by Manil Suri
Paji quickly filled me in on the rest of the details. How the crisis had been brewing for two weeks, since the judge in Allahabad found Indira Gandhi guilty of election fraud and banned her from holding office. How a Supreme Court judge ruled that she could remain until her appeal was settled, but not vote in Parliament until then. “Of course, the opposition went wild with the scent of her blood in the air. Did you see JP’s rally yesterday, when he called for a blockade of the prime minister’s house? I suppose this was the only way she could stay in power, though she claims she did it because JP urged the armed forces to revolt.”
The morning newspapers in Delhi hadn’t even been printed. “She had the electricity cut off to every press in the city, including my own. What’s sad is that the original election fraud charges were so laughable. Do you know, the London Times called them no more serious than a traffic offense?”
Someone seemed to be screaming in the background on Paji’s side, and I heard a series of muffled thuds. “In case you’re wondering, that’s your mother. I’ve locked her up in her room, and she’s trying everything she can to get out. She was all dressed up to go on a protest march with her student hooligans this morning, can you imagine? What she doesn’t realize is how much trouble she’s in already—it’ll be a miracle if I can prevent her from being carted off to jail.”
As it was, the police came that week not only for Biji but, much to his shock, Paji himself. It was only through the intervention of his Congress friends, and a promise to print two lakh free copies of a pamphlet entitled “The Many Boons of the Emergency” that Paji managed to secure his (and Biji’s) continuing freedom. “The amazing thing is that your mother still seems to think that what she did was reasonable,” he wrote. “She spends all day threatening to go to Tihar jail to visit her incarcerated friends.”
Paji wasn’t the only one forced to resort to such tactics to save himself. All sorts of people found themselves entangled in the giant nationwide dragnet that was supposed to capture “antisocial elements” (smugglers, black marketeers, and, presumably, opposition politicians). The dowager princess of Jaipur was kept in jail until she signed a declaration in support of the Emergency. The editor of the Communist-leaning weekly Blitz, who had denounced Indira at every opportunity, suddenly appeared on television to laud her boldness and integrity. Mrs. Hussain told me of industrialists lining up to garland Indira, or even throw themselves at her feet for forgiveness, depending on how errant had been their politics.
A few mornings after the declaration of the Emergency, I saw a list in the newspaper of twenty-six “antipatriotic” organizations that had been banned. As Paji pointed out, the groups spanned the political spectrum, from the Marxist Communist Party to all sorts of right-wing communal Hindu factions. Foremost among the latter was the HRM. Arya went into hiding that very first week, just before the police came to arrest him under MISA, the ominously titled Maintenance of Internal Security Act.
June turned into July, then August, then September. With each month, the nation backed away further from the anarchy into which it had seemed ready to plunge. It was tremendously soothing to wake up every morning and read about nothing but all the benefits we were enjoying. MISA had cleansed everyone from tax evaders to drug dealers to, we were told, wife beaters, from the country. Both sugar and kerosene were suddenly in plentiful supply at the ration shop downstairs. I went to get the television license renewed, and to my shock, the clerk greeted me with a smile. Nobody had an inkling as yet of the forced sterilizations and other atrocities Indira’s son Sanjay was planning to unleash.
By October, giant cloth posters of Indira hung all over the city, perhaps painted by the same artists who made the posters for Hindi films. They were so large that ripples ran through the image of her face, from the tip of her nose through the waves of white in her hair—a super-heroine flying intrepidly above us, ready to tackle any adversity that came our way. Her countenance became familiar, reassuring—whereas previously she had been ubiquitous only on the television news, now Indira truly was everywhere. One of these posters was even erected for a rally held in your school compound—it listed the entire twenty-point program the Emergency was supposed to accomplish. Afterwards, Indira remained smiling benignly over the playground, as if, undeterred by the twenty listed tasks already on her plate, she had generously tacked on the guardianship of the schoolchildren as the twenty-first.
Inspired by this vision in their backyard, the school organized a drawing contest—each student was to pick one of the twenty points and make a poster about it. You picked point number fourteen—“controlling the prices of essential commodities.” The poster depicted a gaggle of children cheering and dancing around a mound of sugar, with rupee notes sticking out of some of their pockets. The prize, however, went to an entry on point number seven, “limiting land ownership among the wealthy.”
WE DIDN’T MAKE OUR usual trip to Delhi that year for the Divali festival. On the one hand, you missed the activities with your cousins, especially the gambling at vaguely understood card games, using potato chips as stakes. On the other hand, you had forgotten how much fun it was to light rockets from our terrace. Pinky was particularly outrageous, being at the peak of her tomboy phase. She lit “atom bombs” under cans, kicked ground wheels like footballs, flung live whistle rockets at children in range. Once, she set fire to the curtains in Mrs. Hamid’s flat on the floor below. I noticed she was always protective of you—never subjecting you to the same rough play she employed to keep a hold on her gang.
The newspapers predicted an unusually subdued Divali this time due to the Emergency, but shops seemed packed as usual, and worshippers spilled out of temples into the street. I was apprehensive about Divali eve, when I would be the one responsible for the pooja for Lakshmi that Dev always used to perform. The year after he had died, we had not celebrated, and after then, we had always gone for Lakshmi pooja to Nizamuddin.
When it came time, I got several of the details wrong. You reminded me of the coins that were supposed to be dabbed with milk for prosperity, the saffron with which I neglected to mark the forehead of Lakshmi. I couldn’t remember the prayers Dev used to recite—you were resentful of my impromptu substitutions. At the end, you brought the sugar for me to sprinkle in your mouth and my own, but without Dev, it wasn’t the same. I tried to get you upstairs to the terrace to distract you with the fireworks, but you pouted that you preferred to stay in and watch a TV program on the Emergency.
When the doorbell rang, you let me be the one to answer it. It took me a few seconds to match the unshod person before me, clothed grimily in a loincloth, with the one I had seen only some months before, so spruce in a tie and coat. “I didn’t think you’d turn me away on Divali,” Arya said, his face barely visible through a mass of knotted hair, his body reeking of dirt and sweat. “So I waited until today before knocking on your door.”
You must have recognized the voice even with the TV on, because you came running up, shouting, “Yara uncle!” The sight of the disheveled figure at our doorstep, still waiting to be invited in, made you stop. “Yara uncle?” you asked, uncertainly.
“Yes, it is your Yara uncle.” Arya took the opportunity to stride in and lift you up into the air. “Don’t you recognize him under this beard?”
“No, I don’t. It looks awful, your beard. Why are you dressed like that? And what’s that smell?” You wrinkled your nose.
“Your uncle has been hiding because bad men are chasing him. He’s trying to look very ordinary so no one recognizes him. You have to promise not to tell anyone you saw me here, understand?” Arya put you down. “Understand?” he repeated, staring into your eyes until you nodded.
He turned to me. “I hope you don’t mind—I’m sorry to barge in like this. With everyone celebrating, I felt too alone—I just couldn’t resist coming over today. It’s only for an hour or two—I won’t spend the night—I’ll go right now if you say.”
It wasn’t just his appearance that made me ner
vous, or the way his eyes roved about the room behind me, as if searching the corners to make sure nobody would spring out. His sudden presence here in Bombay, in our building, at our doorstep, the way he used to materialize all those years ago, also brought back uncomfortable memories. But I could hardly ask him to leave. I told myself that the issue between us already stood resolved by my letter, that all I had to do, if needed, was to remind him of my discouraging response. Perhaps in a way that was firm, yet not harsh—a way that acknowledged the compliment he was paying me with his continuing interest, even held out the possibility of meeting again, innocently someday, for ice cream at the Coffee House. “Are you hungry?” I asked.
Arya nodded. “It’s been a while, especially, since I had chappatis cooked at home. Although Yara uncle can only eat if Ashvin here feeds me with his own hand.”
“But the smell,” you said, scrunching up your face again.
We decided he would first take a bath, before I served dinner. As the water heated, Arya told me how he had spent the last several months. His words tumbled out rapidly, with deep inhalations between them, like a man who has been running, speaking between gasps to catch his breath. “I was lucky—they made the mistake of going to Hema’s house instead. I think they mixed me up with Gopal—they took him to the station, but then let him go—I suppose they didn’t think him important enough. I left Delhi that very night. All the traveling I had done paid off—I knew exactly where to hide, whom I could trust. Of course, the police was shutting down HRM offices everywhere and locking up the same people who had helped me set them up, so I had to keep moving. They almost captured me, too—once in Patna, where a constable fired a rifle after me, and then again at the station in Nagpur. Someone had lent me the change of clothes I have on—the police thought I was a villager fresh off the train and let me walk out.” He paused to thrust a greedy handful of the peanuts I had laid in front of him into his mouth. “I must be quite high on their list, I think. Not like George Fernandes, whom they’ve still not caught—not as famous as him, but still.” I did not miss the note of pride in his voice. As he chewed, a little of his hunted expression seemed to dissipate.
I expected him to mention my letter, but he didn’t. Could he not have received it? There was no point bringing it up myself, so I kept my silence.
You carried in a box from the bedroom and ceremoniously laid it down on the table next to the nuts. “What’s this?” Arya asked. “A present for Yara uncle?” Inside were Dev’s toiletries and shaving set. Arya pulled you into his lap. “Yara uncle can’t get rid of his beard, you know. Otherwise the bad men might recognize him.”
In the end, though, perhaps against his better judgment, he did shave. I was startled to see him emerge from the bathroom. I had shown him to the cache of your father’s clothes you had insisted we keep. Arya had helped himself to clean undergarments, a kurta pajama outfit, a pair of chappals that were almost the right size for his feet. With his suddenly clean-shaven face and the way he had slimmed down on the run, he resembled Dev more than ever before, despite his gray hair. He even had the same Cinthol soap smell on his skin, the same Godrej after-shave scent emanating from his face. You noticed it too, because you wrapped your head in the shirttails of his kurta, and tried to burrow into him.
At your insistence, Arya performed the Lakshmi pooja again. This time, Lakshmi had her forehead properly anointed with saffron, and the appropriate incantations were recited while moistening each coin with milk. Arya sprinkled the consecrated sugar in our mouths—his manner, from the closing of his eyes to the tilting of his head, was so reminiscent of Dev, that I had to look away. You pulled your Yara uncle to the pantheon, to have all the other gods appeased correctly as well, after the years of negligence to which I might have subjected them.
After dinner, you wanted to go up to the terrace to set off rockets, but Arya shook his head. “Yara uncle isn’t ready yet to meet your neighbors after shaving off his beard. He’s going to teach you three-card flush instead. It’s more important on Divali than setting off fireworks—to gamble and test your fortune for the coming year.” Even with the five-paise stakes, you raked in more than six rupees—your uncle called it beginner’s luck, but used various shuffling tricks to make you win.
At some point, you put on “House of Bamboo” on the gramophone. Arya was reluctant to dance, but you latched onto his kurta and dragged him out on the floor. He was slow and ungainly, not at all like Dev. He settled into a peculiar cycle of steps, alternately raising each arm to form a right angle at the elbow, then twirling clumsily. I clapped along, mildly amused, until, against my better judgment, I let you pull me in as well.
I could tell how immediately embarrassed Arya was. This man who had once serenaded me with such crudeness—dancing to the same song was all it took now to turn his neck a deep red. I felt self-conscious as well. Perhaps because you were watching, perhaps because it was so unusual to have the formal barrier between a wife and a brother-in-law shed. Or perhaps it was something more dangerous—the way I began to be intoxicated by the memory of Dev’s looks, his clothes, his scent. Fortunately, the record was almost over—we retired to different corners of the room the instant it came to an end.
You hated the flip side, “Hawaiian Wedding Song,” but put it on today. You tried to draw us back, but soon realized how impossible it was to lure us into dancing to so slow and intimate a tune. Instead, you began making exaggerated sweeps across the floor with arms raised, as if waltzing to Andy Williams’ crooning with an imaginary partner. As usual, the song made you sleepy—when the last note faded, you yawned on cue.
But you were unwilling to let the evening end just yet. When Arya kissed you good night, you put up such a fuss that he agreed to sit by your bedside and relate a story to you.
“Once there was a boy named Ashvin,” Arya began. “Unlike other boys, Ashvin was special—he had not only Shiva, but also Vishnu living in him.”
“Shiva was quiet, and Vishnu was lively,” you responded. By now, you could recite all the different attributes for the two from Arya’s letters. “One came from the moon, and the other from the sun.”
“So you can imagine how much of a problem this caused,” Arya said. He began spinning out a variation of the tales in his letters, about how Shiva wanted tranquillity for Ashvin, while Vishnu kept encouraging the boy to shout and laugh. In this one, instead of the two gods battling over Ashvin, Vishnu transformed himself into a beautiful woman to seduce Shiva and keep the peace between them. “Shiva found himself helpless in front of her beauty—the soft skin, which was the color of lotus petals, the silken hands and feet, the sweet, succulent lips.” By the time Shiva succumbed to Vishnu’s charms to become one with him and restore harmony to the world, you were asleep.
Arya kissed you. “He reminds me so much of Dev when he was the same age.” Outside, atom bombs still went off on the street, rocket flashes lit up the sky. Arya covered your sleeping form to the waist with a sheet, then followed me out into the drawing room.
We stood around awkwardly, on opposite sides of the sofa. “I suppose I should be going.” The intonation suggested a question more than a statement.
It would have been a simple matter to reply, to agree with him. But I hesitated—seeing Arya put you to sleep like Dev used to had heightened my intoxication. It wasn’t arousal I felt but a headiness, a nostalgia, so overwhelming that it was almost physical. How long had I inhaled the scent of Dev’s toiletries without being aware of it, brushed against his kurta without thinking about it twice? Over how many years had the contours of his facial features, so similar to Arya’s, been impressed into my mind? Whether or not I had been in love with Dev, or attracted to him, or happy, or satisfied, made no difference. His memories had been forever implanted within me, their rootholds tenacious and deep, their shoots ready, at the slightest stimulus, to start rising back into life. I could no more help responding to these memories than I could control a reflex in my knee or the twitching of an eye.
> My hesitation must have been plain for Arya to see. He moved closer. “I got your letter,” he said. “I can’t tell you how depressed it left me. It wasn’t just my own disappointment I could taste, but Sandhya’s as well. Tell me, what can I do to show you how much I’ve changed? If not for me, then at least so that Sandhya can be at rest.”
I tried to reply, tried to summon up my letter and the points I had enumerated in it. But the reasons I had listed didn’t cooperate—they danced around, refusing to be pinned down in my head. All I could think of was Dev’s after-shave—why had its scent not dissipated as yet? It had been hours since Arya had bathed.
“You don’t know how awful the last four months have been. Hiding in filthy holes, eating rotten food, scurrying from place to place every night. The only thing that separated me from a rat’s existence was the hope that I would be able to make it here someday. Everyone told me not to leave the safety of the small towns, but I was ready to risk everything, just to see you and Ashvin.”
His face loomed closer now, like some moon trying to ensnare me in its gravity. His eyes were large and absorbing, as I remembered from those days in Nizamuddin. I felt again the sensation of being drawn in by his unwavering stare—was he trying to hypnotize me?
“I don’t expect to be able to enjoy my liberty much longer. I can feel them closing in on me—every day I think that this might be the last one I’m free. They’ve already caught three out of the five HRM people who work at my level. One of them, Madhuram, Indira Gandhi’s goons tortured so badly, I heard that he might not survive. If I’m going to languish in some prison cell, I need some hope to cling on to—or if not that, at least a memory.”
His fingers brushed the back of my wrist resting on the sofa. Was there a reason I didn’t move away, why I allowed him to continue stroking? I could feel his hand sliding over mine now and squeezing it. “It would mean so much to me,” Arya whispered. Why were my own fingers so acquiescent, why didn’t they protest in any way?