The Sari Shop (7 page)

He stopped, looking a little worried.

Ramchand looked up from his work again, intrigued. Bhimsen Seth rarely looked anxious.

Seth continued, ‘Send them saris every day, whatever they say, whatever they want. Send them the best lehanga-cholis too. Keep them happy, especially the women. They have a younger daughter too, you know. Two more years perhaps, or maybe even one, and then they’ll marry her off too. Big orders –’

Mahajan interrupted him, ‘Don’t worry, Sethji. I’ll take care of everything.’

Then they walked to a corner, where they discussed things in low voices and soon went out together, looking serious and preoccupied. Soon Hari reported that the two were not downstairs either. They had stepped out of the shop for a while.

Everyone was relieved, especially Gokul. ‘I forgot to bring my lunch today,’ he confided to Ramchand, ‘and I don’t even have enough money to eat from a shop or something. I have been hoping and hoping since morning that Mahajan will go out. Now I can go home and eat.’

He hurriedly left for home, promising to be back in half an hour.

But after a whole hour, Gokul still hadn’t turned up. This was very unusual for Gokul, the supreme stickler for rules. He came to work on time every day. Only an emergency like a forgotten lunch could induce him to break free of Mahajan’s authority.

He finally came in limping a couple of hours later.

‘What happened? You are late?’ asked Hari. ‘Got into a street fight?’

‘Don’t be silly, Hari. Of course I didn’t. You just shut up. I am in no mood for your stupid talk,’ Gokul said savagely, sinking down into the mattress with a groan.

‘Why, what happened?’ said Ramchand, wondering if Lakshmi had finally gone off her head and had beaten Gokul up.

‘A vegetable cart rammed into my bicycle on my way here,’ he said.

‘Or you rammed your bicycle into a vegetable cart…?’ Hari said cheerfully, and then added hastily, as Gokul turned to glare at him, ‘From his point of view… maybe.’

‘My foot is hurting,’ Gokul groaned, pulling up his right trouser leg to show them a swollen foot.

Hari’s face immediately contorted itself up in deep concern. ‘You just sit quietly. We’ll do all the work today,’ he said. ‘Or for as many days as it takes for your foot to heal,’ he added magnanimously.

‘Yes, of course, Sethji,’ said Gokul sarcastically. ‘So nice for me to have a boss like you who tells me to take it easy.’

‘These days, even if you try to help…’ muttered Hari.

The glass door opened and Mahajan appeared suddenly, without warning, as he always did. Hari often said that it was a mystery why the wooden stairs did not creak when Mahajan climbed them.

‘Gokul, drop whatever you are doing at once. I have a very important job for you. You’ll have to take some stock to Ravinder Kapoor’s house…’ he began, and then took in Gokul’s pained face and the swollen foot he was still displaying.

‘
Now
what has happened here?’

‘Nothing, Bauji. Just got hurt,’ Gokul said shamefacedly.

‘How?’ Mahajan asked suspiciously.

Gokul just hung his head down.

‘How, Gokul? Can’t you answer a simple question?’

In a burst of honesty, Gokul admitted his crime. Mahajan
just stood there and lectured Gokul for a while on what responsibility meant. Then he asked, ‘So you can’t pedal, I suppose?’

Gokul didn’t answer.

‘Who am I going to send to Ravinder Kapoor’s house with the stock tomorrow?’ Mahajan muttered. He looked uncertainly first at Ramchand and then at Chander.

Hari piped up, ‘I could go, Bauji.’

Mahajan’s nerves were already frayed. He turned his wrath on to Hari. ‘Yes, you could go. You are such a sensible creature that I’d gladly hand over saris worth lakhs to you. Yes, you could go. And break Gokul’s bicycle, your own neck, stop somewhere to eat a kulfi like a schoolboy and let a cow chew up saris worth lakhs of rupees.’

Hari looked surprised. ‘I don’t eat kulfis in the winter, and I don’t think cows eat saris in summer
or
winter. Goats do.’

Mahajan’s face went red, and Hari quickly said in a polite tone, ‘I’ll order your evening tea for you, Bauji,’ and scuttled out.

Mahajan looked at Hari’s disappearing back with malevolence. ‘Thankless job, mine,’ he said, in an uncharacteristic fit of frankness, and then he turned to Ramchand, who had gone red on Hari’s behalf. ‘Ramchand, you borrow Gokul’s bicycle tomorrow, and take some good stock to Ravinder Kapoor’s house.’

Ramchand was stunned. He, Ramchand, was to do this? To think that he was being given such a big responsibility! Such expensive stock! And he had heard Ravinder Kapoor was the biggest industrialist in Amritsar. He was supposed to have a huge, palatial house with soft carpets, air-conditioned rooms and four cars. And he’d have to go there. His stomach lurched with nervousness.

‘Gokul,’ Mahajan continued, ‘you supervise the selecting of stock. Send only the best saris. Also pick some pieces from the
latest silk consignment. Maybe some of the raw silk lehngas too. Also the ones with silver ghungroos at the hem. And let me see first what you are sending.’

But Ramchand wasn’t listening. His mind had shifted to other things.

An errand like this would probably take many days. He knew how these things worked. He would take to the Kapoor House a collection of saris in a big bundle. Hours would be spent by the bride-to-be and by the other women in her family to select a few out of them. More demands would be made. Tantrums would be thrown by the bride-to-be. Then they might change their minds about a sari and call up
Mahajan. Then he, Ramchand, would go there again to offer a replacement for that sari. This way he would probably have to cycle many times to Ravinder Kapoor’s house with saris.

After years of being cooped up in the shop, week after week, month after month, except for Sundays and the three days last year when he had sprained his ankle, he would now have a chance to be out in the open, cycle in the sun, look around, and maybe even sneak off to see if he could buy some second-hand books. Maybe he could also have some mossambi juice at Anand Juice Shop.

Mahajan turned to him. ‘And, Ramchand, make sure you dress well before you go there. They are big people. We don’t want anyone from our shop going there in rags. You should be dressed decently and look bathed.’

Ramchand immediately curled up his toes, to stop any smell that might be emanating from his feet from reaching Mahajan’s flared nostrils. Was Mahajan making a dig at his shirt with its frayed collar and at his old trousers?

Well, he’d show him then. Enough was enough. Who did Mahajan think he was? He’d dress well and he’d also have a good time.

Ramchand was distracted all day and got into trouble with Mahajan. He misplaced a light yellow cotton sari that a customer had ordered, and spilled water on one of the white sheets that covered the mattresses. Mahajan insulted him, saying that he was as bad as Hari. Hari just grinned at this, but Ramchand felt the rain was spoilt for him. He wished he could have taken the day off. He could have sat by the window in his room with a cup of tea watching the soft rain caress the guava tree in the courtyard below.

In the evening, he feigned a bad headache and left early. He went to a garment store nearby, and bought himself new black trousers and a crisp, sparkling white shirt. He felt extravagant and reckless. He hadn’t bought new clothes for over two years. Rags, indeed! He would show Mahajan!

Then he bought a bar of Lifebuoy soap and new socks. Finally he stopped at a vegetable vendor’s cart and asked for a lemon.

‘Just one?’ the vendor asked in surprise.

‘Yes, just one,’ Ramchand replied firmly. The vendor gave him a lemon with a disgusted look on his wrinkled face.

Ramchand put it in his pocket carefully and paid for it. The landlord’s wife, Sudha, read
Sarita
and
Grihashobha
often, and sometimes Ramchand would ask Manoj, her eldest son, to see if his mother could lend him some old copies. He remembered once reading in one thus obtained issue of
Grihashobha
that rubbing lemon on the skin took away bad odour. He decided to try it now.

With all the purchases safely in a big paper bag under his arm, he went to the barber and asked for a haircut. The barber hummed and hawed and said he was about to close shop for the day. Ramchand wheedled and whined and requested, till the barber agreed. Ramchand got himself a neat haircut and then went back home.

He went to bed feeling excited about the next day. It was December, almost the end of the year, yet tomorrow would
be the first day of the year when his routine would vary from the usual.

The last thing he felt at night was a quiet excitement in his heart, and a prickly feeling on the back of his neck, because he hadn’t taken a bath after his haircut and sharp little bits of cut hair clung to the skin. When he woke up in the morning, he got out of bed groggily and remembered that today was the day. He wouldn’t be spending the day in the shop. He was going to dress up, he was going to cycle through the city and go to the Kapoor House. He felt adventure looming in the day ahead.

He climbed out of bed, stretched and walked straight to the table. He seized the lemon, cut it in half and started rubbing his feet vigorously with one half of it. He’d make sure his feet didn’t smell
today
, at least. A seed from the lemon clung to the space between his big toe and the next one.

Then, with his feet covered in lemon juice, Ramchand went into the tiny bathroom.

By the time he came out, his hemmed-in excitement had spilt over. He moved quickly, picking up this, dropping that, smiling broadly.

All the other shop assistants took leave sometimes. Ramchand was the only exception. Mahajan was quite stingy about giving anyone time off, but there were times when he had to. They all had to go off sometimes – they had places to go to, in their lives they had people and occasions that required their presence. Relatives died, there was a wedding in the family, wives had to be escorted to their parents’ places in some other town, children fell ill.

With no relatives, no family, nowhere to go to, Ramchand could never ask for leave.

Ramchand had never even been seriously ill. Only once, when he had sprained his ankle badly the year before, Mahajan had sent him home. He had examined Ramchand’s ankle and
told him, ‘It should be fine in three days. Come back then.’ And Ramchand had.

He couldn’t even feign illness because Mahajan knew where each of the shop assistants lived, and had a nasty habit of sending someone to check up on them when any of them took the day off claiming to be ill.

And anyway, Ramchand had often thought gloomily, even if he did manage to get leave, what would he do? Where would he go?

So he went to the shop, day after day after day. But today would be different. Ramchand felt like dancing. He couldn’t control himself any longer and burst into song. It was just a hum first, then his voice broke out clearly, and soon he was trilling at the top of his voice:

Yeh dil na hota bechara

Kadam na hote awara

Jo khubsoorat koi apna

Humsafar hota

His voice reached a crescendo as he danced around in his room in his old white vest and pyjamas, immune to the cold.

The landlord yelled from the courtyard, ‘Ramchand, be quiet!’

Ramchand pretended not to hear. He started again, his voice shriller and higher than ever.
‘Yeh dil na hotaaaa…’

‘Ramchand!’ screamed the landlord.

‘
Kadam na hote awara
…’

Ramchand ran across the room and jumped over the low stool in exuberance. He landed with a thud on the other side.

‘He will break the roof,’ wailed Sudha, the landlord’s wife.

‘
Raaaamchand!
’ the landlord bellowed, his thin frame shaking in anger.

Ramchand quietened down. He switched songs. He bowed
charmingly at his reflection in the flecky mirror, tilted his head to one side and sang softly.

‘
Tum bin jaoon kahan
,’ he hummed softly to his own reflection.

And then a new madness seized Ramchand while he was shaving. He suddenly, and with great resolve in his eyes, lathered his upper lip.

And then he shaved off his moustache!

Thin and wispy, but a moustache nevertheless!

He splashed water over his face and looked into the mirror. He looked so different! Very few Bombay film stars had moustaches. Well, Anil Kapoor did, but then, he was Anil Kapoor. Ramchand studied his new face in the mirror. It wasn’t bad, he thought, but his clean-shaven look would have suited him better if his name had been Vishaal or Amit or Rahul, instead of Ramchand. But despite this, he secretly felt very pleased.

Then Ramchand took a bath with the red Lifebuoy bar, scrubbing himself thoroughly and washing the lemon juice off his feet. Then he towelled his thin body dry, put on fresh underwear and a washed vest, and got dressed in his new clothes. He proudly tucked his new white shirt into the waistband of his black trousers. Usually, he either wore a kurta over his trousers or old shirts that he never tucked in. He put on an old but clean sweater, combed his hair neatly and peered into the mirror. He was looking neat and tidy, and his face somehow seemed more resolute without his moustache, and, like it or not, clothes did make a difference.

He wasn’t looking shabby at all. He was looking quite respectable. He did not remember ever looking so good.

‘There you are,’ Gokul said, packing the last sari into a huge bundle. ‘Take good care of them. They are very expensive. And be very polite to the Kapoors.’

Ramchand nodded.

Hari came up behind him and put an arm affectionately around his shoulder, ‘You could pass off as the hero of a superhit film. Waah, what a change.’

Ramchand blushed. Then he hoisted the bundle of saris on his shoulder and went down to where Gokul’s bicycle was parked. He put the bundle on the carrier of the bicycle and secured it firmly with rope. He threw a leg over the bicycle, settled himself on the seat, and pedalled off exuberantly, freedom breathing through each Lifebuoy-scrubbed pore of his body.