Usually when he had to scold his son it would be about his academics, but today he took out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and holding it out to him, said with composure, “Did you write this?”
The boy opened the piece of paper and read it. Then he started staring at the ground without a word.
An old clock hung on the wall. The only sound in the room was that of its booming tick-tock. The boy looked out of the window. Large roses had bloomed on the edge of the courtyard. His eyes wandered away from the roses and focused on the carpet.
“Why are you silent?” the father said in a serious tone. But as soon as he finished speaking he felt that he had sounded angry. Hadn’t he decided to be patient with his son that day and thought of using the child psychologist’s approach to reform him? He tried to be gentle and changing his tone so that it made him sound just short of affectionate, said, “Sit down.”
The boy sat down like an anonymous entity on the corner of the large sofa. The father slumped onto an easy chair on the other side of the room pressing down every inch of it under his weight. He drew a long breath and asked abruptly, “Who is Rita?”
The boy looked in the direction of the window and stammered, “Nobody.”
“Then who is this letter for?”
He mumbled in the same way, “No one.”
The father stood up and started pacing up and down. Suddenly, he stopped in front of the boy. “Look at me,” he said.
The boy lifted his pallid face as though it were no longer a part of him but a lifeless object and surrendered it to his father’s scrutiny.
The father sat down next to him on the sofa. “What’s the matter with you? Start taking better care of your health! How many times have I asked you to get up early in the morning? Sports, exercise...these things are important too. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded like a philosopher and then stared at the floor again. This irritated the father. But he restrained himself and gently said, “I know it’s bad manners to read others’ letters. But I’ve had to do even this because of you. Is this the kind of thing you keep inside your notebooks? Is this how you study?”
Then, turning towards him theatrically, he said, “Do you really love Rita so much? Does she love you too?”
The boy hesitated, “Rita is no one.”
The father was annoyed and mocked him, “So, in that case, this isn’t a letter. Is it a poem? A prose-poem, perhaps?”
For some time the boy froze his gaze on the doll on the radiogram in front of him. His own gaze had become for him the most troublesome thing of all. Where should he take this gaze? He stared stubbornly at the doll. Then, half-heartedly, he nodded in reply to his father’s question.
The father growled, “What does this mean? Why are you nodding? Is this how you speak with your father?”
The boy hastily said, “Uh, no...it isn’t a letter. It’s a prose-poem.”
“Ah, I see!” He quit the role of the psychologist and snapped back to his true character. He now spoke satirically like the successful father that he was, “So my dearest son is writing prose-poems these days! ‘Rita darling!’ ‘My own Rita!’ Fantastic! Doesn’t know a word of English and writes, ‘My own Rita!’”
When he finished speaking he felt he’d been too superficial, so he tried to take on a more natural tone. “Yesterday I saw you in the market. Right now your lips are zipped but you were chirping yesterday. I was slowly following you in my car. Understand?”
The boy said nothing. The father continued, “Two girls were in a cycle- rickshaw ahead of you. You were with a friend who was playing the harmonica. You were screaming at the top of your lungs. I stopped the car but I didn’t look in your direction after that. What I’d seen was enough to make me feel like dying of shame.”
The boy looked at him sharply this time, as if saying, “Then why didn’t you?” He sensed the violence in his son’s look—it stupefied him. He said, “So? Am I lying?”
No, he wasn’t lying. The boy had followed the cycle-rickshaw on the wide road of the fashionable market for quite a distance. His friend was dressed in a colourful printed shirt and drainpipe trousers and was playing the harmonica. The boy would sing along now and then. Two or three other boys were behind them. They were loudly egging on the friend with the harmonica.
The girls were in a cycle-rickshaw that was open on all four sides. Their hair was styled in a ridiculous fashion. They wore skin-tight salwars that showed the exact shape of their calves; their kurtis, which had been designed to liberally expose the eye-dazzling skin of their necks and backs, clung closely to their bodies like snug frocks. It seemed as if they had been born in those outfits and, despite outgrowing them, had never taken them off.
They didn’t pay any attention to the boys’ shenanigans; they were used to such things. They sat unaffected in the cycle-rickshaw as if they were from Mars, as if they were wearing those tight-fitting outfits without any objective, as if they didn’t know the language of boys, didn’t know they existed, as if they wouldn’t have to seek out boys to satisfy their bodily longings but return to Mars.
The father had followed this parade in his car.
He tried to calm down. He said gently, “I am not as stupid as you think. You’re just nineteen. I know about the problems people your age have. I know even about your sexual problems. Pointless frustrations, late marriages, things you see in movies... I understand everything. Yet, your vulgar habits...!”
The boy looked out of the window again and pretended he hadn’t heard. The father stopped talking.
The clock on the wall went on ticking.
The father smiled and pointed out of the window. “What’s that flower called?”
“Rose!” The boy said, surprised by the freshness of the topic.
“No, I mean the one in the flowerpot next to it. What’s that called?”
The boy kept quiet, then reluctantly said, “I don’t know...”
There was complete silence for a moment. The ticking of the clock seemed to grow louder.
The father lost his temper again, “This is what it’s come to! You have no interest in what’s right in front of you. Have you thought about your future? Do you have any idea how hard you will have to struggle? How much preparation and strength you will need? Will you build your future with your weak body and vulgar letters? Is this your preparation?”
“The future...”
“Go on, finish your sentence,” his father said.
The boy shook his head, “Nothing.”
The father sighed. He reflected for a moment and said, “You haven’t answered my question. Does Rita love you too?”
Dead silence.
“Do you want me to give my consent for this marriage?”
The boy was quick to the draw, “No! I don’t want to get married! Never!” He grew embarrassed.
“So you won’t marry, then? I knew it. Even that takes courage. But you kids...”
He couldn’t finish what he wanted to say. He looked in the direction of the door and said, “Come on in.”
A girl, about eighteen years of age, had drawn the door-curtain and was looking into the room. She was dressed in skin-tight clothing and looked about arrogantly. Her shoulders exuded conceit, and she came into the room gliding on the confidence she’d purchased from one of India’s English- medium schools. She said in English, “Daddy is waiting for you.” Then, flashing a pitiful smile that meant ‘Poor boy! He must be dying to be with me,’ she said to the boy flirtatiously, “Hello.”
The father said in English, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
She shrugged her shoulders pretending to be helpless. The father said, brightening up, “Really, I’ll be right there.”
After she left the room, he said to the boy in a crass way, “Are you really so bold? You claim to be a great love-letter-writer. But do you have the courage to fall in love with her?” The boy remained silent. The father blushed at his own words, and in an attempt to cover up what he’d just said, gave a splendid lecture as he walked around the room, “Gone are the days when completing seventh grade was enough to get you an enviable job. This is the age of struggle. Make a small mistake and everything is lost. Do you understand? The winner takes all. He gets the promotion, the grand wedding, the big fat dowry—he takes all. Get it? The rest sit idle all their lives. Life is all about struggling hard today. Do you understand?”
The boy looked down. The father said sharply, “And is this your preparation? You will remember my words when it’s too late, when you’ll be wandering around with nothing to do. Don’t you understand?”
The clock on the wall wheezed to announce the end of the hour. Then it chimed six times. He looked at his wrist and said irritably, “This wrist-watch has betrayed me too; it’s stopped working. Wrist-watches these days...”
The boy sat there quietly. The father wound his watch and continued in the same irritable tone, “Everybody says this is the age of great transformation. How long will old people shoulder its responsibility? The responsibility of this country is now with your generation. This isn’t an exaggeration but a reality. But you! Look at you!”
He drew the curtain at the door, getting ready to leave. All of a sudden he ended the theatricality of his way of talking and turned towards his son. “Think about it. Maybe by tonight you’d want to tell me who Rita is. Then I will share with you the solution too.”
The boy said, embarrassed, “But I just told you that Rita is no one. It’s a prose-poem I wrote.”
As the father left the room he exploded once again, “Is this what you call a prose-poem? Disgusting!”
The boy heard the noise of the car’s exhaust spitting out dirt outside. It was as if it were spitting at him. He listened. The rumbling of the car faded away after some time.
Twilight was creeping into the room. The boy switched on the light. Standing in the centre of the room he read the letter once again.
A voice behind him said, “Has your father left?”
It was the same girl. She looked in boldly.
He said, “Come in.”
She walked into the room and leant against the arm of the sofa. Her eyes darted about, inspecting everything. It was a huge living room; everything was in its place, except the boy, who stood anxiously in the centre of the carpet.
“What a long face you have!” The girl giggled.
The boy looked at her intently but his eyes shone with mischief. He said seriously, “What kind of face do you like then? Round?”
She was talking in English. The boy was, too, but he could sense his lack of mastery. Showing off her expertise with word-play, she said, “I like a square face best. Like the one you usually have.” She laughed out loud.
The boy shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Trying to change the topic, he asked, “Is Papa at the club?”
The girl sat down on the sofa and started swinging her legs like a spoiled brat. She said, “Come sit next to me.”
“I’m fine here. You can talk from there.”
She was annoyed. “Look, don’t act smart. I wouldn’t even speak with you if it wasn’t for your father.”
He stood there and listened to her talk as though he was listening to the squeaking of a plastic toy. She said, “Your father is so sweet, so good- humoured! So polished!”
Her presence in the room irked him. His father had left him with something of a challenge—“Do you have the courage fall in love with her?” All the audacity of the new generation had died and been reborn as a ghost in the form of this girl who was teasing him mercilessly. How can someone possibly fall in love with a ghost? The boy couldn’t fully understand what he felt in that moment, but he could feel a weight crushing his soul. She continued, “We should all take inspiration from your father.”
He started flipping through the pages of a magazine. Without lifting his eyes from it, he said, “Yes, that’s because he earns one thousand and five hundred rupees a month.”
She said arrogantly, “Well, who’s stopping you? You can do it too, like your father...”
He stared at her, and then suddenly, he no longer felt hesitant. He said, “Do you really want to know who’s stopping me? You are! My father is! Everywhere I go, I see you and my father!”
She played the innocent. Pressing her lips together and looking here and there, she said, “What do you mean I’m stopping you? Go to hell for all I care. But your father is worried about you.”
“You wouldn’t even speak with me if it weren’t for him. I know that.” She smiled at him. “Poor boy!” she said, “Your face looks even longer!” He looked at her and waited for her to say more.
But she turned the conversation in a different direction, “Have you seen ‘The Apartment’? It’s a great film.”
The boy had seen the film, but he said, “No. Why are you talking about films? What else did Papa tell you about me?”
“He wants you to share more with him, study hard and do well in college,” she said, stretching out every word to make fun of him. He sat down on the sofa and nestled up next to her. Taking a lock of her hair tenderly between his fingers, he said, “You are better qualified than me to talk with Papa. And as far as studies go, Papa did everybody’s share of studying in his day so there’s nothing left for anybody to study. Do they study in your college? I thought all they taught you there was to chew gum and style your hair fashionably.”
The girl stood up. Her breathing was quick and her confidence was wavering. She said, “Now you’re misbehaving!”
“No, this isn’t misbehaviour. Aren’t you like my sister? Be nice to Papa and tell him that he did everyone’s share of studying in his time. And he achieved everyone’s share of success too, so there’s no success left for me to achieve in this world.”
Stunned, the girl started walking away. As she walked towards the door she said, “I see how you feel. You’re talking as if this weren’t your home, as if your father were your enemy.”
The boy stood up too. While she had still been sitting next to him, the light scent of her perfume had enveloped him. Feeling trapped by that fragrance, he said, “No, Papa isn’t my enemy. You are. He is just a stranger. How can he be my enemy? He and I don’t even know each other, and then this home...”
The girl pushed the curtain out of her way and left. A gust of air entered through the door and violently shook the delicate curtain on the other side of the room.
At about eleven the father returned from the club. He was filled with thoughts of billiards, bridge, whisky and laughter—things that made up the freedom of his Saturday evening. Before going to his bedroom, he looked into his son’s room as usual. The lamp on the desk was lit, but the chair was empty. So, he had once again gone to bed without studying. He was furious. Such lack of dedication! Grumbling to himself, he went into the son’s room to turn off the light. The bed was empty. The boy wasn’t in his room.
He looked around but didn’t see him.
The father was standing near the desk. Out of habit, he started flipping through a notebook. There was something written on one of the pages in the middle. What a scrawl! He started reading. He was peeved to see the handwriting of young people these days. However, his impatience to read dismissed that feeling. It looked like a letter addressed to him:
“You won’t believe me, but it’s the truth. I don’t know anyone called Rita. I don’t know any girls. The name Rita often comes up in books. That’s where I got it. I don’t know why the idea of writing that letter came to me one day when I was idle.
“I don’t have the courage to talk with you. What should I say? Which language should I use? I know neither English nor Hindi nor Telugu. That’s why I write letters like someone who is mute.
“You know all about my problems. But you go on scolding me. Am I responsible for everything?
“They say that soon my generation has to shoulder the responsibility of this age, of this country. Same old lie! Those who rule over the present will haunt the future too. This age will not be mine.
“This is not my home. Only you can live here. Not me. I am leaving for good. Don’t try to look for me—it will be in vain. By the time you start looking, I will already be dead. This much I know about my future.”
The letter had many mistakes. But the critic’s eyes had become useless. He came out of the room and shouted to the servants in a hollow voice, “Where is he? Where? Did you see him leave?”
The servants started running here and there in confusion. He bit his lip helplessly and said, “Find him! Search in the neighbourhood!”
Someone said, “Call the police too.”
He was at a complete loss. The servants were rushing in and out of the mansion. Their whispering voices rose and gushed forth like a flooding mountain river. He felt as if his feelings were crisscrossing lines, quickly making and unmaking geometric patterns in his mind.
He walked across the room and the verandah towards the garden. He was going to climb down but he stopped suddenly on the vast terrace, wondering what he should do first—call the police or inform his friends. At that moment, his eyes fell on a marble bench in a corner of the terrace. He walked towards it with a racing heart. He felt hopeful and he didn’t want to ruin that hope by rushing towards the bench. He breathed a sigh of relief. Under the dark night’s open sky, his son slept oblivious on the cold bench.
He put his hand on the boy’s forehead and gently said, “Son...”
He was sleeping peacefully.
The father tiptoed into the house. He said something to a servant and returned to the terrace. The flood of voices inside died down. He sat on the edge of the bench for a few moments. He took many deep breaths of relief and assured himself that his son was with him, that he hadn’t left, that what he had written in the notebook was another made-up letter written to pass an idle hour. He tried to believe all this, but couldn’t completely convince himself.
The father stroked the boy’s head to wake him up. He said, “Why are you sleeping here? Are you feeling all right?”
He sat up lazily. In a sleepy voice he said, “The air was cool. I liked it.”
The father said, “You might catch a cold out here in the open. Let’s go inside.”
He came inside with his father quietly and went to his room. He lay down on his bed.
The father stood there for some time, then he asked, “Should I switch off the lamp?”
He didn’t get an answer. The boy had fallen asleep.
The rebel had quietly gone to sleep in his home. The father was calm now, but he still couldn’t understand anything.
He switched off the light. Taking the same notebook from the desk, he closed it and put it back in its place. He stood still near the window for a while, then, feeling that his presence was unnecessary, walked out of the room without a word.
Shrilal Shukla (1925-2011) was one of the pre-eminent writers of Hindi literature in the post-Independence era. His novels, short stories and essays present an astutely satirical view of life in India after Independence. Shukla was a Provincial Civil Services (PCS) officer for the state government of Uttar Pradesh and later became an IAS officer. His most famous work is the novel Raag Darbari, a masterpiece of social and political satire set in rural India. Shukla was awarded the Padma Bhushan and the Jnanpith Award for his services to Hindi literature.
Prashansa Taneja studies literature and foreign languages at Bennington College in Vermont, USA. Her book reviews have appeared in the Guardian UK, The Millions and the Sunday Guardian. Currently, she is working on an English translation of Upendranath Ashk's memoir of his supposed enmity with Saadat Hasan Manto, My Enemy: Manto.