E-Katha : Indian Short Stories in English

It is difficult to understand darkness. The scary, mysterious, misleading darkness, pregnant with all sorts of uncertainties. At its worst, it blinds, makes the obvious obscure, the obscure, obscurer. Dispassionate darkness- needing only our imagination to bring it to life. Illusion and confusion are its denizens- the black walls from which no reflections emerge.

  Darkness reminds me of anger. Anger in its purest and unadulterated form. Anger also blinds and obfuscates. Reason stands away and aloof, too scared to interfere. Anger sometimes so private you do not want to talk about it, even with yourself. You just wish to get away from everything else and cut yourself off, absolutely.

  Well, I am cut off now, engulfed in this unforgiving darkness. More than my eyes, which are at any rate useless at this hour of the night, I am using my sense of direction, deep in the hilly country amidst unexplainable rustles and hoots, chirps and croaks. Robbed even of their silhouettes, the trees and bushes mourn and sigh.

  The assurance that my destination – the hut around which I grew up and the soil that harbours the indelible footprints of my ancestors – is somewhere ahead, around the bends which this darkness strives to conceal, forces my legs to move on. My feet are destined to take me there. Unless, of course, I am mugged by thieves (unlikely in these parts) or I am torn to pieces by some wild animal (which is quite possible). For reassurance, I feel the hilt of my long knife under the jacket. Also, I bring the jacket close around my body. This, so as not to aggravate my three-day-old cold.

  Someone vigorously rattled a canful of coins behind me. I started. Then a sniffling sound, which suggested that it was actually a sneeze and not coins in a tin can.

  “Who’s that?” I said aloud to that absolute darkness.

  “Appears that we are moving in the same direction. Let’s walk together, shall we?” Someone said, as if out of a long friendship.

  “Where have you come from? Do you live in these parts?” It was like talking to a blank black wall. The feeling is even stranger when the wall replies.

  “I am in the army and you can’t imagine how I devised this five-day leave.”

  “How?” I obliged him.

  “I cabled a friend in town to send back a telegram. My commandant had little hesitation in releasing me when he learnt that my wife was seriously ill.”

  As we advance fumbling and groping, our footsteps sound as though they belong to one person. I am absorbed in my companion, the way everything gets subsumed in the darkness.

  The trees have suddenly gone silent. It is a moonless night and the feeble light of the stars has lost its way somewhere above.

  “Can you see in this darkness? I have a feeling I am walking better with you,” I said vaguely.

  “Perhaps. It happens.” His knowing answer.

  Then he continued, “My ruse worked and I left camp before my superior could change his mind. Arrived in town this afternoon. I was in such a hurry to get home that I even forgot to carry a torch, which would have been so useful now.”

  “But why were you in such haste?” No sooner had I asked this I felt, no, sensed, his face become pale with a mixture of pain and rage.

  “Because since the day I reported back to my company after my last leave, I have done nothing but burned myself up thinking about the trick that my lot  had played upon me,” came the sudden answer.

  He paused, and then resumed, “It’s impossible for us to walk just making small talk to pass the time and to mitigate the vagaries of this darkness. Yes, I might as well stop beating about the bush and tell you my story.

  “I have a house on a small piece of land hereabouts. I got it from my father, and he from his father and so on and so forth. Ancestral, you know. I’ve been married for the last seven years and yet we are unable to have children. I think the fault lies with me.” He paused again, only to add, “My ancestors have always been farmers. I am the first one to break that tradition and join the army.”

  “You sound down and out and desperate. Has it been so bad with you?” I fished out some sympathy. With some people sympathy has great effect.

  “I don’t think there is another man more tormented than me.” The shadow, or the absence of it, continued, “As I was saying, I have a small piece of land where a hut stands. It’s a beautiful hut. Nobody builds houses like that any more. It was constructed by my grandfather, a replica of the one that stood before on the same spot.”

  I block my mind from all other thoughts and, as a child allows his elder to lead him by the finger completely trustingly, I let myself be drawn into his experiences. It is convenient this way. I need to get home through this darkness. For that I needed to talk to someone. He’ll be doing it for me, for he has a story to tell.

  “My father had given shelter to a wandering boy years ago,” he carried on, “Who boasted of having a property far bigger than ours, but had been unjustly thrown out of his inheritance by selfish people. His entire family having fallen into destitution, he had run away from his home. He was different from us in many ways, but he adapted very well.

  “We grew up together. He had to look after our livestock; bring in firewood from farus, fetch water and do several other chores. But apart from that he was almost family. He ate whatever we did; besides giving him money to spend in town on his festivals, my father always made him new clothes, too. It does sound like a thousand other stories, doesn’t it?” He asked suddenly.

  “Yes, it does.” I did not want to distract him by saying more than necessary. The blackness of the night is suddenly replaced by vivid images that his story creates in my mind; it enables me to use my intuition to find my way to my place. I feel as though my feet are falling bang on the footprints I left behind the innumerable times I walked on it in my life.

  “But the person, the pitiable derelict whose whereabouts we never bothered to verify – for our whole lineage being unbelievably credulous and simple – turned out to be the snake whom we were feeding milk.”

  The whole sentence was spoken in one breath. He sighed, perhaps, at his own despondency.

  Suddenly, far away, in fact very far away, something like a static firefly flickered, and vanished in the darkness again. I try to relocate the light but the flicker is lost completely in the blackness.

  “That must be my house,” I said.

  “No, I am sure it’s mine. About time my place came.” He sounded very confident. “Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough. Let me continue in the meantime, shall I?” He added.

  I do not say anything. I just wonder why he would insist on that house being his, whereas I am pretty certain it is mine. However, I let him carry on.

  “He was my playmate too. We two were looked upon no differently by my parents. I had reason to suspect that my father was sometimes partial to him. He had slimed into my parents life so deeply that they could not do anything without him. As a generous gesture – the bane of my family – my father bestowed him with a plot of land to build a house for himself. But he was not satisfied. …I can end this story any time you like, my friend. But I am sure you would like to hear it all, wouldn’t you?” He asked abruptly.

  “Of course. I would like to hear it all,” I said.

  In this darkness even time has no significance. This night cannot be measured in any dimension.

  “In my absence this wicked soul had one day gone so far as to render my parents absolutely drunk and obtain the left thumb impression of my father on a dubious paper – the text of which he got someone else to write – transferring half of our land to him. I could not do anything except to defer the actual transfer again and again. That’s what I have been doing for the last five years. Meanwhile my parents died, leaving the promise for me to honour the deed. Which I would have surely done…except…”

  I waited for him to complete the sentence but as the silence protracted for an eternity, I turned towards the voice. I felt a black shadow swirl beside me. I was seized by a weird sensation. But as soon as he resumed his account, my sanity returned and I was absorbed again.

  “My last visit here during leave was not the same as others. I felt the soil that I had tilled treat me like a stranger, the very tree I planted yield me poisoned fruit. Even the flat rock beside the spring on which I used to lie after a bath gestured me away… My own wife whom I loved no less than my parents gave me false embraces even as she passionately breathed the name of the man in whom I once saw the brother I never had, the brother whose fabricated love I could see through to the core. I am, my friend, dispossessed of everything that stands for my existence. I am bereft of everything that I cherished.”

  I had no words to soothe him. I kept quiet as the darkness turned monstrously black. For a brief moment not even our footsteps were heard. At last, I broke the stillness, “I sympathise you.”

  “Who needs sympathy! Anyway, by tomorrow everything will be finished. I have a dagger inside my jacket. I’ve given a lot of thought to the matter lately. Weighed the pros and cons. Analysed the past and the future. There is no solution at all. Yes, I have to set this wrong right.”

  My heart pounded like a thousand cannons. My ears warmed up and my voice failed me.

  “What’s your name?” I said finally.

  “Does it matter, friend?” was his short reply.

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Who else?”

  My foot splashed into water, I knew I had reached the spring near my house. Surroundings are gaining clarity. And there is the house in front of me, so very near. I bring my hand slowly inside the jacket to firmly grasp the hilt of the dagger. Furtively, I proceed towards the door which is ajar. My purposeful feet in the army boots are careful not to step on a dry twig on the ground. I hear sound of laughter coming from inside the house. The laughter of my wife mingled with a vulgarly suppressed male voice. My temples begin to throb and my hands begin to shake. My hand around the handle of the dagger whitens painfully.

  In that pitch blackness there was no witness to the determination, the means, and the end converge into one.

PASSAGE OF TIME

His legs stretched in front with his back resting against the closed door of the shop behind, Jyakhu mended a ladies’ umbrella that reflected a myriad of colours on his face.

The shuttered shop in front of which Jyakhu had spread his little enterprise belonged to a Marwari, who was rumoured to have lost everything at cards, gone absolutely bankrupt, and was so deep in the red that he had to vanish one day to an unknown part of the country. The pavement right in front of the shop was up for grabs: a horde of contenders vied for it – cobblers, vegetable vendors, fruit sellers, and even beggars who preferred to stay put to beg. With a slight notoriety for troublemaking, Jyakhu managed to elbow out all these competitors for the spot – ideal for his own little shop for repairs of assorted objects like cigarette lighters, torches, and umbrellas. He swore he could fix watches too, and often complained of peoples’ lack of faith in him.

    April and May were months of immense satisfaction to Jyakhu. People brought out their old umbrellas to him for restoration, for very soon the monsoons would set in. Business looked up and he grew more relaxed – almost smug – going through at least five jarda paans and a couple of bundles of Babu biri a day, and emptying at least a bottle of raksi every evening. In his forties, with no dependants, this was the real meaning of life for Jyakhu.

    The fact that he was all alone did not make him unhappy. The loss of his parents had been so long ago that he no longer thought about them. The only thing that rankled sometimes was that after the death of parents he had to leave school. Not that he was even an average pupil, but in his rare moments of introspection, he fancied himself a good student. And although he studied only up to class VIII, he not only made others believe that his education was up to class X but also tried to justify it with an exhibition of some dated magazines in his bag which he never read.

    He tilted himself to his left in the same sitting position and fished out a biri from his trousers pocket. After having lit it with a lighter that one of his customers had it repaired but never came to retrieve, he took a deep puff. Through the haze of smoke he studied the people walking down and up the Main Road. He also searched for his customers whose stuff lay ready at his shop. Finding it just another humdrum day he began to arrange his tools in proper places, smoothen the tarpaulin he was sitting on while drawing quick puffs from his biri.

    He went back to his colourful umbrella, his mind blank, or maybe just contemplating the pleasure he might get at Bhauju’s drinking den tonight.

    The Main Road bustled in the afternoon sun, and these months being particularly dusty, people wore faces distorted by frowns and scowls. Jyakhu was not that bothered by the sun at the moment – the pillar beside him threw an enormous shadow over his domain – but the dust was a real hazard. Ignoring the elements as he deftly wound a thin wire around the rib of the colourful umbrella he was working on, he mentally counted and recounted the cash in his pocket.

    “Terimaka…!” Jyakhu swore with bitterness as the wire pricked him on the finger. He just rubbed the fingers together and carried on with the umbrella. He desperately longed for another biri which he could not smoke in his present predicament. His face became extraordinarily red because of the pain and frustration added to the reflection caused by the colours of the umbrella. He looked at the other black umbrella lying beside him. “It is going to be easy fixing it,” he mused as he eyed the crooked cane handle. It belonged to the old milkman, a regular at Jyakhu’s. The milkman, with his hands full with milk cans always carried it hooked by the nape of his shirt, rain or shine. Jyakhu had asked ten rupees for its repair which the milkman had brought down to eight. “It’s tough getting money from that tightfisted old bastard. Just the same, there is hardly five rupees’ work in it,” he said to himself. He knew he was a bit of an extortionist which he admitted to his close friends at the usual drinking joint.

    “Can you fix this?”- a matter-of-fact voice cut through the clatter of the Main road.

    Jyakhu just rolled his eyes and looked up at the new customer. Customers rather, because right behind the young man holding an expensive looking cigarette lighter stood two men in dresses appropriate for the weather- both had T-shirts on, one white and the other something approaching white. One of them sported a well-trimmed goatee and the other had a pair of classy looking sunglasses on. They wore fashionable trousers, expensive shoes and had an air of abundance about them. The man who held the lighter wore a light coloured suit that reminded one of the glossy pages that featured beautiful men and women, laughing.

    But as Jyakhu looked closely at the face, he could not believe his own eyes. ‘Isn’t that Kaanchha Bau of Durpin Hill?’-  thought Jyakhu, ‘supposed to be one of the richest, one of the most educated men in town? His generosity is well known and it is said that he is also a very sensitive man. Today’s pickings are going to be good,’ Jyakhu elated inwardly.

    “Can you fix it bhai? The damn thing worked all right a while ago.” There was an unbelievable gentleness in his voice. Jyakhu attributed it to his antecedents, generations of affluence and culture.

    “Do you have to repair it? I know you have several lying around at home. We’ll be late for the meeting, you know”, one of his friends standing behind complained. “And the cops won’t allow us to park our cars over here for long.”

    “This lighter was presented to me by my late uncle. Can’t afford to neglect it! Besides, I want all my things in working order”, Kaanchha Bau said with a touch of superiority.

    Jyakhu looked at the men, the lighter, and the car and sniffed at the air that suddenly engulfed his entire shop. This is a rare occasion, Jyakhu thought, when customers of such distinction grace my little shop.

    But contrary to his usual practice of pouncing at the better paying jobs, a bizarre twist in Jyakhu’s mind prompted him to utter, “You’ll just have to wait for sometime. The owner of this umbrella is coming today, and she’s a regular customer of mine, you know. If I fail her, I’ll lose my goodwill. Just fifteen minutes or so, okay!” He knew very well that no one was to come today to get the umbrella. Next week, perhaps. In his heart of hearts he tried to find a rationale for this inexplicable behaviour, but in vain. Despite all his faults he was not a pain in the neck- that’s what his friends had often said about him. He always dealt professionally with his customers, and with tact, especially with the ones with whom he hoped of more profit, more business. Then what induced him to behave like that? He could not find a reasonable answer, no matter how hard he tried.

    “Please bhai, don’t be so callous. I’m already late for my Rotary meeting. Kindly have the lighter fixed first. I’ll pay whatever you ask; please”. Kaanchha Bau was persuasive.

    “Come on JK. Get it done somewhere else if you can’t do without it,” the man in white T-shirt seemed visibly peeved at Jyakhu’s arrogance.

    “Sorry daju,” Jyuakhu mellowed slightly, “this work really is urgent you know. You can leave your lighter here for today and take it tomorrow when I repair it for you because I’ll be now packing up anyway. Will that do?”

    Kaanchha Bau hesitated for a moment and said, “No, no bhai, I can’t leave it here. I’ve never done that with this lighter. I’m sure it won’t take much time. Have a look at it at least.” And then he brought the lighter close to Jyakhu’s face, so much so that he had to draw his head away. Jyakhu had little defense against that suggestion. He put aside the umbrella and took the lighter to examine it. Having spent a minute or so trying to find the snag, he said, “It’s not simple. It’ll take at least half an hour to repair it.”

    “Then do it. I’ll give you whatever you charge.” The man in swank suit said and pushed his unbelievably clean hand mounted with a large gold ring and an expensive watch inside his coat. Jyakhu looked at the man carefully again and repeated his inability to postpone his present assignment.

    “If it is so important to you, why don’t you mend that umbrella yourself JK, and let him fix the lighter? How about that?” the man standing behind laughingly said. It provoked the other man to laughter too. Jyakhu also smiled sheepishly.

    “Oh yes! That’s an excellent idea. Tell me what I have to do with that umbrella. I see, all you are doing is winding that thin wire around the rib. If you let me do it, perhaps I can pull it off, too.” Kaanchha Bau did not seem to joke like the other men and looked like he meant what he said. An incredulous grin drew across Jyakhu’s sun-scorched face.

    “It’s not as easy as you say, daju! It looks easy but I can assure you that’s because I’ve been doing this for the last fifteen years, you know.” He exaggerated, banking on the assumption that these people might never have noticed him there, sitting under this massive pillar whose shadow always loomed large on his back

    But Kaanchha Bau’s suggestion was already perking up his friends. They too began to insist that Jyakhu should let JK mend the umbrella while he repaired the lighter. The idea somehow seemed extraordinarily fascinating to them all and the three men became more and more persuasive, forgetting about their car and the meeting.

    “Bhai, tell us how much do you want to let us do it. I’m not kidding. We’ll pay for the lighter separately. Think about it,” one of the men in T-shirts said. He reassured Jyakhu to the extent that should they botch it up, they would pay for a new umbrella.

   By now, on account of the unusual fuss at Jyakhu’s repair shop, several passers-by stopped and began to watch, amused. All of a sudden Jyakhu’s shop took on the look of a tamasha.

    After a while Jyakhu also got interested in the idea. And the offer made to him was too overwhelming to turn down. I’ve got nothing to lose – he argued with himself – there is not much to do as far as the umbrella is concerned, and for all I know, in spite of what he looks like, he might be able to do it. If he doesn’t, then I can always do it myself again. And the price they’ve promised, what about that? Jyakhu could not think any negative arguments. And hence, with a show of reluctance and resignation, he yielded.

    No sooner had Jyakhu given his consent, all three of them got down to it at once. It looked as though all wanted a part in it. Kaanchha Bau went to the extent of taking off his shoes as Jyakhu had done, sat in the same manner and started to wind the wire laboriously around the rib of the umbrella. While he did that the rest of them dropped rapid suggestions to their friend who, obviously, looked clumsy in his inverted role. Then one of the men in T-shirt took his turn, tried to show him how it was done, but fared no better than the first. But they did not seem to be bothered by their lapses. On the contrary, they magnified their own mistakes by flaunting them laughing all along. The playful commotion at Jyakhu’s had a picnic atmosphere and it provided the bystanders with a festival like spectacle. They actually appeared to enjoy the drama: the cream of society swapping roles with Jyakhu.

    And after a while, even as he screwed and unscrewed the lighter, Jyakhu found it absorbing and he, too, began to instruct those men. They seemed to listen to his advice carefully and tried to follow what he said. Jyakhu felt more and more authoritative and became a bit pompous in his rare role. But they did not seem to mind his overweening attitude and instead appeared even more obeisant. All three of them took their turns at the umbrella. In the process their clean clothes began to look dirty, smudged.

    The festivities soon came to an end as Jyakhu completed repairs on the lighter. As they all prepared to leave smoothening their clothes, Jyakhu looked at the umbrella and knew he had to do it afresh. But when his customers paid him much more than what he had expected, he forgot about the tediousness of rectifying that mess. I would do it ten times over for this price, he gloated.

    His peculiar customers went away elated. There was a trace of satisfaction in their faces of having achieved something – something like that of having climbed a mountain, swum a turbulent river, a dangerous animal tamed, or basically having conquered something. Jyakhu was himself quite satisfied for being able to make his customers happy – and of that class too! Also, for being able to sell some labour to them.

     I might as well close shop now, Jyakhu thought. Come to think of it, I may not have to work for another week at least. His shirt pocket felt quite warm.

    He crammed all his tools in an old leather bag, rolled the tarpaulin he was sitting on and tied the unfinished umbrella with others. Having packed everything up much earlier than usual, he wondered whether he should go home right away. Undecided, he walked in the general direction of his home, the tool bag slung across his shoulders and the rolled up tarpaulin and umbrellas under his armpit. It would be a shame not to celebrate what he had earned today, he said to himself.

    As he came by Kanchan cinema hall, he suddenly remembered that he had not seen a movie for a pretty long time. He looked at the poster. He was disappointed to find that it was an English movie they had put on. He went nearer to check the title – but with his inadequate education he was unable to read it. As he stared, he was glad to recognize Om Puri on the poster. What’s a Hindi movie actor doing in an English movie? he wondered. Still unsure about seeing the film, he looked at the poster again. Jyakhu found it quite interesting: Om Puri, clad in a dirty dhoti and a shirt to match, perched high up on his own idle rickshaw, explaining something very serious to a white man squatting on the ground who was listening absorbedly. Surely, Jyakhu thought, there is no sex and violence in this movie, what a pity! Anyway, one can never be certain with English films: the women could be quite shameless.

    Willy-nilly he went to the counter and – for once – bought a ticket for the dress circle. After that he went to a nearby paan shop and asked the paan seller to look after his belongings until the movie ended. He also bought an expensive pack of cigarettes, a pack of popcorn, a bottle of cold drink and strutted across the mosaic tiles of the foyer towards the gatekeeper, who eyed him quizzically.

Written by:- Dorjee Tshering Lepcha.