Told by Rahti

A Kashmir winter, cold, bleak and dreary, had set in. The Valley, shorn of its beauties and bereft of its singing birds, presented a dull spectacle. A spell of the warm sun drove me to Sahepura. The lovely stream flanking the village had almost dried up. The willow avenue leading on to it, the bared, bleak fields and the disinherited Chinar reinforced the loss of picturesqueness of the village to me as I cycled straight to the compound of Satara, our head farmer. A drowsy dog blinked at me. The newly-wedded daughter-in-law of Amira-another farmer-stared at me, as one of the daughters-in-law of Satara whispered my introduction to her, pausing at her rice-pounding. The Grand Dame, Satara's wife, sure came out and greeted me in her cordial matronly way, calling Sri Kanth, our servant at the farm.

After exchange of greetings, as I saw a woman standing near the door of the cottage, suckling her baby, I said to the dame, in my usual informal way, "Who is she there?"

Don't you know her?" She questioned me back "She is Rahti. You honoured us by attending her marriage."

"Oh sure, I say, Rahti, when've you come here?" I said, excitedly, as pleasant memories of her marriage procession, and the fund of understanding those few days had given me of the rural life of Kashmir, rushed back to me. She walked slowly towards me and I marked that she was weaker, thinner. Why? Oh yes! the baby was suckling at her naked small breast. I grew familiar with her in the old way: "Excuse me, I did not recognise you. So, when have you come to your father's home?"

She remained silent for a while and then she broke the ice: "Two months back."

The other women came nearer to us. My things were taken away by Sri Kanth-the urchins gaping at "the water horse" ,as they call the cycle in Kashmiri. I asked him to prepare for me, adding that I would follow him to our bungalow after sometime.

Another child came up to Rahti calling her, "Mother." So she had two children. These peasants are very prolific, I thought. No doubt she had lost much of her colour. The child slipped away on some domestic errand. Rahti said, "You know my husband, Mahmdoo."

"Oh yes, yes," I agreed, vociferously. "I know Mahmdoo very well. I didn't see you these two years but I see every time I come down here on a tonga. He paddles me to this village from the road side in his Shikara boat. Oh! he is so jolly. I like him, I-"

"Listen, sir," she insisted. "two and a half months back, he, one day complained of an ache in the sides. We thought it was an ordinary pain and we did not notice it for a day or two. Next day he could not go to work because of the increasing trouble. We looked for the village headman who acts the Hakim here. He came, felt his pulse and said, 'It is a case of development of heat within the body.' He put him on boiled gravy. We tried that for a day or two. But the pain only increased. That alarmed us-.

"Did you not go to the town doctor?" I broke in. At the same time, I felt that it was no business of Rahti to impose an Ancient Mariner's tale of her husband's illness on me. But something compelling in her eyes and her sad mien made me stay and give patient ear to her.

"Then we thought of the town doctor, " went on Rahti with her tale. "The town was three miles away. How could we remove Mahmdoo there? So I said to my mother-in-law that I would pawn my few ornaments for the doctor's fees and I did. My husband's brother went to fetch the doctor. No doctor came. He had gone to the City. Then we asked him to call in the Small Doctor who is as good as the Doe or."

I bit my lip as she mentioned the 'Small Doctor;' who is no other than the compounder. 'Small Doctor' no doubt! The hopeless lack of medical aid in Kashmir villages, I brooded, dull the judgement of professional skill of the villagers. Farmers came up from the thresh-
ing-ground to greet me. I put them off. And Rahti, shifting her baby from one breast to the other, went on, after the women left for their work: "The Small Doctor wrote prescriptions just like a Doctor. He felt his pulse and put something in his mouth to mark his heat. He gave Mahmdoo medicines from the hospital and he came to visit him again and again, daily. Every time he left, he demanded his fee and the price of medicines. My father-in-law finished my money and then he borrowed more money on Vadi"- an exploiting contract with the village money-lender, whereby the peasant, during summer, pawns off coming harvest at ridiculously low rates.

The cow and sheep, followed by a boy, entered the compound and were tethered. Rahti's mother called her from inside the cottage but she shouted back that she was still talking to me. Cases of spoilation due to the inhuman system of Vadi rushed to my mind. Whole families were ruined by these cruel Jews - the clever money-lenders. My interest in Rahti's tale grew. I must listen her out.

'The Small Doctor then said that the Big Doctor had come. My father-in-law then said, 'Earlier I could have called him here but now I'm almost finished with my money. We'll have to take Mahmdoo to the town hospital.' But the Small Doctor would not agree to that, saying that the patients condition was not very good and that, if need be, he would pay the heavy fee from his own pocket. That moved my father-in-law but he was helpless. My father and brother came up in the nick of time. They sold off my brother's blanket. I wept as he came back with the money and then, anyway, the Big Doctor came. He felt uneasy in the darkened room where Mahmdoo lay, shouting and groaning, 'My Allah! Save me from this pain!' The Doctor showed us the large boil which had developed on the left side of Mahmdoo, just under the ribs. Oh! Allah, I sobbed silently:'

Even as she said this, tears welled up in her small black eyes. The child by her side ran off to play with a lamb, white and fleecy beautiful thing. Looking about, I saw the sun heading towards the mountain line, bearing eternal snows in its high lap. Loud guffaws reached us from the thrashing-ground. Rahti did not allude to that. Dryly, wiping her eyes, she went towards what seemed to be the climax of her story.

'The Big Doctor said before leaving, 'It is useless to treat the patient here. Take him to Srinagar hospital at once.' The Doctor left. Mahmdoo lighted up and said to us, `Yes, take me to the Big City. There I shall not get these watery medicines. I'll be healed there, I am sure.' So we arranged men to row him up to Srinagar in our boat. When he left, he would not submit to being carried over to the boat. He walked himself against our protestations. I met him on the staircase and he said to me, 'Rahti, dear, I'll be back in a week. The City Doctor will surely cure me.' He cut a humorous joke with our neighbour as he took his seat on the grass bed-"

"Then was he cured all right?" She did not heed my question. Why?

"-in the open boat. My father-in-law and my brother went with him. The boat took them straight to the ghat of the Big City hospital next day. The Big City Doctor saw Mahmdoo and declared it to be a serious case. He rebuked my brother, 'You rustic fools! Why did you not get the patient here earlier?' My brother is modest and quiet. He did not tell him about our helplessness."

We were interrupted as Sri Kanth came up with Samovar (Kashmiri kettle), bearing strong Kashmiri tea for me. He insisted that I must take it or it would lose its flavour. So I sat down on the nearby rice-mortar, sipped the tea, while Rahti still stood by the cottage door, rooted to the ground. I felt that everything must have been right with Mahmdoo as he did get admitted in the Srinagar Civil Hospital. Let me listen to her conclusion over a cup of invigorating tea, that I needed so much after a long cycle trip.

The tea, Sri Kanth's tea, tasted sweet as she went on: "They put some medicine in his bowels and he had a motion. He felt very hungry and pleaded for rice like a child. The attendant told him that the card showed that only milk was to be given to him. My Great Allah! then, sir, know, what happened! My Mahmdoo died suddenly just after, while he had not even taken the milk!"

Died! I was shocked. I was not prepared for this at all. Tea tasted like gall and I threw it away. Sri Kanth, the old, affectionate servant, looked disdainfully at Rahti, for he understood that her rant made me spill the tea prepared by him with his usual pains. I would not listen to his protestations to have more tea. Rahti, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, philosophised, "They say the call of death can't be kept off. Don't you think, sir, Mahmdoo died an unnatural death? He wasn't to die yet. He was so young, so jolly. He has left me these children."

Her child had comeback and stood there, holding her hand. A leaf from the dried-up willow tree, slowly, uncertainly. I traced its downward fall to the earth. Somehow this confirmed in me that Mahmdop was really dead. Dead-a martyr to lack of medical facilities in Kashmir villages. Mahmdoo, a sturdy, happy-go-lucky peasant now a memory and a name! Somebody, I remembered a radio talk, said that there was one doctor to every thirty thousand Indians. Did they count "the Small Doctors" who medicate and kill with impunity?

The sun had sunk in the west by now. Clouds over the mountains had changed to heavy, dark, black masses. Farmers, giving the last touches to the threshed paddy, impatiently called me. I repaired towards the threshing-floor, thinking how much I could spare for the orphaned children of Rahti.