by Vikas Khanna
In the beginning, Choti had hoped to be able to practice her tight-rope-walking in the limbs of the tree, but beneath its traditional veneer, this cop’s gym was no ordinary akhara—it was the wrestling pit where all of Raja’s cops who “served” the ghats competed with one another to become the ultimate physical specimens of mankind, potbellies notwithstanding.
Now safely in her sky-nest, Choti looked around the innards of the massive tree that sheltered her, its leafy branches seeming to multiply and spread out forever, and through that forever, she watched the ever-changing moon. What could be better than one forever multiplied by another forever? Choti thought.
Somedays she was haunted by the dead, other days she was haunted by the living, and still other days she just dwelled with no particular feeling, above the backyard gym of the police station in a tree where bats often woke her in the morning with their high-pitched squeals that only a few creatures can even hear. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Choti was one such creature and she had to admit, she too had become very much like a bat—fortunately because, being a night-dweller, she could welcome the rising sun and witness how the always dancing waters of Ganga showered the dawn sky with the colors reflecting across her surface; and unfortunately, because she always got less sleep than anyone else she knew.
As she toiled during the day, knocking on car windows for money, Choti always wondered why the world seemed to be going blind to those who deserved the widest-open eyes.
In all her tamashas, high or low, Choti had been no reclusive nocturnal bird, she was as highly visible as a peacock or a Bollywood celebrity, but at the same time she didn’t exist at all. When night fell, the truth of things seemed to appear, especially the truth of her invisibility. And that’s the way she preferred it. At night, all Choti wished for was to be invisible, mostly because she feared Ganga’s dark side.
What Choti identified most with, and probably why she named her tiny dwelling the “sky-nest,” were the caged songbirds she would, when she had earned enough rupees, occasionally buy just so she could set them free. She wanted to witness them once again flutter their wings and spread their songs into the world. But she wasn’t naïve. Not at all. Because afterwards she would sell the empty cages back to the vendors to get part of her investment in the birds’ liberation back. In Choti’s diminutive chest, beat the heart of a freedom fighter. All she dreamed of was to be just like the free, singing bird, though she had already learned the hard way that such freedom came with the constant threat of predators.
The biggest challenge to Choti’s sky-nest peace was the early-morning potbellied-police-officers’ exercise regimen. She found it ridiculous, their shouting and chest-puffing as they ribbed each other, attempting to display their power and camaraderie. The cops’ traditional manner of dress, Choti found even more ridiculous, so ridiculous she had once nearly fallen off her perch thinking about it. The cops wrapped their potbellies with a long strip of red cloth, which they first wrapped around their genitals then around their hips like a diaper. And they wore nothing else!
Choti couldn’t help staring at the sight of the sweating, almost naked, exercising cops as they rolled around the clay-and-sand surface, wrestling and grunting, as they hoisted their weights of concrete and wood, or generally showed-off by flexing their muscles—that made their potbellies stick out even more—but it was always through the gaps of the fingers she had spread across her face out of shame. The potbellied police herd would sometimes corral themselves into their gym as early as 4:30 am. They were truly annoying, but the obnoxious grunts they emitted along with their taut breaths in and taut breathes out had become Choti’s alarm clock, and she had learned to wake up silently enough to avoid detection.
Choti didn’t collect many things. Why would she? She never knew when she might suddenly be made to leave. One thing she did keep, her prized possession, was her battered, one-eyed teddy bear. Before she had met Anarkali, her dirty teddy, even with one eye missing and cotton wool stuffing oozing out of the ripped seams, had become her best friend, like the sibling she never had, like Chintu who had vanished from her life. She had found it while sorting through the garbage outside Manikarnika.
One night she had rolled over in her sleep, pushed by a dream, and dropped her teddy into the gym yard. When she woke the next day, she saw that the cops were tearing it apart and yelping like a pack of hungry guard dogs.
This, Choti could not let go so easily.
Later that day, while begging on the Chowk, she stole some red chilli powder from a spice vendor. When she returned to the gym after the cops had left for the day, she snuck across the gym and rubbed the burning powder all over their red-ribbon-thongs. She was so excited about her sweet-spicy revenge the next morning that she couldn’t sleep. Choti knew the churlish cops would only blame it on one another. It was probably something one of them, if they were ever clever enough to, would have done to the rest of his cohorts sometime anyway.
The next morning, soon after her grunting alarm clock went off, Choti delighted in watching the huge potbellied men half-dressed and clutching themselves in their streaming, burning-hot red diapers, racing toward the Ganga to cool off their genitals. The scene was almost worth losing her teddy over, but Choti released not one laugh. She couldn’t afford the risk.
More disturbing than the irritating sound of the cops’ early morning routine was the sound of Raja and his chamchas voices mingling with Anarkali’s voice, rising up to wake her in the middle of the night! At that deep hour, cradled in the limbs of her sky-nest, Choti was usually too tired to know what was going on—and this time, she was too frightened to even want to know.
Choti never asked Anarkali why she met those villains in the night, and she never revealed to Anarkali that she knew that Anarkali did. It took all of her restraint not to jump down to Anarkali’s aid that night, when she witnessed Raja tugging at Anarkali’s saree as she tried to fend him off while he verbally abused her in a drunken, deeply offensive way. “Run, where you will! Get out of here, bitch! We’ll see how far you go!” Choti had heard Raja say.
The repeating episode tore at Choti’s heart all the time, and she could only imagine how it tore at Anarkali’s. But Choti remained mute on the terrible episodes in front of her best friend because it disturbed her too much to think about it, and, as far as Anarkali knew, she still lived in The Nameless House with Pink Walls. Choti didn’t dare share the location of her secret hideaway with anyone. If Raja ever found out he would beat her mercilessly, or worse.
Anarkali was not easy to hang out with anymore. She looked tired and haunted. Choti was scared for her friend but didn’t know what to do. Many a times Anarkali would not even show up for work.
Nor could Choti walk her tight-rope or win rupees from her tamasha crowds for a while because she had to find a new partner, hopefully one who wasn’t a bloody thief. But before I find a new tamasha partner, I am going to get all of my money back from Chintu. That’s that. Period. And then I might kill him, she thought.
So Choti found herself thinking about spending time with her new friend, the kind and gentle Noor, and one morning, a few days later she set out to do just that. As the policemen below made their early morning grunting animal sounds in their red ribbons and began to show off their strength to one another, Choti quietly descended from her nest and headed toward Manikarnika Ghat.
Choti reached the ghat and descended the stairs through the smoke, the parading corpses, and hawking vendors to sit in her usual spot by the Ganga. Sure enough, Noor appeared a few meters down the riverbank in her white saree, with her shaved head and her recently filled water pot. The old widow smiled as soon as she saw Choti’s face, and her smile grew broader as she neared her on the steps.
“Choti, my girl, did you drown your Chintu yet?” Noor said, with a half smile.
Choti opened her mouth and laughed. “No Madamji, not yet. But you know I want to!”
Noor held a small newspaper-wrapped parcel in her hand. “I have something
for you,” she said.
“Yes, Madamji, what is it?” Choti said.
Noor handed the parcel to Choti.
Noor’s kindness turned Choti into the excited fervor-filled child she might have been in another life, and her lips and hands trembled as she started to open the gift, too touched to speak, and steeling her eyes to any tears that wanted to pour out of them. From out of the plain wrapper bloomed a pair of blue rubber slippers.
“Thank you, these are so nice,” Choti said. “The bottoms will make perfect weapons to hit Chintu with when I find him, bloody thief. Besides that, they are my favorite shade of blue.”
Noor looked away and nodded. “That, I wouldn’t know anything about. But it’s better to wear them and not waste the comfort they might provide across Chintu’s face. Wear them for yourself. I hope they are your size, I had to guess,” Noor said.
Choti worked the slippers onto her calloused feet and gave Noor the thumbs-up sign. “They’re a perfect fit,” she said.
The sight of Choti’s grimy little thumb shooting into the air brought a smile to Noor’s face. “Good. I picked right, I guess.” Choti inverted her new blue slippers to admire their soles, mesmerized by the sight and feel of the brand new blue rubber.
“Girl, what is your name?” Noor said. “I never asked.”
“Choti. That’s my name.”
Noor widened her eyes. “Small? Your name is ‘small?’ I mean your real name, not some pet name.”
Choti jumped to her feet to test out the slippers, parading around like a miniature police officer and repeating, “Choti, Choti, Choti.”
Noor’s eyes shifted around tracing Choti’s heels as they marched in a circle of blurring blue, before she forced herself to look away.
“Are the slippers comfortable?” Noor said.
“Very. Thank you, Madamji,” Choti said.
“So, small Choti, did you just invent your name?”
Choti stopped circumambulating Noor, rolled her eyes, and pointed out an emaciated dog lugubriously begging near a tea-stall. “Noor Madamji, do you see that dog?”
“Yes,” Noor said, eying the dog as it continued to beg.
“What is that dog’s name?” Choti said.
“I don’t know, it’s just some dog.”
“Exactly,” Choti’s new slippers seemed to demand that she walk a few meters away from Noor before looking back, her eyes darkening. “The dog’s name is just ‘dog.’ If the dog belonged to someone or was a pet jailed in someone’s house, then it would either be collared with or sentenced to or limited by its name. Understand?” Choti said.
Noor stared at Choti, puzzled by the confidence of the small girl traipsing about in the slippers she had given her. “Sort of,” Noor said.
“I used to live in a place called ‘The Nameless House with Pink Walls.’ No one had a name there, not even the owner of the house had a name. It would have defeated the purpose. There is safety in remaining without an identity, you know, you stay invisible, the police don’t know who you are. We all look the same to everyone. We even called our guardian the ‘Nameless Man,’” Choti said.
Noor shook her head and clicked her tongue at such a grand universal thought delivered with such innocence and insight by a child parading around her with the hubris of a god.
Satisfied she had test-driven her slippers enough, Choti walked back to Noor and sat down. “I’m still waiting to hear your name, Madamji…” Choti said.
Slowly a warm glow appeared in Noor’s eyes. “I will tell you. Did you know that it was these ghats that gave birth to light?” Noor said, gently waving her hand in the air. “I was born amid these ghats. And when I was born, my grandfather named me ‘Noor.’ It means, ‘light.’ This birth of light is what the aarti is all about… ”
Choti fell silent, then spoke. “I understand.”
“You know what else, small girl?”
“What?”
“You know the Tulsi Ghat?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you think it got its name?”
“Don’t know.”
“From the great poet Tulsidas.”
Choti didn’t know enough history to appreciate the amazing fact Noor had delivered to her ears. Instead, she jumped to her feet again to bounce on her blue toes and rock on her blue heels. “Noor Madamji, thank you so much for the slippers and for the story of light. I better get back to work or my friend Anarkali will have my hide for being late for our begging at the Chowk,” Choti said. “Goodbye, and thanks for the slippers.”
“Goodbye, child,” Noor said. She watched Choti recede in a flash of blue slippers back into the maze of Varanasi’s streets, a new light like a newly lit pair of aarti wicks flickering in her wizened eyes. She had wanted to tell Choti more about the story of light, but to take up the girl’s time while committing the sin of trying to fascinate another human being seemed immoral. For the time being, Noor’s story would have to wait. But she swore Choti had an even stronger bounce to her step than when she had first met the bold little tamasha-ist and beggar. As she stood, all Noor could do was sigh. She took the newspaper that had held the slippers and her water pot in her hands and returned to Ganga to complete her daily ritual for her tulsi.
Choti found Anarkali at her usual spot performing her usual routine—at Sangam Chowk.
Anarkali immediately noticed Choti’s new slippers— they were too blue not to, and Choti was skipping around in them so blatantly, so how could she not?
“Well, hello, Miss Mem-sahib!” Anarkali said at the first sight of her.
“Like my new slippers?” Choti said, twirling around in her new shoes, radiant with happiness, “An old widow who is named after light gave them to me. Anarkali, did you know that light was born right here at the Varanasi Ghats? So, I suppose that means darkness was born here, as well.”
Anarkali was too busy to immediately reply, and continued offering blessings or curses depending on her mood and her customer’s categorization, into every window of every passing car. When she did take the time to reply, ceasing her begging to blink and roll her eyes, she said, “Girl! Another misleading Hindu myth born of Varanasi. Who told you this nonsense? Light wasn’t born here. Light was born of the sun, and the sun is far away, though with all the heat it beats us down with, I can see how someone might assume otherwise.”
Choti walked toward a rickshaw to continue begging alongside Anarkali, stepping carefully to protect her new slippers, and threw her hands up in the air. “Anarkali, no!” Choti said. “This old widow, her name is Noor, said that light was born here on the ghats, and I believe her.”
Anarkali sized up the couple Choti was begging from— Privileged Ones, no doubt—and said, “Choti, Varanasi is not a city of light, it is the City of the Dead, and it will always be the City of the Dead. There is only darkness here. Even a million aarti flames will never change that. Light? If light were born here, it would have been immediately cremated into Darkness.” Anarkali became distracted and lurched over to intrude on the young man and woman Choti had snagged. “May you two stay healthy and together, and may you have as many beautiful sons as you desire,” Anarkali confidently said.
Instead of smiling, nodding, and thanking Anarkali, the man’s face flushed and his eyebrows furrowed in anger. “You ass, this woman is my mother.”
Anarkali frowned and backed off. “Let’s get out of here,” the man commanded the rickshaw-puller, and the rickshaw sped away, the man turning to fix his glare on both Anarkali and Choti.
“Anarkali, you see?” Choti said, laughing. “Today your guesses and blessings and fortune-telling are all wrong.”
Anarkali staggered over to sit down on the narrow sidewalk. “Choti, I know this old widow has filled you with the hope of Light, but the dark truth is that neither you nor me nor any of us out here on the streets really matter. I guess every man and woman who wants to have a boy ends up powerful and corrupt and with a potbelly and mustache like Raja—Choti such blinding bright blue sl
ippers! Where did you steal them?”
“I didn’t steal them, you haven’t heard what I said, don’t you like them?” Choti sat next to Anarkali and lifted her feet to show off her slippers’ smooth blue soles.
“I was too busy working the traffic ‘making a living’ to compliment you properly. Where did you get them? Did you pull off another of your ‘young-girl-with-sad-face’ schemes?”
Choti jumped to her feet to strike a pose. “No, Noor, the old widow I told you about, gave them to me. She lives at the widow ashram at Bhoot Gali. Her grandfather was Tagore.”
A scowl creased Anarkali’s painted-up face. “Oh God, Choti, you need to learn more about life! It’s inauspicious to talk to a widow like her. Widows are forever cursed, that is why they are forbidden from wearing celebratory colors and must remain in a constant state of mourning, dressed in no color other than white,” Anarkali said.
Choti’s jaw dropped.
“You had no idea, eh?” said Anarkali. “How old is this widow of light, this Noor? Tagore died almost a hundred years ago, so how could he be her grandfather? See? Even light has a dark side.”
Choti became unsteady on her feet, especially for a bet-winning rope-walker who usually displayed excellent balance. “I don’t believe it. She was so kind to me. Judging by the wrinkles on her face, she’s at least a hundred years old herself. Anarkali, she was so nice to me and thoughtful enough to get me the blue—”
“Choti, I’ve heard enough. My advice is to avoid this ‘widow of light’ in the future,” Anarkali said.
“Anarkali, let me ask you something,” Choti said, changing the subject. “If you really have the power to curse people and kill them, do you think you could place a curse on all the lice in my hair and kill them, too, before they kill me first? They have me scratching so much that I can’t concentrate.”
“Cut your damn long hair if you want to get rid of your lice!” Anarkali fumed. “You’re offering the little beggars a feast with all that hair!” Anarkali shrieked at a passing rickshaw for no reason other than to scare them. “Choti, I’m exhausted. You know I haven’t made one single rupee since morning, every beggar in Varanasi seems to be visiting the ghats for aarti today. Damn little lights.”
