“I read about it in newspapers. But isn’t it common sense? In every low-caste family there is someone mistreated by zamindars. They will be eager to take revenge, for sure. We’ll slaughter the Thakurs and their goondas. And those police devils.”
“And afterwards, what?” asked Ishvar gently, when he felt it was time for his nephew to turn his thoughts away from death, towards life. “They will take you to court and hang you.”
“I don’t care. I would be dead anyway if I was living with my parents, instead of safely in this shop.”
“Om, my child,” said Ashraf. “Vengeance should not be our concern. The murderers will be punished. Inshallah, in this world or the next. Maybe they already have, who knows?”
“Yes, Chachaji, who knows?” echoed Omprakash sarcastically and went to bed.
Since that terrible night six months ago, Ishvar had given up their lodging in the rooming house, at Ashraf’s insistence. There was plenty of space in the house, he claimed, now that his daughters had all married and left. He partitioned the room over the shop – one side for Mumtaz and himself, the other for Ishvar and his nephew.
They heard Omprakash moving around upstairs, getting ready for bed. Mumtaz sat at the back of the house, praying. “This revenge talk is okay if it remains talk,” said Ishvar. “But what if he goes back to the village, does something foolish.”
They fretted and agonized for hours over the boy’s future, then ascended the stairs to retire for the night. Ashraf followed Ishvar around the partition where Omprakash lay sleeping, and they stood together for a while, watching him.
“Poor child,” whispered Ashraf. “So much he has suffered. How can we help him?”
The answer, in time, was provided by the faltering fortunes of Muzaffar Tailoring Company.
A year had passed since the murders when a ready-made clothing store opened in town. Before long, Ashraf’s list of clients began to shrink.
Ishvar said the loss would be temporary. “A big new shop with stacks of shirts to choose from – that attracts the customers. It makes them feel important, trying on different patterns. But the traitors will return when the novelty wears off and the clothes don’t fit.”
Ashraf was not so optimistic. “Those lower prices will defeat us. They make clothes by the hundreds in big factories, in the city. How can we compete?”
Soon the two tailors and apprentice were lucky to find themselves busy one day a week. “Strange, isn’t it,” said Ashraf. “Something I’ve never even seen is ruining the business I have owned for forty years.”
“But you’ve seen the ready-made shop.”
“No, I mean the factories in the city. How big are they? Who owns them? What do they pay? None of this I know, except that they are beggaring us. Maybe I’ll have to go and work for them in my old age.”
“Never,” said Ishvar. “But perhaps I should go.”
“Nobody is going anywhere,” Ashraf’s fist banged the worktable. “We will share what there is here, I said it only as a joke. You think I would really send away my own children?”
“Don’t be upset, Chachaji, I know you didn’t mean it.”
Before long, however, the joke turned into a serious consideration as customers continued to flee to the ready-made store. “If it goes on like this, the three of us will be sitting from morning till night, swatting flies,” said Ashraf. “For me, it does not matter. I have lived my life – tasted its fruit, both sweet and bitter. But it is so unfair to Om.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe it would be best for him to try elsewhere.”
“But wherever he goes, I would have to go,” said Ishvar. “He is still too young, too many foolish ideas clogging his head.”
“Not his fault, the devil encourages him. Of course you have to be with him, you are now his father. What you can both do is, go for a short time. Doesn’t have to be permanent. A year or two. Work hard, earn money, and come back.”
“That’s true. They say you can make money very quickly in the city, there is so much work and opportunity.”
“Exactly. And with that cash you can open some kind of business here when you return. A paan shop, or a fruit stall, or toys. You can even sell ready-made clothes, who knows.” They laughed at this, but agreed that a couple of years away would be best for Omprakash.
“There is only one difficulty in the way,” said Ishvar. “I don’t know anyone in the city. How to get started?”
“Everything will fall into place. I have a very good friend who will help you find work. His name is Nawaz. He is also a tailor, has his own shop there.”
They sat up past midnight, making plans, imagining the new future in the city by the sea, the city that was filled with big buildings, wide, wonderful roads, beautiful gardens, and millions and millions of people working hard and accumulating wealth.
“Look at me, getting excited as if I was leaving with you,” said Ashraf. “And if I was younger I would, too. It will be lonely here. My dream was that you and Om would be with me till the end of my days.”
“But we will be,” said Ishvar. “Om and I will return soon. Isn’t that the plan?”
Ashraf wrote to his friend requesting him to put up Ishvar and Omprakash when they arrived, help them settle in the city. Ishvar withdrew his savings from the post office and purchased train tickets.
The night before departure, Ashraf gifted them his treasured pair of dressmaking and pinking shears. Ishvar protested it was too much. “Our family has already received so many kindnesses from you, for more than thirty years.”
“An eternity of kindness could not repay what you and Narayan did for my family,” said Ashraf, swallowing. “Come on, put the shears in your trunk, make an old man happy.” He dried his eyes but they grew moist again. “Remember, you are welcome here at any time if it does not work out.”
Ishvar clasped his hand and held it to his chest. “Maybe you will visit the city before we come back.”
“Inshallah. I have always wanted to go on haj once before I die. And the big boats all sail from the city. So who knows?”
Mumtaz woke early the next morning to make their tea and prepare a food package for their journey. Ashraf sat silent while they ate, overcome by the moment. He spoke only once, to ask, “You have Nawaz’s address safe in your pocket?”
They drained their cups and Omprakash gathered them for washing. “Let it be,” a tearful Mumtaz stopped him. “I’ll do it afterwards.”
It was time to leave. They hugged Ashraf and Mumtaz, kissing their cheeks three times. “Ah, these useless old sockets of mine,” said Ashraf. “They keep leaking, it’s a sickness.”
“And we are catching it from you,” said Ishvar, as he and Omprakash wiped their own eyes. The sun had not yet risen when they picked up the trunk and bedding and walked towards the railway line.
It was night when the tailors arrived in the city. Groaning and clanking, the train pulled into the station while an announcement blared like gibberish from the loudspeakers. Passengers poured out into the sea of waiting friends and families. There were shrieks of recognition, tears of happiness. The platform became a roiling swirl of humanity. Coolies conducted aggressive forays to offer their muscular services.
Ishvar and Omprakash stood frozen on the edge of the commotion. The sense of adventure that had flowered reluctantly during the journey wilted. “Hai Ram,” said Ishvar, wishing for a familiar face. “What a huge crowd.”
“Come on,” said Omprakash. He took the trunk, struggling urgently against the barrier of bodies and luggage, as though assured that once they were past it, everything would be all right – the city of promise lay beyond this final obstacle.
They ploughed their way through the platform and emerged in the railway station’s gigantic concourse, with its ceilings high as the sky and columns reaching up like impossible trees. They wandered around in a daze, making inquiries, asking for assistance. People fired back hurried answers to their questions, or pointed, and they nodded gratefully but learned nothing. It to
ok them an hour to discover they needed a local train to reach Ashraf’s friend. The journey took twenty minutes.
Someone they asked for directions pointed them down the right road. The shop-cum-residence was a ten-minute walk from the station. The pavements were covered with sleeping people. A thin yellow light from the streetlamps fell like tainted rain on the rag-wrapped bodies, and Omprakash shivered. “They look like corpses,” he whispered. He gazed hard at them, searching for a sign of life – a rising chest, a quivering finger, a fluttering eyelid. But the lamplight was not sufficient for detecting minute movements.
Relief began replacing their fears as they neared the home of Ashraf Chachas friend. The nightmare of arrival was about to end. To get to the shop they crossed the planks thrown across the open sewer. Omprakash’s foot almost went through a rotten patch in the wood. Ishvar grabbed his elbow. They knocked on the door.
“Salaam alaikum,” they greeted Nawaz, gazing upon him with expressions appropriate towards a benefactor.
Nawaz barely reciprocated the greeting. He pretended to know nothing about their coming. After numerous denials he conceded there had been a letter from Ashraf, and grudgingly agreed to let them sleep under the awning behind the kitchen for a few days, till they found accommodation. “I do this for no one but Ashraf,” he emphasized. “The thing is, there is hardly room here for my own family.”
“Thank you, Nawazbhai,” said Ishvar. “Yes, just for a few days, thank you.”
They could smell food cooking, but Nawaz did not invite them to eat. Finding a tap outside the building, they washed their hands and faces, and drank, cupping their palms. Light from the house spilled out through the kitchen window. They sat below it and finished the chapatis Mumtaz Chachi had packed, listening to noises from the buildings around them.
The ground under the awning was littered with leaves, potato peelings, unidentifiable fruit stones, fish bones, and two fish heads with vacant eye sockets. “How can we sleep here?” said Omprakash. “It’s filthy.”
He looked around, and spied a besom beside Nawaz’s back door, propped against the downpipe. He borrowed it to sweep the rubbish aside, while Ishvar brought mugfuls of water and splashed the ground before giving it a second going-over with the besom.
The sound brought Nawaz out to investigate. “This place not good enough for you? No one is forcing you to stay.”
“No no, it’s perfect,” said Ishvar. “Just cleaning it a little.”
“That’s my property you are using,” he pointed to the besom.
“Yes, we were –”
“The thing is, you must ask before you take something,” he snapped and went in.
They waited till it was dry under the awning, then unrolled their sleeping mats and blankets. Noise from the surrounding buildings did not abate. Radios blared. A man yelled at a woman, beating her, stopping for a bit when she screamed for help, then starting again. A drunkard shouted abuse, and there was boisterous laughter at his expense. The grind of the traffic was constant. A flickering glow at one window made Omprakash curious; he rose and peered inside. He beckoned to Ishvar to come, look. “Doordarshan!” he whispered excitedly. After a minute or two, someone inside spotted them gazing at the television and told them to be off.
They returned to their bedding and slept badly. Once, they were awakened by shrieks that seemed to come from an animal being slaughtered.
There was no offer of morning tea from inside the house, which Omprakash found quite offensive. “Customs are different in the city,” said Ishvar.
They washed, drank water, and waited around till Nawaz opened his shop. He saw them on the steps, craning, trying to look inside. “Yes? What do you want?”
“Sorry to trouble you, but do you know we are also tailors?” said Ishvar. “Can we do sewing for you? In your shop? Ashraf Chacha told us –”
“The thing is, there is not enough work,” said Nawaz, retreating within as he spoke. “You will have to search elsewhere.”
Ishvar and Om wondered aloud on the steps outside – was this it, the full extent of Nawaz’s help? But he came back in a minute with paper and pencil for them, dictating names of tailoring shops and instructions to get there. They thanked him for the advice.
“By the way,” said Ishvar, “we heard some terrible screams last night. Do you know what happened?”
“It was those pavement-dwellers. One fellow was sleeping in someone else’s spot. So they took a brick and bashed his head. Animals, that’s what they all are.” He returned to his work, and the tailors left.
After stopping for tea in a stall at the street corner, the two spent a futile, frightening day locating the addresses. The street signs were missing sometimes, or obscured by political posters and advertisements. They had to stop frequently to ask storekeepers and hawkers for directions.
They tried to follow the injunction repeated on several billboards: “Pedestrians! Walk On Pavement!” But this was difficult because of vendors who had set up shop on the concrete. So they walked on the road with the rest, terrified by the cars and buses, marvelling at the crowds who negotiated the traffic nimbly, with an instinct for skipping out of the way when the situation demanded.
“Just takes practice,” said Om with an experienced air.
“Practice at what? Killing or getting killed? Don’t act smart, you’ll get run over.”
But the only mishap they witnessed that day involved a man’s handcart; the rope securing a stack of boxes snapped, scattering the goods. They helped him to reload the cart.
“What’s in them?” asked Om, curious about the rattling.
“Bones,” said the man.
“Bones? From cows and buffaloes?”
“From people like you and me. For export. It’s a very big business.”
They were glad when the cart rolled away. “If I knew what was inside, I would never have stopped to help,” said Ishvar.
By evening, the addresses on the list had been exhausted, yielding neither work nor hope. They tried to make their way back to Nawaz’s shop. Though they had walked this route in the morning, nothing seemed familiar now. Or everything looked the same. Either way it was confusing. Approaching darkness made it worse. The cinema billboards they had hoped to use as landmarks led them astray because all of a sudden there seemed to be so many of them. Was it a right turn or left at the Bobby advertisement? Was it the lane with the poster of Amitabh Bachchan facing a hail of bullets while kicking a machine-gun-wielding-villain in the face, or the one with him flashing a hero-type smile at a demure, rustic maiden?
Famished and tired, they at last found Nawaz’s street, and debated whether to buy food before returning to the awning. “Better not,” decided Ishvar. “Nawaz and his bibi will be insulted if they are expecting us to eat with them today. Maybe last night they were just unprepared.”
Their host was at his sewing-machine as they passed the shop. They waved but he didn’t appear to notice, and they went round to the back. “I am finished,” said Omprakash, unrolling the bedding and letting himself drop.
Lying on their backs, they listened to Nawaz’s wife working in the kitchen. A tap was running, glasses rattled, and something clanged. Presently they heard his voice calling “Miriam!” She left the kitchen, and her words were too soft for them to hear. Then from the front came his loud, surly tone again, “No need for all that, I told you already.”
“But it’s just a little tea,” said Miriam. Now husband and wife were both in the kitchen.
“Haramzadi! Don’t argue with me! No means no!” They heard the sharp sound of a slap, and Omprakash flinched. A cry escaped her lips. “Let them go to a restaurant! The thing is, you pamper them and they’ll never leave!”
Miriam’s sobs prevented them outside from picking up what she said, except for fragments: “But why…” and then “… Ashraf’s family…”
“Not my family,” he spat.
The tailors left the awning and went to the stall where they had stopped for morning
tea. After devouring a plate of puri-bhaji, Omprakash said, “What I wonder is, how Ashraf Chacha can have someone so horrible for his friend.”
“All people are not the same. Besides, Nawaz’s years in the city must have altered him. Places can change people, you know. For better or worse.”
“Maybe. But Ashraf Chacha would be ashamed to hear him now. If only we had somewhere else to stay.”
“Patience, Om. This is our first day. We’ll find something soon.”
But in four weeks of searching, they obtained a mere three days of work, at a place called Advanced Tailoring. The proprietor, a man named Jeevan, hired them to meet a deadline. The work was very simple: dhotis and shirts, a hundred of each.
“Who needs so many?” asked Omprakash in amazement.
Jeevan strummed his pursed lips with one finger, as though checking the instrument for tuning. He did this whenever he was about to make what he thought was a significant utterance. “Don’t repeat it to anyone – the clothes are for bribes.” Ordered by someone running in a by-election, he explained. The candidate was going to distribute them to certain important people in his constituency.
There was room for only one tailor in Advanced Tailoring, but Jeevan had props in the back that quickly converted the place into a workshop for three. At a height of four feet from the floor, he arranged planks horizontally on brackets in the walls, making a temporary loft. The planks were supported below with bamboo poles. Then he rented two sewing-machines, hoisted them into the loft, and sent Ishvar and Om up after them.
They settled gingerly on their stools. “Don’t be scared,” said Jeevan, strumming his lips. “Nothing will happen to you, I have done this many times before. Look, I am working under you – if you collapse, I also get crushed.”
The structure was shaky, and trembled heavily when the treadles worked. Traffic passing in the street made Ishvar and Om jiggle up and down on the stools. If a door slammed somewhere in the building, their scissors rattled. But they soon got used to the unsteadiness of their existence.