Classic Mulk Raj Anand

by Mulk Raj Anand

  The Havildar opened a door by the side of his room and disappeared for a moment. Then he came out with an almost brand-new hockey stick which must have been used only once. He handed it to Bakha as casually as he had given him the chilm to go and fill with charcoal.

  ‘But it is new, Havildar ji,’ Bakha said as he took it.

  ‘Now run along, new or not new, it doesn’t matter,’ said Charat Singh. ‘Conceal it under your coat and don’t tell anyone. Go, my lad.’

  Bakha bent his head and evaded the Havildar’s eyes. He couldn’t look at so generous a person. He was overcome by the man’s kindness. He was grateful, grateful, haltingly grateful, falteringly grateful, stumblingly grateful, so grateful that he didn’t know how he could walk the ten yards to the corner to be out of the sight of his benevolent and generous host. The whole atmosphere was charged with embarrassment. He felt uncomfortable as he walked away. ‘Strange! strange! wonderful! kind man! I didn’t know he was so kind. I should have known. He always has such a humorous way about him! Kind, good man! He gave me a new stick, a brand-new stick!’ He impatiently drew the stick from the folds of his overcoat where he had hidden it. It was a beautiful, broad-bladed stick, marked with English words, and therefore, to Bakha, the best stick that had been manufactured in the world. It had a leather handle. ‘Beautiful! Beautiful!’ his heart seemed to be shouting in its thumping, mad rush of exhilaration. He turned the corner and went across the ditch, so that he was out of sight of his benefactor. Assured now that nobody would see the foolish pride and pleasure that he was taking in his prize, he rested it on the ground in the position in which it is usual to place a stick before hitting the ball. He bent it. It was elastic and bent finely. That Bakha knew was the test of a good stick. He hurriedly rubbed off the dust that had touched the lower part of the stick and holding it fast in his hands, as if he were afraid someone would come and snatch it from him, he tried to assure himself and to make himself believe that he possessed it, so incredulous was he of the fact that he owned it. In spite of the fact that he held it tight, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was dreaming, until he got to the edge of the playing-fields outside the gymnasium, behind the Indian officers’ quarters, and began to hit a little round stone about. Then he suddenly realized that the stick might break, or get scarred, that way. He clutched it hard, and pressed it to his body, and tried to recollect his thoughts: ‘So my good karma has been rewarded. If only that thing hadn’t happened this morning!’

  Bakha tried to recall Charat Singh’s face.

  It had a slight suspicion of forgetfulness about it. ‘I hope he knew what he was doing,’ Bakha thought. ‘I hope he was not completely absent-minded. He may have been. Dare I play with the stick? It might be spoiled and in case he suddenly realizes he has given away something he did not want to give, it will be terrible because I cannot return his stick battered or broken or even used. And, of course, I can’t buy a new stick like this. But there is no question of that. Did he not say: “New or not new, take it and run away, and don’t tell anyone.” Of course he knew what he was doing. I am mad to think that he was forgetful. So kind a person, and I think this about him. I am a pig to do that.’ He didn’t want to think at all, since he felt his thoughts becoming ungenerous. ‘How beautiful the afternoon is,’ he said, and he tilted his face up from the curve of his thought to sniff the bite in the air which came from the hills in the north. He was aware of the transparent, autumn sunshine, just warm enough to fill a heart wrapped in warm clothes with pleasure. The cup of Bakha’s life was filled to overflowing with the happiness of the lucid, shining afternoon, as the bowl of the sky was filled with a clear and warm sunshine. He could have jumped for joy.

  He was just going to, then he felt someone might see him. Someone was sure to be about. A passing sepoy or someone from among the boys. So there was no way of extending happiness into space, except by walking about.

  He began to walk. Each step he took was a strut, his chest thrown out, his head lifted high and his legs stiff, as if they were made of wood. The awkward sway of his rump had, for a moment, become the haughty gait of a proud soldier.

  Then he caught a glimpse of himself foolishly strutting about, and he grew self-conscious. He stopped suddenly, uncomfortably. His newly-assumed confidence had been shattered.

  He was impatient now. He wished someone would come and relieve his loneliness. If only a sepoy were passing, he would look at him. And if one of the boys came, he would show him the stick he had acquired. He wished that Chota would come. He would like to have shown him the stick. Or Ram Charan. ‘But no, I must not show it to Ram Charan. Else he will go to Charat Singh and worry him by demanding a similar stick. The Havildar said I was not to tell anyone. He will be angry with me if Ram Charan takes it into his head to go and beg for a stick.’ He wished the babu’s sons would come. They had the ball. The elder boy had promised to give him a lesson in English. Perhaps he could give it to him before the game started. He wished someone would come, someone to fill his mind, which had dried up, become suddenly empty.

  He walked about aimlessly now. His limbs were loose. His face turned now to this side, now to that, with a half-conscious look. At last he espied the babu’s son, the little boy, rushing out of the hall of his house, a big stick in his little hand, food in his mouth and sweets tied up in the lap of his tunic. Bakha knew how eager the little one was to play hockey. He began to advance towards the child with an easy step, made awkward by a consciousness of his low position, and with a smile of humility on his face. He liked the babu’s sons, respected them, not only because they were high-caste Hindus whom he, as a sweeper’s son, had to respect, but also because their father held a position of extraordinary importance in the regiment, almost second to the Colonel Sahib himself.

  The little one came up to him with a wild gesture of enthusiasm and said:

  ‘Look, here is the new stick I told you about this morning. Charat Singh gave it to me.’

  ‘Oh, it is very beautiful!’ Bakha commented. ‘But,’ he continued jocularly, ‘look at mine, it is better than yours. Ha, ha, mine is more beautiful than yours.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said the little one.

  Bakha handed him the stick.

  ‘Oh, it is the same kind exactly!’ shouted the child.

  Bakha felt that Charat Singh had apparently not done him an exceptional favour. But it was a favour all right. ‘The babu’s sons were the babu’s sons. He would, of course, give them sticks. That he had given one to him, a sweeper, was an extraordinary favour.’

  ‘Are you prepared for the match? Ohe, Bakhe,’ said the child, as if he were a full-grown skipper.

  ‘Yes, I am ready,’ said Bakha smilingly, and without betraying the slightest sign of that sympathy which he felt for the child, seeing him so enthusiastic and knowing he wouldn’t be allowed to play. He liked the little one, so brimful of energy and enthusiasm.

  ‘Where is your elder brother?’ Bakha asked the child.

  ‘He is finishing his meal. He is coming. I shall go and fetch the hockey sticks and the ball. The boys will soon be here.’ And he ran home abruptly, leaving Bakha curiously affected.

  ‘Poor little boy, and they won’t let him play. He is so eager. He will be an extraordinary man when he grows up. A big babu perhaps. Or a sahib. His eyes twinkle so!—’

  ‘Ohe Bakhe,’ someone disturbed his thoughts.

  He turned round and saw Chota and Ram Charan followed by various boys, the armourer’s sons, Niamat and Asmat; the tailor-master’s son, Ibrahim; the band-master’s sons, Ali, Abdulla, Hassan and Hussein, and hosts of strangers, presumably the boys of the 31st Punjabis. Bakha advanced towards them. Chota ran up to him and whispered: ‘I have told them that you are the Sahib’s bearer: they don’t know that you are a sweeper.’

  ‘Acha,’ Bakha agreed. He knew that it had been done to convince some of the orthodox boys of the 31st Punjabis team that they wouldn’t be polluted.

  ‘Look, I have got a wonderfu
l new stick,’ said Bakha. He showed it to his friend. Then he said: ‘Don’t tell Ram Charan about it. Charat Singh gave it to me. I shall score no end of goals with it.’

  ‘Wonderful! Wonderful! Marvellous! Beautiful!’ exclaimed Chota. ‘Brother-in-law, you are lucky!’ He slapped Bakha’s back and raised a small cloud of dust from his thick overcoat.

  ‘Boys, get ready,’ he shouted as he turned.

  When the time for the election of the team came, the babu’s little son brought and dumped the sticks before Chota and expected his reward. But Chota had already chosen his eleven.

  ‘Let the child play,’ Bakha put in on the little one’s behalf.

  ‘No, he will be troublesome,’ Chota whispered. ‘We can’t let him play. It is a match with the big boys. He will get hurt and then there will be trouble.’

  Bakha didn’t want to insist too much. He knew that Chota and the little one didn’t get on very well, and he was helpless seeing he liked them both equally, hurt to see the child ignored by everyone except his elder brother, who was trying to console him by saying that even he might not be asked to play, so important was the match, and between such big boys.

  The child bore the disappointment more easily when it came after the consolation his brother had offered and the friendliness reflected in Bakha’s smiles. Ignored and helpless, he sought to interest himself in the match by volunteering to be the referee. But Chota wouldn’t have him even as a referee. The little one now looked sorry for himself. The match began. He stood by the heaps of the boys’ clothes which lay on the side of the hockey ground. He wished he were as big as Chota. Then he would be asked to play. Also, when he could wear shorts like him. And he would look like a real sahib because he was not so dark as Chota.

  Bakha came, for a second, to throw off his overcoat near the little one. He had started playing without having discarded it.

  ‘Keep a watch over it, little brother, won’t you?’ he said to the child, as if by entrusting him with the job he was trying to console him for his being not included in the team. Then he ran back to his place.

  The little one could have cried at that moment. But the game, the play—Bakha was going to score a goal.

  It was an extraordinary spectacle. The crowd of boys in the field hopped to and fro like grasshoppers. There was no organization. Bakha had rolled the ball, dribbling, dodging to the goal of the 31st Punjabis boys. But then he had been caught, enmeshed, by a throng of defenders, struggling, shouting, shoving to hit the ball out. Bakha managed, however, to scoop past the legs of all the boys and drove the ball into the space between the posts.

  Defeated by superior tactics, the goalkeeper spitefully struck Bakha a blow on the legs. Upon this Chota, Ram Charan, Ali, Abdulla, and all the rest of the 38th Dogra boys fell upon the goalkeeper of the 31st Punjabis.

  Soon there was a free fight.

  ‘Foul! Foul!’ shouted the captain of the 31st Punjabis team.

  ‘No foul! No foul!’ responded Chota, drawing himself up to his full height, angrily.

  The captain of the 31st Punjabis advanced hotly, tearing the hordes asunder and gripped Chota by the collar. And, once more, the boys were fighting, scratching, hitting, kicking, yelling. One, two, three, four, five, the little hands worked their sticks, rudely, heavily, vigorously and the blusterings of the horde reached such a pitch of excitement that you could see the ruthlessness of the savage hunters in them. Chota had gripped his antagonist by the shoulder and for a time these two wrestled furiously, wildly, tearing each other’s clothes and punching each other. Then Chota’s enemy, unable to endure his transgressions, called to his followers, and ran back a few yards.

  ‘Throw stones at them, stones,’ shouted Chota. At this the boys of the 38th Dogras seemed to separate from their enemies, to run on one side and to begin hurling small stones at them.

  In their intense excitement they didn’t notice the little boy who stood near the clothes between them and their enemies, receiving the full measure of the stone bombardment. Most of the stones, however, passed high over the child’s head and, though frightened, he was safe. But a bad throw from Ram Charan’s hand caught him a rap on the skull. He gave a sharp, piercing shriek and fell unconscious. All the boys rushed to him. Streams of blood were pouring from the back of his head. Bakha picked him up in his arms and took him to the hall of his house. Unfortunately for him, the child’s mother had heard the row they had been making and casually came to see if her children were safe. She met Bakha face to face.

  ‘Vay, eater of your masters, Vay dirty sweeper!’ she shouted. ‘What have you done to my son?’

  Bakha was going to open his mouth and tell her what had happened. But even while she asked, she knew from the trickling of the blood from her son’s skull, from his deathly, pale, senseless face.

  ‘Vay, eater of your masters! What have you done? You have killed my son!’ she wailed, flinging her hands across her breasts and turning blue and red with fear. ‘Give him to me! Give me my child! You have defiled my house, besides wounding my son!’

  ‘Mother, mother, what are you saying?’ interposed her elder son. ‘It was not he. He didn’t hurt him. It was the washerwoman’s son, Ram Charan.’

  ‘Get away, get away, eater of your masters!’ she shouted at him. ‘May you die! Why didn’t you look after your brother?’

  Bakha handed over the child, and afraid, humble, silent as a ghost, withdrew. He felt dejected, utterly miserable. Was the pleasure of Charat Singh’s generosity only to be enjoyed for half an hour? What had he done to deserve such treatment? He loved the child. He had been very sorry when Chota refused to let him join the game. Then why should the boy’s mother abuse him when he had tried to be kind. She hadn’t even let him tell her how it all happened. ‘Of course, I polluted the child. I couldn’t help doing so. I knew my touch would pollute. But it was impossible not to pick him up. He was dazed, the poor little thing. And she abused me. I only get abuse and derision wherever I go. Pollution, pollution, I do nothing else but pollute people. They all say only: “Polluted, polluted!” She was perhaps justified. Her son was injured. She could have said anything. It was my fault and of the other boys too. Why did we start that quarrel? It started on account of the goal I scored. Cursed me! That poor child! I hope he is not badly hurt. If only Chota had let him join the game, the little one would not have been standing where he was, and then he might have escaped getting hurt. Now, where have all the boys gone?’

  For the first time he became conscious that he had been walking alone. He looked around. Even the sparrows in the sweepers’ lane twittered accusingly at him in the pale afternoon light. With a sudden shudder of unutterable weariness he clutched the stick which he carried under his arm, and turned into a by-path leading to his home across decayed tamarind leaves.

  Before he came within sight of his home, he stopped and looked for a convenient spot where he might hide his hockey stick. He couldn’t take it home. His father would at once fly into a rage about his wasting valuable time playing when there was all the work to do at the latrines. There was a long hedge of cactus away from the path. He turned towards it. There was a convenient hollow in the middle of the bush. He stepped over with a high stride into the hollow and laid the stick there. Then he bent down a few oar-shaped cactus leaves on to it and covered it against bad weather. After that he hurried, lest he should be seen hiding the stick by someone who might come later and filch it.

  When Bakha returned, his father sat smoking his hubble-bubble in the English wicker-chair. For a moment Lakha was unaware of his son’s presence. Then suddenly he seemed to rise in his seat and wave his close-fisted hand menacingly at Bakha and to shout:

  ‘Pig! Dog! You ran away! You have been away all the afternoon and now you come back! Illegally begotten! Have you become a nawab that you go wandering about when you know that there is work here for you to do? The sepoys have been shouting!’

  Bakha was cool in the face of this warm reception. He was too wearied by the
succession of revived memories to cope with anything now. He stood obstinately still while his father’s invective continued.

  ‘Son of a pig! You have no care for your old father. You go out in the morning and you come back at night. Who is going to do the work at the latrines? I brought you up. Won’t you give me some rest in my old age? There you go trying to be a sahib when you are a sweeper’s son.’

  Bakha moved slowly under the rain of abuse towards the latrines. He was going to pick up a broom but he saw that his brother Rakha held it. He stopped short and looked up at his brother.

  ‘So you have come back,’ shouted Rakha self-righteously. He stared hard at his elder brother. There was the pride of the favourite in his glance.

  Bakha knew that the boy was preening himself because he had put in an afternoon’s work and had won his father’s partiality. He didn’t hate him for his overbearing manner, however. He thought of him as a child, as he really loved him. And he would have borne his impudence and his father’s abuse as his due, but the boy refused to give him the broom and his father persisted in his denunciation.

  ‘He has no sense of shame! Play, play, play and wander about all day. As if he has nothing else to do!’

  Bakha felt he couldn’t bear the constant iteration of the same sentiments. He knew the way in which his father nagged him, persistently, stubbornly, without waiting for breath. He made for the latrines.

  ‘Get away, swine, run away from my presence,’ shouted his father. ‘Don’t touch that broom or I shall kill you. Go away! Get out of my house. And don’t come back! Don’t let me see your face again!’