Prasadji turned suddenly into a large store selling clothes. Tara could not stand alone outside and wait, so she followed him inside. Without looking at any of the salesmen, Prasadji walked towards a man sitting on a desk at the back of the store. Hearing his name called, the man got up and came forward. Prasadji placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and whispered something. The man glanced at Tara. Both of them went to one of the shelves, and selected a sari with a floral pattern. The sari was packed in a bag and handed to Prasadji. Tara did not see him pay for it. He and Tara came out of the store.
As he was walking along the veranda, Prasadji held out the bag to Tara, ‘Have a look, and tell me what you think.’
Tara took the bag and, without removing the sari, examined the part that she could see at the top of the bag. ‘It’s nice, very pretty. I don’t know much about clothes.’
‘How much do you suppose it cost?’
‘I can’t guess,’ she held out the bag to give it back to Prasadji.
‘This is for you.’
‘No, I won’t accept it. I have plenty of clothes,’ Tara said in a firm tone of voice.
‘Wah, how can you do that? I got it for you.’ Prasadji refused to take the sari back.
Several times Tara tried to give him back the sari, repeating in a quiet voice that she did not need it, and that she nevertheless appreciated his efforts to help her, but Prasadji refused to listen. Tara was helpless. How could she create a scene in the middle of the bazaar? She muttered ‘Thanks’ and kept the bag.
Prasadji turned into a doorway in the veranda that led to a lane. He said, ‘Come, let me show you my office.’
Beside a staircase was a signboard with the name of some agency. Tara did not have time to read the name. Upstairs, a man sat working at a desk in a room that had been partitioned in two. There were three or four empty chairs. The man stood up on seeing Prasadji.
Prasadji, his hands searching for something in the pockets of his kurta, asked the man a few questions in a low voice, then turned to Tara and said, ‘Come along, come inside.’ He turned back to the man and said, ‘Bring me today’s mail.’
On the other side of the partition was a takht, with a mattress covered with a bedspread. And two armchairs. On a shelf were a surahi, earthen water pot, an electric hot plate, and a few other items that a single person might use from time to time.
The secluded half of the room made Tara uneasy. She said, ‘I’ll sit on the other side. Finish up your work, and I’ll take my leave of you.’
Prasadji took out a key and opened a cupboard. Rummaging through it, he said, ‘No, no. You relax here. I’ll work on the other side. Make yourself at home and stretch out on the takht.’ He turned on the ceiling fan, and went back to the other half of the room.
Tara took a chair. She was angry at herself for coming to this unfamiliar place with a rogue in her eagerness to have a job. She shuddered at the memory of an incident from her past. Here she might have to contend with a human being, not an animal, but still it had been foolish to come to this place. ‘The need for a job is really ….’
She heard Prasadji speak to his assistant angrily. Then the sound of the handset of a telephone being lifted, and Prasadji voice, ‘Jairamji ki, Bhaiyaa
sahib.’ From what Tara overheard, she understood that Prasadji was asking to borrow someone’s car.
Tara was sitting sideways in the armchair. For several minutes no sound came from the other half of the room. It was pleasant to sit under the slowly turning fan. She closed her eyes, and her thoughts drifted back to the events of the past two months. She had been drowned in the ocean of mischance, sunk to its deepest depths, and had still survived. Now her feet had touched the ground. The thought of what might happen next made her throat tighten. ‘Where are my father, mother, brothers and sisters? Probably in some camp. They’ll all be safe if they somehow made it to UP. Bhai was to go to Nainital after my wedding. Wonder what became of bhai’s friendship with Kanak? Anyway, I’ve come this far, and now I’ll find a foothold somehow. Doctor Shyama didn’t come back to the camp. Vimalji and Shyma are the only two decent ones in that lot. This Prasad is a nasty character. Why is he taking so much time? What will the women at the hut think?’
She heard the ticking of a clock and looked towards the sound. A small timepiece on the shelf showed seven minutes past one.
She again closed her eyes, and shifted her position to rest her back. ‘I’ll wait only until a quarter past one,’ she was thinking. ‘I’ll find my way back somehow. A tonga will cost eight or twelve annas; at the most a rupee.’ She thought of Banti… then of Dev in Amritsar and his family….
Tara felt someone touch her hair. She opened her eyes and straightened up with a start.
Prasadji was sitting on the arm of the chair, smiling as he caressed Tara’s hair. ‘You’ve slept in the chair, and not on the takht?’ he said, caressing Tara’s cheek.
Tara pushed his hand aside and stood up, ‘I want to leave. I have to finish my work at the camp.’
‘Arrey, what’s the hurry? The car’ll be here in another fifteen or twenty minutes. Sit down.’
‘Ji, no. I’d like to go. I don’t want to trouble you any more. Just tell me how to get back.’
Tara refused to sit down. Prasadji walked downstairs with her, explaining on the way, ‘From the Odeon cinema there, you can find transport to any part of the city. It’s two annas up to the Fountain. From there, another six
paisa or two annas to Kashmiri Gate and the Law Courts. I’ll come to the camp sometime. Just don’t worry.’
A tonga was hailing fares near the Odeon cinema. Prasadji told Tara to sit in it. Three seats were already taken. When she was seated, he put the bag with the sari in her lap.
After the tonga had begun to move along an unfamiliar road with its load of strangers, Tara breathed a sigh of relief for having slipped through the fingers of a rogue. The tonga went at a brisk clip on the smooth, metalled road in the bright sunshine of October.
As Tara walked to the hut, she was conscious of the bag with the sari in her hand. She had not been able find a chance to throw it away. And what purpose would be served by throwing it away? Before entering the hut, she concealed the bag under the aanchal of her sari.
Prasanno had spread out the washing on the electric cable strung between bamboo poles, and was keeping watch so that no one would walk away with the clothes. She called out when she saw Tara, ‘Bahina, you were away a long time. Nihaldei and her daughter went out after eating lunch. They left your share in that covered pot over there.’
Tara hid the bag under her clothes wrapped in the blanket. She asked Prasanno for her lota, and washed her hands and face. Then she took out her lunch out from Nihaldei’s corner, ate it, and went over to the camp office.
Tara managed to keep the bag away from the eyes of the women during the evening and night. In the morning, after she had washed, she took the blanket back from Prasanno and was rolling it around her clothes when Nihaldei’s eyes fell on the bag.
‘What did you buy?’ Nihaldei was full of curiosity.
‘Oh, it’s nothing.’
Nihaldei could not resist. She quickly reached for the bag, and took out the sari. ‘It’s brand new. How did you pay for this?’
‘Let it go. It’s nothing.’
‘Hai, what’s the harm in telling us how much it cost? Do you suppose we’ll pinch it?’
How could Tara say that she paid ten or twelve rupees for the sari when she had already told the women that she only had very little money?
Nihaldei was piqued when Tara did not reply. She threw down the sari on Tara’s chatai, ‘If you didn’t buy it then who gave it to you?’
‘Who could give me that?’ Tara tried to retrieve the situation, ‘The same
people as are giving everything else. The camp people. Who else?’
Such unfair and partial treatment by the camp officials infuriated Nihaldei, ‘Are the camp people your family? They send you these blankets, saris, sheets and soap, and make so many excuses when we ask for a couple of handfuls of flour.’
Dhammo’s mother-in-law joined in, ‘Yes, it’s true. We’ve been here for almost a month now. I never saw the camp people give anybody such expensive clothes. Without some good reason no one gives anything to anybody, nor does anyone accept.’
Tara said irritably, ‘Why do you keep picking on me? You too can go and ask them. I didn’t beg for anything. Don’t I work all day at the office copying out lists from the register?’
Prasanno was dunking pieces of last night’s chapatti in the cup of tea that she bought for one anna, and feeding it to her son. She said in support of Tara, ‘Yes, she’s right. Feeling jealous of someone’s good luck does no good. She helps out at their office. Anyone who works hard, who’s got some brains, gets a reward. Good-for-nothings like us get what we deserve. Why should we envy someone’s good fortune?’
Nihaldei was furious, ‘Arrey, she might be a mem or princess to her family. What a great beauty, what a houri she is! Don’t I know about these camp people! Heaven knows what she does with them in that tent! And all we’re good for is to cook her meals and feed her.’
Prasanno protested, ‘That is a load of rubbish! You, a mother and daughter gobble up your own rations and hers too, and then accuse her like this. I saw you sell extra flour to Kamalo for four annas!’
Nihaldei shouted curses at Prasanno, and took out Tara’s ration card and tossed it away. When she told Prasanno to go and get herself and her houri friend fixed up at the camp office and how to have it done, Tara had to close her ears in embarrassment.
Prasanno was not the one to be cowed by the woman’s aggressive attitude. She yelled back, calling Nihaldei a low-caste, ‘Who do you think you are? I’ll pull your tongue out!’ She accused Sukhdet of debauchery, and tried to grab Nihaldei by her hair.
Sukhdet, surprisingly, had so far stayed out of the squabble. She raised her finger and warned, ‘I said nothing to nobody. Don’t drag me into this, or else!’ She shouted at her mother, ‘What’s it to you what she does? Why do you interfere?’
Nihaldei screamed at her daughter, ‘You can put up with their abuse if you like! Do you think I’m scared of them?’
Tara picked up her ration card, and was about to set out for the camp office. Prasanno held out her hand, ‘Listen, bahin, give me your card. You are not cut out for this type of work.’
Nihaldei blew up at Tara. ‘Go and tattle on us to your boyfriends at the office,’ she bellowed. ‘I know you’d have us thrown out of the camp if you only could. Let’s see what you can do. I’ll call a meeting of all camp people to decide this matter. Why are sluts like you allowed in this camp? I’ll ask them. Just you come back and I’ll cut off your hair.’
It was well past the noon hour. Tara heard someone say in the other half of the tent, ‘It’s two o’clock. I’m going out for lunch.’
Tara had been feeling hungry for some time, but the thought of the pugnacious Nihaldei was holding her back. Then she thought, how long would she be able to live in fear like this? Complaining to the officials meant more humiliation, and everyone in the camp would hear about it. She’d have to go back sooner or later. What would she do in the evening?
The situation had taken another turn, she found, when she returned to the hut. Nihaldei was not in her corner. Prasanno, Dhammo and her mother-in-law, and Rikkho were talking agitatedly. Only the old woman from Gujranwala lay curled up on her chatai.
Prasanno immediately told Tara that there had been no sign of Sukhdet since morning. Nihaldei had looked everywhere in the camp for her. They all knew that Sukhdet used to meet on the sly a boy from Jadanwala in section five. One day, the boy’s sister-in-law had come over to the hut and threatened Nihaldei that they would get Sukhdet’s legs broken if she even came near their hut.
There was still no trace of Sukhdet when Tara returned in the afternoon. Nihaldei came and sat beside Tara. Her eyes were puffed up from crying, ‘You yourself saw it. My daughter was so simple and naïve. That boy from the Arora family from Jadanwala was after her life. He must have lured away my innocent girl. Should we ask the camp officials for help? My girl will be ruined. Who else can I ask but you, bahin?’
Dhammo’s mother-in-law said to no one in particular, ‘No matter what you do, this thing will bring you shame and scandal. She was a young woman, not a girl. Her husband had left her. Whoever sweet-talked her, she would go to him. The young give in to their impulses. If the insects that live on
grass and muck, and four-footed cattle can’t control their urges, how can she, who was brought up on grain and ghee? She needed a man. How could staying with her mother satisfy her? The Arora family says that she was the one who lured away their boy. A twenty-year-old man is still a boy. Such things don’t happen without the consent of the female….’ The old woman was settling old scores with Nihaldei.
There was a big hullabaloo around eight in the evening. The boy’s family came to the hut to accuse Nihaldei of helping her daughter to elope with their innocent son. The boy had stolen three hundred and fifty rupees from his brother’s trunk.
No camp official was in the office at that hour.
The representatives of camp residents held a meeting and warned the two families, ‘All we know is that the girl and boy are equally to blame. Why didn’t the girl’s mother keep a tighter rein on her? She used to wander around the camp like a motherless calf. We all have daughters and sons. We don’t approve of such scandals. Don’t make trouble here. Go and report the matter to the police if you want. If you cause a ruckus here, we’ll throw you and your stuff out of the camp.’
Gloom prevailed in the hut for two days. Sukhdet was not found; and who was there to go and look for her? The women talked in whispers or behind Nihaldei’s back. Tara had worries of her own and tried to lose herself in the work of copying the lists. She had done all 113 pages, but new names were added each day, and there were twenty more pages.
Tara returned to the hut for lunch. The women were still discussing Sukhdet’s disappearance. Dhammo’s mother-in-law was saying, ‘That girl was bound to do something like that. Attractive single women have no problem in finding someone. There’s no shortage of men willing to take them in. It’s different for those who have children, or old hags like us.’ Tara did not like her comments. She looked at Rikkho.