Le Gayi Pavan Ura
The Wind Carried It All Away
Shado was thrashing and flailing nonstop. A fire had lit inside her. "Am I a virgin? I have slept with pretty much everyone in the city by now and I am still a virgin. You started me at the age of fourteen to fill the hell of your gut and you have the gall to call me a virgin. If I am indeed a virgin, then, go and bring me a husband." Exhausted, she fell on bed. Sobs rattled her. As if dogs were gnawing at a corpse. Shado, we should in fact just do what is expected of us. Her step-father beat her to pulp. The nurse aborted the child. Now she drinks during the day as well till she can't see a damn thing. She smashes pots, quarrels, weeps, and cusses in the most vulgar register possible. She curses her folks, the world, the God. Her mother weeps big, fat tears.
"Shado, why do you drink so much? That is not going to solve anything. Look, you can have another child if that is what you want. Why destroy your life?"
"Arrey, Masud saheb, did you mention the child? That was just an excuse, a reason, a totally made up nonsense. Who cries after a child! Is there any shortage of them in this house? There are millions wandering like puppies in the city street. I can grab one any day. That is not the story at all. Melancholy had seized the heart. I was feeling suffocated. I don't know why I thought let's be stubborn. There should be some noise and drama, what else! That's it. You are so simple. Such rhetoric you offer. Sex is a gift, which man and woman give each other in love. Wow, you are wonderful . . . love . . . gift . . . offering . . . my kind can find a new man everyday. Do good women maintain a contact with just one person? The real challenge would be to see that both earn separately and live together for the rest of their life. What's the difference? There was an asshole, Anwar. We had a hot affair. For a whole month I saw no one but him. I didn't take a single paisa from him. The gifts and offerings you mention were at their height. His folks found out and gave him a good licking. I wept for few days just to convince myself as though I were deeply in love with him. I too had gotten tired of him. Good riddance, no, Sir, I am fine on my own."
The wind picks up. Pieces of newspaper, greasy scraps, empty cigarette packets roll and run amok on the empty road. The deafening noise of tin nana tinik tin nana tinik follows me frantically. The rail engine has arrived. Some building is collapsing. I am scared to death. An empty tin can chases me prodded by the wind and staggers ahead to fall into the sewer.
"Give me a double cup of tea."
Each sip brings life to the body going cold. It is not that cold. It really is not cold here, but I believe I have grown weak. I once had my teeth chattering in August. There was too much humidity and my body was drenched in sweat - not a single leaf moved - yet I was shivering. The steel-barred gate of the hospital was shut. Ambulances packed with injured came and left incessantly. From time to time, I could feel the thumping of the Dogra Soldiers' boots patrolling from across the wall. I was putting a cold wet strip of cloth on Zafar's head. He had been hit by a bullet in his chest. He was unconscious and breathed like Karmu. The pause between the bullets' bang bang sound made the silence feel too unbearable and deep, dragging me down with it, till the explosion of bullets renewed. The door opened and Kamni stood before me. Zafar was her classmate and both had been kicked out of college for giving speeches to laborers. Did they love each other? Or perhaps it was just attraction which resulted from convergence of thoughts and points of view. She cried and I took her to the window. There was enough fire to make the night look like a day. The leaping tongues of fire attempted to lick the sky. Bullets were like flying embers.
"Why did you come at this time?"
"I could not find peace in my heart."
"Kamni, go home. Your father's going to be upset if he finds out."
"Let him. I can't leave Zafar in this condition."
I turned to change the wet cloth. "Stop. I'll change the strip." She sat down on a chair by him. Thump, thump, thump, the nurse came running in from the verandah.
"The rioters have arrived at the hospital."
"How?"
"By hiding inside the ambulance. You must run away."
"Run away? But where?"
Whack, whack, they are banging down the doors of the rooms in the ward. Sounds of weeping, shrieks, catch him, kill him, din of noise, a calamity everywhere.
"Come on, Kamni, let's go."
"I am Hindu, they won't touch me. You hurry on."
A sound of big explosion was heard from the direction of our quarters. There is only one Muslim house there and that is ours. Kamni stood up and soon, reflecting, sat down again. I took off. Having covered the entire length of the corridor, I came out to the empty plot to encounter Kalu Bhangi. He clutched my arm with strength.
"Massu."
"What?"
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"Have you gone nuts? Come this way." About hundred yards from me arose clouds of smoke from my verandah. He pulled and forced me against the hospital wall and we sneaked off to the big burr tree. He helped my up first and then followed to sit next to me, putting his arms around me. Every single molecule in my body was trembling. Relative quiet gradually turned into dead pan silence. Kalu came down. "You stay there; I'll go and check the situation." Earlier it seemed the end of the world had come and now the flesh gnawing silence. Kalu returned in half an hour.
"Come, Massu, let's go." My feet rose in the direction of my home. "Not there. There is still danger." He grabbed my arm again and headed towards his quarter.
"What happened to my folks?"
"Nothing. Everything is fine."
"Why was the smoke rising from there then? They must have thrown a bomb there." I choked. "Grown ups don't cry. Stop it now. We'll get caught if you made a loud noise." He hid me under the cot and spread a blanket over it, shutting the door behind him. Only when the morning broke did Kalu open the door.
"Kalu, where are my father and mother, Pappu and Razia?" Kalu was speechless. "Where are they?"
"What can I tell you?"
"All?"
"Yes, all.
"It is kalyug! Why doesn't this earth part, so that we can disappear in it? They kidnapped Kamni last night. May they suffer worse! She said again and again she was Hindu. They looked at Zafar babu's head ticket. If you are Hindu, then what are you doing in this Muslim's room? The poor thing did not even have something to prove herself!"
Doctor Mohan Singh drove to Kalu Bhangi's place. He got me into the car and took us to the camp. He wanted to say something to me but couldn't utter a word. His eyes were so ashamed, angry, and regretful as though he were personally responsible for what was happening. The car entered the Company Bagh. In the middle of the vast plain lay the naked corpse of Kamni. The wind flirted with her hair. "Kamni, get up and see the sun of independence has risen awaiting which you wore khaddar. Get up and see how bright and grand it is! Today we have pushed every shade of tyranny, every sorrow into the Indian Ocean."
Without pausing for a moment by her corpse I walked ahead. Her lovely hair which the wind is gently caressing to this day in my mind must have become one with the dust of my country. I would have preferred the same dust.
"Babu ji, babu ji, is everything all right?"
"Why?"
"You're weeping."
"Oh . . . yes . . . a memory . . ."
It is time to head back to the hut. They will have some peace when I get back and toss my limbs to bed. Most of the night is gone. What do you mean by night? We are close to dawn. So many incidents of my life zoomed past my eyes in one night. So many complete and living pictures are in motion on the screen of my mind. How real are dreams? Do realities become dreams? In a person's present the colors of life are vivid, bright and blinding. But sorrow and shock make a pulp out of him. Happiness is reminiscent of milk about to boil over since they rise quickly and are erased soon. But their memories are subtle, hazy, stationary, and impure. The sorrows from the past don't kill you, yet they are like a shadow that continues to pass ever so slowly and quietly. Joys don't drive one crazy; instead they wrap themselves around your heart, massage you with love, warm you up, and then they are gone. The remembrance of friends is like a sweet prick and the thought of enemies brings a smile to your lips. Safia was very fond of emitting sour burps. She used to drive me up the wall: "Why don't you file a claim? We'll acquire some property as well. My father has filed a claim; my phupha has done it. My Khalu has too. Who hasn't! Do you think they all left property back there? You should file a claim too."
"What should I file for? My father was a government employee and lived in a government's quarter; that was his only property. He considered that his home all his life and died there with his family. If you insist, I can file a claim for my mother, Puppu and Razia? How about for Kamni's naked body? For Kalu's heart? For Shado's honor? There are too many kinds of claims. Alas, the staff doesn't recognize them."
It is so dark in our locality. Holding hands like blind children, the little huts have moved aside, fearing the giant bright buildings. There are so many neon signs! If we could break them into little pieces and distribute them among the little huts, no locality, even no city, will ever be dark again. Bhrrr bhrrr, a motor riksha halts. Shado emerges. Her steps have a mood of their own. Now she'll anchor against the wall. Feeling the wall, she'll manage herself to her hut. She tries in fits and starts to sing a song. She has taken such a long pause after the first line I think she's forgotten the song or has forgotten to sing. But she begins again - of course - off key. Even words are not coming out smoothly.
Koi karman di gal das jogi
Kadon mahi sadha ghar aa ve ga
(Tell me a bit about my destiny, Jogi
When will my lover come to my place)
She has started laughing obnoxiously. Jogi who? What destiny? Whose lover? Whose home? It's all a lie. Deception! Nothing else! Don't believe it, don't ever believe it.
A voice echoed in the loud speakers. Allah-o Akbar, Allah-o Akbar. Oh, God is still alive up there?
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