In the Shadow of a Dream (2 page)

Only women collect water, no man will be seen near a well. Single men will have some woman—mother, wife, sister, daughter or some volunteer, to collect his ration. The use of the wells follows a discriminatory practice by which higher caste women collect water before lower caste ones. But, the Government of India frowned upon such discrimination and, officially, this practice was supposed to have ended some time ago. The ruling was announced with great reluctance, but as none of the outcast villagers seemed keen to take up this new freedom, there is little evidence of change in the day to day life of the village. It comes as no surprise. In remote corners of the India, communal reforms are slow to establish. The village governing
panchayats,
who dislike outside interference, drag their feet on laws that weaken their powers or break with tradition.

Fatehpur’s main gate, the
Burra Uttar Darwaza
or Great Northern Doorway, is an impressive edifice of yellow sandstone. Smaller versions of it mark the other points of the compass. Of these, the South Gate, now blocked by fallen rock and masonry, once had a watchtower. The West Gate is for the exclusive use of Fatehpur’s menial workers, among them, the families of three sweepers, a potter, two cobblers and a Muslim butcher. One other Muslim family in this very Hindu community is that of Billu Khan, the Pathan watchman. “Billu” was the nickname, given by the villagers, after
billy
, the Hindi word for cat, because his eyes are a cat-like greyish green. The land beyond this gate is stony and wild with cactus and
babul
—the thorny mimosa. The main drain of the village empties its effluence here, and the stench, often overwhelming, is made worse by the fact that the near bank of the drain, outside the gate, is used as an open-air lavatory.

The East Gate looks over the vast flat plains. From its terrace one has a fine view of the distant hills. Here, before the coming of the railway, a mysterious Arab trader set up his tent outside the gate and kept a stable of four camels. For many years the village farmers hired them to carry their produce to the market in Biwara, a township less than thirty miles north of Fatehpur. But soon after the arrival of the railway, the man and his camels vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.

With the building of the railway, two-miles of unmetalled road, but with firm earth and gravel foundations, was built to lead from the East Gate to Fatehpur’s railway station. That station, little more than a siding, consists of a cemented brick platform and a signal-box. Here the slow train announces its arrival at noon with long blasts of its steam whistle; but the midnight Express speeds past the sleeping village. In late October, bullock carts may be seen trundling down the road with their loads of sugarcane, maize, and terracotta pottery—wheat, sorghum and other cereals are seldom surplus to the needs of the village. Occasionally the village cobbler may be seen driving a donkey cart to collect a consignment of used car tyres, which come by arrangement from a scrap merchant in Biwara. These he cuts up for resoling sandals and shoes at half the cost of leather. More often, in its moving cloud of dust, a perky Ford Prefect can be heard on the road. It is one of the two cars owned by Motilal. The other, an old black Chevrolet, also owned by him, has never moved since its noisy, backfiring arrival three years ago, but stays jacked up on bricks under a pipal fig tree next to his large lime-washed brick house. It needs a new gear-box, but Motilal is content to do nothing about that. It remains on its plinths, lovingly polished to a gleam by his driver, Bisham Singh, a retired Indian army sergeant. It is Bisham’s toy and when he is not driving his master to the station, where his son Vinod combines the job of stationmaster and signalman, he can be found tinkering with the Chevrolet aimlessly. Why he spends so much time on it remains a mystery. But as village headman, Motilal, the most powerful and fitfully benevolent member of the village council is duly respected and his cars add to his prestige. Behind his house is an oil-press, located in the centre of a sunken circular pit. It is operated by a pair of bulls, yoked under a long wooden shaft. When put to work the animals are blindfolded to prevent them getting vertigo, as they go round and round treading the same circuit. A mud and cow-dung plastered terrace surrounds the press. It is swept clean and on it cakes of the sesame seed, from which the oil has been extracted, are left to dry in the sun and stored as cattle-feed in the long low shed that runs the full length of the terrace. The walls of this shed are almost always covered with drying pats of cow dung, while on its corrugated zinc roof is a thick layer of reed and grass thatch. Under this roof, in a far corner of the shed, is a Norton motorbike that belonged to Motilal’s only son, Captain Krishna Mathur. In 1941, Krishna joined the 2nd British Infantry Division as a Liaison Officer, but was reported missing after a Japanese counter attack in the Assam Hills near Kohima. He chose to join the Army against his father’s wishes but with his mother’s support. Normally, in a Rajput household, Motilal’s objections would have prevailed, however, and this was a well-kept secret, he always deferred to his wife, Rukmini, a woman of influence and education. Her father was chief clerk to the Rajah of Mandipur and Motilal owed his appointment of village headman to him. As an only son and a good-looking young boy, Krishna was made much of and grew up to be spoilt and independent. Much of his youth was spent with his grandfather, who hired tutors to teach him English and through his considerable influence in high places, got him into the Prince’s School in Rajnagar. During school holidays, he took Krishna with him on his visits to the royal palaces of Rajasthan. Krishna admired the grand portraits of Rajahs decked in Indian Cavalry uniforms, and was smitten. He wanted not only to join the army but, like the Rajput princes he met, to study in England, at Wellington College, and from there on to Sandhurst.

‘Why not?’ Murari said, when Motilal told him about his son’s ambitions. ‘You are a rich man. You can afford it? And I will be making you richer still.’

‘No son of mine is crossing the black waters. England will give him wrong ideas and turn him of little use to me in my old age.’

‘
Arrey
, nonsense! Listen to me. I was surprised you agreed to his future career in the army, without consulting me. I too am not happy to have an army officer as son-in-law. But I let it pass.’ Murari’s chubby round face broke into a sly grin. ‘I see that you have allowed him take on his maternal grandfather’s surname, Mathur. These sort of decisions matter to some people…not to me. But whose idea was that?’

Motilal stared. Was Murari prying? ‘You sometimes talk in riddles, my friend.’

‘I meant, what did your wife think about his joining the army!’ Murari dodged.

‘My son’s a Rajput. We are a martial people. The army will do him good. And is he not a prince among…should he not have a surname befitting his status?’

‘Yes. Who am I to question! I’m just a merchant.’

‘No insult was intended. You and I have educated wives. So in many ways we are above old ideas and stifling traditions.’

‘Indeed, but as elders among simple folk we must not break too many rules, for the sake of the community. So now that my daughter, Veena, is eight and your son is twelve, the
sagai
, the formal betrothal, should take place soon.’

Motilal’s hesitated a moment. Rukmini had more than once drawn attention to the fact that while Murari had more money he was a
bunnia
and so of a lower caste, but she was also aware of their close business ties and wisely raised no serious objection to a liaison that the village community assumed was inevitable. ‘Yes, most certainly, and before my son goes to the Princes College. But, one thing you must understand. By Army rules, no officer may marry before he is twenty-five. Did you know that?’

‘I know. That rule is not legally binding…more to do with entitlement to married quarters. It presents no real obstacle to our plans. We can still have his
barat
when he’s seventeen, eighteen. In any case, Veena will be of child- bearing age when he is twenty-five.’ Murari embraced Motilal. ‘Don’t forget dowry my Veena will bring him and you? He’ll be the richest young officer in the Indian Army.’

Motilal waved a hand. ‘Then it’s settled.’ With a spring in his step and a sense of well-being he took his leave. It was time for the midday meal. Rukmini would be waiting for him. He folded his hands and raised them to heaven. The fates had been kind to him, and he was particularly pleased that Rukmini had supported him in the matter of not letting their son Krishna cross the
kala pani,
the black waters. ‘He’ll lose caste and respect in the community,’ he had told her. ‘We are not royalty. They are a law unto themselves. They have no one to answer to.’

In agreeing, she had saved him much embarrassment because it was known that he, like Murari, was anti-British. With a son in England he would have had much explaining to do at the village council. It suited Rukmini to give in to her husband on some occasions, and this was one of them; also, to have her beloved son away from her would have been hard for her to bear. Besides, since Motilal owed her much and her father even more, she knew she could always get her way—though it was not in her nature to take advantage of the imbalance her influence had created in a Rajput household that ought to be exemplary in the sight of the Fatehpur community. As a Rajput she was orthodox enough to know that a Hindu wife is twice blessed by the respect and obedience she gives to her husband, her lord and master. And it was the commitment she made when at their wedding they ate off the same silver
thali
, knowing full well that it was the first and last time they would eat together. From then on she had to be pleased to serve his meals, squat on the floor by his side and gently fan him and keep the flies off him, while he ate. Motilal, in turn, would feel unable to begrudge those occasions when he gave in to one used to a more sophisticated life-style than he could provide. Nor could he analyse his own feelings for Rukmini. If he was told, as he stood by her funeral pyre, that his tears proved there had existed a deep and binding love in their relationship, he would not have understood what that meant. Of one thing he was certain; no woman would take her place, not in his life, not in his home. Rajput widowers are encouraged to remarry, for a man should not be without a woman, but Motilal, Headman of Fatehpur, was not to be pressed.

Krishna was still at school when his mother died. She had succumbed to the small-pox epidemic, which had decimated the population of Fatehpur, twenty-six years ago. Motilal’s heavily pocked-marked face, while it still bore the memory of being handsome, and evidence of his own lucky escape, reminded the villagers of his heroic conduct during those dreadful days. His reputation of being a hard man was revised when he strictly quarantined his home and the homes of the infected, thereby controlling the death toll. He rationed the grain and asked people distributing it, to leave a grain ration outside the homes of the stricken. The men were also told to watch, at a safe distance, those who came out to collect the food, and report any improvement in their health and situations…

Krishna’s disappointment at not schooling in Britain was offset by the thought that an army career kept him away, for much of his time, from village life, which he found increasingly tedious, and though, at first, father and son were estranged by Krishna’s decision to a serve in the British Indian Army, they were reconciled when he agreed to marry the girl Motilal chose for him. Veena, the eldest of Murari’s three daughters was no stranger to Krishna. As children they had played together, till, aged thirteen, Krishna left Fatehpur to school in Rajnagar. A year later, so that Veena would not be educationally disadvantaged, Murari sent her to a Convent school, in Lucknow, where she stayed with an aunt until she returned to be Krishna’s wife.

In their early years of marriage, the young couple moved from one military post to another and Veena soon grew to dislike army cantonment life. She found excuses to return to her father in Fatehpur and it was not long before she realised their marriage was failing. There never was passion in their relationship, nor anger, nor exchange of accusations: simply a dying fall, a fading away of commitment. Krishna had been far too ambitious to mind Veena’s absences. An unhappy wife was an inconvenience, if not a hindrance, but fortunately for him, even before active service took Krishna to Burma, Veena had already moved back to her father’s house—the grandest and the only two-storied building in Fatehpur.

Before leaving Krishna, Veena was determined to have a child. In a business-like way she overcame their sibling-like relationship and set about fulfilling her father’s desire for a grandchild—a strategy in which she succeeded.

Murari, even more anti-British than Motilal, hated the idea of any Indian fighting for them; and he and the Anglicised Krishna were seldom long together without sharp exchanges about the British, War and national politics. Murari believed a Japanese victory would rid India of British rule, insisting, when Krishna said he would rather be ruled by the Brits than the Japs, that Japan had no long term plans to rule India. Yet, like everyone else, who knew Krishna, he too was charmed by him and when the tragic news came that Krishna was no longer missing, but had been captured and executed by the Japs; he genuinely was broken by the news. However, when there was talk of Veena’s
suttee,
Murari reacted with fury. A wife’s
suttee
is correctly performed on her husband’s funeral pyre, and Krishna’s body was never found. Besides, Veena was pregnant and he urged the priests to remind the villagers that mothers were exempt from
suttee
. This the priests did. The talking ended only after Murari left his mansion in Fatehpur and took his widowed daughter and grandson to live with him in Biwara, returning once a week, every Tuesday, for a few hours in the day, to keep an eye on his business interests…