I walked up to the garden with Jainath as if I was not walking with Jainath. As soon as we came to the lawn, he lay down, flat on his back, without
worrying about dirtying his white clothes. I did not want to sit but I did. The grass had not been cut for a long time. The garden was like the ruin of a garden.
‘Let’s go home,’ I said.
‘Whose home?’
‘You go to yours and I’ll go to mine,’ I said.
‘Let’s both go to your home,’ Jainath said. He said this as though, besides us, there was a third person present there, and that third person was also me. Jainath had stretched out his arms on the lawn and clutched the grass in his fists as though he was mercilessly pulling his son’s hair. But he did not have a son. He was staring at the sky without blinking. Seeing him, I too looked up. There was a pariah kite wheeling in the sky. Looking at Jainath lying on the grass, I wondered if the kite might think he was a corpse. I stood up and started pacing about. I did this because I did not want the kite to have a similar thought about me.
‘Did you speak with the doctor?’ Jainath asked. He still had the grass clenched in his fists. If the grass had been a little longer, it would have looked as if he’d seized his wife’s hair. He had a wife. Her name was Krishnabai.
The name was tattooed on her right arm. Jainath wanted to have it erased.* His wife was fair, which made the greenish colour of the letters stand out all the more. They could be read easily. I’d never seen his wife. When I saw a thorny green vine wrapped around a nearby utility pole, I decided that this was a Krishnabai growing on the pole. I also thought that I should pluck a leaf from it and crush it in my hand. I plucked a green leaf and squeezed a green drop from it on my palm. ‘What are you doing?’ asked Jainath.
‘Let’s go home. We’ll think of something. I’m worried about you,’ I said, rubbing my palms together.
I saw that when Jainath loosened his grip, the flattened grass began to straighten up slowly. I took a deep breath; it was as though the trampled grass had done so too. I immediately felt less tense.
‘I’ll cut off her arm,’ Jainath said, rising to his feet.
‘That’s okay, to chop off her arm, but will you sever it from the elbow or from the shoulder?’ I asked quickly, after a slight pause. He had begun to walk towards the road without thinking about me.
‘Wait,’ I said, looking at his back. There were a few green stains from the crushed grass on Jainath’s white shirt and trousers. Had the grass been red, I’d have thought of bloodstains. I was happy now.
‘What is it?’ asked Jainath.
‘Why do you need to chop off her arm? There’s something else you can do. You can erase the tattoo with a razor blade.’ I felt Jainath hadn’t paid attention to what I’d said. We came to a road that we had to cross. A bus went past, to the right of us. Then a tonga. When there was no traffic except for two pedestrians coming from the left, we crossed the road.
After walking for a bit I asked Jainath, ‘Which way?’ ‘This way,’ he said, turning towards the right, his head lowered. A little ahead of us, at the edge of a field, were three ugly-looking houses. There was a pig rooting about. I gestured in their direction and said to Jainath, ‘See, that’s your wife’s name engraved right there. Three ugly-looking houses and a pig. It’s so very “Krishnabai”. The pig is the “i” of Krishnabai.’ Jainath turned towards the left. I walked beside him. This was the road that led to my house.
It was around seven in the evening. Jainath came to my house wearing clean trousers and a white shirt. He sat down on the charpoy. I noticed that as soon as he sat down, he crumpled up the sheet in his fists so that its crinkles spread out from his hands where they clasped the sheet to the rest of the bed. ‘This is a really bad habit of yours,’ I said to him irritably, smoothing down the sheet.
Jainath looked grave. I’d put on the light in the room. I was sitting on an old chair in front of the charpoy.
First Jainath talked of this and that. Outside, the children of the neighbourhood were creating a ruckus. Then in great detail he told me how yesterday he’d tried to remove the name from his wife’s arm with a new razor blade. His wife had been scrubbing utensils. He first checked his shaving kit, but it didn’t have a new blade. He asked his wife for some money and went out to buy one. The thought did come to him that he could try to do the job with the old blade that he’d used only once. (At this point I said, ‘And then?’) He had the new blade with him. His wife had finished cleaning the utensils. He called out to her. He caught hold of her right hand, it was still wet, and told her that he was going to remove the tattoo. There’d be no pain. His wife was frightened. She ran to a corner of the courtyard and stood there. She did not say anything. He was angry at first, then he cajoled her. He went out to the courtyard and grabbing her hand, brought her back to the room. (I again said, ‘Then?’ Jainath was looking good to me today.) He made his wife sit down in a corner of the room. He sat down too, but realized that it would be easier if he stood up to do the job. He had to be very careful. He made his wife also stand up and lean against the wall. He pressed against her with his shoulder and tried to scrape off the name with the razor blade. It was a new blade so there were a lot of small cuts. He was only able to get to the ‘Kri’ of ‘Krishnabai’. His clothes were stained with blood. ‘Were these the clothes you were wearing?’ I asked, looking at his washed shirt.
‘Yes,’ said Jainath.
‘You must have washed them yesterday?’
‘Yes. There is a wound on my wife’s arm,’ Jainath said. I stood up and
began to pace the room. Then I sat down again. My brain was not working. I wanted my brain to work. So I reached out and picked up a scrap of paper from the window ledge. I tore it into shreds and threw the shredded paper out of the window. I noticed that the neighbourhood boys were silent. All this I did sitting on the chair.
‘The wound has almost healed. Some penicillin ointment was lying in the house. She refused to apply it at first.’
‘Tell me something,’ I said, ‘Did you apply the ointment only on “Kri”, or did you spread it over all the letters?’
Jainath said, ‘The wound was only on “Kri”, but I don’t remember. Maybe the ointment spread till “Krishna”. I am very worried. The whole mohalla knows her name. It’s written in big letters, from below the elbow to the wrist. The tattoo is visible from a distance.’
His eyes had filled with tears. I felt sorry for him. I got up and made some tea, while he sat there looking sad. Then he lay down on the bed. If at that time there’d been a calendar on the wall with the picture of a woman or a child, he’d have looked at it lovingly. It was very late at night. I said, ‘Go home now. Your wife must be waiting.’
It was past eleven. He looked lost. He didn’t want to leave. Then both of us planned how next time round he should use sulphuric acid. It didn’t look any different from water. If he tried, he could buy the acid quite easily. He’d make his wife sit down on the pretext of applying ointment to her wound. He’d act affectionately towards her and then pour the whole bottle on her arm. The acid would come out with a gurgling sound. If she screamed, he’d let her; he wouldn’t be scared by it. To stop her from screaming too loudly, he’d put his hand over her mouth. He’d make sure that no acid fell on him.
‘Okay,’ said Jainath. He looked happy when he left my house at around two. I slept well that night and got up late the next morning. My limbs were aching.
I hadn’t met Jainath for many days. I thought he hadn’t been able to do the job. Maybe he hadn’t been able to get sulphuric acid. Maybe his wife had resisted and some of the acid had fallen on him. The chances of this happening were slim though, because Jainath was strong. He wasn’t tall but he was well built. I knew that his wife was thin, almost sickly. Nonetheless, I was worried about Jainath. I wondered what he was up to.
For the next few days I spent my spare time in places where I was likely to run into him. I thought I had lost weight.
One morning Jainath woke me early. ‘Come!’ he said. I was glad to see him. I got up and began to get ready, preparing for a leisurely chat with him. But he seemed to be in a hurry and this made me lose my temper.
‘Did you do the job?’ was the first thing I asked him, angrily.
‘No,’ he said, becoming sad.
‘Then I won’t go,’ I said, and taking off the trousers I’d just put on, I hung
them up on a peg. Then I lay down on the bed. It took much persuasion from him before I agreed to go.
He was taking me to his place. I caught a glimpse of a woman on the roof of his house from afar. Then she must have sat down suddenly because she’d seen us coming. It must be Jainath’s wife, I thought. Jainath hadn’t seen her.
He started climbing the stairs very fast and was ahead of me. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, he’d got his wife to open the door. He was standing at the door alone. His wife wasn’t there.
‘Why didn’t you do it?’ I whispered, when we were in the room.
‘I couldn’t find any acid.’
‘You could have told me earlier.’
‘I didn’t get the chance to tell you.’
‘I’ll bring the acid tomorrow.’
‘Okay, we can try doing it with acid. Will it be fixed then, once and for all?’ Jainath asked. Then he pointed to the bed. ‘What is it?’ I said to him. We’d both come up to the bed. I saw ‘Krishnabai’ embroidered in uneven letters on the new pillow cover. This came as a surprise. ‘I love her,’ said Jainath softly. I swore at him in my head. I was listening to what Jainath said, and in my head I was listening also to the profanities I had used for him.
Jainath said that he’d asked his wife if she did embroidery. She’d said yes, but had hesitated. Then he brought home a new pillow cover, a needle, and threads of many colours. He asked his wife to embroider leaves and flowers on it and, after some thought, to embroider her name as well. She suspected something was wrong and had refused at first. It was only when he lost his temper and hit her on the back with his fist that she agreed.
‘Let me see,’ I said to Jainath. He picked up the pillow and showed it to me. I looked at it carefully and saw that she had indeed embroidered her name. There was no mistaking it. I came away. Jainath was a beast, I thought, and stopped being friends with him. I never brought any acid to give Jainath.
(1965)
* Jainath wanted to remove the tattoo because to deny the woman an identity of her own is still part of conservative tradition in many parts of India. It is common practice for a woman to be addressed not by her name but as someone’s wife, mother, or daughter. While decorative tattoos are common, the name tattoo suggests that Jainath’s wife is an individual in her own right, an idea he is uncomfortable with, as is his friend. She remains invisible to the end.
Vinod Kumar Shukla (b.1937) is a modern Hindi poet, novelist and short-story writer. His works include the novels Naukar ki Kameez (which has been made into a film by Mani Kaul) and Deewar Mein Ek Khirkee Rahati Thi (A Window Lived in a Wall), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999. He lives in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra lives in Dehra Dun, in the foothills of the Himalayas. He is the author of seven previous books of poetry and two collections of essays. He is also the translator of Songs of Kabir and the editor of Collected Poems in English by Arun Kolatkar and The Book of Indian Essays: Two Hundred Years of English Prose. His Collected Poems is coming out from Shearsman Books in 2022.
Sara Rai works in Hindi, Urdu and English. Her fiction includes Ababeel ki Uraan (1995), Biyabaan Mein (2005) and Cheelvali Kothi (2010). Books edited / translated by her include The Golden Waist-Chain (1992), Imaging the Other (1999) and Hindi Handpicked Fictions (2003).