Free Our Favourite Indian Stories by Khushwant Singh

like that. Supposing I start screaming?'
    'So what?'
    'Go away! Are you going to play hide and seek with me or... ?'
    And then a loud voice came floating: 'Sunita has been caught! Come out, everybody. She will be blindfolded!'
    'We shall come here and hide again.'
    'Why, pray? I won't come here again,' he had said.
    Nevertheless, he had kept going back to the same corner of Madan Mahal Fort where Time stood gazing at the deep trenches. He remembered catching worms that formed lac on the
palash
trees behind the mangos and custard-apples that had grown at random. He remembered singing the tune of the mildly blowing breeze, and the fear emanating from the grave-yard where the spirits lay buried with the sinking sun.
    During one such hide-and-seek game, he had clipped Ramrati's plait with a pair of scissors. What else could he do if no one believed in what he said? Then the visits had stopped. There had been quarrels and feuds. Inspite of those, at every lonely turn of the road, there was teasing and sticking out of one's tongue at the other!
    What a long time back it had all been! How on earth could he recognize Ramrati? And when he did recognize her afresh, there had been her complaints and reproaches to deal with.
He had become such a big officer! He couldn't even get a new wig for her. There was no dearth of saris in Delhi. And one gets chappals in so many colours! Fashions change every day. He could have got something for her—something currently in fashion. Couldn't he take her to Madan Mahal dressed in that fashion ?
    'No...' it was a helpless situation for both of them.
    He remembered the continuous stream of visitors to their house and then Father calling out, 'Do see who has come. When you were young, you used to be in his house the whole day. Now you don't come even when we call you. You must touch his feet.'
    How could he convince his father that he had travelled far from the Past? Even as a child, he had found it irksome. Now he just could not lower his head before anyone. What else does a man have except his dignity and self-respect? How often does one have to lower everything day and night?
    It's a mockery too that all of them still considered him to be an ordinary man. They praised him and admired him, but clearly they had something else on their minds. It was not difficult to read their faces. Their looks concealed their complaints. He had noticed a similar look in his father's eyes. Father had always wanted to build a mansion in the ancestral backdrop so that the neighbours would be left staggered in amazement. During each visit home he would be shown a new blueprint of the dream house. Father had always expected him to deposit a pile of currency notes with him so that the blueprint on paper could be turned into a reality. He had already borrowed a thousand rupees and passed them on to his father. At that moment Father had quietly taken the money, but he had overheard him remarking to his mother in the evening, 'See, didn't I say he has plenty of money? He earns quite a lot — only he doesn't want to give it to us....'
    'Why won't he give it? For whom is it meant, after all?'
    'Not for us,' father had said emphatically. 'What can you do with a thousand rupees? For him it's just some dirt off his hand. He saves that much money every month!'
    He had heard that by mere accident and was stunned. He had regretted that he had ever borrowed the money at all. What a complicated situation it was! There was trouble if he did not give money, and when he did, the wonderful compliments! His mind protested.
    But however much he may have revolted against him, Father's importance could not be denied. The day Father died, he was overwhelmed with sorrow and grief. He had not even been able to see him before his death. That was painful enough and then, the pain of seeing his body reduced to ashes! How frequently he had broken down while carrying his ashes to the Ganges. What he was carrying in his hands was stark reality.