Tamas

by Bhisham Sahni

  Just then, one of the Nihangs posted on the roof, noticed a cloud of dust, far on the horizon. He looked intently. Yes, it was a cloud of dust and it was growing bigger. He came and told Kishen Singh about it, and Kishen Singh looked towards it through the peephole and kept his eyes on it for a long time. It was really a cloud of dust and it was surely advancing towards the village. At first he did not believe his eyes, but gradually as he looked, a deep, humming sound too became audible to him. He felt alarmed. Everyone had thought that the mischief would begin from within the village itself, that such people as Kalu, the loafer, Ashraf, the butcher and Nabi, the oil-crusher were dead set on creating trouble, but now, it was the marauders from outside, advancing towards the village. He was still watching when a deep muffled sound of drum-beat fell on his ears. What he saw and heard was alarming. The situation had taken a serious and dangerous turn. He decided to go down and inform Teja Singhji, but thinking that it was essential to keep constant watch on the movements of the enemy, he asked the Nihang to convey the information to Teja Singhji.

  The Nihang went running down the staircase, and on reaching the last step, shouted at the top of his voice:

  ‘Turks! The Turks are coming!’

  The entire congregation was electrified. The drum-beat was now clearly audible.

  For some time Teja Singhji stood bewildered. He had not expected that outsiders would attack them. As a matter of fact he had not thought that an attack would at all take place. He had thought that a stray incident or two might occur in the Teli Mohalla or on the outskirts of the village and if the Sikhs stood firm the Muslims of the village would not persist. The Sikhs were in larger numbers and most of the Muslims had dealings with them. Besides, the Sikhs were financially better off and were well provided with weapons. But the whole situation appeared to have changed radically.

  The sound of drums drew nearer. The slogan ‘Ya Ali!’ was also heard close by. Just then, from behind the gurdwara came the slogan:

  ‘Allah-o-Akbar!’

  Eerie silence fell over the entire congregation in the hall. But it was soon followed by a powerful surge of excitement when, in answer to the slogans of the Muslims, the full-throated Sikh slogan ‘Boley So Nihal—Sat Sri Akal’ rent the air.

  ‘No one shall leave the hall! Everyone to his or her post!’

  Jasbir Kaur’s hand immediately went to her kirpan. The Sardars, one after the other, picked up the swords. The entire congregation was on its feet.

  ‘Turks! Turks have come! Turks are here!’ was on the lips of everyone.

  ‘Turks are coming!’ repeated Jasbir Kaur, in a voice trembling with emotion. Taking the dupatta off her head she hung it round her neck, and clasped the woman standing next to her in a tight embrace exclaiming in a voice choking with emotion: ‘The Turks are here!’

  The women took off their dupattas, hung them round their necks, and embracing one another repeated in a frenzied voice: ‘The Turks are here! The Turks have come!’

  The men too, the ‘Singhs of the Guru’ were likewise doing the same.

  Some of the ‘Singhs’ had taken off their turbans, loosened their hair, and taken the swords out of their scabbards.

  ‘Everyone to his or her post!’ reverberated the command.

  Once again the slogan: ‘Jo Bole So Nihal!’ rose from the depths of their beings, as it were, and the gurdwara resounded with: ‘Sat Sri Akal!’

  All the three members of the War Council, Sardar Mangal Singh, goldsmith, Pritam Singh, cloth merchant, and Bhagat Singh, general merchant, went up to the roof to ponder over the changed situation in consultation with Sardar Teja Singh and Kishen Singh.

  Beating their drums the Turks had arrived in the village. It was, very probably to give notice of their arrival that a gunshot was fired in the air.

  The whole atmosphere reverberated with the shouting of slogans: ‘Ya Ali!’

  ‘Allah-o-Akbar!’

  ‘Sat Sri Akal!’

  Then someone said that the Turks were advancing from the side of the stream. This meant that climbing up the slope they would fall upon the houses of the Sikhs, loot and burn them.

  At that time, besides some old people left behind by their sons in the excitement of protecting the Faith, there was no one to guard them.

  It was not yet completely dark, and the water in the stream looked crimson under the light of the setting sun. The picket set up at the end of the lane, to the left of the gurdwara, was at considerable distance from the houses which were at that time exposed to the attack of the Turks.

  Suddenly Baldev Singh was troubled by the thought of his mother. He had left her alone in the house and had not thought of her the whole day long. She must be in great danger. There were some other persons too in the congregation who became anxious about their aged relatives left behind.

  In a state of frenzy, Baldev Singh loosened his hair, took off his pajamas, took the sword out of its scabbard and with only a vest and underwear on his body, he, waved the naked sword over his head and ran towards his house.

  ‘Blood for blood!’ he shouted.

  Some people shouted to him to come back but he wouldn’t listen.

  ‘Blood for blood!’ he shouted as he went running through the lane.

  Baldev Singh was neither hefty nor strong. As he ran, his thin legs looked like the legs of a goat. People were unable to make out why he had taken to the lane on the left. It would have been understandable if he had gone down the slope, indicating that he had gone to settle scores with the marauders. Had he taken the lane to the right it would have meant that he was going to the Butchers’ Lane. What was the point in taking the lane to the left?

  A little while later however, he was seen coming back towards the gurdwara. He still held the sword in his hand but he was not waving it over his head. In the darkening light of the evening, the blade of the sword too looked dark. As he drew near, people noticed that blood was dripping from the sword. There were drops of blood on his vest and underwear too. He was no longer shouting, nor was he running. On the other hand he looked ghastly pale and frightened.

  Some people had correctly surmised that he was returning after killing someone. Convinced that his mother could no longer be saved, that the Turks must have made short shrift of her, he had plunged his sword into the bosom of the old blacksmith Karim Baksh, the only person to whom he had access, thereby avenging his mother’s murder.

  Shades of night were falling over the village. But the noises had grown louder and sharper. Sound of slogans resounded with sounds of yelling and shrieking, of doors being battered and windows being pulled down.

  The excitement inside the gurdwara was turning into a frenzy.

  16

  When Harnam Singh knocked at the door a second time, a female voice answered from the other side: ‘Menfolk are not at home; they have gone out.’

  Harnam Singh stood undecided, looking to the right and left and wondering if anyone had seen them. Then turning to his wife, said, ‘Banto, you ask. It is a woman speaking from behind the door’ and stepped aside.

  Banto knocked at the door and said in a loud voice: ‘Kind ones, open the door. We are in distress.’

  Listening to his wife’s entreaty, Harnam Singh felt stricken with remorse. Fate had willed it so that a time would come when his wife would be begging for shelter.

  There was a sound of footsteps on the other side of the door followed by someone lifting the latch. The door opened. A tall, elderly village woman stood before them, both her hands covered with cow-dung and her head uncovered. Behind her stood a young woman with dishevelled hair; she too had her sleeves rolled up from which one could conclude that she was preparing fodder for the cattle.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  The elderly woman asked, although at the very first glance she had understood their predicament.

  ‘We are ill-fated ones, coming from Dhok Ilahi Baksh. The marauders came and looted our house and set fire to it. We have been walking the whole n
ight.’

  The woman paused. For a moment the woman stood undecided. It was that fateful moment when a person has to make up his or her mind, goaded by lifelong influences and beliefs. The woman kept looking at them, then, throwing the door open, said, ‘Come. Come inside.’

  Banto and Harnam Singh looked up, and stepping over the threshold came into the inner courtyard. As they came in, the woman peeped out to right and left and quickly bolted the door.

  The young woman kept staring hard at them. There was suspicion and doubt lurking in her eyes.

  ‘Spread the cot, Akran,’ the woman said and herself sat down on the ground and resumed making dung-cakes.

  Akran came out of the inner room covering her shoulders with a dupatta and spread the cot which was standing against the wall.

  ‘May God bless you, sister. We have been rendered homeless in one night’ and Banto’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘We have spent our whole life in Dhok Ilahi Baksh,’ said Harnam Singh. ‘There we had our shop and our own house. At first everyone said, “Stay here, nothing untoward will happen to you.” But yesterday Karim Khan advised us to leave immediately. He said it would be dangerous for us to continue living in the village. He was right. Hardly had we turned our back when the marauders came. They looted the shop and then set fire to it.’

  The woman remained quiet. Meanwhile Banto got down from the cot and sat down on the ground beside her.

  Akran came and picking up the tray full of dung-cakes, went to one side and began sticking them on the wall one by one. The elderly woman went on making dung-cakes with her hands, from the heap of dung lying before her.

  ‘Where have your menfolk gone?’ asked Harnam Singh.

  The woman turned round and looked at Harnam Singh but did not answer his question. Harnam Singh suddenly realized where the male members of the family must have gone and his whole body trembled.

  ‘We came out in the clothes we were wearing,’ Banto said, ‘May God bless Karim Khan, he virtually saved our lives. And may God bless you, sister, for giving us shelter.’

  An uncanny silence prevailed over the house, causing Harnam Singh to fall silent again and again. The younger woman had gone into the inner room and Harnam Singh felt that standing in the darkness of that room, she was staring at them.

  The elderly woman got up, washed her hands with the water in the basin where the kitchen utensils lay. She then picked up an earthen bowl and filling it with buttermilk brought it over. Harnam Singh still had his gun hanging from his shoulder. The belt containing cartridges, drenched with his perspiration, clung to his shirt.

  ‘Here, drink some buttermilk. You must be exhausted.’

  Taking the bowl in his hand, Harnam Singh burst out crying. A whole night’s fatigue, nervous agitation, and suppressed emotions, suddenly burst forth as it were, and he began to cry bitterly like a child. He had, after all, been a well-to-do shopkeeper, even now carried in his pocket a couple of hundred rupees, had never stretched his hand before anyone all his life, and now, hardly a day had passed when he was knocking from pillar to post.

  ‘Don’t cry so loudly, Sardarji, the neighbours will hear and come running. Sit quietly.’

  Harnam Singh suppressed his sobs and became quiet, and wiped his tears with the tail-end of his turban.

  ‘May God bless you, sister, what you have done for us we shall never be able to recompense.’

  ‘God forbid that a person should become homeless. But with God’s grace, everything will turn out all right for you.’

  The bowl of buttermilk in her hand, the woman offered it to Banto, but Banto hesitated to take it, and looked towards her husband, who was himself looking at her. How could she take the bowl from the hand of a Muslim? At the same time she was dog-tired and her throat was dry. The woman understood her discomfiture.

  ‘If you are carrying any of your own utensils, I can pour the buttermilk into it for you. We have a pundit’s shop in the village. I could go and get a couple of utensils for you, but how do I know if the pundit will be there? You may not take it from my hand but how will you pass the day on an empty stomach?’

  At that, Harnam Singh put out his hand and took the bowl from her.

  ‘From your hand, sister, it is like nectar for us. We shall never be able to repay what you have done for us.’

  The sun had risen and voices began to be heard from neighbouring houses. Harnam Singh drank a few mouthfuls from the bowl and passed the bowl on to his wife.

  ‘Listen, Sardarji, I won’t hide anything from you,’ the mistress of the house said. ‘Both my husband and my son have gone out with some men from the village. They may be back any time now. My husband is a God-fearing man, he won’t say anything to you. But my son is a member of the League and I cannot say how he will behave towards you. He has some other people with him too. It is for you to decide what you should do.’

  Harnam Singh’s heart missed a beat. Only a little while earlier the woman was offering to get utensils for them, and now she was playing a different tune.

  Harnam Singh folded his hands. ‘It is broad daylight now. Where can we go?’

  ‘What can I say? Had it been some other time, it would have been different. But nowadays everyone wants to go his own way. Nobody listens to others. I have told you that our men have gone out and that they must be about to return. I do not know how they will treat you. Don’t blame me if anything goes wrong.’

  Harnam Singh was lost in deep thoughts. After some time he raised his head and said in a weak voice: ‘As you say, sister. Whatever is God’s will, will happen. There was compassion in your heart, so you opened your door to us. Now if you tell us to go away, we shall do your bidding. Let us go, Banto.’

  Harnam Singh picked up his gun and both husband and wife moved towards the door. He knew that the jaws of hell would open wide for them, the moment they stepped out. But there was no choice.

  The woman continued to stand in the middle of the courtyard looking at them.

  When Harnam Singh raised his hand to open the door, the woman said, ‘Wait. Don’t go. Put the latch back. You knocked at my door with some hope and expectation in your heart. We shall see what happens. Come back.’

  Young Akran, who stood watching from the inner room, stared hard at her mother-in-law and came forward: ‘Let them go, Ma. We have not even asked our menfolk. They may not like it.’

  ‘I shall answer them myself. Go and get the ladder from inside. Hurry up. Shall I push out a person who has come seeking shelter? Everyone has to go into God’s presence one day. What are you staring at my face for? Go and get the ladder.’

  Harnam Singh and his wife turned back from the door. Harnam Singh again folded his hands:

  ‘May Wahe Guru’s protecting hand be over your head, sister. We shall do whatever you tell us to do.’

  By then it was broad daylight. Women from neighbouring houses had started stepping into one another’s house. Everyone talked about the riots. In that village too, the previous evening, many men had been raising slogans, waving lathis and lances and beating drums. They had been going about in the village and later they had left the village and gone out, towards the East. No one knew where they went and what they did during the night. But now it was daylight and they were expected back any time.

  Akran brought the ladder. Her mother-in-law took the ladder from her and put it against the wall, just below the loft.

  ‘Come here, both of you,’ she said. ‘Go up the ladder into that loft and sit there. Don’t make any sound. No one should know that you are here. For the rest, leave it to God.’

  Harnam Singh, being of a bulky frame, found it difficult to go up the ladder. Besides, the gun hanging from his shoulder kept getting between his legs. Breathless, he somehow managed to go into the loft. Banto followed. The loft was a small one with a low roof. One had to double up in order to be able to sit in it, and there was barely room to sit. At the back of the loft, all sorts of household stuff was stacked. When Harnam Singh shut the
small door, it became utterly dark inside. Both sat staring into darkness. They could neither speak nor think of anything. Their fate hung by a thread.

  It was not only dark, it was also very stuffy inside, and for a long time Harnam Singh could not breathe normally. After sitting there for some time, Harnam Singh, out of sheer desperation opened the door a little so that they could have some light inside. Out of that thin opening, he could see the door that opened outside as also a small part of the inner courtyard. It was silent below. It seemed to him that the girl and her mother-in-law had left the courtyard.

  ‘If anything untoward happens, Banto, and our life is in danger, I shall first press the trigger of the gun on you; I would rather kill you with my own hand,’ Harnam Singh said in a hoarse whisper, for the third time.

  Banto remained silent. She was living by the seconds. Her mind could not think of anything.

  Below, in the back room, the two women were talking in low tones.

  ‘You are doing something very wrong, giving shelter to kafirs. What are they to us? Abba Jan will be terribly offended. They are sitting up there at a vantage point; the Sikhra has a gun with him. What if he fires the gun when our menfolk are here? You just took them at their word and sent them up there.’