Jasoda

  All evening the Prince would fume and go to bed in a roaring dudgeon. One afternoon when Sangram Singh was wheeling His Highness aimlessly around the Palace, Parbat Singh suddenly gripped the steel ring parallel to the wheel, rotated the chair around like a demon possessed and sped into the temple room. He took Raat Rani from behind as she knelt in front of Shiva’s image. There was a war on from that day, one that would put the battlefield of Kurukshetra to shame. The walls of the Palace shuddered as His Highness swore, screamed, stamped and shouted. ‘Madam, your bloody day begins when the rest of the world including me is dead and buried in sleep. I have the biggest collection of porn in the country, maybe in the whole of Asia for all I know, waiting to rev us up into a frenzy of sexual agony and ecstasy and there you are praying to every bloody hoax and charlatan known to man and beast and then watching that shit on TV.’

  It was strange: the more apoplectic he became, the more composed Raat Rani appeared. ‘I don’t need your fucking porn to teach me how to fuck. I can teach Vatsyayana who wrote the Kamasutra a dozen or two tricks.’

  Sangram Singh was not merely a witness to the daily fights that went nowhere but was often at the receiving end from both the Prince and his mistress because he was always around.

  ‘Why is this man stuck to us like a leech?’ Raat Rani interrupted the Prince’s diatribe against her. ‘Why is he privy to all our conversations?’

  ‘May I inform you, Madam,’ Parbat Singh thundered, ‘that you are suffering from a major misconception. Firstly, we are not having a conversation but an altercation that has lasted for the last five weeks. Secondly, it is you who are the leech and not this disgusting specimen of obsequious servility named Sangram Singh who is responsible for keeping me mobile. You may not have noticed but I’ve been endeavouring for the past five weeks to evict you from my Palace and my life to no avail.’

  ‘May I remind you, Highness, that you begged and pleaded, cajoled and coaxed me from your hospital bed to give up my cushy life in Mumbai with a leading industrialist who was in town only ten days of the month to come to this godforsaken hellhole which, to quote no less an authority than your Highness himself, is at the arse-end of the world. Furthermore, would you care to read the contract you signed in the presence of witnesses and a lawyer? In case you are suffering from selective amnesia, I can produce a photocopy of the said contract, though not the original since you may proceed to tear it up.’

  Early one morning His Highness called Sangram Singh to the sunroom and caught him by the collar. ‘Do you understand the meaning of the phrase, “In the strictest confidence and on pain of death?”’

  ‘Yes, Huzoor. It means that if one was told a secret and yet revealed it, that person was liable to be punished by being put to death.’

  ‘You are a smart man, Sangram Singh, a bit too smart for your own good. But I am about to delegate a task of the utmost importance to you in the strictest confidence. If you so much as breathe a word of it, I will kill you with my own hands. Is that clear?’

  ‘It is, Huzoor.’

  ‘I want you to go up to the roof of the Palace, dismantle the dish antenna and store it in the basement where nobody can find it.’ He laughed. ‘No antenna, no mistress.’

  The Prince had once again underestimated his mistress’s intelligence and her staying power. Of course, all hell broke loose when Raat Rani discovered that the TV did not work. She climbed up to the roof, noted the disappearance of the dish antenna and located it in the basement after cross-examining Sangram Singh for an hour. He was immediately sent to fetch the TV technician from Jalta. It took some time but by nine-forty-five p.m. the TV was working again.

  Something had to give, or rather, someone had to give in. As it turned out, both His Highness and his lady reached an amicable settlement. Raat Rani began to get up by midday and Parbat Singh bought a second TV set and two pairs of earphones. In the evenings, Sangram Singh saw the two of them plugged into two pairs of earphones, one TV showing a fifty-two-part serial about Shiva and the other with two or three, sometimes even four naked men and women slobbering over each other and making frantic love. Sometimes if the Prince got terribly excited, he pulled Raat Rani into bed but he forgot to shut the door so Sangram Singh was now convinced that the people on the screen were copying his master and his master’s woman.

  It was Pawan who found Dulare. He was playing cricket with his friends when one of them hit a sixer which sent the ball flying into the village well.

  ‘Give me back my ball,’ the friend told him.

  ‘You hit a six, now you get it back.’

  ‘You’re the fielder, you should’ve caught it.’

  ‘Tell you what.’ Pawan caught his friend’s arm and began to drag him. ‘I’ll cram you into the bucket and lower you down. That way you can have a drink of water at the bottom and collect your ball too.’

  ‘There’s no water in the well, stupid.’

  ‘You can still get your ball.’

  ‘Let me go,’ Pawan’s friend screamed and jerked himself free. ‘I’m going to tell my father that you lost my ball and that you should pay for it.’

  Pawan mimicked his friend. ‘I’ll tell my father. Go tell him and your grandfather and his father.’

  ‘I’ll complain to your father.’

  ‘I was just kidding.’ Pawan was instantly conciliatory. ‘I’ll tell you how we’ll get the ball out. All we’ve got to do is to throw stones like the crow did and the ball will rise up.’

  ‘How much time will it take?’

  ‘Guess by tomorrow morning it will float up.’

  Pawan picked up a broken piece of tile and flung it into the well. He and his friend leaned over the parapet to watch its descent but it disappeared. It seemed to fall forever and then they heard a barely audible sound as it hit the bottom. There was a race between the two friends now. They grabbed every stone they could find and ran back and threw them down. Pawan discovered that it was much more fun if the missile zigzagged and ricocheted from wall to wall before hitting the bottom.

  ‘What was that?’ Pawan asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear a voice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s someone inside.’

  ‘You are making up stories because you lost the ball.’

  They chucked some more stones and were about to go home when Pawan whipped one across. It hit the stone wall and rebounded. There was a muffled cry as if someone had taken a hit. The two boys took off. They ran as fast as they could, collided into each other but didn’t stop till they had reached home.

  The sun was overhead the next day when Pawan ventured out. He hovered a little distance from the well, then, as if by accident, drifted towards it. He looked around to make sure that no one was watching him. Then he peered down and called out, ‘Anybody there?’ The words descended two hundred and seventy feet and echoed back. ‘There, there.’

  ‘Anybody there? I can see you.’

  ‘See you, see you,’ the well told him.

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Up, up.’

  His eyes had adjusted to the dark now. He gathered saliva in his mouth and spat into the well. A thread of spittle clung to his mouth. He brushed it away with his hand. Now he could see a man sitting precariously on the ledge fifty feet below.

  Sangram Singh watched the man in the well. There was no way of seeing his face since he had his head buried between his knees. But even if he hadn’t, it would have been impossible to identify him. It was dark down there and since the well was barely nineteen feet wide, the sunlight couldn’t reach too far down.

  He went over to the pulley and laid the rope on top of the parapet. In three strokes of the axe, he had severed the rope. The pulley whirred and rolled and the remaining rope fell into the well.

  Savitri went to Sangram Singh’s house that night.

  ‘What do you want?’ Sangram Singh asked her.

  She stood silently in the shadows.

  ‘I haven’t go
t all night.’

  She came forward a little but was still unable to speak. Sangram Singh turned to go back into the house.

  ‘Let him go, Maalik, let him go.’

  ‘Don’t talk in riddles. Who should I let go?’

  ‘Him. Dulare.’

  ‘How should I let him go when he’s absconding after killing my ox?’

  ‘You know he’s hiding in the well. Please spare him.’

  ‘You’ve lost your mind, Savitri. Which untouchable would dare to enter our well and pollute it? Even your husband is not that foolish, for he knows that no one will be able to drink from that well again.’

  ‘It’s him there, Maalik.’

  ‘You better find him, Savitri. The police are looking for him all over the state.’

  All night long, Dulare asked for water. Sangram Singh had posted a man to prevent anyone from talking to the man in the well. Savitri sat a little distance away and listened to her husband calling out to her. An hour later the guard had fallen asleep.

  ‘How could you abandon me, Savitri? I thought you shared our bed with the Maalik because we had no choice.’ His throat was dry and he started to cough. ‘Water. Please give me water. Why don’t you talk to me? I know you are there, Savitri. I know the sound of your breathing when you are angry and silent. Talk to me, Savitri.’

  Three stray dogs stood next to Savitri and tried to bark down Dulare but gave up. It grew dark. In the distance, the lights came on in His Highness’s audience hall. After a while the Prince and his mistress came out on the terrace. She filled his glass and then hers. They got into a fight, which turned to laughter, and then they went inside the Palace. All was quiet. Even Siyaram’s intermittent digging had ceased.

  Towards morning, Savitri lost patience with her husband.

  ‘Shut up. Shut up. Did you hear what I said? Shut up.’

  Sangram Singh stopped at the well on his way to the Palace. He peered down. There was no sound from the pit.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want, Maalik, just let him go.’ Savitri fell at Sangram Singh’s feet. ‘I’ll be your slave for life.’

  ‘That you already are.’

  ‘I didn’t kill the ox, Maalik,’ the man in the well croaked haltingly. ‘On my mother’s soul I swear to you, the beast died of old age.’

  ‘Give him a drink of water, Maalik,’ Savitri whispered. ‘Just one.’

  Sangram Singh stared at Savitri and then walked away. She ran after him.

  ‘Would you give him a drink if he confessed to a crime he did not commit?’

  ‘I warn you, Savitri, don’t try my patience.’

  Siyaram put the pick down and surveyed his work. The digging was over. Next he would need to saw the logs into smaller pieces and lay them carefully to fit into the limited space available to him. That would take about ten days or a fortnight at the most. All he had to do after that was to tamp a layer of earth over it. It would reduce the height of his room but that wouldn’t matter too much. Old people shrink, he knew that. Besides, his back had begun to arch and soon half of him would be walking parallel to the ground. It occurred to him then that without water there was no way he could bind the earth to harden it.

  He suddenly felt suffocated. All that effort had been to no purpose. He had spent months carving out a hideout for the firewood and it would be just as exposed and accessible as before. He needed air. He had to get out. He undid the various latches and planks fortifying the door and stepped out. He took a deep breath and then another. It was bracing to be out under the noon sun. His mood lifted. Water was scarce, no denying that. But so was firewood. It was nothing less than a mythical substance these days. And yet he had managed to get hold of a fair amount of wood. With a little imagination and shrewdness, he would get the water too. He would bury the wood and beat the earth till he had levelled it.

  A cock’s severed head lay on the ground. Someone had dipped his fingers in its blood and drawn human figures and diagrams on his door.

  Sangram Singh and the grocer came to the well after lunch.

  ‘What are you doing here, Savitri?’ The grocer stopped a few feet away from her. ‘You haven’t come to the shop for a long time. Have you got somebody in Jalta,’ the grocer laughed, ‘who gives you more credit than I do?’

  ‘You are an important man, Maalik. Please use your influence.’ Savitri would not permit herself to cry in front of these men. ‘Punish Dulare as much as you want but let him out of the well.’

  ‘Why should we want to punish Dulare, Savitri? Has he done anything wrong?’

  ‘I no longer know what he’s done but…’

  ‘What would he be doing in the well, anyway? Did you drop some gold jewellery and ask him to fetch it?’

  In the morning before the sun came up Jasoda walked over to the well. She had brought some food wrapped in a rag and water in a clay pot and she placed them in front of Savitri. ‘Eat,’ she said.

  Savitri shook her head.

  ‘How long have you not had water?’

  ‘Nowhere as long as him.’

  ‘Your not drinking or eating won’t make a difference to him.’

  She waited till Savitri had finished eating.

  ‘Let it go, Savitri. There’s nothing you can do.’

  There was no merrymaking at the Palace that night. Savitri kept waiting for the lights on the terrace to be switched on or for the mistress to quarrel with His Highness and then make up but the two of them seemed to have gone to bed before sunset. The dogs too were silent or had gone to the next village. The lights were on in Siyaram’s house but it was so quiet, he might as well have been dead.

  The man guarding the well had gone home for dinner and not returned. The only one who hadn’t let up was Dulare. His voice was barely a whisper now but she could hear it even when he was silent. ‘Savitri, are you there? May I have some water, please? Even half a glass will do.’

  The rock in Savitri’s hand was half the size of an adult head. She waited for Dulare to say something to get a fix on his location down below.

  ‘Why could we not have children, Savitri? They would have looked after us.’

  She held her hand just an inch or two away from the parapet. Then she let go of the rock. She wasn’t sure whether it hit his shoulder or head.

  ‘Savitri,’ he cried out one last time as he tumbled over the ledge.

  Pawan stared at his grandmother. She was made of sticks. She was taller than his father and her feet stuck out of the bed. Her legs were swollen. He wanted to take a pin and prick the skin to find out whether there was air or water in them. He picked up her hand but she didn’t open her eyes. He dropped it. It floated like a leaf and came to rest on the bed.

  ‘Is she dead?’ he asked his brother.

  ‘Can’t you see her breathing?’

  ‘Only sometimes. And even then I’m not sure.’

  Jasoda came up nursing a brass tumbler with one end of her odhani. ‘I’ve got some tea for you. More like hot water really since there’s hardly any tea in the house.’ She sat on the bed and brought the tumbler close to the old woman’s lips. ‘Drink a little now. It will give you some strength.’ The old woman did not open her eyes or answer.

  ‘See, what did I tell you? She’s dead,’ Pawan said.

  Himmat was not convinced.

  ‘Is that true, Maa? I saw her breathe.’

  ‘Hush, you two. Would I feed a dead person?’

  ‘How much time will she take to die? Father will want his bed.’

  ‘Watch your tongue, Pawan. Go down and fetch me a spoon from the kitchen.’

  ‘Tell Himmat to go.’

  ‘What are you afraid of? Daadi’s going to be all right.’

  The boy did not budge.

  ‘Will you get the spoon, Himmat, or do you want me to go?’

  Himmat hesitated but would not disobey his mother. He closed his eyes and ran down the stairs and back. Jasoda parted the old lady’s lips and tried to force the tea in. It stayed in her mouth for a few
seconds and then dribbled out. She shifted the angle of her head, hoping that the fluid would slip down the throat. Her breathing was audible now but much more strained and erratic. Jasoda raised her and made her sit up in bed but that didn’t help the air find its way to the lungs. Her body twitched and there was a blue cast spreading on her face.

  ‘Wait with your Daadi here. I’m going to run to Poonam Chachi’s to get some medicines.’

  Jasoda was out on the road when she realized that the children were following her. The tailor had rented an old two-room house almost on the edge of the untouchable quarter for his mistress Poonam, the grocer’s wife. Jasoda could have cadged the medicines from someone staying closer to her home but there were not many people left in Kantagiri. Besides, the drought had changed her neighbours. Even on the rare occasion when there was enough to go around, they were reluctant to share. Her only hope was that the tailor’s woman would be lonely enough to welcome company even if it meant being importuned for a favour.

  The children couldn’t keep pace with their mother. Pawan opted to sit down on the ground and shriek.

  ‘Himmat,’ Jasoda told her son, ‘wait with your brother till I get back and then we can all go home together.’

  ‘No.’

  Jasoda went back and picked Pawan up.

  The tailor was spending the night with his mistress and it took a while for Poonam to unlatch the door after Jasoda announced herself.