Thulikanchhi
Thulikanchhi, who was between eleven and twelve years old, was slender-limbed, thin-faced, and just as fair-complexioned as Rambabu’s own daughter, Parvati. She had hurried back after a brief visit home, leaving her brother behind.
‘She has returned!’ Rambabu welcomed her with a cry full of joy and affection and not without a hint of teasing.
‘So I have.’ Thulikanchhi ran into the house from the yard from where the sun had half-accomplished its retreat and where sat tiny pebbles hiding in their own little shadows.
‘Did you leave early in the morning?’ Parvati’s mother asked a question—the answer to which she already knew. But Rambabu jumped in with mischief—because this was how he had built attachment with Thulikanchhi—and said, ‘A young girl like her can get here in the blink of an eye. At her age they can snatch a bird out of the sky. She’s already caught thirteen of those.’
‘Very funny!’ After pouting and staring at Rambabu through the corner of her eyes, she said, ‘A chhurpi, aunty?’ and walked up to Parvati’s mother, put a yellow lump of the hard cheese on her palms, and disappeared into the house.
But Rambabu just had to call after Thulikanchhi. ‘Thulikanchhi-chhori!’ Rambabu appealed to her, assuming the picture of innocence, ‘Nobody has given me a decent cup of tea since you went away. You always brought my morning tea. Oh, I have suffered in my Thulikanchhi’s absence! Do make me a cup of thick, sweet tea!’
‘Sanikanchhi must have given you tea.’
‘As if that silly girl can make tea!’
‘She goes to school! How can a schoolgirl be silly?’ Thuli had already run into the kitchen, laughing. She could be heard pulling out a log from the stack of firewood to the floor, dragging it outside and splitting it. She also sang to herself a little.
By the time Parvati and Prakash came home from school, Thulikanchhi had finished making tea. ‘Good job, Thulikanchhi! Finally, a cup of tea from your hands, just the way I like it!’ Rambabu said to flatter her as he took the cup.
‘Kaka says he didn’t get even a cup of good tea,’ Thulikanchhi said to Parvati with a laugh as she wiped her tea-scalded fingers on her skirt.
‘Baba! Just you wait—if you ever ask me to make tea again!’ Rambabu’s daughter began sulking immediately. Rambabu had no recourse but to grin, knowing that he had painted himself into a corner, when Parvati’s eyes started to well up. ‘Look at her! She cries at everything!’ Thulikanchhi said with a pout.
In the evening, Thulikanchhi was studying with Parvati and Prakash, their books strewn over the bed. She felt as if her bedridden father were by her side. Then she remembered her aunt. She held her breath without realizing and straightened herself in defence. She remembered her aunt’s little girl and was filled with loathing. She saw her book and turned a page. She looked at every picture and turned every page. By her side, Parvati was absorbed in her sums. This made her even more reluctant to continue studying. She began chatting with Prakash.
‘Are you studying or chatting?’ Rambabu shouted from the next room. Thulikanchhi turned the same book to another page and started reading. Then she began reading aloud. When Rambabu came in to check on the children, she read even more loudly.
‘I’ll send both of you to school next year,’ Rambabu said from the door. ‘Both of you, in Class 4.’ Thulikanchhi listened to him intently. She had heard the same thing many times before.
She asked immediately, ‘If she fails her exams, how will both of us be in Class 4?’
‘You’ll go to Class 4. Whoever fails will stay in Class 3.’ Thulikanchhi heard the answer but it didn’t entirely satisfy her.
Rambabu left after lingering by the door for a bit. Instantly, Thulikanchhi stopped studying. She started peering into Parvati’s exercise book instead. ‘Aren’t you done?’ she asked, and when she didn’t get an answer, she said to Prakash, ‘Bed time!’ She slipped under the blanket. Then she jumped out of bed immediately. ‘I’m so stupid! Going to bed without giving Baba any water for the night.’
‘I almost forgot the water,’ Thulikanchhi said after giving Rambabu the water. ‘What would you drink in the night otherwise?’
‘How can my daughter forget it? My Thulikanchhi will take care of me, forever and ever.’ Rambabu had already taken his shirt off and was lying in bed with a book in his hand. ‘After all, my Thulikanchhi is my own little Thulikanchhi!’
‘Am I, really?’ Thulikanchhi managed to blurt out incoherently in her happiness before running back to her room.
‘Who was that, a few days ago, in the bazaar, what was it he said?’ Rambabu asked Thulikanchhi from his room.
‘I’ve already told you!’
‘What did he say, again?’ Thulikanchhi was pushed to answer.
Thulikanchhi didn’t climb into bed, and she didn’t turn towards the door either. She stood aloof, swaying a little.
‘A man,’ Thulikanchhi told the story. ‘He saw us wearing similar skirts and said, “You must be sisters.”’ She had had to try really hard to contain her laughter the previous time she told the story.
‘Of course you are my daughter! Your face is just like mine. You have just the one nose, just like I have one nose, and just the two ears…’
She found Rambabu’s joke unpleasant.
‘But your nose isn’t like Baba’s,’ Thulikanchhi said to Parvati, and they were soon comparing themselves. When one lost a contest, they both laughed. Thulikanchhi regarded herself: large, jaundiced eyes, lips larger than the mouth, and a scrawny neck. The fact that both the brother and the sister had names beginning with a P was also discussed, and it was suggested that perhaps she could also take on a similar name. Upon Thulikanchhi’s insistence, they went back to competing on the lengths of their hair.
That night, long after Parvati fell asleep, as Thulikanchhi floated between sleeping and awaking, she imagined a day far in the future when Parvati would be married off but she would stay behind, living in the same house and taking better care of it.
Rambabu had just reached home after making a round of his fields in the morning when he heard the neighbour woman rail about how Parvati and Thulikanchhi hadn’t let her son fetch water from the communal tap. It was a small matter, but Rambabu grabbed Parvati and began hitting her. He was a weak man, so when he had struck her a few times, he could not rein in his rage and he began hitting her with greater fury. The house filled with shouts and cries. When Aama tried to pull Parvati away, she too received a scolding. Thulikanchhi swept all around the house in a flash and began methodically fetching water from the tap above the house.
She left the bucket under the tap and stole closer to the house to listen attentively to the sound of Parvati crying in the house, and to Rambabu scolding her periodically. Although she was glad to have escaped a beating, dissatisfaction pooled somewhere in her heart. She went and stood by the tap once more. Water gushed ceaselessly from the tap and foamed on the rising surface of the water in the bucket. She kept staring at it, enrapt, for a long while. Water gushed out from the over-brimming bucket but she didn’t hear it. She stared at the spilling water, uncomprehending…
While returning from the field after fetching and pouring out the bucket of water, she leaned towards the house and listened. The house had gone eerily still, as if everybody inside had killed themselves only moments before.
She climbed above the house and found a slender stem. She set the bucket by the path, looked around, picked up the stem and hit herself on the calf with it. She hit herself as hard as she could a few more times, stared at the thin stem, then hurled it down. When she walked on with the empty bucket, she was filled with the determination to carry Parvati’s share of water also.
In the evening, remembering that Rambabu would arrive early from work, Thuli brought him tea. ‘See? My Thulikanchhi remembers that today is a Saturday,’ Rambabu said, like the grown-up that he was, already forgetting the morning’s incidents.
‘You flatter only when you get your tea,’
Thulikanchhi spoke of what had been occupying her heart. ‘But when you see me in the bazaar you don’t even speak to me.’
‘When did I not speak to you?’
‘Today.’
‘Today! Where?’
‘Where else? In the bazaar.’ Thulikanchhi said with a bit of acid in her voice. ‘You were standing to this side of the warehouse in the bazaar. You were talking to three big men and laughing. I called out to you, but you didn’t talk to me.’
They had been discussing Jalpahar and laughing.
‘So, you called me by my name, did you? Why didn’t you pull my sleeve?’
‘How could I?’ Thulikanchhi scolded. ‘I called you, I said, “Uncle!” twice, from the other corner. But you were deaf, and you kept talking to someone in a coat just like yours, and laughed and laughed…’
‘Forgive me! Please forgive!’ Rambabu spread his hands.
‘Smaller portion of meat for you tonight!’ Thulikanchhi said and skipped to the kitchen. She began cutting up the meat. After a while, she heard a murmur in the adjacent room and went to eavesdrop.
Rambabu was sitting on a low stool and showing affection to Parvati, pleading with her. Parvati had her arm over her eyes and with intermittent sobs was giving continuance to the sequence of tears and weeping that had been disrupted in the morning. Rambabu was lovingly caressing her on the places where he thought he had hit her in the morning. Thulikanchhi shrank into the darkness by the door and watched them.
‘Don’t cry, my daughter! Don’t cry!’ Thulikanchhi heard. ‘I am your father! Of course I’ll hit you sometimes,’ he was saying with love. Parvati’s sobs didn’t stop. Once more, the father tousled the daughter’s hair and his hands wiped away hot tears from her cheeks. Thulikanchhi walked away on tiptoes.
In a bit, Parvati came to the kitchen. Thulikanchhi saw how her face beamed with immense arrogance and pride. Thulikanchhi kept at her chores and didn’t say a word to Parvati.
In the morning, Thulikanchhi woke up, lit the stove and boiled water for tea. As she was washing her face, Parvati also came out to wash her face. She had returned to the kitchen and was making tea for Rambabu when Parvati said, ‘I’ll give him the tea.’
‘How does it matter who gives it to him? I’ll do it myself,’ Thulikanchhi said.
‘But today I’ll do it,’ Parvati shouted.
‘You don’t need to try to be his pet. I woke up early in the cold, I lit the fire and made the tea. Now she wants to act smart!’
‘Why are you fighting?’ Rambabu, who had woken up, shouted.
Parvati snatched the bowl and walked away. ‘I haven’t added any sugar yet!’ Thulikanchhi sprang up to grab the bowl and carried it away, stirring in a spoonful of sugar.
Rambabu was sitting up, seething.
‘Do you have to fight so early in the morning? You’re the older—can’t you be more understanding? What harm was there in letting her bring it?’
She stood there, frightened.
But much later, when the emotions ebbed, a corner of her heart filled with sadness. The sun had barely warmed the air when she went behind the house and slumped over, all alone.
She ignored Prakash when he came to say, ‘Thulikanchhi! You’ve been told to sweep the yard.’
In the afternoon, after she had cleaned the plates and other dishes with Parvati and put them away, Thulikanchhi climbed down to the alder grove beyond the terraced fields. The pain and the joy of revenge flooded her heart once she decided that nobody had seen her steal away, and that nobody was watching her. There was rage in her heart.
Worried that someone could see her from the house, she climbed further down and found a lovely hollow in which to hide. She shrank into herself and took small breaths.
‘Let them think I have gone away.’ Her heart ballooned with happiness. She felt loved. Now she recalled how she had carefully hidden her tin box of possessions under the stack of firewood, and now she laughed as she imagined the look of astonishment on their faces. ‘They’ll think I have run away with my clothes and my box.’ Once more, she felt wanted, and felt joy.
But even after a long time, nobody came searching for her. The hollow was getting cold, so she moved out and sat in the sun. She heard something—perhaps somebody calling from the house. She tried to listen carefully, but couldn’t hear anything. Dry twigs were strewn everywhere around her. She gathered a few and kept them by her side.
‘Thulikanchhi!’ Parvati really was calling for her now. ‘Thulikanchhi!’
She scurried back to her hiding place. She giddily giggled to herself and found a place even more hidden for her to crawl into.
A long time passed but nobody came from the house, nobody called out to her. An empty silence continued to ring in her ears. Defeated, she emerged again and found the sun which had moved far from the hollow. The ground where she sat was overrun with weeds. She pulled them out. The sun skirted around her and set for the evening.
‘He shows love to his daughter!’ She became angry inside. The scene from the previous evening came to her mind and stayed there for a long time, despite her attempts to get rid of it. She had been living with the family for a while now, but she had witnessed the scene of affection only on the previous day. Maybe Rambabu will come searching for her, and show love for her, too. She gathered some tears in her eyes and bowed her little head. ‘I’ll also cry,’ she told herself, imagining herself in Rambabu’s arms. She lost herself to the warmth of that joy.
A dog emerged from somewhere to run past her and break her reverie. The silence seemed additionally desolate, and the air colder. Flashes of the dream of Rambabu climbing down to find her and lovingly leading her home kept coming and retreating. The hope and desire that Rambabu would pick up the bundle of twigs that she had collected and lead her away with a hand on her shoulder increased momentarily and, in that delusion, she looked up the steep path. Above her were silent bushes and brambles and nothing more.
Somewhere in the distance, two women chatted and laughed as they walked past, and soon they too were lost. Thulikanchhi got up, started picking dry branches and twigs scattered around her and, without a glance at the steep path that led to the house, gathered as much firewood as she could. When she had collected a large stack, she took her scarf and tied the wood into a bundle, set it on the edge of a terrace, secured the load to her forehead, and headed up the hill towards the house.
‘They will say I had gone to gather firewood,’ she assured herself.
My Sister
‘Although I am a Christian, I like the festival of Tihar, and especially the day of Bhai Tika. Therefore, I have accepted someone as my sister, and go to her each year to receive the tika from her. Didi, my sister, fasts and waits for me. When she sees me, her face lights up with joy. When she seats me down on a woollen rug and makes the three circumambulations, when she protects me by breaking Yamaraj’s head in the form of a walnut, when she puts a beautiful tika in red and white on my forehead, when I get to wear a garland of bright marigolds, I lose myself in a surfeit of bliss. I forget that I am the son of Christians; the joy of knowing that I have a sister and that I am her brother floods my heart; I put my forehead upon her feet in supplication…’
The jeep had passed Jorbangla, and was making its way along the straight road towards Simkuna in the pale light of the morning. Along with the driver and Krishna, the speaker was the third person in the jeep. Krishna had just met the man with a good-looking and clean face, hefty of build, wearing a hat, and with dim eyes, but, perhaps encouraged by Krishna’s garrulous nature, the man continued to narrate his story:
‘I had reached Class 8 that year. But I was very bright in mathematics, and through the winter I used to go to Haridas Hatta to give math tuitions to Rejina, a girl who was also studying in Class 8. We used to tackle cubes and solutions and such in algebra.
‘Another girl—somewhat older—would sit and watch the two of us. I heard later that her name was Kamala, and that she was in Class 9. When we b
ecame better acquainted, I started calling her Didi. She too started calling me her brother. I would visit Kamala-didi’s home. Her father had some sort of a job at the court; he was frequently transferred—sometime to Kharsang, sometime to Darjeeling. I also talked to my friends about Kamala-didi. They praised her simplicity. At home, I told my grandma, my younger brother and mother that I had accepted someone as my elder sister. Perhaps I talked about her too often, because mother laughed one day and said, “You keep talking about your sister. Bring her home some day—let’s see what your sister is like!”
‘After a few days, and after a lot of persuading, I brought Didi home. Grandma and mother liked her immensely. Grandma said, “Your uncle had a daughter just like her. Same age, too. She died suddenly after complaining about a headache. She had just as bright a face.”
‘I received my first tika from Didi’s hand that year. I presented Didi a rupee note and a copper coin. I realized after giving her the money that my hands had become covered in sweat. I touched my forehead to her feet, ate rice and banana and sweetmeats. I stayed there all day long, browsed through Didi’s books. Kamala-didi didn’t have a mother—she had died long ago. There were two younger brothers at home, but both were my juniors in school. I returned home only at five in the evening. As I left, I picked the largest of the garlands hanging there and brought it home.
‘That year, Didi passed her exams and reached Class 10, and I reached 9.
‘Christmas arrived. My Christmas would be incomplete without inviting Kamala-didi. My brother and I went to fetch her. We ate cake, oranges and meat. “This is the first year, and so we—your brothers—came to invite you,” I said to Kamala-didi. “But, from the next year on, if you really think of me as your true brother, you have to our home uninvited.” Aama also supported what I was saying. “You are now brother and sister, and may you always remain brother and sister,” she said.
‘Clad in a white cotton sari and draped in a large white woollen shawl, Kamala-didi laughed by the hearth in a daze.
‘Around May of the following year, Kamala-didi’s family moved to Kharsang when her father was transferred there. She enrolled in a school there. She would write to me with advice and counsel. Her English was excellent. I would also reply with a diligently chosen vocabulary. It was in Kamala-didi’s letters that I first read phrases like “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” and “Our language is our civilization”.
Long Night of Storm Page 5