an executive officer in a Military cantonment; and the first Indian to have attained this rank. Consequently he gave his daughter a handsome dowry — all of it in the very latest style. Amongst our relatives this was the first time that anyone had given a sofa-set in a dowry.
The sofa-set was the main topic of conversation amongst our kinsmen. Women from distant localities came to the house to see the ‘English
peerhoo’
. This was also the first time that
tai
Eesree saw a sofa-set. She examined it with great care; then she felt it with her hands and kept mumbling to herself. Unable to contain herself she turned to me for an explanation.
‘Son, why is this thing called a sofa-set?’
How could I answer a question like that? I just shook my head — ‘I have no idea aunty.’
‘Why are the two chairs small and the third one long?’ Again I did not know the answer and again shook my head to convey my ignorance.
Tai
pondered over the matter for quite some time, clearly perplexed. Suddenly her face lit up with a childish radiance as if she had found the answer. ‘Shall I tell you?’
‘Yes, aunty.’
She explained to us as if we were a bunch of little children. ‘Listen! I think the long sofa is meant for the time when the husband and wife are at peace with each other; then they can both sit on it. And whenever they have a quarrel they can sit separately on the two smaller ones. The English are a very wise race. No wonder they rule over us.’
Tai’s
reasoning aroused a roar of laughter. But I noticed that
tai
herself was suddenly silent. Was she reminded of the life-long misunderstanding between her own husband and herself? I could not say for certain. But when I looked up at her, I caught a strange light in her eye, as if somewhere a door in her mind always kept firmly locked, had opened for an instant.
After taking my medical degree from Calcutta, I married a Bengali girl and set up as a doctor in Dharamtola. I tried hard for several years but could not build up a practice. Eventually my elder brother persuaded me to move to Lahore. He set me up in a shop in Kucha Thakar Das and I started my practice amongst my own kinsmen and neighbours. At Calcutta I had been a young novice without any experience; at Lahore I started with almost ten year’s know-how of the art of trapping patients. Consequently I did quite well. I was kept busy at all hours of the day and night.
I had my own family by now, so life went round in a whirl, with no time to go anywhere.
I did not see
tai
Eesree for many years. But I had heard that she still lived in the same house in Mohalla Varyaran and that Uncle Bodh Raj lived in Shahi Mohalla with his prostitute mistress, Lachmi. And that, once in a while he dropped in, to find out how his wife was faring.
One morning when I was making out prescriptions for the crowd of patients in my clinic, a man from Mohalla Varyaran came along and said — ‘Doctor Sahib
, tai
Eesree is dying. Come along at once.’
I lelt my patients and went with the man.
Tai’s
house was at the extreme end of Mohalla Varyaran. Climbing the flight of stairs I entered a dimly-lit room.
Tai
was reclining on her large pillows, breathing heavily. She was clutching her bosom with her right hand as if to keep her heart in its place. When she saw me, she smiled with relief. ‘Son, now that you’ve come, I will be saved.’
‘What’s the trouble, aunty?’
‘A call from the angel of death! I have had high fever for two days and then suddenly my body went cold (
Tai’s
eye-lids fluttered as she spoke). First, life went out of my legs; when I touched them they were icy cold; if I pinched them, I felt nothing. Then slowly life went out of my belly. And when it was about to depart from the rest of my body, I clutched at my kidney. (
Tai
emphasized this by clutching her heart with greater vigour) — So I grabbed at my kidney and yelled, “Is anyone there? Go and fetch Jai Kishen’s son Radha Kishen. He’s the
The sofa-set was the main topic of conversation amongst our kinsmen. Women from distant localities came to the house to see the ‘English
peerhoo’
. This was also the first time that
tai
Eesree saw a sofa-set. She examined it with great care; then she felt it with her hands and kept mumbling to herself. Unable to contain herself she turned to me for an explanation.
‘Son, why is this thing called a sofa-set?’
How could I answer a question like that? I just shook my head — ‘I have no idea aunty.’
‘Why are the two chairs small and the third one long?’ Again I did not know the answer and again shook my head to convey my ignorance.
Tai
pondered over the matter for quite some time, clearly perplexed. Suddenly her face lit up with a childish radiance as if she had found the answer. ‘Shall I tell you?’
‘Yes, aunty.’
She explained to us as if we were a bunch of little children. ‘Listen! I think the long sofa is meant for the time when the husband and wife are at peace with each other; then they can both sit on it. And whenever they have a quarrel they can sit separately on the two smaller ones. The English are a very wise race. No wonder they rule over us.’
Tai’s
reasoning aroused a roar of laughter. But I noticed that
tai
herself was suddenly silent. Was she reminded of the life-long misunderstanding between her own husband and herself? I could not say for certain. But when I looked up at her, I caught a strange light in her eye, as if somewhere a door in her mind always kept firmly locked, had opened for an instant.
After taking my medical degree from Calcutta, I married a Bengali girl and set up as a doctor in Dharamtola. I tried hard for several years but could not build up a practice. Eventually my elder brother persuaded me to move to Lahore. He set me up in a shop in Kucha Thakar Das and I started my practice amongst my own kinsmen and neighbours. At Calcutta I had been a young novice without any experience; at Lahore I started with almost ten year’s know-how of the art of trapping patients. Consequently I did quite well. I was kept busy at all hours of the day and night.
I had my own family by now, so life went round in a whirl, with no time to go anywhere.
I did not see
tai
Eesree for many years. But I had heard that she still lived in the same house in Mohalla Varyaran and that Uncle Bodh Raj lived in Shahi Mohalla with his prostitute mistress, Lachmi. And that, once in a while he dropped in, to find out how his wife was faring.
One morning when I was making out prescriptions for the crowd of patients in my clinic, a man from Mohalla Varyaran came along and said — ‘Doctor Sahib
, tai
Eesree is dying. Come along at once.’
I lelt my patients and went with the man.
Tai’s
house was at the extreme end of Mohalla Varyaran. Climbing the flight of stairs I entered a dimly-lit room.
Tai
was reclining on her large pillows, breathing heavily. She was clutching her bosom with her right hand as if to keep her heart in its place. When she saw me, she smiled with relief. ‘Son, now that you’ve come, I will be saved.’
‘What’s the trouble, aunty?’
‘A call from the angel of death! I have had high fever for two days and then suddenly my body went cold (
Tai’s
eye-lids fluttered as she spoke). First, life went out of my legs; when I touched them they were icy cold; if I pinched them, I felt nothing. Then slowly life went out of my belly. And when it was about to depart from the rest of my body, I clutched at my kidney. (
Tai
emphasized this by clutching her heart with greater vigour) — So I grabbed at my kidney and yelled, “Is anyone there? Go and fetch Jai Kishen’s son Radha Kishen. He’s the
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