Hats and Doctors: Stories Read online

  Early the next morning, Keshi’s mother woke up and went to the bridal chamber. She was alarmed when she saw the door open, so she tiptoed in and parted the curtain. What she saw made her gasp. The decorated room was as empty as a mausoleum. Her eyes fell on the other door and the splinters of glass on the floor. Was there a robber in the house? She crept forward to see for herself. On the threshold she stopped dead in surprise. The newly-weds lay fast asleep on the rough unmade bed, with just the cushions of the sofa beneath them.

  The Dal Eaters

  Morning had dawned in Pahalgam with a beauty and splendour slightly more alluring than even the day before. White clouds floated about the snow-covered peaks of the mountains. The Lidder was looking very nice indeed, frothing and crashing against the rocks at dawn, through the world of countless tents large and small pitched along its banks. I picked up my walking stick and set out for a stroll by its shores.

  I must have walked only a few steps from the hotel when someone put a hand on my shoulder. I started and turned, ‘Oh, Mr Chopra! When did you get here?’

  ‘We’ve been here seven days, Artist Sahib, when did you come?’

  ‘I came the day before yesterday. I was quite tired out, so yesterday I just rested. Today I thought, why not go and take a look at the Lidder from up close.’

  ‘Isn’t the Lidder something!’ exclaimed Mr Chopra, gazing out at the river as it crashed noisily on to the rocks in its path, its foaming waters changing to an eerie light colour from its usual bezoar-stone tint. ‘If it weren’t for this, there would be no Pahalgam! You know, we bathe in the Lidder, we wash our clothes in it, we spend our afternoons there.’

  ‘How long are you thinking of staying?’

  ‘Oh, Artist Sahib, we did come here with the intention of staying only two or three days, but this brother of ours, our Bhai Sahib, won’t hear of us leaving.’ And turning suddenly, he introduced me to the man with him. ‘You don’t know him?’ he asked, pointing to me. ‘He’s a very famous artist from Delhi, his pictures should be in the President’s Mansion, but he doesn’t even care, he just makes them and hands them out to his friends. But believe you me, whoever has a painting of his has in his hands a fortune worth thousands of rupees.’

  His ‘brother’ greeted me. I grinned sheepishly. Then, introducing him to me, Mr Chopra said, ‘And this is my brother, my Bhai Sahib, he works in the visitors’ bureau here, he’s quite a gentleman. We’re staying at his place. We don’t even feel as though we’re away from home.’

  I greeted him. This time it was his turn to grin.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Mr Chopra asked me, stepping forward.

  ‘I am in room number three in this very hotel,’ I said, turning and pointing to the hotel across the way.

  ‘Why don’t you pitch a tent?’ Bhai Sahib asked.

  ‘I’ve just come for a few days, I didn’t bring the servant with me, so I’ve landed up at a hotel.’

  ‘Okay, Mr Chopra, you’ve found friends,’ said Bhai Sahib, tapping Chopra on the back. ‘I’m going now, I have to get ready to go to the office. Why don’t you take a walk along the Lidder with him!’ And then, turning to me, ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. I dabble in painting a bit myself. I’d like to show you a few of my pictures, if you’d be willing to give me some of your time …’

  ‘Of course, please bring them by.’

  And he pressed his hands together to bid us good day.

  ‘Tell me, Artist Sahib, how do you like Pahalgam?’

  Mrs Chopra was approaching from behind. As soon as the other gentleman had gone, she came forward. I greeted her and said, ‘Actually, I have just got here. How do you like it, what have you seen?’

  Their ten-year-old daughter skipped forward and grabbed my finger. I pinched her on the cheek and asked her fondly, ‘Tell me, Munni, what did you see in Srinagar?’ The girl shrank back shyly.

  ‘What could we have seen—Mr Bhalla put us through such hardships.’

  ‘Oh yes, where is “Gop Sahib”? He hasn’t come to Pahalgam?’

  ‘He did come; he stayed two days and then left.’

  With the mention of Mr Bhalla, several images passed before my eyes: the bus trip from Pathankot to Srinagar, our companions on the bus and, most of all among these, Mr Bhalla’s massive body and the faces of his wife, his sister-in-law and his children.

  Sitting on the first, second and third seats of the bus were my son, my wife and I. Across from us, were Mr Chopra and his wife. Behind them sat Mr Bhalla and his wife, each with a little daughter on their lap; and behind us sat Mr Bhalla’s sister-in-law and this same little daughter of Mr Chopra’s. Behind Mr Bhalla, a businessman from Delhi, a Mr Garg, was seated with his niece, whom we mistook to be his young wife, married in the error of old age. There were other people in the bus as well, but these were the passengers who attracted our attention and whom we later met. And of them all, Mr Bhalla was the most noteworthy.

  We might never have noticed him if his sister-in-law had not been sitting behind us; if his daughters had not left their Mummy and Daddy behind and come to sit by their Auntie; if I had not dozed off quite soundly; and if Mr Bhalla’s little girls had not been intent on outdoing one another as they attempted to follow in the footsteps of Lata Mangeshkar, the Melody Queen.

  One of Mr Bhalla’s daughters was four and the other was around five or six, but Mr Bhalla had not bought tickets for them. And the Bhallas, husband and wife, had seated the girls in their laps. My seats were reserved. A friend had asked us to stay in Pathankot for two days. His servant had stowed our baggage and everything for us. We had tarried over breakfast, arriving five minutes before the bus would leave. When the bus had set out and I saw that Mr Bhalla was seated uncomfortably, I had advised him to put one of his daughters on the other seat with my son, and the other on the seat behind me, next to her Auntie. Mr Chopra also offered, out of formality, ‘Yes, yes, my daughter is sitting here, why don’t you have one of yours sit with her!’ But Mr Bhalla shook his head. ‘No thanks, these two refuse to sit near anyone else, they always stick with us,’ he said, and as he spoke, he glanced towards the conductor.

  But the bus must have gone only a short distance when both the girls came and sat behind me, next to their Auntie. This Auntie of theirs—that is, Mr Bhalla’s sister-in-law—was, according to reports, a B.A., but neither her voice nor her dress imparted any evidence of this. Her voice was strangely crude and nasal. From behind us, we could hear her continuously delivering sermons on various subjects. And then, the thing which bothered me the most was that when the sun shone on her, she would put Mr Chopra’s daughter next to the window and sit in the child’s place herself; and when there was shade from the shelter of the mountain, she would exchange places with Mr Chopra’s daughter once again, all the while providing a continuous running commentary on the changing sights, the interesting bends in the road, the rising peaks and the flowing rivers. Although our friend from Pathankot had spared nothing in assuring our comfort, I had not slept well, partly because it was a foreign place and partly because of the heat. My eyelids kept dropping shut, but the commentary of that charming lady just never seemed to end. And then Mr Bhalla’s little girls came to sit with her. But instead of seating them next to her and making her seat a little narrower, she stood one of them near the window and the other behind me so that she would be able to see the view from the front.

  For a moment those two young maidens silently stared out the window, then suddenly one of them began to sing in a loud, hearty and untrained voice:

  You are my moon, I am your moonbeam

  And the other, looking outside, interrupted her in a lisping tone:

  My heart knows no affection, no affection

  For a little while both of them continued to sing in this manner and then suddenly the first one screamed, while still singing, ‘That little car is coming … that little car is coming …’

  I woke up once, wanting to give the girl a smack on the head, but the car had pe
rhaps disappeared around a bend—the girl fell silent. I dozed off.

  But then maybe the other one saw a steamroller driving along and she began to sing, ‘That big truck is driving along … that big truck is driving along … that big truck is driving along …’

  And perhaps the car too reappeared around the bend and the other little girl began to clap, ‘That little car is coming … that little car is coming …’

  And in my half-dozing ears I heard something like this: ‘That little car is coming … that big truck is driving along … that little car is coming … that big truck is driving along …’ I stood up, enraged, and growled softly, ‘Shush!’

  I again tried to sleep.

  The girls fell silent, or perhaps the car and the truck had disappeared around another bend. But a little while later, the two of them, figuring I had fallen asleep, began to shriek:

  Even if there’s no more moon,

  nor even stars, I’ll always be yours

  Finally I got up, wiped my hand across my face and, turning around, I remarked to Mr Bhalla, ‘Your girls sure can sing, sir! You should enrol them in some school where they can get a chance to explore their genius.’

  Mr Bhalla looked over at me and said, ‘That’s what I think too, but right now they just get their education from the movie theatre nearby.’

  Mr Chopra chuckled when he heard what Mr Bhalla had said. Perhaps he too, like me, was trying to sleep, and the awkward, harsh voices of these little Melody Queens were rattling his sleep. He laughed and, turning around, he looked at Mr Bhalla and said, ‘Why don’t you send them to the All India Radio Children’s Programme?’

  This time, it was Madam Sister-in-law who responded, ‘Actually, the Radio Programme Assistant lives right near us. The girls sing all day long. When he heard their singing, he said they would turn out to be truly great radio artists, but Brother-in-law won’t listen.’

  At this, Brother-in-law, a smile on his face, plump and round as a thick Punjabi kulcha, remarked, ‘Our home is a little far from the Radio Station. If we get a Hillman I’ll send them there.’ And pulling the smaller girl lovingly to him, he put her in his lap and said, ‘Sing us that song, sweetie, you know—

  Far off someone sang, I heard this rhythm—

  without you it is false, there are neither instruments

  nor flutes.’

  And his daughter, gleeful and encouraged, began to squawk away.

  I beat my head with my hands. Completely abandoning the idea of sleep, I began to gaze at the changing sights outside.

  We arrived at Batote at around six o’clock in the evening. I was quite tired; not only had I had trouble sleeping the night before, but then the hour or so I might have shut my eyes in the bus had been destroyed by the ear-splitting vocal stylings of those little Lata Mangeshkars—Mr Bhalla’s daughters. The bus stopped in front of a hotel where I arranged for a room for one night. There were two charpoys, a verandah and not a lot of light. It wasn’t very open, but one could get warm water in the morning. One didn’t have to go far to get tea or to eat, and the price was only two-and-a-half rupees. So we decided that we would stay right there and ordered tea.

  Mr Bhalla got out a little later with his sister-in-law and daughters, but he thought it necessary first to look at the other nearby hotels. He also took Mr Chopra and his family along with him. We had already had our things put away in the room and had drunk half a cup of tea, when, hands in pockets, he came climbing up the stairs of our hotel, leading the rest of the group. He was a fair, plump man of medium height; his big round cheeks shone as though he massaged them every day with butter. He was wearing a shirt with an open collar and dark green corduroy pants. If he had not been accompanied by his middle-aged, completely old-fashioned wife, his sister-in-law who looked illiterate despite being educated, and his dirty-faced little girls, he would have looked like some kind of fancy officer. But he had said that thing about buying a Hillman car—when I recalled that, I thought he must be a newly rich businessman, one who had himself become a bit polished, but whose household was still turning somersaults in the same old mud.

  ‘Tell me, Artist Sahib, where have you taken a room?’ Mr Bhalla asked, as he climbed the stairs.

  ‘Oh, for the time being we are drinking tea,’ I laughed. ‘When we get our strength back we’ll look for a room.’

  ‘But it’s getting on towards evening.’

  ‘And if we don’t find anything anywhere else, we’ll just stay right here,’ I said in a tired tone, ‘we’ve had our luggage stowed here. Upstairs, you can get rooms for two-and-a-half rupees each.’

  Mr Bhalla rushed upstairs taking his party with him; a little while later, he came back down, and raising his eyebrows and putting his nose in the air, he remarked, ‘They are very dark and dirty rooms, how ever did you end up here!’

  And he continued on ahead with the idea of looking for some nice, airy and open hotel.

  As soon as he had gone, my wife complained, ‘You’re just sitting there. If you had had a little nerve and looked around, wouldn’t we have found some nice cheap room?’

  ‘Madam, those people will come right back here no matter what,’ said the hotel owner, when he heard what she had said. ‘The Rest House is full. The tents are a bit farther. But for one thing, it’s cold in the tents, and for another, it costs three rupees to rent one. You’re not going to find a cheaper or more comfortable hotel in Batote than this. If you experience any inconvenience we are ready for every kind of service; but they want a room for one and a half rupees. They were upstairs bargaining for ten minutes. They can walk all over Batote, but they won’t be able to find a place cheaper than our hotel.’

  And what the hotel owner had said turned out to be true. After about an hour or so, Mr Bhalla came back with his party. In an ingratiating tone, he said, ‘Now look, Artist Sahib, we’ve decided to stay here too.’ And then, motioning towards Chopra and the rest, he said, ‘These people wanted more airy and open rooms, but I told them that one should always stick together on a journey. So I thought that we should stay where you were staying too.’

  And he took the hotel owner to one side and argued with him for fifteen or twenty minutes in whispers. At one point we heard his voice, ‘So we’ll go across the way, the rooms there are much larger than yours.’

  But the hotel owner wouldn’t budge, so, finally, Mr Bhalla took one room.

  ‘And if you require any charpoys you can get them at a fee of four annas each,’ the hotel owner informed him when he returned.

  ‘We’ll remove those from the room,’ replied Mr Bhalla as we went upstairs towards the room. ‘We can’t stand bedbugs.’ And then, looking at me, he said, ‘You had better roll your bedding out on the floor as well, Artist Sahib.’

  Mr Chopra worked in the editorial section of a well-known English daily in Delhi. He received good pay. I thought that Bhalla and Chopra had taken separate rooms, but in the morning I found out that Mr Bhalla had persuaded Mr Chopra into sharing the room with him. ‘What, brother, you want to sleep on charpoys? You sleep in the inside room. We are going to roll out our bedding on the verandah—we actually prefer the open air,’ he had said and forced Mr Chopra to spend the night with him. And in this manner, the two of them had happily spent the night on three quarters of a rupee each.

  They didn’t eat at the hotel either. When we told them that one could get very good food at that hotel, they replied carelessly that they had brought a brazier and coals, so they could fire it up and make parathas; one could get chicken cheap, so they’d make chicken and rejoice.

  Up to Banihal I was a little jealous of Mr Bhalla, but when I got to Verinag I realized how full of hot air he was. Verinag is home to one of Kashmir’s most beautiful waterfalls. The driver of the government bus had agreed to swing the bus by the falls for an extra rupee from each passenger. When we arrived there, Mr Bhalla struck out in front of everyone else, as before, to see the Verinag Spring, the source of the Jhelum River. There was a small temple as
well, by the tank. When we were just outside the spring, a pundit also joined up with us, as a guide. He took Mr Bhalla to be the richest of all of us and began to walk right behind him, telling him all the things worth knowing about the Verinag Spring.

  The spring is surrounded on all sides by an octagonal tank. Its source is extremely deep and from the surface of the tank one can’t tell that water is constantly spurting up from below, but so much water comes out of the spring every minute that not only does the large canal which becomes the Jhelum flow from it, but also smaller streams which irrigate paddy fields.

  Mr Bhalla entered, following behind the guide, as did we. If you throw a piece of bread into the pure water—the colour of bezoar stone—countless fish, black and long, appear, gliding up from far below, greedy for the rotis or biscuits which come with the arrival of new visitors, and slip back and forth at lightning speed.

  Walking along with great pomp in front of the guide, Mr Bhalla learnt—as did we, thanks to him—all the details about the spring: what year Jahangir had the tank built; when Jahangir had come here, where he sat; how deep the spring was, and so on.

  Having shown us the splendour of the spring, the guide brought us back outside. There he showed us one more spring next to the garden. The Jhelum flowed through the middle of it. On both sides there were grassy fields. There were colourful flowers, all sorts of flowering trees, and it was here that we first set eyes on the sky-kissing poplars. The guide showed us each thing in the garden—lotuses the colour of blood, the plum, cherry, apricot and apple trees. And then he took us to the other side of the garden to show us the waterfall. At the end of the garden, the Jhelum actually cascaded downward in the form of a small waterfall and that sight was very beautiful to behold indeed.