Our Favourite Indian Stories

by Khushwant Singh

  She thus tried hard to please everybody and when they needed her services no more, she put a few of the snacks on a piece of paper for herself and started eating with an appropriately guilty expression on her face. Her mother-in-law never used to give her enough of anything to eat, so that to eat less than what she wanted had now become a habit with her. While she ate, she had also to mind the baby. That made it impossible for her to eat with relish. But that didn't matter. For she knew her place and had accepted her role, and she could not make any demands on anyone.

  While eating, she thought of the numerous other chores she would have to attend to later. They were to reach home late in the night. It would not be possible to get milk at that time. But the baby had to be fed. Otherwise it would whimper and cry and that would annoy her husband. It would not be possible to prepare anything more than a makeshift meal. And that was not likely to satisfy her husband or her daughters. Her husband would certainly refuse to eat if he was not served pickles. The younger daughter would not touch the food if she were not served a tasty curry. But what could she do about it?

  These thoughts kept on revolving in her mind. The train sped on. The sun dipped in the western horizon and the evening breeze spread coolness all around. The passengers, dazed so long by the suffocating heat of noon, now came to life. They yawned and flexed their backs and started talking. She shared the general feeling of relief and tidied up her hair with a sweep of her hand.

  The train stopped at a station. A vendor was selling ice candy on the platform. The girls pressed their noses against the window bars and stared at the vendor greedily. The woman too peered out of the window and looked hopefully at the vendor. They all looked at the head of the family out of the corners of their eyes.

  The younger girl was bolder than the rest. She asked her mother with pretence of innocence, 'That man is selling ice candy. Isn't he?'

  'I don't know. Why not ask your father?' said mother.

  The mother and the daughter eyed each other slyly.

  The girl's father was taken in by this stratagem.

  'Yes. That man is selling ice candy all right. How about it, girls? Would you like to have some?' he asked.

  The girls giggled with their noses pressed against the window bars. Their mother was forgotten. She kept on looking hopefully at the candy bars. The younger girl ignored that look in her eyes. But the elder girl took pity on her mother.

  'Anna!' she said, 'do give one to mother.'

  The man looked at his wife and asked. 'How about it? Do you want one?'

  'Oh, no! What would I want candy for?' she protested.

  'Don't you listen to her. She would like to have one. I know,' said the girl.

  'Why then don't you say so?' growled the man and bought a bar of candy for her too.

  The woman accepted it guiltily and sucked at it. It tasted sweet and cool. She paused to let that pleasant sensation sink in. She then opened her mouth to suck at it again. But the baby had been looking intently at the coloured object. It thrust forward its hand to snatch it. The candy bar slipped from her hand and fell down on the floor. It did not reach the expectantly open mouth of the woman this time.

  That drove the woman mad with rage. She had had enough of her children and her miserable household. She wanted to thrust the baby in its father's arms and scream at him. 'Here are your children! You can do whatever you like with them! But I am through! Understand? I am through!'

  She wanted to get off the train and walk away. She would walk on and on until she dropped dead. Nothing really mattered any more.

  Of course, she did not do anything of that sort. The lid had blown off for a while. That was all. After a wild surge of animal fury she landed again in the dark damp hole of her existence.

  Just then a woman entered the coach. She was about the same age as this mother of three children. But there was an air of ease and assurance about her. She ordered the coolie to put her luggage properly on the shelf and when he began to demand excessive payment she curtly ticked him off. Having disposed of the coolie, she looked around for a seat. Everybody was staring at her. But she coolly ignored them all.

  The mother of three children looked at this woman and was fascinated by the way she bore herself. With an automatic movement, she tidied up her sari and her hair, and her expression became more stupid and guilty.

  'It looks as if she is a doctor,' she said. To her mind a woman having a dispensary or running a maternity home of her own represented the pinnacle of feminine achievement. She glanced at her husband with a question in her eyes.

  Her husband gave a start. She had caught him in the act of staring hungrily at that woman. So he tried to look unconcerned and said contemptuously, 'Nonsense! She couldn't be a doctor. I think she is just a nurse or a primary school teacher. She is giving herself airs. That is all. You know how things are these days.'

  The elegant woman walked up to them and rather curtly asked the man to move aside and make room for her. He was occupying the space of two seats on a crowded train, and she showed her disapproval of his callous attitude towards others passengers' comforts by talking brusquely.

  The man's wife was amazed. She was alarmed for the woman, for her husband was certainly going to snub her. She looked forward with bated breath to her husband's grand performance.

  But things turned out differently. Her husband apologetically pulled himself together and said, 'Certainly! certainly! Do have a seat.'

  The man's wife was disturbed and perplexed. The other woman had reduced her giant-sized husband to the stature of a timid little man. She stared at the woman with awe tinged with resentment.

  But the respect was short-lived. She noticed that there was no kumkum mark on the elegant woman's forehead. She was a widow. A miserable, wretched widow!

  She instantly drew for herself the conventional picture of a widow and eyed that woman. But soon she had her doubts. For there was not a trace of unhappiness on that woman's face. She did not look a cringing, forlorn person at all.

  Her mind wove contused ideas for a while and then suddenly there was a dark suspicion in her mind. This elegant woman could be one of those women. She involuntarily put her arm protectively around her daughters and frowned at the woman with suspicion and contempt.

  The elegant woman did not notice that look of hers. It could not have occurred to her that this miserable, insignificant-looking person could feel that way about her. Even had she noticed that look, she would not have cared.

  After a while, the woman took out some biscuits from her handbag. When she saw the children, she offered them some. The girls stretched their hands timidly, watching their father for his reaction.

  Their mother pushed aside their hands angrily. She wanted the woman to know what she thought of her. But to her amazement her husband reacted differently. He smiled profusely and said, 'Now, now girls! Take what the nice lady is offering you.'

  The girls accepted the biscuits, while their mother watched them uneasily.

  Her husband was all smiles and was trying to make conversation. The woman experienced a cramp of convulsive fright. For a moment she thought that the wily woman had cast a spell on her husband and was trying to snatch him away from her. But she could soon see that the elegant woman was not responding to her husband's attempts to break conversational ice. In fact she was curtly distant so that the man was snubbed into silence. This reassured the mother of three children but did not exactly please her. She was feeling very protective about her family now and she did not like that the elegant woman should snub her husband.

  But she scarcely looked at anyone for long. She sat quiet for a while. Then she showed some interest in the girls. She smiled and then patted the one near to her.

  'Do you go to school? Is it a nice school? Does your teacher use a cane to punish children? Well! My teacher used to do that.' So she went on talking pleasantly.

  The girls' mother thawed a bit. This was the talk of a nice well-bred woman. Women of easy virtue certainly would no
t talk like that. She could not help being pleased with the way her younger daughter replied to these questions. She certainly was smart.

  'Is that your little sister?' she now asked, pointing to the baby. She was talking to the girls but her question was aimed at the mother.

  'He is their little brother,' replied the mother with obvious pride.

  'Oh! Is that so? I would like to see the little darling.'

  That wiped out the last trace of resentment in the woman's mind. She proudly handed over her baby to the other woman.

  The elegant woman fondled the child and kissed it on the cheek although it was none too clean. That settled it finally. That certainly was the behaviour of a nice woman brought up in a good, old-fashioned family.

  'I like children,' said the elegant woman. 'Why! I spent my holidays with my uncle. There are lots of children in his house and I certainly had a grand time with them.'

  This naturally raised the question of who her uncle was. One question led to another, as always happens when women talk. Soon the mother of three children knew everything about the other. The elegant woman's husband had unfortunately died soon after their marriage. Her father did not like the idea that she should spend the rest of her life as a household drudge in the family. So he had asked her to take a course in nursing. This she had done. She had a nice job now and earned well. She did what she liked and had a good time. Her relatives were always nice to her and invited her to spend her holidays with them.

  The elegant woman glanced at her watch.

  'We shall be at the next station in a few minutes,' she said with a smile. She looked in her tiny mirror and tidied up her hair. She powdered her face and a delicate perfume floated in the air. Her eyes were bright and expectant.

  The mother of three children lapsed into silence. She felt envious of the other woman. She seemed to have all the money and freedom and happiness she wanted. She was not saddled with children. Nor had she to cringe before a husband.

  A horrible idea took possession of the mother of three children, if only for a moment. It certainly is nice to be a widow, she thought. One can have a lot of fun!

  She suddenly realised how terrible and wicked the whole thought was. It offended everything she had been taught to revere and have faith in. It made nonsense of everything she had lived and slaved for. Is it not a cardinal sin for a devoted Hindu wife to think in that strain?

  But try as she might to dismiss the thought, it kept coming back to her.

  The train stopped at the next station. The elegant woman peered though the window. A tall, well-groomed youth waved his arm and called. 'Vimal!'

  'Oh, Shyam!' she exclaimed and waved her little handkerchief to greet him.

  The young man walked to the window and held her hand. He then jumped on to the train and they occupied the two seats near the window.

  They were seated behind the mother of three children. She could not see them. But she could hear their pleasant chatter. She could almost see how their eyes danced and faces beamed. Their happiness hurt her somewhere deep down in her heart. It was a pain that made her numb and listless.

  So this was what she had unknowingly longed for always in the midst of the drudgery that was her life? She had longed for it without knowing it and, now that she knew, everything else lost its meaning.

  She looked at her husband with a forlorn hope. She looked at him imploringly. She wanted him to give her just this, a tiny bit of this—love. She was not a dreamy romantic. But her heart had always dreamt of having sweet nothings whispered into her ears.

  She had learnt all along to expect very little of life and she would not expect much from him. But if only he could give her a tiny bit of this happiness, it would make all the difference. She would then not mind all the drudgery and sickening poverty of her life. She would gratefully remain his slave. But of course, he could not understand the longing in her eyes. How could such things ever be put into words!

  The train sped on. The sun sank below the horizon in a red glow. Lights brightened up the compartment. For an hour or so the carriage was full of pleasant chatter. Then gradually, people lapsed again into silence. Eyelids drooped and minds retired to their nests. People squirmed and tried to stretch their tired limbs and finally fell asleep. Then the moon tiptoed into the sky.

  'Oh, the moon! So exquisitely beautiful today,' whispered the elegant woman.

  'Yes, beautiful indeed,' the young man murmured.

  The mother of three children heard them and anguish filled her heart. She wanted to lean on somebody's arm and watch the moon.

  She looked at her husband hopefully and with yearning. But she realised immediately that her wish could never come true.

  The child in her lap whimpered and kicked. She rocked it with an automatic movement of her legs and crooned.

  'Uncle moon, uncle moon

  What makes you so wan and tired'

  Translated by the Author

  The Debt

  Gauri Deshpande

  When Anita first met Sajan Singh, she had little information about India, and even less curiosity. She knew it only as a country that occupied a rather large area on the map of the world, was mentioned occasionally in newspapers for its floods and droughts, and was overpopulated by poor people. Never in her dreams had she thought that she would someday meet a man from that country, fall in love with him and actually end up marrying him. Yet that indeed was what had happened.

  A girl from some obscure town in Texas, she had a chance to come to Berkeley thanks to her brains, and the very first day in her class she had come across Sajan, bearded and moustached, dark and foreign and dressed in strange clothes. She had been so taken aback by his strangeness that in the beginning she never thought about his personality. Later, she learned to ignore the strangeness of his turban, his dress, his hirsute face, and focus on the familiar: his fluency in English and his astounding scholarship. In fact he was the best student in her class of microbiology. Of course it helped that he was not given to talking about himself, that he preferred to stay in the background, that he was shy, reserved almost to the point of being mistaken for a misanthrope. The class was small. Although all of them were doing their own research, they would meet in the weekly seminars. The two came to know each other in course of time. At first their discussions were about their studies, the seminar topic, the professors, the other students; later they touched upon more personal matters.

  Sometime in the second year Anita asked him about his home, his people. He told her very little: Mother died when he was young... three older sisters... father a doctor... home in a town north of Delhi... education all on scholarships... The tone of his reply was, 'What is there to tell? There are thousands like me in India; it's the same story as everyone else, more or less.' She had no curiosity about the matter anyway, so the subject was dropped for good. The third year of their friendship and the last year of her doctorate she sensed that she felt something more for him. She was confused. But she thought about it with the typical thoroughness of American girls. She measured the nature, length and strength of her feelings, asked herself whether it was wrong to feel that way. She discussed it with her parents, her close friends, some of her professors, and the counsellor of the university who was also a psychologist. When she realized that it was the genuine, noble feeling of true love, although the focus of it was a strange foreigner, she went straight to Sajan and told him, 'I love you.'

  He didn't hug her with joy as she expected, but instead asked her with a smile, 'So what do you suggest I do about it?' For a moment she wondered whether it would be wiser to step back right then since he was asking such a question. But she had considered everything so thoroughly before coming to her decision, that she couldn't just give the matter up. So she said with all sincerity, 'People who fall in love usually marry each other, don't they?' The smile lingered on his face although she thought that she saw a trace of pity, a little sorrow in it. He only said, 'Is everything that easy here?' She did not understand the que
stion. But apart from that, she did have a reasonably good understanding of his nature. His three elder sisters had mostly brought him up. Rarely did he see his father, the doctor. So he must have acquired a habit of giving in to the demands of women.

  After his doctorate he got a job in the same university, and then at last, he did marry her. He mentioned to her that his father was dead opposed to his marriage, but the letter that he received was in Punjabi. She didn't ask him for details, and he didn't give her any. After that he never received any letters from India, so she gathered that his family must have disowned him. Good riddance, she thought. Now he doesn't have any excuse not to settle down right here. She was a little puzzled though. All her friends and her family were so liberal that they were ready to accept him in spite of his being a dark foreigner, in spite of his strange religion, turban, beard and all, and his people should disown the daughter-in-law who is well-educated, pretty, well-to-do, blond, and American! What strange pride!

  Their married life started like everybody else's. She found a job in a hospital. Her parents gave them a small apartment as their wedding gift. He even shaved off his beard and moustache and gave up the turban at her insistence. In short, apart from the fact that Sajan was not, in fact, a true-blue American, they were quite like the average young American couple of their age. Sometimes she would sense his foreignness in some small matter, but she learned to ignore it. In fact, she was quite happy that compared with other American husbands, he was so much more courteous, so obedient, so willing to help in the house. He was still a little shy. When Sara or Katie from the neighbourhood flirted a little at a party, he would blush and hide behind Anita.