This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (9 page)

Tara sat silently facing the wall.

‘Let them be displeased,’ said Puri, disappointing his mother’s expectations.

His mother gasped and looked at her boy whom she had regarded as serious-minded, ‘And what if they call off the engagement?’

‘That’ll be better. We’d be saved the trouble of doing so.’

‘Who’ll care for the poor girl all her life?’

‘If she’s a burden for you, I can take over her responsibility.’ Puri said angrily. ‘She’s a first-division student, and he cheats at exams.’

Seeing no point in going any further with the conversation, his mother got up. Puri looked at Tara and said in English, ‘You’re worrying your head for nothing. Concentrate on your books. So many changes are taking place in the world, but our parents cannot look beyond their own problems. Marriage is not the end of life. When you’re ready, there won’t be a shortage of boys willing to marry an eligible girl like you.’

His comforting words brought tears to Tara’s eyes. She felt as if some indescribable fear clutching at her heart, mind and body had suddenly been lifted.

The June heat turned their one-room house into an inferno. She spread out a mat on the veranda, lay down on it and thought: If Somraj hadn’t been caught cheating or if I remain engaged to that man, continuing my studies is improper only because he does not have his BA degree. A woman is not born inferior to a man, she becomes that through social pressures.

She remained lost in thought: If I ever get married, it’ll be to a really intelligent and capable man. How can I marry someone I don’t consider my equal? A woman’s worth is measured by her ability to find a mate. Why does a woman always have to play second fiddle? If a woman can’t look up to a man, why should she think he’s right for her? How can she love and respect him?

The naming ceremony of Surendra’s nephew was on the first Sunday in July. She had invited Tara with affectionate insistence. Tara went to her place near Amritdhara in Gwal Mandi at eight in the morning. Dhurries and cotton sheets had been spread out for the guests on the floor of a large
room. In the right-hand corner, an old granthi, the Sikh priest, was reciting from the Guru Granth Sahib placed before him on a low table. This book of scripture rested on a cushion of silk. Surendra’s father sat beside it, waving a white flywhisk over it slowly and with apparent devotion. Men sat on one side of the room, women on the other, separated by a two-foot wide aisle.

Since Tara had arrived a little late, the place she found was next to the divide, beside the men. Surendra caught her eye and made a gesture to cover her head with her dupatta. Surendra never covered her head outside her home. Next to Tara sat Gurtu and Kanak, their heads covered with a dupatta or a corner of the sari. They smiled at her. All the women had their heads covered. Most of the men present were Sikh, with turbans on their heads. Some Sikhs with short hair wore turbans too. A modern gentleman had come wearing a Western-style hat. He could not leave his head uncovered, and sat with the hat on his head. Another person who had neither a turban nor a hat had covered his head with a handkerchief.

Asad Ahmed, a friend from the Student Federation, had arrived just after Tara. She was glad to see him. Asad had a nice sense of humour. When he spoke at a meeting or at the Study Circle, he was always brief and to-the-point. After the meetings, at times, they walked together up to the Shahalami Gate, and if she needed him to escort her, she could ask him without hesitation. Many people were sitting near the entrance, so Asad had to cross over to the centre of the room, where Tara was sitting on her side of the aisle. They saw each other, and exchanged nods of greeting.

Asad had short, curly hair. He never wore a hat or a turban. He was not familiar with the customs of a Sikh ceremony, but when he saw that others who sat facing the Granth Sahib with their hands joined reverently, he too put his hands together.

A Sikh gentleman sitting next to Asad nudged him and motioned him to cover his head. Asad looked at others around him, and when he saw the man with the handkerchief on his head, he too put his hand into his trousers pocket to take out his own. There was none. Tara watched all this, trying not to smile. Asad, flustered at not finding his handkerchief, excused himself and was getting up when another Sikh gentleman took out a new, flower-patterned silk handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to him. As Asad covered his head with the handkerchief loaned to him, his eyes met Tara’s. A smile crept to her lips. Asad was trying to hide his embarrassment. They both averted their eyes to stop laughing.

Having finished his incantation of the scriptures, the granthi announced, ‘The gathering prays to the Granth Sahib that they should learn the first letter of the lad’s name.’

He again opened the Granth Sahib at random. He looked at the first letter on the page, and said, ‘The Granth Sahib commands that the first letter of the lad’s name be a T. The gathering may suggest a name beginning with a T.’

Names beginning with a T were called from all sides: Tej Singh, Tara Singh, Tota Singh, Takht Singh. One Sikh gentleman suggested Tope (cannon) Singh. Asad found it difficult not to smile at some suggestions.

The gathering approved Tara Singh. Asad leaned towards Tara and whispered, ‘The lad’s now your namesake!’

Huge salvers heaped with sweet halwa were brought in. The granthi stood up and led the gathering in a prayer, all standing with their hands folded in supplication. A small portion of the prasad was placed in a vessel as an offering before the Granth Sahib. Narendra Singh and another youth carried a salver over to the men’s side, Surendra and her sister to the women’s side, and began distributing handfuls of halwa to the guests. Asad was intrigued: no plates, no cups, no leaf plates, not even pieces of paper to hold the prasad. Everyone accepted the ghee-drenched halwa reverently into his or her hand. Narendra Singh reached Asad with his salver. Asad motioned him with his eye to pass him by. Narendra Singh motioned back that he could not refuse the offered prasad.

Asad could not but accept the halwa. In his awkwardness he watched Tara to see how she handled the situation. Tara and her friends had small hands, and they had succeeded in accepting a smaller portion of halwa. Asad again whispered into Tara’s ear, ‘That’s the punishment of having big hands.’

‘I’d call it the reward,’ she replied.

‘Want to exchange?’

‘Uh-uh, be content with what you get.’ She hid her hands.

Tara and her friends ate their portion of halwa, but with some difficulty. The problem now was how to clean their ghee-smeared hands. Most Sikh gentlemen were content with wiping the hands on their long full beards. A few used handkerchiefs too. Tara and her friends somehow managed with their tiny women’s hankies. What was Asad to do? He could not soil the silk handkerchief someone had graciously loaned to him! He sat quietly with his hands spread out in front of him, waiting for a chance to slip out.

Tara was enjoying Asad’s predicament, and he was trying to keep a straight face. Tara threw her handkerchief to him; Kanak and Gurtu gave theirs too.

Nodding at Narendra Singh, Asad said, ‘The idiot had heaps of halwa to eat; couldn’t he arrange for plates or leaf cups?’

Tara said, ‘This is prasad. It has to be accepted in bare hands. You defile it by accepting it in anything else.’

As others were leaving, Narendra Singh and Surendra asked their friends from college and from the Student Federation to stay behind. Once he was alone with his friends, Asad threatened the siblings in mock anger, ‘Why didn’t you warn me beforehand? I too would have worn a large turban, and carried a towel in my pocket. Well, one day I shall take you smart alecks to a mosque under some pretext, and make you do all that bowing and getting up again!’

Narendra Singh took out the new issue of
People’s Age
, the Communist Party organ. They gathered around him, and began discussing how the British government’s intentions were far from honest, and its representatives were making hollow promises to the Congress and the League just to pacify them. If the Cabinet Mission proposals were to be believed, how would the League get its Pakistan and how would the Congress party be able to keep India undivided? Singh’s suggestion was that during the summer break, they should try to convince their friends and fellow-travellers that only a rapprochement between the two would put a stop to the division of India.

When Tara left for home, Asad came out too. As they walked together, they were talking about the incident of Asad attending a Sikh ceremony with his head uncovered. He said, ‘Do you see how such little things as these customs and beliefs are keeping our two communities apart? Is this the only way to preserve one’s traditions? The more we mingle, the better. Some of these beliefs and practices may survive, but others will surely change.’ Tara listened, muttering in agreement.

Asad asked, ‘Do you have a Muslim girlfriend?’

‘I see Zubeida often,’ said Tara.

‘Have you been to her home?’

‘Not so far.’

‘I’ll ask her to invite you for tea some day. You too ask her to come and visit you.’

‘It won’t be possible for me,’ Tara said with some hesitation.

‘Why? Does your family not eat with Muslims or invite them over? Puri doesn’t believe in all that,’ Asad was surprised.

‘Our family doesn’t behave the same as I and my brother do. Our place is rather cramped too.’ Her embarrassment increased.

‘Let’s forget it. But if I come to your home, would your parents be able to guess that I’m not a Hindu, just by looking at me or from my behaviour? I have been to Dr Nath’s place and had tea with him several times. His family is an orthodox Hindu one.’

‘You visit him often?’ Tara wanted to know.

‘Well, we, Puri and I, have been his students. Actually, I am on my way to his place now. He is the economic advisor to the governor, but still very approachable. He gives tutorials now only to MA students. Have you been to his place with Puri?’

‘I’m tutoring the family children during the summer break. I go there between half past four for an hour. If I didn’t have this tutoring job last year, I wouldn’t have been able to go to college.’ Tara did not mind telling Asad about her situation. And what truth can be more personal and embarrassing than for white-collar, lower-middle-class people to confess their difficulties with money?

‘Here they are! Come and get them! Green-skinned bananas! Guavas from Allahabad! Pomegranates grown in Kabul and Kandahar!’ The loud and oft-heard cry of the fruit peddler reached every nook and entered every cranny of the houses in Bhola Pandhe’s Gali.

There was a ripple of response among the women sitting on straw mats and low stools on the chabutaras in front of the houses. Most of them had some piece of work in their hand. In the cloying, sticky heat of August they wore blouses and cotton dhotis of flimsy muslin; the older ones made do with only a dhoti around their bodies. Young girls with budding bodies and women wore shalwar and kameez. For a woman, the need to cover her body waxes and wanes like the temperature at different hours of the day. In the morning of her life, a girl is not shy about her body. As she becomes older, she begins to see her body grow into that of a woman and realizes that the fulfilment of her life is in attracting a male; and she begins to act demurely, to increase the pull of her attraction. In her youth and before she is married, the need to be coy and attractive reaches its peak. When the desire to attract bears fruit in the form of her marriage and marriage results in progeny, that shyness about her body begins to wane. In the twilight of her life the same lack of shyness about her body, as in childhood, returns.

Most middle-class and lower-middle-class people lived in the galis of Lahore, and the afternoons in the galis belonged to the women. The galis were rather narrow, not more than four to five feet wide. Women sitting on a chabutara on one side could converse easily with someone on the other. The men would be at work in offices, in their shops or other places of business. The women felt free about their behaviour and clothing. If a male had to come back to the gali for some reason, he would clear his throat loudly to warn the women. They would rearrange their clothes, find their vagrant dupattas and aanchals, or just turn their back towards the gali. Young children, wearing just enough to cover their genitals, played hopscotch or island by drawing lines on the brick surface of the gali with charcoal or a shard of a clay pot. Hawkers, peddlers and haberdashers were from the lower, servant class; the women did not bother if they came and went.

That afternoon in Bhola Pandhe’s Gali, the tongues of the women and their hands worked swiftly. Usha was sewing something on a hand-cranked sewing machine that she had borrowed from Meladei. Birumal’s mother was working a spinning wheel. Kartaro was knitting cord, using the back of an upturned cot as a frame. Meladei was weaving nivar on a cotton-webbing frame. Purandei sat with skeins of silk in the making. Kartaro’s daughter Peeto embroidered, another woman rolled balls of cotton thread, and the ones with nothing to weave or sew shelled melon and pumpkin seeds. These jobs were done for the household, or as odd jobs for merchants. The gali women were known to earn enough money from such small jobs to buy an occasional gold ornament. Only the woman with the water well in her house, called the Woman-of-the-Well, sat idly with hands on her knees and her back against the wall, talking to herself. She was eighty-seven years old.

The conversation revolved around finding eligible matches for Meladei’s son Ratan and for Bhagwanti’s son Jaidev. These young, strapping men with jobs were refusing to listen to any proposals for marriage. Whenever there was any talk of finding a bride, Ratan would retort angrily and Jaidev would say that he’d rather wait a little longer.

The mothers of the two boys were airing their frustration, expressing their inability to convince their sons, and the Woman-of-the-Well was talking without care, whether anybody was listening or not, ‘All this is your own doing. Marrying your sons at such a ripe age! In my day, boys got married off at eighteen if not sixteen. Say what you want, I know the boys have been bewitched by girls who go about with their hair plaited into braids.’

Sita and Usha were making eyes at each other and laughing quietly at the old woman’s familiar tirade.

When they heard the fruit peddler’s cry, Kartaro and Meladei covered their shoulders and legs, bared due to the heat. Sita and Usha, wearing shalwar-kameez, pulled on their dupattas.

The peddler stood at the mouth of the gali balancing a huge basket on his head. He held it with both hands and lowered it to the ground with a loud grunt. On his shaven head, to balance his heavy-laden basket, was a coil of tightly wound cloth. To keep from getting caught between his lips, his bushy moustache was trimmed along the line of his upper lip, but hung down like the wings of a bird at the corners of his mouth. His close-clipped beard had been shaped with a razor. His trademark, the long blue lungi that covered his toes, and the loose kurta of artificial silk hanging from his
broad muscular shoulders proclaimed that he was a
rai
, a Muslim peddler of fruit and vegetables.

The man placed his basket on the pavement of the gali, and sang out in a friendly voice, ‘Mothers, sisters, daughters, ladies … the fruit peddler is here!’

Several children, sitting next to their mothers, playing with toys or with any odd thing they could lay their hands on, reacted to his call. Before their mothers could refuse, they asked in a plaintive voice or with tears in their eyes, pulling at their mothers’ clothes, ‘Want banana … want guava.’

Having her aanchal pulled by her baby daughter pleading for a guava irritated Bhagwanti, ‘This darned peddler shows up every day!’

Purandei asked, eyes on her skeins, ‘How much for the guavas?’

Before the rai could reply, some woman admonished him in a loud voice from the bazaar, ‘What’s this nonsense! How can you block the entrance to the gali? Stay in the bazaar! Whoever wants to buy something will come and get it from you.’

The women looked towards where the gali branched off from the bazaar. A respectable-looking woman in a white dhoti and white chadar, and a young woman in a white khadi shalwar-kameez, were shouting at the rai for blocking the entrance to the gali.

The rai ignored the angry protestations good-humouredly, slid his huge basket about a foot to one side, and said, ‘May your children prosper, lady, who’s blocking the way? Here, see this passage … enough for an ox cart to go by.’

There was enough space to step into the gali, but both the women kept on insisting for him to pull back his basket onto the road of the main bazaar. In reply to their threats and complaints, the rai blessed them with a long life and prosperity, and moved his basket another inch or two away.

The women of the gali watched this argument with some surprise and with expressions of annoyance on their faces. Why were these women shouting at the peddler who came to their gali every day? Why didn’t they mind their own business!

The imperious and sharp scolding of the visitors prevailed. They made the rai remove his basket and walked on towards the women in the gali. Ratan’s mother whispered to Jaidev’ mother, ‘Why did they scold the poor fellow… and make him remove his basket?’ The women visitors reached the chabutaras where the gali women sat.

The young woman placed her finger on her chin in a gesture of dismay, and said in an angry voice, ‘Sisters, it’s really sad!’

A hush had descended on the gali. Seeing the reaction of their mothers, mewling and whimpering children too had become quiet in the presence of the respectable-looking visitors. In reply to the questioning gaze of the gali women, the young woman said, ‘Sisters, haven’t you heard? In Calcutta, Muslims have murdered thousands of our Hindu brothers, they have raped and mutilated hundreds of women from Hindu families. It is indeed sad that these people still come to peddle their stuff in your gali.’

The older woman spread her hands to show the extent of her disgust, ‘May they mourn for their own children, these Muslims feed on us and then stick a knife into our stomachs. Have you people lost your senses!’

Kartaro said, ‘Bahinji, we don’t want to buy from these Muslims, may their wives become widows. We would buy any time from our Hindu brothers, but those good-for-nothing Hindu peddlers don’t come this far. If they do, they charge us double.’

The young women said, ‘Sister, Hindu peddlers don’t come here; do you know why? These Muslims have control of the wholesale market at Mewa Mandi. When Hindus want to buy goods, Muslims jack up the prices. So what if you pay two paisas more to our own people. If we feed these cursed Muslims, one day these same people will stab us in the back. All the women in our mohalla have taken a vow never to buy anything from a Muslim.’

Kartaro yelled at the rai, gesturing with her arm for him to leave, ‘Go away, man! No one wants to buy anything. And don’t show up here in future.’

Reassured, the young woman introduced her elder companion, ‘She is Mata Ishwar Kaur-ji of Vachchovali gali. You must have heard her name. We want to speak with all you sisters on behalf of the Hindu Defence Committee.’

‘Sure, what else! Hindus will now peddle fruits,’ they heard in a shrill, loud voice.

All eyes turned to the Woman-of-the-Well. Startled, the visitors also looked towards the source of the voice. The women kept silent, some covered their lips with a corner of their clothing to hide their smiles. On the last chabutara towards the bazaar sat the Woman-of-the-Well, her hands framing her face, her emaciated legs showing through the folds of an old black lehanga. Without looking at any one she continued, ‘Now Hindus
will sell vegetables and fruits and demean themselves to do the job of a rai and kunjara, they will work as gujjars and sell milk, will do the lowly job of washing other people’s clothes as dhobis do, will make shoes, and defile their caste by being dyers of cloth.’

Ignoring the old woman’s outburst, Meladei said to the visitors, ‘You are heartily welcome, please take a seat.’

From her side of the gali, Kartaro offered her low stool to the elder woman and sat down on the bare floor of the chabutara. She said, ‘Bahenji, don’t pay attention to what the Woman-of-the-Well says. She rambles on like this; no one minds what she says.’

Without caring if anyone was minding her words, the old woman went on, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, ‘Hindus will become potters, as kalaigeers they will tinplate kitchen utensils. They are doomed. Turn away from your family profession, and you defile your caste. Both the communities have discarded their dharma, their age-old professions. The Muslims will make mithai and sweets; will be cloth merchants. Who’s ever heard of a Muslim halwai or cloth merchant? If Hindus drink water piped into their homes, water touched by the Muslims, how can they save their religion? Whoever drinks the piped water, can commit any crime and will stop at nothing. Send your girls to school, give them education in English, let them wear spectacles, let them braid their hair, let them wear dhotis or let them go naked, what’s the difference? What’s more, now women look at themselves in the mirror just like whores! Did any decent household have a mirror in my time? Now our dharma is lost, so is our karma, and we have no shame left any more.’

The women felt uncomfortable at such rambling in front of the visitors to their gali. Meladei spoke apologetically for everyone, ‘Bahenji, no one listens to what that woman says. Her mind is not right.’

Kartaro, Bhagwanti and others too chipped in, ‘Yes, of course! Who cares what an old woman, a grandma or a great-grandma says?’

Meladei went on, ‘Bahenji, the water well of the gali is in the house that belongs to her. Her grandsons have built new houses in the Anarkali bazaar, but she doesn’t want to part from the water of her well. The first house in the gali belonged to her family. She has no eyesight left and can barely stand up straight, but has all her teeth intact. Says that teeth fall if one drinks piped water. Her house has no electricity or piped water. Lights a mustard oil lamp every night. Who would choose to live in a house like
that; she’s got tenants only because of the housing shortage. She always talks about the times when Sikh kings ruled, regards it as sacrilege to wear anything other than a lehanga and chadar. Her grandsons have a shop in the Anarkali bazaar selling glass and ceramic wares. She refuses to drink water even from their hands.’

The wife of Bajaj Dewanchand interrupted Meladei, ‘She doesn’t trust her grandsons either to do anything for her after her death. She has already had all those rites performed, has donated a cow to a Brahmin, pooja and prayers done so that her soul may rest in peace, everything so that she may go straight to heaven when she drops off.’

Kartaro began to laugh as she spoke, ‘The poor soul has spent all that money on her life hereafter, but what if Yamraj or his angels of death failed to recognize her? She still buys milk only from a Muslim gujjar and vegetables from a Muslim rai; says these occupations are a Muslim’s dharma.’

Gyandevi, the representative of the Hindu Defence Committee came to the point, ‘Sisters, you all know, as we do, this was all in the newspapers, that the Muslims have killed five thousand Hindus in Calcutta. What are we going to do about it?’

Kartaro butted in to express her agreement, ‘Yes, yes, don’t we know!’ She pointed at Bhagwanti, ‘Her son writes in a newspaper, he’s one in a thousand. Pushpa’s man, the doctor, also said that the Muslims had slaughtered ten thousand Hindus.’

The young woman nodded, ‘Yes, sister, who knows what these devious people won’t do? They’ve killed probably more than ten thousand. The wily English are on their side, they don’t allow the facts to get through. The accursed Muslims have dishonoured thousands of Hindu women, our sisters, daughters.’

Kartaro again interrupted her, ‘Yes, I know. Listen, Peeto’s dad also said the same thing. These wretched people, they let all hell loose. Each Hindu woman was ravaged by hundreds of Muslims.’

Jeeva, wife of Bajaj Dewanchand said with a shudder, ‘Sister, I’ve heard that they cut off women’s breasts.’

Birumal’s mother said, ‘I heard that they eat Hindu children.’

The Hindu Defence Committee workers did not want to waste time in dispelling the rumours. Gyandevi said, ‘The Defence Committee is asking for donations of money and clothes to help our Hindu community in Bengal. Those rotten Muslims have taken everything from Hindus there,
even clothes off their women. Without any clothes, those naked daughters and sisters of Hindus couldn’t go out to fetch water from the well, and died of thirst and hunger. Many Hindu women committed suicide in the shame of such humiliation.’