‘To be honest,’ said Rasheed, ‘I won’t deny that I hated you as well as the others when I realized what you were trying to do.’
‘Me?’ said Maan. He could not see where he came into it, except that he was his father’s son. And, anyway, why hatred?
‘But I have put all that behind me,’ continued Rasheed. ‘Nothing is to be gained by hatred. But I must now ask for your help. Since you are partly responsible, you cannot deny me this.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Maan, bewildered. He had sensed, when he visited the village at Bakr-Id, that there was some tension involving Rasheed, but what had he to do with it?
‘Please do not pretend ignorance,’ said Rasheed. ‘You know my family; you have even met Meher’s mother—and yet you insisted on these events and these plans. You yourself are associated with the elder sister.’
What Saeeda Bai had said to Maan now clicked in his mind.
‘Tasneem?’ he asked. ‘Are you talking about Saeeda Bai and Tasneem?’
A hard look passed over Rasheed’s face—as if Maan had confirmed his own guilt. ‘If you know it, what is the need to take her name?’ he asked.
‘But I don’t know it—whatever it is,’ protested Maan, amazed by the turn in the conversation.
Rasheed, attempting to be reasonable, said: ‘I know that you and Saeeda Bai and others, including important people in the government, are trying to get me married to her. And she has decided on me. The letter she wrote—the looks she has given me—suddenly one day in the middle of her lesson she made a remark which could only mean one thing. I cannot sleep for worry, for three weeks I have hardly slept a wink. I do not want to do this, but I am afraid for her sanity. She will go insane unless I return her love. But even if I undertake this—which I must do on the basis of humanity—even if I undertake this, I must have protection for my own wife and children. You will have to get complete confirmation from Saeeda Begum about this. I will only agree on certain clear conditions.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ said Maan a little sharply. ‘I am part of no plot—’
Rasheed cut him off. He was so annoyed that he was trembling. But he tried to get a hold on himself. ‘Please do not say that,’ he said. ‘I cannot accept it when you say this sort of thing to my very face. I know what is what. I have already said I bear no hatred towards you any longer. I have told myself that however mistaken your intentions, you were doing it for my good. But did you never give any thought to my wife and children?’
‘I don’t know about Saeeda Begum,’ said Maan, ‘but I doubt she wants Tasneem to marry you. As for myself, this is the first I’m hearing of it.’
A cunning look passed over Rasheed’s face. ‘Then why did you mention her name a minute ago?’
Maan frowned, trying to think back. ‘Saeeda Begum said something about some letters you sent her sister,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t advise you to write any more. They will only annoy her. And,’ he added, getting annoyed himself, but trying to control his temper—for he was, after all, talking to his teacher, young though he was, and one who had, moreover, been his host in the village—‘I wish you would not imagine that I am part of some plot.’
‘All right,’ said Rasheed firmly. ‘All right. I won’t mention it. When you visited the patwari with my family did I ever criticize you? Let us close the chapter. I won’t accuse you, and you will kindly not make these protests, these denials. All right?’
‘But of course I will deny it—’ said Maan, hardly even wondering where a patwari had entered all this. ‘Let me tell you, Rasheed, that you are completely mistaken. I have always had the greatest respect for you, but I can’t see where you have got these ideas from. What makes you think that Tasneem is in the least interested in you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rasheed speculatively. ‘Perhaps it is my looks, or my uprightness, or the fact that I have done so much in life already and will be famous some day. She knows I have helped so many people.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I did not invite any attentions. I have a religious attitude to life.’ He sighed. ‘But I know the meaning of duty. I must do what is necessary for her sanity.’ He bowed his head in sudden exhaustion and leaned forward.
‘I think,’ said Maan after a while, patting him on the back in a puzzled manner, ‘that you should take better care of yourself—or let your family do so. You should go back to the village as soon as the vacations begin, or even before—and let Meher’s mother take care of you. Rest. Sleep. Eat properly. Do not study. And do not exhaust yourself by campaigning for any party.’
Rasheed lifted his head and looked at Maan mockingly. ‘So that is what you would like?’ he said. ‘Then the path will be clear. Then you can farm my field again. Then you can send the police to break my head with a lathi. I may suffer some setbacks, but whatever I put my mind to doing, I do. I understand when things are connected with each other. It is not easy to dupe me, especially if your conscience is uneasy.’
‘You are speaking in riddles,’ said Maan. ‘And I think it is getting late for your tuition. In any case, I don’t want to hear anything more on this subject.’
‘You must confirm or deny it.’
‘What, for God’s sake?’ cried Maan in exasperation.
‘When you visit Saeeda Begum next, tell her that I am willing to spread happiness in her home if she insists on my going ahead with all this, that I will undergo a simple ceremony, but that any children I have in my second marriage cannot usurp the rights of the children I already have. And the marriage with Tasneem must be kept secret, even from the rest of my family. There must be no rumour—she is, after all, the sister of, well—I have my reputation and that of my family. Only those who already know. . . .’
He drifted off.
Maan got up, looking at Rasheed in amazement and shaking his head. He sighed, then leaned against the trunk of the tree, continuing to stare at his former teacher and friend. Then he looked down at the ground and said:
‘I am not going back to Saeeda Begum’s, nor am I plotting against you. I am not interested in breaking anyone’s head. I am leaving for Salimpur tomorrow with my father. You can send your own messages to—to Saeeda Begum, but I beg you not to. I cannot understand a quarter of what you have been saying. But if you wish, Rasheed, I will accompany you to your village—or to your wife’s village—and make sure that you get there safely.’
Rasheed did not move. He pressed his right hand to his forehead.
‘Well, what do you say?’ asked Maan, concerned and angry. He had planned to go to Saeeda Bai’s before leaving. Now he felt obliged to mention to her his meeting with Rasheed and the disturbing turn it had taken. He fervently hoped that nothing harmful would come out of it, and he also hoped that it would not sour the evening of his departure.
‘I will sit here,’ said Rasheed after a while, ‘and think.’
He made the word sound actively ominous.
17.4
Maan had not been following Rasheed’s activities. He was troubled by his talk of the patwari, though now he did recall faintly that someone—Rasheed’s father or grandfather—had once mentioned something about a patwari to him. He knew that Rasheed had been moved to pity and indignation on behalf of the poorer people in the village; Maan’s mind went back to the old man, destitute and dying, whom Rasheed had gone to visit, and because of whom he had taken up cudgels against the elders outside the mosque. But Rasheed was so rigid, expected so much of others and of himself, reacted so much in anger and pride, hammered away so powerfully in every direction he turned to, that—apart from putting other people’s backs up—he must have worn himself out completely. Had he suffered from any specific shock that had caused him to crack in this way—to behave so sanely—at least at the beginning—and yet so deludedly? He still gave tuitions; did he still make ends meet? He was looking so poorly. And was he still the exacting, careful teacher, with his insistence on perfect, unbending alifs? What did his students and their families think of him?
And what did Rasheed’s own family think? Did they know what had happened to him? If they knew, how could they be indifferent to his pitiable state? When he went to Debaria, Maan decided, he would ask them directly what they knew and tell them what they didn’t. And where were Rasheed’s wife and children?
Deeply disturbed, he mentioned to Saeeda Bai some of the things that were on his mind. He could not understand how he had obtained either Rasheed’s hatred or his conditional forgiveness. The image of Rasheed and his wild imaginings would haunt Maan for weeks.
Saeeda Bai, for her part, became so concerned about Tasneem’s safety that she summoned the watchman and told him that under no circumstances was Tasneem’s old Arabic teacher to be admitted to the house. When Maan mentioned Rasheed’s belief that there was a plot to marry him against his will to the infatuated Tasneem, Saeeda Bai indignantly and with disgust in her voice read out a part of one of Rasheed’s letters, which certainly gave Maan the impression that the overwhelming weight of passion was on Rasheed’s side. He had written to Tasneem that he wanted to bury his face in the clouds of her hair and so on and so forth. Even his handwriting, about which he used to be so particular, had regressed to a scrawl under the force of his feelings. The letter, to judge from the excerpt that Saeeda Bai read, was alarming. When he added to this the whole bizarre conception of a plot with all its conditions and ramifications, about which Saeeda Bai had until then been ignorant, Maan could not help sympathizing with her agitation, her inability to concentrate on anything else—on music, on him, on herself. He tried in vain to distract her. So vulnerable did she seem to him that he longed to take her in his arms—but he sensed that hers was a volatile and explosive vulnerability and that he would be hurtfully rebuffed.
‘If there is anything I can do at any time,’ he told her, ‘you have only to send for me. I don’t know what to do or what to advise. I will be in Rudhia District, but they will keep track of me at the Nawab Sahib’s house.’ Maan did not mention Prem Nivas because Saeeda Bai was no longer persona grata there.
Saeeda Bai’s face became pale.
‘The Nawab Sahib has promised to assist my father’s campaign,’ Maan explained.
‘Poor girl, poor girl,’ said Saeeda Bai softly. ‘O God, what a world this is. Go now, Dagh Sahib, and may God keep you.’
‘Are you sure—’
‘Yes.’
‘I will not be able to think of anything but you, Saeeda,’ said Maan. ‘At least give me a smile before I leave.’
Saeeda Bai gave him a smile, but her eyes were still sad. ‘Listen, Maan,’ she said, addressing him by his name, ‘think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself. And even if I am not invited to sing at Holi in Prem Nivas, come here and I will sing for you.’
‘But Holi is more than three months away,’ said Maan. ‘Why, I will see you in less than three weeks.’
Saeeda Bai nodded. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said absently. ‘That’s right, that’s quite right.’ She shook her head slowly a couple of times and closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know why I am so tired, Dagh Sahib. I don’t even feel like feeding Miya Mitthu. God keep you in safety.’
17.5
The electorate of Salimpur-cum-Baitar consisted of roughly 70,000 people, about half Hindu and half Muslim.
Apart from the two smallish towns included in its name, the constituency encompassed over a hundred villages, including the twin villages of Sagal and Debaria where Rasheed’s family lived. It was a single member constituency: only one candidate would be elected to the Legislative Assembly by the voters. Ten candidates in all were standing: six represented parties, and four were Independents. Of the former, one was Mahesh Kapoor, the Minister of Revenue, who was the candidate for the Indian National Congress. Of the latter, one was Waris Mohammad Khan, the candidate who had been put up as a dummy by the Nawab Sahib of Baitar in case his friend did not get the Congress ticket or chose not to stand or bowed out of the race for some reason or other.
Waris was delighted to be a candidate, even though he knew that he would be expected to throw his weight as actively as possible behind Mahesh Kapoor. Just the look of his name on the list of validly nominated candidates outside the office of the Returning Officer made him smile with pride. Khan came just below Kapoor in the list, which was arranged in the order of the English alphabet. Waris thought this significant: the two allies could almost be paired together by a bracket. Though everyone knew what his function in the election was, the fact that he was present on the same list as some of the better-known citizenry of the district—indeed, of the state—gave Waris a certain standing at the Fort. The munshi continued to order him about, but more cagily than before. And when Waris chose not to obey, he had the ready excuse that he was busy with election work.
When Maan and his father arrived at Baitar Fort, Waris reassured them:
‘Now, Minister Sahib, Maan Sahib, leave everything in the Baitar area to me. I’ll arrange everything—transport, meetings, drums, singers, everything. Just tell the Congress people to send us lots of those Nehru posters, and also a lot of Congress flags. We’ll see that they are put up everywhere. And we won’t let anyone go to sleep for a month,’ he continued happily. ‘They won’t even be able to hear the azaan for the slogans. Yes. And I’ve made sure that the water for your bath is hot. Tomorrow morning I’ve arranged for a tour of some of the villages, and in the evening we return to the town for a meeting. And if Maan Sahib wants to hunt—but I fear there will be no time for that. Votes before nilgai. But first I have to make sure that a good many of our supporters attend the Socialist Party meeting this evening to heckle them properly. Those haramzadas don’t even think our Nawab Sahib should get compensation for the land that is going to be snatched from him—just imagine! What an injustice it is already. And now they want to add insult to injury—’ Waris suddenly stopped, the realization striking him that he was addressing the very author of the black act. ‘What I mean is—’ He finished with a grin, and shook his head vigorously, as if shaking the very thought out of his brain. They were, of course, allies now.
‘Now I must see to things,’ he said, and disappeared for a while.
Maan had a slow and relaxed bath, and came down to find his father waiting for him impatiently. They began to discuss the candidates, the support they could expect from people of different areas or religions or castes, their strategy with regard to women and other particular groups, election expenses and how to cover them, and the faint possibility that Nehru might be induced to give a speech in the constituency during his brief tour of Purva Pradesh in mid-January. What gave Maan a real sense of warmth was the fact that his father was far less dismissive of him than usual. Unlike Maan, he had not lived in this constituency, but Maan had expected that he might simply extrapolate his experiences of the Rudhia farm to this northern subdivision. But Mahesh Kapoor, though he did not believe in caste, and thought little of religion, was more than alive to their electoral implications, and listened with care to Maan’s description of the demographic contours of this tricky terrain.
Among the Independent candidates—quite apart from Waris, who was a supporter—there was no one who presented much of a challenge to Mahesh Kapoor. And among the party candidates, because he happened to be the candidate of the Congress Party—anxious though he was about fighting from an unfamiliar constituency—he started out with an immense advantage. The Congress was the party of Independence and the party of Nehru, and it was far better funded, far more widely organized, and far more quickly recognized than the others. Its very flag—saffron, white and green, with a spinning wheel in the middle—resembled the national flag. The Congress Party had a worker or two in almost every village—workers who had been somewhat active in social service during the last few years, and would be very active indeed in electioneering in the coming couple of months.
The other five parties presented a mixed bag.
The Jan Sangh promised to ‘advocate th
e spread and extension of the highest traditions of Bharatiya Sanskriti’: a thinly veiled term for Hindu, rather than Indian, culture. It was more than willing to go to war with Pakistan over the issue of Kashmir. It demanded compensation from Pakistan for the property of Hindus who had been forced to migrate to India. And it stood for a United India which included the territory of Pakistan; presumably, it meant a forcibly reunited one.
The Ram Rajya Parishad appeared more peaceable if further removed from reality. It declared that its object was to bring about a state of affairs in the country similar to that of the idyllic age of Rama. Every citizen would be expected to be ‘righteous and religious-minded’; artificial foodstuffs such as vanaspati ghee—a kind of hydrogenated vegetable oil—would be banned, as would obscene and vulgar films and the slaughter of cows. The ancient Hindu system of medicine would be ‘recognized officially as the national system’. And the Hindu Code Bill would never be passed.
The three parties to the left of the Congress who were fighting from this constituency were the KMPP, the party that Mahesh Kapoor had joined and then left (and whose symbol was a hut); the Socialist Party (whose symbol was a banyan tree); and the Communist Party (whose symbol was a sickle and a few ears of corn). The Scheduled Castes Federation, the party of Dr Ambedkar (who had recently resigned from Nehru’s Cabinet on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and the collapse of the Hindu Code Bill), had forged an electoral alliance with the socialists; they had no candidate of their own for this seat. They concentrated mainly on double-member constituencies where at least one member from the scheduled castes was bound by law to be elected to the legislature.
‘It would have been good if your mother had been here,’ said Mahesh Kapoor. ‘It’s even more important in this place than in my old constituency—even more of the women here are in purdah.’