Greatest Short Stories (6 page)

He turns again to look at his spouse, as though to lure her on in pursuit. And he sees that look in her eyes which seems to say: ‘I have sought you all day in vain.’

Seeing the obvious devotion in her worshipful stare, the proud male bird turns away from the adorer.

The peahen wilts and nearly gives up the chase.

Pondering for a moment on how he may tantalise the female, again, the peacock rushes forward suddenly, then rests till the peahen has reached him, but again sidetracks her, waiting to be caught. And for a while the pair repeat these movements, as though they are playing hide and seek in a maze.

‘I have found you,’ she shrieks in the loveplay, as she nearly comes up to him.

‘I don’t want you,’ he says.

And then mustering all the power in the sinews of his flesh, he struts, prances, shifting to this side and that, drunkenly describes a circle, and, revolving his head, begins to stamp on his feet and dance.

The ripeness of the senses is in the change of his heart.

Shaping his passion in measured tresses, he compels a rhythm in his steps which seems to overtake his desire. Drawing near her, withdrawing, he lures her on, with her day-worn heart aflame.

And, stirring his plumage, as though he is aware of his power, he now faces’ her, full face, pecking at her beak, only to murder her hopes by stepping aside.

At last the very sight of the stretch of his refulgent body holds her content.

And once feared, then adored and longed for, he unfolds for her the vision of his body, in the uplifted outspread tail.

Is it a ray of humility that turns his eyes now to his ugly feet? Or is it the self-torment, as they say in our village, in appeasement of his colossal male vanity?

A LEAF IN THE STORM

Once upon a time, there was a leaf, on the branch of a tree, a little leaf, tender like a parrot’s bosom.

There were other leaves on the tree. Small lovely leaves. And big leaves which were paling with age and ready to drop off, on the brink of death.

But the little leaf that was tender like the parrot’s bosom, was neither too small nor too big-it was young like the dawn. The lines on its palm were forming as though its fate was being set.

One day there came a breeze, which was not the breeze of Punjab. No one knew where it came from. Perhaps it came form the sky like a windstorm. It shook the whole tree. And it left the little leaf, which was tender like the parrot’s bosom, torn, so that the lines on its palm-like body began to change, And, suddenly, it began to sway, and sing a song, which was not the song of the land of the five rivers.

Every day, the same breeze blew, sharper than the first windstorm.

And one day, it uprooted the tree. And, catching the little leaf, which was tender like the parrot’s bosom, in its mouth, the breeze blew away…

Swaying gently, sad and alone, the leaf fell on an earth, where the sun did not shine, and where there was no warmth like that in the land of the five rivers. A pallor came over it, not with age, but the yellowing which the moist air produces, where there is no sunshine.

Long did the leaf languish in exile, thinking that just as the leaf from the Bodhi tree had taken root in Lanka, so it had flown across the seas, But it did not know that the leaf which had flown to Lanka had a root attached to it, while its own roots lay drying in the land of the five rivers.

At last, aflame with ambition, it prepared to fly like a bird, and it took off from its foreign habitation.

Swaying gently, frolicking, playing, singing a song, it flew and flew and flew…

And it came and settled on a rock, like a bird returning to its own landscape, after the seasonal flight.

The sun rays warmed its heart. The rains came and quenched its thirst. And it drifted for sustenance on to some roots, which were jutting out of the crevices of mountains.

If you see it now, the lines on its palm are formed, as though its destiny was always clear.

And it sits there like a premature Buddha, baking itself in the fire of the sun, to resemble the colour of its own.

They say that there are magic trees which spread their roots from the sky downwards on to the soil. The uprooted leaf seems to feel that even the drifting leaf might, one day, become a tree with real roots, but with leaf roots such as itself can uproot themselves at will and fly away to another soil for a while. For it is necessary to have roots but not to get rooted in barren fields…

^*
From
The Power of Darkness and Other Stories
.

6

Little Chicks
^*

Pecking, pecking, pecking… Pecking here, pecking there, pecking nowhere in particular. The three little chicks toddle up before the kitchen doorstep, where I have thrown the remainders of the lentils for the sparrows.

Slightly agitated, jumping a step or two, darting away from near the mother hen, but running back for shelter at the sight of the slightest shadow, Brownie, Blackie and Ginger are like tied balls of cotton, except for their perkey little yellow beaks.

I scatter the remainders of the dish of rice into the flower bed.

Up toddles Brownie, the most forward one.

Blackie follows suit, perhaps being the second big one in age.

Ginger is left behind, but makes up for his littleness by outflanking others, straying aimlessly on the side and then clambering up towards the grain.

Browine and Blackie peck a trifle more furiously and edge Ginger away.

Whereupon, the mother hen instinctively goes to the rescue of her littlest one, not dramatically, but by a kind of casual moment of her neck uplifted, as though to warn others of her displeasure.

Moti, the mongrel dog, starved for days, has been dolefully eyeing the chicks and admiring their courage in getting so near the shadow of my presence.

I feel I ought to throw him a bone, but desist because this will frighten the hen, or the chicks, and then I shall not be able to see how the little specks of life struggle for survival.

For a moment, I watch the miracle of littleness trying to go forward.

Pecking, pecking, pecking, the life of the chicks would seem to be concentrated in their beaks. And the globules of their soft woolen rotundities seem to be borne along by the intensity of their hunger. Is it possible that more than half of the nonchalance of the hen, who is not interfering with her chicks and is allowing them to have their fill, while she looks soulfully on, is to guard them against the danger of a ‘shoo’ from me.

And how can Moti sit there patiently, without daring to come near me, because, perhaps, he has been given moral lessons in good behaviour, with ‘Dure! Dure!’ and an occasional lifting of the fuel stick by the Mali’s wife who guards her dishes against pollution almost like a Brahmin lady.

Pecking, pecking, pecking, asserting their right to live, the little chicks have now dared to climb up the steps leading to the kitchen, an inch or two from where I stand.

I stiffen myself into the rectitude of non-hurting and try to radiate complete ahimsa.

But the hen advances towards her brood, cluck-clucking a little and warns the little ones against me.

I withdraw.

The mere shadow of movement has frightend Brownie, Blackie and Ginger. And, perkily, they jump aside, doing their first exercise in vigilance against the best called man. Their panic brings the mother hen cluck-clucking to their aid.

The woman of the house thinks I have deliberately frightened the chicks and scolds me.

I am shame-filled. But I am not really feeling guilty.

Moti comes slinking by, mops up the remainders of the lentils, sniffs around for more and then looks to me.

I throw the bone for him.

Browine, Blackie and Ginger come pecking back to the grain, as soon as the ominous shadow of me is removed from within the orbit of their mother’s eyes.

The miracle goes on.

^*
From
Between Tears and Laughter
.

Part II

Tears at the
Heart of
Things

7

Lajwanti
^*

The loo of May flew into Lajwanti’s face like flames from the hearth of heaven. The sun from whose mouth the fiery breeze came seemed to be standing relentlessly behind, her, even as her heavy jowled brother-in-law, Jaswant, often stood, apparently to goad her on to work but really to draw her attention to himself. And, as the sweat moistened her hands, she tightened her grip on the handle of the cage in which her Maina bird sat, docile and dumb, under the oppression of the heat. But she persisted in her determination to trudge along to Gurgaon, where she hoped to catch the bus to her father ’s house in Pataudi.

‘Talk to me Maina-say something!

The Maina bird fluttered in the cage, perhaps to indicate to Lajwanti that she was alive.

‘I will give you water as soon as I get to the bus stop’. And, urged by the heat spots on her feet where the torn soles of her chappals exposed her flesh, she hurried towards the shade of a solitary mango tree which stood a little way away from the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road.

Once in the cool, she phewed several hot breaths, wiped the nape of her neck with the end of her head cloth, then forgetfully smudged her face with the soiled dupatta, licked her palate with her tongue, put down the cage of the Maina bird, and looked in the direction of Gurgaon.

The dense heatmist enveloped everything. But, beyond the green grove of mangoes, half a mile ahead, she could see the outline of the old caravanserai.

Quickly, she lifted the cage and went forward. She had the echo augury that Jaswant would be hot on her trail, as soon as her mother-in-law realised that she, Lajwanti, had not returned from the well for more than two hours. And he had a bicycle.

‘Come then my little Maina, we shall soon be there…’

The exalted bungalows of the police lines of Gurgaon, sequestered behind hedges, under tall trees, quenched the thirst of her eyes. The green leaves of neem trees were like cool sherbet to her spirit. And there seemed to be a confectioner’s shop where she might be able to drink a tumbler of whey and give the Maina a little feed and water.

Somehow, the last lap of a foot journey is always the most arduous. Her legs seemed to drag along. And the burning on the exposed parts of her soles became unbearable. And the echo augury about Jaswant catching up on her enveloped her mind. And she was nearly at the end of her tether. And yet she pushed forward, as though she was possessed by the demon of flight.

There was a moment of weakening as the Maina became utterly still; and, without looking to see, she felt that the bird might have fainted with the heat and died.

And in the panic of this premonition, she felt the chords of guilt choke her dry throat: She might have borne the humiliation. She might have given in to Jaswant. She could have closed her eyes. Her husband Balwant was away at College. Her benevolent father-in-law would not have known. And the mother-in-law, who wanted son’s son, more than anything else, would not have worried, even if she had come to know, because she favoured Jaswant, who worked on the land and not Balwant who wanted to be a clerk.

‘Talk to me Maina… Don’t go away from me… If you go I too will be finished…’

As the bird did not even flutter, her heart seemed to sink, and the sweat just poured down her body.

‘Maybe, I am being superstitious,’ she said to herself. ‘I should have done a magic ceremony on the cross-roads of Hauz Khas to ensure my safe arrival in Pataudi. And, then God would have kept my enemies dispersed…’

Destiny spread the length of dumb distance before her, however. And, facing the emptiness, she felt as though the whole earth was opposed to her. And she wanted to kneel down before the Almighty for all the sins for which she was being punished.

‘Oh gently, gently, show me the path!’ she cried out in her soul.

At that juncture, she heard the sinister shout of Jaswant: ‘Stop, mad woman, or I shall kill you!’

She did not look back, because she knew the authentic accent of her brother-in-law’s voice. She merely ran, with the instinct to fly, to get away, out of his reach, to the group of men who were resting by the confectioner’s shop.

The Maina bird fluttered its wings wildly. And now that it apprehended disaster, it shrieked and cried.

‘Stop…’ The voice of doom repeated itself.

Descending into the pit of confusion. Lajwanti was lost in the primal jungle of turmoil. The tortures of hell awaited her. But, perhaps she could make it.

“Lajwanti,” Jaswant called in a more mellow voice.

This startled her, weakened her, and made her regret she had not given in.

She fairly ran, about twenty yards before the confectioner ’s shop. Jaswant passed by her, on his bicycle. Then he descended and, putting the machine athwart, barred her way.

Lajwanti conjured up in her downcast eyes the smile of horror that beamed on his heavy, pockmarked face.

She swerved away and outflanked him by diving into the ditch and making for the confectioner’s shop from the side of the depression.

He dragged the bicycle and raced up to her.

After he had reached the confectioner’s shop, he dropped the machine and ran towards her with an enveloping movement.

Lajwanti fell into his outstretched arms almost like a willing victim.

But once she became aware of the hard embrace of the wild beast, she recoiled back, to free herself.

Again she ran.

Startled, he turned and chased her, catching, her by the headcloth before she could sit down on the wooden bench by the confectioner’s shop.

‘Why did you run away?’ he asked. ‘Have you no shame?… Look, folks…’

The straggling peasants looked nonchalantly at the scene, without coming any nearer. And three school boys came and stared.

‘Let me go — I want to go to my father ’s house,’ Lajwanti said, without lifting her gaze to Jaswant.

The Maina bird fluttered in the cage.

‘No, you are returning to your husband’s home!’ Jaswant ground the words. And he twisted her wrist as she tried to get out of his grasp.

‘Brute!’ she cried. And, without shedding any tears, she began to sob. ‘Leave me alone!… Let me give the Maina some water to drink…’

The throttling growth of Jaswant’s bestiality gripped her young body and he shouted hoarsely:

‘Prostitute! Bad woman! Running away!…

What will our brotherhood think? — you disgracing us like this!…’

Lajwanti collapsed in a huddle at his feet.

The brother-in-law hit her with his right foot.

At this the confectioner half got up from his greasy cushion and appealed:

‘Ohe, do not hit her. Persuade her to go back with you…’ But as the woman sat mutely like a bundle, the tangled undergrowth of Jaswant’s emotions became concentrated into the fury of his stubborn, frustrated will. He slapped her on the head with his loose right hand.

Lajwanti gave herself to the torment and sat dumbly, suppressing even her sobs.

And now a crowd of passers-by gathered to see the fun, but no one intervened.

The grip of frightfulness lingered in the crevices of light before Lajwanti’s hooded eyes.

Grating of brakes and the dragging of wheels brought Engineer Din Dayal’s jeep to a sudden halt, twenty yards ahead of the confectioner’s shop.

‘Go quickly ’, Shrimati Sushila Dayal ordered her husband. ‘I saw him slapping the woman.’

‘Let us find out what’s what before getting excited,’ said the dour, taciturn engineer. And he turned to the confectioner: ‘What has happened? Who are they?’

‘Sir, it seems the girl has run away from her father-in-law’s house and wants to go to her father’s house… But her brother-in-law came and caught her…’

Shrimati Dayal jumped out of the jeep and ran ahead of her husband.

‘Cowards! Get aside! Looking on! As though this is a fun fair!’

The crowd scattered and revealed Jaswant holding Lajwanti by the head cloth, which he had twisted into his hand with the plait of her hair.

‘Leave her alone!’ Shrimati Dayal ordered.

‘Sister, she has ran away from her husband’s house,’ appealed Jaswant. ‘And our good name is at stake!’

‘She must have come away for a good reason,’ Shrimati Dayal said.

‘Where has she come from?’

‘From near Hauz Khas,’ Jaswant said.

‘Hai-on foot?.. Ten miles? She has walked.’ Jaswant nodded his head.

‘Poor child!’ Shrimati Dayal said turning to her husband.

‘I will not allow the girl to die of a heat stroke. Put her in the jeep and let us take her home.’

‘I will not let her go now that I have caught her’ Jaswant said timid but frontal.

‘I will call the police and hand you over!’ threatened Shrimati Dayal.

‘Anyhow,’ Engineer Din Dayal counselled Jaswant, ‘Come and talk things over at my house… Persuade her to go back with you. Don’t force her…’

‘Come along,’ said Shrimati Dayal lifting Lajwanti even as she brusquely extricated the twisted plait of the girl’s hair our of Jaswant’s grip.

‘Give me the Maina to hold,’ Jaswant bullied his sister-in-law.

Lajwanti merely nodded her head in negation and proceeded.

In the cool shade of the verandah of Engineer Dayal’s bungalow, Lajwanti removed the hood of her headcloth and revealed her tender, tear-striken eyes and said:

‘Give me some water for the Maina, mother.’ ‘Gurkha,’ Shrimati Dayal called her servant. ‘Give some cool water to all of us… make it lime and water… Simple water for the bird…’

The servile Gurkha, more taciturn than the engineer, took in everything at a glance and went towards the kitchen.

‘Why did you beat the girl? Shrimati Dayal asked Jaswant.

‘Time after time we have told her,’ said Jaswant, ‘That her husband has only one year more to do at college before he finishes his B.A. But she wishes to be with him or go to her father’s house.’

‘Mother, he is a liar!’ Lajwanti shrieked.

‘You must have oppressed her very much to make her say this of you!’ said engineering Dayal.

‘Sire, we have been good to her,’ pleaded Jaswant. ‘She comes from a poor home. My father is Chaudhuri Ganga Ram, Sarpanch of the whole village… I have a wife too, but she is a gentle woman from a big house…’

‘Like a cow,’ Lajwanti flared up. ‘And you want many more views.’

‘Don’t bark!’ — Shameless one! Or I will hit you!’ Jaswant said.

At this Shrimati Dayal got up with a cool deliberation of her torso and delivered a clean slap on Jaswant’s face and said:

‘How do you like this? — If someone else hits you’!’. The man was taken completely unawares. He sat with his mouth open but speechless.

‘ That is what I should have done when he tried to approach me!’ said Lajwanti, her head turned demurely away from the engineer.

‘Clearly, this girl is not happy with your family.’ said the Engineer. ‘Let her go back to her father ’s house till her husband has finished his studies. And then she can come back to your family.’

‘That is right!’ added Shrimati Dayal. ‘I will not allow the child to be in your grip. You can have one wife and not two…’

In the quivering scale pans of balance, created by the voices of injustice, Lajwanti felt the first moment of calm which had come to her during two long years. But immediately she felt the fear of Jaswant’s revenge for the slap he had received on the face. She looked at the Maina and said in speechless speech: ‘Angel, suppose there is a cool place, somewhere in the world where we two can rest..’

‘Ask her to decide,’ Jaswant said, ‘If she goes to her father’s house, she can never come back to us. If she comes back with me, we might consider sending her for a little while to her father’s house.’

‘Tell him what you feel, girl?’ said Shrimati Dayal.

‘I want to go to my father’s house, and never want to set foot on their threshold again,’ answered Lajwanti.

‘ There!’ said Shrimati Dayal. ‘ That is her answer for you… and if you are a decent man, go back to your home. 1 will see the girl to the bus which takes her to Pataudi…’ And, she turned to her husband for confirmation of her decision.

‘ That’s right!’ the Engineer said. ‘Gurkha!’ Shrimati Dayal called.

‘Coming, Bibiji, the servant answered. And he appeared with lime water for all and a little plain water and cummin seed for the Maina bird.

Lajwanti arrived with the cage of the Maina bird in her hand, at her father’s house, when the old man was just going out to bathe his buffalo at the well. He stood open-eyed and open-mouthed, asking himself whether what he saw was his daughter or her ghost. When she bent down to take the dust off his feet, he could smell the acrid summer sweat of her clothes and knew that it was Lajwanti. He dared not look at her face, because a daughter coming back home without due ceremony, was inauspicious. Gentle as he was, however, he did not ask any questions. Only, he called to his young son, who was chopping up fodder for the buffalo.

‘Indu, your eldest sister has come. Wake up, your little sister, Moti…’

Lajwanti was sad for her father. She knew that a man who had borne the grinding pressures of years of survival on one bigha and a buffalo, and whose wife had died leaving him with two small children, was in no condition to receive a grown-up married daughter, who had returned without even the proverbial bundle of clothes to change into.

Indu left into the chopper and rushed towards her, clinging to her legs as though he saw the ghost of his mother standing by the door. To be sure, Lajwanti looked the split image of her mother. Only mother had become sallow with lungs, while Lajo’s colouring was pucca brown, and gave richness to the small even face, with the fine nose, flawed by a big tatoo mark on her chin.

Tears welled into Lajwanti’s eyes at the warmth of the boy ’s embrace.

‘Look at this poor Maina,’ she said. ‘She had come all the way with me from New Delhi.’

The young boy grabbed the cage from his sister ’s hand and soon forgot about Lajwanti in the effort to make the bird talk.

‘I should give her some lentils to eat and a little water,’ Lajwanti said, sitting on the threshold of the verandah.