Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 2

by Khushwant Singh

  The police commissioner was exact in his figures but the chief minister did not show any special curiosity about the bandobast. The home minister, too, was not taking much interest. After a pause, when the police commissioner glanced at both of them, the chief minister cleaned his spectacles and said: There was no need for you to take so much pains.’

  ‘One can’t rely on the opposition parties…. We must take precautions…’ the police commissioner pleaded.

  The morcha will be peaceful,’ the home minister said.

  ‘Who knows?’ the police commissioner replied. ‘I feel…’

  The chief minister cut him short: There wouldn’t be much fuss. You just keep a watch on the goondas…’

  ‘But more than three-fourths of the goondas have already been rounded up. That was three days back. More will be hauled up this afternoon.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘May I take your leave, sir?’ asked the police commissioner.

  ‘It’s all right,’ replied the chief minister. ‘Be careful. I think, on your way back you can meet the leaders of the morcha. All three are staying at the MLAs’ Hostel.…’

  ‘Yes, I know. But by now they might have gone to their pandal.’ Then the official added, hesitating a little: And, I feel, it will not be proper to meet them there.…’

  ‘You may as well enquire…. They must be there. One of them, Kantilal, had been to jail with me. He is a man of ideals…bold and straightforward. I respect such an opponent. His only weakness is sleep. You beat a drum near his head, yet he won’t get up before nine in the morning. It was the same in jail. Even during the satyagraha movement, he required his full quota of sleep…. He must be there. Now, because of this business of the morcha he may not come to see me, but otherwise he never misses me…. He is a gem of a man.’

  ‘It’s all party politics…Kantilal deserved to be in the government,’ the home minister said with a touch of regret.

  ‘Right!’ said the chief minister. ‘You look for him. If you happen to run into him, do convey to him my regards. If he is not there, it is no use going to the pandal.’

  The police commissioner was new to his job. He said bluntly: ‘Sir, the demonstrators may also burn your effigy. What about that?’

  ‘Never mind. Let them burn my effigy…. It does not break your law. Let them have fun. Be on the alert. That’s your job,’ said the chief minister as he got up from his chair.

  At four o’clock the procession started from the chowk maidan. It was a very big morcha. The flag bearers and the buglers were in the lead. They were followed by the singers. Then came the women carrying placards. And then thousands of demonstrators. All of them wore caps and carried flags and placards of their demands. The morcha looked magnificent. On either side of the rows, people carried loudspeakers into which they shouted slogans. Kantilal and other leaders were in a jeep decorated with flags.

  As the procession made its way through the streets, the city felt its impact. From where had suddenly emerged so many people? The onlookers watched, astonished, peeping from behind the line of policemen.

  Really, one could not believe that there were so many people who had faith in such demonstrations. The mammoth procession surged forward. Press photographers were perched on rooftops, taking pictures. Foreign correspondents were impressed by the size of the crowds. They made a comment or two on the power of democracy and got busy filling ‘copy’. But they were more interested in the group of tribals. The Films Division cameramen were on hand to shoot the incident for the newsreel.

  The procession indeed presented a rare spectacle. Lakhs of feet. Lakhs of heads. Thousands of flags. Clamorous slogans. The surge of people and their collective outcry. No end to it…a procession creeping on for miles like a python.

  And suddenly the fade-out. People started running helter-skelter in front. There was disorder and confusion. Doors and windows were shut. The procession turned into a sea of confused people. There was total chaos. Suddenly there rose a cloud of smoke. Flames leapt up, followed by shrieks and gunshots. People were lost in the welter of smoke, stumbling and running, trampled and injured.

  It was all over in a few seconds. What remained on the roads consisted of scattered shoes and chappals, flags and placards, torn clothes, caps, broken sticks and crumpled banners.

  Nobody knew how it all happened and why. The police vans were packed with ‘miscreants’ and the wounded. The wounded were sent to hospital. The ‘miscreants’ were taken to a distance of ten miles and then released. Who were they? For the goondas had been locked up in advance.

  Many people had been hurt in the stampede. The police had opened fire but all in the air. Not a single man was injured by police bullets.

  The city was in a state of coma. Thank God, such a vast tragedy yielded only one dead body, and that too intact! The person had not been shot or injured.

  The police put a cordon round the corpse and claimed that it was that of the late lamented Kantilal.

  Kantilal was surprised to hear it. Along with his followers he went to see the corpse. After glancing at it, Kantilal said with confidence that it was the body of the chief minister.

  The chief minister also held an on-the-spot enquiry. He saw the corpse carefully and said with a smile: ‘It’s not mine!’

  (Translated from the Hindi by Satish Verma)

  FIVE

  The Foreigner

  SHIV K. KUMAR

  In the luxuriously furnished lounge of a late Victorian bungalow on Bombay’s Landsdowne Road, Mrs Bannerji was shuffling her lady guests among the gents. Wife of a former ambassador to Rome, she could often unpack a basketful of surprises for her compatriots – diplomats, visiting dignitaries and casual tourists. To each according to his needs her infallible acuity made her dexterous in the art of coupling off people. I always enjoyed moving around in her circles – eavesdropping.

  This evening she had placed an arty young man next to a flamboyant lady, while a sedate, walrus-moustached industrialist found himself saddled with the wife of an income tax officer.

  ‘Here’s someone for you, Mr Bendre,’ said Mrs Bannerji, introducing a stiff-jawed Danish lady to a khadiclad steel magnate. ‘Miss Fleming could preside over your board meetings with velvet smoothness,’ she added with a puckish smile on her face.

  Then turning around to a lonesome bald creature, ‘Have you met Miss Goring – just back from Japan? Knows everything about dolls – both living and dead, of course.’

  I was about to salvage Miss Goring from the roundhead when in came Rajesh Patnaik, with a young sparkling thing on his arm. So that was what he had imported from France, although the trade mission he headed had failed miserably to boost exports. Though his deputy in the Department of Commerce, I had had only a casual encounter with him in office since his return from abroad. He hustled through his daily work with a triumphant honeymoon look that seemed to say: ‘Carry on, boys – I’ll be back with you in a month or so.’ This brazen uppishness piqued all of us.

  Most gallantly he left his wife talking to a young man (no, he wouldn’t behave like a jealous Indian husband – glued to his wife) and walked straight over to the bar to help himself to a double Scotch. This, surely, was a new Rajesh and I couldn’t help watching him closely.

  All eyes were now focused on young Mrs Patnaik, who looked around excitedly like a fawn romping on fresh green pastures. She swung around in her miniskirt, offering a generous exposure of her derrière.

  ‘This is my first party in India,’ I heard her say to an old Indian lady who had cornered her, presumably, to save all mankind. But the enterprising arty young man, now forsaking his partner, swooped down upon her. ‘How do you find India?’ he started off.

  ‘Fabulous, gorgeous – très magnifiquei’! She poured out her ejaculations with a seductive, fluid ease.

  I moved closer, gesturing to join in the conversation. This slightly unnerved the young man who was obviously planning to monopolize her.

  ‘But what do you pa
rticularly like about this country?’ he pressed on inanely, scared of losing her to me.

  ‘Tous les choses. Everything here is fascinating. Your men have such large brown eyes and your women – oh, they are so pretty, très gentile.’

  ‘And so tame,’ I cut in. ‘Such docile little birdies – only meant to be deposited on the sofas till they run to fat and wilt away’

  I had deliberately said something tartish to attract her attention. Somewhat daunted by my aggressive posture, the young man bolted. A strange feeling now upsurged within me. I felt impelled to avenge all the indignities that Rajesh had hurled at me over the years.

  ‘Been to Konark and Khajuraho?’ I asked her.

  ‘I have been only a week in India. Bombay is all I know…but my husband has promised to take me to these places.’

  She now looked around to locate someone, but I could see Rajesh going steady over his whisky. He hadn’t noticed me so far – thank god.

  ‘But you should have gone there for your honeymoon. Perfect setting for love, you know. I once bribed the guide there to let me stay overnight.’

  ‘On your honeymoon?’

  ‘No, no – it was just a friend,’ I chuckled. ‘I’m still single – travelling light.’ And then, looking at her hands, I said: ‘Lovely bracelet! You seem to be woven out of rainbow colours.’ I knew I was moving fast, but time was against me.

  ‘Merci,’ she said, raising her pencilled eyebrows. Her lips quivered into a smile, revealing a row of white sensuous teeth. ‘But I don’t know your name, Monsieur,’ she added.

  ‘Never mind the name. Maybe I don’t have one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m opening out like a chrysalis – just this minute – meeting you like this. So call me by any name, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s call you Eugene,’ she replied rather coquettishly. My flirtatious joviality had obviously caught her too.

  ‘Fine, Colette.’

  ‘But that’s not my name.’

  ‘Eugene isn’t mine.’

  ‘You seem to be a very romantic person.’

  ‘And you seem to be a houri out of the Arabian Nights.’ I kept the ball rolling.

  ‘But we have barely met.’

  ‘I’m a true Oriental intuitionist. To me a moment can be an eternity. Never lived by the clock time – only la durée.’

  Little scraps of my graduate course in philosophy came in quite handy and I turned it all on.

  We were so deeply engrossed in our conversation that nobody else dared cut in. Rajesh (my eyes had never lost track of him) was now talking to a fat Parsi lady. Seizing the moment, I gently led my Colette out into the lawn and, without any preludial flourishes, put my arms around her. Before I could make the next move, her lips were already pressing against my mouth. The uninhibited Parisienne!

  ‘Shall see you tomorrow night – at two,’ I felt quite emboldened to move on.

  ‘But where?’

  ‘At your house.’

  This startled her a little.

  ‘But you don’t know where I live – not even my real name.’

  ‘A true seeker can always get to his destination unaided.’

  ‘La philosophie d’Inde,’ she smiled back.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But this is impossible – this rendezvous tomorrow night – fantastique!’

  In spite of her definitive twist to the last word, I knew she was about to swallow my bait. There is always a thin borderline between fantasy and reality,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, I give up, my charming Indian philosopher.’

  ‘So, at the stroke of two, tomorrow night…I shall be waiting at your door – wherever you live. And you’ll come out to meet me.’

  I riveted a steady unblinking gaze at her face.

  ‘You are hypnotizing me. But…’

  ‘No more buts, ma chérie,’ and then, briskly turning on my feet, I said: ‘We mustn’t forget the party. What will Mrs Bannerji think of us? She’s very suspicious.’

  As I took her back into the lounge, the din of social chatter broke in upon us. ‘Loveless creatures – that’s what most of them are,’ I muttered. ‘Drinking and scandal-mongering – that’s their sole raison d’être.’

  And, after dropping her in the crowd, I nimbly walked away.

  Rajesh was back at the bar, now almost reeling under his whisky. ‘I’ll get you, bossman,’ I said to myself, and then, profusely thanking the hostess for ‘a most exciting evening’, I slipped out of the house.

  I had no difficulty in finding Rajesh’s house, which I had visited several times on semi-official business. It was a flat about two hundred yards from the Gateway of India. I parked my car round the corner and appeared at the door precisely at the stroke of two.

  A light in a room on the second floor was on, a hand waved from the window. A few minutes later, the door on the main road flew open. There stood my Colette in her bedroom slippers.

  ‘You certainly are a daredevil – but please go away. It’s too dangerous.’

  A ripple of nervous pallor flickered over her face.

  ‘Living dangerously is the only way…’

  ‘No, please – I’m terribly scared.’

  I didn’t say anything but walked straight through the open door, beckoning her to follow me. As she came up behind me, I suddenly slammed the door and whispered into her ears. ‘If you push me out of your house, I’ll scream and we’ll both be in trouble.’

  On the short flight of steps, I caught her lips. ‘I love you – love you,’ I repeated to soften her up. As we stole past the bedroom, I had a glimpse of Rajesh snoring away on his thistledown double mattress.

  ‘If my husband were to awake this minute…that will be the end!’

  ‘A snoring man is dead to the world,’ I whispered reassuringly, and again caught her lips in a fervent kiss.

  She led me into another room, which I knew Rajesh often used as his guest room. There we lay on the bed, wrapped up in the warmth and excitement of love. Outside, the great city of Bombay lay quiet – a mighty corpse, all passion spent. The placid tranquillity of this mild winter night was broken only by Rajesh’s continual snoring which had now picked up a peculiar rhythmic notation of its own – a cyclic crescendo followed by gradual return to bass, with an occasional note missing.

  We had lain in each other’s arms for about an hour, when suddenly the snoring ceased. Was it one of those missing notes? I wondered. But before I could decipher the mystery, a tall figure in a black nightgown loomed menacingly at the door. And then a thunderclap!

  ‘You sneaky bastard! Breaking into my house at this hour!’ Rajesh’s left hand was pulling nervously at the strings of his gown.

  I scrambled to my feet – but I wasn’t frightened. I had known him too long as a mere bully to be afraid of his threatening posture.

  ‘I’ll settle this with you in office tomorrow. Get o-u-t!’ he bawled in impotent rage.

  A look of stark amazement appeared on his wife’s face. She threw a searching glance at me. Who was I? But without saying a word, I picked up my jacket and tie and walked out.

  Rajesh didn’t show up in office the next day, nor the day after, although I had prepared myself for the confrontation. On the fourth day, however, I received my orders of transfer to Delhi. I was given only a week’s notice to leave. So that was his way of getting me out of his way! What would his next move be?

  Nothing happened during the next few days. I got busy with my packing. On the fifth day, I got a letter in the mailbox – a pink-scented envelope. It was a cryptic note from Colette or shall I now call her Madeleine?

  Dear Eugene,

  Ravinder you may be during the day, but you’ll always be my Eugene at night. I have been wanting to meet you since our last rendezvous, but I feel I shouldn’t create any more problems for you and Rajesh.

  Everything is happening so fast. I don’t know where it will all end.

  Incidentally, I have now moved into t
he Taj.

  Love.

  Your Colette

  I couldn’t quite plumb the intent of this letter. I had, of course, known about the impending divorce from the rumours floating all around. But fortunately nobody seemed to associate me with it in any way. Had Rajesh thought it too humiliating to recognize me as his equal? And what did Madeleine think of me now? A smooth operator – the Indian Don Juan? And did she expect me to meet her at the Taj?

  More out of prudence than cowardice, I decided to stay clear of the mess I had created. So I left Bombay – quietly. In Delhi I was able to find lodgings in a suburban colony – miles from the Central Secretariat. Soon I began to look around for company in my new environment.

  One night I returned home after a late movie and slumped into bed, a trifle tired and lonesome. I don’t know how long I must have slept when suddenly the doorbell rang. I leapt to my feet in fright and turned on the lights. It was two o’clock. Who could it be? The newspapers were highlighting the incidence of crime in the capital – midnight burglaries, murders, roadside hold-ups and rapes. So, before opening the door, I thought it prudent to peep out of the window. And, to my surprise, there stood on the pavement Madeleine, paying off the taxi driver. I was completely dumbfounded.

  As I ushered her in, I said: ‘At this unearthly hour – it can be very dangerous.’

  ‘Living dangerously is the only way,’ she replied with an impish twinkle in her eyes.

  ‘But how did you find my place?’

  ‘A true seeker can always get to his destination….’ And then, putting her arms around me, she spoke in a deep sensuous voice: ‘But aren’t we wasting time, my love?…. I’m flying home tomorrow morning by Air France. It’s all over.’