweet words’, accused him of hiding Amirchand in the room upstairs and, before Sohan Lal could stop him, grabbed the knotted rope hanging from the ceiling, placed a foot on the step leading up to the shop, and jumped over the glass cases full of bangles, landing just inside. He made for the staircase going up to the rooftop room which was inside the shop.

  ‘Bau, where are you going? There’s no one up there,’ called Lala Sohan Lal, jumping after him.

  He was a fair man of medium height. He must have been forty or so, but his face was already wrinkled and his hair had gone salt-and-pepper. There was always some beautiful boy at his shop. The boy would help him in the shop for a while, then go away. The women of the mohalla shrank from sending their little boys over there. Sohan Lal even tried to grab the hem of Pandit ji’s coat to pull him back, but he freed himself with a jerk and ran up the stairs two at a time.

  Amirchand wasn’t upstairs. But there was a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy, wearing dirty knickers and a kameez, sleeping on Lala Sohan Lal’s bed.

  Pandit ji grabbed him by the ear and lifted him up. ‘Did Amirchand come here?’ he asked.

  The boy had been in a deep sleep. Pandit ji sat him up, but even when seated he appeared to be sleeping. Pandit ji barked the same question to him once again.

  Just then, Lala Sohan Lal appeared on the stairs grinning.

  ‘How should he know where Amirchand is, Bau?’

  ‘Who is this?

  ‘He works in my shop . . .’

  ‘And sleeps in your bed,’ said Pandit ji contemptuously. ‘Look how old you are now, you ass, your hair’s gone grey—but you haven’t given up this habit. Why don’t you take a look at your shrivelled face in the mirror?’ And he sang out loudly:

  Hey, Nanak, the fruit of evil doings is always evil!

  Pandit ji continued to sing this refrain as he climbed down the stairs and jumped over the wares in the same way, landing back in the bazaar.

  ‘Did you find him, Bau ji?’ asked Debu.

  ‘No!’

  ‘He’s probably at his aunt’s place, or maybe he’s gone to his father in Chuparana,’ suggested Debu.

  Since his aunt’s house was also in the direction of Chuparana, Pandit ji decided he’d go over there, grab Amirchand’s yogi of a father and go looking for the son with him in tow.

  Chetan was extremely exhausted, so when they all got back to Chaurasti Atari, he turned towards Bajiyanwala Bazaar. But his father thundered at him that he must come along. He remarked softly that he was tired, but when his father cried again, ‘I’m telling you to come!’ he set out silently with them. He knew that the slightest debate would unleash upon him a torrent of the anger saved up for Amirchand. Thankfully, they’d only just reached the next intersection when they saw Pandit Juliyaram and Lala Maniram coming towards them.

  ‘Tell me, Shadiram, how’re you doing?’ asked Pandit Juliyaram, patting his long beard that reached to his navel.

  ‘Let’s not talk about us sinners,’ said Pandit ji. ‘You tell me, how’s your yogic practice; has God come down from on high to take up residence in your soul—or not?’

  Pandit Juliyaram didn’t respond to him. He continued to pat his beard and began to laugh, ‘Bau, you won’t change ’til the day you die.’

  ‘Why should I? I’m not two-faced like you people; I may be a sinner, but I’m no liar.’

  Pandit Juliyaram didn’t respond to that either. His big, round eyes began to gleam, he smiled more widely and smoothed his beard with each of his hands by turns. A moment later, he changed the subject and said, ‘So where are you off to with this army?’

  ‘We were going to look for you. These new pupils of yours have ceased to worry about home and family, and have fallen in pursuit of subsuming the soul in the great soul, and this guy’s “son of Rana Pratap” Amirchand is ruining the life of the people in the mohalla.’

  Now Lala Maniram started, but no sign of agitation or worry showed on his face. ‘What has happened, Bau Shadiram?’ he asked calmly.

  ‘What happened,’ said Pandit ji, motioning towards the long beard of Lala Maniram’s friend Pandit Juliyaram, ‘is that this useless character was himself drowned, and he took you along to drown as well. He is growing out his beard and wearing a sandalwood tilak on his forehead to wash away his sin. He has no wife, and after eating nine hundred mice, this cat has embarked on a pilgrimage; but what sins have you committed? He’s grown a beard. Is it not possible to worship Brahma without a beard?’

  Pandit Juliyaram thought he should say something—his lips even moved—but Pandit Shadiram was drunk, so he thought it better to keep quiet.

  Chetan’s father spoke again, ‘I’m asking, what use is all this yoga of yours, if you can’t keep your boy under control? The bastard who can’t control his own flesh and blood, how will he master Brahma? If he can’t handle this life, what’s he going to make of the next one?’

  Pandit ji was so drunk he could have said anything, but Lala Maniram, who was quite a bit taller than him, placed his hands on his shoulders and smiled sweetly.

  ‘Bau, brother, what are you angry about, what happened?’

  Pandit ji narrated the entire story and told them of his announcement that by beating Telu’s wife with shoes, his son had insulted not only Telu, but also himself, and that Bhagavanti was his younger sister-in-law and like a daughter to him, and that if his son didn’t fall at her feet and beg forgiveness for his evil deed, then someone would surely die, and then they’d see how anyone could continue to live in the mohalla if they insulted him.

  ‘Your son has become deputy, but does that mean you people will destroy the mohalla?’ thundered Pandit ji. ‘I’m not afraid of any deputy; I’ve told all of these people that if he doesn’t go this very day and beg forgiveness, and doesn’t swear an oath for the future that he won’t ever do such a thing again, then we’ll beat him with shoes until he’s bald. I know he’s feeling smug about his own strength and his brother becoming deputy, but we’ll take all his strength and his brother’s deputy commissionery and shove it back where it came from.’

  Lala Maniram was not offended by Pandit ji’s words. He patted Pandit ji softly on the shoulders to calm him down. Then he walked back to the mohalla with him and went straight to Telu’s home, where he entered and placed his cap at Bhagavanti’s feet, and told her that she was like a daughter not only to Pandit ji but also to him. And he was deeply ashamed of the deed his unworthy son had committed. He would go and find him right away, and as long as his son did not beg forgiveness for his actions, he himself would not eat.

  When he came out of the Jhamans’ home, he told Pandit ji to relax, that he’d reason with his son, and if he didn’t listen to him, Pandit ji could do with him whatever he wished.

  Pandit ji said he would be waiting in his sitting room. He’d not rest until he’d fulfilled the vow he’d made, and if Lala Maniram’s son had understood and regretted his actions and begged forgiveness, Lala Maniram should let him know.

  Released now from his duties in the matter, Pandit Shadiram gave two rupees each to Parasaram, Hansraj and Debu so they could go and drink some milk, and ordered Chetan to open the sitting room and put out small bowls, water and pickle. Then he stood just outside the sitting room and called out to Mukandi using a variety of curses related to mothers and sisters.

  Lala Mukandi Lal had just come back from his shop. He called out
that he’d be right over. Chetan opened the door to the sitting room, set out the glasses and small bowls on the table and lit the big lamp. Just then, Lala Mukandi Lal arrived. Lala Fakir Chand took a bottle of liquor out from under his kameez, which had just a bit more than half left in it. Pandit ji poured the liquor into the small bowls as he cursed Lala Mukandi Lal with ‘sweet words’ and told him that even if Mukandi’s sister-in-law had set up house over at Telu’s place, she was still the wife of his elder brother—how had he tolerated Amirchand beating her with shoes?

  Lala Mukandi Lal swallowed his cup of liquor in one gulp, made a face at the bitterness and told him as he gargled with water that he’d been at the shop, and that Mangal’s mother had only just told him what had happened.

  ‘It was good she went to live with Telu, goddammit,’ said Pandit ji as he poured the peg down his throat and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘She’s still in the mohalla; if she’d gone off with some Muslim or Christian, what would you do then? Telu is a Brahmin after all, and Brahmins are born from the mouth of Brahma, you bastard!’

  Pandit ji then filled his mouth with water to gargle. Just then, Lala Maniram arrived, bringing Amirchand with him. He hadn’t actually gone anywhere. He had been right at home all along. At first he wasn’t prepared to beg forgiveness, but when his father reasoned with him high and low, he went unwillingly to ask Bhagavanti to forgive him. When he came into the sitting room, he bowed down and touched Pandit ji’s feet, and said he’d got overexcited and done wrong; Pandit ji was his elder, would he please forgive him.

  Pandit ji was buzzed. He slapped him on the back and forgave him with generosity and gave him a sermon, instructing him that instead of fighting within the mohalla, they should stick together and fight its enemies.

  When they had left, Pandit ji threw back another peg and drunkenly began to sing:

  Oh Radha, you’re not made of gold

  Nor of silver either

  41

  Chetan had rubbed Pandit ji’s temples with oil and soothed him to sleep with great difficulty, and it was not until after midnight that he returned to the room on the roof. The lantern was placed in the lattice window near the door. The wick was set so low it might flicker out at any moment. Chetan wished he could extinguish it. He couldn’t fall asleep with the lamp on. But Chanda was afraid of the dark. He raised the wick slightly and cast a glance at his wife. She lay flat on her back, sleeping soundly, exhausted from her day. He always envied his wife’s sleep. Whenever he woke suddenly in the night, it was impossible for him to go back to sleep. But Chanda fell asleep as soon as she lay down, and after that, it was hard to wake her again. Chetan recalled the house of Sardar Jagdish Singh (landlord and house proprietor) in Changar Mohalla, where they’d lived before he’d gone to Shimla. When he came home around two in the morning from the newspaper office, Chanda often did not respond to his knocking on the door at the top of the stairs, so he’d go to the back of the house and call from the gali. The whole mohalla woke up, but not her.

  Chetan crept quietly into bed and lay down. His back was stiff. His entire body—his calves, the soles of his feet, his toes, his toenails—was in pain from wandering about all day. His eyes ached. But when he closed them and tried to sleep, he couldn’t—the happenings of the whole day, the conversations with friends and acquaintances, and the violent incident in the mohalla, all of these began to spin in his mind: those same sights, those same events, those same conversations. His mohalla, his city, his people, the limited field of their thinking and activity . . . Anant, Badda, Debu, Pyaru, Ramditta, Hakim Dina Nath, Nishtar, Tanvir, Hunar, the Mahatma and the Yogi, the activist and the businessman, Laloo and Amarnath, Pandit Juliyaram and Lala Maniram—and above all, his father . . . He couldn’t bear to remain in this atmosphere any longer . . . he needed to get out of this limited environment immediately and rise above it . . . He focused his thoughts and tried to erase all those images from his mind and go to sleep, but then he thought of the haughty, disdainful look on Amichand’s face, and of Hamid taking his arm from around his neck (he’d forgotten that he’d done the same thing with Kaliya) and an invisible flame flared in his mind . . . He felt a muted anguish at his low state. His friends were advancing ahead of him. What was his own financial situation? He could consider himself a big-shot writer all he wanted, but his monthly income was no more than fifty rupees (and he’d only got fifty when he’d gone to Shimla; otherwise, at the newspaper office, he got only forty), and Amichand was going to be a deputy collector, and Hamid had become an officer at the radio, and what was he? The junior editor at a newspaper, always running at a financial deficit! Two of the four editors of that paper were always ill and he had to do twelve to fourteen hours of work a day. Even if he became a senior editor or a main editor, how would that change things? The senior editor earned one hundred rupees and the main editor one hundred and twenty-five. First of all, there was no possibility of a promotion at the paper, and then, if he went to some other paper, he certainly wouldn’t get more than sixty or seventy rupees . . . he must break out of this vicious cycle! The grindstone of newspaper work had crushed the artist in him. How could he ever write good poetry or stories when he was giving most of his day and night to the newspaper? He hadn’t been able to read even one new book for an entire year. He might not become a deputy collector, he might never be made an officer, but he would become a high-quality author . . . of course, so far he hadn’t managed to become anything. His stories had been published in the daily papers before and were now too—but when he himself wasn’t satisfied with them, why should others be? The very first thing he’d do when he got back to Lahore was quit his job at the newspaper . . . He wouldn’t bring Chanda with him. He’d bring her when he’d got a job somewhere. But what would he do? This wasn’t at all clear to him. He would definitely rise above this situation. The disdain of his friends would turn to envy. He’d freeze the condescension on the faces of Amichand and Hamid and other such officers; he would dazzle them . . .

  Chetan wished he could get up and wander around on the roof. But he was extremely tired. He turned over softly. Chanda was in a deep sleep. Totally motionless. He couldn’t even hear the sound of her breathing . . . He thought of Amarnath . . . ‘The Spring of Life’—what a name they’d given him! But Amarnath had proven it true. If a thick-headed man like Amarnath could become focused and successful by working diligently, why couldn’t he? This powerful force of desire, this obstinate, almost blind, single-minded devotion to his goal—that was the source of his life’s success. That was the fount of life. His day had not been useless . . . he’d discovered the fount of life . . . he would become totally devoted to his goals and learn to be industrious. He’d push towards his goal, bathing the rocks of his circumstances like a stormy river breaking against the cliffs.

  Suddenly the words of Yogi Jalandhari Mull echoed in his ears . . . the existence of man is not equal to even the thousandth part of a particle in this vast cosmos—how can man consider himself so important? Instead of chasing after false pleasures and prosperity, why doesn’t man search for truth, thus cutting ties with birth and death and attaining supreme bliss, the highest power, and moksha? . . . Chetan tossed about restlessly . . . Was this vow of his simply the same thing as chasing after falseness? If Amichand were to become collector and commissioner, not just deputy collector, and if Hamid were to become station director or controller instead of just programme assistant, and he himself were to become the country’s most important poet and story writer, what then? Death is inevitable . . . so then his ambition, his powerful desire for progress—if all that wasn’t false, what was? This world has been made countless times, countless times the golden age and iron age have come—Yogi ji’s voice echoed in Chetan’s ears. He felt like he was drowning. The small room felt claustrophobic. Despite his extreme fatigue, he got up and went out on to the roof. At some point during the conflict between the Brahmins and the Khatris in the mohalla, clouds had gathered in the sky. Chetan went
and lay down on the cool cement bench . . . He lay there quietly for some time . . . slowly his mind began to work again . . . Perhaps the day of one’s death is decided at the moment of birth, but then why should man die before this, and if the world drowned or flew away in a flash, then all would be drowned with it, or turned to ashes. As the Farsi poet had said, ‘murghe amboh jashne daasad’—the death of an enormous crowd is like a festival—if everyone died, he would too . . . but why should he long for a death-like peace before that? That desire for highest peace that man feels in order to attain the soul—that state of mind is like a dreamless sleep; if that’s not another form of death, then what is it? If it’s not a living death, then what is it? Aristotle had in fact called death a dreamless sleep. And then, if man even attains such peace after years of yogic practice, then what? If there is a god, and he doesn’t wish for man to live, to attain that death-like peace while living, then why does he give man all these senses, why does he give him such a mind? Chetan got up and began to wander about the roof . . . He understood Karma Yoga a bit more than Gyana Yoga. He wouldn’t become free of desire; he would yoke himself to desire and work hard. He didn’t want release from the cycle of birth and death . . . he wanted to live life . . . the inspiration for living life came from desire after all; how could he continue his struggle if he quit that? Where would he get that powerful resolve, that attachment, that devotion? But he wouldn’t worry about consequences good or ill. He wouldn’t worry about success, rather he would try with renewed vigour to become successful, and he wouldn’t go crazy with happiness at success either . . . and he thought of Lala Maniram. Surely he must have acted on this philosophy. If the son of anyone else in the mohalla had been made deputy collector, the father would have distributed laddus to the whole neighbourhood. He’d have invited musicians to play in celebration. But the father had taken the news that had made his older son go insane very simply. After hearing about his son’s extreme behaviour towards Bhagavanti, he hadn’t been shaken . . . and Chetan knew that he used to get intensely angry. He’d seen him beat Amirchand horribly several times . . . It could be that Jalandhari Mull ji had indeed become a yogi, fleeing from the hardships of jail, abandoning the desire for sacrifice—he may have wanted to maintain his prestige in society, but at the same time didn’t want to take the trouble to follow the path of a political movement. It could be that Pandit Juliyaram’s yogic practices were just another way for him to escape his frustrations. Whether he had touched upon some aspect of the truth, or found something, he didn’t know, but the peace and patience that shone from Lala Maniram’s face, the compassion and sympathy in his eyes, that was surely an indication of his inner harmony. He had perhaps learned to partake of pleasure and pain equally. He didn’t know whether he had subsumed his soul in the great soul but he’d certainly found some touches of truth . . . and Chetan thought perhaps he’d sit with him some time and learn something . . . He’d not gained faith in God, nor did this world seem illusory, nor did the highest joy from what he’d read or heard, nor did highest peace seem desirable, nor even release. To take action and not worry about the fruits of one’s labour was the only philosophy he liked; he’d adopt that one. He’d think not about death but about life. He’d think about how to make life better, how to live better. He’d think about rising above all this sin, all this narrowness, so that when death came, he wouldn’t be filled with regret that he’d wasted this life uselessly, that he’d just wandered about his narrow confines like a frog in the well . . . He was an artist, if he could just advance human knowledge through his art even just a little bit, that’s what he’d try to do . . .