A son was born to Radha and Narayan; they named him Omprakash. People came to sing and rejoice with them at the happy occasion. The proud grandfather personally carried sweets to every house in the village.
Later that week, Dukhi’s friend Chhotu came with his wife to see the newborn. Taking Dukhi and Narayan aside, he whispered, “The uppers chucked the sweets in the garbage.”
They did not doubt his word; he would know, for he collected the trash from many of those houses. The news was hurtful but Narayan laughed it away. “More for the ones who found the packages.”
Visitors continued to arrive, marvelling at how healthy the baby looked, considering it was a Chamaar’s child, and how it was always smiling. “Even when he is hungry there is no puling or mewling,” Radha became fond of boasting. “Just makes a tiny
Three daughters were born after Omprakash. Two survived. Their names were Leela and Rekha. No sweets were distributed.
Narayan began teaching his son to read and write, conducting the lessons while sewing. The man sat at the sewing-machine, the child sat with slate and chalk. By the time Omprakash was five, he could also do buttons with great style, imitating the flourish with which his father licked the thread and shot it through the needle’s eye, or his flair in stabbing the needle through the cloth.
“All day he spends stuck to his Bapa,” grumbled Radha happily, surveying the adoring father and son.
Her mother-in-law reviewed the scene and drank it in with pleasure. “Daughters are a mother’s responsibility but sons are for the father,” pronounced Roopa, as though she had been granted a brand-new revelation, and Radha received it as such, nodding solemnly.
In the week following Omprakash’s fifth birthday, Narayan took him to the tannery, where the Chamaars were busy at work. Since his return to the village, he had continued to join in their labours periodically, helping with whatever stage of skinning, curing, tanning, or dyeing that was in progress. And now he proudly showed his child how it was done.
But Omprakash held back. Narayan did not like this behaviour. He insisted the boy dirty his hands.
“Chhee! It stinks!” shrieked Omprakash.
“I know it stinks. Do it anyway.” He seized the boy’s hands and dunked them in the tanning vat, plunging him in to the elbows. He was ashamed of his son’s display before his fellow Chamaars.
“I don’t want to do this! I want to go home! Please, Bapa, take me home now!”
“Tears or no tears, you will learn this work,” said Narayan grimly.
Omprakash sobbed and wailed, going into convulsions of rage, wrenching his hands away. “You do that and I will throw your whole body inside,” his father threatened, soaking the arms again and again.
The others tried to persuade Narayan to let it be — the child might have a fit or seizure of some sort, they feared, the way he was screaming hysterically. “It’s his first day,” they said. “Next week he will do better.” But Narayan forced him to keep at it till he called a halt an hour later.
Omprakash was still crying when they got home. On the porch, Radha was massaging her mother-in-law’s scalp with coconut oil. They upset the bottle in their rush to comfort him. Roopa tried to hug her grandson but the thin grey strands hanging greasy and stiff over her forehead made him pull away. He had never seen his grandmother look so frightful.
“What is ailing him? What have you done to him, my poor little laughing-playing child?”
Narayan explained how they had spent the morning, and Dukhi laughed to hear it. The entire episode made Radha furious. “Why must you torment the boy? There is no need to make my Om do such dirty work!”
“Dirty work? You, a Chamaar’s daughter! Saying it is dirty work!”
She was startled by the outburst. It was the first time Narayan had shouted at her. “But why does he — ”
“How will he appreciate what he has if he does not learn what his forefathers did? Once a week he will come with me! Whether he likes it or not!”
Radha silently appealed to her father-in-law and began mopping up the coconut oil. Dukhi acknowledged her by tilting his head. Later, when he and Narayan were alone, he said, “Son, I agree with you. But no matter what we think, once a week is only a game. It will never be for him like it was for us. And thank God for that.”
Omprakash spent the rest of the day in misery, in the kitchen, clinging to his mother. Radha kept patting his head while doing her work. “Won’t only leave me alone,” she grumbled happily to her mother-in-law. “I still have to chop the spinach and make the chapatis. God knows when I’ll finish.”
Roopa crinkled her forehead. “When sons are unhappy, they remember their mothers.”
In the evening, while his father was relaxing on the porch, his eyes closed, Omprakash crept out and began massaging his feet, the way he had seen his mother do it. Narayan started, and opened his eyes. He looked down, saw his son and smiled. He held out his arms to him.
Omprakash leapt into them, flinging his hands round his father’s neck. They stayed hugging for a few minutes without speaking a word. Then Narayan pried the child’s fingers loose and sniffed them. He offered his own to him. “See? We both have the same smell. It’s an honest smell.”
The child nodded. “Bapa, shall I do some more chumpee for your feet?”
“Okay.” He watched fondly as his son squeezed the heel, rubbed the arch, kneaded the sole, and massaged each toe, copying Radha’s methodical manner. Roopa and Radha stood concealed in the doorway, beaming at each other.
The weekly leather-working lessons continued for the next three years. Omprakash was taught how to pack the skins with salt to cure them. He collected the fruit of the myrobalan tree to make tannin solution. He learned to prepare dyes, and how to impress the dye in the leather. This was the filthiest task of them all, and it made him retch.
The ordeal ended when he was eight. He was sent to his uncle Ishvar for exposure to a wider range of sewing skills at Muzaffar Tailoring Company. Besides, the school in town now accepted everyone, high caste or low, while the village school continued to be restricted.
Radha and Narayan were not as desolate as Roopa and Dukhi had been when their sons had left to apprentice with Ashraf Chacha. A new road and bus service had shrunk the gap between village and town. They could look forward to frequent visits from Omprakash; besides, they had their two little daughters at home.
Still, Radha felt unjustly deprived of her son’s presence. A popular song about a bird that was the singer’s constant companion, but which for some inexplicable reason had decided to fly away, became Radha’s favourite. She ran to their new Murphy transistor and turned up the volume, shushing everyone when the familiar introduction trickled forth. When her son was home, the song meant nothing to her.
Omprakash’s sisters resented his visits. No one paid attention to Leela and Rekha if their brother was in the house. It started as soon as he stepped in the door.
“Look at my child! How thin he has become!” complained Radha. “Is your uncle feeding you or not?”
“He looks thin because he has grown taller,” was Narayan’s explanation.
But she used the excuse to lavish on him special treats like cream, dry fruits, and sweetmeats, bursting with pleasure while he ate. Now and then her fingers swooped into his plate, scooped up a morsel and tenderly transported it to his mouth. No meal was complete unless she had fed him something with her own hands.
Roopa, too, relished the sight of her lunching, munching grandson. She sat like a referee, reaching to wipe away a crumb from the corner of his mouth, refilling his plate, pushing a glass of lussi within his reach. A smile appeared on her wrinkled face, and the sharp light of her memory flickered over those pitch-dark nights from many years ago when she would creep out into enemy territory to gather treats for Ishvar and Narayan.
Omprakash’s sisters were silent spectators at the mealtime ritual. Leela and Rekha watched enviously, knowing better than to protest or plead with the adults. During rare moments when no one was around, Omprakash shared the delicacies with them. More often, though, the two girls wept quietly in their beds at night.
Narayan sat on the porch at dusk with his father’s aged feet in his lap, massaging the cracked, tired soles. Omprakash, fourteen now, was expected home tomorrow on a week-long visit.
“Ah!” sighed Dukhi with pleasure, then asked if he had checked on the newborn calf.
There was no answer. He repeated his question, nudging Narayan’s chest with the big toe. “Son? Are you listening?”
“Yes Bapa, I was just thinking.” He resumed the massage, staring into the dusk. His fingers worked with
