by Dipika Rai
‘Now what are you shouting at the top of your voice for, loud enough to wake the dead?’ A sudden giggle escapes her lips, unintentional as a stubbed toe, irreverent as an uncovered head, festive as a noisy wristful of bangles, and loud, loud as freedom itself.
Kamla has news. ‘Arey-oh, Lata Bai, that Lala Ram has finally done it. The bank’s open. Right here, right now, you can go and get a loan from the Bank of India. Even I can. Can you imagine? Me – a widow. And the best thing of all, the manager is a manager-didi, a woman. A woman running a bank in Gopalpur. Now we’ll see where it gets that dog Ram Singh.’
‘Seeta Ram is dead.’ She says her husband’s name for the first time. Still mired in reverence, she points to her hut and the body it contains respectfully with her thumb instead of her forefinger. Even from the dead her husband commands her actions.
‘Bastard, he’s sucked us dry for the last time. What!’ ‘Yes, I am a widow too.’ She shows her scalp to Kamla, standing perfectly still, pulling her hair apart, waiting for a critique from someone with experience.
‘The funeral?’ Kamla ignores the scalp, pink as the underbelly of a newborn rat.
‘I’ll not take a loan for it.’ ‘So then?’ ‘I’ll think of something.’ ‘What about Mamta’s money?’ ‘Don’t mention her name.’ Now it’s a habit, this rejection of her runaway daughter. ‘There is no more money.’
‘What will you do with your life?’
Lata Bai looks away. ‘My life . . .’ She pauses a long while and then says, ‘Live it, I suppose.’
The lightning is shrieking around them. No one will be out on such a night. Two figures balance a corpse unsteadily between them. Not because the body is heavy, but rather because the deed is.
‘Come on!’ Kamla is in command, even though it isn’t her husband’s body they are disposing of. As the person in charge, she has the legs, the lighter side.
Lata Bai hoists the head further up her arm. Its weight bears down on her. For a brief second she’s afraid her husband is alive, pressing down on her. He slips from her grasp, she catches him mid-fall by the upper arm.
‘Uffo, come on. Do you want to spend all night dragging this’ – Kamla doesn’t know what to call it: thing, body, corpse, husband, Seeta Ram – ‘this . . .’
‘It isn’t so easy, I have the heavier side,’ the wife complains. ‘He’s stiff.’
‘He would be stiff, no. Never did do what you asked of him in life, why should he start now?’ Kamla laughs.
Suddenly the thorough absurdity that usually lies concealed in truly dangerous situations is revealed to them. They both laugh so hard they drop the body on the ground. The lightning illuminates their burden. They are convulsing now, doubled up, genuflecting with mirth, paying obeisance to the Goddess of Glee.
‘Jai ho Devi.’
‘Jai ho Devi.’
‘Devi jai ho.’
‘Devi jai ho.’
The river is low and Lata Bai has to wade deep into its centre to let Seeta Ram go. She has earned herself a heap of sins in this lifetime for not giving her husband a decent funeral. But it has been well worth it.
Kamla pulls her up the bank. She slaps her wet hands together, as if dusting them of flour. ‘That’s done.’
They will tell no one about her husband’s death. Lata Bai will be able to continue to wear her coloured sari till someone notices the absence of sindhoor in her hair, the bangle on her wrist or her missing toe ring. Most will believe that Seeta Ram walked out on her, just like her two sons did.
What would women do without other women?
Jai ho Devi, Devi jai ho.
Chapter 13
THE CROWD, CULLED FROM THE LOWER middle class and below, is the backbone of the electoral process. These are the people who believe a leader chosen by them will truly change their lives. They haven’t yet acquired the paralysing, protective cynicism of the upper classes, who will never deign nor dare to go to a rally, but take up the political baton at a dinner party or club somewhere, pontificating seated in overstuffed armchairs, over a whiskey soda and pipe, lamenting that it makes no difference who wins in the end.
They have come dressed in their dignified city best, shirts and pants for the men, and Punjabi suits and saris for the women. There is not one ghaghra choli to be seen, no swish of a skirt made with nine metres of fabric, no scarf making its way from the waist to head and back to waist again, no bare bellies folded sensually over mirrorwork belts. It is a crowd made up of office boys, shopkeepers, servants, rickshaw drivers, ayahs, sweepers: all working class.
The ones who won’t be here are Cynthia and Mrs D’Souza. Cynthia is with Vikram, though she has tired of him somewhat. She made her story convincing enough for her mother to let her go, but she felt no victory in it. She has on her midi. It swishes past her knees. Her skin feels like silk, she waxed herself and has vowed she will never take up a masculine razor again like other girls. Her mother will be at home, watching Chitrahaar on TV. The continuous string of popular Hindi movie songs will have her poised for dance herself. She won’t even bother tuning into the rally. What have politicians and parties got to do with people like her? She lives off her husband’s army pension and owns her flat.
Prem and Sneha have been left behind at the office. ‘Come in the next car,’ they were told. He tried so hard to fit in. Joked and back-slapped with the rest of them. So why has he been left behind?
The large gathering of potential consumers has attracted all sorts of entrepreneurs: entertainers, letter-writers, fruit sellers, independent portable restaurateurs, miracle workers, fortune tellers, ear cleaners, sadhus . . . selling anything and everything: sweet paans wrapped in silver leaf, camel rides or head massage. The trees to one edge of the field have become male-only urinals. It doesn’t matter who sees them pissing against the trees.
Mamta squeezes herself closer to the snake charmers. On any other day she might have lingered, but today nothing seems to hold her attention. She moves through the crowd, her arms wrapped tightly round her chest. Eve-teasing is not discriminating. Pretty, ugly or plain, men and boys alike will seek out their targets effici ently and ruthlessly, taking a squeeze of a breast here, a pinch of a bottom there, and if they are really lucky, two fingers squeezed through tightly pressed legs.
While Mamta would never aggressively defend herself against the predators, her companion will lash out at anyone who even thinks of touching her. Eyebrows is not intimidated.
Kalu stands two paces behind Mamta and Eyebrows, close enough for them to know he is there, but far enough to escape association. He has come here hoping to sample one of those tasty servant girls he’s had an eye on for so long.
Mamta searches the crowd with flitting looks, afraid to miss a familiar face. ‘What if they don’t come?’
‘They’ll be here,’ says Eyebrows.
They’ll be here. Mamta is charged. Memories of Gopalpur pull at her as she searches for her brother and sister. She won’t let this girl down like she did her stepdaughter, but what can she offer the sickly wretched unmarried Sneha? The yeast of anxiety is fermenting her being. Please come, my sister. Eyebrows grasps her upper arm.
‘Stop behaving like a lovesick girl. Don’t worry, you will see him soon enough.’
‘It’s not for him. My brother . . . my sister. Oh, Didi, Prem helped me when I ran away, he is working for the Big House, I haven’t got a job for Sneha yet. I thought I’d wait to ask Mrs D’Souza. What if they don’t show up? What will I say when I see him?’ All her concerns tumble out of her mouth like water from a gushing tap.
‘No one has this many shivers for their sister or brother. It’s for him. Once you see him, you will know. Lovesick idol-worshipper,’ says Eyebrows, grinding her knuckles into her friend’s head.
‘Let’s go.’ It is Mrs Sahai. ‘He sent me here personally to get you two. Tch. Tch. Why that man has to take the burdens of the entire world on his shoulders is something I’ll never know.’
Mrs Sahai rolls down her
window halfway, fastidiously arranging her sari. She has chosen a beige one with a rich border. The beige is neutral, it won’t set her apart, and it is ethnic enough to be considered in good taste in the city. Yes, she did well with it. She bought Lokend a new, startling white handspun khadi kurta pyjama.
Raja is rattling around on the backseat between the boy and his sister. He has become almost as comfortable with Prem as he is with Lokend, and now happily hides in the boy’s shirt. But today, Mrs Sahai said definitely not. The mongoose had to be caged. This rally is much too important to have a wild animal running around all over the place. She brought the wire box to the office herself this morning. Prem pokes his finger into the cage and pets the ridge of the animal’s nose. Raja is stilled, but not calmed. The cage is too small for him. In the few hours he’s been in it, he’s managed to rub the fur and some skin off his side.
‘Out of sight, remember. Stay out of sight, you two. I don’t want anything distracting him today. It’s an important speech for him.’
Prem looks at Mrs Sahai with his big eyes and nods. Sneha says, ‘Yes, memsahib.’ She can’t understand why Mrs Sahai hasn’t offered her a job. She has made it clear she’ll accept anything, sweeping the Party office, anything. She wants to be like Mamta. She knows word for word what Mamta had written to her mother in her letters. Prem didn’t burn them, instead he saved them to read to Sneha. How had her sister become so lucky, to be living in a house full of fake flowers, with powdered salt and plastic buckets? Please, Devi, please. Jai ho Devi.
The crowd is slowly congealing around them like boiled rice pudding. Eyebrows and Mamta have reached the podium with Kalu making room for them with his elbows. Kalu will leave them soon, he’s spied his saucy Maharashtran at the edge of the crowd.
Mamta bites her knuckles. Eyebrows thinks of taking her hand, but changes her mind. She can’t risk that much intimacy with anyone, not even one as dependable as Mamta. ‘They’ll be here, they’ll all be here,’ she reassures her nervous companion.
Mrs Sahai gets out of the car. ‘Remember, out of sight, I don’t want any distractions today.’ She knows these village types need to be reminded a hundred times at least, if not more.
Prem drags the cage with him, it gets stuck in the car door. The boy is gentle with the cage and the car. He manipulates the wire contraption, sliding it up and back, sideways and down. Raja tumbles inside, his world more topsy-turvy than ever before. The boy tugs a tiny bit harder, his world as topsy-turvy as the animal’s. Eventually, Mrs Sahai says, ‘Leave it and get out.’ Prem is distraught, he is a failure, the cage is left stuck in the car. Mrs Sahai walks to the back door, deftly opens it a little wider and easily slides the cage out on to the pavement. Raja falls to the floor inside the cage with a thud. She points to the mongoose. Prem awkwardly picks up the cage, confirming he is still a bumbling village boy.
Lokend is inside one of the Party’s vans. The Youth Congress members are leaning against the vehicle, nonchalantly smoking. Inside, a senior member is waiting for Mrs Sahai to show up so she can rehearse Lokend’s lines with him. He hasn’t the courage to tackle Lokend’s charisma head-on.
Prem and Sneha are separated from Mamta by layers of humanity.
Prem looks at Sneha, Raja is rattling his cage, jumping up, down, up, down. It is becoming hard for her brother to hold it. Sneha helps, grasping it from below. Raja lets loose a nervous stream of pellets, they drop into Sneha’s hand. Dirty, filthy, smelling to high heavens, and now this, a handful of mongoose pellets. Please help me, Devi. Please help me, Mamta Didi. Come and get me.
Lokend emerges from the Party van to take his position behind the mic. ‘Brothers and sisters . . .’
‘See, that’s him,’ she whispers. His hair is thick and bristly. It is almost fully grey. ‘Brothers and sisters,’ Lokend says again, folding his hands before his heart.
‘That is Mamta’s saint. Mamta, my sister,’ says Kalu, making an impression on the saucy Maharashtran.
‘Lokend Bhai zindabad, Lokend Bhai zindabad, Lokend Bhai zindabad . . .’ The Party boys will continue to repeat the slogan, Long live Lokend Bhai, till the crowd takes up the chant, then and only then will Mrs Sahai give the signal for the speech to begin. She doesn’t think the crowd charged enough yet.
It is that instant of time when everything is stretched taut, silent and slow. That piece of time that people will invariably recall in different ways.
It all happens so quickly.
An apparition of a strong, wiry woman makes its way quickly through the crowd, along the outskirts of the throng, up the podium. Suddenly Lokend is left clutching his side.
‘It’s the assistant!’ Mrs Sahai screams. ‘The hijra assistant. Get her. Grab her. She’s stabbed him! Stabbed Lokend Bhai! He’s bleeding!’
The crowd grabs at the hijra, but she is able to break every grip, strengthened by righteousness and hatred.
‘Get these people out of here. Where is the security? I said we needed more security!’ Mrs Sahai will not be distracted from the practical details, these are lessons she must commit to memory for the next time.
Lokend collapses into waiting arms. Stabbed, wounded, dying. No, no, no . . . Mamta is gasping harder and faster than him.
‘Air, give him air,’ shouts Mrs Sahai, before going to the van to radio for an ambulance. Not more than one minute has passed.
Mamta has willed herself standing, though in fact she is close to collapse, and not because she’s unused to blood. There was the time that Mohit had cut his shin so badly from falling into the gutter. For days they didn’t know whether he would lose his leg. She’d changed the dressings, she’d washed the blood and taken her brother on her back to the mobile government dispensary parked at the Big House for his injections. She’d stitched God knows how many cuts on her sisters’ and brothers’ arms and legs. And then there was the night her grandmother’s cow needed help delivering its calf. She’d put her hand inside it right up to her shoulder and yanked the calf out dripping with mucus and blood into the lamplight.
Her mind has shut down. She can’t bear to see him bleed. She looks at his feet, his toes, encased in familiar slippers. His almost white hair. The lines in his face. If she didn’t know it was Lokend Bhai, she would think him an old man.
‘Yes, get her here. Here up on this podium. Grab her tight.’ Mrs Sahai holds her sari pleats close to her shins to avoid soiling them with blood. ‘We will get you the death penalty for doing this. Hijra! Hijra! Outcaste. Filthy bitch!’ Mrs Sahai is a changed woman. The words coming out of her mouth should never taint the lips of someone dressed fastidiously in a neutral beige sari with a rich border.
‘Sssss . . .’ The hijra hisses at her, sending Mrs Sahai shrivelling into herself and flying to the back of podium.
‘L . . . et her . . . go.’ Lokend has found his strength. He speaks from his supine position on the floor, through his wound, from deep inside his pain. ‘L . . . et her go . . .’ The words are almost inaudible. He is losing his strength.
‘No!’ The hijra is petulant, she will not be beholden to this man, her nemesis. Of course she had no choice, she could see him ruining everything for her. All the things she had worked for. The prospect of respectability at last in her grasp, but waiting to be squandered by Nirmala Devi who was seriously considering letting Lokend Bhai stand unopposed. She wasn’t about to let anyone tamper with her dream. She planned to kill Lokend Bhai for all the hijras, to show the world that they were more than just open-fingered-clapping performing monkeys. And she is willing to die for it. Just as she was the night she’d handed the razor over to Nirmala Devi to castrate her in the light of a petromax under a giant spreading banyan tree.
‘Take me to jail! Get me the death penalty! I am not afraid of death! You think you can stop us? You think you can treat us like scum because we are different than you?’
‘Let her . . . go . . . go . . . go.’ The party workers lead their prisoner away so Lokend doesn’t have to struggle to plead with the
m any more.
Two men bearing a stretcher rush on to the podium. The crowd immediately starts to thin. The spectacle is over. There will be no speech today. Kalu elbows his way out just as he had in. He leads his ayah away, they weave like two dancers through the swirling people. He has been lucky today. The sight of the blood sent her trembling, which he was able to quell not just with words, but with his hands. In her caste, once a man’s hands were on her they were practically married. Tonight, tonight would be the night. She won’t make such a bad wife. A gorgeous body with ample child-bearing hips, an endless length of hair and a good job in the next building on the second floor as an ayah to two young children. Oh, Kalu, you lucky devil, what have you done to deserve this, you motherfucker?
There is a special way to load a stabbed man into a stretcher. Mamta watches, not breathing, teeth chattering. They place a mask on Lokend’s nose and mouth. It frightens her, it means he is for sure going to die. Without thinking she places her chin on Eyebrows’ shoulder and shuts her eyes.
‘It’s for air. He’s not going to die. He has a strong pulse.’
Her chattering stilled, she thinks she reaches out to the wounded man, and manages to brush the edge of his kurta that’s dangling off the stretcher before she sees his body disappear into the ambulance. In fact, her hand hasn’t moved from her side the whole time.
Chapter 14
EYEBROWS HAS ALREADY TAKEN NOTE of the name on the van: Sai Sidhi Hospital. It would have to be that one, it’s the only decent one in Begumpet, the one she takes her badly burned victims to.
Prem and Sneha have gravitated little by little closer to the stage. They spot Mamta. ‘Mamta Didi!’ The crowd is too thick to penetrate with their combined voices. Even from that distance, they sense their sister’s desperation, bordering on madness.
‘Didi!’
‘Didi!’
Mamta has awakened in a dream, Who are these people and why are they here? ‘Didi,’ there are tears in the voice. A small, pretty, feminine voice attached to a plain, intensely familiar face. ‘Thank God we’ve found you.’ And then it’s over. The bubble-skin of unknowingness is broken. She hugs her siblings close, one arm around each. Her sister nestles into her shoulder, releasing tears of relief. Now everything is all right.
