by Chatura Rao
They locked the rooms of the bungalow as quickly as they could and let themselves out through the back.
17
A
ll was quiet. In the rented house the four took their places around the low square table that was at the centre of Mahnoor’s living room, sitting on mattresses on the floor. They were gathered around parathas and cups of tea she’d set out, which they quickly ate and drank without speaking except to appreciate her cooking.
After clearing away the plates and cups, Suveer set out his recording equipment. He asked Mahnoor to sit adjacent to him. He handed her a lapel mike which Zahyan immediately undertook to fasten. Reva sat ready to listen and help, if needed. She seemed clean-washed by tears she’d shed in private at the bungalow, clear about her decision to leave for Mumbai at daybreak.
He took a long breath, then smiled at Mahnoor. ‘Try to answer in full sentences at first,’ he advised gently. She nodded, her eyes darting nervously to Zahyan’s serious face.
‘Can you tell me your full name and your profession?’
‘My name is Mahnoor Sheikh. I assist the Principal of a nursery school.’
Her voice was high and clear, the voice of a young person. If Reva had heard this narration on the radio, she would have imagined Mahnoor’s scrubbed, round face as being that of the speaker. The girl was so simply herself.
‘Was, I mean. I will resign from my job today.’
‘Resign why?’
‘I was coming home to fetch some folders which I had forgotten,’ Mahnoor began, ‘when a group of people attacked me.’
‘Why did they attack you?’
‘Because I’m a Muslim.’
‘So,’ he asked, ‘had you done something to make these people unhappy?’
Mahnoor paused in confusion and Zahyan jumped in: ‘What do you mean by that question?’
‘Jaan,’ Mahnoor admonished softly, but he shrugged her off.
‘You know she did not do anything to bring on their aggression!’
‘Calm down,’ Suveer said. ‘You have to trust me to ask the right questions.’
Zahyan got up and began pacing, a large animal in a small space, intensely agitated.
‘What do I have to go by? Maybe you won’t do a good job of this. We are risking our lives to spend these hours with you. The story must get out and be an important thing. It should grant Mahnoor justice!’
‘I can’t promise that,’ Suveer said flatly. ‘But I will try to tell the story to the best of my ability.’ Reva saw the lines deepen around his eyes, the tremour of exhaustion in his hands. She hurt for him. For them all.
‘If you can’t promise, what’s the point,’ Zahyan hissed, ‘of all this!’ He gestured violently at the empty plates and cups on the kitchen counter, at the room so carefully cleaned and his wife looking at him anxious and wide-eyed, for whom this was not an easy story to recount.
‘We’ve had to resign from our jobs, sneak into our own house; I’ve stopped believing that we can claim a life of dignity, now or in the future. Every minute in this house makes me sick. My skin crawls as if the walls have eyes that watch us. My whole life and the work I put in to arrive this far has ended here–here in this hateful place.’
He sank down against a wall and Mahnoor joined him, huddling close. The room was silent except for his ragged breath and her speaking softly to him. Finally she left him and returned to the table.
‘Can we give it another try?’ Suveer asked. He turned to Mahnoor. ‘I won’t ask you about yesterday’s experience at first. Instead I’ll ask easier questions. We’ll take it slow.’
Mahnoor darted a nervous glance at Zahyan. ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ she said uneasily.
‘I can tell you a story in exchange for the story you tell me . . .’
Mahnoor looked at Suveer, her eyes brightening. ‘You will tell?’
‘Record whatever you need to right now,’ Zahyan cut in. ‘We leave before dawn.’
‘But I will hear your story first,’ Mahnoor was chanting softly. ‘Your story in exchange for mine.’
Reva wondered at the resilience of this child-woman, the lines of whose cheeks, even in this dark hour, cradled a smile.
18
I
n the Kumaon foothills of the Himalaya, close to the Corbett National Park, is where my parents live. The village is not small nor very large–there are about 240 households and in my childhood, there were even fewer. But elephants and leopards still roam the jungle patches around the river that borders the village.
‘The village, now . . .’ he smiled and Reva could feel his joy. ‘The village has so many birds, you would have trouble counting the different species you’d spot in just an hour. They swing between the bushes and trees and into our home. My favourite–my mother’s and my favourite place–is our back porch where somehow there are always birds nesting . . . sunbirds, rock chats, thrushes and many more. Those few square feet are the home I return to time and again.’
‘Where do you live now?’ Mahnoor asked.
‘I live in Delhi. But that, and even this city, lie south of my true home.
‘My mother’s name is Uma. Here is a story from her collection for you,’ he said to Mahnoor, as to a child. ‘It is about an unusual friendship that saved her from trouble.’
‘Like ours?’ Mahnoor asked.
‘Like ours,’ Suveer answered, simply. ‘His name was Meghraj. His name meant the cloud king, and the villagers downhill thought he had a kind of magic about him.
‘Ma, I mean Uma, was around eleven years old then. She went to stay with her aunt in a village called Raikholi in the hills that summer, because her father was ill and everyone was busy at the hospital and at home. Her mother had written to her brother’s wife, Rani Maami, to come to fetch her.
‘It was an old house with a living room, kitchen, and a room for Rani Maami and Uma’s uncle Benilal Maama to sleep in. Ben Maama had placed a folding bed for Uma in the room that Rani Maami’s three dogs slept in.
‘There were two store rooms. These were full of heavy old furniture–wardrobes, beds and tables, all stacked up on each other like awkward acrobats–a leg up here, a door open there, a clock wedged between. Uma wandered into broken cupboards and crawled out from under three-legged tables. There was a lot of dust and things scrabbled and squittered there,’ Suveer said.
‘Rats!’ Mahnoor shuddered.
‘I like mice,’ Reva remarked wryly. ‘I’d have caught two and made them my pets and trained them to tease the dogs!’
‘All her playing there ended in the first week.’
‘Why?’ Mahnoor asked.
‘For one thing Rani Maami didn’t like her playing with the old furniture. Perhaps there were nails and sharp edges, and she might have gotten hurt. And then, there were the shadows. Light didn’t get very far into the house. Uma noticed shadows everywhere, that in the late afternoons grew thicker … somehow older,’ Suveer recounted.
Reva didn’t find Uma’s memory of unease puzzling. She knew that old houses contained the ghosts of those who’d lived there before. Sometimes old houses were the ghosts that haunted you even after their walls had come down.
‘Uma grew lonely. Her aunt and uncle did not speak with her much. Since they were keeping her just one summer, they didn’t think it necessary for her to make friends and so discouraged her playing with the neighbours’ children. Rani Maami’s dogs were wild and nipped her if she tried to pet or play with them. Then, the dampness of the house made her fall ill.
‘While she lay in bed with a fever, sometimes high, the shadows and shapes on the walls grew three-dimensional, real in some way. By the light of the night lamp she saw the shape of a bearded face on the wall. She dozed off. But when she woke up, the face had slit eyes that watched her.
“‘Have you gone crazy?!’’ Rani Maami asked her, hurriedly putting down the tepid soup she’d brought and grazing her forehead with her fingertips to check for a fever, when Uma fearfully pointed out the
face on the wall.
‘It was just one summer you’d think,’ Suveer said, ‘but each day that she lay in bed sick felt like a month there.’
‘She was just a girl,’ Reva said, sorry for the lonely child.
‘Lying there in bed,’ Suveer went on, ‘she watched the shapes and shadows on the wall and met through them, people and creatures, strange and alien. But she also met the old man–the cloud king–who knew everything.’
‘In a dream?’ Zahyan hazarded, drawn into the story despite himself. His mother had claimed to see djinns and fairies during her bouts of depression. He had never spoken about it to anyone.
Suveer said, ‘No, he was real, a doctor in the village. He saved the lives of dogs, goats, cows–and her life too.’
‘Uma was confined to her bed for two weeks of illness before Doctor Rawat was called. Her veterinarian was the only doctor Rani Maami trusted.
‘He was a tall man with ruddy cheeks and crinkles by his eyes. These were laugh lines and lines that had come from squinting against the mountain light, sharp and clear in the many summers he’d spent here.
“‘Hello,’’ he said, his keen eyes taking in her quiet pale face. “I’m not used to treating human children, so I’ll be more comfortable if you choose an animal and be like it. It will be easier for me to make you well.’’
‘Uma stared at him, properly awake for the first time in many days. He was asking her to take on a shape! “I’m a bird.’’
“’How about a red-headed thrush? It’s medium-sized, of medium-strength, neat and alert . . . That’s what you’re like.’’
“’Okay,’’ Uma agreed, smiling a little.
“’Sit on your haunches,’’ he said, gently lifting her to sitting. ‘Now get off the bed and walk in a hopping way–yes, like that–out of this dark room, through the next one, and out of the front door!’’
‘Uma stood in the sunshine, his arm supporting her, looking down till her eyes cleared and the dizziness faded. She saw the grass and pebbles under her feet. She moved her toes in them and did a stiff walkaround. She shrugged her shoulders to test her wings. She rolled her neck like a bird, and pursed her mouth. The doctor smiled. His eyes took on a faraway look and he whistled long and low. He paused, then whistled again. Uma looked in the direction he was gazing.
‘They stayed that way, the old man and the girl on the porch of the rundown house, their eyes on the trees of summer. Then they heard a reply from among the branches: a long and low whistle, the reply of a winged friend. Both breathed now, and laughed, Doctor Rawat holding her ‘wingtip’, as he called it.
‘Doctor Rawat gave Uma medicines to make her well. He also got Rani Maami to shift Uma into the sunlit garden for part of the day, and to feed her piping hot soup. He told Rani Maami to find her a book to read sitting in the chair outdoors.
‘She was relieved to be away from the damp walls. In the garden there was always a breeze and when she could walk a little, Uma made twig-and-mud houses and played with ants, fallen fruits and flowers and she wasn’t so sad anymore.’
‘Why was he called the cloud king?’ Reva asked when Suveer had fallen silent.
‘That’s another story,’ Suveer replied. ‘Someday my mother might tell it to you herself.’ He lowered his voice as he said this and Zahyan was aware of a question that lingered between them. Reva did not reply, only looked down at her hands.
‘I want to meet her and hear about the cloud king,’ Mahnoor piped up.
‘Come home,’ Suveer said, surprising Reva very much. It was rare for Suveer to invite anyone to his home, his one sanctuary. He must have wished from the heart for these people, virtual strangers to him, to find peace. He had asked Reva to come too, in his own way, but her reserve had silenced him.
‘It’s far from here,’ he explained to Zahyan, meaning the distance metaphorically, too. ‘About twelve hundred kilometres. You’d have to change trains at New Delhi for one that takes you to Kathgodam junction. But once in my village, you could rest.’
‘Rest? We don’t have jobs, and no home,’ Zahyan said tensely. ‘There’s a struggle ahead of us. But it’s about time for you to stop rambling on about birds and vacations and interview Mahnoor–make a story that has the power to deliver justice.’
Suveer felt Reva and Mahnoor stiffen at Zahyan’s abrasive tone. He was upbraiding them all for indulging in what he saw as childish play, whereas Suveer had meant to help Mahnoor relax in preparation for her recording.
‘Not just now,’ Suveer replied, his tone deliberately even. ‘Let’s take a break. I need to rest for half an hour before I can go on.’
‘Please take the bedroom,’ Mahnoor said, but Suveer shook his head.
‘This mattress is good enough. Could you put the light out?’
Zahyan got up and went defeatedly to the bedroom, switching the living room light off on his way. Touching Reva’s shoulder reassuringly Mahnoor followed him.
In the darkness of the living room, Suveer stretched out on the mattress and Reva leaned against a wall on the other side of the centre table. He was so tired that to breathe was an effort.
She got up and went over to him, stretched out by his side, put an arm across him and her palm over his heart. He allowed her to adjust herself so her cheek was pillowed on his arm, her breast against his side. He did not know why her presence made him feel so content. She offered no solution to the problem of gaining Zahyan’s trust, the challenge of crafting Mahnoor’s story. She could not even assure him of her continuing friendship; he knew she was about to leave him with no promise to return. Perhaps it was her courage–that she risked her life to be here–or her compassion. He moved closer into her embrace and slept.
Suveer woke up around 2:20 am. He shifted to sit at the table with his equipment, leaving Reva, her long hair framing a face relaxed in sleep. The others were not to be seen, so he set about listening, in the still night through his headphones, to the bytes he’d captured so far.
19
W
hen Suveer called for a break, Zahyan and Mahnoor went to their bedroom to rest. She’d never seen him this tense. Not just tense but exhibiting a misplaced aggression towards Suveer who’d put himself in such danger for her.
Mahnoor knew that Zahyan, being a caregiver to his siblings and unpredictable mother since childhood, had prided himself on possessing a sound instinct for danger. To have failed to predict that the trouble brewing in Puneet Nagar might hurt Mahnoor had shaken the foundations of his faith in himself. He felt keenly, at this moment, the fact that he could not bring her justice. That he had neither the power nor the tools for it.
In the little light that filtered in she saw his dark silhouette place itself on the edge of the bed. He rested his head in his hands and tiredly pressed his temples and eyes, then ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. Mahnoor slid across the bed to him to put a hand tentatively to his shoulder.
‘I’ll never get it right,’ he said, his back to her. ‘I’ve only ever hurt you.’
That’s not true, she protested silently. You’ve loved and protected me, she said in her heart to him as he turned her way to lie down. She drew him into her arms. They lay with his head cradled against her shoulder.
Mahnoor remembered how her breath had lodged in her throat the first time she saw him at the cafe when Fabeha introduced them: Zahyan, tall and strong, composed in equal measure of suffering and dreams. She had known immediately that he was the man for her. She’d meant to ease his responsibilities by sharing them. Taking up the job at the nursery school had meant overcoming her fears and stepping out of the sheltered life she’d led. She’d accepted it in order to contribute to their household income. She cooked good, tasty food for him so he would be healthy.
She placed her lips to his forehead and cheeks and the dark hollows beneath his eyes. He tilted his head back a little and she moved her lips to his. Zahyan stilled as if a bird or a deer had come to eat from his hand. She paused there and then sl
id her hand along his ribcage and the muscle that draped it. His mouth found hers and they kissed.
She slipped her hand under his t-shirt and slowly down to the button of his jeans, the hair on his chest springy under her soft palm. Zahyan unhooked the buttons on her kurta and she sat up to help him slip it over her head. They kissed passionately as he found her in this conflicting time, found her as he never had in the safer spaces of their life. The irony of it was not lost on him, making love in this hated place.
Suveer had dozed off with his head on his arms when they came back to the table. Mahnoor sat down by him and Zahyan went to the stove to make coffee for them.
‘Bhaijaan,’ she said and he came awake immediately. He rubbed his eyes and stretched. He handed her the lapel mike with an inquiring glance towards her husband who had his back to them. She nodded and he passed her a piece of paper on which he’d written questions. She read them as he helped her clip on the mike. 1. Introduce yourself, Suveer had written.
‘My name is Mahnoor Sheikh,’ she began again. ‘I am 24 years old. I have been married two years. I have no children. I also have no job now, and no home.’
Reva woke up. She joined the rest at the table to listen to Mahnoor. Without Suveer actually asking her about the incident of violence, Mahnoor spilt forth her terror and pain at being assaulted. She wept and Zahyan cried too. How would they heal? How would Suveer heal, Reva worried. He was torn apart. His desperation to take Mahnoor’s story to the public came from a dark place within him. She sensed dimly that this might not bode well for anybody.
As soon as they were done recording, Zahyan urged them to get ready to leave.
‘People here rise early,’ he said. ‘We should be gone before 4 am.’
Reva could see that Suveer too was impatient to leave, in a hurry to head back to Delhi. He was hard on the injured knee and wrist, moving too fast while packing his things and helping Zahyan clear up the place.
Watching him, Reva wished with all her heart for him to find peace. She knew she could not help him any further. Her own demons had risen from their slumber: she’d be leaving him to return to her old life, too altered to play her old roles.