Tafteesh: 2010

INVESTIGATION

The news of Bunty's abduction had spread in the entire city even before the sun set. Whoever came to know about it left his work and hurried towards Lala ji.

Almost the entire population of the city owed a debt of gratitude to Lala ji. He was in trouble for the first time. He remembered vividly the news that had appeared in the press a few months ago. A day before the summer break, a sleeping boy was inadvertently locked in the school classroom. His parents and the school authorities searched every nook and corner of the city but forgot to look for him in the school premises. When the school reopened after the vacations, only his skeleton was found.

Initially when search for Bunty began in his school, nobody except the principal and the peon knew about it. Each room of the school was searched. They looked for him in the school lavatory, canteen, water tank and cycle stand.

While the school was being searched thoroughly, neighbouring shopkeepers came to know about it and they also joined in the search operations.

After the school they went to parks. After, all Bunty was only a kid and it was quite possible that while enjoying joy rides in a park he might have forgotten to return home.

After searching the parks they went to cinema halls, bus stand, railway station, pools, ponds, the dirty water nullah, and sewerage manholes. And in the end, they went to each street and home.

Without being asked to do so, Bhag, who made public announcements, picked up his megaphone and cycle and went everywhere announcing the news of Bunty's disappearance. Realizing that Bhag alone would not be able go over the entire city, Sadhu also sent for his rickshaw and after fitting a loudspeaker on it, he went towards the suburbs.

Everybody in the city knew Lala ji. In whichever house they went looking for Bunty, some member of that family joined them.

By midnight, the numbers of the search party had swelled to hundred. If there were a few millionaires in the caravan, then there were sweepers also. Chowdhary from the Leper's Ashram and the Nambardar – the headman, of the Sansis were also there. Truckers, rickshaw pullers, members of the Sewa Samiti and Mahavir Dal, mechanics and factory owners, all were part of the caravan.

Ram Sarup, President of the Youth Organization was not pleased with all this. What was the need for so many people to accompany Lala ji? To him all this was mere ostentation. Pushing, shoving and elbowing each other out, everyone tried to get close to Lala ji. Ram Sarup was of the opinion that if they really wanted to do something, then they should do it wholeheartedly and in a proper way. While they were walking, Ram Sarup sought the advice of his comrades and with Lala Ji's permission they went to the Gita Bhawan.

Ram Sarup split the workers into many parties. One party was sent towards Rampura and another towards Dhuri. These two parties were to go by train since buses didn't ply on roads after seven. The other parties were told to move toward Bhadaur, Raikot, Setha, Thikriwala and Mansa by taxis. It was quite likely that while following somebody, the child could have boarded a train or a bus and then having been left alone at a bus stand or a railway station, he must have been crying his eyes out. Gone were the days when people fed the needy and then took them safely to their home. These days even good Samaritans landed up in serious troubles. Good people had to reluctantly turn their backs on the needy.

It was time for the Kalka Mail to depart. Two parties rushed towards the station. Frantic phone calls were made to different places to arrange cars for others.

Ram Sarup gave very strict instructions to everyone. Whatever the news, good or bad, Lala ji had to be informed immediately. After the meeting he decided to remain at Lala ji's residence from where he would manage everything.

Throughout the night neither Lala ji's caravan nor the Youth Organization met with any success. The women's party also came back exhausted.

Lala ji repeatedly requested all the people to return to their homes and take rest. But everybody stayed put like strikers sitting on a dharna.

The living room was already filled with those who had been out with Lala ji in the night. The new comers sat either in the passage or went to the compound. Women joined grieving Kanta in the innermost room.

In making room for his sympathizers, Lala ji was sitting pressed against the wall.

Till the daybreak, no happy tidings had arrived.

Whenever a person who had been out looking for Bunty entered the room, Lala ji's eyes would lit up with hope that he would break the news of having found Bunty. But when the arrivant sat down long-faced, Lala ji would take a deep breath and once again sit propped up against the wall waiting for the next one to arrive.

Sometimes his eyes turned away from the door towards the photographs on the cornice. In the middle was a photograph of Bunty's father. The lace garland around it indicated that he had left this world. On both sides of it were Bunty's photos. In one of these photos he was sitting on Lala ji's shoulder, in the other he was going to school holding Lala ji's finger and in yet another he was listening to the Ramayana with rapt attention.

Lala ji was trying hard to keep his eyes open but they were closing time and again.

There was deathly silence all around. Seeing Lala ji going into a trance, people even tried to stop breathing lest they should disturb him.

After all he was a realized soul and who would know if he might be in communion with God? He might receive some divine commandment. Some deity might remind him of a moral lapse on his part. He might have a vision of the place where Bunty was being kept hidden.

Lala ji's followers were thinking of one thing and he of something else. Lala ji was becoming skeptical about his forty years of selfless social service and devotion to God. He was feeling that in preaching obedience to the divine will, he was leading people astray. Had there been something known as God, He would not have wreaked vengeance upon him. After all, which sage had he killed in his previous births so that even after sixty years of infernal life, he had still not been able to atone for it? Children are supposed to be embodiments of God. Why was God not punishing those sinners who had snatched her only child away from a widowed mother?

With his mind in a state of turmoil, Lala ji was looking back at sixty years of his life.

He didn't remember even a single day when he had laughed with abandon, slept peacefully like a log, or happiness had ever knocked on his door.

Whether it was a dream or reality, he didn't remember it clearly. He had some hazy reminiscences of his Baai – his father.

Eight year old Dyala with his head closely shaven is playing with soap nuts in the street. His Baai, very tall and clad in white kurta, checked lungi and parrot green turban is returning home from some relatives. His pocket is full of sugar candies. After giving a couple of candies to Dyala's friends, he comes to him, picks him up in his lap and starts filling his pockets with them. Stroking, kissing and loving him he takes him towards the home. Mounted in his Baai's lap, Dyala imagines himself to be on top of the Mount Everest.

He remembered the other side of Baai's picture quite well.

He is playing the game of twelve pebbles in the street. His younger sister Shakuntala is sitting at the door eating her food. Suddenly screams are heard from his home. With tears welling in his eyes, he rushes in.

His father is lying on the ground in the compound and his mother is wailing inconsolably. She has broken all her bangles she had in her arms. Her hair is disheveled. Tears have washed away kohl from her eyes painting her fair face black. She behaves like a possessed woman and cannot be controlled even by many women from their neighbourhood. She clings to his Baai and even when she withdraws once or twice, she clings to him again with greater passion.

Dyala is standing near the mother, frightened. Taking him in her arms, she starts keening again. Seeing Dyala, other women also start wailing. His Baai's face is uncovered and shown to him. His eyes are closed and face tranquil. It is as if he'll get up immediately and pick up Dyala in his lap. One neighbourhood woman covers his face again. Another picks up Dyala and takes him out. Everyone says that his father has died. So what if he has died? He can't comprehend anything.

What it means to "have died", Dyala could comprehend it much later. Those words didn't mean just one thing; their meanings were in the plural. For every relation of the deceased, these words had a different ring to them.

For a young widow these words mean dying of all her hopes and desires; silencing of the sweet music of anklets, bangles and earnings; wiping away the red of vermilion from the head; not wearing lustrous colourful clothes and getting imprisoned in the white; trying to protect herself from the lustful glances of male neighbours; avoiding old male relatives the age of her father, her cousins and young male relatives the age of her own sons; avoiding meeting people at weddings, festivals and other auspicious occasions; sobbing in a dark corner on Diwali; staying away from food on Karva Chowth[1] and still not wanting to be known to be on a fast; remembering the deceased husband every moment and grieving over ever-increasing family responsibilities; weaving durries and draw strings, making small wicker baskets, spinning cotton, and embroidering phulkaris for others to keep the fire in the hearth burning.

His mother had lived these meanings of 'death' and they were inscribed on her body.

For an eight year old boy like Dyala, death meant becoming serious from that very day; getting bashed up by play-mates but still not losing temper; playing less and studying more; helping the mother in household chores; working at a shop when not doing anything else; and worrying about the sister's marriage.

These were the meanings of his father's death which Lala ji had discovered.

Daughters in a family without the father have to stay confined to the four walls of their house. When they come out even to throw refuse in the street, they have to be careful that nobody casts a lecherous eye on them. Laughing and playing with friends and indulging in girlish pranks on Teej[2] festival are not for them. Getting married to an old man, at a very young age and with their feminine honour intact, is their destiny.

Married to a lame soldier, Dyala's younger sister Shakuntala was living the disaster which had befallen her family.

"Have some tea Gurudev," when Lala ji opened his eyes after completing the first chapter of his life, Ram Sarup thrust the glass of tea in his face.

"No, I don't feel like." In fact Lala ji, who was lost in his past, didn't want to come back into the present.

"Please have a little bit. Sister Kanta hasn't had a drop of water since yesterday . . . if you lose courage then what will happen to the likes of us?" Darshan, Secretary of the Youth Organization also insisted on his having tea.

Lala ji's sad eyes surveyed the room. Only one or two persons were holding a glass of tea in their hands. Half the people present there were the ones who had been moving with him, hungry and thirsty. He was used to keeping fasts; he fasted twenty days in a month. If he didn't eat for a day, it wouldn't matter at all. But the others would be in trouble. The cloth shop owner Amrit, the ironsmith and the school master who was a member of the Sewa Samiti drank three to four cups of tea in an hour. Lala ji would often admonish them at the camps because all the time they could be seen guzzling tea. Now if Lala ji remained hungry, they too were not going to eat anything.

The one sip which Lala ji took tasted like poison in Bunty's absence. He was thinking of Bunty. What would be the plight of that delicate, innocent child? Was he able to sleep at night or not? He just couldn't sleep without first listening to a story. He didn't go to sleep as long as someone did not gently stroke his head. He never ate a morsel if he weren't in Kanta's lap. Bunty must not have been able to sleep even forty winks. He must have been crying all the time. His throat must have become hoarse from crying and nobody would have offered him a sip of water.

Everyone took their tea glasses when they saw Lala ji holding his. The neighbours had brought tea many times over, but nobody had had it. Tea tends to go bad after it gets cold. This time Dharmpal had brought much less quantity and it finished after it was poured into a few glasses. On seeing tea being served, many neighbours hurried to their homes to bring more.

The sound of people sipping tea with relish was piercing his heart like arrows. He wished to become deaf. But this was not possible. He once again sat propped up against the wall and closed his eyes.

Women bow to the mother earth a hundred times to express their gratitude for blessing them with sons. While she is alive, a mother basks in the warmth of the protection provided by the son. After her death she attains salvation and goes straight to heaven only when the son lights her pyre. Whatever Lala ji's mother had wished from God before he was born, those desires of hers had remained unfulfilled even till her death. All her life she had to keep fasts, stay awake at nights to pray and undertake pilgrimages also.

She had devoted her entire life for his comfort. What did he give her in return? Pain and suffering. Tears and sighs.

Hardayal’s mother had many dreams. She had dreamed that Hardayal would become an officer when he grew up. He would marry a tender belle. And playing with her grandchildren the old lady would then forget the widowhood thrust upon her when she was young.

But how could Hardayal have become an officer? For many years he had to run from pillar to post to get even a school teacher's job. A widowed mother and a young unmarried sister at home and Hardayal a mere school teacher – would a father not push his daughter into a well rather than give her to Hardayal in marriage? Every parent would fear that at first Hardayal's unmarried sister would start squabbling with his wife and then she would take away in dowry whatever odds and ends they had. A school teacher's salary couldn't earn even two square meals a day. No parents would be ready to throw their daughter into such a hell.

His mother only had to go begging for a bride for her son.

Marriage and employment are in the hands of someone else. But he could not even do what was in his; he could not fulfill his mother's desire for a lot of grandchildren playing in their compound.

Three months after his marriage, his wife conceived Baldev. Hardayal's mother was ecstatic. She took her daughter-in-law to gurudwaras, temples and deras. Sometimes she brought an amulet and sometimes a holy thread. Sometimes she brought consecrated water from a pandit and sometimes sacred ashes from a Sadhu. She couldn't wait to see her grandson's face.

Hardayal's wife Saudhan's pelvic pain was not leaving her. The entire day she lay in bed complaining of backache. Hardayal begged to his mother that she should be taken to a doctor. But she didn't budge.

"You are just pinning for your wife. These are diseases of women and only women can cure them. It is your wife's first pregnancy. She is very delicate. She'll get well on her own," she would say.

Saudhan was not to recover and she didn't. Soon after placing a handsome grandson in her mother-in-law's lap, Saudhan left this world. After a long struggle the mother had been able to remove the yoke of family responsibilities but after Saudhan's death, she had to bear it again. The onus of bringing up a few days’ infant and minding the kitchen was hers once again.

Lala ji became a stranger in his own home. He didn't seem to belong anywhere. At home, the walls of his home snapped at him. And when he was out, Baldev's screams pulled him towards his home. He didn't get to eat the food of his liking and didn't get to wear clean clothes. There was no sharing of sorrows and joys with anyone. There was no let out to his pent up emotions. He would come home quietly and go to bed soon after pushing his food down his gullet.

Baldev was a sickly child. Sometimes he had fever, sometimes cough and sometimes he suffered from loose motions. Sometimes he suffered from heat stroke and sometimes he caught cold. Lala ji's mother lacked the strength to stay awake at nights to look after Baldev. Her eyes had become weak from crying. Her knees had also started troubling her.

Day in and day out, Lala ji's mother tried to argue with him that it wasn't good to keep pining for the dead. He should very quietly get married again. How long could a man go on attending to his child’s toilet needs? This was the job which only a woman could do.

But in any case, Lala ji's decision was final. He didn't want to marry again, and he did not. When his first wife had left him, how could he them be sure about the second one? Besides this he didn't know how the step-mother would treat Baldev? He decided that he wouldn't ruin Baldev's life for his own happiness.

"Gurudev, please touch this platter," Darshan distracted Lala ji by bringing to him a platter full of patasas – sugar bubble candies. A shining amulet lay on them.

Lala ji didn't ask what it was all about. He did not want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to introspect. He touched the platter without making any fuss.

But Darshan started telling him on his own. Santi had brought the amulet. After tying it to the spinning wheel post, the wheel had to be spun in the reverse direction. A mantra had to be chanted one hundred times. The amulet was then to be removed and set on fire with red chillies in a pot shard. The heat of this pungent flame would affect Bunty's abductors and they would go on burning in it as long as they did not release Bunty.

Santi had got the wind of Bunty's disappearance around midnight. She immediately went to the saint's dera. Initially the saint was furious with Santi for disturbing him but when he heard about the Lala ji’s problem he cooled down. He had prepared the amulet using all his powers. He was known far and wide far practising the occult. His amulet never failed.

A few minutes later, the spinning wheel started moving in the opposite direction.

The millstones were already being run in reverse. This magical remedy had been suggested by Veero who was from the family of Sadhus. She said that when she was young, her maama – maternal uncle, had left the house after quarreling with his wife. An ascetic who had come from the forest suggested to her maami to run the millstone in reverse. She did it for three days, and on the fourth, her husband came back home.

In the night, Kanta had on her own put the tawa – Indian griddle for cooking chapattis, on fire upside down. Someone had once told her mother that if a person loses his cattle, then cooking the rotis – chapattis, on upended tawa has the power to bring the beast back to its manger. If a beast could return, why would a human being not? Her box was full of rotis baked on upended tawa.

The whirling sound of the spinning wheel and millstones was disturbing Lala ji. What he disliked most was Santi's loud incantations.

Santi was doing her best. She wanted to repay Lala ji all her debts. Her Brahmin husband had died young leaving behind four daughters. Anything could have happened to the young girls. Lala ji took pity on her and all four were married off one by one by the Sewa Samiti on the occasion of Ram-Sita swayamvara[3]. They got good grooms and received more dowry than Santi's relatives could have managed. It was due to Lala ji's munificence only that they were happily married.

In order to divert his attention away from Santi's incantations, Lala ji started to concentrate on the photographs. Sometimes he glimpsed the future Bunty in Baldev's photo and sometimes youthful Baldev in Bunty's. Sometimes Bunty turned into Baldev and sometimes Baldev into Bunty.

When Baldev was Bunty's age, he had resembled Bunty — the same big eyes, supple body and clear voice.

Had Baldev not fallen ill when he was five, he too would have grown up into a very strongly - built young man like Lala ji himself. Irregular food habits and absence of breast milk had played havoc with his digestive system. Every ten or fifteen days he would take to the bed and then he wouldn't digest even water. The doctors had to restrict his dietary intake. For days together Lala ji got pushed around in the hospital.

It was during his frequent visits to the hospital that his life took a new turn. Baldev wanted Lala ji to be present near him but did not need his nursing care. Hardayal who didn't have much else to do in the hospital started doing odd jobs for other patients to pass his time. He brought medicines for someone, got somebody's milk warmed and helped another one to toilet.

Sometimes such patients also arrived who had nobody to look after them. Even the hospital staff didn't bother about such unfortunates. Some of them died for want of proper medical care. Lala ji had experienced a strange satisfaction in snatching two such patients from the jaws of death. His sorrows were giving way to joys and he had discovered a way to happiness.

Hardayal now started frequenting the hospital even when Baldev was well. The patients also started feeling that they needed him. If he missed out on going to the hospital even for a day, the patients would become sad. Some of them wouldn’t get milk, some would be deprived of their medicines and clothes of some others would remain unwashed.

When Baldev grew up, he started going to school. Lala ji had no other work. While coming back from the school, he started going to the hospital. Whatever he could afford, he spent from his own pocket, and the rest he borrowed from here and there. The Sewa Samiti had been newly constituted in those days. Following Lala ji's lead, it also started attending to patients. Then the Samiti started spending money and Lala ji nursed the patients. Lala ji had become a messiah for the patients.

Tears would come to his eyes when he saw the municipal committee workers dragging the unclaimed corpses like dead dogs in a garbage cart to the cremation ground. He wondered how cherishing so many hopes does a man walk on this earth, but when he loses the struggle of life he dies a death which is worse than a dog’s! Some of them were not lucky enough even to be covered in a shroud. The municipal committee didn't arrange sufficient amount of firewood even to cremate them, and people managed it just with cow-dung cakes. No last rites were performed and no shradha – last rights performed for the salvation of the dead.

The question of immersing the mortal remains of the dead in the Ganga didn't arise at all. It was nobody's concern if having been denied salvation, the souls of the dead wandered on the earth.

Lala ji had to work very hard to ensure that the dead bodies were handled with due care. For proper disposal of the dead bodies, he got some money sanctioned from the municipal committee and Sewa Samiti and he made the Mahavir Dal pay the rest of it. He would get the dead bodies cremated in a proper way under his supervision. Then he would go to Haridwar to immense the mortal remains of the unlucky ones in the Ganga.

When he started going to the cremation ground more often, the problems he faced there started tormenting him. The cremation ground was in a state wilderness due to utter neglect. Except thorny bushes, shards of broken earthen pitchers and some loose earthen bricks, there was nothing else there. One had to go miles to get the firewood. In the summer those who accompanied the bier reached the cremation ground dead on their feet. There was no place to sit, no arrangement for drinking water and no boundary wall either. There was no one to look after it. Sometimes stray dogs dug out freshly buried dead bodies of young children and they could be found dragging the legs and arms here and there. And the days on which it rained the dead bodies could not be cremated for days together.

Lala ji first constituted a committee. He had heaps of firewood brought there, got a hand pump installed and had the sheds constructed. When people started feeling a little comfortable because of these facilities they started donating money voluntarily.

Mithu Seth donated his old haveli to the cremation ground. This haveli was of no use to him. For the last three generations it had been lying abandoned. Nobody remembered if any one had ever lived there or not. People knew only the legends associated with it. The Seth who had built this haveli had died childless even after begetting fourteen sons and daughters. People believed that the ghosts of the couple still haunted the haveli. They had heard strange voices and shrieks coming from the building. Some people said that a black cobra went around slithering and hissing in it. What to talk of living in the haveli, people didn't even dare to pass by it out of fear. About half of it had crumbled and pigeons and owls were its only inhabitants.

Lala ji took the responsibility of demolishing the haveli. At first, deliverance for the spirits of the dead was sought through religious rituals. The work of demolishing the haveli was then begun amidst chanting of hymns.

The scrap obtained from the demolished haveli changed the face of the cremation ground. Platforms were constructed for cremating the dead; a water tank and a shoulder high wall around the cremation ground also came up. An electric motor and water taps were installed using the funds meant for miscellaneous expenditure.

When the mother of the Jains passed away, they got a small garden laid out in the cremation ground. An idol of Lord Shiva was installed in the middle and a gardener was also arranged to look after the garden.

Many people became jealous of Lala ji's rising popularity. They started taunting him: "Has anybody ever profited from being in love with cremations grounds?"

At that time Lala ji didn't pay any heed to all this but now he was thinking that he had certainly not benefited from his love of the cremation ground, rather the cremation ground was now hugging him tightly. First Baldev left followed by the mother and now Lala ji imagined as if carrying Bunty's dead body in his arms, he was walking towards the cremation ground he had himself decorated.

"No... no..." Lala ji's spontaneous shrieks started echoing in the air.

The anxious crowd turned towards him asking ‘what happened, what happened?’

"Nothing... nothing... I just saw a bad dream,” he felt reassured to realize that what he had just seen was simply a dream.

In order to divert his own attention and also that of the people towards noble thoughts, Lala ji started narrating historical tales and myths. He narrated the crisis Harish Chander had to face, the episode of Laxman's unconsciousness in the Ramayana and the story of the martyrdom of the Sikh Guru Gobind Singh's four sons. He argued that the crisis he was undergoing was due to inauspicious planetary conditions. Such periods of ill-luck were short-lived and his misfortune also would pass soon. Unfavourable stars didn't spare even gods and goddesses; he was a mere mortal.

He started telling them that all astrologers had forecast a long life for Bunty. There was nothing to worry as he had full faith in the Brahmin priest.

On seeing Baldev's horoscope, the Brahmin priest had always maintained silence. When questioned persistently, he had just said that the boy would not bring any joy to Lala ji.

This was evident from Baldev's actions and behaviour. He was taking a direction which was the exact opposite of the path Lala ji had chosen. He had no faith in religion whatsoever. He didn't dress up in dhoti and kurta like Lala ji. He never prayed. He even smoked once in a while. He was not well educated. After passing the tenth class, he joined a private school as a clerk. He had two daughters in quick succession after his marriage. When his wife conceived the third time, he took her straight to Amritsar. He didn't listen to Lala ji that abortion is a sin and a child, who is god's gift, should be allowed to be born. Lala ji believed that every child brought his destiny, his kismet with him. But Baldev didn't want daughters. If it were a boy then he could come in this world; otherwise it had to go. Lala ji was extremely grateful to the almighty when he came to know that Baldev's wife was carrying Bunty in her womb. They were spared the murder of a living being.

Baldev called Lala ji an idealist. Baldev didn't like simple food and clothes. He didn't want to stay at home. He had two daughters and he didn't want the Ram Leela committee to marry them. He didn't want to send Bunty to cheap government schools. He dreamed of his children doing very well in life after getting good education.

He became a clerk in a bank by dint of sheer hard work. He started earning a salary of eighteen hundred rupees instead of twelve hundred. For a few months he had to be posted in Sangrur after which he was to be transferred back.

Nobody knew that death was calling him out. It was his destiny which took him to the place of his death on the pretext of his job. He died the very next month after being crushed under a truck.

History was repeated. Like Lala ji, Bunty also became fatherless at an early age. But Lala ji was there to look after Bunty. He accepted the challenge and resolved not to let Bunty feel the absence of his father.

He had been doing his duty for the last four years.

By establishing the Youth Organization, he passed the burden of many social responsibilities on to the shoulders of the youthful volunteers of the Organization. Earlier he always remained preoccupied with social work because of which he was not been able to pay much attention to Baldev; he was always full of regret for this. Baldev remained angry with him for this very reason. He didn't want to give an opportunity to Bunty for such a complaint.

How did he know that Baldev would get another opportunity to complain to him?

Baldev stood before him again and again. He was grumbling again and again as if accusing him: "Now you carry the cross of your social service! Your seed is gone away from the world. You couldn't look after even one child?"

Lala ji was imagining that Baldev was trying to snatch Bunty from him, he was holding Bunty's finger and leading him to an unknown place... once again he was about to let out a cry but controlled himself. The thought that people would say that a person who had always sermonized to others to give in to the will of God ungrudgingly had himself lost faith in God, made him stifle his cry.

When the last search party of the Youth Organization returned empty handed by the 9 O'clock train, everyone became hopeless.

There was no way out now except to inform the police.

Would Bunty never come back? Was this the reward which Lala ji had got after devoting his entire life to charity work? Hundreds of such questions were troubling Lala ji. There was no welfare scheme in the city to which he had not contributed whole-heartedly. These days every Tom, Dick and Harry was organizing free Eye Camps for cheap publicity in the press. In fact these Eye Camps were a result of Lala ji's pioneering efforts.

When he had organized an Eye Camp thirty years ago, people had no idea that a cataract operation could be so simple and easy an affair. Even after making all out efforts, Lala ji could get only eight patients operated upon at the first camp. People were convinced only after they saw those who had been blind for more than a decade travelling to their villages without any support. Now an Eye Camp was organized every six months. The pandal – marquee, would be decorated like a wedding hall. Patients arrived in thousands. The best of doctors came to these camps. Some social organizations gave free medicines, some donated spectacles and others served food. Even the ministers wanted to inaugurate these camps. Lala ji was thinking if his sufferings were a just reward for bringing vision to the eyes of lakhs of blind people; the light of his own eyes was being snatched away from him.

The president of the Ram Leela committee informed Lala ji that the Brahmins had started a havan in the Ram Leela grounds for Bunty's safe return. All the Brahmins who came to know were joining in the prayers. After all, Lala ji's contribution to Ram Leela committee wasn't insignificant? Had he not intervened in the feud between the committee organizers, the committee would have scattered by now after splitting up. Earlier the Ram Leela was staged sometimes at the road crossing, sometimes in the grain market and sometimes in dharmshala. He infused new life in the Committee after joining,. Earlier wrestling matches and dances were organized to attract crowds to the Ram Leela. There was no check on consumption of liquor and smoking. Whistling and cat-calls were a very common sight. Lala ji got all such things stopped. By persuading the Deputy Commissioner he got the vacant ground adjacent to the fort allotted to the Ram Leela committee. Public offerings were utilized to construct a stage, rooms and a boundary wall. The ground was now put to a hundred uses. Ram Leela was now organized there every year. Night long singing of hymns and religious discourses were also held regularly. And if a good drama party had to stage a play, then they didn't have run after Cinema owners; they got a readymade stage now.

The Geeta Bhawan Swamiji had also started non-stop devotional singing. He had taken the pledge that the singing would continue until Bunty returned home.

Lala ji wanted to resign patiently to the will of God. Bunty wouldn't come to any harm if it was not ordained by his fate. And if ordained otherwise, then from where could the police produce him? The Youth Organization didn't share Lala ji's views. It believed that Bunty had undoubtedly fallen into some evil hands. Such bad elements could not be caught without police help. Moreover, an evil wind was blowing turning the heads of even very nice people.

The Managing Director of the Thread Mill volunteered to inform the police. He took with him the President of the Flour Mill Owner's Union. Every day they sent something or other free of cost for the police station mess. Every third day the mess official asked for a bag of sugar. The M.D. and the President took Bunty's maternal uncle Suraj with them so that he could give all the relevant information about Bunty to the police.

The moment Suraj and the M.D. left for the police station, Chowdhary of the Leper's Ashram and the Nambardar of the sansis became panicky. They knew that in looking for Bunty, the police would first raid their huts only.

"Wait a little more, O benefactor . . . the police will interrogate the likes of us only.” It was the Nambardar who pulled out of the crowd and appealed to Lala ji. Soon the Chowdhary also joined him with folded hands. Only Lala ji could save them from the disaster awaiting them.

Owing to Lala ji's generosity the sansis were giving up their ancestral profession of thievery. And now they were no longer the sansis of the yore. The males had started pulling carts and women went to fields. They had increased the number of their livestock. Their children had started going to schools. The police, however, wouldn't discriminate between the good and the bad and all would be tortured alike. Some of the daily wage earners would not be able to go to their jobs and some others wouldn't be able to borrow money for the treatment of their fractured legs and arms. Such people would get an opportunity to raise their voice against the Nambardar. They would ask him that if they had to bear police brutality even after working honestly, then why they should sweat for their livelihood; how was their original profession bad? In the past they would sleep the entire day and at night break into one or two houses. They would share half of their booty with the police and enjoy their life. And if he didn't succeed in looting a house, then they stole cotton from someone's fields. They wanted Lala ji to save them. They wanted him to save the saplings he had himself planted.

This is what Chowdhary also feared. Earlier lepers used to beg. They just wasted away at railway stations, bus stands and wilds. At that time they even abducted children and committed thefts. The more hands joined them to beg, the better it was. Chowdhary himself suffered from leprosy and he too had been abducted from somewhere when he was a child. Lala ji had ventured to get shacks built for the lepers near the new grain market; they had stopped begging. It was decided that their leaders would go to one mohalla once in a week. The next day they would go to the next mohalla. They had enough money to buy food. Soon philanthropists started going to the ashram. In winters they got sweaters and blankets. They were doing well. But if the police got the information about the missing child, they would turn their vehicles straight towards their ashram.

"Don't you worry at all . . . we won't let injustice be done to anybody . . . nobody will be able to harm you. You just go to your homes and relax . . ." Darshan started reassuring them.

Before Chowdhary could say something else in defence, the sweeper woman arrived there chanting 'Ram, Ram' and stood at the doorstep.

The previous evening when she had come to know about Bunty's disappearance while she was cleaning the drains, she had come to Lala ji's house to find out about Bunty. There was nobody at home as everybody had been looking for Bunty. Somebody had handed a piece of paper to her to be given to Lala ji. She had kept waiting for him for long. She tied it to the loose end of her chunni and forgot to give it to Lala ji before leaving.

On remembering it in the morning, she had come running to give it to Lala ji.

The Nambardar took the letter from her and handed it to Lala ji.

Lala ji's hands and feet started becoming numb even when he was unfolding the letter. Seeing all colour leave his face, others also came forward and started looking at the paper.

The same thing which everyone had been dreading had happened. The letter was from terrorists. They had asked for a ransom of five thousand rupees to be placed under the banyan tree near the pond at Panjviri. Otherwise, it warned that Bunty's dead body would reach their house at sunrise.

It was already ten in the morning and many hours had passed since the expiry of the ultimatum. What would happen now?

The entire crowd was glaring at the sweeper woman. Had she given the letter in time, Bunty would have come back since long. But how was this unlettered woman to blame? She started trembling with fear.

Five thousand rupees was not an issue, any one could have given it. The question was how to retrieve the time that had been lost?

"Bunty's school bag...," Bunty's teacher let out a scream on seeing Bunty's school bag lying under the brass cooking pot. She thought Bunty had come back, and had hidden himself somewhere after throwing his bag.

The entire crowd rushed to see the bag. It was Bunty's bag.

The bag was not a happy sign. The threat issued in the better was making everyone's heart pound. Bunty's galluses could also be seen lying under the pot.

"It is quite possible that there's another letter underneath . . . they may have given more time," someone shouted, on the verge of tears.

"Wait, this is also possible that they may have . . . their threat,” another one, wanting to stop the first one from removing the pot, shouted.

"This is not possible . . . the pot is too small . . . there mayn’t be a bomb under it...," Such incidents were quite frequent. If the enemy were after you he could resort to any such thing.

"The Captain Sahib is right . . . inform the police immediately . . . everybody should get aside . . . ," Sehgal, the advocate said fervently.

The crowd became restive and everyone ran for their homes. The captain and Sehgal started helping women and children in moving away.

Lala ji sent Darshan to Nagpal to ask Nagpal to ring up the police.

Sehgal and the captain were forcing Lala ji to leave the drawing room.

Not only did he not go away, he rather lay down covering himself with a sheet of cloth. He thought it would be good if the bomb went off; it would relieve him of all his suffering.

[1] Karva Chowth is a festival on which married women observe fast and pray for the long life of their husbands.

[2] Teej is a woman’s festival held on every Sunday in the month of Savan of the Indian Bikrami calendar.

[3] Swayamvara was an ancient Indian custom of a girl choosing her own husband in open assembly or through competition. Ram-Sita swayamvara refers to the auspicious occasion of the swayamvara of Lord Rama with Sita.

Tafteesh

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