Pages 356 & 357

Chapter 48: Testing the Limits

Sameer was about to leave for college when he saw the Fiat drive in.  Exiting the car Jaggi said, "Hey Sameer, I am Jaggi and this is my mom," before everyone walked in.  

    "They look after Sameer as he goes to college and his is Jaggi and his mother Ratan Kaur.  She is from Qaadian.  We grew up together," said Jagat to the elderly tenants not looking at any one in particular.

    "Papa, Jaggi and Ratno aunty seem nice and Jaggi says his father is dead.  Papa, when did he die?" in the car on the way to college Sameer peppered Jagat with questions; the second born asking about the first born saying Jagat was dead; the Fiat instantly accelerated; Sameer screamed, "Sto....p!" Jagat slammed the brakes and the car came to a screeching halt just inches away from a youngster crossing the road.  As the scared youngster raced away Jagat said, "I don't know.'" without looking at Sameer.

    'You don't know what? When Jaggi's father died or how you came within an inch of killing a child?"

There was silence and the car came to a stop outside the Principal's Office.

At the bungalow Jaggi was sitting in the front yard taking in the flowers, their colours and fragrance as he was when he had seen Jagat leave with Sameer in the car.  It had made him ache for his father.  Ratno had told him:

    "I'd met your father at Zillapur and I was in love with him.  One morning we boarded the train, got off many miles away and started living in a small room of a home on the farm where your father worked.  I was pregnant when he drowned in the well and unable to work and therefore stay on the farm I boarded the train and reached Ambala and you know the rest."

Around the kitchen table the elderly tenant couple and Ratno were having their second cups of tea.  Ratno had told them the story of how she came to be a headmistress.

    "Where is Jaggi's father?" asked the female childless tenant.  Ratno told her she had told Jaggi but in Chajjuwara Delhi's fiction felt incongruent and deceptive.

In the car home from college Sameer said, "Papa I would like to go to  England; the remittances of Pounds would help the household financially.  God knows we need money.

    "No, I didn't fight slavery for independence from Britain for you to go slave in England."

There was silence inside the Fiat entering the bungalow where in the yard Jaggi was reading Munshi Prem Chand's novel 'Godaan',  The Gift of a Cow, a treatise on the India of 1920s and 30s, a saga of extreme wealth of the few and grinding poverty of many; he had found in a month the Moustachioed's books.  In Delhi he had seen poverty and grotesque wealth but Godaan was his first glimpse into the feudal exploitation and oppression in the countryside.

    "Jaggi Puttar, how have you been," said Jagat walking over to him.

    "Uncle, sit down in this chair, I'll bring another," said Jaggi standing up.