Bela Singh bellowed at Puri, ‘Can’t you see that I have no money to buy clothes to cover our bodies and fill our bellies, and you are telling me to go to court! I know you. It’s your government that makes laws, and it’s the government that decides court cases. I’d have thought of myself as a good-for-nothing, someone who was not fit to live and would have jumped in a well with my family if Dasauda Singh had taken away my land on his own. But it was your police that threw me out of my land, so now your police should give me another land or you give it to me. You uprooted me from Naroha, so I found shelter in Mundari. And now I’ve been thrown out of there. If we have to die from hunger and cold, we’ll do it here before your eyes so that you can have peace of mind.’
Puri turned his back to put an end the conversation, and said, ‘It was the police that threw you out, so go and stage your protest at their doorstep.’
‘Why did you come to ask us for vote?’ Bela Singh again bellowed. ‘I’ve petitioned everyone. How do I know who’s police, who’s the deputy, what’s session, and who’s the lord vizier? You asked for my vote promising me that you’ll get me justice.’
Puri went into the sitting room. Kanak and Gill followed him. Gill closed the door behind him.
Kanak asked Puri, ‘You are tired, must also be hungry. What’d you like to have?’
Puri was tired, but had eaten lunch. He asked for a cup of tea, and began to tell Gill about the discussions in Amritsar on the question of Hindi and Punjabi languages. Kanak went to the back veranda to check on Jaya.
Bela Singh continued his satyagraha in the front veranda. His baby daughter would begin to cry after every few minutes. Kanak had tea served in the back veranda. Jaya had already had her milk, but insisted on having tea with her parents. Kanak seated her on a chair beside her. On hearing
the baby cry from the other veranda, Jaya repeated to her mother what she had heard from Amma, ‘Mummy, the children that cry are bad.’
Kanak said that it was so.
Gill asked Jaya, ‘Babli, if I drink your tea, will you cry?’ Jaya widened her eyes, shook her curly hair and said uncertainly, ‘I won’t give you my tea.’
Puri encouraged his daughter, ‘Babli, give your tea to uncle. Say, you can have mine, I’ll get some more for myself.’
When Jaya did not agree to part with her tea, Gill said, pretending to reach for her katori, ‘I’m going to take it.’
Jaya shouted, ‘No!’ She looked at him angrily and raised her chubby arm to hit him.
Suppressing her smile, Kanak said as if shocked, ‘Hai, Babli! One does not hit uncle. One gives
laddi
, kisses to uncle.’
‘Is she any the less than Bela Singh? She’s ready to fight for her tea,’ Gill said to Puri. ‘She’ll also learn to talk tactfully when she becomes an MLA.’
Kanak smiled. She liked that comment on Puri.
‘Hoon!’ Puri turned his head and looked at Gill, ‘Comrades will always support violence.’
‘That’s true,’ Kanak gave her support also to Puri.
‘Why, isn’t it violence to take away Jaya’s tea?’ Gill asked. Since Kanak and Puri had laughed once at the joke, it fell flat.
The sound of the baby crying could be heard again.
Kanak said, ‘It’d have been better if the size of every farmer’s family and their needs were taken into account at the time of the allocation of land to the big farmers. Those who got none are bound to want some.’
‘What if a farmer’s family has grown?’ Gill asked with a smile, then said in a serious tone, ‘Bhai, the same system should apply to agricultural land as it is applied to all other means of production. When people have no resources to do business or trade, they can find work in mills and factories, or do clerical work in offices. In the same way, those who own no arable land should be able to find work as farm labours. Or else, all means of production should be nationalized…’
Puri interrupted Gill to make an important point, ‘How can Punjab disobey the law as it is applied in the rest of the country. The Constitution says that government cannot interfere in private ownership of property and the freedom to do business.’
‘Does the Constitution not promise everyone the opportunity to earn a livelihood in a welfare state? It also mentions nationalization of means of production for the benefit of the people. It is reasonable, to a certain extent, to allow people to continue to own private property, but the evacuee property has been declared to be national property before its reallocation began. If somebody had been a big landowner in western Punjab, why should that person be allowed to claim a share of the national property bigger than others? Instead of reallocating the land, the people should have been given a chance to do collective farming on it.’ Kanak replied to Puri and Gill.
‘How can you say that?’ Puri cut her short. ‘How can half the country have the freedom to do business and the other half be subject to the nationalization of means of production? Those who had to abandon large properties and agricultural lands in the west…’
‘Is it the government’s responsibility to keep the first half rich?’ Kanak also cut Puri short. ‘Then why did the government say that its policy was nationalization of resources and means of production?’
‘Nationalization! Nationalization! What would you achieve by parroting the word like the communists?’ Puri said irritably. ‘The first important thing is to increase the production, not to let the established means of production go to ruin. What would the nationalization of poverty and hunger accomplish?’
The sound of Bela Singh speaking loudly came again. Hari came to tell Puri that a visitor named Amar Singh had come to meet him.
Puri got up and went to the front veranda. Bela Singh was telling his story to Amar Singh in a voice that the people gathered outside the boundary wall could also hear. He continued to declare his unfair treatment to the onlookers even when Amar Singh had stepped into the living room.
For the next two hours Puri tried to ignore Bela Singh’s presence, but how long could he tolerate someone blatantly denouncing him in his own house and making him an object of ridicule! Puri said to Kanak, ‘Go to his wife and explain to her that they must leave our house. If they agree, give them something to eat. But get them out of here. How long can we go on being prisoners in our own home?’
Kanak’s attempt to cajole Bela Singh’s wife bore no fruit. He agreed to take some more food for his children, but the couple refused to end their hunger strike and leave the bungalow.
Puri issued a final warning to Bela Singh in stern voice, ‘It’s not satyagraha
to stage a sit-down in someone’s home. It’s a crime to enter someone’s home unlawfully. If you and your family leave immediately, I’ll try to help you get some land in Ram Nagar or Saboot Garh. If you are not out in ten minutes, I’ll call the police to throw you out.’
‘Who do you think you are? Our fate is not in your hands, but in the hands of Waheguru. You can do what you want! I was beaten up with lathis by the British government police. I’d like to have a taste of lathis of your Congress police. You just sit and enjoy yourself, and leave us to our fate.’
Puri waited not for ten, but for thirty minutes, while he made conversation. ‘Things are getting tough everyday. The public thinks that independence has given them the right to create disorder. The other day, a man claiming to be a writer threw himself in front of the President’s motorcade. He had a bundle of papers under his arm. He appealed to the President that he had gone to prison for the sake of the country’s freedom, and was now devoting time in the service of literature, but his family was starving …
‘The President is a pussycat, really. He told the chief minister to do something for the man. Now the same writer, who can’t write even one sentence correctly, wants his book to be included in the syllabus. What an extraordinary way to ask for charity! If you refuse them, you risk being unpopular with them. The public expects so much in return of giving a vote to you. They just want you to give in to their every demand. The government has lost all prestige.’
Puri telephoned the police station and explained the situation to the station officer. A police lorry arrived shortly afterwards. Bela Singh lay down like a martyr to the cause of satyagraha, and began to shout, ‘Vande mataram! Inquilab Zindabad! Satsiri akaal!’ A crowd of curious onlookers quickly gathered again outside the boundary wall.
The policemen threatened Bela Singh with lathis and offered to explain to him the real meaning of serving the cause of satyagraha.
Kanak was watching from inside. She stood near the door and pleaded in English with the police inspector, ‘Please do not handle them roughly. Just take them away.’
Bela Singh’s wife and the baby in her lap burst out crying when two constables grabbed the Sikh by his shoulders and feet. As the constables carried the man to the lorry, he shouted, ‘People, look! Look at the height of cruelty! I was on hunger strike to get justice! They are taking me to jail.’
Bela Singh’s wife was terrified. She had no clue where the police might take her husband. Holding her daughter in her arms and crying, she led her two sons into the lorry. Bela Singh was still shouting slogans when the lorry drove off.
Puri had gone to Simla to attend the meeting of the Transport Advisory Committee. He saw the latest issue of
Nazir
there. He was very upset when he read the editorial. From the language and the style he knew that the editorial on the topic of nationalization and allocation of evacuee properties had been written by Kanak. ‘She should have consulted me before writing on this subject,’ Puri thought. In the past such wilful behaviour by Kanak had caused him problems. He was also angry with Gill for not vetting the editorial.
There were people around Sood who were jealous of the patronage that Puri enjoyed and who were not averse to backbiting. When Puri went to meet Sood, he took Puri to task for his carelessness, ‘What’s going on? Is this how what’s-its-name
Nazir
intends to help me?’
Sood had no time to read the editorial. He was told the gist of what was in it. In order to keep his self-respect, Puri tried to answer diplomatically, ‘Bhaiji, the editorial does not criticize the government or any action of the administration. It simply presents another viewpoint about the policy regarding the allocation of arable land.’
Sood kept exceedingly busy. He had no time for splitting linguistic hairs or for going into details. He was constantly surrounded by sycophants and yes-men. How could he tolerate one of his protégés or subordinates talking back to him?
Sood chastized Puri, ‘You can’t fool me! The purpose of what’s-its-name weekly is to make fun of me? You say it was nothing important. If it wasn’t, how come others noticed it? If you keep on like this, I’ll have what’s-its-name weekly closed and the press locked up. I don’t want any of this.’
Puri felt dizzy with anger. He remembered how he had once refused to put up with Kashish’s threats and his insulting behaviour in a similar situation in Lahore, and had not cared about losing his only source of livelihood. But it wasn’t a one-hundred-rupee job that was at stake now. Even when there was no reason to fear that Sood’s displeasure could destroy him in one fell swoop and he was not willing to allow anybody to browbeat him into submission, he was being held back by his roots that had spread far and wide.
Puri decided not to let his heart rule his head. ‘I call Soodji “bhaiji”,’ he thought. ‘It’s unreasonable of me to feel insulted by his criticism. It was nothing but mischief-making by those who tattle to him on me.’
The squabble between Puri and Kanak over Tara–Sheelo affair had ended. It was peace in the house, but the feeling of closeness, the spontaneity and the giving in to sudden impulses of their first months together was not there. In the light of their past quarrels, Puri took Kanak’s editorial as a blatant act of disobedience. He thought: She has regard for no one.
On his way back from Simla, Puri was full of angry feelings for Kanak. Whenever he was annoyed with Kanak for her stubborn attitude and her coldness towards him, the memory of Urmila’s adoring behaviour comforted his bruised ego. Urmila may have been away from him, but she was still infatuated with him even after having suffered from his hands.
It had become quite easy for Puri to meet Urmila after his election to the assembly. She had finished her training a year ago, and had been posted as a staff nurse at a Simla hospital. As there was no other way to contact her, Puri had gone to meet her at the hospital and had spoken to her for a few minutes in the hospital veranda. Puri had told her that she could come to see him without fear in the MLA quarters.
Puri had met Urmila several times during the next five years. When she had visited him for the first time in his quarter, he had told her, in a voice choked with tears, about his unbroken love for her and his feeling of helplessness. He had talked about the promise he had made to her at the time to their brief meeting in Ludhiana, and had reassured her that although he now had a wife at home, his heart was still with Urmila. That although he was unfortunately already engaged to Kanak in Lahore, he had never wanted to marry anyone but Urmila after being with her in Jalandhar. As the house and the press had belonged to Sood, he had to keep quiet at that time, but he had decided to try to find a solution. Puri had reminded her, ‘That’s why I told you not to worry when you were leaving. I couldn’t find you when I went back to the hospital the next day. I was told that you had gone to Amritsar. I searched for you in Amritsar, but I was out of luck. It was only after eight months that I found out about your posting in Ludhiana. How abrupt you were with me when we met in Ludhiana, but I still couldn’t forget you and went to meet you again.’
What Puri had said was not true, but it was from his heart. Every nerve in his body had been taut from a longing for Urmila. In Urmila’s bright brown eyes, he had seen the reflection of his own feelings.
She had come to meet him at 6.30 p.m. They had been alone in the room, with curtains over the door and the windows. She had sat in a chair next to him. When Puri had tried to take her hand into his, she had pulled her hand free and shifted positions to be away from him.