Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 1

by Khushwant Singh

  I leaned close to Rummy to hear what came next.

  ‘I braced myself for the greatest challenge of my life. Not only my own but the lives of three hundred-odd passengers aboard that plane depended on my skill.’

  Rummy began to smile when he recalled the next sequence. ‘An old, well-dressed American then came forward and said, “I am Ludwig,” and shook my hand. He said, “Son, you open that door and you’ll never live to regret it.” He pulled out his cheque book and said, “How much?” I hesitated, not knowing what to say. Without waiting, he said, “In case you don’t know, I am one of the richest men in the world. Will half a million dollars do?” I nodded dumbly and without further ado asked a young girl nearby for her hairpin. I could feel each human being hold his or her breath as I bent down to examine the lock.’

  Rummy gave a grin. ‘Well, it was one of those tricky locks, but nothing is tricky enough for me. In less than five minutes I had snapped it open and flung open the door.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘A wild round of clapping went on. The American rich guy, Ludwig, signed the promised cheque and thrust it into my hands. Somebody came up and planted his top hat on me, another took off his lovely suit right in front of everybody and handed it to me to wear. One bloke came up and gave me his diamond tiepin and somebody his diamond cuff links. The old American lady, who had been arguing with the hostess, came up and kissed me on both cheeks. I’m telephoning for my Benz to come and receive you at the airport. I’m giving it to you.’ The captain and the other crew members shook my hand. I had become an instant hero.’

  What did you do after that?’ I asked.

  ‘Do?’ asked Rummy with a glint in his eyes. ‘I went straight to the bathroom and got dressed. After all, you didn’t expect me to board a chauffeur-driven Benz in dirty old rags?’

  E L E V E N

  Housewife

  ISMAT CHUGTAI

  The day Mirza’s new maid ambled into his house, there was a sensation in the neighbourhood. The sweeper, who normally avoided work, stayed on and scrubbed the floor with great vigour. The milkman, notorious for adulterating his ware, brought milk clogged with cream.

  Who could have named her Lajo – the coy one? Bashfulness was unknown to Lajo. No one knew who begot her and abandoned her on the streets to a lonely weeping childhood. Begging and starving, she reached an age when she could snatch a living for herself. Youth etched her body into bewitching curves and this became her only asset. The street initiated her into the mysteries of life.

  She never haggled. If it was not a cash-down proposition, it would be sex on credit. If the lover had no means, she would even give of herself free.

  Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ people asked.

  ‘I am!’ Lajo would blush brazenly.

  ‘You’ll regret it some day.’

  ‘I couldn’t care less!’

  How could she? With a face that was innocence itself, dark eyes, evenly set teeth, a mellow complexion and a gait so swinging, so provocative?

  Mirza was a bachelor. Flattening and baking chapatis daily had flattened out his existence. He owned a small grocery shop which he pompously called ‘General Store’. The shop did not give any leisure to Mirza even to go to his home town and get married.

  Mirza’s friend Bakhshi had picked up Lajo at a bus stop. Bakhshi’s wife was nine months pregnant and they needed a maid. Later, when Lajo was not required, Bakhshi deposited her at Mirza’s. Instead of squandering away at brothels, he thought, why not let Mirza enjoy a free dish?

  ‘God forbid, I won’t have a tart in the house!’ said Mirza warily. ‘Take her back!’

  But Lajo had already made herself at home. With her skirt hiked up like a diaper, broom in hand, she was sweeping Mirza’s house in dead earnest. When Bakhshi informed her of Mirza’s refusal, it fell on deaf ears. She ordered him to arrange the pans on the kitchen shelf and went out to fetch water. ‘If you wish, I’ll take you back home,’ Bakhshi said.

  ‘Out with you! Are you my husband to leave me back at my mother’s? Go! I’ll tackle the Mian myself!’

  Bakhshi’s departure left Mirza helpless. He ran out and took refuge in the mosque. He was not prepared to incur this extra expenditure. Moreover, she was bound to pilfer and cheat. What a mess Bakhshi had got him into!

  But on returning home he held his breath. As though his late mother, Bi Amma, was back! The house was sparkling.

  ‘Shall I serve dinner, Mian?’ Lajo asked – and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Spinach and potato curry, moong ki daal fried with onion and garlic – just the way Ammaji used to cook!

  ‘How did you manage all this?’ Mirza asked, baffled.

  ‘Borrowed from the bania.’

  ‘Look, I’ll pay your return fare, I just cannot afford a servant.’

  ‘Who wants to be paid?’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Is the food hot?’ Lajo asked, slipping a fresh chapati into his plate.

  ‘Not the food, but I am certainly hot from top toe!’ Mirza wanted to shout as he went into his room to sleep.

  ‘No, Mian, I am here for good!’ Lajo threatened when he brought up the question again the next morning.

  ‘But...’

  ‘Didn’t you like the food?’

  ‘It’s not that...’

  ‘Don’t I scrub and clean well?’ ‘It’s not that...’

  ‘Then what is it?’ Lajo flared up.

  She had fallen in love, not with Mirza, but with the house. Bakhshi, the bastard, had once rented a room for her. Its previous occupant had been Nandi – a buffalo. The buffalo was dead and gone to hell but had left behind his stench. And Bakhshi did not treat her well either. Now here she was, the unrivalled mistress of Mirza’s house! Mirza was uncomplicated. He would sneak in, softly and quietly, and eat whatever was served.

  Mirza, for his part, checked the accounts a few times and was satisfied that Lajo did not cheat.

  At times she went across to Ramu’s grandmother for a tête-à-tête. Ramu was Mirza’s dissipated teenage help in the store. He fell for Lajo the minute he saw her. It was he who told her of Mirza’s frequent visits to the singing girls.

  This hurt Lajo. After all, what was she for? Wherever employed, she had served well in every capacity. And here a full chaste week had passed! She had never felt so unwanted before. Several offers came her way but she was Mirza’s maid. She rejected one and all, lest Mirza should become a laughing stock. And here was Mirza, an iceberg, or so he appeared. Lajo could not see the volcanoes erupting within him. He kept away from home deliberately.

  Lajo’s name was on every lip – today she slapped the milkman, yesterday she had aimed a dung cake full in the face of the bania – and so on. The schoolmaster insisted on educating her. The mullaji of the mosque burst into prayers in Arabic, beseeching God to ward off impending danger!

  Mirza came home annoyed. Lajo had just had her bath. Strands of wet hair clung to her shoulders, Blowing into the kitchen fire had flushed her cheeks and filled her eyes with water. She ground her teeth at Mian’s untimely entry.

  Mirza almost toppled over! After a silent, uneasy meal, he picked up his walking stick, went out and sat in the mosque. But he could not relax. Ceaseless thoughts of home made him restless. Unable to hold out any longer, he got back and found Lajo on the threshold, quarrelling with a man. The man slunk away the moment he saw Mirza.

  ‘Who was that?’ Mirza’s tone was that of a suspicious husband!

  ‘Raghava!’

  ‘Raghava?’ Mirza had been buying milk from him for years and yet did not know his name.

  ‘Shall I prepare the hookah, Mian?’ Lajo changed the subject.

  ‘No! What was that man up to?’

  ‘Was asking me how much milk he should bring from now on.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said: “May God hasten your funeral! Bring the usual measure!”’

  ‘Then?’ Mirza was furiou
s.

  ‘Then I said: “Bastard, go, feed the extra milk to your mother and sister!”’

  ‘The scoundrel! Don’t let him set foot here again!’ I’ll myself fetch milk on the way home from the store.’

  That night, after dinner, Mirza put on a starched freshly laundered kurta, stuck a scented piece of cottonwool in an ear, picked up his walking stick and walked out.

  Jealousy wrung Lajo’s heart. She cursed the singing girl and sat dumbfounded. Was Mirza really indifferent to her? ‘How could that be?’ she wondered.

  The singing girl was haggling with a customer. This upset Mirza. He turned away and made for the lala’s shop. There, he vented his anger on inflation, rising prices, national politics...and returned home at midnight, spent and irritated. He drank a lot of cold water but the fire in him continued to blaze.

  A part of Lajo’s smooth golden leg was visible from the open door. A careless turn in sleep tinkled her anklets. Mirza drained another glass of water and bundled up on his cot, cursing everything under the moon.

  Ceaseless tossing in bed reduced his body to a blister. Litres of cold water bloated his stomach. The roundness of the leg behind the door was irresistible. Unknown fears strangled him. But the devil egged him on. From his bed to the kitchen, he had walked so many miles but now he couldn’t move a step.

  Then a very innocent idea crossed his mind. Were Lajo’s leg not so exposed he wouldn’t be so uncomfortable.... Gradually, this idea took strength and so did Mirza. What if she woke up? Yet he had to take the risk – for the sake of his own safety.

  He left his slippers under the cot, held his breath and tiptoed across, gingerly lifted the hem of the skin and pulled it down slowly. He stood awhile, indecisively, and turned away.

  With one quick move, Lajo grabbed him. Mirza was speechless. He was never so wronged in life before. He struggled, pleaded, but Lajo wouldn’t let him go.

  When he encountered Lajo the next morning, she blushed like a bride! Lajo, the Victor, went about chores boldly, humming a kajri. Not a shadow of the night’s happening flickered in her eyes. When Mirza sat down to breakfast, she sat on the doorstep, as usual, fanning the flies away.

  That afternoon, when she brought his lunch to the shop, he noticed a new lilt in her gait. Whenever Lajo came to the shop, people would stop by and enquire about the prices of groceries. She sold in a short while what Mirza couldn’t during the entire day!

  Mirza began to improve in his looks. People knew the reason and sizzled with envy. Mirza, in turn, grew nervous and ill at ease. The more Lajo looked after him, the more he was enamoured of her and the more afraid he was of the neighbours. She was utterly brazen. When she fetched his lunch, the entire bazaar throbbed with her presence.

  ‘Don’t bring lunch any more!’ he told her one day.

  ‘Why not?’ Lajo’s face fell. Staying home all by herself bored her. The bazaar was an interesting break.

  Having stopped her from coming, many doubts assailed Mirza. He dropped in at odd hours to spy on her and she would insist on rewarding him fully for his attentions.

  The day he caught her at a game of kabaddi with street urchins, his anger knew no bounds. Her skirt was billowing in the wind. The boys were engrossed in the skirt. Mirza passed by, holding his head high with affected indifference. His discomfiture amused the onlookers.

  Mirza had grown fond of Lajo. The very idea of separation drove him crazy. He was unable to concentrate on his shop. He feared that some day she might desert him.

  ‘Mian, why not marry her?’ Miran Mian suggested.

  ‘God forbid!’ he shouted. How could he form so sacred a relationship with a slut?

  But that very evening, when he didn’t find her at home, Mirza felt lost. The confounded lala had been long on the wait. He had offered her a bungalow! Miran Mian, a friend from all accounts, had himself made a proposition to Lajo on the sly.

  Mirza was losing hope when suddenly Lajo appeared. She had just gone across to Ramu’s grandmother!

  That day Mirza made up his mind to take Lajo for a wife even at the cost of his family’s pride and prestige.

  ‘But why, Mian?’ Lajo asked, surprised at his proposal.

  ‘Why not? Want to have a fling elsewhere?’ he asked crossly.

  ‘Why should I have a fling?’

  ‘That Raoji is offering you a bungalow.’

  ‘I wouldn’t spit on his bungalow.’

  But the need for marriage completely escaped her. She was and would be his for life. A master like him was not easy to come by. Lajo knew what a gem Mirza was. All her previous masters inevitably ended up as her lovers. They would first have their fill, then beat her up and kick her out. Mirza had always been tender and loving. He had bought her a few clothes and a pair of gold bangles. No one in seven generations of Lajo’s family had ever worn ornaments of pure gold.

  When Mirza spoke of his plan to Ramu’s grandmother, she too was surprised.

  ‘Mian, why tie a bell around your neck?’ she asked. ‘Is the slut making a fuss? A sound thrashing will set her right. Where beating up can do, why think of marriage?’

  But Mirza was obsessed with the idea.

  ‘You there, are you hesitating on account of the difference in religion?’ Ramu’s grandmother asked Lajo.

  ‘No. I’ve always regarded him as my husband.’

  Lajo looked upon even a passing lover as a passing husband and served him well. Riches were never showered upon her, yet she gave of herself fully – body and soul. Mirza was an exception, of course. Only Lajo knew the pleasure of the give-and-take game with him. Compared to him the others were pigs.

  Also, marriage was for virgins. How did she qualify to be a bride? She begged and pleaded, but Mirza was bent upon entering into a legal contract of the nikaah.

  That day, after the evening prayer, nikaah was solemnized. Young girls of the neighbourhood sang wedding songs. Mirza entertained his friends. Lajo, renamed Kaneez Fatima, became wife of Mirza Irfan Ali Beg.

  Mirza imposed a ban on lehengas and prescribed churidar pyjamas. Lajo, however, was used to open space between her legs. This new imposition was a big irritant. She could never get used to it. One day, at the first opportunity, she took off the pyjamas and was about to get into the lehenga, when Mirza turned up. In her confusion, she forgot to hold the skirt around her waist and dropped it to the floor.

  ‘The devil take you!’ Mirza thundered a Quranic curse. He hurriedly threw a bed sheet over her.

  Lajo could not understand his annoyance and the grandiloquent oration that followed. Where had she erred? This very act had taken Mirza’s breath away so many times in the past. Now he was so upset. He picked up the lehenga and actually fed it to the fire.

  Mirza left, leaving Lajo shocked and uncomprehending. Discarding the sheet, she examined her body. Maybe some repulsive skin disease had erupted overnight.

  When bathing under the tap in the open, she kept wiping her tears. Mithwa, son of the mason, climbed the terrace daily on the pretext of flying kites and watched her. She was so sad today she neither stuck out her thumb nor hurled a slipper at him. She wrapped the sheet around and went indoors.

  With a heavy heart she got into the long trousers – as long as the devil’s intestines. To add to her misery the cummerbund got lost inside the waistband. She shouted for help. Jullu, the neighbour’s daughter, appeared and the tape was located. ‘Which sadist could have adapted this rifle case for a feminine dress?’ Lajo wondered.

  Later, when Mirza returned home, the tape played truant once again. Lajo tried desperately to catch it with her fingers. Mirza found her nervousness endearing. After a combined concentrated chase, the tape was found.

  But a ticklish problem popped up for Mirza. What used to be intoxicating coquetry in Lajo now turned to brazeness in his wife. The indecent ways of a flirt are unbecoming to respectable women. Lajo failed to be the bride of his dreams – one who would blush at his amorous advances, be annoyed at his persistence and feign indiffere
nce to his attentions. Lajo was a mere pavement slab.

  Checking her at every step, Mirza curbed her excesses and tamed the wild in her – or so he thought. Also, he was no longer impatient to get back home in the evenings. Like all husbands, he spent more time with friends to avoid being labelled henpecked.

  To make up for his frequent absences, he suggested engaging a maid. Lajo was furious. She knew of Mian’s renewed visits to the singing girls. She also knew that every man of the neighbourhood went there. But, in her own home, she would not tolerate another woman! Let anybody step into her kitchen and tinker with her glistening vessels, Lajo would tear her to bits! She would share Mirza with another woman but certainly would not share the home.

  Mirza seemed to have installed Lajo in his house and forgotten all about her. For weeks he spoke only in monosyllables. When she was his mistress, all men had eyes on her. Now that she had gained respectability, she became mother, sister and daughter. No one cast even a stray glance at the jute curtain – except the faithful Mithwa. He still flew kites on the roof, although only when Mirza was away and Lajo was bathing in the courtyard.

  One night Mirza stayed away, celebrating Dussera with friends. He came home the next morning, had a quick wash and went off to the shop. Lajo was annoyed. It was then, while bathing, that her glance climbed up the terrace. Or maybe that day Mithwa’s stares pierced her wet body like so many spears.

  Suddenly his kite snapped. The broken cord brushed sharply against Lajo’s body. Lajo was startled. She got up quickly and ran into a room, absent-minded or deliberately forgetting to wrap the towel around her.

  From then on, Mithwa was always found hanging around Mirza’s house. Whenever Lajo wanted something from the market, she would draw the jute curtain aside and shout: ‘Mithwa, don’t stay put like a dunghill! Get us a few kachoris.’ If Mithwa did not appear on the terrace during her bath, she tattled the bucket loud enough to wake a corpse in its grave. The love, of which she had given so lavishly all her life, was now Mithwa’s for the asking. If Mirza did not turn up for a meal, she would never waste the food but feed someone poor and needy. Who was needier than Mithwa?