Raja Rao - Collected Stories

‘But. .’ blurted Pandopant, suddenly turning humble, ‘I only said what I heard in the city. . ’

‘City or no city, I tell you, shut up or I’ll ask the Police Inspector to arrest you on the spot!’

‘Stitch your lips, young fellow!’ cried Govindopant.

‘Govindopant,’ the Patel said, turning to the elders once again, ‘you will have your mare, won’t you? For every four telegraph poles there will be one man on foot, and for every four men on foot there will be a man on horse-back.’

‘Always your slave!’ cried Govindopant, proud.

‘Patel,’ said Dattopant eagerly, ‘shall I stand on my field by the bael tree?’ He would show the Maharaja his fields.

‘That’s in the hands of the Police Inspector. This afternoon he’ll decide about it all.’

‘But — but you’ll put in a word for me, Patel?’

‘We’ll see. . Anyway,’ concluded the Patel, turning round to go home, ‘you’ll all assemble at my house this afternoon. But, Pandopant, I warn you once again: Hold your tongue, or you’ll see I was not put into the world for nothing!’ Govindopant, Sonopant and Dattopant turned to the young man with looks severe and full of admonition. Yes, he would have to change.

That evening the whole village was merry. ‘Tom-tom — Tom-tom — Tira-tira — Tira-tira — Tom-tom— Tom-tom. . Tomorrow at cock-crow everybody will be ready by the railway line — Everybody — At cock-crow — Tom-tom— Tom-tom — Tira-tira — Tira-tira — Tom-tom — Tom-tom. . ’

In Khandesh the earth floats. Heaving and quivering, rising and shrivelling, the earth floats in a flood of heat. Men don’t walk in Khandesh. They swirl round and round upon their feet — and move forward. Birds don’t fly in Khandesh. They are carried on the billows of heat. Horses don’t move in Khandesh. The earth moves to them.

Trees indeed do grow in Khandesh. But they stand shaven and sombre like widows before their husbands’ pyre. Now and again they creak their branches — a groan, an oath, a gasp. Men don’t speak in Khandesh either. They blubber in their dreams. Trains do rush through Khandesh — clutter-clutter— clutter-clutter — they squeak and snort and disappear for fear they should fly. The long, black, quavering railway lines submit to them like a cat to its mate. There he comes — there — he comes — the monster. Bigger and bigger he swells as he rises up. He shakes and rattles and grits past you.

Trains on trains grind through Khandesh. Trains with spitting men, vomiting women and yelling children. Trains on trains — clutter-clutter, clutter-clutter — with horses and buffaloes, coal, manure, rice, cotton, wheat, pungent-smelling oranges, melting moon-guavas, and juicy, perfumed, voluptuous mangoes. Trains on trains pass by, day after day, day after day. They pass through Khandesh.

Dattopant and Sonopant and Govindopant — with coats in velvet and gold, with turbans in red and green and blue, dhotis brown as the skin, slippers with sinuous filigree-tails, tassels, kerchiefs, cummerbunds — stand by to see the trains pass by.

Men and horses, coal and cotton pass through Khandesh.

It is a wet, sultry morning. The sun is already high, and the air is spongy. The railway line leaps from the maw of heaven, bumps over the hillocks, girdles the mounds, and flinging over the depths of the ravines, hisses up, twisting its tail, flopping its head, distraught, and shooting into the gullet of the horizon curls itself round and is lost. Sonopant has been up long. Folding his bedding, he lighted his hookah and sat waiting for Dattopant to turn up as usual. When he had smoked and dozed, and dozed again, he rose and bawled across the railway line: ‘Hè, brother, hè! Wake up and let’s go to the ravine.’ ‘Hè! Wait, fellow! Coming. . ’ Dattopant rose up with an oath, and throwing his blanket by his turban, coat and cummerbund, he left his telegraph-pole and walked up to Sonopant on the other side of the line. The air was suffocating, and a storm seemed to gather somewhere across the rain of heat. The stones beneath his feet were already scorching. Far off the village rose with its mud walls brown as parched flesh. On the flagstaff a crow sat and caw-cawed. Somebody was walking down the twist of the ravine, an ass behind him. His shadow is black as congealed blood. He descends into the ravine. The ass too descends into the ravine. Whirlpools of sun haze play over them.

‘Hot!’ cried Sonopant, covering his head with his blanket, ‘very hot, brother.’

‘Ho! Blazing like a frying-pan.’

‘Let’s go to the ravine, then!’

‘When the women come, better send them for some water. It’s my young daughter-in-law who comes this morning.’

‘No, brother, I’ll go.’

‘Stay on, brother, don’t worry. That wench does nothing at home. Have to keep the women fit — like horses. Must break them!’

‘There comes Govindopant,’ cried Sonopant, seeing him come up the ravine on his horse. ‘There he is. Earlier than both of us too.’

‘He says he cannot sleep. He hears noises of trains at every beat of the pulse. . I, too, brother.’

‘I too, brother. Last night what do you think happened? I thought I heard a train. I dressed myself up and said, this is surely the train of the Maharaja, for, I heard the Patel say, they may pass by even at night.’

‘At night! No, brother. We wouldn’t be here if they passed by at night.’

‘Of course not. Maybe. I don’t know.’ Sonopant was perplexed.

‘Anyway, I dreamed it was the train. Far off I saw a light moving. It was coming — coming, coming, I heard it sniff and cough and jog. Then I put my ear to the ground. Train! No train. It was only a star hanging between the leaves of the tree.’

‘But look here, brother. Wake me up, brother, if there is a train. A whistle there, and you shout, “Hè! you buffalo — the train — the train. . ” Yes, brother! And if I do not answer send a stone straight at my head. If the Maharaja. . ’

Govindopant joined them after tying the horse to his telegraph-pole. Their women usually brought food together— unless they quarrelled on the way,

‘Sit down, brother,’ said Dattopant, ‘and tell us if you know when the Maharaja comes.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I cannot sleep till I’ve seen the Maharaja. If he does not come I’ll go to Kamalpur, and ask for an audience. Raja Sivaji always gave audience to every subject that asked for it.’ Dattopant looked at him, burning with jealousy. As though he couldn’t go to Kamalpur too, and ask for not one audience but a thousand. There was that affair about Sona’s death. And the Parsi and the Police Inspector.

At last the women arrived. They had a bell-metal pot in each hand, containing jawari bread and a chilli or two and salt. Dattopant’s last daughter-in-law was shy. Besides, since she lost her husband — of cholera or police injuries, she did not know, nor anybody either — she hardly ever opened her mouth. She put the food before Dattopant and hid herself behind a tree. The two other women — Sonopant’s old wife, and Govindopant’s elder daughter — were still a few yards away.

‘Hè, daughter! Go and fetch some water from the ravine,’ cried Dattopant. The daughter-in-law came back, and stood respectfully in front of him.

‘Some water, woman, some water to gargle our mouths with!’

‘The vessel?’

‘Oh, put the food on a cloth, and get it in the pot. Quick. But how is your yelling-one now?’

‘It still coughs.’

‘To the monster with your coughs and convulsions. Always the same! Women — women.’

Meanwhile the daughter-in-law slowly bent down, put the bread and chillies on Sonopant’s folded bedding, and went to bring the water. The two other women arrived, and placing the vessels in front of the men, retired behind the tree to have a nap. They say, when men chatter, women sleep, when women quarrel, men snore!