A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

  The accused looks bewildered. He opens his mouth to speak and is reminded by the judge to be quiet.

  * * *

  *

  THIS IS HOW BIMALA PAL explained it to him, and this is how he explains it to his wife. All these cases are instances in which the police are one hundred and ten percent sure that the accused is guilty. They don’t have that much evidence, is all. But the accused are known in their neighborhoods. They have reputations. Should these dangerous men return to the streets on a technicality? Much better to fill the gap with a witness and make sure the guilty party lands in jail.

  PT Sir cannot disagree. It is true that there is a lot about life that the law misses. And it doesn’t hurt that each assignment comes with a “gift,” delivered to him every month by an assistant, perhaps the assistant’s assistant, who drives to the house on a noisy motorcycle and offers a pristine white envelope.

  LOVELY

  TODAY, WHEN MR. DEBNATH is giving us a scene where we are having to express tears, many of us are looking concerned.

  “I have heard,” Rumeli is saying, “that on real sets they are using some burning eye drops—”

  “Burning eye drops!” Mr. Debnath’s voice is booming. He is seeing red.

  “If you want to be a C-level actor you can use all those cheap things!” he is saying. “Real actors cry from the heart. Real actors are reaching into their own selves, and not imagining a false sad moment, but returning to a true sad moment in their own life. That is how you are crying real tears in a made-up scene.”

  We are all nodding seriously then. Mr. Debnath is saying such deep things.

  * * *

  *

  UNTIL I WAS THIRTEEN–FOURTEEN years old, I was living with my parents, who were both working in the local post office, and my grandparents, two uncles, their wives and children, all of us stuffed in a four-room apartment with a small balcony where we were sprinkling puffed rice for sparrows to eat. We were neither rich, neither poor. Once a month we were going to the movie theater after eating rice and egg at home. The popcorn counter was not existing for people like us.

  In the outside world, I was wearing boy’s shorts and a boy’s haircut, and playing cricket. But secretly, at home, I was trying lipstick. I was wearing my mother’s saris once, twice, thrice. The fourth time my uncles were persuading my father to kick me out of the house. “What dignity will we have with this unnatural boy in the household?” they were shouting. “Our children are normal, think about them!”

  My cousins were hiding in a bedroom, peeping out at me with big eyes.

  My mother was fighting to keep me at home. She was saying I could be going to a special school! I could be seeing a doctor! But how long can a mother be fighting against the laws of society? So I was leaving.

  In my heart I am knowing that my grieving mother must have been looking for me for years. Maybe she is still searching for me. I am not thinking about her anymore.

  When I was first finding my way to the hijra house, I was learning singing and dancing, the art of charming strangers and persuading them. In classes run by an NGO, I was continuing my studies of Bengali and arithmetic, until their funding ended. So I was never learning a lot from books. When I was a child, I was being taught that school was the most important thing in the world—my exams and my marks would make me successful! These days, I am seeing that’s not true. Was Gandhiji spending his time sitting on top of a book? Was Rakhee, the greatest film star in history, spending her time saying no, please, cannot make films due to I am having to study a book? No. Me, I am learning from life.

  * * *

  *

  LOVELY IS MY HIJRA NAME, which I was selecting at my eighteenth birthday ceremony. That was the ceremony where I was becoming a real woman. Arjuni Ma was taking me into her own bedroom and standing me in front of a tall mirror. She was giving me a golden blouse and a black petticoat to wear, and then she was wrapping a red sari around my hips. Her old knuckles and wrinkled skin were touching me with so much love. I was looking at myself in the mirror, making myself to be thinking of some jokes so that I was not crying. Finally I was knowing what it was feeling like, to be all the women I was seeing every day—on the train, holding children’s hands, cooking with ginger-garlic. They were all doing this one thing before going out of the house, putting nine yards of fabric on their bodies. When Arjuni Ma was kneeling in front of me, separating the pleats, I was true to god giving up and sobbing.

  That whole night I was dancing with my sisters. The Bollywood classics on the stereo were making me feel like a star, like my body was silk and gold. Everybody’s eyes were watching me, full of admiration. Many of the sisters were having, how to say, eighty percent energy, twenty percent talent. But for me, it was different. I was turning round and round, and seeing the pink balloons and golden streamers like a film-set decoration. Even the dim tubelight of the room was looking to me like a spotlight.

  Only one thing was making me sad. I am still not liking to think about it, but Mr. Debnath has given this assignment, so. I was knowing that even the sisters who were smiling sweetly were secretly complaining to each other: “Can you imagine, Lovely has not even had the cutting-cutting operation! But Arjuni Ma is giving her the ceremony anyway, what luck!”

  * * *

  *

  A LONG TIME AGO, before my ceremony, my closest sister in the hijra house was Ragini. When Ragini was turning eighteen, she was going with Arjuni Ma to a dentist’s chamber for her operation. She was asking me to come also, and I was saying, yes, of course, so that after the operation we could be having ice candy!

  The dentist’s chamber was having a sign saying Closed, but when Arjuni Ma was knocking, a man who was talking on his Nokia phone was opening the door. Inside, the room was partitioned by a curtain which was only going halfway to the floor. Behind it there was a small space with stacks of medicine samples on the floor, and a few calendars which were also never put up. On the topmost calendar there was a photo of a foreign baby with such deep dimples. I was almost smiling to see that baby, but the smell of the room, like a damp towel, was bringing me back. Above us I was seeing black patches of mold on the ceiling, and a narrow bed which was covered with canvas sheeting, like a raincoat. When Arjuni Ma was giving her permission, Ragini was taking off her pants and lying down on this bed.

  Arjuni Ma was telling me to stand above Ragini’s head and be holding her hands. Ragini was so brave. In my eyes that day, Ragini was a heroine. When the doctor was entering the room, his face was already covered with a mask, so I was never knowing if this was the man on the phone or a different man. Arjuni Ma was telling Ragini to begin her chanting, and Ragini was repeating the name of the goddess over and over. Chanting the name was supposed to make the ceremony blessed by god, and also keep the pain away.

  At this point I was feeling a bit scared. I was holding Ragini’s hand tighter and I was whispering: “From tomorrow all the Romeos will be falling for you.”

  Ragini was smiling with her dark gums.

  The dentist was saying, mumbling mumbling, that he was having no anesthetic that day. How I don’t know, but I was having a gut feeling that he was lying. My gut was telling me that he was feeling nervous about using anesthetics, even when he was having them in stock. But without anesthetics Ragini was facing an impossible amount of pain. I was asking the doctor, “Why don’t you give her a little bit of anesthetic, sir, or some numbing medicine?”

  At that he was getting irritated. “You are doing the operation or me?”

  I was having nothing to say then.

  Ragini was interrupting, “No problem, what is some pain? Some painkiller I will take after the operation.” She was looking at me, like don’t make the doctor angry. She was eager to do the operation. So I was keeping my mouth shut.

  I was keeping my eyes shut too. Just the sight of the blade was too much, leave alone the blood. With eyes
closed I was hearing the sounds—Arjuni Ma breathing sharply, some liquid squirting, something metal hitting the side of the table. When I was opening my eyes, so much bright red blood was in between Ragini’s legs, I was thinking that Ragini was now a full woman. She was even getting a period.

  Then I was thinking, Ragini was dead.

  Then, Ragini was not dead. She was a ghost. She was not screaming, not crying. Her head was lolling from right to left, like her skull was loose on her neck, and she was shivering like she was having 104 degrees fever. Her hands in my hands were blocks of ice. I was letting them go and crying, “Arjuni Ma, see what Ragini is doing! She is acting strange!”

  Arjuni Ma was watching the doctor like an eagle.

  At last, with the help of many rags and one no-question-asking taxi driver, we were cleaning up Ragini’s wound and transporting her back to the house. For three–four days she was having high fever, and we were piling more sheets on her to sweat out the temperature. Finally, one day, Ragini was sitting up, accepting the sugar water I was bringing her. She was taking one sip and smiling. I was giving all my thanks to the goddess that day. I was believing in miracles. When Ragini was starting to spend the evenings sitting with us in front of the TV, dancing with her hands when her favorite songs were playing, I was smiling and smiling. I was holding her hand and never letting her go.

  Then, one morning, she was not waking up.

  “Ragini!” we were calling, “Ragini, wake up!”

  I was splashing water on her face. I was pinching her toes. Somebody was putting an old shoe in front of her nose, in case the smell of leather was helping.

  But Arjuni Ma was seeing, and I was seeing also, that Ragini was gone very far from us. Her eyes were still, her lips were cracking, her skin was bloodless. Ragini was dead.

  From what was she dead? Nobody was knowing, because all of us, and even Arjuni Ma, were afraid of going to real doctors. But I was knowing, oh I was knowing for sure, one hundred percent, it was the dentist. Maybe his blade was having rust on it, or maybe his hands were not clean. Maybe, without anesthetic, the pain was storing and storing in Ragini’s body until she was not being able to take it. Like that, Ragini’s life was ending.

  So I was sure I was never wanting the operation. I was wanting to stay a half-half my whole life.

  * * *

  *

  THAT IS THE PAIN I am recalling in my acting class today, and that is the pain I am carrying with me when I am going home and seeing a woman squatting outside my door. Her head is down, and her hair is silver. Hearing my footsteps, she is standing up, and immediately I am seeing the resemblance: It is Jivan’s mother.

  Inside, she is sitting on my mattress, because there is nowhere else to sit. With her legs folded, her glistening eyes, her small hands, she is looking like a child. Then she is asking me a question that no mother should be having to ask.

  “Mother,” I am saying to her afterward, “I am knowing what it is like to lose a loved one. And poor Jivan is also lost, at this moment. But the good thing is that she will be coming back.”

  Jivan’s mother is holding her tea glass in her hand and looking at me, waiting for my lecture to get to the point. So I am saying it clearly.

  “I will testify,” I am saying. “Don’t worry one bit. I will go to the court, I will tell them the truth, that Jivan is one kindhearted child teaching the poors, like myself! She was just a soul doing good for the uglies, like myself! I was having in mind that I would be saying all this when the police were coming, but they were not coming only. And I was not having the courage, mother, to walk into a police station myself.”

  Now Jivan’s mother is crying, and a tear is falling down my own cheek. I am closing my eyes, and Ragini is beside me. This time, Ragini is the one holding my hand through the pain. I am opening my eyes and seeing that it is in fact Jivan’s mother who is holding my hand, her tears falling on my palms.

  “Jivan was telling me once that you are good at blessing babies and brides,” she is saying. “Today, you have given this mother the biggest blessing.”

  True to god I am crying even more.

  JIVAN

  AMERICANDI UNWRAPS A PACKAGE of costume jewelry. I listen to the tinkle on her wrist of two glass bangles. When speaking with me, she gestures excessively to watch the fall and slide of the new bangles. Their movement delights her.

  I soothe myself with daydreams of Lovely in the courtroom. Imagine when she comes to my trial and says, in that bold voice of hers, that the package all these fools keep talking about was a package full of old books. My dry lips smile to think of it. Even if they don’t believe me, how can anybody refuse to believe Lovely?

  * * *

  *

  WHEN PURNENDU COMES, I tell him nothing about Lovely. I don’t want to jinx it. But I am happy, so I tell him about an Eid festival, when the lane before our apartment building lit up green with bulbs strung in the trees. I wore a new dress and matching bangles borrowed from my mother, and looked out the window with nowhere, really, to go. A wealthy man, a landlord who was making lots of money from this government resettlement program, had ordered a whole goat slaughtered, and it was cooked into biryani. The scent rose up to our window. Late at night, due to the goodness of his heart, we ate. We ate with the whole neighborhood, off Styrofoam plates which we tried to wash and keep.

  After dinner, I eyed the vendors who had arrived, anticipating a festive marketplace, with trays of sweets and toys. A few boys bought the cheapest toy—tops—and spun them on the road. Other boys boldly asked for samples of cotton candy and then ran away, until the vendor stopped giving out any.

  * * *

  *

  THAT WAS OUR LAST month in that town. When a house became available in the big city, my mother moved us, hauling sacks on the train, where a few people shoved us and grumbled about our belongings. Ba stood beside us, holding himself up by his grip on the seat backs, insisting he could.

  * * *

  *

  HOW BIG WAS THE big city! I had never seen a place like this, a tide of people rushing and receding at the railway station, announcements and bell tones over the speakers, and in the middle of it all a man selling newspapers. Somebody stepped on my foot, or his suitcase did.

  “Standing in the middle of the road,” a voice grumbled, and I jumped to the side.

  Men were pushing wheeled carts bearing cold bins of fish, trailing a scent of ice. Other men were hauling sacks of cauliflower on their backs.

  “Chai gorom!” cried a vendor. “Hot chai!” He carried a tower of washed glasses and a kettle of tea. I wanted tea, and a bakery biscuit. My stomach gurgled.

  I followed my mother and father closely, and eventually the noise of the station opened up onto the impossible scene of a paved road, wide as a river, on which crawled cars of all colors. They beeped and honked. Their drivers leaned out of windows and shouted.

  We climbed into a bus that was starting its route, a minibus painted maroon and yellow, with Howrah to Jadavpur written in beautiful letters on the side. I read it slowly. When Ba pulled himself up the high steps, straining with his arms, the conductor shouted, “What is this, why have you brought a patient on my bus? If he falls, then who will take the responsibility?”

  Ba seated himself in silence, his back stiff, his neck turned to the window.

  The conductor thumped the side of the bus, and off it flew, lurching and jolting. Ba refused to make a sound, though I knew he was in pain. The conductor, braced in the doorway, cast a suspicious eye on me.

  But I was excited. I was thrilled. I walked down the aisle, uneven planks of wood under my bare feet, and watched the men seated by the window, breeze cooling their bald heads, tubes of newspaper rolled up in their laps. Their shirts were clean and pressed, as if they had never been worn before. I didn’t know I was staring until one man said, “What is your name?”

&nbs
p; He thought I was a child.

  “First time in the city?” he said.

  My mother, turning around to look at who he was, said yes, and I said nothing. His city accent intimidated me. In the time that it took me to comprehend his words, he said something new.

  “I came here from Bolpur,” he continued—a town two hundred kilometers away—“three–four years ago. You’re coming from somewhere like that, aren’t you? I can’t imagine going back to a small place. You will like it here.”

  I couldn’t stop thinking that I wanted to be like him. Clean shirt, shined shoes, a smart way of speaking. I hoped the city would make me rich, like him. He wasn’t rich, of course. Later I learned that what he was, was called middle class.

  * * *

  *

  I REALIZED HOW FAR we were from being middle class when I saw our house. It was deep in the Kolabagan slum, and though Ma had heard through her networks that it was a house made of brick, that turned out to be half-true.

  Ma shouted, “This is the house? This house?” as we stood in front of its tarp and tin. “Let me call that fool broker right away,” she fumed.

  Ba smiled helplessly at the neighbors who were peeping, or else boldly standing in doorways with hands on their hips.

  “I’m going to lie down,” he said in the end, when he couldn’t bear something—the shouting, his broken back—anymore.

  * * *

  *

  OVER THE MONTHS, it became Ma’s practice to go to the cheap, and illegal, market which sprang up by the railway lines in the middle of the night. There she bought loaves of bread, beets, potatoes, and tiny fish, with which she cooked breakfast. These meals she sold in front of our house at dawn. Through heavy sleep, I heard the swish of her sandals and the clink of ladle against pot. If I opened my eyes, I saw customers standing illuminated in the battery-powered flashlight which stood upright on the ground. The customers, our new neighbors, paid ten rupees for some bread and curry with which they could fill their bellies and begin their day’s work.