The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories

by Stephen Alter

  ‘Apa, here, let me wash these,’ Hameeda teased.

  ‘No,’ replied Kubra, hunched over shyly. Hameeda continued to tease her, Ammabi continued to smile and stitch gold lace on the crepe dupatta. The gold flowerets and cockades and the silver anklets went the way of the clove-shaped earrings. In no time they were followed by the four bangles Ammabi’s brother had given her at the ceremony marking the end of her mourning period after Abba died. Eating humble fare themselves, the women cooked sumptuous parathas, fried meatballs and biriyani for Rahat; while Ammabi herself subsisted on bread and water, she fed the best cuts of meat to her son-in-law-to-be.

  ‘These are hard times, my child,’ she would tell Hameeda when she complained. And she thought: We remain hungry so that we can nourish the son-in-law. Kubra Apa gets up early in the morning, drinks a glass of water and starts working like a machine. She prepares parathas for Rahat and keeps the milk on boil for a long time so that a heavy layer of cream forms on it; if she could, she would take some of the fat from her own body and knead it into the dough she used to make parathas for Rahat. And why shouldn’t she do all this? After all, one day he will be hers, and whatever he earns he will entrust to her care. Don’t we all water and nourish a fruit-bearing plant? And then, when the flowers bloom and the bough bends with their weight, people who now gossip will be silenced forever. It was this very thought that made my Kubra Apa’s face glow with bride-like luminescence. The sound of wedding trumpets echoed in her ears and she rushed to sweep up the dirt in Rahat’s room with her lashes; lovingly, as if they talked to her, she folded his dirty clothes, washed his soiled, foul-smelling socks, laundered his stinking undershirts and handkerchiefs filled with mucus, and on his pillow-case she carefully embroidered the words, ‘Sweet dreams’. But things were not falling into place. Rahat ate a hearty breakfast consisting of eggs and parathas every morning, returned at night to eat meatballs, and then went to bed. Ammabi’s adopted sister whispered complaints.

  Tes, but the poor fellow is very shy,’ Ammabi offered excuses.

  ‘That’s all very well, but we should get a hint or a clue from his actions or the way he looks at her.’

  ‘Heaven forbid that my daughter should exchange looks with anyone! No outsider has even glimpsed her head-covering.’ Ammabi spoke with pride.

  ‘My dear, no one is suggesting that she come before Rahat.’

  Observing Kubra’s well-developed acne, Bundu’s mother secretly lauded Ammabi’s foresight. ‘You are so naive, my dear sister. When is this young thing going to be of use?’ She looked at me and twittered. ‘You, good-for-nothing girl, you must jest with your brother-in-law and clown around with him, you silly child.’

  ‘But Khala, what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Why don’t you talk to him you silly girl.’

  ‘No, no, I feel shy talking to him.’

  ‘Why? He is not going to tear you to pieces, is he?’ Ammabi spoke angrily.

  ‘No, but . . .’ I was speechless. Then everyone conferred. After prolonged deliberation, special kababs, using dried mustard seeds, were readied; Kubra Apa smiled a lot through all this. Then she whispered to me.

  ‘Now don’t start laughing or else you’ll ruin the game.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I promised.

  ‘I’ve brought your dinner,’ I said, placing the tray of food on the stool before Rahat. But when he glanced up and down at me while washing his hands, I ran from the room. My heart was beating uncontrollably; what a fierce expression he had in his eyes!

  ‘You fool, go and see how he reacts to the kabobs. You’re going to spoil the fun.’

  Kubra Apa looked at me. There was pleading in her eyes, the dust of departing wedding processions, a sadness reminiscent of old wedding clothes. I lowered my head and returned to where Rahat sat eating.

  He ate silently without a glance in my direction. While he was eating I should have joked and laughed with him. I should have said, ‘Are you enjoying these special kababs, dear brother-in-law?’ But I felt as if someone had clutched at my throat.

  Angered, Ammabi called me back and scolded me under her breath. How could I say, ‘He is enjoying his food. I hope he doesn’t eat me.’

  ‘Rahat Bhai, do you like the kababs?’ I asked, as I had been instructed by Ammabi.

  There was no answer.

  ‘Do you like the kababs?’

  ‘Go and ask him properly,’ Ammabi nudged me.

  ‘You brought them to me and I ate them. They must be good.’

  ‘What an ignoramus!’ Ammabi was forced to exclaim. ‘Why, you ate kababs made with dried mustard seeds and you couldn’t tell the difference?’

  ‘Mustard seeds? But I eat the same thing every day, don’t I? I’m used to eating mustard seeds and chaff,’ Rahat spoke quietly.

  Ammabi’s face fell. Kubra Apa couldn’t lift her eyes. The next day Kubra Apa spent twice the usual amount of time sewing and when I took Rahat his food in the evening, he said:

  ‘And what did you bring me today? It must be sawdust this time.’

  ‘Don’t you like our food?’ I snapped at him.

  ‘That’s not what I mean. It’s just a little strange. Sometimes you give me kababs made with mustard seeds, sometimes curry made with chaff.’

  I was infuriated: we eat dry bread so that we can provide him with enormous rations, stuff him with parathas dripping with butter, and my poor sister, who can’t afford medicine for herself, lavishes him with milk and cream. Fuming, I came away.

  Ammabi’s adopted sister’s advice worked and Rahat began to spend the better part of his day at home. Kubra Apa stayed at the stove most of the time, Ammabi was always busy stitching the jora for chauthi, and Rahat’s filthy looks plunged into my heart like arrows. He teased me without any provocation while he was eating or making a request for water or salt, and insinuating remarks; embarrassed, I would go and sit next to Kubra Apa. I wanted to say to her, ‘Whose goat is this anyway, and who’s giving it fodder? Dear sister, I won’t be able to put a ring in your bull’s nose.’ But Kubra Apa’s tangled hair was covered with ashes from the stove . . . No! My heart sank. Quickly I lifted the gray lock of hair from the side of her face and tucked it into her plait. A curse on this recurring cold! The poor girl’s hair is turning gray from it.

  Using another excuse this time, Rahat called me again.

  ‘Hunh!’ I was furious. But when Kubra Apa turned around with the look of a slaughtered animal, I had to go.

  ‘Are you angry with me?’ Rahat took the glass of water from me and grabbed my wrist. My heart leapt into my mouth, and pulling my hand from his grasp, I fled.

  ‘What was he saying?’ Kubra Apa asked in a voice stifled by shyness. Silent, I just stared at her.

  Then I began hurriedly, ‘He was saying, “Who cooked the food? How delicious it is! I can’t stop eating . . . I want to devour the hand . . . oh, no, kiss the hand of the person who cooked all this.”’ Taking Kubra Apa’s roughened hand which smelt of turmeric and coriander, I clasped it in mine; my eyes filled with tears. These ‘hands’, which grind spices from morning to night, draw water, chop onions, make beds, polish shoes—hapless, these hands are at work from morning to night like slaves. When will their subservience end? Will they ever find a buyer? Will no one ever kiss them lovingly, will they never be adorned with henna, will they ever be drenched in bridal attar? I wanted to scream at the top of my voice.

  ‘What else did he say?’ Kubra Apa’s hands were rough, but her voice was so melodious and sweet-sounding that if Rahat had ears . . . but he had neither ears nor a nose, just an infernal stomach.

  ‘Well, he said tell your sister she shouldn’t work so hard and she should take something for her cough.’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘No, I’m not lying. It’s he who’s a liar, your . . .’

  ‘Hush, you silly girl! Here, I’ve completed the sweater . . . why don’t you take it to him. But promise you won’t tell him I knitted it.’

  I wanted t
o say, ‘Apa, don’t give him this sweater. This body of yours which is just a handful of bones needs it more than he does.’ But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. ‘Apa, what will you wear?’ I asked instead.

  ‘I don’t really need it. I feel scorched from sitting next to the stove.’

  Upon seeing the sweater Rahat raised one eyebrow mischievously and asked: ‘Did you make this yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In that case I’m not going to wear it.’

  I felt like scarring his face. You wretch! Mountain of clay! This sweater has been knitted by hands which are living, breathing slaves; caught in its every stitch are the hopes of an ill-fated woman; the hands that made it are meant to rock a cradle. Grasp these hands, you idiot, they will be like life-saving oars when your boat is threatened by overpowering waves in a storm. They may not play a melody on the sitar, they won’t twist and turn in the poses of Manipuri or Bharata Natyam, they haven’t been taught to dance over the keys of a piano, they haven’t had the good fortune to play with flowers, but these are the hands that toil endlessly to provide sustenance to your body, they sew for you day and night, suffer the heat from the stove, wash your filth so that you can maintain your image of unblemished wholesomeness. Wounded by hard work, they have never been adorned with tinkling bangles, and no one has ever clasped them lovingly. But I remained silent. Ammabi says my thinking has been poisoned by my new friends who tell me new things, frightening things about hunger and starvation, about hearts suddenly ceasing to beat.

  ‘Why don’t you wear this sweater,’ Rahat said, ‘your shirt is so flimsy.’

  I scratched his face, nose, shirt-front and hair like a crazed cat and, running to my room, fell on my bed. Kubra Apa quickly put the last roti on the pan, washed her hands and, wiping them with a corner of her dupatta, came and sat on the edge of my bed. ‘Did he say anything?’ Unable to stop herself, she asked me, her heart beating fast.

  ‘Apa, Rahat is not a nice person.’ I decided I would tell her everything today.

  ‘Why?’ she smiled.

  ‘I don’t like him . . . look, he broke all my bangles.’ I was trembling.

  ‘He’s so mischievous,’ Apa said coyly.

  ‘Apa, listen Apa, he’s not a nice person at all,’ I said angrily. ‘I’m going to tell Ammabi today.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Ammabi, unrolling the prayer mat.

  ‘Look Ammabi, my bangles.’

  ‘Did Rahat break them?’ she asked gleefully.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t he? Aren’t you always pestering him? Why are you so upset anyway? You’re not going to melt with the first touch.’ Then she spoke in a pacifying tone. ‘When the time comes you can make up for all this— Rahat will not be able to forget your revenge!’ And saying this she began her prayers.

  There was another conference with her adopted sister and, satisfied that matters were moving in the desired direction, they both smiled happily. Bundu’s mother said to me, ‘My word, girl, you are a good-for-nothing! When we were young we made life miserable for our brothers-in-law.’

  She then proceeded to describe how brothers-in-law should be harassed, giving her own example to illustrate her point. She explained how just teasing and mischief had resulted in the marriage of her uncle’s two daughters for whom there had seemed to be no hope at all.

  One of the men was Hakimji; whenever the young girls played pranks on him or joked with him, he would suffer one attack of bashfulness after another until he became quite distraught. Finally a day came when he informed Uncle that he wanted to be his son-in-law.

  The other was a clerk in the Viceroy’s office. No sooner did the girls hear he had arrived in the house than the teasing and pranks commenced; sometimes they sent him paan filled with hot chillies, sometimes vermicelli in which they had put salt instead of sugar. What do you know, he started coming every day, regardless of whether it rained or stormed. And one day he requested an acquaintance to arrange a match for him in that family. When asked, ‘With which girl?’ he answered, ‘It doesn’t really matter.’ And by God, looking at the older girl you would think a banshee was coming your way. And the younger one, well, she too was something else: one eye faced west, the other east. Her father gave her fifteen tolas of gold in her dowry and also arranged a job for her husband in the Barre Sahib’s office.

  ‘Well, how can someone with fifteen tolas of gold and the influence to provide a job in Barre Sahib’s office have any difficulty finding a boy,’ said Ammabi with a sigh.

  ‘No, my dear, that’s not it. These days men’s hearts are just like egg-plant on a tray—you can make them roll whichever way you like.’

  But Rahat isn’t an eggplant; he’s a mountain. I hope I’m not the one who gets crushed while trying to make him roll, I thought.

  Then I looked at Kubra Apa. Seated in the doorway of the room, silently kneading dough, she was listening to everything that was being said. If she could, she would have rent the bosom of the earth and vanished within it, taking the curse of her virginity with her.

  Was my sister hungry for a man? No, she had shrivelled up before she had even an inkling of that hunger. The idea of a man has come to her mind not as desire, but as a question of food and clothing. She is a widow’s burden and the burden has to be removed.

  However, no amount of insinuation or innuendo elicited a word from either Rahat or his family. Despondent, Ammabi finally pawned her heavy anklets and arranged a niaz in the name of Pir Mushkil Kusha. All afternoon young girls from the neighbourhood created a racket in the verandah, Kubra Apa retreated to her mosquito-ridden room so that the last drops of her blood could be sucked, and feeling spent, Ammabi sat on her couch putting the last stitches on the wedding suit. Today the expression on her face spoke of destinations; her ordeal would soon be over. Once again the wrinkles on her face lit up like candles.

  Apa’s friends were teasing her, they were trying to invigorate the few drops of blood that remained. Her fever had not recurred for many days; her face shone brightly for a moment and then languished like a dying candle. She signalled me to come to her, then quietly handed me a plate containing malida, a sweet, buttery cake.

  ‘Maulvi sahib said a special incantation over this.’ Her hot, feverish breath swept across my ear.

  Taking the plate from her I thought, Maulvi sahib has said a special incantation, this malida will now be dropped into Rahat’s furnace, the furnace that has been kept warm for six months with our blood. This special malida will make the dream come true. I heard the sound of wedding trumpets: I run to the roof to see the wedding procession approach, there’s a long sehra over the bridegroom’s face, it is touching the horse’s mane . . . Wearing the wedding dress, laden with flowers, Kubra Apa advances shyly, taking slow steps . . . the dress glimmers, Ammabi’s face has blossomed like a flower . . . Apa’s eyes, heavy with modesty, are raised once, a tear of gratitude slips, becomes entangled in the chipped gold and sparkles like a diamond.

  This is all due to your hard work,’ Apa’s silence seems to be saying. Hameeda’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Go, my dear sister,’ Apa awoke her from her reverie and startled, Hameeda advanced towards the sitting room wiping her tears with a corner of her dupatta.

  ‘Here’s some malida,’ she said nervously, trying to control the pounding of her heart. Her steps wavered; she felt as if she had entered a snake’s hole. The mountain shifted and gaped open. She moved back. But somewhere in the distance wedding trumpets screeched as if they had been strangled; with trembling hands she rolled some malida between her fingers and moved it towards his mouth.

  With a snatch her hand was drawn into the depths of the mountain, into putrescence and darkness, and a large rock stifled her scream. The plate with the sacred malida slipped from her hands and fell over the lantern, the lantern tipped, sobbed for a few seconds and was extinguished.

  The next day Rahat took the morning train, thanking them for their hospitality as he le
ft. The date for his wedding had been fixed and he was in a hurry.

  After this no eggs were ever fried again in this house, no parathas were warmed and no sweaters knitted. Tuberculosis, which had been pursuing Kubra Apa for a long time, seized her with one pounce and she quietly deposited her weary existence into its lap.

  Once again a freshly-laundered floor covering was laid in the seh-dari. The women from the neighbourhood gathered. The white cotton of the shroud stretched before Ammabi like the mantle of death. Her lineaments were quivering from the burden of constraint, her left eyebrow was twitching, the lines on her face appeared frightening, as if there were thousands of serpents hissing in them.

  After straightening the bias in the cotton, she folded the fabric to form a square, and innumerable scissors snipped through her heart. Today there was a look of terrifying peace on her countenance; a flowering calm reigned there, as if she were absolutely certain that like the other suits for chauthi which had always remained incomplete, this one too, would be discarded.

  All at once the young girls in the seh-dari began chirping like starlings. Pushing the past aside, Hameeda joined them. The coarse white cotton . . . the red of the floor-covering! Who knows how many innocent brides have mingled their blood with its redness and how many unfortunate virgins have sunk the despair of their lost hopes in its whiteness. Suddenly everyone was silent. Ammabi put in the last stitch and broke off the thread. Two thick teardrops slid slowly down her soft, cushiony cheeks, rays of light burst forth from the wrinkles on her face, and she smiled. It seemed that today, at last, she was convinced that her Kubra’s dress for chauthi was ready and that the trumpets would sound any time now.

  Translated from Urdu by Tahira Naqvi

  O.V. Vijayan

  The Wart

  This was once my garden, the garden I had tended, but today its giant grasses dwarf me. I cower amidst them listening to the awesome rumble of the spiders’ chariots, awaiting the wind that would lift me on its brown wave of dust and leaves, and speak to you my brother in the far generations. My time is draining away, and I have sinned the sin of the gentle and the pious, and so must make amends. I must communicate . . . I go back to the wart; drawn to revisit my sin. My sense of time fails me, I cannot recall with any measure of certainty when it all began; it is just as well, because, through this story runs a perennial truth whose beginnings go back beyond the times we have known. I remember my wife Suma discovering the wart, tiny as a seed, below my lower lip. I remember too the surgeon who said he could scissor it away, and how I declined, because my people had never needed surgery, all their healing came from the riversides and the mountain slopes, whose tender shooted specifics were revealed to them by the sage Dhanvantari, the Lord of Health. Generations of my people had meditated on this seer with trust, and I could see no other path for me as well. This was my sin, and this now my moment of unburdening . . .