Our Favourite Indian Stories

by Khushwant Singh

  'Well we will have to go. We should see the car,' Lalu declared with the green guava in his mouth. After contemplating over his own proposal for a few seconds, he uttered as if to himself. 'But where will the car go? The road is broken at the streamside.'

  'Maybe the police is coming to Naharani' suggested Rudra.

  'Yes, maybe they will come to estimate the number of those killed.'

  'I was listening to my parents this morning. Father said that not a single soul was alive at Naharani.'

  They all knew about the incident by now. Some four days ago they had been awakened in the middle of the night by cries of men and women. They had seen the fire light up the sky on the south bank of the river. On the following morning they had come to know that an entire village had been gutted. Again, yesterday morning they had heard that people from the south bank had come to Naharani and butchered all of them. But the news could not create any reaction in them. They were yet to comprehend the horrors of death. They had only noticed that their fathers were not going to the market anymore. Rudra's elder brother had not returned from the south bank. One or two corpses came floating down the river. Food ran short. They got something to eat only in the morning to quell the overnight hunger. Scraping whatever they could get as supper, all went inside and bolted their doors. The village resembled a graveyard.

  'Was the car big, Butu?' Lalu inquired again and went on to exhort 'Let's proceed. If we cross the river by the banyan tree, we shall reach the broken part of the road very soon.'

  To resist such a tempting proposal was hard for the others. But then, even grown-ups were not venturing out-side the village limit—let alone kids.

  'Gonu must not go. If somehow the police chase us, can he outrun them?' Rudra tried to dissuade Gonu. In reply, Gonu made such a face that they were forced to include him, fearing that more trouble would brew otherwise. Gonu had just completed his fourth year of life.

  They started their journey walking over the dry bamboo leaves through the serpentine alley of a labyrinthine bamboo jungle. They were all around ten years old. Gonu was stark naked. Lalu wore a tattered vest that would be impossible to wear again if it were pulled off.

  The entire road was engulfed by an eerie silence. They considered themselves fortunate not to have encountered anyone on the way.

  Snatches of Bihu song sung by cowherds, a whistle blown by someone from the other bank, the sound of a boat piercing the calm river water—all these familiar sounds were missing. Pregnant silence engulfed everything.

  The winter river was shallow. It was around mid-day. The river ghat was deserted.

  There had been a slight drizzle overnight. The clear prints made by car tyres on the road were easily discernible. They were delighted and began to discuss matters just like grown-ups. How big the car must be and at what speed it must be running!

  After that there was an all-pervading silence and an ominous calm. The chirping of birds was missing. They must have gone somewhere else. Not a single soul was to be found anywhere. Besides the thick row of the wild cane by the river, there stood an up-turned bullock-cart.

  'A man!' Kon cried aloud suddenly. They saw a man lying facedown at the end of the cane thickets. A spear lodged in his back had pinned him down to the ground. Blood stains were visible on his back and in the nearby grass. His hands were spread out wide. It looked as if his dying wish had been to touch the river.

  Lalu and his compatriots halted in silence and shuddered. Lifting their eyes from the man, they saw macabre deeds of man's cruelty littered all around. There were houses reduced to ashes, half-burnt trees, a recoiling mud-smeared corpse of a naked woman, a youth with his head missing, a child pinned to a banana tree with a spear.

  They moved forward dumbly, eyes full of astonishment. They could not comprehend why these people had been killed. Probably those who were killed did not know why they had to die.

  'That's the car there,' Tutu cried aloud in amazement. The broken road led to a small alley by the river, fit only for bullock-carts. A jeep was parked at an open space below. They approached the jeep at a trot. In the meantime—some people had disembarked from it.

  In the front there was an open grassland and on it there lay some corpses of children. No serious injury could be noticed on their bodies.

  'That is the boy who was always seen with his fishing rod,' exclaimed Butu. The boy's face was very familiar to them. They had seen him sitting on the other side of the bank with his fishing rod from morning to dusk. He did not come to search for mangoes like other boys, nor did he swim much. He could never hook a fish but he had remarkable concentration and purposefulness, strong determination and tenacity. Even now on his dead face he wore an impassioned look—as if he would rise up at any moment, collect his familiar fishing rod and stroll towards the riverbank.

  'Hey—where from the blue sky have these appeared? Maybe they are kid ghosts', one of the men who got down from the jeep joked on seeing Gonu and his partners. A tall and lean young man was minutely observing the scattered corpses of children on the grass. Three cameras of different makes were strapped to his shoulder.

  'Horrible business, isn't it, Raghuda?'

  'I've seen much more than this', the man wearing glasses called Raghu said nonchalantly. 'Do you remember Sanjay, that time in Maldah? People all over India were later amazed at the photos taken by me. Haradhan Babu became so excited that he even presented us two bottles of champagne.'

  The wheat-complexioned man called Sanjay nodded in reply. Incessant streams of sweat trickled down his forehead. Even the act of bringing out his hanky to wipe off his sweat at regular intervals seemed to tire him.

  'My God, what heat and humidity! How do people live in such heat? Isn't there a cold drinks shop nearby?' Sanjay muttered in frustration.

  'You are saying fine things. It's not your Boston city. You can write in The New York Times that there are still places on earth twenty miles off from motorable roads. The nearest station is forty miles way and to see an electric light one has to go another fifty miles,' said the lean and tall young man.

  Looking at those jeep-borne men one could easily understand that they belonged to a different world. Their talks, behaviour, laughter were completely strange for Gonu and his lot.

  They wore vibrantly shaded clothes. They had put on coloured glasses on their eyes. Cameras and tape recorders hung from their shoulders, and sunlight reflected up glossy metallic parts.

  'Well, well, take the shots soon. Shadows of these trees will soon creep up. No photo can be bright without uniform light,' cautioned Raghuda.

  The men got down to their business rapidly. The tall lean young man focussed his camera with deft hands. The costly cameras shone in the daylight.

  'It's our luck that we have reached here early. By tomorrow the stench of the rotten corpses will become unbearable. What do you say, Lima?'

  'I am lucky to have escaped the stench. I can't bear it. I could not have food for two days in cyclone-ravaged Andhra Pradesh. Do you remember, Hamen?'

  'Hamen,' Raghuda inquired loudly, 'the man crying in front of the dead child—did you talk to him?'

  'The child before him was his son. His wife had also died, he told me....'

  'Arun, have you taken a snap of the man?'

  'Yes, Raghuda,' the tall young man replied.

  'Wait a bit, one cannot ascertain whether the boy is dead or alive. How did the kid die? There is no injury mark on his body. Do one thing Arun. Drag that man near to the child whose belly has been pierced by an arrow. Be quick! Mr Bhatta promised to wait for us at Nagaon. He is also arranging some drinks for us.

  'Raghuda,' the woman called Lima said. 'An incident exactly like this involving Harijans occurred in Khansiram. Do you remember?'

  'No, no friend, so many incidents have gone past before this very camera of Sharma's. How many of them can you remember?'

  It seemed the tall young man was facing some difficulty. He was trying to take a picture covering all the scattered corpses
of children. The wrinkles on his forehead indicated his frustration. He could not find the correct angle for the photograph.

  'Hamenda, can't we lift some corpses from the middle and place them here, this way? Now, there remains a vast open space from every angle. The entire photo should be littered with corpses, to show how dreadful this scene is. Corpses must lie all across the photo. Am I right, Raghuda?'

  'No, never,' the man called Sanjay protested vociferously at the suggestion. 'It will be unethical to lift from the middle. But if gaps between the bodies remain, the photograph will not be able to horrify people.'

  All the men began mulling over the problem in silence. Even the veteran Raghuda slung off his camera in exasperation.

  Suddenly the woman named Lima who was staring hard in the direction of Gonu and his partners said, 'Listen Hamenda. An idea has occurred to me, but...'

  The Assamese-looking bald man and the others came close to her. Lima whispered something in their ears and their faces lit up, glowing in relief. Patting her back, Raghuda said something in her praise.

  The man called Hamen suddenly turned towards Gonu and his friends.

  'Hey kids, come here,' he spoke in Assamese. 'Don't be afraid boys, come here.'

  Gonu grasped Lalu's hand hard. Their heartbeats increased. They became scared.

  'The poor follows are scared. I think they will run away', the one called Arun said.

  'They will have to come, they must come. Now, give me the bag of apples.' Hamenda brought down the bag containing apples from the jeep and pulled some out. The red ripe apples glowed in the sunshine as if tempting them.

  'Come here, friends take these,' he prodded the boys in a persuasive, friendly voice.

  Lalu went forward as if mesmerised. He was followed by Rudra, Butu, Gonu... Flames of fire from inside their stomachs leapt up, their eyes focussing only on the red ripe apples.

  'Well, you all will get one apple each. But before that you will have to lie on the grass here like good boys.'

  Gonu and the other boys were almost forced by Arun, Lima and Raghuda to lie prostrate on the grass and they meekly complied with their instructions. They lay beside the pulseless bodies of the fishing-rod-crazy, mango-searching boys who were gone forever. Skinny, terrified-faced, torn-clothed Gonu and Butu merged with the corpses easily.

  Promptly, the camera froze this hair-raising scene.

  'Once I went to see a movie of Godard. I think it was The Lacrosse Players. There was a scene exactly like this one. A school bus had met with an accident and the children had been thrown everywhere by the impact. One of them was still clinging to his school bag, text books and copybooks while lying in pools of blood. What a terrifying scene! After all Godard knew well how to create a scene,' said Raghuda. His aloof nonchalant face could still be warmed by this memory.

  'Have you seen Godard's latest picture All about Mrs. Kere....'

  Gonu and his friends stood up. Lalu was lying beside the corpse of the fishing-rod-crazy boy. Standing up, he stared hard at the pulseless body. Then he carefully looked at his own. Then at Gonu and Butu. Probably some equation was going on in his mind. The tall youth tossed away one apple each to the boys, in a dismissive gesture.

  'You are, delaying, Arun. Mr Bhatta will get bored waiting for us at Nagaon,' the one called Ranjan was getting impatient. 'Moreover, if we are to visit Laarighat also....'

  'Not Laarighat, Ranjanda. L-A-H-R-I-G-H-A-T.' Lima corrected him smilingly. 'The names are also a muddle. By the way, these people are fortunate. Otherwise the world would not have come to know the names of these villages. Now the names of the villages are in the headlines of each and every newspaper.'

  Their jeep started.

  The dumb eyes of Gonu and his friends saw how the engine of the jeep roared, how the smoke billowed out, how the wheel moved and how the machine sped away. The jeep disappeared out of sight, disturbing the innocent virgin dust of the village road....

  The size of the apple on Gonu's palm dwindled gradually. They had never tasted an apple before. As soon as the jeep became lost to sight near the sharp turn of the river, the apples in their hands also disappeared.

  The dreamy-eyed kids slowly returned home— a glorious taste on their tongues and the memory of a jeep on their simple minds.

  Translated by Jyotirmoy Chakravarte

  KASHMIRI

  The Bride's Pyjamas

  Akhtar Mohi-ud-din

  Nabir Shalla, the darner, was already three score and ten. He owned a ramshackle, two-windowed wooden house on the banks of the Jhelum. He sat in the verandah of this house engaged in his work, his thick glasses mounted tight on his nose, and crooned his favourite rhymes with a child-like lisp:

  She brought me a goblet of wine,

  And took my breath away.

  Nabir Shalla had passed most of his years sitting in the verandah and all this time had remembered only two songs, which he recited in season, and out. The second song was:

  Her skin is smooth as a ripened peach,

  Oh God! Keep her safe from the world's gaze.

  From early childhood there had been a curious lisp in his speech. With the loss of teeth it had become more pronounced. The little swath of grey beard shone like snowflakes on his face as if small tufts of cotton scattered over the garment of Dame Shalla had been glued to his cheeks. In spite of a distinct tremor in his hands, he was able to make a living; indeed customers flocked to him for he has an expert at the job, many times better than most.

  Nabir Shalla loved his ramshackle house and his wife Khotan Didi more than anything else in the world. Every evening she would gently press his back and caress away his day's fatigue, fetch him platefuls of hot rice, and fill his hookah chilam1. Whenever he sat in the verandah crooning his rhymes and running his darning needle through a patch of rafal2 cloth, she would sit in front of him, sifting cotton or spinning at her wheel. Nabir Shalla would make a sly comment, 'You be the 'prentice and I the master.'

  Pricked by his remark Khotan Didi would retort, 'Why should I be the 'prentice? Why not you?'

  Khotan Didi had only one tooth left in the front of her upper jaw; and since her lower lip had caved in, this tooth hung out like a nail. Her face was wrinkled like a shrunken turnip and her hair matted like dirty white cloth. It was twenty years now since she had her last child but in her life she had been confined about ten times. Unfortunately, none of her children had survived except her two daughters. Both of them were now settled in their homes and had relations of their own. In their wooden shack Nabir Shalla and his wife lived reasonably well without ever encountering a serious misfortune; they had run into debt to pay for their daughters' marriage but had gradually paid off the last penny. Khotan Didi had only one regret. None of her sons had lived long enough. It was rumoured that the Shallas possessed a large moneybag, worth a thousand or two. Heaven alone knew their real position; they lived off their meagre earnings and that was all.

  His thick glasses mounted on his nose, Nabir Shalla worked on a piece of a rafat cloth today, crooning his favourite rhyme with the same child-like lisp:

  She brought me a goblet of wine,

  And took my breath away.

  By his side sat Khotan Didi at her spinning wheel humming in tune to the music of the wheel. It had rained, though not for long, yet the waters of the Jhelum were muddy and the heat was oppressive. He would have preferred not to work in this heat but then he was the sole earner. Whether he liked it or not, work he must. He had begun to realise that it was his own sweat and blood that went into mending of other's clothes. He was all in a sweat and the rafal cloth on his bare knee gave him much trouble. But work he must, and in order to forget his discomfort he hummed his rhymes while he worked. He finished darning a patch, and in order to cut the cord, cast about in search of his scissors. But they were not to be found anywhere.

  At last he asked his wife, 'Wherever have you put the scissors?'

  'I put them on the shelf,' she replied.

  'Bring them he
re. I need them.'

  Khotan Didi had rheumatism in her legs. She could not move about and found it difficult to stand on her legs. If she had her own way she would not have moved about at all for the rest of her life. Yet she could not turn down her husband's request. She moved in considerable pain and began searching for the scissors. She looked on the shelf, looked into the small tin-box, but the scissors were nowhere to be found. Nabir Shalla grew impatient. He wanted to finish with his work and stretch his limbs and rest.

  'Look sharp! Will you?' he cried.

  Khotan Didi pulled a bag from the shelf; it was full of worn out children's garments and old clothes.

  'How very sad!' thought Khotan Didi, 'The children all dead, but the clothes still intact.'

  And one by one she remembered her children and the tears suddenly sprang to her eyes. Her flat breasts began to tingle. As she was throwing the old clothes about, she chanced upon a pair of rose red pyjamas. These were the pyjamas she had worn on her marriage day, a long, long time ago, But they were still there— the only thing left of her dowry. Her heart gave a sudden throb as she plunged into the memories of her youth.

  Khotan Didi felt abashed. She tried to hide it away from her husband. But the glaring red colour of the garment screamed for attention. She blushed all over, her heart beating like that of a virgin's and tongues of flame licking her entire body. She was the newly wedded bride and Nabir Shalla her youthful groom. Images floated before her eyes of her godmother leaving her nuptial room and of Nabir Shalla approaching. For a moment Nabir Shalla appeared before her once more as a young man. She looked sideways at her husband. He chuckled and hummed his usual melody:

  Her skin is smooth as a ripened peach....

  Nabir Shalla appeared really young in his pheran3 and pashmina chaddar4 while a turban of the finest brand of muslin crowned his head. Here was the groom fresh from the marriage ceremonial; here was the bride weaving a net of silly ideas and anticipating the advances of Nabir Shalla with trepidation.