Azad began to cough and wheeze heavily. Gill tried to pacify him by saying ‘It’s all right! That’s enough!’ but Azad kept up his tirade between bouts of a hacking cough.
Kanak’s face fell at Azad’s rebukes, but she managed to reply, ‘Respected brother, the Congress and Gandhiji cannot be blamed for their mistakes. Gandhiji did what God asked him to do, but the communists claim to be guided by rational considerations only.’
Azad reflected for a few moments with his mouth open, then clapped his hands and burst into laughter, ‘Arrey, she’s very quick, really a sharp young woman!’
Gill and Kanak told Azad to bring his family to Jalandhar, and gave assurances that they would be looked after.
Puri also expressed sympathy for Azad, ‘He has suffered because of his political beliefs. We really don’t require another employee, but let’s try and accommodate him at the press. I don’t think I’ll be able to pay him more than forty or forty-five rupees per month.’
Gill pleaded for Azad, ‘They are a family of four. Even the most ordinary accommodation will not be available for less than ten or fifteen rupees monthly. He’ll need money also for his medical treatment. You’ve helped out so many people. Soodji has been very generous with assisting his supporters get official permits for buying and selling certain items. Visheshwar Dayal and Khem Singh got permits for five tons of tin. Soodji may not be a government minister for the moment, but he still is very influential. The government officials also know how powerful he is and that in six months from now he’ll be back in the new council of ministers. Get poor Azad a quota for at least one ton of some commodity. That way he won’t be a strain on you.’
Puri thought for a while, then said, ‘I could speak to someone, but Azad is a member of the Communist Party.’
‘Is he not a political sufferer? Are Communist Party members not political sufferers?’ Kanak cut in.
‘He indeed is a communist, but he’s old and sick,’ Gill said, to cool tempers. ‘He went to jail for revolutionary activities and also as a conscientious objector. The Communist Party is no longer illegal. The government should treat all political parties impartially.’
‘Yes, that’s true. Well, let me see what can be done,’ Puri conceded. ‘Perhaps all the permits have not yet been issued. Soodji also wanted political sufferers to get a small quota of permits.’
Puri spoke with some people and had Azad’s name included in a list of those who were to receive quotas for tin sheets. Gill was relieved that Azad now would be able to set up a small business, or lacking the necessary investment, could resell, as some others had done, his quota to another businessman and have a monthly income of 125 or 150 rupees. Delays continued to plague the quota allotment process. Sood had asked the district
supply officer to consult with him before issuing the new quotas, but was himself often absent, being in Delhi or Ambala or Simla.
In November Sood ordered the list to be redrafted. Azad’s name was dropped for Shankar Lal Mathani who got a quota for three tons of tin sheets.
Puri explained his helplessness to Kanak, ‘I tried my best but Soodji got the list altered. What could I do?’
Kanak blew up, ‘But you gave your word. Gillji has been supporting Azad for the past five months. Doesn’t Soodji realize what he did was unfair? Azad is a political sufferer, what has Mathani done for the country?’ ‘You don’t understand, so don’t just shoot your mouth off.’ Puri snapped back at her in English. ‘Mathani has a lot of influence in the Sindhi community. Azad can always be helped some other time.’
‘Shame on this election of yours, and on such lying politicians!’ Kanak blurted out, then realized that she had said too much and regretted her outburst.
‘What do you mean?’ Puri said with rage in his eyes. ‘Who do you think you are? I’m not your puppet!’
Kanak covered her face with her aanchal and went to the back veranda. Jaya screamed and burst into tears, but Puri continued to rant and rave for some time.
The rainy season was coming to an end. The deadline for the selection of textbooks prescribed in the state curriculum of Punjab was not far off. Suraj Prakash continued to drop in for a chat in the evenings. Kanak did not join in the conversations, nor did Puri discuss the matter with her, but Kanak knew that the textbooks were being revised and new ones introduced to bring about a change in the educational system. Suraj Prakash stood to gain from publishing and selling the textbooks and Puri from printing them in his press. A letterpress cylinder recently added to the Kamaal Press had been operating in day and night shifts in an improvised shed under a corrugated iron roof in the courtyard of the press. Puri also seemed relieved at the lightening of his financial worries. He had complained, on several occasions, about the ever-increasing difficulty in commuting to the office and about the time wasted in travelling to his social engagements, and had even wondered aloud, ‘If a small second-hand car could be found.’ Kanak had thought, ‘That’s not a bad idea.’
Himmat Rai, a retired accountant, lived in the bungalow next to Puri. Himmat Rai’s son Jivat Rai, a sub-inspector in the Coaching and Goods division in the Railways, was posted to Amritsar. God had blessed him generously with two sons and four daughters after just ten years of marriage. Since there was an acute housing shortage in Amritsar, Jivat Rai’s family was staying with his father.
Himmat Rai was often exasperated at the cost of his grandchildren’s schooling, ‘In my time, all we used until the primary school was a
takhti
wooden tablet and a slate for writing. We never bought the text and exercise books that are now required, until Matric. In my days, the eighth grade students had four, at the most five, textbooks. Now there’s no end to the subjects and the textbooks on the syllabus. The school bags have become bulky as a lawyer’s briefcase on his way to the law courts. And the children are neither taught nor do they learn anything at the school. Every day one of the kids needs a new textbook or an exercise book. How can poor people afford all this? Is this a way to spread education or to make it more difficult?’
Kanak knew that the state of her father’s finances was not very solid. Five textbooks published by him had been on the school curriculum before Partition, but the booksellers had failed to make payments due to him from the past. He had brought a used treadle printing machine after coming to Delhi, and in the following two years had managed to bring out only two rather inconsequential publications. Puri had made a special effort to have them prescribed as texts, but the textbook selection committee had eventually removed them from the list because of their poor availability.
Pandit Girdharilal was still struggling to re-establish himself as a textbook publisher. It was no longer possible to earn a respectable income by publishing literary books that sold at a trade discount of 33 per cent, and sometimes even more. Therefore, returns were too low, as Panditji had found, even if 500 copies of a literary work sold in a year. It was increasingly difficult to get a book prescribed as a text unless the publisher was able to advance royalties to the writers who had contacts to push the particular book onto the state school curriculum.
Panditji had written to Kanak that he had laboriously compiled a useful and interesting book on civic duties meant for teenagers, and was doing his best to present it before the next meeting of the textbook committee. Kanak had given the letter to Puri.
The day of the meeting arrived. The thought that Puri might forget about
her father’s book was constantly worrying Kanak, but the bitter memory of the Azad incident was still fresh in her mind. The fear of embarrassment and of losing face before Gill had made her blurt out harsh words, and she could not bear the thought of it happening again. ‘Who knows what assurances Puriji has given to other people? Would he again take my recommendations seriously?’
The families of Nayyar and Puri were finding less and less time to visit each other. Kanak’s mother had sent the customary presents for both her daughters to Kanta on the occasion of the Karwa chauth festival, and Kanak’s share had to reach her before the day of the festival. Kanta’s servant was down with fever; therefore, she herself had to bring the presents over to Kanak. Nayyar came along for a visit. The incident of Azad’s quota was less than a week old and the relations between Kanak and Puri were still strained. Kanak was careful to conceal the signs of the quarrel with her husband, especially from her brother-in-law, but Nayyar could guess something was amiss. He looked meaningfully into Kanak’s eyes, but acted as if he had not noticed anything.
Kanak had had a close and trusting relationship with her brother-in-law and some feeling of confidence in him that had once given her the courage to admit her love for Puri to Nayyar and ask for his support. She felt that she could die of embarrassment that her love for the same person was now causing her to feel ashamed to look Nayyar in the eye and having him feel sorry for her.
After Kanta and Nayyar left, Kanak sat brooding, ‘What has come over both of us? We no longer talk of love.’ But if she did feel a romantic urge lately, it subsided when she looked at Puri. She would remember how violently Puri had reacted with irritation, anger and self-disgust after their tender and intimate moments, and how he had talked about Urmila and boasted of his sexual prowess, and such memories would weigh her down with sadness.
Kanak reasoned with herself, ‘If it’s in his nature to behave that way, I can still love him. We are husband and wife, just like my sister and Nayyar.’
The next day was Karwa chauth, observed by married women all over the country as a fast day in the belief that they would have the same husband in the next life. Kanak did not believe in the ritual, but still observed the fast. She could not get up before sunrise to eat
saragi
to sustain her, yet decided to go without food all day, the thought of her argument with her husband deepening her sadness. She thought of what Panditji had written
in his letter, and realized that she was reluctant to ask her husband to help her father in his need. ‘Is this the beginning of a rift between us? What’s happening to our marriage?’
She reproached herself, ‘Can this rift between us be my fault? If it’s in his nature to behave in a certain way, he can’t help it.’ She resolved that she would not let her own nature get the better of her, that she would suppress her ego. All day she remained quiet and lost in her thoughts.
At the office, not eating anything or drinking water all day made her feel dizzy around five o’clock, so she had a cup of tea. She rang the bell to summon the peon and asked him to call a rickshaw for her.
Gill asked, ‘What’s the matter? You’re very quiet. Feeling well?’
‘I’m on a fast and haven’t eaten anything. I feel rather weak. I just need some rest,’ she tried to smile as she replied.
On reaching home Kanak could spend only a little time with Jaya before going to her room to lie down. She lay quietly, thinking about what had been on her mind all day and strengthening her resolve. It was growing dark, but Puri had not yet returned. She was beginning to nod off when Heeran came into the room and asked, ‘Beti, how are you? Want me to switch on the light?’
Kanak said, ‘I’m all right. Yes, switch on the light.’ She looked at her wristwatch—it was seven o’clock. She asked Heeran to switch off the light again and drifted in and out of sleep as she waited for Puri.
‘Come, beti, and look at the moon.’
Kanak had observed the fast in the past because it had been a custom in her family, but had seldom bothered to perform the rituals such as looking at the moon. Yet she got up and went to the veranda.
Heeran held a small lighted clay lamp and a flat sieve, and had put down a
patra
, the low wooden seat. Kanak had seen her mother perform the ritual, and had repeated it herself three years before when her mother-in-law was staying with her. Heeran had made all the preparations for the ceremony in the previous two years and Kanak had gone through the motions just to please her.
She stood on the patra, and took the lamp and the sieve from Heeran. She placed the lamp inside the sieve and raised it to look at the moon through it.
Heeran began to recite the Karwa mantra, ‘After adorning myself in sixteen different ways, I stand on this patra on my roof and make the offering…’
Kanak listened quietly but attentively to Heeran, with a good feeling in her heart. She made a silent wish for the long life and well-being of her husband.
Puri called out to the servant as he entered the house, ‘Chaila, give me dinner.’
Kanak got up when she heard Puri enter. She took out a fresh towel, went to the back veranda where Puri was sitting at the dining table, and said, ‘Here, take this and wash your hands and face. I’ll bring the thali of food to your room.’
Puri said, ‘What’s the matter with my face and hands? They’re all right.’
‘Hai, the streets are so dusty. Besides, going around one gets covered in sweat,’ Kanak said tenderly. ‘Chaila will bring you some water. I’ll get the food.’
Kanak brought food up in one thali for both of them. As they ate, what she wanted to say to him was on the tip of her tongue, but Puri was preoccupied with his own thoughts about the forthcoming elections, ‘The Congress will have to give at least forty seats to the Sikhs. The candidates of the Akali Dal will naturally be all Sikhs. There’s no chance for the Hindu candidates in the areas where the Sikhs are in the majority. That means that the Sikhs will also be in the majority in the Assembly. It can’t be helped, even if they are only 33 per cent of the population.’
After dinner, Kanak herself brought water for Puri to wash his hands, handed him the towel, and followed him to his room. As Puri lay down on his charpoy, she sat on its edge and came straight to the point, ‘Pitaji had written a letter about his new book, you remember?’
‘Hmm,’ Puri said, deep in thought. ‘It might be more difficult this time around. Well, I’ll speak to Jodh Singh about it. These people want bribes for even the smallest of favours.’
‘Ask them to read the book,’ said Kanak.