This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (4 page)

Tara’s face became serious as she said, ‘He’s really bad news. Always staring. When we meet on the stairway, he starts acting smart. I tell him: “Shame on you! Go to hell! Don’t you dare touch me! I’ll scream and tell your mother!”’

Ratan and Tara had both been born in this same house. As kids, wearing only underpants, they played hide-and-seek, hopscotch and other games with the children of the gali. As they got older, they began to spend less time together. Once when Tara was eleven, she was coming home from school when some boys from another gali pushed her and made her drop her schoolbooks. When Tara came into the gali crying, Ratan who was also returning home from school, saw her and asked, ‘Did someone hit you?’

Fresh tears began to flow from Tara’s eyes.

Ratan grabbed Tara by the arm and said, ‘Come on, show me who.’

Tara went back with Ratan to exact revenge. Ratan swore at the boys and challenged them. The boys from both sides put their school bags down on the street in the bazaar and had a scuffle. Tara looked on with pride. The people in the bazaar separated the boys and stopped the fight.

Panting, Ratan warned them, ‘You’d better watch out when you touch a girl from our gali else I’ll bust your heads open!’

When Ratan came home, blood was oozing from a wound on his head. He told his mother, ‘I fell down at school, it’s nothing really.’

Tara thought of Ratan as someone of her age and her gali companion. Ratan was closer to her than the other boys in the gali, and he was more refined and more educated than Bir Singh and Meva Lal. A kinship had developed between them. Two years later, Ratan had started to be a little playful. Tara scolded him, but she didn’t mind at all. She knew he liked her.

They heard a call from Ratan’s house, from the other side of the staircase, ‘Tara, there’s no daal or vegetables here for me. If there’s any in your house, give me some too.’

Tara looked at Sheelo meaningfully, ‘See what trouble he gives me! Why should I go?’

Sheelo said, ‘Oh come on, I’ll take it to him. Tell me where the vegetables are.’

Sheelo put some vegetables left over from the morning in a bowl, went to the other side of the stairway and called, ‘Where are you? Here are your vegetables.’ She gave him the food and returned.

Tara and Sheelo continued to talk for a while. Tara’s mother could not leave the mourning till after sunset. Tara told Sheelo to watch her baby sister and started kneading the dough for the chapattis for dinner. Sheelo sat near her and told stories about different fights that had happened in her gali. A little while later, Sheelo said lifting the baby girl, ‘I’m going to take Munni and sit upstairs. I need some fresh air and Munni can play there just as well. You cook the chapattis.’

Tara put the daal on the fire and began to roll the chapattis. Soon she had made the chapattis, scattered the coal to lower the heat, washed the kneading tray and the rolling pin and board and put them away. Then she climbed the stairs leading to the open roof to talk to Sheelo.

Munni was sitting on the roof in a pool of her own pee, biting her squeaky rubber doll with her two rice-grain-like little teeth, and cooing happily to herself. Tara did not see Sheelo anywhere. She walked ahead without calling out and peered on the other side of the barsati, and immediately turned back in shock. Ratan had Sheelo in his arms and was kissing her on the mouth.

They were startled on hearing Tara gasp. Tara didn’t say anything; she just picked up Munni and went down, her feet thudding on the stairs.

After a few minutes Sheelo came downstairs as well. Tara didn’t speak to her. Sheelo said pleadingly, her eyes downcast, ‘He just grabbed me.’

‘Get out of here, you liar!’ Tara turned her face away.

When Sheelo sat down quietly with her head bowed, Tara could not stand it anymore. She moved closer to Sheelo and said, ‘Have some shame, you stupid girl! You’re already engaged.’

‘So what?’ Sheelo replied, head down, raking the cement filling between the bricks with her toenail, ‘I hardly did anything.’

‘What didn’t you do?’ Lowering her voice, Tara said angrily, ‘If someone from the gali had seen you, they would have cut off all your hair and broken his bones too, you idiot. And they would have thrown us out of the gali. You’re so shameless!’

After that evening, Tara began to detest Ratan. In the past Tara’s scowling had had little effect on Ratan; her tone would give her away, that there was
no bad feeling behind it. But now there was loathing in Tara’s eyes. She was angry with both Ratan and Sheelo. They had both fooled her.

At their grandmother’s mourning ceremony, Sheelo had been given some money. Tara’s mother thought nothing of the present of two rupees and two sets of clothes, but it was proof of the fact that the elder daughter-in-law’s daughter was engaged while Bhagwanti’s daughter was not. It didn’t matter that Tara was only two-and-a-half months older than Sheelo; she was still older. Tara was also two years ahead of Sheelo in school. Even though she was just fifteen, people thought she was older at least by a couple of years. She was even the same height as her elder brother.

Tara’s mother was unhappy about her husband’s unrealistic ideas. What need was there to educate a girl so much, and so quickly? Who would be tempted by the dowry of a poor schoolteacher’s daughter? Masterji’s expectation that his daughter’s intelligence and education would attract a bridegroom was being proven false. Only the wife of her husband’s elder brother could be of any help to Tara’s mother in such a difficult situation. For this reason, even at the risk of neglecting all her work at home, Bhagwanti went to her sister-in-law’s house to lend a hand in the making of papad and
bariyan
, and to spin cotton stuffing from old quilts for making dhurries.

Sheelo’s mother was two years younger than Tara’s mother, but being the wife of the elder brother, her status was that of the senior daughter-in-law. A woman’s standing is the reflection of her husband’s social position. Ramjwaya’s first wife had died after giving birth to a son. Ramjwaya’s second marriage brought Sheelo’s mother into the family. As is customary, she got more care and attention.

She had a fondness and taste for dressing up. She would not go out without wearing silk. Tara’s mother’s clothing and behaviour appeared lacklustre and inferior when she walked beside her elder sister-in-law. Wrapped in a thick muslin chadar and wearing a discoloured silken lehanga or shalwar, Tara’s mother seemed five years older than her age. She had been wearing the same two one-tola gold bangles on her wrists since her marriage. Sheelo’s mother wore two tissue-paper thin, well-starched ‘chhabbi’ brand muslin dupattas together that looked white and frothy as foam. Different gold bracelets and bangles appeared on her wrists. Her smooth glowing face and her pride in her youthfulness made her look even younger. She also carried herself with authority.

There was the same contrast between Master Ramlubhaya and Babu
Ramjwaya. Masterji always had a worn look, and wore a round brown hat and a coat that buttoned up to the neck. Out of thriftiness he always shaved his own beard; moreover, he only had Mondays and Thursdays off from school, and he never bothered to shave his chin on those two days. His moustache, two-thirds white, covered his lips, and after drinking water he always had to wipe it dry.

Babu Ramjwaya was issued a summer and a winter uniform by the railway, but for social occasions he did not wear the company’s clothing, wearing his own instead. He wore a starched turban of fine muslin, a very white starched shirt with a collar, and loose pajama trousers. The red silk brocade ends of the pajama waist-cord peeked out slightly from under the edge of his shirt. He wore a coat with a collar, cotton or wool, according to the season. He had never worn a necktie or Western-style trousers. The barber shaved his chin every other day, and trimmed his salt-and-pepper moustache along the line of his upper lip to keep it looking neat. There was always a certain smoothness to the skin of his face.

Lala Sukhlal Sahni had come to express his condolences at the mourning for Babu Ramjwaya’s mother, and his wife had come for the syapa ceremony. Lala Sukhlal had no family relationship with Ramjwaya; rather, they had a deeper, professional relationship. Ostensibly, Sukhlal transported goods towards the east and the west of Lahore, but he had other dealings as well. One of his businesses had to do with the forwarding of parcels sent by rail.

When Lala Sukhlal Sahni’s wife Jayarani came to the syapa ceremony, she already was in a state of mourning. Three months earlier her daughter-in-law had passed away. The talk of her daughter-in-law’s sickness and death led to hushed hints and suggestions for a second engagement for her son Somraj.

Jayarani said to Sheelo’s mother, ‘Bahin, you know, there’s no shortage of girls for our son. We’d not even returned home after cremating her body when offers had already come from five places. But I won’t rush things, this time. The poor girl had a good nature, and her parents didn’t give a bad dowry either, but the truth is that the boy’s heart wasn’t in that marriage. She was a little simple and her features and figure were rather ordinary. The boy just didn’t want to stay at home. The poor girl got the influenza, that fever of colds and coughs. We consulted all the doctors from Vacchovali and Mall Road, but who can erase what God has written? This time, whatever happens, I’ll select a girl only after a thorough inquiry, and only one with
a pretty face and shapely figure. I’ll show her to the boy somehow; that’ll be the only suitable way. You know boys nowadays! I don’t care much about the dowry. I’ll accept whichever girl the boy looks at and says yes….’

Seeing an opportunity, Sheelo’s mother said, ‘My younger brother-in-law is a schoolteacher. He’s a good soul but they’re poor. Won’t be able to give a big dowry, but believe me, the girl’s face is one in a thousand; so fair that it becomes dirty if touched by anyone’s hand. Her eyes are lovely and shapely, like slices of mango. She’s only two months older than my Sheelo, but a couple of inches taller. Just like a jewel, and she’s studying in the tenth standard. Always stands first in her class, but my sister-in-law, poor thing …’

Only a few days later, Sukhlal Sahni’s son Somraj went away for a while on some business, and nothing could come of this proposed match for a whole year.

In 1943, Tara passed the matriculation exam with a first division. Her brother Jaidev insisted that she should be allowed to study up to BA level. Jaidev was in the second year of his MA at Dayal Singh College. Tara also took admission there. But only two months later, Jaidev was sent to prison for being a part of a secret political movement. Tara attended college without her brother.

Two years later, Tara appeared for the Intermediate examination. Every day she had to go to the examination hall at nine o’clock in the morning. One day Sheelo came early and said, ‘Today I’m going to accompany you.’

There was a twinkle of mystery in Sheelo’s eyes. She was not able to suppress her smile.

Bhagwanti looked at Tara’s clothes and commented, ‘What’s this, you’re going out wearing such wrinkled clothes? Comb your hair carefully.’ She took out Tara’s best shalwar, kameez and dupatta, and asked her to wear those.

Tara was by nature clean and tidy. Her mother had never commented on her clothes before. Masterji liked simplicity. Tara could not understand the need to put on such clothing to go to an exam, just as she could not understand Sheelo’s secretive smile. She changed her clothes on her mother’s insistence, suspecting she would be late if she argued about it. While they were going down the stairs from her house, she asked, ‘What’s the matter? Why aren’t you telling me what is up?’

‘Today, on the street, he’ll see you. When he sees me with you, he’ll recognize you. I’ll warn you. You also get a look at him,’ Sheelo said. Tara didn’t like this. She had begun to think differently about her life.

Two Sundays before, Tara’s classmate Amrita had gone to her ancestral home in Ambala Cantonment. When she came back she told them that she’d been called for her engagement. Amrita’s parents had modern and liberal opinions. Before the engagement, they had invited the boy for tea at their house and introduced Amrita to her future bridegroom. Although both were shy and nervous, they’d even had a little conversation. When the boy and girl agreed, the date of the engagement was fixed. The girls had insisted that Amrita give a party, and she had given quite a lavish one for six girls at the Standard restaurant.

Gurtu and Sneha were the gossipy ones in their group. Gurtu asked Amrita, ‘What did you find out about that boy in an hour?’

Sneha answered for her, ‘What does it matter what she found out? Boys are all the same. She saw that he was good-looking, and that he’s a lieutenant in the army. What more could she want?’

Krishna said, ‘Amrita’s fate has been decided. When her lieutenant gets some leave, they’ll get married. She’ll keep house, she’ll have children. They’ll bring them up and then they’ll worry about marrying them off.’

Amrita asked, ‘And when you become a doctor, you won’t get married?’

Sneha said, ‘As soon as she has a child, she’ll forget all about doctoring!’

Tara felt compelled to say, ‘That’s right, a mother never has any free time when she’s taking care of children. She becomes completely wrapped up in that alone.’

Krishna replied, ‘We’ll get an ayah, what’s wrong with that?’

Surendra joked, ‘Will you get an ayah for your child when it’s still in your womb?’

Sneha interrupted, ‘Then why not an ayah in place of you…?’ All the girls burst out in laughter.

Surendra said thoughtfully, ‘That’s really a girl’s problem and tough luck. When one has children, one’s life becomes completely devoted to them.’

Amrita interrupted her, ‘So you don’t want children? What about a husband?’

Surendra agreed, ‘Sure, a husband is necessary.’

Sneha asked, ‘In college only the girls give engagement parties. Why don’t boys do the same?’

Gurtu said, ‘The boys don’t talk about it. The more girls those idiots can make friends with, the better they like it. For a girl, just one friendship with a boy and she’s had it.’