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A Tale of Turmoil and Trials
Rabinder Atwal’s
Do Desh— Ik Kahani
Dr. Jaspal Singh
 Rabinder
Singh Atwal has been living in California for decades now. He has
seen scores of Punjabi families moving to America, settling and
disintegrating over a period of time. This process of alienation and
integration of the Punjabi community in this part of the world has
been waiting for a narrative treatment for a long time. No doubt,
the tale of the migration of a community from its native environment
to an alien set up is always full of trials and tribulations that in
literature usually gives birth to narratives of epic proportions. So
thematically Atwal’s raw material has all the ingredients of being
an epical novel, yet the end result slightly falls short of that. In
spite of this, he has been able to spin extremely interesting yarn,
weaving it into a mosaic of melodious modulations that engage the
reader for hours together.
The story begins
from a small hamlet Rajpur which is a family fief of Balram Singh, a
feudal lord with direct link with the sovereign of the kingdom.
Balram has three sons all of whom are officers in the state and
comfortably settled in the capital city. The lands in the village
are looked after by Balram himself who has scores of tenants as
tillers. There are about forty families of Gill Jatts who cultivate
the land as tenants. In addition there are a few families of service
providers like carpenters, barbers and weavers. Balram Singh is
treated like God and only he owns a huge bricked fort-like structure
visible from a distance in the village. All the other inhabitants
have mud houses where they live like menials along with their
animals. Balram Singh lives in his fort with his wife ( Sardarni)
and his daughter Harjinder (Beebaji) helped by dozens of servants
and slaves. As bad luck would have it Harjinder grows up as an
extremely heavy, tall and ugly woman whom nobody from the landed
aristocracy would accept as a wife. Consequently, her marriage is
proposed to a forty year old widower who looked sixty because of his
bad habits and excessive drinking. Harjinder has heard of this scum
of the landed aristocracy whom she decides never to marry. Instead
she takes a fancy to the village Gurdwara priest’s son Mohan Singh,
a tall handsome boy who works as a tailor and a harmonium player in
the Gurdwara. She somehow manages to meet Mohan and against his will
elopes with him. They reach Goa which at that time is a Portuguese
territory and eventually they are able to secure jobs on a ship.
Harjinder in the guise of Maria is employed as a cook and kitchens
cleaner while Mohan as Salvador becomes a coolie. This ship carries
cargo for Africa, Europe and even America depending on the
assignment.
These are War days. After Pearl Harbor America also joins the Second
World War against Axis Powers. Therefore, the movement of ships in
the Pacific becomes extremely dangerous. By this time, Harjinder
becomes pregnant and most of the sailors are laid off, since sailing
is no longer viable. Both Mohan and Harjinder decide to get off the
ship at San Francisco and get lost in the country. As soon as they
get the landing permit and venture into the city they are sent to
Yuba City by a sympathizer where they are employed as farm hands by
an old Japanese couple. These Japanese farmers are very considerate
and gentle towards them and when the US government hauls up in camps
all the Japanese living in the US as a consequence of war against
Japan, the old Japanese couple is forced to leave the farm in the
care of Mohan and Harjinder who honestly deposit the due lease money
in the bank account of their benefactors. After the War, the
Japanese farmers return to their home, but soon the mistress of the
house dies and the old farmer in disappointment too decides to go to
Japan, his native land while leasing out the farm to Mohan Singh.
After a couple of years, the farmer too dies and he wills the farm
in the name of Mohan Singh if he pays a few thousand dollars to his
legal heirs viz. his two doctor sons still working in the USA.
The real plot of
the novel is scaffolded on this foundation. Mohan and Harjinder work
hard and in course of time are blessed with two sons and two
daughters. The elder son Gurbax works with his father in the farm
while the younger one finds a job in a store ow ned
by a white man where eventually he marries his only daughter. After
the death of the white man, Harbax (the younger son) becomes the
owner of a successful business, multiplying it as the time passes.
The elder daughter of the family is married to a boy imported from
India but this marriage proves to be a disaster in a couple of
years. This girl goes astray and becomes a drug addict, loafing her
life away in the city.
The chance meeting with Veena at San Francisco Airport intensifies
the plot of the novel. Mohan Singh brings the hapless girl to his
farm house who in course of time becomes intimate with him. As Veena
finds a job in the city, Mohan Singh hires an apartment for her near
her place of work and starts visiting her every other day. They fall
in love with each other and the family at once gets the wind of it.
Mohan Singh is rudely hauled over the coals and even thrashed by his
elder son. As a consequence, he gets a stroke and becomes bedridden
to be nursed by his younger daughter Rano. Rano is a university
student where she falls in love with Harpreet, a boy from the Saini
caste. The family out rightly rejects her proposal since they
proudly declare that their Jatt caste pedigree is impeccable. But
Rano is adamant. Harjinder, her mother also sides with her elder son
who is the worst opponent of an inter-caste marriage. Meanwhile
Veena’s son Rohini by Mohan Singh arrives after the death of his
mother in an accident. As a younger brother, Rano takes his
responsibility. Now Rano has to take care of two helpless creatures
in the house viz. Mohan Singh and his illegitimate son, Rohini.
These developments become the cause of worst type of turbulence in
the family. The elder daughter of the family has already gone far on
the bad ways, the old man is scandalized for siring an illegitimate
child at the age of sixty five, the younger son of the family
marries a white girl and is totally indifferent to them and the
younger daughter Rano is bent upon marrying a boy out of her own
caste. No traditional family can quietly take such a turn of events.
At this critical juncture, a new character is introduced in the
family. It is Parmveer who actually is a nephew of Harjinder, the
mistress of the house. He has taken admission in some University in
California and by chance finds his paternal aunt here in Yuba City.
Parmveer’s identity is revealed only to the old woman. She
meticulously keeps it as a secret but is able to learn everything
about her parental family from the boy. Her father and mother are
dead long ago in utter humiliation after the elopement of their
daughter with a low caste boy Mohan whose father, the village
priest, they get mercilessly killed. The huge fort like mansion in
the village is in ruins. After the independence of India in 1947,
the family lands become the property of tenant tillers. Harjinder is
rudely shaken by such a turn of events and is very repentant for
causing so much pain to everybody. She now realizes about the plight
of her husband and her daughter Rano. When she starts sympathizing
with the sick old man, her younger daughter and Rohini, she is
rudely pulled up and bad mouthed by her elder son Gurbax. In utter
desperation she then decides to spill the family beans. She calls
every member of the family and makes them sit beside her and
narrates them her long tale of trials and tribulations which is full
of unspeakable pain and pathos. When the family learns that they are
sons and daughters of a “low caste” tailor and are born out of
wedlock since Harjinder never formally married Mohan Singh, they are
all shocked, most of all the elder son who always carries the
burden of a bloated ego of being a proud Jatt from a family of
landed aristocrats. This denouement is followed by a long discourse
by Parmveer on the irrelevance of caste and races in the modern
world. This realization is followed by resolution and a harmonious
family reunion.
The entire
storyline takes the typical Proppian course. It begins with
adversity and alienation, goes through settlement pangs followed by
turmoil and interplay of opposing forces which are neutralized by a
helper in the person of Parmveer. The immanent plot is laid bare by
Harjinder and all the loose ends are deftly woven into a pattern
leading to realization and resolution. The narrative style is
engaging and one feels like finishing the novel in one sitting.
Besides being a socially aware person, Atwal is a good story teller.
The publishers Parteek Publication, Patiala (India) have been a
little careless in editing and proofreading. On the whole, the
entire discourse is a good sensitive yarn that may stoop to
sentimentalism at places, yet evoking genuine emotions towards the
end to which the reader responds with warm feelings about
situations, events and characters.
26
September, 2007
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