A Girl & a River

by K R Usha

  For this time round, there was an urgency, an unpredictability in the air that was new, even for their town. Moreover, the authorities had very foolishly arrested all the leaders of any stature who were associated with the Congress and the students seemed to have taken over. Still, the crowds at the meetings were growing thicker, and the district commissioner and the police were becoming jumpy. During the very first week of the demonstrations, when the volunteers had tried to shut down the mandi, urging the traders to go home, the district commissioner had arrested many of them. Narayana Rao and the others, even the ‘second line’ of command of the Congress in town was behind bars, but still the processions continued and more people gathered. Other than asking the British to read the writing on the wall, undeniably the maharaja was being asked to recognize the democratic script as well.

  Rumours were that a mammoth meeting was being planned. But the actual date and the venue were being kept secret. No one knew what would actually happen once the groups met. The authorities had been unsuccessful so far in unearthing the kingpin, the person or the group that was commanding the meeting. The students had sworn that every school in town and the lone Intermediate College would be represented. The ban on public meetings only seemed to provide a keener edge to the proceedings. Shyam and a few others had set off on a cycling tour of the villages, on a ‘consciousness raising’ campaign.

  In the Government High School field, after school was over, unknown to the authorities—or perhaps they pretended it was just another cricket group in the field—under the tutelage of the student volunteers, the boys ‘rehearsed’ their songs and slogans for the big day. ‘Hindu–Muslim Ek Ho!’ the volunteer would command from the head of the line, for the rank and file to chant after him. Only, the sheer unfamiliarity of the Hindi language in the deep south, and the reinforcement of set patterns led the boys to echo, ‘Hindu–Muslim Ek Do!’ completely in opposition to the sentiment being expressed. Sadly, no one caught the joke or corrected the boys. There were other such moments of inadvertent black humour. At the Samaja meetings, the women sang, in perfect melody, Mohammed Iqbal’s, ‘Saare jahan se achcha, Hindustan hamara’, in praise of their Hindustan more beautiful than the whole world, but when they stretched out the ‘Hindoo-sa-tan’ there was some speculation whether the Hindus were slyly being called ‘satans’ or ‘shaitans’. But such things notwithstanding, the practice sessions continued in preparation of the mother of all public meetings.

  The demonstrators grew bolder. Led only by students, now that all the ‘recognized’ leaders had been arrested or gone into hiding, they did daring, spasmodic things. The government offices in town had braced themselves to face demonstrations of any sort and the district commissioner had strictly forbidden them from closing. A delegation of students forced their way into the courts one morning and physically unseated the judge, saying they’d conduct the case themselves in a ‘people’s court’; they walked into the land records office and scattered all the papers, ‘in the interests of equitable justice’ and forced the clerks to shout ‘Bharat mata ki jai!’ and ‘Gandhiji ki jai!’ after them. There had been no train to Shimoga this past week as a section of the tracks, close to the town, had been dug up.

  Every time a slogan against the British or the maharaja appeared on the walls of government buildings, the district commissioner would assiduously have the wall white washed, but now he found that there were far too many walls in town to reclaim. One evening the district commissioner found the ‘national’ flag, the tricolour with the charkha in the centre, flying on the flag post above his office—someone had shinned up the drainpipe at night and hoisted it. The next day, he sent for the reserve police from Bangalore. Already, he had lost his patience as his men had not been able to catch the students who were allegedly behind the new spate of ‘bold’ acts.

  Two days before the event, Timrayee brought Kaveri a note from Shanta. There were but two cryptic lines in the note but she understood perfectly. She must compliment him, she tucked away the aside into her mind, on how much his skills in composition had improved. Why, the two lines could qualify as poetry. In the margin of the note was a rough sketch of a masked face. Take heart from her, it said. The note, a bare slip of paper, was already crumpled when she received it from Timrayee’s retreating hand. She read it twice and burnt it.

  For two days she churned it in her mind. When she stood at the gate each morning, watching the student processions go past singing, she felt a surging restlessness, as if the world were going past her house and leaving her behind; it was only her father’s admonishing breath, hot on her back, that kept her from opening the latch and slipping out. The more she thought of it, the more certain did she become, the more urgent Shyam’s presence and words grew and the more unreasonable her father’s diktat. Without the antidote of her mother’s influence, her father seemed more prickly and overbearing—with Setu as his willing agent; readily she imagined herself a victim of his caprice. As she sat on the swing in the courtyard, pushing herself listlessly, a vacant look on her face, Setu watched her.

  That morning, Kaveri waited for Setu to leave for school before ironing her white khadi sari with the green border. In the afternoon, after school, Setu hung around in the grounds to watch the contingent of boys marching round, chanting ‘Hindu-Muslim Ek Do!’, and wondered whether there would be a variation in their routine. He usually waited for them to finish marching, after which they would break up and play cricket before going home. Setu scrupulously stayed out of the marching but joined in the cricket. But four o’clock saw a sudden upward pitch in the excitement. Even as they were marching, rather listlessly, for the nth time round the field, one of the boys from the Intermediate College came running and the crowd of dust halted. The ‘leaders’ immediately went into a huddle and the rank and file started shuffling and pushing. One of the leaders turned round and called them to order, giving the nearest boy a smart rap on the head. They were to maintain perfect discipline, no shuffling or running or pushing, he said. Didn’t they want independence? And how would they get it if they kept on talking in line? The leaders and the messenger from the Intermediate College consulted some more and then one of them turned round to announce that they would be marching to the church square and they would be taking the longer route. It would take them twenty minutes to march there if they were quick and in step and did not stop midway. So, Setu thought, today was the day. And no doubt they would be taking the longer route, for the volunteers were preparing to pour ragi batter on the cobblestones leading to the Square, so that the horses of the mounted police would slip when they rode in. The boys set off, led by a keen volunteer but were shouted back by another. There seemed to be some confusion about when to start marching.

  Even as they were resolving the confusion, they heard a thundering in the distance and a large posse of mounted police rode past on the main road, the men more poised over their saddles than seated in them, and the boys stopped marching and gave up all pretence of composure and huddled together in the middle of the field, watching the dust kicked up by the horses. The leaders shouted out to the boys, trying to keep order but clearly they didn’t know what was happening either. And then they heard the lightning rip, in quick sharp bursts, which was strange for there was not a streak in the clear blue sky. It was a sound, Setu was to recall later, that seemed to detonate his heart and tear through his bowels. And then a roar travelled through the air, from the direction of the church square, growing louder as it approached them.

  The flags and buntings were abandoned. The boys ran pell mell and Setu made for the edge of the field, fell down even as he began running but picked himself up and with the taste of blood and dust fresh in his mouth, dashed past the small section of shops in Electric Colony, whose shutters were being downed hastily, past houses whose doors were being secured, found himself lost in an anonymous by lane but kept his head and finally managed to reach home before the bullets or the horses got him. He cleaned up at the tap in the backyard and when he
sat down for his tiffin a little later in the coffee room, except for the pounding of his heart and the heat in his cheeks, which he alone could feel and his distracted appetite, there was no sign of his misadventures.

  ‘Where is your sister?’ Achamma asked.

  Setu caught his breath. His right hand, poised to put a segment of dosa-chutney into his mouth, dismounted slowly. Surely she had not—

  ‘She was there when your father returned from Bangalore in the afternoon. There were no trains, he said. He came in a government jeep.’

  She would not have had the courage to disobey their father, he thought, pushing his plate aside. Even she would not have been so foolhardy.

  ‘Where is Kaveri?’ Mylaraiah had hurried home from his chambers. He still had his shoes and coat on.

  Setu just stared at him, his mouth ringed with a milk moustache, and shook his head, preoccupied with excuses to defend himself if he were asked how he had let his sister go.

  ‘Wipe your mouth, will you!’ Mylaraiah said. ‘Achamma! Where is Kaveri?’

  Neither of them replied.

  ‘And Timrayee? Where is he?’

  ‘He is with her Ayya, wherever she is. And you know he takes good care of her.’

  ‘The police have opened fire in the church square. I believe three people have been shot.’

  ‘She was wearing her white sari … the white sari with the green border.’ Achamma clapped her hand across her mouth.

  ‘That is where she must have gone. To the meeting in the church square …’ Setu said, at last.

  Mylaraiah drew his breath in sharply and father and son looked at each other, and looked away.

  ‘Ranga!’ he called, ‘Go to the Samaja … Balarama, come with me. Achamma, if she comes home, keep her with you. No one is to leave the house, Setu do you hear! And let all the dogs loose in the compound!’

  The shadows lengthened on the compound wall as evening fell. The blue sky, softer now and cloudless, arched overhead unperturbed; the evening flight of birds winged across as usual. You could not tell that there had been shots fired in the square less than two miles away. Mylaraiah paced the verandah wordlessly. There was no sign of her anywhere. There was no one in the Samaja, the main door was locked. The road to the church square had been blocked by the police. He had left word at both the district commissioner’s and the inspector general’s office. Then, just as he was about to ask Achamma to go to Shanta’s house to enquire about the girls, there was a noise at the gate. A green army jeep had driven up and was blocking the driveway. Even as Ranga set about restraining the dogs, several pairs of khaki-clad legs swung out from the jeep. A small procession made its way to the verandah, the inspector general leading, followed by Kaveri, with men in khaki bringing up the rear. Mylaraiah’s eyes rested fleetingly on Kaveri and then he made his way to the inspector general. There was a brief, subdued conversation. The Inspector General shook hands with Mylaraiah, clasped him briefly above the elbow and left.

  When Mylaraiah went in Kaveri was sitting at the table in the coffee room with Achamma and Setu standing on either side. He noted that her sari was dusty and her hair dishevelled and she looked a little dazed but other than that she seemed unharmed.

  ‘You went to the meeting?’ he said.

  ‘All of us from the Samaja went, Anna. It was not just me alone.’

  ‘Speak up! Don’t mumble. You went even when I had expressly asked you not to?’

  ‘All the women of the Samaja were there. Umadevi was with us.’

  ‘Didn’t you or anyone in the Samaja know that public meetings were banned, that you could get into serious trouble if you attended one?’

  ‘We just sang a few songs, we did nothing wrong.’

  ‘And that’s what you thought it was all about. Going up on stage and singing songs?’

  ‘I wanted to be part of the programme. It would have been cowardly of me not to have gone.’

  ‘And where is your courage now? The district commissioner had told the organizers in no uncertain terms that the meeting should not be held. The inspector general says you were just next to the podium, closest to the organizing committee. I believe they were planning something big. Thankfully, the police arrived early, before all the groups had gathered. It is only because the inspector general recognized you that he brought you home and did not arrest you as a conspirator. He brought you home on trust that no daughter or son of mine would be involved in such activities. Do you understand the enormity of what you have done? I had to tell him that in all innocence you thought it part of a Samaja programme and not any thing bigger.’

  ‘I did not ask to be brought home, I would have stayed with the rest of the women who were arrested. Shanta was still there.’

  ‘You dare to talk back to me like that!’ Mylaraiah sprang at her and made as if to strike her and she flinched. Achamma put her arms around Kaveri’s head.

  ‘And what would I have told your mother when she returns tomorrow? That her daughter is in jail. For singing a song? And that is her pitiful understanding of the movement into which she has flung herself? Because she thinks Freedom is all about singing on a podium and giving heroic speeches?’

  ‘You will sleep in the morning room tonight. Achamma too will sleep there. And you will not stir out of the house. Get the house in order for your mother. Go now.’

  ‘Anna …’

  Mylaraiah, who had turned to leave the room, stopped at what sounded like a mewl of pain. He turned round and looked Kaveri full in the face for the first time since she came home. He saw the unshed tears in her eyes, he heard her swallow and choke, he saw too her quivering, despairing mouth—it had turned downwards like that even when she had been a baby and he could not bear to see it droop and contort like that.

  ‘Anna …’ she said again, and her hand lifted a little towards him—in appeal, possibly in hopelessness. If Mylaraiah had been prescient or if he had just followed his first instinct, he would have crossed the room and taken his daughter’s hand and perhaps reclaimed the future. But Mylaraiah saw that Setu was waiting and watching, and Achamma too, and he thought of his absent wife. He had to be all things—father, mother, husband and head of the household. And he made up his mind.

  ‘Yes …’ Mylaraiah said, allowing for nothing.

  ‘Anna, they shot him … they just shot him like that …’

  ‘Shot whom?’

  ‘Shyam …’

  ‘Who Shyam?’

  ‘Shanta’s brother, the Kole boy.’

  ‘Good riddance.’

  The next morning there were no newspapers and no trains either, but plenty of rumours. The meeting in the church square was a front for something bigger, more serious than just a public meeting. Someone had informed the inspector general that there was to be a bomb attack on the police chowki. It was the district commissioner’s office that was to be targeted, somebody else said, and the district commissioner had been forewarned. At this the reserve police, on the orders of the district commissioner, had turned quite trigger happy. In this town, which had known no other mass punitive measure than a lathi charge, the police had fired simultaneously in two places, at the church square and on a procession of students headed for the Gandhi Maidan. Reports of the number killed varied from three to eight, including a nine-year old boy who had been in the act of closing his father’s shop. It turned out that the rumours had been completely false. Other than speeches and songs, there was nothing else to the programme. While the maharaja’s secretariat issued a statement of regret about the firing, the inspector general’s office maintained that the police had fired to quell imminent rioting. Despite orders to the contrary the student organizers, many of whom were known to be armed with country-made bombs, had planned a massive meeting. Providentially, the district commissioner’s office had got to know of it in advance, and that it had not just been a rumour.

  But they had little time to discuss the firing or get any further details. The household was thrown into complete confusion when
they heard that Rukmini’s train had been stopped halfway from Bangalore and she was stuck in a small village en route. Mylaraiah had to find a car to bring her home and the prohibitory orders would make it difficult to hire one. Again, the inspector general was called upon and Rukmini arrived by afternoon in a police jeep, paler and thinner than she had been when she left, but happy to be home, and when Kaveri clung to her and wept, she assumed her daughter was just overwhelmed with relief to have her home.

  ‘Kaveri,’ Rukmini said, when a watered down version of her daughter’s ‘escapade’ had been given to her, ‘what is this I hear? You disobeyed your father?’ She stroked her daughter’s hand with her skeletal fingers and Kaveri shuddered at the caress, at how alien her mother’s touch had become. ‘You cannot get involved in things half-heartedly or impulsively, which you cannot follow through. And fighting for the freedom of the country isn’t a thing done on impulse. You have to be like Kalyani’s father. He gave up everything to get involved in something he believed in. And he is now paying the price for it. His family is too.’

  ‘Amma, Shanta’s brother. The police shot him. Right there, on the podium. For no reason.’

  ‘I heard. I feel sorry for the family. I must go over and pay my condolences. He was a rash young man, but …’

  I was standing next to him when he fell, Amma, she wanted to say. I touched him when he was lying on the floor, collapsed next to the flag post, when he was still warm. It was no use, Kaveri realized. Her mother would not understand. ‘Amma,’ she tried tentatively, ‘about my BA. I want to go to Mysore … will you speak to Anna. He will not listen to me …’

  But it was too late. She had lost her ally.

  ‘You must do as your father says.’

  ‘Tell her,’ Mylaraiah said, for he wasn’t speaking to Kaveri, ‘tell her it is now between her and her husband.’

  She had had two days to make up her mind after receiving his note and for two whole days she had churned it in her mind and sieved it through. The weeks of isolation after she had stopped going to college, this estrangement from the routine and the familiar, her mother’s illness and her father’s preoccupation had led to days of desultory uncertainty. And underscoring everything was her brother’s hostility. She had lost herself. Even as she unfolded the note—a hasty purple scrawl on a bit of ruled exercise note book paper—she admonished herself. She had become lazy and slothful. When she read his note, she resurrected him from the hazy memory he was becoming. She heard him speaking to her, she heard his voice, the inflections in his tone, the gentle chiding, the appeal and the persuasion. She heard the half-hinted accusation of pusillanimity, the gesturing towards her father. She smiled at the blotchy sketch at the bottom of the note—Fearless Nadia. Take heart, he had urged. And the blood rose in her. Of course she was not made of straw. She would not stand aside and watch when the entire Samaja chorus, including Shanta, was ready to be part of the programme. All she had to do was sing the invocation along with them. There was nothing unlawful in what she was doing. Surely she could sing a new anthem in celebration of a free nation. How could she stay away from the moment that history was to be made?