Diddi
Page 21
‘If they had the same flavour, god knows how many more he’d put away,’ the daughter-in-law said to her husband, when her cook informed her that the month’s ration of flour was over in a week ever since sahib’s father had come to town. Yet, she said nothing. Then Badri did something horrible. He had never tasted Coca-Cola in his life and knew that his son’s kitchen had crates of it. Once in a while, he’d taken a sip from a glass but one day, when no one was around, he polished off almost the entire crate and fell asleep after many satisfied burps. That night, he peed in his bed.
‘Sahib, tea,’ the servant stood near his bed with a cup. Badri got up hurriedly and the servant saw the suspicious damp patch before he could cover it. He smirked as he saw the pool. Old men had accidents like this, but what would a man of twentyfive know of nature’s cruel ways?
Embarrassed, he was just going to wash the sheet in the bathroom, when both his son and his wife came into the room, looking grim. ‘Chhi, chhi, Babuji, have you come here to humiliate us in our own home? The servants are laughing at what you’ve done. We don’t know how to face them.’ He threw three hundred rupee notes on the table and said, ‘I’ve told the driver—there is a train that leaves at ten, he’ll put you on it.’
Badri Dube’s face went bright red with anger. He said nothing as he threw the sheet on the floor, stuffed his belongings into whatever he could find—bags and bundles. Then, with his shoes loudly squeaking, he left never to return. He never left his village after that.
‘Now I’ll go straight from here to the ghat, understand brother?’ he told his friend. ‘Chander is dead and so are his wife and child. I am now a childless widower so today I welcome you and Parvati, the pootonwali, into my community.’
By the evening, Parvati seemed to improve. She asked for a bowl of milk, combed her hair, wiped her face with a wet towel, put a large bindi on her forehead and then turned to the two friends. ‘Go,’ she told them, ‘both of you go and have a nice long walk like you always do. I’m fine.’
Shivsagar heaved a sigh of relief and went with Badri, as he always did on Tuesdays, to the Hanuman temple. All through the way the two friends cursed their ungrateful progeny and their daughters-in-law and felt lighter than they had done for days. Shivsagar undid the latch of his house and went in. Then froze in horror at what he saw: Parvati, dressed in her wedding finery, was lying peacefully on the floor. Her body was stone-cold.
Shivsagar sat motionless like a statue near her. His eyes were dry, and his lips grim as he gazed at her face unblinkingly. Badri felt as if his eyes were tethered to Parvati’s face like the leash of a dog to a post.
‘Cry, my friend,’ he urged Shibu. ‘Vomit out all that pain— otherwise you’ll go mad, I tell you.’
But Shibu would not weep. He just went on gazing at his wife’s inert body intently.
The night passed: the two friends sat silently, deep in their own thoughts and private grief.
At dawn, Badri stood up and said, ‘Give me the addresses of the boys. We will have to inform them.’
‘No,’ thundered Shivsagar. ‘I have no son. She was childless in her lifetime and that is how she will go from this world.’
The whole village collected as soon as the news of Parvati’s death spread—the women touched her feet and called their married daughters and daughters-in-law to take a pinch of dust from Parvati’s feet to place on their foreheads.
‘Pootonwali Kaki has died a suhagan,’ they said. ‘What a fortunate way to go!’
It took less than an hour for the fire to consume her wasted body. Both the friends returned from the cremation, looking like two gamblers after a lost game of dice. There were still a few wilted flowers that had fallen from her bier at the threshold of the house.
And then it began to pelt outside, sheets of water swept down and, occasionally, a streak of lightning rent the sky. Suddenly they were shaken out of their seats by a sharp clap of thunder that seemed to have burst right over their heads. ‘She’s reached.’ Shivsagar looked with red eyes for the first time into his friend’s face.
‘Who?’ Badri asked, frightened by the mysterious smile that flitted briefly across his friend’s face. ‘Who has reached where?’
‘Pootonwali. There,’ said Shivsagar as he lifted his hand to the heavens.
THE BEGINNING
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First published by Penguin Books India 2005
This Collection Published by 2018
Copyright © Ira Pande 2005
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover Designer: Aditya Pande
ISBN: 978-0-143-03346-2
This digital edition published in 2018.
e-ISBN: 978-9-387-32691-0
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.