When Bechu arrived in the city, it was as if there was already an empty space waiting for him. He only had to take up a room on rent, and things started falling into place. At first he nearly fainted on hearing how much the rent was. In the village, he wouldn’t even get this much for a month’s washing. But when he learnt the rates for washing here, the rent didn’t bite so much. In just one month he had more customers than he could count. There was no dearth of water. He was true to his word, and still free of the ills of city life. Sometimes, the earnings of a single day would exceed what he’d earn in a year back home in the village.
But in just three or four months, the ways of the city began to influence him. Earlier, he used to drink coconut water. Now, he got a bubbly hookah. His feet, once bare, were attired in shoes, and the unpolished grain he was accustomed to began to cause indigestion. Earlier, once in a while, on some festive occasion, he would have a little liquor. Now, to beat exhaustion, he started drinking every day. His wife acquired a taste for ornaments—‘The other dhobins go about all dressed up here, am I any less than them?’ she would say. His boys would get excited every time a peddler came by hawking his wares and run out as soon as they heard ‘Moongfali! Halva!’
Meanwhile, the landlord raised the rent. Even straw and oil cakes were as dear as pearls here. A good bit of his earnings went into feeding the two bulls that carried his load of dirty clothes for washing. So whatever he would have managed to save over several months earlier now vanished. Sometimes, the expenses would mount higher than his earnings, but no means of thrift would come to mind. Eventually, his wife started whisking away his customers’ clothes and renting them out to others on the sly. When Bechu came to know, he was furious. ‘If I hear one more complaint, there’ll be no one worse than me! It was this accusation that forced me to leave the village of my forefathers. Do you want us to be banished from here as well?’
His wife answered, ‘But it is you who can’t do without liquor for even a day. Do I get the money to blow up on myself? And yes, leave something for household expenses before you go, I’m not getting any sweets out of this.’
But gradually, the matter of ethics began to bow its head before necessity. Once, Bechu lay ill with fever for many days. His wife took him to the vaid in a palanquin. The vaid wrote down a prescription. There was no money in the house. Bechu looked at his wife with desperate eyes and asked, ‘What now? Must the medicine be bought?’
‘I’ll do as you say.’
‘Can’t you borrow from someone?’
‘I’ve borrowed from everyone I could; it’s become difficult to walk in the mohalla nowadays. Whom to ask now? What work I can do myself, I do. I can’t cut myself up into pieces and die, can I? A little extra money used to come in, but you put a stop to that too. So what say do I have then? The bulls have been hungry for two days. If I get two rupees, I could feed them.’
‘Fine, do what you wish, but make do somehow. I have now learnt—an honest man cannot make a living in the city.’
From that day on, the ways of other city washermen were followed in his house.3
A lawyer’s cleric, Munshi Dataram, lived in Bechu’s neighbourhood. Sometimes, during a break, Bechu would go sit with him. It was a matter between neighbours, so no accounts were kept for his washing. Munshiji would always receive Bechu graciously, hand him his chillum to smoke, and if some delicacy had been made at his place, he would have it sent for Bechu’s boys. But yes, he would make sure that these little gestures did not exceed the cost of the washing.
It was summer, the season of marriages. Munshiji had to go for a wedding. He got a long pipe made for his hookah, bought a well-oiled chillum and pointed-toe salimshahi shoes, and borrowed a rug from his lawyer sahib and a gold ring and buttons from his friend. He didn’t have much difficulty procuring all these things. But he was embarrassed to borrow clothes for the wedding. There was no scope for getting new ones stitched. It was no easy matter to get made-to-order breast-pocketed kurtas, silk achkans, tight-ringed chunnatdaar nainsukh pyjamas and a Benarasi turban. These items would cost a handsome amount. Buying silk-bordered dhotis and a shawl of Kashi silk was also no trivial matter. He kept worrying about all this for days. In the end, he could think of no one other than Bechu to bail him out.
When Bechu came and sat by him in the evening, Munshiji humbly said, ‘Bechu, I have to attend a wedding. I have managed to collect everything else I need, but getting new clothes made is a problem. Money is not a concern; by your good wishes these hands are never empty. The profession is also such that no matter what fee you ask for, it is less; some poor fool or another with a fat purse is always there to fleece. But you know the rush of weddings these days—tailors don’t have a moment’s respite, they charge twice the normal rates, and even then they make you wait for months. If you have any clothes suitable for me, I’ll just borrow them for two or three days and somehow get it over and done with. What does it cost anyone to give an invitation? At the most, they might get
