Land of Five Rivers (16 page)

He went back into the verandah. He saw his bride standing by the alcove. ‘Are you not feeling well?’ she asked him anxiously.

‘I am all right.’

‘Have I upset you in any way?’

Keshi wanted to laugh out as loudly as he could; even his wife had just one obsession. He put his arm round her waist and led her indoors, resolving firmly to lay aside his complexes and do what was expected of him. He pushed her on to the bed leaned over her and snapped open the buttons of her blouse.

She had put the pillow back in its place. And once more Keshi’s eyes fell on his mother’s picture. And once more his brain became fuddled. He shook himself free and rose from the bed. His wife caught at his hand.

‘What is the matter?’

Keshi glanced towards the door. How much easier it would have been if his mother had decorated his room instead of her own! His room was stacked with furniture received in the dowry, and other oddments collected for the wedding. He did not even have the key of his room. Keshi cast a dispirited glance towards the verandah. Moonbeams played on the floor. He exclaimed: ‘Look, how lovely it is in the moonlight! Let’s take a stroll outside.’

The bride rose and re-adjusted her clothes. She took a quick glance in the mirror, tidied her hair, drew her veil across her forehead and followed her husband.

They strolled up to the gate and back to the verandah twice without speaking to each other. She tried to break the ice by saying something about the moonlight, but Keshi made no response; the two continued to stroll in silence.

The heady spring moonlight did not change their mood. The bride was perplexed at her groom’s extraordinary behaviour. From her girl friends (some of whom were now mothers) she had heard of what happened between newly married couples on the first night. Her husband had started in the same way and then suddenly changed his mind. She had heard people praise his good looks, his learning, his gentleness. He was a lecturer at the university. Her father had made enquiries about him not only from his fellow lecturers, but also from the students and had only finalised the marriage negotiations after he was fully satisfied. No one had suggested that the boy was eccentric or slightly unhinged. Yet when she thought of him in his efforts to make love, her future seemed extremely bleak to her. Glancing furtively at him, she continued to walk beside him, barely noticing the lovely moonlight.

And Keshi’s mind was like a quagmire; he could not find a way out of his dilemma. He continued his monotonous pacing with his hands clasped behind him as if they were chained to each other. When they came to the gate again he spoke brusquely, ‘Come, let’s go out for a while.’

‘It is rather late,’ she protested gently.

Keshi recalled that one of his friends, relating an amorous affair, had told him that the lane between the water tank and the Grand Trunk Road was lonely and shaded — an ideal place for lovers...

‘Only as far as the water tank,’ he pleaded.

He opened the gate. His bride followed him in trustful silence. Keshi began to explain the topography: It was once an exclusive residential area for senior English officials of the Railway; after Independence the bungalows had been taken over by Indians. When they passed by the flour mill, he explained to her how wheat and corn were ground. At the cold storage plant he recounted how 40,000
maunds
of potatoes could be kept, to be marketed out of season. When they came to the press building, he peered through the window-panes and loudly began to explain the miracle of the rotary machine: how a blank sheet went in at one end and emerged at the other as a newspaper. He was heading for the railway station when he recalled what his friend had said about the lane connecting the water tank and the Grand Trunk Road. They turned towards the gate of the level crossing. It was closed. Keshi saw the red light and explained: ‘This gate is an awful nuisance. There is always some train or the other passing through. The station had been extended, but no one has bothered with this gate. They should have an over-bridge here.’

There was still some time for the train. They crossed the line by a side gate and came to the water-tank. The right half of the road was open and lighted; the other half was dark. When Keshi turned towards the dark, his wife protested, ‘Let’s go home; it is very late,’ but Keshi put his right arm round her waist. ‘Just a little further,’ he coaxed, ‘see how the moon comes through the branches!’

‘Why not the other side? It is a wide open road.’

‘Are you scared?’ he mocked gently, bending over to kiss her forehead.

The girl shook herself free in embarrassment. ‘What are you doing... right on the road...’

Keshi laughed. Once more he put his arm round her waist and exclaimed, ‘Who on earth will see us here at this time of the night!’ Again, he bent to kiss her, but before he could do so the head-lights of a motor caught them in a blinding glare; a truck roared past. Barely had they recovered when another truck came along — followed by a whole convoy of trucks. ‘Lonely, quiet road indeed,’ muttered Keshi himself. The romantic mood vanished.

‘Let’s go back,’ pleaded the girl in a tearful voice. ‘I am tired.’

‘This is the main road; trucks and cars run at all hours of the day and night,’ explained Keshi. ‘Let’s go to the M.T. Lines. The road up to the church should be quite deserted.’

‘I am very tired,’ she begged.

He took her firmly by the waist and led her towards the open road to the military training lines.

The bungalows on either side of the road were bathed in the moonlight; still, as if taken by surprise. Beneath, the trees, the light and the shade were like fretwork forming a new pattern each time a gust of breeze shook the branches. Keshi tried to guess where the Queen-of-the-night blossomed; it breathed its fragrance into the atmosphere. He twined his arm round his wife’s waist and took her under the shade of the trees.

‘Are you very tired?’ he asked.

She did not answer, but put her head against her husband’s chest. He drew her face to his and kissed her on the lips.

The beam of a torch flashed from across the road; the couple sprang apart. Keshi went pale; his heart began to beat rapidly. He remembered that no one was allowed to come to the M.T. Lines after midnight.

A group of soldiers in dark-green uniforms came by singing a song from the latest film they had seen.

‘Are you the moon when it is full

Or the sun in its glory?

Whatever you be

By the grace of God you are matchless in beauty.’

Despite the moonlight they flashed the light of their torch on the couple.

Keshi had wanted to take his bride in his arms, look into her eyes and repeat the opening lines of the song: ‘Are you the moon when it is full or the sun in its glory?’ But the bad manners of the soldiers quelled the romantic upsurge. He remembered an incident in which a friend and his sister who came to dine at a bungalow in the M.T. Lines were involved. They hadn’t realised how late it was and were unable to find a rickshaw. When they were walking homewards at half past twelve they were stopped by the soldiers. They had to go back to their hosts to prove they were brother and sister...

Before his bride said anything again about going back, Keshi turned his steps homewards. When the soldiers had flashed their torch on his bride’s face, Keshi had been roused to such a temper that he wanted to grip the fellow by the collar and slap him on the face. But, had there been a scene and if anyone had asked what the professor and his bride were doing at the late hour in the deserted lane, what could he have replied? ...He had resisted the impulse and all his spleen was vented on his mother — on the bed she had given him — and on his impotence.

He walked back at a brisk pace; his bride followed, dragging her feet a few steps behind him. When he entered the gate, he slowed down. The girl, clearly annoyed, went ahead at a quickened step, leaving him to follow. When Keshi came into the bedroom she was lying on the bed. One end of her sari was on the floor. The low cut blouse revealed the contours of her soft, warm breasts. Keshi wanted to go down on his knees and put his head in her lap. But once again (and without any volition on his part) his eyes travelled from his bride to his mother’s portrait.

He stood in the centre of the room lost in thought. The girl stared at the ceiling, tears brimming her eyes. Keshi glanced at the door to his room. ‘Isn’t this door bolted from the outside?’

‘Yes,’ she replied with her gaze still fixed on the ceiling. Keshi walked round the room twice. ‘Where is the key?’

‘Probably with aunty; she had all the furniture put inside.’

Keshi went out to the other end of the house. The light in his mother’s bedroom had been switched off. The other women had obviously gone to sleep too. Should he wake up his mother? If the aunt happened to wake up too, she would make fun of him. He came back and walked about the bedroom for a while. He stole a glance at his bride. She was still gazing stonily at the ceiling. He went to the door of his bedroom and put his shoulder against it. The bottom latch was firm and would not yield. His mother always used bottom latch. If it had been the upper latch he could have smashed the glass pane on the top of the door and undone the bolt.

He stepped back and examined the door. Both sides had three panes of glass each and the woodwork. If he broke the third pane he could get his hand to the bottom latch. He wanted to smash the glass with his fist; but the thought of waking up his mother was like a cold shower. He clenched his fists and resumed his wanderings in the room. He went round a few times and again stopped in front of the door. He looked at its base. The right side was somewhat damaged. He peered more closely. A crack showed clearly through the paint. He squatted on the floor, rested his back against the bed and pressed his heel against the crack with all his strength. The bed slid backwards but the door did not yield.

The bride lay stiff and unmoving; her gaze remained fixed on the ceiling. She seemed to take no notice of the bed sliding. Keshi stole a glance at her. She turned towards him. Their eyes met. Wasn’t there just a trace of contempt in her eyes? Didn’t she look at him as if he were a little mad? An insane impulse possessed Keshi, his rational faculties vanishing into thin air. He leapt up and with one powerful blow smashed the central pane of the door. The glass splintered and fell on the other side.

The bride sat up with a start. A look of astonishment came on her face as she rose and stood by her husband. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asked irritably.

Keshi did not reply. He did not even look at her. He put his arms through the broken pane and undid the latch on the other side. The door yielded as he hit the pane. Holding it with his left hand, he carefully withdrew his right arm. Even so his elbow was scratched.

Blood began to ooze through his torn sleeve.

‘Hai,
what you have done!’ The girl cried. At once her voice was full of concern. She looked around to see if she could find something to bandage the cut.

Keshi paid no heed to her. He pushed the door open with both his hands and went in, switching on the light. The room was packed with wedding presents and the dowry furniture — dressing table, almirah, bundles of clothes, trays of sweets and dried fruit. The bed that had been sent in the dowry was also there. It was loaded with all kinds of garments. He picked them up in both his arms and flung them on the couch.

The bride had come in behind him. In her eyes was not bewilderment but fear. Keshi turned round and put his hands on her shoulders. He gazed into her frightened eyes; then drew her to him and kissed her on the mouth. Through her fear, she felt her husband’s indifference change suddenly to passion; she felt his hot breath behind her ears. Slowly her petrified limbs relaxed in his warm embrace and she began to fondle his hair.

Early next morning Keshi’s mother woke up and came to the bridal chamber. Alarmed to see the door open, she tip-toed in and parted the curtain. What she saw, made her gasp. The decorated room was as empty as a mausoleum. Her eye fell on the other door and the splinters of glass on the floor and her alarm grew. Was there a robber in the house? She crept forward to see for herself. On the threshold she stopped dead in surprise. The bridal pair lay fast asleep on the rough unmade bed, with just the cushions of the sofa beneath them.

h
appy new year

Ajeet Caur

        A
fter years of hammering away on typewriters, Kapoor’s fate came to be linked with that of the Hon’ble Minister of the Central Government. Overnight his status was elevated from plain and simple Kapoor to Kapoor Sahib
:
Personal Assistant to the H.M. (Honourable Minister). In those few hours his chest expanded visibly by a couple of inches. When he strutted down the office corridors his breast puffed out like that of a crested bantam cock, it seemed as if corridors were not broad enough for him. Peons who usually sat on their stools chewing betel leaf or nodding with sleep would spring to attention and salute him as he passed.

The metamorphosis took place a few days before the year was to end. In the long years that Kapoor had been a clerk he had never as much as thought of such trifles as New Year’s Eve or New Year’s day. It had never occurred to him that the year which had been young a little while ago had aged and would soon give up the ghost. The thirty-firsts of December were no different from the thirtieths or thirty-firsts of other months: days of penniless penury. The firsts of January were like the firsts of all other months when he received his month’s salary, paid off his debtors, fulfilled his childrens’ oft-postponed demands for new exercise books, new textbooks, new pairs of socks to replace the old riddled with holes, school uniforms, pencils, etc. It was a strange mixture of sensations: an imperious feeling of governing other peoples’ destinies as well as a diminution of stature which came with the realisation that before half the day was over more than half his salary would be eaten up.

After Kapoor had been transformed into Kapoor Sahib
,
his life style changed. How the transformation came about was very simple.

A businessman to be more exact, an industrialist who had done business with his Minister, arrived at the Ministerial residence armed with a New Year’s gift. The date, 31st of December, Time: 8 a.m. Mr Kapoor was ensconced in a room in the outer verandah and seated in the chair of the Personal Assistant to the Hon’able Minister.

The Minister took one look at the parcel and remarked: ‘Sorry, I have given up drink. You must know what the Prime Minister’s views on the subject are. PM has ordered...’

The industrialist muttered an oath. Of course, only inside himself, but one which had reference to the Minister’s relations with his own mother. He also felt apprehensive that the bugger might be trying to slip out of his grasp. However, he bared his entire denture in a broad smile and replied: ‘Not at all, sir. I’ll bring something else tomorrow or the day after. But this is New Year’s Eve and I mustn’t leave without an offering for you.’ He opened his briefcase, took out a diary and placed it on the table before the Minister. It was a miserable little specimen printed in the government press. However, in its pages was a wad of other papers also bearing the imprint of the Government of India. The Minister opened the diary, felt the thickness of the wad of notes and remarked: ‘You needn’t have taken this trouble: it wasn’t really necessary for you to put yourself out in this way.’

‘No trouble at all, sir,’ sniggered the industrialist. ‘This is only to buy sweets for the children.’

It can be established that as a person rises in the world, his children’s appetite for sweets and candies increases. The ‘candy box’ in the diary was worth more than a confectioner’s shop crammed with goodies.

The Minister gave a wan smile baring two-and-a-half of his dentures and quietly slipped the diary in the drawer of his table.

The industrialist sighed with relief. It had been a touchand-go affair. As he stepped out of the Minister’s office he handed the parcel he had brought for the Minister to Kapoor. The Personal Assistant to the Minster had also to be kept happy. All this happened so quickly that Kapoor was neither able to protest nor as much as utter a word of thanks. It was the first time in his life that someone had considered him worthy of a gift of any kind.

He was somewhat ill at ease but the industrialist’s voice as he left with a triumphant smile was most reassuring: ‘It’s a small gift for the New Year.’ Kapoor’s hands shook as he put the bottle in a drawer of his table. He felt hot all over his body.

Vashisht, the typist, shared the room with Kapoor. He had been the Minister’s typist and had sat in the same corner for many years. On the very first day that Kapoor came to occupy his new chair, Vashisht had introduced himself with a reassuring smile: ‘Do not worry sir, I will show you all the ropes. Ministers come to go; their job are not permanent. But your humble servant had been confirmed in his post and is quite familiar with the goings-on that take place in this room. I will not let any trouble come near you.’

Vashisht sensed Kapoor’s discomfiture and casually walked up to him as he took a leaf of betel out of a wrap of paper. ‘Congratulation Kapoor Sahib. The first gift is like the ceremony of removing the nose-ring of a bride. You must entertain your humble servants and thus ensure the grace of God. We will always pray for your health.’

Kapoor was novice at the game. He realised he could not drink an entire bottle of Scotch all by himself and was relieved to have someone share it with him: ‘Sure! Sure!’ he replied.

‘Fine! This evening we’ll welcome the New Year in your home as all the
burra
Sahibs do in big hotels. Singing and embracing each others’ wives at the midnight hour. Can I also invite Gupta on your behalf?’ Gupta was the second typist. He sat in another room which he shared with the two other clerks. Gupta was in charge of receiving and sorting out the mail; the other was responsible for the despatch.

‘Sure!’ replied Kapoor expansively.

Kapoor came home a little earlier than usual carrying the bottle of Scotch in his attache case. He was not prepared for the tongue-lashing his wife gave him. ‘Did you have to bring this destroyer of families in our own home? And drink the evil stuff in the presence of children! New Year? What the hell is this New Year? Today is the thirty-first and there is neither a vegetable nor a scrap of a biscuit nor anything else to eat in the house. I am ashamed of asking the grocer for another loan. Only yesterday I told him I would not be buying anything more this month and asked him to make out our bill so that I could clear his account by the first. We already owe him hundred and eighty-three rupees. If we took another loan your guests will eat it up. They will go back merrily to their homes but what will we live on? You want us to eat at the free kitchen in the
gurdwara
all of the next month? New Year indeed! These fads are for the idle rich, people who frequent five-star hotels. We have barely enough to fill our bellies and never a
paisa
to spare. Only I know how I count every
paisa
to spread it out over thirty days!’

What was poor Kapoor to do? If you put your head in the jaws of a crocodile you cannot hope to escape without a scratch! He tried to explain in his softest tone: ‘My good woman! This New Year is an English festival exactly like our
Baisakhi
or
Diwali.’
But the good woman was beyond reasoning and refused to understand.

Exactly at quarter to eight the two men arrived accompanied by their wives and their brood of children. The women and children went into the inner room. Normally, children could be expected to create an uproar, but being clerks’ offsprings they clung to their mothers’s aprons and whimpered like little pups. In any case it was very cold evening, and their mothers could not get rid of them by ordering them to go out to play.

In the sitting-room the men were gathered around the bottle of Scotch. With it they nibbled salted peanuts. Inside, their women folk compared the prices of potatoes.

‘In any event Kapoor Sahib owed us a feast for his promotion,’ remarked Vashisht. Kapoor expanded like an inflated balloon. However, he pulled a long face and replied, ‘What kind of promotion,
yaar!
Promotion is when there is an increase in one’s salary. All I have got is increase of work. I used to get to the office at 10.30 in the morning and leave at 4:30 in the evening. Now I have to report at the Minister’s residence at 7.45, and stay upto 8 or 9 p.m. I don’t have to tell you all this.’

‘To hell with the work, Mr Kapoor! Your sphere of influence has increased, your status risen to new heights!’ remarked Gupta. ‘Lots of things happen to people who occupy your chair. You recall that fellow called Sood? Narinder Sood was his full name. He used to sit in the same chair. It must have been about eight years ago when a licence applied for by a Bombay firm got stuck somewhere in the files of the Ministry. The firm’s chaps had been going round and round for weeks but the Minister was like a duck which would not let a drop of water stay on its back. Utterly defeated, these Bombay Johnnies came to Sood’s house and fell at his feet. This Sood fellow performed such jugglery that before the month was over, the licence was cleared. It was entirely Sood’s handiwork. The Bombay people worked out that each visit to Delhi cost them five to six thousand rupees. So why not employ Sood to do the work for them? They persuaded him to resign his job and made him their Resident Executive Director in Delhi. They gave him an air-conditioned office and a spacious apartment. Now Mr. Sood and his pretty private secretary travel in a chauffeur-driven car. They make the rounds of different offices handing out invitation cards for dinner. He dines out every night with officials at swanky hotels like the Oberoi, the Taj or the Maurya. Every month lakhs of rupees pass through his hands; everyday he wears a new suit made of imported textiles.’ Vashisht narrated the story of Sood’s achievements as though they were blood-brothers.

‘And
banda parwar
(protector of the poor) you must know that every currency note has a little glue stuck to it. As they are passed along from hand to hand some get stuck to one hand, some to another. You are a man of the world, you must know all this,’ said Gupta.

Kapoor’s third eye was beginning to catch a glimmer of light.

‘My good friend, all I know is one basic fact. These eighty-four lakh species of lives that our holy books talk of are in fact one that of a clerk. A clerk goes through all the incarnations: cat, dog, scorpion, turtle, jackal, pig and everything else. And just as a person goes through the eighty-four lakhs of incarnations before he takes birth as a human to rule the world, so once in a millennia a clerk is fortunate enough to be appointed personal assistant to a minister.’ Vashisht was well-versed in the holy texts.

‘That may well be so,’ conceded Kapoor with a halfhearted laugh, ‘but there is no escaping from the fact that the work-load becomes much heavier. Your sister-in-law (my wife) has been going at me for the last ten days.’

‘She is not sparing you!’ sniggered Gupta.

‘Why don’t you put some sense in her head? Tell the good lady that by the grace of the chair you occupy all the four horizons will soon light up. Then she will cook
halva
full of dry fruits and glasses of milk laced with almonds before she sends to you to your office,’ Vashisht roared happily.

‘This bottle of Scotch is the first ritual — the sort of gift you give a bride when she first unveils her face,’ added Gupta.

The two men treated Kapoor like a neophyte about to have its ears pierced before he is accepted by a Guru as his disciple. ‘When my wife looked at this bottle, it seemed all hell would break loose,’ said the new convert Kapoor.

Vashisht interrupted him by pleading in a mewling voice. ‘Please, please explain all this to our
bhabhi.
Put some divine wisdom into her head.’

Gupta added his voice in support. Tell her how everyone in the Customs Service is eager to be posted at Palam or Santa Cruz airports and gets all sorts of influential people to speak for him. Every traffic constable, every sales tax officer does his level best to be posted in Chandni Chowk, Sadar or Chawri Bazar. How many shoes do they have to polish with butter before they get these postings? What is more, these big hospitals, when a doctor is put in charge of the wing reserved for VIPs his colleagues are burnt up with envy. Such posts do not go abegging. The work load is undoubtedly doubled. But just think: the bigger the head, the bigger the headache.’

‘Now take the case of the Prime Minister,’ said Vashisht, ‘the poor thing works 18 to 19 hours everyday. During the elections the PM runs from one village to another. What booby prizes does the PM get for all this trouble?’

‘Quite right! All these Ministers and leaders of political parties do not run around for the heck of it. Time will come when your wife will be singing and dancing with joy. She will take your big head in her lap and kiss away all its aches,’ said Vashisht laughing.

The bottle was nearly empty. The peanuts had been nibbled away. Gupta glanced at his watch. ‘Friends, it is nearly 9.30. Let us have something to eat. We will not get any buses after 10.30. And we are not ministers who can order our cars...’ Kapoor got up and went inside. A little later Kapoor’s children trooped in carrying bowls full of lentils cooked in onion and potato curry. The three men ate in the outer room; their wives and children in the room inside. Kapoor’s wife was busy baking
chappaties;
her children ran around the two rooms serving them hot to the guests. By 10.15 the guests departed.