The Eighteenth Parallel

by MITRAN, ASHOKA

  'Do you know any boy who can sing, you know, sing songs ?'

  It was some time before I grasped his question. Then I said, Jagan can sing, sir. Jagannathan, the scout. He sings at every campfire.'

  'What sorts of songs?'

  'Telugu songs, Urdu songs.'

  'Not Tamil songs?'

  'He is a Telugu boy, sir.'

  'I want boys who can sing in Tamil.'

  'There aren't many, sir.'

  'I heard that Varadachari's son sings.'

  'Who is that, sir?'

  'Anyone else you can think of?'

  'Our Tamil pandit, sir.'

  The principal laughed. 'Do you call that music?'

  I said nothing. The Tamil pandit used to sing Tirukkural, Tirikadukam and every other piece of Tamil poetry to the same tune during our Tamil classes. It didn't sound bad at all to me.

  'Our Tamil boys,' he announced, 'should put up a play.' I stayed silent.

  The topics on the principal's agenda that day were not such as to facilitate easy comprehension. He continued, 'It appears that this school has never put up any Tamil play till now. Telugu plays, even English plays, but no Tamil plays. Hereafter, we must put up one or two Tamil plays every year.' I stood listening like someone who had nothing to do with the subject discussed.

  'This year we must put up Karnan.' He went on, 'I have the book with me. There are only three singing parts—Kama, his mother and Krishna. You could be Kama's mother. We'd still need two boys for Kama and Krishna. You're too short to be one of the men, you see.'

  The subject had indeed taken on a sudden personal relevance. I also sensed that the situation was fraught with the gravest danger for me. I had somehow managed to sing something once. But to sing a lot of songs one after the other on a stage, and that dressed as a woman! At that moment the figures of all those in this wide world, including those at home, who disliked me and would gloat over my discomfiture raced through my mind. And I shuddered to think of the reaction in Lancer Barracks to the news of my acting in a play.

  'Anyway, let me know if you can think of any boy. I shall go around myself to the classes and find out.' Then he asked, 'By the way, does Sundaram come to your house regularly ?'

  'Who's that, sir ?'

  'The music master, Sundaram ?'

  I decided that Sundaram was none other than Mr Sundara Bhagavatar. I also deduced the identity of the culprit who had informed the principal about my musical pretensions.

  We did manage to stage that Tamil play. We even sold a lot of tickets. The Tamil population of Secunderabad turned out in full strength for the show. We put it on for two days. I wore a white sari on the first day and a black one on the second. If any sympathy had been expected for the widow, my taking her part took care of that. My widow's clothes caused great mirth. Whenever I appeared on the stage, everyone laughed, even those who had never laughed in their lives before and might never laugh again. Only Mother didn't laugh. She avoided my eyes throughout the play. I made five appearances in all, singing a song at every appearance besides which I also had to enter and exit singing. There was also a musical conversation between Kama and me. I began with 'You are my son, you are my son, you are indeed my son,' to which he replied, 'You are my mother, you are my mother, you are indeed my mother'. Kama, the great warrior friend of Duryodhana, was a foundling brought up by a charioteer. And this scene on the eve of the Mahabharata was the one we put on, his first meeting with his mother who had abandoned him as soon as he was born. So I had to reveal myself as Kama's mother and he acknowledged me. However, refusing to desert his friend Duryodhana, Kama gave me, his mother, his word that he would not attack any of my sons except Arjuna. He also promised not to use the deadly arrow Nagastra more than once. I had to promise in return that if Kama fell in battle, I would cry over his body. But that turned out to be a tall order, for the crying had to be done musically in a song set to Bilahari. So when my widow's white was replaced by a black sari for the second day's performance, I also took the liberty of changing the song. I changed my crying, rather.

  This experience in improvising stood me in good stead in my college years. When the Tamil Association of Nizam College (which had no more than eighteen members) compelled me to practise a song in praise of the Mother goddess for its inauguration, I replaced it at the last moment with poet Bharati's freedom song Viduthalai, Viduthalai! which was a proclamation of freedom and equality to every caste and creed, man and woman, to every Indian. It was on the following day that 'Join Indian Union Day' rallies were held throughout Hyderabad. Within a week, on 15 August 1947, India became independent. The Indian National Congress was banned in the whole State of Hyderabad but it continued its activities from Bombay with Jayaprakash Narayan as its chief adviser. Narasimha Rao, my friend in college, a Telugu boy, took me to meet Kasi Nath Vaidya, a Hyderabad Congress leader whose presence in the city was unknown to the police. Narasimha Rao translated the Tamil freedom song I had sung into Telugu for the leader's benefit. The leader said that the poem deserved to be sung all over the State as a song of revolution. And I began to be considered a revolutionary by a few.

  3

  Professor Ranga's Shakespeare class in the Salarjung Hall. He began with the line 'Old John of Gaunt...'. Old John of Gaunt'. This was the name the students had given him, and it caused a brief ripple in the class which soon subsided, and then the back rows began to doze, heads resting on the desktops.

  Chandru sat in the last row. Professor Ranga had this habit of looking at those in the front rows and talking as if he was conducting a conversation with them. These rows bore the brunt of the deeds of Bolingbroke and Mowbray. Many chairs in the rows were vacant. Students like Chandru always rushed in and occupied the back seats when the classes began, but Professor Ranga didn't bother much about these preferences of the students. After the first five minutes which he spent taking attendance, he would devote the next fiftyfive minutes to a dramatic reading of Richard II from the book. In the past six classes they had been stuck with the first act. Every class started from the very beginning of the play—'Old John of Gaunt'.

  But for the faint tapping of the typewriters in the college office next to the hall, there were no other noises to break the drone of the professor's voice. There was an occasional distant hooting of a car on the street outside the college.

  Masood, who sat next to Chandru in the class, and Anwar Ali Khan, the boy on the bench in front, were both sound asleep. They both wore sherwani jackets of such fine material that you were tempted to feel it. These signs of affluence were, as a rule, most in evidence during English classes because English was common to both the science and history sections. The science students, boys and girls alike, made you feel that they were here to study, and study they must. You found them moping, backs bent, brows knit and shabbily dressed. But high spirits, affluence and leisure marked the lives of the history students. Most of the cars that came to the campus were for the history students. They appropriated the lion's share of the college sports equipment. They were the ones who took part in the elocution contests. Theirs were the cheers and applause during the mock parliament sessions. The vice-president and secretary of the college students union were from the history group.

  Masood turned his head in sleep, causing Chandru's book to fall down from the desk. He muttered a 'Sorry dost' to Chandru, picked up the book lazily with a long hand reaching down and promptly went to sleep again, his well-fed, hefty shoulders moving up and down in a slow and steady rhythm. Silky fuzz had begun to cover his cheeks but his face was still that of a child. Sitting beside him Chandru felt old and hoary, though his bulk was half that of Masood.

  Professor Ranga was lecturing on the prominence of dramatic irony in Shakespeare. John of Gaunt, who endears himself to King Richard, later falls from favour. Still later, the king, who has exercised powers of imprisonment, banishment and confiscation over his subjects loses his throne and finds himself in prison. The King's words at this point are as poignant as John of Gau
nt's. But the fact of the matter was that Professor Ranga's lament was more poignant. 'John of Gaunt emerges as one of the most famous patriots in Shakespeare's play. An old man out of favour with the king becomes a great patriot. One wonders if his last breath was reserved for his country or his dear son... Poor John of Gaunt!'

  Chandru's attention wandered from Professor Ranga. He looked round. Boys and girls. A little over a hundred of them. More than half the students were in trousers and jackets, only because the college insisted on it. There were possibly many among them who had just this set of clothes, crumpled, dirty, torn and patched. There were no special regulations concerning the girls' dress. All of them wore saris. The girls' saris provided a mine of information about the wearer's lifestyle, just as the quality of the boys' clothes did. Take Masood's sherwani. It gave you a fairly accurate idea as to what his house was like, what food he ate and how much he ate, how many servants he had and also what his father's views were since last November. If he were to hear John of Gaunt's speech, he would favour certain groups in Hyderabad and spurn certain others. Masood himself, notwithstanding his being six foot tall and two broad, would not be as prejudiced as his father. But, think of what happened the other day. God, what a ball of hate Masood had been then!

  It had happened about a week ago. There was great excitement during lunch hour in college. All the colleges in Hyderabad had decided to conduct a joint procession to press for people's representation in the Nizam's State Government. Police permission had been obtained for this rally, ostensibly meant to voice the people's aspirations.

  But as the students left the college the real motivation for the demonstration became apparent. The students dispersed and regrouped themselves like the colours in a kaleidoscope. All the sherwani-jackets gathered together. Those in shirts-pyjamas and coats gravitated towards one another. For those in sherwanis lessons would continue as before in college. The principal and the professors were waiting near the college buildings or on the verandas. They had never been as visible as today. Figures of authority whose mere presence was enough to evoke obedience, they now stood out in the open, bereft of their protective roofs, uncertain and weak. They were aware that their high visibility today was likely to weaken their authority among the students for ever. Professor Ranga was there. Mohammad Ghani was there. The Tamil pandit was there. And so was the principal.

  A small procession came in from Basheer Bagh, and the Nizam College students joined them. They were strangers to each other, and the two groups maintained a slight demarcation. The leaders of the procession couldn't have been students. They looked too grown up. The procession went forward along the left of the road. The Hyderabad Police were everywhere.

  No slogans were chanted. The only noise was the shuffling of feet. On Abid Road, the procession became longer. Abid Road was where the Palace Cinema was. There was a wide flight of more than twenty steps leading up to the cinema hall from the street. The building must have been built in the days when labour was cheap and building materials were available in plenty. You could easily mistake it for a palace if you didn't already know that it was a cinema. Anmol Ghadi was on today. Those who had come to see the film crowded the steps and watched while policemen armed with batons ordered off the processionists. But then was it a joke or did it mean something more to them? Those who came to the afternoon shows, especially for a Hindi film, belonged to a certain class. They were drawn from various religious groups, true, but classwise, they were more or less homogeneous. These were the people given to walking over the chairs in the hall, smoking all the time, spitting, scratching themselves and whistling at various pitches whenever there was a break in the film. They were not the sort to be satisfied with being mere spectators. Neither were these the sort of days which kept them satisfied. If you thought about what happened at the stunt film Punjab Mail. The film mostly comprised the antics of the hero and the heroine who careered around on the screen. The corpulent heroine Nadia would jump up and land effortlessly on a roof two floors above, while John Cavas swinging on chandeliers would descend accurately on his horse from a great height and gallop away shouting 'Hey'. A Congress flag happened to be shown somewhere in the film and a picture of Gandhi in another part. At once, wolf whistles became shouts and screams and the film had to be stopped. Any tricolour found or seen anywhere was instantly brought down and torn to pieces those days in Hyderabad. Anmol Ghadi, the film now showing, was about a pair of childhood lovers who grow into adulthood and having nothing better to do, go on loving. It was an innocuous film with Noorjahan breaking into song every now and then with thoughts of her lover Surendra; Surendra would likewise break into song thinking of Noorjahan. Suraiya would sing thinking of both of them.

  The procession had grown greatly in size by the time it reached Sultan Bazaar. There were as many others in it now as there were students. The Sultan Bazaar locality had seen frequent police lathi charges in the past four or five months and three people had died. It was here that the Indian tricolour was hoisted on the eve of the Indian Independence, and when 15 August dawned the flag was seen flying. The police were embarrassed and went round the city through the day in a sheepish huff; no one knew who had hoisted the flag. Then there was a clash with a crowd, followed by Section 144, a lathi charge, teargas and stabbings. These events had reverberations in Secunderabad as well. Chandru ran his fingers over his forehead. The procession inched along through very narrow and congested lanes that had been honoured with the name 'street'. The procession was about to cross a small bridge, the Lakdi Ka Pul across the Musi river. The plan was to hold a meeting at the open ground on the other side of the bridge. A posse of policemen with some senior police officials stood about a hundred yards before the bridge. Their presence brought the procession to a halt.

  The sun beat down mercilessly. As long as the procession moved, there had been gaps in it, but now the ranks closed in tightly. Even as the police surrounded them, a message passed through the crowd—permission for the meeting had been refused, but the leaders were trying to get it even now. The meeting must be held, it had to be held, whatever the cost. No matter how late it got, there had to be a meeting. Sit down, all of you. Please sit down. Wherever you are on the street, sit down.

  A few were already dropping out. They had realised the seriousness of the situation. Chandru was not familiar with this locality. Where should he go to catch a bus home? The people here were not like the people in Secunderabad. They had an alien look. There was no concrete building in sight, only mud-walled structures which looked like huts but which were not as convenient with their low and narrow openings for doorways. An open gutter in front with its slime and pong, dogs and pigs, hens and ducks. The houses had torn sacking for curtains. God knew how many hundreds crowded behind those sack-cloth curtains, inured to dirt and disease. Did religion have any relevance here at all? Yet these were the places where every communal riot took its toll, houses were looted, possessions were burnt and skulls cracked.

  Chandru squatted on the street, a bare ten feet behind the front row, facing the group of helmeted policemen. They carried lathis—well-polished, shiny black sticks. Bloodstains wouldn't show on the black surface. Were these polished with blood by any chance? There was only a muffled noise to be heard. All traffic had come to a stop. Chandru turned to look behind and found that a part of the street was filled with the processionists, all sitting. A lot of police caps and lathis were seen at the back as well. What was happening? Where had all those people gone, those who had led the procession? How long could this calm last, with the procession now shrunk to an island surrounded by police?

  Four police officers spluttered past on two motorcycles along the length of the procession. The next step would be a lathi-charge. Fear began to cover those who sat there, like molten tar.

  Chandru looked round, frightened. There were people crushing him on all sides, but not a single familiar face. There had been at least fifty of his college friends with him when they had started. Had they slipped away
? Or were they caught somewhere else in this crowd? What madness had led him on? Was he going to fall amidst strangers in a strange place, his skull broken?

  A few people in the front row were trying to say something to the policemen, but at the slightest movement, a policeman waved his baton and shouted 'Sit down!'. It would take him only a minute to knock down the intervening heads and reach Chandru.

  A police officer with a preoccupied look now approached the front of the procession and surveyed those sitting on the ground. His eyes halted at every face. Chandru locked eyes with him for a second. Brass buttons shone bright on his starched uniform. All those coloured stripes on his shirt seemed to proclaim him an experienced officer. He must have a family, children. Was he looking for his own son in the crowd?

  A police truck now appeared on the scene and policemen in a different kind of uniform jumped out. The tear gas squad was here. Most of them wore masks. Now was the time for the processionists to decide—should they disperse, or stay and be beaten up?

  There was a sudden commotion in the crowd, though everyone continued to sit. Stay where you are. Lie down on the street even if it means death. But why did young boys have to become the target of batons? They should be allowed to go. No, they shouldn't. Sit where you are. If the police start hitting you, lie down on the street.

  Some start to weep. A few young boys near Chandru cry out for their parents : 'Amma! Appa! Save me!' They place their schoolbags on their heads. Someone says, 'Dip your handkerchief in water—It's the best thing for tear gas.' But where was the water? Even the Musi river was now just two streaks of water on its dry bed, as if someone had lanced it across. Anyway, the river was quite far off. One couldn't run there without getting hit. It was impossible to run at all in this crowd. He was trapped.

  The tear gas squad stood in formation. Police whistles sounded from all sides and the loudspeakers blared in Urdu: 'Disperse in three minutes. You have just three minutes in which to disperse.'