The Broken Mirror by Krishna Baldev Vaid

Author:Krishna Baldev Vaid [Vaid, Krishna Baldev]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789351186618
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Three

Father and Mother are standing like two statues on the receding platform, their forlorn eyes fixed on me. The string of Mother’s short salwar is hanging between her legs; Father’s toes are sticking out of his torn shoes. I’ve never seen them standing side by side before. I’m getting soot in my eyes, In-Other-Words is holding forth animatedly under a pipal tree. The tree claps. Father’s turban is coming loose in the wind. My friends stand aside in a row, Hardayal and Jita are waving, while Aslam and Keshav are giving me a military salute. A sad smile spreads across my lips. In a couple of days Keshav will be all alone. Suddenly I see Mother lurching towards my compartment, as if she’s just decided to dash her head against the moving train. Father rushes forward and grabs her by the hand. Her free hand pleads with me, probably to sit back so my head won’t stick out of the window … to take her along … to drop the idea of going to Lahore … to give her happiness when I grow up … A sudden jolt of the train knocks my head against the window frame before I can pull myself inside.

The platform is out of sight now. I cock my head to get a look at the turrets of Sundar Mahal. People say they look beautiful from the train. Just as we near the palace, the train jolts again, and I lose my balance and tumble into someone’s lap, hard as iron.

— Careful, Son!

I start up.

— Lady, he’s no son of yours, he has no shame. Can’t you sit still, boy? What’re you looking at, your mother’s head?

An unfriendly looking man stares at me as if he knows all my weaknesses.

I sit down opposite a pleasant middle-aged woman. The ankles above her bare feet are bedecked in silver. A child is sleeping by her side. I can’t decide whether she’s a Hindu or a Muslim, and whether she’s smiling or just smacking her lips. And I don’t know whether that stranger has really discovered all my weaknesses or just turned against me for no reason. I make up my mind not to meet his eyes. By his look and dress he could be a schoolteacher—Ravana’s younger brother. If he keeps on growling like that, I’ll change my seat. But then, he may not let me. I won’t be able to move my trunk and that tin of ghee. Mother instructed me to keep one foot on the trunk and the other on the ghee, ‘Muslas are on the warpath these days. Keep your distance. Don’t take any food or drink from anyone, and don’t talk to anyone—you can’t trust anyone these days!’ And a great deal more … If it hadn’t been my own mother, I’d have laughed. Now she’s probably harassing Father—Why didn’t you send him with someone we know? What if something happens to him on the way? What if that bastard doesn’t show up

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