Exile

by Akhilesh

  The mob shouted, ‘Remove their clothes.’ The two were now only in their underwear.

  Someone from the crowd said, ‘Here is some kerosene.’

  Kerosene was sprinkled upon them. One policeman lit his bidi and then lighted another matchstick and threw it at Balwant Kaur’s elder brother. The third matchstick was thrown on Bapuji.

  God knows what hopes they harboured but Balwant Kaur’s Bapuji and elder brother ran towards their house, like two trees on fire that collapsed a little ahead.

  Why should Balwant Kaur, her mother and her Bebe have stayed in town? As soon as things calmed down, they started getting together their goods in the shops and the kin in their houses. So far as goods were concerned, they could be amassed again, but what about the kin they had lost? However, except for them, no other Sikh left town.

  Chacha tried his best to meet Balwant Kaur before she left for Bhatinda but without any luck. She left without meeting him, without saying anything to him, without hearing anything from him, without looking at him and without being looked at by him. Since then, she dwelt in Chacha’s heart, eyes, mind instead of Bhatinda. Her image haunted Chacha.

  The last time Balwant Kaur had met him, she had worn large earrings for the first time. She had a habit of bouncing her face animatedly while speaking, and the earrings shook wildly. When she spun her eyes, her earrings too spun. When she laughed, the earrings rocked. The earrings had frozen suddenly for a while when she became sad once. The fascinating image of Balwant Kaur in her earrings haunted Chacha all the time. One could determine the level of his grief and frustration by the fact that he was called for an interview for a cushy job but he refused to go. One sign that he was lovelorn was that he smoked all the time.

  Suryakant was unable to endure his deterioration, and one day sat down with him, ‘Why does the saiyyad melt if the nightingale departs?’ Chacha failed to understand his shayari. He could make out only that Balwant Kaur was the nightingale but how could he be the hunter? He took a long pull on his cigarette, and exhaled. ‘What do you mean by saiyyad?’

  ‘A genuine lover.’

  Had it been a different occasion, Chacha would have boxed the nephew’s ears, but what came out of his lips at the moment was, ‘Balwant.’ His eyes were half-closed. ‘I can never forget Balwant.’

  ‘Don’t. However, to remember Balwant, do you really need to smoke all the time, talk of depressing things, look gloomy? Live normally, Chacha! This is life, one day Balwant Kaur will get married, you will get married, why go through all this wailing and lamenting then? Come on, Chacha, be cheerful and treat me to some chaat.’

  Chacha did not lose his temper and said, ‘I’ll surely treat you to chaat.’ He grew extremely emotional, inhaled deeply and crushed the butt of his cigarette under his soles and said, ‘I tell you this, I resolve that I won’t marry anybody but Balwant Kaur!’

  ‘Rest assured then about Balwant Kaur.’ The nephew mumbled sardonically.

  Finally, Chacha brought home an aunt. Initially, Chacha did not have any difficulty in upholding his resolution because he was uemployed and so no one was willing to marry their daughter to a jobless fellow. But a queue of marriage proposals came his way as soon as he was employed. The families of the girls came with the photographs and horoscopes of their daughters. On Sundays, the number of the ‘vardekhua’ increased phenomenally as more families come looking for a groom. And so, Awadh Narayan started returning from the office on Saturdays laden with snacks and sweets, petha and biscuits.

  The manner in which Chacha maintained his steadfastness to Balwant Kaur was that he would examine each of the girl’s photos and then reject it. Since he did not have the guts to state the real motive behind his rejections, he would point out one defect or the other in the photo. Awadh Narayan was irritated at his blind rejections and asked, ‘When will you agree to marry?’

  ‘I am in no hurry.’

  Suryakant paraphrased Chacha’s statement thus, ‘My mohatarma, Balwant Kaur, how can I marry anyone else?’ The nephew suddenly grew suspicious of the word mohatarma, and asked Chacha to clear the matter, ‘Chacha, does the word mohatarma mean “love”?’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Oh.’ The nephew bit his lip.

  However, one day, when Chacha beheld a photograph, he was unable to avert his eyes. Was it a photo or had someone cast a spell on Chacha? Actually, the photo matched Balwant Kaur exactly. Chacha was so profoundly ensnared by the image that he felt he was not viewing a photograph, but Balwant Kaur in person. He ushered his Balwant Kaur in the pic in a corner and muttered, ‘My love, Balwant Kaur, have you really come back to me?’

  Balwant Kaur had not returned. However, Balwant Kaur and Madhuri’s faces were identical. But as if fate was not pleased with only the similarity, when Chacha set eyes on Madhuri for the first time, she was wearing large earrings like Balwant Kaur. When Madhuri sang a hymn at the request of Chacha’s family, the earrings swayed. Moreover, during the wedding ceremony, Madhuri had jhumkas in her ears, but Chacha felt she was sporting balis. Chacha was slightly taller than Madhuri. So, she jumped to put the jaimala over Chacha’s neck. Her jhumkas swung wildly, but Chacha felt two lovely balis were swinging in Balwant Kaur’s lovely ears.

  Suryakant’s memorable night wake is related to the wedding of Chacha and Madhuri.

  Chacha’s marriage procession left for Jaunpur, where Madhuri and her family lived, and where she was finishing her master’s degree. When the baratis arrived at her house, dancing and bursting crackers, each of them was gifted a plastic rose dabbed with attar, and during the threshold propitiation, each of them was gifted a pamphlet with a song composed by the resident bard of Jaunpur, Mukul Kumar Begana, ‘Shriman apka swagat hai, yah pavitra milan ki bela hai.

  Do hridaya mil rahe aaj yah madhur milan ka mela hai.

  Baji shehnai saje hain bandanwar Madhuri jaymal liye hai khari hui

  Manyavar yeh kanya sneh, pyar, ashish saath hai bari hui

  Utsav ka hai parv aaj chahalpahal aur chahun or thelamthela hai

  Shriman apka swagat hai yeh pavitra milan ki bela hai.’

  Next day, each member of the groom’s entourage received five rupees and a steel bowl with a packet of vegetables and a sweetmeat at the time of departure. But Chacha did not get anything. In other words, Chacha did not accept anything. During the Emergency, Chacha had taken a written oath that he would neither consent to dowry, nor dole it out. Whatever the other students might have done in later days, Chacha had stuck to his word. Chacha not only refused to accept dowry, but he also refused to accept the plastic flower and the steel bowl with food.

  In this manner, he acquired the status of a hero in the eyes of his nephew and other young men. Suryakant saw in him the famous contemporary actor, Naseeruddin Shah, who was always occupied in a struggle against injustice, evil traditions and inequality. The nephew had told Chacha, ‘Chacha, you are fully like Naseeruddin Shah now.’ Chacha smiled, but pursed his lips immediately after and was lost in thought. He sighed a deep sigh. In fact, when this similarity to Naseeruddin Shah was mentioned, he recalled Balwant Kaur who was quite similar to Madhuri.

  Madhuri did not see the hero who struggled against evil traditions in Chacha. The mehndi had not yet dried on her palms when she took him to task. ‘You’re an idiot! Why didn’t you take the dowry? It doesn’t matter if you didn’t accept anything else, but why not the dowry? Which fool refuses it? You have no colour TV, no fridge, no scooter in your house. Had these come as dowry into our house, you would not have committed a crime! You didn’t accept cash but all these goodies? These are gifts. You did not do well to refuse them … what an idiot!’

  But Chacha’s family had no gumption. Even if you disregard the nephew, because he was whimsical and too similar to Chacha, the other members of the family were also happy with Chacha’s performance. They were folks who remained content in any condition. Had Chacha come back with a great dowry, they would have informed everyone proudly that he had received a grand
share. Now, they were announced proudly that Chacha had preferred his principles to the dowry. Only Suryakant’s mother thought that Chacha should have agreed at least to the colour TV. She had visited her brother during the last Christmas holidays with Nupoor, and there was a TV in his house – not an ordinary black-and-white one but a colour TV, sitting pretty on a stand. On the other hand, there was merely a black-and-white TV in her own house, resting on the table that had been lying useless after Chacha finished his studies. All the houses in their locality owned black-and-white TVs, and all the tints were steeped in black.

  However, this was a time when even a black-and white TV elevated the prestige of a household, and only a terrible minority possessed them. It could be measured from the fact that when the TV arrived in the house of Chacha-nephew, the women and the children of the locality suddenly discovered that the house was quite tempting. As soon as the wooden shutter in front of the TV screen was pulled back and the TV was switched on, the neighbourhood flocked in to watch the ‘programme’. If the room was ‘housefull’, children peered from the windows and the doors. Nupoor used to clean the TV daily. Awadh Narayan brought an artificial bouquet and a vase from the market and placed it on the left hand of the TV top. Nupoor crafted a ‘Welcome’ with pearls that adorned the right side while Chacha hung a picture of Bhagat Singh in the middle. Serials like ‘Hum Log’, ‘Ye Jo Hai Zindagi’ and ‘Nukkad’ materialized below the blossoms, Bhagat Singh and Welcome. When Chitrahaar, a programme of film songs, was telecast on Wednesdays and Fridays and the feature film on Sundays, the members of the house also joined the neighbours. During ad breaks, Ma and Nupoor went to the kitchen to knead dough or to finish some other chore hurriedly. All human beings turned mute throughout the telecast of the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, and their entire persona was expressed through their eyes only.

  But Dadi had her own tune to play. She was from a village where, let alone a TV, not even electricity had dared make an entrance. It was a place where leisure time was still passed through stories, talks and folk songs. At the most, people would listen to transistor sets, preferring mostly hymns, news, songs and agricultural programmes. Whenever Dadi came to Sultanpur, she hauled in the village ambiance with herself. So she found the excitement about a TV beyond comprehension. In the evening, Dadi’s daughter-in-law and granddaughter prepared gulgule and karhi; rice was soaked for boiling. Vegetables were cooked and dough was kneaded. Prime Time started on Doordarshan. Spectators from the neighbourhood started pouring in. Dadi watched in wonder, inquiring from the family but nobody enlightened her. They simply looked at each other and grinned. The entire house had put together a strategy to surprise Dadi, to delight her, to astound her.

  Dadi was not over ninety then, as she was now, and she did not walk bent. Moreover, Nature had been generous to her, she did not need glasses. Her eyes, even after seven decades of wear, could thread a needle without glasses. It does not matter that her method was a reverse one. She held the thread steady and wove the needle’s eye into it. In other words, she did not thread the needle but needled the thread. Even her teeth were stout. She could eat peanuts by breaking them into crumbs and was able to munch guavas and apples after slicing them into small pieces. So far as her olfactory and aural senses are concerned, they were extraordinarily quick. Even four hours after Chacha’s smoking a cigarette, she could sniff it to berate him, ‘You have smoked the fire cinder!’ He should be cautious lest he should ruin his liver. The nephew once advocated Chacha’s case, ‘Dadi, you also smoke the hubble-bubble.’ She picked up an onion lying by and threw it at him, ‘Rascal! You want to be my equal? You must realize that I’ve not taken adulterated food like you people.’ The nephew dodged the onion and ran to Chacha to whisper, ‘If Dadi drinks liquor, her liver won’t be affected, but if we smoke a single cigarette, our lungs will catch fire.’ Chacha was happy to note that the nephew was using words properly, in the correct context. But Dadi heard nephew’s whispering and hurled a potato at him. Her ears were still keen. She could hear whatever Amma said, no matter how guarded she was.

  In a nutshell, at the time when the whole household was prancing in delight to prompt Dadi to watch TV, she was absolutely healthy, capable of enjoying food and celebrations. Dadi, in a chair at some distance from the television, was surprised, but she had already seen the nine maund washerwoman, the chirharan of Krishna and the beauty from Persia on the bioscope so her wonder was not gargantuan or sustained. She watched the programme comfortably, but was soon bored and left. Everyone tried to stay her but she refused. If Prime Time, the most popular programme on Doordarshan was incapable of holding her attention, how could other shows? She shuffled out of the room and lay on the cot in the courtyard.

  So, Chacha asked her one day, ‘Amma, why don’t you watch TV?’

  She replied, ‘Why should I? Scorch-faced thing! A creature is here this moment, and there the next! One individual starts speaking and the very next minute it is somebody else. And on top of this, in the middle of all these things some mad fellow runs films on toothpastes, creams, powders, biscuits!’

  The problem was that Dadi was conditioned to another form of narrative – one in which things happened chronologically. She remembered countless such stories and legends which she had been reciting for three generations to her younger siblings and to Suryakant and Nupoor, and so, the speedy change of scenes on the TV confused her and led to her abandoning the shows midway.

  But Chacha-nephew came up with another explanation. They believed that Dadi was a famous storyteller of her own times and so she did not like the new age storytellers the least bit. Now children did not surround her, insisting upon her to tell stories. They did not try to please her by massaging her legs or head. The television had eroded her demand and popularity. Naturally, she was jealous. She would leave the TV show and lie on the cot in the courtyard in the hope that the children would gather around her. But she usually fell asleep and the children did not approach her. Children, grownups, everyone remained glued to the TV. Consequently, the once famous and expert storyteller would mutter, lying alone under the sky, ‘Let fire consume this wretched box!’ Sometimes, when nobody was around, she used to curse the TV, ‘Damn it…!’

  And so, Dadi did not have a yearning like Amma for Chacha to receive a colour TV for dowry. Perhaps her strongest wish was that Chachi should beget a child quickly and that the child should grow up. And then Dadi would narrate such unique tales that the TV would not be able to match her in a hundred lives!

  Since a boy was marrying after many years in Chacha’s family, there were many guests. Relatives started arriving several days before the wedding. It was difficult to accommodate all of them in the house and hence, several people in the locality offered one room in their houses each for the occasion. Three families offered two rooms each. The relatives would place their luggage in the rooms and go wash their hands and faces. Meanwhile, sweets, crisp and savoury food would appear in paper plates and cool water in a jug.

  Only one room had been constructed atop Awadh Narayan’s house, and it was built in a hurry for the newly wed-couple. The rest of the great rooftop was still open. Water was sprinkled on the roof in the evenings or else it was swept and a number of mattresses were spread out with pillows. As soon as the bed sheets were spread, children rushed in and began rolling over them.

  The roof was a favourite for both Chacha and Suryakant. They joined each other there for gossip sessions after sundown, with Chacha smoking cigarettes. At night, after finishing their studies and meals, they brought their mattresses up to the rooftop and kept awake till late in the night. They slept under the starry sky until all the stars were extinguished one by one. If they slept late, Awadh Narayan would interrupt them by pouring water over them. Winter mornings were great on the rooftop. They dashed with their books to the part where the first sunrays tumbled down. In primary school, Chacha was taught how to spin cotton on spindles. Chacha regularly came to the rooftop on a Sunday or another holiday to spin cot
ton. He twirled the spindle with the fingers of his right hand and the left hand that held cotton, lifted slowly.

  When Chacha turned into a young man and Suryakant was on the threshold of his teen years, the two would watch the girls on adjacent roofs together. It was a time when Chacha had not yet fallen in love with Balwant Kaur. It was a time when Chacha would fall in love with any good-looking girl anywhere. His mind would zoom down the boulevard of love and he would imagine sacrificing himself for his sweetheart. And so, he had turned into a martyr fighting with goons or had departed this earth to meet his maker after sucking poison from the snakebite on his beloved’s foot on many different occasions. He fancied he was alive only to sacrifice himself for an ever-changing bevy of beauties. In these fantasies, he would sometimes be sheltering a cancer patient and sometimes, he would embrace to his heart a girl driven off by her husband. He had turned many of the objects of his affection blind and then donated his eyes to her, to bring light to her life. Since it was not possible to donate his eyes while he was alive, Chacha had to kick the bucket. In his opinion, one could only gain by losing. In real life, none of his relations with these girls had advanced beyond ten sentences. He once had a crush on a girl he met at a birthday party, and gathered courage to start a dialogue as soon as he got the chance.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘What’s in a name?’ she smiled.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘In a house with walls.’

  ‘In which school do you study?’

  ‘Where you never can get admission.’

  ‘Which class?’

  ‘In a class the lower section of which you never can pass.’

  Well, Chacha became a different Chacha later on. After commencing his love story with Balwant Kaur, he was head over heels in the affair and remained pensive at festive banquets, wishing Balwant Kaur was there. Who knows, the hosts might be acquainted with her folks and she might have come there with them! The nephew was floating on his own tide. Whenever he visited a relative’s house or joined an auspicious community occasion, he made some comely didi or bhabhi his ideal and lingered around her. When he drank water, he would also take a glass to the lady. He was willing to put his life at stake for that didi/bhabhi – he was always looking for an excuse to perform some chore for his didi/bhabhi. If her handkerchief dropped, he jumped like a jack-in-the-box, picked it up and handed it to her. If she caught a cold, he would rub balm on her forehead. He wanted to have a share in each task of the didi. If Didi was washing clothes, he rinsed them. By the time she took three dry garments off the line, he removed thirteen and folded them sixteen folds. He rubbed his hawai chappals to a shine, but he rubbed Didi’s chappals more vigorously, made them shinier. The fact to be noted was that he never wanted anything in return. At the most, he would like her to believe that he was the person who was most fond of her in the entire world. He tried to prove it in various ways. For example, he would sulk and fast and would not be persuaded by anyone but Didi/Bhabhi. As soon as they entreated him, he would spring up, all set to take the meals.