by Farahad Zama
Mrs Ali nodded. The money that Leela had saved over the years for her younger child’s wedding had been used up to pay for treatment when Leela’s grandson had needed surgery.
“Can’t you get some other housework?”
“I have asked, amma, but all the flats are already serviced. Unless I go far away, there is no other work available, but then I’ll be spending all my time walking from one place to another, too tired to actually sweep and clean.”
“We don’t want that, do we?” said Mrs Ali. “Well, I have some good news for you. I know a family in the next building who want a servant maid.” She smiled.
Leela was astounded. “Who, amma?” she asked. “I am sure that there isn’t a free flat next door. The watchman’s wife and daughter do most of them and they won’t give up any of their families.”
“Swaroop’s mother-in-law came by earlier today. She said that she and her daughter-in-law had a big showdown in front of her son. Swaroop wanted to kick her out, but the old lady stood firm. She told them that if they wanted to inherit a single cowrie shell from the ancestral property, they would have to put up with her and not just for six months, either. And it wasn’t as if she was a burden. For the first time, everybody in the house was eating proper food instead of instant noodles and other junk.”
“I’ve heard you and…Did you…”
Mrs Ali inclined her head. “Anybody could tell this confrontation would happen sooner or later. I might have prepped the old lady beforehand.”
Leela smiled, for the first time that morning. “Then what happened, amma?”
“The son, in desperation, agreed to move out of the flat into a bigger house, further away from town, so his wife and mother could each have more room.”
“A town is not big enough for those two,” said Leela. “You said another family – ”
“I’ve just got off the phone to the flat’s landlord. You know the Raos who used to live there before?”
“Yes, I remember them. I used to work for that family too. They had a daughter and that tall son who did not want to study.”
“Those people, exactly. I had kept in touch with the lady of the house when they moved out. Anyway, as soon as the mother-in-law left, I called them up and took over the flat for Pari and her son. In about two weeks, they will be moving in.”
“That’s very good news. Pari-amma has been wanting to move out of her room for such a long time now.”
Mrs Ali said, “Right. Pari also has a job now and she says she needs a maid to help in the flat. Anyway, that’s all for later. Right now, I’ve rinsed out the men’s shirts and trousers in the orange bucket. Hang them out first because I want them to dry before the sun comes round the house. Then you can start on the dishes.”
“Yes, amma,” said Leela. There was a spring in her step as she went through the house.
Mrs Ali sat back in the cane chair on the verandah and surveyed the front yard. The stick had kept the crows away. A pair of sparrows landed on the wall of the well, chattered to each other, as sparrows do, and then flew away. A motorcycle honked on the road. A boy in flapping clothes ran past the house on some errand. The tomatoes were drying nicely in the sun.
The only tiny note of dissatisfaction was the fact that Paris engagement with Dilawar was definitely off. She didn’t know why it had been broken, nobody was saying anything, but the important thing was that Pari seemed happy. Maybe it was for the best. Mrs Ali couldn’t imagine how anybody could live in a crowded city like Mumbai where everything was always such a hurry-burry. And Mrs Bilqis was such a good woman – despite the broken engagement between her son and Pari, she had gone out of her way to use her influence and get Paris job back at the call centre. Mrs Ali and Pari had gone to Mrs Bilqis’s house to express their gratitude, but Mrs Bilqis and her friend Nadira, who was also there, had both appeared embarrassed and had waved their thanks away. Real ladies – the two of them.
A car stopped by the gate and Aruna got out. “Morning, madam,” she said. Her complexion was glowing. The girl’s cheeks had filled out a bit more than normal.
Mrs Ali smiled contentedly. The previous few weeks had seen problems, but she could feel life returning to its usual path once more.
Epilogue
The sun was a red ball hanging low in the west when the group of men and one woman pulled up on the outskirts of the small town. The men wore dark-green fatigues and were all carrying guns – self-loading rifles for the seniors and country-made pistols for the juniors. The woman, in a lemon-yellow salwar kameez, looked like a fresh hibiscus flower amid foliage. The leader of the men, Leninkumar, spoke quietly into her ear.
“I am having doubts about the latest mission.”
“Didn’t you tell me that you have doubts before every mission?”
Leninkumar nodded.
“Then this is no different.”
“I love you, Roja,” said Leninkumar softly, so the other men would not hear him.
Her cheeks reddened slightly, but Leninkumar wasn’t sure whether it was because of the sun’s rays. She turned to him and said, “I know.”
“Should we have taken the ten million rupees as ransom for your father’s release?”
Roja’s father was Mr Reddy, the landlord, who had been kidnapped after his ‘trial’ on the same night that the guerrillas had captured the four young people from Vizag. Leninkumar had seen Roja for the first time that night, but had got to know her better when negotiating the ransom. It had been love almost at first sight.
So much had changed since then. He had come back to their camp that evening to find that Adi had been trying to molest that girl, Aruna, in the hut. He had let the couple go, but knew that Adi would never forgive him for it, so that very night he had gathered together this group of loyal men, taken the landlord with him and left the camp. He still felt guilty about it, wondering whether he and his men could have made the difference against the Greyhounds the next morning.
He and Roja had met several times over the next couple of weeks, neogtiating about her father, and had finally agreed on the ransom amount. When she had come to deliver the money, Roja had surprised him, and her father, by opting to remain with the men in the forest.
“I want to marry you,” she had told him later.
He loved her confidence.
“You were a student with a bright future. Why did you leave all that behind and join the Naxalite movement?” she asked him.
“To fight for the poor and the weak,” he answered.
“The money will help you in that struggle,” she said. “If it remained with my father, it would just have languished in a steel safe or been used to trap more poor people into a cycle of debt.”
He turned and addressed his men.
“This mission is strictly for volunteers. Do any of you want to drop out?”
None did. His chest swelled with pride. “Comrades, let’s go!”
Roja started moving with them, but he stopped her. “This is a dangerous assignment and we don’t know how it will end. I don’t want you there.”
Roja looked into his eyes for a moment, then nodded and peeled off from the group.
The squad swiftly covered the distance to a modest single-storey structure with a red-tiled roof. A low wall surrounded the house, enclosing a small well-tended garden with orange kanakaambaram, white jasmine and several creepers with showy yellow flowers that bore marrows and gourds. A blueberry tree shaded the far corner.
A line of crows, sitting on the telephone wires leading to the house, took off with loud caws as soon as the armed men came in sight. Other crows in nearby trees took up the warning calls.
Leninkumar, the son of a revolutionary Marxist, in name if not in fact, knocked on the wooden door. The elderly man who opened it was tall and slim, bespectacled and stooped with age. He wore a long white cotton hand-loom shirt with a white dhoti around his waist that hung down to his knees. His eyes widened in shock when he saw Leninkumar and his men. He fell back and was pushed t
o one side as they barged their way into the house and bolted the door behind them.
Leninkumar scrutinised the room. It was as he had expected. A medium-sized television stood on an aluminium stand in one corner with an old cloth covering it. A coffee table in the middle of the room held the day’s papers – in English and Telugu – neatly folded under a glass paperweight, chipped from some long-ago fall to the cement floor. A ceiling fan moved the air slowly. A picture of Mahatma Gandhi hung on one wall and that of a young man in a soldier’s uniform on another, with a garland around both photographs.
The soldier was the old man’s son who had died in some long-forgotten border skirmish. Leninkumar knew that the old man also had a daughter, married to a schoolteacher in a distant village. Everything in his house showed the orderly life of an old couple with modest means. What was unusual was that the man was an MLA – a member of the state’s legislative assembly. Most MLAs lived in big houses with dozens of flunkeys to serve them. The old man was universally respected and not a little feared because he eschewed the scores of money-making opportunities that abounded within a politician’s reach.
The old man made his way to the front of the Naxalites and said, “What can I do for you gentlemen?” He spoke calmly.
An inner door opened and a grey-haired woman came in, holding a platter with an oil lamp and some flowers on it. “Did you hear the crows – ”
The platter dropped from her hands as she took in the scene. The flowers scattered. The lamp sputtered and almost went out, struggling to stay lit as most of the oil in the small clay pot splashed on the floor.
Leninkumar saw a flicker of fear for the first time on the man’s face.
“Leave my wife out of this,” he said. “She has nothing to do with politics.”
Leninkumar licked his lips in uncharacteristic nervousness and stepped forward. Dropping to one knee, he laid his rifle at the man’s feet.
“We have heard about the government’s offer of asylum. We wish to surrender.”
The men behind him dropped their guns too. The man looked at his wife in stunned surprise. Turning back to the men in front of him, he said, “Why did you come here? You should have gone to the police.”
Leninkumar shook his head. “We don’t trust the police. They are just as likely to shoot us after they’ve taken our arms as to accept our surrender.”
“But why me?”
“My father respected you,” said Leninkumar. “He used to say that you were an honest man.”
The old man bent down and raised Leninkumar to his feet.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Bharatkumar,” said the young man, claiming his rightful, parent-given name for the first time in years. Son of India.
The flame in the lamp took hold, shining bright and steady once more.
EOF
