Tara agreed.
‘Do you need a pen?’
Tara said yes, and Vimalji removed a fountain pen from the pocket of his waistcoat and handed it to Tara.
All those present were men. ‘Can I sit and work on the other side?’ Tara asked Vimalji.
‘Yes, sure.’
Tara went to the other half of the tent. As soon as she was out of sight, everyone began to laugh, as if her presence had inhibited their laughter. Were they laughing at her, Tara wondered. She heard someone speak in a low voice:
‘Vimalji’s smart; did you see how quickly he gave his pen!’
‘He certainly is. And you just sat on your hands,’ said another voice.
‘He’s got style. See how he asked: Do you need a pen?’
‘Bhai, she’s a modern girl. Speaks fluent English. Vimalji’s having a gala time surrounded by those good-looking girls.’
Tara felt bad. Are these people here to help others, she thought angrily, or to joke at their misfortunes? ‘Oh, let them blabber on; why should I care about what they say. Didn’t my college friends do the same? Amrita, Surendra, Krishna, Sheelo too, what rot they talked.’
Next morning, the conversation at the camp office was of a different sort, and in different voices. Some Urdu-speaking Punjabi was venting his anger at the way Hindus had been fired on, to protect Muslims, ‘These leaders are betraying us; they’re sacrificing Hindus for the sake of Muslims. The Pakistan government cares for its people. All this is Gandhi’s doing. He wants to be regarded as a saint by the Muslims, so he encourages them every day in his radio broadcast.’
Tara concentrated on her work, trying to ignore such comments. She had difficulty in reading one or two names, but did not feel up to asking anyone from that noisy group.
The tone of conversation changed again after a while. Some Delhiwallah was speaking jokingly with a Punjabi, ‘Of course, Punjabis are big-hearted. They want to live well, even if they have to borrow money to do it. Look at any Punjabi woman, she’ll be in silk and satin, decked in gold jewellery. We lost everything, they’ll tell you, all that was left are these clothes we’re wearing. Get us a card for free rations, give us some blankets, find us a house, find us a job. Listen, if they’re so badly off, what about their clothes and jewellery?’
A Punjabi replied in a loud, heated voice, ‘
Saala
, you’d have been dead by now if you had to face what we went through. That’s the Punjabi spirit, don’t you realize. You’ve hardly ever seen bad times. If there are floods in your country, your people can be found begging all over Punjab. Have you ever seen a Punjabi beg? We’ve been facing plunder and invasions from centuries back.’
‘Wah, what brave people! Haven’t you fled and come here? Hey, if this isn’t begging, what is it? What’s a card for free rations, eh?’
‘You call this begging, saale? Motherfucker, we gave our lives for the sake of your independence,’ the Punjabi roared in anger.
Tara heard furniture pushed around violently. It seemed that a scuffle would break out, when a voice said, ‘Arrey, what’s this! What now! Listen, argue all you want but keep your fists down.’
‘You use your tongue, I use my fists!’
‘Oh really! What a gentleman!’
‘I’ll stuff your gentlemanly style up yours.’
There was the sound of the furniture being rearranged. The threat of a brawl seemed to have been averted. Tara was hurt by the aspersions being cast about ration cards.
‘Arrey, you don’t know the secret of silk and satin clothes?’ another Punjabi voice tried, making peace, ‘Bhaijaan, we all have a couple of sets of good clothes for special occasions. Who would wear the old ordinary things when fleeing, and leave behind their good expensive clothes? What they wear is what they brought with them, they just don’t have any other clothes. They might own a piece or two of jewellery, so they wear them because they still don’t have homes to keep them safe. And how long can anyone get free rations? These few pieces of jewellery would come in handy when one has to settle in. You might say that we’ve survived because we ate good food, and lived off the fat of the land.’
‘Achcha bhai, let it go,’ Vimalji intervened to restore calm. ‘We’ll regard you as a political refugee. We’re doing for you what we can, and we’ll do even more if we can.’
Tara had filled eight sheets of foolscap paper. She had the copied names and addresses of nearly three hundred families. From the quiet on the other side of the tent, it appeared that everyone had gone. She thought it a good time for her to leave.
She found only Vimalji and Bhajan in the office.
She put the originals and the copies in front of Vimalji and said, ‘Bhai sahib, I’ll be back in the afternoon.’ She hesitated a bit, then said, ‘I’ll finish this work. If you could help me by telling me the names of some schools. You have got your hands full looking after so many.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Vimalji acknowledged, ‘I’ve already inquired at some schools, and have left messages at other institutions to tell me if there’s any vacancy or if they need some help. So many well-educated women are looking for work. You people have lots of guts, but it’s a case of first come first served. It’s always good to go and inquire in person.’
Vimalji wrote down the addresses of several schools for girls for Tara.
Prasanno said to Tara that if she gave her ration card, and a few paisas for firewood, then she’d cook for her. Tara understood Prasanno’s situation. Her husband’s elder brother had abandoned Prasanno and her son at the Delhi railway station without leaving her any money, and had gone on to Bombay. She had been forced to earn some money on her own. She washed clothes for the families of some well-off refugees at the rate of one anna for ten pieces of clothing. Soap was supplied by the family. She earned three to four annas per day. Refugees at the camp were allowed free ration only for one month, and she had now been at the camp for twenty-two days.
Nihaldei cut in and said to Tara, ‘Why should you pay anything for firewood? If you’re cooking for two persons, it’s just the same for three. I’ll get the rations for you, sister, and cook for you. What are you worried about?’ She said to Tara so that Prasanno could hear, ‘She has neither a pot nor a pan of her own, and borrows kitchen stuff from us or from Dhammo.’
Tara wanted to help Prasanno, but did not want to get on the wrong side of the belligerent Nihaldei either. She gave her ration card to Nihaldei. When she returned to the hut, she found only Dhammo with her mother-in-law and Rikkho, the young woman who was the last arrival. The old
woman from Gujranwala seldom got up from her chatai. Nihaldei had told Dhammo where she had put Tara’s share of lunch.
In only two days’ time the women in the hut had discovered that Tara could sit at the table with the men in the camp’s office, that she was educated, and from a decent family, and that people listened to her. On the third day, Prasanno asked Tara to get her a blanket for her four-year-old son. The woman owned nothing but a change of clothes. It got chilly after midnight. Tara replied, ‘Take my blanket at night for the child. I need only the sheet to cover myself.’
Dhammo’s mother-in-law found time to speak with Tara when no one was around, ‘Beti, the camp officials told us that we’ve been here for a month now. They’re going to send us far away, to some camp called something like kung. We heard that the camp was in the middle of a jungle. No free rations there. How would I manage with two babies and my young daughter-in-law? Someone said that widows were being allotted houses. Please get us one. We’ll earn something by cleaning house and cooking for other families.’ She stopped when she saw Nihaldei come in.
Tara had her daal and roti, spread out her blanket and lay down. Thoughts about her future raced through her mind: Why not inquire at some school rather than go back to copying lists at the camp office? What would she have done if Banti was still alive? Six days had passed since her death. Whenever Tara was alone, the horrible incident of Banti’s death would pass before her eyes. The more Tara tried to forget Banti, the more she came to her mind. She had spent only about a month with Banti, but it seemed as if they had been together all their lives.
Only two months and five days before Tara had entered her in-laws’ house as a new bride. She left her husband’s house barefoot. Since her childhood in the gali, and up to the time of the incident at Banni Hata, she had never stepped out of her house without some kind of footwear.
She held felt some discomfort while roaming the lanes of Amritsar and Paharganj without any footwear, but never felt shame or embarrassment. Now that Shyama had sent her clothes that a respectable woman might wear, she felt awkward and self-conscious about her unshod feet. It was not difficult to walk on the smooth camp ground, but she still felt ill at ease. She also felt uneasy at going out in the crumpled dhoti that she wore in the hut, but, at the same time, did not want to wear the other dhoti.
She would wear the other dhoti when she went to some school for girls, she thought, but it would look ridiculous going barefoot. What impression would that make on others? The five rupees that Banti had received as a gift from Dev’s mother, she had given to Tara, and had asked Tara to keep the money safe by tying it in a corner of her dupatta when they went in search of Banti’s family in Paharganj. Those five and her remaining four rupees were now Tara’s total capital. She had hidden this money in her brassiere for a time of special need or unexpected expense, but now she needed to spend some of it to buy some kind of footwear.
Nihaldei seemed to know most about what was available around the camp, and in the city of Delhi. Tara asked her, ‘Sister, where could I get an inexpensive pair of slippers around here?’
‘Anywhere! As many as you want. Thousands of shops around here,’ Nihaldei replied, waving her arm in a gesture that meant the world beyond the hut. ‘This is no village or empty countryside.’ She was eager to escort Tara to the bazaar.
They had come through the gate of the camp and were on their way to Kashmiri Gate when Nihaldei said irritably, ‘Just look at these bums. The moment a girl steps out of the camp, they begin to follow and bother her.’
Tara was disconcerted. Without raising her eyes, she glanced sideways and saw that a young man had accosted Nihaldei and was speaking to her.
‘Want a room or some place to live? I know of a good place,’ Tara heard the man say.
‘Get away, you bum! What’s it to you? We don’t need your help,’ Nihaldei scolded the boy in her broken Hindi.
‘You wanna sell any jewellery, any clothes, any other stuff? I can take you to the right place,’ the man persisted.
‘Get away from us, and may you leave your wife a widow! Beat it! Stop bothering us. We know where to go,’ Nihaldei said angrily, with a wave of her hand to fend him off, and to discourage him from following them.
‘Hey! What’s up with you?’ asked the man cheekily.
Tara watched him out of the corner of her eye. His dirty clothes, oil-slicked hair and insolent, toothy grin gave her a feeling of revulsion.
When they reached Kashmiri Gate, Nihaldei said, ‘The bloody shopkeepers here charge double the price. The market of Chandni Chowk is just across that bridge. There are hundreds of shops there.’
Tara cheered up on knowing that Chandni Chowk was not far away. She
said, ‘I was told that Dariba Mohalla is nearby, and Chawri Bazaar too. There are some girls’ schools. After we get the chappals, would you take me there?’
‘No problem! That’s no bother! Why are you so scared, sister?’ Nihaldei reassured her. ‘If you just ask for directions, you can even get as far as Bukhara.’
The shopkeeper wanted six rupees for a pair of chappals. Nihaldei bargained and haggled with him, and brought the price down to three and a half rupees. In Lahore, the shopkeepers might have quoted four rupees for some article, and then accepted three and a half for it, but demanding six rupees and then selling it for nearly half the price made Tara feel that she had come to a city of crooks.
Nihaldei had no hesitation in asking passers-by in the street about schools for girls, and led Tara through the galis and alleys of Katra Neel and Dariba. These galis were narrow and winding just like those in Lahore, but lacking in the active buzz of groups of women sitting and chatting on their doorsteps. Any men that they came upon stared at them in surprise. If they passed local women dressed in chadars over their saris or dhotis, the women shrank back as if afraid of being defiled. They also heard disparaging comments, ‘These are refugees! They are really brazen!’
Tara met helpful people at two schools. ‘Send a written application to the management committee if you want a job,’ she was told. They also gave her the names and addresses of the secretaries of the committees.
At other schools the reception was less than cordial. ‘Heaven knows where this crowd come from. A couple show up every day. No one knows where they live, or where they’re from. And they want to be teachers! I’ve been teaching here for eight years. Who knows if they even know how to teach?’
Tara was bone-tired. Such cold and indifferent responses plunged her into the depths of despair. She realized that she would not find a job without some sort of a letter of recommendation. In Lahore, her brother had similarly been unable to find a job without a recommendation. She nervously watched the crowds filling the bazaar of Chandni Chowk. Strange men bumped into her intentionally, others leered at her. A few called remarks at her. As if she had asked for all this just because she had dared to come to a bazaar without a male to protect her. Nihaldei could not stop herself from shouting back taunts. This bothered Tara. She had gone with Banti to so many places in Amritsar and in Paharganj, and nothing like this
had happened to them. If it happened, Banti would merely have ignored it. Tara wanted to get back to the camp.
Nihaldei proposed, ‘This bazaar is known for its chaat. Come, let’s eat some.’ Tara refused, but Nihaldei paid no attention.
Tara was helpless, as she could not go back alone. At the chaat stall, she stood uncomfortably behind Nihaldei, her head bent. She refused to eat anything. The way the chaat seller wiped the leaves on the dhoti covering his thighs before using the leaves as plates for serving chaat, and the way he spoke with an unpleasant smirk on his face, irked Tara, but there was little she could do. Nihaldei grumbled that the spices and chillies in the chaat burned her mouth, but had four servings of it, nevertheless.