My dad saw that I was feeling bad and she whispered to me that Nusrat is really worried and that I shouldn’t feel bad. I mean hello I am her best friend of course I know she is totally worried you don’t need to tell ME!
Anyway, I’m going to post this letter now so that hopefully you get it soon. Maybe you didn’t get my last letter. I don’t know. But it’s really scary to not hear from you while all this shit is going on. Please write. Give me a blank call and I’ll call you back. I’m going to try you again tonight.
Love,
Tania
PS: Just saw on the news—150 people have been killed. My mom says it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
December 8, 1992
Bombay
Listen dude I don’t know what your problem is but you’re being a real asshole. I have called you like a zillion times and I know that you know because one time Chhoti Bibi picked up and I could hear her calling you and I could hear her telling you to come talk to me.
I don’t get it. What happened? Did I do something? Did I say something bad and like insensitive? Come on Tanya you know I didn’t mean it. Please call me.
Nusrat is still being weird and Bombay is burning. You can see the smoke from our balcony in so many different directions and every day it feels like there it is coming from a new direction.
The names of places don’t seem to matter anymore as names of places but only in saying whether Muslims live there or Hindus. And the funny thing about Bombay is that there is no one place where it’s all Hindus or all Muslims, at least not in the poor places. Except the Jain and Marwari buildings. I guess you can do anything when you have money. It is like SO important to be rich.
Although nothing is sacred right now, not enough money. Even in our building we have taken down all the name plates of all houses so that if the mobs come they won’t know where the Muslims live. And dude Tanya, our building is one of the nicest in the city. If the mobs really come here then they can go anywhere.
Names on TV: Ghatkopar, Bhandup, Jogeshwari. Dadar, Matunga, Mahim, Tardeo. Deonar, Pydhonie, Dongri. Dadar, Byculla, Mohammed Ali Road, Bombay Central. Dadar is where Jenny lives. Byculla is where Aniza Khumri lives. Bombay Central is where we go to buy fish at Crawford Market. Mahim is near the beach. Matunga is where our driver lives.
Nusrat lives in Bhendi Bazaar. She lives in a chawl. Do you know what a chawl is? It’s like a really old building with a long narrow balcony where people string out all their clothes to dry. And they live like ten people to a room and then they have to share a bathroom with other rooms that also have many many people. But even these rooms cost thousands and thousands of rupees because Bombay is like really expensive.
Nusrat is being really weird. I mean I get that she’s really worried about her dad because he’s super hot-headed and you know there are Muslim gangs as well right now going around trying to kill Hindus. The more you hear about the Muslim gangs, the more orange flags and the more columns of smoke I can see from my window.
On TV and in newspapers, there is a scary political party saying the worst kinds of things. They want to kill Muslims. They want to kill people from other states. They want to kill people who are not born here. They want to kill a lot of people.
Isn’t it weird that I, Tania Ghosh, am sitting here writing you this letter and I am using the word ‘kill’? I mean when did that happen? When did normal people like you and me begin to talk about killing as if we’re talking about clothes or cricket or a new restaurant? You know what I mean? Like it’s not supposed to be in our vocabulary. Not normal people.
So anyway I get that Nusrat is really worried about her dad and she has been crying a lot but sometimes she looks at me and I feel…this is so weird but I feel like she is crying about me, not her dad. But she won’t like talk to me it’s so weird. She made a huge fuss when my mom told her to sleep in my room. I mean we used to love it when she stayed to help at parties and spent the night in my room. I thought maybe it was because she was suddenly feeling touchy about sleeping on the mattress on the floor but when I told her to sleep on my bed she just looked at me like I’d slapped her and tried to say no. And Nusrat trying to say anything is really horrible. So I just said okay, okay, you don’t have to.
She won’t watch TV with me, we’re not allowed out of the house, she will barely stay in my room. She really, really wants to go home because she’s convinced that her father will run off to join the gangs. But my parents won’t let her leave the house. And at least they haven’t said Bhendi Bazaar on TV yet.
You know I never really thought about who is Muslim in my class until now. And I had to sit down and write out all the names and then show it to my parents and ask them. I don’t see any rhyme or reason to it and don’t know how they can tell. Sometimes a wala is a Bori and sometimes it’s a Parsi. Sometimes a Dalal is Hindu and sometimes it’s Muslim. How do you know? And how come there is an Ayesha Parekh when we all know that Ayesha is a Muslim name and Parekh is a Hindu surname?
Why doesn’t it make any sense? Why has no one taught us this in school? I mean isn’t this more important to learn especially if no one takes the Constitution seriously and goes around doing random morchas and killing people? I mean what is up with that?
My mom is acting like all of this is my dad’s fault. She’s so crazy sometimes. I mean he picked the wrong side but obviously it was a mistake.
There are nine Muslims in my class of forty. I called all of them even Mustafa Habibwala who I haven’t said one word to since we were four years old in Nursery School and he bit me on my bottom. They are all fine. Anizaa Khumri sounded really surprised to hear from me and also, really scared. She told me she lives in Byculla. As soon as she said it I knew it was bad because I was hearing Byculla on the TV all the time, more than the other names. She actually started crying on the phone. Said they were locked into the house from the outside and her grandmother was going to die because she needs dialysis. I wanted to tell her to come to my house but that’s the thing with riots no one can go anywhere. It’s the worst feeling in the world to sit in your house and watch crazy, angry people on the TV doing things, doing horrible things all with torches and swords and huge sticks and broken bottles of glass and their eyes are all mad and you know it’s not far away. And then you go stand at the window of the opposite side of the house, the window that doesn’t look out on the city and there’s the sea. And the sea doesn’t know because the sea is just the same as it is every day, grey with white foam, coming in every few minutes to crash like a crazy person on the rocks and die. Over and over again. And if you watch the waves long enough you begin to forget the other window and everything outside it. And you begin to feel like a little bit better like a little bit normal and your brain even begins to think about what’s on TV tonight and then you suddenly notice that no one is down there, no one is down by the rocks and you remember everything and it’s not a bad dream.
There’s no one by the sea. No one. Not even the lovers who are always there. Not even the children from the government building nearby throwing bags of rubbish into the sea. Not even the poor people who go there to shit in the dark so people can’t see their bums.
Where are they going now?
December 8, 1992
Bombay
Dear Tanya,
No one is allowed to leave the building. There are lots of police outside. Things have become really, really bad dude. Like really bad.
My parents keep watch on the TV so that one of them is always watching it. They throw us out of the room when bad stuff comes on. I wish they wouldn’t do that. The stuff in my head has got to be a lot worse than what they are showing. It’s got to be because it’s really bad.
Nusrat has completely lost it. They said Bhendi Bazaar is engulfed in fire.
It happened this morning. She has just lost it. She ran to the front door as they were saying it but my dad grabbed her and pulled her back. It was so awful Tanya. The way she was crying the way she’s not
even able to speak. Just those horrible, horrible sounds that seem like they’re coming from the pit of her stomach. She collapsed on my dad and just cried and cried and cried. My parents gave her something that made her sleep.
We haven’t been able to get through to her parents. I’ve been calling every ten minutes.
Things are really bad. They’re stripping men to see if they’re Hindu or Muslim.
Many houses have lost electricity and water. Everyone is telling everyone else to stay calm and not believe rumours. I mean if they don’t want people to believe rumours they shouldn’t have the news show all this stuff. Because they say different numbers every time. Sometimes it’s 30 people in Nalla Nagar and sometimes it’s 200. Sometimes it’s Byculla and sometimes it’s not. But Tanya Bhendi Bazaar is one of the worst hit areas. It’s like really bad.
I’m so scared. I’m so scared of what will happen to Nusrat if something has happened to her parents. Her parents are her life. How will she live with it?
I hate watching her sleep with whatever my parents gave her. She looks dead. But I’m even more scared of what will happen when she wakes up.
God please take care of Nusrat God please take care of Nusrat. Tanya you pray too. You pray Muslim prayers. Who knows who is listening. Tell Chhoti Bibi too.
Love,
Tania
December 9, 1992
Bombay
Dear Tanya,
I am writing this letter to you so that you know everything.
Nusrat left. We woke up in the morning and she wasn’t there, the shorts and t-shirt she had borrowed from me were folded neatly on the mattress on my floor. Her school uniform is gone.
My parents have called the police and given them a description but there are so many missing people right now. Missing women missing men missing children. I don’t think the police are even going to look even though my mom took the phone from my dad and said a lot of stuff about who she knows and how much influence she has.
The police are not going to do anything.
I haven’t told my parents this but Nusrat left a note in my wallet. It says:
Dear Tania,
I have taken five hundred rupees. I’m sorry I thought we were best friends. I can see now that you were just being kind. I will always love you. Always have. Always will.
Yours always, Nusrat.
I don’t understand. What is she talking about? We are best friends. Why does it sound like a farewell letter? Is she trying to break up with me? Why does everyone keep breaking up with me?
It is the middle of the afternoon and my mother is taking a nap. My father has fallen asleep in front of the TV. The news is on.
Tanya, I am going to go look for Nusrat. I have to.
I don’t know whether you knew this was going to happen and if that is why your last letter was like a farewell letter. I mean it would be damn weird if you knew because no one knew the riots were going to happen although many people on TV are saying the government knew but that doesn’t make sense because what government would want their richest city to burn like this day after day?
I can’t not go Tanya. The smoke from the window is now from all directions and even if I go to the other window and look at the sea, I can’t forget, not even for a minute.
So I have to go.
I hope you understand. I hope you’re okay. I will call you when I come back.
Love,
Tania
12
May 29, 1996
Columbia, MA
Dear Tania,
Graduation was yesterday. It went well. I got a prize established by an old, dead Indian alumnus for the student from South Asia with the highest GPA. You know, if my father hadn’t changed my passport from American to Pakistani so many years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to get the award. I graduated summa cum laude. Less than 5% of a class of 1300.
I’m graduating from college at the top of my class and I have a job at the world’s biggest investment banking firm with a salary I cannot even imagine being able to spend. I have friends. Real friends. They know me and have stayed friends. Actually we’ve grown closer since freshman year. Some of them are moving to the city with me. I’ve had two boyfriends in the last four years and several flings. I still haven’t enjoyed sex but I plan to. I’ve been going to a psychiatrist for four years and each year they held the payment of my scholarship until she certified that I am not a suicide risk.
I have written you thirteen letters. This is my last letter to you.
You must know by now everything that happened. I know you know. But somehow, since this is the last letter, I want to say it to you, face to face, it was me. Of course it was me. I wrote Nusrat that letter. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I know I have no excuse. And you know I’m sorry. I know you know. I also know it’s not enough. I know it will never, ever be enough. Nothing will.
In my last letter to you from Karachi, I had said that you couldn’t understand. You didn’t understand, Tania, that part was true. You with your volatile, passionate family, your mother who stood up to your bully of a boyfriend, your father who was soft and sweet. And Nusrat with you by the sea, her hand in yours. Always there.
But what I have learnt is that maybe you could have learned to understand. Maybe I was in no position to explain but just because you didn’t understand didn’t mean you couldn’t understand. I’ve realized that. Look at me. I am not even from Bombay, I wasn’t there in December 1992 and yet, it did happen to me. Because of you, it happened to me. Maybe you would have understood, then, how completely alone in the world I felt in those terrible days when my parents were splitting up and Navi couldn’t come home and no one had even thought to ask what would happen to me. No one asked, Tania. Not even my mother. I never came first with anyone. But in those terrible days, I became invisible.
I don’t know why I never said anything. No amount of therapy will ever explain to me why I never asked my mother when she decided to go to America, what about me? Will you leave me behind if I don’t get a scholarship to a college in America? I never asked her that. I also never asked my father about a fixed deposit I found in his office with a note tacked on it that said ‘Navi college fees’. I never asked him, where’s Tanya’s? Where IS Tanya? I never asked. I have always been mute with my family.
I’ve bought the tickets for my mother and me to go to India this summer. Right before I start work. I’m going to go on my way to Pakistan. Yes, that’s right. I’m going to go back to Pakistan for the first time since I left. My father asked me to come.
Yes, imagine that.
He was here for graduation. I’m sure Navi forced him to come. He looked so much older, so much thinner, he reminded me instantly of my mother. He looked ill at ease and kept complaining about America. The weather is too cold, the people are too fat, the food is too bland. I think the only time he was silent was when I took them to our library. I should say one of our libraries because Columbia has several. But I took him to the one that I use, the one I study at, the one I’ve worked at throughout my four years here. My father sat down suddenly on a bench and was silent. I sat down next to him and said nothing.
‘You went to college here,’ he said. I nodded.
‘I had forgotten that it is like this over here. In America.’
He sounded sorrowful.
‘You will never come back home.’
I wanted to ask him if he wanted me to come back to Pakistan. I said nothing. It was the first time in many years that I had sat with my father at all.
He talked about his life in Karachi. The hospital which was now functional in two wings. He had started a clinic in a slum.
‘Chhoti Bibi started me on it.’
Chhoti Bibi now runs my father’s house. I guess she made her dream come true.
Then he said it had been four years since I had come back to Pakistan. That it was time I came home. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t home for me anymore, hadn’t been since he had let m
e go without a word. But I am not you. I am still not you.
I will never be you. Did you even realize how much I had wanted to? And I still can’t fully fathom why. We had no dream in common, no ambition in common and no doubt, we still would not. You were as insecure as I had been and with as few real relationships. Except for your mother. And father. And Nusrat.
Tania, I want you to know that I didn’t get your last few letters until much, much afterwards. I didn’t know what was going to happen. How would I know? Do you know when the Karachi newspapers started covering the Bombay riots? Only from December 6. And it was all about Babri Masjid. All about Ram Janmbhoomi. All about Ayodhya. I couldn’t have known that what was happening in Ayodhya was going to come to Bombay. I couldn’t have known, Tania. And I never got those last letters from you before the riots. I didn’t know it was coming. I had no way of knowing.
It is six in the evening, going on seven and there is still light outside, it is as if it’s the middle of the day. That’s the wonder of this country. One month ago, this bench had snow in it and the tree overhead had no leaves. And now it is warm and the leaves are bursting over each other in baby newness, the lightest of greens, poking everywhere, wildly, ferociously and in complete abandon. I am sitting here writing this to you, the buildings stretching out into the distance, still fulfilling a promise they made me the first time I came here as a freshman. To be here, to always be here.
I must go. A friend is driving me to my new apartment in Battery Park City. I am going to go spend the first night in my brand new apartment. In a sleeping bag but oh the bathroom has marble tiles and the doorman downstairs wears white gloves.
There’s my friend again. He has called my name twice now. Tanya. Tania.
Tanya Tania Page 16