His wife did not reply, but asked, ‘What happened?’
Baidyanath struck his brow with his palm, and said nothing. Mokshada’s expression was grim. The children, sensing that something was very badly wrong, softly withdrew. They went to the maid and said, ‘Tell us that story about the barber.’ Then they went to bed.
Darkness fell, but no word passed between Baidyanath and his wife. An eerie silence reigned, and Mokshada’s lips were tight shut, ominous as thunder. At last, still without a word, she slowly went into her bedroom and locked the door from inside. Baidyanath waited silently outside. The night-watchman called out the hours. The world sank exhausted into untroubled sleep. From his family all the way up to the stars in the sky, no one had anything to ask the sleepless, disgraced Baidyanath.
Very late at night, his eldest son, probably waking from a dream, got up, tiptoed out on to the verandah and called, ‘Father.’ His father was not there. Raising his voice, going right outside the closed doors, he called, ‘Father.’ But no answer came. Fearfully, he went back to bed.
In the morning, the maid prepared Baidyanath’s tobacco as she had always done before, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. Later in the day, neighbours came to visit their recently returned friend, but he was not there.
Holiday
Phatik Chakrabarti, leader of the gang, suddenly had a bright idea. Lying by the river was a huge sāl-tree log, just waiting to be made into a mast. Everyone must help to roll it along! Without giving a thought to the surprise, annoyance and inconvenience that would be caused to the person who needed the log for timber, all the boys fell in with this suggestion. They got down to the task with a will; but just then Phatik’s younger brother Makhanlal came and solemnly sat on the log. The boys were rather nonplussed by his haughty, dismissive attitude.
One of them went up to him and nervously tried to push him off, but he refused to budge. Wise beyond his years, he continued to ponder the vanity of all childish games.
‘You’ll pay for this,’ said Phatik, brandishing his fist. ‘Clear off.’
But Makhanlal merely adjusted his perch and settled down even more immovably on the log.
In this kind of situation, Phatik ought to have preserved his supremacy over the other boys by delivering immediately a hearty slap on his wayward brother’s cheek – but he didn’t dare. Instead he assumed a manner implying that he could, had he so wished, have meted out this customary punishment, but he wasn’t going to, because a more amusing idea had occurred to him. Why not, he proposed, roll the log over with Makhanlal on it?
Makhan at first saw glory in this; he did not think (nor did anyone else) that like other worldly glories it might carry dangers. The boys rolled up their sleeves and began to push – ‘Heave ho! Heave ho! Over we go!’ With one spin of the log, Makhan’s solemnity, glory and wisdom crashed to the ground.
The other boys were delighted at such an unexpectedly quick outcome, but Phatik was rather embarrassed. Makhan immediately jumped up and threw himself on to him, hitting him with blind rage and scratching his nose and cheeks. Then he made his way home tearfully.
The game having been spoilt, Phatik pulled up a few reeds, and climbing on to the prow of a half-sunk boat sat quietly chewing them. A boat – not a local one – came up to the mooring-place. A middle-aged gentleman with a black moustache but grey hair stepped ashore. ‘Where is the Chakrabartis’ house?’ he asked the boy.
‘Over there,’ replied Phatik, still chewing the reed-stalks. But no one would have been able to understand which direction to take.
‘Where?’ asked the gentleman again.
‘Don’t know,’ said Phatik, and he carried on as before, sucking juice from the stalks. The gentleman had to ask others to help him find the house.
Suddenly Bagha Bagdi (a servant) appeared and said, ‘Phatikdādā, Mother’s calling you.’
‘Shan’t go,’ said Phatik.
He struggled and kicked helplessly as Bagha picked him up bodily and carried him home. His mother shouted furiously when she saw him: ‘You’ve beaten up Makhan again!’
‘I didn’t beat him up.’
‘How dare you lie to me?’
‘I did not beat him up. Ask him.’
When Makhan was questioned he stuck to his earlier accusation, saying, ‘He did beat me up.’ Phatik could not stand this any more. He charged at Makhan and thumped him hard, shouting, ‘So who’s lying now?’ His mother, taking Makhan’s part, rushed and slapped Phatik’s back several times heavily. He pushed her away. ‘So you’d lay hands on your own mother?’ she screamed.
At that moment the black-grey gentleman entered the house and said, ‘What’s going on here?’
‘Dādā!’ said Phatik’s mother, overwhelmed with surprise and joy. ‘When did you come?’ She bent down and took the dust of his feet.
Many years previously her elder brother had gone to the west of India to work, and in the meantime she had had two children; they had grown, her husband had died – but all this time she had never seen her brother. At long last Bishvambhar Babu had returned home, and had now come to see his sister.
There were celebrations for several days. At length, a couple of days before his departure, Bishvambhar questioned his sister about the schooling and progress of her two sons. In reply, he was given a description of Phatik’s uncontrollable wildness and inattention to study; while Makhan, by contrast, was perfectly behaved and a model student. ‘Phatik drives me mad,’ she said.
Bishvambhar then proposed that he take Phatik to Calcutta, keep him with him and supervise his education. The widow easily agreed to this. ‘Well, Phatik,’ he asked the boy, ‘how would you like to go to Calcutta with your uncle?’ ‘I’d love to,’ said Phatik, jumping up and down.
His mother did not object to seeing her son off, because she always lived in dread that Makhan might be pushed into the river by him or might split his head open in some terrible accident; but she was a little cast down by the eagerness with which Phatik seized the idea of going. He pestered his uncle with ‘When are we going? When are we going?’ – and couldn’t sleep at night for excitement.
When at last the day to leave came, he was moved to a joyous display of generosity. He bestowed on Makhan his fishing-rod, kite and reel, with permanent right of inheritance.
When he arrived at his uncle’s house in Calcutta, he first had to be introduced to his aunt. I cannot say she was over-pleased at this unnecessary addition to her family. She was used to looking after her house and three children as they were, and suddenly to loose into their midst an unknown, uneducated country boy would probably be most disruptive. If only Bishvambhar had insight commensurate with his years! Moreover, there is no greater nuisance in the world than a boy of thirteen or fourteen. There is no beauty in him, and he does nothing useful either. He arouses no affection; nor is his company welcome. If he speaks modestly he sounds false; if he speaks sense he sounds arrogant; if he speaks at all he is felt to be intrusive. He suddenly shoots up in height so that his clothes no longer fit him – which is an ugly affront to other people. His childish grace and sweetness of voice suddenly disappear, and people find it impossible not to blame him for this. Many faults can be forgiven in a child or a young man, but at this age even natural and unavoidable faults are felt to be unbearable.
He himself is fully aware that he does not fit properly into the world; so he is perpetually ashamed of his existence and seeks forgiveness for it. Yet this is the age at which a rather greater longing for affection develops in him. If he gets at this time love and companionship from some sympathetic person, he will do anything in return. But no one dares show affection, in case others condemn this as pampering. So he looks and behaves like a stray street-dog.
To leave home and mother and go to a strange place is hell for a boy of this age. To live with loveless indifference all around is like walking on thorns. This is the age when normally a conception forms of women as wonderful, heavenly creatures; to be cold-shouldered by them
is terribly hard to bear. It was therefore especially painful to Phatik that his aunt saw him as an evil star. If she happened to ask him to do a job for her and – meaning well – he did more than was strictly necessary, his aunt would stamp on his enthusiasm, saying, ‘That’s quite enough, quite enough. I don’t want you meddling any more. Go and get on with your own work. Do some studying.’ His aunt’s excessive concern for his mental improvement would then seem terribly cruel and unjust.
He so lacked love in this household, and it seemed he could breathe freely nowhere. Stuck behind its walls, he thought constantly of his home village. The fields where he would let his ‘monster-kite’ fly and flap in the wind; the river-bank where he wandered aimlessly, singing a rāga of his own invention at the top of his voice; the small stream in which he would jump and swim now and then in the heat of the day; his gang of followers; the mischief they would get up to; the freedom; above all his harsh, impetuous mother; all this tugged continually at his helpless heart. A kind of instinctive love, like an animal’s; a blind longing to be near; an unspoken distress at being far; a heartfelt, anguished cry of ‘Mā, Mā’ like a motherless calf at dusk; such feelings perpetually afflicted this gawky, nervous, thin, lanky, ungainly boy.
At school there was no one more stupid and inattentive than he. If asked a question he would just stare back vacantly. If the teacher cuffed him, he would silently bear it like a laden, exhausted ass. At break-time, he would stand at the window staring at the roofs of distant houses, while his classmates played outside. If a child or two appeared for a moment on one of the roofs, in the midday sunshine, playing some game, his misery intensified.
One day he plucked up courage to ask his uncle, ‘Uncle, when will I be going home to see Mother?’
‘When the school holiday comes,’ said his uncle. The pūjā-holiday in the month of Kartik – that was a long way off!
One day Phatik lost his school-books. He never found it easy to prepare his lessons, and now, with his books lost, he was completely helpless. The teacher started to beat and humiliate him every day. His standing in school sank so low that his cousins were ashamed to admit their connection with him. Whenever he was punished, they showed even greater glee than the other boys. It became too much to bear, and one day he went to his aunt and confessed like a criminal that he had lost his school-books. ‘Well, well,’ said his aunt, lines of annoyance curling round her lips, ‘and do you suppose I can buy you new books five times a month?’ He said no more. That he should have wasted someone else’s money made him feel even more hurt and rejected by his mother. His misery and sense of inferiority dragged him down to the very earth.
That night, when he returned from school, he had a pain in his head and was shivering. He could tell he was getting a fever. He also knew that his aunt would not take kindly to his being ill. He had a clear sense of what an unnecessary, unjustifiable nuisance it would be to her. He felt he had no right to expect that an odd, useless, stupid boy such as he should be nursed by anyone other than his mother.
The next morning Phatik was nowhere to be seen. He was searched for in all the neighbours’ houses round about, but there was no trace of him. In the evening torrential rain began, so in searching for him many people got soaked to the skin – to no avail. In the end, finding him nowhere, Bishvambhar Babu informed the police.
A whole day later, in the evening, a carriage drew up outside Bishvambhar’s house. Rain was still thudding down relentlessly, and the street was flooded to a knee’s depth. Two policemen bundled Phatik out of the carriage and put him down in front of Bishvambhar. He was soaked from head to foot, covered with mud, his eyes and cheeks were flushed, he was trembling violently. Bishvambhar virtually had to carry him into the house.
‘You see what happens,’ snapped his wife, ‘when you take in someone else’s child. You must send him home.’ But in fact the whole of that day she had hardly been able to eat for worry, and had been unreasonably tetchy with her own children.
‘I was going to go to my mother,’ said Phatik, weeping, ‘but they brought me back.’
The boy’s fever climbed alarmingly. He was delirious all night. Bishvambhar fetched the doctor. Opening his bloodshot eyes for a moment and staring blankly at the ceiling joists, Phatik said, ‘Uncle, has my holiday-time come?’ Bishvambhar, dabbing his own eyes with a handkerchief, tenderly took Phatik’s thin, hot hand in his and sat down beside him. He spoke again, mumbling incoherently: ‘Mother, don’t beat me, Mother. I didn’t do anything wrong, honest!’
The next day, during the short time when he was conscious, Phatik kept looking bewilderedly round the room, as if expecting someone. When no one came, he turned and lay mutely with his face towards the wall. Understanding what was on his mind, Bishvambhar bent down and said softly in his ear, ‘Phatik, I’ve sent for your mother.’
Another day passed. The doctor, looking solemn and gloomy, pronounced the boy’s condition to be critical. Bishvambhar sat at the bedside in the dim lamplight, waiting minute by minute for Phatik’s mother’s arrival. Phatik started to shout out, like a boatman, ‘More than one fathom deep, more than two fathoms deep!’ To come to Calcutta they had had to travel some of the way by steamer. The boatmen had lowered the hawser into the stream and bellowed out its depth. In his delirium, Phatik was imitating them, calling out the depth in pathetic tones; except that the endless sea he was about to cross had no bottom that his measuring-rope could touch.
It was then that his mother stormed into the room, bursting into loud wails of grief. When, with difficulty, Bishvambhar managed to calm her down, she threw herself on to the bed and sobbed, ‘Phatik, my darling, my treasure.’
‘Yes?’ said Phatik, seemingly quite relaxed.
‘Phatik, darling boy,’ cried his mother again.
Turning slowly on to his side, and looking at no one, Phatik said softly, ‘Mother, my holiday has come now. I’m going home.’
Kabuliwallah
My five-year-old daughter Mini can’t stop talking for a minute. It only took her a year to learn to speak, after coming into the world, and ever since she has not wasted a minute of her waking hours by keeping silent. Her mother often scolds her and makes her shut up, but I can’t do that. When Mini is quiet, it is so unnatural that I cannot bear it. So she’s rather keen on chatting to me.
One morning, as I was starting the seventeenth chapter of my novel, Mini came up to me and said, ‘Father, Ramdoyal the gatekeeper calls a crow a kauyā instead of a kāk. He doesn’t know anything, does he!’
Before I had a chance to enlighten her about the multiplicity of languages in the world, she brought up another subject. ‘Guess what, Father, Bhola says it rains when an elephant in the sky squirts water through its trunk. What nonsense he talks! On and on, all day.’
Without waiting for my opinion on this matter either, she suddenly asked, ‘Father, what relation is Mother to you?’
‘Good question,’1 I said to myself, but to Mini I said, ‘Run off and play with Bhola. I’ve got work to do.’
But she then sat down near my feet beside my writing-table, and, slapping her knees, began to recite ‘āgḍum bāgḍum’ at top speed. Meanwhile, in my seventeenth chapter, Pratap Singh was leaping under cover of night from his high prison-window into the river below, with Kanchanmala in his arms.
My study looks out on to the road. Mini suddenly abandoned the ‘āgḍum bāgḍum’ game, ran over to the window and shouted, ‘Kabuliwallah, Kabuliwallah!’
Dressed in dirty baggy clothes, pugree on his head, bag hanging from his shoulder, and with three or four boxes of grapes in his hands, a tall Kabuliwallah was ambling along the road. It was hard to say exactly what thoughts the sight of him had put into my beloved daughter’s mind, but she began to shout and shriek at him. That swinging bag spells trouble, I thought: my seventeenth chapter won’t get finished today. But just as the Kabuliwallah, attracted by Mini’s yells, looked towards us with a smile and started to approach our house, Mini gasped and ran into
the inner rooms, disappearing from view. She had a blind conviction that if one looked inside that swinging bag one would find three or four live children like her.
Meanwhile the Kabuliwallah came up to the window and smilingly salaamed. I decided that although the plight of Pratap Singh and Kanchanmala was extremely critical, it would be churlish not to invite the fellow inside and buy something from him.
I bought something. Then I chatted to him for a bit. We talked about Abdur Rahman’s efforts to preserve the integrity of Afghanistan against the Russians and the British. When he got up to leave, he asked, ‘Babu, where did your little girl go?’
To dispel her groundless fears, I called Mini to come out. She clung to me and looked suspiciously at the Kabuliwallah and his bag. The Kabuliwallah took some raisins and apricots out and offered them to her, but she would not take them, and clung to my knees with doubled suspicion. Thus passed her first meeting with the Kabuliwallah.
A few days later when for some reason I was on my way out of the house one morning, I saw my daughter sitting on a bench in front of the door, nattering unrestrainedly; and the Kabuliwallah was sitting at her feet listening – grinning broadly, and from time to time making comments in his hybrid sort of Bengali. In all her five years of life, Mini had never found so patient a listener, apart from her father. I also saw that the fold of her little sari was crammed with raisins and nuts. I said to the Kabuliwallah, ‘Why have you given all these? Don’t give her any more.’ I then took a half-rupee out of my pocket and gave it to him. He unhesitatingly took the coin and put it in his bag.
Selected Short Stories Page 14