A Fine Family: A Novel Page 14

  There was no answer.

  Anees rose and slowly, cautiously set her light feet on the bare polished floor. She took a few steps towards the moonlight, and took hold of the brass latch on the door. Again she heard the groaning sound. She felt as if something heavy was knocking on the door. She was frightened until she realized it was her own heart beating. All evening Anees had lived in the anticipation of seeing Bauji. But now that the moment had actually come she was afraid. She did not know what she would see. Would he be badly mutilated?

  Would he recognize her when he became conscious? She had not seen Bauji properly so far. In the bullock cart his face had been covered to protect him from the sun. Later at the house she had been too busy organizing for his family, while Dr Des Raj had washed and dressed his wound, and changed his clothes with the help of a servant. Bauji had gained consciousness, drunk some water, but had again become unconscious because of the terrible pain.

  She went out into the moonlit veranda. As she opened the door of the adjoining room, she thought her bare feet touched someone sleeping. It was the servant, who had been kept on duty to look after the wounded man. He sat up and whispered something. He stared at the strange apparition of a young woman in night clothes in the wounded man’s room.

  ‘Shh! Go back to sleep,’ she said to the servant. It’s only me.’ The tired man did what he was told.

  As she moved towards the patient, she caught sight of an ill-defined mass in the bed; she took his knees thrust up under the bedclothes for his shoulders and she imagined a horrible mutilated body; she was again afraid and she paused. Soon she felt compelled to move towards him. However terrible he might look, she had to see him. She cautiously took a step, then another, and she was by the bedstead. She could now see him clearly, thanks to the moonlight which filled the room from the open windows. With his arms stretched out over the bedsheet, Bauji looked just as she had always known him. He was awake. His dark eyes gleamed in the strange light; despite his unbearable pain, there was no mistaking the pride that flashed in his eyes.

  He recognized her immediately and smiled and slowly extended his hand to her. She took it. She leaned her head gently against his hand and she cried.

  ‘Is it really you?’ he said with difficulty.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘My dream in the burkha.’

  She nodded.

  ‘What happiness!’

  At midnight on 14 August 1947 the British Raj came to an end, and India became free. On the same day, a new nation called Pakistan was born, carved out of West Punjab and East Bengal. A man named Sir Cyril Radcliffe did the actual carving in five weeks and the demarcation on the map came to be known as the Radcliffe Boundary award. It was announced on the seventeenth of August, and the partition led to an unprecedented transfer of population and rendered ten million homeless. An estimated twenty million Hindus moved out of West Punjab and East Bengal and eighteen million Muslims moved into Pakistan. As a part of this mass movement over half-a-million people lost their lives; there were twenty-two thousand reported cases of rape and kidnapping of women; two-hundred-and-twenty thousand people were declared missing.

  Anees looked after Bauji and his family for two weeks. Bauji slowly recovered from his injury under Anees’ affectionate and energetic care. Both he and Anees knew from the beginning the limitations to their relationship. There were the constraints of circumstances and there was no point hoping for more. So they lived those two weeks as if they were a lifetime, trying hard not to pretend that it could be otherwise. When Bauji’s wound was healed and he could move, Anees transported them personally under heavy police guard to the Wagah border and to the safety of India.

  During those fifteen days Bauji and Anees talked about many things, but the recent events were uppermost in their minds. They strove valiantly to understand the communal madness. During the first few days Bauji lay numb without thinking, but slowly his mind became remarkably clear.

  ‘Who is to blame, Bauji?’ asked Anees one afternoon, ‘Your people blame Jinnah for breeding hatred between Hindus and Muslims because he wanted a homeland for the Muslims. I blame the Sikhs who started the killing in East Punjab. My father blames General Rees and his Punjab Boundary Force for their failure to keep law and order.’

  ‘I don’t blame anyone, Anees,’ said Bauji after a long pause. ‘The freedom of three hundred million, whose culture is older than ancient Greece, required a sacrificial purification in order to wash away the dirt of the centuries of foreign rule. We had to cleanse ourselves in each other’s blood. Less than a million dead is after all less than a third of one percent of the people freed. It is merely the price of our Independence. Think of it as a great ritual blood letting.’

  ‘And Punjab had to pay the price for the rest of India,’ she said gloomily. ‘How can you talk like this Bauji? You are a fighter. That’s why you are alive today.’

  ‘I am alive because of you,’ he said.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Well, who is to blame?’ she asked.

  ‘Mountbatten, I think.’

  ‘Why?’ she said with surprise.

  ‘For rushing through with the transfer of power without adequate preparation. He is a soldier after all. He had set an objective, and he was going to achieve it.’

  ‘How could he have known, Bauji, that we would behave like beasts?’

  ‘The killings had started long ago.’

  ‘But no one predicted that it would lead to this. . .this mass migration. Even Gandhi didn’t know.’

  ‘The bloodshed would have been less if Gandhi had been in the Punjab.’ Bauji smiled ironically as he thought of Gandhi wandering on foot in the villages of Bengal, teaching brotherhood to Muslims and Hindus of Bengal. Thanks to his presence, Bengal and Calcutta had been free of violence.

  ‘So you can’t blame Mountbatten,’ said Anees.

  ‘No Anees. If Mountbatten had not been blinded by a sense of his own historical destiny as the liberator of one fifth of the human race, the bloodshed could have been avoided. People needed time to pack their bags and leave. Even Radcliffe needed more time. He had to rush and so a town was cut off from its river, a village from its fields, a factory from its raw materials.’

  ‘But Bauji, no one knew there would be such a massive transfer of people. They assumed that people would stay on in their homes on either side, and owe allegiance to the new nations.’

  ‘Yes, yes I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay on in Lyallpur,’ he said beginning to get depressed.

  ‘It’s done now. Let’s not look back; it’s much too painful.’

  As they were driving to the Wagah border, Bauji and Anees had tears in their eyes. Their hearts were heavy for they had to part once again. Bauji told Anees that he could comprehend people robbing each other or killing known enemies. He could even understand men raping women or stealing girls, because there was at least a momen’s pleasure and power in that act. But to kill innocent anonymous old men and little children, that he could not understand. What conceivable pleasure or motive could men have in doing that?

  Anees tried to explain to him the fanatical power of the Muslim or for that matter the Sikh faith. In each case, the certitude of faith was born in a martial context and the killing of the unfaithful was a mark of bravery and valour.

  ‘I would rather be a coward and live in peace in that case,’ said Bauji.

  Part Two

  SIMLA

  1

  Everyone at the ashram was sad because the guru’s old cow had died early that rainy morning. The princess of Rewas started to cry when she saw it being taken away on a cart. The cow is dead,’ said the guru, ‘but her soul is alive. She will be reborn today as a boy to Seva Ram.’ Hearing this, Seva Ram took off for the railway station like a possessed man. He jumped into the first train for Lyallpur, where Tara was in labour.

  Later that stormy night Tara gave birth to a boy, almost a year after her marriage. Seva Ra
m told them of the guru’s prediction. The boy was hailed as providentially blessed, and the prophetic guru was seen as a true man of god. Bhabo proclaimed that the baby was born under an auspicious star and would have the guru’s protection for life. Big Uncle made a joke about cows and men but nobody thought it very funny. Bauji was overjoyed to have a grandson from his favourite daughter. He dismissed the prophecy because he did not believe in reincarnation, but he insisted that the boy would grow up to be like him.

  A few weeks later, Seva Ram was transferred to a canal colony in the wilds of Rohtak district in East Punjab in order to supervise the construction of an irrigation canal. He proudly took his bride and his child with him, along with all his possessions, which consisted of a jute charpai and a few trunks containing Tara’s dowry. On the way, they stopped at the ashram so that the child could have the guru’s blessings. Seva Ram explained to Tara that a true guru’s eyes had the power to protect; his glance would give the child a spiritual start in life.

  At the ashram, Seva Ram placed the child at the guru’s feet and requested him to give the boy a name. ‘Let us call him Arjun, after the most courageous Pandava,’ said the guru. This boy will grow up to be confident and fearless like Arjuna, and he will be a seeker like him.’ The guru smiled and continued, ‘You probably don’t know, but my cow was also spirited and brave. It is an appropriate name, don’t you think?’ and he laughed.

  When Bauji heard about this he slapped his thigh with pleasure. ‘Yes, it is a good name,’ he said, ‘Arjun, Arjuna, bold and gallant. I want him to grow up fearlessly, to right the wrongs of this world, and not seek after another world.’

  In the backward wilds of Rohtak district, Tara was visibly unhappy. She missed her family, her friends, and the comforts of 7 Kacheri Bazaar. She was anxious because the baby suffered from diarrhoea and would not put on weight. Every day she would weigh him on the scales of the bania, who brought fresh vegetables and fruits to their little PWD cottage. She would place the baby in a rickety tin bowl on one side; in the other bowl, would go some coloured stones. And she would hold her breath as the bania tried to balance the two bowls with a fragile jute string. The bania was either too poor or too mean to own real iron weights and he had persuaded his customers that the different coloured stones stood for ‘an eighth’, ‘a quarter’, ‘a half,’ etc. Every time a new stone was added to the scale, Tara would be overjoyed. She would reward the bania immediately by buying extra fruit, and return indoors singing. The bania thus acquired a vested interest in Arjun’s size.

  Having grown up in a city, Tara found the dusty, flat, unbroken countryside very lonely. The vast and open treeless horizon scared her at times, especially in the evenings when Seva Ram was out on his horse inspecting the canal. She liked the canal, however, and she would sit on its banks for hours. Behind their house, the canal passed a lock, where the water fell a couple of feet, and she enjoyed listening to the sound of running water. The rushing noise had a romantic character, and she would sometimes stop amidst her household chores to listen. She wrote a long letter to Lyallpur, describing the romance of the canal. But she did not write about her loneliness.

  More than the landscape, she was troubled by her husband’s silence. Seva Ram was a shy and quiet person. He never spoke unless he was spoken to. He woke up before dawn, had a bath and sat down to meditate. By six he was out on horseback for the morning inspection. He returned at eight, had breakfast, and worked in his office till one. After lunch and a rest, he again worked till six or seven. In the evenings he would have liked to go for a solitary walk. But Tara insisted on going with him. He was a quiet, mild man, and she learned to do all the talking on these walks.

  As a Sub-Divisional Officer, Seva Ram was the most important official of the Raj for miles around. His mission was to maintain his part of the canal. He made sure that water flowed efficiently through the main canal as well as the smaller distribution channels which watered the farmers’ fields. He had also to see that water was provided fairly to all the farmers. This was difficult at times because some farmer or other would invariably divert his neighbour’s water to his own field, and this led to quarrels, fights, and even murder. In such a situation, he often became a judge. Tara usually became interested in such cases, and Seva Ram discovered that she had a knack for suggesting a fair solution. ‘After all, my father was a lawyer,’ she would remind him.

  Seva Ram was also in charge of the tiny canal colony, which was neatly and functionally laid out. Besides their bungalow, there were quarters for the overseers’ families, a rest-house for visiting officers and two office buildings. All the buildings were of brick, with flat roofs and wide verandas in the PWD style, and they were whitewashed inside. Since it had its own water distributory from the canal, the colony was green and shady with trees, lawns, and flowers in abundance, which were looked after by full-time gardeners—a dramatic contrast to the brown and arid countryside around.

  Tara also tried to make friends with the other women in the colony. She found that she was the only one who was educated, and she could not resist the feeling of superiority. To her surprise she discovered, however, that she liked being the wife of an important official. She was proud that her husband was like a god in the eyes of the peasants, not only because he provided water for the crops, but also because he was incorruptible. The farmers overwhelmed her with gifts from their fields, but Seva Ram always returned them because he regarded them as bribes. Not to hurt the feelings of the giver, he would take one piece of fruit or vegetable from a whole basket or a glass of milk from a bucketful, and return the rest. Tara was annoyed when he insisted on returning a whole set of baby clothes which the village headman’s wife had brought for Arjun. ‘Can’t we keep one?’ she implored. He was adamant because he knew the price: he would have to widen the outlet of the distributory channel for the headman’s field. The villagers, too, were surprised by Seva Ram’s high standards. His predecessors had not only accepted gifts but had not hesitated in asking for cows and horses in addition.

  Nine months later Seva Ram was transferred to the district headquarters at Rohtak, where he was given an administrative job in the irrigation department. Whereas he had been a ‘burra sahib’ in the canal colony, here he was only a ‘chota sahib’ on the lowest rung of the district’s officialdom. At the top of the ladder was the Collector, followed by the district heads of police, medical services, railways, forestry, irrigation, and so on. Many of these officials were English, although the Indianization of the services had advanced quite far by 1943.

  Rohtak was a typical dusty, colourless town on the North Indian plain. Its only claim to fame lay in its famous jail which was as strong as a fortress. Since it was close to Delhi, the jail had seen many eminent occupants, including both Nehru and Gandhi. Tara was happier here, although she continued to long for Lyallpur. After the canal post, she welcomed the conveniences of the town—the hospital, the bazaar and the educated company. She made friends quickly and even got a job in the local junior college for women. She got a chance to observe the unusual ways of the English officials, especially her husband’s bosses. However, she missed the sound of the rushing water at the canal head, as well as the sense of importance which the villagers had bestowed on her.

  One bright winter’s day, a cream-coloured Hispano-Suiza pulled up in front of the Rohtak Canal Rest House. Out of it came a well-dressed Englishman, his wife and three children. He was Seva Ram’s superior by two levels, a stylish Superintending Engineer (SE) named Parker, who had come from Delhi on an inspection tour.

  The entire staff of the local Irrigation Department, including Seva Ram and Tara, was assembled at the rest-house, to ‘pay their respects’ and garland the SE with bright marigolds. Tara found this display embarrassing because ‘after all, the man was here on official business’. But this was how it had been done for three-quarters-of-a-century.

  During the ceremony, a bus arrived with the Parkers’ domestic staff and baggage. To Tara’s shock, out of the b
us emerged fifteen liveried servants and thirty-one pieces of luggage. She counted everyone—the khidmatgar, the English cook, the Indian cook, the dhobi, the darzi, two jamedars, two ayahs, two chaprassis, two bearers, a hamal and a chokra boy. It was a brilliant spectacle to see them lined up beside the chrysanthemums, in their gleaming white uniforms, with purple bands on their turbans and purple cummerbunds.

  After everyone, was dismissed, the Parkers went inside the cool, high-ceilinged rest-house, and ordered fresh lemonades. Then they quickly changed, and went around to the dozen or so homes of the British community, starting at the top with the Collector. At each stop, they left their calling cards in little black boxes outside the bungalow. This was a sacred ritual of the Raj. Tara thought it odd that they had formally dressed for this occasion even though they did not expect to meet anybody—in fact Tara was told that it was socially improper for the hosts to notice them at the gate.

  As soon as they returned to the rest-house, the Parkers were deluged by chits brought by bearers, containing enough invitations for lunches, dinners, teas, dances and tennis matches to last a fortnight. And the Parkers plunged into socializing with vigour. Their ‘inspection week’ was remembered by the little district town for months afterwards. Parker’s only concession to his duty consisted of brief visits to the canal works with Seva Ram in the mornings. While he was out, Mrs Parker attended ‘elevenses’ with various Englishwomen.

  The Parkers reciprocated all the hospitality they received with a grand formal dinner at the rest-house, which was remembered for the excellence of its menu. Tara was keen to get an invitation, but of course it was out of the question, not only because ‘the races had to be kept apart’, but also because Seva Ram was not high enough on the official ladder to merit one.

  Tara wanted to meet Mrs Parker, and she broached the idea to Seva Ram. He was shocked, and immediately dismissed the idea as outlandish. She persisted. He became upset and the two quarrelled.