Ashraf even felt safe enough to turn over the Krishna Tailors sign and display the Muzaffar Tailoring side again.
Still, it was uncertain if centuries of tradition could be overturned as easily. So they agreed that Ishvar would stay on as Ashraf’s assistant, and Narayan would return to test the waters. This suited all sides: Muzaffar Tailoring Company would just barely support one assistant; Dukhi would have the help of wages sent from town; and Roopa would have her younger son back.
She took down the parcel that had hung from the ceiling for seven years. The string knots had shrunk and could not be untied. She cut the string, unwrapped the protective sackcloth, then washed the vest and choli. It was time to wear them again, she told Dukhi, to celebrate the homecoming.
“It hangs a little loose,” he said.
“Mine, too,” said Roopa. “The fabric must have stretched.”
He liked her explanation. It was easier than contemplating the lean years that had shrunk them both.
In the village, the Chamaar community was quietly proud of Narayan. Gradually, they found the courage to become his customers, though there was not much money in it for Narayan because they could rarely afford to have something new tailored. Garments thrown away by the upper castes clothed their bodies. Mostly, he altered or mended. He used an old hand-cranked sewing-machine that Ashraf had procured for him. It was restricted to a straight lock stitch, but sufficed for the work he did.
Business improved when word spread to neighbouring villages of the one who had done the unthinkable: abandoned leather for cloth. They came as much to see this courageous Chamaar-tailor, this contradiction in terms, as to get their clothes looked after. Many were a little disappointed with their visit. Inside the hut was nothing extraordinary, just a young man with a tape measure around his neck and a pencil behind one ear.
Narayan maintained a record of jobs and transactions as Ashraf had taught him, noting names, dates, and amounts owing. Roopa appointed herself to manage the business, standing around importantly while he measured the client and entered the figures in his book. She kept his pencils sharp with her paring knife. She could not read his register but retained an accurate account in her head. When someone who had yet to settle the balance from a previous job came with more work, she stood behind the client and rubbed her thumb and finger together to remind her son.
One morning, about six months after Narayan’s return to the village, a Bhunghi ventured towards the hut. Roopa was heating water over a fire outside, happily listening to the muffled clank of the sewing-machine, when she saw the fellow approach cautiously. “And where do you think you’re going?” she yelled, stopping him in his tracks.
“I am looking for Narayan the tailor,” said the man, timidly holding up some rags.
“What?!” His audacity flabbergasted her. “Don’t give me your tailor-failor nonsense! I’ll bathe your filthy skin with this boiling water! My son does not sew for your kind!”
“Ma! What are you doing?” shouted Narayan, emerging from the hut as the man bolted. “Wait, wait!” he yelled after the fellow. Terrified that retribution was in pursuit, the Bhunghi ran faster.
“Come back, bhai, it’s all right!”
“Another time,” called the frightened man. “Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Okay, I’11 wait for you,” said Narayan. “Please come for sure.” He returned to the hut, shaking his head and ignoring his mother who glared furiously at him.
“Dont you shake your head at me!” she said indignantly. “What-all nonsense is this, calling him back tomorrow? We are not going to deal with such low-caste people! How can you even think of measuring someone who carts the shit from people’s houses?”
Narayan was silent. After working for a few minutes, he went outside to the fire, where she was still stirring her vigorous rage into the pot.
“I think, Ma, that you are wrong,” he said, keeping his voice so soft that it was almost lost in the crackling fire. “I think I should sew for anybody who comes to me, Brahmin or Bhunghi.”
“You do, do you? Wait till your father comes home, see what he says about it! Brahmin yes, Bhunghi no!”
That evening Roopa told Dukhi about their son’s outrageous ideas, and he turned to Narayan. “I think your mother is right.”
Narayan dropped his hand from the crank and braked the fly wheel. “Why did you send me to learn tailoring?”
“That’s a stupid question. To improve your life — why else?”
“Yes. Because the uppers treat us so badly. And now you are behaving just like them. If that’s what you want, then I am going back to town. I cannot live like this anymore.”
Roopa was stunned by the ultimatum, and horrified when Dukhi turned to her and said, “I think he is right.”
“Father-of-Ishvar, make up your mind! First you say I am right, then you say he is right! From side to side you sway, like a pot without an arse! And this is what comes from sending him to town! Forgetting our village ways! It will only lead to trouble!” Boiling and bubbling, she left the hut, calling Amba, Pyari, Padma, and Savitri to come and hear what-all crazy things were happening in her unfortunate household.
“Toba, toba!” said Savitri. “Poor Roopa, so upset she is shaking.”
“Children — Hai Ram,” said Pyari, throwing up her hands. “How easily they forget about a mother’s feelings.”
“What to do,” said Amba. “We feed them milk from our breast when they are babies, but we cannot feed them good sense.”
“Be patient,” said Padma. “Everything will be all right.”
After bathing in their sympathy, Roopa was calmer. The thought of losing her son a second time made her think carefully. She forgave him his lunatic proposals and agreed to turn a blind eye to them on the basis of a compromise: she would reserve the right to control entry into her hut; some customers would have to conduct their transactions outside.
Two years later Narayan could afford to build his own hut, next to his parents’. Roopa wept that he was abandoning them. “Again and again he breaks his mother’s heart,” she complained. “How will I look after him and his business? Why must he separate?”
“But Ma, it’s only thirty feet away,” said Narayan. “You are welcome there any time to sharpen my pencils.”
“Sharpen pencils, he says! As if that’s all I do for him!”
Eventually, though, she got accustomed to the idea and made it a point of pride, speaking of the other hut to her friends as her son’s factory. He bought a large worktable, a clothes stand, and a new foot-operated sewing- machine which could do straight and zigzag stitches.
For this last purchase he went to take Ashraf Chacha’s advice. The little town had grown since his departure, and Muzaffar Tailoring Company was doing well. Ishvar had rented a room near the shop. From assistant, Ashraf had elevated him to partner. The brothers agreed that their father need not work anymore, between them they would provide for their parents.
“You are such good boys,” said Dukhi, when Narayan told him of the decision. “We are truly blessed by God.”
Roopa fetched the vest and choli made long ago by their children, and faded by now. “Remember these?”
“I didn’t know you still had them.”
“The day you and Ishvar brought these for us, you were so young, both of you,” she said, starting to cry. “But even then I knew, in my heart, that everything would be all right in the end.” She went to announce the good tidings to her friends, who hugged her and teased her that she would soon become rich and not have anything to do with them.
“But one thing is certain,” said Padma. “Time for marriage has come close.”
“You must start looking for two suitable daughters-in-law,” said Savitri.
“Don’t delay any longer,” said Pyari.
