TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY ANURADHA DOSAD
My attention was drawn to the shrill sound of a woman bursting into tears, fell in my ears. She was sitting next to me on the platform of Sealdah station. A traveller must have stumbled on her, or her bag and moved forward. The woman probably cursed him in her mother tongue. The traveller didn’t stop to argue with her, he moved on nonchalantly. Having taken out her anger, the woman sat silently as before.
She caught my attention and my eyes were glued to her appearance. I found, that woman was a beggar. Her clothes were dirty and she had merely a dirty bag with her. I also saw hunger in her. Her emaciated body conveyed that she had not eaten even half a stomach of food for years.
Beggars usually revolt me. I have heard so many stories of rich beggars that I see every beggar essentially as a cheater. I have visited many temples from Kanyakumari to Kolkata, but have not given a single penny to any beggar anywhere. While visiting the temples, I fear beggars more than the priests. I don’t even go on pilgrimages, I only travel with the feeling of seeing the world. The sight of beggars turns sour the sight of deities.
It is not that there is no empathy in me for the starving. If I know that someone is earnestly hungry, then I feed him to the brim. But I find every beggar’s stomach full. Even if I were to accept that some of them could be hungry, instead of pitying them, I feel angry at the God whose name they take. Thinking deeply about this matter in all aspects, I have come to the conclusion that people uselessly call this world beautiful, so very beautiful, that this beautiful world created by God is not fit for anyone to live in. If the beggars who are crippled and suffering from loathsome diseases thank the Lord for this human birth, then they are the ultimate fools. I know that, if this world is destroyed, it will not be a disservice to mankind, it will be a great favour, at least to these beggars.
Seeing that woman, my usual beliefs about beggars did not come to my mind. Just as a sculptor sees a potentially attractive idol inside a stone, I saw beauty inside that woman. She must have been 25 to 30 years old and I imagined her as she must have been 10 to 15 years ago, her eyes and features were lovely indeed. If she washed well and wore good clothes, she would look quite pretty. Just then, a thought crossed my mind, could this woman accompany us to our home?
When we started aging, my wife and I felt that we would soon become helpless. We also had little trust in our sons and grandsons. I explained to my wife that we should rely as much on daughters and daughters-in-law as possible. I had clearly told her, “Now give up the attachment of sons and sons-in-law, Aarti. If you spend two pennies on your own people, they will consider it their right, if you spend it on others, they will consider it a favor. It is possible that in doing such favors, something or someone will become our support in old age. The two of us are living all alone. Who will come running to us in any need? Whenever our sons come here for their own needs, they hesitate in inquiring about our condition. They are only good for our funeral rites when we die. It is also not certain if they would reach on time for that.”
However, I was tardy in my advice to Aarti. This thought had already come to her mind. She had been quite surprised a while back, when on whining about some physical problem, one of her sons responded, “All this has to be tolerated now, mother. You both have become old. At this age every person has to bear it”. She started the advocacy of the rights of daughters and daughters-in-law in her poor neighborhood thereafter.
It so happened next that the masala for our vegetable curry was grinded in someone’s house. Chapattis were being baked in somebody else’s house. Someone’s daughter had come to separate rice from the starch water and someone else’s daughter-in-law had come to our house and made tea for us. Aarti had started spending money on these daughters and daughters-in-law. The good thing was that all of them were ready to establish a relationship at a very low cost. The daughter who went away after making tea got some tea to drink, the one who baked bread got bread for herself. Others were happy that they were allowed to visit our house unhindered. But even after this, my wife used to calculate how much money should be given in return for their service and often instead of giving money, she would give them some attractive item or the other.
When I felt that we would soon be completely impaired with age and would need at least one person around us twenty-four hours a day to take care of us and help us in sudden emergencies, I started looking for a woman who was either a helpless widow or was spending her days in an uncaring patriarchal household or was looking for support to escape from her daughters-in-law’s tyranny and taunts. We had spent nearly two or three years in this search, but could not find a suitable person for the role. Even if a starving woman was found, she was not ready to come, leaving her grandsons behind. When many women became destitute in the last flood, Aarti reached out to the government relief camps and made up her mind to bring home a woman who had lost her family and visited many relief camps to this end, but unfortunately, we did not get any help from there either.
Even after our failure, our search had not stopped. After observing that beggar woman for a long time at Sealdah station, I felt that she could be brought along with us.
Taking my eyes away from the woman, I asked my wife in a low voice, “Aarti! If this woman agrees to come with us, will you keep her?”
“Which woman?” Aarti asked after looking around.
“The one sitting in front of us?”
“That beggar?
“Yes.”
“Seriously! The kind of things do you talk about! Should we take a beggar home?”
“Don’t dismiss my ideas so fast,” I began to say, “after searching so far, you must have realized that only a beggar will come to our home. I don’t know what prompted the thought that we should take her with us. We must try. You have run around a lot. Maybe we will be successful here. I have seen hundreds of beggars on this journey, but I have never seen anyone with the intention of bringing home. I haven’t found any beggar worthy of such a thing. She is all alone and doesn’t come with any child attachments. The dirt on her body will wash off in a day. If she eats the food of our house just for a week, her face will start glowing. Then no one will be able to say that she was once begging for alms, she will look healthy. Looking at her age, I feel that she will be middle aged only, after you pass away. If you say yes, then I will talk to her.”
Aarti took some time to think, then smiled and said, “Fine, talk to her.”
The woman was Bengali, but perhaps being out on the streets, she had learned to understand and speak some Hindi. I started talking to her. She was able to understand my words. First of all, I fed her some food with her permission and then expressed my wish. Aarti also spoke to her for assurance. The woman must have looked at us with searching eyes many a time, but just as a drowning man clings to the tail of even a tiger, she agreed to come with us.
As soon as she was ready, I said softly in Aarti’s ear, “Give her one of your sarees to wear.”
Aarti did not agree immediately, “What if she runs away with the saree?”
“You have to take such a risk.” I urged Aarti and gave the beggarwoman a bar of soap along with a saree and said, “Wash your face and hands with soap and change your saree.”
The woman disappeared from our sight to wear a saree and appeared before Aarti could express any further doubt. She had brought along her dirty saree. I told her, “Throw your saree and bag somewhere now. They are no longer needed.” She was not ready to do away with the bag and said, “Later, I will throw the bag later.” I did not push her thereafter. Who knew what things she had in her bag!
Our train was scheduled at 8 pm in the night and there was still a delay of four to five hours in the arrival of the train. Till the time the train came, we kept feeding her something and she hesitantly obeyed our request. Until she sat in the train with us, Aarti kept feeling that her saree was in danger.
We were in a reserved compartment. She was accompanying us without reservation. For that we had spread a sheet on the floor under our berth. As soon as the sheet was laid, she fell asleep on it. Perhaps after a long time, she had the good fortune to have her fill with her food of choice. Before she went to sleep, I asked her name. She replied, “Kajal”.
Aarti and I kept talking about Kajal till we were awake. She kept telling me time and again under what circumstances Kajal might run away from our home. I told her that if I ever felt that she was not interested in serving us, I would get her a ticket, make her sit in the Sealdah train, give her hundred or two hundred rupees and send her off. On the way, whenever Aarti woke up from sleep, she got up in a hurry to see if the beggar had run away.
After reaching Purnia, when we entered our house with Kajal, the people who were waiting for us in the house looked at her in astonishment. Aarti replied to everyone’s questions, “This is my daughter of previous birth. Now don’t ask from where and how did I get her.”
The relatives who had come to meet us left one by one and our house became empty as before. Kajal slowly familiarized with us, she worked hard in learning and Aarti in teaching her. Within a month, Kajal had adapted herself completely to our lifestyle and became capable of working efficiently for the two of us. I never found laziness in her. She would respond immediately to our calls and ask for more work. It never felt as if she was doing any of it reluctantly. She was always cheerful and happy in her heart. We began to feel that our gratitude might have touched her soul. She started calling Aarti ‘mother’ and me ‘Baba’.
Kajal had become the kajal of Aarti’s eyes. She started eating her favorite food made by Kajal, as well as getting henna applied to her hair by Kajal. The place of worship now looked more sacred than before. Fasting and festivals were celebrated more often in the house. She used to go out of the house every day with Kajal without any hesitation, sometimes towards a temple and at other times just to peep into someone else’s house.
Aarti had now started ordering things for grooming her new daughter and making her more presentable. Both of us now started worrying about her future as well, thinking about what would happen to her after us. We tried to arrange enough so that even after we passed away, Kajal did not have any regret, that meeting us at Sealdah station didn’t bode well for her. Once, when my wife was angry about something, she declared to her sons and daughters-in-law that she would write the house and property to the person with whose service she would be happy in her last days. They laughed at her, but my wife had been serious. I had also become earnest and started depositing money in the bank in Kajal’s name.
We were constantly grateful that we got Kajal in our lives by God’s grace. Had we met her at Sealdah station in the beginning of our journey, we would never have made up our minds to bring her back with us. Then this daughter would have been lost to us forever.
That day I was reading the newspaper sitting on a chair near the door. Aarti had gone out with Kajal. About an hour later, both of them came back. Kajal stopped near me and passing a small sweet, said, “Here, have the prasad.”
I raised my head, “Where did you go?”
“We went to the Shiva temple to offer our prayers.”
I took a piece of sweet from both of them. Kajal went inside.
Many a time in the past, Kajal had informed me her visits to the temple with Aarti, but I had never asked her about her God or her worship.
That particular day, it was not as if some god was suddenly born inside me or I had become a victim to my ego. A thought nagged my mind that God, the creator of this world, had spoiled a lot of this woman. It was I who had improved her fortune.
I called Kajal.
When Kajal appeared before me, I stared at her with a smiling face for a few moments and then said, “Have you ever cursed God for what an evil world He has created?”
“I? Curse God?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t do that, Baba.”
“Why? Look at the condition He put you in. How terrible is this world of His!”
“How can I curse God! If His world would have been really that awful, Baba, how would you have met me at Sealdah station!”
Saying this, she stood in front of me for some time and then went away smiling.
I sat lost in thoughts for a long time. Now I regret asking her to comment on my theory of God’s messed up world. Kajal, who had said yes to everything I said, said no for the first time. I wondered if I would lose her after getting her in my life! She didn’t stay with me. She went away with her God.
Also, read Woman Is Power by Chandrakiran Saunriksa, translated from the Hindi by Ananya Agustin Malhotra, and published in The Antonym:
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हार्दिक बधाई और आशा करता हूं कि सृजन क्षेत्र में ऐसे ही आगे भी क्रियाशील रहेंगी। शुभकामनाएं…