This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (124 page)

Unable to control her elation, Kanak called out excitedly, ‘Gillji!’ She had addressed him as Gillji when Gill had first come to Jalandhar, and had continued to do so in order to show her respect for him. Sometimes she would also call him
bhraji
, elder brother.

‘Incredible news! Tara is alive!’

‘Who’s she?’ asked Gill.

‘Don’t you know Tara, my sister-in-law? She used to participate sometimes in the peace marches organized by the communists before Partition.’

Gill shook his head.

‘Hai, she’s a very sweet-natured girl and brilliant. In all her exams she was always in the top division.’ Kanak leaned closer to Gill and said in a low voice, ‘She’s the one who was married to this crook Somraj. A Muslim mob had set fire to her in-laws’ house on her first night in it. Her family thought that she and an old aunt could not possibly have escaped and must have died in the fire.’ Kanak read out the whole letter breathlessly. ‘Although we had very few chances to meet, I’m very fond of her. I myself will go and bring her here for a visit.’

Gill said he was happy to hear all this and offered his congratulations.

Kanak waited impatiently for Puri, but he did not come to the office that afternoon. Bhagwanti had been staying at her son’s house since the birth of her granddaughter to help take care of the infant. Every day Kanak used to go home to take lunch and breastfeed her daughter, and would return by 5 o’clock to feed her. On that day Kanak found it hard to suppress her excitement and not tell her mother-in-law so that she herself could break the news to Puri. Puri returned home around nine in the evening. As soon as she saw him, Kanak said in a jubilant voice, ‘Promise to give me some mithai before I give you this letter with some very good news.’

Noticing Kanak so bubbling with excitement, Puri’s mother called out, ‘Why, what is it?’

Puri stood silent after reading the letter, running his fingers through his hair reflectively.

Kanak spoke up, ‘Her address is in the letter. Write to her to come and meet us immediately. Hai, I wish I could fly and bring her here.’

Puri’s mother came into the room and asked again, ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’ll have to think this over,’ Puri said to Kanak in English, letting out a deep sigh. ‘First of all we should write and ask her to explain her circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’ Kanak asked in English. ‘Why can’t she come to Jalandhar to meet us and her parents?’

‘Don’t you realize the situation Somraj has created? And that he’s the one who has the first claim on Tara as her husband.’

‘That bastard will have to break off with Shanti. It’s high time anyway that someone put an end to it.’

‘We certainly don’t know the whole story about Tara. Something doesn’t ring true here. How’s it possible that she never saw or heard about
Nazir
? It wouldn’t have been difficult for her to find out our address. And it’s not she but someone else who wrote to us. Perhaps she’ll refuse to come here. After all she wasn’t very happy in her marriage.’

Kanak said, frowning, ‘But you told me that she was attracted to Somraj?’

Puri replied, ‘Maybe there was a brief adolescent infatuation at first, but she soon got over it. There was another man, a Muslim, you might know him—that communist Asad. She was under his spell. That was the time when everything was upside down. She was also emotionally rather unstable. Her marriage had been arranged while I was in prison. It was a matter of protecting the family’s good name.’

Hearing her son and the daughter-in-law talk in English, Puri’s mother again asked, ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s happened?’

‘Yes, yes, in a minute,’ Puri gestured with his hand for her to wait.

Kanak felt confused. She remembered what Nayyar had told her about Tara being against the marriage. The agony of being married against one’s wishes! She found it difficult to believe that the person standing before her was the same Puri she had known. She asked incredulously, ‘Did Tara not agree to this marriage?’

‘At first she did, but then she changed her mind. What could I do in such a situation?’ The image of seeing blood trickle down Tara’s forehead flashed through Puri’s mind.

‘That’s strange. Everybody talks so highly of her. The letter also…’

‘What does anybody really know about her,’ Puri bristled at her reply.

Kanak answered back, ‘Well, let her come and give us the facts herself. She can also meet with her family.’

‘Do you expect us to make fools of ourselves?’ Puri asked angrily. ‘If Tara
comes here, my mother will have a fit about that other woman. Somraj’s sister and mother will have hysterics too. Somraj would want to know why Tara had kept silent for so long. And if he said that he can’t accept her since she had stayed away voluntarily—and that’s only too true—she will become a problem for us.’

‘You seem to be on Somraj’s side,’ Kanak said in protest.

Puri’s mother muttered in vexation, ‘What’s this about Somraj? What is the world coming to when you have to conceal things from your parents! As if we’re not fit to be told whatever is on your mind. The damned
angraize
have gone away but have left their damned
angraizee
language behind.’

‘There’s no reason for you to get so excited.’ Puri lied to his mother in reply, ‘Somraj wants to file nomination papers for the District Board elections. What do you know about it? What should I tell you?’

Seeing Kanak turn silently away in protest, Puri said, ‘Careful, don’t say anything about this to my mother, pitaji or anybody else. People can’t keep their mouths shut. Let me think this over a bit. I’ll certainly do whatever I can to help Tara. I’ll write to her myself.’

Kanak was silent. She remembered: Her whole family had opposed her wish to marry Puri. Nayyar did not approve of Puri either, and had accused him of selfishness and duplicity. She had vehemently denied the accusation then. It seemed now that there had been some truth in the accusation. In Nainital Puri had chosen not to mention Tara’s unwillingness to marry Somraj. ‘If she had been unwilling, how could she have been forced into the marriage? What if Nayyar had accused me of having an adolescent crush on Puriji?’

Kanak felt so bitter that she did not want to eat dinner. This angered Puri even more. Kanak said nothing except that she had a headache, and went to bed. Her heart was still heavy the next morning and she kept to herself.

Later, at the
Nazir
office, Gill tried to tease her, ‘Did both of you as husband and wife finish off all the mithai to celebrate the news about Puri’s sister? Where’s my share?’

‘Let’s forget it,’ Kanak could barely hold back her tears.

‘Why?’ Gill said, looking at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I can’t explain. He seemed rather upset about the news. Don’t utter a word to pitaji or anybody else about that letter, not even to Puriji.’

‘But what’s the matter?’

‘Puriji told me not to,’ Kanak looked at Gill pleadingly, and bent her head.
From that day on, Kanak did not say a word about Tara, either to Puri or to anybody else. Strange thoughts weighed on her mind. She felt as if it was herself and not Tara who had been maligned and treated callously. Linked to this feeling was the memory of the incidents of her father-in-law distancing himself from the press, and troublesome business of the court case against Rikhiram. Duplicity everywhere. ‘Puriji’s temperament and personality has a peculiar side to it,’ she thought, and a feeling of sadness came over her. In the days that followed, if Puri wanted to be close to her or share a moment of joy with her, Kanak pretended to be busy with her baby daughter.

Puri also resented Kanak’s undue sentimentality and her obstinate refusal to side with him against Tara. At first he made no attempt to placate Kanak and the atmosphere in the house continued to be strained. After about three weeks he broached the subject again, ‘You’ve said that I was being unfair to Tara, but she hasn’t even answered my letter. Draw your own conclusions.’

‘Would you like me to write to her?’ Kanak asked.

‘You mean you don’t believe me’ Puri said, nettled again by her question.

‘I didn’t say that, but what objection can you have if I did so?’

For the last few days Kanak had been answering Puri back instead of keeping quiet out of consideration for her love for him. Her attitude had strained their relations in the past, and did so again. Kanak remained in a huff for a couple of days.

Irritated by the tension between her son and daughter-in-law, Bhagwanti said pointedly, ‘Both of you should look after your home now. I have to go and take care of your father and others. This is the result of giving up old customs and of accepting newfangled notions about choosing your own wife! If a husband indulges his wife in everything, why would she even listen to him? If she’s allowed to sit next to him on a chair, she’s bound to get uppity. The tradition in our family was that a woman never sat on a charpoy or
peerha
seat in the presence of men.’

When Puri came to the
Nazir
office, Kanak spoke to him normally to keep up appearances. They would begin talking to one another, but with some effort.

The mother-in-law had little sympathy for the daughter-in-law. Bhagwanti thought that her son had married the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do family, and was now afraid of his wife. Kanak found little time to visit her sister, and Kanta in turn had few occasions to come and see
her. Kanak was also nervous that she might inadvertently let drop some unkind remark about her husband if her sister asked after Puri. The only people from whom she could expect kindness were her father-in-law and Gill. Masterji was away in Basti Nigar Khan, but she saw Gill almost every day. Gill had guessed at the tension between her and Puri despite Kanak’s efforts to hide it, but he was careful not to show his knowledge. He always found some other topic to talk about. Kanak also felt much better after a light-hearted discussion and after sharing a laugh with Gill and Raks.

The process of designating new voting constituencies was in progress in East Punjab as the result of the influx of vast numbers of people uprooted from the west. The Sikhs and the Akali Dal, despite the fact that the Sikhs were only a minority in the total population, were trying to have the boundaries of the constituencies drawn up so as to favour the Sikh candidates. In their efforts to dominate the party and the formation of the new Council of Ministers, both factions of the Congress were competing to woo the Sikh members of the Assembly and various Sikh community organizations in order to ensure their support. The Sikhs were coming up with a new demand every day. The factional rivalries and political manoeuvrings within the party were constantly on Puri’s mind. At home, Kanak had become increasingly distant. He felt that there was no place of refuge in his life. His public life was an uphill struggle, and at home he found no peace or solace to help him forget his worries.

Puri decided to speak with Kanak. His voice was choked with emotion and his eyes brimming with tears, ‘What has become of us and our life together for which we both worked so long and hard? If you reject me and my love, neither my family nor the newspaper, nor political power has any meaning for me. I don’t know why you always misunderstand me. Tara is also my sister. Let’s forget what she may have done in a fit of adolescent emotion. She’s already been through a lot. If she had wanted to meet us, she would have answered my letter immediately. Pitaji and mother will insist that she goes back to Somraj if they find out about her. How can I ask her to come here, and then throw her into the clutches of a brute like Somraj? The people and the law will be on Somraj’s side. If my poor sister wants to live her life in peace, we should let her do just that. Don’t you see what I mean? You really did not have to ask my permission before writing to her. I’d prefer that you went to Delhi and met her yourself. Only then will you
realize what the truth is. I feel humbled by your kindness and generosity towards her. You’re so big-hearted…’ His words trailed off and halted.

Before Partition, Jalandhar had been a rather unimportant town of 50,000 or 60,000 people. In the three years following the partition its population had exploded to over 300,000. The Hindu traders and shopkeepers driven out of the cities and towns of West Punjab knew only one way of earning a living, and so the ground floors of the houses in city lanes were quickly converted into shops and the narrow streets had been turned into bazaars. The shortage of accommodation was getting worse every day.

To ease the housing shortage for the middle-class families, the administration began to build, about a mile outside the city, an estate of bungalow-type houses called the Model Town. Newly constructed dwellings priced between fifteen to twenty thousand rupees and plots of land at a lower price were sold by public auction to help the refugees. The bids were accepted in the form of a yearly payment of a percentage of the total cost of the property. No family was permitted to buy more than one plot or bungalow. At first many houses and plots were bought by people who paid the full price on purchase. Then the down payment decreased to 75 per cent, then from 50 to 40 to 20 and finally as low as 10 per cent.

One morning Somraj showed up early at Puri’s house in Vikrampura. He usually came at this hour if he had some news to give or wanted some advice, habitually chewing on a neem twig to clean his teeth. Kanak had very little liking for Somraj, and hated the sight of anyone cleaning his teeth.

Somraj called out to Kanak as soon as he arrived, ‘Bhabhiji, I’ve something to tell you.’

He said when he saw her, ‘You must speak with Puri bhappa. You’re paying five hundred rupees in rent every year for this house. The houses in Model Town are going for a yearly instalment of 10 per cent of the full price. One-and-a-half or two thousand a year is not a big amount, and the house becomes your property. It’s an open, airy area, go and see for yourself. The layout of each house is such that one half of it can be rented out.’

This was the first thing Somraj had ever said that Kanak liked. She had been feeling uncomfortable in the cramped rooms and narrow stairways of their house, which was wedged between a row of dwellings, with more houses across the gali. She had been brought up in a spacious house. After her sister’s marriage, Kanak had liked going to Kanta’s house in Model
Town in Lahore, and the images of its lawns and flower beds came back to her mind. ‘Jaya would be so happy and healthy in such a place.’