5 Indian Masters

by Welknow Indian

  ‘Let him punish her if he thinks she has done wrong,’ said Hari Ram. And let her fall at his feet... My daughter is pure... After saying this he felt pangs of remorse at his own cowardice and he was caught in the paroxysm of a dry throated cough, and water filled his eyes.

  ‘Myna, my myna,’ Lajwanti said under her breath, ‘I cannot bear this...’

  ‘Deceitful cunning wretch!’ Jaswant said and he turned away towards her father. ‘Take her away... We have no use for her here! After she has disgraced us before the whole brotherhood’

  ‘Not so many angry words, son!’ Chaudhri Ganga Ram said. ‘You have punished her enough!’

  ‘Son, let her get up and work!’ mother-in-law said.

  ‘Bless your words of wisdom’ said Hari Ram. ‘I knew you would be merciful... And now I leave her in your care. Kill her if you like. But don’t let her come to me without her lap full of son. I shall not be able to survive the disgrace if she comes again...’

  ‘Myna, my myna, who will talk to you, if I go away forever?’ Lajwanti asked the bird in the cage even as she washed her with palmfuls of water from the bucket.

  The bird fluttered wildly evading the shower.

  ‘Will you shriek if I drown you in the water, my little one?’ Lajwanti asked.

  The bird edged away as though in answer.

  And she sat down on the ledge of the well, away form the surging waters which were all around her dizzy brain.

  If she stopped to think, she felt she would never do it... It was now or never, when there was no one on the well except herself and the Myna. The village women had finished fetching the water for the evening. And soon it would be dark.

  From where she sat, a tilt – that would do it.

  But no, she must not wait any more.

  And with a jerk of her torso, interrupted by her indecision, she forced herself into a heave.

  The fall was ugly. Her left shoulder hit the stone on the side before she fell sideways into the well.

  For a moment, she was limp.

  The impact of the fall took her full-length into the water.

  But, in a second, she felt her body rising up as though from its own momentum. Unfortunately, for her she was a swimmer. She could not decide to let go of her breath. And, now, her hand pushed up above the water. And she found herself using her arms, to keep afloat.

  Still there was a chance.

  Rising from the torso, she ducked down, with her nose tweaked between her fingers.

  She stayed under the water for a minute and then tried to drown herself by letting go of her hand from the tweaked nose.

  The head rose above the water, panting for breath.

  ‘Lajwanti! Lajwanti! Bad one come out! her mother-in-law’s voice came, in a shrill appeal. ‘This is not the way of respectable people...’

  There was no way by which Lajwanti could put her head into the water. Perhaps she really did not want to die. How had the old woman turned up? Because, left to herself, she would have gone under with a second or third try. Not even in the darkness, was there an escape... Above the well, life would be worse hell than even before...

  Gently, she let go. And then water began to fill her nostrils and her mouth. And she was submerged.

  Before she had lost consciousness, however, she felt herself lying down in the slush near the well.

  They were pressing her belly. Some one was sitting on her. And the spurts of water oozed from her nostrils and mouth. The rancid taste of stale air was on her palate – the taste of life’s breath.

  And as she lay dissolving under her heavy eyelids, the bitterness of her breath seemed to lapse, and sleep shaped her eyes into a fixed stare.

  And yet, within a moment, more water had come up through her nose and mouth.

  And, within her, she could hear her foolish, tormented heart pounding away.

  And then the drowsy eyelids opened. And she could see the Myna in the cage by her.

  ‘Alas’ She said in wordless words, above the ache of the head and the thumping of the heart, ‘There is no way for me... I am... condemned to live... ‘

  1 Myna: Bird of the starling family.

  12 The Gold Watch

  There was something about the smile of Mr. Acton, when he came over to Srijut Sudarshan Sharma’s table, which betokened disaster. But as the Sahib had only said, “Mr. Sharma, I have brought something for you specially from London – you must come into my office on Monday and take it...”, the poor old dispatch clerk could not surmise the real meaning of the General Manager’s remark. The fact that Mr. Acton should come over to his table at all, fawn upon him and say what he had said was, of course, most flattering. For, very rarely did the head of the firm condescend to move down the corridor where the Indian staff of the distribution department of the great Marmalade Empire of Henry King & Co., worked. But that smile on Mr. Acton’s face! – specially as Mr. Action was not known to smile too much, being a morose, old Sahib, hard working, conscientious and a slave driver, famous as a shrewd businessman, so devoted to the job of spreading the monopoly of King’s Marmalade, and sundry other products, that his wife had left him after a three month’s spell of marriage and never returned to India, though no one quite knew whether she was separated or divorced from him or merely preferred to stay away. So the fact that Acton Sahib should smile was enough to give Srijut Sharma cause for thought. But then Srijut Sharma was, in spite of his nobility of soul and fundamental innocence, experienced enough in his study of the vague, detached race of the white Sahibs by now and clearly noticed the slight awkward curl of the upper lip, behind which the determined, tobacco-stained long teeth showed, for the briefest moment, a snarl suppressed by the deliberation which Acton Sahib had brought to the whole operation of coming over and pronouncing those kind words. And what could be the reason for his having being singled out, from amongst the twenty-five odd members of the distribution department? In the usual way, he, the dispatch clerk, only received an occasional greeting, “Hello Sharma – how you getting on?” from the head of his own department, Mr. West; and twice or thrice a year he was called into the cubicle by West Sahib for a reprimand, because some letters or packets had gone astray; otherwise, he himself, being the incarnation of clockwork efficiency, and well-versed in the routine of his job, there was no occasion for any break in the monotony of that anonymous, smooth working Empire, so far at least as he was concerned. To be sure, there was the continual gossip of the clerks and the accountants, the bickerings and jealousies of the people above him, for grades and promotions and pay; but he, Sharma, had been employed twenty years ago, as a special favour, was not even a matriculate, but had picked up the work somehow, and though unwanted and constantly reprimanded by West Sahib in the first few years, had been retained because of the general legend of saintliness which he had acquired... he had five more years of service to do, because then he would be fifty-five, and the family-raising, grhast, portion of his life in the fourfold scheme, prescribed by religion, finished, he hoped to retire to his home town Jullunder, where his father still ran the confectioner’s shop off the Mall Road.

  “And what did Acton Sahib have to say to you, Mr. Sharma?” asked Miss Violet Dixon, the plain snub-nosed Anglo Indian typist in her singsong voice.

  Being an old family man of fifty, who had grayed prematurely, she considered herself safe enough with this ‘gentleman’ and freely conversed with him, specially during the lunch hour, while she considered almost everyone else as having only one goal in life – to sleep with her.

  ‘Han’, he said, ‘He has brought something for me from England’, Srijut Sharma answered.

  “There are such pretty things in U.K.” she said.

  ‘My! I wish, I could go there! My sister is there, you know! Married!...’

  She had told Sharma all these things before. So he was not interested. Specially today, because all his thoughts were concentrated on the inner meaning of Mr. Acton’s sudden visitation and the ambivalent smile.

  �
��Well, half day today, I am off; said Violet and moved away with the peculiar snobbish agility of the Memsahib she affected to be.

  Srijut Sharma stared at her blankly, though taking in her regular form into his subconscious with more than the old uncle’s interest he had always pretended to take in her. It was only her snub nose, like that of Surpanakha, the sister of the demon king Ravana, that stood in the way of her being married, he felt sure, for otherwise she had a tolerable figure. But he lowered his eyes as soon as the thought of Miss Dixon’s body began to simmer in the cauldron of his inner life; because, as a good Hindu, every woman, apart from the wife, was to him a mother or a sister. And his obsession about the meaning of Acton Sahib’s words returned, from the pent up curiosity, with greater force now that he realised the vastness of the space of time during which he would have to wait in suspense before knowing what the boss had brought for him and why.

  He took up his faded sola topee, which was, apart from the bush shirt and trousers, one of the few concessions to modernity which he had made throughout his life as a good Brahmin, got up from his chair, beckoned Dugdu sepoy from the verandah on his way out and asked.

  “Has Acton Sahib gone, you know?”

  “Abhi Sahib in lift going down,” Dugdu said.

  Srijut Sharma made quickly for the stairs and, throwing all caution about slipping on the polished marble steps to the winds, hurtled down. There were three floors below him and he began to sweat, both through fear of missing the Sahib and the heat of mid-April.

  As he got to the ground floor, he saw Acton Sahib already going out of the door.

  It was now or never.

  Srijut Sharma rushed out. But he was conscious that quite a few employers of the firm would be coming out of the two lifts and he might be seen talking to the Sahib. And that was not done – outside the office. The Sahibs belonged to their private worlds, where no intrusion was tolerated, for they refuse to listen to pleas of advancement through improper channels.

  Mr. Acton’s uniformed driver opened the door of the polished Buick and the Sahib sat down, spreading the shadow of grimness all around him.

  Srijut Sharma hesitated, for the demeanour of the Goanese chauffeur was frightening.

  By now the driver had smartly shut the back door of the car and was proceeding to his seat.

  That was his only chance.

  Taking off his hat, he rushed up to the window of the car, and rudely thrust his head into the presence of Mr. Acton.

  Luckily for him, the Sahib did not brush him aside, but smiled a broader smile than that of a few minutes ago and said: ‘you want to know, what I have brought for you – well, it is a gold watch with an inscription in it... See me Monday morning...’ The Sahib’s initiative in anticipating his question threw Srijut Sharma further off his balance. The sweat poured down from his forehead, even as he mumbled: ‘Thank You, Sir, thank you...’

  ‘Chalo, driver!’ Sahib ordered.

  And the chauffeur turned and looked hard at Srijut Sharma.

  The dispatch clerk withdrew’ with a sheepish, abject smile on his face and stood, hat in left hand, the right hand raised to his forehead in the attitude of a nearly military salute.

  The motor car moved off.

  But Srijut Sharma still stood, as though he had been struck dumb. He was neither happy nor sad at this moment. Only numbed by the shock of surprise. Why should he be singled out from the whole distribution department of Henry King & Co., for the privilege of the gift of a gold watch! He had done nothing brave that he could remember.’ A gold watch, with an inscription in it!’ Oh, he knew, now: the intuitive truth rose inside him: The Sahib wanted him to retire.

  The revelation rose to the surface of his awareness from the deep obsessive fear, which had possessed him for nearly half an hour, and his heart began to palpitate against his will; and the sweat sozzled his body.

  He reeled a little, then adjusted himself and got on to the pavement, looking after the cat, which had already turned the corner into Nicol Road.

  He turned and began to walk towards Victoria Terminus station. From there he had to take his train to Thana, thirty miles out where he had resided, for cheapness, almost all the years he had been in Bombay. His steps were heavy, for he was reasonably sure now that he would get notice of retirement on Monday. He tried to think of some other possible reason why the Sahib may have decided to give him the gift of a gold watch with an inscription. There was no other explanation. His doom was sealed. What would he say to his wife? And his son had still not passed his matric. How would he support the family? The provident fund would not amount to very much specially in these days of rising prices.

  He felt a pull at his heart. He paused for breath and tried to call himself. The blood pressure! Or was it merely wind? He must not get into a panic at any cost. He steadied his gait and walked along, muttering to himself, ‘Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!’ as though the very incantation of the formula of peace would restore his calm and equanimity.

  During the weekend, Srijut Sharma was able to conceal his panic and confusion behind the facade of an exaggerated bonhomie with the skill of an accomplished natural actor. On Saturday night he went with wife and son to see Professor Ram’s Circus, which was performing opposite the Portuguese Church; and he got up later than usual on Sunday morning; spent a little longer on his prayers, but seemed normal enough on the surface.

  Only, he ate very little of the gala meal of the rice-kichri put before him by his wife and seemed lost in thought for a few moments at a time. And his illiterate but shrewd wife noticed that there was something on his mind.

  ‘Thou has not eaten at all today,’ she said, as he had left the tasty papadum and the mango pickle untouched. ‘Look at Hari! He has left nothing in his thali!’

  ‘Hoon,’ he answered abstractedly. And, then realising he might be found out for the worried, unhappy man he was, he tried to bluff her. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking of some happy news that the Sahib gave me yesterday: He said, he brought a gold watch as a gift for me from Vilayat...’

  ‘Then Papaji give me the silver watch, which you are using now,’ said Hari his young son impetuously. ‘I have no watch at all and I am always late everywhere.’

  ‘Not so impatient, son!’ counselled Hari’s mother. ‘Let your father get the gold watch first and then – he will surely give you his silver watch.’

  In the ordinary way, Srijut Sudarshan Sharma would have endorsed his wife’s sentiments. But today, he felt that, on the face of it, his son’s demand was justified. How should Hari know that the silver watch, and the gold watch, and a gold ring, would be all the jewellery he, the father, would have for security against hard days if the gold watch was, as he prognosticated, only a token being offered by the firm to sugarcoat the bitter pill they would ask him to swallow – retirement five years before the appointed time. He hesitated, then lifted his head, smiled at his son and said:

  ‘Acha, Kaka, you can have my silver watch...’

  ‘Can I have it, really, Papaji-Hurray!’ the boy shouted, rushing away to fetch the watch from his father’s pocket. ‘Give it to me now, today!’

  ‘Yay son, you are so selfish!’ his mother exclaimed. For, with the peculiar sensitiveness of the woman she had surmised from the manner in which, her husband had hung his head down and then tried to smile as he lifted his face to his son, that the father of Hari was upset inside him, or at least not in his usual mood of accepting life evenly, accompanying this acceptance with the pious invocation – ‘Shanti! Shanti!’

  Hari brought the silver watch, adjusted it to his left ear to see if it ticked, and happy in the possession of it, capered a little caper.

  Srijut Sharma did not say anything, but pushing his thali away, got up to wash his hands.

  The next day it happened as Srijut Sharma had anticipated.

  He went in to see Mr. Acton as soon as the Sahib came in, for the suspense of the weekend had mounted to a crescendo by Monday morning and he had been Tremblin
g with trepidation, pale and completely unsure of himself. The General Manager called him in immediately the peon Dugdu presented the little slip with the dispatch clerk’s name on it.

  ‘Please, sit down, said Mr. Acton, lifting his grey-haired head from the papers before him. And then, pulling his keys from his trousers’ pocket by the gold chain to which they were adjusted, he opened a drawer and fetched out what Sharma thought was a beautiful red case.

  ‘Mr. Sharma, you have been a loyal friend of this firm for many years – and you know, your loyalty has been your greatest asset here – because...er... Otherwise, we could have got someone, with better qualifications” to do your work!... Now... we are thinking of increasing the efficiency of the business all round!... And, we feel that you would also like, at your age, to retire to your native Punjab... So, as a token of our appreciation for your loyalty to Henry King & Co., we are presenting you this gold watch... and he pushed the red case towards him.

  ‘Srijut Sharma began to speak, but though his mouth opened, he could not go on. ‘I am fifty years old,’ he wanted to say, ‘And I still have five years to go.’ His facial muscles seemed to contract, his eyes were dimmed with the fumes of frustration and bitterness, his forehead was covered with sweat. At least, they might have made a little ceremony of the presentation; he could not even utter the words: ‘Thank you, Sir!’

  ‘Of course, you will also have your provident fund and one month’s leave with pay before you retire...’

  Again, Srijut Sharma tried to voice his inner protest in words which would convey his meaning without seeming to be disloyal, for he did not want to obliterate the one concession the Sahib had made to the whole record of his service with his firm. It was just likely that Mr. Acton may remind him of his failings as a dispatch clerk if he should so much as indicate that he was unnameable to the suggestion made by the Sahib on behalf of Henry King & Co.

  ‘Look at the watch – it has an inscription in it which will please you,’ said Mr. Acton, to get over the embarrassment of the tension created by the silence of the dispatch clerk.