Nimita's Place

by Akshita Nanda

  Near Mozang, a dozen men arrive in tongas at the home of a publisher of Hindu religious books as well as secular histories. The men barge into the house, topple the furniture and smash the cupboards. They steal whatever valuables they can find and attack the women. The neighbours try their best to stop them but are attacked with knives and sticks. One is in the hospital with a punctured lung.

  “This can’t be true,” Nimita says.

  “Bibiji, it is true,” says a quiet voice, turning four heads in her direction. Najma stands near the entrance, her brown clothes almost invisible against the matting she was wetting with water. “Every time He goes to market, I pray to God until he returns.”

  He, for Najma, means her new husband. Ramu, now Rahim. On Karan’s advice, Ramu converted to Islam and married Najma. For an orphaned boy with no other family, this was no great penance, though he no longer eats in the kitchen with Shukla-Bibi, and Radheshyam has not shared cheroots again.

  Yet the Hindu servants are secretly thankful for the protection of a Muslim name. They send Rahim out to buy whatever is not brought directly to the house and confine themselves to duties within the Temple Road compound.

  When Najma leaves, Nimita holds out her arms for Urmila-Baby, needing the comfort of her child. Karan’s hands brush hers in passing and she sees on his face the realisation she can barely admit to herself.

  The adults sit in silence for a while as Urmila-Baby coos. Then Karan speaks. “I’ll go to Delhi in the morning to speak to Dilip-Praji. If we are going to sell up, he has to agree.”

  Nimita holds Urmila-Baby tighter. She can feel Karan’s pain in her own throat, the taste of iron and blood and anger.

  Prem says: “I spoke to Assadji before coming here. He has relatives in Delhi who might be interested in the bungalow. They will give a good price.”

  It is too much. Karan buries his head in his hands. Nimita stands, balancing the baby. She offers him the comfort of a hand on his shoulder, her hip to hide his face. Her parents pinch their eyes and pretend not to notice.

  The next afternoon, Rahim takes Karan to the railway station. After the men leave, Shukla-Bibi corners Nimita in the kitchen. “I’ve heard you will be selling this house?”

  “Nothing is fixed as yet. Have you made the parathas for lunch?”

  “So it’s true? You and Sahib will also leave this house? This house your own daughter was born in?”

  Urmila-Baby was born in Mayo Hospital but Shukla-Bibi’s trembling lip and worried eyes make Nimita gentle her tone. “Shukla-Bibi, you know how bad things are getting. He has gone to Delhi to consult with Dilip-Praji. If Praji and Bhabhi think it best, then we too will shift to Delhi. All of us, we will shift to Delhi.”

  “All of us?” Some of the fear leaves Shukla-Bibi’s eyes.

  Nimita takes her hands. “Shukla-Bibi, I know I’ve troubled you a lot since the day I came into this house. I was only a girl, I needed you to teach me everything.” It was Shanti-Bhabhi who did most of the teaching, but this is not the time for that truth. It is the time for short truths, truths of the heart, of exaggeration and eloquence, truths that can cause even enemies to put their swords down just for a day of peace.

  The truth is that Shukla-Bibi is not the enemy and never has been. She will defend the Sachdev family to the death according to her ideas of what is right and fitting. In that, she and Nimita are of similar mind.

  “I know I trouble you all the time but what would any of us do without you? If we go to Delhi, you and Radheshyam have to come with us. How can we do anything without you?”

  Shukla-Bibi presses Nimita’s hand just once, using her chunni to wipe her eyes. “I suppose the Mussulmans will stay behind.”

  Nimita bites her lip. “Najma and Rahim are part of the household too, but they will decide on their own.”

  Later, after lunch, Najma comes to Nimita. “Bibiji, you are our mother and father. We will go with you, to Delhi or Jahannum.”

  “Hopefully not to hell,” Nimita laughs and now she has to wipe her eyes.

  She falls asleep in her room with the window open, Urmila-Baby a warm weight near her body, the sounds of Najma’s children reciting “alif, beh, peh” coming in through the window.

  The studies of written Urdu and Arabic are subjects Rahim is happy to leave to his new stepchildren. Learning to read and write is harder than growing a beard and remembering to say his prayers at the appropriate times. But the maulvi who teaches him, the one in charge of Hazrat Baba’s shrine, is a kind man and never beats him.

  It is this same maulvi sahib that Rahim sees when he leaves the railway station. His teacher is pleading with a group of burly men who have kicked some tonga drivers off their perches and taken over their vehicles. The horses are shying and neighing so loudly Rahim can barely hear what maulvi sahib is saying. “This is not right, these men also have to earn their living.”

  The men only laugh. “All respect to your grey hair, uncle, but we are not angels to forgive these people and what they are doing to us,” says the leader, who appears to be a Pathan.

  “What have these tonga drivers done to you? These are honest men trying to earn a living.”

  “So are we,” says the leader. “Our living and land have been snatched by the kaffirs and it is time we took it back.” He whips his horse and moves out, followed by a cheering convoy of carriages.

  Maulvi sahib bends to help one of the tonga drivers but finds him too heavy. Rahim comes forward to assist. “Haan, Rahim. Lift him there.” They prop the man up and fetch the next. After safely removing all four from the main road, they look for water to bathe the cuts.

  The man being tended to by maulvi sahib moans, the man under Rahim’s hands has tears streaming from swollen eyes. When Rahim offers the third water from his cupped hands, the man bats his hands away, cursing all Muslims. He lets the water slip sadly from his fingers.

  A crowd has gathered and maulvi sahib takes Rahim by the arm, motioning him away. “What devils have gotten into good men these days,” he says. “Do not be fooled by them, Rahim. We are men of peace. Allah knows what those men are doing is wrong.”

  “What are they doing, maulvi sahib?”

  “God only knows.” He looks down the road. “Whatever mischief they are up to, only God can stop it.”

  The gang’s first port of call is Papar Mandi, a Hindu-majority area. The target is the newly vacated home of a builder. The house has fine teakwood furniture inlaid with ivory, too heavy to shift into the tongas. Displeased, the men throw it out of the second-floor window, so a diwan lands on the street with crooked legs, nearly killing bystanders. The men look out of the window and laugh. “If you value your lives, don’t stay here.”

  The bystanders disperse, many to lock themselves in their homes and pray they will not be next.

  The gang has a list of names issued by their paymaster. Housebreaking in the poorer and lower-middle-class areas is just for fun; their real targets are the big bungalows along the main roads. Police patrol those areas, but with a combination of bribery and timing, the officers can be persuaded to turn a blind eye.

  One of today’s targets is the home of a Parsi industrialist family. The gang’s whooping and yelling warn Mr Coyaji in time. The family is barricaded in the upper storey and a servant boy despatched to the nearest police chowk.

  Four havaldars sweating in the heat listen to the boy’s story and look at one another.

  “How many men?”

  The boy cannot count well. “Twenty,” he says. Even half that number would outnumber the havaldars two to one. So the most senior havaldar sends a junior to the station farther down. Let someone of higher authority handle this.

  Messages are passed up the line until the office of the Chief Minister gets to hear of this. Police are despatched to the property an hour after the gang has broken into the main storey, destroyed every glass item and smashed most of the furniture. Police take reports from the trembling Coyajis and despatch a contingent of officers in pursuit
of the rioters.

  They arrive too late at Feroze Damania’s house, where his old friends Assad Qureshi and Prem Khosla are paying a final visit.

  2.

  The younger Mrs Qureshi, Tasneem, arrives at Temple Road. She is pale in a black burkha, as if it is already Muharram, the season of mourning.

  “Nimita-Apa,” she says, trying not to burst into tears. She owes a great debt to Prem Khosla. After the death of Tasneem’s father, Mr Khosla patiently untangled a property dispute that could have left her and her mother penniless at the hands of their own relatives. Now to come to his daughter’s house with this news?

  She has heard all the details from her father-in-law, how the men ganged up in the yard and began thrashing Feroze Damania, how when Mr Khosla tried to stop it, he was beaten up too and how Assad Qureshi would have been next if the police had not arrived. She narrates them to Nimita as faithfully as she dares, not wanting to alarm her.

  “I must go to my parents’ house,” Nimita says.

  “I’ll take you,” says Tasneem, who has a car and driver.

  Urmila-Baby is left at home with a terrified Shukla-Bibi, who has been instructed to lock the gate and not open it for anyone. Nimita curses the lack of a telephone line. Why had they not bought a new radio yet?

  Thoughts of a telephone line and radio fly out of her head the minute the car pulls into the Khosla compound. Mr and Mrs Qureshi embrace her, weeping, but Nimita only has eyes for the stairs to her parents’ room.

  Prem Khosla lies on the hard wooden bed where she slept as a child between her parents, a grotesque, swollen figure, white and yellow with bandages and ointment, purple and red where the skin of the face and fingers peeks through. The injuries to the limbs are superficial. It is the crack on the head that worries Dr Iqbal. There is a strong possibility of a subdural haematoma, swelling blood clots pressing on the brain. The only cure would be to drill into the skull, but Prem might not survive that procedure.

  “Make him comfortable,” is what Dr Iqbal is telling Sharada when Nimita walks in. He looks sadly at his friend’s daughter and pats her on the shoulder on his way out.

  Sharada collapses now that her daughter is here. “How could this have happened?” she whispers in Nimita’s arms.

  Nimita wants to know as well. She is cold inside, something dark and ugly growing within her. How could this have happened to her father, in his city, in the house of his friend? How?

  “Charan-Mamaji must be told,” she says. “I’ll call him.”

  Nimita descends into a room full of Qureshis. Her father’s friends. She looks at the man she has always called Uncle and sees someone who failed to protect her family. Why is he standing unhurt, untouched, without a scratch? Spared because he was a Muslim maybe?

  The Qureshis make some noises, comments, offers of help, Nimita cannot hear. There is a buzzing in her ears. “I have to call Mamaji,” she says. “We’ll be fine. There is nothing anyone can do.” Eventually they leave, promising to send the car and driver back to take her home.

  “No need,” she tells them. “Mamaji will take me home.”

  The line is absolutely bell-clear when she picks up the receiver. The delay is with the army exchange, as the officer on duty transfers and reroutes the call twice before Charan-Mamaji picks up the phone.

  “What happened?” A call at this hour can only mean bad news.

  Nimita tells him.

  “I’ll come now,” he says.

  “Please come, Mamaji,” she says, then adds without even realising it. “Don’t come alone. Things are bad.”

  Sharada is fed by force. All she wants to do is watch her husband.

  Curfew does not apply to Charan-Mamaji, who arrives with the four Gurkha guards assigned to him. He takes his sister in his arms.

  “I have to go, Mummy. I’ll come back tomorrow with Baby,” Nimita says. Tomorrow she will send a telegram to Delhi. Today she just wants to go home.

  There are two policemen guarding the Khosla compound when Nimita gets into Mamaji’s jeep. Two of his guards are assigned to her, one to drive, the other to sit ramrod straight at the back, holding his rifle. Exhausted, she tries hard not to think of anything, but her father’s broken, beaten body stays in front of her eyes whether they are open or closed.

  The driver has to honk several times before Radheshyam comes to open the door. “Bibiji, Bibiji,” he says, trembling in front of her.

  “What is it?” Nimita is very tired but she follows him to the gate of the compound.

  Next to it, on the wall, in fresh whitewash are the words: “A kaffir lives here.”

  Dawn comes, bringing with it an excuse to move, to stop staring at the ceiling, to once again smooth a hand over the warm, breathing body of a baby whose helpless existence provides equal measures of comfort and bone-chilling terror.

  After reading the message on her wall, Nimita sent Radheshyam next door to the Bakshis, to find out if their gate guard had seen who might have painted this. Despite it being well after curfew, Radheshyam returned with Mohinder Bakshi in hastily thrown-on pants and shirt. He insisted that she and Urmila-Baby move into their home next door “while Karan beta is not at home”. He was only convinced to go home without her when she told him one of the Gurkha guards would be on duty at her home all night. The other went back to Model Town with Charan-Mama’s jeep.

  Radheshyam dozes fitfully all night, waking at the slightest breeze and nearly wetting himself when a dog barks. He blinks when the Gurkha guard asks for whitewash to repaint the marred wall. He goes into the kitchen to ask Shukla-Bibi.

  Shukla-Bibi has the fires burning and tea and parathas ready for the guard. “Feed him first,” she says and goes up to see to Bibiji.

  Nimita sits up as soon as Shukla-Bibi enters. “What happened?” she says, already out of the bed, twisting her hair into a knot.

  “The Gurkha says if there is limewater paste, he can repaint the wall,” says Shukla-Bibi.

  “Feed him first,” says Nimita.

  “They are both having breakfast,” Shukla-Bibi says and waits in the room.

  “What is it?”

  There are tears in Shukla-Bibi’s eyes. “Bibiji? With Sahib not at home, such things are happening. I say we should call the police.”

  “We will,” Nimita says. “Don’t worry, Shukla-Bibi. Mummyji’s gun is at home, na? Don’t worry. We are not unprotected.”

  Urmila-Mummyji’s old Enfield rifle is in her cupboard with an old box of cartridges. Nimita has no idea how to use it and knows that even if she works out how to load it, the rifle has not been maintained for at least two years. Only Dilip-Praji and Karan would know what to do with it now.

  Shukla-Bibi leaves, satisfied. Nimita gathers Urmila-Baby in her arms. “Raja beta. Have you woken up? Did you sleep well?”

  The baby is cleaned and fed, Radheshyam given the whitewash to begin the task of painting the compound wall. His awe of the flat-faced Gurkha with his polished boots and service rifle is overcome when it turns out that the man smokes cheroots, is named Drupal Limbu and is much more familiar with Simla than Nepal.

  The Lahore posting is the best he has seen in all the Punjab, he tells Radheshyam. In Jullunder, the Sikhs and Hindus are massacring Muslim policemen. They say these men turned a blind eye when Muslim gangsters raped their women. With the police torn apart by religious loyalty, the army has been called in.

  Radheshyam is listening wide-eyed and dry-mouthed while Drupal applies a third coating of whitewash to the wall. The Gurkha stands back. “Not good. Now the rest of the wall looks old,” he says, and expands the painted area.

  Almost a third of the wall to the right side of the gate has been newly painted when Nimita sends Rahim to the post office with a telegram to be sent to Delhi. “Come back fast,” she tells him. “I want to go to my parents’ house.”

  She is packing a suitcase with clothes for a two-day stay when Pam-Auntyji from next door visits. “Beta, I heard the news, I’m so sorry,” she says. “No,
no I won’t stay, you must be busy.”

  Nimita wishes she could accept that at face value. “No, please have something. Anyway I’m waiting for the servant to come back from the telegraph office.”

  Pam-Auntyji has come to renew Mohinder-Uncleji’s offer. “Move in with us, beta, at least until Karan comes back. I don’t like to think of you all alone in the house.”

  “No, Auntyji, anyway I’ll be staying with Mummy and Daddy for a couple of days. Even otherwise I’m not alone. There are four servants in the house.”

  Pam-Auntyji leans forward. “Yes, but two of them are those people, na? You can’t trust those people, beta. You should give them holiday. Tell them to go to their villages and that you’ll call them later. Pay them also, do it in a nice way, but do it.”

  The lack of sleep is catching up with Nimita. Where should she send Najma, to Calcutta? She wants to say this but Urmila-Baby makes a little sound and the laws of hospitality reassert themselves. “Haanji,” she says, the universal affirmative that does not mean the speaker will do what is being asked.

  Pam-Auntyji leaves and Rahmatullah-Uncleji’s car appears. “Beta, I heard, I’m just going over there,” he says. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll send a havaldar to patrol the area. But I see you have someone already?”

  “Haan, Uncleji, Charan-Mama sent him. But he will have to rejoin his duties I think.”

  “Okay, don’t worry, I’ll send someone. No, I won’t take anything, I just stopped here on my way to your parents’ house. If you want, I’ll drop you.”

  “No, Uncleji, I just sent someone to the telegraph office, once the servant returns I’ll be going.”

  Rahmatullah-Uncleji hesitates. “Beta, I think you should pack your suitcase and stay a few days in Model Town. Karan beta also is away now. I’ll make sure there is patrolling in the area, but why take a chance?”

  “Thank you, Uncleji. Please have something, na?”

  “No, beta, I’m just going to your parents’ house.” He sighs. “It’s a very bad thing that has happened.”