The Kitemaker: Stories (4 page)

N
athu grumbled to himself as he swept the steps of the Pipalnagar Bank, owned by Seth Govind Ram. He used the small broom hurriedly and carelessly, and the dust, after rising in a cloud above his head, settled down again on the steps. As Nathu was banging his pan against a dustbin, Sitaram, the washerman’s son, passed by.

Sitaram was on his delivery round. He had a bundle of freshly pressed clothes balanced on his head.

‘Don’t raise such dust!’ he called out to Nathu. ‘Are you annoyed because they are still refusing to pay you an extra two rupees a month?’

‘I don’t wish to talk about it,’ complained the sweeper boy. ‘I haven’t even received my regular pay. And this is the twentieth of the month. Who would think a bank would hold up a poor man’s salary? As soon as I get my money, I’m off! Not another week do I work in this place.’ And Nathu banged the pan against the dustbin several times, just to emphasize his point and give himself confidence.

‘Well, I wish you luck,’ said Sitaram. ‘I’ll keep a lookout for any jobs that might suit you.’ And he plodded barefoot along the road, the big bundle of clothes hiding most of his head and shoulders.

At the fourth home he visited, Sitaram heard the lady of the house mention that she was in need of a sweeper. Tying his bundle together, he said, ‘I know of a sweeper boy who’s looking for work. He can start from next month. He’s with the bank just now but they aren’t giving him his pay, and he wants to leave.’

‘Is that so?’ said Mrs Srivastava. ‘Well, tell him to come and see me tomorrow.’

And Sitaram, glad that he had been of service to both a customer and his friend, hoisted his bag on his shoulders and went his way.

Mrs Srivastava had to do some shopping. She gave instructions to the ayah about looking after the baby, and told the cook not to be late with the midday meal. Then she set out for the Pipalnagar marketplace, to make her customary tour of the cloth shops.

A large, shady tamarind tree grew at one end of the bazaar, and it was here that Mrs Srivastava found her friend Mrs Bhushan sheltering from the heat. Mrs Bhushan was fanning herself with a large handkerchief. She complained of the summer which, she affirmed, was definitely the hottest in the history of Pipalnagar. She then showed Mrs Srivastava a sample of the cloth she was going to buy, and for five minutes they discussed its shade, texture and design. Having exhausted this topic, Mrs Srivastava said, ‘Do you know, my dear, that Seth Govind Ram’s bank can’t even pay its employees? Only this morning I heard a complaint from their sweeper, who hasn’t received his wages for over a month!’

‘Shocking!’ remarked Mrs Bhushan. ‘If they can’t pay the sweeper they must be in a bad way. None of the others could be getting paid either.’

She left Mrs Srivastava at the tamarind tree and went in search of her husband, who was sitting in front of Kamal Kishore’s photographic shop, talking to the owner.

‘So there you are!’ cried Mrs Bhushan. ‘I’ve been looking for you for almost an hour. Where did you disappear?’

‘Nowhere,’ replied Mr Bhushan. ‘Had you remained stationary in one shop, I might have found you. But you go from one shop to another, like a bee in a flower garden.’

‘Don’t start grumbling. The heat is trying enough. I don’t know what’s happening to Pipalnagar. Even the bank’s about to go bankrupt.’

‘What’s that?’ said Kamal Kishore, sitting up suddenly. ‘Which bank?’

‘Why the Pipalnagar Bank, of course. I hear they have stopped paying employees. Don’t tell me you have an account there, Mr Kishore?’

‘No, but my neighbour has!’ he exclaimed; and he called out over the low partition to the keeper of the barber shop next door. ‘Deep Chand, have you heard the latest? The Pipalnagar Bank is about to collapse. You better get your money out as soon as you can!’

Deep Chand, who was cutting the hair of an elderly gentleman, was so startled that his hand shook and he nicked his customer’s right ear. The customer yelped in pain and distress: pain, because of the cut, and distress, because of the awful news he had just heard. With one side of his neck still unshaven, he sped across the road to the general merchant’s store where there was a telephone. He dialled Seth Govind Ram’s number. The Seth was not at home. Where was he, then? The Seth was holidaying in Kashmir. Oh, was that so? The elderly gentleman did not believe it. He hurried back to the barber’s shop and told Deep Chand: ‘The bird has flown! Seth Govind Ram has left town. Definitely, it means a collapse.’ And then he dashed out of the shop, making a beeline for his office and chequebook.

The news spread through the bazaar with the rapidity of forest fire. At the general merchant’s it circulated amongst the customers, and then spread with them in various directions, to the betel seller, the tailor, the free vendor, the jeweller, the beggar sitting on the pavement.

Old Ganpat, the beggar, had a crooked leg. He had been squatting on the pavement for years, calling for alms. In the evening someone would come with a barrow and take him away. He had never been known to walk. But now, on learning that the bank was about to collapse, Ganpat astonished everyone by leaping to his feet and actually running at top speed in the direction of the bank. It soon became known that he had a thousand rupees in savings!

Men stood in groups at street corners discussing the situation. Pipalnagar seldom had a crisis, seldom or never had floods, earthquakes or drought; and the imminent crash of the Pipalnagar Bank set everyone talking and speculating and rushing about in a frenzy. Some boasted of their farsightedness, congratulating themselves on having already taken out their money, or on never having put any in; others speculated on the reasons for the crash, putting it all down to excesses indulged in by Seth Govind Ram. The Seth had fled the state, said one. He had fled the country, said another. He was hiding in Pipalnagar, said a third. He had hanged himself from the tamarind tree, said a fourth, and had been found that morning by the sweeper boy.

By noon the small bank had gone through all its ready cash, and the harassed manager was in a dilemma. Emergency funds could only be obtained from another bank some thirty miles distant, and he wasn’t sure he could persuade the crowd to wait until then. And there was no way of contacting Seth Govind Ram on his houseboat in Kashmir.

People were turned back from the counters and told to return the following day. They did not like the sound of that. And so they gathered outside, on the steps of the bank, shouting, ‘Give us our money or we’ll break in!’ and ‘Fetch the Seth, we know he’s hiding in a safe deposit locker!’ Mischief makers who didn’t have a paisa in the bank joined the crowd and aggravated the mood. The manager stood at the door and tried to placate them. He declared that the bank had plenty of money but no immediate means of collecting it; he urged them to go home and come back the next day.

‘We want it now!’ chanted some of the crowd. ‘Now, now, now!’

And a brick hurtled through the air and crashed through the plate glass window of the Pipalnagar Bank.

Nathu arrived next morning to sweep the steps of the bank. He saw the refuse and the broken glass and the stones cluttering the steps. Raising his hands in a gesture of horror and disgust he cried: ‘Hooligans! Sons of donkeys! As though it isn’t bad enough to be paid late, it seems my work has also to be increased!’ He smote the steps with his broom scattering the refuse.

‘Good morning, Nathu,’ said the washerman’s boy, getting down from his bicycle. ‘Are you ready to take up a new job from the first of next month? You’ll have to I suppose, now that the bank is going out of business.’

‘How’s that?’ said Nathu.

‘Haven’t you heard? Well, you’d better wait here until half the population of Pipalnagar arrives to claim their money.’ And he waved cheerfully—he did not have a bank account—and sped away on his cycle.

Nathu went back to sweeping the steps, muttering to himself. When he had finished his work, he sat down on the highest step, to await the arrival of the manager. He was determined to get his pay.

‘Who would have thought the bank would collapse!’ he said to himself, and looked thoughtfully into the distance. ‘I wonder how it could have happened . . .’

R
anji had been less than a month in Rajpur when he discovered the pool in the forest. It was the height of summer, and his school had not yet opened, and, having as yet made no friends in this semi-hill station, he wandered about a good deal by himself into the hills and forests that stretched away interminably on all sides of the town. It was hot, very hot, at that time of year, and Ranji walked about in his vest and shorts, his brown feet white with the chalky dust that flew up from the ground. The earth was parched, the grass brown, the trees listless, hardly stirring, waiting for a cool wind or a refreshing shower of rain.

It was on such a day—a hot, tired day—that Ranji found the pool in the forest. The water had a gentle translucency, and you could see the smooth round pebbles at the bottom of the pool. A small stream emerged from a cluster of rocks to feed the pool. During the monsoon, this stream would be a gushing torrent, cascading down from the hills, but during the summer it was barely a trickle. The rocks, however, held the water in the pool, and it did not dry up like the pools in the plains.

When Ranji saw the pool, he did not hesitate to get into it. He had often gone swimming, alone or with friends, when he had lived with his parents in a thirsty town in the middle of the Rajputana desert. There, he had known only sticky, muddy pools, where buffaloes wallowed and women washed clothes. He had never seen a pool like this—so clean and cold and inviting. He threw off all his clothes, as he had done when he went swimming in the plains, and leapt into the water. His limbs were supple, free of any fat, and his dark body glistened in patches of sunlit water.

The next day he came again to quench his body in the cool waters of the forest pool. He was there for almost an hour, sliding in and out of the limpid green water, or lying stretched out on the smooth yellow rocks in the shade of broad-leaved sal trees. It was while he lay thus, naked on a rock, that he noticed another boy standing a little distance away, staring at him in a rather hostile manner. The other boy was a little older than Ranji, taller, thick-set, with a broad nose and thick, red lips. He had only just noticed Ranji, and he stood at the edge of the pool, wearing a pair of bathing shorts, waiting for Ranji to explain himself.

When Ranji did not say anything, the other called out, ‘What are you doing here, Mister?’

Ranji, who was prepared to be friendly, was taken aback at the hostility of the other’s tone.

‘I am swimming,’ he replied. ‘Why don’t you join me?’

‘I always swim alone,’ said the other. ‘This is my pool, I did not invite you here. And why are you not wearing any clothes?’

‘It is not your business if I do not wear clothes. I have nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘You skinny fellow, put on your clothes.’

‘Fat fool, take yours off.’

This was too much for the stranger to tolerate. He strode up to Ranji, who still sat on the rock and, planting his broad feet firmly on the sand, said (as though this would settle the matter once and for all), ‘Don’t you know I am a Punjabi? I do not take replies from villagers like you!’

‘So you like to fight with villagers?’ said Ranji. ‘Well, I am not a villager. I am a Rajput!’

‘I am a Punjabi!’

‘I am a Rajput!’

They had reached an impasse. One had said he was a Punjabi, the other had proclaimed himself a Rajput. There was little else that could be said.

‘You understand that I am a Punjabi?’ said the stranger, feeling that perhaps this information had not penetrated Ranji’s head.

‘I have heard you say it three times,’ replied Ranji.

‘Then why are you not running away?’

‘I am waiting for you to run away!’

‘I will have to beat you,’ said the stranger, assuming a violent attitude, showing Ranji the palm of his hand.

‘I am waiting to see you do it,’ said Ranji.

‘You will see me do it,’ said the other boy.

Ranji waited. The other boy made a strange, hissing sound. They stared each other in the eye for almost a minute. Then the Punjabi boy slapped Ranji across the face with all the force he could muster. Ranji staggered, feeling quite dizzy. There were thick red finger marks on his cheek.

‘There you are!’ exclaimed his assailant. ‘Will you be off now?’

For answer, Ranji swung his arm up and pushed a hard, bony fist into the other’s face.

And then they were at each other’s throats, swaying on the rock, tumbling on to the sand, rolling over and over, their legs and arms locked in a desperate, violent struggle. Gasping and cursing, clawing and slapping, they rolled right into the shallows of the pool.

Even in the water the fight continued as, spluttering and covered with mud, they groped for each other’s head and throat. But after five minutes of frenzied, unscientific struggle, neither boy had emerged victorious. Their bodies heaving with exhaustion, they stood back from each other, making tremendous efforts to speak.

‘Now—now do you realize—I am a Punjabi?’ gasped the stranger.

‘Do you know I am a Rajput?’ said Ranji with difficulty.

They gave a moment’s consideration to each other’s answers, and in that moment of silence there was only their heavy breathing and the rapid beating of their hearts.

‘Then you will not leave the pool?’ said the Punjabi boy.

‘I will not leave it,’ said Ranji.

‘Then we shall have to continue the fight,’ said the other.

‘All right,’ said Ranji.

But neither boy moved, neither took the initiative.

The Punjabi boy had an inspiration.

‘We will continue the fight tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If you dare to come here again tomorrow, we will continue this fight, and I will not show you mercy as I have done today.’

‘I will come tomorrow,’ said Ranji. ‘I will be ready for you.’

They turned from each other then and, going to their respective rocks, put on their clothes, and left the forest by different routes.

When Ranji got home, he found it difficult to explain the cuts and bruises that showed on his face, legs and arms. It was difficult to conceal the fact that he had been in an unusually violent fight, and his mother insisted on his staying at home for the rest of the day. That evening, though, he slipped out of the house and went to the bazaar, where he found comfort and solace in a bottle of vividly coloured lemonade and a banana leaf full of hot, sweet jalebis. He had just finished the lemonade when he saw his adversary coming down the road. His first impulse was to turn away and look elsewhere, his second to throw the lemonade bottle at his enemy. But he did neither of these things. Instead, he stood his ground and scowled at his passing adversary. And the Punjabi boy said nothing either, but scowled back with equal ferocity.

The next day was as hot as the previous one. Ranji felt weak and lazy and not at all eager for a fight. His body was stiff and sore after the previous day’s encounter. But he could not refuse the challenge. Not to turn up at the pool would be an acknowledgement of defeat. From the way he felt just then, he knew he would be beaten in another fight. But he could not acquiesce in his own defeat. He must defy his enemy to the last, or outwit him, for only then could he gain his respect. If he surrendered now, he would be beaten for all time; but to fight and be beaten today left him free to fight and be beaten again. As long as he fought, he had a right to the pool in the forest.

He was half hoping that the Punjabi boy would have forgotten the challenge, but these hopes were dashed when he saw his opponent sitting, stripped to the waist, on a rock on the other side of the pool. The Punjabi boy was rubbing oil on his body, massaging it into his broad thighs. He saw Ranji beneath the sal trees, and called a challenge across the waters of the pool.

‘Come over on this side and fight!’ he shouted.

But Ranji was not going to submit to any conditions laid down by his opponent.

‘Come
this
side and fight!’ he shouted back with equal vigour.

‘Swim across and fight me here!’ called the other. ‘Or perhaps you cannot swim the length of this pool?’

But Ranji could have swum the length of the pool a dozen times without tiring, and here he would show the Punjabi boy his superiority. So, slipping out of his vest and shorts, he dived straight into the water, cutting through it like a knife, and surfaced with hardly a splash. The Punjabi boy’s mouth hung open in amazement.

‘You can dive!’ he exclaimed.

‘It is easy,’ said Ranji, treading water, waiting for a further challenge. ‘Can’t you dive?’

‘No,’ said the other. ‘I jump straight in. But if you will tell me how, I will make a dive.’

‘It is easy,’ said Ranji. ‘Stand on the rock, stretch your arms out and allow your head to displace your feet.’

The Punjabi boy stood up, stiff and straight, stretched out his arms, and threw himself into the water. He landed flat on his belly, with a crash that sent the birds screaming out of the trees.

Ranji dissolved into laughter.

‘Are you trying to empty the pool?’ he asked, as the Punjabi boy came to the surface, spouting water like a small whale.

‘Wasn’t it good?’ asked the boy, evidently proud of his feat.

‘Not very good,’ said Ranji. ‘You should have more practice. See, I will do it again.’

And pulling himself up on a rock, he executed another perfect dive. The other boy waited for him to come up, but, swimming under water, Ranji circled him and came upon him from behind.

‘How did you do that?’ asked the astonished youth.

‘Can’t you swim under water?’ asked Ranji.

‘No, but I will try it.’

The Punjabi boy made a tremendous effort to plunge to the bottom of the pool and indeed he thought he had gone right down, though his bottom, like a duck’s, remained above the surface.

Ranji, however, did not discourage him.

‘It was not bad,’ he said. ‘But you need a lot of practice.’

‘Will you teach me?’ asked his enemy.

‘If you like, I will teach you.’

‘You must teach me. If you do not teach me, I will beat you. Will you come here every day and teach me?’

‘If you like,’ said Ranji. They had pulled themselves out of the water, and were sitting side by side on a smooth grey rock.

‘My name is Suraj,’ said the Punjabi boy. ‘What is yours?’

‘It is Ranji.’

‘I am strong, am I not?’ asked Suraj, bending his arm so that a ball of muscle stood up stretching the white of his flesh.

‘You are strong,’ said Ranji. ‘You are a real
pahelwan.’

‘One day I will be the world’s champion wrestler,’ said Suraj, slapping his thighs, which shook with the impact of his hand. He looked critically at Ranji’s hard thin body. ‘You are quite strong yourself,’ he conceded. ‘But you are too bony. I know, you people do not eat enough. You must come and have your food with me. I drink one
seer
of milk every day. We have got our own cow! Be my friend, and I will make you a pahelwan like me! I know—if you teach me to dive and swim underwater, I will make you a pahelwan! That is fair, isn’t it?’

‘That is fair!’ said Ranji, though he doubted if he was getting the better of the exchange.

Suraj put his arm around the younger boy and said, ‘We are friends now, yes?’

They looked at each other with honest, unflinching eyes, and in that moment love and understanding were born.

‘We are friends,’ said Ranji.

The birds had settled again in their branches, and the pool was quiet and limpid in the shade of the sal trees.

‘It is our pool,’ said Suraj. ‘Nobody else can come here without our permission. Who would dare?’

‘Who would dare?’ said Ranji, smiling with the knowledge that he had won the day.