by Durjoy Datta
‘So they killed him?’
‘Not exactly. Once that happened, the Urdu-speaking elite in West Pakistan already had a bone to pick with what to them were “backward Bengalis”. So when a Bengali-speaking man won Pakistan’s first general election, their President Yahya Khan ordered the wiping out of the Bengalis in East Pakistan, Musalman or not. Out of the hundreds of thousands who were exterminated was Baba’s family. My Dadu was one of the first ones to die. The Pakistani Army systematically hunted down the intellectuals. Phew. I am surprised I remember all this.’
‘And your Baba was in school during all this time?’
‘Yes. Probably taking his exams while my pishi, father’s sister, Rupi Ganguly, was picked up from the university and carried off to a military camp where she was repeatedly raped and killed when she got pregnant. His eldest brother, Hemendu Ganguly, was bayoneted through both eyes till his brain dribbled out of the sockets in the corridor of Dhaka University, where he was completing his master’s in mathematics. It wasn’t until the Indian Army was sent that the madness stopped.’
‘That’s horrible!’
‘From what I have heard, Baba had spent twelve months in post-war Bangladesh, looking for their graves. He must have been my age,’ I said.
Like I so often have, she must have spent the next five minutes adding visuals to the story.
We buried Chhotu and loitered around aimlessly in school.
I stayed out of the house for as long as possible.
Back home, Baba sat glued to the television. Pakistan returned the bodies of six soldiers of the Jat Regiment. The soldiers had been tortured—their genitals were cut off, their eyes punctured, teeth removed, and they had been burnt with cigarette butts. Maa asked Baba to switch the television off.
‘Let him see,’ said Baba, his eyes clouding over.
So I saw and let the violence wash over me. Just like he would have in 1971.
I looked at the names of the soldiers on the screen. I wondered what if they were my brothers. How long would I harbour the hatred against the perpetrators? Baba’s family was killed by the army of the country he thought was his own, the anthem of which he sang, the flag that he saluted. How deep would that hurt be? I wonder if Baba had been taught to hate India growing up, like I have been taught to hate Pakistan. And how would it have felt when it was the Indian Army that had helped put a stop to the atrocities? Was his love for India, his change of heart, instantaneous?
I blurred my eyes and imagined an alternate headline.
‘Captain Anirban Ganguly and five others tortured and killed.’
I can still feel anger course through my veins like molten lava. But I like Zubeida Quaze. She had no part in this.
Why can’t Baba see it like that?
Maybe because he was there.
12 July 1999
The summer vacations ended today and I was back in school, sitting next to Brahmi, taking mental images of her to make up for all the time I had not seen her.
‘Are my pimples bleeding?’ asked Brahmi, dabbing her face with a tissue.
‘Why would you say that?’
‘Because you’re staring,’ she said.
‘I . . .’
All I wanted to do was to shrink in size, crawl into her lap, and cry my heart out, and also slip in a little confession of my love while I was at it. Instead when she asked me what I had been doing in the last one month, I told her and Sahil that we had taken a little holiday.
‘Tell me later,’ she whispered, catching my lie.
I got out my newspaper and started reading it. INDIA WINS BACK TIGER HILL FROM PAKISTAN. Deaths avenged, enemies vanquished, a nation saved. What could this victory mean to anyone? It’s a piece of land, a pile of rocks, stained with the blood and guts of innocent soldiers, an obsession of politicians. What’s the meaning of such all-consuming love and hatred? Of land and of people? And what kind of people? What kind of society? One that turns Maa–Baba into people I can barely recognize?
Sahil has shifted from the last desk to the one behind Brahmi and mine. On his previous seat now sits a new boy whom Amarjeet ma’am introduced as Rishab Batra, a transfer from G.D. Parekar School, a school for children who can’t live without central air conditioning. The class was asked to introduce itself to him. We did so, like nursery students, standing up one by one and telling him our names.
When Sahil’s turn came, he stood up and acted like a class clown should, ‘Hi. I’m Sahil Ahuja. G.D. Parekar is a much better school, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it is,’ said Rishab.
‘Then why are you here?’ asked Sahil.
The class giggled and Amarjeet ma’am shushed them.
Rishab Batra smiled and said, ‘I was asked to leave.’
‘For having too many girlfriends?’ asked Sahil and the class laughed.
Rishab smiled. He was handsome, like boyish handsome, like a movie star, and I saw Brahmi also looking at him like that. It shrank my heart. He looked like the kind of boy who would hold a girl’s hand and tell her she is beautiful the first time he meets her and make her fall in love with him.
‘I used to drive to school and might have influenced a few classmates to drive their parents’ car to school as well. The parents complained and here I am,’ said Rishab, continuing to smile.
‘Which car do you drive?’ asked Sahil.
‘Sahil! One more word and you’re out of the class!’ shouted ma’am.
‘It’s either a Peugeot or the Lancer,’ said Rishab. ‘I like the Lancer.’
‘We can be friends if you teach me how to drive.’
The class laughed and Sahil was thrown out of the class. It was now that I looked at Rishab again closely to ascertain if he was a threat to my embryonic, one-sided love story with Brahmi. Rishab Batra wore a watch with a metallic band, his hair was a well-made puff and his posture was that of a rich, spoilt kid. By the time school ended, Sahil and Rishab were laughing and backslapping each other like long-lost friends, which irritated me to no end. Rishab shifted to the second bench and laughed at everything the three of us had to say. Sahil was disappointed that Rishab didn’t have and never had had a girlfriend, didn’t smoke, hadn’t ever been to a club, hadn’t stayed overnights at a friend’s place, hadn’t travelled abroad or had a passport even, or banged his car into a hawker, all things Sahil expected rich kids to do.
It was clear our group had swelled to four people, which was exactly what I was wary about. There was only a minuscule possibility that Rishab, or even Sahil, could ever affect me—they didn’t have the power to—but after Maa–Baba’s swift and cruel change in behaviour I couldn’t really trust anyone, not even myself. Because wasn’t I in all my wisdom obsessing over what might happen to Maa–Baba if I die? How swiftly had I changed from a benevolent son to a love-struck boy who only wanted one more day, and then one more day with Brahmi.
We didn’t take the school bus or a Blueline home. Rishab insisted that his driver drop us home, and Brahmi insisted that she be dropped off near my house.
‘So where were you all these days? We missed you,’ she said as we waved Rishab and Sahil goodbye.
I wanted to ask her if we included Sahil or the biology teacher, or was it just her, too embarrassed to accept that it was only she who’d missed me?
As I narrated the sequence of events that had transpired at home, how my parents refused to let me out of their sight, lest I turned out like Dada, in the past few days, I felt sorry for myself. Surprisingly, there was no shock on Brahmi’s face.
‘They sound just like my Tauji–Taiji.’
‘Do they talk like that to you? Don’t your Mumma–Papa say anything?’
‘They are elder by ten years and my Mumma–Papa are the quiet, peace-loving sort. They stay away from arguments.’
‘But these aren’t arguments. It’s just them spewing venom all the time. It’s so hard to take the constant abuses and the disturbing things they say about Dada and Boudi.’
‘Bu
t Raghu, you shouldn’t have hidden anything from them. That was on you,’ she said slowly.
‘So what? As if you haven’t ever lied to your Maa–Baba.’
‘I have never lied to my Mumma. That’s the point of having parents, Raghu. They are the only people who will forgive you for everything,’ she said.
‘For everything? Even the boys you loved and these cut marks on your wrists?’ I asked.
‘They know about everything. They don’t judge me. Mumma holds my hand every time I do something and talks to me about what’s going on with me.’
‘Hmm. I am surprised they don’t slap you for it.’
‘Raghu, I won’t hear a word against my parents,’ she said.
‘Fine, I’m sorry. Unfortunately I do have to rely on lies. There’s sometimes no way out of it,’ I said.
We were close to my house.
‘I should go now,’ she said. ‘Who’s that girl, by the way? She has been looking at us for a while.’
I turned to where she pointed. On the balcony, Richa had been staring at us. She saw me and disappeared inside the house.
‘A neighbour.’
‘I will see you tomorrow?’ she said.
‘Brahmi? There’s something I wanted to ask you.’
‘What?’
‘What do your parents do?’
‘Is that important for you to know?’
‘Me? Not really,’ I said and realized how stupid it must have sounded. ‘Maa asked me a few days ago. Never mind. I will see you tomorrow.’
‘They are both engineers,’ she said.
Today was a quieter day. I wasn’t cursed and neither were Dada and Boudi. They maintained a steely silence and apart from being chided for leaving the light on in the bathroom, no words were exchanged between Maa–Baba and me.
16 July 1999
Maa–Baba were home when I got back and like the past few days, they ignored my presence. I coughed lightly. I have taken to coughing quiet frequently now, hoping Maa would show some concern, maybe think that I’m suffering from a mild strain of tuberculosis, realize the folly of her ways and apologize for the treatment that’s been meted out. Either way, she has to do something because their behaviour is tellingly hypocritical. Because if they hated their sons so much then why were they still obsessing over Dada’s marriage?
Today both of them hovered nervously around the telephone expecting a call. An hour later the phone rang and Maa put it on loudspeaker.
‘Mr Chatterjee! We were waiting for your call. How are you?’
An old, cracked voice answered from the other side, ‘I’m good, I’m good. I studied your son and daughter-in-law’s kundlis. I am afraid I have some bad news.’
‘What?’ asked Baba.
The man sighed on the other end. ‘Anirban will have a troublesome marriage. I don’t see it lasting long. You can do a puja to remedy it but the girl—’
Maa cheered up and interrupted. ‘Anything else?’
‘I don’t know if I should tell you,’ the old man croaked with the air of an oracle.
‘Please tell us,’ said Baba.
‘I see another problem.’
‘What kind of problem?’ asked Maa.
‘If they choose to have a child, it might not survive the first two years,’ the man said. ‘You couldn’t give me the exact time of birth of the girl so I could be wrong.’
Maa–Baba asked me to leave the room.
Later Maa came to my room to give out a single-line instruction.
‘Ask Dada not to bring a child into this world.’
17 July 1999
Maa is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. I’m not saying that because I’m her son. Even till a couple of years back she used to be mistaken for Dada’s gorgeous elder sister. Both Dada and I used to be proud and embarrassed about that. In PTA meetings, not only was Maa the most beautiful mother, she was also always the smartest, her confidence and poise unmatched. Her spoken English and Hindi, between which she switches comfortably, is better than mine or Dada’s.
But today morning, she looked like a ghost, her skin pale, fingers gangly and her hair sparse. She sat beside the landline, waiting for it to ring. It was Maa’s birthday today. Every year, no matter how hard I tried, it was Dada who wished her first. I peeped out from my room for half an hour, hopelessly willing the landline to ring. For a large part of the past few weeks, Maa–Baba kept the phone unhooked to avoid Dada’s calls, who called us often despite Baba’s reprimands.
The phone didn’t ring.
‘Happy Birthday, Maa,’ I said.
‘Stop this acting. I know you don’t love us, shona,’ said Maa and got up. Her voice was ice, her eyes angry.
‘But—’
‘They say when children grow up, they love their friends more than their own parents. But you—’
‘What about me?’
‘That’s why you don’t have friends, shona. Because you couldn’t stand by them when they needed you, just like you did with us. You only think about yourself. Don’t I know you well, shona? How you’re constantly hiding behind the diary you write.’
‘Maa. I have friends—’
‘And are you a good friend? Were you? To Sami?’
‘I was!’
‘I should have known. If you can lie to Sami’s parents about him then you can lie to anyone. He was your best friend after all.’
She walked to her room and closed the door behind her. Happy Birthday, Maa. Thank you for the wonderful return gift.
To celebrate Maa’s birthday and her impression of me, I wandered out of the house when no one was looking.
An hour later I was at Sami’s house. I hadn’t been there in months, which corroborates Maa’s statements about me being selfish and what not. The door was locked, spiderwebs on the windows, yellowed newspapers outside their door. Sami’s parents had moved. It’s hard not to feel guilty about that. For the few months after Sami had died I used to go to their house, watch them cope, partake in their grief from a distance. Then I stopped.
I loitered around, Maa’s jagged words still reverberating inside me like shurikens, shredding my heart till I found myself inexplicably outside Brahmi’s house. I sat on the pavement facing her window. I saw a silhouette in the window which I’m not sure was her. It was stupid what I did and I knew it sitting there but I couldn’t make myself get up and leave. I felt myself heal, the auricles and ventricles found their place again, the tendons snapped back, the blood flowed in my veins once more. Then I got up and came back home.
Maa–Baba hadn’t missed my absence.
19 July 1999
A piece of advice to you, future Raghu, if you’re reading this: First, don’t bother with secrets, you’re horrible at it.
You get to keep only one big secret in life. Second, never underestimate the scorn of a woman you have seen naked. Richa Mittal hadn’t yet had her revenge. Her cunning was baffling.
Today morning Sahil called me and told me what had transpired over the last couple of days.
‘Sorry, Raghu. I couldn’t lie. Brahmi made me swear on my mother and I could not lie about anything after that,’ said Sahil.
‘What happened?’
‘Brahmi knows about the fake picture, the letter, and why you did it.’
From here on, my memory of the conversation that followed is hazy. I couldn’t hear or process it properly over the sound of my shattering heart.
‘Some girl in your colony followed her.’
‘Richa?’
‘I don’t know her name. She told her that Arundhati and you were new friends, and not pen pals, not lovers, not anything.’
‘But how could she—’
‘Maybe Arundhati told her?’
Could that be? How could she have wheedled it out of Arundhati?
‘I need to talk to Brahmi.’
‘Raghu, I—’
‘What?’
‘That’s why I’m calling you. She asked me to tell you to not talk to her.
She told me she’s sorry about what’s happened but she can’t talk to you any more.’
‘She said that?’
‘Yes and neither can I or Rishab. Both of us can’t get stuck between the two of you and so I chose her. So did Rishab.’
‘Why exactly would it matter to me who Rishab chooses?’ I asked.
‘We were a group.’
‘WE WERE NOT A GROUP! Brahmi and I were friends and you two just butted in. So yes, I don’t care what you choose to do. DO YOU GET THAT?’ I said and I must have regretted saying it but I don’t remember it now.
‘Glad to know what you think of us.’
I slammed the phone down and gaped at the gall of Richa Mittal, that mute girl who suddenly found in her a wickedness till now unknown. I strode to the Mittal house; they didn’t open their door.
When I asked Arundhati, she said, ‘Richa told me you were best friends with her. I didn’t see any reason to hide it. Why? Something happened?’
I shook my head and came back home.
I took my journal and went to the roof of Ashiana Apartments. I was writing and I was looking down. No, I was not going to do it and I know that and I knew it when I was leaving the house to come here. Despite everything that has happened in the last few weeks, I am the farthest I have ever been to doing anything stupid. I feel I’m tethered to Brahmi like a stupid lovelorn goat. I can go round and round her, close or far, but I can’t disentangle myself from her. I want to see her again, talk to her, know her stories if she would tell me, and just be around her. So in true goat fashion, I left Ashiana Apartments for Brahmi’s place. Had it been a movie, I would have barged in, given a credible explanation for how I found her address, and then got on my knee and told her that she meant quite a bit to me. But since it’s not, I hovered around awkwardly, came back home and got an earful from Maa, who gave me the staple ‘Is-this-house-a-guest-house-for-you!’ line.
