Land of Five Rivers (3 page)

l
ajwanti

Rajinder Singh Bedi

‘The leaves of Lajwanti
^*
wither
with the touch of human hands.’

A Punjabi folk song

After the great holocaust when people had washed the blood from their bodies they turned their attention to those whose hearts had been torn by the Partition.

In every street and bylane they set up a rehabilitating committee. In the beginning people worked with great enthusiasm to rehabilitate refugees in work camps, on the land and in homes. But there still remained the task of rehabilitating abducted women, those that were recovered and brought back home: and over this they ran into difficulties. The slogan of the supporters was ‘Rehabilitate them in your hearts.’ It was strongly opposed by people living in the vicinity of the temple of Narain Bawa.

The campaign was started by the residents of Mulla Shakoor. They set up a Rehabilitation of Hearts Committee. A local lawyer was elected president. But the more important post of secretary went to Babu Sunder Lal who got a majority of eleven votes over his rival. It was the opinion of the old petition writer and many other respectable citizens of the locality that no one would work more zealously than Sunder Lal, because amongst the women abducted during the riots, and not recovered, was Sunder Lal’s wife, Lajwanti.

The Rehabilitation of Hearts Committee daily took out a procession through the streets in the early hours of the morning. They sang as they went along. Whenever his friends Rasalu and Neki Ram started singing ‘the leaves of lajwanti wither with the touch of human hands,’ Sunder Lal would fall silent. He would walk as if in a daze. Where in the name of God was Lajwanti? Was she thinking of him? Would she ever come back?...and his steps would falter on the even surface of the brick-paved road.

Sunder Lal had abandoned all hope of finding Lajwanti. He had made his loss a part of the general loss. He had drowned his personal sorrow by plunging into social service. Even so, whenever he raised his voice to join the chorus, he could not avoid thinking —‘How fragile is the human heart’ ...exactly like the lajwanti...one only has to bring a finger close to it and its leaves curl up.

He had behaved very badly towards his Lajwanti; he had allowed himself to be irritated with everything she did — even with the way she stood up or sat down, the way she cooked and the way she served his food; he had thrashed her at every pretext.

His poor Lajo who was as slender as the cypress! Life in the open air and sunshine had tanned her skin and filled her with an animal vitality. She ran about the lanes in her village with the mercurial grace of dew drops on a leaf. Her slim figure was full of robust health. When he first saw her, Sunder Lal was a little dismayed. But when he saw that Lajwanti took in her stride every adversity including the chastisement he gave her, he increased the dose of thrashing. He was unaware of the limit of human endurance. And Lajwanti’s reactions were of little help; even after the most violent beating all Sunder Lal had to do was to smile and the girl would break into giggles: ‘If you beat me again, I’ll never speak to you.’

Lajo forgot everything about the thrashing as soon as it was over; all men beat their wives. If they did not and let them have their way, women were the first to start talking... ‘What kind of man is he! He can’t manage a chit of a girl like her!’

They made songs of the beatings men gave their wives. Lajo herself sang a couplet which ran somewhat as follows:

‘I will not marry a city lad
    city lads wear boots
And I have such a small bottom.’

Nevertheless the first time Lajo met a boy from the city she fell in love with him; this was Sunder Lal. He had come with the bridegroom’s party at Lajwanti’s sister’s wedding. His eyes had fallen on Lajwanti and he had whispered in the bridegroom’s ear, ‘Your sister-in-law is quite a saucy morsel; your bride’s likely to be a dainty dish old chap!’ Lajo had overheard Sunder Lal. The words went to her head. She did not notice the enormous boots Sunder Lal was wearing; she also forgot that her behind was small.

Such were the thoughts that coursed round Sunder Lal’s head when he went out singing in the morning procession. He would say to himself, ‘If I got another chance, just one more chance, I would really rehabilitate her in my heart. I could set an example to the people and tell them — these poor women are not to blame, they were victimised by lecherous ravishers. A society which refuses to accept these helpless women is rotten beyond redemption and deserves to be liquidated.’ He agitated for the rehabilitation of abducted women and for according them the respect due to a wife, mother, daughter and sister in any home. He exhorted the men never to remind these women of their past experiences because they had become as sensitive as the lajwanti and would, like the leaves of the plant, wither when a finger was pointed towards them.

In order to propagate the cause of Rehabilitation of Hearts, the Mulla Shakoor Committee organised morning processions. The early hours of the dawn were blissfully peaceful — no hubbub of people, no noise of traffic. Even street dogs, who had kept an all-night vigil, were fast asleep beside the
tandoors
. People who were roused from their slumbers by the singing would simply mutter, ‘Oh, the dawn chorus’ and go back to their dreams.

People listened to Babu Sunder Lal’s exhortations sometimes with patience, sometimes with irritation. Women who had had no trouble in coming across from Pakistan were utterly complacent, like over-ripe cauliflowers. Their menfolk were indifferent and grumbled; their children treated the songs on rehabilitation like lullabys to make them sleep again.

Words which assail one’s ears in the early hours of the dawn have a habit of going round in the head with insidious intent. Often a person who has not understood their meaning will find himself humming them while he is about his business.

When Miss Mridula Sarabhai arranged for the exchange of abducted women between India and Pakistan, some men of Mulla Shakoor expressed their readiness to take them back. Their relatives went to receive them in the market place. For sometime the abducted women and their menfolk faced each other in awkward silence. Then they swallowed their pride, took their women and re-built their domestic lives. Rasalu, Neki Ram and Sunder Lal joined the throng and encouraged the rehabilitators with slogans like ‘Long Live Mahinder Singh... Long Live Sohan Lal.’ They yelled till their throats were parched.

There were some people who refused to have anything to do with the abducted women who came back. ‘Why couldn’t they have killed themselves? Why didn’t they take poison and preserve their virtue and their honour? Why didn’t they jump into a well? They are cowards, they clung to life...’

Hundreds of thousands of women had in fact killed themselves rather than be dishonoured... how could the dead know what courage it needed to face the cold, hostile world of the living in a hard-hearted world in which husbands refused to acknowledge their wives. And some of these women would think sadly of their names and the joyful meanings they had...
‘Suhagwanti...
of marital bliss’ — or they would turn to a younger brother and say ‘
Oi
Bihari, my own little darling brother, when you were a baby I looked after you as if you were my own son.’ And Bihari would want to slip away into a corner, but his feet would remain rooted to the ground and he would stare helplessly at his parents. The parents steeled their hearts and looked fearfully at Narain Bawa and Narain Bawa looked equally helplessly at heaven — the heaven that has no substance but is merely an optical illusion, a boundary line beyond which we cannot see!

Miss Sarabhai brought a truckload of Hindu women from Pakistan, to be exchanged with Muslim women abducted by Indians. Lajwanti was not amongst them. Sunder Lal watched with hope and expectancy till the last of the Hindu women had come down from the truck. And then with patient resignation plunged himself in the committees’ activities. The committee redoubled its work and began taking out processions and singing both morning and evening, as well as organising meetings. The aged lawyer, Kalka Prasad, addressed the meetings in his wheezy, asthamatic voice (Rasalu kept a spitoon in readiness beside him). Strange noises came over the microphone when Kalka Prasad was speaking.

Neki Ram also said his few words. But whatever he said or quoted from the scriptures seemed to go against his point of view. Whenever the tide of battle seemed to be going against them, Babu Sunder Lal would rise and stem the retreat. He was never able to complete more than a couple of sentences. His throat went dry and tears streamed down his eyes. His heart was always too full for words and he had to sit down without making his speech. An embarrassed silence would descend on the audience. But the two sentences that Sunder Lal spoke came from the bottom of his anguished heart and had a greater impact than all the clever verbosity of the lawyer, Kalka Prasad. The men shed a few tears and lightened the burden on their hearts; and then they went home without a thought in their empty heads.

One day the Rehabilitation of Hearts Committee was out early in the afternoon. It trespassed into the area near the temple which was looked upon as the citadel of orthodox reaction. The faithful were seated on a cement platform under the
peepul
tree and were listening to a commentary on the
Ramayana
. By sheer coincidence Narain Bawa happened to be narrating the incident about Ram overhearing a washerman say to his errant wife: ‘ “I am not Sri Ram Chandra to take back a woman who has spent many years with another man” — and being overcome by the implied rebuke, Ram Chandra had ordered his own wife Sita, who was at the time far gone with child, to leave his palace.’

‘Can one find a better example of the high standard of morality?’ asked Narain Bawa of his audience. ‘Such was the sense of equality in the Kingdom of Ram that even the remark of a poor washerman was given full consideration. This was true Ram
Rajya
— the Kingdom of God on earth.’

The procession had halted near the temple and had stopped to listen to the discourse. Sunder Lal heard the last sentence and spoke up: ‘We do not want a Ram
Rajya
of this sort.’

‘Be quiet! ...Who is this man?...Silence,’ came the cries from the audience.

Sunder Lal clove his way through the crowd and said loudly, ‘No one can stop me from speaking...’

Another volley of protests came from the crowd. ‘Silence!... We will not let you say a word.’ And someone shouted from a corner ‘We’ll kill you!’

Narain Bawa spoke gently, ‘My dear Sunder Lal, you do not understand the sacred traditions of the
Vedas
.’

Sunder Lal was ready with his retort: ‘I understand at least one thing: in Ram
Rajya
the voice of a washerman was heard, but the presentday protagonists of the same Ram
Rajya
cannot bear to hear the voice of Sunder Lal.’

The people who had threatened to beat up Sunder Lal were put to shame.

‘Let him speak,’ yelled Rasalu and Neki Ram. ‘Silence! Let us hear him.’

And Sunder Lal began to speak: ‘Sri Ram was our hero. But what kind of justice was this, that he accepted the word of a washerman and refused to take the word of so great a
maharani
as his wife!’

Narain Bawa answered ‘Sita was his own wife; Sunder Lal, you have not realised that very important fact.’

‘Bawa
ji
, there are many things in this world which are beyond my comprehension. I believe that the only true Ram
Rajya
is a state where a person neither does wrong to anyone nor suffers anyone to do him any wrong.’

Sunder Lal’s words arrested everyone’s attention. He continued his oration. ‘Injustice to oneself is as great a wrong as inflicting it on others... even today Lord Ram has ejected Sita from his home... only because she was compelled to live with her abductor, Ravana... what sin had Sita committed? Wasn’t she the victim of a ruse and then of violence like our own mothers and sisters today? Was it a question of Sita’s rightness and wrongness, or the wickedness of Ravana? Ravana had ten heads, the donkey has only one large one... today our innocent Sitas have been thrown out of their homes... Sita... Lajwanti.’ ...Sunder Lal broke down and wept.

Rasalu and Neki Ram raised aloft their banners: schoolchildren had cut out and pasted slogans on them. They yelled ‘Long Live Sunder Lal Babu.’ Somebody in the crowd shouted ‘Long Live Sita — the queen of virtue.’ And somebody else cried ‘Sri Ram Chandra...’

Many voices shouted ‘Silence.’ Many people left the congregation and joined the procession. Narain Bawa’s months of preaching was undone in a few moments. The lawyer, Kalka Prasad, and the petition writer, Hukam Singh, led the procession towards the great square... tapping a sort of victory tatoo with their decrepit walking sticks. Sunder Lal had not yet dried his tears. The processionists sang with great gusto.

‘The leaves of lajwanti wither with the touch...’

The dawn had not yet greyed the eastern horizon when the song of the processionists assailed the ears of the residents of Mulla Shakoor. The widow in house 414 stretched her limbs and being still heavy with sleep went back to her dreams. Lal Chand who was from Sunder Lal’s village came running. He stuck his arms out of his shawl and said breathlessly: ‘Congratulations, Sunder Lal.’ Sunder Lal prodded the embers in his
chillum
and asked. ‘What for, Lal Chand?’