Land of Five Rivers

by Khushwant Singh

  There was only one problem. Her seven-year-old son, Anjul, had taken a dislike to ‘Uncle’ Madhukar. ‘Mama, you should not leave Papa alone and go out with uncle,’ he had often grumbled. It was Madhukar who had suggested that Anjul be put in a boarding school in Darjeeling. It would make a man out of him. His own son was in the same boarding school. Her heart swelled with pride at his concern with her problems. He looked upon her son as if he was his own child. Why else would he want to give him the same opportunties as he was providing his own son? How she had cried when time came for Anjul to leave home. She had steeled her heart and agreed to Madhukar’s proposal because she believed that it would be best for her son to stay away from her.

  Receiving favours can become such a burden that there comes a time when one is better off freed of them. However, her husband had fallen in line with all that had happened. But the burden of favours received was borne by her. It had become a habit. But even with her the load was becoming too heavy for her shoulders. She felt like throwing it off and casting it into a gutter. Thereafter, she could not care what slights and kicks she got from the passersby. Perhaps it was this kind of fate that her husband had wanted to save her from.

  That day had been really dreadful. Madhukar had dropped her home. The lift was out of order. She ran out of breath climbing the long flights of stairs. She had barely turned the key to let herself in when she heard him call, ‘Neera, come here.’ It had been ages since he had called by her name; most of the time it was ‘anyone there?’ An unknown fear gripped her heart. He was helpless paralytic — what could he possibly do to her? Even so, she could not muster up courage to face him. She came upto the door of his room and noticed a strange gleam of resignation in his eyes. ‘Come to me, Neera.’ The voice was full of life. She went and sat down on the corner of his bed. He picked up his son’s photograph from the side-table and began to stare at it. ‘Neera, will you agree to do what I ask of you?’ Before she could reply he said, ‘Get Anjul to come back home. Let him stay with you.’ Then after a pause he said in a flat monotone, ‘Neera, why don’t you marry Madhukar? He loves you. You can forget all about me.’

  She felt the earth slip away from under her feet. She did not dare to raise her eyes to meet his. ‘I’ll get your paper,’ she said and went to the kitchen.

  Marry? What on earth for? Is marriage the ultimate of all man-woman relationships? Is marriage all that holds them together? If there is more to it, what is it? Despite being married, Madhukar had come to her to steal a few moments of happiness. Was the bright vermilion she wore in the parting of her hair just a symbol of her belonging to her disabled husband? What was it that Madhukar had not done for her? He came to see her because he preferred her company to that of his wife. Would not asking for more amount to asking for too much? An admission of pettiness and greed? Of wanting to displace his wife and children to make room for herself? Shame on her! How could she ever think of doing such a thing! Admittedly she had often dreamt of appearing openly in society with Madhukar’s hand in hers; but dreaming it was and no more. Wasn’t she paying the price for being ‘the other woman’? Another name for love is sacrifice.

  She heard the sound of something crashing and the splintering of glass. Perhaps Anjul’s framed photograph had fallen down. She took the platter of food and hurried to her husband’s bedside. Her hands began to shake. Anjul’s picture was lying on the floor; her husband’s left arm was dangling by the bed; a deathly pallor had spread over his face; his lifeless eyes carried an accusation of guilt. Was it for this that he had summoned her to his bedside? Something inside her snapped and opened a flood-gate of pent-up emotions. She felt as if she had cut a limb of her own body and thrown it away.

  The neighbours heard her screams and came running in. She could not recall how she passed that night. She tried to send word to Madhukar. There was not a trace of him. Her neighbours helped her to arrange all the details of the funeral.

  For the first time it occurred to her how secure she had felt with that helpless, invalid husband of hers. How could she bear to live alone now? If only Madhukar had come over, taken her in his arms and said, ‘Neera, what makes you think you have been left alone? I will always be with you. You are not a widow; I am your protector and your husband.’

  She got up and faced the mirror. Her eyes were swollen with crying and wailing. Her hair was dishevelled; the bindi mark was spattered across her forehead. She refused to wipe it off. For the last many years, she had put it there to please Madhukar. She took a little vermilion powder from her box and with a trembling finger put the bindi mark where it always had been.

  She could no longer control herself. With fear in her heart she rang up Madhukar’s home. She had never dared to do this before. It was Madhukar’s wife who picked up the receiver.

  ‘This is Neera calling. Can I speak to Madhukar? Its very urgent.’

  After a pause a very acid voice replied, ‘Aren’t you satisfied with all that you have grabbed? Or do you now want to break into my home as well? For God’s sake leave me alone.’ The receiver was put down.

  A storm of anger welled up in her mind. Surely she had a claim on everything connected with Madhukar. From the time they had got to know each other, she had hung on every breath he took. If his wife had been so conscious of safeguarding her ‘wife’s rights,’ why wasn’t she able to keep him tied down with bonds of love? For the first time Neera realised the existence of Madhukar’s wife and sensed her own helplessness. The question of status suddenly arose in her mind.

  The next evening Madhukar came to see her. She wanted to run up to him, put her head against his broad chest and cry her heart out till she had shed all her tears. Why she remained rooted to the spot she did not know; nor why Madhukar had that uncertain look in his eyes. It seemed as if he wanted to say something but could not find the exact words.

  Ultimately, Neera broke the silence, ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I was out of town. I had to leave suddenly. I would have come over as soon as I was back. But you rang up for me at home — I don’t know why. My wife was very upset and created a scene. To avoid it getting worse I kept away yesterday.’

  ‘He could not come because...’

  Something very tender preserved with care and patience over the years had suddenly snapped. The web of illusions that she had spun out of the threads of hope had come apart. Was this the moment of truth for which she had waited so long and for which she had defied all social conventions and given herself body and soul to Madhukar?

  A heavy silence descended on the room; a pall of gloom darker than when her husband had died, enveloped her. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell on her wrists. She turned her face towards the window. The sun was about to set. In the dim light of the heavily curtained room, Madhukar was unable to see another sun setting in Neera’s tear-sodden eyes and another hearse wading through them.

  She drew one end of her sari and rubbed the bindi off her forehead, smashed her bangles against the arms of the chair and was convulsed with hysterical sobbing. Madhukar could not make out what had come over her. Between the splintered glass of bangles were drops of blood. Madhukar tried to comfort her. ‘Neera, take a hold on yourself. Things will soon take a turn for one better. See you have cut your wrists.’ He ran and got out his first-aid kit.

  She cried and cried till she could cry no more. Madhukar sat by her for a long time trying to make out what had happened to her. As he left he said, ‘Neera, take a little rest. You are not yourself today. I’ll look again tomorrow.’

  She had a blank look in her wide open eyes. She did not turn round to see him leave.

  He came the next day. He knocked at her door many times. All he could hear was sound of sobbing. The door did not open. He turned back grumbling to himself, ‘She is still mourning her dead husband. Perhaps she loved him.’

  strange new world

  Kulwant Singh Virk

  How Hazara Singh made a comfortable living without putting his hand to tilling or any
other conventional mode of occupation was a mystery to many in the village. But those who knew, never tired of admiring his unusual skill at cattle-lifting or house-breaking and of relating stories of his nightly adventures.

  In children’s story books, thieves generally end up locked behind impregnable prison bars. But Hazara Singh had never been to jail. In fact, he was not even among those acknowledged miscreants whom the police inspector, on his occasional visits to the village, would summon and openly beat up in our school compound, by way of routine chastisement.

  The visit of the Inspector, who always camped in our school, meant a holiday for us. But we did not stir out of doors for fear of policemen. We only listened, all agog, from the roofs of our houses, to the yells and cries of the criminals, coming from the school campus.

  On such occasions, Hazara Singh, in his immaculate white turban, sat with the police dignitary on the string charpoy, talking to him; or he would be seen busily running around making arrangements for the officer’s board and stay.

  Whatever little land Hazara Singh possessed was cultivated by his tenants and he seemed to lead a life unburdened with any visible care or responsibility. Other peasants clad themselves in coarse home-spun and could only afford, on rare festive occasions, to wear clothes bought from town. Hazara Singh always wound round his head a respectable length of fine muslin and had ample yardage of mill-made white calico loosely draped round his waist.

  Apparelled opulently in this guise, Hazara Singh would frequently be seen visiting his friends or relations in the neighbouring villages. In his own village he sat among the elders and was always the central figure in such assemblies. He could talk of various things delightfully and was full of anecdotes and stories, with which he held his listeners entranced.

  I loved hearing Hazara Singh talk, especially of his daring exploits. Whenever I was home on holiday from my school in town, I spent long hours listening to his tales told with humour and descriptive skill. He was evidently proud of his prowess at cattle-lifting and at house-breaking, but from his narration it was not difficult to guess that he relished the former procedure more than the latter. It gave him a greater sense of triumph. It was, to him, like winning over troops from the enemy ranks. Whenever we sat together, Hazara Singh would lapse into a reminiscent mood.

  ‘One day my nephew came to me,’ he recounted once, sitting upon a tree-stump and scratching the earth with a twig, ‘and said that he needed a pair of bullocks. He had seen one pair belonging to the Chathas of Ajnianwala and wanted me somehow to deliver this to him at his farm! I told him that the Chathas were his father’s friends and that he would not be able to keep their bullocks if they discovered where they were. And if he was ultimately going to have to return the animals, why must he expose me to the rigours of cold wintry nights? But he was insistent and assured me that I could count upon his ability to retain the animals once I managed to pass them on to him. I promised I would.

  ‘It was no easy task unfastening those animals. It was the finest pair — and the cleverest I ever encountered. They would start at the slightest semblance of a shadow, and once frightened it was very difficult to lay hold of them. Round their necks they wore rows of noisy trinkets which raised a loud alarm.

  ‘I had of course taken with me two handfuls of green fodder. Sniffing food in my lap, the animals, instead of getting frightened, stretched out their heads towards me. Caressing them affectionately with my fingers, I took off the trinkets from their necks and walked out quietly with the two animals following me. The pair was well known in that part of the country and anybody within a radius of nine or ten miles would at once have recognised it. I had taken with me a fast mare and rode off with the bullocks strung to the saddle — really good oxen will always follow a galloping horse! With the rise of the sun next morning I had done more than twenty miles and we reached the village of Ranike to greet my cousins — sons of my mother’s sister — with an early, “Good morning.” I tied the animals in their sugar-cane farm and lay down on a charpoy to rest in the sun. By nightfall again I set out with the animals and arrived at my nephew’s farm before daybreak.

  ‘The owners had been following close upon my heels. It was not difficult to keep track of three fleeing animals. Next day they also reached there. They knew for certain where their bullocks were and brought batches of common friends to intercede in their behalf. My nephew at last gave in and returned the animals. I still rag him about it; he has no answer when I ask him why he made me ride through those two chilly nights if he could not keep the bullocks.’

  Animal-lifting was interesting, but there was a great deal more money in house-breaking and Hazara Singh was no less proficient at it. His first principle in the technique of housebreaking was, ‘Avoid all noise at all costs!’ and he had ready-made formulae to this end. ‘Cloth’ he would say, ‘is the best absorbent of sound. Cover up with cloth all those objects that are likely to make a sound.’

  The neighbouring villages he had classified into two distinct categories — ‘his own’ villages where he would never dream of doing anything and ‘others’, where he could operate freely without any qualms. But it was difficult to say which set of villages was dearer to him. He knew all these so well; their roads and pathways, bushes and pastures, canals and streamlets, he knew them all intimately. Even as a bee flitting from one flower to another, drinking the honey, considers the whole garden her own, or as a youth visiting his maternal village regards all homes with equal affection. Hazara Singh loved all these villages, whether ‘his own’ or ‘others.’ Hazara Singh was proud of the art he possessed and he made no secret of it. Not many people he would say, were so fleet of hand and foot.

  ‘The money-lenders of Mangewala had a pucca built house,’ he told us once. The outer walls were plastered over with cement and were thought to be invulnerable. One day I heard the money-lenders had come into a good bit of crisp money in lieu of mortgaged land they had released. Now this was a wonderful opportunity.

  ‘Four of us set to work. There were four men sleeping in the front of the house, completely oblivious of the back rooms. I knew it was not easy to break through the walls and decided to cut into the foundation under the wall. We kept digging away until the small hours of the morning and managed to worm a tunnel into the house below the wall. Collecting whatever we could lay our hands on we made good our escape. Next day the police inspector came and visited the spot. I was also present. As he went in and came out through the tunnel again, he praised the man responsible, and admired his ingenuity and hard toil. He said he would compliment him,’ Hazara Singh chuckled, when he was caught!’

  House-breaking was a sport for him — a sport which was exciting to him for its risks. But he would always give a different impression to his friends. ‘This is no joke really,’ he would say solemnly. ‘You never know for a moment if you will be able to get away by the path you entered by. Of course, I think nothing of encountering three or four persons, for I can run and can also wield a stick as well as anyone. But it is always a hare-andhounds affair you know. Once three of us entered a village under cover of darkness. Two of us started cutting through a wall while the third stood on watch round the corner. He dozed off, the wretch, but we unknowing, carried on with our work relying on him to warn us if anything went amiss. Meanwhile, someone in the village saw us and went around collecting men. As I was creeping into the passage we had carved out, I heard dogs bark. I asked my companion to wait. Next moment I saw a crowd of people barring the street whence we had entered. They thought that was the only way of escape open to us. I calculated differently. Instead of backing out into the street we went into the house, jumped over the wall into another house and, thus repeating the process a few times, escaped out of harm’s way.

  ‘Later the villagers came to know of it and whenever we met they would chaff me. “So, you nearly robbed our Shah!” “It is all a matter of luck,” I would reply, “I don’t know what you would have done to me had I been caught.” All a question of cha
nce.’

  Then came the Partition and the land of the five waters was torn in two. Hazara Singh leaving the villages he had so loved, the farms and fields canals and highways of which he knew every square inch, trudged his weary way with a caravan of refugees over the border to Karnal. This too was Punjab he was told, and here too there were villages and houses, farms and canals. But everything seemed so different to him! How could this environment, so strange and uninspired, ever be ‘home’? thought Hazara Singh.

  After a few weeks I also arrived there. I had been looking forward to meeting Hazara Singh. He appeared to me the only stable element in that changing, crumbling world. He, surely, would be unaltered, still skilled and adventurous. I was wrong. Hazara Singh too, like all of us, was uprooted and lost.

  ‘It hardly makes a difference to you, uncle,’ I said to him one day with the brashness of youth. ‘Like government officials you are just the same here as you were there, aren’t you?’

  ‘How can that be, son?’ asked Hazara Singh quietly. ‘How am I different from my brothers? Am I not a sharer in their sorrows and trials?’

  ‘That is true; but if one possesses an art like yours, one can surely cash in on it anywhere, can’t one?’

  ‘Oh, you mean that! Well, no; no, indeed. Far, far from it.’ Hazara Singh shook his head sadly. ‘My steps waver upon this ground. How can I do anything here? One needs the sights and sounds of home, the faces of friends and kinsmen. Here,’ he repeated, ‘I can do nothing.’

  Neither danger nor fear of the law had ever balked Hazara Singh, but a strange new world defeated him.

  a punjab pastorale

  Khushwant Singh