THE WATCHMAN

THERE was still a faint splash of red on the western horizon. The watchman stood on
the tank bund and took a final survey. All the people who had come for evening walks
had returned to their homes. Not a soul anywhere except that obstinate angler, at the
northern end, who sat with his feet in water, sadly gazing on his rod. It was no
use bothering about him : he would sit there till
midnight, hoping for a catch.
The Taluk office gong struck nine. The watchman was satisfied that no trespassing
cattle had sneaked in through the wire fencing. As he turned to go, he saw, about a
hundred yards away, a shadowy figure moving down the narrow stone steps that led to
the water's edge. He thought for a second that it might be a ghost. He dismissed the
idea, and went up to investigate. If it was anyone come to bathe at this hour. . . .
From the top step he observed that it was a woman's form. She stooped over the last
step and placed something on it possibly a letter. She then stepped into knee-deep
water, and stood there, her hands pressed together in prayer. Unmistakable signs
always to be followed by the police and gruesome details, bringing the very worst
possible reputation to a tank.
He shouted, " Come out, there, come out of it"
The form looked up from the water. " Don't stand there and gaze. You'll catch a cold,
come up whoever you are . . ." He raced down the steps and picked up the letter. He
hurriedly lit his lamp, and turned its wick, till it burnt brightly, and held it up, murmuring :
" I don't like this. Why is everyone coming to the same tank ? If you want to be dead,
throw yourself under an engine," he said.
The light fell upon the other's face. It was a young girl's, wet with tears. He felt a
sudden pity. He said, " Sit down, sit down and rest . . . no, no ... go up two more steps
and sit down. Don't sit so near the water . . ." She obeyed. He sat down on the last step
between her and the water, placed the lantern on the step, took out a piece of tobacco
and put it in his mouth. She buried her face in her hands, and began to sob. He felt
troubled and asked : " Why don't you rise and go home, lady ? "
She sputtered through her sob : " I have no home in this world ! "
" Don't tell me ! Surely, you didn't grow up without a home all these years ! " said the
watchman.
" I lost my mother when I was five years old " she said.
" I thought so . . ." replied the watchman, and added, " and your father married again
and you grew up under the care of your step-mother ? "
" Yes, yes, how do you know ? " she asked.
" I am sixty-five years old," he said and asked : " Did your step-mother trouble you ? "
" No, there you are wrong," the girl said. " She is very kind to me. She has been
looking after me ever since my father died a few years ago. She has just a little money
on hand left by my father, and she spends it on us."
The watchman looked at the stars, sighed for the dinner that he was missing. " It's very
late, madam, go home."
" I tell you I've no home " she retorted angrily.
" Your step-mother's house is all right from what you say. She is good to you."
" But why should I be a burden to her ? Who am I ? "
"You are her husband's daughter " the watchman said, and added, " that is enough
claim."
" No no. I won't live on anybody's charity."
" Then you will have to wait till they find you a husband "
She glared at him in the dark. " That's what I do not want to do. I want to study and
become a doctor and earn my livelihood. I don't want to marry. I often catch my mother
talking far into the night to her eldest son, worrying about my future, about my
marriage. I know they cannot afford to keep me in college very long now ; it costs
about twenty rupees a month."
" Twenty rupees ! " The watchman exclaimed. It was his month's salary. " How can
anybody spend so much for books ! "
" Till today," she said, " I was hoping that I would get a scholarship. That would have
saved me. But this evening they announced ; others have got it, not I. My name is not
there " and she broke down again.
The watchman looked at her in surprise. He comprehended very little of all this
situation. She added : " And when they come to know of this, they will try to arrange my
marriage. Someone is coming to have a look at me tomorrow "
" Marry him and may God bless you with ten children."
" No, no," she cried hysterically. " I don't want to marry. I want to study."
The silent night was stabbed by her sobbing and some night bird rustled the water, and
wavelets beat upon the shore. Seeing her suffer, he found his own sorrows in life came
to his mind ; how in those far-off times, in his little village home an epidemic of cholera
laid out his father and mother and brothers on the same day, and he was the sole
survivor ; how he was turned out of his ancestral home through the trickery of his
father's kinsmen, and he wandered as an orphan, suffering indescribable hunger and
privation.
" Everyone has his own miseries," he said. " If people tried to kill themselves for each
one of them, I don't know how often they would have to drown."
He remembered further incidents and his voice shook with sorrow. " You are young
and you don't know what sorrow is ..." He remained silent and a sob broke out of him
as he said : " I prayed to all the gods in the world for a son. My wife bore me eight
children. Only one daughter lives now, and none of the others saw the eleventh year ."
The girl looked at him in bewilderment.
The Taluk office gong struck again. " It is late, you had better get up and go home " he
said.
She replied : " I have no home."
He felt irritated. " You are making too much of nothing. You should not be obstinate "
" You don't know my trouble," she said.
He picked up his lantern and staff and got up. He put her letter down where he found it.
" If you are going to be so obstinate I'll leave you alone. No one can blame me." He
paused for a moment, looked at her, and went up the steps ; not a word passed
between them again.
The moment he came back to duty next morning, he hurried down the stone steps. The
letter lay where he had dropped it on the previous night. He picked it up and gazed on
it, helplessly, wishing that it could tell him about the fate of the girl after he had left her.
He tore it up and flung it on the water. As he watched the bits float off on ripples, he
blamed himself for leaving her and going away on the previous night.
" I am responsible for at least one suicide in this tank," he often remarked to himself.
He could never look at the blue expanse of water again with an easy mind. Even many
months later he could not be certain that the remains of a body would not come up all
of a sudden. " Who knows, it sometimes happens that the body gets stuck deep down,"
he reflected.
Years later, one evening as he stood on the bund and took a final survey before going
home, he saw a car draw up on the road below. A man, a woman, and three children
emerged from the car and climbed the bund. When they approached, the watchman
felt a start at his heart ; the figure and face of the woman seemed familiar to him.
Though altered by years, and ornaments, and dress, he thought that he had now
recognized the face he had once seen by the lantern light. He felt excited at this
discovery. He had numerous questions to ask. He brought together his palms and
saluted her respectfully. He expected she would stop and speak to him. But she merely
threw at him an indifferent glance and passed on. He stood staring after her for a
moment, baffled. " Probably this is someone else,' he muttered and turned to go home,
resolving to dismiss the whole episode from his mind.