"My friend Jagat, so happy to see you but what you forget is that even a scoundrel has a right to a legal defence. Innocent until proven guilty, remember? You're educated ," said Ram still sitting on his chair, brushing his hair, always combed backwards over his head, with the palm of his right hand.
"Yeah and you defended Sham's murderers, the mercenaries protecting the Mill owners, the bastards who always stood in the way of our independence, the colonial bootlickers."
"The cops said they weren't the ones that hit Sham. Any other lawyer would have done the same thing," pled Ram.
"I'm not talking about any other lawyer but about you, Ram my friend, a one time activist for India's independence and about Sham, my friend and hero who gave everything and his life for the people; I am talking about Sam's murderers, too. I ought to have cottoned on to you; you'd always found one excuse or another to avoid jail for independence. I guess you only dreamt about Rupees, not independence."
"Brother Jagat I'm your old friend. We've grown to be different. The jail has ossified you. I've adapted to the evolving country."
"Yes, you've evolved but into someone impossible to recognize from my past or present. You've turned into the future I dread," said Jagat, turned his back to Ram and walked away.
Chapter 42: Sujata and Qaadian
On the way to Qaadian Teg unleashed unending questions at Jagat about the independence movement and his own voyage through it. The stories of agitations, imprisonments and assaults tumbled forth from Jagat's lips always ending with "but look what's happening now." In the back seat Sujata listened and imagined it a father and son conversation. She wanted to sit in the front passenger seat, Preeti's seat but Qaadian, India, stopped her. What would they say if they saw her exiting from the front seat of the car at the khooh?
The fiat stopped in the yard in front of the huts. It was Saturday, half day of school. All the boys including Gamma's Gogi were at the khooh; Hassan followed them as they filled the mangers, took the cattle to drink water from the khooh's challah full of it; Teg joined them. Seeto who had brought the mid-day meal to the khooh was making paathian from the dung. Lest it got dirty Sujata took her chunni off, sunk her hands into the pile of fresh cattle dung and helped Seeto make paathian. Once finished they washed their hands and walked home, Sujata now properly chunnied.
No comments:
Post a Comment