A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Vijayanthimala, his favourite, the brown and white tabby, prancing as though in a film-song dance sequence; Raquel Welch, sitting languidly, stretching, never deigning to rush to the food; and Shatrughan Sinha, bully and villain, from whom the scraps had to be thrown far, to give others a chance.

  “Who is John Wayne?” asked Om.

  “American actor. Hero type – sort of like Amitabh Bachchan. Walks as though he has piles, and onions under his arms. Always wins in the end.”

  “And Raquel Welch?”

  “American actress.” He leaned closer. “Big breasts,” he whispered, while the miaowing continued below the window.

  Om grinned. “Good thing I made extra chapatis today. Looks like she’s enjoying them.”

  “What’s going on?” said Dina. “Now you are teaching my tailors your bad habits. Please shut that window.” She wondered if something uncontrollable had been started here, with all this cooking together and eating together. Too much intimacy. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it.

  Ishvar stood aside while the two boys carried on. “They say it’s a blessed deed, Dinabai, to feed dumb animals.”

  “Won’t be so blessed if they come inside in search of food. They could kill us with filthy germs from the gutter.”

  In the wc, the tailors’ urine smell that used to flutter like a flag in the air, and in Dina’s nose, grew unnoticeable. Strange, she thought, how one gets accustomed to things.

  Then it struck her: the scent was unobtrusive now because it was the same for everyone. They were all eating the same food, drinking the same water. Sailing under one flag.

  “Let’s have masala wada today,” proposed Ishvar. “Rajaram’s recipe.”

  “I don’t know how to make that.”

  “That’s okay, I can do it, Dinabai, you relax today.” He took charge, sending Om and Maneck to buy a fresh half-coconut, green chillies, mint leaves, and a small bunch of coriander. The remaining ingredients: dry red chillies, cumin seed, and tamarind were in the spice cabinet. “Now you two hurry back,” he said. “There’s more work for you.”

  “Shall I do something?” asked Dina.

  “We need one cup of gram dal.”

  She measured out the pulse and immersed it in water, then put the pot on the stove. “If we had soaked it overnight it wouldn’t need boiling,” he said. “But this is fine too.”

  When the boys returned, he assigned Om to grate the coconut and Maneck to slice two onions, while he chopped four green and six red chillies, the coriander, and the mint leaves.

  “These onions are hot, yaar,” said Maneck, sniffing and wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

  “It’s good practice for you,” said Ishvar. “Everyone has to cry at some time in life.” He glanced across the table and saw the fat white rings falling from the knife. “Hoi-hoi, slice it thinner.”

  The dal was ready. He drained the water and emptied the pot into the mortar. He added half a teaspoon of cumin seed and the chopped chillies, then began mashing it all together. The drumming pestle prompted Maneck to add cymbals with his knife upon the pot.

  “Aray bandmaster, are your onions ready?” said Ishvar. The medley in the mortar was turning into a rough paste, yellow with specks of green and red and brown. He mixed in the remaining ingredients and raised a bit to his nose, sampling the aroma. “Perfect. Now it’s time to make the frying pan sing. While I do the wadas, Om will make the chutney. Come on, grind the remaining copra and kothmeer-mirchi.”

  The frying pan hissed and sizzled as Ishvar gently slid ping-pong sized balls into the glistening oil. He pushed them around with a spoon, keeping them swimming for an even colour. Meanwhile, Om dragged the round masala stone back and forth across the flat slab. Maneck took over after a while. Drop by precious drop, the green chutney emerged from their effort.

  Dina stood savouring the fragrance of the wadas that were slowly turning mouth-watering brown in bubbling oil. She watched as the cleanup commenced with laughter and teasing, Ishvar warning the boys that if the grinding stone was not spotless he would make them lick it clean, like cats. What a change, she thought – from the saddest, dingiest room in the flat, the kitchen was transformed into a bright place of mirth and energy.

  Thirty minutes later the treat was ready. “Let’s eat while it’s hot,” said Ishvar. “Come on, Om, get water for us.”

  Everyone took a wada apiece and spread chutney over it. Ishvar waited for the verdict, beaming proudly.

  “Superb!” said Maneck.

  Dina pretended to be upset, saying he had never praised her meals with superlatives. He tried to wriggle out of it. “Your food is also superb, Aunty, but it’s similar to my mother’s Parsi cooking. That’s the only reason my tastebuds didn’t go crazy.”

  Ishvar and Om were modest about their efforts. “It’s nothing. Very simple to make.”

  “It’s delicious,” affirmed Dina. “Maneck’s idea of eating together was very good. If I knew from the beginning your food was so tasty, I would have hired you as cooks, not tailors.”

  “Sorry,” Ishvar smiled at the compliment, “we don’t cook for money – only for ourselves and for friends.”

  His words stirred her familiar residue of guilt. There was still a gulf between them; she did not see them as they saw her.

  Over the weeks, the tailors expanded their contribution from chapatis, puris, and wadas to vegetarian dishes like paneer masala, shak-bhaji, aloo masala. There were always four people, or at least two, bustling about the kitchen in the evening. My bleakest hour, thought Dina, has now become the happiest.

  On days that she made a rice dish, the tailors had a break from chapatis but went to the kitchen to help, if they were not out searching for a room to rent. “When I was a little boy in the village,” said Ishvar, cleaning the rice, picking out pebbles, “I used to do this for my mother. But in reverse. We used to go to the fields after the harvest and search for grain left from threshing and winnowing.”

  They were trusting her with bits of their past, she realized, and nothing could be as precious. More pieces, to join to the growing story of the tailors.

  “In those days,” continued Ishvar, “it seemed to me that that was all one could expect in life. A harsh road strewn with sharp stones and, if you were lucky, a little grain.”

  “And later?”

  “Later I discovered there were different types of roads. And a different way of walking on each.”

  She liked his way of putting it. “You describe it well.”

  He chuckled. “Must be my tailor training. Tailors are practised in examining patterns, reading the outlines.”

  “And what about you, Om? Did you also help your mother to collect grain?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t need to,” added Ishvar. “By the time he was born, his father – my brother – was doing well in tailoring.”

  “But he still sent me to learn about the stinking leather,” said Om.

  “You didn’t tell me that,” said Maneck.

  “There are many things I haven’t told you. Have you told me everything?”

  “Learning about leather was to build character,” explained Ishvar. “And to teach Om his history, remind him of his own community.”

  “But why did he need reminding?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Tell us,” said Dina and Maneck, in unintentional unison, which made them laugh.

  “In our village we used to be cobblers,” began Ishvar.

  “What he means is,” interrupted Om, “our family belonged to the Chamaar caste of tanners and leather-workers.”

  “Yes,” said Ishvar, taking the reins again, “a long time ago, long before Omprakash was born, when his father, Narayan, and I were young boys of ten and twelve, we were sent by our father, whose name was Dukhi, to be apprenticed as tailors…”

  “Teach me how to use them,” said Om.

  “What?”

  “The knife and fork.”

  “Okay,” said Maneck. “First les
son. Elbows off the table.”

  Ishvar nodded approvingly. He commented that it would impress everyone and increase Om’s worth when they went back to the village to find him a wife. “Eating with fancy tools – that’s a great skill, like playing a musical instrument.”

  Dina’s quilt started to grow again. With the tailors sailing vigorously through Au Revoir’s export orders, remnants piled up like the alluvial deposits of a healthy river. She sat with the patches after dinner, selecting and blending the best of the recent acquisitions.

  “These new pieces are completely different in style from the old ones,” said Maneck. “You think they will look all right?”

  “The counterpane critic is starting again,” she groaned.

  “Squares and triangles and polygons,” said Om. “They are a bit confusing, for sure.”

  “It will look beautiful,” said Ishvar with authority. “Just keep connecting patiently, Dinabai – that’s the secret. Ji-hahn, it all seems meaningless bits and rags, till you piece it together.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “These boys don’t understand. By the way, there is lots of cloth in the cupboard, if you also want to make something.”

  Ishvar thought of Shankar – it would be nice to present him with a new vest. He described the problem to Dina: the amputated lower half, where nothing would stay put, neither a loincloth nor underwear nor pants, because of his constant squirming and manoeuvring on the platform. And once the garment had slipped off his waist, he was helpless until Beggarmaster came on his rounds.

  “I think I have the answer,” said Dina. She found her old school bathing-costume, a one-piece, and explained its design. Copying it would be easy, with a few modifications such as adding sleeves, a collar, and buttons along the front.

  “Your idea is bilkool first class,” said Ishvar.

  He set aside sections of light-brown poplin, and next afternoon took his tape measure to the Vishram. Blowing on their tea saucers, Om and he watched through the window. Shankar was trying out a new routine on the pavement.

  The ever-innovative Beggarmaster had lengthened the platform by attaching an extension. Shankar lay flat on his back, waving his thigh stumps in the air. His testicles dribbled out of the swaddling cloth during the turbulence. He kept tucking them back, but it required an arduous stretch to accomplish, and after a while he let the scrotum hang.

  “O babu ek paisa day-ray,” he sang, rattling the begging tin on the first and third beats. It rested on his forehead between his fingerless palms. When he got tired he set it beside his head, leaving the hands free to wave like the thigh stumps.

  He was sitting up by the time the tailors finished their tea. The view from the supine position was new for him, and he could only take it in small doses, spending the minutes in dread, afraid that somebody would step on him. Rush hour, when the hordes swept over the pavement, was a period of sheer terror.

  Seeing Ishvar and Om emerge, he rowed his platform in from the kerb to chat with them.

  “New improved gaadi, hahn Shankar?”

  “What to do, have to keep the public satisfied. Beggarmaster thought it was time for variety. He has been very kind since we came back from that horrible place. Even nicer than before. And he does not call me Worm anymore, uses my real name, just like you.”

  He was excited by their plans to design a vest uniquely for him. The three moved into the privacy of the Vishram’s back alley where Ishvar could take some measurements.

  “Must be nice for you,” said Om. “Being able to sleep on the job now.”

  “You have no idea what a paradise it is,” said Shankar slyly. “It’s been only three days, and the things I’ve seen. Especially when the skirts go floating over my head.”

  “Really?” Om was envious. “What do you see?”

  “Words are too weak to describe the ripeness, the juiciness, of what my eyes have feasted on.”

  “Maybe my nephew would like to take your place on the gaadi for a day or two,” said Ishvar drily.

  “First he would have to do something about his legs,” said Shankar, relishing his touch of black humour. “I know – just stop paying Beggarmaster. That will automatically produce broken limbs.”

  The gift was ready the next day, and when the tailors went out in the evening to continue their search for accommodation, they stopped by Shankar’s pavement. They wanted to take him to the alley and help him into the vest to check the fit, but he was a little doubtful. “Beggarmaster would not like that,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “The new cloth looks too good.” He preferred not to wear it till it had been approved.

  They went away disappointed, taking with them the parcel of hair from under Shankar’s platform. For quite some time there had been nothing from the hair-collector, but in the last few days his deliveries had become regular. Their trunk was filling up.

  “If long hair is very rare, how is Rajaram suddenly collecting so much of it?” wondered Om.

  “I’m not going to bother my head with that fellow’s hair.”

  The following week, the tailors finally saw the beggar dressed in their gift. It was hard to recognize at first, for Beggarmaster had modified the brown poplin. Soiled all over, with a hole torn into the front, the garment was now suitable for Shankar.

  “That bastard Beggarmaster,” said Om. “Wrecking our creation.”

  “Don’t judge him by your clothes,” said Ishvar. “You wouldn’t go to work for Dinabai wearing a tie-collar or a big wedding turban, would you?”

  XI

  The Bright Future Clouded

  AFTER THE VERANDAH’S SECURITY and comfort had blunted the urgency for new accommodation, the tailors’ evening excursions in search of a room to rent became a halfhearted exercise. Ishvar felt a little guilty about this, felt they were taking advantage of Dina’s hospitality, now entering its third month. To assuage his conscience, he got into the habit of describing the failures for her in minute detail: the places they visited, the chawls and kholis and sheds they inspected, and how narrowly they missed out.

  “So disappointing,” he said, on more evenings than one. “Just ten minutes before we got there, someone took the room. And such a nice room too.”

  But time had tranquillized Dina’s worries about the landlord. She was quite content to let the tailors continue sleeping on the verandah. No one could have told her otherwise, not even Zenobia, who was horrified to discover their trunk and bedding there when she dropped in one evening.

  “This is dangerous,” she warned. “You are playing with fire.”

  “Oh, nothing will happen,” said Dina confidently. She had repaid Nusswan’s loan, there had been no more bother from the rent-collector, and the sewing was proceeding faster than ever.

  The fearfully anticipated strike at Au Revoir Exports was also averted, which Mrs. Gupta celebrated as a triumph of good over evil. “The corporation has its own musclemen now,” she explained to Dina. “It’s a case of our goondas versus their goondas. They deal with the union crooks before they can start trouble or lead the poor workers astray. Mind you, even the police support us. Everybody is fed up with the nuisance of unions.”

  The tailors rejoiced when Dina brought home the good news. “Our stars are in the proper position,” said Ishvar.

  “Yes,” she said. “But it’s more important that your stitches be in the proper position.”

  Ishvar and Om usually set off on their housing hunt after dinner, and sometimes before, if they were not cooking that day. She wished them good luck, but always added “See you back soon,” and meant it. Maneck frequently went along. Left alone, her eyes kept turning to the clock as she awaited their return.

  And when the evening’s wanderings were later reported to her, her advice was: “Don’t rush into anything.” It would be foolish, she said, to pay a premium for a place which might be demolished again because it was illegally constructed. “Better to save your money and get a proper room that no one can throw you out of. Ta
ke your time.”

  “But you don’t accept rent from us. How long can we burden you like this?”

  “I don’t feel any burden. And neither does Maneck. Do you, Maneck?”

  “Oh yes, I have a big burden. My exams are coming.”

  “The other problem is,” continued Ishvar, “my dear nephew cannot get married until we have our own place.”

  “Now that’s something I can’t help you with,” said Dina.

  “Who said I wanted to marry?” scowled Om, while she and Ishvar exchanged parental smiles.

  A tip about a possible half-room in the northern suburbs led them to the neighbourhood where they had searched for work on first arriving in the city. By the time they reached the location, the place had already been rented. They happened to be passing Advanced Tailoring Company, and decided to say hello to Jeevan.

  “Ah, my old friends are back,” Jeevan greeted them. “With a new friend. Is he also a tailor?”

  Maneck smiled and shook his head.

  “Ah, never mind, we’ll soon turn you into one.” Then Jeevan waxed nostalgic about the time the three tailors had worked round the clock to meet the by-election deadline. “Remember, we made a hundred shirts and hundred dhotis, for that fellow’s bribes?”

  “Felt like a thousand,” said Om.

  “I found later that he had parcelled out work to more than two dozen tailors. He gave away five thousand shirts and dhotis.”

  “Where do these rascal politicians get the money?”

  “Black money, what else – from businessmen needing favours. That’s how the whole licence-permit-quota raj works.”

  It turned out, however, that the candidate was defeated, despite distributing the garments among his most important constituents, because the opposition kept making clever speeches: that there was no crime in using empty hands to accept fine gifts, as long as wise heads prevailed at voting time.

  “He tried to blame me for losing. That the voters rejected him because the clothes were badly stitched. I said, bring it and show me. I never saw him again.” Jeevan cleared his work from the counter and brushed fluff off his shirt front. “Come, sit, drink a little tea with me.”