Mango Chutney: An Anthology of Tasteful Short Fiction. (26 page)

With no fixed agenda and no cooked up to-do lists, Raunak slowly walked
on the uneven pavement now overflowing with shoppers. The corn on
the left foot had started to hurt, what with the frantic packing done in
the last few days, and Dr. Scholl’s was proving to be of no use. Sweat was
struggling to make an appearance but her face was matted with the best
foundation, her peppered hair conditioned to remain neatly tied in a bun
grazing the onion pearls around her neck. Of course, the tiny embroi-
dered paisley on the back of her Lucknawi chikan suit was getting wetter
by the minute. But she walked along, looking inside shops and peeping
into lanes, standing at crossroads and taking in all eight directions and
eight hundred sounds. If one were to spy on her, one would think she
was a spy. Or someone looking for something. Or for someone. But she
wasn’t.
Her heart was heavy, her back soaking wet, but her feet refused to stop.
I
must visit the shops I want to before I leave tomorrow,
she resolved to herself as
she elbowed her way through a group of teenagers buying lycra and lace
tops in gaudy colours and animated voices.

She smiled at the woman selling Chinese toys on a cart while entering the
Titan showroom that Rajinder Singh ji had been running for many years
now. On arthritic knees he stood up, hands shaky with age but joined to
welcome her. On a revolving stool too tiny for her but enough to give
her rest she sat, sipping juice and chatting with the owner about this
and that, but mostly about her impending departure. There was nothing
spectacular about the shop, but this is where all her instruments of time
were bought or repaired since the beginning of time, when she had once
stepped into its humble confines. Of course, her friends and family had
found swankier places. But this was where she loved to sit, to catch her
breath, exchange pleasantries and feel surrounded by ticking time and
o’clock sirens. It usually made her feel honest, and very alive. Today, how-
ever, the tick-tocks felt as if they were counting down more than keeping
time. Raunak and Rajinder discussed the new government, the weather,
the old employee who lost his job because he could barely see, the fire in
the paper factory in Mayapuri, how maids were not to be trusted and …
I
feel so restless, or is it the heat? Feels as if I am losing time on something significant
today … my last day in Delhi and here, right here, in Rajouri. Oh! I must be going
senile …
and she couldn’t sit for long.

At the first crossroad in the market, just large enough for one rickshaw
to cycle across at a time, she turned left, away from the din and bustle
to an even narrower lane lined with photo framers, beauty parlours and
dyers. Kuku Dupatta House was just a few shops away and a rudderless
Raunak suddenly felt herself quickening pace towards it. Again, she had
no idea what had come over her.
Wahey Guruji, why am I so nervous? Please
guide me. Calm me. Are you behind this wandering today? Must be travel anxiety.
Anyway, hopefully Murari Lal Ji will be at the shop and not his son. I can say goodbye
to him, why not!
She had lost count of the number of times the dyer had
been kind to her family, with express orders, colours like no other and
blessings on his lips. There he sat under a slow-moving fan, forgotten
amongst bigger establishments on both sides who had modernized their
dying techniques. Here and there were still painted hands dipping cloth
pieces in and out of the vats on the other side of the shop. Today, due to
an unexpected spill the dyers had moved right next to where she stood.
With nowhere to sit, Raunak rested her chubby elbows on the glass top
and spoke to him over books with sample colour threads, a mish-mash
of scraps and some newspapers inside the showcase. However, there was
barely anything to talk about. She thanked him for his services and he
blessed her with even better times in foreign lands. When she broke the
news that she was relocating permanently, with a movement so hasty that
his workers had never seen his frail frame make before, Murari Lal got
out from a small cupboard behind him a beautifully dyed stole. For her.
Draping it around her neck, she looked at herself in a mirror that had
been leaned against the counter today due to the vat spillage.

An old man was staring at her in the mirror, making her so self-conscious
she could not stare at herself anymore. He stood there, with a sari drip-
ping wet in both hands that were crying red over the vat, frozen as if in
time and unable to take his eyes away.
My hands…is he staring at my hands?
Why? Must be the rings. The watch … I must be mistaken. I shouldn’t stare back.
Looks like a harmless poor old man. He’s looking at the street ahead I’m sure…silly
me.
She undid the stole and teary-eyed, thanked Murari Lal for his kind-
ness, all the while aware of the man’s gaze on her. Within minutes, she
had hurriedly called her driver and vanished into the traffic. One, because
she had to leave Rajouri Market forever sometime today and it was get-
ting so late, and two, there was something about the man that made her
want to look at him, talk to him, cry with him.

The old man still stood transfixed, as if he were made of clockwork that
was unwound.
I must be mistaken. It cannot be. …it cannot be. How can it be?
The Titan watch Sahab was right, my eyes are indeed playing tricks on me. So many
years, so much time gone by there and here … it cannot be. It must have been a different tattoo. Not an ‘R’ on her wrist with two dots under it. She had died … cannot
be … or could it …?

“Bhaisahab, all okay?” asked a co-worker, concerned. But Raman could
no longer hear him. Or anything. He was sitting in his house in Lahore
and had turned ashen, and as fear gripped his heart tight he tightened his
hold on his sister’s finger, who had cried awake.

26.
Prem ki chashni
²
Sudhanshu Shekhar Pathak
Translated from Hindi by Harsh Snehanshu

Much like everyday, the crimson ball sprang to life at exactly 5.45 a.m.
from the far-eastern corner of the sky. As if somebody had splashed
water over its sleeping eyes, making it jump out of bed.

The darkness of the night starts to retreat as early as five o’ clock in
Bikramganj, a sleepy rural town in Northern Bihar. Just when the first
light of morning gives into the unrestrained chirping of birds, Lachhu-
man wakes up. After finishing his early morning ritual of bathing and
praying, he goes on to open his little shop situated a hundred meters away
from his house. The shutters are opened at the first sight of the sun. He
stays there for the entire day, returning only after serving the passengers
of the 9 p.m. bus, the last one, with litti-chokha, milk-cakes, samosas, and
chai-biscuit. Once at home, he hands over the earnings of the day to the
eager palms of his wife, eats the tasteless dinner she would have cooked
for him and lets his weary body drift into sleep. Even when the clouds
hide his only friends–the moon at night and the sun in the morning, there
is no discernible change in Lachhuman’s daily routine. He has been fol-
lowing it for years.

Everything would have been the same, if Manoj had not handed him the
letter this morning. That one moment changed Lachhuman’s universe. It
wasn’t just a letter, but a storm inside an envelope. He turned and tossed
it, reading it many times, simultaeneously trying to decipher the expres-
sions on Manoj’s face; at other times, rubbing his own eyes in disbelief.
Somebody can write me a love-letter, too?

“Tell me the truth, Manojwa. Who gave you this letter? Did a woman re-
ally ask you to give this letter to me? Who was she?”

 

“How would I know? Yesterday, she had come to the bank, was in a

 

2 The Syrup of Love

 

hurry.”
“What village did she belong to? Do you know her? Tell me. Tell me
fast.”

So many questions annoyed Manoj. “Be grateful that I delivered you the
letter. It was because Arun Babu had asked me to. Otherwise, am I crazy
to work as a postman without the promise of a
bakshish
³
?”

Lachhuman sliced off a piece of the day-old milk-cake from a huge cop
-
per platter teeming with an army of flies. A lot of those soldiers were
martyred the night before, having drowned in the
rossogulla
syrup kept
in an adjacent cauldron. Lachhuman put it on a wet plate and handed
it over to Manoj as a
bakshish
, “Tell me, no, Manojwa. What did did she
look like?”

Turning the stale milk-cake in his hand, Manoj analyzed it as if it were a
pathological sample. Cursing Lachhuman mentally, he added, “I couldn’t
see her properly. She was talking to Arun Babu. I saw her from behind;
her head was covered. Perhaps, it was a
ghoonghat
⁴
.”

Lachhuman wasn’t satisfied with the answer and became more restless.
He started to swoon, his heart bounding with curiosity while his stingi-
ness restrained him. After tussling so with his conscience, he scooped an-
other small piece of milk-cake from the platter and into Manoj’s hands.

“She was quite pretty; exactly your counterpart.”

 

Lachhuman wasn’t able to eat or drink for the rest of the day.
***

A big banner proclaiming “Pooja Mishtan Bhandar” in Hindi stood right
opposite the bank branch. Lachhuman Kumar Yadav – naive, nice and
niggard – was its proud owner. And Manoj? He was an employee of the
bank whose designation of peon comprised the roles of “messengercum-sweeper-cum-janitor-cum-cash coolie”. Cunningly mediocre at all
of those tasks, Manoj worked only when it could earn him laurels or
some
bakshish
from Arun Babu, the accountant of the branch. Often
during lunchtime, Manoj would be sent off to Lachhuman’s shop to get

3 Tips
4. Veil

 

snacks and sweets for the visiting auditors, guests and senior managers.

Right from six in the morning, Lachhuman’s shop starts to bustle with
people. At five, ten-year-old Bholu, who sleeps in the shop, adds twigs
to the furnace of the clay-oven and lights the fire. Once ignited, he puts
small blocks of coal and cow-dung cakes and strides off to the field with
a
lota
⁵
in hand. In a while, the entire surroundings would be filled with
smoke. By the time Bholu returns, a stable flame would greet him at the
top of the stove. Milkmen from faraway villages begin to arrive with cans
filled with milk and
khoa
⁶
in the first hour. Milk is kept on the stove in big
cauldrons and a kettle of
chai
is stationed on the smaller stove. By sixthirty, the swarm of tea-drinkers and their gossip would surround Lach-
human, denying him the chance to sit down and take a deep breath.

All the buses plying on the Patna to Sasaram route stop at Pooja Mishtan
Bhandar. Lachhuman manages to pull off terrific sales even in the short
span of five minutes. Moments before the bus’ arrival, his employees
start to rip newspapers off to make small pouches, filling two sweets in
each. Before the passenger can alight and stretch, those small pouches
would be sold to them hand-in-hand through the windows of the bus.
By the time the passenger has the time to wince and hesitate to touch the
ugly-looking snack, a glass of water is thrust at the window. After travel-
ling for two hours non-stop, if anything sweet proposes to reach their
stomachs, followed by a glass of water, without even having to alight the
bus, what more can one ask for?. Despite cringing at first, nobody says
no. Even the drivers and the conductors of the bus helped Lachhuman
in his business; they would continuously shout, “No, no, don’t get off.
We are going to move too soon. If you get off, you might miss the bus.”
Lachhuman treated the driver and the conductor to free milk-cakes for
this service. His conscience would nudge him, “I should give the driver at
least four pieces,” but he acted otherwise.

Staring at the two tiny milk-cakes resembling goat poop, the driver would
say, “Lachumanwa, you are
harami
number one.” Lachhuman would re-
tort, “Na
maalik
! I have specially chosen big pieces for you. They are
bigger than even four smaller pieces put together. Eat with all your heart,
boss. After all, you are
Lakshmi
for us.”
The driver would gobble the hideous milk-cake, which neither had a con-
sistent shape nor great taste, and take out his anger on the road. He
would honk for so long that the passengers wondered whether he was
sitting on the seat or the horn. Those who had gotten off the bus will
hurry back in. Paan eaters will forget taking the
choona
, lime, and shall
remain pissed for the remainder of the journey, spitting long, colourful
streaks of betel syrup at passing vehicles. Those away peeing will have
to abandon their task midway and rush to the bus, struggling with their
open flies and sulking bladders.

5 Pot
6 A dairy product, similar to ricotta cheese, but lower in moisture and made from whole milk instead
of whey.

***

Today, Manoj had brought a whirlpool into Lachhuman’s daily routine
quite early in the morning. For a while, he considered meeting Arun Babu
to inquire the exact details. He soon realized that he, a humble halwai,
soliciting a meeting with such a senior
afsar
⁷
, with whom he’d never inter-
acted with would be inappropriate. He resorted to staring at Manoj, who
was busy relishing the free milk-cakes, and thought, “
Kambakht,
how can
he eat so peacefully after making me so anxious. If I massage his hands
and legs, offer him more sweets, or just flatter him, he might utter some-
thing.” But Lachhuman bid his time.

Instead, he looked at the letter in his hand. A love letter. A love letter
penned exquisitely on a piece of paper with a fountain pen. Between the
lines, Lachhuman thought he saw an unknown face draped in a
ghoonghat
.
He tried to remove the veil. Just one glimpse of it would suffice.