A third Akhand Paath was about to be held at Sardar Mangal Singh's new mansion. The first had been held when the house was built, with prayers offered for the marriage of his only son, Daleep Singh. A grand new mansion, a handsome young son, a bride from a house of lakhs — lovely as a fairy. On the day of that first Paath, the mansion had glowed within and without, like the shimmer of spring-coloured silks. The holy Gurbani rang out from the loudspeakers; the new saplings in the garden swayed in the breeze; women's bangles clinked. The young men of the neighbourhood, drunk on the festivity, sat in knots here and there, holding court. Seasoned men of affairs took quiet pleasure in the talk of trade. The rustle of silk, the peals of young laughter, the crowd of every caste and community swelling and thinning, the stream of congratulations — all of it woven into one picture of joy. There was happiness in everything. There was splendour in everything.
As for Sardar Mangal Singh himself — what was there to say! He was drunk on his own happiness. In a separate drawing room Daleep sat chatting with his young friends, who leafed through his wedding photographs, praising now him, now the girls and young women who appeared in them. Jeet Kaur, daughter of a man of lakhs, glowing in silk and jewels, sat smiling amid the young women of the neighbourhood, parrying their jokes and teasing with grace. The women would look at her, then catch a finger between their teeth in half-envious wonder. "Waahe Guru! Waahe Guru!" — some praised Jeet Kaur, some marvelled at Daleep's good fortune. But on one thing all were agreed: a man as blessed as Mangal Singh comes but rarely into this world. And so that first Akhand Paath had passed, just so — amid laughter and rejoicing.
The second Akhand Paath had been held some four months ago — on the thirteenth-day rite for that same handsome young son. Seven or eight months after his wedding, Daleep had been killed one day in deeply mysterious circumstances; someone had shot him dead. The second Paath was for the peace of his soul. On that day the mansion's splendour stung the eyes. Everything was draped in sorrow; everything cowered in dread. There was no gathering of the young men now; the talk of business had fallen mute; youth had wilted; in the eyes of the old were only mist and shadow. A fearsome pall of death lay over it all. Only the holy Gurbani, ringing from the loudspeakers, kept its courage in that air of death — for the Bani knows the whole secret of the stream of life. The Bani knows and recognises both banks of that stream: the bank of birth and the bank of death. But the human eye cannot see so far. It sees one bank, and while it gazes there, the far bank lies hidden behind it, unseen. From the bank of life, when the eye beholds the twinkling lamps upon the waves of the current, and their golden reflections, the far bank of darkness does not show itself — the bank where, by the time these flames arrive, they have already guttered out, already merged into the dark water. And when one day that eye — the human eye — falls into the dark water spreading to the very brim, then body and soul, every nerve and sinew, shrink in terror and freeze in dread.
And so, while the heavenly Bani of the first Akhand Paath had rung high into the blue sky above that house's laughter and schemes of trade, the Bani at the second Paath could not break through the grief. Borne on the chariot of the wind, it passed through the stifled sobs and sighs of that silent house and dissolved into the blue sky above. After the second Paath, in just four months, Sardar Mangal Singh's mansion had become a strange, haunted place, where a bitter sadness hung at every hour. This grand house at the road's edge — how could it not become a spectacle for every passer-by? If any sign of life was glimpsed there now, it was only the government jeep bringing some police officer for consultation, or a lawyer pressing the murder case on Mangal Singh's behalf, or a doctor or healer come to attend to Mangal Singh himself.
People, weighed down though they are with their own cares, always find ample leisure to fret over others. One question gnawed at them now: what was to become of this great house? Childless Sardar Mangal Singh, poor man, dwindled by the day. How long could so deep a wound in the heart let him go on living? And his wife — how long could she hold out, swallowing the poison of grief mouthful by mouthful? It was the daughter-in-law people pitied most; the things they said of her youth and her beauty, they said over and over, day after day. They murmured among themselves: "How long will she go on, smothering in this mausoleum of mourning! Her father is a man of lakhs — will he let his daughter rot here? They say he has three or four houses even grander than Mangal Singh's. One of her brothers is a great contractor; another is a colonel in the army. After Partition her father came to Delhi and opened a small roadside eatery, which has since grown into the grand hotel called 'Liberty' — and it laughs at those who say there is no such thing as luck." For without luck, no one even stumbles on the paths where the springs of wealth gush up. Yet fortune is fickle: now it takes pity on a man, and now it betrays him outright — as it had Sardar Mangal Singh and his only son, Daleep Singh.
When Daleep Singh had passed his B.A., Mangal Singh made over to him the whole of his transport business. Daleep was educated, yes, but he had a shrewd instinct for trade besides, and stood from the first on firm ground. His income ran to sixty or eighty thousand rupees a month. But, as they say, money only deepens the thirst for money — like a man who drinks salt water and grows the thirstier for it.
All the things an ordinary man dreams of, building himself a paradise in his fancy — all of them already stood ready at Sardar Mangal Singh's command. His body had grown heavy, true, but that was the toll of drink. His beard had turned white, yet the ruddy glow of his face still put younger men to shame. He was about sixty — a year more, a year less.
But Daleep was still young. All this is my father's earning, he would think — an unlettered father's earning! And what is the use of my learning, if I cannot earn more than this? Once a relative who was a contractor proposed they go into partnership. Daleep made a face and said: "Bowing and scraping to two-penny engineers and clerks for every little sum? Not for me. I want work where I needn't lower my neck before anyone, needn't flatter anyone. And to tell you the truth, I don't even care for this transport business — every year the trouble of getting the vehicles passed, the endless coddling of the traffic officers. It is drudgery."
Such talk fired the young transporters. They began to look on Daleep as their leader, savouring his bold words; they were sure he would open a road for them all. They even talked themselves into believing he would open some grand hotel in Delhi, or a cinema in Jammu beside which the K.C. in Jammu and the Golcha in Delhi would be as nothing.
Daleep would hear all this and laugh. "I'll stay in India," he would say, "only until I've eight or ten lakhs of my own. My father's money I count as a trust in his keeping. His grandson may have a right to it — I claim none. Let him give it all away to the poor if he likes, or to the Gurudwara."
When word of such talk reached Sardar Mangal Singh, he would answer with a chuckle: "It's the heat of youth! Any young man sitting on lakhs of income may run on like this. What is Daleep's age, after all?" But within himself Mangal Singh thought: a trader's son ought to have exactly this hunger. The eagerness to open new doors of earning is no bad sign. Whose son is he, after all? I myself began on a salary of a hundred rupees a month, and brought the story this far. It is only natural he should mean to walk faster than his father.
And it seemed Daleep had indeed found a road to his high ambitions. In a remarkably short time he had earned two or three lakhs. But from where? At what work? A few of his close companions had grown rich just as fast. People likened it to the river Devika, that flows underground — dig anywhere, and water springs up. Among the transporters were a few sober, seasoned old men; their brows furrowed. One of them said: "Wealth that comes rushing down dark alleys does not build a home — it feeds the gambling den. This Daleep, to my mind, counts for nothing. These are bad signs. He will stumble one day; and when he does, mark my words, he'll drag his father's hard-earned fortune down with him."
These men believed Daleep gambled — that was how he had made so much, so fast. When Daleep heard it, he waved it off: jealous old men, the lot of them. Others suspected he was running liquor into the prohibition cities, which would account for his week-long disappearances. All these theories were proved wrong the day people heard that a border guard had shot Daleep dead near the Pakistan border, while he was dealing with his partners across the line.
The day his body came to the hospital for post-mortem, it was as though the whole city had poured into the hospital compound. There were as many tales as there were tongues. One said a soldier's bullet had killed Pakistani men too; their people had carried off their own dead and left Daleep's body behind. Another said the place where it happened lay a full three miles behind the actual border. Yet another claimed that wild boar were hunted near the border in that season, and that a stray bullet from such a hunt must have struck Daleep by mistake.
Hearing all this, one elder cut in sharply: "Not one of these tales is true. People are only guessing in the dark. The real story is this: Daleep was not alone in this work. He had a regular gang. They would cross over armed with rifles and pistols. Smuggling across the border is no child's play! But put youth, money, liquor, and the swagger of carrying guns together, and the whole world begins to feel like something to be crushed underfoot. They believed they could do as they pleased with anyone — favour whom they liked, ruin whom they liked.
"The story goes that on a recent run, having finished their dealings across the line, they drank deep and forced their way into someone's house. They troubled the daughter and the daughter-in-law of the family. The only man at home was the old father; his son had gone out on some errand. When the son came back the next morning and heard what had happened, he soothed his father quietly and urged him to be patient — but within, he was consumed with fury, and he set out after these men.
"The next night, Daleep and his companions were bound for the border again in their jeep, for another run. The old man's son had been watching for them. He had marked their coming and going, studied their road, and then hidden behind a culvert at a bend, some two miles from the village. In the last watch of the night, when the jeep drew near, he steadied his cartridge rifle and took aim. It was Daleep, at the wheel, the bullet found — it struck him in the head and shattered his skull. The jeep lurched on another two or three furlongs before it crashed into a tree. Two or three of his armed companions sprang out and ran back, but by then the young man was long gone from the spot."
For many days the talk of the murder echoed through the city; people guessed and guessed. But one hard truth pricked them all: Sardar Mangal Singh's only son was dead. How had he been killed? Who had done it? This much only was known — that the police had arrested both father and son, and a case of murder had been filed against them; the magistrate had committed them to the Sessions Court.
In those four months Sardar Mangal Singh had poured out money like water to avenge his son. For the Sessions Court he had brought a top barrister from Delhi, who, they said, had taken twelve thousand rupees for two days alone. A verdict was expected any day. And so Mangal Singh had arranged this third Akhand Paath: whatever his wealth, his influence, and his helpless cunning might leave wanting in the pursuit of justice, he hoped to make good by seeking the Almighty's aid.
The case, on the whole, was clear enough. The one thing that troubled both the government prosecutor and Mangal Singh's lawyer was this: father and son each claimed the whole guilt for himself, each trying to save the other. Their statements were word for word the same: "I am the border scout of this area. I saw Daleep Singh and his companions dealing in secret with people from across the border. I took position and fired. The Pakistanis fled. Then those men fired back at me. I was hidden behind the rocks; I had no mind to shoot at them. But when I fired a single shot into the dark, it chanced to strike that Sardar, and he fell on the spot. His companions made first to flee, then came back and carried off the body." The father's statement was the son's, to the letter. The police, however, had cast the whole affair in another colour — that of the old villager who had told his version to the crowd at the hospital. The government advocate and Mangal Singh's barrister laboured to prove that the deed was done not at the border, but four miles behind it, by a stretch of bush where Daleep's party had gone to hunt: to come so far from home and fire on a moving jeep, they argued, could not have been the old man's doing. Their whole effort was to see the old man's son hang.
The police and Mangal Singh's lawyer were confident the young son could not escape the noose.
This third Akhand Paath, then, was Mangal Singh's way of filling the gap that remained in his quest to avenge his son. People said the doctors and the lawyers both had a hand in persuading him. Over these four months Mangal Singh had taken to drinking past all measure; whenever the memory of his son clawed at his heart, only drink could dull the pain. But to drink so hard at his age was wrecking his body. The doctors warned him: go on like this and he would soon be bedridden — heart disease would follow, or a stroke, or a vessel would burst in his brain. Yet Mangal Singh was helpless; he could not stop.
It was then the doctors and lawyers urged the Paath upon him. A man in such misery, they reasoned, has God too for a refuge. Through the days of the recitation, perhaps, he would cut down the liquor — or, God willing, leave it altogether; even a week from the bottle would let his body mend a little. And they firmly believed the holy Gurbani would bring his tormented heart some measure of peace.
All who wished Sardar Mangal Singh well were both glad and amazed to see that this time the Gurbani truly reached his soul. Too weak to sit upright, the poor man would lie on a mat spread on the veranda floor and listen to the recitation with a deep, aching devotion. Every syllable of the Bani seemed to reach into his heart; his ears stayed fixed upon the holy words; and certain verses would echo in his mind a long, long while.
These words came to his ears:
"Mitra, dost, maal dhan, chhodi chale pati bhai, Sangi na koi naanka! Us des akela jaayi."
—Friends, companions, wealth, possessions — all are left behind, brother and wife alike. None goes with you, says Nanak! To that far country you go alone.
He rose and sat up. He turned the Guru's words over and over in his mind, and the tears streamed down his cheeks. The deeper he sank into them, the more restless he grew. What does Guru Nanak say, he asked himself, and what is the road I have been walking?
He remembered the year 1947–48, the time of Partition. In those days he had been forced to leave his home and hide in a forest for seven or eight days with his wife and young son. At every step, death had seemed to close upon them. Then other words of the Gurbani returned to him:
"Biradh bhayo ajhun nahin samjhe, kaun kumati urjhana."
—You have grown old and still you do not understand; in what foolish entanglement are you caught?
The gooseflesh rose on his skin. It was as though his God were explaining it to him once and again, and he felt himself blessed to receive such grace — as though the Supreme Power were pressing the truth home upon him. Such awakenings come only into a fortunate man's life.
He touched his forehead to his folded hands and, the tears still flowing, came slowly into the room and sat before the Guru Granth Sahib, still as a statue. Every man and woman in the room turned to look at him, astonished that, weak as he was, he had dragged himself in to sit motionless, the tears falling without end, which he wiped again and again with a small towel. God should take no man's son from him, people thought; such a fate should not fall even on an enemy. God's grace is without bound — He had showered His blessings on Mangal Singh, and with the same hand taken his son. To be poor, they murmured, was better than such grief.
The next day people noticed he was not eating. He lay on his bed, lost in thought. He was remembering that forest — the forest of death. Every scene, every moment of it rose before his eyes. He recalled how the Dogra regiment had rescued the people stranded in that country and brought them into India.
The words of the Gurbani struck him again: "Biradh bhayo ajhun nahin samjhe, kaun kumati urjhana?" It was as though the deity had laid a whip across him. The memories of those days came flooding back — the poverty, the hatred, the hourly terror of death. Daleep had then been five or six years old. Seven days without food or water would have driven even a strong young man to madness — and Daleep, a small child, had shrunk to a husk, all but dead. He cried without ceasing, and his crying terrified Mangal Singh: if the enemy heard, they would find them, plunder them, kill them. In his desperation Mangal Singh had tried to close his own hands about his son's throat — but his wife caught his hands and held them back. At last, on the seventh day, Indian soldiers came. They gave the people heart, told them all would be well, gave them food to eat and water to drink; and in that moment Mangal Singh felt that God had answered his prayer, that these men were angels sent down from heaven. Even now, he told himself, the Gurbani was bidding him remember those days of struggle.
That night his anxious wife sat at his side and tried to comfort him. He said to her:
"Do you remember those days? How hard it was to walk that four-mile stretch. There must have been four or five hundred souls on that road with us, all terrified, all in a wretched state. Do you remember, or have you forgotten? We used to carry Daleep between us, turn and turn about, struggling to keep pace with that crowd. That army man was a noble soul. He had set his soldiers so that, if the enemy attacked, they would meet the soldiers first, and the crowd behind them would be shielded. Those soldiers put their own lives in danger to save us.
"We were both worn out. To carry Daleep, and those two or four blankets besides, had grown past bearing. You said, 'Let us throw the blankets away.' But the cold was fierce — had we thrown them off, we would have frozen to death. Waahe Guru! I need Your shelter.
"Sick little Daleep could not walk a single step alone. We both lost hope. We were so spent that we sat down at the roadside while the whole column moved past us. Among them were people of our own village, people who knew us — yet not one of them looked our way. But how could they look us in the eye? How thin, in that hour, was the line between life and death! We both did nothing but remember God. You began to weep, and seeing you weep, Daleep wept too. Those four or five miles felt like four hundred. To fall behind was to die. The destination lay ahead — and the drowning man watched the shadow of death draw nearer, bent on seizing its prey. Waahe Guru! Waahe Guru! I need Your shelter.
"Did you see God's grace, Daleep's mother? 'Ja din tero koi naahi, ta din Raam sahaai' — On the day when no one is yours, on that day God is your help. We used to think: if our son lives, the name of our house will live on. But the hope of his living was fast going out. Our one comfort was that we were both ready to meet whatever came. Once you even said to me: 'Sardar-ji, go on alone. Leave me and Daleep to God's mercy.'
"And then that noble Dogra soldier came. I remember his words still: 'Sardar-ji, take heart. There is a dangerous stretch of four or five miles ahead, but beyond it lies our own country, our own people.' You began to cry when you heard it, and the soldier understood our plight. He lifted Daleep up — though the child's body stank, and his clothes reeked — and carried him the next four miles himself, and with his men's help brought us to a place where there was some hope of living.
"What days those were, Daleep's mother! What days those were!"
Mangal Singh wiped his tears with the towel and lay back. He closed his eyes, and the memories of the years that followed washed over him — how, in a mere seventeen or eighteen years, he had raised all this property, this empire of his, and by what means he had raised it. Then his thoughts turned to that Dogra soldier — the man who had carried his dying child through the dark. Where was he now? Drawing, perhaps, a pension of twenty-five or thirty rupees, living out his days in some hill village far away. Mangal Singh had clasped the soldier's hand and sworn never to forget him. But once the money came, once he was a man of lakhs, he had never thought of him again.
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