Across the Line

by Nayanika Mahtani

  Jai cringed. Why was Badi Ma now suddenly comparing him to Inaya’s grandfather? It was just weird. But then he remembered that Inaya’s grandfather was his grandmother’s brother. Apparently.

  ‘So, do you live in Rawalpindi?’ asked Jai.

  ‘Yes,’ said Habib. ‘Not very far from the house that your Badi Ma and I grew up in.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question, Daada. How come your sister is from India?’ repeated Inaya.

  ‘Well your great-grandparents adopted me, Inaya—and we were all given to believe that my birth family—my grandparents, parents and sister—had been killed in the riots that followed the Partition.’

  ‘Hmm. So Daadi knows nothing about your sister?’ continued Inaya.

  ‘No, she doesn’t,’ said Habib, smiling. ‘This is going to be interesting.’

  ‘Get ready for World War III,’ said Inaya.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. We’re in the same boat. Wait until my parents find out that Badi Ma has a Muslim brother, that too from Pakistan; all hell will break loose,’ said Jai with morbid glee.

  Toshi gave Jai a playful whack on his arm. ‘So, she still does that arm whacking, huh?’ said Habib, watching them with a smile. ‘And Jai, is she still as competitive when you play games?’

  ‘Oh, you have no idea . . . ’ started Jai, and then his voice trailed off. He was still trying to grapple with the fact that this actually was his grandmother’s brother, someone who knew her idiosyncrasies—probably even better than he did. He felt a pang of possessiveness, almost. No one was allowed to know Badi Ma better than he did.

  Habib turned to Toshi. ‘We didn’t get to finish our conversation that day, Toshi di. Do you all live in London?’

  ‘No, we live in New Delhi, and you must plan a visit soon, Loki.’

  ‘Life is so strange, Toshi di,’ said Habib. ‘My adopted parents migrated from New Delhi to Rawalpindi, and you did the reverse.’

  ‘All the more reason for you to come,’ said Toshi. ‘Tell me, is that pomegranate tree still there . . . the one we used to steal from? And do the fireflies still dance over the canal at night? And who lives in our house now?’

  ‘Yes, that tree and the fireflies are still very much there. Sadly, however, our house never got rebuilt after it burned down. They’ve built some small shops in its place. But what our neighbourhood is known for now is the first ever café outlet of Nabeel’s Kitchen. In fact, Nabeel Said is the reason we’re in London right now. She is sponsoring Inaya’s tape-ball tournament.’

  Jai looked up sharply.

  ‘Nabeel Said of Nabeel’s Kitchen fame is spon—THAT Nabeel Said?’ A new-found respect for Inaya crept into Jai’s voice.

  ‘You know of Nabeel Said?’ returned Inaya, equally astounded. For the first time in her life, she looked at Jai with something approaching awe.

  ‘She has been my hero ever since I read about her in a magazine four years ago,’ said Jai. ‘I want to open a chain of cafés like her one day, and serve up food that reminds us of our grandmothers’ cooking, but with a modern twist—just like she does. Why do you think I was so desperate to try her haleem rolls?’

  ‘I just assumed that you were a glutton,’ shrugged Inaya.

  Jai ignored her and carried on, ‘I would kill to get the recipe for them.’

  ‘Would you like to meet her?’

  Jai’s eyes widened as his head swam in a heady cocktail of disbelief and anticipation, ‘Can you actually introduce me to Nabeel Said?’

  ‘Sure. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon? Drop in during my match. She’ll be there,’ said Inaya, coolly.

  Meanwhile, Toshi and Habib hadn’t heard a word of the conversation between their grandchildren, engrossed as they were in catching up on the three score years that they had lost out on. Jai looked at them and then turned back to Inaya. ‘Do you know this makes us cousins?’ he whispered.

  ‘What does?’ asked Inaya.

  ‘Our grandparents being siblings makes us cousins,’ Jai repeated.

  ‘That’s really weird. But you know what—I feel a bit sorry for them. I mean, I don’t have a brother—Zain’s probably the closest I have to a brother. And he’s pretty annoying, but I just can’t imagine not seeing him for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Is Zain your cousin?’

  ‘He’s actually my neighbour. He’s quite a pain on most days. But he’s the one who secretly lent me his cricket bat when Abba wouldn’t buy me one, and he’d let me watch him at the nets when he was being coached. That’s how I learnt most of my cricket. So, he’s all right, I guess.’

  ‘He doesn’t sound too bad. So, you like Jhulan Goswami, huh?’

  ‘Do you know her?’ gushed Inaya.

  ‘I know of her, even though I’m not a cricket fan. If you come to India, I’ll travel with you to go and meet her, if you like?’

  ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘Sure. I’ve always wanted to try authentic Bengali food.’

  Inaya rolled her eyes heavenwards in a mute prayer for strength.

  ‘I actually have so many Indian cricketers whom I want to meet,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t it be so much fun if I could actually come?’

  ‘Do it. My parents could help arrange your visa. And now we’re family. You have even more reason to visit.’

  ‘You should also come to Pakistan,’ said Inaya. ‘Come and see Nabeel’s Kitchen, if nothing else!’

  ‘That sounds great! And it needn’t end with that. You know what we should do?’ said Jai, an idea taking shape in his head.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re planning to secretly live in her kitchen forever . . . ’

  ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’

  ‘Well, you do have some bizarre ideas.’

  ‘Jai and Inaya,’ interrupted Toshi. ‘We need your help. We need to break the news to the rest of the family. Any suggestions as to the best way we can do this?’

  ‘Do it on the day we’re leaving,’ said Jai. ‘Let’s enjoy the rest of the holiday.’

  Inaya burst out laughing. ‘I agree with him,’ she said. ‘For once.’

  ‘Be nice, Inaya,’ chided her grandfather.

  ‘That’s like asking a fish to climb a tree,’ said Jai.

  ‘I’m sure that even fish know more about cricket than you do,’ retorted Inaya.

  ‘Breaking news: Cricket does not make the world go round. There are many other interests that people have,’ retaliated Jai.

  ‘What do you have against each other?’ said Habib, shaking his head in despair.

  ‘It’s a long story, Daada,’ replied Inaya, grinning.

  ‘So, can we meet tomorrow as well?’ asked Toshi.

  ‘Of course,’ said Habib.

  ‘Do we have to?’ groaned Jai and Inaya, almost in perfect synchrony.

  Four’s Company

  The next morning, the foursome met again on the pretext of a shopping expedition. While Toshi and Habib chatted over a cup of tea in the basement café at Marks & Spencer, Jai and Inaya strolled aimlessly through the aisles to pass the time. There was pet food on one side and detergents on the other. Inaya distractedly picked up a can of cat food and looked at the ingredients.

  ‘Whitefish. Botanically boosted by nettle, cranberries, fennel and chamomile. Yuck! Do cats even like this stuff?’

  Jai barely heard her, consumed as he was with an idea that had refused to leave his head.

  ‘Listen Inaya, I’ve been thinking . . . ’

  Inaya grimaced at these words. She really didn’t need Jai’s thoughts at this time. She had enough of her own to grapple with. Besides, she needed to be at practice rather than be Daada’s chaperone while he met his long-lost sister to plot about how they were going to break the news to the rest of the family.

  Jai, oblivious to all of Inaya’s woes, was still talking. ‘I’ve been thinking that we should start Peace-ing It Together,’ he said.

  ‘Start piecing what together?’

  ‘You know—start a club that does the opposite
of what the Partition did.’

  Inaya looked at him, all at sea. ‘What are you on about, Jai?’

  ‘Peace-ing spelt with P-E-A-C-E, not P-I-E-C-E. We could start a movement, build a bridge, you know, to bring us together again,’ said Jai. He was getting really excited now with his seedling notion and began pacing rapidly between the cans of cat and dog food. It was when he reached the section with hamster food that he got truly inspired.

  ‘This is what we’d do. We’d get people from both sides of the border who have relatives and friends and homes and memories on the other side to get to meet each other again and revisit what they left behind. Imagine how happy it would make them.’

  ‘Okay, but first, can you stop moving like a ball in a tennis match? Watching you is giving me a headache,’ said Inaya. ‘And secondly, how would we manage to do this without getting arrested? Are you planning on smuggling people across, wrapped in carpets? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our countries’ governments haven’t been the best of friends for a very long time.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s the governments, right? Let them carry on with their own agendas—and let’s get on with ours.’

  ‘Yeah, like that’s so simple, right?’

  Jai stared hard at the fish food section, and it dawned on him that it wasn’t all that hard.

  ‘Things are easier now with the internet. This is going to be an online movement, Inaya,’ he said. ‘We’re going to begin with Facebook and it’s going to gradually spread and grow—just you wait and see.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Inaya. To her, this sounded like a hare-brained scheme, but she decided to humour Jai, since he had promised to help her meet Jhulan Goswami.

  ‘I’m going to start tomorrow. Maybe we can ask Nabeel Said to help us?’ said Jai, looking hopefully at Inaya.

  ‘Did you know that cats like nettle?’ asked Inaya, pretending that she hadn’t heard him. ‘Or that hamster food has locust beans added in it for flavour?’

  ‘Locust beans?’ said Jai, thrown off the track. ‘What on earth are they?’

  ‘Result,’ thought Inaya. Boys were so easy to manipulate.

  Howzat?

  Despite Inaya’s lukewarm reception to his idea, Jai desperately wanted to start this online movement. The only problem was that he hadn’t been able to figure out how to kick-start it. He sat staring at the computer with absolutely no clue where to begin. For want of something better to do, Jai started browsing through the photographs he had taken with the Nikon camera that Rustom had given him. Most were of food, predictably. But there were a few photographs of people, if they happened to be around the food.

  He came across one of Badi Ma and her brother at the gelato café. They looked so happy. He had rarely seen his grandmother look this happy in all her life. He copied it on to a poster format and printed it out. He looked at it, wondering what to write. He wrote a few words, struck them out and wrote a few more, only to strike them out as well. Finally, he just gave up and went to bed.

  A little later, Toshi came into the kitchen to ensure that she had turned off the gas. It was something she did every night before going to bed. Then, invariably, she’d wake up with a start in the middle of the night and check again, just in case. Having reassured herself that all was well, Toshi was on her way back to bed when she found the half-made poster lying on the kitchen table. She looked at the many words that Jai had scratched out. She picked up the pen and wrote: ‘I am an Indian. And my sibling is Pakistani. Can you tell who is from which country?’

  She stood up, checked the gas once more and switched off the lights in the kitchen.

  In his room, Jai was tossing and turning in bed. He squinted in the dark to look at the time. It was 3 a.m. Jai sat up. His throat felt parched—he headed to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. He was drinking it when he spotted Badi Ma’s handwritten words on the poster. He read it to himself and then out loud. This was perfect. This was exactly the sort of thing he needed to take his plan forward.

  Just then, his laptop pinged. It was a message from Rustom.

  ‘Hey Jai. Why aren’t you ever online? And when are you coming back? It’s super dull here.’

  Jai’s eyes lit up. If there was one person who could help him with this, it was Rustom. He had won competitions for catchy captions, after all. Never mind whether they were his own or not. He sat down at his computer and messaged Rustom.

  ‘Hey Rusty. What’s up?’

  ‘Wow. That was quick! You’ve never ever responded to any message that fast. And why are you even awake at this hour?’

  ‘I need your help, Rusty. You’re good with captions, right? You won that contest and stuff. I urgently need captions for some photographs.’

  ‘Ah. I knew there’d be some catch to this rapid response time.’

  ‘Listen, this is really important, Rusty. My grandmother has found her long-lost brother—and he’s Pakistani.’

  ‘Nice one. My grandmother has also found her long-lost Pakistani brother—and he’s Imran Khan. Howzat?’

  ‘I’m serious, Rusty.’

  ‘Have you hit your head on something hard, Jai? I know it’s not waking hours for you, but you’re not making any sense.’

  ‘I know it all sounds crazy, but it’s true, Rusty. And now I have to figure out a way to get many more people like my grandma and her brother to reconnect with their family and friends whom they had to leave behind in the Partition.’

  Jai stared at the computer screen waiting for Rustom’s reply, while Rustom let this sink in.

  ‘Okay. This is huge. And slightly crazy. But send me the photographs. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Thanks, Rusty!’

  Jai grinned happily.

  A little while later, Rustom had sent Jai some options for captions over an email. Jai read them aloud to himself.

  ‘Option 1: They drew a line, but they couldn’t divide us.

  Option 2: Some bonds defy all borders . . . ’

  He had barely finished reading the first two options, when Rustom messaged.

  ‘So, what did you think of them, Jai?’

  ‘Did you think of these yourself, Rusty? Or are they “borrowed” as usual?’

  ‘You just concern yourself with using the captions that you like. You ask way too many unnecessary questions, instead of thanking me for taking the time to support all your daft schemes.’

  Jai grinned and placed Rustom’s captions alongside the poster that Badi Ma had written on and took a photograph. Then he created a Facebook page called ‘Peace-ing It Together’, uploaded the photograph and went back to bed.

  The Little Green Dot

  A few days later, Jai woke up to at least three dozen messages from Rustom, who was waiting for Jai to show up online.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Jai? I’ve been waiting for ages!’ messaged Rusty, the minute he saw a little green dot appear next to Jai’s name.

  ‘Rusty, you do you realize there’s a four-and-a-half-hour time difference, don’t you?’ Jai typed back, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘Well, wake up, sleeping beauty, and check out the storm.’

  Jai looked out of the window. It seemed like a perfectly calm day—there was barely even a breeze.

  ‘Where’s the storm? In New Delhi?’

  ‘On your Facebook page, Jai! Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis from all over the world have been posting on your new Facebook page.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About that poster you posted. Of your Badi Ma and her brother. Now they’re all posting photos of people and possessions they left behind in the Partition. Some people have started a “Guess Where I’m From?” quiz and . . . ’

  ‘What quiz?’ wrote Jai, clearly unable to keep up with all these developments.

  ‘A quiz where they’re posting random photos of people and places and food from both India and Pakistan and asking people to guess which country the photo is from.’

  Jai sat up straight, wide awake now
.

  ‘That’s phenomenal, Rusty!’

  ‘Well. It’s not all good, Jai. You also have a few death threats from some people, who kind of disapprove of you building these bridges with “enemy” countries.’

  ‘What?’ spluttered Jai as he typed.

  ‘Yep. But don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll calm down as soon as they discover that you’re just a misguided schoolboy who plans to end the Indo-Pak enmity, one Facebook post at a time.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re trying to help or just having a good laugh at my expense.’

  ‘I’m just telling you that I’m right behind you while you try out these death-defying escapades. Anyway, Ansh and Co. here are also out to get you. You may as well die a martyr by going ahead with your death-by-Facebook plan instead.’

  ‘You just wait, Rusty. I’ll sort you out when I get back.’

  ‘Kidding, just kidding! Listen, I’ve come up with some more captions for your campaign and mailed them to you. Now go check your Facebook page—it’s absolutely insane!’

  Jai couldn’t believe his eyes when he clicked on his new Facebook page. There were messages from all over the world. Some from people he knew, but most were from complete strangers—writing in from across the globe. They had sent photographs of family and friends they had left behind. Or the homes they had abandoned. Others had sent in photographs for the quiz.

  Jai sank into his chair, overwhelmed.

  This was turning out to be quite a storm.

  However, this one would have to wait. Because a storm was brewing closer to home when he flew back to India tomorrow. And today, he was hoping to meet Nabeel Said, when Inaya’s match was done.

  Touching Distance

  Having defeated the team from Europe, the Curry Cruisers also managed to cut down the Saharan Superstars team from Africa, which qualified them for the finals of the Tape-ball League. Inaya and her teammates were over the moon—they hadn’t, not even in their wildest dreams, imagined that they would make it so far. But now, they would play their toughest match—against the DownUnder Daredevils from Australasia—comprising players from Australia and New Zealand—who were the favourites and leaders of the league table.