The rain stopped after three days of tireless pouring. Between torn shreds of clouds the blue of the sky was of a newly discovered richness; it was a miracle. Such depth of colour, such purity of whiteness could exist only in illusions of substance.
The sun drew people on the roads; it drove out the mustiness of three damp, misty days.
The little square where the roads round the foot of the hills met was alive again. Black rickshaws and faded green dandis lined one side. The coolies were gathered in idle groups. Every few moments the monotonous cry would pass from rickshaw to rickshaw, from dandi to dandi. “Rickshaw, huzoor?” “Dandi, huzoor?” And the inevitable refusal, quiet first, then rising to an exasperated pitch of anger. “No, no, no! Damn fools! If I wanted one I would ask for it.”
Then the coolies would apathetically return to their bidis, their dirty cards, their mournful songs, to the search for lice in the sweat-smelling rags that covered them.
Deoli leaned over the rails by the edge of the lake and coughed until it seemed only the tight muscles of his body kept the bones from falling apart. There was a thin film on his hand as he passed it over his mouth, he spat and the taste of blood was salt on his tongue. A wave of weakness surged over him, and he lay on the ground beside a rickshaw.
For ten days he had burned with fever and could not lift a dandi, and yet he paid his share of its hire. He had found a substitute to take his place in the team of four, but the man, knowing his desperation, had struck a hard bargain. And because the gods were angry with him, it had rained while he was ill; rained and flooded the fields in his distant village home and flooded hope from the hearts of his people.
But here in the city rain meant money. And he had been ill when it rained, when no one wanted to walk. Then no growling “No”, but impatience to be inside the rickshaws, side flaps down, glass fronts screwed firmly up, secure against the searching rain; impatience to be inside the dandis with hoods humped up and waterproofs drawn up and over one.
On sunny days it seemed only fat people wanted dandis; fat people with bodies too heavy for themselves to carry if others could be found to do so. They would take only four coolies in spite of all protestations; four men or none at all was a threat that never failed in effect. Up the coolies would carry the heavy inert bodies, leg muscles taut, sweat blinding their eyes, each breath a stinging lash cutting their throats, hearts beating wildly against the tightening iron bands constricting their chests.
“Dandi, huzoor?”
“No, no, no—damn you!”
Deoli stared at the patch of blue and the changing shapes of the clouds around. Clouds were the breath of magicians, now taking grotesque shape, budding and flowering and then suddenly disappearing. Little wisps growing into lowering masses. Even as he lay looking up the clouds became darker, and from either end of the valley they crept on towards the brave brightness of the blue patch. They moved stealthily and their shadows on the lake were ghostly. Before that creeping, determined stealth the brightness paled and vanished. The sun was hidden and down came the clouds, lower, to smother the hills and blanket the lake. Then came the rain, a murmur first, a few drops, an approaching haze, a downpour.
There was a rush for shelter, a black mushroom budding of umbrellas. At every cry of “Rickshaw!”, “Dandi!”, there was a scramble in which shouting trampling coolies, rickshaws, dandis seemed to be inextricably mixed. The policeman, a streaming shrouded figure, laid around with his baton, but the sound of his curses and the blows were drowned in the confusion of rain and rushing and shouting. A rickshaw would move off, a dandi would swing by, and the rest would once again wait for the cry “Dandi!”, “Dandi!”
Deoli and his companions were left to wait each time in the race and the rush. In despair they left the square to try their luck at the pavilion further on, by the lake’s edge. Sometimes they found stranded walkers taking shelter there.
Two other dandis turned in the same direction. Deoli’s breath caught in his throat but he ran as swiftly as his companions, swifter than the others. Only two people were in the pavilion.
“Dandi, huzoor?” “Sahib, Sahib, we came first.” Twelve coolies shouting to be heard. Rain streamed from their faces, their rags, but they did not dare take shelter in the pavilion. Its lights streamed out through the rain to the lake. The swiftness of the falling drops transformed the water into a dark tissue studded with gleaming brilliants, fit for the sinuous body of a mermaid queen. In the pavilion there was damp drabness, stale companionship.
The man was impatient. “For God’s sake, take a dandi and let’s get out of here.”
Because the thought came to the woman unconsciously: “They’ll ask for a lot in this rain—it’s not far to walk,” she said. “Really, there’s no hurry. And you know I hate being carried like a corpse.” And to still the meanness of her thoughts she went on, “Poor wretches, this is such exploitation of human labour.”
The smooth words jarred the man’s nerves. While their voices rose in argument, the coolies called louder than before.
Two dandis moved off; coolies could tell by experience-sharpened instinct when it was useless to wait. Deoli, in desperation and afraid of the emptiness of that inner pocket sewn into his rags, urged his men to stay. They were wet and angry. “Dandi, huzoor? See how it rains. Dandi, huzoor, huzoor?”
But the two in the pavilion had turned their backs on them.
Deoli turned to go at last and was struck by a fit of coughing even as he lifted the weight of the dandi on his shoulder. Again the blood, the weakness.
Two women turned to look at him with horror. “God! Had I taken his dandi, I would have killed him.”
Within the pocket sewn into Deoli’s rags was a murderous emptiness.
Selected by Mini Krishnan
Reproduced courtesy of Women Unlimited
Illustrations by Siddharth Sengupta
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