The storm arrived without warning, ramming into the lake and its surroundings with an intensity rarely seen in this part of the country. The swirling wind and terrific downpour crept up with the quietness and ferocity of a prowling tiger that had been hungry for days, prepared to devour its prey.
The boat had been in the middle of the lake when the end began; the shrieking and shouting drowned out by the howling wind, frantic arms clasping at nothing but the angry water when the boat capsized, and searching eyes looking for relief but finding only an opaque sheet of grey. It was a good twenty minutes by the time the two unconscious kids were heaved onto the pier by the boatman, his body so crushed with exhaustion that he himself had to be pulled out of the water by other helpful hands.
They were the only members of their family who had survived.
The storm parted an hour later, leaving in its wake the stillness of ruin. Parmeet’s body was fished out of the water two hours after that, just before the large lake was consumed completely by nightfall. Sheetal was discovered the next morning, floating upside down on the far side of the lake. Her perfect nose had been shorn off by some kind of predatory fish.
Innocent Dreams said the small brass plaque by the main door. It was embedded in the coarse white-washed wall. Some slivers of the white choona had usurped the edges of the plaque, but no one seemed to have noticed or cared to wipe them off. The door itself was bottle green and large. It closed behind Deepika and Ujjal with finality.
With no surviving grandparents who could take them in, and just one distant aunt (Sheetal’s cousin) who lived in South Africa and didn’t even bother showing up for the funerals, the Haryana State Social Welfare Board mandated that the teenaged siblings be entrusted to the orphanage system of the state. There was not a whole lot to be inherited from their dead parents, but whatever little there was, was put in a trust that was to be made available to them once Deepika attained maturity. Much of the legal paperwork and running around that such matters typically entail was undertaken by the kind colleagues and friends of the deceased couple. But once the State had effectively settled the guardianship issue, those friendly souls were quick to say goodbye and return to their own busy lives.
Innocent Dreams was an orphanage owned by a woman of reasonably large proportions, who went by the name of Jasmine Bhatia. She had decidedly been very pretty once upon a time. Now, in her mid-thirties, much of that beauty had been padded by an unhealthy amount of fatty tissue, especially around the jawline and cheeks. She had the face of those unfortunate people who always look more mature than their chronological age—much like the Hindi film and TV actresses who start playing Ma-ji roles in their thirties. But, despite Jasmine’s physical realities, she was still capable of flooring you with her charm.
Jasmine had been with the Ahluwalia children all through the process of introducing them to their new life. She had been warm and kind, laughing easily and once hugging Ujjwal so tight she almost squashed the skinny boy, like a crusher that flattens sugarcane into juice.
It was difficult to judge the boy’s feelings, but Deepika had started to like her new guardian almost instantly. ‘Call me Jasmine Didi like everyone does,’ Jasmine had said when Deepika had said ‘Thank you, Jasmine Aunty’. Even though Deepika wasn’t quite convinced of the suitability of that younger title on a woman who looked even older than her late mother, she was happy to go along with it.
The orphanage was a narrow building spread over three floors, located near the border of Haryana and South-East Delhi. The brother and sister were given a room to share on the third floor. It was small but airy, had two comfortable cots, a study table, a mirror, and a fan that went from Off to Full with no other speed settings in between. The teenagers had arrived at around 4 PM in the afternoon with four packed suitcases bearing everything they considered their own from their old rented house. There were clothes, video games, books, collections of stray knick-knacks, some photographs, a cricket bat and two badminton racquets. The two had silently emptied the contents of the suitcases and stacked them inside the single green steel almaari in the room. The photo frames were displayed awkwardly on the study table. There were three of them—one of the father, one of the mother, and a third of all of them smiling together as a family. It had been taken at their mother’s office-friend’s sister’s wedding in Meerut—that explained everyone’s formal attire in the photograph.
With the room set as best as teenagers could manage, Ujjwal had sat quietly by the window and stared outside at the busy road chockfull of noisy traffic scurrying by. Deepika was reading an old Agatha Christie novel that she had already read four years ago.
‘How are my new stars doing?’ said Jasmine Didi cheerfully as she entered their room at around 7:30 that evening.
‘Fine, thank you, Didi. We have kept our stuff in that cupboard, and the suitcases under this bed,’ said Deepika as she put away her book and stood up. Ujjwal merely turned his head to look at the older woman for a moment, and then pulled away his stare back to the world outside.
‘Ujjwal is not happy to see me—are you, Ujjwal?’ Jasmine spoke loudly. The remark elicited no response from the boy.
‘I am sure he is happy, Didi,’ said Deepika on his behalf. Then, adding in a whisper, ‘He doesn’t talk. He hasn’t even talked to me since…’ her voice trailed off.
‘Oh, I see.’
‘I have been trying to get him to say something, anything—but he just doesn’t! What’s wrong with him, Didi?’
‘I am sure nothing is wrong with him, beta. He is just very sad.’
‘But it has been three weeks since Mummy-Papa...’
‘Different people deal with death in different ways, my dear. I am sure he will get over this loss and talk to you soon.’
Jasmine Bhatia couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Inspector from the Haryana State Social Welfare Board came to visit four days after the bereaved children had moved to Innocent Dreams. It was a routine enquiry mandated by the Punjab and Haryana High Court some years ago, and conducted whenever an orphanage took charge of a new ward. The lady official introduced herself as Sunita Kumari. She was short and dark, her salt-and-pepper hair pasted to the scalp with the help of prodigious amounts of what smelled like cheap hair oil. She looked extremely serious in her thick glasses.
The four were now seated on the bed in the children’s room. Sunita Kumari had a large file open in front of her.
The woman started her ‘inspection’ with an observation of the living arrangements of the children. Without a doubt, they were highly satisfactory.
‘Are you comfortable in your new home?’ Sunita Kumari asked the children. Since Ujjwal was already tuned out of the conversation, Deepika was answering.
‘Yes, very much so,’ she said with a reasonable amount of excitement. ‘Jasmine Didi is taking good care of us. Even Sumi is very helpful,’ she added, referring to the assistant who stayed on the premises full-time and took care of the place.
‘Have you met the other children yet?’
‘No, not yet,’ chimed in Jasmine. ‘I usually give every new child two weeks to get familiar with their new surroundings first before letting them meet the others. Dealing with so many new things all in one go can be very overwhelming, especially if the child has just dealt with very tragic circumstances.’
The visitor nodded in agreement.
‘How is the food?’
Deepika’s face lit up. ‘We had Domino’s pizza for two days!’
Jasmine Didi broke into her guttural laughter at the girl’s statement. ‘Anything to make these precious children’s lives a bit comfortable! But, let me assure all of you, pizza is an exception. Not more than once or twice a month, OK?’ she looked at the young girl with playful sternness.
Deepika beamed a pretty smile and nodded her head vehemently. It made even Sunita Kumari’s rigid countenance soften a bit.
‘What about school?’
‘Yes, what about school?’ That was a questio
n that even Deepika had in mind these past few days but had not put forth to Jasmine Didi so far. She missed her school friends terribly.
‘Sending them back to Delhi Public is out of the question. Obviously, we can’t afford it.’
Deepika was stunned. She turned sharply to look at Ujjwal to make sure he had heard the devastating piece of news too. He looked just as lost as he did before.
‘I am planning to tutor them myself for this academic year,’ Jasmine Didi continued explaining to the inspector. ‘Next year onwards, they will go to the Government Boys and Girls schools nearby, just like my other children.’
‘But…’ mumbled Deepika, too shocked to speak. Sunita Kumari immediately realised that the plan to change schools had not been discussed with the children as yet. She completely appreciated the sensitivity of the subject from experience, and noticing the dismayed look on the girl’s face, felt compelled to end her interview as soon as possible. She wanted the children’s new guardian to take her time to calmly explain the reasons behind the seemingly drastic decision. Obviously, no orphanage anywhere could afford the kind of fees that private schools charged in India.
Sunita Kumari left the orphanage assured. In her official report that she filed with the Welfare Board later, she wrote: ‘The children look happy and well taken care of despite the fact that they lost both their parents just about a month ago. I am confident that Innocent Dreams, true to its name, will be the place where their dreams and aspirations will be cherished and nurtured to their full potential, allowing them to grow up and become model citizens.’
The reality couldn’t have been further from Sunita Kumari’s optimistic projections. Moments after the Social Welfare Board Inspector had left the premises, the children were commanded by Jasmine Didi to pack up a handful of clothes, and move out of the room. They were shunted to the living quarters downstairs where all the other children lived.
It was the beginning of the end of their innocent dreams.
3
Endless Night
Innocent Dreams was home to fourteen children, not counting Deepika and Ujjwal. There were nine girls and five boys between the ages of 12 through 16. All of them had been part of the orphanage for at least a year. The oldest resident, however, was Sumi, the caretaker. She had been the first orphan Jasmine had taken in when she founded Innocent Dreams over six years ago. As the brood grew larger, Sumi, who was now almost 18, had ‘graduated’ to becoming a full time ayah/maid/caretaker at the orphanage, since Jasmine did not live on the premises.
Just like Jasmine, Sumi had been kind and gentle when the Ahluwalia kids had first arrived. But as soon as Sunita Kumari had left after her inspection, Sumi’s attitude and demeanour towards them had made a dramatic transformation.
‘I am sure they were the ones responsible for killing their parents,’ said Sumi, as she introduced Deepika and Ujjwal to the rest of the orphans. ‘Why, am I right or am I right?’ she said, sneering at Deepika. Deepika was too offended to answer such a ludicrous question, so she simply started to walk away pulling Ujjwal along with her.
‘Oye, Madamji, where are you off to?’ Sumi called out behind her. When that didn’t draw any reaction from Deepika, she continued, ‘Aha, look at the hero-heroine-type walk they have! Too posh to talk to the likes of us? Well, we will see how long it takes you to go from Hero to Zero!’ The group dissolved into peals of sniggering laughter and taunting catcalls that echoed around the narrow hall, making the sounds piercingly impactful. Deepika’s eyes moistened immediately and her underlip shook in a mix of anger and dismay. She turned her head slightly to look at her brother. Ujjwal seemed miles away. She squeezed his hand tightly, but that caused no change in his reaction.
It wouldn’t bode well for their future there.
There were two large dorm rooms on the first floor of the house—the living quarters, so to speak; one for the boys and the other for the girls. Since Ujjwal was still being a zombie, Deepika was extremely concerned about their separate living arrangements. ‘Who is going to look after him?’ she fretted. When she met Jasmine Didi again, she expressed her worry about being separated from her brother.
‘So?’ asked the woman.
‘But what if they beat him up when he is alone with them? You know he doesn’t talk!’
‘Some bashing might do him good, don’t you think? How long does he intend to stay goonga? Wouldn’t you like to hear his voice?’
The phony performance in front of the State Welfare Board Inspector had already led to Deepika’s lofty impression of Jasmine Didi come crashing down to earth. Her insensitivity to her brother’s condition made it sink even further.
Later, when alone with Ujjwal, Deepika lied, ‘Right now, there isn’t enough space, na, that is why we are in separate rooms. But Jasmine Didi has promised that we will be together soon.’
As usual, Ujjwal expressed no emotion.
‘Anyway, don’t you worry,’ she continued, regardless. ‘I will take good care of you.’
Ujjwal continued to stare at his shoes.
‘OK?’
Nothing.
‘Say something, you bloody idiot!’ she yelled in her head.
It was the first time in her life that Deepika had felt utterly helpless at her situation. She had been sad and angry when her parents had died, but she had somehow managed to control those emotions from completely usurping her. She’d had to, there were things to take care of. But now she was having trouble fighting the tide of despair. Deepika felt as if she was swimming in a pool where something unseen was pulling her under the surface, and her arms were steadily losing the energy to keep her afloat.
Most of what Jasmine Bhatia had promised the State Welfare Board Inspector never materialised. Deepika’s and Ujjwal’s names had already been struck off the rolls of Delhi Public School, Faridabad. To move from an English medium school to a Hindi one might have been easier had the children been provided an interim period of home tuitions—as Jasmine had alluded to in front of Sunita Kumari, but none had happened. Instead, the children were immediately shunted to the Government Schools (separate ones for Boys and Girls) five minutes away from the orphanage, where they were forced to acclimatise with Bhoogol instead of Geography, Ganit instead of Maths and Vigyan instead of Science, all on their own.
Needless to say, Deepika also never saw a Domino’s pizza again for the rest of her time there.
The only small mercy was that children have an uncanny ability to adapt. And Deepika was a fast learner.
Life at Innocent Dreams was very far removed from the Ahluwalia household. Deepika and Ujjwal, just like the other children at the orphanage, were left to their own devices as long as they walked the very straight and narrow line of compliance. There were plenty of chores to be managed around the house comprising so many members—cooking, cleaning up, washing clothes, running odd jobs etc. All of that was expected to be done by the children themselves. For them, the day began early, at 5:30 AM, and didn’t end until after 10 PM once every last utensil for dinner had been washed and dried. The meals were drab since the kids cooked these themselves, adequate in quantity but hardly fancy. Veggies meant potatoes and gobi and were bought once a week, fruits were at best bananas and a rare treat. And the kitchen had never seen meats of any kind. In the middle of that long day was seven hours of school, one hour of play, and some television when the few Hindi cable channels they had showed nothing worth watching anyway.
These strict house rules were mandated by the senior devil Jasmine Didi and enforced, in her absence, by her mini-avatar, Sumi. A firm smack on the face was the minimum punishment for anyone who complained. Sumi minded the clan like a Hitler-esque mother-in-law straight out of a TV serial. Perhaps TV was where she had learned her malice. Yet, despite her authoritative streak, the other children stayed close to her. Whenever she called, someone was expected to come running. And they always did, like trained animals in a circus act.
Deepika was too alpha to be cowed down by someone who was bar
ely a couple of years older than her. But she knew when she was outnumbered. Sumi had assigned her the task of doing the laundry at the orphanage. To wash clothes for sixteen children and one adult was obviously no easy feat—sorting, soaking, pounding, rinsing, drying and, finally, folding and organizing them took at least two hours of backbreaking labour each day. Complaining about it, or about anything actually, had consequences. Once when Deepika had found the watery daal at dinner a bit too spicy, she had been admonished by Sumi in front of all her minions.
‘Madamji, it is called Maa ki Daal. Had you not killed your Maa, maybe she would still be around to make it for you?’
Miraculously, for a place low on furnishings, Sumi had still managed to find Deepika extra curtains and bedsheets to be washed for the remainder of that week, in addition to the already massive load of regular laundry. Most of those sheets didn’t even look soiled.
And so, Deepika learned to keep to herself, making sure not to come in the way of the rules at her new home. Ujjwal was simply too switched off for Sumi and her troop to even bother with, after their first few attempts got them nothing but the same blank stare. Over time, the Ahluwalias had found an uneasy truce, with just the occasional ugly shove or deliberate collision to ruffle the peace once in a while.
Deepika missed her old life terribly. Since her lock up at Innocent Dreams, she had managed to make a furtive phone call to her best friend once—but that conversation had been awkward and laboured. Deepika came to the dreadful realisation that her new impoverished reality did not fit in with her old world. She had never called the friend again after that.
Once upon a time, Deepika’s favourite activities had included buying new mystery novels, devouring fashion magazines, and scouring the internet for news on designer collections—but all she had in her meagre treasure trove now was one Agatha Christie novel that she had already read a few times, a May 2004 issue of Cosmo, a Lakme lipstick shade 61 and an Italian hairbrush that her mother had bought for her on her last birthday. The fallen teenage-fashionista held on to these items from the past with the same ferocity as a Hindi film heroine clings to her saree when it is being pulled by a gust of wind or a rapist.
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