Free Half a Rupee: Stories by Gulzar

where do you get water to bathe and cook?’
    ‘There’s a pipeline, Sahibji, but the control is in Jaisalmer. By the time the water reaches here, it is never enough. We order water tankers. The contractors too need to earn a living.’
    We reserved a tent for the womenfolk. Water wasavailable in bottles and we had a plentiful stock of Bisleri. Our heroine, whom we addressed as Dimpyji, had fired a gun a number of times in films. But she had never handled a real gun, never fired real bullets. She asked the soldier standing in the alcove, ‘Is this thing loaded?’
    ‘Yes, certainly madam, it is.’
    ‘May I?’
    The soldier jumped down. Dimpyji stepped on the empty wooden crates by the wall and climbed onto the alcove. The desert sprawled out like a beautiful, delicate silken sheet over the earth. Not far away, towards the right, two palm trees stood tall in their green plumage. A few thatched houses huddled around them.
    ‘Who lives in those houses?’ Dimpyji asked.
    ‘Shepherds, mostly.’
    ‘Is that a village?’
    ‘Yes, something like it.’
    ‘What’s its name?’
    The soldier had no idea. He looked embarrassed and began to look sideways. A number of soldiers had come and stood behind Dimpyji, crowding the door. They were all trying hard to suppress their smiles. A senior soldier finally said, ‘The village does not have a name. People call it Pochina Ki Poonchh, the tail of Pochina.’
    Laughter crackled through like a piece of chalk scratching a line on the blackboard. Dimpyji asked the senior, ‘May I fire this gun?’
    He hesitated a little before saying, ‘Yes, go ahead.’
    ‘But what if somebody from the other side of the border fires back?’
    ‘Not a problem ji. We normally fire a shot to greet each other.’
    ‘Is that so? And what if I were to fire two shots?’
    A smile stayed glued on each and every face.
    ‘Oh … that would be a signal to the men on the other side that we are sending people across the border … if they want to send somebody across they too fire twice.’
    They all broke into laughter but the laughter never left their lips, it stayed glued to their faces. Dimpyji fired a greeting at the enemy outpost. The sound reverberated in the desolate arid desert and began to swim across the border. Gopi Advani was standing next to me. Suddenly he trembled. His lips quivered and tears welled up in his eyes.
    ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I asked.
    ‘Nothing!’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Over there on the other side is Sindh … my village.’ And he walked away.
    People in our unit would tease Gopi; they called him Baby Gopi. He was a very emotional man. Tears would well up in his eyes if he were to talk about his mother. His family had stayed back in Sindh after Partition. He had gone to school there for a few years. But with the arrival of the Indian
muhajirs
—the Muslims from India who were forced to go to Pakistan after Partition—life for them became increasingly difficult and they had to leave. That day, seeing Sindh so close, his heart trembled.
    I did not see him again that day. He did not even return to the tent at nightfall. When the director inquired about him, I covered for him, ‘He’s not feeling well. I asked him,to rest in the tent.’ But I had begun to worry about Gopi. What if he had scrambled across the border? He wasn’t to be found the next morning either, but he resurfaced in the afternoon the day after. I learnt that he indeed had gone over to the other side. But soon he had found himself totally lost.
    ‘Deep in the desert, you tend to lose your orientation. Dunes upon dunes of sand, they all look the same. You climb a dune but the one in front looks the same as the one you just left behind. There was only one thing to do—to retrace my footsteps and head back. But when I turned back the footprints were all gone. To tell you the truth, I was really scared. If it wasn’t for Salman, I would be … he was godsent.’
    ‘Who’s