A Married Woman

by Manju Kapur

  Such gentleness deserved to be rewarded by total belief. Pipee vowed that she would never mention Aijaz’s family unless he himself brought them up.

  After Mrs Trivedi left, the young couple settled into the joys of living on their own.

  Pipee’s hours were flexible, and she tried to be home by the time Aijaz arrived. This was usually not difficult. After a morning of teaching Aijaz was often at college rehearsals, or working out programmes with The Street Theatre Group. And, thought Pipee indignantly, everybody imagines academics to have nothing but free time.

  *

  Ujjala was by now in the process of establishing a community centre at another basti. This second place had a greater number of facilities. It had sewing machines for women to acquire a skill to increase their earning potential, it had a library, toys, and art and craft supplies for the fifteen to twenty children who came every afternoon from three to five.

  Soon they extended their activities by organising trips outside Delhi. The results were encouraging. Girls, helpers and administrators bonded, and the girls’ sense of themselves strengthened. Each of them wrote a piece on how she had experienced the trip, what she had felt being away from home with others from the basti, for the first time not part of a family structure. Pipee put these together in a series of booklets called Yatra aur Vichar that she spent many hours over. She was filled with a sense of achievement, all day with Ujjala, every other moment with Aijaz, she thought life could have no more to offer.

  *

  It was almost a year after their marriage that Aijaz made a casual announcement. ‘We have to go to Shahjehanpur. They want to see you.’

  Pipee, lounging on the cushions of the cane double-seater they had recently bought, looked up, astonished. In all this time Aijaz’s family had shown no signs of her existence.

  ‘That’s nice‚’ she said carefully.

  Aijaz stared moodily at the balcony. Pipee gazed at him, and for the thousandth time thought how she loved the way he looked. His wavy grey hair, his clean brown colour, his sharp nose, his warm eyes. ‘You know my mother also had her reservations‚’ went on Pipee encouragingly.

  ‘Mine would have too, had she known‚’ muttered Aijaz.

  ‘What? What did you say?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Do you mean your mother – family – didn’t know we were getting married.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You didn’t tell them?’

  ‘How could I tell them?’ demanded Aijaz. ‘You knew the problems.’

  ‘ Still, you could have told them. They must be feeling awful now, much worse than if you had told them.’

  ‘For God sakes, Pip, stop going on.’

  ‘You hide things from them, from me, and you accuse me of going on‚’ shouted Pipee. ‘How do you think I feel?’

  ‘You have to take me as I am‚’ shouted Aijaz back. ‘Me, alone. If I didn’t tell them it was to spare them pain, and you trouble.’

  Pipee tried to tell herself that Aijaz was an exemplary human being, socially committed, personally tender, but this palliative irritated her further. He had no moral right to behave in a way that didn’t add up.

  All the things her mother used to say about Hindu-Muslim marriages came unpleasantly to her mind. For a moment she stared at him with revulsion. What was the use of him looking like a dream if he could behave like a nightmare?

  ‘What the hell, Aijaz‚’ she said, ‘you have a poor idea of trouble. You have not been fair to your family or to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pip, I really am, don’t be angry. My family is not like yours. There are so many, and they all want to be part of things, they would never have tolerated a Tees Hazari wedding, we would have had to go there and get married amid five thousand people at least, God it’s enough to put anyone off. And then there might have been fuss about the conversion thing – I didn’t wish to put you through all that.’

  ‘Or yourself‚’ said Pipee dryly.

  ‘Whatever‚’ said Aijaz, looking charming.

  ‘Well, why now?’

  ‘They heard rumours. Made enquiries.’

  ‘So I am going to meet them with the guarantee that they will hate me.’

  ‘They’ll adore you.’

  ‘With this background?’

  ‘You don’t know my family. Once they know they can’t change things, they just accept them.’

  This time Pipee kept her reservations to herself. ‘When are we going?’ she finally asked.

  ‘We are on the waiting list. As soon as I can get confirmed bookings.’

  ‘What about my work? We have a big meeting with the community helpers from both centres next week. Neeraj, the others, won’t like it.’

  ‘Tell them you are going to visit your Muslim in-laws. They will love it.’

  *

  Their reactions were reserved, which was just as I expected, thought Pipee, and shows how little Aijaz knows of families in general.

  ‘I hope they like me soon‚’ she said to him on their first night in Shahjehanpur.

  It was summer, and their beds were spread on the terrace, in deference to their married status, a little separately to one side of a storeroom. As soon as it was late enough they squeezed together in one under a mosquito net.

  Aijaz yawned. Pipee poked him. ‘Do you think they will?’ she asked.

  ‘Give it time, Pip, now let me sleep.’

  ‘I told you they wouldn’t like me.’

  ‘They are so glad I’m married, they would have liked anyone.’

  ‘But they would have preferred a Muslim?’

  ‘Come on, Pip, be reasonable. After all your mother would have preferred a Hindu. Anyway who has the time to worry about such things?’

  ‘I suppose‚’ said Pipee forlornly, thinking of his mother and the jewellery box she had pushed in front of her.

  ‘For my eldest son’s wife‚’ she had said.

  ‘No‚’ said Pipee, embarrassed, yet dying to look at what was inside.

  ‘Take‚’ said Ammi, with a trace of reproach, her hands busy with the lid. Pipee gazed at the plump, rounded fingers, studded with gold rings, the short nails which gleamed with clear nail polish, the kurta sleeves long and fitting, and the many bangles that tinkled at her wrists. She looked very sure of herself, unlike her own poor mother, who lived in two rooms at Shiksha Kendra, with no one to boss over except some very small children.

  Eventually, since she would not take, she was given a heavy gold necklace, thick gold bangles embossed with flowers, and a set of jhumkas set with pearls and rubies.

  She held them, admiring their beauty, marvelling at their heaviness before returning them, I have no locker, I will have to worry about their safety, keep them for me please.

  *

  In the days that followed, Pipee realised for the first time she had married a Muslim. Everything was strange, the large haveli, the dishes they ate from, the food they ate, their paan making, the way they dressed, the way they greeted each other, As salamalaikum – Wa Alaikum Assalam, their manner of speaking, the kh’s that made her Hindi tongue seem crude and unsophisticated.

  And then there were so many relatives. How many people lived in that house, till the end of her visit she did not know. They were a world complete unto themselves, so different from anything she had known while growing up. Occasionally when eating in the long dining hall, she would gather as many as she could within a single glance and feel a great longing for the day when she would be completely accepted as one of their own.

  It was the year 1989, and bricks were being collected for the Ram Mandir – collected, worshipped, and escorted out of towns, wrapped in silk and saffron, on their way to Ayodhya. If communal disturbances occurred in the wake of these processions, that was not the fault of the bricks, but the fault of the narrow-mindedness of minority communities, who couldn’t bear to feel that their domination in this country was over.

  It was in this atmosphere that Aijaz a
nd The Street Theatre Group travelled to Rajpur fifty kilometres outside Delhi to put up a play.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t go‚’ said Pipee, ‘Rajpur is a sensitive area. It is not safe.’

  ‘If I only went to places where it was safe, I would never go anywhere‚’ said Aijaz. ‘Theatre is a limited medium, but what else do people like us have?’

  ‘Then don’t go‚’ said Pipee, ‘don’t go if it is no use.’

  Aijaz looked depressed. ‘One has to do what one has to do‚’ he said. ‘Of course it is so much easier working with people from schools and colleges, they even write the scripts, and do the research.’

  ‘Well stay here, and go to schools and colleges, instead of dashing out on weekends to some town or mohalla, or factory, god knows where all. Now you are married you have a responsibility to me, to us‚’ said Pipee, and then felt guilty. Here she was sounding like a nagging wife. Would she like it if Aijaz stopped her from going to the bastis? Or decided that her work with Ujjala led her into dangerous situations?

  ‘What is the use of confining oneself to the middle classes where it is safe – safe and cowardly‚’ went on Aijaz reflectively.

  ‘At least wait till the whole fuss about the bricks is over‚’ amended Pipee. ‘I will come with you next time. I’ve never travelled with you. Besides you will be leaving me alone on New Year’s Eve.’

  Aijaz looked at her in astonishment, ‘I never knew this day meant anything to you, Pip. It’s just a capitalist device for making money.’

  ‘If it can keep you home, then I am a committed capitalist.’

  ‘You are being totally neurotic. When I go somewhere nice, then you come. The mohallas of this township are dirty and crowded, there is nothing much to see or do. I’ll be worrying about you, instead of concentrating on the play and the group.’

  ‘I can take care of myself‚’ said Pipee with great dignity.

  ‘So can I‚’ said Aijaz ruffling her hair.

  ‘Didn’t you know this man?’ asked Hemant looking through the papers three days later.

  ‘Which man?’ asked Astha indifferently, her life an arid desert so far as men were concerned.

  Hemant flapped the papers in front of her. There, in the middle of page three were the headlines, THEATRE GROUP BURNED ALIVE IN VAN, and below the story:

  A horrendous incident took place here last night, in the township of Rajpur. Aijaz Akhtar Khan, noted theatre activist, and his troupe were dragged from the site of their performance, and taken away in a Matador. Later the charred remains of the Matador along with the bodies were found near the river. The culprits are still absconding.

  It is surmised that rising tensions between two communities led to this action. Aijaz Akhtar Khan, leader of the well-known Street Theatre Group was in town to perform in the mohallas. The issues dealt with were of a sensitive nature, and it is surprising that in this time of communal unrest he got permission to stage a piece involving the Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi controversy. The District Magistrate says he was deliberately misled about the contents.

  According to our sources, a procession containing bricks for the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya was routed through a gully adjacent to a minority community mohalla earlier in the afternoon. Despite the presence of the police, slogans were shouted. Untoward incidents were then avoided, but that evening violence, possibly premeditated, broke out during a performance by The Street Theatre Group. Unruly elements in the crowd started heckling the actors. Other elements responded. In the confusion the members of the group were driven away in a van, ostensibly for safety. This seems to have been a ploy.

  Aijaz Akhtar Khan has left behind a wife.

  There followed a list of the other members of the theatre group, along with their survivors, but Astha could not read further for the tears in her eyes. What a way to die, what a horrible, horrible way to die – and for what? Because the man was trying to reach people and do some good. She hadn’t even known he was married. She turned away her head to cry some more.

  Hemant, watching her, immediately lost his temper. ‘Why are you crying?’ he demanded. ‘What was he to you?’

  ‘Some murderers trap and burn a whole theatre group in a van and you ask me why I am crying?’

  ‘This kind of thing happens all the time, I don’t see you wasting your tears.’

  ‘I can’t weep for the whole world, only when it means something to me. Maybe I am deficient, but I knew him, he was always working for everybody’s good, even the children loved him. And he has been burnt to death. Isn’t that reason enough?’ she sobbed rocking to and fro with rage and grief.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, this should not have happened. But if you meddle in things that do not concern you, you have to take the consequences. He was a Muslim, he should have kept to the issues within his own religion.’

  Astha stared at her husband in revulsion. Ten men had died in the most ghastly way possible, and this was all he could say. Did he have no feelings?

  *

  After Hemant left for work she started phoning. Identification of the bodies was being done at Willingdon Hospital, they would probably be released the next day. A condolence meeting was being held that afternoon at the Constitution Club. The next day there would be a funeral procession that would start at the Club and go all the way to the electric crematorium.

  Numbly Astha put on a white sari, she would go straight from school to the meeting, at least she would be with people who felt as she did. She would meet his wife, what would it be like to be her at this moment, and to have your husband dead like this. Could you ever get over it, should she arrange for the driver to bring her children there after school, they had known Aijaz, they would grieve with her, they should be exposed to the political realities of this country, but then to be exposed to such violence, such mindless hate, how could she explain it, she could barely deal with it herself. Political realities could wait, Mala would look after them, if she was late they could go upstairs.

  *

  At the Constitution Club mourners were gathered on dusty lawns, standing on sidewalks, dressed in white, with black armbands, sombre faced. There were many speeches:

  We are witnessing crimes deliberately stoked by the forces of communalism. Neutral voices are seen as threatening, the voice of secularism is not tolerated. Can ten men be burned alive, taken from the mohalla in full view of everybody without connivance from the authorities? What has the State done so far, what have the police done so far to apprehend the criminals? Is this the message for the citizens of this country, live in fear, do not raise your voices for they will be stifled by fire, murder and violence.

  This is what the state provides, this lawlessness, this disregard for life, this brute force. This is its protection for its citizens.

  To speak and be heard is the freedom that is at the heart of a secular nation, this is the right for which these brave young men gave their lives. Now we must carry on as though they were in our midst, forcing us to resist repressive fascist forces. This is the struggle that lies before us.

  *

  Astha saw Mrs Dubey, her eyes damp and swollen, she went to her and touched her on the shoulder, they stared wordlessly at each other, and then Astha’s own tears, soaking her hanky, her nose running.

  It grew dark. Candles were lit and passed around. They started singing. Songs of protest, songs that Aijaz had penned, songs that many had sung in different circumstances. They ended with We Shall Overcome in Hindi. Word went around about the funeral arrangements. Tomorrow they would start at noon from the Club and walk all the way to the Crematorium with the ten bodies. Let the city see the atrocity that had been committed, let the traffic come to a standstill, let the line of death be visible in slow motion.

  *

  Next day there was a crowd of thousands waiting for the bodies to be released from the hospital. Many had not known the ten men, but it was not necessary to have known them. They came to protest an outrage, to arouse similar protests from an anaes
thetised public. Artists and innocent men have been murdered without any provocation during a performance in broad daylight. Today them, tomorrow us. How can this happen? What can we do?

  Finally the procession started. On and on they walked, blocking traffic, creating havoc, silent, disciplined and determined. The police tried to stop them, they did not have permission, they would have to turn back. The news spread – they are trying to stop us, we are going to defy them, nothing can turn us back, we will fight if necessary and then the police had to give in, escorting them instead, as they walked down the streets of Daryaganj, past the Jama Masjid, turning right towards Ring Road, then on to the electric crematorium, where thousands more were waiting to receive them.

  It took six hours to reach their destination. The vast room quickly filled while the rest of the crowd waited outside. The families of the men laid the bodies out, and two by two their charred remains, indistinguishable from one another, were slid into the massive fires and the doors clanged shut. They had been together in life, and they were together now. Silence occupied the hall. Astha watching from a squeezed-in place near the door remembered the Aijaz she had known, and that once she had thought he smiled too much.

  *

  Four days later a massive protest rally was organised from the Red Fort to the Prime Minister’s house.

  ‘I shall be late coming home from school today‚’ said Astha to her husband that morning. Her tone was cold; she had still not forgiven him.

  ‘Why?’ he asked busy with his own preparations for the factory. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To a rally to protest the circumstances of ten men’s deaths.’

  Hemant looked at Astha. Astha returned the look.

  ‘Whenever did rallies do any good? Goondas hire people from neighbouring villages at ten rupees a day to come and make trouble, block traffic and show their muscle.’

  ‘It’s not the political, made-up kind of rally. We want to draw attention to what has happened. How does one speak so that one is heard? You tell me a better way.’

  ‘Rallies!’ snorted Hemant ignoring the question. ‘No matter how big – who cares – who remembers what they are about?’