A Fine Family: A Novel (11 page)

It was two in the morning and the pandit intoned,
‘Om Swaha’;
Bauji and the rest of the family picked up incense and threw it into the fire. The marriage ceremony was in progress. The girl’s side and the local gentry had finished eating hours ago. Many of the guests had left soon after, and by midnight most of the carriages had departed.

The pandit was seated on the ground in front of the sacrificial fire. Across from him sat the bride and groom. Around the pandit were trays of incense, holy water from the Ganges, sacred thread, honey, flour, rice and fruit. The two families, and some close friends, sat a few yards away in a large semi-circle watching the marriage ceremony. The couple were facing east: the bride on the left, with the end of her phulkari tied to the groom’s sword. Tara’s head was covered by the red phulkari, drawn low over her face; Seva Ram’s face was hidden by the
sehra
of flowers.

The pandit had just explained to the couple that the wife was part of her husband. No man or woman’s life was complete without marriage. No religious ritual could henceforth be performed by the man without his wife. Holding the bride’s hand in his, the groom began to repeat in Sanskrit, ‘I hold your hand for our happiness. May we both live to a ripe old age. You are the queen and shall rule over my home. I am the heaven, you are the earth. Let us marry and be joined together. Your heart I take in mine. Our minds shall be one. May God make us one.’

After this, the couple took the seven sacred steps around the holy fire. With the first step, the groom prayed for sustenance, with the second for strength, with the third for keeping their vows and ideals, with the fourth for a comfortable life, with the fifth for their cattle, with the sixth for their life through the various seasons of the year, and with the seventh step for fulfilling their religious duties.

The bride next mounted a stone, which symbolized the strength of their union. Together they gazed at the pole star, and prayed for constancy. They observed the seven stars in the Great Bear constellation, and told each other that like the stars in the skies, they too would never be separated. Tara then prayed to Agni, the god of fire, to witness their marriage for the prosperity of their new home. She sipped the water from the Ganges to wash away her impurities, so that she could start a new and pure life.

The pandit finally exhorted Seva Ram to practice the four aims of life: be righteous; earn sufficient wealth for well being; allow yourself time for love and passion with your wife; and strive for oneness with the Absolute.

Bauji sat with Bhabo in the front row amidst the spectators. Since he could not see Tara’s face he couldn’t tell what his daughter was feeling. More than likely she was a bundle of fatigue and nerves. He reflected on the strange ways of nature. He, the father of the bride, had an honoured role in ‘gifting’ his daughter in a
kanya dan.
Instead of feeling honoured, he was struck by the irony of the situation: for twenty years you gave your daughter love and everything you had and then one day you had to ‘gift’ her away. Suddenly she belonged to someone else. You told her that she shouldn’t come back if she had problems, because this was no longer her home. She had a new father and mother. This was clearly unfair. But then life was not meant to be fair: it just was, he thought, as he tried to fight the melancholy which again started to envelop him.

His thoughts returned to his daughter. Did Tara know what was ahead of her? After the initial period of adjustment, she would be happy and in love. Soon boredom would set in and then the inevitable cares, children, and worries and slowly the romance would disappear. He did not feel like pursuing the script—let Tara be happy to be made into a woman.

It was dawn. The long Vedic ceremony had finally ended and preparations had begun for the biggest moment of the wedding, the departure of the bride in a palanquin. Bauji had broken his daylong fast with a glass of milk. Friends and relatives had complimented him for having done his duty: the daughter had been gifted.

While the dowry was being packed and loaded, and as the family was gathering for the departure, Bauji had gone into the study for a bit of peace and quiet. Just as he was beginning to feel better, having fought off fatigue and gloom, he received the news of a tragedy which plunged him into the greatest depths of despair. It brought to focus all his fears and forced him to face a reality which appeared inescapable.

His neighbour’s son of twenty had been murdered in cold blood in the house next door less than half-an-hour ago. Bauji knew the boy well and enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect with his family. The boy had been fast asleep in his room, when he had been set upon by at least three people. The instrument used was an axe, and the boy had quickly bled to death. It was a ‘communal killing’, of a Hindu by Muslims, in return for a Muslim death by Hindus a few days earlier in another part of town.

Bauji’s mouth began to feel sticky. He started to sweat. He took off his shirt. Nausea seemed to be coming over him, but he tried to control it. He went to the bathroom to wash his face. Instead he vomited. He rinsed his mouth and felt better.

Soon the stink returned. It was the same smell, he realized, that came from the corpse in the Company Bagh. He let the smell linger and slowly diffuse throughout the room. It was muted by the fragrance of languorous magnolia. For a moment he was almost enjoying it. He had recaptured that moment under the leechi tree when he turned the corpse over in the carnation bed. He could clearly see the boy’s face covered in blood and vomit with his nails dug into the ground. He sat down on his carved teak chair and looked down at his legs. He saw life flowing through them. While the young die, he thought, life runs through the old. He could almost see the vital liquid rushing through his legs. He smiled ironically.

The fretted hands of the bronze clock on the shelf stood at five-thirty. He turned to the window and saw the deathly light of dawn. He looked back at the clock and slowly his mind began to clear. It is a perverted world, he thought, which divides people; it makes people feel exclusive and put their own community above the whole; and to prefer their own community’s good to the good of all.

He felt a revulsion for all organized religion. The only thing that matters, he said to himself, is to be kind and decent to your fellow human beings. It is the only imperative. Religion can hang itself. This thought gave him strength. He recalled his past, and he was comforted by the reassuring fact that he had not formed religious attachments. There seemed nothing more to do in life but to live it out as gently and kindly as he possibly could; not to hurt anyone, not to worry and not to expect anything.

The stink gradually dissolved. He looked again at the clock and he was reminded of his duties. He rose, got dressed and left his study. Both families were assembled in the courtyard. Many others who had slept through the ceremony had now returned. Mercifully, someone had sent away the band after the news of the tragedy next door. However, the colourful palanquin bearers were ready and waiting. The palanquin was covered in purple silk. The parting of the bride from her family, a sad moment at the best of times was made sadder by the events of the past hour. As he looked at people’s faces, Bauji thought the scene resembled a funeral procession. The weary Tara soon arrived in the courtyard, weighed down by jewellery and heavy silks. As someone began to sing the traditional song of departure, Bauji gently asked him to stop. Bhabo, Tara and her sisters embraced tearfully. Finally Bauji led Tara to the palanquin. He embraced her for the last time and blessed her. She screamed from within and the palanquin bearers knew it was time. Bauji folded his hands in farewell to the boy’s parents and relatives, and Tara left for her new home.

Eventually the dam broke. Half-an-hour after their departure, Bauji started to cry in the privacy of his room. Chachi was the only one who knew. Either she was sensitive to his moods and his growing pain of the past twelve hours, or she merely happened to be around. Bauji was never quite sure. As he was weeping, she came and put her tiny arm on his vast shoulders and she said, ‘Be a man, Dewan Chand. Don’t cry like a woman! You have done your duty of
kanya dan;
you should be proud.’

Lala Dewan Chand had known a sense of loss for some time now. Ever since the evening when he discovered the Hindu boy’s corpse in the Company Bagh, life had begun to escape him. Sometimes in moments of deep and intense worldly activity this continual sense of loss would disappear, only to reappear in moments of silence and introspection.

Five years had passed. The War was over. Britain was about to announce its departure from India and the partition of the Punjab in order to create the political state of Pakistan. While the world around him was bursting with activity and politics, Bauji stood paralyzed in his own private world. Every day it took more and more effort to catch the jasmine’s scent or the koel’s sound in the Lyallpur evenings. Even the most familiar sensations seemed to be slipping away. But it was not totally unfortunate, for with the loss had also come an increasing insulation from the evil outside. Every day there was news of riots, carnage and rape. He seemed to slowly become immune from their impact. His private partition had begun many years ago, when he had first experienced the wickedness of organized religion and politics in the Company Bagh.

It was a humid day at the end of July 1947. Bauji sat in the courtyard smoking a hookah in the early evening. If the scents of the early summer evening eluded him, the memories of the past did not. Much to his annoyance they came gushing out like a river in spate. For months he had stopped going to the Company Bagh as it was no longer safe. Besides, most of his Company Bagh companions had fled Lyallpur in anticipation of trouble. He listened to the servant filling up a bucket with the hand pump in order to water the courtyard. But he was a poor substitute for Mashkiya. Despite his best efforts, he could never bring forth the smell of the earth. Mashkiya had left two weeks ago. They had kept this information from him for several days, but it had finally spilled out.

Suddenly after a long time Bauji heard the welcome cry of the peacock; he smiled at the familiar sound and felt buoyed up. He remembered Anees. He had missed the peacock’s voice for weeks. Just as he was feeling reassured, the cry turned into a harsh shriek. It slowly became more menacing. He covered his ears, as he saw despair approaching. Soon there was silence. Under the fading light of the evening, surrounded by his favourite jasmine which had ceased to smell, Bauji heard no other sound but that inner one of life gushing out from him.

The silence was broken by the amorous sounds of pigeons. He looked up and he saw the mischievous lovers, Heer and Ranjha, who were as usual up to no good, pecking playfully and flirting with each other.

‘At least they don’t have to worry about finding a new home,’ he said enviously.

There, now it was said. He had been avoiding it all this time. Many of his friends had confronted the truth squarely and left to make a new life in the East. Bauji had not been able to face the prospect of leaving. To his mind, it was an ugly joke of the politicians—suddenly one day you were expected to leave your home and the life that you had lived for generations. Just like that. And for what? Go where? You were expected to cross a new border and look for a new home and a new life. And why? Just because one politician had promised a separate nation to the Indian Muslims? Why must they take his home away?

‘I spit on all of you—Mountbatten, Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah. If this is the price of freedom, I don’t want it. Let us continue to be ruled by England. I want my home. I hate dreamers, especially if they are politicians. Mountbatten dreams of glory—of setting the second largest country free, of giving birth to two nations, not once but twice blessed. Gandhi and Nehru dream of winning freedom from the most powerful empire on the earth and that too by peaceful means. Jinnah dreams of being the father of the new nation of Pakistan.’

He wished there were more practical men in politics. They would think like him, and look to the needs of ordinary people. There were sorrows enough without dreamers making it worse. In the end only the mundane mattered: to live in your community with kindness and affection; to love those who loved you; to care for those who needed it; to support your neighbours, your friends and your relatives; to be a good son to your parents, a good husband to your wife, a good father to your children. The rest would take care of itself.

How dare the politicians snatch away his home! Years ago, with much love and pride, he had brought his bride to this house. His children and grandchildren were born here. It had nourished three generations. And now they expected him to calmly pack up and walk away from his beloved Lyallpur, where all his joys and sorrows lay. And for what? Some principle, he was expected to believe in: freedom, nation-state, self-rule? He was also being asked to give up the legal practice that he had built with hard work, his properties, which he had acquired with patience and skill. And go where? Go and roam the countryside across a borderline which an Englishman named Radcliffe was just then drawing on a map, while he smoked a Havana cigar, without a thought to the million emotions on both sides of the line.

Had it been an earthquake or an accident of nature Bauji would have found it easier to accept it. Yes, he would have raged against fate but he would have accepted it in the end. It was the insanity of men acting in the name of higher principles which he found hard to stomach.

His thoughts suddenly turned to the ashram. He remembered with nostalgia the atmosphere of the river, the peace and detachment. Despite the obvious charms of that way of life, he still found himself resisting it. He couldn’t quite accept being a ‘passenger through life’. His mind kept relentlessly wandering through the labyrinths of his heart. Where did this hatred of Hindus and Muslims come from? Was man by nature a hating beast under the cloak of reason and dignity conferred on him by his ability for abstract thought and the facility to verbalize moral dilemmas? Thus he questioned, momentarily forgetting his own spell of hatred and anger.

He asked himself whether he, a Hindu, hated Muslims? Yes, came the honest answer: he did. He instinctively disliked them. He knew he was wrong, but it was too late to fool himself. There was no sense in being hypocritical or ‘liberal’. Now that it was out, he might as well understand it. Why did he dislike them? Because he supposed, they were exclusive; they could not accept him as an equal; he was an infidel in their eyes; their loyalty to Islam transcended all other loyalties; they were fanatical, violent and intolerant.

As he thought about Anees and his Muslim friends, he felt the need to qualify his feelings. He did not hate the person he realized, but he disliked what being Muslim did to people. He hated organized religion, which took away the ambiguity of life. Were the Muslims not after all mostly Hindus converted to Islam, one to twenty generations ago? If that was true, if they were like him, of Hindu ancestry, why did he hate them? Yes, the fault lay in institutions, not with ordinary people. A dangerously liberal thought, which he tried to dismiss. He suppressed a depressing laugh which left an aftertaste of sweetish nausea.

As a tolerant, worldly Hindu, who had lived all his life amongst Muslims, he could not understand why they wanted to be apart. He found it difficult to concede that the Muslims existed as a separate and independent community whose outlook was essentially different from that of the Hindus. He appreciated that many of their beliefs, traditions and even values were different. And certainly their dress, food and manners were unique. But they were Indians after all, with the same temperament and love for the Indian soil. Otherwise they would have left and gone to Arabia. Yet, sitting here, far away from Mecca, the hold of Islam on them was undeniable.

He found it hard to understand the power and loyalty of the Islamic faith. Its outlook was so different from the tolerant Hindu mind. He was reminded of his conversation with Anees five years ago. He had never seen her again, but she was often in his thoughts. He had never thought of himself as Hindu, but she had made him conscious of it that day. He instinctively knew that Anees would choose her faith over her love for a man. Not that he had ever been in a position to offer such a choice to her. But it frightened him.

He tried to reflect calmly on Islam. Surprisingly, he found it easier to get hold of than Hinduism, which was amorphous and vague. He remembered Anees telling him, ‘Bauji, Islam is clear, stern and definite. A Creed, a Book and a Brotherhood: that is Islam. The Creed is that of the Prophet—”there is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet. “ The Book is the Koran, which contains the dogma and rule of life. The Brotherhood is the equality of all Muslims before God and each other’. She had sounded almost angry as she had said this to him. Bauji felt that a Muslim accepted the world and tried to make the most of it, whereas the Hindu denied it, and sought to escape from it. For the Muslim, life was a probation for the next world; for the Hindu, it was
maya
or illusion, therefore, unimportant.

Although he had never thought of it before, now in trying to understand Islam it occurred to him that there was an attractive quality about the Hindu way of life. Hinduism was a sort of fellowship of faiths because it was willing to learn and absorb new ideas. For example, Buddhism had been born as a reaction against the power and corruption of Hindu brahmins, but it had been absorbed back into Hinduism a thousand years later. This explained the Hindu’s free-thinking, catholic, easy-going temper. Why, he even knew rank atheists who could call themselves Hindus. It had few dos and don’ts and provided a whole menu of spiritual paths. Depending on one’s inclination or aptitude there were many ways to the supreme end: the way of knowledge, of love, of deeds, etc. He concluded that he preferred the ambiguity and the ‘humanity’ of the Hindus rather than the boring and fanatical certainty of the Muslims.

‘Who are these Muslims amongst us?’ Chachi had once asked him. Before he could reply she had answered her own question. They would like to believe that they are “conquerors of India” in the past ages, but the vast majority are descended from Hindus. Many of them were converted by force. A few upper class Hindus switched because of the promise of power and wealth under Muslim rulers. But the largest number was attracted from the low caste Hindus. Islam held the prospect of improving their lot, a promise of brotherhood, and fewer taboos. They had nothing to lose by conversion.’

He was distracted by the smell of cooking in the earthen tan-door upstairs. It must be lunch time. Good, he needed a distraction from these thoughts. He got up slowly and walked over to the hand pump. A servant saw him and rushed to work the pump. The cool water brought comfort in the heat. His hands were almost burning, he felt. The water was cool because it came from their own well rather than the water pipes of the city. The girls were right about one thing. The sink at Khanna’s was definitely a good idea. It prevented you from bending down and kept your feet and clothes dry. He too must instal one.

The servant handed him a freshly laundered towel which he luxuriantly enveloped around his hands. It was white and it smelled of the dhobi ghat. It exuded a familiar cool feeling which he had known for almost fifty years, for the same dhobi family had washed their laundry ever since he had come to Lyallpur. First it had been the father, now the son. His eyes fell on the label of the towel: ‘Manchester’ it said. The irony of using an English towel in a country which was the home of textiles did not escape him. It merely testified to the complete success of British colonialism. This land of ours, he mused, has been too hospitable to the foreigner. We have become accustomed to alien rulers who neither knew our religion nor our language. Otherwise how could we have coped with Turkish Emirs, Afgan viceroys, Mughal tax collectors, and English Sub-Divisional Officers. Now with the British leaving, how are we going to cope by ourselves? We are like orphans—but orphans who are thousands of years old and exhausted—who must suddenly rule ourselves. Not that we cannot do it eventually. Not that we do not have good people, but ruling takes years of learning. We are out of practice (by perhaps a thousand years). We have perfected the art of being ruled; now we must learn the skills of ruling ourselves.

The foreign rulers brought their full baggage of religion, language and culture. The Muslims built mosques, taught us Persian, and collected taxes. The British built churches, taught us English and collected taxes. We did not understand their religion or their language, but taxes we understood only too well. Because of the dreaded jazia tax many Hindus converted to Islam and now these same converts spit at us and want to divide our country. With this depressing idea he found he had arrived in the dining room, and he was happy to escape from his dreary thoughts. He realized that he had also carried the towel along with his thoughts, and he handed it back to the servant.

At five o’clock the next morning four Muslim boys armed with daggers, broke into Bauji’s house. Bauji was asleep indoors under a fan. They headed for his room. Finding it locked, they tried to pry it open. Bauji woke up, and opened the door. ‘Good morning,’ said Bauji. ‘Do come in. I’m sorry you dragged yourselves out of bed so early for my sake. I know you have come to kill me. And I am ready to die. But please do sit down. Shall we have a cup of tea before the. . . um. . . event?’

The boys were stunned. One of them who could not have been more than sixteen began to cry. The others looked visibly embarrassed. They had their heads down. All of a sudden their leader dropped down to his knees and begged for Bauji’s forgiveness. Bauji pressed them again to have tea, but they declined the offer.

Bauji asked the youngest boy why he was crying. His older companion answered instead.

‘He is a cry-baby, sir.’

‘I am not,’ protested the youngster.

‘Every morning he comes back home and boasts to his friends how many Hindus he has killed. But at night he cries in bed. At least that’s what his mother says. The other day he couldn’t even kill a person properly. We were in Gol Bazaar, and he half killed this old man. The fellow lay in agony and I had to go back and kill him properly.’