by Akhilesh
But the very same instant he longed for the door to open, and for Ma to emerge and lead him and Gauri inside. And then he realized the assault on his sentiment and muttered, ‘Amma, I shall never come back again!’ It was as if she had really come out and was escorting them in, and he was proclaiming his resolution, refusing to budge.
He had started walking away with Gauri, who spoke for the first time after the incident. ‘You were saying something, but I didn’t catch it.’
‘Nothing.’
Gauri had looked into his eyes and had fallen silent. Like Suryakant, she told herself aloud, ‘It’s going to be midnight.’
Suryakant had heard her. He trembled at the words because she was not safe on the fog-clad road at midnight. Anyway, how safe would she have been in a home that thought of her as a whore, a slut? A loathsome hatred surfaced once again. They had already encountered the ordeal of his home, and Suryakant knew very well what dangers awaited a woman in this town at midnight.
‘What’ll we do? The doors won’t open,’ Gauri said.
‘I don’t expect them to.’
‘Why are we here then?’ Gauri had spoken a little harshly.
Suryakant had looked helplessly at her. There was such misery and an appeal for understanding in his eyes that Gauri had felt bad. ‘Sorry,’ she had murmured, paused and walked to the veranda of the house with him, ‘We’ll spend the night here. The house did not offer us shelter, but the veranda will.’
The fog had been swirling in the veranda too. The walls of the house were not visible. Gauri had seen a smudge on the screen of the fog and approached it. It was a goat that had perhaps lost its way back to its owner in the fog and was now a refugee sprawled in the veranda. Gauri found, as she stroked its back, that it was shivering – either from the cold or from her touch.
Suryakant and Gauri had sat against the wall of the veranda. It seemed that they were there not to spend the night, but on a hunger strike to protest Babuji’s rudeness.
‘You must be cold,’ Suryakant said, still sounding helpless.
‘What rubbish! Can anyone feel cold in such wonderful weather? There isn’t even a fan around. I’m sweating. It is so terribly hot!’ Gauri laughed mildly. She pulled Suryakant’s palm to her knee, ‘Don’t worry. This too will pass. That’s the way of the world.’ She placed her hand on Suryakant’s back, ‘Come on, lie down – you will feel better.’
They had slid down the wall and lay on the icy floor. Normally, such a cold floor would have distressed them, but at this hour they were distracted by a nagging sense of disrespect, stress, despondency and fury. When Babu had gripped Suryakant’s neck, he had not felt the cold at all. Instead, his temples had started burning. Gauri’s heart had sunk when she heard the word ‘whore’, and for a few seconds her entire being was ablaze in such a way that the heat still persisted. Is that why they felt the cold intensely at one point and then suddenly its frosty bite had eased? They had drawn their knees close to their bodies to ward off the cold.
When they drew up their knees, their trousers had pulled down a few inches at the waist. The cold sat on their bare skin. Gauri pulled her trousers up and thought, Suryakant was berated, but I was the real target. The abuses were hurled at Surya, but they struck me. Whore, shameless … how harshly the words were spoken. Something was turning within her and she sat up in horror. She glanced at Suryakant, he lay supine with his eyes closed. Is he also like his father? Will he too call me a whore, wanton, furiously some day? Her nostrils quivered lightly.
Suryakant opened his eyes as if he had heard the words. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. He made an attempt to rise when he saw Gauri looking unhappy, but she waved to him to keep still.
Her thoughts had turned again. How unhappy my Surya must be. He has lost his father, mother, brother, sister, his house, even this town. How he loved them all! He has told me numerous stories about them. He must think that I considered his tales a bag of lies. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if I look down upon him – he just won’t be able to. Love gushed within her and she thought, I’ve sinned if I thought him to be anything like his father. She stroked Suryakant’s head and said, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine.’
Suryakant remained quiet and shut his eyes again. But Gauri was gripped by an intense desire to talk to him. She would convince him through her words, through the pauses between the words, through her gestures that she was not angry with him for what had happened. She was with him in everything. But Suryakant kept still, his eyes closed. He turned away. Gauri, baffled, bent over him. She turned his face towards hers, pressed her lips on his, closed her eyes and brought them at the level of Suryakant’s eyes.
Suryakant pushed her lips away.
Gauri giggled, ‘Not sweet?’ She tried to ease Suryakant’s anxiety and said, ‘Don’t worry, nobody will see anything in the fog.’ She put her lips to Surya’s throat. She felt the roughness of Surya’s sweater and said, ‘I’ll knit you a soft sweater after we marry.’
Suddenly, startled, she sprang away. A drunk man had come stumbling in, collided with the goat in the veranda and approached Suryakant.
‘Chacha, namaste.’ Suryakant stood up. Gauri touched his feet.
‘So, who’s this? Have you married her or eloped with her?’ Chacha was not all that drunk.
Gauri looked at him closely – it was Suryakant’s uncle, who was only slightly older than him.
‘Chacha, we are not married yet but we want to be. I haven’t waylaid her; rather, we have been driven out of this house.’
‘Young love! Wah! Don’t worry, Chacha is with you …’ He moved forward either to cheer or to bless them, but he stepped so far ahead that he hit the wall.
‘Gauri, take care of Chacha.’
But Chacha braced himself – he was used to stumbling, colliding, falling and then bracing himself.
He stood opposite Suryakant and swayed incessantly. He spoke like a drunkard, ‘Hey Suryakant, Gauri’s Mahadev … you silly fellow … d’you intend to … get married in this very veranda?’
Chacha led them, rather they led the woozy Chacha, up the stairs. They reached the upper floor. It was Chacha’s part of the house, where he lived with Chachi and their two children. The kids were asleep. Chachi was awake in her caftan, her hair undone.
Suryakant and Gauri received dinner and a warm bed, but sleep remained elusive. Moreover, Chacha had advised them to leave before Babuji woke up. He did not let anyone sleep with his constant chatter. When Chachi nodded off, he pinched her awake with the dialogue, ‘Awaken, my beloved Mumtaz Mahal!’ When Suryakant began to doze, Chacha boxed his ears. Gauri remained awake but Chacha kept sprinkling water on her to stop her from falling asleep. Only the children were sleeping soundly, untouched by the rumpus.
Suryakant came to when the train stopped at a station, and the clamour from the passengers had proved more powerful than his memory of Chacha’s histrionics. The racket at the station drew Suryakant out of his reminiscences of that night – the image of Chacha and his spiel evaporated, but Chacha remained fixed. Like a frame stuck in a movie and the sound missing due to a technical fault. Suddenly, the technical fault was repaired and Chacha ranted on.
He had become sober and his pronunciation had become clearer. ‘Your father, my elder brother, is quite a gentleman, isn’t it so? He doted on you, he praised you heaps, isn’t it so? Tell me, why has he been so badly disillusioned with you, so furious that he insulted you in front of a girl who loves you, isn’t it so? He caught you by the neck and threw you out on such an awfully cold night, isn’t it so?’
He drank some water and his words were more tidy now and the refrain ‘isn’t it so?’ vanished as he continued. ‘My dear nephew, it is no surprise at all. Women, caste and religion – even a coward, a tender-hearted, soft man turns violent on these issues. A coward pretends to be a tiger in front of his wife. Look at the riots in the name of religion; the same people whose hearts melt at the sight of a wounded bird under normal circumstanc
es, those who feed flour to ants, offer grams to monkeys – they also start talking of unleashing a bloodbath during such riots … so, this is man created by God, the son of God, one who wants to cover the ground with the corpses of people belonging to other religions … And this caste sentiment, it works quietly – it doesn’t cause so much bloodshed, but it relishes an inner violence. It works from the most trivial issue to the biggest. Its hostility may not be visible, but it exists everywhere. It sticks with you from birth to death. But it is some fourth factor in Gauri’s case … it contains the risks of the first three and there are other bumps besides … this is what turned Bhaiya against you…’
‘However, Gauri, you needn’t worry. What kind of love is it if the lovers don’t face hurdles?’ He grinned. ‘I bless you both, may the future of your love story not be like Dilip Kumar and Madhubala’s, and may it find a harmonious end like Nargis and Sunil Dutt!’
The night was almost over. Winter mornings were usually dark, but that morning was packed with fog. Although the Varuna Express was a couple of hours away, Chacha advised them to leave before Babuji got up.
Chacha had remained with them until the train arrived. When he saw the train approaching, he hugged Suryakant and said, ‘Look here, the train not only departs from this station, it also comes back this way. Don’t write us off.’
And today, Suryakant was going back after several years, by the same Varuna Express that had taken him away. Once he was a daily commuter on this train, travelling to Lucknow and returning to Sultanpur day after day.
The incident that has been reported as ‘The vile utterance was followed by Ma’s sobs’ is true. Which mother would not cry if her son, the apple of her eye, was being banished from the house in such a way? But I tell you, I was more deeply hurt by the fact that my son was being beaten in front of the girl he loved. With what confidence, what expectation, had he brought her here? What could we have done had he married her in a court in Lucknow or in some temple and put the vermilion in the parting of her hair? But he came home with the assurance that we would be happy to see the girl and accept her gladly, or else in pity. But what actually happened? Everything has gone awry. Oh God! How terrible! I tried to convince him; I’m not trying to praise myself by mentioning this … the poor girl, what was her name … Gauri … how nervously, how fearfully she looked at all of us! As if trying to stop us, beseeching us. How beautiful, how quiet, how worried she was, my little squirrel! God knows why I felt that she was imploring me through her silence to help her!
But my daughter, what could I do? I could fall at Suryakant’s father’s feet … beg, plead. I could ask him to stop for God’s sake – I did all this as you saw. But he seemed to have been possessed by some demon. And I should tell you, this other thing that has been written in the novel: ‘Perhaps she had lunged, weeping, to unlock the door.’ Yes, I had. I had gone crazy. I had borne Suryakant, raised him and just look at my husband – he was driving him out. I felt he was a butcher holding your neck. I sprang to your defence but by then, he had already thrown you out. Now, if my dear son feels that his Babuji was beating his Amma, he is wrong. The thudding was not him, but I beating him. I had gone wild. God knows where I gathered my courage from. And yet he did not open the door or let others open it. He said, if anyone opened the door, he would bury a knife in his own belly. So I was vanquished.
I was afraid when he threatened to kill me, but I was more terrified by the idea that he would kill himself. And I was afraid. What could I have done? I cried, but finally relented. I punished myself by refusing to eat for two days. I was hounded by the guilt of throwing you two out in the fog. Both the father and the son were obstinate. The father would never ask for forgiveness in spite of his remorse, and the son would never forgive him. Would he never return home? Would I never see him again? Would I never caress his forehead, or feed him his favourite dishes? Every time these thoughts flashed in my mind, I felt like crying. It was God’s doing that my brother-in-law bumped into them and gave them shelter.
Devarji had returned drunk as usual. However, he told me that he was coming home after visiting a friend in hospital when he saw Surya and Gauri. They were adamant not to enter the house. Devarji made them swear in his name, boxed their ears lovingly and they finally agreed to spend the night in the house. But suppose no acquaintance of Devarji had been hospitalized or he had not had the urge to drink, why would he have got out on such a bitterly cold night? However, these are coincidences. The father drove him out, and the uncle provided him shelter.
9
IT IS THE BICYCLE RIDER WHO CRASHES IN THE BATTLEFIELD
The Chacha and nephew were close friends. And so Chacha was no more an uncle and the bhatija was no more a nephew, although their friendship had faded a bit in the long gap. But this is a story about the days when that fog-filled night was years away. When Suryakant was born, Chacha was four years old. Chacha’s mother’s breasts were bursting with milk. Her children used to suckle her for years. She bore Chacha when she was fifty, and she suckled Chacha for five years. However, the nephew’s mother’s milk went dry in a year. And so, Chacha and Suryakant were weaned and started drinking milk from the glass together.
The two got into mischief together and were taken to task together. They played together and ate together. The two fell asleep together and woke up together. If they were not in the same place at the same time, they appeared one by one. Suryakant rode Chacha’s bicycle after him. He also started school right after Chacha. He wore Chacha’s clothes after Chacha grew too big for them. Chacha’s shirts, trousers, coats and sweaters were preserved for him. So, when Suryakant put on chappals for the first time, they were at least four or five years old. He was given Chacha’s school bag and dog-eared books antiquated by four years. However, Suryakant was always content with his destiny. He accepted Chacha’s things as gifts because the kinds of clothes, shoes, toys he showed off to his friends in the locality, were nothing less than a dream for them. The children gazed at the hand-me-downs with yearning and submitted to Suryakant’s superiority.
However, the ‘one-by-one’ appearance did not terminate their togetherness or fellowship. They went to school together and returned together. During summer vacations they travelled to the village together. They used to bathe at the tube well in the village together. When a storm raged, they would rush to the orchard together to collect fallen mangoes and came back together. They used to hear stories and folk songs from Chacha’s mother, together.
They grew up in this manner. When Chacha was fifteen and Suryakant was eleven, Chacha received a new bicycle. The nephew was surprised that Chacha already knew how to ride. Chacha plonked Suryakant on the rear carrier and went for an easy, two-kilometre ride. But Suryakant was bowled over when he saw a rare spectacle – Chacha was riding the bicycle without holding the handles! He was proud of Chacha but felt sad for himself as his legs were not long enough to reach the pedals. But he girdled up and learnt how to ride the bicycle scissor-style. The next day, he declared, ‘Chacha, I too can ride!’ He planted Chacha on the bicycle and wrecked it and injured his knees.
Chacha then recited a sher, ‘Girte hain cycle sawar hi maidan-e-jung mein.’ (It is the bicycle rider who crashes in the battlefield.)
It was because of their growing fascination for riding the bicycle that the two started leaving for school quite early. They were so impatient to ride that they did not eat the cooked or half-cooked breakfast properly and got on the two-wheeler straight away. They left so early that the gates of the Government Inter-College, Sultanpur would still be locked. To while away time, they sat on a bench at Comrade Komal’s tea stall and scanned the newspaper. Each Hindi daily was available at Comrade’s shop just as all the newspapers were available at Bhatnagar’s tea stall opposite the bus stand. Both shops were ramshackled but they always remained crowded. Members of the Congress Party, Jansangh Party and the Sangha visited Bhatnagarji’s stall and the socialists and communists went to Komal’s. Both shops served tea and w
ater and biscuits, zeera and dalmoth. Leaders visited Bhatnagar’s but he had no idea of politics at all, neither was he interested. He would boil tea, brew it, strain it and hand out biscuits and dalmoth on plates.
Komal was different. He used words like ‘capitalism’, ‘socialism’ and ‘bourgeoisie’ as he poured tea into the glasses. People said that the comrade had faced lathis, truncheons and bullets in several processions and even had two of his left fingers broken by a sub-inspector at a police station. Even now, he had shut shop for a couple of days to join processions and to face lathis, truncheons and bullets. But in the recent times, he had not stumbled on any such opportunity because Emergency had been imposed in the country. Let alone processions, picketing and demonstrations, it was not easy to organize even a wedding ceremony.
It must be noted that the district adjacent to Sultanpur was the parliamentary constituency of the Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and her son, Sanjay Gandhi, was going to choose Sultanpur as his parliamentary constituency. The most compelling example of ‘What’s in a name’ adage began with the incident that concerned the grandson of a court agent, Bhawani Prasad, called Sanjay. It was during those days that it was proved that name matters a lot. What actually happened was that Bhawani Prasad ordered the barber at the Devi Temple in Lohramau on the ritualistic occasion of the tonsure of his five-year-old grandson, ‘Shave Sanjay’s head meticulously’. And he was arrested. The LIU agent present at the spot declared Bhawani’s statement was treachery against the nation and Sanjay Gandhi. Bhawani Babu was sent to jail with his son, two brothers and the barber, and the grandson returned home with his head half-shaven with his grandmother, mother and maternal aunt. His head was tonsured completely only after the Emergency was lifted because his mother and maternal aunt had resolved when they reached home: until Emergency is lifted, the child’s status quo would be maintained. The maternal aunt was so unyielding in her resolve that as soon as the child’s skin on the shaven half of his head turned brackish and the stubble rose a little, she would shave it clean with her brother’s safety razor. The child would roam around in the locality with his head half-shaven and half-luxuriant, play in the locality and go to school in this very hair style. Gradually, the entire town found out the secret and with time, the gossip spread to the neighbouring districts too. However, neither the news nor the photograph of the boy with his half-shaven and half-luxuriant head was printed in the papers. It was not the Age of the Television. No pamphlet was published, there was no publicity on loud speakers, and no horde of journalists occupied themselves in the mission, but one dark night, armed policemen jumped down from two trucks in front of Bhawani Babu’s house. The squad of the district police captain and the district magistrate also was present. The boy with the half-shaven and half-luxuriant head was sent to prison under guard of swaying bayonets.