A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
“That’s okay, we know how to write.”
“Really?” he said, feeling snubbed. He prided his ability to appraise at a glance the applicants flowing past his desk every day – their place of origin, financial status, education, caste. His face muscles twitched, tightening in defiance of his just-completed meditation. The tailors’ literacy was an affront to his omniscience. “Complete it and bring it back,” he dismissed them with a petulant flutter of fingers.
They took the form into the corridor to fill in the blanks, using a window ledge to write on. It was a rough surface, and the ballpoint went through the paper several times. They tried to nurse the pockmarked sheet back to health by flattening the bumps with their fingernails, then rejoined the line to face their interlocutor.
The Rations Officer scanned the form and smiled. It was a superior smile: they may have learned how to write, but they knew nothing about neatness. He read their answers and stopped in triumph at the address portion. “What’s this rubbish?” he tapped with a nicotine-stained finger.
“It’s the place where we live,” said Ishvar. He had entered the name of the road that led to their row of shacks on the north side. The space for building name, flat number, and street number had been left blank.
“And where exactly is your house?”
They offered additional information: the closest intersection, the streets east and west of the slum, the train station, names of neighbourhood cinemas, the big hospital, the popular sweetmeat shop, a fish market.
“Stop, enough,” said the Rations Officer, covering his ears. “I don’t need to hear all this nonsense.” He pulled out a city directory, flipped a few pages, and studied a map. “Just as I thought. Your house is in a jhopadpatti, right?”
“It’s a roof – for the time being.”
“A jhopadpatti is not an address. The law says ration cards can only be issued to people with real addresses.”
“Our house is real,” pleaded Ishvar. “You can come and see it.”
“My seeing it is irrelevant. The law is what matters. And in the eyes of the law, your jhopdi doesn’t count.” He picked up a stack of forms and shuffled them to align the edges. Tossed back to their corner, they landed in disarray, raising dust. “But there is another way to get the ration card, if you are interested.”
“Yes, please – whatever is necessary.”
“If you let me arrange for your vasectomy, your application can be approved instantly.”
“Vasectomy?”
“You know, for Family Planning. The nussbandhi procedure.”
“Oh, but I already did that,” lied Ishvar.
“Show me your F.P.C.”
“F.P.C.?”
“Family Planning Certificate.”
“Oh, but I don’t have that.” Thinking quickly, he said, “In our native place there was a fire in the hut. Everything was destroyed.”
“That’s not a problem. The doctor I send you to will do it again as a special favour, and give you a new certificate.”
“Same operation, two times? Isn’t that bad?”
“Lots of people do it twice. Brings more benefits. Two transistor radios.”
“Why would I need two radios?” smiled Ishvar. “Do I listen to two different stations, one with each ear?”
“Look, if the harmless little operation frightens you, send this young fellow. All I need is one sterilization certificate.”
“But he is only seventeen! He has to marry, have some children, before his nuss is disconnected!”
“It’s up to you.”
Ishvar left in a rage, Om hurrying after him to calm him down as he fumed at the shocking, almost blasphemous, suggestion. No one noticed, though, because the corridor was crowded with people like Ishvar, lost and stumbling, trying to negotiate their way through the government offices. They waited around in varying stages of distress. Some were in tears, others laughed hysterically at bureaucratic absurdities, while a few stood facing the wall, muttering ominously to themselves.
“Nussbandhi, he says!” seethed Ishvar. “Shameless bastard! For a young boy, nussbandhi! Someone should cut off the ugly rascal’s pipe while he is meditating!” He fled down the corridor, down the stairs, and out through the building’s main door.
A small, clerkish-looking man on the pavement, noticing Ishvar’s agitation, rose from his wooden stool to greet them. He wore glasses and a white shirt, with writing material spread before him on a mat. “You have a problem. Can I help?”
“What help can you give?” said Ishvar dismissively.
The man touched Ishvar’s elbow to make him stop and listen. “I am a facilitator. My job, my speciality, is to assist people in their dealings with government offices.” His runny nose made him sniff several times during the course of his introduction.
“You work for government?” asked Ishvar, suspicious, pointing at the building they had just left.
“No, never, I work for you and me. To help you get what the government people make difficult to get. Hence my title: Facilitator. Birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licence, any types of permits and clearances – I can arrange it all. You just select what information you want on it, and I will have it issued.” He removed his glasses and smiled his most facile smile, then lost it to six violent sneezes. The tailors jumped back to avoid the spray.
“All we wanted was a ration card, Mr. Facilitator. And the fellow wanted our manhood in exchange! What kind of choice is that, between food and manhood?”
“Ah, he wanted the F.P.C.”
“Yes, that’s what he called it.”
“You see, since the Emergency started, there’s a new rule in the department – every officer has to encourage people to get sterilized. If he doesn’t fill his quota, no promotion for him. What to do, poor fellow, he is also trapped, no?”
“But it’s not fair to us!”
“That’s why I am here, no. Just pick the names you want on the ration card, up to a maximum of six, and whatever address you like. Cost is only two hundred rupees. Hundred now, and hundred when you get the card.”
“But we don’t have so much money.”
The Facilitator said they could come back when they did, he would still be here. “While there is government, there will be work for me.” He blew his nose and returned to his spot on the pavement.
Taking Rajaram’s shortcut, the tailors trotted down the platform towards the wasteland of track and cinder, watching the train slide out of the station to disappear into the evening. “The closer he gets to the stable, the faster the tired horse gallops,” said Ishvar, and Om nodded.
Their first day with Dina Dalai was over. Borne along by the homeward-bound flock, exhausted from ten hours of sewing, they shared the sanctity of the hour with the crowd, this time of transition from weariness to hope. Soon it would be night; they would borrow Rajaram’s stove, cook something, eat. They would weave their plans and dream the future into favourable patterns, till it was time to take the train tomorrow morning.
The end of the platform sloped downwards to become one with the gravel hugging the rails. Here was the crucial opening in the endless cast-iron fence, where one of its spear-pointed bars had corroded at the hands of the elements, and broken away with a little help from human hands.
The swelling knot of men and women trickled through the gap, far from the exit where the ticket-collector stood. Others, with an agility prompted by their ticketless state, ran farther down the tracks, over cinders and gravel sharp against bare soles and ill-shod feet. They ran between the rails, stretching their strides from worn wooden sleeper to sleeper, vaulting over the fence at a safe distance from the station.
Though he had a ticket, Om yearned to follow them in the heroic dash for freedom. He felt he too could soar if he was alone. Then he glanced sideways at his uncle who was more-than-uncle, whom he could never abandon. The spears of the fence stood in the dusk like the rusting weapons of a phantom army. The ticketless men seemed ancient, breaching t
Suddenly, a posse of tired policemen materialized out of the twilight and surrounded the gap-seeking crowd. A few constables gave halfhearted chase to the railing jumpers in the distance. The only energetic one among them was an inspector brandishing a swagger-stick and shouting orders and encouragement.
“Catch them all! Move, move, move! No one gets away! Back to the platform, all you crooks! You there!” he pointed with the swagger-stick. “Stop lagging! We’ll teach you to travel without tickets!”
The tailors’ attempt to inform someone, anyone, that they actually had tickets was drowned in the noise and confusion. “Please, havaldar, we were only taking a shortcut,” they implored the nearest uniform, but were herded along with the rest. The ticket-collector wagged a reproving finger as the captive column shuffled past him.
Outside, the prisoners were loaded onto a police truck. The last few were levered in with the help of the tailgate. “We’re finished,” said someone. “I heard that under Emergency law, no ticket means one week in the lockup.”
For an hour they were kept sweating in the truck while the inspector attended to some business in the ticket office. Then the truck started down the station road, followed by the inspector’s jeep. They journeyed for ten minutes and turned into a vacant lot, where the tailgate was thrown open.
“Out! Everybody out! Out, out, out!” shouted the inspector with a penchant for triplets, slapping the swagger-stick against the truck tyre. “Men on this side, women on that side!” He organized the two groups into a formation of rows six deep.
“Attention everyone! Grab hold of your ears! Come on, catch them! Catch, catch, catch! What are you waiting for? Now you will do fifty baithuks! Ready, begin! One! Two! Three!” He prowled among the rows, supervising the knee-bends and counting, performing sudden about-turns to catch them off guard. If he found someone cheating, not doing a full squat or releasing their ears, he let them have it with his stick.
“… forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty! That’s it! And if you are found again without a ticket, I will make you remember your grandmothers! Now you can go home! Go! What are you waiting for? Go, go, go!”
The crowd dispersed rapidly, making jokes about the punishment and the inspector. “Stupid Rajaram,” said Om. “From now on I’m not going to believe anything from his mouth. Get a ration card, he told us, it’s very easy. Take the shortcut, you’ll save time.”
“Ah, no harm done,” said Ishvar genially. Back at the railway station he had been quite frightened. “Look, the police spared us some walking, we are almost at the colony.”
They crossed the road and continued towards the hutments. The familiar hoarding loomed into view, but the illustration was different. “What happened?” said Om. “Where did Modern Bread and Amul Butter go?”
The advertisements had been replaced by the Prime Minister’s picture, proclaiming: “Iron Will! Hard Work! These will sustain us!” It was a quintessential specimen of the face that was proliferating on posters throughout the city. Her cheeks were executed in the lurid pink of cinema billboards. Other aspects of the portrait had suffered greater infelicities. Her eyes evoked the discomfort of a violent itch somewhere upon the ministerial corpus, begging to be scratched. The artist’s ambition of a benignant smile had also gone awry – a cross between a sneer and the vinegary sternness of a drillmistress had crept across the mouth. And that familiar swatch of white hair over her forehead, imposing amid the black, had plopped across the scalp like the strategic droppings of a very large bird.
“Look at it, Om. She is making the sour-lime face, just like yours when you are upset.”
Om obliged by duplicating the expression, then laughed. The towering visage continued to deliver its frozen monition to trains rumbling by on one side, and buses and motorcars scrambling in clouds of exhaust on the other, while the tailors trudged to the hutment colony.
The hair-collector emerged as they were unlocking their shack. “You naughty children, you are so late,” he complained.
“But—”
“Never mind, it’s only a small obstacle. The food will soon get warm again. I put off the stove because vegetables were drying up.” He disappeared inside to return with the frying pan and three plates. “Bhaji and chapati. And my special masala wada with mango chutney, to celebrate your first day at work.”
“How much trouble you’re taking for us,” said Ishvar.
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
Rajaram let the food heat for a minute, then handed out the plates with the four items neatly arranged around the circumference. A substantial amount still remained in the pan. “You cooked too much,” said Ishvar.
“I had a little extra money today, so I bought more vegetables. For them,” he pointed with his elbow at the other shack. “That drunken fellow’s little ones are always hungry.”
While they ate, the tailors described the police action against ticketless travel. The gift of dinner softened the accusing tone Om had planned to use; he told it like a traveller’s adventure instead.
Rajaram clapped a dramatic hand to his forehead. “What foolishness on my part — I completely forgot to warn you. You see, it’s been months and months since a raid.” He slapped his forehead again. “Some people travel all their lives without buying a single ticket. And you two get caught on the first day. Even with tickets,” he chuckled.
Ishvar and Om, appreciating the irony, started laughing too. “Just bad luck. Must be a new policy because of Emergency.”
“But it was all a big show. Why did the inspector let everyone go, if they are really getting strict?”
Rajaram thought about it while chewing, and fetched glasses of water for everyone. “Maybe they had no choice. From what I hear, the jails are full with the Prime Minister’s enemies – union workers, newspaper people, teachers, students. So maybe there is no more room in the prisons.”
While they were mulling over the incident, cries of joy went up near the water tap. It had started gurgling! And so late in the night! People watched the spout, holding their breath. A few drops dribbled out. Then a little stream. They cheered it like a winning racehorse as it gathered strength, gushing full and strong. A miracle! The hutment dwellers clapped and shouted with excitement.
“It has happened once before,” said Rajaram. “I think someone made a mistake at the waterworks, opening the wrong valve.”
“They should make such mistakes more often,” said Ishvar.
Women ran to the tap to make the most of the fortuitous flow. Babies in their arms squealed with delight as cool water glided over their sticky skin. Older children skipped about gleefully, bursting into little involuntary dances, looking forward to the generous drenching instead of the meagre mugfuls at dawn.
“Maybe we should also fill up now,” said Om. “Save time in the morning.”
“No,” said Rajaram. “Let the little ones enjoy. Who knows when they’ll get a chance like this again.”
The festivities lasted less than an hour; the tap went dry as suddenly as it had started. Children soaped in anticipation had to be wiped off and sent to bed disappointed.
Over the next fortnight, the slumlord erected another fifty ramshackle huts in the field, which Navalkar rented out in a day, doubling the population. Now the fetid smell from the ditch hung permanently over the shacks, thicker than smoke. There was nothing to distinguish the small hutment colony from the huge slum across the road; it had been incorporated into the inferno. The rush at the water tap assumed riotous proportions. Accusations of queue-jumping were exchanged every morning, there was pushing and shoving, scuffles broke out, pots were overturned, mothers screamed, children wailed.
The monsoon season started, and on the first night of rain, the tailors were awakened by the roof leaking on their bedding. They sat huddled in the only dry corner. The rain poured down beside them in a steady stream and gradually lulled them into slumber. Then the rain slowed. T
They ended up sleeping very little. In the morning, Rajaram climbed onto the roof to examine the corrugated iron. He helped them spread a piece of plastic, not quite wide enough, over the leaking area.
Later that week, heartened by the remuneration from Dina Dalai, Ishvar was able to plan a little shopping excursion to buy a large plastic sheet and a few other items. “What do you say, Om? Now we can make our house more comfortable, hahn?”
His suggestion was greeted with a mournful silence. They stopped at a pavement stall selling polythene bowls, boxes, and assorted tableware. “So, what colour plates and glasses shall we get?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“A towel? That yellow one with flowers, maybe?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Would you like new sandals?”
“Doesn’t matter” came yet again, and Ishvar finally lost his patience. “What’s wrong with you these days? All the time with Dinabai you make mistakes and argue. You take no interest in tailoring. Anything I ask, you say doesn’t matter. Make an effort, Om, make an effort.” He cut the shopping expedition short, and they started back with two red plastic buckets, a Primus stove, five litres of kerosene, and a package of jasmine agarbatti.
Ahead they heard the familiar dhuk-dhuka dhuk-dhuka of Monkey-man’s little handheld drum. The string-tied rattle bounced upon the skin as he spun his wrist. He was not looking to collect a crowd, merely accompanying his charges home. One of his little brown monkeys had hitched a ride on his shoulder, the other ambled along listlessly. The emaciated dog followed at a distance, sniffing, chewing newspaper in which food had once been wrapped. Monkey-man whistled, and called “Tikka!” and the mongrel trotted up.
The monkeys started teasing Tikka, tweaking his ears, twisting his tail, pinching his penis. He bore his tormentors with a dignified calm. His reprieve came when the red plastic buckets swinging from Om’s hands attracted the monkeys’ attention. They decided to investigate, and hopped in.