‘What trouble in Chowk?’ asked someone, thinking Pran was referring to something that might have happened that day.
‘The Raja of Marh and his damned Shiva Temple,’ said Haresh promptly. Though he was the only one from out of town, he had just been filled in on the facts by Kedarnath, and had made them his own.
‘Don’t call it a damned Shiva Temple,’ said the historian.
‘It is a damned Shiva Temple, it’s caused enough deaths already.’
‘You’re a Hindu, and you call it a damned temple — you should look at yourself in the mirror. The British have left, in case you need reminding, so don’t put on their airs. Damned temple, damned natives—’
‘Oh God! I’ll have another drink after all,’ said Haresh to Sunil.
As the discussion rose and subsided over dinner and afterwards, and people formed themselves into small knots or tied themselves into worse ones, Pran drew Sunil aside and inquired casually, ‘Is that fellow Haresh married or engaged or anything?’
‘Anything.’
‘What?’ said Pran, frowning.
‘He’s not married or engaged,’ said Sunil, ‘but he’s certainly “anything”.’
‘Sunil, don’t talk in riddles. It’s midnight.’
‘This is what comes of turning up late for my party. Before you came we were talking at length about him and that sardarni, Simran Kaur, whom he’s still infatuated with. Now why didn’t I remember her name an hour ago? There was a couplet about him at college:
Chased by Gaur and chasing Kaur;
Chaste before but chaste no more!
I can’t vouch for the facts of the second line. But, anyway, it was clear from his face today that he’s still in love with her. And I can’t blame him. I met her once and she was a real beauty.’
Sunil Patwardhan recited a couplet in Urdu about the black monsoon clouds of her hair.
‘Well, well, well,’ said Pran.
‘But why do you want to know?’
‘Nothing,’ shrugged Pran. ‘I think he’s a man who knows his own mind, and I was curious.’
A little later the guests started taking their leave. Sunil suggested that they all visit Old Brahmpur ‘to see if anything’s going on’.
‘Tonight at the midnight hour,’ he intoned in a sing-song, Nehruvian voice, ‘while the world sleeps, Brahmpur will awake to life and freedom.’
As Sunil saw his guests to the door he suddenly became depressed. ‘Good night,’ he said gently; then in a more melancholy tone: ‘Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.’ And a little later, as he closed the door, more to himself than anyone else, he mumbled, in the liltingly incomplete cadence with which Nehru ended his Hindi speeches: ‘Brothers and sisters — Jai Hind!’
But Pran walked home in high spirits. He had enjoyed the party, had enjoyed getting away both from work and — he had to admit it — the family circle of wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law.
What a pity, he thought, that Haresh was already spoken for. Despite his misquotations, Pran had liked him, and wondered if he might be a possible ‘prospect’ for Lata. Pran was concerned about her. Ever since she had received a phone call at dinner a few days ago, she had not been herself. But it had become difficult to talk even to Savita about her sister. Sometimes, thought Pran, I feel they all see me as an interloper — a mere meddler among Mehras.
4.9
Haresh, with an effort, woke up early despite a heavy head, and took a rickshaw to Ravidaspur. He had with him the lasts, the other materials he had promised, and Sunil’s shoes. People in rags were moving about the lanes among the thatched mud huts. A boy was dragging a piece of wood with a string and another boy was trying to hit it with a stick. As he walked across the unstable bridge, he noticed that a thick, whitish vapour lay over the black water of the open sewer, where people were performing their morning ablutions. How can they live like this? he thought to himself.
A couple of electric wires hung casually from poles or were tangled among the branches of a dusty tree. A few houses tapped illegally into this meagre source by slinging a wire over the main line. From the dark interiors of the other huts came the flicker of makeshift lamps: tins filled with kerosene, whose smoke filled the huts. It was easy for a child or a dog or a calf to knock these over, and fires sometimes started this way, spreading from hut to hut and burning everything hidden in the thatch for safe-keeping, including the precious ration-cards. Haresh shook his head at the waste of it all.
He got to the workshop and found Jagat Ram sitting on the step by himself, watched only by his small daughter. But to Haresh’s annoyance he found that what he was working on was not the brogues but a wooden toy: a cat, it appeared. He was whittling away at it with great concentration, and looked surprised to see Haresh. He set the unfinished cat down on the step and stood up.
‘You’ve come early,’ he said.
‘I have,’ said Haresh brusquely. ‘And I find you are working on something else. I am making every effort on my part to supply you with materials as quickly as possible, but I have no intention of working with someone who is unreliable.’
Jagat Ram touched his moustache. His eyes took on a dull glow, and his speech became staccato:
‘What I mean to say—’ he began, ‘—have you even asked? What I mean to say is — do you think I am not a man of my word?’
He stood up, went inside, and fetched the pieces he had cut according to the patterns Haresh had given him from the handsome maroon leather that he had fetched the previous night. While Haresh was examining them, he said:
‘I haven’t punched them with the brogue design yet — but I thought I’d do the cutting myself, not leave it to my cutter. I’ve been up since dawn.’
‘Good, good,’ said Haresh, nodding his head and in a kinder tone. ‘Let’s see the piece of leather I left for you.’
Jagat Ram rather reluctantly took it out from one of the brick shelves embedded in the wall of the small room. Quite a lot of it was still unused. Haresh examined it carefully, and handed it back. Jagat Ram looked relieved. He moved his hand to his greying moustache and rubbed it meditatively, saying nothing.
‘Excellent,’ said Haresh with generous enthusiasm. Jagat Ram’s cutting had been both surprisingly swift and extremely economical of the leather. In fact, he appeared to have an intuitive spatial mastery that was very rare even among trained shoemakers of many years’ standing. It had been hinted at yesterday in his comments when he had constructed the shoe in his mind’s eye after just a brief glance at the components of the pattern.
‘Where’s your daughter disappeared to?’
Jagat Ram permitted himself a slight smile. ‘She was late for school,’ he said.
‘Did the people from the Lovely Shoe Shop turn up yesterday?’ asked Haresh.
‘Well, yes and no,’ said Jagat Ram and did not elaborate further.
Since Haresh had no direct interest in the Lovely people, he did not press the question. He thought that perhaps Jagat Ram did not want to talk about one of Kedarnath’s competitors in front of Kedarnath’s friend.
‘Well,’ said Haresh. ‘Here is all the other stuff you need.’ He opened his briefcase and took out the thread and the components, the lasts and the shoes. As Jagat Ram turned the lasts around appreciatively in his hands, Haresh continued: ‘I will see you three days from today at two o’clock in the afternoon, and I will expect the brogues to be ready by then. I have bought my ticket for the six-thirty train back to Kanpur that evening. If the shoes are well made, I expect I will be able to get you an order. If they are not, I’m not going to delay my journey back.’