Tara felt as if Shyama was talking about something repugnant, like a disease. She said, sighing deeply, ‘Didi, why let it bother us? Can’t one live without it?’
‘How can one live without it?’ Shayma said ruefully. ‘Is it not self-torture to suppress and deny one’s natural urges? What is natural for the married is also natural for the unmarried. One does try to restrain oneself. Then something happens while you believe that you are trying to restrain yourself, trying to live without it.’ Shyama, hand supporting her temple, fell silent.
Tara offered her opinion, ‘Can’t love also imply self-restraint?’
Shyama heaved a sigh, and said, ‘Is yearning for something love? Doesn’t love mean a deep sense of fulfilment that makes life worthwhile? Maybe it’s only desires of the flesh, but what else is our heart, our brain. If you cut up my body you won’t find thoughts of love stored in my heart or brain. The desire and thought of love are expressed in the form of physical attraction.’
Shayma again let out a despairing sigh, ‘At times I thought of seeking an answer by losing myself in some spiritual pursuit, but my heart wasn’t in it. How could I force myself into developing a belief in something? Some can, and do. There are women who believe that witchcraft can help them have a child, and are willing to risk their lives for it. Can you or I believe in such things?’
Tara said after a moment’s thought, ‘Didi, we have to observe the rules of the society we live in. We may feel hungry, but we have to be able to learn to control our hunger.’
‘First experience hunger for a few days, then talk about it,’ Shyama said, looking into Tara’s eyes.
‘I have remained hungry for up to three days, and have eaten barely anything for days on several occasions, didi. I have seen people fight over scraps of food. And others who did not. One’s dignity and self-respect means something, for which one may sacrifice one’s life.’
Shyama listened wide-eyed as Tara briefly described the incident of her confinement in the house in Shaikhupura. She remained quiet for some time after Tara finished, then asked, ‘Are you willing to believe that it was your karma?’
‘How can I? Why should I believe that God made others commit sins so that I could have my bad karma? I had to tolerate it because there was
nothing I could do to prevent it. There’s a limit to what one can do.’
Shyama said after a few moments’ silence, ‘I really tried hard to keep away. But De got very upset.’
Tara said, after some thought, ‘But, didi, they have three children. What’ll happen to them?’
‘What threat do they face? It’s that wretch who’s creating the scare. What have I taken away from her, let her tell me. She’s eaten up with jealousy, she resents that her husband has a few moments of happiness. Pride of possession, what else? And jealousy! All she does is live off her husband’s money and grumble about everything. De’s mother still manages the house. They have a cook, an ayah. It was that wretched woman that first began doing hanky-panky with other men. De felt too ashamed to admit it to anyone. He stopped talking to that wretch. Once he had even thought of committing suicide by swallowing poison. There was a time when a man could cut off the head of a woman like her to save his honour. Nowadays all a man can do is hang his head in shame. She goes around trying to paint him as a demon. He swallows his anger and disgust, and keeps quiet. One day he was so distressed as to think that he’d close all the doors to the bungalow and set it afire so that they may all perish.’
Tara did not know what to say. She was lost in thought. ‘There is no end to pain and misfortune one may have to suffer. Some suffer physically, others suffer emotionally. My own misfortune, Banti’s misery, problems faced by Biddo’s grandmother and Mrs Agarwal, and by De, Sheelo and Shyama. When there is no other problem, it’s the unfulfilled desire to love and to be loved. Of all mistakes in the world, marital incompatibility is the worst. Was I spared that fate? But at what price? Had that rock been around my neck, only death could have saved me.
Shyama dropped Tara back at her flat after 10 p.m.
Purandei opened the door when Tara rattled the lock chain. Her face took on a serious expression, as if she had swallowed what was on the tip of her tongue.
Tara ignored her, ‘Anyone can think what he or she wants. I am responsible for myself.’
The whirlwind of excitement created by the forthcoming general elections had thrown the city of Delhi into disorder. Candidates from all political parties had come to the flats on Panchkuian Road to ask for votes and a
chance to be able to serve the country. Walls, doorways and even vehicles had been plastered with the posters of some party or other. Slogans, hailing one party or denouncing another, had been painted on walls. Some people, out of mischief, had painted messages on the backs of stray bulls that roamed in the streets. Boys were encouraged to tear up posters of rival parties, or to alter a slogan, by touching up with paint, into obscene graffiti. Children would, for the reward of two pieces of candy, first shout slogans for one and then for the rival party. Propriety and decorum were being ignored in the fervour to do good for the country and the people.
Tara was happy that Shyama had declined to be a Congress candidate and that Mrs Agarwal had not been given the Congress ticket. The Congress election campaign was the biggest and the most elaborate. The opposition parties that had entered the fray looked like a bunch of rams surrounding a huge elephant and fighting each other to be able to take on the elephant. The government officials knew that the Congress will form the next government. They were supporting the Congress with resigned servility.
Chaddha, Mercy and Mathur were in the thick of the chaos of elections. They too knew that despite an inefficient and corrupt administration, the Congress would win. The communists and the socialists denounced the Congress as the party of capitalists, and were calling for a government on the pattern of a workers’ state. They also criticized the Congress for enlisting the help of the administrative machinery in its election campaign.
The opposition had demanded that there should be a caretaker government on the British pattern during the elections, and the administration should be in the hands of a non-partisan executive. The Congress government had rejected such a demand. The bitterest rivalry was between the communists and the socialists. They knew that by dividing the anti-Congress vote they both would lose, but had been unable to form a joint front.
Tara and Narottam had largely been spared the frenzied activity of electioneering. Being government officials, they were not expected to participate in the election campaign. All processions, speeches and use of loudspeakers had to stop twenty-four hours before the polling day in accordance with the rules. In the sudden silence after days of raucous campaigning and harrowing din, Tara felt as if the city had been deserted by its inhabitants.
These were the first general elections in independent India. Polling day was a public holiday, and Narottam did not have to go to work. He had
little interest in any single political party’s fortunes, but he was curious about the outcome, as one is in the result of a horse race. Harsukh Ram, his neighbour, had bet him fifty rupees that the candidate for the Jana Sangh party would win. Mr Agarwal’s friend Rai Navin Chandra was contesting as an independent against a Congress candidate. Narottam drove to some polling stations in the western part of the city, and found the scene rather interesting. Every political party had set up a camp near a polling station, and workers from different parties were vying with each other to present the arriving voters with slips of paper showing their identification number from the electoral rolls. Party volunteers were particularly polite and courteous towards the voters. Arrangement had been made in the tents of some independent candidates for the voters to partake of refreshments and paan.
Narottam spotted Miss Deva on the footpath of a bazaar near the Kashmiri Gate, and offered her a lift in his car. She was on her way to Faiz Bazaar. After waiting for the bus in a queue for some time, she had tried to get a taxi, but all taxis had been hired by one political party or another for their own use. Taxis had also been hired in advance to deny their use by a rival political party.
Deva, who was really peeved, said, ‘Do the police not know that it is unlawful to offer transportation to voters?’
Narottam replied with a laugh, ‘Is it lawful to offer refreshments to the voters?’
After giving Deva a ride to Faiz Bazaar, Narottam drove on to his home in New Delhi. Later is the day, he thought, ‘This carnival atmosphere in the city is only for a day. One never knows if it will happen again or not in five years’ time? Why not go around one more time?’ Then he remembered that Tara had been appointed the supervising officer at the polling station in Sabzi Mandi. ‘I should go and check up on her. What would the poor soul do if she can’t find a taxi to get back home? I could give her a lift.’
Narottam found Tara in the midst of a messy situation at her polling station. A short while ago, a crowd of agitated people had surrounded the desk where she sat. A man with the badge with an emblem of a clay lamp, the symbol of Jana Sangh, had accused another man wearing an emblem of a pair of oxen, representing the Congress, with offering money in exchange of ballot papers. Several Jana Sangh workers had surrounded the alleged culprit, and had demanded that he should be immediately searched. The man thus charged had refused to be searched.
Tara had referred the matter to the police.
The Jana Sangh workers had insisted that the search should be carried out in their presence.
Tara’s reply had been, ‘My responsibility and duty is not to search the accused, but to hand him over to the police. I cannot do anything more than that.’
The police had taken the suspect to the police station to conduct a search on him.
The Jana Sangh workers were now accusing Tara of favouritism, and that the police of the Congress raj was not likely to find any incriminating evidence on the accused.
A jeep of the Election Department was standing by to take Tara to her home, but she decided to go in Narottam’s car. Narottam asked her what the matter was.
‘Let’s first get out of here. I’ll explain when we reach home,’ Tara said tiredly.
Narottam drove by Sadar Bazaar to be able to check upon Chaddha who was at a polling station in that area.
Chaddha was with a man called Brij Behari, an associate of Prasadji, with whom Narottam had a nodding acquaintance. He had to offer both a ride.
The polling was over. There was no point in getting worked up any more over canvassing for votes. The soldiers in the battle for votes could now relax, and have a friendly conversation. Brij Behari was accusing Chaddha that the communists were encouraging caste prejudices and a certain partisanship by telling voters from the lower castes not to cast their vote for the Brahmin candidates.
Chaddha tried to lay the responsibility entirely at his door, ‘You are accusing communists for encouraging caste bigotry when your own chief ministers of Congress government preach sectarian fanaticism in their election rallies. In a public meeting in Lucknow, the chief minister of UP said that the atheists are not afraid to commit a sin. How did belief in God become synonymous with the Congress party and nationalism? The Congress party workers say in election rallies that all women would be regarded as public property under a communist government.’
Narottam interrupted him, ‘Comrade, you are just having a good gossip!’
‘I myself heard it said.’
‘Does that mean that these people are either ignorant or plain frauds?’ Narottam asked.
‘All is fair in love and election,’ Brij Behari said, enjoying Chaddha’s frustration. ‘Comrade, you could not take even one punch from me. How would you compete with the mighty Congress? You want to know how a propaganda campaign can perform a miracle at the time of elections? Let me tell you about an incident from the 1937 elections, when the first Congress ministry was formed. At that time the Congress candidate who was an ordinary woman defeated the well-known public figure C.Y. Chintamani, the editor of the
Leader
newspaper.’
‘It made history!’ Chaddha said, touching his ear. ‘That was a classic.’
‘Why, what happened?’ Narottam was curious.
‘Yes, please tell us,’ Tara also said.
‘Arey bhai, Chintamani was a well-known Indian liberal, who decided to take on the Congress. He had been the editor of the only national English daily published from Allahabad for the past twenty years. His opponent, the Congress candidate was a Rajput woman, and the constituency was in the rural area near Agra. Our country, as you know, has only 10 per cent literacy, and very few of these know English. Who could read English in the countryside and who would have known about the editor of an English newspaper, C.Y. Chintamani? The Congress fellows told the voters, “Listen, bhai! Would you vote for the daughter of a Rajput or for
bai
Chintamani, the prostitute from Allahabad?” Who would have voted for a bai? The Congress candidate won. Chintamani went and whined before Gandhiji.’
‘This shows the typical modus operandi of those who control the mass media. This is an example of the freedom of speech under a capitalist democracy and of the non-violence preached by the Congress,’ Chaddha quipped.
‘That’s the limit. What did Gandhiji say?’ Narottam asked.
‘Gandhiji was very sad, but what could he do?’
‘No, what I wanted to ask was if Gandhiji went on fast to oppose the result and to force the Congress candidate to resign?’
‘As I said, all is fair in love and war, and elections are war. This was none of Gandhiji’s business.’
Narottam stopped the car below Tara’s flat. Tara had to say out of politeness, ‘Come upstairs. You are all very tired. A cup of tea.’
Chaddha accepted. Narottam also had no objection. Brij Behari decided to join them.
Narottam asked Tara, ‘So, what was the problem about buying and selling ballot papers at your polling station? They put a mark on your hand and you can’t go again into the polling booth.’