Although he was not fond of seeing films very often, he thought that seeing one today might divert his mind and soothe him, so after his dinner he said to his youngest daughter, ‘Nirmal, tell your mother that I shall return late in the night.’ And quietly he set out of his house. In his ears the words of the Superintendent were resounding still: ‘Inder, if you want to continue in service, you must be very careful. I don’t require good-for-nothing fellows like you, I tell you!’
‘Good-for-nothing! Good-for-nothing! Am I really so?’ he kept wondering.
Only a few days ago, after the accounts of the company were audited, his Superintendent had been all praise for his work, which was indeed flawless. And yet what did he say yesterday? Oh! How strange these people are! And fickle in their opinions! At one time they hold one opinion and at another time quite a different one. It takes them no time to change their minds, weather-cocks! Whosoever works strenuously, slaving ten hours instead of the official eight, is a Yes-man like I am, Inder thought. Such a slave takes scoldings from his boss; never asks for an increment or for an enhancement of his dearness allowance, even though his children are starving and often he himself has to attend office on an empty stomach. Yet these are the men who are regarded as worthy and patted on the back like dogs. A strange standard indeed!
Walking slowly in a gloom, Inder reached the picture house. Today neither the flying end of a gold-bordered sari nor a colourful blouse could attract his attention. He was completely lost in himself.
The house was full, packed to capacity. Although his eyes were fixed on the screen, his heart was sunk in abysmal depths. While people followed the story with rapt attention, his mind was wandering elsewhere. The colourful scenery, the popular music and the young heroine in the picture, all failed to stir his emotions. Inder sat through the picture brooding. So absorbed was he in his own thoughts that he was unaware for a few minutes that the show was over. When he came to himself, he staggered home at midnight. His heart was heavy as before.
The lamp was fluttering hazily. His wife, tired of waiting, had fallen half-asleep in a chair. Her eyelids drooped with drowsiness but her ears were alert for the opening of the door. Her dishevelled dark hair could not conceal the fine molding and delicacy of her features. He watched her for a while from the window, framed in the faint light, small, fragile, in her green poplin. Shakuntla was one of those women whose ideal is to serve their husbands at all costs and in all circumstances. Hearing his step, she rose readily to open the door. He walked in and threw himself on his bed without uttering a word. But unable to sleep, he tossed restlessly.
Time and again he relived the day and was convinced of his own innocence. The matter for which he was scolded yesterday, was not his fault, he thought. Even a healthy, well-fed man, working from 9 in the morning till 7 or 8 in the evening in the heat of summer, might get confused. How much more reason for a man like himself, who never even saw a cup of milk except on those rare occasions when it was served to his children. Butter, he could only think of as an ingredient of offerings to gods.
He always worked very hard, very conscientiously. But last evening, while totalling the account, his pencil had put the digit 7 instead of 9. It was really a slip of the pen and no blunder, yet that was precisely the reason for which he had had to swallow so much against his self-respect.
It was not a major error, either, especially when he would have corrected it the very next morning, while double-checking the accounts as usual. But misfortunes attended him. He did not get the opportunity. The Superintendent called for those very papers and his eye eventually fell on the mistake. The silly clerical slip which would not have occurred at all, had he not been in a particular hurry last evening to leave the office and take home medicine for his ailing child.
With such thoughts roving in his mind and a growing feeling of uneasiness, Inder was exhausted. Within him, a storm was raging. His breast heaved, as the earth heaves with lava before a volcano erupts. Within him clashed opposite currents of thought.
As the turmoil increased, he rose from his bed, then lay down and rose again. But feeling that many hours were left before day-break, he lay down again, his mind immersed in confusion.
He was helpless. The Superintendent’s words had left a sting, but who was there to sympathise? Continuously he thought, ‘They draw fat salaries for themselves, but for us it is always a fixed salary: Rs. 59 and As. 15. The employer is only concerned with multiplying his gross profits; little does he care for those who help him to run the business and accumulate wealth. Like the famous Shaikh Chillie, he cuts the very branch on which he is perching. Intoxicated with his wealth, the shrieks of a starving child, the groan of an ailing infant, the sight of a youth, torn with anxiety, fail to touch his heart. His riches and his houses are all built on the sweat and toil of down-trodden people like me. Cruel, stone-hearted, callous!
‘If his heart is not moved at the sight of a sick child, is he fit to be called a human being? Surely not! He is a cannibal. He is unconcerned if someone is dying with cold outside his house, as long as he himself is wrapped in warm clothes, eating and drinking of the best. These haughty men!’
With such furious thoughts creating havoc in his mind, Inder trembled with anger.
His soul was not yet so degraded, he told himself, that he would own defeat in the first encounter. His sinews had still some of the energy of youth left in them.
Thus does the wick of a dying lamp burn brighter before it finally goes out. A new confidence flickered in his otherwise feeble physical frame. He was still mentally vigorous enough to clear his conscience, he decided, and he would not put up with this mean and unjust treatment. It was intolerable. For a moment he wavered indecisively between the prospects of starvation and of continuing in service, to swallow insults and humiliation. Then he chose starvation and all the consequences. The die was cast!
Yes, he would resign his job on the morrow.
After taking this fateful decision, he could no longer lie in bed. He resolved to write his resignation letter then and there. Rising he searched for a match box in the darkness. Sincere efforts rarely go in vain. His hand touched the box and he lit the lamp. But the light flickered and went out. The oil had run out! He found himself helpless against such odds.
Exhausted, he again groped his way back to his bed, staggering a little with weakness. He heard his child coughing in the other room; and all at once his thoughts took a new turn. Inder pondered anew his decision to resign! By resigning his job, was he not throwing his son into the jaws of death? Was he not leaving his wife to confront the battle of life? Was he not a deserter? Was he not preparing for himself the slippery path for his own fall into the bottomless abyss? Was not his resignation his own death warrant? Good heavens! he thought, he had been about to take a wrong step! He owed responsibility to his family, and he had been about to neglect it. For himself he could face starvation, but what of his wife and children? A cruel, callous society was unlikely to feed them, or to treat them with care. And the result would only be frightful and ignominious death! The thoughts of tragedy again gnawed at him.
‘Daddy! Daddy! Get up! Even the sun is out. Hurry up and go to office,’ cried his daughter Nimmi. She was voicing the words of her mother and knocking at the door of her father’s bedchamber. In the morning sun he could see the tender eager face, with moist dark hair curling loosely at her temple.
Inder was startled. He was unaware that the whole night had passed. Rubbing his eyes with his palms, he climbed out of bed. On his face was only dejection and disappointment, no trace remained of his vigorous revolt. ‘You are a family man Inder,’ he said to himself, ‘you have a devoted wife and children to look after!’ From some inner reccess of his heart he heard a cry of despair, but he stifled it, stifled his self-respect, his hopes of proud action.
With a little whisper of submission, quickly he washed his face, proceeded to don his clothes and swallowed his breakfast. In a little while, taking his cycle, with a bundle of f
iles tied on to the carrier, he was seen peddling along the road to his office. The day stretched ahead of him, lengthening, in his mind, into weeks, years, a lifetime. A long, dreary road and no way out.
saadat
Yashpal
This has been my sitting-room for six years now. Its red floor is used to all sorts of footmarks, but it retains no trace of them to remind one of the people who have been in it. Still, just near the door leading into the house, two paws of a cat are imprinted for ever. They will last as long as the floor itself, because they were left there by a cat when the floor was being laid. Whenever I see these marks I cannot help thinking of incidents from my early childhood — that tender age when one acquires impressions that last a whole lifetime — when I hadn’t even joined a primary school.
My father was an official in the Forests Division. At times he used to take us — that is mother and the children along with him on tours.
It was a hilly terrain. Our camps were pitched near a well on the roadside. Cars, trucks, horses, tongas and a perennial stream of pedestrians — in short, all the things that are associated with the idea of a road, were missing there. A comparatively broad ribbon of a footpath wound up hill and down dale. Occasionally pahari men and women passed in groups. Usually women carried small bundles balanced on their heads and men carried bundles on their backs. Another picture of that period well-preserved in my mind, is that of a man following his two or three mules, carrying a thick stick on his shoulder, and singing in a high voice, with a hand on his ear and his face upturned. This was all the crowd that the road was accustomed to.
I don’t remember the number of days we lived there. But I had memorised many songs I frequently heard on the road and at the well. I have forgotten school and college lessons in History and Chemistry, but I can still recite a few haunting lines from those songs:
‘Goriye da man lagya Chambe di ghati
Kunja jai paiyan nadaun,
Thandhe pani te banke nahon,
Pal bhar bahi lain, ho dayara.’
(The belle has fallen in love with the valley of Chamba
‘The kronch birds alight on the Nadaun river;
The dandies bathe in its cool water;
O devar, let us sit here awhile.’)
And on a slope near the well, the breeze played through thick pines and their needle leaves, in a sound that was half song, half sigh.
There was a grave beneath one of the trees, and nearby were two huts inhabited by some people. They had a pair of big, bear-like, black dogs and some hens. We — that is my younger sister and I — used to play with the dogs and the hens. Most of the time we were at the huts.
And of all these memories, the centre, the heart, is Saadat. Even after the passage of so much time and after so many revolutionary changes in my life, her figure is very distinct in my memory. She held her duppatta between her thumb and forefinger and touched the ground to salaam our mother. In our mother’s presence she always sat on the bare ground — not like a sophisticated city girl. She sat with her feet outstretched and her knees played together ceaselessly. Her eyes, blue-grey, and her fine lips smiled always, setting aglow the peach-gold of her complexion and accentuating the proud line of a delicately chiselled nose.
She addressed Sita, my younger sister, as Munni. Sita too was very fond of her. Saadat lived with us in our camp. She talked to mother and helped her do odd jobs. But first and foremost she was a baby-sitter. She was there to look after Sita. Once with her, Sita forgot everyone else, even mother.
After that, during my childhood, I often heard mother telling her friends and acquaintances: ‘I have seen beauty but once. Oh, she was a jewel in that rubbish heap.’
There is a saying that a woman is never charmed by another woman’s beauty. But here a woman’s beauty had charmed another. ‘I have seen beauty but once,’ mother would say, ‘On the road from Kangra to Nadaun is the Tomb of Pir Chamola. There, in the family of the caretakers Saadat was a new bride. No queen ever dreamt of possessing beauty like hers. One glimpse of her could make one forget both hunger and thirst. And, oh, she was so sweet-tempered that neither of the children ever wanted to leave her...Yes even children can recognise beauty; even they sought her company...’
In my boyhood, stealthily, I often heard my mother say: ‘Ah, if I could get such a beautiful bride for my son, I would pick her even off the dust.’ And I would smile to hear her.
After that, whenever I read beauty described in stories and poems, or tried to imagine the beauty of Shakuntala or Zulekha, a clear image of the fair Saadat came to my mind. Whenever my parents talked of my marriage, I could not help remembering Saadat.
Perhaps they had forgotten all about Saadat, but to me she became more and more real every day. To me beauty meant Saadat. And at the same time I laughed at myself, because I knew Saadat’s beauty to be a thing of the past. I knew twenty long years must have snatched away her charms.
With a university degree and a doctorate, I got a job as a lecturer. I earned my living for the first time and felt manly, self-confident. Now I, myself, began to think of marriage. I dreamt of a home of my own, of my future wife and of our child. And then, I felt transported, eager to meet the future.
Well, that was all inevitable, I thought. It would come about as surely as the seasons return. Meanwhile I decided to visit a hill station in the summer vacation.
Something in my mind was always dragging me towards that shrine of Beauty, of which Saadat had been the only symbol for me, for so many years. But reason mocked at my heart. Would she be the same after twenty years? Wasn’t it a hopeless quest? Is there a flower that doesn’t wither? What can stay firm and unaltered under the fatal wheel of time? I knew and understood all this, yet it was there that I knew I would go.
I reached Kangra. There was a road now, leading from Kangra to Nadaun. Buses plied on it. I alighted from the bus at Ranital. The small lake on the shoulder of the hill, amidst cypress and pine trees, looked familiar, like a place seen in dreams.
I had no hope of seeing Saadat. But I was eager to see the place which had given me an ideal of beauty, where I came in contact with beauty unattachedly and for the first time in my life. Moreover I wanted to see the caretakers of Pir Chamola, who had had beauty incarnate live among them. The association of the idea had elevated beauty in my mind to a place higher than that of a mother; beauty, for me, had become something to be worshipped, revered and idolised; it was almost a faith with me.
I inquired my way up to the Tomb of Pir Chamola. Whispering pines on the mountain slope, red withered needles of pines strewn on the earth, lush verdure of turf underfoot, and mango groves below in the valley — all was like a familiar dream come true. The white-washed Tomb of Pir Chamola beneath a cluster of pines lay ahead. The huts of the caretakers stood behind the Tomb. Around me, the pines soared much higher than any I remembered in dreams.
I recognised the well at once. In fact it was a spring of fresh water, flowing down in a clear stream. The green scrub around the spring was thicker now, and shy violets grew in its shade. I thought, all is just as it was before, only I am not the same. And nor are the people who lived here once. Saadat will not be here and even if she were, she would be like the dry and scentless petals of a rose preserved only for the sake of happy memories. Why is human beauty so transitory?
Below, near the spring, sat an old man, wearing a blue loincloth. He had a small hookah under his armpit and nearby were two clay pitchers. Smoking his hookah, he filled a small vessel with water and emptied it into the pitchers.
I left the footpath to come down to the well. I wanted to speak to the caretaker, but before I could do so, he himself broke the silence.
I was startled. I could not believe my ears. The next moment the hermit called out again! ‘Saadat, O S-a-a-d-a-t.’ The sound echoed from the hills.
Now I will see Saadat, I thought. Saadat too must be like this old man, decayed and worn and tattered. They will pick up one pitcher each and take it home.
But she is still alive! She — the relic of beauty. The very fact of being able to see her again brought an upsurge of emotion, constricting my throat.
‘I am coming, father.’ In another moment the hills reechoed the answer.
I raised my eyes in the direction from where the answer had come. I could not see anybody on the mound of the Tomb, but the thrill and youthfullness of the voice was unmistakable. The voice had the spring-time sweetness and the melody of a koel’s song. Is this the voice of Saadat? I asked myself. Is Saadat a goddess of eternal beauty, like Menaka and Urvashi? Is she an imperishable image of the abstract idea of perfect youth?
Then a damsel came down a footpath from the mound of the Tomb, gliding with the effortless grace that is mountain-bred. She was wearing dark-blue and an empty pitcher was balanced on her head, upside down. I watched with delight the freedom and lightness of her movements.
The beauty of Saadat was before me, in flesh and blood. Pearly skin, wide blue-grey eyes, a fine-drawn nose and laughing lips. Exciting breasts, more exciting in the rhythm of her swinging gait. She looked towards me, full of curiosity, and then probably my eager and ardent stare made her shrink back and turn away.
She put her pitcher down lightly on the platform around the well. She whispered a few words to the old man. Then, smiling radiantly, she lifted the filled pitcher gently with both her hands. She threw another glance at me, and started climbing the hill, leaving me trembling with joyous excitement.
I moistened my dry tongue, and salaamed the old caretaker. ‘I don’t see much water in the spring today,’ I casually remarked. Indeed, the quantity of the water flowing from the spring was very small and a pitcher could not be plunged in it.
The old man touched his forehead and replied, ‘Yes, sir. We have to face this shortage almost daily during the summer.’
Now I thought it fit to remind him of our acquaintance of twenty years ago. He surveyed me from head to foot, with his rheumy eyes. ‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ he said at last, ‘A Hindu who was an official in the Forests Division, camped here for about two months, twenty years ago. He was very kind.’
Land of Five Rivers Page 10
