A Fine Balance (22 page)

Mumtaz fell on her knees before the two apprentices. Her dupatta slid from around her neck and draped their feet. “Please, Chachi, don’t do that,” said Ishvar, shuffling backwards.

“Forever and ever, my life, my children, my husband’s life, my home – everything, I owe to you!” She clung to them, weeping. “There is no repayment possible!”

“Please get up,” begged Ishvar, holding her wrists and trying to make her stand.

“From now on, this home is your home, as long as you will honour us with your presence!”

Ishvar finally succeeded in disentangling his ankles from her hands. “Chachi, you are like our mother, we have shared your food and home for seven years.”

“Inshallah, you will stay and eat with us for seventy more.” Still sobbing, she replaced the dupatta around her neck, lifting a corner to wipe her eyes.

Ishvar and Narayan returned downstairs. After the children were asleep, Ashraf went downstairs too. The boys had not yet rolled out their sleeping mats. The three sat silently for a few minutes. Then Ashraf said, “You know, when the banging started, I thought we were finished.”

“I was also scared,” said Narayan.

Their next silence lasted longer. Ashraf cleared his throat. “I came down to say one thing only.” Tears were rolling down his cheeks; he paused to wipe them. “The day I met your father – the day I told Dukhi to send me his two sons for tailor-training. That day was the luckiest of my life.” He embraced them, kissed their cheeks three times, and went upstairs.

A
shraf would not hear of the brothers returning to the village, and Mumtaz supported him in this. “Stay on as my paid assistants,” he said, though he knew very well he could not afford it.

Roopa protested to Dukhi that it was high time she had her two sons back. “You sent them to apprentice. Now they have learned the trade, so why are they still living with strangers? Are their own mother-father dead or something?”

But no one could predict how two Chamaars-turned-tailors would fare in the village. True, these new times were full of hope, changes were in the air, and the optimism that came with independence was shining bright. Ashraf even felt safe enough to turn over the Krishna Tailors sign and display the Muzaffar Tailoring side again.

Still, it was uncertain if centuries of tradition could be overturned as easily. So they agreed that Ishvar would stay on as Ashraf’s assistant, and Narayan would return to test the waters. This suited all sides: Muzaffar Tailoring Company would just barely support one assistant; Dukhi would have the help of wages sent from town; and Roopa would have her younger son back.

She took down the parcel that had hung from the ceiling for seven years. The string knots had shrunk and could not be untied. She cut the string, unwrapped the protective sackcloth, then washed the vest and choli. It was time to wear them again, she told Dukhi, to celebrate the homecoming.

“It hangs a little loose,” he said.

“Mine, too,” said Roopa. “The fabric must have stretched.”

He liked her explanation. It was easier than contemplating the lean years that had shrunk them both.

In the village, the Chamaar community was quietly proud of Narayan. Gradually, they found the courage to become his customers, though there was not much money in it for Narayan because they could rarely afford to have something new tailored. Garments thrown away by the upper castes clothed their bodies. Mostly, he altered or mended. He used an old hand-cranked sewing-machine that Ashraf had procured for him. It was restricted to a straight lock stitch, but sufficed for the work he did.

Business improved when word spread to neighbouring villages of the one who had done the unthinkable: abandoned leather for cloth. They came as much to see this courageous Chamaar-tailor, this contradiction in terms, as to get their clothes looked after. Many were a little disappointed with their visit. Inside the hut was nothing extraordinary, just a young man with a tape measure around his neck and a pencil behind one ear.

Narayan maintained a record of jobs and transactions as Ashraf had taught him, noting names, dates, and amounts owing. Roopa appointed herself to manage the business, standing around importantly while he measured the client and entered the figures in his book. She kept his pencils sharp with her paring knife. She could not read his register but retained an accurate account in her head. When someone who had yet to settle the balance from a previous job came with more work, she stood behind the client and rubbed her thumb and finger together to remind her son.

One morning, about six months after Narayan’s return to the village, a Bhunghi ventured towards the hut. Roopa was heating water over a fire outside, happily listening to the muffled clank of the sewing-machine, when she saw the fellow approach cautiously. “And where do you think you’re going?” she yelled, stopping him in his tracks.

“I am looking for Narayan the tailor,” said the man, timidly holding up some rags.

“What?!” His audacity flabbergasted her. “Don’t give me your tailor-failor nonsense! I’ll bathe your filthy skin with this boiling water! My son does not sew for your kind!”

“Ma! What are you doing?” shouted Narayan, emerging from the hut as the man bolted. “Wait, wait!” he yelled after the fellow. Terrified that retribution was in pursuit, the Bhunghi ran faster.

“Come back, bhai, it’s all right!”

“Another time,” called the frightened man. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

“Okay, I’11 wait for you,” said Narayan. “Please come for sure.” He returned to the hut, shaking his head and ignoring his mother who glared furiously at him.

“Dont you shake your head at me!” she said indignantly. “What-all nonsense is this, calling him back tomorrow? We are not going to deal with such low-caste people! How can you even think of measuring someone who carts the shit from people’s houses?”

Narayan was silent. After working for a few minutes, he went outside to the fire, where she was still stirring her vigorous rage into the pot.

“I think, Ma, that you are wrong,” he said, keeping his voice so soft that it was almost lost in the crackling fire. “I think I should sew for anybody who comes to me, Brahmin or Bhunghi.”

“You do, do you? Wait till your father comes home, see what he says about it! Brahmin yes, Bhunghi no!”

That evening Roopa told Dukhi about their son’s outrageous ideas, and he turned to Narayan. “I think your mother is right.”

Narayan dropped his hand from the crank and braked the fly wheel. “Why did you send me to learn tailoring?”

“That’s a stupid question. To improve your life – why else?”

“Yes. Because the uppers treat us so badly. And now you are behaving just like them. If that’s what you want, then I am going back to town. I cannot live like this anymore.”

Roopa was stunned by the ultimatum, and horrified when Dukhi turned to her and said, “I think he is right.”

“Father-of-Ishvar, make up your mind! First you say I am right, then you say he is right! From side to side you sway, like a pot without an arse! And this is what comes from sending him to town! Forgetting our village ways! It will only lead to trouble!” Boiling and bubbling, she left the hut, calling Amba, Pyari, Padma, and Savitri to come and hear what-all crazy things were happening in her unfortunate household.

“Toba, toba!” said Savitri. “Poor Roopa, so upset she is shaking.”

“Children – Hai Ram,” said Pyari, throwing up her hands. “How easily they forget about a mother’s feelings.”

“What to do,” said Amba. “We feed them milk from our breast when they are babies, but we cannot feed them good sense.”

“Be patient,” said Padma. “Everything will be all right.”

After bathing in their sympathy, Roopa was calmer. The thought of losing her son a second time made her think carefully. She forgave him his lunatic proposals and agreed to turn a blind eye to them on the basis of a compromise: she would reserve the right to control entry into her hut; some customers would have to conduct their transactions outside.

Two years later Narayan could afford to build his own hut, next to his parents’. Roopa wept that he was abandoning them. “Again and again he breaks his mother’s heart,” she complained. “How will I look after him and his business? Why must he separate?”

“But Ma, it’s only thirty feet away,” said Narayan. “You are welcome there any time to sharpen my pencils.”

“Sharpen pencils, he says! As if that’s all I do for him!”

Eventually, though, she got accustomed to the idea and made it a point of pride, speaking of the other hut to her friends as her son’s factory. He bought a large worktable, a clothes stand, and a new foot-operated sewing-machine which could do straight and zigzag stitches.

For this last purchase he went to take Ashraf Chacha’s advice. The little town had grown since his departure, and Muzaffar Tailoring Company was doing well. Ishvar had rented a room near the shop. From assistant, Ashraf had elevated him to partner. The brothers agreed that their father need not work anymore, between them they would provide for their parents.

“You are such good boys,” said Dukhi, when Narayan told him of the decision. “We are truly blessed by God.”

Roopa fetched the vest and choli made long ago by their children, and faded by now. “Remember these?”

“I didn’t know you still had them.”

“The day you and Ishvar brought these for us, you were so young, both of you,” she said, starting to cry. “But even then I knew, in my heart, that everything would be all right in the end.” She went to announce the good tidings to her friends, who hugged her and teased her that she would soon become rich and not have anything to do with them.

“But one thing is certain,” said Padma. “Time for marriage has come close.”

“You must start looking for two suitable daughters-in-law,” said Savitri.

“Don’t delay any longer,” said Pyari.

“We will help you with everything, don’t worry,” said Amba.

The happy news spread within their community, and outside it. Among the upper castes, there was still anger and resentment because of what a Chamaar had accomplished. One man in particular, Thakur Dharamsi – who always took charge of the district polls at election time, delivering votes to the political party of his choice – taunted the tailor periodically.

“There is a dead cow waiting for you,” he notified Narayan through a servant. Narayan merely passed on the message to other Chamaars, who were happy to have the carcass. Another time, when a goat perished in one of the drains on Thakur Dharamsi’s property, he sent for Narayan to unclog it. Narayan politely sent his reply that he was grateful for the offer but was no longer in this line of work.

Among the Chamaars in the village, he was now looked upon as the spokesman for their caste, their unelected leader. Dukhi wore his son’s success modestly, out of sight, indulging himself only sometimes, when he sat smoking with his friends under the tree by the river. Slowly, his son was becoming more prosperous than many upper-caste villagers. Narayan paid to have a new well dug in the untouchable section of the village. He leased the land on which the two huts stood, and replaced them with a pukka house, one of only seven in the village. It was large enough to accommodate his parents and his business. And, thought Roopa fondly, a wife and children before long.

Dukhi and she would have preferred the older son’s marrying first. But when they offered to find him a wife, Ishvar made it clear he was not interested. By now, Roopa had learned that trying to make her sons do what they did not want to do was a futile endeavour. “Learning big-town ways,” she grumbled, “forgetting our old ways,” and left it at that, turning her attention to Narayan.

They made inquiries, and a suitable girl was recommended in another village. A showing-day was fixed, when the boy’s family would call on the girl’s family. Roopa made certain that Amba, Pyari, Padma, and Savitri were included in plans for the visit – they were like family, she said. Ishvar chose not to go, but arranged a twenty-seven-seater Leyland to transport the bride-viewing party.

The battered little bus arrived in the village at nine in the morning, and stopped in a cloud of dust. The opportunity for a bus ride attracted volunteers for the auspicious event, many more than could be accommodated in that modest conveyance.

“Narayan is like a son to me,” said one. “It’s my duty to come. How can I let him down at this most important time?”

“I will not be able to hold my head up if you don’t take me,” pleaded another, refusing to take no for an answer. “Please don’t leave me behind.”

“I have attended every single bride-showing in our community,” bragged a third. “You need my expertise.”

Many took their going for granted, and climbed aboard without bothering to check with Dukhi or Roopa. When the excursion was ready to commence an hour later, there were thirty-eight people crammed inside, and a dozen sitting cross-legged on the roof. The driver, who had witnessed nasty accidents with low branches along rural roads, refused to proceed. “Get down from the top! Down, everybody, down!” he yelled at the ones settled serenely in lotus positions. So the dozen from the roof had to be left behind, and the bus set off at a sensible crawl.