A Sister's Promise

by Renita D'Silva

  What do you think?

  They will go on to other jobs where they will once again buy their way into the echelons of power and create figureheads like you, Chief Minister, and they will run our state and our country through you.

  Didn’t you start your career as a civil engineer, Mr. Minister for Justice, Law and Human Rights? Weren’t you one of the engineers involved in the construction of that bridge near Mangalore which collapsed, killing one hundred and fifty people, seventy of them children travelling in a school bus?

  You might say: ‘Kushi, you are but seventeen years old, how do you know all this? Why are you making up these things? On whose authority are you spouting these tall tales?’

  Ah, that brings me to the painful subject here—to the real reason I am writing this letter. That brings me to my father. He told me all of this.

  My da taught in the village school all these years, but then he was promoted to the Engineering College in Dhoompur and his disenchantment began.

  My da was perfectly happy teaching here in the village. He did not want to go to the Engineering College, be another of those teachers who abandon the village children for better pastures. He dithered and dallied. But then he thought that if he did teach at the Engineering College, he might be able to get some of the village students in. He was puzzled as to why they were not getting the seats they deserved. You see, none of us knew the true extent of the scam then. So, finally, he decided to take up the offer.

  It was the worst decision of his life.

  He soon discovered where all the ‘lost’ seats were going. He was going to do something about it but before he could, the horror I am about to narrate happened:

  My da was the one who suspended that student, that influential politician’s son (I am sure you know who I am speaking about). Da was summoned to the principal’s office and was told in no uncertain terms not to suspend anyone again, no matter how provoking the circumstances. My father refused. His students misbehaved and he suspended them, not caring how powerful their parents were. And so, the students went on strike. And not content with just that, they went on a spree of destruction. They set fire to the library.

  Now, my father loved books more than anything else, a love he has passed on to me, and he couldn’t bear the wilful destruction of these tomes his pupils in the village school would have given anything to be able to have access to.

  I picture my da in that library—the swirling saffron flames, the blanket of smoke—his eyes stinging and his breath being squeezed out of his chest by the acrid fumes, as he ushers the students out, saving all of them. And then . . . the crisp, scorched yellow smell of pain, the ravenous flames voraciously licking at his legs, depositing their blistering caresses as they travel up his body amidst the devastation of burning pages—distorted spines, cream pages shrivelling; all the knowledge contained in those black squiggles on white leaves disintegrating into wispy grey ash—and finding the next breath, a lungful of clean white air is suddenly a matter of life or death . . .

  Did da regret going into that building? Did he exhale his last breath, choked out by smoke, thinking of us? Did he hurt? I try to will these pictures away, these horrible visions of my father’s last moments that hijack my dreams and dog my waking moments.

  I try.

  My father’s killers haven’t been punished. They have not even spent a day in jail. I am sure they didn’t mean to murder anyone; they were vandalising public property, that is all. Property that is public for the likes of them but not for the village children. They caused thousands of rupees worth of damage. Money that could have fed our entire village for weeks.

  As I write this, these arsonists are sailing through the corridors of Dhoompur Engineering College, not attending lessons, not taking notes, confident in the knowledge (the only knowledge they have amassed so far in the course of their education) that they will pass their exams with distinction. They have not paid for what they did, for robbing me of my father and our village of a great teacher and provider.

  That is all I have to say.

  Kushi

  * * *

  PS: I know you may not do anything about this letter, you might dismiss it as the ranting of a schoolgirl, if you read it at all. Well, I am tired of feeling useless, tired of feeling like my hands are tied. I am sending a copy of this letter to the editors at the Deccan Herald, The Hindu and the Times of India.

  KUSHI

  IRIDESCENT WORLD

  A year since my da passed. Six months since I wrote that letter.

  I stand at the window of the sari shop in Dhoompur, our nearest town, and wait for a signal from Asha within.

  Shapely, bindi-sporting mannequins, draped in turquoise, red and gold, grin at me from the cloudy glass window—a dingy shade of weary grey—smudged by a thousand handprints.

  A year on and I miss Da so much every single day. His loss is a constant and unappeased ache in my chest. Ma has been my saving grace, my strength. And there have been my causes, of course. They have given me purpose. Campaigning to get the people living in slums moved into accommodation with walls and a roof never mind that it is mud walls and a thatch roof, (anything is an improvement on flimsy tarpaulin), is one of them.

  That letter I wrote. It was published in all the newspapers. And it changed things.

  The ministers finally made a pretence of seeming interested. They visited Bhoomihalli and met with me. That picture of me shaking hands with the Chief Minister, the letter held up in his other hand, made the news, along with a picture of him stooped in the entrance of Guru’s hut, designed to endear the Chief Minister to the masses and undo, to some extent, the damage my letter had done to his credibility.

  The Chief Minister promised that the system of seats allocated for entry to the Engineering Colleges would henceforth be based on merit only. And they have stuck to that principle, more or less, during the recent seat allocations, not least because journalists have been waiting outside the seating allocation hall, and interviewing students going in and out, who have dutifully reported any discrepancies.

  Many of the village students have gained entry into the Engineering College, and what pleases me the most is that Somu was offered a seat at Dhoompur Engineering College to study Electronics Engineering. The picture taken of the Chief Minister with Somu and his family: his mother, two sisters, and his grinning father, unrecognisable in a shirt and trousers, clicked at the unfortunate moment when Somu’s father was trying to adjust his crotch, made the news too, the proudest moment so far in the history of Somu’s family.

  ‘There will be many proud moments to celebrate from now on,’ Somu’s father said, beaming at Somu, when they came to thank me with a gift of their biggest marrow, coaxed from the cracked red soil on the tiny patch of land adjoining their hut.

  * * *

  There have been other changes. The arsonists who caused my da’s death have been expelled and barred from studying engineering, even though their parents, who must be very high up in the influential chain—the ones funding all the politicians—tried hard to avoid this happening, and lobbied to have them moved to a different college in the city. I still feel they’ve escaped lightly. I think they should have served a sentence, or been cautioned at the very least. Ma says their punishment is having to live with the unavoidable fact that their actions took Da’s life.

  Bhoomihalli now sports two borewells (although they are not nearly enough, especially now that we are suffering a drought—I have been campaigning for more), a medical store and a doctor, who visits once a week, driving up self-importantly each Monday in his car. Every villager has now added an additional prayer to their daily list: ‘Please God, if I or any member of my family has to fall ill, let us do so on a Monday.’

  So, most of the concerns I raised in that fateful letter conjured out of bone-crunching grief have been addressed. The power cuts are still just as frequent, but we cannot have everything I suppose.

  There was one other unexpected and yet very welcome outcome
in the aftermath of the letter. What with all the interest in the village, Ma’s fledgling catering business took off, and people came from far and wide to sample ‘Sharda’s melt-in-the-mouth delicacies’ as Ma’s wonderful culinary concoctions came to be known.

  Also, the college finally accepted some responsibility and offered remuneration for inadvertently causing Da’s untimely death. Ma didn’t want to take it, but I pressed her to, pointing out that, with all the orders flooding in, she needed to think of proper premises instead of running her trade from our small cottage.

  ‘We could buy that abandoned plot near the hill, Ma, convert one of the sheds there into a factory, hire the village women to help,’ I urged.

  Now, Ma’s business (called Sharda’s Kitchen), is flourishing. She employs most of the village in her factory: all the women and the men who are too old or infirm to work in the fields. She now supplies many of the big distributors in Bangalore and even to a few in Mumbai!

  If Da is looking down on us, and I want to believe he is, he would be pleased. We are providing for the villagers like he used to, distributing most of the profit from Ma’s business amongst people who need it more than us.

  Da would have been so proud of me, I know. That letter changed me.

  * * *

  Since then, I have become the spokesperson for our village. I campaign about the lack of proper healthcare and education facilities in the villages and ask for more to be done for the desperately poor; I organise food drives and vaccination clinics, clothing banks and refuge centres for girls and women who are victims of rape and domestic abuse.

  I am their representative because I have the ear of the newspapers—I can write a mean letter you see, one that will have the ministers sitting up and taking action, as they don’t want to slip in public estimation.

  I have been getting missives from people voicing their concerns, asking for help, and there has been the odd threatening letter amongst all the pleas. The first time I got one, written in bold, red letters, screaming the words, ‘If you don’t stop right now, we will hurt you,’ I dropped the paper as if it had bitten me.

  Ma had looked up then, her gentle, loving gaze scrutinising me.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘I-I…’ I held the offending sheet out to her.

  Her face went pale, but that was the only visible sign of inner turmoil. Otherwise, she was as composed as ever. She ripped the letter into minuscule shreds and put her arms around me. ‘There will always be people who’ll be against you, no matter what you do, Kushi. And there will be more letters like this one. You must ignore them and do what you think is right. The people who pen such notes,’ a contemptuous glance at the flecks of paper that lifted in the tamarind-scented breeze fanning through the open front door, ‘are cowards, resorting to empty threats because they do not have the courage to do what you are doing.’ Ma paused. She cupped my face between her palms and looked into my eyes. ‘One thing, Kushi. I know you feel deeply about what you do. But remember to take the girls’ feelings into account. Put yourself in their shoes. Don’t project what you think is best for them onto them. They need to make their own minds up. I know it frustrates you when some of them don’t want to change. It’s a long process, sweetie.’

  ‘Oh Ma, yes, I know.’

  Since then, there have been a few more vitriolic letters, scarlet ink voicing similar threats, but they haven’t had the same effect as that first one. I get the odd look thrown at me sometimes, men frowning and spitting, hecklers at my rallies: husbands angry about their newly vocal wives, mother-in-laws of women who are no longer acquiescent puppets, even mothers whose daughters are refusing to marry the men they have chosen for them.

  I do get scared but have learned not to show my fear. I have taken Ma’s advice, celebrated my successes and learnt to ignore the threats and the jeerers, treating them as a consequence of my job, brushing them away as nothing peskier than the whine of a persistent mosquito.

  * * *

  I am here now to help Asha, imprisoned amidst new saris and old fears, beading sweat, and looming decisions. Asha, a slight waif of a girl, squished between her mother on one side and her mother-in-law-to-be on the other, an opening and closing parenthesis crowding a comma. A waterfall of saris in various shades, cascade in front of her nose as her mother and mother-in-law-to-be hold up one after the other for her approval.

  Asha’s parents have four girls of whom Asha is the oldest. The man she is betrothed to, against her will, (not that she had a say in the matter, nobody asked for her opinion), is a divorcee, thirty to her seventeen with a young child that needs looking after. But he lives in a house, not a hut like Asha’s parents and he is refusing dowry, which to Asha’s parents, with four girls to marry off, is a godsend.

  Asha wants to study at the Engineering College, get a job, and not get married this early. She’s tried telling her parents, but they will not entertain what they call ‘her whimsical fancies’, and so she’s asked me to intervene on her behalf.

  Something flits back and forth in my line of vision. I look up, and realise it is Asha, waving to me, her eyes huge and afraid. I smile reassuringly at her, use the back of my arm to wipe my face of the sweat that has collected, take a deep breath and enter the shop.

  The sari shop is like entering an opulent, iridescent world, so different from the one outside with its pungent reek of fish and drains and spices, blood from the butcher’s shop and rotting garbage. It smells of shiny smooth fabric, the promise of new clothes and something else, something exotic. Rows and rows of saris in all the hues of the rainbow shimmer and glisten in racks behind the counter and tumble from the table in front of Asha.

  ‘Welcome, ma’am, what can I do for you?’ the proprietor asks me in a voice as slippery as melted butter.

  ‘Sorry, I am with her,’ I say, pointing towards Asha and he retreats, his face falling in a dismay he does nothing to hide.

  ‘Hi Asha,’ I say cheerily as I approach the trio.

  Asha’s mother and mother-in-law turn in unison and scrutinize me suspiciously. Asha flashes a cautious smile, fear dappling her face, and shadows shivering in her eyes. The women’s gaze is questioning and I get straight to the point.

  ‘Have you asked your daughter if this is what she wants?’ I say, fixing my gaze on Asha’s mother.

  Huffing, the mother-in-law to be—or not, if I have anything to do with it—stands up abruptly, dislodging a pile of saris, which the shop assistant rescues just in time.

  ‘Who are you to interfere in personal business? We are offering Asha a great proposal. My son has a good job. She will be well looked after and we do not even want dowry!’ Her bulbous eyes jiggle furiously in their sockets with every vehement word she utters.

  I keep my eyes on Asha’s mother whose gaze wavers between her daughter and me.

  ‘You know of course that Asha is the brightest girl in her class. She will get a place in the Engineering College here easily.’

  ‘Engineering!’ the soon-not-to-be mother-in-law gasps.

  ‘Once she finishes her degree, Asha will get a good job and she’ll be independent,’ I say, looking only at Asha’s mother, ‘Isn’t that what you want for your daughter? Or do you want her to be tied to a man almost twice her age, looking after another woman’s child, when she is barely an adult herself?’

  As I say this, I thank God that I have been brought up in an educated household, that my mother would not dream of forcing me to marry anyone against my will, old-fashioned through she might be in some ways.

  The soon-not-to-be mother-in-law unleashes her ire on Asha’s mother.

  ‘Why are you entertaining this nonsense? Everything has been decided. We are offering your daughter the world. If you break off this match, she will get a bad reputation. It will not help if she does what this mad girl here is suggesting. Who will marry Asha if she goes to a college where she is the only girl in the class? And how will you get your other girls married if your eldest amasse
s an unsavoury reputation bringing disgrace upon your whole family?’

  Asha’s mother’s gaze falters. I know I have to do something and fast.

  ‘Asha will not be the only girl in class. I don’t know why everyone seems to think engineering is a boys’ profession when the computer engineering course in Dhoompur College, which is what Asha wants to do, boasts more girls than boys.’

  Asha’s mother is watching me intently now, interest piqued. I make the most of it.

  ‘And Asha will get a good job at the end of it, she will support herself and she will find someone to marry, an engineer like her, who’ll see past this nonsense about reputation. She’ll have a life you’ve never dreamed of, the fulfilling sort of life that I bet,’ and here I cross a line I know, and go a bit too far, ‘you haven’t had. Do you want her to have a future that mirrors yours? A future where she will slog day and night for little return and no thanks? She can be so much more! Times are changing now. Okay, let’s say you won’t be able to marry off your other daughters. What’s so wrong with that? We can live without men, you know. Give your girls an education instead. Let them stand on their own two feet.’

  When I see the hope blooming in Asha’s mother’s eyes, nudging away the doubt, I know Asha and I have won. I insulted Asha’s mother, yes, but I spoke the truth. Like most women in the village, she has endured a life she did not pick, a life that was chosen for her, a life she has sometimes resented, and she would rather not have her children subjected to the same life, especially if there is another way out.