The Skeleton

I stood there stunned, silently observing her dead body. Father closed the door. 'Have you thought of it?' he said dropping his voice to a whisper. 'Of all our friends and acquaintances there is not one to whom we don't owe money…'

He fell silent. Father had run up huge debts to provide for my education, among other things. And then there had been a long spell of unemployment. We had many relatives who had doled out money to father just because he was a good man and they could not refuse him. But there is a limit to everything. How could he go on asking for money on the basis of being a good man?

'Today we are in no position to observe the rites enjoined by society,' he said. 'I know tongues will wag. And we can't stop them, can we? I've thought of a way out…'

Then his voice seemed to fail him--like a heavily-loaded truck breaking down when making a steep climb.

'What is it that you wanted to tell me?' I asked.

'We shall bury your mother in the back room.'

I was aghast.

'Your mother is gone,' he said. 'Only the dust remains. Let her dust merge into dust. I can't think of any other alternative.'

I could see that he had to gather all his strength to utter these words. And the tremor in his voice was evidence that he was expecting stiff opposition from me. I was indeed appalled at his suggestion. My wife intervened: 'When our neighbours don't see her in the morning…?'

'I've thought of that too, Bahu,' father said. 'I'll take the night train to visit Deepu. If anybody asks tell them that father and mother have gone to visit Deepu Bhaiyya.'

Without further ado, father started breaking the floor. In two hours we had dug a sufficiently deep hole, in which I laid mother to her final rest. We accomplished the job by ten. We felt that along with mother we also buried our age-old hallowed traditions.

Exhausted, our minds empty, we sat down in the front room. After a while, father put his things in a cloth bag and set out from home. I saw him take long strides into the darkness. We spent the remaining part of the night gazing at the walls of the room.

I heard a voice in my head saying, 'Your mother is dead. You must cry.' I tried but failed, unable to lighten the burden of my heart.

In the morning the desolation in the house started to get on my nerves.

I was also worried about father. Getting down from the train, he must have worked his way through the crowd and reached Deepu's house utterly tired. Deepu's house was no better than a hovel. Deepu and his wife, father knew, would not be happy at his sudden appearance. Life was already such a hard grind for them and father would be painfully aware that he would be adding to their burden. But he could do nothing about it.

My wife was silent. Sometimes silences can drive a wedge between two intimate people. Then at last she got absorbed in her daily chores.

After an interminable wait, father's efforts eventually bore fruit. I got the job of a low-grade teacher in a private school. I immediately wrote to father and Deepu Bhaiyya conveying the good news. My wife went about telling the neighbours the epic role father had played in getting the job for me. Being privately run, the school could not adequately meet its expenses. My salary was not worth talking about. So after a full day's work, in the evening I had to go to the school principal's house to coach his children.

Hearing that I had gotten a job all our creditors came to congratulate me, which was in fact a clever way of reminding me that we owed them money. Those who were previously content with getting back their principal amount now wanted interest too. One of them told me that he had recently met father in Nagpur. He was a doing a part-time accounts job in a small business establishment. The news did not make me happy. His broken spectacles were lying in my table drawer. He could not work without glasses for it caused him a headache. It made me realize all the more how useless I was.

The next day I wrote to father: 'At your age it does not look nice for you to work,' I wrote to him. 'If you don't feel comfortable there you had better come home. I have managed to get some tuitions on the side. If you

want, I can send you some money so that you can buy a new pair of glasses.'

Prompt came the reply: 'My eyesight is quite good. Rather than sending me money you would do well to start paying off our debts. My clothes are almost in tatters. I'll try to buy new ones next month. I'll be getting ninety rupees. Not bad for the kind of work that I'm doing. Take care of your health.'

Three days later there was a letter from Bhabhi: 'Big cities mean big expenses. We have installment payments against the purchase of a scooter. If we don't pay those on time it will be a slur on his name. Father has a job at ninety rupees a month. But how far can that go? Now that you have started earning you should send us some money to help with father's maintenance.'

At night when I returned home my wife would be asleep. I would sit down to my meal and try to force the ice-cold food down my throat. Later I would feel like vomiting. I would gulp down some water and crawl into the bed. My wife would be wearing her threadbare sari and patched-up blouse. I would feel disheartened at the sight.

I was a bit free on Sundays. I would buy the provisions for the coming week and take a leisurely bath. We would also indulge in the extravagance of having a vegetable curry along with the daily daal. In the evening my wife would wear a freshly-washed sari and strive to look attractive. But not even the thick kajal could hide the shadows under her eyes. On those nights I would be the first to go to bed. My wife would follow me and lie down by my side. After a while instead of the soul-less, low-grade teacher there would be only a man --numbed beyond any desires and worries--sliding into a deep slumber.

Gradually everything fell into a routine: on the first of the month I would pay the instalments of my creditors from my salary and tuition fees. With the money that remained I would formulate the current month's budget. My wife would tell me that apart from Monday and Wednesday she would add one more day to her schedule of weekly fasting. She thought that by scraping and scrounging in this manner she would be able to reduce expenses. But the expenses always spilled over.

There was another letter from Bhabhi. She wanted me to call father or send money to cover his expenses. I was hurt. I felt that she had written this letter on her own without taking Deepu Bhaiyya into confidence. Over the last six months or so I had appreciably reduced my debts. Hence I decided to invite father to stay with me.

I discussed the matter with my wife long into the night. To my delight, my wife came up with a practical suggestion. We had some giant-sized brass utensils which grandfather had bought long ago for cooking on festive occasions. Why not sell them off? We did so, and they fetched money much beyond our expectations. I wrote to father to return home.

Father came soon enough. Though he looked tired and thin, he was actually quite happy because all his debts had been paid off. A huge load was off his head.

I was soon to complete three years of my service with the school. During this period our living had more or less stabilized. Father was feeling more relaxed and easy. He would spend his time gossiping with the other retired people of the mohalla. My wife would sometimes observe as many as three 'Sundays' in a week.

Then I noticed a change in my wife. When I asked her she smiled. 'Don't pretend to be so innocent,' she said. 'Don't you know I'm three months gone?' I got a jolt. My wife was pregnant and I didn't know about it. We had been married seven years and we had never talked on this subject. I was as much thrilled as surprised.

Father had also come to know about it. He started to fetch the pitchers of water from the tap himself, and would not allow my wife to wash his clothes. Sometimes he would call the nurse from the government hospital to give her a check-up. In the school, besides teaching, I had also to attend to some office work as a result of which I came home late. One day I was specifically asked to come home early. But when I reached home at seven-thirty I found the door locked. Our neighbour told me that Aunt Lachchi and father had taken my wife to the hospital. I hurried there and found father strolling in the compound. He looked worried. Father told me that the child was in the breech position and that the doctors were trying to bring it to the normal position. If they did not succeed they would have to take recourse to surgery in the morning. It had to be a Caesarian and the operation would cost a thousand rupees.

We gaped at each other. A thousand rupees! Where was the money to come from? And it had to be paid the first thing in the morning. I had already arranged for three hundred rupees. But what about the rest?

I saw a friend emerging from the hospital. His wife had delivered the day before. He told me that a new doctor had recently set up his clinic near the Town Hall. We would do well to consult him for he was said to be a competent gynaecologist and may be able to suggest a way out without recourse to surgery.

Leaving Aunt Lachchi behind we rushed from the hospital to meet the new doctor. There was a light inside the clinic, which meant he was in, but we could hear people talking inside and therefore waited for them to come out.

'Yaar, you must be showy,' someone was advising the doctor. 'Unless you do that your practice will not pick up. Put up a nice signboard. Display surgical instruments in the almirah for effect. Put a human skeleton in a showcase. Dr. Basudev of Bhopal has done it. We will spread the word that the new doctor is a genius.'

'Yes, these days geniuses are not born, they are created!' the doctor quipped. 'But where do I get a skeleton?'

'You can get one easily for a thousand or fifteen hundred rupees.'

Father, who had been hearing all this, pressed my hand and we moved away without meeting the doctor. I walked behind him like an automaton. Upon reaching home father lighted the lamp.

'Vibhu, the new doctor wants a skeleton,' father said. 'He'll pay fifteen hundred rupees for it. We have got a skeleton--your mother's.'

I looked at father in stricken amazement. 'Father, it's a sacrilege even to think of such a thing.'

'Don't be a fool. A skeleton is just like dust. But if it can bring someone on the verge of death back to life…well, I can tell you it's not a bad bargain.'

I was dead against the proposition. We had not performed any rites at mother's death. And now father wanted to sell her bones.

'I'll not have it!' I protested. 'Even if my wife is saved she will wallow in remorse all her life.'

'Vibhu, you seem to lack brains. Do you think that if some Brahmins perform 'shradh', it'll bring salvation to the dear departed? If your wife dies these very people who won't help you with a single paisa will make a show of mourning, come on the days of mourningand do nothing but eat, eat, and eat.'

It was for the first time that I was having an argument with father, and it brought tears to my eyes.

'Vibhu, it's a question of an operation,' father insisted, 'and its solution lies in a skeleton.'

He got up and started digging the floor of the back room. As if in a trance, I also lent him a helping hand. It took us about four hours to dig out the skeleton and clean it up. Asking me to go to the hospital he stayed back, waiting for the appropriate time when he would deliver the skeleton to the new doctor and report back at the hospital.

The nurse of the maternity ward was out in the verandah. Aunt Lachchi was also sitting on the floor. 'What's the delay?' I asked her. I was told that the surgeon who was to perform the operation was out of station and was expected any moment.

Then father came. He placed a wad of crisp currency notes in my hand. Mother's face suddenly rose before my eyes. Just then the surgeon arrived and went in to examine my wife who had been readied for the operation. Aunt also followed him. To my dismay I saw the surgeon coming out. Aunt, who was behind him, was crying. My wife too was 'gone.'

In grief, we brought her dead body home on a push-cart.

Father said, 'Vibhu, it is a strange custom that we should be celebrating the death of one who had all her life lived in neglect and penury. Those who had not a word of sympathy for her will join in the celebration, posing as if they are very close to us. These abominable customs, are we going to observe them?'

'No, never,' I reply.

Father had the push cart stopped outside the door of our house. He went in and came back with a pick-axe, a shovel and an empty, hollow receptacle. Placing them on the push-cart he trudged alongside the cart. I followed him close at his heels.

Narendra Maurya is a prominent writer in Hindi. S. Mahnowar is a poet/translator.