Just for a Day

JUST FOR A DAY
(A short story)

LALIT KUMAR SHASTRI
(Translated from Gujarati by S. KRISHNA)

At last she reached her chosen destination. Her legs were thin as the branches of “Baval” tree and the soles of her feet were cracked. The earth seemed to broil under the blazing sun. Her gasping breath spasmodically spoke of her declining years.

Time had etched its varied and indelible designs upon her visage like the patterns formed on the banks of rivers by the criss-cross of water currents. Her hair had turned white and eyes were sunk. Her body seemed a mere skeleton–a bundle of bones with little flesh and blood. An onlooker might have mused, recalling the legend of sage Dadhichi, thus–“If a weapon were to be wrought of her bones, would it end human misery?”

Her tattered saree could only partly conceal her nakedness. She wore no blouse. Perhaps she had become habituated to not wearing one. Unconsciously she was following Gandhiji’s axiom that man must have only essential clothing. A city-dweller, perchance encountering her on a dark night, rather than surmise that she was a disciple of Gandhiji’s ideal of simplicity, would perhaps be led to think she was a witch.

It was nine in the morning. She had no mental tranquility. She called her young grandson “Nagda, come here!” He was chewing fresh gum oozing from the baval tree. True to his name, Nagda, was stark-naked. He was seven years old. He made his way through the thorns of baval tree which lay clustered on both sides of the road and came near his grandma.

The old lady asked: “Beta, What are you eating?” The child offered the piece of gum he was chewing “Grandma, you eat.”

The old lady who had starved for two days thought in passing that God had been unjust. She had not the faculty to understand that man was responsible for such injustice she and her like had to endure. She belonged to a ward class and had lived by the sweat of her brow. She desired to spend the rest of her life the same way. She knew no one except her Heavenly Father. If a money-lender advanced her a “grand” loan of one rupee, she used to express her gratitude, not in mere words, but by return-deeds and in these she saw the merciful God. She was not clever enough to understand the cunning of the money-lender.

She was now in search of a job. Last month her young son had died of snake bite. His only legacy was his child and should not this legacy be preserved and cherished?

It is not pleasant to recount how she spent the month, following the death of her son. She had not set her hungry eyes on food for two days. Nagda had starved for two days. The sight of pieces of stale bread thrown at street-dogs set his parched tongue a-tingling. The old lady would rather prefer death than resort to begging though she could not rationalise this philosophic attitude.

Her incessant search for a job in the village for seven long days had proved futile. That morning the old woman left her ramshackle hut, whose walls with gaping holes resembling a pest-infested bamboo tree, had crumbled down, to seek a job in a limestone factory three miles from the village.

Her destination was not far, what she saw ahead of her situated on the hills was the factory. She must hurry up, because her ravenous hunger makes her restive, and goads her on. The child weak with hunger and unable to stand, squatted near its grandma. The fire of hunger was more intense than the fire of the scorched earth.

The old lady said tenderly: “Come, my darling! We have not to go far. See there ahead of you.” She led him by the hand lest he should go astray in the difficult terrain.

Stone! Stone! Everywhere stone! No sign of a single tree save some thorny shrubs which gave no shelter but only added to the torment.

But a job! Job and food! The hope of getting a job and desperate faith in being able to set their hungry eyes on a morsel of food led them up the hill.

They reached the top of the hill. But whether she would get a job was uncertain. Her life fed on hope, desperate hope.

She was perplexed whom to approach for work. She did not see many people around her. She went ahead and asked a man standing near the factory. “Can I get some work here? I want work.” At this the man laughed out loudly, “You! What work can you do?” The old lady felt as if a violent storm raged her mind. But nothing could be achieved by losing courage. She said, “I am ready to do any work you give me.”

“Can you break stones?”

“Why not? Give me the work to do.”

The child was listening to this conversation with wild-eyed innocence, and the mutation of expression on the old lady’s face was mirrored on his face.

The man said, “You run out of breath by merely speaking. Just look how old you are! You can’t do this work.”

The old lady thought she would tell him that she was starving since two days; but if she had done so she would surely not have got the job. She emboldened herself to say, “Please give me the tools, If I don’t work well, throw me out.”

“It is quite late in the day, come tomorrow.”

“Are, bhaila, I have walked three miles, Why are you denying me the job? Give me what you will, bapa!”

By now, she had become insensible to hunger. The man called one of the workers and ordered him to show her the place of work. “Just remember this, If you don’t work properly not a pie you will get.” The old woman, in her joyful relief at having got a job, murmured “Yes, yes.” The child, seeing his grandma beaming with happiness, forgot his hunger and ran up to her and asked eagerly, “Grandma, will I get bread?”

“Yes, my child.”

It was nearing midday. The blazing sun seemed to impart its elemental power to every atom of the stones. The paths were crooked and inaccessible to traffic. The old lady and Nagda came to the other side of the hill which had a precipitous slope. If someone were to lose balance around here he would be lost in a veritable abyss of darkness.

Now she understood why people of the village hesitated to come for work there. When she had confided with Govindmukhi of her village that she intended going to the limestone factory to seek work, he had asked her not to. But if at all she were to work there, he had cautioned her to work inside the factory. He was unwilling to describe the conditions of work prevailing outside the factory.

The old woman now understood how difficult her work was. But she could not afford to lose courage. The intense heat made her dazed. She held on to the hands of Nagda. Descending down the slope they reached the workspot. The labourer who had accompanied them showed her the mode of work, and left.

The old woman picked up the sledge hammer. She bade her grandchild to sit at a distance so that flying chips of stone might not hurt him. She began hammering the stone with all her might. But the stone was far too adamant. Her work had to go on if she had to live today. There was no other way.

She took a steady and firm grip on the hammer. Her face clenched with determination and the veins of her hands stood out. Iron clashed with stone. The stone disintegrated and chunks flew apart. She gathered the stone-pieces, some weighing as much as five to ten seers and put them in the brick-layer’s trough. She tried to lift it but it didn’t budge. Her breath came spasmodically. Her drooping body was a fire. Nagda was watching from a distance.

The old woman steeled her nerves and lifted the trough on to her head. She had to climb the steep incline. It was a tough thing. Her thin legs picked up strength and she quickened her pace.

All was deathly still. Even the voices of birds, which would have given her a semblance of solace, had been stilled. Ruffling the silence were the echoes of workers on the other side of the hill. She paced up and down, up and down.

The Labour Supervisor came to inspect and left. Perhaps out of pity for her old age or for some other reason, he didn’t say anything to her.

The old woman looked up at the sky. The sun gave no sign of abating in its intensity.

She re-commenced smashing the stones. A chunk of stone which she had wedged in between two boulders flew at the stoke of the hammer and pierced the feet of the child who was seated at a distance. The child shrieked in pain. The other labourers in the midst of the noise of crunching stones didn’t hear the child’s cry. The old woman tore a piece from her tattered saree and prepared a crude bandage. She spit in the wound to stop it from bleeding. Fortunately the injury was not serious but the child, weak from hunger, whimpered from pain. She asked the child to sit at a distance. The wheel of work moved on. She could not stand the strain. Her mind was dazed and tongue parched. Will water quench hunger? Only one question obsessed her now: When will the sun set? When will the work end? When will my hungry eyes feed on a piece of bread that my eight anna wages will earn?

She had no control over her legs and walked abstractedly. I must sit down...I must sit down...she felt nausea and lost her balance.

Her feet slipped and her body lurched forward. The hammer and trough fell on the slopy earth but did not roll down because of their heaviness. The trough lent her support to regain her balance and death was halted midway. A ray of light amidst darkness. The old woman was shocked into consciousness. Her work had to go on inexorably.

Twilight had fallen. Nagda had fallen asleep, weak from hunger. She carried her grandchild on her shoulders and began climbing the difficult slope. She received an eight anna coin as her wage. Her employer asked: “Are you in your senses or not?”

She went to the nearby village and bought a loaf of bread. She thanked God for having let her live for a day. That night she slept on a cobbled pavement. Nagda slept beside her. In the early hours of the morning icy chill wind blew. She removed her only clothing and wrapped it round the child and faced the blustering winds.

Her employer who was out on his morning stroll saw her sleeping naked and muttered bitingly, “Shameless wretches! Such persons should not be given work even for just a day.”