A Life Incomplete, page 6
Her father’s appreciation is the most precious gift that Saroj could desire. Seeing that her story has moved her father to tears brings a glow to her own face. Using her dupatta to wipe the tears of his face, she starts, ‘Babu ji…’
But words fail her. Perhaps she wants to ask, ‘What exactly did you feel after reading the story? How did it impact you?’ Maybe she still wants him to express his appreciation in words that she could cherish.
‘Saroj?’ he finally speaks. Casting a questioning glance at her, he continues, ‘Have you truly written this story on your own?’
Saroj feels her elation crumble under the impact of that one questioning sentence. She feels like the poet who expects his monarch to shower gold coins on him, only to discover that he has received lumps of coal instead. Her pride and self-esteem have been dealt a crushing blow. Does her father really take her to be a cheat who copies the work of others to get herself published? Her left hand involuntarily starts to crumple the letter of appreciation that she had just received from the editor of the magazine. The glow of joy evaporates from her face, leaving behind a pale shadow of herself. She finds her right hand slide from her father’s shoulder to rest lifelessly on her thigh.
Setting the magazine aside, Ganga Vishan looks again towards his daughter. Patting her hand, he reassures, ‘Please don’t misunderstand me, child. I didn’t mean it that way!’
Taking a deep breath, Saroj feels her waning strength return. Her heart, still seething from the insult, starts to soften.
‘How can I ever doubt the felicity of my daughter’s pen?’ He caresses her head as he speaks. ‘I said that only because you have exceeded my wildest expectations. I want you to attain perfection in the art of writing. And I am stunned to see that despite your preoccupation with so many routine things, you have retained the passion to express yourself so freely. Such power in the words, such sophistication of thought, such depth of emotion, such noble values! Saroj, you will one day become the leading storyteller in Punjabi. That is my prediction today. I cannot shake away the vivid images of the unfortunate couple you have portrayed in your story. I wouldn’t expect someone twice my age to reach such a pinnacle of narrative skills. And the title of the story is so apt: A life incomplete! But tell me, Saroj, this incomplete life…does it refer to the hero’s or the heroine’s? Neither seems to have had the opportunity to enjoy the fragrance of a fulfilling life. To me, both the hero and the heroine seem to be equally ill-fated.’
Her father’s fulsome praise is like an elixir for Saroj. She soaks in the impact of his words, resolving to redouble her efforts to keep writing. But as he finishes speaking, his final sentence casts a strange kind of spell on her. A shadow of gloom sweeps across her face. Her eyes close and her forehead creases with the burden of some unknown hurt as she says, ‘Neither the hero’s nor the heroine’s. It is someone else.’
Her eyes are focused on the ceiling, trying somehow to escape the probing gaze of her father. She wishes she could fly to some desolate place where she would be able to cry her heart out.
Ganga Vishan glances at his daughter and is unable to hold her gaze for more than a moment. Perhaps the prism of her eyes has suddenly given him a peek into the hidden depths of her heart. He wipes his eyes and hastily goes out of the room. Saroj nestles into the vacant chair and closes her eyes to find herself in a distant world of her dreams.
8
The seconds on a clock seem to stretch interminably as they approach a fateful moment. Will he be released today, will it be tomorrow? The seconds have dragged into minutes, hours, days and weeks. Almost a month has elapsed before the promised moment eventually arrives for Kuldeep. It is around seven in the evening when the forbidding gates of Borstal Jail slowly swing open. A lumbering queue of almost a thousand prisoners snakes out and starts to make its way in the general direction of Gurudwara Dera Sahib. Kuldeep emerges with the batch from Frontier Province but disappears soon thereafter. The batch leader is clearly annoyed that he has left without the courtesy of a goodbye. Other prisoners from the batch mumble that he must already be on his way to the station to catch the first train home. Kuldeep, however, has other plans. He has quietly stepped away from his batch to take the pathway towards the staff quarters at the jail where he has joined his friend Ahmed Khan.
Waiting outside their door to greet him, Ahmed and his wife Zubeida Bano overwhelm Kuldeep with the sheer warmth of their welcome. A Pathan woman dressed in the typical Punjabi attire of salwar-kameez, Zubeida is around twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. She has a ruddy complexion that speaks eloquently of good health and cheerful spirit. She seems to be particularly partial to silver ornaments of all sorts, which adorn her fingers, arms, ankles, ear, neck and even around her waist. Kuldeep wonders if this is her regular style or she has gone out of her way to make an impression on their guest.
Still somewhat diffident, he follows his hosts into their house. Zubeida initially appears a bit reserved and slow to engage in conversation. But in less than an hour, she is chatting with Kuldeep as though she has known him all his life. The ice-breaker, perhaps, is Kuldeep’s impish comment, ‘Come on, Bhabhi! Why should you veil your face before your dewar? Pathan women, in any case, are not known for this practice.’
Before she can respond, Ahmed interjects, ‘She seems to have picked up this bad habit since we came to Punjab. She never bothered to cover her face until we moved here. But now that she has done so, I am afraid you will have to pay a fair price to get her to remove her veil.’
‘Ah ha! That confirms my belief that you jailors will not do anything without a bribe.’ Kuldeep grins.
‘No doubt about that. If we didn’t take bribes, how would we manage to provide for these.’ Ahmed points to his wife’s ornaments.
‘But I have nothing to offer by way of a bribe,’ Kuldeep reproaches.
‘How extraordinary! If a jailor can’t get a bribe from a prisoner, who else will he get it from?’
‘All right, then. Let this be a loan to me. I will repay it when you come to Peshawar and Satwant will lift her veil before her jeth.’
‘That’s very bold of you.’ Ahmed smiles. ‘You are taking responsibility for her actions without knowing whether she will comply.’
‘But aren’t you doing pretty much the same thing? Look at bhabhi, who hasn’t spoken a word. She is acting as though something precious will fall out and be lost forever if she were to open her mouth!’ Kuldeep teases.
Ahmed pauses for a second, searching, perhaps, for a fitting rejoinder. Lowering her eyes towards the floor, his wife says, ‘I have hardly veiled my face. I don’t know what the two of you are arguing about.’
‘Why then are you hiding those delicate little amulets on your forehead? Are you afraid that I am going to run away with them?’ he continues in his sardonic tone.
Without saying another word, she pulls back the dupatta above her forehead and looks at her husband. He gives her a friendly glare and chides her, ‘Go on, now. Get him something to drink, will you. It’s so unbearably hot out there.’
‘How can I serve him something? Do you think he will accept anything that I have touched? You should have ordered something from a Hindu’s shop and asked their boy to bring it to him.’
‘That really is the limit, Bhabhi. If we can’t even share a glass of water, how are we going to develop this relationship between dewar and bhabhi?’ Kuldeep smiles affectionately.
Husband and wife look at him in surprise. Seeing their expression, Kuldeep reassures them, ‘If that were the case, I could have had a drink in the market itself. I didn’t need to come here at all.’
Zubeida feels a new sort of affection and respect for the young Sikh. She serves him a glass of cold water, followed by a delicious meal and an animated, cheerful conversation that forges a new bond between the three of them. While turning in for the night, Kuldeep declares his intention of leaving for Peshawar the following morning. Zubeida, however, is adamant that he spend at least a couple of days with them, that he give them the chance to look after him after his long incarceration. Kuldeep is equally insistent about returning home at the earliest. His heart wants him to fly to his beloved and join her in the blink of an eye to make up for the long months of separation. Ahmed, recognizing his friend’s state, interjects with Zubeida, ‘Don’t stop him, my dear woman. I have seen the way he has spent the last seven months, pining away for that piece of his heart. And we can only imagine the torment of the bangle-laden one as she awaits him.’
Ahmed uses the phrase ‘the bangle-laden one’ whenever he teases Kuldeep about Satwant. But today, that expression brings an involuntary smile to Kuldeep’s countenance. He closes his eyes and sees the array of red and ivory bangles hugging the forearms of his beloved. Zubeida takes one look at his face and realizes that it is best to let him leave in the morning.
Kuldeep has found something entirely new and refreshing in the informality and friendship that has so quickly developed between him and the Pathan couple. A Sikh spending a night in the house of a Muslim, eating with them from the same plate, sharing in their joy and laughter! In his own town of Peshawar, with its polluted religious atmosphere, an experience like this would be virtually unthinkable. He marvels at the warmth and hospitality with which Zubeida has attended to him, and at Ahmed’s undisguised affection. What a wonderful couple, he reflects.
Yet, there is something missing in their home. It takes him a while before he figures it out. There are no children in the Pathan home. Normally, a family like this would have had at least a couple of toddlers prattling around. Unable to hold back, he asks his friend, ‘Ahmed bhai! I don’t see any children in the house. Is everything all right?’
Ahmed heaves a deep sigh and replies, ‘It is all in His divine will, my brother. It’s close to eight years since we married and Allah has not blessed us with a child yet. I have tried my best to deal with this but I must say that I find it much harder to console your bhabhi. There are days when she feels so low that she can do nothing but cry. Maybe we are not lucky enough to have a boy. I would even be happy with a girl or two. But we have to accept our fate. We know that we are powerless before His will.’
‘Do not despair, my friend,’ Kuldeep comforts him. ‘You are both fairly young. Have patience and trust in god. There is no dearth of anything in His house.’
They accompany him to the station the following day to see him off. As the train emits a long whistle to signal its imminent departure, Zubeida’s eyes turn moist. She looks at Kuldeep and mockingly warns him, ‘Don’t you dare forget us after you reach your home, okay?’
Kuldeep bends down to respectfully touch her feet. ‘I shall pray to the Lord that this bond remains forever. I will always remember the love showered upon me by my bhabhi.’
9
Even though the Frontier Express is steaming towards its destination it cannot keep pace with the flight of Kuldeep’s imagination. The compartment was packed with passengers when he had boarded the train in the evening, denying him any opportunity to lie down or even to sit comfortably for much of the night. But several people had disembarked at intermediate stations. By daybreak, he is able to lean on the window-frame beside his seat and enjoy the luxury of stretching his feet all the way to the seat in front. Settling into a degree of comfort, he finds his eyes closing of their own volition. The train hurtles through the countryside, but for Kuldeep it isn’t quick enough. He wants to close his eyes for a second, open them and find himself on the platform at Peshawar Sadar station.
To distract himself, Kuldeep picks up the newspaper left on the seat beside him by a passenger and starts to read. The effort is in vain. Each time he tries to concentrate on a word, it develops a life of its own, dancing before him, teasing as it morphs into Satwant’s face. Smiling, frowning, reflecting, pensive, pouting, sleeping…each word captures a different facet of her charming countenance. The newspaper in his hands has been transformed into a cinema screen with images moving and changing in a dizzying blur. His thoughts carry him to Peshawar, alighting from a tonga at the doorstep of his home, his eyes moving towards the window on the upper floor. Gleaming bangles on a slim arm resting on the windowsill gradually come into focus. The very next second, the bangled arms are clasped around him, and Satwant is in his embrace. A steady stream of tears flows down her lovely face. Kuldeep too is in a similar state. Wordless, they hold each other, revelling in the comfort of their embrace. They feel as though they were meeting after a lifetime and who knows how long they would have stayed locked in each other’s arms if it weren’t for a loud rumble that shakes Kuldeep so violently that Satwant slips from his arms and falls to the floor.
Reluctantly opening his eyes, Kuldeep sees that the train had stopped at Nowshera station. ‘My God!’ the passenger next to him exclaims. ‘What was that? I almost fell off my seat!’
Kuldeep looks around to see an elderly Pathan reclining on his side in the seat in front of him, a veiled woman next to him, dozing gently as she leans against the window. A Punjabi youth of about fifteen or sixteen sits by the window across the aisle, peering intently at the passing landscape and softly singing to himself. A Muslim family sprawls on the long seat next to him.
Kuldeep’s face is buried in the newspaper but he is, in fact, neither reading the paper nor paying much attention to the passengers around him. His mind’s eye has moved to a plump, three-month-old child nestling in his lap. The child’s skin is like unblemished silk and soft as a ball of freshly made butter, his hair a wad of cotton wool, his large, shiny eyes transfixed on Kuldeep’s own. Nuzzling the child’s hair and cuddling him gently against his chest, Kuldeep feels a thrill of undiluted pleasure run down his spine. He lifts his eyes to see Satwant standing in front, her eyes sparkling with unabashed affection for father and son. Seeing his mother, the child starts to cry. She extends her arms to pick him up but Kuldeep is reluctant to let go. Instead, he holds Satwant’s wrist, an array of bangles glistening under his eyes. She yells to protest against the tightness of his grip, and the child cries louder. But Kuldeep is oblivious. He can only see the bangled arms before him, the mocking words of Ahmed Khan about ‘his bangled one’ ringing in his ears. The train comes to a halt at the Peshawar City station and he feels both the bangled arm and the child slip from his grasp. The Punjabi boy sitting across from the old Pathan is singing:
O ye bangled one
Careful when you reach
For that stem of saffron
I beseech
O ye bangled one
I can die for thee
The Muslim family is lost in its own world. The toddler has started to cry, annoyed no doubt by the older brother who keeps tugging at his shirt. The irritated father delivers a wringing slap on the lad’s face, hand making contact with cheek just as the train comes to a shuddering halt. The boy falls on the toddler and both start bawling. The mother shouts at the father for hitting the boy and cacophony rules. Kuldeep hurriedly sets aside his newspaper and leaves the train, walking straight to a public sink to splash some water on his face. Sleep refuses to leave his eyes as he returns to his seat with the knowledge that the next station is Peshawar Sadar.
10
The train finally arrives at its destination. Kuldeep hurries out of the station and hires a tonga to take him home. His mind, hitherto a captive of its own flights of fantasy, starts to come back to earth. His heart starts pounding, slow and heavy, as it captures the rhythm of the horse pulling his tonga to its destination.
The tonga comes to a halt besides his house. Before dismounting from the carriage, he glances upwards. The window is closed. He wonders why. A closed window in this heat? Could Satwant have moved downstairs to escape her loneliness? His pulse quickens and he feels his heart beat two or three times for each step he takes towards his doorstep. He wishes she would open the window to see him approaching the door. That would surely make her forget her customary reserve in the presence of her mother-in-law. She would fly down the stairs, race through the room to open the door and embrace him. He finds himself praying that Satwant would be home alone and he would be able to spend a few quiet moments with her.
He opens the door and recoils at the sight before him. His mother sits in the middle of the room, surrounded by women dressed in white. ‘Why is everyone wailing? Has anyone…?’ Kuldeep mumbles as he moves forward to embrace his mother. His heart sinks as his ears absorb the sounds emanating from the mourning women and his brain begins to decipher the voices.
‘O Kuldeep! She left us even as she waited for you…her eyes were transfixed on the street right until her last breath.’
‘He will come soon, she kept saying even as she was dying.’
‘I saw her just three days back. She was so sad. Why do you cry, Satwant? I had asked her. She said, bua ji, will I go without seeing him again, just yearning for him?’
‘She could barely speak. Yet, she would keep raising her head to look out of the window. O Kuldeep! If only you had come a couple of days sooner. At least she would have seen you once before leaving.’
Kuldeep freezes. Not a tear emerges from his eyes, nor a word escapes his lips. He is like a statue chiselled out of stone. He feels himself enveloped by a fog. The women fade into the distance like shadows. He can hear the heart-rending wails of his mother but even these do not register. He is curiously disconnected from his surroundings. He doesn’t remember when his father comes up to him, embraces him and leads him into the adjacent room. Nor does he recall sitting down on the bed, being offered a glass of water. He is unable to comprehend the tragedy. Again and again, he asks himself the same thing, ‘Can it be true? Is Satwant truly no more?’
