Ten Inches Of Land; (English Short Story)
Author: Deepak Budki
Translator: Jawahar Lal Bhat
Money, Land, and Women are the roots of all
troubles, thus goes an old adage. In the present context, the issue is land and
that too just about ten inches in width. You will surely be astonished how a
piece of land as little as ten inches can be the cause of a major dispute? To
know the truth, please bear with me and follow me to the end.
The story is about two cousins, Gidhari Lal and
Jawahar Lal, who lived in two adjacent houses inherited from common ancestors.
Both the houses were more than a century old, built with mud and old tile-like
bricks called Maharaja bricks in local parlance. The walls of the houses had
weathered and dilapidated with time and a lot of dust had settled in the crevices
while the thatched roofs bound by mud had mosses and wild herbs growing on them.
They had decayed and cracked at many places and leaked during rains and
snowfall. In the olden days there used to be an entry gate on the backside of
Jawahar Lal's house on the ground floor which directly opened onto the back
lane but with the passage of time the house slowly sunk into the ground and on the
other hand level of the lane kept gradually rising during successive repairs
leaving no traces of the gate whatsoever. The ground floor turned into an underground basement for storage of winter fuel. Though there was a large
courtyard in front of the house yet it was never used because the exit point
belonged to the cousin. On the contrary, access to the house of Girdhari Lal
was from the front side which opened in his courtyard and was connected directly
to the front lane leading to the road. However there were no walls built, no
barriers installed. After the main inbuilt gate of the house of Jawahar Lal
became nonexistent, the inmates of his house had no other way to come in or go
out of their house except through the corner of Girdhari Lal's courtyard which
over a period of time became a thoroughfare. The very thought that his private
land was being used as a thoroughfare made Girdhari Lal feel ill at ease.
To overcome his inner strife he would often
announce with pride that the entire land that extended up to the front lane
belonged to him and he would be within his right to stop its usage by anyone
except his own family. Interestingly in the heart of hearts, he was aware that
given an opportunity he would not be able to do so since long usage of the land
for trespass had legally jeopardized his right to its ownership. People had in
fact forgotten that the land belonged to anyone yet Girdhari Lal would not let
his ownership be questioned.
Notwithstanding the present conflict had arisen
as a result of something else. To be honest it takes no time for a new issue to
crop up between neighbors, be it individuals or countries. Luckily Girdhari Lal
enjoyed considerable prosperity in terms of money and other fortunes so the
envy of neighbors was a natural outcome. Had he been a citizen of some western
country he would have taken his wife and children on tours around the world
showing them different interesting places besides enjoying his holidays on
distant seashores but eastern traditions only coaxed him to fill his coffers
so that his children and grandchildren do not face any difficulties in future.
It is a tragedy that in the east we spend our lifetime only thinking about the
security of our future generations. Our special concerns center around making
good houses, acquiring vehicles for movement, arranging for lavish marriages of
sons and daughters, and if age further permits, cherishing the desire to see
our grandchildren grow up and get happily married. With such a cultural background, going on tours and travels is regarded as a mere wastage of time and
money. Girdhari Lal also followed the same tradition meticulously. As a first
step, he planned to reconstruct his house. The intention seemed more to show off
his wealth before his neighbors especially his cousin than to make himself
comfortable with a house provided with all modern amenities of life.
The municipal laws of this city are strange. If
you want to rebuild your house after dismantling the old structure, you have to
part with almost one-fourth of the plot of your land by surrendering additional
margins alongside roads or lanes bordering your plot. Under the law, you have to
provide at least ten feet wide space on every side facing adjoining lane or road
which means a major chunk of your land is gone. But human ingenuity knows no
bounds. To save one's precious land, people rebuild their dilapidated houses by
parts starting from the ground floor without dismantling the whole structure. It is
a great feat worth watching how the whole project is executed. First, only the
ground floor is dismantled while the rest of the building is supported by
numerous wooden props. The dismantled floor is reconstructed without disturbing
the upper floors until it touches the old structure. The upper floors remain
intact on props till the ground floor is reconstructed to support it again.
Then after waiting for some months, preferably till onset of the favorable season,
the first floor, in turn, is dismantled in a similar manner as the ground floor
and is rebuilt after supporting the second floor on wooden props. The whole
process is repeated until the entire house is rebuilt. As per law this process comes
under the purview of renovation of the old structure and cannot be termed as new
construction. And this is how intelligent people escape the dragnet of
law.
Girdhari Lal also followed the same procedure for
rebuilding his ancestral house. When he started reconstruction of the ground
floor, many an eyebrow was raised in the neighborhood. The adjoining walls
of two houses of the cousins had initially been kissing each other with no gap
in between but with the passage of time and tilting of walls due to movements of the earth during the past century a narrow cleft of about ten inches wide had appeared
in between them. The issue, therefore, arose as to which of the two walls had
tilted to one side and the gap created and who should be deemed as the real
owner of this space. The mason used a plumb line to straighten the wall being
reconstructed which narrowed the gap. After observing the mason was trying to
take in the ten inches gap on his side, Jawahar Lal flared up and raised a big
ruckus, “You cannot usurp this space which is legally mine. It has been created
because the wall of my house has leaned the other way, so it belongs to me. I
won’t allow it.”
“This space is created because our wall is
inclined, so nobody can stop me from raising the wall,” Girdhari Lal rebuffed
and signaled his mason to continue his work. In fact, it was very difficult to
judge immediately whose wall had sloped sideways and created this gap. Even
expert masons could not say it with certainty who among the two had a right on
this space. Since the space created in between the walls was not a significant
one, just ten inches wide to be exact, a bit of understanding and goodwill from
both sides could have easily solved the problem through negotiations but both
sides were hell-bent upon making it an issue and showing each other down. Thus
a small affair snowballed into a big dispute.
In no time the women of the two households joined
the melee and raised great hue and cry by abusing each other at a very high
pitch. This was followed by men who too joined their womenfolk and used most
foul swearing words against their rivals. Such was the display of their moral
degradation from both sides that the expletives exchanged included dirtiest
vilifications targeting each other's daughters who the other day were treated
as their own kith and kin. Jawahar Lal collected many influential people of the
vicinity to protest against the high handedness of his cousin Girdhari Lal but
could not get any favorable decision. On the other hand, Girdhari Lal was
confident of the power of his muscle and money so he directed the masons to
continue their work without fear. He employed the masons overnight paying them
handsomely and ensured that the wall was raised in full before sunrise because
he apprehended that Jawahar Lal might get a stay order from the court early
next day.
Jawahar Lal braved the shock anyhow but was soon
overcome by serious restlessness so much so that his nights passed without
sleep and days without rest. After a few days, he suddenly woke up with a novel
idea that would settle the issue in his favor for all times to come. He
immediately went out of his house and purchased some digging tools from the
market. The same night he started digging a hole in his own wall on the first floor
which was adjacent to Girdhari Lal’s wall. His kitchen was there and he
directed the exhaust pipe of his kitchen through this hole to make it into a
chimney. The neighbors especially Girdhari Lal had to bear the brunt of the deafening sound of the strikes of hammers and pickaxes throughout the night.
Girdhari Lal kept wondering what was going on but was helpless. He could not
make out the reason and purpose of the noise. Before the morning twilight, Jawahar Lal engaged a mason to permanently fix the exhaust pipe of the chimney
so as to direct the smoke through the hole into the gap between the two houses.
As Girdhari Lal woke up he was astonished to see the smoke coming out through
the space between two houses. He soon understood the trick played by his cousin
who had directed the chimney outlet through the gap between the two houses as a
permanent measure. He raised loud protests but they had no effect on Jawahar
Lal. Here again, the law was exploited for personal gain. According to the
existing laws, now that chimney had become a permanent feature, a mandatory two
feet gap had to be left for free exhaust of the chimney smoke while raising the
first floor and second-floor walls on that side unless the court declared the
chimney to be illegal.
Simultaneously Jawahar Lal got a stay order from
the court of law restricting Girdhari Lal from making any further additions or
alterations in his house till such time the case is decided. Girdhari Lal had
to stop all work since he could not even lay an additional brick on his house
which he had started with great zeal and enthusiasm. Ten years passed by and no
decision came from the court on this issue. The partially rebuilt house of
Girdhari Lal presented a pitiable sight like a paralyzed organism. There was no
way out visible in the near future. The hostility between the two cousins
related by blood continued with ill will and bitterness growing every passing
day on both sides. Whenever the two cousins or their family members crossed one
another by chance somewhere on the roadside or market or temple they preferred
to turn their faces the other way though out of curiosity would look at one
another with oblique glances. Nobody would attend any important event in
another's house, good or bad, such as birthdays, marriages, or even occurrences of
death. Cousins of yesterday related by blood had turned foes of today and the
reason for this hostility was just ten inches of land.
******
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