A few days later, he had a break. There were eight of them, young men armed with guns. They also had a truck. They said they brought back women and children left behind on the other side.
He gave them a description of his daughter. ‘She is fair, very pretty. No, she doesn’t look like me, but her mother. About seventeen. Big eyes, black hair, a mole on the left cheek. Find my daughter. May God bless you.’
The young men had said to Sirajuddin, ‘If your daughter is alive we will find her.’
And they had tried. At the risk of their lives, they had driven to Amritsar, recovered many women and children and brought them back to the camp, but they had not found Sakina.
On their next trip out, they had found a girl on the roadside. They seemed to have scared her and she had started running. They had stopped the truck, jumped out and run after her. Finally, they had caught up with her in a field. She was very pretty and she had a mole on her left cheek. One of the men had said to her, ‘Don’t be frightened. Is your name Sakina?’ Her face had gone pale, but when they told her who they were she had confessed that she was Sakina, daughter of Sirajuddin.
The young men were very kind to her. They had fed her, given her milk to drink and put her in their truck. One of them had given her his jacket so that she could cover herself. It was obvious that she was ill at ease without her dupatta, trying nervously to cover her breasts with her arms.
Many days had gone by and Sirajuddin had still not had any news of his daughter. All his time was spent running from camp to camp, looking for her. At night, he would pray for the success of the young men who were looking for his daughter. Their words would ring in his ear: ‘If your daughter is alive, we will find her.’ Then one day he saw them in the camp. They were about to drive away.
‘Son,’ he shouted after one of them, ‘have you found Sakina, my daughter?’
‘We will, we will,’ they replied all together.
The old man again prayed for them. It made him feel better. That evening there was sudden activity in the camp. He saw four men carrying the body of a young girl found unconscious near the railway tracks. They were taking her to the camp hospital. He began to follow them.
He stood outside the hospital for some time, then went in. In one of the rooms, he found a stretcher with someone lying on it.
A light was switched on. It was a young woman with a mole on her left cheek. ‘Sakina,’ Sirajuddin screamed. The doctor, who had switched on the light, stared at Sirajuddin.
‘I am her father,’ he stammered.
The doctor looked at the prostrate body and felt for the pulse. Then he said to the old man, pointing at the window, ‘Open it.’ Sakina’s body stirred ever so faintly on the stretcher. Her hands groped for the cord which kept her shalwar tied round her waist.
With painful slowness, she unfastened it, pulled the garment down and opened her thighs.
‘She is alive. My daughter is alive,’ Sirajuddin shouted with joy.
The doctor broke into a cold sweat.
Translated by Khalid Hasan
A Woman’s Life
SHE’D HAD A long day and she fell asleep as soon as she hit the bed. The city sanitary inspector, whom she always called Seth, had just gone home, very drunk. His love-making had been aggressive as usual and he had left her feeling bone-weary. He would have stayed longer but for his wife who, he always said, loved him very much.
The silver coins, which she had earned, were safely tucked inside her bra. Her breasts still bore the traces of the inspector’s wet kisses. Occasionally the coins would clink as she took a particularly deep breath.
Her chest had felt on fire, partly because of the pint of brandy which she had drunk followed by the homemade brew they had downed with tap water after the brandy had run out.
She was sprawled face down on her wide, wooden bed. Her bare arms, stretched out on either side, looked like the frame of a kite which has come unstuck from the paper.
It was a small room and her things were everywhere. Three or four ragged pairs of sandals lay under the bed; a mangy dog lay sleeping with his head resting on them. There were bald patches on its skin and, from a distance, one could have mistaken it for a worn doormat.
On a small shelf lay her make-up things: face powder, a single lipstick, rouge, a comb, hairpins.
Swinging from a hook in the ceiling was a cage with a green parrot. The bird was asleep, its beak tucked under one of its wings. The cage was littered with pieces of raw guava and orange peels, with some black moths and mosquitoes hovering over them. A wicker chair stood next to the bed, its back grimy with use. To its left was a small table with an antiquated His Master’s Voice gramophone resting on it. On the wall were four pictures. It was her habit, after being paid, to rub the money against the picture she had of the Hindu elephant god Ganesha, for good luck, before putting it away. However, whenever Madhu was expected from Poona, she hid most of the money under her bed. This had first been suggested by Ram Lal, who knew that every visit by Madhu was like a raid on Saugandhi’s savings.
One day he said to her, ‘Where’d you pick up this sala? What kind of a lover boy is he? He never parts with a penny and he is back every other week having a good time at your expense. What’s more, he cheats you out of your hard-earned money. Saugandhi, what is it about this sala that you find so irresistible? I’ve been in this business for seven years and I know you chhokris well but this one beats me, I have to admit.’
Ram Lal, who scouted around for men looking for a good time, had a range of girls worth anything from ten to a hundred rupees for the night. He said to her one day, ‘Saugandhi, don’t ruin your business; I warn you this scoundrel will take the shirt off your back if you don’t watch out. Tell you what, keep your money hidden under your bed and the next time he is here tell him something like, “I swear on your head, Madhu, for days I haven’t set eyes on so much as a penny. I haven’t even eaten today. Can you get me something to eat and a cup of tea from that Iranian cafe across the street?” ’
Ram Lal went on, ‘Sweetheart, these are bad times. By bringing in prohibition, this sali Congress government has taken the life out of the bazaar. But how would you know? You get your drop somehow or other. As God is my witness, whenever I see an empty liquor bottle in your room, I almost want to change places with you.’
Saugandhi liked to offer advice too. She had once said to her friend Jamuna, ‘Let me give you some advice. For ten rupees, you let men pluck you like a chicken. Let someone so much as touch me in the wrong place and he will come to grief. You know what happened last night? Ram Lal brought a Punjabi man at about two in the morning. When we went to bed, I put out the light. I swear to you, Jamuna, he was scared! He couldn’t do anything! “Come on,” I said to him. “Don’t you want it? It is nearly morning.” But all he wanted was for the light to be switched on. I couldn’t hold back my laughter. “No light,” I teased him. Then I pinched him and he jumped out of bed and the first thing he did was to put the light back on. “Are you crazy?” I screamed, then I put out the light. He was scared. I tell you, it was such fun. No light, then light again. When he heard the first tram car rattle past in the morning, he hurriedly put on his clothes and ran. The sala must have won that money in gambling. Jamuna, you are still very naive. I know how to deal with men. I have my ways.’
This was true. She had her ways, which she often told her friends about. ‘If the customer is nice, the quiet type, flirt with him, talk, tease him, touch him playfully. If he has a beard, comb it with your fingers and pull out a hair or two just for fun. If he is fat, then tease him about it. But never give them enough time to do what they really want; keep them occupied and they’ll leave happily and you’ll be spared possible misadventure. The quiet types are always dangerous. Watch them because they are often very rough.’
Actually, Saugandhi was not as clever as she pretended. She didn’t have a great number of clients
either. She liked men, which was why all her clever methods would desert her when it was time to use them. It only took a few sweet words, softly cooed into her ear, to make her melt. Although she was convinced that physical relations were basically pointless, her body felt otherwise. It seemed to want to be overpowered and left exhausted.
When she was a little girl, she used to hide herself in the big wooden chest which sat in a corner of her parents’ home while the other children looked for her. The fear of being caught, mixed with a sense of excitement, would make her heart beat very fast. Sometimes she wanted to spend her entire life in a box, hidden from view yet dying to be found. The last five years had been like a game of hide-and-seek. She was either seeking or being sought. When a man said to her, ‘I love you, Saugandhi,’ she would go weak in the knees, although she knew he was lying. Love, what a beautiful word, she would think. Oh, if only one could rub love like a balm into one’s body! However, she did like four of her regulars enough to have their framed pictures hanging on her wall.
She had lived intensely in the last five years. True, she hadn’t had the happiness she would have wished but she had managed. Money had never interested her much. She charged ten rupees for what she did, out of which a quarter went to Ram Lal. What she was left with was enough for her needs. In fact, when Madhu came from Poona, she spent ten to fifteen rupees on him quite happily. This was perhaps the price she paid for that certain feeling that Ram Lal had once said existed between the two of them.
He was right. There was something about Madhu that Saugandhi liked. When they met, the first thing Madhu had said to her was, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of selling yourself, putting a price on your body? Ten rupees you take with a quarter going to that man, Ram Lal, which leaves you with seven rupees and eight annas, doesn’t it? And for that you promise to give something which you can’t love. And what about me? I have come looking for something which really cannot be had. I need a woman but do you need a man? I could do with any woman but could you do with any man? There is nothing between us except this sum of ten rupees, a fourth of which will go to Ram Lal and the rest to you. But I know we like each other. Shouldn’t we do something about it? Perhaps we could fulfil our separate needs that way. Now listen. I am a sergeant in the police at Poona. I’ll come once a month for three or four days. You don’t have to be doing anything from now on. I’ll look after all your expenses. What is the rent for this kholi of yours?’
Madhu had made her feel like the police sergeant’s chosen woman. He had also rearranged everything in the room. There were posters showing half-clad women that she had stuck on the wall. He had removed them without her permission and then torn them up. ‘Saugandhi, my dear, I won’t have these. And look at this slimy earthen pitcher of yours. It needs to be scrubbed and cleaned. And what are those smelly rags lying around? Throw them out. And look at your hair. It is matted and in need of a wash. And…and…’
After three hours of conversation, mostly Madhu’s, Saugandhi had felt as if she had known him for many years. Never before had anyone spoken to her like that, nor made her feel that her kholi was home. The men who came to her did not even notice that her bed sheets were soiled. Nobody had ever said to her, ‘I think you are catching a cold; let me run along and get you something for it.’ But Madhu was different; he told her things nobody ever had and she knew she needed him.
He would come once a month from Poona and before going back he would say, ‘Saugandhi, if you resume that old business of yours, you’ll never see me again. Yes, about this month’s household expenses, the money will be on its way as soon as I get to Poona…so what did you say the monthly rent for this place was?’
Madhu had never sent her any money from Poona or elsewhere and Saugandhi had continued her business as usual. They both knew it but she never said, ‘What rubbish you are talking! You have never given me so much as a bum penny.’ And Madhu had never asked her how she was managing to survive. They were living a pretension and they were quite happy with it. Saugandhi had argued to herself that, if one was unable to buy real gold, one might as well settle for what looked like gold.
But now she was sound asleep. She was too tired to even bother to switch off the harsh, unshaded light over her bed.
There was a knock at the door. She only heard it as a faint, faraway sound. This was followed by a succession of knocks, which woke her up. She first wiped her mouth, still sodden with the aftertaste of bad liquor, and her eyes, then looked under the bed where the dog was still asleep, its head resting on her old sandals. The parrot was also in its cage, its beak tucked under its wing. There was another impatient knock. She rose from her bed and realized that she had a splitting headache. She poured herself some water from the earthen pitcher and rinsed her mouth, then filled another glass and drank it down in one gulp. Carefully, she opened the door and whispered, ‘Ram Lal?’
Ram Lal, who had almost given up, replied caustically, ‘I thought you had been bitten by a snake. I have been out here for an hour. Didn’t you hear me? ‘Then in his discreet voice he asked, ‘Is anybody with you?’ She told him no and let him in. ‘If it is going to take me an hour getting you chhokris out of bed, I might as well change my line of work. What are you looking at me like that for? Put on that nice flower-print sari of yours and dust your face with powder, and a bit of lipstick too. Out there in a car I have a rich seth waiting for you.’
Instead, Saugandhi fell into her armchair, picked up a jar of rubbing balm from the table, eased off its lid and said, ‘Ram Lal, I don’t feel well.’
‘Why didn’t you say so right away?’
Saugandhi, who was now rubbing her forehead with the balm, replied, ‘I just don’t feel good; maybe I had too much to drink.’
Ram Lal’s expression changed. ‘Is there some left? I’d love a drop.’
Saugandhi returned the balm to the table. ‘If l had saved some, I would have done something about this awful headache. Look, Ram Lal, bring that man in.’
‘I can’t,’ Ram Lal answered. ‘He is an important man. He was even reluctant to park on the street. Look, sweetheart, put on those nice clothes and off we go. You won’t be sorry.’
It was the usual deal: seven rupees eight annas. Had Saugandhi not been in need of money, she would have sent Ram Lal packing. In the next kholi lived a Madrasi woman whose husband had recently died in an accident. She had a grown-up daughter and they wanted to go back to Madras but didn’t have the train fare. Saugandhi had said to her, ‘Don’t you worry, sister, my man is expected from Poona any day. He’ll give me some money and you’ll be on your way.’ While Madhu was indeed expected, the money, of course, was to be earned by Saugandhi herself. So she rose reluctantly from her chair and began to change. She put on the flower-print sari and a bit of makeup, and then drank another glass of water from the pitcher.
The street was very still. The lights had been dimmed because of the war. In the distance, she could see the outline of a car. They walked up to it and stopped.
Ram Lal stepped forward and said, ‘Here she is, a sweet-tempered girl, very new to the business. ‘Then to her, ‘Saugandhi, the Seth sahib is waiting.’
She moved closer, feeling nervous. A flashlight suddenly lit her face, blinding her. ‘Ugh!’ grunted the man in the car, then revved up his engine and drove off without another word.
Saugandhi had had no time to react because of the torch in her face. She hadn’t been able to see the man; she had only heard him say, ‘Ugh!’ What did he mean by that?
Ram Lal was muttering to himself. ‘You didn’t like her; that’s two hours of mine gone waste.’ He left without speaking to her. Saugandhi was trembling, trying hard to deal with the situation. ‘What did he mean by “Ugh”? That he did not like me? The son of a…’
The car was gone, the red glow from its fading tail-lights barely visible now. She wanted to scream, ‘Come back…Stop…Come back!’
She was alone in the dese
rted bazaar wearing her grey flowerprint sari which fluttered in the night air.
She began to walk back slowly but then she thought of Ram Lal and the man in the car and she stopped. Ram Lal had said the Seth didn’t like her; he hadn’t said it was because of her looks. Well, so what? There were people she did not like. There were men who came to her that she did not care for. Only the other night she had one who was so ugly that when he was lying next to her she had felt nauseated. But she hadn’t shown it.
But the man in the car? He had practically spat in her face. ‘Ram Lal,’ he had implied, ‘from what hole have you pulled out this scented reptile? And you want ten rupees for her? For her? Ugh!’
She was angry with herself and with Ram Lal who had woken her up at two in the morning, though he had meant well. It wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t hers but she wanted the whole scene replayed just one more time. Slowly, very slowly, she would move towards the car, then the torchlight would be flashed in her face, followed by a grunt, and she, Saugandhi, would scratch that Seth’s face with her long nails, pull him out of that car by his hair and hit him till she broke down exhausted.
Saugandhi, she said to herself, you are not ugly. While it was true that the bloom of her early youth was gone, nobody had ever said she was ugly. In fact, she was one of those women men always steal a second look at. She knew she had everything a man expects in a woman. She was young and she had a good body. She was nice to people. She couldn’t remember a single man in the last five years who hadn’t enjoyed himself with her. She was soft-hearted. Last year at Christmas time when she was living in the Golpitha area, this young fellow from Hyderabad who had spent the night with her had found his wallet missing in the morning. Obviously, the servant boy, who was a rogue, had nicked it and disappeared. He was extremely upset because he had come all the way to Bombay to spend his holidays and he hadn’t the fare to go back. She had simply returned him the money he had given her the night before.
The Dog of Tithwal Page 15
