Time Stops At Shamli & Other Stories Read online

  I would definitely leave Shamli the next morning. Another day in the company of these people and I would be behaving like them. Perhaps I was already doing so! I remembered the tonga- driver’s words, ‘Don’t stay too long in Shamli or you will never leave!’

  When the rain came, it was not with a preliminary patter or shower, but all at once, sweeping across the forest like a massive wall, and I could hear it in the trees long before it reached the house. Then it came crashing down on the corrugated roofing, and the hailstones hit the window panes with a hard metallic sound, so that I thought the glass would break. The sound of thunder was like the booming of big guns, and the lightning kept playing over the garden, at every flash of lightning I sighted the swing under the tree, rocking and leaping in the air as though some invisible, agitated being was sitting on it. I wondered about Kiran. Was she sleeping through all this, blissfully unconcerned, or was she lying awake in bed, starting at every clash of thunder, as I was; or was she up and about, exulting in the storm? I half expected to see her come running

  through the trees, through the rain, to stand on the swing with her hair blowing wild in the wind, laughing at the thunder and the angry skies. Perhaps I did see her, perhaps she was there. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she were some forest nymph, living in the hole of a tree, coming out sometime to play in the garden.

  A crash, nearer and louder than any thunder so far, made me sit up in the bed with a start. Perhaps lightning had struck the house. I turned on the switch, but the light didn’t come on. A tree must have fallen across the line.

  I heard voices in the passage, the voices of several people. I stepped outside to find out what had happened, and started at the appearance of a ghostly apparition right in front of me; it was Mr Dayal standing on the threshold in an oversized pyjama suit, a candle in his hand.

  ‘I came to wake you,’ he said. ‘This storm.’

  He had the irritating habit of stating the obvious.

  ‘Yes, the storm,’ I said. ‘Why is everybody up?’

  ‘The back wall has collapsed and part of the roof has fallen in. We’d better spend the night in the lounge, it is the safest room. This is a very old building,’ he added apologetically.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I am coming.’

  The lounge was lit by two candles; one stood over the piano, the other on a small table near the couch. Miss Deeds was on the couch, Lin was at the piano-stool, looking as though he would start playing Stravinsky any moment, and Mr Dayal was fussing about the room. Sushila was standing at a window, looking out at the stormy night. I went to the window and touched her, She didn’t look round or say anything. The lightning flashed and her dark eyes were pools of smouldering fire.

  ‘What time will you be leaving?’ she said.

  ‘The tonga will come for me at seven.’

  ‘If I come,’ she said. ‘If I come with you, I will be at the station before the train leaves.’

  ‘How will you get there?’ I asked, and hope and excitement rushed over me again.

  ‘I will get there,’ she said. ‘I will get there before you. But if I am not there, then do not wait, do not come back for me. Go on your way. It will mean I do not want to come. Or I will be there.’

  ‘But are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t stand near me now. Don’t speak to me unless you have to.’ She squeezed my fingers, then drew her hand away. I sauntered over to the next window, then back into the centre of the room. A gust of wind blew through a cracked window-pane and put out the candle near the couch.

  ‘Damn the wind,’ said Miss Deeds.

  The window in my room had burst open during the night, and there were leaves and branches strewn about the floor. I sat down on the damp bed, and smelt eucalyptus. The earth was red, as though the storm had bled it all night.

  After a little while I went into the verandah with my suitcase, to wait for the tonga. It was then that I saw Kiran under the trees. Kiran’s long black pigtails were tied up in a red ribbon, and she looked fresh and clean like the rain and the red earth. She stood looking seriously at me.

  ‘Did you like the storm?’ she asked.

  ‘Some of the time,’ I said. ‘I’m going soon. Can I do anything for you?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to the end of the world. I’m looking for Major Roberts, have you seen him anywhere?’

  ‘There is no Major Roberts,’ she said perceptively. ‘Can I come with you to the end of the world?’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘Oh, we won’t take them.’

  ‘They might be annoyed if you go off on your own.’

  ‘I can stay on my own. I can go anywhere.’

  ‘Well, one day I’ll come back here and I’ll take you everywhere and no one will stop us. Now is there anything else I can do for you?’

  ‘I want some flowers, but I can’t reach them,’ she pointed to a hibiscus tree that grew against the wall. It meant climbing the wall to reach the flowers. Some of the red flowers had fallen during the night and were floating in a pool of water.

  ‘All right,’ I said and pulled myself up on the wall. I smiled down into Kiran’s serious upturned face. ‘I’ll throw them to you and you can catch them.’

  I bent a branch, but the wood was young and green, and I had to twist it several times before it snapped.

  ‘I hope nobody minds,’ I said, as I dropped the flowering

  branch to Kiran.

  ‘It’s nobody’s tree,’ she said.

  ‘Sure?’

  She nodded vigorously. ‘Sure, don’t worry.’

  I was working for her and she felt immensely capable of protecting me. Talking and being with Kiran, I felt a nostalgic longing for the childhood: emotions that had been beautiful because they were never completely understood.

  ‘Who is your best friend?’ I said.

  ‘Daya Ram,’ she replied. ‘I told you so before.’

  She was certainly faithful to her friends.

  ‘And who is the second best?’

  She put her finger in her mouth to consider the question; her head dropped sideways in concentration.

  ‘I’ll make you the second best,’ she said.

  I dropped the flowers over her head. ‘That is so kind of you. I’m proud to be your second best.’

  I heard the tonga bell, and from my perch on the wall saw the carriage coming down the driveway. ‘That’s for me,’ I said. ‘I must go now.’

  I jumped down the wall. And the sole of my shoe came off at last.

  ‘I knew that would happen,’ I said.

  ‘Who cares for shoes,’ said Kiran.

  ‘Who cares,’ I said.

  I walked back to the verandah, and Kiran walked beside me, and stood in front of the hotel while I put my suitcase in the tonga.

  ‘You nearly stayed one day too late,’ said the tonga-driver.‘Half the hotel has come down, and tonight the other half will come down.’

  I climbed into the back seat. Kiran stood on the path, gazing intently at me.

  ‘I’ll see you again,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll see you in Iceland or Japan,’ she said. ‘I’m going everywhere.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘maybe you will.’

  We smiled, knowing and understanding each other’s importance. In her bright eyes I saw something old and wise. The tonga-driver cracked his whip, the wheels cracked, the

  carriage rattled down the path. We kept waving to each other. In Kiran’s hand was a spring of hibiscus. As she waved, the blossoms fell apart and danced a little in breeze.

  *

  Shamli station looked the same as it had the day before. The same train stood at the same platform, and the same dogs prowled beside the fence. I waited on the platform until the bell clanged for the train to leave, but Sushila did not come.

  Somehow, I was not disappointed. I had never really expected her to come. Unattainable, Sushila would always be more bewitching and beautiful than if
she were mine.

  Shamli would always be there. And I could always come back, looking for Major Roberts.

  Most Beautiful

  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 small-pox. 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 line. 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.

  The door was opened by a young woman. The boy immediately threw his arms around her and burst into tears. I had not been prepared for the boy’s mother. Not only did she look perfectly normal physically, but she was also strikingly handsome. She must have been about thirty-five.

  She thanked me for bringing her son home, and asked me into the house. The boy withdrew into a corner of the sitting-room, and sat on his haunches in gloomy silence, his bow legs looking even more grotesque in this posture. His mother offered me tea, but I asked for a glass of water. She asked the boy to fetch it, and he did so, thrusting the glass into my hands without looking me in the face.

  ‘Suresh is my only son,’ she said.’ ‘My husband is disappointed in him, but I love my son. Do you think he is very ugly?’

  ‘Ugly is just a word,’ I said. ‘Like beauty. They mean different things to different people. What did the poet say? “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.” But if beauty and truth are the same thing why have different words? There are no absolutes except birth and death.’

  The boy squatted down at her feet, cradling his head in her lap. With the end of her sari, she began wiping his face.

  ‘Have you tried teaching him to talk properly?’ I asked.

  ‘He has been like this since childhood. The doctors can do nothing.’

  While we were talking the father came in, and the boy slunk away to the kitchen. The man thanked me curtly for bringing the boy home, and seemed at once to dismiss the whole matter from his mind. He seemed preoccupied with business matters. I got the impression that he had long since resigned himself to having a deformed son, and his early disappointment had changed to indifference. When I got up to leave, his wife accompanied me to the front door.

  ‘Please do not mind if my husband is a little rude,’ she said. ‘His business is not going too well. If you would like to come again, please do. Suresh does not meet many people who treat him like a normal person.’

  I knew that I wanted to visit them again—more out of sympathy for the mother than out of pity for the boy. But I realized that she was not interested in me personally, except as a possible mentor for her son.

  After about a week I went to the house again.

  Suresh’s father was away on a business trip, and I stayed for lunch. The boy’s mother made some delicious parathas stuffed with ground raddish, and served it with pickle and curds. If Suresh ate like an animal, gobbling his food, I was not far behind him. His mother encouraged him to overeat. He was morose and uncommunicative when he ate, but when I suggested that he come with me for a walk, he looked up eagerly. At the same time a look of fear passed across his mother’s face.

  ‘Will it be all right?’ she asked. ‘You have seen how other children treat him. That day he slipped out of the house without telling anyone.’

  ‘We won’t go towards the bazaar,’ I said. ‘I was thinking of a walk in the fields.’

  Suresh made encouraging noises and thumped the table with his fists to show that he wanted to go. Finally his mother consented, and the boy and I set off down the road.

  He could not walk very fast because of his awkward legs, but this gave me a chance to point out to him anything that I thought might arouse his interest—parrots squabbling in a banyan tree, buffaloes wallowing in a muddy pond, a group of hermaphrodite musicians strolling down the road. Suresh took a keen interest in the hermaphrodites, perhaps because they were grotesque in their own way: tall, masculine-looking people dressed in women’s garments, ankle-bells jingling on their heavy feet, and their long, gaunt faces made up with rouge and mascara. For the first time, I heard Suresh laugh. Apparently he had discovered that there were human beings even odder than he. And like any human being, he lost no time in deriding them.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ I said. ‘They were born that way, just as you were born the way you are.’

  But he did not take me seriously and grinned, his wide mouth revealing surprisingly strong teeth.

  We reached the dry river-bed on the outskirts of the town, and, crossing it entered a field of yellow mustard flowers. The mustard stretched away towards the edge of a sub-tropical forest. Seeing trees in the distance, Suresh began to run towards them, shouting and clapping his hands. He had never been out of town before. The courtyard of his house and, occasionally,

  the road to the bazaar, were all that he had seen of the world. Now the trees beckoned him.

  We found a small stream running through the forest and I took off my clothes and leapt into the cool water, inviting Suresh to join me. He hesitated about taking off his clothes; but after watching me for a while, his eagerness to join me overcame his self-consciousness, and he exposed his misshapen little body to the soft spring sunshine.

  He waded clumsily towards me. The water which came only to my knees reached up to his chest.

  ‘Come, I’ll teach you, to swim,’ I said. And lifting him up from the waist, I held him afloat. He spluttered and thrashed around, but stopped struggling when he found that he could stay afloat.

  Later, sitting on the banks of the stream, he discovered a small turtle sitting over a hole in the ground in which it had laid the eggs. He had never watched a turtle before, and watched it in fascination, while it drew its head into its shell and then thrust it out again with extreme circumspection. He must have felt that the turtle resembled him in some respects, with its squat legs, rounded back, and tendency to hide its head from the world.

  After that, I went to the boy’s house about twice a week, and we nearly always visited the stream. Before long Suresh was able to swim a short distance. Knowing how to swim—this was something the bazaar boys never learnt—gave him a certain confidence, made his life something more than a one- dimensional existence.

  The more I saw Suresh, the less conscious was I of his deformities. For me, he was fast becoming the norm; while the children of the bazaar seemed abnormal in their very similarity to each other. That he was still conscious of his ugliness—and how could he ever cease to be—was made clear to me about two months after our first meeting.

  We were coming home through the mustard fi
elds, which had turned from yellow to green, when I noticed that we were being followed by a small goat. It appeared to have been separated from its mother, and now attached itself to us. Though I tried driving the kid away, it continued tripping along at out heels, and when Suresh found that it persisted in accompanying us, he picked up and took it home.

  The kid became his main obsession during the next few days.

  He fed it with his own hands and allowed it to sleep at the foot of his bed. It was a pretty little kid, with fairy horns and an engaging habit of doing a hop, skip and jump when moving about the house. Everyone admired the pet, and the boy’s mother and I both remarked on how pretty it was.

  His resentment against the animal began to show when others started admiring it. He suspected that they found it better- looking than its owner. I remember finding him squatting in front of a low mirror, holding the kid in his arms, and studying their reflections in the glass. After a few minutes of this, Suresh thrust the goat away. When he noticed that I was watching him, he got up and left the room without looking at me.

  Two days later, when I called at the house, I found his mother looking very upset. I could see that she had been crying. But she seemed relieved to see me, and took me into the sitting room. When Suresh saw me, he got up from the floor and ran to the verandah.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘It was the little goat,’ she said. ‘Suresh killed it.’

  She told me how Suresh, in a sudden and uncontrollable rage, had thrown a brick at the kid, breaking its skull. What had upset her more than the animal’s death was the fact that Suresh had shown no regret for what he had done.