by Akhil Sharma
I started walking in the middle of the road toward the temple. The rickshaw driver passed me. He was leaning almost halfway over the handlebars. The rickshaw got farther and farther ahead of me, until I was alone on the road. The Sikh must be watching his family from behind a curtain, I thought. In my head I saw his door being smashed open and him being clubbed and stabbed. Then my scalp prickled as I imagined a brick curving in flight toward me from one of the rooftops.
The temple doors were closed and the alcove next to them where a man usually sits was empty. I tried the doors and they opened. I was impressed that the pundit had been courageous enough not to lock them.
In the temple’s marble courtyard I smelled lentils cooking and heard film songs playing in the back, where the pundit lived. “Punditji,” I called out, and waited. I went around and bowed to each of the gods. My helping the Sikhs had confirmed my sense that the world was changed. I asked God to give me the strength to behave well. While praying, I realized I would have to admit all my crimes to Anita and beg her forgiveness. I had not confronted this before, but that was the only way I could imagine any future.
When the pundit did not appear, I called again. At the third try, he peered from a side door.
Seeing it was only me, he shouted, “What!” He held the door half open so that only his head and part of his shoulders showed. He had a small mustache and teeth so widely separated you could put your fingers in the gaps.
“Forgive me,” I said. “I came to request that you perform services for my wife’s death anniversary today.” I had known the pundit when he was a boy named Rajan who failed every civil service exam he took, and I resented the politeness tradition forced on me.
“This morning you come?”
“My wife wished to be prayed for by someone who knew her,” I said. An excuse came unbidden to my mind about how Anita was supposed to talk to him but that she was slightly crazy and had claimed until this morning that she had done so.
The pundit sighed. “Only a fool like me would leave his door open when a riot can occur at any moment, and only a fool like me would say yes to you,” he said. “What time?” Just his head was sticking out of the partially opened door.
The money from blessing the ice-cream factory must have dulled his desire for work, I thought. “Ten.”
“Ten-thirty.” Without another word, he closed the door.
When I stepped back onto the road, the roofs were still crowded, but a jeep with six or seven khaki-uniformed policemen standing in it was slowly rolling down the road. The hoodlums had disappeared. My scalp crept from all the people gazing down. I wanted to break into a trot, but I made myself keep walking.
As I entered our compound, I smiled with relief and pride. When the world shifts it shifts everything with it, I thought. If I was forthright and admitted my crimes instead of doing something like claiming that Anita’s memories were confused, then over the next year or two we might learn to live with what had been acknowledged.
The door to the flat was closed but unchained. Rajesh was reading the newspaper while sitting on Anita and Asha’s bed. His shirt was spread beside him on the bed and he was in his undershirt and pajamas. Asha sat on the floor reading a comic book. Seeing her and Rajesh sitting together and wondering if Anita might have told made me so afraid that my confidence instantly vanished.
Rajesh said, “I left Faridabad at three this morning.” He toppled onto his side to show his exhaustion and repeated, “Three.” He smiled. “Somebody phoned a neighbor, who warned everyone. When I heard, I thought, Better start now, in case there are riots.” Across the aisle from the bed were two wooden chairs against a wall. I took off my shirt and draped it over one of these chairs. I sat down on the chair and began unlacing my shoes. Rajesh couldn’t possibly be speaking this way if Anita had revealed my secret.
“Water?” Asha inquired.
I nodded and asked, “Where’s your mother?”
“Bathing.” Asha left.
“No riots. Nobody cares,” Rajesh said. He rolled onto his back and stretched. All his limbs were thin, but his stomach was large. He closed his eyes and appeared to fall asleep. Rajesh joined the BJP after Radha died. Before that he had been quiet and somewhat sullen. Hindu nationalism had given him a salesman’s buoyancy. This combined strangely with his dislike for me and made his insults strike with greater force. When Asha returned, Rajesh asked, without opening his eyes, “Did you just go to the pundit?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Have you been sleeping for a year that you just went?” Rajesh turned to Asha. “Has he been awake the last six months?”
“I went to Beri yesterday. Before, I was busy with work.”
“Busy!” he said doubtfully, and then, after a moment, “You might as well stop raising money for Congress. Without a Nehru, Congress is just another party. The BJP will win for certain.”
Anita came into the bedroom with three cups of tea on a tray. Her hair was wet and had left a stain on the back of her white blouse. Looking at her, I understood that I had to admit everything, but I could not imagine the act of doing so. Till then, knowing what I must do had been enough to make me feel as if I would accomplish it, as if, in the knowledge that the moon reflects the sun, I had attempted to warm myself by the moon.
“Muslims will finally be treated like everyone else. In no non-Muslim country other than India can a Muslim marry more than one woman … You want to divorce, then you pay alimony, like everyone else … Their quota of Parliament seats is more than they should have.”
He often spoke about polygamy. “How many wives can you support that you are jealous?” I said without thinking. Because he had a bad job, Rajesh was worried about ever getting a wife. Jabbing him back instead of ignoring him made me realize I was speaking out of my fear of Anita.
As we took our teacups, Rajesh started talking about Pakistan, but I had trouble concentrating and his words ran past me. Both Anita and Asha sat on the bed with Rajesh.
There was a distant explosion and we all jerked in place. Then, after a brief silence, there were two more. Asha began to cry.
Rajesh pulled Asha into his arms. “That was a really fat man farting,” he said. Asha laughed. Rajesh made farting noises with his lips and Asha laughed some more. “Fatter even than your grandfather.” Rajesh held Asha at arm’s length and shook her. “Silly doll,” he said. Once Asha was calm, he asked Anita for mathri and mango pickle.
Rajesh rubbed the mango pickle over the wafers, until the oil soaked through the fried dough; then he ate each mathri in a single bite.
Rajesh had an ulcer and was constantly getting sick because he loved the spicy food sold on the streets. I wanted to call for a peace and said, “You should be more careful.”
“I can’t help eating. I’m your son,” he answered with his mouth full. I glanced at Anita to see how Rajesh’s insult was received. She drank her tea without any expression.
“I’ll take a bath,” I said, and stood.
“See how they bribe us,” Rajesh exclaimed. “On holidays and days they’re afraid of riots, the municipality will let you have water all day. The rest of the year …”
“I’d rather be bribed than not get water,” I interrupted.
With each mug I poured over my head, I tried to revive my courage. I had done a brave thing with the Sikhs and so should be able to be brave at home. I scrubbed myself Denial would only make her angry. The bathroom lightbulb was weak. The small room was dark from shadows and mold growing on the walls. To say words which admitted what I had done was like speaking a spell that brought a monster into the world. To admit my crime was to end the world. No possibilities could be imagined after the admission.
Because of the food Anita had begun heating, the common room smelled like a holy day. I heard Rajesh and some man talking eagerly in the living room. It took a moment for me to realize that the other voice was Mr. Mishra’s. I had invited him at some point last week and forgotten. I hung my washed underclothing on the balcony ledge,
put on pants and shirt, and went into the living room.
Mr. Mishra was on the sofa and Rajesh was on a love seat across from him. Mr. Mishra stood and shook my hand. “I thought I’d come and offer my support,” he said. “This is a bad day for many reasons.”
I thanked him. His remembering to come seemed proof that there was more to me than my crime against Anita. Just that morning I had saved lives. I sat down on the large bed pressed against the wall between Anita’s bedroom and the living room.
The conversation did not resume. Mr. Mishra’s presence reminded me I was to be in mourning, and perhaps I reminded Mr. Mishra and Rajesh of the day’s seriousness. Rajesh had put on his shirt. I was glad at this politeness, because he could be unpredictably rude. Anita came with tea for us and we drank it in silence. When I was nearly done with mine, I asked Mr. Mishra if he thought Rajiv Gandhi’s murder would incite much of a pity vote for Congress.
“We were talking about that,” Rajesh said.
“Probably not,” Mr. Mishra answered, taking charge of summarizing the recent discussion. “He wasn’t loved like his mother. His mother was smart. She wanted people to think she was India.”
“The Nehrus may not be gone yet,” Rajesh said. “They are like Ravan’s heads. You cut off one and another takes its place. Nehru, Indira, Sanjay, now Rajiv. Each time we thought, At last the family is dead.”
I could have chosen not to pursue the conversation, but talking about politics kept me feeling the world had altered. “I didn’t think that,” I said.
“Because Congress pays you.”
“There’s Rajiv’s wife. But Sonia Gandhi is Italian,” Mr. Mishra added, ignoring the discord between Rajesh and me by not looking at either one of us. “Nothing like this has happened before.” I liked hearing of the day’s uniqueness.
“Indians are children and they think the Nehrus are their parents. Children must grow up,” Rajesh said.
“Who is going to replace Congress?” I said. “The BJP? The BJP thinks Indians are children. ‘God and Bread,’ ‘God and Bread.’ What sort of platform is that? What does God have to do with the balance of payments? When the BJP says God, it means India for Hindus.”
“All the BJP wants is for Hindus and Muslims to be treated the same.”
“What do you care about Muslims?” I answered. My voice came out quivering and slight. “Muslims are a slogan. Let them have their mosques. Let them have thirty wives.”
“No non-Muslim country other than India lets Muslims have more than one wife,” Rajesh told Mr. Mishra.
“Egypt does. Saudi Arabia does,” Mr. Mishra said softly. “India has so many worries, why should we care how many times someone gets married?”
Rajesh paused for a moment and then continued, “What kind of a country do we have where one group can do whatever it wants and the other group has to remain silent and get slapped? Can Hindus own land in Kashmir? People are tired of this. That’s why the BJP is going to win.”
“You know why Congress is doing badly?” I asked Rajesh.
“I know why.”
“You know why the BJP is doing well?”
“I know.”
“This is the first election where people will choose between completely different ideologies,” Mr. Mishra said.
We ignored this commentary.
“It’s about Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. How many innocent people were jailed during that martial law? Sanjay Gandhi’s forced vasectomies of poor villagers,” Rajesh said.
“Twenty years later the Emergency matters?”
“Rajiv Gandhi taking bribes. It’s about that too. At last people know the Nehrus can’t change no matter what the punishment. After twenty years, as if nothing’s happened, they’re back to their sins. Congress has to be punished for its sins. Congress has to be made an example for all politicians. For the good of the country. So that other politicians know that you can’t just do anything.”
The idea of punishment sent my heart racing and silenced me.
Radha’s elder sister Shakuntala arrived during the silence. Along with her came her husband, two sons, and a daughter. By the time they sat down and the daughter went to make tea, Radha’s brother Bittu had arrived with his wife, Sharmila, and his son and daughter. None of them liked me. They all thought I was a drunk and a liar and so did not know how to behave. I moved off the bed onto the love seat next to the one Rajesh was on. By sitting alone I felt as if I were assuming the dignity of a mourning husband.
After some time, conversations started. Most were about the assassination. Once the older people started talking, some of the children went into Anita and Asha’s bedroom and began playing cards.
Shakuntala had heard on the radio that the Tamil Tigers were most likely responsible for the murder. Since no one knew or cared much about the Tamils, the talk quickly moved to the Congress versus the BJP.
Bittu talked the most. He was a superstitious and arrogant man who wore lucky stones on each finger and used to be a pole climber for the electricity company but introduced himself as an engineer. “Good he’s dead. When the Muslim moved into Tailor’s Alley and started a milk bar, I said to the people there, ‘In my life this has always been a Hindu alley. Tomorrow this Muslim will be selling your children milk with cow bones ground in.’” He realized he was merely boasting and brought the conversation back on track. “The Congress Party let the Muslims have Pakistan and then the Muslims stayed here, too.” Bittu had become a strong supporter of the BJP over the year and a half since he had retired. Massing the residents of Tailor’s Alley to drive out the Muslim shopkeeper was his greatest achievement and he forced it into any conversation he could. He had even written about it to Kusum in America. She had responded with a postcard of a crucifix.
“Every religion in the world is here,” Rajesh said. “The only way we can live together is if the government treats us all the same.” Rajesh, I thought, was the modern face of the BJP.
“Wonderful,” Bittu said. “You come into my home one night, take over one of my rooms, and then I should let you have my room. The Muslims invaded India.”
“The Muslims aren’t going anywhere. Christians are staying. Buddhists are staying.”
“Buddhism started in India,” Mr. Mishra volunteered.
“I don’t care about them,” Bittu said.
Anita groaned. She was sitting on the bed between Shakuntala and Sharmila. As she moaned, she hugged her shoulders and folded into her lap. She stayed bent and we all looked at her. Her face was wet with tears. Shakuntala rubbed Anita’s back. Shakuntala had Radha’s oval face and crooked teeth. After a moment Anita wiped her face, stood, and left the room. I wanted to follow and comfort her, but knew this was absurd. Instead, I kept leaning toward the talk of politics, like a farmer bowing toward his fire in winter.
A moment or two later Mr. Mishra, who had been sitting at the edge of the sofa, restarted the conversation. “If the BJP comes in, they are going to make some noise about foreigners and make getting World Bank help harder.”
“Let the foreigners in,” Bittu said, “and they’ll eat us. What happened with the British and their tea company?”
Mr. Mishra looked at Bittu and asked, “What is the difference between what the BJP wants and India’s economic policy between 1947 and when Rajiv Gandhi came to power?” Mr. Mishra was smiling, as he always did when he knew more about something than the person he was talking with.
“I used to know,” Bittu said, smiling slightly, almost like a shy child, “but I’ve forgotten.”
“All right, then tell me, what will the repatriation policy for these companies be? If they have to keep seventy paisas of every rupee they earn here in the country for five years after earning it, what does that mean for the economy?”
“This is difficult,” said Shakuntala. Mr. Mishra smiled at her and then turned his attention back to Bittu.
“I don’t know,” Bittu answered with the same smile.
“What about other countries like
India? Taiwan. South Korea. Egypt. Algeria. Turkey. How did they manage their economies? What did they do which would not work here?”
Bittu kept quiet.
I did not know the answers either. I was busy wondering what I would say to Anita later this afternoon.
Mr. Mishra waited a moment before he went on. “If you don’t know India’s old economic history, if you don’t know how India treats foreign companies now, if you don’t know what other poor countries have done to save themselves, then why do you talk so loudly?” His voice rose as he spoke, and by the time he had finished, he looked ready to jump up and shake a finger.
“So you know everything and I know nothing,” Bittu said.
Mr. Mishra hesitated. “No. I just know a lot more about this thing,” he answered hesitantly.
“I know something which you couldn’t know in ten years.”
Finally Mr. Mishra recognized that this argument was the center of the room’s attention. He looked around him. “I don’t know that much.”
“Om,” Bittu shouted. Mr. Mishra, baffled no doubt at this display of religion, nodded and smiled. This enraged Bittu even more. “Om,” he shouted again. “The universe begins with om.” Mr. Mishra opened his mouth and Bittu boomed, “Om.”
At that moment, Krishna arrived. Because my fight with my brothers was common knowledge, his arrival brought the cardplaying children back to the living room. The world has changed, I thought.
Anita was the only one who did not come to the living room. Shakuntala went and tried getting her, but Anita said she had too much work.
Krishna sat down beside me. Rajesh moved to a stool near Mr. Mishra. At first, Krishna seemed to want us to ignore him. He was dressed in a white kurta pajama, and this made him look particularly humble. He watched the room with a glass of water balanced on one knee. Despite the small conversations which kept opening and closing, the room’s attention was focused on him, and whenever it appeared to drift, Krishna would speak a word or two and draw it back to himself.
One of the children finally broached the subject. “We haven’t seen you in a long time.”
