Hats and Doctors: Stories Read online

  ‘“Four rupees, Sir, is what they take for going up to Nehru Park. I took you all around the world and back,” replied the groom angrily.

  ‘There was a lot of wrangling, but Mr Bhalla would not budge. The bazaar was nearby, so a lot of people had gathered at the embankment. Then Madam Sister-in-law took a two-rupee note out of her blouse and threw it at him. She said in her nasal voice, “Take this baksheesh. Now go.”

  ‘How could he go? He grabbed Mr Bhalla’s sleeve. Mr Bhalla said quite shamelessly, “We don’t have any more, do whatever you want.” And he turned his trouser pockets inside out.

  ‘It was hard for me to just stand there. I took three rupees from my pocket and gave them to him and then walked on ahead.

  ‘When we got home, Gop Sahib told me, “You were wrong to give him more money. My trouser pockets were empty, but I had five one-hundred rupee notes in the inside pockets of my coat. These bastards loot their passengers. If you hadn’t interfered he would have gone quietly on his way.’”

  We had already arrived at the second bridge over the Lidder. A group of Kashmiri Gujjars was coming along from the other direction—they wore very long firans and their knees were bare. A young woman—very beautiful, but quite filthy—was walking boldly along, openly holding her child to her naked breast. Perhaps there was work somewhere and they were all headed in that direction.

  We stood to one side to give them room to pass. Mr Chopra again picked up the thread of his story:

  ‘If they had planned to stay at the Pahalgam Hotel would they have stayed at the Gurudwara?’ he asked. ‘The very next day he started saying, “We’re going to leave Pahalgam.” I remarked, “I thought you were going to stay for twenty days.” He responded carelessly, “We did take rooms at the Pahalgam Hotel; everything was fixed for staying there, but last night suddenly the Mrs came down with a stomach ache. I was also feeling a little under the weather. The water here doesn’t suit us.” And so he cut short a twenty-day trip and went back.’

  ‘But it seems as though he’s pretty well off,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, he is well off. He has his own house in Delhi; he just had it built last year for fifty thousand. It’s in the same colony as ours, just as big as our house.’

  ‘You have a house too?’

  ‘Oh yes, we had it built in Patel Nagar, for forty-five thousand. We live upstairs; we take in two hundred rupees rent from the lower level.’

  When the Gujjars had gone by, we crossed the bridge. On the other side, some people were washing clothes at the river bank, while others were doing oil massages or bathing. Over here, there were no tents, but there was quite a crowd of people bathing and washing their clothes. Mr Chopra told us where he bathed and where he washed his clothes. He also advised us to come there and bathe and wash our clothes.

  ‘But the dhobi takes a two-anna fee per item,’ I said, ‘and that’s the same rate as in Delhi.’

  ‘Oh, no, Artist Sahib, these people add bleaching powder,’ said Mr Chopra, glancing at me in a very teacherly manner. ‘It shortens the life of your clothing. We don’t get them washed even in Delhi. We just wash them at home and press them ourselves.’

  Near the Vazir Hotel he said goodbye. I shook his hand and asked, ‘How much longer have you decided to stay?’

  ‘We had just come for two or three days, but we have become like a family to this friend, he won’t let us leave. We think we’ll stay seven or eight more days. If we find some good companions, we’ll go as far as Amarnath and the Kolahoi Glacier.’

  In the evening we were about to go out when Mr Chopra’s friend, the artist from the Visitors’ Bureau came by—he was very gentlemanly and very honest. He showed me some of his pictures and asked my opinion of them. Mr Chopra’s name came up in conversation. ‘He has nothing but praise for you,’ I told him.

  Suddenly Mr Chopra’s friend exploded. He said, ‘That’s actually what I’ve come to see you about. I’m a poor man. If I rent out one or two rooms during the season, the expenses of the house get paid. This gentleman came with my supervising officer; he said he would stay two days. It’s been seven days by now and he isn’t even considering leaving. I keep giving hints, but he doesn’t understand. Please advise me, how can I get rid of him?’

  The Cartoon Hero

  Vimlesh was enjoying the silent, deserted atmosphere outside the window that stretched far off to the horizon: the railway lines, gleaming at intervals as they spread out into the distance, criss-crossing one another like a maze; the railroad cars standing quietly at a little distance to the left; the electric wires sparkling in the dark, straight ahead; the windows of the houses outside the station yard peeking through the thickets of trees; the light from the floodlights cascading down on to the trees, the wires, the railroad tracks and the railway compartments, which stood quietly, visible through the dust and smog in the distance off to the left; and farther off, the hissing of the shunting engine. The darkness, the lights, the silence and the roar of the shunting engine combined to create this eerie atmosphere. It was as if even he, seated in his compartment, had become a part of this atmosphere. Just then, in an extremely harsh tone of voice, someone threw a question at the back of his neck, like a rock.

  ‘Is this lower berth empty?’

  Turning around, Vimlesh saw a party boss dressed in handloom clothing—big-boned, robust, a wrestler-type in spite of being middle-aged—standing in the middle of the compartment. Behind him was a porter with his luggage.

  It was very hot in the compartment. Vimlesh felt extremely exhausted, but he had been unable to completely separate himself from the atmosphere outside. Instead of answering, he just glanced at the bedding spread out on the opposite berth as if to say, ‘See for yourself. It isn’t empty.’

  ‘Yours?’ the man asked, pointing at the bedding.

  ‘No, sir, but the seat is reserved,’ Vimlesh replied unwillingly. ‘The gentleman just set his things down and went back outside.’

  ‘I had said to book me a lower berth.’

  Vimlesh felt as if he were accusing him of something. He was going to say, ‘No, sir, you didn’t say that to me.’ But the party leader didn’t pause to hear what he had to say. He ordered the porter to set his bedding on an upper berth and rushed back out.

  Vimlesh put his head back out the window. But for some reason all the beauty of the atmosphere had evaporated. It was summer, the month of June. The compartment was already an oven, but the quiet atmosphere outside which previously had been refreshing to his eyes had now also vanished into thin air. Outside, everything was the same as before, but even though Vimlesh was staring at it all, he didn’t see it any more. The face of that homespun-clad despot of a party boss had come and occupied that space. Vimlesh felt as if he had seen him somewhere before. Then he realized he had seen that face in R.K. Laxman’s cartoons in the Times of India. Whenever Laxman depicted the kind of tyrannical Congress Party boss who was always beating up his colleagues, everything about him looked exactly like this man: his build, his sleeves rolled up to show his strong hairy arms, his jowly crooked jaw, his thick distorted lips, his teeth bared in an angry expression, everything. The cartoonist surely must have seen this leader somewhere, otherwise how could there be such a similarity! He thought of this, and several of Laxman’s cartoons flashed before his eyes.

  Vimlesh was always very nervous when it came to travelling. He would start getting obsessed with a trip two or three days in advance. Even if his seat was confirmed he would still reach the station an hour ahead of time. Just two years ago, after Partition, he had come to Allahabad. In Punjab, his father had had a business and he himself had written poetry to his heart’s content. But not only had everything been destroyed during Partition, he’d also become deprived of his father’s protection and now the weight of the household had fallen on his own shoulders. Now he had to go Lucknow on some business connected with his resettlement in Allahabad. Since he was ill, his wife had decided to book his seat on the train that left Allahabad at 10 p
.m. When she went to the station to reserve his seat, she had found out that they no longer booked second-class seats. The government had withdrawn first-class compartments, substituted second-class ones in their stead and raised the fare a bit. Intermediate class had been changed to second, thus making the question of reservations moot. The trip to Lucknow was essential, so his wife had been forced to book a first-class seat. For him, these were days of financial crisis. It bothered Vimlesh even to travel second class, but after his wife explained that it had cost only a little more and he had got a lower berth, he stopped worrying.

  Nevertheless, despite having a confirmed seat, he reached the station forty-five minutes early, a slave to his habits. His wife figured that since the seat was reserved and the station wasn’t far away, he would get there in plenty of time even if he left at quarter to ten. But he had been fussing since early evening. His luggage packed and his essential documents secured, he was ready to go by 8 p.m. At nine o’clock he ate dinner and at 9.15 he took a rickshaw for the station. His wife would have got bored waiting all that time, so he made her stay home.

  The train reached platform no. 6—called the donkey line by Allahabadis—a full hour in advance. Even though some friend of his had told him that First Class was written with chalk on the second-class compartments, Vimlesh realized the moment he entered that his seat had been reserved in a real first-class compartment, one left over from the old days. Someone had ripped off all the vinyl from the front seat and the hideous, naked seat was showing its stuffing. When he read the number and found out it was his seat he wished he could get the other, undamaged one instead. He looked at the reservation card stuck on the outer door of the compartment and discovered that that seat wasn’t empty. He thought of looking for an empty seat in some other compartment, but he was already tired from having walked so far. So he just told the porter to spread out his bedding on the seat. He said to himself, ‘When the bedding is spread out the stuffing will be covered and no one will know the vinyl is tattered.’ When the bedding had been laid out and he’d sat down and made himself comfortable, he started to realize how hot it was. It was June. A hot wind blew all day and the nights were humid. The compartment was like an oven. After the porter left, he switched on the fan. But the fan remained motionless, like a yogi deep in meditation. He stood up and shook it. Then he realized that paying second-class fares (actually a few paise more) didn’t give one the ease of first-class travel. Whoever had ripped the vinyl off the seat had also ruined the fan. He thought he’d go look around in the second class; if there was a seat there he would take it. He felt pleased with himself for coming early; if he’d come at the last minute he would have had to make the journey in this compartment.

  However, when he went and saw the second-class compartment he found it was only an intermediate one. All they’d done was cross out ‘Inter’ with some chalk and write in ‘Second’; and even though there was still half an hour to departure time, the compartment was already jam-packed. Yes, he would be sitting under a fan, but Vimlesh just didn’t have the strength to sit up all night. He would lie down on his own berth and, once the train started moving, there’d soon be a breeze and it wouldn’t be any problem at all. He thought of this as he went back to his compartment. At first he figured he would wander around on the platform until the train left, but he didn’t really feel up to it. So he got a glass of water from a clay pot, and went back to his seat. After a little while the occupant of the opposite seat came in, set his bedding down and went outside again. He wasn’t in the mood to read and, besides, the light in the compartment would only brighten when the train started moving. So, folding his pillow in half, he propped himself up on his elbow and, half-lying, half-sitting, began to stare at the tracks stretching out into the distance behind the train.

  Watching that scene had wiped away all his annoyance and, lost in thought, he even forgot about the heat in the compartment. But, following the Congress Party leader’s enraged exit, the magic of that scene had now vanished, try though he did to recreate it. How could a man who looked like the owner of some gambling den, a gang leader, or the proprietor of some disreputable hotel be in the Congress Party? Time and again this question passed through Vimlesh’s mind. In addition to his strong physique, he had a jaw that sagged a little to the left, thick paan-stained lips and teeth which protruded from the left side of his mouth over his lips, which seemed permanently twisted. All in all, he was a fairly terrifying individual. Staring out the window, Vimlesh felt as though he were actually looking at him.

  Vimlesh was lost in these thoughts, his head sticking out the window, when the party boss stormed back into the compartment. Behind him was the conductor.

  The conductor came inside, checked the seat number against the chart in his hand and then pointed at the upper berth, ‘This is your berth.’

  ‘But I asked for a lower berth!’

  ‘Well, it says upper here.’

  ‘Can’t I get a lower berth in some other compartment?’

  ‘Not a chance!’

  The conductor got down from the compartment. The party boss was climbing down right behind him when the gentleman who had the lower berth climbed inside and greeted him. Without even paying the slightest attention to his greeting, the party leader rushed out after the conductor and started arguing with him outside on the platform.

  The man with the lower berth silently started to spread out his bedding.

  ‘Who exactly is he, sir?’ Vimlesh asked him.

  ‘Until yesterday he operated a grinding mill and a silage cutter. But now he’s a committee member.’

  ‘Of the Congress Party?’

  ‘His brother spent years in jail for the Congress movement. After Independence this guy joined the Congress Party too. Nobody even cares about his brother anymore; he got frustrated and joined the People’s Socialist Party. But this one is still in the Congress Party. Whenever some official comes to town, he’s always on the reception committee. He’s on several committees and runs a transport agency with twenty trucks and buses. In the next election he wants to try for a seat in Parliament. If he wins, he figures no one will be able to stop him from becoming a cabinet minister.’

  Just then the guard’s whistle sounded from somewhere nearby. The party boss quit following the conductor around and rushed back to the compartment. Grumbling, he started to spread his bedding out on the upper berth: an old duffle bag, a dirty mat, a cotton pad and an off-white homespun sheet. When everything was set he turned towards the fan.

  ‘It’s very hot in here. Sir, why didn’t you turn on the fan?’ he thundered at Vimlesh as if he were some servant or volunteer worker of his. Vimlesh felt like telling him the fan was out of order, but he kept quiet.

  Stepping forward, the party boss fiddled with the switch. When the fan wouldn’t start he grabbed it from below and jerked it back and forth. When, even after getting a good shaking from those strong hands and iron wrists, the shameless fan still refused to budge, he tried to stick his finger through the wire casing to rotate the blades. But the casing holes were narrow and his finger fat. Unable to decide what to do next, his glance suddenly fell on a guard standing outside on the platform, signalling with the green light in his right hand and preparing to blow the whistle in his left. The party boss lunged at the door.

  ‘Listen, I’m travelling in first class. The fan is out of order. Please get it fixed.’

  The guard blew his whistle, waved the hand with the torch in it, then took the whistle out of his mouth and replied, ‘It’s departure time now. It might get fixed at the next station.’

  The train moved; the guard turned away. A puff of hot air drifted into the compartment. Vimlesh propped himself up on his pillow and lay down with his feet out the window.

  For a second, the party boss just stood there silently between the two doors. Usually a first-class compartment would have contained an easy chair, but since this was a converted second-class compartment, the chair had been removed.

 
After standing there a moment, the party boss stepped over to Vimlesh. ‘You came ahead of time.’

  ‘I always come half an hour to forty-five minutes early,’ Vimlesh responded, propping himself up on his elbows, as if he had done something special by arriving ahead of time.

  ‘Didn’t you notice the fan?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘So why didn’t you get it fixed?’

  ‘I figured I would say something if a workman passed by. But the train was on the donkey line; maybe that’s why no one came.’

  Even though Vimlesh had completely forgotten about the workman while engrossed in the view from the train, he said all this about the donkey line to defend himself. He figured the party boss would realize from his choice of words that he was a resident of the city too, and would soften his tone. But instead, he responded in the same irritable manner:

  ‘You should have gone and reported it to the station master. A first-class compartment with no fan!’

  ‘I’m ill. I wasn’t up to walking so far,’ he replied. ‘Besides, when I got here the compartment was empty. Who would I have left the luggage with?’

  From the expression on the party boss’s face it was apparent that he was placing sole blame for the lack of a working fan in that compartment on Vimlesh. Shaking his head in exasperation, he started to deliver a speech from right where he was standing on how this was what was wrong with Indians: they hadn’t learnt how to stand up for their rights. If it had been an Englishman in his position he wouldn’t have rested until the fan was fixed. Vimlesh had the lower berth so he would get some air, but he should have thought about the people in the upper berths too. ‘We were slaves for so long,’ the party boss thundered, ‘that we can’t see beyond our own narrow self-interests. We don’t know what the rights and duties of a citizen are. We learnt to endure every indignity. We don’t realize that just obtaining freedom is not enough. We will have to fight for our rights every step of the way. Bureaucratic machinery will constantly need to be lubricated with the oil of loyal opposition. Now we’ll see just how these people don’t fix the fan!’