Our Favourite Indian Stories

by Khushwant Singh

  At a little distance from me two cheroots were glowing red in the darkness. It appeared as though Life was sitting there heavily, smoking, and thinking about itself.

  'Which is the next village on our way?' asked Paddalu.

  'Kaldari,' said Rangi.

  'We have a long distance to go.'

  'Don't do it today. You ought to be careful. Not today. We will try some other time when it is safer. Will you not listen to me?' pleaded Rangi.

  'You are afraid—you slut,' said Paddalu. He tickled her side with a dig of his finger.

  'Oh!' she said and looked skyward as if she wished the feeling this gave her would last forever.

  Gradually, I fell asleep. The boat moved downstream as if also in sleep. The two figures not far from me were talking in whispers to each other for some time. Though I was sleeping, a part of me was awake. I knew that the boat was moving, that the water was lapping its sides, that the trees on the banks were moving backwards. Inside the boat every one was asleep. Rangi moved from my side to the rudder and sat beside the man who was handling it.

  'How are you, brother?' she asked.

  'How are you?' asked the man at the rudder.

  'Oh!' what wonders we have seen, my man and I! We went to a cinema. We saw a ship. What a ship it was! Brother, it was as big as our village. I do not know where its rudder was.'

  She told him of a hundred things and her voice caressed me in my sleep.

  'Oh girl! I am feeling sleepy,' said the man at the rudder.

  'I'll hold it, you lie down there,' said Rangi.

  The boat moved on silently-slowly. Without disturbing the silence, Rangi raised her voice in a song:

  Where is he! Oh where is he, my man!

  I put the food in the plate and

  Sit there awaiting his return.

  Like a shadow the night deepens,

  But no sleep comes to my eyes-Where is he, my man?

  The cold wind stings me like a scorpion

  And my nerves contract and ache,

  Unless you press me with your warm body

  I may die,.. Where is he?—my man!

  Rangi's voice had music in it. It seemed as though all living creatures heard the song in their sleep. Age-old tales of love reverberated sadly and mysteriously in that song. It spread like a sheet of water and the world was afloat in it like a small boat. Human life, with its love and longing, seemed heavy, inevitable and strange.

  A little distance from me, Paddalu sat with his head covered with a sheet. But a gulf seemed to separate him from Rangi.

  After some time Paddalu went inside the boat. I shook off sleep and lay looking at the stars. Rangi was singing.

  You thought there was a girl in the lane behind the hut

  And sneaked there silently.

  But who is the girl, my dear man ?

  Is she not I in my bloom ?

  Rangi's song travelled through the worlds; then returned and touched me somewhere in my heart. I felt drowsy. In my sleep, the elemental longing of man and woman for one another danced before me like rustic lovers playing hide and seek. A dream world entirely new to me, spread before me in my sleep. Rangi and Paddalu moved about in a myriad forms. The song slipped away from my consciousness, and the doors of my mind were gradually closed even to dreams.

  Some confusion in the boat woke me and I sat up. The boat was tied to a peg on the bank. The boatmen were moving about hurriedly in the boat and on the bank, with lanterns. On the bank two men stood on either side of Rangi holding her by her arms. One of them was the clerk. He had a piece of rope folded in one of his hands. It looked as if Rangi was going to receive a thrashing. I jumped on to the bank and asked them what was wrong.

  The clerk's face flushed with anger. He said, 'The rogue has run away with some of our things. This daughter of a bitch must have got the boat to a bank while everybody was asleep. She was holding the rudder, the slut." There was a note of despair and helplessness in his tone.

  'What were the goods stolen?' I asked

  'Two baskets of jaggery and three bags of tamarind. That was why I said I would not allow them on the boat. I will have to make up the loss.' Then he asked Rangi, 'Where did he unload the goods?'

  'Near Kaldari, my good sir!'

  'You liar! All of us were awake at Kaldari.'

  'Then it must have been at Nidadavolu.'

  'No, she will never tell us. We will hand her over to the police at Attili. Get on to the boat!'

  'Kind sir, please allow me to go.'

  'Get on the boat,' he ordered pushing her towards the boat

  Two boatmen dragged her into the boat.

  'Sleepy beggars! Careless idiots! Have you no sense of responsibility? Why should you put the rudder in her hands?' The clerk was very angry. He went back to his room.

  Rangi resumed her former seat. One boatman sat beside her to guard her. The boat moved again. I lighted a cheroot.

  'Kind sir, spare me one too,' she asked me in a tone which suggested intimacy.

  I gave her a cheroot and a box of matches. She lighted it.

  'Dear brother! What can you gain by handing me over to the police?'

  'The clerk will not let you go,' said the boatman.

  'Is Paddalu your husband?' I asked her.

  'He is my man,' she replied.

  The boatman said, 'He seduced her when she was a young girl. He did not marry her. Now he has another girl.'

  'Where is she, Rangi?'

  'In Kovvur. Now she is in her bloom. When she has endured as many blows as I have, she will look worse than I do. The dirty bitch!'

  'Then why do you have anything to do with him?' I asked.

  'He is mine, sir!' she replied, as if that explained everything.

  'But he has another woman.'

  'What can he do without me? It does not matter how many women a man has. I tell you sir, he is a king among men. There is not another like him.'

  The boatman said, 'Sir, you cannot imagine what this fellow really is, without knowing him. She was just bubbling with life and youth when she got entangled with him. One night he locked her up in her hut and set fire to it. She was almost burnt to death. It was only her good fortune that saved her.'

  'I felt like strangling him with my bare hands. If I could have only got at him. A red-hot bamboo fell across my back from the roof of the hut.' She lifted her blouse a little. Even in that darkness I could see a white scar on her back.

  'Why are you still with him after all this cruelty?' I asked.

  'I cannot help it, sir. When he is with me, I simply cling to him. He can talk so well and my sense of pity wells up like a spring. This evening we started from Kovvur. On the way, he begged me on his knees to help him in this affair. He said he was completely broke.. We reached the Nidadavoli channel by a short cut across the fields...'

  'Where did he land the goods?'

  'How should I know?'

  'Oh! she will never tell the truth, the rogue!' said the boatman laughing.

  There was a sudden impulse of curiosity in me to have a close look at her face. But in that darkness, she remained hazy and inscrutable.

  The boat crawled slowly on the smooth sheet of water. As midnight passed, the breeze developed a colder sting. There was a slight rustle of leaves on the trees. I did not sleep again that night. Rangi's guard tried ineffectually to fight his overpowering desire to sleep and finally yielded to it. But Rangi sat there listlessly smoking her cheroot, reconciled to her position.

  'You were not married at all?' I asked her.

  'No. I was very young when Paddalu took me away.'

  'Which is your native village?'

  'Indrapalem... Then I did not know he was a drunkard... Now, of course, I have caught it from him. There is nothing wrong if one drinks. But sometimes when he is drunk, he is wild.'

  'You could have left him and gone back to your parents.'

  'That is what I feel like when he becomes wild. But then there is no one else like him. You do not kno
w him. When he is not drunk he is as meek as a lamb. He might take a hundred women, but he comes back to me. What can he do without me?'

  The woman's attitude struck me as strange, and I could not divine what held those two together. Rangi said again. 'No job suited either of us. So we had to take to thieving. When my mother was alive, she used to scold me for making a fool of myself. One night he brought that girl to my hut.'

  'Which girl?'

  'The one he is now living with. He put her on my bed and lay down beside her. Before my very eyes! Both of them were drunk. The slut! I pounced upon her and scratched her violently. He intervened and beat me out of my breath. About midnight he went away with her somewhere. He returned again. I called him names and refused to admit him into the house. He collapsed on the doorstep and began to weep like a child. I was touched. I sat beside him. He took me into his lap and asked me to give him my necklace. What for? I asked him. He said it was for the other girl. I was beside myself with anger and heaped on him torrents of abuse. He told me, weeping that he could not live without that girl. My anger knew no bounds. I pushed him out and bolted the door from inside. He pulled at it for a while and went away. I lay with my eyes wide open and could not sleep for a long time. But after I fell asleep, the house caught fire. He had locked the hut on the outside and set fire to it. I tried the door desperately and at that time of the night my shouts for help did not reach my neighbours. My body was being fried alive. I fell unconscious. My neigbours must have rescued me in that state. The police arrested him the next day. But I told them categorically that he could not have been the author of the crime. That evening he came to me and wept for hours. Sometimes, when he is drunk he weeps like that. But when he is not drunk, he is such a jolly fellow. I gave him that necklace.'

  'Why do you still assist him in these crimes?'

  'What am I do when he comes and begs me as if his whole life depends on it?'

  'Did he really take you to all those places, Vijayanagaram, Visakhapatnam and what not?'

  'No. I wanted to gain the confidence of the boatmen. On two former occasions, this very boat was robbed.'

  'What will you do if the police arrest you?'

  'Why should I do anything? What can they do? I have no stolen goods in my possessions. Who knows who was responsible for the robbery? They might beat me. But ultimately they will have to set me free.'

  'Supposing Paddalu is caught with these goods?'

  'No, he would have disposed of them by now. I remained in the boat to give him enough time to effect his escape.'

  She heaved a sigh and then said sotto voce, 'All this goes to that damned bitch. He will not leave her till her freshness fades away. I have to suffer all this for the sake of that slut.'

  There was not a trace of emotion in her voice, nor was there any reproach. She accepted him as he was and was prepared to do anything for him. It was not sacrifice, not devotion, not even love. It was simply the heart of a woman, with a strange complex of feelings, tinged with love as well as with jealousy. There was only one outward expression for this medley of feelings and that was the longing she felt for her man. Every fibre of her heart thirsted for that man. But she had no demands to make of him, ethical or moral. She did not mind if he was not true to her, even if he was cruel to her. She loved him as he was, with all his vagaries and pettiness and with his wild and untamed spirit. What did she derive from such a life with the dice so loaded against her? What was her compensation? Was not such a life unhappy and burdensome? But then what was happiness except the lack of a consciousness of the unhappiness? Was I happy judging by that standard?

  The wind rose gradually. The boat moved faster. There were signs of the world waking up slowly from its rejuvenating slumber. Here and there peasants could be seen going to their fields. The morning star had not yet risen. Rangi drew her knees closer, folded her arms around them and sat looking into the fading night.

  'He is my man. Wherever he goes, he is bound to return to me,' she said slowly, not particularly addressing me. These words summarised the one hope, the one strength, the one faith that kept her irrevocably linked with life. Her whole life revolved around that one point. There was pity, fear and above all reverence in my heart for that woman. How confusing, grotesque, terrifying, even insane, are the affairs of the human heart!

  I sat looking at her till the day broke. Before I got off the boat, I put a rupee into her hand without being observed, and went away without waiting to see her reaction. I never met her again.

  Translated by the Author

  Cloud Stealing

  Malati Chendur

  For three years the soil had not tasted a drop of rain. It was a town — a taluk headquarter renamed as Mandala Kendra. There are a lot of habitations in India where the land is not fortunate enough to receive even a drop of rain. There are several villages in Rajasthan where it does not rain for three to four years at a stretch. Scarcity of water is not a surprise and a small town not experiencing a shower is no rare phenomenon.

  The inhabitants of this particular small town performed Varuna Yagya in the fond hope that the Rain-God would heed their repeated requests. And they fervently prayed to the local goddess to have pity on them. They even invited talented singers from a neighbouring town to sing Amruta Varshini Raga. One devout musician in wet clothes played on the violin non-stop for forty-eight hours. As tradition would have it, they performed the marriage of frogs, fetching water from a distant place, as all the wells had become dry. Even the groundwater disappeared and the municipality, which looked after the civic needs of the people was in utter distress.

  'Frogs would be countless if the tanks were full' — sang Poet Vemana. But the water-tanks in that town had become waterless long back. Even the mud at the bottom had become dry. Frog marriage was performed in all its ceremonial pomp with nadaswaram and drums, but everything turned out to be futile. The God of Rain showed no consideration to these well-meaning townsfolk.

  When will rain-water bless us? How long are we to depend upon water-tankers from the adjoining State?

  These were the questions, tormenting all. How could they leave their ancestral houses, landed property, office and high school to migrate to a new place? It was impractical and impossible.

  All the Poojas, vratas, festivities, frog-marriages had come to a meaningless end. When the entire population of the town was in a hopeless mess, there suddenly loomed on the horizon—rain-clouds. With deep concern they watched the clouds moving in the sky, entertaining fond hopes of the black clouds blessing them with a few showers. Every evening, people would come out into the open and watch the sky for a pleasant look at the racing black clouds. On the first day, they did not notice any airplanes but on the second, they did spot one, flying along with the clouds.

  'Not one, but two.' said Chalapati, from his bridge table at the local Club.

  'Could be some young pilots practising,' said Samba Murti, sitting calmly at the bridge table.

  'It is no motor driving with an 'L' Board,' retorted Chalapati, making a dig at his friend.

  Samba Murti, an Insurance Man, was in the mood of picking up a quarrel with Advocate Chalapati. He said, 'It could be a test-flight.'

  'They do not allow test flights in inhabited places,' retorted Chalapati, after which both settled down to cards.

  For about a week every evening, the people watched those black clouds along with the airplanes that constantly encircled them. The boys in the town spread the story that the 'planes were carrying passengers and the Pilots were waving coloured kerchieves to the people on the ground. One schoolgirl said it was green and the other swore it was red.

  'I noticed very clearly the red kerchief,' said Parimala.

  'Oh, that's why you are in a red border sari and a red blouse today. Maybe you expect the Pilot to lift you up from your backyard,' said Rekha.

  'You are insolent. This is my normal dress,' said Parimala. Her secret had become public! In her heart there was a lurking desire to marry a Pilot who wou
ld make her fly like a bird. In uniform, a Pilot appeared to be a charming Prince to her.

  'The sky has been full of dark clouds but there has been not a single drop of rain.' said Chalapati's wife Vandana that night to her husband.

  'No thunder-no lighting. Clouds simply continue to chart the sky.' Chalapati responded to his wife's observation.

  'You are always deeply engrossed in cards at the table. I wonder if you care to listen to thunder or see flashes of lightning. Cards hold your complete attention.' Vandana was quick to reply.

  'Maybe they are supplying water through airplanes. There was no thunder, Dad, just the noise of airplanes,' said Rekha, Chalapati's daughter.

  'Who said this?' Chalapati asked.

  'Meenakshi's daughter-in-law Subhadra says, 'When water is being carried by shiploads to needy places, why can't this be done by air? Every evening they have been sending drinking water from Orissa to some place not far off from here.'

  He never questioned the wisdom of the city girl, Subhadra. Who had spread this gossip? That night after dinner, he asked Rekha to fetch for him the entire bundle of newspapers of the month and arrange them date wise. He glanced through all the sheets carefully. When water could be transported by ship, there was nothing incongruous in its being carried by air.

  After all, trains had carried water when the metropolis had faced acute shortage. Subhadra's statement could not totally be dismissed, he thought. That night he had a disturbed sleep. It was certainly quite unusual and unbelievable for airplanes to carry drinking water. Nowhere had it happened, as far as he knew. But his legal acumen could smell a rat. Every evening the airplanes drew the attention of the young and the old. Even the schoolboys and schoolgirls were observing them in anticipation. That particular morning on two occasions, he noticed those 'planes flying with the clouds. What was this mystery all about?

  Around that time, Jagannath, his brother-in-law from the city visited them. Suddenly it dawned upon Chalapati that there was a border town of two neighbouring States.