Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 1

by Khushwant Singh

Next evening we, too, saw her as she sat in front of the Well of Death looking bored, chain-smoking Scissors cigarettes. She wore a ‘birjis’ of shining blue satin, and her heavily made-up face looked weirdly blue in the bright lights. (But those who knew declared that Miss Nadia of Hunterwali fame was not a patch on Miss Zohra Derby, the Female Desperado.) A ferocious-looking man, also in blue satin ‘birjis’, sat next to her, twirling his waxed moustaches. A motorbike roared at the back.

  After some minutes Miss Zohra Derby and her ferocious companion entered the Well of Death on their motorbike and went roaring round and round. The well shook and wavered and it was all very frightening.

  After a week Faqira brought the sensational news that Master Gulqand and Master Muchchander, two stalwarts of the circus and its star performers, had a fight over Miss Zohra Derby; she was knifed and slashed well and proper by Master Muchchander and was now in hospital.

  But as was expected of him, Mr Peter Robert Fazal Masih brought the real scoop: Diana Becket had joined the circus.

  ‘Diana Becket?’ Baji asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘Yes Bitya,’ Faqira put in enthusiastically, ‘I too heard, at the water tap. In the circus Pilpili Sahib’s Missya, she will get a big fat salary and free tiffin, chhota hazri, everything. She says she could no more bear to see her old Papa carrying heavy buckets, he being so poor and all. And she says, as for the world, it harasses her anyway.’

  All this was very saddening. Then I remembered something and asked brightly, ‘But the Tommies gave her money, didn’t they.’

  Ghaffoor Begum glared at me. ‘Run along,’ she said. So I ran along.

  A few days later the posters announced:

  Sensational European Belle

  The Ravishing Beauty of London

  Miss Diana Rose

  In the Well Of Death

  Tonight and Every Night

  In the midst of these fabulous goings-on, the cinema also claimed my attention:

  The Greatest Film of the Year

  Starring Miss Sardar Akhtar

  at Palladium Cinema

  Tonight and Every Night

  ***

  The Greatest Film of the Year

  Starring Miss Sardar Akhtar

  at Roxy Cinema

  Tonight and Every Night

  How could Miss Sardar Akhtar star at two places the same evening? It worried me no end. But the problem was solved when my parents allowed Baji to go with Mrs Goswami and see Achhut Kanya. I was allowed to tag along with Baji. (About Achhut Kanya, Mrs Jogmaya Chatterjee had informed Mrs Goswami that India had at last entered the era of cultural revolution because Gurudev’s own niece had become a cinema actress.)

  This was also the time when Mrs Chatterjee’s daughters began singing the latest film songs like Tum aur main aur Munna pyara, Gharwa hoga swarg humara. The breeze wafted these ditties over to our garden. Ghaffoor Begum shuddered, placed her hands on her waist or a forefinger on her nose, indicating censure, and said, ‘What our elders used to say is coming true: A sure sign of the Day of Judgement would be when cows eat goat droppings and virgins themselves demand husbands.... This is Kaljug... Kaljug....’

  Faqira, of course, took Jaldhara to see all these films. When she returned after a visit to what is now known as a New Theatres classic, Jaldhara developed high fever. The doctor said she was critically ill.

  Now she lay all day long in the sun. One afternoon she said to Ghaffoor Begum, ‘My samai has come, Annaji. One of these days I’ll give up my praan.’ Ghaffoor Begum tried to cheer her up and said good-humouredly, ‘Nonsense, Jaldhara. You are going to be a doddering old woman. But tell me, Jaldhara, what is this spell you’ve cast over poor Faqira? Give me some mantra too for my faithless fellow. I am told you hill people know a lot of sorcery. Look, how Faqira dotes on you, and you old enough to be his mother!’

  Upon which Jaldhara seemed to forget her illness and laughed happily and said, ‘Don’t you know, Annaji, old rice is always better?’

  ‘Old rice?’ I repeated.

  Ghaffoor Begum turned round and glared at me. ‘What are you doing here?’ She said sternly. ‘Run along and play.’ So I returned gloomily to my hopscotch ‘field’ on the drive.

  Bored with life, I decided to visit Kamala and Vimala. On the way to their house I saw Mr George Becket frantically running down the avenue. Just then Major Shelton emerged from his gate in his battered Model T Ford, and asked Mr Becket to hop in, which he did, and drove away in the direction of the European Hospital.

  At the Rajpals’ place a sad-faced Swarn told me that Diana Becket had had a serious accident. She was terrified every time she sat in Master Muchchander’s arms as he went roaring round and round on his motorbike. So the circus manger, ‘Professor’ Shabaz, told her to start practising solo. That’s how she bashed up both her legs.

  ‘And I heard at the parade ground that she will have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair,’ Swarn added.

  We were too sad to play hopscotch or anything. Swarn looked shame-faced and guilty. For some time he sat dangling his long legs from the bough of our favourite litchi tree. Then he jumped down and went off to play football with his cronies.

  Chinaman John passed by, on his bicycle, carrying his usual load of household linen. We patiently waited for Mr Fazal Masih.

  Mr Fazal Masih came round late next evening. He told us that ‘Professor’ Shahbaz was being interrogated by the police. The circus had quietly left town. Miss Zohra Derby had also vanished from the hospital.

  Dr (Miss) Zubeida Siddiqui, a family friend, arrived to spend the holidays. Lean and in her thirties, Dr (Miss) Siddiqui stooped a little, inclined her head to one side like a bird and spoke in brief, abrupt sentences. She wore white, long-sleeved blouses and kept her head fully covered with her white cotton sari. She had studied in England and worked as the principal of some obscure girls’ college somewhere in eastern India.

  Dr Siddiqui said her prayers five times a day and was also fasting, although it was not the month of Ramzan. The ladies of Dalanwalla were deeply impressed by her piety. (‘England-returned and all, and yet so modest and spiritual,’ Begum Faruqui commented with admiration. And such a strict follower of God and the Prophet – peace be on her,’ said Begum Ansari. Begum Qureshi nodded.)

  Dr Siddiqui was forever telling Baji some seemingly endless tale in undertones. Once she went down to see Jaldhara and uttered, ‘What a fortunate woman.’

  One evening Dr Siddiqui was especially morose, so Baji asked me to come along and entertain her (as though I were a dancing bear). She said, ‘Let’s hear that silly old Anglo-Indian song of yours.’

  Obediently I began:

  There was a rich merchant in London did stay,

  Who had for his daughter an uncommon liking.

  Her name it was Diana, she was sixteen years old

  And had a large fortune in...

  Suddenly a lump rose in my throat and I ran away. Dr Siddiqui’s expression changed from moroseness to surprise.

  One could not associate any kind of mystery with a dull and prosaic person like Dr Siddiqui. Suddenly she became a figure of high romance.

  One foggy morning as Vimala and I haunted the Toffee Counter in the British Stores we happened to overhear Mrs Goswami at Tinned Food telling Mrs Jaswant Singh, Begum Faruqui, and Mrs Sinha: ‘This lady doctor poor thing, (somehow they could never remember that Zubeida Siddiqui was a scientist and not a lady doctor) she has been jilted. And he is going to marry her own niece who is very pretty and seventeen.’

  ‘Men are like that, Behenji,’ Mrs Jaswant Singh replied. ‘Look at our Amarjit.’

  And Begum Faruqui said, ‘The lady doctor is so Godfearing and pious. Always praying and fasting.’

  ‘For a woman – all depends on this,’ Mrs Sinha tapped her forehead with a forefinger.

  ‘Let’s hope Bhagwan listens to her prayers,’ said Mrs Goswami.

  At two o’clock that night a dreadful scream rose from the guest room. Everybody jum
ped out of their quilts and rushed to the scientist’s rescue.

  Lying prostrate on the prayer rug Zubeida Siddiqui was whimpering hysterically. I was promptly shooed away to my room but in the morning I happened to overhear her talking to Baji in her usual drab undertone (very cleverly I had hung about the breakfast table after everybody had left).

  ‘I hadn’t told anyone,’ Dr Siddiqui was saying. The pirji had ordered that I must recite this jalali wazifa. For forty nights. Last night was the fortieth. The pirji had said, come what may I must never look up or sideways and must concentrate fully or else the wazifa would have no effect. Last night, like a damn fool I looked in front and saw a black dog the size of a donkey sitting over there. Snarling. So I screamed. The dog vanished. My chilla was broken. Now. Nothing will happen. The time is up. Only a week. From now. Nothing.’ She took off her glasses and began to cry.

  Baji looked horrified.

  ‘But Zubeida Apa,’ she said mildly, ‘you are a scientist. Do you really believe in this – this hocus-pocus? You merely had a hallucination. A black dog the size of a donkey!’ And she began to laugh.

  I have mentioned earlier that my Baji was a left-wing intellectual (one of the first crop).

  ‘Rehana Khatoon,’ Dr Zubeida Siddiqui said evenly, drying her tears, ‘you are only twenty-one. You have doting parents. Doting uncles. Aunts. Safe and secure. Happy family. (I suddenly remembered the Happy Family cards we used to play in the nursery.) A splendid young man. About to be married. To him. You do not know the meaning of loneliness. Don’t. Don’t ever laugh again at somebody’s loneliness.’

  The same evening Dr Siddiqui left for Calcutta.

  In the first week of December Jaldhara was removed to the hospital where she died the following evening.

  Faqira went about howling like a child.

  Accept it, son,’ Ghaffoor Begum tried to console him. ‘Accept it as Allah’s will.’

  ‘How can I, Annaji. She was mother, bhabi, wife, everything to me.’ He howled some more.

  But, on the third day when he returned from the cremation ground, he looked strangely happy and at peace. He carried a clay pot full of poor Jaldhara’s ashes. He said he was going to place the pot at the head of his cot at night and in her new form Jaldhara would leave her footprints on the ashes. Baji said she was greatly moved by Faqira’s simple faith. At dinner table that night she discussed, with Father, the Theory of Transmigration.

  Early next morning Faqira came rushing into Mother’s room.

  ‘Begum Sahib, Bitya, Bibi,’ he said excitedly, ‘my Jaldhara has become a sparrow.’

  ‘Jaldhara has become a sparrow?’ Baji repeated. Both of us went hotfoot across the dewy lawn to Faqira’s quarters.

  He brought the clay pot and showed us the tiny footprints of a bird. Obviously a sparrow had entered Faqira’s room at night. They did, all the time.

  ‘It’s a sparrow, Bitya,’ Faqira said simply and carried the pot back into his room.

  Faqira began feeding the sparrows and placed cups full of water all over the garden. Whenever a sparrow entered a room through the skylight or a window he stopped all work, offered it millet seeds, uttering such cries as ‘Che...che...che...ah...ah...ah...leh...leh...leh...’ or stood motionless with breadcrumbs on his palm. He also worried that Resham might catch a sparrow.

  A few days before Christmas Baji received a letter from Zubeida Apa:

  ...The day I reached here my niece was married to him. Posh society wedding.

  I have gone on strike against God. Married Dr Uppal the other day. Teaches in Burdwan.

  P. S. Dr U is a H. Convey the news to the Begums Faruqui, Qureshi and Ansari.

  Yours

  Z. Uppal

  It was an exceptionally severe winter. Diana Rose was still in plaster in the hospital. Mr Becket was not seen at the water tap. He dozed all day on a bench at the parade ground. His upturned hat, lying near him, looked like a beggar’s empty bowl. Yellow leaves floated down from the trees and filled it to the brim.

  Carol singers went round the quiet roads of Dalanwalla, singing ‘Silent Night’ and ‘O come let us adore Him’. As the night deepened the haunting notes of some lone Garhwali’s flute were heard in the distance. The water in the ‘sparrow cups’ was frozen. Early in the morning ragged hillmen went about hawking coal. As the mist lifted the snow-covered Himalayas were lighted up by a weak sun. All day long blazing log fires roared in the grates.

  On Christmas Eve Mr Simon told us that every Christmas morning he made plum pudding before going to church and spent the rest of the day reading the Good Book. On Boxing Day he promised to bring us some of his plum pudding. As Christmas presents he had brought a touchingly cheap Japanese trinket for Baji, a green ribbon for myself and a tiny rubber ball for Resham. Mother gave him a ten-rupee note. It was absolute wealth for him. He looked at it for some moments and carefully tucked it away in a waistcoat pocket.

  Mr Simon did not come on Boxing Day or the day after. Faqira was, therefore, dispatched to the Rev. Scott’s bungalow. He came back and hung down his head. Then he said slowly, ‘Simon Sahib has become dust. Padri Sahib’s gardener told me on Burra Din when he opened Simon Sahib’s room he was lying dead and frozen on his cot. The winter killed him.

  ‘He had only one blanket, Begum Sahib. And so he always slept in his suit.

  ‘It’s very cold outside, Bitya. In our Garhwal folk often freeze to death. Can’t be helped. How can one get so much warm clothing? Winter comes every year, anyway.’

  For a week Resham had been sitting on the warm cushions of her cosy basket. That afternoon was less cold, so she limped down to the gate and posted herself at the little Chinese bridge. There she began to wait for Mr Simon.

  The sun went down. Bored, she decided to have a go at a sparrow before coming inside.

  The sparrow flew off and perched itself on the branch of a silver oak. Resham tried to climb the tree but with her broken leg came sliding down. The sparrow hopped on to a higher branch. Resham lifted her face and uttered a faint, helpless meow. The sparrow spread its wings and flew away towards the wide, blue skies.

  All this happened during that winter in Dehra Dun.

  After which I grew up.

  (Translated from the Urdu by the author)

  T W E N T Y - T W O

  A Candle for St Jude

  QURRATULAIN HYDER

  It was past eleven o’clock on a hazy, silvery autumn night. Hurtling at breakneck speed through deserted avenues and dimly lit cobbled streets, the cab brushed past a rickety horse-drawn carriage and swung into a bylane. Stopping with a screech and a jerk in front of an old-world gate in a sad and sombre Spanish plaza, the silent cabbie got out, heaved out my suitcase and dumped it, with an air of finality, on the pavement. Then, darkly – or so it seemed to me – he spread a grubby hand, indicating payment with a lavish tip. I felt a bit odd.

  Are you sure this is the place?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘Yes Ma’m,’ he replied with a brief nod. Bravely I stepped out and paid him his pesos. With the agility of a matador he swished back to the cab and shot out of the lane. Slightly shaken, I was left standing on the pavement.

  The massive gate was probably chained from inside. I knocked at the window which opened in one of its carved doors. The shutter creaked and wavered. I gave it another push and, like a seasoned burglar, peeked in. In a corner of a moonlit courtyard two young women – one plump and matronly and the other extraordinarily thin – were busy filling earthenware jugs at a water tap. A decrepit brownstone loomed somewhere in the misty background. The gate, the courtyard and the building suddenly reminded me of the private school in Ghasiari Mandi, Lucknow, where I had studied for the matriculation examination of Benares University. Suppose, I said to myself, suppose this place is actually a whiteslavers’ headquarters...or an opium den...or the hideout of international spies.... In an unknown city, in a strange land, here I stood, at 11.45 p.m., knocking at a mysterious looking gate which uncannily resem
bled the eighteenth-century Mughal portal of my poor old school in faraway Ghasiari Mandi....

  ‘Pardon me...’ I called out, clearing my throat. The ghostly figures at the water tap looked up. The matron came waddling towards the gate.

  ‘Good evening,’ I said humbly, ‘this is the YWCA, isn’t it?’ Then I tried to manage a polite, nervous sort of smile. ‘I had asked the airlines people in Tokyo to send a cable...’ But what a broken-down joint, I said to myself.

  ‘We haven’t received any cable from Tokyo. And unfortunately all the rooms are full.’ The fat lady cheerfully replied. She was now joined by the thin one. Coming closer to the window she said amiably, ‘Besides, you see, this is a working girls’ hostel. We do not take in guests.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ I uttered in dismay. Where on earth was I going to spend the night?

  Noticing my sudden panic the thin girl smiled reassuringly.

  ‘Don’t worry. Come on in. I mean, hop in,’ she said in a friendly manner.

  ‘But all the rooms are full, you said.’

  ‘Never mind. We’ll manage. Where can you go at this time of the night? We won’t let you go, anyway,’ she said. I picked up my suitcase and overnight bag and shoved them into the window. Then I jumped into the well-like gatehouse. The girl picked up the suitcase and led the way. Advancing towards the brownstone across the courtyard I said rapidly, ‘I’ll ring up some people I know first thing in the morning. Won’t be any trouble to you at all.’

  ‘Never mind,’ the girl repeated. The rotund one said good night and disappeared in the shadows. We reached the building and climbed the wide flight of stairs. The far end of the verandah had been partitioned off as a side room. The girl opened a door in its plywood wall and went in. Lifting the thick, fawn-coloured curtain I followed her. The expensive material of the curtain looked slightly incongruous in the shabby surroundings.

  ‘This,’ the girl announced, standing in the middle of a faded green carpet, ‘is my den. You can sleep here. Make yourself at home.’ She put my suitcase on a chair and took out a fresh towel and a cake of soap from the cupboard. The narrow, snow-white bed was partially hidden by a yellowing mosquito net. On the shelf I noticed a row of books on biochemistry. The girl pulled out a bed sheet and a blanket from a chest of drawers and made herself a bed on the carpet. Then she carefully arranged the mosquito net and said, ‘Here we are! Now you can go to sleep.’