A Fine Balance (25 page)

The sub-inspector, suffering from an earache, kept poking around inside with his little finger. He found it hard to concentrate. “What name? Spell it again. Slowly.”

To ingratiate themselves with the figure of authority, Ashraf advised him on a home remedy, although he was seething with anger and wanted to slap the fellow across his face to make him attend. “Warm olive oil will give you relief,” he said. “My mother used to put it for me.”

“Really? How much? Two or three drops?”

Then, with great reluctance, the police went to the house to verify the allegations in the First Information Report. They reported that nothing was found to support charges of arson and murder.

The sub-inspector was cross with Ishvar. “What kind of rascality is this? Trying to fill up the F.I.R. with lies? You filthy achhoot castes are always out to make trouble! Get out before we charge you with public mischief!”

Too stunned to speak, Ishvar looked at Ashraf, who tried to intervene. The sub-inspector cut him off rudely: “This matter doesn’t concern your community. We don’t interfere when you Muslims and your mullahs discuss problems in your community, do we?”

For the next two days, Ashraf kept the shop closed, crushed by the helplessness he felt. Mumtaz and he did not dare console Omprakash or Ishvar – what words were there for such a loss, and for an injustice so immense? The best they could do was weep with them.

On the third day, Ishvar asked him to open up the shop, and they began sewing again.

“I
will gather a small army of Chamaars, provide them with weapons, then march to the landlords’ houses,” said Omprakash, his sewing-machine racing. “It will be easy to find enough men. We’ll do it like the Naxalites.” Head bent over his work, he described for Ishvar and Ashraf Chacha the strategies employed by the peasant uprisings in the northeast. “At the end of it we’ll cut off their heads and put them on spikes in the marketplace. Their kind will never dare to oppress our community again.”

Ishvar let him entertain his thoughts of revenge. His own first impulse had been the same; how could he blame his nephew? The hands were easy to divert with sewing, but the tormented mind was difficult to free from turmoil. “Tell me, Om, how do you know so much of this?”

“I read about it in newspapers. But isn’t it common sense? In every low-caste family there is someone mistreated by zamindars. They will be eager to take revenge, for sure. We’ll slaughter the Thakurs and their goondas. And those police devils.”

“And afterwards, what?” asked Ishvar gently, when he felt it was time for his nephew to turn his thoughts away from death, towards life. “They will take you to court and hang you.”

“I don’t care. I would be dead anyway if I was living with my parents, instead of safely in this shop.”

“Om, my child,” said Ashraf. “Vengeance should not be our concern. The murderers will be punished. Inshallah, in this world or the next. Maybe they already have, who knows?”

“Yes, Chachaji, who knows?” echoed Omprakash sarcastically and went to bed.

Since that terrible night six months ago, Ishvar had given up their lodging in the rooming house, at Ashraf’s insistence. There was plenty of space in the house, he claimed, now that his daughters had all married and left. He partitioned the room over the shop – one side for Mumtaz and himself, the other for Ishvar and his nephew.

They heard Omprakash moving around upstairs, getting ready for bed. Mumtaz sat at the back of the house, praying. “This revenge talk is okay if it remains talk,” said Ishvar. “But what if he goes back to the village, does something foolish.”

They fretted and agonized for hours over the boy’s future, then ascended the stairs to retire for the night. Ashraf followed Ishvar around the partition where Omprakash lay sleeping, and they stood together for a while, watching him.

“Poor child,” whispered Ashraf. “So much he has suffered. How can we help him?”

The answer, in time, was provided by the faltering fortunes of Muzaffar Tailoring Company.

A year had passed since the murders when a ready-made clothing store opened in town. Before long, Ashraf’s list of clients began to shrink.

Ishvar said the loss would be temporary. “A big new shop with stacks of shirts to choose from – that attracts the customers. It makes them feel important, trying on different patterns. But the traitors will return when the novelty wears off and the clothes don’t fit.”

Ashraf was not so optimistic. “Those lower prices will defeat us. They make clothes by the hundreds in big factories, in the city. How can we compete?”

Soon the two tailors and apprentice were lucky to find themselves busy one day a week. “Strange, isn’t it,” said Ashraf. “Something I’ve never even seen is ruining the business I have owned for forty years.”

“But you’ve seen the ready-made shop.”

“No, I mean the factories in the city. How big are they? Who owns them? What do they pay? None of this I know, except that they are beggaring us. Maybe I’ll have to go and work for them in my old age.”

“Never,” said Ishvar. “But perhaps I should go.”

“Nobody is going anywhere,” Ashraf’s fist banged the worktable. “We will share what there is here, I said it only as a joke. You think I would really send away my own children?”

“Don’t be upset, Chachaji, I know you didn’t mean it.”

Before long, however, the joke turned into a serious consideration as customers continued to flee to the ready-made store. “If it goes on like this, the three of us will be sitting from morning till night, swatting flies,” said Ashraf. “For me, it does not matter. I have lived my life – tasted its fruit, both sweet and bitter. But it is so unfair to Om.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe it would be best for him to try elsewhere.”

“But wherever he goes, I would have to go,” said Ishvar. “He is still too young, too many foolish ideas clogging his head.”

“Not his fault, the devil encourages him. Of course you have to be with him, you are now his father. What you can both do is, go for a short time. Doesn’t have to be permanent. A year or two. Work hard, earn money, and come back.”

“That’s true. They say you can make money very quickly in the city, there is so much work and opportunity.”

“Exactly. And with that cash you can open some kind of business here when you return. A paan shop, or a fruit stall, or toys. You can even sell ready-made clothes, who knows.” They laughed at this, but agreed that a couple of years away would be best for Omprakash.

“There is only one difficulty in the way,” said Ishvar. “I don’t know anyone in the city. How to get started?”

“Everything will fall into place. I have a very good friend who will help you find work. His name is Nawaz. He is also a tailor, has his own shop there.”

They sat up past midnight, making plans, imagining the new future in the city by the sea, the city that was filled with big buildings, wide, wonderful roads, beautiful gardens, and millions and millions of people working hard and accumulating wealth.

“Look at me, getting excited as if I was leaving with you,” said Ashraf. “And if I was younger I would, too. It will be lonely here. My dream was that you and Om would be with me till the end of my days.”

“But we will be,” said Ishvar. “Om and I will return soon. Isn’t that the plan?”

Ashraf wrote to his friend requesting him to put up Ishvar and Omprakash when they arrived, help them settle in the city. Ishvar withdrew his savings from the post office and purchased train tickets.

The night before departure, Ashraf gifted them his treasured pair of dressmaking and pinking shears. Ishvar protested it was too much. “Our family has already received so many kindnesses from you, for more than thirty years.”

“An eternity of kindness could not repay what you and Narayan did for my family,” said Ashraf, swallowing. “Come on, put the shears in your trunk, make an old man happy.” He dried his eyes but they grew moist again. “Remember, you are welcome here at any time if it does not work out.”

Ishvar clasped his hand and held it to his chest. “Maybe you will visit the city before we come back.”

“Inshallah. I have always wanted to go on haj once before I die. And the big boats all sail from the city. So who knows?”

Mumtaz woke early the next morning to make their tea and prepare a food package for their journey. Ashraf sat silent while they ate, overcome by the moment. He spoke only once, to ask, “You have Nawaz’s address safe in your pocket?”

They drained their cups and Omprakash gathered them for washing. “Let it be,” a tearful Mumtaz stopped him. “I’ll do it afterwards.”

It was time to leave. They hugged Ashraf and Mumtaz, kissing their cheeks three times. “Ah, these useless old sockets of mine,” said Ashraf. “They keep leaking, it’s a sickness.”

“And we are catching it from you,” said Ishvar, as he and Omprakash wiped their own eyes. The sun had not yet risen when they picked up the trunk and bedding and walked towards the railway line.

I
t was night when the tailors arrived in the city. Groaning and clanking, the train pulled into the station while an announcement blared like gibberish from the loudspeakers. Passengers poured out into the sea of waiting friends and families. There were shrieks of recognition, tears of happiness. The platform became a roiling swirl of humanity. Coolies conducted aggressive forays to offer their muscular services.

Ishvar and Omprakash stood frozen on the edge of the commotion. The sense of adventure that had flowered reluctantly during the journey wilted. “Hai Ram,” said Ishvar, wishing for a familiar face. “What a huge crowd.”

“Come on,” said Omprakash. He took the trunk, struggling urgently against the barrier of bodies and luggage, as though assured that once they were past it, everything would be all right – the city of promise lay beyond this final obstacle.

They ploughed their way through the platform and emerged in the railway station’s gigantic concourse, with its ceilings high as the sky and columns reaching up like impossible trees. They wandered around in a daze, making inquiries, asking for assistance. People fired back hurried answers to their questions, or pointed, and they nodded gratefully but learned nothing. It took them an hour to discover they needed a local train to reach Ashraf’s friend. The journey took twenty minutes.

Someone they asked for directions pointed them down the right road. The shop-cum-residence was a ten-minute walk from the station. The pavements were covered with sleeping people. A thin yellow light from the streetlamps fell like tainted rain on the rag-wrapped bodies, and Omprakash shivered. “They look like corpses,” he whispered. He gazed hard at them, searching for a sign of life – a rising chest, a quivering finger, a fluttering eyelid. But the lamplight was not sufficient for detecting minute movements.

Relief began replacing their fears as they neared the home of Ashraf Chachas friend. The nightmare of arrival was about to end. To get to the shop they crossed the planks thrown across the open sewer. Omprakash’s foot almost went through a rotten patch in the wood. Ishvar grabbed his elbow. They knocked on the door.

“Salaam alaikum,” they greeted Nawaz, gazing upon him with expressions appropriate towards a benefactor.

Nawaz barely reciprocated the greeting. He pretended to know nothing about their coming. After numerous denials he conceded there had been a letter from Ashraf, and grudgingly agreed to let them sleep under the awning behind the kitchen for a few days, till they found accommodation. “I do this for no one but Ashraf,” he emphasized. “The thing is, there is hardly room here for my own family.”

“Thank you, Nawazbhai,” said Ishvar. “Yes, just for a few days, thank you.”

They could smell food cooking, but Nawaz did not invite them to eat. Finding a tap outside the building, they washed their hands and faces, and drank, cupping their palms. Light from the house spilled out through the kitchen window. They sat below it and finished the chapatis Mumtaz Chachi had packed, listening to noises from the buildings around them.

The ground under the awning was littered with leaves, potato peelings, unidentifiable fruit stones, fish bones, and two fish heads with vacant eye sockets. “How can we sleep here?” said Omprakash. “It’s filthy.”

He looked around, and spied a besom beside Nawaz’s back door, propped against the downpipe. He borrowed it to sweep the rubbish aside, while Ishvar brought mugfuls of water and splashed the ground before giving it a second going-over with the besom.

The sound brought Nawaz out to investigate. “This place not good enough for you? No one is forcing you to stay.”

“No no, it’s perfect,” said Ishvar. “Just cleaning it a little.”

“That’s my property you are using,” he pointed to the besom.

“Yes, we were –”

“The thing is, you must ask before you take something,” he snapped and went in.

They waited till it was dry under the awning, then unrolled their sleeping mats and blankets. Noise from the surrounding buildings did not abate. Radios blared. A man yelled at a woman, beating her, stopping for a bit when she screamed for help, then starting again. A drunkard shouted abuse, and there was boisterous laughter at his expense. The grind of the traffic was constant. A flickering glow at one window made Omprakash curious; he rose and peered inside. He beckoned to Ishvar to come, look. “Doordarshan!” he whispered excitedly. After a minute or two, someone inside spotted them gazing at the television and told them to be off.

They returned to their bedding and slept badly. Once, they were awakened by shrieks that seemed to come from an animal being slaughtered.

There was no offer of morning tea from inside the house, which Omprakash found quite offensive. “Customs are different in the city,” said Ishvar.

They washed, drank water, and waited around till Nawaz opened his shop. He saw them on the steps, craning, trying to look inside. “Yes? What do you want?”

“Sorry to trouble you, but do you know we are also tailors?” said Ishvar. “Can we do sewing for you? In your shop? Ashraf Chacha told us –”

“The thing is, there is not enough work,” said Nawaz, retreating within as he spoke. “You will have to search elsewhere.”