Melu’s bapu’s cough had become worse now. He would only get some relief if he was given a cup of hot tea, soon. Dyalo had put the water on to boil. After breaking the dry cotton twigs and bushy weeds and thrusting them all into the chulha, she was blowing over them, but the fire would smoulder for a while and then die down. With the clouds of smoke becoming denser, her eyes had begun to water. As she wiped her eyes repeatedly, they were now beginning to hurt her.

  ‘You, bhai…’ Melu’s bapu wanted to say something, but his insistent cough would simply not let him speak a word. Oblivious to him, Dyalo was busy lighting the fire, but it simply wouldn’t burn steadily. While rubbing her smoke-filled eyes, Dyalo, once again, heard the shouts and screams of Bogha’s mother. Startled, she was up on her feet. On going to the rear side, next to the barbed wire, when she tried to gauge the situation, she found that along with her screams, the riotous commotion of the people was also rising. The voice of Paloo, the old man, could clearly be heard from a distance. Many other people were also shouting and screaming at the top of their voices.

  ‘Bapu, it appears the people have returned from the town,’ Dyalo said as soon as she came back.

  But Melu’s bapu was still racked by coughs. With his tear-filled flaming-red eyes popping out, he looked at her as though he hadn’t really heard anything she said. Coughing yet again, he lay down on the manji.

  On seeing bapu in such a state, Dyalo really felt helpless. Seated in front of the chulha, this time, when she put some pieces of bushy weeds and cotton twigs into it, and blew over them, they caught fire. When she went in to get some molasses and tea leaves, Bogha’s mother’s screams and the accompanying commotion had become even more feverish. This commotion continued, unabated, till the tea had started boiling. Slowly, the noise began to fade away.

  After some time, when Dyalo was about to pour tea into a katora, her hands trembled, and as a result, much of it spilled on to the floor. Surprised, she looked at her trembling hands. She took the katora to bapu, and her hands were still trembling.

  ‘Bapu…tea.’ As she said this, she felt as though there was fear in her voice too.

  Taking the khes off his face, Melu’s bapu looked at her, momentarily, as though he was looking at some stranger, trying to figure out who it was. But the very next moment, he spoke to her in a voice dripping with emotion, ‘Putth, who will look after you once your bapu is gone?’

  And Dyalo found it extremely difficult to keep standing there next to bapu. Uncontrollably, her tears had now begun to roll down her face.

  Melu’s bapu had barely had a sip or two of tea when Melu’s bebe came in, breathless, a bundle of dry cotton sticks on her head. Dumping the bundle in the rear portion of the courtyard, when she threw the sickle down, it hardly reached as far as the bricks near the manji. Without even covering her head, as she came and sat in front of Melu’s bapu, she turned her head around, left and right, thumped both her knees, and then peering at him hard, she said, ‘Waheguru!… Have some mercy on us!… Sacche Patshah! We should always fear your Design!… What was happening, yesterday…and today…’

  But as she was out of breath, she couldn’t complete what she wanted to convey. The pale dread on her face made her look somewhat older, even uglier, to him. He had rarely seen her so frightened and scared. Gathering Dyalo’s chunni up, she was looking towards her in a somewhat curious manner, as though she couldn’t muster enough courage to recognize either the daughter or the father.

  ‘Melu’s bapu, what will become of this world?’ After heaving a deep sigh, she slapped her forehead, almost involuntarily. For a while, she fell silent, and then started off as if she was now talking mainly to herself. ‘You see for yourself, how many bundles of sarson there are? Throughout the day, I was struggling in the cotton fields, with dry cotton plants tearing my flesh, and this is about all I’ve been able to gather. They have left us nothing—simply taken it all away. While coming back, as I plucked four bundles of sarson for saag, and two bundles of sarson shoots for the cattle, he says, “Hanh, hanh! Who are you to touch this?” He came towards me, hollering. And then he started foaming at the mouth, saying, “You have ruined our sarson.” I, too, got angry and said, “Weh, innocent one! I’m as old as your mother! Do you have any shame left in you? This is not the way to behave!” He says, “It’s you who ruins our fields, and then you expect us to feel ashamed!” … Heh…heh…weh, the craziest of the crazy ones, what is there if I take two small bundles of sarson?… Tell me. You have no dearth of anything. You have three ploughshares to work with. These days, you go around driving that tractor, as big as a kotha. You bloody miser, what are you going to do with two bundles of sarson?… Oye, you ill-intentioned ones!’

  After turning her face away, she slapped her forehead twice, heaved a deep sigh and then fell silent. As the storm raging inside her was pushing itself up against her throat, she started off again. ‘We shouldn’t even go towards the fields of these bloody fellows. For two–two months, they don’t pay us for winnowing. When they do settle the account, they deduct half the money. It’s always their legs that are on top of our heads, and yet they claim, “We are the ones who give you work!” Bhai, if you give us work, it’s hardly a favour to us. Don’t you do it for your own selfish reasons?… These damned ones must be having more than a cartload of sticks. They might just be lying there until harh-jeth and go to waste, but these people wouldn’t let you use them. Everything they do is a big favour. He was only doing a favour, as big as a cart, when he said, “Chachi, you may take it today, but in future, don’t expect such favours. We also have a shortage of firewood.” Weh, chandriyo, this godforsaken firewood is the same that people used to give away freely. It’d not only help clean up the place, but also earn them the blessings of the poor and needy. Such misfortune! What is happening to people, nowadays? Even the worms don’t do that.’

  Thereafter, she was suddenly reminded of something else. Forgetting everything else, she looked towards Dyalo and said, ‘O kurre, for the time being, do we have enough flour for meals?’

  Dyalo made no reply. Rather than engage with Dyalo’s unspoken words, she changed the subject and said, ‘I only learnt about that incident when I reached the fields. Dharma’s children have been hungry since dawn. They must be in bad shape. Hey Waheguru! Who will repay such sinners? Throughout their lives, all they did was flay the entire family. They got them to plant their orchards, weed wild field overgrowth, and now after selling off everything, God knows which palace they have gone off to. And here is this family, just rotting away. Oh God! Who has heard of such a thing, before?’

  Despite everything, when Dyalo and Melu’s bapu didn’t utter a single word, Melu’s bebe first pressed her knees to rise to her feet, and then went and sat next to the bundle of dry cotton sticks. Loosening the rope, and pulling out two bundles of green grams, she handed them over to Dyalo and said, ‘Grind this with salt and red chillies. I’ll go and give it to those poor children. They could have it with their roti. How can they eat roti without a vegetable?’

  Placing the saag on the ledge next to the chulha, Dyalo went straight in, without a word. Melu’s bebe went ahead and sat on the same bricks. Then she smoothed out the crumpled layers of her darned salwar, and started dusting it off. On noticing three holes in it, she started fumbling over them as though she had only just spotted them. After wrapping herself into a warm shawl, she resumed talking in her usual manner.

  The pitch of Bogha’s mother’s intermittent screams had again begun to soar. Her ears attuned to those sounds, Melu’s bebe asked, ‘O kurre, Santi’s husband was not well. Could anything have happened to him?’

  Melu’s bapu maintained a studied silence and even Dyalo, after walking in, had busied herself with sowing or knitting to such an extent that there was no sign of her outside. The meaning of this mysterious silence on the part of both father and daughter had not dawned on her yet. Perhaps that’s why she stepped out, saying, ‘Let me go and find out what all this is about?’

  Melu’s bapu looked towards the door, but he didn’t see Dyalo anywhere. On coming in, she had decided to lie down on a manji, which had a pile of clothes stacked on it. As she lay there, gazing fixedly at the roof, her thoughts began to get tangled up, like the tricoloured threads of her embroidery, used in the daaj that had been made for her wedding. Two chunnis, one phulkari, two shoulder bags with peacocks on them, two durries, four khes and two pieces of cloth her brother Melu had bought her for the suits. She wanted to open the old trunks and rummage through them, looking for all this, but she didn’t have enough strength to rise to her feet. She felt as though all her energy had been drained out, leaving her body completely listless.

  Then she remembered all those shops in town, which she had seen once, stocked with a wide range of coloured threads and materials. Who knows where those shopkeepers managed to get such stocks from?

  Outside, she thought she heard Finnah talking to her bapu. The moment she heard his voice, her heart began to beat much faster. Feeling a sudden burning sensation in her chest, she got up and came out. That is when she learnt that it wasn’t Finnah, but Labhu, the ‘lord of creation’, who was sitting with her bapu. Wiping one of his big eyes with the corner of his turban, and shaking his head in the way in which a goat often does while munching something, he seemed to be busy discussing some very serious matter with him.

  Dyalo couldn’t think of anything to say. Settling down next to the chulha, she started grinding the saag of green grams. While grinding the saag, the moment her eyes fell upon half a cup of tea left in the bowl, she wondered why she hadn’t offered it to bebe. The poor woman was really very exhausted. But it was now as cold as water. When would she heat it up and when would she drink it?

  ‘O kurre, are you going strong, daughter?’ Labhu suddenly looked at her and asked, wiping his sunken eye.

  ‘Aho, tayya.’

  Who knows whether or not Labhu had heard her response, but turning his attention from her, he had already started talking to her bapu in his characteristic soft, feminine voice. ‘If you wish to send something to town, give it to me. I’ll start for the town, early in the morning. Do you hear me?… Aho!’

  Startled, Dyalo looked at him, and then pricked up her ears to overhear their conversation.

  After mouthing off something in his characteristic, nonchalant manner, Labhu spoke in a rather conspiratorial tone, ‘I’m thinking very seriously of going to the town now. What is left for us, here? One of my nephews lives there. He has kids, too. It’ll keep me busy… Now…bhai…I can’t get myself to work, anymore. You know, ever since he has given up liquor, he keeps pestering me. My nephew says, “Tayya, why do you suffer for nothing? Why don’t you come and live with us, and eat what we eat. Bhai, you aren’t going to make too many demands on us in any case. All you do is sit quietly in a corner, eat whatever little you need to, and keep chanting Ram’s name.” What say you, bhai? I somehow don’t feel like going there. You are a wise man, and you know very well that even if he is simple and naive, once your son is married off, even his mother will not be able to put up with him…then how can I? Henh, tell me, am I not right, bhai? But when I take a long-term view of it, I feel, I can’t manage on my own…so I may have to go, ultimately. And there is no escape from it. Who will take care of me here? After all, they have to look after me…regardless of whether they are good or not… Hundred or two hundred kilos of wood is all they would need for me. They’ll have to carry my dead body, out of shame… Now, what say you, it’s not the panchayat members who are going to carry me away, after all. Henh, bhai, am I saying the right thing or not?’

  Wiping his dusty and dishevelled grey moustache with a corner of his turban, when Labhu broke into a toothless grin, his mouth looked somewhat like that of a lizard, gaping. Looking towards him, Dyalo couldn’t help breaking into laughter. Doubling over, she said, ‘Come on, tayya, what makes you think that here we don’t have enough people to carry you off?’

  That moment, Labhu became very serious. Breathing deeply, he said, ‘Come on, putth, there is no such thing. I’m not a stranger to you. I was just repeating what my nephew says. Besides, putth, now I’m at the end of my life. I can’t do a spot of work. Baccha, now I’ll have to spend the rest of my life holding on to someone’s knees, no? Am I not right, bhai?’

  As Labhu didn’t have any relatives living in the village, he would come to their house every third or fourth day, and unburden himself. The nephew in town, whom he often mentioned, was only distantly related to him, from the third or fourth generation of his grandfather’s chacha or tayya.

  Ever since Dyalo was a child, she had seen no change in Labhu whatsoever; the same frail body and a crooked turban with a long trail, khaddar kurta, and khaddar wrap-around, pulled tight over his calves. His juttis were always old and worn out, stitched at several places. It’s not that he couldn’t buy a new pair; but he had a knack of converting a brand new pair of juttis into an old one. Every two months or so, he would get his turban starched, a particular habit of his that had made him the constant butt of social ridicule.

  ‘Did you say you were planning to leave late, this very night?’ Melu’s bapu asked him, reminding him of what he had suggested earlier.

  ‘Hanh, I’ll leave after I have had my roti, say, around ten or eleven.’

  ‘Why, in such cold weather? Do you have to settle some account on priority?’

  ‘No, it’s something else.’ Labhu spoke in a muffled voice, as if trying to keep a secret. While speaking, he ran the loose end of his turban over his eye.

  ‘Why, what’s the matter? Are you carrying someone’s “opium”?’

  Labhu looked first towards the left, then the right, and finally edged closer to Melu’s bapu. Peering into his eyes, he spoke in a low voice, ‘Just load it in, this is what it is. You know that Sauna bania. I’ve to carry two of his sacks, one of cotton and the other, of grains… Who knows what all he may have stuffed inside? He says I must carry them at night.’

  ‘But if it’s something illegal and you get caught, you’ll land in jail. He won’t lose anything.’

  ‘I’ll name him straightaway. Why should I lie?’

  ‘Do you have to marry off your sons that you’re doing such things? Why can’t you sit still and not do such things?’

  The loose end of his turban still in his mouth, it looked as if Labhu was actually reflecting over the matter. After a while, he spoke in a low voice, ‘You are right, in a way. But this is how I make a little extra money. It helps me earn a good living… You are wise yourself… I’m not in a position to load and offload things now. Some carry this sack in their trolleys, some on their horse carts, and the rest use camels for this purpose…what say you, bhai, what do we do, now? We are forced to lick the feet of the dead. You are wise. We, too, have to earn our keep, somehow. Bhai, so long as one is breathing, this body keeps demanding food. Henh, what do you say?’

  Whenever Melu’s bapu spoke in this manner, Labhu found it rather difficult not to react instantly. That was why, as he rose to his feet, he spoke mainly to mask his embarrassment, ‘If you want to send something heavy, I’ll come back, again, to find out. Let me first go and visit that seth for a while,’ saying which he had barely gone up to the door, when he came back, as though he had remembered something very important. Moving closer to Melu’s bapu, he spoke in a very secretive tone, ‘You are a wise man. Don’t broach it with anyone. You know, these days, people really ride a high horse. It’s very difficult to say which way things might go. So one should be very careful.’

  After Labhu had left, once again, a hushed silence fell upon the house. Melu’s bapu covered his face with a khes. Dyalo, who had been busy chopping saag, now sat with her head resting upon her knees, lost in her thoughts. (Perhaps, she was thinking of Finnah once again.) On seeing the dust kicked up by the feet of people returning from the fields, and hearing the commotion the children made, when she raised her head to look towards the well, she saw that the sunlight was falling short of the upper terraces of the houses. The thought of cooking roti uppermost in her mind, she walked into the kitchen, with hurried steps. But on seeing the gunny sack, she stopped in her tracks. It was empty. She came back out as quickly as she had walked in.

  ‘Bapu,’ she called out in a rather weak voice, ‘Should I go get flour from the shop?’

  ‘Henh?’ Startled, her bapu first took the khes off his face, and then spoke, looking towards her, ‘Flour?’

  Standing silently, Dyalo was waiting for his answer, but he kept staring at the sky with vacant eyes, as if he couldn’t really think of anything to say. After a while, she silently walked in, and started rummaging through the containers for the last few grains. There was a small quantity of wheat in one container, and about two sers of maize in the other. The other containers were empty. But she couldn’t have taken the wheat or maize out of the containers without her bebe’s permission, and gone to the shop to have it ground. Who knew which mounds her bebe was busy climbing now! She hadn’t returned yet. This thought had barely crossed her mind when bebe came charging in, blabbering.

  ‘Melu’s bapu, have you heard this?’ She was nearly breathless as she came closer, widening her eyes, ‘I was surprised when I heard this—they say Taroo’s sons have dragged Bogha to the police station.’ Without waiting for a response from Melu’s bapu, she kept talking agitatedly, repeating everything that Melu’s bapu had already heard about Bogha. She elaborated on how this news had left Bogha’s mother completely distraught. Suddenly, in the middle of it all, she thought of Dharma’s children and that moment, looking towards Dyalo, who was standing in the doorway, her face half-covered with her chunni, she said, ‘O kurre, I told you that there is enough flour. So you quickly roll out two rotis for me. You’re standing as if it’s someone else’s house.’