Phoolsunghi

by Pandey Kapil

  Upon hearing these words, Dhela burst into laughter—a laughter so resonant that it sounded like the harmonized tinkling of a thousand golden bells, all arranged in a long single row. Sweltering under the blaze of that withering laughter, a gloomy Haliwant Sahay retreated to Chhapra.

  * * *

  Located in Chhapra’s Katra colony, his mansion shone as brightly as his mukhtari—his career as an official in the law court. But that wasn’t all. Besides the mukhtari, there was the zamindari, and in addition to the zamindari, there was the flourishing opium trade.

  Sahay shared a bond of deep friendship with Revel Sahib—the opium agent from England—whose carriage ran routinely between Revelgunj and Katra colony. Revel Sahib was a man of exquisite taste. His bungalow was stacked with luxuries from Europe and his cupboard was crammed with a tempting assortment of vintage wines. The sprawling compound in front of his bungalow was bedecked with oak and bottle trees. Its carpet-like grass was mowed with such loving care that one shrank from stepping on it. The red gravelled lane, which originated at the main gate, stretched all the way to the porch. From there, a long series of steps led up to the veranda. The entrance to his bungalow was guarded by a gun-toting guard. A ferocious bulldog, chained next to the door, was always ready to pounce on the intruders and grab them by their neck.

  At a little distance from the bungalow was Mukhtar Sahib’s office; it was from here that Sahay conducted his business. There was never a dearth of servants and helpers; an army of underlings promptly attended to all of his assignments and personal needs. However, there was no mistress to preside over the affairs of his mansion. Twenty years ago, shortly after giving birth to a son in the twilight of her youth, Sahay’s wife and his newborn child had left for their heavenly abode, leaving him bereft in the world. There was enormous social pressure on him to marry again, but Sahay didn’t yield to it and decided to live all by himself, just like his English friend Revel Sahib.

  * * *

  It was as a young opium agent that Revel Sahib had first come to Godna Semariya on the banks of the river Saryu. His beautiful wife found the place to be extremely pleasant and hospitable. The white stretch of sand, on the other side of the Saryu, was dotted with green patches of shrubs and wild grass; it was like a picture painted in white, green and blue. One could always spot a few ferries moored along the riverbank. Loaded with a variety of merchandise, they would sail away to the faraway shores of Rangoon, Singapore and Java-Sumatra. Stationed at Godna Semariya, Revel Sahib would collect raw opium from Gazipur and Balia, and then, dispatch them on boats to the opium factory in Patna. Sahib was always busy with his work. So what was the memsahib supposed to do? How was she expected to pass her time? There was neither a community of fellow Europeans nor a club. Under the circumstances, the memsahib would often venture out alone: sometimes along the river bank, at times aboard a small dinghy, and occasionally, across the river, on to the stretch of silver sand.

  As is the case with all commercial towns, life in Revelgunj was always teeming with activity. Often, in the evenings, the sahib was seen taking the memsahib on a hurried carriage ride to Chhapra. The district collector, judge and civil surgeon in Chhapra, all three were British gentlemen. The evening parties with their families provided a little diversion. However, since the memsahib remained childless, she needed more than the occasional get-togethers with a select few to relieve the boredom of living alone in a mofussil. The couple, therefore, started spending time in the company of the locals, hoping earnestly to improve their social life. Once in a while, they would even cross the Saryu to sport-hunt along the small river delta: sometimes hunting a deer, sometimes a wild boar, and at times, just a bird. As the two busied themselves in their daily struggles, time went on surreptitiously. And before they could realize it, they had already spent twenty-five years of their life in the province, forming deep emotional ties with the place. To honour the sahib, the local market was named after him as Revelgunj. Slowly but surely, without consciously striving for it, the two became an integral part of that world.

  Life went on at its usual pace until the unthinkable happened; the region was struck by a plague epidemic and the memsahib became one its victims. Chhapra’s civil surgeon put in a heroic endeavour to save her and Revel Sahib nursed her as assiduously as a man possibly could, but to no avail. During her final moments, the memsahib had urged her husband to give her a burial in Revelgunj. Even in her death, she did not wish to be separated from the well-wishers and friends in the midst of whom she had lived the best years of her life. Honouring her wish, she was laid to rest on the banks of the Saryu.

  The day she was interred, Revel Sahib sobbed for hours at her grave, quite unmindful of the clock. Noon turned to dusk and dusk melted into the night. But could any night rival the deep darkness that his life had plunged into? When the sahib composed himself, he noticed being gently held by a boy of fifteen or sixteen. The boy was trying to help him rise to his feet.

  ‘Sahib, please get up. Let us go home,’ the boy requested softly.

  ‘Fool, nothing is left of home.’

  But that reassuring touch brought him immense peace and he let the boy guide him to his bungalow.

  ‘Who are you, brother? Are you God’s own messenger, an angel?’ Revel Sahib had asked.

  ‘I am Haliwant, your new clerk.’

  That first exchange of words proved to be a decisive moment for the boy. It was to change his fortunes forever. Soon, the fifty-year-old Revel Sahib befriended the boy of fifteen and a most endearing relationship took root. The boy started mastering the language and the etiquettes of the English, while the sahib started absorbing Indian manners. Gradually, the management of the opium trade fell into Sahay’s hands, and the sahib’s life began revolving around his medicine box.

  In a short time, Sahay’s fortunes soared: he got married, took possession of Chhapra’s White Mansion, bought off the local zamindari, and through Revel Sahib’s good offices, he had the district judge appoint him as a mukhtar at the Chhapra law court. But the sahib had not been able to leave Revelgunj even in all this time.

  2

  A House for the Drifters

  Haliwant Sahay’s father, Babu Balwant Sahay, was a lower echelon employee of the East India Company and worked at the office of its Delhi Resident. One of Balwant’s uncles was also based in Delhi. He worked as a clerk in the Punjab Survey Office. The two were birds of a feather—of the same age and the best of friends. Each year, they availed a leave of two months and travelled together to their native village, riding an ekka—a one-horse buggy. Back in those days, the railroads were yet to be laid and Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the Mughals, was still the titular head of India. But the real authority had already slipped into the hands of the Company. The journey from Delhi to Sheetlapur, a remote village near Chhapra, was long and perilous. However, since the two were employees of the Company, they had little fear of the dangers that lurked on the road; their association with the then-unproclaimed rulers of India nearly guaranteed them personal safety, and a few other comforts along the way too.

  In the beginning, both their families stayed in the village. However, once Balwant’s uncle acquired a little property in Punjab, he decided to take his family along and relocate for good, thus severing all his ties with Sheetlapur. But Balwant had little choice in the matter. For years to come, he had to keep up with this annual sojourn. Later, when he was already along in years, his third wife bore him his first child, Haliwant Sahay.

  As one would have expected, Balwant did not live very long to look after his son. The poor boy became fatherless at the tender age of ten. Before any signs of a moustache could appear on his upper lip, his mother, too, had departed for her heavenly abode. The young Haliwant Sahay was placed in the care of an aunt who was brusque and heartless. His cousins added to his woes; they were prickly and impossible to put up with. Feeling unwanted and helpless, he ran away from Sheetlapur and sought refuge with his maternal uncle who lived in Godna Semariya. His
maternal relatives—his aunt and uncle—were full of compassion, but practically penniless. With no means to support his nephew, the uncle pleaded with Revel Sahib and found a job for Haliwant Sahay. This is how he became the deputy clerk at the Opium Bungalow. His salary was set at three rupees a month. He found the amount so astronomical that when he got his first salary, he felt like the lord of the three realms.

  ‘Would you be interested in working as a clerk? You are of the Kayasth caste, aren’t you?’ Revel Sahib had asked.

  The bashful fifteen-year-old could merely nod in agreement. In those days, being a Kayasth was one’s permit to the clerical profession. It was precisely this caste affiliation that had landed his father a job as an accountant with the East India Company. But Haliwant Sahay wasn’t destined to remain a clerk forever. Although he had come to work as one, he ended up becoming Revel Sahib’s loyal sentinel, his trusted manager and bosom friend.

  * * *

  ‘Haliwant, I’ll sculpt a true Englishman out of you and take you to England, as my adopted son. You will come with me, won’t you?’ Revel Sahib would often announce.

  Whenever Revel Sahib made that suggestion, Sahay would merely nod his head to signal his consent. But this repeated declaration of an eventual return was to remain unrealized since the sahib could never tear himself away from Revelgunj. Even though he strove hard to groom Sahay into becoming an Englishman, he himself kept evolving into a Hindustani—an unadulterated specimen of a Bhojpuri-speaking rustic. Sahay’s transformation into an English Sahib was a swift one. As he established his grip over the opium trade, coat and trousers became his preferred attire, English became his preferred language and his gait betrayed a lordly disposition typical of a sahib. But Revel Sahib became a shadow of the man from England. Gradually, memories of the distant homeland faded away and he felt like a native of Revelgunj: the local medicine-man, a grandfather to the entire community.

  Once, Sahay had tried to remind him gently of his oft-announced plan. ‘Sahib, won’t the two of us go to England?’

  Nudged about his old scheme, Revel Sahib kept staring blankly at Haliwant. Following a few moments of uneasy silence, he replied in jest, ‘You Kayasths are so much like the English: a stream of water, that’s what you are. Wherever the stream finds a slope, it flows along. It can never be tied down to a place.’

  After a moment’s reflection, he added, ‘Haliwant, you see, this place here, this Revelgunj—this is now my England, my home. And I won’t desert it for anything in the world, nor would I let you go anywhere, sailing across the seven seas.’

  That day, after a very long time, Revel Sahib put on his English suit, got into his carriage and rode out. By evening, his bungalow was bursting with noisy revellers. Arrangements for what appeared to be a grand celebration were afoot; a confectioner was busy supervising the preparation of local cuisines and traditional sweetmeats. When Sahay returned to the bungalow, after his routine roundup of the opium farm in Chhapra, he froze at the entrance. Nothing of what he saw made sense to him. ‘What are these women doing inside Revel Sahib’s bungalow?’ he gaped and wondered.

  Just then, Revel Sahib walked up to him, thumped the unsuspecting youngster on his back and said, ‘Get inside, Haliwant. Wrap a new dhoti. Today is your tilak, your engagement.’ As he shed light on the occasion, a feeling of triumph was writ large on his face. Before the day ended, Sahay was engaged. His maternal uncle and aunt were beside themselves with joy. ‘Now that I have clipped his wings, this birdie won’t dream of flying to England,’ Revel Sahib had said to himself.

  Impulsive though it might have appeared, it wasn’t a decision made in haste. Sahib had been mulling it over for quite a while. He knew of a suitable match in Manjhi, the neighbouring village. There was a girl whom he had cured with his medicines the year before. Earlier that day, when he had set out on his carriage, he had gone to Manjhi with a formal proposal for Sahay’s marriage. Revel Sahib saw to it that the elaborate rituals were completed within a day, and, by late evening, the entire town of Revelgunj had partaken of the ceremonial feast at his bungalow.

  But even after the tilak, dust didn’t settle on the sahib’s carriage. Soon afterwards, a routine of daily trips from Revelgunj to Chhapra commenced. Every morning, the sahib would embark for Chhapra and return to Revelgunj only by late evening. And before anyone had the time to reflect on the strange monotony of the sahib’s enterprise, as he went about making a few secret arrangements, the day of the wedding had already arrived. After all the matrimonial rituals were performed, the palanquin ferrying the young bride set forth for the groom’s place. The jubilant entourage was led by Revel Sahib’s own carriage; on the carriage sat the groom, with the sahib keeping him company. But when the baraat reached Revelgunj, instead of taking the turn that led to the sahib’s bungalow, it marched straight ahead.

  ‘Where are we headed?’ a befuddled Haliwant asked.

  ‘Chhapra,’ Sahib made a curt reply.

  When the entourage reached Sahib’s Chhapra bungalow, Haliwant’s maternal uncle and aunt were already there. The bride was given a traditional welcome. As soon as she set foot into the house, people queued up to observe the rite of moohdekhi or ‘behold the bride’. When Revel Sahib’s turn came, he blessed her with a most magnanimous wedding gift: having secretly transferred the ownership of his bungalow, assets and other business interests in Chhapra to Sahay, he entrusted his bride with property registration papers. And before returning to Revelgunj, he even surrendered the deeds of his mukhtari to Sahay.

  ‘Haliwant, I want you to stay in Chhapra and come tomorrow, you must start your practice at the district court,’ he ordered.

  Sahay teared up at the suggestion and protested vehemently, ‘No, Sahib, I won’t leave you for the sake of a mukhtari, nor will I stay in Chhapra.’

  Sahib caressed him lovingly and chuckled at his childlike petulance. ‘No, son, there is no getting away from this. You have to manage your mukhtari and stay here in Chhapra.’

  That evening, Sahib retuned to Revelgunj, all by himself.

  3

  The Cage by Saryu

  By the time the train stopped at the Chhapra station, it was already dawn. Babu Haliwant Sahay alighted from his compartment, looking careworn and dazed. His clothes were soiled, his hair was scruffy, his cheeks were covered with a grey stubble and his eyes were a little inflamed, for he had not slept a wink the whole night. As soon as he got down, the platform woke up to a sudden excitement. The stationmaster rushed to welcome him, offered his salaam and escorted him away from the platform. Addressing the stationmaster in English, Sahay made a polite request, ‘Stationmaster Sahib, I don’t think my carriage has arrived yet. Please arrange one for me.’

  A carriage was hired and Sahay boarded it at once. But no sooner had it started moving than a thought occurred to him. He was reminded of Revel Sahib and his wise assessment of the human condition: ‘Haliwant, man is a puny creature. Only time and circumstances propel him to greatness.’ It was so true. Sahay’s own high stature was the handiwork of time and circumstances. That day, it was because of those two mysterious forces that he was compelled to return to Chhapra, feeling wretched and powerless; it was because of them that he had to suffer a painful humiliation, that too at the hands of a harlot.

  Sahay had witnessed a great many things in his life, and had endured much too. Twenty years ago, while still a young man of thirty-five, he had become a childless widower. By then, Revel Sahib was also dead. Had he been alive, perhaps Sahay wouldn’t have decided to lead a solitary life after his wife’s death. Revel Sahib had also lost his wife, but it had happened around the onset of his twilight years. He, too, had been childless, but he found a pillar of support in Sahay. It had helped him spend the remainder of his days with a little joy and abundant contentment. Revel Sahib had tasted each wine that life had bestowed on him. Sadly, he could not inspire a similar yearning for the bittersweet gifts of life in Sahay.

  Revel Sahib had lived the life of a saint—a
life dedicated to serving others. Sahay always looked up to him and idealized his ways. Following his example, Sahay committed himself to an erroneous choice after the death of his wife; moved by Revel Sahib’s dedication to his dead wife, he too, decided to spend his days alone. Leaning on Sahay, Revel Sahib could happily complete his earthly chores, before retiring to the final union with his maker. However, Sahay remained trapped in the bog of worldly concerns. He found no one to stand by his side. As his influence and prosperity soared, he kept sinking deeper into that bog. That day, at the age of fifty-five, his edgy and long-repressed libido was once again on the boil.

  * * *

  When his vehicle clattered past the turn at the end of Bhagwan Bazaar, it suffered a sharp jolt. The sudden bump forced Sahay, presently drooping from fatigue, to look out of the carriage’s window. The stream of the river Saryu had shrunk and mounds of sand lay sprawled across the riverbank. A cowherd, who stood by the edge of the road as his cattle grazed, was engrossed in singing a poorvi.

  ‘Build me a bungalow, along the sandy swathe,

  O Kishori Lal,

  Where the waves of the river Yamuna would frolic and splash.’

  ‘All right, then, it is decided. I, too, shall build such a bungalow on the sandy riverbank. And the waves of Saryu, if not of the Yamuna, will splash against it. Don’t worry, Dhela. Let the time come. I understand that man is awfully feeble. It is also true that only time and circumstances elevate him to greatness. But both dance to the tune of a man who dares to rise. I will become that man. Why couldn’t Revel Sahib, my greatest teacher, my dearest friend, come to embrace this simple truth?’ he thought, his languid eyes lit up with hope.