‘To Sarla’s,’ Kanak said, before recalling that she had used the same excuse last time when she went out with Puri. ‘These people have got me all confused with their questions,’ she thought.
‘Wait till the sun goes down a bit.’
Kanak did not reply. She changed her clothes, put a dupatta around her shoulders, and left. When her tonga, passing through the bazaars and streets deserted and dozing in the blistering heat, arrived at the Standard restaurant, it was only two minutes past two o’clock. Puri was not in front of the restaurant, or anywhere around. Kanak took a few moments to decide what to do next. She had some coins in her purse, but still asked the tongawallah, ‘Bhai, do you have change for a rupee?’
It was her luck that he did not. Kanak handed him a rupee note and said, ‘Get change from one of the shops.’
The driver had to park the tonga beside the foyer of the restaurant, and went off in search of change. Kanak hoped with all her heart that Puri would arrive before the driver’s return.
The tongawallah came back, grumbling, in a few minutes ‘Everyone’s asleep this afternoon. They refuse even if they do have change.’ Still no sign of Puri. Seven minutes past two.
Kanak was now desperate ‘He should realize that I can’t stand around alone and wait. What a mess! Maybe I should go back,’ she thought. Then she thought of the risks she had taken for this meeting. Probably he could not help being late. She just couldn’t go back until the last moment.
She went inside the restaurant. For the sake of decency, the waiter raised the curtain for her to sit in a cubicle. Kanak thought, how would Puri know that she was in the cubicle? She said, ‘No, I’ll sit here … outside.’ She asked the waiter for two cups of coffee.
Only two other tables were occupied, in the quiet of the afternoon. Two young men at one, three at another. To overcome the embarrassment of being alone, she said to herself, ‘I don’t care. What’s my crime?’
When the clock showed twenty past two, she began to get a sinking feeling … ‘Didn’t he get my letter? Or, could there be another reason? The life of the city had almost returned to normal during the past two weeks. It’s not possible that he won’t come after getting my letter.’ She waited for
another five minutes. Then remembered that Panditji returned to the office after his siesta at 3 o’clock, or even a few minutes before.
On her way back home, just as she reached the intersection of Gwal Mandi, Kanak thought, I should have gone up to Bhola Pandhe’s Gali to inquire. She looked at her watch. Twenty to three. There was no time. She wanted to be back home before Panditji returned to his office. She was sure that unless someone asked Kanchi directly, there would be no reason for her to say anything.
Kanak was taken aback when she entered the living room. Panditji was sitting on one side, and facing him sat a gentleman, a stranger. On the table in between were sliced bread, biscuits, some mithai, fruits and a pot of tea. Enough food for a full meal.
‘Come, come,’ Panditji called to her, and introduced her to the guest, ‘My second daughter Kanak. Come and sit down, Kanni.’
Kanak said namaste and took a seat.
Panditji continued, ‘She’s in the first year of her MA, in literature. She’s very fond of literature. English, Hindi, Urdu, all of them. She writes well too. Has published four or five stories.’
Panditji introduced the guest to her, ‘Professor N.C. Mathur, D Litt. He edited this year’s
Selected Prose
, the textbook for Delhi University’s Intermediate examination. He’s a great scholar.’
Kanak smiled and said, ‘Sir, it is a delight to meet you. See you later,’ she said namaste again, and got up.
She went to her room and called, ‘Jaggi, bring me a glass of water.’
Kanchan was sitting on a dhurrie on the floor, sewing a kameez on a sewing machine. She said to Kanak, ‘The sun’s really hot, isn’t it? You went out without an umbrella, too.’
‘I took a tonga,’ Kanak ended the conversation.
Jaggi the servant boy came with the glass of water, climbing the stairs playfully. Kanak went out to the balcony though the aangan, so that Kanchan would not listen. She asked Jaggi as he handed her the water, ‘Where did you mail that letter, the day before yesterday?’
Jaggi was from the Kangra district, and perhaps eleven or twelve years old. His job was to wash the kitchen utensils and keep the floors swept all day. His clothes were always dirty and soiled, his face unwashed and grimy in patches. His fair skin showed under the layer of dirt. He wiped
his wet hands on his dirty shirt, and looking at Kanak with his large, blue eyes, said, ‘I didn’t mail it.’
‘What?’ Kanak’s heart missed a beat.
‘Panditji asked me to give it to him, so that the peon could take all the mail directly to the main post office.’
Kanak went to her bed and lay down with her head clasped in her hands. Such treachery, she thought. ‘I’ve become a condemned prisoner? Pitaji must be upset, must be thinking that I lied to him.’
While Kanak was going upstairs, on getting back home that afternoon, she was full of dread and foreboding. Although her father lectured her about her comings and goings, she had slipped out of the house only two days later while he was asleep. He had even caught her red-handed as she tried to sneak back in.
But she felt no compunction in the face of her father’s meanness. Panditji’s action now spurred her to fight for the privileges and freedom to which she had become accustomed since childhood.
‘This will have to be resolved one way or the other,’ she told herself. And once it was out in the open, she would have to decide her future in this house as well. Maybe it was time to break her ties with her family. Or, was it the family that was making her leave their fold? As she lay on her bed, thoughts raced through her head behind her closed eyes. One thought kept coming back to her, that now she would not hesitate to tell everything to her father.
She heard the
tun-tun
of the sitar as Kanchan’s teacher Muttu Baba tuned the instrument before her lesson. Then a tune was played. The sound of the sitar gave her courage and helped in her thinking. The sitar playing came to an end and with it she suddenly realized that she was exhausted after her bout of intense thinking.
After a while, she heard Kanak call, ‘Kanni, come down for tea. Pitaji’s waiting.’
When Kanak did not reply, Jaggi came up with the message. She said to him, ‘Tell them that I’ve a headache. Kanchi will serve tea.’
Kanak strained her ears to hear the reaction to her mute defiance. She was apprehensive about being asked about going out quietly in the afternoon. First it was her mother’s voice, ‘She has a headache? I’ll massage her head with some ghee. Those scented hair oils are no good.’ After twenty-eight
years in Lahore, her mother had not given up the habits and practices of her home village. Her daughters jokingly called her ‘nineteenth century’.
Then came her father’s voice, ‘It’s probably a sunstroke. Tea might make the headache worse. Better if she doesn’t have it. Make her some sherbet from phalsa berries.’
‘Really!’ Kanak thought in anger. ‘How come such concern for my headache? Everyone is coming out with a cure.’ She lay as before, her eyes shut.
She opened her eyes when she heard Jaggi’s voice. He stood beside the bed, with one hand holding a glass full of purple-coloured sherbet balanced on the palm of the other hand. ‘Lots of ice in it,’ said the boy, his eyes shining as if he was sharing some secret.
‘You drink it,’ Kanak was about to tell him, but she checked herself. How would they know about her protest and frustration if Jaggi took back an empty glass? ‘Put it here on the table,’ she said, ‘no, wait, take it back. Tell them I don’t want it.’
Jaggi looked at her with disappointment and surprise. There was disbelief in his eyes, that some one could refuse a glass of sherbet with so much ice in it. Balancing the glass carefully on his palm, he went back downstairs.
Around eight in the evening Kanak was called for dinner. She replied, ‘I don’t feel like it.’
This time Kanchi came up, ‘Come on, Kanni. What’s the matter? What’ll pitaji think?’
‘What’s there to think about? I can’t force myself to eat if I don’t feel like it,’ Kanak said dryly. Kanchan went back downstairs.
Kanak’s mother came up next. She felt Kanak’s pulse to make sure that her daughter didn’t have fever. She asked, ‘What’s the problem? You have a headache? Body ache? Your stomach’s upset? Everything all right?’
‘It’s nothing. Just a headache. Don’t feel like eating,’ Kanak turned her back.
‘Come down for a bit. Have some
khichari
. Your father had it made for you. Eat a little. You’ll get bilious attacks from staying hungry. Come on, your father’s waiting.’
As Kanak came down to the dining table, her father said, ‘Come, come! Why don’t you have any appetite? I’ve been watching for the last month. You’re getting paler and paler. Have you checked your weight lately? Both of you should go on morning walks with me. It’s been so hot this year.’
Kanak just sat and traced lines with her spoon in the rice-and-daal dish on her plate, and hardly touched the yogurt.
Panditji instructed Kanchan, ‘Make sure she takes a glass of milk at bedtime. Don’t put any ice in it. You girls have ice the whole day long. Ice has a warming effect. Cool the milk instead by placing it in a potful of ice.’
When Kanak refused any breakfast the next morning and sent back a glass of lassi too, the mood in the house became grave.
Her father came to the aangan, and looking up towards her daughters’ room, called, ‘Kanni beta, what’s the matter? Let me take you to Dr Malkani after breakfast.’
Kanchan was in the room with Kanak. She had no reason for not eating. Without waiting for her father to come to breakfast, she had asked Kesari to cook her a parantha. Then she had a glass of lassi, and by 8 o’clock was already at work at her sewing machine. She also said to Kanak, ‘Kanni, don’t be difficult. Have something to eat. Think of pitaji.’
‘What if I don’t feel up to it?’ Kanak said with some irritation, ‘Pitaji wants me to consult a doctor for no reason. I’m bothering no one. Why can’t you all leave me alone?’
They heard the voices of Mansa bua and of Phula, the wife of Vidhichand, from the aangan below. Both of them went to the Ravi River for their morning dip. On Sundays there was no reason to hurry home, so they would stop to pray at the temple of Sheetala devi. Then they would visit Pandit Girdharilal’s wife, give her some
prasad
, and go home after having a glass of fresh buttermilk.
When Phula heard about Kanak not feeling hungry, she began to tell Kanak’s mother how to cure loss of appetite because of the hot weather, ‘Bahinji, soak some dried plums overnight in water in a fresh clay pot. Give that water to your daughter to drink. Why bother running to doctors for such small matters!’
Mansa bua said in a loud voice, ‘What would a doctor do for this problem? It’s not the hot weather. It’s her age.’
Kanak felt annoyed by her remark. She looked at Kanchan sitting in front of the sewing machine. Kanchan kept her eyes on her sewing, but she was smiling.
‘All right, bua. That’s enough. Let it be,’ Kanak’s mother tried to play down the woman’s words.
‘Why should I let it be? You people can’t bear to hear the truth.’ Mansa
bua spoke even more loudly. ‘Have you forgotten the time when you were young yourself? At her age, even after having three children, when you had to spend a couple of months at your parents’ house, it would drive you up the wall.’
Kanak was now angry at the loud-mouthed bua. She looked back at Kanchan, who had stopped sewing and buried her face in the folds of the dress with embarrassment. Kanchan’s laughter infuriated Kanak. She thought, ‘Fine, so what’s wrong? If they think I am ready for marriage, let them marry me off. I’m ready too.’ She began to imagine herself and Puri living as a married couple.
‘All right, bebe! Here, have a glass of lassi,’ said Kanak’s mother to silence the woman.
After a few minutes, the mother called, ‘Kanchi, come downstairs.’
When Kanchan returned to the room, she was carrying a glass of cold lassi. Condensation had misted the outside of the glass. Little blobs of churned butter floated on the surface. She said, ‘Mother says you should drink what she’s sent. Otherwise pitaji will come up and make you take it.’
Kanak sat up on her bed. ‘Why is everyone being so cagey?’ she thought to herself. ‘Such pretence of affection and concern for me! Nobody wants to talk about the real issue.’ But she said, ‘Everyone insists that I force something down my throat. Nobody wants to know how I feel.’
‘All right. Tell me, how do you feel?’ Kanchan asked.
‘I’ll tell pitaji, of course, when he asks. You go and tell him that I don’t need any doctor. I’m fine,’ said Kanak, thinking. ‘What more can I say?’
Around eleven in the morning, Kesari called from downstairs, ‘Kanchi bahinji, Nano has come.’
Kanchan looked at Kanak and asked, ‘Aren’t you coming downstairs?’
‘I’ll come down shortly,’ Kanak replied.
Kanchan left her sewing and ran downstairs. Kanak stayed in bed. ‘I’ve really pushed matters a long way,’ she was thinking, ‘but now I must see things through. It can’t wait now. Pitaji has read my letter to Puri. His reply must have come back too. They’re pretending not to know anything. I won’t take it any more!’
Kanak knew that her sister and brother-in-law must have come too, but nobody had called her to come down. All she could hear was Kanchan playing with Nano. Then she heard Nano crying, and Kanchan trying to
soothe her after the child had apparently fallen, ‘Hai, look at this ant! It was crushed too. Look, Nano, all these ants crushed by your fall.’ Still no call for Kanak. Over fifteen minutes had gone by. Kanak found it difficult to lie still. She picked up a magazine lying nearby, and began to read it in frustration. She could not concentrate, but told herself, ‘I won’t go down unless they call me.’
Until eight or nine months before, Mahendra Nayyar and Kanak often indulged in a little banter. Nayyar would sometimes jokingly call Kanak
aadhi sarkar,
half wife, and pull at her hair-bun in fun. Kanak would show her irritation, ‘Jijaji, I’ll belt you one back!’ but her tone and laugh would belie her threat. Sometimes she too retaliated with a playful slap or a light punch on his back.