After that, the women on the bus assumed her to be the leader of the group. They got down and waited, unsure about what to do. They could see that none of the cages had any animals. There were no tigers or monkeys. No peacocks either. Not even a porcupine.
The second daughter walked to the cage closest to her and tugged at the door. It swung open. She went inside the cage, pulling her daughter behind her. Wordlessly, the women divided themselves into ten groups and entered the cages. When the last woman was inside, a strange buzz was heard and the women knew that the doors had been locked.
Not a leaf stirred in the tall trees that dotted the zoo. The sun beat against the steel bars of the cages, making them glint.
And then, the women heard the roars as the wild cats took to the road. Panting loudly, their faces giddy with power.
‘Why did the zoo authority lock us up?’ the imp asked her mother.
‘To keep us safe,’ said the second daughter, her eyes on the snarling cat eyeing the imp through the bars. ‘To keep us safe,’ she said again.
The imp thought about this. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better to lock them up instead?’ the imp asked, feeling a little foolish. A little brave.
The second daughter looked at the imp, at her daughter. At her deep black eyes. The baby curls that still framed her face. At the shiny nose and the grown-up shoes.
And then, the second daughter did something she knew was foolish. But she knew she had to do it.
She began banging on the doors of the cage.
‘Let us out!’ she yelled. ‘Let us out!’
In the morning, when the second daughter woke up, she was startled by the clarity with which she remembered the dream. It was almost as if she had watched a movie. She missed the imp, though she had never been real at all.
Twenty-six
By Sunday, the viewership for the first six episodes of The Lesson had broken several records and now, for the grand finale which would be telecast live, the viewership was expected to be higher than that of the estimate for the World Cup finals. The chief of the Moral Police Force had written a note to the media mogul asking for a meeting and she was quite hopeful that he would transfer some of his advertising to her channel.
The dentist purchased a suit, his first since his wedding. He went to the studio with his mother (who was wearing a new silk sari), trying to look cool and unconcerned when, in fact, he couldn’t believe he was going to be on television. He could barely sit still in the plush VIP chair that he had been given.
The rapist woke up feeling a little jumpy but he felt better as the day progressed. This was his big chance and he’d grabbed it with both hands, determined to make the most of it. There were no zits on his face. Even his hair looked wonderful, under the expensive treatment it had received in the hands of stylists over the course of the week. In his black costume with the scales of justice printed prominently on his chest, the rapist looked heartbreakingly handsome.
Outside the building, a small crowd of protestors, led by the second daughter’s parents, stood with candles in their hands. What was going on inside was wrong, they said. They knew that the government was watching them but they had come out, each from their homes, convinced that they should let their dissent be known. There were women, there were men, there were boys, there were girls. The moral policeman and his wife were there too, their faces empty, their eyes dry. There weren’t too many of them but they were there, a coven, standing together in the muggy evening, watching the sun set and the darkness fall, claiming the capital city. The priest gave them some half-hearted coverage, not daring to take their side and risk getting into the bad books of the authorities. To mollify the president, he asked him for his comments at the end of the broadcast. The president said that he didn’t understand what candles had to do with any of this. He had no further comments.
Inside the building, the rapist’s family watched with pride as the cameras focused on him getting his hair done for the finale. They had come to the capital city to watch him in action, after making all their neighbours promise that they would watch the show on their television sets. His brother, the blacksmith, couldn’t come but he had sent him a box of halwa from the town’s best sweet shop as a present.
‘He’s the first in the family to come on TV, ’ his mother confided to the indifferent make-up man. Her husband shushed her but beamed. On the bus from their hometown to the capital city, they had seen the hoardings all over the roads, with their son’s face smiling at them from every corner. It had felt surreal to see his face like that, blown up to such huge proportions, grinning at them in such a familiar yet impersonal way. When it was time for the show to begin, the rapist’s parents were given front-row seats. They shrank into the luxurious chairs, anxious that they shouldn’t display their lack of sophistication and shame their son, the star. The rapist’s wife and daughter had declined to be on the show on his request – he felt their presence would make him too nervous.
‘Hello and good evening!’ said the chirpy anchor as the notes of the thumping opening music died down.
‘You have all watched The Lesson this whole week with great enthusiasm,’ she continued, nodding at the audience in the studio appreciatively. ‘And here now, we’ve come to the climax of the show.’
There were titters all around.
‘Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, children of all ages, put your hands together to welcome the man of the moment!’ she screamed. ‘I give you the rapist!’
The rapist came onstage a little bashfully. He was still getting used to his celebrity status. He waved and hysterical yells rent the air. In the course of a week, his fan following had burgeoned. He was now among the most searched-for celebrities on the Internet. Three days ago, he’d gone to the street corner to buy bananas and had been surrounded by college girls who wanted his autograph. His daughter had shown him the fan pages that people had started for him on Facebook. At times, the rapist had difficulty believing that this was all really happening.
‘And now,’ the anchor said, lowering her voice and hitting a sober pitch, ‘it’s time for the lesson. The moment you have all been waiting for.’
The second daughter walked to the stage slowly. She was wearing a scarlet sari – there had been an SMS poll on what she should wear for the episode and a whopping seventy-three per cent had wanted her in a sari. The sari was made specially for the show by the capital city’s most famous designer (she did shows in Milan and Paris every year) and would be up for auction after it was all over. Already, the telephone operators at Good News were besieged by bidders who were anxious to procure it for their exclusive collections.
The second daughter could barely see through the clown mask that rubbed against her face uncomfortably. The mask had been freshly painted that morning and the smell of it was disorienting.
When she reached the stage at last, the anchor bowed to the audience and said, ‘Let there be justice!’ She sashayed out of the lights, thanking her stars that she had not messed up her lines. She was always nervous about doing live shows. She tugged at her belt, loosening her pants a little.
The rapist turned to the woman in the mask and took a deep breath. You can do this, he said to himself. He touched the good luck charm that his mother had tied on his wrist that morning. ‘Lie down,’ he whispered softly, pointing to the ground. Although he’d practised his lines before his wife and daughter several times, there was a slight tremor to his voice.
‘In a minute,’ said the second daughter from behind the mask. The rapist was confused. There was no such line in the script. The second daughter had no lines at all. She was only meant to scream. Had someone changed the script in the last minute? Had they added lines and forgotten to inform him about it? The rapist felt queasy all of a sudden. He didn’t want to mess this up. He’d already spoken to a broker about buying a new flat and his plans would go for a toss if things went wrong and the show was cancelled.
The executives in the studio stood around nervously, not su
re what to do. None of them remembered writing any lines for the second daughter. They’d all been part of the rehearsals and they were sure that there was no such thing in the script. If anything went wrong, they knew the media mogul wouldn’t spare them. The girl with the small pearl earrings gripped the sides of her seat, closing her eyes and counting to ten, knowing that any minute the media mogul would drag her out of there, demanding an explanation that she did not have.
The president of the Adjustment Bureau increased the volume on his television set at home. He’d been invited to attend the show, but had declined as was only expected.
The second daughter removed the mask from her face and tossed it to the audience, at the sea of pale faces that stared at her from the darkness.
‘This,’ said the second daughter, as the spotlight fell on her, ‘is who I am.’
Under the sharp, white light that fell on her face like a slap, the second daughter stood, her eyes staring straight ahead.
Acknowledgements
The Lesson began in September 2012 as a blog post. Encouraged by the response that the post, which eventually became the first chapter of this book, garnered, I wrote a series of fictional pieces that were in a similar vein. The people who read and commented on these posts, people I don’t know in real life, are the ones who made me write this book. To them, my heartfelt thanks.
For the first reader of this book as it took shape, my brother Surjeet, who gave me his valuable inputs and convinced me to find a publisher for it, thank you. Thanks also to Aditi, Niveditha and Magesh who read and gave their suggestions honestly, as always.
Thanks to Manasi Subramaniam, my editor at HarperCollins Publishers India, for believing in this book and sharing her insights and feedback without which this book would have been poorer.
And lastly, thanks to Adhira, my daughter, the imp, for whom I wish a better world.
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First published in India in 2015 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © Sowmya Rajendran 2015
P-ISBN: 978-93-5177-036-7
Epub Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 978-93-5177-037-4
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Sowmya Rajendran asserts the moral right
to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents
described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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The Lesson Page 11
