A Fine Balance Part 9

So he smiled his hapless way through three buckram folders, all umber like the first, and added twenty-four years to his own frame. Twenty-four years of drudgery and deprivation during which his youth disappeared, and the bright ambition of his golden season became tainted by bitterness. Desperate, and scarred by the certain knowledge that he no longer had any prospects, he watched his wife, two sons, and two daughters still believing in him and thereby increasing his anguish. He asked himself what it was he had done to deserve a life so stale, so empty of hope. Or was this the way all humans were meant to feel? Did the Master of the Universe take no interest in levelling the scales was there no such thing as. a fair measure?

There no longer seemed any point in going to the masjid as often as he did. His attendance at Friday prayers became irregular. And he began seeking guidance in ways he had once despised as the preserve of the ignorant.

He found the jyotshis and fortune-tellers in the marketplace most comforting. They offered solutions to his money problems, and advice on improving his future, which was becoming his past at an alarming velocity. He discovered their confident p.r.o.nouncements to be a soothing drug.

Nor did he restrict himself to palmists and astrologers. Seeking stronger drugs, he turned to less orthodox messengers: card-picking doves, chart-reading parrots, communicating cows, diagram-divining snakes. Always worried that an acquaintance would spot him during one of his questionable excursions, he decided, with great reluctance, to leave behind his distinctive fez. It was like abandoning a dear friend. The only other time he had forsaken this fixture of daily wear was during Part.i.tion, back in 1947, when communal slaughter at the brand-new border had ignited riots everywhere, and sporting a fez in a Hindu neighbourhood was as fatal as possessing a foreskin in a Muslim one. In certain areas it was wisest to go bareheaded, for choosing incorrectly from among fez, white cap, and turban could mean losing one's head.

Fortunately, his sittings at the avian auguries were relatively private. He could crouch unnoticed on a pavement corner with the creature's keeper, ask the question, and the dove or parrot would hop out of its cage to enlighten him.

The cow session, on the other hand, was a major performance that collected large crowds. The cow, caparisoned in colourful brocaded fabrics, a string of tiny silver bells round her neck, was led into the ring of spectators by a man with a drum. Though the fellow's shirt and turban were bright-hued, he seemed quite drab compared to the richly bedizened cow. The two walked the circle: once, twice, thrice however long it took him to recite the cow's curriculum vitae, with special emphasis on prophecies and forecasts accurately completed to date. His voice was deafeningly raucous, his eyes bloodshot, his gestures manic, and all this frenzy was calculated as a masterly counterpoint to the cow's calm demeanour. After the brief biography was narrated, the drum that had silently hung from his shoulder came to life. It was a drum meant not for beating but for rubbing. He continued to walk the cow in a circle, rubbing the drumskin with a stick, producing a horrible bleating, a groaning, a wailing. It was a sound to wake the dead and stun the living, it was eldritch, it was a summons to spirits and forces not of this world, a summons to descend, witness, and a.s.sist bovine divination.

When the drum ceased, the man shouted the paying customer's question into the cow's ear, loud enough for the entire ring of humans to hear. And she answered with a nod or shake of her intricately made-up head, tinkling the tiny silver bells round her neck. The crowd applauded in wonder and admiration. Then the drum-rubbing resumed while donations were collected.

One day, after Ibrahim's question was bellowed into the soft, brown, unprotected ear, there was no response. The man repeated it, louder. This time the cow reacted. Whether it was the annoying drum that she had put up with for years, or the boorish bellowing in her ear day after day, she gored her keeper with her vermilioned horns.

For a moment, the spectators thought the cow was just responding a bit more energetically than usual to the question. Then she tossed him to the ground, trampling him thoroughly. Now they realized it was not part of the prophecy procedure, especially when the man's blood started to flow.

With cries of mad cow! mad cow! the crowd scattered. But once her tormentor had been dealt with, she stood placidly, blinking her gentle, long-lashed eyes, swishing away the udder-seeking flies with her tail.

The man's bizarre death convinced Ibrahim that this was no longer a reliable method of obtaining divine advice. Some days later a new team of cow and drum-rubber took over the corner, but Ibrahim avoided the performances. There were other, safer systems for procuring preternatural help.

While the mad-cow incident was still fresh in his mind, however, he witnessed another death. This time it was the handler of a sortilegious serpent whose venom ducts had become overdue for milking. Ever after, Ibrahim shivered when picturing the scene: it could have been into him that the cobra sank its fangs, for he had been crouching close to observe its oracular movements.

Shocked by the two fatalities, the rent-collector abandoned all fortune-telling fauna. As though waking from a nightmare, he re-donned his forsaken fez and set out to recover his lost self. How much money had been diverted from his family's needs with his blasphemous addiction, he realized, as he sat beside the sea while the setting sun's ocean light bathed the masjid, floating at the end of the long causeway. He gazed out upon the receding tide that lay bare the secrets beneath the waves, and he shuddered. His own dark secrets swam up again from their murky depths of confusion and despair. He tried to push them back, to hold them under, to drown them. But they kept slipping away like eels, resurfacing to haunt him. There was only one way to vanquish them he returned penitent to the masjid, ready to accept whatever fate had in store for him.

Among other things, it was the plastic folder. Twenty-four years of buckram had pa.s.sed, and now it was the age of plastic in the landlord's office. Ibrahim no longer cared. He had learned that dignity could not be acquired from accoutrements and accessories; it came unasked, it grew from one's ability to endure. If the office had handed him a coolie's basket to carry the doc.u.ments around on his head, he would have complied now without complaint.

But the plastic folder did have an advantage it kept the monsoon at bay. Now he seldom had to recopy doc.u.ments on which the ink had decided to frolic with the rain in lunatic swirls. At a time when his hands had started to shake, this was a blessing. Also, one pa.s.s with a wet rag, and all sneezes and snuff stains, pea green or brown, were wiped clean, no longer embarra.s.sing him during audiences with the landlord.

And at home, too, there were changes he accepted with submission. After all, what other options were there? His older daughter died of tuberculosis, followed by his wife. Then his sons disappeared into the underworld, returning periodically to abuse him. The remaining daughter, just when he was beginning to think she would redeem everything, left to become a prost.i.tute. His life, he thought, had become the plot of a bad Hindi movie minus the happy ending.

Why, he wondered, did he keep working now, making his rounds of the six buildings and collecting rent? Why did he not jump off the top of one of them? Why did he not make a bonfire of the receipts and the cash, and throw himself onto it drenched in kerosene? How was it that his heart kept beating instead of bursting, his sanity intact instead of shattering like a dropped mirror? Was it all made of tough synthetic material, like the indestructible plastic folder? And why was time, the great vandal, now being neglectful?

But plastic, too, had its allotted span of days and years. It could rip and tear and crack like buckram, he discovered. Like skin and bone, he realized with relief. It was simply a matter of patience. Thus the present folder was the third of its kind in twenty-one years.

He examined it from time to time, and saw reflected in its tired covers the furrows inflicted in his brow. The plastic divisions inside were starting to tear, and the neat compartments seemed ready to rebel; within his bodily compartments the rebellion had already begun. Which one would win this ridiculous race between plastic and flesh, he wondered, as he arrived at the flat, wiped the snuff off his nostrils and fingers, and rang the doorbell.

Spotting his maroon fez through the peephole, Dina silenced the tailors. "Not a sound while he is here," she whispered.

"How are you?" smiled the rent-collector, baring heavily stained teeth and two gaps: the sweet, innocent smile of an aged angel.

Without acknowledging his greeting, she said, "Yes? The rent is not yet due."

He shifted the folder to the other hand. "No, sister, it isn't. I have come for your reply to the landlord's letter."

"I see. Wait one minute." She shut the door and went to look for the unopened envelope. "Where did I put it?" she whispered to the tailors.

The three searched through the jumble of things on the table. She found herself watching Omprakash, the way his fingers clutched and his hands moved. His bony angularity no longer disturbed her. She was discovering a rare birdlike beauty in him.

Ishvar came upon the envelope under a stack of cloth. She tore it open and read quickly, the first time, then slowly, to penetrate the legal jargon. The gist of it soon became clear: the running of a business was prohibited on residential premises, she must cease her commercial activities immediately or face eviction.

Cheeks flushing, she raced to the door. "What kind of nonsense is this? Tell your landlord his hara.s.sment won't work!"

Ibrahim sighed, lifted his shoulders and raised his voice. "You have been warned, Mrs. Dalai! Breaking the rules will not be tolerated! Next time there will be no nice letter but a notice to vacate! Don't think that-"

She slammed the door. He stopped shouting immediately, relieved to be spared the full speech. Panting, he wiped his brow and left.

Dina read the letter again, dismayed. Barely three weeks with the tailors and trouble already with the landlord. She wondered if she should show it to Nusswan, ask his advice. No, she decided, he would make too much of it. Better to ignore it and continue discreetly.

She had no choice now but to take the tailors further into her confidence, impress on them how essential it was to keep the sewing a secret. She discussed the matter with Ishvar.

They agreed on the fiction to be used if the rent-collector ever confronted the two coming to or going from the flat. They would tell him that they came to do her cooking and cleaning.

Omprakash was insulted. "I am a tailor, not her maaderchod servant who sweeps and mops," he said after they left work that evening.

"Don't be childish, Om. It's just a story to prevent trouble with the landlord."

"Trouble for whom? For her. Why should I worry? We don't even get a fair rate from her. If we are dead tomorrow, she will get two new tailors."

"Will you forever speak without thinking? If she is kicked out of her flat, we have no place to work. What's the matter with you? This is our first decent job since we came to the city."

"And I should rejoice for that? Is this job going to make everything all right for us?"

"But it's only been three weeks. Patience, Om. There is lots of opportunity in the city, you can make your dreams come true."

"I am sick of the city. Nothing but misery ever since we came. I wish I had died in our village. I wish I had also burned to death like the rest of my family."

Ishvar's face clouded, his disfigured cheek quivering with his nephew's pain. He put his arm around his shoulder. "It will get better, Om," he pleaded. "Believe me, it will get better. And we'll soon go back to our village."

III.

In a Village by a River

IN THEIR VILLAGE, THE TAILORS used to be cobblers; that is, their family belonged to the Chamaar caste of tanners and leather-workers. But long ago, long before Omprakash was born, when his father, Narayan, and his uncle, Ishvar, were still young boys of ten and twelve, the two were sent by their father to be apprenticed as tailors. used to be cobblers; that is, their family belonged to the Chamaar caste of tanners and leather-workers. But long ago, long before Omprakash was born, when his father, Narayan, and his uncle, Ishvar, were still young boys of ten and twelve, the two were sent by their father to be apprenticed as tailors.

Their father's friends feared for the family. "Dukhi Mochi has gone mad," they lamented. "With wide-open eyes he is bringing destruction upon his household." And consternation was general throughout the village: someone had dared to break the timeless chain of caste, retribution was bound to be swift.

Dukhi Mochi's decision to turn his sons into tailors was indeed courageous, considering that the prime of his own life had been spent in obedient compliance with the traditions of the caste system. Like his forefathers before him, he had accepted from childhood the occupation preordained for his present incarnation.

Dukhi Mochi was five years old when he had begun to learn the Chamaar vocation at his father's side. With a very small Muslim population in the area, there was no slaughterhouse nearby where the Chamaars could obtain hides. They had to wait until a cow or buffalo died a natural death in the village. Then the Chamaars would be summoned to remove the carca.s.s. Sometimes the carca.s.s was given free, sometimes they had to pay, depending on whether or not the animal's upper-caste owner had been able to extract enough free labour from the Chamaars during the year.

The Chamaars skinned the carca.s.s, ate the meat, and tanned the hide, which was turned into sandals, whips, harnesses, and waterskins. Dukhi learned to appreciate how dead animals provided his family's livelihood. And as he mastered the skills, imperceptibly but relentlessly Dukhi's own skin became impregnated with the odour that was part of his father's smell, the leather-worker's stink that would not depart even after he had washed and scrubbed in the all-cleansing river.

Dukhi did not realize his pores had imbibed the fumes till his mother, hugging him one day, wrinkled her nose and said, her voice a mix of pride and sorrow, "You are becoming an adult, my son, I can sniff the change."

For a while afterwards, he was constantly lifting his forearm to his nose to see if the odour still lingered. He wondered if flaying would get rid of it. Or did it go deeper than skin? He p.r.i.c.ked himself to smell his blood but the test was inconclusive, the little ruby at his fingertip being an insufficient sample. And what about muscle and bone, did the stink lurk in them too? Not that he wanted it gone; he was happy then to smell like his father.

Besides tanning and leather-working, Dukhi learned what it was to be a Chamaar, an untouchable in village society. No special instruction was necessary for this part of his education. Like the filth of dead animals which covered him and his father as they worked, the ethos of the caste system was smeared everywhere. And if that was not enough, the talk of adults, the conversations between his mother and father, filled the gaps in his knowledge of the world.

The village was by a small river, and the Chamaars were permitted to live in a section downstream from the Brahmins and landowners. In the evening, Dukhi's father sat with the other Chamaar men under a tree in their part of the settlement, smoking, talking about the day that was ending and the new one that would dawn tomorrow. Bird cries fluttered around their chitchat. Beyond the bank, cooking smoke signalled hungry messages while upper-caste waste floated past on the sluggish river.

Dukhi watched from a distance, waiting for his father to come home. As the dusk deepened, the men's outlines became vague. Soon Dukhi could see only the glowing tips of their beedis, darting around like fireflies with the movement of their hands. Then the burning tips went dark, one by one, and the men dispersed.

While Dukhi's father ate, he repeated for his wife everything he had learned that day. "The Pandit's cow is not healthy. He is trying to sell it before it dies."

"Who gets it if it dies? Is it your turn yet?"

"No, it is Bhola's turn. But where he was working, they accused him of stealing. Even if the Pandit lets him have the carca.s.s, he will need my help they chopped off his left-hand fingers today."

"Bhola is lucky," said Dukhi's mother. "Last year Chhagan lost his hand at the wrist. Same reason."

Dukhi's father took a drink of water and swirled it around in his mouth before swallowing. He ran the back of his hand across his lips. "Dosu got a whipping for getting too close to the well. He never learns." Eating in silence for a while, he listened to the frogs bellowing in the humid night, then asked his wife, "You are not having anything?"

"It's my fasting day." In her code, it meant there wasn't enough food.

Dukhi's father nodded, taking another mouthful. "Have you seen Buddhu's wife recently?"

She shook her head. "Not since many days."

"And you won't for many more. She must be hiding in her hut. She refused to go to the field with the zamindar's son, so they shaved her head and walked her naked through the square."

Thus Dukhi listened every evening to his father relate the unembellished facts about events in the village. During his childhood years, he mastered a full catalogue of the real and imaginary crimes a low-caste person could commit, and the corresponding punishments were engraved upon his memory. By the time he entered his teens, he had acquired all the knowledge he would need to perceive that invisible line of caste he could never cross, to survive in the village like his ancestors, with humiliation and forbearance as his constant companions.

Soon after Dukhi Mochi turned eighteen, his parents married him to a Chamaar girl named Roopa, who was fourteen. She gave birth to three daughters during their first six years together. None survived beyond a few months.

Then they had a son, and the families rejoiced greatly. The child was called Ishvar, and Roopa watched over him with the special ardour and devotion she had learned was reserved for male children. She made sure he always had enough to eat. Going hungry herself was a matter of course that she often did even to keep Dukhi fed. But for this child she did not hesitate to steal either. And there was not a mother she knew who would not have taken the same risk for her own son.

After her milk went dry, Roopa began nocturnal visits to the cows of various landowners. While Dukhi and the child slept, she crept out of the hut with a small bra.s.s haandi, some time between midnight and c.o.c.k-crow. The pitch-black path she walked without stumbling had been memorized during the day, for a lamp was too dangerous. The darkness brushed her cheeks like a cobweb. Sometimes the cobwebs were real.

She took only a little from each cow; thus, the owner would not sense a decrease in the yield. When Dukhi saw the milk in the morning, he understood. If he awoke in the night as she was leaving, he said nothing, and lay shivering till she returned. He often wondered whether he should offer to go instead.

Soon Ishvar cut his milk teeth, and Roopa began to pay weekly visits to orchards in season and ready for harvest. In the darkness, her fingers felt the fruit for ripeness before plucking it. Again, she restricted herself to a few from each tree, so their absence would not be noticed. Around her, the dark was filled with the sound of her own breathing and little creatures scurrying out of her way to safety.

One night, as she was filling her sack with oranges, a lantern was suddenly raised amid the trees. In a small clearing a man sat on his bamboo-and-string cot, watching her. I'm finished, she thought, dropping her sack and preparing to run.

"Don't be afraid," said the man. He spoke softly, his hand gripping a heavy stick. "I don't care if you take some." She turned around, panting with fear, wondering whether to believe him.

"Go on, pick a few," he repeated, smiling. "I have been hired by the owner to watch the grove. But I don't care. He is a rich b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Roopa retrieved the sack nervously and resumed picking. Her shaking fingers dropped an orange as she tried to slip it past the mouth of the sack. She glanced over her shoulder. His eyes were greedily following her body; it made her uneasy. "I'm grateful to you," she said.

He nodded. "You are lucky I am here, and not some bad man. Go on, take as many as you like." He hummed something tunelessly. It sounded like a mixture of groans and sighs. He gave up the humming, trying to whistle the tune. The results were equally unmusical. He yawned and fell silent but continued to watch her.

Roopa decided she had enough fruit, it was time to thank him and leave. Reading her movements, he said, "One shout from me and they will come running."

"What?" She saw his smile disappear suddenly.

"I only have to shout, and the owner and his sons would be here at once. They would strip you and whip you for stealing."

She trembled, and the smile returned to his face. "Don't worry, I won't shout." She fastened the mouth of the sack, and he continued, "After whipping you, they would probably show you disrespect, and stain your honour. They would take turns doing shameful things to your lovely soft body."

Roopa joined her hands in thanks and farewell.

"Don't go yet, take as many as you want," he said.

"Thank you, I have enough."

"You are sure? I can easily give you more if you like." He put down his stick and got up from his cot.

"Thank you, this is enough."

"Is it? But wait, you cannot go just like that," he said with a laugh. "You haven't given me anything in return." He walked towards her.

Stepping back, she forced a laugh too. "I don't have anything. That's why I came here in the night, for the sake of my child."

"You have got something." He put out his hand and squeezed her left breast. She struck his hand away. "I only have to shout once," he warned, and slipped his hand inside her blouse. She shuddered at the touch, doing nothing this time.

He led her cringing to the cot and ripped open her top three b.u.t.tons. She crossed her arms in front. He pulled them down and buried his mouth in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, laughing softly as she tried to squirm away. "I gave you so many oranges. You won't even let me taste your sweet mangoes?"

"Please let me go."

"Soon as I have fed you my Bhojpuri brinjal. Take off your clothes."

"I beg you, let me go."

"I only have to shout once."

She wept softly while undressing, and lay down as he instructed. She continued to weep during the time he moved and panted on top of her. She heard the breeze rustle the leaves in trees that stood like worthless sentinels. A dog howled, setting off others in a chorus. Coconut oil in the man's hair left streaks on her face and neck, and smeared her chest. Its odour was strong in her nostrils.

Minutes later, he rolled off her body. Roopa grabbed her clothes and the sack of oranges and ran naked through the orange grove. When she was certain he wasn't following, she stopped and put her clothes on.

Dukhi pretended to be asleep as she entered the hut. He heard her m.u.f.fled sobs several times during the night, and knew, from her smell, what had happened to her while she was gone. He felt the urge to go to her, speak to her, comfort her. But he did not know what words to use, and he also felt afraid of learning too much. He wept silently, venting his shame, anger, humiliation in tears; he wished he would die that night.

In the morning Roopa behaved as if nothing had occurred. So Dukhi said nothing, and they ate the oranges.

Two years after Ishvar was born, Roopa and Dukhi had another son. This one was named Narayan. There was a dark-red mark on his chest, and an elderly neighbour who a.s.sisted Roopa during the birth said she had seen such a mark before. "It means he has a brave and generous heart. This child will make you very proud."

The news of a second son created envy in upper-caste homes where marriages had also taken place around the time Dukhi and Roopa were wed, but where the women were still childless or awaiting a male issue. It was hard for them not to be resentful the birth of daughters often brought them beatings from their husbands and their husbands' families. Sometimes they were ordered to discreetly get rid of the newborn. Then they had no choice but to strangle the infant with her swaddling clothes, poison her, or let her starve to death.

"What is happening to the world?" they complained. "Why two sons in an untouchable's house, and not even one in ours?" What could a Chamaar pa.s.s on to his sons that the G.o.ds should reward him thus? Something was wrong, the Law of Manu had been subverted. Someone in the village had definitely committed an act to offend the deities, surely some special ceremonies were needed to appease the G.o.ds and fill these empty vessels with male fruit.