eight se Se the invalid is fever would rise. The teeth would make a constant clatter. It seemed as though the bones rattled, and «whole body burnt to a cinder. A veritable water wheel ran through his gullet—chukh Schr S F-5 shrr—and then he got drowned in repeated fits of a wracking cough. His tongue had turned into the sole of an old shoe— lead and insensitive as a result of gulping queer, tasteless medicines interminably. He could remember, when he was a boy, how bitter the quinine tasted, how sour was tamarind and how sweet the sugar pills! What a sensitive tongue he had had! But it had become so shamelessly dull that it didn’t feel anything now. The children romped in the courtyard, and he felt s though they were trampling over his body. They ran ut, banging the door, chasing one another, and his j Rat fae shivered all over. There were other nd bicycle i lumbering along, cars honking est Vehicles $ tinging out. It seemed as though all were running over his chest. a ol 2 of ps 109 Scanned with CamScannertam naam satya bailhe heard the chant, and hig heart sank, Hurry up... quick!’ someone called our, and he hid his face under the hemp-smeared quilt fy that mobs were coming to kill him, And dogs? Well, they were kings. Given 4 chance they would have liked to lie down in bis lap and yo on barking. And the cats felt it necessary to come to hig room for their nightly courtship. As he tried to shoo them away, the female of the pair merely smiled while she kept gazing at her mate dreamily, uttering an endearing mew now and then. Initially they were somewhat scared of him, but gradually they realized that it was silly to run away, Then there was the wind! It came through every chink and crevice and smote his body. It rustled as it entered through his cars, then passed through the gullet and finally froze in his chest. In the summer, the wind brought sizzling particles of sand, plastered them to his body, and he savoured the feeling of lying in a furnace. However, it was his burly neighbour who rankled him the most. He had a beetroot-tinted face adorned with a thick moustache, He would come and plonk down filling the entire morha. ‘How do you do?’ he would ask in his dull, uniform tone that never varied, And then his neighbour would ask of his wife, ‘Bhabi, get me a paan please.’ The wrinkled, wilted face of his wife—a mother of six children—would light up for 4 few moments, He would make further demands: ‘Do Prepare some dahi vadas sometimes,’ or ‘Pll not budge without tasting your matar pulao today.’ The eyes of his wife, hollowed because of keeping constant vigih would start dancing, She would take the neighbou' 110 , ‘ating The Quilt Scanned with CamScannerto the other veranda to give him some ji and from there would come the sound of he the loud clic king of the neighbour's tongue the goodies. In those moments, he felt a sudden urge to 20 to the toilet, or he felt thirsty or felt a sudden need to get some or the other part of his body massaged. When he had called her several times, she would come in a huff—her eyes rolling and her body tense—as though it was not she who had let off those guffaws that had driven him mad a while ago but someone else, He would keep staring at her face as though he expected to find something there. He would get tired of drinking water and getting his arms massaged. But the jaws of the neighbour continued to move unabated, like a millstone, as though they were determined to do away with his existence altogether. So what if he was an invalid? His heart had not died yet, But how could the wife be blamed? She was youngs warm blood was coursing through her veins. Whenever he made an effort to get intimate with her, she would dismiss his overtures. I don’t like your silly romance, she would say in a gesture of dismissal, and his straw- thin hand would remain dangling in mid-air, There was a time when she was so enamoured of this ‘silly romance that she could not stay back at her parents’ Ee eis for a few hours. Sometimes they would stay a hai He room for the entire day with the doors ore neighbout were so agile and mischievous. But now dl 5 ol had spelt doom for him. If he did not ee the wife send his shirt to get the buttons fixed. am or pickle, ct laughter and as he savoured sit Lamar Chughtal Scanned with CamScannerwould do so keeping it close to her lap though she could have easily avoided it. Thus even if the neighbouy Was not there, his shirts, pyjamas or socks would be there to make his life hell. There were only a few drops of blood left in his body that kept boiling. How he Wished to tear off the layers of flesh from the body of his Podgy neighbour with his dried-up fingers and smear it with salt and pepper! His tongue shed some of its bluntness at these appetizing thoughts. Sitting on the bed he would notice his wife absorbed in her chores. Must be thinking of the neighbour, of that he was sure! If he could only imprison the thoughts of that loose woman! If it were in his power, he would not have allowed her to think! But she seemed to tantalize him—‘Come on, hold the thread of my thoughts if you can.’ He was piqued and his doubts would intensify. It seemed to him that all his children resembled the neighbour—the same rolling eyes, plump physique, curled feet and swollen ankles! He would call them to his side and peer at them closely. Sometimes his doubts were allayed; sometimes they increased and made him crazy. His mind would be in a whirl, so much so that he would see the neighbour's child in her womb! Restless, he would get up, beckon his wife to his side and scrutinize her. How stupid the washerwoman was! Why did she put so much starch in saris? One looked twice one’s size, for no reason. ‘Tell that silly washerwoman not to use so much starch,’ he would say hotly, and the wife would snap, “Why, now you want to dictate in matters of star and saris as well!’ Certainly he did not want to dictat about starch and saris. But why not? .. . And then his 112 The Quilt Scanned with CamScannerture would shoot up once again, his withere. ee hr, his lungs writhe like onaiat pa and bis temples flutter. He wanted to catch his wife by the throat and wring it to his heart’s content, breaking the windpipe. And then he would slash her 0se. Well, slashing the nose was no longer considered fashionable, but he spent most of the time doing this in his imagination. He liked to imagine that he had slashed her nose and was making fine squares on her face with the tip of the knife. He would give a start and look at his wife. Without doubt there were fine lines on her face, People said that they were the result of constant worry, but he only smiled because he knew better. They were the lines he had drawn in his imagination. The temperature would increase by leaps and bounds at night. Some parts of the body turned ice cold while other parts blazed like embers. The eyes blazed while the nose turned into an ice cube, the palms burned as the fingers melted away. The nape froze. It seemed as though someone was churning milk in’ his throat. The doctor looked for a bit of flesh to push needles into, The scattered lumps in the buttocks smote him » like a noose. If the eyes closed for a while he felt as though someone had poured bundles of cotton on him and he was diving through them, sobbing. Giant-like creatures danced on his chest. Someone seemed to lash his calf. Hundreds of withered, bony hands stretched out at him. Soft, inhuman fingers crawled on his temples. All his dead relatives beckoned him with outstretched hands. 4 old grandmother coaxed him, wagging her head. ut he courteously refused to oblige them and returned Scanned with CamScannersafe. St is believed that if any dead relative calls ina dream and if one accompanies him, then one die a few days. He knew all these tricks of the dea Sin was no dimwit to fall prey to the trap. After all io should he die? He would live with a vengeance. Wh! did people expect him to die? He wouldn’t, come ce may! : He Jay down in his bed and swaggered when peo Z ple came to see him. At the slightest Provocation, he would growl like an excitable and valorous youth, He got furious as he saw people’s worn faces tinged with sympathy. He wanted to smash their chins, Finding him so energetic, the visitors, shaking their heads, would say, ‘He’s recovering.’ He did not know what people really thought about him. There was a time when all the unmarried girls in the extended family were protected from him as though he would gobble them up. The girls also got nervous fits at his very sight—faces flustered, they would leave the chores they were doing and run for cover. They stumbled if they tried to run away. If they wanted to cover their face, the dupatta slipped off leaving them at his mercy. And he was indeed ruthless! So many girls came to his view who felt coy at his sight that it was difficult for him to make a choice. Sometimes he would fall for Manjhu, at other times for Jaani. Sometimes he would forget them altogether and become a devotee of Munni. Then there were moments when he felt so confused that he pounced on all of them. é But now they have stopped feeling shy any more his presence. The young daughter-in-law of the cleani"é 114 The Quilt Scanned with CamScanneroman looked straight into his eyes and discussed such ith him as though he were a cat or a mouse and not 4 man! ee to whom he was all but engaged and who used to have fits of hysteria whenever fe heard of his arrival now breastfed her baby before him nonchalantly. And Jaani would openly discuss her rivate ailments with his doctor right before him! They had forgiven him for his youthful indiscretions and now considered him absolutely harmless. Once when he wanted to shock them out of their complacency and muttered something into the ears of the young maid, she was in jitters. ‘Ai, bhaiya’s fever is going up,’ she yelled. Since the time he had fallen sick, people started to address him as ‘bhaiya’. The old fogeys swaggered before him and expected that he would kick the bucket any moment and depart for the other world. Hunh! Let people die of expectations. He wouldn’t die. He would live! Let all his children resemble the neighbour. Let everyone resemble the neighbour—his father, mother, brother and sister, Let them have the same roving eyes, crooked feet and swollen ankles! Still he would live! He would live for revenge! They were fools if they thought that he would die to provide them relief. He could measure a person ata glance. He would peer into the faces of those who came to see him. If they looked sad he lost his temper. They were all hypocrites! He would adopt-a cutting tone while talking to them. Those who smiled to cheer him up were also impostors. Did they consider him a dimwit? They came just to mouth platitudes like ‘Get well soon’, ‘God willing, you'll be all right’, etc. He would start discussing their Private affairs, The smiles on their faces vanished in 115 Tsmat Chughtat Scanned with CamScannera moment leaving them awestruck. If a Person, remained devoid of any expression, he considered hi te utter fool and advised him on the benefits of j losses, facing humiliations, inviting plunder and | and smiled contentedly when the visitors showe signs of anxiety and disquiet. ‘Come again, Without waiting for an occasion?’ he woul mentally. Doctors came one after another and prescribed him tasteless medicines. As they gave him injections, and his wife massaged his chest, they would try to get closer to her on the pretext of helping her. Then they tried a touch her fingers and advised her to take protein-rich food and increase her blood count. They also prescribed tasty medicines for her. There was hardly any doctor who did not write prescription after prescription for his wife with utmost promptness. He cursed all of them and tore up the prescriptions. Had it been in his power, he would have held her firmly and fed her. a handful of the viruses that had afflicted him. His wife had once promised to be a companion through life and death. But now she was scared of the viruses, washed her hands with carbolic acid and gargled with soda water. What a wide gulf there was between them now! And then his temperature would rise, the lungs swell up, the throat constrict, the bones rattle and he woul drown in the sea of physical and mental torment. n Ncurrin, tigation d visible » Will you; id ask them 116 The Ouilt Scanned with CamScanner