Half a Rupee: Stories Read online

  He tried to puff on his beedi but it had gone out on him. He plucked a dried twig from the weave of his charpoy and poked it through the tiny opening in the lantern’s housing. The dried twig immediately fared up. He relit his beedi on the faming twig. He had hardly taken two or three puffs before the beedi once again died on him.

  Gopi had pulled out his lighter to light his cigarette. He looked at Gopi and laughed, ‘Only if I had a lighter of my own … life then would be such fun … now you cannot light a beedi with a nuclear bomb, can you? Over!’

  The Rams

  Suchitgarh is a small hamlet on this side, in Hindustan. Sialkot is a big town on that side—in Pakistan.

  Captain Shaheen was a handsome army man in New York. He ran a restaurant named Kashmir. His office was styled like a glorified bunker: the roof replete with artificial leaves sticking out of plastic nets, a number of army caps hung on one wall, military boots carelessly placed upon the floor, a military uniform hung on a clothes hook.

  Amjad Islam had invited me over to the restaurant for lunch—and Vakil Ansari escorted me to the place. He was from that side, but he kept inviting all the Urdu poets and writers from this side to his place and in this way indulged his love for the language.

  Vakil Ansari had celebrated Jashn-e-Gopichand Narang all over the country. He owned a hotel and that was his means of livelihood. Sardar Jafri from this side and Ahmad Faraz from the other side often stayed as his guests in his house. His favourite phrase was: ‘Life’s become as commonplace as partridges and quails.’ Or another variant of the same: ‘Life has reduced us to partridges and quails.’ It was a very original phrase, one that I had not come across before—neither on this side nor on the other.

  While inviting me over to Captain Shaheen’s restaurant, Amjad bhai had said, ‘If you want to dine on Eastern cuisine, then you will not find a better place than Shaheen’s in the whole of New York.’ Amjad bhai was very cautious with the words he picked—he did not call it Indian or Pakistani cuisine. For that matter he did not even refer to it as Punjabi cuisine. He called it ‘Eastern’. And he went out of the way to avoid the word Kashmir. But Captain Shaheen was your typical large-hearted army man and he laughed off Amjad bhai’s cautionary approach. ‘Aji … both sides stake their claims on Kashmir—and that’s the reason why this restaurant of mine is flourishing,’ he said.

  Something had upset him in the army and in a sulk he had resigned his commission. ‘If I had stayed for just one more month I would have retired as a Major,’ he said, ‘but somehow, I like the sound of Captain Shaheen better.’

  He had participated in the 1971 Indo–Pak war. ‘All the action took place on the eastern front, in Bengal. We only had a few skirmishes in Punjab,’ he said. He was embroiled in action in one of the battles in the Sialkot sector.

  I asked him, ‘What is that emotion that makes a soldier out of a man?’

  He had grown a thin beard and was in the habit of twirling his moustache as he spoke. ‘O ji, that’s just a grandiloquent feeling. It is all about the splendour of the uniform and the charm of the army beret, and the status that it adds to a man’s prestige. I don’t think that men become soldiers to die and kill for the country.’ He then burst into laughter, ‘Our feud is no war. The wars between Hindustan and Pakistan! Come off it. They keep fighting like schoolchildren—twist this one’s arm, break that one’s knee, spill some ink over this one’s shirt, drive the nib of the pen into that one’s side. Remember when we were kids, how we would go to watch sheep ram their horns into each other—you too must have bunked school to see them fight …’

  I found him a very down-to-earth person. There was a deeply felt honesty in his way of speaking. I must have asked him something that made him say, ‘Yes, of course! A soldier too is scared—at first. But after he fires his gun a few times, empties a few bullets, fear takes fight. When bullets are fired, there’s a kind of smell that permeates the air—that of burnt gunpowder. And at the front, you get intoxicated with it, sort of addicted to it. When the guns fall silent and the trance is about to be broken you begin to fire again. Not necessarily at the enemy. Just so that you do not sober up.’

  He paused and then added, ‘When you face your fear, you become familiar with it and familiarity makes it lose its meaning, loosen its grip—fear ceases to be fear.’

  To me it seemed as if he was asking people at the front to get intimate with death—it will come when it comes.

  He said, ‘Right in the beginning, at the outset of your training when you are prostrate on the ground, grazing your knees and your elbows, the thought does come time and again to quit, to give it all up. But when your bargedar (brigadier) singles you out and reprimands you on your mistake, when he screams at you, demanding to know which part of the country you are from, then believe me, sahib, you are unable to take the name of your village or state—it is just so embarrassing.’

  Perhaps this is what translates into honour for a soldier—the honour of the soil that you come from, the honour that a soldier needs to defend at all costs.

  Captain Shaheen kept up his narration. ‘Suchitgarh is a small little hamlet—of a few houses. Some had already been abandoned because they were very close to the border and some when we marched into the village. It was necessary for us to inspect each and every house: when you win a territory without any resistance, you are wise to suspect an enemy manoeuvre. It could be one of their traps.’

  He was of the opinion that there is a great difference in the temperament of the soldiers on the two sides. ‘They are both Punjabis but the soldiers on this side—they are a little more aggressive. And those on the other side—they are of a more pacific nature, more calm. Farmers on the other side till their lands within inches of the border. But on this side, they let at least two–three hundred yards of barren land distance their houses and farms from the border. In such places, troops of five to seven soldiers patrol the borders on either side. And often they are in such close proximity to each other that they can light each other’s cigarettes.

  ‘The soldiers on this side are commonly Punjabis but on the other side you often find non-Punjabis. Many a times, the soldiers on this side shout across the border, “So, bhai! Where from?” If that soldier is from down south he shouts back in English but normally what you hear is Hindi laced with Urdu.

  ‘After seizing Suchitgarh, I took a troop of four or five soldiers and started checking the houses in the village. As my men pushed open the door of a house, they found a small boy cowering in one corner of the house, scared out of his wits. My men called out to me, “Sirji.”

  ‘The moment I reached there the boy leapt towards me and hugged me. He just wouldn’t let go. My men pulled him away, somehow. I was troubled; what was I to do with him? I could hardly get a word out of the boy—he was too scared to even tell me the name of his parents. He just stood there, shaking in fear. I told him to scamper, to run away. But he just couldn’t. So I put him in my jeep and brought him back to my post. I gave him something to eat and asked him to lie down in a corner. I instructed my men not to let a word of this out—technically, he was our prisoner of war. I was duty-bound to report this matter to my headquarters and throw him into a jail along with other prisoners. But there was something in his eyes, his innocence perhaps, that made me wish the poor boy well.

  ‘After noon the next day, I took out my badge-shadge and went on a patrol to the same border village. On a farm a little away from the village I found an old Sikh rinsing his mouth at the tubewell. I shouted, “Sardarji … oye … come here!” He looked in my direction and I gestured to him to come over. When he came near me, wiping his hands on the tail end of his turban, I asked him, “You haven’t gone?”

  ‘He looked at me, a little taken aback, “Where?”

  ‘“Everybody else has gone. Left the village. Why haven’t you?”

  ‘“Lai … I have already left my village on the other side with you,” he said pointing across the border with both his hands. “What have you c
ome here for now … to grab my fields?”

  ‘The Sikh seemed to be in a rage. I tried to pacify him and said, “A kid from Suchitgarh … about seven or eight years old … has strolled over to our side. I believe his parents have left the village.”

  ‘“So?”

  ‘“If I bring him over, will you take him to his parents?”

  ‘The sardar fell in deep thought. After a long pause he nodded, “All right.”

  ‘I asked him to come back at five in the evening. Never till then had I seen a smile glint off such yellowed, decaying teeth. The old Sikh laughed, “Let the boy off. Imprison me instead. Take me with you. My village is over on that side. A little further down from Sialkot. Chajra.” He sounded ecstatic—drunk just on the name of his village.

  ‘I could not make it back to the village that evening. Our commander was paying us a visit. And it took all our efforts to keep the boy hidden from him. We fed him and then hoisted him on to the loft of the control room. When the commander wanted to inspect the control room, we pulled him down from the loft and bundled him behind the gunny sacks of the storeroom and then later quickly locked him in the latrine behind the barracks. It was totally illegal to keep him with us. Heads would roll if the commander were to get a whiff of him. There was a moment when I was on the verge of ordering my soldiers to tie him in a gunny sack and dump him in the old Sikh’s field. A sword kept dangling over our heads all through the commander’s stay.

  ‘News from the eastern front, from Bengal, had begun to pour in. And it depressed the hell out of us. The Indian armed forces were with the Mukti Bahini and Yahya Khan … well … leave that be.’

  There was a long pause. Captain Shaheen’s eyes had begun to soften, I could discern a hint of hurt pride in them. His face was criss-crossed with emotions. Finally, he spoke again.

  ‘The next day too there was a lot of troop movement. The day whittled away. The sun was about to set when I reached the border along with the kid. I was surprised to see the old Sikh still waiting there. There was a small troop of four or five soldiers with him. One of them stepped forward and addressed me, “Captain or Major?” Soldiers do not wear their ranks in ribbons at the front, but still it is not difficult to make out an officer amongst the ranks. The soldier who spoke was also either a Captain or a Major. I stepped forward, shook his hand and handed the boy over to him. “He’s from Suchitgarh. We found him hiding in one of the village houses,” I said.

  ‘“So … where are you from … who are your parents?” the officer asked him, a little sternly.

  ‘The boy shuddered once again. He raised his eyes in my direction and said, “Chacha … I am not from this side … I am from the other side,” he gestured in our direction, towards our side, “from Chajra, a little further down from Sialkot.”

  ‘We were all stunned. I looked at the old Sikh. A smile once again glinted off his yellowed teeth. He moved towards the boy, ruffled his hair with the fondness reserved for one’s own and with tears that refused to stay within his eyes asked, “Really? You are from Chajra?”

  ‘I yelled at him, “Then what the hell were you doing here?”

  ‘Tears began to roll down his cheeks. “I had run away from school … to … to … see the ram fight.”’

  Captain Shaheen looked into my eyes and said earnestly, ‘Believe me, Sahib, the two of us, soldiers both, were standing before that seven–eight-year-old like two idiotic schoolmasters. And our faces looked like those of rams.’

  IV

  A legion of heads, a throng of limbs

  Abandoned apparatus from a defunct factory

  Spare parts all—

  Hilsa

  Vibhuti dawdled through the house, rearranging the folds of his dhoti, and stopped at the kitchen door. ‘The newspaper hasn’t arrived yet, has it?’ he sighed. ‘Now it seems Bagbazaar Road too has been blockaded.’

  But his sigh was lost on Kanchan. She was too engrossed in the fish that she was dressing. ‘Look at its eyes—beautiful, aren’t they? Mesmerizing like a mermaid’s.’ She scooped up a mug of water, poured it into the fat-bottomed pan and began to bathe the fish in it.

  A hint of mischief stretched across Vibhuti’s lips, ‘Enamoured with these unseasonal showers, seems like Ramu found you some mangoes in December … eh?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  An impish glee lit up Vibhuti’s eyes, ‘It’s summer now. You shouldn’t eat fish in the months that do not have the letter R in them. It’s prohibited!’ Now that he had Kanchan’s undivided attention he elaborated, ‘Like in the months of May, June, July, August … come to think of it, all the other months, September through April, they all have the letter R in them.’

  Kanchan spelled out the months in her mind and looked at her husband, impressed. ‘Yes, it’s as you say … but why is it forbidden to eat fish in these months?’

  Like a typical Bengali husband, Vibhuti stuffed a pinch of snuff up each nostril, rearranged the folds of his dhoti once again and sat down on the threshold of the kitchen. ‘Those are the months in which the fish breed … they are pregnant … and just like when the wife is pregnant it is forbidden to have …’

  ‘Dhat! What are you saying …’ she blushed, ‘you have grown old but the devil still has you in his clutch … go, go … off you go!’ She pushed Vibhuti away from the kitchen.

  Laughing, Vibhuti sauntered into the living room and fidgeted with the TV controls. The television was rife with news of the riots. The rioters were on a rampage. The markets were all closed. The local administration had clamped a curfew in many places.

  ‘Perhaps this is why,’ Vibhuti muttered under his breath, ‘the fishermen could not bring their haul to the markets and Ramu found a cheap deal at the ghat.’

  He ambled over to the kitchen to impress his wife once again with his power of deduction, but Kanchan was not there. He heard the sound of gurgling water and deduced that the wife must have gone for her bath at the hand-pump. He crossed the kitchen and could see that Kanchan had spread her sari on the clothesline to carve herself a private bathing space.

  ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, tell me?’ her voice seemed wet, coming from behind sheets of falling water.

  ‘Our Ramu … you know … he must have gone to the ghat early in the morning …’ He lifted the improvised screen a little.

  ‘Dhat!’ A volley of water hit Vibhuti’s face. ‘Out … out you go … thank God, this shameless man has an office to go to on most days.’

  Vibhuti laughed and began to wipe his face on his wife’s sari. ‘It’s not my fault that the newspaper hasn’t arrived … what’s an idle man to do? Shall I dress the fish?’

  ‘No! Don’t you dare step into my kitchen!’

  Poor Vibhuti! He had too much time on his hands. Aimlessly he drifted through the house. There wasn’t much on the television to hold his attention: Chitra-Geet and then the news and then Chitra-Geet all over again. He couldn’t relish the song videos on the black-and-white TV. God! In this day and age of colour, a black-and-white TV! The clothes and the skin of the gyrating sirens in the same shade! Imagine having no idea where the heroine’s blouse ended and where her skin began! This was certainly not done.

  He heard the sound of Ramu’s voice somewhere in the house. God alone knew when he was in the house, and when he was out. It seemed like he worked for the entire neighbourhood. Ramu was standing outside Kanchan’s improvised bathroom, asking her, ‘Bouma, shall I grind the masala for the fish? Are you planning to cook it with mustard?’

  ‘Go, get the masala ground in Tuntuni’s grinder … I shall be done with my chores by then,’ he heard Kanchan say.

  Tuntuni was the youngest daughter of his next-door neighbour. He heard Ramu’s retreating footsteps and the sound of the gate closing. Vibhuti did not like Ramu talking to his wife while she was having a bath. And now there was nothing but static on the TV. He turned the TV off and plopped on the easy chair.

  When he heard the ringing of the prayer bel
ls he realized that Kanchan was dressed and in the puja room. Soon she would be here with the bowl of prasad in her hand and when he would stretch out his open palms towards her, her eyebrows would arch and she would say go wash your hands first and lazily he would tilt his head back and open his mouth and Kanchan would drop the prasad into his mouth.

  And that was what happened. The moment Kanchan stepped into the room she shot at him, ‘What? You haven’t had your bath yet?’

  ‘Un-hoon!’ He shook his head and opened his mouth. Kanchan dropped the prasad into his mouth and in doing so her still-wet hair fell on his face and while brushing her hair off his face he playfully squeezed her cheeks.

  ‘Uff! You men … you have no sense of propriety … this isn’t a proper time to …’

  ‘Must I fix a time to appreciate beauty?’

  ‘Liar!’ She hurried away.

  Vibhuti could detect a blush on her face and tremor in her voice as she spun away from him. He smiled to himself.

  Now he once again found himself with a lot of time on his hands. With nothing to do, he went and stood at his window and peeped into the lives of his neighbours. A crow few in with a piece of raw mutton in its beak and perched on the wall separating his house from that of his neighbour’s. Another crow few in and lowered itself onto the other end of the wall. When it started to hop closer, the crow with the piece of mutton in its beak flapped its wings and few away. The other crow few away too. Vibhuti moved away from the window and soon found himself once again in the kitchen.

  The hilsa was still lying in the fat-bottomed pan, its mouth a little agape as if it was trying to say something. And those wide-open eyes, weren’t they mesmerizing, beautiful!