This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach, page 37
‘I’ll go and ask jijaji immediately. I’ve only just found out about all this.’ Kanak replied also in English. ‘I tried to contact you, and sent you a letter, but we weren’t able to meet.’
That was all she could say for the moment.
Puri was talking cautiously, but Kanak was troubled by the unspoken abuse, pain and plea for help in his voice. She bit her lip to control herself, and looked through the bars of the cage into Puri’s eyes, in order to convey her own agony and helplessness. She turned her back to hide the tears welling up in her eyes, and left the police station.
When she entered the living room at home, Pandit Girdharilal was surprised to see his daughter come back so soon. He called out with great relief, ‘You’re back already, Kanni beta. That’s good. You did a wise thing.’ He had been right to send Vidhichand along, he was thinking.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said Kanak. She went straight upstairs, without paying any attention to Kanchan, who was sitting and talking with their neighbour Santosh. She almost collapsed on her bed. The sight of a suffering and harassed Puri, gripping the bars of the cage, swam before her eyes. The emotions rising in her heart began to seep out as tears. ‘What good will crying do?’ she scolded herself, ‘what I must do is something to help him.’ She could imagine how Vidhichand must be whispering about what happened into the ear of her father. ‘Let him,’ she thought, ‘I’ll do what I have to. Jijaji will come in the evening. But he can’t bear any mention of Puriji. I’ll speak to him, nevertheless.’
‘Kanni, come down. Pitaji’s calling you.’ Kanchan called after a while.
Kanak was prepared for that.
Panditji inquired sympathetically about everything, in detail. He did not seem angry that Kanak had told a lie about where she was going, but seemed only concerned with knowing the facts. What crimes were the arrested men charged with? Had anybody applied for bail? Who would be willing to put up the bail? Who was Doctor Pran Nath?
Kanak could not answer all the questions.
‘Let’s see what we can do!’ Panditji muttered to himself, and turning to Vidhichand, said, ‘There’s a slip of paper attached to the telephone directory that has the number of the high court barristers’ room. Ask them to get Mahendra Nayyar, the advocate. Say someone’s calling from his home.’
He turned back to Kanak, ‘When you read it in the newspaper, beta, you should’ve told me. Had I gone to see him, I’d have found out more. Achcha, you’ve been out in the sun. Go and rest.’
Kanak went back to her room and lay down, feeling unhappy that she had handed over to others the responsibility for helping Puri. She wanted to do it herself, to go quickly wherever she could, anywhere, to free Puri from that cage, but for the present she had done all that was within her powers. Another thought was surging in her mind. How big a heart her father had! All she did was to create problems for him. ‘Has pitaji agreed to do what I want him to?’
In the evening, when she heard Nayyar return from the high court, she went downstairs without pausing to draw another breath. Nayyar ignored her, and went on with his explanations to Panditji, ‘… a defence committee of lawyers is working on the case. We’re handling all riot cases without asking for any fee. The police are holding the arrested men for seven days on remand. The men will be sent to jail after that time. D.V. Sood says that bail applications for all the men have been filed.’
After telling Panditji this, Nayyar picked up a file cover from the table beside him, to show that he was ready to leave, and said, ‘Achcha, I’m off. Have to prepare this case for tomorrow.’ He turned and looked at Kanak, ‘Are you staying or do you want to go? Got all your clothes?’
His tone of voice told Kanak that he was not very eager for her to come along, but he was the only person who could help Puri. ‘I’ll get them. I’m ready,’ she replied.
Sensing Nayyar’s silence as they drove to Model Town, Kanak ventured, ‘Jijaji, you’re so quiet. Are you angry with me?’
‘No, nothing like that. I’m thinking of my case tomorrow. It’s a bit complicated.’ Nayyar did not answer her question.
Kanak said, ‘Puriji’s father and his sister’s future father-in-law wanted to get him out by bribing the police, but he wouldn’t let them. You couldn’t have helped crying if you’d seen the state he was in, but he still refused to get out by illegal means.’
‘Very well. Let’s see what happens,’ said Nayyar. He did not say anything further. Later in the evening, and the next morning too, they exchanged only a few words. Kanak got ready to go to Gwal Mandi so that she could keep abreast of any developments.
Nayyar said, ‘I’m going that way. I’ve no objection to your coming along. But if a phone call can be made from the high court to Gwal Mandi, it can be made to Model Town too. However, its your call.’
‘Why you’re being so curt and offhand with me! What’s the harm if I come along? I won’t go out anyway,’ she said as they drove to Gwal Mandi. Nayyar remained silent.
Kanak was waiting when Nayyar arrived in the evening. She had asked Kesari to keep tea ready. She looked at Nayyar affectionately as he came into the living room. He just nodded a namaste to her, glanced into the door to the office, and called, ‘Pitaji, close down the office now. Why don’t you call it a day?’
‘I’m coming,’ came Panditji’s reply.
Nayyar took a chair next to Kanak. Kanak’s eyes were dancing with desperate curiosity. Just to prolong the agony of her desperation, he asked, ‘So, what have you been up to all day?’
‘Nothing. Tell me, what happened?’
‘About what?’ he asked.
Kanak did not like this rebuff. Panditji came into the living room and said, ‘Kanni, ask for tea to be served. My back stiffens up so much after sitting so long in the chair.’ He moved his arms to stretch his body before sitting down and asked Nayyar, ‘Yes, what happened? Today was their appearance in court.’
‘Nothing,’ Nayyar gave Kanak a sideways glance, and said nothing more.
‘No bail was granted?’ Panditji asked grimly. Kanak’s heart was in her mouth.
‘Uh-uh.’
‘At least they must have been ordered to be transferred from the police station to the jail lock-up?’ Panditji asked.
‘Well, no.’ Nayyar again kept silent for a moment. Then, as if feeling pity for Kanak, he said, ‘I myself represented him, and asked Rai Bahadur to be present as well. For Rai Bahadur just to be there is unsettling for a magistrate of these lower courts. We said that there were no grounds for posting bail. So he was released without bail. Five other men were let off at the same time. Only three now remain in the lock-up.’
‘You’re a fine boy!’ Panditji said in English and slapped himself on the knee as he congratulated Nayyar.
Kanak felt as if an iron vice gripping her heart had been loosened, and she could breathe freely. She shot an angry, pouting glance at her brother-in-law, as if to ask, ‘Why did you have to make me suffer so much?’
Chapter 12
THE LAST CASE THE COURT HEARD WAS THAT OF PURI AND MEWA RAM. THE court sat for an extra half-hour, and Puri and Mewa Ram were released. Masterji, Ratan and Khushal Singh had been present in court since ten in the morning. Babu Govindram had had Ratan released four days earlier. The bail hearing for Bir Singh and others was postponed for three days. Puri had been arrested at the time of the Shahalami conflagration, when it was hazardous to pass through the fire-ridden bazaars of Bajaj Hatta and Machchi Hatta. Those arrested had been taken to the police station by way of Rang Mahal and Delhi Gate. The blaze had since subsided. Puri and the others returned to their homes through Shahalami.
The once bustling and vibrant bazaars of Shahalami had been burned to the ground. What remained were the ruins of two-, three-and four-storey houses, and vast mounds of garbage. A narrow path straggled between the rows of giant burnt-out pyres. To remove that debris would have been like digging up and carting away a mountain. Stumps of wooden beams, fallen steel girders, the remains of doors and frames, and charred planks were scattered around. From some still-standing smoke-blackened walls, broken balcony railings hung like skeletons or jutted out like the rib cages of giant animals. Bent and twisted water pipes and iron rods, as if they were the intestines of the burnt-out buildings, swung slowly in the wind. A terrible stench made one hold one’s nose.
As Puri and Mewa Ram stepped into Bhola Pandhe’s Gali, it rang with the cries of children playing in the lane, ‘Jaddi bhappa and Mewa bhappa are back!’
When Bhagwanti heard the shout, she went down the stairs in such a hurry that she stumbled and almost fell. She screamed and burst into sobs as she clasped her grown-up son to her breast right on the chabutara. She had done the same when Puri had come back from prison two years before. Everyone in the gali came out of their homes to welcome the freed men. The sound of Kartaro crying loudly came from Khushal Singh’s house. She had uttered a scream when she did not see Bir Singh return with Puri and Mewa Ram, and had begun to wail that her son had been left behind in the lock-up. ‘The rich and resourceful can manipulate things. Why did they make a poor person’s son accompany them at curfew time?’
Puri freed himself from his mother’s embrace and said pairipaina to Meladei. Tara and Usha gave him a hug. Hari touched the feet of his elder brother. Tara said with pride, ‘Our brave brother didn’t care if he was sent to jail for the sake of his country and the truth. He spent two years in prison before this as well.’
When he saw Tara, Puri thought of Kanak coming to see him in the police cells, and of his own indignation with Kanak in the days before that.
He also noticed the faint lines of the scar on her forehead. It did not show much against her fair complexion, but the cross-like scar reminded him of the incident five weeks before, and the date of Tara’s wedding three weeks hence. He turned his eyes away.
Before going up the stairs to his house, Puri went to Khushal Singh’s place. He said to Kartaro, ‘Masi, pairipaina,’ and assured her that Bir Singh would be home soon.
The people of the gali did not want to let go of Puri. They made him sit with them and began to talk about the frontier between Pakistan and Hindustan that was to divide up Punjab. Everyone was certain that Hindustan would begin from the city of Lahore on the eastern bank of the Ravi River. The Radcliffe Commission had proclaimed that Sialkot in the north and Bahawalpur-Khairpur in the southwest would be part of the new Pakistan. If Lahore were to be included in the partition, the Commission would surely have mentioned this. Who could overlook the fact that 80 per cent of the real estate in Lahore was owned by Hindus.
Puri was told that after the Shahalami fire, Ghasita Ram and Panna Lal had locked up their houses and gone on pilgrimage to Mathura and Vrindavan. The gali people knew that the fire had scared them off, but not everyone had the means to leave like that.
Puri came upstairs for his dinner after Usha and his mother had called him several times. Tara served him as he sat down in the kitchen. His mother came and sat beside him. There were several kinds of vegetables in his thali. ‘Are you trying to make up for the past two weeks in one go? So many things to eat in one meal?’ Puri said to his mother. He found himself unable to speak directly to Tara.
‘It’s not so much,’ his mother replied. ‘Pushpa and Ratan’s mother sent a dish each for you. Rampyari and Jeeva too brought something.’
‘Have I become a guest in my own home just because I was away for a couple of days?’ Puri showed his surprise, ‘Neighbours usually do that when some guest arrives.’
‘Kaka, if your neighbours don’t help you out in your ups and downs, how could you live in the gali?’ His mother said, and began to unload her anxieties onto her son, ‘When you weren’t here, you know we couldn’t do anything. Hardly any time is left before the date of the wedding. Whatever else might happen in the city, the marriages that have been settled are being carried through. We must arrange for everything in the next two or three weeks.’
Puri did not look at Tara, but he knew she was silent, as girls were supposed to be when any talk of their marriage came up. She gave no sign of disagreement or dissatisfaction. A weight rolled off his mind, but left him with a feeling of sadness.
After dinner, Puri lay down on a charpoy on the rooftop. Masterji and the others on the roof, not wanting to disturb his rest, left him alone. The roof had been baking in the strong June sun, and its floor, the surrounding low walls and the corrugated tin roof over the barsati gave off waves of heat. But he did not feel the heat. After being locked up day and night for a week in that cage, Puri could enjoy the luxury of lying, even on a bare charpoy, in the open air under the faint moonlight. Only a few hours before he had been confined, and now! Wondering at the difference between his feelings of confinement and freedom, and relishing the pleasure of being at liberty, he could not sleep as thoughts crowded his mind and various images flashed through.
His thoughts did not dwell on community or social problems. Such ideas now seemed to him to be of little substance. His thinking and wishes seemed to have no influence upon a society composed of millions of others. Who knew what forces were at work in this human anthill, but it did not seem possible for an individual to make his way except in the direction the masses were going. Each member of this mass of people had his own worries; he had his own, Kanak had hers, and perhaps Tara too. His thoughts turned to Kanak.
His heart had been cleansed of all resentment against Kanak for having betrayed his trust. She had flown to his aid as soon as she knew about his troubles. There was no question of her loyalty to him, and he felt ashamed of having doubted her and of being angry with her. Nayyar had represented him in court along with Rai Bahadur. Has Kanak been able to handle the situation with her family? Otherwise, why would they have taken the trouble for me as they did? The week spent in that hellhole, this detestable ordeal was perhaps a necessary prelude to the beginning of my new life…he thought. Kanak had come to the police station and now he ought to go to her place to convey his thanks and express his gratitude for the help given by Panditji and Nayyar. Then he thought of the history book that he was translating … had this disruption not occurred, the work would have been finished by now. Well, now he would work day and night, and try to finish what was left, and do his revision within three or four days, and hand it over to Ghaus Mohammed. Money was desperately needed in the house.
He began his work early next day. If someone came to congratulate him on his release from the lock-up, he’d get up and give the visitor a hug in welcome, talk with him for a short time and then return to his work. He meant to go to Gwal Mandi in the evening. For that, he needed clothes that were washed and ironed. Distressed by his arrest, the family could hardly have looked after his wardrobe in his absence. Puri had asked Usha in the morning to wash and iron his shirt and trousers.
He worked until five in the afternoon, then changed into fresh clothes and left for Gwal Mandi. To avoid looking at the horrible vista of the devastated bazaars, he went by the roundabout route of Vachchovali, Sootar Mandi and Lohari Gate, then took Hospital Road to Gwal Mandi. Nayyar’s car was parked outside the entrance to Shaduram’s Gali. The thought of Nayyar’s presence at the moment of meeting Kanak dampened his enthusiasm. The door of the entrance to Panditji’s office was closed. Puri was about to turn back, intending to return next day when Nayyar came through the door that opened into the living room.
Puri paused, finding relief in the possibility that Nayyar might be leaving. He smiled, said namaste, and began to offer his thanks.
Nayyar acknowledged with his customary reserve, then changed his expression to a smile of welcome, held out his hand and said, ‘Come, come, Mister Puri.’
‘I came to express my gratitude to Panditji and to you,’ Puri said in English, using a phrase he had already thought up. ‘It’s fortunate that I met you.’
‘There’s no question of gratitude.’ Nayyar held on to his hand and led him back into the living room. ‘It was nothing to me. It was my duty. The lawyers’ defence committee was formed for this very purpose. I am sorry that you had to suffer so much when you were only trying to help others.’ Nayyar showed him to the sofa, and turning his face towards the aangan, called, ‘Kesari, bring some tea.’
Puri had never seen Nayyar so polite and friendly.
‘Which newspaper are you working for, these days?’ Nayyar asked, sitting on the chair next to Puri.
Puri replied that he was not attached to any one newspaper, but was doing literary work as a freelancer.
Nayyar said, ‘Wah, that’s very good. You’ve freedom to do whatever you want. Isn’t that what you wanted?’
‘Yes, I’m quite happy about that.’
‘Is Master Ramlubhaya your father?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’d mentioned Dr Pran Nath in connection with your bail. Is that the same Pran Nath, the university professor, who’s also the advisor to the governor?’
‘Yes,’ Puri admitted, adding quickly so that it might not be taken as a boast of friendship with such an important person, ‘Doctor saheb was a student of my father, and I was his student in turn. He’s been very kind to me.’
‘He’s a decent and competent person, I know. He was one year senior to me at the Government College. Knew him then. Haven’t had a chance to meet him in the past ten years or so. And who’s this Lala Sukhlal?’
‘Lala Sukhlal is a relative.’
‘Your father, Masterji’s brother or …?’
