The Last Color

by Vikas Khanna

  “Child! You’re not making any sense, poor thing, take a breath and calm down,” Noor said.

  “Not making any sense?” Choti said. “Consider my ‘friend’ and tamasha ‘partner’ Chintu. He stole all of our hard-earned money and kept it for himself. His mask changed. First it was clever, trustworthy, and always smiling, then suddenly it became stupid, unreliable, and ugly. I should have known his mask would eventually change from all the times he went to Manikarnika to push his greedy fingers into the ashes of the dead for their belongings. He had me doing it too. Now I hate what I did, people should be allowed to take what they love with them. With Anarkali gone missing, whom can I trust?”

  Noor cocked her chin. “You can trust me,” she said. “You can trust me.”

  “I hope that’s true,” Choti said. “Because, as you saw, Inspector Raja is starting to send his chamchas around to threaten me. I want to fly, but if I can’t fly, I would rather be a reliable ghost than become an untrustworthy, mask-changing, human being.”

  “One day you will fly, mark my words,” Noor said, stroking the side of Choti’s face, and smiling down at her as if Choti was—curse the very thought!—her own newborn. “Child, you are too young to realize it yet, but you are stronger than all these people who hide behind their changing masks.”

  Choti sat up to stare along Ganga’s shore to the ghats further toward the Ganga Mahal Ghat, where in the hazy distance she could see many people setting their aarti lamps aflame. “Noor, why do people light these lamps all day long, even in the daytime?” she said.

  “You don’t know?”

  Choti shook her head.

  “I will tell you. There are two types of lamps to be lit for aarti. The first one is lit to make a wish. The second is lit when that wish is fulfilled,” Noor said.

  Choti perked up. “Did you ever light your wish lamp?” she said.

  Noor nodded and suddenly glared at her hands, “Destiny!” she said, then shifted her glare to Choti, where, resting on Choti’s innocent wide eyes, her gaze softened. “I lit a wish lamp only once, and that was long ago, when I was married. My grandfather never wanted me to get married. He was heavily influenced by the independence movement and social reforms. He would say that the only way our country could progress was to educate girls. For a woman, not getting married went against everything our culture stood for, so, of course, no one respected my grandfather’s defiant, open-minded hopes for his granddaughter to remain single. Do you know how old I was when I got married?”

  Choti shook her head.

  “I was even younger than you,” Noor said. “Only nine or ten years old when I was married off. After I was married I went to the Sangam—”

  Choti, eager to know more about Noor, interrupted, “The Sangam Chowk?”

  “No, child, the Sangam of Rivers,” Noor said. “A very sacred place a few miles from the Chowk, the place where Ganga Ma and Yamuna Ma meet the very special Saraswati Ma,” Noor said. “I went with my husband and family to light the first lamp, and that lighting happened to occur on the day my elderly husband suddenly passed away.”

  “I don’t know the Saraswati,” Choti said, her ears burning with curiosity.

  “And you wouldn’t, because the Saraswati isn’t visible to the human eye,” Noor said. “It’s only visible to the mind.”

  “—I feel like the Saraswati Ma, you know why?” Choti said.

  Noor only stared.

  “Because I am also invisible. I can prove it because somedays when I’m knocking for rupees on car windows, no one sees me. When that happens, I don’t want to be invisible. But I wish I could be invisible like the Saraswati when the police-wallahs come looking for me.”

  Noor nodded. “I understand. I also feel invisible many times. But to me this is neither good nor bad, it just is.”

  “Noor?”

  “Yes?”

  “What did you wish for when you lit your lamp at the Saraswati Ma?”

  “It’s a long incomplete story, do you want to hear it?” Noor said, and Choti nodded.

  Noor took a breath, and spoke. “That day, in 1930, when the bells of the Krishna temple rang along the Asi Ghats was no ordinary day. It was Janamashtmi, the day of the birth and continual rebirth of Lord Krishna, who many consider their favorite god, though as a child he was said to have stolen everyone’s butter. Krishna was a musician, a lover, a friend, a statesman, a philosopher of the Bhagvad Gita—the very song of God—and he was also very mischievous, which made Janamashtmi itself a day of potential mischief.

  “That day in Krishna’s temple, while a huge congregation of devotees were singing hymns to their favorite god, an excitable man named Dwarka pulled at the rope of a small cradle with a small idol of Krishna attached to it. Sometimes another devotee, some friend of Dwarka’s, would relieve Dwarka of his dutiful rope-pulling ceremony, but Dwarka would eagerly push his friend out of the way to go back to rocking the cradle of Lord Krishna.

  “This was Dwarka’s big day, because, back home, his wife was helping their only daughter deliver a child, his new grandchild, and he expected that at any moment someone would enter the temple with the good news. As the temple bells deafened everyone with their beautiful echoing tones, a man rushed to Dwarka to whisper in his ear. ‘Bauji, Bauji, it’s—a girl…’

  “Dwarka stopped pulling his cradle-rope and shouted, ‘Radhay! Radhay!’ becoming so excited that he dropped the rope altogether and started dancing with the other devotees.

  “The whispering message-bearer chased Dwarka into the dancing throng to deliver the other news he had, but Dwarka was impossible to catch as he danced and clapped, too excited to keep to the beat, as his thanks to the gods for answering his prayer. Finally, the news-bearer found Dwarka’s ear and placed his lips close to the joyous new grandfather’s mouth, ‘…but your daughter passed away after giving birth.’

  “As morning broke the next day, after an exhausting night of warring emotions, Dwarka shuffled home through streets strewn with a carpet of flowers, remnants of the previous night’s Janamashtmi celebrations. It was the mischief part of Krishna’s day that got Dwarka wondering if his new granddaughter had been born healthy. He picked up his pace across the flower petals to rush home through the narrow, unawakened streets of Varanasi to find answers to the many questions on his mind. Who would take care of his little Radhay? What would the future bring?

  “Dwarka entered his home through a pink door decorated with auspicious symbols.

  “Nearing the main entrance of his home, Dwarka felt the pain of seeing his daughter’s corpse lying in their courtyard, draped in a red saree, her nostrils stuffed with cotton and her eyes closed in peace. A vermilion swath covered her forehead, which symbolized she had died a married woman…”

  “I’ve seen many dead women, some of the corpses even have full makeup on,” Choti piped in, interrupting Noor’s story.

  Noor smiled sadly. “Well, Dwarka barely saw his daughter, instead he saw a little girl near his cowshed swaddled in old rags and crying out in hunger. Dwarka rushed over to hold Radhay, his new Krishna baby, in his arms, unable to tear his eyes from her. And then a miracle happened. A ray of morning light suddenly shifted to Radhay’s face. She became radiant, her eyes shimmered, her smile sparkled even though she had no teeth, and her still, previously folded hands started to reach toward Dwarka, already exercising their free will.

  “It was as if the sun had risen just to kiss her and send its rays to caress her downy hair. The sight of her melted Dwarka’s heart, and the worrying he had done over the newborn child disappeared. This tiny being, his new granddaughter, a girl of Krishna himself, could even wake up the sun! Then and there, Dwarka changed her name from Radhay to ‘Noor’—‘Light,’ the light of eternity, the light of survival, the light of new hope. The sun’s light made Noor’s fragile body almost translucent, as if lit from within, like a candle under glass, or a firefly.”

  Choti cleared her throat.

  “Are you bored of my old w
idow’s tale, child?” Noor asked. Her voice had become slightly hoarse. Her eyes were moist with remembering. Choti was scared she might cry, and wanted to change the subject. She stammered, “Not at all, I just feel like my heart wants to leap out through my throat.”

  Noor sighed deeply. “Okay, I’m getting tired, anyway. If you enjoyed my story, and I can ever remember the rest of it, I will tell you more another day,” Noor promised.

  “It’s a deal,” Choti said, and then yawned as if she had just awakened from a dream.

  The next day they were back at their old haunt.

  Noor looked at the brightening sun and closed her eyes against its rays. “Choti, everything is going to be okay. Anarkali will come back. The Saraswati Ma running through my heart tells me so,” she said.

  Choti stood up sleepily, sighed, and braced her shoulders like she did when she was walking her rope. “Noor, you know, I sleep above an open gym where these thuggish police wrestlers arrive in a grunting herd to wake me up every day. You see the dark circles around my eyes?”

  Noor nodded. “I do,” she said.

  “I can’t get any sleep because I’ve heard them in the night. I’ve also heard Anarkali’s schemes. I’m not stronger than those beasts, Noor, and I can never hope to be,” Choti said. She scratched violently at her head. The lice were becoming hungrier and more vicious. “Uff! Speaking of animals, these little beasts are starting to eat me alive.”

  Noor’s eyes darted from Choti’s now quivering lips to the top of her head. “Girl, I know how to get rid of your lice. I have a special oil to kill them. I will bring it with me next time.”

  They sat quietly for a while and then Choti suddenly grabbed Noor’s hand and started to pull her along in the direction of Tulsi Ghat. “I know of this great chai-stall in your grandfather’s ghat. You must like tea, and this place I have in mind is a place no one will ever find us,” Choti said, accelerating with the energy of the child she really was and almost pulling Noor off her ancient, 1000-yearold pink-encrusted feet.

  “Choti! Slow down,” Noor protested. “If we go to a public place to have chai, someone is certain to see me. And it will be particularly terrible for us to be seen together. Better to stay here and forget the chai.”

  Choti wouldn’t let up and kept pulling Noor along beside her. “Noor, that’s silly. Don’t you remember? No one will see us because we are invisible,” she said, and then undid the small knot tied into the end of her frock to retrieve some coins. She looked at Noor. “One day I want to have a proper frock with a proper pocket instead of a loose, ragged knot. Then I can finally do all my business properly.”

  Choti led Noor onto a terrace hidden in a secluded section of Tulsi Ghat that gave way to an almost paradisaical 360-degree view of every ghat flowing down to Ganga like variations on a stone waterfall. City of the Dead? From there, it wouldn’t have been too far off for the viewer to regard Varanasi as the “City of The Living,” and in the sixty years of Noor’s patient and humble water-getting routine along the same well-worn path, it was a panorama that she had never pleasured her eyes with, one she was even too ashamed to please them with now.

  The revitalizing view ended at the chai stall of Choti’s mention. The traditional chai-vendor’s cart was a simple affair with an earthen stove and an old steel kettle, served in Varanasi’s signature sun-baked earthen cups, whose sides sometimes had intricate designs carved into them, as well as plastic jars full of dark chai leaves, sugar, and small packets of cardamom.

  Choti dragged Noor to the cart. “Bhaiya, two cups tea. Extra extra sugar,” Choti confidently said to Sonu, the chai-wallah, who was dressed in a faded long blue kurta with a red scarf tied around his head. “For my special guest,” she said, tossing a glance back at Noor, who hung sheepishly behind.

  The vendor eyed the strange couple: a little kid and an old widowed woman, as he steeped the chai in boiling water and strained it through an old sieve. Soon the early air of spring filled with the fresh, rustic aroma only a cloud of fresh chai steam can produce.

  Choti stared at Noor, smiling in anticipation of the pleasure she knew the tea would bring to poor Noor’s long-neglected palate.

  The vendor narrowed his gaze at Noor as he dumped large heapings of sugar in both of their chais. The more he stared at the old widow, the more his face grimaced with repulsion. It was a repulsion Choti noticed, and so she grimaced right back. “Just serve your chai, Sonu, and don’t act so smart,” said Choti. She flipped the vendor his rupees and snatched both the teas from his cart, not giving the man the courtesy of even one more word of thanks, as she tossed her head, and handed Noor her steaming cup of sweet tea.

  The two new friends walked toward an old bench that promised the best view of the Ganga and all that she symbolized. The light wind that blew in whispered rumors only the winds of Varanasi could spread—the harsh stories of survival amid the softer stories of Ganga, and how both expressed themselves across the oldest city of humans, the city that had the power to break the cycle of life and death.

  When Choti and Noor sat down on the bench, Noor finally pulled her saree away from her head and whiffed at the fragrant steam rising from the earthen chai cup. She looked at Choti and smiled. Something about the aroma seemed to elevate her soul.

  Choti eagerly sipped at her chai. “Noor of the Light, did Sonu put enough sugar in your chai?” she said, before interrupting herself to say, “Do you even like sugar? It is white after all.”

  Noor only smiled. She held the earthen cup in her hands, relishing its warmth coming through, and nodded. “Child, I had forgotten how sugar tastes. It’s been so long, my tongue doesn’t know how to react, or whether sweetness has become the taste of salt,” Noor said.

  “I’m sure your tongue will get used to it,” Choti said.

  “Perhaps,” said Noor. “My grandfather had a mango tree in his yard. And every spring I used to eat the unripe still-green mangoes. Somehow the taste of these sour mangoes became my favorite taste. But I’ve forgotten that taste too, what with my fifty to sixty years of only eating plain rice. This is why I have no idea what to say about the sweetness of this chai, what it tastes like, or how it makes me feel. It’s all very confusing.”

  Noor took tentative sips and let the taste linger in her mouth—Choti could tell because after every sip, Noor pursed her lips and puffed out her cheeks. Ganga’s serene natural breeze seemed to have blown away most traces of Noor’s guilty pleasure, yet her smile still fought to remain on her face.

  It wasn’t too long before, perhaps propelled by that same Ganga breeze, the inevitable swarm of Varanasi flies came around, attracted by the sugar-sweetened chai. One fly after another arrived to buzz around Noor, and some even spun down to buzz and rub their legs together and stare with their red eyes, atop the rim of her cup. One fly flew right into it, landing on the chai’s frothy surface, and had the gall to swim about! Choti quickly flicked it out with her stirring stick.

  “Bloody little beasts. If it’s not Chintu, it’s Raja’s chamchas, if it’s not Raja’s chamchas, it’s lice, if it’s not lice, it’s these bloody flies,” Choti said. “I’ll keep them away so you can enjoy your chai.”

  Choti spent the rest of her time with Noor happily waving away any fly that dared approach to bother Noor or land anywhere near her cup as she drank her chai. And with every tender, caring wave of Choti’s arm, Noor’s eyes moistened a little more, though she never let on how much the simple gesture meant to her.

  “Did you ever go to school?” Choti asked her new friend as she waved her arms to shoo away the flies.

  “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t allowed to, it wasn’t my place,” Noor said.

  Choti smiled. “Anarkali doesn’t like tea, but she loves the milk that goes into it. Chintu loves the sugar! He is always stealing sugar whenever he can; sometimes he eats it straight from his fist! Dirty thief! No wonder his teeth are so bad.” Her voice grew suddenly wistful: “Noor?”

  “Yes?”

  “If y
ou have to go somewhere, please let me know, don’t disappear on me like…” she stopped abruptly and looked away.

  Noor put her hand gently on Choti’s head and stroked it. “No, meri Choti, I promise.” She put her arm around Choti’s thin shoulders.

  “Noor?”

  “Yes, child?”

  “That pink book that you always have with you…”

  “Yes? What about it?”

  “You can read it, right?”

  Noor smiled sadly. “I can read a little but I’m forbidden to. It would give me too much pleasure. My grandfather wrote these Tagore quotes and poems in my book when I was a child. I try not to actually read them, I just remember them word-by-word from memory. Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I will never tell anyone, I promise. But Tagore was your grandfather, right? Anarkali didn’t believe me bu—”

  “—Child! I wasn’t being serious,” Noor interrupted before Choti could finish her sentence, and then hit her forehead with the flat of her hand. “Tagore isn’t my actual grandfather. Because I recite his poems every day of my life, he has become more like my spiritual grandfather. The real Tagore was a writer who lived in Calcutta and died soon after I was married. My real grandfather was a great admirer of his. Tagore’s not related to me, but has always remained close to my soul.”

  Choti nodded and giggled. “Oh teri! You were making a joke! Like a fool, I thought Tagore was your real grandfather and that he lived a thousand years ago, so I thought you were somehow immortal, or at least hundreds of years old,” Choti said, now grinning broadly with a sparkle in her eyes.

  “My grandfather was also a great poet, he would often tell me that even Ganga Ma flows towards Tagore’s house every day to hear his poetry,” Noor said, involuntarily lifting her chin with a vague pride.