Greatest Short Stories (8 page)

8

The Parrot in the Cage
^*

‘Rukmaniai, ni Rukmaniai’ the parrot in the cage called in the way Rukmani’s friends used to call her when they entered the alley way of Kucha Chabuk Swaran in Lahore. And he repeated the call even before she could answer his as she used to do when she wanted to humour the bird. She did not answer but sat crouching on the fringe of the road about half a furlong away from the Amritsar court.

‘Rukmaniai, ni Rukmaniai! the parrot called again.

She was peering though the little clouds of dust raised by the passing motors and tongas and yekkas in the direction from which, she had been told by the roasted gram stall-keeper, the
Dipty Collator
was to come and she remained heedless to the parrot’s cry.

‘Rukmaniai, ni Rukmaniai!’ the parrot called shrilly and went on repeating the cry with the sure mocking bird’s instinct that if he kept on calling her she would answer.

‘Han, my son, han… the old woman said after all, wearily. There had been a dull ache behind the small knot of hair on the back of her head and, now, with the mounting heat of the September morning, it seemed to her like the rumblings of the dreadful night when murder and fire had raged in her lane.

Little rivulets of sweat trickled through the deep fissures of old age which lined her face and she shaded her eyes, with the inverted palm of her hand, to probe the sunlight more surely for the vision of the Deputy Commissioner.

Her contracted, toothless mouth was open and only a couple of flies came from the direction in which she looked and settled on the corners of her lips.

She waved her left hand gingerly to scatter the flies. But they persisted and set up an irritation in her soul through which she felt a panic seize her belly.

‘Ni tun kithe hain?’
the parrot cried another cry which he had learnt from the old woman’s friends who invariably asked on entering the lane, ‘Where are you?’ For she used to be away earning her living as a maid of all work, cleaning utensils for the people in the bigger houses in the lane or was mostly hidden from view in the inner sanctums of the dark ground floor room by the well in the gulley.

‘Son, I don’t know where I am…’ she said listlessly, in the effort to keep the parrot quiet by assuring him she was taking notice of him, ‘I only know that if Fate has not given me her burqah to escape with, I should not be here…’

‘Ni tun ki karni hain?’
the parrot persisted with the third call which Rukmani’s friends used to call.

‘Nothing, son, I am doing nothing… only waiting… the old woman said tiredly, as though now she was holding a metaphorical conversation with her pet to keep her mind occupied. For, from her entrails arose a confusion which was like the panic she had felt at the mad throats bursting with shouts of ‘Allah ho Akbar!’ ‘Har har Mahadev!’ ‘Sat Sri Akal!’ on the night of terror when she had fled from the lane.

There had been flashes of blazing light; cracking of burning housebeams; smoke, smoke, choking smoke… And she had thought that her last days had come, that the earth itself was troubled through the misdeeds of the
Kaliyug
and that soon the
dharti
would open up and swallow everything… And then Fato had come and told her she would be murdered if she did not leave.

‘Ni tun ki karni hain?’
the parrot repeated.’
Ni tun kithe hain?
…’

‘Nothing son, nothing’, Rukmani answered,’ And I don’t know where I am… And as she looked steadily towards the junction of the Mall Road and Kutchery Road and saw no sign of the Deputy Commissioner, her last phrase seemed to get meaning.

‘Rukmaniai, ni Rukmaniai! the parrot called again. Her answers to his metallic, shrill, nasal cries did not irritate her anymore, but relieved the heavy pressure of the demons of the dreadful night on her head and her chest and her bowels.

‘Ni tun ki karni hain?’
the parrot persisted.

‘Son, I am waiting for the Sahib, so that he can give me some money to buy bread with…’ They say that the Congress Sarkar will give back what we have lost, son, they say — I heard at the station, son, at the
station
?… Are you hungry my son — you must be hungry I shall buy you some gram from that stall keeper when the Sahib gives me money… ‘

‘Mai, you are dreaming! You have gone mad!’ the gram stall keeper said. ‘Go, go your way to the town, you may get some food at the Durbar Sahib temple. You won’t get anything from the
Dipty Collator
…’

‘Vay, jaja
, eater of your masters! she shouted bitterly. Such commonsense as that of the complacent gram seller seemed to break the pitcher of her hopes. And she mooed like a cow in defiance at the end of her speech.

‘Acha, don’t abuse me. I only said this for your own good,’ the stall keeper answered as he whisked the flies off his stall with the end of a dirty apron.

‘On, why did I leave home to wander like this from door to door!’ old Rukmani whined almost under her breath. ‘Oh why did you have to turn me out of my room in my old age, God… Oh why… Why didn’t I tie the rupees I had earned in a knot on my dupatta!… Hai Rabba!…

She moaned to herself, and tremors of tenderness went swirling through her flesh. And tears filled her eyes. And in the hazy dust before her the violent rhythms of the terrors of falling houses and dying, groaning men and heavy, shouting men, danced in macabre trembling waves of sunlight, dim and unsubstantial like the ghosts on a cremation ground before whom she had always cowered every time she had attended a funeral.

‘Rukmaniai, ni Rukmaniai!’ the parrot called and brought her to herself.

Crackling flames of heat now assailed her. And she sweated more profusely. And yet she crouched where she was only shuffling like a hen sitting over her eggs.

‘At least go and sit under the shade of the tree,’ the gram seller said.

The pupils of her eyes were blistering with the glare. She wiped her face with the end of her dupatta and heaved as though she was lifting the weight of a century ’s miseries up with her. Then she took the handle of the iron cage in which her pet parrot sat and bent-backed but staring ahead, ambled up to a spot where the precarious shadow of a kikar tree lay on the rutted earth.

Ni tun ki kithe hain? ni…’ the parrot’s monologue continued. So did her self-communings, aroused by the anonymous, meaningless repetitive calls; ‘Nowhere, son, nothing, nothing…’

She had hardly settled down when suddenly a motor whirred past, with a motor cyclist ahead and some policemen in a jeep behind, scattering much dust on the fringe of the roadside.

‘ There goes your “
Dipty Collator
” said the gram stall keeper.

‘Hai hai!’ Come my son! she screamed as she shot up with great alacrity and picked up the cage in her hand. ‘Come I will join my hands to the Sahib and fall at this feet. “Mad woman!’ the gram seller said cynically.

She heeded him not, but penetrated the clouds of dust.

Behind her, and on all sides, she could hear the sound of rushing feet storming towards the gloomy gates of the kutchery. And their cries whirled in the air. ‘Hujoor, Mai Bap, hear us’ ‘Sarkar!’ “
Dipty Saheb
”… We have come on foot all the way from Lahore… You…’ She nearly fell as the more powerful men among the crowed brushed past her and their own women.

‘Rukmaniai!
Tun kithe hain?
’ the parrot in the cage cried even as he fluttered his wings in a panic at the voices and the hurtling feet.

The old woman did not answer but sped grimly on. Only, in a moment, the dust storm which was proceeding towards the court was turned back by a furious whirlwind from the opposite direction. A posse of policemen charged the refugees with lathis and angry shouts which drowned the chorus of voices of which Rukamani’s sighs and her parrot’s cries had been a part.

In the delirium of motion which was set afoot by the lathi charge of the police, all valour was held at bay and turned back.

Rukmani was brushed aside by some desperate arm until she reeled and fell not far from where she had sat waiting for the Sahib. But she clung to the handle of the cage in which her parrot sat as she lay moaning in suppressed, helpless whispers.

The parrot fluttering furiously as though he was being strangled and called out shrilly:

‘Rukmaniai! Ni Rukmaniai!
Ni tun kithe hain! Ni tun ki karni hain!’

But the old woman, though concerned for him had turned in upon herself with a sudden dimness that seemed to be creeping upon her.

After the crowd had been cleared, and the dust settled, the gram seller was irritated by the parrot’s constant cries into stirring from his perch. He was afraid that the old woman had expired. But as he came near her, the parrot called her more shrilly and she answered faintly,
‘Ham, han son, han’
, and the man knew that she was still alive. He lifted her up and found that her hands and arms were slightly grazed.

‘Come and sit in the shade, mother,’ he said. Acha, son, acha!’ she moaned.

And she lifted the cage and proceeded towards the shade.

The parrot was a little reassured as he saw the gram-seller helping his mistress and he shrieked less shrilly.

‘Come, my little winged one, I shall give you some gram to eat’, the gram seller said to him.

‘May you live long, son!’ the old woman blessed the gram seller in a feeble, strained moanful voice.

‘Rukmaniai ni Rukmaniai!
Tun kithe hain? Tun ki karni hain
…? the parrot called now in a slow measured voice.

‘Han han, son, han my
son… I don’t know where I am! I don’t know…’

^*
From
Reflections on The Golden Bed and other Stories
.

9

The Gold Watch
^*

There was something about the smile of Mr. Acton, when he came over to Srijut Sudarshan Sharma’s table, which betokened disaster. But as the Sahib had only said, “Mr. Sharma, I have brought something for you specially from London — you must come into my office on Monday and take it…”, the poor old dispatch clerk could not surmise the real meaning of the General Manager’s remark. The fact that Mr. Acton should come over to his table at all, fawn upon him and say what he had said was, of course, most flattering. For, very rarely did the head of the firm condescend to move down the corridor where the Indian staff of the distribution department of the great Marmalade Empire of Henry King & Co., worked. But that smile on Mr. Acton’s face — specially as Mr. Acton’s face! — specially as Mr. Action was not known to smile too much, being a morose, old Sahib, hard working, conscientious and a slave driver, famous as a shrewd businessman, so devoted to the job of spreading the monopoly of King’s Marmalade, and sundry other products, that his wife had left him after a three month’s spell of marriage and never returned to India, though no one quite knew whether she was separated or divorced from him or merely preferred to stay away. So the fact that Acton Sahib should smile was enough to give Srijut Sharma cause for thought. But then Srijut Sharma was, in spite of his nobility of soul and fundamental innocence, experienced enough in his study of the vague, detached race of the white Sahibs by now and clearly noticed the slight awkward curl of the upper lip, behind which the determined, tobacco-stained long teeth showed, for the briefest moment, a snarl suppressed, by the deliberation which Acton Sahib had brought to the whole operation of coming over and pronouncing those kind words. And what could be the reason for his having being singled out, from amongst the twenty-five odd members of the distribution department? In the usual way, he, the dispatch clerk, only received an occasional greeting, “Hello Sharma — how you getting on?” from the head of his own department, Mr. West; and twice or thrice a year he was called into the cubicle by West Sahib for a reprimand, because some letters or packets had gone astray; otherwise, he himself, being the incarnation of clock-work efficiency, and well-versed in the routine of his job, there was no occasion for any break in the monotony of that anonymous, smooth working Empire, so far at least as he was concerned. To be sure, there was the continual gossip of the clerks and the accountants, the bickerings and jealousies of the people above him, for grades and promotions and pay; but he, Sharma, had been employed twenty years ago, as a special favour, was not even a matriculate, but had picked up the work somehow, and though unwanted and constantly reprimanded by West Sahib in the first few years, had been retained because of the general legend of saintliness which he had acquired… he had five more years of service to do, because then he would be fifty-five, and the family-raising, grhast, portion of his life in the fourfold scheme, prescribed by religion, finished, he hoped to retire to his home town Jullunder, where his father still ran the confectioner’s shop off the Mall Road.

“And what did Acton Sahib have to say to you, Mr. Sharma?” asked Miss violet Dixon, the plain snub-nosed Anglo Indian typist in her singsong voice.

Being an old family man of fifty, who had grayed prematurely, she considered herself safe enough with this ‘gentleman’ and freely conversed with him, specially during the lunch hour, while she considered almost everyone else as having only one goal in life — to sleep with her.

‘Han’, he said, ‘He has brought something for me from England’, Srijut Sharma answered.

“There are such pretty things in U.K.” she said.

‘My! I wish, I could go there! My sister is there, you know! Married!…’

She had told Sharma all these things before. So he was not interested. Specially today, because all his thoughts were concentrated on the inner meaning of Mr. Acton’s sudden visitation and the ambivalent smile.

‘Well, half day today, I am off;, said Violet and moved away with the peculiar snobbish agility of the Mem Sahib she affected to be.

Srijut Sharma stared at her blankly, though taking in her regular form into his subconscious with more than the old uncle’s interest he had always pretended to take in her. It was only her snub nose, like that of surpnaka, the sister of the demon king Ravana, that stood in the way of her being married, he felt sure, for otherwise she had a tolerable figure. But he lowered his eyes as soon as the thought of Miss Dixon’s body began to simmer in the cauldron of his inner life; because, as a good Hindu, every woman, apart from the wife, was to him a mother or a sister. And his obsession about the meaning of Acton Sahib’s words returned, from the pent up curiosity, with greater force now that he realised the vastness of the space of time during which he would have to wait in suspense before knowing what the boss had brought for him and why.

He took up his faded sola topee, which was, apart from the bush shirt and trousers, one of the few concessions to modernity which he had made throughout his life as a good Brahmin, got up from his chair, beckoned Dugdu sepoy from the verandah on his way out and asked.

“Has Acton Sahib gone, you know?”

“Abhi Sahib in lift going down,” Dugdu said.

Srijut Sharma made quickly for the stairs and, throwing all caution about slipping on the polished marble steps to the winds, hurtled down. There were three floors below him and he began to sweat, both through fear of missing the Sahib and the heat of mid-April.

As he got to the ground floor, he saw Acton Sahib already going out of the door.

It was now or never.

Srijut Sharma rushed out. But he was conscious that quite a few employers of the firm would be coming out of the two lifts and he might be seen talking to the Sahib. And that was not done — outside the office. The Sahibs belonged to their private worlds, where no intrusion was tolerated, for they refuse to listen to pleas of advancement through improper channels.

Mr. Acton’s uniformed driver opened the door of the polished Buick and the Sahib sat down, spreading the shadow of grimness all around him.

Srijut Sharma hesitated, for the demeanour of the

Goanese chauffeur was frightening.

By now the driver had smartly shut the back door of the car and was proceeding to his seat.

That was his only chance.

Taking off his hat, he rushed up to the window of the car, and rudely thrust his head into the presence of Mr. Acton.

Luckily for him, the Sahib did not brush him aside, but smiled a broader smile than that of a few minutes ago and said: ‘You want to know, what I have brought for you -— well, it is a gold watch with an inscription in it… See me Monday morning…’ The Sahib’s initiative in anticipating his question threw Srijut Sharma further off his balance. The sweat poured down from his forehead, even as he mumbled: ‘Thank You, Sir, thank you…’

‘Chalo, driver!’ Sahib ordered.

And the chauffeur turned and looked hard at Srijut Sharma.

The dispatch clerk withdrew’ with a sheepish, abject smile on his face and stood, hat in left hand, the right hand raised to his forehead in the attitude of a nearly military salute.

The motor car moved off.

But Srijut Sharma still stood, as though he had been struck dumb. He was neither happy nor sad at this moment. Only numbed by the shock of surprise. Why should he be singled out from the whole distribution department of Henry King & Co., for the privilege of the gift of a gold watch! He had done nothing brave that he could remember.’ A gold watch, with an inscription in it!’ Oh, he knew, now: the intuitive truth rose inside him: The Sahib wanted him to retire.

The revelation rose to the surface of his awareness from the deep obsessive fear, which had possessed him for nearly half an hour, and his heart began to palpitate against his will; and the sweat sozzled his body.

He reeled a little, then adjusted himself and got on to the pavement, looking after the car, which had already turned the corner into Nicol Road.

He turned and began to walk towards Victoria Terminus station. From there he had to take his train to Thana, thirty miles out where he had resided, for cheapness, almost all the years he had been in Bombay. His steps were heavy, for he was reasonably sure now that he would get notice of retirement on Monday. He tried to think of some other possible reason why the Sahib may have decided to give him the gift of a gold watch with an inscription. There was no other explanation. His doom was sealed. What would he say to his wife? And his son had still not passed his matric. How would he support the family? The provident fund would not amount to very much specially in these days of rising prices.

He felt a pull at his heart. He paused for breath and tried to call himself. The blood pressure! Or was it merely wind? He must not get into a panic at any cost. He steadied his gait and walked along, muttering to himself, ‘Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!’ as though the very incantation of the formula of peace would restore his calm and equanimity.

During the weekend, Srijut Sharma was able to conceal his panic and confusion behind the facade of an exaggerated bonhomie with the skill of an accomplished natural actor. On Saturday night he went with wife and son to see Professor Ram’s Circus, which was performing opposite the Portuguese Church; and he got up later than usual on Sunday morning; spent a little longer on his prayers, but seemed normal enough on the surface.

Only, he ate very little of the gala meal of the rice-kichri put before him by his wife and seemed lost in thought for a few moments at a time. And his illiterate but shrewd wife noticed that there was something on his mind.

‘Thou has not eaten at all today,’ she said, as he had left the tasty papadum and the mango pickle untouched. ‘Look at Hari! He has left nothing in his thali!’

‘Hoon,’ he answered abstractedly. And, then realising he might be found out for the worried, unhappy man he was, he tried to bluff her. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking of some happy news that the Sahib gave me yesterday: He said, he brought a gold watch as a gift for me from Vilayat…’

‘Then Papaji give me the silver watch, which you are using now,’ said Hari his young son impetuously. ‘I have no watch at all and I am always late everywhere.’

‘Not so impatient, son!’ counselled Hari’s mother. ‘Let your father get the gold watch first and then — he will surely give you his silver watch.’

In the ordinary way, Srijut Sudarshan Sharma would have endorsed his wife’s sentiments. But today, he felt that, on the face of it, his son’s demand was justified. How should Hari know that the silver watch, and the gold watch, and a gold ring, would be all the jewellery he, the father, would have for security against hard days if the gold watch was, as he prognosticated, only a token being offered by the firm to sugarcoat the bitter pill they would ask him to swallow — retirement five years before the appointed time. He hesitated, then lifted his head, smiled at his son and said:

‘Acha, Kaka, you can have my silver watch…’

‘Can I have it, really, Papaji-Hurray!’ the boy shouted, rushing away to fetch the watch from his father’s pocket. ‘Give it to me now, today!’

‘Vay son, you are so selfish!’ his mother exclaimed. For, with the peculiar sensitiveness of the woman she had surmised from the manner in which, her husband had hung his head down and then tried to smile as he lifted his face to his son, that the father of Hari was upset inside him, or at least not in his usual mood of accepting life evenly, accompanying this acceptance with the pious invocation — ‘Shanti! Shanti!’

Hari brought the silver watch, adjusted it to his left ear to see if it ticked, and happy in the possession of it, capered a little caper.

Srijut Shanna did not say anything, but pushing his thali away, got up to wash his hands.

The next day it happened as Srijut Sharma had anticipated.

He went in to see Mr. Acton as soon as the Sahib came in, for the suspense of the weekend had mounted to a crescendo by Monday morning and he had been ‘trembling with trepidation, pale and completely unsure of himself. The General Manager called him in immediately the peon Dugdu presented the little slip with the dispatch clerk’s name on it.

‘Please, sit down, said Mr. Acton, lifting his grey-haired head from the papers before him. And then, pulling his keys from his trousers’ pocket by the gold chain to which they were adjusted, he opened a drawer and fetched out what Sharma thought was a beautiful red case.

‘Mr. Sharma, you have been a loyal friend of this firm for many years — and you know, your loyalty has been your greatest asset here — because…er… Otherwise, we could have got someone, with better qualifications to do your work!… Now… we are thinking of increasing the efficiency of the business all round!… And, we, feel that you would also like, at your age, to retire to your native Punjab… So, as a token of our appreciation for your loyalty to Henry King & Co., we are presenting you this gold watch…’ and he pushed the red case towards him.

‘Srijut Sharma began to speak, but though his mouth opened, he could not go on. ‘I am fifty years old,’ he wanted to say, ‘And I still have five years to go.’ His facial muscles seemed to contract, his eyes were dimmed with the fumes of frustration and bitterness, his forehead was covered with sweat. At least, they might have made a little ceremony of the presentation, he could not even utter the words: ‘Thank you, Sir!’

‘Of course, you will also have your provident fund and one month’s leave with pay before you retire…’

Again, Srijut Sharma tried to voice his inner protest in words which would convey his meaning without seeming to be disloyal, for he did not want to obliterate the one concession the Sahib had made to the whole record of his service with his firm. It was just likely that Mr. Acton may remind him of his failings as a despatch clerk if he should so much as indicate that he was unamenable to the suggestion made by the Sahib on behalf of Henry King & Co.

‘Look at the watch — it has an inscription in it which will please you,’ said Mr. Acton, to get over the embarrassment of the tension created by the silence of the despatch clerk.