The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories

by Stephen Alter

  But drunks can be strangely persistent. It now seemed that the man had to know where Hazu came from; without that information his drinking fun was over. And so the poet grabbed Hazu harshly under the chin and hollered at him, ‘Why don’t you answer me, huh? Where are you from?’

  Trembling, Hazu replied, ‘Gajipur, sir.’

  ‘In what district?’

  ‘Medinipur.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Hazu.’

  ‘Hazu? What kind of a name is Hazu? I’m asking you for your real name, the name your mother called you.’

  Everyone had called him Hazu ever since he was born.

  He did, of course, have another name. It was just that no one had used it all this time.

  ‘Shahjan, sir.’

  The poet was totally put off. ‘That’s a strange name. A strange name for a strange fellow, I guess. Did you ever hear of anyone called Shahjan before? Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?’

  Hazu started to shake again. In a timid whisper came the answer, ‘We’re Muslims.’

  At this time the second poet burst into gales of laughter.

  ‘Don’t you get it? Shah Jahan, hey, I mean Emperor Shah Jahan, Your Highness, who, pray tell, has taken you prisoner and locked you up in this pissoir? What happened to the fort at Agra?’

  The first poet slapped his friend on the back. ‘Let’s go. Let’s get out of this place. It’s disgusting that we still follow such vile practices. I can’t even go and give the manager a swift kick in the butt for it.’

  ‘With five pegs of whisky in you, you’d probably like to, but tomorrow you won’t give a damn. And what good would it do you anyway to kick the manager’s butt? That’d just get you a kick for yourself when you show up at the door next time.’

  ‘That may be, but one day I will kick his butt, you’ll see.’

  As he got to the door the second poet was swaying slightly on his feet. His speech was slurred as he said to Hazu, ‘Prisoner, Emperor, once you were the sovereign ruler of all of Hindustan. Now you are a prisoner in this pissoir. Then again, perhaps this is your Taj Mahal. I bid you good-night.’

  Nothing that either of the gentlemen said made any impression on Hazu. In fact, he had not understood much of it. Just the prattle of some drunks. For Hazu it was enough that they had not beaten him senseless or cracked his skull in two.

  Nonetheless, the event left its mark. Not long after, another Bengali gentleman came in. Positioning himself and fumbling at his pants, he said, ‘Hey, you, is your name really Shah Jahan? That’s a good one if I’ve ever heard one.’

  It looked as if the two poets were having a field day with his name back in the bar. Eventually they got so rowdy that they were asked to leave, but so it was that many guests came to learn of the name of the nonentity who worked in the men’s room. From time to time someone would use it, yelling, ‘Hey, Shah Jahan, give me a towel.’

  Naturally it made no difference to Hazu that his name had become so famous. Plenty of times when the guests called him by name he could not understand what they were saying. They talked differently from Hazu’s acquaintances and with a few drinks in them, some of them did not speak very clearly anyway.

  Best of all, Hazu loved his afternoons. Except for Saturday and Sunday, there were days when no one at all came in between three and six. Hazu could have gone out then if he wanted to, but he never did. He just stood there, motionless, staring at the gleaming wall. For him there could be no more splendid sight in the world.

  One afternoon he noticed a line of ants crawling down a wall. It was a long row of ants, all of them red, all of them marching in a strict single file, not one out of line. Hazu did not care what the ants were doing there on the bathroom wall or where they were going. It was just that the red ants against the white wall were so very beautiful. Hazu was mesmerized by them. He went on and on staring at them.

  Suddenly Hazu remembered the procession he had seen in Suleimanpur when he was on his way to Calcutta with Eklas. It had followed the bank of the channel and then crossed a bridge to the other side. Now, didn’t that look just like this?

  Hazu wet his fingers under the faucet and drew a line of water on the wall. There, there was the channel. And the bridge. The water ran off the slippery wall. And so the next time Hazu used bigger water marks.

  The row of ants suddenly stopped at the line of water. A few ants moved out in either direction at the front of the line, one or two then scurrying back as if to consult the rest.

  Hazu was wonderstruck. Wasn’t the procession of ants going to cross the bridge to the other side of the channel? Thrilled by the game, he whispered, ‘My good little children, why go over there where the water is? What’s the use of starting so much trouble? See, there’s much room over here.’

  He painted another water mark. The procession of ants turned around, taking another direction. Hazu had never been so happy in his entire life. They were listening to him. They were obeying him. Drawing line after line on the wall, Hazu continued, ‘This way, this way.’

  Translated from Bengali by Phyllis Granoff

  Avinash Dolas

  The Victim

  It is the fifth day today. I have developed an unbearable backache because of continuous attendance at the bedside of my mother. Our eyes that streamed with tears on the first day have gone dry now. It has been indeed beyond our forbearance to see her writhe in pain. For the past five days in succession we have been awaiting her last moment from dawn to dusk. Her piteous groaning today does not move us as we have grown immune to pain and emotion. She tries to move her tongue over her dry lips intermittently, indicating the dryness in her mouth. She can just suck a small quantity of water that is fed into her mouth. And like a lump of flesh she is lying motionless on the ground. Men and women attending on her have no other work than merely sit by her side. Tired of this monotonous duty, Bahi sits whiling away his time with a beedi in his mouth outside the hut. Meanwhile, one or two villagers casually drop in at the hut to see what stage the ailing mother has reached and they go back thinking that they have to wait for some more time before the inevitable happens. And nothing more!

  To Mother, Sumi is the dearest of all her children. On the first day, Sumi wept and wailed aloud. She did not take her food and vowed not to touch it unless Mother took it. But all that was in vain as none cared to persuade her to take food, nor was anyone in a mood to do so. Sumi wept and wept till she fell exhausted and lay down on the ground beside Mother. Father, who riveted himself at her feet, saw her piteously writhe and groan. Whenever he felt drowsy, he just lit a beedi and exhaled smoke through his nostrils to keep himself awake. Last night we neither ate nor slept. Now everyone is awaiting Mother’s last moment.

  All this physical strain and mental fatigue have rendered me unfit to sit beside mother any longer. Mother’s room has gone damp and is stinking with the stench of her half- burnt body. Except for a torn dhoti of Father, there is no cover over her ailing body. She cannot bear even the light weight of a blanket or a quilt as her skin has become highly sensitive to any covering. Whenever some covering is spread over her body, it extracts a lump of burnt flesh. She makes only a slow movement of her neck and legs. Otherwise she is as good as dead.

  Like earthworms writhing in mud, our innards have now started convulsing with hunger. For the past five days, our hearth has been cold. Nevertheless, we could get a few cups of tea offered by our neighbours. That’s all. Nothing else to eat or drink. For the last couple of days, Sumi is sitting outside and Bahi is trying to quench the fire of his hunger with the smoke of the beedis. Now he is unable to bear the smell of Mother’s body. Actually, he is trying to swallow open air under the excuse of smoking beedis. Everyone is dying of hunger.

  Once, seeing Mother try to move her legs, I went near her and saw that there was little trace of skin on her legs. It was all half-burnt pulp of flesh with flies hovering over it. Father came near her and I moved away a bit to the back as I could not face him. My eyes had lost
their retentive power and were too weak to see anything. All the while, my conscience pricked me as Mother was confined to death-bed mainly on my account.

  My heart was torn like a worn-out cloth.

  As we could not send word to Uncle and Aunt, we felt guilty over it. The guilt was all the more as we could not send a message to Shanta at a time when Mother was counting her last moments. Even the village dogs have gone dumb ever since the horrible incident took place five days back. Further, as we could not remove our ailing mother to the hospital for treatment, it has been pricking our conscience all the more. At the time of the incident, her body, swallowed by flames, was actually dragged out of the hut. However, the residue of the gutted hut was thrown away into the river by Yesaji, the village chairman. We appealed to the villagers, prayed to them, prostrated at their feet, but they did not show even an iota of mercy on us. They burnt up Mother and hut and all our belongings.

  As a result of this, the rebel in us is also turned to ashes. We are all burning with anger, but are weak, meek and helpless. We are lifeless skeletons. Every day, the State Transport bus passes our village several times. Hundreds of villagers come and go, but none opens his mouth to talk of the dreadful incident. Everyone was a witness to the tragedy, but none cares to make a courtesy call on us. None wants to speak out the fact that our mother sustained burns and our hut was set on fire.

  One day, remembering Shanta, accompanied by Kachru Baba, I myself approached Baburao, the foul-mouthed village boss. Kachru Baba imploringly appealed to him:

  ‘Sirkar, now everything is over. Let Shanta see the face of her ailing mother at least in the last moment of her life.’

  ‘Kachrya!’ the boss roared.

  ‘Yes, Sirkar,’ said Kachru.

  ‘Don’t you know what I told your father?’

  ‘I quite know it. But, Sirkar. . .’

  ‘Shut up. Don’t utter a word more.’

  ‘No, Sirkar. Please be kind enough to allow Shanta to see her mother.’

  ‘No, not at all. They have eaten dung. They have trespassed on our status and power. Let them go to the dogs.’

  ‘Let me apologize for their offence, Sirkar.’

  ‘You people wanted to call the police. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Kindly forget it and forgive us, Sirkar!’

  ‘Nothing doing! It is no loss if one Mahar woman died?’

  On hearing this, we were crestfallen and returned home dumbfounded.

  Here at home all are impatiently waiting for Mother’s last moment. Everyone wants her to breathe her last. If she does not die now, all will go mad. The watering-place will be forgotten within a short time. Henceforth there will be no resentment on the account. The rebel in me will die a premature death. It was Mother who led the agitation for drawing water from the Panchayat well and setting the watering-place there. Father, being a damper, was of no use then as now. As he wants to befriend all, he never opens his mouth to give vent to our grievances and hence avoids all trials and tribulations.

  I still remember how my militant mother, in contrast to my gutless father, was pitched against Chairman Baburao who was opposed by Aawloo in the Panchayat elections. On the day of polling, the Chairman called and brainwashed me at Inamdar’s house and threatened to crush me if I voted against him. The police had to intervene then. All this still lingers with photographic vividness before my eyes.

  Tired of sitting beside Mother, I just stretched myself on the ground and saw whitish fluid trickling from her body. The foul smell of her body became all the more nauseating now. I tried to stand up, but very nearly collapsed on her body.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Father.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘If you are tired, lie down for a while,’ he advised.

  ‘No, no, I don’t want to relax,’ I said.

  However, I just reclined slightly on the pile of sacks for a few minutes, shook my hand and found that a lump of the burnt-up flesh of Mother’s body was stuck to my elbow. I was stunned. My tongue went dry.

  Soma and Chimi quietly entered the hut. Soma sat speechless beside Father and Chima started sobbing fast. Mother was seen struggling to open her mouth to speak out something, but in vain. When Father started weeping loudly, she said in an indistinct voice:

  ‘Don’t weep . . . Some day or the other, everyone has to bid good-bye to this world. Now, no use crying over what happened.’

  She could speak no more. Father looked at me and said: ‘You bastard, you wanted to be an agitator, a leader. Didn’t you? Now see the consequences of your agitation. You did not listen to my advice then. Now, no use crying over spilt milk.’

  Father wanted to say more, but his tongue did not cooperate with him. On Aawloo’s getting elected to the Panchayat, we had resolved to open the watering-place near the Panchayat well. The entire Mahar-Mang colony stood by us then, except Father who is a coward of the first water. The villagers led by Salu Mali, Ganpat Teli and the Chairman were pitched against us. The two parties armed with sticks and lathis were arrayed on either side and the village had turned into a battleground. I still remember how one afternoon we started to offer Satyagraha for drawing water from the Panchayat well and how at about four o’clock we saw the police jeep descend on the village heath when the resistance was in full swing. The lathis of the police fell on our heads till we bled. The well turned red with blood. The police arrested the sarpanch and Ganapat Teli, and placed them behind the bars. They were released from the jail after a week.

  The routine life of the village began afresh, as usual. All kept mum over the bloody incident. In this way, two months elapsed. Residents of the Mahar-Mang colony did not utter a word of protest. All over the village, there was a total lull. But, all of a sudden, to our surprise and shock, one night our huts were set on fire and burnt down. Everything went to rack and ruin. Mother, encircled by flames, was dragged out from the hut. She could not be removed to the hospital and treated for her burns. Sitya, who went to call the police was found dead in the river, with his backbone broken. All roads were blocked.

  Five days have elapsed since this fatal incident. My mother became a victim of my ego and the brutalities of the villagers. Though she has been on her deathbed for the last five days, she said to me in an emaciated voice:

  ‘Don’t be silly, son. Don’t kill your hunger, eat something. You have neither eaten nor slept for five days.’

  Ignoring her advice, I just lay down by her side with my ears, eyes and entrails all burning with anger and agony. I heard something drop down. I strained my eyes and saw that the stinking hand of Mother had fallen on my body. Whitish fluid started trickling from her mouth. I held my hand over her nostrils to feel her breath and found that she had breathed her last. Our eyes went dry with sorrow. My mother was an unwept and unsung victim!

  Translated from Marathi by V.D. Katambge

  Nirmal Verma

  Deliverance

  The schoolteacher was the first person I met in the small, neglected and remote town in the mountains. It was raining as I got down from the bus. In the last three hours I had travelled through three different types of weather: sunshine in Bhuvali, clouds over Ramgarh, and now the rain here. The bus had pulled up by the roadside in the middle of the town. My wretched luggage which I’d borne all the way from Delhi was hurled from the roof-carrier—an old holdall that had belonged to my father and an outmoded tin trunk with torn labels from previous journeys still stuck on it like dead cockroaches.

  I stood there by the roadside, my battered luggage soaked in its own poverty, around me. Rain has a way of stripping man and town of dignity. I clutched my briefcase to my chest not only because in that desolate place it seemed the only reminder of civilization and a symbol of my middle- class respectability but also for another reason: it contained the entire purpose of my journey, for which I’d left my home and come to this unfamiliar mountain town.

  By and large, most small Indian towns can be very dreary and oppressive. Besides, it was cold
and dark and raining. As the bus began to pull out, I was possessed by a mad longing to jump aboard and request the conductor to take me to Bhuvali and Haldvani on the way back to Delhi . . . to my secure familiar life, its light and warmth and safety. But the bus did not stop, nor did it turn back. It rattled away farther up the road. I watched it recede, its tail-lights like red splashes of blood across the sheet of rain.

  I looked about me. There were some shops and cheap eating places across the road and, in the cliff behind them, three or four hollows, their darkness unrelieved by glimmering lanterns. In the lowest niche close to the bus shelter was a tea-stall. Under its burlap awning sat some men on benches. I held my briefcase over my head like an umbrella, but my trunk and hold-all were in bad shape. Soaking in the rain on the roadside, they presented a sight more piteous than I.

  As I looked at the group in the tea-shop I hoped someone would take pity on me. Perhaps I remained unnoticed behind the wall of rain: it seemed to have screened me off from the rest of the world. The few passengers who had disembarked with me had long since disappeared into the darkness.

  Suddenly I saw an umbrella hovering in front of me as though unable to make up its mind whether I was a man of flesh and blood or a ghost. A hillman’s lean face peered out from under it.

  ‘Is that your luggage?’ he asked, pointing to my trunk and hold-all on the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ I said miserably.

  ‘Where do you have to go?’

  ‘Isn’t there a hotel near by?’ I almost whined in my helplessness.

  ‘A hotel? In this place?’ He looked at me incredulously, as if I longed to reach heaven without having to die.

  ‘Any place where I could stay?’

  ‘How long?’ A faint curiosity was reflected in his eyes.

  At a loss for a ready answer, I just stared back at him. When I left home I had not thought in terms of days or weeks. Before I could say anything, he held his umbrella partly over me.