This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach by Yashpal Read Free Book Online Page A

ordered to wear her hair in a single braid. She had to keep her head covered when she went outside the house. She wanted to wear a fitted kameez that showed her waist, a shalwar that was wide at the ankles, and cover her head with a dupatta of gossamer-fine cloth, but she was made to wear a loose, shapeless kameez and a shalwar that tapered at the ankles, and she was given a dupatta made of thick cloth. Everybody else in the gali always sang film songs and ghazals, but in Masterji’s house that was forbidden. However, after Tara enrolled in college, family control over her was relaxed as well.
    Sometimes Tara thought that her father’s discipline and rules were too stringent, but then she worried that her own inclinations might be sinful, and she would check her thoughts. In the company of her classmates andfriends in the Federation she came to understand that she didn’t have to feel guilty about her preferences and tastes. She began to acquire a sense of self-respect. Sometimes she sat in restaurants with Zubeida, Asad or Zuber, and felt the satisfaction of freedom from meaningless conventions, because she was eating and drinking in the company of a Muslim. Conversing without embarrassment or walking with one of the boys in the group, she had a feeling of equality and self-confidence. But in her gali, Tara continued to behave as before, out of deference to her father and the neighbours. In college, that kind of behaviour seemed ludicrous.

Chapter 2
    JAIDEV PURI WAS IN THE SECOND YEAR OF HIS MA IN 1943 WHEN HE WAS arrested and sent to prison for taking part in the anti-war movement. He was distraught at the thought of not being able to help his family face the hardships of wartime, but he could not let pass this sacrifice for the freedom of his country. He was convinced that he would soon gain his freedom in a free India, where his troubles would also end along with the woes of the motherland.
    Puri made good use of the time spent in Multan Jail. Before his imprisonment, his ambition had been to apply for the position of a lecturer in some college after passing the MA exam with first division, and to earn a name as a writer. His literary talent had impressed his friends. In his student days, he had published essays, full of sentimental pathos, and some short stories in several magazines in Lahore. While other political prisoners spent time massaging themselves with oil and cooking food smuggled into the prison, Puri read and wrote. He would read his own writings with a critical eye, and rewrite them. In the close to two years he spent in the prison, he had finished a collection of short stories after rewriting and polishing them several times. This work, he hoped, would help launch his literary career.
    Puri was released from prison in the second week of May 1945. An irony of fate, his freedom was not due to the success of the August 1942 revolution in India and the ouster of British rulers, but in celebration of the victory of Britain and its allies in the Second World War. Even with the country still under the British yoke, Puri was happy and relieved to be out of prison.
    Though he had missed his family and worried about them, he had few worries of his own in the prison. Food and clothing were not all that great, but they were provided free. Political prisoners did not suffer any shortages of food or clothing. But on his return he found that the family’s circumstances had changed in his absence.
    Puri had been back home for three days when his mother said to him, with some hesitation, ‘Your father has to do some tutoring after school. I can’t stand in the queue at the ration shop with the baby in my arms. Can’task Tara; there are all sorts of people in that crowd. Usha too has grown up. Can you get a rupee’s worth of sugar? The bazaar rate is a rupee and a half for a seer.’
    To stand in that queue for nearly two hours was tormenting for Puri. He, who was ready to make any sacrifice for his country, had to