Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa Page B

separating the lovers. But late one night, slipping furtively from her village, risking treacherous currents and fierce reprisal, Sohni floats across on an inflated buffalo hide to her lover.
    Mahiwal’s delight is boundless. He celebrates in rapturous outbursts of verse. But he is distraught when he discovers he has nothing in the house to feed his Sohni.
    It is too late to send for sweets—the bazaar is closed. “But such is the strength of his passion—the tenderness of his love,” says Ayah lowering her lids over her faraway and dreamy eyes, “that he cuts a hank of flesh from his thigh, and barbecuing it on skewers, offers his beloved kebabs!”
    Ayah cannot speak any more. Her voice is choked, her eyes streaming, her nose blocked.

    â€œDoes she eat it?” I enquire, astonished.
    â€œShe gobbles it up!” says Ayah, sobbing. “Poor thing, she doesn’t know what the kebabs are made of... ”
    In the end the doomed lovers die.

    A shout, a couple of curses, a laugh, break away from the hum of voices coming from the kitchen. And then a receding patter of bare feet.
    They are after the gardener’s dhoti.
    Ayah and I jump up from the grass and following the pattering feet run along the side of the house and past Gita’s window.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” Gita calls from within.
    â€œThey’re after Hari’s dhoti!” I shout.
    We approach the servants’ yard and, sure enough, see the ragged scuffle around Hari. Hari’s spare, dark body is almost hidden. Ayah stops to one side and I dive into the tangle of limbs yelling for all I’m worth, contributing my mite of rowdyism to the general row.
    Yousaf the odd-job man, Greek-profiled, curly-haired, towers mischievously over Hari. Everybody towers over the gardener—even the sweeper Moti. I, of course, am still far from towering. As is Papoo, the sweeper’s daughter, who comes galloping and whooping from the servants’ courtyard, an infant wobbling dangerously on her hip, and brandishing a long broom. Her wide, bold mouth flashing a handsome smile she plunges herself, the insouciant babe, and the fluffy broom into the scuffle.
    Yousaf has a grip on Hari’s hand—which is hanging on to the knot at his waist. Yousaf casually shakes and pulls the hand, trying to loosen its hold on the loincloth, and Hari’s slight, taut body rocks back and forth and from side to side.
    Imam Din, genial-faced, massive, towers behind Hari. He is our cook. His dusty feet, shod in curly-toed leather slippers, are placed flat apart. He drums his chest, flexes his muscles and emits the fierce barruk cries with which Punjabi village warriors bluff,
intimidate and challenge each other. “O vay ! ” he roars. “I’ll chew you up and I won’t even burp!” Majestically, good-naturedly, he lunges at the cloth between the gardener’s legs.
    Hari is having a hard time fending off the cook’s hand with his spare arm, and also coping with Moti’s sly attacks, and Papoo’s tickling broom. The washerman, who has brought our laundry for the week, has also joined the melee. We are like a pack of puppies, worrying and attacking each other in a high-spirited gambol.
    But we play to rules. Hari plays the jester—and he and I and they know he will not be hurt or denuded. His dhoti might come apart partially—perhaps expose a flash of black buttock to spice the sport—but this happens only rarely.
    It is a good-natured romp until suddenly three shrill and familiar screeches blast my ears. “Bitch! Haramzadi! May you die!” And Muccho’s grasping hand reaches for the root of her daughter’s braid. The gaunt, bitter fingers close on the hair, yanking cruelly, and Papoo bows back and staggers backwards at an improbable angle. She falls sitting on her small buttocks, her legs straight out; still holding the jolted and blinking infant on her hip and the