Our Favourite Indian Stories

by Khushwant Singh

  'Why won't he give it? For whom is it meant, after all?'

  'Not for us,' father had said emphatically. 'What can you do with a thousand rupees? For him it's just some dirt off his hand. He saves that much money every month!'

  He had heard that by mere accident and was stunned. He had regretted that he had ever borrowed the money at all. What a complicated situation it was! There was trouble if he did not give money, and when he did, the wonderful compliments! His mind protested.

  But however much he may have revolted against him, Father's importance could not be denied. The day Father died, he was overwhelmed with sorrow and grief. He had not even been able to see him before his death. That was painful enough and then, the pain of seeing his body reduced to ashes! How frequently he had broken down while carrying his ashes to the Ganges. What he was carrying in his hands was stark reality. That is the fate of man, he had thought, and yet the things he does before reaching that point! The line of transition when the Past is turned into history — that alone is the range of his identity. He felt like shouting at the ashes of his father, 'You did build your house. Then why didn't you carry it away with you?'

  He could not imagine that the burden of Father's death could be just an everyday occurrence to others. He could not bear the priests on their bicycles pursuing him as he carried his father's ashes, bundled in a red cloth, to the banks of the Ganges.

  'They stick to you like dogs stick to dead flesh,' he thought.

  But he deliberately forced himself to smile and say, 'Don't follow us. We are just going to the riverbank for a quiet walk.'

  He had heard the reply, 'Why are you telling a lie, Babu? Sorrow is writ large on your face... Arre, we shall perform all the rites and only charge a nominal fee. Oh, yes! Where do you come from?'

  And then a whole list of names, known and unknown, meaningless talk and arguments that hurt. Ultimately, irritated, he was compelled to agree, 'Very well, man, do perform the rites.'

  Looking at his sorrowful face the priest resorted to his usual tricks. For the priest his sorrow was a mere joke. He had not been able to spend even a few quiet moments with his father who was dead.

  He had not even been able to tell him, 'You wanted to pile up things to show off to society, which waited only to see the fun of your death! Society only aims at satisfying its own greed. All those people are in no different from dogs who always come back with their tails between their legs, even after having been repeatedly kicked.'

  But no.... if his father could not understand that in his lifetime, how would he understand it after his death? How often had he felt like scattering his father's ashes in the air just there and going back! All the compromises he had avoided making all along, he now had to make at the funeral of his father. He still had that pain in his heart. He had done everything—made rice-balls, recited mantras, held the sacrificial grass in his hand, handled the newly-worn sacred thread as though he had been wearing it all his life, even faithfully lowered his head before the priest, mumbling the entire list of his ancestors. He had enacted exactly the same drama played by the bride and bridegroom at the time of their marriage to buy each other's bodies. At the end of the whole farce came the moment of making payment to the priest. You would think that the entire scenario had been arranged just for that!

  The sun had started peeping out like the light emerging from a corner of a theatre. He saw that the compartment was no longer quiet. His three fellow passengers were up and about. They seemed to be addressing themselves. One asked about the station that had just passed, and another looked at the railway timetable to find out about the next station. The whole of their outside world seemed enclosed in the railway compartment. Morning held the smell of stagnant water. He opened the window, looked out and was kissed by a whiff of fresh air. The racing trees seemed to jump like hares.

  He had even forgotten his destination. His fellow passengers were exchanging notes about the rest of the journey. Though there, he was really not there. For how long his sister had been complaining! He had not visited his city after his father's death. The ceremony for his father's death anniversary had been performed by his brother. In between, six or seven monsoons had come and gone. His sister was keen to tie raakhi around his wrist. Every time he wrote a letter, wet with tears — she reminded him of his father. Would she have behaved like a stranger if his father had been alive? Actually nobody bothered about him. He had seven nephews and nieces and, though all remembered him, nobody knew what their uncle was doing. His sister only remembered that when she was a child, she used to get a rupee for tying raakhis. Now... ?

  Tears came to his eyes. How brother and sister had quarrelled as children! How the sister used to drink away the brother's share of milk and then add water to it! And how she used to be beaten up when discovered! Only then was it that she had come to realize the difference between being a boy and a girl. She had to wash her brother's shirts every day and if she didn't do that, he would catch hold of her by her hair and beat her up. But there was always peace between them when mother was not at home.

  When their period of peace extended a little longer, the two of them would play 'house-house' in the balcony. The sister would become the wife of the brother and then both of them would enact all the scenes from the world of reality with a touch of drama. They imitated everything — starting with the quarrels between their parents and ending with a display of all that symbolizes love. They would also have a rag-doll. Everything was so life-like, yet now so meaningless! That's what infuriated him. Marriage, love—everything was so complicated! They devoured life like vultures, till one was reduced to ashes and was tied up in a bundle.

  Verily, like travelling by train, he had left all those halts behind. His sister's face remained fixed before his eyes. Her face appeared to him like a mushroom grown in a pot, with seven new offshoots sprouting, and the taller mushroom gazing at those sprouts with pride. They would all welcome him on his arrival. At the same time, there would be only one thought in everybody's mind, 'Brother has become a big officer; uncle has a machine to print currency notes; his terelene bush shirt is stitched just to fit us; his trousers too, fit us perfectly. Why should uncle have three fountain pens? Brother is funny because he keeps his suitcase locked. Arre, does one keep things locked up in one's own house? Chiffon tie-and-dye saris are very much in vogue these days. Brother must have surely brought at least one such sari for us. After all, doesn't he have to make up for not one but five or six raakhi presents?'

  He sensed how his brother-in-law, with his air of detachment talked in a hushed tone. He was vocal about the fact that, since he belonged to the same clan, he should not have severed his ties and chosen for himself a separate path. And having done so, he was now duty-bound to make amends.

  He got up suddenly, opened his attaché case, brought out a copy of the railway timetable and started flipping through its pages. As he turned the pages, he forgot what he had wanted to see. He glanced at them one by one. He felt that his companions' eyes were glued to those pages. He surveyed those eyes in one go. Shekhar's eyes sprang up from his files. Shekhar had now become a schoolteacher. Hari was an overseer. Deshmukh was a police sub-inspector. Savita... He wanted to observe more closely, but could not make out anything. It seemed that only the expression of her eyes was absorbed by the timetable printed on newsprint. He tried very hard but couldn't find Savita anywhere. Remembering her, his thoughts flew to himself. Was he something apart from those memories? Perhaps not... Then, why had he decided to appear for his I. A. S. ? Who had provoked him to do that? All of a sudden, he had become the Director of a very big department. After all, why? How?

  A flood of worries surrounded him as it were. Everything happens according to tradition. Whoever allowed a flower of modernity to bloom in the jungle of tradition?

  The moving train had slowed down. Perhaps it was nearing a station. He put the timetable on the seat upside down and his eyes started roving in the compartment. There were two passengers on the opposi
te seat. One of them was reading the morning paper and the other was gazing at him. He encountered that gaze. The other passenger at once lowered his eyes and looked away.

  He looked out through the window. The train's motion had slowed down further. Outside, in the dried up fields stood the stalks of harvested crops. The earth had cracks here and there, and resembled the face of a very aged man. Bunches of red flowers hung from the palaash trees growing close to the railway line. He had loved these flowers right from his childhood. They burnt like phosphorous and emitted a freshness to the dry, bare jungle. As a child he would pluck those flowers and bring them home to play Holi with the colour extracted from them. Subsequently, these flowers changed to look like flattened petals in the shape of a rupee coin. In those days the flowers served as money in their make-believe world. And it was then that he had come to recognize the value of money. As he looked in front him, he suddenly went back several years in the Past. He was not destined to remain there, however. The third passenger asked conversationally, as he wiped his face with a towel, 'Are we nearing a station, Sir?'

  He felt the question was addressed only to him. He sat up erect and said, 'Yes, Sir, it's Narsinghpur.'

  'How long does the train stop here?'

  'Isn't there a big station a little further?'

  'Another hour or so, and we shall reach Jabalpur,' another passenger interrupted.

  'The train stops there for a long time. What do you want to do?'

  Nothing. I'll just get down and walk a bit. I'll have some tea and...'

  He continued in an utterly carefree manner like one on a holiday.

  He paced up and down the compartment. 'I'm a military man. If I sit long in the same place, my body becomes stiff and numb.'

  The man, who had been reading the newspaper a little while ago remarked as though throwing a challenge, 'I'm getting down at Jabalpur.'

  He suddenly felt disturbed on hearing the reply. At the mention of the city, he began to stare down at the floor of the compartment with blank eyes.

  'I've heard about the marble-rocks there. Is it a lovely place?'

  The army man seemed to be a very jolly fellow. But he did not consider it proper to join in the discussion. He continued to stare at the dirty floor of the compartment. A man becomes alert at the mention of the city of his birth. He feels as though somebody has called him by his first name amidst a jungle full of people. Now that name was like a dream. Everyone had started referring to him as Tiwari Saheb, and his first name Sharad seemed to have got lost somewhere in the years. How much time had he spent in those very marble-rocks at Bheda Ghat. And what satisfaction he used to feel whenever he looked at the Mithuna images in the temple of Chaunsath Jogini! And how often he had enjoyed eating daal-baati outside that temple! He had spent several nights there with a campfire and, in his idle moments, memories of those days would start floating around him. That was because a man who is used to living in the Past is never able to live in the Present.

  He heaved a sigh. What a great mockery that rather than living in the Present, man removes himself from the moment of the Present! But how could one live in the Present? Suddenly he felt that all the passengers getting off at Jabalpur knew him well. They would surely announce it to everyone that Sharad Saheb had proceeded straight to Allahabad without getting off at Jabalpur. What would happen then?

  How that Champu would curse him! Champu, that is, Seth Ratan Lai Jain, who now owned a bookshop. He had once written to him, 'You are in the capital of the country and are a big officer. Get a licence for me so that I can set up some factory.' He had not bothered to even reply to the letter because he had no such inclination. When he had been studying for his M. A., he had gone to take some books on credit from Champu's shop. Champu had given him the books but with an indirect hint that his business was selling books, not running a library. He knew that Champu was not wrong. But at the time, he had been in no position to buy any books either.

  He could see Champu's face clearly before him — cheerful and glowing with the faint radiance of the warmth of money. When he had been performing his father's funeral rites under a peepel tree, Champu had said, 'Sharad Bhai, what your father did not do for you sake! You must definitely give a gold ring to the priest!'

  He was furious. In truth, Father had left him only fit to be a mere ordinary clerk. Soon after passing the matriculation examination he had had to take tuitions here and there so that he would not have to ask Father for money to finance his studies. But he had merely stared at Champu, given away the gold ring to the priest and clenched his teeth. After that he had fed three hundred persons all day, from morning till evening, and in the whole process, had got a stiff waist. He was made to do everything he had never wanted to.

  Suddenly, he felt darkness spreading before him. When he closed his eyes, he was surrounded by voices. They were not clear, but they were definitely the voices of his relatives. His uncle had a habit of reproaching him. And his aunt always took away money from his pocket. His maternal aunt invariably rifled through everything he had and took away by force any clothes she thought would be useful to her husband. And then the biggest question of them all, 'They say, you earn a lot under the table over there?'

  'Is it something one asks?' his uncle would add promptly. 'Arre, our nephew is a big officer, yes, an officer! All the wealthy businessmen hover around him like moths round a flame and give bundles of notes concealed in baskets of fruit. When they come with those baskets in their cars, our nephew treats them with contempt and asks them to leave the baskets behind. They quietly fold their hands and go away.'

  His uncle said it as though he himself had been receiving that extra income. That is what made him so furious when he heard those words. The truth was he had never accepted a bribe nor made any underhand deal. That's exactly why he was held in respect. He felt like an innocent person being teased and branded a thief per force. He knew his uncle's words only had one meaning, and it all centred around money.

  He felt as though he had been caught like Abhimanyu in an entangled maze of questions. He did not even remember that he was travelling by train; nor did not hear the voices at the stations that were being left behind; nor the sound of the iron striking like a hammer. Everything moved before him in layers. From licence, to clothes, to money — let those who wanted them, deprive him of them. By hinting that everything had come to him easily, it had become their legitimate right to have them. What a crime it is to turn something precious and hard-earned into something useless and meaningless! He felt all those deals for which he had fought since his childhood, mocking him.

  He felt a jolt. The train had come to a sudden halt, breaking his stupor. There was some commotion in the compartment. Had there been an accident? Had someone pulled the chain?

  'What's happened Bhai?'

  'Don't know!'

  'We seem to be nearing some big city.'

  Then he looked out. The train had come to a halt near the signal. He knew that signal very well. Even the lifeless railway bogies to its right and left were not unfamiliar to him. But the open blue sky above them seemed to pass unwelcome comments as it were. Under the sky, the sprawling city on both sides of the railway lines began forcibly drawing him out. How could he go beyond that city? His mind was in a turmoil. He felt a hollow wind swirling inside his whole body. He looked at the passengers in front of him.

  Then he closed his eyes like a pigeon closes its eyes on seeing a cat. For sometime, he remained in the same position. With his eyes closed, he stretched himself straight on the berth and covered himself with a sheet, cutting himself off from his fellow passengers. Then he turned on his side, showing them his back and covered his face with his hands. He was like an ostrich hiding its neck at the first indication of a storm in a desert.

  Breaking Point

  Usha Mahajan

  In the afternoons this corner of the restaurant was usually empty. By the evening the place filled up and it was futile coming there without a prior reservation in the h
ope of finding a place. That evening it appeared as if the whole of Calcutta had turned up for tea. Right from the elevators upto the entrance there was a queue waiting for tables and greedily eyeing those inside.

  'I hope you haven't been waiting for too long!' he said as he sat down on the sofa and stretched his left leg to get his handkerchief out of his trouser pocket. 'There was heavy traffic all along the route. See, how I am sweating! And its winter time.'

  Madhukar wiped the beads of perspiration off his forehead. She fixed her gaze on him. He did not sound as if he was lying; he had a childlike innocence about him. She wanted to take the end of her sari and mop the pearls of sweat from his body.

  'Why are you looking at me in this way?' he asked tenderly. He noticed her twisting the ends of her sari between her fingers. Gently he took her hand. The storm of emotions gathering within her found an outlet. Before she could check herself, the words burst out of her mouth, 'Madhukar, do you love me?'

  He was taken aback almost as if his hand had touched a live wire or an icy blast of wind had blown into the easy corner of the restaurant and chilled the atmosphere. He suddenly let go her hand and sank back into his seat. 'The waiter is coming to take our order,' he replied and tried to look very business-like.

  Madhukar's reluctance to answer a direct question made her very unsure of herself. How could she have been so brash as to expose herself so shamelessly before him. She felt as if a tidal wave of disillusionment had suddenly swept her off her feet and cast her on the hard rocks of reality. She realised she had blundered and felt sorry for herself. Married couples who have lived together for many years do not ever dare to ask each other such questions. What right had she to do so on the strength of just a few meetings?

  What did she have to bring up the question of love in their relationship? He was doing everything he could for her. He took her out for lunches and dinners to the most expensive joints in the city. And the countless little things he was always doing for her! Despite all that every time they met she looked into his eyes to find an answer to just one question.