BACK AT BAHOWAL, life continued pretty much as before, though Tirath and I got some special attention. Every-one tried to ensure we did not miss Biji, at least not too much. I got my yearly new pair of leather shoes made by the shoemaker at Mahilpur. We did not wear shoes all the time, only on special occasions such as weddings or trips to other villages, but our feet outgrew the shoes much faster than we could wear them out. Once, while I was playing in the school yard on a holiday, I took my new shoes off to play, and I came home shoeless. Walking by the school yard, Nanaji had recognized my new shoes lying under a cart; he picked them up, hid them in a bag, and then, when I got home, asked me about their whereabouts. When I couldn’t remember where I’d left them, he thrust the bag at me and slapped my face. I was shocked, since he had rarely punished me physically. When he later caught me wearing a new pair to play football, using a brick as a ball, Jajo’s timely intervention may have saved me from another licking.
Nanaji owned four mango trees and had access to many others. During the summer break, Jasso, Jajo’s older sister, would accompany Tirath and me to the bagh , where we’d sit in the garden’s shade, ensuring that no one stole our family’s mangoes. We’d eat some of the ripe mangoes that dropped to the ground, leaving the skin and the pits behind to compost, and take the bulk home with us at night, to be eaten later or made into shisha , a concoction of mango, salt and pepper that we ate with rotis.
During mango season, our Bahowal home had the feel of a festive inn. Jajo and Jasso’s extended family and relatives all came for the mangoes, as did the Dosanjhes. Gurmit Bhenji was teaching by now, and her colleagues and friends joined us. So did many of Chachaji’s teaching colleagues and friends. Our three-room home was noisy late into the evening. People slept anywhere they could find a spot, including on the roof and in the compound. We always hoped for clear skies, but when it rained, Beant’s big house next door with its veranda came in handy.
One year during mango season, when my mother was still alive, Bhaji and I were in the mango groves when a buffalo came charging us. Bhaji climbed a tree, trying to pull me up behind him. I was too slow, though, and I couldn’t escape the angry animal. It lifted me up and threw me several feet. The buffalo was beaten off me by its apologetic owner, but the mauling left me bleeding and unable to walk. Bhaji broke off a branch of a mango tree, placed me on it and dragged me home to Nanaji’s. Our mother had come to Bahowal from Dosanjh for the mango season. Brandishing Nanaji’s khoonda , a bamboo walking stick with a sharp steel point, she set off like an angry lioness to confront the bad buffalo’s owner, who apologized profusely once again.
Mangoes were a source of income for some families, since contractors bought their fruit to take to market. The government owned the mango trees on either side of the Garhshankar–Hoshiarpur road. One day, as Jasso and I were returning from Mahilpur on foot, a ripe mango dropped onto the road in front of me. Without Jasso noticing, I picked up the mango and started sucking on it. Suddenly, someone ran up from behind, catching hold of my neck and hurling abuse at me. I thought I was going to die. Jasso screamed at the man. It turned out he was guarding the mangoes for a contractor who had bought the season’s crop from the government. I put the mango back on the road, tears rolling down my cheeks. Hunger or no hunger, I’d learned that the mangoes on the public road did not belong to the public.
MY MATERNAL UNCLE, who was a good student in grade ten at Mahilpur, started missing class and staying away from home for days at a time. Mamaji had been showing signs of opiate addiction, and it turned out his absences from school were spent learning to drive a truck and indulging in drinking, smoking and taking either opium or doday , ground poppy husk. One evening Mamaji came home drunk and started arguing with Nanaji. Holding an unsheathed sword in his hand, he threatened to behead himself. Nanaji demanded the sword, promising to do the deed himself if Mamaji really wanted to die. Mamaji quickly dropped both the sword and the argument and ran for his life.
Jasso, Jajo, Nanaji, Tirath and I had been eating our evening meal of saag (mustard leaves boiled, ground and spiced with homemade butter) and makki (corn roti, my favourite winter staple). We were traumatized by the incident. Jajo comforted us, assuring us no harm would come to Mamaji or anybody else, but Mamaji went away after that and did not come back for a long time. Nanaji heard from acquaintances that he had become a long-distance trucker. Jajo missed him very much, though she rarely said anything about him. Occasionally, she would ask me whether I missed my Mamaji. Of course, I would say. With a smile that betrayed her sadness, she would reassure me he was safe and would come back one day. It must have helped her to voice that hope aloud, stilling her turbulent mind.
A few days after Biji’s death, Mamaji arrived home in his truck in the middle of the night. In those days, very few trucks came to the villages. Most of what the villagers needed came on the guddas . Bahowal had no electricity or street lighting, and the truck woke up half the village. Many people came out of their homes in the dark as they heard first the truck and then Mamaji crying, overcome by grief at the loss of his older sister. As he hugged and kissed each family member, his cries became louder. Nanaji sat him down, and Jajo gave him a glass of water. When he spotted Tirath and me, tears rolled down his cheeks again. He covered his face with his huge hands and cried uncontrollably. He was a tall, strong man, but at that moment he was a child who had just lost his bibi .
The next time I saw Mamaji was under much happier circumstances: Bhaji and I were the best men at his wedding. Mamaji beamed with pride and happiness, and his bride, Jagtar (now my Mamiji, or aunt), looked stunning. Mamiji and I became fast friends. For the rest of my time in Bahowal, the responsibility for my care fell on her. One of her chores, an activity I didn’t relish, was the washing of my long hair. It was difficult to wash and even more difficult to comb. But Mamiji was patient. She seemed a perfect match for my impetuous, but loving, uncle.
Soon after their wedding, my four years at the Bahowal primary school were complete. With my shirts, shorts and turban neatly packed into a cloth bag hanging from the handlebars, Chachaji and I travelled on his bicycle to Dosanjh Kalan. From now on I would be attending the Dosanjh School along with Bhaji, who had already been enrolled there for two years and was entering grade seven. My father would now have two sons among his pupils.
Our ancestral village had changed while I was gone. Around the circular path the oxen travelled to power the Persian wheel, the trees had grown taller, providing more shade from the sun. We called Goraywala well, the land irrigated by it, and the small building on the land close to the well the khooh . The khooh was now more inviting, since it had more vegetation. The five acres of land we owned lay in a jagged row, with Baba Budh Singh’s portion contiguous to ours. In the middle, as if to demarcate the division, ran an aard , a channel constructed of mud that carried water from the well to the fields.
At home Bhaji and I shared a portion of one room. In the other portion were two sandooks , traditional wooden cabinets carved and decorated with brass. These had been part of Biji and Aunt Taeeji’s dowries. Our two-storey home, with its several small rooms, now housed at least eleven of us, including our older cousin Biraji’s wife and children. My uncle Tayaji slept at the khooh . That brought the family to twelve. According to the seasons and special holidays, the number could swell to nineteen or twenty. Gurmit Bhenji would come back from school; Siso Bhenji would bring her children to visit. Silence was hard to come by. Some people can read or study even with the radios blaring, but I had a hard time concentrating if someone so much as whispered close by.
The search for silence led me out of the house to the khooh . It offered more possibilities for quiet, but not always. If the Persian wheel was running, there was the constant noise made by the kutta , the iron brake lever that fell on each cog of the wheel as the oxen walked the circle. But the kutta was not as disruptive as human activity or speech. In the wee hours before daybreak, the hooves and bells of oxen being taken to plough the fields, the clanging of the kutta and the occasional crowing of a rooster were the only sounds. At that time of day, there was enough peace to study for our annual examinations.
