Land of Five Rivers (13 page)

s
oorma singh

Balwant Singh

        W
here I was standing there was yet no rain; but I could hear it beat down on the corrugated-tin roofs of the houses on the hillside. It sounded almost like a procession of singers marching up towards me. It was apparent that in a few moments the rain would spread over the entire hill. Those familiar with this phenomenon could be seen hurrying towards places of shelter.

The sky was overcast and the damp in the air was like a wet sponge. I did not want to turn back. I looked up at the shelter where ponies were swishing their tails to keep away flies. The flies went from one pony to another and then settled on the face of their owner.

I quickened my pace. One could never tell with the rains in the hills! It could be pouring and a minute later the sun would break through. I could do worse than spend quarter of an hour in the pleasant company of a herd of pack-horses.

The gentle pitter-patter of the rain drops turned into a roar. People scurried in different directions; only those who had raincoats and hat covers were unconcerned. They had to get their money’s worth! It was amongst this lot that I first espied Soorma Singh.

Soorma Singh had no raincoat, nor cover for his turban; he did not even have an umbrella. He had dark sun-glasses. He wore coarse hand-spun shirt, loose kneelength
kaccha
and a pair of Indian style slippers on his feet. His turban consisted of a couple of yards of plain white cloth wrapped untidily round the head; on his right wrist was a thick, steel bangle, the Sikh
kara.
He had a staff in his hand and was walking briskly along the road. He obviously wanted to escape the rain, but I concluded he was unwilling to share the company of hill ponies.

I was wrong. He walked alongside another person, placed his hand on the other’s shoulder and said something to him. The other man took him by the hand and conducted him to the pony shed. It was then that I realised that Soorma Singh was blind.

Just as it is customary among Hindus to name blind men Soordas and among Muslims to call them Hafizjee, the Sikhs give their blind the name Soorma Singh.

Soorma Singh was still a few paces from the shed when the rain began to come down in a torrent. It did not drench Soorma Singh, but at places his shirt stuck to his body and rain drops glistened on his moustache and beard. The first thing he did was to take off his glasses and wipe the dark lenses with an enormous hankerchief. He put them back on his nose after carefully readjusting the shafts behind his ears. He stood with his staff, a few paces from me.

The man who had helped Soorma Singh to the shed turned back into the rain. His foot slipped and he fell heavily on his seat. A strange reward for a good turn! The man roared with laughter, rose with alacrity and proceeded on his way planting his feet more firmly on the ground.

Soorma Singh’s mouth was half open; one of his canine teeth showed distinctly. It must have been a diseased tooth filled in by the dentist; the filling had gone and only a muddy cavity remained — somewhat like the hollow sockets of his eyes.

I stared at him as if he were a denizen from another world. Some instinct made him aware of my presence and he took an uncertain step in my direction. A pony neighed. Quickly he retraced his step — believing he had mistaken the pony for man.

I was staying in the local
gurdwara;
anyone can stay in a
gurdwara
for four days without paying anything. Thereafter, all that is necessary is to make an offering of a rupee to the Holy Book. That is good for a month. It even entitles one to a separate room. In this
gurdwara
most rooms had an attached kitchenette. On the ground-floor there were four bathrooms and latrines made of corrugated sheets: the stink pervaded the floors above. The living rooms were in the rear; the large prayer hall was on the top-floor — well beyond the foul odours of the latrines. The
gurdwara
gate opened on the metalled road. By the gate was a small free dispensary.

I was given a room on the middle floor without an attached kitchen. My servant, a boy from the hills, made my tea and cooked my meals on a stove in the room.

Although the
gurdwara
was in a congested locality, the adjoining houses did not crowd around it. Mule trains bringing loads from the plains were constantly passing in front of the
gurdwara.
It was only at 10 a.m. when the sweepers had cleaned the latrines and sprinkled phenyl that the place was free of smell; by then the mule caravans would reach the top of the hill. One could hear their copper bells from a distance. As they passed the
gurdwara
this became a loud jingle-jangle mixed up with their snorting. The odour of the latrines was replaced by the odour of mule-droppings.

The
gurdwara,
with its motley collections of pilgrims and other guests in its dozen rooms, was a small world of its own.

I was not on visiting terms with any of the other residents, but there were some one could not avoid. Next door to me were two brothers, both Sikhs. The only way I could tell which was the older was by their beards. The older man’s beard reached down to his navel; the younger one’s covered his chest. Besides that, the elder brother’s beard was almost grey: the younger one had only a few silver streaks in the mass of black. Both had their heads covered with loosely tied turbans and wore long, shapeless coats. They started their mornings by spreading out trays full of medicinal herbs and arguing about their merits at the tops of their voices. They spent the whole day hawking these herbs. Even if their herbs did not cure people, they did not kill them either. No one came to charge them with homicide. Every evening they would grind hashish and drink a cup or two of
bhang.
Occasionally they had guests — usually the caretakers of the
gurdwara.
And if the brothers had a good day in the bazaar, they brought sweets to offer their guests, along with the potion brewed from the green herb.

I had to pass the main kitchen on my way out of the
gurdwara.
I always exchanged a few words with the two Nihangs who had assumed charge of the
langar
feeding arrangements.

In the days when Ranjit Singh was Maharajah of Punjab, Akali Phula Singh had enlisted Nihangs and fought fierce battles with the Afghans and Pathans. The Nihang fraternity had descended from those warriors. But now there were no battles to fight. So they simply consumed
bhang.
The word Nihang means crocodile; the two men in the kitchen certainly resembled these monsters. The only work entrusted to the Nihangs was to cook lentils and vegetables and bake
chappaties
on the large, flat iron grill. This was the Guru’s kitchen where everyone had to be fed free — whether for a day or for a month no one could prescribe. The Guru’s kitchen was like a club where the only qualification for membership was a ravenous appetite.

The
gurdwara
also had a
granthi;
everyone addressed him as
Gyaniji.
Every visitor had to see him; without his permission no one could stay in the premises. Every evening when he went round to inspect the rooms we exchanged news. He wore a white turban and carried a saffron scarf about his neck with which he constantly wiped his nose; he always seemed to have a cold — or at least the illusion of one. He rubbed his nose so often that it had become raw and inflamed. His voice was feminine and melodious. He spoke so softy that people had to strain their ears to catch his words.

At 10 p.m. it started to rain.

My neighbours, the vendors of medicinal herbs, were celebrating. It seemed that they had done well with their stomach powder which they claimed could help digest even wood or stone. There was quite a crowd in their room. And they all spoke in Punjabi at the top of their voices, hurling full-blooded abuse at each other. The tone of bravado and the slurring over words left no doubt in my mind that they had imbibed liberal quantities of the green herb. All at once they stopped talking. I sat up with a jerk. A voice laden with pathos sang a couplet of Tegh Bahadur, the 9th of the Sikh’s ten gurus:

Worry not about death; all who are born must die;

Worry only over events which are not likely to pass.

I had heard this
sloka
many a time in the
gurdwaras
but it had never affected me the way it did that night, sung in that melancholy voice.

Suddenly the lights went off. There was a roar of protests from different rooms. Some of the residents were prepared for the eventuality and had provided themselves with candles; others ran out to the
bazaar
to buy them. The singing next door did not betray any concern over the crisis.

I shut the book I was reading and flung it on my bed. I went out of my room and stood by the railing. I ignored the malodorous vapours coming up from the latrines. I looked inside the open door of the neighbouring room. They had a fat candle burning in the centre. Around the candlelight I could see a variety of beards like a circle of watches around a cauldron. It was then that I noticed that the singer was no other than Soorma Singh. Even in that hour of the night he wore his dark glasses. His long hair had slipped out from under his turban and was scattered about his pock-marked face. He lifted his face towards the ceiling as he sang. I could see the muscles of his neck flex as his voice rose or fell.

I stayed out on the balcony till Soorma Singh stopped singing.

The two Nihangs were very conscious of their importance. They spent their day in the kitchen. Whenever they met a new visitor they would tell him: ‘We were on our way to Hemkund. We stopped here because this is also the abode of the
Guru. Gyaniji
won’t let us leave.’

On the way to Badrinath beyond Rishikesh is the lake Hemkund. It was here that the 10th Guru, Gobind Singh, meditated before he decided to come into the world. Whenever the Nihangs were upset they packed up their belongings and threatened to leave for Hemkund. Then
Gyaniji
would come, blowing his nose into his scraf, and persuade them to stay. The Nihangs were easily persuaded.
Gyaniji
would then return to his room — blowing his nose into his scarf.

It did not take very much to upset the Nihangs. They had never worked in a kitchen. But there was nothing else they could do; so they were charged with the duty of cooking the meals. The first thing they did in the morning was to light the fires of the cooking range. Those for cooking the sacred
halva
had large cauldrons on them; another fire, equally large, was filled with black lentils and third one had a cannister of water for brewing tea. Someday the lentils were like clear soup. Somedays they had more grit than salt; on others it was just grit without any salt. And if they had nothing to do, the Nihangs would take their long iron prongs and pace about the kitchen, like warriors at sword-play.

In the afternoons and evenings, the kitchen became the centre of great bustle and activity. There was never a shortage of beggars who spent the time between meals picking lice out of their rags. There were two reasons for their assembling before the food was ready. One was to get round the Nihangs and the other, to get their share of the lentils: as the lentil cauldron emptied, the proportion of grit in what remained increased.

Soorma Singh’s main duty was to sing hymns. In his spare time he took it upon himself to impart religious advice. After every two sentences he would exclaim,
‘Wahe Guru, wahe Guru.’

The Nihangs were crude rustics with little respect for anyone — least of all for Soorma Singh. Nevertheless Soorma Singh would go uninvited to the kitchen and take his seat on a board, a little removed from the fire. He was well aware of the fact that no one paid any heed to what he said; nevertheless he could not refrain from proffering gratuitous advice on the art of cooking. His major complaint was the excess of salt in the lentils. This used to irritate the Nihangs who had no doubt whatsoever in their minds that they were the best cooks in the world. Who was Soorma Singh to tell them what to do! If he grumbled about the food, they would snap back at him.
‘Oi,
you think your bloody woman is cooking for you!’

Such remarks evoked many a smile. But the taunt about his wife produced a thunderous expression on Soorma Singh’s face. He would grind his teeth and mutter, ‘I hate talking to women.’

‘Ho, ho,’ one of the Nihangs would roar, giving his moustache a twist, ‘You won’t talk to women; and women won’t have anything to do with you.’

Soorma Singh’s ear would go red. Once the Nihangs started on this subject, there was no stopping them. ‘This Soorma Singh is a dark horse. If you don’t believe me you can see him at it any morning after service. When the women sit in the courtyard to take the sun, old Soorma Singh finds his way into their midst. He loves women’s gossip; isn’t that so, old Soorma? What do you get out of hearing old wives tales? ...and Mr. Soorma Singh keeps a hawk’s eye on the other end of the courtyard; that’s where the women wash their clothes. He keeps wandering about the place. He runs into one, trips over another. Great man you are, Mister Soorma Singh, a truly great man.’