Nambardar's Bull

They slept on the narrow grass bed, perched over the high loft, partly balanced on a willow and partly propped on two poles. The loaded rifle, covered with grass, served as their pillow and a heavy mountaineer's blanket, tusked in well under the feet, mantled them warm. The loft rocked like a hammock as she turned recklessly in the warm bed. The delightfully cool summer night of the hills impelled them to seek each other's warmth. They had met after months and so they conversed in a reminiscent mood.

"Jani, I love you more than I loved my wife," murmured Akbar Khan.

"Yes, you always say so," she piped in mockingly,' when you want me like the beast that you are-"

Fierce kisses shut up her mouth, as he went on, "Thank Allah! My wife is dead. You know, I never really intended to marry her. It was father-let him be in Heaven now-who insisted. He knew I loved you so much but he had long ago promised her old father, the upland shepherd. But in marriage, I never forgot you, my fairy child. And now you're here for a brief while."

'This is a lovely night." She was quite right. The willows wafted a pleasant breeze about them. The maize crop that they over looked and watched from the loft sent them a fresh scent that intoxicated but did not inebriate. The lovers wanted to live like this for ever and ever. But man's wishes rarely find fulfillment in a world where circumstances victimise him and crash his fond world of enchantment in no time.

"Darling, will you love me like this forever and ever?" broke from the lips of Akbar Khan-still fn his dreamland.

His amorous words were drowned by crashing sounds of maize, plants being cut and felled to the ground in whole bushels, as it were. Agar Khan disentangled himself suddenly from Jani's embrace. He put on his clothes in a tense moment, listening to the devastation of his maize patch.

Jani squatted up, arranging her hair. He simply whispered, "A bear! I must have the brute's head." Carrying his gun, he noiselessly alighted to the ground.

Starlight guided his stealthy steps towards the scene of bestial vandalism. He spotted the huge black form, not standing up on the hind legs in the usual depredatory pose of the bear but using its mouth. Seeing that it was clear rifle range, he assured himself in an unthinking moment, "It must be a bear. I'll thunder it and run back to my love's warm body."

There was a resounding echo from the hills as he fired. The form fell at the first shot, emitting a last curious sound, piteous and loud. Unlike a bear! Fatah, sleeping in another nearby loft, jumped down straight on the maize holding and was beside Akbar Khan, saying, "So you've got the devil! Fallen?"

"Let us be cautious," warned Akbar Khan as they groped towards the dead body. A last wriggle and moan. They felt the body all over.

"Horns! it has horns;" shouted Fatah.

"What have I done? I've killed a bull," shouted Akbar Khan in dismay, letting his rifle fall from his shoulder.

"It is the Nambardar's big bull, his pride, his treasure. You have done a blunder, Akbar. Now, come on, we'll remove the dead body just now, so that no one knows."

Fatah, Akbar Khan's old friend and neighbour, proved the proverbial friend in need.

He fetched a pole and ropes from his home while Akbar Khan went to kiss and inform Jani of what had happened. He helped her down the loft, held her in his arms till he heard Fatah calling. She left towards her father's home, secretly, for Fatah did not know that she was there.

The huge dead body was tied over and over again with ropes to the pole. They hung the-pole over their shoulders and lifted, staggering, the beast, who appeared to have grown weightier in death. Only these two sturdy mountaineer-farmers could do this feat of carrying the massive dead body of the bull down the sloping path, wading across brooks and streams. The common fear of discovery gave them energy and will. They trudged down to the roaring mountain stream and unloaded into it the carcass of the Nambardar's bull.

It was with the consent and knowledge of her mother that Jani would, whenever she came to her father's home, visit Akbar Khan. Her mother had wanted that Jani should have married him but Fate, impersonated by Akbar Khan's domineering father, had worked otherwise.

Early in the night, Jani's mother heard her soft rap on the door of the low mud cottage. She undid the latch without awakening her husband or her children.

"Why have you come back so early?" asked her mother suspiciously. "Did he give you any money and salt?"

"Do I go to him for money?" retorted Jani, panting.

"No, dear, I know you love Akbar Khan. But I've a big family and my husband's illness-"
"Now, shut up and listen,' interrupted Jani in the manner of a woman bursting with secret news, which she cannot but share with a kindred spirit. "Akbar Khan shot the Nambardar's bull dead?"

"Nambardar's bull! My Allah? What will happen to him now?" She croaked on with her fears about Akbar Khan, for his absence in jail would mean the loss of cash and kind that she extorted from Akbar Khan, mostly without knowledge of Jani. Jani rolled in bed, finding no sleep.

At the first hint of dawn, she left her home with a pitcher, saying to her mother, that she would fetch water from the torn. She took her way to her lover's loft instead but she did not find him there.

As light spread and the singing birds sang cheerfully, she stood up on her toes on the loft. The loft shook, dangerously, but she balanced herself to have a look at Fatah's loft. There she found the grass disturbed and did not find him there. Strange fears upset her.

Soon she heard Akbar Khan and Fatah talking. They were laughing. Her heart still pounded like a hammer. She ducked in for a while to avoid Fatah catching her sight. They separated.

Her loft shook. He gave a cry of delight on seeing her there.

"My temptress! My Laila! Listen:' He told her what he and Fatah had done with the corpse of the Nambardar's bull.

Busy months passed away. The maize harvest was neatly stored away in the granaries. Akbar Khan had paid off his hired labourers. Now he idly smoked his mountain hookah - a small handy apparatus, more useful than beautiful. He said to Fatah, "Does the bastard Nambardar now talk about his lost bull?"

In reply, Fatah roared with laughter. Tears came to his eyes, Akbar Khan also joined him in boisterous laughter. Fatah said, "The big sensation of the disappeared bull has after all died. But the Nambardar has not yet lost hope of finding some trace of the bull. They say he is sure that he can spot his bull out of a vast herd. You know, he had branded his clan mark on the bull's rump. He thinks his beloved bull is still alive!"

That tickled them to still more boisterous merriment.

"We must not laugh so much," forebodingly philosophized Khan. "Anything may happen after such guffaws."

And, it did happen. The tragic-comedy that Life is, it does brush aside a complacent triumph with a crashing misfortune.

The blustering Nambardar, at the head of ill-clad mountain police-men, the Patwari and other petty village some-bodies, made a dramatic entry into Akbar man's open courtyard. Akbar Khan and Fatah were as if spellbound as they stood up, uncertain and tongue-tied.

The Nambardar advanced and prefaced his tirade with rough and heavy slaps on the faces of Akbar Khan and Fatah. "You thieves, you rogues," he raved, "You drove me mad. You killed my bull, you drowned his dead body. May Allah send you to hell and kill you in your bloom as you killed him, my big bull."

The villagers gaped at the handcuffed prisoners. Fatah's wife and children cried and wept, Akbar Khan seeing them, confessed, "Don't weep, my dear children, Fatah is blameless. He will be freed soon." He said to himself. "You've none to weep for your separation, Akbar. Sweet Jani is away over the mountain-tops with her cursed horse-faced husband."

A policeman's kick heed him on the path and broke his mad thoughts. He hardly minded the insult. Only one policeman accompanied the prisoners and the Nambardar and others. Seven of them 'occupied' the village. Akbar Khan's home was emptied of its valuables, blankets, brass vessels, quilts, etc. Fatah's wife was well scrutinised by a lusty policeman who was posted in the village to keep guard over Akbar Khan's and Fatah's property. Other policemen, aided by the Patwari and Nambardar, freely extorted money and eatables from other villagers--at least the rupees from each family, eggs, poultry, maize-flour, green vegetables, spices, salt, oil and anything else, that they could lay their greedy hands on.

The police sergeant, with his apology for headquarters in a hovel in the town, needed not much use of torture to make the prisoners confess. The Nambardar spat with satisfaction over a smoke as Akbar Khan was beaten and maltreated. The Tehsildar finished the case soon. The chief witness was Jani's mother. Jani was not to be found as she was yet away in some mountain meadow. The prisoners pleaded guilty. The Tehsildar, already bribed by Fatah's father-in-law, freed Fatah with a fine and damages. Akbar Khan was sentenced to six months' rigorous imprisonment and fined one hundred rupees and, furthermore, he had to pay damages to the Nambardar.

Akbar Khan was puzzled when he saw Jani's mother-the ungrateful procuress, he thought-as the woman who had betrayed him. He was silent for most part of the trial. The Nambardar looked pleased and avenged as the policemen ordered the prisoner to follow them in their usual, uncouth manner.

The villagers, afraid of the Nambardar, did not even greet the prodigal Akbar Khan, as he, thinned and clad in rags, walked laboriously towards his deserted home. Home! it looked a haunted house! Scenes of police zoolum rushed back upon Akbar Khan's tired mind as he sank down near the door. It was locked. Who had locked it? Could it be Jani or her devilish mother?

Fatah, having heard of Akbar Khan's return, turned up. He looked so happy on seeing Akbar Khan and embraced him tight. Tears welled in their eyes. It was Fatah who spoke after a period of communicative silence. "Akbar brother, I came to see you in the jail. My son was ill in the City Hospital and I had spent all my savings. I had no bakhsheesh for the gate-keeper -may he die this very night-and I was not allowed to see you:"

"It is right as it is," said the saddened Akbar Khan.

"Here's the key of your house," said Fatah. "We've kept some of your things, the little that was left by those police dogs. Till you set up home, you come and live with us."

"Home! Shall I ever set up home, now that most of my land is gone. The police, the fines and the damages have made me almost bankrupt."

"Never mind, brother," consoled Fatah. "Now come on."

The welcome accorded to him by Fatah's children, whom he used to get city presents, touched Akbar Khan. Instinctively, he felt his pockets. They were empty and his fingers clawed out of the holes. Fatah understood the pathetic gesture and made him change his clothes. They had tea and a good meal.

As Akbar Khan's bed was being made, he said suddenly, "Fatah brother, I shall sleep on my loft."

"No, it is no use. There is only a small patch of maize around it that I got cultivated by a hired labourer. The rest of your land was sold by the Patwari at very small rate to a revenue official's relative to pay off your fines and damages."

"Yes brother, I know that." Akbar Khan insisted. "But I must go there. I feel I must "

When Fatah was gone, Akbar Khan took score of his burning thoughts. Revenge! Kill Jani her mother who betrayed the secret of the Nambardar's bull, and kill the Nambardar and be hanged for it. No, not that. Then what? At least Jani's mother was not much to blame. Jani must have told her. Why did she? Why the devil? He looked about and heard the watchman of citywalla's land, his own old land, hooting away the birds. The scent of maize somehow intoxicated him.

He heard a soft rustle. Who was it? Some one came up his loft. Was it she? Jani his Jani. She climbed up to him, her head popped up; she embraced him passionately wildly. The loft creaked and trembled. Her tears, hot and flowing, fell on the nape of his neck.

"So you're here, Akbar dear," she said. Forgive me, it's all my fault. My mother was a fool. She talked to the Patwari's wife and-"

"Shut up! You ruined me," he shook himself to unclasp her. "Go to your burly husband."

Kill her, he said to himself. See the end of it all, all this nonsense. But she spoke and her voice was as sweet as ever.
"My husband is dead. He died of a fall from his horse. I...I'll be free to marry any one I like after six months."

"Whom?" he said, puzzled, happy and nervous.

"Kiss me," she said, wiping her tears.