‘What problem? Why put up with someone you don’t love?’ Tara said. ‘He’s right. If one’s really in love, one must face the consequences, come what may.’
‘Isn’t that what I’ve done?’ Sheelo cried angrily. ‘It’s me who comes running to see him. He’s the one running away scared.’
‘It’s you who’s scared!’ Tara declared flatly. ‘You love him, you bore his child, you should be with him. You’re turning love into something sinful.’
‘You’re talking nonsense!’ Sheelo said in irritation, ‘The dharma of love is one thing, and the obligations of family and marriage another. There’s a time and place for both. Love happens just like that. The ancients did the same. Lord Krishna had Radha as his beloved. He loved her milkmaid friends, the gopis too, but did he leave his wife Rukmini for them? No! Neither did he desert his family when he went to stay with Kubja. Heer and Ranjha did the same, despite their legendary love for each other. If you run off without any thought for your own people, you bring shame on the families. That is not the thing to do. If God gives you a slice of happiness, you should be content to accept it as your share,’ Sheelo sighed deeply during her little speech to Tara. She had never spoken with such seriousness.
Sheelo’s sermonizing did not convince Tara. There was no point in arguing with her simple-mindedness. She decided to be bold and ask something that Sheelo would understand, ‘If you don’t like Mohan, why do you let him make love to you?’
‘It’s not a question of like or dislike. That’s his right.’
‘To hell with such a right!’ Tara touched her ears in a gesture of penitence. ‘If you care so much for his rights, then why are you involved with Ratan? Let him go!’
‘You’re talking a load of rubbish again! You don’t fall in love of your own free will. Arrey, love can overcome anyone, even the gods; not to say
anything of us mere mortals? Don’t get me talking, my dear. I don’t know about you, but can anybody claim to be without sin? I know all about my father, my mother too. After a while, they all act innocent. That’s sinful. It’s not love but some kind of game. That’s not for me. I’ll be faithful to him all my life. What do you know about me?’
Tara was returning home with Usha and Haridev after dropping Sheelo off at her parents’ house. She thought with a heavy heart: Deception and loving someone on the sly is the dharma for Sheelo. I can’t live like that. I’d have decided my future today, but Sheelo spoiled everything by showing up at the last moment.
When Puri reached home about 8 o’clock, Tara had not yet returned. His mother said, ‘Sheelo came round with her baby. I gave her two rupees in shagun, as a good omen for her son’s first visit here. I did the right thing, huh?’ Bhagwanti had begun to tell him lately about such family matters.
‘You know better. All that’s for the women to think about,’ he replied.
His mother also told him what Sheelo had said about Somraj’s threats. She said, ‘I let Tara go up to Uchchi Gali because Sheelo insisted, but I’ve been shaking with fear since I heard that.’ Bhagwanti was still talking when she heard the sound of someone climbing the stairway. Tara was the first to come into the room.
Their mother wanted Tara to hear what she was telling her eldest child, ‘I’ve told her that there’s no need to go out of the gali. She’s not a child anymore.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Puri interrupted her. ‘She’s in her own home. Who’s he to object to her coming and going? If Tara wants to go somewhere, I’ll go with her. I’ll see who dares to stop her in the bazaar.’
‘If they don’t like my ways, why are they after my life? Is there no other girl for them in the whole wide world?’ Tara asked angrily, without looking at anyone, and sat down with a scowl on her face.
Bhagwanti gaped at Tara, horrified. Muffling her voice with her hand, she scolded her, ‘Is she in her right mind? Just listen to what she’s saying.’
Puri said nothing beyond asking his mother to give him his dinner.
Puri had another reason to object to Somraj’s high-handed manner. On the evening he had stayed out late with Kanak in Lawrence Garden, she had made him swear, when they parted, that he wouldn’t torture her by not meeting her. ‘If you don’t want to come to my house,’ she had said,
‘we can meet at the same spot on Nisbet Road. I’ll write to you if I have another place in mind. You send me a letter in a sealed envelope, and I’ll come whenever you tell me.’
One evening he had wound up his business at Adayara Munavvar by 6.30 and reached Nisbet Road for his appointment with Kanak. He waited at the meeting place, then went from one end of Nisbet Road to the other, and then retraced his steps. She was nowhere to be seen.
This was the second time that she had failed to keep a date with him. Once he had written and asked her to meet him on the Mall Road on Tuesday morning at 11 o’clock. Then he had sent a letter to tell her to come to Nisbet Road on Friday evening between 6.30 and 7. She had not replied or written to him about any change in her plans. He had begun to suspect that she was somehow prevented from meeting him. With her renewed assurances of love for him, he had once again begun to trust her. In his frustration he thought: How unfair to put such constraints on a free-spirited young woman.
His reply that night had silenced his mother, but had also sown the seed of doubts in Tara’s mind. Tara’s ears pricked up as she noticed how he had changed his way of talking. ‘She’s in her own home,’ he had said. What had happened to change his declaration that her parents did not have to worry if Somraj’s father broke his son’s engagement to Tara?
Thoughts whirled around in her mind as she lay down to sleep: These were all excuses to make it easier to get her out of this house. She remembered Masterji’s intention of selling his part of the ancestral village house, and taking a loan against his provident fund. Her parents were apparently willing to sacrifice everything of their own to ensure her destruction. ‘Why do they see me as a burden on them? Now that I’ve given up on my brother, I must do something for myself, and do it at once.’
When she woke up the next morning, the thought of changing her circumstances was still on her mind.
Puri too was frantic with apprehension after his two failures to meet Kanak. He desperately wanted to go to her house to know the reason, but thought it below his dignity to go there without a plausible reason. He looked for a credible excuse to pay a visit. He thought that it would be better to translate half of the book and take it to show to Panditji. If Panditji could give him 100 rupees as advance payment, he reasoned, he might also hand over half of his final fee, another forty rupees. Even if
he didn’t, he would see that Puri had already completed more than one hundred rupees’ worth of work.
He had been thinking of putting off work on the textbook for a few days, and asking Tara to give more time to the translation of the novel. Tara herself came to him and mumbled nervously, ‘Bhaiji, I couldn’t go to Gwal Mandi yesterday. I feel bad because I told Narendra bhai that I’d come. I want to go some time today.’
‘Listen,’ Puri said. ‘Not today. If I work only on the translation with your help, we can finish half the book in two days. We can go the day after tomorrow, and I’ll hand over the manuscript to Pandit Girdharilal at the same time.’
Whenever she thought of her decision and her course of action, her head would spin and she would feel a shiver. While reading aloud to Puri from the novel, she was so distracted and preoccupied with what was to come that she kept on missing the continuity to the next line on the page. She would picture in her mind’s eye, her brother coming to Surendra’s house on his way back, and his puzzlement at not finding her there. How would her mother and Masterji react? … But, they’re the ones who paid no heed to my cries and forced me to run away from home. Am I not to resist as the noose is tightened around my neck? Can’t I run away to save myself if someone keeps pushing me towards the sacrificial altar? If I do run away, it’ll be good for all of us. At least my parents won’t have to sell the village house or take a loan. What about the money needed for my sisters and brothers? … It had also crossed her mind that she might have to stay at home for another few days, that Asad might ask her to come to meet him again in a day or two. ‘I’ll find another excuse to go out,’ she thought.
The translation of half of
A House Built upon Sand
was finished in the afternoon of 5 May. Puri went out for a short while, came back and immediately began revising the manuscript. He did not want to risk leaving a single mistake. He again took up his revision early on the next day. At about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, he and Tara went together to Gwal Mandi. He turned into Shaduram’s Gali, and Tara walked alone towards Surendra’s house. That’s what she wanted. To be alone.
Puri had gone to Panditji’s house ostensibly to show him the translation, so he went in through the office door. Panditji was on the telephone with some paper merchant. He signalled for Puri to take a chair. Puri waited for him to finish, but his ears were cocked to catch any sound coming
from the living room. Once he turned around to look when he thought he heard something, but whoever it was, had gone past. Kanak or Kanchan, he couldn’t be sure.
Since he was talking on the telephone, Panditji had not been able to welcome Puri in his usual expansive style. He hung up, gave him a broad smile and said, ‘So, barkhurdar!’ He asked several questions about Puri’s health.
Puri had placed the folder with the manuscript on the desk. He said, opening it, ‘Panditji, I’ve managed to finish half the novel. Why don’t you look at it and tell me what you think?’
‘You’ve brought the translation? So soon? Let me see.’ He held out his hand.
He took the folder from Puri, read half of the first page, turned over fifteen or so pages and read another half page, leafed through twenty-five more sheets to read a paragraph, and then a paragraph at the very end. He put the manuscript back on the desk seemingly satisfied, and said, ‘Good! Very good! Fine work, wonderful expression. You’re a master, barkhurdar, no doubt of that. Very good.’
Panditji took off his glasses and put them on the desk, ran his fingers through his closely cropped hair as he looked at the ceiling, and called out, ‘Bhai Vidhichand, how’s that title page coming along? The printing press has been working to get the colour of that page right since this morning. What’s going on? Why don’t you get on your bicycle and go there to find out the reason. Ask Sawan Mull what problem is holding up the printing? If the block for the page has to be replaced, why can’t they begin work on something else? This is sloppy work!’
‘I’ll go,’ said Vidhichand and left.
Panditji stroked his hair for a few moments more before turning to Puri, ‘Your translation is excellent. Barkhurdar, you are a creative writer. For you translating someone else’s work can’t mean the same as creating your own. It’s a waste of time for you. First make a name for yourself and get your stories published in magazines. Then come out with a novel. You need a good publisher to back you up.’ He stroked his chin in silent contemplation.
Puri was encouraged by these words, and by this show of concern and sympathy for his future.
‘You did this in a very short time,’ Panditji said, again by way of praise.
‘If you like, I can work harder and finish the whole thing in a week,’ Puri said to show his goodwill.
‘No, no, no! You don’t have to sweat it out. Take your time, do it when you get some free time or when you feel like it. Do it as a pastime. This is the time for selling textbooks. Even if I decide to hand it over for printing, I won’t be able to publish it any time before October or November.’
Puri was beginning to get uncomfortable with the tone of his voice. Panditji went on, ‘Of course, it’s a different matter if you need money. You can come to me without hesitation.’
It became obvious to Puri that Panditji had given him the work to help him out, but he had made that obvious without meaning to hurt him. What could Puri say to respond to such kindness? Panditji picked up a glass paperweight from his desk, and looked at it intently, trying to concentrate on his words, ‘You’re like family. There’s something I wanted to speak to you about. It’s good that you came.’
Puri felt alarmed.
‘It’s about Kanak,’ Panditji uttered almost inaudibly. Puri held his breath, as if the future of his relationship with Kanak hung in the balance and the next word from her father could tip the balance in his favour or against him.
Panditji thought for a few moments staring at the paperweight, then said firmly in English, ‘You have always regarded Kanak as a younger sister. Now it’s up to you to honour that relationship.’
With that sentence Panditji disarmed Puri, taking the starch out of his courage and his will to protest. He continued to speak in English, ‘She’s just over twenty. What does a girl that old know about life? What I mean is, that to be able to solve the problems faced by young people of her age, she needs some worldly experience. She’s done her BA. That’s a certain achievement, but not a very important one. She’s intelligent, and has a literary bent for which you deserve credit. What she knows about life she has learnt from books, not from experience. You know how one can be easily swayed by emotions at her age, and regret such feelings later on. You know that quite well.’
Seeing Puri sit in silence, Panditji laughed as if he had no doubts of Puri’s agreeing with him, ‘Heh, heh, heh! You’re a writer; you have imagination. You know what I’m saying.’
Puri did know what he was saying. He felt so upset he could hardly breathe. Panditji’s words fell on him like the blows of a mailed fist wrapped in a velvet glove of affection and politeness.
He went on before Puri could respond, alternating between Urdu and English, ‘These are natural, human failings. At one stage in their lives, all young men and women feel that romance is the goal of life. They are swayed by their emotions. But romance is an illusion, just a dream. When one begins to turn such dreams into reality, the result is bitterness and disappointment. You know what I mean. A commitment made in the romantic folly of youth means nothing.’