Our Favourite Indian Stories

by Khushwant Singh

  He smiled again. His white beard and long white hair were like a halo, effulgent with a divine light...10...11...12...The clock stopped striking.

  I could almost hear him say: 'For us Sikhs, it is always 12 o'clock!'

  But the bearded lips, still smiling, were silent. And I knew he was already in some distant world, where the striking of clocks counted for nothing, where violence and mockery were powerless to hurt him.

  Translated by Khushwant Singh

  ORIYA

  The Bed of Arrows

  Gopinath Mohanty

  Back home from work, he emitted a sweet fragrance. Kamala could feel its presence clearly. Turning on her side, she crumpled up in pain. She looked up at his face from the tired bed.

  She remembered her decision of not letting him know of her pain or revealing the pallor on her face. Instead, she would smile. Or at least try hard to smile. And yet, why did she hear this weeping inside? It was a happy thought that her days were numbered. It was useless to continue being a burden on him.

  Before she could put on a smile, Surababu came near her with a sad face. Pressing her head with his left hand and playing with her dishevelled hair he asked, 'Has the pain increased today? Oh God, what should we do? How long will you carry on in this way?'

  Kamala smiled as she said, 'It is the same old pain, what is new about it?'

  His face seemed to dry up further before her sharp gaze as he said, 'Yes, why won't you say that? That is your habit, the habit of all women. Never admitting even to yourself what you are going through. You people feel that if you burn yourself out in serving others you will be the first to reach heaven. Isn't that so, Kama?'

  Surababu extended his hand to caress her cheeks. But as if in a desperate bid to escape his touch, she withdrew her face, writhing in pain. She felt a stab of pain in the chest and a sudden dizziness as she closed her eyes and floated into emptiness. Half a minute later, she was herself again.

  Biting her lower lip she said, 'You have not even changed your clothes. You must be feeling wretched. Do please go and eat something.' She then called out to the servant Indra in a broken voice.

  Surababu said, 'I shall go but don't speak so loudly; it will only aggravate your weakness and pain.'

  She sighed and closed her eyes. A minute later, as she opened her eyes Surababu was still standing there.

  Those few words echoed in her ears, 'What is left of this body?'

  The familiar fragrance came back to her. She could see things dissolving—now clear, now hazy before her steady gaze. And now she could see, in the pale wintry light after the rains, the sparkle of the human body — her husband's. His forty-sixth birthday was near at hand and yet he displayed the same inflexibility of body — the wide forehead, the glow of knowledge in the face, the careless tilt of the chin as if to fight and overcome misfortune. And this was her body, only hers. Kamala got goose-flesh.

  Her face felt hot; the space around the eyes seemed to burn and, hungrily, she stared at Surababu. She remembered his words of sympathy. But what had she been reduced to! The tiny cloud of suspicion that floated in her consciousness suddenly became a huge screen and there seemed to be an intimation of rain.

  She clenched her teeth hard as she spoke, 'What use is an empty wine-cup?'

  Surababu was startled and asked, 'Oh, what did you say?'

  Kamala smiled in envy and said, 'Nothing. But it is now ages since I have been telling you that I am bedridden. I can do precious little for you and you need care. For God's sake, you...'

  To her surprise, she noticed that Surababu did not turn his face away. His eyes did not look misty and there was no anguish at such a proposal. Instead, there was anger in his voice, as he said, 'What is this you are talking about?'

  Kamala felt as if she was sinking. Not because of any anger but out of an unknown fear.

  She said, 'Are you angry with me? You have just returned after a hard day's work. Why don't you go, change, have a wash and eat something? Why, instead, are you standing here?'

  And once again she squeaked, 'Indra, can't you hear me? Babu is standing here.'

  Surababu walked away. The breeze retained his fragrance only for a while. Kamala kept thinking, vacantly looking up from her bed. Outside, the shadows lengthened. From her bed, the drumstick plant could be seen clearly. Its leaves had flashed a smile in the sun a little while ago, and now it was slowly becoming a column of darkness. She went back twenty-two long years in memory. Ghana was yet to be born. Manika and Suna had not even been thought of. It was the first year after their marriage.

  'You are so fragrant, Kama!'

  'Hush... Please go away, mother is in that room and look, someone — may be one of your students, is knocking at the door. You have come back after a hard day's teaching. Are you not hungry?'

  All around there was fragrance. Covering her dishevelled hair in the spreading net of his face, she blushed. He remained there, unmoving.

  'Would you please go away?'

  'Do be quiet. I am listening to the song.'

  'What song are you talking about?'

  'There is music in the human breast, fragrance in the body; and do you know what there is in the touch?'

  'Fire!'

  'No you are wrong. The touch has the caress of lotus and sleep.'

  'Yes, everything is in your language. You are, after all, a professor of literature!'

  'Let us not talk of literature. Literature is not greater than life. It is no substitute for life. I lean on life, I drink life.'

  'Are you not ashamed?'

  'Shame is only a superficial mask. Why have something you don't believe in?'

  Startled, Kamala tried to get up, but in a burst of fire all the nagging pain and the sickness of her body came back. She continued lying down, sulked and could recognise that the fragrance was of an attar which was sold in the bazaar. It had been a long time ago. She had forgotten all about toiletry. Forgetting all personal pleasures, all pleasurable habits, she had turned herself into a tough housewife intent on rearing up children. Now they had gone out into the wide world. Manika and Suna had set up their own homes. Ghana was studying forestry at Coimbatore. Once he took up a job, Ghana too would get married even though he was still a child. Then there would be a daughter-in-law in the house. She had sacrificed all her desires and pleasures, deriving pleasure only in giving. Sacrificing and bringing up children.

  The softness of her palms had been sacrificed on the altar of domestic chores. Her delicate colouring had faded and there was an increasing loss of hair. Eating had become only a ritual after feeding the family. She would just wear anything and apply just a little bit of coconut oil on her hair. Now, for a year and half, she had lost even that capacity to work and remained immobilised in bed. Many doctors had examined her. She had swallowed too many medicines but no good had come out of them. The same soreness remained in the waist and the feet; the weakness increased and she knew that her body was slowly wasting away. She and attar! The fragrance had returned through his body, perhaps only to ease her. He was unusual that way. He never used perfume and often forgot to shave his face, comb his hair or put on appropriate clothes. He was a renowned professor, great in knowledge. Everything appeared nice on him, but surely not attar. Then where was that smell from?

  How good her husband was, she thought! God had gifted much to her.

  Darkness was deepening. Kamala wept—just a few wet drops of tears from hot eyes. Indra brought in the lamp. Kamala asked where he was and was told that Surababu had gone out for a stroll.

  'Where to?' she asked.

  'He did not tell me.'

  'Alright,' she said and kept quiet. Attar was available in the market and it was no one's monopoly. The world was full of human beings and if you sought out, you could get someone. No one waited for anyone else. And all the concerns, all the affections - they were there only for a while, something of a lie, really.

  Turning over in bed, Kamala lay quietly. More tears welled up. Indra stood by si
lently. He was used to her tears and now only tried to fathom the nature of her sorrow or pain as he asked, 'What should be the curry for the night?'

  'How long do you think I am here that you should keep on asking me this?' Her voice was slurred.

  Chewing the tip of his dhoti, Indra asked, 'You are crying, sister? Why, won't you get well soon?'

  'Let this body go into the hearth-fire. What use is this living except to bear more suffering? And in any case who belongs to whom?' she demanded.

  Indra was gone. Kamala felt that at least she had spoken out before someone. She wiped her face. She had declared her wish to die and felt somewhat light now. She kept lying in bed, thinking of death, which would be better than this kind of living. But when would it come? She could not recollect any forgiveness but only a mounting sense of being left out.

  Ghana was deeply attached to her but he had his studies, his future. Four months back when she had been very ill, he had not managed to stay for more than four days. His father also insisted that he should not spoil his studies. In fact that was everybody's chorus. And Manika and Suna - belonging to another household, how often could they come? No one should come in fact. Each one, after all, had a world to look after.

  The only one who she could call her own had returned from college and had gone out, without even a word to her.

  The lights were on. Kamala looked outside as she lay quietly, her mouth half-open as if she had stopped in the midst of saying something and her mind had flown away elsewhere.

  She thought she was at the age when the body's desires should end. She had borne him one son and two daughters. Entering her in-laws' house at the age of fifteen, she had put in twenty years of house-management. It had been one long stretch of time in which some had got broken homes, while others had left for the other world. She thought of those days of twenty-one years ago after the birth of Ghana. The hospital, the pain, the operation, the dressing, the unseasonal rain and the bitter cold wind that had made her shiver. The peace-loving professor would be startled at her cry and ask, 'Can't you sleep quietly? You have woken up the baby!' Sometimes, the baby also cried loudly.

  Life leans on happiness. It cannot continue with a sense of fear submerging it, she reflected. So sometimes, she had let herself go and in sheer self-defense had ignored the precepts of the shastras. The body remained a body, suffered injuries, recovered and only awaited other injuries.

  Manika came after Ghana and then came Suna. They were the fruits of happiness, if not of mere sensation.

  Even then, she had persuaded herself that the body's desires must end.

  So often she would tell her weakling friend Sovana, 'Dear friend, this is only a form of suffering and not happiness. It used to be so wonderful back in our father's home. All that swimming, plucking of flowers, climbing trees, racing to nowhere. Can one ever get back to those carefree days?'

  Often she remembered the living shadow of the strong, healthy, disease-free limbs and would hear the seductive whispers from the past.

  Often, sighs mingled with waves of philosophy and sought to overpower her.

  Her friend understood this. After the birth of her second child she had fallen victim to various ailments of the body and was soon reduced to a frame of bones. Her husband, on the contrary, a Foreman in a plant fabricating steel, looked as strong as Bhima.

  She always agreed with Kamala. 'Really, who knows about all the pain inherent in housekeeping and raising children? Where does one lose one's shine, one's strength?'

  Kamala would nod quietly. She could never think of Surababu as greedy or cruel. She had the keys and he always brought to her whatever he earned. He had also no expensive habits. He could never be compared to her friends' husbands. She would negate her own words and console her, 'It is all destiny, dear friend.'

  Kamala could guess her friend's economic condition from her crumpled clothes, uncombed hair and weak body. But she knew that the paan-chewing bony figure was a rebel. Her friend sustained her secret spirit of revolt but yet once again she became pregnant. However, this time she could not live to see the baby's face. Before the doctor's guilty eyes her Foreman husband stood with the baby boy in his arms while the mother lay on the bed like a dirty, cast-out piece of linen.

  Kamala had heard about this tragic finale from Surababu. With tears in his eyes, the sympathetic professor had given a graphic picture of the event. Through his elegant words the event had come alive. Kamala had felt the loss inside — not as a writer but as a woman. Her consciousness looking for deliverance had, as it were, met her friend somewhere in the sky. She had a sudden vision of the bony face with a curve of a smile, ridiculing life. Kamala used to pity that. Today, she herself was an object of pity. She felt as if it was her friend who had won. She felt like asking, 'All of us shall depart some day. Why then this unbearable existence?' Her pain boiled over as she remembered details and pieced them together.

  That evening, Surababu introduced her to a "new person," Srimati Chandra Midha alias Usharani Devi from Siam. He told her that she was a professor in a Ceylonese women's organisation. She had come under an exchange programme for teachers. She taught English but was also at ease with Hindi, Bengali and Tamil. She had spent two months at Puri before her arrival and in this time had become fairly fluent in Oriya.

  She was guileless, almost like a child. Surababu added, 'I am now proving to her that her ancestors hailed from Kalinga and hence her knowledge of Oriya has been acquired by past deeds.'

  Chandra Midha kept smiling. But there was a suggestion of sharpness in the movement of her arms, which she kept crossing and extending. Surababu said, 'Swagatam,' she said. 'Welcome.' Surababu tried to explain to her not only the meaning but the origin and derivation of words. Chandra Midha winked and tried to compare the words for love in respective languages— English, Hindi, Bengali and Oriya. Kamala laughed. Surababu said nothing.

  Kamala asked, 'Devi Chandra Midha, how many children do you have?'

  Surababu stared hard at her. Chandra Midha laughed strangely, and the ripples spread all over her face and along the pearls of her teeth inside the oval lips.

  She asked Surababu, 'Wachat,' meaning 'What is that?'

  Surababu took good care of her reception; Kamala did not struggle to get up again. From the drawing room, their laughter floated in. Kamala understood that Chandra Midha was quite fascinating and her laughter was music. She was the symbol of unembarrassed, strong and free life. It was something to be envied. Kamala has never had either that health or that freedom. From her narrow, tradition-bound bylane, she stared at Chandra Midha's unhampered highway. For the first time, she felt a secret shiver of fear inside. No one explained anything to her, but her woman's mind picked up the meaning from a refined level. That evening, she prayed to God to release her from life.

  The meaning of an event depends on one's attitude, and that attitude depends on one's mental condition, which in turn depends on several other situations. She recalled the events he had narrated to her and his analysis of them. She was not illiterate, even though she hailed from an interior rural area. She had studied up to primary school and had read out scriptures to please her mother. For her own pleasure she had also read some novels which prepare one to seek out a partner in life.

  Looking back at her past, she now felt that Surababu had never loved her, that he had loved only himself and, in order to let that self-love grow and spread out, he had used her only as a support. From the beginning he had attempted to teach her further, had failed and given up hope. She had been taken out on social rounds only when it was unavoidable. Otherwise he remained lost behind his pile of books.

  The selfish meaning of his monologue sometimes came back anew to her, 'If only someone had helped me a bit in my work I would have gone much farther in life. Doing a D. Litt. would not have been that difficult.'

  She remembered her cooking, her household worries, looking after children — surely these were of little use for his D. Litt.

  However, now that
Chandra Midha had come, she could surely help him in his D. Litt.

  She was after all a dwarf in knowledge, and what could she have done for him?

  Often, he gave his opinion on womenfolk in our society. He felt they were good housewives but no good as life-partners.

  'Do you understand, Kama?' he would say.'Dharma is not idol worship; it is activity according to one's ideal. If the husband is a doctor and the wife's dharma is the kitchen, do you think that makes for a good partnership?'

  She also recalled his comments on life and society with literature as the model.

  'Look at ethics. Many people ascribe new meaning to it and hide many lies, much false pretence behind it. There is no faith in the heart, but the name of Rama is on the lips. Our womenfolk take pride in their ethics but live in the dark, narrow cubicles of the mind. Trying to be careful, they end up being selfish; sometimes the dullest passes off as liberal-minded. And those who revel in sordid rumours and whose minds run in dark directions put on dazzling vermillion marks on the forehead and a broach with "Husband is the greatest guru" inscribed on it. True ethics does not consist in merely reserving one's body for the husband and storing a lot of garbage inside.'

  To all these she had nodded. He must, after all, be right. All that must be in the books which he taught to others. She never questioned or raised any arguments concerning the truth of those theories.

  Bisibabu, a senior student, often used to come to consult his "Sir." He was handsome, with thick eyelashes peeping out of his eyeglasses. He was a lovable person— ever smiling, and bright, and one always felt comfortable and happy in his presence. Sometimes, when Bisi was closeted with Surababu she had brought in tea and snacks for them.

  But suddenly one day, Surababu had poured venom against him, 'Don't trust that guy. He is a camouflaged devil. Please remember this.'

  Since then, she had never even come out when Bisi visited. He had such complaints against many other people. Looking into the past she realised that whenever anyone had tried to come close, Surababu had always spoken against him or her. That was perhaps his way of putting shackles on her feet. Behind his genial temper there lurked a lack of trust. So much about ethics, affection, and housekeeping. To her it all appeared to be an empty staying together, only gilt, edged by ideas. Life had taken a back seat. She would never regain her adolescent days, she thought sadly.