Our Favourite Indian Stories (51 page)

'Oh mother! Oh my mother!' she cried, panting for breath as though she was suspended between life and death. And, for a moment she lay back exhausted as though she could not go on with it.

Then, with clenched teeth and a deliberate intent to control the spreading panic in her limbs, she raised her head and sat up in a crouching position.

Daggers of shooting pain seemed to plunge into her sides as though each nerve had sharpened into steel. Crushing weight of centuries of anguish seemed to press on her belly. And there was the endless grain-grind of a churning of the oceans inside her, the crushing of worlds over her head and the struggle of random elements, each shooting pain emerging out of the source of energy in her belly into a storm-tossed outer universe. Perspiration simply poured down her face now and blended with the pressure of the elements that dug pinpoints of heat into her flesh.

'Oh, come come, child come,' she cried out aloud almost like an incantation. 'Come, come my babe,' she whispered even as she had breathed love words on the night that the seed was sown.

And she hardened her body so that the tenderness in her could be released, whipping her buttocks with her hands, striking the sides of waist, swaying to and fro, gritting her teeth and hissing till she felt her haunches sagging and her bones twisting, till she could see her frame being pulled by elemental forces which seemed to have come and taken possession of her, the opposite tensions arising from nothingness and swaying like a strange and heavy rhythm of the earth's primitive energies.

With a smile on her face, a grim smile, she held her head in her hands and lay back in the position in which she had first fallen. And, beckoning all the resources of her will, collecting the tension of her nerves in her clenched fists, she strained and heaved in a series of protracted efforts. The heavy smell of an extraordinary drowsiness sustained her as involuntary tears rolled down her cheeks and she groaned. The twistings and turnings of her waist contorted her body into a strange amorphous shape. And, above the protuberance of her churning stomach, her heart beat like the echo of all the throbbings of previous months...

At last after an hour of torment as she lay drenched in a pool of blood and
aus
, she felt a boundless surging overwhelm her.

And, with a twitch of horror which faded into a mute triumph, the child came with a thin little cry, a dark bundle of tender, wrinkled flesh, a boy breathing softly but tingling with warm life.

Clutching him with eager, deft hands, she performed the services of the midwife on herself with the cool, assured touch which only the old
dai
, Kesari, in her native village, was known to bring to her task. And, what was most surprising, even to her, was the fact that having cut the naval strings which united her child to her with the rough end of the silver
hansli
round her neck, she emptied the basket in which she carried the food, donated the
roti
to the birds as a gift-offering, put her baby in it and strode forth towards the Ridge to go and break stones.

The darkness of the twilight sky was crumbling and the early morning sun had brightened the sky. But, as Parvati approached the pitch where she worked, the other stone breakers could not recognise her, because she looked different with the basket in her arms rather than on her head as she usually carried it. When, however, she came and laid the whining child at their feet, they were breathless with wonder. 'A witch this Parvati!' an old woman said, 'To be sure, a demon!' a man remarked.

'To be sure!' added Ramu, her husband coming towards the basket to have a look at his child.

'The Goddess helped me in my travail,' whispered Parvati. 'I saw her in the clouds....'

The women left their work and rushed towards her, some open mouthed, some with prayers and incantations on her lips.

'Stop all this
cain cain
,' shouted her father-in-law as he came up from where he had been tarring the road to look at his grandchild. 'Get away', he said with a bluff of rudeness. 'It is no wonder that she had the little one all by herself. She is a peasant woman with strong loins like many other peasant women of our parts, who have given birth to sons all by themselves, so that our race can be perpetuated and our land tilled for grain...' And he picked up the whining baby from the basket like a practised hand and put the little shrieking one to his shoulder, saying with a gruff tenderness: 'Come, come, my lion, my stalwart, don't weep... come, it won't be so bad. Come, my son, perhaps with your coming, our luck will turn...'

Atul Chandra

The day seemed to be preparing for a sundowner. A small herd of cows grazed leisurely along the thin strips of green on the other side of the road adjacent to my house. My neighbours had not stirred out. Nor was there any passer-by in sight to break the monotonous stillness.

I do not know how long I stood there before realising that I had been watching cows. What a moronic pastime, I told myself. Yet I stood there, arms resting on the cold iron of the gate, watching cows.

I felt lonely and miserable. Involuntarily I searched for the line of happiness on my palm. What have I done to deserve this fate, I mumbled? This was not the first time that I had put this question to myself. Like always, there was no answer. I looked skyward for the bluebird of happiness to fly by. It was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, a cow's frantic cry startled me. My eyes turned in the direction of the cow tottering towards my house, tail up, eyes popping and froth at the mouth. I caught a glimpse of a swift, slithering movement in the grass. Before I could say "snake" the cow fell right in front of me, sprawled across my gate.

'Oh Saba, what has happened?' I suddenly heard a shocked voice. It was Preeti's, who seemed to have just come out of the neighbouring house. 'What is wrong with this cow? Looks like it's dying,' she continued almost in the same breath.

'But how did it happen?' chimed in Prabha, the fat middle-aged woman popular in the colony as aunty, covering her nose and mouth with her
pallu
as if the fallen cow was stinking already and the germs would invade her nostrils.

I could see a glint of suspicion in her eyes as she gave me one of those penetrating looks of hers. I could immediately guess what was going on in her mind. It has become so easy to read people's mind these days. She must be thinking I had killed the cow. Just imagine!

I hate to use the word, but Prabha aunty is a bitch.

'It seems a snake has bitten her,' I explained, a little concerned about the cow and what I could do to save it. I knew I should drop some water on the thick, dark, protruding tongue. It would not have saved the animal but perhaps it could have reduced its suffering a wee bit... and brought salvation for these neighbours of mine. But their attitude forbade me from doing anything.

I could feel a silent, impotent rage rise within me. All that these women could think and whisper within earshot was how the cow had come to die in front of my house. As if the animal had a choice!

It was appalling. Despite the incidents of 1992, I never believed that religion could make people so inhuman and insensitive. Listening to their barbs made me feel sick.

'I think she must have poisoned it...' murmured Prabha aunty.

'These people are fanatics... all of them, even the women,' whispered Suneeta, who had studied with me in the university. In those days I had found her not only tolerant but also warm and friendly. She used to argue for amity between our two religions and talk of Lucknow's composite culture.

Today it was a different Suneeta. Perhaps this was the real Suneeta. The transformation was indeed hard to believe.

'
Chhi, chhi,
how could a cow die in front of her house,' said Sadhvi incredulously. She did not seem to care about my hurt feeling or sad reaction. These women did not even bother to consider how rabid their thoughts and utterances were.

The irony was that I belonged to the place. I was not new to them nor they to me. I had lived there for thirty years, growing up with some of them, sharing meals and friendly embraces on
Holi
and
Id
.. Yet at the moment they all seemed bent on making me feel like an alien.

In our teens when we would discuss boys, we would never talk of religion. Looks and intelligence were the traits which some of us
mohalla
girls found attractive in the boys we knew and pined for.

That was then... years ago. It's different now. The heart really has its reasons. And the mind is where the fallen angel often finds refuge.

By now I was seething with anger and could hold it no more.

'So what if it has died in front my house?' I burst out. 'I have not touched it to make it untouchable for you all. Don't you worship it?... Can't you pour a few drops of Ganga
jal
or just tap water?... You all have warped minds to be thinking like this...' I thought I would go on and make a spectacle of myself.

Since they had known me for so long, they were also familiar with my temper. Of course I was certain that my losing cool would not spark off riots... just as the death of this cow outside my gate would not. And it didn't. They simply made a face, gave me angry, piercing stares and walked off.

Their turning their backs on me did not work like a coolant. My blood pressure was still high and another incident flashed through my mind.

Prabha aunty had come over to my house one evening about three months ago. She had a bad cold and my mother asked me to make
tulsi ki chai
, the age-old prescription for common cold.

Thinking that I would have to go to someone's house to get
tulsi
leaves, Prabha aunty asked me not to bother. I told her, 'Aunty it will be no trouble at all as we have a
tulsi
plant in our house.'

In total disbelief and with her usual sarcasm she said, '
Haan bhai, kalyug hai na.'
It took me some time to figure out what was so strange about a
tulsi
plant prospering in my house.

I took her to a corner of my lawn where stood a bushy, green
tulsi
plant. Prabha aunty was both disappointed and jealous. What is a
tulsi
plant doing in the house of a non-Hindu? As if plants and animals were classified on religious lines!

'Saba,' she blurted out crudely, 'why don't you give this plant to me... it should be in my house and not yours, don't you think so? I don't know what is wrong but
tulsi
plants don't survive in my house,' she added rather dejectedly.

'That's precisely the reason why you shouldn't ask for it,' I said. 'Besides, aunty, it is a medicinal plant and for that reason anybody can grow it,' I quietly told her while plucking a few leaves.

After this, whenever she came to our house, Prabha aunty would find an excuse to go to the lawn and look at the
tulsi
plant with envy. Each time she would unabashedly repeat what she had said on first seeing the plant, 'This should not have been in your house.'

It was irritating. I offered to get her another plant but she wouldn't agree. I decided not to let her go anywhere near the lawn. Finally, she took the sensible decision of not coming to my house at all. It made me happy and I did not bother to find out if she also felt the same.

The cow had by now turned into a carcass. What should I do? These people who are ready to shed blood over a cow are not even concerned about it when it is dying. Their annoyance was over the animal dying in front of my house. That had deeply hurt their religious sentiments. I know they would not have touched it anyway.

The problem was getting the carcass removed. It was blocking the way to my house and I had to find a scavenger before it was too late. There was no other way but to go looking for one.

I locked my house and went to see if Radheyshyam, my rickshaw-man, was around. Fortunately, he was. I told him about my problem. He said he knew somebody and agreed to take me to him. At this time of the day he would charge a lot of money, Radheshyam warned as I sat on the rickshaw.

I was not worried about money. My only worry was what if the man refused? Radheshyam took me to a narrow lane where pigs lolled in filth in one corner. Some children sat in a row, defecating. A short distance away men and women sat on
charpoys
. It was a world that had barely changed even as we entered another century with much fanfare.

The rickshaw stopped near a man in striped underwear, smoking a
bidi
. 'Kallu,
bahanji
wants to get a carcass removed.'

'Please remove it today as it is blocking the passage to my house. I am ready to pay you extra for it,' I pleaded.

'I will charge five hundred rupees,' he said without batting an eyelid. I was quiet for a while. Five hundred was a lot of money. But I had no choice. 'Okay,' I said feebly and Kallu did not waste any time in picking up a rope and hopping on to his bicycle.

Once there, Kallu parked his bicycle against a wall. He then tied the legs of the carcass with the rope and laboured hard to drag it to a vacant piece of land away from my house. 'I will do the rest tomorrow,' he assured me.