Tara thought of Kanak, ‘The poor thing fought with her family to marry the man she wanted. She stood with him shoulder to shoulder and shared his responsibilities. Why should she have accepted a traditional subservient role?’ Her thoughts turned to Kanchan, ‘It’d be good if she gets married to Narottam. She’s so worried about her father. Her father is very kindhearted. His health seems to have deteriorated lately. He used to live in such comfort in Lahore. Narottam talks about Kanchan hesitatingly and softly as if she might come to some harm if he took her name in a loud
voice. His parents will certainly be upset because Kanchan’s family is not well off, but they are not equal in stature to Panditji.’
Tara had always felt awkward acknowledging her lack of interest in her brother’s affairs. When she had gone to visit Kanchan, Panditji had talked to her affectionately about Puri and had said many good things about him. She had just nodded, as if she had heard such things about her brother many times.
Next morning Kunt came to Tara’s flat. On seeing her Tara said, ‘Hai, I forgot yesterday.’ She called Parsu and told him to take the sewing machine over to Saroj’s house. ‘Come, sit down for a minute,’ she said to Kunt. ‘Tell me, what caused all this fuss at your home?’
Kunt was about five years younger than Tara, and called Tara ‘bahinji’ in deference to her position among the neighbours. She caught Tara’s drift and said shyly, ‘Nothing, bahinji. There’s no fuss of any kind.’
‘But there is. Your mother has matched you up with a nice boy. Why are you refusing to get married to him?’
‘Ji, my mother has no idea what I want,’ Kunt replied. ‘My elder brother is no better. The boy gets a monthly salary of Rs 75, perhaps a hundred with allowances. He has a big family. They have a dairy buffalo, but no servant in the house.’
‘Won’t you ever get married?’
‘Bahinji, what’ll I get from getting married into a family like this and spend my life cooking and cleaning up after the buffalo?’
‘You want someone who earns five or seven hundred every month, has a car and servants?’
‘Bahinji, one should be able to live in comfort after marriage,’ Kunt said, with a bashful smile.
‘
Mari
, what will you do?’
‘What all other unmarried women are doing.’ Kunt bowed her head to hide her embarrassment.
Tara said seriously, ‘You get a salary from the school where you work. If you get married to someone earning 150 or 200, won’t you both have enough to live in comfort?’
‘Yes, bahinji, if there’s someone like that,’ Kunt agreed. ‘Bahinji, my friend Geeta works at the post office. She got married to a clerk in her office. Geeta’s salary is 125, her husband earns 175. They live fairly well. They have breakfast at home, eat out in the evening, and have time left for
fun. They pool their salaries to manage the house. Bahinji, many couples are doing the same. On Sundays when Geeta cooks at home, her husband does the dishes,’ Kunt said, giggling.
Tara was listening attentively. She said, ‘Just as they do in
vilayet
—Britain.’
‘Bahinji, what’s wrong with that. I like it that way.’
After Kunt left, Tara went back to thinking, ‘How circumstances change everything! How much girls like Kunt have changed in the past five or six years!’
THOUSANDS OF GIRLS AND WOMEN WERE SEARCHING FOR JOBS IN DELHI, BUT
only those with connections had been able to find one. How could Kanak, who had just come to live in the city, get a job immediately? After working and keeping busy for the past five years, idly sitting around was beginning to try her patience. Tara consulted Miss Saxena, the deputy secretary of the Department of Social Development, and found out about the vacancy for a temporary women welfare inspector at the Community Development Centre in Aliganj, twenty-seven miles from Delhi. Miss Saxena’s advice was that if Kanak was willing to face the hassle of living in a village for a few months, that experience will make her eligible for selection for a better paying and permanent position at one of the training centres in the city. Kanak agreed to take up the job.
Jaya was four years old and had to be enrolled in a kindergarten, Montessori or convent school. She had been going to nursery in Jalandhar. If Kanak were to leave the child in Delhi for the sake of schooling, how many responsibilities could Kanchan take on? Kanchan left home early in the day for her college that was far from home. Kanak’s mother was mostly bedridden. Kanak took Jaya along to Aliganj.
Kanak was provided with living quarters and a woman helper in Aliganj. Her duties included visiting several places during the day, and the woman helper was to escort her on those visits. There was no one to leave Jaya with, so Kanak had to take her along even if seeing unfamiliar people wearing strange dresses frightened her city-bred daughter. How could she leave Jaya behind to play with half-naked, dirty, emaciated and bloated-bellied village children? There was the fear of catching some disease from everything one touched and the air one breathed. Kanak had to go to some shockingly unclean and germ-infested parts of the village, but the entire place was like that and Kanak was being paid to look after people living in those conditions. To keep Jaya away from villagers and their children was like treating them with disgust. But to let Jaya mingle with them was to push her in the jaws of disease.
This was Kanak’s first encounter with the so-called serene and unaffected
ambience of villages. Her family had been well off and lived in a modern city, in a house that had electric light and fans, a modern bathroom and other essential facilities. She could only dream of such luxuries in Aliganj. To stay in that village was like a severe punishment. But her conscience told her: If 90 per cent of the country’s population could live in similar conditions, why couldn’t she? It was her duty to do something more for the country than just make a living. Wasn’t it an anomaly to sit under the fan in the weekly’s office, have tea or sip ice water, and pen articles demanding progress and advancement for the masses living in the villages without any knowledge of the reality of their lives?
Kanak was willing to put up with the discomfort and the unclean surroundings of the village just to be away from Puri and from laying herself open to ridicule and also out of a sense of duty, but she did not want Jaya to live in those unhygienic conditions or to neglect the child’s education. There were excellent elementary schools in Delhi, but hardly any arrangement for modern education within a 150-mile radius of Delhi, before the cities of Lucknow, Ambala and Dehradun. It was as if good schooling and healthy living conditions were the prerogative of the children of the elite or of government officials residing in Delhi. The British masters had set up schools for their own convenience, without giving any thought to the needs of the masses. The same old system had continued to prevail. It was deemed appropriate to have air conditioning in the government buildings and to have roadside flowerbeds in Delhi, Lucknow and other capital cities, but to neglect even the basic sanitation or toilet facilities in villages. Delhi claimed to be concerned about the development, welfare and security of the same villages, and yet to live high on the hog!
Kanak was faced with the dilemma of choosing between giving proper care to her daughter and working for a living and helping the country. She thought, ‘Unless the country has a network of crèches where children receive proper education and meals in clean and healthy surroundings while their mothers are at work, how can a woman who is also a mother earn a living? Should I campaign for better and widespread day care centres, or work to support myself?’
Kanak saw village women, babies in their arms, doing back-breaking work in severe conditions to scrape a living, and working in the fields as they suckled their babies. She saw them gathering cow dung with one hand while clasping a child to their bodies with the other, and carrying an
earthenware pitcher filled with water balanced on their heads and a child in their arms. If a child urinated or defecated on the beaten-earth floors of their huts, the mother ignored it and continued to do whatever she was doing for some time before cleaning up the mess. Flies would cover the faeces and then settle on the lips and eyes of the child and on food, but the mother would only take care of the child after finishing the work in hand.
Kanak would think: How could the villagers live in such abominable surroundings? She could also see that those conditions did not bother the populace. They were born in the midst of excreta and urine and disease-spreading germs. Such conditions were natural for them and they had perhaps become immune to the germs. Kanak’s job was to teach them the benefits of cleanliness and hygiene, and to tell them about cottage industries so that they may improve their economic conditions. But she was hesitant to lecture them in view of their poverty and lack of resources.
Kalavati, a village woman who had lived in Delhi for some time, said, alluding to Kanak’s helper, ‘Bahinji, we all like tidy homes and clean clothes. I’d keep things clean if I had a helper like you do.’
Kanak found it very hard to sleep even under a mosquito net in August. She would spray the rooms with Flit several times during the night to protect Jaya from mosquitoes. She was a government official, therefore all shallow ditches had been filled up and wild growth had been cleared up around her house. The small supply of the phenyl solution and the DDT powder given for the villagers was used up to disinfect the officials’ houses, but did not save them from swarms of mosquitoes. Kanak would think angrily, ‘Delhi is full of green vegetation but one can sleep in the open without a mosquito net. If there are no mosquitoes in the city, why it can’t be the same in the villages? Because the country’s President and Prime Minister lived in New Delhi and it was the face that India presented to the world!’
Kanak was concerned about Jaya’s health and future, and had decided to leave Jaya with her parents in Delhi in September. She had asked Kanchan to enrol the child in a convent school or in some other good school. Her plan was to go to Delhi every Saturday evening and take the bus back to Aliganj on Monday morning.
Around noon on Saturday, Kanak had notified the centre’s manager that she wanted to go to Delhi later in the afternoon and return on Monday morning. The director had sent back his verbal approval. When Kanak did the same next weekend, she was summoned before the manager.
Varma, the manager, said gruffly, ‘You cannot be absent from your job and go to Delhi on holiday every weekend.’
Kanak replied, ‘I don’t go on holiday. I go to visit my daughter. Tomorrow is Sunday. It won’t affect my work.’
The manager motioned her to be quiet, ‘I have to observe the rules. Sundays are for having a rest, not to leave the place. You’re not being asked to work on Sunday. The government job is for twenty-four hours and thirty days a month. You may not leave your place of work without permission, and you may not go away every weekend.’
There had been a face-off between Kanak and Varma soon after her arrival. All officers at the centre were city dwellers, staying in the village for the sake of their jobs. They found the village dull and boring. They had no pastime other than playing cards or gossiping with each other. The mail reached Bombay, Calcutta and places a thousand mile away from Delhi the next day, but it took up to four days to reach Aliganj.
Varma and other officials lived alone, without their families. Varma had been heartened when a modern, good-looking woman who went without covering her head and was not bashful, came to work in the village. But Kanak concerned herself only with her job and did not meet anyone after work. She did not want to socialize. In the beginning she had accepted two invitations for tea and a game of cards, but had made excuses for not attending after that. Varma did not appreciate such snobbery from his subordinates. He decided to exercise his authority and power.
Kanak began to take casual leave in accordance with rules to go to Delhi. She could not be away every weekend, so she went every two weeks. Varma would find some excuse to harass her. He would ask her to visit places that were eight or ten miles away from the centre, but would not provide her with the office Jeep, requisitioning the vehicle for his own use. Kanak would file a written complaint and ask it to be forwarded to the director of the department. She was constantly torn between her self-respect and the necessity of a job.
Kanak had come to know about the mutual attraction between Narottam and Kanchan, and about Panditji’s hearty approval. Panditji wanted this to happen soon, while he was still around, but Kanchan kept on postponing it. When Kanak had gone to Delhi during the Dussehra holidays, she had stayed for one night with Tara. Tara knew that Kanchan was not willing
to leave her father alone to care for her sick mother after her wedding. Narottam had promised Kanchan that he could easily get himself transferred to another ordnance factory as works manager, where he would be entitled to a bungalow. Then Panditji and her mother could stay with Kanchan. But Kanchan was reluctant to suggest this to her father.
Kanak also did not approve of Narottam’s idea. Solution to the problem lay on her shoulders, she felt. Her job at Aliganj seemed to be the only obstacle to Kanchan’s marriage. She was unhappy in her job, and felt embarrassed for having taken Tara’s help to get it. Kanak had also realized that her father was in no condition to run the press business. His health was not bad for someone who had crossed sixty, except his failing eyesight.
The Government of Punjab had put the printing and sale of textbooks up to class 8 under state control. The government got the books published and set quotas for booksellers. The printing presses stayed in business, the only people to suffer were publishers like Panditji who did not do retail business. Two slim volumes written by Panditji had been approved as textbooks. An annual income of three to four thousand rupees was now lost, and the remaining stock became worthless. Panditji had to let go the help he had hired.
By the end of July, Gill had left
Nazir
and had come to Delhi. Heera Lal, Sarola and Ajay used to write to him, ‘Your
Nazir
has become a complete dud. Come over to Delhi if you want to work only to make a living. If you have fair writing skills and are not obligated to write only on particular topics, you won’t starve in Delhi.’
Gill had Pandit Girdharilal’s address, and sometimes paid him a visit. He also kept in touch with Kanak through letters. When Kanak would come to be with Jaya, he would come to meet her. Panditji found Gill to be a serious and mature young man. He asked Gill, when Kanak was not present, about Puri’s behaviour and attitude towards Kanak. Gill told Panditji about Puri’s social position in Jalandhar, his association with Sood, Suraj Prakash and Somraj, his disagreements with Masterji and Kanak over Kamaal Press, whatever Puri had told him about Tara, and then Kanak’s version of the story. He also told Panditji that Puri had made no attempt to reunite Tara with Somraj because of the fear of an altercation between him and Somraj, and that the scandal might sully his reputation.
‘I know Tara beti. She’s a decent person,’ Panditji said. He thought for a while, head in hands. He heaved a deep sigh. He took off his glasses and polished them with his kurta tail. ‘Barkhurdar, a man proves his mettle by
surviving the circumstances. What is fate? Our circumstances are our fate. When we remain steadfast in adverse circumstances and do not surrender, we come out the winner. If we surrender, we are left with no conscience, which is even worse. We all have to die eventually.’ He let out a loud laugh. ‘My dear, in a system full of deception and fraud, one is punished for not going along with the system. If one wants to live honestly, one must learn to live with the problems and suffering such a life will bring. Suffering is the test of honesty.’
Panditji lowered his gaze to the floor, his head resting on one hand to support the burden that lay on his mind. He closed and opened his other fist, as if weighing up his own thoughts. He finally said, ‘Barkhurdar, Kanak herself chose the path of suffering. She had wanted to follow her own judgement and conscience. She should now pay the price for doing so. It was her privilege to marry the man of her choice. It’s now her obligation to live with her choice and to set her husband right. She shouldn’t give up just like that. That’s what all her well-wishers should tell her.’
Gill had a hard time for a month trying to establish himself as a freelance journalist in Delhi. He had put up with Ajay while searching for work. He found out about many weeklies and monthlies in Delhi not sold in the market. The embassy of some country would buy 1,500 or 2,000 copies of the magazine at cover price. The rest were sent free to government offices and libraries for publicity. Some journalists had found novel ways of making a living. If they wrote an article on a specified issue or subject and got it published, by spending five or ten rupees out of their pocket, in a small-town newspaper or magazine, they could get Rs 100 as reward from the information department of the embassy of some countries. Ready-made blocks of photographs were available for such articles. The periodical that published such articles could also get advertisements at attractive/good prices.
Veteran journalists would joke: The newspapers in this country had been first published to bolster the nationalist movement. At the time of the foreign rule, editors had constantly faced the threat of imprisonment and of the paper being shut down. The life of a journalist and writer used to be a
tapasya
, hard work and little reward. After the country’s independence that profession had turned into a business.