Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 1

by Khushwant Singh

  But not till the day her village people blew up the Gadiali bridge with dynamite did they suspect her of spying. Kashar was shocked. With the blowing up of the bridge something inside him also blew up. The bridge could be constructed again but there was nothing that could repair the ruin inside him. Fear-stricken, he watched the debris sinking into the river, its swirling current also carrying away his tenderest emotions making them stone-heavy, never to rise again. He stood there wordless, unable to cry or curse at Mogri while his soldiers watched him silently, their eyes full of reproach. Unable to bear their gaze he picked up his rifle and plunged into the Gadiali river. The soldiers stood aghast.

  Swimming across the river he entered the forest of Gadiali. For a number of days he wandered about in the forest, hungry and thirsty, marking out the places he had visited with Mogri. He recalled those moments with which he had built up his dream world, overcast with a hazy glow. He had often come to these places in Mogri’s absence, feeling her presence even while she was not there. The tree trunk where they had sat together seemed to have gathered a halo around it. The gurgling stream echoed her laughter and the flowers seemed to have captured the fragrance of her hair.

  But today his heart was empty. The glow of sentiments had died out, the trees were mere wood devoid of her magic touch and the stream a listless flow of water. Everything looked strange and alien.

  Still in a daze, he came out of the forest and climbing up the snowy peak of the Sardu, he came down the other side of the mountain at whose foot lay Mogri’s village.

  For a few days he roamed about incognito, trying to get the hang of things. He was in peasant clothes, conversant with the dialect of the villagers and so easily passed for an inhabitant of the area, without arousing suspicion. One night, finding the land clear, he stole into Mogri’s house and, entering the room where she was sleeping alone, he bolted the door from inside. Putting his rifle in a corner, he tiptoed to Mogri’s bed and took out his dagger.

  He stood there in the dark a long time, listening to Mogri’s gentle breathing. He could not see her face and it was with great effort that he smothered his desire to strike a match. Slowly he bent over her face. One last kiss and the dagger would pierce her heart. But as he stood bending over her, his breathing became faster and his mind was filled with echoes. He placed his burning lips on her mouth.

  Mogri shivered in her sleep. She was about to shriek when Kashar firmly held her mouth between his lips, making it impossible for her to raise an alarm. Then her body turned cold. It always happened like that. He remembered many glowing moments when Mogri would go cold in his arms as if her head and heart were in revolt against him. Then under the kindling heat of his kisses her frozen passion would gradually thaw. She would yawn and as the blood pulsed through her body she would throw her arms round his neck. It was a love-hate relation. She loved him, because he loved her passionately. She hated him because he was from the enemy’s territory. Torn by conflict, she was unable to come to any decision.

  This time also, her cold and scared body gradually kindled with the fire of passion, giving out sparks which no eye can see but only the hand can feel. Mogri had recognized the touch of that kiss. A beautiful woman, living dangerously, has to cope with many kinds of kisses – kisses, which eat into her body like termites and suck her blood like a leech; kisses, limp and leprous like insects crawling on chapped and dirty lips; kisses, diseased, fumbling and lecherous, and others bold and ardent, saturated with the sap of life. A beautiful woman like Mogri has to taste all such kisses. She knows the kisses that knock at the heart and burst open the floodgates of love. Then it is a kiss for a kiss. To others she does not offer kisses but only her cold lips.

  In the semi-warmth of midnight hour, Mogri, who had recognized the touch of those lips, was thrilled to the depth of her being and came into Kashar’s arms with complete abandon, as never before. Kashar felt as if heaven had descended upon the earth and the earth, taking long, gasping breaths, was all aquiver. His love was like an expiring song, struggling to find release from the coils of the body. Then everything went blank. The living moments, reaching their crescendo, had been submerged into somnolence.

  When he woke, the room was still enveloped in darkness. Mogri was lying asleep in his arms. Turning on his side, he stealthily picked up the dagger. Mogri muttered incoherently in her sleep. Before he could be carried away by his emotions, Kashar plunged the dagger up to the hilt in Mogri’s heart.

  Mogri did not even shriek. Clasping her body he absorbed the dying spasms of life into his own body. And when her body became still he imprinted a kiss on her cold lips, like one kissing a coffin.

  Unbolting the door, he crossed the courtyard and jumping over the wall he broke into a run, like one demented. The veins of his forehead had become taut like copper wires and every fibre of his body tolled like a bell, proclaiming danger. Running through the fields he started climbing the Sardu mountain.

  In the morning when Mogri’s brothers saw their sister’s dead body and discovered the rifle lying in a corner of her room, they hastened after Kashar. But he had already taken a four-hour start over them.

  He could clearly see the two brothers in the distance, walking steadily, their steps beating in unison. He knew them well. Strong and daring, accustomed like him to living dangerously, they were also proud and revengeful, believing in blood for blood. He knew they would give him no quarter. Nor would he beg them for mercy. The first was against their grain, the second, too humiliating for his liking. Had he got the rifle the best he could do was to keep them at bay. Now the best he could do was to keep out of their rifle’s range. They were walking with determined steps, like a mountain mule.

  He was also climbing at a steady pace, taking short, easy breaths to conserve his energy. But the distance between them was gradually decreasing. They were on the level plain and he on the slippery hillside, covered with soft, wet moss. He must be careful, for as he planted his feet forward, they dislodged rocks covered with gritty earth, sending them tumbling down. Stopping every now and then he looked back to gauge the distance that separated them. The bare hill made it easy to keep one another within view and mark the progress of the race between the pursuers and the pursued.

  Gradually, the morning clouds, white and golden, were whisked away as if by a hidden hand and the sun peeped out of the cerulean sky. As the morning advanced, it beat down on him mercilessly. Sweat broke out on his back and his face. The rays seemed to be perched on his eyelids and pricked his back like a lash. He felt parched but he walked on, sometimes breaking into swift strides, at others, falling into a slow trot, without giving himself a moment’s respite till the afternoon was upon him.

  His tongue became furred, his cheeks tingled as if prickly bushes had grown over them and his lungs worked like a blacksmith’s bellows, emitting short and sharp breaths. But he dared not stop, because his pursuers had not stopped. When he had covered three-fourths of the distance from where he could clearly see the snowy peak of the Sardu, surrounded by jagged rocks, and the wispy clouds brushed against his shoulders, he decided it was time to pause for some rest.

  He staggered to a nearby fountain and bending over it lapped up the water like an animal. While drinking greedily, he tore away his eyes from the water to have another look at his pursuers. They were now half way through. But he did not care. He had to scale another two thousand feet to reach the peak, which now projected over him like a protective umbrella. One last spurt, and he would be out of danger. Once he gained the summit his pursuers would not be able to keep track of him in the Gadiali forest.

  This put him on his mettle. He took a deep breath and dipped his face in the water. His tense, heated up body gradually relaxed. He lay down by the fountain, closed his eyes and stretched out his legs. He decided to snatch a few minutes’ rest and thus refreshed make a bid for the summit, and get out of harm’s way.

  He lay in a state of semi-somnolence, which drove away all fear from his mind. A vague intoxication, en
gendered by a sense of security, seeped through his mind and body, making him oblivious of the sound of an avalanche of rocks that came thundering down the slope. When the roar fell on his ears, he sat up in alarm, a cry of fear escaping his lips. He blindly ran to one side to escape the wrath of the hurtling mass of rocks and ducked as the avalanche swept past his head with the boom of a thousand guns. He felt particles of gritty earth entering his nostrils and filling his mouth. Then the earth shook under him and something hit his legs with the force of a powerful hammer blow. He fainted.

  When he came to, he found himself lying face downward, his body entombed in the earth, rocks, high and small, strewn around him. He couldn’t believe that he was still alive and the realization came to him as a great relief. His hands were stuck in the earth. Wiggling them, he first freed one hand and then the other. He dug the earth around him and extricated his body from under the rocks. He managed to pull out his left leg also. But when he turned on his side and strained to free his right leg, he groaned with pain. His leg was trapped under the rocks. Helpless, he lay there, panting.

  From where he lay he could have a view of the surroundings and the terrain below. He realized that he had escaped death by the skin of his teeth. The avalanche had swept past within yards of him, A moment’s delay in getting out of its course and his body would have been blown to bits. The avalanche, hurtling down its course, had spelt ruin, cutting deep furrows into the mountainside, uprooting shrubs and dislodging big boulders.

  For all he knew, his pursuers would have already met their doom, their corpses lying buried under thousands of tonnes of rock. But the next moment he saw them emerging from behind a rock, their bodies unscathed, rifles slung across their shoulders. They had started trudging along the path, shading their eyes with their hands and looking up every now and then. A bitter smile played across his face.

  Straining all the resources of his strength, he at last succeeded in freeing his right leg from under the heavy rock. The dislodged rock went spinning a long distance down the slope, making a roaring noise. The pursuers looked up alarmed and saw him rising to his feet, groggily.

  Throwing his full weight on the left leg, he took one step, tottered and fell. He realized that his right leg had been fractured, making it impossible for him to walk. A terrible pain shot through his torso. Getting up with great effort, he limped forward on his left leg. Surely, his pursuers had seen the terrible plight he was in and that was why they had accelerated their pace. He clenched his teeth and hobbled forward, making painfully slow progress. His pain was increasing minute by minute, ultimately forcing him to a rock, where he sat down, panting for breath like an animal. Time was slipping by and every minute that passed brought the enemies nearer. He got up again and hopping forward, almost broke into a run. It was an unequal race. If he put his injured leg on the ground he would feel as if acid and fire were searing his flesh and he would hop on one leg, keeping the useless one dangling in the air.

  Thus hopping, he traversed another thousand feet or so, till he felt completely broken. Confronted with the painful conclusion that he was on the verge of collapse he stretched himself on the ground and started crawling forward. The peak was now only about five hundred feet up. But his knees were already lacerated, his elbows began to bleed and his fingers split. But he refused to give in. All the hopes of his life, and its aches, were concentrated in his eyes.

  It seemed it was not his limbs but his eyes that did the crawling for him. Two hundred feet and then the last hundred. He had stopped looking back. Taxing his willpower to the utmost and calling all unknown resources of his body he crawled forward, inch by inch, traversed the last seventy feet of the journey and reached the top of the mountain. It stood sheer like an erect column against his pursuers but gently inclined towards the Gadiali forest like an easy chair.

  Panting heavily, he slumped down on the slope and closed his eyes.

  When he opened his eyes he saw the dense and green forest of Gadiali stretched below him into the far distance. Beyond the river, the sun was setting over his own land. An orange haze lay over its valleys, its streams and rice fields. A rainbow was arched over the place where once there had been the bridge. For sometime he lay gazing at this arc of colours, beautiful as his own dreams. Then suddenly he realized he had reached the end of his journey. He felt inert, pinned down to the spot where he lay. His body refused to obey his command.

  With a faint nod of his head he saluted the soldiers of his land whom he could dimly see stationed near the broken bridge. As he turned his head, he could see the two brothers at the periphery of his vision climbing up steadily. He was now within their rifle’s range but they could not take a pot shot at him, because he was lying sheltered behind a big boulder. To get at him they must first reach the top. Half an hour still separated him from them. The fateful half hour.

  As he lay there he thought of his childhood days, of the low hills of his village and the meandering paths that curled round them. He remembered the tall deodar trees which burst upon his sight like strangers round the bend, the streams flowing down like vivacious shepherd girls, and the light like a coverlet slowly stretching itself over the fair face of the valley. And then came the fragrance-laden dark night, dotted with earthen lamps, their light streaming into the dark, like the tunes of a melody, and their fragrance, the fragrance of love. He had reached the stage which marked the beginning of his life.

  From that point on, he covered the remaining span of his life in one leap. It occurred to him that the life that he had spent so far had been lived for others – for Mogri’s first love and last perfidy, for the love of his country and for the last act of revenge. And finally, it had brought down the curtain over that yawning gulf that had sundered kindred souls. Now what remained to him? Bit by bit, when he had paid off all debts, and settled all scores, all that was left to him was this half hour which was really his own.

  But half an hour is indeed a big chunk of time. One can achieve a lot in it. Why he could spread out his hands and embrace the sky. He could smell the sweet yellow flowers blossoming on the earth. He could see the tender swallow flying in the sky and the virgin streams frolicking in the meadows. Half an hour, in which he could distil the quintessence of a whole life. Half an hour is indeed a lot of time. He could even stretch it to eternity. When he realized this, he felt like a newborn for whom life had just begun.

  He felt light like a child, insensate to all pain. He thought he would stretch out his arms and give out a loud laugh. Could one be so fortunate as to have half an hour, which from beginning to end one could claim as one’s own’s own? Every ticking second of it was intimately familiar to him. Half an hour of which he was the complete master.

  A surge of joy rushed through him. With complete abandon, he relaxed his body and spread out his legs. Then he closed his eyes and patiently waited for Mogri’s brothers.

  (Translated from the Hindi by Jai Ratan)

  N I N E

  The Brinjal Cut-Out

  KRISHAN CHANDER

  Well, when I didn’t get a job at Barampur and we had almost starved for two days and I had only one fifty-paise piece left in my pocket, I asked my wife: ‘Have you got some atta for the midday meals?’

  ‘Just enough for four chapatis.’

  ‘Then that is all right.’

  ‘How?’ she asked.

  I took out the fifty-paise bit from my pocket and giving it to her, said: ‘Go to the vegetable market and buy some brinjals. I am sure you can cook some nice brinjal korma for the midday meal.’

  ‘Midday meal is fine, but what about the evening?’ she said curtly.

  ‘Worry not, my dear spouse. The One who sits high above in heaven will manage for us.’

  Then my glance fell on the small glass box containing a plaster of Paris replica of the Taj Mahal. This I had bought for my wife during the early days of our marriage. I had bought it in Agra itself after visiting the Taj. Love is so strange and inexplicable, especially during the early days of m
arriage. A rosy blush had suffused her cheek when I had given her this twenty-rupee gift. And now, when I looked at this old plaster of Paris replica and decided to sell it to make a bit of money, the colour of my wife’s face turned to ashen-grey.

  She said with anger, fear and hopelessness, ‘No, no. I won’t let you sell it. It – it is a symbol. A symbol of my suhag.’

  I tried to appease her anger by proposing. ‘All right we won’t sell it. We will sell something else. Maybe the One who lives high above will have mercy upon us. But now do go to the market and get some brinjals. I am starving.’

  She bought some big black brinjals, took them to the kitchen and began to cut them. As she sliced the first one into half, she stopped suddenly – the knife raised in the air.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘Look what is written inside the brinjal.’

  I studied the inside of the brinjal.

  The seeds had been so grouped as to form the word ‘Allah’ in the Arabic script.

  Mohalla Purbian where I was living then was a mixed locality. More than half were Hindus like us. The rest were mainly Muslims, with a sprinkling of Christians. The news of ‘Allah’ in a brinjal spread like wildfire in the mohalla, and people started coming in groups to see the miracle. The Hindus and Christians refused to believe there was any miracle, but the Muslims were all for it. Haji Mian Achchan gave the first nazar of five rupees mumbling something in an undertone.

  Because of its sacredness and also to safeguard it, I put this cut-out of the brinjal in the glass box by taking out the Taj. A believer put a green cloth under the box and soon our Munnan Mian was there reciting the Quran.