The Last Color

by Vikas Khanna

  Choti had seen this goon at the gym that night too; he was always hanging around with Raja and was one of his main lackeys.

  “Officer, don’t dare try to intimidate this helpless girl,” Rekha said, pointing her finger in the officer’s face. The reporter pulled out her I.D. “These poor people you lord over may be invisible, but I’m certainly not.”

  Suddenly, there was an explosion of people as every officer swarmed in to check Rekha’s credentials. Now she had everyone’s attention. Choti had never seen such power wielded by a woman before, and she had the strangest, most alien feeling: the feeling of safety.

  “Now who’s in charge here?” Rekha said.

  Whether it was planned or not, Rekha had managed to get all Raja’s chamchas together in the room. “Choti, don’t be afraid. Take a good look around. You saw what happened. Do you recognize any of these people? Anyone who was involved in what happened to your friend?”

  Choti bravely stepped back and away from her new protector. If her widening eyes were any indication, she would have had to say, all of them. But fear struck and Choti said nothing, just stood looking in incensed disbelief at the line of bloodthirsty animals in uniforms.

  “Choti, don’t be afraid to speak out, the law is here to protect you, and I will certainly see that it does,” said Rekha.

  It was at this point that Inspector Raja swaggered into his station—a strutting, leering entrance that sent Choti hiding for cover behind Rekha’s blue saree.

  Raja surveyed the scene, waving his baton, puffing out his chest and placing one fist on his hips, his potbelly bulging like it always did: “What is this tamasha going on?” Raja thundered.

  Rekha had her murderer, she was certain of it, just by looking at him. She was more certain when Choti reached around and almost squeezed off the fingers of her hand. And then there was no more uncertainty when Choti said, “They were all there and it was Raja who fired the gun!”

  Rekha observed Raja’s reaction closely. He had certainly been rattled by what Choti had to say.

  “Inspector, my apologies for letting this, as your colleague so poetically put it, ‘untrustworthy and manipulative,’ little girl run her mouth off,” Rekha said. Then she turned to the station superior again. “Officer, if you refuse to file a report against Inspector Raja and his underlings, I am heading straight to the Delhi High Court to ensure that you will never lay eyes on your Varanasi home again. I will ensure full rights for the deceased Anarkali, as well as this girl.”

  Rekha’s confident words sent all the officers into hiding as the station officer reluctantly pulled out his ledger and finally took down the F.I.R. as Rekha dictated.

  Rekha and Choti stepped out of the police station onto the street. They both took a deep breath, as if they had just survived an earthquake.

  Choti tugged at the edge of Rekha’s saree. “Lady, is Anarkali really gone?”

  Rekha bent down before the little girl to break the news as gently as she could: “Choti, I am sorry to say, yes, what you saw really happened. It wasn’t a dream. Anarkali was murdered and she is dead. I know this because her body was found where Ganga meets the Sangam Chowk. It washed up on the banks there,” Rekha said, closing her eyes.

  Was this woman, a perfect stranger, saying a prayer for her friend, someone she never knew? Choti thought. That Anarkali’s body had washed up in the same spot where the two of them had spent so much time together wasn’t in itself good news, but this random return to where their friendship started seemed to indicate something.

  Choti glanced back at the police station—a healthy survival instinct she had learned from Anarkali—and saw Raja braced in the doorway, with his glinting eyes, and his demented, evil grin still stuck on his face even after the terrible thing he had done. Now Raja’s leering presence did not make Choti cower, it made her want to vomit.

  Rekha placed her arm around Choti’s shoulders and led her away. She hailed a rickshaw and helped Choti climb in. “Don’t worry, we will punish all of these culprits, as soon as I get back to New Delhi,” Rekha said as they rode along. “Then the wheels of justice will finally turn.” Choti did not respond, just stared numbly down the road.

  On her way back to her sky-home, Choti saw a sadhu, a saffron-robed ascetic with sandalwood paste smeared on his forehead, and a fortune-telling parrot. The sadhu squatted on the roadside talking to a patron, a man who no doubt wanted to know what his future held for him.

  The parrot picked a card from several that lay in front of him, face down on a mat. As she and Rekha passed closer by in their rickshaw, Choti cocked her head to listen as the sadhu read the card the parrot had picked. “You can escape the City of Death, but not Death itself,” he said. Even parrots knew the truth. Choti suddenly felt very dizzy, dizzy enough that she thought she might be on the verge of her own early death.

  Rekha ordered the rickshaw-puller to stop. They had come to the path that led to the terrace where they had first met. Rekha had promised to deliver Choti back to where she had found her, at Noor’s side. Choti turned to Rekha and gave her a quick shy hug, then jumped off the rickshaw without looking back. When she went onto the hidden terrace, Noor was nowhere to be seen. An alarmed Choti went searching for her near the bench and looked down towards Ma Ganga. There she was, holding her brass pot and her Tagore book, waiting for Choti on the ghat below.

  For that moment, Choti felt relieved. For that moment, all was well.

  A Pouch of Color

  Borrowed hope, rented courage, stolen color

  Noor walked back to the terrace bench with her brass pot, which was now full of Ganga water, and sat down next to Choti, who had been patiently waiting for her. Choti’s patience was not normal, for it was a sullen patience. If anything, she probably retained more leg-kicking yearning than the average child, but the patience she experienced that day on the bench was more like helplessness, a feeling she rarely felt. Then again, how could she not feel helpless, or know whom to trust, with Anarkali gone?

  Noor sat with her brass pot on her lap. Choti inhaled and wrinkled her nose. “Ganga is in a bad mood today,” she said.

  “Why do you say that, child?” Noor said. “They found Anarkali, or what was left of her body, washed up on Ganga’s banks,” Choti said. Noor gasped and set her pot on the ground. Her eyes grew large with compassion and concern.

  “They killed Anarkali, and now I’m sure they are going to kill me, squash me like some little mosquito. I told you I was too small,” Choti said, laying her head in Noor’s lap. She could smell the Ganga in her white saree.

  Noor bent down to gather Choti in an embrace. “Oh no. That is the worst news I’ve ever heard. I’m so sorry.”

  Choti sniffled and Noor felt patches of moisture on her lap. “Can you feel my heart, child?”

  Choti closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes, even through your legs,” she said.

  “Everything will be okay,” Noor said, and started to run her fingers through Choti’s hair. “Oh! Look there is already some good news,” Noor said as her fingers stroked the child’s head.

  Choti’s eyes slowly opened. “What is it?”

  “The good news is that I don’t see any more lice in your hair, the oil I gave you before seems to have worked!”

  Choti’s lips released her teeth, but as quickly as they did, her lips recaptured them. How could she let herself smile at a time like this?

  “Noor,” Choti said, “It was Raja and his chamchas who killed Anarkali. I saw them beat her, torture her, hunt her down and shoot her. It was Raja who pulled the trigger.”

  Noor gasped and hugged her tighter. “My God, unbelievable, the evil of mankind,” Noor said.

  “And then Raja and his chamchas carried Anarkali’s body off and tossed it into Ganga like a piece of trash,” Choti said, and buried her face once again in Noor’s lap. “These guys are worse Ravanas than the one in the Ramayana. They will not leave me alone now. I’m sure they already have their eyes on me. I have no idea what to do, or w
here to go,” Choti said.

  “Child, my poor child,” Noor said, starting to rub Choti’s back.

  “Noor, you told me I was big, you told me to stand up so I could fly. That’s the right thing to do, and I know it, and you taught me this. I didn’t fly when they murdered Anarkali, yet I watched the whole thing. Was I right or wrong? I was too scared, but was that selfish? I don’t know what’s right and wrong anymore. And the world doesn’t seem to care either way,” Choti said.

  “You were not right or wrong, you were just scared. But even though you were scared, you are still braver than most,” Noor replied. She gently turned Choti’s head by the chin until she could see the girl’s eyes. “You know who is scared?”

  “Who?” said Choti.

  “Raja and his chamchas. What the murderers are really scared of is the truth coming out, which means that underneath their ugly skin they are scared of you. You know the truth and they know that you know it. There might be many of them, but my heart tells me the whole Universe is with you, just as I am,” Noor said. Then she asked, “What is this lady from Delhi’s name again?”

  “Rekha. She is a journalist from India Crime newspaper. She says that I am doing the right thing by getting involved. I even told Raja in front of all his boys at the station that he was the one who murdered Anarkali! You should have seen the look on his face,” Choti said. “Now I’m so scared they will find a way to kill me. I know if they had their way they would burn me like a piece of wood. All I have in life now is myself, and you. I don’t want to die. I still want to fly above everyone’s heads one day,” Choti said.

  All this while Rekha had been keeping a watch over them, at a distance behind the bench, sipping her chai. Looking around her, she marveled at how the growing mounds of red, green, yellow, purple, blue color, and the growing mounds of mithai, the addictively sweet treats from Varanasi, were steadily transforming every cart, stall, kiosk and market, in readiness for Holi. Color seemed to have overtaken everything. Rekha was being blinded by color, but then Rekha’s eyes saw only in black-and-white—for a gang of Raja’s goons, the same sullen faces she and Choti had confronted at the police station, was charging down a crowded market alley and headed for the terrace.

  Rekha ran to the bench where Noor and Choti sat. “Sorry to disturb you, but we have to leave. Choti’s not safe here!” she said urgently.

  Choti and Noor turned their heads to see the oncoming chamchas. They were the same men who had held Anarkali down so Raja could shoot her. Choti’s heart beat against her ribs, Raja would not be far behind.

  Noor stood up and said, “Reporter Rekha, I can take Choti to my ashram. No one will think she’s there, and I doubt these thugs would think to enter a place filled with grieving, white-clad widows. It would be very bad for their reputation if they were found harassing colorless widows. What do you think?” Noor said, quickly concealing Choti in the folds of her saree.

  Rekha thought for a minute, “Yes, I think you’re right. That would be the best thing, for now. Hopefully, you can keep Choti hidden enough that no one will notice and no one will find her. She needs to be completely invisible,” Rekha said, causing Choti to bite her lip. “After the storm passes, we can make our next move.”

  Noor pointed to a very narrow alley full of people. Choti and Rekha quickly followed her through the twisting color-filled alleys toward her ashram. Noor chose a particularly complicated route determined to throw the policemen off their track.

  Noor stopped briefly at the ashram gate. “Rekha, this is a widow’s ashram,” Noor said. “No family or friends of any kind are allowed in. That is a terrible sin. It will get me in a lot of trouble if I’m caught. Par Bhagwan ki kripa hai toh—But god willing, I will be able to sneak Choti in.”

  Rekha nodded, touched Choti’s forehead as a blessing, and left the two of them in front of the ashram.

  “Wait here, Choti, just pretend you are like any of the other kids playing in the street,” Noor said, pushing at the gate. “I have to make sure no one is around to see us. When everyone is deep in prayer in the courtyard during the prayer session, I will sneak you in.”

  Play like any other child? Choti didn’t really know how to play, for as long as she could remember, she had always worked to stay alive.

  Choti walked a few meters away from the gate and came across a group of children about her age who were laughing and shrieking and already spraying colored water and spewing colored powder all over one another, making a rainbow of a mess all over their faces and bodies. But Choti didn’t want to or really know how to join in the children’s joyous, unabashed, Holi play (they would have probably chased her off or beat her if she tried to). Her real intention was to steal a plastic pouch of their lovely colored powder. And when the children were too busy smearing each other with color to notice, that’s exactly what she did, darting in and out in her truest Varanasi tamashaist-beggar form, to retrieve a small packet of Maharani pink gulal, without drawing so much as a blink from the other children, who obviously had become colorblind.

  Now Choti had her powder—Noor’s powder. She tucked it inside the pocket of the flowered frock Noor had sewn for her and returned to the ashram, where she saw Noor, after she had done her tulsi watering and circumambulation, waving at her from a balcony.

  Noor mutely traced a path in the air to inform Choti about the route she should take. Choti slipped in as directed through the still open gate, crept across the edge of the courtyard, circled back around the courtyard, and found herself gingerly scaling the steps that led to Noor’s tiny shared accommodation. Her time on the tight-rope had really paid off. No one noticed Choti infiltrate the sanctity of Noor’s ashram.

  Choti’s eyes, which for most of her young life had mostly seen the tops of expectant bobbing heads and the insides of flimsy and ephemeral cardboard boxes, now took in the interior of Noor’s room, which seemed to Choti like the most worn-out room in the most worn-out building in the world—windowless, gloomy, and damp, with paint peeling off the cracked and dilapidated walls, whose only decorations were pictures of gods from age-old calendars.

  If Anarkali, rest in peace, had imbued Choti with anything, it was a sense of humor almost impervious to any circumstances. She slipped her feet out of the slippers of fading blue—that had now become a muted gray—and politely left them outside her widow friend’s door.

  Noor appeared silently from her room and said in a hushed whisper: “Girl, use your head, bring your slippers inside! No one can know you are here.”

  Choti did as Noor instructed and immediately retrieved her slippers and brought them into the tiny, spartan room. Noor took the slippers and slid them under her sleeping mat, then quietly closed the door.

  “Noor, a promise is a promise, even in the worse circumstances,” Choti said, reaching into her frock’s pocket.

  “Huh?” Noor said, barely paying attention as she nervously inspected the room for even the smallest possible clues of her new guest’s presence.

  Choti pulled out the pouch of pink powder and put it in her palm.

  Noor gasped in disbelief.

  “Your favorite color,” Choti said, beaming.

  Noor accepted the pack from Choti and tossed it onto Asha’s bed. “It’s best not to discuss that just yet,” Noor said, and cleared her throat. “Choti, child, please, no games for now, just stay as quiet as possible, try not to even move around. Any creak in the floor can set the other widows off to gossip and spy. Especially my roommate, Asha.”

  Choti lowered her voice and tiptoed closer to Noor.

  “You have a roommate?” Choti asked.

  Noor placed her finger to her lips. “Shhh. Relax. I will get you some rice.” Noor made sure to wrap her Tagore book in plastic before taking it with her to the kitchen. Choti watched from the window as Noor quietly stepped out and going behind the mango tree, hid her book in a hole in the wall.

  A few moments later, Noor quietly slipped back into her room with a bowl of rice for Choti—and su
ddenly realized how shocking it would be to everyone if they knew that she had dared sneak in a child from the streets, whom she had randomly met at the ghats one day. Now this same girl was sitting on her own sleeping mat in the petal-covered frock she had taken the time and risk to stitch for her. Noor breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself as she fought back tears and tried to find the right words for it all.

  “Ahhhh, my Buntter Ply,” was all Noor could muster under the quiet pressure of the room

  Choti had to swallow her giggles whole. “Buntter Ply,” Choti said, mimicking Noor, and they both laughed under their breath, bent over and holding their stomachs, which themselves suddenly seemed to flutter.

  Noor sat beside her secret new guest on her meager bedding and began to finger-feed Choti some rice, bite-by-bite, as if she was her own daughter, the daughter she never had. As she swallowed each mouthful of bland rice, Choti’s body was suffused with warmth, and her cheeks grew flushed. It was the first time she felt like she belonged somewhere and to someone, that she was loved and cared for by someone. For those few moments, Choti felt absolute peace, as her stomach purred through the butterflies for more rice.

  “When I grow up and start to fly, I promise I will take care of you,” Choti said, between bites and swallows. “Even if that means never getting married and taking a job I hate, it will always be you and me flying together, Ma.”

  Noor began to weep silently. She held Choti in her arms and hugged her close. “Everyone wishes to die in Varanasi to escape from the cycles of birth and rebirth. But I don’t want Moksha, Choti, I don’t want Moksha. I want another chance at life. We will both leave Varanasi tonight. I have never ever been on the other side of the Ganga...”

  “I know, we can go to Tagore’s home,” Choti said excitedly.

  “No, I’ll take you to Kolkata to my hometown and send you to school,” Noor said her face shining.