Zindaginama

by Krishna Sobti

  Remembering Tarey Shah’s joyful antics, Barkati began to croon softly in her delicate voice:

  ‘Who sat with hair untied?

  Who sat with back averted?

  Gaura sat with hair untied

  Shivji with his face averted

  On Gaura’s forehead her binduli sparkles

  On Shivji’s forehead, the moon

  Who sat with her back to the sun …?’

  The women were overwhelmed with devotion listening to Barkati’s honeyed notes. ‘Such a beautiful context of Gaura-Parbati. Gaura Devi had just loosened her hair, when Bhagwan Shivji Himself arrived unexpectedly.’

  ‘Glory of the Avatars! If all goes well, Chachi, we will certainly go bow our heads at the Devi’s Sachche Darbar.’

  ‘Bachchi, may the goddess of the high mountains grant your wish.’

  The girls got after Barkati. ‘Sing one more song, bharjaaee. Your mountain songs are so sweet and melodious!’

  Chachi too joined in their plea. ‘Come now, sing, Tarey Shah’s little songbird!’

  In her eyes Barkati saw the plateaus of her homeland, and in her heart, the pleasures of Tarey Shah’s strong arms. Her song rippled with a cascade of notes; love, longing and pain intermingling in them as she called out to her absent love:

  ‘O my lover, O

  White teeth gleaming, when you laugh so

  I forget myself when I gaze

  In your deepset eyes.

  I lose myself in

  Your handsome sidelocks

  O my lover, O

  Weeping copious tears

  I while away the time

  Getting bangles made

  Come meet me, O

  My friend

  My soulmate

  My nemesis

  All joy is with you,

  My love!’

  Barkati’s eyes streamed as she sang. She finished doing Kesro’s hair, quietly got up and went into the pasaar. Shahni’s heart felt for her. ‘Chachi, the girl is true, poor thing. Ever since he left her here, Tarey Shah has neither asked for her, nor sent a message. She left her home and family for him.’

  At the Shahs’ haveli, all hands were busy distilling the essential oils of ajwain, saunf and pudina. While one cleaned and winnowed the fennel, another cleaned the carom seeds, and a third plucked mint leaves in a heap. When the large copper vats and buckets were brought out, scoured and washed, Shahni examined the vessels minutely and gave them a final rinse with her own hands. She said to Mitthi, ‘Go, balli, fetch Dhandayi. She’s superb at this work. She will come and fix the pipes on the lid.’

  Lakkhmi, the Brahmin widow, came and stood near, hand on waist. ‘Shahni, that is hardly a difficult task. I will do it. Last year I processed five kilos of ajwain.’

  ‘Lakkhmiye, if you help each other, it will get done faster. Go Mitthi, go down the stairs from Manohar’s rooftop.’

  Lakkhmi couldn’t contain herself and said loud enough for Reshma, who was winnowing the ajwain, to hear: ‘This is just like “Ghee makes the dish delicious, and the eldest daughter-in-law gets the credit.” I say, Shahni, why is Dhandayi so special?’

  Chachi was separating mint twigs nearby. She lifted her head to glare at Lakkhmi and chided, ‘Ari, a jewel in the nose-ring sparkles for itself. Dhandayi is very skilled. Why do you compete with her?’

  Lakkhmi came and sat on her haunches. ‘Chachi, let me just say that involving more than one person is not good in such work. The essence gets spoilt.’

  Chachi stared at her. ‘Hain ri, there is truth in what you say. After all, you are a daughter of Brahmins. But, dhiye, there are thirty-two talents in one who uses her own mind. And thirty-three in one who consults others.’

  Lakkhmi was exasperated. ‘Satvachan, Chachi! Truly spoken. Now I will never forget! If one asks you, only Dhandayi knows the sixteen arts complete.’

  Mitthi returned and informed Shahni, ‘Dhandayi Mausi is in bed with fever. Her whole body is burning.’

  Shahni started laughing. ‘And just as well! See, Lakkhmi, you got your heart’s desire!’

  Lakkhmi took off her odhni, hung it on the cot standing against the wall and sat down to winnow with vigour. ‘Shahni, these things don’t take time.’

  Mabibi took the winnow from her and said, ‘Go get the vats and buckets from the kitchen, this I can take care of.’ Lakkhmi brought the brass bucket and poured water from a pot. Then she put in the seeds of saunf and ajwain and fixed the pipes on the lid of the copper vat.

  Shahni ran an eye over the young girls gathered around. ‘Ari, if any one of you has her period, stand aside. Don’t cast a shadow on the essence.’

  Nudging and shoving each other, when Channi and Shano moved shyly to one side, Shahni laughed and nodded to herself, thinking, Just yesterday they were playing with dolls.

  Her hand on the lid, Lakkhmi was lost in thought. She kept staring at Shano and Channi even after they had disappeared from sight. Shahni admonished, ‘Kyon ri Lakkhmi, where is your mind? Get your hand off the lid or you will burn yourself.’

  When Lakkhmi heaved a deep sigh in response, Shahni was startled. She sat down and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Just now you were all eager and bubbling. Now what thorn has pierced your heart? Ari, ajwain essence is medicine. If you eat your heart out while it is being extracted, nobody will benefit from a single drop!’

  Lakkhmi avoided Shahni’s eyes.

  At a gesture from Shahni, the girls and helpers made themselves scarce, and she asked, ‘Are you worried about something? Do you ever get a letter from your in-laws?’

  Lakkhmi’s chest heaved like a furnace. She pulled her dupatta lower and shook her head. ‘No.’

  Shahni looked at her intently. ‘Are you well? Your face looks rather drawn.’

  Lakkhmi prodded the burning logs under the vat and blew on them, then said flatly, ‘Shahni, what do I say. This luckless one has died a living death.’

  Shahni’s gaze locked onto Lakkhmi’s belly for long moments. Then she whispered in a cold, harsh voice, ‘Kyon ri …?’

  When Lakkhmi nodded in assent, her eyes overflowed.

  ‘Hai ri! I will die, Lakkhmiye, and your good husband in heaven! How could you allow this thorny bush to spread?’

  Lakkhmi kept blowing on the burning wood and kept weeping into the billowing smoke.

  Chachi Mehri called from the platform above, ‘The tandoor is hot, child, come and make rotis.’

  Shahni shaped the dough into balls and filled her platter. Then she quickly prepared rotis and smeared them with ghee. ‘Shriram! Shriram! Kalyug has arrived. A Brahmin widow, and such behaviour, such deeds!’

  Suddenly, there was a commotion below. Shahni looked down from the balcony – Nawab was interrogating someone.

  ‘Let me go! Let me go upstairs! My Umda is upstairs.’

  ‘Who is it, Nawab? Whose voice? Isn’t it Mabibi’s husband Ilahiya?’

  ‘The very same, Shahni! The shaudai has lost his mind.’

  Shahni hurriedly got up and called out to Mabibi, ‘Ari, come for a moment! Leave whatever you are doing and come!’

  Head covered with a black dohar, Mabibi came running. ‘You called for me, Shahni? What is it you wanted?’

  ‘Mabibi, khairon se, Ilahiya is downstairs.’

  ‘Hai Allah! Shahni, what should I do now? Tell me what I should do!’

  ‘Take courage, ri! Who is asking you to go block the streets! Your husband has come this way after years. Go and comb your hair at least.’

  Chachi was watching over the vats of essence. When she saw Nawab upstairs, she asked, ‘Who is it, malla, who has come? Whose voice was it?’

  ‘Chachi, congratulations! Khairon se, our son-in-law is here!’

  ‘Who? Ilahiya! Bless him! Come, puttarji, come and sit. Ari, someone put out a cot!’

  Ilahiya stared with empty, unblinking eyes.

  Chachi walked up to him and asked, ‘All is well?’

  When Mabibi came, there was no recognition in his eye
s.

  Chachi offered him a bowl of buttermilk. ‘Ma is content. Drink, puttarji.’

  Ilahiya downed the buttermilk in one gulp and put the bowl aside. Asked, ‘Where is my Umda?’

  Chachi Mehri showered love. ‘Lo ji, here is your Mabibi, your wife!’

  ‘Na … Na … not her, the other one. I want my Umda Begum. Why don’t you let me meet my Umda?’

  Chachi gestured to Shahni and said, ‘Give Mabibi something bright and shiny to wear. She will become his fancy Umda.’ Then turning to Ilahiya, she said, ‘You have returned after a long gap. What work kept you busy there, son?’

  Nawab chuckled. ‘Allah, what a question! He is serving in the department of love. He’s not in his senses, Chachi. God alone knows how he happened to head this way.’

  Chachi raised a hand. ‘Stop it, re, let me talk to him. Puttar, tell us, who is this Umda Begum?’

  Ilahiya shook his head. ‘Begum is one, nawabs many. Every day with her is new, every day is spring.’

  Chachi called out to Rabeyan, ‘Girl, bring some sweets for your brother-in-law. Bring jaggery from the earthen pot. Let me go see to his wife.’

  When Mabibi came out with Chachi, she couldn’t be recognized. Dressed in a glittering salwar suit and pink dupatta stitched with gota flowers, her youth and beauty bloomed. Chachi held her arm and brought her forward. ‘I say, young man, she is no less bewitching than Umda, more rather than less. Go, son, take her home. You remember your way home, don’t you?’

  Ilahiya started laughing. ‘Home is where Umda is.’

  Chachi leaned close to Mabibi and said, ‘God is kind, Mabibi! Take the stable stairs and reach the courtyard of spinning wheels. The room inside is freshly clay-washed. I will send a pot of water. Make some sevaiyyan. Rabeyan will get the ghee and ground sugar.’

  Shahni took Mabibi aside. ‘No squabbling and bickering with your husband now. Poor fellow is under some powerful spell, it seems. Look after him, and Rabb will look after everything.’

  When both of them had gone down, Chachi called for Bebe Karbhari. ‘Rabeyan girl, bring Bebe along with you when you return. She will come and break the spell that binds Ilahiya.’

  Bebe Karbhari had seen Mabibi and Ilahiya going downstairs. When she came up, she took a bowl filled with water, and cut the water with a knife as she chanted:

  ‘Eechi meechi cut this spell

  Cursed Kanjari go to hell

  Eechi meechi cut this spell

  Cursed Kanjari go to hell.’

  The troupe of wandering Nat-Kanjars, acrobats and entertainers, set up camp near the water-wheel well under the beris. The acrobats walked in front, wearing loosely wound turbans over dark-skinned faces. Their women, the Natnis followed behind, tall and thin as saru trees, suckling children tucked into their sides, heavy skirts swinging with every step. In long black jhaggas, with turquoise and black strings fastened over their taut bellies. Swirls of colourful odhnis draped over heads braided in intricate meendis. Large nosepins glinting on sharp noses. The paraphernalia of their nomadic life loaded onto donkeys – cots, winnowing baskets, quilts, mattresses, bamboo poles, ropes and drums.

  ‘Ari O Khumbi, Fumbi, let’s camp here. There’s plenty of shade!’ Chaunsi, the elderly Natni lifted her cot off a donkey and set it down. ‘Here, put the infants on this.’ Then she called out to her old man, ‘Come, Dokre, my weightlifter! Spread out the mattresses so your family can rest.’

  The old acrobat fixed the bamboo poles scissors-wise and hung a thin quilt over them. Feeling their burdens lifted, both donkeys brayed happily. Fumbi went and slapped them off towards the common.

  Babbar and Gabbar sprawled out in the shade and shouted to Chaunsi, ‘Dokri, go get dung pats from the village. Let’s light our chillums; get a breather.’

  Dokri was irked. ‘Waah! My agile acrobat, lying about with that strapping body. Get up and light your chillum yourself!’

  Fumbi came up to Gabbar and said, ‘Have patience, you big cock, I will get it for you. These Jatt Gujjaris become soft as sweet imartis on seeing you acrobats. If you get involved in anything funny, I’ll gouge your heart out with my dagger.’

  Gabbar lay there, grinning. ‘Let me see this heart-slayer. If I pierce you, you will start counting stars.’

  Khumbi got up and put her child on Babbar’s chest. ‘Here, humour your brat while I go take a round of the village, see what people have to offer.’ And she twirled around in her long, heavy skirt.

  She had just gone a few steps when Babbar called out, ‘Ari O, don’t swing so like an apricot. If some old fellow gets horny, he will lay you there itself!’

  ‘Jaa ey, I’ll give him a good kick.’ Then she asked the old Natni, ‘Jethi, there wouldn’t be a separate quarter for Nat-Kanjars in this village, would there?’

  ‘Na ri, only Sansis here. If at all, it would be Kalu Sansi’s clan. Now he was a man, if ever there was one!’

  Dokra spluttered. When he got his breath back, he growled, ‘Enough ri, you go on singing his glories. He was a wayside robber. That is how you remembered this shade, this village.’

  ‘So what, Dokre? You think you were the only honeypot attracting all the bees?’

  The barb struck home. ‘Don’t overreach yourself woman, or I’ll pull out your tongue.’

  ‘Ja O ja, you won’t become a badshah by assuming the airs of one. Wear a thousand masks and pretences, a Kanjar will always remain a Kanjar.’

  Dokra lifted a short pole and brandishing it, said, ‘You will truly get one from me now, only then will you fall in line!’

  Dokri slapped her forehead, spewing abuse. ‘I have seen enough of you. And I have seen your youth, too! I live on ber and dry corn, so why should I tolerate this humiliation? If I were eating kheer-halwa on silver plates then I might have put up with your tyranny!’

  ‘Loose-tongued bitch! Two shows today, two day after. And she goes about declaring her independence!’

  ‘Dokra’s grown senile. O Kanjar of your caste, if you had laid a foundation and raised four walls like the others, you’d have been imprisoned by the property and status of a high-caste man. Spent his whole life with one foot in the grave, now he thinks his caste to be lesser than others! Open your eyes wide and behold the One above – did He build a house? He is spread out on the vast open skies.’

  ‘Stop right there. If you talk above your station, the earth will swallow you.’

  Fumbi and Khumbi began to laugh. ‘Their bickering won’t stop until He Himself comes down and beats drums in their ears!’

  ‘Shut up, you two, preening upon your youth. Ari, these rivers of spring dry up the same for everyone.’

  The two young Natnis giggled. Then called out to Gabbar and Babbar lying in the shade. ‘O you timid doves, smoking chillum all the time, you will grow old and your spring shall pass.’

  Babbar leapt up and caught Khumbi’s hair. ‘Go get me some water to drink. Else I’ll make you spin giddy in jhoomar.’

  Khumbi shoved him away and thrust her breasts out in impudent hauteur.

  Babbar laughed. ‘Lazy low-caste Kanjari, so vain of your youth!’

  Khumbi fixed her kohl-pot eyes on him and spoke fearlessly, ‘My father gave me breath, and my mother gave this body. So why do you abuse me like a woodpecker?’

  ‘Chal ri, the pind is gathering, eager for a show; and pouting and preening doesn’t suit your pretty nose. Come on now, get going.’

  Dokra called out to his old woman, ‘Rabb’s beloved, go quickly and cook some mandas at least. Then we will show them some show.’

  Dokri brought some flour, lentils and jaggery from the Shahs and set about preparing mandas. In the meantime, Khumbi and Fumbi entertained the crowds, twirling and swirling in their glittering skirts and waving their bright shiny kerchiefs in the air. Khumbi singled out a boy from the crowd and tapped his head. ‘Go fetch something to eat from your mother.’

  Gullu shook his head. ‘First tell me what you want.’

  ‘Mother’s pet, try and
remember, what did your ma cook today?’

  Gullu grew frisky. ‘Natni, five delicacies she made, five!’

  ‘Waah re, your grandparents must be rich. So what were the five dishes, tell me?’

  Gullu’s friends pulled his shirt, one caught his shoulder, another grabbed his arm. ‘O don’t say anything, the Kanjars will take you away with them!’

  Gullu got excited. ‘Why shouldn’t I tell them? I will tell! My mother made mango pickle, mango peel, mango seed, mango spices, mango chutney.’ Then he whirled about and ran around, barking like a dog. ‘Shall I get you some chutney? Shall I? Shall I?’

  Fumbi chased the boy. ‘Come here, or I’ll trap you with a thief-knot. I’ll make you grow up fast and marry you.’ She caught hold of the boy and held him close.

  The boys yelled excitedly, ‘Get away, Gullu, come away! Or she will take you with her to Samarkand and Bukhara!’

  Fumbi teased the boys: ‘Why won’t I take this handsome boy with me? I’ll teach him tricks. I’ll make him a fine acrobat. Present him in the tamasha. And listen, when he returns to his pind the next time, this young man will dance and twirl to amaze all.’

  The older boys cheered: ‘Gullu, will you be a Nat to this Natni?’

  Suddenly Gullu stepped closer and pulled off the Natni’s veil. The children clapped and laughed and the Natni retorted in mock anger, ‘You bad-face! You sweet-salt, I will tie you to my plait!’

  Haulu ran to help Gullu, made a few moves of kabaddi and dived to pinch the Natni’s ankle. She fumed in a show of rage, ‘I’ll clay-wash your pretty mug so, you’ll run crying to your mother’s lap.’

  Dokri, too, feigned a grumble with laughing eyes. ‘Ari, won’t you shut up! Babbar is about to set up his box of tricks.’

  Babbar hung a slate around his neck, took a five-pronged seashell and tied horns to his feet. Gabbar fixed the poles and tied the ropes across them tightly. Babbar put his horned feet into the rope knot, carefully balanced his weight, and took the first step.