Jaggi enrolled at Arya College for the final year of BA. On the weekends all the boys, Ratno and Jagat would descend upon Qaadian. Like the old times when her marriage had brought Seeto to Qaadian and livened up the family, the khooh and the home came alive, the boys helped out Gamma and Dhumma while Ratno got busy helping Seeto with cooking and Sangram and Hassan with their home work. The noise and activity around the home on the weekends even cheered up the ailing Ruhi.
"Ruhi chachi, se the next generation; they certainly bring down he average age of the household," would say Seeto. Ruhi would smile.
And every day Ratno inched ever closer to claim her place in Jagat's life.
"Jagat, all my sons are doing well. The younger four get along handsomely with the eldest," she said in her office as they sat after Jagat had driven her there.
"Yes, fortunately for us and I keep thinking about that, that night," hesitatingly blurted out Jagat.
"A beautiful night and no, I haven't changed my mind about it," she said looking not at him but at her hands. He was looking at them too, the long fingers, her cupped palms put together as if begging happiness from God; he didn't believe in God but she did.
"I feel the urge to be with y9ou, to touch you," he said.
"It's dangerous hard to keep it a secret."
"Chacha Sukhia is no more, Ruhi Amma is at death's door and Qaadian knows we're close. I need you in my life," he said looking her in the eye. She hesitated for a moment, kissed him and swung open the office door saying, "Closed doors spawn rumours."
Chapter 49: The Libinal and The Legal
The elderly tenants at the bungalow and become like family; they managed the kitchen and did the purchasing of family supplies. It was painful for Jagat to ask them to move but with Jaggi and Ratno in Chajjuwara the family had grown and the bungalow had become crowded. Luckily Partap agreed to take the tenants in his almost empty home thus making it possible for Jagat and Ratno to each have a bedroom on the top floor. Jaggi and Sameer shared a room with one to spare. The other sons including Hassan were still at school in Qaadian.
Sujata and Ratno, Jagat was finding it impossible to let go of either and libido wasn't the only reason. After Preeti's passing Sujata had been his refuge and couldn't let her feel unwanted. Ratno, the mother of his child provided a complete home in Chajjuwara but he couldn't acknowledge their relationship to the world. Having lived the pain of separation from him Ratno would be loath to deny Sujata her intimacy with him, he reasoned and wrestled.
Ruhi passed away and soon after it the Qaadian household suffered Seeto's untimely death. Weaving a cot for a wedding in the neighbourhood she had developed a blister and making pathian infected and caused blood poisoning. The workhorse she was she didn't tell anyone until it was too late for the doctors in Chajjuwara to save her and Dhumma was devastated. Gamma's wife Puro, who had already been helping with the household, took over. Gamma started spending all his days and nights at the khooh and Puro at Jagat's household; their only child Gogi hadn't been seen in Qaadians for years.
Challenges at home and disappointment with the country was like the widowed Seebo of Jagat's childhood, vulnerable to rapists and exploiters. Disappointed with the Congress and the country, Jagat focused on the khooh, college, children, Sujata and Ratno. Eesa, too, was unhappy at the country's direction where religion and caste were assuming a dangerous role in politics. Despite being passed up for promotion because of caste, the caste based reservations in elections and employment entrenched in the constitution rankled him. Even though based on Gandhi's promise to Ambedkar, a man Eesa respected, the social construct of caste ghettoised in the constitution via reservations of government jobs and seats in legislatures would only prolong the caste misery, Eesa believed. He had failed eluding caste by escaping to Christianity so was now considering escaping the country, the caste's cradle. Jagat had argued against it and had asked him to rethink.
It was an early March day; the Fiat had just rolled in when Eesa got down from the rickshaw in front of the bungalow and he and Jagat embraced. After the usual banter, reminiscing about their younger days and the first few sips of tea Eesa said,
"Jagat, the country is of Gandhi's dreams no more. His successors are creating a corrupt and unfair society bedeviled by constitutionally embedded castes and distorted religions. Those long years behind bars you couldn't have imagined this?"
"Eesa things aren't as we expected them to be. May be after a breather I'll fight again, this time against the Brown Sahibs in place of the White Sahibs."
"As I promised you I did think about my decision to go to England. I'll let you contend with Gandhi's bastards but as for me, I've decided to leave for Britain. There they may think me a coolie but one among the rest of the Indians, not a chuhra other Indians despise and don't even touch, dine or otherwise socialise with.".
"I'm not alone. Nehru doesn't want any of us to slave in foreign countries either. The government isn't issuing passports," said an animated Jagat.
"Oh, a passport, all it took in our independent India was a connection and a bit of bakhshish to grease the palm for the passport to tumble forth and the former slaves like us don't need a visa for Britain."
Easa was no false messenger because the years Jagat had spent in British jails were infinitesimal compared to the thousands Easa's forbearers had spent being treated worse than beasts; the largest population of prisoners preordained to be incarcerated in the dungeons of caste, to be born and die in captivity for untold generations from cradle to grave. Only death released them from the hell on earth. Sameer and Jaggi had sat glued to the exchange between the friends.
At night the two friends lay reminiscing on the sofas in the drawing room. Past midnight Jagat said,
"I hate friendships that don't last lifetimes; some wither under neglect; in others we grow apart. I had Ram, Rahim and you in my life. I'm in exile from Ram's world. Rahim is far away in Delhi. You're close and now you are going to another world."
Then there was silence.
In the morning Eesa left for Zillapuir.
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