A Fine Balance (77 page)

“Calm down, it’s okay,” said Ishvar. “Beggarmaster doesn’t know about you. He only mentioned that two of his beggars were murdered and their hair stolen. We at once thought of you.”

Now Rajaram looked injured. “It could have been another hair-collector, you know. There are hundreds in the city. You didn’t have to think of me straight away.” He swallowed. “So you didn’t say anything to him?”

“It was none of our business.”

“Thank God. I meant the beggars no harm, it was such a terrible mistake the way it happened, believe me.”

One night, while he had been out on his rounds, he came upon two mendicants, a man and a woman, asleep under a portico, their knees drawn up to their hollow stomachs. He would have walked right past them, except that the streetlight revealed their hair. And it was beautiful. Both heads glimmered with a full-bodied lustre, a radiance he had rarely seen during his extensive travels. Hair such as this was the stuff that advertising executives’ dreams were made of. Clients would have fought to feature it – its brilliance could have promoted products like Shikakai Soap or Tata’s Perfumed Coconut Hair Oil to new heights of profitability.

But how strange, thought Rajaram, that such a treasure should adorn the heads of two shrivelled beggars. He knelt beside them and gently touched the shimmering tresses with his fingertips; they felt silken. Unable to resist, he heaped them in his hand and revelled in their texture. His fingers stiffened in sensual agony, as though they would steal the secret of the shine and softness.

The beggars stirred, breaking the spell. Rajaram remembered his professional duty. He took out his scissors and set to work, starting with the woman. For the first time in his career he felt regret. It was a crime, he thought, to separate hair this gorgeous from its roots – its magic glow would fade, as surely as the blush of a plucked flower.

The locks came away in his hand. He twisted the tresses together and packed them in his cloth bag. Then he worked on the maris hair. It was virtually indistinguishable from the woman’s.

Just as the hair-collector finished, she awakened and saw him crouched beside her, the scissors glinting in the dark like a murderous weapon. She let out a heart-stopping shriek. It woke the man, who released his own bloodcurdling yells.

“Those screams,” said Rajaram, shuddering as though they still rang in his ears. “They frightened me so much. I was sure the police would come and beat me to death. I begged the beggars to stop the noise. It was all right, I said, I was not going to hurt them. I clipped a lock of my own hair to show that what I was doing was harmless. I pleaded, I pulled notes and coins out of my pocket, and showered money on them. But they kept on screaming. On and on and on! It drove me crazy!”

He panicked, raised the scissors and struck. First the woman, then the man. In the throat and chest and stomach: in all the wretched places that were pumping the breath and quickening the organs to create those terrible screams. Again and again and again he stabbed, till there was silence.

No one came to investigate. The streets were accustomed to the caterwauling of lonely lunatics and the howling of disillusioned dipsomaniacs. Across the road someone laughed hysterically; dogs barked; a temple bell clanged. Rajaram fled the place, walking as fast as he dared without attracting attention.

Later he threw away his scissors, his bloodstained clothes, and the hair. The first chance he got, he shaved his head and moustache, for when the police questioned the people in the area, the beggars would be sure to describe the fellow who used to come around regularly, cutting and collecting hair.

“But I am not safe,” said Rajaram. “Though it has been months, the
CID
is still looking for me. God knows why my case fascinates them – there are hundreds of other crimes taking place every day.” The tea in his cup had gone cold. He made a face as he swallowed it. “So now you know every unfortunate thing that has happened. Will you help me?”

“But how?” said Ishvar. “Maybe it is best to give yourself up. It seems hopeless for you.”

“There is hope.” Rajaram paused and leaned closer, fixing his eyes on them. They were shining a little now. “As I first told you, I want to renounce this world of trouble and sorrow. I want the simple existence of a sanyasi. I want to meditate for long hours in a cold, dark Himalayan cave. I will sleep on hard surfaces. Rise with the sun and retire with the stars. Rain and wind, no matter how strong, will be of little consequence to my mortified flesh. I will throw away my comb, and my hair and beard will grow long and knotted. Tiny creatures will find peaceful refuge in them, digging and burrowing as they choose, for I will not disturb them.”

Ishvar raised his eyebrows and Om rolled his eyes, but Rajaram did not notice either of them. He pushed aside his teacup slowly, deliberately, as though performing his first act of abnegation. The wild, romantic vision of an ascetic was a stimulant to his imagination, giving it a graphic turn.

“I will go with bare feet, my soles and heels cracked, torn, bleeding from a dozen lesions and lacerations to which shall be applied no salve or ointment. Snakes wandering across my path in dark jungles will not frighten me. Stray dogs will nip at my ankles as I roam through strange towns and remote villages. I will beg for my food. Children, and sometimes even adults, will mock me and throw stones at me, scared of my strange countenance and my frenzied inward-gazing eyes. I will go hungry and naked when necessary. I will stumble across rocky plains and down steep hills. I will never complain.”

His eyes had drifted from his audience, focusing wistfully in the distance, having already started their travels across the subcontinent. He seemed to be rather enjoying himself, as though it were a holiday itinerary he was planning. In the cook’s corner, the stove ran out of fuel. Without its roar the place was hushed.

The silence dragged Rajaram away from his daydream, back to the Vishram’s solitary and smelly table. The cook went to the rear to fetch the kerosene can. They watched him insert the funnel and fill the stove.

“Worldly life has led me to disaster,” said Rajaram. “It always does, for all of us. Only, it’s not always obvious, as was in my case. And now I am at your mercy.”

“But we don’t know anything about becoming a sanyasi,” said Ishvar. “What do you want from us?”

“Money. I need train fare to reach the Himalayas. There is hope of redeeming myself – if I can get away from the police and
CID.”

They returned to the flat. Rajaram waited at the door while Ishvar went inside and asked Dina to let him have, out of their savings, the price of a third-class
Frontier Mail
ticket.

“It’s your money, and it’s not for me to say how you spend it,” she said. “But if he is renouncing the world, why does he need train fare? He can get there on foot, begging his way like other sadhus.”

“That’s true,” said Ishvar. “But that would take a lot of time. He is in a hurry for salvation.”

He took the money out to Rajaram on the verandah, who counted it, then hesitated. “Could I possibly have another ten rupees?”

“For what?”

“Sleeping berth surcharge. It’s very uncomfortable to sit all night through such a long train journey.”

“Sorry,” said Ishvar, almost ready to snatch back the notes. “We can’t spare any more than this. But please visit us if you are in the city sometime, we can have tea together.”

“I doubt it,” said Rajaram. “Sanyasis don’t take vacations.” Then he laughed mirthlessly and was gone.

Om wondered if they would ever see him again. “His habit of borrowing money was a nuisance, but he was an interesting fellow. He brought us news of the world.”

“Don’t worry,” said Ishvar. “With Rajaram’s luck, all the caves will be occupied when he gets there. He’ll come back with a story about how there was a No Vacancy sign in the Himalayas.”

D
UST AND FLECKS OF FIBRE
made Dina sneeze as she cleaned out the sewing room and sorted the leftovers. The rush of breath lifted bits of fabric. The last dresses had been delivered to Au Revoir, and Mrs. Gupta was informed about the six-week break.

Now Dina regarded the approaching emptiness of time with curiosity. Like a refresher course in solitude, she thought. It would be good practice. Without tailors, without a paying guest, alone with her memories, to go through them one by one, examine like a coin collection, their shines and tarnishes and embossments. If she forgot how to live with loneliness, one day it would be hard for her.

She set aside the best swatches for the quilt, stuffing the remainder in the bottom shelf. The Singers were pushed into a corner and the stools stacked on top, which provided more room around the bed. The tailors’ trunk, packed and ready, stood on the verandah. The things they were not taking were stored in cardboard boxes.

With two days to departure and nothing to do, the passing hours had a strangeness to them, loose and unstructured, as though the stitches were broken, the tent of time sagging one moment, billowing the next.

After dinner Dina resumed work on the quilt. Except for a two-square-foot gap at one end, it had grown to the size she wanted, seven by six. Om sat on the floor, massaging his uncle’s feet. Watching them, Maneck wondered what it might be like to massage Daddy’s feet.

“That counterpane looks good, for sure,” said Om. “Should be complete by the time we return.”

“Could be, if I add more pieces from old jobs,” she said. “But repetition is tedious. I’ll wait till there is new material.” They took opposite ends of the quilt and spread it out. The neat stitches crisscrossed like symmetrical columns of ants.

“How beautiful,” said Ishvar.

“Oh, anyone can make a quilt,” she said modestly. “It’s just scraps, from the clothes you’ve sewn.”

“Yes, but the talent is in joining the pieces, the way you have.”

“Look,” Om pointed, “look at that – the poplin from our first job.”

“You remember,” said Dina, pleased. “And how fast you finished those first dresses. I thought I had found two geniuses.”

“Hungry stomachs were driving our fingers,” chuckled Ishvar.

“Then came that yellow calico with orange stripes. And what a hard time this young fellow gave me. Fighting and arguing about everything.”

“Me? Argue? Never.”

“I recognize these blue and white flowers,” said Maneck. “From the skirts you were making on the day I moved in.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it was the day Ishvar and Om did not come to work – they had been kidnapped for the Prime Minister’s compulsory meeting.”

“Oh, that’s right. And do you recall this lovely voile, Om?”

He coloured and pretended he didn’t. “Come on, think,” she encouraged. “How can you forget? It’s the one on which you spilled your blood, when you cut your thumb with the scissors.”

“I don’t remember that,” said Maneck.

“It was in the month before you came. And the chiffon was fun, it made Om lose his temper. The pattern was difficult to match, so slippery.”

Ishvar leaned over to indicate a cambric square. “See this? Our house was destroyed by the government, the day we started on this cloth. Makes me feel sad whenever I look at it.”

“Get me the scissors,” she joked. “I’ll cut it out and throw it away.”

“No no, Dinabai, let it be, it looks very nice in there.” His fingers stroked the cambric texture, recapturing the time. “Calling one piece sad is meaningless. See, it is connected to a happy piece – sleeping on the verandah. And the next square – chapatis. Then that violet tusser, when we made masala wada and started cooking together. And don’t forget this georgette patch, where Beggarmaster saved us from the landlord’s goondas.”

He stepped back, pleased with himself, as though he had elucidated an intricate theorem. “So that’s the rule to remember, the whole quilt is much more important than any single square.”

“Vah, vah!” exclaimed the boys with a round of applause.

“That sounds very wise,” said Dina.

“But is it philosophy or fakeology?”

Ishvar rumpled his nephew’s hair in retaliation.

“Stop it, yaar, I’ve got to look good for my wedding.” Om pulled out his comb and restored the parting and puff.

“My mother collects string in a ball,” said Maneck. “We used to play a game when I was little, unravelling it and trying to remember where each piece of string came from.”

“Let’s try that game with the quilt,” said Om. He and Maneck located the oldest piece of fabric and moved chronologically, patch by patch, reconstructing the chain of their mishaps and triumphs, till they reached the uncompleted corner.

“We’re stuck in this gap,” said Om. “End of the road.”

“You’ll just have to wait,” said Dina. “It depends on what material we get with the next order.”

“Hahnji, mister, you must be patient. Before you can name that corner, our future must become past.”

Ishvar’s lighthearted words washed over Maneck like cold rain; his joy went out like a lamp. The future
was
becoming past, everything vanished into the void, and reaching back to grasp for something, one came out clutching – what? A bit of string, scraps of cloth, shadows of the golden time. If one could only reverse it, turn the past into future, and catch it on the wing, on its journey across the always shifting line of the present…