Hats and Doctors: Stories Read online

  One day Lallan returned in the afternoon wearing a colourful, freshly washed sari. Perhaps she had bathed with turmeric ointment that day. Her face was shining. There was a huge vermilion bindi on her forehead and her lips were red from the juice of the paan she was chewing. That day it seemed to Malhotra that his wife was right when she said that if Lallan were to quit working as a sweeper she really could be given a higher position, and while she was pressing his feet, he mentioned that desire of his wife’s to her.

  ‘I’d come, sir,’ Lallan said with seriousness, ‘but the Sweeper wouldn’t let me.’

  And she told him that the Sweeper—that is, her husband Hariya—was a no-good alcoholic and gambler. All the expenses of the house were paid out of what she earned at their house. He didn’t give her even one coin from his salary.

  ‘Your father didn’t arrange your marriage carefully?’ Malhotra felt a sudden pang of sympathy for her.

  ‘I was only four years old, sir, when I got married. They have only recently brought me to my husband’s house.’

  ‘So he doesn’t even give you his salary?’

  ‘What does he ever give me, sir? It’s just the opposite, he asks me for money. If I don’t give him anything, he beats me.’

  ‘On what does he spend your wages?’

  ‘He’s a real bastard, sir. He drinks and gambles,’ Lallan said. ‘Yesterday he kept asking for my necklace, so he could pawn it. When I wouldn’t give it to him, he tried to pull it off. I was cooking. I grabbed a piece of burning wood from the fire to get him to take his hands off me. I threatened to break his arm. After he took his hands off me, he started cursing me. I’ve kept all my money at my mother’s house, sir.’

  Malhotra turned over to lie on his stomach and asked, ‘Lallan, could you press my back a little?’

  ‘Can you let me go now, sir? I still have to do all the rest of the work. If I’m late the Sweeper will yell at me.’

  ‘Just press it a little bit,’ Malhotra said very softly. ‘This sickness has sucked out all my blood, I don’t have any power left at all.’ Then he laughed a little. ‘Anyway, my life is drawing to a close, I’ve grown old.’

  Lallan laughed too, ‘Oh, sir, how can you be old, my Sweeper looks much older than you.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘He’s four or five years older than me.’

  ‘Then how did he get older than me? I’m past forty.’

  ‘Oh, sir, what do numbers like forty and fifty mean? You could still get married twice more,’ and she laughed.

  ‘If I can manage just once, that’s no small feat,’ Malhotra also laughed.

  Lallan quietly began to press his back. The knots on each side of his spine slowly started to subside under the pressure of her hands: his waist, his buttocks, his thighs; Lallan kept pressing, and Malhotra wanted her to keep pressing, for the knots of pain to keep melting, for his body to keep feeling this sweet relief … when suddenly she withdrew her hands.

  ‘Sir, I’m going.’

  ‘Oh, please, just crack my toes!’ He turned over.

  There was a strange shame in Lallan’s eyes and her cheeks were glowing.

  ‘No, sir, I’m going now.’

  And she hurried off.

  One day, when Malhotra was returning from his walk in the evening, he heard a racket from the direction of the storehouse and the kitchen.

  His health was somewhat better than before. His fever had broken fifteen or twenty days ago. He had even started to eat solid food and to go out walking a little after resting in the afternoon for a couple of hours. When he heard the noise, he went to the yard behind the bungalow. Lallan was standing on the verandah of the storehouse, behind one of the columns, and a skinny feeble man was standing outside screaming at her.

  Malhotra could tell who he was, but even so, he asked in a threatening voice, ‘Who are you? Why are you screaming?’

  ‘Sir, I’m Hariya.’

  ‘Which Hariya?’

  ‘Sir, your sweeper.’

  ‘Then why are you yelling?’

  ‘Sir, Lallan …’

  From behind the column, Lallan cried out, ‘Sir, when I come home from working here, sometimes I’m a little late and then this man curses me and hits me.’

  Hariya was going to say something, when Malhotra thundered, ‘Don’t talk nonsense, get out of here.’

  Feeling more confident of support, Lallan emerged from behind the column, ‘Hit him, sir, beat him up.’ And then she said to Hariya, ‘I’m not going, I’m staying here. Get out of here, run, go!’

  Malhotra lifted his eyes and looked at her. He didn’t think it was wrong of her to threaten her husband, but he didn’t think it was right for her to tell him to beat him up. Then his gaze returned to Hariya: the bones of his shrunken chest showed through his shirt with its broken buttons. He had a dirty lungi wrapped around his waist. His head and feet were bare. Malhotra’s eyes rested on his Chinese-looking moustache and his shrivelled-up face and his dark red teeth … He felt oddly disgusted; and whereas earlier, he had been on the verge of getting angry with Lallan, he now felt only sympathy for her as he cast a glance at the two of them. He scolded the sweeper for beating his wife, not giving her any money for food and throwing away his earnings on alcohol: how could she stay at home? If he didn’t get out of there immediately he would beat him to a pulp and then have the police called and get him arrested.

  Hariya immediately fell at his feet. He entreated him piteously, insisting that he wouldn’t say anything to Lallan—he would bring all his salary home and put it directly in her hands and he would quit drinking completely.

  Now that the sweeper had fallen at his feet, Malhotra could not think what to say. He told Lallan to go home, and that if Hariya bothered her again she should tell him. Lallan refused a couple of times, but after Malhotra had reasoned with her, she went home with her husband.

  Malhotra went and sat down in his study and put his feet up on the table. He leaned back in his spring chair. His wife came in behind him.

  ‘If Lallan comes to live here I really will get another sweeper,’ she said.

  Malhotra asked carelessly, ‘Where would she live?’

  ‘In the verandah of the storehouse.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she get cold?’

  ‘There are only a few days left of winter, next month people will start sleeping outside. But she won’t get cold, we’ll put up a curtain in the verandah.’

  ‘But how can she live in our house?’ Malhotra asked. ‘A sweeper … our relatives …’

  But Mrs Malhotra interrupted him. There was a Muslim cook at the home of her executive engineer father. She said, ‘Are all these bearers and cooks from the high castes? They got converted into Christians out of low-caste Pasis, Chamars, Julahes, or Mehtars. When I look at the landlord’s wife, I can tell she was definitely a sweeper who became Christian. Mr Holden may be English, but that black-as-pitch wife of his is definitely a sweeper by birth. How is Lallan any worse than her! And we even drink tea at Mrs Holden’s house, and we eat there too. If Lallan quits this kind of work, I’ll definitely keep her on.’

  His wife said all this in one breath. Professor Malhotra didn’t reply. How silly these women are. They totally reject reality in the face of sentimentality. They don’t look at what’s right in front of their noses, he thought. For an instant he closed his eyes. His wife’s words echoed in his ears: If Lallan comes and lives here I’ll get another sweeper …

  If Lallan comes and lives here … If Lallan comes and lives here … Neat and tidy, attractive Lallan, who is highly skilled at pressing a tired body, who heedlessly melts away knots of pain, who is sweet-spoken (no matter how much she quarrels with her husband, she always speaks softly in their house), whose big round eyes are rubbed with kohl and who has somehow learnt to stand in exactly the same pose as the young women of Ajanta. When Malhotra had seen those dark-skinned young women (who were princesses) in that pose in Ajanta, he had thought the pose was only a flight of the
artist’s imagination, but here was Lallan … this illiterate village sweeper sometimes looked just like those young women of Ajanta. All it would take was for the bun of her hair to be more like theirs, then there would be no difference at all…. If Lallan were to come and live here … and in his imagination Lallan came there and began to live in their home. His imagination took another leap … but then a shiver ran through his entire body and he started and sat up straight. His legs went beneath the desk, his back straightened and he pulled a copy of a thesis in front of him.

  His wife was still standing there. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he said, without looking at her. ‘It doesn’t matter how neat and tidy Lallan is, how good her work is, how little belief we place in caste. If she came here to live, not one of my relatives would eat in this house.’

  And Professor Malhotra busied himself with the thesis before him.

  Lallan ran to their house again one evening, a few days later. When Malhotra talked to Hariya, he claimed that since that evening, he had not drunk any alcohol, but even so, Lallan still always quarrelled with him: ‘Now, sir, I’m just a poor sweeper,’ Hariya said. ‘How can I wear clean clothes every day, how can I wash my hands and feet all the time?’

  Lallan told Professor Malhotra that Hariya had hit her again, and then snatched her earrings and pawned them.

  This time, Lallan’s father came and reasoned with her too, and finally took her home with him.

  The next day, in the early afternoon, Lallan was pressing Malhotra’s body, when he asked, ‘Lallan, why do you quarrel with Hariya every day?’

  ‘Sir, he drinks, he takes my jewellery and pawns it, and if I say anything about it he hits me.’

  ‘But he says he has quit drinking.’

  ‘He hasn’t quit anything, just yesterday he fought with me in the evening and then came home really drunk.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing, sir!’ She fell silent.

  ‘So then?’

  ‘Sir, he always wears such dirty clothes. Whenever he talks, he curses. He says: “Why don’t you just go over to your master’s house, tell him to build you a bungalow,” and then he comes home really drunk. There’s only one bad habit, sir …’

  Lallan was pressing his calves with great concentration. Malhotra was silent for a moment, and then, laughing slightly, he said, ‘So if you don’t let him come near you, he won’t quarrel, he won’t drink and he won’t curse your master in front of you either?’

  ‘No, sir, how can he curse you? How can he have the right to?’

  Malhotra acted as if he had not heard what she said; he laughed again, and then asked her softly, ‘So then what’s wrong, Lallan, do you hate him?”

  Lallan hesitated, then she turned up her nose, and whispered, ‘Sir, he smells!’

  Malhotra couldn’t think what to say to that. He laughed hollowly, and said, ‘Take a piece of sandalwood soap from the bathroom. Make him bathe with that. He’ll improve.’

  ‘I’m not going to bathe him with soap, I’d rather have him run out of town!’ Lallan said. ‘If he keeps bothering me like this, I’ll pack up and go to my mother’s, then I’ll call a Panchayat Court and get rid of him. My father says, “You’ll have to give him two hundred rupees.” Mrs Malhotra says, “Lallan, you come and live here.” If Mrs Malhotra gives me a little help, sir, I’ll get rid of that bastard.’

  ‘Yes, get divorced from him and set yourself up in the home of some other companion you prefer.’

  ‘Sir, if I can’t find happiness with my own fate, where will I find it? All the men in my caste drink, curse and beat their women. Sir, if you help me get rid of him, I’ll work for you here.’

  And Lallan began to press Malhotra’s knees with great devotion. She pressed both sides of his kneecaps, and then started pressing his thighs a little above his knees. Malhotra began to feel great pleasure from the pressure of her hands. She had leaned over more to press the thigh on the other side of the charpoy and was pressing with great involvement, when suddenly, Malhotra drew his legs back. ‘Lallan, you can go now, you’ll be late.’

  ‘No, sir, I’ll just keep pressing, you go to sleep!’ And she pulled his feet to press the soles.

  ‘No, Lallan, you go. If you’re late your Sweeper will yell at you. I’m fine now, I’ll go to sleep.’

  Lallan had begun to crack his toes when he pulled his feet away, ‘Enough, now, go!’

  He pulled the blanket up to his chin and he turned over.

  After that day Malhotra did not ask Lallan to press his feet again. She always swept his room in his absence and she brought the paan box in to him when he was there. Malhotra never looked at her and remained absorbed in his work. A few days later he found out from his wife that Lallan had gone to her father’s house. Then he found out that Hariya wanted to call a Panchayat Court. His wife suggested that they give Lallan two hundred rupees so the poor thing could get rid of that boozing gambler! Malhotra heard what his wife said, but then again he did not hear it, and remained absorbed in his work. Some days later, he found out that Hariya had called the Panchayat. Then he heard that he had given his word in front of its five leaders that he would not drink and he would also give back all Lallan’s jewellery, and when the five leaders and her parents insisted, Lallan unwillingly went back with Hariya. A short while later they heard that Lallan was pregnant.

  Lallan had a son. She did not come to work for a whole month. During that time, her mother and her sister-in-law came to do her work. Both of them were dirty and raggedy. Malhotra’s wife did not let them come into the house. They just did their work outside and went away. One day, Malhotra saw Lallan’s mother. Even though she quickly pulled her veil over her face, he caught a glimpse of her fair colouring, her sharp features and her blue eyes. There is definitely the blood of some Englishman in her veins, he thought. Before Independence, only English people lived in this area. Even if Lallan didn’t get the English skin colour, she certainly inherited their haughtiness.

  And he smiled slightly.

  After a month Lallan started coming to their house again. In the mornings she left her son with her mother. In the evenings, sometimes her sister came and held the baby in her lap, and sometimes Hariya came with the baby on his shoulders. Mrs Malhotra hated the very sight of Hariya’s face. She would not even let him come inside the house. He would sit near the gate, on the drainage pipe outside the bungalow, with the child on his shoulders. Sometimes, when Malhotra returned from the University at that time of day, Hariya would stand up with the child and greet him, spreading the wrinkles of a smile across his shrivelled-up face to reveal his dark red teeth.

  Malhotra would say, ‘Tell me, brother Hariya, what’s going on?’ and continue without waiting for his response. Sometimes when he saw Lallan on the path, or when she came to take the paan box away from his room, his gaze would happen to fall on her and he would be amazed that even after becoming the mother of a child, Lallan looked no different: under her tight-fitting blouse, her waist was just as slender, her stomach was just as flat and taut, the swell of her bosom had increased only slightly and her colouring had cleared up … And then the image of his own wife would come before his eyes: after the birth of only one child her waist had lost all its elasticity.

  But his wife never again expressed the desire to keep Lallan at their house as an ayah. It really greatly irritated Mrs Malhotra that Lallan brought her child along with her to work. But now and again, Malhotra wished that Lallan would press his feet again. On summer afternoons, when his calves felt restless and he couldn’t get to sleep, this desire became even stronger. But in the afternoons, her Sweeper would come with her and then her child always lay outside crying, and she would be in a hurry to finish work quickly and go and feed her baby; and so Malhotra continued to toss and turn.

  Even though Lallan’s body hadn’t changed particularly after the birth of her child, she didn’t dress up any more. Malhotra didn’t like that child of hers one bit. A child was a child, whether it w
as a sweeper’s or a leather worker’s. Even a donkey’s child could look beautiful when it frolicked about, but Malhotra didn’t like this child of Lallan’s at all. He took after neither his mother nor his grandmother. It was his father he took after, or maybe his father’s father, because Hariya’s features were also sharp, like Lallan’s. This child’s nose was incredibly flat and wide and his face was incredibly heavy. Lallan had very lovingly named him Ramdulare. When this Ramdulare turned one year old, Lallan started bringing him with her in the mornings as well. She would spread a piece of mat on the ground and put a dirty mattress over it and lay him down on top of it. She made her little sister sit next to him and then she went and did her work. Ramdulare cried all the time. He rolled over and wallowed in the dirt beneath the mat and the mattress. His nose dripped all over his face and then he got all dirty; Malhotra felt a great aversion towards him. At first Lallan always put him on the porch outside the study, but when Malhotra asked her not to, she started putting him on the verandah of the storehouse behind the bungalow. Whenever Malhotra looked at Lallan, the image of her child came before him and he averted his eyes. When Lallan was at their house, he never went behind the bungalow and, if he ever happened upon her with the child in her lap, he turned his face away.

  This child of Lallan’s was three years old when he came down with the measles because of the changing seasons. Instead of taking him to a doctor or giving him medicine, she took him to the Kalyani Devi temple so they could prostrate themselves there. Then, she went to bathe in the Ganga. The child caught a cold. Instead of the measles going away, they went inside him and when she thought the measles were disappearing, the child actually had pneumonia. The pneumonia turned into double pneumonia, and in less than a week the child had flown out of her hands.