Half a Rupee: Stories Read online

  ‘Bakr-i-Id, sir! This is the sacrificial lamb. You will have it, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes … why not?’ Kulwant opened the tiffin carrier himself and picking up a piece of the roasted mutton, said, ‘Make yourself a drink.’

  ‘No sir, thank you!’

  ‘Come on. Make a drink. Id mubarak!’

  With the mutton chop dangling from his fingers, he embraced Majeed thrice.

  ‘Once upon a time, Fattu Masi would roast these delicately for us. Mushtaq’s ammi. Long ago in Saharanpur.’ He looked at Majeed, ‘Have you ever savoured ghuggni made of black chickpeas along with mutton roast? It is simply to die for.’

  Majeed wanted to say something but checked himself. Then with some deliberation he said, ‘This roast has been sent over by my sister.’

  ‘She lives here? In Kashmir?’

  ‘Yes sir. In Kashmir, but …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘She lives in Zargul … on the other side.’

  ‘Arre!’ Kulwant was sucking the marrow from a succulent bone which he held in his right hand as he poured a drink for Majeed from his left, ‘Cheers! Once again, Id mubarak!’

  After he clinked his glass with Majeed’s, he asked him, ‘So, how did your sister send this across?’

  Majeed could feel the air stiffen a bit. He began to feel a little uncomfortable. Kulwant asked him with stringent military precision, ‘Did you go over to the other side?’

  ‘No, sir! I’ve never been. Not even once.’

  ‘Then?’ The word hung in the air.

  ‘My brother-in-law’s the lieutenant commander on the other side. My sister came over to meet him.’

  Kulwant picked up his glass and sipped his whiskey. It had grown warm now. He slapped the tiffin carrier shut and stood authoritatively in front of Majeed. ‘How did you manage to bring this across? What’s the bundobast between the two of you?’

  Majeed kept quiet.

  ‘What was the bundobust?’ Kulwant thundered.

  ‘In the village below, there are a lot of men whose houses are on this side but their farms on the other,’ Majeed began to stutter in answer. ‘There are men in a similar situation in villages on the other side too whose houses and farms are thus divided. Families and relations too. So …’

  Kulwant Singh had more faith in Majeed’s voice than the words he had cobbled together. A pregnant pause—and then when Kulwant put some more roast on his plate, Majeed said, ‘The commander on the other side is a friend of yours, isn’t he, sir? I know because I have read an article that you had written.’

  Kulwant Singh froze. There was only one name that cropped up in his mind. And when Majeed spoke the name, tears welled up in his eyes.

  ‘Mushtaq Ahmad Khokar … from Saharanpur.’

  Kulwant’s hands began to shake. He walked up to the window in his tent and looked outside. A few soldiers were crossing the camp in step with each other.

  Majeed spoke softly, ‘Commander Mushtaq Ahmad is my sister’s father-in-law.’

  Kulwant turned sharply, ‘Father-in-law? Oye, your sister’s married to Naseema’s son?’

  ‘Ji.’

  Kulwant blurted out, ‘Oye you …’

  Major Kulwant Singh began to choke on his own words. He picked up his glass and scoffed the whiskey down his throat as if he was trying to swallow the lump that was there.

  Mushtaq and Kulwant both belonged to Saharanpur. Once upon a time they had both studied together at the Doon College. And they had both trained together at the Doon Military Academy. Their mothers—Mushtaq’s ammi and Kulwant’s beji—were fast friends. And then the country was partitioned—and along with the country the army was divided too. Mushtaq went over to the other side with his entire family, and Kulwant stayed behind. Thereafter the two families had had no contact with each other.

  A few days later, Kulwant walked a few miles from the camp along with a junior officer named Vishwa and made him establish radio contact with the commander on the other side. Mushtaq was a little taken aback. But once he got over his surprise, the two friends began to sling such choice profanities and obscenities at each other in their native Punjabi that their hearts opened up and their eyes began to water. When Kulwant finally found his breath, he asked, ‘How’s Fattu Masi?’

  Mushtaq said, ‘Ammi has grown very old now. She had invoked Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti for a mannat and all she wants now is to go to Ajmer Sharif and offer a chador on his shrine with her own hands. But Rabiya cannot leave the children alone to go with her … I just keep blabbering, you probably don’t have the foggiest idea who Rabiya is.’

  ‘Of course I do. Majeed’s sister … that’s Rabiya, right?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Majeed’s my junior, bhai.’

  ‘Oye … oye …’ and another torrent of obscenities ensued.

  ‘Take good care of him,’ Mushtaq said in an emotionally charged voice.

  Then the two of them decided that Mushtaq would bring his mother to the Wagah border where Kulwant’s wife Santosh would meet up with her. Santosh would then bring her over to their house in Delhi. She would take her on a pilgrimage to Ajmer Sharif, and then to meet Beji in Saharanpur. Wouldn’t the two old women just love to spend a few days together? To Mushtaq it seemed that a huge load had been heaved off his chest.

  Then one day, a message arrived from Mushtaq: ammi’s visa has come through. Kulwant called up his wife to fix the date for her to come to the Wagah border. All arrangements were made. All that was left was to inform Mushtaq.

  And that was the day that the defence minister landed up at the outpost and guns began to sound on both sides of the border. Kulwant knew that this was only a matter of a few days—this too would pass. He may not be able to contact Mushtaq over the wireless in this situation but he could always send across a villager from below with the message; Majeed had the resources. But yet, Kulwant could not stop himself from worrying. Santosh would say that now even Beji had started calling from the local post office and had started shooting questions. ‘Ni … Fattu’s coming, right? Will you be able to reach Wagah on your own? Will you be able to recognize her or do you want me to come along?’

  Majeed reported, ‘Sir, the Pakistanis have started heavy shelling.’

  Kulwant was already irritated, ‘ Khasma nu khaaye Pakistan … to hell with Pakistan, what about Fattu Masi?’

  On the fifth day of August, Pakistani forces attacked Chambh and crossed the Line of Control. On the twenty-eight day of August, Indian troops captured the Haji Pir Pass, eight kilometres into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

  On that very day, on 28 August 1965, Fattu Masi was making mutton roast and Beji was boiling black chickpeas for ghuggni when the news arrived—eleven Indian soldiers had attained martyrdom at the LoC. Amongst them was one Major Kulwant Singh.

  Over

  Bujharat Singh had got so used to talking over the wireless radio that he would suffix all his conversations with ‘Over’. We were standing just next to him and he said, ‘Why don’t you pull that charpoy and sit? Over!’

  We pulled up the charpoy and sat. Gopi whispered into my ears, ‘Bujharat Singh! Now, what kind of a name is that?’

  I shrugged my shoulders, ‘It is, so it is. So leave it be.’

  Bujharat Singh had been speaking for quite some time now over a wireless radio, ‘Put four–five beefy burly men on his back and make the bugger run … he will automatically fall in line. Over!’

  The wireless set cackled. Bujharat Singh lit up his beedi and puffed in the smoke. The party on the other side said something and Bujharat Singh snapped, ‘Rope his legs together … then chase him with a stick … make him run … a kos at least. Over!’

  He breached his talk to listen and then picked up the wireless radio and barked into it, ‘Arre, you will get nothing by starving him. He will die, uselessly. You also, no, talk like a stupid man sometimes. Over!’

  He was doling out advice to somebody in another camp on ho
w to rein in a crazed camel. A lantern lit his face amidst the darkness gathering in the sand dunes. Gopi and I sat patiently on the other side of the lantern. We were at a desert outpost, about forty kilometres from Pochina.

  Pochina is situated at the India–Pakistan border. We were here on a film shoot. You could not really call Pochina a village. It was more like a outpost flung out in the desert, a pastiche of houses huddled together—but quite picturesque, like houses drawn in crayon in a children’s drawing book. The garrison quarters too was not a pukka building, but a framework of bricks plastered with mud. There were two rooms—barrack-like—and a square alcove cut into one wall. A soldier in full military regalia stood in the alcove leaning on his gun—quite pointlessly—while the rest of his garrison romped about in their undershirts and gamchas doing squats or massaging each other bare-bodied, slathering mustard oil onto their rippling muscles. Poor men! With the arrival of our heroine, they had to comb their hair and strain themselves into proper clothes.

  And what a location our director had dug up! Scenic! There were ridges upon ridges of desert sand wherever you looked, as far as the eye could see. Undulating in the wind—now a crease here, now a crescent there.

  About two furlongs from this outpost was a cement milestone. ‘Bharat’ was written on one side of the stone and ‘Pakistan’ on the other. Such milestones are hammered into the sandy earth along the border at an interval of two furlongs. Between the two milestones the land lies barren—just a patchy growth of puny scrub which sheep and camels keep scratching at. These animals roam about with full freedom on either side of the border, unburdened by religion, unfettered by boundaries of nation-states. You cannot make out the religion or the nationality of their owners either.

  We had a permit to be there for three days. And we also had the permission to pitch our own tents. But we had a small problem on our hands. The men would crouch behind the dunes for their morning ablutions. But what would the women in our troupe do? We found a makeshift toilet sort of thing, though, but it had no doors, not even a make-do one.

  ‘Who bothers with a door, Sahibji? This is the desert … we go behind the dunes and make do. The sand comes in handy. Where in this desert will you find enough water to work a flush?’

  ‘Then where do you get water to bathe and cook?’

  ‘There’s a pipeline, Sahibji, but the control is in Jaisalmer. By the time the water reaches here, it is never enough. We order water tankers. The contractors too need to earn a living.’

  We reserved a tent for the womenfolk. Water was available in bottles and we had a plentiful stock of Bisleri. Our heroine, whom we addressed as Dimpyji, had fired a gun a number of times in films. But she had never handled a real gun, never fired real bullets. She asked the soldier standing in the alcove, ‘Is this thing loaded?’

  ‘Yes, certainly madam, it is.’

  ‘May I?’

  The soldier jumped down. Dimpyji stepped on the empty wooden crates by the wall and climbed onto the alcove. The desert sprawled out like a beautiful, delicate silken sheet over the earth. Not far away, towards the right, two palm trees stood tall in their green plumage. A few thatched houses huddled around them.

  ‘Who lives in those houses?’ Dimpyji asked.

  ‘Shepherds, mostly.’

  ‘Is that a village?’

  ‘Yes, something like it.’

  ‘What’s its name?’

  The soldier had no idea. He looked embarrassed and began to look sideways. A number of soldiers had come and stood behind Dimpyji, crowding the door. They were all trying hard to suppress their smiles. A senior soldier finally said, ‘The village does not have a name. People call it Pochina Ki Poonchh, the tail of Pochina.’

  Laughter crackled through like a piece of chalk scratching a line on the blackboard. Dimpyji asked the senior, ‘May I fire this gun?’

  He hesitated a little before saying, ‘Yes, go ahead.’

  ‘But what if somebody from the other side of the border fires back?’

  ‘Not a problem ji. We normally fire a shot to greet each other.’

  ‘Is that so? And what if I were to fire two shots?’

  A smile stayed glued on each and every face.

  ‘Oh … that would be a signal to the men on the other side that we are sending people across the border … if they want to send somebody across they too fire twice.’

  They all broke into laughter but the laughter never left their lips, it stayed glued to their faces. Dimpyji fired a greeting at the enemy outpost. The sound reverberated in the desolate arid desert and began to swim across the border. Gopi Advani was standing next to me. Suddenly he trembled. His lips quivered and tears welled up in his eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing!’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Over there on the other side is Sindh … my village.’ And he walked away.

  People in our unit would tease Gopi; they called him Baby Gopi. He was a very emotional man. Tears would well up in his eyes if he were to talk about his mother. His family had stayed back in Sindh after Partition. He had gone to school there for a few years. But with the arrival of the Indian muhajirs—the Muslims from India who were forced to go to Pakistan after Partition—life for them became increasingly difficult and they had to leave. That day, seeing Sindh so close, his heart trembled.

  I did not see him again that day. He did not even return to the tent at nightfall. When the director inquired about him, I covered for him, ‘He’s not feeling well. I asked him, to rest in the tent.’ But I had begun to worry about Gopi. What if he had scrambled across the border? He wasn’t to be found the next morning either, but he resurfaced in the afternoon the day after. I learnt that he indeed had gone over to the other side. But soon he had found himself totally lost.

  ‘Deep in the desert, you tend to lose your orientation. Dunes upon dunes of sand, they all look the same. You climb a dune but the one in front looks the same as the one you just left behind. There was only one thing to do—to retrace my footsteps and head back. But when I turned back the footprints were all gone. To tell you the truth, I was really scared. If it wasn’t for Salman, I would be … he was godsent.’

  ‘Who’s Salman?’

  ‘Let me finish … I will tell you. When the desert begins to heat up it really seems as if it is getting angry at you … as if it is trying to say “why are you trying to step on my bed”… pick your feet up, go away. The desert is so vast and I am so puny. I took off my shirt and tied it around my head. A while later I heard the strains of a song. Somebody was singing maand. Not very far away. I could make out the song—Padharo mere desh—but I could not see anybody. I untied my shirt and began to wave it. God knows how he spotted me or from where because when my eyes fell on him he was on the top of the dune under which I was standing. He was sitting astride a camel; he hollered at me, “Kotha piyu inchay, Sai?”

  ‘I don’t know how to say it, man, but in that frame of mind, to hear him speak Sindhi it felt as if I was in my mother’s arms, as if Mother herself had come to pick me up. He asked me again, “Where are you coming from?” I said, “Pochina.” He pulled me up on the back of his camel and spurred the animal into a run.’

  ‘Where did you two go then? Sindh?’ I asked.

  ‘No, only up to Miyan Jalaadh, a village behind Pochina. That is where Salman lives.’

  ‘But which side is he from? This side or the other side?’

  Gopi told me that Salman was a fugitive from the other side: a murderer on the run. He had killed an admirer of the woman he loved and had run across the border and sought refuge in Miyan Jalaadh. A woman took him in and gave him shelter. He stayed with her for three years and then married her. Now he had two strapping kids with her.

  ‘He never went back to the other side?’

  ‘He does, sometimes, to meet his beloved. The same girl. Now even she is married and all. She, too, has two kids.’

  Gopi paused awhile and then resumed his tale, ‘When I told
him that I too am from the other side, he got all fired up and said, “Come, I will take you to your village.” I felt so much like saying yes. I asked him, “Now? In the night?” He looked at me and harrumphed, “O, Sai … I may forget the way but my camel will not. Once she starts running she will only stop at her door.”

  ‘“Whose?” I asked.

  ‘But it was his wife who answered, “The woman’s, who else’s? He’s got a woman there too. Across the border.”

  ‘I looked at her and asked, “And you don’t feel bad about it?”

  ‘“I have been telling him, bring her over too … the two of us will learn to live together.”’

  What a wonderful border ours was. When we read about it in our newspapers it seems nothing less than an incendiary line drawn of fire, spewing fire and spouting blood.

  The next day, the hero of our film, Banneyji, said to me, ‘Yaar, rum won’t do. Can’t you arrange for some whiskey … even Indian whiskey will do.’

  We had heard that Indian whiskey got smuggled across the border near a village not far from Pochina. Whiskey got ferried from the Indian side and silver from the Pakistani side. The police from both sides met every month in the village to work out the logistics. A lot of things got ironed out in such meetings: how many sheep strayed from this side, how many camels got caught on the other side, etc.—these meetings took everything into account. The two sides sorted out everything amicably between themselves. On some evenings the Indian side even threw a party in honour of the guests from across the border, opened a few bottles of good whiskey, roasted a few skewers of lamb.

  That evening Gopi and I were sitting on one such border outpost, next to Havildar Bujharat Singh. He had just finished giving his advice on how to break in a camel over his wireless radio. He had even ordered for our whiskey bottles over the wireless. Now he was talking to us about the letter that his wife had written him.

  ‘She is a complete idiot, Sahibji … she has gone mad … she writes anything she feels like. Now you tell me Sahibji … what should I do? Shall I protect Hindustan or shall I go and fight the thakur who has usurped her two-finger-width worth of land? Look, Sahibji … the entire border is open … the enemy can march over at any time. The government has produced bloody nuclear bombs … but what has it done for us … now even matches are one rupee a box.’