Blueprint for Love

by Chatura Rao

  Zahyan had called a taxi. They loaded his and Mahnoor’s belongings into it. The four drove out of Puneet Nagar. When they reached the crossing from where Suveer and Reva would take a different route, Mahnoor hugged Reva very tight.

  ‘Please take good care of Suveer bhaijaan. He has suffered,’ she said simply, making a lump come to Reva’s throat. How was Mahnoor to know that Suveer was not her husband but an indefinable element in her life; the man she’d felt so right with, the man she would be leaving behind.

  ‘Be well, Noora,’ she said, addressing Mahnoor by the name she had told Reva her family called her by. ‘We will meet again.’

  ‘Inshallah,’ Mahnoor nodded.

  ‘Khuda haafez,’ Zahyan broke in, urgently ushering her into the waiting taxi. ‘Dawn is about to break. We will talk soon,’ he said to Suveer. The taxi drove off.

  Reva’s heart was heavy to see them go. She hoped that they would heal from what had befallen them, whether or not Suveer’s feature brought them justice.

  20

  U

  h, it’s a moving story alright,’ Ranjan Dayal, Suveer’s news producer said the day after Suveer had turned it in, his tone bland and placatory.

  ‘The sound of the mob cursing, etcetera,’ Ranjan waved his hand, ‘that’s pretty startling.’ He rocked back and forth in his chair. ‘But if you’d shot videos–ya okay, I know you were being roughed up–but those would’ve worked really well. We could have aired them on PBS Edgy, primetime.’

  ‘I was commissioned to make a sound feature,’ Suveer reminded him mildly.

  ‘Ya, I admit that,’ Ranjan scratched his beard and rubbed his right eye behind his spectacles.

  ‘Despite that I’ve taken pictures and videos and turned out an audio-visual.’

  ‘But they’re not interesting enough pics! If you’d had the presence of mind to shoot Mahnoor Sheikh and her husband in that house, and other stuff . . . You did have a camera. The visuals in your feature show the bungalow from the outside and from the inside and the Bhajan singers. That’s it. Pretty boring. Won’t make a mark. You need arresting or shocking images for people to sit up and take notice. Get the picture? Punning. Ha ha.’

  Suveer had taken pictures and videos of Zahyan and Mahnoor at their house that night, but he wasn’t about to share these with his Producer. They might be leaked into the wider media. He had to protect their privacy.

  ‘Plus this feature you’ve made,’ Ranjan went on, ‘this woman is talking about pretty ordinary things.’

  ‘You just said it moved you,’ Suveer pointed out.

  ‘But it doesn’t stand out as special in an already overcrowded news space!’ Ranjan shot back.

  ‘Look at the national news,’ he continued, randomly picking up newspapers from the pile on his table. ‘Murder by mothers of their daughters, gang rapes of tribal women by State security forces. . . Now if only the way you’d got the victim to tell her story was more interesting. More juicy details–I mean what exactly did they say and do to her. It has to be in-your-face to garner eyeballs!’

  Suveer lost interest. He barely pretended to listen as Ranjan took apart the feature he’d put himself on the line for.

  ‘Not that I need to teach you, you have all the experience. And it’s not that your story isn’t the moving tale of an innocent . . .’ Ranjan shrugged resignedly.

  Suveer stood up and excused himself saying he would come in later to be briefed about his next assignment.

  ‘We’ll run this story,’ Ranjan called out after him. ‘But not on prime time news.’ And not before the National Elections, Suveer was certain, which were beginning in three days.

  He left the eight-storey office block with its smokers in the stairwell, most of them with smart phones to their ears, or speaking with each other in loud expletives and guffaws. He walked out into the side lanes of this office district in west Delhi.

  The air was chill, though not crisp and invigorating like the air of his hometown this time of the year. Still it was a relief to be out and walking. He’d felt like he couldn’t breathe inside his Producer’s office. He stopped at the corner stall and bought a piping hot egg frankie. He had had nothing to eat since his breakfast of muesli and a banana at 8 am this morning and it was nearly 3 pm now.

  He ate the frankie quickly and then asked the stall owner for a cup of tea. He’d done the best job he could with Mahnoor’s feature. Ranjan’s dismissal left him feeling numb. He had about forty five minutes before his next meeting with Ranjan and Shwetalena, Ranjan’s daughter, who was in charge of scouting out and allocating stories to their team of journalists. He decided to take a walk to clear his head.

  Before he started out on his crutches, Suveer took his iPod out and plugged in his earphones. He found the track he’d called ‘Where is Home’, and played it to listen, if possible, with some objectivity.

  He’d begun by narrating the case of Number 37, Puneet Nagar, in a bare way, simply outlining facts about the controversy surrounding the house. Then he switched to his own point of view of the incident, his spotting of Mahnoor in the lane behind Number 37, his discovery of her identity vis-a-vis the bungalow called Ishq.

  He’d interspersed his narration about the group gathered outside 37, with sounds of the religious singing and chanting of the Party workers. Then he had put in parts of Hareshbhai Solanki’s speech: his call for the enforcement of the Disturbed Areas Act, and finally, his aggressive closing lines. ‘In our times too, there must be a logical separation of spaces. If terrorists or those that harbour them come to live in our part of the city, we will pelt them with rotten tomatoes, aiming them like the powerful arrows of Ram. We will spit on them. Or do worse.’

  Suveer then let night sounds in the city take over from Hareshbhai’s threat–the rattle of a cicada, passing vehicles, and tea being prepared and placed on the dining table, sound recorded within Mahnoor’s home. And then her clear, young voice.

  ‘My name is Mahnoor Sheikh. I am 24 years old. I have been married two years. I have no children. I also have no job now, and no home.

  ‘My husband is a Science teacher. I work as an assistant at a Nursery School here in Gandhinagar.

  ‘Used to work,’ she corrected herself. ‘We had to resign from our jobs, when. . . when I was attacked by some people. Because I am a Muslim and because my uncle-in-law owns House number 37 in Puneet Nagar. The neighbours don’t want us here. Perhaps we are not welcome in other places in our country too. Where is home?’ Her voice trailed away, as she actually read aloud another of Suveer’s questions, wondering how to answer it.

  Zahyan’s voice then, in a staccato manner, ‘The house was built in 1986. It is a double-storied brick mansion with a drawing room, dining room, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a kitchen, a storeroom and a prayer chamber.

  ‘The bathroom fittings are old. Some are rusty. They will need to be changed. Some electrical work and plumbing are required. Maybe some re-tiling too. It would be a pleasant house . . . for anyone to live in. Anyone can live here without a problem who is a Hindu by religion.’ He laughed drily saying this.

  ‘I grew up in Baroda,’ Mahnoor continued. ‘When I was young, we lived in a mixed colony. Mixed meaning my neighbours were of different religions. I would be more at my Parsi friend Shireen’s place than at my own home. I loved their food and wanted to go to the Agiary with them, but my mother said that I could not. She felt that Shireen’s mother may not like this.

  ‘When I was 17 years old, I fasted for Karwa Chauth. You know what that is?’ She asked in her girlish way. ‘Punjabi women don’t eat food nor drink water for one day, for the good health of their husbands. So my Hindu friends told me that if I wanted a husband who looked like Akshay Kumar–I’m a big fan of Akshay–I should keep a Karwa Chauth fast for such a man. I fasted at Karwa Chauth two years in a row. And see, my Zahyan, my husband, actually looks like Akshay Kumar, doesn’t he? A little bit?’ The smile in her voice came through.

  ‘They say because we’re Mus
lims, we pollute this place,’ Zahyan said grimly.

  The sounds of the bhajan group, at the tail end of a chant, played out. Solanki’s voice rose in a threat: ‘We’ll teach them a lesson for coming to our area, flaunting money power . . . all Pakistani money, terror money! They dare to buy a house here and pollute our property? We’ll do the same to them.’

  And then the snarl of the mob, the call for blood, the abuses and thrashing, Mahnoor and Suveer’s screams and sobs. The slogan overriding their suffering: Bharat Mata ki Jai!

  Suveer concluded with his own voice: ‘On November 18th 2015, the state police stood and watched while a young woman was assaulted by a mob in Puneet Nagar, Gandhinagar. She was returning home from the nursery school she works at, to pick up some folders she had forgotten. Members of the minority community she belongs to are clearly unwelcome here.’

  Mahnoor, in between sobs, said, ‘The women hammered me with their fists and they kicked me down to the ground. I felt. . . as if I was not human anymore. Just some dirt or a thing to break.’

  ‘Article 19 of the Indian Constitution assures the fundamental right of every citizen to reside and settle in any part of India,’ Suveer said. ‘There should be no terms, no conditions attached to making a place your home. But the reality is very different. Some among us are forced to ask the question, “where is home”.’

  Mahnoor’s voice repeated dazedly: ‘Where is my home?’ After a pause, she answered, ‘Now. . . nowhere.’

  Suveer’s phone rang, shaking him out of a sort of stupor he’d gone into. He’d hobbled on his crutches along streets and patches of pavement, dodging traffic and people like his feet had a sense of their own. He looked around and realised he’d walked about a kilometre from the office. His knee was beginning to throb. He’d be late getting back for his meeting with Ranjan and Shwetalena even if he took a rickshaw back. He looked at his phone. Zahyan was calling.

  ‘Salaam aleikum. When will the news show come on the radio?’ he asked, formal and abrupt, making Suveer suspect he wasn’t alone.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Suveer admitted.

  ‘Did your boss not like what you made?’ Zahyan had read his tone correctly. Or he had simply been anticipating Suveer’s failure.

  ‘He thinks it’s just an ordinary story among so many other stories of violence,’ Suveer said honestly. ‘How is Mahnoor? Where are you both now?’

  ‘She is alright by God’s grace. But I don’t wish to tell you where we are. I’m not sure if I can trust you. You had promised to make a story that would get us justice,’ Zahyan said, tense and cold.

  Taken aback by his words, Suveer did not respond. Then he pulled himself together.

  ‘Listen, come home with me to the Kumaon for a few days. It will be good for Mahnoor.’ He stopped short of saying ‘and you.’

  Zahyan paused. ‘Maybe we will. But not now. You have to understand that my heart burns, my head grows hot when I think of the dishonour and cruelty my wife has suffered. How can I let it go? Would you have been able to let it go, brother?’

  The traffic seemed to grow more stridently noisy around Suveer. He felt the miles between Zahyan and himself widen. He had regular nightmares of the day Mahnoor and he had been attacked. His physical injuries were a long way from healing. But Zahyan who had not actually been there nurtured outrage and aggressively craved redressal. He seemed more the victim than Mahnoor and Suveer.

  Was it entirely for Mahnoor, or to assuage some kind of guilt that dogged him–guilt for not having preempted the incident at Puneet Nagar? Perhaps he regretted not pressing charges against the assailants. Or wished he was the one, not Suveer, who had fought with them and had his bones broken for it! Suveer caught himself judging Zahyan harshly.

  What he did sense, like he always knew the presence of hills north of his home wherever he was, was that Zahyan carried some older guilt towards his wife. But this was something beyond what Suveer was privy to.

  ‘Perhaps I would leave it alone,’ he said shortly in reply to Zahyan’s question. ‘I would make my peace at this point. You have to leave wounds alone if they have to heal. Of course you will make your own choices on this. Good luck . . .’

  ‘Thank you for your help,’ Zahyan said in a low voice. ‘Khuda haafez.’

  ‘Please keep in touch,’ Suveer mumbled, but the person on the other end was gone.

  21

  S

  hwetalena welcomed him into her father’s empty cubicle with a raised eyebrow at his cast-clad leg and crutches.

  ‘Dad’s gone to meet somebody. So it’s just you and me.’

  The nose pin glittered and her lipstick which outlined her full lips was dark to near black. She wore her long hair trussed up on the top of her head, red streaked locks descending about her long, slim neck.

  The fledgling digital news channel Ranjan and Shwetalena had started alongside their radio feature company was called PBS Edgy. Two years ago an ‘edgy’ telling by Shweta and her friends about a bar dancer being forced into sex work, got their channel sudden notice.

  Shweta was 23 years old and did not have much experience, but Ranjan began to trust her judgment on stories exactly for this reason.

  ‘She has a talent for picking a story and taking a brash, shortsighted, sensational angle,’ Ranjan had chuckled cynically over a drink. ‘And she really gets how to pitch it so it gets views. All ingredients to success in today’s news space! Cheers!’

  Suveer had nursed his drink quietly. He believed in nuanced, ‘objective’ coverage. His opinion on her ideas and interventions was bleak: Shweta’s way meant putting more than an ethic or two aside in the bid to garner views.

  Now Suveer nodded in greeting, but she moved in for a hug and pressed subtly into him. The girl made Suveer uneasy. He’d have liked to have maintained a little more distance with her. But as she’d pronounced, it would have to be just him and her discussing the fate of Suveer’s sound feature.

  ‘So, I listened to Where is Home,’ she began as soon as he’d eased himself onto the small sofa in the cubicle.

  She sat on a chair, her shapely denim-clad calf extended in his direction; knee just a couple of inches away from his good knee. The silver bracelets on her right wrist jangled as she reached a hand up to adjust the clasp holding her hair in place. All this was deliberate and yet was not exclusively for him. He’d seen her do it at other meetings. It was her way of drawing the focus in the room to herself.

  ‘I really liked it, Suveer. You’ve outdone yourself,’ she said, surprising him by saying quite the opposite of what Ranjan had a couple of hours earlier. ‘Perhaps because it’s your own story, meaning, you were affected too. My father thinks it’s too pheeka and won’t leave an impression. But it’s a helluva story and you! You risked your life to record in this bungalow. What was it . . . Ishq! Passionate love. And violence just at its doorstep. Yeah, it’s a story alright. So I have a plan for this feature.’ She looked into his eyes.

  Suveer was intrigued despite being wary of her tactics.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked after a longish pause had ensued.

  ‘I recently spoke with Amar Yadav, the spokesperson of TKL–you know the new secular front gig that the Naya Savera Party has cobbled together in Gujarat? This is exactly the kind of story they’re looking for to set the ruling party on its back foot. All right don’t freak out,’ she warned. The look on his face suggested that he did not like the idea of his feature being used as a pawn in a political game.

  ‘As Press we do have a responsibility to expose crimes of this nature. The people who attacked you should be brought to book, agreed?’ she asked.

  He could not deny that he wanted justice. The recent conversation, in which Zahyan had accused him of not coming through for them, had left him raw. Suveer had been reminded of the risk, pain and difficulty that Mahnoor had had to undergo to record the incident. If Suveer could not get the story out before the elections, it would lose its immediacy. He’d have let them all down–even Reva who�
��d staked so much to support the making of the feature. It would have been for nothing.

  ‘We need to add supporting visuals and maybe a line or two to the narration,’ Shwetalena pressed home. ‘Give me the recorded footage and I’m sure you took reference pictures of the bungalow, so those too. It will be a fantastic local story to put out through the cable network in Gujarat. Immediately. The elections are only three days away.’

  ‘Alright.’ Suveer hauled himself off the low sofa and hobbled out of the cubicle. What should have been a respectable news feature on a web portal or radio channel was going to be peddled to local cable operators. It would benefit the new coalition, TKL, and nobody else. He paused at the stairwell to light a cigarette. No, that was not strictly true. It would benefit the cause of justice, a part of him insisted. Justice for Mahnoor. Perhaps this was better than letting what had been visited upon her die a quiet death.

  22

  R

  eva stepped into her apartment and placed her handbag on the floor before heading into the kitchen for a much-needed drink of water. In the months of December and January the Mumbai sun lost some of its year-round harshness, so the afternoon light that came in the window was silvery gold. Her in-laws would be taking a nap. Tarun, she guessed, was in his office.

  The place had the familiar scents of any middle-class home: freshly laundered clothes and curtains, floor and vessel detergents, the fragrance of powders, soaps and creams applied on bodies, and the smell of masala that regularly spiced food cooked within these walls. Pervading everything is the singular smell that a dwelling place nurtures, the peculiar smell of its inhabitants’ mood and disposition. Reva could tell that the apartment had not been happy in her absence. Her in-laws had fretted and husband had withdrawn into a cavern of roiling speculation.

  Reva, for her part, found the scents and smells of the apartment she’d shared with Tarun for six years now, alien. She was returning from other places, almost as if from another reality. She’d never accustomed herself here, and now so much had changed within and for her.