Exile

by Akhilesh

  ‘Surkan, my jewel, my child!’

  Suryakant did not reply. Everyone was quiet. Only the sounds of the hand-held fan and deep breathing could be heard. Suryakant fixed his eyes on the lantern. Now and then, he shifted his gaze to Ma and Babuji. Or, he fixed his gaze on Ma and Babuji and looked at the lantern now and then. He was at his wit’s end. He knew very well that normalcy during his visit or re-entry in the house was not possible without a dialogue with Babuji. There was an emotion that compelled him to connect with Babuji, but at the same time there was this sense of offence and the lingering hatred that kept him aloof. He resolved he would not make the first move; going back to Lucknow would be preferable.

  As if Babuji had read Suryakant’s mind, sensing the conflict within him, ‘How is my daughter-in-law?’

  Was he asking to be forgiven for his crime by mentioning Gauri in his first utterance?

  ‘She’s fine, happy.’

  ‘Gaurav must have grown up by now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Babuji was ashamed of his mistake, and he wanted Suryakant’s forgiveness – he did not want to leave any stone unturned to convey this and said, ‘You should have come with our daughter-in-law and Gaurav.’

  Babuji’s attempt at intimacy amplified Suryakank’s disgust and the lava of hatred and anger bubbled in him. But he controlled himself. In the meanwhile, Kamana had returned with tea, water and snacks. She put the tray on the table and pressed the switches. Brightness spread in the room and the fan started revolving.

  ‘The inverter is on,’ Kamana said.

  ‘Why wasn’t it on earlier?’

  ‘It has a back-up merely of three to four hours, and we save it for when we are sleeping.’

  ‘Where is Shibbu?’

  ‘He has gone out, but I’ve called him, and he must be on his way back. Eat something.’

  Suryakant thought he would pick up the plate and ask Dadi to take something, then Ma and then Kamana but he did not do it because he would have to extend it to Babuji too. He broke a piece from a biscuit and nibbled on it. When he was drinking water, Awadh Narayan said, ‘Take a bath, it’s quite hot. Once you are done, it is windy on the rooftop, let’s sit there.’

  Suryakant turned his eyes towards his father to see him properly in the light. This was not the Awadh Narayan he had left behind. He had bent a little and his face had lost its shine. Age had taken a heavy toll on him. He had lost weight. He was wearing an old vest and a lungi. The sleeve of the vest was loose and there were several black spots on his ankles peering out from the lungi. Perhaps it was some skin infection. His face hung low, he lifted it only when he spoke. His dentures did not fit properly, and slipped out of place whenever he spoke. He would push them back in position with the tip of his tongue.

  Kamana offered the plate to Awadh Naraya. Suryakant noticed that his father’s hand moved quite slowly to the plate and he had to use both his hands to break the biscuits. If the truth be told, his hands were shaking and he was unable to break the biscuits. Ma stepped up to assist him. He dipped the biscuit pieces in water to chew them.

  Suryakant gazed at him, unable to comprehend whether he was happy or unhappy to see his father in this condition. It was not easy for him to define whether he was filled with a sense of triumph or defeat. He thought, his authority, his holler, the hostile, brutal vice-like grip of his wrists on my arms, that arrogance, that physical prowess, the haughtiness of seniority – all of these have transformed into helplessness, sickness, weakness. My revenge for Gauri’s insult is complete now. He was just settling into the feeling of being a victor when he thought again: his condition is not due to my revenge but Nature’s law.

  Desperation soaked Suryakant and a strong impulse for emotional violence seized him. He wanted to offend this man sitting across him viciously, without precedence. He was suddenly conscious of the fact that he had come to this house after such a long gap only to seek revenge for himself, and for Gauri’s sake. He was not here for the sake of his love for Ma, Chacha and Shibbu but his disgust for his father. And this was the moment to exact vengeance. But something flared in his mind and all his anger vanished as he reflected: had I exacted my revenge within a year or two of the incident, I could have been the victor. But Awadh Narayan and his power sway and his robust health are already gone. This person is merely the shadow of his mortality. He felt that he had been irrevocably defeated by his father. He had been subjugated earlier by his father’s power, and now his feebleness had vanquished him.

  ‘Mummy, what vegetable should I cook?’ Kamana asked Ma.

  Ma did not reply, she simply accompanied Kamana into the kitchen.

  In the room, Suryakant was left with Babuji and Dadi, who was swinging her fan despite the electric fan spinning overhead. He addressed her, ‘Dadi, how old are you now?’

  ‘A hundred.’

  ‘No, Dadi, you aren’t a hundred. Younger perhaps.’

  ‘Then it must be seventy or eighty.’

  ‘No, more than that.’

  Dadi pretended she was hitting him with the fan, ‘Are you teasing me?’ She faced Awadh Narayan, ‘Where are you going?’

  Awadh Narayan was shuffling out of the room and he replied, ‘To piss.’

  Dadi said to Suryakant when he had left, ‘God knows what illnesses he suffers from.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Child, will you do one thing for me?’

  ‘Tell me, Dadi.’

  ‘First agree to do it.’

  ‘All right, I agree.’

  ‘Listen, your Babuji is really ill. He has many illnesses. Take him to Lucknow to a big hospital for treatment. There are big doctors there.’

  He tried to avoid the issue, ‘Not big, but they should be good doctors, Dadi.’ He changed the subject and said, ‘I’ll bathe first and then we’ll talk.’

  He took his clothes out of the suitcase. He was about to enter the bathroom when the sound of crying emerged from the kitchen. Ma and Babuji were weeping there. Kamana too had broken into a sob when they started weeping. Her daughter, Roli, started sniffling when she saw Kamana in tears. It was an uninterrupted, guileless cry. There was no hesitation or embarrassment in this wail.

  He approached the kitchen, Ma and Babuji put their heads on each other’s shoulders and wept. It was a touching sight, but Suryakant was bored instead of being moved. He wanted to order them to shut up, but found it awkward and returned to the bathroom. He grew nervous as he poured water on his head because his mobile lay on the bed outside. He was apprehensive: what if Babuji picked up Gauri’s call? There was only one option. He strode out after a hurried bath, put on his clothes, combed his hair and then dialled Gauri’s number. He wanted to tell her about this place and see what she was up to but Gauri’s mobile was still switched off and the landline still had a busy tone. It appeared that she was furious with him, he deduced.

  Awadh Narayan entered the room; he was calm and silent.

  ‘Nupoor is coming. She left as soon as she heard,’ Awadh Narayan informed him of his daughter’s arrival.

  ‘What about Tendulkarji and the children?’ Suryakant asked about his sister’s husband and children. They also lived in Sultanpur.

  ‘No, Nupoor is coming alone. Shibbu was on his way, and he is bringing them.’

  Ma broke into sobs again. Crying too could have an averse effect on her health. Suryakant decided he would ask Babuji to tell her to stop; she would obey him, even if were more from fear or tradition, rather than love or respect. Babuji would tell her to shut up, and and she would fall silent. It was a violent solution but Suryakant knew that there was no other alternative to make Ma stable.

  ‘Amma is weeping continuously, please ask her to stop.’

  Awadh Narayan looked at his son and said, ‘Does she ever obey me? She curses me all the time.’

  Suryakant was surprised, ‘She curses you?’

  ‘Yes, me. She isn’t the same woman any more. She rants and rails whenever she’s with me,’ he complained in a pitif
ul voice.

  ‘How does she curse you?’ He was pleased at his father’s meekness.

  ‘She says “You have ruined my life. I don’t have anyone to go to, or I wouldn’t have stayed with a merciless fellow like you.” She curses me into hell, with maggots crawling in my festering wounds. She says I’m not a human but the Devil incarnate.’

  ‘I don’t believe Amma would say such a thing!’

  ‘You are here now, you’ll see for yourself.’

  ‘Don’t you get angry? You were always angry.’ Suryakant turned ferocious.

  ‘Yes, I was really short-tempered. I was very angry with your mother most of the time … with you … and …’ He stopped short, breathing heavily – maybe it was overexertion from speaking, or maybe his inability to say what he wanted to say.

  ‘What else?’ Suryakant pretended he was not concerned about his father gasping.

  ‘And … with my daughter-in-law too … that was my last spell of anger.’

  ‘What happened then?’ He initiated his siege.

  ‘I learnt how to forgive others,’ he replied. ‘My guruji gave me the mantra – if I learn how to forgive, I shall not get angry. One should forgive everyone but himself, reserve the severest punishment for yourself.’

  ‘Did you absolve me and Gauri?’ Suryakant looked him in the eye.

  ‘Did you two really make a mistake?’

  ‘You always thought so.’

  ‘I have never forgiven myself for the notion, and I have punished myself ruthlessly.’

  ‘What punishment?’ Suryakant did not let go.

  Babuji was silent, unsure of himself; search for a suitable answer or not to reply at all.

  Suryakant attacked him relentlessly, ‘It is better to atone than punish oneself. And another thing, there is no greatness simply in forgiveness – sometimes there is more good in appealing for forgiveness.’

  ‘You’re right. But asking for forgiveness is very difficult.’ He spoke after a pause, ‘However, it’s not necessary to fold one’s hands, begging to be forgiven. There’re other ways too.’

  ‘But will the aggrieved person be willing to grant pardon then?’

  ‘Yes, if he is mature and kind.’

  ‘What other ways are you talking about?’

  ‘For instance, when you entered the house and I asked about your wife and my grandson and said, “You should have come with my daughter-in-law and Gaurav”, it was a kind of a plea for pardon.’

  ‘Yes, something like it,’ he said, sounding sardonic. ‘And that too after so many years!’ He stopped being sarcastic and attacked Babuji directly, ‘You’re trying to look great by asking for forgiveness after so many years. You could have come to Lucknow within a couple of days of throwing us out to say, “Let’s go home.” Then I would have been convinced that you were penitent. But after such a long time, and even then, it was not you who called me back or insisted upon my return – I came back by myself.’

  Babuji ran short of breath again. Suryakant waited for him to speak. But not for long. Ma broke into tears again and he went to her. She was cooking in the kitchen and sobbing. She wiped her face with the end of her sari and saw Suryakant standing there.

  ‘Amma, shall I help you?’

  ‘No, there’s no need.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You didn’t think of helping me all these years.’ Ma’s voice broke and to disguise it, she picked up the ladle and stirred the vegetables.

  Suryakant, in an attempt to normalize the situation, quipped, ‘Ma, if you put so many tears into the food, it will become too salty …’ He was unable to finish the sentence despite his best effort. His voice caught and a wet grief sounded which perhaps Shibbu did not hear. Shibbu was speaking excitedly, ‘Bhaiyya, we won’t let you sleep! We will talk all night long, keep you awake all night!’

  12

  NIGHT-WAKE

  It had been an unforgettable, sleepless night, and the day after seemed like it would be the same. Suryakant, Shibbu, Kamana, Nupoor and Roli gathered on the roof, filled with joy and excitement.

  Suryakant wanted to talk to Ma after supper but she said, ‘I’ve to look after your Babuji.’ And left. Finally, he came up on the roof. One portion of the roof was open, and the other portion had rooms. The portion where Chacha once lived with his family was now used by Shibbu. Chacha’s room, in which he had spent the sleepless night after his expulsion from the house, was visible from the open roof. It had been an unforgettable night spent awake; tonight was to be another night spent awake.

  Suryakant bore indelible impressions of these nights. If one discounted the nights he spent awake in the initial days of his marriage, there was one night in Suryakant’s life that was still foremost in his memory. Whenever he was sad, frustrated or depressed, or whenever he felt forlorn and hapless in the carnival of the world, he recalled this particular night.

  It was during Chacha’s marriage.

  After October 1984, Chacha had lost the desire to marry. A few years before he finally got married, he proclaimed his resolve to remain a bachelor. This resolution was made because his beloved Balwant Kaur had left him and his town forever to move to her uncle’s home in Bhatinda. Suryakant had noticed then that whenever Chacha smoked, he sighed long sighs. Thawed by Chacha’s situation, he advised him one fine morning, ‘Why do you burn your lungs? If the bewafa has left, let her go.’

  Chacha was furious and glowering at Suryakant, he asked, ‘Do you even know the meaning of bewafa?’

  ‘Of course!’ the nephew said proudly.

  ‘Tell me then!’ Chacha found it hard to control his anger.

  ‘A person who leaves one’s city and goes to another is called bewafa.’

  Chacha’s gaze changed from angry to pitying.

  These were the last days of October. Balwant Kaur had left school early with her friends. They had received permission from Maya Behenji without any trouble because Maya Behenji too was going home early. The reason was the cricket match. Everyone was eager to go home to listen to the commentary.

  Balwant Kaur was not miserly and caught a rickshaw home. One of her friends purchased 250 grams of peanuts and shared it with her. The friend munched on the peanuts. She was consuming them so fast that soon, the footboard of the rickshaw was filled with the peelings. But Balwant Kaur saved her share to enjoy it during the commentary.

  The first thing she did after reaching home was to turn on the transistor. But the match had been interrupted. God alone knew why. The commentator did not say anything. Balwant thought, I should eat. Mother is out somewhere. Bebe heated the food. Balwant came into the room, gobbled it down and lay on her bed with the transistor by her head. The match had still not resumed. Annoyed, she turned the dial to catch a music station, but there were no songs.

  Irritated, she banged the transistor on the table in the hope that a loose connection would be rectified but nothing happened. Ultimately, she changed the bandwidth again. She kept surfing the stations when she suddenly caught the report that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been shot dead. Balwant’s eyes filled with tears, she thrust the transistor away and buried her face in the pillow. She liked Indira Gandhi. Her bearing, her dressing sense, her confidence, her eyes, voice, laughter – Balwant Kaur was fond of everything about her. She did not want to believe that she was dead. But she had no choice. It was then that her mother rushed into the house in a panic and started bolting all the doors and windows.

  Bebe asked, ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Indira Gandhi has been assassinated.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Her security guards shot her.’

  ‘But why are you closing the windows and the doors? Why are you so anxious?’

  ‘Because the killers were Sikhs.’

  ‘Even if they were Sikhs, why are you so frightened?’

  Mother ignored Bebe and continued drawing the curtains and closing the windows.

  The violence against the Sikhs started as soon as darkness descended.
Both news and rumours had begun to spread. Worried, Balwant Kaur’s Bapu and elder brother pulled down the shutters of their Philips radio-and-tape-recorders shop and began locking up. The proof of their terror and alarm was that they had first thought that it would be better to stay inside the shop. But they did not know how long the disturbance would last, and after all, home was always safer than a shop. They ran home through safer streets. When the father and the son had covered almost half the distance, they saw Mannan Babuji passing by. When Mannan Babuji stopped his scooter, the son said to him, ‘Excuse us today, you’ll get back your tape recorder tomorrow.’

  ‘Hey Sardarji, I went to your shop to pick it up but hooligans are looting it.’ God knows what else Mannan Babuji told them, but the father and the son broke into a sprint again, back towards the shop.

  All the Sikh shopowners along the way were gone. Their goods were being pillaged by the police, khaddar-clad petty political leaders and loafers; shops were being set afire. They screamed in rage and danced in macabre delight. Most of them carried away the looted stuff. If someone was running away with bundles of saris, someone else was making away with a roll of trouser cloth. Some held large cartons in their laps and some toted them on their heads.

  When Balwant Kaur’s Bapuji and her elder brother reached their shop, half of it had already been plundered. The rest was being sacked by a gang. Outside, four policemen stood cackling, holding a tape recorder each. A sub-inspector was chewing paan on his motorcycle. A huge cardboard box was balanced atop the fuel tank of his motorcycle, bloated like his belly.

  Balwant Kaur’s Bapuji and her elder brother found the scene unbearable. Bapuji started blubbering, but the elder brother yelled. They cried and shouted and cursed and the crowd laughed. One of the khaddar-clad men barked, ‘Don’t just laugh! These two are Sardars and our leader has been killed by sardars! An eye for an eye! Finish them off!’

  Balwant Kaur’s Bapuji’s weeping and the elder brother’s shouting ceased. The blood drained from their faces. The two gestured to each other and ran for their lives, but the sub-inspector on the motorcycle leaped and caught hold of them and delivered them to the mob. The mob screamed, ‘Strip the turbans off the bastards!’ The hair of the two men fell on their back and shoulders.