And we could see Fazlu coming along, the selfsame lame duck he had been when he had run back to his onion patch.
‘Here, sons,’ he said to Ganesh and me, ‘here is a gift for you from my garden.’ And he gave us a carrot each.
‘Ohe, they are Babus, city folk, uncle Fazlu,’ Sardari said. ‘Not donkeys!’
‘They are my sons,’ Fazlu said. ‘And here, boys, this is a gift for your mother.’ And he gave us a basket full of onions.
‘Onions!’ mocked Sardari.
‘No, flowers, son,’ said grandpa. And then with a set face he said to uncle Sardari, ‘Give Fazlu the whey.’
Fazlu hung his head down as he sat and received the whey. His eyes were not bulging any more but had turned inwards, his weatherbeaten face was pale and his beard nearly touched his hairy chest. In a flash I seemed to sense the sadness of the ‘Aram’, and ‘the mute soul of Fazlu, behind his many words’.
‘Go and play at the well, sons,’ said grandpa Nihalu during the intervening silence. ‘Go and ride on the seat and honk the bullocks.’
I recognized that, like Fazlu, grandpa was sad and wished to say something to Fazlu. So off I darted towards the well, excited at the idea of going round and round, seated on the crude, wooden seat to which the bullocks were tied.
Ganesh followed me, but I had already put distance between me and him and had ensured for myself the pleasure of the first ride.
Above the distant curves of the fields that fringed the crumbling mud walls of the village, more and more people emerged to their daily routine as the morning advanced. Some of them went along in droves to dig ditches, with hoes and mattocks on their shoulders and baskets under their arms. Some drove bullock carts, full of manure, across the rotten kucha road. Some were dotted on the horizon as they ploughed or grazed the cattle on the stubbled earth. And as I sat enthroned on the shaft behind the bullocks, yoked to the noisy Persian wheel of the well, and went round and round, I felt so happy and dizzy with excitement that I could have burst. For here there was no talk of the need to do sums or to repeat the lessons and memorize them with the ever-present threat of being slapped on the face by the schoolmaster, or spoken harshly to by father or mother, as at Nowshera; here there was a world which was as open as the sky and yet as mysterious as one of those peasant riddles which mother used to put to us to solve sometimes in the leisurely evenings. And my mind and body became allied with the lively scene, so that I even forgot my eternal quarrel with Ganesh and willingly shared with him the pleasure of riding astride the shaft.
Towards noon, the bright, cool morning seemed to become hotter, and both Ganesh and I played at half shutting our eyes to see the spectrum of colours above the shimmering haze, until we were tired out and hungry.
But, as though our grandpa’s family had evolved an adequate ritual commensurate with the needs of the changing hours of the day, the food came, borne by a village boy because grandma was busy superintending the hundred and one details of the arrangements of Sharam Singh’s marriage, and we all gathered together under the shade of the trees by grandpa and ate. There was the luscious maize bread to eat with spinach of mustard plant, again with abundance of butter in it, and curds and tumblerfuls of whey. And never shall I forget the greed with which I ate this tasty food, because it was the first time there was no one to warn us to eat less and because the quality of richness that there was about it derived as much from the helpings which our uncles heaped on our plates as from the hearty, generous encouragement they gave us to make us eat more.
By the time the meal was over, a certain drowsiness seemed to spread over us and over the whole earth—the cumulative effect of the satiety in our bodies and the mounting heat and glare of the landscape. And before we knew where we were, we were deep in slumber on the second charpai which lay by grandpa Nihalu’s bed.
When we awoke it was already late in the afternoon and the cool juice of almonds was being ground by uncle Sardari a little way away. We washed our faces with the fresh water of the well. And then we were given the almond juice, a drink which depends so much on cultivated taste that I did not like it and nearly spat it out.
Our uncles had just finished their various jobs: uncle Sharam Singh had cut up the fodder for the cattle; uncle Dayal Singh had cut the water ditch into shape; and uncle Sardar Singh had ground the almond juice. And now they were all ready to leave.
‘If you want to take that buffalo away with you,’ said uncle Sharam Singh to me, ‘come and let me show you how to bathe her and feed her and milk her.’
I was only too eager to respond to this invitation and insisted on lifting some stalks of tender fodder which was meant for the buffalo and the bullocks. And while Ganesh stayed to accompany grandpa Nihalu home, I ventured out with uncle Sharam Singh to take delivery of the buffalo from the cowherd who had taken her out to graze for the day.
On either side of the kucha road by which the cattle were approaching, there were thick clouds of dust which obscured the view to some extent, so that uncle Sharam Singh had to strain hard to recognize Suchi. But then he spotted her and went forward to take possession. And, covered by the haze of golden specks in the atmosphere, we proceeded with the buffalo towards the pond, whose greenish-blue water stood still like a sheet of glass just outside the village. And the village dogs barked at the cattle, and the men and the women shouted to each other, and the whole sky resounded with the calls of the cowherd to each member of the herd not to stray but go its way home. And the mood of the afternoon seemed to catch me in my bones, a rich, healthy, vital feeling of hilarity and joy at the cow-dust hour, accentuated by the new pleasure of finding myself riding astride the buffalo as though she were mine to honk home to the cantonment of Nowshera, if I wanted to, just at that moment.
Suchi, the buffalo, had other ideas, however. She sensed the presence of a stranger on her back and also seemed to know that it was a puny little stranger, and she must have resented the presumption, because she decided at the merest gesture of my goading feet to run right into the pond and try to drown me.
My uncle Sharam Singh was completely unnerved by Suchi’s decision. Regretting that he had put me on the back of the buffalo and afraid that I might be drowned, began to shout at me for goading her with my feet. Suchi apparently thought that he was shouting at her and felt more insulted still. So she quickened her pace and waded into the water and, snorting, lowing, excited, she splashed her way almost into the middle of the pond. It was a miracle, in the circumstances, that I hung on to the precarious perch on top of Suchi’s back. But there was no doubting the fact that I was frightened, and I shrieked with terror, though the shrieks did not emerge from my mouth.
At that moment a young village boy jumped into the water and swam briskly up to where Suchi had settled down. And he held me fast until uncle Sharam Singh had stripped and swum up to rescue me. He put me on his shoulders and swam back, very angry and in a panic at the thought that I might have died.
But the difficult thing now was to persuade Suchi not to take umbrage at a mere chit of a boy riding on her back and to come home.
It took half a dozen people, armed with staves, about two hours to get the buffalo out of the water and the bog and the mud of the pond.
And I don’t think uncle Sharam Singh ever forgave me for the awful way I let him down on that afternoon.
‘After all—you are a townee and a Babu!’ he jibed.
When we came home, the courtyard was humming with activity in connection with the marriage arrangements.
In one corner of the compound, a half-naked, fat confectioner sat frying cakes of white flour for distribution among the brotherhood, while two of his greasy assistants were digging into a cauldron and rolling up sugarplums with deft hands.
By the hall of the haveli some tailors were busy sewing with agile fingers old embroidery on to silk dupattas.
And the women sat at the doorway of the big barn talking excitedly to each other.
Uncle Sharam Singh, Ganesh and I
had repaired to the shed with Suchi ahead of us, when suddenly the voice of my mother fell upon my ears, a shrill shriek like that of a wounded bird. And then I could hear her weeping and protesting, even as the voices of the other women interrupted her speech.
I had seen my mother weep before in Nowshera, when father was unkind to her, and during my illness, or when the feeling used to come upon her that in marrying off my eldest brother Harish to the illiterate Draupadi she had made a great mistake. But I had never heard her utter a cry of distress like that which I had heard.
I ran towards her, followed by Ganesh. But we could not get near her, for we felt shy with the confusion of the women who were gesticulating wildly against each other, even as they spoke in high-pitched accents of the wrongs done by each of them to the other.
Grandma came and asked us if we would like some mathi to eat.
Whereupon our mother flew into a high rage and said, ‘No, no, my children won’t eat a thing in your house. Why, I came here thinking you would realize that I won’t stomach the insults and abuse which you cast on me when I came home last. But I see that you can’t forgive me my good luck and the fact that Hans’s father has more money than your other sons-in-law …’
‘Ni, keep your husband’s money and don’t taunt us with it!’ interrupted Amrit Kaur, my mother’s widowed sister.
‘Eater of your husbands,’ shouted my mother, ‘you are the cause of all this trouble. You have eaten your husband, and you can’t bear to see that mine is alive. You used to hate me even as a girl because father had handed the keys of the house to me. And I know you can’t bear to see the bigger bundle of keys tied to my waist now. But it was your own doing if your husband died. I didn’t come to kill him or poison him. You need not have run back here and neglected him everytime he was ill. You might have been less fond of just wearing nice clothes and sitting around at mother’s doorstep …’
‘Ni, who are you to give me advice?’ Amrit Kaur shrieked. ‘Father loved you so much, he had no time or money left for any of us … And as you were the eldest, he gave most of the jewellery in your dowry. What is the harm if some money comes back to the family now in place of those ornaments?’
‘Ni, look, darkness has come upon the world!’ answered mother. ‘Hai, now you grudge me everything. What jewellery did I take in my dowry? A pair of gold earrings and two silver bangles! Mother is here. She is witness …’
‘No, Sundariai, we also gave you a necklace,’ grandma said.
‘You too are against me, I know,’ mother said. ‘You don’t remember that the necklace was in pawn at that time. And you showed it to me today in the dowry you are giving to Sharam Singh’s bride … Hai, how can you lie so!’
‘You think everyone is against you,’ said aunt Amrit Kaur.
‘But you are, you are, you are!’ mother cried. ‘Ever since I came here, you have been insinuating things against me. And oh, I am heartbroken that I can’t come back to my father’s home without being abused and insulted.’
And she wept with self-pity.
We were affected by her grief and also began to weep out of fear at the high pitch of the quarrel and out of sympathy.
‘Come, sons,’ mother said, ‘Let us get ready to leave. We can’t stay here where we are not wanted. I wish we hadn’t come.’
‘Don’t you go and put the blame on my head!’ said Amrit Kaur.
‘Ni, keep quiet,’ grandmother said to her.
‘Han, han, Amrit Kaur, this is no way of treating your eldest sister!’ a woman neighbour intervened. ‘And, Sundariai, sister, ignore her. After all, she is a widow …’
‘Don’t you pity me because I am a widow!’ protested Amrit Kaur.
Mother seemed overwrought. The sympathy of the other women made her weep the more copiously.
Grandpa Nihalu happened to come at that moment and, hearing mother sob, approached her, patted her on the head, and said soothing, words to her, ‘My daughter, these women of the village don’t know how good you are. None of my daughters served the holy men I used to bring home as devotedly as you did. And, since you went away the sages don’t come. And this house is not holy any more. Nor are there the blessings here which your auspicious presence brought to my house. These others are only jealous of you. Amrit Kaur is a widow and you know …’
‘Father, you have always taken her side against me,’ Amrit Kaur said, beginning to weep.
‘Ni, come to your senses, you are grown up too, you know,’ grandpa said, ‘weeping like that!’
‘But,’ mother said, ‘I want to go away.’
‘My daughter, how can you go and not bless the marriage of your brother with your presence. Besides, these grandsons of mine—I must have them with me for a while.’
We were rubbing our eyes and sobbing. We did not understand all the reasons for this quarrel, but the atmosphere of distress was enough to draw tears from our eyes. And when grandma brought two bronze dishes with cakes and sugarplums in them and put them before us, we were soon consoled.
The twilight descended on the courtyard of the Haveli while we were still eating. And little earthen saucer lamps were lit. And all the women, except mother, who lay down exhausted on a bed, and Amrit Kaur, who went to her room, gathered together on the roof of the hall and began to play the dholki and to sing folk songs.
I insisted on going up to the roof among the girls. And I sat in the lap of my cousin, Durgi, the daughter of aunt Amrit Kaur, as she struck the key on the dholki to keep time.
I remember the rich warmth of Durgi’s lap and the perfume of her breath, as she craned her beautiful long neck, vividly to this day. And I can sense the friendship of her knees and the texture of her luminous voice as she sang the refrains of the songs. And as I went to sleep with my head on her thighs that evening, the phrases of the naughty folk song, Lachi, became imprinted on my mind:
‘Akha, ni, in a village there were two Lachians,
And it was the little Lachi who caused all the trouble!
Akha ni Lachi, your bangles were never finished,
The boys died earning money to pay for them,
Akha ni Lachi …’
I wanted very much to milk the buffao Suchi, to plough the fields with the two bullocks, Thiba and Rondu, to cut fodder for the animals with the chopper, exactly as my maternal uncles Sharam Singh, Dayal Singh and Sardar Singh did. But they had only one refrain in answer: ‘You are a townee and a Babu!’
I sought comfort and amusement in the company of my cousin, Durgi.
Only a little older than I, she emerges from the concordant atmosphere of joy and sorrow of my first visit to Daska like a strange little flower, with a rich perfume like that of a bud bursting its sheath in the spring. And as a flower steals into one’s awareness, so she seemed to enter into my soul, not with certain aspects of her personality but with her whole presence. For she seemed to live in my ears with the lilt of her voice; she seemed to be alive to my flesh; she slept in my eyes; the aroma of her body filled my nostrils; and the movement of her young life as she capered to and fro allied her to all my urges. Perhaps this was because my senses were wide open to receive the warmth which she radiated. Or perhaps my soul swirled to the music of her agile frame. Or was it only the accidental meeting in my consciousness of many congeries of impressions of her at this tender age?
She showed me all the dolls she had made for herself with little bits of cloth and cotton stuffing. And, of course, I wanted her forthwith to make me one.
With a warmth and generosity which I had not found in my schoolfellows, she got to work immediately. She took some cotton wool from the basket which lay near her mother’s spinning wheel, encased it in a long sheath of coarse cloth and sewed up the ends. Bent into two and joined with a few stitches, especially at the top of the bend, it soon had a head and two long legs. A little black thread went to the making of its large eyes, its mouth and ears. And then we went and pestered the tailor, who was busy making clothes for the wedding, for bits of coloured sil
k and gold lace. Soon, with deft fingers, Durgi had made a turban, a coat and tight trousers for the hero, given him a sword of silver braid and the gallant was handed over to me complete.
Then she took me to her doll’s house and, placing the hero by the side of a nymph, we celebrated the marriage of my doll with hers.
And then she made up an impromptu dialogue between the bride and the bridegroom:
‘O husband mine, where have you come from? And what is your name? And what gifts have you brought me? Jasmine flowers or molsari?’
‘My love, I have brought you myself and a garland of motia flowers to put round your neck and roses to sprinkle on your body.’
‘And what are the sweets you have brought?’
‘I have brought you sweet peras and hot ladus.’
‘Poison, made by the halwai!’
‘No, they are sweets and I have also brought you my sweet speech.’
‘Acha, I shall add to it the perfume of my breath.’
And then Durgi made the two dolls embrace and kiss each other. And she recited some couplets called chhands to me, having taken up the thread of the narrative between the two dolls and connected it with a convincing illusionism to us both. And the strange thing was that the earlier shyness I had felt faded away, and I entered into the spirit of her performance and was rapt for the whole day.
For we went to the house of the village potter together and bought toy vessels for our imaginary kitchen, and a little clay cart with clay bullocks attached to it, an earthen whistle, a bird in a cage and all the appurtenances of a peasant household. And from the village weaver we brought half a yard of cloth to make clothes of. And from the locksmith we got the point of a plough. And from the cowherd’s house we fetched the milk. And to sanctify it all we went to the temple and poured milk at the altar of the snake god at the foot of the pipal tree. And so absorbed had we been in all this that we forgot about the midday meal and had our respective mothers looking for us desperately anxious about our safety, and hating each other the more because of the obvious affection which had developed between Durgi and me.
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