Across the Line
Page 3
‘They’re getting the train ready for you,’ said Zulaikha, doing her best to make this sound like one of the Sahni family’s usual jaunts to Bombay or Mussoorie for the summer.
The train’s whistle blew, signalling its imminent departure.
Zulaikha reached out and embraced Chand. Friends since they were newly-weds, they had spent a lifetime sharing each other’s joys and sorrows. Neither had dreamt that they’d see a day like this.
As she turned to go, Chand handed Zulaikha the crescent-shaped silver key ring that she always carried. Edged with tiny silver bells, it held the keys to their house, all the storerooms and almirahs—its jingling would warn Toshi and Tarlok of their grandmother’s arrival.
‘Will you keep these keys please, Zulaikha?’ she said. There was finality in Chand’s tone, as if she knew then that she would never be able to return home. Zulaikha held her close and silently wept. The train’s whistle sounded again. No further words were said. Toshi’s grandparents helped her clamber up the high steps on to the train, holding her little hands tight, and with heavy, unsteady footsteps, they too climbed aboard.
As the train left the platform, something shifted in Toshi’s world.
Until the day Toshi’s grandmother died, she never again uttered a word about the land she grew up in; the home of her childhood; the mulberry trees she climbed with her sisters; the tube well she splashed around in with her cousins; the mohalla she played in with her friends; the temple she visited every full moon with her family; the home she got married into; the sharing of food, gossip and laughter with her neighbours; the births and deaths, thread ceremonies and marriages that were witnessed by the tulsi in her courtyard. It was as if in one swift blow, a million memories had been erased. Perhaps it was the only way she knew to deal with the numbing pain of her crushing loss. And the only way to somehow still keep carrying on.
As if nothing had happened.
Until the day he died, Toshi’s grandfather would visit the railway platform every evening and sit silently on a bench.
‘Who are you waiting for?’ the station master would ask him.
‘My family is yet to join me,’ he would reply matter-of-factly. Some days he would call out ‘Baldev! Nalini! Tarlok!’ repeatedly, as if hoping to see them emerge from the other side of the railway tracks. Over time, the station master learnt to ignore the old man and go about his duties.
It was as if in one swift blow, time had stopped for Lekhraj. Yet, he went through the motions, unable to accept reality and hoping, deliriously, against hope that everything would return to how it was, once the dust had settled. Perhaps it was the only way he knew to deal with the numbing pain of his crushing loss. And the only way to somehow still keep carrying on.
As if nothing had happened.
As for Toshi, she learnt to navigate life without her parents. She learnt not to broach what had happened in the past with her grandparents. However, what she could not learn was to ever forgive herself for leaving Tarlok alone that day in the gully outside their home in Rawalpindi. So, she decided to bury her sadness deep, deep inside her little heart. Perhaps it was the only way she knew to deal with the numbing pain of her crushing loss. And the only way to somehow still keep carrying on.
As if nothing had happened.
No Man’s Land
19 August 1947
Foot caravans, each several miles long, crossed each other in funereal silence as they trudged past the barbed wire fences into no man’s land—the barren stretch of land that separated the newly carved Pakistan from India.
One, a caravan of Muslim men, women and children, headed to the newly formed Pakistan, carrying remnants of the life they had left behind in India in small cloth bundles. The other, of Hindus rendered homeless, headed the opposite way. Both fleeing the ferocity of the genocide that had followed the announcement of the new borders.
Not a single word was exchanged. But in those silent, wounded glances, so much was said. Of kinship. Of loss. Of becoming refugees.
By the simple drawing of a line.
2008
‘Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves,
about ourselves, and believe?’
—Scott Turow, Ordinary Heroes
Of Mice and Men
New Delhi, India
In a neatly scrubbed kitchen, Jai watched intently as his grandmother kneaded dough for tandoori rotis. His love for food and a general aversion to sport had lent a rotundness to him, which when combined with the scraggly beginnings of a fourteen-year-old’s moustache, made him somewhat resemble a smallish walrus, albeit a very observant one especially if cooking was involved.
‘How do we make tandoori rotis without a tandoor, Badi Ma?’ asked Jai.
‘I have a little trick for that,’ said his grandmother enigmatically. ‘Wash your hands. Once the dough is ready, I’ll show you how to roll it out.’
‘You’ve made me wash them thrice already,’ groaned Jai.
But he was not one to argue—it sapped him of energy, and besides, he had figured that nothing much ever came of it. He began to roll up his shirtsleeves to wash his hands for the fourth time when his attention was caught by an incessant scratching sound from behind the wall, slightly to the left of the sink.
‘Badi Ma, what’s that sound?’
‘As round as you can manage—it’s tricky getting the shape of the roti right at first—but it comes with practice,’ replied Badi Ma, as she expertly patted the dough, checking for its perfect consistency.
Jai peered at Badi Ma’s hearing aid. Evidently, the battery had died.
The persistent noise continued from behind the wall. Jai inched towards it cautiously and gingerly put his hand against the wall. At that very moment, through a tiny crack in the plaster, something furry and brown jumped out at him.
Jai uttered a roar of fright and leapt back frantically, overturning the stainless steel urn of atta in the process. Badi Ma shrieked—more from seeing the mess than the mouse.
The mouse, which was by now covered in flour and rather unnerved by all the screaming, scurried along the kitchen counter in search of an exit point.
‘Catch it, Jai!’ urged Badi Ma.
‘What! I’m not going anywhere near it,’ said Jai, magnificently unimpressed by this ridiculous plan.
‘Uff! I can’t be chasing mice at my age, Jai. What if it jumps into the dal and bhindi next?’ grumbled Badi Ma, as she hurriedly covered her pots and pans with lids.
The mouse had now slithered down the kitchen cupboards and was sitting behind the trolley of onions and potatoes, apparently having decided that this was its best strategy under the circumstances.
Badi Ma spotted the mouse and let out a blood-curdling war cry that startled Jai, causing him to leap again, this time overturning the dustbin and spilling its contents. On most days, an overturned dustbin would be a calamity that would have stopped Badi Ma in her tracks. But today, she was on a mission. Badi Ma charged at the mouse, brandishing her rolling pin.
‘Just you wait—khasma nu khane!’ threatened Badi Ma, using her choicest expletives. ‘Coming into my kitchen and making such a nuisance. I’ll teach you a lesson!’
As Badi Ma approached, the mouse dived into the tray of potatoes on the trolley, possibly in the hope of better camouflage. Badi Ma ruthlessly overturned the trolley to get at the mouse, but the nimble creature did a neat flip and disappeared through a tiny crack in the floorboards.
Badi Ma turned around and beamed at Jai, rolling pin in hand. ‘See. I scared it away,’ she said triumphantly, dusting the flour off her sari.
Just then, the door opened and Jai’s parents walked in after their day’s work. They took one look at the state of the kitchen and looked askance at the boy and his grandmother.
‘I’ve just been teaching Jai how to make tandoori rotis,’ said Badi Ma matter-of-factly. ‘Every man should know how to cook.’
‘Hmm. Looks like he put up quite a fight,’ said Rajan, surveying the mess.
‘Badi Ma, it’s back!’ cried Jai. ‘You didn’t scare it enough.’
‘Do something, Rajan!’ shrieked Arathi, paralyzed with fear.
Badi Ma picked up her trusty rolling pin once more, but the mouse did a somersault off the washing line, landed deftly on the kitchen counter, scampered to the floor and disappeared under the refrigerator.
Jai watched in grudging awe at the audacity and agility of the creature, both qualities that he secretly wished he had even an ounce of.
‘We’ve never had mice before. Where on earth did that come from?’ asked Rajan.
‘From behind that wall, Papa,’ said Jai.
‘Behind . . . ? Walls are solid cement—mice can’t live there,’ said his father, poking at the plaster. It made a hollow sound. He looked quizzically at his family. Badi Ma took out her rolling pin and banged on the crack. The hollow sound echoed again.
‘There seems to be some sort of cavity or recess here,’ she said. ‘Where’s your toolkit, Rajan?’
‘Do we really have to do this?’ said Arathi, unwilling to deal with more commotion at the end of a long day. ‘Isn’t the place enough of a mess already?’
‘There might be a whole family of mice living there, Arathi. It’s better we address it right away,’ said Rajan.
Arathi looked petrified at the very thought. Five minutes later, having used Rajan’s toolkit for a closer investigation, Badi Ma looked around victoriously. ‘Just as I thought; there’s a hidden compartment behind here,’ she said, ‘which the mice are probably merrily using as a home. My arthritis won’t allow me to put my hand further . . . Rajan, can you check to see how deep it goes?’
Rajan inserted his hand into the crevice, but it was too large to slip inside. ‘Yours is the only hand that will fit, Jai,’ he said.
The uncomfortably recent memory of the mouse leaping out at him replayed in Jai’s mind, prompting him to picture an entire battalion of mice pouncing on him. He flinched.
‘Er, I’m hungry. Can we eat first?’ he said, hoping to deflect the suggestion.
‘Come on, Jai!’ said Badi Ma.
Jai sighed and reluctantly slid his hand into the aperture and felt around. His hand touched something cold and hard. He was quite relieved that it wasn’t warm and furry. He tried to tug at it, but it was too far for him to get a good grip. As he pulled out his hand, he spotted the fridge magnet that he’d brought back as a souvenir from a school trip to some boring museum or other.
Holding it with the tips of his fingers, he put his hand in the crevice again. The object clicked on to the magnet. Jai gently drew the magnet along with the object towards the opening and slowly dragged it out.
Jai’s family watched as an old tin box emerged. Jai raised the rusty latch and peered in. Inside was a diary with faded, yellowing pages and a small velvet pouch. Jai looked at the diary. It was written in a language that Jai couldn’t read.
‘I wonder to whom this belonged,’ he said, holding out the diary.
His mother came to his side and took a look at it.
‘Give it to Badi Ma. She can read Urdu,’ she said, squinting at the writing.
Jai handed the diary to his grandmother. Badi Ma opened the little diary and turned the pages. She looked at it for a few minutes in uncharacteristic silence. Her breath seemed uneven and her hands trembled slightly.
‘What’s the matter, Badi Ma?’ Jai asked. ‘Is this yours? Did you hide it a long time ago and forget all about it?’
Badi Ma shook her head.
‘Are you all right, Badi Ma?’
‘Huh? I’m fine, I’m fine,’ she finally uttered, visibly troubled.
Jai looked questioningly at Badi Ma, not used to seeing his grandmother in this suddenly sombre mood.
‘What’s in the pouch, Jai?’ asked his mother.
Jai reached into the pouch hesitantly and extracted something that looked like a brooch—a very large, ornate and dazzling one at that. It was encrusted with gemstones of every kind—diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds—set in an exquisite floral design.
‘Wow. Is this yours, Badi Ma?’
His grandmother shook her head, barely registering the question.
‘Yours, Ma?’ asked Jai, turning to his mother.
‘I wish,’ replied Arathi, taking a closer look at the exquisite ornament.
‘So, if this isn’t either of yours, whose is it and what is it?’ asked Jai.
‘It’s a paasa jhoomar . . . ’ said Arathi, raising the ornament to her forehead admiringly, ‘It must cost a bomb—it looks positively regal.’
‘Perhaps the diary has an address in it to help us locate its owner?’ suggested Rajan. ‘Or it may just be an old family heirloom left for us—you never know,’ he grinned.
‘That’s right . . . I forgot you’re a descendant of the Maharaja of Patiala!’ retorted Arathi.
Rajan twirled an imaginary handlebar moustache in jest.
‘My granddad did go to school with one of the Maharajas of Patiala—at Aitchison College in Lahore—so it could be a gift from his royal buddy.’
Arathi rolled her eyes. ‘So, how many of your school friends have gifted you priceless antique jewellery, Rajan?’
‘Can we have lunch now?’ said Jai, interrupting this volley between his parents. ‘And can we order pizza, please? This mouse has jumped in all the food here.’
‘Come on, I’m sure that’s not true, Jai,’ said his father. ‘Is it, Ma?’ Rajan turned to look at his mother.
But she hadn’t heard him. She just stood still, a faraway look in her eyes. She brought the diary close to her face and peered at it with her failing sight, holding it as if she was afraid of what she might be reminded of.
Almost inaudibly, she read out the date of the last entry in the diary: ‘17 August 1947.’
There’s More to Life than Cricket
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
A loud crash announced Inaya’s misjudged attempt at hitting a sixer in the tape-ball cricket tournament taking place in the street adjoining Haider Mansion. It startled Mudassar, the Haiders’ elderly help, almost causing him to drop the figurine of the ballerina that he was dusting. A tennis ball covered in insulation tape had shot through the open French windows in the drawing room, bouncing off a painting over the mantelpiece and knocking over a crystal photo frame. The ball deftly made its way through the shards of glass that now covered the floor to finally disappear beneath the large leather sofa. Moments later, a breathless fifteen-year-old burst into the room.
‘Sorry, sorry, Mudassar Chacha,’ Inaya panted, pushing away the mop of unruly curls from her eyes. Impenitently, she crouched down and retrieved the ball. ‘Please blame this on Zain. Please!’
There was the sound of footsteps and Inaya spun around.
‘What are we blaming on Zain, Inaya?’ asked her father, Irfan, as he strode in, followed at a more sedate pace by her grandparents. Inaya gulped and looked at them sheepishly. The trio surveyed the scene in silence. Inaya clutched the ball behind her back, hoping they wouldn’t notice the smashed photo frame.
Inaya’s grandmother straightened the painting that had tilted leftwards with the ball’s impact. ‘If you don’t like your grandfather’s paintings, you should just tell him so, Inaya. As I do,’ said Humaira. ‘Why go to all the trouble of taking potshots at them through windows?’
‘But I do like Daada’s paintings—that was an accident,’ muttered Inaya.
Inaya’s father retrieved the photograph that was on the floor. He carefully removed the fragments of glass and propped the photograph against the ballerina on the mantelpiece.
‘Inaya, look at your great-grandmothe
r—she was . . . the epitome of grace. She would be appalled by all this,’ he said, gesturing at the destruction that lay before him. ‘There’s more to life than cricket, you know.’
From behind him, Humaira winked at Inaya. ‘That’s true. There’s tennis. In fact, Ammi played very good tennis, isn’t that right, Habib?’ she asked her husband, who smiled at the fond memory of his mother.
‘Oh yes. Ammi had a legendary backhand,’ said Habib.
‘But my point is that . . . ’ Irfan began, unhappy with the turn of this conversation.
‘Your point, Irfan,’ interjected Habib, ‘is that we shouldn’t falsely blame somebody else for our own doing, isn’t it?’
‘No . . . Well, yes . . . What I mean to say is—’ started Irfan, but then he just shook his head. He had a conference call with New York in ten minutes and he didn’t have time for this.
‘Let’s not blame poor Zain for our mess, right Inaya?’ said Habib, turning to his granddaughter. ‘Now go and help Mudassar find another picture frame for my dear mother’s photograph.’
As Inaya scampered out, Irfan threw up his hands in exasperation, ‘You’re both too soft on her,’ he said. ‘All she does is play cricket all day with that Zain and the other boys in the neighbourhood. Schoolwork is never a priority for her.’
‘I don’t remember doing much schoolwork myself,’ said Habib. ‘All I did was doodle and draw.’
‘Yes, but your art gained acceptance, Abba. Inaya doesn’t belong in that world of tape-ball cricket . . . It’s a sheer waste of time.’