One String Attached Read online

  Shivam’s mother holds her son, dreading the answer and the fight it would spark.

  ‘What’s wrong in it . . . even Hindus wear blouses . . . and Murshid Mia can teach me what no Hindu tailor can.’

  Pushing aside his wife, the mahant slapped his son.

  ‘Dharma! You dare speak against your dharma! Muslims are good for you now, huh?’

  Numbed by the slap, Shivam was not in a state to respond.

  ‘It’s the hormones,’ the mahant lambasted him, breathing heavily. ‘They’re driving you insane.’

  The priest’s wife dragged her husband to a corner, away from her son. He needed the distance to cool down and come to terms with the fact that his legacy would drown, whether he liked it or not.

  ‘If you have the drive to become something,’ continued the priest from the corner, ‘come with me. Come for the Rath Yatra. We will go around the country in a chariot, like Lord Ram, preaching the Hindu dharma. That, my son, will pump you up like nothing else . . . come!’

  Shivam looked at his dhoti-kurta clad, head-anointed, seer of a father straight in the eye and declared, ‘Dharma is not that important to me.’

  Before the old man could digest the statement, he left the room.

  * * *

  That wasn’t the end of the argument.

  ‘Remember who you are and where you’re born,’ reminded his mother, later that evening while he was helping her stack up the billowing costumes and over-hangings of the goddesses.

  ‘I’m different. Can’t you see that,’ argued Shivam.

  ‘And how are you different,’ threw the mahant, who had just entered the storeroom.

  ‘Baba,’ Shivam tried to explain, ‘Like you dress your deities in silk and in flowers and vermilion . . . ’ he paused, ‘I want to dress up girls in a hundred hues, and in cuts that cling to their skin like raindrops.’

  ‘How dare you!’ The old man began frothing at the mouth and shaking. It took him time to calm down and hit out. ‘Devi ma will scald your tongue, you sinner! ‘You put street girls over devi-devtas! Kalanki!’

  Again, his wife tried to hold him back. She was scared things had gone too far.

  The mahant was trembling. How could his son talk this way? How could he disrespect gods and goddesses? Even talking like this was sinning. How could he? ‘I must have messed up somewhere to deserve this . . . yes, something in my puja has gone wrong . . .’ he muttered to himself.

  His overwrought state brought tears to his wife’s eyes. Shivam couldn’t bear this. He rushed to his mother and gathered her in a hug. Only to be shrugged off.

  As the boy walked out, he heard his mother suggest, ‘Do a havan, mahantji, the sacred flame will remove these clouds from his mind.’

  And the mahant agreed. ‘Yes, praying to the holy fire is the only way now. Ram lalla will swing him back to the right path.’

  Shivam shook his head. They would never understand him.

  * * *

  ‘Now, who will get cervical?’ sniggers someone, jolting the boy out of his past.

  Shivam looks up from his machine. Munjal has walked into the shop again and caught the tailor sitting at his machine, daydreaming and shaking his head at past events. He gives this over-friendly neighbour a defeated look, a hint for him to leave.

  ‘I’m going, I’m going . . . don’t worry,’ says Munjal, backing away.

  The day drones on. The honking of cars that want to whiz past but cannot vie with the call of vendors pushing their carts laden mostly with fruit and vegetables or winter delights like boiled sweet potato with a sprinkling of dark spicy powder and a tangy squeeze of lemon. There are the autorickshaw wallahs and the bicycle-borne, not to forget a perennial stream of pedestrians who nonchalantly drift onto the road from the side pavements.

  But Shivam is hard at work. This outside noise doesn’t bother him; the noise inside of him is too loud.

  4

  There has been a steady flow of business since early morning—mostly petticoats and blouses. Wedding season sees a spike in demand for these. And so goes half the day. Drafting. Cutting. Sewing. Measuring up new customers. Listening to the whining of the older ones who have put on weight and need him to loosen the fit. Sari blouses to lehenga cholis to patialas and kurtis . . . almost all within the five-kilometre radius come to him for stitching and fitting.

  A woman has brought her daughter along for a kurta. ‘Masterji, don’t make it too tight. Just give a taper so she looks slimmer.’

  ‘No, don’t listen to Mummy,’ counters the fourteen-year-old. ‘I want it hugging . . . else I won’t wear.’

  Shivam measures the teenager closely even as he reassures the mother with an understanding nod, checking an all-out war from breaking out in his shop.

  ‘No, it won’t be loose,’ he confirms to the girl before she leaves. Small bulges mushrooming on a once-lean frame have made the teenager insecure. Shivam knows exactly how to minimize these form defects with flattering cuts. That’s what draws the belles and maha bellies to his shop. At times, they barely leave him time to break for lunch or tea.

  He sighs as he pulls out his steel tiffin box from the shelf below the counter and takes this customer-free-moment to eat. He looks at his work as he eats. Shivam has been working on a sharara set with extra ruffles and pleats to fill out a scrawny frame. What if he had the skill to add girth to his sunken life too or use the scissors to snip off life’s unsavoury bits? Only on cloth, he was king . . . sewing to make the ends meet, literally,

  Just then a silver Honda City drives up to his shop entrance, breaking into his thoughts. The driver rolls down his window, cranes out his head, hands over a polythene bag with hurried instructions.

  ‘Ma’am’s blouses for loosening. Six of them,’ he barks, raising his voice over the loud honking from traffic held up behind him. ‘The green one is the right fit . . . use that. And I’ll collect it all tomorrow.’

  ‘No. Not Friday . . . I can’t . . . ’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ cuts in the driver. ‘She wants tomorrow only. Will pay extra.’ And he rolls up his window as drivers behind him on the narrow lane are impatient and irritated.

  As Shivam opens the packet to count the clothes inside, the Honda window rolls down again. ‘I forgot, there’s a kurta also . . . loosen it as much as you can. And also, the lace is coming off . . . just mend that.’ The driver does not dare to wait any more as the honking gets insistent.

  ‘Arrey, hear the charges at least . . .’ Shivam calls out, wanting to count out the pieces before the driver and quote accordingly. But the car is gone. Shivam empties out the contents of the bag on his work table.

  Four blouses slip out. A kurta follows . . . an orange Banarsi silk . . . More stuff tumbles out . . . but Shivam’s heart has stopped. His fingers caress the fabric . . .

  Flaming orange. Iridescent. The colour of the gulmohar in full bloom. Shivam rubs his eyes, blinded by the bright hue. Inside him, there is a sudden vacuum—like all the air has been sucked out. The present . . . the thoughts of another day . . . none of them exist. Even the shop fades away . . .

  Leaving only the orange silk in his hand and it takes him back to the past.

  The mahant was caught in the beauty of the Banarsi cut-piece he had placed in his son’s hands.

  ‘Feel its texture, so rich, and the colour, so brilliant!’ the old man gushed.

  For once, even Shivam agreed. That’s a fine piece of fabric. Classic handloom silk with flower embroidery. Its silken yarns woven into an enviable shine.

  ‘Here, take this too.’

  Shivam reached out for the shiny silver-gold bundle—zari brocade, made of gold threads painstakingly wound over silk yarns.

  ‘See how the zari adds to the lustre of the cloth?’ pointed out the priest. ‘Apt for someone you worship.’

  Bowled by its brilliance, the boy kept nodding, unaware of where the conversation was leading.

  ‘So adorn her with it . . . make the goddess glow with your talent.’
>
  Shivam turned over the cloth in his hands, seeing it with new eyes.

  The mahant continued, ‘Stitch for the divine. And she might forgive you . . . your waywardness.’

  Yes, his father was right, Shivam acknowledged. This was fit only for a goddess. And meant to be stitched by him. He would do it. Work on it like it was worship.

  As he left the room with the unexpected gift, his father’s words followed, ‘You’ll be of some use to her even on your wrongful path . . .’

  Tears sting his eyes. Something comes into view. Shivam tries to see through the haze of tears. It is a petticoat.

  He finds it difficult to focus on the pale pink after the brilliant orange.

  ‘Masterji, the length has to be cut by two inches.’

  The words bring him sharply back into the present. A customer is in his shop for alteration of her petticoat.

  Hastily wiping his tears and shoving the orange kurta under the counter, the tailor accepts the pink petticoat and marks out the length to be shortened. The customer continues talking, explaining what she wants and Shivam nods. Pink, blue, green, yellow . . . the colours keep changing. Someone brings in a lehenga he had stitched earlier, another wants a few blouses stitched, then there’s a white kurta to be made.

  He is in another world today, performing his task with a mechanical speed. He attacks the pending pile of clothes first, then moves to the pieces he was unable to refuse that day. There is an energy about him.

  He’s got to finish it all . . . today . . . now.

  At sunset, he rolls down the shutters. The noise of the metal crashing down startles the guard on the opposite perch. He swings around to check. What the hell! Why has the darzi shut down so early today? He checks his watch. Only 6 p.m.! Not once has the tailor downed shutters before 10 p.m. And where is the human glacier? He can’t see the fellow. He is neither outside the shop nor in the lane. He couldn’t have melted . . . had he?

  Streetlights have not yet been lit. The shutter is not fully down and he can see a glow at the bottom. Even the lock is missing. The guard’s keen eye is trained to miss nothing. Someone is inside, he deduces in a flash and hurries over to investigate. Munjal joins him. Pushing the shutter up a few inches, the watchman bends to peep in and finds the young man at his worktable, pedalling furiously on his sewing machine. The guard raises the shutter some more. Munjal squeezes his bulk in and walks up to the tailor.

  ‘Is this your new style?’ he asks.

  ‘I did not want any disturbance. I’ve got to finish this quickly.’

  Munjal peeks in. It is a yellow blouse with net sleeves. He watches. This one’s almost done. A minute later, the tailor folds and stacks it aside and scoops up another, a purple one this time.

  Both Munjal and the guard stand watching for a few minutes. Both feel something is amiss. Knowing the fellow is unlikely to confide in them, they turn to leave.

  ‘You okay na?’ checks Munjal, before downing the shutter again.

  Shivam nods, without looking up. His fingers are pulling apart the side seam to loosen the blouse.

  An hour and a half later, he is done. As he locks up and leaves, the watchman sees him go. He is carrying the tiffin and another packet that he stuffs into his shirt before whizzing off on the motorcycle. The guard stares in disbelief. Everything about this tailor is different today.

  Back in his rented accommodation, Shivam is in no mood to eat, clean or do anything that needs to be done. He sprawls on the bed with his packet. He empties it out on himself, letting the orange kurta flow out of it, and with it, the tangerine memories—a riverfront, a boat on the gently undulating waters, steps, someone racing up, cycling past the bazaar, running up to the gates, waiting, watching, watching her and living.

  The radiant fabric spreads across his face, Shivam inhales deeply, feels its silkiness against his cheeks. He soaks in its welcome warmth and loses himself completely . . .

  * * *

  He was on a boat, on the Sarayu in Ayodhya, bobbing up and down its mossy green waters, a basket of flowers bouncing alongside. He passed the many temples lining the riverbank, some dating back to ancient times when the mighty King Vikramaditya ruled.

  Scorched by the rising sun, the Sarayu flowed bravely, mindful of its role in history. Winter, though late that year, was tiptoeing round the corner. The pilgrims dipping in the muddy waters for salvation could feel the drop in temperature.

  Unmindful of it all, Shivam jumped out of the boat and raced up the slippery steps of the bank, through the masses and the mess to enter a Shiva temple with his basket of marigolds. He quickly said his prayers and skipped out.

  The early morning breeze hit his face, playing through his hair as if admiring this lithe twenty-one-year-old, pulsating with life and energy as he scampered up to the lane behind the ghat, where he had kept his bicycle inside a sweet shop. The shop was packed with people lined up for a breakfast of round, fluffy puris and spicy alu sabzi, followed by sweet, brown halwa that simmered temptingly in a cauldron. But Shivam didn’t care. The aroma didn’t tempt him one bit. Wheeling out his bicycle, he pedalled furiously down the narrow lanes, weaving past chai stalls and decrepit havelis. He stopped only at Murshid Mia’s tailoring shop. This was where he was training to be the biggest karigar that the town, if not the state, had seen. Yes, Murshid Mia had magic in his hands, everyone in the twin towns of Ayodhya and Faizabad knew this. His agreeing to take on Shivam as an apprentice was as big as getting the Filmfare Awards he watches on TV, without exception, every year.

  Three hours whizzed past. Designing, pattern making, cutting, stitching and fitting—it was all a fine art. When you’re doing what your heart desires, time ceases to exist.

  Shivam’s heart skipped a beat as he remembered that someone was waiting for him, at a distance that would take him at least twenty minutes to cover. This someone was closer than anyone ever had been or could be to him. For the first time, he smiled.

  He rushed out and reached his destination, gasping. Then, leaning his cycle against the neem tree, he walked up farther and called out, ‘Babloo!’

  The boy lounging near the gates of the girls’ higher secondary school did not respond.

  5

  ‘Babloo!’

  Still no response.

  Annoyed, Shivam put his hands into the boy’s pocket and switched off whatever was playing on the Walkman lodged inside.

  Babloo turned around and saw him.

  ‘Bhaiya,’ he said, ‘it’s your love, right? Then why am I the one waiting here and sweating it out?’

  ‘Arrey, one day I get late and the sun has already killed our friendship?’

  ‘No, Bhaiya, that was not what I was trying to say. I was only . . .’

  Shivam cut him. ‘You know na. I’ve just started going to Murshid Mia from this week?’

  ‘But I’ve been standing here for forty minutes!’ Babloo protested.

  ‘So?’ Shivam gave it back. ‘You would’ve won the KBC in this time, huh?’

  Babloo looked at him darkly. Everyone was watching Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), the high-stakes TV quiz show, those days.

  ‘You right . . . ’ Shivam suddenly felt bad for his friend, ‘I’ve been wasting your time.’

  ‘Forget it, Bhaiya, come, look,’ said Babloo, and winked, hauling himself up the gate. This back gate of the Mahila Mahavidyalaya stayed abandoned at this late hour, when the school was about to get over. The front gate guard did make rounds to check it during the day though.

  The two boys made haste and climbed up the back gate to land on the other side, ran over to the water tank looming before them, and clambered up to get an unrestricted view of the school’s playground beyond.

  The girls were playing kho kho today. It was their free time, after classes, before the bell rang to signal it was time to go home. The boys knew the schedule. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, the twelfth standard girls got this time off. Some loitered, others played games. It was always kho kho.

&nbs
p; Most of the girls were sitting in formation, some were running. In the blue salwar kameez uniform, they looked like bluebirds chasing each other. A few of them were in burqas.

  ‘That one.’ Shivam pointed out his girl from all those sitting and running.

  ‘Sure?’ Babloo sounded sceptical for she was completely cloaked in a burqa. And not one but four more girls were running around in burqas.

  ‘Sure! I can pick her in a billion,’ replied Shivam. ‘Anywhere.’

  ‘But how?’

  Just then his girl spotted them.

  ‘Her eyes,’ whispered Shivam. ‘Her blue eyes . . . there is an ocean in them.’

  Babloo shook his head.

  ‘How can you tell from up here whether they are black or blue?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How does it feel, Bhaiya?’

  ‘What?’

  Shivam was only half-listening, his mind and heart on the girl as she ran. Stopped. And turned with lightning speed, seeing another girl get up to chase. Changing course . . . slipping . . .

  ‘Aaaaa . . .’ his heart cried out.

  Babloo quickly pulled his friend down, behind the advertisement banner erected on the tank. What if someone heard them and came checking! Not even that resourceful cousin he had—the one who worked in this school—could save them then.

  They crouched low . . . waiting . . . for footsteps that signal trouble . . . .

  But even as they hid, Shivam couldn’t help but peep out, to see if she was okay.

  Seeing her running, still trying to dodge, he smiled. His girl . . . always a winner! And then she stumbled once more. Something had caught her attention.

  ‘Shit!’

  Shivam slid away again.

  It was him. She had seen him. Maybe she had heard him too, when he cried out before. And that meant . . . Shivam shivered as it hit him . . . that meant she too had her eye on him . . . on the tank . . . on them . . . His sudden reappearance from hiding had made her stop, and lose.

  ‘Babloo, she knows . . . she knows we’re here!’ Shivam screamed excitedly. ‘And . . . and it affects her.’