The Color of our Sky: A novel set in India

by Amita Trasi

  “I want to call Papa. Aai is out there . . . ” My voice trailed off.

  “Oh,” she said, examining my face, her voice softening. “The phone lines are jammed; we can’t reach anyone.”

  I pretended not to hear and brushed past her. I entered her home and sat next to the phone, dialing the numbers. The phone at the other end didn’t ring but gave me a busy signal instead. My fingers were heavy, my breathing belabored, but I kept dialing. The woman hovered over me with a worried expression. She paced the floor as I dialed again and again. I resignedly put the phone down.

  “See, I told you,” she said. “My husband is out there too. I have been trying to reach him. I—”

  I wasn’t listening.

  I ran downstairs, thinking I would walk to Papa’s work place. That way I could tell him what had happened. Some of the neighbors had gathered downstairs, back home early from work.

  “Let’s go then,” I heard one of them say.

  Anupam chacha pushed his way out of the crowd and approached me. “Yes, I heard—your Aai might be there,” he said. However calm he wanted to sound, I could hear the fear in his voice and sense the sea of despondency surrounding us already. But he continued in the same vein. “Many residents of our building are out there. Your Papa is already out there. I saw him on my way here. We will find your Aai, don’t worry.” His hand reassuringly patted my shoulder.

  “I will come with you,” I insisted.

  “NO, I want you to be here in case your Aai gets back. You listen to me and stay right here. You understand?”

  His voice was loud, commanding enough to make me stay. I must have nodded because he smiled at me and then disappeared into the crowd. I walked back and sat on the steps outside, hoping to see Aai anytime now, opening the gates, approaching me, telling me I was worried for nothing. Some people returned from work early but rushed past me, worried and wanting to check on their own. The scenes on the TV flashed in my head all over again: a woman beating her chest and crying, rocking her dead son back and forth. Around her, bloodied bodies lay on the ground. Shocked faces loitered on streets amidst smoke and roofless damaged vehicles. The confusion and chaos made me wonder if my Aai was lost somewhere, shaken from the turn of events, trying to get back to her family, her home. And I wanted to appear calm as she opened the gates, so she could see she had nothing to worry about. As much as I wanted to stay strong, there was an odd tear that crept up at the edge of my eye and I had to keep wiping it off. Mukta sat beside me silently, holding my hand, afraid that if she uttered a word, I would erupt into tears. I sat there and made silent promises to God—I would never again offend Aai or speak back to her, and I would do as she said from now on. I promised to go with her to the temple every time she insisted, and most of all, I would never ever say no to whatever errand she wanted me to run.

  Papa came home late. He had a frazzled look on his face; his hair was astray, and his shirt was soaked in sweat and blood. He mumbled something about bodies, about how irresponsible people were. I had never seen Papa in such a state. To see a grown man dissolve in tears, to watch my Papa who once told me tales of courage, was something that pulled at my heart. I brushed away my tears, tugged at his sleeves, and asked him, “Where is Aai?”

  My voice sounded choked. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me blankly. Navin whispered to me that Papa and Anupam chacha had sifted through bodies, turning them over, trying to identify Aai. Navin and I walked to the apartment silently following Papa and Anupam chacha. When we reached our apartment Papa knelt outside, leaning against the door as if he couldn’t enter our home. Anupam chacha tried to get Papa up, held him as if he were a baby learning to walk.

  “Tara, you have to be strong for your father,” Anupam chacha said to me.

  “What happened to Aai?” I asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” he replied as he led Papa inside and made him sit on the sofa. Then Anupam chacha left, taking Navin and Mukta with him. “They need to be alone for now,” he told them as he led them outside.

  Papa and I sat on that sofa in silence next to each other for a while, listening to the clock in our living room tick, hoping Aai would walk through our front door at any minute. Then Papa said he had to get out of the apartment.

  “I have to search for your Aai. Sitting here is not going to accomplish a thing. You have to wait at home Tara . . . in case . . . Aai returns,” Papa told me as he left home.

  I lay in bed that night, watching the moon stare down at me. I wondered how things could change so abruptly, so drastically. Just last night, Aai was telling me a story while she put me to bed. Just yesterday, she had made jalebis for me. I wanted to believe, if I closed my eyes tightly, it would all go away, and today never would have happened.

  Papa returned home the next morning dejected. Even though we didn’t say it out aloud, it was as if we both expected the worst—Aai was somewhere out there, her body mangled among the many corpses. We walked from hospital to hospital that day, searching for Aai’s remains.

  “You should have stayed home, Tara,” Papa said from time to time, but I wanted to be there, holding his hand. I didn’t want to wince when I saw the bodies; I was determined to have one last glimpse of my mother. I wanted to have one chance to bid her a goodbye.

  Anupam chacha came with us and inquired for us when Papa could no longer form words, when all he could do was give an exasperated grunt. There were crowds outside hospitals and police stations, with police officers trying to keep them under control. Occasionally a nurse would look at a sheet where names had become numbers, shake her head, and say, “Maybe she is at another hospital.” And I would think of Aai’s face on the morning when she coaxed me to go drop the clothes at the bazaar and how, by evening, nothing had remained of her, not even a body.

  At each hospital, the nurse there would say something similar, and the color would drain from Papa’s face. Or a glimmer of hope would rise in his eyes each time a nurse asked us to wait so she could check if Aai had been admitted to that hospital. Waiting there, I hoped to see Aai emerging from behind a curtain with few bruises, a scratch or two, smiling at us, telling us it was nothing, telling us how God was great and she had narrowly escaped. But nothing like that happened. There was only dismay and disappointment surrounding everybody, so much turmoil that nobody knew a way out of it. At each hospital we rushed in with hope and walked out in slow steady steps, the burden of defeat making our legs heavy. It was a strange scene—there were no actual bodies around us, but death was everywhere, the glistening of loss in everyone’s eyes.

  When I insisted on knowing, days later, Navin told me how they had searched for Aai at the bomb site and helped others in the process. “We lifted bodies, shoved them in taxis so they could get to hospitals. The thing is . . . ” his voice trailed off and his eyes filled with tears, “the thing is, Tara, I didn’t know if any of them were still alive.”

  Navin became quiet in the coming days—so quiet I wondered if he would ever talk again. All that remained at the end of all this were memories of those brokenhearted faces, the sound of chaos, and the smell of death that would shroud all of us from here on.

  As much as I wanted to, I could not spare Tara her agony.

  –MUKTA

  Fourteen

  For days Sahib and Tara went out, searched for Memsahib, and then returned home, their faces drowned in anguish. I could do nothing but watch how the longing to see Memsahib each morning turned into despair by evening. Of course, in Memsahib’s absence, I had no other recourse but to take charge of and care for the apartment by myself. I made sure I kept the apartment clean and the smell of food wafting in the home, and I ran the errands like clockwork. I didn’t want them to feel that along with their life, their apartment, too, was falling apart.

  Tara sat on the sofa watching the news as they endlessly repeated scenes from the bomb blast, her eyes searching for her mother in the middle of that tumult. I begged her several times to stop watching, to stop reliving that agon
y, but she refused to listen. I knew what she was trying to do—understand what her mother went through, just like I kept summoning in my mind that scene of my Amma dying. The scene on the TV was gory—bodies with missing limbs, body parts strewn on streets, the shards of glass scattered everywhere. I wondered at how strange life was—all those people who had died or had been injured that day probably had never met the people who had caused them so much pain.

  Despite the smell of sadness in their home, Tara didn’t cry much and kept to herself. Sahib asked her to go meet her friends, but she sat in her room looking out the window at the bustling street, waiting for her mother to appear. At night when I served dinner, she insisted I keep a plate for her mother in case she arrived. Every night that plate of food sat waiting for Memsahib while Sahib and Tara picked at their food. After they finished, I would gather the leftovers for my dinner and give the rest to a beggar outside the complex, hoping his prayers were with Tara and her Papa.

  It was on the fourth day after the blasts that they discovered her body at a morgue. Sahib identified it by a gold necklace Memsahib always wore. They brought the bundled body on a stretcher and placed her in the middle of the playground. We couldn’t see her face. Neighbors and many of Memsahib’s friends gathered there dressed in white, wiped away tears silently beside the body, put bouquets and garlands of flowers at her feet, and then took her body straight to the crematorium. Since women were not allowed to go to the crematorium, many of Memsahib’s friends stayed behind, waiting downstairs, crying softly. Tara and I watched from the balcony. I marveled at the way Tara stood there, not allowing tears to fall from her eyes. I put my arm around her and gave her shoulder a squeeze, but she pushed it away. I didn’t mind. I understood. You see, like a tortoise withdraws itself into its shell for protection, we, too, sometimes have to build a wall around ourselves. Maybe it is the only way we can cope.

  A house where someone has died needs to be purified, cleansed. If Amma had been there she would have told me what to do. I did what I knew. I lit diyas, oil lamps, near Memsahib’s photograph and kept flowers near it. I knew the oil lamp could not be allowed to extinguish in the first few days after someone dies, so I guarded it with my life, continually pouring oil into it, keeping vigilance over it. But I didn’t know if it was enough.

  Meena-ji, one of Memsahib’s best friends came the next day, stood in the living room, and asked for Sahib. When I offered her a glass of water, she knocked it from my hand. “Don’t you know,” she screamed, “that you are not supposed to serve food or drinks to guests in a house where somebody has died?”

  I didn’t reply and kneeled down to wipe the water that had spilled to the ground. Sahib walked in then, his face puffy with sleeplessness, his beard unshaven. He folded his hands in greeting to Meena-ji and nodded his head, acknowledging her presence, but didn’t utter a word.

  “All the neighbors want to help with the thirteenth day rituals. We can arrange everything—the priest, the food, the venue . . . ” Meena-ji said.

  “That is very nice of you, but I don’t think that will be necessary. I don’t believe in all that,” Sahib said, politely.

  “This is the least we can do for her. She was your wife,” Meena-ji said as if reminding him.

  Sahib looked away, took a deep breath, and said, “Whatever you think is right, go ahead.”

  Meena-ji left the apartment, beaming. What I didn’t know was that for the next several days leading to the ritual, she would drive several servants, and me, to work like dogs.

  I didn’t mind, really. The thirteen days of mourning followed by the ritual was a must; Meena-ji thought so, even if Sahib didn’t agree. Every day Meena-ji would make Tara place balls of rice and dal on a banana leaf with water on the terrace; I would hide and watch the crows come and peck at them. Pind-daan—Meena-ji called it. She said it was food for the soul of the departed on their journey to heaven. Meena-ji rattled off a set of instructions that we were meant to follow. Every servant had a particular chore to complete. Meena-ji also had chores for me. One of my main chores included cleaning the house thoroughly, and Rajni, another servant, was told to help me. Every day Rajni would arrive after completing her daily work for the family she worked for; we cleaned and wiped down every item in the apartment. Tara didn’t talk much in those days, and Rajni had funny stories to regale me with. She would imitate people in the neighborhood. When Tara or Sahib weren’t around, she would mimic Meena-ji exactly the way Meena-ji shouted or how her face contorted with anger when she scolded us. And our smothered giggles broke the silence in this home. It was Rajni who told me the purpose of this ritual on the thirteenth day was important for the journey of the departed—to leave this life, settle in heaven, and come back in the afterlife in peace.

  One day Tara stood by the table in the living room looking at framed photographs of her mother. Rajni looked at her and asked me, “She hasn’t cried yet, has she? What daughter does not cry at her mother’s funeral?” She rolled her eyes.

  I was enraged. We have our own ways of dealing with grief, I wanted to tell her. Rajni continued unabated. “She should consider herself lucky. They are lucky to find her mother’s body. Many haven’t yet recovered their loved ones’ bodies.”

  “Shh . . . ” I said loudly, trying to admonish Rajni but she continued. “Why? Don’t you think it’s odd that she doesn’t cry?”

  I looked at Tara, afraid she might hear, but she was still standing there, lost in her thoughts, staring at her mother’s photograph in the living room. After this episode I ignored Rajni and told her we should pay more attention to cleaning the apartment and less to gossip. She twisted her face and never spoke to me again.

  That same afternoon Meena-ji came home and sat on the sofa. “Go inside,” she told me. “I have something important to discuss with your Sahib. And I don’t want you listening in.”

  I ran into the kitchen and hid behind the door, waiting to hear what she had to say. Sahib offered her a seat on the sofa and pulled out a chair for himself.

  “Have you ever thought she could be the reason—the bad omen?” Meena-ji didn’t hesitate to ask.

  “Who?”

  “That girl! Who else? What’s her name? Mukta. Ever since she has come to stay here, look at the confusion she has caused in your happy home.”

  Sahib got up from the chair. “Meena-ji,” he said firmly, “I don’t believe in such superstitions. My wife did, but I don’t. So I would appreciate it if you don’t bring such ridiculous tales to me.” His voice was stern but not rude. He folded his hands as if saying a goodbye and walked back into his room, leaving Meena-ji flustered, looking small on that sofa.

  I thought about what she had said. There was a high possibility it might have been my shadow, my bad luck, that had fallen on Tara. After all, how could she lose her mother like I had? It couldn’t be a coincidence. I thought about it for many days after and wondered if there was something I could do to release the demons following me. But every time, this thought wound up as a knot in my stomach, and I didn’t know what to do.

  On the thirteenth day, there was a huge ceremony, and all the residents of the building gathered in Tara’s apartment. All the servants were shooed away and told they should stand outside lest their dark shadows fall on something so auspicious. I stood outside alongside them. We watched from outside. Meena-ji arranged the coconuts, the banana leaves, rice, jaggery, salt, and all the items required for the fire sacrifice. A priest arrived, sat down cross-legged on a low stool, closed his eyes, and recited mantras in front of the consecrated fire. A servant explained it was for the purification of the apartment and to give peace to the people Memsahib had left behind.

  I saw Tara slip out and walk up the stairs to the terrace; I knew she wanted to be alone. But I followed her, watched her from a distance at first, and then sat down beside her. It was so quiet I was afraid to breathe. She kept staring into the distance. I finally whispered to her, “You know I think that whenever the wind moves a branch, it is my
mother trying to say something to me. I am sure your mother will try to say things to you too. You’ll see.”

  She looked sideways and smiled at me, “Did they do all this, this ceremony, these rituals, for your Amma, too?”

  “No, Amma didn’t have any of this.”

  We sat there quietly, the wind whipping in our ears.

  “I wish I had gone that day when Memsahib told me to drop off the clothes, but I told her I was sick. I thought you wanted to talk. I regret it,” I told her.

  She looked at me for a while as if she was memorizing my face. “You mean to say Aai wouldn’t have died if you had gone, if you hadn’t lied?”

  “I didn’t lie; I just gave an excuse like you had taught me to. I thought you wanted to talk.”

  “But I didn’t. And I didn’t ask you to make any excuse. It’s your fault isn’t it? It’s your fault Aai is dead.”

  The sudden realization in her eyes, her surging anger, made me afraid. She was right. As she walked away, wiping her tears, I couldn’t say a thing. Her words looped over and over in my head that night, and by morning my heart felt like a stone sinking under the ocean.

  Death doesn’t just bring with it stifling grief; it changes you in more ways than one.

  –TARA

  Fifteen

  2004

  Raza thought it would take a few weeks to locate Salim. So I spent another month of my life staring at my phone, hoping it would ring. I had always known looking for someone kidnapped eleven years ago was going to be a slow ordeal, that no matter how hard I looked, the clues to where she could be must have been buried a long time ago. But since I didn’t know where to look, I spent most of my days at the police station sitting on that bench, watching people with harried expressions rushing in to make their complaints, seeing the hustle bustle of the station ebb and flow during the day. The constables took pity on me once in a while and asked me if I’d like to have a cold drink or chai. When Inspector Pravin Godbole walked by me he would tell me he was still looking and I should go home. Yet I sat on that bench, naively hoping it would be a reminder to them to work on the case.