Brass Scales

The winter sun was still hidden behind a blanket of fog when the town began waking, one sound at a time.

A small fire glowed at the street corner where a handful of men stood with shawls wrapped tightly around themselves, palms stretched towards the reluctant warmth. Their conversations rose in little bursts of white breath before disappearing into the mist. Beside one such gathering, a weathered transistor radio crackled through the morning news bulletin. The announcer's calm, measured voice drifted in and out with the static, while the men listened absently, interrupting it now and then with a comment of their own before turning back to the fire.

Municipal sweepers worked their long reed brooms across the empty streets with practised rhythm. Dust rose obediently from the road, only to dissolve into the morning fog, making it thicker still. A stray cow nosed through an overflowing rubbish pit, pausing now and then to inspect a discarded vegetable leaf before moving on. From inside modest brick houses came the familiar sounds of another day assembling itself: the hiss of cookers releasing steam, the clang of steel utensils, a mother calling out to a child still unwilling to leave the warmth of their quilt.

A blue Bajaj scooter emerged suddenly from the narrow bylane, its headlight cutting a pale tunnel through the white fog. The rider leaned on the horn at a wandering dog before disappearing around the bend, the fading drone of the engine lingering longer than the scooter itself.

Most of the market still slept behind rows of corrugated shutters streaked with faded advertisements for tea, soap and cooking oil. A few stray dogs lay curled against them, reluctant to surrender the warmth trapped in the concrete.

At the corner where the bazaar opened into a small square stood a grocery shop with a weathered wooden signboard above its entrance.

M/S DUNI CHAND SHARMA AND SONS
GENERAL MERCHANT

The gold lettering had faded over the years until it looked less painted than remembered.

A figure emerged quietly from the fog, a heavy ring of iron keys swinging from his fingers.

He neither hurried nor lingered. He walked with the measured pace of a man who had unlocked the same shop for so many winters that his hands knew the ritual better than his mind did.

He stopped before the shutter, chose the largest key without looking, slid it into the lock and turned it.

The padlock yielded with a familiar metallic click.

For a moment, the market held its breath.

Then the shutter groaned upward.

Another day had begun.

The shop exhaled the familiar scent of the winter morning.

Turmeric. Cloves. Red chilli powder. Jaggery. Loose tea. Mustard oil. Burlap sacks that had absorbed decades of grain and dust. It was a smell that clung to the wooden shelves and settled into the clothes of anyone who spent long enough behind the counter.

Duni Chand stood just inside the entrance for a moment as the pale winter light slowly entered behind him.

The shop had changed little over the years.

Glass jars lined the shelves behind the counter, filled with orange toffees, peppermints and colourful fennel beads. Tin boxes of biscuits were stacked neatly beside them. Gunny sacks of rice, wheat and lentils rested against the wall in uneven rows. Above them hung packets of shampoo, razor blades and washing powder, swaying gently in the morning breeze that wandered in from the street.

He picked up the old broom from behind the door and swept the floor in slow, deliberate strokes, drawing the dust towards the entrance before pushing it onto the street. The movement was slow, practised, almost unconscious.

The brass weighing scale came next.

He lifted it carefully from beneath the counter and placed it in the centre, adjusting its position until both pans hung perfectly still. He wiped the scales with a wet cloth and, one by one, he arranged the iron weights beside it in their familiar order: Five kilograms. Two kilograms. One kilogram. Five hundred grams. Two hundred grams. One hundred. He placed the fifty on the right pan of the scale.

Only then did he unlock the cash drawer.

A faint smile crossed his face as he found the small brass idol of Lakshmi tucked inside the cash drawer, exactly where it had always been. He touched it lightly with his fingertips before bringing them to his forehead and then to his chest. Then he lit two fresh incense sticks and carried them slowly around the shop, circling them before the shelves, then briefly over the cash drawer, before finally placing them beside the idol. A thin ribbon of smoke rose slowly, carrying with it the fragrance of sandalwood, mingling with the scent of spices until the shop smelled exactly as it had every morning for as long as he could remember.

Outside, the bazaar was finding its voice. Shutters rolled open, bhajans played from the Hanuman Mandir speaker, and a school rickshaw rumbled past with children packed shoulder to shoulder beneath woollen caps and mufflers. Across the street, the halwai lowered a fresh batch of jalebis into shimmering oil, their sweetness drifting into the shop where everything had found its place long ago. Inside the grocery shop, everything had found its place long ago.

The familiar tinkle of a bicycle bell stopped outside the shop.

A milkman stepped in, his aluminium cans still strapped to the carrier.

"Sharma ji, Namaste! Adhha kilo khand pa deo."

“Namaste, Santosh!” Duni Chand acknowledged.

He reached for the brass scale, placed the five-hundred-gram weight on one pan and poured sugar from the tin container in a steady white stream until the beam settled level.

"Hor kuch?"

"Saban, kapdeyan wala."

Duni Chand wrapped the sugar into a neat paper cone, slipped a blue washing soap bar into a packet and handed both across the counter.

Santosh, the milkman, counted out a few coins, tucked the parcels into the wire basket hanging from his bicycle and rode away.

Duni Chand counted the coins and carefully placed them in the cash drawer.

A young man in a woollen monkey cap ducked into the shop.

"Four buns, Uncle Ji."

Duni Chand lifted the wooden bread crate from beneath the counter, picked out four fresh buns and slipped them into a brown paper bag.

"Hor kuch, beta?"

The young man shook his head and placed a few crumpled notes on the counter. Duni Chand straightened each note carefully before slipping them into the cash drawer.

The young man picked up the bag and disappeared back into the bustle of the bazaar.

A few minutes later, an elderly Sikh man, almost Duni Chand's age, stepped into the shop. He paused just inside the entrance, buttoning the last button of his tweed coat and rubbing his hands together against the cold.

"Sat Sri Akal, Sharma ji."

"Sat Sri Akal, Baldev."

"You are early today."

Baldev smiled.

"Guests are coming."

Without another question, Duni Chand reached behind him and took down a packet of loose tea.

"How many?"

"Eight... maybe ten. You know how these things are."

Duni Chand scooped half a kilo of sugar into the brass pan.

"So, it is finally happening?"

Baldev's weathered face broke into a smile.

"Ranjeet nu vekhan aa rahe ne."

Duni Chand folded the sugar into a neat paper cone and reached for a packet of rusks.

"Just rusks?"

Baldev glanced at it and laughed.

Duni Chand paused, put them back on the shelf and picked up a tin of butter biscuits instead.

"At least pretend you want them to say yes."

Baldev chuckled.

"If they don't, these biscuits are coming straight back to your shelf."

"They won't."

"What makes you so sure?"

Duni Chand put everything into a paper bag and looked up.

"They're coming to see your daughter."

Baldev's smile softened.

"I hope Waheguru hears you."

Duni Chand placed the bag on the counter.

"He usually listens to fathers."

For a brief moment, neither man spoke.

Baldev reached into the inside pocket of his coat and placed a few folded notes on the counter. Duni Chand straightened each one before slipping them into the cash drawer.

"After all these years," Baldev said, "you still know what I need before I ask."

"If I forget this much," Duni Chand replied, "I may as well close the shop."

Baldev picked up the bag, tugged at his tweed coat and stepped back into the morning bustle.

Outside, somewhere down the street, a rickshaw puller called out for passengers.

Duni Chand returned the brass weights to their familiar places.

The newspaper hawker threw the day’s edition inside the shop entrance with a soft slap.

"Ajit!... Tribune!... Punjab Kesari!..."

His voice faded into the bazaar before anyone thought to answer.

Duni Chand bent down, picked up the folded newspaper and brushed away a trace of dust from its edge with the back of his hand.

He unfolded it carefully on the counter, smoothing the centre crease with his palm.

His eyes moved down the front page.

Then stopped.

Outside, the market paid no attention.

The vegetable seller argued over loose change.

An ice-cream cart parked itself near the electric pole.

The halwai lifted another batch of jalebis from the kadhai, shaking the excess syrup back into the pan.

Inside the shop, Duni Chand remained still.

Only his eyes moved once more across the headline.

He folded the newspaper exactly as he had found it and placed it beside the weighing scale.

For a long moment, his fingers rested lightly on it.

Then he withdrew his hand.

A customer entered.

"One kilo salt."

Duni Chand looked up.

"Haan ji."

He reached for the packet, collected the money, returned the change and watched the customer leave.

Only after the footsteps had faded did his eyes return, almost involuntarily, to the folded newspaper lying beside the scale.

From outside came the sound of hurried footsteps.

"Bauji!"

The voice carried excitement.

Before Duni Chand could look up, Raman appeared at the entrance, cheeks flushed from the cold, a woollen muffler loose around his neck and another newspaper tucked beneath his arm. He had called Duni Chand Bauji since boyhood, first because his own father did so, then because the name had settled naturally between them. He had grown up buying orange toffees from this counter, hiding behind the sacks of rice during games of hide-and-seek, and later, when he was old enough to feel grown, leaning against the doorframe and discussing cricket, politics and petrol prices with the confidence of a man who had discovered newspapers but not yet life.

"So early?" Duni Chand asked.

Raman smiled.

"Have you read today's paper?"

"I have seen it."

Raman pulled the newspaper out and spread it across the counter.

"They've finally done it."

Duni Chand said nothing.

"Five of them," Raman continued. "Police got them in an encounter last night."

His finger rested on the headline.

"They're saying these were the same fellows behind that train massacre."

He looked up, almost expecting approval.

"Good."

Duni Chand's eyes remained on the newspaper.

Outside, a hawker's cry cut through the morning noise. Someone called out for fresh coriander. The sweet smell of jalebis drifted in again with the cold air.

Raman leaned a little closer.

"They deserved it."

Duni Chand looked at Raman for a while. “How old do you think they were?”

Raman blinked. “Who?”

“These boys.”

“I do not know. Twenty, twenty-five maybe.”

“They were somebody’s age,” Duni Chand said.

Raman frowned, unsure whether this was agreement or correction.

“They were terrorists, Bauji.”

Another customer stepped in.

"Addha kilo moong dal."

Duni Chand carefully weighed the green lentils, packed them in a paper bag, placed the packet on the counter, collected the money and returned the change.

The customer left.

The interruption passed as naturally as breathing. Raman waited, folding and unfolding the corner of his newspaper.

When they were alone again, Duni Chand touched the folded newspaper lying beside the scale. “You remember that train?”

Raman’s face changed at once. “Who can forget?”

“People came here that day,” Duni Chand said, looking not at Raman now but at the entrance, as though the lane itself still held the shape of that afternoon. “So many people that there was no place to stand.

Raman looked up.

"Your father."

A pause.

"Baldev Singh."

Another.

"Master Kartar."

"Bhola, the postman."

"Doctor Puri."

"They all came."

He rested both palms lightly on the counter.

“They stood here, outside the shop, in the street, near the shutter, all speaking softly as if loud voices would make the news more true.” He paused, and in that pause the shop seemed to gather its older dust, its older light.

“My Harish was on that train, and little Monu”

The names, once spoken, altered the air more completely than the headline had done.

“They had been planning it for weeks,” Duni Chand said. “Harish kept reminding me which wholesalers might come while he was away, as if I had not run this shop before he was born. My bahu had folded Monu’s sweaters into a small blue bag, and Monu had packed his own things separately: one comic, two pencils, and the plastic whistle he had bought from the fair.”

Duni Chand was looking at the calendar with the shrine picture on the opposite wall.

“He wanted to see those mountains. He had drawn them in his school notebook, three triangles with snow on top, and told Sita that Mata’s temple must be somewhere behind the tallest one.” A small smile crossed his face, faint and uncertain.

The shop seemed to withdraw from the bazaar for a moment. The jars of toffees, biscuits and fennel beads stood in their places with the stillness of witnesses. On the wooden edge of the counter, faint marks made long ago with a pencil still recorded Monu’s height at five, then six, then six and a half, each line accompanied once by Harish’s laughing complaint that the boy was growing faster than the price of sugar. Duni Chand’s hand moved near those marks but did not touch them.

“I remember the whole bazaar closing,” Raman said. “My father came home before noon. He did not say anything. By afternoon, every shutter was down.”

“Your mother brought food for Sita that night,” Duni Chand said. “She had made dal, rice, as if people waiting for bodies could eat a proper meal. Sita would not touch anything. She kept saying they had only gone for darshan, that the prasad must be getting cold, that Harish would scold her if she did not keep tea ready. For three nights, she left the kitchen light on. Every sound at the gate made her sit up.”

Raman stood very still. He looked down at the newspaper, at the grainy black-and-white photographs printed beneath the headline. A few minutes ago, they had seemed like proof. Now they looked merely young, blurred, badly printed, almost interchangeable with the faces of boys one might see at a bus stand, in a college courtyard, in a marriage party dancing to the dhol.

“I hated them,” Duni Chand said suddenly.

Raman looked up.

“For months,” the old man continued. “Maybe longer. Every morning I opened the newspaper hoping to read that another one had been caught, another one had been killed, another one had been found in a field or near a canal or behind some wall. I used to count them in my head. One less, I would tell myself. One less.” He gave a dry, almost embarrassed laugh.

“I thought hatred would reduce something. I thought if enough men died, the weight inside my chest would become lighter.”

He folded Raman’s newspaper once, then opened it again, smoothing the crease with unnecessary care.

“But Harish did not return. Monu did not come running in for orange toffees. Sita did not get well. The shop opened every morning, the shutters rose, people bought salt and tea and atta, but my house had stopped hearing its own sounds.”

Outside, a group of young ragpickers passed through the street, gunny bags bumping against their backs, one of them dragging a stick along the shutter of a closed shop until a shopkeeper shouted at him. They ran, laughing. Duni Chand watched them go with an expression that was neither grief nor affection, but something older, something that had learnt to stand at a distance from both.

“When people came here after the train,” he said, “they said innocent Hindus had suffered.”

He rested his palm on the newspaper.

“They meant well. They had come out of love. But tell me, beta…what Hindu? What Sikh?” Duni Chand said quietly.

“The mandir opened the next morning. The bells rang. People folded their hands before the same gods. The gurdwara opened too. The kirtan did not stop. They lost nothing.”

He looked at Raman, his voice still calm, almost ordinary. “I lost my son. My bahu lost her husband and her child in the same breath. Sita lost her reason to live. My Monu lost all the years that were waiting for him.”

“That day, my house suffered. Today, somewhere else, five other houses will.”

Raman swallowed, but said nothing. His fingers had tightened around the edge of the newspaper, leaving a faint crease across one of the photographs. He loosened his grip slowly, as if only then noticing what his hand had done.

“But if they were the ones…” Raman began and stopped.

“I am not telling you they were innocent”, Duni Chand replied.

He pushed the paper gently back towards Raman. “Be careful, beta. A man gets used to being happy at death. He does not even know when it has entered him.”

Raman looked at the old man and lowered his eyes. The newspaper lay between them, its headline already beginning to smudge where his thumb had rested

Then a woman entered and asked for half a kilo of rice. Duni Chand turned towards the rice container, took a scoop of the grain, and poured rice into the pan until the scale balanced. His hands had returned to their morning rhythm. He instinctively placed the fifty-gram weight on the right pan as she left.

Raman stood for a few moments longer, the folded newspaper hanging loosely from his hand.

Before he could leave, there was a sudden commotion across the lane. Someone called out near the halwai’s shop, then another voice rose above it, older, fuller, unable to keep its happiness contained within itself.

“Sharma ji!”

Baldev Singh came through the bustle almost at a run, his tweed coat half-buttoned, his turban slightly loosened, one hand holding a small cardboard box from the halwai. For a man of his age, he moved with surprising speed, apologising to no one as he crossed the lane between a cycle rickshaw and the blue scooter that had returned and was now coughing smoke near the corner. His face had changed completely from the careful, worried face with which he had entered the shop that morning.

“Sharma ji, munh mitha karo,” he said, stepping into the shop before his breath had settled. “They have agreed. The match is fixed.”

For a second, Duni Chand only looked at him. The words seemed to arrive from a different morning, from some other town where newspapers did not carry photographs of dead boys and houses did not go silent after pilgrimages. Then Baldev opened the box with trembling fingers, took out a laddoo, and before Duni Chand could protest, pushed it gently into his mouth.

“Eat, eat,” he said, laughing. “This is your doing. Butter biscuits. Not rusks. See? Waheguru listens to fathers, you said. And He did”

The laddoo was fresh from the halwai, still faintly warm, fragrant with ghee and cardamom. Its sweetness filled Duni Chand’s mouth so suddenly that he had to lower his eyes. For a moment, he could not chew. Across the counter, Raman watched him in brief silence.

Duni Chand swallowed slowly and placed his hand on Baldev’s shoulder.

“Bahut mubarakaan, Baldev,” he said. “May she remain happy.”

Baldev’s smile softened. Perhaps, having lived long enough beside Duni Chand’s shop, he knew that some words travelled through old wounds before reaching the mouth. He stepped forward and embraced him, the box of laddoos pressed awkwardly between them, his cheek resting for a moment against Duni Chand’s shoulder.

Outside, the bazaar continued in its usual confusion. The halwai shouted for someone to bring more sugar syrup. The vegetable seller rearranged his carrots. Somewhere, the rickshaw bell sounded, thin and distant.

Inside the shop, Raman folded his newspaper carefully. The faces on the front page disappeared into the crease. He did not say anything.

Baldev released Duni Chand and turned to him with the open box.

“Lao, puttar. You also.”

Raman hesitated, then took a laddoo.

For a moment, the three of them stood together in the little grocery shop, surrounded by sacks of rice and lentils, tins of biscuits, orange toffees, incense smoke, brass weights, old dust, and the fading smell of winter fog. Above them, the signboard outside still said M/S DUNI CHAND SHARMA AND SONS, though the sons were gone and the shop had long ago learnt to open without them.

Duni Chand wiped his fingers on the edge of a cloth and returned the brass weights to their place.

“Baldev,” he said, his voice steady again, “take one more box. The bazaar will not be satisfied with just one laddoo.”

Baldev laughed, loud enough for the sound to reach the street.

Raman looked once more at the folded newspaper in his hand. Then he placed it quietly on the empty brass pan opposite the fifty-gram weight.

The pan dipped, rose slightly, and came to rest.

Raman stood there for a moment. Then he stepped out into the street.