Nimita's Place

by Akshita Nanda

  The army has first access to everything so the Bhargavas eat well on Lahore-quality vegetables, imported wine from Britain—Roshna daringly offers Bhabhi and Auntyji a glass along with hers—and fine chocolates from Switzerland.

  Nimita enjoys the meals, but she comes for the radio. It is almost always playing in the background at the Bhargavas. Roshna loves film-song hour, but Nimita keeps her ears tuned to the news. So does the entire family on the two days during which the two countries are formed.

  They hear the new governor-general of Pakistan make his famous, ironic speech assuring all Pakistanis the freedom to worship as they choose, in temples, mosques or any place of faith, without fear of discrimination. The new country of Pakistan will be above religion, the Quaid-e-Azam assures, after more than ten years of insisting that a separate Muslim-only state be formed for him. “If this state is to be above religion, why make it then?” Nimita asks the radio, which only plays the triumphal song that is the anthem of the new Pakistan.

  A day later it is India’s turn and Jawaharlal Nehru speaks impressively into a microphone of the country’s tryst with destiny and its shining, glorious future. Around him, people cheer, Lord and Lady Mountbatten smile and wave at regimental parades. Within the heart of Delhi, in old Mughal buildings, walking distance from the twenty-year-old British-designed government district, the new and wholly Indian Indians turn on each other with knives and sticks and antique guns.

  Delhi was just waiting to explode. The capital is full to the brim of fearful refugees, each newcomer bearing tales of persecution more horrible than the one before him. Hindus and Sikhs cannot bear proximity to people belonging to the same religion as the ones who slaughtered their communities, who raped their women and took their land. So the Muslims barricade themselves in the old fort area while the Sikhs and Hindus ravage their homes and shops. Soon after, Muslim gangs retaliate and then they too are set upon by the Sikhs and Hindus. A looting breeds a killing, which breeds a maiming, which breeds a family being set on fire in its home, which leads to a white-faced Nehru himself coming down to the old city and using his words and fists on the crowd. The crowd turns its back on him.

  Too many people, too much lost for any reparation to be enough. Nimita knows only dimly of the destruction in Delhi. She worries about Karan, somewhere on the railway line to Calcutta, but Bombay too is a cauldron of seething anger and it has become unsafe to step outdoors to even buy vegetables. That leaves too many people in too small rooms and everyone snapping at everyone else, even Urmila-Baby when she cries.

  Because they have no radio, no telephone except the school line, which is not for private use, it is from the increased violence on the streets that they hear that Nathuram Godse has shot Mahatma Gandhi, the peacemaker. With nonviolence dead, chaos rages for days.

  When it is safe to step outdoors again, Nimita receives a telegram from Karan. He is well, he is in Delhi, he is waiting for things to quiet down before going on to Ludhiana.

  When he returns a month later with a few small deals that add a tiny commission to Nimita’s salary, both husband and wife pretend good cheer, but in truth neither of them can wait until he is on the road again. It is easier for him to be away from these small quarters that are not theirs, where he does not have to see the economies the women practise to keep the household running. As long as he is travelling, they can maintain the dream that things will soon change.

  Months become a year and then two. One day, while Karan is away, Roshna sends a servant to Nimita’s quarters. As the only person with a phone line, she first received the news that Dilip-Praji’s heart has failed. Shanti-Bhabhi is a widow. Karan will have to be found and told to make his way to Delhi for the last rites.

  The fatal attack happened while Dilip-Praji was listening to the radio, as always. He went peacefully, doing the thing he loved, is what Roshna would like to think.

  Nimita knows better. Praji’s heart failed the day the government announced the Administration of Evacuee Property Act to care for the hundreds of acres left behind by Muslims who had left for Pakistan. Compensation for displaced persons is to follow and for many who came with nothing, this is good news.

  For the Sachdevs, it means they no longer have right to the land they left behind in Lahore. They can apply for some portion of land in India. Their case will be heard, but well after the pleas of the hundreds of thousands of villagers needing places to farm.

  The land that truly belonged to the Sachdevs and the Khoslas, which everyone knew was their property, their fields and their houses, is lost to them forever.

  Without your land, without your home, without your identity, what is there to tie anyone to life on this earth?

  3.

  The Sachdev family has to make many adjustments in Bombay. For the first three years, a family used to sprawling over a three-storey house squeezes into two rooms on the campus allotted by the school.

  No one in Bombay wants to rent to Punjabis. The mainly Brahmin and vegetarian Hindu community think of Khatri Punjabis as people who eat meat and drink alcohol, people who will pollute the rooms just by living in them.

  Thank God for Lalit-Uncleji. Roshna’s father-in-law knows someone with a home for rent in Bandra; he is willing to take a smaller amount as an upfront deposit. The rent, a full thirty rupees, is a killer, but Nimita makes Karan take it.

  They need the space. Sharad Bafna of Bafna Cottons and Textiles is not going to consider selling a share of the business to someone who lives in quarters allotted by a school, no matter how fancy the school might be.

  Karan makes a few hundred rupees on successful sales trips, but how long is he to bow his head before another man, he who used to have a hundred jumping to his every whisper?

  After they move into their little house in 1950, Nimita and Karan give a dinner party for the Bafnas. Mummy wears Nimita’s jewellery and Nimita borrows Roshna’s diamonds, the set Nimita assigned her from Urmila-Mummyji’s collection. Roshna and Anand come too, with a bottle of imported whisky.

  Radheshyam wears his school peon pants and a crisp white kurta and helps Shukla-Bibi serve the purely vegetarian meal. Dal tadka, Punjabi style; bhindi filled with masala; hot parathas with ghee; gobi aloo; pulao; and for dessert, gajar halwa.

  By the dessert, the deal is done and all Karan has to do is come up with twenty thousand rupees.

  A third of that is easy. The government of India is giving loans to businessmen and Lalit-Uncleji and Mohinder Bakshi help make the money come through faster than usual.

  The next thirteen thousand is all their savings and a letter to Charan-Mamaji. Mamaji advances his niece half the sum and promises to not tell Karan about it.

  The last thousand rupees will need a trip to Bhendi Bazaar. Nimita has gone there a few times, by herself, for bridging loans. Her salary is almost enough for every day, but there are unexpected expenses and empty months between Karan’s commissions. Shukla-Bibi has a cough during the monsoon. Urmila-Baby grows out of clothes as soon as Nimita and Mummy stitch them or lengthen them. Mummy herself often has to be coaxed to eat by cooking special treats with real ghee and sugar.

  Roshna keeps an eye on Nimita’s household, but to beg for help from her younger sister-in-law? Better to go to the Bohri pawnshop owner who regularly gives her a hundred rupees for the thick gold chain around her neck and returns the chain for a hundred and ten rupees a few weeks later, once salaries and commissions come in.

  One day, Nimita realises she gets a better rate than his other customers. The reason might be her resemblance to the photo of the sweet-faced woman in a riddah that he keeps in the shop.

  This is the thing Nimita cannot understand. That Muslims individually are kind and generous, but a band of them had kicked her out of her home. How can both things be true?

  Not only the Bohri pawnshop owner, there is Mr Qureshi, who owes the Sachdevs nothing except the memory of friendship with Nimita’s father. After Dilip-Praji’s death, before the borders were sealed so tight that a pass
port was needed to cross them, Mr Qureshi came to Delhi with a suitcase of money.

  He entrusted the suitcase to Manohar Kaul to be passed on to the Sachdevs, not knowing how to get in touch with Shanti-Bhabhi.

  Mr Qureshi told Mr Kaul that he had brought the price of the Sachdev mill and what money could be realised from the sale of the Sachdev and Khosla furniture. Karan knew there was no furniture to be sold after the mayhem, but Mr Qureshi had to leave before Karan could go to Delhi and ask questions.

  Nimita has always wondered just how much Mr Qureshi put in the suitcase and how much Manohar-Uncleji passed on to the Sachdevs, after exchanging the Pakistani money for Indian notes. She has never said a word against him or Kamla-Auntyji, but Mummy and she privately wonder.

  At Karan’s insistence, all the money was put in the bank for Shanti-Bhabhi, a widow with two sons who would have had first right on the land anyway. Shanti-Bhabhi insisted on wiring half the amount down to Bombay. Karan then wanted to give half of that amount to Roshna but sensible Anand refused.

  Because of Mr Qureshi, Nimita and Karan have savings, enough to consider a share in the Bafna business. To make up the needed, Nimita takes more than a gold chain to Bhendi Bazaar this time, adding her wedding jewellery and whatever else she thinks Karan won’t miss.

  When she reaches the lane of the pawnshop, she finds herself unable to walk in. Part of it is reluctance to let go of these last symbols of who she used to be. Another part of it is reluctance to deepen her debt to the Bohri pawnshop owner. Maybe he will advance her the loan, but Nimita does not want to take advantage of his feelings for a lost wife or daughter.

  Where can a thousand rupees come from?

  In the end they come from Mrs Dalhousie. She calls Nimita into her office one day and says that she has heard of Karan’s plans to go into business with Sharad Bafna. Mr Bafna wants admission for his daughter into Alexandra Girls’ English Institution; Nimita recalls now that this had been part of the conversation at the table.

  “Will you be leaving us?” Mrs Dalhousie wants to know. Nimita laughs.

  “No, Mrs Dalhousie. We may not buy into the business.”

  “Why not?”

  In later years, dealing with a mulish, silent teenage daughter, Nimita will recall with amazement how easily she used to share the truths of her life with her former teacher.

  Mrs Dalhousie listens and says: “Come home with me day after tomorrow, after school.”

  Two days later, Nimita is in Mrs Dalhousie’s quarters, the small bungalow set aside on school grounds. Mrs Dalhousie serves her tea and biscuits before disappearing into an inside room.

  She comes out with a huge wad of notes. It is one thousand rupees.

  “Please sign this receipt,” she says, forcing the money into Nimita’s hands. “This is a loan, I will expect interest. Also a guarantee that you will not leave the school, no matter what your husband says.”

  Nimita reads the contract. The interest Mrs Dalhousie is charging is ten yards of cotton cloth every Diwali. It is only a little more than one nine-yard Maharashtrian sari.

  Nimita laughs. It is that or cry.

  “A few yards of cloth?” she says.

  “Once I asked for four hundred yards and you gave me that much,” Mrs Dalhousie says.

  Nimita signs the receipt and goes home to tell Karan about it. He bows his head and says nothing.

  For years, he will pay that interest, pay it without fail, pay it in double and triple and quadruple after the loan is fully repaid.

  Every year, as long as Karan and Nimita pay the interest, Alexandra Institution’s peons and sweepers and their families receive cloth to make new clothes every Diwali or Eid or Baisakhi or Christmas, depending on their religion.

  In ten years’ time, when Mrs Dalhousie dies, Saint Michael’s Church will overflow with mourners. Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Parsi, Sikh, whatever, all will press against each other, fighting for space, fighting out of their fervent, loving desire to touch the small coffin that contained such a large heart.

  Part Nine

  2015

  1.

  The light from the TV is almost grey. Outside, the rain has tapered off, but the scene being broadcast is still taking place in a thunderstorm.

  Chia Ying checks her phone. “That’s it. That’s the public part. Now there will be a private funeral for the family.” She sighs and gets up. “Want coffee?”

  I follow her into the kitchen. She takes two capsules out of the Nespresso box and tops up the machine with milk. The machine begins to froth and hiss. She puts a mug under the spout and a capsule into the machine. “I can’t believe it. Lee Kuan Yew is dead. Anything can happen to Singapore now.”

  We take our coffee out to the dining table. The heat from the cup feels good against my wrist.

  “Chia Ying, you are Malaysian. Why is this man so important to you?”

  She sips her mocha. “You know I’m from KL?”

  “Yes.”

  “Chinese in Malaysia don’t grow up thinking they are a part of that country. Malaysia is for the bumiputera—the sons of the soil. The Malays.”

  “But your family has been in Malaysia for how long?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She licks cream off her lip. “Singapore is the first place I thought, yah, maybe this can be home. Singapore is the first place I didn’t mind being Chinese, you know? Singapore is—was—what Lee Kuan Yew made it.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Now who knows what Singapore will be.”

  I stare at my mocha.

  “What are you thinking of?” Chia Ying asks me.

  “I’m thinking it will take Singapore a very long time to find out.”

  There are events so big, so hurtful, that the brain can take years and years to process them.

  I didn’t just lose a person when I lost Vicky. I lost a past, a future and a home.

  Healing after surgery in Mumbai, I went mad with frustration. I read a lot of research papers, but could do nothing about the ideas that came. I tried to make tea with one hand but the kitchen was wrong. It was too big, the gas was in the wrong place, the pan for heating water was kept in a different drawer.

  My bed was wrong too. I couldn’t sleep with Dadi in case she rolled on my wrist by mistake and my own bed was too big for just me.

  I had nothing to do. The cleaning bai came and Dadi or Mummy gave her instructions. The dhobi came with clothes and Dad or Dadi did the accounts. The buying of vegetables and washing powder, balancing the home budget, was all done by other people, not me.

  I got so frustrated that one day, when the cable TV guy came to tell us that his illegal supply lines could now give us ESPN and E! Entertainment channels, I bullied him into giving us both for free for a “six-month trial” rather than immediately upping the monthly rate.

  “How much you’ve grown up, so responsible,” Dadi said.

  Doing even the simplest thing was complicated. There had been nerve damage. I had to relearn how to flex my wrist, wiggle my fingers, pick things up. The Mumbai specialist, Dr Sinha, was very optimistic during consultation. “You’ll regain fine motor skills, maybe not enough to paint pictures on a grain of rice but enough for your lab work. What do you need to do? Operate a pipette? Hold Eppendorf tubes?” He demonstrated with clumsy gestures that had me howling with laughter.

  “Nice young chap,” Dadi said. “Very qualified. I asked the pharmacist and she says he’s single. Good height too, almost six feet.”

  “Dadi, he’s my doctor.”

  “But he likes you, I can tell these things.”

  “He would be nice to any patient. Anyway, he’s too old.”

  “What, ten years? That’s nothing, beta.”

  The next time I saw Dr Sinha, it was by myself.

  I had one long rambling email from Vicky which I read twice, three times, four times. I memorised it before hitting the delete button and blocking the sender. Another from Aditi telling me that all my things were in the hostel now, that Vicky had moved back to
Hong Kong and that if I ever, ever wanted to speak to them again, she hoped I would.

  “I won’t ask you to forgive Vicky,” she wrote, “but he loves you. You mean the world to him. If you ever had the slightest bit of feeling for him, it would break your heart to see him now.”

  I deleted that message too and blocked the sender.

  Forgive him?

  Was that what Urmila-Bua did with her husband? Forgive him? Such a small incident, he’s so sorry now. These things happen, it was an accident. Such a painful lesson, he has learnt it now.

  So easy it would be for me to do the same and forgive Vicky.

  There were faults on my side as well, na, so many. I agreed to continue our relationship after he told me about his condition. I moved in with him. I even sometimes enjoyed how much he needed me.

  But deep down, even then, I knew that this was more than I had bargained for. I didn’t want a partner with such problems.

  What human being is without flaws? Look at me. Broken wrist, a joint that would never again do a graceful dance mudra, one that would creak and swell in cold and before storms. A joint that worked but badly, fixed, obstinate, unlike the softness my mother had wanted for me. A joint as hard as my heart, I suppose. Unlike the women in stories, I am selfish. Unable to forgive.

  Plate the agar. Grip the Eppendorf tube. Flip the cap. Press the plunger of the pipette. Such tiny gestures that I used to perform without thinking and that I had to relearn now. I used to hold an Eppendorf tube in my left hand so easily, flip open the cap and use the right hand to pipette in chemicals. Every single action remained in muscle memory, but the nerves and ligaments would not cooperate without a struggle.

  In the pain that came as my fingers learnt to grip again, as my wrist shouted with every monsoon breeze, I learnt to hate Vicky for coming into my life. More than the violence, it was the fact that he nearly made it impossible for me to return home.