by Meera Syal
‘Sorry to disturb, Tara … you will mind taking these to India for me?’ Mala handed her a couple of letters, both unstamped. ‘I have no Indian stamps … I give you money for them?’
‘No, that’s fine, Mala, I can cough up for a couple of stamps.’
‘Cough up?’ Mala cocked her head to one side.
She’s like a little sponge, thought Tara, greedy to absorb everything. There was a hunger emanating from her so palpable it seemed to fill the room. You could get sucked down into those eyes.
‘It means I can pay, no problem.’ Tara took the letters from her. They were thin, one sheet maximum.
‘My mother. And my sister. They maybe think I am dead.’ Mala shrugged. ‘But I don’t say about the baby. I say I have a job here.’
‘And did you tell them when you’re going back?’
Mala looked at her steadily. A noise at the open window made Tara look round, and she let out an involuntary gasp. Perched on the window-sill, its wings fluttering for balance, was a bright-green parrot with a scarlet gash of a beak. Spooked by Tara’s exhalation, it flew off again in a whirr of feathers, a solitary mournful shriek fading into the night.
‘I’d given up seeing one up close,’ breathed Tara. ‘Been trying for months to get one to visit my ledge. What’s your secret?’
‘Sunflower seeds. Or maybe he wants to talk. He finds someone else far away from home.’
The night before the eviction, Sita couldn’t sleep. She sat on the small balcony of their hotel – maybe guest-house was a more accurate description as there was no fancy lobby or communal restaurant, but the rooms were clean and airy and theirs overlooked a small park, where she counted the poor and homeless slipping through a gap in the railings to find a corner to sleep for the night. Scrawny men and women holding sleeping children and their thin rolls of bedding, as silent as ghosts flitting through the semi-darkness, seeking a hidden spot where the night-watchmen or some passing policeman wouldn’t spot them. It was a nightly ritual. In the few days she and Prem had been in India, Sita had seen the same family groups infiltrate the park. She was getting to recognize them: the toothless man with hair dyed bright orange from an over-enthusiastic application of henna, with his limping wife and three small children who followed them in a blank-eyed raggle-taggle through the railings. The young couple, she heavily pregnant, whose clothes always seemed clean and pressed, her hand always holding her sari end over her face as if the shame of sleeping rough compelled her to hide her identity. And occasionally, a courting couple would dare to scamper under the low hanging branches and exchange fevered kisses, desperately pulling themselves into each other’s bodies and mouths. Sita felt sorry for them. Vichare, they probably both lived at home, where else could they go? In her day, you waited until you had taken your seven steps around the holy fire before you even dared to hold hands; maybe that’s why parents tried to get their children married so quickly. They knew Nature would not wait. The young would always sniff each other out, find the secret places on the street, in each other.
Inside the room, Sita could hear Prem’s usual symphony of irregular snores. He was exhausted. They had spent the whole day with Ravi Luthra, going over last-minute plans which he seemed to have arranged with impressive precision: meet at eight a.m. two streets away from their flat, where ten hired labourers, the bailiff and his two assistants and two police officers would all be joining them, hopefully.
‘Only we are not sure about the policemen. If some emergency comes up, well, they cannot stop chasing criminals to come to a routine eviction.’
Sita knew this meant they wanted more money. So be it, she had it, all in rupees now, rolled up in a sponge bag. Prem had the official fees in his wallet: let him feel he was in charge, that he was doing the right thing, after all.
Ravi continued reading from his notes, looking up at them for occasional emphasis. ‘There are certain rules we must follow, otherwise the whole thing could be abandoned on legal grounds. Firstly, we can only gain access if we are allowed in without breaking and entering. This means they cannot prevent us from entering once the door is opened. But if they lock themselves in, we will need another application for forcible entry – that is much harder to get. Secondly, when we get in, each of you must occupy a room to prevent them locking any doors. If they lock any room, we cannot legally gain access to it. You will have to remain in each room until all their possessions have been safely removed on to the street. Thirdly, there must be no physical contact that they could claim was violence. If you touch them roughly, for example, they can then claim they were manhandled into leaving …’
‘May I just ask something?’ Prem interrupted. He was looking pale; this list of instructions had left him shaken. It was all so … matter-of-fact. ‘Won’t they say they need time to shift everything? They have been there for so long, how can they be moved so quickly?’
‘Listen, Prem-ji, they have been served with three eviction orders and have been given time to respond. The man just rips them up and laughs in your face. He will have been told this procedure is happening – if not the actual day then certainly the month. They have had plenty of notice.’
‘What if they attack us?’ Sita interrupted. ‘What rights do we have?’
‘This is why we have so many men with us. And I hope even they would think twice before striking two respected elders of their family.’
You don’t know them, thought Sita grimly. And yet her kind-hearted, sweet fool of a husband was worried about upsetting them, even now.
‘This is why,’ Ravi spread his hands helplessly, ‘it would be better if we had a police presence. Then we are protected, and we can say we followed all procedures in the proper manner expected by the law.’
‘The proper manner?’ Sita laughed bitterly. ‘You talk about the law? How much money has been passed around in paper bags so the law can be followed properly? How many times have our papers been lost or mislaid or altered by some peon in some office so he can follow the law? What is it like, Ravi beta, to wake up every day and come to your office and open your files and wonder who the law is going to be kind to today? Because you don’t know. Unless we were super-rich or knew a government minister or had been to school with the judge, our fate is decided by the size of our cheque book and our prayers, if anyone is listening.’
Ravi sat back in his chair. He seemed winded. For a horrible moment, Sita thought he might be about to cry. He shuffled a few papers and sniffed loudly.
‘This is not the profession I thought I would follow, Sita-ji, but my father … Never mind …’
Prem laid a restraining hand on Sita’s arm as she opened her mouth to reply.
‘You try your best, Ravi,’ Prem said quietly. ‘We understand.’
‘Not always, Prem-ji,’ Ravi admitted, looking at his desk. ‘Some days I can see there is no hope for justice. It kills a person inside, you know? You wonder what is the point of trying to be … good. But then people like you come along and I remember why I keep trying.’
No one said anything. For a moment the sounds of the street overtook the room: the staccato urgency of car horns, the gentle response of bicycle bells, labourers and hawkers with their guttural shouts across gulleys and traffic, children playing somewhere, their sweet high voices overlaying the soundscape like faraway flutes. This was as familiar to Sita and Prem as an old lullaby, a song bone-deep that they would never forget and would always respond to with visceral memories, an ache where a severed limb used to be.
How I love this country, despite everything, Sita thought, and how it has hurt us. After we get the flat back – if we do – what then? How will we manage now, with our illnesses and infirmities? Fifteen years ago they had been healthy and active enough to manage living here, but the long struggle had taken its toll on them. Now they needed to be near their daughter, their doctor, their grandchildren. Many of their old friends had moved out of Delhi or were dead already. They were fighting now for a principle, not a home. But nothing could bri
ng those years back to them. It was too late for that.
‘There was one more thing I needed to say … point five, I believe?’ Ravi had snapped back into his usual brisk manner, and began collecting the paperwork on his desk. ‘I must warn you, this will not be pleasant. In these circumstances, people naturally get very upset, very angry. They will try anything to stop you. Threats, begging, they will parade their kids in front of you, they will show you their operation scars. If they can get you out of the door, they know they have won. And in this case, as with so many others, these people are not strangers, they are your family.’
Sita answered for both of them, trying not to look at Prem’s sombre face. ‘Don’t worry. We are ready.’
Tara had offered to accompany her grandparents the following day, but they were both vehement about her staying away.
‘We have so many officials to help, beti,’ Prem had told her. ‘It is a delicate situation. If you come, we will just be worrying about you on top of everything else.’
Tara was worried about him. She knew how much strain they were both under, but her grandfather was not taking it well. She had packed away her bedding from the pull-out sofa and entered the bathroom to find him standing over the sink, pouring water over his head from the toothbrush glass.
‘Nana-ji?’
‘Oh … my head … it feels very hot, that’s all,’ he had said, grabbing a towel and rubbing fiercely at his dripping hair. It was only seven in the morning and already it felt humid and close.
‘You know how to use the mobile, don’t you?’ Tara had checked before she left the hotel. They had both bought mobile phones at a local shop and Tara had carefully logged in her number and put it on speed dial for them.
‘Yes, yes, now go, don’t be late,’ Sita had fussed, stuffing papers into her handbag. ‘And take a taxi, not a scooter, OK?’
‘Call me when there’s any news … or if you need help, or—’
Sita was bundling her out of the door. ‘We will. Love you …’
‘Love you too!’Tara called back. Her grandfather didn’t seem to have heard her. He was standing quite still, his silver hair poking up in irregular tufts, giving him the startled look of a baby bird, staring at the towel in his hand as if he wasn’t sure what it was.
When she entered the Shakti offices for the first time, Tara had felt nervous, sweating from the climb up three flights of pitted marble stairs. From the outside the building looked Dickensian: a crumbling brownstone edifice garlanded by electrical wires which looped in and around the disused ironwork balconies, advertisement hoardings for local businesses stuck on its face like grubby plasters on old scars.
It had taken her almost an hour to find the place on that first day. South Extension, lying off one of the major ring roads in South Delhi, was famed as a popular shopping destination. With its designer malls interspersed with funky street markets, it didn’t seem a likely area for a feminist activist group to be based. And yet when Tara had finally located the office in a quiet cul de sac, she had felt the familiar time-shift sensation she associated with being in India, wandering from the twenty-first-century steel-and-chrome malls into a hidden alleyway populated by stray dogs, washing lines and parked-up old Ambassador cars.
Today, she had come to work early because she wanted to get some exterior shots. She planned to make herself a cup of coffee, charge her camera battery and get a head start. To her surprise, the office was already busy. Rohney, one of the workers, was already in the small kitchenette, making coffee. Her long hair was scraped back in a ponytail today, although she was in the usual office uniform of kurta top and jeans. Her small round eyes widened in pleasure when Tara entered.
‘Tara! Were you called for the meeting?’
‘Er, what meeting?’
Tara automatically looked across the open-plan office towards the glass enclosure at the end, where some kind of discussion was in full flow. She recognized almost everyone in there. Except the woman who seemed to be doing most of the talking, a slim woman with cropped hair, swathed in a long cotton dupatta, gesticulating energetically with her hands.
‘Oh, OK, you’re just on English time then. Early, no?’
‘Yes, give me a few more weeks and I will be coming in two hours late like I’m supposed to,’ smiled Tara.
‘Great. But you will finally meet Kavita. She’s off to UP to assist on that Dalit rape case later on, but she might have a few minutes before her train leaves. I will tell her you’re here. Coffee’s brewed.’
Rohney bustled off. Tara didn’t ask which rape case this might be – there were so many, it was hard to keep track. During her preliminary research back in London, she had unwisely mentioned to her grandmother that Delhi, her home city, had the dubious status of being the rape capital of India. Figures suggested that every day six women were assaulted in the capital, possibly due to the number of uneducated labourers flooding in from the neighbouring countryside, used to sexually segregated lives and suddenly finding themselves surrounded by mobile independent women whom they assumed were ripe for picking and abusing. Nanima had almost withdrawn her offer to fund Tara’s trip after hearing that; only after Tara had promised never to use public transport or three-wheelers, never to travel alone at night and never to wear revealing clothing did she relent. Tara had wanted to say that this was the whole point of going out there – to challenge the idea that women should have to restrict their lives in order to be safe, and to concentrate on changing centuries-old attitudes and procedures. But it had seemed easier to nod vigorously and pack her bags.
The meeting ended and the office began to fill with movement and chatter. Tara could put names to most of the faces now: the older woman who always wore the most elegant saris and coordinated jewellery was Meenakshi, the legal advisor; Seema and Mamta worked on the girls’ education and boys’ reeducation projects in various schools, and Rohney ran the counselling service. To Tara’s surprise, there were also two male volunteers, both in their late twenties: Neel, tall and rangy with perpetual designer stubble, and Dhruv, the stocky and silent type, who occasionally looked up from his computer screen to throw enigmatic looks from behind his John Lennon specs.
This was one of those occasions: he caught Tara’s inquisitive glance, raised his eyebrows and cocked his head in mock warning. Tara followed his gaze to see Kavita striding towards her with her hand outstretched.
‘Tara, right?’ She pumped her hand enthusiastically. Tara felt the force field around her, warm, restless. Her intelligent eyes took in Tara briefly from head to toe; it felt like being scanned at the airport.
‘Kavita, project coordinator. Settling in OK, I hope?’
‘Oh yes, fantastic. Thanks so much for allowing me to film your work—’
‘Don’t thank me yet,’ Kavita interrupted. ‘It depends what you film. You will give us the right to veto anything we don’t like? We guard our reputation fiercely here.’
Tara bristled at the word ‘veto’ and Kavita saw it – she missed nothing.
‘This is just a student project, a very personal piece, not for broadcast or anything,’ said Tara.
‘I should hope not, or we wouldn’t have said yes.’ Kavita smiled tightly.
‘And obviously,’ Tara continued, ‘I wouldn’t want to show anything you were unhappy with—’
‘Good,’ Kavita interjected, ‘because we have enough do-gooders parachuting in from the West trying to save the poor native women from their savage bestial men.’
The office chatter suddenly dipped. Everyone seemed to be concentrating very intently on their screens, except for Dhruv, who took off his glasses and began to chew one end of them thoughtfully.
‘I … sorry?’ Tara said foolishly. She knew where this was heading; she just couldn’t quite believe it was being directed at her, and so publicly.
‘No doubt you’re going to quote facts like we have 24,000 rape cases waiting to be heard in court, and our conviction rate is currently twenty-four per cent. All true. But
I do hope you’re smart enough to understand the context: what are the stats in the UK? America? The Congo? Do you think it’s so much better elsewhere? Is this just our problem, or is it easier to come somewhere exotic and save us from our colonial sorry selves?’
‘God no, I … I’m not a misery tourist!’ Tara said, a little louder than she expected. ‘I’ve been involved with campaigns back in London. I just … this is more my … culture?’
She knew it sounded laughable the moment it came out of her mouth. She waited for the tongue-lashing that would follow.
Instead Kavita exhaled, a faint smile tugging at her mouth. ‘Tara, God knows what that word means, and I have been born and brought up here. I’m not sure we have a homogenous culture that unites us. We have tribes: the rich, the poor, the Dalits, your caste, your religion, your regional language, your sexuality … the miracle is we are still the world’s largest democracy, and I would lay down my life for that. But you’re here and that’s a start. You’re a woman and you’re of Indian origin. That’s even better. It’s just we don’t need white men saving brown women from brown men. Have a great day.’
Kavita swooped out with Rohney following her, talking loudly in the usual masala mix of English and Hindi as they both clattered down the stairs.
Tara leaned on the counter for a moment, slightly stunned.
‘Good time for a coffee?’
Dhruv was next to her. His glasses were now perched on his head, revealing soft, heavily lashed eyes. He looked like an inquisitive giraffe.
Tara nodded, too embarrassed to look him in the face.
‘It’s a quote, you know,’ Dhruv said casually as he poured piping-hot liquid from the cafetiere. ‘The white-men-saving-brown-women phrase. Not sure who said it. She uses it a lot. Who wouldn’t, it’s cool. Here.’
