The Red Sari: A Novel

by Javier Moro

  Sonia immediately set herself to tending those who were sitting with the body. She helped to place mattresses on the floor so that all the friends and close relatives could rest. She also made sure there would be tea, toast and sweets.

  After the effusiveness of seeing them again, Indira told them the details of the funeral rites that she had organized for the following day.

  “We’ll have the cremation in Shantivana, next to grandfather’s mausoleum…”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mother,” Rajiv suggested. “Wouldn’t it be better to have a private, more restricted funeral?”

  “Perhaps, but Sheikh Abdullah, the head of the government of Kashmir and all the heads of state governments have asked me for a memorable funeral.”

  “Sanjay had no official role in the government. It may cause problems if you hold a state funeral. Imagine the protests!”

  “I know. But it’s also true that Sanjay had many followers, and I don’t want to disappoint them. It would be like disappointing him.”

  Rajiv did not insist.

  The cremation took place the next day, on the banks of the Yamuna River. It was too close to where the cremation of Nehru, the father of the nation, had taken place, and however much Indira did not want to see it, her son did not deserve the same honours as her father. Many saw in this gesture of Indira’s another sign of abuse of power. Again she had not listened to Rajiv’s advice that she should choose another place, not that holy place of pilgrimage for millions of Indians. But Indira let herself be led along by the insistence of Sanjay’s friends. She had no strength to fight them and she was probably in agreement with them in paying such disproportionate tribute to her son, as if she could compensate a little in that way for her loss.

  With her eyes and all the grief they held protected by enormous sunglasses, Indira was sitting next to Maneka in the front row, facing the pyre. Sonia, dressed in an immaculate white sari, sobbed as she remembered the days when she was newly married when her brother-in-law, her husband and she were an inseparable trio. Behind them, you could see people as far as the horizon. Rajiv had to carry out the rituals: he put the torch in the fire and walked several times round his brother’s body, to the sound of the mantras intoned by the Hindu priests. His son Rahul watched him rather apprehensively. His father had told him that it would be up to him, as firstborn, to carry out the cremation rituals when, in the natural order of things, one of his parents left this world. Until that day, the boy had never thought that could happen.

  In the afternoon, Rajiv took his brother’s ashes in a copper urn to be buried under a tree in the garden at Akbar Road. On seeing the urn, Indira was unable to control herself and broke into sobs. For the first time, she wept disconsolately and uninhibitedly in public. Rajiv held her and kept her on her feet because the woman was literally collapsing. Her pain seemed limitless. Sonia had found out that on the morning of the tragedy Indira had left the hospital where the doctors were patching Sanjay’s body together to go back to the scene of the accident. She had been back twice. Evil tongues said that she had gone back to look for Sanjay’s watch and keyring because one of the keys was probably from a safe full of all the things the prodigal son had stolen. On the cover of the watch, still according to the rumours, the number of a secret account in Switzerland must be engraved. But it was just a tall story. Indira was not interested in his personal objects, which had been picked up already by the police. What she was really doing was looking for her son; subconsciously she was trying to get him back, not his things. By looking carefully among the burned pieces of metal, Indira had realized the enormity of her loss. All her dreams, her great plans for the future, had also been smashed to pieces among the ruins of the plane.

  In the shade of the tree in the garden, Indira managed to control her weeping and recover remarkably quickly. Then they went into the sitting room. The place where the body had been placed was now covered in jasmine flowers. They sat down on the floor, with their legs crossed and in silence, listening to the priests singing verses from the Ramayana, the great Hindu epic.

  Over the following days, Sanjay’s followers erected statues in his memory, named streets and squares for him as well as whole districts, schools, hospitals and even hydro- electric power stations. The whole country frenziedly lived through a posthumous cult to the personality of the prodigal son whom the biggest flatterers came to compare with Jesus Christ, Einstein and Karl Marx. That display of so-called affection was more a desperate attempt on the part of his allies and henchmen to hang on to their privileges and stay close to power, near Indira, than a real show of national mourning. Many others, amongst whom were some of the old victims of his birth control policy, greeted his death with relief. For them it had been a providential accident, which had saved the country from the cruel destiny of having Sanjay as Prime Minister, which everyone thought was going to happen sooner or later.

  For Indira, the only positive thing in the tragedy was that it served to re-kindle old relationships and to reconcile her with members of the family and friends who had turned their backs on her during the Emergency. She was particularly happy to receive a letter from her old friend Dorothy Norman: “It’s been so long since we wrote to each other that on a certain level I don’t know who I’m writing to; on another level, I’m writing to the person I used to know. How I’d like us to be able to talk, although silence is perhaps more revealing than any words. (…) I’m sending this letter as a bridge. Friendships are the most valuable thing in this world which is sometimes so harsh.” Indira replied, telling her how moved she had been to receive her letter and that she had so much to tell her that she did not know where to begin: “The past is past, let’s let it be. But I have to clear up a few things. The falsehoods, the persistent and malicious campaign of calumny must be refuted…” Indira never admitted Sanjay’s negative side or his errors.

  At home, there was Maneka and little Firoz Varun left. The child slept in Indira’s room with the other grandchildren since Sanjay’s death. Their grandmother spent a lot of time looking at the baby as if she might recognize her son in his every move. Rajiv and Sonia were also there, their marriage having survived physical separation, cultural differences, family opposition, the stress of the Emergency and the continual infiltration and corrosion of politics in their lives. They had two intelligent, good-looking children, with nice characters. Until Uncle Sanjay’s accident, the most serious thing that had happened to the children had been seeing their grandmother in jail and having lost their dog. “Keep the memory of when you played with her, how much fun she had and all of us had when we took her for walks…” Rajiv had written to them in a letter full of fatherly tenderness, ending in some advice: “You have to learn to live knowing that at some point we all have to die.”

  The perfect family life they enjoyed seemed too nice and too good to last.

  ACT III

  SOLITUDE AND POWER

  Every time you take a step forwards, you are bound to disturb something. You disturb the air as you move, you raise the dust, you change the ground. You crush things as you go. When a whole society moves forwards, that crushing takes place on a much larger scale; and each thing that you upset, the self-interest you may want to repress, all become an obstacle.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  27

  Twenty years before, after the death of her husband, Indira touched rock bottom and took a long time to get her head above water again. When her father died, she suffered another existential crisis, which lasted for many long months. But now, less than 72 hours after the death of her son, she was back in her office. “People come and go, but the nation remains alive,” she declared to the Press, putting the family tragedy into a national context, as though that way she could get over the accident quicker. She had convinced herself that the Herculean task of governing India could not be left unattended. But her attitude and self-control were only superficial. Deep inside, she was hurt irreparably. Sonia could see that her spirit was in piece
s. At night she could hear her getting up and searching for Sanjay in her sleep, and when she woke up she would cry and repeatedly call her son’s name. Her face aged, her eyes became harder and she began to drag her feet a little when she walked. She was no longer so careful with her dress, and she did not ask Sonia for advice about her hair or the accessories that ought to go with her saris. On the contrary, she wore her hair pulled back carelessly, and she did not seem to care.

  Added to her immense sadness was her concern over Maneka, who spent the days as if she was lost.

  “I’m afraid her mother’s ambition may push Maneka into wanting to take Sanjay’s place,” she confessed to her friend Pupul.

  Apart from feeling melancholic, Maneka was uncomfortable because her position in that house had become very delicate. She felt vulnerable without her husband’s protection. She could no longer use him as a shield to defend herself from her mother-in- law or her brother-in-law, who actually both still intimidated her. Her only strength was the baby. On the other hand, Indira was so devastated that she lacked the energy to console the others. In other circumstances, she would have done everything in her power for her daughter-in-law, but now her own pain absorbed her completely. Although on seeing the young widow so alone and so lost, Indira offered to help her in an outburst of compassion. Actually she was worried that being bored and isolated, Maneka might end up leaving the house, because then she would no longer have her grandson near her. That eventuality tormented her.

  “Do you want to work as my secretary?… I could take you away with me, and I think that would give you something to think about…”

  At first, the offer seemed to satisfy Maneka. Later, perhaps under the influence of her mother or simply because things went to her head or she was immature, she saw it as a manoeuvre to take away her natural right to take over her husband’s legacy. Her life with Sanjay had given her the illusion of power, and after she had thought about it, her mother-in-law’s offer seemed almost insulting to her. She did not even reply to the offer. “Look at her!… Who does she think she is?” she said to one of her husband’s closest friends, talking about Indira.

  Neither did Sonia think much of this offer. Although she had forgiven Maneka her insulting treatment during the early days, she did not want to imagine her controlling Indira’s agenda. She could see the inexperience of her sister-in-law as a potential problem for her mother-in-law, and a threat to the delicate balance of the family. The fact that she did not help with the housework could be accepted, but for her to dig in behind the shield of Indira’s power and begin to pull the strings to benefit her own family, which Sonia feared so much, was a danger that had to be avoided at all costs. She told Rajiv about it.

  “I’ll talk to my mother about it,” he told her.

  “Better if I leave her a note,” Sonia answered.

  When she read it, Indira realized that Sonia was right. Maneka as a secretary, so close by, could in effect be more of a problem than a help. She was afraid that her impulsiveness would make her even more unpredictable. And she also distrusted the Anand family and their dealings. However, what Indira was very well aware of, even enveloped in her cloud of suffering, was the need she had for Rajiv and Sonia. After all, Rajiv was her own flesh and blood; and she loved Sonia like a daughter. So she did not insist, and the offer fell into oblivion.

  The young widow, for her part, found a way of passing the time which gave meaning to her life at the same time: she concentrated on the project of making a book of photos about her husband, a kind of tribute that would include family pictures as well as political ones. She asked her mother-in-law if she would like to write the foreword. Indira agreed.

  But then an unfortunate incident occurred, which had lengthy and undesired repercussions. The writer Kushwant Singh, who had helped Maneka and her mother to launch the Surya magazine, published an article in his newspaper column that suggested that Sanjay’s mantle should fall naturally on the shoulders of his young wife, “who had been supporting him and had shared his vision of India, since Rajiv had never shown the slightest interest in politics, and his wife loathes it.” The idea made sense. The article ended with a sentence that, more than any other, unleashed Indira’s paranoia: “Maneka is like her deceased husband, brave and determined, the reincarnation of Durga riding on a tiger.” That image of Durga, which had been widely attributed to Indira and which represented a symbolism that belonged to her, upset her deeply. How could two Durgas live under the same roof? She thought that Maneka had schemed with the writer to plot the writing of that article, that she was manoeuvring behind her back in order to compete with her, to steal Sanjay’s legacy from her. She began to see her as an enemy in her own home.

  Inevitably, and to Sonia’s discomfort, all eyes began to turn towards the natural heir, Rajiv. Indira had her doubts: “No one can take Sanjay’s place,” she told her friend Pupul. “He was my son, but he also helped me like an older brother.” She saw Rajiv as too soft and sensitive for the world of politics. Furthermore, he was married to a foreigner, which, in terms of national politics, was considered an insurmountable obstacle. And if he resigned from Indian Airlines, what would they live off? Sanjay was very frugal, while Rajiv and Sonia liked to live well, without excesses but in comfort.

  In this scenario of a wounded family at the peak of power, not only did individuals decide, no matter how powerful they were. Just as important as what Indira wanted was the opinion of her followers, her friends, her relatives, her colleagues in the party, her advisors, her flatterers, her gurus, and the whole country. After having intoned the funeral march for the death of Sanjay, that chorus of voices began to chant a familiar melody, the same one that sounded when Indira was called for the first time to preside over the party or when they courted her to get her to accept a portfolio in the first government after her father’s death. The same voice that in its day had told her “you are Nehru’s daughter, too valuable not to have in the government”, was now calling for a successor, as though instead of a democracy this were an imperial court of old. It was a chorus as ancient as India itself, whose mythology told the story of an uninterrupted saga of hereditary monarchs. It was a call that came from the depths of that continent country, so inclined to mix temporal power up with divine power. As in classical Greek tragedies, the chorus called for a victim in propitiation. It became necessary to respond to that urgent need that the people had for stability, for continuity, and, why not? for perpetuity. That could only be guaranteed by a dynasty.

  As for Rajiv, he kept himself as far away as possible. His relationship with his mother was different from Sanjay’s. The affection ran very deep, but was almost British in its form, with hardly any intimacy. He did not offer to help her spontaneously, and she never asked him to, at least not directly. But when Indira began to realize the enormity of the vacuum Sanjay had left behind, and of the urgent need she had of support and physical proximity, one day she confessed to her friend Pupul, “Rajiv lacks the dynamism and concerns that Sanjay had, but he could be of great use to me.” “He could be of great help to me”: no further words were needed to set in motion the wheels that the chorus of voices had already announced.

  It was the friends of the family who began to talk to them, to Sonia and Rajiv, about Indira’s loneliness, about the need she had to lean on someone in whom she could trust blindly, to count on a person who would keep windows open on the world for her… And that someone could only be her son. Sonia rebelled against that idea.

  “We know what politics is about, the supposed glamour, the flattery,” she said, upset. “We’ve seen politicians close up, with their double talk, the constant toadying, the manipulation, the betrayals, the inconstancy of the media and the people… We’ve seen what power did to Sanjay and Maneka. We know perfectly well what Rajiv’s life will be like if he gets into politics.”

  Her husband said nothing; and silence gives consent. He was in complete agreement with Sonia’s arguments. But he could not prevent it: the picture
of his mother, alone and devastated, with the burden of a country like India on her shoulders, weighed on his conscience.

  After the article that came out in the newspaper, it was impossible for Indira’s situation with Maneka to improve. The young woman got upset when she sensed her mother-in-law’s hostility and realized that her presence was not wanted. She had lived all her married life in an atmosphere of very high political excitement, and now she was not prepared to sink back into anonymity. She realized, although she could not put it into words, that that was the condition she had to comply with in order to live under the same roof as Indira. That was the price of peace. But she was not Sonia; she hated even the idea of being a housewife, of spending the whole day between those four walls giving orders to the servants or taking orders from her mother-in-law. Taking care of the baby, with the help that well-to-do families had at their command in India, left her a lot of free time. During all those years, she had watched how her husband and her mother-in- law worked, how they planned every move well in advance, and she too began to plan her future, urged on by her own chorus of voices, the chorus of her family and of Sanjay’s old friends. “Why don’t you have the right to take over your husband’s legacy? Haven’t you given him the best years of your life? Didn’t you join in with everything he did? Didn’t he love you? You know more about politics than his brother…” They wanted her to react before Rajiv was forced to take action. And the chorus of voices left their mark on the malleable mind of the young woman.