Tamas

by Bhisham Sahni

  ‘I hope my work will be done.’ Thereupon putting his mouth close to the babu’s ear, said, ‘You will have your share, I assure you.’

  At this the babu said somewhat peevishly, ‘Talk sense, Sardarji. No fewer than twenty-seven women jumped to their death in the well. How will you be able to make out who among them was your wife?’

  ‘Leave that to me, Virji. I shall recognize her from her bracelets. She was wearing a gold chain round her neck. Of course, I am not the only sufferer, what happened to many others, happened to me also. But how can I give up my claim to the gold chain and the bracelets? What do you say, Virji?’

  Then again putting his mouth to the babu’s ear, said, ‘I shall not be ungrateful if you will get me my ornaments, I shall duly repay you. The good woman should have at least thought of it and left the ornaments with someone before jumping to her death. Isn’t that so, Virji? What do you say? I shall not be ungrateful. You get this work done for me.’ Then, stepping aside, looked at the babu’s face, ‘No one else need know about it. Let it remain between you and me.’

  ‘O, Sardarji, the corpses are swollen and have come up to the surface. Can you take a bracelet off the wrist of a swollen body? Talk sense. Will the authorities permit you to do that?’

  ‘Why, it is my wife, it is my jewellery that I am claiming. I got the bracelets made with my own money. I have not stolen them. We have only to take along a hammer and chisel and the work will be done in a matter of minutes. If you like, we can take some goldsmith’s boy with us. Where there is a will, there is a way.’

  ‘Talk sense, Sardarji. The government will demand proper identification. Witnesses.’

  ‘But, Virji, that is your job. If I have to give you your share, you will at least do this much. Won’t you?’

  ‘Sardar, understand once for all, this is not my job. I only collect statistics. In the Lost Property List, I have included your wife’s bracelets and chain. Recovery is not part of my job.’

  ‘Don’t be annoyed, Virji. The affairs of the world do not come to a stop,’ and taking the babu’s right hand into his, separated his three fingers one by one, and whispered into the babu’s ears ‘Do you agree?’ (To hold three fingers means three times twenty, i.e. sixty rupees.)

  ‘Why are you wasting your time, Sardar? I cannot help you.’ The Sardar let go of the babu’s hand but kept staring at the babu’s face for a long time. Then, adjusting the sheet of cloth over his shoulders turned towards the staircase. Getting close to the staircase he turned round again.

  ‘O babu, what do you say?’ and putting up his hand, showed four of his fingers. ‘Do you agree?’

  The babu turned his face away.

  A little while later, the Sardar was heard saying, ‘Have some pity on us. We have been ruined.’

  When the babu turned round, he was going down the staircase.

  After some time the babu himself felt tired and went down into the yard. To keep sitting at the table for long was impossible. By the time it was evening a resume would be prepared by adding up the figures collected during the day, one copy of which would be sent to the press, another to the Congress office, while the third one would go into the file. He had by then concluded that in the matter of deaths, the number of Hindus and Sikhs killed equalled more or less the number of Muslims killed. The material losses of Hindus and Sikhs were much higher.

  Dev Datt had come the previous evening.

  ‘What have been your figures for today?’

  ‘Today I got the figures for Tehsil Nurpur. There is not much difference in the number of deaths. Almost the same number of deaths among Muslims as among Hindus and Sikhs.’

  Dev Datt picked up the register, and kept turning its pages for some time, then, putting it down said, ‘Add another column to your tabulations indicating the number of poor people killed as against well-to-do people.’

  ‘What is the sense in that? You bring in the rich and the poor into everything.’

  ‘It is an important aspect which will reveal to you quite a few things.’

  As he went through the yard, the babu could recognize a good number of faces. At the foot of the staircase, a little to the right, the girl whose fiance’s whereabouts were not known, still stood bewildered as on previous days, a vague look in her eyes. She had been to all the hospitals, but to no avail. A little farther down, sat Harnam Singh with his wife, the man who only talked about the recovery of his double-barrelled gun. The babu looked away. He knew that if their eyes met, the Sardar would again start bothering him about his gun.

  On one side of the platform sat a few Congress workers, having a heated argument. Kashmiri Lal was saying: ‘Give a straight answer. What should I do, if I am physically attacked by someone? Being a believer in non-violence should I fold my hands before the fellow who has come to kill me and say, “I shall not resist since I am a believer in non-violence. You can chop off my head?”’

  ‘Who will care to kill a puny, little fellow like you?’ Shankar said, in his usual bantering tone.

  ‘Why, are only wrestlers attacked? It is always a weak person that is attacked.’

  ‘It is not a trivial matter. I am not joking. I want to know what guidance non-violence has to give me at such a juncture,’ he said to Bakshiji, but Bakshiji had not been very attentive to what was being said.

  ‘Tell me, Bakshiji. Don’t be evasive.’

  ‘What is it? What do you want to know?’

  ‘Bapu has advised us not to use violence. If, in the event of a riot, a man were to attack me, what should I do? Should I fold my hands and say, “Come, brother, kill me. Here is my neck?”’

  Shankar, intervening, said, ‘Gandhiji has said that a person himself should not indulge in violence. Nowhere has he said that if a person is subjected to violence he should not resist.’

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘If anyone attacks you, Kashmiri,’ said Jit Singh, ‘You tell him, “Just wait brother, let me run up to the Congress office and ask them what my line of action should be. Whether I should defend myself or not.”’

  ‘Bapu has advised us not to use violence. If such an eventuality arises, my first duty is to tell the fellow patiently that what he is doing, is something very wrong, that he should desist from doing it.’

  ‘I would say, fight the fellow tooth and nail,’ said Master Ram Das.

  ‘Fight him with what? All I have in my house is my charkha.’

  ‘You are yourself a charkha that has taken up this issue after the riots, after all the killing has been done.’

  ‘You fellows are making light of it, but the matter is serious,’ said Jit Singh.

  ‘Listen, son,’ said Bakshiji, with a tremor of emotion in his voice. ‘The Jarnail did not suffer from any such mental conflict. He was never bothered about his personal safety. Jarnail was eccentric, unlettered, crazy, but he was never worried as to what he should do in the event of his being attacked…’

  All fell silent. Everyone had been deeply pained over Jarnail’s death.

  ‘But this is being oversentimental,’ Kashmiri said, after some time.

  ‘Listen,’ Bakshiji said. ‘You yourself should not indulge in violence. That is number one. You should persuade the fellow to desist from using violence. That is number two. And if he does not listen, fight him tooth and nail. That is number three.’

  ‘That’s it. That’s what I call an answer. Are you satisfied, Kashmiri? Now keep your mouth shut.’

  But Kashmiri Lal was still arguing: ‘But with what weapons? With the charkha?’

  ‘Why with the charkha? Fight him with a sword,’ said Jit Singh.

  ‘Then, am I allowed to keep a sword, Bakshiji? What do you say?’

  Bakshiji made no answer.

  ‘Or a pistol?’

  ‘Pistol is too violent a weapon.’

  ‘Is a sword any the less?’

  ‘Yes. You have to use your own energy to wield a sword, whereas with a pistol you have only to press the trigger.’

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p; ‘Then I should buy myself a sword. What do you say, Bakshiji?’

  Bakshiji did not answer. Had he spoken, he would again have cited Jarnail’s example.

  The Statistics Babu moved away, shaking his head. To him a discussion of this nature, after the riots, sounded so pointless.

  Like the receding tide of the sea, the tide of the riots had subsided, leaving behind all kinds of litter and junk and garbage.

  By the side of the door that led to the veranda a group of refugees seemed to be having a good laugh over something. As the babu drew near, he saw an elderly, short-statured Sardar with a thick, greying beard, lying on the floor in their midst. The man, his eyes twinkling, was shaking his legs and striking the floor with his heels and laughing like a child, while those sitting around him appeared to be enjoying a dialogue with him.

  ‘Will you go to your village, Natha Singh?’

  At this, Natha Singh, who was lying on the floor, folded up his legs, turned on one side and joined both his hands between his thighs.

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘Why won’t you go?’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ he repeated, shaking his head from side to side like a child, and clasped his hands still more tightly between his thighs, and joined his knees together. It appeared to the babu that the question had so often been put to the man that the whole exercise, had turned into a prank.

  ‘Why won’t you?’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ he said and folded up his legs even tighter and again shook his head from side to side.

  ‘But why won’t you go?’

  ‘There they will circumcise me.’ And he began laughing as he folded his legs even more tightly and shook his head. All the Sardars burst out laughing.

  At the other end of the veranda stood the room of the school peon. Outside the room, as on previous days, sat a Brahmin pundit and his wife, a picture of despondency with their heads bowed. On the first day of their arrival, the school peon had brought them to the babu. Their daughter was missing, and both husband and wife had cried bitterly and had beseeched the babu with folded hands to recover the girl. The Brahmin had also said that a tonga-driver of the village had kidnapped the girl. But thereafter they had not come to him.

  The Statistics Babu walked over to them.

  ‘A bus will leave for Nurpur tomorrow morning, with an armed police guard and a government officer. They will help you trace your daughter.’

  The pundit looked at the babu with his rheumy eyes and shaking his head in despair, said, ‘She can’t be traced now, babuji; our Parkasho can’t be traced now. She is lost for ever.’

  ‘But you told me that a tonga-driver of the village had kidnapped her, and was keeping her in his house.’

  The pundit again shook his head and said, ‘God alone knows what has been her fate.’

  There will be other people too going in the bus. What does your wife say?’

  The pundit’s wife raised her head and, as though looking into vacancy, said, ‘What should I say, babuji? May our Parkasho live happily wherever she is.’

  The babu was taken aback by the answer. He thought the parents of the girl were scared of going to the village.

  ‘You explain to me the location and the address and I shall make enquiries through the police.’

  ‘Of what use is her coming back to us?’ said the woman peremptorily. ‘They must have already put the forbidden thing into her mouth.’

  To which the pundit added: ‘It is hard for us to make both ends meet, babuji. There is not a pie in our pockets. How are we going to feed her as well?’

  The Statistics Babu, well familiar with such experiences, stood there for a while and then moved on.

  Parkasho had really been kidnapped by Allah Rakha and brought into his house. When the riot broke out mother and daughter were collecting faggots from the slope of the hill. Allah Rakha, along with two or three of his friends, was already on the prowl, waiting for an opportunity. They came running, Allah Rakha picked up Parkasho, who shouted and cried but to no avail, and brought her home, while her mother, dumbfounded, looked on and then came whimpering home. During the first night, Parkasho was left alone in a dark room. On the second day, Allah Rakha got some sort of nikah rites performed and married her, and brought a new pair of clothes for her to wear. For two days Parkasho lay crying without a morsel of food or a drop of water going into her, and kept staring at the walls of his house. But on the third day she accepted a glassful of lassi from his hand and also washed her face. The faces of her father and mother were constantly before her eyes but Parkasho was painfully conscious of the fact that as against Allah Rakha, they were too feeble to rescue her. Gradually her eyes began to turn towards the objects that lay around her in Allah Rakha’s house. Outside his mud-house, stood a horse tied to a peg. Every time it flicked its tail, the flesh on its back rippled. Outside the house under a tree stood Allah Rakha’s tonga. Earlier too Parkasho had seen the tonga several times. As a matter of fact, Allah Rakha had had his eyes on Parkasho for quite some time. Parkasho too had, time and again sensed it, while going about in the village drawing water from the spring or washing clothes. Allah Rakha would tease her, pass all sorts of remarks and, on the sly, throw pebbles at her. She knew it was him who threw them, but would not complain to her father because she knew that he would not be able to do anything. She was afraid of both Allah Rakha and her father.

  And then, during the riots, Allah Rakha had succeeded in carrying away the hapless girl, crying and shouting, and brought her home. At the time when, in the Relief Office, Parkasho’s mother was crying her eyes out remembering her daughter and could not muster enough courage to try to get her back, at that very time, Parkasho was sitting on a cot in Allah Rakha’s house, having put on, under duress, the new suit of clothes brought for her by Allah Rakha. Then, Allah Rakha had come, opened a small box and holding it out to her had sat down on the cot beside her, saying: ‘Eat! Here, Eat!’

  Parkasho had her downcast eyes fixed on the strings of the cot. She did not lift her eyes either to look at Allah Rakha or at the packet, nor did she utter a word.

  ‘Eat! It is mithai, haramzadi, eat! I have brought it for you.’

  This time Parkasho cast a glance at the sweetmeats, but she still did not have the nerve to look at Allah Rakha.

  ‘Eat!’ Allah Rakha suddenly shouted at which Parkasho trembled from head to foot.

  ‘It is mithai, not poison. Eat!’

  Allah Rakha picked up a piece of milk-cake and bending forward pressed her cheeks with his left hand, and with his right hand thrust the sweetmeat into her mouth.

  Parkasho sensed a certain eagerness in Allah Rakha’s brusque manner but she still sat frightened and subdued. How could she eat a sweetmeat from the hand of a Musalman?

  ‘It is from a Hindu sweet-shop, haramzadi, eat!’

  Slowly, the frightened Parkasho began chewing the piece in her mouth. Allah Rakha laughed, ‘Is it a sweetmeat or poison?’

  Parkasho would, from time to time, move her jaws and then would stop masticating and shut her mouth tight.

  ‘Eat!’ Allah Rakha would shout and Parkasho’s jaws would start working again.

  The odour from Parkasho’s body had begun to work as an intoxicant on Allah Rakha, making him increasingly restless.

  ‘Now eat with your own hand.’

  This time there was a touch of softness in Allah Rakha’s voice.

  ‘If you don’t, I shall lay you down and force all the mithai down your throat. Eat.’

  Parkasho raised her eyes and looked at him. She had seen Allah Rakha several times earlier too but never from such close quarters. She noticed his thin, black moustache. Allah Rakha had put collyrium in his eyes, combed his hair and was wearing clean clothes.

  Parkasho’s fear grew less somewhat, but she continued to look frightened and subdued.

  ‘Will you eat or shall I force it down your throat?’ and his left hand again rose to catch hold of Parkasho’s chin.

  Slowly Parka
sho began to feel as though the fear of Allah Rakha was subsiding within her. Chewing the piece of milk-cake she again looked at him. This time her eyes fell on the black thread round his neck to which an amulet was tied. The collar button was open. Her eyes also fell on his striped shirt. Allah Rakha looked very clean and tidy.

  Allah Rakha was holding another piece of sweetmeat in his hand waiting for Parkasho to finish chewing so that he could force another piece into her mouth. Parkasho’s eyes also rested on his hand. Suddenly, Parkasho said in a low voice: ‘You eat!’

  The words had an electrifying effect on Allah Rakha.

  ‘At last you spoke! Now, eat!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Eat!’

  Parkasho shook her head. It appeared to Allah Rakha as though a flicker of a smile had crossed Parkasho’s lips. Parkasho raised her eyes to look at Allah Rakha.

  ‘I shall eat if you will put it into my mouth,’ he said.

  For a few seconds Parkasho’s eyes rested on Allah Rakha’s face. Then she slowly picked up a piece. Even after picking it up, she was unable to lift her hand towards him. Parkasho’s face had turned pale and her hand trembled as though with the sudden realization of how her parents would react were they to know what she was about to do. But just then she saw Allah Rakha’s eyes full of eager desire and Parkasho’s hand went up to Allah Rakha’s mouth.

  Both were opening up to each other. Allah Rakha moved closer to her and enveloped her in his arms. Even though frightened and subdued, she became receptive to his embraces. It seemed to her as though the past had drifted far away, while the present was waiting to receive her with open arms. The situation had so radically altered that Parkasho’s parents had begun to appear irrelevant to it.

  They remained wrapped up in each other’s arms for a long time. For a long time too Parkasho did not speak. But when her back was turned towards Allah Rakha and her eyes rested on the wall opposite, she said softly: ‘Why did you throw pebbles at me when I went to fetch water?’

  In answer to this, Allah Rakha raised his hand and put it on Parkasho’s waist.

  ‘I would throw pebbles because you wouldn’t speak to me.’