A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

  “Who died?” she teases. “That teacher you are always dreaming of?”

  PT Sir looks down into his lap then. If he looks her in the eye he may cry. A grown man.

  “Something has happened,” he says. “It’s bad.”

  This gets his wife’s full attention. She casts her phone to the side of the pillow.

  When she holds his hands in her own, he begins to speak. He tells her everything.

  JIVAN

  AFTER THE COURT’S RULING, the prison newly encloses me, the walls more solid than they used to be. Americandi watches me return to my mat. She watches me take off the blue sari, my mother’s sari, memory of its gifting removed from it. She watches me lie down, a storm in my mind so dark it pulls all light from my eyes. She chews popcorn with her mouth open, and spits unpopped kernels in the corner, which I will later clean.

  Then a skinny young woman appears and begins giving Americandi a foot massage, wrapping her soft arms around the smelly soles, calling her aunty. I have not seen this woman before. She is new. I watch from my mat, the weave of straw pressing itself into my knees and palms. My mind screams and quiets itself, screams and quiets itself.

  Americandi leans back on her mattress, resting her neck on the wall. She asks no questions. She knows already, or she does not care.

  She closes her eyes and says, “Ah, yes,” and the new prisoner sways with her whole body in the task.

  * * *

  *

  “YOU COME WITH ME NOW,” Uma madam says one day, after breakfast. She has come prepared. A male guard comes forward and grabs my arm.

  “Where?” I say, wrenching free. He lets go. “Stop it! I need to talk to Gobind about the appeals.”

  “You walk or he will drag you,” says Uma madam in reply.

  Back in my cell, I gather my sleeping mat, my other salwar kameez, slip my feet into the rubber slippers, then look around for anything else that is mine. Nothing is.

  Uma madam pulls my dupatta off my neck. When I grab at it, she clicks her tongue.

  “What use is modesty for you anymore?” she says.

  We walk down the corridor, the three of us, and a few women look up from inside their cells. The corridor is so dim they are no more than movement, shapes, smells, a belch. Perhaps sensing my fear, Uma madam finds it in her heart to explain. “You can’t have a dupatta in this place where you are going. Not allowed. What if you decide to hang yourself, what then? It has happened before.” After a pause, she says, “Nobody’s coming to see you, don’t worry about looking nice.”

  Uma madam unlocks a door at the far end of the corridor, which opens onto a staircase I have never seen. Though the day is dry and sunny, there is a puddle of water on the top step.

  “Go down,” she says.

  When I don’t move, she insists, “Go! Don’t look so afraid, we don’t keep tigers down there.”

  I climb down, my slippers slapping the steps. When I touch the wall, it is cold and damp. On the floor below, there is another corridor, a shadow of the one above. This corridor looks like nobody has set foot in it for months. A bat flaps around, panicked, near the ceiling. It doesn’t know how to get out of this place.

  Uma madam looks upward, her eyes too slow for the winged rat. “This is the problem,” she says to the male guard, who follows us, “do you see? I told them keep her upstairs, otherwise I have to go up and down, up and down. Can my knees take it, at this age?”

  The guard looks at his feet and gives a dry laugh. I can tell he is laughing not at her knees but at something else.

  Then Uma madam unlocks a barred room. The guard, who has hovered behind my shoulder all this while, steps back.

  Here it is, a special cell for the soon to be dead. A room under the ground for the ones who will be soil.

  * * *

  *

  BUT THEY CANNOT KILL me before they kill me.

  Since my ruling was handed down by the highest court, I have only a mercy petition left. For this too I need Gobind’s help. There is no time for me to study the law books myself.

  Some days, however, it feels like time is all I have. It is cool here, where the sun never comes, even on the hottest days. I crouch on my mat, arms naked and cold like a plucked chicken. In one corner, a low wall separates the room from the toilet, which is a hole in the ground from which dark cockroaches emerge, their whiskers feeling. The first time I see one, I whack it with my slipper.

  Now I flick one and another away with my fingers. It is a game of carrom. More fun when the carrom disks, tossed into the drain, come back for another round.

  Night begins early, and has no end. When I am certain the sun will never show its face again, I lie down on the mat, and will myself to dream of a tunnel, scraped with nothing more than my fingernails, a tunnel which sets me loose in a village far from here.

  PT SIR

  WEEKS LATER, IN AN electronics shop, an employee with a lanyard around his collar sets a large box on the ground. PT Sir and his wife look expectantly at the box. Around them, a wall of televisions plays a football game. In the next section, customers stand thoughtfully before rows of refrigerators. PT Sir’s wife has marveled at the fridges with two doors, the fridges which can create and deposit ice cubes, the fridges which have sensors which tell you when the door is left open.

  “Technology,” PT Sir has told her, “keeps moving forward.”

  “Demand for tandoor is a bit low,” explains the salesman now. “It is such a specialized oven, for serious chefs. So we stock only one brand, the top brand.”

  PT Sir’s wife looks at the box, and smiles, her teeth bright on her face, her hands playing with the thin end of her oiled plait, like a child.

  “It has an aluminum tray and toughened front glass window,” continues the employee, a young man, removing the foam and plastic from the box. “Fully modern look. Right now there is a special offer where you get kebab skewers free with this! And best of all, efficient electricity consumption, sir, your bill won’t increase at all!”

  With the packaging removed, what sits on the ground is a low black cube.

  “Madam,” the salesman continues, holding the lanyard to his chest with one hand, “I will tell you the best advantage of this brand is—it cooks fast! If you try to make a chicken kebab in the oven, it may take almost an hour. But here, it is done in fifteen to twenty minutes. And completely authentic clay-oven taste!”

  “Hmm,” says PT Sir’s wife. “What about pizza?”

  “Pizza like foreign, madam, you will think you are in London—”

  “That is all okay,” interrupts PT Sir, “but tell us the real information. How much is it?”

  The employee laughs. “Sir, once you eat the five-star food from this tandoor, you will see it’s saving you money. Your favorite restaurant is at home!”

  PT Sir waits. His wife waits. Somewhere, in a section they can’t see, a salesperson demonstrates the capacity of a speaker, and a deep bass booms in their ribs.

  “Okay,” the employee begins, pulling out a calculator, “let’s see. This model comes to five thousand seven hundred rupees.”

  “Why that much?” says PT Sir. “We were looking at other models on the online shops, maximum four thousand.”

  “Online shops,” says the employee, “will ship you a bad part, or a defective secondhand machine. The stories we hear from customers, you don’t want to know. Here you have a three-year warranty. My name is Anant, sir, call me anytime, I work here six days a week.”

  PT Sir’s wife turns to him. “This is a good brand,” she whispers. “Top of the line. They use it on TV also. Don’t be stingy.”

  The employee stands respectfully at a distance, and looks at his phone.

  “If we’re buying,” says PT Sir’s wife, “we should buy the best. Especially now you are earning double income…” She smiles.


  “Not double,” protests PT Sir.

  “Almost double. Isn’t the party giving you—”

  “Shh!” says PT Sir. A flake of anger catches on his tongue. He swallows. His mouth is too dry, and then—he can feel saliva filling his mouth, as it did while he watched the beef-eater murdered. Not a person knows—other than his wife, and Bimala Pal, and a few trusted party men.

  “Be calm,” his wife says. “So much tension is not good for your health. Anyway, you’re a true party man now. Isn’t this what you wanted? Aren’t you proud?”

  He notes in her words both reward and punishment. But she touches his arm gently, and her presence soothes him. They buy the tandoor. Paying for the tandoor in a sheaf of cash, he feels rich. He feels powerful in how casually he decides that he will buy it, that he will pay the full amount right away. Monthly installments are for the common man. He? He has ascended.

  * * *

  *

  REWARDED FOR HIS LOYALTY, now with a salary from the party, PT Sir spends evenings and weekends traveling to districts across the state, doing events for teachers, students, and parents. In Shojarugram, he sees banners with his face on it and, in Bengali, Welcome to the headmaster of our village!

  “I got a promotion,” he jokes with the driver.

  The driver gives him a smile in the rearview mirror. “To the rural people, your visit is the biggest event of this month, maybe!”

  At each school, students sweep the soil courtyard with brooms. Saplings, newly planted, grow within the protection of twig fences. PT Sir is jostled as he joins his hands in greeting before pushing through the crowd to enter the school building. Everywhere he goes, the scene is the same. About fifty teachers and parents are crammed into the building, and dozens more wait outside. They are usually silent. This is how the events start, he knows now. They will find their voice by the end, when he has become less of a deity and more of a man, sometimes with a cough caused by the dust of the villages.

  “Jana Kalyan Party is starting,” he says into a loudspeaker which echoes, “scholarship programs for girl children. In the coming election remember to cast your vote for Bimala Pal and Jana Kalyan Party.”

  At one school, when the electricity cuts out, a loud generator powers a portable light. Winged insects buzz and knock. A tiny toad comes hopping into the school building, and a schoolboy is made to pick up the creature and set it loose outside.

  After the speech, the gathered share grievances with PT Sir. A group of gap-toothed mothers and frowning fathers complain: Teachers don’t bother to come to school. Of what use is a scholarship, and of what use a school building, if there are no teachers?

  The teachers, in turn, tobacco tucked in their mouths, protest that they are not paid their salaries on time. Their monthly salary comes two months later, sometimes three. How are they supposed to feed their families?

  The younger teachers argue: What about progress or raises for them? They find it a dead-end job.

  “It is your work to build the nation’s future!” says PT Sir. “Isn’t that noble?”

  When the moment of departure is near, no matter how fervently they had been complaining and protesting, the teachers clap for him, a cheerful din that PT Sir absorbs with a smile. What are they clapping for? He doesn’t know, but he is used to it. The people clamoring to see him, to hear his words, the grandmothers holding his hands, the garlands and praise, the prayers, all directed to him, as if he is a god. Who wouldn’t find something electric in it?

  * * *

  *

  THE NEXT EVENING, there is an important meeting at Bimala Pal’s house. As PT Sir sets off, his wife admires his traditional clothing, his shined shoes. “You are starting to look like a politician!” she says.

  “Is that so?” he says.

  This pleases PT Sir, though it is a meager reward. For what has he spent his days falsifying the truth in court? For what has he taken on the ghost of the beef-eater, that man who begs for mercy in the moments before sleep? That ghost who weeps in his mind when he is alone, who pleads with him when he waits for the schoolgirls to come to the field?

  * * *

  *

  AS THE STATE ELECTIONS approach, the party steps up its campaign to recapture the state legislative house. So long they have been the opposition. Here is their opportunity to form the next government.

  At this meeting, Bimala Pal wishes to hear what their platform on education might be. From the past months of engaging with the teachers and parents among their constituents, what have they learned?

  PT Sir clears his throat. Suddenly, he is thankful for all the field visits. “Bring another tea,” whispers someone at the far end to the tea boy, who is hovering. Who knows what the boy makes of all this? Who knows if he goes to school?

  In the silence of the party’s gaze upon him, PT Sir recognizes all those teachers’ complaints for the treasure chest they are. He has laid his ear to the ground, and heard the unmediated voice of the public. There is no greater currency in this room at the moment. PT Sir tells the room, with casual gravity, what he has heard. Then he proposes, “The greatest issue in education around the state does not have to do with syllabi or supplies. It has to do with personnel. It is the personnel who are voting, not the books.”

  At this some of the older men at the table chuckle. Historically, education strategy has focused on syllabi—altering syllabi to tell the histories that serve the ruling party.

  “Forget syllabi,” PT Sir continues. “First of all, teachers’ salaries need to be paid within the first three days of the month, without fail. This is the single biggest complaint I have heard. Teachers don’t want to do their jobs because they’re not getting paid on time. So they don’t show up to school. Then the students stop going. This is one change, a concrete change, we can make and talk about. I think it will bring the teachers’ votes to us.”

  Bimala Pal listens. She has on her mind not only schools but floods in the north of the state, ruined crops and stranded villagers. She has on her mind new trains connecting the state to the capital, safety in the mines, quotas for different castes and tribes. She has on her mind beautification of the city, planting of flowers by the roads and regular watering of trees in public parks. The city voters cannot be neglected. There will be a function the next day where she awards laptop computers to high-achieving students of the city.

  “That may work,” an older man says, now looking at PT Sir. “Madan is eating everyone’s head about the syllabus. So this is a fresh approach.”

  Madan Choudhury, the current education minister, is behind the state’s push to include more patriotic texts in school syllabi.

  “To be honest, I see his point of view,” interrupts another man. “Who is this Hemingway? Who is Steinbeck? Madan is pushing to have more original Bengali literature, and we have to continue that push.”

  PT Sir feels that he is vibrating with energy. Let the old-timers try to challenge him. Just let them. Hasn’t he been a teacher? Doesn’t he know what life in the school is really like? He knows, more than these career bureaucrats who have not seen the inside of a school since 1962!

  He continues, “With all respect, we have to take care of the people before taking care of the ideology. Through people is how we will spread ideology, not by neglecting them.”

  Some raise their eyebrows in appreciation. Bimala Pal looks at PT Sir with a hint of a smile.

  “You turned out,” she says, “to be quite a persuasive orator!”

  “He’s a teacher after all,” says someone else. “How can he not have a commanding side?”

  On the train, PT Sir holds his head high. Near his house, he gives a five-rupee coin to a beggar child who sits on the pavement, looking up with blank eyes.

  How did it happen? His colleagues at the school, those teachers, those ladies, with their cinema gossip and recipe trades, their husbands and chi
ldren to return to—their lives continue as they always have, above the watermark of political tides. But in the villages, those other teachers look at him with hope and desperation. They look at him as somebody who can do something. So, he thinks, perhaps he can.

  * * *

  *

  IT IS SUMMER, ROADSIDE trees dry and dusty, when PT Sir hands his resignation letter to the principal. She tears it open, glances at it, and jokes, “Now you are a powerful man, what use do you have for our humble school?”

  PT Sir presses his teeth on his tongue in a show of humility.

  Then, his three-week notice dismissed by the principal, having declined the offers of a farewell party, pleading to be excused for the busy electoral campaign, PT Sir is free. PT Sir is no longer a PT Sir. At this thought he feels mournful. The defiant and silly girls were children, after all. Walking down the lane, he looks back at the building one more time. In the barred windows, ponytailed heads appear. He feels a tug of nostalgia for his old life, and then, in a moment, it is gone.

  * * *

  *

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, WHEN PT Sir visits Bimala Pal’s house, the living room is a tangle of cables and chargers, young men and women on every available seat, their faces lit in the blue glow of screens. PT Sir notes, impressed, that this is the campaign’s social media team.

  At an office elsewhere in the city, a video production company releases short films on YouTube every week, highlighting the lives of ordinary people positively affected by the initiatives of the party. These films are played on LED billboards at intersections, and on mobile screens carried by small trucks through villages. On Facebook, the films gather tens of thousands of views.

  PT Sir’s work is on the ground. Every day, he is driven in a party Sumo car to towns and villages across the state. When he covers all of the nineteen districts, he starts over again. His car speeds past vegetable markets under tarp, past green hills and rocky outcrops, past streams which run dry, their sandy bottoms exposed. He smiles at curious men who tap on the car’s tinted windows, and steps out and greets village elders who sit on porches, their faces wrinkled from decades in the sun. He wags his finger and delivers speeches under welcome banners strung between the limbs of trees.