Hats and Doctors: Stories Read online

  Chetan tried to read his book, but he felt as though something were pressing down on his head. His eyes didn’t feel at all sleepy but they stung. A line of pain ran above his eyebrows and his body was weary. He lay back with his legs stretched out on the berth across from him and closed his eyes.

  But he didn’t fall asleep. He could hear everything: the conversation of the Pahari women, the mortified laugh of the lusting man and the rattling of the train in the background.

  The man was joking with the Mangal Dweep Empress in a vulgar manner and she continued to put him off with the same contemptuous smile. Just then, he heard another voice, ‘Arré, go sit near her, why are you lying over there and giggling?’

  Chetan opened his heavy tired eyelids and saw that another man had woken up and was sitting up and urging the first one on. But the first man didn’t have the nerve to go and sit near the haughty woman.

  Just then the train stopped at a station. The first man got up and bought some sweets. He took the packet and went and sat near her. He bared his dirty yellow teeth in a grin as he held out the packet of sweets with one hand and with the other he held her knees and squeezed them to his side, a lustful gleam flickering in his eyes.

  Chetan’s half-closed eyes opened completely.

  The Empress of Mangal Dweep raised an eyebrow and looked towards the packet. Then, with contemptuous hatred, she suddenly propped herself up on the bedding with her elbow, freed her knees from his grip and pulled back, kicking the packet so hard the sweets flew out the window leaving a few reminders of his folly on his face.

  ‘They’re prostitutes!’ the other man said. ‘They’ve earned their money and they’re going on furlough.’ He laughed.

  The first man, rather chagrined, wiped his face and went and sat in his seat. The sparking lust in his eyes had grown dim, like extinguished coals.

  Chetan closed his eyes.

  Furlough!—that sweet-sounding English word! On his day off from the office, he never even went as far as Ganpat Road, forget about Bengali Gali. And if he had to go to Anarkali Bazaar, no matter how far he had to walk, he wouldn’t even turn his face towards the road going to the office. He felt strangely sympathetic towards the prostitutes. They had gathered up their limbs, tired, broken, slack from a whole year of selling their bodies, of leaving them to the mercy of violent hungry beasts; and now these poor creatures, worn down by fatigue, were going to get some rest. And that greedy man … that low-life! An impotent rage began to burn in Chetan’s mind like a bonfire … But his eyelids were growing heavy, his limbs relaxed, and the bonfire grew dimmer with each passing moment. He leaned his head against the window, his arms fell to his sides and he fell fast asleep.

  The Insane Asylum

  The three of them—Chanda’s mother, Chanda and her husband—walked quietly along Lawrence Road in the blazing May afternoon. They were very far outside the city, and across the mall.

  Chanda’s mother was thinking. Why should our life always stay the same when no one else’s does? Climbing up only to fall down—is this all that’s planned for mankind? And then what does mankind have to do with all these ups and downs? It’s all up to the All-Powerful Master—if He wants, He can make His toys climb to the highest peaks—or He can throw them to the very depths. What business do we have feeling sad about it?

  She walked along, trying to steady her mind as she considered this. It was usually like this—she would try as best she could to suppress the anxiety she felt in her sorrowful heart, but her heart never agreed to it. And even now, in the streaming sunlight—with sweat pouring from her head down to her toes and not a tree in sight on the street, and the hard part of the trip still to come—she kept coming up with all sorts of ideas: Let the Master watch our games of joy and sorrow if He wants to; let Him enjoy watching them; He can watch these games even if He cheers people up when they’ve been sad. But when you get ground to a paste in the pestle of sorrow after having once felt joy, what a terrible punishment it is, what terrible torture. Why doesn’t He raise man up instead? But then she always arrived at the answer to her own question: If He only raised man up, who would enjoy the fruits of their karma from previous births? On several occasions, overwhelmed with sorrow, she had invited death, but death doesn’t come just like that. No one could die until such time as only one hundredth of the bad karma from the previous birth is left. So, how could she expect death to come to her? She had given birth to five children and, with her own hands, soothed them to eternal sleep in the cold earth of the cremation ground; she had watched a healthy business go to ruin before her eyes; she had tolerated barbs from those relations she had raised with her own blood, as well as this misfortune of her husband’s after they had lost their home. Chanda’s mother sighed deeply: who knew how much more sorrow was written in her fate that she had still to endure? What was there left to see? What karmic burdens remained?

  Chanda’s mother stopped in the shadow of a bungalow wall. She sighed deeply as she wiped the sweat dripping down her neck with the edge of her dirty dupatta. Chanda and her husband went and stood near her. For a few moments the three of them stood there silently, each absorbed in his own thoughts and, then, just as silently, they set out again.

  Chanda was angry with her mother, very angry. Her father was suffering and his daughter had not even been informed! The joyful days of childhood passed before her eyes, in which only one thing, the boundless love of her father, shone in the sky of her memory like a brilliant star. Her father had run a brick oven in Bhogpur. It did quite well. He was well-respected in the village. She was very small then, she had been born to her parents after they had suffered the loss of many children; she was their only surviving offspring! Her father used to carry her around. At that time in Bhogpur, the bridge for the railway line had not yet been constructed over the rain drain, which they called the ‘cho’. During the rainy season, when it rained in the mountains, this cho would begin to flow with a charming drunken gait, as though it had found its lost youth; it usually washed out the railway line. Chanda found it enchanting to watch the crazy dance of the cho and, whenever the line washed out, she would insist that her father walk with her along the water’s edge. She especially enjoyed watching the transshipment, when travellers would get down from a train stopping on one side of the water and cross the cho to board the trains waiting on the other side; as they lifted their packages on their heads, held up their pajamas and dhotis, and kept their groups together.

  In the afternoon, sitting in the shadow of a dense banyan tree, her father would look over his accounting books. She would come along and playfully pick up his register and throw it to one side, then climb into his lap and demand that he play with her in the cool breeze under the dense shisham trees. Her father would get up quietly and begin to play with her in the shade of the trees along the long road. At such moments, a thoughtful smile always danced about his lips and he would laugh and say again and again, ‘You really are a pest, Chanda!’

  After this, although his financial situation slowly grew worse—several times he was forced to close down his oven and go elsewhere because of the selfishness and ingratitude of his older brother and his maternal uncle—he never let his troubles affect Chanda. She remembered when she used to go to school, she wore more ornaments than even a newly wed bride. She also remembered that day when her father had sold his operational oven to his older brother because he did not have enough money to pay for her marriage, and thus, in his old age, he had chosen to present himself as a tasty morsel to that terrifying python, unemployment.

  And no one had even informed her when this same father of hers had become so ill that he had taken leave of his senses. She had been enjoying the attractions of Lahore with her husband, while her father … Just thinking about it, her eyes filled with tears. She looked at her mother—her broken-down body, her lustreless eyes and dirty clothing—dragging herself along in her shoes with the worn heels, wrapped up in her woes and overwhelmed by the flood of misfortunes that surrounded
her.

  ‘Mother, is he in his right mind now?’ Chanda asked.

  Her mother started, as though she had been sleeping, ‘Yes, the last time I went there, he recognized people.’

  ‘And Mother, they don’t make him work, do they?’ Chanda asked again.

  ‘No, dear, he doesn’t work at all, the chowkidar was saying that day that everyone else works, but Panditji doesn’t work, he spends the whole day in prayer.’

  ‘And Mother, how is his health?’

  ‘He seems better than before, Daughter!’

  A dense vine with red flowers blooming on it clung to a tree next to the gate of a bungalow. As though by some silent consensus, the three of them went and stood in its shade to rest a little.

  Since Chanda’s husband was wearing a suit and hat and Chanda herself was attired in a lovely sari, they didn’t have the courage to sit down though they were tired. But Chanda’s mother had no such hesitation; she was exhausted—she put the vessel she was holding on the ground and sat down right where she was in the warm dust.

  Chetan, Chanda’s husband, glanced at his mother-in-law surreptitiously: she had dusty, dry, brittle hair, drooping eyelids, loose wrinkles, rough hands and feet, and a face grown black from too much sorrow and work. He forced himself to suppress a deep sigh as the past several years flashed before his eyes in moments.

  Before the wedding, he had built castles in the air about what life would be like with his in-laws, inspired by the way they had treated him—his mother-in-law’s love, deeper, more affectionate, more open than that of even his own mother; her face blooming with pride when she praised her son-in-law; the entreaties, sweet scoldings and chiding as she fed him. What happy fantasies those had been. But how quickly the castles had collapsed! Even during the days of the wedding, he had felt that the atmosphere was a bit strained. The members of the wedding procession were given a good meal. The appropriate dowry was given as well and there were no flaws in anyone’s behaviour; but nonetheless, it was evident that someone was bearing a heavy burden and there seemed to be too large a measure of etiquette and formalities. He saw that his mother-in-law was depressed, ground down, fearful; and he found his father-in-law silent, serious, rather lost. Only once, when it came time to bid his daughter farewell and Chanda wept loudly and threw arms around her father’s neck, did he see a sorrowful smile on the face of that mild-mannered and serious man, and he heard him say, ‘Now, now, don’t be a child—there, there, go on, now go and sit in the tonga.’

  Remembering those moments, Chetan sighed. His mother-in-law stood up and they set out again. Lawrence Road had ended and they had reached Jail Road. The three of them quietly turned on to Jail Road. Chetan again became lost in the pages of the past.

  After the wedding, when he had gone once or twice to his in-laws, although he had received a warm welcome, he had felt a lack of friendliness and finally, one day, he had learnt the reason for this. Chanda had pressed her hands together and, choking back her tears, she had told him everything and begged him to forgive her parents. She told him how successful her father used to be, but that he had put down everything he had into the wedding and now neither his house was his own, nor his shop. He didn’t even have his own oven and felt ashamed to speak with Chetan.

  Chetan had always felt sympathy toward his father-in-law for some reason—there was such tenderness in his face. When he found out about all this, about how his father-in-law felt troubled by Chetan’s visits, he started to visit his in-laws less often and kept Chanda in Lahore more. At first he had gone with her to their house sometimes, but it had been a year since he had last gone. And then, one day, all of a sudden, he had heard from Chanda that her father had gone crazy and was locked up in an insane asylum in Lahore, and that her mother was spending her days working in the kitchen of a wealthy Seth’s house.

  He recalled how he had stood there speechless. The castle of his hopes had already collapsed, but that even its ruins should be razed—he had never considered such a thing possible.

  A childhood girlfriend of Chanda’s also lived in Lahore. She had just come back from her parents’ home so Chanda went to see her to get news of her own mother and father. It was only then that she had found out. Her girlfriend had said, scowling, ‘You’re a fine one, aren’t you? There your father is, rotting away in an insane asylum, and you haven’t even gone over there to find see him! There’s been a lot of talk in the neighbourhood.’

  That day Chanda had said to Chetan, weeping, ‘Let me see my mother, I want to ask her everything.’ And that very evening, as soon as it had fallen dark, Chetan had taken her to the Seth’s house. When the two of them had seen Chanda’s mother they had begged her to leave her work at the Seth’s and come live with them. After all, what real difference is there between a son-in-law and one’s own son? But she would not agree; and she told them that her husband had started to babble incoherently because he had been insulted by his brother; perhaps he had also tried to hit his brother; and then that cruel man had had him committed to the insane asylum. But no, he wasn’t really so very crazy—which had made the two of them feel a little better.

  They leaned against the wall, standing in the semi-darkness of the dim light of the lane. Chetan pitied his mother-in-law, his wife and, most of all, himself. It was decided that if his father-in-law came to his senses, they would meet with the doctor and get him discharged from the insane asylum. Then they would get a separate house and keep him there, and Chanda’s mother would also live there—even she agreed to this. That was why they were going to the insane asylum on this blazing afternoon.

  Chetan sighed deeply. His heart had filled with a sharp hatred for his mother-in-law—or not really towards his mother-in-law, but towards the old ways and customs. Chanda’s mother would not agree to go in a tonga. Perhaps she didn’t have the money, or maybe she did, but it was all spent in getting shelled almonds, sugar lumps and milk for her husband and, since it was a sin to take money from one’s daughter, they had come walking three miles in this doomsday sunlight.

  Outside the insane asylum the three of them sat down in a small garden.

  The gate was not yet open and the doctor whom Chetan planned to meet had not yet come, so they had to wait for a while.

  It was a little cooler here beneath the dense trees. The day was also drawing to a close and the breeze began to blow sweetly. Chanda’s mother put the packet of almond nutmeats on one side and the vessel of milk on the other and lay down on the grass. Looking quietly at the blossoms on the mango tree, her imagination had taken wing and flown off to beautiful gardens: If you get sorrow after pleasure and pleasure after sorrow, then, after experiencing so much sorrow, days of happiness must certainly be coming. Twice a week she had permission to see her husband. On those days, she would take whatever money she had managed to save from work and buy almonds, remove the nutmeats from the shells, put sugar lumps in some milk and come here, crossing these long, flat, sizzling streets on foot in the harsh sunlight. She would feed him the almonds and the milk with great love and devotion. It was just because of the lack of good food and the cruel behaviour of his relatives that his mind had gone a little bad; that was the real reason. Imagine someone who has always had milk, cream, yoghurt and buttermilk, having to live for so long deprived of good food. The humiliation! She would feed him an entire pav of almond nutmeats, then mix the sugar lumps into the milk and feed it to him, and she would imagine that when he got well and came home, she would save up some money and have him open a small grocery shop, and the few days that were left in their lives would pass in comfort.

  As she lay on the grass, Chanda was staring at the huge, tall iron fence across from them, where a Sikh sentry stood guard. Inside, there were countless rooms and, in some room, her father was locked up because he had gone crazy. As he lay in his room in this heat, did he remember the bygone days? He must certainly think about his daughter! He must definitely think her cruel. For her part, she had had no idea of all this. Chanda’s eyes filled
with tears and she covered her face with the edge of her sari and began to cry.

  Chetan leaned back, resting both his hands on the grass, and mentally rehearsed the conversation he would have with the doctor after seeing his father-in-law. He did have a recommendation letter but, all the same, he knew that he would have to tell the doctor why it was necessary to take his wife’s father out of the insane asylum and bring him home, and he was turning over in his mind a few strategies and clever sentences he could use in English.

  At four o’clock, the large gate opened and a band of lunatics emerged, wearing long, loose shirts made of thick, rough cloth and tight pajamas that did not reach their ankles. Some were speaking to themselves, others gesticulated murderously, others just laughed for no reason. The sentry who was with them told them to pick up some flower pots—so they all picked them up—and then he went off with them perhaps to have them put the pots down somewhere else. Another group emerged in a similar fashion and began to water the flower pots. They were all crazy; they made strange gestures; but all the same, they did all the work like trained animals. Watching all this made Chanda agitated; her heart was in her throat. Her father too must have to work, and this merciless sentry—how he must beat the lunatics to make them work! Just the way they do with wild animals—those who can’t use their minds can still learn many tasks for fear of punishment. She would not let her father stay here for even one instant longer. With this thought in mind, she shook the shoulder of her husband, who was staring up at the sky, absorbed in some deep thought, and said, ‘Tell the sentry to arrange for us to see him.’

  Chetan started and got up. He smoothed down his collar and tie and went to the gate. He introduced himself to the sentry and said that they were here to see Pandit Dinbandhu and, as he spoke, he took him to one side and put a rupee note in his hand.