by Bapsi Sidhwa
A tall, ebony-skinned woman rose out of the water beneath them. As she came up the steps, slender and graceful, drops of water sparkling in her wavy hair, Shakuntala’s heart stilled. But for her rich colour, it could have been Kalyani rising from the river. The woman glanced at Shakuntala and Chuyia. Wordlessly, she offered Shakuntala water from her pot. Shakuntala cupped her hands to receive the water, and gently washed Chuyia’s face and cropped head and drank some. She wiped brown patches off Chuyia’s neck and calves with her sari and realized with horror that they were congealed blood from cuts and wounds. The woman lightly ran down the steps and fetched more water. Chuyia hadn’t even opened her eyes. “I will hold her while you bathe in the river,” the woman offered, sitting down next to her.
“We are widows,” Shakuntala said, looking squarely at the woman.
“I know,” the woman said. “I am Gandhi’s follower. I see things differently.”
This woman did not care if their shadows fell on her and jinxed the rest of her day; she wasn’t afraid to touch them. Shakuntala gratefully handed Chuyia over to her and went into the river to bathe.
Shortly after Shakuntala returned, somewhat restored from her bath, Chuyia opened her eyes. They were sunk in their sockets and muddy with broken capillaries. The skin around them was blotchy and bruised. Shakuntala dipped her sari in the pot of water the woman had left there and gently wiped Chuyia’s face. Just for an instant, the child’s gaze focused and a flicker of recognition sparked her eyes. Whispering, “Chuyia? I’m here. You’re safe, you’re with me,” Shakuntala smiled. There was no answering smile in the vacant face.
As the sun began to climb in the sky and the drug began to wear off, Chuyia gradually revived. Shakuntala tried to stand her up, but her legs buckled. The child could barely sit, her back gave way and she fell forward. Chuyia wound her arms around Shakuntala’s neck and lay supine against her, her body responding just enough so that she was easier to move, hold and carry.
Chapter Twenty-one
Rabindra was driving Narayan to the station. The top of the Model T Ford was down, and, as the wind rushed through his hair and stung his eyes, Narayan felt his mood lighten. He glanced at Rabindra, and his lips twitched in a reflexive smile; it must cost his loquacious friend to remain so quiet. He was grateful for the silence. He had hardly slept the past two nights, and his mind again wandered to the cataclysmic events that had brought his life to an abrupt halt with the death of his beloved Kalyani.
Narayan had kept well away from his father; he knew he couldn’t bear to see the grizzled beard, the fleshy lips, the lascivious movement of the eyes beneath the hooded lids, without thinking of them peering at his Kalyani the way no man ever should. Narayan felt his hands squeeze the life out of his father as surely as he and his kind had killed his beloved. He shook his head to put a stop to the morbid direction his thoughts had again taken.
“Are you all right, old chap?” Rabindra asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“You were a bit restless just then.”
“Was I?” Narayan’s tone was noncommittal.
Rabindra knew when to leave his friend alone. They drove in silence.
Narayan’s mind wandered to his leave-taking of Sadhuram. As always, he would have preferred to pack his own bags, but not wanting to hurt the sentimental old retainer’s feelings he had let Sadhuram help him pack. Sadhuram’s eyes were moist as he folded Chhotay Babu’s clothes with excruciating care and laid his shirts and dhotis in fluffy layers right on top. Narayan took his books from the shelf and piled the heaviest right on top of the clothes. The old servant didn’t know if Chhotay Babu was teasing him, or if his grief had made him callous. Sadhuram just stood there, unabashedly leaking tears and brushing them away with the back of his hand. Then Narayan smiled—the first time he had done so since he lost Kalyani. He removed the books and folded the shrunken old man in his arms, holding him in a hug that lifted him clear off the floor.
“Chhotay Babu, you are too old to act this way,” Sadhuram scolded, but Narayan knew nothing could have pleased him more. When Narayan removed Gandhi’s portrait from the wall, Sadhuram gently wrested it from him and carefully wrapped it in a clean dhoti. It was the last thing he had packed, and it lay safe beneath the cushion of dhotis in his larger suitcase.
As if emerging from a dream, Narayan suddenly began to notice the lush landscape they were driving through. The tender green leaves on the branches of young trees arched over them, forming a shimmering canopy over their heads. The earth of the dirt road was red. The cloud of roseate dust they left in their wake and the banana groves and orchards on either side of them awakened him to the beauty of his surroundings.
“Feeling better?” Rabindra asked
Narayan nodded. “Sorry friend,” he said. “I haven’t been much company lately.”
“It’s understandable.”
Rabindra changed gears to slow the car as they approached a small heard of goats crossing the road. Once they were past the herd, Rabindra turned to Narayan and said, “What are your plans?”
“I’ll take the train and go wherever it goes: leave this place behind.”
Rabindra nodded sympathetically.
“The absent are the dead—for they are cold,” Narayan said under his breath, quoting Byron.
Rabindra glanced at his friend. Grief appeared to have marked his face with shadows, and he looked darker. “I’m sorry, Narayan,” he said quietly, touched by his friend’s pain.
PEOPLE WERE HASTILY CUTTING short their prayers and abandoning their ceremonial artifacts and water jars on the ghat steps as they rushed toward the alleys.
“Gandhiji is here! Gandhiji is here!” It was like an enchanted cry that everyone repeated in awed voices. Even those who had never heard of Gandhi were shouting “Gandhi! Gandhi!” and spreading the news of his imminent arrival all over the ghats. Shakuntala, carrying Chuyia, found herself swept up by the scrambling crowd and pulled into the teeming streets as if by an invisible thread. Instead of the names of gods and the holy river, it was Gandhi’s name that echoed throughout the streets. Snatches of conversation filtered through Shakuntala’s consciousness: “Gandhiji is in here” . . . “At the railway station” . . . “On his way from Allahabad” . . . “Mahatma Gandhi is here” . . . “He’s holding his prayer meeting” . . . “If you want his blessings, be there—”
Exhausted and dazed, Shakuntala was pushed along by the crowd as it wound its way through the last stretch of an alley and on toward the railway station. A group of men shouted, “Gandhiji Zindabad!” and, picking up the cry, the crowd in unison roared, “Gandhiji Zindabad!”
People pushed and shoved in their urgency to arrive at the station, but once they found a place to sit on the platform, they became calm and waited patiently for the Mahatma to speak. As Shakuntala picked her way through the crowd the people who were sitting on the platform floor shifted to make way for the widow. Chuyia’s arms and legs were clamped tight around her, and the young girl adjusted her weight to help Shakuntala’s movements. Suddenly, an arm reached out to pull Shakuntala down and, dumbfounded, she found herself sitting next to the woman who had risen from the river to offer them water. She looked even more radiant than Shakuntala remembered. She had a small red tikka on her forehead. She was not a widow, yet like all of Gandhi’s followers she wore white. Smiling almost shyly, her teeth luminous in the oval of her chocolate face and her dark eyes lustrous, she ran her slender hand tenderly over Chuyia’s head.
From where they sat, they could see Gandhi clearly. He sat cross-legged on a raised stage in front of a train carriage. The skinny, dark old man was naked except for the white dhoti covering his hips and thighs. His mustache was a white brush above his lips, and his head, bowed in meditation, was nearly bald. A child got up and placed a garland of lemony marigolds around Gandhi’s neck. Gandhi raised his bowed head and ran his hand over the child’s hair. He blessed a few other children who came to him. Shakuntala noticed his eyes; magnifi
ed by thick metal-rimmed glasses, they appeared to transmit an almost tangible aura of warmth and kindness, and an indefinable magnetism and power.
At some invisible signal the crowd grew silent, and in the wake of the expectant hush Gandhiji began to read out his speech. His quavering voice was high-pitched, yet his softly spoken words were distinct and clear. There was an endearing sweetness in the simple way he spoke that held his audience rapt. He put the sheet aside and, looking at the people around him, said:
“My dear brothers and sisters, for a long time, I believed that ‘God is truth.’ But today I know that ‘Truth is God.’ The pursuit of truth has been invaluable to me. I trust the same will be true for you as well.”
There was a moment of complete silence after he finished speaking. And then, pandemonium. Amidst cheering and shouts of “Gandhiji Zindabad!” the shrill train whistle could be heard. Bent over his wooden staff, Gandhi stood up. His followers, in white homespun khaddar and white cloth caps, hustled him onto the dilapidated green train, which consisted of just two carriages. The British, cognizant of his power, had resignedly allotted the train to carry him and his followers across India to meet with a populace clamouring to see him.
Shakuntala had listened carefully to Gandhi’s words. The closing sentence hummed in her head: “Truth is God.” Not a person who easily gave her trust, she instinctively trusted this man. She had never heard the Deity spoken of this way, but then she was hearing things today she had never expected to hear. After Kalyani’s suicide and the bestial horrors that had been perpetrated on the poor child in her arms, her convictions had been shaken; they could not be counted on to direct her life anymore.
A vague plan began to form in Shakuntala’s head: Chuyia had to be saved from the assaults that would be inevitable if she were to go back to the ashram. All at once, she knew with a certainty she felt in her bones that Chuyia’s only hope of rescue lay aboard Gandhi’s train. She wanted to tell this to the woman sitting next to her, but the woman had disappeared. Her heart pounding, Shakuntala stood up and looked for her in the crowd. Chuyia must be handed over to someone and made to become a part of Gandhi’s roving entourage. Gandhi’s followers were kind and compassionate like him. They were filled with new ideas, new ways of viewing the world like Narayan was. They would not hold a child’s widowed state or her past against her. They could take her far away from Rawalpur and the ashram and give her a new start in life.
Gandhi stood in the door, waving as the iron wheels of the train slowly creaked into motion and steam billowed out of its smokestack. Carrying Chuyia, Shakuntala pushed and shoved her way through the crowd to get closer to the moving train. Chuyia clung to her, confused. “Please let me through. Move aside,” Shakuntala requested the people on the platform. And her voice carried an authority and purpose that made them do as she directed.
With a monumental effort, Shakuntala held the child aloft as she ran with the train, trying desperately to hand Chuyia over to any of Gandhi’s followers who would reach out a hand.
“Brothers, please take her. Please take this child with you,” she begged the khaddar-clad young people looking out the windows, standing at the open doors. “Listen to me . . . Why don’t you listen? Why don’t you understand? Sisters! Please take her with you! Please listen! This child is a widow.”
But as the train, with an indifferent hiss of steam, moved past her, the people on it only looked shocked. “What are you doing?” a man scolded.
“Stay back, you’ll get hurt!” shouted another.
“Are you insane?” someone cried.
As they refused to reach out their hands for Chuyia, Shakuntala’s appeals became frantic. The steam-belching engine was slowly picking up speed. People on the platform tried to stop her. Afraid that the desperate woman might throw herself and the girl under the wheels of the train, a few women started to scream their alarm at the possibility.
The straining engine began to gather speed, and Shakuntala ran alongside faster. She was afraid she would stumble; her voice was becoming hoarse. Just then, a hand reached out from the train toward her and Chuyia. Shakuntala looked up to see Narayan leaning precariously from the train, holding on with one hand, extending the other to grasp Chuyia. “Didi!” he shouted.
Other people on the platform were running with her, other hands reaching out to help her hold up the child. Two men hung on to Narayan so that he could lean out further. Suddenly, Narayan had an arm around the child and he swept Chuyia up into his arms.
Shakuntala, still running alongside the train, out of breath, pleaded, “Make sure she’s in Gandhiji’s care.”
“Yes, didi,” Narayan replied. And at that moment, she saw the dark woman at a window a little farther down the carriage. With a solemn look and reassuring gestures of her expressive hands, the woman conveyed she understood: she would look out for Chuyia.
Shakuntala wanted to keep Chuyia in her sight as long as possible, so she ran along the platform until the platform came to an end. Exhausted, she sank down in a squatting position and stared as the train carrying Chuyia dissolved into the dark green trees in the distance.
Glossary
Agni Holy Fire
amma Bengali for “mother” or “mommy”
Arjuna an epic hero (of the Mahabharata)
ashram spiritual retreat centre
baba Bengali for “father” or “daddy”
bansari Indian reed flute
Bapu affectionate term for Gandhi
barsati a shelter from rain, usually on the roof
behen sister
betel leaf leaf wrapped around condiments and used as Indian chewing gum
Bhagvad Gita Hindu holy text
Bhagyalakshmi another name for the goddess of wealth and prosperity
Bhagwan God
bhaiya brother
bhajan song in praise of God
bindi red dot in centre of a woman’s forehead symbolizing good luck or marriage
bitya daughter
Brahmin Hindu priest
Brahmanical rituals and traditions related to the Brahmin caste
bua auntie; used as a nickname for Patirajji in the novel
caste-mark marks on the forehead signifying the caste to which a Hindu belongs
chapati unleavened flatbread (like a tortilla)
charpoy the wooden frame of a cot that is interlaced with taut string to form a light bedstead
Chhotay Babu Young Master
Chuyia little mouse
daal lentil
Darbari a raag, known for its stately, meditative quality; it was played in the Mughal emperor’s darbars, or courts
Dharma Ghat name of a specific ghat (an area on the river where people go to bathe in the holy river; also a location of funeral pyres)
Dharma Shastras text of religious laws
dholak drums small hand drums
dhoti cloth wrapped around the waist and tied between the legs
didi older sister
Diwali Festival of Lights
dom the man in charge of funeral pyres; belongs to the untouchable caste
Durga goddess of destruction
Durga Festival festival to celebrate the Goddess Durga
Gandhiji Zindabad “Long live Gandhiji”
ganga-jamuna game similar to hopscotch
ghat bathing area on the river; also location of platforms on which funeral pyres are lit
Gita Indian holy book
gopis Krishna’s female consorts
gulab jamuns fried Indian sweets soaked in syrup
Hai Ram exclamation meaning “Oh God!”
Hajipur a city located in the state of Bihar, India
Haldi Uptan a ceremony in which turmeric is applied to beautify the bride
haram zadi daughter of a bastard
hijras eunuchs
hookah hubble-bubble, a smoking apparatus
howda a saddle on an elephant to accommodate people
Jai Shree Krishna salute to the god Krish
na
japa incantation in which a god’s name is repeated
jhola Bengali term for a large cloth pouch
ji a suffix added to a person’s name in order to show respect for age or rank
Juthika Roy famous Indian religious songstress
kadamba flowering tree with large, white, ball-like flowers
Kalidas famous Indian poet
kanya daan giving away of daughter in marriage
karahi a wok-shaped pan used for frying
Karmi Ghat name of a particular ghat
katha paste a red betel-nut paste, which is applied to the fresh betel leaf for flavour
khaddar hand loom spun cotton
kheer a rice sweet
Krishna a god
kum-kum red paste used on ceremonial occasions
kurta a shirt
laddoo a sweet made of lentils
Lakshman brother of Ram
Lakshmi goddess of luck, wealth and prosperity (also called Bhagyalakshmi)
leechee a fruit
lingam black stone representing the god Shiva’s phallus; symbolizes creative energy
Mahabharata book of holy Indian stories
Maha Shivratri main festival to celebrate the god Shiva
mandir Hindu temple
mangal-sutra a necklace worn by a married woman
Manusmriti Lord Manu’s book of laws
Meghdoot cloud messenger
mishti-doi a sweet made out of yogurt
mithai Indian sweets
Mohandas Gandhi Gandhi’s full name
moksha a liberation of the soul obtained through pure living
Nainital a hill resort in the south of India
nazar evil eye
Omkarnath Thakur famous Indian classical singer
oolu-oolu ululation