“Why does everybody have to choose the railway tracks only for dying?” grumbled another. “No consideration for people like us. Murder, suicide, Naxalite-terrorist killing, police-custody death — everything ends up delaying the trains. What is wrong with poison or tall buildings or knives?”
The long-anticipated rumble at last rippled through the compartments, and the train shivered down its long steel spine. Relief lit the passengers’ faces. As the compartments trundled past the level-crossing, everyone craned to see the cause of their delay. Three uniformed policemen stood by the hastily covered corpse awaiting its journey to the morgue. Some passengers touched their foreheads or put their hands together and murmured, “Ram, Ram.”
Maneck Kohlah descended behind the uncle and nephew, and they exited the platform together. “Excuse me,” he said, taking a letter from his pocket. “I am new in the city, can you tell me how to get to this address?”
“You are asking the wrong people,” said Ishvar without reading it. “We are also new here.”
But Omprakash glanced at the letter and said, “Look, it’s the same name!”
Ishvar pulled a square of ragged paper out of his own pocket and compared it. His nephew was right, there it was: Dina Dalai, followed by the address.
Omprakash regarded Maneck with sudden hostility. “Why are you going to Dina Dalai? Are you a tailor?”
“Me, tailor? No, she is my mother’s friend.”
Ishvar tapped his nephew’s shoulder. “See, simply you were panicking. Come on, let’s find the building.”
Maneck did not understand what they meant, till Ishvar explained outside the station. “You see, Om and I are tailors. Dina Dalai has work for two tailors. We are going to apply.”
“And you thought I was running there to steal your job.” Maneck smiled. “Don’t worry, I am just a student. Dina Dalai and my mother used to be in school together. She’s letting me stay with her for a few months, that’s all.”
They asked a paanwalla for directions, and walked down the street that was pointed out. Omprakash was still a little suspicious. “If you are staying with her for a few months, where is your trunk, your belongings? Only two books you have?”
“Today I’m just going to meet her. I will shift my things from the college hostel next month.”
They passed a beggar slumped upon a small wooden platform fitted with castors, which raised him four inches off the ground. His fingers and thumbs were missing, and his legs were amputated almost to the buttocks. “O babu, ek paisa day-ray!” he sang, shaking a tin can between his bandaged palms. “O babu! Hai babu! Aray babu, ek paisa day-ray!”
“That’s one of the worst I’ve seen since coming to the city,” said Ishvar, and the others agreed. Omprakash paused to drop a coin in the tin.
They crossed the road, asking again for directions. “I’ve been living in this city for two months,” said Maneck, “but it’s so huge and confusing. I can recognize only some big streets. The little lanes all look the same.”
“We have been here six months and still have the same problem. In the beginning we were completely lost. The first time, we couldn’t even get on a train — two or three went by before we learned how to push.”
Maneck said he hated it here, and could not wait to return to his home in the mountains, next year, when he finished college.
“We have also come for a short time only,” said Ishvar. “To earn some money, then go back to our village. What is the use of such a big city? Noise and crowds, no place to live, water scarce, garbage everywhere. Terrible.”
“Our village is far from here,” said Omprakash. “Takes a whole day by train — morning till night — to reach it.”
“And reach it, we will,” said Ishvar. “Nothing is as fine as one’s native place.”
“My home is in the north,” said Maneck. “Takes a day and night, plus another day, to get there. From the window of our house you can see snow-covered mountain peaks.”
“A river runs near our village,” said Ishvar. “You can see it shining, and hear it sing. It’s a beautiful place.”
They walked quietly for a while, occupied with home thoughts. Omprakash broke the silence by pointing out a watermelon-sherbet stand. “Wouldn’t that be nice, on such a hot day.”
The vendor stirred his ladle in the tub, tinkling chunks of ice afloat in a sea of dark red. “Let’s have some,” said Maneck. “It looks delicious.”
“Not for us,” said Ishvar quickly. “We had a big breakfast this morning,” and Omprakash erased the longing from his face.
“Okay,” said Maneck doubtfully, ordering one large glass. He studied the tailors who stood with eyes averted, not looking at the tempting tub or his frosted glass. He saw their tired faces, how poor their clothes were, the worn-out chappals.
He drank half and said, “I’m full. You want it?”
They shook their heads.
“It will go to waste.”
“Okay, yaar, in that case,” said Omprakash, and took the sherbet. He gulped some, then passed it to his uncle.
Ishvar drained the glass and returned it to the vendor. “That was so tasty,” he said, beaming with pleasure. “It was very kind of you to share it with us, we really enjoyed it, thank you.” His nephew gave him a disapproving look to tone it down.
How much gratitude for a little sherbet, thought Maneck, how starved they seemed for ordinary kindness.
The verandah door had a brass nameplate:
“You are tailors?”
“Hahnji,” said Ishvar, nodding vigorously. All three entered the verandah at her invitation and stood awkwardly.
The verandah, which used to be an open gallery, had been converted into an extra room when Dina Dalai’s late husband was still a child — his parents had decided it would be a playroom to supplement the tiny flat. The portico was bricked and fitted with an iron-grilled window.
“But I need only two tailors,” said Dina Dalai.
“Excuse me, I’m not a tailor. My name is Maneck Kohlah.” He stepped forward from behind Ishvar and Omprakash.
“Oh, you are Maneck! Welcome! Sorry, I couldn’t recognize you. It’s been years since I last saw your mummy, and you I have never, ever seen.”
She left the tailors on the verandah and took him inside, into the front room. “Can you wait here for a few minutes while I deal with those two?”
Sure.
Maneck took in the shabby furnishings around him: the battered sofa, two chairs with fraying seats, a scratched teapoy, a dining table with a cracked and faded rexine tablecloth. She mustn’t live here, he decided, this was probably a family business, a boarding house. The walls were badly in need of paint. He played with the discoloured plaster blotches, the way he did with clouds, imagining animals and landscapes. Dog shaking hands. Hawk diving sharply. Man with walking-stick climbing mountain.
On the verandah, Dina Dalai ran a hand over her black hair, as yet uninvaded by grey, and turned her attention to the tailors. At forty-two, her forehead was still smooth, and sixteen years spent fending for herself had not hardened the looks which, a long time ago, used to make her brother’s friends vie to impress her.
She asked for names and tailoring experience. The tailors claimed to know everything about women’s clothes. “We can even take measurements straight from the customer’s body and make any fashion you like,” said Ishvar confidently, doing all the talking while Omprakash nodded away.
“For this job, there will be no customers to measure,” she explained. “The sewing will be straight from paper patterns. Each week you have to make two dozen, three dozen, whatever the company wants, in the same
