A Fine Balance Part 14

"But one thing is certain," said Padma. "Time for marriage has come close."

"You must start looking for two suitable daughters-in-law," said Savitri.

"Don't delay any longer," said Pyari.

"We will help you with everything, don't worry," said Amba.

The happy news spread within their community, and outside it. Among the upper castes, there was still anger and resentment because of what a Chamaar had accomplished. One man in particular, Thakur Dharamsi who always took charge of the district polls at election time, delivering votes to the political party of his choice taunted the tailor periodically.

"There is a dead cow waiting for you," he notified Narayan through a servant. Narayan merely pa.s.sed on the message to other Chamaars, who were happy to have the carca.s.s. Another time, when a goat perished in one of the drains on Thakur Dharamsi's property, he sent for Narayan to unclog it. Narayan politely sent his reply that he was grateful for the offer but was no longer in this line of work.

Among the Chamaars in the village, he was now looked upon as the spokesman for their caste, their unelected leader. Dukhi wore his son's success modestly, out of sight, indulging himself only sometimes, when he sat smoking with his friends under the tree by the river. Slowly, his son was becoming more prosperous than many upper-caste villagers. Narayan paid to have a new well dug in the untouchable section of the village. He leased the land on which the two huts stood, and replaced them with a pukka house, one of only seven in the village. It was large enough to accommodate his parents and his business. And, thought Roopa fondly, a wife and children before long.

Dukhi and she would have preferred the older son's marrying first. But when they offered to find him a wife, Ishvar made it clear he was not interested. By now, Roopa had learned that trying to make her sons do what they did not want to do was a futile endeavour. "Learning big-town ways," she grumbled, "forgetting our old ways," and left it at that, turning her attention to Narayan.

They made inquiries, and a suitable girl was recommended in another village. A showing-day was fixed, when the boy's family would call on the girl's family. Roopa made certain that Amba, Pyari, Padma, and Savitri were included in plans for the visit they were like family, she said. Ishvar chose not to go, but arranged a twenty-seven-seater Leyland to transport the bride-viewing party.

The battered little bus arrived in the village at nine in the morning, and stopped in a cloud of dust. The opportunity for a bus ride attracted volunteers for the auspicious event, many more than could be accommodated in that modest conveyance.

"Narayan is like a son to me," said one. "It's my duty to come. How can I let him down at this most important time?"

"I will not be able to hold my head up if you don't take me," pleaded another, refusing to take no for an answer. "Please don't leave me behind."

"I have attended every single bride-showing in our community," bragged a third. "You need my expertise."

Many took their going for granted, and climbed aboard without bothering to check with Dukhi or Roopa. When the excursion was ready to commence an hour later, there were thirty-eight people crammed inside, and a dozen sitting cross-legged on the roof. The driver, who had witnessed nasty accidents with low branches along rural roads, refused to proceed. "Get down from the top! Down, everybody, down!" he yelled at the ones settled serenely in lotus positions. So the dozen from the roof had to be left behind, and the bus set off at a sensible crawl.

They reached their destination two and a half hours later. The girl's parents were impressed by the bus and the size of the visiting delegation, as was the entire village. The thirty-eight visitors stood around uncertainly. There was not room for everyone inside the dwelling. After much agonizing, Dukhi selected a group of seven, including his best friends, Chhotu and Dayaram. Padma and Savitri also made it in, but Amba and Pyari had to wait outside with the unlucky thirty-one, watching the proceedings through the doorway.

Inside, the inner circle had tea with the parents and described the journey. "Such fine scenery we saw along the way," said Dukhi to the girl's father.

"Once, all of a sudden, the bus made a big noise and stopped," said Chhotu. "It took a while to start again. We were worried about being late."

By and by, the parents compared genealogies and family histories, while Roopa talked modestly of Narayan's success to the girl's mother. "So many customers he has. Everybody wants to have clothes made by Narayan only. As if there is no other tailor in the whole country. My poor son works morning till night, sewing, sewing, sewing. But his expensive new machine is so good. What-all wonderful things it can do."

Then it was time for the bride-viewing moment. "Come, my daughter," called the mother casually. "Bring something sweet for our guests."

The girl, Radha, sixteen years old, entered with a platter of laddoos. Conversation ceased. Everyone took a good look as she went around with her head modestly lowered and eyes averted. Outside, there was much whispering and jockeying for position as they tried to catch a glimpse.

Narayan kept his eyes on the laddoos when she stopped in front of him. He was nervous about looking her family was watching for his reaction. The platter had almost reached the end of its circuit. If he didn't see her now, there would be no second chance, she would not return, that was certain, and he would have to make a blind decision. Look, oh look! he persuaded himself and looked. He caught a profile of her features as she bent before her mother.

"No, daughter," said the mother, "none for me," and with that, Radha disappeared.

Then it was time to go home. During the return journey, those who had been unable to see or hear from outside were fully briefed. Now everyone had the facts, and were able to take part in final discussions back in the village. Opinions were entertained in order of seniority.

"Her size is good, and colour is good."

"The family also looks honest, hardworking."

"Maybe horoscopes should be compared before final decision."

"No horoscopes! Why horoscopes? That is all brahminical nonsense, our community does not do that."

Thus it continued for a while, and Narayan listened silently. His approval at the end, though not essential, did serve to strengthen the consensus, to his parents' relief and the gathering's applause.

Now the arrangements went ahead. Some of the traditional expenditures were sidestepped at Narayan's insistence; he did not want Radha's family indebted to the moneylender in perpetuity. All he would accept from them were six bra.s.s vessels: three round-bottomed, and three flat.

Roopa was furious. "What-all do you understand about complicated things like dowry? Have you been married before?"

Dukhi was also upset. "Much more than six vessels is due. It is our right."

"Since when has our community practised dowry?" asked Narayan quietly.

"If it's okay for the uppers to do it, so can we."

But Narayan stood firm, with Ishvar's backing. "Learning big-town ways," grumbled their mother, foiled again. "Forgetting our village ways."

There was a last-minute hitch. Two days before the wedding, under coercion from Thakur Dharamsi and others, the village musicians withdrew their services. They were too frightened to even meet with the family and discuss the problem. So Ishvar arranged for replacements from town. Narayan did not mind the cost of transporting them and their instruments. It was a small price, he felt, for frustrating the landlords.

The new musicians did not know some of the local wedding songs. The elders among the guests were quite concerned strange anthems and chants could be unpropitious for the marriage. "Especially for producing children," said an old woman who used to a.s.sist at births before her infirmity. "The Womb doesn't become fertile just like that, without correct procedure."

"True," said another. "I have seen it with my own eyes. When the songs are not sung properly, nothing but unhappiness for husband and wife." They conferred in worried groups, debating and discussing, trying to determine the antidote that would thwart the impending ill-fortune. They looked disapprovingly at those who were enjoying all that alien music and dancing.

The celebrations lasted three days, during which Chamaar families in the village ate the best meals of their lives. Ashraf and his family, the guests of honour, were lodged and looked after in Narayan's house, which made some people unhappy. There were mutterings about an inauspicious Muslim presence, but the protests were few and muted. And by the third night, to the elders' relief, the musicians were able to pick up many of the local songs.

A son was born to Radha and Narayan; they named him Omprakash. People came to sing and rejoice with them at the happy occasion. The proud grandfather personally carried sweets to every house in the village. son was born to Radha and Narayan; they named him Omprakash. People came to sing and rejoice with them at the happy occasion. The proud grandfather personally carried sweets to every house in the village.

Later that week, Dukhi's friend Chhotu came with his wife to see the newborn. Taking Dukhi and Narayan aside, he whispered, "The uppers chucked the sweets in the garbage."

They did not doubt his word; he would know, for he collected the trash from many of those houses. The news was hurtful but Narayan laughed it away. "More for the ones who found the packages."

Visitors continued to arrive, marvelling at how healthy the baby looked, considering it was a Chamaar's child, and how it was always smiling. "Even when he is hungry there is no puling or mewling," Radha became fond of boasting. "Just makes a tiny kurr-kurr kurr-kurr, which stops as soon as he gets my breast."

Three daughters were born after Omprakash. Two survived. Their names were Leela and Rekha. No sweets were distributed.

Narayan began teaching his son to read and write, conducting the lessons while sewing. The man sat at the sewing-machine, the child sat with slate and chalk. By the time Omprakash was five, he could also do b.u.t.tons with great style, imitating the flourish with which his father licked the thread and shot it through the needle's eye, or his flair in stabbing the needle through the cloth.

"All day he spends stuck to his Bapa," grumbled Radha happily, surveying the adoring father and son.

Her mother-in-law reviewed the scene and drank it in with pleasure. "Daughters are a mother's responsibility but sons are for the father," p.r.o.nounced Roopa, as though she had been granted a brand-new revelation, and Radha received it as such, nodding solemnly.

In the week following Omprakash's fifth birthday, Narayan took him to the tannery, where the Chamaars were busy at work. Since his return to the village, he had continued to join in their labours periodically, helping with whatever stage of skinning, curing, tanning, or dyeing that was in progress. And now he proudly showed his child how it was done.

But Omprakash held back. Narayan did not like this behaviour. He insisted the boy dirty his hands.

"Chhee! It stinks!" shrieked Omprakash.

"I know it stinks. Do it anyway." He seized the boy's hands and dunked them in the tanning vat, plunging him in to the elbows. He was ashamed of his son's display before his fellow Chamaars.

"I don't want to do this! I want to go home! Please, Bapa, take me home now!"

"Tears or no tears, you will learn this work," said Narayan grimly.

Omprakash sobbed and wailed, going into convulsions of rage, wrenching his hands away. "You do that and I will throw your whole body inside," his father threatened, soaking the arms again and again.

The others tried to persuade Narayan to let it be the child might have a fit or seizure of some sort, they feared, the way he was screaming hysterically. "It's his first day," they said. "Next week he will do better." But Narayan forced him to keep at it till he called a halt an hour later.

Omprakash was still crying when they got home. On the porch, Radha was ma.s.saging her mother-in-law's scalp with coconut oil. They upset the bottle in their rush to comfort him. Roopa tried to hug her grandson but the thin grey strands hanging greasy and stiff over her forehead made him pull away. He had never seen his grandmother look so frightful.

"What is ailing him? What have you done to him, my poor little laughing-playing child?"

Narayan explained how they had spent the morning, and Dukhi laughed to hear it. The entire episode made Radha furious. "Why must you torment the boy? There is no need to make my Om do such dirty work!"

"Dirty work? You, a Chamaar's daughter! Saying it is dirty work!"

She was startled by the outburst. It was the first time Narayan had shouted at her. "But why does he "

"How will he appreciate what he has if he does not learn what his forefathers did? Once a week he will come with me! Whether he likes it or not!"

Radha silently appealed to her father-in-law and began mopping up the coconut oil. Dukhi acknowledged her by tilting his head. Later, when he and Narayan were alone, he said, "Son, I agree with you. But no matter what we think, once a week is only a game. It will never be for him like it was for us. And thank G.o.d for that."

Omprakash spent the rest of the day in misery, in the kitchen, clinging to his mother. Radha kept patting his head while doing her work. "Won't only leave me alone," she grumbled happily to her mother-in-law. "I still have to chop the spinach and make the chapatis. G.o.d knows when I'll finish."

Roopa crinkled her forehead. "When sons are unhappy, they remember their mothers."

In the evening, while his father was relaxing on the porch, his eyes closed, Omprakash crept out and began ma.s.saging his feet, the way he had seen his mother do it. Narayan started, and opened his eyes. He looked down, saw his son and smiled. He held out his arms to him.

Omprakash leapt into them, flinging his hands round his father's neck. They stayed hugging for a few minutes without speaking a word. Then Narayan pried the child's fingers loose and sniffed them. He offered his own to him. "See? We both have the same smell. It's an honest smell."

The child nodded. "Bapa, shall I do some more chumpee for your feet?"

"Okay." He watched fondly as his son squeezed the heel, rubbed the arch, kneaded the sole, and ma.s.saged each toe, copying Radha's methodical manner. Roopa and Radha stood concealed in the doorway, beaming at each other.

The weekly leather-working lessons continued for the next three years. Omprakash was taught how to pack the skins with salt to cure them. He collected the fruit of the myrobalan tree to make tannin solution. He learned to prepare dyes, and how to impress the dye in the leather. This was the filthiest task of them all, and it made him retch.

The ordeal ended when he was eight. He was sent to his uncle Ishvar for exposure to a wider range of sewing skills at Muzaffar Tailoring Company. Besides, the school in town now accepted everyone, high caste or low, while the village school continued to be restricted.

Radha and Narayan were not as desolate as Roopa and Dukhi had been when their sons had left to apprentice with Ashraf Chacha. A new road and bus service had shrunk the gap between village and town. They could look forward to frequent visits from Omprakash; besides, they had their two little daughters at home.

Still, Radha felt unjustly deprived of her son's presence. A popular song about a bird that was the singer's constant companion, but which for some inexplicable reason had decided to fly away, became Radha's favourite. She ran to their new Murphy transistor and turned up the volume, shus.h.i.+ng everyone when the familiar introduction trickled forth. When her son was home, the song meant nothing to her.

Omprakash's sisters resented his visits. No one paid attention to Leela and Rekha if their brother was in the house. It started as soon as he stepped in the door.

"Look at my child! How thin he has become!" complained Radha. "Is your uncle feeding you or not?"

"He looks thin because he has grown taller," was Narayan's explanation.

But she used the excuse to lavish on him special treats like cream, dry fruits, and sweetmeats, bursting with pleasure while he ate. Now and then her fingers swooped into his plate, scooped up a morsel and tenderly transported it to his mouth. No meal was complete unless she had fed him something with her own hands.

Roopa, too, relished the sight of her lunching, munching grandson. She sat like a referee, reaching to wipe away a crumb from the corner of his mouth, refilling his plate, pus.h.i.+ng a gla.s.s of lussi within his reach. A smile appeared on her wrinkled face, and the sharp light of her memory flickered over those pitch-dark nights from many years ago when she would creep out into enemy territory to gather treats for Ishvar and Narayan.

Omprakash's sisters were silent spectators at the mealtime ritual. Leela and Rekha watched enviously, knowing better than to protest or plead with the adults. During rare moments when no one was around, Omprakash shared the delicacies with them. More often, though, the two girls wept quietly in their beds at night.

Narayan sat on the porch at dusk with his father's aged feet in his lap, ma.s.saging the cracked, tired soles. Omprakash, fourteen now, was expected home tomorrow on a week-long visit.

"Ah!" sighed Dukhi with pleasure, then asked if he had checked on the newborn calf.

There was no answer. He repeated his question, nudging Narayan's chest with the big toe. "Son? Are you listening?"

"Yes Bapa, I was just thinking." He resumed the ma.s.sage, staring into the dusk. His fingers worked with extra vigour to make up for his silence.

"What is it, what's bothering you?"

"I was just thinking that...thinking how nothing changes. Years pa.s.s, and nothing changes."

Dukhi sighed again but not with pleasure. "How can you say that? So much has changed. Your life, my life. Your occupation, from leather to cloth. And look at your house, your "

"Those things, yes. But what about the more important things? Government pa.s.ses new laws, says no more untouchability, yet everything is the same. The upper-caste b.a.s.t.a.r.ds still treat us worse than animals."

"Those kinds of things take time to change."

"More than twenty years have pa.s.sed since independence. How much longer? I want to be able to drink from the village well, wors.h.i.+p in the temple, walk where I like."

Dukhi withdrew his foot from Narayan's lap and sat up. He was remembering his own defiance of the caste system, when he had sent his little sons to Ashraf. He felt pride at Narayan's words, but also fear. "Son, those are dangerous things to want. You changed from Chamaar to tailor. Be satisfied with that."

Narayan shook his head. "That was your victory."

He resumed ma.s.saging his father's feet while the dusk deepened around them. Inside, Radha was lost in happy preparations for her son's arrival the next day. By and by, she brought a lamp to the porch. Within seconds it attracted a cl.u.s.ter of midges. Then a brown moth arrived to keep its a.s.signation with the light. Dukhi watched it try to beat its fragile wings through the lamp gla.s.s.

That week, parliamentary elections were being conducted, and the district was under siege by politicians, sloganeers, and sycophants. As usual, the a.s.sortment of political parties and their campaigning antics a.s.sured lively entertainment for the village.

Some people complained that it was difficult to enjoy it all properly, with the air hot enough to sear the lungs the government should have waited for the rains to come first. Narayan and Dukhi attended the rallies with their friends, taking Omprakash along to see the fun. Roopa and Radha resented the time stolen from the boy's brief visit.

The speeches were crammed with promises of every shape and size: promises of new schools, clean water, and health care; promises of land for landless peasants, through redistribution and stricter enforcement of the Land Ceiling Act; promises of powerful laws to punish any discrimination against, and hara.s.sment of, backward castes by upper castes; promises to abolish bonded labour, child labour, sati, dowry system, child marriage.

"There must be a lot of duplication in our country's laws," said Dukhi. "Every time there are elections, they talk of pa.s.sing the same ones pa.s.sed twenty years ago. Someone should remind them they need to apply the laws."

"For politicians, pa.s.sing laws is like pa.s.sing water," said Narayan. "It all ends down the drain."

On election day the eligible voters in the village lined up outside the polling station. As usual, Thakur Dharamsi took charge of the voting process. His system, with the support of the other landlords, had been working flawlessly for years.

The election officer was presented with gifts and led away to enjoy the day with food and drink. The doors opened and the voters filed through. "Put out your fingers," said the attendant monitoring the queue.

The voters complied. The clerk at the desk uncapped a little bottle and marked each extended finger with indelible black ink, to prevent cheating.

"Now put your thumbprints over here," said the clerk.