Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 1

by Khushwant Singh

  Muslims from neighbouring places – from Samastipura to Memonpura and from Baijwada to Kamangarh, and right from Sailan Mian’s Chowk to Mohalla Kothiaran – came in droves to see the miracle.

  One said: ‘Look, how our faith had burst forth in the house of a kafir?’

  The other said: ‘It’s the will of Allah. A warning to these infidels.’

  Nazar began pouring in. In the first fortnight I collected more than Rs 7,000. Out of this amount I gave Rs 300 to Saein Karam Shah who smoked hashish and protected the miracle all the twenty-four hours.

  The crowds started thinning after about twenty days.

  Then one night when Saein Karam Shah was asleep under the spell of his opiate I took out the brinjal, slightly turned the cut-out and took it to my wife. ‘Look, what do you see now?’ I asked her.

  Her hand flew to her mouth. Wide-eyed with astonishment, she exclaimed, ‘Hare Ram! Look, how this Arabic Allah has changed into ‘Om’ in the Devanagari script. It is veritably a great miracle.’

  That very night I knocked at the door of Pandit Ram Dayal and showed him the brinjal cut-out – now placed at a different angle.

  ‘Hare Rama! Hare Krishna! This is Om, our Om. The Muslims have been deceiving us all these days.’

  Saein Karam Shah was awakened out of his slumber. He looked with reddened eyes at Ram Dayal who threw him out of the house saying, ‘Get out, you infidel. You have desecrated our dharma. Confusing our Om with Allah! Out!’

  The Hindus of the city were thrilled to know that the seed figure in the brinjal was really Om and not Allah. Now Pandit Ram Dayal took complete charge of the situation. Arti began to be performed day and night before the cut-out. There were kirtans and bhajans, and rich offerings of money, clothes and even jewellery. I decided to give one-fifth of the offerings to the pandit. He who works so hard must get his due. I believe in justice and in helping the weaker sections of society.

  Now swamis and gurus and acharyas from various places began to pour in to have a look at the brinjal in which Allah had turned into Om and had, in a way, defeated the Muslims, avenging all the three battles of Panipat. There were any number of lectures on the superiority of our dharma in the city. Gradually the friendly atmosphere soured into doubt, disbelief and tension.

  Hindus said, ‘Veritably this is Om.’

  Muslims said, ‘Indubitably this is Allah.’

  ‘Om.’

  ‘Allah.’

  ‘Hari Om Tat Sat.’

  ‘Allah ho Akbar.’

  In the next month I gathered a rich harvest of about Rs 25,000 in the form of offerings.

  Then the interest in the miracle began to wane, so I had to think of another way to revive attention.

  One night, when Ram Dayalji was fast asleep, I woke up my wife and said, ‘See the cut-out? What does it say?’

  ‘Om. Clearly it is Om.’

  Then I turned the ‘Om’ a bit, rearranged the seeds with some effort and asked, ‘What do you see now?’

  ‘My God,’ my wife said in utter amazement. ‘This is a Cross, Christ’s Cross! How did you manage it?’

  I put a finger on my lips. ‘Keep quiet. Tomorrow is Sunday. I will go and consult Padre Durand.’

  The next day Padre Durand came with eleven other Christians to see the Holy Cross in the brinjal cut-out. They were flabbergasted at the transformation. They made the sign of the Cross and began to sing hymns. The Christians of the city flocked to see the miracle.

  The tension and excitement began to rise. The Hindus said it was Om. The Muslims insisted it was Allah. The Christians firmly believed it was the Holy Cross.

  There were cases of stoning, then of knifing, then of killing. Two Hindus were murdered in Samastipura. three Muslims were done to death in Surjanpura, a Christian was stabbed in the chowk of the city. The police decided to arrest me.

  But I got wind of it before they could catch me. I threw the brinjal cut-out in the gutter, packed my belongings and came to Bombay. With the money that I had amassed out of this ‘miracle’, I bought a taxi and began to ply it.

  Having finished telling my tale I raised my glass from the counter of the liquor joint and drained it at one gulp.

  Suddenly my glance fell on the strange watery shape made by the bottom of my glass on the counter. I said to Mummadbhai, the other taxi-driver with me: ‘Look, Mummadbhai. Doesn’t it look like ‘Om’ in the centre of this watery circle?’

  Mummadbhai looked at it, looked at me, then thumped me with great force on my shoulder saying, ‘Saale – this is not Barampur. This is Bombay. Here there is no Om, no Allah, no Cross – only rupiya. Nothing else matters but money, so let us get going on our night shift and earn some dough.’

  He wiped off the strange shape on the counter with one sweep of his hand and took me out of the bar.

  (Translated from the Hindi by Jai Ratan)

  T E N

  Flight 303

  SURESH CHOPRA

  Some of the most companionable and stimulating people I’ve met belong to the ‘naughty’ strata of society. One such friend of mine was a guy called Rummy, who could pick just about any lock in the world. Oddly, he pursued this interest more by way of a personal hobby than for any nefarious objective. He had been approached many a time by underworld bosses to loan them his services in return for a fat recompense, but Rummy continued to shake his head and pursue the sedate life of a clerk. He was willing to take up a challenge to prove his extraordinary skill only if the risks involved were nil.

  The other thing that fascinated me about Rummy was that he had spent a good deal of his youth knocking around the world on a tramp ship and the man was literally bursting with stories of his exploits in faraway places like Tahiti and Papua New Guinea. He seemed to have undergone every enthralling experience, from being chased by bandits in Afghanistan to being accosted by homosexuals in Addis Ababa. In short, if there was one man whose company I’d prefer to that of a cabinet minister or an oil tycoon, it was good old Rummy.

  I first met him in one of those seedy, exciting pubs in London’s Soho district when I was studying medicine in the early sixties. We got together practically every evening and, boy, it was fun to hear Rummy talk after he had downed a goodish part of a rum bottle (hence the name Rummy). We used to rip it up each evening with our other regular cronies and if there is one period of my life that I recall with a lump in my throat, it is those memorable days spent in London with Rummy as the central figure.

  The pleasant years rolled by. As expected, I failed in exam after exam and, after wasting a good deal of my family’s money, I sailed back to India to be inducted into the family business. Thus I lost touch with Rummy for a number of years, as neither of us was the letter-writing sort. But whenever I sat back to reminisce about my London days, I’d think about this friend of mine and wonder how the world was treating him.

  I was to find out one sunny morning, early this year, when I was in New York where I had gone to do business with the fat-dollared Americans. I was in the lounge at the Kennedy airport, reading The New York Times while waiting for the announcement of my plane to London, when I received a shock. I saw Rummy walk past me with both his hands clamped into a pair of handcuffs. On either side of him were, quite unmistakably, two British policemen in plainclothes.

  My jaw sagged for a moment and The New York Times slipped to the ground. I sprang up, lifted the paper and my briefcase, and strode hurriedly after Rummy, calling out his name. My pal of Soho days stopped dead in his tracks and wheeled around. ‘Chopsy!’ he yelled. ‘How good to see you!’ We moved forward as though to embrace when Rummy was restrained by the two Englishmen.

  ‘You know this man?’ one of them asked me gruffly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He’s an old chum of mine.’

  Rummy made a wry face and held out his handcuffed hands. ‘Look what I’ve got myself into for abandoning my principles just one bloody time. Just once I give in to temptation to pick a lock or two, and see where I’ve landed myself.’


  Before either of the policemen could talk, I moved closer to Rummy. ‘Tell me what happened. Is there anything I can do? Where are you off to?’

  ‘I helped some crooks to break into a big London house and they cleaned out some priceless paintings worth a lot of lolly. I collected my share of the dough and whizzed into America.’

  ‘And now he’s on his way back to London,’ nodded one of the Englishmen. ‘Had a tough time nabbing this one.’ Then they tugged at Rummy. ‘Come on, get moving. We’ve got a plane to catch.’

  At that moment an announcement came on: ‘British Airways flight 303 is delayed for half an hour for technical reasons.’ From the expressions on the faces of the two policemen, I could tell that it was their plane. ‘Come on,’ said one of them, ‘we’ll hang around in the coffee shop.’ With that they led off Rummy, who kept craning back to smile me a goodbye.

  My first impulse was to follow the three of them to the coffee shop. But as I was also headed for London, I decided to try and get in touch with Rummy there. In any case, I could already hear the announcement for my own plane. Fifteen minutes later I caught a brief glimpse of Rummy and his companions as they, too, were getting ready to emplane. I managed a wave, he returned a handcuffed acknowledgement, and then the crowds swallowed him up. We would both be landing in London within the space of five minutes of each other.

  My TWA Jumbo touched down first at Heathrow airport after a smooth seven-hour Atlantic crossing. There seemed to be a zing in the London air and I had never seen such a bright and sunny English day. As I stepped down on the tarmac, I stood for a while to relish the wonderful feeling of returning to England after such a long absence.

  From the terminals I heard a female voice announce the imminent touchdown of British Airways flight 303 -Rummy’s flight. I gazed overhead and saw the blue and silver Jumbo circle for a landing. I decided to hang around to see if I could get a word through to Rummy and pass him my address. I checked through customs and hurried up to the airport balcony. I leaned on the railings and watched Rummy’s plane come in for the landing and then taxi up with a whining roar to disgorge the passengers.

  I saw a shiny grey Mercedes slide out of the distant car park and station itself opposite the ramp of the first-class cabin. A uniformed chauffeur stepped out and stood aside and opened the back door of the car. Obviously, a VIP was on the plane.

  The door of the Jumbo opened. From the first-class cabin, two smiling hostesses emerged, followed by two of the cockpit crew. The four of them stood aside in deference, waiting for the VIP to emerge. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was literally bowled over by what I saw next, and had to actually grab at the railing to prevent myself from tottering. I just couldn’t believe my eyes!

  Top-hatted, expensively suited, with diamond cuff links and tiepin glinting in the sun, the ‘VIP’ stepped out of the plane and stood for a minute on the ramp, gazing out at London. Then, with a smiling nod at the grinning airline crew, he came down the gangway steps, acknowledged the greetings of the chauffeur, and got into the Mercedes. It was Rummy! The car slowly glided towards the airport gates.

  Rummy’s two British police escorts were now striding towards the terminal and one of then carried Rummy’s unlocked handcuffs in his hand. A good many passengers were waving enthusiastically at the disappearing Mercedes from which I could see my friend Rummy wave back. The car rounded a building and disappeared.

  I stood stunned for several seconds. I just didn’t know what to think. I had seen Rummy in handcuffs at Kennedy airport. He had been that way when he had boarded flight 303. Yet, on landing at Heathrow, just seven hours later, the man was not only free but was received royally and given a most affectionate send-off!

  What had happened during those seven hours over the Atlantic that had brought this dramatic transformation in Rummy’s life? Confused, I made my way out of the airport and into London. I had very little time on hand, and the mystery was still unsolved when some days later I returned to India.

  Ten months later, I was in Las Vegas for a spot of gambling on my way to Hollywood in connection with a movie script I was doing there. In a casino called The Golden Slipper I ran into Rummy again. This time he had as his escort a very attractive blonde whom I vaguely placed as a film star whose name evaded me. Our eyes met across the table and, the next instant, we were locked in a big bear hug, so overjoyed were we at seeing one another.

  The preliminaries over, we forgot all about gambling and piled into Rummy’s car and headed downtown to The Wild Goose for dinner.

  As we sat sipping our wine, I studied my friend. A magic wand had transformed the slovenly, unkempt, ill-dressed pal I used to know into a poised, confident, sophisticated toff. But his old charm and zest for life were still very much in evidence. I had no doubt that the dramatic change in Rummy had its genesis aboard Flight 303 of British Airways earlier in the year. I was determined to find out everything before fate once again separated us.

  My opportunity came when somebody asked the blonde for a dance. Rummy and I found ourselves alone. Rummy let out his hearty bellow and said, ‘Chopsy, old boy, it’s bloody good to see you. Bloody good!’ Before I could say anything, he went on. ‘I know, old chap, what’s on your mind right now. You’re mighty curious to know how I came by all this.’ He flourished a hand at the posh restaurant and his elegant attire. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he said, ‘but first down your glass.’ We emptied our glasses and he motioned the waiter for a refill. I lit my cigar and he his cigarette. After we had settled back comfortably, Rummy began his story.

  ‘It all happened during that plane ride from New York to London. Fate intervened and, in one mighty, magnificent stroke, the course of my life changed.’ Rummy had a faraway look in his eyes as he pulled at his cigarette. ‘It was a smooth take-off. The Scotland Yard blokes weren’t all that bad, and even offered me a fag once the No Smoking sign went off. We were in economy class and when the hostess came to offer us some grub, they took off my cuffs. After all, I couldn’t dive off the plane or something.

  Rummy waved at the blonde as she swirled past our table and went on: ‘We must have been over mid-Atlantic when I noticed one of the four pilots of the plane walking down the aisle towards us. He smiled at us, and would have walked on but noticed a pal of his on the other side in our row. They shook hands cordially. They probably hadn’t seen each other for a long time, because the pilot glanced at his watch and sat down on the vacant seat next to his friend for a chat.

  ‘About five minutes later, there was a sudden commotion in the first class cabin right in front of us. The pilot got up to see what it was all about. He left the connecting door ajar, and from where I was sitting, I could see an elderly American lady, loaded with jewels, engaged in a heated argument with one of the English hostesses. The hostess was trying to calm the American dame, but she kept shouting at the top of her voice. A minute later, the captain of the Jumbo, a smart and cool-looking bloke, came up to pacify the old lady and sort out her problem.’

  Rummy took a sip of his wine. ‘After that, things happened in quick succession. One of the two remaining pilots in the cockpit excused himself to go to the toilet on urgent summons. Apparently he had eaten something disagreeable at Kennedy airport. The remaining pilot sat at the controls for a while, when suddenly he felt thirsty. He put the plane on automatic control and nipped into the adjoining cabin to down a quick glass of water. It would have hardly taken him 30 to 40 seconds to return to the controls.

  ‘I’ll never forget what happened next. It was probably the freakiest thing to happen in aviation history. Apparently, when the pilot who had stepped outside for a swig of water tried to re-enter the cockpit, he found to his amazement that the door wouldn’t open! It was jammed!

  ‘He knocked loudly, hoping that the navigator inside would open the door. But he was horrified when he found the navigator standing beside him. The navigator had broken his pencil stub and had come out for five seconds to fetch another one. In other words, Cho
psy, there was nobody inside the cockpit, and the door wouldn’t budge! Apparently the lock had accidentally slipped into place.

  ‘The two men struggled for a while, but the door stayed firm. The captain and the other two pilots had returned by then, and they all kicked and wrestled with the door, with no luck. Nothing could move it. All this while the plane was flying on automatic.’

  I felt beads of sweat form on my brow, and I could see Rummy shiver slightly as he recalled those terrifying moments. ‘What happened next is not difficult to imagine,’ continued Rummy. ‘Word spread rapidly through the Jumbo of what had happened. Almost all the passengers jammed the aisle and tried to find out what was going on. Some women started having hysterics. A couple of toughies pushed through the crowd and flung themselves against the door. But to no avail. It was a desperate situation. Unless we opened the door soon we all were doomed.

  ‘The plane began to lurch violently as people ran up and down the aisles. There was regular bedlam. When I learnt of what had happened, I sat still in my seat for two minutes. I realized that my hour of destiny had struck. I saw the two Scotland Yard bobbies staring at me. I understood what was working in their minds, the thought that there wasn’t a lock in the world that I couldn’t open. I stared back. They got my message, and asked me if I could give the door a try.

  ‘ “I don’t do work I ain’t getting paid for,” I said. They both thought for a while. “You walk off tree from this plane if you open that door,” they said. “Done.” I cried.

  ‘The three of us got up and began struggling our way past hysterical women, nervous men and crying kids. It took us ten minutes to reach the front of the plane. One of the bobbies grabbed the captain of the Jumbo and told him about me. The captain pushed his way to the plane’s mike system and spent some minutes pleading with the passengers to become calm, because help was at hand. Slowly the commotion began to subside. Everybody became still. All eyes were focused on me. Word had spread that I was a guy who could pick any lock in the world. A death-like hush descended on the plane and the lurching stopped.’