In the City a Mirror Wandering Read online

  Throughout the novel, Chetan is disgusted by the callousness, bullying and hollow posturing he sees around him; at the same time, he clearly derives a measure of voyeuristic pleasure from witnessing it. He is generally the most educated person in each interchange, and the most sensitive, yet from time to time he steps in as an enabler. When his goonda friends land themselves in hot water for pranking passers-by by knocking off their hats, Chetan intervenes by speaking in English and introducing himself as a writer for a respected newspaper in Lahore. He does the same at the police station and at other junctures as well. This device serves the narrative well—how could we believe that our protagonist would spend an entire day hanging around with frauds and miscreants if he did not take some pleasure in it? Chetan wishes to rise above the pond—he aspires to the lilies—but as of now, he still belongs to the muck.

  II. Part Two, Sixteen Years Later

  In the City a Mirror Wandering was published sixteen years after Falling Walls, in 1963—a much longer gap than Ashk had originally intended. In the interim, he’d recovered from tuberculosis, moved to Allahabad, started his own publishing house with his wife, Kaushalya, and made a name for himself in the world of Hindi letters. As he explains in his unusually short introduction to this work, the writing of this volume was effortful and impeded by many bouts of ill health (a favourite topic of discussion for him). The temporal distance from the era described in the series had ballooned to thirty years, and his anxieties about the lateness of the work and the increasingly unrecognizable landscape it described are apparent in small ways throughout the novel.

  In a style reminiscent of ‘what you missed in last week’s episode’ segments in TV programmes, Ashk devotes a substantial chunk of the opening chapters to a recap of the main plot points in Falling Walls. He was both anxious that readers may have forgotten, and keen to make the text accessible to new readers who hadn’t come across the first volume at all; it was always his intention that any of the volumes could be read independent of the others. Readers for whom that volume is still fresh in the mind are not advised to skip ahead however, as interspersed between these recaps, presented as Chetan’s early morning reveries, are a literal trail of clues leading to his brother Parasuram’s calisthenics routine, an aspect of the story which will eventually become integral to the novel as a whole.

  Despite the long interval between the publication of the first and second volumes, Ashk adhered very strictly to his plan of writing an uninterrupted narrative. Chetan goes to sleep at the end of Falling Walls, and at the beginning of In the City a Mirror Wandering, he wakes up the very next morning, fretting about the events of the previous evening. The same holds true for the third volume, Ek Nanhi Qindil (A Tiny Candle), 1969, which opens the morning after the present volume. Fans of Chetan’s elder brother, Bhai Sahib, will be disappointed to learn that since Chetan quarrelled with him late in Falling Walls, and he is not in Jalandhar during the one-day period of this volume, he will not reappear until the third volume, at which time the brothers will finally have a chance to hash out their disagreement, some five hundred pages later.

  Though Ashk’s writing style is more or less consistent between the volumes, In the City a Mirror Wandering has a tighter structure and a brisker pace. Readers may also observe an increasing number of side notes supplied by the author (all footnotes are his, unless otherwise specified), as well as asides for present-day readers, for example, explaining how Chetan’s friend’s new bride could have been robbed of her dowry while waiting between the signal and the station. Ashk’s descriptions of places are extremely precise and he was always keen that his readers know exactly what he was talking about. As he explains in Chapter 30:

  Jalandhar station was probably about a mile or so from the gate. Nowadays, there’s not even a full yard of free space from there to the station, but in those days, the line passed through a complete wasteland between the two. There was a pool of standing water near the line that was thick with reeds.

  Ashk always revisited the places he was writing about, to verify his memories of specific street names, crossroads and other aspects of the urban landscape. Unlike authors who prefer to rely on nostalgic memories of places from their childhood and youth, Ashk not only wanted to get it right, but also make sure that contemporary readers understood what he was talking about.

  III. Quotation and Misquotation

  Part of the richness of In the City a Mirror Wandering lies in the sheer number of poems, folk sayings and songs quoted throughout the text. Some of these quotations are from famous texts and will be readily recognized even by readers of the English version, and some are not. Among the famous quotations, several contain errors. Where I and other readers have identified these, I’ve added translator’s footnotes, giving the correct version of the text, especially if it was from another language (Sanskrit) or from a famous line of Urdu poetry that we retained in the translation.

  But why did Ashk include so many errors in his text? Was it because he had no internet, or relied on faulty recollections of famous poems? Was he sloppy and did he not check his work? Having researched his files years ago, I am inclined towards a different explanation. What I found then was that Ashk was a compulsive editor. If an article was written about him in a newspaper or journal, he’d clip it out and mark it up, as though he were the author himself. This was not so much to make something appear more favourable or flattering, but rather to correct what he perceived as flaws in style or grammar. He would then have these documents retyped and placed in the file alongside the originals, drawing upon them for the purpose of blurbs or further quotation in writing about critical responses to his own work.

  Take for example the passage from Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, at the very beginning of the novel, which Ashk quoted in English in the original text:

  My novel is a mirror of life and it reflects, while it journeys down the highway, the blue skies and the mire in the road below.

  This passage must have been taken from an English translation of Stendhal’s French text, and a cursory glance at the original shows that it is incorrect:

  Eh, monsieur , un roman est un miroir qui se promène sur une grande route . Tantôt il reflète à vos yeux l’ azur des cieux , tantôt la fange des bourbiers de la route.

  A correct translation would have been more like this:

  Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror strolling along a highway. At times it reflects the azure of the skies, and at others, the muddy potholes in the road.

  At first, we might be tempted to give Ashk the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he had a poor translation of the novel, or had memorized it imperfectly. After all, he hardly had the access to the internet that makes it so easy nowadays to find the precise wording of a quotation heard long ago. I would argue, however, that though he might indeed have had a poor translation, or an imperfect memory of the quotation he wanted, he most likely changed the quote to suit his needs.

  I can easily imagine Ashk taking his red pen to the Stendhal quote and making it his own. This is about my novel, not any novel—a bit solipsistic, perhaps, but very Ashkian, nonetheless. In researching the Stendhal quote, I too faced my own dilemma. Should I ‘restore’ the original quotation? Should I add the rest of the quote, which is really rather fine and ties in so well with what Ashk wished to express in the novel? In the end, I left it as he had published it, but leave here, in my Introduction, the full quotation from The Red and the Black:

  Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror strolling along a highway. At times it reflects the azure of the skies, and at others, the muddy potholes in the road. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.

  How greatly Ashk must have identified with this sentiment, of the blaming of the novelist for the social ills he presents, when they are mere reflections o
f the ugliness of reality. And how very like Ashk’s own quotation at the beginning of this introduction, using instead of the metaphor of the mirror and the highway, the lotus and the pond-scum in which it thrives. And so I end with an exhortation to you, readers and critics, not to blame the author (or the translator!) for the ugly side of life portrayed in this work, but instead, following Stendhal, blame civic inspectors who should be cleaning out the pond and allowing more lotuses to grow.

  Morning

  1

  Chetan had fallen asleep quite late that night. A host of thoughts swirled in his mind like blades of grass caught in a whirlwind. Words and sights from Neela’s wedding, of no apparent significance—tiny details that had shaken him—entered his thoughts again and again. Conversations he’d had with Neela, Meela, Sheelo and Ranvir echoed in his ears, and he began to hear his own voice mingled with the others. He’d jerk his head and turn over; again he’d try to fall asleep, but those same sights, incidents, conversations would return . . .

  Much of the night had already passed when the cloudy sky burst open and it began to pour. In the relentless slapping of the rain a lament arose from the sheets of tin that covered the metal railing above the courtyard. Chetan’s attention was drawn to this monotonous wailing, and soon the pounding rain began to calm the storm in his mind. His eyelids grew heavy and he was enveloped in a deep sleep.

  *

  He might have slept quite late the next morning, had he not become conscious of a grunting sound in the early hours. At first the grunting sounded like a far-off pounding on the door to his consciousness; then he began to have a sort of dream, in which he saw a strange, horrifying beast, with the head of a sheep and the body and gait of a bear. The beast chased after him, grunting. The door to his consciousness opened suddenly and he awoke with a start.

  The rain had long since stopped and the clouds had cleared, but all about the roof, sparkling clean after the torrential downpour, danced the sort of light that bursts forth with the sudden blossoming of the sun in a cloudless, blue, monsoon sky. The night’s downpour had filled the air with a cool moisture, and Chetan had wrapped the covers around his head, his face—everything. When he awoke with a start and pushed them from his face, his eyes filled with the glare of sunlight. His neck was a bit sweaty. He glanced around the room for a moment as he wiped his neck with his hand. A breeze blew through the screens that hung from the large arches on each side of the rooftop room and water dripped down the bricks from the roof above. His wife, Chanda, lay beside him, in a deep sleep.

  He wondered if it had been her snoring that had woken him. But she never snored. All the same he leaned over and listened near her nose—she was breathing evenly. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of a rasp.

  Chetan pushed aside the covers but didn’t get out of bed. His eyes were fixed on his sleeping wife. Her large, round eyes were closed, her coarse hair lay strewn across her forehead, her lips were chapped, her round, plump cheeks looked as dry as stale bread rolls, and a little bit of spit was pooled in the left corner of her mouth. Suddenly he thought of Neela’s glowing face when she had come to see him before getting into her palanquin, jingling with jewellery and weighted down with bridal clothing. He suppressed a sigh, jumped up and walked out of the room.

  Chanda started from his movement, but didn’t sit up; instead she turned over and went back to sleep.

  Outside, two bricks lay on the dividing wall that joined the two roofs (the wall had been made with a view to adding a third storey, but the means of building a third storey had not yet materialized and the only use for the wall at the moment was to separate the two roofs). Chetan saw oily handprints on the bricks and drops of oil on the lower roof. He now realized what had woken him and what the grunting noise had been! His younger brother Parasaram must have been doing his exercises here. Every morning he did one thousand push-ups and one thousand sit-ups. The drops must be sweat from his brow and the grunting must have been the sound of his laboured breathing. Chetan ran to the cement bench to test his theory and peered down at the neighbourhood well below. He had guessed correctly. Parasaram was filling a pot of water at the well, with only a loincloth covering his fair, muscular body. Whenever he finished his exercises, he always took the pot to the well and filled all the water for the house before resting. When he exercised, he kept his lips pressed shut, and when he did push-ups, he made a loud grunting noise as he lowered his body, as wrestlers do at the akhara. It must have been this grunting sound that had woken Chetan.

  He stepped back. The bench was not wet, but quite chilly. He lay down on it, on his stomach. He rested his left cheek on the cold surface. A pleasing shiver ran down his spine all the way to his feet. He let his right arm dangle from the bench. His side stuck to the rounded edge and a cool tingling ran through his body, but he felt very happy. He continued to lie there silently without moving. He closed his eyes with pleasure . . . but that pleasurable feeling reminded him of lovely moments spent with Neela and, as he lay there, eyes closed, he lost himself in those memories.

  *

  He stands at the Basti tonga stop with his friend Mulkraj. He’s come to secretly take a peek at his future wife as she walks home from school. Just then, school lets out and groups of girls begin to emerge . . . A girl of about twelve or thirteen, surrounded by friends, her books in her hands, walks by slowly and deliberately, as though unaware of her own beauty. As she passes by she glances flirtatiously at Chetan. Chetan’s heart pounds. He glances hopefully at his friend Mulkraj. Mulkraj shakes his head. That’s not the one . . . and Chetan wishes he could go home without seeing his future wife after all.

  *

  After seeing his plump, dowdy future wife and not caring for her, he returns, on his father’s orders, to see her formally—at the home of the social reformer Master Nandalal. His eyes are downcast with embarrassment, but when he looks up, his heart starts pounding again—that same girl is sitting near his bride-to-be . . . that same flirtatious, lively girl with the deliberate gait . . . and for that one instant, Chetan sees only a part of her face: that row of pearly teeth that makes her playful eyes sparkle.

  *

  He is sitting at his wedding feast, but he’s paying no attention to the food (the reformer Master Nandalal has forbidden the singing of obscene wedding songs by the women) as his eyes search the deserted ramparts of the house for those playful eyes, delightful as streams of cool water.

  Most of the groom’s party has finished eating and stood up. None of the boys teases Chetan; no girl stitches his coat to the dhurrie; no one hides his new shoes. Listless, he stands up as well. He starts to put on his first ever pair of patent leather pump shoes but then he stops. That same girl has lifted the chick blinds on the veranda and emerged, scattering her smiles about her like so many blossoms, a thicket of girlfriends close behind her. ‘Jija ji, tell us a chhand!’ . . . ‘Jija ji, tell us a chhand!’ And he learns that this girl demanding a nonsense wedding couplet is his sister-in-law—the daughter of his wife Chanda’s paternal uncle—Neela.

  And gazing into Neela’s eyes, he recites a chhand:

  Chhands come, chhands go badum-bum-bum-a-teela

  I forgot all of the chhands when I first saw Neela.

  And he recollects the poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

  You are the moon, dear love, and I the sea:

  The tide of hope swells high within my breast,

  And hides the rough dark rocks of life’s unrest

  When your fond eyes smile near in perigee.

  But when that loving face is turned from me,

  Low falls the tide, and the grim rocks appear,

  And earth’s dim coast-line seems a thing to fear.

  You are the moon, dear one, and I the sea.

  *

  After his wedding, he is lying in the rooftop porch at the home of his in-laws. Neela comes and places a magazine in his lap.

  ‘Read this, right here!’

  She puts her finger on one line on the page. Chetan
reads it—it’s a sentence from a dialogue in a story:

  ‘How can I say I don’t love you?’

  He reads the sentence to himself. Neela gazes at him with a strange look that plumbs the depths of his heart, and before Chetan can respond she rushes off, hugging the magazine to her bosom, turning once to look back at him.

  *

  A moonlit night after a full day of rain, and a small cloud like the wing of a partridge. A cool breeze blows. He lies on the roof at his in-laws’. Neela sits next to him and he watches her, entranced. She begins to stroke his hair slowly and lovingly with her fine fingers, and suddenly, without thinking, she cries, ‘Jija ji, your hair is so soft—it’s so long and curly!’

  Chetan doesn’t respond. He takes Neela’s hand in his and, closing his eyes for a few moments, he lies there silently. Then he says, ‘I was thinking, Neela, about how I came to see Chanda twice, and both times I saw you.’

  ‘I saw you both times as well, and I can also tell you what suit you were wearing the first day when you stood at Basti Adda.’

  *

  And those letters he had written ostensibly to his wife from Lahore, but were secretly meant for Neela:

  . . . before, my heart was sad and barren, like a centuries-dried-up sea that no longer knows the sensation of waves and the rippling of water. Destroyed by its emptiness, it stared fixedly at the sky. Then you smiled from some corner of that sky, a tiny new cloud throbbing with life, and the sea overflowed its banks.

  And:

  I’ve broken my silence and burst into song. I feel such joy suffuse my being, as when a beggar suddenly discovers some hidden treasure. And haven’t I discovered a treasure—the priceless treasure of beauty and love? But I tremble with fear—what if this treasure is somehow snatched from me!