The year that Ishvar turned ten and Narayan eight, the rainfall was excellent. Dukhi struggled through the monsoon months, scrounging armfuls of thatch to keep the hut from leaking. The fields recovered from the drought and the cattle grew healthy. Dukhi waited in vain for animals to die and yield their hides.
As the fine weather continued, promising a bountiful crop for the zamindars, for the landless untouchables it was a bleak season. There would be work for them when the harvest was ready, but till then they had to depend on charity or the paltry scraps of toil thrown their way at the discretion of the landlords.
After several idle days, Dukhi was grateful to be sent for by Thakur Premji. He was led to the back of the house where a sack of dry red chillies was waiting to be ground into powder. “Can you finish that by sunset?” asked Thakur Premji. “Or maybe I should call two men.”
Reluctant to share whatever slim reward was to come his way, Dukhi said, “Don’t worry, Thakurji, it will all be done before the sun disappears.” He filled the massive stone mortar with chillies and selected one of the three long, heavy pestles lying by it. He began pounding vigorously, smiling frequently at the Thakur who stayed to watch for a while.
Dukhi slowed down after he left. The rapid rhythm could only be maintained when there were three people at the mortar, delivering the pestles in succession. By lunchtime he had finished half the sack, and stopped to eat. Looking around to see if anyone was watching, he reached into the mortar and sprinkled a pinch of chilli powder on his chapati. He was just in time, for the Thakur sent his man out with a can of water.
It was late in the afternoon, when the sack was almost empty, that the accident occurred. Without warning, as the pestle landed and rebounded the way it had been doing all day, the mortar split cleanly in two and collapsed. One side landed on Dukhi’s left foot and crushed it.
The Thakur’s wife was watching from the kitchen window. “Oiee, my husband! Come quick!” she screamed. “The Chamaar donkey has destroyed our mortar!”
Her screams roused Thakur Premji, drowsing under the awning at the front of the house, cradling a grandchild in his arms. He passed the sleeping infant to a servant and ran to the back. Dukhi was sprawled on the ground, trying to bandage his bleeding foot with the cloth he normally wrapped around his head like a brief turban.
“What have you done, you witless animal! Is this what I hired you for?”
Dukhi looked up. “Forgive me, Thakurji, I did not do anything to it. There must have been a flaw in the stone.”
“Liar!” He raised his stick threateningly. “First breaking it, then lying to me on top! If you did nothing, how can it break? A big thing of solid stone! Is it made of glass to shatter just like that?”
“I swear on the heads of my children,” begged Dukhi, “I was only pounding chillies, as I have done all day. Look, Thakurji, the sack is almost empty, the work — ”
“Get up! Leave my land at once! I never want to see you again!”
“But Thakurji, the work — ”
He hit Dukhi across the back with his stick. “Get up, I said! And get out!”
Dukhi rose to his feet, limping backwards, out of reach. “Thakurji, have pity, there has been no work for days, I don’t — ”
The Thakur lashed out wildly. “Listen, you stinking dog! You have destroyed my property, yet I am letting you off! If I wasn’t such a softhearted fool, I would hand you to the police for your crime. Now get out!” He continued to swing the stick.
Dukhi dodged, but could not move quickly enough with his injured foot. Several blows found their mark before he had slipped through the gate. He hobbled home, cursing the Thakur and his progeny.
“Leave me alone,” he hissed in response to Roopa’s fearful inquiries. When she persisted, clinging to his side, begging to be allowed to examine his damaged foot, he struck her. Angry and humiliated, he sat silent in the hut all evening. Ishvar and Narayan were frightened; they had never seen their father like this.
Afterwards, he let Roopa clean and bandage the wound, and ate the food she brought him, but still he refused to talk. “You will feel better if you tell me,” she said.
Two days later he told her, his bitterness overflowing like the foul ooze from his foot. He had not minded when he had been beaten that time for the straying goats. It had been his fault, he had fallen asleep. But this time he had done nothing wrong. He had worked hard all day, yet he had been thrashed and cheated of his payment. “On top of that, my foot is crushed,” he said. “I could kill that Thakur. Nothing but a lowly thief. And they are all like that. They treat us like animals. Always have, from the days of our forefathers.”
“Shh,” she said. “It’s not good for the boys to hear such things. It was just bad luck, the mortar breaking, that’s all.”
“I spit in their upper-caste faces. I don’t need their miserable jobs from now on.”
After his foot had healed, Dukhi turned his back on the village. He left at dawn and arrived in town before noon, getting rides in bullock carts and a lorry. He selected a street corner where there were no other cobblers nearby. With his metal last, awl, hammer, nails, cleats, and leather patches arranged in a semicircle around him, he settled upon the pavement and waited to mend the footwear of town dwellers.
Shoes, moccasins, slippers tramped past in a variety of designs and colours which intrigued and worried him. If one of them chose to stop, would he be capable of doing the repairs? It all seemed more complicated than the simple sandals he was used to.
After a while someone halted before Dukhi, shook the chappal off his right foot, and pointed at its broken cross straps with his big toe. “How much for fixing that?”
Dukhi picked it up and turned it over. “Two annas.”
“Two annas? Are you paagal or something? I might as well buy new chappals if I am going to pay a mochi like you two annas.”
“Aray sahab, who will give you new chappals for two annas?” They haggled for a bit, then settled for one anna. Dukhi scraped the soles to expose the groove in which the broken stitches sat. The grime flaked off in large flat crusts. He decided there was no difference between village grime and town grime, it looked and smelled the same.
He inserted the straps in their slits and secured them with a row of new stitches. Before trying on the chappal, the man tugged at the repair work. He took trial steps, wiggled his toes around, grunted his approval and paid.
Six hours and five customers later, it was time to start back. Dukhi made a few purchases with the money — a little flour, three onions, four potatoes, two hot green chillies — then took the homeward road. Traffic was sparser than in the morning. He walked a long time before getting a ride. It was night when he reached the village. Roopa and the children were waiting anxiously for him.
After a few days at the street corner, Dukhi saw striding towards him on the pavement his friend Ashraf. “I didn’t know you were cobbling in my neighbourhood,” said Ashraf, surprised to see him.
Ashraf was the Muslim tailor in town. He was Dukhi’s age, and it was to him that Dukhi used to go on the rare occasions when he could afford to get something for Roopa or the children — the Hindu tailor did not sew for untouchables.
Learning about Dukhi’s misfortunes in the village, Ashraf asked, “Would you like to try something different? Something which might pay more?”
“Where?”
“Come with me.”
He gathered up his implements and hurried away with Ashraf. They walked to the other side of town, across the railway line, to the lumberyard. There, Dukhi was introduced to Ashraf’s uncle, who managed the place.
From now on, there was always work for him at the yard: loading and unloading lorries, or helping to make deliveries. Dukhi greatly preferred the labour of lifting and carrying, walking upright among men, instead of crouching all day on the pavement, conducting conversations with strangers’ feet. And the fragrance of fresh wood was a welcome respite from the stench of filthy footwear.
One morning, on his way to the lumberyard, Dukhi saw a lot of traffic. The bullock cart he rode in was swallowed by clouds of dust. It had to often pull over to the side, and once, when a large bus passed, ended almost
