The Red Sari: A Novel

by Javier Moro

  33

  “I’m afraid for them to play in the garden,” Indira told Sonia when she saw Rahul from the dining room window rolling about on the lawn with one of the dogs. The children had come back to New Delhi, after the warning from the Intelligence Agency, which had found their names on a blacklist belonging to a Sikh extremist group. Every morning, they went to their respective schools, under heavy guard. Then they spent the rest of the day at home. They rarely went out. A simple invitation to a birthday party meant a complex security operation. “It’s as though a shadow had come into our lives,” Sonia said to Rajiv. Very aware that the assault had caused a collective injury to the Sikhs of the Punjab, Indira was convinced that they were going to assassinate her. She was top of those lists. Another group had sworn to avenge the sacrilege in the Golden Temple by assassinating Indira and her descendents for a hundred generations. She told Rajiv and Sonia, who went pale. But Indira wanted them to take the draconian security measures that were being imposed on them very seriously. Following the advice of the police, she wore a bullet-proof vest under the bodice of her sari every time she left the house. She wanted Rajiv and Sonia to do the same.

  “It’s no joke,” she told them.

  “I know,” Rajiv answered. “And don’t worry, I’ll put one on too.”

  There was a silence. Indira took on a gloomy expression and a sombre tone of voice.

  “When it happens, I want you to scatter my ashes over the Himalayas. I’ve left written instructions for my funeral. They’re in the second drawer in the desk in my room.”

  “Don’t get ahead of events,” said Rajiv sarcastically to relax the atmosphere. “We haven’t got that far yet.”

  But Indira was still agitated. Later she wanted to talk on her own to her grandson Rahul, who was now fourteen years old.

  “I’m afraid they might want to hurt you. I’m asking you and your sister not to play beyond the gate that leads to the offices in Akbar Road, please,” she said, pointing to the place in the garden where she had seen him playing with the dog. “I’m very sorry that you have to suffer these restrictions, but I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

  “What can happen to us in here, Grandmother?”

  “They might kill you, it’s as simple as that.”

  Indira’s serious tone made the boy look at her incredulously, as if his grandmother was exaggerating.

  “Please listen to me and don’t wander off,” she went on. “There are many fanatics that would be very pleased if they could do you harm. Do us all harm. What they might do to me doesn’t matter. I’ve done everything I had to and was able to in my life, but you… I don’t even want to think about it.”

  Now Rahul was downcast and sad. Indira went on. She left off her protective tone and continued to speak gravely, in a manner that was unknown to her grandson and which made an impression on him.

  “If something happens to me, I don’t want you to cry for me, OK? When the moment comes you have to be brave. Will you promise me?”

  The boy looked up at his grandmother and nodded.

  During those months in 1984, Indira travelled round the sub-continent a lot, trips that sometimes seemed to be like farewells, because of the way she spoke about herself and how she would like to be remembered. In some interviews she took stock of her life, in others she talked as though she were above national politics. She had always felt she had the soul of a statesman, and now her global vision bloomed and became clear in speeches full of wisdom. “When a country as old as this one is catapulted into a new technological culture… what happens to the rural mind? Will mystery and sacred things be able to survive? Something inside me tells me that India will survive with its values intact.” At the beginning of October, after the last monsoon rains had cleared the sky and the trees and plants were green again, Indira spoke in New Delhi before another huge crowd. It was another of the many dialogues she had been holding with the people of India over the last two decades. She spoke about courage as a supreme value for dealing with the greatest threat that was hanging over the country: the pressure from sectarian groups, castes or religious groups to break up the unity of India. It was a speech that her father would have liked. Yes, the unity of India was a supreme value because it guaranteed the rule of law for each individual, independently of their social, ethnic or religious origins.

  On October 11th, an event occurred, thousands of kilometres away, which sank her even further into her dark foreboding. Margaret Thatcher, whom she had met in London, was the objective of an IRA bomb attack in the middle of the Conservative Party Conference. She escaped death by the skin of her teeth. Indira immediately called her. She understood better than anyone her colleague’s vulnerability and panic. Although the Iron Lady showed herself to be impassive in public, inside she was just as distraught as anyone who might have gone through a similar ordeal. The difference between these two lady Prime Ministers, who had been friends for eight years, is that for Margaret Thatcher the attack had been a revelation and a surprise. Nothing like it had ever happened in England before, apart from the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, which was also the work of the IRA, but here the objective was a retired man as he was on his boat with his grandson, not a serving head of State. Indira, however, was much more used to violent death. She had seen the deaths of Gandhi, Sheikh Rahman and Sanjay. Not so long before, the suicide of Salvador Allende in Chile had traumatized her and still tormented her. She had always thought that her life would be ended in a similar way. However, when the Defence Secretary tried to convince her to substitute the police for the army in order to increase her protection, she replied, “Don’t even consider that option. I’m the leader of a democratic government, not a military one.”

  A few days later, Ashwini Kumar, the head of the border police, gave the order that all Sikh security guards stationed at Indira’s residence should be relieved of their duties and replaced by others of different religions. But Indira was opposed and vetoed the order. The measure went against her most intimate political credo, which was: in a secular state no distinctions are made between religions. Ashwini Kumar was left perplexed and frustrated. “The Prime Minister is very well protected from an outside attack,” he said, “but what if the attack comes from inside?” Indira hardly paid any attention and answered him, “Aren’t we secular?”

  That autumn was also the autumn of her life. In November she was going to be 67. She was prey to a bad feeling that the attack on Thatcher had made worse. Without telling anybody, in the middle of October she wrote a document which was later found amongst her papers. “If I have to die a violent death as some people fear and many plan, I know that the violence will be in the thoughts and actions of the assassin, not in the fact of my death, because there is no hatred sufficiently dark to overshadow the love I feel for my people and for my country; there is no force capable of deflecting me from my purpose and my efforts to keep this country afloat. A poet once said of love: ‘How can I feel humble with your wealth by my side?’ I can say the same of India.” Were those the words of a depressed mind? Or was it a premonition? In any event, they showed that Indira felt she had made the right choice when she decided to go on with the family legacy of service to India instead of trying to seek personal fulfilment.

  Diwali came, the great Hindu festival of lights, which in this country where everything is myth and symbol, means the victory of light over darkness. The skies over the city were dotted with millions of bright flashes, while the noise of the firecrackers could be heard far away. Light bulbs, little lamps and candles twinkled everywhere. The slum districts looked like Christmas crib scenes and the big houses on the wide avenues of New Delhi wore intricate, showy garlands of lights. Rajiv came back from Orissa to spend the holiday with the family, as he always did every year. True to custom, Indira lit a little oil lamp before the figure of Ganesh, the elephant God, the god of happiness, which was on a little altar in the entrance hall. Then the whole family went on with the ritual of lig
hting up the house with candles and little oil lamps, and the children began to set off firecrackers. Over the noise of the festival, Indira heard Rajiv say that he had to go away early the next morning.

  “Where are you going?” Indira asked him.

  “To Bengal…”

  “Bengal? How funny. Do you know that there they believe that the souls of the dead begin their journey this very day, on Diwali? People there light little lamps to show them the way…”

  At that moment, Indira’s words did not give rise to any response at all. Within the family they were already used to hearing her say things that they attributed to her state of depression. But Sonia was touched by them and was so upset that in the night she had an asthma attack. It was four in the morning when she switched on the light on her bedside table and got up to go to the medicine cabinet, taking care not to disturb Indira, who was sleeping in the next room. But Sonia was surprised to see her mother-in-law appear in her nightdress and with a torch in her hand.

  “Let me help you find your medicines,” Indira whispered, obviously not having slept a wink.

  She found them and went to get a glass of water for Sonia.

  “Call me if you feel bad again,” Indira told her. “Try to get some rest.”

  “That’s what I say to you, you must rest… Can’t you sleep?”

  “No… I’m thinking of going to Kashmir for the weekend. I want to see the chinar trees in flower. Have you ever seen them?”

  Sonia shook her head. Indira went on in a whisper, “It’s the most beautiful tree there is, and it’s only found in Kashmir. It’s like a cross between a plane tree and a large maple, and in autumn the colours are spectacular… red, orange, brown, yellow. It’s a sight that reminds me of my childhood. There’s one in Srinagar I’ve been in love with since I was a little girl. The most beautiful of all the chinar trees… I’d like to see it again.”

  “That tree seemed to hold special significance for her,” Sonia would recall. “Was it perhaps the need to say goodbye to her origins, her memories and everything that Kashmir stood for in her mind?” Indira was not sure whether to stay more than one night in Srinagar, because she was worried about Sonia’s asthma. But her daughter-in-law encouraged her to go, and in the end Indira took her grandchildren. She wanted to show them that land that was as beautiful as paradise, from where they originated. And the tree while they were there.

  They spent 36 hours in Srinagar and the surroundings. But, to her great disappointment, the chinar of her childhood had died not long before. The news upset her. As superstitious as she was, the recent death of that centenarian chinar tree could not be anything other than a sign from destiny. She did not let her discomfort show and she had time to take her grandchildren for a trip on a shikara, those little boats in the shape of a gondola, over the shimmering waters of Lake Dal, covered in lotus flowers. She told them about her last holiday with grandfather Firoz in one of the boats set up as a little hotel. She told them of her love for the mountains, which she had inherited from her father, and how Kashmir had always been, for Nehru and for her, a kind of idea of what Eden was like. Then she wanted to show them a forest that was glowing with the fiery colours of the chinars, and then she left them in the hotel. Accompanied by only one security guard, she went off to climb a holy mountain to visit a temple where a wise old man lived. They were together for a few hours. “Indira told me that for some time she had felt death was near her. I also felt it,” the wise man would say. He did not want to miss the chance to ask her to open a new building next to the ashram. “I’ll come back if I’m still alive,” was Indira’s reply.

  “They returned to Delhi on October 28th and Indira spent a quiet evening with us in the sitting room,” Sonia would write. “As usual with her, she brought her wicker stool and files out of her study and started working, glancing occasionally at the television or chatting to us.” Indira intended to call general elections very soon, perhaps in two months. That night, Sonia helped her prepare the clothes she would wear the next day to travel to Orissa, on the east coast. Indira chose a maroon sari. The actor Peter Ustinov was directing a documentary about India for the BBC and was going to film her on tour in that state, one of the poorest in the country. In Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa, the Prime Minister made an emotional speech in which she spoke about the great moments in the history of India, from ancient times to the struggle for independence. Suddenly, towards the end, she changed the tone of her voice and the expression on her face: “I am here today, maybe I won’t be here tomorrow,” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether I live or die… I will continue to serve my people until my last breath, and when I die, every drop of my blood will feed and strengthen my country, a free and united country.” After that, she went to the Governor’s House where she intended to spend the night. The governor was surprised at her allusion to a violent death.

  “I’m only being realistic and honest,” Indira told him. “I’ve seen my grandfather and my mother die slowly and in pain, so I prefer to die on my feet.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the news that the four-wheel drive vehicle in which her grandchildren went to school had had a small accident that morning. No one had been injured. But Indira went pale and was very nervous. She decided to return to Delhi immediately.

  Sonia was awake when her mother-in-law came in at three o’clock in the morning.

  “How are the children?” Indira asked, very upset.

  “Fine. They’re asleep. Nothing happened to them.”

  Her chief secretary came to see her. He found her very tired. She was still wearing the same maroon sari, now wrinkled and dusty. Indira was convinced that the morning’s accident was part of a plot to kidnap her grandchildren or harm them, and nothing her secretary could say would make her change her mind. Then she insisted on discussing some urgent matters about Kashmir and the Punjab.

  “Wouldn’t you rather leave it until tomorrow?” the man suggested.

  “No, let’s talk now. Tomorrow I want to rest a little, I have an interview with the former British Prime Minister, James Callaghan, and at night an official dinner here at home in honour of Princess Anne…”

  “Everything is ready for the dinner, don’t worry,” said Sonia. “I only need you to tell me where you want people to sit.”

  “I’ll write you a note about it tomorrow.”

  Sonia waved goodnight and went to bed.

  When Indira finished dealing with matters that were still pending with her chief secretary, she called the other one, faithful Dhawan, to whom she gave instructions to cancel all appointments the next day except for the one with Peter Ustinov, who wanted to interview her in the morning, and the ones arranged with the British delegation in the afternoon. She was very tired.

  Two hours later, at six o’clock, she got up. She did her yoga exercises, showered and chose a beautiful silk sari in tones of brown and saffron yellow with a black border. She chose those tones because they reminded her of the autumnal colours of Kashmir and also because she had been told they suited her well on television. For the same reason she did not put on her bullet-proof vest which they had been forcing her to wear since there had been more and more threats on her life. She probably did not notice that saffron yellow was the colour of renunciation according to Hindu belief, and particularly to Sikhism. Then she had some toast for breakfast and a cup of tea in her room while she glanced through the newspapers. Her grandchildren Rahul and Priyanka went in to chat to her for a moment, before they went off to school. When Priyanka kissed her goodbye, she was surprised that her grandmother hugged her so tightly to her. She attributed it to the fear she had felt over the little accident the day before. Then Indira called Rahul and told him, “Do you remember what I told you the other day, that if something happens to me, I don’t want you to cry for me?” The boy nodded and, surprised, allowed himself to be hugged.

  After breakfast she went into her dressing room, where she put herself in the hands of two make-up specialist
s from Ustinov’s team. Sonia came in to inform her about the menu for dinner. Indira always made sure she did not serve the same food to a guest who was visiting again. They did not have much time to talk because secretary Dhawan immediately came to tell her that the television team was waiting for her in her office in Akbar Road.

  “We’ll finish off the details at lunchtime,” she told Sonia as she left.

  Indira crossed the dining room and the anteroom and went out of the house. It was a beautiful day, a clear, bright morning, with no mist. The sun gave the luxuriant vegetation of the garden a golden hue. The temperature was perfect and the breeze was balmy. It smelt of flowers and newly-cut grass. She walked along the path that separated her residence from the party office in Akbar Road, among clumps of flowers and evergreen bushes. A policeman walked at her side, carrying a black umbrella to shade her from the sun. Secretary Dhawan followed a few paces behind, and then a bodyguard. They walked past a large maple which was displaying its yellow and red leaves. At the end of the path, now lined with bougainvilleas, Indira recognized Beant Singh, her bodyguard who was opening the little gate for her which led to the garden where the offices were. It was hard not to see him, because Singh was a giant, a Sikh from the Punjab, wearing a turban that matched his khaki uniform. He was accompanied by another bodyguard, also a Sikh, that Indira hardly knew. As she got close to them, she interrupted the conversation she was having with her secretary over her shoulder in order to greet them. She did so in the traditional manner, putting her hands together at chest- height, slightly bowing her head and saying “Namaste”. In response, Beant Singh, her faithful bodyguard of the last five years, took out his gun and pointed it at her. There was a silence that lasted the eternity of half a second, interrupted by the singing of a bird in the upper branches of the neem trees. “What are you doing?” Indira asked. At that moment, Singh fired four shots at her at point blank range. Indira raised her arm as though to protect herself. The bodyguard turned towards his companion and shouted “Fire!” The other Sikh guard emptied the magazine of his Sten automatic—twenty-five bullets—into Indira’s body. The impact made her spin round before she collapsed on the damp earth of the path. Her eyes were still open. They seemed to look up at the tops of the trees, maybe at the sky. It was sixteen minutes past nine. She fell in the exact place where she had seen her grandson Rahul playing with one of the dogs a few days before.