Free Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa Page B

large man, as big-bellied and broad-beamed as Imam Din, but at least twenty years younger. He has large, clear black eyes and an imposing cleft in his chin. As he talks, he slowly strokes his thick, up-twirled moustache: without which no village headman can look like a chaudhry. “But all that is in the cities,” he continues, as if he has considered the issue for some time. “It won’t affect our lives.”
    â€œI’ve not come all this way without a reason,” says Imam Din. The villagers, who are wondering why he is visiting them, look at him attentively. He rubs his face with both hands; as if it pains him to state the reason. “I don’t think you know how serious things are getting in the towns. Sly killings; rioting and baton charges by the police ... long marches by mobs ... The Congresswallahs have started a new stunt... they sit down on the rail tracks—women and children, too. The police lift them off the tracks ... But one of these days the steam engines will run over them ... Once aroused, the English are savages...
    â€œThen there is this Hindu-Muslim trouble,” he says, after a pause. “Ugly trouble ... It is spreading. Sikh-Muslim trouble also...”
    The villagers, Sikh and Muslim, erupt in protest.
    â€œBrother,” the Sikh granthi says when the tumult subsides, “our villages come from the same racial stock. Muslim or Sikh, we are basically Jats. We are brothers. How can we fight each other?”
    â€œBarey Mian ,” says the chaudhry, giving Imam Din his due as a respected elder, “I’m alert to what’s happening... I have a radio.
But our relationships with the Hindus are bound by strong ties. The city folk can afford to fight... we can’t. We are dependent on each other: bound by our toil; by Mandi prices set by the Banyas—they’re our common enemy—those city Hindus. To us villagers, what does it matter if a peasant is a Hindu, or a Muslim, or a Sikh?”
    Imam Din nods. There is a subtle change in his face; he looks calmer. “As long as our Sikh brothers are with us, what have we to fear?” he says, speaking to the granthi, and including the other Sikhs with a glance. “I think you are right, brothers, the madness will not infect the villages.”
    â€œIf needs be, we’ll protect our Muslim brothers with our lives!” says Jagjeet Singh.
    â€œI am prepared to take an oath on the Holy Koran,” declares the chaudhry, “that every man in this village will guard his Sikh brothers with no regard for his own life!”
    â€œWe have no need for oaths and such,” says the mullah in a fragile elderly voice. “Brothers don’t require oaths to fulfil their duty.”
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    Later, when the mullah’s voice calls the evening prayer, and the Sikhs have begun to saunter across the fields to their village, Dost Mohammad carries his son to a small brick mosque with a green dome in the center of Pir Pindo. I stay back with the women.

    We are due to leave in an hour. Chidda has awakened early to prepare breakfast. I sit on the floor crosslegged, eating my paratha and omelette. Parveen shuffles closer to me. With extreme delicacy, her face flushed and confiding, she whispers into my ear. It takes me a while to realize, she is asking if my hair was cut on account of lice.
    â€œOf course not!” I say. I don’t care who hears me. “It’s the city fashion.” I glare at her. “Even my mother’s hair is short.”
    Chidda, squatting by the hearth, summons her daughter.
Rapping her on the head she says: “Who told you to be uncivil? Who told you to ask questions? Haven’t I taught you to mind your tongue? Go! Get out of my sight!” she says. Ranna quickly grabs his sister’s share of the breakfast.
    A bunch of villagers accompanies us for a mile, wheeling Imam Din’s bicycle for him as we walk. I leave Pir Pindo with a heavy heart