In the City a Mirror Wandering

by Upendranath Ashk

  Amichand might have been his classmate, he might have been his contemporary, but between Chetan and him there had always been an invisible wall, and although when necessary Chetan went to see him, and Amichand also came to Chetan’s sitting room, there had never been any depth to their friendship. And then Amichand had gone to Government College, Lahore, after passing the FA (as his father, Lala Maniram, assistant post master, had taken an advance from the government from his pension and arranged to send him there), following which the distance between the two had only grown. But he had been with Hamid for two years. Those deep chats in Hamid’s smoky room, those debates on the acting of Sulochna and Zubeida, those schemes to hoodwink Oberoi or Lala Mohan Lal, their joint appreciation of Iqbal, Tagore, Hafiz and Akhtar Shirani . . .

  ‘But friendship occurs between equals,’ he said to himself, and a bitter smile spread on his lips. ‘When one friend rises up, he no longer thinks of the one below. If I too were to become programme assistant today, Hamid would embrace me as before, and if I became a programme director, that old obsequious grin would return to his lips!’

  Chetan wanted to tell Hamid about G.R. Oberoi, about how a friend of Oberoi’s had told him that it was Chetan who had been writing to him under the name of Chanda Devi ‘Kumud’, and how he had never looked Chetan in the eye again. He also wanted to tell him that he’d seen Akhtar Shirani at a mushaira, and he wasn’t at all handsome—he was of medium height, roly-poly, with a puffy face; he sported Ronald Coleman–style trimmed moustaches; it had been clear from his tiny little eyes that he was quite drunk . . . He’d come to the mushaira inebriated and hadn’t let anyone else recite. He wanted to tell him about Hunar Sahib, about his editor Dhanpat Rai, BA (National) . . . Privately, he patted himself on the back for not telling Hamid anything, for only giving his hand a light shake, and for going on his way before Hamid had had a chance to let go of his hand and turn towards his house.

  *

  ‘Arré bhai, where are you running off to like a blind man?’

  Chetan felt someone right in front of him put a hand on his shoulder and he stopped and lifted his head—‘Nishtar!’

  ‘I heard from Hunar Sahib you were here; we were thinking of going over your way.’

  Chetan looked over and saw that Hunar Sahib and his own brother-in-law, Ranvir, were seated in a shop that sold strips of cotton tape for weaving the string beds of charpoys; they were practically drowning in giant spools of cotton wool, string and charpoy tape. He wished there was some way he could flee from there, but Ranvir came leaping from the shop as soon as he saw him.

  ‘Come in, Jija ji! Come in!’

  He grabbed Chetan’s hands and practically dragged him inside.

  14

  ‘Come, brother Chetan, please meet this gentleman—Mr Rudra Sen Ariya!’ called Hunar Sahib, mispronouncing the name ‘Arya’ in the Urdu style. ‘There can be no other businessman in the entire city as devoted to literature as he.’

  And Mr Rudra Sen ‘Ariya’, who was seated upon spools of cotton charpoy tape the size of wheels, grinned.

  ‘And this is Chetan! He’s my pupil, but he’s becoming a master in his own right,’ laughed Hunar Sahib foolishly. ‘Have a seat, brother, have a seat!’

  It was extremely humid in the shop. Despite the fact that the table fan was whirring at full speed, the huge quantities of cotton wool, string and charpoy tape created an oddly stifling odour. Chetan would have preferred to stand outside. ‘I won’t sit down,’ he said, ‘I’ll wait for you outside, why don’t you come out here!’ But Rudra Sen Arya picked up two of the tape spools and tossed them in the other corner. He wiped the sweat from his ox-like neck with the end of his thick, homespun dhoti, and told him to have a seat where the breeze from the fan would fall directly on him. Then Hunar Sahib pulled him over by the hem of his kurta, so that he ended up sitting down, even though he didn’t wish to.

  Once seated, Chetan cast an apathetic glance at the literature-loving businessman: he was of medium height, with a fair complexion. He had the short, stocky frame of a villager; short, dry, salt-and-pepper hair; large teeth in a wide mouth; and a filthy sacred thread wrapped around his neck that peeped out from his homespun undershirt. He wore a dhoti around his waist, which was growing dirty from its continuous use as a handkerchief. Sitting there upon the piles of tape, this man didn’t appear to have even a remote connection to literature.

  ‘I was just about to recite my translation of the Gita to Mr Rudra Sen Ariya. I’ve translated the verse about becoming immortal that occurs in the second section, into ordinary, easy-to-understand language, so that one can grasp the entire meaning without any intervention. You know the verse, right? “Na jiyate mriyate . . . ”’

  Rudra Sen Arya laughed, ‘Not jiyate mriyate,’ he said, and he sang the verse with perfect Sanskrit pronunciation:

  Na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin

  Nāyaṃ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ

  Ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṃ purāṇo

  Na hanyate hanyamāne śarire

  ‘Okay, listen—from that same verse,’ said Hunar Sahib. ‘You keep reciting the Sanskreet (Hunar Sahib’s pronunciation of “Sanskrit”) verses, then I’ll recite the translation in Urdu verse. I don’t actually know Sanskreet, but do note how much one can grasp of the original verses and what simple language they’ve been rendered into, without adding or subtracting anything from them,’ and he said to his host, ‘Please recite that same verse one more time.’

  And Rudra Sen Arya recited the verse once more with great concentration.

  Then, explaining that this is what is said about the jivātma or the soul, Hunar Sahib began reciting in a melodic voice:

  Neither is its birth tied to time

  Nor is it in danger of dying any day

  Once it is, it continues to be, unchanging

  Unborn, eternal, unending, ancient

  It is not mortal, like the earthly body

  It does not die, as this body does

  ‘Wow! Wonderful, wonderful!’ cried Rudra Sen Arya in praise, and he sang the next verse, swaying slightly:

  vedāvināśinaṃ nityaṃ ya enam ajam avyayam

  kathaṃ sa puruṣaḥ pārtha kaṃ ghātayati hanti kam

  And Hunar Sahib recited:

  Arjun, son of Pritha, listen to what I say

  He who knows it to be immortal

  Who is convinced of its continued imperishability

  That it has no match in indestructability

  Whom will he kill, or have killed

  When its existence is eternal

  Rudra Sen Arya started to recite the next verse, but in his enthusiasm, Hunar Sahib kept right on singing:

  Just as old torn garments

  A man discards for new

  This soul breaks its bond

  With the old, tired body

  A weapon cannot cut it

  Fire cannot burn it

  Water cannot dampen it

  Wind cannot dry it

  ‘Wonderful, wonderful, absolutely wonderful!’ cried Rudra Sen Arya, as he swayed and wiped the sweat from his face with the edge of his dhoti. ‘You’ve translated the verses into such simple poetry!’

  ‘It’s easy enough to recite couplets in difficult Urdu,’ remarked Hunar Sahib proudly, ‘but it’s not that easy to render the deep thoughts of the Gita in simple language.’

  He grinned, and looked over at Ranvir and winked.

  ‘If this simple Gita of Hunar Sahib’s gets published, people will memorize it and go about singing it like Heer Ranjha,’ said Ranvir.

  ‘It’s not a question of earning money,’ said Hunar Sahib. ‘I wish to deliver this sermon by the god Krishna to every home. Now that I’ve translated the second section of the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita into Urdu poetry, my plan is to publish it and hand it out for free at the annual Arya Samaj festival. I’ve also decided to gift it to a literature-loving Gita fan.’

  ‘What greater literary fan could there be than our brot
her Rudra here?’ Ranvir suggested. ‘He loves the Gita so much he won’t even take food or drink without reciting from it first, and he knows the entire thing by heart.’

  ‘You must definitely publish it!’ cried Rudra Sen Arya enthusiastically. ‘It’s not just service to the faith but also to the nation. Today India is under foreign rule, but there is still one thing that makes her hold her head high before the whole world, and that thing is the Bhagavad Gita.’

  ‘I’d publish it in the thousands and distribute it,’ said Hunar Sahib helplessly. ‘But you know, my younger brother’s legal case has ruined me. The bastards kept ten thousand rupees’ worth of jewellery, not to mention all the clothing given as a bridal gift. I’ve come to Jalandhar to sue them. I thought there could be no better way to alleviate our suffering from hanging around the courts than to render the second section of the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita into Urdu poetry.’

  The air from the fan was hitting the front of Chetan’s body squarely, but a river of sweat flowed down his back. He could no longer tolerate sitting there. ‘Come on, why don’t we go stand outside?’ he asked Nishtar, pulling on his hand as he stood.

  ‘Sit, sit,’ said Hunar Sahib. ‘We’re just about to leave.’

  But Chetan pulled Nishtar up and stepped out of the shop and down into the bazaar. Even though the air was stagnant outside as well, Chetan felt much relieved in the open air.

  He placed one foot on the stoop of the shop and asked, ‘What’s Hunar Sahib got himself mixed up in now?’

  Nishtar’s squinting eye sparkled with laughter. ‘Arré bhai, you know his younger brother, Gopal Das? He got married not long ago to Labbhu Mehndru’s daughter from Mitta Bazaar. Not only did they have three sets of jewellery made for her, but for show, he also placed his wife’s jewellery and that of his older brother’s wife among the gifts to the bride. The girl stayed at their house one night, then never came back again. She says the boy is impotent and she won’t live with him. She’s kept all the jewellery and clothing, and now the case is making its way through court.’

  ‘Is that really what happened?’

  ‘Only God knows the truth, but people say that Gopal Das went to his in-laws and brought some holy man with him. Now, who knows what happened but the girl has refused to go back. Hunar Sahib’s elder brother went himself and placed his turban at the girl’s feet, but she wouldn’t budge. And now the girl’s elder brother has opened a general merchandise shop in Lal Bazaar. Hunar Sahib says it’s all thanks to his jewellery . . . Whatever the case, that’s why Hunar has to come to Jalandhar every few days, and the literary world here has become especially exciting as a result.’

  Although Chetan already knew the answer, he asked, ‘You haven’t started reciting couplets in Urdu now, have you?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘So you’ve become Hunar’s pupil, then?’

  ‘I haven’t stopped writing in Punjabi,’ said Nishtar with embarrassment.

  ‘Have you become Hunar’s pupil or not?’ Chetan demanded.

  But before Nishtar could respond, Hunar Sahib came outside and said enthusiastically, ‘Rudra Sen is prepared to pay fifty rupees for paper but he says he’ll buy it himself. He’s a merchant, after all, the bastard!’

  ‘But you promised to buy us lunch at the Khalsa Hotel,’ said Nishtar.

  ‘Well, hold on, I’ll be right there,’ said Hunar Sahib. ‘You call Ranvir.’

  Nishtar called out to Ranvir. When he came outside, Hunar Sahib went back in.

  ‘I came by to hear you sing Heer Ranjha,’ Chetan said to Nishtar.

  ‘Then I’ll sing it for you. You’re here now.’

  ‘I might leave today.’

  ‘We’ll say goodbye to Hunar Sahib now and go and sit somewhere.’

  Just then, Hunar Sahib and Rudra Sen Arya came out. Hunar Sahib took Rudra Sen’s thick hand in his own thin, fine fingers, and pressed it warmly as he grinned and thanked him profusely. And when they were some distance from the shop, Hunar Sahib took a five-rupee note from his kurta pocket and showed it off to Nishtar.

  15

  Hunar Sahib was describing at length his plans for rendering the Upanishads in simple Urdu after finishing his translation of the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita; as he walked along, he told humorous anecdotes in entertaining and idiomatic language without pausing for commas and periods, and Chetan was wondering how they were going to get rid of him. Hunar’s idea was that they’d first go to the Khalsa Hotel on Kutchery Road for lunch and put to use Rudra Sen Arya’s contribution for the simple translation of the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita. After that, the three of them would go and pay their respects to the head of the Doaba Widows’ Aid Society on Mandi Road—that is, the ‘Gandhi of the Doab’, Mahatma Banshiram ji ‘Karmath’, editor of the weekly journal Widows’ Aid. To go to Mandi and not pay one’s respects to Mahatma Banshiram ji was absolute impiety in Hunar Sahib’s religion—especially considering the fact that he’d opened not just the doors of his weekly to Hunar Sahib and his pupils, but also all the windows and ventilation slats. Mahatma Banshiram may have been the editor of Widows’ Aid in name, but the real editor was Hunar Sahib. He not only wrote poetry for the journal, but he also obtained suitable essays and stories for it. And he also spread the word about the publication amongst his acquaintances and convinced them to become subscribers. He didn’t actually get any compensation for his ‘good deeds’, not even a cup of tea for journeying from so far away. No, for him, this was Service to the Nation, and what greater joy or satisfaction could there be than to offer one’s art in service to the nation? Of course, it was also true that ever since he’d taken on the unofficial editing of Widows’ Aid, the number of his disciples had steadily grown in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and the surrounding towns and rural areas, and if his disciples wished to render their guru any services or gifts in the traditional manner, who was he to deprive them of this happiness? He’d promised Mahatma Banshiram ji that when he finished translating the Gita, he would publish it serially in Widows’ Aid. This was why he wanted to go to the widows’ ashram first after the Khalsa Hotel. Ranvir was after him to give him a poem to publish under his own name in this week’s Widows’ Aid for sure, and although Nishtar had a journal of his own, he too wanted his creations to be printed regularly in Widows’ Aid . . . And thus, though Hunar Sahib was ostensibly going with his two pupils to pay his respects to Mahatma Banshiram, he was secretly going there to figure out how many columns were left for him and his pupils in the journal after the collection of pieces related to widow remarriage. After that, his plan was to go to see Mandi’s famous broker Lala Jalandhari Mull ji ‘Yogi’. Chetan had never met Lala Jalandhari Mull, but he’d certainly seen him at a few rallies. When Lala Jalandhari Mull’s father was living, and Jalandhari Mull ji passed the middle school exam after failing four times and began working at the family business, he used to write poetry in Urdu. He’d taken the pen name ‘Sarfarosh’ or ‘Brave One’, and his nationalist poems had been published in a collection under the title Patriotic Longings, on the dedication page of which was printed a couplet by Ramprasad ‘Bismil’, the martyr of the Kakori Case:

  The longing for sacrifice is now in our hearts

  We shall see if it lies in the arm of the killer

  Below that was written in large letters:

  In sacred memory of the immortal martyr Ramprasad ‘Bismil’

  On the facing page was a photo of ‘Sarfarosh ji’: he was of medium height and quite pudgy; he had a short, thick neck; a large pimple on his right cheek near his nose; and an inky-dark complexion. He looked less like a poet in the photo, and more like the wrestler ‘Kalue Pehlwan’ in a Gandhi cap. During the Congress movement, he’d been sentenced to two years’ hard labour. During this hardship, his father had fallen quite ill. By the time Sarfarosh got out of jail, his father had passed on to his heavenly abode. No one saw Sarfarosh at Congress rallies again after he returned from jail. When his father died, he took over the family business, got married and had five chil
dren in five years. But despite all this, he continued occasionally to express his feelings in couplets. In jail, he’d not only studied Vedanta philosophy, but he’d also taken on the title ‘Yogi’. Lately, he’d been going home less and spending more time at the shop. After work, he’d go upstairs to the rooftop room which had a spacious terrace outside. His friends would visit, and Yogi ji would explain the mysteries of the Vedanta with great love and devotion. He had stopped wearing a Gandhi cap and now wore a kurta and dhoti dyed in red ochre. They didn’t get dirty as fast and they also matched his new title. He looked after the affairs of the shop with detachment. He worried not about consequences, good and ill (or so he said), and he awaited the time when his sons would themselves take over the business and give him leave to pursue his yogic practices full time. It was Yogi ji himself who had inspired Hunar Sahib to come up with the idea of translating the Upanishads into simple Urdu.

  *

  ‘Perhaps Hunar Sahib will present his translation of the Upanishads to “Yogi ji”,’ Chetan thought to himself, but he was interested neither in ‘The Gandhi of the Doab’ nor ‘The Yogi of Mandi’. Although he’d enjoyed the hoodwinking of Rudra Sen Arya to a certain extent and his sadness had diminished somewhat, when Hunar Sahib had robbed the man of five rupees, he recalled how he himself had been robbed of the same sum by Hunar Sahib the very first time he’d met him. When he’d gone to see him off at the station, Hunar Sahib had asked him for the money claiming he’d left his wallet at home. The moment he remembered that incident, Chetan immediately felt bitter, and he recalled all of Hunar Sahib’s prior offences—right up to the reading of the poem at Neela’s wedding—and wished he could get rid of him somehow.

  Just at that moment, they reached the open area where Rainak Bazaar meets Bazaar Sheikhan. Suddenly, he noticed the enormous signboard of Hoshiarpur Cycle House, and he saw that his boyhood friend, Harasaran, was seated out front, fitting up a bicycle. He called out from far off, ‘Hello, Saran!’ and rushed over. To Nishtar he explained, ‘I’m going to hang out here for a while, you all can keep going.’ But Nishtar went and stood right near the shop, and Hunar and Ranvir stood a few steps away from him.