This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (58 page)

Hafizji went on, ‘For the protection of women, the Shariah says that if she is young and not pregnant, she must get married within four months and thirteen days of becoming a widow, or she may fall under the influence of Iblis, the devil. A marriage can take place in Islam only with the consent of a woman to the man of her choice. Whatever we do, will be befitting your education and personality, and with your consent.’

Her eyes still downcast, Tara said in a firm tone, ‘No, tayaji. I have no such intention.’

Hafizji spoke as he got up, ‘Beti, it’s better not to make a decision on such matters when you’re distressed. If you have faith in Allah and his Prophet, your heart and mind will be cleansed. Then your ideas will correct themselves.’

Amjad’s mother added, ‘Beti, such decisions aren’t made in a hurry. Whatever we want to do, we only want to do for your good.’

When Khursheed heard that Tara was unwilling to accept Islam, she was infuriated. She remained quiet in deference to her father-in-law, but spoke up as soon as he was out of the room, ‘These Hindu women get into the habit of roaming about in the bazaars and streets, just like an abandoned cow or a buffalo, without their heads and faces being covered. How can they observe purdah like us decent, respectable women? We are ashamed to take even a step out of the house without wearing a burka! May Allah’s anger fall upon such shameless women! A woman has to have some sense of shame and decorum.’

Tara listened to her insulting remarks, but kept quiet. ‘What can I say?’ she thought, ‘to anyone who can gloat over anything that is backward, coarse and repressive? How can I convince anyone so fanatic about her living conditions?’

Morning dawned on the holy day of Eid. Since they did not have to get up at daybreak to eat sahari before beginning their fast, the family of Hafizji woke up later than usual, after hearing the call for the fajr prayer. Hafizji had brought home an enormous national flag of Pakistan. The first thing he did in the morning was to go up to the roof and hoist it up a flagpole. Most houses of the neighbourhood had flags on their roofs. He called everyone, including Tara. Tara had seen green flags before, but never in such large numbers. And this new flag seemed a bit different from the usual flag of the Muslim League. And it also seemed to her that this flag had turned her Lahore and Punjab into another, unknown city and country. The faces of Hafizji’s family were beaming with happiness, but Tara’s heart was weighed down with worry and uncertainty. These flags were a reminder that she was away from her own people, a prisoner in a foreign land.

Everyone had a bath and wore new clothes especially made for the festival. Hafizji had asked that Tara too should be given a new set of clothes, but Khursheed ignored his suggestion. She voiced her objections to her mother-in-law, ‘Only Muslims are supposed to wear new clothes for Eid. If she doesn’t want to accept Islam, we have nothing to give her. As it is, the prices are so high that I could hardly manage a new set for everyone else.’

The whole family was in high spirits. Khursheed’s youngest daughter looked like a butterfly in her colourful clothes. Preparations were being made to cook
zarda
,
sawainyan
and make tea flavoured with almonds and spices. Hafizji was still hoping to win Tara over. At his insistence, Khursheed
took out for Tara, not without much grumbling, a set of her freshly laundered shalwar, kameez and dupatta.

When Hafizji saw Tara in clean clothes, he at once raised his hands in prayer reciting a dua that she might get salvation, and said to her affectionately, ‘Beti, today is a blessed occasion. It’s the holy Eid. This is the first day in the existence of a country of God. If you agree to profess your faith today by reciting
kailmah pak,
and join the ummah, your heavenly reward will be doubled.’

Tara replied very politely, her head bent in respect, ‘Tayaji, I respect you more than my own father. I have no wish to mislead you. I’m telling you the truth, that I just can’t bring myself round to changing my religion. I wouldn’t have hesitated otherwise. You’ve seen that I have few other objections; I eat with you all. But, still if you insist I will agree, even though I will do so against what my heart and my mind tells me.’

Amjad’s mother said, ‘If you recite kalmah pak, the cloud of doubt hanging over your mind and heart will vanish by itself. You’ll see the light, and you’ll be at peace.’

Tara replied, ‘If it’s an order from you, I will. I’m ready to give it a try, if you ask me to. But please don’t blame me if I don’t change my mind.’

Amjad did not like Tara’s answer. His brow wrinkled in annoyance at the irreverence being shown to kalmah. He could not stop himself from objecting, ‘Reciting kalmah pak is not a matter of trial and error, or something to make fun of. Why should she recite it unless she believes in it?’

He got up and, to show his disapproval, went downstairs. Everyone was quiet. After a few moments, Hafizji also got up and followed Amjad downstairs. Khursheed now spoke up, ‘Let this wretch go to the devil! God save us all, why disgrace the kalmah by having it uttered by some non-believer! What can anyone do if she’s determined to go to hell!’

Tara got up, covered her face with her dupatta, and went out of the room.

Everyone except Hafizji was angry with Tara. No one spoke to her. She sat by herself without saying anything. Khursheed stopped asking her to come and join the family at mealtime. She would ask, rather reluctantly, one of her daughters to take a plateful of food to Tara.

As she sat alone and in silence, Tara became alert to any conversation going on in the house. She heard Amjad say as he ate his dinner, ‘Let’s get her off our backs. Why keep this problem at home when she doesn’t want
to accept the Faith? All the Hindus remaining in Lahore have been shut up into camps. I can have her sent there, if you say so. Then can fend for herself and be Hindustan’s problem.’

Khursheed supported her brother-in-law, ‘Wheat is selling for one and half seer a rupee. We should feed the family first. Who has enough to spare to feed a kafir?’

Hafizji tried to calm them, ‘Be patient, everyone. To bring wayward unbelievers back to the path of Allah is a religious obligation and a meritorious action as well. Wait for ten or fifteen days. Remember, you are all Muslims. You should try to bring her round by your kindness and civility.’

Tara saw a ray of hope. ‘Amjad is blunt by nature,’ she thought. ‘He is not mealy-mouthed like his parents, but blurts out whatever comes into his head. He doesn’t like me, but he appears to be my only hope of getting out of here.’

Remembering what Amjad had said the previous night, Tara went to his mother in the morning and requested her help in finding the camp for Hindus.

The begum appeared to be shocked, ‘Hai beti, what are you saying! What does a purdah-observing woman like me know about camps-shamps? Hardly any Hindus are left in the city. We all wanted you to accept the Faith, so that you could be happy in this world and also in the next. What can we do if you don’t listen to us? You yourself ask the men about the camp.’

When Amjad returned home later, Tara gathered her courage and went to him. She addressed him respectfully as ‘bhaiji’, and told him that she wanted to be sent to a camp for Hindus.

Amajd answered without looking at her, ‘Don’t ask me about that.’

Tara did not know how else to deal with the agony of her imprisonment. None of these people were willing to take her to a Hindu camp. And if she went to look for one by herself, there was the fear of criminals like Nabbu.

‘Is it not a sin to force me to accept Islam against my own judgement and wishes?’ Tara asked herself. ‘Somraj and Nabbu tortured, polluted and defiled my body. These people are bent upon destroying my soul. I was helpless on those occasions, but I didn’t give in and did my best to resist and fight back. These people want me to accept their torture willingly, of my own wish, by breaking my spirit.’

What’s the harm, she thought, if she just uttered the words of the kalmah, but did not believe in them? What would that do to her? She’d tell them that she was doing it under the condition that she wouldn’t marry anyone. That might be one way to get out.

But she checked her thoughts. ‘No, that wouldn’t be right. In trying to deceive them, I myself might get caught. If I said yes to Islam, these people would begin to tighten their hold over me.’

Her head spun with confusion and indecision. Maybe she should just starve herself to death. She remembered her brother telling her what happened to people who went on hunger strikes in prison. But would these people care if she went on a hunger strike? Hafizji had already told her what he thought of someone threatening to go on a fast. What reason would these people have for feeling morally responsible if something happened to her? The British government was afraid of Gandhi’s fasts because there would have been a public outcry if something happened to him. Fasting by someone matters only if his life has some value. ‘Suppose I fasted and got so weak that I couldn’t move, and these people pushed me out into the gali? I wouldn’t even have the strength to get up and walk away. And if I fell into the hands of some criminal in that condition, how would I defend myself? Instead of freedom, all I would have is a shameful death. I’d lie unclaimed, with flies buzzing over my dead body.’

The family of Hafizji had another reason to celebrate the creation of Pakistan. Due to the shortage of police personnel after the Hindu officers left Lahore, Amjad was promoted to the grade of inspector, and was given the job of consolidating his department’s resources. He continued to live at home.

On the evening of 22 August, Amjad said to his father when they were alone, ‘There was a government order that if there were any Hindus left in Lahore, their whereabouts should be reported to the police, and to the Indian government’s Liaison Officer in the city. The business of this girl has become more complicated. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had converted to Islam, but as long as she’s a Hindu, it would be a crime not to report her.’

Hafizji did not want to cause any problems for his newly promoted officer son. He said, ‘It’s her bad luck. How can we do anything against our own government’s law? Do what you think proper.’

Next morning, before he left for his office, Amjad spoke to Tara without
looking at her, ‘It’s proper that you go to the camp for Hindus. That’s what you asked for. I’ll send a vehicle and a couple of constables later in the day. They’ll take you to a camp.’

What more could Tara ask for?

AUGUST FOURTEENTH. PEOPLE HAD BEGUN TO DECORATE THEIR SHOPS AND
houses since sunrise in Nainital. Men and women were walking around carrying flags with horizontal bands of ochre at the top, green at the bottom and white in between, and the emblem of a spoked wheel in the centre of the white band. Everyone wanted to have the national flag of an independent India flying from their shops and over their houses before midnight. Some had already raised it.

At many places in the bazaars, groups of people agog with excitement stood listening to the radio to know the news of the day. The bazaars were festooned in the colours of the flag and with garlands of flowers. Festive buntings and streamers also hung from thin poles driven into the ground at intervals along the roadways. Arches of bamboo were decorated with lush green leaves and swathes of the tricolour. The air was heavy with the smells of boiling ghee and hot syrup, of freshly fried jalebies. The scent of burning incense wafted through the air. The Boat House Club and the Capitol Theatre of Nainital, over which the Union Jack had floated at the time when Congress first formed the ministry in 1937, and even when the Congress protest movement was at its height, were now being draped with tricolour festoons.

Though the August air in Nainital was nippy many people were seen wearing clothes of white handspun cotton khadi. Those who had never worn a khadi garment in their lives also wore the boat-shaped white khadi cap with pride. The news of a train full of massacred Hindus in Punjab had dampened the spirits of Punjabi visitors, but they had put aside their grief and were participating with enthusiasm in an event that had no precedent in the history of the country.

A gargantuan banquet had been planned at the New Club for the night of the fourteenth. All members, with their families and guests, had been invited. The members had also been asked to contribute to the preparation of the banquet, and the families of the members had been asked to provide one dish apiece, in sufficiently large quantity, as a testimonial to their skills in cooking.

Kanta had been discussing with Nayyar’s mother, his sister-in-law, Kanak and Kanchan about the dish that they could prepare for the banquet. Nayyar’s sister Subhadra and her husband Ramprakash had also arrived in Nainital. The family first thought of making
dahi-bare
, fried lentil balls in yogurt, then
phirnee
, made with rice and sweetened milk. They also considered the Punjabi-style dish of spicy chickpeas. Pandey the lawyer made a strong case for chickpeas. But the Nayyar family was in two minds; people of every region had their own tastes and likings. It would have amounted to losing face if the people of UP, accustomed to a different style of food, did not appreciate the taste of Punjabi chickpeas. They settled for dahi-bare, Kanta had paid for eight seers of yogurt in advance, and put a quantity of lentils to soak in water overnight.

Phool Singh, the servant Nayyar had hired in Nainital, was a smart local man. He borrowed sets of mortar slabs and pestles from three neighbours. After breakfast, the women of the household took turns grinding the lentils into a paste. The taste and texture of the lentil balls depended on how well the paste was ground. Kanak also lent a hand, but her mind was elsewhere. Puri had not written to her from Lucknow. His future, and hers, rested on the success of his meeting with Awasthi.

Hadn’t he been able to meet Awasthi yet? she kept wondering. He was, after all, in a new and unfamiliar city. If his letter arrived today, she’d still have to be in Lucknow on the morning of the fifteenth. She knew the time the evening train for Lucknow left from Kathgodam station. In her heart she knew that if he hadn’t written, he’d come back for her. She’d wait for his letter or telegram until 11 o’clock, she had decided, then go to the post office and telephone the Astoria Hotel.

Kanak helped in making the lentil paste until half past ten. As she washed her hands, she said to Kanta, ‘Bahinji, there’s not much grinding left to be done. Phool Singh and the housemaid can do the rest, and Subhadra can supervise them. It’s ten-thirty now, Nanda Sah must be waiting at the library. The frying of the lentil balls won’t be finished before half past two at the earliest. I’m going out for a while.’ She changed her sari and left the cottage.

When she telephoned the Astoria, the reply was, ‘Mister Puri arrived not long ago. We will call him to the phone if you hold the line.’

Kanak’s heart was stung by the disappointment in Puri’s voice. He said, ‘I’ll tell you everything when I see you. Walk back towards the library. I’ll meet you on the way. I’m leaving right now.’

When he reached Lucknow, Puri decided to follow Kanak’s suggestion to go directly to Mrs Pant’s rooms at the Councillors Residence on Abbot Road. She was in the bathroom, he was told. After waiting outside her door in the veranda for over an hour, he had to knock again on the door to remind her of his presence. A disembodied voice asked, ‘Who’s there?’

‘My name is Jaidev Puri. I’ve come from Nainital, with a letter for you from Kanak,’ he said in reply to the voice from some unseen source.

Mrs Pant, clad in a khadi sari, came to the door. Puri handed her Kanak’s letter. She read the letter standing in the doorway, held it in her hand after folding it, and asked, ‘Achcha, that young Punjabi woman in Nainital. What relation are you of hers?’

Puri was not ready for this question. ‘A cousin,’ he said.

‘We don’t know her very well. Probably Awasthiji has said something to her. When we next meet Awasthiji, we’ll ask him. You come back some other time. Today we’re busy with the Celebration Committee. All right?’ she said, in a note of finality. She broke off the conversation without waiting for his reply, stepped back into the room, and was about to close the door.

In spite of his hurt feelings, he asked, ‘How may I be able to meet Mr Awasthi?’

‘Try at the secretariat!’ She shut the door.

Puri rode around for nearly three hours in the tonga he had hired, looking for a place to stay. Finally he found a dharamshala, a rest house for travellers and pilgrims, near the railway station, but not before he had made an offering of a rupee to its Brahmin caretaker. The disgruntled tongawallah extracted from him enough money to equal a day’s takings before letting him leave.

Three quarters of the enthusiasm that Puri had in his heart to work for the new national government was snuffed out by Mrs Pant’s attitude. But it was to meet Awasthi that he had come to Lucknow. He shaved, changed his clothes, and reached the secretariat after the lunch break.

In spite of Mrs Pant’s discouraging reception, Puri’s spirits picked up when he arrived at the imposing, crescent-shaped building that housed the legislative assembly and the secretariat. The Union Jack was still flying just below the dome of the building, but all the limousines parked in the portico carried Congress flags on their hoods. Armed guards in uniform and police officers were smartly saluting people dressed in white khadi dhotis and white boat-shaped Gandhi caps. Puri went through the grand
portico and entered the building, with no sense of awe, but with his head erect with pride and his mind full of the sense of becoming a citizen of an independent and sovereign nation.

On the second floor of the building, the door to an office in the outside veranda carried the nameplate of K.N. Awasthi, Parliamentary Secretary. Beside the door, a middle-aged peon was sitting on a low stool. A long achkan of red broadcloth, a cummerbund embroidered with golden thread and a brocaded band encircling a white turban bore testimony to the high office and status of Awasthi.

The peon tore a square of paper from a stack hanging on a cord beside the door, and passed it to Puri, ‘Write down your name.’

Puri took out his fountain pen and wrote his name, adding ‘From Nainital, with a letter from Miss Kanak Dutta’ when two men arrived, talking to each other in loud voices. They were wearing khadi kurtas and caps, and holding the ends of their khadi dhotis in their hands. The peon got up, touched his hand to his forehead in salute, opened the door and stood aside to let them enter. The men went in without looking at the peon, who resumed his seat.

The peon accepted the paper that Puri held out to him, yawned, and gestured to Puri to wait on the bench next to him.

Puri did not like it that the other visitors had entered the office unchecked, while he was being made to sit and wait like some lowly employee. He remained standing. After some time, he looked at his watch, twenty minutes had passed. He shifted his weight to the other leg. Eventually he sat down on the bench. An electric bell outside the door sounded. The peon went in, came out with some papers in his hand, and walked along the veranda away from the door.

The peon returned in a few minutes, and sat down again on his stool with his back against the wall, as if the excursion had tired him out. He removed a cloth purse from his coat pocket, took out a small tin container from it, and then some dry leaf tobacco that he placed in the palm of his left hand. He extracted and added a dab of lime paste to the tobacco, and began rubbing the mixture with his right thumb. After about a minute of this, he gathered the mixture in his left hand, and smacked it with the palm of his right hand. Puri could not stop himself from sneezing. A cloud of fine tobacco dust had spread all around.

The peon looked sideways and smiled knowingly at this obviously inexperienced young man. Puri had never seen such a peculiar method of rubbing tobacco before chewing it. The peon deposited the mixture in his raised mouth, and used his tongue to push the wad under his lower lip. When each saw the other watching, they felt a sense of unspoken camaraderie. After a couple of minutes, the peon got up, peered out into the lawn below the veranda, and spurted a long stream of tobacco juice.

Puri became increasingly frustrated at being kept waiting.

The door to the office opened. The visitors and a third person, wearing similar clothes, came out and walked away. The peon, who had stood up when the door opened, again took his seat.

Puri felt himself obliged to ask, ‘You didn’t show him the chit with my name on it?’

The peon, raising his mouth to keep the tobacco juice in, replied in a voice distorted by mouthful, ‘You saw for yourself. The sahib was in, now he’s gone out.’

Puri found use of the word ‘sahib’ strange for the khadi-clad gentlemen.

The bell shrilled again. The peon went in. When he returned, he was carrying several file folders. He said to Puri, ‘Sahib won’t be back now.’

This news completely disheartened Puri. He managed to ask, ‘What time does he get here in the morning?’

The peon waved his arm vaguely, ‘Whenever sahib feels like it. He’s the boss. He doesn’t keep office hours like an Englishman, you see. You can come after ten, eleven, or maybe twelve.’

In his shrewdness, the doorkeeper noticed that his words seemed to cast a pall over Puri’s expression. He remembered the way Puri had demanded that the slip with his name should be sent in, then his complaint that it hadn’t been presented, and the disappointment when the sahib left without meeting him.

‘Do you know the sahib well?’ he asked Puri.

‘Yes, I met him in Nainital. He asked me to come and see him here,’ Puri quickly made up a story.

The peon seemed impressed. ‘Then why don’t you go and meet the sahib at his home in the morning? He’ll have lots of time then. I’ll tell him about you if you come there.’ The peon continued to speak as he began walking
slowly away, ‘Babuji, I do my best to help everyone. A Sikh gentleman was here the other day. He was quite desperate too. I got all his work done. He tipped me five rupees.’

Puri arrived at Awasthi’s residence on Park Road at nine the next morning. Several persons were waiting in the veranda, an orderly was seated to one side. Puri decided to claim precedence on the strength of his more respectable-looking clothes, and told the orderly to announce his arrival to Awasthi.

The orderly said, ‘The sahib can’t see you at the moment. He’s having his daily massage.’

By Puri’s good luck, the peon he had met the day before came out of a room. He saved Puri from losing face by giving him a salaam, and brought a chair for him to sit down. Puri again wrote his name on a piece of paper, and gave it to the peon, along with Kanak’s letter.

The peon returned after a few minutes. He gave his assurance to Puri, ‘I showed your paper to the sahib, and gave it to his personal assistant sahib. If you come to the secretariat at the same time as yesterday in the afternoon, you’ll be able to meet the sahib.’

Kanak had told Puri how unassuming, friendly and accessible Awasthi had been with her. After being received with such indifference and disrespect by the same man, Puri did not feel at all like meeting him. But to come this far and return without a meeting seemed a very stupid thing to do. So he went to the secretariat at two o’clock in the afternoon. Awasthi was not in his office. After Puri had waited for over an hour, the peon suggested, ‘The sahib is perhaps with the chief minister. All the sahibs are busy with organizing the Independence Day celebrations. He may come back here, but then he may not. Why don’t you ask the personal assistant sahib?’

On the peon’s recommendation, the PA condescended to see Puri.

The PA wore a jacket and trousers made from khadi, but he behaved in the true bureaucratic tradition. He asked in English, without raising his eyes, ‘What can I do for you? Please have a seat.’

Puri explained, step-by-step, the story of Miss Kanak Dutta meeting Awasthi in Nainital, and about Awasthi’s suggestion how she and others could help in the task of nation building.

The P.A. sahib listened to all this while reading a sheet of paper before him. He finally looked up into Puri’s eyes, and asked, ‘You mean that you want a job?’

‘Yes, in a way … one can certainly be of help if one has a job,’ Puri had to agree.

‘And who might this Miss Kanak be? Never heard her name before. Is she a Congress leader or with the Congress party in Punjab? How does she know Awasthiji?’

After hearing that Kanak was a twenty-one year old MA student, the PA sahib asked with a wrinkled forehead, ‘What relation are you to Miss Kanak Dutta?’