This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (51 page)

Kanak’s legs were getting tired. A bus arrived. Coolies shouting and shoving each other in a race to reach the bus, surrounded it like flies swarming over a lump of
gur
. Kanak too went to look. The bus had come from Ranikhet, not Kathgodam. Kanak returned to the veranda. A bus arrived from Ramgarh, then another from Haldwani.

Finally the bus from Kathgodam came. The coolies again rushed at the bus and began to push and shove for the chance to carry the passengers’ luggage. Kanak held her breath as she went forward. She tried to see through the milling crowd by standing on her toes and moving her head from side to side. Those arriving gradually moved aside to let the coolies remove the luggage from the interior and the roof of the bus. Kanak again returned to her spot, and stood with eyes on the road. A light drizzle had begun to fall.

Another Kathgodam bus arrived. The coolies attacked it as they had all the previous arrivals. Kanak could hear the driver of the bus, his assistant and the supervisor of coolies shouting at them to keep order. Her eyes were fixed on the door of the bus, inspecting every passenger that came out. She rushed forward. Puri, in a checked shirt and steel-grey trousers, was pushing the coolies aside in his attempt to get down. Kanak was impatient to reach him, but the crowd prevented her.

The surging crowd pushed Puri out, buffeted by the passengers and the coolies until he reached the edge of the crowd. He turned his head to look at the person who had grabbed his arm, and kept on looking, unable to speak. He took Kanak’s hand into his own and pressed it lovingly, then let it go as he became aware of the other people around him.

Puri was reluctant to get into the coolie-powered rickshaw. He had never sat in a vehicle that was pulled by humans.

Kanak tried to explain, ‘It’s raining. You’ll be soaked, and your luggage too.’

The coolies were pleading with their eyes against Puri’s hesitation.

There was a gust of rain. Kanak took Puri back to the veranda. The rain overcame Puri’s hesitation. The now happy coolies loaded up his luggage and brought the rickshaw as close to the veranda as possible. They both got in. Kanak said, ‘Hotel Astoria’.

The coolies covered the rickshaw on all sides with tarpaulins. Kanak and Puri were enclosed inside, unable to see anything outside. Their eyes met in that box-like enclosure. The limits of this small space gave them unlimited freedom. They could not hear the plop-plop of raindrops on the tarpaulin, nor the splash-splash of the coolies’ bare feet in the rivulets of rain on the tarmac, nor the ding-ding of the rickshaw bell.

The slowing of the rickshaw alerted Kanak, and she heard the coolies gasping for breath. She opened the tarpaulin just a crack and saw that the rickshaw was climbing the road to Mallital bazaar beside the hospital. It had gone past the path that led to Vimal Villa. The rickshaw had flown this far, she felt, or reached here in one giant leap. In those first moments of their meeting again, they were both lost in a silent exchange of love. Their lips were not free to utter a word. The rickshaw had covered the distance between the terminus and Mallital in one magic moment.

Kanak said, without removing herself from Puri’s embrace, ‘I’ll get off at the next intersection and will take another rickshaw home. Your hotel is only a few steps away. The rickshaw will take you there. I’ll be very late. Your room number is seven. Have a wash, eat some lunch and rest for a while. I’ll come back around five or six. Then we’ll talk.’

Staying at the best European hotel in Nainital was a totally new experience for Puri. So far, he had only heard and read about hotels. He was met at the reception by a smartly dressed man, who then handed him over to a bearer in a white uniform, who gave him a deep bow of salaam.

The bearer took Puri to his room where he stowed Puri’s slim bedding roll on the lowest shelf of a big wardrobe. He asked for the key to Puri’s small black tin trunk, took out his clothes and hung them on hangers in the wardrobe. Sitting on a chair, Puri watched him quietly.

After arranging Puri’s clothes and shoes in the wardrobe, the bearer opened another door and asked, ‘Will you have your bath, sir? Should I run the hot water?’

Puri nodded. When he went to the bathroom and saw three towels hanging there, he scratched his ear guessing at the separate uses for each of them.

The dining hall was large enough to hold a fair-sized meeting. Scores of tables were covered with snow-white cloths and surrounded by four slender chairs. China dishes and bowls whiter than the tablecloths, gleaming silverware, and fresh flowers in vases were elaborately arranged on the tables. Puri was a bit embarrassed and saddened by the thought that all this sparkling show was simply for the serving of a meal, afterwards to be cleaned again when the dishes were used and soiled. Food was Western style, served silently and efficiently by courteous waiters.

Puri’s family was vegetarian in deference to Masterji’s beliefs. Puri had tasted meat very seldom, and that too mainly as a protest against the family conventions. He was not familiar with the use of a knife and fork. Having a bath had given him an appetite. Sitting alone he did not eat much, but did not remain hungry either.

When he returned to his room and sat on the bed with its box-spring mattress, he was taken aback by its soft firmness. The touch was not unpleasant, something like caressing a young and unfamiliar woman. The feeling was new, but agreeable. Everything around him was spotless, gleaming, and clean smelling. Puri had travelled from the humid summer of Lahore, where one was always covered in sweat. He found Nainital not only cool, but almost a little cold. He lay down, pulling the top sheet and blanket over him. He had not slept much during his journey and felt tired, but he could not fall asleep immediately.

Puri opened his eyes and saw a smiling Kanak bent over his face. Her fingers were caressing his hair and eyes.

‘Slept late?’

In the daze of his waking state and in the fading light filling the room, he could not understand whether it was sunset or sunrise. ‘What time is it?’ he asked, trying to pull away his hand to look at his watch.

‘Quarter past six,’ said Kanak. ‘When I arrived the bearer told me that the sahib was sleeping. He had knocked three times, but you did not hear. He could not have come inside. They stop serving tea at six. Never mind; at least you’ve had some sleep.’

Puri was unable to take all this in. All this comfort and luxury, with no one to interrupt them, and Kanak sitting on the bed, leaning against him. She did not have to worry about being found out or being seen with him. Was he in Nainital, or in another world?

Kanak said, ‘We have until half past eight. All the others have gone to the
movies, jijaji is at the club.’ Her tone changed, ‘Not that I care. I have kept my word.’ She quickly told him everything about her family’s resistance and her promise to not meet or write to him for sixty days. She also described, in the same breath, the assurance given by the parliamentary secretary about getting a job paying two hundred rupees per month. ‘I heard that Lucknow is quite a nice place, away from all this unrest,’ she said,

Puri questioned her, ‘He promised you a job. What about me? In your letter you said that I too would have a job.’

‘If it can be arranged for me, it won’t be a problem with yours. Writers are known everywhere. I’m sure he’d be familiar with your name. Your reputation probably precedes you.’ She began to tell him how simple, straightforward and kind Awasthi was.

When they came out of the hotel, the sun was setting behind the mountains to the west. The overcast sky had cleared in the afternoon, and only some greyish-white clouds were still scudding overhead. Patches of clouds were swirling around the peaks of the hills covered with lush foliage and pine trees. The last rays of the dying sun had turned the velvety-green, craggy ridge of the mountain to the east into a ribbon of gold. People who had waited all day for the rain to stop were now crowding the bazaars. Kanak and Puri went through the bazaar to the road below the hospital and just above the maidan.

‘Hey, there’s the lake!’ Puri’s steps faltered, as he looked to his right.

‘The rickshaw brought us along the road beside the lake. You couldn’t see it because of the tarpaulins. Didn’t you notice it when you got off the bus?’

‘How could I? That crowd drove me crazy.’ Puri continued to gaze in wonder.

Until now Kanak had talked of nothing but her own problems. She asked, ‘Tara bahin’s wedding went off well?’

Puri lowered his head. He said falteringly, ‘As well as it could in the circumstances. The poor girl isn’t alive any more.’

‘What?’ Kanak gasped with shock.

Puri briefly told her about the wedding taking place because of the insistence of Masterji, his uncle and Tara’s in-laws, the attack on Banni Hata and how Tara could not be rescued from the fire. He blamed himself and his family, ‘That was hardly the time to go through with the ceremony in Lahore. But parents are always in a hurry to get rid of the millstone of a daughter round their necks.’

‘Was Tara unwilling to go through with the marriage?’ Kanak asked, encouraged by Puri’s frankness. ‘Her fiancé had quite a bad reputation, I heard.’

‘No. I was … who told you that?’ Puri asked, then said, ‘Her engagement was arranged back in 1944. I was in prison at that time.’

‘Tara did express some opposition, I was told,’ Kanak said.

Puri thought for a moment before asking, ‘Did your brother-in-law tell you that?’

‘Yes, it was he,’ Kanak admitted. She did not want to hide anything from Puri.

‘Those galis are full of all sorts of gossip,’ he said with irritation. ‘Sukhlal had his detractors too. There were some whispers that theirs was a bad match. I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t greatly approve of her fiancé. But she’d already been engaged to him for three years. It had become a prestige issue for Sukhlal, my uncle, my father, for all of us. Unless Tara said so first, it didn’t seem proper for me to make a fuss. Call it the timidity of a traditional Hindu girl or whatever, but she didn’t object. How could I say anything in those circumstances?’

‘Didn’t they know each other well?’ Kanak wanted to clarify matters.

‘I’m not sure, but if something happened without my knowledge, or at the time when I was in prison, I couldn’t have known about it.’

How could Kanak have any doubts about Puri after such a candid, simple and plausible explanation? ‘Nayyar probably had made up the story to belittle Puri,’ she told herself, ‘and I believed him. Or maybe he coloured the truth a bit.’ Her brother-in-law had been deceitful in his investigations, she decided. She did not ask anything further about Tara’s tragedy.

They walked on the lakeside road up to Tallital. It was getting dark. On their way back, they sat on a bench for some time. Puri was captivated by the sight of the rolling waters of the lake in front of him, and by the twinkle of electric lights on the dark slopes of the surrounding hills.

‘It would be a pity if a sensitive writer like you couldn’t see such a sight. And how could I watch it alone? It was right to ask you to come, wasn’t it?’

Puri took Kanak’s hand in his in reply, and sat without speaking. While they were walking back, Kanak came face-to-face with some people she had met in Nainital. But she was indifferent, and walked boldly on with Puri, her head held high, a contented smile on her face. ‘Who can stop us
now! We have overcome all obstacles! Just like mountain travellers who go through clouds swirling in their path.’ She said goodbye to Puri at the gate of his hotel.

When Puri returned to his room after dinner, he found that his bed had been made. The sheets had been straightened, and both pillows had been fluffed up. The top sheet and blanket had been arranged to form an open pocket, for pulling up smoothly. He had never seen anything like it. Rich people wore special nightclothes to bed, he remembered. He didn’t have any, but not wearing fresh, clean clothes while in the room and in the bed seemed like an insult to the room and the bed. He took out a freshly ironed shirt and pajamas. Now, for the first time in his life he wore fresh, clean clothes to bed. His family and the people of his gali would have considered wearing such clothes inside the house, much less in bed, foolish and extravagant.

He lay on the bed. He switched off the decorative light hanging from the ceiling. Only the shaded bedside lamp remained alight. The figures on the pink shade were magnified in diffused forms on the walls, now also pink-tinted. He did not feel like reading, but he did not turn off the light, not wanting this lovely display of luxury to disappear from his sight. After his long struggle to bore his way through the stone wall of poverty with his bare hands, his heart was filled with the thrill of finding the path leading to the promised happiness and wealth. Jobs that would pay each of them two hundred rupees every month awaited him and Kanak in Lucknow! Four hundred a month … a small bungalow … clean, fresh clothes … respect on all sides … an uninhibited, smiling Kanak!

The excitement and hope of finally being within reach of happiness and wealth had driven away all thoughts of sleep. His mind, and body too, longed for Kanak. The picture was incomplete without her. Only a few hours before, when Kanak was in his arms, he had realized how absolute was his love for her. He tossed and turned restlessly for a long time before falling asleep with both pillows clutched between his arms.

If Nayyar, Kanta or Kanchan saw them together, Kanak had told Puri, they might complain even if they could not do anything about it. So why distress them unnecessarily? She waited for him at nine in morning in the park beside the secretariat, just above the hotel. They walked along the mountain road going towards Tallital, occasionally sitting down on a roadside boulder to rest and discuss their plans for a future, which had
become more hopeful and promising after the assurances given by Awasthi.

The happiness and satisfaction that Puri had experienced in Nainital were beyond his most lurid fantasies. Kanak’s willingness to surrender herself to him had overwhelmed him. Her love was not like a vessel full of water or even a well from which Puri could draw as much he wanted; it was, he felt, like the lake before him. He could swim in it, buoyed up by her love, but could never plumb its depth, no matter how hard he tried.