DUST ON MOUNTAIN: COLLECTED STORIES (7 page)

She came up my steps nearly every day and joined me at the window. There was a lot of excitement to be had in our world, especially when the rains broke.

At the first rumblings, women would rush outside to retrieve the washing from the clothesline and if there was a breeze, to chase a few garments across the compound. When the rains came, they came with a vengeance, making a bog of the garden and a river of the path. A cyclist would come riding furiously down the path, an elderly gentleman would be having difficulty with an umbrella, naked children would be frisking about in the rain. Sometimes Koki would run out to the roof, and shout and dance in the rain. And the rain would come through the open door and window of the room, flooding the floor and making an island of the bed.

But the window was more fun than anything else. It gave us the power of detachment: we were deeply interested in the life around us, but we were not involved in it.

‘It is like a cinema,’ said Koki. ‘The window is the screen, the world is the picture.’

Soon the mangoes were ripe, and Koki was in the branches of the mango tree as often as she was in my room. From the window I had a good view of the tree, and we spoke to each other from the same height. We ate far too many mangoes, at least five a day.

‘Let’s make a garden on the roof,’ suggested Koki. She was full of ideas like this.

‘And how do you propose to do that?’ I asked.

‘It’s easy. We bring up mud and bricks and make the flower beds. Then we plant the seeds. We’ll grow all sorts of flowers.’

‘The roof will fall in,’ I predicted.

But it didn’t. We spent two days carrying buckets of mud up the steps to the roof and laying out the flower beds. It was very hard work, but Koki did most of it. When the beds were ready, we had the opening ceremony. Apart from a few small plants collected from the garden below, we had only one species of seeds—pumpkin …

We planted the pumpkin seeds in the mud, and felt proud of ourselves.

But it rained heavily that night, and in the morning I discovered that everything—except the bricks—had been washed away.

So we returned to the window.

A mina had been in a fight—with a crow perhaps—and the feathers had been knocked off its head. A bougainvillea that had been climbing the wall had sent a long green shoot in through the window.

Koki said, ‘Now we can’t shut the window without spoiling the creeper.’

‘Then we will never close the window,’ I said.

And we let the creeper into the room.

The rains passed, and an autumn wind came whispering through the branches of the banyan tree. There were red leaves on the ground, and the wind picked them up and blew them about, so that they looked like butterflies. I would watch the sun rise in the morning; the sky all red until its first rays splashed the windowsill and crept up the walls of the room. And in the evening, Koki and I watched the sun go down in a sea of fluffy clouds; sometimes the clouds were pink and sometimes orange; they were always coloured clouds framed in the window.

‘I’m going tomorrow,’ said Koki one evening.

I was too surprised to say anything.

‘You stay here for ever, don’t you?’ she said.

I remained silent.

‘When I come again next year you will still be here, won’t you?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But the window will still be here.’

‘Oh, do be here next year,’ she said, ‘or someone will close the window!’

In the morning the tonga was at the door, and the servant, the aunt and Koki were in it. Koki waved to me at my window. Then the driver flicked the reins, the wheels of the carriage creaked and rattled, the bell jingled. Down the path went the tonga, down the path and through the gate, and all the time Koki waved; and from the gate I must have looked like a ghost, standing alone at the high window, amongst the bougainvillea.

When the tonga was out of sight, I took the spray of bougainvillea in my hand and pushed it out of the room. Then I closed the window. It would be opened only when the spring and Koki came again.

N
athu grumbled to himself as he swept the steps of the Pipalnagar Bank, owned by Seth Govind Ram. He used the small broom hurriedly and carelessly, and the dust, after rising in a cloud above his head, settled down again on the steps. As Nathu was banging his pan against a dustbin, Sitaram, the washerman’s son, passed by.

Sitaram was on his delivery round. He had a bundle of freshly pressed clothes balanced on his head.

‘Don’t raise such dust!’ he called out to Nathu. ‘Are you annoyed because they are still refusing to pay you an extra two rupees a month?’

‘I don’t wish to talk about it,’ complained the sweeper boy. ‘I haven’t even received my regular pay. And this is the twentieth of the month. Who would think a bank would hold up a poor man’s salary? As soon as I get my money, I’m off! Not another week do I work in this place.’ And Nathu banged the pan against the dustbin several times, just to emphasize his point and give himself confidence.

‘Well, I wish you luck,’ said Sitaram. ‘I’ll keep a lookout for any jobs that might suit you.’ And he plodded barefoot along the road, the big bundle of clothes hiding most of his head and shoulders.

At the fourth home he visited, Sitaram heard the lady of the house mention that she was in need of a sweeper. Tying his bundle together, he said, ‘I know of a sweeper boy who’s looking for work. He can start from next month. He’s with the bank just now but they aren’t giving him his pay, and he wants to leave.’

‘Is that so?’ said Mrs Srivastava. ‘Well, tell him to come and see me tomorrow.’

And Sitaram, glad that he had been of service to both a customer and his friend, hoisted his bag on his shoulders and went his way.

Mrs Srivastava had to do some shopping. She gave instructions to the ayah about looking after the baby, and told the cook not to be late with the midday meal. Then she set out for the Pipalnagar marketplace, to make her customary tour of the cloth shops.

A large, shady tamarind tree grew at one end of the bazaar, and it was here that Mrs Srivastava found her friend Mrs Bhushan sheltering from the heat. Mrs Bhushan was fanning herself with a large handkerchief. She complained of the summer which, she affirmed, was definitely the hottest in the history of Pipalnagar. She then showed Mrs Srivastava a sample of the cloth she was going to buy, and for five minutes they discussed its shade, texture and design. Having exhausted this topic, Mrs Srivastava said, ‘Do you know, my dear, that Seth Govind Ram’s bank can’t even pay its employees? Only this morning I heard a complaint from their sweeper, who hasn’t received his wages for over a month!’

‘Shocking!’ remarked Mrs Bhushan. ‘If they can’t pay the sweeper they must be in a bad way. None of the others could be getting paid either.’

She left Mrs Srivastava at the tamarind tree and went in search of her husband, who was sitting in front of Kamal Kishore’s photographic shop, talking to the owner.

‘So there you are!’ cried Mrs Bhushan. ‘I’ve been looking for you for almost an hour. Where did you disappear?’

‘Nowhere,’ replied Mr Bhushan. ‘Had you remained stationary in one shop, I might have found you. But you go from one shop to another, like a bee in a flower garden.’

‘Don’t start grumbling. The heat is trying enough. I don’t know what’s happening to Pipalnagar. Even the bank’s about to go bankrupt.’

‘What’s that?’ said Kamal Kishore, sitting up suddenly. ‘Which bank?’

‘Why the Pipalnagar Bank, of course. I hear they have stopped paying employees. Don’t tell me you have an account there, Mr Kishore?’

‘No, but my neighbour has!’ he exclaimed; and he called out over the low partition to the keeper of the barber shop next door. ‘Deep Chand, have you heard the latest? The Pipalnagar Bank is about to collapse. You better get your money out as soon as you can!’

Deep Chand, who was cutting the hair of an elderly gentleman, was so startled that his hand shook and he nicked his customer’s right ear. The customer yelped in pain and distress: pain, because of the cut, and distress, because of the awful news he had just heard. With one side of his neck still unshaven, he sped across the road to the general merchant’s store where there was a telephone. He dialled Seth Govind Ram’s number. The Seth was not at home. Where was he, then? The Seth was holidaying in Kashmir. Oh, was that so? The elderly gentleman did not believe it. He hurried back to the barber’s shop and told Deep Chand: ‘The bird has flown! Seth Govind Ram has left town. Definitely, it means a collapse.’ And then he dashed out of the shop, making a beeline for his office and chequebook.

The news spread through the bazaar with the rapidity of forest fire. At the general merchant’s it circulated amongst the customers, and then spread with them in various directions, to the betel seller, the tailor, the free vendor, the jeweller, the beggar sitting on the pavement.

Old Ganpat, the beggar, had a crooked leg. He had been squatting on the pavement for years, calling for alms. In the evening someone would come with a barrow and take him away. He had never been known to walk. But now, on learning that the bank was about to collapse, Ganpat astonished everyone by leaping to his feet and actually running at top speed in the direction of the bank. It soon became known that he had a thousand rupees in savings!

Men stood in groups at street corners discussing the situation. Pipalnagar seldom had a crisis, seldom or never had floods, earthquakes or drought; and the imminent crash of the Pipalnagar Bank set everyone talking and speculating and rushing about in a frenzy. Some boasted of their farsightedness, congratulating themselves on having already taken out their money, or on never having put any in; others speculated on the reasons for the crash, putting it all down to excesses indulged in by Seth Govind Ram. The Seth had fled the state, said one. He had fled the country, said another. He was hiding in Pipalnagar, said a third. He had hanged himself from the tamarind tree, said a fourth, and had been found that morning by the sweeper boy.

By noon the small bank had gone through all its ready cash, and the harassed manager was in a dilemma. Emergency funds could only be obtained from another bank some thirty miles distant, and he wasn’t sure he could persuade the crowd to wait until then. And there was no way of contacting Seth Govind Ram on his houseboat in Kashmir.

People were turned back from the counters and told to return the following day. They did not like the sound of that. And so they gathered outside, on the steps of the bank, shouting, ‘Give us our money or we’ll break in!’ and ‘Fetch the Seth, we know he’s hiding in a safe deposit locker!’ Mischief makers who didn’t have a paisa in the bank joined the crowd and aggravated the mood. The manager stood at the door and tried to placate them. He declared that the bank had plenty of money but no immediate means of collecting it; he urged them to go home and come back the next day.

‘We want it now!’ chanted some of the crowd. ‘Now, now, now!’

And a brick hurtled through the air and crashed through the plate glass window of the Pipalnagar Bank.

Nathu arrived next morning to sweep the steps of the bank. He saw the refuse and the broken glass and the stones cluttering the steps. Raising his hands in a gesture of horror and disgust he cried: ‘Hooligans! Sons of donkeys! As though it isn’t bad enough to be paid late, it seems my work has also to be increased!’ He smote the steps with his broom scattering the refuse.

‘Good morning, Nathu,’ said the washerman’s boy, getting down from his bicycle. ‘Are you ready to take up a new job from the first of next month? You’ll have to I suppose, now that the bank is going out of business.’

‘How’s that?’ said Nathu.

‘Haven’t you heard? Well, you’d better wait here until half the population of Pipalnagar arrives to claim their money.’ And he waved cheerfully—he did not have a bank account—and sped away on his cycle.

Nathu went back to sweeping the steps, muttering to himself. When he had finished his work, he sat down on the highest step, to await the arrival of the manager. He was determined to get his pay.

‘Who would have thought the bank would collapse!’ he said to himself, and looked thoughtfully into the distance. ‘I wonder how it could have happened …’

I
don’t quite know why I found that particular town so heartless. Perhaps because of its crowded, claustrophobic atmosphere, its congested and insanitary lanes, its weary people … One day I found the children of the bazaar tormenting a deformed, retarded boy.

About a dozen boys, between the ages of eight and fourteen, were jeering at the retard, who was making things worse for himself by confronting the gang and shouting abuses at them. The boy was twelve or thirteen, judging by his face, but had the height of an eight- or nine-year-old. His legs were thick, short and bowed. He had a small chest but his arms were long, making him rather ape-like in his attitude. His forehead and cheeks were pitted with the scars of smallpox. He was ugly by normal standards, and the gibberish he spoke did nothing to discourage his tormentors. They threw mud and stones at him, while keeping well out of his reach. Few can be more cruel than a gang of schoolboys in high spirits.

I was an uneasy observer of the scene. I felt that I ought to do something to put a stop to it, but lacked the courage to interfere. It was only when a stone struck the boy on the face, cutting open his cheek, that I lost my normal discretion and ran in amongst the boys, shouting at them and clouting those I could reach. They scattered like defeated soldiery.

I was surprised at my own daring, and rather relieved when the boys did not return. I took the frightened, angry boy by the hand, and asked him where he lived. He drew away from me, but I held on to his fat little fingers and told him I would take him home. He mumbled something incoherent and pointed down a narrow lane. I led him away from the bazaar.

I said very little to the boy because it was obvious that he had some defect of speech. When he stopped outside a door set in a high wall, I presumed that we had come to his house.