‘MAASI JI! WOULD you like to hear some good news?’
Having finished her morning ablutions, Kesar Kaur was looking around for her gutka. It hadn’t initially registered in her mind that she had given it to Satnam the previous night. And when she did remember and set off towards his room, she ran into Krishna who was beaming as she held a blue coloured letter pad in her hand.
‘Good news?’ Kesar Kaur stood in the doorway and enquired. ‘What kind of good news, Krishna?’
‘Why don’t you try to guess?’ her eyes were shining as she answered the question with a question of her own.
‘I am not a soothsayer,’ Kesar Kaur replied as Krishna’s infectious smile started to rub off on her.
‘Tell me, Maasi ji,’ Krishna continued with her questions. ‘Has Bhaji been writing poetry?’
‘It’s been quite a while since he’s written anything. But he used to write all kind of things when he was in college.’
‘How come you never mentioned this?’
‘Is this the kind of thing that must be mentioned?’ Kesar Kaur responded as she took the letter pad from her hand. Looking at it, she asked, ‘Has he written some kind of poem now?’
‘Oh, what a poem, Maasi ji. You will know only if you listen to it.’ Krishna’s gaze was fixed on the letter pad.
‘So why don’t you go ahead and read it to me,’ Kesar Kaur suggested, as she nudged the girl into her room and sat on her bed. ‘And here I was thinking that you’ve actually brought me some good news.’
‘So, that good news bit is something else.’
‘Why don’t you tell me that first. And we can listen to the poem after that.’
Keeping the pad in a corner, Krishna started, ‘I’d gone to upstairs to clean Bhaji’s room. He was asleep and his closet was open.’
‘Open?’ Kesar Kaur asked with a worried look. ‘And what about those items that I’d told you about? They weren’t there?’
‘No.’
‘That’s it, then. He must have taken them out for some misdeed.’
‘Please let me finish,’ Krishna smiled, as she continued. ‘As I’d mentioned, Bhaji didn’t seem too impressed with my arguments when he left home last morning. When I went up to clean his room, there was a strong odour in the bathroom. I looked around carefully and I could see traces of the red and white powders that you’d told me about. It was clear that Bhaji had poured them in the bathroom drain. And when I went to empty the garbage, I saw the broken and crushed glass dumped inside. After that, I came downstairs to look at the drain outside our house. Sure enough, you could see the residue of the powders that he had flushed down. Come, let me show you.’ She tugged at Kesar Kaur’s elbow and took her outside.
One look and Kesar Kaur’s doubts were allayed. She could not only see bits of powder sticking to the sides of the drain but could even make out the smell of potash.
Coming back to the room, Kesar Kaur hugged the girl and murmured, ‘God bless you, Krishna. And now let’s listen to the poem too.’
‘While cleaning his table, my eyes fell on this letter pad. I picked it up and started reading it.’
Holding the pad in in front of Kesar Kaur, she started, ‘The poem is titled “The Murderous Punjab”.’
Listening to the poem, Kesar Kaur felt a shiver run down her spine. She was happy that her son had turned away from a disastrous course and come back to his original path. But the power of his verses shook her to the very core.
‘There’s another short poem, Maasi ji,’ Krishna added as she flipped the page. It carried the title ‘If We Could Be One’, and Krishna proceeded to read it aloud.
The poem’s engaging tone, its thoughtful content and its stirring verses left them both speechless for several minutes. They wanted to applaud, to say something in praise of the poetry but words failed them.
Kesar Kaur was brimming with respect for the girl who had managed to persuade someone as determined and mulish as Satnam to come back to the straight and narrow. This was nothing short of a miracle. Without saying another word, she wrapped Krishna in a tight embrace while every pore of her body showered its blessings on the girl.
‘Let me go and wake him up,’ Kesar Kaur got up to take the stairs. Krishna held her arm and pulled her back. ‘Let him be, Maasi ji. He really needs the sleep.’
‘And how would you know that, Krishna?’ Kesar Kaur smiled.
Krishna opened her mouth to say, ‘How could I sleep when he was so restless.’ But she couldn’t get herself to utter those words. ‘I could hear him moving around all night,’ was all that she managed.
‘I must admit I also heard him use the handpump in the middle of the night,’ Kesar Kaur added in support.