Free Our Favourite Indian Stories by Khushwant Singh Page B

for tying
raakhis.
Now... ?
    Tears came to his eyes. How brother and sister had quarrelled as children! How the sister used to drink away the brother's share of milk and then add water to it! And how she used to be beaten up when discovered! Only then was it that she had come to realize the difference between being a boy and a girl. She had to wash her brother's shirts every day and if she didn't do that, he would catch hold of her by her hair and beat her up. But there was always peace between them when mother was not at home.
    When their period of peace extended a little longer, the two of them would play 'house-house' in the balcony. The sister would become the wife of the brother and then both of them would enact all the scenes from the world of reality with a touch of drama. They imitated everything — starting with the quarrels between their parents and ending with a display of all that symbolizes love. They would also have a rag-doll. Everything was so life-like, yet now so meaningless! That's what infuriated him. Marriage, love—everything was so complicated! They devoured life like vultures, till one was reduced to ashes and was tied up in a bundle.
    Verily, like travelling by train, he had left all those halts behind. His sister's face remained fixed before his eyes. Her face appeared to him like a mushroom grown in a pot, with seven new offshoots sprouting, and the taller mushroom gazing at those sprouts with pride. They would all welcome him on his arrival. At the same time, there would be only one thought in everybody's mind, 'Brother has become a big officer; uncle has a machine to print currency notes; his terelene bush shirt is stitched just to fit us; his trousers too, fit us perfectly. Why should uncle have three fountain pens? Brother is funny because he keeps his suitcase locked.
Arre,
does one keep things locked up in one's own house? Chiffon tie-and-dye saris are very much in vogue these days. Brother must have surely brought at least one such
sari
for us. After all, doesn't he have to make up for not one but five or six
raakhi
presents?'
    He sensed how his brother-in-law, with his air of detachment talked in a hushed tone. He was vocal about the fact that, since he belonged to the same clan, he should not have severed his ties and chosen for himself a separate path. And having done so, he was now duty-bound to make amends.
    He got up suddenly, opened his attaché case, brought out a copy of the railway timetable and started flipping through its pages. As he turned the pages, he forgot what he had wanted to see. He glanced at them one by one. He felt that his companions' eyes were glued to those pages. He surveyed those eyes in one go. Shekhar's eyes sprang up from his files. Shekhar had now become a schoolteacher. Hari was an overseer. Deshmukh was a police sub-inspector. Savita... He wanted to observe more closely, but could not make out anything. It seemed that only the expression of her eyes was absorbed by the timetable printed on newsprint. He tried very hard but couldn't find Savita anywhere. Remembering her, his thoughts flew to himself. Was he something apart from those memories? Perhaps not... Then, why had he decided to appear for his I. A. S. ? Who had provoked him to do that? All of a sudden, he had become the Director of a very big department. After all, why? How?
    A flood of worries surrounded him as it were. Everything happens according to tradition. Whoever allowed a flower of modernity to bloom in the jungle of tradition?
    The moving train had slowed down. Perhaps it was nearing a station. He put the timetable on the seat upside down and his eyes started roving in the compartment. There were two passengers on the opposite seat. One of them was reading the morning paper and the other was gazing at him. He encountered that gaze. The other passenger at once lowered his eyes and looked away.
    He looked out through the window. The train's motion had slowed down further. Outside, in