Our Favourite Indian Stories Page 8

  Madhukar glanced at his wristwatch and said, 'Neera, I forgot about an appointment I made for four o'clock to see a patient in Ballygunge. It slipped out of my mind. Let's go; we'll come here another evening.' And without waiting for an answer, he got up and announced, 'I will drop you on the way.'

  She followed him out of the restaurant feeling smaller and smaller till she felt being reduced to a midget.

  'Don't worry about me. It will make you go out of your way. I'll get home on my own,' she said trying hard to smile.

  She spent the night thinking about him. She knew she should not see any more of Madhukar; but she also knew she would not be able to keep up her resolve. The more she tried to put him out of her mind, the stronger became her desire to win over Madhukar's heart. The next evening when Madhukar dropped in on the excuse of seeing her sick husband, she felt she had got a second lease of life. He brought him a bouquet of flowers; she knew that it was really meant for her because they were her favourite gladioli. He knew she kept them in her vase till the last blossom had withered away.

  As she was leaving, he touched her lightly on her shoulders and murmured, 'Sorry about last evening.'

  Neera could not make out what he was apologising about. For not having replied to her question or not having given her tea? However, she felt there must be something abiding in their relationship to make him come to see her.

  Maybe soon the time would come when she could put him the same question and he would answer 'Yes.'

  All said and done, what else is it that keeps humans alive except hope! It was the same with her husband. He had been badly injured in a traffic accident but had hung on to life in the hope that he would be his old self again.

  She remembered how lying in bed in the hospital, he had said, 'Neera, I don't think I will be of any use to you any longer. Would you like to be freed of me?'

  She had broken down. She had run her trembling fingers across the face of the man who had been her life's support but was now lying disabled and helpless. She reassured him, 'Don't ever say such things again. I'll never leave you. I wish God had inflicted this injury on me rather than on you.'

  Time takes its toll of everything. It not only ages the face and the body but the head and the heart as well. Time makes people forget their own words, forget the solemnity of vows made. When rains fall, withered trees begin to sprout fresh leaves. The scorching sun of mid summer turns the same green woodland into a barren desert. There was time when she had waited anxiously all day for the evening when her husband would be back home. And now that he was home all day long, she felt that there was nothing left in the world for her to look forward to.

  How could she ever forget what Madhukar had done for her! When her world had become pitch-dark without a glimmer of hope anywhere, he had taken her out into the light. He had assuaged the pain that she had inflicted upon herself through self-torture. She had become a living corpse; he had breathed life back into her.

  'Look upon me as a friend. Tell me all that you have on your mind. Grief shared is a burden lightened,' Madhukar had said to solace her.

  Alas! If only anguish in the heart could be lessened by opening it out to others! Inner sorrow is an unending, wordless tale which only the truly concerned can comprehend.

  At the time she felt that no one could read her mind better than Madhukar. She started adorning her days and nights with the pearls of dreams surrounding him. In her desert she saw a mirage of sparkling, life-giving water. Never before in her life had she felt closer to anyone as she felt to Madhukar.

  The last five years had not been without meaning for them. They had gone a long way together. He set the pace, holding her hand in a tight grasp to help her keep up with him. His name was now listed amongst the most successful doctors in the city. He never had any problem with money; now he had plenty to squander. He could not bear to see Neera living in a miserable, dilapidated tenement in Tollygunj. He bought her a spacious apartment in Calcutta's upper class south district and made special arrangements for her husband's treatment. The same Madhukar who had shied away on hearing the word 'love' had showered her with affection. He had also seen how devoted Neera was to him. She catered to every little whim that took his fancy; in his hands she was like a puppet dancing to his tune. All this was concrete proof, if anywhere needed, that in his happiness she found fulfillment.

  There was only one problem. Her seven-year-old son, Anjul, had taken a dislike to 'Uncle' Madhukar. 'Mama, you should not leave papa alone and go out with uncle,' he had often grumbled. It was Madhukar who had suggested that Anjul be put in a boarding school in Darjeeling. It would make a man out of him. His own son was in the same boarding school. Her heart swelled with pride at his concern with her problems. He looked upon her son as if he was his own child. Why else would he want to give him the same opportunities as he was providing his own son? How she had cried when time came for Anjul to leave home. She had steeled her heart and agreed to Madhukar's proposal because she believed that it would be best for her son to stay away from her.

  Receiving favours can become such a burden that there comes a time when one is better off freed of them. However, her husband had fallen in line with all that had happened. But the burden of favours received was borne by her. It had become a habit. But even with her the load was becoming too heavy for her shoulders. She felt like throwing it off and casting it into a gutter. Thereafter, she could not care what slights and kicks she got from the passers-by. Perhaps it was this kind of fate that her husband had wanted to save her from.

  That day had been really dreadful. Madhukar had dropped her home. The lift was out of order. She ran out of breath climbing the long flights of stairs. She had barely turned the key to let herself in when she heard him call, 'Neera, come here.' It had been ages since he had called by her name; most of the time it was 'anyone there?' An unknown fear gripped her heart. He was a helpless paralytic - what could he possibly do to her? Even so, she could not muster up courage to face him. She came upto the door of his room and noticed a strange gleam of resignation in his eyes. 'Come to me, Neera.' The voice was full of life. She went and sat down on the corner of his bed. He picked up his son's photograph from the side-table and began to stare at it. 'Neera, will you agree to do what I ask of you?' Before she could reply he said, 'Get Anjul to come back home. Let him stay with you.' Then after a pause he said in a flat monotone, 'Neera, why don't you marry Madhukar? He loves you. You can forget all about me.'

  She felt the earth slip away from under her feet. She did not dare to raise her eyes to meet his. 'I'll get your paper,' she said and went to the kitchen.

  Marry? What on earth for? Is marriage the ultimate of all man-women relationships? Is marriage all that holds them together? If there is more to it, what is it? Despite being married, Madhukar had come to her to steal a few moments of happiness. Was the bright vermilion she wore in the parting of her hair just a symbol of her belonging to her disabled husband? What was it that Madhukar had not done for her? He came to see her because he preferred her company to that of his wife. Would not asking for more amount to asking for too much? An admission of pettiness and greed? Of wanting to displace his wife and children to make room for herself? Shame on her! How could she ever think of doing such a thing! Admittedly she had often dreamt of appearing openly in society with Madhukar's hand in hers; but dreaming it was and no more. Wasn't she paying the price for being 'the other woman'? Another name for love is sacrifice.

  She heard the sound of something crashing and the splintering of glass. Perhaps Anjul's framed photograph had fallen down. She took the platter of food and hurried to her husband's bedside. Her hands began to shake. Anjul's picture was lying on the floor; her husband's left arm was dangling by the bed; a deathly pallor had spread over his face; his lifeless eyes carried an accusation of guilt. Was it for this that he had summoned her to his bedside? Something inside her snapped and opened a flood-gate of pent-up emotions. She stood rooted to the ground like one found guilty of a crim
e. She felt as if she had cut a limb of her own body and thrown it away.

  The neighbours heard her screams and came running in. She could not recall how she passed that night. She tried to send word to Madhukar. There was not a trace of him. Her neighbours helped her to arrange all the details of the funeral.

  For the first time it occurred to her how secure she had felt with that helpless, invalid husband of hers. How could she bear to live alone now? If only Madhukar had come over, taken her in his arms and said, 'Neera, what makes you think you have been left alone? I will always be with you. You are not a widow; I am your protector and your husband.'

  She got up and faced the mirror. Her eyes were swollen with crying and wailing. Her hair was dishevelled; the bindi mark was spattered across her forehead. She refused to wipe it off. For the last many years, she had put it there to please Madhukar. She took a little vermillion powder from her box and with a trembling finger put the bindi mark where it always had been.

  She could no longer control herself. With fear in her heart she rang up Madhukar's home. She had never dared to do this before. It was Madhukar's wife who picked up the receiver.

  'This is Neera calling. Can I speak to Madhukar? It's very urgent.'

  After a pause a very acid voice replied, 'Aren't you satisfied with all that you have grabbed? Or do you now want to break into my home as well? For God's sake leave me alone.' The receiver was put down.

  A storm of anger welled up in her mind. Surely she had a claim on everything connected with Madhukar. From the time they had got to know each other, she had hung on every breath he took. If his wife had been so conscious of safeguarding her 'wife's rights', why wasn't she able to keep him tied down with bonds of love? For the first time Neera realised the existence of Madhukar's wife and sensed her own helplessness. The question of status suddenly arose in her mind.

  The next evening Madhukar came to see her. She wanted to run up to him, put her head against his broad chest and cry her heart out till she had shed all her tears. Why she remained rooted to the spot she did not know; nor why Madhukar had that uncertain look in his eyes. It seemed as if he wanted to say something but could not find the exact words.

  Ultimately, Neera broke the silence, 'Where were you?'

  'I was out of town. I had to leave suddenly. I would have come over as soon as I was back. But you rang up for me at home— I don't know why. My wife was very upset and created a scene. To avoid it getting worse I kept away yesterday.'

  'He could not come because....'

  Something very tender preserved with care and patience over the years had suddenly snapped. The web of illusions that she had spun out of the threads of hope had come apart. Was this the moment of truth for which she had waited so long and for which she had defied all social conventions and given herself body and soul to Madhukar?

  A heavy silence descended on the room; a pall of gloom darker than when her husband had died, enveloped her. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell on her wrists. She turned her face towards the window. The sun was about to set. In the dim light of the heavily curtained room, Madhukar was unable to see another sun setting in Neera's tear-sodden eyes and another hearse wading through them.

  She drew one end of her sari and rubbed the bindi off her forehead, smashed her bangles against the arms of the chair and was convulsed with hysterical sobbing. Madhukar could not make out what had come over her. Between the splintered glass of bangles were drops of blood. Madhukar tried to comfort her. 'Neera, take a hold on yourself. Things will soon take a turn for the better. See you have cut your wrists.' He ran and got out his first-aid kit.

  She cried and cried till she could cry no more. Madhukar sat by her for a long time trying to make out what had happened to her. As he left he said, 'Neera, take a little rest. You are not yourself today. I'll look again tomorrow.'

  She had a blank look in her wide open eyes. She did not turn round to see him leave.

  He came the next day. He knocked at her door many times. All he could hear was the sound of sobbing. The door did not open. He turned back, grumbling to himself, 'She is still mourning her dead husband. Perhaps she loved him.'

  Translated by Khushwant Singh

  BENGALI

  Cabuliwallah

  Rabindra Nath Tagore

  My five years' old daughter Mini cannot live without chattering. I really believe that in all her life she has not wasted a minute in silence. Her mother is often vexed at this, and would stop her prattle, but I would not. To see Mini quiet is unnatural, and I cannot bear it long. And so my own talk with her is always lively.

  One morning, for instance, when I was in the midst of the seventeenth chapter of my new novel, my little Mini stole into the room, and putting her hand into mine, said: 'Father! Ramdayal the door-keeper calls a crow a krow! He doesn't know anything, does he?'

  Before I could explain to her the difference of language in this world, she was embarked on the full tide of another subject. 'What do you think, Father? Bhola says there is an elephant in the clouds, blowing water out of his trunk, and that's why it rains!'

  And then, darting off anew, while I sat still making ready some reply to this last saying: 'Father! what relation is Mother to you?'

  'My dear little sister in the law!' I murmured involuntarily to myself, but with a grave face contrived to answer: 'Go and play with Bhola, Muni! I am busy!'

  The window of my room overlooks the road. The child had seated herself at my feet near my table, and was playing softly, drumming on her knees. I was hard at work on my seventeenth chapter, where Protap Singh, the hero, had just caught Kanchanlata, the heroine, in his arms, and was about to escape her by the third-storey window of the castle, when all of a sudden Mini left her play, and ran to the window, crying: 'A Cabuliwalla! A Cabuliwallah!' Sure enough in the street below was a Cabuliwallah, passing slowly along. He wore the loose soiled clothing of his people, with a tall turban; there was a bag on his back, and he carried boxes of grapes in his hand.

  I cannot tell what were my daughter's feelings at the sight of this man, but she began to call him loudly. 'Ah!' I thought, 'he will come in, and my seventeenth chapter will never be finished!' At which exact moment the Cabuliwallah turned, and looked up at the child. When she saw this, overcome by terror, she fled to her mother's protection, and disappeared. She had a blind belief that inside the bag, which the big man carried, there were perhaps two or three other children like herself. The pedlar-meanwhile entered my doorway, and greeted me with a smiling face.

  So precarious was the position of my hero and my heroine, that my first impulse was to stop and buy something, since the man had been called. I made some small purchases, and a conversation began about Abdurrahman, the Russians, the English and the Frontier Policy.

  As he was about to leave, he asked: 'And where is the little girl, sir?'

  And I, thinking that Mini must get rid of her false fear, had her brought out.

  She stood by my chair, and looked at the Cabuliwallah and his bag. He offered her nuts and raisins, but she would not be tempted, and only clung the closer to me, with all her doubts increased.

  This was their first meeting.

  One morning, however, not many days later, as I was leaving the house, I was startled to find Mini, seated on a bench near the door, laughing and talking, with the great Cabuliwallah at her feet. In all her life, it appeared, my small daughter had never found so patient a listener, save her father. And already the corner of her little sari was stuffed with almonds and raisins, the gift of her visitor. 'Why did you give her those?' I said, and taking out an eight-anna bit, I handed it to him. The man accepted the money without demur, and slipped it into his pocket.

  Alas, on my return an hour later, I found the unfortunate coin had made twice its own worth of trouble! For the Cabuliwallah had given it to Mini, and her mother catching sight of the bright round object, had pounced on the child with: 'Where did you get that eight-anna bit?'

  'The Cabuliwallah gave it me,'
said Mini cheerfully.

  'The Cabuliwallah gave it you!' cried her mother much shocked. 'O Mini! how could you take it from him?'

  I, entering at the moment, saved her from impending disaster, and proceeded to make my own inquiries.

  It was not the first or second time, I found, that the two had met. The Cabuliwallah had overcome the child's first terror by a judicious bribery of nuts and almonds, and the two were now great friends.

  They had many quaint jokes, which afforded them much amusement. Seated in front of him, looking down on his gigantic frame in all her tiny dignity, Mini would ripple her face with laughter, and begin: 'O Cabuliwallah! Cabuliwallah! what have you got in your bag?'

  And he would reply, in the nasal accents of the mountaineer: 'An Elephant!' Not much cause for merriment, perhaps; but how they both enjoyed the witticism! And for me, this child's talk with a grown-up man had always in it something strangely fascinating.

  Then the Cabuliwallah, not to be behindhand, would take his turn: 'Well, little one, and when are you going to the father-in-law's house?

  Now most small Bengali maidens have heard long ago about the father-in-law's house; but we, being a little new-fangled, had kept these things from our child, and Mini at this question must have been a trifle bewildered. But she would not show it, and with ready tact replied: 'Are you going there?'

  Amongst men of the Cabuliwallah's class, however, it is well known that the words father-in-law's house have a double meaning. It is a euphemism for jail, the place where we are well cared for; at no expense to ourselves. In this sense would the sturdy pedlar take my daughter's question. 'Ah,' he would say, shaking his fist at an invisible policeman, 'I will thrash my father-in-law!' Hearing this, and picturing the poor discomfited relative, Mini would go off into peals of laughter, in which her formidable friend would join.