A Fine Balance (20 page)

He told the boys that whenever they felt sad, they could come and tell him about their village, the river, the fields, their friends. Talking together about it would change the sadness to happiness, he assured them. He lay by their side till they fell asleep, then crept upstairs with the lamp turned low.

Mumtaz was sitting in the dark, waiting for him. “Are they all right?” she asked anxiously.

He nodded, reassured by her concern. “They were just feeling lonely.”

“Maybe we should let them sleep upstairs from tomorrow.”

Her offer touched him, and his eyes swam with love. “They are brave boys. They will learn to sleep alone, it’s good for them to become tough,” he said.

It soon became known in Dukhi’s village that his children were learning a trade other than leather-working. In the old days, punishment for stepping outside one’s caste would have been death. Dukhi was spared his life, but it became a very hard life. He was allowed no more carcasses, and had to travel long distances to find work. Sometimes he obtained a hide secretly from fellow Chamaars; it would have been difficult for them if they were found out. The items he fashioned from this illicit leather had to be sold in far-off places where they had not heard about him and his sons.

“Such suffering you have brought upon our heads,” said Roopa almost daily. “No work, no food, no sons. What crimes have I committed to be punished like this? My life has become a permanent shadow.”

But her horizon brightened as the day approached for the children’s visit. She dreamed and made plans, her heartache diverted by the desire to have some treat waiting for them. And if the treat was unaffordable, she determined, then it would be obtained moneylessly, in darkness.

For the first time since the children were born, Dukhi acknowledged that he was aware of her night walks. As she rose stealthily after midnight, he said, “Listen, mother-of-Narayan, I don’t think you should go.”

Roopa jumped. “O, how you scared me! I thought you were asleep!”

“Taking such a risk is stupid.”

“You never said that before.”

“It was different then. It’s not like the boys will starve without butter or a peach or a bit of jaggery.”

Roopa went anyway, promising herself it was the last time. After all, her children had been away for three months, she had to give them something special.

On the long-awaited day, Dukhi left at dawn and brought his sons back for a week. The two boys sat very close to their father, and couldn’t stop touching him throughout the journey, leaning against him on either side, Narayan holding on to his knee, Ishvar clutching his arm. They talked non-stop, then repeated everything for their mother when they got home in the late afternoon.

“The machine is amazing,” said Ishvar. “The big wheel is –”

“You do your feet likethis-likethis,” said Narayan, flapping his hands to mimic the treadle, “and the needle jumps up and down, it’s so good –”

“I can do it very fast, but Ashraf Chacha can do it very-very fast.”

“I like the small needle also, with my fingers, it goes in and out of the cloth smoothly, it’s very pointy, once it poked me in my thumb.”

Their mother immediately asked to see the thumb. Assuring herself that there was no permanent damage, she let the story proceed. By dinnertime the boys were exhausted, and started falling asleep over the food. Roopa wiped their hands and mouths, then Dukhi guided them to their mats.

For a long while, they gazed at them sleeping before rolling out their own mats. “They are looking nice and fit,” she said. “See their cheeks.”

“I hope it’s not an unhealthy swelling,” said Dukhi. “Like the swollen bellies that babies get in famine time.”

“What-all rubbish are you talking? With my mother’s instinct I would know at once if my children were not well.” But she understood his doubt was prompted by resentment that their children should grow healthier in a stranger’s house than when they were living at home; she shared his shame. They went to bed feeling a mixture of gladness and sorrow.

The family’s excitement continued the next morning. The boys had brought a tape measure, a blank page, and a pencil from Muzaffar Tailoring, and wanted to measure their parents. Ashraf had taught them a diagrammatic code for the constantly used words like neck, waist, chest, and sleeve.

The boys could not reach high enough, so the two clients had to bend down or sit on the floor for some of the measurements: first their mother, and then their father. While they were recording Dukhi’s sizes, Roopa called her friends from nearby huts to watch. Now Ishvar grew self-conscious and smiled shyly, but Narayan flourished the tape and made his gestures more expansive, enjoying the attention.

Everyone clapped with delight when they finished. In the evening, Dukhi borrowed the piece of paper to show to his friends under the tree by the river. He carried it about with him for the rest of the week.

Then it was time for the boys to return to Muzaffar Tailoring. The parents’ thoughts turned once again with dread towards the absence looming in their lives, in their hut. Ishvar requested his father for the page with the measurements.

“Can’t I keep it?” asked Dukhi. The boys considered their father’s request, then rummaged for a scrap of paper and copied the figures so he could have the original.

Three months again passed before the next visit. This time the boys brought presents for their parents. Ishvar and Narayan planned to fool them that they had gone shopping for the gifts in a big store in town, just like rich townspeople.

“What-all is this?” said Roopa uneasily. “Where did you get the money?”

“We didn’t buy them, Ma! We made them ourselves!” said Narayan, forgetting his little joke. Ishvar explained excitedly how Ashraf Chacha had helped them select and match the remnants left over from the fabric for customers’ orders. Their father’s vest had been easy; there were plenty of white poplin remnants. The choli for their mother had required a bit more planning. A print of red and yellow flowers made up the front of the blouse. The back was a solid red, and the sleeves were fashioned from a swatch of vermilion.

Roopa burst into tears as soon as she put on the choli. Ishvar and Narayan looked at their father in alarm, who said she was crying because she was happy.

“Yes, I am!” she confirmed his verdict through her sobs. She knelt before them and hugged them in turn, and then hugged them together. She saw Dukhi watching, and led the boys to him. “Embrace your father also,” she said, “this is a very special day.”

She left the hut in search of her neighbours. “Padma! Savitri! Come and look! Amba and Pyari, you come too! See what-all my sons have brought!”

Dukhi grinned at the boys. “There will be no dinner today. Her new choli will make Ma forget everything, she will spend the whole day showing off.” He patted his front and sides. “This fits much better than my old one. Material is also nicer.”

“Look, Bapa, there is a pocket as well,” said Narayan.

Roopa and Dukhi wore the new garments all week long. Afterwards, when the boys were back in town, she removed her choli and demanded his vest.

“Why?” he asked.

“To wash.”

But she refused to return it when it was dry. “What if you tear it or something?” She folded both articles, wrapped them in sacking, and secured the parcel with string. She hung it from the roof of the hut, safe from floodwater and rodents.

I
shvar and Narayan’s years of apprenticeship were measured out in three-month intervals, eased somewhat by the week-long visits to their village. They were now eighteen and sixteen, their training was approaching its end, and they would leave Muzaffar Tailoring Company sometime after the monsoon. Ashraf’s family had grown – there were four daughters now: the youngest was three, the oldest, eight. Mumtaz took a keen interest in the apprentices’ plans. The sooner they came to fruition, the more room there would be for her own children, she thought, though she had grown to like the two young men, quiet and always helpful.

Narayan’s preference was to set up in the village and sew for their own people. Ishvar was inclined to stay on in this town or another, become an assistant in someone’s shop. “You cannot earn much in the village,” he said. “Everyone is so poor. There is more scope in a big place.”

Meanwhile, sporadic riots which had started with the talk of independence were spreading as the country’s Partition became a reality. “Maybe it’s better to stay where you are for the time being,” said Ashraf, while Mumtaz glared at him. “The devil is not doing his evil work in our town. You know all the neighbours, you have lived here for many years. And even if your village is peaceful, it’s still the wrong time to start a new business.”

Ishvar and Narayan sent word to their parents with someone passing through that they would remain with Ashraf Chacha till the bad times were over. Roopa was depressed; separated all these long years, and now her sons were further delayed – when would the gods take pity and end her punishment?

Dukhi, too, was disappointed, but accepted the decision as being for the best. Disturbing things were happening around them. Strangers belonging to a Hindu organization that wore white shirts and khaki pants, and trained their members to march about like soldiers, had been visiting the district. They brought with them stories of Muslims attacking Hindus in many parts of the country. “We must get ready to defend ourselves,” they said. “And also to avenge ourselves. If they spill the blood of our Hindu brothers, this country shall run red with rivers of Muslim blood.”

In Dukhi’s village, the Muslims were too few to pose a threat to anyone, but the landlords saw opportunity in the strangers’ warnings. They did their best to galvanize people against the imaginary danger in their midst. “Better to drive out the Mussulman menace before we are burned alive in our huts. For centuries they have invaded us, destroyed our temples, stolen our wealth.”

The men in white shirts and khaki pants persevered for a few more days but had no luck with the vast majority. The lower castes were not impressed by the rhetoric. They had always lived peacefully with their Muslim neighbours. Besides, they were too exhausted keeping body and soul together.

So the attempt to dispossess the village Muslims fizzled out. Leaving behind sinister threats about dealing with traitors, including the chief traitor, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the men from the Hindu organization moved on. Places with larger populations and shops and commerce offered them more opportunities for success, and the cloak of urban anonymity to hide behind, where hoax and hearsay could find fertile ground to grow.

Dukhi and his friends discussed the developments in the evening, by the river. They were confused by the varying accounts that reached them of events in faraway towns and villages.

“The zamindars have always treated us like animals.”

“Worse than animals.”

“But what if it’s true? What if the Mussulman horde sweeps down upon our village, like the khaki pants told us?”

“They have never bothered us before. Why would they do it now? Why should we hurt them because some outsiders come with stories?”

“Yes, it’s strange that suddenly we have all become Hindu brothers.”

“The Muslims have behaved more like our brothers than the bastard Brahmins and Thakurs.”

But the stories kept multiplying: someone had been knifed in the bazaar in town; a sadhu hacked to death at the bus station; a settlement razed to the ground. The tension spread through the entire district. And it was all believable because it resembled exactly what people had been seeing in newspapers for the past few days: reports about arson and riots in large towns and cities; about mayhem and massacre on all sides; about the vast and terrible exchange of populations that had commenced across the new border.

The killings started in the poorer section of town, and began to spread; the next day the bazaar was empty. There were no fruits or vegetables to be bought, the milkmen did not stir, and the only bakery in town, owned by a Muslim, had already been burned to the ground.

“Bread is become rarer than gold,” said Ashraf. “What madness. These people have lived together for generations, laughing and crying together. Now they are butchering one another.” He did no work that day, spending the hours gazing out the door at the deserted street, as though waiting for something dreadful to make its appearance.

“Ashraf Chacha, dinner is ready,” said Narayan, responding to Mumtaz’s signal. Her husband had not eaten all day. She was hoping he would join them now.

“There is something I have to tell you,” he said to Mumtaz. “And you as well,” he turned to Ishvar and Narayan.

“Come, food is ready, later we can talk,” she said. “It is only dal and chapati today, but you must eat a little at least.” She lowered the pot from the stove.

“I am not hungry. You and the little ones eat,” said Ashraf, shepherding the four children towards the food. They were reluctant, having sensed their parents’ anxiety. “Go, boys, you too.”

“I take the trouble to cook and nawab-sahib won’t even touch his fingers to the dinner,” said Mumtaz.

In his present mood, her commonplace complaint assumed vicious overtones. He shouted at her, something he rarely did. “What do you want me to do if I am not hungry? Tie the plate to my belly? Talk sense once in a while, nah!” The youngest two started to cry. One of their elbows overturned a glass of water.