A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

  Then she is handing me an envelope and telling me to open it at home.

  On the train, I am eating jhalmuri to celebrate, crunchy puffed rice and chopped cucumber in my mouth. I am walking past the guava seller and turning around. To him, for the first time, I am saying, “You give me three good ones!”

  He is looking up and having a heart attack to see his new customer.

  “Yes, it’s me!” I am saying. “I am making a film now, so I am having to be fit! I am going to be eating fruits!”

  In my room, I am eating a washed guava, and opening the envelope that Sonali Khan was giving me. Inside, there is a big glossy photo of me in scene.

  I am finding some Sellotape and tearing it with my teeth. Then, beside my posters of Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra, I am putting up this photo. Me, Lovely, in full hair and makeup, delivering a line to the camera in a Sonali Khan film.

  The country is not knowing her yet, this new superstar. But me, I am knowing her.

  PT SIR

  ONE MORNING BEGINS WITH a red sun, light that slips around the curtain and finds his eyes, and it is the same as all other mornings, except it is wholly different. It is PT Sir’s first day as an education secretary in the government.

  PT Sir lingers for as long as he can bear it at home, then dashes to his new office. The city is wide awake. Flocks of schoolgirls, some holding hands, cross the street before his car. Their ironed and pleated skirts, their big laughs, tug at who he used to be. A boy scrubs dishes with ash in the gutter before a street-side booth hawking noodles. A stray dog trots along, no longer able to bother the man in his car.

  Before the metal-detector gates of the state government building, turbaned guards salute PT Sir. He wonders whether they know who he is, or whether they salute anybody who arrives in a government-issue white Ambassador. One of the guards shows him to an elevator designated for use by VIPs only. In the rising compartment, heart drumming, PT Sir inspects his face in the shined metal doors. He may run into all sorts of VIPs in this building. From lobbyists to industrialists to movie stars, all have been known to discreetly visit this building.

  On the seventh-floor corridor, PT Sir walks by a cleaning lady sitting on the pads of her feet, pushing a wet rag in wide arcs. She does not even glance up as he passes by.

  PT Sir unlocks the door to his new office with a brand-new key. Inside, a tiny room, windowless. PT Sir closes the door behind him and sits in a chair with a high leather back. The chair tilts pleasingly under his weight. It rolls too, on wheels that don’t get stuck. PT Sir sits like that for a few minutes, now and then tapping his fingers on the expanse of polished wood before him. Aside from a desktop computer and, puzzlingly, a packet of pencils, there is nothing else on the desk. The newness of it pleases him.

  * * *

  *

  PT SIR KNOWS WHAT he has to do. He has to get his hands on Jivan’s mercy petition, and add to it his recommendation, as a member of the new government, that the petition be denied. This is a criminal who deserves no mercy. The court’s decision, the death penalty, ought to be carried out swiftly and with minimal burden to the taxpayer.

  There is only one hitch: The mercy petition is with the girl’s lawyer.

  PT Sir picks up the phone and dials.

  * * *

  *

  “SIR!” SAYS GOBIND INTO his phone, sitting up on one elbow in bed. His voice is thick with sleep. On the other end of the line is PT Sir, calling at an absurdly early hour. He asks after Gobind’s wife, his parents, whether he has followed the cricket on TV lately.

  “TV, sir,” groans Gobind. “What are you saying, I have not sat down on my sofa for one minute. This case is taking everything, everything. You saw the disastrous ruling for my client.”

  And PT Sir begins his work.

  “Bimala Pal was telling me,” he begins smoothly, “well, you know what she was telling me? She was saying, ‘That Gobind is a hardworking man.’ She sees it. I see it. We all see your work. So I am just calling to convey that. You are a man of justice, and you are defending the girl, of course, that is your job.”

  Gobind says, “Kind of you to call about it, sir.”

  “But we all know,” PT Sir continues, “what happened, I think.”

  Gobind is silent on the phone. Then he says, “Do we, sir?”

  PT Sir laughs. He looks at his closed door, at the vents in the ceiling which gently pump cool air for his comfort. From somewhere, even he is not sure where, he has acquired a politician’s persona. This big laugh was never his. “A man of principle,” he says. “I like it.

  “Gobind, listen,” he continues, taking a deep breath, the laughter leaving his voice. “Justice in this case must be served. You think that. I think that. The public thinks that. So the long trial, the petitions, all of that I admire, believe me. But the court has shown this girl is guilty. Nobody”—his voice softens—“nobody feels more sad about that than me. She was my student. I saw her potential.”

  Gobind breathes noisily into the phone. He remains in his awkward position on the bed, afraid of the rustle of sheets, afraid of his footfall, afraid of missing any of what is being said.

  “What I am saying is, it would be a shame if, after all this, the mercy petition hangs, going nowhere, for months and months. Don’t you think so?”

  PT Sir leans back in his chair. The chair, subservient, tilts. From Bimala Pal he has learned to withhold words in favor of long seconds of silence. They tick. He feels the man on the other end evaluating his words. Cautiously, Gobind says, “It’s true, these petitions can take time.”

  “So,” PT Sir declares, “why don’t you hand the mercy petition to me. I will try to expedite it. Now I am in a position where I can expedite it, add my voice to it. We want swift justice, that is all I’m saying. Whatever outcome will be is not in my hands, but it is not good to keep the public waiting. It makes our new government look—”

  He throws up a hand, a gesture of not knowing, though Gobind cannot see him.

  “Let me send a messenger for it,” PT Sir continues. “He will pick up the papers from you. And for your trouble, we will of course send you a small gift, just a token of thanks for your hard work on this case. You don’t have to tell me, but I know how this work becomes a sacrifice—of family time, of time with children. Don’t you have a daughter, Gobind? Doesn’t she want more time with her papa, maybe a holiday next year?”

  “Okay, sir,” Gobind agrees. He is unsure if he chooses this.

  JIVAN

  UMA MADAM SAYS, “LOOK who has come.”

  Who? I wipe sleep from my eyes and smooth the tangles of hair at the back of my head. A smell of cigarettes enters the room. The flash of gemstones up and down fingers. I stand. My skull, lifted so far from the ground, feels uncertain of itself.

  My lawyer, Gobind, looks at me sorrowfully. Then he takes a deep breath which I can hear.

  “What can I say? This case has become politicized. It is not even about you. I am sorry about the mercy petition. I truly did not think they would reject it.”

  “You told me they would let me go,” I say. “Remember? You told me I am young, and I promised in my letter to be a teacher, serve anywhere in the country, dedicate myself to the country. I wrote all that in my letter. Then what happened?”

  “Tell me,” he says, after a pause, “are you getting enough to eat here? Do you want phone calls every day? I can try to bring you some magazines, something to read. What about a blanket? Is it cold here at night?”

  “I…” I say after a while, my voice a croak. I have not had a drink of water all night, if this is morning. All day, if this is evening.

  Then I find my voice.

  “Am I cold?” I say.

  “Enough food?” I spit.

  “A magazine?” I scream.

  “Stop it!” shouts Uma madam.


  Gobind looks at my face, my bony body in the yellow salwar kameez, a reminder of sun. Soon the color will fade.

  The lawyer looks at Uma madam, who is standing just outside the door, fiddling with the lock and key in her hand. She frowns at me.

  “There is really nothing to do after the mercy petition is rejected,” he says.

  “Don’t treat me like I am stupid,” I shout. I don’t know why I am shouting. I have a voice, I remind myself. This is my voice. It booms. It startles. “The country needs someone to punish,” I tell him. “And I am that person.”

  “That blanket looks thin,” Gobind says, his voice withdrawn. “What do you need to be comfortable? Better blanket, maybe.”

  “Blanket?” I say. “Blanket?”

  I want to take off my slipper and whack him over the head with it. He is no better than a toilet cockroach.

  “If you are not going to help me, then fine. I will write a hundred letters. I have time,” I am shouting again. “I have time.”

  * * *

  *

  A COTERIE OF FLIES rises from a heap of—is that my shit? The sewage lines are blocked again. This late at night, someone walks up, sending the soft sound of bare feet on floor to my alert ears. “Uma madam!” I say. I am happy she has come. “It is you!”

  But she does not respond.

  Maybe it is only a rat.

  Twice a day, a guard, a different guard, opens the gate and shoves in a plate of ruti and lentils, a watery soup specked with cumin or dirt, impossible to tell.

  “Who is making ruti now?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. “It was my job. I was the one making ruti.”

  Roars of disgust rise from someone—me?—but in the end I eat, my back and my elbows working.

  * * *

  *

  IT TAKES LONG FOR ME to get a notepad and a pen. The ink in the pen has dried, so I lick the nib to get the blue flowing.

  In school, I learned how to write letters. I put the notepad on the ground, kneel before it in a posture of praying, and begin.

  Dear Hon’ble Chief Minister Madam Bimala Pal,

  This is in regards to my curative petition (BL9083-A). Respectfully I am writing to see if your office may please forward my petition one more time to the Council of Ministers in Delhi. As you know the evidence against me is circumstance-based. I am innocent. I lived in the Kolabagan slum, but I did not have anything to do with the train. If I am pardoned, I am willing to serve the nation for the rest of my life. My goal is to be a teacher, and teach English to the children living in poverty. Without me, my poor mother and father will have nothing left in their life. I am their only child.

  Respectfully yours, your loyal citizen.

  * * *

  *

  WAITING FOR SOME REPLY in the mail, I travel along with the letter in its hopeful van.

  I travel along with the letter on a train, paddy fields outside.

  I travel along with the letter in the air, on a plane where rich men eat chocolates.

  But the letter lands on an indifferent desk.

  Days pass. Weeks too. Maybe the minister’s assistant glances at it, no more. Maybe they are overwhelmed by letters from prison.

  Who am I except one of many?

  My pen grows feeble.

  What can words do? Not very much.

  * * *

  *

  MY MOTHER DOESN’T COME this week. I wait alone, licking puffed rice from my palm, waiting for Uma madam to fetch me. I listen to the roar from the building above me grow and subside—a hundred conversations in one hour.

  After the roar of the visitors is gone, I hear some repair work outside. It seems to me that a shovel scrapes on the other side of a wall. And then, a glorious thing. A hole, the size of a cigarette, opens up on a high wall. I see sun. In delight, I slam my palms on the wall.

  But my palms make no sound. The wall, high above my head, is cold and feathery with algae. The scraping stops, eventually, and the repairmen go away, leaving me this present.

  The light alerts me when morning comes. Now that I know it is morning, I practice the yoga I learned long ago, on rainy days in school. But my body is reluctant. It adheres, like a block of concrete, to the floor. There is nothing supple in my arms. They are twigs, waiting to snap. When I look down, my legs are dry and scaly, white with skin that is neither alive nor willing to shed.

  * * *

  *

  IT IS EARLY WHEN Uma madam comes for me. She tells me to bathe.

  “Has my mother come?” I say.

  When I rise slowly on knees which creak, I wait for her to snap at me, but she doesn’t. Softly she tells me to go to the bathroom, to use the toilet and take a bath.

  Oh, a bath. I follow her to the bathroom, a spacious room whose walls and floor are brown with the filth of bodies, accumulated over the years. There stands a bucket of water, with a plastic mug floating in it.

  Now Uma madam stands in the doorway, waiting for me to undress. She will stand there the whole time, her back turned to me if she is feeling kind.

  “Do you have,” I say, “any letters…?”

  Before she has said, “No! No letter! How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Today she silently shakes her head.

  I drop my clothes on the floor just outside the doorway, so they will not get wet. Inside, I crouch on the floor by the bucket. I can smell myself. I lift a mug of water and tip it over my head, and it drips over my oily hair, barely wetting it. The water is cold. Goose bumps rise on my skin. I feel a breeze that I did not know was there.

  Another mug of water, and another.

  I remember bathing as a child in the village, in the pond ringed by tal trees. My mother would press my head so I dipped in the green water, soap frothing about me. The bar of soap we used then was thin from her body. This bar is too. It is a sliver which I hold tight, or else it will fall and spin across the floor.

  After I am dry and clothed, Uma madam waits for me to come out of the room, on my own. Nobody grabs me. The door is open. I step out. Then she locks the door, and there we are, standing in the corridor.

  * * *

  *

  I COULD HAVE BEEN an ordinary person in the world. Ma, I could have gone to college, the city college where girls my age sit under trees, studying from their books, arguing, joking with boys. This is what I have seen in the movies.

  Then I too would have given scraps of my meal to the stray dogs. I too would have had nostalgic corners of campus, corridor romances. I might have studied literature, and I might have spoken English so well that if you had met me on the street, Ma, you would not have known me! Ma, you would have thought I was a rich girl.

  THE PAST TENSE OF HANG IS HUNG

  UNLESS WHAT IS BEING hung is a person, in which case the word is “hanged.” One morning, after the president of the country rejected her mercy petition, and before the journalists loitering outside the prison walls had a chance to crush their cigarettes underfoot and ask what was happening, Jivan was taken from her cell to the courtyard. As soon as she saw the platform, the length of rope thick enough to tether a boat to land, she fell. An attendant caught her. He was waiting for this purpose. In his arms, her body was a sack.

  When she recovered, in the startling bright of the courtyard, she was given a minute to speak her last words. She licked her lips. Swallowed. Rubbed a cold palm on her kameez. “Where is my mother?” she asked. “Where is my father?”

  She looked wildly about.

  “You are making such a mistake,” she said, voice cracking. “Minister madam, Bimala madam, see my letter. Please, have you got my letter?”

  They were not there. Nobody was there, other than a few prison officials.

  When Jivan was hanged, her neck snapped. The hair which had grown unruly during her time in prison fell ove
r her face and drooped to her belly. The executioner, patches of sweat creeping up his armpits, shook his arms loose of the tension. A doctor, standing by with what looked like a receipt book, noted the time of death. Then a clerk went inside and dispatched a letter by speed post to inform Jivan’s next of kin—a mother, in the Kolabagan slum—that her daughter had been killed by the state.

  JIVAN

  MOTHER, DO YOU GRIEVE?

  Know that I will return to you. I will be a flutter in the leaves above where you sit, cooking ruti on the stove. I will be the stray cloud which shields you from days of sun. I will be the thunder that wakes you before rain floods the room.

  When you walk to market, I will return to you as footprint on the soil. At night, when you close your eyes, I will appear as impress on the bed.

  PT SIR

  THE NEW APARTMENT COMES with lights built into the ceilings. There is a balcony that an assistant has filled with potted plants. PT Sir accepts a window AC in the bedroom, though he declines ACs for the living room and the guest bedroom. He cannot hide the pleasure of no longer waking up sweating like a peasant.

  He is now, he realizes, a cup of hot tea resting on the railing, a man who lives here, in a top-floor apartment in Ballygunge, a nice, upper-middle-class neighborhood of the city.

  The party has seen fit to improve his salary. On top of that, it is true that very occasionally, educational institutions send him a little token in return for having their licenses and permits renewed in a timely manner.

  Sometimes they go overboard. One private university offered him and his wife a week at a bungalow in Singapore, all expenses paid. He thought about it more than he would have liked to. Then he declined.