‘Which one do you mean?’ Laxmi asked Bhaktiman, as if they were bickering in their home. ‘The one under Bhanubhakta’s picture, near where Sanad sleeps—isn’t that the family’s?’
‘Oh, you mean that suitcase. All right, yes, take it.’ Bhaktiman laughed a little and said, ‘I don’t really know what is there at home.’
We all laughed upon hearing that. Our laughter helped to lighten a bit the feeling of baseness that filled our hearts for having done the work of dividing their household.
‘You have to give us mattresses and quilts too. Where will my son and I sleep otherwise?’
‘What are you willing to give?’ the secretary turned towards Bhaktiman to ask.
‘I’ll give them a blanket.’
‘And a mattress?’ she asked.
Bhaktiman said helplessly, ‘There is but the one large mattress, of coir. If she takes that, what will I do? Lay jute sacks on the wooden bed to sleep on?’
‘But there is also that dasna!’
‘What dasna?’ Bhaktiman asked.
‘The kind they call a lampat or even a karangey; a cotton mattress, but a bit thinner,’ I told him.
‘If there is one, let her have it.’
‘Please include a quilt,’ she said to the secretary who was preparing the list.
‘Then I’ll keep the blanket! The blanket and the quilt? She’ll wipe me clean! I need some things too!’
‘But there are two quilts,’ Laxmi said.
‘Let it go! Let it be! Let her have one,’ I said.
‘Fine! Take it all!’ Bhaktiman said. ‘But even if you take everything of mine, I’ll not come to you.’
‘Anything else?’ the secretary asked.
‘I have a box, of creams and powder and brushes and combs. There was also a large mirror.’
‘Aren’t you ashamed to ask for the large mirror?’ said Bhaktiman.
‘There should be a small mirror in the cream-powder box. Make use of that for the next few days,’ the secretary said.
Laxmi thought for a moment and said, ‘Well—now give me dishes to cook in, and plates to eat from.’
‘What do you need?’
‘I have the grinding stones for spices.’
‘Let her have her stone-age utensils,’ I said.
‘I also have a large enamel bowl.’
‘If there is one that her father gave, let her have it,’ Bhaktiman said. ‘But I am not giving her my bowl. I need it every morning to wash my face. I’ll give her a plate. Let her have a mug—that is all!’
‘But you have to give her dishes in which to cook,’ I said.
‘Let her have two pots.’
‘In what will I fill water?’ she asked.
‘You can buy a square tin. Why do you need a water pot?’ Bhaktiman asked angrily.
‘And the bowl that Sanad always eats out of?’
Bhaktiman could say nothing.
‘You have to give her that,’ somebody said.
‘I’ll keep that,’ Bhaktiman said with much effort. ‘Let her have another plate.’
‘Is this all? Is there anything more?’ the secretary asked, and read aloud the entire list.
After listening carefully, Laxmi said, ‘That must be all. But please write that bowl for me. I bought it because I liked it.’
‘Let her have it! Give it to her,’ I said.
‘What are you doing?’ Bhaktiman yelled at me. ‘You have given away everything I owned. If you have a bowl to give away, give it to her! That is the only one that I have. For everything, he says—“Give it away! Give it away!”’
People at the panchayat laughed out aloud.
‘I’ll send you a large bowl tomorrow, before you wake up. Give this one to her. Sanad will need it to bathe,’ I said to him, laughing.
Bhaktiman grumbled and complained, but gave away the bowl. I looked in Laxmi’s direction, expecting her to be smiling. But no—she wasn’t smiling.
The panchayat was coming to an end. The only matter remaining was to fix the child and the mother’s allowance.
Even in that moment, I still felt that it would be better to reconcile the two of them. With the hope that regular meetings and interactions might turn their hearts towards each other, I caught Bal Bahadur’s attention and said, ‘Let’s fix a monthly allowance. Bhaktiman can visit his son when he goes to deliver the money. Don’t you think?’
Bal Bahadur became suddenly irritated at me and said in a low growl, ‘That won’t do! We have to fix the amount right now, and decide everything for good.’
In the morning, while we checked together to see if the sweet peas that we had sowed a few days earlier had sprouted, Kewal’s mother asked, ‘What happened at the panchayat yesterday?’
I had had enough of the entire business. I said, ‘What ever does happen at a panchayat? She was a blood-sucking witch. Took us some work to separate them.’
One Among Us
A buyer woke up a bunch of mustard greens sleeping on the tarmac, picked it up, matched it to himself, held it as if to make it his wife, and finally asked, ‘How much for these?’
‘That saag is for six paise.’
The buyer’s greed gathered rage to scream injustice. He still carried the free abundance of the greens in the jungles within him. ‘Wilted,’ the man said, as if to suggest that he would freely reject the saag if it were wilted, and then walked away.
Maina’s mother continued to wait for other customers.
‘We shouldn’t live in Darjeeling anymore,’ a man said. ‘It’s full of people looking for jobs, and education won’t get you anywhere anymore. We won’t have enough to eat if we remain here. We were a few when we arrived, but now more people have added themselves. There isn’t even enough fodder for our cattle. We must reach a new land. It doesn’t rain here anymore; the trees are naked. We must go to a new land. We must ride out on horseback before the sun comes up tomorrow, with the women and children and our stuff in ox-carts. Let the strong and youthful ride before and behind the procession. We must walk the cattle slowly. We’ll travel until dusk before stopping for the night. When we have reached a distance of one hundred miles, we can decide which way to head.’
‘We should take the mountain road to Assam. To the northeast.’
‘Let those who come later find evidence and say: Long ago, a branch of Nepalis had built a small city named Darjeeling and settled here. Many artefacts unique to them have been unearthed. There is evidence that they busied themselves in the miniature, toy-like city for more than a century. Narrow alleys, compact machines, minuscule dwellings are found. Lacking adequate means, they had spread over the continent as nomads. Their means were insufficient, and therefore they would have perished if they had continued crowding here. The age to migrate elsewhere to expand their civilization had also passed. Therefore, in such a time of immediate need, they left home.’
‘No, we have to find a new land.’
Maina’s mother prepared to sprinkle water on the saag. The saag would freshen with enough water sprinkled on them, and if they could be taken to cold tap-water they would revive; she suddenly thought—everything can be kept alive here. But there was no water.
She covered the bunches of saag with a short, dirty rag. ‘You’ve come?’ she asked the woman who had come to stand by her side.
‘Did the saag sell?’ the woman examined the supine bunches of saag. ‘How many have sold?’
‘None at all.’
‘Useless that I gave them here. I could’ve sold them.’ The woman had carried an aeon’s tiredness, and so she plopped down to the ground. ‘Give me whatever money you’ve made. My child’s father is at death’s gates at home.’ The woman jumped back up in panic right away.
Lines arced where each drop stepped; even from there the rain could be seen descending to the old pond. The forest resounded with the roar of rushing waters, amplifying the declarations of a torrential rain. A few bodies sprinted on a path that curved to the right around the pond. One came and sto
od before the tent—he was an acquaintance, he smiled. He laughed even in a rain like that and said, ‘It really came down, didn’t it?’
He had rolled up his trousers over his calves to sprint.
Maina’s mother looked at the calves, thick as ridge-posts, and asked, just as her mother’s mother had asked before her, ‘Where were you going uphill?’
‘I’m looking for land uphill. People have overrun the Gaushala hillside. I’m looking at a place uphill. They say Darjeeling will become a large town when it becomes full of people.’
‘That is what everybody says,’ he heard in reply.
Don’t chat! The rain began to scream outside in admonishment. A three-stone fire-pit stood burning inside the tent; the rain trapped the smoke from the firewood inside the tent. The man with the ridge-posts calves found a low stool and sat. ‘It is flooding in,’ he jumped up again. The woman selling tea also stood. The rain was flooding in from the base of the tent.
‘Isn’t there anything to dig with?’
‘No, there’s nothing.’
He took a piece of firewood with him, began directing the flood away under the pelting rain. The woman saw fresh soil turned up at the base of the tent, saw that the water no longer seeped in, and saw herself ringed by a shallow channel. ‘Leave it! It has stopped flooding,’ she said, but the strong man continued to augment the channel.
Clouds emptied their store of rain and journeyed away. When the sun came out, the green of the forests turned yellow. The strong man was still digging up the soil.
‘Will they kill this pond to build a market here?’ the shop-keeper woman went to his side to ask.
‘Yes, they will.’
‘They’ll breach the pond and drain it?’
‘They’ll break the pond at the farther end.’
‘And it will sweep away the Gaushala village? There’ll be landslides?’
‘Who told you this?’ he stood up to ask her.
‘We are also moving uphill.’
‘Are you accusing me of deserting?’ he asked, finding on this day a purchase on her affections.
A man without a paisa in his pockets and clutching a small bag of rice said, ‘I hear the very grass and shrubbery around here is medicinal. If we knew them, if they’d sell well, we could cut them, sell them.’
Another man who lived near her house said, ‘Apparently there are mineral lodes right under our homes. Who knows—there could be a copper mine under my field. The Madhesh should be taxed on our river waters.’
A hurled stone sped past her head—Man will reach the moon!—and Maina’s mother ducked to save herself. Another missile came to hit her on the chest—Live as a person!—and she crumpled over and fell. All the congregated sorrows of the world descended upon her home; all pleasures were disdainful, alien. Fearing a monstrous news that could trundle forth and run her over, she wished that she could crawl into the ground. The weight of a heavy hope sank her into the earth; she struggled to become a mountain.
‘We have moved constantly to seek out places from where the mountains appear the prettiest. We don’t want to move away anymore. Each of us must have a home with windows from where to watch the mountains in the morning.’
Her feverish body made her say this—‘Man isn’t healthy here. He is quickly satiated by anything—it’s the appetite of the ailing. But a lone mountain doesn’t satisfy us.’
‘If we migrate to anywhere we will tie up this land in bundles and carry it away. Even the five-year-old will be made to carry his share of this inheritance.’
The bunches of saag discarded the rag and sprang to their feet. Bundles unfurled and every stem separated. They cast off their sleep and yawned. A gentle and warm evening breeze had arrived; little yellow buds of mustard swayed in it. A slender plant that had climbed high up over the branches took another radiating branch to reach even higher and suddenly became terrified with vertigo. The hand touched the grass at the base of the plant, to uproot the blades, to weed the ground. A small, slick pool of water had gathered under the tree-tomato bush—she felt like scooping it up with the rusty tin nearby to water the plant. She breathed in the joy of having a crop growing in the terraced fields. A clump of bamboo filled the sight. Her eyes watched a leaf fall, twirling in its flight, having long waited for her presence. She walked far along a parched field: the edge of the terrace was overgrown with thick clumps of grass. She climbed up the terraces from the far end of the fields.
Why did you move here?
Why did you move here?
Why did you move here?
Why did you move here?
A millstone in the middle of the bazaar. In the middle of the bazaar, dining plates.
The bazaar sells knick-knacks and necessities for a thousand homes. The millstone should watch over the entrance into the house: it has to bind itself to the floor of the house and become a singular body. It may not wander about; it is visited only by the sun, either in the morning or in the evening, in its fixed place by the entrance. Daughters and sisters of the house discuss the matters of their hearts around it. It is never good for it to come to the bazaar. The dark stems of chiraito and pakhanbet should have been packed away in bundles and in tins in every home; the plates brought to the bazaar should have remained arranged in shelves above the stove or strewn on the kitchen floor. Maina’s mother thought of the bazaar as a home: she felt a thousand homes had become conmingled and strewn here. Why were a thousand homes been brought to the bazaar to be abandoned? She had the urge to pick the many homes and join them together. ‘Sugarcanes that should have been eaten by children, the beaten rice made by the daughters-in-law—these should have remained at home. The stuff of our homes is kept alongside us in the bazaar. Folk left their homes first, and now their possessions have followed them to the bazaar and are waiting to persuade them to return.’ Maina’s mother tried to return home: she was frightened by the broad, bright afternoon of the bazaar.
Alerted by the din, Hanuman hid deeper in the tree
Ravan hurried thither with his suit of women
‘When will I die by Ram’s hand? I’ve long abducted Sita!’
As he pined for Raghunath’s arrival a vision favoured him.
Sita saw the rascal approach and lowered her head.
With her mind she recalled Shri Ram’s feet to her heart.
She looked around to keep herself alert. Dark blobs of men climbed stairs, chatted. Their gossip didn’t pause, the eyes roved here and there and saw other people. Sight had become sound, those visible spoke, separated, those being looked at became hidden. Bags and tarps waved and collided.
A shadow the colour of a flag passed, a mike’s blaring halted at the ears. A little boy ran. Three people came and went—one lost in thoughts, others rushing with purpose. ‘I was born here, I’ll stay here. This is what I have and this is what I’ll sell. I must find happiness in the things I possess—here is my foothold.’ A dog chased, ran past, reached far. ‘Rags and papers!’ voices shouted. The bazaar continued to convulse, continued to scratch its itch and show impatience.
The sun had been placed atop an electricity pole. ‘Why did you come here?’ Somebody, unseen and close, asked her. ‘Why did you come?’ The wandering voice of the bazaar asked. A man walking ahead of her turned around to ask her the same question. People on the streets came, one queue after another, to ask her the same. People inside buildings opened their windows to ask the same question—high voices, sharp voices, and wide-open mouths all directed their questions at her. She covered her face with a dirty shawl and from its small window peered outside with her ancient fear. The entire bazaar abandoned its duties to rush to her, surround her with a thousand faces and ask: ‘Why did you come here?’
‘They’ll trample over my mustard greens,’ her fear became acute. She threw herself over the bunches of saag.
At dusk, she was eagerly selling saag. When night draped overhead she placed a wooden box and an upturned basket to claim her spot for the next day.
&nb
sp; Long Night of Storm
The storm had begun rattling the tin kerosene-can sheets nailed to the roof with a monotonous khaltaang-khaltaang khat-khat. It filled the heart with the dread that it would blow the roof away.
In the dim flicker of the lamp stirred by the wind, Kaley’s parents glanced up at the roof-ridge. Fine beads of moisture—like the sheen of sweat—appeared on a few of the tin-sheets blackened by firewood soot. Equally sooty rafters of cherry and poplar wood anchored the eighty or ninety tin-sheets against the wind.
‘How the wind howls over this hill!’ Kaley’s mother said after the storm let up some, and began lighting a fire in the hearth.
‘Doesn’t halt at all,’ Kaley’s father added. ‘Today makes it a whole week!’
He had barely spoken the words when the rain started pouring in a torrent—dha-ra-ra-ra…
‘And, when it rains, there’s the worry about landslides,’ Kaley’s father said. ‘We were fools to settle on this spot.’
It started raining even more fiercely. Tongues of flame in the hearth leapt and danced with the deafening din from the tin-sheets on the roof. As the storm raged harder, the individual tattoo of raindrops melded to become an uninterrupted roar that radiated in all directions. Soon, everything will be swept away, pulled away by a landslide, a deluge of soil that blankets from above…
They felt: a landslide is sweeping away this home; it is pulling us with it.
‘Mahakal Baba! You are our protector and keeper!’
Rain swept sideways by the storm hit the wall planks. The planks were all wet on the inside too.
The bed that was usually set against the wall had been shifted to a spot where the water didn’t drip. Kaley was asleep, with his sister in his arms.
‘We built the house on a spot like this because of your stubbornness,’ the husband suddenly said angrily. ‘We were comfortable living in a building in the bazaar, and with my job as a policeman. Without the fear of storms or the worry of landslides…’
Long Night of Storm Page 11
