by Bali Rai
‘So bhai-ji, what are all the sacks for?’ Inderjit asked me, winking, as we walked back to the house.
‘Nothing. Uncle-ji needs them tomorrow. To burn some rubbish.’
‘Rubbish like you are telling me now?’ he replied, grinning.
I looked at him and then down at my knackered Air Max. I shook my head before I spoke, then winked. ‘You ask too many questions.’
‘So they are not for burning rubbish?’
‘No, Inderjit.’ I cracked a smile. ‘I am going to run away back to England tomorrow and the sacks are to hide my belongings in.’
He looked at me, his mouth wide open, bewildered. I could tell what was going through his mind as he thought about what I’d said. Is he lying or is he telling the truth? I smiled wider and then broke into laughter. Inderjit waited for a few moments and then joined in my laughter, putting his hand on my shoulder.
‘You know, bhai-ji, I really thought that you were being serious for a minute.’
‘Yeah, you nearly believed me,’ I teased.
‘You cannot make a fool of me so easily,’ he smiled, falling for my trick.
‘I’ll tell you the big secret tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘Maybe you can help.’ I winked again as Inderjit nodded eagerly. Reverse psychology, Ady used to call it. ‘Make a man so confused,’ he once told me, ‘you can tell a man anything an’ he will refuse to believe it. Even the truth.’ I smiled as I thought about seeing Ady again, leading Inderjit into the house with a bounce in my step.
Inside, Uncle Jag was waiting for me. He cracked open a bottle of beer for me and began telling me the next steps in the plan, in English again so that Inderjit wouldn’t understand. I had assumed that we were going to get up earlier than the rest of the family so that we could escape, but my uncle told me that we would need a good start on them. As long as they didn’t realize we had gone until after lunch-time, they would have to wait until the following day to follow us, by which time we would be in Delhi. Too late.
‘You see, they will have to hire a car to come after us and that means going to Jullundur. No taxi-driver will agree to leave for Delhi in the afternoon, not unless you pay them in pounds or dollars,’ Jag told me. ‘So we need to make sure that they won’t be able to work it out until the afternoon. Lunch-time at the earliest.’
‘How are we going to do that?’
‘We are going to make them paratha first thing in the morning. I’ve already told them.’
‘You’re going on about paratha again. How are they going to help?’ Man, I was confused. What was going to happen? They were gonna be so full of food that they wouldn’t be able to move? The whole thing just didn’t make sense.
Uncle Jag just laughed at my creased forehead and raised eyebrows. ‘Leave the rest of it to me,’ he said. ‘You just make sure that you are ready to go when I wake you up.’
‘No problem.’ I was going to be awake all night anyway – wondering what on earth paratha had to do with helping me to get there.
‘Good. And Manny . . .?’ he began.
‘Yeah?’
‘That was really nice, what you did earlier. Giving your camera to Mohan.’
‘Oh, did he tell you?’ I replied.
‘Tell me? That was all he talked about.’
‘He told me that you were his only friend in the family. Is that true?’
‘Is that what he said? I don’t know. Probably.’
‘What about the rest of them?’
‘Well, Mohan’s family has always worked for ours and everyone else treats him like a servant. They don’t really talk to him or have him round socially. It’s always about work.’
‘But not you?’
‘No, not me. Mohan has always been the only one that I talk to when I come back here. Now there’s you too, of course. But Mohan’s always listened to me, since I was about your age. He’s been more family to me than your father or the other two. So a few years ago I gave him some fields that I don’t use. He looks after them.’
‘For you?’
‘Yes, in a way. I’m never going to use those fields and I’ve no intention of settling down here, so I pretend to lease them to Mohan.’
‘Pretend?’ Man, the plot was thickening.
‘To the family. They went mad when I told them.’
‘Is that what all that stuff was about? My old man yelling down the phone when I was a kid?’ I took a swig of beer and listened intently.
‘Yes. I bought the family some new land which was better for crops and suchlike. And because I wasn’t going to use the old land, or at least my share of it, I signed it over to Mohan.’
‘Pretending that you’d only leased it?’
‘Yes. Mohan is actually the proud owner of two fields which he can use for himself. Of course he pretends that he’s working it on my behalf but actually it’s his. Mohan deserves something from us, after all that his family has given to us over the years.’
‘Yeah,’ I nodded in agreement. ‘It’s not fair that everyone else treats him like a servant.’
‘It’s the way things are over here, Manny. People like Mohan have to work all day long just to be able to afford the most basic food. And our family gets rich off the back of his hard work. Not many people try to change things.’
‘Apart from you,’ I said smiling.
‘And now you, too. Every little thing helps. As Mohan is fond of saying, we are all monkeys, Manny.’
‘We just ain’t got tails, that’s all,’ I said. Both of us burst into a fit of laughter and a confused-looking Inderjit looked at us both and then at the bottles of beer that we held.
‘How many bottles have you had to drink?’ he asked in Punjabi.
‘Never mind,’ replied Uncle Jag, still smiling.
‘You foreigners are very strange people,’ said Inderjit. ‘Wearing your funny clothes and speaking your funny language. Laughing at nothing. Like monkeys.’
‘Just you wait and see,’ laughed Jag in Punjabi. ‘We get much worse.’ With that he tapped his breast pocket, where the mystery package was hidden and winked at me, imitating Inderjit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
September
THE DARKNESS IN the yard was broken by an overhead light on the veranda, one which Uncle Jag had turned on waking me up. I’d groaned a couple of times when he shook my shoulder before realizing suddenly the importance of the new day. Once that had dawned, I shot out of bed, showered and threw on my clothes. Outside Jag had a fire started under the stove and was busy mixing flour, water and dhaniya – a herb known as ‘coriander’ in English – together to form the dough, or atta, for the paratha. I stood, watching the flames flickering underneath the flat iron pan on which the paratha would be baked, the thavah. Beside the fire a pile of steel trays and bowls waited for me. Jag gestured at them.
‘There’s a container of fresh yogurt just inside the indoor kitchen. Go and get it and bring out a ladle too. I want to mix some more dhaniya into it, ready to serve with some chopped onions, tomatoes and cucumber. They’re in the fridge; bring those out too.’ He spoke quietly and I wondered out loud what time it actually was. When he told me that it was just before three in the morning, I began to wish that I had never asked. I yawned and tried to wipe the tiredness from my eyes.
‘Boy, I’m glad to be getting out of here. I can’t handle many more of these early mornings.’ It was so true, man. During my stay in Adumpur I had been getting woken up by Inderjit at around five each morning. That was like torture to me. I hadn’t realized that everyone else had already been up for an hour or two before me. Sack that. Not me, dread. When I got back to Leicester I was going to make it a priority to get in a solid month or two of lie-ins.
I headed wearily for the indoor kitchen, where I found the yoghurt, ladle and chopped vegetables. I took them back out to the yard where I found Jag standing over a large pan of buffalo milk, watching it come to the boil so he could make some tea. ‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked him in English.
; He pointed towards the indoor kitchen. ‘All the adults, including Jasbir and Inderjit, will be eating paratha. They’re not for the kids; they don’t really like them anyway so I’ve bought them some egg noodles and ketchup. Or they can have fried bread with jam. I need you to sort them out when they get up.’
‘No problem,’ I said as I watched my uncle roll out the paratha and pass them to me to bake on the thavah.
We served up breakfast around quarter to four by which time it had been light for a while. Uncle Jag took care of the adults while I gave the kids platefuls of noodles and ketchup. The food seemed to go down quite well and everyone, my older uncles included, congratulated us on how niceit was. As the cooks, Of course, We simply served the food but didn’t eat any ourselves so, by the time everyone else had finished eating, my stomach had begun to growl. Jag fried up some slices of bread for us and I ate them loaded with strawberry-flavoured jam.
By half past four, everyone had gone off to their various chores and the courtyard was deserted except for my uncle and myself. Jag came over to me and pulled me by the arm.
‘Go over to the haveli and get your things. I’ll meet you by the front gate in five minutes. Mohan will have a car waiting for us.’
My heart jumped into my mouth. It was actually happening. We were actually on our way. I took a last look around the courtyard, realizing that I wasn’t going to miss the place at all. I felt like a prisoner waiting at the prison gates, my last moments of captivity before I was set free. I wiped my forehead and then headed for the haveli at full pelt, dodging the old goat that lived on the path and jumping over the potholes. I was so excited that I emptied the kindling from the sack out in the haveli yard, grabbing my backpack before heading back to the front of the house. Mohan was standing there with a man who looked just like him, only younger. Behind them was a small white car that looked a bit like a Ford Fiesta, but more box-shaped. I went over to give Mohan a hug.
‘So, you are actually going?’ smiled Mohan as I stepped back.
‘Yes, Uncle-ji.’
‘Will you miss this old monkey when you are back in your foreign home with all your foreign things?’
‘Of course I will. Just don’t go growing any tails, OK?’
Mohan gave me a big smile, then introduced me to his nephew, Bahadur, who was going to drive us to Delhi. He opened the back for me and I put my backpack in as Jag came out. Throwing a travel bag into the car, he ushered me in then turned and shook hands with Mohan. They exchanged a few words and then the car was moving. We were off, through the narrow streets of Adumpur, across to the other side of the village and out onto the main road! It all happened so quickly that I didn’t even have time to register it all. One minute we were outside the house and the next travelling along a wide road, the driver dodging between the usual other cars, buses, trucks, pedestrians and animals. I yawned deeply and fell asleep, my head resting against the rear side window, as I listened to Jag and Bahadur talking; still wondering about how we had managed to get out of the house without being seen. Or why the family wouldn’t immediately notice my absence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
September
‘I CAN’T BELIEVE that you gave them weed, man! That’s just mad.’
‘Only enough to send them to sleep for a few hours. It won’t hurt them.’
‘Yeah, but weed? No wonder you wanted the kids to eat something else. Man, they’re gonna be vexed when they wake up.’
‘At least the kids were OK. I left them with Naseebo. No harm done. Well, not much.’
I had woken up about half an hour after we had left Adumpur when the car had braked sharply to avoid hitting a bull in the middle of the road. The first thing I had asked Jag was how we managed to escape without the rest of the family noticing. He had told the family that he was taking me on a trip to Jalandhar for the day. I hadn’t expected him to tell me that the herbs that had been mixed into the yoghurt and those that went into the paratha had been weed. Marijuana. My mouth just fell open. For a good minute. And then I creased up with laughter, so much that my eyes started to water and my ribcage began to ache. Weed! I couldn’t believe that in all my excitement I hadn’t recognized the herb for what it was. And no wonder Mohan hadn’t wanted to tell me what was in the mysterious package.
I was trying to imagine Uncle Piara after he woke up, suffering from the ‘munchies’ and wondering what the hell had happened to him. It was like something out of an Eddie Murphy movie. Jag just grinned at me when he told me. Like it was no big deal. He told me that there was no way that they would find out. He had brought the rest of the stuff with him, ditching it by the road as we left Jullundur. There was probably some poor goat wandering through the streets, high as a kite, wondering where it was going and what was happening to it. The very thought of it made me laugh even harder. Ordinarily, I would have been bricking myself, worried that I was gonna get murdered by my old man for pulling such a stunt, but I figured that it was just what they deserved for keeping me prisoner for so long. As Ady always liked to say – ‘One in yer eye, boss.’
We arrived in Delhi in the late afternoon and immediately the traffic worsened all around us. The roads were absolute chaos with trucks, cars, scooters, carts and motorized three-wheelers weaving in and out and around each other whilst people on foot crossed into the path of oncoming traffic, not looking where they were going, as though they were wearing suits of armour. Added to the chaos were more people pedalling along on rusty bikes, three and sometimes four to a frame and the usual assortment of cows, bulls, goats, pigs and stray dogs. Man, it was so crazy that I started to feel claustrophobic, sitting in all that traffic, watching everything going on around me.
Bahadur parked up right outside our destination, the British Airways ticket office in downtown Delhi, and Jag told me that we were going to pick up the tickets and then head straight for the airport, Indira Gandhi International, which was about twelve miles or so outside of the centre. He had booked me onto a flight leaving at two the following morning, enough time to get some food and have a quick look around Delhi.
But it didn’t go completely smoothly. When we found the queue in the ticket office, we saw that the clerk at the front was shaking his head, as if to say sorry.
‘What do you reckon is going on, Uncle-ji . . . er, I mean, Jag?’
‘Looks like there’s some kind of delay, Manny. Hang on, I’ll go and find out.’ He returned after about five minutes with the bad news. ‘First available flight will probably be tomorrow night, around midnight.’
I shrugged. ‘Airport better be comfortable,’ I said, taking my passport and ticket from Jag and putting them into my bag.
Jag shook his head. ‘Two rooms at the Metro,’ he said. ‘Booked and ready.’
‘The Metro?’ I asked, wondering where that was.
‘My favourite hotel in Delhi,’ replied Jag, smiling.
‘To the Metro it is then,’ I said, smiling back at him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
September
WE HAD LUNCH the following day at a restaurant called ‘Croissants Etc’ on Connaught Place in the heart of Delhi. I had been amazed to find out that you could buy something like a croissant in India at all. Earlier we had taken a walk around the centre of Delhi. It was just like being at home. I saw an Odeon cinema, an American Express bureau, a Thomas Cook travel agents, and loads of trendy looking restaurants and delis called ‘Zen’ and ‘Rodeo’ – another world compared to the one that I had been used to in Adumpur and Jullundur. Jag told me that Delhi was more cosmopolitan than the rest of India. The major cities in India – Delhi and Mumbai – were more modern than the rest. They were like the financial and media centres of India, a bit like London and Manchester are in England. Because of that there was more money and more commercial outlets like the restaurants and bars that he showed me. My whole image of India needed upgrading – like buying the latest version of your favourite computer game because the old one just doesn’t cut it any more.
‘Yes, of course I will. I want to know all about what you decide to do with your arranged marriage.’
I still didn’t know how it was all going to work out. I knew that I didn’t want this marriage. That I couldn’t live my life like that, in that traditional way. But as for what I was going to do about it, that was something that I needed to think about, get sorted out. Talking to Jag made me realize that I was going to have to make a big decision soon. A straight choice between my family and my freedom. The only question was whether it was going to be too big. For I would be cut off from my family if I chose freedom. On my own. And that would be a high price to pay.
Jag seemed to know what was going on in my head because he pushed aside his plate and answered the question for me. ‘Everything you decide on in your life has a cost, Manny.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, take this whole marriage thing. I know that you’re going to have all these doubts in your mind about whether you are doing the right thing or not.’
‘Definitely.’
‘What you’ve got to ask yourself is what you want out of life. At the end of the day it’s about you being happy doing what you want. Or keeping your parents happy by doing what they say.’
‘I know, Jag. The thing is, it’s really hard. I mean if I don’t go through with it they’re going to disown me.’
‘Like they did with me, you mean?’
‘No, because they still talk to you and you visit them all the time. I’m talking about being totally cut off. That’s what they’ll do.’
‘And that might be too high a price to pay?’
