A Fine Family: A Novel (2 page)

‘Well, who is the boy you have brought for Tara?’ asked Bauji.

‘It is a difficult match,’ replied Chachi softly, ‘because the boy is in the hands of a guru.’

Bauji looked puzzled.

The boy’s name is Seva Ram and he is an up-and-coming engineer. He is a class one, gazetted officer with the government in the Irrigation Department, and he earns two hundred rupees a month. But he is a bit of a rebel.’

‘Why?’ asked Bauji.

‘Because he has renounced the religion of his father. He has left his family in Pindi and spends all his time with his guru.’

‘Guru?’

‘His guru is a wise old man named Sant Singh. His ashram is on the banks of the river Sutlej, near Nangal.’

Chachi gave a dozen other particulars, which Bauji calmly took in, and gave her a look which satisfied her that he knew what to do. Although they had received a number of offers for Tara, Bauji had found them all unsuitable. He was determined to find her a well-educated professional for a husband, this was why he had eagerly listened to what Chachi had to say. Chachi abruptly got up with a
‘Hari-Om’.
Big Uncle echoed an irreverent
‘Hari-Om’
in mock solemnity.

‘Don’t you
Hari-Om
me, you rascal,’ said Chachi affectionately. ‘Come walk me home on your way to the tennis club.’

As they were walking out Big Uncle asked Chachi if she had missed any trains recently. ‘You devil!’ she said, ‘I am never going to the station with you again.’

A month earlier Chachi had missed the five o’clock train for Lahore, but no one was supposed to know. Big Uncle had gone to leave her at the railway station in the afternoon. Since she had a real fear of missing trains, they had arrived two hours before the train’s departure. Big Uncle thought this ridiculous, but who was going to argue with Chachi?

During the first hour they paced the platform. Thrice they went to the Assistant Station Master’s office to check if the train was on time. Thrice they synchronized their watches with the railway clock. Whenever they heard an engine whistle or a goods train being shunted, they looked up wondering if it wasn’t time. Around four o’clock Chachi told him to run off to the tennis courts, saying that she would manage on her own. But before he left, they ascertained the exact place where the ladies compartment would stop on the platform and they moved her luggage to that spot.

As chance would have it, Chachi met an old friend on the platform who was waiting for the same train. They decided to have a cup of tea in the Retiring Room where they got into a bitter quarrel over something that had happened forty years ago. As a result both of them missed their trains.

Quietly Chachi returned home and equally quietly she left for Lahore the next day. But the truth somehow came out, and everyone had a laugh.

As soon as Chachi left, Bhabo and the girls went upstairs, and Mashkiya arrived to water the courtyards. He was a dark, thin man, of the untouchable caste, with shining hair and a handsome moustache. He carried a round goatskin bag full of water, which he skilfully and proudly sprinkled over the three courtyards in the house. Bauji smelled the fragrance of the wet earth from Mashkiya’s cool water, and he mused over this strange routine, which was as old as his house. He recalled Mashkiya’s humble father, who did not dare raise his eyes as he brought refreshing coolness to the evening. Once he had touched Bhabo by mistake with his elbow, and she had taken countless baths ‘to wash away the pollution from the outcaste’s touch’. Today, here was his proud son, who Bauji instinctively knew, would not do this menial work for long. The problem was his dark wife, whom Bauji had once taken to bed in a moment of lust. She had looked at him with her opaque peasant’s eyes, had refused him nothing, and been compliant in every way. In the final moment of intense pleasure she had exclaimed ‘My Bauji!’ He smiled with satisfaction at the memory, and pictured her head deep in his pillow.

The fragrance of the wet earth took Bauji back twenty years when he had built this house. It was one of the first big houses on Kacheri Bazaar and he had been proud of it. He tried to recapture the confidence of a young ambitious man on the way up. Like many of his friends, he was filled with hopes. He had actually believed that the English had done some good in India. Their railways had bridged the country and the first cotton mills were transforming the economy. Bauji’s own hero had been Gopal Gokhale, a lawyer like himself, who had combined Indian tradition with English moderation and orderliness. He had believed with Gokhale in the gradual evolution to self-rule for India. About Gandhi, who had recently arrived on the political stage, Bauji had felt distaste, particularly for his ‘bazaar politics’. Deep down he was convinced that Britain was fair, decent and just, and would not stand in the way of the natural aspirations of Indians for self-rule.

Now, a generation later, Bauji was disillusioned with English motives, cynical about Indian leaders, and disappointed with the inability of Hindus and Muslims to live together. The British had, of course, taken advantage of this division and vigorously pursued a divide-and-rule policy. And despite his moderate views, Bauji had grown tired of English promises of self-government for India when her actions continually belied them. He admired the British because they had brought peace, law and order and they had built canals and irrigated the land of the five rivers. They had introduced modern education which had liberated the young people from the grip of the brahmins and the mullahs. Bauji had been amongst the first in his village to benefit; he had regarded his law degree a passport to break away from his superstitious village and its hereditary occupations. In the past the only jobs open to his caste would have been soldiering or farming; if a boy had been particularly ambitious he might have tried his luck at the court of one of the Sikh princes, and with influence he might have become a minor revenue official. With education not only came new occupations, but a young professional like Bauji also came under the sway of the Arya Samaj, which sought a return to ancient Vedic tradition, and was palatable because it bypassed avaricious brahmins with their endless rituals.

As the sun set, Bauji watched Bhabo lead the women and children up to the roof to perform the
sandhya.
They lit an earthern oil lamp and chanted Sanskrit verses in praise of the evening and the setting sun. As he heard these beautiful sounds from above, Bauji was amused by the thought that not a single one of them understood the meaning of the Sanskrit words they repeated every evening. Once the
sandhya
was over, the lights were gradually turned on in the house.

Bauji valued routine, and every evening after playing a few rubbers he would ask for his cane and leave with his bridge friends for the Company Bagh. As they walked, Bauji and his friends discussed the politics of Lyallpur and India. He liked an audience and he was always trying out new ideas on his companions.

Although he lived his life predictably, he did not plan very far ahead for he liked the flexibility to make changes. He was a successful man of the world who instinctively knew when to make a move and take advantage of a situation. He would have probably become a more famous lawyer had he not devoted so much time to making money. He had found that by closely managing his properties he could multiply their value, and in recent years he had begun to limit his professional activities even though he excelled in them.

He was accustomed to let circumstances and social relations govern his actions. He had quickly perceived the opportunity presented by Chachi and had determined to go to the guru’s ashram. He had also made a mental note that he must return Chachi’s favour one day.

Now sitting in his cane chair and smoking the hookah, he watched the summer light fade while he half-listened to the evening sound of Lyallpur. The peacock’s cry occasionally interrupted the chirping parrots and also his musings about his elder daughter. He reasoned that his evening walk was dead anyway since Chachi had unceremoniously bundled out his friends. He consoled himself with the self-righteous thought that he had been compensated by listening to the
sandhya
after many months. For a man accustomed to balancing profit and loss and risks with opportunities, he could justify giving up two dozen walks in order to fix up a husband for his favourite daughter. And as the first jasmine smells of Lyallpur’s summer night filled the air, he decided to act.

He had heard of the guru, and since he made it his business to know who was influential to achieve what end, he quickly decided that Rai Bahadur Shankar Singh, who lived in Civil Lines, was the man to give him an introduction to the guru. He called out to Suresh, his syce, to hitch up the tonga. Then he changed into a freshly-starched turban, trousers and shirt, all in white, and he was soon on his way. While he rode in the tonga he savoured the rich evening smells from the gardenias and the bela, overlaid with an abundance of jasmine, which lined the road to Civil Lines. A touch of irritation briefly clouded his brow as his eyes fell on a tiny mango stain, which the washerman had not succeeded in removing from the otherwise immaculate shirt.

As he rode past Company Bagh, he let himself be carried away by a different odour from the exotic plants minutely cared for by the Company gardeners. Flowers sprouted in all directions but they seemed muted by the languor which enveloped much of Lyallpur’s daily life. The garden was exhaling scents which were fleshy and mildly erotic, especially the oily emanations of the magnolias, but these were again drowned by the heavy scent of jasmine. Suddenly from somewhere below he caught a faint fragrance of fresh mint, which disappeared just as quickly. He tried longingly to recapture it, but gloomy thoughts overtook him instead.

He remembered the nausea that had come over him a month ago during his Sunday evening walk with the family in this same garden when he discovered the corpse of a young Hindu boy, who had been stabbed by a Muslim youth and had come up here in the gardens to die all alone under the leechi tree. He had found him face downward in the carnation beds, his face covered in blood and vomit, his nails clinging to the soil. He had turned him over and covered his face with his white handkerchief. The dead boy continued to be the talk of the house. As the image of that innocent boy recurred Bauji wondered what had he died for, poor boy.

‘Of course, he died for his community,’ Chachi had replied emphatically. This same opinion was echoed by his friends. But the explanation did not satisfy him. What he saw was the madness of Hindus and Muslims killing each other. It had increasingly become part of everyday life as Jinnah brought the possibility of a homeland for the Punjabi Muslims ever closer to reality. Who would have thought that this would be a consequence of India’s struggle for freedom from the English, he wondered. When was the lunacy going to stop? Why didn’t the British take a firmer position on ‘one India’? Perhaps Chachi was right: the British had after all promoted Hindu-Muslim rivalry through their policies. Why should they stop now when this enmity could actually prolong their stay in India just a bit longer? But did they not realize that the madness was getting out of hand and could envelop them as well?

Some of his friends argued that Hindus and Muslims had lived together in peace for hundreds of years. They would continue to do so for hundreds more. This was a temporary insanity created by Jinnah, they said. After all, most Indian Muslims had been Hindus earlier, who had been converted to Islam. So why shouldn’t they live together in peace?

He was not so sure. Indian Muslims being recent converts were likely to be more fanatical. And was it really true that the two had lived peacefully together? Ever since he could remember, there had been tension and clashes between the two communities. He sighed as he realized organized religion’s enormous capacity for mischief; it exaggerated differences between human beings rather than narrowing them.

These dark ruminations were interrupted as the tonga entered Civil Lines, where the small British community and the westernized Indians lived. The avenues became broader, the bungalows more spacious. He passed the imposing Government House, the residence of the District Collector, where he would be going on Friday. It was a dazzling white building, surrounded by a colonnaded veranda set amidst acres of green lawn and enclosed by a high, grilled boundary wall. Against the white walls there was an occasional splash of pink and purple bougainvillaea. The overall effect befitted the dignity of the seniormost official of the British Raj in the district. Next to it was the equally spacious two-storied Government College in brick, surrounded by vast green playing fields. As the tonga went along the geometrically laid out straight and wide roads, shaded by sheesham and kikar trees, past curving gravel driveways of the lesser officials of the Raj, Bauji began to feel uneasy.

Civil Lines had an unmistakably different atmosphere from the town. It was not English. The sun was too strong, the land was too flat, the buildings were too imposing, the drainage too perfect, the ceilings were too high and the grounds too spacious. Although the conquerors from the small and distant island may have attempted to create a little bit of their own green country, the attempt had not been successful. What they had achieved instead was an antiseptic and incongruous imposition which was alien to both races. The ordered smells of Civil Lines were in contrast to the chaotic odours of the town. They made him uncomfortable because they seemed to proclaim the superiority of the alien ruling class.

Bauji felt ambivalent because he admired the order and the civil sense which the island rulers had displayed here, but he could not forgive them for their aloofness. Otherwise why should a confident man like himself feel uneasy? Perhaps, he wondered, it was not their fault; it was in the nature of the imperial relationship. The rulers were not expected to make the ruled feel comfortable in their presence. Every time he entered Civil Lines, every time he set foot on one of the avenues, which intersected at right angles, and which had foreign sounding names of successive British Viceroys, he felt a shiver.

Thoughts about the English came to an abrupt end as the tonga stopped at Rai Bahadur’s gate. He was one of Bauji’s more Westernized friends. Bauji was quickly led by a servant to a manicured lawn surrounded by a riot of gulmohar. Shankar Singh was sitting in a corner relaxing with his family. As soon as Bauji arrived, his wife got up, modestly covered her head with the end of her sari, and greeted him with folded hands. He returned the meeting and accepted the fresh lime drink which she offered him.

Bauji’s business was over quickly. Shankar Singh knew the boy and he gave his whole-hearted support to the match. He was more than happy to give him a letter to the guru and Bauji was pleased that his mission had been so easily accomplished. He realized the value of this introduction, for Shankar Singh was reputed to be a great devotee and a favourite of the guru. Shankar Singh also gave him careful instructions on how to get there, including train timings. He would have to take a train to Lahore, the provincial capital, from where he would get onto the mainline to Delhi and get off at Jullunder; from there he would take a local for Nangal. The ashram was a two mile tonga ride after that.

On his way back home, Bauji was filled with admiration for the way Shankar Singh had synthesized hisorderly western ways with devotion to a guru and a deeply eastern spiritual life. It was tempting, thought Bauji, to live like this among stately avenues and shady trees, in houses surrounded by green lawns and orchards of maltas and grapefruits in the back. But it was also lonely here, he felt, and it was too late in life to change his ways. He liked living in the bustle of the town. Besides there were too many English here and they mixed only with their own. And the Indians who lived here were either snobs or too Anglicized for his taste. Shankar Singh probably felt comfortable here because he was ‘England returned’. Besides Bauji did not think he could get used to living in one of these ‘inside-out’ houses. The only sensible way to live he felt was in a high-walled house with a courtyard in the middle. He felt naked in these high-ceilinged PWD style bungalows which had verandas and gardens on the outside, exposed to the whole world.

As he was turning into Kacheri Bazaar, he caught a glimpse of a veiled Muslim woman. She was entirely covered by a burkha, which had slits through which her eyes could see the world. This by itself was not unusual. What caught his attention was the unmistakable and expensive scent that lingered behind her. He recognized the subtle fragrance. But the identity of the lady eluded him. The rich quality of the burkha confirmed that she was a woman of the upper class. He had a curious feeling that he knew her, but he wondered what she was doing alone at this time of the night in a non-Muslim part of the town. Had she come to pawn a gold ring to a Hindu
bania
in order to pay a gambling debt? Or was she seeking the services of a Hindu lawyer in a poisoning case? He surprised himself when suddenly he ordered the tongawalla to turn in order to follow her. Not that he meant to accost her. It was merely to give himself time to identify her. He had a strong feeling that she was in trouble. And his instinct was to help her. But his gallant gesture was in vain, for she quickly turned into a narrow lane and disappeared in the dark night.