The baby born to Bhargavi was a boy. He died on the fourth day.
In a way that was a blessing. How would they bring it up? Pappu Nayar consoled himself with this thought. He told Bhargavi, ‘It is my responsibility also to bring up the children. We have two children now. How will they live? We do not want any more children.’
Raman was now six years old. Pappu Nayar decided that he should be taught reading and writing. He was put to school in the ensuing month of Edavam.
Bhargavi got back the job she had lost at the brahmin household. Pappu Nayar said it was the good fortune of the child which had died. Thus the family had the means for one meal a day. But it brought no comfort to Nayar. He continued to starve. Every noon and night, mother and children would eat the food brought from the brahmin madom (house). Nayar would be sitting on the verandah reciting prayers or listening to the Ramayana. Occasionally, he was given something to eat. He never asked for food. He took what was given.
Raman was not going to school. His mother had asked him to stay away. She said she could not afford the expenses. Pappu Nayar admitted she was right. All the same his children should learn to read and write. After all, the boy was only six. He said they would wait for the next year.
And the children? They had never called him Father till now. They would laugh when they saw him groping around in his blindness.
‘Daughter, come here,’ he would say and stretch out his hands. The girl would not go near him. She would stand at a distance and make faces at him. Once he told Raman: ‘Son, bring me some betel leaves and nuts to chew.’
Raman spread lime on the betel with a generous hand. The cunning lad put some pebbles in place of areca-nut. Pappu Nayar got his mouth burnt. Raman clapped his hands and laughed. Nayar also laughed at the prank.
One day Pappu Nayar stepped down from the verandah to the front yard with the help of his stick. Raman who had walked out in a huff from the kitchen after quarrelling with his mother knocked off the stick. Poor Nayar fell on his face. He would describe these events to passers-by and praise the boy’s high spirits.
Two years passed thus. Raman had still not been put to school. Several times Pappu Nayar talked about this to Bhargavi. She would say: ‘With your glib tongue you can say anything you like.’
‘But, is there not something in what I say?’
She would say nothing in reply. She would indifferently go about her work. Raman was involved in some petty thieving. Nayar asked him: ‘Is that right, you fellow?’
‘I’ll take care of that,’ would be the reply.
After all he was a boy. He would be all right when he grew up, Pappu Nayar consoled himself.
Bhargavi again became pregnant. That surprised Pappu Nayar a little. He asked her: ‘Bhargavi, how is this?’
She didn’t answer. At this time Bhargavi sent Raman to some house to work as a domestic help. Nayar complained about this to the neighbour Kuttiyamma: ‘Was it right to send him away thus? Should he not learn to read and write?’
‘My dear, yes . . .’ and then Kuttiyamma checked herself. Kuttiyamma had been an eyewitness to many of Bhargavi’s goings-on. She had grieved over the way Pappu Nayar had been ill-treated by Bhargavi. She had seen her eating her fill of rice and curry while the blind man was starved. She had seen it and wept. Besides she had now come from Pappu Nayar’s mother with a message for him. People around were talking of the sad state of affairs. But out of sympathy no one would talk to him directly of such things. And so the evil side of life lay hidden from him behind the perpetual darkness in which he existed. People were afraid that he would not be able to bear the burden of the hell in which he lived if it was revealed to him. His unbounded affection for Bhargavi wrested admiration from everyone. At the same time his unshakable optimism was a matter of surprise. The world bowed before his sincere and enviable spirit of sacrifice. He had not spoken one word in anger to Bhargavi. How could he be made to face the stark reality?
Kuttiyamma could not bring herself to spell it out. Pappu Nayar said: ‘My son is a clever fellow. He is working for a big office. He will learn to read and write.’
‘Pappu Nayar, he is not your son.’
‘No, he is a child of God. Is not this world itself an illusion created by God?’
Kuttiyamma did not say anything to that. She did not have the strength to do so.
Bhargavi gave birth to a boy this time. Nayar was very happy at the new addition to the family.
He said the child would be a companion for him. Another day, Kuttiyamma came again. She said: ‘You are lucky you cannot see. You do not have to see the misery and evil in this world.’
‘There is no evil in this world. True, there is poverty but that will end. If there is sorrow, there is happiness also, sister.’
‘No dear, not that . . .’
‘I am not unhappy; God has not sent down any sorrows for me. Of course I am a little uneasy about my children. Raman has not even written me a letter.’
‘You would not feel like this if you had seen those children.’
‘I see my children.’
‘If so, are you their father?’
Kuttiyamma’s heart missed a beat. She had blurted out the truth without thinking. Pappu Nayar hesitated, fumbling for an answer. The next moment he said: ‘They are children.’
‘What do you know, Pappu Nayar?’
‘You may be right, sister. The present child—it—I am not a fool, sister. Blind people have an excess of intelligence. I know many things. One night I heard the jingle of coins from inside the house.’
‘You sit in this verandah. She is a demon.’
Pappu Nayar did not answer immediately.
‘What of it? At least the world will not say that the children have no father.’
‘Do these children call you “Father”?’
‘No. But I love them. Look, my Raman and my Devaki are standing before me. How lovely they are! The little darlings! They are my children. Should I not do something for them?’
‘She has been deceiving you.’
‘She is to be pitied. How much has she starved! Perhaps this is her only way of subsistence. She requires a husband to show to the world. At least I have been of help to her that way.’
Kuttiyamma had no answer for him. His heart was large, wide as the universe. He was not someone groping about in the dark. His mind was a luminous crystal with a perpetual inner light. Many, many worlds flitted about playfully in its prismatic brilliance.
Kuttiyamma left in silence. That night also the neighbours heard him reciting the Kuchela Vritha.
Translated from Malayalam by V. Abdulla
Ismat Chughtai
The Wedding Shroud
Once again a freshly-laundered floor-covering was laid at the entrance of the room with the three doors, the seh-dari. Sunshine filtered through the chinks in the broken tiling on the roof and fell over the courtyard below in odd geometrical patterns. The women from the neighbourhood sat silently, apprehensively, as if waiting for some major catastrophe to occur. Mothers gathered their babies to their breasts. Occasionally a feeble, cranky infant would let out a yell protesting an impediment in the flow of sustenance.
‘No, no, my love,’ the thin, scrawny mother crooned, shaking the infant on her knees as if she were separating rice husks in a winnowing basket. How many hopeful glances were riveted on Kubra’s mother’s face today, Two narrow pieces of cloth had been placed together on one side, but no one had the nerve to measure and cut at this point. Kubra’s mother held an exalted position as far as measuring and cutting were concerned; no one really knew how many dowries had been adorned by her small, shrunken hands, how many suits of clothing for new mothers had been stitched, nor how many shrouds had been measured and torn. Whenever someone in the neighbourhood ran short of fabric and every effort to correctly mark off and snip had failed, the case was brought before Kubra’s mother. She would straighten the bias in the fabric, soften the starch in it, sometimes rearranging the cloth in the
form of a triangle, sometimes a square. Then, the scissors in her imagination would go to work, she would measure and cut, and break into a smile.
‘You will get the front, back and sleeves from this. Take some snippets from my sewing box for the neck.’ And so the problem would be solved; proper measuring and cutting having been dealt with, she would hand over everything along with a neatly-tied bundle of snippets.
But today the piece of fabric at hand was really insufficient. Everyone was quite sure Kubra’s mother would fail to accurately measure and cut this time, which was why all the women were looking apprehensively at her. But on Kubra’s mother’s face, which bore a resolute look, there was not even a shadow of anxiety. She was surveying and patterning a four-finger-length of coarse cotton. The reflection from the red twill lit up her bluish-yellow face like sunrise. The heavy folds on her face rose like darkening clouds, as if a fire had broken out in a dense forest. Smiling, she picked up the scissors.
A heavy sigh of relief rose up from the ranks of the women.
Infants were allowed to whimper, eagle-eyed virgins leapt up to thread their needles, newly-wed brides put on their thimbles. Kubra’s mother’s scissors had begun their work.
At the far end of the seh-dari, Hameeda sat pensively on a couch, her feet dangling, her chin resting on one hand, her mind somewhere else.
Every afternoon after lunch, Ammabi settles down on the couch in the seh-dari, opens her sewing box and scatters about her a colourful array of snippets. Seated next to the stone mortar, washing dishes, Kubra observes these colourful pieces of cloth and a red band of colour surges across her pale, muddy complexion.
When Ammabi lifts tiny gilded flowerets from the sewing box with her small, soft-skinned hands, her drooping face suddenly lights up with a strange, hope-filled luminescence; the glow of the golden flowerets is reflected on the deep, craggy folds of her face, glimmering there like the flames of tiny candles. With every stitch the gold sparkles and the candles flutter.
No one knows when the net of gold flowerets was first made for the fine muslin dupatta, and when the dupatta was lowered into the grave-like depths of the heavy trunk. The edges of the flowerets had faded, the patterned gilt border had become pale, the coils of gold thread wore a forlorn look, but there was no sign of Kubra’s wedding procession yet. When a suit of clothing made especially for chauthi, the fourth day of the wedding, lost its lustre with the passage of time, it was discarded on one pretext or another and new hope was kindled by starting work on a new suit. After a thorough search a new bride was selected for the first snip, a freshly-laundered floor covering was laid at the entrance to the seh-dari, and the women from the neighbourhood, carrying their babies and paan-containers, their anklets tinkling, arrived on the scene.
‘You will get the border from the smaller piece without any difficulty, but you won’t have enough left for the bodice.’
‘What do you mean? We’re not going to use the twill for the bodice, are we?’ And with that everyone’s face took on a troubled look. Quietly, like a silent alchemist, Ammabi used her eyes to calculate width and length while the women whispered amongst themselves about the sparseness of the fabrics. A few laughed, one of them broke into a wedding song and before long, some others, impelled by newfound boldness, launched into a song about imaginary in-laws. Along came dirty jokes, teasing and giggling, and this was when the young unmarried girls were ordered to leave; they were told to cover their heads and find a place to sit somewhere near the tiling. On hearing the sound of laughter the young girls sighed: Oh God, when would they be able to laugh like this?
Overcome by shyness, her head hung low, Kubra sat in the mosquito-infested ante-chamber, far from all this hustle and bustle. Without any warning the measuring and cutting process would arrive at a delicate stage; a gusset had been cut against the grain and one would think the women’s good sense had also been snipped in the process. Kubra would watch fearfully from a chink in the door. That was the problem: not one suit had been stitched without being followed by trouble. If a gusset was cut the wrong way you could be sure the matchmaker’s gossip would create a hitch— somewhere a mistress would be discovered, or the groom’s mother would cause a problem by making demands for a pair of solid gold bracelets. A bias in the area of the hem meant there would be a falling out on the matter of mehr, or over the question of copper legs for the wooden bed. The omen associated with the dress for chauthi was indeed a critical one. But all of Ammabi’s expertise and capability came to nought; who knows why, at the last minute, something as minute as a coriander seed suddenly assumed undue importance.
Ammabi had prudently started preparing Kubra’s dowry from the day the girl began reading the Quran. The smallest remnant was immediately stitched into a cover for a decorative glass bottle, adorned with fretted lace of gold thread, and stored. There’s no telling with a girl: she grows so fast, like a cucumber. If a wedding procession does appear at the door, this very foresight and astuteness will prove invaluable.
However, this special astuteness lost its edge after Abba’s death. All at once Hameeda remembered her father. Abba had been as slight as a pole; if he lowered his body he had difficulty straightening up again. Early in the morning he would break off a twig from the neem tree and, with Hameeda in his lap, lose himself in thought. Then, as soon as he started brushing, a small fragment from the twig would go down the wrong way and he would begin to cough violently. Upset, Hameeda would slip off his knees; she did not like being shaken like that. Amused at her childish anger he would laugh, thus causing the choking cough to flutter in his throat like the flapping wings of a slaughtered pigeon. Finally Ammabi would come along and slap him on the back.
‘Good grief! What kind of laughter is this?’
Raising eyes reddened from the coughing fit, Abba would look at his wife and smile helplessly. The coughing eased, but he sat huffing and puffing in the same place for a long time afterwards.
‘Why don’t you find a cure for this cough? I’ve told you so many times you should do something about it.’
‘The doctor at the big hospital says I will need injections.
He also said I should have a quart of milk and one ounce of butter every day.’
‘Dust upon the doctors’ faces! There’s a bad cough and then all that fat on top of it—why, if that does not create more phlegm what will? Go to an allopath, I say.’
‘I will.’ Abba would gurgle his tobacco-pipe and start coughing again.
‘May this hukkah burn! This is the root of your coughing. Have you ever taken the trouble of looking at your grown daughter?’
And Abba glanced at Kubra’s youth with a wistful look in his eyes: Kubra a grown woman—who said she was a grown woman? One would think that soon after the bismillah ceremony marking the beginning of lessons, she learned of her impending womanhood, staggered, and came to a standstill. What kind of womanhood was this that never put a sparkle in her eyes, nor allowed her tresses to caress her cheeks; no storm ever raged in her breast, nor did she ever sing playfully to the dark, swirling monsoon clouds for a beloved. Her shrinking, timorous womanhood which stole up on her without warning, left as furtively as it had come. The intoxicating drug first became salty, then bitter.
One day Abba stumbled over the threshold and fell on his face. Neither a doctor’s prescription nor an allopath’s remedy could lift him up again. And that was when Hameeda ceased to make demands for sweet roti.
That was also when proposals intended for Kubra somehow lost their way. It was as if no one knew that behind the sackcloth curtain at the door there was someone whose youth was drawing its last breath, and someone else whose youth was lifting its head like a cobra’s hood.
But Ammabi’s routine remained unchanged; every day, in the afternoon, as if she were playing with dolls, she scattered about her in the seh-dari all the colourful remnants and snippets from her sewing box.
Scrounging and saving from here and there, Ammabi finally succeeded in buying a crepe dupatt
a for seven rupees and eight annas. Circumstances demanded that the dupatta be purchased immediately. A telegram from Hameeda’s uncle had arrived: his oldest son, Rahat, was going to be in town for police training. Ammabi was beside herself with anxiety. One would think that the wedding party was at the door and she hadn’t even cut up gold tinsel for the bride’s hair as yet. Panicking, she lost her cool altogether and sent for her friend, Bundu’s mother, who was also her adopted sister.
‘You’ll never see my face again if you do not come this very moment.’
Putting their heads together the two women whispered conspiratorially. Every once in a while they would glance at Kubra who was winnowing rice in the verandah. She knew perfectly well what this hushed conversation implied.
Right then Ammabi removed her tiny clove-shaped gold earrings and handed them to Bundu’s mother with the request that no matter what, she was to get her one tola of fretted gold lace, six masas of gold leaf and stars, and a quarter yard of twill for the waistband. The room at the outer end of the house was swept and dusted; using a small amount of slaked lime, Kubra whitewashed the interior of the room herself. The walls became white, but the lime flaked the skin on her palms. That evening when she sat down to grind spices she fell back in pain. In bed she tossed and turned all night, first because of her palms, and then because Rahat was arriving by the morning train.
‘Oh God, dear God!’ Hameeda entreated after morning prayers. ‘Please let my cousin have good luck this time. I promise I will say a hundred rakats at prayer.’
Kubra was already ensconced in the mosquito-ridden chamber when Rahat arrived the next morning. After he had partaken of a breakfast consisting of parathas and vermicelli cooked in milk he retired to the sitting room. Kubra came out stealthily, taking measured steps like a new bride, and started picking up the dirty dishes.
The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories Page 18
