by Kapur, Manju
*
Later. The house is quiet. They have discussed the film nonstop, mainly gossip about Leela Chitnis. The war that Britain declared the day before yesterday on Germany after the attack on Poland leaves them unmoved, though every radio shop in Amritsar is thronged with people waiting for the latest news. London is being evacuated, the Army and the Navy are being mobilized. Churchill talks about defending everything sacred to man, freedom and democracy, all the ideals that are blatantly disregarded here every day. Ha! The left hand refuses to know what the right is doing.
Oh! I forgot to mention that soon we have to move. Our gracious landlady, your aunt, said her son is so worried about her health, she needs peace and quiet, and of course a most troublesome tenant out!
I have to live on Lepel Griffin Road or nowhere. Wild horses cannot drag me far from you. I need a little time, I said. That is all right, she said, and my wife hovered in the background and tried to keep the smile off her face.
Sweetheart,
Your H.
A morning, and the rains have stopped.
Paro got your letter, saying briefly, ‘He has corrected your work.’ I took it, and continued in a calm voice to talk to her. This enforced stillness increases my self-control.
At first I was afraid of involving Paro. She is so young, not yet five. I told her that she must not talk about me to anybody because they are angry with me, and everything I do earns their disapproval. Fortunately, she believed me, as why should she not? She can see for herself how it is.
Indu has married and gone away. Because of the family shame it was a small, brief affair. I was allowed to help dress her, and during the time of the vida, they let me say goodbye. Indu feels strongly that she should not be getting married before me. But the wrong I have done seems irreparable. Either our commitment is dishonoured, or the second daughter gets married first.
To be with my sisters again, and that too on such an important occasion, was almost as it used to be. However, nothing can take you back in time, and I noticed, though I didn’t want to, how well they managed without me, how strained their conversation was in my presence.
As far as Inderjit is concerned, I don’t feel I have done him any wrong. He has got Indu, who will make him an infinitely better wife. As for me, I know I have failed in my duty and I will be punished one day. Nobody can escape their karma. Maybe what is happening to me now is part of it, and there is no use protesting.
My fate is cast, and I am free now. I feel far more peaceful in the godown than I did in the days before I went to the river. Then, the confusion in my mind was terrible. I couldn’t think, and all I heard around me was talk of my marriage. If I was to be a rubber doll for others to move as they willed, then I didn’t want to live. I thought of what you taught us about Sydney Carton, and how noble and fine he seemed at the moment of his death. His last words echoed in my ears all that day. So you of all people should understand my actions!
I will wait a while before I give this to Paro. I dread her getting into trouble. People will say I am not satisfied with my own corruption, but I must start on my innocent sister too.
*
Many days later. Each day I say to myself. Not today. Wait one more day. You can wait one more day. But now I think it’s all right, Paro can take it.
On Mahatmaji’s birthday, they allowed me to join them in spinning. We spun the whole morning. It was nice to be able to do this again. I asked Pitaji if I could do this inside, and as he agreed he looked so sad.
Mati and Pitaji want me to promise I will have nothing more to do with you, then they will let me out. Soon you are going away, they say, and then you will forget me. A man who is already married and a traitor to his wife can never give happiness to any woman. He is a worldly person caught in his own desires. Nothing solid.
The nights are beginning to get cold, and I now sleep with them. In the day they still lock me in the godown. Each time I hear the doors shut, I burn with anger and humiliation. What have I done? I am just like the sacks of wheat and dal here, without my own life. Mati blames it all on college. She should have married after Inter, she keeps saying. See what this reading has done to her. She feels she knows more than her own father and mother. It seems I have given a setback to the Arya Samaj effort to educate girls.
Moti Cottage
Lepel Griffin Road
Wednesday, 25 October
Vir, love,
Paro came with the letter safe and sound. I kissed it over and over, imagining it was your hand under my lips, and not the cold paper.
We are both buffeted by the winds of opposition, my darling. Friends tell me in indirect ways to give you up. After the passionate ardour of romance dies down, wives are all the same. How does it matter who is managing the house and looking after the children. Keep her as a friend, they counsel in their infinite wisdom, but why do you want to marry her?
What can I say? I feel sorry for them, because they do not know what it is to feel united with what one holds dearest on this earth, they cannot be elevated above the practical and the convenient. Before such worldly-wise souls, I do not reason. I only tell them I am committed, and I change the subject.
You see from the address that we have shifted. Though I derived some meagre comfort from being physically near you, I could no longer stay in that house. The situation was getting impossible. At least now there won’t be those toings and froings between my wife and your mother – what a deadly combination. I was always apprehensive that you would be treated harshly as a result of what my wife said and yet I was powerless to stop these neighbourly visits. My mother too gave me no peace. She feels it deeply that her eldest son, the pride of her heart, should consider a second marriage. She has brought Ganga up, whereas you would be a stranger to her and the family ways. They do not recognize that I need the companionship of an educated, thinking woman nor that I feel lonely and desolate among all these people who care for me.
We spent our first Dussehra here. We did a small puja at noon. That evening we went to see Ravana, Meghnath and Kumbhkarna being burnt. In Ferozepur an effigy of Hitler was also included amongst the demon trio, but Amritsar is obviously more traditional. The aviation grounds were crowded, but we managed to push ourselves to a good viewing place.
Here, in Moti Cottage, my heart stretches far in your direction to pull you towards me to this place you haven’t seen. I will describe it, and then, when you imagine me in it, imagine amid the noise and hubbub of a large household, a solitary, isolated man, yearning for you, always, always. At times I think I cannot bear it, and then the thought of what you are going through for the sake of our love makes me feel ashamed of my impatience.
The garden is small, but it has space enough for four fruit trees, malta, mango, mulberry, and mithha. (I wonder if the owner has an attachment to fruits beginning with ‘m’!) In the middle of the garden is a small brick platform, cemented over so we can avoid sitting on wet grass if we want to. The two large rooms in front are a drawing-room and a bedroom with an attached dressing-room. At the back stretches the kitchen, storerooms, bathing-rooms, cowshed, all in a row. And in the middle of the angan is this most wonderful tank! A tube-well fills it and in the summer it promises delightful relief from the heat.
Night falls, and my hand aches. Today I have corrected over fifty essays – in an effort to clear the backlog of work that had piled up during these past few weeks. If you knew how difficult it has been for me to function even minimally! Teaching has been a colossal strain, correction impossible. Only now, with your letters which I read and reread constantly, do I feel a whole man again.
H.
Next day but one.
Yesterday was busy with the College Students’ Association elections. I wonder, darling, whether any of your brothers unbent enough to tell you what happened in college ten days ago. Democracy in its most ‘popular’ form! A quarrel erupted between the two rival factions, which turned into fisticuffs before any of the staff could be informed. Very soon the w
hole central courtyard resembled the Kurukshetra battlefield. MM rushed to intervene and found himself in the pathway of a flying missile. Obviously throwing things at a principal will not do, even for the rowdiest boy, and this incident served to sober them up.
Next day, at assembly, MM gave the most spirited lecture I have ever heard him make. Talked about the microcosm mirroring the macrocosm, and if this was the Indian conception of elections, perhaps the British were right in declaring us too immature for independence.
The boys apologized profusely, and the elections were scheduled for yesterday, with all the staff on duty to ensure no mishap.
How are you, my dearest? I long for our separation to be over, to see you, touch you again. Till then, I lead a restless life. Family, teaching, friends, reading, nothing absorbs me for long. I write on, wanting, needing to share everything with you, despite the fact that there is no messenger, praying that some way will be found.
Wednesday, 15 November, 1939
D.!
There is a god who looks after lovers, there is! Kanhiya Lal came over to pay his respects. Normally I encourage my students to visit, but I was too depressed to talk much to him. As he was leaving, he asked me discreetly whether there was anything he could do for me. I hesitated, then took the plunge. I said I needed a letter delivered.
‘What am I there for?’ he demanded, clicking his tongue.
‘It is a complicated matter …’ I know he is friendly with your brothers, and wondered whether it was fair to put him in the position of go-between.
‘Any little difficulty, any problem, and I will consider it my privilege, my pleeyure …’ (I have not been able to make him say ‘pleasure’.) ‘I will come this evening,’ he ended impetuously and left without giving me a chance to say anything. He has a delicate perception that pleases me.
How was your Diwali, sweetheart? We saw the Golden Temple, wondrous with lights, its aquatic reflection adding to its ethereal beauty. It was so romantic, I missed you more than I can say, and the pain made me surly and bad-tempered with the others.
This Diwali was the most expensive I have ever known, though I didn’t like to stint on sweets or oil lamps, especially as I had called the usual number of people. If this continues we shall all be forced to tighten our belts. Ever since the war started, prices have risen at an alarming rate. The quality of goods has gone down, and fines have not helped the increasing adulteration.
Our old life recedes further and further away. Attempts are being made in Europe by the smaller countries, mostly Belgium and Holland, to bring about peace. After ten weeks of war, Britain remains strong, at least according to Churchill, and they might be successful in convincing Germany about a cease-fire. I hope this time peace will emerge as a result of these efforts. So far it has been a term bandied about by both sides, with how much sincerity the results show.
Ever your H.
Moti Cottage
Saturday, 25 November, 1939
Love,
A feeling of depression pervades me. Money problems increase day by day. The war is said to be costing Britain six million pounds daily. The price of gold has gone up dramatically, and it is all the more imperative that I redeem my mother’s jewellery as quickly as possible. Some of it I have already done, she mortgaged it in stages you know, to finance my upkeep in England. It is only when I have fulfilled my responsibilities that I can consider myself a free man.
Kanhiya Lal came today. He said he had not known how hostile the opposition to our relationship was. (All this in a roundabout way. I think he is afraid of wounding my feelings!) He approached Kailashnath, who kept saying your parents and grandfather were grievously hurt, and in society one couldn’t go on thinking of oneself alone. The same thinking that perpetrates the most ghastly personal tragedies. What is society made up of, but individuals?
Finally, Kanhiya managed to persuade Kailash to let him see you – to make you see reason, he said. He reports you as silent, very silent, darling. He met you in the drawing-room, along with one of your younger brothers, your eyes followed the letter he managed to hide under the cover of the takht.
Kanhiya feels thrown into the role of both Machiavelli and Cupid. As I imagined, he is uneasy about having to deceive his friend. On the other hand he wants to serve the teacher at whose feet he has sat. (This is the way he puts it.) He cannot be accused of personal motivation, so that eases his conscience somewhat. Poor fellow! That my difficulties should involve my students! But it can’t be helped. My loneliness is so great, my desire for you so acute that these niceties get brushed aside.
Soon it will be my birthday. My thirtieth. At Moti Cottage, we will do a puja, and feed thirty brahmins. Any other form of celebration would seem callous disregard of the lives being lost. Not a day passes without some news of ships sunk, and aircraft shot down.
When I look back, I feel I have achieved so little of what I wanted! My debts are unredeemed, and my family’s ineptitude in matters of learning and self-improvement is as glaring as ever. When I see how eagerly my students learn, how they hang upon my every word, sadness comes upon me. Those who are my nearest ones are those whom I can help the least. She was the first with whom I tried, and the first with whom I failed.
The war drags on. Moral polarities become more evident to all, from Gandhi to Malik. How can the British claim to be sincere about defending democracy when they refuse to give up their control over India. Some in the staff-room feel that Britain is as much an imperial, expansionist power as Germany. Others feel there is a qualitative difference, and that notwithstanding our political disagreements, we should support Britain. Enriched or impoverished, we have been so interlinked these past two hundred years that the symbiosis goes beyond a simple definition of right and wrong. How can we turn our backs, and say the war is your business, not ours?
Malik, our economist, remarked yesterday that whether we turned our backs on Britain or not, we were going to end up financing this war, in one way or another. No country could afford to go on fighting on the scale Britain was. Sooner or later she would have to draw on her resources, and that was her Empire. Either through taxes (but Malik didn’t think the taxes would go very far, that would make her too unpopular) or through other means, we would be vitally affected. We could flatter ourselves with the illusion that we had a choice about support. The truth of the matter was that we had been involved since the moment war was declared.
We thought of the unprecedented rise in prices, and voiced no dissent.
It seems aeons since I heard from you, darling. Shifting from your aunt’s house has lengthened the distance between us, and made my heart more anxious.
H.
Morning.
I was so surprised when Kailash brought Kanhiya Lal here to see me two weeks ago! I didn’t say much to him. We sat in the baithak, and I managed to take the letter he hid without anyone noticing. I fed upon it eagerly. Nobody here cares to discuss anything seriously with me.
They have moved me to the terrace. The godown was getting very cold. Before they sent me up, they asked me again if I would marry. I should be grateful, they said, for a decent man with a sound family background. Someone as fallen as I would not find it easy to get a home. My mother keeps saying that all my education has achieved is the destruction of my family. How I am supposed to respond, I don’t know.
After the godown, this is like a new life for me. I can breathe and think more clearly with the great sky above me. The sun feels soft and warm. At one end of the terrace is a neem tree, where I can sit when it gets too hot in the after-noons, almost in its branches. There is a little store in the corner that is used for keeping the charpais, bedding, mosquito nets and poles, and this serves me when I need a room.
This long period is the first time in my life I have been left completely to myself. Away from my brothers and sisters, away from household activity, I feel strange, one pea alone in a whole long pod, no use to anybody. I have to get used to it, for this is my fate.
Al
l I have is your letters. They are the only sign anybody cares for me. My family tells me they are doing this for my good. I feel, since I have caused them so much grief, why don’t they just let me go away and never see me again. God will provide – there are things I can do. When I suggested this, they got very angry. They want nothing from me but an agreement to marry.
V.
Moti Cottage
Tuesday, 12 December, 1939
Viru sweetheart,
You must write more. The frequency of communication is so limited that the volume of our correspondence has to compensate. And then darling, what is this curious habit of not addressing me?
Forgive this cavilling. I am disturbed and not hearing from you makes it worse. My family is putting pressure on me to leave Amritsar. They say even if I cannot find a job for three hundred rupees a month in Kanpur, the living expenses will be cheaper in the family home. My brother’s children also need me, there is no one who can guide them like I can, my mother will feel more settled, it will be easier to arrange my sister’s marriage, etc., etc.